#the results seem to be yes

[buggachat]

remember that time lila was an oyster and got cracked open. hey guys. remmeber that time lila. was an oyster. and got cracked open? remember when that happened? does anyone else ever just remember things that happened in this show and lose your mind a little bit

also: chat noir's face as it was happening

[cry-ptidd]

Beast

[internetskiff]

While I personally prefer the industrial aesthetic of Portal 2, it's kinda hard to deny that Portal 1's BTS areas had a sort of vibe to them that is unlike Portal 2's take on it. The industrial areas from Portal 1 are basically a hell of nonsensical technology. It's hilarious, it seems like GLaDOS rebuilding the place from scratch after her awakening somehow made it arguably LESS of a nightmare. I mean, just look at this.

That's not so bad? OK. It gets worse. Why did Aperture have these devices.

What do these pistons even DO they're just here to crush people and smudge up the ceilings with MOLD. Did they put these here so the janitors would always have massive stains on the ceiling they would have to clean (or, more than likely, die trying)?????????

Some of these areas look like they wouldn't even be TRAVERSABLE unless they just handed portal guns out willy nilly.

You know you've fucked up when the homicidal robot is more generous with catwalk placement than whatever termite mound of construction workers that had to pile on top of eachother to build all of this. The only areas I'd argue look even remotely hospitable are the offices, which actually do look kinda cozy, but you'd probably end up getting squashed by a stray piston before you could even GET there.

Y'know Chell is pretty formidable but I think who we really need to fear is whoever the hell worked maintenance before the incident because if you can survive this building-sized tetanus-infested oven I'm pretty sure not even the fuckin Combine would be much of an issue for you. "Oh yeah I had to dodge like 10 pistons in order to get to Turret Manufacturing" like JESUS CHRIST.

[boarloved-art]

some1 on instagram said i should draw sizhui n wuxian when i asked for requests, and then it spiralled into Sword-Twick-Accident Bob Wuxian.....?

[sanjarka]

i'm gonna start being mean. if you have enough understanding for katniss's depression then how are you calling katniss's mom selfish for her response to her husband's death. you do understand what catatonic depression is right? you understand that she didn't purposely abandon her children?

[stillfruit]

edward elric, protector of dogs (x)

[fallingforspring]

What did he learn from his master?

[nonstandardrepertoire]

as a Jewish transsexual, the Jewish ethno-nationalist¹ sales pitch has always left me cold.² over and over again, i've heard people plugging the State of Israel offer some form of the following: "history teaches that we can never fully trust non-Jews with political power to protect Jews; the only way to make sure Jewish people are always safe is to create and maintain a state where Jewish people have the political power, so we can look out for ourselves"

but the thing is, the worst transphobic harassment i've experienced in my life has come from Jews. i don't think this says anything about the relative transphobia of Jews vs non-Jews, anymore than the fact that most of my birthday presents come from New Yorkers says anything about the relative generosity of Californians, but still. the people who followed me out of the subway filming me while yelling transphobic abuse were Jewish. two of the most relentless boosters of the current wave of transphobia in the US — Ben Shapiro and Chaya Raichik — are Jewish. i should be safe in a state run by such people?

and the obvious response is to say that, well, this is about keeping me safe as a Jew, not necessarily as an anything else. it's a bulwark against anti-Jewish violence, not every other -ism under the sun.³ but the thing is, i'm not a potato-head person. you can't just snap off the trans part of me and the Jewish part of me and say the latter part is safe even when the first isn't. i'm 100% Jewish and 100% trans; if i'm not safe as a transsexual, i'm not safe as a Jew. and if i'm going to be having to fight transphobia anyway, what difference does it make if the people passing bills stripping my rights are Jews or not?⁴

if you really lean into the logic at play here — "no one outside a vulnerable demographic can be trusted to care about people in that demographic" — it's easy to wind up in absurdity. because if i can't trust goyim to have my back as a Jew and also can't trust cis people to have my back as a transsexual, perhaps i need a state run by and for Jewish transsexuals. but wait! white Jewish transsexuals are certainly regularly horrible to, eg, Black Jewish transsexuals, so we probably shouldn't be in the same state together, to say nothing of separating out the poor, the disabled, those without college degrees . . . and before you know it, you're committed to the idea that the only just world is one where we're each a state unto ourselves, perfectly safe in absolute isolation from one another — no society, no coming together across difference to lighten the burden of living, just infinite atomization, the perfect unending unwinnable war of all against all

