#Ban bad owners

[gh0stieink]

BLAME THE OWNER NOT THE DOG

[makedamnsvre]

these places banning bully breeds of dogs bc theyre sooo scawy when really they should be banning doodles

[boomstab-papa]

from the website owner who bans you if you link to his blog

"We have a contractual obligation to try to make Live as successful as possible through the end of the year"???!!!!???!? (emphasis mine)

contractual with who???!!!?!?!

[princesssarcastia]

unpopular take but my problem with the tiktok 'ban' is not that the government is doing it, but that a) they're doing it the wrong way and b) they're ONLY doing it to tiktok. actually it would be really cool if congress decided to start regulating algorithmic content on social media sites! unfortunately that is not what congress is doing. what congress is doing is some red-scare anti-ccp useless crap that's just forcing some chinese businesspeople to sell tiktok.

[ruthlesslistener]

staying up late was a Mistake now my brain is beating me with all the cringefail moments that I did in the past and not letting me escape it

[pierregaslays]

i’m sick of us fans being portrayed as the villains by our own club 🥲

[gauntletqueen]

Hi Zoey. Asking from a place of ignorance, could you please explain why Threads is dogshit?

Threads is the Hot New Garbagedump by Certified Scum Of The Earth and Facebook/Meta owner Zuckerburg. It is like if twitter was even worse.

There is ONLY a For You page, meaning you can never just see the posts from your followed accounts who, yknow, you followed for the purpose of seeing their posts.You can't see those. you have to see the algorithm's posts ONLY. You also require an instagram to get full access to all the features like Posting Images. You need a separate social media account to properly access this new social media. And once you've done so, the only way to delete your Threads account, is to delete you instagram account. The Whole Thing. For Some Fucking Reason. Not to mention, obviously since it's zuckerburg, the thing syphons your personal information like crazy, worse still than twitter.

Like ALL your data. as much as it can get. (Love that it says "Other Data" btw. Nice subtle way of saying "whatever else we want") ALSO wouldn't you know it? It's fucking banned in the EU because it violates a bunch of fucking privacy laws!! So it's DEFINITELY not safe to use!

It is as predatory and exploitative as can be, created by someone that we collectively agreed Sucks Shit and Has No Empathy For Human Life and Individuality, and nobody should be touching it with a ten foot pole let alone sign up for it. Not even to test the waters or because it's where everyone is heading, or to see how bad it is for yourself. It doesn't matter if you're joining to get an account ready in case the platform ends up the new big thing. You're feeding the statistics. Even if you're not using that account, Zuckerburg can show the number of signups to shareholders and investors to prove to them that it's viable. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon in case it succeeds, inform people why they shouldn't join, to reduce its chance of success! It's like strikes and protests; The more of us get the word out, the more effective it'll be!

[medicinemane]

All I'm saying is any rule, any law, any social convention, anything where there's some kind of reprisal for transgressing against it... just make damn sure you're careful with it lest it be used against you

Every freedom you give up in the name of making a better world, really double check it's worth it and narrowly defined

I mean some freedoms are worth giving up, for instance I don't have the freedom to kill people who annoy me, and I shouldn't have that freedom. I lose very little while gaining a great deal both personally and for society as a whole, and there are a lot of places like this where it's 100% worth it to ban something outright

Similarly, there absolutely are reasons to socially shun people, like you don't have to put up with every last thing just to be nice. Influencers who do stuff like harass people to drum up attention or record and post every second of their kid's lives, I don't think we should be engaging with people like that unless it's to keep an eye on them, I think they do a ton of harm

All I'm saying though, is shit like the Patriot Act drummed up support because it was going to protect people, keep people safe... and look what actually happened, look how it's used. It's state surveillance against the people it claimed to protect and that's about it

I'm not gonna tell you which things are wrong to shit on people for, or which policies you should oppose. I don't want you to just mimic what I believe, even if I thought anyone was gonna

I just want you to look at stuff, and think about it, and really decide if that thing you want gone is harmful in a concrete enough way that if you do something to try to remove it, it will only remove that instead of spilling over in to stuff you didn't want it to

I just want you to check in your head if anything you're cracking down on either legally or through social pressure might lead you to losing something you care about down the road if bad actors skew how to interpret things

I'm not saying that's how it's gonna go, I'm just saying think first

[doulafaith]

What's Behind the Pit Bull Craze

All Dogs Go to Heaven? Really? And What’s Behind the Pit Bull? “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” (my emphasis) Genesis 1: 26 Notice in the above scripture that mankind is supposed…

[teaboot]

I seriously hope you can job hop to something else cause you're not chaotic neutral man.

