#harrow public school boys

[shy-girl04]

Harrow school boys watched by local London lads, 1937. Photographer - Jimmy Sime

The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated.

Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)

[ebongawk]

Hellcheer AU: Usually, we see Chrissy pulled into Eddie's world when they meet (like in the show.) How about one where Eddie's forced into Chrissy's harrowing world of two-faced preppy popularity? A "The principal formally bans the Hellfire Club from operating, and Eddie's forced to work for/with the basketball team, or even better the cheer squad, after the principal threatens to fully expel him unless he shapes up" AU. No Vecna, but Chrissy and Jason are still together (for the drama.)

oh lord, the absolute mischief Eddie Munson would cause:

In my head, the principal didn't ban Hellfire, but it is the threat he uses against Eddie to make him do some amount of in-school service (Eddie could probably handle disappointing Wayne by being expelled, but the idea of disappointing his and all future sheep by getting the club taken away permanently? Removing the safe haven he's spent so much time building as their shepherd? That's the legacy of the outcasts, he won't have it endangered).

Eddie basically becomes the "assistant" to all of the sports teams - so a glorified water boy during practices for both the basketball team and the cheer squad during the second semester, but he also has to do concessions during games (both at home and away).

He's sort of always had a thing for Chrissy Cunningham, but seeing her in her element while she's coming up with choreography and helping her fellow cheerleaders kinda makes him want to eat his own skin and get a flower tattoo the same color as her hair. He also isn't totally blind so every time she comes to refill her water bottle that's only half empty, he's definitely 110% willing to strike up the conversation she's obviously searching for.

The jock straps with their laundry ball are a whole other flock of bullshit to contend with though. So, if Eddie has to subtly put them in their place every now and again (spitting in their water cooler, returning as many stupid remarks as they seem intent to give him, flirting obviously with their captain's girlfriend) he's not above it.

It's actually the stupid remarks that spark the first public issue with Chrissy and Jason, though, because Fuckface McGee says something loudly about how Eddie's basically lowlife garbage that will never accomplish anything in his life and Chrissy stands up for him (be still his cynical heart) in front of the cheer squad and the basketball team. Which embarrasses Jason.

Oops bonus #6: that very night, when Jason is trying to haul Chrissy into his car like a sack of potatoes, Eddie steps between them and manhandles Jason the exact way Jason tried to manhandle Chrissy. Putting him in his place, of course, but when he offers to drive Chrissy home after Jason speeds off, the only thing she says is, "Why the hell would you do that, Eddie?"

send me an AU and I'll make up five facts about it!

[specialagentartemis]

Public Domain Black History Books

For the day Frederick Douglass celebrated as his birthday (February 14, Douglass Day, and the reason February is Black History Month), here's a selection of historical books by Black authors covering various aspects of Black history (mostly in the US) that you can download For Free, Legally And Easily!

Slave Narratives

This comprised a hugely influential genre of Black writing throughout the 1800s - memoirs of people born (or kidnapped) into slavery, their experiences, and their escapes. These were often published to fuel the abolitionist movement against slavery in the 1820s-1860s and are graphic and uncompromising about the horrors of slavery, the redemptive power of literacy, and the importance of abolitionist support.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - 1845 - one of the most iconic autobiographies of the 1800s, covering his early life when he was enslaved in Maryland, and his escape to Massachusetts where he became a leading figure in the abolition movement.

Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft - 1860 - the memoir of a married couple's escape from slavery in Georgia, to Philadelphia and eventually to England. Ellen Craft was half-white, the child of her enslaver, but she could pass as white, and she posed as her husband William's owner to get them both out of the slave states. Harrowing, tense, and eminently readable - I honestly think Part 1 should be assigned reading in every American high school in the antebellum unit.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs writing under the name Linda Brent - 1861 - writing specifically to reach white women and arguing for the need for sisterhood and solidarity between white and Black women, Jacobs writes of her childhood in slavery and how terrible it was for women and mothers even under supposedly "nice" masters including supposedly "nice" white women.

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup - 1853 - Born a free Black man in New York, Northup was kidnapped into slavery as an adult and sold south to Louisiana. This memoir of the brutality he endured was the basis of the 2013 Oscar-winning movie.

Early 1900s Black Life and Philosophy

Slavery is of course not the only aspect of Black history, and writers in the late 1800s and early 1900s had their own concerns, experiences, and perspectives on what it meant to be Black.

Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington - 1901 - an autobiography of one of the most prominent African-American leaders and educators in the late 1800s/early 1900s, about his experiences both learning and teaching, and the power and importance of equal education. Race relations in the Reconstruction era Southern US are a major concern, and his hope that education and equal dignity could lead to mutual respect has... a long way to go still.

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois - 1903 - an iconic work of sociology and advocacy about the African-American experience as a people, class, and community. We read selections from this in Anthropology Theory but I think it should be more widely read than just assigned in college classes.

Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois - 1920 - collected essays and poems on race, religion, gender, politics, and society.

A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Henson - 1908 - Black history doesn't have to be about racism. Matthew Henson was a sailor and explorer and was the longtime companion and expedition partner of Robert Peary. This is his adventure-memoir of the expedition that reached the North Pole. (Though his descriptions of the Indigenous Greenlandic Inuit people are... really paternalistic in uncomfortable ways even when he's trying to be supportive.)

Poetry

Standard Ebooks also compiles poetry collections, and here are some by Black authors.

Langston Hughes - 1920s - probably the most famous poet of the Harlem Renaissance.

James Weldon Johnson - early 1900s through 1920s - tends to be in a more traditionalist style than Hughes, and he preferred the term for the 1920s proliferation of African-American art "the flowering of Negro literature."

Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis - 1830s - a Black abolitionist poet, this is more of a chapbook of her work that was published in newspapers than a full book collection. There are very common early-1800s poetry themes of love, family, religion, and nostalgia, but overwhelmingly her topic was abolition and anti-slavery, appealing to a shared womanhood.

Science Fiction

This is Black history to me - Samuel Delany's first published novel, The Jewels of Aptor, a sci-fi adventure from the early 60s that encapsulates a lot of early 60s thoughts and anxieties. New agey religion, forgotten technology mistaken for magic, psychic powers, nuclear war, post-nuclear society that feels more like a fantasy kingdom than a sci-fi world until they sail for the island that still has all the high tech that no one really knows how to use... it's a quick and entertaining read.

[twopoppies]

Haven’t seen anyone post these yet so wanted to contribute! I went to London for the first time in September and got to see ‘The Trousers’ in person at the Design Museum. Great exhibit. The artists’ statement was really interesting esp. considering a lot of what we discuss around here re. Section 28. Sorry for the shocking quality, the images were in pull-out drawers and the angle with the lights was really difficult.

Oh, that’s really lovely that you were able to see all of that in person! I’m so intrigued by Steven Stokey-Daley’s aesthetic and inspiration for his collections. It’s all very British and very queer and I just love that Harry’s a small part of the exhibit and the company, as well.

For anyone who can’t see it, the placard reads:

“The University of Westminster’s Fashion studio overlooks the playing field at Harrow, a boarding school for boys. Steven Stokey-Daley commented, “It was so far off my culture, coming from an ex-council estate in Liverpool. I was almost looking at them anthropologically.” He decided on ‘queering the British public school system’ as a theme for his graduation show, making Oxford bags, dressing gowns and coats topped with straw boaters, all from upcycled fabrics or fabric donated by Alexander McQueen. The trousers on display were later worn by Harry Styles for his video for ‘Golden’. SS Daley’s installation of blue and white plates includes the quote, “The inalienable right” — his subversion of a 1967 quote from Margaret Thatcher, which led up to the passing of the notorious Section 28 law banning the promotion of homosexuality in public schools.”

For anyone interested in checking the exhibit out, here are the details.

Highlights include the swan dress controversially worn by Björk at the 2001 Oscars, Harry Styles’ Steven Stokey Daley outfit from his video for ‘Golden’, and Sam Smith's inflatable latex suit by HARRI from this year’s BRIT Awards. Collections and work by JW Anderson, Wales Bonner, Erdem, Molly Goddard, Christopher Kane, Simone Rocha, Russell Sage, and many more.

For anyone not familiar with SS Daley, here is his website.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

4, 14 or 25 for Jack?

4) What they would do if they had one month to live. 

I can't answer that because the lad is immortal lmao.

14) How they did in school

Poorly. Jack is the definition of 'does not do well in authoritarian institutional settings.' He did very well one on one with his uncles or his father or the many, many intellectuals who visited australia and impressed upon him his absolute adoration of natural history, botany and the natural science at large. He also did pretty well in university after everyone calmed the fuck down post-war, but his actual early education? Oh god, he did not do well. Like the only running theme I can see about children born in Australia in the British schools was pure unadulterated misery.

He got the shit bullied out of him the one or two times Arthur tried sending him to one of the 'public' schools like Eton or Harrow. He was a clumsy child, and before the era when sports became a mainstay of the Anglophone school systems, it was just open season on the poor fuck. He probably would have done better later when rugby or cricket was a part of the public school culture. Still, as it was back then, in a rigid hierarchy with corporal punishment and freezing dormitories, he was absolutely fucking miserable. He got into fights constantly, didn't eat, couldn't adjust and cried himself to sleep for however long he was stuck in there before one of his letters actually got where it needed to be, and he got the fuck out.

Jack has never held a good relationship with institutions, being born in what was an extension of the British prison system and he rages against confinement too this day but his schooling was a large part of that. It also made it a lot harder for him to bond with anyone from the ruling classes and kind of firmly put him in the realm of the privileged sav blanc socialist and labour organizer. Bit ironic for the born-in-the-purple son of the British Empire but it suits him and the history so I'm rolling with it.

