#paulie and reed

[musicmags]

[newpacificarcology]

Current looks!

Warlock: Paulie, my Awoken Young Wolf who is desperately trying to keep their shit together

Hunter: Enid 99-40, a Reef frame turned sentient darkness wielder after an Eliksni splicer messes too much with their systems.

Titan: Phasma-1, an Exo from Venus who shares their body with a Vex submind.

More details regarding armor/ornament + shaders under the cut

[kaijumydude]

for that ask game: reed iaon and paulie

<3<3<3<3<3<3

Reed:

Ioan:

Paulie:

[genderkoolaid]

It was that choice to be a community that led to the political mobilization of trans men as part of the queer liberation movement. In the pre-Stonewall era, the trans men who had the luxury of being out were rare and isolated cases, and often came from extremely privileged backgrounds that helped mitigate their gender: Eccentric millionaire Reed Erickson, who funded much early medical research on gender-affirming care, or British aristocrat Michael Dillon, a doctor whose 1946 book Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology was one of the first books on trans medical treatment. The rest either went stealth (like jazz musician Billy Tipton, whose trans status was discovered only after his death) or never got to transition at all (like civil rights leader Pauli Murray, who spent much of their youth looking for doctors to prescribe them testosterone, then stopped when they became a nationally known figure). The idea of trans men as a coalition—a group of ordinary people organized around their shared political interests, gaining strength from numbers—was new, and it largely took shape in the lineage that ran from Dain to Sullivan to Green. 

Great article on the history of transmasc erasure & activism in the US. It talks about how wildly shitty the WPATH was to trans men (initially having nothing on transmasc care, then making Jamison Green do a ton of unpaid labor to come up with guidelines, keeping none of them but using his name to get activists to shut up, then adopting his guidelines but never crediting him).

[sunlightmurdock]

AETERNA | Four

Three | Masterlist

chapter synopsis: rooster gets a glimpse of what he’s been waiting for.

warnings: bradley bradshaw x reader x jake seresin. supernatural circus au. smoking; the fic takes place in the 70s and so 70s era things will happen; this fic has mature themes and is intended for adults, minors pls dni. spooky stuff. word count: 8.8k

There is a river on the O’Malley land that comes from way up in the mountains, spilling down into the valley that Atwood was built upon. Across some pastures and some trees, there’s a quiet spot where nobody ever comes — not even the seasoned pros who got their fishing licenses direct from Mr. O’Malley himself.

In the early mornings, Rooster gets antsy. He tosses and turns in the swelter of his camper for a while, counting the rays of gold that pass across the weathered ceiling. He can hear everyone else tossing and turning too. 

He hears Paulie and the guys still up talking from the night before. Waylon snoring wildly from a few rows away. Erin and Tomas feeling each other up in their tents.

It has become his common routine to now give up sleeping once the morning sun crests the roof of the farmhouse up on the hill. On those mornings, he goes walking. 

He came across the spot where the horses are buried. Where the blackberries grow and brambles have started to consume an old chicken coop. Then, he came across the spot by the river.

As he plucks at the strings of his beat-up, old guitar on Monday at noon and tries to pretend that he’s all alone, Rooster regrets ever telling his chosen few about this place.

It had been fun, at first, when the eight of them had taken the walk out there and spent a couple of hours cooling off. But now, he’s stuck with the sound of Jake’s voice while the others play in the water in front of him.  He should be grateful that the rest of camp hadn’t bothered to invite themselves, too.

The next place he finds, he won’t be as quick to share.

Jake basks in the sun, his skin shining gold. He’s laying in his boxer shorts on the smooth rocks that verge the O’Malley’s access to the river, his arms crossed under his face and his eyes closed.

Rooster sits at the edge of the rocky riverbank with sunburnt shoulders and a guitar in his hands, strumming absently at something old. He’s watching his friends swim; Natasha sits on Bob’s shoulders and Callie sits on Rueben’s as they chicken fight in the clear, moving water around them.

The conversation between himself and Jake fell stagnant a few moments ago. His brown eyes track the blue dragonfly as it plays around the reeds that stand tall, out of the water, thinking of what Jake had last said. He can’t let it go.

There isn’t a lot left for them to argue about, these days. Something shiny and new comes along and the habit strikes back up. 

“If she’s got any sense, she’ll stay away.” Rooster sounds much older than he is sometimes, and that’s why all those lonely older ladies love him so much. Jake doesn’t bother to lift his head, but Rooster can hear his smile through his words.

“She’s got a sense of adventure, old man,” Rooster is only a year and a half older, technically. Jake teases him anyway. Rooster plucks at the strings like it doesn’t bother him. “And the sweetest tits. She’ll be seein’ me again.”

Rooster misplucks. 

Jake grins against his arm, a beaming smile from under his sunglasses, content with the idea that he has gotten under Rooster’s skin. 

The sun scorches above them, one of the first days in early May where the sun dares to be this hot. There’s still a light breeze, one that makes the heat just about bearable outdoors, but one that makes the river a straight godsend.

Callie shrieks as she topples off of Rueben’s shoulders and crashes into the cool water, sending droplets of water flying over Rooster’s thighs.

It’s a very unassuming scene, these town newcomers playing at such normality, right as the Redbrook River fishing season picks up. It’s far from secluded, just not frequently stumbled upon this far out.

Jake lays undisturbed, grinning against his arm, as Rooster tries not to picture your tits — more specifically, Jake’s hands on them. It’s bad enough he had to listen to it all. It’s a conflicting thing to have enjoyed so much about what he was hearing, and to have known it was all for Jake’s benefit.

“Keep dreamin’, bud,” Rooster answers right back. Their group of friends continue to splash in the water, long past the days of being fazed by Jake and Rooster’s competitive streak. “She thinks you’re a freak.”

Jake’s lips quirk and he twists his hips and rolls onto his back, draping an arm over his eyes. The sun covers his chest gladly, bathing him in mid-morning light. “I can work with freak. She thinks you’re a stick in the mud with an attitude problem.”

Maybe I am, Rooster acknowledges bitterly.

“If she likes you so much, why’s she chasing me?” Rooster counters.

Jake takes his arm away from his eyes and props his elbows against the flat, warm surface of the rock under him. As he lifts his sunglasses, the light catches on the green of his eyes, twinkling daringly as he looks across at Rooster. His grin stretches wide across his lips, dimpling at just one cheek — practically the only thing not symmetrical about his face.

Rooster stops plucking at the guitar. He fucking hates when Jake smiles at him like that. Smug and daring— and Jake knows how much he hates it. 

