#the supreme court is also riding on this

[anotherpapercut]

the girlbossification of ruth bader ginsburg has to be one of the most just plain annoying aspects of white liberal feminism. like it's not as actively harmful as a lot of other shit obviously. but it is soooooo annoying. if I never see another notorious rbg tote bag as long as I live it will be too soon

[hotvintagepoll]

Danny Kaye (The Court Jester, The Inspector General)—Danny Kaye, idol of my childhood, maker of the weirdest faces! This man SETS HIMSELF ON FIRE and then puts himself out in a bucket in a movie based on a Gogol short story. In the same movie (Inspector General), he flirts by playing a carrot as a musical instrument. In Wonder Man, he's brilliant but struggles with things like riding buses. I have been envious of his fake Italian/French/German/Spanish monologues in The Court Jester for the past three decades. As Walter Mitty, he is SUPREMELY SILLY yet also somehow manages to be a comic foil for none other than Boris Karloff. All this is to say nothing of The William Tell Song (TV, thus not linked, but great.) I adore him.

Burgess Meredith (Of Mice and Men, That Uncertain Feeling, Second Chorus)—I first saw him in Idiot's Delight. He was standing next to Clark Gable on a balcony. I didn't even notice Gable was there, Meredith's scrungle game was too strong. -5'5 1/2 (1.66m) -He is THE weirdest little freak in That Uncertain Feeling, Merle Oberon picks him up in a psychiatrist's lobby. He's a concert pianist but he hates that people pay to hear him play, he can't stand them watching him. Vases offend him. He sees himself in an abstract painting. He's an absolutely chaotic gremlin and I love him SO much -He plays PENGUIN in the old Batman series!! What's scrunglier than that?! -"Was fascinated by the subject of non-human intelligence, particularly dolphins. He once believed that a dolphin somehow called to him for help in the middle of the night while he was staying at a friend's home on the beach. He ran out and found the dolphin, caught in a net under a dock down the beach, although there was no way he should have been able to know it was there. He released it, saving its life. He believed it had made some sort of connection with him, perhaps telepathic, to call for help." [IMDb] -He will forever be my favourite portrayal of George from Of Mice and Men, his speech about "seeds" and dreaming about a farm of his own wrecked me -In Tom, Dick and Harry, he's one of three suitors courting Ginger Rogers. It's zany and ridiculous, an absolute rollercoaster. He teachers to bowl with his sleeves rolled up. He drives a 3-wheeled motorcycle -He's in a MUSICAL with FRED ASTAIRE they're romantic rivals for PAULETTE GODDARD. He also wears a bucket hat. (Second Chorus) -His hair is VERY floofy in his early roles, I think that should be taken into consideration 4:54: [link to whole movie, editor has not watched it + can't vet but confirmed his hair is fluffy for the minute she did watch]

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here. Reminder that this is a movie poll, not a TV poll, in case any of you were flocking to any bird-brained ideas.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Danny Kaye:

He's so stupid. I love him.

Burgess Meredith:

Look at his face! He looks like a little field mouse, and a field mouse is scrungly. Admittedly I know him more from the Twilight Zone, in which he reached levels of peak scrungle, but I believe he deserves a place on this list.

[chinesehanfu]

[Hanfu · 漢服]Chinese immortal Hanfu <西王母/Queen Mother of the West> Based On Yuan Dynasty Taoist Temple Mural<永乐宫/Yongle Palace>

【Historical Artifacts Reference 】:

▶ China Yuan Dynasty Taoist Temple 永乐宫/Yongle Palace Mural

<西王母/Queen Mother of the West>

The Queen Mother of the West, known by various local names, is a mother goddess in Chinese religion and mythology, also worshipped in neighbouring Asian countries, and attested from ancient times.

The first mentions of the Queen Mother date back to the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty (1766 – 1122 BCE). One inscription reads:

Crack-making on day IX (9th day), we divined. If we make offering to the eastern mother and the western mother, there will be approval.

Western Mother refers to an archaic divinity residing in the west. The exact nature of the Mother divinities in the Shang dynasty is unclear, but they were seen as powerful forces deserving of ritual by the people of the Shang dynasty. Originally, from the earliest known depictions of her in accounts like the Classic of Mountains and Seas during the Zhou dynasty, she was a ferocious goddess of death with the teeth of a tiger, who rules over wild beasts and sends down heavenly punishments such as pestilences. She was also mentioned as an authority ruling over other divinities such as Jiutian Xuannü, a goddess of war and sex. Other stories hold that she is a mountain goddess or a divine tigress. She is also popularly thought to have blessed the Eight Immortals with their supernatural abilities.

After her integration into the Taoist pantheon, she gradually took on associations with other aspects, such as immortality, as well.

The Queen Mother of the West is most often depicted holding court within her palace on the mythological Mount Kunlun, usually supposed to be in western China (a modern Mount Kunlun is named after this). Her palace is believed to be a perfect and complete paradise, where it was used as a meeting place for the deities and a cosmic pillar where communications between deities and humans were possible.At her palace she was surrounded by a female retinue of prominent goddesses and spiritual attendants. One of her symbols is the Big Dipper.

Although not definite there are many beliefs that her garden had a special orchard of longevity peaches which would ripen once every three thousand years,others believe though that her court on Mount Kunlun was nearby to the orchard of the Peaches of Immortality. No matter where the peaches were located, the Queen Mother of the West is widely known for serving peaches to her guests, which would then make them immortal. She normally wears a distinctive headdress with the Peaches of Immortality suspended from it.