25) What other people wish they could change about them

God help me. I love this boy but thats a lot. I think for Zee its a lot of wishing he wasn't so fucking reckless or distractable for one. She's crossed thousands of kilometres to drag his ass out of a deadly situation. She wishes he was a bit less in her space sometimes. He's very physically affectionate, and she's not so much. She doesn't always like being picked up and squeezed randomly because he's emotional. He has gotten better about that but sometimes he still gets good news and suddenly she's in the air against her will. He also tends to get extremely salty about people in better circumstances than him especially if its something he doesn't think they deserve. He has something of a hard time apologizing to anyone who's not her. He's also extremely bad at keeping anything on the down low. Arthur had to prevent him from being prosecuted for various queer activities when he was younger because he tried to quash it down until it exploded. And Zee probably threatened to kill more than one person after he was very unaware of his giving googly eyed looks to every pretty greek in sight.

[kisskissbanggang]

Disavowed - pt. 4

[3.4k Words/12min. Read - Reverend!Jisung x Reader - Priest!Chris & Reader - NSFW/Smut - Church, This is Going Way Too Far Isn't It?, There's Something... Off... About Jisung, Conflicting Feelings, Situationships, Harrowing Guilt, Temptation, Self-Doubt, Priest Kink, Clandestine Kisses, Semi-Public Sex, Hand Jobs, Fellatio, Church Sex, Outdoor Sex, Impossible Happenings, Paranoia, Jealousy, Obsessive Behavior, Manipulative Behavior, Disturbing Assumption of Consent, Uncomfortable Moments]

[a/n #1: we're getting to the intense/frightening parts of our halloween series! please pay attention to the tags above, especially the ones in bold pink so you can do what's right for you 💗]

[a/n #2: ty to @therhythmafterthesummer and @magicficwriting for beta reading and previewing 💗]

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Come Say Hi!]

You weren’t sure why you came to church in the first place. No one was actually noticing if you attended every Sunday. You could’ve just stayed home in bed. 

But because you did go, now you had confirmation that Chris didn’t. 

Early on Friday morning, you’d awoken from your horrible nightmare, still in Chris’ bed, still in his apartment, still in your clothes. Suddenly, going out on a school night was the least of your concerns. The dream that didn’t feel like a dream but you very much wanted it to be was taking precedence. Just like in said dream, there’d been an odd glow coming from the kitchen. You’d warily ventured out from Chris’ bedroom, now finding him at the kitchen table, just as you’d originally hypothesized before your awful dream had led you upstairs. He had another cup of tea with him, painting a similar picture to that of the previous week. This time, however, a bottle of whiskey sat beside it. 

Chris looked like shit. He was pale. He looked like he’d been crying.

He looked like he had in your nightmare.

When he was talking to that voice in some language you didn’t know but somehow understood.

The apartment felt freezing.

You stepped closer, hugging your arms to your chest to shield yourself from the cold. “I had the craziest dream,” you offered.

A solid beat of silence had washed down over you both, until Chris took another sip of his tea. He faintly sniffled.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he’d finally said, refusing to look at you.

You’d scoffed in response, maybe a bit too affronted. “This is such horseshit.”

Chris had shaken his head. “No, really. I can’t keep this up. This is bigger than I was expecting. I can’t keep doing this.”

“Then confess, you asshole. Turn yourself in,” you spat. More humiliating, you’d also felt like you were on the verge of tears.

He’d just told you he loves you and suddenly he wanted to stop everything. You’d convinced yourself you’d actually done some irreversible damage and now Chris was actually trying to do the right thing. Or so you thought.

“I can’t,” he’d stubbornly shook his head, “I can’t lose this. I can’t lose everything.”

“So you’re fine losing me instead?!” you laughed sarcastically. 

Chris had dragged the sleeve of his sweater across his face, still not looking at you. 

“I think you should go.”

So you did. You stormed into his room to grab your bag and marched out the door, down the private stairway to your car out front. You’d spent Friday being ridiculously late to work, and drifting from task to task like a spirit.

And then, on Saturday, you’d moped at home. You felt empty, sick. The boys tried to check on you. Felix had brought you a book to pass time with. Hyunjin came and did the crossword while he told you about his week, hoping to coax some updates out of you. Seungmin brought you some soup at dinner time and insisted on checking your temperature.

Everyone protested when you went out to church on Sunday, and then tried to give you space when you returned. Time crawled forward but also somehow flew past, and before you knew it, it was Monday morning and you were miserable at work. You sighed, pushing yourself away from your desk and considering walking to the library, hoping to get a little privacy if Jisung would agree to leave you alone.

Or, at least, this was the plan until you emerged from the front office and saw Chris at the end of the hall, an armful of paperwork in his hands while he walked back to the gym. You both paused. Maybe, if you got a better look, you’d find that he looked as terrible as you did. That would lift your mood a little. 

The spite coursing through you drove you to make pointed eye contact with him before you turned and strolled into the library. Jisung was at his computer at the information desk, and he lit up when he saw you come in.

“Hey!” he greeted, chipper as ever. “I was hoping you’d come by.”

“You were?” you absently asked, looking back over your shoulder into the hall. 

The reverend bashfully nodded. “You’ve been coming by so often, I thought I might be able to ask for your help setting up this bulletin I have on the back wall.”

“Sure,” you nodded shallowly, following when Jisung hopped up to his feet to grab his supplies.

Jisung led you down the main aisle to where the study tables were set up in the back of the library. Here, a counter with a couple computers and a printer was stretched out under a large bulletin board. The reverend handed you a stack of paper borders and a stapler before he pulled over a chair and climbed onto the counter. 

You glanced at his hand when he reached it out to you, helping you up onto the counter with him. Jisung got to work hanging up the border on the bulletin board, before stooping down to grab some flyers from the printer he must’ve prepared beforehand.

“You’re always so nice to me,” you observed, trying to remain present but also casual while you haphazardly stapled materials to the cork surface.

“Am I? It’s easy to be nice,” Jisung explained. “Especially to new people. Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Excuse me?”

There was a delay in Jisung realizing how crazy that question sounded. His eyes widened and he held his hands up in innocence. “Not what I meant!” he clarified, trying to laugh it off. “Single women don’t usually move to Pinewood Falls and they definitely don’t hang around for some reason. I just want to make sure I’m not stepping on any toes if I invite you to a game night or something.”

Jisung made his way through his small mountain of flyers and posters and borders before hopping off the counter. He spied your modest work pumps before offering you a hand down. You reached for him, but a flash of movement caught your eye. Back by the information desk, you could’ve sworn you saw Chris, but when you took a better look, he was nowhere to be seen.

However, your swiftness in looking for the priest made you misstep, sending you over the edge of the counter. Jisung was quick, getting his arms around you, but not so fast that he properly caught you. Instead, Jisung more so softened your fall, ending up twisting and landing on top of you on the floor. His eyes widened again when he caught you looking up at him, your chests pushing against each other as you both caught your breath.

You wondered if Chris was still lurking.

You knew you saw him watching you.

Jisung held your gaze, almost frozen, and you had a funny thought. Cute, really. Just a humorous idea.

“Are you really worried about stepping on any toes if you ask me to come to game night?” you asked, your lips curled into a bemused smile.

The reverend looked a little caught, cheeks rosy and his heart still racing against you before he leaned down, kissing you softly–once–on the lips. It only lasted a moment until the bell rang.

╚⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷╝

After that, both Chris and Jisung avoided you for the rest of the week. Both of them staunchly turned and walked the other way whenever either of them saw you. Neither of them stayed after school for youth group on Wednesday. Neither of them even showed up at the staff meeting on Thursday. 

It was during the latter half of the staff meeting that you were getting fed up. Something had to budge, someone had to do something. You excused yourself and peeked at the parking lots. Chris was simply gone for the day, his truck missing from its usual space. Jisung, however, was still parked in the front lot. You strolled past the library and saw no hint of the reverend. He wasn’t in the faculty room, the copy room, or anywhere else. When you checked the back parking lot one last time, your eye landed on the chapel.

It was worth a try.

Anything to feel anything.

You cautiously entered the church from the back hallway. Father James’ office at the end of the back hall, obviously, was dark. The building was uncomfortably quiet. You poked your head into the chapel itself, and here was where you found Jisung, sitting on the steps in front of the altar with his arms folded on his raised knees and his head bowed in reflection.

He didn’t move when you approached, but he still acknowledged your presence, glancing at you when you sat beside him.

“What’s wrong?” you gently asked.

Jisung sighed and made the sign of the cross, finishing a prayer. He still wouldn’t look at you properly. “I haven’t gone to confession for the other day,” he admitted.

“Do you need to?” 

Another sigh. “I should.”

“Is it because Chris wouldn’t understand?”

And another, smaller sigh. “I don’t like Chris as much as I should.”

“You don’t?”

“Not as much as I should. I feel weird about him.”

You scooted closer, sitting hip to hip with the reverend. “How about me? Do you feel weird about me?”

Jisung fidgeted, playing with his wristwatch. “I feel weird about how I don’t feel weird about you.”

“So you like me more than you like Chris,” you smirked.

Jisung returned a small laugh and smile, and finally looked at you. “As a friend. Is that okay?”

“That we’re friends?” you asked. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

“And you like me more than Chris?” Jisung laughed.

Spitefully?

Or seriously?

“Yeah,” you nodded with a giggle. 

Jisung was still looking at you.

He didn’t stop you when you leaned in for another kiss. In fact, Jisung responded in kind, sighing contentedly when he kissed you back. It took surprisingly little coaxing to get the reverend to let his guard down and make some terrible decisions. You simply pushed him to lay down right there, in front of the altar, and sat yourself on his hips. His hands searched you, caressing and squeezing and actually making your heart race a little before you kissed his neck. Jisung cursed under his breath, and tightly shut his eyes when you kissed your way down his chest before you unbuckled his belt.

“Fuck,” he breathed, finally coming to his senses, “we shouldn’t–”

Jisung shut up the first time you tasted him, instead throwing his head back in pleasure and climaxing almost immediately. He grappled you back into his arms to hungrily kiss you again.

“Sorry if I was pushy,” you teased. Lies, honestly. You were in a rush, really, hoping you could find either a chance to move on from Chris or make him jealous.

“Don’t be sorry,” Jisung shook his head. “I need you. I need more. I’d do anything you say.”