and this, i think, reveals the fundamental futility of the project. as a transsexual, i don't think my safety will ultimately come from removing myself from people not like me. safety, i think, comes not from cutting ties, but from building them. i will only really be safe in a society that accepts difference, multiplicity, strangeness, variety. i will only be truly safe in a society where we come together — across the gulfs that separate us — to take care of one another

i think there are illuminating parallels with feminist/lesbian separatism here. in its most extreme versions, such separatism abandons the demand that women be safe around men and instead attempts the task of building a space without men for women to inhabit. similarly, it seems to me that Jewish ethno-nationalism abandons the demand that Jewish people be safe around goyim and instead attempts to build a space without goyim for Jewish people to inhabit.⁵ i think Jews can and must be safe among goyim. i think women can and must be safe among men. i think trans people can and must be safe among cis people. that is the kind of world i am committed to fighting for, not one where we give in to fear and retreat into gardens walled by suspicion and hostility⁶

i'm not going to pretend that that's an easy world to build.⁷ i'm not going to pretend i can point to a bunch of stable, just, pluralistic societies and go "eh, just do what they did!" (altho there's no shortage of societies i can point to that went the "this place is for us and only us" route and wound up producing dystopian nightmares⁸). i'm not even going to pretend that i think building a just world from where we are now is inevitable, or even that i always think it is possible. there are days it is very hard to believe. but i always think it's worth striving for. if a just world that guarantees a good life to all isn't worth striving for, what is? if we are to suffer defeat, let it be a slow defeat, a long defeat, a fighting defeat. i am not willing to give up on my neighbors. i am not willing to abandon the charge of seeking the good for those not like me. i am not willing to abandon the hope that will seek the good for me despite my strangeness to them. and i reject any philosophy or politics that asks me to do so

_________________________________________________

¹i'm using "Jewish ethno-nationalist" here because i think it's been subject to less semantic dilution than "Zionist", and i want to avoid semantic arguments here as much as possible. whatever prescriptivist arguments you want to marshal that this or that term should mean X, i think it's clear that the descriptivist ship has long since set sail when it comes to "Zionism". (when pushed for specifics, i've seen self-professed Zionists and anti-Zionists outline essentially identical political programs, which certainly makes it seem to me that these terms are of minimal utility at best)

²obviously, what's happening on the ground is very bad. but critiquing what's happening on the ground often runs into severe questions of evidential reliability and can also leave the impression that Jewish ethno-nationalism is a good idea implemented badly, which is why i want to take aim at this level here

³given the European origins of this movement in its modern incarnation, i think it's unsurprising who gets imagined as "just a Jew" and not any other marked category. and from there, i think it's also unsurprising (if depressing) how various Jews who do exist in other marked categories have been and are treated by the "Jewish State" — the promised safety turns out to be predicated on all the usual axes of whiteness, wealth, ability, and so on

⁴indeed, i have often found that groups predicated on the idea that "we're all in alignment here" are often much more resistant to acknowledging members' various bigotries than groups not predicated on that assumption

⁵and, similarly, this attempt to cleave the world along one axis of hierarchy invariably reveals the inadequacy of one-identity-only frameworks for tackling the full complexity of the world. among other things, feminist/lesbian separatism has come under sustained critique from Black feminists like Barbara Smith for sundering ties of solidarity that are critical for fighting racism. victimhood and oppression are not fixed, ontological states, but fluid, shifting, contextual relationships. we cannot undo the snarlingly intertwined systems of oppression by replicating them in miniature

