#can't people bring back guillotines already

[ghostscrown]

Today :

My country's dictator president does shit again using his "technically legal so you can't do anything but obey" tricks (look up French politics this is too long to explain but basically at this point I just feel like this whole thing won't end well)

I learn that a maintenance worker who worked at the high school I went, and who was the funniest and nicest person and literally the only positive thing in this fucked up school, just died hit by a FUCKING Lamborghini

My therapist advised me to rely on the Local Mission and social assistances for poor/disabled people to find a place, because no one wants to rent to an autistic trans guy who can't work full time and live on 1k euros per month, so to put it simple, I'm basically too poor to leave my fucked up parents' house in the regular way

And on a less serious note, WHAT THE HELL is this Minecraft movie-

ISN'T IT A NICE DAY TO HATE CAPITALISM.

[bentosandbox]

AK Fest posting part 1

because i have so many pics to go through

There are two halls, the one with official/fan stuff and the actual theme park-ish one This post covers the first because image limit

The tickets were sold on Bilibili so I got them myself, you also have to register your name and ID and I got a VIP ticket so I got to sleep in little later (i think it was like 298 vs 598 RMB... you get more merch and 1 hour earlier entrance/shorter entry queue, but apparently so many people lined up early on the first day they let the floodgates loose at 8 plus and merch sold out by 0930 lmao) Idk how unfair it'd be (not sure how many tickets they sold per tier) but I kind of wish the VIP let you fastpass the attractions too kuxiao

I went on the 4th which was the second…? day and before I went in I had to scan a qrcode to basically upload a selfie lol (surprisingly didn't have to do this for the concert they just looked at my passport punched in the funny numbers on a device and let me through a manned door)

You get a totally not infection monitor to tap at every location, and if you scan the qr code on the underside it brings you to a miniapp on wechat that shows you your progress and queue estimates (there was also some quest thing that i forgor to do i think you get doctor stickers for it)

I headed here first because I wanted to pass some stuff to an oomf at the doujin area (first pic is the queue...) they invited a bunch of fanartists (that post regularly on skland? not sure) to table there kinda cool with a showcase of fanart

sorry it was impossible to take a nice pic of the chummer gk I TRIED

bought an eyja collab tea bottle cause it was from vending machines compared to the fresh drinks (i didnt get to try the chen one cause uh… i forgot basically the naixue near my hotel was always out of the drink set w/ the bonus merch)

I'd post so many photos but the 10 image limit is kinda killing me over here... they had this huge area to look back at all the events basically

Area with production materials and some merch wips like I saw the justice knight figurine that I can't post because I already have 10 images on here ahhhhh WAIT I CAN JUST EMBED TWEETS ON HERE

Old tweets about the Free Stage that day which was basically public karaoke guillotine

and the frostnova memorial

[nataliavega]

interrogations. task 004.

Nat was off her game. She probably had never really been on it in the first place, but today was a special kind of hell. Her time capsule video plagued her, found her jumping awake in the middle of the night in a panic.

That sense of panic and foreboding had followed her here, to where she now sat on one side of a table alone, three pairs of hard eyes staring back at her.

One of them, the decidedly personable one, smiled kindly and introduced himself as Agent Choi before introducing the other two agents on either side of him— Agent Brown and Agent Murray. Nat could only offer a squeak of acknowledgment in return, her heart hammering out a frantic beat against her ribcage.

"I understand it's finals week so we're going to make this as quick and painless as possible, alright?" Agent Choi's smile was still just as kind, but something about this whole thing felt sinister. It set Nat on edge. She only managed a stiff nod, but it was enough. Choi continued, “can you talk about your time capsule video? Give us some context for the clip that was leaked?”

Nat's teeth worried at her bottom lip, clasped hands on the table picking at the skin around her nails. "Um..." she started, voice shaky as the reminder of her current reality sent spears of ice through her guts. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Agent Murray's mouth tighten as she scribbled something in her legal pad. Nat's mouth went dry. "It was just a stupid, split-second decision, I can't really tell you why I did it. I didn't think anyone would be watching it for fifty years. I didn't— I wasn't—" She swallowed thickly, all her words suddenly caught in her throat. She held up her hands helplessly. "I don't know."

Nat was fairly certain Agent Brown hadn't blinked once since she'd sat down, sure that there was a hole in the side of her face where she could feel him staring, studying, daring her to step a toe out of line. He remained in her periphery, but there was something sickenly magnetic in the way he stared her down. She nearly turned to face him when Choi spoke up again. "Were you aware that Greer Morrison submitted a video at the end of last year?” 

