#oxymoron collection

[my-jokes-are-my-armour]

Nivellen's face in rage mode. Acrylic - reversed colors.

[jeremywhitley]

Here's a rundown of the first half of the stories and creators including details about the creators and images from each and every story!

Genre: Educational

Writer: Jeremy Whitley (My Little Pony, Unstoppable Wasp)

One of the Editors of Aces & Aros. Find full bio in "Creative Team" Section of the Kickstarter page.

Artist: Bailie Rosenlund

Bailie Rosenlund ; a graduate of Sheridan's Illustration program in Oakville, ON, Canada; is an award-winning illustrator located in Vancouver, Canada. She is currently working as a Comic Artist on Marvel Voices: Avengers Academy. She recently illustrated the comic Hero Outage: An Epic NPC Man Adventure. Previous clients include: Marvel, DC, Bad Egg, Dreamworks, Warner Bros, Cartoon Network, Apple, Nickelodeon, Netflix, Restoration Games.

Instagram | Website

Colorist: Kelly Fitzpatrick (Archie)

Kelly Fitzpatrick is a professional colorist who has been working full-time for over 10 years in the industry. Their client list includes Marvel, DC, Archie, Darkhorse, and Image Comics; as well as many other indie publishers.

Genre: Slice of Life

Writers: Phil Falco & Kat Calamia (Lifeline Comics)

Two of the Editors of Aces & Aros. See full bios in "Creative Team" Section of the Kickstarter page.

Artist: Valeria Peri

Valeria Peri (she/her) is a freelance comic book artist from Italy. She graduated from the Art Academy, A.C.M.E. of Milan with specialization in comics. Valeria has published two short stories with a local publisher and is now working as a freelance artist.

Genre: Fantasy

Writer: Derek V. Song

Derek V. Song is an Asian American writer known for his work on the WEBTOON adaptation of Dimension 20's Fantasy High. When not writing, he can be found anxiously staring at the wall, trying to decide what to write next.

Bluesky | Website

Artist: Alex Brennan-Dent

Alex Brennan-Dent is a prizewinning queer comic artist, illustrator and all-round nerd from the UK; who can either be found making videos over on his YouTube channel, or at his desk working on various (usually fruity) comic projects!

Genre: Poetry/Slasher

Writer: Sarah "Neila" Elkins

Sarah "Neila" Elkins is an asexual writer and artist who's worked in the comics industry since 2008. She loves scifi, fantasy, horror, and mystery. She has a from of chronic ossifying tennis elbow.

Bluesky | Mastodon

Artist: Feriowind

Feriowind is a Taiwanese-American illustrator and creature and comic artist who has previously worked on Godzilla Rivals: Mothra vs Titanosaurus.

Genre: Spy

Writer: Cici Affini

Cici Affini (She/Her) is a demisexual comic book writer best known for “MythFall.” She was featured in the “Oxymoron: Killing Time” anthology and wrote the prose short “Thin Ice” for the Chimeranverse Tales collection. She is one fourth of creator-owned indie publisher Attic Door Media and a member of the ComixLaunch community.

Substack | Instagram | Bluesky | Facebook

Artist: Mauricio Mora (HAUNTING, Damsel from D.I.S.T.R.E.S.S.)

Mau Mora is a comic artist and illustrator from Costa Rica who loves fantasy, action and drama. After several years of working as an artist for indie video games projects, he started to make his way into his true passion, comics, and in particular, creator-owned projects. Some of his most recent projects include the sci-fi thriller "The Game, spy/fantasy "Damsel from D.I.S.T.R.E.S.S.", horror drama "HAUNTING", cyberpunk/superhero "Xolotl" and the Comixology Original sci-fi adventure, "Major Thomás". In the meantime, he's also started working on writing his own projects, soon to come! He lives in Costa Rica with his much more talented comic artist wife, and their two very dumb cats.

Genre: Slice of Life

Writer/Artist: Emily C. Martin

Emily C. Martin is a comic artist, illustrator, printmaker and teacher based in Sonoma County, California. On the internets, they are known as Megamoth, and found mostly through www.megamoth.net. 

Website

Genre: Video Game Comedy

Writer: Suzanne Wdowik

Suzanne Wdowik is a writer and aspiring math teacher from metro Detroit. She has previously been published in the Eisner-nominated anthology SENSORY: LIFE ON THE SPECTRUM (Andrews McMeel) and the horror anthology IN THE NECK OF THE WOODS (Greykin Press).

Instagram | Bluesky

Artist: Yonson Carbonell

Yonson Carbonell (he/him) is a  freelance comic artist and illustrator based in the Dominican Republic, has work with Plague Doctor press, Alpha eve, kofi, and more. He's currently working on his personal comic project Hooligans (free to read on his Kofi and webtoons). When not working you can find him watching anime, playing video games or with his pets.

Website | Instagram | Twitter

Genre: Slice of Life

Writer: CC Mooney

CC is a Canadian writer and editor. This is their first work in comics and they're super excited about the opportunity!

Bluesky

Artist: Gib Lewis

Gib Lewis (they/them) is an Iowa born and raised graphic novelist with a passion for telling interpersonal stories. They are primarily a YA creator and are currently working on their own graphic novel, an early 2000s paranormal mystery tale.

Twitter | Bluesky

Genre: Historical

Writer: Logan Noack

Logan Noack is a comic writer best known for his ongoing webcomic, The Witch's Thrall. This is his first published work and he hopes more will follow.

Bluesky

Artist: Ornella Greco

Ornella Greco is a cartoonist and freelance illustrator from Italy. She studied in Palermo, Sicily at the Grafimated Cartoon-School of Comics and finished her studies in 2019. After she graduated, she began working for various publishers in the American and French comics industry, on such works as the acclaimed Dragon Kingdom of Wrenly series from Little Simon, Star Trek: Picard’s Academy with IDW Publishing, and more.

Instagram

Genre: Fantasy Romance

Writer: Bwillett

Bwillett, disabled biroace comics gremlin and Webcomics Old One. When not juggling multiple webcomics, she enjoys building models, being very Opinionated about toys, cross stitching and dealing with her screaming goblin of a dog, Duchess.

Bluesky | Mastodon | Website

Artist: Zuzanna Lewandowska (Bi Visibility: Still Bi, Hairology)

Zuza is an illustrator and comic enthusiast from Poland who is a huge fan of interesting stories, complicated characters and art in general. Their ambition is to one day publish their own comic.

Instagram

Genre: Slice of Life

Writer: C.K. Carpenter

C.K. Carpenter is a queer disabled writer who most recently co-edited (and contributed a story to) the unSEEN/unHEARD: Disability & Neurodivergence anthology, published by Unseen Alchemy Publishing. Other recent works include short comics in Transphoria by Lifeline Comics and Down Below by Limit Break Comics. They also edited, published, and contributed a story to Scott Snyder Presents Tales from the Cloakroom v1. Their stories tend to center on queer characters or characters with disabilities.

