#June. but no I’m not allowed to have agency.

[hagravenholm]

Okay

[teejaystumbles]

Against all odds (part 7)

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 6

This is all I've got so far but I figured I'd let you have it and hopefully I'll have more soon :3

**

Hob works at a news agency. As someone with hundreds of years of experiencing political and societal change he has a keen eye for news-worthy happenings. Often he can predict very well which events are important, which will have historical influence or be the talk of the nation for a long time. Hob edits his colleague’s articles and reports, chooses which ones are worthy of printing and which aren’t, tries to remove or at least mitigate the xenophobia and fearmongering in what he hopes are the last days of the Cold War. People don’t need fear to grow, they need hope. He thinks he’ll stop doing this soon, though. His name - Robert Goulding at the moment - pops up in too many places and he doesn’t like being recognizable for more than a few decades. He takes care to not become chief editor and stay out of the limelight but he thinks he’ll move on soon. Maybe he’ll take a break and live off his stock profits. Find a quiet place for him and his stranger, somewhere in the countryside, with a garden…

Hob shakes himself out of his fantasy and laughs at himself. Wishful thinking will hardly be of any use. He’s been wishing and hoping for more time with his stranger for so many centuries. Now it finally seems like he might get lucky enough to have regular contact, via journal entries, and maybe even visits. That is enough. He shouldn’t be greedy.

With a sigh and a silent curse that he stopped smoking he goes to finish his work so he can get home and write an answer to his friend.

In the evening Hob pours himself a whiskey and sits down at his desk, open journal before him. He looks over to his bed. His stranger had sat here last night, watching him. Hob swallows reflexively and takes another sip of his drink, trying to not let his thoughts go down a slippery, horny slope before he starts writing.

June 15th, 1989

Dear friend,

I am glad you felt you could come and visit me and that you feel safe in my presence. I consider it an honour and I want to assure you that I do not mind in the least if you stop by whenever you feel like it. I trust you. Feel free to come here anytime, no matter if I'm awake or not, or if I’m even here. If my place can be a retreat for you from your everyday worries or workplace (as I assume you are busy doing something somewhere), I would be very happy. Leave your shoes off the sofa, that’s all I ask. ;-)

But seriously, my home is your home. I mean it. I look forward to seeing you again as well.

Reading about your ordeal was horrible. I am so sorry this happened to you and that I didn’t hear anything about it. I would have moved everything between Heaven and Earth to free you, my friend, please believe me. You say the ones responsible have been punished but I cannot stop myself from imagining visiting vengeance upon them for your sake. To imprison you someone, anyone, for such a long period of time, in the conditions that you described, is barbaric and the rage I feel at the mere thought is nearly blinding.

I am deeply sorry for your loss and for all you had to endure. I would give you anything in my power to make you feel safe, dear stranger. If you ever need my help, please call me. I don’t know if you had any means to call for help, you probably didn’t, but please - should you ever be in any trouble or danger or in need of help, I urge you to call on me! I will come and help you the best I can, I will not allow you to be trapped ever again. After all, what are friends for, if not for helping one another?

Your problems with closed spaces and strangers are completely understandable and I would never hold it against you if you never want to meet inside a building again. I hope we’ll be able to find a suitable replacement for the old haunt, at least until you feel more at ease again. These things take time, at least for humans, and although I would not dare to insinuate that you are not more robust than the average human and probably not subject to the same physical and mental limits I’d wager a guess that you will need time to heal, my friend. I sincerely ask you to take that time. You strike me as the type to jump headfirst back into work and duty after getting free and that is not recommended, no matter what or how powerful you are. You were imprisoned for 80 years and subjected to torture, you cannot expect to be the same after that. No one should expect you to be the same, to not be changed by it or in need of healing and time to recuperate. 

I am only human but in my long life I have met a few other immortal beings, not all of them human but all of them with very similar needs and wants. I know you’re probably bristling right now because I dare to suggest you might be unfit for whatever it is you do but I hope you believe me when I tell you this only because I care for you - you need a break. Please, stranger, promise me you’ll take care of yourself, if you cannot let others do that for you. I would be happy to help in any way I can. Visit me at your leisure, I promise I will never turn you away, or look down on you for showing weakness. You have seen me at my lowest and I have always trusted you to still respect me after that. Just like that, I would never think any less of you for any of this.

I’ll be happy to help you learn more about humanity, get to know humans again. I am honoured that you have elevated me in your mind to something else but I am as human as they come. So if you like me, you can like other humans as well, right?

I will think of a nice place to meet and let you know as soon as I’ve decided. Remember, in the meantime this place is always open to you. Even including watching me sleep. ;-P

Stay safe,

Your friend Hob

Hob puts down the pen and skims over his lines. Yes, that’s not too forward but inviting enough to let his stranger feel safe and welcome. It’s a bit daring, calling his stranger in need of a break, but it’s the right thing to say and offer.

He nods, downs his whiskey and gets ready for bed.

Part 8

[coochiequeens]

A woman wanted to have a relationship with the child she gave birth to. And the men's response "was to insist that their son had no mother — only a surrogate — and that the child’s identity was as part of a motherless family." But the kid was created from her egg. She is the kids biological mother.

5 June, 2024 By Julie Bindel

This article is taken from the June 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

There is a contradiction at the heart of the international surrogacy industry. Its participants pretend that surrogates’ feelings for the children in their wombs do not exist, whilst simultaneously trying to prevent them acting on those feelings. Many commissioning parents broker the babies in jurisdictions that allow restrictions on surrogates’ rights.

In the UK, this contradiction was recently laid bare in a Family Court case (citation number: [2024] EWFC 20). A gay male couple were engaged in a long-running legal battle with their son’s surrogate. Rather than vanish after handing over the child, she wanted a role in the boy’s life. The men’s response was to insist that their son had no mother — only a surrogate — and that the child’s identity was as part of a motherless family. There was “no vacancy” for her to occupy in his life, they claimed, and it was prejudicial to gay families to suggest otherwise.

At the start of this story, G, the surrogate in question, was a 36-year-old single mother of a teenager and naive about what surrogacy entailed. The commissioning parents were friends of her sister but not people she knew. Aged 43 and 36 and married, they were members of an agency, Surrogacy UK, and very familiar with its protocols — which included a “getting to know you” period — and support. However rather than go through the agency, the men chose to fast-track the process with an independent arrangement with G.

Following a failed transfer of a donor egg, the trio decided to use G’s own egg. The men agreed that G would have contact with the child, but none of the parties properly considered the implications. The relationship between the three deteriorated during G’s pregnancy. G gave birth to a boy in September 2020.

After the birth, G would not initially consent to the parental order, under which she would lose parental responsibility as she feared being cut out of the child’s life. But during a lengthy online hearing in which she was alone and unrepresented — unlike the men — G was pressured by the judge to agree to the parental order along with a contact agreement called a child arrangements order.

After obtaining parental responsibility, the men quickly reneged on the agreement. When G turned up at their house for a pre-arranged visit they threatened to call the police. She recorded the meeting. The Family Court judge later declared of the recording “what was said has rightly been described as ‘horrendous’”. The men told G she was “harbouring a desire to have an inappropriate relationship” by wanting the boy to recognise her as his mother and accused her of having “rejected the role of surrogate”.

In January 2022, the men refused to allow G to visit her son and applied for the contact agreement to be changed. G then made her own application for the parental order to be overturned. She won her case in November the same year. This restored her parental responsibility for the child and removed it from the man who was not the child’s biological father.

The men redoubled their efforts to remove G as a parent, this time applying for an adoption order. During court proceedings, they claimed their son’s identity was that of a child of same-sex parents being raised within the LGBT community and that he belonged to a “motherless family”.

As a lesbian who came out in the 1970s, I’m only too aware of the history of demonisation of lesbian and gay couples. Parents who conceived children in heterosexual relationships were often denied custody and contact if they came out as gay after separation. Foster and adoption agencies were openly prejudiced. But times have changed, and same-sex parents are now a common sight at the school gates in some parts of the UK.

Claims that the children of same-sex parents are disadvantaged in some way have largely been defeated with an expanding body of evidence (e.g. Zhang Y, Huang H, Wang M, et al., BMJ Global Health, 2023) showing their outcomes are similar to those of heterosexual families. Gay rights are robustly supported in most public institutions and private organisations. For a gay couple to call on historic prejudice to justify excluding a mother from a child’s life is unforgivable.

In any case, the men’s argument was fatally — and obviously — undermined by its own logic. If the boy did not have a mother, there would be no need for the court case.

As the jointly-instructed clinical psychologist in the case recognised, the driver of the men’s case was the “elephant in the room” — G’s existence as the child’s legal and biological mother — and the men’s fear of her maternal bond with her son. The men had difficulties “accepting the reality” of the child’s conception, the psychologist found, and considering what sense the boy might make of the situation as he grew up.

“They have strongly held to the surrogacy agreement and the narrative of [G] being a ‘surrogate’ because in that narrative there are no, or hardly any feelings from the surrogate for the baby,” the psychologist wrote. He described the men as attempting an “erasure of the mother”, which he said was not in the child’s best interest as it did not reflect reality.

Refusing an adoption order that would likely have resulted in cutting G from her son’s life, the court ruled that G should have direct and unsupervised contact with him. The judge criticised the men for blaming G for everything that went wrong. The judgment also raised questions about how an adoption order would be explained to the boy, given it would have been made without his mother’s consent.

To some extent, history repeated itself in this case. There are multiple examples of legal battles involving lesbian couples who created a child with the help of a sperm donor who later inconveniently insisted on contact or on playing the role of father.

As the Court of Appeal ruled in one such case in 2012: “What the adults look forward to before undertaking the hazards of conception, birth and the first experience of parenting may prove to be illusion or fantasy. [The couple] may have had the desire to create a two-parent lesbian nuclear family completely intact and free from fracture resulting from contact with the third parent. But such desires may be essentially selfish and may later insufficiently weigh the welfare and developing rights of the child that they have created.”

What’s concerning in this case is the language used — the “erasure” of the mother

Contested surrogacy cases are little different from these wrangles and, indeed, from any other contact disputes. What’s concerning about G’s case, and what makes it different from the case of the lesbian parents above, is the language used. The psychologist explicitly referred to the men’s attempted “erasure” of the mother. They simply refused to acknowledge G’s existence in any of the forms in which she fulfilled a maternal capacity: legal, genetic and as the person who gave birth. They were supported in this illusion by the professionals who weighed in on their behalf.

