#due to the former's stonewalling them

[evening-rose-309]

I'll say, and I offer this correction out of posterity, because you're going to get attacked for this "both sides" statement, comrade,

Israel is currently commiting active genocide and borderline ethnic cleansing against Palestine. on the citizens of Palestine. and they can come up with as many excuses as they want, but it comes down to money.

Palestinian land is land the Israel state can take for themselves to do with however they please, but mostly, from what I gather, in an effort to bolster business. There's a smorgasbord of US centralized businesses that do business or have some kind of land or production deal that uses up realestate that Israel can only provide by taking from their neighbor.

Decades of what looks like prejudice from both sides fueled mostly by a propaganda machine run largely by Israel to justify war.

And I know this all sounds like SJW conspiracy theorist bullshit, but I can guarantee you, if it ain't the answer to your question, it's the most probable one.

Now, HAMAS aren't saints. Neither is the Israeli government in their biased charges against Palestinian wards in their holds, now mutually released as per the ceasefire that I can't say is holding up too well, but hey. A step forwards.

And I'll be frank. I'm callus. I'm speaking rather callus and rather unsavory because this genocide has been weaponized by my country's religious extremists against what few Jews are allowed to exist here and cannot defend themselves. These extremists are in our schools. They are molding and shaping and bludgeoning the minds of our next generation, my generation, and others to come with their rhetoric. I have had Nazi sympathies crooned into my ear and blazed across my face from the age of nine. If it weren't for my uni delay, I would've been a Proud Boy, or something like them.

I have Feelings about the entire situation that would get me lynched, I'm cynical because it's been proven that nothing any people anywhere, not even those rattling the gates of the Great White House, will do much if anything when an actual government regime decides it's going to ignore the Geneva Convention. At some point, for some countries, there was no Geneva Convention. They deleted the memo. They don't care.

I'm rather numb to the whole thing, but I will say for certain:

Israel has Palestine at gunpoint. Israel is killing Palestinian children. Israel is uprooting Palestinian lifeblood.

Think about it this way: why are Israel's lawns clean? Why are there no pictures of ruined Israeli hospitals? Why aren't there sob stories of Israeli father's kissing their daughters on the eyes one last time? Why doesn't Israel look like it's been clocked by a nuke?

Simple. They're the ones with the nukes. They have the button, dull red with viscera, warranty of Silicon Valley on the palm side, and they've been spamming it all day and all night for the past quarter of a century, aimed at the place it would most benefit them to turn into a barren unlivable husk with barest risk of incurring Uncle Sam's wrath.

and there is little you or I can do from here, other than circulate the latest and most bone chilling reports, learn a little more from those who can actually link sources on posts and not go with "it's both sides!" whenever someone confronts them, donate a penny, pray for the best, and not stop doing those small things even if you can't muster a roaring bonfire in your heart for it anymore. because many hands make light work and Palestine and their needy need as many hands and as much work beyond their walls as they can get.

The Israel-Palestine conflict makes no sense. Why are they blowing each other up? Over a piece of land? A religion? A story in a book? A line drawn on a map by someone a few decades ago? No explanation makes sense, and nothing justifies killing each other. Nothing justifies killing kids.

[helenadurazzo]

Experimentation

Part two of my rewrite for Year Seven, Chapter 51, major spoilers ahead for this chapter, also as the story goes on, there is angst, especially in this part

Some Nicknames and Aliases for R Members

Raijin -> The Leader, R, Rage

Zacharias -> The Overseer, Stygian

Verucca -> The Director, Chameleon

Pietro -> The Poison Brewer, Stonewall

Patricia -> The Curse Breaker, Flare

Kazuhiro -> The White Robed Wizard

Merula -> The Director’s Niece, Blight

Helena was now surrounded by members of R and, as she lost her wand somewhere during the ambush by Verucca Buckthorn-Snyde, at the quidditch pitch. The plan was for her and Jacob to intercept a secretive test R was going to perform, however it backfired tremendously. Somehow, her brother managed to not be found and captured by the Director, so she supposed there was a sliver of hope. Still, she was not quite sure if she would ever see her wand again, or the light of day for that matter, as R’s headquarters hosted nothing but darkness within its walls and dimly lit interior. She was never a strong dueler, however even someone not skilled with offensive spells knew it

was better to have a wand then not have one. If only she had bothered to learn wandless magic, she thought. Perhaps she might have had a chance to stop the horrors that were destined to occur.

She looked helplessly at Erika, still dressed in her emerald green Holyhead Harpies quidditch uniform. She was standing opposite of her with an R member on either side of her. Even though, like Helena, she was not restrained, it would be foolish to try and run while being surrounded by so many powerful dark witches and wizards. The only option either of them had was apparation, thankfully both had their license and it was clear that there was no anti-apparation placed on the building due to a member of R apparating in every five or so minutes. However, Helena knew full well that she would not save herself through apparation if it meant leaving Erika behind,

and by the fact that Erika had not tried to escape by that method either meant the feeling was mutual.

Suddenly, they were joined by the infamous leader of R and two other high ranking members of R that Helena had always assumed were his most trusted colleagues based on the stories she heard from Jacob. Everyone she had ever met had either referred to the leader of R as either R or Rage, however both gave out the same feeling of mystery and fear. He was a young looking man of Japanese origin with long pitch black hair and dark brown eyes, however Jacob claimed that he was most likely older than he actually looked. Jacob always told her there were many things about him that even his most trusted advisors did not know, however, one thing they knew for certain was

that he was a descendant of Dai Ryusaki.

The man with greasy black hair and almost glowing brown eyes that walked on the right side of the leader of R was one that Helena knew unfortunately all to well from family gatherings. She did not see Zacharias Hearst much, however, even as a small child she knew there was more to him and plenty of dark secrets he was hiding. Apparently, the building they were standing in, was rumored to be his hideout and the host for many of R’s meetings and gatherings when not in the darkest corners of Knockturn Alley. For a while, she and Jacob managed to get an inside look on R by intercepting letters written to him about R’s new findings and meetings.

However, they assumed their little secret was found out as the letters became more and more sparse, still, it gave them enough information to come up with their original plan to take down R once they found the Sunken Vault. There, they had been ambushed by her former defense against the dark arts professor and two other R colleagues, however, they were able to capture Patricia Rakepick and one of her two colleagues, while the other managed to get away with a box of ancient treasures that now sat on a table next to a cauldron of bubbling liquid being stirred by an older man with grayish red hair and circular glasses. Helena now realized that retrieving this chest was R’s

plan all along, it did not matter who got captured, as long as they could retrieve the artifacts they so deeply desired.

The woman on the left of the leader was another figure Helena recognized. She had gray hair that made her look way older than she actually was, with only a bit of orange hair left in the form of her bangs, a Snyde family trait. Helena had first seen her during a failed ambush of R at Knockturn Alley which ended with only a few minor members of R being captured, yet the interrogations proved they knew nothing of importance. However, it did confirm to her of Merula’s betrayal of the Circle of Khanna causing for Ben and her to make an executive descision to ban her as Merula had chosen the murders who stole Rowan

Khanna away from them, rather than her classmates, some of which who even tried to extend a hand of friendship despite her previous actions, however, Helena recognized that unlike many of her storybooks, Merula was incapable of any redemption at this point, having rejected it too many times.

Helena watched as the leader looked at her sternly, “We tried to warn you, just like we did your brother. However, it seems that we must once again show you the consequences of opposing us, just like we did with your brother.”

“Then again I am personally not surprised by your disobedience, especially considering how rebellious your mother is.” Helena heard her great uncle comment which made Helena hold in a snort. He certainly had an interesting view of what disobedience was. “First she embarrassed the family by not being sorted into Slytherin, then pursued a childish dream as a career, and finished it off by marrying a filthy squib.”

“Let me propose you one final offer.” The leader spoke to her in the same tone he did before. “If you join us and swear to be loyal to R and only R, we will let your companion go free.”

“What’s the catch?” Helena hesitantly asked.

“I believe you are well aware.” Her great uncle informed her with a cocky smirk.

Helena honestly could see why her family despised her great uncle with some even fearing him. She remembered her aunt telling her and her brother over the holidays when they asked her if she knew anything about Zacharias and his possible acts of dark magic, with her only being able to tell them about a story where Zacharias would obliviate anyone who found out too much, being one of the best with the charm in his generation. He could easily implant false memories into anyone he encountered and the concept frightened her to the bone.

Helena looked towards her girlfriend, who, while not saying anything, did give her a look of sympathy, appearing willing to accept the decision she was about to make. However, Helena knew full well that the decision she was about to make would determine if she would be able to see Erika again. She figured it was selfish either way, for different reasons, but she figured the most bold decision was the proper one.

“I will never join you.” She sternly spat.

“So be it.” The leader accepted as he turned to the man near the cauldron and gave him a silent nod.

The older red haired man held a wand made of a brownish wood, “walnut wand, phoenix feather, unyielding, and thirteen inches in length.” The man verbally described the wand to the crowd, “a perfectly powerful wand to finish this potion, I thank you, Stygian.” The man finished before he turned back to cauldron and waved the wand over it, while muttering some spell Helena could not define, however something felt strangely familiar about that wand, Helena just could not put her finger on it.

“Do you recognize the wand?” She heard her great uncle suddenly ask. “I would not be surprised if you didn’t, after all, you were raised by your mother, the least traditional and worst Hearst in the entire family.”

Finally, it clicked for Helena once she ran through a mental recount of all of the wands stored in her grandfather’s home. She rarely went there, but when she did, she could not help but observe the wands of her ancestors, including her great grandfather, Phineas Hearst, who she now remembered, possessed a wand of that same description.

“How did you get your filthy hands on that wand?” Helena demanded.

“Oh calm down.” He casually replied. “Just asked my dearest younger brother if I could borrow it. When he said no, I took matters into my own hands. Do not worry, he is fine, he simply just does not recall the encounter, that’s all.”

It had seemed that during her banter with her great uncle, the man near the cauldron had given the potion to a younger member of R, a woman who looked to be around Gwenog’s age with pale skin, brown eyes, and short golden blonde hair, who had already placed the Crown of Mneme on her head. Something about her seemed familiar, perhaps if she and Erika made it out alive she could ask Gwenog. It was most likely just a student at Hogwarts who overlapped with her by two or three years that was on the popular side which allowed her to be recognizable even to younger kids, however, who the wearer of the crown was, meant little to Helena now.

“Now,” Helena heard the leader of R order, “Stand in front of Miss Rath and allow your feelings of negativity to flow like rushing water.”

“Don’t you dare!” Helena found herself snapping loudly, trying to free herself, hoping to manage to grab something and whack the young woman with the crown before it was too late. Was it foolish? Probably, but it was a worthless effort as two members of R held her back before she could do anything.

“Hmph.” She heard the leader begin, supposedly seeming unimpressed, “A childish demeanor like this is not suitable for a member of R, behave yourself”

“Take me instead!” Helena sacrificed herself, knowing full well that this was her first, not Erika’s

“Helena don’t.” Erika insisted sternly, accepting her fate, “I will not let you.”

Helena wanted to protest further, however, overhearing the wearer of the crown’s make a sudden comment distracted her, “I feel pain, heartbreak, anger…” she heard through grunts, “the dementors of Azkaban… my worst memories…”

The Sunken Vault! Helena did not know why she did not think of it sooner. She had deciphered that the crown most likely came from the collection of treasures R stole when Helena and her team encountered them at the end of her sixth year at Hogwarts, she herself even facing her own worst memories in that vault, which seemed to be an amplified version of what she faced in her third year. Helena tried again to stop the procedure, yet every time she moved, the members of R restraining her made sure she made little progress, it seemed hopeless, absolutely hopeless.

“Excellent!” The leader exclaimed with what seemed to be pride, something that disgusted Helena as the crown started to spark, “Now, Miss Court, channel those feelings into Miss Rath!” He demanded loudly and with a fierce force, “Now!”

Everything from there seemed like a blur. She watched helplessly as a beam of pure white light that acted like lightening came out from the crown and struck Erika in the chest continuously, only stopping when Helena heard someone yell out “Stupefy!”

It was enough distraction for her to escape her restraints and take cover. When the golden blonde woman fell to the stunning spell, the crown briefly sputtered out a few remnants of power before it eventually wore off. As a crowd of aurors came rushing in, picking duels with the members of R, she briefly caught a glimpse of Erika on the ground, seemingly not moving, although the distance could have contributed to that. However, her vision soon became blocked as duels broke out.

“Thought you might need this.” She heard the voice of her brother say next to her, placing a familiar object into her hand.

Helena looked down to see her wand in her hand and back up at Jacob, “Thank you, but how-“

“Later.” He interrupted her, “come on, let’s take down R, together, once and for all.”

Helena nodded before she followed her brother back into what had now become a battle field. She fought alongside him, firing off a number of spells and watched triumphantly as wands flew out of their hands, others falling to the floor, and others simply being distracted just long enough for an auror to cast incarcerous and apparate that auror to some other location for them to be detained, only for that auror to return shortly after to continue fighting and repeat the cycle, allowing for the number of aurors to eventually overtake the members of R.

It was certainly a challenge to duel when she was so distracted and not even a strong dueler in the first place, at least compared to her brother. When it came to the idea of dueling, her opinion was almost identical to her mother’s with only prioritizing on defensive spells and instead pouring all of her attention into the study of herbology, even though the cursed vaults and dealing with R stopped her from doing that most of the time.

She tried to find Erika among the chaos but failed to do so. It had seemed that between her time taking cover when the ambush occurred and her getting her wand back and fighting off members of R, Erika had managed to disappear. The fact concerned Helena as she figured there was no way Erika had enough strength to apparate on her own in the case that she was still conscious after being struck by the power of the Crown of Mneme.

Soon enough, the dark room only consisted of her, Jacob, her mother’s cousin and his son, Joseph and Toby and surprisingly her aunt along a few other Aurors who whom she had not noticed before.

“That should be the last of them.” She heard her aunt Cynthia assure Jacob.

“Good work.” Jacob satisfyingly replied, turning to Uncle Joseph, “Thanks for getting all of the Aurors together so quickly, I know it was not an easy task.”

“Not a problem at all.” Joseph assured him, “It is always a relief and a pleasure when we can take down one of these organizations, and it’s why we are always prepared to do so at short notice.” He then turned to his cousin, “You know you did not have to join us, you are on holiday with your family after all.”

Aunt Cynthia chuckled at his comment, “and let you and Olivia have all of the fun? No way.”

“Wait…” Helena reacted as she turned to her brother, “You allowed Mum to come here!? Why? She could have gotten hurt!”

“I know it was a risk.” Jacob admitted, “but I needed someone who could apparate you and Erika out in the case that one or both of you were injured before anything worse could happen. Mum was the first person who came to mind, you know she always told us how she was a prodigy when it came to Apparation. Plus, she is good friends with many of the healers at Saint Mungos, with her level of influence, she could get you and Erika to receive the proper care, we did not know what could have happened in the time you were in R’s hands.”

“I actually volunteered to come to help protect her.” Aunt Cynthia revealed, “Unlike Joseph and Toby I’m not an official auror for the British Ministry of Magic anymore and have not been since I married your uncle. It gave me a tad bit more flexibility allowing Joseph and Toby to help the others get more R members into custody faster. The plan always was for your mother to get out of there if there was no need for her. We found Erika pretty quickly and as her condition looked to be bad and Jacob had spotted you earlier and you seemed to be in good health and condition, she went ahead and apparated Erika to Saint Mungos for medical attention.”

