#colorism and legal outcomes

[colorism-project]

Colorism in Criminal Justice and Policing

Join Ms. Gina Sissoko for a deep dive discussion titled “Colorism in Criminal Justice and Policing” at the virtual Ronald  E. Hall Conference on Colorism on August 17, 2023 and August 18, 2023. Register today:  Ronald E. Hall Conference on Colorism     Deep Dive Discussion Session : 2A Date: Friday, August 18, 2023 Time: 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. CST Ms. Gina Sissoko Description Colorism…

[mellowwillowy]

Yan! Best friend who has been friends with you for 10 years and is still clingy af around you. She may be a mother of two now but she's still a high schooler in love with you. Love makes her feel young and you are the love of her life.

Yan! Best friend who knows you best. They say 'Mother knows best' but she'd beg to differ. Does your mother even know your clothing measurements? Does your mother even know what you like and dislike to eat? Does your mother even know who gave you that ring resting on your finger ring?

Yan! Best friend who has always planned the best for you. Education, career, and romantic life have all been arranged to only be the best for you. You only deserve the best and no less.

Yan! Best friend who is pleased to know you are dating the man of her choice, a man of prestige who is head over heels for you, someone willing to go over miles length just for you.

Although he wasn't willing to go against his family to marry you, he was still willing to find a way to shut his legal wife's complaints regarding the fact that he was hiding a secret lover.

Seonmi was in no position to criticize him as she wasn't someone who knew what to do with you as well. Someone who was for certain your best friend but she also couldn't pinpoint her feelings toward you. She viewed you as something endearing for her, like a kitten raised in a cage of wools but she also felt like she loved you more than that.

Your best friend had always been a strange girl. She would sometimes mumble about you being her life partner but she wasn't sure if it was close to 'spouse'. She was no longer bothered by it though, shrugging her endearment toward you as simple as love. As long as you were hers, her life would be colorful, free from dullness.

You, her life partner, roped into an affair with a prestigious man who could ensure you a comfortable life although shrouded in scandal; was the best outcome Seonmi could ever have.

Because although she didn't expect that man to really fall head over heels for you, she wasn't entirely against it at all. You were stuck in a relationship with a man she had approved of and planned in your life schedule. Rather than seeing you with another nameless person, she'd rather see you paired with someone's husband.

Yan! Best friend who knows best for you. Don't you trust her after being friends together for 10 years? 16 years? 36 years? 40 years...?

Yan! Best friend who chose to die in your hands in the end, marking the end of the 40-year friendship. The ring had lost its partner and she had lost her life.

Read Power Scandal on Webtoon

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kavitha Surana at ProPublica:

In her final hours, Amber Nicole Thurman suffered from a grave infection that her suburban Atlanta hospital was well-equipped to treat. She’d taken abortion pills and encountered a rare complication; she had not expelled all of the fetal tissue from her body. She showed up at Piedmont Henry Hospital in need of a routine procedure to clear it from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C. But just that summer, her state had made performing the procedure a felony, with few exceptions. Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison. Thurman waited in pain in a hospital bed, worried about what would happen to her 6-year-old son, as doctors monitored her infection spreading, her blood pressure sinking and her organs beginning to fail. It took 20 hours for doctors to finally operate. By then, it was too late.

The otherwise healthy 28-year-old medical assistant, who had her sights set on nursing school, should not have died, an official state committee recently concluded.

Tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, the experts, including 10 doctors, deemed hers “preventable” and said the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a “large” impact on her fatal outcome. Their reviews of individual patient cases are not made public. But ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state. There are almost certainly others. Committees like the one in Georgia, set up in each state, often operate with a two-year lag behind the cases they examine, meaning that experts are only now beginning to delve into deaths that took place after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion.

Thurman’s case marks the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed “preventable,” is coming to public light. ProPublica will share the story of the second in the coming days. We are also exploring other deaths that have not yet been reviewed but appear to be connected to abortion bans. Doctors warned state legislators women would die if medical procedures sometimes needed to save lives became illegal. Though Republican lawmakers who voted for state bans on abortion say the laws have exceptions to protect the “life of the mother,” medical experts cautioned that the language is not rooted in science and ignores the fast-moving realities of medicine.

The most restrictive state laws, experts predicted, would pit doctors’ fears of prosecution against their patients’ health needs, requiring providers to make sure their patient was inarguably on the brink of death or facing “irreversible” harm when they intervened with procedures like a D&C. “They would feel the need to wait for a higher blood pressure, wait for a higher fever — really got to justify this one — bleed a little bit more,” Dr. Melissa Kottke, an OB-GYN at Emory, warned lawmakers in 2019 during one of the hearings over Georgia’s ban. Doctors and a nurse involved in Thurman’s care declined to explain their thinking and did not respond to questions from ProPublica. Communications staff from the hospital did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Georgia’s Department of Public Health, which oversees the state maternal mortality review committee, said it cannot comment on ProPublica’s reporting because the committee’s cases are confidential and protected by federal law.

The availability of D&Cs for both abortions and routine miscarriage care helped save lives after the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, studies show, reducing the rate of maternal deaths for women of color by up to 40% the first year after abortion became legal. But since abortion was banned or restricted in 22 states over the past two years, women in serious danger have been turned away from emergency rooms and told that they needed to be in more peril before doctors could help. Some have been forced to continue high-risk pregnancies that threatened their lives. Those whose pregnancies weren’t even viable have been told they could return when they were “crashing.” Such stories have been at the center of the upcoming presidential election, during which the right to abortion is on the ballot in 10 states.

Thurman, who carried the full load of a single parent, loved being a mother. Every chance she got, she took her son to petting zoos, to pop-up museums and on planned trips, like one to a Florida beach. “The talks I have with my son are everything,” she posted on social media.

But when she learned she was pregnant with twins in the summer of 2022, she quickly decided she needed to preserve her newfound stability, her best friend, Ricaria Baker, told ProPublica. Thurman and her son had recently moved out of her family’s home and into a gated apartment complex with a pool, and she was planning to enroll in nursing school. The timing could not have been worse. On July 20, the day Georgia’s law banning abortion at six weeks went into effect, her pregnancy had just passed that mark, according to records her family shared with ProPublica. Thurman wanted a surgical abortion close to home and held out hope as advocates tried to get the ban paused in court, Baker said. But as her pregnancy progressed to its ninth week, she couldn’t wait any longer. She scheduled a D&C in North Carolina, where abortion at that stage was still legal, and on Aug. 13 woke up at 4 a.m. to make the journey with her best friend.

On their drive, they hit standstill traffic, Baker said. The clinic couldn’t hold Thurman’s spot longer than 15 minutes — it was inundated with women from other states where bans had taken effect. Instead, a clinic employee offered Thurman a two-pill abortion regimen approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, mifepristone and misoprostol. Her pregnancy was well within the standard of care for that treatment. Getting to the clinic had required scheduling a day off from work, finding a babysitter, making up an excuse to borrow a relative’s car and walking through a crowd of anti-abortion protesters. Thurman didn’t want to reschedule, Baker said. At the clinic, Thurman sat through a counseling session in which she was told how to safely take the pills and instructed to go to the emergency room if complications developed. She signed a release saying she understood. She took the first pill there and insisted on driving home before any symptoms started, Baker said. She took the second pill the next day, as directed.

Deaths due to complications from abortion pills are extremely rare. Out of nearly 6 million women who’ve taken mifepristone in the U.S. since 2000, 32 deaths were reported to the FDA through 2022, regardless of whether the drug played a role. Of those, 11 patients developed sepsis. Most of the remaining cases involved intentional and accidental drug overdoses, suicide, homicide and ruptured ectopic pregnancies. Baker and Thurman spoke every day that week. At first, there was only cramping, which Thurman expected. But days after she took the second pill, the pain increased and blood was soaking through more than one pad per hour. If she had lived nearby, the clinic in North Carolina would have performed a D&C for free as soon as she followed up, the executive director told ProPublica. But Thurman was four hours away.

The consequences of draconian abortion bans are being felt, as at least two women in Georgia died over being denied emergency medical care.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cloudburst

Enshittification isn’t inevitable: under different conditions and constraints, the old, good internet could have given way to a new, good internet. Enshittification is the result of specific policy choices: encouraging monopolies; enabling high-speed, digital shell games; and blocking interoperability.

