#love asking my friends for their intellectual labor

[creatingblackcharacters]

as a nonBlack person, I sometimes wonder what the appropriate response is to being accused of antiBlackness by someone who isn't Black. if a Black friend told me I had done something antiBlack, I wouldn't question it, I would just ask them what I need to know in order to avoid committing the same transgression in the future. but for nonBlack friends, sometimes I worry that they're trying to white-knight on behalf of Black folks or misunderstanding what Black folks have said. I try to acknowledge that as a nonBlack person who often passes for white, there are antiBlack behaviors that I'm not always aware of and sometimes I will do things that are antiBlack. I worry though that Black folks will see that and think that I'm letting myself off the hook for my racist behaviors, when that's not my intention at all. is there a better way I can approach those conversations?

(I'm sorry if I didn't articulate this well, I'm intellectually disabled and I'm struggling with English today. also, feel free to ignore or delete this ask if you're not comfortable answering it - you don't owe me your emotional labor. I love your blog and I'm trying to be as mindful as possible of my biases being raised in an antiBlack society.)

Tbh, your best bet here is

1) stay ready so you don't have to get ready. If you are making sure you're educating yourself, you'll be less likely to end up in as many of these situations, and when you are in them, you'll have some context and confidence to have the conversation. Because you might be wrong, and you gotta accept that with grace! But you might not be!

2) do your own research. Fact check! This is the internet- people lie! Often! They very often are so ready to be right that they parrot things they do not understand, especially to look "woke" (😭). It reveals that they're not doing it because it's the right thing for the community, but because it makes them feel smarter in front of the audience they ACTUALLY want validation from. You can usually catch this by noticing if that person ever actually interacts with other Black people, or if they're just saying things but get defensive when someone Black actually joins the conversation.

3) admittedly it would help your confidence if you also followed Black people, or had Black friends. It would help you know from people firsthand what matters, what's going on, and how people are responding to it. You have to build real community. If people see you actually care and are trying, they're less likely to believe poor of you than if you just show up claiming to be the Savior of the Blacks. 👍🏾

[kelseytheballerina]

How do you decide which potential partner is best for you? (I'm 22 for reference). What should be the priority if the all the bare minimum boxes are already checked? Intellectual compatibility? Emotional compatibility? Success?

First is practical reasons (success, on the same page about marriage, having children, how to raise children, division of labor, how to run a household, importance of family and friends, big financial decisions, daily money management, religious differences, etc) as this will determine the day to day flow of your life and biggest struggles in a relationship.

Then is love (common hobbies and interests, feeing the romantic spark, having a good laugh together, etc) as this will determine how much you enjoy the person you’re with. This is not enough to sustain a good relationship.

Lots of people make the dumb decision of ignoring practicality and only dating based on good feelings when times are fun and the honeymoon phase is in effect. You may like the same music and same shows which is great but are you in agreement on who will cook and clean everyday? Does he get mad when you spend money instead of saving for a house? Will you work all the time and he goes long periods of being unemployed without thinking it’s a big deal? Do you want only one child and he wants five? Is he really cute but broke with no prospects of ascending anytime soon? These are examples of major problems you will face that make or break the daily happenings of a relationship and ultimately end in failure.

I may be in the minority but a relationship where there is no real spark but all the bills are paid, the house runs smoothly, the kids are taken care of, and there are no major hiccups is way better than a relationship where you two are both geeking out over the latest marvel shows and video games together but you fight all the time bc he thinks you should be doing abc and you think he should be doing xyz and you’re both pissed off, burnt out, and struggling. Neither are the ideal but a practical-only relationship is better than a love-only relationship.

You should start by only choosing prospects for practical reasons and then filter them out from there based on love and extra compatibility. That’s my advice. He may be cute and fun to be around but ask every woman around you, that goes out the window when the real obstacles come your way. First be smart, then fall in love.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

For the writer asks: 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, 19, 20. And 21 for Arateph.

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

Right now, I'm just hoping I can figure out how to write a longer work. There are several options fighting for attention, but I'm getting more excited about Arateph than I have in a long while (though this does tend to happen around early summer, so we're right on schedule), so I'm hoping that can translate into finishing one of my ideas. The top contenders right now are my Cinderella retelling (set after "Out of the Tomb") and my Princess and the Pea retelling (set before the revolution), which both have strong heroines whose painful lives have driven them to make some bad choices that they're going to have to overcome, and I'd be excited to write their perspectives and see their journeys play out.

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

I really like this paragraph in "A Garden of Wishes". To my mind, it's the center of the romance and the themes that I'm trying to draw out of the fairy tale.

In that moment, the sun shines full upon you, setting the gold and brown streaks of your hair alight. Suddenly, you are not an ethereal being, too high and fine for me to reach. You are here, with me, laboring in the Earth—and you glow with joy. It is not the blazing joy of your dances in the midnight palace—burning bright and fast and destructive. This joy is gentler, life-giving—like a hearth fire or a candle flame. It warms and nourishes, comforts and caresses. For the first time, I can picture you as a gardener’s wife, laboring with me in a cottage, caring for our children, giving life to sons and daughters and helping me to make good things grow.

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

Branching out from sentence-level style and into themes/motifs, I write a lot of:

Quiet heroines who doubt themselves

Outspoken, practical heroines

Heroines with various intellectual interests

Basically decent human beings just trying to get along in life

Married couples who are madly in love with each other

Mentor characters who get to explain the themes to the POV character/outspoken best friend characters who cut through the POV's self-doubt

Overt messages

Fantasy worlds with Victorian fashion/imagery

Surreal second-person fairy tales

Original fiction that riffs off of concepts from one specific work/genre

Retellings that can include romance but also focus on the wider world of the fairy tale (and sometimes turn romantic tales platonic and vice versa)

Anything I missed?

8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

Kind of? I don't read as much fantasy as my writing would suggest--I do read quite a bit, but I do tend to read a lot more vintage/classic fiction from roughly 1800-1960 and historical fiction set in that time frame, and I don't have the courage to write realistic fiction yet. I do like to read fairy tales and fairy tale retellings, but it's getting harder and harder to find retellings that are written in the styles I like to read.

I do sometimes lean heavily on works that I've read to inspire my work. "The True Story" was "84, Charing Cross Road" done as magical realism. "The Return of Queen Emma" and "Honors from the King" involved me riffing on Narnia concepts. "A Feast in the Lanternwood" started as "What if Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote fantasy?" And sometimes I'm just drawing from tropes and settings in things that I've read and mashing them together into something original.

10. How would you describe your writing process?

Chaotic but focused. I'm constantly spinning ideas, tropes, images, etc. into stories. Lately, my writing process has involved writing a list with a whole bunch of ideas (it helps if I have a theme and a deadline, like "I want to write a flash fiction retelling" or "I want to write an intrusive fantasy for Inklings"), and then choosing one and writing it in the document underneath. Once I've finished a draft, I do some polishing passes, and if I have a bit more leeway/I'm not feeling impatient, I'll wait at least overnight, if not a couple of days, to come back and do the final edits.

For longer works, I try to keep my outline focused--I'll write down the initial ideas, then pare it down to the important stuff as I develop.

19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)

I use the words "glory" and "joy" way too much. I also have a bad habit of repeating words multiple times in the same paragraph or work--in my head, it seems like the only fitting word or like poetic repetition, but on the page, it looks like I have no vocabulary. I'm sure there are other specific reused words that I can't think of at the moment.

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

@lady-merian's comment recently reminded me of a bit of meta for "Honors From the King". In the opening scene, the elf has a line about "If he offers you half of his kingdom, don't take it. It's just a polite phrase." That was a bit of a personal joke, because I've always wondered what a king would do if someone took them up on the offer and asked for half the kingdom, so I thought I'd have her warn against the possibility. It wasn't until a long time after I'd written the story that I realized I'd thrown in some unwitting foreshadowing, because the king winds up offering Mia his entire kingdom, and she's going to wind up accepting it.

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

I've already envisioned "Out of the Tomb" as a musical, and I've pictured at least the first act of a musical about Marastel and Jemrauth's courtship, with several songs that are key to my understanding of the story, so that could be fun. I also think it could be fun to see it as an animated series (you could properly portray the human-but-not-quite-ness of tephans) or as an audio drama (you could have some fun portraying the layered sounds of the tephan naming language)>

[txemrn]

Déjà Vu

Chapter 4

New? Check out the first THREE chapters HERE! (Go ahead; we'll be here. 😉)

Series Summary: After an unforgettable night with a stranger, Princess Eleanor finds herself caught in a secret love triangle between a noble and a commoner.

Chapter Summary: Drake heads to Club Core with Leo; he unexpectedly meets a young woman that reminds him of a past life.

Pairing(s): mention of Liam x Riley; Drake x Riley (former)

Word Count: ~4970

Warning: 🔞 Mature Audiences Only 🔞 language (tons; it's Drake); sexual references (crude); mention of excessive drinking; drug-use reference; brief violence

A/N: Welcome to my Crack Fic! If you are new, hi! Thank you for joining us! This story takes place approximately 2 decades after TRR/TRH. I have made some canonical changes (they will be mentioned). Although this is from my crazy mind, it takes a village! Huge thanks to my sweet writing buddies for helping me figure out various parts! Love y'all! Characters and some plots belong to our friends at Pixelberry! This was not Beta'd; please excuse my errors.

~🖤~

Drake

What the fuck was I thinking? I hate large crowds and eardrum-piercing music. I hate being around people who can't hold their liquor, not to mention I hate dancing. But even worse, I hate Leonardo Anselm Phineas Rys. Old thorn in my side. What in the actual fuck made me agree to hang out with blondie in the first place? At a club? On opening night?

Because you're lonely, and he offered free booze…

My twisted expression relaxes as I shrug my shoulders. Meh. I guess it could be worse.

"Okay, baby… I'll be home later… yes… I'll tell Liam you said, 'hello'..." Leo gives an obnoxious kissing sound before disconnecting his call with the touch of a button. He lets out a sigh, taking a hit of his vape pen. "Dahlia," he answers to the question I never asked. He glances at me, sucking in his bottom lip before giving me a slow flutter of a wink.  "She's a bit clingy."

I nod, drumming my fingers against the leather interior, playing it cool like I care. "Is… she your–?"

"Friend."

Ah. Okay. 'Friend.'  The term just glides off of his tongue. Nonchalant. Sweet and syrupy, almost as if he believes the bullshit he's feeding this poor girl that's waiting at home for him. 

And she thinks what now? That he's coming over after an evening with his brother's family which, no doubt, she has never met. And judging by that brief interaction with goldie locks here, she doesn’t seem to have the intellectual capacity to wonder why she wasn't invited to the dinner in the first place.

Side-piece. Booty-call. Friend. It's all just semantics to douchebags like Leo Rys.

I fidget with the navy collar to the button-down shirt Leo loaned me. I could barely fit my broad shoulders into the lean cut of his tailored threads. The guy has a rock hard physique, but tough, manual labor creates a different kind of body. A strong one. Like mine.

The buttons pull slightly across my chest as I flash a glance in the car visor mirror. I look like a fucking tool. I'm not used to my stubble brushing up against starched cotton; I'm usually wearing a tee, my work denim and my steel-toes. I mean, unless I'm meeting with a client or going out to dinner where you have a waiter and utensils. But, other than that, I am a fish out of water: this shirt is uncomfortable. And I have a feeling this is just a prelude of what's to come.

At least Leo approved of my jeans and Tecovas. He tried throwing my trusty chambray shirt in the trash.  "No one has worn this for at least twenty years… and they weren't even wearing it then."

Fuck off.

We pull up to this club, and I swear everyone in Cordonia has turned out for this spectacle. The moment Rys steps out of his 'I didn't want anything too flashy' red Ferrari, the paps were on him like white on rice. Flashes of light rain from every direction as reporters flood him with curious questions about his Gucci loafers and gray Brioni blazer. 

Lucky for me, I'm a nobody, and the press quickly discovers that the moment I step out onto the red carpet. Dropping their cameras and microphones in disappointment, they instantly turn their attention elsewhere.  I don't know if I should be grateful… or offended, to be honest. At least confuse me for Leo's new lover… bunch of dickwads.

I push past the commotion, combing my hair out of my eyes as I look around the red carpet. This place is pretty snazzy, but holy fuck, they didn't spare with any expenses. It’s like a fucking fortress: a tall, wrought iron fence encased with stone surrounds the perimeter. Armed security in black tie a la James Bond swarm the space.

Now, the entrance? This wasn't just any ol’ red carpet; oh, fuck no, that wouldn't do for such a prestigious guest list. Contortionists and acrobats on pedestals perform sultry poses and maneuvers, leaving the crowd bewildered and amazed. 

Scantily clad women tend to the average Joe commoners waiting in line. They serve hors d'oeuvres and complimentary spirits, fooling them into thinking they're still important even though they're on the outskirts of the main event, and truth be told: they'll never get in.

Taking it all in, I suddenly feel a massive clap against my back before an arm hugs tightly around my neck.

"Ready, Walker?" Leo pops his gum in between his smarmy grin. "Let's get our dicks wet."

—

Fucking. A. I'm pretty sure I just entered the third level of hell.

"Hey-yo, Walker!" 

Make that the fourth level…

I glance back at Rys who is now flocked with an entourage of, and I quote, ‘aspiring models,’ all with their fake tits falling out of their tops, their overly-injected blow-job lips, and lashes so thick, you can't tell if they're sleeping or having a stroke.  He flashes those pearly whites as he dangles a small, gram-size plastic bag of white powder.

