#but like i did the first 95% in like july

[hanjoj]

Would you have him as a PT? 👀

[depressedhouseplant]

🔞 Just Fucking Write - Day 95 🔞

Prompt: Straight Sex pt 2 / How Many Juyeon Ships Can I Write - Juyeon x Julie (Kiss of Life)

Tags: Unprotected sex (wrap it up kids), public sex, come play, they’ve been drinking but aren’t drunk, Julie orders Juyeon around but he’s into it

A/N: I got a request for this ship (I love requests! 💕) & I’m not hugely familiar with Kiss of Life so if Julie is off in your mind, apologies. That being said this is fiction & not meant to represent the actual people in any way. This is not set in any of the previous universes involving Juyeon tempted as I was to tie this into yesterday’s entry.

Juyeon had a love / hate relationship with music festivals. He loved them because he got to see a lot of people he didn’t usually get to see. He hated them because his increasingly introverted personality got overwhelmed with events and activities quickly. He’d essentially snuck out to have dinner on his own when his phone went off.

Jules💎: I see you 👀

Juyeon looked around and then met the pretty (currently) brunette’s eyes at the other end of the bar. She was also alone. She nodded to the empty seat next to him.

Juyeon: Sure

He could tell when she got the message. She grinned at her phone, locked it, and hopped off her seat with her drink in hand to sit next to him.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you here,” she smiled when she sat down. She was in a black minidress and full hair and makeup.

“Were you expecting someone?” he asked after taking her in fully.

“Came straight from a shoot. Told the girls I needed a little me time. You?” she asked.

“Practice,” Juyeon replied, sipping his drink and trying to ignore the fact he was barefaced and threw on whatever was clean after he showered.

“Do you want to be left alone?” she asked.

“What? Why?” Juyeon asked.

“You just seem a little uninterested, that’s all,” she replied.

“No, not at all. I’m just a little overwhelmed. I know my MBTI says I’m an E, but I’m not feeling like it right now,” Juyeon told her.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m definitely an E and sometimes I need to be alone for a while that’s not in the bathroom,” Julie smiled at him.

“Sometimes I don’t even get that,” Juyeon rolled his eyes. Julie laughed.

“No boundaries in your house either, eh?” she said.

“Zero,” he replied. “Especially Eric. He gets offended if I lock the door because I need to take a shit in peace.”

Julie almost snorted her drink.

“I’m sorry, that was way too much information,” Juyeon hid his face.

“I’m the uncouth American, remember?” she smiled, reaching over to tilt his chin to look back at her.

“Right,” he smiled back.

“Another round and split one of these obscenely expensive appetizers?” she suggested.

“Sounds great,” Juyeon finished his drink and Julie ordered for them. He liked not having to think. He liked it a lot. It was easy talking to her while they ate and drank.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not quite ready to call it a night yet,” she said, resting her hand on his thigh. It had been a while since he’d gotten laid and even longer since he’d fucked Julie. Her thirst traps did take up a lot of space in his encrypted photo album though. That tiny waist. That tiny fucking waist got to him every time.

“Tell me what to do,” he replied.

“I like my men big, dumb, and obedient,” she grinned. “Follow me to the bathroom. I checked earlier. They’re all private.”

“Did you plan on this?” he asked as she led him down the hall.

“Not exactly. I was just freshening up, but when I saw you by yourself I thought there was a decent chance. I know you’re not shy about fucking in public,” she replied.

“No,” Juyeon shook his head. Their first time was in the bathroom at one of the music shows. And their second. And their fifth. She pulled them into one of the bathrooms and locked the door behind them. She hopped up on the counter and spread her legs, revealing she wasn’t wearing panties.

“You, you were…” Juyeon stammered.

“I had them on for the shoot, but not since I got here,” she told him, reaching between her legs to touch herself. Juyeon’s cock ached at the sight. He watched as her pussy began to get wetter and pinker.

“Are you just gonna stare or are you gonna get that impressive cock out and fuck me?” she asked, dipping a finger into her cunt and bringing it to her tongue to taste herself.

“Fuck you,” he squeaked. She smirked as he fumbled his pants open and underwear down. His cock bounced free, deep red and weeping.

“Well, looks like you’re ready,” she grinned. “I know I am.”

Juyeon stepped in front of the counter and teased her entrance with the tip of his dick.

“Fuck me good, big boy,” she instructed.

“Okay,” he nodded. Juyeon grabbed her waist, his hands almost fully encircling it, and entered her completely. She groaned at the stretch. He watched with lurid fascination as his cock slid in and out of her body the first few times.

“You like watching me speared on your cock?” she teased.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Such a man. Always so proud of their cocks. At least yours is worth it,” she said.

“Glad you think so,” he replied. She gripped the counter as he started fucking her harder. It felt good. He didn’t mind her telling him what to do. He was just there to pleasure her.

“I always forget how good you feel,” she mused.

“Am I making you feel good?” he asked.

“Very good,” she looked at him. Then he felt her pussy shudder for the first time.

“You ready?” he asked.

“I know you can fuck at least 2 out of me,” she replied.

“Fair,” he agreed. Juyeon tightened his grip on her waist and fucked the first orgasm out of her. She let her head drop back and dug her heels into his ass as she came. She might have still been fully clothed, but Juyeon could imagine what her heaving chest looked like naked. When she finished, she flicked her neck back, getting hair in her face. He reached up and pushed it back.

“Good?” he asked.

“Always,” she panted. “Anytime you want.”

Juyeon felt the first wave of heat in his lower belly when he began fucking into her again. Then he felt his balls start to tighten. She smirked, knowing exactly what was happening.

“Think you can take me with you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he grunted, sweat starting to roll down his temples. He reached down and teased her clit, causing Julie’s back to arch. He tried to breathe as he felt her flutter around him again.

“Just come, Juyeon,” she huffed. He did as he was told, emptying into her body as he tipped her over the edge again.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she hissed through gritted teeth. He let go of her waist and planted his hands on the counter on either side of her hips as he came. When he finished, he pulled out, dropped to his knees, and began sucking their mixed juices out of her pussy. Julie scratched the top of his head as he ate her out.

“Good boy,” she praised. Juyeon stood up when he was satisfied he’d cleaned her up and tucked himself back in.

“You’re welcome,” he grinned and helped her off the counter. They pulled themselves together as much as possible and went back out to pay.

“I’ve got this,” Juyeon put his card down.

“I told you we would split it,” Julie insisted.

“It’s fine,” Juyeon smiled at her. He handed Julie a card while they were waiting for the bartender to return.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“The key to my room. I got the single room this time. See you later?” he told her.

“See you later,” she agreed.

[beyoursledgehammer]

My birth story that no one really asked for but I'm sharing anyway because it was kind of a lot:

At 32 weeks, literally an hour after I had a checkup with my OB, my water abruptly broke as I was getting into my car. A lot of info about water breaking emphasizes that it's not as dramatic as it is in the movies. Except when sometimes it's just as dramatic as in the movies and it feels like someone has dumped a giant cup of water in your lap. For the first time in my life I hoped I had peed myself. Readers, I had not.

Another hour later after contacting relevant parties for instructions, and continuing to hope I'd just peed myself, I was told to get to the hospital as soon as possible. For some reason we assumed we'd just get confirmation that my water broke and be sent home. I literally only brought a pair of shorts and some underwear to change into. This is absolutely not what happened.

I was then admitted for monitoring to make sure I wasn't actively going into labor. Fortunately I wasn't. Baby was fine, I was doing fine, so it was decided that I was going to remain in the hospital until she reached 34 weeks. I was able to avoid any infections and other complications until 34 weeks exactly.

