Remember my boy? :D

Finally colored my sketches of Neon! Even though the quills in 2/3 of these are in my old style, I'm still really proud of how he came out.

Don't know what I'm talking about? You can read Neon's original post here. :3

whshdfhfjf.,,,

What is the point of requiring masks to walk into a building, only to leave it up for personal choice once people sit down for a performance? Do you understand how masks work?

Ten inessential worldbuilding features for local communities in your fantasy RPG:

A grievance or conflict of interest with a neighbouring community which the community's members feel much more strongly about than the issue's magnitude really warrants

A substance or commodity important to everyday life with no local source, and the complicated and inconvenient arrangement the community has made to obtain it from outside sources

A local practice or custom whose original motivation has been rendered obsolete by changing circumstances, and which is now carried forward out of tradition

Something that's technically illegal, but everyone does it on the sly anyway, with enforcement of its illegality being reserved for people the community's leaders want to mess with for unrelated reasons

An obscure piece of trivia or local history which the community's members regard as obvious and widely known, to the extent of treating outsiders with contempt for revealing their ignorance of it

Some undertaking or realm of achievement in which the community isn't particularly exceptional, but which the community's members believe they're the best around at as a point of civic pride

A mostly harmless thing that nobody talks about because its existence or some facet of its historical context is regarded as an embarrassment to the community

A particular prank that's become traditional to play on visitors to the community, and which occasionally gets taken further than is strictly appropriate

A specific area of the setting's history where what the community's members insist really happened is wildly at odds with the accepted version of events

A genuinely dangerous circumstance that everyone treats with casual disregard because it's always been there, and only a damn fool would actually get hurt by it anyway

Historians are rarely challenged just for applying words like ‘woman’ and ‘man’ to the past; it would not inevitably cause a backlash to say that a historical figure wanted power, or grieved, or felt anger. A trans historian, though, is caught in the double-bind of the DSM-5. Our experiences and our desires are quite literally mad. We do not have the social license to see ourselves fractured and reflected in historical figures; we are standing in the wrong place to write. Put simply, if you foreclose trans readings, you foreclose trans writing. When we reflect on the similarities between our lives and those of historical figures, we are accused of spreading our social contagion to the dead. To read our own anamorphoses in a text, to communicate that to a cis academic establishment who have rendered our unqualified subjectivities unimaginable, we are forced to accuse historical figures of transness. And then, of course, we are chastised for pathologising them. For a trans historian, it is not viable to simply universalise our experiences of gender. In order to relate to historical figures’ gendered experiences in our writing in a way that is legible to cis readers, we have to assert that those figures were trans. There is a gap to be bridged, and the onus to bridge it falls on us… Transmisogyny and anti-effeminacy were and are integral to the structure of patriarchy and therefore to cisness (or vice-versa). In ‘Monster Culture (Seven Theses)’, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen proposed a methodology for reading cultures: ‘from the monsters they engender’. In concluding this sketch of Byzantine cisness, I would like to attempt to apply this method. To monster a group or an individual is a violent act, and through examining the way transfemininity was monstered in Byzantium, we can begin to understand the shape of the violent regulation of gendered possibilities that constituted Byzantine cisness… Synesius [of Cyrene] did not simply compare the image of the elegantly coiffed effeminate with the shiny dome of the soldier’s helmet; he went one step further, proclaiming that pretty hair was the give-away for hidden effeminacy. He rails against ‘effeminate wretches’ who ‘make a cult of their hair’, who he suggests engage in sex work not out of economic necessity but as an act of sex and gender exhibitionism, to ‘display fully the effeminacy of their character’. Then, he goes on to say:

And whoever is secretly perverted, even if he should swear the contrary in the marketplace, and should present no other proof of being an acolyte of Cotys save only in a great care of his hair, anointing it and arranging it in ringlets, he might well be denounced to all as one who has celebrated orgies to the Chian goddess and the Ithyphalli.

The implication is clear: long, well kempt, perfumed and curled hair is not just hair, it is a signifier, one that signals total abnegation of manhood, and therefore of cisness. This demonstrates one of the mechanisms by which cisness was maintained and enforced in the Byzantine world. Relatively minor embodied gender transgressions, like too-long or too-pretty hair, could be linked to transfemininity and to sexual receptivity, the two farthest points from patriarchal manhood. That is not to say that this prevented people from committing such gender transgressions; rather that it made them risky, a weapon that could be used against you by anyone who wanted to do you harm. The other thing demonstrated by Synesius’ invective is the relationship between effeminacy, unmasculine vanity and presumed sexual receptivity. It would be tempting, based on the relationship Synesius draws between long beautiful hair and receptive anal sex, to suggest that the animating force of this antipathy is, if not homophobia, a narrower pre-modern equivalent. There is, however, a fantastically complicating detail in Synesius’ remark on the reasons such ‘effeminates’ engage in sex work: being sexually available is presented as an instrumental, rather than terminal value. In Synesius’ imagination, sex work is the means, but social recognition of the feminine gender of the sex worker is the end: to ‘display fully the effeminacy of their character’. The monster Synesius invokes to shore-up his own gender position, to guard his own cisness and his access to hegemonic masculinity, is an unambiguously transmisogynist fantasy. It is here that Byzantine cisness most sharply converges with twenty-first-century cisness.

