#Enough with the Tariffs Already

[carusolikey]

So You Want to Fight Fascism?

A handy compilation of resources and guides for getting through a pathetic attempt at suppressing the American spirit of Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness.

As I remain on the path of intentional civil disobedience, I will continue to add sources as I receive / come across them. This will be a dynamic document, constantly updating. Please feel free to share it wide and far and remember, that we are stronger together.

Let's get started!

Simple Sabotage Field Manual (Declassified) by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services

Written during WWII as a means of helping everyday people fight fascism by clogging up the system in simple ways, this guide was declassified by the CIA in 2008. It's now currently available to download for free, via Project Gutenberg.

Upcoming Protests

Advice for Protesting, From an Aging Anarchist

The Protesters' Guide to Smartphone Security

Protests Week of February 3, 2025 @ OPM in DC

February 6th, 11 a.m. - USAid Protest @ US State Dept. in DC

February 6th, 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m. @ Savannah, GA

February 6th, 5 p.m. @ University of Washington Campus

February 6th, 1 p.m. @ University of Minnesota, MN

February 6th, 3 p.m. @ 24th & L Streets, Omaha, NE

Additional Upcoming Protests

February 7th - 15th, 2025

February 16th - May 1st, 2025

50 Protests, 50 States, 1 Day

The Official Website for Future Protests

The General Strike

Historical Significance of the 3.5% Rule in Peaceful Protests

Articles & Reading Material to Defy Fascism

The Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide

In January 2017, after being published as a series of spontaneous tweets, this Guide went viral in the US and many other countries, being translated into several languages, from Turkish to Filipino. It was printed on placards during anti-Trump protests, studied at two American universities, quoted by CNBC’s Joy Reid on national TV and recommended by former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.

Each tweet ended with their trademark signature, “- With love, your Eastern European friends”, and the accompanying hashtag #LearnFromEurope.

On Tyranny - Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Free download of Timothy Snyder's social and political playbook, offering small but significant steps individuals can take to resist autocratic rule.

The Logic of Destruction & How to Resist It

A follow up to On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder.

Robert Reich's Guide for Resisting Neofascism

A top ten list of everyday things to do to protect the vulnerable, organize boycotts, and keep fighting, while continuing to find the joy in the humanity, the bravery, the indefatigable spirit of America.

Starting Somewhere: Community Organizing for Socially Awkward People Who've Had Enough

This book offers readers a crash course in organizing, educating, and agitating in the 21st Century. Written with a mix of incriminating anecdotes, personal retellings, and historical examples, "Starting Somewhere" is a first-person look at radical community organizing for misfits and outcasts committed to saving this planet for some inexplicable reason.

Evaluating Resources & Misinformation

The CRAAP Test is an evaluation method that was designed by librarian Sarah Blakeslee at the Meriam Library California State Universiy, Chico. CRAAP stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy and Purpose. This provides you with a method and list of questions to evaluate the nature and value of the information that you find.

Resources for Civil Servants

Civil Service Strong, a Project by Democracy Forward

People, organizations, and communities across the country are joining together to ensure our civil servants have resources if they are targeted or attacked. Check back as resources come online and for monitoring of threats to the civil service. And, see some of the essential available resources, centralized for the first time.

Hold the Line, Know Your Rights Flyer

Independently created fact sheet based in part on resources compiled by Civil Service Strong. Additional and updated information at civilservicestrong.org (Updated Jan 30, 2025)

The Justice Connection

Justice Connection is moving as quickly as we can to build a network of DOJ alumni who will provide employees with practical support, including:

Legal services in connection with employees’ current or past official position

Help to employees who’ve been doxed or harassed online

Whistleblowing guidance

Job-search assistance for those who feel like they need to leave the Department, or are forced out

We’ll also stand up for DOJ employees and combat the pernicious “deep state” narrative in Congress, and in the public square. And we’ll be responsive to DOJ employees’ evolving needs in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions

This public resource tracks legal challenges to Trump administration actions. If you think we are missing anything, you can email us at lte@justsecurity.org. Special thanks to  Just Security Student Staff Editors, Rick Da and Jeremy Venook, and to Matthew Fouracre.

The Tracker is part of the Collection: Just Security’s Coverage of the Trump Administration’s Executive Actions

The Tracker was first published on Jan. 29, 2025 and is continually updated.

How Do We Live Up to Our Oath?

We swore an oath. Foreign and domestic. That oath feels so hollow right now as it seems we’re stripped of any agency to fight this. I reached out my representative and senators. I’m sharing what I’m seeing with friends and family. None of it feels like it’s anywhere near enough.

Be a good witness.

Things like:

Who directed the action

What you were told

When they directed the action

When you were instructed to perform the action

Where you put things / did things

Preserve original if changing things

There are no “off the record” conversations. Only conversations you make extra notes for. Be a keeper of the facts.

Why? Good people may ask you to do things, and you may have to do them, but understand at some point in the future there will be people trying to fix what was broken or destroyed, and prosecute those that recklessly broke our laws.

When the time comes it will help both efforts. It may also be the only protection available when people look for others to blame.

I'm not a lawyer. You make your own choices, but if you find yourself in shock and uncertain what to do, at least be the best witness you can be in the moment. - u/MuchAppresch

Support Civil Servants as a Civilian

Donate to Unions Pushing Back Against Musk & Trump:

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Reproductive Health Care

Auntie's Medicine Cabinet

Planning Parenthood

Don't Even Get Me Started

When it's time to Plan for C

You've Got Mail - (but don't store it anywhere steamy)

Las Libres - (keep it cool - Article about Las Libres)

Your Auntie misses you. Send her a message, schedule a visit.

Get A CLU - Papa Don't Preach

CDC Reproductive Health Documents

Jessica Valenti of Abortion, Every Day, has been working to download documents that have been deleted on the CDC's website relating to sexual health, intimate partner violence, and reproductive rights. The information has been archived at the link above, and if you'd like to reach out to assist in the continued effort, or provide support, click here. There are currently many people working to preserve data from the CDC, as well as rogue members of the CDC.

CDC Data Hoarding Courtesty of r/datahoarding:

CDC Main, Preserved January 19, 2025

CDC HIV Info, Preserved January 18, 2025

CDC Reproductive Health Info, Preserved December 20, 2024

CDC Adolescent & School Health Info, Preserved January 14, 2025

CDC Injury & Violence Prevention Info, Preserved January 14, 2025

Support for Immigrants

Immigrant Legal Resource Center & National Immigration Law Center

Family Preparedness Plan

Know Your Rights

Printable Red Card in Multiple Languages

ACLU - Know Your Rights

People Over Papers

Anonymous ICE Sightings

Find Strength Through Community

Don't Believe Him - NYT OP-ED, by Ezra Klein

Is Somebody Doing Something?!, by Jay Kuo

Issues to Call Your Lawmakers Regarding

Find Your Senator Find Your Representative

5 Calls

5 Calls makes it easy for you to reach your members of Congress and make your voice heard.

We research issues, write scripts that clearly articulate a progressive position, thus taking the anxiety out of making your calls, figure out the most influential decision-makers, and collect phone numbers for their offices.

All you have to do is call.

OPM Memo - RE: Defending Women

Summary: "...providing the following initial guidance to agencies regarding the President’s Executive Order entitled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Defending Women)." Interpretation: ✌🏻Truth✌🏻, but not facts. Likely to be weaponized against women, non-binary, trans, and intersex people.

Musk Aides Lock Federal Workers Out of Computer Systems at U.S. Agency

Summary: Article is here. What Musk did is extremely illegal. He and his aides have no business hooking up outside tech to government technology, allowing them access to citizens' dates of birth, Social Security numbers, home addresses, income, government workers' information. This tech allows them to read federal workers' emails and spy in other insidious ways, presumably to ferret out anyone who's not unquestioningly loyal.

David Lebryk Denied Musk Access at U.S. Treasury, Abruptly Departs Position

Summary: "David Lebryk, a career civil servant who oversaw the more than one billion payments that the federal government makes every year, was placed on administrative leave this week after resisting requests from Mr. Musk’s lieutenants... Mr. Musk has been fixated on the Treasury system as a key to cutting federal spending. Representatives from his government efficiency initiative began asking Mr. Lebryk about source code information related to the nation’s payment system during the presidential transition in December... Mr. Lebryk raised the request to Treasury officials at the time, noting that it was the type of proprietary information that should not be shared with people who did not work for the federal government. Members of the departing Biden administration were alarmed by the request.." Elon has not been confirmed for any position within the government, DOGE is not a real department, he has absolutely zero clearance, and has taken no oath of office, unlike the many federal employees currently working to protect our government from threats both foreign and domestic. Tell your lawmakers that he needs to go, STAT.

USAID security officials — John Voorhees and deputy Brian McGill, Placed On Leave After Denying Access to Musk

Summary: "...the administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government-inspection teams... DOGE, eventually did gain access Saturday to the aid agency’s classified information, which includes intelligence reports... It comes a day after DOGE carried out a similar operation at the Treasury Department, gaining access to sensitive information including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems... USAID, whose website vanished Saturday without explanation, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal government and many of its programs." No. Again, Elon has no business in those offices, amongst classified files - he is a threat to national security, and we all know he just wants to drain the national coffers for his own means. Get him out of there.