On Monday, June 17, at 9:22am, Irene arrived squalling into the world after a surprisingly very chill scheduled C-section. She was 4lbs 11oz and 17.5 inches long, slightly squished in the way that newborns tend to be since they're 95% cartilage at this point. She arrived 6 weeks early, a late term preemie and overall very healthy and whole.

She's now living it up in the NICU and doing exceedingly well. She'll likely stay there until her original due date of July 28th, but it depends on her meeting certain milestones. I'm recovering at home and we visit daily. It sucked leaving her at the hospital but after being there for nearly 3 weeks, I was ready to go home.

I definitely did not expect my pregnancy and birth to go this way (not that I had any firm plans other than 'have a baby') but here we are.

[i-ate-your-dog-srry]

1. What is you middle name?

2. How old are you?

3. When is your birthday?

4. What is your zodiac sign?

5. What is your favorite color?

6. What's your lucky number?

7. Do you have any pets?

8. Where are you from?

9. How tall are you?

10. What shoe size are you?

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

12. What was your last dream about?

13. What talents do you have?

14. Are you psychic in any way?

15. Favorite song?

16. Favorite movie?

17. Who would be your ideal partner?

18. Do you want children?

19. Do you want a church wedding?

20. Are you religious?

21. Have you ever been to the hospital?

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?

23. Have you ever met any celebrities?

24. Baths or showers?

25. What color socks are you wearing?

26. Have you ever been famous?

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity?

28. What type of music do you like?

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?

30. How many pillows do you sleep with?

31. What position do you usually sleep in?

32. How big is your house?

33. What do you typically have for breakfast?

34. Have you ever fired a gun?

35. Have you ever tried archery?

36. Favorite clean word?

37. Favorite swear word?

38. What's the longest you've ever gone without sleep?

39. Do you have any scars?

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer?

41. Are you a good liar?

42. Are you a good judge of character?

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?

44. Do you have a strong accent?

45. What is your favorite accent?46. What is your personality type?

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?

48. Can you curl your tongue?

49. Are you an innie or an outie?

50. Left or right handed?

51. Are you scared of spiders?

52. Favorite food?

53. Favorite foreign food?

54. Are you a clean or messy person?

55. Most used phrased?

56. Most used word?

57. How long does it take for you to get ready?

58. Do you have much of an ego?

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?

60. Do you talk to yourself?

61. Do you sing to yourself?

62. Are you a good singer?

63. Biggest Fear?

64. Are you a gossip?

65. Best dramatic movie you've seen?

66. Do you like long or short hair?

67. Can you name all 50 states of America?

68. Favorite school subject?

69. Extrovert or Introvert?

70. Have you ever been scuba diving?

71. What makes you nervous?

72. Are you scared of the dark?

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?

74. Are you ticklish?

75. Have you ever started a rumor?

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?

77. Have you ever drank underage?

78. Have you ever done drugs?

79. Who was your first real crush?

80. How many piercings do you have?

81. Can you roll your Rs?"

82. How fast can you type?

83. How fast can you run?

84. What color is your hair?

85. What color is your eyes?

86. What are you allergic to?

87. Do you keep a journal?

88. What do your parents do?

89. Do you like your age?90. What makes you angry?

91. Do you like your own name?

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?

94. What are you strengths?

95. What are your weaknesses?

96. How did you get your name?

97. Were your ancestors royalty?

98. Do you have any scars?

99. Color of your bedspread?

100. Color of your room?

(Muhahahahahahahha /nf)

(Dang lol I had to copy and paste this)

1. What is you middle name?: Ryan!

2. How old are you?: 14!

3. When is your birthday?: July 13!

4. What is your zodiac sign?: cancer *wompwomp*

5. What is your favorite color?: red!!!!

6. What's your lucky number?: dunno I see 11:11 a lot, though

7. Do you have any pets?: 15 chickens 2 dogs, 5 cats, 3 rabbits, and one duck:3

8. Where are you from?: Canada :,3

9. How tall are you?: 5'1!!

10. What shoe size are you?: dunno

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own?: one :,3

12. What was your last dream about?: my cats

13. What talents do you have?: art stuff

14. Are you psychic in any way?: uhhh no?? Lol

15. Favorite song?: I'm not sure? American idiot/star man

16. Favorite movie?: scream!

17. Who would be your ideal partner?: don't got anything for ya there

18. Do you want children?: dunno

19. Do you want a church wedding?: nah

20. Are you religious?: nah

21. Have you ever been to the hospital?: not really

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?: it was my dad's fault

23. Have you ever met any celebrities?: nah

24. Baths or showers?: bath!!!! Splash splash

25. What color socks are you wearing?: muahha non

26. Have you ever been famous?: nah

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity?: small one?

28. What type of music do you like?: idk stuff like icp and American idiot

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?: NO

30. How many pillows do you sleep with?: two I like to have the other one beside me

31. What position do you usually sleep in?: on my side Curled up

32. How big is your house?: well I kinda live in to one is very small and one is abnormally huge

33. What do you typically have for breakfast?: Nothing, I don't have breakfast :3

34. Have you ever fired a gun?: lots :(

35. Have you ever tried archery?: hate it

36. Favorite clean word?: dang nabbit!

37. Favorite swear word?: For some reason, swearing makes me nervous

38. What's the longest you've ever gone without sleep?: 3 days I think 3 days and a half?

39. Do you have any scars?: One on my lip, one on my knee, one on my arm, one on my finger, and that's it, I think

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer?: nuhh

41. Are you a good liar?: yeah

42. Are you a good judge of character?: dunno

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?: bad ones

44. Do you have a strong accent?: Nope? I got an American accent even though I'm from Canada tho

45. What is your favorite accent?: Russian! It's very pretty :3

46. What is your personality type?: I'm pretty closed off, but I'm weird when I get comfortable with u

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?: a sweater

48. Can you curl your tongue?: into a bowl shape!

49. Are you an innie or an outie?: innie!

50. Left or right handed?: switches up based on activities

51. Are you scared of spiders?: not really no

52. Favorite food?: oo.. I love food.. pasta? Any kind really! I also like sushi ALOT

53. Favorite foreign food?: SUSHIIII!!!

54. Are you a clean or messy person?: very messy

55. Most used phrase?: maybe uh "wowwi"

56. Most used word?: "wowwi"

57. How long does it take for you to get ready?: 15-20 mins?

58. Do you have much of an ego?: Nah, I'm timid most the time

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?: naw on it

60. Do you talk to yourself?: I talk to my stuffys more then anything

61. Do you sing to yourself?: not really

62. Are you a good singer?: NO

63. Biggest Fear?: being yelled at I think?

64. Are you a gossip?: no not really but my friends are

65. Best dramatic movie you've seen?: Forest Gump, I hate it, and it made me wana die

66. Do you like long or short hair?: shorter

67. Can you name all 50 states of America?: NOPE

68. Favorite school subject?: Art

69. Extrovert or Introvert?: big big introvert

70. Have you ever been scuba diving?: scary nope

71. What makes you nervous?: older males, I think

72. Are you scared of the dark?: no I'm not :3

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?: nope unless it's something that would help them

74. Are you ticklish?: nah not really

75. Have you ever started a rumor?: nope:3

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?: ueah, scary babysitting always ends up with the baby in authority

77. Have you ever drank underage?: uhh yeah tbh

78. Have you ever done drugs?: nooo

79. Who was your first real crush?: don't got that

80. How many piercings do you have? I want lots non yet

81. Can you roll your Rs?": nooo :,(

82. How fast can you type?: depends

83. How fast can you run?: faster then lots of people

84. What color is your hair?: brown

85. What color is your eyes?: dark dark brown

86. What are you allergic to?" Pineapple and that Kiki stuff still like it, tho

87. Do you keep a journal?: noooo

88. What do your parents do?: my mom does office working my dad has been unemployed for the last 8 years

89. Do you like your age?: I miss being 13

90. What makes you angry?: bad parents

91. Do you like your own name?: Noooooo

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so, what are they?: Alice or Arthur or sm

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?: am I supposed to care?