‘Selective Historians’: The Construction of Cisness in Byzantine and Byzantinist Texts, Ilya Maude [DOI]

The Stop Cop City movement has sought to prevent the expropriation of part of the Welaunee Forest for the development of an 85-acre police mega training center: a model town to prepare the state’s repressive arms for the urban warfare that will ensue when the contradictions of their exploitation and extraction become uncontainable, as they did in 2020 after the APD murdered Rayshard Brooks.  That murder, and all those that came before, were the lodestars of the Black-led movement during the George Floyd uprisings; their demands were no less than the dismantlement of the entire carceral system. Unable to effectively manage or quell the popular street movements, the Atlanta Police Foundation set out to consolidate and expand their capabilities for surveillance, repression, imprisonment, armed violence, and forced disappearance. One result is Cop City, which has been racked by militant sabotage, land occupation, arson, and popular mobilizations, in an attempt to end the construction and return Atlanta to its people.  As the Atlanta Police Foundation was unable to contain the 2020 Black rebellion, so too have they been unable to quell the resistance against Cop City. The press reports that the project is hemorrhaging money and is mired in delays and difficulties. For their part, the city, the state, and the federal government, have in turn employed every tool in their power to destroy the movement. Last week, the Georgia State Senate passed a bill to effectively criminalize bail funds in the state; RICO charges have been contorted to target networks of support and care that surround the fighters; and last January, APD assassinated the comrade Tortuguita in cold blood while they rested in their tent in the forest. It is clear that Stop Cop City represents one of the conjunctural spear tips for expanding the existing systems of counterinsurgency that span Africa, Asia, and the Arab world.  Today the system’s belly rests atop Gaza, whose rumblings shake the earth upon which we walk. Through its Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, the APD has sent hundreds of police to train with the Zionist occupation forces. And in October 2023, after Tufan al-Aqsa, the Atlanta Police Department engaged in hostage training inside abandoned hotels, putatively intended to “defeat Hamas,” in an advancement of tactics for the targeting of Black people. With every such expansion, the ability of counterinsurgency doctrines to counteract people’s liberation struggles grows. The purpose of counterinsurgency is to marshal state and para-state power into political, social, economic, psychological, and military warfare to overwhelm both militants and the popular cradle—the people—who support them. Its aim is to render us hopeless; to isolate and dispossess us and to break our will to resist it by any and all means necessary. This will continue apace, unless we fight to end it. Stop Cop City remains undeterred: on Friday, an APD cop car was burnt overnight in response to the police operation on February 8; yesterday, two trucks and trailers loaded with lumber were burnt to the ground. An anonymous statement claiming credit for the former, stated: “We wish to dispel any notion that people will take this latest wave of repression lying down, or that arresting alleged arsonists will deter future arsons.”  As the U.S. government and Zionist entity set their sights on the Palestinian people sheltering in Rafah, as they continue their relentless genocide of our people in Khan Younis, Jabalia, Shuja’iyya, and Gaza City, the Stop Cop City movement has clearly articulated its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. They have done so with consistency and discipline, and we have heard them. Our vision of freedom in this life and the next requires us to confront and challenge the entangled forces of oppression in Palestine and in Turtle Island, and to identify the sites of tension upon which these systems distill their forces. This week, as with the last three years, the forest defenders have presented us one such crucible.

(11 Feb 24)

National Lawyers Guild, Stop All Cop Cities: Lessons For a National Struggle (video, 1 hr 45 min)

(Coercive) Gender is a power structure that works to produce certain classes of subjects (men, women, and others) that are useful to the broader political system (the nation, civilization, etc), and to structure relations within and between these groups. 

While gender presents itself as natural, it is far from stable, rife with tension and contradictions that are necessary to its functions. You *are* a man, fundamentally, (passively, unchangeable part of your essence) if you are camab, but you also must *be* a man (actively, complying with the expectations of masculinity). Even if we only look at relatively normative cis men, it's extremely common to feel alienated from the ideals of manhood (“I don't feel like a real man” is a common refrain). 

A certain amount of distance from the ideals of gender is normal, and part of what makes it a useful motivating system. But the system is backed by coercive force, which reveals itself as people deviate more dramatically from gendered expectations. 

Everyone has friction with gendered expectations – both as they grow up and in ongoing ways –but the naturalized, path of least resistance is to identify with your assigned gender, strive to live up to its expectations, and to give up on the sides of yourself that would put you into open conflict with it. 

While the exact details of masculinity are highly variable (over time, and from group to group), common threads are displaying power/competency/dominance and avoiding weakness/femininity. This is structurally tied to being able to produce soldiers, workers, and for men broadly to serve as a class of enforcers. 

The coercion used to produce womanhood as a class has generally been viewed as part of misogyny (and while it’s experienced unevenly, it’s a broad force meaningfully acting on all women and all ppl expected to be women). The coercion that produces manhood forms a core aspect of transmisogyny, and it's primarily focused on a small minority of people, which is part of what leads to the intensity of transmisogyny. Transmisogyny carves away, and what's left is normative manhood. 

In this way, transfems can constitute a kind of sacrifice class. Wherein gratuitous violence against small minority gives potency to the implicit threat when others are told to “man up” or “stop being a sissy,” and tries to render it unthinkable to be anything other than a compliant man.