⁶the fear is certainly a real emotion; it is one i have felt at times myself. sometimes it is even based on an accurate perception of the world! but also: sometimes not. my fear of kitchen knives spontaneously levitating and flying around the room certainly feels real to me, but it's not a thing that can actually happen. one of the really hard things to do in the world, i've found, is parsing out the fears that are just feelings i'm having from the fears that tell me actual actionable information about the world and then striking a livable balance between reasonable precaution and paranoia. precautions against danger often come with their own set of risks: locking a door to keep out potential thieves ups the odds of being trapped in a building fire; using a different complex password for every site raises the risk of forgetting one and having a critical account shut down; the medications that drastically cut the frequency of debilitating migraines can raise the likelihood of other adverse health effects. more broadly, viewing neighbors with suspicion, fear, and distrust has a corrosive effect on the social fabric, and makes it harder to structure society to make sure everyone has food, clothes, housing, healthcare — all the things a society is supposed to do. (it's hard to convince people to take care of people they're afraid of, especially if they believe (rightly or wrongly) that they will have to give up something they care about (usually money, but also convenience, prestige, power) for that to happen.) and that corrosive effect can get very extreme — when fascism wants to recruit you to its cause, the sales pitch is usually less "hey, do you want to unleash horrific violence against those folks over there?" and more "hey, aren't you tired of being ~afraid~? don't you want to feel ~safe~? isn't it about time you had all the wealth, respect, and power that's rightfully yours and that's been kept from you for so long?". fear isn't the only way that horrors get unleashed, but it's a very potent one. (i don't think there's a formula for striking the right balance here. as with so many balancing acts, too much comes down to context and the specifics of all those involved, not least because the scale and nature of threats can vary so wildly. i believe that everyone deserves to be safe (insofar as any of us mostly hairless apes clinging to a thin crust of dirt on an iron ball whirling thru the cosmic void around a sphere of nuclear fire can be safe from loss, grief, accident, disaster, or misfortune...), but being and feeling are different matters, and pursuing the feeling of safety without limit can easily lead to logics of annihilation.) (and indeed, i am not the first to be struck by the fact that in many ways it is in the interests of the State of Israel, as a state, if Jews feel unsafe in the rest of the world, because that feeling of unsafety is so easily leveraged to both increase political support for the State of Israel and encourage Jewish people to leave the Diaspora and move to the State of Israel. which, unnervingly, is where you sometimes find the State of Israel and its agents taking the position that Jews don't belong anywhere that isn't the immediate environs of Jerusalem, a position that is ultimately indistinguishable from any number of dime-store Judeophobias)

⁷indeed, i think this is one of many places where it's easier to identify the problem than it is to solve it. many middle schoolers can explain the problem of Fermat's Last Theorem; barely a handful of professional mathematicians in the world could explain the proof. my cat can figure out how to break a vase even tho he can't reliably find a toy he's just been playing with when he's sitting directly on top of it (it's fine, he doesn't follow me on here, i can say that about him); in some cases, a skilled artisan can repair the vase so it functions again; no one in the world can turn back time so that the vase was never broken to begin with. it's easy to invent chessboard solutions to entrenched societal conflicts — move this border here, enact this constitution there, change this societal attitude for all involved, and hey presto!, utopia. but the world is not a game of chess. education, advocacy, activism, political organization, even wildcat direct action — these are all slow, effortful, uncertain processes, and everyone with a different vision of the future is also exercising their agency to change the course of events. i think societies are easy to break and hard to repair. in many cases, i don't really know how we go from here, the real world as it actually is with all its shattered bones and aching wounds and long-festering resentments, to there, a world of true justice. but i think it's worth trying. i think it's worth imagining. i hope you do too

⁸like, idk what even to say if "Germany for the Germans" doesn't set off alarm bells. even if they raised up a brand new continent from the ocean floor, i still think i'd be wary of the political project of building a ~Jewish state for the Jews~. i don't trust nationalism of any flavor. i think the Diasporic notion of feeling kinship with and responsibility for people all around the world regardless of borders, flags, kings, bureaucracies is beautiful and worth cherishing and protecting. i don't dream of finally being on top of the hierarchy; i dream of there not being a hierarchy to begin with

[chocolateandplushis]

A Vocaloid? yes it is, Final Day(day 10) Rin and Len - a two for one deal if you will~ I'm finally done....T^T

[redbean-nom]

the whole death watch/true mandalorians civil war is so weird in context because its like if a bunch of "good old days" religious conservatives got in a fistfight with 13th century crusade reenactors in the middle of an iowa cornfield

[lavenderjewels]

you fascinate me

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Of my 2% capacity to be attracted to anyone, my type is like 90% women, 5% pretty men and 5% men you would swear are super fucking manly, and never questioned being straight and cis, but are now suddenly *stressed* that they can't figure out why their attraction to me [fully socially interpreted as a woman and labelled that way up until relatively recently] feels incredibly fucking gay

[eisthenameofme]

"well maybe the democrats should have been more appealing to leftists if they wanted leftists to vote for them-" i don't know how to explain to you that you, as a leftist, should know that a candidate who is openly a wannabe fascist dictator is still the worse option

[alexjcrowley]

Hey I just want to know something: am I the stupidest person on the planet or the f1 fandom is built differently?

Everytime I go on a social media to look up f1 content I see cute/horny (let's be honest) edits and everybody calling the drivers pookie or making memes. And that's alright, I guess.

I most definitely know that a bunch of (mostly white) men in a very competitive male-dominated sport rooted more than many others in capitalism are probably going to have scandals around them. I am not that dumb. I also know that because probably none of them is scandal-free and people who get crushes/hyperfixation on them just learn to live with them, but I didn't think they just...ignored them? Swept them under the rug? Let me explain.