You playfully brushed your fingers through his hair. Humorously, you could see you’d left your own little love bites on Jisung’s neck. “Then come out with me tomorrow night. Somewhere we can get some privacy.”

╚⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷╝

The fact that Jisung said yes was a feat in and of itself. The control you had over him had you dancing on clouds. Your roommates were glad you seemed to be in better spirits, but they ogled the different car picking you up on Friday night. Jisung didn’t bring you flowers or come to the door, but he held your knee while he drove, occasionally letting his fingers trace up to your thigh. You ordered drinks, but he was the one to ask you to dance.

In the haze of the bar, you could’ve sworn you saw Chris. But, again, he was gone as soon as you caught him. 

You invited him to walk with you before heading back to his car. By now, you were begging for Chris to see you being just fine without his attention, let alone his devotion. 

So it wasn’t a surprise to you that you led him right to the field behind Chris’ apartment. 

The dense night sky.

The cool air raising your skin into goosebumps. 

The old house looming overhead.

This time, though, Jisung slipped off his jacket and laid it out on the bench seat for you. He was sweetly shy.

“It’s been a long time,” the reverend admitted.

“A long time like ever?” you teased. 

Jisung blushed before he blustered forward, kissing you like he was about to change his mind before he lowered you down onto the ratty old bench seat. His fingers were awkward, sloppy, maybe a little stiff, but he took his sweet, sweet time sinking into you once you were stretched open for him.

You found yourself watching the attic window again–not because you wanted to keep busy, but now because you were positive you saw Chris.

Watching.

You kept your eye on the attic window while you cooed and whined into Jisung’s ear, trying to sync up your orgasms despite his short fuse. Jisung whimpered into your neck, his cheeks flushed with shame and infatuation before he gasped out a curse in sheer bliss.

Whatever was in the window was gone, leaving a blank void.

╚⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷╝

You awoke with a start and feeling like shit.

So it wasn’t just Chris where you’d wake up and only remembering mostly everything.

But it was your bed.

Seungmin knocked before poking his head in the door. “Eventful weekend?”

“What?” you asked groggily, before something jabbed into your hand. Lifting your palm, you found Jisung’s wristwatch was in your bed. You stared at it while Seungmin looked on, amused.

“And I’m guessing you’re not going to church?”

Your gaze snapped to meet Seungmin’s. “What?”

It was true, you realized as you sprinted around your room to get dressed. You didn’t just wake up the next morning. You lost a goddamn day this time.

You ran into your car and rushed to church. No Chris. No Jisung. 

When you came back, defeated and manic, there was a bouquet of flowers for you on the porch. At least, you assumed they were for you. You looked around before picking up the small arrangement, and found a note tucked inside. In the note was Jisung’s neat handwriting.

I’d do anything you say, it read. His phone number was written underneath. A queasy sensation squeezed your stomach. This wasn’t fun anymore. You weren’t even wanting to make Chris jealous anymore. You just wanted him back.

It felt like you were getting no time to think, no time to process or plan. Everything felt loose and frenzied in your brain. Midway through Monday, it felt like it’d been weeks but also minutes since your night with Jisung, not to mention your night with Chris. You almost felt ill. The sensation of simultaneously having power and no power was nerve-wracking, to put it lightly. 

In a fit of restlessness, you ventured out of the front office to take a quick lap through the school, try to see if you could get your thoughts in order, when you were startled by the door to the copy room opening and a hand darting out to snatch you.

You wished, pathetically, that it was Chris.

Which meant you were more than a little disappointed when it was Jisung hurriedly kissing you against the copier.

“You’ve been playing hard to get,” he grinned in between breaths.

Distressingly, you noticed that one of your love bites was still present under his collar, an angry purple by now.

“Jisung,” you scolded, “we need to slow down–”

“I can’t,” he insisted, his hands greedily gripping onto your hips. “I didn’t expect to fall for you this fast or this hard but I need you. I’d do anything you say; I mean it.”

“Jisung,” you tried again, your hands trying to peel his hands off of your waist and gasping when he nipped into your neck. “I can’t do this. Listen to you! I’m ruining you–”

“Nonsense,” he stubbornly argued, “God brought us together. I’m finally getting that this is part of my plan. I’ll do it, I’ll leave all of this if you just say yes–”

“No!” you denied, trying hard not to sound overwhelmed. Jisung thankfully didn’t follow you when you managed to get him off of you and rush back out into the hall.

╚⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷╝

What you needed to do, really, was stop coming to church, but you kept hoping Chris would come back. The thing you didn’t like, though, was that Jisung wasn’t back. You pictured what he could possibly be doing, imagining all sorts of lunacy the reverend could be up to and you didn’t like any of it. As much as you knew about Chris, you knew even less about Jisung, but he was absolutely ravenous for you whenever he got you within his sights. During school hours, you’d taken to strategically making excuses whenever Jisung just happened to come by the front office, and you were refusing to take any breaks, let alone take any breaks in the library.

At no point had you given Jisung your number, but you recognized his from his note as the one that was calling you multiple times every night over the course of the week.

No, you didn’t like that Jisung wasn’t in church one bit. What was worse was you’d seen his little sedan in the parking lot.

But the only reason you’d even come in was that Chris’ truck was also in the parking lot. 

You knew investigating was stupid and reckless, but what if you ran into Chris?

During the homily, you slipped out of your pew and left through the vestibule, ducking around to the rear entrance and back hallway of the church. All rooms and closets here were dark and closed, helping you feel a bit relieved and resolved to see if you could get into the school to take a look next. However, as you left the robe room and passed by Father James’ office, you got deja vu as the door swung open and a hand darted out to intercept you.

Jisung again.

You tried not to make too much noise as you attempted to push Jisung off of you, given your proximity to mass, but he was making it difficult as he hungrily pushed you onto Father James’ desk and pushed himself between your knees.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in apology, “I’ve been bothering you a ton but I wanted to tell you I did it–”

“You did what?” you demanded.

“I have it all in place. We can leave together, whenever you want–”

“But what if I don’t want anything, Jisung!” you hissed. 

“Please,” he begged, stealing kisses from you each second that he could manage. “I’m all yours, I’d do anything–”

“Then leave me ALONE!” you snapped, punctuating your demand with a shout to finally scare him off of you.

“I don’t understand–!” Jisung babbled, helpless as you pushed him out of the way, fighting back tears as you stumbled out of Father James’ office and down the hall, back out of the chapel and into the breezeway.

Terrified that Jisung would try to come after you, you rushed towards the school, finding that the custodians had propped the gym door open and you ran inside. You desperately sat yourself at your computer, trying like mad to catch your breath and compose yourself. What your plan here was, you had no idea, but you hated this. You hated all of this. All you wanted was to feel as in control as you did when you had Chris destroying himself for you. Why couldn’t it feel good when Jisung was doing the same? You just wanted to feel good about this, about the decisions you were making.

You accessed the security footage archive even though you knew files needed to be manually saved. Whatever it was you were hoping to find, it wouldn’t exist.

This was hopeless.

You wanted everything to stop.

By now, you were willing to just give up. Maybe, you darkly humored, there was a reason single women didn’t stay in Pinewood Falls. Maybe the whole town was fucking cursed. At this point, you could convince yourself to write your own confession, get out of town and burn everything down in your wake.

Your breath was shaky when you exited out of the security archive, but it fully hitched in your throat when you noticed an icon on your desktop.

It was labeled “Watch.”

Your fingers shook when you clicked it open. There it was: footage from that day in the library, when Jisung kissed you.

[genderisareligion]

i wrote a short story about my fear of men. i fear that the only people who would understand my emotions would be radical feminists, so here ya go:

I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't self conscious about what men thought of me. it must have started when I was a baby. I have no memories of it, but I was sex trafficked to exclusively men. I had never been told how many, but the unknown number haunts me. Was it two? Was it twenty? In a normal home in France, a woman was rendered unconscious and trafficked to over seventy men who lived in her area, not the whole world, her immediate area. How many men are walking around knowing they are predators in disguise? Were they thinking of raping me as they smiled at me?

When I was thirteen-years-old, I became convinced that the boys at my school could read my mind and see what had happened to me. The question still haunted me—how many men? In Miryang middle school in South Korea, one hundred and twenty male students gangraped middle school girls over the course of eleven months. When I was trafficked, I was trafficked for four years. If one hundred and twenty men can become assailants in such a short period of time, how many could have assaulted me over the course of four years? Was it in the hundreds? It could have been. The Miryang rapists were so young too. It could really be any male, even the young ones. Those boys in my school first captured my terrified heart when we were made to watch an anti-rape video as part of our health class. The boys wouldn't stop making jokes about it, about how stupid it was that we had to do that. They didn't think it was stupid to learn not to rape because it was common sense. They preferred to challenge the message. "Maybe someone who's unconscious does want it" one of them said. The others laughed. My heart sank to my stomach, where it continued to beat so hard that vomit seared my throat. All I could think about was the men who raped me. I wondered who was next. Maybe those boys would be the next ones to turn my body into public property.

Mind-reading is a strange fear. It feels like everybody knows the worst parts of you and were willing to exploit it. I'd read several Reddit posts about women who had been raped. They had confided in their boyfriends about their assaults only for their boyfriends to end up raping them. They saw their girlfriends' stories, not as a harrowing tale but as a "how to" guide. Even the boys I gave my heart to couldn't be trusted. I truly believed that if a man, any man or boy, was aware of my trafficked past, he would take advantage of me and traumatise me. No man was safe in my eyes.

I know that my paranoia may come across as unjustified—"not all men" you might be tempted to shriek, but I wouldn't feel this unsafe around men if the majority of men (who proclaimed to be the good ones) were as quick to punish the misogynistic behaviour of their peers as they are to punish women for expressing their fear of the fact that they don't. I keep thinking about that joke: "Maybe someone who's unconscious does want it", I think of the laughter that followed it, and I feel more comfortable in my belief that it might just be all men.

🖤

I'm so sorry for what happened to you, anon. Thank you so much for sharing.