“Honestly, she did quite well considering that stunning charm she cast was able to stop the affects of the crown.” Toby noted.

“Speaking of the crown.” Helena began, sounding concerned, “Where is it? Do not tell me a member of R still has their hands on it.”

“Relax.” Toby assured her, “I have it right here.” He said as she showed her the crown that she supposed he had been holding to this whole time, yet Helena hadn’t managed to notice.

“Me and Toby are going to take it to the ministry for safe keeping.” Uncle Joseph explained. “We will how some professionals examine the crown and determine the best course of action.”

Helena nodded as she heard her brother speak again, “I assume you want to go to Saint Mungos?”

“Yes.” Helena confirmed.

“I will go with you two.” Aunt Cynthia commented, “to make sure my sister is ok.”

“Catch up with you soon Cynth,” Uncle Joseph bid farewell before apparating away with Toby.

“It will be safer to do a joint Apparation.” Aunt Cynthia instructed, “it is a long distance after all.”

“Alright,” Jacob agreed while Helena silently nodded as the three grabbed each other’s hands, with aunt Cynthia leading the apparation.

Soon enough, the three of them were in the main waiting area of Saint Mungos. Helena watched as healers dressed in green robes scurried about. Scattered throughout the room were patients with a variety of conditions. A lot of them seemed to be magical mishaps such as one person floating in the air and another having the face of cat. However, eventually she spotted her mother, talking with one of the healers in a corner of the waiting room, although by the time they approached, the healer had already left and went back to where the patients were kept.

Her mother had seemed to sense their approaching and turned to them with a smile, “Good news is that she is going to be ok, the healers predict she will gain consciousness before the end of the day if everything else goes smoothly. However, as it was an injury caused by a magical artifact they don’t have a lot of knowledge on, they’d like to monitor her for a couple of days after that.”

Helena instinctively embraced her mother, “Thank you, …you did not have to do this”

Helena felt her mother returned the embrace and run her hand through Helena’s long dyed dark blue hair, “I know that Lena but I had to, for you. Now you need to rest, you have been through a lot…”

[dertaglichedan]

Gingrich: Where Are Woodward And Bernstein When We Need Them

Authored by Newt Gingrich via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The conspiracy between a corrupt set of bureaucracies (including the Justice Department, the IRS, and the intelligence community) and an equally corrupt and enabling elite media is astonishing. The Durham Report is just one more confirmation of the devastating level of dishonesty and manipulation which have characterized the last few years.

Some analysts believe the open corruption can be traced back to Lois Lerner and the IRS scandal, in which she clearly stonewalled conservative organizations from getting tax status. When she was found to be in contempt of Congress, the Obama Justice Department spent two years ignoring the congressional contempt charge and then decided not to prosecute her.

As Congressman Jim Jordan said at the time, U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen was “us[ing] his power as a political weapon to undermine the rule of law.” Jordan went on “Mr. Machen … unilaterally decided to ignore the will of the House of Representatives. He and the Justice Department have given Lois Lerner cover for her failure to account for her actions at the IRS.”

The signal had been sent that protecting the left would itself be protected.

This lesson was reinforced in the cover up about the terrorist attack at Benghazi. The Obama administration was worried that the killing of an American ambassador—despite his consistent appeals to the State Department for more security—would hurt the president’s reelection campaign. So, the administration adopted a strategy of simply lying to the American people.

This began the week of the attack when the administration did everything it could to avoid responsibility for a terrorist killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens. In fact, the Obama White House immediately sent former United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice on five network shows to blame an American-made anti-Muslim video for causing the supposed unrest. It was exactly what Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick had warned against in her famous “Blame America First” description of liberals. We now know that the entire story was a falsehood, and no one in Benghazi was motivated by a film they had never seen.

When then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before Congress, she dismissed the whole question of responsibility for the failure to protect Stevens. She even failed to be honest about his murder famously saying: “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?”

The leftists in the national bureaucracies learned a big lesson from Lerner and Clinton. Whatever you need to do to defeat the right or protect the left is OK. You can get away with it. There is no responsibility for your actions if you are protecting the corrupt system.

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

Second Company lost a lot of dudes when the Cicatrix Maledictum opened, including their captain. As in, whole-ass ship fucking vanishing into Warp storms. Also everything was on fire at that point due to, y'know, the Cicatrix Maledictum opening and all that jazz. It wasn't like Calgar could wait around for a ship whose last words were, "They have breached the hull. They are here," to come back. So he appointed one of the surviving officers captain, and that was Acheran.

Now, Sicarius and a few other 2nd Company dudes did eventually make it back to Macragge, but it took them years. The Ultramarines aren't too keen on demoting an officer who hadn't done anything wrong, and Sicarius had been appointed to the Victrix prior to his disappearance, so he left with Guilliman while Acheran stayed captain. As far as I know there were no hard feelings between them. So far, there hasn't been much written about Acheran, but hopefully Space Marine 2 will go some ways to changing that.

As for Titus, in a weird way he does outrank Acheran. Official lore states that Titus was 2nd Company captain before Cato Sicarius. Anyway, Space Marine ends with him being taken into Inquisition custody. After that, Titus just...disappears. Calgar repeatedly demands information about him from the Inquisition and gets stonewalled. Eventually the Ultramarines assume that he's dead and put up a statue of him in their Hall of Heroes.

Two hundred years later Tigurius picks up Titus's Warp signature; he's fighting 'nids as a Blackshield in the Deathwatch.

Yeah so it turns out the Lord Inquisitor who took Titus into custody had a reeeaaaaaaaaalllllly big axe to grind against Astartes. As in, "kept a fucking torture stable" axe to grind. No one knew what he was up to until after his death, when the Inquisition went through his stuff and found stasis cells full of space marines. Titus hadn't gotten any word from his Chapter since his detention and assumed he had been stricken from their records for his actions on Graia. So after his release he joined the Deathwatch for lack of other options.

Everything gets cleared up once Tigurius links up with Titus. Titus gets reinstated as an Ultramarine and reassigned to his old company, the 2nd. But again, the Ultramarines aren't too keen on demoting a captain simply because an earlier captain showed up. So Titus is given the rank of lieutenant instead.

So lorewise, there's a lot going on here. I'm not sure how they're going to handle it in the game. I'd love to see the game cover how 2nd Company is recovering after losing so many battle brothers, but uhhhh I'm not very hopeful. Frankly speaking, the way they integrated Titus into canon was pretty clumsy; it would have made a lot more sense for him to be Agemman's predecessor, not Sicarius's. That said, I do think it's possible that we'll see something about the how awkward it must be for a former captain to be serving under a much younger, relatively new captain. Acheran already had some pretty big shoes to fill, and now he's gotten another famous former captain dumped in his lap. That's not a comfortable position to be in, even though Titus isn't interested in wriggling back into the captain's seat.

ok. look. i need your opinions.

doesn't acheran look pretty goony?

it--it's the beard. i'm pretty sure it's the beard. acheran groom your beard.

[southern-god1]

The Southern Avengers:

An alternative to The Avengers, The Southern Avengers, are, as the name implies, a group of Southern superheroes who seek to avenge the destruction wrought during The Civil War (Sherman’s March, burning crops and fields, homes, etc). Southern Avenger films are full of rampages, destruction, domination, and otherwise dominating or humiliating Yankees. They are an all-male group of Southern studs, all with varied powers or talents:

Captain Confederate:

Captain Confederate is a proud Confederate Army soldier, and Southern Avengers leader. Excellent tactical and strategic planner, wields a shield with the battle flag and a pistol capable of altering ammo types as needed to deal with different threats such as explosive or incendiary rounds. Expert at close range combat, has enhanced strength, durability, reflexes, speed, as well as the ability to grow and shrink himself (but not others) at will. Second best team marksman after The Reaper. A charismatic Texan, he enjoys dominating Yankees and being worshipped, an ardent believer in Southern superiority. Based on Captain America and Jensen Ackles.

The Reaper:

The Reaper is from Atlanta, and is a badass former Confederate Special Operations black ops operator, sniper, expert marksman, expert hand-to-hand combatant, charismatic charmer and manipulator. The best shot on the team, he is equally at home with his pair of silenced .45s or a sniper rifle, and anything in between; he keeps a pair of throwing knives on him, a pair of knives, and his boots have two blades inserted into the tips. Can effortlessly assume any number of fake identities and has manipulated and charmed Yankees into doing incredibly stupid things because he convinced them it was the right thing to do. A master infiltrator, and thief, he also excels at improvisation and trickery, often making weapons out of household objects if he is denied access to his guns. Based on Black Widow, Michael Westen from Burn Notice, other spies.

The MAN:

The MAN is Jordan Helms, an NC country boy with all the powers of Superman, but stronger, and with a hatred of Yankees and anything non-Southern. No weaknesses, unlike that wimpy alien from Krypton. Possibly the single strongest member of the team, due to the versatility of his powers. Also the fastest member of the team. He enjoys Yankees worshipping him, but is something of a perfectionist and refuses to tolerate Yankees who can’t meet his standards, often simply killing the ones who fail to meet his worshipping standards in a variety of ways. Based on Superman. The name Southern Superman seemed redundant.

Thor:

Southernized Thor. God of Thunder, Lightning, and other such things, cocky, loves being worshipped and tormenting Yankee mortals (not that are anything other kind). Has especially destructive beer burps, fitting for the god of thunder. The teams other “heavy-hitter” alongside The MAN, Thor is one of the most durable members of the team. Having been Southernized, he has since gained the power to change his size, as clearly shown above, looming over a very doomed city. Based on, well, Thor, obviously.

Stonewall:

Stonewall is a super strong and super durable Florida football player, he can grow bigger or smaller at will, and has no known size limit. So far as we are aware, he’s completely invulnerable; a nuke just annoyed him because it burned off his clothes. Can grow others, with concentration and effort. The single strongest person on the team in terms of sheer physical strength, effortlessly lifting mountains and tossing worlds around. Based on Tim Tebow, Ant-Man/Giant-Man, and the Hulk.

Pale Rider:

Rhett Delacriox is a wealthy New Orleans occultist making use of dark magic, can resurrect Confederate dead in studly new bodies, or just unleash various magical attacks or use voodoo. TFing Yankees, destroying souls, reanimating Confederate dead in sexy new bodies, driving Yankees mad with horrific Lovecraftian rituals, seducing them and then killing them in inventive or ritualistic ways, etc. He is a handsome Louisiana stud, driving an enchanted motorcycle, and has a modest fortune from his family, using it to acquire new spell books, and would very much like to get his hands on The Necronomicon. While very powerful in direct combat and very handy with a blade, he prefers transforming, illusions, stealth, and surprise. Based on Dr. Strange, Scarlet Witch, John Constantine, other magic users. Name comes from the Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse; “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”

Iron Rebel:

A slightly paranoid Southern billionaire, Colin Wayne created a heavily armored combat suit to protect himself after several Yankee assassination attempts, and uses to fight Yankees. His armor is extremely versatile, and equipped with an incredible amount of weapons, both lethal and non-lethal. An expert hacker and engineer, Iron Rebel is capable of flight and has a contingency plan for pretty much every situation. Inspired by Colin Wayne, Iron Man, and Batman, to an extent. Couldn’t find an exact picture of the armor I wanted, but that’s a good fit.

Thoughts? I enjoy worldbuilding like this, thought I’d share it with y’all! Thoughts, questions, anything?

Feel free to reference them in asks or whatever, come up with ideas for more members of the team, Yankee “supervillains” etc. After all, there’s no hero’s from Virginia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky (not technically a Confederate state, but I’ve always considered it Southern), Tennessee, or Arkansas.

Image credits belong to their respective owners, and are not mine.

[choicescreen]

NEW YORK AVATARS. when this city came alive, a small group of people were chosen to represent it. 

bronca sinawoy. butch lesbian. sixty-eight. lenape.THE BRONX. hot-tempered. fuck around and find out. she was at stonewall when she was seventeen, the alcatraz occupation when she was eighteen, heavily involved in aim all throughout her twenties and thirties, soothed aids patients when their families and nurses didn’t, and somehow had the time to get her phd in art history. she runs an art center in the bronx, and is about to be a grandmother. as the oldest of the avatars, she works as the knowledge holder, and can tell you anything you need or want to know about her city. (i write her, so she goes first.)

the primary. queer. twenty-one. black. NEW YORK CITY. a homeless artist, the avatars are in search for this enigmatic young man throughout the events of the novel. 

manny. bisexual. late twenties. black. MANHATTAN. he loses most memory of his former life, representing his role as a new new yorker. he is a somewhat ruthless strategist. he can allow non-avatar new yorkers to see the enemy if he needs to use them. 

brooklyn “mc free” thomason. heterosexual. fifty-two. black. BROOKLYN. former rapper, lawyer, and current city councilwoman. she has a middle school aged daughter and a sick father. her power is rooted in music. bronca called her out for homophobic lyrics back in the 80s once she realized who she was, something she apologized for.

padmini prakash. lesbian. twenty-five. tamil. QUEENS. graduate student. her power is rooted in mathematical imagination that can change physical reality. she’s bubbly and a little awkward, but very intelligent and quick-witted once she believes in herself. 

aislyn houlihan. heterosexual. thirty. white. STATEN ISLAND. lives with her parents. her father is an abusive, racist cop who calls her “apple”. she can become invisible. she’s involved in n*zi bullshit, so she’s a villain and everyone rightfully fucking hates her. she joins the side of the enemy, eventually. 

OTHERS. cities already born, side characters, and enemies. 

mr. hong. none of your fucking business. appears late fifties, actually much older. chinese. HONG KONG. chinese-inflected british accent. smokes, but doesn’t like it, representing the smog and pollution of his city. kind of an asshole. never not seen in a suit. told bronca to “fuck off” when she told him he couldn’t smoke in a specific area, so he’s got brass balls. 

paulo. bisexual. appears early thirties, actually late thirties. brazilian. SÃO PAULO. due to him being the last city ���born”, paulo was saddled with the responsibility of helping new york be “birthed”. the only city “born” in this side of the world. also a major smoker, which he can use to combat enemies and other … eldritch horrors.

veneza. bisexual. trans. twenty-four. black and portuguese. NEW JERSEY. works with bronca at the bronx art center. sees bronca as a mother figure.

the enemy. ageless. UNKNOWN. an infectious, otherworldly lifeform that wants to kill the newly born city of new york. it appears in many forms, including the woman in white (basically a karen girlboss stereotype), dr. white, contagious fungal fronds, and x-shaped spider-like creatures. 

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

May you give some tips on how to write about mid-nineteenth century and early twentieth century ?? Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks if there is an answer or not xd 😅 greetings and take good care :) :D

Okay, so I only really know about AMERICAN mid-nineteenth and early 20th century history, so I hope that’s what you mean!!

How to Write About The Mid-Nineteenth/ Early Twentieth Century America

This post will encompass 1850-1920 in America only. A lot of things happened during this period, so I’m going to try to outline it as best I can! This post is gonna be a long one, so I put all of the specifics under the cut:

Overview:

The Industrial Revolution hits. We begin this era with horse-drawn carriages and end with planes, tanks, and cars.

Expansion west, “Manifest Destiny”

The Civil War ends slavery in the United States

The Gilded Age marks an era of unbridled capitalism and robber barons, while the Progressive Era following it marks an age of activism and human rights.

13th Amendment in 1865 abolishes slavery, 14th and 15th Amendments in 1868 and 1870 gives Black people the right to vote, 19th Amendment in 1920 gives women the right to vote.

World War I marks a major advancement in technology and global affairs, sets the stage for the second world war that will come later.