When I so much as stumble on a TikTok with a song by The 1975 or McCafferty- or hell even Lovejoy recently- I see comments flooding with "bUt DoN't YoU kNoW tHeY'rE pRoBlEmAtIC?". Same happened with content about cinema or books. And on Tumblr happens less but still happens. As soon as you mention something that has ties with sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. people will soon point it out to you. Maybe because they're some of those people with the obsession of only consuming "morally pure" content, maybe they genuinely want to inform you, maybe they fucking hate that song/book/movie and want to give YOU a reason to dislike it.

But can someone tell me if I'm fucking dumb and I managed to stumble in the wrong part of instagram/tumblr/TikTok or NOBODY fucking talks about the shit some drivers have done? Because I am stumbling on a LOT of shit done by drivers I really liked lately even though I have been interested in F1 for a while now. Not too long, but enough that I think I would have heard some stuff.

Like, if I spent like 6 months on the hashtag of Guy Who Drives, why am I now finding out that they said something really discriminatory? I am just confused, I simply thought it would have popped out sooner, but apparently it was buried under 500+ posts about their abs? Like what?

I get that anyway it's not like you can cancel a driver, no matter what shit they say they'll probably still going to be racing the next weekend, but why people don't talk about it? Was my socials' fault for showing me horny posts everytime I simply looked up the name of a guy or do people don't talk about this stuff in the f1 community because "what are you gonna do anyway"?

I am leaning towards the second option because there are a few things that happened while I was already watching f1 (not in order: Lando's comments about, Trump, Hornergate, most drivers saying Hornergate was just noise) and at first people were talking about it but then they just...stopped? Like, I don't know, personally the words of disenterest many drivers expressed about Hornergate made me change my opinion about them at least a little and people seemed so outraged at first but now...it's like it never happened. Everybody back thirsting on main for Ricciardo, Norris, etc.

Genuine question, is the general response of the f1 community to these behaviours "forgive and forget in time of the next gp"? Am I missing something? I don't think they should be crucified but why I have not seen more people talking about this stuff? The "serious sport bunch" seems to be uninterested in "gossip" or whatever happens outsid the tracks, the good old fashioned fandom is writing fanfiction/making edits/funny posts, who keeps tracks of this stuff?

I have never been interested in a sport before. In the artistic world (cinema, literature, etc.) some scandals can get you out of a job and a long lasting hatred from the community. In motorsports, because the success of a driver does not depend from his fans' engagement but can be "objectively proved" by results and victories, do people just...make peace with the fact that some athletes are pieces of shit?

I want to specify it one more time, I am NOT saying LET'S CANCEL ALL THE DRIVERS AND BOO THEM BECAUSE THEY HAVE DONE SOMETHING QRONG AT SOME POINT, I am asking:

how do you deal when an athlete you cheer for does something really fucked up, and you know other athletes in the same field are no saints?

[hausofmamadas]

| Tu cómplice |

⁂

Pairing: Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada x Benjamín Arellano Félix

For @narcosfandomdiscord NarcOctober Fanworks collection [October 1 - Day of Firsts]

Word count: ≈ 2.8K

TWs: Canon-consistent violence? Much angst but like in the supes casual way I imagine Mayo does..?

Just the two of them seated at the wrought iron table in the backyard, up till dawn, smoking and talking. It felt quite the honor just to see the man laugh. Ngl guys, this is Basically just Mayo internally but actively pining for Mín? for like kinda no reason?? while he’s negotiating with Dina because Mín’s gone into hiding after the assassination of Cardinal Juan Posadas Ocampo. Idk this is literally just 3k words of nonsense and insanity. It’s legitimately one of the most aimless and ooc things I’ve ever written sksks but hey!! it exists now..?

⁂

The ornate, gilded door knocker felt heavy between his fingertips as he rapped a few times and waited, stubbing out his cigarette in the open mouth of one of the lion statues placed on either side of the stairway. He chuckled to himself. If it wasn’t an ashtray before, it was one now. To him it looked like one anyway. The mansion’s pretentious decor always screamed “New Money” to him, no matter how hard the Arellanos tried to bury Sinaloa in their past.

By his count, Mayo had only ever been to Arellano house three times. Once by invitation, another by accident, and a third - the last - by mistake. A mistake he couldn’t muster the good sense to regret no matter how hard he tried.

It never pays to fall for a family man, isn’t that what the girls say? Certainly the ones he’d shared a few fleeting nights with between the sheets, a wad of folded bills on the nightstand, couple packs of cigarettes, and some pillow talk that always told some tale of woe about falling for a family man. But is that what happened? Had he fallen? Or was he just at sea like always? Either way, it made for no less than an interesting ride.