The question caught her off guard and Nat visibly faltered, brows furrowed as she shook her head. "No? Greer and I weren't close." Hearing how that sounded as it came out of her mouth, Nat rushed to add, "we were different people, and we existed in different social circles."

Agent Murray continued to make notes on her notepad, and Nat readjusted in her chair uncomfortably. What could she possibly be writing? It wasn't a good thing that she was writing so much, right? Was she fumbling the bag so badly?

She hadn't realized she was staring at Murray until Choi was leaning back into her eye line, drawing her attention back to them. “Had you ever heard of anything regarding THE NAIVE NEWCOMER using steroids?”

Again, Nat's confusion shown on her face, brows pinched as she shook her head. "No. I've had one conversation with Kit my entire life and that's it."

Agent Choi's eyes seemed to narrow ever so slightly, and Nat's own eyes widened in alarm as she combed back over everything she'd said, to find where she was obviously bombing this and came up empty.

Silence hung like a guillotine overhead until Choi finally broke it, shifting forward in their seat a little. “Did Greer ever bring up breaking up with him ever? Or anything of the sort, like she did in her video?” 

"I already told you, Greer and I didn't talk. We weren't friends."

Murray scribbled away in her notepad, and Nat's eyes cut to her and back again. Unease felt a hell of a lot like nausea.

Choi nodded and Nat thought maybe he finally got it, but then he pressed, “Do you have any reason to believe THE GOLDEN GIRL would want to leave Ogden College?” 

Nat threw up her hands in frustration, eyes cutting to each and every one of them in disbelief. "I don't know what you want me to say. I didn't know Greer like that. We were not friends." She spoke each word slowly, as if enunciating might make them finally understand. Agent Brown only smirked in a way that put Nat on edge. All the while, Murray wrote her notes.

Her eyes finally settled on Choi, but the question came from Brown this time. He leaned forward in a move that was the antithesis of Choi's earlier friendly lean-in. "Some other students have brought up your relationship with Greer. Why do you think they thought it was relevant?"

Genuine confusion and true fear fought for dominance on her face. She hadn't had a relationship with Greer, but judging by the way Brown was staring her down, her doubling down on that fact could only sound suspicious now. "What? Who?" she asked before she could stop herself.

It was one of those horrifying moments where she was only aware of just how bad it sounded once it was already out of her mouth, and suddenly, heat prickled the back of her eyes, and she had to furiously blink back tears. God only knew they'd assume she was putting on a show. She was a theater student for God's sake!

"Sebastian Morrison seemed to think you had a bit of a rocky relationship. What was the word he used?" Brown nodded his head towards Choi but didn't break eye contact with Nat, who remained trapped inside his intense gaze. "Hostile." A heavy pause settled over the room, the only sound the scratching of pencil against paper. It might as well have been the ticking of a clock as it counted down to Nat's demise. Or maybe she just wished. "So," Brown said tightly, slicing through Nat's inner spiraling, "why don't you elaborate on what that relationship was?"

"I wasn't lying before," Nat insisted, but she could hear herself now the way they probably heard her. Her voice sounded shrill and tinny, the words sounding like a desperate plea of the dying. And yet, she couldn't seem to stop, as if saying enough words might eventually drown out the bad ones. "It's not a crime to not get along with someone. We don't have to pretend that just because she's rich and beautiful and popular that she couldn't also be mean sometimes. She didn't have to have a reason. I don't think she'd be the first person in the world to just decide she didn't like someone. We didn't have a relationship."

As if he didn't hear her, as if she didn't speak at all, Brown was on her immediately with another question, like some demented game of rapid fire. "Were you aware of Greer planning to travel to Portugal this summer?"

Nat blinked, stunned into silence. Both because what was the point of her answering any of these questions when it was so painfully clear that it didn't matter what she said— they'd already apparently decided what was truth and what wasn't. "Portugal? What does that have to do with any—" She cut herself off, shutting her eyes tight with a shake of her head before they opened again, cutting to Choi and searching their eyes for even a sliver of hope that she could turn this disastrous situation around. That there might still be one person left in the room that she might be able to win to her side. "No. I don't know how to make it any clearer. I didn't hang out with Greer. I wasn't part of her friend circle, I didn't even have any classes with her, I don't know."

Choi nodded, Brown remained unmoved, and Murray's pencil paused for just a heartbeat— Nat's world pausing with it— before Brown shattered the silence with one last question. "Is there anything you know that you’re not sharing?"

Her vision warped, and she knew if she couldn't manage to hold back the tears, she was going to damn herself. She shook her head, lips pressed tightly together until she could trust herself to speak. And even then, she only managed a meek "no."