Now, I'm not against tokin' up or getting obliterated with alcohol, but cocaine isn't my style… not to mention, if we got caught–no doubt, Leo knows people that could bail us out, but if Liam and Riley were to hear about this? They'd kick me to the curb in an instant, especially with their kid around. They’d label me as a bad influence, and Liam would give me that fatherly disappointment glare.

"What do you think, Walker?" Leo nods with eager anticipation. "Wanna join… all of us?" He lets out a knowing laugh, winking at the women around him. They take his cue and begin to giggle, as if he was the funniest, most charming man they've ever met.

And my IQ just dropped two points.

"I think… I'm going to… " I notice a large bar area, quickly throwing a hitched thumb back at it. "...I'll check out the bar," 

"Suit yourself." The women practically swallow him whole with their arms. "Don't forget: give 'em my name. Drinks on me!"  

The drove of venereal diseases buzzes off with their king, and a sense of relief washes over me. Would I rather be at home? Absolutely, but since I'm already here…

I make my way toward the crowded bar area, ducking between drunken cat fights and groping couples. Finding a stool, I plant my ass down, and despite how busy it is, the bartender tends to me quickly–probably because I'm a 45- year-old man alone in a club. Translation: I have money, I know what I want, and chances are, what I order doesn't require my rim being bedazzled with seasonings, flowers, or fruit.

"What can I get ya?"

Oh, shit, I haven't heard that distinct nasally Portavira accent in so long. My God…

"Um… Larceny. Neat."

"Double?"

My man… I nod as I watch him pull out the bottle and a clean tumbler.

"Do you have a tab started, sir?"

I reach for my wallet, but I abruptly stop, remembering Leo's words. 'Give 'em my name. Drinks on me!'

"I do. It's under Rys," I smirk, "and actually, do you have Macallan?"

The bartender stops, giving me a glance over when finally a Cheshire grin creeps across his face as if he just struck oil. "We sure do, Mr. Rys." He extends his hand to fist bump me before reaching to the top shelf for a new bottle of the liquid gold. Before I knew it, he's twirling the tumbler across the bar. "Enjoy, Mr. Rys."

Taking a sip, I give him a wink as a thank you as I bask in the much needed woodsy burn of clove on my tongue. Damn, that's tasty.

Feeling more relaxed, I glance out onto the dance floor as other club-goers get lost in the hypnotic buzz of the ethanol electrifying their veins. The tantric beat of the music and the flashing swirl of multicolored lights feeds the adrenaline and raging hormones as people grab and grope one another.

I am way too old for this scene.

I grab my glass to take another pull when out of the corner of my eye, I see a familiar face at the bar. Turning my head to get a better look, I suddenly swallow my whiskey down the wrong pipe, causing me to fall into a fit of coughs. Smooth, Walker, real smooth. 

Blinking back the tears, I sniff into a napkin before looking back at the beautiful face. Shit. She's absolutely…wow. Gorgeous dark, silky waves, porcelain skin, that pouty mouth with those big, doe eyes… She's the spitting image of… Riley. 

"Fuck," I growl at myself before rubbing the shit out of my eyes. No way, it can't be. I look up again, and instantly I can feel my jeans begin to tighten. 

You're just wanting to see her. You're just wanting it to be her, especially with what happened back at the palace.

I down the rest of my drink before allowing my attention to be completely saturated by this girl. 

It's not Riley. It's not…

See? Her nose appears more prominent from the side, and-and her neck. Her neck seems longer, slender. And her eyes. They're gorgeous and big… they aren't Riley's navy blues, but damn, that sparkle–

"Would you like another–?"

"Please," I grumble as I stare at this Riley look-alike. I just… can't tear my eyes away. Her presence feels so real, so intimate. Now, judging from this woman's creamy, velvet skin, she's young. Maybe early 20s. Way out of my league… but still that face. It's like looking into a past life, a life I once loved.

—

(Two decades ago…)

"Brooks," Drake whispers loudly, "come on!"

"Shhhh!" Riley presses a finger to her lips, stifling her giggles as she looks down from her palace window. "Are you trying to wake everyone up? You're going to get me into trouble."

"You are trouble, lady."

Riley looks back at the commoner, the glint of mischief in his eyes making her adrenaline pump faster through her veins. "Now are you sure about this?" She bites her lip, "you'll catch me if–"

"For the hundredth time, yes," Drake rolls his eyes, holding his arms out wide. 

Since Drake's confession to Riley at Applewood, the two of them have been enjoying each other's company, especially after hours. They flirt with danger, sharing in kisses that they swear will never happen again for obvious reasons: she is there to pursue Liam and his hand in marriage; Drake is his best friend.

After watching Liam share a kiss with Riley, a dam of excruciating jealousy broke in Drake's heart. He already shared with Riley before that he was developing feelings for her, but now, it was… something else. Something more.

During dinner, the commoner passed her a note, asking her to meet him outside her window after midnight because they needed to talk.

Riley is staying in the guest quarters off the West Wing with the other suitors. She's only on the second floor, but still, a jump from that high could be dangerous. So, Drake helped the brunette construct a climbing rope with her top sheet. 

"I've got ya. Just… ease yourself over."

Riley takes one step at a time, following Drake's directions; but when she gets close to the ground, she looks back at Drake, raising an eyebrow, then jumps. 

"Whoa!" Drake stumbles as Riley crashes into his chest, his arms quickly cradling her close. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Riley giggles, combing her fingers through Drake's thick hair. "Sometimes a girl just wants to be caught."

Their eyes lock on one another, Drake's hand finding her cheek. He gently rubs his thumb across her soft skin, her eyes fluttering closed as she leans into his touch.

"Come with me," he whispers softly while grabbing her hand.

"Wait… I thought we were going to talk–"

"I want to show you something." Riley gives him a curious glare. "It's a surprise," he smirks, pulling her to follow him.

They walk silently, hand-in-hand across the grounds, playfully gazing back-and-forth at one another–that is, until all a sudden a bright flashlight skims over where they are walking.

"Who goes there?" A palace guard bellows.

"Brooks, take off your flip-flops," Drake commands under his breath, watching the guard in the distance.

"What? Why?"

"Just trust me," he squeezes her fingers. 

Riley quickly kicks them off, holding them in her hands. "Okay… now what?"

Drake grabs her hand again, his grip tight. "Run!" Giving her a warning tug, they both take off across the wet lawn, Riley following Drake's lead.

"Where… are we… going?" She pants, laughter bubbling from her chest.

"You'll see," Drake chuckles, "but we have to lose Barney Fife first!"

Dodging the glow of the searching lights, Drake and Riley finally make it to a large wall of greenery. Finding an entry, they pass through the walkway and hide behind the vines and leaves.

Drake looks to see if they finally lost the guards, but Riley takes a moment to look around the thicket they just entered. 

"Whoa," her eyes widen as she looks at the well-manicured covert. "Where… where are we?"

"It's… a maze. A hedge maze that we used to play in as kids."

"Are you serious?" She meanders down a corridor, looking around a corner. "It's so dark. Did you ever get lost?"

Drake chuckles, reaching into his pocket. "Plenty of times." He saunters closer to Riley, pulling out a flashlight and handing it to her. The air crackles around them as the charm of the blue moon ignites the twinkle in their eyes. Drake lowers his voice into a deep gravel. "Come get lost with me, Riley Brooks."

With that, he smiles and takes off jogging, Riley staying close behind. "Hey, not so fast Drake." She turns a corner and notices his denim shirt discarded on the grass. "You lost your shirt."

"Did I now?" He snickers. "Can you bring it to me?"

Riley scoffs into a giggle as she continues through the maze at the sound of his voice. "Maybe if you'd stop running away–"

"Maybe if you weren't so slow–"

"Hey!" Riley chides, "I just jumped out of a window–" she falls silent as finds Drake's belt tossed on the ground.  She collects it in her hand, biting her bottom lip. "Drake?"

"You're getting warm," he teases. Riley stumbles through another corner, turning left, then right. The sounds of her toes in the grass compliment her heavy breathing as she stops again to the cooing of his voice. "Warmer, Brooks." 

She continues until suddenly, she notices a warm glow just up ahead. Her steps quicken until finally she reaches a small clearing in the maze that opens to a stunning backdrop of the star-filled sky. Gas-lit sconces illuminate the garden, revealing tapestries of vines and flowers fixed to wooden lattice work amongst the bushes.

"Wow," Riley gasps, her eyes glowing with the wonder all around her. "This is beautiful." She feels Drake's warm touch on her hand, their fingers lacing together. 

"Cmon," he tugs on her, "I want to show you something."

"There's more?" She giggles, following his lead. They walk a short, pebbled path until they are standing in front of a large gray-stoned well. Riley presses her fingertips to the cold marbled edges before looking down into the dark abyss. Her eyes shift to Drake, "Is this where you murder me?" He chuckles, shaking his head as she turns back to the well opening. "Hello!" She shouts, the echoes welcoming each other back and forth.  

"I'll be honest, Brooks." Riley looks back at Drake. "I'm kinda shocked Liam hasn't already brought you here. It's one of his favorite places to show off in the entire estate."

"Oh," Riley's eyebrows knit together with a pained expression. 

"Hey," Drake nudges her playfully. "What's with the long face?"

Riley snickers into a scoff before finally succumbing to tears. "I'm just exhausted," she pulls her hands to her face.

"Brooks," he pulls her into his comforting arms.

"This social season bullshit is just … it's really screwing with my head," she sniffles. "I've never been more insecure in all my life, and what for?" She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, clearing her throat. "I wish I knew where I stood. I wish the competition was over. I wish–"

Drake reaches into his pocket, pulling out a couple of worn copper coins. He offers them to a confused Riley.

"Pennies?" She sniffles.

"Yeah," he chuckles, "I forgot to get rid of them when we were in New York. They're worthless here. No conversion."

Riley's lips begin to curl. "Then why keep them?"

Drake starts inspecting the coins in his hand, allowing them to softly clang together in his palm. "I read a book once–"

"--picture books don't count as reading."

"Ha. Ha." He smirks, feigning annoyance as he starts to jingle the coins in his hand. "I read that in ancient civilizations, finding random metals was a sign or a blessing from the gods."

"You see them everywhere back home. The streets, sidewalks," she snickers, "a whole cent. How generous of the gods."

"What? A penny isn't enough for you?" Drake playfully growls, slowly leaning closer to Riley.  She coyly bats her lashes, a soft titter in her throat. "Here." He puts a coin in her hand.

"What's this for?" Riley studies the trinket.

"For something bigger, citizens would offer the metal back to the gods, like a payment.  So they would say a silent prayer, then toss it–"

"--into a well," Riley softly finishes.

Drake nods over his shoulder to the stoned well. "Let's make your wishes count."

One by one, Drake and Riley silently take pennies, casting them into the well with unspoken hopes and dreams until every last coin was gone. Feeling his close proximity, Riley stares up into his dark eyes, getting lost into a charming stillness.

"What did you wish for?" She whispers.

Drake slowly shakes his head. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

He offers a crooked grin. Combing his fingers into Riley's dark, espresso waves, his hand gently grips the back of her neck, pulling her closer. "All my wishes have already come true, Brooks."  He closes the space between them, their lips grazing one another. The feather-light touch instantly ignites a hunger, one they both feel and crave. Drake pulls back, chuckling under his breath as he fidgets with the hem of Riley's shirt. "So... why didn't you take off any clothes?"

Riley bites her bottom lip. "Maybe... because... I wanted my wish to come true." She pauses, her fingers tucking into the front pocket of Drake's jeans, pulling his hips flush against hers.

He swallows thickly. "Which is?"

"Take them off for me, Walker."

—

(Present)

Damnit.  I adjust myself in my jeans, but my cock always hardens at the memory of Riley and me that night. We fucked. A lot. But that night, our first night together, it was more than just sex. We made love.

I take a swig of my new drink that the bartender must've dropped off while I was taking a stroll down the boulevard of broken dreams when my eyes dart to my Riley look-alike.

And I feel my dick shrink.

She's with someone, some blond tool, probably named Chad, with a tool haircut that shops at Tools-R-Us with a matching trust fund. 

I sigh to myself, polishing the rest of my drink before staring at my empty glass. 

He is pretty hot; I don't blame her.

I glance at them one more time, kissing my own dirty fantasy away when I notice something odd. His hand is sternly gripped around her wrist, staring at her like she's his next meal. 

But her face tells a different story. She seems to be struggling, trying to tear her arm away from him. Those big, doe eyes are panicked, large as table saucers as she frantically looks for help. 

I sigh. Goddamnit...

I wipe a napkin across my mouth as I stand, my glare fixed on this commotion transpiring before me. I shrug my shoulders, loosening the tight fabric off my back as I stretch my muscles. Just in case.

I hurry my way through the dense crowd of patrons gathered around the bar. I flex my fingers, bending my wrist as I get closer.

Ah, shit. This is the part I'm bad at. What do I say first? 'Stop that!' No, that's lame. I need something clever, like maybe, 'Is there a problem here?' How about–

My clenched fist meets his jaw, knocking the asshole in one swing into a bartop table before he crashes down onto the floor.  He's so disoriented; he's trying to get up, but he keeps slipping on shards of glass, falling back into the pathetic rumple he calls his life.

Fuck. My hand. I know it will hurt like a bitch in a few minutes when my body depletes of adrenaline, but for right now, I'm basking in the moment. 

A smirk grows on my mouth, but it doesn't last for long. The young woman. I turn to the Riley look-alike, her terrified stare already fixed on me. Instinctively, I carefully put my hand on her shoulder. She's shaking.

"Excuse me, miss. Are you alright?"

Ho.ly. Fuuuuuuck. 