Flourishing parasols, we reach the chronograms' extremity; Riding on the mist, I wander to Lofty Whirlwind Peak. The Lady of the Supreme Primordial descends through jade interior doors; The Queen Mother opens her Blue-gem Palace. Celestial people—What a Crowd! A lofty meeting inside the Cyan Audience Hall. Arrayed Attendants perform Cloud Songs; Realized intonations fill the Grand Empty Space. Every thousand years, her purple crabapple ripens; Every four kalpas, her numinous melon produces abundantly. This music differs from that at the feast in the wilderness— So convivial, and certainly infinite.— Wu Yun (Complete Tang Poems 1967, line 4942)

One of the earliest written references to the Queen Mother comes from the writings of the Taoist writer Zhuangzi (c. 4th century BCE):

The Queen Mother of the West obtained it [the Dao]... ...and took up her seat at Shao kuang. No one knows her beginning; no one knows her end.

Zhuangzi describes the Queen Mother as one of the highest of the deities, meaning she had gained immortality and celestial powers. Zhuangzi also states that Xiwangmu is seated upon a spiritual western mountain range, suggesting she is connected to not only the heavens, but also to the west.

Legendary encounters

In Tu Kuang-ting's text, he includes narrative accounts of the Queen Mother's encounters with legendary Chinese heroes. One such account narrates an encounter between the Queen Mother and Laozi (Lord Lao):

"In the 25th year of King Chao of the Chou dynasty (1028 BCE) …" "…Lord Lao and the realized person Yin Hsi went traveling…" "…on their behalf, the Queen Mother of the West explicated the Scripture of Constant Purity and Quiet."

In this account, the Queen Mother plays the role of Laozi's superior and is credited with the ultimate authorship of the Dao De Jing. This dichotomy of the Queen Mother as the superior is a characteristic of Shangqing Taoism, a goddess worshiping sect of Taoism of which Tu Kuang-ting was a master. There is also an account of a meeting between the Queen Mother and Laozi in Tang poetry.[18] This account however, being of traditional Taoist thought, has the Queen Mother taking an inferior role to Laozi, calling him "Primordial Lord" (the title of his highest manifestation) and pays homage to the sage.

<China Han Dynasty stone-relief showing 西王母/Queen Mother of the West from Sichuan,China>

<China Wei and Jin Dynasties Mural showing 西王母/Queen Mother of the West>

————————

📸Photography post-production :@小何力

👗Hanfu & 👑Crown：@雁鸿Aimee

💄 Makeup：百丽 （临溪摄影）

👭Model：@清音音音音

🔗 Weibo:https://weibo.com/1648616372/O2R5bpBud

————————

[irenespring]

Maybe House has made me more in-tune to the secret unhinged side of my favorite characters but I'm watching SVU and Alex Cabot is a menace. (/pos)

"I have to enforce the law, and the law is not always about justice" except random times when she disagrees and will fully become the lawyer for an opposing party in full defiance of her bosses.

"Your honor I simply do not vibe with the law" and will say so in court to the point where she once got held in contempt.

Started her legendary string of "Go After The Large Company Instead of the Obvious Target" cases just because Liv asked.

She will actually do literally anything that Olivia asks...sometimes when she does something especially unhinged I go to check the scene before and 90% of the time she's doing whatever it is to appease some vague whim of Liv's.

Ride or die for the SVU squad as a whole after working with them for less than a year and knowing that they have cost her like all her political capital (something that was very important to her...she says so in her introductory scene).

Exactly predicted fetal personhood legal issues 25 years before the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

Wanted to execute a woman for the first time in NY history for feminism reasons.

Spends like 80% of all work meetings, with other people in the room who are often actively talking to her, just staring at Olivia.

Always down for a Crazy Scheme (especially when she gets to deceive others).

She has a lot of moments of understanding the law as a weapon (ie how to I use it to my own ends as opposed to viewing it as a holy ideal) that is only now actually becoming a common philosophy in law school circles.

WAY more loose-cannon moments in general than I remembered.

Also I feel the need to reiterate just how many bridges she will burn and loops she will jump through for the slightest hint of approval from Olivia. Just...so gay.

Seriously just like how in House a casual viewer may get distracted by Wilson's "Definitely a Normal Person" disguise and miss how he is just as crazy as House, Alex is just as batshit as known exhibitionist-asphyxiation-in-the-middle-of-the-courtroom fan Rafael. And I love her dearly.

[thesirencult]

YOU NEED PEOPLE LIKE ME / DARK PSYCHOLOGY

You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your f*****’ fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy.” So what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie.

(Tony Montana, Scarface)

Most people can not handle their darker side. They can not handle their ego and their deepest desires. Now, I'm not telling you to become like Tony Montana. He was consumed by his vices and they run the show for him. I'm telling you to do what you what to do and to stop lying to yourself and hiding from your true nature.

A couple of years ago, I met a girl who had an obsession with finding a wealthy man. She did not care about anything else other than the money. In her defense, she grew up in a poor family where, her dad beat her mom up and he even did that while her mom was pregnant with her.

That girl was studying finance. She took up Arabic and wanted to work for off shore companies where she could find a husband. She specifically told me she wanted her husband to drive a Porsche which has more prestige than a BMW and buy her a BMW cause the woman should be beneath her husband. Overall she was "micey" in character. If you didn't know her you would think she was shy and religious, but. you should know better guys, these people have more ego problems than the most outspoken, egomaniac extrovert.