The relief-distorted disappointment when it was Pancho who answered the door should’ve told him something, even if he didn’t care to pay it much mind just now. A matter for tomorrow. Except that’s what he’d told himself the whole time. Shit, that’s how he got into this mess. Surely there’d come a point when tomorrow was today, no?

Pancho smiled, “Qué húbole, compa?” and pulled Mayo in, clapping his back twice in a way that was warm and sincere as much as it was overwhelming. But Pancho was good people. He always liked Pancho. Shit, who didn’t like Pancho.

“Nada mucho, nada más,” Mayo winked, tipping his hat as he crossed the threshold into the foyer of the Arellano mansion.

He smirked to himself at the same private joke he had every time he’d set foot in this house: the place’s grandiosity might be as intimidating as it was meant to be if it weren’t so fucking cartoonish. But he supposed that’s what happened when you let an overgrown manchild, dressed head-to-toe in Versace, stick his gold-dipped cuerno de chiva against the decorator’s temple and threaten to blow them away into semi-automatic oblivion, just for a discount on silk drapes from Rome or wherever-the-fuck.

Mayo's eyes stung a bit, hit with the phantom smell of the cigar smoke that came tumbling out of Benjamín’s mouth when he’d laughed himself nearly to tears telling Mayo that story. It'd been just the two of them seated at the wrought iron table in the backyard, up 'til dawn, smoking and talking. It felt quite the honor just to see the man laugh. He got the feeling Mín didn’t laugh much. That was the second time Mayo had been here.

He shook his head, the image etch-A-sketched away like nothing and followed Pancho through the foyer to the dining room and then the living room. Or rather, one of the living rooms. The house smelled so strongly of floral-scented candles and potpourri, he worried he might get a headache sitting in here for too long. They must’ve just had the place cleaned. It bothered him that he even noticed and it especially bothered him why. That it was because there was no hint of that familiar, faint musk that should’ve been there, expensive without trying too hard, that seemed to trail Mín along with a perpetual cloud of neurotic discontent, everywhere he went.

Even from the beginning Mayo liked that about him. The discontent he wore right on his sleeve. He’d noted it when they’d first met at some meat market in Mazátlan, right around the time he first linked up with the Sinaloa crew, just before they arrested Miguel and the whole Federation got dissolved. Just in Mín's discontent, his raw, kinetic ambition, Mayo saw something of himself, even if the two fo them strove for very different things. He used to think, what a strange little something you are, Benjamín Arellano Félix, the way one would think fondly of a pet they had growing up. He found himself wishing now that Mín felt just a pet to him.

But they belonged to each other in a new way now. Darker, tenuous, and confounding in just exactly how straightforward it was. No implications, no questions to be asked. It said nothing about either of them except that they belonged, if only for and evening. Or the amount of time it takes to smoke a full Montecristo and down a stiff drink of scotch.

He turned to the fish tank and stared at his warped reflection, saying to no one in particular, “Things are changing real fast, huh? The army in Tijuana fucking shit up. Coming after your family, no less. Now Benjamín’s gone. Fucking mess, huh?”

He felt it coming. This meeting. Depending on the outcome, it might signify a breaking point and he’d have to choose between what is and what should never be. The Arellanos got caught flying far too close to the sun and they knew it now. (And everyone wondered why he preferred boats.) It’s what set Mín on the lam, no telling how long he would be out there. Floating around wherever he was. Away.

Shaking his head, “Just hoping it all blows over and Benjamín can come back home,” Pancho spilled a glass of some brown liquor, as he set it down on the beverage cart in front of Mayo.

Amused, Mayo tried mopping it with only his fingers until he gave up, taking a sip. There was still plenty to drink, since Pancho had filled it nearly to the brim, almost as high as his own. Suddenly, it made sense why Pancho wasn’t in charge of the family business despite being the oldest. Hombre couldn’t bluff for shit.

Mayo took the seat by the beverage cart, as Pancho practically melted back onto the giant couch across from him. Doing his best to affect it, almost like an afterthought, Mayo leaned back in the chair and said, “Send him my best, yeah?” He took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pockets, giving them a little jiggle and raising his eyebrows.

Pancho got what he was asking but Dina startled him with an answer before Pancho got the chance. She spoke from behind them, standing at a large window, “Of course, please. Make yourself at home.” She waved her own lit cigarette as if to hammer the point home. “I do it in here all the time. Drives mamá mad. The smell gets in the drapes, she says.”

