#jan's 2 cents

[seancamerons]

i really don't want to be in an argument with a girl i've known since elementary school and brownies - who i'd literally get in arguments with over who could 'date' justin if britney/justin broke up way back in 2000-2001!! we loved them both. she claims brit (she totally said some shit i will not repeat and brought britney's kids into the convo after saying all that - justifying that she has kids herself now, and like saying in the same hypocritical thing oh leave jessica and her son out of this when i literally said NOTHING about their child, i just don't really 'get' jessica defending justin when he did her dirty too but that's another conversation!)

so now, fast forward a bunch of time - she's fighting so hard for him it's sickening, and f it - she can have him married or not. i'm team britney, not that there are 'sides' or whatever. god i'm so glad i saw the light. yikes. big yikes.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How to shatter the class solidarity of the ruling class

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me WEDNESDAY (Apr 11) at UCLA, then Chicago (Apr 17), Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Audre Lorde counsels us that "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," while MLK said "the law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me." Somewhere between replacing the system and using the system lies a pragmatic – if easily derailed – course.

Lorde is telling us that a rotten system can't be redeemed by using its own chosen reform mechanisms. King's telling us that unless we live, we can't fight – so anything within the system that makes it easier for your comrades to fight on can hasten the end of the system.

Take the problems of journalism. One old model of journalism funding involved wealthy newspaper families profiting handsomely by selling local appliance store owners the right to reach the townspeople who wanted to read sports-scores. These families expressed their patrician love of their town by peeling off some of those profits to pay reporters to sit through municipal council meetings or even travel overseas and get shot at.

In retrospect, this wasn't ever going to be a stable arrangement. It relied on both the inconstant generosity of newspaper barons and the absence of a superior way to show washing-machine ads to people who might want to buy washing machines. Neither of these were good long-term bets. Not only were newspaper barons easily distracted from their sense of patrician duty (especially when their own power was called into question), but there were lots of better ways to connect buyers and sellers lurking in potentia.

All of this was grossly exacerbated by tech monopolies. Tech barons aren't smarter or more evil than newspaper barons, but they have better tools, and so now they take 51 cents out of every ad dollar and 30 cents out of ever subscriber dollar and they refuse to deliver the news to users who explicitly requested it, unless the news company pays them a bribe to "boost" their posts:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

The news is important, and people sign up to make, digest, and discuss the news for many non-economic reasons, which means that the news continues to struggle along, despite all the economic impediments and the vulture capitalists and tech monopolists who fight one another for which one will get to take the biggest bite out of the press. We've got outstanding nonprofit news outlets like Propublica, journalist-owned outlets like 404 Media, and crowdfunded reporters like Molly White (and winner-take-all outlets like the New York Times).

But as Hamilton Nolan points out, "that pot of money…is only large enough to produce a small fraction of the journalism that was being produced in past generations":

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/what-will-replace-advertising-revenue

For Nolan, "public funding of journalism is the only way to fix this…If we accept that journalism is not just a business or a form of entertainment but a public good, then funding it with public money makes perfect sense":

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/public-funding-of-journalism-is-the

Having grown up in Canada – under the CBC – and then lived for a quarter of my life in the UK – under the BBC – I am very enthusiastic about Nolan's solution. There are obvious problems with publicly funded journalism, like the politicization of news coverage:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jan/24/panel-approving-richard-sharp-as-bbc-chair-included-tory-party-donor

And the transformation of the funding into a cheap political football:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-defund-cbc-change-law-1.6810434

But the worst version of those problems is still better than the best version of the private-equity-funded model of news production.

But Nolan notes the emergence of a new form of hedge fund news, one that is awfully promising, and also terribly fraught: Hunterbrook Media, an investigative news outlet owned by short-sellers who pay journalists to research and publish damning reports on companies they hold a short position on:

https://hntrbrk.com/

For those of you who are blissfully distant from the machinations of the financial markets, "short selling" is a wager that a company's stock price will go down. A gambler who takes a short position on a company's stock can make a lot of money if the company stumbles or fails altogether (but if the company does well, the short can suffer literally unlimited losses).

Shorts have historically paid analysts to dig into companies and uncover the sins hidden on their balance-sheets, but as Matt Levine points out, journalists work for a fraction of the price of analysts and are at least as good at uncovering dirt as MBAs are:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-02/a-hedge-fund-that-s-also-a-newspaper

What's more, shorts who discover dirt on a company still need to convince journalists to publicize their findings and trigger the sell-off that makes their short position pay off. Shorts who own a muckraking journalistic operation can skip this step: they are the journalists.

There's a way in which this is sheer genius. Well-funded shorts who don't care about the news per se can still be motivated into funding freely available, high-quality investigative journalism about corporate malfeasance (notoriously, one of the least attractive forms of journalism for advertisers). They can pay journalists top dollar – even bid against each other for the most talented journalists – and supply them with all the tools they need to ply their trade. A short won't ever try the kind of bullshit the owners of Vice pulled, paying themselves millions while their journalists lose access to Lexisnexis or the PACER database:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/24/anti-posse/#when-you-absolutely-positively-dont-give-a-solitary-single-fuck

The shorts whose journalists are best equipped stand to make the most money. What's not to like?

Well, the issue here is whether the ruling class's sense of solidarity is stronger than its greed. The wealthy have historically oscillated between real solidarity (think of the ultrawealthy lobbying to support bipartisan votes for tax cuts and bailouts) and "war of all against all" (as when wealthy colonizers dragged their countries into WWI after the supply of countries to steal ran out).

After all, the reason companies engage in the scams that shorts reveal is that they are profitable. "Behind every great fortune is a great crime," and that's just great. You don't win the game when you get into heaven, you win it when you get into the Forbes Rich List.