The Roaring 20s provides a façade of success to precede the gigantic stock market crash of 1929.

I’ve copied and pasted a lot of this information directly from America’s Best History and added tidbits of my own as well!

1. The 1850s

Presidents:

Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)

Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)

Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)

James Buchanan (1857-1861)

Important Events:

- Peak point of tension between North and the South, primarily over which states will be admitted as free states or slave states.

- The Compromise of 1850 admits California as the 31st state, without slavery, and adds Utah and New Mexico as territories with no decision on the topic. The Fugitive Slave Law is strengthened under the Compromise, which also ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

-1854 - The Republican Party is founded, in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. (Note: This form of “Republican” is essentially modern-day Democrats. The parties switched platforms later.)

-The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allows the issue of slavery to be decided by a vote of settlers. This established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and would breed much of the rancor that culminated in the actions of the next years of "Bleeding Kansas."

2. The 1860s

Presidents:

James Buchanan (1857-1861)

Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)

Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)

Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)

Important Events:

-1860- The Pony Express begins. Overland mail between Sacramento, California and St. Joseph's, Missouri is carried over the Oregon Trail for eighteen months by this series of riders on horseback, then rendered obsolete when the transcontinental telegraph is completed.

- 1860 - South Carolina is the first southern state to secede from the Union in response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President.

-The Homestead Act of 1862 is approved, granting family farms of 160 acres to settlers, many of which were carved from Indian territories. This promotes expansion West, and eventually led to the establishment of the state university systems.

- The Civil War 1861 – 1865

Overview: Union won due to their advanced railroad system and industrialization that provided them with clothing and other supplies. South is ransacked by General Sherman, brings about era of Reconstruction. Slavery is abolished, but former slaves are not immediately emancipated.

People to know:

Abe Lincoln (President of the Union)

Ulysses S. Grant (Union General, future President)

William Sherman (Union General)

Jefferson Davis (President of the Confederacy)

Robert E. Lee (Confederate General)

Stonewall Jackson (Confederate General)

 Important Events/Battles:

Fort Sumter 1861- A fort in Charleston, South Carolina harbor is bombarded by Confederate forces after the U.S. Army commander failed to evacuate, thus triggering a declaration of war.

Battle of Bull Run 1861- First official battle in Manassas, Virginia. Confederates emerge victorious as picnicking (yes, you read that right. People were picnicking and using the battle as entertainment) onlookers watch on in horror; realization that this war won’t be resolved quickly or easily.

Emancipation Proclamation is issued by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862 stated that all slaves in places of rebellion against the Federal Government would be free.

Battle of Shiloh 1862- Victory of Union over Confederacy. Led by Ulysses S. Grant.

Battle of Antietam 1862- Bloodiest day of the war in Sharpsburg, Maryland. 

Gettysburg 1863- Considered the turning point of the war. The furthest Southern incursion into the North, where the Union beats back the attacking Confederate troops. A few weeks after the war, Lincoln issues the Gettysburg Address (“Four score and seven years ago…”).

The South Surrenders on April 2nd, 1865

- April 9th, 1865 - Abe Lincoln is assassinated at Ford Theatre by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson takes his place, and he does not keep up Reconstruction and withdrew all troops from the South so they could be left to their own devices. This is said to be the reason for segregation.

- 1866 -The KKK is formed  to prevent Black people from voting. Things such as poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests are implemented by states to also discourage Black people from voting as well.

-  1867 -Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million dollars, approximately two cents per acre, by signing the Treaty of Cession of Russian America to the United States.

- 1869- The final golden spike of the transcontinental railroad is driven into the ground, marking the junction of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. This act, as much as any other, would signal the marked increase in the settlement of the west.

3. The 1870s

Presidents:

Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)

Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)

Important Events:          

-The Gilded Age begins. Characterized by gross materialism and blatant political corruption that gave rise to important novels of social and political criticism.

-1870 - Standard Oil Company is incorporated by John D. Rockefeller.

-1870 - The first African-American to be sworn into office in the United States Congress, Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi takes his place in the United States Senate.

- 1870 - The 15th Amendment is ratified. It gave the right to vote to Black Americans. Race would officially no longer be a ban to voting rights, though it continues to be an issue in Southern states.

- 1871 - The great fire of Chicago starts. The fire burned 1.2 million acres of land, destroyed 17,450 buildings, killed 250 people, and left 90,000 homeless.

- 1876 - The Battle of Little Big Horn occurs when Lt. Colonel George Custer and his 7th U.S. Cavalry engage the Oceti Sakowin and Cheyenne Indians on the bluffs above the Little Big Horn River. All 264 members of the 7th Cavalry and Custer perish in the battle, the most complete rout in American military history.

- 1877 - Crazy Horse surrenders to the United States Army in Nebraska. His people had been weakened by cold and hunger.

- 1878 - The first commercial telephone exchange is opened.

- 1878 - Thomas Edison patents the cylinder phonograph and the Edison Electric Company begins operation

4. The 1880s

Presidents:

James A. Garfield (1881-1881)

Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885)

Grover Cleveland (1885-1889)

Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)

Important Events:

- 1881 - Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.

-1882 - The Standard Oil Company trust of John D. Rockefeller is formed when Rockefeller places all of his oil holdings inside it.

- 1883 - The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is passed by Congress, overhauling federal civil service and establishing the U.S. Civil Service agency.

- 1884 - The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in the U.S.A. call for an eight-hour workday.

- 1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrives for the first time in New York harbor.

- 1886 - The Haymarket riot and bombing occurs in Chicago three days after the start of a general strike in the United States that pushed for an eight-hour workday.

- 1887 - Congress passes the Interstate Commerce Act to regulate and control the monopolies of the railroad industry.

- 1888 - The prototype for the commercial phonograph is completed by Thomas A. Edison

- 1888 - The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public.

5. The 1890s

Presidents:

Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)

Grover Cleveland (1893-1897)

William McKinley (1897-1901)

Important Events:

- The rise of Imperialism.

- 1890 - The Battle of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, occurs in the last major battle between United States troops and Native Americans. Hundreds of native men, women, and children are slain.

- 1892 - Ellis Island, in New York Harbor, opens as the main east coast immigration center, and would remain the initial debarkation point for European immigrants into the United States until its closure in 1954. More than 12 million immigrants would be processed on the island during those years.

- 1892- Nativist sentiments rise with the immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans flooding into the country. Italian, Polish, Russian, and other immigrants face significant discrimination.

- 1895 - The first professional football game is played in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

- 1896 - Plessy vs Ferguson decision by the Supreme Court states that racial segregation is approved under the "separate but equal" doctrine. This paves the way for Jim Crow laws in the South.

- 1896 - The first modern Olympic Games is held in Athens, Greece.

- 1896 - Gold is discovered near Dawson, Canada, setting up the Klondike Gold Rush

- 1897 - The era of the subway begins when the first underground public transportation in North America opens in Boston, Massachusetts. 

-1897- The Progressive Era begins

- 1898 – The Spanish- American War begins. It lasts one year and ends in U.S. victory. It was triggered by United States battleship Maine exploding and sinking under unknown causes in Havana Harbor, Cuba, killing two hundred and sixteen seamen. 

- 1898 - The United States annexes the independent republic of Hawaii.

- 1899 - The Open Door Policy with China is declared by Secretary of State John Hay

9. The 1900s

Presidents:

William McKinley (1897-1901)

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)

William Howard Taft (1909-1913)

Important Events:

- 1901 - The American League of Major League Baseball is formed.

- 1902 - The first movie theatre in the United States opens in Los Angeles, California.

- 1902 - Cuba gains independence from the United States.

- 1903 - Inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright succeed in the first sustained and manned plane flight.

- 1906 - The Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act is passed due to the efforts of “muckrakers” that worked to expose corruption. “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, which described the horrible conditions in the meatpacking industry, helped sponsor outrage that would get these laws passed.

- 1908 - The first passenger flight on a plane occurs when Wilbur Wright escorts Charles W. Furnas in the Wright Flyer III at Huffman Prairie Flying Field in Dayton, Ohio.

- 1908- The first production Model T is built at the Ford plant in Detroit, Michigan.

10. The 1910s

Presidents:

William Howard Taft (1909-1913)

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

Important Events:

- 1911 - Standard Oil is declared a monopoly by the United States Supreme Court and ordered dissolved under the powers of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

- 1913 - The first moving assembly line is introduced and adopted for mass production by the Ford Motor Company, allowing automobile construction time to decrease by almost 10 hours per vehicle.

- 1915 – The first telephone conversation is conducted by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson between New York and San Francisco.

- 1915 - The British ship Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat submarine, causing 128 American passengers to be lost. Germany, although it warned of the pending crises to passengers, issued an apology to the United States and promised payments.

- 1918 - The influenza epidemic Spanish flu spans the globe, killing over twenty million worldwide and five hundred and forty-eight thousand people in the United States.

- World War I 1917-1918

Overview: After three years spent remaining neutral, the United States joins World War I. The U.S. made its major contributions in terms of supplies, raw material, and money, and its joining into the war helped to turn the tides against the Germans and Ottomans.

People to know:

Woodrow Wilson (President)

John J. Pershing (General)

Important Events/Battles

The United States declares war on Germany in 1917 after the Zimmermann Telegram is given to the United States by Britain on February 24, showing the offer by Germany to give Mexico back the southwest United States if they would declare war on the United States.

June 26th, 1917 - The first troops from the United States arrive in Europe to assist European allies in World War I. Troops engaged in World War I would include conscript soldiers authorized by the passage of the Conscription Act, the Selective Services Act, on May 18, 1917. General John Pershing would be placed in command of the American Expeditionary Forces during the campaign.

1918 - The United States military forces has over one million troops in Europe fighting in World War I.

May 28, 1918- United States forces are victorious in the Battle of Cantigny, the first independent American operation.

September 26, 1918- Allied forces begin the attack at Meusse-Argonne, the final offensive of the war.

November 11, 1918 - Hostilities in World War I begin to end with the Austria-Hungary alliance for armistice with the allies on November 3. Armistice Day with Germany occurs when the Allies and the German nation sign an agreement in Compiegne, France. Woodrow Wilson would become the first U.S. President to travel to Europe while in office when he sails to attend the Paris Peace Conference on December 4.

1919 - The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending World War I.

- 1919- The 18th Amendment is passed, bringing about the era of Prohibition

11. The 1920s

Presidents:

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)

Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)

Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)

Important events:

-1920 - The League of Nations is established with the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, ending the hostilities of the first World War. In a final vote, the United States Senate again votes against joining the League.

- 1920 - Women are given the right to vote when the 19th Amendment to the United States constitution grants universal women's suffrage.

- 1920 - The National Football League is formed

- 1921 - A national quota system on the number of incoming immigrants is established by the United States Congress in the Emergency Quota Act, curbing legal immigration.

- 1923 - The first sound on film motion picture Phonofilm is shown in the Rivoli Theatre in New York City by Lee de Forest.

- 1924 - The Indian Citizenship Act granted all Native Americans citizenship that had been born within the territory of the United States.

- 1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross is inaugurated as the first woman governor of the United States in Wyoming.

- 1925 - Radiovision is born. The precursor to television is demonstrated by Charles Francis Jenkins when he transmits a 10 minute film of synchronized pictures and sound for five miles from Anacostia to Washington, D.C. to representatives of the United States government.

- 1928 - The first appearance of Mickey and Minnie Mouse on film occurs with the release of the animated short film, Plane Crazy.

- 1928 - Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly over the Atlantic Ocean.

- 1929 - Postwar prosperity ends in the 1929 Stock Market crash. The plummeting stock prices led to losses between 1929 and 1931 of an estimated $50 billion and started the worst American depression in the nation's history.

Hope this helped, and happy writing!!!!!

[a-room-of-my-own]

A bit of reading : orwomen.()scot/did-you-know/?fbclid=IwAR0H7TqxQNqemZcAGFtvR_HLkbkxmZ4FY6srcgrULWxGPyWuc6QPTmDQfVI

Did you know…

…that 80-95% of people who say they are trans choose to have no medical treatment at all – no surgery, no drugs, not even therapy? Transwomen are just male people who subjectively believe that they are female. That’s it. That is all that’s required.

Despite some commentators describing an “epidemic of violence against trans people“, transwomen are no more likely to be murdered than anyone else, and the best data available shows it’s half as likely. In Scotland, zero have been killed. In fact, transwomen are almost twice as likely to be the perpetrator of a murder than to be murdered in the UK, which is not surprising since a male pattern of violence is retained regardless of any transition or cross-dressing.

The 48% of trans youth have attempted suicide statistic is nonsense too. It was based on just 27 trans people (aged 26 and under), from a self-selecting online survey – which made the data worthless. Yet that hasn’t stopped the TIE Campaign peddling similar in Scottish schools (or is it 27%, they seem confused?), contrary to Samaritans advice on avoiding attributing the cause to any one incident. The NHS Gender Identity Development Service actually says “suicide is extremely rare” and rates of self-harm, distress and suicide ideation are similar to other children seen by CAMHS.

Did you know that 1 in 50 males in prison now self-id as trans according to Ministry of Justice figures? If it is so dangerous to be trans why do so many choose to come out when in jail?

Were you aware that 95% of prisoners are men, and 5% women? That most women in prison are there for financial crime, and most men are in for violent offending. Did you know that men commit 98% of sex offences? That 48% of transwomen prisoners are sex offenders (compared to less than 20% in the general male estate) and would swamp the female estate if they all transferred.

What makes these convicted sex offenders, who were born male, women? Why should female prisoners be locked up with rapists if they say “I am a woman”? Are you willing to be in a prison cell with a male rapist on that basis? And if not, do you think other women should be? Are you aware that women have already been sexually assaulted and raped, in several countries, because of this policy?

Did you know that Scotland already has a policy significantly more liberal than England’s, stating that transgender prisoners must normally be housed according to the “social gender” with which they self-identify? And that this policy was brought in by a senior prison officer, himself now a convicted sex offender? A policy put in place without even talking to women’s groups or considering that there would be any impact on female prisoners at all. Despite warnings of abuse, including from former women’s prison governor Rhona Hotchkiss, the promised policy review has not been forthcoming.

What about women’s refuges, have you considered what it could do to a woman fleeing male violence to encounter a male in that refuge? Read why the CEO of a domestic violence charity, Karen Ingala Smith, considers it imperative that refuges remain women-only, and her speech at the Scottish Parliament.

Did you know that a woman was asked to leave a shelter because, as a rape survivor, she couldn’t sleep in the same room as a strange male, regardless of how he identified? Are you aware that a man used self-id to access a women’s shelter where he sexually assaulted vulnerable women? Are you aware that a rape relief shelter in Canada lost all public funding for insisting they remain women-only, and had a dead rat nailed to their door?

Are you aware that the Scottish Government imposes a transwomen inclusive policy on Scottish Women’s Aid as a condition of funding and that Rape Crisis Scotland refused to guarantee a female counsellor for a traumatised teenager? We know from private meetings that they erroneously believe they cannot provide a single-sex service due to a lack of ‘case law’, despite having previously done so for many years. Did you know there is a male manager of a rape crisis centre, who failed to disclose his sex at interview, and which still claims to be women-led?

Are you aware that despite less than half of changing rooms in swimming pools and sports centres being mixed sex, 90% of sexual assaults have happened in them? Yet mixed-sex, ‘gender-neutral’ facilities are constantly pushed, including in schools – contrary to law and building regulations requiring separate sex provision – when it would be more responsible to increase third space unisex provision for the comfort of those who need it.