I have DID from CSA which has caused me to fear that people can read my mind to prevent me from talking about it, it's very scary to experience. You're not alone.

It doesn't matter who screams "not all men!" at you, you are 100% within your rights to avoid men for the rest of your life if you so choose, considering how high the statistics are and how many men get away with it.

[noahsbookhoard]

📚January 2024 Book Review📚

I'm trying to come back to all the books I've read this year but going individually through the 80+ book is daunting so let's start with month by month!

January hasn't been very productive : I had just moved to a new city and didn't know where the public library was. I also was just setting up my e-reader so I was reading Farenheit 451 on pdf on my phone, it wasn't comfortable. Nonetheless my new year resolution of reading more consistently was holding so I was thrilled!

Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #1) by Tamsyn Muir

Gideon Nav is bored of the Ninth House, an almost dead planet in which she lives with some skeletons, some people so old as to almost be skeleton themselves and Harrowark Nonagesimus, Reverent Daughter and future leader of the Ninth. She was ready to escape when came the order: Gideon has to accompany Harrow as her Cavalier to the First House and help her to take up the challenges to become a Lictor, God's right hand. There's one problem, Harrow hates Gideon's guts and the feeling is mutual.

The Locked Tomb saga was everywhere on Tumblr so I caved and started it. Boy am I glad I did! Gideon the Ninth was an instant favorite that kept on confirming its status.

The plot swept me away, I was so engrossed in the tasks and tests I saw nothing coming! The end had everything I love in novels (epic battles, badass speeches, maybe a bit of romance and more than a bit of angst) and it took all my strength not to open Harrow the Ninth straight after finishing Gideon.

The wolrdbuilding is confusing at first but the confusion is a feature not a bug and quickly I was shrugging with Gideon every time a necromancer said something that made sense for them only. But what we get to see is original and full of details. I loved that in this universe bone magic is the norm instead of being Bad Guy MagicTM as is often is in fantasy.

Gideon is such a good character, funny, quick witted, horny as hell. Harrow too is endearing in her very very different way, mainly to me because we see her through Gideon's eye as the cavalier warms up to her necromancer (enemies to lover done right!) Her duo with Harrow is my second favorite only because nothing will ever top CamPal in my heart.

No need to say I fell hard for that saga and had since read the two following books, I'll come back to them in due time.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

In this dystopic future of America, the firefighters don't extinguish fires anymore: they start them, especially when it comes to burning books. Guy Montag is one of them and never doubted the institution until ome day, during an intervention he meets a woman hiding books and "accidentally" steals one. From there starts a chain of events in which Montag will question what he really does, but it's dangerous game.

Having been to school in France mean I haven't read a lot of american classics and I wanted to remedy this in 2024. I'll be honest my choice fell on this one specifically because of one MDZS fanfiction which is peperred with quotes from Fahrenheit 451 among others, so Bradbury it is!

This is fascinating to see both how far and how close science fiction and dystopic novels can fall to reality:

Books are not banned at a global level but book banning in the US is a frightening reality, expecially book by authors of color or lgbtq+ authors or anything that is a bit too critical of the government. I think Fahrenheit 451 is actually on the US banned book list which could be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

And turning an institution that should be dedicated to public service in a tool for the government to maintain status quo, completely reversing its original purpose if necessary sounds rather familiar...

Rooms with full screen walls are not here but it hits really close to Virtual Reality and ever bigger flatscreen that we have today, virtual meetings too, especially since Covid. Could it escalate to everyone staying home and communicating with frieds and family exclusively through screens? Maybe! I don't know!

And police robot dog are very much here, although they can't euthanize people (yet).

It is also unsettling to compare it with the decline of literacy and critical thinking skills in both adults and school level children. Also maybe of our memory capacity: the omnipresence of video as a news and information format and devices that can remind us of everything everywhere all the time means we rarely have to remember anything by heart today, no phone numbers, adresses, schedules, let alone entire books! If tomorrow it was all we could do to preserve knowledge would we be able to learn it by heart? I had to learn one every weeks in primary school, do kids still do this today?

Doesn't sounds like it from this review but I really enjoyed this book! Montag is deeply interesting and I was really hoping he escapes both the system and the manhunt. It's one of those book that never ages.

La cicatrice by Bruce Lowery

Jeff, 13, and his family just moved in a new place. Jeff would like nothing more but to make friends and blend in but he has a scar "a small cleft lip" which makes him a laughing-stock. By trying to blend in and swallowing up the pain Jeff slowly becomes sadder and more withdrawn, suffering and making those he loves suffer in turn.

Fun fact : Bruce Lowery is American but he writes in French! Yes I needed to put a fun fact here because that summary is bleak and so is the book.

I remember reading La cicatrice (the Scar in french) when I was around 7 or 8 and really liking it (there is one scene in a church which stayed with me even as a teen and I pretty much copied it in a story I wrote at 15). In the years since I had forgotten how sad it was. It wasn't a really fun rereading but it still shook me so that's how good the book is.

Jeff is so 13 year old it physically hurt : the awkwardness, the need to blend in, the pain of not getting the jokes or not being picked up for games, the secrecy with his parents, the closeness with his little brother Bobby. You want to appear bigger than you are and not play with your 7 year old brother, even though you love him so much, because that's for babies. But at the same time you want your mother to hug you and tell you that everything will be alright so hard!

And he does. Everything. Wrong. Or so it seems to 25-year-old-me gritting my teeth through the second hand embarrassment and saying "no Jeff please don't do that" every 5 pages. Everything he does is stupid-kid-who-wants-to-have-friends-so-bad stuff but it's also some stuff I remember doing when I too was the lonely kid trying to make friends. It just turned out very very bad for him.

I still recommend it (I'm not sure if an English translation is available somewhere) with TW for school bullying and child death. It left its mark on me when I was young and still today it hits close to home. Just be warned that's it's a sad story.

Us by Sara Soler

Us is a comic book memoir which tells the love story of Diana and Sara as well as the story of Diana's transition and their exploration of both their sexual orientation.

A teeny tiny bit of levity and a change in color palette! I love the use of blue and pink almost exclusively in this book.

Well, not all of this memoir is levity but this is a really heartwarming story and I really loved it.

It is both funny, tender, hard also sometimes because there are transphobic and biphobic jerks everywhere. Nonetheless as a trans person it is so nice to have someone sharing her story and telling people that it exists, it's possible and if you want it, it can be yours too.

It's also interesting to see how the dynamic shift in the couple with all the changes a trans coming out brings. There's enough story of couple breaking up after a coming out as it is, it's important to see that some people will change for you too.

I admit I haven't read many trans memoir so I have very few reference to compare it with but go and read it, all trans voices matter and it's always nice to have a hopeful queer story at the ready!

[captaindibbzy]

So the way I'm understanding this is:

Public school boys ruled the merchant banks in London and have done since, like, the 1700's. Then there's those OTHER banks that poor people use. This group was so small that literally they come from Eton or Harrow (I think?) And they wouldn't hire those peasant upstarts who come from places like university. They ran the bank on "common sense" (translation: if you knew how the world worked you would agree with me, so obviously you are either a fool or a crook if you don't agree, so I don't need to listen to you) and had their own insider code.

After the 2nd world war Britain is colossally fucked and penniless.

During this time the Midland Bank (later becomes HSBC) invents this little bypass thing where by instead of buying dollars, the back bone of the world economy in the decline of the pound, they borrow the dollars and use that to do business. This lets them bypass American law and regulation. They can then return the dollars having made profit off them.

The City goes "👀 what you got there Midland..." and they start doing this too, and start making huge quantities of profit of it.

This catches on all over, but in most places it gets regulated to shit cause "excuse me, pay us our share" is generally a sensible thing for governments to do. But not in London. They want the power and business.

America goes >:( excuse me stop that or we'll regulate YOU!

They can't regulate London.

Then Nixon rocks up and abolishes the gold standard, so all money is now Euro Dollars and a dollar is worth what someone will pay for it. He decides deregulation for all is a fantastic idea to try and tempt these banks back from London to New York.

Thatcher rocks up and says we can deregulate faster than you.

They end up in a race to the bottom to see who can deregulate faster to attract these businesses to their side of the Atlantic with the idea that simply having the banks there is a good money making strategy even if they have no control over it. The banker's in general think this is great. They can just move their money from one side to the other depending on where they make most money.

So The City ends up with all these terrible foreign banks! In their country! With these horrible Foreign owners! Making money from their idea!!! >:0 How dare!!! Not even British Peasants! Full on outsides on their teretory! Awful! Terrible! Who authorised this! This is an idea for THEM to bypass the rules, not Other People!

And now London is the world's money laundering capital 👍

That's my understanding anyway.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Rupa Subramanya and Ari Blaff

Published: Aug 3, 2023

Kike Ojo-Thompson, a diversity trainer in Toronto, was explaining to her class of 200 or so public school administrators that Canada is a much more racist country than the United States. 

“Canada is a bastion of white supremacy and colonialism,” Thompson said to a sea of nodding heads squeezed into Zoom. “The racism we experience is far worse here than there.” 

It was April 26, 2021, and Thompson was leading attendees through a session on systemic inequity. 

Thompson acknowledged that this might be hard for Canadians to accept, explaining that Americans “have a fighting posture against, at least, the monarchy. Here we celebrate the monarchy, the very heart and soul and origins of the colonial structure.” 

It was at that point that Richard Bilkszto, the principal of Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute and Adult Learning Centre, put his hand up. (Burnhamthorpe is a high school that caters mostly to students in their twenties who previously dropped out.) Bilkszto had trained in the United States, he was a devout progressive, and he was mystified by Thompson’s comments.

“I just wanted to make a comment about the Canada–U.S. thing, a little bit of a challenge to it,” Bilkszto offered. 

Citing Canada’s public schools, tax regime, and socialized healthcare system, and no doubt drawing on his own experience teaching in a predominantly black high school in Buffalo, New York, he said: “We’re a far more just society.”

There was a momentary silence. None of the other attendees waded in. 