Twitter | Bluesky

Artist: Sam Alegre / Darkjellyfish

Sam (they/them) is an agender illustrator from the Dominican Republic. Their artwork usually shows experiences as a nonbinary individual, appealing to a young audience. In their artwork, they explore self-discovery, mental health, and self-expression. Sam currently works as a graphic designer and children’s book illustrator. They also enjoy playing with their pets and roller skating.

Instagram | Behance

Please jump in and support the anthology and help us tell comics stories by, for, and about ace and aro folks! And look out for the next post with the other half of the stories!

[aromantic-diaries]

At the end of the day, we live in an age where everything is filtered through irony and in an ironic world, being sincere is one of the most rebellious things to do

I don't think pissing people off is the right reason but with that being said I also think it's simply a side effect of being alive. By this I mean that regardless of how authentic you are it is inevitable that someone will hate the way you express yourself and that should never stop you but also your self expression should be for your own sake rather than for the sake of pissing people off

[phoebesbridgers]

What’s His Age Again? Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus (Now 53) Looks Back.

The sometimes fraught relationship between Hoppus and DeLonge is what Ozzi described as the “real bromance” at the center of the memoir. Fellow skate punks and self-taught musicians with a penchant for phallus jokes, the pair first met in San Diego County in 1992. Hoppus — the son of a homemaker mother and an aerospace engineer father who split up when he was in the third grade — was 20 and drifting through college. DeLonge, three years his junior, was a high school miscreant.

FULL NY TIMES ARTICLE UNDER THE CUT

In early March, Mark Hoppus, the singer and bassist for the long-running pop-punk trio Blink-182, and his wife, Skye, were special guests at a Sotheby’s modern and contemporary art auction in London. The sale featured a piece from their collection, a rare Banksy titled “Crude Oil (Vettriano),” up alongside works by Yoshitomo Nara, Gerhard Richter and Vincent van Gogh.

“It was such rarefied air that we’ve never been a part of before,” Hoppus recalled at his home a week later, outfitted in chunky black glasses, a Dinosaur Jr. long-sleeve T-shirt, navy blue Dickies and Gucci Mickey Mouse sneakers. The painting sold for nearly $5.5 million, part of which will go to charity.

It would have been hard to predict such a highfalutin turn for Hoppus back in 1999, when Blink-182 released its magnum opus, “Enema of the State,” which catapulted the band to MTV “Total Request Live” stardom and sold five million copies domestically. The video for the album’s first single, the jocular “What’s My Age Again?,” famously features the band members running unclothed through the streets of Los Angeles. (“Naked dudes are so ridiculous,” Hoppus said. “It just looks comical to me.”) Blink-182 followed up that LP with its first No. 1 album, “Take Off Your Pants and Jacket,” two years later.

Despite Blink-182’s reputation for high jinks, naughty puns and charmingly adolescent hits like “All the Small Things,” Hoppus is remarkably thoughtful in person. Jim Adkins, whose group, Jimmy Eat World, supported Blink-182 and Green Day on a 2002 tour, said in an interview that Hoppus exhibited “human empathy.”

“I know ‘Mark from Blink-182 is emotionally mature’ might seem like an oxymoron if you don’t know him,” Adkins admitted, “but I would say that.”

That maturity translates to the page. In his memoir, “Fahrenheit-182,” written with the music journalist Dan Ozzi and out April 8, Hoppus details Blink-182’s turbulent history and contemplates his own mortality with grace and good humor. The band’s “Behind the Music”-worthy history includes near-death experiences, bitter splits and world-conquering tours. In 2021, Hoppus was diagnosed with Stage 4A diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and underwent an arduous course of chemotherapy. (“I was all decay and poison,” he writes. “Everyone I talked to cried. Every conversation felt like goodbye.”) He now has a clean bill of health.

Hoppus, a 53-year-old California native, was sitting cross-legged on a chair in the round sunken den at the heart of his exquisite midcentury modern house, which was designed by the architect Harold Levitt. “This room is where I’ve suffered the most,” said the musician, who wore his hair, which he had lost during chemo, in a towering front spike. “This room is where I’ve had the most difficult self-reflection and conversations of my whole life.” He compared it to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

“When the band broke up, I sat right here on our couch and just despaired,” he said, referring to the first of two times the singer and guitarist Tom DeLonge walked away from Blink-182, only to eventually return. “I was so filled with animosity and hatred and rage, and I just wanted to get back in our band,” he continued, dropping a number of expletives.

But “Fahrenheit-182” never turns meanspirited or dour. “The book has no demons in it,” Hoppus said. He mentioned that he’d discussed his memoir on the phone with his psychiatrist — Hoppus is treated for obsessive-compulsive disorder, intrusive thoughts, depression and anxiety — earlier that day. “I think that writing the book helped solve a lot of ongoing issues in my life, because I was trying to write it with an even hand,” he said.

The sometimes fraught relationship between Hoppus and DeLonge is what Ozzi described as the “real bromance” at the center of the memoir. Fellow skate punks and self-taught musicians with a penchant for phallus jokes, the pair first met in San Diego County in 1992. Hoppus — the son of a homemaker mother and an aerospace engineer father who split up when he was in the third grade — was 20 and drifting through college. DeLonge, three years his junior, was a high school miscreant.

“Our musical styles fit exactly, and his humor was just as abrasive and as offensive as mine was,” DeLonge, 49, recalled in an interview. “We both came from broken families and saw the world the same way.”

The fast friends formed a band, originally known simply as Blink, with an even younger drummer, Scott Raynor. Blink’s first studio album, “Cheshire Cat” from 1995, did surprisingly well for the independent Cargo Music, and the band leaped to a major label, MCA. In 1997, Blink-182 released the LP “Dude Ranch,” scoring a hit with “Dammit,” a boisterous track with an indelible refrain, delivered by Hoppus: “Well, I guess this is growing up.” Hoppus and DeLonge ended up firing a troubled Raynor and replacing him with the tattooed powerhouse Travis Barker, of another California band, the Aquabats, before recording “Enema of the State.”

It was easy to dismiss Blink-182 in the early days. “When we first came on the scene, the gatekeepers and the people in charge were so focused on Blink’s comedy side, our silliness, that it prevented them from looking deeper,” Hoppus said. “But we did it to ourselves. We played naked. We do mom jokes, Tom and I, back-and-forth onstage, nonstop.” If it weren’t for the many hits Blink-182 scored in the wake of “What’s My Age Again?,” Barker said in an interview, “We very well could have been pigeonholed as the naked band.”