In the space of a few years the term “motherless” has moved from an emotive description of absence to a positive identity argued for in court. This shift is entirely consistent with the narrative that surrogacy participants feed to the public.

When celebrity couples introduce their surrogate children on social media, the women who gave birth to them are rarely mentioned. The new babies are “welcomed” as if they have been sent by special delivery. That is in line with the attitude of the international surrogacy industry, which reduces the role of the birth mother to that of a “carrier” or rented womb.

For commissioning parents, it must be very easy to regard the woman who bore their child for nine months as a mere service provider, someone to be gratefully forgotten as soon as the final instalment is paid and the product handed over.

Meanwhile, parts of the NHS are determined to de-gender childbirth, routinely referring to “birthing parents” rather than mothers. As an example (there are multiple) the Royal United Hospital Bath’s “information for families” on labour induction refers to dads, but there is no mention of mothers — only birthing parents.

Feminists have long campaigned for gender-neutral language to reflect roles that are indeed, or can be, gender-neutral. But the uncoupling of sex from the necessarily female processes of pregnancy and childbirth is a step towards a dystopian future. In 2015 Victoria Smith wrote, “Gender-neutral language around reproduction creates the illusion of dismantling a hierarchy — when what you really end up doing is ignoring it.” I would go further. Gender-neutral language around reproduction — just like any language that obscures reality — reinforces and helps establish hierarchies of oppression.

To the men, G was simply a surrogate womb to a motherless child. But to G and to Z, she was his mother. As the psychologist said, “‘Motherlessness’ does not exist. The child was born from two people, biologically, and from three people, psychologically … The mother certainly played a part, biologically and psychologically, in the conception of the child.”

The case — unremarked and unnoticed by the media — will do nothing to change popular opinion of surrogacy. It is likely to encourage intending parents to explore dubious overseas jurisdictions, where surrogates have fewer rights. The surrogacy profiteers will continue to cheerlead wealthy couples in their exploitation of impoverished and naive women.

As for the word “motherless”: in time it may lose its negative connotations and become solidified as an identity. Will it become a badge that straight children can use to signal their connection to LGBTQ+ community? Or an oppression card that can be deployed by the children of wealthy men to explain bad behaviour towards women? Either way, Disney and Dickens are going to need a lot of rewriting.

[going-to-ikea-for-the-fries]

Meeting #2. - OC Backstory

pairing: OC!Whiskey x MootOC!Valkyrie (platonic) words: 2.4K~ cw: canon-typical violence/talk, use of weapons, attempt at military accuracy(?? idk), humour/jokes

June 18th, 2019.

2317 hours.

St. Petersburg, Russia

Whiskey is lying by the window with her rifle, eyes locked on the building across from her, the green hue of the night vision scope allowing her to keep track of her target as he moves about his apartment.

The night is clear, the air is still, the window’s open, the curtains not drawn… She has the perfect opportunity to eliminate the target. Hell, it won’t get more perfect than this.

“Whiskey to Watcher-1, I have a clear shot on the target. Ready to engage.”

“Copy that, Whiskey. Hold your fire.”

Hold her fire? Whiskey cocks a brow and grimaces at the command.

She's dedicated weeks of her time tracking down and stalking Volkov, getting evidence of his deals to report back to the CIA and the UN and... what? Now Laswell isn't giving her execute authority?

“I have a clear shot, Watcher. It's now or never, I have less than a minute to engage.”

“I’m not a fan of repeating myself, Whiskey. Hold your fire, you do NOT have execute authority.” 

Gritting her teeth, Whiskey insisted, finger already curling around the trigger of the rifle, eyes glued to the target.

“Laswell, I’ve been after this motherfucker for three weeks, I have a CLEAR SHOT.”

“Do not fucking argue with me, Lieutenant. I cannot sanction an American operative to conduct an execution in Russian soil. Hold your fucking fire.”

Grunting and pulling her finger away from the trigger, Whiskey murmurs a “Copy that.” to her mic.

She had never been denied a kill. Not since she began this arrangement with the Agency. With Laswell.

“I’ll be sending an operator to your location."

Great. So someone is coming to sweep another number that she could add to her tally, from under her nose.

"Roger. Where's the meeting point?"

"Your safehouse."

Yippee. Someone she'd have to share her shitty, dingy studio apartment with?

"Should I continue tracking the target?"

"Affirmative."

"Copy that. Codename?"

"Valkyrie."

Whiskey's brow twitched and she grunted another 'Copy. Whiskey out.' comm before she turned off her PTT.

-

June 19th, 2018.

2132 hours.

The door to the safehouse swings open, causing Whiskey to throw a knife at the door, which Valkyrie just narrowly dodged, the blade ending up embedded on the door frame beside their head.

"What the fuck?! Is this how you treat guests?" Valkyrie complains loudly as she glances up at the knife beside her head, and then across the room, at Whiskey, by the windows.

Then, both Whiskey and Valkyrie draw their pistols and point them at one another, in the near pitch darkness of the studio apartment, only broken up by a table lamp by the pull-out sofa-bed.

"Lower your damn weapon before I fucking stab you myself." The bleach blonde spoke up as he closed the door behind himself, eyes still locked on Whiskey.

They were short. Shorter than Whiskey, wearing light tactical gear, and, especially, a vest that left their arms on display, per lack of a shirt underneath, but rather a tanktop.

Their extremely light hair nearly blends with their pale complexion, if not for the bright red strands strewn through it. They were no soldier. No soldier would look as ridiculous as that.

"Who the fuck are you?" Whiskey grunts as she glares at them, fingers gripping her pistol tight.

"Valkyrie. And you're Whiskey. Now that we're introduced, will you put your gun down or not?" Valkyrie asks sarcastically with raised eyebrows and wide eyes

Whiskey huffed and lowered her weapon, Valkyrie following suit, and both of them holstering them swiftly.

"Didn't Watcher tell you to knock?" Whiskey grunts as she pushes up from her squatted position against the wall, next to her mounted sniper rifle.

"She did. But what do I look like? Who the fuck knocks on the door of a CIA safehouse?" Valkyrie complains.

Whiskey rolls her eyes. "Don't fuckin' give me lip. There's a system." She murmurs, her southern accent a bit more prominent as she glares at the other operator.

Valkyrie crosses the room and sets her rucksack down on the 2-seater dining table, beginning to grab their gear from inside. "This is why I hate working with the damn government. System this, protocols that-" She grunts.

Whiskey crosses the room and rolls her eyes, pulling her knife out from the doorframe. "Well, maybe if you obeyed them..." She trails off as she sheathes the blade again on her thigh holder.

"Look, I'm here to kill the Russian, not to play the obedient little soldier, alright?" Valkyrie complains and rolls her eyes. "That's your job."

Whiskey scoffs as she takes her spot by the window again, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning her foot on the wall behind her, scuffing up the wallpaper.

"Don't get too fuckin' big for your breeches now. I'm still in charge here." Whiskey reminde him.

"Yeah, yeah-" Valkyrie waves their hand dismissively, gesturing vaguely in the air. "It's 'your' mission or whatever."

"It is and if I were you, I'd lose the fuckin' attitude." Whiskey warns them.

They both go quiet for a moment, before Whiskey turns away and lays prone behind her rifle again, eyes locked on the target's apartment.

-

June 20th, 2019.

0154 hours.

The mission went tits up. Not anyone's fault. Not really.

A stealth drop-in, execution, and pull out... and yet the target's security guards were more alert than expected...

Long story short, the target made off, while Valkyrie was busy dealing with more bodyguards than expected.

As they returned to safehouse, Whiskey immediately began packing her gear.

"It took me three fucking weeks." She murmurs under her breath, disassembling her sniper.

"I can hear you, you know?" Valkyrie replies from the corner while wrapping her bicep in gauze after having been slashed through by a knife.

"Oh you can? Can you?!" Whiskey turns her head sharply to glare at Valkyrie. "That's real interestin' considerin' you didn't fuckin' listen when I fuckin' told you to WAIT." She scolds the other operator.

"Oh fuck you. There were too many of them. That's not my fault. You're the one that has been keeping watch for three weeks! If you did your job, we'd know he had a bigger protection detail than we thought." Valkyrie argues.

That causes Whiskey to drop the parts of her rifle and stand up sharply, glaring at Valkyrie from across the room.

"You wanna talk about fuckin' up my job?! You went in about as discreetly as a bull in a fuckin' china shop!" Whiskey raises her voice, which causes Valkyrie to rise to their feet as well.

"And you didn't hit a single shot while covering me!" Valkyrie gets closer and gets in Whiskey's face, their dark brown eyes locked on Whiskey's hazel ones.

"I don't have execute authority, Valkyrie! You know what that fuckin' means, don't you?! Oh, wait, no, you're not a fuckin' soldier, right?" The older operator asks with widened, angry eyes.

"That's exactly right, so why the fuck are you asking like I need to fuckin' listen to you in the first place? Who do you think you are?" Valkyrie lunged their head up a couple of times in an act of challenge.

"I'm the one representing the fuckin' CIA here, you're just a shitty mercenary. You have no goddamn authority!" Whiskey raises her voice as she leans into Valkyrie, using her height to her advantage.

"Now pack your goddamn gear. You're going to help me find the damn weasel that you let escape. And I don't want another fucking peep out of you." Whiskey adds with vitriol spitting from her voice, a finger pointing in Valkyrie's face.

-

June 25th, 2019.

1137 hours.

"Alors? (So?)" Valkyrie asks as she looks at Whiskey with a raised brow while she takes her seat across from her at the table.

They've been on the road for a few days, getting intel from both Watcher's informants and Whiskey's own previous research.

"C'est l'endroit idéal. La dame a dit qu'elle avait vu quelques « voyous » correspondant à la description que nous lui avions donnée, s'installer de l'autre côté de la rue. Il dit qu'ils viennent souvent chercher de la nourriture. (This is the spot. The old lady said she saw some thugs set up shop across the street. They come here to buy food every day.) " Whiskey tells her.