First we allowed companies to buy up their competitors. Google is the shining example here: having made one good product (search), they then fielded an essentially unbroken string of in-house flops, but it didn’t matter, because they were able to buy their way to glory: video, mobile, ad-tech, server management, docs, navigation…They’re not Willy Wonka’s idea factory, they’re Rich Uncle Pennybags, making up for their lack of invention by buying out everyone else:

https://locusmag.com/2022/03/cory-doctorow-vertically-challenged/

But this acquisition-fueled growth isn’t unique to tech. Every administration since Reagan (but not Biden! more on this later) has chipped away at antitrust enforcement, so that every sector has undergone an orgy of mergers, from athletic shoes to sea freight, eyeglasses to pro wrestling:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/07/09/the-importance-of-competition-for-the-american-economy/

But tech is different, because digital is flexible in a way that analog can never be. Tech companies can “twiddle” the back-ends of their clouds to change the rules of the business from moment to moment, in a high-speed shell-game that can make it impossible to know what kind of deal you’re getting:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/knob-jockeys/#bros-be-twiddlin

To make things worse, users are banned from twiddling. The thicket of rules we call IP ensure that twiddling is only done against users, never for them. Reverse-engineering, scraping, bots — these can all be blocked with legal threats and suits and even criminal sanctions, even if they’re being done for legitimate purposes:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Enhittification isn’t inevitable but if we let companies buy all their competitors, if we let them twiddle us with every hour that God sends, if we make it illegal to twiddle back in self-defense, we will get twiddled to death. When a company can operate without the discipline of competition, nor of privacy law, nor of labor law, nor of fair trading law, with the US government standing by to punish any rival who alters the logic of their service, then enshittification is the utterly foreseeable outcome.

To understand how our technology gets distorted by these policy choices, consider “The Cloud.” Once, “the cloud” was just a white-board glyph, a way to show that some part of a software’s logic would touch some commodified, fungible, interchangeable appendage of the internet. Today, “The Cloud” is a flashing warning sign, the harbinger of enshittification.

When your image-editing tools live on your computer, your files are yours. But once Adobe moves your software to The Cloud, your critical, labor-intensive, unrecreatable images are purely contingent. At at time, without notice, Adobe can twiddle the back end and literally steal the colors out of your own files:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

The finance sector loves The Cloud. Add “The Cloud” to a product and profits (money you get for selling something) can turn into rents (money you get for owning something). Profits can be eroded by competition, but rents are evergreen:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

No wonder The Cloud has seeped into every corner of our lives. Remember your first iPod? Adding music to it was trivial: double click any music file to import it into iTunes, then plug in your iPod and presto, synched! Today, even sophisticated technology users struggle to “side load” files onto their mobile devices. Instead, the mobile duopoly — Apple and Google, who bought their way to mobile glory and have converged on the same rent-seeking business practices, down to the percentages they charge — want you to get your files from The Cloud, via their apps. This isn’t for technological reasons, it’s a business imperative: 30% of every transaction that involves an app gets creamed off by either Apple or Google in pure rents:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-another-audiobook-that-amazon-wont-sell/posts/3788112

And yet, The Cloud is undeniably useful. Having your files synch across multiple devices, including your collaborators’ devices, with built-in tools for resolving conflicting changes, is amazing. Indeed, this feat is the holy grail of networked tools, because it’s how programmers write all the software we use, including software in The Cloud.

If you want to know how good a tool can be, just look at the tools that toolsmiths use. With “source control” — the software programmers use to collaboratively write software — we get a very different vision of how The Cloud could operate. Indeed, modern source control doesn’t use The Cloud at all. Programmers’ workflow doesn’t break if they can’t access the internet, and if the company that provides their source control servers goes away, it’s simplicity itself to move onto another server provider.

This isn’t The Cloud, it’s just “the cloud” — that whiteboard glyph from the days of the old, good internet — freely interchangeable, eminently fungible, disposable and replaceable. For a tool like git, Github is just one possible synchronization point among many, all of which have a workflow whereby programmers’ computers automatically make local copies of all relevant data and periodically lob it back up to one or more servers, resolving conflicting edits through a process that is also largely automated.

There’s a name for this model: it’s called “Local First” computing, which is computing that starts from the presumption that the user and their device is the most important element of the system. Networked servers are dumb pipes and dumb storage, a nice-to-have that fails gracefully when it’s not available.

The data structures of source-code are among the most complicated formats we have; if we can do this for code, we can do it for spreadsheets, word-processing files, slide-decks, even edit-decision-lists for video and audio projects. If local-first computing can work for programmers writing code, it can work for the programs those programmers write.

Local-first computing is experiencing a renaissance. Writing for Wired, Gregory Barber traces the history of the movement, starting with the French computer scientist Marc Shapiro, who helped develop the theory of “Conflict-Free Replicated Data” — a way to synchronize data after multiple people edit it — two decades ago:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-cloud-is-a-prison-can-the-local-first-software-movement-set-us-free/

Shapiro and his co-author Nuno Preguiça envisioned CFRD as the building block of a new generation of P2P collaboration tools that weren’t exactly serverless, but which also didn’t rely on servers as the lynchpin of their operation. They published a technical paper that, while exiting, was largely drowned out by the release of GoogleDocs (based on technology built by a company that Google bought, not something Google made in-house).

Shapiro and Preguiça’s work got fresh interest with the 2019 publication of “Local-First Software: You Own Your Data, in spite of the Cloud,” a viral whitepaper-cum-manifesto from a quartet of computer scientists associated with Cambridge University and Ink and Switch, a self-described “industrial research lab”:

https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/static/local-first.pdf

The paper describes how its authors — Martin Kleppmann, Adam Wiggins, Peter van Hardenberg and Mark McGranaghan — prototyped and tested a bunch of simple local-first collaboration tools built on CFRD algorithms, with the goal of “network optional…seamless collaboration.” The results are impressive, if nascent. Conflicting edits were simpler to resolve than the authors anticipated, and users found URLs to be a good, intuitive way of sharing documents. The biggest hurdles are relatively minor, like managing large amounts of change-data associated with shared files.

Just as importantly, the paper makes the case for why you’d want to switch to local-first computing. The Cloud is not reliable. Companies like Evernote don’t last forever — they can disappear in an eyeblink, and take your data with them:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/9/23789012/evernote-layoff-us-staff-bending-spoons-note-taking-app

Google isn’t likely to disappear any time soon, but Google is a graduate of the Darth Vader MBA program (“I have altered the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further”) and notorious for shuttering its products, even beloved ones like Google Reader:

https://www.theverge.com/23778253/google-reader-death-2013-rss-social

And while the authors don’t mention it, Google is also prone to simply kicking people off all its services, costing them their phone numbers, email addresses, photos, document archives and more:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/22/allopathic-risk/#snitches-get-stitches

There is enormous enthusiasm among developers for local-first application design, which is only natural. After all, companies that use The Cloud go to great lengths to make it just “the cloud,” using containerization to simplify hopping from one cloud provider to another in a bid to stave off lock-in from their cloud providers and the enshittification that inevitably follows.

The nimbleness of containerization acts as a disciplining force on cloud providers when they deal with their business customers: disciplined by the threat of losing money, cloud companies are incentivized to treat those customers better. The companies we deal with as end-users know exactly how bad it gets when a tech company can impose high switching costs on you and then turn the screws until things are almost-but-not-quite so bad that you bolt for the doors. They devote fantastic effort to making sure that never happens to them — and that they can always do that to you.

Interoperability — the ability to leave one service for another — is technology’s secret weapon, the thing that ensures that users can turn The Cloud into “the cloud,” a humble whiteboard glyph that you can erase and redraw whenever it suits you. It’s the greatest hedge we have against enshittification, so small wonder that Big Tech has spent decades using interop to clobber their competitors, and lobbying to make it illegal to use interop against them:

https://locusmag.com/2019/01/cory-doctorow-disruption-for-thee-but-not-for-me/

Getting interop back is a hard slog, but it’s also our best shot at creating a new, good internet that lives up the promise of the old, good internet. In my next book, The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (Verso Books, Sept 5), I set out a program fro disenshittifying the internet:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

The book is up for pre-order on Kickstarter now, along with an independent, DRM-free audiobooks (DRM-free media is the content-layer equivalent of containerized services — you can move them into or out of any app you want):

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

Meanwhile, Lina Khan, the FTC and the DoJ Antitrust Division are taking steps to halt the economic side of enshittification, publishing new merger guidelines that will ban the kind of anticompetitive merger that let Big Tech buy its way to glory:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/biden-administration-corporate-merger-antitrust-guidelines/674779/

The internet doesn’t have to be enshittified, and it’s not too late to disenshittify it. Indeed — the same forces that enshittified the internet — monopoly mergers, a privacy and labor free-for-all, prohibitions on user-side twiddling — have enshittified everything from cars to powered wheelchairs. Not only should we fight enshittification — we must.