94. What are you strengths?: uuhh I'm good at not crying and I can handle pain well!

95. What are your weaknesses?: saying no

96. How did you get your name?: My dad didn't like the better name

97. Were your ancestors royalty?: actually yeah

98. Do you have any scars?: didn't I answer this?

99. Color of your bedspread?: pink and white

100. Color of your room?: green and blue

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Steve Brodner

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 13, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 14, 2024

The Port of Baltimore reopened yesterday, fewer than 100 days after a container ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, collapsing it into the channel. The port is a major shipping hub, especially for imports and exports of cars and light trucks—about 750,000 vehicles went through it in 2022. It is also the nation’s second-biggest exporter of coal. In 2023 it moved a record-breaking $80 billion worth of foreign cargo. 

After the crash, the administration rushed support to the site, likely in part to emphasize that under Democrats, government really can get things done efficiently, as Democratic Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro demonstrated in June 2023 when he oversaw the reopening of a collapsed section of I-95 in just 12 days. Reopening the Port of Baltimore required salvage workers, divers, crane operators, and mariners to clear more than 50,000 tons of steel.

Yesterday, at the reopening, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg noted the “whole of government” response. State leadership under Maryland governor Wes Moore worked with those brought together by the Unified Command set up under the National Response System to coordinate the responses of the local government, state government, federal government, and those responsible for the crisis to make them as effective and efficient as possible; the Coast Guard; the Army Corps of Engineers; the first responders; and the port workers. 

Buttigieg noted that the response team had engaged all the stakeholders in the process, including truck drivers and trucking companies, trade associations, and agricultural producers. He gave credit for that ability to the administration’s establishment of the White House Supply Chains Disruptions Task Force, which, he said, “put us in a strong place to mitigate the disruptions to our supply chain and economy.”  

Clearing the channel was possible thanks to an immediate down payment of $60 million from the Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration. The department estimates that rebuilding the bridge will cost between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion. President Joe Biden has said he wants the federal government to fund that rebuilding as it quickly did in 2007, when a bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis suddenly collapsed. Within a week of that collapse, Congress unanimously passed a measure to fund rebuilding the bridge, and President George W. Bush signed it into law. But now some Republicans are balking at Biden’s request, saying that lawmakers should simply take the money that has been appropriated for things like electric vehicles, or wait until insurance money comes in from the shipping companies. 

Meanwhile, former president Trump traveled to Capitol Hill today for the first time since the January 6, 2021, riots. Passing protesters holding signs that said things like “Democracy Forever, Trump Never,” Trump met first with Republican lawmakers from the House and then with Republican senators, who, according to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), gave him “a lot of standing ovations.” Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) called it “bring your felon to work day.” 

Republicans billed the visit as a brainstorming session about Trump’s 2025 agenda, but no discussions of plans have emerged, only generalities and the sort of cheery grandstanding McConnell provided. The meeting, along with a press appearance at which Trump made a short speech but did not take questions before shaking a lot of Republican hands, appeared to be an attempt to overwrite the news of his conviction by indicating he is popular in Congress.

The news that has gotten traction is Trump’s statement that Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the Republicans are holding their convention in July, is a ��horrible city.” Republicans are trying hard to spin this comment as a misunderstanding, but their many different attempts to explain it away—as meaning crime, or elections, or Pere Marquette Park (!)—seem more likely to reinforce the comment than distract from it. 

Indeed, it’s possible that the agenda had more to do with Trump than with the nation. Anna Massoglia of Open Secrets reported today that Trump’s political operation spent more than $20 million on lawyers in the first four months of 2024, and Rachel Bade of Politico reported hours before the House meeting that Trump has been obsessed with using the powers of Congress to fight for him and to, as she puts it, “go to war against the Democrats he accuses of ‘weaponizing’ the justice system against him.” 

Bade said that after his May 30 conviction by a unanimous jury on 34 criminal counts, Trump immediately called House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), insisting in a profanity-laden rant that “We have to overturn this.” Johnson is sympathetic but has too slim a House majority to deliver as much fire as both would like, especially since vulnerable Republicans aren’t eager to weaponize the nation’s lawmaking body for Trump. 

As David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo explained this morning, House Republicans “are already advancing Trump’s campaign of retribution.” Yesterday they voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress and recommended his prosecution for refusing to hand over an audio recording of special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Biden. Biden, who was not charged over his retention of classified documents as vice president, has provided a transcript of the interview but has exerted executive privilege over the recording.

The demand for the audio is particularly galling, considering that Biden voluntarily testified while Trump refused to be interviewed by either special counsel Robert Mueller or special counsel Jack Smith. But Biden has a well-known stutter, and having hours of testimony in his own voice might offer something that could be chopped up for political ads. 

Indeed, former Republican representative Ken Buck (R-CO) acknowledged that Republicans are “just looking for something for political purposes,” and House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) sent out a fundraising appeal promising that the audio recording “could be the final blow to Biden with swing voters across the country.” 

White House Counsel Edward Siskel wrote to Comer and Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) saying that the administration “has sought to work in good faith with Congress.” It released Hur’s long report editorializing on Biden’s mental acuity without redacting it, allowed Hur to testify publicly for more than five hours, and provided transcripts, emails, and documents. “The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal,” Siskel wrote, “to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.”

The attack on Garland, journalist Kurtz notes, continues the steady stream of disinformation the House Republicans have been producing through their “investigations” and impeachment hearings and press conferences. 

In the Senate, six MAGA Republicans demonstrated their support for Trump by threatening to block Biden’s key nominees in protest of the New York jury’s conviction of Trump, although they are trying to frame the convictions as “the current administration’s persecution of” Trump. The senators are J. D. Vance (R-OH), Mike Lee (R-UT), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), and Eric Schmitt (R-MO). 

While MAGA Republicans show their reverence for Trump, Democrats are working to get them on the record on issues the American people care about. 

Today, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) held a vote on whether to advance a bill that would provide federal protection for in vitro fertilization (IVF), an infertility treatment in which a human egg is fertilized outside the body and then placed in a human uterus for gestation. IVF is popular: a March poll by CBS News/YouGov found that 86% of Americans think it should be legal, while only 14% think it should be illegal. But the white evangelical Christians who make up the Republicans’ base are increasingly demanding that the nation’s laws recognize “fetal personhood,” the idea that a fertilized egg has the full rights of a living human. This would end all abortion, of course, as well as birth control that prevents implantation, such as IUDs and Plan B. And, if fertilized eggs are fully human, it would also end IVF because the procedure often results in some fertilized eggs being damaged or discarded. 

This is a vote Republicans did not want to take because voting to protect IVF will infuriate their base and voting to end it will infuriate the 86% of Americans who support it. So they tried to get around it by signing a statement noting that IVF is legal and that they “strongly support continued nationwide access to IVF.” While it is true that IVF is currently legal, the Alabama Supreme Court in February ruled that frozen embryos should be considered unborn children and their destruction could be prosecuted under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. In the wake of that decision, two of Alabama’s eight fertility clinics paused their IVF treatments. 