Over the years, Blink-182 only grew in stature among fellow musicians, inspiring emo bands in the 2000s — Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Paramore — and the latest generation of pop-punk acts, including MGK (formerly Machine Gun Kelly) and Meet Me @ the Altar. “Look how big Blink-182 is now,” said the Meet Me @ the Altar drummer Ada Juarez, 26, who pointed out she was born the year “Enema of the State” came out. “You can listen to it today, and it still fits. A lot of it has to do with Tom and Mark’s parts and the way that their voices just fit so well together.”

The band’s sphere of influence extends to less-expected genres. “There are emo rappers who say, ‘I grew up listening to Blink-182,’” Hoppus said. “There are dudes playing in the shreddiest heavy metal bands saying, ‘I grew up listening to Blink-182.’ The Chainsmokers are like, ‘We grew up listening to Blink-182.’ I love that celebration and that connection.”

Readers coming to “Fahrenheit-182” for gossip will be disappointed for the most part. There is, for instance, barely a mention that Barker is married to a Kardashian. “It’s not ‘The Dirt,’” Hoppus said, referring to Mötley Crüe’s debauched tell-all. “It’s a PG-13 book.” The memoir does, however, provide insight into strife within Blink. After DeLonge’s 2005 departure broke up the group for the first time, he and Hoppus didn’t talk for several years. “It was awful,” Hoppus said. “I felt like my world had been rugged.”

DeLonge called that rupture “a tale as old as time.”

“When you start a band, it’s just you guys,” he said. “You all have the same dream, same aspirations, same work schedule, same passion, same drive. Then each person finds a spouse, might have kids, might start extracurricular activities.” (DeLonge, who formed the alternative rock band Angels & Airwaves in 2005, is a well-known U.F.O. researcher.) “That just creates issues amongst the band members that I wasn’t even emotionally intelligent enough to communicate or understand or be able to remedy.”

Barker’s near death in 2008 — he survived a plane crash that killed four of the six people onboard — precipitated a Blink reunion, but after five years and just one album, DeLonge bailed again. “I don’t think we were all healed, and we didn’t fully trust each other,” he said. This time, Hoppus and Barker replaced him with Matt Skiba, the singer and guitarist for the Chicago punk band the Alkaline Trio.

“I remember that first Roxy show being mildly terrified and looking over at Mark cracking jokes,” said Skiba, who went on to record two albums with Blink. “His joy would just bring me back into the moment.”

Just as the world was beginning to emerge from the pandemic, Hoppus learned he had cancer. “It got really dark,” he said, recounting a conversation with Skye, with whom he has a 22-year-old son, Jack, a video game designer. “We were sitting in our kitchen and I was dying — the medication, the chemo, was just so gnarly,” he recalled. “Felt like I was being crushed between two trucks. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’

“My wife goes, ‘What are you saying? Are you going to kill yourself?’” he continued. “And that moment really crystallized the fight for me. That was when I was like, ‘This is a losing battle, but I have to fight the fight. I can’t just give up in front of my wife and son.’”

When DeLonge found out about Hoppus’s illness, the resentments dropped away. “I was very quick to say, ‘I’m all in, Mark,’” DeLonge said. “‘When — not if — you’re done with these treatments, the north star is we’re going to play again. Let’s do that for each other.’”

Hoppus was cleared of cancer in September 2021, and a year later, he, DeLonge and Barker announced that they were reuniting again. In 2023, Blink released its ninth studio album, “One More Time…,” which became the group’s third record to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

“I don’t think the band’s relationship has ever been as healthy or as strong as it is now,” Barker said. “We love this version of our band.” DeLonge marveled at Blink’s longevity: “Plane crash, cancer, top of the charts, breakups. It’s absolutely bananas that we’re still here.”

Blink-182 will continue so long as it’s still fun, Hoppus said. “The one thing that we have all agreed on, and promised one another, is we have no desire to become a legacy band,” he said. “We don’t want to ride off into the sunset playing ‘All the Small Things’ at casinos ad nauseam. I want to play ‘All the Small Things’ forever, but I also want to keep creating new music that connects with people.”

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Grishaverse text posts I made based on things my friends and I have actually said. In real life.

Part 32

*playing scrabble, except the main goal is to write words that make us laugh*

Nina: Do you have any of the letters to make ‘vampire’?

Jesper: I have a V and an A, do you want to trade for them?

Nina: I have an A

Jesper, in stitches: Just to confirm, you want to write the word ‘vampire’ but the only letter you have is ‘A’?

Nina: yep

Jesper, still laughing: You looked at one ‘A’ and thought ‘damn I can almost write vampire’

Nina: … yep

*they trade so Nina can have the V*

Nina: Okay this might be unconventional

Jesper: Oh Saints

Nina: How do you feel about putting five letters each back in the bag and then randomly re-collecting five?

Jesper: … fine

*both put five letters back into the bag. Jesper goes to the bathroom, and when he returns the word ‘vampire’ has miraculously appeared on the board*

Nina, laughing: You’re not gonna believe this…

Jesper: no I’m not

Nina: … but by some magical event I definitely 100% truthfully pulled out all five letters I needed to write vampire. In order.

Kaz: Some people have the right opinion

Inej: That’s a slightly oxymoronic statement

Kaz: No, it’s very easy to have the right opinion. You just have it

Kaz: Like me, all the time. I always have the correct opinion

*on a bus when visiting Wylan*

Jesper: ugh why is your public transport so much nicer that ours?

Wylan: The North/South divide?

Jesper: … oh, yeah, probably. Ugh.

[murdlygirly]

I wanted to share some information I deduced relating to Irratino’s family with a bit of headcanon woven in because I’m MEAN. (Spoilers for School of Mystery, specifically case 35) 

Lemme preface first that all of these points rely on the information we learn from case 35 being 100% factual. I do think that Logico made up a good number of SoM moments since the oxymorons obviously didn’t meet in college (more info on that here). But I do think everything we learn from case 35 is true to canon because I doubt Logico would make up the deaths of his bf’s family…

Anyway-

I believe that the first murders Irratino ever solved were those of his moms. We see in case 35 that Irratino keeps a lot of papers and information relating to his parents, with the original story claiming they passed due to an accident. But there’s no reason to keep a bunch of news articles about the tragic demise of your parents unless you thought something bigger was at play. So, this is why I think Irratino spent the next couple of years collecting clues and evidence. Eventually, he connects the dots because we know the information he had stored was enough to figure out the actual way they died. And I also say that it took him years because a pivotal piece of evidence relied on a silver locket being found years later. Lastly, I say he solved it since some of the key information about the case feels like information only he'd know. Like, one of his moms had a signet ring, but it’s implied that she died in the open ocean, so it’s very likely that evidence wasn’t found. But Irratino would know what jewelry his mothers wore.