Brooks? Seeing her up close is almost painful; I can feel my balls beginning to ache.  This woman is hauntingly stunning: the subtle freckles on her nose, the curve of the bow to her top lip, even the flounce of her long, flirty eyelashes. She's beautiful; she's… like somebody I used to know…

The young woman shyly nods, but she's trembling. She's clearly not alright. 

And I suddenly possess this overwhelming need to take her in my arms, hold her tight and let her know she's safe. 

Calm down, Walker. 

"Let's get you away from this." I look up, noticing an open lounge-type area near the dance floor with large, plush couches. Offering my arm, she holds on tightly as we escape through the debris of the nightmare that just happened. Placing a reassuring hand on her back, I encourage her to sit. 

I, on the other hand, keep an eye on douche canoe who is being helped up by security and his friends. But, I don't think he'll be a problem for us anymore tonight.  He never got a good look at me, and even if he had, something tells me his ego would keep him away from telling the truth of who made him taste his own blood.

Turning towards the young woman, I notice she is anxiously looking around, her body on edge.  I tilt myself to her ear, shouting over the blaring music, "Are you here with anyone?" 

She nods, "B-but it's okay," she yells back, waving her hands. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

She fakes a smile, and my God, it knocks me back. Stunning.

Focus on her words, Walker...

"I don't exactly want to…" 

I don't quite understand the rest of her statement, her words lost in the heavy beat of the music. I give her an inquisitive look, causing her to careen towards my ear, her hand brushing across my shoulder.

And my cock twitches. Breathe, buddy…

"I said… I don't want to interrupt their fun." She motions aimlessly to the dance floor. Got it.

"Can I call someone for you? Family perhaps?"

Her eyes widen. "What? No, no." 

She grins, but it's clearly hiding her true feelings. Which is fine. I'm a complete stranger. Shit, she probably thinks I'm some creepy old man, hitting on her at the bar. And sure, maybe on a night where she wasn't assaulted, maybe I would've bought her a drink, asked for her number.

But the fact of the matter is this: I really don't feel comfortable leaving this girl alone. She  just got into a physical altercation with… whoever that guy was. Her boyfriend? Oh shit, husband? I look at her hand; I don't see a ring, but that doesn't mean anything. You never know these days. Still, she doesn't need to be by herself right now. She really doesn't need to be here, but again, who am I but another creep at the bar.

I run my fingers through my hair. Oh, what the hell. "Do you mind if I sit with you?"

A hint of fear crosses her expression as she looks me over. 

I hold up my hands in defense before leaning over her shoulder. "I don't feel comfortable leaving you alone in a place like this," I shout, "especially with what happened with your boyfriend."

She takes a deep breath. She flashes those big, brown eyes at me before finally nodding in agreement. 

And my heart melts. 

I offer my hand. "Drake."

The corners of her lips curl as she takes my hand, leaning towards my ear. "Jake?" She yells.

I shake my head, facing her ear more directly. "Drake!" I holler over the deep thrumming of the bass.

She raises an eyebrow. "Jake?" 

Eh, close enough. I smile in agreement.

"I'm Nora," she smiles, already more relaxed.

"Nora?" I repeat, ensuring I heard her correctly. At least one of us should be called by our real names this evening. 

She nods innocently, a beautiful rosy pink painting her cheeks. "Oh, and, um… he's not my boyfriend."  A piece of her hair falls like liquid silk into her eyes as she looks down at her lap. She quickly shoos the wisp away, chasing it behind her ear before looking back at me, trying to figure out my angle. Am I here to hurt her? Flirt with her? Invite her home for a messy, drunken fuck?

Don't worry, sweetie, you're safe with me.

"American?"

She catches me off guard with that one. "Uh, yeah. How did you–?"

She points to her mouth, her lips perfectly rounded and plump, painted a deep crimson. Oh, duh. My watered-down accent. Toto, we're not in Texas anymore. It's hard to believe that at one point in my life, I actually sounded like these people. Every once in a while, the Cordonian beast pounces, but these days, I sound like the typical American mutt.

"Are you on vacation?" Nora asks.

I smirk, shaking my head. "I… moved here for work."

"To Cordonia?" She snickers. "Of all places?"

"Fair," I chuckle under my breath as I feel the heat rise up my neck. "I… grew up here, so I have… connections, friends and family. It makes for an easy transition. How about you?"

Her eyes brighten, like a pageant contestant being asked about world peace. "Cordonian. Born and raised."

"That's unfortunate," I joke. Sorta.

"Hey," she giggles, scrunching up her nose playfully.  She swats the back of her hand against my shoulder. The touch sends a shockwave of familiarity, robbing me of my breath. "I love Cordonia–"

"Spoken like a true Cordonian."

"And… what's wrong with that?"

Drake guffaws. "What isn't wrong with that?"

"Your tone is suggesting that there's something wrong with having pride in your country–"

"It's egotistical–"

"The only thing egotistical is thinking that your opinion about Cordonia is the only opinion to be had." She furrows her brows. "If you hate it so much, why did you come back?"

Shit. She's feisty. And this conversation has gone completely off the rails.  I can't tell if she's really pissed… or if I'm just really turned on and wanting a sparring match. 

Fuck. You just had to be a jackass…

"Okay, truth?" I offer, even though I'm sure she wants to toss a drink in my face at this point.

She turns to face me, tucking her leg underneath her. "Please."

"I had a rough time fitting in here. Except for my best friend. He's–" I grin thinking about Liam and I, growing up together, how perfect and inseparable we were. "--as Cordonian as you can get. Well, except… I mean, his mom… nevermind," I shake my head. "He's the nicest person I've ever met in my life. I needed some help after a bad business deal, and… he was there and… now I'm here."

"Huh." She sits back, crossing her arms as she takes me in. She raises an eyebrow, the corner of her lips curling. She's clearly unsure of me, and I don't blame her. 

"Drinks?" A cocktail waitress dressed in a skimpy, leather skirt interrupts us.

Rubbing the back of my neck nervously, I turn to Nora. I have a feeling that this might be the end of the night for us, especially if I don't offer her a cocktail.

I stare at the sparkling flecks of bronze in her eyes. There's something about this girl, more than just the memories she stirs up in me. I can't explain it… shit, then again, maybe I'm fooling myself, wanting something to be there that never was. Still… I clear my throat… you never know unless you try.

 "Would… you like one? A drink?"

She narrows her eyes in thought… and fucking hell, she's so goddamn beautiful. Like Riley incarnate. The mannerisms, some of her expressions. Watching her literally robs me of speech and air, and I am dying to spend more time with her. Hell, who knows where the night will take us. 

I really hope she agrees to this drink. I can tell I haven't exactly won her over in the past twenty minutes, but if she would just agree to one more drink, just a few more minutes with me, maybe history could repeat itself. Maybe I could experience the woman of my dreams in a different way. Now, I could never tell Nora this; she could never find out. I mean, I am attracted to her, it's just…

"Sure," Nora interrupts my thoughts, her lips curling. "I'll take a drink."

~🖤~

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[moritmblrdlastudiow]

In 1939, the Bund was the most popular Jewish party in Poland. Four years later, its members had mostly been murdered in the Holocaust. Irena’s father, Michael, became a bomb maker for the Jewish Fighters Organization, and died charging a German machine gun in the Warsaw ghetto revolt. Her mother, who she called Mama Lo, almost did not survive Irena’s birth. She was so ill that, for the next six months, she entrusted Irena to the care of Michael’s sister Gina. A fellow Bundist who worked for the resistance, rescuing Jews as they waited to be loaded onto boxcars, Gina died during the war from a stomach operation, which she received while passing as Aryan. When the priest read her the last rites, she told him “I am a Jew,” as a final act of self-assertion. “Such a will to be known can alter history,” Irena wrote in her poem “Solitary Acts.” In photos, Gina resembles a tomboy Greta Garbo, dressed in a suit, her hair slicked back: a gorgeous, ideal butch. Gina “was probably a lesbian,” Irena told me. When the fate of the ghetto became undeniable, Mama Lo smuggled Irena to the Aryan side of Warsaw to place her at a Catholic orphanage, then kidnapped her back from the nuns and kept the two of them alive in the countryside until the war’s end.

After the war, Mama Lo made the same choice as the vast majority of Polish Jews, leaving the country first for Sweden and then for the Amalgamated Housing Projects in the Bronx, which were filled with fellow Bundists. The Bronx kids, themselves Jewish, bullied Irena for her European dress and accent. She grew up between three languages. At home, her mother spoke Polish, a language many survivors rejected as that of their betrayers. Five days a week, she studied Yiddish at a school run by the Workman’s Circle, a secular Jewish mutual aid society entwined with the Bund. In school, she struggled with English. Secretly, she began to write poetry.

Irena attended CUNY, when it was still called The Harvard of the Proletariat, and when it lifted countless working-class smart alecks (my Puerto Rican father included) into the middle class. She got her master’s and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. It was the first time she ever had friends who were not Jews. She wrote about walking through nighttime Chicago in the aftermath of urban renewal, when vibrant Black and mixed-race neighborhoods were turned to rubble, their inhabitants forced elsewhere. She called it “the American hollowness… the incessant grinding down of lines for stamps, for jobs, for a bed to sleep in, of a death stretched imperceptibly over a lifetime…. The Holocaust without smoke.”

Irena’s lesbian world had much in common with the vibrant Bundist subculture in which her parents came of age. Like the Bund, queer women shut out of the mainstream built their own universe out of love and grit. “No institutions wanted us [the gays and the feminists] in any kind of way,” Irena told me, so she and her friends built their own platforms. By the 1980s, lesbians had created a national network of bookstores, newspapers, coffeehouses, bars, archives, and literary presses, to which Irena contributed with enthusiasm, particularly striving to make spaces for lesbian Jews. She started Out and Out Books with three friends, contributed to the first Jewish lesbian anthology, and co-founded the literary leftist magazine Conditions, which published some of the most exciting feminist intellectuals of the era — Barbara Smith, of the Combahee River collective, and Borderlands author Gloria Anzaldúa.

A conversation with Anzaldúa triggered a new direction in Irena’s work. Anzaldúa often used untranslated Spanish in her writing, refusing to cut off her Chicana heritage to conform to white American sensibilities. Anzaldúa asked Irena why, since she grew up with Yiddish, she did not do the same. Irena began to use the language within her English poetry, as a chorus, a dagger, or refrain. Perhaps her best-known poem of this sort is “Etlekhe verter oyf mame-loshn / A few words in the mother tongue,” where she delineates the roles — Jewess, lesbian, whore, gossip, and little wife — that traditional society forced women to wear like straightjackets.

Growing up in the anti-Zionist, Bundist milieu, “Israel was not on my map,” Irena said. But after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and massacres supervised by the Israeli Defense Forces in Sabra and Shatila, she felt that the subject of Palestine could not be avoided. She met with Israeli and Palestinian feminists, and, with a few friends, started the Jewish Women’s Committee to End the Occupation, or JWCEO. It was a strictly DIY affair — often they stood on a street corner near the famous bagel joint Zabar’s and passed out fliers denouncing the occupation. “People would say the worst things to us, like ‘I wish you had died at Auschwitz,’” Irena told me. “I’d never heard Jews talk to each other that way. It was sobering. And, sometimes it was really good, because we really engaged people.” The JWCEO went on to inspire groups around the country. Irena is now a supporter of the one-state solution, of a single state in Israel-Palestine which would give equal rights to all, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Her Birth and Later Years includes a poem in memory of Razan al-Najjar, the Palestinian nurse murdered by an Israeli sniper during 2018’s Great March of Return in Gaza. However, her most astute piece on Palestine was written about a much earlier event — the 1967 war, where the quick Israeli victory inspired a poisonous joy in even the Bundist survivors: Didn’t we all glow from it our sense of power finally achieved? The quickness of the action the Biblical routes and how we laughed over Egyptian shoes in the sand how we laughed at another people’s fear as if fear was alien as if we had known safety all of our lives.

[cosmicanger]

I thought you (applies to multiple ppl) were a collaborator but you just a fan and that’s okay im just looking for collaborators. and i gotta watch more of the Bear but starting that reminded me of that meme about ppl wanting a certain ship on the show and some ppl saying they want the ship to happen and others being like they are just friends and yea im with the latter. the “ship” to me looks like platonic love to me idk. and the show and Cancer season got me thinking about how i feel like i always bring so much intellectual labor to art relationships but the relationships are not reciprocal, they are parasitic really, not mutually beneficial. always got me thinking “umm none of y’all putting me on like i been putting y’all on” idk i look at the color field Black ppl and how they stick together or Kamoinge Workshop sticking together or AfriCOBRA and how they all worked in the same language but never felt they were stepping on each others toes and learned from each other. like where can i find artists who wanna do shit like that. not saying i wanna make a collective and have a brand but more collaboration more mutual and parallel learning idk. i might be the best unpaid art teacher of all time, so many ppl have learned something from me and i feel i learn so little from others to be quite honest. im also not saying i know it all either im just saying i put so much into art and people acting like I dont exist at this point. if i dont exist why you (sadly applies to multiple ppl) change your practice cause of me? well i dont fully exist to anyone in the arts, im just an idea until im gone from this realm and someone else can make money off my work and people will give me my flowers then. I just wanna live alone and make art full time and get on hrt one day and stay mostly to myself to d**th idk shouldnt be that much to ask, no? welp til then no more <<real>> shit for me, no more theory posts, no text besides in the asks which i will keep anon on. im surrounded by cowards.

[thekimspoblog]

Sheepdog Chapter 6: "Eyes Wide Open"

Jimmy wakes up, and rolls over to look at the clock. 4:30 AM. It was still pitch black out the window. In the darkness, he can hear whimpering.

“Kim?”