In today’s vote, all but three Republicans voted against taking up the bill protecting IVF. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted in favor of it; Eric Schmitt of Missouri did not vote. All the Democrats voted in favor, although Schumer changed his vote to a “no” so he could bring the vote up again later. 

Regarding the difference between the statement and the votes, Leah Greenberg of Indivisible posted: “Who are you gonna believe, me or my voting record?”

In another window onto the future of reproductive rights, the Supreme Court today unanimously decided that the antiabortion groups trying to get the drug mifepristone banned did not have standing to bring the case. This preserves access to mifepristone, commonly used to induce medical abortions, but as legal observers point out, the court ruled only on standing, meaning that others, who do have standing, could bring a similar case. 

This afternoon, Biden posted: “Kamala and I stand with the majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to make deeply personal health care decisions. And our commitment to you is that we will not back down from ensuring women in every state get the care they need.”

And so, going into the 2024 election, the question of abortion is on the table.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

THE DIGITAL AGE BEGINS TO PERVADE THE '90s MUSIC POSTER DESIGN SCENE.

PIC INFO: Spotlight on a Photoshop concert poster design for SMASHING PUMPKINS with special guest, GARBAGE, performing live at the American West Arena in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, on December 7, 1996. Artwork by the late, great Frank Kozik.

"I didn’t really like the band. This was one of my first Photoshop posters ever, though. I just started doing computer stuff around '95, '96. I had a Mac system. I remember thinking, "Oh, let's use every filter." You know, as we all did once? At the time, I was really obsessed with Rudi Gernreich, who was a '60s photographer-fashion guy, like Peggy Moffit. I was collecting really weird late '60s, early '70s photography annuals. I was really getting into it, visually. And so, the only connection the poster has with the Smashing Pumpkins is the orange. I hated the band, didn’t really know much about them; so this was just me tripping on myself again."

-- FRANK KOZIK (1962-2023), to "NYLON" magazine, "THE STORY BEHIND SOME OF THE ’90S COOLEST BAND POSTERS," by Hayden Manders, July 21, 2016

Source: www.nylon.com/articles/frank-kozik-posters-nirvana.

[mariana-oconnor]

Black Peter pt 1

Haven't heard of this one either. Let's hope that's down to the fact it's a later story and not because it isn't popular anymore because of *looks at title* reasons.

I have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental and physical, than in the year '95.

Watson does keep waxing poetic about the year 1895. Must have been an epic year.

Holmes, however, like all great artists, lived for his art's sake, and, save in the case of the Duke of Holdernesse, I have seldom known him claim any large reward for his inestimable services.

Do we know the Duke of Holdernesse? I don't remember his name. How rude was he to Holmes that Holmes took his money? I feel like that must be arsehole tax.

So unworldly was he—or so capricious—that he frequently refused his help to the powerful and wealthy where the problem made no appeal to his sympathies...

More evidence for the Sherlock Holmes hates the rich theory. It's not that he's unworldly or capricious, Watson, it's that usually they're the bad guys (please see King of Bohemia). Not to put modern biases on a historical fictional character or anything.

down to his arrest of Wilson, the notorious canary-trainer

What did he train the canaries to do?

Was it, like, an entire hoard of pickpocketing birds?

Did they murder people for him? What?

Google tells me it might have been a euphemism for brothel-keeper. Or a singing teacher. So... honestly that story could go any number of ways. I think I'll stick to actual canaries, though. Probably in Canary Wharf.

During the first week of July my friend had been absent so often and so long from our lodgings that I knew he had something on hand. The fact that several rough-looking men called during that time and inquired for Captain Basil...

Watson pining at home while Holmes is out with rough-looking men and having them call him Captain...

...made me understand that Holmes was working somewhere under one of the numerous disguises and names with which he concealed his own formidable identity.

Honestly, I feel like this is character development. Before Watson would have just been 'Holmes is away' and 'Who is Captain Basil?', two entirely separate lines of thought. Now he has connected the dots. Proud of you, buddy!

...he strode into the room, his hat upon his head and a huge barbed-headed spear tucked like an umbrella under his arm.

“If you could have looked into Allardyce's back shop you would have seen a dead pig swung from a hook in the ceiling, and a gentleman in his shirt-sleeves furiously stabbing at it with this weapon. I was that energetic person, and I have satisfied myself that by no exertion of my strength can I transfix the pig with a single blow."

Everyone needs a hobby.

I recognised him at once as Stanley Hopkins, a young police inspector for whose future Holmes had high hopes...

Oh hai, Hopkins!

"However, my friend Dr. Watson knows nothing of this matter, and I should be none the worse for hearing the sequence of events once more."

For the sake of Watson and us, the invisible audience, please to be info-dumping exposition policeman!

"In 1883 he commanded the steam sealer Sea Unicorn, of Dundee."

"He has been known to drive his wife and his daughter out of doors in the middle of the night, and flog them through the park until the whole village outside the gates was aroused by their screams."

Can't say I'm entirely sorry Captain Carey is dead. In fact, maybe just chalk this up as self-inflicted and leave it at that. Whoever did it probably had a good reason.

However, the nickname doesn't seem to really be racist, so that's better than it could have been. Swarthy, as far as I'm aware, refers to tanned/weather beaten skin usually, which makes sense for a longtime sailor.

"He had built himself a wooden outhouse—he always called it ‘the cabin’—a few hundred yards from his house, and it was here that he slept every night. It was a little, single-roomed hut, sixteen feet by ten."

The original man cave?

The description of him is not crying out the sort of man who would keep tobacco on hand just in case his friends wanted some. It's not crying out the sort of man who has friends, for a start.

“Exactly, Mr. Holmes. I appreciated that point, and I conjectured that it was dropped by the murderer in his hurried flight. It lay near the door.”

Hopkins really is the smartest of the police officers we've met. And I still haven't noticed Watson comparing him to an animal.

So we have a terrible man killed by a harpoon in his man cave and no one noticed for ages because no one wanted to talk to him. I'm kind of hoping that all the women were in on it and they just... harpooned him together.

[citrus-cactus]

Creative Goals Summary (July)

Well, I survived the month, somehow! I don't really know what I'm doing with progress and goal tracking anymore, lol. Honestly my brain is fried, and I'm really just trying my best to squeeze in some creative stuff in between what feels like 1 billion other things, so you get what you get until things calm down, I guess!

Goals are split between “things I will put on Tumblr when they’re done” (aka, fandom stuff), and “things I will be keeping to myself” (because they will eventually have my real name associated with them).

Fandom stuff (WhOOPS ALL GARGOYLES edition):

1a). Gargoyles oneshot (“joined in love (not in hate)”) Status: 75% complete (EDITINNNNG and still writing. No progress since last week).

1b). Accompanying fanart for the above fic Status: 10% complete (no progress since last week). Honestly if I'm working on this at this point it means I'm just procrastinating on writing the above thing. Moved!!

2). OTHER Gargoyles oneshot (“The Room of Infinite Mirrors”) Status: 95% complete. It’s… I think it’s done, actually?? Might end up doing some more nitpicky rereads, but more importantly I need to figure out how to tag it appropriately on AO3. Not sure I’ll announce it here when it’s posted, you might just have to go looking for it. It’s the second NSFW thing I’ve ever finished/intended to publish, and it’s WAY more substantial than my previous effort, so uh………………. yeah, there’s that!