So, she looked "weak" but had an agenda. She also was trying to give off the "trad wife" vibe but salivated as soon as a man breathed her direction and shamed any woman who showcased her seductiveness.

A few days ago, she messaged me. She wanted to grab a coffee with me as she would be in town. I was surprised when I saw her. In the "kindest" way I can put it, she looked like women who run on every single rally around and fight for justice (nothing wrong with taht, but if you're following me I bet you get what I'm trying to convey). A white girl with Bob Marley braids! Yup, there it is!

She told me she had given up Arabic and no longer wanted to work in a big shipping corporation because that supported big oil and their agenda. She then preached to me about equality and why the left is supreme. Now, I'm pretty straightforward so I asked her, how and why her views changed. She wanted to own 3 cars and be a stay at home mom! She looked outside the window of the coffee shop and saw my parked car.

"Do you see this car?"

I said "Yeah, I see it."

"Whoever drives this car is a right wing egomaniac who doesn't care about the environment and just wants to flaunt their money." (my car is a hybrid you guys!)

"Do you drive?"

"No, I can not afford a license and my family owns only one car. Also, I'm scared of driving. Also, did I tell you I'm running on the elections with the *left wing side*. Will you vote for me? If I make it I'll get 2k per month plus health care benefits."

"That's my car. I was going to ask you, do you want to take the train home or will you ride with me?" I just wanted this meeting to bo over, to tell you the truth.

She came with me.

Wanna know why? Here is my hypothesis (and it ties in with Tony Montana's words):

99% of people give up on their dreams by age 23. In order to make it easier for them and help them soothe the guilt this breeds, they begin to drift to the opposite "side" of the court. Pornstars turn to trad wives. Playboys turn to "faithful" husbands who preach the word of the Lord. Money and power hungry individuals take up boring jobs and blame the rich and the goverment for everything. Men who can not pick up women turn to red pill guys and so on and so forth.

Most people can not handle their darker side. They can not handle their ego and their deepest desires. Now, I'm not telling you to become like Tony Montana, he was consumed by his vices and that's who runs the show. Either you run the show or someone else or something (an addiction) runs it for you.

We see all that often with sex. Body counts, "I can not find a good man/woman" etc. People who can not get what they want hate those that have the GUTS to get it.

If my acquaintance's beliefs are that strong why did she enjoy the drive in the luxury SUV? Why did she then ask me when are we going out again and if I can bring "that" guy friend who runs a tech start up?

Because they are not her beliefs. They are just a cover up. A mask.

We've all seen how happy some people get when a dreamer fails.

So, go one. Fail. You''ll succeed at some point. You're better than those who sit on the sidelines running their mouth.

They would want to be at your shoes. They would want to run free on the court.

Own that. Own yourself and run after your goals and desires. Fuck them.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

The biggest news out of Israel today is of course that late last night, the government approved a deal with Hamas to release some of the hostages. Here are the details as reported on the news:

50 hostages will be released in 4 groups over the course of 4 days, during which there would be no fighting. Hamas said they will be women and kids, Israel will only be told who's being released the day before. Not all kids are being released. Israel in exchange will release 150 people convicted for terrorist activity. Hamas says it will use these 4 days to try and locate 20 more hostages to be released. Hamas says that some of the hostages are in the hands of smaller terrorist organizations, and some are also being held by civilian families. Just a reminder that some civilians from Gaza followed the terrorists into Israel once the border fence was torn down. Most probably just to loot the houses attacked by terrorists, but at least some partook in the killing of Israeli civilians. Here is a vid of one such man, riding a bicycle stolen from a murdered Israeli, bragging about having killed 3 family members...

For every additional hostage Hamas finds and releases beyond the 50 agreed upon, it will get 3 more convicted terrorists released. For every 10, it will get one more day without fighting, for a total possible break of 6 days. In addition, Israel will not be flying over Gaza, not airplanes and not drones, for 6 hours daily.

It's reported that the stop in fighting will start tomorrow (Thursday) at 10 in the morning. Based on past experience, you can expect Hamas to fire rockets at Israel even past 10, just to show it got the "last word" and Israel will have to contain this, in order to keep the whole deal from falling apart.

The ambivalence about the deal that I tried to express in yesterday's daily post is what I'm hearing almost across the board. People want the hostages who will be freed, they're afraid for the fate of those who won't be, and they're scared of how Hamas might use this break in the fighting.

I think the most infuriating thing Israelis have come across is people describing the deal as "hostage exchange." Multiple Israelis have posted to make the same point: the hostages kidnapped from Israel were all innocent. The prisoners that will be released were all convicted for violent activity. They did not murder, but they tried to.

I saw an interview with one Israeli mother who had survived an attempted murder by a terrorist. She discovered that the woman who committed that crime is one of the prisoners who might be released. The thing is, they used to live in the same neighborhood. The mother asked, "Why should my kid have to see every day the woman who tried to kill me?" Almagor, an Israeli organization for victims of terrorism, has petitioned the Israeli supreme court against the deal. It's not likely to work, as the supreme court has indicated in the past it has no jurisdiction over political decisions, only legal ones.

And of course there's the fear that more Israeli soldiers might pay the price for the fact that Hamas will use the break in the fighting to re-arm and learn from its failures so far. That's the better scenario. There's also the possibility that Hamas would do what they did on "The Black Friday" in 2014. On Aug 1, a ceasefire with Hamas was supposed to start at 8 in the morning. At 9:05 Hamas terrorists used a terror tunnel to attack Israeli soldiers, murder them and kidnap the body of one of them, Hadar Goldin. Nine years later, the body has not yet been returned.