Senator Chris Van Hollen Wants to Hear From You

Summary: Senator Van Hollen has a direct link to contact his offices about how Trump's Executive Orders are affecting you, if you live in the State of Maryland. Help him fight back against this authoritarian kakistocracy by providing your personal feedback.

The Heritage Foundation's Definition of "Pro-Woman Feminism"

Summary: If you can suffer through this, it praises the feminism of women in 1848, of Antebellum. It's a Christofascist love letter to the subjugation of women, that honestly, I found myself skipping through because it was so disgusting. When you get to the bottom and discover that it was written by a woman, Erika Bachiochi, who describes herself as, "Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Senior Fellow, Abigail Adams Institute, and Author," you might do a spit take. I know I did. Even better, when I perused her "sources" for the article, most of them were pre-1900's, some of them were even 1400-1500's, and a good chunk of them? Her own writings. She used herself as her sources multiple times. Is that good research? Is it? Really? That all of your sources are pre-1900's and the other ones are you, when it comes to defining current feminism? And she had the audacity to besmirch Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the first feminist writers. Bitch, please, GTFO.

United States Renewed Membership in the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family

Cool! We're back in the Geneva Convention, yay! Hold up - check that wording again. Geneva Consensus. Not the same thing at all. Summary: The Declaration has four main objectives: to secure meaningful health and development gains for women; to protect life at all stages; to defend the family as the fundamental unit of society; and to work together across the UN system to realize these values. Allow me to translate: It's a Global Gag Rule and that's a bad thing.

H.R. - Life at Conception (National Abortion Ban)

Summary: Sniveling piece of shit, Eric Burlison (R-MO), introduced this legislation to ban abortion nationally, after his home state of Missouri voted to legalize abortion. Bitter much? Tell him to suck it, and tell your lawmakers they better not.

H.R. 7 - Life Affirming Medical Care for Women

Summary: Extremely offensive resolution attempting to medically regulate women's bodies - could also have implications for the trans community, amongst others. This wording is especially concerning: "Whereas health care for women should also address the needs of men, families, and communities as they relate to women’s health care;" This resolution can catch itself on fire and go back to hell, where it was originally written.

Call or Email the Smithsonian Directly - LGBTQIA2S+ Activism

Summary: Cuban-born queer artist Felix González-Torres piece called "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), a pile of shiny candies in a museum gallery that beckons the observer to grab and eat one, comes with this description: "This is González-Torres's unconventional portrait of his partner, Ross Laycock, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991. The candies' combined weight, 175 pounds, corresponds to Laycock's ideal weight before he got ill. Visitors are invited to sample the sweets. As the candy disappears, the pile shrinks in mass and weight, reenacting the debilitating effects of Laycock's illness." This article describes the piece: "When I understood the profound meaning of this installation as an AIDS memorial, and realized how, as the museum keeps replenishing the pile, Felix is giving his partner eternal life, I burst into tears, experiencing the transformative power of art. Felix, who died from AIDS complications in 1996, invites the viewer to participate in his works, which combine a minimalistic aesthetic with a very personal and political stance imbued with identities tied to race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic and immigrant status." But when they viewed the exhibit in DC in December 2024, the candy was laid out in a line, without the context of the description as a portrait, erasing the history of the AIDS epidemic and a big part of LBGTQIA2S+ history.

Digital Security Checklist for Activists

Plain language steps for digital security. For protecting yourself and helping keep your whole community safer.

While this has some good advice, some of the browsers / email options mentioned may have issues. I'm still looking into it. It seems that Firefox is the go-to from most tech resources. Will update as I get additional info.

Google to Change Gulf of Mexico

On Google Maps:

1. Search “Gulf of America” 2. If you find one, scroll down, select “Edit” 3. Select “Place is closed or not here” 4. Select “Does not exist here” OR “Offensive, harmful, or misleading” OR “Other” 5. Select “Submit”

To add “Gulf of Mexico”:

1. Drop a pin 📍 in the Gulf of Mexico 2. In the menu that appears, select “add a missing place” 3. Fill in the form starting with place name, “Gulf of Mexico” 4. For category, select “Outdoors and recreation”, then “Historical 5. Landmark” OR “Park” OR “Tourist Attraction” 6. For “Located Within” leave blank or fill in “Earth” OR “Northern and Western Hemisphere”, etc. 7. Add more details if so inclined, pertaining to the Gulf of Mexico. 8. Add some photo-ops. 9. Submit.*

*Feel free to submit as many times as you like, anywhere you like within the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a small protest, but hopefully one that will annoy Google, Drump, and Melon. Especially if a lot of people do this. You can also apply this method to Denali.

Please let me know if you have anything that deserves to be added to this list. Obviously, fascists DNE.

The WINS

This section is dedicated to the good news - to knowing that every little thing we do to push back matters.

Women win court ruling blocking Trump’s order to house trans women in men’s prisons

Trump's transphobic order is now blocked nationwide, thanks to three trans inmates and an LGBTQ+ advocacy org. A district judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to forcibly de-transition and house transgender female inmates in male jails and prisons, calling Trump’s order a violation of Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The judge’s order is the second recent legal ruling in favor of trans inmates who oppose Trump’s order, and it applies to all trans inmates nationwide, The Hill reported.

House Dem Proposes Bill Named After Musk Ending Federal Contracts for Special Government Employees

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wash.) introduced a bill Wednesday named Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy (ELON MUSK) Act seeking to ban special government employees from obtaining federal contracts.  “Elon Musk gets more than $20 billion in contracts from the US government and bought his way into a new role in the government where he can direct even more money to himself. Enough,” Pocan wrote in a post on the social platform X, which Musk owns.  ”My new bill, the ELON MUSK Act, will end this grift!” Here's hoping, Mark. Here's hoping.

[ultrakdramamama]

ugh

Anyone ordered any albums since these stupid ass new tariffs went into place? Because I just ordered 9 copies of SHINee's Poet | Artist, 6 for me and 3 for my giveaway I'm going to be doing shortly, and I'm just wondering how much more it's going to cost me once they arrive..,sigh. Stupid Trump.

oh yeah, and because of the tariffs, I am going to have to make my giveaway limited to the US only, sorry to my followers living elsewhere, but I don't want you to have to pay crazy tariffs either. God, I hate that man.

[bellsblargbin]

i hope they riot again but against him and not for him

[toorumlk]

the importance of art and safety.

(in this period of descent into fascism)

If you're a liberal/left-leaning person like me, you have been voraciously keeping up with local, provincial/state and federal politics, and with the world news, using all avenues available to you to try and make sense of the tumultuous time were living through. And thus, with each passing day, you've probably been inundated with the F-word more and more from the news/political commentators you follow, from the images attached in the articles you read, and the academics and journalists you trust. Fascism. With the recent ruling from the UK Supreme Court saying that the legal definition of a woman is solely going to be rooted in biology and seeing the jubilant celebration surrounding it, I can’t help but feel like we just took one more monumental step in the global death march towards fascism.

I’m scared and very worried.

Of course, this isn’t really about my own personal feelings of fear because overall, I will be quite alright. I’m a bisexual, leftist woman and arts and culture person living in Canada, in a dependably liberal-to-progressive riding and city. Yes, my country has a federal election coming up and there is a chance we might (strong emphasis on ‘might’) elect a right-wing reactionary buffoon of our own in the form of Pierre Poilievre, but center and left-of-center Canadians were given a hail Mary in the new liberal party leader Mark Carney, who’s performing better in the early polls everyday. So, we might not have to worry that much at all. Yes, the cost of living is still abysmal (as my friends and I keep saying: girl, the tariffs), and going through life’s very human struggles is still excruciating but ultimately, bearable. Spring, the best season, is well on its way and the days are getting longer and you see that your neighbour’s tulip bulbs are peaking out from the soil and you’re able to go home and give your cat a big kiss on the cheek as they reward you with an annoyed and disgruntled meow.

And so you feel emotionally regulated enough to then go on your daily news binge and find that another university student in the US got black-bagged for expressing pro-Palestine views, you see images of the destruction of Gaza and the concentration prison/camps in El Salvador, and then that the boomer British lady who authored the books that have been bringing so much joy and fulfillment to your art practice donated 70 000 euros to a feminist organization that was the plaintiff fighting to disenfranchise an already marginalized minority group. And you’re left feeling quite… dirty and doom-ridden and powerless while standing in the middle of the cushy imperial core.

Your cat who was annoyed you picked them up earlier has forgiven you now, though, and is headbutting you for some catnip.

But this isn’t about me, not in the slightest. I/we know how these things go. I’m not a history buff by any means (though I really want to be) but I have a basic enough understanding of world history to know we’re already in the throes of fascism: with the targeting and scapegoating of vulnerable minorities like the trans community or the complete hatred and want for disposal of migrants – I feel a deep and suffocating grief for my fellow comrades.