He sets the guitar down swiftly and stands up, shaking his head. “Fuck you.” 

They’re joking, but Rooster knows you won’t come chasing after Jake as easily as he would let on. He scared you last night; really scared you. Gave Rooster the impression that you’re smarter than he gave you credit for when you had first come poking around out here, all by yourself.

From the second things felt wrong, you had hauled yourself out of that truck like your hair was on fire. And, you hadn’t left your friend behind.

You had gone home last night, and you had checked that the latch on your bedroom window was locked. He had heard it click from across the fields, but only because he had been listening out for it. 

In theory, he likes you. He’s sure that the two of you would get along just great. But, way out here is no place for a lady.

“You act like it’s my fault your balls haven’t seen action since Roosevelt died.” It’s a slight exaggeration. Rooster’s moral compass sometimes loses its true north, and he winds up rolling out of someone’s bed before sunrise once again. It’s easier when he knows he’ll never see them again. 

Jake tends to be a little more… sentimental, about things. 

Rooster opens his mouth to speak. He’s standing there with water droplets drying like flecks of gold on his freckled shoulders, his curls wet at the nape of his neck and his blue boxer shorts clinging to his thighs and what hangs between them. Jake looks him over, pushing up onto his elbows, venom on his tongue.

The words die in Rooster’s throat as he looks up the riverbank and finds where the faint ringing in his ears is coming from. 

Upstream, nestled in the shade of the pines, Amelia watches them all. He wouldn’t notice her if he wasn’t specifically looking for her, tucked halfway back into the treeline and sitting down, her sketchbook open wide in front of her.

Her hair is wild and messy, like it always is. She must know that Rooster is watching her, but her eyes are on the ones in the water, cold and blue. Too calculated for a girl her age. 

“I’m going into town,” Rooster decides, not speaking to any one of them in particular, but loudly enough for them all to hear. Amelia looks at him. Her pale skin and sharp eyes remind him of a porcelain doll sometimes, and not in a good way. “Don’t need me.”

They will, undoubtedly, need him for something around camp. Everyone around here earns their keep, despite frequently having no place in the world to be but right here. Given that Rooster no longer performs, his duties around camp look a little bit different to everyone else’s.

He breaks up the fights, and man there are plenty. He’s the one who heads into town; he can keep his head down and get what he needs, a polite face and someone not interested in finding new friends. He keeps the customers where they’re supposed to be on show nights. 

Rooster pulls on his jeans and he takes his guitar.

On his walk back to their settlement, through the trees and across the fields, he gets to thinking about how much this sprawling land reminds him of fuzzy childhood memories.

He remembers his parents in shades of blue. The broken porch swing at the front of their house that his mother wasted away in. His parents’ bed with the slight dip in the middle. The car rusting away in the back, while he was still too young to drive it. He remembers everything about his mother and her sickness.

His feet brush across the grass and he thinks about his existence back then. Growing like a weed, always feeling hungry and always being too tall for his jeans. Playing with the neighboring boys in the street out front. Looking at that picture of his father in his service wear on the mantle, wondering what he would look like at that age.

Far beyond it now, Bradley hasn’t much considered his similarities to his parents. In some ways, his life is better than theirs ever was. Hell, he’s seen more of the continental United States than they ever could have dreamed of from their West Virginia trailer. He has time, which they never seemed to have enough of.

That being said, he’s glad they never got to see who he would become.

“Mornin’.” The voice startles him, which is a surprising feat in itself. Jeans unbuttoned and his shirt fisted in the same hand as his guitar, Rooster spins on his heel to look, finding Gus O’Malley himself sitting on the front porch of the Big House that Rooster had been passing by.

“Oh. Good mornin’.” Rooster tries to find it in himself to be polite, like he doesn’t know the kind of man who sits in front of him. He saw the fist-shaped hole in the house’s back door. “Sir.”

Gus is an average-looking man, with thinning hair and sun-reddened skin all over. Sun damage across the tip of his nose and his forehead, wrinkling him beyond his years. “Where are you headed?”

He looks Rooster over with an especially spiteful kind of envy.

“Just back from the river, I cut through the field.” Rooster explains with a quick gesture back over his shoulder.

Gus, red-headed and sitting with his hands on his rounded stomach, gives Rooster a look over.

“Yeah, I saw y’all out that way,” Rooster tips his head slightly, studying the amused shift in Gus’s tone. “That one with the dark hair, she your girlfriend or something?”

A pang of protectiveness strikes him. It’s not just about the fact that Natasha, who had been sunbathing on the large, flat rock that protrudes from the middle of the river, is like a sister to him. It’s that Rooster hadn’t once spotted Gus.

He hadn’t heard the heavy rattle of his strained breathing, or the lazy thudding of his heartbeat. It prickles at him like heat. 

As much as Natasha can care for herself, and take care of men like Gus, Rooster doesn’t want his bulbous nose poking anywhere around their digs. His mouth tips toward an aloof smile, disarming.

“Or somethin’.” He tells Gus with a soft nod, despite having never touched Natasha in his life. Gus smiles back at him approvingly.

“How are you finding it here? — I heard Maggie was putting you to work.” Rooster knows that Gus considers this question to be a test, and that he’s gauging exactly how close Rooster has been getting to his wife.

“Quiet. Nice to have somethin’ to do sometimes.” Is all that he offers up.

Gus’s mind ticks over the answer. He leans back in his rocking chair and nods his head. “Well, you kids stay outta trouble.”

The saying is that trouble tends to follow — and that isn’t quite the case for Rooster and his crew. They usually just happen to be where the trouble is already occurring. Well, that isn’t quite the case either. There’s nothing incidental about those two things.

You too, Rooster dreams of saying aloud. Instead, his eyes spark with a calm and polite smile as he nods his head and takes that as his dismissal. “Yes, sir.”

It plays on his mind as he pads his way back to his camper, images of Gus leering at them from his truck, probably drooling something fierce. Had it been while Rooster was teaching himself that Ray Charles track, or was it while he had been bickering with Jake? — What had he been so distracted about that he hadn’t noticed?

Gus hasn’t been around much since their tenancy began, and Rooster hopes that things will be that way for the majority of the summer.

His trip into town requires more clothes than are generally needed around camp. Shoes, for one, are a must, and shirts that are actually buttoned and paired with a tidy undershirt are appreciated too. He combs some tacky, woodsy-smelling pomade through the sides of his hair to tame the air dried, river-mussed mop of curls.