Take monopolies: investors like the upside of backing an upstart company that gobbles up some staid industry's margins – Amazon vs publishing, say, or Uber vs taxis. But while there's a lot of upside in that move, there's also a lot of risk: most companies that set out to "disrupt" an industry sink, taking their investors' capital down with them.

Contrast that with monopolies: backing a company that merges with its rivals and buys every small company that might someday grow large is a sure thing. Shriven of "wasteful competition," a company can lower quality, raise prices, capture its regulators, screw its workers and suppliers and laugh all the way to Davos. A big enough company can ignore the complaints of those workers, customers and regulators. They're not just too big to fail. They're not just too big to jail. They're too big to care:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

Would-be monopolists are stuck in a high-stakes Prisoner's Dilemma. If they cooperate, they can screw over everyone else and get unimaginably rich. But if one party defects, they can raid the monopolist's margins, short its stock, and snitch to its regulators.

It's true that there's a clear incentive for hedge-fund managers to fund investigative journalism into other hedge-fund managers' portfolio companies. But it would be even more profitable for both of those hedgies to join forces and collude to screw the rest of us over. So long as they mistrust each other, we might see some benefit from that adversarial relationship. But the point of the 0.1% is that there aren't very many of them. The Aspen Institute can rent a hall that will hold an appreciable fraction of that crowd. They buy their private jets and bespoke suits and powdered rhino horn from the same exclusive sellers. Their kids go to the same elite schools. They know each other, and they have every opportunity to get drunk together at a charity ball or a society wedding and cook up a plan to join forces.

This is the problem at the core of "mechanism design" grounded in "rational self-interest." If you try to create a system where people do the right thing because they're selfish assholes, you normalize being a selfish asshole. Eventually, the selfish assholes form a cozy little League of Selfish Assholes and turn on the rest of us.

Appeals to morality don't work on unethical people, but appeals to immorality crowds out ethics. Take the ancient split between "free software" (software that is designed to maximize the freedom of the people who use it) and "open source software" (identical to free software, but promoted as a better way to make robust code through transparency and peer review).

Over the years, open source – an appeal to your own selfish need for better code – triumphed over free software, and its appeal to the ethics of a world of "software freedom." But it turns out that while the difference between "open" and "free" was once mere semantics, it's fully possible to decouple the two. Today, we have lots of "open source": you can see the code that Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook uses, and even contribute your labor to it for free. But you can't actually decide how the software you write works, because it all takes a loop through Google, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook's servers, and only those trillion-dollar tech monopolists have the software freedom to determine how those servers work:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/04/which-side-are-you-on/#tivoization-and-beyond

That's ruling class solidarity. The Big Tech firms have hidden a myriad of sins beneath their bafflegab and balance-sheets. These (as yet) undiscovered scams constitute a "bezzle," which JK Galbraith defined as "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it."

The purpose of Hunterbrook is to discover and destroy bezzles, hastening the moment of realization that the wealth we all feel in a world of seemingly orderly technology is really an illusion. Hunterbrook certainly has its pick of bezzles to choose from, because we are living in a Golden Age of the Bezzle.

Which is why I titled my new novel The Bezzle. It's a tale of high-tech finance scams, starring my two-fisted forensic accountant Marty Hench, and in this volume, Hench is called upon to unwind a predatory prison-tech scam that victimizes the most vulnerable people in America – our army of prisoners – and their families:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

The scheme I fictionalize in The Bezzle is very real. Prison-tech monopolists like Securus and Viapath bribe prison officials to abolish calls, in-person visits, mail and parcels, then they supply prisoners with "free" tablets where they pay hugely inflated rates to receive mail, speak to their families, and access ebooks, distance education and other electronic media:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

But a group of activists have cornered these high-tech predators, run them to ground and driven them to the brink of extinction, and they've done it using "the master's tools" – with appeals to regulators and the finance sector itself.

Writing for The Appeal, Dana Floberg and Morgan Duckett describe the campaign they waged with Worth Rises to bankrupt the prison-tech sector:

https://theappeal.org/securus-bankruptcy-prison-telecom-industry/

Here's the headline figure: Securus is $1.8 billion in debt, and it has eight months to find a financier or it will go bust. What's more, all the creditors it might reasonably approach have rejected its overtures, and its bonds have been downrated to junk status. It's a dead duck.

Even better is how this happened. Securus's debt problems started with its acquisition, a leveraged buyout by Platinum Equity, who borrowed heavily against the firm and then looted it with bogus "management fees" that meant that the debt continued to grow, despite Securus's $700m in annual revenue from America's prisoners. Platinum was just the last in a long line of PE companies that loaded up Securus with debt and merged it with its competitors, who were also mortgaged to make profits for other private equity funds.

For years, Securus and Platinum were able to service their debt and roll it over when it came due. But after Worth Rises got NYC to pass a law making jail calls free, creditors started to back away from Securus. It's one thing for Securus to charge $18 for a local call from a prison when it's splitting the money with the city jail system. But when that $18 needs to be paid by the city, they're going to demand much lower prices. To make things worse for Securus, prison reformers got similar laws passed in San Francisco and in Connecticut.

Securus tried to outrun its problems by gobbling up one of its major rivals, Icsolutions, but Worth Rises and its coalition convinced regulators at the FCC to block the merger. Securus abandoned the deal:

https://worthrises.org/blogpost/securusmerger

Then, Worth Rises targeted Platinum Equity, going after the pension funds and other investors whose capital Platinum used to keep Securus going. The massive negative press campaign led to eight-figure disinvestments:

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-05/la-fi-tom-gores-securus-prison-phone-mass-incarceration

Now, Securus's debt became "distressed," trading at $0.47 on the dollar. A brief, covid-fueled reprieve gave Securus a temporary lifeline, as prisoners' families were barred from in-person visits and had to pay Securus's rates to talk to their incarcerated loved ones. But after lockdown, Securus's troubles picked up right where they left off.