Eowyn and Gothic Horror

I've ranted about the interpretation that Eowyn's rejection of gender roles was a symptom of her sickness, caused only by Grima's manipulations. An interpretation that doesn't hold to either Gandalf's speech in the Houses of Healing, when he specifies how the liberties denied to Eowyn and allowed to Eomer and her male peers played a crucial role in her depression, or when we see how Eowyn was really vindicated in her decision to ride to battle by her victory over the Witch King. A victory that wins her incredible renown and respect.

I think this reading comes about because people see the significance of Grima's contribution to Eowyn's despair, and think he is the sole source of it.

But Eowyn was not dissatisfied with her role and her enforced position in the house because of Grima's manipulations. She didn't rail against sexism because Grima played with her head and "poisoned" her traditionally feminine role for her.

Grima was able to prey on Eowyn, manipulate her and drive her to despair, because of the sexism that forced Eowyn to remain stuck in the house.

Look at the speech Gandalf gives Eomer about Eowyn's sufferings. The very first thing he mentions is the fact that Eowyn was denied the freedoms and opportunities Eomer had. The suffering that follows stems from that first initial injustice.

Because of that first injustice, Eowyn was rendered vulnerable, and Grima was able to exploit that. That isolation, that limited freedom, that unhappiness about her lack of choices, left her free game for Grima to take an already bad situation, and make it far worse.

Thinking about Eowyn's experience in Meduseld, what the impact of being confined to the domestic sphere did to her, and what is left her vulnerable to, makes me think of Gothic horror, and the role of sexism and domesticity in that genre too.

Eowyn's situation before the novels is that of a classic Gothic heroine. A fair, beautiful woman, trapped inside a decaying house, and preyed on by an awful monster, who hungers after her beauty and longs to possess her. Or else, destroy her.

Domestic settings and isolation are pretty crucial themes in the gothic genre, and for that reason it has historically been seen as a woman's genre. It taps into a pretty universal fear of what happens when home ceases to be a safe space, a fear that historically, has a particularly great resonance for women.

Whereas traditionally home is a refuge and respite for men from the world, the home is the woman's only true acceptable sphere. And yet even there she is subordinate. Therefore, she is vulnerable. With no place in the outside world, she has no escape, no respite, no refuge. If home becomes an evil, she is trapped. And because she has no place in the social sphere, she has no voice either. She is invisible, she is overlooked, her sufferings and her contributions are passed over,

Eowyn is isolated. Eowyn is vulnerable. Eowyn is overlooked. And because Eowyn is isolated and vulnerable and overlooked, Grima is able to get his hooks into her and drive her to despair. She is a wild animal, trammelled and caught in a hutch, a predator's helpless prey. But Grima didn't put Eowyn in the hutch. Eowyn was already there. Grima just took advantage of that.

Even after Grima is gone, Meduseld is still a place Eowyn longs to escape, and while its evil is purged and she does return, it is only for a short while. Grima's defeat is not enough to make Meduseld a place where Eowyn can find real happiness or fulfilment. On its own, it still represents a role for Eowyn that she wishes to move beyond.

The healing counterpoint to Eowyn's gothic castle of horrors, the hutch she was caught in, is in escape, and in a return to nature.

Eowyn's entire romance with Faramir takes place within the gardens of the Houses of Healing, where we see Eowyn start to recover from her ordeal. It takes place on the open, in the garden, on the ramparts, with much notice given to the sky and the sun and the elements around them.

(Also, the Houses of Healing themselves are not a domestic setting, but a public one, and there we see women working alongside men and holding authority.)

Eowyn's happy ending, her great escape, climaxes with her decision to go with Faramir to Ithilien.

Ithilien is the exact opposite of a hutch. It's descriptions are filled with natural imagery, and is known as the Garden of Gondor. It is a place for growth and fresh starts. A place of freedom. A place for a wild thing.

When Faramir suggests that he and Eowyn live in Ithilien, he reasserts again and again that they will go there if it is Eowyn's will. Both Tolkien and Faramir put emphasis on the importance of Eowyn's will, and Eowyn's right to freedom of movement.

In his plans for their future, Faramir talks of "us" and "we", removing the separation between men (belonging to the social sphere) and women (belonging to the domestic), and speaks of Ithilien as a shared dwelling place for both of them. Faramir only distinguishes between himself and Eowyn when he puts importance on Eowyn's will, and at the end, on Eowyn's influence.

At the close of his speech, Faramir says all things will grow with joy in Ithilien, if Eowyn is there. Returning Ithilien to its former glory, allowing it to bloom once more, is to become Faramir's life's work, and still it is Eowyn's influence he puts centre stage. Far from being kept confined to the domestic sphere, relegated to being Faramir's home support while he dominates the rehabilitation of Ithilien, Faramir places Eowyn's work and Eowyn's significance at the heart of their future together.

Eowyn goes from being shut in the house, where everything around her was decaying and falling to ruin, to being freed to stand in the heart of nature, where there is a chance for influence, growth, and fresh starts.

Separate Vox and Velvet with a powerful s/o that killed Valentino for torturing them?

No Can Do

Vox

You held the man close, feeling the way he gripped at your coat, practically tearing it, his face planted against your chest.

His breathing was unsteady, his body held against yours, the man so pulled in on himself.

It was so unlike him.

You let him settle, his breathing slowing as you simply held him, letting him calm down.