Perfectly presentable to go into town and hang fliers all afternoon. He could have taken Jake and Javy with him, maybe some of the others, cut his task load in half. But the alone time is worth the hundred or so extra papers.

As some kind of sick testament to the joke that Rooster will never really be rid of Jake, Elvis on the radio accompanies him into town. 

He hears you before he sees you. Smelling of daisies and cheap cigarettes and a fresh pack of gum, he twists his neck around at the stop sign and starts to wonder if he’s losing it. It’s not until the truck comes around the bend that he finds you.

Perched on the back steps of a large, brown-stoned building with a cigarette in your hand and a worried little frown plastering your face. Your hair is scraped all the way back, tucked into a neat updo, and you’re wearing a candy-striped tunic with white knee socks and Keds. Perfectly presentable.

It makes him think of the first day that he saw you, on the seats of that truck on all fours and waving at him in those little shorts.

“Maybe not branded,” You muse, letting your head fall back against the wall behind you while Olive studies the new baby blue colour on her nails. “Is there another word for when someone burns a shape into your skin?”

You don’t notice the green pickup truck pull past and head for town as you fret to Olive. It’s been a while since you had a man to complain about, but this isn’t your usual kind of conundrum. 

She smirks. “Maybe it’s something freaky-deaky.”

The back-and-forth repertoire thing that brought the two of you together fails today. The witty remark dies on your tongue with a wistful sigh. You wish you could laugh with her. He laughed it off pretty easily, waved you goodnight like nothing had happened. 

It just doesn’t… feel right. There’s an unsettled feeling in the pit of your stomach that you just can’t shake. “D’you think it’s like a cult thing?”

That’s no joke. You hear the stories about the hippies still hanging out in the countrysides, girls going missing across the country. Mansonites that didn’t wind up on death row. 

Your folks let you get away with a lot, but joining a cult might push the boat out a little.

Olive doesn’t seem half as fazed. The miserable guy who named himself after the least impressive animal on the farm hadn’t seemed too worrying to her, beyond his attitude. “His hair was short. Guys with crew cuts aren’t in cults.”

She’s still kidding. The comment wasn’t meant to reassure, and it doesn’t.

“Yeah.” You guess, knees tucked up to your chest as you mull over the idea. He looked tidy. Smelled good. His hair was certainly a little longer than a crew cut. Rooster’s hair was longer again. Neither of them looked particularly unkempt — Jake had smelled like a piney, masculine cologne. 

Cultists surely didn’t take such a pride in their hygiene.

Now, Olive knows not to joke with you too much. She had seen the dazed way you had stumbled back into the bar, colorless and rendered silent. It hadn’t taken a genius to figure out that whatever went down in the cab of that truck wasn’t a joking matter.

She just hadn’t expected it to be so strange.

You hadn’t been expecting him to let you go. Surely if he was so dangerous, he wouldn’t have helped you back into your shirt. Maybe you’d had too much to drink, but you don’t remember the last thing he said to you.

Something along the lines of taking care of yourself, making sure you got home alright. Entirely unthreatening, as he had remained in the cab to buckle his belt and wait out his boner, you guess.

“Why didn’t you just ask him what it was?” She frowns at you, plucking her cigarette from her lips and stubbing it out on the wall. Break time is over and soon Conrad will come looking, 

You don’t remember that either. 

You must have made such a fool of yourself scrambling out from under him and offering no explanation as to why his tattoo gave you the jeebies so bad. But then, he hadn’t exactly offered to settle you about it.

Your nose wrinkles as you straighten out your dress and follow your best friend back inside. 

The Pines has this perpetual kind of dust smell. Olive joked once that it was something to do with all the time running out around here. It’s a joke that sticks with you sometimes when those years of dust are making your sinuses itch.

Faded yellow walls and deep blue carpet. Stock-image paintings on the walls. It’s an okay place to send your parents, in the grand scheme of things.

Your mind is far, far from the Pines today. Out past Airport Road, following that narrow winding road up the O’Malley driveway. You think of the two strange, strange men who live out there now.

“It could’ve been really traumatic.” There can’t be a lot of ways that someone winds up with a cross branded into their skin that aren’t traumatic. Olive doesn’t think that way. She gets her answers when she wants them. She would have asked him then and there. She’s braver than you, like that.

“Yeah. You wouldn’t want him asking about Wes.” Olive sometimes speaks without thinking. His name hits like a ricochet, which is a strange thing. You spent your first seventeen years hearing it every day. It’s a shame that now his name is tainted— it will always bring sorrow.

You’ll never scream it when he’s taunting you again, never again write a gift tag addressed to him. You swallow. You almost have to shake your head to bring you back to what the original conversation had been about— not your big brother.

“No.” You agree. Atwood knows what happened to Wesley. The story spread like wildfire that late July. In a way, you’re glad that it had — you hadn’t ever had to explain a thing for yourself because everyone already knew.

She’s back on the topic of Jake quickly. “So, you think you’ll see him again?” 

You linger in the hallway as she knocks on to Mrs. Palmer’s bedroom door. “Didn’t give him my number.” 

“But you know where he is.”

“Yeah,” You mull over the idea. Seems a little pathetic to drag yourself all the way out to the O’Malley farm for the third time this week. Not very ‘California’ of you to spend your time stressing over some Carnies. “I dunno.”

“Maybe it’s just a war thing.” She considers, closing the door behind her and leaving Mrs. Palmer with her morning meds. You watch Mrs. Palmer’s blue rinse disappear behind the wood, her head turned toward the window. “He was over there, probably.”

“Probably.” You agree. It’s hard to find a guy born before ‘55 that doesn’t have a thigh full of shrapnel or a jagged scar somewhere he can’t hide. But you’ve never seen anyone with a wound like Jake’s.

Teetering on the verge of hidden and displayed. He covered it up, technically, with the ink and the necklace — but he wears both on top like a badge of honour. You just can’t shake the grin on his face when he noticed that you had noticed.

Like he was excited by it.

Rooster, three blocks away, feels eyes on him from before the heel of his boot first hits the sidewalk. It’s nothing too new for him. These small towns are always filled with people who like to stare, and people who like to ask questions. 

Jake’s the entertainer of the bunch, not him. 

He’s got his to-do list crumpled up in the pocket of his Lee’s and that’s all he’s here for.

Hanging fliers always comes last. He has found that townsfolk don’t generally take too well to strangers coming and sticking up what they consider to be trash all over their streets. First, comes the library to get those books that’ll keep Amelia from getting bored. 