You're still a white Canadian whose actions and job help more the megacorps keep the status quo.

I really looked up to you but that's on me.

And yeah, I know security, cop shit and military pay good money but at the cost of my people? Fuck no.

Listen. I feel you. But there's a lot of cold, power-tripping bastards in this line of work and if I stick where I am then they don't get to have that.

I'm not a cop. I am not beholden to the justice system. Sometimes I get contracted out to people who say shit like "addicts should be put down, if you see any crackheads drag them out" and I nod and say "yes sir", and then I take their money and use it to buy those people coffee and a sandwich and tell 'em when free lunch days are at the church.

Boss sees me walking with someone and thinks I'm kicking them out, gives my boss great reviews. I'm having a great conversation with Connie, who used to by a stylist and wound up on the street after an accident that left her with chronic pain and a heroin addiction. Connie learns that there's a gap between two property lines nearby where technically nobody can call to have her removed.

There's a really sweet guy in town who's normally very nice, but sometimes flies into paranoid rage and yells slurs at people. Sometimes he forgets he's been banned from places and wanders in looking for a wife he hasn't had for nine years. Owner sends me to kick him out, and I ask "hey Mike, how are you?" And see where we are today.

One time there was a guy whose abusive ex kept following him to work, and I got to walk him to his car at the end of every day to make sure she couldn't get him alone.

Another person had a stalker who kept asking receptionists when she was gonna be there, when she was supposed to leave, if she was in today. I'd keep record of every time he came in, every time someone saw him, every time he violated his restraining order or damaged her things.

And when I wonder if I'm actually helping or not, or if I'm part of the greater problem, I remember that other people who work with me call homeless people wildlife and talk about how bad they wanna get an excuse to fight someone and I remember that I'm the one who knows where the blind spots on the cameras are, and thank God it's not him.

My position is fundamentally different from that of the military or law enforcement. I don't *need* to be buddy-buddy with most of these dickheads- I don't *need* to send people into the justice system.

I do single-person foot patrol. Nobody cares how I get the job done. They say, "Hey, faceless goon number three- make that bastard disappear" and I say "on it, boss" and give him tickets to disney world.

I once asked another guard if he knew that one of our regulars used to be an airplane technician. He said, "No, I don't talk to them". Blanket "Them". "Them" as in street people. "Them" as in addicts, or shoplifters, or ex-cons, or sex workers.

I asked why, and he told me, "it's easier if you don't think of them as people."

Anyhow, now I get calls to "watch that sketchy lady who just came in" and I say, "yes, sir" and leave her the fuck alone, 'cause that's Jolene, and people always think she's on drugs and aggressive but she's just deaf in one ear and slurs cause she has brain damage, you dickhead

so yeah, don't worry, I've spent a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of my vocation, and I still think I'd rather be in charge of my locations than someone like Darryl, who dreams of "cuffing a perp" and drives a car with Punisher decals on the hood

Also it's minimum wage but that's kinda tangential

[makedamnsvre]

literally whenever i think even for a second abt irresponsible dog owners i get so mad. i think these people deserve to be beat to death with shovels

[gojoest]

COMPETITION — gojo satoru

satoru tries to beat the bad cook allegations and win his girls back

girl dad satoru, established relationship — you’re married & have a daughter (oc), her name is sora, f! reader, reader is referred to as “mama”, mentions of food, this is a silly little thing, not proofread, wc: 1.2k

satoru can be a lot of things — the strongest sorcerer, the most loving and devoted husband, the world’s greatest dad, society’s biggest menace, and according to some “the owner of the most annoying heh”  — but there’s one thing he most definitely isn’t. a good cook.

but ever since you had a family brunch gathering at nanami’s place where the latter had singlehandedly prepared a feast, without letting his wife lift a single finger even when it came to setting the table, satoru took it upon himself to prove that he can be as good of a cook as nanami, or even better.