This pain, I believe, is all our duties as human beings with the gift and responsibility of empathy, to feel.

I’m also hyperaware that with the downward fall into fascism comes the defunding and eventual erasure and censorship of art. Now I’m not saying my art is worthy or important enough to be censored. But I am saying we need art; we need as much of it as there can be for our emotional needs which is imperative for our survival. I don’t mean to say this in a hyperproduction/hyper consuming way, of course, we just need human artists, humane art (whatever that means to you) now more than ever.

I’m a political person, and my leftist and feminist principles and values I think show up quite plainly in my work but again, I don’t think I’m making anything radical here – my art I think is just one small piece in a greater human need to make and experience art. Therefore, I’d be remiss to say it wasn’t important. I know my work is important in that I know it means something to people. This community here for instance, or on twitter/x, Instagram or tiktok, which I feel like the luckiest person alive to have somehow conjured, that means something to me, and I’d be glaringly obtuse if I didn’t acknowledge it. So, I sincerely want you to know my art exists not only as the physical manifestation of this vocation of mine, but also as a source of safety and comfort for your senses, if you need it to be.

As much as I want to be, I’m not an activist, I’m just an artist. And my art is the one (I hope) iron-clad thing I can give to the world and the beautiful, worthy of lives of dignity, people within it. Joy and comfort aren’t a solid political program on its own and I know art consumption alone is not going to lead us to liberation, self-determination and lives of dignity. But, my god, do we still need joy, comfort and safety in the form of art to get through each day.

To my nonbinary and trans friends and siblings, I am so, so fucking sorry powers greater than us are using you as pawns for political theatre, and that so many restless people are using you as political punching bags. The world we’re living through is incredibly unfair and unjust at the moment. Your pain is our pain, none of us are free until all of us are free. So, I want you to know that my little pictures and I are here, fighting alongside you.

I know Harry Potter, the IP and the storyworld with its characters, isn’t what’s causing our dissent into fascism. And I know, realistically, I’m not the devil’s spawn for still liking it, for making cute artwork of the titular main character’s best friends for its fandom. I can’t explain in words why I feel such an affinity to this story, this very entry-level story about fighting fascism, with its anti-social megalomaniac villain and its painfully liberal/reformist politics. My pull towards it is deep, abstract, and almost spiritual, and if I could succinctly put these feelings and magnetism into words, I probably wouldn’t be making this much art like my life depended on it. And the awful truth of it is, I’ve never been more artistically fulfilled. I’m so happy while making this work and my cup becomes fuller after each drawing, I selfishly don’t want to stop. Does that make me awful?

A lot of my peers, fellow fanartists, have been considering leaving the fandom altogether and it’s left me feeling a kind of panic because, quite frankly, I don’t want to. Not until the creative reserve (which is rooted in my love and other abstract feelings for the story) within me has run dry, which it hasn’t. And after I realized this, I felt a little ashamed that I wasn’t feeling what others are also feeling, but I think the knee-jerk reaction to leave and disavow this community because of the cartoonishly mean-spirited author (who ironically made this story about love, friendship and fighting fascism) also feels hasty and reactionary. I understand the impulse, I really do. I recognize I have a vested interest in saying this, but I sincerely think we need art now more than ever, if any of my peers are reading this: your art. Thoughtful art, art that is an exercise in empathy. I’m also saying this because I feel a deep sense of responsibility to my friends (majority of whom are also queer and trans) I’ve made through our shared love of this story, to fellow fans and the people I’ve been privileged enough to have touched with my art.

This discomfort of still harboring love for this flawed but ultimately lovable and beloved story during this time of political unrest and chaos, and continuing to express my love for it by creating artwork for it… is something I will just have to live with until it’s run its course. I don’t think this is a righteous grief by any means – I think the mundanity of it is what’s making it especially annoying.

Quivering in the face of good art is I think one of the best feelings in the world, and though I sincerely believe the HP story to be good and adequate in its political and class commentary, this squirming isn’t exactly that. I’m immensely (and selfishly) resentful to JKR for being the mean-spirited bully/troll that she is, not only do I wish she weren’t a right-wing reactionary, I wish her tomfoolery didn’t make me squirm uncomfortably (the word I’m looking for here is ‘cringe’) while still genuinely enjoying this work. Nonetheless, I’m confident in my ability to engage with this story intelligently and I hope to continue to share my thoughts and love for this narrative through posts and meta/cultural analyses and many, many drawings of Ron and Hermione kissing. I am also steadfast in my political convictions, which are so much older than the just-over-a-year-old love I have for these books. My political convictions which have always been and will always continue to be pro-trans, feminist, anticapitalist and grounded in my love and empathy for people.

I don’t have all the answers to how and why we are so drawn to certain stories and characters and tribes (because fandom in a fundamental way acts like a tribe), and why we so profoundly need to keep making and keep experiencing art. Or how to even best live with the contradictions that exist within and outside of us. I’m just a young artist, still in the infancy of my career in many ways, but something in my bones is telling me this is important work, and I should keep doing it – with all its squirming discomfort, and its wonderful, beautiful fulfillment.

Again, we are living through incredibly difficult times, but we must make it through, and we will. I will keep making work that I hope is thoughtful and politically principled, and I hope you’re able to find some joy and comfort in them as I do while making them.

- nus :)

[jack-a-nape]

Week 1 of Trump Presidency 2.0

Elon Musk did a Nazi Salute twice at inauguration although some (mostly Telsa bros from Elon's fan club) claim it was actually a Roman Salute so it's not fascist or racist. Germany and Austria disagree and said personally they would have arrested Musk for doing that. here [edit: Musk has since appeared at a alt-right German campaign saying Germany is too focused on the past and should move past the guilt of Nazi past. He also says he'll save Germany soo] here

Trump signed an executive order stating all of America is female here

Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, founder of dark website Silk Road, who was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences, plus 40 years with no parole in May 2015. Ulbricht's charges included money laundering, drug trafficking, conspiring to commit computer hacking, and engaging in the continuation of a criminal enterprise (Prosecutors also say Ulbricht ordered 6 hits including one against a former Silk Road employee although there is no evidence that any hit was successfully carried out). here

Trump issued an executive order undoing many of Biden's orders. Of the 78 orders' signed by Biden that Trump is revoking, the majority are related to climate change, COVID-19, workplace and racial equality, public health accessibility, education and other public programs here

Bank of America CEO states that crypto will now be embraced by banks (side note Trump and Melania have both created crypto currencies) here

Tiktok is back and Trump said he doesn't care about full ownership he just wants 50% here

Trump has placed an executive order withdrawing from the WHO. here

Trump is expected to issue an executive order focused on "reshaping the military" including banning transgender troops here

Trump promises an overhaul of FEMA, including potentially attaching conditions before aid can be granted, or even dismantling FEMA entirely here

Places of worship, schools, and hospitals are no longer safe havens for migrants from ICE. This has already resulted in the mass deportation of thousands of immigrants, including a plane to Colombia that Trump threatened tariffs if the country did not accept. here and here. Additionally deported were 88 individuals who arrived on the 24th. For the Brazilian deportees, teh Brazil Foreign Ministry is demanding an explanation from the Trump administration, citing the administration's "disrespect for human rights" when the deportees were found to have been withheld water, handcuffed together, and denied bathroom access, with some reportedly being beaten and requiring medical attention. here

Trump stated he plans to mass relocate the people of Gaza by sending everyone to Jordan or Egypt to "clean out" the area of Palestinians. Back in May Biden had placed a hold which prevented Israel from receiving several 2,000 pound bombs from the US, Trump released the hold on the 26th saying its been long enough for Israel to not have their bombs.  here

[grison-in-space]

That's five Republican cosponsors of the Senate bill to make all Presidential tariffs illegal if not ratified by Congress within 60 days. One of which is Mitch fucking McConnell. Strange bedfellows, indeed.

Don't get too excited yet; to get a veto proof majority you need two thirds of the Senate, which means you need 67 total votes for the bill. We have 47 Dems, so we would need fifteen more GOP senators to cross lines.

However. If you have a Republican senator, get the fuck on those phone lines now. Emphasize the economic disaster on the horizon. You tell them that these shitwits are going to tank your jobs, your businesses, your homes and your communities. You tell them that their names are on this economic disaster. Hound them like coonhounds baying down the trail after frightened game, and tell them how hungry you are for their misfortune already; imagine how hungry you will be when your families can't afford to eat.

These fuckers blink when we get angry. We got the NOAA back yesterday, at least temporarily. RFK is claiming he is trying to rehire a bunch of our fired federal workers in HHS which was "always the plan" despite internal confirmation that there is no such plan. These thieving rats in the grain house are frightened of us already and they flinch when we howl!

They are probably lying about their plans, but they are at least frightened enough to lie. Our job is to harass them in every moment of their lives until they panic and break. Make these Russian traitors afraid again.

If you can, come to the Hands Off! protests today. There are virtual options and options for every state and many many many cities. That's an unfakable, incontrovertible statement of unified anger, and the sheer weight of numbers frightens politicians. Showing up will help provide leverage. It will also be great practice if we need to run a general strike for more leverage.