"Comment as-tu fait ça ? (How'd you do that?)" Valkyrie ends up asking in a murmur as she watches Whiskey spoon some soup into her mouth.

Whiskey cocks a brow, confused, as she glances at Valkyrie from across the table, popping a pelmeni between her teeth and huffing a bit at the explosion of warm meat in her mouth.

"Pour qu'elle s'ouvre à toi ? (Get her to open up to you?)" The blonde insists before she takes a sip of her own spoon of Russian soup.

She's noticed by now that Whiskey is a surprisingly resourceful woman. She drives well, knows how to speak and read Russian, is observant and detail-oriented...

Plus, she's paranoid as all hell, and demands they speak French and wear civvy clothes while out in public... Not to mention having Val conceal their hair under a baseball cap.

"Je parle russe comme un natif. Et lui a dit qu'ils faisaient du mal aux petites filles. (I speak Russian like a native. And I told her they've been hurting little girls.)" Whiskey replies and shrugs.

Valkyrie stiffens up a bit, his jaw clenching lightly after Whiskey explained how she got the intel she needed.

Whiskey catches the look in their eye and snaps her fingers in their face, drawing Valkyrie back from whatever thought they got lost in.

"Mange. Tu auras besoin de toute l’énergie pour les foutre en l’air. (Eat. You'll need all the energy you can get to fuck them up.)" Whiskey tells them... but her voice is just a bit warmer, before she looks away to her own bowl.

-

June 26th, 2019

0348 hours

"HOLD THE CAR STEADY!" Valkyrie shouts as they hold half of their body out of the window, a leg wrapped around their clipped seat belt to secure them in place, as they shoot their rifle at the van in front of them.

"I CAN'T, THEY'RE FUCKIN' SWERVING SIDE TO SIDE, VAL!" Whiskey shouts in response from behind the wheel, attempting to control the car while also dodging the shots the enemies were aiming back at her behind the wheel.

"WELL I CAN'T HIT THEM IF YOU KEEP SWERVING!"

"AND I CAN'T FOLLOW THEM IF I DON'T SWERVE!"

It's as they're arguing, that it happens. A Russian police car suddenly starts giving chase to them through the streets of the small city.

"GREAT, NOW WE'RE BEING CHASED."

"JUST SHUT UP AND KEEP DRIVING, I'VE GOT THIS." Valkyrie shouts as he swivels back and starts opening fire on the cruiser behind them.

"SHOOT THE RUSSIANS, GOD DAMN YOU."

"THEY'RE ALL RUSSIAN."

"NOT THE COPS, VAL, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"

"HOW ABOUT I SHOOT YOU?!"

"YOU'RE NOT HELPING!" Whiskey grunts and pulls out her pistol, then takes a couple shots at the van before them and, somehow, they land.

The van's back tire pops and spins out, causing the van to swerve and, in a desperate attempt from the driver to regain control, crashes against a tree on the sidewalk, while Whiskey brings their own car to a stop.

A few bystanders start screaming, chaos taking over the street, more so than it had already, cars skidding to a stop and crashing behind them and around them to escape the crash and gunshots.

Whiskey immediately pops open the door, using it for cover so she can aim a few shots at the Russians who are already slipping out of the van to return fire.

Vallyrie is on the other side, trading fire with the Russians as well. The cops that bad been chasing them now lying on the street after she had taken care of them.

"Fuck I'm out!" They called out through the open doors of the car.

"What do you mean you're out?!" Whiskey shouts back.

"I'm out! No more bullets. Do you need me to say it in Spanish? Finito!"

"That's Italian!"

"Really?! Right now is not the time?!"

With a long sigh, Whiskey mutters a "Fuck it.", then tosses her pistol at Valkyrie. "USE THEM WISELY AND COVER ME."

Before Val can even process what Whiskey said, she's gone, slipping behind a crashed car beside theirs and rushing across toward the Russians.

Valkyrie's eyes widen when she notices Whiskey using a garrote to choke one of the bodyguards from behind, slinging an arm around his own rifle, and using it to shoot at his teammates while actively choking him out with the other.

This provides Valkyrie some time to approach as well and change spots herself, perching over the hood of the car to land a shot on another of the bodyguards.

Once Valkyrie makes enough headway into the van, she pops open the door, and with one clean shot and a couple of stab wounds, disposes of the last bodyguard and the HVT.

Whiskey rounds the car and approaches Val, rifle held at the ready and looking around as more sirens sound and echo from the nearby streets.

Val tosses the body of the HVT out with a thud at Victoria's feet, and takes a picture as a 'job done' security protocol for Laswell.

"We need to leave. Now." Whiskey murmurs as she looks around.

"It's done. It's done." Val murmurs and tucks his phone into the pocket of his vest. "We don't make that bad of a team. This was actually pretty cool."

Whiskey's hazel eyes lock onto Val's dark brown ones, then, she rolls her eyes. "Just get in the damn car." She grunts and nudges her along with her borrowed rifle. "Pretty cool my ass." Whiskey murmurs as she runs to the driver's seat.

"You should let me drive this time, you know?" Valkyrie goads as Whiskey puts the car in reverse and looks over her shoulder.

"That sounds like a terrible fucking idea. Why the fuck would I do that?" Whiskey shoots the car forward and swerves into a side street.

"Because your driving is about as bad as your aim with knives."

"Will you let that go? I wasn't aiming for your head."

"Even if you were, you'd have missed."

"You know, Watcher said I can't kill Russians on Russian soil... but didn't say anything about Canadians."

The Look™️ in question:

For @superhero-landing aka @/🔪 anon

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Illinois bills that would update existing laws to be more gender inclusive and add protections for LGBTQ marriages are ready for action by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who said he will sign them.

The trio of state bills passed last week are meant to move the state in the “opposite direction” of those restricting LGBTQ youth, said Sen. Mike Simmons, the bills’ sponsor and the first and only current “out” LGBTQ lawmaker in the Illinois Senate.

Illinois is one of several U.S. states that have moved to counteract a surge of anti-LGBTQ legislation in mostly Republican-led states.

On the same day just a few hours away, Indiana’s governor signed a bill that will require schools to notify a parent if a student requests a name or pronoun change at school, one of several bills this legislative session targeting LGBTQ people in the state.

Illinois’ neighbors to the west, Missouri and Iowa, have gone in a similar direction by restricting gender-affirming care and the bathrooms transgender students can use.

The Illinois Democratic supermajority passed the bills out of the Senate on Thursday, and the measures now await Pritzker’s signature.

“The Governor is proud to support legislation that creates a more welcoming, affirming, and inclusive Illinois,” said spokesperson Alex Gough on Friday.

“In the face of rising violence and bigotry toward the trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming community, providing support and recognition for those who identify as LGBTQ+ has never been more important,” Gough said.

One bill would replace certain pronouns with the nouns to which the pronouns refer, such as “minor” instead of “he or she,” and “person who gives birth” in place of “mother” in some existing laws concerning children in the state’s care.

Before her “no” vote, Republican Caucus Whip Sen. Jil Tracy said: “I gave birth to two boys that weighed over 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms). I think I deserve more dignity that just ‘a person who gave birth.’ I’m a mother.”

The Illinois Family Institute, a Christian nonprofit, opposes all three bills.

David Curtin, the institute’s lobbyist, said the bill on pronouns is “tinkering” with terms that are legally important, and “there’s only two genders, and its male and female and him and her. So why not just stay with the program?”

Changing the language of laws “doesn’t change reality,” Curtin said.

Simmons said that the bill is primarily intended to affirm LGBTQ youth in the child welfare system, which a 2021 audit found that Illinois’ Department of Children and Family Services has failed to do.

Young people in DCFS’ care have “repeatedly” relayed to ACLU Illinois lobbyist Nora Collins-Mandeville “the challenges that they have with folks identifying their family members correctly or their own identities correctly,” she said.

“Language matters,” said Collins-Mandeville, who worked with Simmons on the bill. “Contrary to some of the opposition ... it actually includes more people and allows people to identify themselves.”

Another bill would require state agencies to track employees who identify as non-binary or gender non-conforming to help achieve workforce diversity, and a third bill would make it easier for LGBTQ couples who resided in other states to marry in Illinois.

When the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion in June, the ruling included a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested the high court should review other precedent-setting rulings, including the 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

The marriage bill is meant to serve as fail-safe in case that decision is reversed, Simmons said.

“What we’re trying to do is get ahead of any actions that might be taken to invalidate Obergefell or any of those other cases that would have a direct and disastrous impact on LGBTQ households in the country,” he said, referring to the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

The Respect for Marriage Act, signed by President Joe Biden in December, enshrines the right to same-sex and interracial marriages in federal law.

For Chicago lawmaker Simmons, the three Illinois bills are personal. “There are so many other state legislatures right now that are making a sport of targeting my community,” he said.

“So many people fought so hard for me to even have the right to exist, to be able to be an out and proud, Black, LGBTQ+ state senator,” he said. But the current political climate is “dispiriting at times,” Simmons said.

“There’s several states that are going light years back on LGBTQ and civil rights.” he said. “Everything is going backwards.”

[mariacallous]

This June, approximately 150 motorcycles will thunder down Route 9W in Saugerties, New York, for Ryan’s Ride for Recovery. Organized by Vince Kelder and his family, the barbecue and raffle will raise money to support their sober-living facility and honor their son who tragically died from a heroin overdose in 2015 after a years-long drug addiction.

The Kelders established Raising Your Awareness about Narcotics (RYAN) to help others struggling with substance-use disorder. For years, the organization has relied on Eventbrite, an event management and ticketing website, to arrange its events. This year, however, alongside listings for Ryan’s Ride and other addiction recovery events, Eventbrite surfaced listings peddling illegal sales of prescription drugs like Xanax, Valium, and oxycodone.

“It’s criminal,” Vince Kelder says. “They’re preying on people trying to get their lives back together.”

Eventbrite prohibits listings dedicated to selling illegal substances on its platform. It’s one of the 16 categories of content the company’s policies restrict its users from posting. But a WIRED investigation found more than 7,400 events published on the platform that appeared to violate one or more of these terms.