Side note- if the locations were where his mothers died, then the worst part about this is that they were separated from each other and died alone. And if Irratino did solve this, he most likely stumbled upon that fact because of the diary entries that were used as statements. It's pretty harsh, I mean, one of his moms was stranded on the island, most likely not knowing where or what happened to her wife. 

AND ALSO- this also brings up the possibility that Irratino might not have even had the remains of his mothers to bury. Because one was in the open ocean, and the other’s locket was found on the island years later. You’d assume she was wearing it, so if they found her along with the necklace, that would mean graves for them back at home would’ve been empty for YEARS. Y'all. Poor Irratino.

But to top it all off, I HC that on the day(s) his mothers died, Irratino was struck with a very heavy and sinking feeling. Intuitively, he suspected something bad must have happened to his moms, but that revelation wouldn't be confirmed until their ship returned without them. And if you want to add an extra flavor of pain, you can also see him carrying the guilt of not being able to do anything with him. Which is why when he sensed that Logico was in trouble at the Violet Isles, he got himself over there. Because he was not going to let himself feel helpless again.

[thatguylainey]

Another dnd character to my collection! This time I have a feind warlock Aasimar!! A fun little oxymoron

Had fun drawing the clothes for her!

[snowblack-charcoalwhite]

GET TO KNOW YOUR MUTUALS

@lonnson thank you so much for the tag!🫶

What's the origin of your blog title? It's an oxymoron-ish rendition of one of my childhood nicknames (Snow White).

OTP(s) + shipname: Hannigram (Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham, NBC Hannibal); Mary and Matthew Crawley, Downton Abbey (no ship name afaik); Farawyn (Faramir and Eowyn, The Lord of the Rings); Tomgreg (Tom Wambsgans and Greg Hirsch, Succession); Aegond (Aegon II and Aemond Targaryen, Fire&Blood/House of the Dragon)

Favourite colour: green

Song stuck in your head: The Line by Twenty One Pilots

Weirdest habit/trait: refusing to do certain things just on principle, without any kind of rational explanation (it doesn't happen often but some of those principles are very silly)

Hobbies: travelling, reading, writing poems, listening to music, watching movies/TV shows, making collages that I pretty much never post

If you work, what's your profession? I head a division of the Fares and Services department in a public transportation company.

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be? Project management (it's pretty close to my current job, so I'm fine in that regard).

Something you're good at: planning events and mediating conflicts

Something you hate: having to defer to stupid people's judgment

Something you collect: chopsticks

Something you forget: buying salt🤣 For some reason I'm always caught off guard when I run out of it and then go without for a solid week because my brain just can't process the fact that the salt is gone.

What's your love language? Problem solving.

Favourite movie/show: The Lord of the Rings, Love Actually, Inception (movies); Hannibal, Succession (shows)

Favourite food: OMG, I don't even know! I'm such a foodie that I can't really choose.

Favourite animal: cats

What were you like as a child? Very Hermione Granger-like.

Favourite subject at school: English and history

Least favourite subject: PE (mainly because the teacher was an effing tyrant)

What's your best character trait? I'm responsible and dependable.

What's you're worst character trait? I procrastinate way more than I should.

If you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be? I'd like to be more certain about the future (big freakin' detail, right).

If you could travel in time, who would you like to meet? My maternal grandfather who died before I was born. He was a remarkable man; plus I've been told time and time again that I resemble him a lot, often in really uncanny ways.

No pressure tags: @vhagar-balerion-meraxes @very-straight-blog @autumnrose11 @heretherebebookdragons

[flowerbloom-arts]

[~900 word fic based on the events of a segment from Treehouse of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes]

Seymour stared at the empty plate in front of Gary and his heart sank. A constant reminder of the unreal thing that sat across him at the table.

Seymour always took pleasure in serving food for his superintendent, it was one of the few things he thought would impress him, but now… the thing that looked like him couldn't even eat it. Seymour was only serving himself in this regard.

He had killed the real Chalmers a month ago now, someone whose body is probably rotting in a dump after Groundskeeper Willie had cleaned it up and thrown away to the no man’s land that all garbagemen send people’s trash to. Skinner could only feel unnerved at the uncharacteristic niceness radiating out of that face. He could almost sense pity out of it.

“Is something wrong, Seymour?” Gary asked, leaning over crossed arms on the table.

Seymour swallowed his resentment and asked him what he thought was a fairly innocuous question, tangential to the illness making his stomach ache; “Gary, why is it that you’re so nice to me, if Chalmers… the real Chalmers… never would be?”

Gary took a moment to calculate his response, one would be fooled into thinking he was thinking humanly. “I’m only his simulacrum, Seymour, meant to occupy you with utmost patience when he couldn't afford to do that himself,” he answered with brutal honesty, just as any robot assistant should, “But I’m not sure if ‘never’ is the right adverb here. He's always been perfectly capable of kindness towards you, it's simply that… something always gets in the way of it.”

Seymour figured as much, and his mind gravitated towards the answer being his own faults – a habit he was taught by Mother with all the criticism she's given him over the years – but he’d rather his assumptions be backed up by an outside source. “And what do you think that might be?” he asked.

Gary furrowed his brow trying to collect whatever clues in his memory bank could point to a clear answer. He shrugged; “He wanted you to be a different person, I think,” he said, not a hundred percent sure of its completeness as an answer, “Someone who could speak to him as an equal and not as a subordinate. Someone interesting he could engage with as a friend. You're a war veteran, right? He thought that surely someone of your experience would offer more interesting insight than consulting him on design and decor choices that never made any difference to him.”

Seymour hung his head over his plate trying to absorb the observations given to him in Chalmers’ familiar voice. All he could feel was a deep disappointment in himself for not measuring up to his superintendent’s expectations and desires, if only he had known… he raised his head with widened eyes when the clone unexpectedly continued;

“But maybe that's not the whole truth,” he speculated, “The original Chalmers’ thoughts are all extremely oxymoronic now that I try to decrypt them all. He revelled in cruelty towards you because it made him feel superior and in control in a situation where he felt aimless, but he didn't want to admit to being cruel only for his own sake; he wanted to know more about you, but if he were to know more about you he would’ve felt that his cruelty was unjustified. He thought willful ignorance would allow him to be blameless, that if anyone were to ever object to his behavior he would be able to rationalize it by saying he's only been judging your present performance with no regard to your mental situation, claim that he couldn't have known better. He's very odd.”

Seymour had stopped eating and leaned back on his chair as he continued listening with great interest and horror.