Back my anti-enshittification Kickstarter here!

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad- free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/03/there-is-no-cloud/#only-other-peoples-computers

Image: Drahtlos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Motherboard_Intel_386.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

—

cdsessums (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monsoon_Season_Flagstaff_AZ_clouds_storm.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[snek-panini]

Today's completed book is a bind of Glimmer, by @tawnyontumblr (hi, it's me, the person who asked to bind your story way back in April). This story is a Good Omens human au about sex workers in the Regency era, and it's gorgeous and lush and fantastic. Sexy and vulnerable and all the good adjectives. Go read it if you haven't yet, it's wonderful.

This is another legal-size quarto, my second (of 4; more are on the way). It really is an addictive size, and perfect for fics this length. The cover is done in this really pretty red damask lokta paper that highlights different parts of the image depending on the angle of the light. I was toying with the idea of binding this fic, and when I found this paper I immediately bumped it up the list because it's so perfect. The spine is dark gray lineco book cloth that I simply cannot resist putting on spines. I realize this is a pattern and I do not care. It's softer visually than black and it coordinates with everything and I will not stop.

More photos under the cut!

What did I tell you, it coordinates with everything. I used silver foil HTV for the title, and I elected to put it just on the spine so as not to cover up any of the floral patterns on the cover. Honestly, I thought about it but just couldn't bring myself to cover it up. The interior of this one has some very fancy fonts and I wanted one for the spine but they were all too spindly. But this one's a good compromise, I think. Delicate but straightforward.

Top view. I really wanted to do custom end bands for this one, for maximum luxury, but it was too thin, so it has pre-made black ones. They sort of disappear in the photos but make a nice contrast in person. I am totally in love with the starry endpapers even though they are only scrapbook paper from Joann's. It was surprisingly difficult to find something that looked good with the red cover, because plain solid colors looked too lackluster and most prints were too bold with the floral, not to mention a lot of colors clashed with the red. But I love these gray-on-gray stars. They're perfect. And a lot of the fic takes place under cover of darkness, and stars are a symbol of hope, and this fic's about wanting to escape your current circumstances, so it's kind of thematically appropriate. I'm going to say it is, anyway XD

So I think the title page is my favorite part of the bind again. I found this vintage valentine graphic on rawpixel for free and it's probably the most opulent thing in the whole typeset. The sort of uneven ink distribution is on purpose and adds to the vintage feel. I remember thinking about a year ago that my title pages were too plain and I needed to level them up somehow, and with the batch of binds I've been posting for the last week or two I think I've done it. The fonts here are called Annabel (the one with the trailing ends) and Victorian Decade (the swirly one that my bindery name is in). Both are available for free from DaFont. I did have to get a little tricky with the line spacing to get them to print correctly, but it was worth it. I wanted opulence for this one.

And that's that! I hope I did the fic justice, because I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome.

[mariacallous]

Hi mariacallous! Some of my friends have started spouting the 'abortion is a class issue because rich women always have access to abortion' BS, and I was wondering if you had any resources/articles etc that might be helpful in convincing them. Sorry to barge into your inbox!

The notion that rich women will be fine, regardless of what the law says, is probably comforting to some. But it is simply not true.

Yes, abortion bans will disproportionately affect poor women and women of color in a country that already has appallingly high maternal mortality rates, no federal paid family leave and little support for parents who struggle to provide for their children financially. As Rebecca Traister pointed out in New York magazine, this is nothing new: The Hyde Amendment and state restrictions have already made abortion effectively inaccessible to many women without means or mobility.

But we should not lose sight of the reality that the Supreme Court decision has created a crisis for all American women. Even the richest Americans — the one-percenters and the upper middle class — will not escape the effects.

Attenuating the rights of half of the population will have systemic effects akin to climate change. Just as no amount of investment in Mars-bound space colonization, air-conditioned bunkers and private firefighting services will save the rich from terrible outcomes if the planet becomes uninhabitable, the rich cannot avoid the effects of the overturning of Roe. Residents of blue states won’t be exempt. And men who think the ban won’t affect them are mistaken; it will affect women they know and love, and it will change the political economy in which they live and operate.

The persistent myth that the wealthy will be unaffected is predicated on the vague notion that they’ll be able to find and purchase abortion pills by mail, travel to places where abortion is legal or get abortions from local providers willing to break the law.

And sure, it’s easy to imagine a scenario in which a red state one-percenter has his daughter or wife airlifted to another state for an abortion — or, potentially, for in vitro fertilization, if it becomes illegal to terminate embryos. We are accustomed to different rules and privileges for the wealthy, and witness these injustices daily. People with more money and privilege conferred by race and class — people who have access to better lawyers — experience our justice system differently. They also get better health care and pay less in taxes as a share of income. We hold the rich to a lower, not higher, standard and tacitly accept that they will get away with cheating various systems.

But the wealthiest are in for some unpleasant surprises when it comes to abortion. The scenarios in which a woman needs an abortion include medical emergencies in which any delay in treatment can have severe, even fatal, consequences — and in those circumstances abortion pills obtained by mail won’t help.

One in 50 pregnancies in the United States is ectopic, for example, in which a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus. The embryo must be removed, and delaying that treatment can result in sepsis, internal bleeding and death. Placental abruptions must be addressed immediately to avoid extensive bleeding, renal failure and even, in some instances, death.

Any woman who finds herself in either of these scenarios is not going to be able to pack her bags and go for a long drive. Even for someone with the means, an airlift to a medical facility in another state may not be quick enough to save her. She will need to be treated locally and immediately. Some of the bans going into effect around the country include medical exceptions for these situations, but if there’s any ambiguity about what the law allows, the time it takes a medical professional to consult a lawyer may be the difference between life and death.

Some states are expected to try to ban interstate travel for abortions. Bans in Texas and Oklahoma leave room for that possibility. Planned Parenthood’s Montana branch has reportedly decided that it will no longer provide medication abortions for patients from certain states where bans are in effect or in the works, citing the “rapidly changing” legal landscape. It’s also clear that many Republicans view the Roe reversal as an inroad to a total federal ban. If they gain electoral victories in 2024, this is a very likely outcome, and in that case there will be no blue state abortion clinics to travel to. Even now, the lines and waiting times at abortion clinics in safe haven states are likely to get very long.

Many people also assume the wealthy can always find a local doctor willing to perform an abortion, even in a state where it has become illegal. This seems unlikely. While some providers did flout the law and provide women with abortions before Roe in 1973, the ubiquity of digital surveillance and other mechanisms for violating the privacy of women seeking abortions have made it far more difficult for them to do so privately and safely. Trigger laws are already forcing medical professionals to consult lawyers before they provide care, and laws that criminalize abortion leave health care workers with little incentive to violate them. When faced with the prospect of prosecution or losing a medical license, how many doctors will take this risk, even when money is offered? Meanwhile, anti-choice conservatives are already working to make it harder to obtain abortion pills.

Some believe abortion bans won’t affect them because they’ll never find themselves in need of an abortion. Conservatives might imagine the typical woman who needs one fits an archetype: poor, single, liberal, promiscuous, anti-family and irresponsible. But most women who get abortions are already mothers (60 percent). Nearly half of abortion seekers live below the poverty line, but a significant portion are not poor. (Women with higher incomes have more access to contraception, but that dynamic might change if the Supreme Court follows through on Justice Clarence Thomas’s suggestion to revisit earlier rulings, including the right to contraception.) Conservative families also include teenagers and young women whose privacy, autonomy and ability to seek medical care, regardless of whether their parents approve, will be severely compromised by abortion bans.

The reality is that women from every demographic need abortions. Well-off conservative women are not immune to contraception failures, gynecological emergencies, miscarriages, incest or rape. Many women find that despite their beliefs, carrying a pregnancy to term is just not something they can go through with, for a range of reasons. Pregnancy itself can be life-threatening for women with certain existing medical conditions, and even for women who don’t have those risks, it is life-altering. The kind of person who might need or want an abortion is, put simply, any person capable of getting pregnant.