Then Thompson, who is black, laced into Bilkszto, who is white.

“What I’m finding interesting is that, in the middle of this Covid disaster, where the inequities in this fair and equal healthcare system have been properly shown to all of us. . . you and your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on with black people—like, is that what you’re doing, ’cause I think that’s what you’re doing, but I’m not sure, so I’m going to leave you space to tell me what you’re doing right now,” she said.

Bilkszto shut up.

That seemed like the end of that. 

In fact, it was just the beginning of Bilkszto’s harrowing, two-year descent into an ordeal of public shaming and isolation that ended only when he took his life last month.

“He was distraught,” Michael Teper, a Toronto accountant and friend of Bilkszto, told The Free Press.

“It was not only his job that was taken away from him, but his reputation, because those very people were assassinating his character. They claimed he was a white supremacist, that he was a racist. They knew nothing about him. They knew nothing about what he stood for or what he believed. All they know about is what they believe.”

As the lawsuit that Richard Bilkszto filed against the Toronto District School Board, or TDSB, later noted, he was a 24-year veteran of Toronto public schools. He had been a teacher, a vice principal, and a principal. He was respected by his colleagues.

“Richard Bilkszto is an experienced, effective, and highly accomplished educational leader,” the Toronto District School Board’s supervisory officer, Karen Falconer, said in a 2015 appraisal of his work. 

When Bilkszto announced his retirement in January 2019, Falconer said: “You have proven your excellence in equity, instruction, entrepreneurship, student engagement.” She called Bilkszto a “leader amongst leaders.”

Curtis Ennis, who was then a regional manager in the Ministry of Education, praised Bilkszto’s “brilliant service.”

Robert McManus, 60, a retired teacher who had been friends with Bilkszto since they’d met at Boy Scouts camp at age 11, said of Bilkszto: “He really listened. He really cared. If you had a problem, he was going to do his very best to help you. Obviously, these qualities went on to make him an amazing educator.”

After retiring, Bilkszto stayed on as a substitute principal, but he was eager to start thinking about the next phase of his life. He wanted to travel. 

Then, in late August 2020, Superintendent Leila Girdhar-Hill reached out to Bilkszto. The district desperately needed a principal to run Burnhamthorpe.

Bilkszto said he’d love to do it, but he was tied up until late September. 

“Later that evening,” according to the lawsuit, “Girdhar-Hill called Bilkszto to inform him that she had spoken with Executive Superintendent Uton Robinson. . . and they had both agreed Bilkszto was the right candidate for this position, given his unique qualifications [and] extensive experience in the Adult Education field.”

On September 21, Bilkszto started at Burnhamthorpe.

For the first several months everything went well, despite the pandemic and the lockdowns. 

On April 25, 2021, Falconer, now interim Director of Education, said to Bilkszto, “How long are you saving us at Burnhamthorpe? It is such a relief to know you are there.”

Two days later, on April 27, 2021, Leila Girdhar-Hill, the superintendent, informed Bilkszto that Dan MacLean, the TDSB trustee for Burnhamthorpe, was “very impressed” with Bilkzsto, according to the lawsuit, and asked if he could return for the next school year.

Bilkszto agreed.

[ Richard with his mother, Alice, who is still alive at 94. When she heard about her son’s death, “it looked like someone had ripped her heart out,” a relative told The Free Press. (Photo courtesy of Jason Bilkszto) ]

As it turned out, on April 26, 2021, the day before Dan MacLean offered to extend Bilkszto’s contract by a year, Bilkszto had his confrontation on Zoom with Kike Ojo-Thompson, the founder and CEO of the KOJO Institute.

The Toronto District School Board had hired the KOJO Institute to provide four two-hour diversity, equity, and inclusion training sessions to its administrators—for nearly $61,000.

Thompson launched the KOJO Institute, a Toronto-based diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting shop, in 1998, and her clients include H&M, United Way, the Centers for Disease Control, and the University of Toronto, according to the firm’s website. 

KOJO is part of a rapidly ballooning, global DEI marketplace—with companies big and small increasingly worried they’ll be accused of systemic racism, and a slew of diversity consultants eager to charge handsome fees to teach these companies’ employees how to avoid being racist. In 2020, companies spent $7.5 billion on DEI-related efforts. By 2026, that figure is expected to rise to $15.4 billion—despite growing concerns about the efficacy of such efforts. 

KOJO’s first session with the TDSB took place April 19, 2021. Bilkszto attended that meeting, which was uneventful. (It’s unclear what attendees discussed at the first session.)

It was at the second session the following Monday, April 26, 2021, that Bilkszto suggested that maybe Canada was not “the bastion of white supremacy” Thompson had made it out to be—noting, for example, that public schools serving Canada’s poorest students are generally better funded than their equivalents in the United States.

“As white people, there’s a whole bunch going on that isn’t your personal experience,” Thompson said at the second session. “It will never be. You will never know it to be so. You will never know it to be so. So your job in this work, as white people, is to believe.”

No one in the Zoom meeting challenged any assumptions or thought to ask questions like: Who counts as white? Or black? Who should be believed? Who shouldn’t be? What about the many white and black people who don’t fit snugly into Thompson’s ideological compartments?

As she wrapped up the discussion, Thompson said: “I just want to thank everybody for a proper, thorough session today. We got into the weeds and got the weed whacker out apparently. It was hot today. It was good. It was really good.”

That day, Sheryl Robinson Petrazzini, the executive superintendent of education—who is black—took to Twitter to show her support for Thompson. “When faced with resistance to addressing Anti-Black racism, we can’t remain silent as it reinforces harm to Black students and families,” Petrazzini wrote. “Thank you @KOJOInstitute for modeling the discomfort administrators may need to experience in order to disrupt ABR,” or anti-black racism. (She has since deleted the tweet.) 

The Petrazzini tweet “had a horrible effect on Richard,” according to Robert McManus, his longtime friend. It sent a message to the entire community of teachers and administrators, McManus said, that the school board approved of Bilkszto’s treatment—that he was guilty. (Petrazzini has since been promoted to director of education at another school district.)

It was at the third session on May 3, 2021—one week after Thompson’s public tongue-lashing of Bilkszto—that she decided to turn his “resistance” into a “teachable moment.”

“One of the ways that white supremacy is upheld, protected, reproduced, upkept, defended is through resistance,” Thompson explained—before laughing and going on to say: “I’m so lucky that we got perfect evidence, a wonderful example of resistance that you all got to bear witness to, so we’re going to talk about it, because, I mean, it doesn’t get better than this.” (Bilkszto’s attorney, Lisa Bildy, permitted The Free Press to listen to segments of the audio recordings of the training sessions.) 

Other attendees joined the pile on.

One woman, who Thompson calls “Lisa” on the recording, talked about white “discomfort” with open-ended discussions about race. 

Another woman, whose name is hard to make out on the recording, defended Thompson to the class while referring to Bilkszto as “the whiteness.” 

She said to Thompson: “I believe I heard you say—I’m a black woman, I’m telling you this—yet the whiteness said, ‘No, this is what I’m telling you,’ and that’s often the posture.’ They don’t want to hear what you’re saying. . . ”

No one came to Bilkszto’s defense.

“I think there was some back-channel texting while it was going on, where they acknowledged this was wrong,” Anthony Furey told me, alluding to other people in the DEI training session. Furey met Bilkszto while Furey ran in the recent Toronto mayoral race. “But the problem is nobody had the balls or leadership to stand up and say this is wrong.”

On May 4, 2021, the day after the third session, Bilkszto filed for sick leave. He missed the fourth and final session, the next Monday, and filed a complaint with school officials saying that he’d been harassed.

Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board looked into the matter. In August 2021, the board released its findings, stating that Thompson’s behavior was “abusive” and amounted to “workplace harassment.” Bilkszto was awarded seven weeks of lost pay.

But by then, Bilkszto was tainted goods.

Mike Ramsay, a friend of Bilkszto, told us: “His contracts were freezing up—and not a word from his former supervisors and colleagues. While he said some people were nice to him, for many others, he was not politically popular to be seen or be around.”

Richard Bilkszto was, above all, an educator, his friends and colleagues said. He didn’t have a partner or children. But he cared deeply about his students, and he was worried about the impact of the new identity-focused politics on the classroom, even though he was gay and, in an interview with The Free Press a few months before his death, voiced concern about transgender students being bullied.

“To me, being gay is a part of me,” Bilkszto said in the interview. “It’s not my identity. It’s not something I choose to put out there all the time. As a matter of fact, if people were having a conversation about, you know, ‘I don’t think there should be gay marriage,’ I’m not even offended by that if people are making rational arguments—as long as they’re not being homophobic.”

He added: “It’s about the whole cancelling and not allowing for free speech, free debate, and all those types of things. I’m a big free speech proponent.” Bilkszto said he thought Chris Rufo, the conservative activist who built his online following by spotlighting the excesses of wokeness, was spot on.

In his interview with The Free Press, Bilkszto sounded exasperated with the Toronto District School Board, saying that if he had kids he wouldn’t send them to the public schools. “It’s nothing about competence anymore,” he said. “It’s about your allegiance to the ideology.”

In April, Bilkszto sued the Toronto District School Board, citing Thompson’s “defamatory statements” and the unwillingness of administrators and other higher-ups at the TDSB to stand up for him—even though they had previously showered him with praise.

“Bilkszto has suffered and will continue to suffer damage to his character and reputation both personally and professionally,” the lawsuit states. “As well, Bilkszto has been subjected to embarrassment, scandal, ridicule, contempt, and severe emotional distress.” 

The lawsuit offered the hope of redemption. But it apparently wasn’t enough.

On July 13, Bilkszto jumped from his 16th-floor apartment in Toronto, ending his life. He apparently left a note, but loved ones did not want to share its contents. He was 60. 