Among these listings were pages claiming to sell fentanyl powder “without a prescription,” accounts pushing the sale of Social Security numbers, and pages offering a “wild night with independent escorts” in India. Some linked to sites offering such wares as Gmail accounts, Google reviews (positive and negative), and TikTok and Instagram likes and followers, among other services.

At least 64 of the event listings advertising drugs included links to online pharmacies that the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy have flagged as untrustworthy or unsafe. Amanda Hils, a spokesperson for the US Food and Drug Administration, says the agency does not comment on individual cases without a thorough review, but broadly some online pharmacies that appear to look legitimate may be “operating illegally and selling medicines that can be dangerous or even deadly.”

Eventbrite didn’t just publish these user-generated event listings; its algorithms appeared to actively recommend them to people through simple search queries or in “related events”—a section at the bottom of an event’s page showing users similar events they might be interested in. As well as posts selling illegal prescription drugs in search results appearing next to the RYAN event, a search for “opioid” in the United States showed Eventbrite’s recommendation algorithm suggesting a conference for opioid treatment practitioners between two listings for ordering oxycodone.

Robin Pugh, the executive director of nonprofit cybercrime fighting organization Intelligence for Good, which first alerted WIRED to some of the listings, says it is quick and easy to identify the illicit posts on Eventbrite and that other websites that allow “user-generated content” are also plagued by scammers uploading posts in similar ways.

“I’m confident Eventbrite does not want to be hosting this on their platform—I’m pretty sure that that is not what they had in mind,” Pugh says. “It shows that a lot of the platforms that haven’t traditionally thought of themselves as being part of the threatscape have no idea how to monitor the content on their platform.”

“Listings like these do not have a home on Eventbrite,” Chris Adams, the company’s head of platform product, tells WIRED in a statement. “This is a spam attack, coordinated by a few bad actors attempting to draw audiences to third-party sites.” Adams says Eventbrite is taking the issue “very seriously” and the “identified illegal and illicit activity has been removed.”

Eventbrite’s help center says it uses a “combination of tools and processes” to detect content that goes against its rules. These include, its pages say, using machine learning to proactively detect content, a “rules-based” system, responding to reports from users, and human reviews.

“Our investigation determined this is abnormal activity, a misuse of the Eventbrite platform, and based on our findings, Eventbrite did not profit from these listings, and there have been no finalized ticket purchases identified,” Adams says.

Eventbrite appears to have removed most, if not all, of the illicit listings that WIRED identified after we alerted the company to the issue. Because of the way WIRED collected the data, however, the thousands of listings found on Eventbrite are likely the tip of the iceberg. WIRED obtained the data used for its analysis by collecting listings Eventbrite deemed were “related” to hundreds of events found through simple keyword searches. These keyword searches and their related events likely do not capture the entirety of illicit events published on the platform.

Even within this limited dataset, our analysis found that, on average, 169 illicit events have been published daily.

The vast majority of the listings WIRED found used common tactics, whether they pushed drugs, escort services, or online account details. The spammy pages were often listed as online “events.” The events do not actually happen but rather act as a way for those posting them to publish their activities online. Most of them were free; however, some tried to charge people to “attend” through Eventbrite. It is not clear whether anyone has paid for any of the events.

Searching for various controlled substances, such as brand-name opioids, brought up results on Eventbrite. These “events” mostly pushed people away from the platform to online pharmacy websites, which say people can buy medicines without prescriptions.

John Hertig, an associate professor at Butler University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, says there are thousands of online pharmacies operating at any time and that the vast majority of them are illegal—with websites often selling drugs not approved by the FDA or failing to be licensed in the country where they are selling into.

“The other major issue that we see in terms of illegality is not requiring a prescription,” Hertig says. “You see a lot of this: ‘easy, hassle free, simple process, no doctor needed.’ That's illegal.” Typically accounts claiming to sell medicines through non-official platforms, such as those on Eventbrite, will not be doing so legitimately, Hertig says, and that brings risks around whether what they are selling is safe.

As well as websites, those claiming to sell illicit services on Eventbrite pushed people to chat privately on WhatsApp or Telegram. Our analysis identified as many as 60 unique Telegram accounts and 65 WhatsApp numbers in the dataset. WhatsApp spokesperson Joshua Breckman says the platform encourages users to report suspicious activity and that it will respond to valid law enforcement requests. Telegram did not respond to a request for comment.

“I use Eventbrite to show people what services I sell,” the person behind one account, going by the username Usa Best Vcc, tells WIRED in a Telegram chat. “Eventbrite helps 100% in getting my services to people.” The account, which claims to sell social media accounts and banking accounts and lists more than a dozen apps, has had its Telegram handle listed on more than 200 Eventbrite pages, according to search engine results. It also has its own website, Gmail address, Skype, and WhatsApp accounts.

Similarly, one Indian WhatsApp number appeared on 123 almost identical listings on Eventbrite. The telephone number is linked to two other numbers and a website that appears to offer escort services. All three numbers replied to messages and asked what “area” or “location” a WIRED reporter was in. One number sent a series of photographs of women and a proposed list of prices for their services.

Those behind the accounts posting to Eventbrite likely have not just singled out the platform; many also have presences across other websites and services where people can upload their own content. They often include short summaries, which are filled with keywords that could help them appear higher in search results.

For instance, the Usa Best Vcc seller also has posts on Pinterest, Medium, Deviant Art, and more. The Indian WhatsApp number also appears on hiking website AllTrails, an open data website from Public Health Scotland, Medium, and others. Pinterest spokesperson Ivy Choi says the company deleted the account and works quickly to remove content that violates its policies when it detects them. AllTrails declined to comment, and other organizations did not respond to a request for comment.

“Any site that allows a user to upload their own content will find these cyber criminals advertising, scamming, or using the site for their personal gain,” says Rachel Tobac, the cofounder and CEO of SocialProof security. “Cybercriminals leverage the power of user-generated content (their own drug advertisement) to sell to folks who are searching for what they have to sell.”

Pugh, from Intelligence for Good, says those uploading the posts to multiple platforms may be using automated tools to do so, and they are not manually entering all their details time and time again. “You definitely can see a difference in some of the more sophisticated actors who have clearly used some SEO-manipulation tools,” Pugh says. Some, she says, will use emoji or slang terms to avoid automatic content moderation that platforms put in place.

“Any platform that is inviting their user community to host freely has to be aware that their platform can be used for reasons that were never intended,” Pugh adds. “If you're putting a platform out there and inviting the community to participate, you have a responsibility to keep it safe.”

[deleteddewewted]

Since its the last day of ur event it was really fun reading all of them!!

Maybe to brighten up the anons u killed in the dungeon of angsty

Sweet with hmphbc rumi and reader going on a mission class but they have to act as a couple for it? Like a married couple i dunno but i hope i saved some anons out there

Sweet: Undercover

Hmpbc! Mirko x Fem! Reader

❤️🖤Sweet And Sour Event (May 21 - June 26)(JJK, MHA, KNY Characters Only!)❤️🖤

❤️🖤Sweet And Sour Event Masterlist❤️🖤

If you'd like to support my work (Check my Ko-fi and Throne!)

W: Mild NSFW, Groping, Fluff, Hmpbc! Mirko, Fem! Reader, Gay Panic, Kinda Cute

The heat that rose under her shirt was unbearable. She couldn’t believe that she was zipping up your dress for you. The pads of her fingers touched your skin causing goose bumps to form on her skin. You were electrifying, divine even, and it set her skin ablaze when you both made contact. 

She quickly finished zipping you up and slapped both of her hands on her cheeks to help cool them off. She had to snap out of it before you turned around and saw her heated face. It was embarrassing to act like a complete love-sick loser for someone she claimed to hate.

“You good, bunny girl?” You turned around while you adjusted your chest, your breasts bouncing as you fixed your dress.

The sight of your breasts bouncing only helped heat Mirko’s face further, all coherent thought went out the window as she noticed the lack of breast padding which allowed your erect nipples to be visible through the fabric.

“Fuck off! Just get your tits in place and let’s go. I’m not going to fail this mission just because you’re taking too long to get dressed.” She walked away from you, her shoulder bumping you as she walked out of the room.

“So you were watching my boobs? That’s kinda gay, bunny˜” You teased. The only response you received was a loud growl and distance “you wish”. 

You were aware of the rabbit’s interest, it just seemed that she wasn’t aware of her own which was disappointing. You kinda wanted to push what you could get away with during this mission, after all, you were both tasked with infiltrating a famous club that catered to the queer scene. So you bought the most revealing dress you could find and did your makeup all while in her presence.

You both took an uber out to the club, Mirko’s outfit was just as revealing as your own though hers didn’t have a low back cutout. You made sure to place your hand on her hip as you both walked into the club and presented your fake IDs. Once in the club you kissed her on the cheek and took her hand towards the dance floor.

“What are you doing?” She hissed. Her embarrassment only grew as she watched you giggle and sway your hips to the music.

“We need to act like any other patron. Come dance with me and see if we can get any intel from the other patrons.” You pulled her closer to you, your chests pressed against each other.

You swayed your hips against her own, a grinding feeling that only helped with getting Mirko’s panties wet. Your warm body was the only thing anchoring her even in the sea of people that surrounded you both. Your hot breath on her neck had the hair on the back of her neck standing and your hands on her ass only helped encourage her to sway her hips towards your own. It was intoxicating, the dance you both had was everything she ever wanted. It felt disgustingly wrong and would have been that way if it was anyone else. She would have hit any other person if they had been groping her. But with you, with your hands in her, it felt correct. Her body flowed with your own and it felt natural to do so.

“It looks like the target has left the site.” You separate from the rabbit hero and make your way towards the club entrance with her in tow. 

There was nothing she could do to hide her slicked thighs and blushing face. She burned internally as you casually wrapped your arms around her waist and waited for the uber that would take you both back to the agency.

“Why are you being so clingy? The question wasn't aggressive or filled with bile. Instead, her voice was calm, gentle even. She placed her hand on top of one of your arms and allowed her thumb to mindlessly rub your skin.

“Because I'm tired. We did dance a lot.” You pressed your face into the crook of her neck and began to kiss her. She let out a shallow breath as your lips sucked on her skin and left a faint trail of moister behind. 