3). Self-indulgent babygirl fanart Status: 61% complete. Tiny, micro-tweaks happened. Moved to August? Or sometime, lol. I’m in no hurry; kicking my feet and giggling over it regardless.

4). Other fanart jeezus Status: Done. Did some digital doodles more than a week ago to blow off some steam. I've been hesitant to post them, and at first it was because I was feeling oddly shy, but now I realize it’s because I want to do more with them, and I’ve been nothing recently if not foolhardy and ambitious. So stand by!

Personal stuff:

1). Secret Personal Project (SPP) Research. Status: In Progress

2). Sticker designs for a thing at work. Status: In Progress (due August 7)

[dailyanarchistposts]

I.8.3 How were Spanish industrial collectives organised?

Martha A. Ackelsberg gives us an excellent short summary of how the industrial collectives where organised:

“Pre-existing structures of worker organisation made possible a workers’ take-over of much of the industrial economy, especially in Catalonia … Factory committees formed to direct production and co-ordinate with other units within the same industry. Union organisations co-ordinated both the production and distribution of manufactured goods across industries and regions … In most collectivised industries, general assemblies of workers decided policy, while elected committees managed affairs on a day-to-day basis.” [Free Women of Spain, p. 100]

The collectives were based on workers’ democratic self-management of their workplaces, using productive assets that were under the custodianship of the entire working community and administered through federations of workers’ associations:

“The collectives organised during the Spanish Civil War were workers’ economic associations without private property. The fact that collective plants were managed by those who worked in them did not mean that these establishments became their private property. The collective had no right to sell or rent all or any part of the collectivised factory or workshop. The rightful custodian was the CNT, the National Confederation of Workers Associations. But not even the CNT had the right to do as it pleased. Everything had to be decided and ratified by the workers themselves through conferences and congresses.” [Augustin Souchy, The Anarchist Collectives, p. 67]

In Catalonia “every factory elected its administrative committee composed of its most capable workers. Depending on the size of the factory, the function of these committees included inner plant organisation, statistics, finance, correspondence, and relations with other factories and with the community … Several months after collectivisation the textile industry of Barcelona was in far better shape than under capitalist management. Here was yet another example to show that grass roots socialism from below does not destroy initiative. Greed is not the only motivation in human relations.” [Souchy, Op. Cit., p 95]

Thus the individual collective was based on a mass assembly of those who worked there. This assembly nominated administrative staff who were mandated to implement the decisions of the assembly and who had to report back, and were accountable, to that assembly. For example, in Castellon de la Plana ”[e]very month the technical and administrative council presented the general assembly of the Syndicate with a report which was examined and discussed if necessary, and finally introduced when this majority thought it of use. Thus all the activities were known and controlled by all the workers. We find here a practical example of libertarian democracy.” [Gaston Leval, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, p. 303] Power rested at the base of the collective, with “all important decisions [being] taken by the general assemblies of the workers” which “were widely attended and regularly held … if an administrator did something which the general assembly had not authorised, he was likely to be deposed at the next meeting.” An example of this process can be seen from the Casa Rivieria company. After the defeat of the army coup “a control committee (Comite de Control) was named by the Barcelona Metal Workers’ Union to take over temporary control of the enterprises … A few weeks after July 19th, there was the first general assembly of the firm’s workers … It elected an enterprise committee (Comite de Empresa) to take control of the firm on a more permanent basis… . Each of the four sections of the firm — the three factories and the office staff — held their own general assemblies at least once a week. There they discussed matters ranging from the most important affairs to the most trivial.” [Robert Alexander, The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, vol. 1, p. 469 and p. 532]

In summary, the collectives in Spain were marked by workplace self-management. They successfully implemented the long-standing libertarian goal of turning industry from an autocracy to a democracy, of replacing wage-labour with free-labour based on the association of equals (see section I.3.1). However, it would be a mistake to assume (as many do, particularly Marxists) that the CNT and FAI considered the creation of self-managed collectives as the end of the revolution. Far from it. While they embodied such key libertarian principles as workers’ self-management, they were fundamentally a product of both anarchist ideas and the specific situation in which they were created. Rather than seek a market system of producer co-operatives, the CNT was committed to the full socialisation of the economy and the creation of libertarian communism. The collectives were, as a result, seen as development towards that goal rather than as an end in themselves. Moreover, as historian Ronald Fraser notes, it “was doubtful that the CNT had seriously envisaged collectivisation of industry … before this time.” [The Blood of Spain, p. 212] CNT policy was opposed to the collectivisation decree of the Catalonian government, for example, which formalised (and controlled) the spontaneous gains of the revolution as expressed by the collectives.

Therefore, the collectives were (initially) a form of “self-management straddling capitalism and socialism, which we maintain would not have occurred had the Revolution been able to extend itself fully under the direction of our syndicates.” In other words, the revolution saw the abolition of wage-labour but not of the wages system. Thus capitalism was replaced by mutualism, not the socialism desired by most anarchists (namely libertarian communism). As economic and political development are closely related, the fact that the CNT did not carry out the political aspect of the revolution meant that the revolution in the economy was doomed to failure. As Leval stressed, in “the industrial collectives, especially in the large towns, matters proceeded differently as a consequence of contradictory factors and of opposition created by the co-existence of social currents emanating from different social classes.” [Gaston Leval, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, pp. 227–8 and p. 227]

That the initial forms of the revolution were not as expected should, perhaps, be unsurprising. After all, no social transformation ever exactly matches the hopes of those who had advocated it and the people had more pressing matters to attend to such as re-starting production and fighting Franco. So it is utterly understandable that the collectives only embodied some and not all aspects of aims of the CNT and FAI! Moreover, social change does not produce instant perfect transformations and the workers “had to build new circuits of consumption and distribution, new types of social relations between the proletariat and the peasantry, and new modes of production.” [Abel Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, p. 451] That process was started, even if it were initially incomplete. That a wider goal was envisioned by these organisations can be seen from the fact that union activists sought to extend the degree of socialisation. So, and again in line with libertarian theory, the collectives also expressed a desire to co-operate within and across industries (see section I.3.5). These attempts at federation and co-ordination will be discussed in next section, along with some of the conclusions that can be drawn from these experiments. For, as would be expected, this attempt to introduce libertarian socialism had its drawbacks as well as successes.

[austin-in-taiwan]

July 16 - Taipei - National Palace Museum, Mongolian BBQ, Chiang Kai-Shek residence

Today we had chartered a bus to take us around the city where we were going today! If you're reading this and don't know, it's consistently over 95 degrees here in Taipei. So, having to walk less around this city and being able to take a break in a nice air-conditioned bus is exceptionally nice.

Our first visit was to the National Palace Museum here in Taipei. There were so many super old artifacts throughout Chinese and Taiwanese history from the Qing dynasty. Throughout my travels here in Taiwan, I have appreciated how old Chinese history is, especially compared to the United States (our history is 248 years old, while Chinese history is over 5000 years old). See more about what I learned in the academic reflection below!

Afterward, we had a group lunch at an all-you-can-eat Mongolian BBQ restaurant. When I go to an all-you-can-eat restaurant, I always have the same tactic: eat enough to the point where the restaurant loses money. I asked Peter how much it usually costs to eat there since this lunch was already paid for by the program, and he said it was only 15 USD for lunch! I thought this was wild for such a good restaurant. I have attached a video of the BBQ station, but in summary, you can fill your plate with vegetables and a selection of beef, chicken, pork, and/or lamb and give it to the chefs to cook for about 2 minutes or so. It was so delicious I had 3 bowls. There also was a selection of dumplings and other hot foods. Overall, I ate enough for several people, which was excellent!