“He wanted to like you, but for him to like you he needed to know more about you, but knowing more about you would make him feel guilty of his abuse towards you, meaning that liking you would mean he would have to be disgusted at himself, and his ego as a man of stature trumps all else that is important to him. Therefore, he cannot like you in a way that jeopardizes his own moral validity, despite his actual desires…”

Gary looked down at the table and sat in silence, seemingly deciding on what to say to Seymour next. He sighed and rubbed his forehead as if all the contradictions and circular reasoning were making his thought engine overheat.

“If… if it's any consolation to you, Seymour, I like you. I like you in a way that's based on the original Gary’s behavior. I know that probably won't suffice as I am only a simulation of a real person and not the real person himself, but that statement is true to me. Just know that none of his behavior was your fault or responsibility, he was always capable of treating you better and simply chose not to because his pride wouldn't allow it until the moment he was faced with the possibility of death. He was too selfish to change his ways until he was met with the fatal consequences of his treatment of you.”

The pit in Skinner’s stomach grew more vast and painful as he processed it all in silence.

“It's not your fault that you couldn't trust kindness coming out of a cruel man, Seymour,” Gary reassured him. “It’s not.”

Seymour took another moment of deafening silence before nodding in grieving acceptance. “Yes, of course… thank you, Gary,” he replied very quietly.

[cryingpariah]

I love how one of the common pitfalls with Vegapunk is that in spite of him being a genius, he rarely actually thinks things through.

Like, he called his collection of scientists dedicated to 'world peace', which by the by consisted of a burgeoning dictator and two eco-terrorists, MADs.

Even though a lot of his inventions like the food machine or the island ac work fine and could be mass-produced by scaling them back a bit, no doubt helping the vast quantities of starving people in the One Piece world, he just hoards everything on Egghead and brands things that more or less work fine as failures because of his perfectionist streak until another idea pops into his head and the cycle starts all over again.

He couldn't put it together that his greatest vice sentience and a physical body would come back to bite him in the ass later on.

He gave the child soldier clone robots access to the Lineage factor of the six most powerful pirates and was shocked when it turned out they inherited personality quirks and memories from them two.

Dude rolled a nat 20 on intelligence but a negative 20 for wisdom. Which btw, Goodness and Wisdom were the two Vegapunk satellites who were taken out early on and if that ain't symbolic I don't know what is.

*slaps the top of Vegapunk's apple head* this fella can fit so much dramatic irony and hubris in him!

Vegapunk is sooooo odd to me. Everything about him is so oxymoronic it’s actually kinda baffling how Oda put everything that he did into this character. He’s all book smarts with absolutely no streets smarts and it’s almost sad to see. Everytime they showed us a decision he had made I was thinking ‘Okay…why would he do that though?’

From the creation of the Satellites (who makes robot versions of themselves that embody literal VIOLENCE AND EVIL and thinks things are gonna be hunky dory?) to the stuff with MADs (NEVER put more than 2 scientists in a room together or they’re gonna try to create a new element and jumpstart the end of the world) to making it so inanimate objects could eat devil fruits (I still want him to walk us through the process for that one causeeee 😬😬) to not joining Dragon and the Revs because they didn’t have the money to support themselves (which like I get it dude but like have a heart they’re trying to liberate the world).

The worst thing about all of this is you can tell he has a good heart, he genuinely wants to share knowledge and make the world better he just..keeps stumbling over that finish line. (Or mor accurately he stops midway through the race and restarts because he figured out a better way to run).

[my-jokes-are-my-armour]

Oxymoron

Warnings : corpses mentioned, mourning issues, ptsd (light for the moment), angst, Geralt emotional whump.

[Ao3 link]

The Continent has long forgotten magic and monsters. Those are for books and legends only. Yet some still believe in it and witchers are still in activity. Geralt, one of the last, knows that monsters have just adapted to the human world and hides even in the biggest cities. One day, he meets a young man playing in a bar on the road and his life is changed.

[Geralt POV]

[Modern AU]

Chapter 32 : Beauty and the beast - Part 1 : Move

We are now on the road to Kaer Morhen and on our way to the first stop, following S2 events. I am departing from the books a fair bit too and made my own thing to help Geralt taking a turn that I found hard to believe in the show. Of course I am a little devil so it won't be soft 😈.

[k-n0-x]

༺ ♱✮♱ ¨:·Something Stupid-Chapter 3·:¨ ♱✮♱ ༻

A/N: Hii everyone! Sorry this chapter is a little later than usual, burnout happened, school happened, the whole shebang! This chapter is a doozy though, hope you all will love it <3

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Enjoy<3

꧁🥀☽💫✶♛🦢♕✶💫☾🥀꧂

The sun rays peek through your window and the birds’ chirps awake you from your slumber.

Or maybe it’s the snoring of a drowsy Adam, who was lying beside you, though you’ve inured yourself to his unconscious noises for ages.

You get up from your bed, just to almost have your legs give way under you, thanks to the fact that you had to be pounded by your husband, as you promised to him.

Last night felt like a chore. You feel really bad for thinking it, but it really did. 

You’re not an expert, but sex should feel enjoyable, by all sides involved, but with Adam, it feels like an obligatory activity.

You spend the next 25 minutes brushing your teeth, showering and getting ready for the day. Since there’s nothing to do at home (well, there’s nothing to do at home) you decide that this is a good time to be productive.

You head into the kitchen and scrutinise each and every ingredient that graces your pantry.

“Hmm, maybe this would work…”  You grab flour, eggs, milk and a frying pan…

꧁ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ꧂

The smell of buttery pancakes drifts throughout the kitchen. You sit down in your chair and take a bite of your breakfast.

The pancakes themselves were lovely; the consistency was just right and the flavour was something to die again for, courtesy of Heaven’s always perfect ingredients.

Heaven…. 

‘Perfect’ Heaven.

Up until a few weeks ago, you would have believed that sentimental saying that you hear being thrown around on multiple occasions, but now, those words seem like direct opposites of each other, an oxymoron even.

The mere thought of it sets an uneasy feeling in your stomach.

You shakily finish one pancake, and neatly leave the rest in the microwave. 

You have more pressing matters to get on about today, and pancakes aren’t one of them, though you want it to be. 

꧁ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ꧂

“Welcome to Heaven, how can I help?” The Saint looks up from his logbook with a face coloured with surprise when he recognises you.

“Y/N! How’ve ya been?” 

“I’m doing good,” you smile up at the angel behind the pedestal.

“So, what can I do for the wonderful wife of Adam, hm?” St. Peter clicks his tongue and finger guns.

“Well, Peter, is there a chance you could show me the list of Heaven’s recent residents? There’s a certain person I’m looking for…” Realisation hits you like a truck. Would this information be classified? You wouldn’t know until-

“Yeah sure, here!” The Saint passes you a page with written names and dates.