Let's get to work!

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/more-us-senate-republicans-voice-support-congressional-oversight-tariffs-2025-04-04/

[binarystarhero]

my apologies if its been asked already, but is there any chance of intl shipping in the future for the bsh merch? id loveeee to snap it up but im not in the states :(

If it was straightforward and easy, I totally would love to!

But unfortunately, I would have to spend a lot of time to figure out best processes for shipping internationally (carrier, taxes, packaging, tariffs, ect). Alongside that, it would probably be like 25-30 USD for shipping cost alone 😭 which I would hate to ask anyone to pay that high of shipping cost for my merch.

Maybe some day in the future if I have enough time to figure it out I'll look into it, but for now I am not able to 😔

[carusolikey]

More Upcoming Protests

Wonderful! More and more dates to protest!

Protests are listed by Date, then by State

All of these have been scraped from various sources - please be cautious in attending any protest found here, and review the advice listed on the main "So You Want to Fight Fascism?" page for tips on keeping yourself and others safe before / during protests.

Protests from February 16th - May 1st can be found below.

Additional dates, February 7th - February 15th can be found HERE.

Click HERE to return to the "So You Want to Fight Fascism?"

Protests / Events associated with Indivisible Organization can be found HERE. Protests / Events associated with MoveON can be found HERE.

February 16th, 6:30 a.m. @ San Mateo, CA

February 16th, 3 p.m. @ Atlanta, GA

February 22nd, 12:30 - 4:30 p.m. @ Coachella, CA

Link for RSVP-ing HERE

March 1st, TBD @ Washington, D.C.

May 1st, TBD @ Minneapolis, MN

Additional dates, February 7th - February 15th can be found HERE.

Click HERE to return to the "So You Want to Fight Fascism?"

[mariacallous]

Last week, President Donald Trump finally unveiled his tariff policy — an incoherent bolus of sky-high taxes on goods from every inhabited country and some small islands which are home only to penguins.

The tariffs are so high, and so obviously nonsensical in development and implementation, that they caused a terrifying stock selloff. The market lost $6.6 trillion in two days, the biggest two-day wipeout on record. (And the selloff is set to continue this week.)

Trump’s tariffs will cost the average American family $3,800 a year. They are set to devastate supply chains for small businesses. As other countries crank up retaliatory tariffs, farmers are going to face major barriers to selling on the world market. The administration’s conflicting messages about why the tariffs are in place, and under what conditions they will remain, have only added to the chaos and confusion.

The only thing that seems certain at this point is the likelihood of more, and escalating, economic devastation.

Trump’s decision to single-handedly hobble the world economy and immiserate tens of millions of Americans has presented his fellow Republicans with a stark choice. Do they continue to kiss his orange butt and slavishly nod along to every nonsensical whim of their idiot Golfer King as he leads them into a recession and almost certain electoral apocalypse? Or do they defy him, splitting the party and opening themselves to a primary challenge … and possible electoral apocalypse?

The good news is that some GOP senators and members of Congress are actually disturbed enough by the prospect of their voters starving in the street that they have taken steps to push back against this grotesquely self-destructive trade policy. The not so good news is that the pushback is hesitant and half-hearted — and the majority of the party remains ready to torture and impoverish their constituents for the greater glory of Trump.

The tariffs, and the quick slide into economic calamity, have sparked real resistance. They’ve also demonstrated just how craven and/or hypnotized the GOP has become, and the extent to which most Republicans would do anything — literally anything — rather than point out that the emperor is wearing a grotesque meat suit made of the skin of his constituents.

Revolt of (a few) Republicans

As they are wont to do, many Republicans have gotten on their bellies to grovel and spout the usual Trump-flattering balderdash, either because they are desperate to propitiate their master or because they are genuinely fools.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been leading the charge of the sycophants. In interviews he’s blathered that Trump’s trade policy would force other countries to “stop picking on us” and bleated, “Let Donald Trump run the global economy. He knows what he’s doing.”

Some of Lutnick’s fellow Republicans do not, somehow, find his mix of whining and wheedling persuasive.

Shortly after Trump announced his one man assault on the world economy, the Senate passed a bill on a straight majority vote to end the 25 percent emergency tariff declaration against Canada, which Trump had already announced before his latest round of additional bonus tariffs.

The bill was sponsored by Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky and Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia. All Democrats voted for it, as did Republicans Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski. It passed 51-48.

“We're not at war with Canada," Paul said, sounding about as sensible as he ever has. “They're an ally that buys more of our stuff than almost any other country in the world.”

The vote was largely symbolic. Senate Democrats, led by minority leader Chuck Schumer, cravenly caved and gave Republicans the votes they needed to pass a continuing resolution which funded the government, but also stripped Congress members of the ability to bring bills to the floor to vote on repealing presidential emergency declarations.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, the high priest of Trump enablers, will almost certainly prevent the bill from ever coming to the floor. Even if it were to pass, Trump could veto it — and it’s very unlikely Republicans could find enough votes to overcome a veto.

Despite these barriers, Democrats — and some Republicans—are trying again. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley — whose farm state of Iowa will be devastated by the tariffs — has joined with Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell to cosponsor a bill that would claw back the oversight power Congress has recklessly ceded to the president on trade over the decades.

Per the Grassley/Cantwell bill, the president would need to notify Congress within 48 hours of new tariffs, explaining the reasoning behind them and estimating economic impact. Congress would have 60 days to approve the tariffs; if they failed to do so, the tariffs would expire.

In addition to Grassley, the bill is cosponsored by four other Republicans: Jerry Moran, Thom Tillis, McConnell, and Murkowski. Add in Paul and Collins, who voted for the Kaine/Paul bill, and that’s at least seven Republican votes — enough to pass the bill on a simple majority, though not enough to overcome a filibuster.

There have been other signs of Republican unrest too. Nebraska moderate Republican Rep. Don Bacon has said he plans to introduce a House version of the Grassley/Cantwell bill. Normally solid Trumpists like Ted Cruz and billionaire executive branch arsonist Elon Musk have also both expressed skepticism about Trump’s tariff policy.

Profiles in (not quite) courage

Republicans are publicly criticizing Trump. They’re also introducing and voting on bills to curtail Trump’s tariffs. This matters. It means the media has more room to portray the tariffs as actually bad, rather than simply defaulting to easy “R said/D said” both sides narratives.

In addition, open dissent by a significant number of Republicans helps break the collective action problem. Trump can target one or two GOP dissenters, but it’s much harder to excommunicate nine or 10, including co-president Musk. A quorum of people speaking up makes it possible for even more people to dissent. This is how you build up to effective resistance.

But while effective resistance is dimly visible somewhere in the future, we have not arrived there as of yet. Again, there aren’t enough Republican dissenters to pass Grassley/Cantwell over a filibuster, much less a presidential veto. And it’s unclear that the GOP anti-tariff caucus has the stomach for more aggressive tactics.

Would the GOP anti-tariff caucus be willing to join with Democrats to sink the Republican reconciliation bill with all its billionaire tax cut goodies unless and until it includes provisions stripping Trump of tariff power? Would Bacon and other anti-tariff House Republicans withhold their votes in the House?

Given that we’re facing what could be the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, you’d like to think that the answers there would be an easy “yes”. But, considering Republican fecklessness, it seems more than likely that Grassley, Paul, McConnell, Tillis, and the rest will throw away their leverage the minute they have to actually oppose Trump directly.

Congress has a great deal of power to restrain the president — in theory. In practice, many congresspeople and senators are true believing cult members, and those who aren’t are extremely risk averse. They don’t want to take controversial votes or be responsible for anything. They certainly don’t want to oppose the president of their own party even when that president is obviously a callous fool hellbent on demolishing the economy and with it farms, small businesses, and consumers, all for reasons he and his minions aren’t able to articulate coherently.

Republican dissent is a hopeful sign. The hard limits on it, though, given the magnitude of the crisis, are a bleak reminder of how we ended up in this nightmare to begin with. Any successful resistance is going to require a fair number of Republicans to abandon their orange idol. It’s good to see them starting to do that. But it’s undeniably grim that the fate of the nation rests to any degree at all on these, gutless, spineless, christofascist quislings.

[thisblogisaboutabook]

Rainy Season - Part 3

Storm Warning

Azriel Eris x Reader

We’ve got a time jump and are swapping points of view for this chapter y’all.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4

3 months later

Eris Vanserra hated the Summer Court. The humidity anywhere outside of the temperature regulated zones of Adriata, the way his hair clung to his forehead and caused curls to form in his otherwise immaculate hair, but most of all it was just insulting to be so bothered by the heat itself when he quite literally had fire in his veins. He couldn’t get out of here fast enough.

Tarquin strode alongside Eris through the open air lower levels of his keep, three of his guards and two of Eris’ own flanking them several feet behind, one could almost forget they were there if not for the “click clack” of feet echoing through the halls. Eris would be lying if he said he didn’t have to try very hard to focus on the mundane talk of trade routes and port authorities instead of getting lost to the sounds of crashing waves and gulls outside.