Finally, we went to Chiang Kai-Shek and Madame Chiang's residence in Taiwan, where they lived for over 20 years, according to Peter (their longest home together). There was an audio guide, and I enjoyed walking through their residence and learning more about Madame Chiang, her home design, and what they did in the various rooms there.

Academic Reflection

I learned a lot about various Chinese and Taiwanese history today. Peter taught me several things throughout the museum tour. One of the most interesting things was looking at the porcelain teacups and bowls worth 10's of millions of dollars. For an example read the article below this paragraph. I was shocked not only about how expensive and valuable this china was but also how pristine its condition was for being roughly a  thousand years old. Another idea that stuck with me was when Peter explained what he learned about Buddhism while at Buddhist temples with some of his previous clients. He told us that to be enlightened, you have to get rid of all attachments, desires, and personal property, and to do that, you have to realize and accept that everything before us is an illusion. This rough explanation still doesn't entirely make sense to me. Still, I imagine that's what Buddhist monks and people who commit their lives to Buddhism are committed to deciphering and figuring out. Overall, in the future, I will definitely be more interested in learning about Buddhism when I visit temples and other religious sites.

Furthermore, I found Chiang Kai-Shek and Madame Chiang's residence particularly interesting. I spent lots of time listening to the audio logs provided by the museum, as I was even one of the last people to leave. Mainly, I was intrigued by how Madame Chiang had lived and studied in the USA and influenced Chiang Kai-Shek to be involved and friendly with the United States. I found that she had learned at Wellesley and found that very cool, as I have a friend who studies there today! The intricacy of the design of the house and the artwork that Madame Chiang implemented was stunning and impressive. The tour also explained how Madame Chiang was always there with Chaing Kai-Shek when important guests were over (like President Eisenhower) and helped him in meaningful political conversations. Overall, I learned about the influence Madame Chiang had as Chiang Kai-Shek's wife.

[cocogum]

how did you calculate the adult trio's bday? 😮

Hi Anon! Thanks for asking me this question! I was actually hoping that someone would have asked me this and I’m glad it came sooner than I expected. Well to answer your question, it was mainly fun and easy to find Hisoka’s and Chrollo’s but a bit tricky with Illumi’s. I don’t fully trust what the anime gives us as numbers so I mainly relied on the manga. So to find out their birthdates I decided to first find solid concrete evidence of the year this was all taking place in.

Illumi and Hisoka partook in the 287th hunter exam with the main four which was back in 1999. I found the year thanks to chapter 146 where Killua exits Greed Island to apply for the hunter exam a second time and we see a sign hanging from a store building which gave us the exact year of when this was all occurring as well as the month and the day. According to the sign, the date is said to be December 29th, 1999.

The 287th hunter exam, just like any other hunter exams, starts on January 7th so the hunter exam arc all the way to Greed Island arc takes place in 1999.

Now that I had the year, all I had to do now was find the adult trio’s respective birth years.

How I found Hisoka’s birth year.

EDIT: okay so due to the fact that I made a slight mistake on Hisoka’s birthday, (I thought his actual age came from the databook when in reality his age was never mentioned in there) that meant I wasn’t actually able to find out his canonical birth year I’m so sorry I should’ve been more aware on the fact that his ‘birthday’ was just a fan theory and nothing more. This man is such a mystery even his own birthday is an enigma. I took off his supposed birth year from the list though so that should be better now.

Hisoka’s was the easiest of the three.

His full official birthday was already listed and placed with the main four’s birthdays so there was no need to search for his for very long. His birthday completely aligns with the main four’s birthdays as well (Leorio -> March 3 3/3, Kurapika -> April 4th 4/4, Gon -> May 5th 5/5, Hisoka -> June 6 6/6, Killua -> July 7th 7/7).

How I found Chrollo’s birth year.

Chrollo’s was actually pretty fun to find.

In chapter 95, he talks to Neon about her ability and gives her what she needs in order to activate her ability. He gave her his full name, birthday and blood type. When Neon finally saw his answers, she comments on how old he actually is when she saw that the man was 26 years old.

Since this scene took place in Yorknew City during September in the same year of 1999, I simply calculated his birth year thanks to his age (so all I pretty much had to do was do 1999 - 26 = 1973).

How I found Illumi’s birth year.

Illumi’s was a bit puzzling in the beginning but I did find it.

Unlike Chrollo’s (where his age has already been shown in the manga), Illumi’s age nor his birth year ever appears in the story. So I had to rely on another reliable source that could help me -> “The HxH Hunter Association Official Issue: Hunter’s Guide: Character & World Official Databook”. Thankfully, the book was able to give me his age which was 24 years old when he took the 287th hunter exam. So now all I had to do was calculate the year we first see him and what his age was at the time (1999 - 24 = 1975).

And there we go! I hope my explanation for each of them was easy to understand.

If you also want to find out how I found the year in which the 287th hunter exam took place in with more details, then go look here.

Hope this helped!

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals: If I Were A Rich Man/Girl

This video was released on the 24th of July, 2021, and is the first guest feature of the amazingly-talented miss Ashley Diane, as well as Cesar's first video as an actual Voiceplay member! I'm not entirely sure how much I'll actually have to say about this video, but there was no doubt in my mind about me making a post for it, so let's dive right in!

A few things right off the bat:

1. It's cool how the screen "opens up" at the start of the video; I believe Voiceplay did the same thing or something similar with In The Air Tonight iirc (and both videos end with the screen "closing back up" as well)

2. Definitely a bit more of a creative video format for Voiceplay, with the completely-white setting and the cuts between different shots of the vocalists - it's not got choreography or any overly-complex direction (probably), sure, but it's not exactly a "everyone stays standing or sitting in one spot" video either. Shoutout to Layne, who was in charge of this video as well as the arrangement!)

3. Oh my god Geoff is wearing a shirt that isn't just black, white, or blue! 😂 (listen, I make fun of him because I love him, but also you know I kinda sorta have a point!)

(Bonus note: Layne and Tony are credited with costuming in the description, so clearly there was in fact some deliberate thought put into everyone's outfits)

Okay but for real, everybody is styling in this video! (Also one could argue that technically Geoff has the most "simplistic" outfit overall in this video (which wouldn't be for the first time), but I shan't hold it against him)

Also, related to the first image and not the one above, but I'm pretty sure Eli is wearing the same hat he wore in Bang!

Oh yeah and Geoff has a lot of lovely smiles in this video, so, y'know, I'm a fan 😁

(Also peep the bit of grey coming through on one side of his fringe/bangs <3 )

"Please" (SIR-!)

This is a very random thing to care about but whose hand is this? I thought it might be Ashley's, but no, she's got yellow manicured fingernails in this one (very cute btw) (oh and also her top is long-sleeved). It's not Cesar's hand, obviously, and I'm 95% sure it's not Geoff's hand (especially since there's nothing on the wrist. it could be Layne's hand, but does he still have that wrist tattoo on his right hand? So basically, either it's Eli's hand, or one of their behind-the-scenes helpers (Kathy maybe?)

Queen. Love her

(Also shoutout to both Eli and Layne for the lighting design on this one!)

I'm assuming these are all fake dollar bills? (Also how do you do shots like this? It looks very cool. A fan/blower? Someone dropping/throwing them down from above?)