Women will die because of this — disproportionately poor and middle-class women but not just poor and middle-class women. Rich women could just as easily suffer and die, too, even those who think that they would never need an abortion or that they would never be denied essential medical care in the United States of America in 2022.

There will be other effects: Roe is a privacy law, and there are implications for the ruling outside of the issue of abortion. Forced birth will take women out of the work force in an already tight labor market. Women could be treated like criminals for having miscarriages, which are incredibly common. And women who are pregnant when their partners don’t want them to be will be more at risk for domestic violence and homicide. Individual wealth won’t prevent these outcomes, either.

It is, of course, true that the wealthy are the least vulnerable in the new post-Roe world, and this is not a requiem for them on a tiny violin. But it is important for all parties to understand that all people are going to participate in this nightmare, whether they realize it now or not. The wealthy unfortunately have an outsize influence on politics, so how much the bans harm them, inconvenience them or enrage them will most likely affect the will of politicians to vote for and maintain abortion bans.

The overturning of Roe will affect all of us. And if you are lucky enough to be wealthy, your money probably won’t shield you.

The Persistent Myth That Restricting Abortion Rights Won’t Affect the Rich

the problem is that it's a class issue, but not only in the way they think, and the point is that all women are impacted by it, but obviously some way more than others

[contemplatingoutlander]

Most Republicans aren’t aware of Trump’s various legal issues

"For example, the [YouGov] poll found that most Americans think a conviction would be a fair outcome from Trump’s criminal trials. Among Republicans and those who say they voted for Trump in 2020, though, most would view such a result as unfair. Makes sense, given that most Republicans say they haven’t even heard of the criminal trials." [color emphasis added]

---Philip Bump, columnist for The Washington Post

Well, this is frightening.

Philip Bump once again does an excellent job of analyzing the data to show us the degree to which many Republicans live in an alternate reality. This is a gift🎁link for those who don't subscribe to The Washington Post and want to read he whole article. Below are some excerpts.

There is an assumption, probably particularly among those who cover the news and those who read it, that Donald Trump’s legal travails are common knowledge. [...] But this is a sort of vanity: Just because it is interesting to us certainly doesn’t mean it is interesting to others. Polling released by CNN on Thursday shows that only a quarter of voters seek out news about the campaign; a third pay little to no attention at all. [...] YouGov presented American adults with eight legal scenarios to judge the extent of the public’s awareness. Two were invented: that Trump faces charges related to emoluments or related to drug trafficking. Happily, less than a quarter of respondents said those legal threats actually existed.* The other six were real. The one that was familiar to the most people was the federal classified-documents case that is moving forward in Florida; 6 in 10 Americans said they were aware of that case. The one that had the least awareness was the civil suit in New York in which a judge determined that he’d fraudulently inflated the value of his assets. Just under 50 percent of Americans knew about that. But the pattern among Republicans is clear. At most, 45 percent of Republicans said they knew about legal issues: specifically, the documents case and his being found liable for assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll. Only a quarter knew about the value-inflation suit, and only 4 in 10 knew about the criminal charges in Manhattan related to the hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.** [color/emphasis added]

[...] It seems very safe to assume this lack of familiarity derives from disinterest in hearing negative information about Trump — and, probably more importantly, the disinterest of conservative and right-wing media outlets to report on them. In May, The Washington Post looked at the extent to which Fox News covered the documents and Daniels cases relative to other cable-news channels. It did so much less frequently. [emphasis added] [...] For example, the poll found that most Americans think a conviction would be a fair outcome from Trump’s criminal trials. Among Republicans and those who say they voted for Trump in 2020, though, most would view such a result as unfair. Makes sense, given that most Republicans say they haven’t even heard of the criminal trials. [color/emphasis added]

Those results look very much like the results YouGov got when it asked Americans which they viewed as a more important issue for presidential fitness: Trump’s indictments or President Biden’s age. About 4 in 10 respondents chose each option. [emphasis added]

It’s important to point out that the responses from independents mostly matched the overall numbers, which is often the case. That means only about half of independents are aware of Trump’s legal issues — potentially meaning there is a large group of Americans who might suddenly learn the details of what’s been alleged if Trump is convicted of a crime. [color/emphasis added] That is the sort of thing that might have a measurable political effect.

_________________________ *Unfortunately 43% of Democrats and 40% of Biden voters thought that the emoluments charges existed. They certainly should exist, but they don't.]

**More troubling to me is that only 42% of Republicans knew about the charges of conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results, and only 36% of Republicans knew about the charges of attempted obstruction of the 2020 election certification.

[astra-ravana]

Candle Divination

The Four Elements (Alchemy): The candle, as a unit represents the Earth. Fire is represented by the candle's flame. The melting wax represents Water. The smoke represents Air.

Candle Colors

• Red- Action, passion, lust, anger, love, survival, career, strength, independence

• Orange- Creativity, ambition, opportunity, joy, justice, legal matters

• Yellow- Intelligence, manifestation, luxury, memory, positive attitude, luck

• Green- Abundance, prosperity, wealth, nature, achievement, jealousy, growth

• Blue- Focus, good fortune, peace, forgiveness, truth, calm

• Purple- Spiritual power, third eye, break habits, hierarchies, psychic ability

• Pink- Care, friendship, maturity, affection, nurturing, femininity

• Brown- Home, pets, animals, stability, finding lost items, grounding

• Silver- Intuition, dreams, the moon, goddesses, enchantment, inspiration

• Gold- Fortune, enlightenment, talents, strength, gods, the sun, charging

• Black- Safety, protection, summoning, banishing, cursing, power

• White- Purification, balance, healing, divination, exorcism

Flames

• Strong flame: Energies are raised

• Weak flame: You are facing opposition/resistance

• Jumping flame: Strong emotions around the subject

• Noisy candle: Spirits/ancestors have a message for you

• Fast burn: Results will happen quickly

• Slow burn: Results will take time

• Flickering flame: Spirits are near

• Cannot extinguish flame: Spirit isn't finished

• Black smoke/soot: Something/someone is blocking the situation.

Smoke Direction

• Up: Energy is clear

• East: Energy has cleared/moved through

• West: Clearing, transmutation, or purification is needed

• North: You have received the information you need

• South: Transformation is on its way; a time to heal

Wax Reading

• Arrow: Direction, focus

• Circles: Successful outcome

• Moon: Spirituality, feminine

• Diamond: Gift, partnership

• Eye: Need for introspection

• Cat: Mystery

• Coins: Wealth

• Crown: Leadership, ego

• Egg: Birth, beginnings

• Feather: Need for independence

• Frog: Money

• Heart: Love

• Key: Knowledge, education

• Letters: Names of loved ones

• Numbers: Time (day, hour, etc)

• Lighting: Sudden occurrence

• Sun: Happiness, success, masculine

• Hand: Your desires will come

• Hourglass: Have patience

• Leaves: Success

• Lighthouse: Guidance

• Mask: Secrets

• Squares: Be careful

• Tree: Unity

[elliebyrrdwrites]

Marriage Law Trope part 3

Obviously, Granger refused to have the ceremony at the manor, despite all of my mothers requests and horde of howlers. Mother wanted to save all of the time and money she spent planning her only sons wedding. So, she brought the ceremony to Granger.

Inside of the ministry, is this sad little room for the kinds of witches and wizards who want to get married without all of the hoopla. They either don’t have the money to spend on a big wedding, or they just need the marriage for legal purposes.

But mother fills this room with the white Lillie’s and the pink carnations and she charms to ceiling to sparkle. There’s a massive wedding cake in the middle of the room on a table she set up herself. It’s three tiers with the smallest one holding two figurines of a bride and groom. The bride originally resembled Astoria with her black hair and pale skin. I had to ask Theo to transfigure it to resemble Granger. He managed to transfigure the skin to resemble the sandy color of Grangers and the hair to grow two sizes bigger, but it’s still black. Not brown.

With a shrug, he moves back to my side. We’re both leaning against a wall, and I’m dressed in the first clean(ish) suit Theo could find before forcing me out of the door.

The finality of last nights drunkenness simmered into a buzz and is now boiling rapidly into a hangover. It starts with a headache that begins at the base of your skull and then it wraps around and you swear you can feel your brain scraping against your scalp because you’re so hungover you think everything has shrunken or expanded. You aren’t really sure, but all of those scenarios pop into your head and you just can’t even blink without the pain landing into your brain, behind your eye sockets.