After some time, you pulled him back, trying to look at him.

Vox turned away, the man didn't want you to see him like this.

Perfection was his image, and he hated it when anybody, but especially you, saw him as anything Less.

You pulled his face back, gently caressing the side of his head as he looked at you.

His screen was smashed, the right side of his face shattered in several jagged chunks.

Valentino's handiwork.

You held his face for a minute before you leaned in, kissing his face gently before leaning back.

His face began to heal, the cracks in his screen slowly disappearing as you held him close.

You held him for a few minutes longer, just to let him calm down and settle in your embrace.

After some time you pulled back from the embrace, kissing him once more before assuring him, you'd take care of it.

And take care of it you did.

You really made a show of it, making sure to record the entire thing, really working the man into a red mist. You having a whole rig to make sure every punch, kick and cut was witness in 4K quality.

Just as Vox would want it.

You didn't release the footage of course, seeing one of the V's being brutally murdered might damage their image, but you made sure Vox saw it, letting him watch every second of it, finishing it by pulling him close, looking him in the eyes before kissing him. Telling him he meant the world to you.

You'd love the man hard and true, helping him stabilise his empire now that Val was out of the picture, though even with the work, you alway found a way to spend some time with him.

The two of you would have a passionate romance, one only fuelled by your actions, as well as just how fiercely protective you were of the man.

Something he relished, the man always getting all giggly when you held him close, man a little love drunk when you got possessive of him.

The man was still very independent and headstrong, somethung you mostly respected. But with you, his loving S/O enforcing his will, and with him not having to worry about Val's emotional volatility, buisness ran far smoothly for the man.

Granted, he was down a V, and their 'adult material' monopoly had taken a substantial hit, but you made up for it by rangling up the remnants of his studio, signing them up to Vox-Tec as a subsidiary.

Things would be shaky for some time, but after the storm had settled, and you went back to buisness, with you by your television moguls side, things only looked up for you.

Your romance would be sweet and very passionate, yet refined in a manner only Vox could accept, you knowing how to behave in public, often allowing Vox to lead the situation simply to keep him happy, only stepping in when... Necessary.

But you loved him, and he loved you, and while it was never perfect, nothing in Hell ever was, it would be amazing for both of you, neither of you regretting it for a second.

Velvet

Now, Velvet wasn't some delicate little flower, not by any means.

But when you found the woman in her studio, barely keeping it together, bloody and bruised, you knew what you had to do.

You of course comforted your S/O first, despite your resistance, fixing her up and giving her some love. You planting a kiss on her lips before telling her not to worry.

You dealt in an awfully sadistic manner. Breaking Val slow and brutally, making sure everyone saw it as you rendered him limb from limb.

It was humiliating, for him, everyone watching you crush the life out of the husk that contained his retched soul, leaving him a nothing. A stain on the floor of the V tower, one you refused to have cleaned, leaving it as an example to everybody.

Nobody fucked with you. Or your girl.

Yours and Velvets relationship would be odd for a while.

You did just kill one of her allies and a close friend, granted, he was a piece of shit who abused her, but she wasn't no saint either.

Vox was also pretty icy with you, but he wouldn't do much seeing as you'd only acted to avenge Velvet, the girl standing up for you, managing to steady his hand.

Though you were pretty sure you could take him.

50/50.

Once things settled down, however, you'd only get closer with your british accented babe, a passionate romance bubbling between you.

The two of you would grow ever closer, intimacy growing stronger and stronger every day.

You'd often times just spend time with her in her studio, watching her work or manage her shows, throwing your 2 bits in when asked about a dress or outfit, only to be ignored by the fashionista, the woman knowing full well more about fashion then you ever would, so you usually just agreed with whatever she said.

But you also spent plenty of time together outside of the studio, either enforcing the V's will, or simply to cause some chaos. The two of you never closer then when you got freaky in the middle of a turf war.

Literally.

You'd have a firey, passionate romance, the sort Val would record for premium vids, you seamlessly assimilating into the remaining V's power structure, helping the both of them maintain their power, all the while loving your sassy, sarcastic bad bitch of an S/O.

Let's get this show on the road.

Here he is! This is Neon the Holo-hog, though he goes by many different names depending on who you ask.

Neon started life as Project FRIEND, which stands for Form of Realistic Intelligence for Entertainment and Nurse Designation. Fifty years ago, Professor Gerald created him to be a companion and medical assistant to Maria, who was so sick as this point that she wasn't allowed to be in contact with anyone else. Maria and gave the holo-hog another name: Neon, which is what he prefers to go by.

Fifty years later, the Chaos Council discovered a mysterious program buried deep in their system, shut down in deep sleep. They reactivated it and discovered Neon. Seeing what Gerald did with him as a waste of potential, they reprogrammed him into Render, which stands for Realistic Enforcer of New Defenses of the Empire's Resources. Render mostly maintained internal things during the events of Sonic Prime.

Once the Council was defeated and driven out of New Yolk, they had Render join then on the front lines, essentially replacing Rusty Rose. Now, it's only a matter of time before he runs into the Resistance.

Neon is a computer program who manifests himself as a hologram. He's completely intangible. However, he does have the ability to take over any of the Council’s tech at any time, kinda like Dr. Don't can. Theoretically, he could take over Rusty as well, but that all depends on if she's disconnected herself from whatever network the Council’s using.

