A Spy In The Land Of The Dead

Writing, gaming

[santapau]

New Secret Knots comic: "1881".

[striders]

the other day i saw a tiktok of a woman talking about how her hyper-militant abusive parents would sometimes punish her by “taking away her name” and referring to her as a prisoner number. genuinely terrible stuff, obviously. but i skimmed the comments and. listen. i truly DO NOT mean to dunk too hard on this person, like they could be a kid or something, but.

just. breathtaking. imagine if your primary reference for the concept of the un-personing of prisoners was (check notes) a book series about owls.

[saleensundria9]

This is why it's important to Include stuff like this in fiction, especially ya fiction. It can be a lot of sheltered and/or indoctrinated children, in the case of a lot of rural "Christians", first introduction to these types of concepts in a way they can understand.

I don't think there's anything weird or shameful about it. Knowledge is knowledge, regardless of where it came from.

[a-polite-melody]

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I was once listening to one of the ten billion animorphs podcasts out there, with two hosts, one who'd read Animorphs as a kid and one who was reading it for the first time as an adult. For those who don't know, Animorphs is a war story in which a handful of children have to secretly hold off an alien invasion until the "good" aliens arrive to save Earth. It starts off with fairly clear-cut Bad Species of aliens and Good Species of aliens but as the series goes on it becomes clear that there is no such thing as a good, clean or glorious war, that a clean Good Side and a clean Bad Side is usually propoganda, that heroism is a matter of circumstance and that war will chew up and spit out even the victorious; there are no winners in war, just the side that lost less.

It's a lot, for books aimed at eleven year olds who want to read about kids turning into fun animals.

On the podcast, the two (American) hosts happened to get onto the topic of the post-9/11 Iraq War and their reactions to it. They were both children at the time and as such could not be expected to have particularly nuanced views of US military policy. The person who hadn't read Animorphs was unsurprised by the declaration of war; that's what you did. Someone attacks America, America goes to war. That's how a country protects itself, through military revenge. The Animorphs fan, about the same age, had been devastated and against the war from the start. War was a Big Deal and, while sometimes unavoidable, should be a last resort; a lot of people were going to die, and a lot more were going to get hurt, and no matter how the war shook out it was still going to be horrible. They attributed this perspective, of course, to the series that had taught them about the horrors endemic to war in an engaging way at such a young age -- to Animorphs.

That's what kid fiction is for.

[blelbinems-deactivated20190925]

there are no rules in college

[worldheritagepostorganization]

World Heritage Post

[antifainternational]

[voidedjuice]

no, normal porn back on this site will kill the patient

they need weirdly sensual machinery to live

[qqueenofhades]

Morale plummeting among ICE agents over long hours, quotas and public hatred: reports

While immigration officers support the Trump administration’s goal of deporting undocumented migrants, many of them have grown ‘disillusione

By Priscilla Alvarez, Kristen Holmes, Kaitlan Collins, Michael Williams, CNN (CNN) — Top Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino and some of h

HEY MINNEAPOLIS: THIS IS YOUR PROBABLY UNNECESSARY BUT GRATEFUL REMINDER THAT A) WAY TO FUCKING GO AND B) BULLYING THESE FASCIST FUCKS WORKS.

(Note that this does NOT mean the operation is over, they're still hearing legal arguments about that, but they're pulling Obergruppenführer Bovino and his particular death squad out because y'all have raised hell on earth without pause for them, and way to fucking go.)

[qqueenofhades]

Gregory Bovino Gets Demoted

The Border Patrol chief was the public face of a traveling immigration crackdown on cities governed by Democrats.

UPDATE: CONFIRMED THAT BOVINO HAS BEEN FIRED AND SENT PACKING LIKE A LITTLE BITCH. MULTIPLE ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE NAZI L'S HAPPENING HERE, WAY TO GO MINNEAPOLIS.

THEY ARE SCARED. MAKE THEM SO MUCH MORE SCARED NEAR YOU TODAY.

[ayeforscotland]

ICE now tackling press.

Source.

[lostinhistory]

[stele3]

Interview where he talks about what happened.

[flavinbagel]

A photographer for Getty isn't even a journalist so much as an archivist. ICE violently disrupted the apolitical documentation of what they were doing, violating any and all rights that might flimsily stand in their way. It would have been just as wrong had they done this to an MSNBC reporter hellbent on a spin, but now Abernathy's neutral action as a photographer has been rendered necessarily political by ICE's violence.