Today is not a day of relief in Israel.

The UK has announced it would allocate 7 million pounds to fighting antisemitism, which is welcome news. Switzerland said it will pass legislation that would prohibit Hamas activity through it.

A uniquely Israeli moment that happened yesterday... Jewish first sergeant Mordechai Shenvald, who was seriously injured in Gaza, playing with his Arab physician, Doctor Darwashe, a song by famous Arab singer Um Kultum, called Inti Umri:

Israel has torn down today a Jewish settlement established illegally in the disputed territories. You'll always hear about when Israel takes down Arab houses built illegally, but I bet most people here havne't heard about it when Jewish Israeli civilians get the exact same treatment for this exact same offense.

This is part of the testimony of a father to a girl with special needs, whose family has survived the Oct 7 massacre:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by כאן חדשות (@kan_news)

This is 25 years old Shani Gabai.

She was considered missing since the Oct 7 massacre. Today, her body was identified among the other victims of the music festival.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[acquariusgb]

Every marriage involves sacrifice. Building a shared life together means giving up some measure of independence. It means making your partner’s cares and concerns your own—sometimes at the expense of your own. Partnership takes work. It can extract painful costs, but it also brings joy and emotional nourishment. Something lost, something gained. Bill and I have been partners since day one. In law school, we teamed up in the Barristers’ Union for moot court competitions. We’d stay up late researching cases and crafting arguments. Occasionally, he’d get distracted and launch into a story about his home in Arkansas, or the novel he’d just read, or a brilliant piece of music he couldn’t get out of his head. I’d gently redirect us back to the law books spread out on the table. We made it to the finals of the competition, presenting the arguments we’d honed together to retired Supreme Court justice Abe Fortas. I knew that marrying Bill would be like hitching a ride on a comet. Was I brave enough to take the leap? He thought that marrying me would be like planting an oak. It would root him and give him strength and resilience. He was certain it was the right choice. We became partners in life, in parenthood, and in politics, too. A lot of people didn’t understand that. Or chose not to. They were convinced our marriage was purely transactional. “It doesn’t seem like a family—more like a merger,” one Republican operative told the New York Times in 1992. I thought that said more about their own relationships than about ours. Was it so strange to share each other’s passions and fuel each other’s aspirations? I’ve always thought “love” was a verb as well as a noun, and that’s proven true for us. Bill has been my greatest champion since the moment we met. He never once asked me to put my career on hold for his. He never resented that I made more money than him or that my work and independence (keeping the name Rodham, for example) sometimes caused him political problems. He never once suggested that I bow to the critics and trim my sails. He always dared me to dream bigger. From the beginning, we’ve been in it together.

Something Lost, Something Gained- Hillary Rodham Clinton

[odinsblog]

Clarence Thomas secretly accepted luxury trips from a major GOP donor

Island-hopping on a superyacht. Private jet rides around the world. The undisclosed gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the Supreme Court. “It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” says one former judge.

IN LATE JUNE 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, front left, with Harlan Crow, back right, and others in Flores, Indonesia, in July 2019. Credit: via Instagram

For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.

The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.

(continue reading)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

I am not usually one to offer diagnoses of people I’ve never met, but it does seem like the pundit class of the American media is suffering from severe memory loss. Because they’re doing exactly what they did in the 2016 presidential race – providing wildly asymmetrical and inflammatory coverage of the one candidate running against Donald J Trump. They have become a stampeding herd producing an avalanche of stories suggesting Biden is unfit, will lose and should go away, at a point in the campaign in which replacing him would likely be somewhere between extremely difficult and utterly catastrophic. They do this while ignoring something every scholar and critic of journalism knows well and every journalist should. As Nikole Hannah-Jones put it: “As media we consistently proclaim that we are just reporting the news when in fact we are driving it. What we cover, how we cover it, determines often what Americans think is important and how they perceive these issues yet we keep pretending it’s not so.” They are not reporting that he is a loser; they are making him one. According to one journalist’s tally, the New York Times has run 192 stories on the subject since the debate, including 50 editorials and 142 news stories. The Washington Post, which has also gone for saturation coverage, published a resignation speech they wrote for him. Not to be outdone, the New Yorker’s editor-in-chief declared that Biden not going away “would be an act not only of self-delusion but of national endangerment” and had a staff writer suggest that Democrats should use the never-before-deployed 25th amendment. Since this would have to be led by Vice-President Kamala Harris, it would be a sort of insider coup. And so it goes with what appears to be a journalistic competition to outdo each other in the aggressiveness of the attacks and the unreality of the proposals. It’s a dogpile and a panic, and there is no one more unable to understand their own emotional life, biases and motives than people who are utterly convinced of their own ironclad rationality and objectivity, AKA most of these pundits. Speaking of coups, we’ve had a couple of late, which perhaps merit attention as we consider who is unfit to hold office. This time around, Trump is not just a celebrity with a lot of sexual assault allegations, bankruptcies and loopily malicious statements, as he was in 2016. He’s a convicted criminal who orchestrated a coup attempt to steal an election both through backroom corruption and public lies and through a violent attack on Congress. The extremist US supreme court justices he selected during his last presidential term themselves staged a coup this very Monday, overthrowing the US constitution itself and the principle that no one is above the law to make presidents into kings, just after legalizing bribery of officials, and dismantling the regulatory state by throwing out the Chevron deference. [...] Biden is old. He was one kind of appalling in the 27 June debate, listless and sometimes stumbling and muddling his words. But Trump was another kind of appalling, in that almost everything he said was an outrageous lie and some of it was a threat. I get that writing about the monstrosity that is Trump faces the problem that it’s not news; he’s been a monster spouting lurid nonsense all his life (but his political crimes are recent, and his free-associating public soliloquies on sharks, batteries, toilets, water flow and Hannibal Lector, among other topics, are genuinely demented). He’s a racist, a fascist and a rapist (according to a civil-court verdict). We are deciding whether this nation has a future as a more-or-less democratic republic this November, and on that rides the fate of the earth when it comes to acting on climate change. If the US falters at this decisive moment in the climate crisis, it will drag down everyone else’s efforts. Under Trump, it will. But the shocking supreme court decisions this summer and the looming threat of authoritarianism have gotten little ink and air, compared to the hue and cry about Biden’s competence.