“I’m awake,” she replied between shallow breaths.

“Are you okay?”

“No! My back has been killing me for the past hour. I was waiting for it to go away… but it’s just gotten worse. I’ve tried sleeping on my side, I’ve tried laying flat on my back. Nothing helps. I can barely move!”

“I mean it’s not exactly rocket science,” Jimmy chortled to himself, “I can guess if I had a bowling ball strapped to myself for a full day…”

She found his hand under the covers, “Jimmy! Now’s really not a good time!”

“Right. Sorry. You know how I am. I’m trying to make light of things. Cus I’m nervous…”

After a long silence she sighed, embarrassed and begrudged, “I have to go to the bathroom. I need you to help me up”

“What are friends for?”

Jimmy helped Kim to her feet and braced her arm around him. It was only a short distance to walk, but his smell was novelly revolting. Or maybe it wasn’t his fault; maybe this house was revolting, or this whole situation was revolting. Or maybe she felt like revolting.

Once the toilet took on her heaviness and her husband had backed off, there was a little bit of relief from the sense of claustrophobia, but not much. No matter what posture Kim took, a muscle spasm was still wrenching her spine like a fist.

“What time was it, when we left the convenience store?” she asked.

“Around 5?”

“So roughly 36 hours ago. Okay…” she nodded, struggling to let it sink in herself, “In that case… I’m pretty sure I’m in labor…”

“So what do we do now?”

“Go warm the car up. I guess we’re going to the hospital at the crack of dawn”

Jimmy’s footsteps disappeared down the staircase. What she was just now realizing was a contraction went on for another small eternity. In a daze, she fiddled with a corner of the bathroom wallpaper that had peeled in on itself. When rolled flat, in crimson marker in rather large print, an unexplained note: “1/5 - 1/4“ She had to still be dreaming; her stomach was making some loud noises, but this emerging disquiet, this primordial groaning and rumbling, felt like it was shaking the walls. The auditory hallucination even came with clear voices.

“Sickness! Sickness! Death! Death! I want her to die! Die! She must vanish! She must die! Sickness!”

A contraction wracked her again, this time badly enough to get a suppressed scream. Already so weary, she was going over in her mind practically every life decision she’d made up to this point, and through the lens of this awful mood, pretty much every choice was one she now regretted. What was it she even wanted? All of that paragon-of-human-ideals junk seemed so pointless in this moment! She didn’t need intellectualism, no amount of words could justify her presence to someone who had already decided otherwise, she didn’t need love, she didn’t even really need Jimmy! She only needed her own permission to take up space in this world, and the next time she found herself chasing someone else’s validation, she’d remember to tell them to kiss her ass! All she really wanted…

Her eyes kept drifting over to the bathtub. She needed to feel the warm water on her skin. It was suddenly just an axiomatic fact that this would be the only way to get comfortable. She looked over to find the white marble countertop bare of anything, save for one stray safety pin. There had to be one somewhere nearby… the damn things had taken over the house like shiny little beetles… Kim pulled open the drawer closest to her. Aha! There were five mobile phones in there.

“Saul Goodman; Speedy-Justice-4-U. Sorry, but could you please call back during office hours? I’m dealing with a bit of a personal emergency at present”

The weight of the world was on her eyelids. “Do you have your shoes on yet?”

“I’m putting them on right now…”

“Well you can take them off… There’s been a change of plans. I’m going to call an ambulance. I don’t think I’m gonna make it”

“Geez, alright… I can call the ambulance…”

“Whatever!” she snapped, “Just get up here!”

Jimmy raced up the stairs. His hand was on the doorknob when there was a howl of pain from the other side. He didn’t expect this to hit him as hard as it did, like an icicle in his back. The thought crossed his mind, however improbable; what if she died here? Complications had been known to happen, and this was far from a normal case. After all this bullshit? … Where was that damn ambulance already?! The dispatcher said fifteen minutes, and it felt like it had been at least that already! Desperate, he pulled the door open.

The steam was so thick it was visible, and the humidity choked the room and slowed the flow of time. Jimmy’s wife was submerged in the vapors of the tub, humming a tune to distract herself. Her legs were spread wide like she was trying to bring her knees to her ears and she was holding her gravid belly with both hands.She opened her eyes and reached an arm out of the bathwater, asking for a hand up. It wasn’t something he had to think about; he stripped his clothes off and got in with her. Amid the splashing and sloshing of getting herself standing, Kim asked, “Why were we even at that convenience store?”

“Hey, sometimes dumb ideas lead to good outcomes”

“I’m serious. Do you remember what we were doing out there? Because I don’t”

“That greeting card, remember? I wanted to find out who sent it”

“Before that. I thought there was a gun in the trunk. But where did we get the gun? I said there was forged evidence, I don’t remember forging that evidence! Why were we talking about framing Tuco?”

“Does it matter? We didn’t go through with it. That’s not what’s important right now”

“Jimmy, I don’t remember any specifics of what we were doing before that parking lot! It’s like it was a dream, or- or Wille E. Coyote being able to run on air as long as he doesn’t look down! What about it do you remember?”

“It was probably some scheme to get out from under Lalo. It’s not like this is the first half-baked plan I’ve cooked”

“Probably…” Kim repeated incredulously “I’m thinking about buying a gun. A real one”

“What?!”

“Tensions have been getting higher and higher” she patiently talked over him, “Now we’re dealing with not just Lalo, but this new threat. I’m fine with it, if I always have to look over my shoulder, but I would feel safer if - should I not be able to talk my way out of something - there was another way to play the game”

“You’re not in the game!”

“I am”

“You’re not!”

“I am! Jimmy I love you! Stop acting like I wouldn’t be just as destroyed if something happened to you, as you would be if something happened to me! I chose to be here; I chose to be in this together. But the most danger you could ever put me in is to keep me in the dark. You know how I hate when someone tries to… FUCK!”

Kim planted her palm against the shower tile with a *Clap*

“Are you okay?” Jimmy knew this was a stupid question, given her other hand was squeezing his tightly enough to break it. Rather than answer, she went on to loudly put the extent of her profane vocabulary to the test.

He pressed his body up against hers as they faced in the same direction. “I love you too” he whispered back, almost apologetic. Saul fumbled for the dial so that the expensive shower head could rain warm water down on them both, and he kicked the muck down the drain with his heel. They stayed like that, rocking their hips back and forth. Even pressed together, skin to skin in this moment of intimacy, there would always be a shadow contouring between the two.

“Do you hear that?” The woman broke from her trance.

“Hear what?”

“Singing. It’s getting closer!” She hissed.

“You know, lots of people hear voices in running water”

“Shh!”

“... Kim, you’re scaring me… Wait… I hear it! What is that?!”

The lights flickered, Kim grunted, and when Jimmy looked down, there it was! A head.

“Okay, so how do we do this? I should catch him like we’re hiking a football?”

“Anything that doesn’t drop her on her head probably works. You know I played for a little bit in Junior High?” she chuckled to herself.

“Oh yeah? Let me guess. You wanted to prove to the boys you were just as tough as they were?”

“It was more about proving to the other girls that I wasn’t a nerd”

“I bet you were pretty good”

“Oh god no! I hated it! I quit as early as I was allowed to. That’s when I had to accept it; I am a nerd”

“At the end of the day? Us nerds will get the last laugh”

“I was the only one Cathy didn’t invite to her party. And then everyone who went got lyme disease. So I’d say I made the right choice”

“It just goes to show…” Jimmy grinned, “... Is she choking?”

He squatted down to get a better look. The angry red little face coughed and spat out fluid with the assistance of gravity. Before she had even completely emerged, the babe forcefully took her first breath and began squawling. Her father caught her, but struggled to keep her in his arms. She was as strong and as slippery as a live trout. After some confusion navigating the legs, the little girl was held to Kim’s chest. Mother and child still conjoined, Kim wearily stumbled out of the shower, across the bathroom towels, and collapsed on top of the bed still soaking wet.

There was still the afterbirth, but all the fight had left her, specifically her knees. Jimmy wrapped more blankets and towels on top of her. He stepped back and took in this unorthodox nativity scene, which reminded him; “Scissors!” he snapped his fingers.

He rushed downstairs and from different rooms, collected a pair of scissors, a binder clip, and a lighter. He tried to sterilize the scissors with the lighter, but this just smudged the blades black, so he hastily gave up on the lighter and started washing the scissors with dish soap. Then there was a knock at the door. Jimmy flung the door open to meet two paramedics.

“Did you stop for doughnuts?” He yelled exasperated and irate, “What the hell took you so long?!”

“Relax, sir. It’s only been half an hour”

Jimmy looked at the clock on the wall to see that - somehow - they were right.

“Well the baby’s here already! But if you want to check her blood pressure, she’s upstairs”

Neither medic was phased by Saul’s attitude. It was just another day for them. The canvas handbag full of equipment jangled as they went up the stairs. Jimmy was left there, holding a pair of sudsy kitchen shears like an idiot. He dropped the scissors on the counter, grabbed his laptop, and followed after them.

“Blood pressure’s normal. No signs of internal bleeding. No signs of eclampsia. Any sharp abdominal pains or elsewhere?”

“Just a headache” Kim answered as they tore off the velcro cuff.

“Any shortness of breath?”

“No”

While one EMT began to pack up, the other reported to our male protagonist, “Baby’s fine. Mother’s fine. I don’t have a scale, but a pediatrician would probably say 7 ½ lbs.? I’m not supposed to say this, but I think going to the hospital would be a waste. If anything changes, call 911 again; it will probably be us who arrives. Outside of the extreme quickness of the delivery (especially if this is your first child) I’d say this was a completely healthy home birth”

“Yeah, no thanks to you” Jimmy groused as they left the room.

Kim was hypnotized, staring at a crack in the plaster wall. She barely registered when her husband picked up their daughter. He was sitting next to her on the bed now, carefully trying to balance the sleeping bundle in the crook of his arm, while navigating the internet with his free hand.

“Did you have a name in mind?” he asked, already finding his way to a “Names for Girls” webpage.

“I honestly hadn’t even considered it” was her distant, monotone answer.

“A rose is a rose” Jimmy sighed, “But some roses are easier to tease on the playground than others”

“Just as long as it isn’t a flower or a gemstone. I think those are kind of unoriginal”

“Amy? Anne? Alice?”

“Are you just going alphabetically?”

“No!” Jimmy lied as he clicked ahead to some random page somewhere in the middle of the list.

He stopped reading the list outloud.

Haley? No.

Hannah? No.

Hazel?

Heather?

Heidi? No…

Not Holly.

Ida? No.

Ingrid…

Irene… Irene…

“What about… Iris?”

Kim’s eyes snapped open. Suddenly, she could remember it so clearly, the mural could have been painted on her own wall. The carved wooden flower could be envisioned sprouting from that crack. How was this possible? How could she so clearly remember the ending of a movie, she had only seen the beginning of? There were a few logical explanations. Maybe she had watched that movie years ago, and not even seeing it again was enough to jolt the memory loose, until right now. Or maybe she never did see this movie, and her imagination was just vividly filling in an ending, but she was never like this before. There were a few rational explanations, but she couldn’t shake the foreboding feeling that the true reason was something irrational. Something fantastic.

“I mean okay, you said no flowers. But just between you and me, we can say that she’s not named after a flower. But you know, the part of the eye. Personally I like it”

“Yes!” She stammered. “I like it. Iris. I’ll make an exception”

Jimmy kept talking, but exhaustion was an undertow, and in Kim’s mind’s eye, the waves were pulling at her ankles, overcoming her surefootedness. Three irises; turn the blue one. A secret door popped open, and it led to a winding neon hallway. Deep deep underground.

https://www.deviantart.com/abettranempire/art/Sheepdog-Eyes-Wide-Open-913428274

[maskedinstructor]

The Masked Instructor Presents- 20 Moves Which Guarantee Success...

During my long career as the Masked Instructor, millions have questioned me about the arduous roads to success. “ MASKED INSTRUCTOR. HOW DID YOU ACHIEVE SUCH SUCCESS? “ “HOW DID YOU MAKE IT APPEAR SO TROUBLE FREE AND SMOOTH?”  The truth is...nobody ever asked me about success and the many roads to success. I lied to get your attention. Now that I have it, I won’t lose this opportunity to pour out my wisdom on what will guarantee the achievement of your goals with attitude and swag..

1. PEER PRESSURE: This is singular most important element in acquiring success. Your peers will determine your success. Therefore, choose them wisely. Seek out friends who are smarter than you. Find the ones who already possess goals and are determined to accomplish them at all costs. They talk them. They walk them. Every moment available, these fire fighters are doing something to guarantee their own personal and individual goal achievement. It’s all about success to them. It is all about success. These, flame throwers, are the friends you want to be around not most of the time, but all of your time. For, time is precious and so is your life.

2. VORACIOUS: All success champions are voracious readers...Barack Obama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, these  (are and) were men who devoured books and understood/understand the word voracious well. These supreme successmen  read books like persons consumed food. They partook of the books until all was gone. They ripped the meat from the bone. They ingested victuals so viciously that juices from that meal ran down the side of their face. And, then they wanted more. There was little etiquette to mention . Books to them were tasty and delicious. Books whetted their appetite for more books. Books were their 3 course meal...Appetizer, Entree and Dessert. For me, the best way to describe the adventure was that to them all books were Chicken, Pizza and Ice Cream. They could never get enough. and, the more they read, the wiser, more intelligent and more successful they. became.   You, too, must be greedy for knowledge/reading on the path to success. 