Tarquin broached the riveting subject of tariffs on imports from the continent as the first rumble of thunder boomed in the distance. Now that - Eris enjoyed that aspect of the court. Autumn had no shortage of rain but the turbulence of storms often mirrored his own inner peril - made him feel less alone in the world. And truthfully, there was nothing like taking cover from the rain and listening to the rumble outside, watching the lightning dance across the skies as the loud cracks of thunder commanded the attention of anyone within earshot.

“Have your people felt the same effects, High Lord?” Tarquin broke Eris from yet another drift of his thoughts. He really should have brought a secretary or advisor along for this meeting.

Sparing Eris from the embarrassment of asking Tarquin to repeat his last three minutes of speech a cry broke through the hall. The battle cry of a…. Child?

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Followed by a yelp of “ow!”

Eris’ head jerked as he found himself drifting toward the action.

Turning a corner he found a woman laying on the ground, curled into a ball - a child of no more than 10 with a large jagged stick standing over her with his chest puffed out, pure smug joy on his face.

Eris looked to Tarquin who only grinned with satisfaction. Eris gaped before Tarquin quietly whispered, “just watch.”

The woman didn’t move. The child’s look of satisfaction slowly turning to that of concern as she lay there. He bent over the woman placing a hand on her shoulder, his brows knit together. “Lady L/N?”

So focused on the woman on the ground before him, the boy didn’t notice her arm slowly sneak around him and “Oof!” The kid let out a startled breath as she grabbed his ankle, ripping it out from beneath him, effectively leaving the child on his behind.

The female lept up into a crouching position. Her tanned, muscled thighs pushing her up to stand effortlessly. “And that, little ones, is why you never let your guard down with an adversary.”

Eris turned, wondering how he could have missed the group of children sitting on the other end of the room watching the scene unfold.

The boy remained on his behind, hands resting on his forehead in defeat.

“Hey-“ She reached a hand out to help him up. “You did a great job. You quite literally swept me off my feet! Nobody has done that in quite some time.” She paused, sadness twisting her features as if her own words struck her before shifting back to that of a proud instructor. “In fact - I have something for you.”

She reached into the pocket of her calf-length, flowy pants and reaching handing him a shell. “Add this to your leather strap.” She tapped a leather bracelet on his wrist, one shell already strung on it. “You did great, kid.” The boy gave her a genuine smile as he returned to the rest of his classmates.

Eris shifted involuntarily. How much had he wished for someone to say those words to him when he was a child?

Tarquin chuckled “An excellent motivator. Shells. Who knew?”

Eris gave a small smile - brief but genuine before adjusting back into his usual mask. The instructor turned to face them and cauldron damn him if she wasn’t the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen. Radiant skin that came from plenty of time in the sun, silky hair that practically begged to have fingers run through it, a soft and curvy yet toned build. A body that told him she indulged herself in what she enjoyed but was active enough to define her plush features, likely blessed with great genetics - lithe yet perfectly squeezable in all his favorite places.

“High Lord.” Her voice carried to him like an ocean breeze. She bowed her head in a respectful greeting, long lashes fluttering. “How may I be of service?”

“Lady L/N,” Tarquin beamed. “It’s a pleasure to introduce you to Eris Vanserra, High Lord of the Autumn Court.”

Her brow puzzled for a brief moment before bowing her head again. “It’s an honor to meet you, High Lord.”

“A pleasure to meet you as well, lady.” Eris replied sincerely, meeting her bright eyes. “I didn’t realize Tarquin was hoarding such beauty within his keep.”

“We have many treasures in our court, High Lord. She is one of our brightest.”

Rather than blushing, the female held her head high, giving a polite “Thank you, High Lord.”

“We must be getting to lunch now. Have a pleasant rest of your class, Lady L/N.” He turned to the children with a stern look “And children, behave for her.” following the reminder with a smile and cheeky wink.

—————

It was hours later that Eris was released from meetings for the day. Unfortunately, there was still more to be discussed that would have to wait for tomorrow. Making the way to his guest suite, Eris found himself wondering about the instructor from earlier. Something about her felt vaguely familiar but he couldn’t quite place it.

After changing out of his stuffy clothes into something more befitting of the climate, Eris paced his room. He’d forgotten how much longer daylight lasted here than in his own court, with several hours remaining before dusk. He supposed he could brave the heat and take a stroll through the palace grounds, preferably without his entourage of guards.

Relieving the pair from their duties, Eris wandered through the gardens and toward a small grove of trees on the other side of the palace grounds. He could hear running water from a garden tributary that likely connected into the river that emptied into Adriata’s harbor.

Sauntering through the grove, he was pleased to find reprieve from the heat, the cool air wafting off of the stream and shade from the trees turning the grove into a private oasis. It wasn’t particularly trekked through. “Finally.” he thought to himself. A moment of peace.

Situating himself on an iron bench, Eris looked up, only to find that through a thicket of cattails, Lady L/N was standing on a rock upstream, eyes closed and balancing on one leg. Given her steady, intentional breathing he supposed she was meditating. It was odd - seeing her like this - strangely intimate to see someone in such an isolated state of catharsis, unaware of his own presence before her. The sun rays shone through cracks in the leaves, shrouding her in tiny fragments of light that made her tanned skin near golden. Her hair was wind blown from the breeze winding through the grove off the ocean, and she’d changed into a thin cotton sundress. Gods, maybe the Summer Court wasn’t so bad after all. The way it effortlessly flowed over her body perfectly accentuating her ample curves, and those tanned, toned legs - yeah, he should probably leave.

After momentary internal warring he began to stand but before he could sneak off, she gasped. Clutching her arms to her rib cage. “MOTHER FUCKER!” she screamed. Vulgar words coming from such a pretty mouth.

What an interesting method of meditation.

She took several breaths before resuming her position. Another minute went by when she audibly growled. “Bastard!!” She clutched herself again, keeling over. Finally she sat down on the rock, the hem of her dress soaking in the stream’s rippling water, and pressed her head into her hands. Eris thought she was crying.

He really should leave but - memories of his mother crying over the years flashed into his mind. All the years that she only had he or Lucien to console her, kindered spirits brought together by Beron’s casual cruelty. His other brothers being the emotionally void carbon copies of their father they were, paid no mind to their mother’s plight.

Yet still, he didn’t know her. She didn’t know him. She likely didn’t want him bothering her.

Against his better judgement, he found himself drawn in by her familiarity and approached. As he drew closer, he realized her sobs were not sobs at all. She was muttering the raunchiest, most vile slew of curses that he’d ever heard. Lucien would enjoy this female.

As he approached, she jerked her head up. The lovely, collected face from earlier twisted into one of contempt. He wondered if she knew that, that face was, well, adorable like a fierce little kitten. Although, something told him to tread carefully. She may look adorable but he’d bet good coin that her bite matched that of a lions.

“What do you want?” She spat.

Eris only smirked. “And here I thought you were a lady.”

Baiting her. Genius idea, Eris.

“Only within the palace.”

“You’re still on palace grounds.” Shrugging with the statement, Eris put his hands in his pockets - damn these Summer Court linens really were comfortable.

“Well, I was alone until you intruded.” she murmured, not meeting his eyes.

“Did you win Tarquin’s good graces with such manners?”

Her expression filled with ire as she looked up at him. “Did you take your throne by being such a prick?”

Eris couldn’t help but laugh at her bravado. This female either REALLY didn’t like him or truly didn’t care about consequences. “Ah, so you do know who I am.”

“You’re a High Lord. Of course I know-“

Her words cut off as she clutched her ribs again, tighter this time. A shudder escaping her. This time the pain seemed to last longer. And this time he could have sworn her voice cracked as she swore.

“Hey” Eris stepped into the creek, not bothering to step out of his sandals. Before he could hesitate he crouched down before her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Breathe.”

The thing was, he recognized that pain well. It has been centuries but damn he remembered it so clearly.

“Breathe through it. Think of something that makes you smile.”

She clutched herself harder, shaking her head. “Think of the look on your student’s face when you gave him that shell today.”

She breathed in deeply this time instead of letting out another curse.

“Good. Hold for three beats.”

“Now let the breath out.”

She breathed out. “In again.” He instructed. She followed suit. “Now out.”

As her breath steadied, she met his eyes - momentarily soft, a little broken, before ire crossed them again.

“For fucks sake, High Lord.” She spat. “I came here to meditate. I know how to breathe.”

She sure as shit seemed to have forgotten how to for a moment there, but he kept that to himself.

He only let out a soft laugh.

“There she is.”

She scowled in return.

“So, Lady L/N” he began, standing and extending a hand to help her up.

“Y/N.” She interjected, taking his hand. “Call me Y/N.”

Y/N. Fitting, he thought. The kind of name a tropical storm would be given.

Wait. Y/N L/N. Oh, he knew exactly why she was so familiar now. No wonder she’d given him that puzzled look in the palace. And, if Eris recalled correctly, his brother actually was rather fond of her - in a friendly and platonic sort of way. Though in his tales of the Night Court he’d certainly never mentioned the fact that she looked like a gods damned deity.