Although he's been reprogrammed, Neon hasn't quite lost his original personality. He's still very kind and caring at heart. He hates violence and will give his opponents every opportunity possible to back out before fighting them. Neon is so realistic that he actually had emotions and this confuses him to no end, lol. He also tends to glitch when he's confused, conflicted, or upset. He is a very old program afterall.

EDIT: Colored version here!

tw// rough sex, bondage, not proof read, price is mean (shock horror ik)

i wasn’t gonna post this yet but i just couldn’t resist.

price tries so hard. He is an owner who firmly believes in positive re-enforcement, praising you when you're good, and ignoring you when you're bad. But even he has a limit.

For the past week, you've been a brat. You've broken into the treats twice, ignored his commands and you even tried to bite him. He tries everything he knows, spanking you, taking your toys away, even smacking you across the face, but nothing works.

That's when he decides enough is enough. You need a real mean punishment, something to remind you how nice he is. How well he treats you.

So, he visits the vet. He buys a cream that’s made to numb the skin. Its specially made for hybrids, to use as a form of punishment. It'll take away any physical feeling, leaving you understimulated, while still keeping that uncontrollable need for release.

Part of price feels bad, he shouldn't enjoy the thought of fucking you while you can't feel a thing as much as he does, but he really cant help it

He waits, like a predator stalking prey, watching for the smallest slip up. All it takes is for you to speak with the slightest hint of attitude, and then he pounces.

within seconds he has you on the bed, legs spread, cunt exposed to his sadistic gaze. One hand holds your thighs apart, the other reaching for the tube of numbing cream. Your eyes are wide as you watch, your body squirming. A mix of fear and curiosity courses through your veins and it only heightens when price slaps your thigh. “Stay still.”

Your clit twitches as he smears the cold, white cream over it. He grins, watching the way your thighs tense and your hips buck. Price revels in the slow realisation that spreads over your face, you cant feel a thing.

your thighs twitch, ears pressing flat against your head as your pout. “can’t- price! can’t feel anything!” your voice is high pitched, slightly panicked, your hands reach down to try to stimulate your clit.

price huffs, momentarily pausing his actions as he retrieves a pair of handcuffs, securing both your wrists to the head board.

your body stretches out, back forming a natural arch as you’re rendered helpless. you try to squirm but it’s fruitless. your body is completely exposed and vulnerable to him.

price grins, eyes devouring the image of you. his hands grope your tits, thumbs brushing across your nipples before he glides his hands further down. they follow the curve of your waist, his hands big enough to cover almost your entire stomach.

“so pretty, but such a brat,” it’s almost as if he’s talking to himself, eyes half lidded as they drift up and down your body. “maybe you learn to be a good girl if your cunt is numb.” he leans forward, kissing the hallow of your neck. his lips continue their trail, beard brushing your skin as he kisses down your chest, then stomach, until his face is level with your cunt.

he noses your clit, grinning when you don’t react. the cream is doing exactly what he wanted it to. “what’s wrong pup?” his breath is hot against you, beard itching your thighs, “doesn’t it feel good?” his eyes meet yours, lower half of his face buried between your legs.

they’re mean, filled with amusement at your inability to feel pleasure. his arms wrap around your thighs, burying himself fully in your cunt.

he laps at your clit, swirling his tongue around the nerves before sucking. all you can feel is the scratch of his beard, the way he holds you firm. your hands pull desperately against the cuffs, hips bucking into his face as you seek the pleasure you’ve become so accustomed to.

after a moment, once his face is covered in slick, he pulls back. his beard is slick, eyes sharp as he looks over your flushed form. he almost seems like a predator, enjoying your every twitch and whine. “i know, im so mean, aren’t i?” a hand comes to your tummy, rubbing over the soft pudge before moving to your cunt, “how bout i make you feel better, hm?”

you’re too busy babbling and squirming to notice how he coats two of his fingers in the numbing cream, right before he stuffs your cunt full with them.

the sensation of his fingers inside you only lasts a second, then it’s completely stripped away. it’s almost funny the way your cunt clenches around his fingers, seeking out an ounce of stimulation it can. price laughs under his breath, drinking in the scene. you’re panting, body tense and hot, the overwhelming need to cum burning in your gut. he tilts his head, a sick smirk spreading across his face.

“you look so pathetic,” he pulls his fingers out, wiping the slick on your thighs, “maybe i should take some photos, give them to my recruits,” he grips your jaw, forcing your eyes to meet his, “would you like that? knowing men you don’t even know are cumming on photos of you?”

you can barely process his words, tears starting to stream down your face. little whimpers fill the room, a pretty pout on your face.

price just laughs, shaking your head side to side roughly before letting go. his hands slide down to your thighs, spreading your cunt wide as he lines himself up. “let’s see if this cunt’s still useful, even if you can’t feel a fucking thing.”

A lot of folks are responding to the whole Reddit situation by calling for the return of decentralised forums, and I think it's important to remember that, contrary to certain popular narratives, the reason early 2000s forum culture has fallen by the wayside is not because people are Just Lazy. Certainly, ease of use is part of it, but a much larger part of it is how vulnerable self-hosted forums are.