the way you and your five-year-old daughter, sora, looked as if you’ve just tasted heaven while savoring each bite was a blow below the belt for satoru, while the finishing one was you complimenting nanami and telling his wife how she is the luckiest woman alive to have a husband who’s so skilled and willing in the kitchen because satoru can’t even boil water — to which sora nodded in agreement, “papa really sucks in the kitchen.”

it’s been two weeks ever since and you regret ever making that snarky remark about satoru’s incompetence because you’ve been banned from the kitchen all along, not even allowed to pour yourself a glass of water — all you have to do is ask and your husband will do it for you while you sit back and watch as the state of your kitchen worsens with each passing day.

he would occasionally have sora keep him company and help him prep the ingredients, sometimes even take the first bite if the end product looks edible, but for you the kitchen was completely off limits, he’s got a point to prove — that he is the best husband and you should’ve never said those flattering words about his friend in the first place because he can’t stand it when you acknowledge in any way any other man that isn’t him.

satoru’s determination is strong. he has no intention of letting this matter go, not until he sees that same expression on you and your daughter’s face — this is his life goal right now, he cannot have his two most important girls swayed by another man’s cooking, not even if that man is nanami (and especially because it’s him).

you might be running out of usable plates and pans, as they’re either broken or burnt, but satoru is definitely making progress. all the cooking videos he’s watched and the tips he’s gotten from talking to mothers on online forums are finally paying off because today, for the first time ever, he didn’t burn the pancakes for breakfast.

“papa”, sora looks with disapproving eyes at her dad, her cheeks squished between her tiny palms as she’s leaning her elbows on the kitchen counter.

“yes, my life”, satoru crouches down to her level. even though she’s standing on the toddler step stool her head can barely reach his hips. but whenever satoru talks to her, he always, without fail, either squats down or leans forward or holds her in his arms — because in those moments it’s just him and his little princess against the world, on equal footing always so he can hear her better and never miss a single expression she makes. “what’s with that look, hm?”, he nuzzles his flour covered nose against hers, the action itself causing some of the white particles to smudge on hers too.

“the pancakes look like pancakes this time but mama will not like this mess you made, again” — the sink is filled to the brim, there’s flour and baking powder on every single surface — counter, table, chairs, floor, the butter has started melting because satoru placed it too close to the stove after using some of it, there’s eggshells on the floor — any clean freak’s biggest nightmare.

“the mess i made?”, he gasps, “aren’t you an accomplice in this, little miss?”

“no”, she flatly denies, “i only watched you and broke the eggs”

“on the floor, that is”

“it’s because you said pick three eggs while i can only carry two, look—”, she stretches her tiny hands forward, palms facing up, to prove her point, “i have only two hands and they’re not big like yours, how am i supposed to hold the third one?”

satoru chuckles at her genuinely puzzled face, “you’re right, my life”, he replies through a soft smile after taking her hands into his and peppering kisses on the inside of each, “papa didn’t consider this”

“it’s okay, papa”, sora rests her forehead against her dad’s, “i am a big girl now, i will help you clean after breakfast”

“but you’ll always be my little girl no matter how old you get”, satoru whispers softly, lifting her up with just one arm so his free hand can gently caress the back of her head as she comfortably nuzzles her face into the crook of his neck, “which is why papa will take care of it”

“but first”, he sits her on the countertop and cuts a small piece of the pancake for her to taste. “say aah”, he holds the fork to her mouth, eagerly observing every gesture on her face as she takes the bite and starts chewing. it’s definitely not the look she made while eating nanami’s cooking but she doesn’t seem to hate it either.

“papa.”

“yes, my life?”, satoru looks at her expectantly.

“can i be honest with you?”

“yes, of course you can”

“uncle nanamin does it better”, she admits to which satoru instantly deflates, “but—”

“but?”, a tiny spark of hope makes it back to his sulking eyes.

“i wouldn’t trade your pancakes for the world”

“YESSS”, satoru triumphantly pumps his fist in the air and spins around beaming with joy, “got one of my girls back on my team — now let’s hear your mother’s verdict… but hold on”, his face painted in concern again.

“hmm?”, sora questions the sudden change in his demeanor.

“sora.”, satoru speaks in a rather serious voice.

“papa?”

“you’re not saying this just because i’m your papa, right?”