“This is a list of  Heaven’s newest angels from up to a month ago. I hope you find who you’re looking for!” 

“Thanks Pete, you’re a Saint,” 

“Well, I am Saint Peter after all, ah bye-bye!” 

Well that was easier than anticipated. 

Now you need a private place to mull it over…

You walk through the brightly lit heavenly streets and bump into someone, sending you and your papers flying.

“Oh my, misss, I am ssssso ssssorry,” The person bends down to collect the papers.

“No, no it’s fine, sorry-” your voice gets stuck in your throat. You take a close look at the person collecting your papers.

The person, or, you should say snake, was sporting a smart coat, top hat, and eyes in his hair?

He was familiar. Where have you seen him before?

Your eyes dilate in recognition.

He was pixel perfect to the mural that Charlie showed you the other day.

“Excuse me for asking, but are you Sir Pentious?” 

The snake demon, or angel, looks around before leaning in. 

“Depends on who’sssss asssking,”

“Oh uh,” you think for a moment. How do you explain that you know he was a demon, without seeming like a stalker of sorts. 

Clearly, this isn’t the subject to have casually in the street.

“Here, let me explain over tea and cookies, hm? My treat!” You grab the hand of Pentious gently and head to the nearest café.

꧁ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ꧂

“And ssso, thisss Adam guy just sssnapped me out of existence, and now I’m here, but without my egg boisss,” Pentious explains while indulging himself with a Pain un Chocolat, eyes welling while doing so.

“Huh, I see. So Charlie’s plan does work,” you mumble to yourself. “And I apologise for my husband, by the way,”

The snake pales, his skin now ashy.  “He’ssss, your husssband?” he instinctively pushes away from you in his seat.

“Yes, but don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. I just promised Charlie that I would help her with the hotel and redemption and all that…”

“Oh I sssee. Here’ss my card if you need anything more,” He produces a card and hands it to you, and you accept it graciously, despite it having a slimy residue on it. 

“Great! I have to go now but it was nice meeting you,”  you shake his hand and leave the café.

꧁ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ꧂

“So, what’s it like having sex with the first man? What are your orgasms like?”

“Angel, don’t torment the poor girl,” 

“Whaat? Just askin’” Angel groans and puts his phone on the countertop of the bar.

Apparently, Charlie has gone AWOL, along with Vaggie and Lucifer, the three people that deserve to be the first people aware of the gratifying information you are holding.  

This tension is getting you antsy, but you answer your newfound bestie’s question.

“Overrated to be honest. Not meaningful in the slightest,” Your blunt answer stuns Angel and Husk for a moment.

“What’s this about orgasms?” You turn back to the entrance of the hotel.

Shit. 

The one person whom you didn’t want to hear you say that, was standing in front of you, holding about 10 shopping bags, his daughter and his daughter’s partner  following suit.

God, what must he think? You want to slam your head into the table, but you refrain yourself.

“Uh Dad?” Charlie taps her dad’s shoulder.

“Maybe let’s refrain from talking your way into the sex life of guests? Anyway, how are you, Y/N? I hope everything’s alright?” Charlie inadvertently snapping you out of your apparent embarrassment.

“Oh yes! Not just alright; absolutely amazing actually. I have important information to tell you so forgive me for my impromptu visit, but it clearly cannot wait,” you practically jump out of your chair, bursting with energy. 

My, you haven’t felt this emotion since…

Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

“Well, I did some digging and…” you grab the crusted card from your bag.

“Well, congratulations to you, Miss Charlie Morningstar, Princess of Hell, because your dream is a reality!” You flourish the card to Charlie, and she takes it.

She blinks. 

Everyone else blinks.

“Uh, what is this exactly?”

You groan. Fun police much? 

“Sinners can be redeemed, I found Sir Pentious in Heaven just this morning,” you concede, impatiently tapping the card.

“Wait really? You aren’t just messing with me?” Charlie’s eyes practically shone with stars.

“Angels aren’t known for that darling.” 

As soon as you say that Charlie squeals and jumps up and down, ecstatic.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyooouuuuuu!” She gushes and hugs you extremely tight, constraining your lungs, but you really don’t care.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” You pull away to have Alastor behind you, with that ever-so-familiar-yet-unpleasant grin. 

When did he get here?

“Seems like out little Morningstar is becoming quite the entrepreneur,” Alastor places a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, as though they are father-daughter.

Father-daughter, where the daughter’s biological dad is directly beside them. 

“Hey, hey now, get your slimy claws off of my daughter, would ya?” Lucifer asks the Radio demon, half laughing.

“Oh? The same daughter you’ve abandoned for countless years on end? The same daughter who had to build this establishment by herself, with no support. The same daughter I’ve been faithful to, in comparison to you? I’ve stuck through thick and thin with her. Hell, I probably fit the Dad position by definition,” 

The room is loud with silence; you could probably hear a pin drop.

Alastor’s voice carries those words in a seemingly defensive manner, but you can tell that those words don’t hold any meaning to him.

It seems like you’re the only person to realise that, because with the slam of a door, Lucifer exits the room, leaving an aura of pure anger and jealousy behind.

“Dad!” 

“Charlie, maybe you should give him a breath of fresh air-” Vaggie tries pulling her back.

“No! Vaggie, he needs someone to be there with him. God knows what he will do and what if-” Charlie is in a craze to get to the door. 

“I’ll go,” you say abruptly. Without question, you go through the door.

꧁ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ꧂

“Hey, it’s really hot out here, you know,” you stand at the garden door, as the king gazes out on Hell’s not-so-perfect landscape depressingly.

Silence. 

“Alastor was just pulling your leg back there, he just wanted to piss you off,” you stand beside him, keeping an appropriate distance.

“I know. That’s not the problem. The problem is that-” his voice hitches.

“Go on,”

“The problem is, is the fact he’s not even wrong; I left Charlie with nothing, she had to support herself before help came along, I barely was there for her throughout all of this, until the very last moment, when she didn’t even need me anymore,” The King of Hell rambles, and fidgets with a small yellow thing in his hand. A bird of some sorts.

A duck? 

“I can’t do anything right,” he continues.

Okay, you have to stop getting sidetracked by meagre things. 

“Lucifer, listen. Yes, you may not have been there for her before, but you’re here now, and you are ready to help. Yes, I know it’s scary, yes I know it’s hard, but I have an inkling that Charlie would love to start having a bond with her father again. Also, you know her and how she is; she isn’t the type to shut you out. Just try to put some work into it, okay?” 

That felt like more of a ramble, than advice, but it seems to suffice for the King of Hell. 

“Thank you. I really know why Charlie has taken a liking to you…” he trails off, continuing to fidget with the rubber duck. He squeezes it, and it plays a short, spunky tune. 