Mirko hated the way her body responded to you but if it weren't you, it would mean that someone else would be here with her. She knew that she wouldn't let them kiss her and touch her the same way she allowed you to. Maybe she had biases, maybe it was just her need for affection that her family deprived her of once she had reached middle school. She refused to accept that she was attracted to you but rationally speaking, she knew that she did like you. She wanted to feel you on her, all over her.

“Ok.” She leaned towards you, her head resting on the top of your head.

You both waited on the driver to pull up in front of you both before attempting to separate and make your way inside. She thought about talking to you about maybe going to eat something after the debrief at the agency. Mirko smiled to herself as she thought about how cute your face would look as you stuffed ramen into your mouth, the warm broth heating your face and bringing you warmth. How cute, she thought.

[foreverlogical]

Damning as it was, most of what the U.S. Department of Justice announced about the Minneapolis Police Department on Friday had been documented a year ago by the state of Minnesota’s Department of Human Rights. Each report involved interviews with more than 2,000 people, and describes a police agency rife with excessive force, racial profiling, lack of accountability, military-style training—all the institutional shortcomings that allowed Derek Chauvin to think he could kneel on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes.

Chauvin after all had done something similar several times before without a word of reproach from a superior, much less another officer, noted Attorney General Merrick Garland from the podium in Minneapolis. He was in town to confirm that the Feds’ probe of what may now be one of the world’s most infamous police departments—an investigation that Garland had announced one day after Chauvin was convicted of Floyd’s murder—had indeed found a “pattern and practice” of policing that violated the Constitution. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“The patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible,” Garland said.

Read more: George Floyd’s Family Reacted to the Verdict With an Uncontrollable Cry. That Sound Echoes Through Black America

The 89-page report contains more than the metrics—that, for example, a Black motorist in Minneapolis is nearly six times more likely to be pulled over for no reason than a white motorist—that justify federal intervention in the form of a court-enforceable plan, to which the department agreed in principle, to reform an agency that had rotted from the inside.

The report also offers specific glimpses of what that rot looks like.

“For example,” reads page 44, “during a May 2020 protest following the murder of George Floyd, a lieutenant was caught on camera expressing racist assumptions about Black people: ‘I’d love to scatter ’em but it’s time to f—in’ put people in jail and just prove the mayor wrong about his white supremacists from out of state. Although, this group probably is predominantly white, cuz there’s not looting and fires.’ Another officer agreed.” The report notes that the lieutenant oversaw the department’s training in use of force, “a position where he had enormous influence.”

In a Minneapolis precinct station in 2019, officers decorated a Christmas tree with a Newport cigarette pack, malt-liquor cans and a cup from Popeyes. “Super racist stuff,” the report quotes Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey lamenting to federal investigators.

At the podium on Friday, Garland highlighted a 2015 traffic stop involving Somali-American teens. At one point, one of them told an officer, “You’re racist, bro.”

“Yep, and I’m proud of it,” the cop replied, adding: “Do you remember what happened in Black Hawk Down when we killed a bunch of you folk? I’m proud of that. We didn’t finish the job over there. If we had, you guys wouldn’t be over here right now.”

Beyond what’s contained in the report, examples abound.

In one instance, even other police officers appear to have taken note of not just the racism but also the idea that expressing it would bring no consequences. In June 2013, in an incident not included in the 

DOJ

 report, two off-duty members of the Minneapolis Police Department’s SWAT team, an elite assignment, were drinking in Green Bay, Wis., and ended up in a street confrontation with several Black men. Offended Green Bay police released their incident report, which quotes one of the Minneapolis officers using racist slurs to refer to the other men and reproaching the local officers for not siding with “white guys.” The Minnesota officers, the report makes clear, expected their positions in law enforcement to protect them.

The Green Bay incident would be cited by the attorney for the family of Terrance Franklin, a young Black man killed by Minneapolis SWAT officers the same year, as a possible window into the kind of culture tolerated in the department. Among the substantial evidence the family uncovered challenging the MPD’s account of his death was an audio recording of a SWAT officer shouting, “Come out little n—-r! Don’t go putting those hands up now!” That case, which was likewise not mentioned in the DOJ report, may be under review by the newly installed chief prosecutor for the county that includes Minneapolis. One of the shooters in it had supervised Chauvin in 2017, and allowed him to kneel on a 14-year-old boy for more than 10 minutes, body camera footage showed.[video id=pPne0bm0]

“This is an example of the cancer that has infected this department,” Minneapolis Chief of Police Brian O’Hara said at the April news conference announcing the city was paying $7.5 million to that young victim.

O’Hara took over in Minneapolis in November from Newark, N.J., which also was forced to reform under the auspices of a court-enforced consent decree negotiated with the Justice Department. The Minneapolis department cooperated in the DOJ investigation, and the new report acknowledges that some changes have already been made.

“This is about trying to change the culture around policing,” O’Hara said on Friday, with the Attorney General behind him. “We will emerge as a beacon of light for the rest of the world.”

[mytruthandbeauty]

3 June 2023

All that I’ve written until now has been praise for Mexico and rightly so, because I do love the country and it has so much to offer. However, in all honesty to present a balanced picture I should take some time to point out what I consider to be some of the country’s flaws.

This is not going to be an exhaustive list as I’m speaking from personal experience only for example I have no experience with nor do I know anyone who has an experience with any of the cartels so I can’t speak in an educated way on what they are all about. Now on to that which I have had first hand experience.

I haven’t tried to get a temporary residency visa, but I have read several articles both official and anecdotal and I’ve watched different YouTubers sharing their knowledge on the subject along with immigration specialists and I’ve determined from this that I don’t have nearly enough income to qualify for the visa. This is a problem for me, because I would prefer to be a legal immigrant here to be able to come and go as I please as well as use the public healthcare system if I ever needed it. And as I’ve stated above I love Mexico and want to remain. I don’t want to do repeated border runs indefinitely and who knows how long immigrations would allow me to do that. I think that there should be a separate visa for retirees with a lower income standard, because if you’re not working you don’t have certain expenses related to working outside the home. And I’ve shown in my life that I can comfortably live here on a monthly income much less than what the visa standard is. I’ve done it for more than 2.5 years. So, I’m not happy with the immigration laws.

Another thing about Mexico I don’t like is the noise. Depending on where you live it could be roosters crowing at all hours, dogs barking incessantly, the propane gas delivery man passing by his truck emitting this little jingle repeatedly or the worse is the insanely loud music blasting from speakers from the bars or clubs. Honestly, I am not bothered by any of these with the exception of the overbearing music from the bars, because not only are they unreasonably loud but they typically start late evening and go on until the almost dawn every day of the week.

Something else that I don’t like about Mexico is the cat-calling, the guys who think it’s okay to grope you and those who try to pick you up while asking for sex. It can be very tiresome.

I do wish that the tap water was drinkable, but it’s not and I don’t use it to cook either. Some say you can use it to brush your teeth just don’t swallow it, but I don’t do that either. Fortunately you can have the large 20 liter bottles delivered to your home for a small cost of about $2.00 USD.

And finally from what I can see recycling doesn’t seem to be a priority here, at least not in Puerto Vallarta. In light of the climate catastrophe I think that is something everyone should be taking seriously including governments on all levels, but that some Mexican governmental agencies aren’t is tragic and criminal. Don’t get me wrong, I love living in Mexico and I’m very happy I moved here, but I simply wanted to point out these things that I wish were better. I don’t believe there is a perfect country anywhere, for that to happen it would have to be uninhabited by humans, because humans seem to take pleasure in fucking up even the best of places. Still there are some places they have ruined less then others and for me Mexico is one of the less spoiled ones.

A quiet moment on the bank of the Rio Cuale in Centro.

[seventhfracture]

Just wanted to like... journal a little? Is that allowed on tumblr in the year of our Lord 2022? I know it’s technically a blogging website but tumblr is “blogging website” in the same way facebook is a “good way to connect with family and friends”. Like, sure, why not. You can say that. 

I started sending off short stories to anthologies and collections in June. One rejection so far but most I’m waiting to hear back on. I’m hopeful mainly cause it takes longer to write an acceptance than a formula rejection. 

I sent a novella to an indie publisher in August. They asked to see the full manuscript which was very exciting. I made the shortlist for their 2023 publications but eventually they decided the novella didn’t fit with the overall “brand direction” for 2023. I got a very nice rejection encouraging me to submit another project. 

I’ve finished a second novella this month. Edits have been going well. In Australia its pretty standard to have a literary agent before a publisher. One of the major Lit agencies is doing an open call this month. One of only 2 they do a year. I’m working on a cover letter, synopsis and sample chapter to send off. Hopefully it’ll go well but the whole thing is a new experience. 

I’m still considering self publishing but I don’t think I’d ever be good enough at marketing/business admin to really make that work. Mostly I just haven’t given up on the idea that someone will accept one of my stories, eventually. 

Some close friends have been diligently and patiently helping me draft and edit several things since June. I am very lucky to have some really lovely friends. A sick little monster I love (and respect massively) said the magic works last week “I think your writing has massively improved” which... what cat nip. Chef’s kiss.  

I really love tumblr and twitter mainly cause it lets me read, post and discuss activism topics I’m passionate about. That and the memes are delicious. So I’m not going anywhere. 

I have Death Note fanfic content written until 2023 which is good but I’m probably going to slow down my frantic pace a lot. I’m writing a couple of Witcher fics to destress if you like that sort of thing.  

I’m going to participate in Nanowrimo again. If you follow me on twitter you’ll know I hit 180K last year. I want to hit 200K this year but.... aaaah I don’t think that’s practical. I might try a different/more productive goal. Not sure. Any suggestions would be great. I’ll tweet about the whole process anyway so feel free to come hang out there too.  

[viictorious-archived]

AN EXCERPT FROM AN INTERVIEW.

[...] become anything but sad, instead he turns into a corona of burning light, as if he were the angel with the burning sword. “She was a good person,” he says, biting out the syllables. “She was a good person. Saving lives is a thankless job, Jason. We all lost people because of what the hell they did.” The scent of something burning wafts through the air, a stark contrast from the old melancholy the last time we had talked. I miss it, like someone misses a memory—distant and anguished.