Rebecca Solnit at The Guardian on why the pundit class is calling for Joe Biden to suspend his campaign but not Donald Trump to also do the same (07.06.2024).

Rebecca Solnit's opinion column at The Guardian regarding the pundit class's demands for Joe Biden to end his campaign over a bad debate performance but not for Donald Trump to do the same over his 34 felonies is a masterclass.

[glorianamultistan]

I do not own the image.

I will be uploading more soon; this has been in my drafts for over six months. P.S.:- you can support me by buying me a coffee; link's on my page.

Lee Know x Male Reader

Part 1

Summary: Prince Lee Know has fallen for Y/n.

It was early morning, around 4 am, when Lee Know was sure that no one was following him; he departed towards the left wing of the manor, the ones where the guest rooms were located.

Y/n felt a light knock on his door and before he could ask who it was, the prince slipped in.

'Your Royal Highness!?' y/n whispered as he got up from his bed and felt a bit embarrassed because he was not in a very presentable state.

'Ah! You are up! Great! Let's go, we need to go to the lake; it will take some time. You wanted to look at the sunrise. So let's go.' Lee Know stated as if all this was a preplanned enterprise.

'Uhm... But sir. I just said it lightly.' Y/n could not understand how his light comment made the prince be present here at such an hour with all this enthusiasm.

He saw the older flinch a bit and feel a bit out of words, so he just complied with the request and 'You took such measures so early in the morning. I apologize; let me just get ready. Oh, don't worry, I can get ready without helpers, sir. If you could please turn around.'

Lee Know stood there, his face towards the door, with a feeling of restriction in his throat as he heard y/n rustle in and out of the clothes.

Lee Know was restless the whole night. He saw y/n for the first time last year at a ball held by his cousin, where the latter was introduced to him with the sole intention of a matrimonial alliance between the l/n and Lee families, both being two of the few most powerful ones in the southern region of the kingdom.

Lee family was also a branch of the royal family, with princes and princesses ornamenting the upcoming generation of family heads. So Lee Know, or Prince Lee Know, was an heir to the titles and extravaganza, and he knew how to use them to get the work he wanted to be done.

Y/n, on the other hand, was an honorable person, not with high titles, as he was not the direct heir and had three elder siblings. But it was truth universally acknowledged that he was the best catch out of all his siblings and hence was courted by a legion of princes and dukes and marquises and all the remaining titles of the realm, even the high-ranking government officials of the other nations and royalties of other empires wanted to have him as their son-in-law.

Why? Just because he was blessed with the supreme combination of mind and grace. He was, at his current age of 23, already an established author and a formal martial artist. He was mannered like no other person, full of the right protocols and courtesies. He was the gem the crowns of all the empires lacked. And, he was utterly clumsy and naive to love approaches to the level of irritation for his suitors.

'We can leave now, sir.' Lee Know turned around to see y/n in casual wear for a walk; he was still affected too much. 'Uh, yeah, let's go, let me, yes, just okay, let's go.' 'But this is my room, sir; I should be the one closing the door.' 'But I insist.'

So, y/n stood in the hallway as the prince closed the door and walked down the few engraved steps that his room had to them, a medieval design.

'Were you comfortable in the room? I got it arranged for you, especially because you like cozier spaces.' 'It is an honour, sir, that you took such measures for me.' Yes, y/n clearly has no idea that they met last year as a probable couple; his parents never notify him of such occurrences as he gets anxious and is not able to present himself. So now, it's the prince's turn to think that y/n is not interested in him and probably thinks of this all as a once-in-a-while opportunity.

'Will you be comfortable on the same horse, or do you want a separate one? Or do you want to drive there? I can ask for the cars too if you don't like horse rides.' Lee Know asked repeated questions to ensure he asserted that he was doing it all for the younger's comfort.

'I have no complaints about sharing the horse, sir.' Y/n liked such escapist endeavours. He was surprisingly cheerful this morning to go and look at the sunrise properly. He had heard of the majestic view of the sunrise which the lake of the Lee manor had. It was sublime, in his older brother's words.

The lake was situated in the little valley formed by ancient hills now eroded to moors. Here the duo reached just a few minutes before the sun was about to emerge through the horizon, and so there was a hazy lavender-maroon sky waiting for them.

'It is indeed sublime.' Y/n whispered. 'Huh?' Lee Know looked at the boy looking over to the climbing sun. Rays shined over them softly, and a light breeze ruffling the long hair of y/n made Lee Know to realise that he might actually have fallen a bit too hard.

What was to be done now? The sun was roping up, and the firmament shone, and so did the face of the younger, watching it all with awe as the mist started to clear up. Lee Know knew he had to take them back before breakfast, but he did not have enough courage to disturb the scene in front of him.