How long had she been standing there? Her beige suit blended so well with the drapes she spoke about with such indifference. Mayo half wondered if it was some kind of business tactic, camouflaging with the furniture. Better to hear all chisme whispered in these halls by house staff or other scheming subordinates a quien no le gustaba tener una jefa. In truth, he didn’t much like it either. But he hadn’t figured out if it was just because she was a woman or because of the kind of woman she was. He never had much patience for anyone with a chip on their shoulder.

Though he’d certainly made an exception for Mín who’d carted around a chip so heavy, it was a wonder he never tipped over. So, maybe it was the woman thing. Did it much matter? Not really cuando sabía que ella había planeado quitarle sus huevos. All these months later, and that cool twenty mil still burned a hole in their coffers and there was no making eyes at Dina to make it all go away, least of all when they were hurting for the cash. Not that he wouldn’t try. That is after all how he and Benjamín started off doing ... Well, whatever the fuck they did.

He thought of Dina’s wedding, how light and alive, self-assured Benjamín was. In his element. A new look he wore so well that, in Mayo’s estimation, he didn’t get to enjoy for long enough. Now look where they all were.

“So look, Pancho,” he brushed Dina off because if her goal was to blend in with it, well, he was happy to treat her like the furniture. “Amado’s expanded operations. Taken over the port in Peñasco, made it hard for my boats to unload. I was hoping to redirect them through San Ysidro, and not pass them through Tijuana.”

“That would put all your business in our plaza, wouldn’t it?”

The smirk of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar broke across Mayo's face and he dragged on his cigarette, nodding in the affirmative.

“And yet, you refuse to join our organization?”

He offered the answer that seemed to satisfy anyone who challenged his go-it-alone approach. It satisfied Mín well enough when he'd approached Mayo at the wedding. “Es qué, a mí me gusta ser mi propio patrón.”

Nothing less than the truth. In an industry of professional con artists, backstabbers, hustlers, and murderers, maybe like her brother, she’d appreciate it.

“Yes, so you’ve said.” She didn’t.

And she still hadn’t turned around to face them. For people so concerned with blending into high society, the Arellanos weren’t the most well-mannered. Mayo’s working-class manner of dress might, to the untrained eye, indicate that manners weren’t something he cared about. But he did. Even in his blackest moments, twisting his knife in someone’s gut or getting ready to light them on fire, he couldn’t much find a reason not to be at least cordial.

Fighting for a lifeline, he glanced at Pancho who almost looked like he was trying to become one with the couch, drink limp in his hand, as he stared at the All-Knowing Queen in white.

She finally turned to grace them with her full attention, gliding over and resting her hands on the back of the empty couch next to him. “You owe us twenty million dollars. What’s your plan to repay us?”

Back in the days when Miguel held court and favored the Sinaloa faction at the expense of his own family, dicking the Arellanos around as though the petulant kids he’d watched grow up would remain petulant kids forever, Mayo remembered thinking that Mín’s attempts at diplomacy weren’t well-earned by their uncle. And he’d told Mín as much. Even Dina agreed at the time.

But all these years later, with Dina the sharp tip of the lethal spear that was now the Arellano Félix Organization, Mayo wondered if they couldn’t do with some of Benjamín’s trademark diplomacy. Mín liked people. He knew how to talk to them. Dina was trickier to deal with. Though savvy like her brother, she was nothing but prickly, sharp edges. Good for dealing what needed to be dealt to their enemies. Not much for making friends.

Mayo tried his hand at diplomacy, “Money in shrimping, eh … moves slower than I’d like,” but ire crept in anyway when the absence of his— his— of Benjamín was screaming at him. “Benjamín understands that. I pay as it comes.”

Understands, yes. Present tense. He was gone, not dead and even with Dina in charge, he still must’ve been keeping tabs from somewhere. She couldn’t have the final word here. Not really.

Unwilling to follow his lead in diplomacy, she shot back. “How much have you got?”

“Here with me?” Now he was annoyed.

And that was met with a haughty huff from her, along with a scorn-filled smirk, so acrid and bitter he nearly tasted it in the air between them. She had him where she wanted him and it twisted his gut, knowing where this was about to go.

“You aren’t moving anything through this plaza until the tax is paid.”

It was over already and he knew it. That didn’t stop him from trying one final time, “Qué dice, Pancho? Esa es la última palabra de la familia?” like it might speak Benjamín into their living room.

Of course, when it didn’t work, the thought of Mín, knowing what he’d have to resort to next, only served to make his stomach churn more. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. What’s that thing they say about purple elephants? Because before the first don’t, the image of Benjamín’s gentle brown eyes in the moonlit backyard, full of that kinetic ambition, not for success but for something else —belonging— flooded Mayo. The third time he’d been here.