They know what they're doing is objectively evil. They have no intention of stopping.

[blaka-smoko]

previous tags from @nihilisticspacequeer, which provide a bit of context for why Abernathy threw his (extremely expensive) camera

[ruinedchildhood]

I bet that felt so good for the bottles

[choptail]

we have got to get regular porn back on this website

[o-craven-canto]

Fire the neutrino missiles! *missiles pass through the enemy with no interaction whatsoever* Why do we even have those

[fuck-customers]

[strikedenko]

[ID: "Cold weather reminder. Do NOT plug space heaters into power strips or extension cords. Plug space heaters directly into the wall outlet. Power strips are not designed to handle the high current flow required by a space heater and can overheat causing a fire."

A photo is attached of a power strip with an extremely charred end. Part of the power strip's wire is also charred. End ID]

[thequeeninyellowlace]

My husband, an electrician, told me I have to reblog this.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

For clarification's sake, is this true everywhere? I ask because I know that different countries have different quality home electricity provision; American home electricity Ain't Great compared with most of Europe, for example. In Wales I have never heard of this being a Thing, but our electricity comes in 240V flavour, so possibly the higher current naturally avoids this issue?

[leonardslee]

My British husband (not an electrician but electrician-adjacent) says yes this is true in the UK as well - anything that uses a lot of power should be plugged directly into the wall rather than an extension lead

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Good to know, thank you!

[meret118]

*gets up to replug space heater*

[veryberryskye]

yeah i like to give my blessing to the most pathetic looking weak little knight at the tournament. she can’t even look me in the eye when i give her my flower and she stutters out that she’ll do her best or something of the like. i think its funny when she has to cry and beg my forgiveness and i get to say “such a shame, i suppose my hand in marriage will have to go to someone else…” and then i get to hear her whimper like a dog. ive done this like 6 times alrea-

did she just win.

[the-stew-goblin]

I shall prepare a stew for the wedding! Extra salt!

[veryberryskye]

wait wait wait stew goblin wait

[peachdelta]

get ready for the wedding

[rhube]

A wild ride:

This author has chosen to make their posts visible only to people who are signed in.

(I'm sorry, I don't have the spoons to alt-text all that, but if anyone wants to add in a reblog, have at.)

[reverbraven]

[talvin-muircastle]

Errant bus driver takes passengers for unwanted ride to Vienna Metro station | FFXnow

A routine bus trip from New York City to D.C. took a harrowing turn for passengers last night (Monday) when the driver reportedly decided to

[familiaralien]

I feel like adding a little addition here because the OP got the funniest possible e-mail after this

[json-derulo]

the past three weeks in a row, partner has gone to chipotle and been served by the same employee who, in bold defiance of the testimony of his own eyes and ears, ardently refuses to believe carnitas exist

[json-derulo]

partner: “Hi, could I please have a bowl with white rice, black beans, and carnitas?”

employee (completely blank expression): “No.”

partner (autistic) (socialscript.exe encountered an unhandled exception) : “…Uh. Um. Sorry?”

employee: “We don’t have that.”

partner (wondering if perhaps he put too much of the authentic accent on the word and that’s what’s throwing the guy): “You don’t have…(pronouncing it whiter) carnitas?”

employee (face still unreadable): “No.”

partner (looking at the near-full hotel pan of perfectly normal carnitas in its usual place on the other side of the glass) (noticing this employee looks unfamiliar) (maybe he’s a new guy that just started five minutes ago with no training?) : “The…pork?” (pointing at it)

employee: “We don’t have pork.”

partner (beginning to wonder if he’s the one that’s losing it) (desperately looks to the menu on the wall behind the employee) (the menu lists carnitas as a protein option) (the word “carnitas” is not crossed out or taped over or otherwise adulterated) (carnitas have been on the standard menu since at least 2016) : “Okay. Um. Are you…sure?”

other employee working the toppings part of the line (familiar) (have seen her before) (she has cool earrings): *gives the new guy a strange look, nudges him aside, and scoops the carnitas onto partner’s bowl before continuing with the other toppings*

Repeat conversation again the next week. And the next. Same guy. If it’s a bit, no one is laughing, including the employee.

[json-derulo]

theories I’ve considered:

- the employee keeps very strictly kosher/halal/vegan and refuses to handle pork (understandable, I respect that, but if you’re gonna work at a place that serves pork I do kinda feel like when someone orders it you’ve just gotta tap in a coworker to do it for you)

- someone did something gross to the carnitas and the employee is trying to warn people not to order it (??? throw it out then? also, three weeks in a row???)