'Uhm, we-we should head back now, we need to be present there for breakfast, or your brother would think I kidnapped you.'

'Yes sir, we must hurry. I don't want to be caught slipping out like this.' There it was again; Lee Know felt a jab at heart; was he really not going to even get a chance?

[bwoahtastic]

Toto, Nico and Seb retiring to Toto's country estate for the summer. Seb is still being courted by several suitors, though he is firmly fixed upon Jenson, and all of them could do with a break. They will of course attend other balls in the area that they have been invited to, but it's nice to have some peace and quiet, as much peace and quiet as can be had in a house that contains Seb anyway. When they are in the country Nico goes riding every morning. He loves the wind in his hair and the feeling of freedom. Seb will often ride with him in the afternoons but refuses to get up so early in the morning which is when Nico most likes to ride. Toto is surprised at how proficient both Nico and Seb are at horse riding, they are better even than him! Toto asks Seb if he thinks Nico would like a horse of his own, and Seb excitedly tells him about a beautiful silver stallion Nico had seen and ridden once in town, and that he had fallen completely in love with. Toto buys the horse, and wakes up especially early in the morning to meet Nico at the stables and give him his gift. Nico is thrilled about receiving the horse, and thanks Toto again and again, before shyly asking if Toto would like to join him on his morning ride. Toto accepts and spends most of the ride watching Nico gallop ahead, supremely confident on his beautiful stallion, always the most beautiful person Toto has ever seen

Oh plss yes! Nico and Toto going to the country side with Seb, as seb is so confident about his match with Jenson that he doesn't really want to dance with other suitors anymore, but Nico wants hin to hold off on an engagement for a little longer.

Toto having such a beautiful country estate and nico and seb grew up in the country side and prefer it tenfold over the city! Toto owns big stables and quite a few horses too and is amused to find Nico there most of the day, riding but also grooming the horses or playing with the cats living in the hay. Nico is looking much more carefree and relaxed incthe country side, not needing to wear his mask for society and Toto falls for him more and more every single day.

Seb just babbling away most of the day (after getting up pretty late lol) and one day he tells Toto how much Nico adores the stables! Toto asking if seb thinks Nico would like to have his own horse and Seb perks up and is ready to drag toto out of the house and to town to show him the silver grey stallion Nico adores so much!

They go the day after, Toto pretending to offer to chaperone a meeting for seb and jenson and Nico is quite happy not having to for once so he agrees. Seb layer distracting Nico as Toto gets the horse settled in the stables and groomed for the big surprise the day after!

Nico beingnsurprised to wake up with Toto's side of the bed empty but supposes Toto has work to attend to. So he dresses in riding gear and heads to the stables, and almost trips over some hay when he sees Toto petting the nose of the grey stallion!

Nico is so excited and in awe and Toto is grinning as Nico flings himself at him and gives him so many kisses! So much excited affection! Nico is a little flustered after but asks Toto to join him foe a ride and they have a lot of fun. Toto mostly has his horse halt at the side of the field while Nico tries the stallion, galloping back and forth and laughing ao much! He is so beautiful and carefree and Toto hopes thst Nico loves him back just 10% of how much Toto loves Nico, because then it's still more than most people.

(Also the stallion loves nico and toto both but likes to headbutt Seb gently to annoy him, or step away as seb is trying to mount him to ride him too lol!)

[ridenwithbiden]

THIS MOTHERFUCKER !!!

"Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been accused of not disclosing a yacht trip to Russia and a private helicopter flight to a palace in President Vladimir Putin’s hometown, among a slew of other gifts and loans from businessman Harlan Crow.

Buried on page 14 of a letter that two Democratic senators sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday, in which they urged Garland to appoint a special counsel to probe Thomas, was an astonishing list of dozens of “likely undisclosed gifts and income” from Crow, Crow’s affiliated companies, and “other donors.”

In the letter, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) said Thomas, one of the court’s staunchly conservative justices, even may have committed tax fraud and violated other federal laws by “secretly” accepting the gifts and income potentially worth millions.

“The Senate is not a prosecutorial body, and the Supreme Court has no fact-finding function of its own, making the executive role all the more important if there is ever to be any complete determination of the facts,” reads the letter requesting the appointment of a special prosecutor.

“We do not make this request lightly,” said the letter.

The list of potentially secret gifts also includes a loan of more than $267,000 provided by Thomas’ close friend Anthony Welters, the yacht trip to Russia from the Baltics, and the helicopter ride to Yusupov Palace in St. Petersburg. ProPublica first reported last year on the existence of extensive undisclosed gifts and lavish trips from Crow.

Additionally, Justice Thomas is accused of not disclosing tuitions for his grandnephew, free lodging, real estate transactions, and home renovations. The action escalates Democratic senators’ efforts to hold Thomas accountable for perceived ethics controversies.

According to the senators, Thomas’ conduct could violate the Ethics in Government Act, which requires officials like Supreme Court justices to file annual reports disclosing gifts and income accepted from outside sources.

“It is a crime,” reads the report, “To knowingly and willfully fail to file or report such information.”

Since 2023, two Senate committees have been looking into the 1991 loan from Welters that was connected to Thomas’ purchase of a luxury motor home. Welters previously responded to a New York Times request for comment on the loan only to say that it was “satisfied.”

Thomas, for his part, belatedly disclosed some—but not all—gifts from Crow this year and has defended the gifts as “personal hospitality” from some of his and his wife’s “dearest friends.”