“And see? Atleast you’re doing something small for now, you should take it easy. By the way, that’s the most adorable rubber duck!” You gush at the plastic fellow, earning a smirk from Lucifer.

“Oh? Changing the subject are we?” The fallen angel teases.

Well, that was out of nowhere, but you just go with the flow.

“Yeah, and what? That’s a fuckin’ cool duck, so I apologise for acknowledging that fact,”

“Ah well, I have better. By the way, why are you talking about orgasms to that porn star- I mean Angel, back there?” 

Oh yeah. That happened. 

“Gee, why does everyone want to know the juicy details of my life? But really,he was just interested in my sex life, that’s all,” 

“Interesting. You know I slept with 2 of Adam’s previous wives?”

“Don’t even try,” you give him a playful shove.

“Eh, worth a shot,” 

꧁ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ❂♕☻☹☻♕❂ꕥ꧂

You and the blond-haired demon go back inside, giggling about some disastrous function you went to when you were younger, and how you may or may not have been the leading cause.

Thankfully, the only person in the lobby was Charlie, who jumped to hug her father the second she saw the two of you, making them both cry and profusely apologise to one another.

Yeah, maybe it’s a good time to go. Maybe quietly too this time. 

You open the portal, and you are back in Heaven again, in front of the pearly gates of the place you call home. 

As you open the door and turn into the living room, you nearly jump out of your skin.

“Hey,” The sound of your husband’s voice rings through your ears.

“I ate your pancakes from this morning,” 

“Alright. I’ll make dinner soon, but I’m tired right now,” you pave your way to your bedroom, when Adam pulls you back.

“Where were you even?”

“Places,” you try to pull away, but the First Man doesn’t relent.

“Where? You weren’t in Heaven, were you?” 

“Alright fine. I was in Hell, cleaning up the mess you and your little play soldiers made by the way,” 

“Were you not there the other day? Why are you so attached to this-” Cogs turn in Adam’s head.

“You were with him, weren’t you? You fucking slut,” Adam’s hand swiftly slaps you across the face. A small cut of golden blood streaks down your face.

“What the fuck? Of course Lucifer is gonna be there, you dumbass?! Why do you think I’m gonna sleep with-” You dodge a flying porcelain jug that was headed in your general direction.

“That fucking demon, thinking he’s hot shit and- and all, just fucking whoever he wants-” The Angel starts storming around the living room, just throwing random shit about, like a kid having a tantrum, making colourful insults while doing so.

You sigh and go into the kitchen to make dinner; hopefully Adam would have blown off enough steam by then.

“Oh and- You better not go back there again, you got it?” 

“…Fine,” You slam the door behind you.

Clearly, you have to be more furtive about your visits to the underworld.

For now, maybe you should cook some dinner, and a warm bath.

Your back really hurts.

꧁🥀☽💫✶♛🐣♕✶💫☾🥀꧂

Word count- 2264

Taglist:

@dionysusismypatrongod

[ultrakill-confessions]

No idea if this goes against the rules, I re-read them a bit to make sure, though I'm not 100% confident. This post isn't intended as a vent, although it may read as one. ULTRAKILL has both helped and warped(?) parts of my life. I have a really horrible fixation on ULTRAKILL. I don't tend to scale things because trying to say "I'm a bigger fan than you are because X, Y and Z!!!1!1!" has always pissed me off and generally rubs me the wrong way. However, for me, I do feel like this is in a similar vein (vein like castle v-), and is GENUINELY to a worrying degree imo. Maybe someone else can relate? Unsure.

For context on some of this, I deal with a dissociative disorder, and I'm a split of V1. Even with that, I can only think of one other instance where it complicated an interest of ours this badly. I think about ULTRAKILL every hour on the hour, I'm not even sure if I go ten minutes w/o thinking about it. And I live a healthy (relatively) life! I'm able to do things, go outside, enjoy life to the best of my ability, hold a job, college, etc. and have gotten better w/ socializing (autism really messes w/ this one); I am just fucking insane about ULTRAKILL. This shit consumes a large chunk of my frontal lobe, hand to God. I constantly plan out and/or make fanfictions (though never post em because being an ao3 author is a little spooky, can't lie gehshe), drawings, animations. Dawg I even get GYM MOTIVATION from ULTRAKILL. Body goals? THE MACHINE. I listen to the soundtrack while I work out (my bias to Order, Death of God's Will, Colliding Stars and The Abyss and the Serpent really poke out here). In fact, ULTRAKILL even helped with my gender and sexual (not inherently trying to be NSFW here) identities! Legitimately made me come to the realization that we might align more with being agender than transmasculine, and that we have no idea what our disaster of a sexuality is collectively, so we just say queer! And even though it's still hard to express ourselves, that has helped so much in feeling more .. at comfort? Correct? I dunno. There’s also a lack of need for labels at all now. It feels so fuckin’ goofy to say this because it HAS consumed a part of my life to the point where I feel like I'm peak brain-rotting at times, however it's also really helped, too?? Like in the most oxymoronic way ULTRAKILL has helped me develop as a person. The imaginary scenarios and art I use aids me in my expression and thought and even brings out more of my creativity. Ironically, despite not really wanting to be perceived as a human being, it has made me feel more like a person. I have a love-hate relationship with it only for the intensity of how much I adore it. It makes me upset when I no longer feel like I’m “me” enough, and yet ironically it has helped me to be healthier in other areas. lowkey use it to cope w/ the religious trauma sometimes too haha I will say, though, for a while I thought (and still sometimes do think) it was ruining my mental state. The identity issues, artist envy, missing my source/individuals from it (+ pseudo-memories and heavy dissociation as a whole if I'm being real), and general hyperfixation woes get very heavy at times. Interest so bad I have to look away sometimes when I see voice actor work, SFM's, etc. Not very proud of that. I never express these issues heavily to anybody except my sibling and a few close friends, simply due to the nature of people, especially on the internet, along with the complexity of having to explain an illness that is so severely stigmatized. My current issue is just holding back from spending my money on merch lmao (I may just draw myself with it to cope /hj). I am cringe and I will soon be free! Apologies if this post is depressing and/or repetitive. uhh, I've seen some anons name themselves, so camaraderie anon here?? LOL sorry. (p.s shoutout to the sisyphus likers and people who hate his mischaracterization YOU ARE THE REAL ONES!!!)

-

[racefortheironthrone]

Which federal laws and policies would you get rid of or modify in order to help the American labor movement.

I was looking through the labor law tag on my blog and your ask reminded me I haven't actually written a comprehensive post about this on Tumblr. (Indeed, you'd have to go back to my old, old policy blog from 2009...it's been a while.)