Like a demented replay of the moment she first sat down, Nat sat on her side of the table alone while three pairs of eyes fixed on her. The silence stretched for a very long, very uncomfortable moment. And then Choi nodded again and stood, motioning toward the door. "Thank you for coming in, Miss Vega."

And that was it. Just like that, she was dismissed.

She blinked and stood in stiff, robotic movements as if she were in a daze. And then, once she'd stepped away from her chair, she scurried away like a roach from a kitchen light convinced that that could not have possibly gone worse.

[weepingseraphstranger]

Can we pretty please bring back the guillotine? 💕💕💕

But it's real fucked up what corporations are doing, but I know people aren't going to care. They're going to stay on their knees, sucking off these companies instead of tanking their sales. Netflix should've been destroyed the moment they cracked down on password sharing and now look at this. Since they survived, it just showed other companies they could do the same.

Hey! I know how hard it can be! I have a hard time stopping as well, but we need to try. We really need to. There are so many different companies to choose from, so why do we constantly go to the ones that hate us? It's hardly fair on us now that I think of it.

Do not get me started on all these subscriptions now days. Ones we don't need! And ones that replaced previously free or one-time-buy-and-own things. We're in a capitalistic and consumerist hellscapes and soon we probably can't afford a damn thing—if we can't already!

My soul wants to revert back to living with nature, taking and giving back from the land without having to worry about money or being manipulated into buying buying buying. Life is too exhausting now. We, any human being, do not need millions or billions of dollars to ourselves. Greed is the downfall of humanity.

[mainstoryarchive]

Kingdom - 87: Execution

Rei: Jeez, for them to have an old man like myself labor this much…

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Location: Outdoor Stage

Rei: Jeez, for them to have an old man like myself labor this much…

After last night's DreamFes, people now know the student council isn't perfect; they are wounded kings regardless of how strong they are. They are scarily strong, they absolutely aren't an opponent you can take on while letting your guard down.

Even so, that doggy of ours… He went up the stage without thinking about anything. Like this, we're just a nice punching bag.

Nay, it must have been that that was Tenshouin-kun's intention from the very start.

Last night, we of UNDEAD cooperated with your Trickstar. And so we must be judged.

As traitors whom have shown hostility towards the student council, as criminals, as per the Emperor's command we will be executed.

This DreamFes, this B1 is a demonstration- in other words, it's a public execution.

We've been led by the nose, right to the guillotine.

After this it's your turn, Trickstar… Before your heads get separated from your bodies, you may want to devise a plan to escape.

We're talking about Tenshouin-kun, after all—he must have prepared an escape route for you. Although if you run there you very well might be surrounded and be completely annihilated.

Everything he's planned has already been set into motion; our game of shogi has been cut short.

We're out of time. The hands of the clock of our school, which you went through many hardships and made a desperate effort to move, have been put back forcefully.

I never expected that Tenshouin-kun would be discharged so soon…

We did not finish the reform of Yumenosaki Academy before he came back, that's our cause of defeat.

We UNDEAD are shadows. The stronger the light, the deeper the shadows. Struggling with you people was very fun. It truly was just like a dream.

However, fine's light is too bright. It extinguishes all darkness. It seems this is the end for us.

This time, we will be executed before we can do anything for you. Isolated and helpless, you will be forced to fight against that Emperor.

Watch over there, the king of Yumenosaki Academy is making a triumphant return. The strongest unit in this school… fine will be rising onto the stage momentarily.

This can't even be called a competition at this point. Tenshouin-kun is just declaring himself as the winner.

I can't bear to watch such a stage, so I will be excusing myself here.

Beware, Tenshouin-kun will be coming to break your heart.

He crushes hearts, hopes and dreams. He devours everything greedily, he takes it all in and makes it his own. He's a supreme ruler who is like an evil dream-eating demon.

You should be cautious of dreaming in the open, although it might be too late already to only start being cautious now… I'm praying for you, gentlemen of Trickstar.

Makoto: Ah, Sakuma-senpai… I hope he's okay, he wasn't walking straight.

After all, he is normally sleeping around this hour.

Even so, he was forcefully kicked out of bed and had to participate in this DreamFes, so it's no wonder he couldn't bring out his best.

Hokuto: (Completely crushing an opponent that they made weak first like that is how the student council does things… It's truly a strategy which befits a supreme king.)

(Will we be able to stand strong against such an overwhelmingly strong force?)

(Isn't it better to take him up on his offer from earlier and surrender?)