- the employee is a space alien who views humans as so similar to pigs that for us to eat them is tantamount to cannibalism

[json-derulo]

- the employee is the lead in a kdrama romance about a pampered, clueless chaebol heir who is sent by his father to work in the company’s restaurants for a year in order to prove he’s ready to take over as CEO. he’s dumb as rocks but they can’t fire him or even correct him that harshly due to the power gradient. partner is just a minor reoccurring character, and the interaction is kept the same from week to week to highlight the development of the relationship between the employee and his love interest with the cool earrings (even if the restaurant is literally a fully-branded Chipotle, that’s somehow still not enough product placement for me to believe this is a real kdrama)

[json-derulo]

After reviewing again with partner, evidently I forgot a detail that set this week’s carnitas denial dance apart from the others.

partner (well aware of what he’s getting into with this guy now): “Hi. Could I please have a bowl with white rice, black beans, and pork?”

employee: “We don’t have pork.”

partner (demonstrating a level of patience only a public school teacher could have): *points at the pan of carnitas* “Could I please just have some of that?”

employee (after several slow, confused blinks): *points at the same pan* “That’s steak.”

partner (looking at the hotel pan they’re both pointing at) (it is filled with shredded meat of a pale beige color) (at the other end of the row of pans is another pan containing dark brown, lightly charred meat chopped into small pieces): “Okay.” *deciding he’s willing to play in this fantasy space if it gets the job done, he points at the first pan again* Then could I please have the steak?”

employee: *starts to reach for the pan at the other end containing the actual steak*

partner: "Oh—no, sorry, this one please?" *points at the first pan containing the carnitas*

employee: *blinks, then just walks away and starts helping the next customer in line, leaving partner's bowl unfinished*

other employee with cool earrings: *rolls her eyes at new employee, takes partner’s bowl, and fills it with carnitas herself*

new theories:

- the employee is a bridge troll who will only dole out his delectable carnitas to those who prove themselves worthy by correctly answering his riddles three

- the employee is stoned out of his mind at all times on a specific strain of weed that totally erases the concept of pork from his memory and awareness

[json-derulo]

A few additional updates/clarifications:

Mr. Eternal Bluntshine of the Porkless Mind isn't the first idiosyncratic cryptid Partner has encountered at this particular Chipotle. He joins the illustrious ranks of The Lobster Mobster and 300 RPM Matthew McConaughey

Partner says he does not actually mind dealing with this unskippable cutscene every time because A) he finds it amusing and B) on one occasion, after Cool Earrings's intervention, the new employee checked him out at the register, and he rang up the bowl clearly labeled "CA-Q" (carnitas with queso) as chicken, which made it slightly cheaper

Some of my favorite possible explanations from the tags:

[marxistlesbianist]

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson, as author of the Declaration of Independence, accused the king of England of having "excited domestic insurrections amongst us," with reference to the slave revolts occasionally supported by England insofar as they weakened US bourgeois power.

In 1807, Thomas Jefferson, as president of the US, signed into law the Insurrection Act, "authorizing the employment of the land and naval forces of the United States, in cases of insurrections."

In 1831, president Andrew Jackson invoked the Insurrection Act to repress the slave revolt led by Nat Turner.

Although liberal historians like to point to the times when the Act was invoked to defend Black reconstruction in the 1870s, and to enforce the desegregation in the 1960s, the majority of invocations have been used to repress slave revolts, ghetto uprisings, and militant labor strikes.

In 1992, the most recent invocation of the Act occurred when president Bush Sr. used it to repress uprisings following Rodney King's murder.

This is the law which Trump is threatening Minneapolis with. A law theorized and established by slaveholders anxious to defend their "property," employed by white-supremacist bourgeois pigs in order to keep down the wretched of the earth.

When we say that the racist violence going on today is fundamental to the existence of the US, this is what we mean. Not simply in a metaphorical or spiritual sense, but in an explicitly traceable one, the violence enacted under Trump is the founding father's system working as intended.

[blignick]

[forestgreenandgray]

source

[prokopetz]

MIO: Memories in Orbit dropped the same fucking day I finally got around to 100% clearing Ender Magnolia. It's like the universe is conspiring to kill me exclusively through the medium of elegiac post-apoc metroidvanias about short girls making friends with robots.

[jennamoran]

Fate works in mysterious ways but you have to unlock a lot of the movement tech first