The point is, I feel like shit on what some may consider the most important day of my life.

Theo peers at me from where he’s leaning and begins to dig through his pockets. Inside of his jacket, in his pants pockets. I don’t know what he is looking for and I can’t understand how he keeps digging around in the same pockets for long periods of time but finally. He produces a vial of something bright red and holds it out to me as I watch my father hiss into my mothers ear. Across the room, he’s telling me, my mother, the worl, that at this is the worst thing to ever happen to the Malfoys.

��Take this.” Theo says and I take the vial, without looking it. I take the vial and uncork it before tossing the entirety into the back of my throat.

Because potions are not new to me. Potions are what I do. It’s just that, ever since Granger rolled into that room last week, I don’t want them. I hate them. They dull everything inside of me and everything around me. And so, every other night, I skip them. Every other night, I let myself feel the spread of my sheets as i lay down to sleep. I mull over data and information, mostly about the things insane and heard and I felt.

And then I close my eyes. I blink and then it’s morning. Everything stops and then speeds up until the sun is shining through my curtains. Sometimes I doubt that I even fell asleep.

The point is, I didn’t take my potions last night because I wanted to feel the enormity of this day. I wanted to remember the way it felt to watch Granger say ‘I Do to Draco Malfoy.

It’s not like I have any romantic feelings. It’s just interesting and something about the way she stood up to father makes me think she’s going to do something stupid and reckless and I really just want to remember it. I want to feel it all.

The point is, we have to kiss. This isn’t just a business deal, because we’re expected to get intimate. We’re expected to stick my parts into her parts and make a fucking baby.

But the point is, I got stupid drunk last night because I couldn’t figure out what kind of kiss to give her. It’s not like I even want to kiss her. But if I don’t, or I do, what is then outcome? If I kiss her like she’s repulsive, she’ll likely hex my balls off.

If I kiss her like I want to fuck her, like I want to consummate this, she will likely still hex my bullocks off.

And I don’t. Really, I don’t.

It’s just that, she has the greatest set of tits I��ve ever seen wrapped inside of fabric.

The potions tastes like pepper up with a kick of something tart. And my tongue tingles just as the door to the room opens.

Granger is dressed in a white dress. Her shoulders are bare and the dress is simple, like something you’d wear to an afternoon garden party and her hair is pulled back with intricate braids that meet at the back of her head but the rest of her hair is down and wild and she feels like the falls of Asaranca during summer. It’s Warm and wild but there’s a cool steady mist blowing in your face.

Trust me, I know.

But, behind Granger, there’s Harry Potter and there’s Ginny Weasley. And there’s Ronald Fucking Weasley.

Ronald Weasley is as freckly as ever, but that’s not why I hate him. Freckles don’t bother me. He’s combed up and dressed in a suit that actually looks new and fits his big gangly body, but that isn’t why I hate him, either. I don’t even hate his copper colored hair. Copper has its appeal.

The point is, just the mere presence of him grates at my nerves.

It’s like being lit on fire and being able to do nothing about it. Your blood is boiling and it feels like your skin is tightening around your temples but really it’s just your nerves getting frayed and there’s nothing you can do.

And the point is, that when Granger steps into the room, his hand moves to the small of her back and I can feel the possession in his touch, even from here I’m standing.

And the point is, I’d rather die than have my wife be something Ronald Weasley feels like he owns.

The room fills with the tension that spreads and reaches out for all eight of us. It’s threading itself into our skin and through the fibers of our muscles until it settles deep into the gut or carves itself out a little space in our chest.

There isn’t enough room in there for my heart and my lungs and all of that tension.

Because it’s pounding and my lungs are contracting over and over and Granger is looking at me from across the room like she’s just seen life on the moon. She takes her big dumb eyes and shines them on me like I’m that thing she lost years ago, and totally forgot all about it until this moment.

Until she’d stumbled upon it like we stumbled upon it in the middle of looking for something else. And now she can’t remember what she was looking before she found me.

And the point is, it’s unnerving. The look of this witch with her lips parting and her eyes glimmering, it’s too much. Because she’s about to give herself to me, and I’m going to pull her into my life and into my chest and lock her in there. I’ll have to protect her from everyone,even my father. I’ll have to care for her and we don’t even like each other.

My magic is buzzing and my heart is pounding and Theo is nudging his shoulder into mine, telling me to calm down.

“Either the potion’s kicked in, or you’re very excited to see your bride to be,” Theo says and when drag my eyes away from Granger, he’s pointedly looking at my nose. There’s steam pouring out of my nostrils and my ears and I can feel it wafting up my throat as I step away from the wall to greet my bride. But, I cough and puff out a cloud of tart flavored smoke.

Grangers face lights up in a way I’ve never seen before.

Her lips quirk and her eyes latch onto mine and then she smiles. She’s smiling at me like she can’t help it. Like the smoke and my nerves are all something precious and I feel like I’m being bolted to the floor. I can’t move and the best of my heart increases and so I just stare.

I stare and staresndstareandstare. I can’t stop staring at the way her lips lift and show the row of pearl like teeth, the slight sliver of her top gum.

“Ahem,” father clears his throat and the spell is broken. The mudbloods magic fizzes out and her smile transforms into something cruel and bitter as she looks to look at my father.

The tension thickens as the Marriage Commissioner enters behind Grangers gang of Gryffindors.

“Are we all ready?”

The little room is bursting with flowers and tension and the nine of us.

Nobody is ready. We’re all fidgeting and on edge.

Potter is shifting from foot to foot as he squeezes onto the hand of Ginny Weasley. She’s narrowing her eyes on me, a brow lifted like she’s sure I’m about to take a shit on the entire thing. Theo is fiddling with his bow tie and I don’t know why he’s nervous. He thought the entire idea of me and Granger getting married is hilarious.

But now he’s adjusting his tie and shaking his hair from his face and staring at my parents like they might do something.

Mothers just wringing her fingers together and watching Granger with something like wonder filling her blue eyes, rounding them out and lifting her brows.

Father is scowling as he watches everyone step into place.

I step up to the little alter that is on the far east side of the room. The commissioner stands at the podium.

Theo and my parents line up on one side. Potter and the Weasleys on the other.

Granger steps up to the podium and then all of the eyes in the room are on me.

They’re poking and prodding. They’re waiting and predicting.

Because what will Draco do?

Something stupid, his fathers eyes say. Theos eyes are begging me to be reckless.

Harry thinks I’m going to do something to hurt Granger.

Ron Weasley is telling me to run away. His eyes are gobbling up his golden princess and he’s begging me to give her back, give her back.

Granger barely looks over her shoulder, and her eyes don’t land on me. I don’t know what Granger wants.

But I step up beside her and her shoulder brushes against my arm and my headache is gone but in its place, my heart has spread into my throat and into my head. I can feel and hear it in every part of my body.

The commissioner doesn’t drag it out. It’s like ripping off a bandage. It’s better to just get it over with, don’t prolong the pain. Just pinch the edges and pull.

And before I know it, I’m turning to face Granger and she’s turning to look up at me and there’s a ring shoved into my hand. I slide it onto her little fingers that look like they belong between my teeth and I’m promising to care for her and protect her. I’m promising to love her and she’s doing the same and isn’t that some shit.

Were promising to do something that we had no choice in. They’re forcing us together and now they’re making us swear to love each other when we never got the chance to figure it out on our own. And we don’t. We don’t love each other. We hate each other but now we’re going to love each other for the rest of our lives.

You may now kiss the bride.

The words crack into my mind like a whip. I’m jolted back into a moment I can never forget because I’m not being dulled down by the potions my father encouraged me to take. And this is why I drank last night.

Because I’m forced to make a decision that neither of us wants to make.

I clear my throat and I can see Granger swallow as her eyes flick to her friends, to the commission, who nods encouragingly.

She looks to my parents and to Theo.

I lean forward and I have to bend my knees so that I can lower myself to her height and gently place my lips against hers.

I settled on a respectful, closed lipped kiss.

Her lips are soft and firm and warm. There’s a spark of magic that dances against my mouth and I gasp. I gasp and make to pull away.

But Grangers hands suddenly clasp over the back of my neck as she lifts up onto the tips of her toes and deepens the kiss. She takes advantage shock forces her tongue into my mouth and, I think I’m falling.

The point is, my hands hold onto her, grasping at her face and her waist and I’m falling. I’m falling into Granger and she takes me, catches me and devours me.