They targeted Platinum's founder, Tom Gores, who papered over his bloody fortune by styling himself as a philanthropist and sports-team owner. After a campaign by Worth Rises and Color of Change, Gores was kicked off the Los Angeles County Museum of Art board. When Gores tried to flip Securus to a SPAC – the same scam Trump pulled with Truth Social – the negative publicity about Securus's unsound morals and financials killed the deal:

https://twitter.com/WorthRises/status/1578034977828384769

Meanwhile, more states and cities are making prisoners' communications free, further worsening Securus's finances:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

Congress passed the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, giving the FCC the power to regulate the price of federal prisoners' communications. Securus's debt prices tumbled further:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s1541

Securus's debts were coming due: it owes $1.3b in 2024, and hundreds of millions more in 2025. Platinum has promised a $400m cash infusion, but that didn't sway S&P Global, a bond-rating agency that re-rated Securus's bonds as "CCC" (compare with "AAA"). Moody's concurred. Now, Securus is stuck selling junk-bonds:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s1541

The company's creditors have given Securus an eight-month runway to find a new lender before they force it into bankruptcy. The company's debt is trading at $0.08 on the dollar.

Securus's major competitor is Viapath (prison tech is a duopoly). Viapath is also debt-burdened and desperate, thanks to a parallel campaign by Worth Rises, and has tried all of Securus's tricks, and failed:

https://pestakeholder.org/news/american-securities-fails-to-sell-prison-telecom-company-viapath/

Viapath's debts are due next year, and if Securus tanks, no one in their right mind will give Viapath a dime. They're the walking dead.

Worth Rise's brilliant guerrilla warfare against prison-tech and its private equity backers are a master class in using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. The finance sector isn't a friend of justice or working people, but sometimes it can be used tactically against financialization itself. To paraphrase MLK, "finance can't make a corporation love you, but it can stop a corporation from destroying you."

Yes, the ruling class finds solidarity at the most unexpected moments, and yes, it's easy for appeals to greed to institutionalize greediness. But whether it's funding unbezzling journalism through short selling, or freeing prisons by brandishing their cooked balance-sheets in the faces of bond-rating agencies, there's a lot of good we can do on the way to dismantling the system.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/08/money-talks/#bullshit-walks

Image: KMJ (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boerse_01_KMJ.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[bowtiepastabitch]

Here's the deal on the Good Omens limbo situation. My optimistic and analytic two cents, if you will.

If we look at this through a capitalistic lens, the chances of the show being cancelled are pretty slim at the moment. Think for a moment about the top three amazon prime originals that you pay/keep the platform for. Can you think of three? I honestly can't, not off the top of my head. I know I'm not really the target audience for streaming services, since I don't watch a lot of new shows, but still. I can name plenty of netflix shows I like/might watch. That's why Netflix can cancel anything and everything so easy. They don't have just one or two fandom cash cows.

Amazon, though, doesn't have a lot. Here's a list of all their original shows. I only even recognize 8 titles. I've only actually watched 2. Plus, Good Omens is currently one of the biggest fandoms in fandom right now, with Aziracrow being the top ship on ao3 for the Jan-Dec 2023 wrap up and again on the Summer 2024 leaderboard, as well as the top ship on tumblr and Good Omens as the top tv show (plus second overall after Artists on Tumblr) for 2023. We're a big deal, and I'd bet money that they're betting money on us. I also lowkey think we're the reason Amazon is spending money on a british miniseries starring Michael Sheen tbh but that's just speculation. The show has also won a slew of awards, the same of which cannot, to my knowledge, be said of many of their other properties.

So let's talk production changes; I think there's a good chance they're doing this for the same reason. Our fandom had unique access to the creator via tumblr, and a majority of the conversation around the allegations of SA against Gaiman were and are taking place in fandom spaces. There have been petitions to fire him from the show and conversations (both productive and otherwise) about the duties of fandom when engaging with content connected to problematic individuals. Meanwhile, Gaiman has effectively dissappeared from the internet. Additionally, the video and threads sharing that Terry Pratchett wrote most of the original book have been making the rounds here and I think on the bird app(?). All that to say, if they're betting on us they want to make us happy and keep their good PR. I don't ever expect a major corporation to make a "good" decision, but they will always make the profitable one.

There is, of course, also the matter of the Pratchett estate and the other major players in the matter: the actors, directors, and creative team. These are forces at play with the power to block or stall productivity and profit for Amazon through copyright and labor power. I can imagine there's conversations happening backstage that we don't know about as well as what we see in headlines.

Ultimately, I think the biggest risk to season 3 is unfortunately going to be Neil Gaiman himself and how he responds to the situation at hand. If he steps back quietly, we're living in our best case scenario and everything moves forward as much according to plan as can be expected with at least this small justice being served. I see a hissy fit on his end as the greatest potential wrench in proceedings, but that would exacerbate the (currently quiet in the mainstream) bad PR for him so I give it low odds.