That’s before you even get into the issue of how to keep out predatory men who aren’t trans, if you say that any man who ‘identifies as a woman’ can use communal changing/showering areas at will. A man exposing himself in a park commits a crime. A man doing so in a women’s changing room, where you’re also naked, who need not have even told staff he identifies as a woman, may no longer be committing an offence.

Did you know that the Scottish Government funded LGBT Youth Scotland, a spin-off group from Stonewall, to write guidance for schools that breaches children’s rights in at least eleven ways? This includes the unscientific belief in gender identity, which even the Justice Minister is at a loss to define, the promotion of harmful breast binding and the removal of all single-sex spaces and sports. No-one should be surprised at this as Stonewall have long campaigned for the removal of women’s rights, although single issue political pressure groups should have been no-where near schoolchildren.

It took the Government until June 2019 to commit to replacing this guidance, having privately received advice that it was “not legal“. Yet, this new legally compliant guidance is seven months overdue and the Education Minister is refusing to withdraw LGBTYS’s guidance in the interim.

Why should we accept smear tests from any male who feels they have a womanly gender identity – what does that even mean (let’s ask the Justice Minister again)? And yes, it is happening. A rape survivor who wanted a woman to carry out her breast screening found her letter used as an example in hospital trans guidance as ‘unacceptable’ and ‘highly discriminatory’. And a woman in a psychiatric ward who was terrified at being locked in a ward with an “extremely male-bodied” fellow patient was regarded as a transphobic bigot. The truth is that women in mixed-sex hospital wards, particularly psych, have very real reasons to fear men.

Did you know that 35 clinicians have resigned from the Tavistock (children’s gender clinic in London) over their failings, including the Governor? Who later wrote a damning account of the abject failure to heed evidence that their affirmation-only policy is harmful to children, especially to the huge influx in girls who may suffer other complex problems, such as trauma, autism, a history of sexual abuse or discomfort with their developing sexuality. A staggering 48% of children referred to Tavistock have ASD traits, and a BBC Newsnight investigation revealed significant numbers of children seeking transition treatment based on their family’s homophobia.

Are you aware that studies show that puberty blockers result in 100% of children progressing to cross-sex hormones – whereas, if left unmedicated, the Tavistocks’s own research shows over 90%, if supported by counselling, are happy with their sex once they emerge from puberty. Did you know hormone blockers may cause sterility, a large decrease in IQ, bone density loss, and more? An investigation by the Health Review Authority concluded that blockers are really the start of irreversible physical transition and recommended that “Researchers and clinical staff should…avoid referring to puberty suppression as providing a ‘breathing space’, to avoid risk of misunderstanding.” This led to a major overhaul of the NHS UK website which no longer considers blockers to be fully reversible and confirms long-term effects are unknown.

The young person’s gender clinic at Sandyford, Glasgow has recently withdrawn their information booklet and we trust it will be similarly updated. Do you think all the government funded trans organisations will be scrupulous in updating their information too – including LGBT Youth guidance in Dumfries and Galloway, Scottish Trans/NHS guidance, and Stonewall advice, among many more, including of course the already deemed “not legal” school guidance by LGBT Youth?

Are you aware that the number of children referred to Sandyford is rising at a faster rate than the rest of the UK? Yet they don’t actually know how many girls have been referred as children can select what sex they want recorded on medical records – although unofficially, clinicians report similar concerns as elsewhere about the huge proportional rise in young girls seeking to transition. Did you know that bias, and not evidence, dominates the WPATH transgender standard of care followed in Scotland? And it is woefully out-of-date considering the fundamental change in patient make up since it was written in 2011.

Read the speech given by Dr David Bell at the Scottish Parliament and consider why, if his report about issues at the Tavistock prompted the Director to resign, was it not enough for the Health Minister, Jeane Freeman, to instigate an enquiry into identical practices at Sandyford? Perhaps the Government will listen to the outcome of a Judicial Review that is being sought by Keira Bell, a detransitioning woman, who wants to protect other troubled young girls from similar treatment.

Are you aware that women with our views are threatened with violence, rape and death, almost as an everyday occurrence? We are told TERF is not a slur, but I challenge you to find any instances of it being used without abuse or threats attached to it. Do you think it’s in any way acceptable for lesbians to be on the receiving end of these menaces for asserting, or even just trying to be proud of, their right to be same-sex attracted? Do you really think there’s such a thing as a lesbian with a penis?

All that hate is from transactivists, and is aimed at women with our views. I challenge you to find anything remotely equivalent from here, from our recorded talks, or indeed anywhere else. This is NOT a case of two sides as bad as each other. And it’s notable that the hate is not aimed at genuinely transphobic, aggressive men. It’s aimed at women. It’s aimed at us.

And JK Rowling. Read the tweets she posted and look at the replies. Read the essay further explaining her thoughts and ask how anyone could possibly think she deserved such atrocious abuse, or how transactivists thought it in any way acceptable to post penis images in retaliation (don’t worry, it’s been edited!) on a child’s thread about Ickabog art.

Did you know women can be, and often are, fired for believing sex is real, that humans cannot change sex, and women and girls are entitled to privacy when undressing or otherwise vulnerable? And yet poll, after poll, after poll, after poll show that this is the majority view, by at least 80%. You may well wonder why then, is the Scottish Government proposing to bring in Hate Crime legislation that would see even JK Rowling imprisoned for up to seven years for expressing views deemed abusive by transactivists, yet affords women no such protection in law, based on their sex.

Innate gender identity is a belief system. There’s no evidence one exists. If our Government cannot even define it, then it should not be presented as fact to our children. It should not over-ride women’s hard fought for rights.

Do you know that the very word ‘woman’ will change definition, if the trans lobby succeed? If we can’t define what a woman is, how can we accurately capture data? How can we record male violence, the pay gap, our representation in government, business, finance, law, media…anywhere? Police Scotland already record incidences on the basis of gender identity, but can’t seem to recall when, or why that happened, and the census looks to be going the same way, despite the importance of recognising sex being shown quite dramatically by COVID-19.

An influential lobby loudly insisting that they won’t be erased (when trans organisations are heavily state funded and train all major businesses, branches of government, school teachers, universities and NHS boards) are actively campaigning to erase the very definition of what a woman is – best archive it, just in case! Have you noticed how easy it is to define a woman when we’re being aborted, subjected to FGM, married off, denied the vote, raped, murdered, paid less, represented less in every single sector of government and industry, expected to perform most of the world’s unpaid labour, and constituting 71% of the world’s modern slaves? The only places that seem unsure on what a woman is are the places feminism was starting to make inroads. It’s almost like there must be some sort of a connection, isn’t it?

We don’t have any fear, resentment or hatred for trans people. We agree there should be protection in law against discrimination and violence. We just don’t agree that our rights need to be railroaded over in the process. We don’t agree that male people should access women’s spaces, or benefit from women’s provision, at will, without our consent. Our name is WOMEN and our rights matter.

Don’t you agree…?

[thingsifeelicantsayhere]

About Kink at Pride

One: Thanks SO Much to the person who decided to @ me about 6 different times after I already mentioned how I can’t reply. Edit: Just read them! Thank you for linking me to the same article twice. I saw that one to, and at least 7 others! I closed out of all of them. Read on to see why!! And I call everyone hon, hon - sorry if I offended you!

Two: Kink at Pride thoughts, below the cut. TL;DR: Yes, I was wrong on certain things. Does that change my opinion? Nope! Still think Kink shouldn’t be at Pride.

Note: an entire history of gay Pride is listed below, starting with the Reminder marches. I started there because it felt like the logical place to start, given the organizers of Pride participating in those as well. It’s a LONG one guys, so strap in.

So, starting out: Gay Rights Timeline (it’s brief, because I don’t have an entire night of getting triggered and showing I can research things)

July 4, 1965: “Gay rights activists gathered outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia carrying picket signs and demanding legislation that would secure the rights of LGBT Americans. Referencing the self-evident truth mentioned in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” the activists called for legislative changes that would improve the lives of American homosexuals. Activist Craig Rodwell conceived of the event following an April 17, 1965 picket at the White House led by Frank Kameny and members of the New York City and Washington, D.C. chapters of the Mattachine Society, Philadelphia’s Janus Society and the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitus. The groups operated under the collective name East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO). It was called the “Annual Reminder” to remind the American people that a substantial number of American citizens were denied the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

June 28, 1969: A police raid on Stonewall [a mafia run gay bar] occurs, leading to the Stonewall Riots. Marsha P. Johnson, a “transexual drag queen” and known sex worker, frequented the Stonewall Bar, being the first drag queen to go to what had previously been a bar only for gay men. Police raided the bar to check for unlicensed liquor sales, but also to arrest those who were in violation of the state’s “gender-appropriate clothing statute” (which meant that any female-presenting people in the bar who passed as female had their genitals checked by female police officers, and female-presenting people who did not pass were arrested). Fed up with harassment from the police, the community around the bar became agitated. After a policeman hit Stormé DeLarverie, a “dyke” lesbian on the head while pushing her into his police van, the crowd grew violent. Police barricaded themselves inside the Stonewall Inn for safety, which was soon set on fire. It is still debated whether police or the rioters began a fire in the building, but most sources claim the rioters began the fire. Marsha P. Johnson became well known as the one who “Threw the first brick at Stonewall” (though she herself has stated that she came late to the riots).

That night, while returning home, Craig Rodwell passed Stonewall, and alerted the press in order for there to be news coverage of the historic event. Rodwell was a well known activist at the time, one of the organizers of ECHO, sitting in on protests, opening the first Gay Bookstore (dedicated to Oscar Wilde), and of course, helping to organize the first Gay Pride Parade in the bookstore.

Five Months after the Riots: Among those who proposed the Gay Pride parades were Craig Rodwell and his partner Fred Sargeant (who later tried to claim transgender people and POC did nothing in the riots), Ellen Broidy (former member of the Gay Liberation Front, Lavender Menace, and Radicalesbians), and Linda Rhodes (genuinely having trouble finding information on her; I just know she was friends with Ellen and Craig). Together, they made a proposal for an annual march on the last Saturday in June where there were “no dress or age regulations.” Their proposal was given at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) in Philadelphia.

After the proposal was made, Brenda Howard (a life-long bisexual and openly sex-positive activist, as well as anti-war feminist “radical” by some sources) helped plan it. Making use of the Oscar Wilde mailing list, word got out. It was Howard’s idea to turn this march into a week-long celebration. Also on this committee was L. Craig Schoonmaker, who had been arrested the previous year for talking to another male. He coined the term “Pride” for the slogan of the parade. (Note: L. Craig Schoonmaker was an INCREDIBLY problematic person, and discussing just how stupid that story is really deserves its own post – needless to say, I’m a little sad he’s the one who coined “Gay Pride” as the slogan.) This was the one and only contribution he had to the parade.

June 28, 1970: The first Parade, organized by Chicago Gay Liberation. The first parade was originally called the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, named after the street where Stonewall Inn was. These were different from the Annual Reminder marches, where those in the gay community “walk in an even line, wear professional clothing, and do not display affection for a partner of the same gender” (Waters, 1). “The march was 51 blocks long from west of Sixth Avenue at Waverly Place, in Greenwich Village, all the way to Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park, where activists held a “Gay-in.” Borrowing a technique that had been popularized by the Civil Rights Movement, the “Gay-in” was both a protest and a celebration.”

From there, there were more parades of course. But as promised, here’s all my research on Kink at Pride.

….

I would provide sources. I would share what I tried to look at for multiple hours tonight. But the fact of the matter is, this is the part where I got triggered, nearly threw up, and had to exit most tabs.

What I managed to find out: Yes, Kink has been a thing at Pride for a long time. I do not know the extent of this, but I do know at the very least (due to some image sourcing) that the 1980s saw men in leather that covered most of their skin (it was not inredibly revealing). I was incorrect about this fact, so shit on me I guess. Now, what all I saw was just… men in leather sometimes. I did NOT in fact see people on leashes, naked with only a bandana around their legs to hide genitals, or muzzles (as I have seen in modern-day prides). I saw people who took pride in being leather gays without doing strict sexual acts – costumes, not whipping their partners in broad daylight or walking them like dogs, which is sexually gratifying for the sub (which I have also seen at modern day prides).

Note: I have not personally been to a Pride parade, but I have seen pictures and videos of modern day prides showing these acts. For obvious reasons, I am not including them here.

The reason for the previous inclusion of kink in pride seems to have grown from the fact that, for many LGBT+ people, they are both kinky and LGBT+ in some way. I saw numerous sources talking about how being Kinky is just part of being LGBT, and how pride in being LGBT+ also means pride in being Kinky.

I deadass could not look at anymore sources because I am so physically nauseated by it, and reading about this (as I mentioned numerous times to every single person who DMed me tonight telling me to “Read fucking sources”) triggers me. But can’t stop getting screamed at unless I “do my research” right?? Joy of all joys.

So what do I think about getting rid of kink at Pride?

I still think we should move to phase it out.

Reasoning:

1.      The original people who thought up Pride were not the best. They thought up Pride through transphobic, sexist, radial feminist, insert-other-dated-views here. And I don’t blame them – it was the 1970s. But I feel that, by the 2020s, the idea of “Pride” should have changed. And it has! I saw that Ellen B. discussed how Pride had changed “Far” from what was originally intended in the interview with her (raising the entirely valid concerns that I agree with that Capitalism has too strong of a foothold in current pride). I just think that it should change more, to fit with what is currently needed.

2.      This leads to my next point: what is currently needed? Back in the 1970s, Gay Pride was about having pride in, well, sex. Pride was based so strongly in having sex with the same-sex, being deviant, being different. But that isn’t what Gay Pride is anymore, or at least, Gay Pride includes much more than just sex now. Pride is meant to be an inclusive place for all LGBT+ communities – including fucking asexuals. Like me. See, when researching all of this, I had a hell of a time, because I’m “damaged goods” so to speak. I’ve been hurt through sexual stuff in the past, and yes, that has probably influenced my asexuality. Am I against sex? No! I enjoy it! With my partner. And that’s basically it. Am I okay seeing sex stuff? Yes! Most of the time. On a consentual basis. Would I probably be okay seeing it at Pride? IDK Maybe? But it would spark bad memories, to the point that I would rather avoid Pride, avoid going to the Big Event™ that everyone always says You Have To Go To that would make me feel validated… than go to it. Because of Kink Gear. And I have had other people contact me tonight saying the same thing – they can’t go to Pride because you Kinksters. They can’t because of triggers, or the fact that it’s uncomfortable, or the fact that “well, my parents aren’t homophobic, but it’s too adult.”

3.      “Okay, so make a PG Space – we were here first.” “It’s not inclusive if Kink isn’t there.” “Children won’t even understand the kink in the first place.” Here’s my problem with all of this. Kink already has spaces, but PG spaces don’t exist in this much openness. See, I’ve always heard of kinky spaces. Expos, dungeons, etc. I’ve always heard of safe-spaces for kinky gays. Including Pride. But I rarely hear of PG Spaces for Gay People. I rarely hear of PG spaces at all. It’s hard to exist in this world without people making it about sex, so much so that I find myself often getting stuck in Children’s Fandoms, Children’s Spaces, because they’re the only spaces that haven’t been touched by sex stuff. So we need PG Spaces for Gay People - and yes, we COULD make a PG thing for gay people. I think that’s a great idea. I think a parade sounds nice. A PG Parade for Gay People!!! It sounds perfect, like a perfect solution ----- except now I’m not being Inclusive Enough.