᪣

It had only been a few months since the wedding. A celebration at Roxanne’s gone awry and he’d had to bring Ramón home before he tore the club apart, going after Chapo for some snide comment about what they all knew happened to Rayo. The bad blood between the Arellanos and the Sinaloa crew was so long standing without erupting into an all-out war, it seemed to make sense at the time to at least attempt to avoid tipping it over the edge. In hindsight, the whole shitshow was gripped with such inevitability, it seemed more like going against the will of the gods, now that he thought about it. But you only know what you know when you know it. So, he done the sensible thing, intervened before things got ugly, agreeing against his better judgment to remove Ramón from the equation, by driving the rowdy motherfucker home while he sat in the passenger's seat of his pickup, three sheets to the wind, sprawled out, passed out, and snoring. Despite the fact he’d had no love para el pinshe huevón, there was love in his heart somewhere. And so it was easy to say, “yes” after shucking Ramón off his shoulder onto one of their house staff's, when Mín offered him a cigar and a drink. An opportunity for another of their little chats that they’d come to enjoy whenever they crossed paths. Though Mayo had noticed, in the distinct lack of one, every one of those times happened to be under the unconscious supervision of a crowd. So that when Benjamín complimented him on his business savvy, and said things like, “Fuck, man. You’re better than that,” the grin that spread across his face never got as wide as it wanted to be. They never stood as close as they’d wanted to. They never talked for as long as they wanted to. It was for the best. Because without the safety net of nosy onlookers, talking about life, growing up in Sinaloa, the incessant hustle, the never ending grind to the top, commiserating over the absurdity of this business they’d both come up in, ambition, what all of it even meant? Could they do something else? Should they do something else? Was it really worth it?— they both folded like a pair of cheap suits. And so he didn’t remove it, when Mín’s hand found itself on top of his. The contrast of how smooth, almost manicured it was compared his own, weather-worn, brought to light disparities that extended far beyond the physical and yet didn’t make a bit of difference. The words tumbled from Mín’s lips suddenly. “You know ... I do love my wife.” And that trademark cloud of anxiety that made him think too much came swept over them with a fury. Not long for this world, Mayo waved it away. “I know you do.” “You do?” It was almost funny. Despite the evident affinity they shared in these little chats, Mín’s shock reminded him just how little they really knew each other. How much of a gamble he’d just taken. “You know that I know that this,” Mayo lifted their hands, fingers interlaced together, and placed his lips against one of Mín’s knuckles, “and that,” then bobbed his head toward the house, “can be different but true, at the same time.”

᪣

He sighed and swallowed the memory hard.

“‘Ta bueno, ‘ta bueno,” nodding vigorously because he saw the whole fucking thing coming before he’d set foot in the house. Standing up and putting his hat back on, he muttered cooly, “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time.”

Striding toward the fish tank, he thought of Mín again and turned back around. He met Dina’s eyes in a challenge, you did this but simply tipped his hat, “Patrona,” a gesture of faux respect she was undoubtedly smart enough and petty enough to see for what it was.

On his way out of the house, he was already hard at work, scouring his brain. What was the last number that he had for Amado? Fuck, that shit was months ago. He'd probably have a new one. Oh, well. It'd be worth it. Or ... would it? Well frankly, if he was really honest with himself, he'd probably stopped giving a shit the second the words, "make yourself at home" came out of her mouth.

Stepping out into the midday sun at the top of the steps leading down to the driveway, he caught the carcass of his cigarette laying in the lion's mouth out of the corner of his eye.

Dina would regret this and probably never even know why.

But Benjamín would.

En ese mundo de complicidades y traiciones, un día tu mejor enemigo es tu cómplice y al otro se convierte en tu peor enemigo.

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[fideidefenswhore]

Who is your most hated Seymour? For me, it's John, Thomas, Edward and Jane.

roflmao, tbf, i know intellectually that there's not enough there there to justify hating john seymour, but he does give me bad vibes...whatever happened with catherine fillol was weird and i do get the sense he was involved even if not in the rumored way. and also, when siblings hate each other to such an extent, it's often bcus they were pit against each other by their parents, so i get the sense he was not a good father (there's some debate on whether he died late 1536 or 1535, tbf, but if it was the former it's strange that none of children seemed to mourn his death, that he wasn't mourned at court as the queen's father, etc) . margery doesn't have enough about her known for me to judge; it's sort of weird to me that this stereotype has fallen she and jane had a bad relationship and her favorite child/daughter was elizabeth (this occurs in like...several...novels). we don't have an equivalent positive remark to 'next to mine own mother, no woman alive i know better' (AB, about her own, and to bridget wingfield), nor any records of them often being in each other's company during significant events or eras, but we don't have anything negative either. i get you have to make choices in fiction and 'neutral' is not an interesting one but like...damn.