All that to say. From a pragmatic viewpoint, Amazon's best interest seems to be entirely tied to ours as a fandom, and I anticipate Season 3 being made and most likely being only minorly delayed. Either way. What happens behind the scenes in corporate office buildings between rich white men is entirely out of my and your control. I know how huge anxiety can get when it relates to a special interest or a community that has a huge role in your life, and whatever happens we're in this together as a fandom. It's going to be alright. Take a deep breath and maybe get some water. Whatever happens, we're in this together as a fandom, and at least it won't be the end of the world;)

[20dollarlolita]

Steal this look:

Recently, I've been feeling the need to build a few more easy and cheap lolita tutorials. In the interest of getting back to the budget lolita roots, I thought it was time to give this old post a remake:

[image caption: Family came over and I didn't want to leave my room so I made a headband with hot glue. Posted 8 years ago on Jan 3, 2015]

So, today I made a headband with hot glue. I didn't take pictures, but here's a rough run through of what I used, so you can make one too:

a 2" wide headband, which seem to run about $8, which is a lot more than I expected. Inflation's a bitch. Going to have to change the blog to 50dollarlolita to keep up.

This project did not remotely take 54 yards of cluny lace, but honestly if you're going to make handmade lolita, you should buy 54 yards of cluny lace. (I have not bought from this listing, but it looks pretty legit). If we math it out per yard, it used about 40 cents worth of lace.

I have actually bought this ribbon in multiple colors. Once again, it's a really good thing to have on hand if you make lolita. If you only buy one color, I recommend buying the color that you can use for the back lacing of most of the dresses you own. Those ribbons always seem to get lost when I do laundry, and it's also an easy way to pick a color that you'll use for accessories. $6 for 100 yards comes out to about 12 cents worth of ribbon.

I can't begin to fully articulate how valuable having trims available is for making handmade lolita. Lolita fashion is all about putting as many details into a garment as you can tastefully add, and being able to "Oh, this would be nice to have a ribbon! Oh, this would be nice with a line of lace!" can really help you push your designs to the right level of detail.

Fake flower heads and leaf ribbon. I almost didn't include the leaf ribbon in this list, but I think it really added something. I don't find a ton of need for this in lolita fashion, but it seems the smallest amount you can buy is like 20 yards. (I actually got my flowers and leaf ribbon from a cheap flower crown, but it seems you have to buy the flower crowns in packs of 10, making it more expensive than getting the components).

The flowers that I have on my headband came with a little felt tab on the back, which made them easier to glue. It might be worth it to glue a felt strip onto the plastic stem, and then glue that onto the headband.

I'm not going to count the selvedge edge of the fabric that i had lying around. You probably also have fabric scraps lying around.

Assembly strategy is a little bit up to you, but here's my thoughts:

I wrapped the headband with a scrap of fabric, and then wrapped ribbon around that in the other direction. In addition to looking nice, I think that wrapping in opposite directions is going to make the fabric wrap stronger. The front ruffle is just a 1.5-2" wide lace (I didn't measure) that was sloppily pleated. Each pleat was tacked down with hot glue.

To cover the sloppy pleats, I stuck a piece of lace over the pleated edge. This smoothed things out, and I believe that will also help reduce damage to the ruffle. The lace here is beading lace, which is intended for you to weave a ribbon through. The only ribbon I had was too wide, so I just glued the beading on top and hoped no one would notice. Spoiler alert: no one did.

What I've noticed on these kinds of accessories is that they need two things to feel complete: they need some kind of element to frame the face and make the headband visible from the front, and they need a large accessory at each ear. This isn't universally true for all substyles, but I've found that in general, it's what I shoot for.

I had an old flower crown from a party, so i just cut some roses and leaves off that crown and stuck them on the sides. I added some little ribbon bows to help sell the "this is not me cheating at beading lace" illusion.

(If you're looking for inspiration for doing this without a ruffle or a side focus, and you don't know where to start looking, I'd start with Innocent World and Moi Meme Moitie).

If you're buying ALL the components listed here, so buying all 50+ yards of lace and 100 yards of ribbon, it's going to be $37. This is a lot, but it's cheaper than a taobao headdress once you factor in shipping. If we only count the cost of what will be used in the headband, it comes out to about $13. I really cannot express enough how much having lace and ribbon on hand will improve your handmade lolita life, so if you're looking for an excuse to buy a lot of lace, here's your excuse.

And that's it! Put it on your head and you're good to go out into the world!

I think this is a great improvement over the one I made 8 years ago, although the other one did a better job at avoiding my family.

Just a quick note about building with hot glue: less is more. It's easier to hid small dots than to hide big long lines. Get a silicone thimble and really push your glued material into the glue (note: i live on the edge and just lick my finger and smooth it down, and I get burned a lot). The more texture an item has, the more likely it'll glue well. How your piece is structured will impact its longevity, so think about the strongest possible way to construct something. And if you don't like hot glue, but still want to make this, my suggestion would be to use Aleen's Super Fabric Adhesive and letting it cure between steps. My other hot glue advice is that if your design is a mess, good construction won't save you, and if your glue is a mess, good design won't save you. So this is a case where hot glue is already saving you 96 hours of cure time, so respect it and be careful.

I made this to coordinate with this dress, because the dress has some pretty modern elements like the rose trim and the sleeves, that want to push it into being a very extravagant dress, but it also don't have enough room to be very poofy (not that I'm wearing a petticoat anyway, but y'all know what I mean). I don't know how to articulate the difference between silky polyester lolita dresses and old cotton twill lolita dresses, but this is definitely better with the silky poly than the cotton twill.

[signoraviolettavalery]

hiiiiiiii thoughts about top bojan? i just don’t see him topping kris in bokris fics that often and i’m just wondering why it’s this way like okay I GET IT everyone wants to fuck bojan and that’s why certain people write him as a bottom but what i DON’T get is why no one wants the same for kris like my baby needs to be fucked good too 💔

I think this has less to do with wanting to fuck Bojan (most of the fandom is female, and I think they're more interested in being fucked by him than pegging him, lol) rather than the fact that everyone's decided Bojan is supper subby for some reason. Like, he likes to get on his knees onstage, is generally very gentle and sweet and caring rather than giving out a vibe of asserting dominance, and there's that time Jan stepped on him onstage and based on that people are like "yes that man loves being on his knees that man wants to be bent over and fucked that man wants to perform acts of service" which, uh. Translates to him constantly not just being dommed but also topped. Which, I mean, we're working with fictionalized personas of people we don't actually know here, so whatever, but I do find some of the conclusions people draw a little...weird.