He led her out of the creek, not quite ready to drop her delicate hand. “So, Y/N, tell me about this idiot mate that let the Summer Court’s brightest treasure go.”

She gaped, jaw dropping into a look of genuine shock. “How-“

“I had one too. I believe you know her.”

—————

Eris and Y/N spent hours talking in the grove. He gave her all the details of his mate, Morrigan. How it killed him to leave her that fated day. Had he touched her, his mate, Beron would have claimed her as Autumn Court property requiring a Blood Duel for the Night Court to retrieve her. Though, Beron would have ensured she never left unharmed. That aside, Eris didn’t want that blood on her hands, the blood of a blood duel or any battles over her. He didn’t want it on his hands either. It killed him to feel her pain down the bond starting from their forced engagement and through the torture her father had inflicted upon her, and the trauma that lingered thereafter. The gut-wrenching, immobilizing pain that only a mate could feel shooting through to them.

He never wanted her to feel that pain. If it hurt him that badly to only feel it down the bond, he couldn’t imagine the strife she’d felt. He wanted to run to her, to comfort her, to tell her everything he couldn’t risk saying. He was too young to face the ramifications from his father and he had his mother and Lucien to protect in those days. So he protected her in the only way he knew how to at the time. Through cold, calculated indifference. He still regretted it.

As time went on, the mask he wore became heavier and heavier, burying that bond deeper within himself. It took him until after the war with Hybern to finally lay it all out to her. Y/N never knew any of that part of the story. She knew Mor and Eris had made amends but nothing of their bond, and she knew that Mor was happily committed to Emerie, an Illyrian female now. He was happy for his mate, as happy as a rejected mate could be.

Eris never claimed to have been in the right. In fact, what he did to Mor was wrong. The way he spoke to her as if she was no more than a common whore when facing her in front of his father at the High Lord’s meeting. Yes, it was an act but it was never okay. He’d live with that for the rest of his days. His apologies to her since never felt like enough.

Y/N empathized with Eris. He could see that she was torn but her gaze toward him softened although, never into that of pity. He liked that about her.

She shared the story of her mating bond with Azriel. And how the waves of anger and grief down the bond had increased in strength recently as she had continued healing. She laughed bitterly at the typical trajectory of females in her situation getting better over time while unfaithful males seemed to spiral as it went on. She didn’t say who he had cheated on her with but Eris had his suspicions. The Shadowsinger apparently had a thing for Vanserra mates. She laughed and cried over the hours they talked. They’d eventually ended up back in a palace seating area for a drink.

Eris hadn’t been so open with someone like this in so long that it felt foreign. Hell, opening up always felt unnatural for him. Perhaps he was stupid for sharing with her. After all, mating bonds could make people do crazy things. She could always take Azriel back and share the details of his little sob stories with the Night Court.

She’d occasionally let out a sharp breath as small jolts of emotion came rolling in. It was nearing dusk when she finally huffed, slapping her hands on her thighs saying, “Enough! This tea is weak. I need something stronger.” Pouring them each a glass of brandy, and another, and another.

As the conversation shifted from the heavier topics to lighter ones, Eris let it slip that he wasn’t fond of the summer court and found all of the sand and humidity to be unpleasant at best.

Her inhibitions were down and if Eris were being honest with himself, his were too. He hadn’t drank much since becoming a High Lord though he often felt the need for a stiff drink. No, there was too much work to be done and he was still getting his own inner circle acclimated. Trust was harder to give in the Autumn Court, especially after being under his father’s rule for so long. There were plenty of good people in the castle but just as many were corrupted under Beron’s rule. Weeding them out was consuming more of his time than anticipated.

Somehow, after their fourth drink, Y/N dragged him out onto the beach, determined to show him all the merits of the crusty, sand-infested shores.

Admittedly, her joy was contagious but he was going to make her work for any positive reaction.

“Okay!” She eagerly squealed. “First - sand castles! Have you ever built one?”

“I live in a castle.” Eris feigned boredom, inspecting his nails. “It seems unnecessary to build one out of… that.” his nose scrunched up, lip curling into a sneer as he gestured to the sand surrounding them.

“Ughhh.” Her eyes rolled back into her head as her little sun dress blew in the wind. And damn if he wouldn’t love to see her eyes going back into her head like that in other circumstances.

He was a gentlemale but a male nevertheless.

“Being High Lord doesn’t mean you have to be such a bore, but fine… No sand castles. Maybe next time!”

Next time. He liked the thought of that. My how far she’d come from practically snarling at him just this morning.

“Look!” She squealed, bringing her hands to her chest and clapping with excitement. “Dolphins! Now I know you don’t have those in the Autumn Court, Eris Vanserra.”

Fuck, his name sounded so good coming off of her lips.

He couldn’t resist smiling at her enthusiasm and then at the dolphins. They swam so peacefully in a pod through the harbor. One even let a young water wraith trail alongside it as a hand carefully gripped onto its dorsal fin as the creature pulled her along.

“The wraiths and dolphins coexist well together.” Y/N mused wistfully. “There’s a common misconception that they are territorial due to food supply but they have plenty in the harbor.”

She smiled softly. “The younger wraiths tend to bond with them and the dolphins have even been known to protect them from certain dangers.”

As the pair continued walking along the shore, the conversation occasionally faltered as Y/N would stare off distantly, as if looking for something that wasn’t there.

His heart ached for her. From what he’d gathered during their talk, she’d left the Shadowsinger, but the heart is slow to heal after losing a mate in any capacity.

Eris nudged her with his shoulder. “Hey little minx, where’d you go?”

Coming back to reality she halted. “Oh! Oh my gods. The sun is setting and you have to come with me! Hurry.”

She grabbed his wrist and he didn’t hesitate to follow along as she all but dragged him down the beach. “Hurry! We’ll miss them!”

They ran until reaching a secluded inlet of the bay. They climbed up a small rocky ledge where she sat, dangling her feet over the edge. “There’s an underwater cave-“ she breathed heavy, catching her breath. “here, beneath us and every night-“ another pause to breathe. “something magical happens as the sun sets.”

Eris, catching his own breath, waited patiently for more details but she only dropped a small pebble into the water and as she did, a rainbow of luminescent fish rippled to life below the surface. There had to be thousands of them, leisurely swimming out of the cave as if they were just waking up. Shades of bright pink, green, blue, orange, and purple lit up the small inlet. Eris was awestruck, so awestruck in fact that he didn’t hesitate planting his ass next to her on the crusty sand-coated ledge.

With a wave of her wrist she pulled a bottle of rum out from the pocket realm, tugging the cork out with her teeth and taking a swig, then handing it over to him.

They sat in silence as the remaining fish left the inlet and the remaining colors of the sunset disappeared into night. Clouds began rolling in as they drank and began chatting again. Much like that morning, thunder rolled in but this time he was disappointed to hear it. He didn’t want the evening to end, wasn’t ready to let her go quite yet.

He wished he’d had a warning before the ocean winds blew this wild, beautiful storm into his life that morning. Something to brace himself against the inevitable fallout of the precarious situation he found himself in. It was a storm he was prepared to ride out and he had a feeling it would be worth whatever debris she’d leave him with.

The base of the distant thunder rumbling, the cymbal-like crash of waves on the shore, and singing of the creatures of summer nights blended together into a beautiful melody that flowed through Eris. Quickly he stood, extending a hand to her. “Dance with me, Y/N?”

She froze, that distant look crossing her eyes again for a second. He braced himself for her decline but the life returned to her eyes as a smile graced her full lips. She accepted his hand and didn’t hesitate as he tucked her into his chest, her warmth and scent lulling him into a state of bliss.

No, Eris Vanserra did not hate the Summer Court at all.

————————

This was a long one and I know it wasn’t from our girls POV but I hope you all enjoyed it 🥹 Stay tuned for more! Her story is not done yet.

Tags:

@going-through-shit @kalulakunundrum @lisanna2000 @fxckmiup @sheblogs @emryb @one-big-fangirl @historygeekqueen @isa1b2h3 @bigcreatorwombatdreamer @theravenphoenix26 @sidthedollface2 @i-am-infinite @caraaaaugh @evergreenlark @darkbloodsly @piceous21 @anxious-study

[reality-detective]

They told you it was just Trump.

Some orange man with a Twitter account.

Loud. Reckless. Chaotic.

But what they didn’t tell you?

He was drafted.

Not by politics.

By operators.

The kind that don’t run for office.

The kind that don’t miss.

This isn’t about 2016.

This plan started decades ago.

When the military saw the writing on the wall.

When they realized the system was beyond reform.

Too rigged. Too infiltrated. Too sold out.

So they found a wrecking ball.

Someone loud enough to be ignored by the enemy,

and precise enough to signal to allies.

Executive Orders? Legal traps.

Tariffs? Economic warfare.

Sound money? Not a slogan—a reset in motion.

He wasn’t alone.

He was never alone.