The door opens with a jingle, the bell above it swinging wildly to alert the aging, half-deaf librarian of the stranger in his midst. Rooster’s boots are silent across the worn carpet, heading for the fiction section. 

“Afternoon.” He nods towards the staring librarian as he passes him by, earning himself a sound of acknowledgement at least.

Amelia reads a lot, and she passes her books around camp once she’s done. She must have library fees all across the Continental US by now, but they keep her put— out of trouble. 

She’s the youngest of their settlement. Maverick’s daughter when the cops come asking, just the kid he had found on the side of the road when they don’t. She’s not like the rest of them. Rooster knows that she likes him, she finds him funny and he doesn’t treat her like a baby — but he steers clear of her when he can.

She’s too curious for her own good. That’s landed them in trouble before. Trespassing seems to be in her nature, and Maverick usually has better things to do than to keep the twelve-year-old occupied. Their crew doesn’t exactly roll with too many babysitters, either.

In spite of all of that, she’s a good contortionist. Rooster watches every weekend as people in the audience gasp and lurch away from the way her joints bend and pop at will. They don’t even notice, half the time, that she’s the same grinning kid who does the aerial tricks in the first quarter.

She’s been good at making people squirm for as long as he’s known her.

“Could I check out these three, please?” He sets down the three dust-covered novels, broken spines and peeling covers included, and looks the gentleman in the eye. 

“You’re into thrillers.” The man comments, picking up the top book from the small pile and inspecting it. Rooster doesn’t care to make conversation, or to correct him. He smiles and nods like that’s the case. “I’m not going to ask if you’ve got a library card with us, because I know you don’t. Are you new to town?”

Rooster bites back a sigh.

He smiles something polite, albeit tight-lipped. “Yeah. Working just outside of town, got a lotta downtime during the day. You need my name first?”

Bradley taps on the counter as the man takes down some vague details, asking his small-talk questions each step of the way. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Atwood’s desolate Main Street, where the afternoon heat has driven people back inside.

The whirring fan behind the librarian's head kicks out more dust and lint than it does cool air, growling in complaint with each circle of the fan blades. 

Perspiration beads at his weathered, wrinkled skin. The long arm on his smudged watch face tells Rooster that the seconds are ticking on as normal, even though everything here feels so much slower.

He’s grateful for the heat because at least it means fresh air; leaving the librarian behind with another abrupt jingle of the bell above the door. 

With barely enough time to walk back to his truck, Rooster realizes that you’re heading his way. Thoughts are buzzing around your head like radio chatter, almost enough to make him wince. He doesn’t even realize you aren’t alone until he catches the scent of Old Spice walking next to you.

He lifts the tailgate and swings it shut with a bang. You notice him as he turns his head. Walking in your cute candy-striper uniform with your bag on your shoulder and a guy at your side.

He almost smiles. This wouldn’t be the first time that Jake’s kissed a girl with a boyfriend and suffered the consequences. But, he knows better than to assume. Plus, the step that you take away from the boy at your side is instinctual.

Barely even a conscious decision, but Rooster sees it and understands what you’re telling him. The blond in the coveralls at your side is not your boyfriend. 

In no mood for a conversation, or to upset the poor kid who probably thinks he’s got a chance with you, Rooster opts to give you the same polite nod he had wanted to offer everyone else that has crossed his path today, and turns his back. He walks around to the cab and flings open the glovebox, grabbing the red fliers. 

Shoes tapping delicately across the pavement. Perspiration and Old Spice beading along the back of your friend’s neck. The thoughts whirring around that pretty little head as you sneak closer. You’re leaning against the truck when he straightens back up, one elbow popped against the side and your brows furrowed through the glaring sunlight. 

Rooster gives you the benefit of pretending that you got the jump on him.

“Hi.” It’s a greeting by nature, but there’s something accusatory to your tone that tells him, yet again, he seems to be being held responsible for something Jake did. 

“Afternoon.” Rooster answers you, lifting his head to check on the sulking guy about a foot behind you, watching this exchange with his hands in his pockets. His train of thought isn’t half as pissed off as it could be.

“Are you by yourself?” You ask him, subconsciously reaching back to feel for your updo, smoothing back some humidity-stoked stray hairs.

“Jake’s a big boy, I figured he could watch himself for one day.” He replies, not sounding exactly kind in the way he refers to his buddy. 

Convenient for you at least, to be able to corner an inside source. The thought does cross your mind that maybe Jake is being punished in some way for his behavior last night, kept at their camp like a grounded kid.

“So, who’s watching you?” You poke at him, trying to get a feel for the type of mood he might be in today.

He turns his head and looks at you, his expression serious. Maybe it’s the look on your face, or maybe it’s that he likes you, but his hardened expression cracks and he breaks a smile.

“Looks like that would be you, doesn’t it?” He replies, tilting his head to the side, flashing you his stack of papers. “It’s gonna get pretty lame, just warnin’ ya.”

You turn your head and shoot a glance back at where Billy stands a couple of feet back. His hands are balled into the pockets of his overalls and he might as well be tapping his damn foot at you, but he just sulks instead. 

Rooster had this look on his face when you’d left last night, just this knowing expression— a real ‘I told you so’ kind of thing. He’s more of a straight shooter than his buddy is, maybe you would get some real answers out of him.

“Well, you need some help?” 

She thinks you’re a stick in the mud with an attitude problem, and yet, here you are offering to traipse all over town with him sticking these things up. Rooster looks over the top of your head, glancing back at your friend.

As much as he would get a kick out of watching you hop into the truck and stick with him, Rooster knows better. He’s already shaking his head before he speaks, certain. There’s a place for you, and it’s not with a guy like him — or a guy like Jake, for that matter.

“No, you two look like you have plans and I’m starting way out by the Shop’N’Save. I’ve got this.” He shakes the papers once and leans back against the door of the truck. He isn’t expecting you to give up easy, but he isn’t expecting you to step around him and grab the handle either.

You’ve already made your mind up. “Well, I actually wanted to talk to you, so y’know— two birds, one stone and stuff.” 

Rooster stands up and watches with furrowed brows as you pull the door open and step up into the cab. Then, he looks toward your friend. Your forearm grazes at Bradley’s, your skin against his as he stares ahead. 

Billy. Closer to a family member to you than a boyfriend with the tepid attitude you’ve got towards him. There’s a loyalty and affection there that Rooster would be grateful for if the roles were reversed.

Rooster looks between you, settling down onto the tan leather seat, and Billy, blue eyes are narrowed and he looking just about ready to rush him. Rooster catches the handle of the door. He considers telling you to get out. He should.