Basically, the problem is that even the largest and most carefully managed self-hosted forums can be rendered unusable more or less indefinitely by a single sufficiently determined hostile actor. This can take the form of both attacks on the forum's social infrastructure (i.e., via sock-puppet accounts, botting, organised "raids", etc.) and attacks on its technical infrastructure (i.e., via hacking, DDoS, etc.). In either case, a self-hosted forum has no real defence, and the majority of decentralised forum communities survive only by virtue of their relative obscurity; once a self-hosted forum manages to attract the attention of That One Guy who's willing to devote his life to shitting the place up over some microscopic slight, it's effectively game over.

Right now, there are essentially only two mitigation strategies:

Gathering huge numbers of communities under a single, massively centralised technical infrastructure that's simply too large and robust for any one hostile actor to bring down; and

Hardening the community's social infrastructure either by going private and invite only (i.e., the Discord approach), or by making use of a vast centralised pool of volunteer labour to aggressively enforce community standards (i.e., the Reddit approach).

To be clear, these are not intractable problems; other solutions may well exist. However, any proposed plan for bringing decentralised public forums back needs to address them. If you're going in operating under the assumption that forums have become marginalised simply because corporations are evil and people are lazy, you're setting yourself up to learn the hard way why self-hosted forums no longer seem to be capable of growing beyond a certain point.

The New Yorker just issued its cover: Donald J Trump, A Man of Conviction, by John Cuneo

+

Justice.

May 31, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

Justice.

On Thursday, May 30, justice was served in a Manhattan courtroom.

A jury of twelve citizens convicted Donald Trump on thirty-four felony counts of falsifying documents to interfere in the 2016 election.

Justice was served.

Trump received a fair trial before an impartial jury presided over by an even-handed judge.

Trump had the right to testify or remain silent. He chose to remain silent—as permitted by the Fifth Amendment.

He had the unlimited right to challenge jurors “for cause” if he demonstrated that a juror could not render an impartial verdict. Trump challenged only one juror for cause—a juror who had once been the houseguest of one of Trump's attorneys. That juror was later excused on a peremptory challenge by Trump.

Trump had ten “peremptory challenges” that allowed him to excuse jurors without providing a reason. Trump exercised all ten peremptory challenges.

Trump was able to object to the testimony of witnesses and the introduction of exhibits. He objected continuously. Many of his objections were sustained, and most were overruled (because they were baseless).

He cross-examined every witness offered by the prosecution. He offered two witnesses in his defense. They sealed his fate.

He made an opening statement and a closing argument to the jury.

He was able to submit and object to jury instructions.

After the jury began deliberations, its requests to review key evidence and important jury instructions indicated that it took its charge seriously.

The length of the jury’s deliberations and the unanimity of its verdict on thirty-four counts demonstrate that they were persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump was guilty as charged.

Justice was served.

The verdict matters because it demonstrates to Americans that the core of our democracy is strong and true.

One fair verdict will offset a dozen compromised and corrupt judges and justices. The verdict demonstrates what justice looks like—and reminds us of what we can have again if we gain control of Congress and retain the presidency.

The verdict is important because it reminds Americans that no person is above the law in our democracy. That bedrock truth must be reinforced periodically, or it will lose its animating force.

The verdict also speaks to the world. It reminds friends and foes alike that the audacious American experiment is robust and secure. Convicting a former president in a fair trial is something few other nations would attempt—much less accomplish in a peaceful and orderly manner.

The verdict gives Americans much to be thankful for:

A fair jury composed of twelve Americans willing to perform the simple but extraordinary task of sitting in judgment over a former president.

A District Attorney willing to carefully review the evidence and follow the law.

Competent and diligent prosecutors willing to do the hard work necessary to achieve justice.

An honorable, fair, firm judge willing to protect the rights of the defendant and the interests of the people in seeing justice served.

Court officers, law enforcement officers, clerks, paralegals, and court reporters who ensured that the court proceeding unfolded in an orderly and safe manner.

Given the fundamental fairness of the trial and verdict, Republicans are reduced to attacking the justice system itself. In a coordinated effort, Republican members of Congress issued statements that called the trial “rigged,” insulted the integrity of the jury, compared the proceeding to “show trials in Cuba under Castro,” and said that May 30 was “the most shameful day in American history.”

While we should be concerned about the assaults on the justice system, let’s recognize that the system prevailed today—despite seven years of attacks by Trump and his enablers. The trial and verdict served as a stress test for the justice system—and it passed.

There will be time to assess the political ramifications of the verdict. Today, we should celebrate that the justice system worked despite enormous efforts to obstruct and undermine it.

That is a remarkable, glorious achievement that stands alone.

Sit with that truth for a moment before returning to the urgent task of preventing Trump's reelection. We deserve a moment of calm reflection and sober relief that justice was served.

Justice.

Finally.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

Hey kids, want to learn about drugs in Toril?

(OK, so some of them actually have medicinal properties, if your character happens to have medical knowledge in their background.)

Local laws usually have restrictions regarding drugs. As ever, Waterdeep sets the standards for trading cities that want to market themselves as tolerant: the production and selling of drugs outside of medicine is fully illegal in the city, though it's not a crime to be found personally taking drugs. It is not technically a crime to be found in possession of drugs, however that only really applies to nobles, wealthy merchants and others of similar rank. Lower ranks will be assumed to be carrying the drugs with intent to sell, and be arrested unless they can provide evidence of their employment by a Guild of Apothecaries & Physicians, clergy or similar legitimate medical employment.