We’ve wrapped around to my big problem with Kink at Pride. It always boils down to not being inclusive of Gay People. But the issue is… By keeping Kink at Pride, we aren’t being inclusive of a lot more people.

Banning Kink at Pride: We have gays, lesbians, trans folks, queer folks, people who still aren’t sure, allies, asexuals, aromantics, children, and yes, kinky people who are not wearing fetish gear. You can still come to pride and have pride in your sexuality. You have now excluded anyone who cannot stand to not wear leather/chains/leashes in a sexual manner for a few hours.

Keeping Kink at Pride: We have Kinky Gays, Kinky Lesbians, Kinky Trans Folks, Queer Trans Folks, People who aren’t sure but Are Kinky, Kinky Allies, a handful of Asexuals/Aros, please god don’t bring children, and kinky peope in fetish gear. You have now excluded anyone who is uncomfortable with sex, triggered by sex, or minors.

I assure you, the amount of people who are exluded keeping Pride Kinky is more than if you could just not be sexual for a few hours. Literally. I’m not saying Kink isn’t valid – fuck, dude, I’m kinky. But there is a reason sex isn’t meant to be public. Consent is important, and I’m shocked that people who insist they know about kinks and BDSM don’t understand that.

Pride has changed. In a lot of ways, not for the better, but in some ways, yes, for the better. It’s bigger, with more people, and more inclusiveness. But your idea of making a “PG Pride over there away from ours” --- well, where do you think we should? How can we do it without getting screamed at for not being inclusive? When can we do it without people screaming at us for “taking up too much time with being gay”? We already have a full month and a whole parade – and clearly everyone should be okay with the kinky shit that goes on.

My suggestion is this: Have Pride be PG, and have the Kinky Pride things isolated to Private Kink Party things that aren’t publicied on television because we don’t need people to know more about our sex lives – the majority of gay people just want to exist now. Those in 1970 needed to be loud, proud, and yes, openly kinky – but we don’t need that now. With keeping sex stuff private, you can still celebrate your Kinky Pride with all those who are capable of celebrating that Pride, while those who can’t, don’t need to be subjected to it. Because the fact of the matter is, Pride Parades are subjected to the eyes of the world – the most public thing you can have right now as a gay person. Subjecting people to nonconsentual kink is not the way to make people approve of sex work or kinky pride. It makes them rage against it. And I would rather be able to work for sex positivity through conversation and hard work, rather than alienating anyone who speaks against it (and those who speak for it).

 Some of the sources I used (not all - again, no kink sources here, because I closed all of them. I couldn’t handle it.)

http://www.phillygaypride.org/annual-reminders-50th-anniversary/

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/lgbtq-history-month-road-america-s-first-gay-pride-march-n917096

https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/the-stonewall-riots

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/when-was-first-gay-pride-parade-origin

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/first-pride-marches-photos-1-180972379/

https://greenwichvillage.nyc/blog/2019/06/13/remembering-craig-rodwell/

https://phaylen.medium.com/stonewall-vet-fred-sargeant-attempts-to-erase-black-trans-activists-from-history-2e82ac59e96f

https://addressesproject.com/memory/ellen-broidy

https://www.them.us/story/brenda-howard

https://talbertario.medium.com/pride-and-prejudice-the-craig-schoonmaker-story-122c8a4c1339

https://www.history.com/news/how-activists-plotted-the-first-gay-pride-parades

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_P._Johnson

 One last thought, after the sources, because I work in Analogy the best:

Imagine this amazing bakery. This bakery sells a lot of cakes: chocolate cakes, strawberry ones, blueberry ones. This bakery gets national press coverage. Now, from day one, this bakery has used gluten in every single cake. It’s a time honored tradition! And every single Cake Eater goes to this bakery. It becomes a rite of passage, to the point that some people even say “You aren’t really a cake eater if you haven’t gone to this bakery.”

But as the bakery gets more and more popular, people start saying “Hey. We need some gluten free cakes too. Can you please keep the gluten away from our cakes?”

“NO!!! If you want gluten free, go somewhere else!”

“But everyone else only has gluten cakes. Even when they say they’re gluten free, they still bake other gluten cakes. Please, we know how to make the gluten free cakes taste just the same as gluten cakes – we’re only getting rid of the one thing. It’ll be taste almost exactly the same, and you can make those other cakes, so long as they don’t touch our cake. You can still enjoy your cakes. We just ask that we can enjoy ours.”

“NO! Go make your own then!”

“But… This is the bakery with the most famous cakes. We could always make our own, but the world will never know about it, because YOU’RE the biggest bakery in the world. And of those few who have tried, they’ve been yelled at for not using gluten because they aren’t inclusive. We wanted to be able to enjoy cake with everyone else – we just need our cake to be a little different.”

“If I make YOU Gluten Free cakes, that means the Gluten won’t be included!”

“That’s the point – gluten is bad for us. If we have gluten near us, it will actively hurt us.”

“No. This is a gluten bakery only. We refuse to change.”

And so, those who were going to enjoy the cakes there – who wanted to enjoy the cakes there – couldn’t. And even those who would try to make their own gluten-free cakes were overshadowed by the behemoth that was the gluten bakery.

That is how this entire night has felt.

Night, y’all.

[comrade-meow]

"Now Duffield’s death has not only become the subject of menacing taunts sandwiched within more death threats by trans activists on Twitter since last year, but her comments on her own possible death at the hand of trans activists render visible that the space between the linguistic calls for death and the "witch-burning" of Bordeaux are merely nanoseconds apart."

On 12 September in Bordeaux, a man took a flare and attempted to burn women marching with Résistance Lesbienne, a French radical feminist lesbian collective. The video posted by Résistance Lesbienne briefly describes what transpired, “Trans-identified male ‘[A]antifa’ tries to burn lesbians at Bordeaux Pride (France).”

There is a second video by a female who witnessed the incident. It shows a man in black holding the left side of a banner with his right hand as he and the others move up with their sign perpendicular to the procession. He screams repeatedly, “Get lost!” as he rushes towards the procession of women directly in front of him. The women he approaches are holding signs as he aims specifically at those who hold a banner that reads “Lesbians don't have penises” as he unpacks a flare, lights it and then holds it out with his left hand aiming it at the women. This video shows how close this man came to burning the lesbian activists.

Résistance Lesbienne attended Bordeaux Pride this year to oppose the demands made of lesbians to negate their sexual preferences by obliging them to include males who identify as “transgender” or even those men who have one of myriad identities. Joan, a member of Résistance Lesbienne, tells me that this is not the first incident of violence as she relates how women from Résistance Lesbienne were attacked during the Pride in Paris. This too was captured by video.

Joan was at last week’s Pride March in Bordeaux with Résistance Lesbienne which was composed of nine other women who had travelled from around the country. She recounts what happened at the march: “We got there and there was someone from Pride who came to talk with us to ask if we were staying for the march. When we said that we were marching his answer was to say “OK” adding that he would later give us information about our participation in the Pride march.” He didn’t come back to give any details of the march to women, as Joan tells me, “We think that he let the other groups know in order for them to expel us from the march, letting us know that we were not welcome.”

Joan tells me that Résistance Lesbienne in Bordeaux involved seven women marching in the procession while three other women acted as security. They handed out fliers and peacefully marched. While walking, Joan noticed a man coming at her and the other women: “He held a flare that he lit and then approached us from the rear of the procession of women.” Joan and other women were blocked from the rear and the left by the man holding the flare and they were also blocked from in front by three or four women who blocked their exit. “I had the flame several centimetres from my leg,” Joan relates adding, “When we understood that we were blocked we exited from the right and that was the moment that we escaped. Even then, one of the women from the Antifa group followed us and told us to ‘get lost.’ Later, the organisers told us to leave and said it was for our security.”

Joan tells me that the Bordeaux police witnessed the incident and did nothing. Résistance Lesbienne released a statement about the incident on 14 September and one person (@erinyah_) within the transgender community confirmed the attack tweeting: “[A] group of anti-fascist comrades intimidated the TERF[s] by lighting a flare and approaching them. I thank them because the TERF became frightened after that.”

Aside from the fact that the police allowed this incident to occur, the attacker has been liberally publicising his attempt on Twitter (@oviked) to burn “TERFs” (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). One tweet presents a diptych wherein he has juxtaposed a photo of a wall graffitied with “TERFs at the stake” on the left, and on the right, a photo of him attempting to burn the women of Résistance Lesbienne. He is in good company with a tweet by @trannilusion that reads, “too bad those t*rfs didn’t really b*rn” among many others who support @oviked’s “witch” burning. Collages Féministes Bordeaux and Du Pain Et Des Roses have been identified as the two groups involved in the attacks from last Sunday as the former tweeted that they would “never be sorry for not standing up for hateful women” and the latter admitted to having torn off the women’s “transphobic banner.”

Where the attempt to burn “witches” took place in central Bordeaux in full visibility of the town’s citizens and the police while nobody blinked an eye, it is clear that we are seeing women being sorted into two groups: hateful and not worth defending and those who are worth burning, hence unworthy of defence. On the other side of the channel, a similar situation brews as we learned Sunday of Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield’s decision that she would not be attending this week’s Labour Party.

The Sunday Times reported that Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield pulled out of the party’s annual conference in Brighton this week due, in part, to threats of violence from transgender activists. The Times story covers how Duffield, Chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party, made the decision not to attend this year’s Labour Party conference after she was advised that attending it was “not a good idea” citing that she “did not want to be the centre of attention.” In the article, Duffield describes her exhaustion and feeling “frightened” after last year’s Twitter attacks when she was called a “transphobe” for liking a tweet by Piers Morgan who mocked a CNN calling women “individuals with a cervix” in their tweet ostensibly set out to underscore the importance of screening tests for cervical cancer. Morgan replied: “Do you mean women?” She also liked a tweet by Maya Forstater which referenced “cross-dressers,” a term some trans activists claim is offensive. However, similar to punk pioneer trans-identified Jayne County who was banned from Facebook for using the word “tranny” in 2014, “cross-dresser” is a term that not only cross-dressers use, but so too does Stonewall. After receiving online threats from militant transgender activists, Duffield made the choice to step away from this year’s Labour Party event.

But even a full feature article replete with direct quotes from Duffield has been glossed over by other media outlets skimming the bottom of the media fish tank for a story that hardly approximated the facts of the SundayTimes coverage. The Independent’s Alastair Jamieson writes that Duffield will be missing the party’s annual conference this week because of “a dispute with LGBT+ members over her stance on transgender rights.” The Guardian’s political correspondent writes that Duffield “felt unable” to attend Labour gathering in Brighton this week because “she was made to feel unwelcome because of her views on trans women.” The threats are barely covered in either newspaper as if Duffield’s absence is a minor disagreement or her discomfort for absolutely no reason whatsoever. When you airbrush death threats from an article, the reader is left with the archetypical “difficult woman” paradigm which highlights the misogyny within left-leaning journalism today.

I mention the media coverage here because it is crucial that we understand how media has played into the partisanship of gender ideology that has attempted to undo women’s rights in recent years. Where journalists are given editorial high-fives to recast threats against a female politician as something other, women of far lower social and economic prominence understand in a split second what this means for their safety and their livelihoods. These women know that if nobody will protect Duffield, what chances have they of surviving the onslaught of identitarianism that has permeated almost every inch of our collective political atmosphere both in the public and private sectors.

Where a man in broad daylight went unobstructed in his attempt to burn women on the streets of Bordeaux last Sunday, this week’s revelation by a Member of Parliament that she must sit out a conference that is part of her profession due to concerns for her safety, women and men everywhere need to sit up and take note. When an MP is hounded out of the Labour Party conference because of her ability to recognise what a woman is, it’s not just women’s rights on the line—common sense and the freedom of expression have also been taken hostage.

Simply wearing a t-shirt with “Woman=Adult, Human, Female” is enough to get women barred from standing for public office and banned from the party office for ten years. Just ask Natalie Bird, a forty-year-old mother of two who was blocked from standing in Wakefield, Yorkshire, and banned from the party office for ten years after a complaint about her wearing a T-shirt reading, “Woman: Adult, Human, Female.”

Bird was the Radical Association Chair, North West Executive and, she tells me that she had been shortlisted for a number of target seats within the party including Southport and Wells. In 2018, a complaint was made against Bird for raising concerns about the rights of vulnerable women and that men who identify as “transgender” were “allowed access to women's refuges.” In short, she was accused of “dangerous transphobia.” Bird tells me, that she received numerous complaints “for tweets, speaking, and for generally having a view on this topic” in addition to her having worn a “Woman=Adult, Human, Female” t-shirt at a party meeting. “I was selected as PPC (prospective parliamentary candidate) but unfortunately I couldn't run in the election due to wearing this t-shirt at a party meeting. The t-shirt incident led to a disciplinary hearing and sanctions as she relates, "I was not able to run in the election that Jo Swinson lost her seat in.” Bird then asked to appeal the sanctions the day after the panel's decision since it hadn’t considered all the evidence set before them. Bird continues, “The appeal then disappeared completely along with my complaints against the party—it completely disappeared into a black hole. They haven't acknowledged it or taken it forward at all.” Bird is now crowdfunding to “instruct lawyers to explore whether there have been breaches of the internal procedures of the Liberal Democrats and whether there have been breaches of the Equality Act 2010 against her (and potentially other women in the party).”

Duffield and Bird have been targeted for stating that sex is biological and that men are not women resulting in both women having been forced to abstain from their political professions—one temporarily until the end of the Labour Party conference this week and the other one for a decade. Where men’s rights to have their identity du jour enshrined into public and private life, into public policy and law, and into educational, legal, policing and medical institutions, women as far-flung as the British Parliament are vulnerable to a lobby that has held us all hostage by sheer illogic and the power to bully the subject from her profession.

Let’s be clear here: The gender lobby has not won the argument—it has merely tossed its toys from the pram while getting everyone involved in cleaning up its mess as members of this self-appointed politburo spout off fake suicide stats and anti-science nonsense that do not resonate with reality. Fictional capture has so far won the day and it is no surprise that in an era of economic descent by the middle class that words have come to be the stand-in for the material comforts that fleeting wealth offers.

There are many questions that we must ask as to how the divorce from material reality was ushered forth at breakneck speed from the left while it has so miserably failed to address issues of poverty, wealth inequality and myriad other aftereffects of late-stage capitalism. We must also query if our inability to address historical materialism within our current political structures might have led the middle class to harness power—albeit symbolically—within a domain almost entirely constructed of incoherent garble that makes Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs look positively Nobel Prize-worthy: the language of identity.

It’s not merely that a man wanted to publicly burn “witches” in France nine days ago, it’s that nobody in the crowd—not even the police—blinked an eye or attempted to intervene. There is a severe imbalance between those bodies who are allowed to throw a strop and those bodies who are expected to clean up the mess and indulge those having serial temper tantrums. Rarely, if ever, do we ask why we place the responsibility upon the majority of society to tolerate, coddle and accommodate the emotional volatility of a tiny fraction of the population who wishes that mermaids and unicorns were real.

How did we arrive at this moment in time where we have perfectly divorced physical and social realities of import from the wanton desires of the individual to be “seen as”? This is just one of many questions that we must consider to include those women in Bordeaux who attempted to block the “fire exit” of the lesbian collective at risk of being “femmes brûlées” to the many female defenders of Owen Jones’ serialised misogyny.

Duffield asks other significant questions about the role women have played in destroying the rights of women and girls:

Why are women so desperate to divorce themselves from everything they associate with being female? Why are they so uncomfortable? Why is it such a terrible place to be? These are questions that need answering and need to be discussed sensibly. It certainly rings massive alarm bells for people like me, of my generation, who have been feminists their entire lives.