You hit him with an expectant raise of your eyebrows, and crane your neck back to look at Billy. “I’ll call you later. Take Lori out on that date!”

Billy’s mouth opens and closes. Rooster presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek, his decision made for him. Even if he’s your excuse, he’s not going to make you get back out and walk home with the kid when you’re so clearly trying to ditch him. It’s just not gentlemanly.

Your mouth twitches, equally surprised at his compliance as Rooster swings the door to the truck shut with a resigned smile, walking around to his side without much acknowledging your friend at all. You’re watching Billy through the side mirror as Rooster starts the grumbling ignition. 

“He’d follow me around forever if I let him.” You mumble quietly. Then, it’s like you remember yourself. You shake your head and sigh. “That sounds conceited, and I don’t mean it like that, but girls ask him out, y’know and — he just— he’d rather pick me up from work and sit in the same diner we’ve always sat in.”

There’s quiet on the other side of the cab, Billy is already walking away in the rearview mirror. You turn your head and he’s watching you, one hand on the wheel and the other out of the window. 

“This is what you wanted to talk to me about?” He prompts you, knees spread and his thighs straining against the blue denim, fingers drumming against the exterior of the door. He cocks an eyebrow at you, waiting for your response.

For the second time in twenty-four hours, you’re sitting in the cab of this truck and your mouth is watering. But, you’ve got better sense this time.

“Okay, fine. Look, I want you to give me a straight answer,” You turn in the seat, tucking one knee under you and creasing your features sternly. “About what’s up with you guys. Did Jake say anything after last night?”

He considers relaying the comment about your tits, just to further ruin Jake’s chances, but he plays dumb.

“No, but I figured you didn’t have the best time when you came running back in like that.” Rooster shrugs.

“He just gave me the jeebies,” You admit, fiddling with the hem of your uniform. Your tone is light but your skin is prickled like you’ve somehow found a chill on this warm summer afternoon.  “Like that tattoo on his neck, it’s like a scar, right?”

“Yeah, somethin’ like that.” You’re studying him from your side of the bench, and you’re good at it, looking for the smallest little tell. Eyes on the road, he gives you nothing but a shrug. “The scar’s what freaked you out?”

“No, like — it’s weird. How’d you end up in a circus? — Are you on the run or something?”

His mouth twitches. He turns his face toward the window, smiling at the scenery rather than at your face, shaking his head all the while. 

“Maybe some folks just get their kicks juggling,” He taunts you with a shrug of his broad shoulders, craning his neck as he turns off of Main and toward Third. “You don’t hear me questioning your career choices.”

“Okay, fine,” You’ve seen Jake drop an entire marquee into stunned silence with his act, he’s undeniably good at what he does. You swipe through the fliers absently. “I just— I got this weird feeling from Jake last night.”

Clearly today, he’s in the mood to play. He quirks one eyebrow and smiles out at the road ahead. “Yeah, they usually tell you all about that feeling in Health Class, I think.”

You swing out a hand and smack at his arm, scoffing out a distinctly unimpressed and unladylike sound. “Shut up! I’m not talking about that, I’m talking… like that tattoo on his neck? — Was that— Was it a burn? — What was that?”

He pulls over to the side of the road coolly, killing the engine and looking across at you like you’re asking him to explain the intricacies of geometry. The Shop’N’Save is dead empty this time of day, feels like you’re the only thing around for miles. He reaches for the door handle and leans back, itching for some space, needing some fresh air.

“Means that Jake’s an idiot who’ll do just about anything on a bet.” He answers as bluntly as one can, taking the fliers from the middle of the seat and the shiny new staple gun from beside them. “He wasn’t gonna hurt you.”

You’re hot on his heels as he steps out of the truck and heads for the telephone pole, taking the fliers as you duck around him.

“I figured that much.” There’s a bite to your tone as you take the page and hold it up against the wooden pole, narrowing your eyes at him. He lifts his brows, unimpressed but amused. “I mean, I’m standing here, aren’t I?” 

Standing on a stretch of road that you’ve driven by a thousand times but never once walked down, the breeze catches your skin and makes your white and pink striped skirt blow around your thighs. His gaze flickers between your face and your hand on the pole with a beat. 

His boot tucks itself between your tidy white sneakers, his shoulders seeming to stretch wider as he steps up close. 

He places his hand over yours and tugs it upwards, readjusting the flier to a height that he deems appropriate. Pinning your hand with his palm, he lifts his other hand and strikes a staple into the wood.

“Call it baggage. Things with us tend to get complicated,” He nails another staple into the other side of the flier, and turns to look at your face, a grin ghosting at his lips. “Hell, why don’t you put that kid you were with out of his misery and go out with him?”

As you open your mouth to argue back, he drops your hand back down to your side with a squeeze and takes a look towards the two buildings to his left. Anything to cut this conversation short.

He jerks his head toward the stores behind him. “Feel like helping a guy out and asking to stick these in their windows?”

“Fine.” You thought he was a lot cuter when you couldn’t hear what he was saying that day out on Airport Road. He leans back against the door and watches you walk inside in your uniform, thinking to himself that you’re plenty cute right now.

Just like he had expected, both the gas station and the liquor store allow you to hang the fliers without so much as a question about why. Rooster wouldn’t have gotten the same treatment. 

He lifts his fingers and waves them at you as you cross the small parking lot back towards him.

“Let’s go, unless you want to be out here all day.” You hear him laugh to himself as you walk around the truck and pull yourself into the passenger side. He fixes his smile, knowing that it’s just likely to provoke you. 

As much as he’d rather not have you in his passenger seat, you’re useful when it comes to navigation. He wouldn’t have even tried half of the side streets that you point him down. He humors your questions for two hours, giving you barely there answers as the beat-up, old truck rattles down oak-lined streets. 

The afternoon sun fades from golden to gray somewhere between Sixth and Elm. The sky hangs low, darkening, a covering of dark clouds threatening a downpour. 

By the park, Bradley pulls over and hops out with a stack of fliers, offering you little more than the instruction to, “Stay there.”

He slaps the red papers up where he can, smoothing the papers out with his palm and working them into wooden surfaces with the staple gun. You are left with the rather cushy job of sitting pretty in the cab, while he does the hard work.

A couple of kids whizz past on their bikes, calling out loudly as they cycle home. Atwood is the kind of place where mothers are more than fine with saying goodbye to their children after breakfast and not seeing them again until sundown in the summers.