“The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have,” Durban and Wyden wrote."

[hotvintagepoll]

Asta Nielsen (Hamlet)— Hamlet is a classic scrungly little guy and Astra Nielsen playing him as a girl who has been raised as a boy is extra scrungly, the scenes where Hamlet is pretending to be in love Ophelia (while secretly in love with Horatio) are particularly awkward and endearing.  

Danny Kaye (The Court Jester, The Inspector General)—Danny Kaye, idol of my childhood, maker of the weirdest faces! This man SETS HIMSELF ON FIRE and then puts himself out in a bucket in a movie based on a Gogol short story. In the same movie (Inspector General), he flirts by playing a carrot as a musical instrument. In Wonder Man, he's brilliant but struggles with things like riding buses. I have been envious of his fake Italian/French/German/Spanish monologues in The Court Jester for the past three decades. As Walter Mitty, he is SUPREMELY SILLY yet also somehow manages to be a comic foil for none other than Boris Karloff. All this is to say nothing of The William Tell Song (TV, thus not linked, but great.) I adore him.

This is round 2 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Danny Kaye:

He's so stupid. I love him.

Asta:

just look at her. pathetic sad goth girl pretending to be a boy. sighing and being hurt and learning terrible things at every turn. please I love her with my entire heart

[mariacallous]

On Wednesday morning, a small group of people huddled over their phones at the foot of the giant glass skyscraper that houses Uber’s London headquarters. They were running an experiment in an attempt to solve one of the greatest mysteries in the platform economy right now: how Uber’s algorithm calculates driver pay.

Beneath flags and banners calling on Uber to “Stop Dynamic Pricing,” one driver ordered a ride, acting as a customer to Heathrow Airport, and received a quote for £46. Seconds later, the job pinged up on the phone of a fellow protester, who had told the app he was ready to drive. His fee? £26.

For years, Uber has taken a commission of 25 percent from London-based drivers. But the company told drivers in January 2023 the app was updating its pricing model, a change it said was necessary to make fares appeal to drivers and offer the lowest pickup time for passengers. Yet the people behind the wheel say those changes have lowered their wages and made how they’re calculated impossible to understand—sparking fears that dynamic pricing is offering drivers across Europe and the US personalized wages, a charge that Uber denies.

“A few years back, the fare was transparent, you used to see how much the passenger was charged,” says Farah Musa, an Uber driver since 2015, who is taking part in the protest and 24-hour strike. Now the information is hidden, and he doesn’t understand how the fare is calculated. “Dynamic pricing is not good for drivers. We are being cheated.”

Uber’s “surge pricing” feature used to kick in only during busy periods, making rides more expensive to incentivize drivers to log in to the app. Now, however, the app uses variable or “dynamic” pricing all the time, says James Farrar, the former Uber driver who won a landmark case against the company in the UK Supreme Court and is now director of nonprofit Worker Info Exchange. “We’ve gone from a completely transparent pay and pricing system to one that’s now completely opaque,” he says. “People literally do not understand how the pay has been set, how the work has been allocated, and how they may have been profiled in that decisionmaking.”

It’s only Uber that knows how the wages are calculated, says Lucky Matthew, at the London protest, who says he now receives £400 ($509) per week less than before the pandemic. “We’re working the same hours as before, the cost of living is going up, but wages are going down.”

Many of the drivers at the protest have been asking their passengers how much they are paying for the ride, and their answers have unleashed a wave of anger toward the company because they claim Uber is taking much more than a 25 percent cut. “It’s a scam,” says Cristina Ioanitescu, who drives an Uber XL and carried a sign reading “Smart Pricing = Smart Cheating.” “It’s a lot of stress for us.” Uber says that although commission fees vary, they can sometimes be as low as 0 percent and drivers can see the fare before accepting a trip.

To understand how the fares are calculated, Uber drivers have not only been scrutinizing the passenger fees—they have also been poring over the company’s financial results. In the company’s February earnings call, a comment by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi prompted concern among union representatives in the US and Europe that the company was personalizing the wages they were offered based on the data collected about drivers in the app.

“What we can do better is actually targeting different trips to different drivers based on their preferences or based on behavioral patterns that they’re showing us,” Khosrowshahi told investors in that call. “That really is the focus going forward.” When WIRED asked Uber about Khosrowshahi’s comments, the company denied it was personalizing prices for drivers based on who will accept the lowest fare.

“Uber reviews real-time information such as traffic and the distance to the rider to provide the best price to appeal to the drivers in the area,” says Caspar Nixon, Uber’s spokesperson. “All pricing is based on aggregate data, not personalized rider or driver data.” Drivers also receive a weekly statement telling them how much their passengers have paid versus the commission Uber has kept from their fares, Nixon adds.

Yet to Zamir Dreni, London vice chair for the App Drivers and Couriers Union, Khosrowshahi’s comments were proof enough. “They are profiling drivers,” he says. It’s not only London where drivers are suspicious of personalized pricing. “This has been a mystery for years now,” says Amrit Sewgobind, the representative for gig workers at the Dutch trade union FNV. Uber driver chat groups are now filled with screenshots as people try to compare journeys of similar distances that resulted in different fares, he says. Last summer, Sewgobind tried to better understand these differences by arranging an experiment in Amsterdam West, where he compared the various fares being offered to a small group of Uber drivers, although he says the results were inconclusive.

Drivers in the Finnish city of Jyväskylä also protested last year against Finnish food delivery platform Wolt, which in 2023 shifted from a base payment to a new pricing model that is calculated according to a variety of factors ranging from consumer and merchant location to weather and the weight of an order. Wolt told WIRED that no courier behavior data is used in that calculation.