3. AGGRESSIVE: Attack ignorance with the same fervor that you own with reading. However, you must destroy it. Annihilate it. Maul it. Crucify it. There is no room for ignorance in your life. Leave no space for it. Whenever you witness ignorance approaching, stand alert. It has as its purpose to confound you and interfere with the learning process.. Slaughter it quickly and decisively. Spray it with intellectual pursuits until it rolls over on its back and withers.

4. WORK: Labor long and hard and smart to master your skills, hone your craft and achieve success. When others halt work, you start anew. When others begin, let them observe the dust of your engine which started the work some hours before. Never be weary in work for there is joy, reward and magic in it. Do not move past ‘GO’ if industry is not a part of your resume. Indolence is a luxury you can never enjoy.

5. PASSION: Choose goals with which you can fall in love. Caress them. Hold their hands. Kiss your goals on the cheeks. Whisper sweet nothings into their ears. Tell your goals how beautiful they are.. The affection you grant those goals will be returned sevenfold. That is more than a measure of success. That is pure and unadulterated love.

6. PERSIST: Never quit. Never surrender. Never accept NO!. Play to win. Study to win. Never utter the words, “  I can’t.” Be an immovable rock in the foundation of success..

7. PRAISE: Encourage yourself. Avoid all negative words, expressions or comments when discussing your fight and flight toward victory. You are a mountain. You are the sea. You are a giant. You are mighty and free. As you speaketh,  so then you are. As you shout of your greatness...B E L I E V E ! ! ! 

8. CREDIT: Promote and champion yourself. However, be profuse in the acknowledgement and credit you give others. No man is an island. You didn’t get there by yourself.

9. CLOSE: End the day, every day with copious reminders of how magnificent you and your successful achievements. are..  I AM GREAT. IN FACT, I AM THE GREATEST. I AM WONDERFUL. PEOPLE LOVE ME. I SHALL AND WILL DO FOR OTHERS MORE THAN FOR MYSELF.. I AM HERE FOR A PURPOSE. I WILL ACHIEVE MY GOALS. I WILL BE ENORMOUSLY SUCCESSFUL

10.BEDTIME: Take your unsolved problems and incomplete ideas to bed with you. Your brain, your dreams and imagination will flesh them out. Never worry about tomorrow. It was solved last night.

11. SKILLS: Develop skills which make you unique. They give you more arrows in your quiver should the need arise. ...Entrepreneurship, fashion, science, photography, journalism, music, literature, writing, art, acting, sport, karate, ventriloquism, boxing, dance ...these are but a few extra added attractions which will encourage others to admire, respect and collaborate with you on tasks, projects and endeavors.

12. MEMORY FOAM: Be a sponge which retains information on all matters in the universe. Whatever the topic, when a question is asked, let the entire room shift in your direction. All , present , know that you will have something  enlightening to offer on the matter in question. Be humble, but, be informed. 

     TO  BE  CONTINUED...YOU ARE ALMOST READY TO FACE THE WORLD MERRY CHRISTMAS-FOR HE IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON.  - HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024

[rockislandadultreads]

Black History Month: Biographies & Memoirs

Black Folk Could Fly by Randall Kenan

Virtuosic in his use of literary forms, nurtured and unbounded by his identities as a Black man, a gay man, an intellectual, and a Southerner, Randall Kenan was known for his groundbreaking fiction. Less visible were his extraordinary nonfiction essays, published as introductions to anthologies and in small journals, revealing countless facets of Kenan’s life and work.

Flying under the radar, these writings were his most personal and autobiographical: memories of the three women who raised him—a grandmother, a schoolteacher great-aunt, and the great-aunt’s best friend; recollections of his boyhood fear of snakes and his rapturous discoveries in books; sensual evocations of the land, seasons, and crops—the labor of tobacco picking and hog killing—of the eastern North Carolina lowlands where he grew up; and the food (oh the deliriously delectable Southern foods!) that sustained him. Here too is his intellectual coming of age; his passionate appreciations of kindred spirits as far-flung as Eartha Kitt, Gordon Parks, Ingmar Bergman, and James Baldwin. This powerful collection is a testament to a great mind, a great soul, and a great writer from whom readers will always wish to have more to read.

Black is the Body by Emily Bernard

An extraordinary, exquisitely written memoir (of sorts) that looks at race - in a fearless, penetrating, honest, true way - in twelve telltale, connected, deeply personal essays that explore, up-close, the complexities and paradoxes, the haunting memories and ambushing realities of growing up black in the South with a family name inherited from a white man, of getting a PhD from Yale, of marrying a white man from the North, of adopting two babies from Ethiopia, of teaching at a white college and living in America's New England today.

You Can’t Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson

Being a black woman in America means contending with old prejudices and fresh absurdities every day. Comedian Phoebe Robinson has experienced her fair share over the years: she's been unceremoniously relegated to the role of “the black friend,” as if she is somehow the authority on all things racial; she's been questioned about her love of U2 and Billy Joel (“isn’t that...white people music?”); she's been called “uppity” for having an opinion in the workplace; she's been followed around stores by security guards; and yes, people do ask her whether they can touch her hair all. the. time. Now, she's ready to take these topics to the page - and she’s going to make you laugh as she’s doing it.

Using her trademark wit alongside pop-culture references galore, Robinson explores everything from why Lisa Bonet is “Queen. Bae. Jesus,” to breaking down the terrible nature of casting calls, to giving her less-than-traditional advice to the future female president, and demanding that the NFL clean up its act, all told in the same conversational voice that launched her podcast, 2 Dope Queens, to the top spot on iTunes. As personal as it is political, You Can't Touch My Hair examines our cultural climate and skewers our biases with humor and heart, announcing Robinson as a writer on the rise.

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.

Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.

[dreaminterlude]

Hey do you know what is going on with one of the new SuperM song and people being offended because of desi stereotyping or something? I was asleep so. it’s okay if you don’t want to answer!

hi baby, so the performance in question is from this clip. i just wanna say that yday i literally told myself to exercise silence as a form of self care but then you came to me like a revelation and so i can’t not talk about it LMAO

so basically desis on twitter have called the moves cultural appropriation and offensive. but i think we really need to ask ourselves what it means when we say that something is culturally appropriative (this goes back to our kick it conversation)

second, the lines of religious and cultural life are constantly blurred, and the relationship between cultures are also. it gets tricky when you’re in a place like east asia/korea bc even though there’s a sizable christian population there, its cultural memory is rooted in buddhism. someone can’t imply that there’s a firm line between the religious and cultural and a country where people’s great grandparents converted to christianity erases everything cultural that could be tied to buddhism. the relationship between culture/religion is dynamic and can’t be boxed/separated/made into black and white. likewise, the way christianity functions in korea can’t be compared to how we, for example, witness christianity in the united states, of which there are so many kinds even regionally and how it interacts with different american “cultures”/trends/histories

so the argument of trying to separate these two spheres and say that because mark/taemin are christian they somehow get cut from that cultural lineage is. not to be dramatic but how puritanist/radical religious/cultural trends/phenomena even begin

there’s also a question of how much desis are even aware of korean/east asian/seas traditional music. my friend iman (who i was talking to about this to double check myself/validate my onions lmaoooooo) said: “[re: traditional music] i didn’t know that drums are a very big part of it, SIMILAR TO those huge punjabi dhols.” this is also similar to the flute situation going on in the song that people say is desi but like. other cultures including arab, east asian/seas have very similar sounding flute patterns. (let’s not even talk about how many different cultures the “snake charmer” trope is associated with, also including arab). iman again: “like whom amongst these people is well versed in the use of the flute in korean music” LMAO

iman again (listen i got like less than 4 hours of sleep let me plagiarize): “but aside from all that cultures ARE permeable and do borrow from each other and so is it entirely wrong to use desi inspired beats in a song? i mean then you can extend that argument to latin beats or the whole HOST of matters associated with appropriation with black culture. [which we both have talked about is so much more serious because appropriation of black culture is rooted in literal slavery and violence that continues against black people to this day.]

both iman and another friend birjis have argued (and i wholeheartedly agree) that bollywood has been marketed and exported internationally under the umbrella term of “indian culture” and bollywood has diluted a lot of things like bharatanatyam to the point where it has become an aesthetic for bollywood dance culture. and i think it is completely valid to find this wrong but important to note that this is the product of packaging indian culture through the export of bollywood globally and is only one of the things that’s messed up with that industry

i just feel like the performance really blew up to something it probably isn’t, and most importantly, makes it more difficult to distinguish from more serious forms of cultural appropriation. and this might be a controversial take but AS a south asian (really feel like i need to emphasize this) and someone entrenched in diaspora twitter culture (this is such an embarrassing sub genre) desis have the tendency to marginalize/victimize themselves to get a piece of that cake and talk about histories/cultures that they actually know very little about but associate themselves with bc it’s interesting. meanwhile (as birjis talked about last week re: chungha) when there’s any talk about kashmir, violent hindu nationalism, etc. there are just resounding crickets

and again, (this is iman) “a homogenous society’s understanding of culture let alone cultural appropriation is gonna be different than even a desi one”

i think it’s also stupid and dangerous for people to speak up as a “desi community” and slap on a stance like we’re some kind of organization (whereas black people/native americans CAN do this because they share a collective memory of where their appropriation is rooted). so if you’re desi and find it offensive that ten/mark/taemin did this then that’s your prerogative and of course your feelings are valid from whichever personal experiences you have that feel illegitimized through this. but it is not a systemic erasure. so “a white girl wearing a vague native american headdress to coachella [is not akin to this because] people who looked like her actively persecuted indigenous peoples and still do systematically today.” (iman (do you love my citations))

also i sent iman your question and she said “that’s an interesting way to frame the question! what does desi stereotyping mean? and where? for instance you can’t put this and white people doing an apu accent in the same category” (she’s also an academic lmaooooooo) and you also can’t ignore other forms of racism against south asians in east asian cultures like korea (and also. vice versa but we won’t even talk about that rn)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Bill Gates will kill us all

2.5b people in Earth's 130 poorest countries have not been vaccinated. The 85 poorest countries won't be vaccinated until 2023. The humanitarian cost is unforgivable - and self-defeating, as each infected person is a potential source of new strains.

https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19-5-february-2021

How the actual fuck did this happen?

What happened to the early pledges by governments, the WHO, public health experts and leading research institutions to create global cooperation in vaccine development, eschewing patents and secrecy so that we could rescue our species?

That dream was smashed.

Many people helped create our vaccine apartheid, the single individual who did the most to get us here is Bill Gates, through his highly ideological "philanthropic" foundation, which exists to push his pitiless doctrine of unfettered monopoly.

It was Gates who sabotaged the WHO Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), replacing it with his failed ACT-Accelerator, a system of patents and secrecy and vast profits for the pharma industry, ornamented with nonbinding, failed promises of access for poor nations.

It was Gates who convinced Oxford to renege on its promise of patent-free access to its publicly funded vaccine research for the global south in favor of exclusive patent access for Astrazeneca.

https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/

When we hear ghoul sellouts like Howard Dean pushing the racist, genocidal lie that "patents don't matter" because brown people in poor countries can't make vaccines, we're hearing Gates's talking points:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/08/howard-dino/#the-scream

Gates's role in vaccine apartheid is laid out in exquisite detail in Alexander Zaitchik's outstanding New Republic feature, which delves into Gates's longstanding project to sideline democratic governments and cooperation in favor of monopoly tyranny.

https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines

This goes way, way back. I mean, *waaaay* back, all the way to 1976, when Gates wrote his infamous "Open Letter to Hobbyists," decrying the dominant, cooperative mode of software development and calling its practitioners thieves.

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

Gates's fortune depended on creating a software monopoly, and that monopoly required "intellectual property" protection. Gates has always been a monopolist, and so naturally, he loves IP (before "IP" was a common term, copyrights and patents were called "monopolies").

Intellectual property is a very important part of the inequality story, the story of how we got to a world where billions of people are denied vaccines and where all people face new, more virulent strains as a result.

As UNCTAD chief economist Richard Kozul-Wright told Lynn Fries for GPE: "[IP allows companies] to grab a larger share of what has already been produced in the economy."

It's a means of extracting rents, not for doing things, but for OWNING things.

IP is key to tax avoidance: companies like Ikea transfer "IP" (the Ikea trademark) to a numbered company in a tax haven; each national Ikea subsidiary pays "licensing fees" for the trademark equal to 100% of their in-country profits, so they never earn a (taxable) cent.

The transformation of the world into a monopolized system of IP-heavy, rent-extracting, tax-dodging companies really kicked into gear after 1999, with the signing of the WTO agreement and its IP adjunct, the TRIPPS, and as Zaitchik details, Gates was instrumental there.

For this part of the story, Zaitchik talks to Jamie Love, who was at the UN when NGOs like his were pushing to create vaccine and other pharma pools for the global south, while pharma companies handed out pamphlets bearing the Gates Foundation logo, smearing the plan.

Though the US delegation struggled for credibility, the combination of the Gates Foundation, and former US trade officials fronting for  the global pharma industry managed to sideline the project, which was being driven by the demand for equitable access to AIDS drugs.

With Gates's help, the WTO emerged as an IP enforcement powerhouse. Zaitchik cites Dylan Mohan Gray: "it took Washington 40 years to threaten apartheid South Africa with sanctions and less than four to threaten the post-apartheid Mandela government over AIDS drugs."

Incredibly, the Gates Foundation used this to burnish its humanitarian image: they solicited donations from pharma companies and used them to subsidize AIDS drugs in the global south, a maneuver that let them seem like philanthropists.

When in reality, they had overseen a program to systematically deny the world's poorest and most threatened people the right to make their own drugs, making them dependent on the whims of multinational corporate charity instead.

Sound familiar? Today, Gates runs around repeating the lie that poor people can't make their own medicine,  saying that patent exemptions won't make a difference now - to the extent he's right, the world *now* is the crucial one.