[ Richard with his nephews Jason and Cody and niece Kate when they were children. “I miss my uncle. I don’t have him to ask for advice or guidance anymore. I feel like that’s been stolen from me,” Jason told The Free Press. (Photo courtesy of Jason Bilkszto) ]

“How can you not be allowed to slightly disagree with something without them tearing you apart for it?” Jason Bilkszto, Richard’s nephew, said in an interview with The Free Press. He was having trouble holding back his tears. 

“I miss my uncle. I don’t have him to ask for advice or guidance anymore. I wasn’t done getting advice from him. I feel like that’s been stolen from me.”

The last time Jason saw his uncle was June 19. It was Richard’s birthday and Father’s Day weekend, and the whole family gathered at Richard’s 94-year-old mother’s house. Richard made lasagna and salad.

“He seemed okay,” Jason, a chef who runs his own catering business, said. “He didn’t seem too stressed out or anxious. I can’t really say we noticed anything in particular that raised any alarms or anything.”

Robert McManus last spoke to Bilkszto July 12—the day before he committed suicide. “It was absolutely clear he was not sleeping well as a result of all the stress,” McManus said. “He was a very optimistic person, so the vast majority of the time, when people would be speaking to him, he would be seen as doing well, but his friends knew that he struggled—he struggled with what had happened to him.”

McManus added: “Our last conversation ended with me inviting him over to my place for a dinner party on Saturday, and he said, ‘See you Saturday.’ ”

Jason Bilkszto recalled that, when his grandmother—Richard’s mother—heard about her son’s death, “it looked like someone had ripped her heart out.”

Jason said he thinks his uncle was worried about the stain on the family name. “Our last name is very unique and not common at all,” he said, “and everyone’s on social media these days. I do think that maybe he was worried about our name and it affecting the rest of the family, because it is so uncommon. That was probably weighing on him.”

The Free Press reached out to Kike Ojo-Thompson and several of her colleagues at the KOJO Institute. No one agreed to talk. When we visited the KOJO Institute’s office—in a sleek, two-story brick building—no one appeared to be there.

On July 27, Thompson released a statement on the KOJO Institute’s site saying: “This incident is being weaponized to discredit and suppress the work of everyone committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” She added that “[W]e will not be deterred from our work in building a better society for everyone.”

In the wake of Bilkszto’s death, Ari Goldkind, a Toronto attorney, said the DEI consultants—and all the businesses, nonprofits, and school districts that hire them—are now “on notice” that these training sessions “can have horrendous, real-world consequences.”

“There’s a real possibility here that, moving forward, the DEI training session becomes much more litigious, with attendees who feel put upon or hurt or maligned, dangerously maligned—meaning they’re ostracized or rendered unemployable—striking back in court,” Goldkind said. “That’s the lesson of this tragedy, that people are sick and tired of being isolated and cast out from polite society because they have the gall to ask a question or challenge the orthodoxy.”

It’s been two weeks since Bilkszto’s death, and his friends can’t believe he’s gone. Once upon a time, Robert McManus said, Bilkszto was the centrifugal force around which everyone in their circle revolved. He was the energetic one, the one who was always the most enthusiastic about whatever anyone else was up to.

And then he seemed lost, Michael Teper said. He’d gone to Mexico earlier this year to get away from the madness, but when he came back, Teper said, the madness was waiting for him.

McManus said: “It’s hard to imagine my life without him. I’m saddened that, in his moment of need, no one defended Richard.” Had it been someone else, McManus added, “he would never have sat silently by.”

==

Like any authoritarian regime, wokeness has a body count.

"There’s a real possibility here that, moving forward, the DEI training session becomes much more litigious"

Good. These fundamentalist cultists have been given undeserved, unearned, self-appointed free reign over society for far too long. If the DIE organizations themselves can't be sued into oblivion, then hopefully businesses can be financially discouraged from engaging these hate preachers in the first place, to subject their employees to this harassment, bullying, ideological domination and thought control.

In China, this exact kind of intimidation and coercion was a form of Mao-era torture called a struggle session.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session

Struggle sessions or denunciation rallies were violent public spectacles in Maoist China where people accused of being "class enemies" were publicly humiliated, accused, beaten and tortured by people with whom they were close. Usually conducted at the workplace, classrooms and auditoriums, "students were pitted against their teachers, friends and spouses were pressured to betray one another, [and] children were manipulated into exposing their parents". Staging, scripts and agitators were prearranged by the Maoists to incite crowd support. The aim was to instill a crusading spirit among the crowd to promote the Maoist thought reform. These rallies were most popular in the mass campaigns immediately before and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China and during the Cultural Revolution. The denunciation of prominent class enemies was often conducted in public squares and marked by large crowds of people who surrounded the kneeling victim, raised their fists, and shouted accusations of misdeeds.

The fantasists and fanatics can never be satisfied.

[themorbidart]

With @coulsart's help I perfected my boy Calvin's design. I prefer him a lot like this.

This is actually for an 'au' where Cavlin is a revenant (the closest thing I can come up with to call him apart from a zombie) and he's still as messed up as he is in his original take.

More info under the cut!

He's an Irish immigrant to London who's had a rough time of it and came back after he was hanged for some pretty brutal crimes (He's still a vigilante serial killer in this universe and dying via public execution was a pretty harrowing and sobering experience.) He went through some soft Victorian therapy and then got a job, called out his bosses for poorly managing things, insulted them enough for them to accept a bet that he could do their jobs better, and ended up getting a promotion to head supervisor in four months.

After another year he bought the company off of the owners with his side hustles (varying levels of legal) and now he runs the safest warehouses on the Thames river. (no child labor there, any child sent to him, he just pays for their schooling so they're not abused and hurt in the workplace like he was). He also runs a charity where he investigates what his constable friend in the Scotland yard can't investigate, sort of like a more violent Sherlock Holmes. He does what he can to make the world a better place for those he thinks deserve it.

[scotianostra]

Captain Pugwash creator John Ryan was born on March 4th 1921 in Edinburgh.

Captain Pugwash creator John Ryan was born on March 4th 1921 in Edinburgh.

Born as John Gerald Christopher Ryan in Rintoul Place, he was the youngest of four sons of the diplomat Sir Andrew Ryan KBE CMG, who served as consul-general to Morocco and was later British minister at Jeddah and in Albania. His uncle was the Archbishop of Trinidad. and Tobago Ryan spent his early years in Turkey and Morocco before returning to Britain, where he was educated at Ampleforth College Boarding school. His first cartoon was in the school magazine when he was just 9.

During the Second World War he served in the Lincolnshire Regiment in Burma and India, achieving the rank of captain. After being demobbed he studied art at the Regent Street Polytechnic, London.

He then worked as assistant art master (and later art master) at Harrow School, during this period Ryan began contributing strips to children’s comics such as the Eagle, Girl and Swift.

His best-known creation, Captain Horatio Pugwash – skipper of the Black Pig and “the bravest, most handsome pirate of the Seven Seas” – first appeared in the launch issue of the Eagle on 14 April 1950. Set in the 18th century, the strip’s full title was “Captain Pugwash, the Story of a Bad Buccaneer and of the Many Sticky Ends which Nearly Befell Him”. The portly, cowardly and conceited Pugwash, with his moustache and goatee beard and skull-and-crossbones hat, would frequently utter cries such as “Dolloping doubloons!”, “Kipper me capstans!” and “Coddling catfish!” The red-and-black striped shirt which he wore under his blue frockcoat was inspired by Ampleforth College’s football team’s colours. His arch-enemy and main rival in the quest for treasure was Cut-Throat Jake, captain of the Flying Dustman.

I think I should point out, and maybe spoil some peoples memories about Captain Pugwash, there was no Master Bates, Seaman Staines or Roger the Cabin Boy, they are urban myths, it was Tom the Cabin Boy and Pirate Willy, entirely innocent names, the other names are thought to have originated back in the 1970’s in student rag mags, the smutty names, according to Ryan’s father had an upsetting affect on her dad, who she describes as “a very charming and innocent man” The family had to sue some publications after her father’s death when some papers printed the fake names. The family gave money they were awarded to lifeboat charities.

Another series Ryan created, and one I certainly remember when growing u, was Mary, Mungo and Midge. John Ryan also drew topical cartoons for the Catholic Herald for more than 40 years and was the author and illustrator of more than 50 books.

He passed away in July 2009.

[bugginoutofthisworld]

SUN DOGS - from Tales From the Dickt: Cumplete Edition

-

“I know that what you call ‘God’ really exists, but not in the form you think; God is primal cosmic energy, the love in your body, your integrity, and your perception of the nature in you and outside of you” - Wilhelm Reich, 1945.

The energy manifested in that public restroom on that harrowing day was unlike any conceived before. Its limestone, tile walls had become washed with a lavender hue and the air itself took on the limber physicality of waves in the ocean. Swathes of people sat on the sticky, urine-soaked floors and gawked in amazement at something that beheld a capacity for beauty which was not meant to be seen by human optics. I had been engrossed in its divine aura for an afternoon so long it seemed like it would never end, oh how I wish it had.

Customer service is a dehydrating occupation, it begets the kind of thirst that can only be quenched by diet coke and bi-hourly smoke breaks. It’s the kind of career that demands you forgo the physical sensations of poor health and consume inhibitors that provide you with fleeting feelings of energy. Generally, working customer service is like taking deep breaths at the summit of a high mountain, bad for you.

I liked to occupy myself on lunch breaks with a book. In equal parts due to my love for literature, and also the complex character it presents to the boy in the bakery I've wanted to scramble my insides since the day I started working there. I was remiss that day to have to end my time with Kafka’s The Trial sooner than I’d like because of how my bladder berated me that it needed emptying. My assumption that not drinking water for four hours would correlate to less bathroom breaks couldn’t have been more wrong.

An empty bathroom is always a pleasant place to be. Ever since an uncomfortable middle school locker room interaction where a boy a year older than me laughed at the size of my flaccid penis I’ve been detrimentally pee-shy. It wasn’t until earlier this year I was finally able to use the urinal without having to add numbers in my head in order to suppress the fears that filled my blood stream with adrenaline. As I pissed I thought of how far I’d come in my journey with public restrooms. It's a frightening place, but when you work at a grocery store any vacant space is a safe one. While washing my hands at the sink an older gentleman walked in. He was of the decrepit type. His cane bent and creaked like an old tree as he shifted his weight onto it with every other step.