While there is no shortage of implicit and explicit threats directed at Duffield, she has come out of last autumn’s Twitter pile-on with even more clarity about what is happening to women in the UK. She told The Times last year, “I’ll probably be killed at some point.” Now Duffield’s death has not only become the subject of menacing taunts sandwiched within more death threats by trans activists on Twitter since last year, but her comments on her own possible death at the hand of trans activists render visible that the space between the linguistic calls for death and the "witch-burning" of Bordeaux are merely nanoseconds apart.

[bicommunitynews]

Each year we publish a roundup of bi events at the end of December. Naturally this one will be a little less packed than usual. Nonetheless wishing you a very different and better year ahead! At the start of the year very few of us realised what might be ahead as the COVID-19 virus was still thought to be far away and most likely confined to a corner of China. So for those first ten weeks or so of 2020 things were happening as normal. So it was at the start of January when Layla Moran became the first UK MP to come out as pansexual. Courts compensated a worker who had been told to pretend to be gay rather than bi in the workplace and returned confiscated medals to an ex serviceman. Northern Ireland started to consult on same-sex marriage while we learned women are more likely to divorce one another than men. There was good news on HIV figures and from the European Court declaring that government inaction on LGBTphobic hate was no longer acceptable. And the Welsh Government declared it would go a step further than merely repealing Section 28 with active work to ensure children are making informed choices on sex and relationships. In February Bi Pride got a mention in the House, while LGBT History Month saw many more bi-related talks than usual. Overseas Switzerland voted to recognise LGBT hate crimes. There were bis on TV in Doctors and I Am Not OK With This as well as a new season of Atypical to look forward to. And new research showed peculiar findings about bi people and skin cancer.

With the pandemic seeing the start of lockdown in the UK during March events started to be cancelled like Birmingham BiFest and BiFest Wales. As Prides started to fall like dominoes, Eurovision announced its first ever rollover winner. In the USA a St Patrick’s Day parade barred a beauty pageant winner from marching on account of her bisexuality. We had more bi representation on TV in Love Is Blind’s demonstration of double-standards over bisexuality, BBC polyamory drama Trigonometry, and Batwoman. The House of Commons held its first ever debate on LBT women’s health while Canada declared its intention to outlaw so-called “gay cure” so-called “therapy”. And new figures showed more people identifying as bi in the UK than ever.

In April many of us were starting to get used to life indoors and wondering how much a loo roll could fetch on eBay there were sobering thoughts about how the lockdown meant a lot of bi and LGBT people were now trapped in unsafe situations. The USA responded by relaxing its limitations on bi and gay men donating blood with Australia contemplating the same shift. The first LGBT club closure of the pandemic was announced in Brighton. On TV we had a raft of fresh bi viewing with the return of Flack, Killing Eve and Harley Quinn. But the big bi drama of the month was away from TV as BiNetUSA abruptly tried to claim copyright over the public domain bisexual flag.

Most LGBT magazines stopped publishing for the time being due to the pandemic but we took the decision to keep BCN coming out as one little strand of bi life we could keep fairly normal, so our April edition was the second of six in 2020.

Staying indoors gave people some time to organise and so in May there were online campaigns about the blood donation ban and conversion therapy. Being indoors also meant people could virtually visit museums worldwide. New research showed bi men were the most closeted group across Europe.

As the Black Lives Matter movement drew headlines worldwide in June dating app Grindr dropped its race filter. One of those “how did that take so long?” moments. There was a big victory in the US Supreme Court, while over here a new faux LGB equality campaign group came out against same-sex marriage, for anyone who hadn’t already realised they weren’t on the side of any queer folks. The BBC nonetheless carried on quoting them as if they were a serious human rights campaign. The annual Bi Book Awards winners were announced, though without (for now) the usual glamorous awards event. The Grammys got their tongue tied online. In good news, Gabon decriminalised sex between women and between men and Scotland opened up civil partnerships to any couple regardless of gender. BiCon had a bumpy month with two organising teams quitting in the space of a week.

In July we had more happy news from abroad as Montenegro recognised same-sex civil partnerships and South Africa changed its rules on how marriage ceremonies are conducted. It was less good elsewhere as the budget for PrEP was cut in the UK and in Poland the presidential election came down to a knife-edge before going the wrong way. We learned bis have worse experiences of crime than other people and the GLAAD annual review of film releases noted cinema was getting Whiter and gayer, with no bi male representation in major film releases.

We are used to a host of Prides in August so it was a hot summer with so much less to do every Saturday! However some ran online and BiCon happened in a very slimmed-down online form. The run-up to Bi Visibility Day began with more Town Halls deciding to fly the bi flag. New US research showed bi youth experience of bullying.

It’s Bi Visibility Day, Bi Week and Bi Month in September and among the delights was improvements in dictionary definitions. Northern Ireland inched further forward on equality while the UK courts rules that the Equality Act includes nonbinary people. Coming-out guide Getting Bi came out for the Kindle. In the USA we saw the first research on how the COVID-19 pandemic was hitting the LGBT communities while here Stonewall had research on how many bis are out to their families – not many.

In October we learned there would be a biopic of former US Congresswoman Katie Hill. Netflix dropped GLOW. In good news for millions the Pope made a small shift toward a better attitude to LGBT lives on the part of the Catholic Church. And in bad news here, a BBC which was veering increasingly far from balanced and responsible reporting of LGBT issues warned staff they should not attend Pride events even in their own time and private lives.

All eyes were on the USA in November as Donald Trump lost by a huge margin in the election there – albeit not as wide a margin as many opinion polls had predicted. Biden won with over 80 million votes in the end – more than any previous candidate. Biden’s speech missed out the “B”. Europe considered its next five year plan on LGBT work without the UK, and in Poland there were symbolic protests against the hateful “LGBT free zone” populists. We all realised we had been too distracted by COVID to notice that the LGBT inclusion work in schools that had started under the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition had been quietly dropped by the new minister for Women and Equalities.

Most important, COVID vaccines started to be approved. After a very hard year, change was at last in sight.

In December the three month ban on blood donation for bi and gay men and their partners was completely rewritten – for better and for worse – though the new rules don’t come in until a few months into 2021. Kyrsten Sinema rocked a great wig and coat in Washington. There was divine justice as a homophobic MEP got caught breaking COVID rules at a gay party. And Switzerland – whose good news on hate crime kicked the year off – decided to let same-sex couples marry. And so ILGA’s annual world map of LGBT rights showed a ripple of changes. And our fifth edition of the pandemic landed on subscriber doormats, more or less in time for Christmas.

That was 2020. To our most sincere delight, it is in the past. Here’s to a very different year ahead.

[thistleandthorn-rpg]

Congrats, Jessa, on your app for Katrina Sullivan! Please check out this page for what to do next, and send us her blog within 48 hours.

OOC INFORMATION:

Name/Alias: Jessa

Preferred pronoun: she/her

Age (Must be 20+): 30+

Timezone/Country: ET/USA

RP Experience: Years.

Activity Level: 6-7/10

IC INFORMATION:

Name: Katrina (Kat) Sullivan

Designation: submissive (former Switch)

Age: 33

Birthdate: July 28, 1989

Claim: NPC, Niamh O’Connor (Domme) & Patrick Murphy (co-sub)

Faceclaim: Felicia Day

Orientation: pansexual

Occupation: instructor of aftercare and sexual health/safety courses at Stonewall Prep

Kinks: consent, bondage, sensory deprivation, bratty roleplay/funishment, pain play

Anti-Kinks: age play, scat, vomit, gore

Key Points:

Energetic and friendly

Self-identified nerd

Hot-headed, but finds grounding in her submission

Assertive but respectful

Believes in kind honesty

BIO

Her whole life, the last word anyone would have ever used to describe Kat Sullivan was shy. She was a precocious child and spent much of her free time reading books or tinkering with building toys. As she grew older, she continued to self-teach the topics she wasn’t learning in school. She went to university straight out of secondary school and earned a degree in Electronic and Computer Engineering from Trinity College in Dublin.

Once she moved onto her system studies at one of the premier institutes in Ireland, Kat split her attention between learning about her new Switch mark and working freelance jobs to keep her technical skills up to snuff. On the institute side of things, she met a woman named Niamh in one of her second semester classes, and they quickly hit it off. Niamh was the calm to balance Kat’s stormy personality, and she reined Kat in whenever her temper threatened to get her in trouble. They took things slow and claimed two years after meeting. Shortly after that, Kat took a shy but confident sub named Patrick under her wing, and he quickly became inseparable from them. Niamh eventually claimed him as well, and their family unit was complete.

About 4 months after Niamh claimed Patrick, when Kat was 28, she began working on a freelance job that would change all of their lives. Kat only had an inkling of what was going on as she worked, but the extent of what she was doing was lost on her until it was too late. Her work was used as part of a scheme to redirect tens of millions of euros from an oil company’s bank accounts to an offshore account that was then used to fund several charities that were unaware of the source of the funds. The person who had hired her was caught, and Kat was implicated in the theft. Due to the amount of money involved, she was facing upwards of two decades in jail. Niamh’s father was born in the US, which gave her dual citizenship, and Niamh, Kat, and Patrick decided together to flee to the States. The Irish government has chosen not to pursue her across borders, but they all know that Kat would be arrested the moment she stepped back onto Irish soil.

The trio set up a new life for themselves in a small town in Ohio. Kat took no more freelance jobs, none of them wanting to push their luck, and she went back to school for a Master’s degree in education. One day when in the local library, Patrick noticed a job posting at an institute on the other side of town, which he shared with Niamh and Kat. With Niamh’s blessing, Kat applied to the job, and she’s now looking forward to her first semester on a new career path. Little does she know, happenings in Ireland are soon going to call her Domme and co-sub back home, leaving her temporarily–and then permanently–alone in the US.

BIO QUESTIONS:

Describe your occupational journey and how you got to where you are.

I took a very roundabout path to end up teaching at an institute. I started in a different field entirely, but due to reasons, I found a sudden and abrupt need to change career paths. I’ve always enjoyed mentoring others, and I’ll never stop learning myself, so teaching seemed like a logical next step for me.

How would you describe yourself as a submissive?

I see submission as a part of my identity, but it’s hardly the most important part of it. I was marked a Switch at my institute, and I could have easily been happy claiming as a Domme. Niamh and I clicked in our roles, though, and the rest is history. I fully believe in our system and don’t have any issues with submitting to Niamh or while out and about in my daily life. I wouldn’t call myself a traditional submissive, though. Niamh loves my personality and allows me to be as outspoken and assertive as I feel like being, so long as I always remain respectful.

How do you feel about authority?

Authority is a necessary part of any functioning system, whether that’s the capital-S System or a workplace or a family unit. However, sometimes people with authority can abuse it, and that’s when there needs to be some sort of check in place to keep everyone safe and things running smoothly. I’m all in favor of authority when the people in charge are aware of their power and take measures not to abuse their position. I will always fight against abuses of power, whatever and wherever they may be.

[aion-rsa]

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 2 Review – Chapter 78: The Preppy Murders

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This RIVERDALE review contains spoilers.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 2

“So now we have a preppy murderer on the loose…”

The most valid criticism about Riverdale over the course of its now five seasons is how the series constantly drags out its ongoing mysteries, only to frantically race to wrap them up. Due to the pandemic, what was initially intended as last season’s big resolution episode just played out before our eyes and it was….kind of meh?

Let’s examine the wrapping up of these various plots from most to least successful, shall we?

As I speculated in last week’s wrap-up, Jellybean was revealed to be the Auteur (with an assist from her friends). This is actually oddly sweet, as the Jughead/Jellybean relationship hasn’t been heavily explored in this show. There is much dramatic mileage to be mined from the fact that these siblings have been separated for most of their lives and when they are finally reunited it is against the backdrop of everything from murderous games of Dungeons and Dragons knock offs to my personal favorite, the town’s Maple Syrup Blood Feud. Sure, the argument can be made here that Jellybean’s lack of realization of how hurtful these demented videos are is straight up psychotic — she definitely seems to be more on the road to becoming a serial killer here than Betty. Yet there is a pure motive behind them, that of a sister who wants to keep her cool brother around that is actually touching.

That said, there are contrivances aplenty to be had with this denouement. Primarily, why would she recreate Archie’s confrontation with the Black Hood? Correct me if I’m wrong, but there wasn’t actually security footage of this incident, therefore Jellybean and her friends couldn’t have staged such a dramatic recreation. Plus, Veronica works at the Chok’lit Shoppe non-stop, so surely she and/or Pop Tate would have mentioned to Archie that a bunch of kids were recreating his worst trauma. With Riverdale, a deluxe cheesburger-sized suspension of disbelief is the order of the day. But this is pushing it.

The second most interesting storyline that played out here unsurprisingly involves Cheryl. From her horror that the graduation uniforms aren’t crimson to her touching scenes with Toni, the character continues to explode energy whenever she appears. There is something hilarious about her utter indifference to her mother poisoning most of her family that makes her all the more endearing. It’s going to be fascinating to watch her attempt to redeem the Blossom family name. But if anyone can do it, Cheryl can.

Next up comes the not-shocking-at-all reveal that Charles is not the stand-up guy we are supposed to think he was. Remember, this was teased early in the fourth season when we saw him lovey dovey with Chic during a prison visit. Since then it’s been a lot of wheel-spinning and I have to admit that I was surprised that he was actually an FBI agent at all given how much subterfuge is always going on within the Riverdale town limits.

This episode introduced the subplot that Jughead’s former Stonewall Prep classmates were being murdered, raising the gigantic question of who cares? Charles believes his motives behind the killings are born of nobility. Narratively speaking, he’s not much of a serial killer though. In fact, Hermosa cold-bloodedly executes more people than he did in this very episode.

It’s another example of Riverdale trying to stick the landing but instead coming down on its knees. If the preppy murders were happening for weeks, somehow piggybacking off of the mayhem the Auteur was creating this all would have been much more effective.

Circling back to Hermosa for a second. Mishel Prada continues to deliver a delightfully cold performance as Veronica’s sister, here tonight helping to mastermind yet another takedown of Hiram Lodge. Maybe this one will stick, as the final episode of Katy Keene showed a future version of Hiram who has taken up residence in New York City, seemingly focused on smaller scale intimidation that his usual Riverdale antics. At this point the pendulum has swung so far back and forth on the character that it’s hard to feel any concern about him either way. With any luck we will see a new iteration of the character following the series’ impending time jump. Otherwise it’s just business as usual for Hiram, and that is beyond stale.

All of this brings us to Archie. Typically this poor kid’s storyline is the least interesting of the lot. It’s a nice touch to show how Fred’s death is at the core of his ongoing ennui, and K.J. Apa is at his best when he shows Archie spiraling. Yet there was never a doubt that Archie wouldn’t write the letter asking the judge for leniency towards the kid who caused Fred’s death. At his heart, Archie is a good kid, and he would have down the right thing without having to involve the problematic Uncle Frank.

Next week: Graduation time, and a glimpse at Riverdale’s future.

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Riverdale Rundown

• Mary offers Archie some “camo-mile” tea. Whether or not this pronunciation is an actor’s choice or yet another of Riverdale‘s goofy fake productions remains a mystery that even Betty and Jughead couldn’t solve.

• Kevin and Reggie do not appear in this episode. And that is not okay.

• Farewell weirdo Blossoms, we hardly knew — and definitely didn’t care about — ye.