Having sabotaged the efforts by poor countries to engage in the kind of production ramp-up the rich world saw as vaccines were being developed, it may *now* be too late. "Because of my bad ideas *then*, it's too late *now*."

The connection between IP and elite philanthropy is deep and important. IP's rent-seeking and tax-dodging has made poor countries beholden to offshore monopolists in health, agriculture and IT, and then starved them of taxes to build up domestic alternatives.

This, in turn, makes them dependent on "gifts" from the billionaires who arm-twisted them into IP treaties, forced them to pay rent on all domestic production, and then profit-shifted the funds out of the reach of their tax-collectors.

As Anand Giridharadas reminded us in his seminal "Winners Take All," the core purpose of elite philanthropy has been the same since the robber-baron era: to burnish the reputations of monsters who take everything and give back crumbs.

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/10/winners-take-all-modern-philanthropy-means-that-giving-some-away-is-more-important-than-how-you-got-it/

Reading Jamie Love's quotes in Zaitchik's article reminded me of my own time working with Jamie and Knowledge Ecology International at WIPO in Geneva, when I was an NGO delegate to a global DRM treaty.

You see, at WIPO, the vast majority of NGOs aren't human rights organizations or other public interest groups - they're industry associations representing tech, entertainment, broadcast and pharma monopolists.

These guys - almost all guys - were just aghast when real NGOs started showing up for these meetings and were absolutely shameless in their sabotage of our efforts to balance their corporate lies (absolutely bald-faced lies were routinely entered into the debates).

How petty? Well, they had been accustomed to writing up "fact-sheets" for the day's debate and handing them off to WIPO staffers working for the secretariat, who would photocopy them and set them out on literature tables for the national delegates.

So we started doing this too: we'd take careful notes on the day's debates, convene with global experts to debunk industry association lies, get our Indymedia friends to translate them into six languages, and hand them off to the secretariat in the morning for copying.

So they got the secretariat - a former US textiles negotiator who made her bones helping create the conditions for slave labor in places like Bangladesh - to end the practice of photocopying papers for all NGOs.

Of course the industry bodies had cushy offices in Geneva, whereas we stayed in flophouses and youth hostels. They could ask their underlings to come in early and do their copying for them, whereas we had to take a bus to the all-night copy-shop to get our handouts copied.

Here's where it gets super-weird: our handouts started to go missing. We'd set out our stacks of paper on the literature tables before the morning session and an hour later, they'd all be gone, but none of the delegates had managed to get a copy.

We found those missing handouts...in the garbage, behind potted plants and in the *toilets*.

No, seriously.

And here's the kicker: during the ensuing furore, the main response from the pharma lobbyists was to object to us calling ourselves "public interest NGOs."

I'll never forget this smarmy sociopath in his expensive suit, with his shit-eating grin, standing there saying, "Phamaceuticals serve the public interest, and our industry association is a nonprofit. We are a non-profit, public-interest NGO."

It was a remarkable sight. 20 years later, their version of the public interest - the doctrine of Gates - has produced a multi-billion-person reservoir of the sick and vulnerable who are doomed to serve as factories for highly virulent variants.

This is a literally genocidal doctrine, and it threatens our very civilization. It's a funny kind of non-profit, public interest move for an industry and its billionaire ideologue funders to have made.

But hey, at least no one's "intellectual property" took a hit.

[cowteapot]

Dad?

Stranger things boys as dads HC

Argyle, Billy Hargrove, Eddie Munsons, Jonathan Byers & Steve Harrington x AFAB!Reader

Summary: super honest headcanons on the boys as dads

Warnings: cursing, substance use, I’m naming the kids so suck it

———————————————————————

-Argyle-

When he found out you were pregnant he was ecstatic, poking your belly and telling it he was the dad

He would eat your weird pregnancy cravings with you

Gets pregnancy pains with you

You two got your own little loft above some really nice old people but usually spend your time at the wheeler house

At the first ultrasound he pointed at his baby and said “that’s my little homie right there!” And then tried to fist pump your belly but you slapped his hands away

When your son was born he held him up to his friends like he was in the lion king and exclaimed “Baby Everest has been birthed!”

You made him give the baby back after that

He loves your little after birth diaper, thinks it’s so cute and so funny as you waddle around the house in it

Likes taking Everest on hikes and shit

Definitely football carries him

You don’t have a nursery but you do have a crib next to your bed but whenever Everest starts screaming Argyle lays him down in between the two of you and lets him sleep there

If you give Everest snacks Argyle is definitely going to be asking where his are

“Here baby. Cookie” “y/n I want one, y/n hey. I want a cookie, gimmie”

Everest sleeps in your bed for five years but argyle wouldn’t have it any other way

Literally cried more than Everest did when he moved on to his own bed

Loves to wrap Everest in a little blanket sling strapped to his chest or back and run around the house listening to his little giggles

Thinks he’s got the funniest kid ever. You came home one day to see them both sitting on the couch reading a book just giggling away as Everest mumbled out some toddler words you didn’t really understand but it got argyle belly laughing

Talks to Everest like he’s an adult even if he doesn’t understand what he’s saying

Likes to have in depth intellectual conversations with your son after he smokes

Is always loosing shit “where’s his shoes?” “Shiiiiiit. Left em at the park!”

He’s always getting getting his hair tugged on and ripped out by Everest

Literally does pizza runs with the baby strapped to his chest or with the car seat in the passenger seat

By two Everest was answering the phones at Surfer Boys

Chillest dad ever, your kid wants to wear a dress? Who cares Argyle wants one too

He tires not to smoke around Everest so he’ll walk down the street to smoke and walk home before dumping cologne on his body and coming inside

You breast fed (if you can) for a long time and every time argyle gets super excited to see ya boobies

At first he didn’t know you were supposed to strap in the car seat so when he turned a corner and Everest went flying he learned quickly

-Billy-

He’s a deadbeat dad and you can’t even lie to yourself

He’s always wanted kids but when he finally gets them he regrets everything

Teen pregnancy for sure

He tried to run when you told him you were pregnant but he knew his did would just drag him back to your house and make him apologize and then kick his ass right there on the doorstep

Not really there throughout your pregnancy, like if you ask for snacks at two am he’ll roll over in bed away from you and then mumble out “go to the store then.”

When you went into Labor he almost shit himself, he was sitting in Chem when the principle pull him up to the office and explained you had gone into a labor and he was needed at the hospital. Billy stopped at the gas station and got himself snacks before going in.

The nurses asked if he wanted to cut the umbilical cord but he simply shook his head and said “nah.” You rightfully so were pissed.

They handed him his son and he nearly passed out, all of the shit he put you threw during your pregnancy suddenly flew away from him because seeing the little boy with eyes like his before him made all of this real. He was a dad.

He will not wake up with the baby. Don’t even try to make him. He’ll even have the audacity in the morning to say “I slept like shit last night” even if you’re sitting at the dining table with messy hair, bags under your eyes, tear stained cheeks, baby puke and shit all over your clothes with the culprit attached to your boob

Definitely leaves the kid in the car kinda dad. Like he’s stopping at the gas station and he’ll turn around to make sure little Nick is asleep before he gets out and goes in to grab a six pack and some cigarettes. Then he’ll get home and you’ll ask “where’s the formula?” And this asshole will go “in your boob”

As your son gets older billy will start to be a slightly better dad. Sometimes going and playing monster trucks on the living room floor but obviously you’ll have to pick them up and put them away after

Bug juice dad. Stops at the gas station to get a pack of smokes and let’s Nick grab a bug juice that will stain his teeth and clothes

I imagine you coming home after work one day to billy sprawled out on the sofa watching a football game as you walk around the small trailer looking for your son before giving up and asking “Bill. Where’s Nick?” He up in a flash, grabbing his keys and running out the door with a “shit!” This isn’t the first or last time he’s forgotten to pick him up from school

Flirts with all of the PTA moms

Type of dad to teach his kids to swim by saying “you either sink or swim” and then chucking Nick into the water as you scream at him to grab him. He’ll pull him up right before he passes out, give him a breather and then throw him again. Parents will start to gather around with worried expressions as you beg your boyfriend to stop. Nick wouldn’t talk to him for a whole day.

Offers Nick beer by the ripe age or 10

I see billy getting a fast pass to the retirement home

-Eddie-

He’s scared shitless when you tell him you’re pregnant

Throws away all of the beer, cigarettes and completely stops selling drugs

Makes extra room in Wayne’s trailer for you and the baby

Boy will get a steady job and save up for your own trailer which you guys get around your eighth month of pregnancy

You come home one day to see Eddie with his hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, no shirt and a pair of jean cutoffs with paint all over his hands and face as he instructs you to close your eyes. He’ll guide you into the make shift nursery that is now painted a beautiful lavender color with a little black crib pressed against the wall with a mobile above it displaying the planets. He decorated the walls with little paper bats and shelves lined with books and toys along with photos of the two of you and the multiple ultrasound photos

The day your daughter is born is the best day of his life, he holds her while sobbing. He cries even harder when she grasps onto the tips of his hair. He whispered against her smooth skin about how he would always be there for her and he would keep her safe

Unlike Billy he is up with the baby all night in a heartbeat, you’ll walk in in the morning to find his lanky limbs thrown over the sides of the crib with Ramona on his chest. To say he’s sore is an understatement

Boy will throw on one of those baby harnesses in a second and will walk around with that girl strapped to his chest all day

The first diaper change he couldn’t stop gagging, the two of you laughing so hard as he tried to wipe the little girls butt but every time he got close he would gag so loud. By the end of it he had tears in his eyes along with a red sweaty face

Tried to force her first words to be daddy or dada but it’s “bug” after she saw a spider on the floor. He still celebrated

First steps are on film and he watches them over and over when he’s sad

The first day of school is so hard for him, he packs her bag and checks it three times over. He makes sure her outfit is comfy and that she has a list of the home phone number, uncle Wayne’s number, the neighbors number, uncle Steve’s number, mommy’s work number and daddy’s work number. He has her bag packed with all her school supplies and her favorite teddy along with bandaids

If she rips her favorite teddy he will stay up all night looking through sewing manuals trying to stitch the limb back on

When she learns to tie her shoes he’s taking her out to ice cream and having her tie his shoes

He’s so bad at discipline. Ramona colored all over the walls and you decided that she would have to wipe them down but when you came in to check on her Eddie was wiping them down as she sat on the floor playing with dolls

He’s not religious but for the living nativity scene that the church does he’ll sign up your beautiful baby girl just to see all those prissy moms faces when the freak Eddie Munson pulls up with his beautiful little baby Jesus because it also means eddie gets to play Joseph

-Jonathan-

“I’m pregnant”

He sat completely still in the bed for almost two minutes before yelling out “in this economy?!”

Tells argyle before Joyce or Will

Joyce was pissed but didn’t last ver long when she got excited to be a grandma

You two move into the Byers house

Will is extremely helpful during your pregnancy, offering to make you lunch and get you snacks

Jonathan likes to cuddle with your belly, whispering things to the baby inside

Unlike Eddie he doesn’t give up smoking weed but he will try to reduce his use

Argyle is basically a second dad to this kid

Joyce had to drive you two to the hospital because Jonathan was high and you obviously were in pain

Labor was FOREVER and Jonathan took a few photos and took a nap but woke up for the actual birth

Let’s be honest he’s a king so when you inevitably shit yourself so much during labor he didn’t say a word, just held your hand and told you how amazing you were

Joyce and Will stayed in the hospital with you guys

You welcomed your baby girl Ruth who Jonathan fell so deeply in love with

He took photo after photo of her and you, he told you how wonderful you did and you beautiful you looked

He played guitar to her when she couldn’t sleep and took wonderful care of the both of you

You guys sing Danny’s Song by Loggins and Messina as a lullaby

Joyce and Will are the best helpers ever, they both will wake up in the night if she’s up screaming her head off and you both are just way to tired to even hear it

You will never have to worry about finding a baby sitter

Ruth was holding her own camera by two and he loves developing the photos, just the idea of seeing life through his toddlers eyes almost made him cry

Hates strollers, would rather carry her around. The idea of trying to open this thing and click it’s wheels into spot and getting her in and trying to clip it just made him angry

If Ruth gets hurt and starts screaming he definitely is the type of dad to start screaming too. “Y/N! She’s bleeding, HELP” you have to calm them both

You two brought her in late on the first day of school, you slept in and then tried to feed her breakfast but found out the milk was bad and there was nothing else to make so you left with a piece of white bread. She had two different shoes on and her outfit didn’t match but hey you were two young tired parents

He’s a fun dad. Likes to take her to the beach and look for rocks, collect bugs and dig in the sand. Runs around the house playing make believe and will get so into character, they’re always jumping on the couches and screaming even after Joyce screamed at them to stop

He makes holidays extra special, everything is over the top. He’s definitely one of those parents that throws and entire birthday party for Ruth’s first birthday and you tried so hard to tell him that she won’t remember it but he doesn’t care

- Steve-

We all know he wants a damn herd of children

When he finds out you’re pregnant this man is over the moon! You’re up in his arms as he dances around screaming about how he’s gonna be a dad

The nursery is up and running in a matter of no time, he’s got a mural going, the walls are painted, fun carpets and decor. He’s so excited

Every time he goes to the store he’s picking out some article of clothing for your unborn child and he always justifies it

He cried to hard while you were in labor and cried even harder when the nurse handed him his son. Mans was ugly crying and mumbling about how cute he was

He almost passed out when they handed him another little boy saying you had twins

You will not have to move a muscle because he’s got it all. Kids screaming? Dads up and running. He’s got toys, tummy time,diaper changing but when it’s time for food he’s bringing the babies to you going “boobie time!”