“well, it’s partly because of it actually”, sora pauses for a second, trying to pick the right words before continuing, “but it’s because you put so much love and effort to make me and mama happy that it makes anything you do my favorite thing in the world, and i wouldn’t trade it for anything, papa”

“i haven’t tasted the pancakes yet but i must agree with sora on this”, your voice reaches them from behind as you stand leaning on the doorframe. you came following the sweet and warm aroma wafting through the air but found yourself accidentally eavesdropping on their little heart-to-heart talk. “you put your heart and soul for us always — aren’t we the luckiest girls in the world?”, you wink at sora and she nods.

satoru sighs in relief, “if i can’t give you the best of everything that means i am a failure both as a husband and as a father. because you two are my biggest blessing and i only live to make you happy. also — you’re still not allowed in the kitchen, so just stay there and wait for the pancakes.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Prison-tech company bribed jails to ban in-person visits

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in BOSTON with Randall "XKCD" Munroe (Apr 11), then PROVIDENCE (Apr 12), and beyond!

Beware of geeks bearing gifts. When prison-tech companies started offering "free" tablets to America's vast army of prisoners, it set off alarm-bells for prison reform advocates – but not for the law-enforcement agencies that manage the great American carceral enterprise.

The pitch from these prison-tech companies was that they could cut the costs of locking people up while making jails and prisons safer. Hell, they'd even make life better for prisoners. And they'd do it for free!

These prison tablets would give every prisoner their own phone and their own video-conferencing terminal. They'd supply email, of course, and all the world's books, music, movies and games. Prisoners could maintain connections with the outside world, from family to continuing education. Sounds too good to be true, huh?

Here's the catch: all of these services are blisteringly expensive. Prisoners are accustomed to being gouged on phone calls – for years, prisons have done deals with private telcos that charge a fortune for prisoners' calls and split the take with prison administrators – but even by those standards, the calls you make on a tablet are still a ripoff.

Sure, there are some prisoners for whom money is no object – wealthy people who screwed up so bad they can't get bail and are stewing in a county lockup, along with the odd rich murderer or scammer serving a long bid. But most prisoners are poor. They start poor – the cops are more likely to arrest poor people than rich people, even for the same crime, and the poorer you are, the more likely you are to get convicted or be suckered into a plea bargain with a long sentence. State legislatures are easy to whip up into a froth about minimum sentences for shoplifters who steal $7 deodorant sticks, but they are wildly indifferent to the store owner's rampant wage-theft. Wage theft is by far the most costly form of property crime in America and it is almost entirely ignored:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/15/wage-theft-us-workers-employees

So America's prisons are heaving with its poorest citizens, and they're certainly not getting any richer while they're inside. While many prisoners hold jobs – prisoners produce $2b/year in goods and $9b/year in services – the average prison wage is $0.52/hour:

https://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2024/0324bowman.html

(In six states, prisoners get nothing; North Carolina law bans paying prisoners more than $1/day, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution explicitly permits slavery – forced labor without pay – for prisoners.)

Likewise, prisoners' families are poor. They start poor – being poor is a strong correlate of being an American prisoner – and then one of their breadwinners is put behind bars, taking their income with them. The family savings go to paying a lawyer.

Prison-tech is a bet that these poor people, locked up and paid $1/day or less; or their families, deprived of an earner and in debt to a lawyer; will somehow come up with cash to pay $13 for a 20-minute phone call, $3 for an MP3, or double the Kindle price for an ebook.

How do you convince a prisoner earning $0.52/hour to spend $13 on a phone-call?

Well, for Securus and Viapath (AKA Global Tellink) – a pair of private equity backed prison monopolists who have swallowed nearly all their competitors – the answer was simple: they bribed prison officials to get rid of the prison phones.