And I guess by the same logic they struggle to see Kris bottoming because he gives out such a vibe of being in control and cold and calculated and therefore clearly he's domming and topping, even though service topping is a thing so the whole dom = top thing is, uh, questionable. And if you're going to make Bojan the sub you believe him to be let him at least do some service topping!!

Anyway that's my 2 cents but also I think the fandom has decided (based on certain photos) that Kris is hung like a horse and I guess they, uh....enjoy the idea of Bojan on the receiving end of that. But I agree Kris also deserves to be fucked good and people should write it more.

[meraki-yao]

WIP Wednesday (or Thursday for me lol)- 31 Jan- 1 Feb 2024

tagged by @nocoastposts!!! Thank you dear!!! <3

Still my fucking Paris fic, the smut is kicking my ass and I started writing out of order, so I've got these two out-of-order, discontinuous paragraphs

If this is a siren’s song, then Alex understands why so many drown to their deaths, why even the smartest hero in all of ancient Greece would risk his life to get a glimpse of their enchanting tones. He wants to chart down every single sound Henry makes on a staff, learn every note marked in his symphony, play the piece over and over again in his head.

and

It’s confusing in a way Alex has never been, which he’s starting to understand is the enigma that Henry is when with him. He’s so used to learning quick and knowing well, to finding answers in split seconds and having the final conclusion drawn with a hundred per cent clarity, but everything Henry has been since the moment they met drives Alex insane.

Tagging @typicalopposite @welcometololaland and @lfg1986-2 (saw that you got over your writer's block!) and anyone who wants to join in!

[violetwinterwidow01]

Masterlist

I have an unhealthy obsession with Marvel (as does damn near every woman on this unholy app🤭), so everything that you find here(including a character I created named Cevyn) is what runs through my imagination daily!!! I hope you enjoy it!!! Please don't hesitate to like, comment, and reblog my work and PLEASE DO NOT SHARE MY WORK ON ANY OTHER PLATFORMS!!!

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Steven Grant Rogers:

James Buchanan Barnes:

Avengers:

Miscellaneous:

[8cfc00]

I think that- oh sorry HI 👋 I hope you don't mind the ask haha I didn't feel like rambling in tags- I've also noticed the downtrend in dndads posting, and while it *could* be some mini migration of people to other fandoms, I'm not so sure that that's the case? Not that people aren't getting into new things (I myself have been, for that matter,) but... How to put it. I feel like the show itself, despite approaching the finale, has kind of been at a quiet point where there simply isn't too much to talk about rn? Like I think the noise will pick back up in the fandom when it picks back up in the show if that makes sense?? Also just a busy time of year for a lot of people I think tbh! And since the fandom is so small to begin with (as you know), it's more noticeable when a bunch of people are preoccupied!

That's what I'm feeling anyways! But yeah I've been thinking about it too, and I empathize with the whole "feeling sad when people leave fandoms" thing, so I felt inclined to share my two cents in case it's any consolation haha. Regarding what you said about whether or not the show is "bad"- yeah, I agree! There's some places it really shines and some places that just aren't its forte, but me personally as long as I'm having fun I'm staying put right here! 😤❤️

!! HELLO!!! and yeah you bring up some good points... like there really isnt too much going on in the story character/emotion wise that people can latch on to (in contrast to the more angst ass eps that seem to be a bigger hit among fandom types) PLUS with only one jan ep the pace at which dndads has been releasing is. a bit slow (ep 50 was basically just 49 part 2 too so...)

as for the parts the show is good at vs the parts it isnt. i think it also comes down to the individuals/groups judging it, and the differences in their expectations... like with s2 ep31 the cast was talking about how the ep sucked in the teen talk, but on tumblr the tag had trended with SO much art... there have also been times when i had really enjoyed an episode only to find not much talk about it. so its really different for different people i guess

i try to not feel TOO dejected about stuff i have no control over (especially online stuff) but yknow life has been stressful and ig some of that stress had carried over to my posting. i didn't mean to start discussion about how good the podcast is (i've seen enough of that on reddit LOL) i dont wanna harsh the vibes, esp cuz i know i dont feel very good when i see critical posts about a show i DO enjoy a lot! (i am similarly " having fun")

THANKS FOR RESPONDING THO it was kinda nice to see im not the only one seeing and thinking about things! yaaaaaa

[taiwantalk]

To the democratic people of the world, if you cannot tell the difference between a violent coup that’s hijacking a democracy and a democratic coup to overthrow a dictatorship, then here’s my 2 cents.

1) it’s a democratic coup when the regime had ran the govt the country beyond the reasonable limits and abused power to intimidate or to harm opposition

2) it’s a violent fascist coup when it feels, sounds, and acts like the og fascist mussolini. in trump’s case, trump served 1 term and is ousted by election. Even if biden had out played trump, trump simply is calling for insurrection to overthrow a democratic process.

It was as simple as trump lost and so trump called for an unconstitutional coup to give him another term.

As long as there is a constitution and democratic judicial system, no one can reasonably call for a coup.

3) this power of Jan 6 mob insurrection existed before under Hitler. Jan 6 was not the will of people. Jan 6 was a mob of hardcore fanatics supporting trump and gop and they wanted a coup so they can be the Jury the judge and the executioner at the Capitol.

Anyone who are still arguing otherwise, they are very dangerous. They are still plotting to force their narrative and take down the country. Anyone still arguing and justifying for Jan 6 have no good intentions for america but to do it again.