• Hermione announces her plans to divorce Hiram and, hilariously, become a cast member on The Real Housewives of New York City in this episode. This development was originally written when Marisol Nichols was planning on leaving Riverdale, however she will in fact be back after the upcoming (and heavily publicized so its not exactly a spoiler) time jump.

• I straight up Haw Haw-ed at Charles’ economy brand adoption of Dexter‘s serial killing ethos.

• I know there just wasn’t time to show Alice’s reaction to finding out about Charles due to everything else that was happening in this episode, but I would have much rather seen that subplot play out on screen instead of more Archie angst.

• Dramatically it would have been really involving to have Archie confront Jellybean about how utterly fucked up her actions towards him were. Furthermore, her accomplices were kids Archie helped at his community center. There is some real narrative meat to be chewed on there, and hopefully we will see this mentioned in next week’s episode.

• Real talk though, Jellybean and her friends should definitely pursue Hollywood careers. Their skills are legitimate.

• “Are you kidding me Betty, what isn’t wrong?” It’s always so jarring when Archie shows some self-awareness, isn’t it?

• Next week’s episode apparently will focus on the gang’s final days at Riverdale High. Even though school is a massive part of Archie comics, it always feels super weird when the series focuses on it given how heightened the Riverdale reality is.

The post Riverdale Season 5 Episode 2 Review – Chapter 78: The Preppy Murders appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[hellyeahheroes]

Orphaned: How The New 10s Have FAILED Cassandra Cain

As we approach the end of “the New 10s”, how we came to call this decade (a term I will be using in the common usage, referring to all years with 201X number, not the proper one which ends with 2020), I took a look at one of the characters who I really feel got the short end of the stick through all of it  - Cassandra Cain.

There were some good things for the character in the decade. Writers like James Tynion IV, Bryan Edward Hill actually gave her as much respect as they could in given circumstances and she even made her first-ever appearance in animation. However, looking back I cannot say that it has been actually kind time for her . The bad just outweighs the good. I have isolated five reasons why I believe that to be the case.

1. The Erasure

This room is full of New 52 Cassandra Cain stories.

As always, everything boils down to New 52, the reboot that defined the New 10s for DC Comics. A reboot that asked us to assume Cassandra no longer exists and never existed, even if this did not mesh with the supposedly intact, just compressed, Batman continuity. The only writer who seems to have ignored it was Grant Morrison, whose Batman Inc. was caught by the reboot in the middle and seems to exist in a Schrödinger's relationship with two continuities - both part of the old and new DC Universe.

What is worse is that DC editorial has been silently stonewalling writers who wanted to use the character with vague excuses of her supposedly being toxic and little explanation beyond that. Scott Snyder was denied the use of her in Batman and had to create Harper Row as a replacement. Gail Simone’s pitch for a Batgirls book featuring Cassandra, Stephanie Brown and Barbara Gordon was rejected in favor of a solo Barbara book. In which both characters have been banned from appearing. The only exception was the Future’s Ends special, which was literally Simone’s final issue. It feels that this was done due to higher-ups' desire to push Barbara as the One True Batgirl. Which manifested in some of the editorial changes made to the book, like an artist being told, behind Simone’s back, to make a new villain look like Stephanie. Or Batman flat out calling Barbara “Only Good Batgirl” despite this making no sense in a continuity where she is literally the only one to ever use the name. The fact this ended up doing more harm than good to Barbara is a topic for another list like this altogether. The crux of it is, DC did their worst to make people forget Cassandra ever exists and alienate her fans for years, hoping to get rid of them entirely.  As the very existence of this article proves, their attempts were less than successful.

2. The Alienation

Once DC actually gave in and allowed Snyder to bring Cassandra back, other problems arose. The first one has come in the form of her new codename - Orphan. That name was supposed to allow her establishing her own identity instead of being defined by Bruce and Barbara. However, this argument seems dishonest when it is an identity previously used by her villainous father. The idea of Cassandra redeeming it has some merit, I admit. But this decision does send a message of her being defined solely by her abuser. It also serves to separate her from the rest of the Batfamily. Originally Cassandra has been portrayed as a member of the group and an adoptive sister to all of Bruce Wayne’s fellow sidekicks. Now it feels like her very name serves to single her out, an orphan among orphans.

This problem is not limited to the title. In general, Cassandra is now written as more isolated from the rest of the Batfamily, excluded from as many things as possible or having her role limited to nothing but a cameo. It has been 5 years and DC did as little as possible to reestablish her relationships with any people she was close with previously. In fact, with characters like Stephanie or Tim Drake, they seem to be betting on fans remembering their bonds from the previous continuity and act like they do not need to put in the work to rebuild them. Even if such measures have been taken for things like the reveal of her mother again. Her relationship with Barbara is as quickly cut as it was reestablished, without giving us anything but one or two scenes that work mostly as a reminder of what the two have lost from old continuity. She is not allowed to form new bonds with major characters either, her interactions with Jason Todd and Damian Wayne being kept to a bare minimum even more than before New 52. 

What’s worse is that new connections that she does form end quickly broken and undermined. After a big buildup of her friendship with Harper that girl gets completely written out of Batman comics altogether. Her relationships with Clayface and Batwoman were shattered with the former’s death. Not only that but DC seems entirely unwilling to follow on plot threads like this. It has been over a year by now since Kate was forced to kill Basil to save Cassandra’s life and not a single interaction between the characters seems to be allowed to ever bring that up, despite the effect it should have on both of them. I’ve gotten an impression they aren’t allowed to interact at all anymore, just stand awkwardly next to each other in group shots. Even Cassandra’s currently established bond with Duke Thomas feels constantly undermined by a looming threat he will end the story broken and turned into a villain. All of this sends a message that Cassandra is not a real part of the Batfamily, more a hired muscle than a real member of the group. 

Even the relationships with her villains have been taken away from her by simply erasing said villains. The same goes for many characters who once were her supporting cast, like Brenda or Onyx. Even her father had to be killed despite how many great scenes past writers could work out of confronting the two and exploring both how twisted his view of her is and what extent of the damage he has done to her. It gives an impression of outright spite, as if DC only agreed to bring her back at the cost of stripping her away from all interesting story threads.

3. The Jobbing

The less is said about Thomas Wayne vs Entire Batfamily, the better.

One of the problems with Cassandra’s portrayal is jobbing. For those who do not know, jobbing is a term in wrestling where a wrestler is made to lose a fight to put their opponent over with the audience. The bigger the reputation of a certified badass the jobber has, the more likely people are to buy the other guy as a genuine threat. A quote attributed to veteran wrestler Christian goes “If you can make the other guy look good you will always find a job, but you will have to do the job”.

Sadly, since her return, Cassandra has been reduced to a jobber. A character who is known as the best martial arts fighter in the Batfamily, if not in the DC Universe as a whole, is constantly made to lose to make someone else look good. In fact, between 2015 and 2019 the character had literally a single clean victory. By “clean” I mean a fair one on one fight. Every single one of her other victories was immediately being retconned as her opponent holding back (Dick Grayson) or undermined by her having the help of other characters (Lady Shiva, Azrael). Even the one opponent she was allowed to beat, Ismael, was a new character introduced just a few issues prior and his only show of skill to speak of was beating her in a previous fight. Meanwhile, she is constantly made to lose against opponents who have never been shown to possess skills or abilities that could make it believable, like Jason Todd, Helena Bertinelli or Karma. Thomas Wayne, a character whose use of guns was justified as compensation for his horrible hand-to-hand skills, is likely the worst example of them all. Cassandra is allowed to beat unnamed minions, be it Colony soldiers or League of Shadows ninjas. However, these do little to establish her as a force to be reckoned with she once was. After all, every single hero takes down hordes of minions constantly. Overall her status as a great fighter is at this point nothing more but an informed ability and DC has killed all credibility she once had.

There are painful and insulting implications that come along with Cassandra’s jobbing. This is because her skills as a martial artist have always been something she took great pride in and formed a lot of her self-esteem around. She finds comfort and relief from living with her disability in them. Her story is not one of a person “overcoming” their disability or have it nullified by superpowers that comic books are sadly full of. It is a story of a disabled person learning to live with their disability by finding solace in other skills she has and proving herself a true master despite said disability. By making her be beaten by everyone and their mother, DC turned that character arc into a cruel joke. Cassandra who is losing every fight is Cassandra that DC wants you to laugh at. Mock her for being delusional to think disabled people can be heroes and not just helpless victims. An ableist position very in line with a company that erased Barbara Gordon’s disability and history as Oracle, and to this day has editorial personally offended by the idea she could be anything but helpless in a wheelchair. As a result all Cassandra stories since her return just feel mean-spirited.

4. Shiva

Since Cassandra's return, the only two stories to focus on her have been about her mother, Lady Shiva. This has been a larger problem that has existed since Dan DiDio started meddling with the characters. We could see it in a classic story Destruction Daughter as well. There seems to be a desire on an editorial level to repeat and outdo the classic fan-favorite fight between them from Batgirl #25. Which is by many considered the best Cassandra story and the pinnacle of Kelley Puckett's run. But the editorial does not want to simply “top” that fight. They also want to somehow integrate it into a bigger story that ties Shiva with League of Assassins. I mean no disrespect to James Tynion or Bryan Hill or Anderson Gabrych, but none of them managed to truly make it work. The stories, while still well-written, seem to be inherently contrived. And I believe the future attempts will never truly work no matter who is writing them. The whole premise is nonsensical. Shiva that works with Ras Al’Ghul and his League is by definition out of character as the two have no aligning goals to speak of. There is nothing he can offer her and she doesn’t care for his goals. And the idea of sticking with him to fight challenging opponents is undermined by a fact she could get a good fight by simply slaughtering his entire organization. I started comparing this to Street Fighter to easily explain my issue with this. For Shiva to work with Ras makes as little sense as for Akuma to be M. Bison’s lackey.  DC is constantly trying to sell to us a story that does not work and then angrily try again when it is not hailed as better than Batgirl #25. It seems that Cassandra has become a means to an end in all of it. That she exists solely to get Shiva over as a minion to a bigger villain she has no good reason to follow in the first place.

This does nothing to make Cassandra less of a jobber either, as Shiva has been stuck in the same position for the entire decade herself and at this point is no more threatening than a Teletubby. Especially if the same stories that are supposed to reestablish Shiva as a threat are the stories where she fights her daughter. It feels like the two characters are trying to each regain their credibility by beating the other one because DC did such a good job of undermining them they wouldn’t be allowed to defeat anyone else.

While I want Shiva to be an antagonistic force in Cassandra’s life and she is a great villain, the way it is done does nothing for either character. Their complex relationship and clashing philosophies don't need to be violent or even physical at all to be compelling. It effectively squanders all potential the two have, seemingly for no other reason than to put Ras Al’Ghul over.

5. No Focus

Some of you may have caught on the prevailing theme of these points. Cassandra is no longer being written as a character in her own right. She is erased or pushed in the background to not overshadow Barbara. Her relationships are not being built upon and her plotlines are being dropped in favor of focusing on other characters. She is isolated from her new family and her membership is undermined even by her own codename. She keeps losing so that villains can look strong and cannot score a victory to not make someone “more important” look weak. She keeps being dragged into fights with Shiva to push Ras Al’Ghul as a bigger deal. She is constantly on team books that are always about other people first. 

This pattern speaks for itself. Despite an ever-increasing number of her fans and even writers who adore her, DC does not care about Cassandra Cain. This whole decade the company has shown the only role they see for her is someone used to push characters the editorial wants people to like instead. DC’s treatment of her betrays their arrogance, the belief the editors know better what the fans want than the fans themselves. Sadly it seems to have spilled onto other media as well. From what we know about her appearance in the upcoming Birds of Prey movie, Cassandra is the only character the creators did not care to get right, just somebody to make others look good. This is also why I am not holding my breath for her upcoming appearances in DCeased and Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey books. At the end of the day these are still not her stories, just someone else’s books she was allowed to be in. Do not get me wrong, I hope we really get this “Cass Renaissance” the fandom is getting excited about. But outside of Shadow of the Batgirl, which will actually be a story about her, I do not trust DC to treat her as more than a glorified prop for other characters. If there is one thing I learned is that you can never expect good things from the Big 2. You can hope for the best and prepare for the worst. But they will very rarely offer you a surprise that is actually pleasant.

- Admin

[hms-chill]

RWRB Study Guide: Chapter 7

Hi y’all! I’m going through Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue and defining/explaining references! Feel free to follow along, or block the tag #rwrbStudyGuide if you’re not interested!

Crêpe-eating tourists (157): Crepes are a thin, flat pancake traditionally filled with sugar, but commonly filled with other toppings. They are an iconic French dish and are popular with tourists both for this reason and because they are typically inexpensive.

Place du Tertre (157): A square in Paris, it is in the Montmarte district, which is known for its art history.

Crusty baguettes (157): Baguettes are a French bread that is meant to be crusty on the outside and soft on the inside.

Le Monde (158): The most popular French newspaper.

Fromagerie Nicole Barthélémy (158): A famously wonderful cheese shop in Paris.

Parisian cheese shop (158): French cheese are known for being fancy and especially good.

Pisces (159): A zodiac sign known for being compassionate, artistic, and intuitive. (more)

NYU (159): New York University.

The Met (159): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a famous art museum in New York.

Joanne (160): JK Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter books, and has been pretty consistently homophobic and transphobic on twitter. 

Freddie Mercury (161): Lead singer of the band Queen, Mercury never officially came out, but he had long-term relationships with both men and women and was known for his camp performances, and there are claims that he was “openly gay”. His flamboyance and camp performances, as well as his relationship with partner Jim Hutton, essentially demanded that people simply take him as he was. He died of complications from AIDS in 1991, one day after admitting openly that he had been diagnosed four years earlier. (More)

For context within the book, he wrote “Don’t Stop Me Now”

Elton John (161): A famous British musician. He came out as bisexual in 1976, then as gay in 1992. He and his husband, David Furnish, became civil partners in 2005, the day they became legal in the UK. They were officially married on the ninth anniversary of their civil partnership, the year that gay marriage was legalized within the UK. (More)

Bowie (161): David Bowie, who was a bi British musician and actor who, in 1976, described his bisexuality as “the best thing that ever happened to me”. His wife (who was also bi, and with whom he often shared partners) claimed that he had a relationship with Mick Jagger, though his bisexuality has been consistently erased, both during his life and since his death. (More)

Again for book context, Henry’s dog is named for David Bowie

Jagger (161): Mick Jagger, an English singer/songwriter and member of the Rolling Stones, known for his promiscuity. As mentioned above, he and Bowie pretty clearly had a relationship, though his Wikipedia makes no mention of queerness. (More)

Oakley Street (161): A street that runs through an affluent borough of London.

Stonewall (161): The Stonewall Inn in New York City is a gay bar. The riots against police brutality there in July of 1969 are heralded as the beginning of the gay rights movement.

SCOTUS decision in 2015 (161): The Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage across the US.

Walt Whitman (161): An American poet who wanted to become The American Poet and saw himself as the quintessential American. His poetry often deals with his queerness, and he absolutely slept with Oscar Wilde in the late 1800s. 

Fun fact; he is celebrated in the movie The Dead Poets Society, which is incredibly popular with Sad Gay English Majors and which Henry would definitely have seen.

Laws of Illinois 1961 (161): In 1961, Illinois became the first state in the US to repeal its sodomy laws.

White Night Riot (161): A series of riots in San Francisco protesting the lenient sentencing of the man who killed Harvey Milk, the first openly queer politician. The riots were the most violent queer uprising since the events at the Stonewall.