While following them by, you catch sight of a glinting metal at your feet. Just to check, you feel at your earlobe. Sure enough, your earring sits in the footwell.

As the driver’s side door creaks open, Rooster stands on the sidewalk and frowns at the way you have folded yourself downwards and are reaching for something under the seat. His brows knit together as you strain uncomfortably.

“You okay down there?” He prompts.

You huff, still struggling. “My earring. I hit it all the way under the seat when I was trying to grab it— I must’ve left it last-“

Last night. When you were sprawled across the bench with Jake’s tongue in your mouth. Rooster smiles at the way you stop mid-sentence, like that’s going to save his feelings. Like he hadn’t stood inside and listened to every last part of it. 

“Got it!” You pop back up, holding the dainty thing between your fingers and smiling at him. It stretches across your cheeks and your eyes glint with delight. The afternoon sun seems to brighten with you, despite the clouds rolling in from the east. 

His eyes widen with a dramatism that tells you you’re being mocked. “Thank god.” 

Caught somewhere between shooting him a glare and laughing, your face settles into a reticent smile as you fold your arms over your chest. “You’re a jackass, you know that?”

“So I’m told.” He agrees, settling back into the driver’s seat as the rain clouds decide to make good on their promise. Clicking his tongue, he sits back in his seat and glances across at the very much paper fliers he had just hung. “You hungry?”

“Hungry? Mm, a bit,” You shrug your shoulders, he nods, the answer spurring him into action as he heads back towards town. “Does that make this a date?”

He huffs out a small chuckle, which wounds your ego more than you would like to admit, reaching across your body to tug open the glovebox. “Depends if you’re as scared of me as you are of Jake, doesn’t it?”

Now, that’s the type of comment that doesn’t deserve an answer. You’re not afraid of him. He’s too honest to be frightening. Raw and witty, maybe a little grumpy, but man — that smile is one worth working for. You like him, a lot.

Your lovey-dovey thoughts come to a sudden stop as you track his hand. More aptly, you track what his hand nudges out of the way.

Unfazed, Rooster reaches past the box of Trojans and fishes, instead, for cigarettes. He plucks one from the pack and sets it between his teeth, then looks across at you. Watching him with an unimpressed expression that’s halfway to being a full-blown scowl. 

He smiles around the cigarette.

“What? — Did you forget how that earring wound up on the floor?” He taunts you, reaching back across with little regard for your personal space, in search of a lighter. 

You knock his hand out of the way and hand him the silver flint-wheel lighter from your own pocket. “It’s a big box, is all.” 

He steadies the wheel with his knee, cupping his hands around the flame to ignite his cigarette, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s not my truck.” 

“Hm.” 

He looks across at you, one brow quirked, and a smile of disbelief toying around the cigarette.

“I’m not saying anything,” You answer, defending yourself with little conviction, arms still folded over your chest. “Just didn’t realize this passenger seat was such a tourist spot.”

He coughs out a laugh around his cigarette, his cheeks warm and crinkling around his endlessly deep brown eyes. His freckles are darker under the gray clouds, dotting his nose. He reaches across the cab and swats at your arm as you had gone for his.

You press your tongue into your cheek; keeping yourself from beaming as his hand comes up and covers your mouth, smelling of the cologne on his wrist and the cigarette he had held. 

“Cool it, kid — that spot’s all yours,” He’s still laughing as he talks to you, glancing across at you. Blinking at him with his hand settled across your jaw, the gold ring on his pinkie finger sitting against your chin. He pulls it back to hold his cig, his touch leaving you longing. “Now, what do you want to eat? — I’m buying.”

You crane your neck to look at the brown leather watch on his wrist, already knowing that you’re going to be in the weeds for missing dinner back home. Damage already done, you decide to introduce him to Atwood’s finest— the shitty little diner owned by Billy’s uncle that has had the same shitty menu for thirty years. 

It’s the perfect spot, in a hometown kind of way.

You hold your head a little higher than usual as you stroll through the place.

There are a couple of girls who work at Louie’s that will just die when they see you with the tall stranger, and you enjoy that just a little. Rooster enjoys it a little, too.

He’s busy looking around at the decor as he slides into the wooden booth, not exactly critical of it but not impressed either. He shucks a hand through his dampened curls and settles down into the seat, spreading his knees and kicking one of his feet between yours under the table.

“That’s the bridge out by us, right?” He asks, pointing to one of the paintings on the wall. Just another oil canvas in a dusty frame that you’ve never taken much time to critique. You purse your lips as you study it.

“Yeah, you’re right,” You come to realize, glancing back at him. “You’ve been exploring out there?”

He sits back a bit, as a tall brunette comes to fill your water glasses, brown eyes on you and a small smile on his mouth. “Yeah, a little. It’s quiet out there.”

“Lonely?” You prompt, lips stretching into an amused grin. Man, it almost gets him again. He bites at the inside of his cheek to keep from matching your look, rolling his eyes as he looks back towards the painting.

“Get real.” He mutters.

He watches you resting your chin on your palm and batting your eyelashes and simply shakes his head.

“This isn’t a date, by the way,” He’s cool as can be, staring back at you like you hadn’t seen the look in his eyes when you had him laughing. “You did me a favor, so this is me bein’ nice.”

“Well,” You hum, tapping your fingers along the edge of your glass, “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

Louie’s isn’t exactly a busy spot at the best of times, but especially not on a Monday night. It’s just the two of you, the waitress who was rude to you in the playground all those years ago, and maybe a couple of line cooks in the back. 

The entire place is wood-paneled three quarters of the way up the wall, with green paint covering the rest. There are family photos and mass-produced paintings on the walls, and dust on the lampshades. Roy Orbison playing on the jukebox. A candle in a glass jar lit on the table between you.

He pays attention as you recite your usual order, finding the items on the menu as you go. Then, probably to make this thing easy and over sooner, he decides he’ll just take the same. 

Begrudgingly, he has to admit that your choice and your order is better than he had been expecting. Good, even. It feels good, being out and sitting across from a pretty girl, picking at fries that are a little too salty, like nothing had ever happened. Trying not to laugh too hard at her jokes, even when his lips keep twitching around the straw of his ice-cold Coke. It has been a long time. 

It’s almost disappointing to settle the check, and to have to see you walking ahead of him back to the truck. The rain has stopped and the air is grassy and piney, the sky a fading lilac, casting shades of blue across your skin. 

Cooler breeze passes you by, bristling at your skin just enough to make you appreciate the fading heat of earlier that day.