Not just the phones, either: a pair of Michigan suits brought by the Civil Rights Corps accuse sheriffs and the state Department of Corrections of ending in-person visits in exchange for kickbacks from the money that prisoners' families would pay once the only way to reach their loved ones was over the "free" tablets:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/jails-banned-family-visits-to-make-more-money-on-video-calls-lawsuits-claim/

These two cases are just the tip of the iceberg; Civil Rights Corps says there are hundreds of jails and prisons where Securus and Viapath have struck similar corrupt bargains:

https://civilrightscorps.org/case/port-huron-michigan-right2hug/

And it's not just visits and calls. Prison-tech companies have convinced jails and prisons to eliminate mail and parcels. Letters to prisoners are scanned and delivered their tablets, at a price. Prisoners – and their loved ones – have to buy virtual "postage stamps" and pay one stamp per "page" of email. Scanned letters (say, hand-drawn birthday cards from your kids) cost several stamps:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

Prisons and jails have also been convinced to eliminate their libraries and continuing education programs, and to get rid of TVs and recreational equipment. That way, prisoners will pay vastly inflated prices for streaming videos and DRM-locked music.

The icing on the cake? If the prison changes providers, all that data is wiped out – a prisoner serving decades of time will lose their music library, their kids' letters, the books they love. They can get some of that back – by working for $1/day – but the personal stuff? It's just gone.

Readers of my novels know all this. A prison-tech scam just like the one described in the Civil Rights Corps suits is at the center of my latest novel The Bezzle:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Prison-tech has haunted me for years. At first, it was just the normal horror anyone with a shred of empathy would feel for prisoners and their families, captive customers for sadistic "businesses" that have figured out how to get the poorest, most desperate people in the country to make them billions. In the novel, I call prison-tech "a machine":

a million-­armed robot whose every limb was tipped with a needle that sank itself into a different place on prisoners and their families and drew out a few more cc’s of blood.

But over time, that furious empathy gave way to dread. Prisoners are at the bottom of the shitty technology adoption curve. They endure the technological torments that haven't yet been sanded down on their bodies, normalized enough to impose them on people with a little more privilege and agency. I'm a long way up the curve from prisoners, but while the shitty technology curve may grind slow, it grinds fine:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

The future isn't here, it's just not evenly distributed. Prisoners are the ultimate early adopters of the technology that the richest, most powerful, most sadistic people in the country's corporate board-rooms would like to force us all to use.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

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[woso-dreamzzz]

Injured (Alexia's Version): Future II

Alexia Putellas x Daughter!Reader

Summary: You go to Manuelas

TW: using sex to reinforce ideas of low self-worth, mentions of eating disorder

You didn't come to Manuelas often.

It was a bad idea, drinking in the club Olga owned. All of the workers knew who you were, dragged out on staff dinners and in the background of Olga's video meetings.

There's no way you could get in without someone noticing who you were.

It's not that you were banned. If anything, Mami and Olga would probably prefer it if you did your drinking in the safe walls of Manuelas where the staff would call them if you needed a pick up.

It would be fine if drinking was all that you were doing.

But you don't go to clubs for the drinks. In fact, you don't even really like the taste of alcohol all that much. It was a means to an end, getting you tipsy enough to approach someone in the crowd. But that was only if you weren't approached first.

And you were almost always approached first.

It was easy now, a practiced routine.

You'd go into a club, hang around at the bar for a bit before going onto the dance floor where, no doubt, some older woman would come over and offer to buy you a drink.

It was practiced. It was easy.

It was self destructive.

You knew why you came to these clubs. You knew what you came there for.

You wanted it quick and rough. You wanted to be demeaned and talked down to because it made you feel better that you weren't the only one that saw yourself like that.

Hooking up in club toilets with a woman double your age that couldn't care less about you made you feel better at yourself.

You couldn't do that Manuelas.

Or, you couldn't do that at Manuelas on days when Olga or her close circle were skulking around, which was almost every weekend.

The only reason you were here now was because your usual club wasn't open today and after another day of brutal practice with no end in sight, you needed to feel something.

Even if it was some woman's hand around you as she took you hard and rough and whispered filthy things in your ear.

You should go home, you know. You should go home to your Mami and let her wrap you up in a warm hug and let her tell you that you were worth something and that she loved you.

But you were here.

At Manuelas on a day you knew Olga was at home and her closest staff were busy in a meeting in the back room.

Or, at least, they should be.

Alexia sighs as Olga pulls her in through the open backdoor.

"I am old, amor," She says with a small huff of laughter," My old bones cannot take going to the club anymore."

It's a joke, nothing more than teasing and Olga rolls her eyes.

"Not even my club?"

"Well," Alexia says," If it's your club..."

With Jaume at a youth camp for the week and you staying over at your friend's, the house had been blissfully silent and all too empty.