Paris is Burning (161): A 1990s movie celebrating drag ball culture in New York. It celebrates in particular queer communities of color in the late 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic was at its peak.

“If I die of AIDS...” (161): This is a real photo; you can find it here. The man’s jacket could refer to a form of protest called “die-ins”, where people with AIDS would go to a homophobic politician’s office or another public place where they were refused treatment and simply not leave until after they died. (see it here)

Chop my own tit off (162): Fun mythology fact; the Amazons (warrior women from Greek mythology) actually did this to make themselves better archers.

H fucking W (162): George HW Bush, a former US president.

George (163): George Villers was the boyfriend of King James the I/VI, and Prince George, Duke of Kent, was rumored to be in a polyamorous relationship in the 1920s. 

Edward (162): Edward II was a famously gay king. He was may have been "wedded brothers" with Piers Gaveston and may have also had a relationship with Hugh le Despenser the younger following Gaveston's death. (More)

James (162): The British king known for translating the Bible and being just... indescribably gay and very deeply horny. He promoted his boyfriend, George Villers, to the highest non-royal position in the UK within a few years of starting to date him. James’s friends actively tried to set him up with hot guys for their own political gain.

Alexander (163): Alexander Hamilton was an incredibly bi founding father. He’s remembered for founding our current national banking system, having the first ever American sex scandal, and for literally never shutting up or knowing how to stop being A Lot All The Time. 

Catalina (164): Catalina is an island near Los Angeles. On a more meta level, St. Catalina was a respected writer.

June (164): June Carter Cash was an American singer/songwriter/director/comedian.

Tricky Dick (164): Richard Nixon, a president remembered for wiretapping his opponent.

Taft (165): 27th president of the United States.

Eisenhower (165): 34th president of the US.

Baby (166): this is what Henry’s mom calls him; I wrote a thing about it here.

Daily Mail (166): A trashy British tabloid.

Lollapalooza (167): A music festival in Chicago known for setting fashion trends and having lots of drugs.

Joni Mitchell (167): A singer/songwriter known for her innovative use of the guitar, including unique tunings, chords, and a unique fingerpicking/strumming style. (Listen here)

Cocaine (168): A highly addictive drug. It is snorted, smoked, or injected, and while it makes people feel more confident or forget their problems, the highs from it last only up to about 30 minutes, which often drives people to take it more frequently. Side effects (aside from addiction) include a loss of appetite, irritability, and increased mental health issues. 

Spitfire (168): Someone with a quick temper or willingness to fight.

High as a kite (169): Someone who’s “high as a kite” is on a lot of drugs and is still enjoying the high.

Clean (169): Drug/alcohol free.

Stiff upper lip (170): Ability to seem determined or hold it together in the face of hard times.

A levels (170): A UK test taken for admittance to college, similar to the ACT/SAT in the US

Henry V at RSC (171): Henry V is a Shakespearean history play about the life of Henry V, especially focused on the events of the Hundred Years’ War. RSC, or the Royal Shakespeare Company, is a Shakespeare theater company in London.

Travis County (171): The Texan county where Austin is located.

Surfside (171): A beach in Texas.

Adderall (172): A prescription drug taken for ADHD but commonly abused by students to help them stay awake for all-nighters or focused for unhealthily long study sessions. However, given McQuinston’s claim that Alex has undiagnosed ADHD, it likely helped him to be able to focus and helped his brain work the way it was expected to.

Almond milk (vs. dairy) (173): Texas has a huge dairy industry, and almond milk is not great for the environment.

The Gun File (173): American gun law is so deeply broken.

WASPy Hunter’s Harvard pencil cup (175): Harvard is a prestigious college in Boston; it has a reputation for being mostly rich white folks.

Iron curtains of gerrymandering (175): Gerrymandering is a form of drawing lines for voting districts to disenfranchise marginalized voters. It is a form of skewing elections to keep power in the hands of the powerful that divides marginalized votes, making people of color or poor folks the minority in their districts, therefore erasing their votes on a broader scale.

Vision-boarding his funeral (175): a vision board is typically made to inspire someone to pursue a goal.

Parks & Recreation (175): A popular American sit-com focused on the parks and recreation department in a small town in Indiana. 

Leslie Knope (176): a Parks & Rec character. One of her defining traits is an aggressive, overwhelming love for the people in her life.

Mid-century rug (177): Mid-century furniture and style is characterized by lots of color and playful patterns (following the more reserved WWII period in the 1940s); it is rising in popularity again as a classy yet fashionable look.

J14 (178): A teen fashion/celebrity magazine.

Sacramento Bee (178): The largest newspaper in Sacramento, CA.

Southerness (180): In positive lights, the American South is known for its genuine, warm, unselfish hospitality.

Jane Austen my life (180): Jane Austen is a British author whose novels star lower/middle class women who fall in love with rich men. They typically try to avoid these men for large portions of the book, or at least have rather negative feelings about them due to a misunderstanding or other failure to communicate.

LSAT (181): the test taken for admittance to law school.

Carmarthenshire (183): A largely agricultural county in South Wales. As a tourist destination, it is known for its wide range of outdoor activities.

Llwynywermod (184): A royal estate in Carmarthenshire, the biggest building of which is a renovated three-bedroom farmhouse. It is surrounded by the rolling green hills common to south Wales.

Finals (in the US) (185): At US colleges, a semester’s final tests (typically worth up to 30-40% of a final grade) take place the week after classes end.

Stamp on his forehead at The Tombs (185): Tombs is a bar near Georgetown. According to reviews, and “Tombs Night” parties, where students celebrate their 21st birthday and get their foreheads stamped at the end of the night, are a Georgetown tradition.

Jumped in Dalhgren Fountain (185): Dalhgren Fountain is in the center of Georgetown’s campus. Swimming in it is a Georgetown tradition.

Summa cum laude (186): “with greatest honor”.

Ceviche (186): A seafood dish native to Peru that spread to Mexico, where it contains lime, avocado, chili peppers, onions, and cilantro.

Palm Room (187): The gateway to the West Wing, the area of the White House where most politics happen.

Hoe Dameron (190): A reference to Star Wars character Poe Dameron, a rebel pilot and the first Latino main character in the series.

Prince Buttercup (190): Princess Buttercup is the heroine/love interest in The Princess Bride, 

West Hollywood (190): One of the most prominent gay neighborhoods in the US.

“Call Me” (191): The most popular song of 1980; it was originally written for the film American Gigolo and inspired by the film’s opening sequence of a character driving along the coast of California. (Listen here)

“So Emotional” (191): An absolute bop about enjoying being in love. (Listen here)

“Don’t Stop Me Now” (193): A Queen song where Mercury sings to both a man and a woman; it’s a huge bop. (Listen here)

In-N-Out (194): A fast food restaurant/burger chain native to California and unavailable in other states.

Animal style (195): Animal style burgers are an In-N-Out staple; it includes the typical burger toppings, along with mustard fried into the patty, pickles, onions, and extra spread.

French-fries-dipped-in-milkshake (195): a truly god-tier American dessert tradition.

“O captain, my captain” (196): A reference both to the idea of a lacrosse team captain and to Whitman’s poem, “O Captain, My Captain” (as mentioned above, Whitman was a deeply gay American poet).

Burberry (200): A posh British brand of clothing known for its classy, traditional pieces.

Cats that caught the canaries (200): A cat that caught a canary is a person who looks smug or satisfied.

Mother hen (201): A “mom friend” or someone who will do everything they can to look out for people they care about, sometimes to the point of it being annoying.

—-

If there’s anything I missed or that you’d like more on, please let me know! And if you’d like to/are able, please consider buying me a ko-fi? I know not everyone can, and that’s fine, but these things take a lot of time/work and I’d really appreciate it!

—–

Chapter 1 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 8 

[hyperionswrath--archived]

@onepartbrave

Huh. You really did learn something new every day—who knew? Squall blinked at the newfound information freely given. Considerately given? Crownsguard were different to the Glaives but held similar roles—just to different people? The name was a given, he supposed, Kingsglaives. A random thought of being sworn to one person was awkward but wasn’t he in the same position as SeeD? A grimace began down turning his lips and folding his brow as further unanswered questions joined the pile already growing. As often as he did it, he hated overthinking. Too much noise drove him insane as it was, but inside his cranium was far worse.  

Still… he couldn’t deny the perks. Summoning a weapon of choice at a whim? Yeah, he could get behind that. Though he liked the reassuring weight of a gunblade at his side, they were far too notable and bulky to sneak anywhere. ‘Pretty cool’ indeed… Knowing he didn’t need to voice the sentiment for it to be understood, he bypassed a verbal answer and completely skipped Seifer’s playful taunting concerning Squall’s unintentional staring. Imagine addressing the blond’s ridiculous statements about his physique? Squall’d never hear the end of it. Plus, with all the admiring stares from all walks of gender, he needn’t one more from him.

Although, he mused Seifer deserved a little effort on his behalf to keep a conversation and weaponry was something Squall could blabber on about for ages. “At my hotel,” he explained simply, noting more wouldn’t kill him. “…Still in top condition all these years later. Just as quick too.”  

Clearing his throat lightly, his mind wandered to Hyperion and its current status. Assuming the imposing blade to be within the disappearing roster Seifer had, he couldn’t help but desire a gander. Weapons were something he could do. They didn’t require sentiment, emotional outbursts or persistent company. When something went wrong or broke, his intimate knowledge on the model meant it was fixed in a matter of hours so long as he had the pieces. If he pissed off a person, it’d sometimes taken days to remedy it. Days. There were exceptions to every cause, of course, and those were the companions he’d gotten much better at reading and contending with. But in general… hand him sharp objects used for maiming over interpersonal relationships any day.  

Strolling along in silence, clearly having given up already on the chatting part, he matched Seifer’s stride and kept up with ease. Inquisitive eyes darted this way and that as he navigated unfamiliar streets with the blond as his guide. Architecture was unlike any he’d seen before, inspiring both a modern and regal image simultaneously. Not as in your face with technology as Esthar yet not as old timey and ‘we refuse to accept change’ as Deling City. A refreshing alteration. Hell, even the air felt cleaner… until Seifer decided to pollute both it and his system with a cigarette.  

Keeping that remark to himself, Squall nodded concurringly and bypassed the blond to enter the building. A fleeting inspection of the sigh plastered to the door—‘The Last Resort’? How fitting—he pushed inside and was greeted with unexpected warmth. Blinking the abrupt dryness from his eyes, he gave them an irritable rub with the back of one sleeve. Vision clearer, he performed a once-over check of the establishment, noting any escape routes other than the obvious entrance. Not that he’d remember later if his plan to get irresponsibly wasted went through without a hitch.  

Falling back on his anointed assignment, he sought out a cosy, cushioned booth in the corner that had a large curve of seat. Good, should he fall over at any point, he’d fall on something soft. He just needed to stay central. Seifer could take one side and risk toppling to the floor, he was hard-headed enough to not succumb to an injury. Shimmying his way onto the designated seat, he butt-shuffled around with slight awkwardness, grunting in mild pain when his knee collided with an unfortunate low beam in the middle.

Shrugging off the spark of irritation, he snagged one of the menus showcased on the tabletop. The front page displayed a cartoony version of the pub’s exterior, well drawn and admirable work, and recited the basic information of address and contact information. Storing the titbits away for a later date (if it was decent food and a good atmosphere, he might venture there again during his mandatory vacation), he opened the first of two pages inside. A list of delectable looking starters glared back at him and he scowled faintly when his stomach rumbled in pre-emptive appreciation. His own fault, he hadn’t eaten anything substantial since breakfast.

Deciding then he was going to get some food alongside his future binge, impatient grey-blue eyes peered toward the entranceway, praying silently Seifer hurried his ass along because Squall was hungry and he didn’t want to give up the perfect perch he’d gained.

Staying behind as Squall entered the pub, Seifer let himself sink against the stonewall behind him, feeling the rough quality of the bricks press through his shirt. His gaze unfocused, he made a mental note to pull himself together. When he had come here, to the Crown City, it had been to escape his past and not look back anymore. People here had their own problems and he was allowed to banish the shadows of his inglorious attempts at playing the hero in favor of doing the one thing he knew how to do right - fighting. If nothing else. And yet here he was, running into his former rival like it was just another day at Garden, after ten fucking years of successfully pushing down his guilt, far enough he could pretend all of this didn't happen. When he had firmly believed he would never see him again. Not just that but he had been stupid enough to tag along, to fall right back into his old behavioral patterns and even end up protecting the guy he once.... tried to kill. Flip the switch and it's like nothing has changed at all... Throwing himself in front of Squall to protect him the night before stemmed from two evils. One being his recklessness which had only worsened over the years when it came to getting wounded because he simply did not care. The other was deep, shame-filled guilt.

Dragging one last time on his cigarette, he huffed the smoke out with bitterness underlying the amused tone as he realized he acted like Squall in his prime with all this brooding. Eyes closing so he could regain composure, he took a deep breath, then pushed off the wall and made for the entrance. One hand pushing the door open, the tall blond stepped inside the warmth that was just a tinge too much for the still lingering warmth outside but would be most pleasant once the nightly cold set in. Emerald gaze brushed over the room, much quicker than Squall's had since he knew the place, but still following old patterns to survey the place and locate possible threats or anything conspicuous which was, given the fact they had been practically child soldiers, simply branded into his being. Soon his eyes flicked over where the brunet had made himself comfortable, another small twinge of his six-bedamned guilt tightening his chest for the briefest moment as he saw how deeply focused the other seemed to be on the menu. It reminded him acutely of simpler days, when he had spotted the man sitting around with his nose in a Weapons Monthly magazine. Shaking his head briefly to end this futile train of thoughts that continuously tried to pull him in, he made for the bar counter and knocked on it, smiling his most charming smile at the woman manning it. "Hi, could you bring us the usual? Also two shots of your best Leiden whiskey, we've got something to celebrate." Leaning back as the woman busied herself with a smile, Seifer slid one hand into his coat still draped over his shoulder and procured his phone, unlocking it with a slide and checking his messages.

Kerr had sent him about fifty messages, most of which consisted of funny images meant to cheer him up since he'd heard about his suspension. A fond smile tugged at his lips as he quickly filed through them, taking a moment to reply so the guy wouldn't worry himself sick. After pocketing his phone again, he found the two shots standing on the counter already, taking them with him as he made for the corner Squall was sitting in. Placing one of the small glasses filled with golden liquid in front of him, he quirked a brow at the irritated look on the brunet's face before throwing his uniform coat unceremoniously on the bench where it would stay until way later tonight. Movement and all had the sleeves of his shirt slide up a bit, exposing part of the tattoo on his left biceps - the likeness of the blood-red cross he had stitched on his old trenchcoat, now displayed in black ink with small red embellishments. If one was to pay closer attention to his skin due to this, they would likely also notice the fine webs of scars riddling the tall blond’s skin, marring arms and even parts of his neck, definite signs of not applying healing properly - or in time. Lifting the glass in Squall's direction now, still standing, he shot him a lopsided smile. "Well then, to unexpected run-ins that get me suspended," he toasted before downing the shot in one go, grimacing slightly at the strong burn in his throat.

"So, what's your poison, Leonhart?", he then asked, nodding briefly to the bar to signal he'd get the order. "Also don't bother with that," finger now pointing at the menu, "I ordered us a plate with their specialties." On the occasions when he came here with fellow Glaives they'd to the same, just snack away all evening while getting drunk. It was more convenient than plastering the entire table with gazillion dishes. Once the brunet would let him know what he wanted to drink, Seifer would turn and go back to the counter to place their order.