He starts by turning up the radio, tires rolling through a deep, mud-splattered puddle as he pulls out of the parking lot. You should feel exhausted after being at the Pines from the crack of dawn, but he’s got your stomach alight. Tapping his foot to the drum beat absently, one hand on the wheel, his jaw set and his shoulders straight. 

“Which way?” Like he couldn’t piece it together. You were walking home today, you’d hightailed it to the right after leaving Dutch’s last night. It would take him minutes to find his way to your front door.

Stretching your arms above your head, you sigh and settle back against the door. “Next left and then right at the lights.”

He was right. The guesses in his head would have led him to the Post Office near the park, and then he spots that station wagon in the driveway. He lets you direct him to the right house anyway.

Sturdy car in the driveway, flower boxes on every window, and the greenest lawn on the street. It looks like a nice place to have grown up. If he had grown up in a place like this, he wouldn’t be itching to leave half as badly as you are.

He looks back to you, watching him and trying to figure out how to route the conversation back to what had happened in that dark parking lot last night.

“Thanks for helping me out today.” The plain white fabric of his t-shirt stretches around his arm as he cards his fingers through his curls. 

You bite at the inside of your cheek. Fingers skimming over the stitching in the seats as you try to figure out your next move. Late already, he’s in no hurry. 

“I guess I’ll see you Friday.” You decide.

His brows draw together. “Friday?”

You smile, pointing down at the significantly smaller stack of red papers now between the two of you. “Uh-huh. Friday at eight.”

Friday at eight. You’ll stroll through those lit arches, looking for him. His brows knit a bit, but he doesn’t tell you to stay away, that’s not in the rules. 

He flattens his mouth a little, almost a smile but not the same kind where his eyes had lit up so bright.

“Right,” He nods. “Friday.”

You smile at him, reaching across and giving his arm a quick squeeze before you turn and hop down from the truck.

If this was a date, he would walk you to your door and sneak a kiss before your overprotective mother found an excuse to come to the door and introduce herself to him, which is when he would be charming enough to impress her but cool enough not to embarrass you. 

Your heartbeat ticks steadily in your chest. You’re already thinking about what you’ll wear on Friday night— whether you’ll bring Olive, or Georgie— absolutely not Billy. He watches you climb the porch steps and let yourself in through the creaking, blue door with the glass pane in the middle, not stopping to look back at him because you’re worried that your parents will notice it was a stranger who brought you home. Your mother greets you from the kitchen.

His mouth dries as he pulls away from the curb.

He could be like Jake, and let himself enjoy the feeling. Pretend that he hasn’t done the things he has, pretend that he hasn’t sat and listened to all the thoughts you have about him. 

He could pretend that he really doesn’t want to see you at the show this weekend.

But, the sun has already set on his day of normalcy. He turns the sound dial, tapping his foot to the only radio frequency that doesn’t drop out on the backroads out of town, windows down and the scent of fresh-cut, wet grass and new deliveries of hay carried by the evening breeze.

Fingers draped loosely around the cracked leather of the wheel, shooting the occasional glance over to the empty passenger seat. 

Lilac skies casting shadows across the rolling fields all the way out of town. 

It’s forty minutes before the truck pulls onto that gravel driveway with a growingly familiar crunch. He stops it in his spot by Jake’s trailer and steps out onto the mulchy, wet grass, following the sounds of conversation until he gets to the yellow RV. 

The yellow RV houses Natasha, Bob and more recently Mickey — but that’s just until he apologizes to Reueben. Most nights, that’s where you can find the guys. It’s the furthest vehicle on the row, and Natasha always lays out rugs and the camping furniture that’ll fit in the storage space.

Like he knew he would, he finds his friends busied with a game of poker, settled into the chairs they could scrounge up, illuminated by a couple of camping torches.

Jake’s tall tale about one of their times back on the West Coast falls flat, trailing off until it stops all together. He watches Rooster cross the lot, headed right for them.

Wordless, Rooster greets his friends with a cool smile as he steps right by them and plants himself into a wooden chair at the far side of the circle.

“You were gone a while.” It’s Javy that comments first, meaning well, not doing the best job at hiding his cards as Natasha studies them shamelessly from his side.

“Yeah.” Rooster agrees, sitting forwards as Callie kicks her legs up and stretches them across his. “Deal me in.” 

Jake’s brows draw together, their round seemingly dead in the water as Bob starts to collect the cards back in. He studies Rooster through the warm light of the lantern, narrowing his eyes just a bit.

“You want to play?” Jake scoffs.

Rooster rarely plays with them. He usually makes a point of keeping to himself, when they’re all together. He likes Natasha, and he’ll keep her company, when he’s not with Maverick. Everyone knows that he likes to pretend that he’s stuck with Jake, rather than accompanying him by choice.

Rooster’s mouth twitches, reaching out and letting Bob set the cards in his hand, meeting Jake’s gaze for the first time since he sauntered past him and sat down.

“Scared you’ll lose?”

…

NEXT CHAPTER

TELL ME WHAT YOU LIKED

tags: @sunflowercharlie13 @spinning-away @eloquentdreamer-blog1@a-reader-and-a-writer@breezyweazybeezy@mel119g@hersuitisbanana@one-sweet-gubler@atarmychick007@ximehs@nnatel@topherwrites@seitmai@yepyeahuhhuh@cherrycola27@ohtobeleah@roosterbruiser

[cartermagazine]

Today We Honor Pauli Murray

At 30 years old, Pauli Murray was arrested for violating segregation laws in Virginia by sitting in the “whites-only” section of the bus. This incident, among others, sparked her passion for civil rights work.

She enrolled at Howard University’s law school and graduated at the top of her class. Despite her outstanding academic achievements, she was denied the opportunity to do post-graduate work at Harvard, which she believed was due to her gender and race. This didn’t deter her, though, and she graduated from Yale Law School in 1965. Murray later wrote the influential book, States’ Laws on Race and Color, which served as an encyclopedia of all the states’ laws concerning race.

In recognition of her pioneering work in gender discrimination, Ruth Bader Ginsburg named her as a coauthor in the Supreme Court Case Reed vs Reed.

CARTER™️ Magazine

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 24, 2024

Dissociable online integration processes in visual working memory. Balaban, H., Drew, T., & Luria, R. (2023). Cerebral Cortex, 33(23), 11420–11430.

Interactions between specialized gain control mechanisms in olfactory processing. Barth-Maron, A., D’Alessandro, I., & Wilson, R. I. (2023). Current Biology, 33(23), 5109-5120.e7.