Behind the curtain:

Cyber Command. NSA. Treasury Hawks. Rogue Generals.

All watching. All waiting.

The mission?

End the Fed.

Flip the financial grid.

Expose the puppets.

Trump was just the entry point.

The storm isn’t coming.

It’s already here. 🤔

[nerdykeppie]

So.

As of today, the site isn't even loading anymore for our production partner. I can't see which orders were actually taken in for production and which aren't.

Any items from that provider that I don't know for sure went into production have been refunded. We'll keep an eye on those that went into production to make sure that they actually get shipped... somehow? Hopefully their site will get fixed long enough for us to figure that out. If you purchased package insurance, that money already went out to the insurer, and I'm going to try to get that back, too.

Davos says hi, and you're great for reading all of this:

If you had items in your orders that come from another provider or come from our shop, those are still going to be on their way.

That said: we need a minute to breathe and make sure we are making good decisions going forward, so here's what we're gonna do.

Tomorrow, Jake & Emet will be at the Spectrum Art Market at the Lloyd Center from noon to 6p. After that, we're going to take an extended Passover holiday -- the site will stay online, you can place orders as normal, but no orders will be fulfilled or put through to printers until 4/20. I'm going to be logging out of everything and putting my phone in Shabbat mode so that I can take time away.

We will be at Chalice Dispensary on Powell Blvd on 4/20 for their 4/20 art market from 11a to 5p. Then we'll take Monday and Tuesday to recover, and be back on Wednesday to chart a course forward. Whether or not the tariff garbage has been sorted out by then, we should have a better idea of what the future will look like.

We're not going anywhere -- we just need the space & time to make good long-term decisions.

Thank you so much for your patience & support over the past eight years. Losing 90% of our non-t-shirt clothing is absolutely gutting, but I'm hoping that this will force us to find a provider that suits us even better, and we've still got a lot of awesome stuff on the site that we make and ship from here.

- Spider

[fox-bright]

Distracting myself from the world outside my yard, as much as I can, by planning out the seed-starting which will begin this weekend.

Usually my garden planning doesn't feel as grim as this. But there's still some joy in it, even if I'm plotting out just how much of our food is going to have to come from the garden this year, and maybe for the next half-decade or so.

I keep trying to write cheerful beginning-of-the-season garden posts, and they come out of my fingers like this:

Forty percent of our nation's homegrown produce is harvested by undocumented immigrants. Another fifteen or so percent is harvested by documented immigrants with work visas, not that ICE is treating them any differently in their raids (nor citizens, for that matter, scooped up indiscriminately as long as they're brown). During the last Trump administration, crops rotted in the fields because there was no one to harvest them; this time around, it's going to be worse. That is true regardless of whether or not RFK gets to institute the "wellness drug rehabilitation farms" that he's talked about in interviews (which, to be clear, would be concentration camps full of Undesirables such as people who use drugs, protestors, and queers). I do not attempt to put my need to eat over the humanity of the people who provide my food. This is a double-fisted problem, here--the Republicans took something that wasn't a problem and made it into their voters' boogeyman, and now it's going to become an actual nightmare for anyone involved, and *everyone* is involved. Hunger is the most singleminded need there is. A starving person can only think about food.

Sixty percent of the fresh fruit eaten in the States, and forty or so percent of the vegetables, are imported, largely from Mexico and Canada, though we get plenty from SE Asia and other places. Tariffs and our generally being increasingly xenophobic, racist assholes is going to take a measurable toll on agricultural imports.

And we've already spent the last couple of years in a Trump-mediated Age of Listeria; that's sure to get considerably worse as even more regulations (and regulators, and inspectors) are eliminated. A person who can't even trust their food won't trust anything else.

I get this far and then I put the pen down, and I return my gaze to the sheets and sheets of handwritten seed inventory lists with their columns of variety types and days-to-maturity, 55 days, 65 days, 80 days from planting out to fruit, and I take a couple of breaths, and I start writing again.

I'm increasing the size of the garden. I had a whole series of posts planned about it, about building the new beds and setting up trellises and beanpoles, fixing the fence as best I can, building new steps off of the low back porch so that I don't have to carry every baby plant out the kitchen door. I need to find about seven or eight hundred dollars for trucked-in soil for raised beds; I'd really thought in the Autumn that I would have a full year to sort this out, and I don't, so I'm trying to figure out a way to fund-raise. Sell some handmade semiprecious gem jewelry? Open a garden blog Patreon? I dunno. Everything is tight for everyone, and that is not shortly to improve. Leave it to the side. Not important tonight.

Eyes back on the blue-lined page. Amish Paste, Black Krim, Black Plum, Brandywine. So many varieties. Enough to share, if I plan my plantings carefully. Beans, grown for green eating and pickling, even now it doesn't make sense to grow dry beans, not with how many pounds a year this household consumes. Sweet potatoes, this year, slips ordered online for the first time, and I find I'm a little nervous about them. I've never grown a sweet potato before, but people say they're easy, and they're high in a lot of nutrients, and they keep.

Next page. Flowers. Marigolds, nasturtiums, violas.

I try to put a flower in the ground every time I transplant a vegetable. Doing so increases the vegetable yield, since it improves pollinator coverage, but also it's just nice for my soul to be able to clip flowers and bring them in to present to my husband, to have on the counter when I'm frying eggs for breakfast, to stick haphazardly behind my ear and wear on my daily walk. So tonight I'm sitting here with a pen and paper, deciding what I want to grow for food this year, deciding how much energy I can devote to flowers. Nasturtiums, marigolds, bachelor's buttons and borage and cosmos are all edible, and common in my vegetable garden; I'm doing a bunch of zinnias this year as usual, but I'll probably be direct-sowing those this year. Won't have room in the seedling closet when I've got to start so much more food than before. But I can devote *some* energy to the flowers, and I know they'll give me back what I give to them.

There's a clatter off the roof, ice sliding down to collide with whatever it can hit. We've got a wintry mix happening outside right now, little pats of slush falling from the sky to freeze hard on my trellises, and summer now seems far away, but it isn't. It's a very brief time before Last Frost and things will need to get into the ground, and I know that no matter how bleak I feel right now, and how much harder things are likely to be by then, bright-faced zinnias will be a joy when they bloom. Every source of energy is a source of energy. No one can function entirely on rage.

One foot ahead of the other. Seedling mix into my seed trays, tomorrow, and water; the day after I'll sow seeds, and put the trays under the lights. Step by step and in the summer there will be tomatoes and chard, asparagus beans and watermelons and nasturtiums. One foot ahead of the other.

[oneiriad]

Dear Americans

I need you to talk about Greenland.

You have a lot on your plate right now, I get it. There's Trump removing your rights with a stroke of his pen, there's DOGE destroying your state institutions, there's tariffs and prices and the rise of fascism.

Trust me, I get it.

But I still need you to talk about Greenland.

(And about Canada and Panama, too, but since you are starting with Greenland, so will I.)

I need you to talk about the US - I need to talk about how you are working to annex it right now.

Like Russia trying to conquer Ukraine. Like China looking to annex Taiwan.

That's you.

And it seems like you're mostly treating it as a joke. It's funny, ha ha, whether you are pro- or against Trump. Conquering another country, that's so absurd, it's funny. Or, hell, it's a distraction from whichever -gate he's got rolling this week.

It's not particularly funny from this side of the equation.

Speaking as a Dane: this is not a joke. This is not funny. Nobody's laughing.

The people I talk to? We're scared and we're angry. We're furious.

A country - your country - you!

We thought you were our friend. We've been faithful allies to you since World War 2, we're in NATO together, we've sent our young men and women to fight and to die in your wars.

And this is what that bought us?

Let's get one thing clear: you don't need Greenland for security reasons, that's a lie. You already have the right to have military there, you can build extra bases, and Greenland through Denmark is a part of NATO.

You don't need Greenland for security reasons.

And the mineral wealth? The mineral wealth that Greenland isn't currently getting rich from, btw, because there's simply very little mining happening? You could have that easily. The Greenland government offers prospecting rights to any company that wants it. Greenland wants foreign countries to invest in mining in Greenland. So far, US companies have been mostly not interested. Australia's far more interested in mining in Greenland than you are.

You don't need Greenland.

But you want Greenland.

You're standing on the global scene and decrying how your friends and allies have "friend-and-ally-zoned" you, like some twisted incel logic writ large on the geopolical scale, like the nice superpower upset that the rest of the world won't just roll over and give them fealty and vassalage.

You are doing that. No matter who you voted for. You are doing that.

And honestly? It's not like we didn't have enough concerns. We've got the climate, we've got Russia - cyberattacks, hybrid warfare against undersea infrastructure, wondering whether they'll target the Baltic states or Finland next.

And now I need to be afraid of the USA invading as well.

So, dear Americans.

This is not a joke. This is not fucking funny.

I need you to talk about Greenland.

[starmada4546]

The Derailing Trump Train

This essay is by-and-large for people like me who regularly have to deal with conservative family members or coworkers or whatever godawful thing makes you have to put up with these kinds of people. If that's not you, the advice in this one probably isn't going to be very helpful, but you're welcome to stick around for the analysis, if you like.