When I ask him about what happened that June 1st, he tells me the government approved version, though his eyes spark with a hint of that defiance so clearly missed during these times. He gives me my order, personally delivered from a courier in his agency, one that he tips substantially, slapping down money without a second thought. If I’m not allowed to ask on what happened that day, however, I ask about what happened the rest of the month, even if it’s already well publicized.

“I went to Theo’s funeral. I was a heel—think I still am. But, you know. she thought I could be better.” He laughs at that, whether from relief or his nerves, I can’t tell. He talks about the cameras and the people, the speeches that moved on and on. He had to have his girlfriend in attendance, and the pictures see clasping hands as he could only look onward. Victor left that day feeling numb, because apparently he had gone to another burial the day after.

That one threw me for a loop.

“Guy wasn’t famous. But he's—he was me and Backlash’s bandmate. David Castillo. What a guy—left us hanging for pizza until we ate half of it, then we just sat around jamming our hearts out.” He grabs the guitar in his room and strums, a raw, emotional tune, the lights dancing around his skin. “I’m gonna miss him.” I say that he doesn’t have to talk about it, but he asks if I could get the name just right. “Hey,” he says, smiling sadly. “Least I could do for a friend.”

The next few days were non-essential, he says. Debriefings, a few bottles and writing new songs for his next album [...]

[mcx7demonbros]

The Fall of America Pt. 1

Ft. Klein, Lucifer, Leviathan

This story and characters appearing in it are fictitious. Certain long-standing institutions, agencies, and public offices are mentioned, but the characters involved are wholly imaginary.

Inspired a tiny bit by Designated Survivor.

Summary: the U.S plans to destroy all evils, with the help of the Heroes. So Klein decides to destroy them first.

Note: The Sailor event (current event at the time I write this) doesn’t give Levi what he’s deserved as the Grand Admiral of Hell’s Navy. So I’m gonna write some of his admiral moment, according to my imagination.

February 13, 20XX

Today, President Harris, the 50th President of the United States of America, will give his State of the Union Address, which is actually his first since he took office last year in June, after the assassination of his much beloved predecessor, President Smith, the 49th President of the United States of America, by the villainous secret society Blue Rose.

Today, the President intends to address to the Congress about the Villains, intending to employ the help of the Heroes to wipe out all villains in the U.S, starting with the Blue Rose.

Unbeknown to the President, however, that this’s going to be his very last day in office and this world. The day that marks the downfall of the U.S.

On the East Coast of the U.S, to the east of the states Maryland and Delaware, a large warship appears, far enough from the land to not be seen by normal people.

The strange thing is that the U.S Navy do nothing about the ship. They don’t even know there’s this warship within U.S’s sea territory.

Inside the war ship,

“The Führer is entering.” A soldier in black uniform announces. All soldiers inside the room stand up. There are two kinds of soldiers here. One, the cyborg soldiers under Klein, they dress in all black, covering even their faces, the soldier who just announced Klein’s arrival is one of them. The others are Grand Admiral Leviathan’s sailors, belonging to the Hell’s Navy.

Klein enters the room, followed by Lucifer and Leviathan, both in their demon forms and donning their military uniforms, with all the decorations attached on their left breast. Klein is the odd one of the three, he doesn’t wear a uniform, he never has to since he doesn’t belong to any military force or order. The Evil Overlord’s most distinguished attire is his long white hoodie, which he uses to cover half of his face. He always wanted to be and now is a mysterious big bad.

There’s a table with three chairs in the middle of the room, making it look like a conference room. Klein sits on the chair in the middle, Lucifer takes the one on his right, Grand Admiral Leviathan takes the one on his left.

After all the “Big Three” have sat down, a demon sailor goes up, bows to Klein, Lucifer and the Grand Admiral. He then uses magic to create a projection, showing a map, which, in turn, shows the location of the ship and Washington D.C with Capitol Hill, along with other cities and lands.

“We are currently right here, 10 nautical miles from the U.S’s baseline, within the country’s territorial sea.” The demon points at the map.

“Our ship is equipped with magic-powered demon missiles. We will use two of them to attack the Capitol Hill.”

“Can we use four?” Klein asks. “I want to make sure they can’t fight back too soon.”

“Then we will send two missiles to the Pentagon.” Leviathan stands up, gets to the map and begins to explain the routes of the missiles.

“We will also have Lucifer put Blind Curse on the missiles, which will make them undetected, until they are right at their doors.” Leviathan continues to explain.

“Alright, I leave everything in your capable hands, Admiral. The fate of villainous factions in U.S, including my Black Cross Army U.S Branch, depends on the success of this operation.”

“You will not be disappointed, my Führer.” Leviathan bows.

“The Address has begun.” A cyborg soldier salutes Klein and reports.

A magical screen is created, which allows them to watch LIVE the address of President Harris.

“I’m sure than everyone still remembers the day our much beloved President Smith, was killed by the Villains, just last June. My predecessor spent his whole life to fight for freedom, for justice, for everything that’s right, for The United States of America and everything She stands for. The Villains assassinated him because they are against American values, they made America their enemy. But I tell you, they have chosen the wrong side, we will fight back and we will win. We will employ men and women with good morals, gifted with newly-discovered special abilities,…”

Leviathan turns to look at Klein, his eyes telling his Master that he’s very tired of the speech already and he just wants to fire the damn missiles to blow up the government.

“Not yet.” Klein says.

“AMERICA WILL WIN.” President Harris says solemnly on the screen. Everyone in the room begins to stand up and claps for him.

“Alright, fire!”

“Fire the missiles!” Leviathan’s voice is loud, clear, but cold.

At the Pentagon, people are watching the LIVE Address of President Harris, but everyone is alert, prepared for an attack.

“Huh, there’s something on the radar.”

“What?”

“It’s four missiles. Two heading towards us.”

“Wh…”

“It’s too late, they’re already in front of our door.”

“Hitting the targets in 3, 2, 1…”

Levi doesn’t even sit, he stands so he could act faster if there’s complication. Not until 0 can he be assured and sit down.

“0…”

KA-BOOM BOOM

“What’s that sound?”

“Why is my TV no longer working?…”

“That…that…Capitol Hill is…is…”

Seeing the Capitol getting blown up, many Americans can’t even stand anymore. They knelt to the ground in defeat.

“God, what’s happening?”

“This shall be the signal for the end of American democracy. Muahahaha.” Klein laughs, raising his Demonus glass up. Lucifer did the same, equally amused.

“Forgive me, Führer. But we need to make sure the enemy’s remaining forces are also defeated.”

“You’re right, Admiral. You have my approval.”

Levi bows and turns to his soldiers.

“SAILORS!” Levi uses a voice spell so all could hear him.

“All of American Navy and Coast Guard bases, annihilation!”

Suddenly got an inspiration and wrote this.

The Black Cross Army under Klein has nothing to do with Christianity or satanism or the like. It takes after the name of the main villain group in Himitsu Sentai Gorenger series. Same with Klein’s title as Führer, nothing about Fascism or Hitler.

There will be a part 2.

Yeah, Lucifer was just there without saying or doing anything much. The eldest will play a bigger role in part 2. He loves Klein so much that he’s there just to protect his fav evil overlord.

Please consider reblog if you read till the end.

Levi appeared in the game’s screen right after I finished this part. He appreciated my work (*≧∀≦*)

[brucenorris007]

WHOO! Okay, Merry Christmas Eve to those who celebrate; Happy Holidays and Winter Solstice to the rest. I’m exhausted, halfway delirious, and I need to stay awake long enough to help preserve the magic for my 2 year old nephew, so let’s talk about why THIS:

Remains one of the most iconic moments, and perhaps the most iconic transformation, in anime.

First, we need to properly appreciate and immerse ourselves in the context. The year is 1991, CRTs are the primary means for broadcasting any entertainment medium into people’s living rooms around the world, anime is still a relatively niche interest in much of the west, and in Japan, Dragon Ball reigns as the undisputed King of the Shonen genre.

Point is, Goku’s among the most recognizable characters by children and teenagers alike. A kind, oft-goofy yet clever nature boy who, in a twist, was revealed to be not of this world, but nonetheless stands firm as our world’s strongest champion and protector, despite his alien origins. 

He’s lovable and loving, a boy-turned-man who loves fighting so much he would, provided the stakes are low, almost prefer to lose, because that means he has another summit to aim for, another challenge to overcome. Slow to anger, averse to cruelty, equipped with a breadth of heart that allows him to accept former enemies as friends and allies.

On June 12, 1991, the last three minutes of Dragon Ball Z’s 95th episode began the climax of Goku’s life story and universally gave chills to everyone who grew up with the boy called Son Goku. The transformation that had been built up as the ultimate mythical power in the universe, the closest thing the terrifying tyrant Freeza ever had to a horror story: A Super Saiyan. 

Let me be clear: this moment, in it’s original intention, wasn’t cool, wasn’t fun or a gag or anything that could be called natural progression like subsequent transformations in the series. THIS was the score played in the backdrop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeFoasNr3d4

It’s unsettling, eerie, scary even, the change that came over such a beloved character as Goku. As the following episodes would reveal, his transformation wasn’t simply aesthetic, but he also revealed a side of himself that had never been seen before in seven years on the page and five years on the screen. 

For the first time ever, Goku was out on a mission to hurt.

People had seen him hunt before, even kill, but after watching his best friend Kuririn perish at Freeza’s hand, Goku’s only end goal was to inflict the worst pain he could unto the demon who took his brother from him.

He got mean.

Goku could have ended Freeza’s life whenever he wanted; the way their battle concluded and the way Goku manhandled the tyrant in those first few exchanges after his transformation confirms that. 

But that wasn’t enough. Not for Freeza. Not for Kuririn, who as far as Goku knows, is gone, only to be seen again when his own life expires. 

No, Goku attacked Freeza where he was most vulnerable, the point that he knew would bring the monster the worst pain he could cause.

His ego.

Goku takes everything he can from Freeza by choosing to fight the latter at the height of his power instead of simply killing him outright.

He unequivocally robs Freeza’s title of strongest in the universe.

He steals any restful nights the despot might conceivably have ever again, having become his one true nightmare.

“I quit.”

He even takes away The ruler of the galaxy’s agency.

He makes clear that, short of stripping away his ego and shattering it to pieces, Freeza means nothing to him. Think about that for a second; this is a man who’s loved fighting for as long as anyone has known him, and yet he makes the incredibly powerful statement–to one who had been the universe’s strongest just minutes earlier–that he’s satisfied, done, going home.