[droughtofapathy]

top ten sondheim songs in your opinion (can be in any order)

Anon, I hope you know that asking me this is the equivalent of asking a mother to pick her favorite kid. Yeah, sure okay, she has a favorite, but making her admit it is like pulling teeth. So. I've compiled two lists for you: one of my personal top ten, and one of the objective top ten I think should/could be considered the best. I'm also going to be indicating my preferred renditions of these songs, because that plays a major factor into things. Also, because I'm incapable of being concise, you're also getting a brief explanation on at least my top ten, so...enjoy. Or, my condolences, I guess. You had no idea the can of worms you were opening.

My Personal Top Ten: (in no particular order, and only at this specific point in my life right now this second)

1. The Ladies in Red segment of the Sondheim 80th Birthday Celebration concert (2010): "The Ladies Who Lunch," (Company) - Patti LuPone* "Losing My Mind," (Follies) - Marin Mazzie* "The Glamorous Life," (A Little Night Music) - Audra McDonald "Could I Leave You?" (Follies) - Donna Murphy* "Not a Day Goes By," (Merrily We Roll Along) - Bernadette Peters "I'm Still Here," (Follies) - Elaine Stritch* Right off the bat, I'm cheating. Four (*) of my top ten are just from this segment of the concert so I'm squeezing them all into one so I can include more songs. Quick rundown of why: self-explanatory, c'mon. Donna's "Could I Leave You?" is my number one Sondheim, hand's down.

2. "The Girls of Summer," (The Girls of Summer) - Gabrielle Stravelli Sondheim Unplugged is a monthly cabaret series at 54 Below, and I go to every show. It's really opened my eyes to some of these hidden gems. It's just a fun little number.

3. "What More Do I Need?" (Saturday Night) - Kelli O'Hara (90th Birthday Concert) The song that finally made me decide that I was in love with Kelli O'Hara and sopranos were actually breathtaking people who deserved my adoration. (Still an alto lover at heart though)

4. "We're Gonna Be All Right," (Do I Hear a Waltz?) - Marin Mazzie & Jason Danieley Naughtiest couple on Broadway sing a naughty duet. Truly, what more could I ask for? I love a bitingly antagonistic song.

5. "There's Always A Woman," (Anyone Can Whistle) - Jan Maxwell & Victoria Clark And speaking of bitingly antagonistic. This is a song where two Divas get to be catty bitches to an absurd degree, and I cannot get enough of it. I also deeply love and miss Jan Maxwell. And where else are you going to get Jan Maxwell calling Vicki Clark a whore? Incredible.

6. "The Madame Song," (The Seven Per-Cent Solution) - Bebe Neuwirth Clever wordplay, sexy brothel madame, wink-wink nudge-nudge raunchy. Sung by my beloved Bebe Neuwirth. Obviously a winner.

7. "The Story of Lucy and Jessie," (Follies) - Jan Maxwell Follies is my favorite Sondheim show, and Phyllis Rogers Stone is my favorite Sondheim character. And while Donna Murphy is my favorite Phyllis, I go to Jan Maxwell for this song. She was just so sublime. The song itself is clever, cutting, and choreographed wonderfully every time.

8. "Take Me to the World," (Evening Primrose) - Soara-Joye Ross The actual movie this is from is so fucking weird, and if it were Charmaine Carr's version, I wouldn't look twice at it. But I had the pleasure of hearing Soara-Joye Ross sing this song at the first Sondheim Unplugged show two days after his death. And it was just...wow.

9. "The Miller's Son," (A Little Night Music) - Elizabeth Stanley It has everything I love in a Sondheim. Clever lyrics, brutal pacing, and the danger of tripping up even the best cabaret performer. When you're cocky, that's when Sondheim gets you. Elizabeth Stanley has only ever been attractive to me in this specific video.

10. Being Alive," (Company) - hear me out. Hear me out. Marquee Five (ft. Sierra Rein) Okay, okay, I know, obscure choice here. However. Up until I heard this rendition, I did not really care about this song. Any male version went in one ear and out the other. If you couldn't tell by my list, I am almost exclusively dedicated to older broads. And yes, Patti has a fantastic rendition, and so do lots of other women. But this one with its harmonies and its alto lead singer does it for me like no one else.

Objective Top Ten Sondheim Songs: (order arbitrary, rendition my preference)

1. "A Weekend in the Country," (A Little Night Music) - the Rebecca Luker one 2. "Getting Married Today," (Company) - Madeline Kahn (alt. Katie Finneran) 3. "Could I Leave You?" (Follies) - Donna Murphy 4. "Being Alive," (Company) - Marquee Five 5. "Losing My Mind," (Follies) - Marin Mazzie 6. "Someone in a Tree," (Pacific Overtures) - 90th Birthday Concert 7. "A Little Priest," (Sweeney Todd) - 80th Birthday Concert, but most renditions are fantastic. 8. "Finishing the Hat," (Sunday in the Park with George) - Mandy Patinkin 9. "Sunday," (Sunday in the Park with George) - Marquee Five, but any version is transcendent. 10. "Loving You," (Passion) - Donna Murphy If you're somehow not sick of me yet, ask me to give a no-commentary top 100, ranked in order, then we'll really have fun.

[babymgs26]

The Mystery of Laocoon and His Sons

I just find it interesting how in the 500+ years since its excavation, scholars STILL can't decide on when this thing was made. I mean that genuinely. We don't know. There's theories, but it's a whole spiderweb with contradictions, and so much has been lost to history that we just can't be sure of anything.