Cesar: *Looking all cool and suave with the dollar bills*

Geoff: Ooooo money! :0 :D (turn your brightness all the way up!)

(I love him)

Go off, Eli! (I like his outfit too!)

Get it, Cesar 💅

🤔

Crazy how lighting colouration can alter the perceived colours of things. Ashley's top doesn't look yellow at all here!

"what?" (girl you know dang well what!)

(I knew this moment would be worth at least a couple of screencaps and it did not disappoint! 😁)

Honestly between Ashley and Geoff in this video, serving Looks (different kinds, though both as powerful), and vocals, well, if I wasn't bi already...

And that's the video! Certainly not a standard Voiceplay video, but frankly does VP even have a "standard" these days? Their music videos can be literally anything, near impossible to predict. Also, this is a killer arrangement from Layne, and one so dang complex that even though I've by and large mastered the lyrics, this is one of the few where I've been trying to memorise the arrangement, but there are bits I forget or can't replicate the right way (not that I can go as high as Ashley can (that freaking riff! girl!) and definitely not as low as Geoff, but y'know). Stay tuned for my next Voiceplay Visuals post! It's probably gonna be a big one!

[nerendus]

Okay, under the button since it's like almost two hundred movies, but I want to start making some progress on watching these films, but despite it being two hundred, my brain says that it is still a small list, so I am once again looking for more movie recs. 🙇

1. Requiem for a Dream

2. Pacific Rim

3. War Games

4. Sharp Objects (2018) dir. Jean-Marc Vallée

5. Les soeurs Brontë (1979)  

6. Crimes of the Future

7. Videodrome

8. Jackass

9. Novitiate (2017)

10. The Sons of Katie Elder

11. El Dorado

12. Raw Deal

13. The Running Man (arnold)

14. The Mist

15. Black Mountain Side

16. In The Mouth of Madness

17. The Fifth Element

18. The Many Saints of Newark (will watch show first)

19. James Bond series

20. Resident Evil (seven thousandth watch)

21. The Boy and the Heron

22. Moulin Rouge

23. Bill and Ted (second watch)

24. The Day The Earth Stood Still

25. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 

26. Jurassic Park (second watch)

27. Robocop

28. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

29. The Boondock Saints

30. Legally Blonde (second watch)

31. The Fog (second watch)

32. Llamageddon 

33. Hellraiser

34. Candyman

35. Shaun of The Dead (second watch)

36. Scarface

37. The Shawshank Redemption

38. Ghost in The Shell

39. No Country for Old Men

40. Kill Bill series

41. The Wolf of Wall Street

42. Watchmen

43. Lone Wolf and Cub series

44. Last Night in Soho

45. Throne of Blood

46. Fargo

47. Hereditary

48. David Lynch:: The Art Life

49. Wayne's World series

50. I Am Legend (second watch)

51. Grease 

52. Good Will Hunting

53. The VVitch

54. Leatherface

55. Fantastic Planet

56. Blue Velvet

57. Pulp Fiction (second watch)

58. Twister (second watch)

59. Donnie Darko (second watch)

60. Tales from Earthsea

61. The Secret World of Arrietty

62. Late Spring (1949)

63. From Up on Poppy Hill

64. Rashomon

65. Intermezzo

66. Casablanca

67. When Marnie Was There

68. The Wind Rises

69. The Tale of Princess Kaguya

70. I Married a Witch

71. David Bowie: The Last Five Years

72. Vampyr

73. Kill Boksoon

74. Glass Onion series

75. The Wonder (2022)

76. Hook (1991) (second watch)

77. Time Trap

78. The Yin Yang Master

79. Hold The Dark

80. All Quiet on the Western Front

81. The Cloverfield Paradox

82. Reservoir Dogs

83. Spider-man (2002)

84. The Karate Kid series

85. Unknown Cosmic Time Machine

86. The Good Nurse (2022)

87. What Did Jack Do?

88. Banyuki

89. Amina (2021)

90. The Colony (2021)

91. Cities of Last Things

92. The Metamorphosis of Birds

93. The Mirror (andrei)

94. Andrei Rublev

95. Nostalgia (andrei)

96. The Sacrifice (andrei)

97. Ivan's Childhood (andrei)

98. The Steamroller and Violin (andrei)

99. Sunset Blvd (1950)

100. Ikiru (1952)

101. Seven Samurai (1954)

102. Citizen Kane

103. Dr. Strangelove

104. La La Land (2016)

105. Noriko's Dinner Table

106. The Godfather

107. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

108. The Good The Bad The Ugly

109. Mad Max Fury Road

110. Goodfellas

111. Indiana Jones series

112. Fight Club

113. Galaxy Quest

114. Dunkirk

115. Groundhog Day

116. Star Trek movies

117. Full Metal Jacket

118. Pink Floyd: The Wall

119. Naked Lunch

120. The Iron Giant

121. Chinatown (1974)

122. Minority Report

123. Velvet Goldmine

124. Dogma

125. To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newma

126. The Prestige

127. Annie Hall

128. Taxi Driver

129. Dead Poets Society

130. The Matrix

131. The Green Mile

132. Django Unchained

133. Your Name

134. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

135. Inland Empire

136. The Elephant Man

137. Lost Highway

138. Woman in the Dunes

139. Meshes of an Afternoon

140. Tokyo  Decadence 

141. Limbo (1999)

142. Maps to the Stars

143. The Machinist

144. Under the Silver Lake

145. The Northman

146. Kingdom of Heaven

147. The Grand Budapest Hotel

148. The Revenant (alejandro)

149. A Clockwork Orange

150. Incendies

151. Apocalypse Now

152. Knight of Cups

153. Once Upon a Time in America

154. Valhalla Rising

155. Inception

156. Interview with a Vampire

157. But I'm a Cheerleader

158. Angels in America

159. Pan's Labyrinth 

160. Clue

161. Asteroid City

162. Anastasia

163. Jo jo rabbit

164. Fantastic Mr. Fox

165. Rambo

166. Mission Impossible 

167. Suspiria

168. Jarhead

169. Macbeth

170. Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters 

171. Visions of Ecstasy

172. The Handmaiden (2016)

173. The Fly (cronenberg)

174. Dead Ringers

175. Tenet

176. Sicario

177. Vanishing on 7th Street

178. Invasion of the Body Snatchers

179. Gladiator

180. Once Upon a Time in the West

181. Children of the Corn

182. The Revenant 2016

183. Transformers series

184. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

185. Gaslight (1944)

186. The Road

187. Vesper

188. The Hills Have Eyes

189. Tentacles

190. Die Hard series 

191. Freddy Got Fingered

192. The Day After Tomorrow 

193. The Song of the Scarlet Flower (Teuvo Tulio, 1938)

194. Jane Eyre

195. Northanger Abbey (2007) 

196. Lady Chatterley`s Lover (2015)

197. LA COLLECTIONNEUSE (1967) dir. Éric Rohmer

198. The Lion In Winter

[scoops404]

Bonjour! In the spirit of curiosity, I'm going around asking people things about their experiences in fandom. So, here's the first question: have you ever joined an exchange or fan-run event before (can be as a writer, beta reader, or artist)? If the answer is yes, what did you like about it? Can you share the piece you made for it? Cheers! 🪶 anon

Hola!

Fun fact, I have just completed my first exchange ever and it's not up yet. My artist is currently doing their part and I think the final product goes up in March. I had previously joined two other exchanges and had to drop out for one reason or another.