He’s effectively telling Freeza: “You don’t decide when this fight ends.”

This is a Goku more ferocious and more informed by his Saiyan roots than any that anyone had seen until that summer of 1991, and arguably even since then. 

Freeza had stood at the top of whole fucking universe for decades as its ruler.

Yet Goku decided that day that he didn’t get to make any rules anymore.

This.

This is why Goku’s Super Saiyan transformation remains the most iconic in the series and among the most iconic in all of anime.

That’s all from me: Merry Christmas Eve, Tumblr. 

And to all a good night!

[dankusner]

The Zooms

Did you hear about the giant computer hack of 200 U.S. police departments? 

It’s called BlueLeaks

Few know that deeply personal information about police and others is now posted on the web.

Supporters of "Anonymous" -- the hacker/activists called hacktivists -- sometimes wear these masks in communications with the public. 

The group is said to be behind the massive June 2020 data breach of more than 200 police departments.  

One of the biggest data breaches in U.S. law enforcement history took place in June. 

Oh, what? 

Nobody told you. 

Not surprising. 

This is a humiliation of the highest order. 

Police aren’t releasing statements divulging it.

Most of the leaked data appears to have been stolen from so-called fusion centers, which meld local, state and federal intelligence officers into an intelligence-sharing consortium.

The spies got spied upon. 

And now some of what they know is out there for the world to see.

Even though I’m The Watchdog, I’m not gloating. 

This is dangerous on so many levels and should never have happened. 

(Note that I’m not divulging individuals’ information here.)

Aside from the shock of information stolen from more than 200 police departments, it’s stunning how few people, even in law enforcement, know about this.

The leak -- apparently done in sympathy with anti-police activists -- consists of 269 gigabytes worth of information. 

By my math, as an indicator, that’s the equivalent of about 182 million pages of texts. 

But these files contained videos, photos, spreadsheets and other file formats, too.

The doer apparently is the hacktivist collective Anonymous, partnering with a group called Distributed Denial of Secrets, nicknamed DDoSecrets. 

Twitter blocked their account, and Reddit removed its BlueLeaks forum. 

German authorities seized a server. 

But none of that stopped DDoSecrets. 

Try as authorities might to block it, the document dump is still out there.

An unsigned statement from the Texas Department of Public Safety stated it did not contract with the web company responsible for not patching vulnerabilities that led to the data leak. 

“We would refer you to the FBI as the lead agency of this investigation,” DPS stated in an email.

FBI spokesperson Lauren A. Hagee said, “The FBI does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations.”

A targeted police department

The first time I visited the BlueLeaks site, I received a warning to beware because it could be a malicious site. 

I contacted my ace computer consultant, Scott Green of Philadelphia, for help.

As a precaution, he took one of my old laptops which I had given him and accessed the site that way. 

He found the files to be clean and started searching for files that might be relevant to you. 

Among the many, he found a couple that indicate what we’re talking about here.

The first is a spreadsheet of everyone who called Memorial Villages Police Department near Houston to ask for police monitoring of their home while they go on vacation. 

The data showed name, phone number, address, email, vacation start and stop dates, pet information, names of people allowed to visit while the homeowner is away, cars kept in the driveway and in the garage – in other words, much of what a criminal could use to get inside your life.

The second sheet Scott found is all the information given to police when signing up for a mandatory home alarm system: names, email addresses, mobile numbers, which parts of the house have video coverage, alarm company contact, gate access code, pet description, emergency contacts with phone numbers and IP address for that household.

On that list alone are 7,200 households.

Memorial Villages police didn’t return The Watchdog’s call.

Then with additional help, I found more personal data involving police officers, which I’ll tell you about.

‘Servers compromised’

But first, how did this happen? Some

 police departments and agencies use a Houston web development company called Netsential to handle data through individual portals. 

The hack came through that company.

“Netsential can confirm its web servers were recently compromised,” a company statement informs. “We are working with the appropriate law enforcement authorities regarding the breach. …. In as much as this is an ongoing investigation, and due to the sensitivity of client information, Netsential will provide no further statement while the matter is pending.”

It’s very difficult to search the data. 

There’s so much, and it’s not indexed. 

One reporter I know who tried to download the data told me it was so massive her laptop crashed.

DDoSecrets says the data includes police and FBI reports, security bulletins, law enforcement guides and more. 

In stories on tech websites about BlueLeaks, little has been said about how non-police citizens’ privacy has been violated, too. 

That’s because you need a high level of skill to drill through the data. 

Who has that skill? 

Criminals.

Local police listed

I received help from a second computer expert – a Hurst man who works as a programmer for a security company. 

He said his bosses didn’t want his name used.

The programmer contacted The Dallas Morning News about the all-too-quiet data breach.

“There’s so much to pore through,” he said. “You can’t do it manually.”

I asked if he found any files from North Texas, and he pulled up one to show me. 

He said he wouldn’t send it to me because that could be a crime, but through screen sharing on Zoom, I could see it.

It was a listing of the full roster of law enforcement officers from area police departments. 

Which ones? 

University of Texas at Arlington, Hood County sheriff, Saginaw, Fort Worth, Texas Department of Public Safety, Fort Worth federal marshals, Arlington, Tarrant County constables and Irving.

The spread sheet includes full name, job title, work phone, mobile phone, supervisor’s name, title and phone number, and a hashed password (actual password but letters are jumbled). 

It’s possible that this information was in data stored in fusion centers to be used in the event of police emergencies. 

Netsential worked with some fusion centers, but not all of them.

In one file, relating to what the programmer described as a police alliance of some kind, he said he found instructions showing how to enter their website and what key information was needed.

He said he called the alliance and told them. 

“They had no idea,” he said.

“Who was this?” I asked.

“ARIC,” he replied.

That’s the Austin Regional Intelligence Center, shared by Austin area police departments.

Spies being spied upon.

Calling victims

Using data on a spreadsheet showing Harris County homeowners’ vacation information, I began calling people on the list to ask if anyone had notified them of the breach. 

These conversations were awkward.

After introducing myself as a journalist and explaining that I was researching a massive police data breach, I told them that their name and information was included,

One man said, “I’m sorry. I think I need not to respond.” 

He hung up.

I told another man his email address, vacation dates, the name of his yard man and pool man, and even his vehicles. 

It was a lot to take in.

“Son of a gun,” the man said. “How on earth is this public?”

I told him about the Houston company.

“Holy moly,” he said “I appreciate the call informing me of this. Let me check it out.”

Change passwords

If you’ve ever signed up for vacation monitoring or paid an annual alarm permit to your local police department, your information could be included.

But don’t bother calling your local police and asking them. 

They likely won’t know the answer. 

There’s so much information out there that it’s a massive job to sort and find.

The programmer says his fantasy is to alert everyone involved so they know. 

I told him that’s likely hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S.

He said he realizes the impracticality of that. 

As a substitute, he suggests we change our alarm codes and any passwords that are too similar to one another.

“I really want to make a difference and help people,” the programmer said. “Let them know.”

Well, you did, and thank you.

[xtruss]

NYC Jails Flagrantly Deny Young People’s Legal Right To Education

New Court Filings Say That the City is Violating an Eight-Year-Old Court Order Mandating Access to Education for People Under 22.

— Akela Lacy | April 4, 2024

A View of the New York City Jails on Rikers Island, seen from a departing flight from LaGuardia Airport on Dec. 10, 2022, in Queens, N.Y. Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Last June, New York City Mayor Eric Adams Spoke to Graduates at Rikers Island who received their high-school-equivalence diplomas while serving in jail.

“When you get your diplomas today,” Adams told the graduates, “I want you to stand up, lean back, be firm and strong and say, ‘I got this. When does the hard part start? I’m finished with the hard part. Now I’m moving forward to my destiny on what I want to accomplish.’”

The group represented the successful fruits of a law that guarantees access to education to people incarcerated in city jails. The success stories, however, are only part of the picture.

Other young people incarcerated in New York jails said in court filings that they’ve been repeatedly denied their legal right to education and that the city has failed to comply with a 2016 court order requiring education access for people between 18 and 21 held in in Department of Correction custody. In filings Wednesday, the plaintiffs in a decadeslong class-action suit against the city called for the appointment of a new court monitor to oversee implementation of the order.

“Not Only Is This A Legal Failing, But It’s A Moral Failing.”

“Not only is this a legal failing, but it’s a moral failing,” said Lauren Stephens-Davidowitz, a staff attorney with the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society, a public defense organization, which made the Wednesday filings. “You have these young people who are begging to get their high school education while they’re incarcerated, and are just trying so hard, and are being denied it.”

The original 1996 suit claimed that the city Department of Correction and the Department of Education failed to provide education to young people entitled to public schooling. Plaintiffs are now alleging that the city has failed to comply with a 2016 federal court order requiring that incarcerated young people be given access to a minimum of three hours of educational services each day. The order also required provision of special education services to people who needed them.

Class members include 29 people in New York City custody between the ages of 18 and 21 who don’t currently have a high school diploma. Declarations from class members provided to The Intercept document alleged violations of the 2016 court order, including claims that they’ve been told they can only receive education if they’re housed in certain programmatic facilities. (The Department of Education referred questions to the Department of Correction. The mayor’s office did not provide a comment.)

By keeping people from accessing legally required educational services, the Department of Correction is working against its professed goal of rehabilitation, said Stefen Short, a supervising attorney with the Prisoner’s Rights Project.

“It’s proven that when an individual attains their high school diploma or the equivalent in custody, their prospects for success improve on the outside,” Short said. “DOC is essentially letting folks sit idle rather than provide them with access to educational services to which they have a right. That renders everyone in the jail setting less safe. It’s a strange state of affairs. It doesn’t serve anyone’s interests.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Correction referred questions about the legal filing to the city’s Law Department, which represents the mayor and city agencies, and has not responded.

“The department has just received additional funding for programming for people in custody,” said the Correction spokesperson, Annais Morales, said, adding that the funds would allow for programs including general education diploma preparation and “tutoring for all people in custody.”