You have to tell him to stop staring while you’re breast feeding

By three months he’s already asking for another

Your sons have Steve wrapped around their little fingers

He’s a sports dad, this man is loading up the car with equipment and taking them to every game

Minivan.

There has been more baseballs and rocks through the windows of the house than he’d like to admit

Cried more than the kids on the first day of school

He’s also a fun dad but in the sense that his kids will never be wrong. Ever.

“Zack threw a rock at Matthews head!”

“Well what did Matt do?”

He will never admit to being overwhelmed even when Steve “the hair” Harringtons hair is frizzy and covered in a hat with two toddlers hanging off of each arm screaming in the middle of the grocery store

Steve will also never admit that you have terror twins

I am genuinely so sorry but their backpack leash kids

“Oh fuck off!” Steve will groan at the parents who glare and shake their heads at the man with two leashes in his hand as the children connected drag him along screaming and growling

He smiles at you when you come home to find him tied up to a chair with two toddlers beating the shit outta him with foam noodles

“What’s this?”

“we captured dad!”

If he admits that having two kids is difficult that means he can’t convince you to have more

The two of you have sat in the bathroom eating candy just hiding from the kids

At the end of a long day filled with chasing toddlers around, catching objects flying through the air, apologizing to everyone who you come in contact with for your feral children, stoping fights and wiping tears from a breakdown that may have been you two or the children you both will flop down on the sofa and stare off into existence

“You have food in your hair” “leave it.”

[a-method-in-it]

Hey friend, I saw you say people could ask you questions about unionizing. Do you have any books/podcasts/videos to recommend on it? I work in landscaping (im in college too studying it but I’ll be full time next year) and I really want to create a big union cause all of the companies here don’t take safety seriously and we’re not included in construction unions. Just looking to brush up on my theory so I can start whispering in ears! Thanks in advance comrade!

Hey comrade! Love to hear that you're interested in unions. I honestly am not your girl for theory recommendations, and I actually don't recommend focusing on theory if you want to start unionizing your workplace for a couple reasons. (And if you'll forgive me, I'm going to focus on that bit for now, since I haven't touched on it before.)

First and most important is that theory is just that: Theory. It's a way of looking at big, broad trends and themes and generalities that we see in the world and trying to make sense of them in a coherent and systemic way. It is great and very useful for analyzing major structural issues and identifying possible action. But when you are talking about your very real and specific workplace and your very real and specific coworkers, you are not in the realm of theory. You are in the realm of practicalities.

Second: As a practical matter, theory is probably not going to win over most of your co-workers. Whether you are on a factory line or in a high rise office, driving an uber or teaching as an adjunct, working in agriculture or working retail --- wherever you are, whatever your workplace, the thing that motivates people is the prospect of improving their working conditions, and those of their co-workers. Some people might be persuaded by theory. Some people might even be really energized by it! But that isn't the norm. At the end of the day, no leftist theory is going to compete with the motivational power of a sentence like, "Don't you think they ought to pay us more?"

Third: Theory tends to divide people. You see this over and over in leftist spaces. People get so far up their own brains about the exact right theoretical approach that they wind up tearing one another apart over ideological differences that look comically minuscule to anyone else. Theory lends itself to disagreement, to intellectual debate, to academic bluster, to splintering and factions forming, and it's all the opposite of successful union anything.

How should we understand the gig economy through the lens of structural Marxism? Do neo-Marxist thinkers properly understand alienation? Should historical bolshevism be re-evaluated? I don't know, and I care way more about the recent New York City taxi driver hunger strike than I ever will any of that.

As for recommendations, I started my union 101 tag because I honestly haven't seen a lot of good practical "Here Is How You Unionize" advice out there, but I do have a couple things you might like:

For history of the labor movement, I recommend A History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis

For a really great and inspiring account of a union drive, I recommend Neon Girls by Jennifer Worley

For a basic explanation of union busting tactics, John Oliver actually gives a pretty good 101-level overview here.

And from me: if you want some info on how to unionize, I gave an overview of the steps here and some tips on how to do it without getting fired here.

I hope this helps and let me know how it goes! Solidarity.

[paranaturalpop]

I rate your pnat ships by how well they work as foils

I’m Professor Pops, welcome to Literature 405: comparing and contrasting in pnat ships. Love is in the air but all that really matters is narrative symmetry!

Mina and Agent Day (submitted by @anxanhh)

two women on missions who need a confidante. 

Mina is a calculating woman of science with a tender, vulnerable heart deep down that she guards. Day is a fun, giggly love goddess but beneath the surface she is just as calculating.  

They are both focused on their prospective goals to the point of subterfuge. 

They have similar missions, to solve the many mysteries of Mayview, but they’re at odds instead of working together. Will these lone wolves learn to let their walls down and work towards a common goal? 

Their spectral energies are complementary colors!!!!!!!!!!!! 

9/10 so different yet so alike. They should kiss and also develop as people.

Spendcia

Where's that post about paranatural having what my hero academia wants?

These two had interacted in cannon only once before we found out they were dating, power move on Zack’s part

The cousinhood and the consortium seem to have bad blood…. Enemies to lovers????

As teachers, Garcia is tired and phoning it in while spender is energetic and committed. But when it comes to mystery solving Spender is burning himself out while Garcia keeps him grounded.

Garcia does things like pack spender lunches with little hearts drawn on the bag but was surprised to be called his boyfriend. He acts chill but inside he is deeply invested in spender but also knows about spender’s isolating tendencies. 

8/10 there's a reason these two have been off and on again for 6ish years, they’re walking a tightrope of vulnerability.

Imaax (submitted by Rubyya)

The Destiel of Paranatural. No I will not elaborate.

Here’s a pnat history lesson, the original ship name was Maxaac, but Zack weighed in on twitter with a much better alternative: Imaax. Also sometimes called Team Lightning Rod. 

Black and blue colors, just like the emotional bruises they leave on the people around them. 

Isaac wants to be seen as heroic and Max wants to be seen as aloof. It presents in different ways but deep down they both really care what other people think.

They both fear sincerity. Isaac protects himself with theatrics and Max with sarcasm. 

Isaac puts on a big show of having strong ethics but he’s a little mean on instinct. Max puts on a big show of cutting people down with his snark and devil-may-care attitude, but when push comes to shove he’s kind and cares how other people feel. 

Max immediately insults every person he meets and they still want to be best friends with him, while Issac tries so hard to be cool and nice but people just can’t stand him. 

The meta tension between Isaac, who wants so badly to be the protagonist, and Max “magnetic personally” Puckett who is exhausted with being the protagonist, is delicious. 

There’s a reason official art tends to portray them together. They bring out the best in each other. Isaac brakes through Max’s performative pessimism and Max brings Isaac down to earth. 

10/10 these two were written as a pair and it shows.

Suzabel (submitted by Rubyya)

One of my fav tropes is ‘enemies to friends’ where the enemy part is completely one-sided. Isabel probably thinks she and Suzy get along great. 

Both the heads of their respective clubs, but with very different leadership styles. 

Isabel only studies her grandfather's spectral style to please him and is a near master of it, while Suzy is incredibly self-motivated even though her actual skills are lacking. 

Isabel is at a crucial time in her life where she’s learning to distance herself from adult authority figures in order to take on more personal responsibility. Suzy is already blazing with independence and could help her adjust. 

Inversely, Isabel could teach Suzy a thing or two about treating your club members with respect and doing the emotional labor necessary to prevent future conflict. 

Red and pink! Valentines colors! 

Isabel could kill you but would never, Suzy would actually try to kill you. 

Investigative reporter/person living mysterious double life is a great dynamic.

Back when Izzy had Eightfold they had the ship name ‘Paper Girls’ which is awesome

7/10 Don’t ask me how I know this but they would kill at karaoke together. And they’re ok foils.

Bullymagnet

Max ‘too cool for clubs’ vs a boy who defines himself by his tight knit group. 

Max is learning to be less passive aggressive and johnny is learning to be less aggressive aggressive. 

Max’s entry to spectral life was when he injured Johnny and saw a shade of a doctopi on him, and Johnny's first shade was Max's doctopi after the hit ball game. 

Johnny refuses to commit to not bullying max anymore even though he really likes him, and max is working on being nicer but he’s still gonna be snarky with people even though they’re his friends. Old habits die hard. 

If he hadn't seen that shade, Max might have joined Johnny's gang. He has the style, the stunts, the snark. 

8/10 Just two bros whose lives are changing forever.

Isaac and Dimitri (submitted by Rubyya)

Here’s my pitch for a ship name: Brainstorm

Orange and blue are complementary colors. 

Isaac hurt Dimitri accidentally somehow. Hurting others accidentally is the central theme of chapter 5. 

Idealist/pragmatist is a classic dynamic

They both have relationships with their spirit partners that are rooted in fear. 

Dimitri’s self concept is overly dependent on his sense of intellectual superiority, and Isaac’s on ethical superiority. 

7/10 have not directly interacted in the comic yet but the narrative symmetry is there

Johnny and Isabel (submitted by Rubyya)

Burnhound Vs Shockadile

These two are natural leaders who know how to treat their friends with respect.

These jocks are both lethal weapons, but while Isabel is a master martial artist, Johnny is a passionate but blunt instrument.

They’re both going through similar identity crises.

Isabel is struggling to reconcile her violent and disciplined upbringing with a good, gentle heart and Johnny is trying to reconcile his violent and self-centered lifestyle with a developing respect and empathy for other people.

Johnny dies his hair red, so he would think it’s cool how Izzy emits a fiery red aura when excited.

8/10 there's a reason these two were the team leaders in the hit ball arch.

Violet and Lisa (submitted by Rubyya)

People have been theorizing about what kind of cryptid Lisa is since day one meanwhile Violet gives off big normie energy.

Lisa is very plugged into all the Mayview weirdness as the queen of the school underground, while Violet was the only person who thought to go get a teacher during the hit ball arch. Lisa was also the only one who really spoke openly about how something was clearly very wrong with Jeff, everyone else talked around it and played by the so called ‘rules’. Lisa’s secret brokering Vs. Violet’s ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’ attitude presents two different approaches to trying to survive in a school run by a mysterious shadow organization within a town that contains several other mysterious shadow organizations.

“If you were, I’d have to be jealous too.” just two middle schoolers pinning over their crushes.

7/10 two girls against the world.

Isaac and Johnny

ship name: Firestorm?

Just 2 fiery redheaded mediums with anger management issues that command primal forces and wanna be best friends with max

Johnny chooses to have red spiky hair, Issac has had red spiky hair thrust upon him.

Both met Maxwell Pucket and decided they needed to change for the better.

I’ve said this before but Johnny and Issac have equal and opposite philosophies. Johnny doesn't care about the greater good, he just cares about a small group of people who he loves. Issac cares about the greater good, but can’t connect with individuals and ends up hurting them. Together they form one GoodTM boy.

Both their spirit partners want revenge on Spender. This spells trouble.

If there’s anyone to teach Isaac about unconditional friendship, it’s Johnny

Isaac has sworn off violence and Johnny worships at the altar of it.

9/10 they’ve only interacted in canon once so far but I’ve think we’ve got a big storm coming.

Suzy and Collin (submitted by Rubyya)

The Bakudeku of pnat. I will continue to not elaborate.

Suzy once stole Collin's phone which prompted Collin to try to cut her hair which prompted Suzy to stab Collin and at no point did either of them think to move to a different bus seat. As different as they are they are also very much the same.

Collin is the definition of mouth service (constantly disapproving of suzy’s antics but going along with it anyway.) while suzy is all action.

Despite their different attitudes they both seem genuinely passionate about the journalism club.

Fashion icons. Suzy’s sunglasses and legwarmers, Collins sweater vests and wrist bands, this duo could walk for Paris fashion week: middle school edition.

We’ve gotten an indication that Collin cares a lot about what Suzy thinks of him (taking off his wrist bands when she made fun of Max's) but we haven't gotten any sign yet that the feelings are mutual.

5/10 I think their story is yet to be told and we’ll get to know more about how they compare/contrast to each other in the future. Maybe brought on by Dimitri's betrayal?????

Cody and Isabel (Submitted by @a-bitchtm)

Cody is gay by WOG but that doesn't matter here since we are evaluating thematic compatibility, not romantic compatibility.

Red Vs. Blue

Izzy’s arch about stepping into her role as leader through communication and honesty contrasts Cody’s role as the secret class president. Izzy finally told Isaac the truth about the consortium, while Cody blatantly lied to max about being president.

Both seem to have generally good motivations and the skills/talent to back those motivations up.

Isabel is in the process of unlearning the ‘firm hand’ philosophy that she learned from her grandpa and Cody’s dad straight up tried to mind control him into murdering a toddler.

They were both taught to fall back on their capacity for violence and intimidation but those teachings conflict with the people they really want to be.

6/10 just two kids who are being led astray by authority figures trying to learn to be themselves.

Cody and Collin (Submitted by @gatortavern)

They both like vests.

Both beholden to blood thirsty predators

Collin is a journalist, Cody is a vampire/leader of the shadow government. It’s a huge power move on Cody’s part to hang out with Collin.

Cody’s support of his friends is enthusiastic while Collin would have you believe Suzy has kidnapped him.

4/10 they hang out for a reason but those reasons have yet to be fully developed

Isabel and Max (submitted by @Paranatural-goofiness)

They’re both people who have learned to put up walls to keep people out. Isabel through violence and intimidation, max through sarcasm and mockery. T

he other side of this is their mutual journey to let their walls down and connect with other people more genuinely, starting with each other.