what's interesting about edward and thomas is that, even before their sister becomes queen, edward is not spoken of well by his contemporaries. very early (iirc, 1535) on, his 'small conscience' is decried, and he becomes such an avaricious figure that cromwell and the king have to interfere in his attempts to manipulate and loophole property laws to his own advantage and the impoverishment of others (and, not usually in his favor, despite him being a royal in-law). thomas, however, seems like he's better liked in the 1530s, although this can maybe be attributed to him being more of a nonentity (a comparative example is some tudor authors insisting GB was 'better liked' than his sister anne-- not true, it seems-- or more often, that their sister mary was...which is probably true, but also probably more indicative of relative lack of power and positions and leverage than 'kinder' personality)...it's not until the 1540s that we get comments of the same genre ("somewhat empty of manner"). thomas thus seems more like a figure of gradual corruption, his arrogance was increased by his nephew becoming king, it seems, and resentment brought out an ugly side of his character (arguably, the same with edward, just earlier on).

it's extremely unpopular to say this on here, but yeah, jane is definitely not a favourite of mine, either. but i don't think my reasons for this are really common...i don't care if she slept with henry before marriage, i don't care if she didn't, i just find her biographers weirdly contradictory in their judgements of her character, the nature of her rise, and her own beliefs. there's also like, this sense of historic illiteracy from some of her defenders...joining a royal household (as far as the most prestigious positions, that is) was not the equivalent of serfdom (as in, they could leave at any time). jane's supporters were courtiers who hated anne, so it's reasonable to assume she did, as well. so, there's this sort of moral hypocrisy about jane as a figure and her advancement and how she came to her position that has always prevented me from warming to her as a figure. 'she hated anne and all she stood for' explains her involvement in her downfall, but not her securing the position in her household in the first place. and by virtue of her close proximity to anne as queen, she also knew that it was nigh impossible that she was actually guilty of the accusations of adultery.

what else...her defenders insist that the oaths of supremacy and succession were anathema to her moral compass, yet she likely did have to have had taken them herself, just as a subject, and if not that then definitely as a member of anne's household. this wouldn't have martyred/imperiled her life, althought it probably would have her career (elizabeth darrell never took these, so i wonder if the penalty for women was different...? barton is often cited as an example but this was not in her indictment. princess mary seems to almost have been a victim of this, but it might've been more that her signing was more important since she was a rallying point for dissenters).

and even if jane never took these, the presence of noblewomen serving anne as queen lent to her greater image of royal legitimacy. she had to have known that, and if she didn't believe her position was legitimate...then why be part of that tapestry? there's not an equivalent to her predecessor to be made here, not when anne left her own predecessor's household and began her own as soon as she came to believe catherine was not legitimately queen or henry's wife. any credulousness towards contemporary report of this time would suggest anne was extremely hostile towards her rival, but there is a difference between declaring that you'd sooner watch your rival hanged before revering them and, well...actually doing that (...effectively, if not literally).

actually, i don't think there's actually much to suggest jane was set against the religious supremacy unless you make some suppositional leaps (the dissolution wasn't so explicitly connected here, her support of mary as princess, even if rather cosmetic, could be seen as support for her decision not to take those oaths herself for nigh on two years...). nor against succession acts as brought by parliament, since the same illegitimized any potential rivals to her future children, and she seemed to make a point in one of her only pieces of writing we have in emphasizing edward's legitimacy (implicitly, at the expense of her stepdaughters).

the narrative fiction i probably dislike about jane the most is this idea that she was so reverent of catherine's memory, it's really fucking weird, honestly... it bothers me because i know it's embellished to increase reader/viewer (the tudors comes to mind) sympathy and somehow for me it does the opposite, lol. there's something about the concept of her trading on the memory of this beloved woman (who, herself, probably didn't even remember jane, there's nothing to suggest any kind of friendship between them) who was exiled, this woman whom jane did not a single thing for (not even abstaining from joining the household of her rival), that just really grosses me out. henry was the one who was her husband, and obviously he was a fucking asshole to and about her, but there's at least something more...direct, in his attempted erasure of her memory. it's always bothered me that it's never acknowledged that the antecedent (which was carried on throughout) to jane's queenship was the erasure of both her predecessors, the illegitimization of both their daughters, both of them being subordinated, and, more or less (mary present for christmas, elizabeth not, but both there during the rebellions) equally expelled from court.