She and Olga had a nice dinner before growing restless. It didn't suit the family, Alexia thinks, to have the house devoid of her kids.

Olga wasn't due to go in to the meeting at Manuelas but that didn't mean she thought going there was a bad idea which was how Alexia found herself there now, nursing a drink in one hand and holding whatever fruity cocktail Olga had chosen in the other.

Manuelas had come a long way from the pop up club it used to be, now boasting several permanent bases in the country. Alexia was still glad though that one thing stayed the same - namely the fact that she got free drinks.

It certainly payed to be the wife of the owner.

Olga's gone off to greet a few people upstairs, despite denying the fact that this was all a ploy to see how the meeting was going.

Alexia's left downstairs by herself and does what she does best.

People watch.

Manuelas is still exactly like it was when it was first opened, a throng of dancers grinding and making out on the dancefloor.

The same as practically every other lesbian club in the city.

There's nothing unusual about it but Alexia still leans against the bar and surveys the crowd.

There's movement (or rather more movement than normal) to the left of the crowd as a pair breaks out of the dancing.

It's hard to see in the low light but Alexia feels a bolt of lightning shoot down her spine before she's even computed what she's looking at.

You're pressed up against the wall, head tilted to the side as a woman kisses your neck.

You're meant to be at a friend's house. That's what you've told Alexia.

You were going over to a friend's house after practice and you would be staying the night.

But clearly, you're not because you're here.

At Olga's club with a woman that is so clearly not your age whispering filthy things to you.

Alexia's moving towards you without a second thought and you open half lidded eyes to look at her.

You jolt suddenly, straightening up and pushing the woman away from your neck when you notice Alexia there.

She's not meant to be here and you look around wildly because you know if Mami's here then Olga's around here somewhere too.

Your face floods with embarrassment and you leave your partner for the evening.

Even now, Alexia's angry face makes you feel like a little girl again. Like that same little girl who sat in her car seat after another failed football training.

Like the same stupid teenager who starved herself to fit into a shirt that Alexia accidentally bought one size too small.

"Mami..." You say, throat bobbing," I-"

"Are you okay?" Alexia asks you, cupping your face," Are you safe?"

"Mami...I..."

"Bambi," Alexia says, her eyes boring into yours," Talk to me. Are you alright?"

"I..." Your throat bobs and you're right back to that little girl again, the one staring up at Alexia as she grins down at you, that stupid teenager that had once sobbed in her arms after hurting your ankle during practice. "I want to go home, Mami. Please take me home."

Alexia looks into your eyes. You're not drunk, maybe a little tipsy but definitely not drunk. You're not high either. No one's laced anything you've taken.

You're still trembling though and your head falls forward onto Alexia's shoulder, to hide the way tears fall down your cheeks.

You don't know why you're crying. You don't know why you're suddenly so emotional.

You'd set out this evening to hook up with someone, feeling so bad and wrong in your own skin that you needed someone's body pressed up against yours to feel good about yourself again.

You still want that. Just not with a partner.

You want a hug from Mami, curled up next to her in bed at home. You want her to hold you and tell you how much she loves you and how she's never going to let anything bad happen to you.

You're an adult now.

You shouldn't feel this way.

But you're always going to be that little girl that craved love from your Mami.

[paulmccart]

We're Not Gonna Take It! And the Story of How We Almost Did

Protesters outside of the PMRC senate hearings.

Are you a victim of rock? Well maybe you aren't, but all the way back in 1985 a group of prominent D.C wives felt that they were.

These women, with the help of Beach Boys member Mike Love and Joseph Coors, the owner of Coors Beers, formed the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center).

Their reasoning for forming as co-founder Susan Baker put it:

"It started because one day my 7-year-old came in and started quoting some of Madonna's lyrics to me, wanting to know what they meant. And I was shocked. I knew that you had to be concerned about movies and TV, but I didn't have a clue that my 7-year-old would be exposed to inappropriate songs."

The goal of the PMRC was to give parents more control over what their children could listen to. As well as implementing a rating system for music with bad language, sexual themes, and anti-Christian messages just to name a few. Eventually the group made a list of the fifteen worst songs, in their opinion and labeled them "The Filthy Fifteen".