Drugs that can have fatal side effects may be treated as poisons, which can get you arrested and charged with "murder with justification" if law enforcement and/or the courts do desire. (You don't have to have actually killed anyone, tried to, or shown any inclination whatsoever for this).

The illegal drug trade works a lot as it does in reality, although unlike in reality they also have magic so portals, illusions and other "cheats" are pretty common. The grunt work of trafficking and selling is done by the lower ranking, more disposable members. Often the "runners" who deliver the contraband to the client are young children.

In Baldur's Gate I'd assume most of the drug trade and production occurs in the Undercellar and the Outer City.

-

Many substances are magical in nature and their effects can be unusual. Some came with more information than others.

Tekkil Painkiller. Ingested. Typically used by people dealing with severe chronic pain, taken by chewing leaves that release a milky substance. As well as its analgesic properties, tekkil causes lethargy which can render imbibers insensate in an overdose. Some people use it to completely numb their senses and escape reality, and the drug is moderately addictive.

Alindluth Painkiller, ingested. "Deadens all pain and prevents shock and nausea for a few minutes. No known side effects [but may cause comas in higher doses]"

Haunspeir Stimulant. Paste. Sometimes dried into pill form. Carrying a low risk of addiction it's usually used by wizards, students and such looking for a study boost, though it does cause physical harm to the body while it's in the system and seems to thin the skin, causing more damage when something breaks through (try not to get a papercut).

Tansabra Anaesthetic. Intravenous. A form of venom that places mammalian bodies into magical stasis, keeping their body temperature, oxygen levels and so forth stable as the subject's metabolic processes literally stop: blood flow and breathing ceases. (The text does not tell me what provides the venom.)

Kammarth Beige powder or jelly. An addictive and potent magical stimulant combining Underdark fungi and a rare forest root. Users start bouncing off the walls with endless energy and gain a boost to their speed and reaction times. Overdose will overload the nervous system and cause paralysis and physical damage.

Sezarad Root Ingestion. Chewing the root boosts health, healing and vitality, though it also causes minor confusion as a side effect. It carries a low risk of addiction.

"Battlewine" Or Rhul. A spicy red fluid with a bitter aftertaste. It's basically an anabolic steroid, misused it boosts muscle growth and physical performance but causes aggression. It's also addictive.

Vornduir Powder. Inhaled. Causes the user to feel warm and prevents them from registering cold. It prevents shivering and loss of mobility, however the drug does not actually raise body temperature and won't prevent hypothermia or frostbite. It also has a host of effects that occur totally randomly by individual. In some people it causes alertness and euphoria that lasts for days (during which they can't sleep). Some are totally unaffected, and some have allergic reactions. In some it causes the pain and pleasure response to temporarily switch (stabbing them with a knife would be ecstasy; a normally welcome caress is distressing). On some people it even acts as an antidote to some poisons.

Chaunsel Dermal absorption. Rubbing the drug into your skin causes it to become extremely sensitive to tactile stimuli. While I imagine it has some very predictable uses not mentioned in the text, in practical day-to-day adventuring thieves and other criminals apply it to their finger tips when working in darkness to heighten their awareness of what they're doing with their hands (if they don't have dark vision, anyway). Overdosing causes days of numbness.

"Thrallwine" Ingested. An herbal red wine, more fancifully known as Jhuild, often used by slavers: the imbiber becomes fearful and confused, and their thoughts are sluggish, making them easy to manipulate and control. It also has a steroidal effect, boosting physical strength for a time. It's not addictive.

Katakuda Brown paste. Dermal absorption. Imported from Kara-Tur (Kozakura, specifically, I think). It's traditionally used by a monastic order, and causes the skin to harden when applied, making it harder to damage and less sensitive to pain. If overused it will cause nerve damage, inflicting wracking pain and spasms.

"Dreammist" Inhaled. Properly called mordayn vapor, it's used by brewing a tea using ground leaves and inhaling the vapours. The drug is too potent to be ingested, and consuming the powder or drinking the tea will kill you. Induces visions of incredible beauty that enrapture the user and make reality unbearable in comparison. The drug is extremely addictive and slowly destroys both the mind and body (causing Wisdom and Constitution damage, respectively).

"Bloodfast" Tablet. Ingested A drug created by the drow - known as ziran, in dark elven - the drug causes confusion in mild doses and disassociation and out-of-body experiences in higher doses. It's extremely addictive.

✰ 𝐊𝐎𝐖𝐓𝐎𝐖 — 𝐒𝐈𝐌𝐎𝐍 ‘𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐓’ 𝐑𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐘

↳ summary: prompt: “on your knees” — A ‘basics’ training course enforced on Task Force 141 after a failed mission causes Simon Riley to lose his cool.

↳ pairing: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x f!Reader (Delta)

↳ [1k] content: mentions of injury and violence, oral (m receiving), exhibitionism, rough oral, hair pulling (so inevitably mentions of hair, length not specified), Dacryphilia, swallowing. Ghost is a big massive slut and so am I.

ghost masterlist [coming soon] I| main masterlist |I join taglist

Attempting to get a prolific and deadly team of elite soldiers to engage in a ‘basic self-defence’ training course must have been the most perilous and mortal task Laswell had undertaken in her twenty-year career. You have no doubt that she had already prepped for the uproar it would cause amongst Task Force 414; ‘you’re actin’ like we’re amateurs, Laswell,’ and ‘It’s not as though we’ve stopped missiles or anything.’