The kiss is wild and it’s inappropriate but I think I’m cursed because I can’t stop kissing her back. I can’t stop slanting and molding my mouth to hers. I can’t stop letting her massage my tongue with hers I can’t stop her little fingers from gripping onto my neck or from finding their way into the little hairs at the nape of my neck.

I can’t stop the way my fingers press into the fabric of her dress like I might rip into it. I can’t stop the way I, forcing her body to crowd into mine.

The kiss is like a dance that is synchronized and well practiced, like we’ve been doing it forever.

Someone clears their throat and Granger slows the kiss down, kissing me once, twice, three times before she pulls away with my eyes still closed.

She pulls away and when I open my eyes, she sends a smirk at my father and the point is, I can’t care.

The point is, that ancient beast that was a part of me is now a part of her and something wild and frenzied is suddenly brewing right here. Here in this space between her body and mine, my mind and hers The point is, it’s here to stay and the point is, I can’t stop this, even if I tried.

Trust me, I know.

[ladyimaginarium]

𝐏𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐀 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐝: 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐨 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫 !

From left to right, top to bottom: Pile 1, Pile 2, Pile 3, Pile 4, Pile 5, & Pile 6!

Instructions: Use your intuition to pick a card that calls to you most, then scroll to the bottom underneath the read more and find your pile(s) to receive your message!

Disclaimer: take what resonates, leave the rest of what doesn't & don't force anything if it doesn't fit your situation, keep in mind that energy and outcomes can always change & nothing is forever set in stone, you have free will in every choice you make !! keep in mind that this is a general collective reading so the messages here may not apply to everyone. as a general message: my readings are for entertainment purposes only and don't replace professional medical/legal/business help. feedback and a review after a reading is given, whether public or private, is obligatory. you can do that by reblogging ( only if the reading was made for you specifically ), dming or emailing us privately on the matter. if you do not provide this, you will be added to my greylist and won't be given anymore readings, free or paid, until you give feedback. keep in mind it's more than okay to pick more than one pile if you feel you have messages in other piles! don't just leave this in the likes, reblog and support your tarot readers, my time and labour aren't for free. while it isn't necessary, if you'd like to tip, here's my p/ayp/al. I have personal paid readings available which you can fill out the form here so tips, bookings & feedback are highly appreciated considering i plan to do this for a living!

decks used: Disney Villains Tarot & Dark Wood Tarot & Pink Tarot & Killstar ( or as we lovingly call it Memento Mori ) Tarot & Horror Tarot & GANGSTA. Tarot.

Pile 1: You have Justice! First things first is the most obvious in terms of synchronicities: the movie Big Hero 6 may have some significance to you, or East Asian culture, particularly Japanese culture. You may either live in Japan or have traveled to or plan to travel to Japan. You may be born in San Francisco, California, or California as a whole may also be significant to you or you may be American. When I look at this card, my first intuitive thought is that you may be worried about the state of the world right now, and honestly, I wouldn't even blame you, so am I, but I need you to know that things are not hopeless. If you raise your voice and spread awareness to things that matter to you like the way things are going right now and you genuinely care about other people, then you're doing the right thing. You yourself could be an activist or at the very least if you're not officially one, you could care greatly about social justice. The number 11 could be significant to you. Justice is ruled by Libra so you may have those placements or someone you know or someone important to you could have those placements. On a less grander scale, I can see something being made right for you in a situation that's been going on in your life, I'm specifically seeing for a lot of you this could be a relationship - I'm mostly getting romantic relationships here but it could be a friendship dynamic - gone wrong or someone who refused to hire you for whatever reason. You'll likely either reconcile with someone or alternatively for some of you, you could be getting a better offer. Regardless, though, if this resonates with you, congrats, Pile 1, I'm so happy for you!!

Pile 2: You have The High Priestess! You may be intuitively drawn to the occult or your faith, should you have one, right now, and you may be isolating to look at the situations in your life introspectively. The color green may be significant to you. A feminine energy may be significant (it doesn't necessarily have to be a woman!), whether it's a mother, a sister, a girlfriend, an elderly woman, an ancestor of yours or maybe even a feminine deity who wants to reach out to you. You yourself may be interested into getting into tarot and I say if that applies to you, go for it! The number 2 may be significant, it may be a date of the month that's significant, something could happen in 2 days or 2 weeks or 2 months, or, alternatively, since February is the second month of the year, something important could be happening this February! Cancer, Scorpio & Pisces may be significant, you may have those in your placements or someone you know may have those placements considering its ruled by the Moon.

Pile 3: You have Strength! This is completely random but I'm getting that at least some of you who get this card and picked this pile are furries, otherkin, alterhuman and/or someone who has animal deities that they follow. Some of you may literally be lionkind if you're otherkin or you may have a lion as a fursona if you're a furry or if you are a system, you may have a system member who's a lion. You may also be neurodivergent, I'm getting for a lot of y'all autistic specifically, considering the infinity symbol. The color pink may be significant to you because this is my pink tarot deck. I'm getting that if you practice and believe in crystal healing, get some rose quartz, especially if you want to attract love, especially romantic love, into your life. Lions may pose some significance to you, and if not lions, then felines. You yourself may have a cat. You may be spending more time with your cats. The Lion King may be significant. For very few of you you may actually work with wild animals, especially big cats, which if that's the case that's literally so cool! This was what I read for someone last month when I told y'all that you'd have to be resilient in something you're doing because someone may be testing your patience and I'm getting that again. Make sure to set healthy boundaries with someone if necessary! Leo may be significant, whether you have those in your natal chart or someone you know has those placements. The number 8 could be significant, something could happen in 8 days which is little over a week from when you're reading this. This is random, too, but I'm getting an intuitive hit to buy flowers for yourself if you're alone by yourself on Valentine's Day if you're reading this by the time this post is written. Someone may want to give you flowers, or flowers in general may be significant to you. Regardless, though, I know for a fact that you'll be slaying anyway no matter what you do! SLAY!

Pile 4: You have The World! I'm immediately getting that you're about to or already have completed a cycle in your life and to that I say congratulations, Pile 4!! I'm getting a ringing in my right ear so that just confirms it!! Maybe you've FINALLY managed to achieve something you've wanted to do, maybe you're feeling a little more at ease in this new chapter in your life. For some of you I'm getting that you may have moved to a new place! If that applies, that's awesome, Pile 4!! The number 21 could be significant, you yourself could be 21 or something could happen on the 21st of a month. The Earth element rules The World may be significant, so Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn may be significant to you, and since Saturn rules The World, Capricorn and Aquarius may also be significant to you, whether you have any of those placements yourself, or someone else you know may have them. The symbol of Ouroboros may be significant to you, too. Regardless, though, I say y'all are doing wonderfully and I'm hoping y'all will stay on the top of the world !!

Pile 5: You have The Chariot! You may be struggling to move forward with a decision you've made or maybe even debating on what to choose. Usually in the traditional Rider Waite tarot there's two horses representing two choices, that isn't present here as there's only one horse here. To that I say follow your heart and your intuition most of all and it won't lead you astray. I'm getting this... very specific message for a lot of you, but I need y'all to know this, okay? It's okay to leave the past behind. It's okay to let go. Horses may be of significance to you. For very few of you I'm getting you may be equestrians or have ancestors who were equestrians, notably Mongolians and Scythians or any of the Plains Turtle Island Indigenous Nations, but that definitely won't apply to everyone. For some of you the Celtic deity Epona or perhaps even The Legend of Zelda may be significant because I'm getting The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker's opening theme playing in my head ehehe. The Chariot is ruled by Cancer so Cancer may be significant to you, and the number 7 may be significant, something could be happening a week from now when you're reading this which is what I'm getting for a lot of you and for others your birthday could be the 7th of a month, alternatively, you could be born in July. You've got this!