Last Chance For A Diploma

The court appointed a monitor in 2016 to oversee the city’s implementation of the order. In his third report in 2018, as his two-year term was winding down, the monitor found that the order was working for younger detainees, who were being phased out of the adult criminal system under a 2018 city law and were no longer part of the class, but not for people over the age of 18.

“While the education program at Rikers has shown marked improvements during the past two years, access to education for inmates age 18 to 21 is a persistent problem,” the report said.

Only people incarcerated in special Department of Correction program housing have access to education services. Detainees don’t have a choice in where they’re housed, and people in non-program housing have said they’ve requested access to education and been denied.

At a November meeting of the city’s Board of Correction, a nine-member oversight body, Correction Department Deputy Commissioner Francis Torres said the department provided educational services at only two facilities: the Robert N. Davoren Complex and the Rose M. Singer Center. “For this year, we have targeted our educational efforts, meaning granting access to educational services at RNDC and Rose M. Singer,” Torres said.

One incarcerated person, who needs special education services and submitted a declaration as part of the new filing Wednesday, said he had lost nearly a year of progress toward his diploma during the Covid-19 pandemic and was still being denied access to education.

“I need my special education services in order to make educational progress,” the incarcerated man said. “I am not getting the three hours of education per day that I am entitled to.”

The man, who said he was interested in vocational training in carpentry, computers, or cybersecurity, added, “I want to seize every opportunity I can to prepare for a better future.”

An incarcerated 19-year-old who received special education services prior to being in jail custody said Department of Correction staff told him he had to wait to receive education services until he was transferred to a different complex. When he got there, he said staff told him he couldn’t enroll in education services because he wasn’t in a school dorm.

“I was worried that I would not be safe in another housing area,” he said. “I did not think it was fair that I had to choose between school and safety.”

When an incarcerated person turns 22, they age out of the right to get education while in jail. “This is the last chance they have to get a high school education,” said Stephens-Davidowitz, the Legal Aid attorney. “This is a critical juncture in their lives. They have a right to do it, and they’re trying.”

[44gamez]

Top 12 most anticipated games of 2024

2023 was among the best years for video video games in latest reminiscence; what’s cooking in 2024? Since I’m a lover of mainly each online game style, this record will include AAAs, indies, and every part in between.

High 12 video games to sit up for in 2024

I’ve seen individuals on-line joke that with all of the extraordinarily anticipated video games and films coming in 2025, 2024 has been dubbed a filler 12 months (like how there are filler episodes in anime). After seeing this record, I feel you’ll disagree. Associated: 10 finest PC equipment you’ll want you had sooner Whereas there are numerous video games we all know are coming in 2024 that we don’t have an official date for and there are numerous video games that can be launched this 12 months that we don’t learn about but, this record accommodates a handful of video games I feel are gonna be nice. Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth

Picture: Sq. Enix Arguably, Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth goes to be the largest recreation of the 12 months. Personally, I’ve by no means understood the hype round Final Fantasy, however I do know it’s beloved by many — and this one has Sephiroth, so it’s gonna be loopy. Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth is popping out on February 29, 2024. Now could be the time to play by means of Final Fantasy 7: Remake Intergrade to get caught up with the story. Pacific Drive

Picture: Ironwood Studios Actually, one of many video games I’m most anticipating in 2024 is Pacific Drive. I like the area of interest style of video games that offers you possession over a customizable, purposeful car and allows you to free-roam with that residence base, and Pacific Drive is simply that in a survival roguelike type. The spooky Pacific Northwest environment, the customizable, upgradable, drivable automobile, the road between exploring and surviving — it’s all calling my title. Pacific Drive doesn’t have a agency launch date but, however it will likely be launched in 2024. Associated: 10 Video games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Future 2 The Remaining Form

Picture: Bungie It’s completely comprehensible if you happen to aren’t a Future 2 fan — at this level, I hardly am myself. Nonetheless, since I’ve been engrained within the recreation for thus lengthy, I can’t wait to expertise the epic conclusion of the Mild and Darkish Saga that we’re getting in Future 2 The Remaining Form. Future 2 The Remaining Form is releasing on June 4, 2024. I’m hyped Bungie has delayed it, going again to the drafting board to verify the standard of The Remaining Form is as excessive as doable. As excited as I'm for The Remaining Form, it’ll be equally attention-grabbing to see what occurs after The Mild and Darkish Saga. Metaphor: ReFantazio

Picture: Studio Zero I’m not the largest Persona fan and even I’m stoked to Metaphor: ReFantazio. This recreation is a model new IP for the Persona builders set in a medieval fantasy. Prepare for a deep (and lengthy) story with turn-based and motion fight. Anticipate Metaphor: ReFantazio in Fall 2024. I’m ready for Metaphor: ReFantazio to transform me to the Persona-like methods. Dragon’s Dogma 2

Picture: Capcom Dragon’s Dogma 2 appears insanely good. It’s a single-player medieval fantasy expertise the place you get to decide on your class and work your means towards slaying a dragon. The buildcrafting is robust, the fight appears stable, and the choices for how one can take down enemies ranges from climbing on them to destroying them with smoke magic. Dragon’s Dogma 2 comes out on March 22, 2024. If you wish to get a style of what the sport can be like, you possibly can play Dragon’s Dogma 1 now because it’s free in lots of locations together with PS Plus. associated: 14 Greatest Bethesda video games Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2

Picture: Ninja Principle This one has been in growth for some time and I’m very excited for it. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice rocked the gaming world in 2017 with its extremely character-driven story centered on a Celtic lady affected by a type of psychosis. It’ll be very attention-grabbing to see the place Ninja Principle takes the story in Hellbalde 2. Like many video games on this record, Senua’s Saga: Hellbalde 2 doesn’t have a confirmed date however it's coming in 2024. I’m extra assured in Hellblade 2 releasing this 12 months because it has been in growth for thus lengthy. Zenless Zone Zero

Picture: MiHoYo Zenless Zone Zero is mainly Genshin Impression or Honkai Star Rail however in an city setting. MiHoYo has killed it with Genshin Impression and Honkai Star Rail, and if you happen to haven’t at the least tried these video games, it is best to. Zenless Zone Zero comes out on April 26, 2024. Put together to grind for anime mommies and zaddies (I hate that I wrote that). S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Coronary heart of Chornobyl

Picture: GSC Sport World There's considerably of a cult following round S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and that’s as a result of it’s one of many best-crafted open-world survival video games thus far. Individuals have been anticipating S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 for many years now and at last, in 2024, we’re getting the sequel. After just a few delays, I’m hesitant to imagine that S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2: Coronary heart of Chornobyl can be launched in 2024, however my fingers are crossed. I cherished the Metro collection and if that is higher than that, you realize I’ll be enjoying it day one. Star Wars Outlaws

Picture: Ubisoft In the event you love the Star Wars: Jedi collection as I do, you then’re most likely jazzed on the prospect of extra of that with Star Wars Outlaws, however sprinkle in some GTA parts. Ubisoft could be form of hit and miss, however I received’t cross up the chance to play a bounty hunter open-world Star Wars recreation. I wouldn’t be shocked to see this recreation get delayed to 2025 or past, however it's presently scheduled for a while in 2024 and I hope that’s once we get it. Associated: 10 Video games like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor that can make you one with the Drive Tekken 8

Picture: Bandai Namco I’m not a lot of a preventing video games fan — I performed my justifiable share after I was youthful with Tekken Tag Event 2, Soul Calibur 2, and Tremendous Smash Bros. — however Tekken 8 is gonna change preventing video games eternally. I’ve had a few fighting-fan coworkers play the Tekken 8 beta and so they’ve been blown away. The discharge date for Tekken 8 is January 26, 2024. Avenue Fighter and Mortal Kombat 1 followers aren’t prepared. Hades 2

Picture: Supergiant Video games Hades was among the best indie video games of all time. It redefined the roguelike style by means of attention-grabbing characters, a significant story, and tight gameplay. There’s little question Supergiant Video games will do it once more with Hades 2. Hades 2 is launching in early entry in Q2 2024 which I’m form of upset at. I’ve performed video games that I’ve cherished in early entry earlier than and it hurts to tear myself away from the sport to attend till it's completed and it’s typically awkward to return. I’d a lot moderately get a full-game launch, however with Hades 2, I’ll make an exception. Avowed

Picture: Obsidian Leisure Although it’s been a minute since we’ve heard something on Avowed, it does have a 2024 launch date and it’s completely one to sit up for. In the event you favored Fallout: New Vegas (which is arguably the very best of the collection), Outer Worlds, and/or Grounded, then get psyched as a result of the developer of these video games, Obsidian Leisure, is making Avowed which is mainly Skyrim within the Pillars of Eternity universe. Lately, I get hesitant to construct my pleasure for a recreation when there isn’t a agency launch date, so, like with Star Wars Outlaws, take the Avowed 2024 launch date with a grain of salt. If Avowed does drop this 12 months, it’ll be large. Wishful considering and honorable mentions

Picture: All Doable Futures These are the massive swingers coming in 2024, however there are just a few honorable mentions and wishful-thinking video games I hope come out in 2024, or at the least get introduced. The Plucky Squire is an indie recreation coming in 2024 that appears adorably enjoyable. It blends 2D and 3D fight right into a storybook fashion that I must play. The Gecko Gods is one other indie that appears superb — lovely artwork and also you play as a Gecko, what extra may you need? The opposite AAA video games that I’m wanting ahead to in 2024 are Cranium and Bones (I’m crossing my fingers that it doesn’t flop, however I additionally wouldn��t be stunned), Visions of Mana (I’m a brand new fan and the brand new recreation appears superb), Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (to me, the delays seem like they’ve paid off because the traversal and fight appears extra enjoyable… we’ll see), and Black Fantasy: Wukong (historical Chinese language mythology is such an untapped angle). I’m an enormous Sony Pony, so all I would like in 2024 is video games (or at the least recreation bulletins) from Naughty Canine, Sucker Punch, Guerilla Video games, Housemarque, Media Molecule, and Santa Monica Studios. All of these Sony studios have been quiet for much too lengthy which is why I’m looking forward to an thrilling 2024 for Sony… however I’ve been let down earlier than. General, 2024 has some superb video games popping out. I hope there are some surprises as properly like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Hello-Fi Rush, two of my favourite video games of the 12 months, have been in 2023. Read the full article