The first and one of the most widely accepted theories is that it can be dated to around the 1st cent. B.C.E. due to textual evidence as well as some decisively dateable statue groups found in Sperlonga in the late 1950s in Tiberius's Grotto (~125ish B.C.E.), but this is debatable for a variety of reasons as well.

Pliny the Elder, in his text from Natural History, XXXVI, 37 describes a statue group VERY similar to this one that was immediately thought of upon excavation (so quickly, in fact, that it's been brought under suspicion, more on that later). The text reads:

“This is the case with the Laocoön in the palace of the emperor Titus, a work superior to any painting and any bronze. Laocoön, his children and the wonderful clasping coils of the snakes were carved from a single block in accordance with an agreed plan by those eminent craftsmen Hagesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus, all of Rhodes.”

It is important to note that the Sperlonga Groups (fig.2) are associated with the Laocoon Group because they are inscribed with the names of the sculptors that are listed here in Pliny (i.e. Hagesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus).

However, this text is drawn into question for several reasons:

The statue group was not found in the palace of Titus, it was found in a room (not buried like the vast majority of statues thought to be this old), in a vineyard. Yeah, statues can be moved, but you'd think that if one were to move such a big piece into this literal room, it wouldn't have been kept so quiet? smuggling? sure? maybe? but then buyers aren't just gonna keep this thing hidden, would they? idk

The Laocoon Group found in 1503 that is on display in the Vatican Museum today is crafted of 7 pieces (at least) and the one Pliny describes is carved in the round. It can be said that Pliny may not have gotten a close enough look and only thought that it was in the round, but the construction of 7 pieces and the detail that can be involved comparatively, eh, again, idk...

The marbles and carving/detailing styles of the Laocoon statue group and the ones found in Sperlonga are also different. The Laocoon Group is Parian marble (paria lithos) and the one's found in Sperlonga were a Rhodian variety that was also used in the Pergamon reliefs (2nd/3rd cent. B.C.E. [another theorized dating for the Laocoon group]) known as lithos larticos.

(fig.1) Laocoon and His Sons as seen in modern day at the Vatican Museum in Vatican City, Rome, Italy. Photo is property of the author, taken 12 Jan 2024.

(fig. 2) Reconstruction of the Tiberian Cave in Sperlonga: A) Group of Ulysses dragging the body of Achilles, B) Sculptural group of Scylla, C) Sculptural group of the blinding of Polyphemus, D) Sculptural group of the kidnapping of Palladium, E) Ganymede kidnapped by Zeus' eagle.

This is just a bite-size version of my larger research that I found interesting, I will definitely continue adding to it in a type of series because there are so many theories (including that it may be a Michelangelo forgery), and I want to go into mythological significance as well as reconstruction efforts.

[slutnali]

pleasantly surprised by the recent SC discourse and would like to add my two cents haha. Number 2, 3, 9, 12, 26 if possible. i'm so ready for this ship to sail again

I'm loving the resurgence and inquiries, i love the three of them sm so I'm always down to talk about them 😌

2. Who sleeps in the other’s lap?

Lagoona fall's asleep while the others play with her hair 🥰 Jan is too into whatever movie or show she's roped them into watching and Rosie sometimes is into it or she's on her phone playing a game or scrolling

3. Who walks around the house half-naked and who yells at them to put on some clothes?

All three of them are guilty of doing it, whether intentional or not. But Rosie's the guiltiest, she's got no shame tbh and it's not that the others dont like what they see bc they love it 😌 but she's the one that's accidentally flashed a neighbor probably

9. Which one drives the car and which one gives them directions?

Jan is so passenger princess coded (she doesn't drive, she gets driven, thank you very much!) but she hates the responsibility of giving directions so she's usually stuck in the back seat whenever it comes to going somewhere directions are needed. So Goona or Rosie drive but I like the thought of Rosie having some anxiety over driving [valid af].. it's a good thing they live in the city.

12. Which one of your OTP overdoes it on the alcohol and which one makes the other stop drinking?

They've all had their moments but Jan's def the guiltiest 😭 and she's definitely the type that wants to go to McDonalds after the function even tho her gfs are tired and grumpy

26. Who takes a selfie when the other one falls asleep on their shoulder?

They take a pic of Rosie whenever she falls asleep on one of their shoulders bc she's so cute when she shuts her mouth and is asleep [affectionate] oreiurgieru

[loganslowdown4]

Incorrect Quotes

January - April 2024

Balloon Volunteer

Terrible, Face-Wise (prinxiety)

Anxceit Bonding (platonic)

Truth or Dare: Logan’s Choice (loceit logince)

Shampoo

Cold Clammy Hands

Sides Play Monopoly

Patton Time Capsule

Patton’s Birthday

Sleep’s Birthday

Learning Good Manners

In-A-Cent

No Swearing

Tell Your Crush

Doing Me (Moceit)

Zero Stars (Logince Week ‘24 Day 1)

Revenge (Logince Week ‘24 Day 2)

Adventure & Romance (Logince Week ’24 Day 3

Writers Block (Logince Week ’24 Day 4)

Phone Genius (Logince Week ’24 Day 5)

Tell The Time (Logince Week ’24 Day 6)

I Was Really Proud (Logince Week ’24 Day 7)

I’m An Idiot

Amuse Douche

I’m Cute (Jan’s Birthday)

Roman’s Star (logince)

Go Outside

He Likes Mysterious Guys (logince)

What’s Your type (roceit)

Exercise

Evil Self

Old Married Couple (prinxiety)

I’m Awake

Eat Food Off Each Other (logince)

Try Not To Laugh

Twin Mystery Agency

Please A Woman

Body Hug

Greatest Strength

Language Wish

Working Late (logince)

Pink Confetti (Intrulogical)

Red Ear Lies (prinxiety)

Pet Names (dukexiety)

Buns Joke

Garbage CAN

Adorably Mad

Crushed Emotion

Puzzle Club

Eating Emotions

No Judgements (Demus)

Can’t Make Me Scream

Do you…?