The grumbles of the men behind you indicate that they’d been unsuccessful in convincing Laswell that the training program was gratuitous, all looking as though Captain Price dragged them by their ears. 

“Ghost, Delta. You’re up first,” he grumbles, his lack of enthusiasm almost comical. Despite the complaints, you couldn’t exactly condemn Laswell for her enforcement. Alejandro’s ribs had cracked wide open when thrown off the roof of a building, caught off guard by a narco he hadn’t seen obscured by the shadows. Ribs L3 to L8 had snapped, L5 managing to pierce through the soft flesh of the Colonel’s lung and rendering him utterly defenceless as the mission descended into chaos.

It goes without saying that Laswell had dressed the unit down to your socks when you returned, Ghost hauling the wheezing Alejandro over his shoulders and into the rendezvous vehicle. 

The insulting level of competence that the demonstration requires notwithstanding, Simon steps forward into the makeshift ring, the virtually impossible size of his soles barely making a sound as he walks across the floor. Under Price’s watchful gaze, you’re hot on Ghost’s heels. 

It’s a simple task. Simon just has to dispatch you. 

Ominously fixed on your face, the skull mask’s obsidian eyes do little to obscure the amber of Simon’s irises in the daylight. He’s gazing fixedly at you, readying himself and widening his stance for the demonstration. The prop pistol in his hand is near comical given the brutality those giant hands had enacted; though, you can’t help but think that someone as savagely efficient as Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley would still, somehow, find a way to annihilate you with the plastic munitions. 

“On your knees!” Ghost barks out, his booming, gritty voice startling you despite your anticipation. You barely have time to react to the onslaught of motion, your temporary enemy pressing the barrel of his makeshift firearm into your temple with a bruising force. 

Per Price’s instructions, you sink slowly to your knees, hands raised and palms flat to show your lack of armament. The barrel of the plastic G18 lets up against the pulpy skin of your temple, an aching sensation settling into the flesh it had compressed. When you lift your eyes to Ghost, however, you feel as though he’s pistol-whipped you across the face. 

Lieutenant Riley’s honey eyes ooze with arousal, something dangerous flitting through the black pools of his pupils. Blown wide, they bore down at you, betraying his stoic composure.

Battering against your ribcage, your heart rate picks up under his stare. Blood rushes to your face, heating it as you gaze up at your captor through your lashes. 

You hear Ghost’s shaky exhale from his nose rattle against the plastic of his mask. 

                                        ✰

Dragging his fingers through your hair, Ghost’s gloves fingerprints massage your scalp as you kneel perfectly still, his hot, ridiculously large cock balanced on the flat of your tongue. His chest heaves quietly, winding strands of your hair around his digits before curling them upwards into a tight fist. 

“Deep breath, love,” he rumbles before pushing his hips forward. He clasps your chin with his free hand, keeping your mouth wide open for him as he drags the length of his throbbing cock across your tongue and down your throat. 

It’s impossible not to— you gag around him, eyes watering slightly as the blunt head of his cock notches at your throat walls. His nostrils flare, golden eyes beaming in the fluorescent lighting of the hallway.

You barely get a chance to inhale as he’d ordered, using his grip on your hair to yank your head forward onto his dick. You moan loudly, warning a tight squeeze of your strands that cause your hair follicles to strain under the pressure— a warning. 

Ghost’s breathing falters slightly as he sets a brutal, punishing rhythm. However, it doesn’t take you long to establish a breathing pattern of your own against his rapid strokes, inhaling every time he slips out of the confines of your fluttering throat. 

“Fuckk~” he groans, eyes settled on you like a cross-hair as you make an effort to hollow your cheekbones around his ridiculous girth, eyelashes wet with tears. “You belong on your knees. Looking at me like th—shit — like that in front of the whole unit.”

You’d like to ask him what he means, but he rocks forwards again with a significant snap of his hips that bumps the back of your throat in a bruising collision. Retches threaten to spill from your lips, but his width fills your throat, and Ghost relishes in the constriction around his cock with a growl. 

“Yes,” he urges, teeth clenched behind the midnight black balaclava, “Yes, just like that, Christ!”

Ignoring all urges from your body to expel his intrusion in your throat, you swallow around him. It shakes a loud groan from his lungs, the lecherous sound ricocheting off the walls like he’d just shot a pistol. 

“You naughty fuckin’ girl,” he chastises you, punishing you by amping up the impossible pace of his rocking hips until tears begin to spill down your cheeks. It only appears to spur him further, a loud, rumbling groan drenching his words, “They’re gonna fuckin’ hear us—“

Moaning in agreement, you nod your head. It’s only slight; you can’t manage much more than a subtle tip forward of your chin. The vibrations seem to rock down his length to his balls because they pull up tight suddenly, and he’s wheezing out a haggard “Delta!’”

He spurts down your throat, coats the insides of your cheek, dribbles down your chin and drips to the floor. There’s so much of him, and you swallow down as much as you can as he leans back against the wall, winded as though an assailant had just punched him in the gut. 

Basics lesson number one: Ghost likes you on your knees. 

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