One was a big bang - over 50K words needed and it was going to be due in December. I signed up in April, and started writing Just One Touch with the intention of that story being part of the big bang. However, after sign ups ended for that particular exchange, they didn't want people to start writing until June 1st. I think this was done with the intention of discouraging people to use old WIPs and finish them, but to start something fresh. They contacted me when I was tweeting about how far into writing Just One Touch I was and told me that I couldn't use that story for the exchange because I started writing it too early. They were really nice about it, no shade or anything, but it was incredible disheartening. So, instead, I just uploaded that story early.

The other I signed up as a pinch hitter and never ended up needing to write anything.

I'm currently in another exchange that won't come out until July and I just got my assignment (which I'm not allowed to share, but I'm VERY excited about) and am currently in planning stages before writing.

I like the camaraderie in exchanges. I like being in a gc or discord and the excitement of all doing something together, talking about fic, fandom, and art. I think that's really beautiful.

I don't like rules that are too restricting, though I certainly understand that rules are necessary. I think if the purpose of any exchange is to add to the lexicon of fic and art of a fandom, and for both the artists and writer to get exposure, then people shouldn't be discouraged when they are willing to put the fic together (or art).

I've helped run a few writing things with a small group of writers--we did a "spin the wheel" style prompt generator for omegaverse (which resulted in my fic To Keep Off Envy's Stinging) AND one for old and new fic tropes, which resulted in Shine Here To Us - my first dabble into mpreg. But those didn't have art associated. Oh!! And we did Bingo this summer where we generated bingo boards and had to write enough fics to get a bingo. I combined all mine into one fic, Some Other Beginning's End, which was a hoot.

For those, I like the challenge of being confined to a trope or something strict and permanent, but still finding a way to make it my own and put my spin on it.

I have a lot of respect for people who are brave enough to run an exchange and willing to use their time to answer questions and set up a discord, etc. I would say my personal experiences have been 95% positive. (but then again, I haven't even gotten to the end of a collection yet).

Sorry this got so long!!

[piningpercussionist]

(Not an rp ask)

What is your opinion on chau x kim? I'm not a shipper of it myself but I heard it was a proship since knives is 17 but also I saw she was 18 in the comic so I'm not sure where to stand on it honestly. But I'd like to hear your opinion about it !! Sorry if this is a bit of a random ask (ーー;

You're completely fine!! Do not even worry about it.

So, yeah- When Scott first meets Knives, and I'm not entirely sure how much time passes between then and when they start dating, it was *literally* her seventeenth birthday, as I am reminding myself reading back over these panels presently. And then at the start of book six, the first time we see (real, non-dream,) Knives, she has apparently been eighteen for a week!

Now, I'm going to preface with a little something before I go further into this: I am totally fine answering this ask and others like it I think! but, I will note, I do get like a (not fun) physical sensation in my chest- partly anxiety (lol) but also something else I think- thinking about them like 95% of the time- it's gotta be like. Handled The Right Way, if that makes sense. Let's get into it.

So, first off, I'm just gonna re: some of the stuff relative to this I've posted here before- both nonrp and rp, since I use RP to develop my read on Kim and shed some light on how I see things I guess!

These clips come from this ask (and reblog) here!

This rp ask here, which is simply too difficult for me to get in a good screenshot I feel, so I recommend just checking it and the tags for it out- I will share my Bonus Commentary reply though:

This ask as well! Tags less pressing, but still provide a little insight.

And this is probably a dumb inclusion if I really want to make a pseudonym to post fics under, but. I have posted my (very early) thoughts on the SPTO sparks scene to AO3 before, so- (and before going into this- I did remember that Julie and Gideon have that sparks scene after the fact!)

And here's the Barely Anything Lines hinting at the ship that I had in that fic that I used to justify that blurb, while we're here:

I think I've gone over my feelings a little bit in the discord as well, and there might even be more rp stuff relative to it, but I'm not going to go back and get any of that honestly- at least, not right now, or unless requested, since I don't really feel like it's necessary, if it does exist. This gives a pretty good glimpse in I'd say- especially that second to last one there.

So. Yeah.

Used to ship it; have expanded my horizons since then. I don't really want to knock it because like... for some people this is a legitimate life experience for them- one that might have even turned out well, miraculously. And there also a lot of minors in this fandom evidently, so like, any other baby gays out there just wanting to Project for a minute? I feel that. Sincerely I do. It's not the wisest choice but better to read fanfiction about it than go out and actually make out with a 23 year old, Gods forbid. (Genuinely felt sick thinking about that; fucking gross. Any minors out there: Please Make Good Choices. Look out for yourselves. Begging you. There are too many freaks in this world- I promise you whoever you're thinking of probably isn't the magical exception.)

But there are definitely things to consider about them that are very interesting to me, still, so like. I'm in this weird state of conflict; I don't know if it's just me being like "it happened, you can't escape it" or having been desensitized/some sort of Brainwashed by how many times I had to use Knives in the game to quick heal- maybe something else but I just don't feel like flaying myself open like that unprompted for just anyone- but like. Oh man.

Sorry, gathering/writing this that feeling like went away but came circling back for this last bit, it seems. Which makes sense I guess. I feel like I'm setting myself up for a Pyre right now eugh shfsgkjfhjg

I dunno. I'm not gonna lie and pretend like I know it to be some big formative ship for me in my early teen years, but it was kind of important in finally coming around to realizing how queer I was, I think. My memories of the time are fuzzy, but it would have been one of the things- there were likely larger ones, my current obsession could be recoloring my past here so I'm trying to acknowledge that.

But there is like. A dynamic that is posited by them that is also one I'm a really big sucker for. More so now than I was then, so I find myself grinding my teeth about that a fair bit at times.

I definitely still really like it as something unrequited no matter what I think; I like the idea of Knives having a really big crush on Kim, genuinely. I think it's cute and funny as hell for how uncomfortable it would make Kim, who's just trying so hard not to be a fucking creep while this ray of sunshine hangs off her- something she absolutely does not deserve (in her eyes.)

I'm obviously more partial to Kim resisting any advances made at her, but I can understand so, so badly why someone might be attracted to the idea of Knives managing to thaw some of Kim's frigidity with that. Ugh.

If they work for me, I think they'd have to work for me after Knives is gone at college for a bit. Kim would need to know Knives for longer than she knew her as a minor- and they'd have to be FRIENDS in that time, quite strictly. Kim would need to not feel (intensely, because frankly, she would unavoidably feel this way at least a little no matter what,) like she was a fucking groomer going into it, basically. I don't know what I think past that.

You know, I'll put my feelings like this: with the exception of a fic I saw recommended to someone that intrigued me, I have managed to resist reading any/many fics featuring them, despite it being a large majority of the wlw Kim fics that exist, and also kinda just Kim fics generally. It's kind of Insane, especially considering how much Kimona SCREAM at you from the pages of the comic itself- but I digress....

I've been working on this for like over an hour now I think so I really should cut myself off. I am like,, too hungry and mildly stoned to be rambling off about this maybe. If you want more concise/specific thoughts, I recommend prompting! I can try and channel the responses easier with a bit more direction, maybe?

...

actually another thing real quick- I like. Do not know that I could ever feel comfortable, truly, consuming content for them, not knowing if the OP has good intentions. I just Do Not trust people, largely, so that's just like. A little thing. Idk. "Death to the author" or whatever but I am still allowed to feel personally uncomfortable ya know! I don't want them taking my silent observation as like,, passive acceptance in the event that they were. Idk if that makes sense, I need to go eat already, I'm hitting post before i drag this out to TWO hours