(And it also happens to make a killer playlist)

Besides a rating system and lyrics printed on album covers the PMRC had several other goals including:

"...records with explicit covers be wrapped or kept under the counter; that record companies reassess contracts with performers who engage in sexual or violent acts on stage; that broadcasters be pressured to exhibit "voluntary restraint" by not airing offending music videos, which would also be rated."

All that noise coming from the PMRC culminated on September 19th, 1985. When a hearing in the senate occurred. Two musicians were called in on behalf of the music industry, Frank Zappa and Dee Snider of Twisted Sister. Two of musics most studious and serious creatives.

Zappa and Snider both gave eloquent defenses of what they deemed to be free speech.

But the PMRC had a trick up their sleeves... or so they thought.

They'd also invited John Denver to speak that day, assuming that he would stand with the side of "family values" but they were mistaken.

John Denver's testimony was the most scathing that day. He cited his own experience with having some of his music banned from radio. Even going as far as comparing the PMRC and groups like it to Nazi book burnings.

So what did the PMRC end up accomplishing? You know those tiny explicit labels in the corner of some albums? You can thank the PMRC for those. When they were originally introduced they were called "Tipper Stickers" after one of more outspoken PMRC members Tipper Gore (wife of Al Gore).

So while we didn't exactly take it, for a time we almost did. And thanks to testimony from Frank Zappa, John Denver, and Dee Snider, we can regularly enjoy any kind of music we want to- even the songs that promote the occult.

Both photographs come from Mark Weiss who photographed the event for Rock Scene Magazine.

[severinapina]

Eternals (Or one year since the airport)

Can the body feel without the soul?

Suguru trusted that something awaited him beyond. Some days he believed it more than others, but few can boast of having unshakable faith. So, when he felt his left arm, observed his youthful body, and examined the place awaiting him, he knew his belief hadn't been in vain. There he was, in the waiting area. For what? What else could happen when the finality of life had already taken place? A vast ocean on an empty beach would have made more sense. Even the darkness of Hades' hell. But no. Something had brought him to a plane that he sensed would not be just his own.

It didn't take long for him to realize what that ethereal place meant. He would need more than a pair of hands to count the times they'd been there, watching the screens, counting landings, and checking departures. "I hate flying, Suguru." "Why?" "Because it's so common." A playful shove, the luggage on the floor, the Ray-Ban store. Dozens of countries, hundreds of flights, and thousands of caresses. So, there he'd be, just like in his youth, sitting, reading, reflecting, until his eyes deigned to appear. He'd probably arrive late, just like always; late to their first date, late when he needed him, late to snatch away his life.

He wasn't wrong. A year, exactly. However, when he felt his presence, he couldn't help but ask himself: *Why did I keep waiting for him?*

"For the same reason he chose this day," he answered, looking sadly to the north.

“Sleep a little longer, Satoru”, he whispered to the soul starting to take form.

Gojo had thought about the possibility of dying before facing the cruel king of curses. He entertained the idea behind all the others but never materialized it into wills or declarations. Arrogant as always, he concluded it was no more than a slight probability, existing only because he had the misfortune of being mortal. "Nah, I'll win," he said, sure that the day would pass like any other.

Those who loved him had the bad luck of believing him.

Satoru, upon falling, felt nothing. There was no requiem, no eulogies. His heart simply stopped beating, and his soul crossed the plane dividing them. As he looked one last time at the vastness of the sky, a cold air, unlike any he had felt before, invaded his body. Yet he welcomed it gladly. He narrowed his eyes and breathed in the scent.

“Finally”, he murmured as the pressure in his veins disappeared.

Neither of them imagined that beyond life, the senses would be as sharp as when their lungs could still draw breath. Yet that first embrace, strong, intimate, almost suffocating, convinced them it was true. It wasn't until they inhaled each other's scent that they internalized the importance of something so basic, so corporeal, so earthly to both of them.

Satoru, in life, had never really thought about what the owner of his soul smelled like; "People don't smell like anything specific," he thought. However, when he rested his nose on that manly chest, the images that flooded his mind took him back to that lush, unique forest, to the clearing where he had often laid on his legs. "Move a little, Satoru." "Which way?" "Toward me." The spring flowers, the summer grass, the damp autumn soil, and the smoke from winter stoves—all had their own essence, one intertwined with that hint of incense that accompanied his caresses. It was the scent of camaraderie, of security, of intimacy.