Much like me, he’d gone for a piss. I jumped when as I was leaving, he shouted in regret. The old tree lost its battle to the violent winds.

“No! No! No!” He yelled. The old man fell onto the floor with the kind of force that makes you want to avert your gaze it looks so painful. With embarrassment his face grew red and hot, he groaned and writhed on the floor.

“Sir!” Shouted I, concerned. I knelt beside him.

“Please don’t.” He grabbed for my shoulder. But it was too late. My eyes trailed down his shirt, wet with piss, to his exposed lower stomach, following the hairs that went from his outie-belly button and into his pubes, and landed my gaze on his cock. His wonderful cock. The magnum opus of all God’s creation. A blue halo of plasm shone from his genitals. It waved from east to west to east to west like a dowsing rod scanning the room for information. Words cannot describe the influence of the old man's junk. Human words would simply be reductive to the inexplicable effect of his cock.

A later player would verbalize its effect as being “like that of something with an extra dimension our eyes are too rudimentary to perceive.” The later player stepped into the bathroom, momentarily aghast.

“What the…” he trailed off. His hard, leather exterior was in a single moment

completely disarmed. He’d fallen to his knees and like a child toward the cookie it salivated over crawled impishly at the old man and myself. Not a word was spoken by him, the motorbike man, he could not steer his eyes from the trance the old man's cock had upon him. Tears welled and spilled from the ducts of his eyes and caressed his cheeks like the loving hand of a mother.

“Sir?” I asked.

“Oh god no.” Murmured the old man.

With the application of his large, callused fingers, the motorbike man swiped at his eyes and presented to us both the contact lenses he had just removed. No sooner had the significance of that fourth dimension become any clearer.

“I can see again,” the motorbike man said as he swallowed a large globule of phlegm and pride.

“You stay here,” I told the man. Leaving the side of the older gentleman and having exited the bathroom. I pondered the nearby dairy aisle for the sort of person who might prove this hypothesis. Who stared at the shelf of cottage cheese but a man whose arm was slung in a cast. “Excuse me?” I asked him as I neared.

“Huh?”

“I work here and I was just wondering,” thinking, “if you’d be interested in trying a new flavor of cottage cheese?”

“What flavor?”

“Uhhh,” thinking, “colby jack.” I said, with the type of unsteady confidence that led my statement to sounding like it should have ended with a question mark.

“Sure.” Responded the mad cow man, indifferent. Without another word I led him into the bathroom where the motorbike man still wept and the old man still lay in agony. “Why are we in a bathroom?” He asked.

“Uhhh,” the presence of the cock seemed to have quickened my wit, “it's an inbetween place, so you won’t be influenced by outside stimuli when you taste the cottage cheese and thus provide us with an unreliable and biased opinion.” My ability to sell cheese had filled me with pride.

“Okay.”

“But real quick I need you to step over here and lower yourself-” I hadn’t needed to finish. The orgonic energy of the cock had mesmerized the mad cow man and he was on the floor without a moment's hesitation.

“Oh my god,” he said. “Holy shit.” His arm wriggled in its sling and he pulled it free, waving it around and grasping at the air with his healed fingers as if that capacity of movement in that arm was completely foreign to him. There was a knock at the door. I’d opened it and was amazed to see a line of people compelled by the overwhelming energy that leaked into the store and compelled them to the space.

A pimply lady lowered her acne-ridden face toward the cock and the zits fell from her face like apples shaken from a tree. The scars of cysts past receded and healed flesh took its place. She left the bathroom and had scrawled three different phone numbers on her palm before she’d even completed the length of the line.

An athletically footed man removed his shoes and crusty, matted socks. Before the smell could even permeate the air the color of his feet had maneuvered from browns and greens back to a healthy tan and peach.

Hemorrhoids hung like bunches of grapes from the anus of someone who’d preoccupied themselves too much with fissure-causing anal sex. The grapes shriveled to raisins and plopped onto the floor. The person left the bathroom already in communication with the next person who might once more tear up their freshly healed sphincter.

As if she were sketching a ladder on her arm, a depressed girl with rungs of scars on her wrists rested her forehead near the crotch of the old man. Static connected between the two. Her heart pounded less ferociously against the cage of her ribs and she left the bathroom with a smile.

There was a mid-pubescent boy who’d come in soon after desperate to rid himself of the homosexual thoughts that plagued his mind. His dick was erect as he locked eyes with the penis of the old man but the blood had returned to his system after not more than a minute in communications with the whispers of the cock. His walk had less of a faggy-swish to it and the limp in his wrist had straightened itself.

A lady who hacked out her words as they dodged the lodgings of gunk in her lungs and throat when she spoke had snapped the cigarette tucked behind her ear in half after she’d spent a moment with her bosom near the cock.

A couple struggling with impotencey and infertility had gushed their problems to the therapeutic boober of the old man and left the bathroom having mastered the art of conception.

Hours in the bathroom came and went like vignettes of experience. Time progressed as if it were an anecdote being recounted at the end of a long and fulfilling life. As the couple left I asked them, “tell the next person in line just to wait a minute.” And alone once more in the bathroom was me and the old man.

“Feeling alright, kid?”

“No, honestly.” A monumental strangeness had overwhelmed my senses. The muscles in my face were stretched strenuously as I swallowed wave after wave of salty saliva. The rain pattern of my head had elevated from a drizzle to a hurricane. The symbiosis of my health and the power of the old man's dick had quickly become a negative relationship.

I’d darted for the toilet in an experience which felt like flipping through photos in an album. Just single moments of delirious nausea. Vomit climbed to the apex of my throat and I’d sprayed a gust of it all over the back of the toilet. A chain reaction was occurring which had caused the entire contents of my stomach to evacuate in a single motion. I gagged, choked on bile, and sweat swept in from the side of my face and stung my dry, red eyes. The atmosphere of the bathroom was dancing like the beating of the sun on hot pavement. Consciousness slipped through my fingers like snot through thin tissue.

The sound of gale-wind storms echoed within the pitch-black chamber that was once the bathroom at the back of a grocery store, whose waters had run dry and air had gone stale. Headache like the ricochet of a bullet off concrete which bounced around a vacuum of space. I’d gathered myself and stood with the weak knees that reminded me of the old man's cane. Where had he gone? My knowledge of the bathroom's floor plan was so familiar I was able to follow the length of the wall and make my way to the door.

On the other side was a landscape completely alien to the midwest environments I’d been used to. Dunes of sand piled high into the dark, navy distance and whipped in a flurry so strong I wasn’t sure I could stand it. In the distance lighting cracked and thunder roared. With my shoes tossed aside I ventured into the desert.

Grains of sand beat at my face so strong every half minute I’d assessed it for lacerations. No blood spilled but I’d come to realize that the force of the sand was such that it could create scars and congeal them just as quick. The muscles in the arch of my foot ached as they strained to climb the impossible walls of sand. I’d ascend a dune and frustratingly slide back down as the earth below me avalanched under my weight. All around me were flipped cars and loose groceries that would soon disappear under the sands forever. I finally reached the summit of the largest dune.

There he was.

Not alone.

Knelt at the feet of a beast.

His own pious devotion.

“Sir!” I exclaimed, still enamored by his potential. The exclamation caught both him and the beast by surprise, and they turned to me with bright rubies in their ferocious eyes. Inaudible to me, the old man moved his mouth but the sound lost itself within the fury of the sandstorm. Nearer and nearer to them I slowly grew until finding myself directly behind the old man and tapped him on the shoulder. He spun his head around. His eyes now a fury of green flame. I looked past him, and saw what I shouldn’t.

The motorbike man had previously remarked something to the effect of, “the old mans dick has the effect of something with an added dimension that our eyes are too plain to see,” at this moment the old man held something in his hand which had spilled drool onto his chin and made his eyes red. What he held were the beast's genitals, which had inspired a similarly grand feeling as the old mans, but in the opposite direction.

Like a mirage, they vanished into the dust and darkness, but not before the beast could utter a final, single, chilling phrase.

“A little privacy please?” With the conclusion of the last syllable they congruently disappeared.

Home was now possibly dimensions away, although it had just been down the road, I’d never found it. And for the rest of time, for as long as it took the sun to die I remained in the whipping sands. Eating nothing but bags of chips and cans of beans. Not once for the eternity that consumed me did sexuality ever cross my mind,

how could it?

[twopoppies]

S.S.Daley showed the newest collection in Florence, Italy and Steven said his inspiration behind the collection was “E.M. Foster’s novella ‘The Story of a Panic’ about a man who comes to Italy for the first time and experiences a sexual awakening when meeting an Italian man’

I love love love that Harry has not only been supporting this queer brand and from the very first collection but now also has stakes in it. So cool. And makes total sense ♥️

India and I were just talking this morning about how much SS Daley’s style fits Harry’s aesthetic. More so than even Loewe—which is classic and beautiful, but doesn’t have that quirkiness that I, at least, associate with Harry.

I also love what Stokey-Daley says about the inspiration behind his brand:

Flirting with class ideologies, Daley, a working class boy from Liverpool, reinterprets the realm of British elitism via the institution of the British public school. «I think it’s interesting, you know.. looking at codes, which historically belong to Harrow School for example, and figuring out their equivalents of the school culture I’m more familiar with.»

Stokey-Daley quickly became enraptured with the world of regatta races, flowery traditionalism and decadent English aristocracy. «I came across images of a regatta and I had never seen anything like it before… There is something inherently feminine about that hyper-masculine culture.” Amongst a range of referential films, theatrical practitioners and 18th century portraiture, Daley remains influenced by British cult classics: Maurice, Another Country and Brideshead Revisited. Daley questions the structural nature of British heritage and systematic elitism through the lens of ‘homosocial’ theory.

I’ve posted a bit about the brand here since I first became aware of it.