Pile 6: You have The Empress! HOOO BOY I'm getting for a lot of you who picked this pile, y'all may be lesbians and/or sapphics of some kind because I just got, like, psychically blasted in the face with some really gay shit and specifically sapphic yearning LMAO. I don't know, I'm just getting that vibe and not just from the character Gina Paulklee from GANGSTA. herself who she herself is canonically a lesbian/sapphic. For a few of you, the animanga series GANGSTA. may be significant to you, or you may want to read/watch it as you may find some messages in there that may be important to you. For some of y'all, a strong maternal figure could be significant like a mother, an aunt or even a deity who's really powerful who may be trying to reach out... I'm getting Athena (Hellenismos) and Sekhmet (Kemeticism) for a lot of y'all, and for fewer of you, I'm getting Amaterasu (Shinto), Hera (Hellenismos), Hathor (Kemeticism), the Morrigan (Celtic Paganism), Freyja (Asatru), Oshun (Yoruba Ifa, Candomble & Santeria, Black/Afro-Latine exclusive, if you're nonblack don't touch!), and Sky Woman (Huron-Iroquois/Haudenosaunee, if you're nonnative or not a member of any of these nations don't touch!) so any of these deities may be significant to you. If it doesn't apply, let it fly. You could be in your divine feminine energy (everyone has this energy inside them regardless of gender, sex, orientation or presentation!) and stepping into your own personal power. Some of y'all may be exploring sensuality and your own sexuality or for any of my lesbians/sapphics in this pile, you may be getting a girlfriend. This my baddie pile and I don't necessarily mean in an Instagram baddie way (and you don't have to be a woman to be a baddie!) although you could fit or like that aesthetic, but I moreso mean in the sense that you're gaining confidence in yourself and what you do, and in other words, you really are That Bitch TM & I'm so happy for y'all if that applies !! The Earth element rules The Empress so that may be significant, so Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn may be significant to you, and Venus rules The Empress and for some of y'all I'm getting that Aphrodite (Hellenismos) and/or Venus (Religio Romana) literally may be wanting to reach out to you to work with you if you don't already. The number 3 may also be significant, so something could be happening in March as its the third month of the year and as I'm posting this the month after this month, alternatively, the 3rd of a month may be significant, or something could be happening in 3 days from now, or weeks or months, but I'm getting for y'all it's likely 3 days. With that said, that's about all I have for your reading, thank you so much for being here!

[loudn-mcyt]

Another day, another set of builds for the superhero AU. (As always, previous builds can be found through the masterpost here, and a poll for the next kingdom can be found here). This time, it's the Birch Boys - and who else would be so suited to supervillainy?

First up is The Milkman, the villainous alter ego of one SadMilkman. The colors for this one are the standard green of Milkman's outfit and the beautiful colors of birch wood (I am legally obligated to state that he is NOT threatening me if I say anything different). Nothing felt more natural to me than for Milkman to become the kind of villain contained within a silver age rogues gallery, and so I have created this masterpiece (monstrosity) of a character.

First up are Milkman's powers. Inspired by his expansive skin gallery, I gave two complimentary abilities in Master(?) of Disguise and Adaptable, which allows him to adopt the appearance and skills necessary for whatever his scam of the week might be, though he would never remove his trademark mutton chops for the sake of a disguise (and, strangely, it never seems to affect his recognizability that much). His other power allows him to play his own theme music at will.

His advantages and skills are geared towards playing this up even further. The advantages either allow him to lie and impersonate even better or get him a clean getaway when it goes south. He has at least a couple skill ranks in almost every skill in the game (the exceptions are expertise and ranged combat, both of which require specializations to be chosen). This allows him to use every skill, even those that require training to use, while still exploiting his powers to gain the free bonus ranks from his beginner's luck ability and variable skill points. The skills he's expected to be using all the time, such as deception, persuasion, and stealth. Deception is most notable: the daze (deception), fascinate (persuasion), and taunt advantages, which allow Milkman some extra options both in and out of combat, all while the skill mastery (deception) advantage means that the lowest Milkman can get on a deception check is a 26.

The only real disadvantage Milkman has here is in his combat abilities; his defenses are (slightly) under par, he carries no weapons, and his unarmed attack is relatively weak. However, he can do something about his attack bonus with his adaptable power, so he's not completely helpless. And besides, Milkman's not usually one for a straight confrontation - when things start to go south, he looks for a way out.

Fool's colors come from his eye and gold fool's. uh. gold? When I made this, I was going primarily off of vibes, his actions in the trial, and the bits of lore I was able to pick up off of other posts and discussion in the sbk discord. However, apparently Fool serves a god of luck, so I latched onto that hard. This fool still serves Atium, and he's also the city's foremost head of organized crime, facilitating black markets, smuggling, assassinations, and more while also generally keeping himself from actually having to do the work (not that he isn't capable...)

Fool is a luck manipulator. This is most clear in his Atium's blessing ability, which actually uses a mechanical effect called luck control; in system, it allows for him to manipulate dice outcomes, force rerolls, and otherwise be a bit of a menace. Jinx provides his primary offensive option; as a perception effect, he can target anyone he can see, and with the subtle and insidious modifiers, the target will find themself unlucky in everything they attempt without noticing that this is unnatural and while being unable to pinpoint the source. Finally, lucky escape represents all the lucky happenstances that make any attempt on Fool's life significantly less effective. Taking a sniper shot? he ducks under at the last second to tie his shoes (enhanced defenses). Throw him out a window? He lands in an open truck carrying mattresses (safe fall). Actually manage to get a hit in? Turns out that it just grazed him, or you happened to hit his phone and it deflected (protection to avoid hits, subtle healing to make the wounds significantly less bad than they seemed). This extends as far as making Fool functionally immortal, so long as his death has the slightest bit of a chance that he could have escaped it (and in a comic setting, that includes a LOT of things). Atium does not want to lose its main champion in the world.

Fool's advantages and skills are designed to reflect the mafia boss aspect of his character. He is wealthy and connected, and he can get what he needs provided he has time to make a few calls. His headquarters is expansive, and he's well-equipped for his day-to-day.

Also, if everything else fails, Fool can pull out a gun and shoot someone. And nothing feels more appropriate than Fool with a gun.

[thelampisaflashlight]

So, about that OC I was working on:

Design wise, he's like I smashed Jeremy and Raphael together, and the outcome was this guy here without the... Well, he's got issues, too, but not quite as many as those two, and certainly less than them both combined.

His full name is Asclepias (as-KLEE-pea-us) but he usually goes by "Klee", though his other nicknames are Sweet Pea (Some of the sisters call him that because he's very helpful and kind, and seems to be quite genuine when it comes to doing things just because it's the polite thing to do.) and Pupa (One of the other earth ghouls called him that ONCE and now it's his name amongst that group.).

Klee has brown hair that comes out to orange tips (dye job gone wrong) and red/pink eyes that he shifts to brown when he's in his human glamour.

Physically speaking, Klee is in good health, and leads a fairly active lifestyle that gets him out and about more often than not, but he's decidedly average when it comes to his athletic abilities.

While not as book smart as some -he does okay, but he's no Einstein- he knows a fair bit when it comes to the world around him and approaches most things with an open mind and patience. What he lacks in mental fortitude, he makes up for in emotional stability and common sense.

Klee was born and raised in Limbo, which is like the Ohio of Hell. Take that as you will.

And lastly, some spitfire tidbits;

His favorite color is purple.

He's an example of a ghoul made from using a human vessel to contain a demon, so he has a bit of a "blended" memory problem.

He was summoned as part of a "test batch" of ghouls for another branch of the ministry, which, apparently, was not exactly, uh, ethical and/or legal, so he's staying at the abbey until that gets sorted.

Very much an example of "I can't have trauma if I don't remember shit." meets, "I don't remember shit because I have trauma."

Cuts his hair in the bathroom at 3am when his brain is too loud, still manages to "make it work" by claiming it's art and definitely not a cry for help.

A indefinite resident of the abbey's "rehab" until they can figure out how best to help him.

Cat noises.

[beardedmrbean]

Do they ever give up? Those looking to divvy up Americans by race, that is.

In California they tried to get race preferences approved in a 2020 referendum, but voters rejected it 57.2% to 42.8%. This was a stunning rebuke, not only because the rejection came from residents of a blue state but because the losing side had outspent opponents something like 14 to 1.

In 2023 the Supreme Court weighed in with a landmark ruling that barred colleges from treating people as members of a racial group instead of as individuals—and cast constitutional doubt on all race-based preferences. “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. Couldn’t be clearer, right?

Not in California. Undaunted state Assemblyman Corey Jackson is pushing a bill called ACA7. It takes aim at the state ban on race preferences that voters put in the constitution in 1996 when they passed Proposition 209. Californians reaffirmed Proposition 209 three years ago at the ballot box.

The language the voters agreed to and the activists hate reads as follows: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” Unlike the 2020 effort, the new bill would leave that language intact. Instead, it would add a provision allowing the governor to create “exceptions.” Effectively that would gut the ban.