As the veneer of moderate, respectable conservatism slips away, people are going to start getting their buyers remorse. I've already heard people discussing how they aren't fond of Trump's policy on Ukraine, or his tariffs, or how Elon Musk is slashing federal jobs and giving himself multibillion dollar contracts. Its... highly frustrating to say the least. When I hear a very conservative uncle talking about how Trump's promised tax cuts don't include him, it makes me want to scream "How the fuck can you possibly be so selfish?! You people have had almost a decade to realize this man is a serious contender for Worst Human Alive and the only time you can start caring is when it impacts you?!"It really hurts to see a man who has spent the last decade fanning the flames of fascism, destroying lives, spreading bigotry, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, only lose his supporters after he starts hurting them specifically.

For those unfamiliar, there's a meme on the internet that many people like to quote in these sorts of situations. It goes something like "'But I didn't think the leopards would eat my face!' sobs woman who voted for the leopards eating people's faces party."

Since the original incident that started this meme, Leopards Ate My Face has become a term that refers to conservatives who voted for a conservative politician who proceeded to do something to hurt them, usually because said conservative voter didn't bother to figure out what said politician actually stood for. It's a popular meme for good reason; it's cathartic to laugh at the comeuppance of others, right?

I generally speaking disagree. This sort of thing drives me absolutely up the wall. It's selfish people finally getting hurt by their own selfishness, but in a vast majority of cases, those selfish people still won't accept they were ever actually in the wrong. It's always that they were lied to, or that the circumstances changed, or some other bullshit excuse that serves the same rhetorical purpose: I can't possibly have been wrong, so something outside my control intervened. This is, of course, demonstrating a key feature of the conservative mindset, which is the fundamental lack of self accountability. If there was any acknowledgement that everything that was going to happen was well known in advance, that political scholars and economists and journalists were Screaming From The Fucking Rooftops that this was going to happen, they'd have to acknowledge that there were steps they could have taken to have not caused harm for themselves, because in the fundamental selfish narcissism of conservative thought, the only thing that is immutably morally wrong is anything that hurts me.

If there was any acknowledgement that they could have done five minutes of research to keep from committing the most egregious of moral sins, doing something against their own interests, they'd have to accept that they bear the responsibility for that. So it is always, always, someone else's fault. Any evidence they could have used is dismissed out of hand; the news stations are lying, the economists are profiteering hacks, and the political scholars are propagandists.

But go far enough down the train tracks, they start running out of people to blame. When they're far enough out from the election that the opinions and writings of the fourth estate don't matter to them anymore, the republicans control all three branches of government, and most of what vestiges of leftism still exist in the government are seemingly hellbent on being the most ineffectual, pathetic doormats in the history of opposition parties, the list from the center of the Venn Diagram of "People who I think have the power to screw me over" and "People who I hate," starts growing dangerously short for their cognitive dissonance. It may not often seem like it, but there is a limit to how far these people can stretch and distort their own reality.

This is where we see the step of most groups built on ideologies of hate, supremacy, and/or exploitation wherein the members of the group begin to turn on each other, or at the least to begin their own balkanization. Remember, the very last person they can blame for their woes is themselves. They will blame anyone and everyone else, including their Der Fuhrer before they go that far. If they start running out of people to blame, they find new ones.

(This also mirrors a key feature of fascism, where when an outgroup can no longer be reasonably blamed for the problems of a society due to their absence or lack of cultural relevance, and are replaced with new outgroups, thereby making the ingroup smaller and smaller, but I'm sure that's only a coincidence, wink wink nudge nudge.)

So, after analyzing the toxic narcissism inherent to this worldview, I'm gonna go ahead and proceed to light myself on fire with napalm by defending it.

Ok ok, I'm not actually going to defend it. But I am going to ask for it to be encouraged?

This behavior is absolutely fucking terrible, don't get me wrong, but it is also self destructive, at least as far as cohesive fascist movements go. When they start pointing the blame fingers at each other, that is the death knell for fascism. Fascism exists because it's an ideology of hate, but it proliferates because it doesn't market itself that way. It markets itself as a series of benefits for the average everyman, which are obtained through bigotry. When those benefits don't materialize, which they can't, because bigotry has never served anyone but those who already hold all the power, it creates resentment and distrust. This is usually where the fascists point at something else and say "Look, a minority!" but that strategy only works for so long before it becomes put-up or shut-up.

So believe me, when that conservative uncle complains about Trump's tax cuts and you just want to go ballistic, I understand that sucks. But I urge you, smile and nod. It's a low bar at this point, but he's taking a second to think about it. Maybe it isn't going to get him to take his head out of the Kool-Aid fountain, but resentment and distrust don't start a violent boil overnight. In fact, we don't need a violent boil. We don't necessarily need for these people to start voting for democrats, we just need them to decide they'd rather not bother heading to the polls on election day. A small simmer is enough.

Because eventually, when Trump strips enough of the iron off of the track, the train derails.

In the wise and seemingly eternal words of Sun Tzu, "Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake."

[tristantzara]

tumblr in the 1900s simulator

🎀 basilgillgirlie

HELPPP i went to see a country girl and i SWEAR coffin looked directly at me while he was singing no. 19 😳😳😳

#im going to DIE #oh my godddd #hayden coffin tag #theatre tag

( 5 notes )

🪮 tortoiseshelllll

honestly just go ahead and block me if you're still not against the consumption of intoxicating liquors /srs

#temperance discourse

( 7 notes )

🤵‍♂️ h0ney-b0y 🔁 in-my-merry-oldsmobile Follow

💁‍♀️ soshineonharvestmoon Follow

Alright, let's settle this once and for all:

Do cylinders or discs produce the clearest sound?

‎ ‎‎ Cylinders⬜‍‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎‎‎‎‎ ‎ ‍21.2%

‎‎ ‎‎ ‎Discs🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎‎‎ ‎‎78.8%

‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎ ‎Final result from 18,796 votes

🐶 yourwildirishrose Follow

literally who is voting for cylinders. #discsweep

#poll results that would give thomas edison neurasthenia

( 3,419 notes )

👨 lawrenceseldens 🔁 the-thing-with-feathers86 Follow

☕ the-thing-with-feathers86 Follow

hey. everyone. TAG YOUR HOUSE OF MIRTH SPOILERS!!!!! not all of us are able to keep up with the installments, especially ppl employed at factories/others who work 10+ hour shifts

#!!! #the house of mirth #edith wharton #scribner's magazine

( 102 notes )

🌌 impastolover 🔁 le-modernisme Follow

🔘 ilythomascole-deactivated19061203

There’s NO WAY you people are still supporting H*nri M*tisse after he posted THIS

🌈 chezlesfauves Follow

does this scare you

🌈 chezlesfauves Follow

i guess so lmaooo

#i wonder if op knows about la femme au chapeau…

( 10,675 notes )

🌻 emancipation-waist-official 🔁 localhoyden Follow

🐈‍⬛ localhoyden Follow

friendly reminder that it’s perfectly ok for women and girls to wear corsets if they want to!! don't ever let anyone make you feel ashamed for it - it's your choice, you can do whatever makes you happy 💗

🌻 emancipation-waist-official

Go outside.

( 984 notes )

�� kittybristolsgf

i know it's been less than a decade since uh. you know. but can anarchists please go back to assassinating public figures and bombing government buildings and such all the time already, i have had ENOUGH

#the latest tariff law that was passed.... wtf #(for legal reasons this is a joke) #(please don't have me electrocuted <3)

( 2 notes )

🦚 fancyfeathers

Just got my widest hat yet!! An entire owl can fit atop it!

( 51 notes )

🏓 whiffwhaffwagerer

at the marathon in st. louis!👍 what is happening

#so the original winner cheated i guess #and the actual winner had to be carried over the finish line and is currently being treated by *several* doctors #also apparently some of the competitors are missing #...i'll keep you all posted?

( 9 notes )

🧳 thatkeenmotorist 🔁 thatkeenmotorist

🧳 thatkeenmotorist

driving my motor-car 😁

🧳 thatkeenmotorist

broken chain ☹️

🧳 thatkeenmotorist

driving my motor-car 😁

🧳 thatkeenmotorist

broken belt ☹️

🧳 thatkeenmotorist

driving my motor-car 😁

🧳 thatkeenmotorist

broken chain again ☹️

( 99 notes )

💃 lilyelsieinthemerrywidow 🔁 thegreat-trainrobbery1903 Follow

💃 lilyelsieinthemerrywidow

hey um whats going on in the balkans right now 😨 do you think theres going to be a war in europe soon im nervous

🙎‍♂️ thegreat-trainrobbery1903 Follow

well, a major war caused by a crisis in the balkans has been speculated on for a while. but it'll probably only last about a year like the war of 1870, plus you don't even live near the balkans, i wouldn't worry too much

💃 lilyelsieinthemerrywidow

yeah youre probably right

#and if it did reach us it would most likely be beneficial anyway #<-prev

( 13 notes )