[fantomcomics]

What’s Out This Week? 2/8

Why do we live somewhere where the air hurts our faces??

A Condition Called Love GN Vol 1 -  Megumi Morino

A sweet new shojo romance manga from the creator of Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty! Hotaru is a 16-year-old high school first year who has always been ambivalent about love, preferring instead to have a lively life with her family and friends. So when she sees her schoolmate, Hananoi-kun, sitting in the snow after a messy, public breakup, she thinks nothing of offering to share her umbrella. But when he asks her out in the middle of her classroom the next day, she can't help but feel that her life is about to change in a big way!

A Home Without GN -  Don Gaddis

Growing up in the Bible Belt of the 1980s as a creative, colorful, and sensitive young boy is hard enough, but it's especially hard for River. His hot-tempered father, Mitch Garrison, fights constantly with his wife Rosemary and resents his son's softer side. As River and his sisters come of age, they'll have no choice but to help their mother (and each other) survive a chaotic household. Searing autobiographical fiction drawn heavily from the childhood of Southern artist and writer Don Gaddis.

Akim Aliu Dreamer GN -  Greg Anderson Elysee & Karen De la Vega

Akim Aliu - also known as "Dreamer" - is a Ukrainian-Nigerian-Canadian professional hockey player whose career took him all around the world and who experienced systemic racism at every turn. Dreamer tells Akim's incredible story, from being the only Black child in his Ukrainian community, to his family struggling to make ends meet while living in Toronto, to confronting the racist violence he often experienced both on and off the ice. This is a gut-wrenching and riveting graphic novel memoir that reminds us to never stop dreaming, and is sure to inspire young readers everywhere.

Clock Striker GN Vol 1 -  Issaka Galadima

Cast dreams of being a SMITH, but no one in her small town ever realizes their dreams. Besides, these legendary warrior engineers haven't been seen in years and were never known for having female members. Fortunately, Cast meets one surviving member named Ms. Philomena Clock, who agrees to take her on as her apprentice, or striker.

The Extraordinary Part Book 1 HC -  Jerome Mulot & Florent Ruppert

Renowned for their great conceptual and graphic originality, acclaimed French cartoonists Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot have masterfully contributed an instant comics classic to the annals of science fiction.

This first book in a two-volume graphic novel series is set in a near-dystopian present, where mysterious creatures called "whols" coexist with humans since their sudden appearance a few years earlier. At first, they aroused curiosity and wonder, then their seemingly harmless presence became commonplace. Nineteen-year-old Orsay leads an uneventful life in the French countryside, until the day he gains extraordinary powers in his hands after an atypically aggressive encounter with a whol. On a trip to Paris in search of a cure, he meets and falls for Basma, a passionate activist for whols' rights. But Orsay isn't convinced that whols should be granted the same status as humans. Especially once Melek, another human with similar powers, embarks on a murderous rampage to avenge those she sees as her kin.

Harrower #1 (of 4) - Justin Jordan & Brahm Revel

There's nothing to fear in the quaint town of Harrow, New York-except, that is, for the Harrower. The children wish this boogeyman was just an urban legend, but this purveyor of puritanical vengeance against the unrighteous is very real, and there's no escape, because the Harrower seems unkillable, and spans generations, always returning... What secrets will Alice Young, a teenage girl obsessed with the Harrower, uncover, and will she be able to escape the pull of her morbid fixation? This deconstruction of the slasher genre is the fresh and terrifyingly grounded take is perfect for fans of Bone Orchard and The Closet!

Marry Me A Little GN -  Robert Kirby

Marriage doesn't define a relationship. Unless you want it to. In Marry Me a Little, Rob Kirby recounts his experience of marrying his longtime partner, John, just after gay marriage was legalized in Minnesota in 2013, and two years before the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges made gay marriage the law of the land. This is a personal story-about Rob's ambivalence (if not antipathy) toward the institution of marriage, his loving relationship with John, and the life that they share together-set against the historical and political backdrop of shifting attitudes toward gay rights and the institution of marriage. With humor and candor, Rob relates how he and John navigated this changing landscape, how they planned and celebrated their wedding, and how they and others in the gay community are now facing the very real possibility of setbacks to marriage equality.

Monarch #1 -  Rodney Barnes & Alex Lins A new tale of terror and high-stakes science fiction hits close to home! Growing up in the city of Compton is tough enough as it is, but as Travon has learned all too well, growing up as an orphan in the city of Compton with gang members hunting you down every day is even tougher. But all of that is about to change, because today is the day that aliens make first contact with Earth-and it only spells doom for life as we know it! Death, devastation, and mayhem-can a single teenage boy rise to the challenge and protect his surrogate family and friends...or will he die trying? From RODNEY BARNES, the star comics writer behind the Eisner-nominated series KILLADELPHIA and the writer/executive producer of HBO's Winning Time, and up-and-coming Marvel artist ALEX LINS comes a new tale of love, triumph, disaster, and defeat!

My Special One GN Vol 1 -  Momoko Koda

After a mortifying rejection, Sahoko Wakaume has sworn off beautiful boys. But a chance meeting at her family's restaurant puts her in the sights of gorgeous J-pop star Kouta Kirigaya of the group Like Legend. Sahoko will need all her cynicism to defend herself against Kouta's tenderhearted and affectionate efforts to win her heart!

Open Bar TP -  Eduardo Medeiros

Lenny and Beardo are two childhood friends with a lot of road behind them. When Beardo's deadbeat dad dies and leaves them his old bar, they make a go of it as business partners. Easy enough, right? Maybe not.   Running a business in a low-traffic area of town isn't all it's cracked up to be, but luckily for the boys, the one-two punch of viral media attention when their neighbor gets crushed by a 747 engine that falls from the sky and a sorta suspect (but very potent) beer recipe they stumble into catch the public's imagination at just the right time. Things get even more complicated when Lenny's ex-girlfriend Amanda shows up again, pregnant. Can our two heroes weather the ravages of success any better than they dealt with being losers? Can Lenny level up and be a good dad? Can Beardo forgive his dead, absentee father? Will the general public run them out of town when they find out what was actually in that beer?

The Secret History Of Black Punk TP -  Raeghan Buchanan

The Secret History of Black Punk is an illustrated roll-call for punk, post-punk, hardcore, no wave, and experimental bands from ground zero until now. A starting point for anyone curious, another reference for those who devour all genre-related things, or a cool artifact for them who already know.

Show-Ha Shoten! GN Vol 1 -  Akinari Asakura & Takeshi Obata

Ever since he failed to make his crush laugh, shy Azemichi Shijima has secretly been studying the art of comedy. Meanwhile, his classmate Taiyo Higashikata has big dreams of being funny but no follow-through. When the two team up, they just might be able to create a wave of laughter that reaches to the heavens and propels them to the top of the comedy world!

Space Job #1 (of 4) -  David Goodman & Alvaro Sarraseca

After five long years of soul-crushing servitude as a chef's assistant, Danny Sheridan is getting his dream job in space as First Officer aboard the SS George H.W. Bush. But on his first day he finds himself crashing back to reality. Nothing seems right, the crew is subpar . . . something's going on, and First Officer Danny Sheridan is going to get to the bottom of it or die trying.

Stranger Things: Tales From Hawkins #1 (of 4) -  Jody Houser, Caio Filipe & Marc Aspinall

On the surface, Hawkins seems like the kind of town where nothing bad could ever happen, but in the fall of '83 it is anything but safe. When two friends head out into the woods with their rifles and a six-pack, the would-be hunters find themselves the prey of a nightmarish beast who has claimed the wilderness around town and everything inside it, including them.

Where I’m Coming From GN -  Barbara Brandon-Croft

From diets to day care to debt to dreaded encounters with everyday racism, no issue is off-limits. This remarkable and unapologetically funny career retrospective holds a mirror up to the ways society has changed and all the ways it hasn't. The magic in Where I'm Coming From is its ability to present an honest image of Black life without sacrificing Black joy, bolstered by unexpected one-liners eliciting much-needed laughter.

Whatcha snagging this week, Fantom Fam? 

[quoteoftheweekblog]

DOROTHY L. SAYERS - 'MURDER MUST ADVERTISE' (FIRST PUBLISHED 1933)

Furst sentence:

' "And by the way," said Mr Hankin, arresting Miss Rossiter as she rose to go, "there is a new copy-writer coming in today." ' (Sayers, 2023, p.1).

On spelling:

' "Anyway, how do you spell Chrononhotonthologos?" "Oh! I can do that. And Aldiborontophoscophornio, too." ' (Sayers, 2023, p.43).

'And on top of all this, there was the awkward question of spelling - always a stumbling block.' (Sayers, 2023, p.129).

On state education:

' "They weren't brought up to the idea of lending around their lecture notes. They've a sort of board-school idea that everybody ought to paddle his own course." ' (Sayers, 2023, p.45).

' "I went to a Council School and I'm not ashamed of it." ' (Sayers, 2023, p.187).

On university:

' " ... it's all this University education. What does it do? It takes a boy, or a young woman for that matter, and keeps him in leading-straps in the playground when he ought to be ploughing his own furrow in the face of reality ... " ' (Sayers, 2023, p.101).

'He had always said that the younger generation of advertising writers were No Good. Too much of the newfangled University element. Featherheadedness. No solid business sense. no thought.' (Sayers, 2023, p.137).

On public school:

' "What schools do you call public schools?" "Eton ... Harrow," ... "Rugby," ... "No, no ... that's a railway junction." ' (Sayers, 2023, p.187).

' "And I've heard ... that there's a decentish sort of place at Winchester, if you're not too particular." ' (Sayers, 2023, pp.187-8).

' "I once met a man who'd been to Marlborough ... "I'm sorry to hear that ... They get a terrible set of hearty roughs down there." ' (Sayers, 2023, p.188).

On life:

' "It is not every puppy that appears in the kennel-book ... it is a wise man that knows all his own cousins." ' (Sayers, 2023, p.215).

REFERENCE

Sayers, D.L. (2023 [1933] ) 'Murder must advertise'. London: Hodder and Stoughton.