"Sleep a little longer, Satoru," he'd say while combing his hair with his delicate fingers.

Over time, that same scent became painful for Satoru. Whenever he caught it, in some place or in something left behind, he felt a knot in his stomach—a mixture of nostalgia, sadness, and perhaps, just perhaps, a twinge of betrayal. His scent was something that lingered with him even after he was gone, something that still made Satoru feel that, in some way, his beloved curse manipulator remained the same person with whom he had shared so many moments. That he was still, after all, his partner, his lover, and his best friend.

"Sleep a little longer, Satoru," his deep voice from the window, the bare shoulder, the moonlight, and the glow of his cigarette outlining his delicate profile. A pitying look and a slammed door. His last earthly memory.

Suguru, on the other hand, was always sure of the notes generated by the strongest man's hormones. No wonder he watched him intently, as if there were nothing else to do on earth. The countless verses he dedicated to those sharp citruses in the intimacy of his notebooks. Satoru's scent reminded him of the mandarins they shared. Gojo would throw them at him, and he would peel them, while they talked, while they laughed, or while they were silent, always looking at each other as if they could see through each other's pupils. After all, it was a scent very fitting for the bearer of the Six Eyes. It evoked his electrifying personality, always standing out, for better or worse, from the rest of mere mortals.

From time to time, especially in the heat of summer, the albino's movements brought with them the freshness of his wild ocean. Free, expansive, as if he were one with the sky. For Suguru, that scent was the ultimate manifestation of his limitless technique; the ability to encompass everything belonged only to him and the untamable ocean.

"Can I sleep a little longer, Suguru?" he would ask between sighs when the first rays of sunlight illuminated his pale complexion. His fingers searching for his, an alarm clock against the wall, a warm embrace.

Once time did its work, Satoru's fragrance began to confuse him. The love he felt for those long hands, for the warmth of his breath, and the softness of his hair mingled with the painful reminder of what he left behind, with the resentment for what was broken, and the deep sadness for all that could have been but never was. The possibility of waking up to his snores, of caring for him during his colds, of scolding him for his careless attitude. Ultimately, the possibility of navigating youth while holding those long hands.

"Can I sleep a little longer, Suguru?" closed eyes, a raspy voice, bandages on the nightstand. The feeling that everything that had happened between them was the embodiment of the worst sin. A blink, a grunt, covering up again.

They would start again.

By the time death came for him, the scent of his beloved Six Eyes was a chemical manifestation of everything he had chosen to reject: the system, the structure he couldn't change, and, ultimately, him; with his magnificent strength, his figure, and the central axis of the world that, when he needed him most, gave him so much indifference. His scent, the embodiment of his greatest weakness. The slightest hint of his scent, of his purple scent, was a door to the past, to the memories he preferred to forget. To the moments when the love for his manic laughter, his strange occurrences, and his incredible intelligence knew no bounds. That fragrance was the last thing his body processed.

"Can I sleep a little longer, Suguru?" a flash of purple light, his world fading to black. The question that no longer had an answer.

If the soul is incapable of feeling without the body, then why, when they crossed paths again, did the power of chemistry act as if they had never separated? Why did hunger, burning passion, and desperate longing for the other's body take over them as if it were the first day? Why was something as simple and earthly as a scent able to anchor one person to another?

Because perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps the presence of a curse manipulator was bound to the birth of the Six Eyes heir. Perhaps where the existence of one began, the other's ended. Perhaps something as profane as this world would never be enough to contain a love as eternally sacred as the one they intoxicated themselves with.

Or maybe they were always two bodies and one soul.

Their soul.

Gojo's nose sank into Suguru's neck. The curse manipulator's left hand slid over the albino's waist. Satoru's right knee touched Suguru's left. Their fingers intertwined, their lips met, their scents mixed, and they became one entity again.

Perhaps the earth stopped for a moment, surprised; the love that moved it had finally resumed.

“Can I sleep a little longer, Suguru?”, he asked, resting on his legs, smiling flirtatiously.

“Sleep a little longer, Satoru”, he replied, as his delicate and soft hands welcomed him, eyes brimming with emotion.

Who would have thought an airport could feel like home?

The eternal home.

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