(This is bad, I can't become this weak-willed. We promised each other that we would change this school, we should be able to do that…)

(If we bend our knees here, we won't be able to stand up again.)

[ ☆ ]

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[chappell-roans]

I feel like the GOP’s ultimate goal is to set the country back to 1886 and The Gilded Age there’s a huge gap between the rich and poor rampant racism that’s so normalized no one hardly notices it and women (specifically white women) being dutiful wives and mothers and not participating in public life with the exception of church service

Yeah I mean thing is they're fully bought by corporations and lobbies like it's just ruled between the wealthy. It's trying to keep things the way they already are, and sometimes that takes active violence and violent policies, because like this didn't happen overnight. It's been happening since........America began. Reagan reignited a lot but like it never went away. Decades before the state assassinated MLK and who knows who the fuck killed Malcolm X honestly. And the whole pro-life movement was born as a disguise to keep up segregation. Maybe the average person didn't know, but the people they blindly follow, the powerful wealthy people? Yeah.

And we've known about income inequality for much longer than this, but here's just one article from 2012 that says some shocking things before it even starts (linked through proxy so there's no paywall).

And that statistic I love bringing up even though it amounts to nothing: compare America in the 2010s and 2020s to France in the 1780s--just before they got out the guillotine for the French Revolution. But that won't happen here.

tl;dr: things have been irrevocably fucked for a really long time, like forever. Doesn't mean we can't do anything about it but none of this is new, we're just currently living through it.

[number-of-the-beast-is-666]

Some exclusive unedited slug boys inspired by the fact ahaha I'm not doing great

Woken by an fleeting open palm touch his upper arm he scrambles away from it, not opening his tightly shut eyes, childish belief of escaping the monster rising up in his head, his heart, starved of logic and sense.

Vanja doesn't want to do this. He didn't want to help, to have to help, but other than Saša looking pretty fucking pathetic, curled up and shaking under tightly drawn sheets, part of him does want to. To console, to comfort, to protect.

All the things labelled as bullshit in his head even now, bullshit that'll get you hurt and not solve anything.

But, when he calls out to Saša softly, not wanting to startle him, to bring him out of his clenching fear suddenly, and Saša's eyes open, wetness visible on his cheeks even in the low light of the t-shirt covered lamp, and goddamn. This kid just keeps on showing his fuckedupness, Vanja thinks to himself.

When he drops to a crouch a foot away from the bed, Saša whimpers, and closes his eyes again, seeming to sink further into the mattress. He takes a shuddering breath that sounds like it hurts more than it helps, the tension of his body breaking like weak timber, splintering in a soft cry and he starts sobbing earnestly.

Vanja can see that he tries to hold it back, hold it in, tightening his shoulders over and over again to steel himself, but like you can't bring together shattered glass, he doesn't solidify.

There's an awkwardness when he reaches out a hand to move a lock of hair out of Saša's damp face. He doesn't know. What to do, how to do it, should he do it. Protection only comes easy when it's himself; towering forts and walls built up are forcibly allowed to be overcome to let people in, corridors woken with screaming liveliness that feels foreign every time, so different to the safe solitude he's carved out for himself. Every next step feels like a rule broken and every one harder than the last.

He finds himself shushing Saša as he takes great heaving sobs, not to quiet him but to reassure, like he's seen Slug do, like Slug's done for him safely behind closed doors.

Fear feels as heavy as a knife pressed into Saša's neck, hovering over him like the guillotine. The sick dread of something coming but not reaching you quick enough, the purposeful build of terror to make you all the more weakly vulnerable; a better treat to feed power with.

The slight brush of Vanja's hand skimming over his shoulder feels like a wet cloth dragged across his sweaty face, a confirmation of his skin still intact, not cleaved open to bone like he feels he'll find if he rests his own hands on himself.

He wants; the thick press of security and safety, heavy enough to sink into his skin and burrow under so he doesn't have to feel this powerlessness of nightmare delusion drag up every last skeleton from the seabed of his subconscious.

Vanja gives him safety, in the soft spoken words that still stumble over his ears a bit too much to be heard, and gentle hands that stay on him as a presence sinks into the mattress beside him.

Some coppery tang of panic bubbles up momentarily, sensory remnants of unconscious horror fighting their way to the forefront of his mind, drawing a twitch and shudder before he presses into Vanja and Vanja presses back, unsure of what he needs except to reciprocate. Lying there, chest to chest, knee to knee, no space for memory between them, some panic is quietened.

Not quite drowned out, the fish oil taste of fear lingering at the back of his throat and the visceral unrest already settled into his gut. But quietened, dulled, and now the blade pressing into his neck doesn't feel quite so real.