“They don’t have a workforce to optimize. They don’t have an asset base to optimize. The only thing they have to optimize is the algorithm,” says Farrar of companies operating in the platform economy. “Dynamic pricing has been introduced as a means to charge customers more on average and to pay drivers less.”

Back at the protest in London, the Uber drivers are determined to be heard by the company in the skyscraper above them. Mohammed Farooq says the erosion he has witnessed in his pay over the past four years was enough to bring him here, to his first protest. “Unless we protest, Uber is not going to give us any rights,” he says.

[beardedmrbean]

The Uber passenger charged with a hate crime for pepper spraying a Muslim driver in Manhattan is a former sorority girl who was fired from her PR job over the shocking incident.

Manhattan College graduate Jennifer Guilbeault, 23, had just started a promising career at a New York public relations firm when she was caught on dashcam springing forward to spray her rideshare driver in July, horrifying the pal who was with her.

However, her employer, D Pagan Communications in Melville, fired her over the shocking incident. Agency president Debra Pagan confirmed to PR Weekly that Guilbeault had left the firm, without saying when she left.

“We are aware of the actions of this former employee and we don’t condone this behavior,” the company, which specializes in PR for tech companies, said on X in August.

Guilbeault’s attorneys argued that the case should not be handled as a hate crime — and that a full review of the evidence would prove that.

“Ms. Guilbeault was not motivated by race, religion, national origin, or any other discriminatory factor,” Michael J. Alber said in a statement.

“This case needs to be looked at with all surrounding circumstances which include assessing all of the evidence and lack of evidence,” he added. 

“We look forward to working with the District Attorney’s office to fully vet all of the facts in the proper forum, which does not embellish or exaggerate the claims, especially where the integrity and credibility of claims can properly be tested.”

Guilbeault, a native of Northbridge, Mass. earned a bachelor’s degree in public relations, advertising and applied communication at the Bronx university, where she also served as the VP social chair for her sorority, Sigma Delta Tau, according to an online profile.

Glitzy photos posted to the Manhattan College chapter’s social media page show her and her sisters dressing up for formals and celebrating scholarships.

Guilbeault was indicted in New York State Supreme Court on two counts of assault as a hate crime and aggravated harassment for the Upper East Side attack, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.

Guilbeault was riding in the backseat with the other woman at around 12:15 a.m. when she suddenly sprayed the noxious substance in the 45-year-old driver’s eyes, according to a viral clip circulating online.

The driver, Shohel Mahmud, later claimed that Guilbeault launched her assault simply because of his skin color. He said he hadn’t spoken to the at all women when he picked them up near Lexington Avenue and East 66th Street in Midtown.

“Her friend, she is yelling, ‘Jen, Jen, what the f–k, what are you doing? What’s going on?’” Mahmud told The Post days after the attack. “Her friend is asking ‘Why did you do that?’ And she say, ‘He’s brown.’”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Guilbeault attacked the driver when he began praying in Arabic just as he approached a red light.

The father of three jumped out of the car, thinking the women were trying to rob him and his vehicle. When he hopped back inside as the car started to roll, she maced him again.

Cops arrested Guilbeault at the scene, but initially only gave her a desk ticket.

[optimistredsox]

4 July, BOS @ MIA, 6-5, win, 12th inning

We hadn't had a rollercoaster in some fucking time but what better way to celebrate what must've been the most reflective and subdued Independence Day (considering the rampant rat-fucking shit-fuckery of the Supreme Court at the moment) in living memory than having a proper hold-your-hands-in-the-air-and-shriek-on-the-big-dips rollercoaster of a day game in Miami. Holy shit. Nick Pivetta rocks up and nearly throws a no-no but then the Sox blow the lead and the collective hearts of Red Sox Nation drop like that crazy bit on Space Mountain. Of course, the rollercoaster only really started in the 8th, when the Marlins evened it all up. Before then it was edge-of-the-seat potential no-no watch. What a ride. Anyway, we got the sweep and plenty of bright sides to boot.

Nick Pivetta joins Kutter Crawford (still his real name) and Brayan Bello in the bounce back from a shitty start with a dominating performance club. Dude gave up one hit and two walks over seven innings and left the Sox 2-0 up. Carried a no-no into the seventh. Shook off his previous rough outing like a pro should do. It was pretty great. Shame he didn't get the W because he deserved it. He struck out ten and managed to induce 15 swings and misses.

Dave Hamilton and Tyler O'Neill rocked not one but TWO double steals. The first in the first inning put the Sox ahead 1-0 to kick things off after Raffy knocked Hamilton in with a RBI groundout. Then they did it again in the sixth and Raffy grounded Hamilton in AGAIN with a groundout.

Tyler O'Neill also went 3-for-5 with a run scored and 2 RBIs, one of which was the game-winning RBI.

Jarren Duran was only 1-for-6 but he fired a bullet in the ninth from centre field to throw out Sánchez trying to take home on a single. That would've been a walkoff Marlins win, but not on Jarren's watch. Way to go. That was an awesome outfield assist.

Raffy managed to get 2 RBIs in spite of an uncharacteristic 0fer. He also walked three times.

We won! We had the lead, gave it up, got it back, gave it up, then got it back again and kept it. All from the 8th to the 12th inning. Baseball is fucking great.

We swept the Marlins!

We're pretty good in Florida this season!

Let's go kick the shit out of the Yankees!