Friendship Ending Move

Social Experiment (Minutes In A Year)

Whoopsie

Drug Sniffing Dog

Truth or Dare (analogical)

Fighting or Flirting (roceit)

Are You A Painting (Intrulogical)

In A Boat (Moceit)

I’m Thirsty (logince)

I’m Thirsty Comic

Life Is Hard

Sleep Ideas

After Me (moceit)

Pringles

Triple Do The Thing

Get Undressed for Science

Desperate Sluts

How Do You Sleep At Night

Good & Okay (intruality)

Pinocchio Paradox

Hero Senses

Looking for Clothes (Intrulogical)

Just A Little Attention

Bad Remus

New Book

Survey

Easy MetaKnight

Peaches

Get Me A Drink

[orionrealtor]

Signature Global Launches Second Phase of Premium Projects in Gurugram

Real estate firm Signature Global launched the second phase of its two luxurious independent floors projects on Friday.

The realtor will deliver the remaining 50 per cent of the units to customers in the second phase of the projects.

Signature Global City 37 D, the company’s first project, is located in Sector 37 D, while SG City 81, another project, is located at sector 81 Gurugram. Both are premium luxury offerings.

The first project has a total 536 units of 2 and 3 BHK independent floors. Independent floors of the project cost between Rs 82 lakh and Rs 1.29 crore. The other project, SG City 81, has 408 units of 2 and 3 BHK independent floors in the second phase. Their price range is Rs 89 lakh-Rs 1.06 crore.

The realty firm currently focuses on affordable and mid segment housing.

The company has grown its operations over the years and as of March this year, it had sold 23,453 residential and commercial units in Delhi-NCR region, with an aggregate saleable area of 14.59 million sq ft.

Its sales bookings (net of cancellation) have grown at a CAGR of 142.62 per cent, from Rs 440 crore in 2019-2020 to Rs 2,590 crore in the financial year 2022.

“Due to the pandemic, consumers’ daily needs have witnessed a paradigm shift, and they now prefer open green spaces around their homes as well as amenities within the vicinity. The work-from-home culture also prompted a need for extra space. As a result of consumer demand, we are trying to offer more advanced and new-age amenities in our Independent floors," said Pradeep Aggarwal, Founder & Chairman, Signature Global (India) Ltd.

The projects have been designed by noted architect Hafeez Contractor. These independent floors would be developed under state housing DDJAY policy (Deen Dayal Awas Yojna) and superfluous with EDGE certification (a global green certification provided by IFC, finance arm of World Bank).

“We have strategically focused on central and state government policies supporting affordable housing, specifically the Affordable Housing Policy (AHP), 2013 notified by the Town and Country Planning Department, Government of Haryana and the Affordable Plotted Housing Policy or the Deen Dayal Jan Awas Yojana (DDJAY-APHP),” said the company.

Moreover, Signature Global City 37D is well connected with proposed National Highway Pataudi Road, Dwarka Expressway, NH-8 and Hero Honda Chowk and another project which is Signature Global City 81 is well positioned and has smooth access to Cyber City, Udyog Vihar, Golf course extension road, Sohna and Manesar.Visit: https://www.orionrealtors.com/signature-global-builder.html

[rickchung]

School's Out: June 2024

Metro Vancouver Events Calendar:

Now-June 2: rEvolver Festival @ The Cultch / Vancouver International Children's Festival / Vancouver Short Film Festival @ VIFF Centre / Paddle Song @ Firehall Arts Centre

Now-June 9: A Case for the Existence of God @ Pacific Theatre

Now-July 20: Camp What’s-It-Called @ The Improv Centre (Fridays/Saturdays)

Now-Sept. 13: Shipyards Night Market (Fridays)

Now-Oct. 14: Richmond Night Market

Now-Oct. 26: Riley Park Farmers Market / Trout Lake Farmers Market / West End Farmers Market @ 1100 Comox (Saturdays)

Now-Oct. 27: Mount Pleasant Famers Market @ Dude Chilling Park (Sundays)

Now-Jan. 9: Earth Matters @ Science World

June 1-2: Kids First @ Polygon Gallery

June 1-30: Queer Arts Festival

June 2: Brewery and the Beast @ Concord Pacific Place

June 8: Firehall Gala @ Firehall Arts Centre

June 11: Italian Day @ Commercial Drive

June 11-Sept. 21: Twelfth Night @ Bard on the Beach

June 11 & 25: Ladner Village Market

June 13-22: Dancing on the Edge Festival

June 12-Sept. 20: Hamlet @ Bard on the Beach

June 14-23: Pi Theatre: Medicine @ Vancity Culture Lab

June 15: BC Lions: 50 Cent Concert Kickoff @ BC Place

June 21: Nooroongji Social Club @ Net Loft

June 21-23: Summer Camp Festival @ Jonathan Rogers Park

June 21-30: Vancouver International Jazz Festival

June 22: Strathcona Blocks Party

June 24: GVPTA Making A Scene @ BMO Theatre Centre

June 25: Snoop Dogg: Cali to Canada Tour @ Rogers Arena

Pictured: Krystle Dos Santos / Photo credit: Pedro Augusto Meza

[cavenewstimes]

Ontario LTC nurses get 11.5 per cent pay increase over 2 years

By Staff The Canadian Press Posted May 22, 2024 1:44 pm 1 min read Nurses in the majority of long-term care homes in Ontario are set to get what their union is calling the most significant wage increase in more than 30 years. A nurse tends to a patient at the Bluewater Health Hospital in Sarnia, Ont., on Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young Nurses in the majority of…