Their search for acceptance and identity has led them both to become incredible athletes. Spectral fist martial arts = shred eagle stunts

As we saw in the hit ball game, Izzy faces things head on while Max is all about evasion. However we’ve seen how Izzy has actually learned to be evasive and guarded about her feelings while Max is a little more forthcoming.

8/10  Never has there been faster friends.

Isaac and Cody (submitted by Rubyya)

Drama kings

Isaac wants the likability Cody has.

Parallels of power: Isaac with power he didn't choose and cant control vs. Cody who also didn’t choose to have his power (elected), but wields it like an instrument.

Involuntary anime hair and involuntary glowing monster eyes

These two definitely both fall under the category of “lawful”.

I can see these two ending up on opposite sides of a conflict because they both have such rigid personal codes and an intense sense of duty.

I know I’ve been approaching almost all of these platonically but Isaac probably really wants a cool vampire boyfriend deep down

 7/10 Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. You two should watch anime together.

Hijack and PJ (submitted by @gatortavern)

They both wanna join the activity club so bad

Both have immature ideas about heroism and villainy. 

Both aspire to heroism while at the same time understanding that they aren't that yet and maybe never will be. 

They both, like many people in this comic, wanna be friends with max.  

5/10 Two supernatural babies who should play wii sports together

Stephen and Isaac (@Gatortavern)

Two boys who are easily overwhelmed

Lawful vs. chaotic

Isaac has enough secrets to give Stephen his conspiracy fix for a long time. 

In their own ways they both just want everything out in the open. 

Isaac is Stephen's dream, someone actually living a secret double life, and Stephen is Issac's dream, someone with a cool scar who would think he’s actually very interesting. 

5/10 these two are both very intense in their own way.

Johnny and Ed (Submitted by @theevilbrainman)

Two souls lost in the wind

Two people for whom friendship and loyalty is central to their character, and they’re both struggling with personal growth because of it. Johnny is afraid to change because his friends have always liked the person he already is, and Ed is struggling to even define himself outside of Isabel, the person he cares about the most. 

Both impulsive and uninhibited. 

They both live lives free from expectation. Johnny’s wild bully persona means no one is surprised by his antics or cruelty, while Grandpa Guerra doesn't really care if Ed takes up phantom fist like Isabel. He actually calls him a freeloader. Not having much expected of you can feel free but it’s also lonely and can warp your self-perception. 

6/10 these two crossed paths at exactly the right time.

I didn't cover every submission because even though only 9 people submitted you sent in 34 ships between you. Pnat’s fanbase is small but very dedicated. 

Honorable mentions: 

Johnny and clear sinuses, submitted by @gaul-the-unmitigated

Isaac and therapy, submitted by both @squidgeons and @somethingfishysgoingon

PJ and Johnny, submitted by @gatortavern, who seems to be under the impression that Johnny Would protect PJ and not destroy him just by breathing near him.

Day and Scabs, submitted by @gatortavern, because funny.

Special thanks to everyone who sent in ship between people who have never interacted in cannon, which was a lot of you. My eyes are opened now, so many possibilities.

[astrologiaxo]

Messages for the signs <3

For Sun, Moon, and Rising. Check all 3! Starting w Leo cause LEO SZN.

Affirmation of the Day:

FLEXIBILITY - I am flexible and adaptable to change while I pursue my ambitions. 

Leo: Detach yourself from any power struggles that you may have placed on yourself unknowingly. You’ve been hard on yourself these days. You have the power to release yourself from these shackles, no one else has that power but you. Mind fucking yourself isn’t gonna get you anywhere. End the victim mentality. Once you’re able to overcome this you will start to flourish and fight for what is right. Your fiery self will come to light once again, and just in time for your season! 

Virgo: Something is trying to manifest through you but you’re blocking it! You blocking yo blessings, Virgo! Negative thoughts are consuming you and instead of the positive things you think about, you’re manifesting all the negative. If you think it’s not aligned with your higher self, take a moment and reconsider. Is it fear stopping you or were you manifesting something that was of no use? You’re hesitant to realize what is good for you. You’re feeling guilty that maybe you don’t deserve all these manifestations. You’re being tested right now but stay the course. Only you know what’s in your best interest. 

Libra: Your heart’s desire is being blocked right now. You’re dealing with setbacks that you were not expecting. You’re preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. So far it’s been a shit storm. But there’s good news! All that has seemed unfair and unjust is finally being met with justice. All the turmoil that you’ve undergone was all for the greater good. Good karma and bad karma happens to us all. You may have been struggling with finances or health and this has been a hard time for you. Be more wise with yourself and take care of yourself. Don’t overspend and save for a rainy day. Also, watch out for the friends you surround yourself with as they are a big reflection of who you are. If you feel you need to make new friends that align more with your spirit, this is your sign to work on communication and find better collaborators. 

Scorpio: You’re being tested! This is a newsflash to not quit. Even if you feel like you have every reason to quit, keep going. You have the right mindset and passion to go after what you’ve been working on for a while. If you stay confident and strong, you will receive all the fruits of your labor. You may be struggling trying to balance your passions with more practical matters in life, such as finances. And you feel you can’t have one without the either. It’s okay to chase your passions sometimes and not get so caught up in the finances. Follow your heart and dream big, Scorpio!

Sagittarius: Quarantine is making you face your demons. Instead of escaping like you usually do, you’ve been getting to the root of all your problems lately. You’re realizing what you were chasing before quarantine is not aligned with your higher self anymore. You’re surprisingly craving more stability and grounding energy than usual. You’ve realized that if the world is gonna end soon, you’d rather be boo’ed up or make sure that you and your family are well provided for. This is your new way of exploring life, since you can’t travel anywhere. You’re exploring what it’s like to change your priorities from socializing and mingling to stabilizing energy. You’ve had your fun and want to get more serious so you can finally get your shit together and chase your dreams!

Capricorn: You’re in a good place, Cap. In the past you were feeling disconnected and not like your self, but now your purpose is becoming clear and things are starting to fall into place. You’re thinking ahead and making sure everyone around you is okay. It took a lot for you to get here though. You trusted your intuition and defended all that you’ve worked for. With this came more security where you felt comfortable enough to let your walls down and open your heart to receiving some love from the outside world. You trusted the process and the process did not let you down!

Aquarius: You’ve been intellectualizing the fuck out of a partnership right now. There’s someone on your mind and you’ve been analyzing EVERYTHING about them. You’re hopeful about the situation, however, you’re just wondering WHY is it taking so long. You’re starting to feel impatient and lose hope when you feel there’s no progress, but when you start to over think, you know deep down you just need to have patience. Which is very hard for you. This person is teaching you that if you want them enough you have to be willing to wait for them. This person is a lot more slow moving than you so it’s not something you’re use to and it’s driving you a lil out of your mind. You’re being tested but are trusting your intellect and wisdom that you believe in this partnership. 

Pisces: You may be feeling extremely ambitious more than you’re use to. You have the mentality that you’re willing to pursue something or someone at all costs, which is a new energy for you since you’re use to going with the flow. This is a great thing for you because it seems like you’re chasing happiness and the bag (money). You’re chasing things that are worthwhile and it’s admirable. You have passionate energy about your desires and perhaps it’s the fact that Mars in Aries so take advantage of this time! You’re getting out of your usual funk and tapping more into wanting to be happy. It feels like something good enough has at last fallen into your lap where you feel like you’ll do anything to have it. 

Aries: You’ve been stuck in the past but you’re finally choosing to move forward. It’s as if though you’ve got a flame coming out of your butt and you’re ready to tap into the future! Perhaps you’ve reconnected with someone from your past but you’re ready to start a new beginning with them. Or something from your past has been looming over you and you’re ready to let it go. Whatever the case, nostalgia was a huge factor but now you’re realizing that you’ve  been holding yourself back from happiness. You’re feeling passionate about your desires and have been inspired to chase after them. Whether someone has started this in you or you’re doing this for others, there’s a lot of stripping of the old and bringing of the new.

Taurus: You’ve been working on yourself! On bad days, you let your fears get the best of you and believe that people will leave you behind and not care about you. This is just something you’ve created in your head though and isn’t true at all. You’ve gladly shunned yourself away from the world during quarantine to really work on yourself. You’ve been in hermit mode and this has done wonders for you. You’re starting to finally see that people have been there to help you all along but it took some time away from everyone for you to notice that. You’ve been so use to feeling that you’re destined for fear and betrayal but are realizing that this was all just in your head. This took a lot of effort and inner work. And if you’re still working on yourself, this is a push to keep going. Try and look at things from a different perspective and not be so stuck on just one. 

Gemini: You have the intellectual upper hand...as always. You’re in the know about everything, knowing both sides, good and evil. Whatever you’re trying to manifest right now, use it to your advantage. Divine timing will make it come true when the time is right but you have to make sure you choose well and bring yourself good karma. You may be hesitant about what you want to choose, and perhaps this is why you’re struggling. You’re not ready to leave the negative because you might be attached to it, but trust that this transition is in your highest favor. Open your heart to the new possibilities. There needs to be an equal give and take here, so bring balance into your life and choose wisely.

Cancer: It’s time for self care and self love. Don’t get so caught up in your anxieties. There’s an indecision that’s been looming over you, a sort of crossroads. Today you’re being asked to relax and focus on yourself. If you don’t know whether to start a relationship or foundation with someone it’s because the thought of it scares you and puts pressure on you that you’re uncomfortable with. Sometimes you don’t practice enough self love to feel like someone really loves you. Cancer, you do deserve love. If you realized how much people cared about you, you wouldn’t be so insecure about accepting love. 

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

could you talk a little about the relationship of Vicky and Fritz? what were they like as a couple?

anon you've made me the happiest!! here are some of my favourite tidbits ♥

♡ It was a love match from the beginning till the end. They shared an intellectual and physical bond that was a rarity in royal circles!

♡ Fritz proposed to Vicky while they were taking a stroll near Balmoral Castle. He picked up some white heather, kissed her and asked her if she would consider coming to Prussia. She said she would and he replied that he’d hoped she would stay ‘always’. 

♡ They were partners in the true sense of the word and they were particularly vilified for it. In the patriarchal Prussian society, their relationship were an anomaly. Bismark enjoyed spreading rumors about them : Vicky was the domineering wife and Fritz the weak husband. Once, Vicky wrote to Fritz that a woman in Germany was : 'not the partner, friend and helper of her husband... does not have the same educational level as he... If a wife lays claim to this status she is considered dangerous, domineering, ridiculous, peculiar. In England, every woman participates in conversations on politics, reads the newspapers, knows what’s going on, etc.. No Englishwoman would accept and adjust to the lowly and not very dignified status of a German wife.'

♡ To make matters worse, Fritz was constantly undermined by his own family. Vicky wrote 'from his own mother he seldom or rather never hears... words of affection' 'I wish more people knew. He is such a good son, such a good husband & such a good brother! & always thinks his duty before his pleasure.'

♡ Fritz suffered from depression (not surprising when you have his family and you espouse liberal values while being the heir of the very conservative Prussia). Vicky helped him a great deal. He wrote to her : 'You know exactly what it takes to make me happy through good times and bad, and you know exactly what is best for me... you accept me the way that I am; you have taught me how to gain confidence and see the world in a better way than I did before” “if “marriages are made in heaven” then God has obviously done so in our case.' 

♡ They were constantly under pressure. Bismark’s propaganda machine against Fritz and Vicky destroyed them in the eye of the Court and of the German people. But damn, they stood their ground.

♡ Vicky and Fritz were against the anti-Semitic movement. And Friedrich made it very clear.

♡ Their home was a space where 'love of art, a real sympathy with the intellectual movement and a wider liberal outlook on life prevailed.'

♡ Fritz helped to promote the development of women and their integration in male bureaucracy. In 1872 he supported a petition sent to the Reichstag which demanded that women were able to work in postal and railway services. *Vicky’s influence*.

♡ 'That you now are everything in the world to me you already know [...] I no longer undertake anything without thinking constantly of you and look upon you as my good angel' Fritz to Vicky.

♡ 'If you only knew how your love moves me, how happy it makes me and how much I return it, I do not deserve so much. Dear, dear Fritz, I think of you day and night.' 'For my precious madly-loved Fritz from is own Vicky.' Vicky to Fritz.

♡ To get away from the oppressive atmosphere of the capital, they bought, in 1863, a farmhouse in the village of Bornstedt, near Postdam. They were popular within the village and they loved this country life. When there, Fritz helped to plant and harvest. They also improved the village: rebuilt the church, created a trade school and a new village school.

♡ Even though Vicky could be very demanding and Fritz often away because of his military duties, they were both attentive and doting parents. Their younger children would come in their room at 7am and sat on their bed to eat their breakfast.

♡ Vicky's first childbirth was a very difficult one and Fritz stayed by her side throughout the ordeal. When she gave birth to her second child, Charlotte, he rubbed her feet during labor.

♡ On the day he became Emperor in 1888 Fritz invested Vicky with the highest honor he could give her: the Order of the Black Eagle. As he was already suffering from cancer and couldn’t speak he wrote to his doctor, Morell Mackenzie : ‘I thank you for having made me live enough to recompense the valiant courage of my wife’. Four months later he would die. 

♡ The royal collection kept a bracelet made from plaited hair of Fritz and Vicky, with an FV monogram surrounded by a serpent (x).The Victorians associated the snake motif with eternal love. 

♡ He took the picture below in 1887 at Buckingham Palace, in the room he occupied 35 years ago, before his marriage to Vicky. And on the table there is the small portrait that Vicky gave him after their engagement in 1855.

if anyone is wondering, most of these tidbits come from an uncommon woman, the empress frederick by hannah pakula, a really good book on Vicky and Fritz!