One silver lining of the Sisyphean struggle to restore American labor law that's been going on since the 1970s is that the labor movement and their allies in Congress, academia, think tanks, and progressive media have been thinking through this very issue of "what reforms would make a real difference" for a long time. I'm not going to say it's a solved question, but the research literature is pretty robust.

For the purposes of this post, I'm going to focus on the three most recent reform packages: the Employee Free Choice Act that was the main vehicle during the Obama years, Bernie Sanders' Workplace Democracy Act (which was introduced repeatedly between 1992 and 2018), and the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) that is the current proposal of the Democratic legislative caucuses. There's going to be quite a bit of overlap between these proposals, because it's very much an iterative process where allies in the same movement are trading ideas with one another and trying to stay abreast of new developments, but I'll try to tease out some of the similarities and differences.

EFCA

While EFCA contained a number of provisions that sought to close various loopholes in U.S labor law, the three main provisions largely target the flaws that have made it extremely difficult to win a union through the National Labor Relations Act process devised in 1935 that has turned into a Saw-style gauntlet thanks to the professionalization of union-busting and the Federalist Society's strategy of death-by-a-thousand-cuts:

"Card check." Probably the most common pattern of union-busting in the workplace today is a war of attrition by management waged by an industry of specialized law firms. Generally what happens is that the union files for election with a super-majority of ~70% workers having signed union cards, then management delays the vote as long as possible to give their hired "union-avoidance" firm to systematically intimidate, surveil, propagandize, and divide workers, up to and including illegally firing pro-union workers pour encouragez les autres. Over several months, what happens is that the initial 70% of pro-union support starts to erode as workers decide it's just too dangerous to stick their necks out, until the vote happens and the union loses either by a squeaker or a landslide.

Card check short-circuits this process by just saying that if the union files with a majority of cards, you skip the election and the union is recognized. And for all the pearl-clutching by the right, this is actually how labor law works in many democratic countries, because the idea of a fair election that lets management participate is an oxymoron.

Arbitrated first contract. In the event that enough workers keep the faith and actually vote for a union, management's next move is to draw out collective bargaining for a year or more. After a year, the original vote is no longer considered binding and employers can push for a "decertification" vote, which they usually win because workers either give up hope or change jobs. So this provision says that if the two sides can't reach an agreement on a first contract within 120 days, a Federal arbitrator will just impose one, so that at least for two years there will be a union contract no matter what management wants.

Strengthening enforcement. As I said above, one of the problems with existing labor law is that there are basically no penalties for management knowingly breaking the law; companies literally just budget in a line-item and do it anyway. This provision would allow unions to file an injunction against employers for unfair labor practices or ULPs (at present, injunctions are only required for violations done by unions), and would add triple back pay for illegal firings and fines of $20,000 for each ULP. This would make union-busting much more expensive, because companies routinely rack up hundreds and hundreds of them during a campaign.

Workplace Democracy Act

Sanders' proposal includes the main proposals from EFCA, and adds a bunch of additional reforms, like mis-classifying workers as independent contractors, banning captive audience meetings, making "joint employers" liable for labor law violations by franchisees, legalizing secondary boycotts, and requiring employers to report to the NLRB on all anti-union expenditures during a campaign and barring anyone convicted of an unfair labor practice from being hired for anti-union campaigns and making "union-avoidance" consultants liable for fines for ULPs (which would kill the "union-avoidance" industry, because they commit ULPs for a living).

PRO Act

The PRO Act is very much an updating of the previous efforts we've talked about. It bans captive audience meetings, allows for secondary strikes and boycotts, massively increases fines and allows for compensatory damages, ends mis-classification, speeds up the election process, etc.

It also contains a couple new and ambitious proposals:

it allows unions to sue management in court instead of having to complain to the NLRB, which opens management up to a very expensive legal proceeding and discovery.

it bans "right-to-work" as established by the Taft-Hartley Act.

it requires that any worker who's fired for pro-union activity be immediately reinstated while their unfair labor practice process or civil lawsuit is going through the process. This would be enormous just on its own, because it changes the entire veto structure of illegal firing. As it stands, employers fire people and maybe maybe have to pay some back wages in a couple years when the worker has found another job and is unlikely to come back. This would reverse the balance of power, such that the worker is immediately back and other workers can see that they can speak up without getting fired, which makes illegal firings a giant waste of time and money for management.

In terms of stuff that's not on this list that I would add, I would say that an enormous difference could be made by simply making it illegal for management to lock-out their workers or hire scabs. You do that, and unions can win almost every strike.

[rei-ismyname]

Xavier is saved!

I usually only go back to the 1963 run to make fun of it, point out horrifying shit, or to celebrate Magneto. There's no Magneto here.

After a frankly incredibly dull fight with the Hulk where the X-Men unironically and uncritically treat him as a monster that's property of the US military (no similarities to their situation there, no siree) they steal some machine of Bruce Banner's that can cure Chuck's vaguely defined illness.

The X-Men worshipping the ground Chuck doesn't walk on is nothing new, nor is the self congratulation. The end caption sticks out to me as existentially horrifying and awkwardly somewhat prescient. 'And they fought happily ever after' has to be an oxymoronic collection of words, but you can almost believe it of these very special teenagers.

[mtx-lol]

somes updated designs plus some guys i wanna tackle but dontbthe upper strength for....... (igor and karter is somehwat there but ignore that, for ever actually)

heres some refs ive used also:

tam yall already know alex and eliot doesnt have any cuz, yknow

dallas:

their weird little chest strap comes from this pin and parts from his old (third) design cuz tbh, i still like his old designs, it just needed some shaking off of all of the stupidness lol. he was the easiest to design tbh tho i feel like i couldve made them more something.... maybr v9 will sledgehammer me with somethjng

john john:

ghost shark images + info this was fun to incorporate and hopefully he has the shape of the fish cuz itd be boring if he was a 'human' eith scales or smthin basic, tho difficult as i had to keep humbly royal or some oxymoron i cant remember planned

oh yeah his themes was royal and watershifter, cuz pisces im so smart

betta fish crowntail refs (the thumbnail/behind the 'black' text is the one ive used cuz ive felt like if i didnt know how to incorporate the others without being stupid) also black orchid idea given by @/glowingparasite with their tags, thank you hope you dont mind ❤️❤️

damien:

demobaza's clothings from this pin and runway, dont know what collection or set the pin is exactly from so i hope the runways the same sort of year as it..........

urgh i wish i could yap about them and their designs. ut i still have yet to fully sketch them out in silly little scenarios, also yes alex isnt out from the "i should get to him" phase because i frankly have yet to properly analyse him cuz i fear i may be a hater of him for no reason other than he reminds me too much of someone im somewhat over with

anyways sorry for this absolute nothing burger, when my artblock frees me and my stuffed nose ill comeback