Apparently, the lesson the advocates of state-sponsored discrimination have taken from their defeat is that if at first you don’t succeed, try something sneakier.

Here is Mr. Jackson’s press release summarizing the bill: “ACA7 will allow . . . the Governor to issue waivers to public agencies that wish to use state funds for research-based, or research-informed and culturally specific interventions to increase life expectancy, improve educational outcomes, and lift people out of poverty for specific ethnic groups and marginalized genders.”

Gail Heriot is a University of San Diego law professor who sits on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and was a leader of both Proposition 209 and the “no” effort on the 2020 referendum. She has launched a petition with Extremely Concerned Californians at change.org opposing the measure.

“ACA7’s proponents are hoping that voters will be fooled into thinking that it is just a small exception,” Ms. Heriot says. “In fact, it gives the governor enormous power to nullify Proposition 209.”

Edward Blum agrees. As the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, he spearheaded the lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina that killed race preferences in college admissions.

“Racial preferences are never legally justified because some specious ‘research’ report concludes it would be beneficial to a certain race,” says Mr. Blum. “This exemption will trigger endless litigation that will polarize California citizens by race.”

But sowing discord is a feature, not a bug. As the bill was making its way through the Assembly, Mr. Jackson got in a spat with Bill Essayli—a Republican who is also the first Muslim elected to the Assembly. Mr. Essayli pointed out that the majority of Californian voters disagree with state-sanctioned discrimination. “I fundamentally disagree with this backwards policy,” he later tweeted.

Mr. Jackson responded in his own tweet: “This is a perfect example how a minority can become a white supremacist by doing everything possible to win white supremacist and fascist affection.”

ACA7 passed the state Assembly in September. If it passes the Senate, it will be on the ballot in November. If Californians vote yea, it will become part of the constitution.

But all is not lost. The 2020 referendum awakened a sleeping giant: the Asian-American community. Asian-Americans quickly realized (as the Harvard case drove home) that they and their children are the primary victims whenever race is substituted for merit. Asian-Americans are more aware and organized than they were in 2020. They aren’t likely to be fooled by talk of “exceptions” based on “research.”

It also isn’t a given that ACA7 will make it through the state Senate. Though Democrats enjoy a 32-8 majority, polls consistently show race preferences are unpopular. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s support will be crucial.

Though he has no formal role in the constitutional process, some think the bill will go nowhere if Mr. Newsom doesn’t want it to. If it does make it to the ballot this November, he’ll be under immense pressure to endorse it. That’s another reason the Senate should kill ACA7 now, Ms. Heriot says.

“California voters need to make sure their state senators know where they stand—through emails, phone calls, letters, and petitions,” Ms. Heriot says. “Once the senators understand that, they will realize putting ACA7 on the ballot is not in their interest.”

[bookishbrigitta]

Worried about the USA elections? Take care; Be prepared.

Like many of us, you might be worried about the outcome of the USA presidential election. Consider these ways to manage your worries and protect your well-being.

Important tips

You don't have to watch the coverage. Results will be the same regardless. If it makes you more anxious, turn it off.

Find things to do (see below)

Be in a space that is physically comfortable/comforting

Remember to eat and drink! Whatever appeals and doesn't upset your stomach is fine.

If you use medication to support your mental health, make sure you take your maintenance meds and don't be afraid to take your "rescue" meds if you need to. (This is advice given to me by my psychiatrist, who I must say for legal reasons isn't your psychiatrist, but still.)

The national mental health crisis hotline is 988.

The American Psychological Association has a list of various crisis numbers including ones for violence, abuse, and substance use.

The outcome of an election is not the outcome of the rest of your life. There are always more options and always ways we can make things better.

Activities and distractions

Fidget toys

Cooking/baking

Cleaning/household tasks (laundry, etc.)

Paint your nails

Stretch

Go for a walk

Work out

Have a personal dance or karaoke party

Take a shower or bath

Do your hair ~fancy~

Jewelry making

Games -- Cards, board games, tabletops

Puzzles

Journal (picture, collage, found objects all count, too)

Coloring

Build something (like Lego)

Sketching/doodling

Painting

Knitting/crochet

Embroidery

Felting

Low-stakes phone games

Crosswords/Wordle

Sudoku

Origami

Read or listen to a book

Listen to podcasts

Watch a show or movie that won't be interrupted by newscasts

Managing acute emotional dysregulation and distress

Do "square" breathing (breathe in 4 seconds, hold 4 sec, out 4 sec, hold 4 sec, repeat)

Do progressive muscle relaxation

Do a guided meditation

Use your 5 senses to focus on something small

"Shake out" your body

Say a mantra, poem, phrase, prayer, etc.

Change your body temperature: Use a heat pad to relax tense muscles or an ice pack to get your attention quickly and reduce inflammation

Smell something distinct or comforting

Eat something with a sharp flavor, like mint or something spicy

Think of imagery that makes you relaxed, like a calming beach

Scream into a pillow

Plan something you will do in the future

Drink water

Use a fidget toy

Hug a plush toy or pillow

Massage tense muscles

[darkmaga-returns]

It feels like there's been a notable shift amongst Democrats in the last month. A recent sense of fatalism - or perhaps just simple resignation to what appears to be an inevitable Trump win. But as it turns out, there are some Democrats who have been preparing for this potential outcome for at least the last year.

(Article by Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke republished from TruthOverNews.org)

One of those people is Norman Eisen, and it looks like he’s up to his old Lawfare & Color Revolution tricks again. The man responsible for virtually all of the legal attacks on President Trump now has a new activist group - although it has many of the same players - and they’re preparing for an assault on a second Trump Presidency.

Eisen, a Brookings senior fellow, Obama’s former White House Ethics Czar and Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the “Velvet Revolution,” has been behind the ongoing Lawfare that has targeted Trump for years. Eisen was one of the primary forces behind the first impeachment of Trump and is also the co-founder of Leftist non-profit CREW or Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Eisen played a lead role in Democrats pre-2020 election war games which predicted a remarkably accurate contested election scenario that ended unfavorably for Trump. Of particular note in regards to his current efforts, Eisen is also the author of the highly influential color revolution manual, The Democracy Playbook.

Eisen’s latest venture, State Democracy Defenders Action (SDDA), bills itself as bringing “together a bipartisan all-star team of experts in safeguarding democracy” and ominously claims they help "shape the long term strategy to defeat Election denial and its logical outgrowth: American Autocracy, starting with preparing for a vigorous response to whatever 2025 - and beyond - may bring.”

Their site claims that SDDA will “fill three key gaps in the fight against election sabotage and autocracy” by going “on offense against democracy deniers who break the law, including through our innovative program of outside public support for criminal prosecutions.”

[perotovar]

tagged by the darling @iero ty honey!!

Do you make your bed?: no lol

Favorite number?: i've never really had one, but there are numbers that stand out and probably mean something. i'm pagan, i can't ignore it lmao

What's your job?: currently unemployed, but i'm a student!

If you could go back to school, would you?: this is something i've been thinking about a lot lately lol i have the chance to go to a 4-year (possibly) but idk if i want to continue to be stressed out even if the outcome would be beneficial

Can you parallel park?: so, funny story lol i don't actually have my license yet (thank you anxiety) but i can drive/park, just not legally lmao i'm working on getting it soon tho!

Do you think aliens are real?: for sure. i think it's ignorant to think they aren't

Can you drive a manual car?: no

What's your guilty pleasure?: i don't really believe in "guilty pleasures", but i guess trash tv counts. real housewives, catfish, steve wilkos, things like that lol

Tattoos?: just one right now, but i want a LOT more

Favorite color?: dark green and black

Do you like puzzles?: i do and i don't. i think it's satisfying when one is done/figured out, but they frustrate me lmao

Any phobias?: i have really specific ones so it's just easier if i say "clowns" lol

Favorite childhood sport?: i used to play softball and there was a time when i actually wanted to be on my high school's football team, but they wouldn't allow girls to try out. this is funny to me now because i don't identify as a girl anymore, but it's still bullshit. nowadays i like watching roller derby once in a while

Do you talk to yourself?: very rarely. the other night i was looking at mods for bg3 now that i have a gaming pc and i said, out loud, "i have so many options now!!" lmao

np tags: @sp00kymulderr @userparamore @chronically-ghosted @mrsmando @ozarkthedog and anyone else that wants to!