Beyond spiking networks: The computational advantages of dendritic amplification and input segregation. Capone, C., Lupo, C., Muratore, P., & Paolucci, P. S. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(49), e2220743120.

Adaptive oscillators support Bayesian prediction in temporal processing. Doelling, K. B., Arnal, L. H., & Assaneo, M. F. (2023). PLOS Computational Biology, 19(11), e1011669.

Targeted V1 comodulation supports task-adaptive sensory decisions. Haimerl, C., Ruff, D. A., Cohen, M. R., Savin, C., & Simoncelli, E. P. (2023). Nature Communications, 14, 7879.

Meta-reinforcement learning via orbitofrontal cortex. Hattori, R., Hedrick, N. G., Jain, A., Chen, S., You, H., Hattori, M., … Komiyama, T. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26(12), 2182–2191.

Sensory cortical ensembles exhibit differential coupling to ripples in distinct hippocampal subregions. Jeong, H., Namboodiri, V. M. K., Jung, M. W., & Andermann, M. L. (2023). Current Biology, 33(23), 5185-5198.e4.

Corrective feedback guides human perceptual decision-making by informing about the world state rather than rewarding its choice. Lee, H.-J., Lee, H., Lim, C. Y., Rhim, I., & Lee, S.-H. (2023). PLOS Biology, 21(11), e3002373.

Alpha oscillations encode Bayesian belief updating underlying attentional allocation in dynamic environments. Li, S., Seger, C. A., Zhang, J., Liu, M., Dong, W., Liu, W., & Chen, Q. (2023). NeuroImage, 284, 120464.

Item-specific neural representations during human sleep support long-term memory. Liu, J., Xia, T., Chen, D., Yao, Z., Zhu, M., Antony, J. W., … Hu, X. (2023). PLOS Biology, 21(11), e3002399.

Behavioral read-out from population value signals in primate orbitofrontal cortex. McGinty, V. B., & Lupkin, S. M. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26(12), 2203–2212.

Catecholaminergic neuromodulation and selective attention jointly shape perceptual decision-making. Nuiten, S. A., de Gee, J. W., Zantvoord, J. B., Fahrenfort, J. J., & van Gaal, S. (2023). eLife, 12, e87022.3.

Neural patterns differentiate traumatic from sad autobiographical memories in PTSD. Perl, O., Duek, O., Kulkarni, K. R., Gordon, C., Krystal, J. H., Levy, I., … Schiller, D. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26(12), 2226–2236.

Neural substrates of parallel devaluation-sensitive and devaluation-insensitive Pavlovian learning in humans. Pool, E. R., Pauli, W. M., Cross, L., & O’Doherty, J. P. (2023). Nature Communications, 14, 8057.

Age-related dysregulation of homeostatic control in neuronal microcircuits. Radulescu, C. I., Doostdar, N., Zabouri, N., Melgosa-Ecenarro, L., Wang, X., Sadeh, S., … Barnes, S. J. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26(12), 2158–2170.

Topological analysis of sharp-wave ripple waveforms reveals input mechanisms behind feature variations. Sebastian, E. R., Quintanilla, J. P., Sánchez-Aguilera, A., Esparza, J., Cid, E., & de la Prida, L. M. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26(12), 2171–2181.

Parietal cortical alpha/beta suppression during prospective memory retrieval. Villafane Barraza, V., Voegtle, A., de Matos Mansur, B., Reichert, C., Nasuto, S. J., & Sweeney-Reed, C. M. (2023). Cerebral Cortex, 33(23), 11235–11246.

Modeling the diverse effects of divisive normalization on noise correlations. Weiss, O., Bounds, H. A., Adesnik, H., & Coen-Cagli, R. (2023). PLOS Computational Biology, 19(11), e1011667.

Melanopsin enhances image persistence. Woelders, T., Allen, A. E., & Lucas, R. J. (2023). Current Biology, 33(23), 5048-5056.e4.

A corticoamygdalar pathway controls reward devaluation and depression using dynamic inhibition code. Yuan, Z., Qi, Z., Wang, R., Cui, Y., An, S., Wu, G., … Luo, M. (2023). Neuron, 111(23), 3837-3853.e5.

[captainthomasrobbie]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH EVERYONE!!!

Remember to be extra gay!!!

Here are some of my fav gay ships from series I've seen;

Darlene x Dom (Mr Robot)

Tyrell x Eliot (Mr Robot)

Arkin x Asa (The Collector)

Descendants Polycule (Descendants)

Marine x Jane (The Family)

Ben x Lucas (The Family)

Charlie x DuMet (The devil in me)

Tommy x Paulie x Sam (Mafia 1)

King Dice x The Devil (CupHead)

Gavin x Connor (Detroit; BH)

Also, here are some HC;

Andy x Red(Shawshank redemption)

Eddie x Venom (Venom Films)

- Tyrell Wellick is bisexual!!! (Proven in the series actually!) //Everyone is something in Mr Robot, there's not a straight person there actually haha//

- Asa is demi romantic (purely my HC, there's nothing that could say it's true)

- Charlie is Gay. (For DuMet-)

- All of the Mafia boys are pansexual or Bi.

- King Dice is Trans!!

- GAVIN REED IS GAY /ref

- Connor is under the Nonbinary umbrella and AroAce umbrella. Not sure what tho, might be Ace.

[lserver362reviews]

This was the saddest fucking movie I've ever seen.

This review is going to be all over the place, but as per usual I'm going to start with a deeply personal overshare of where I'm at for this viewing. I'm seeing this as the first watch of the New Year after coming off of 2 months of deeply missing my sister, who lives in another state. This movie understands what it is to go through your little everyday needs while having a giant sibling sized hole in your heart. I sobbed at this movie, especially during the dream sequence of the afterlife, but throughout the whole film I was getting chills. I sobbed last week at Christmas Mass because the priest started his homily with a comment on how all of his Christmas memories are of him and his two older sisters, in the house that they grew up in, which has been sold so that place truly only exists in his memory now. The first thing I thought of when I woke up on Christmas morning was how my sister and I would always get up extra early, before our parents, and just sit together in front of the tree and look at the lights. That's what Christmas means to me. My childhood house is also now sold. I was so affected by Kevin's statement that he doesn't even need to be doing anything in particular with his brothers-it's just the being together. I will be going to my sister's for Christmas next year. It cannot be overstated how masterful Zac Efron is in this film. When David is announced as having the match against the heavy weight champ you just see Kevin embody every emotion. The betrayal, the holding himself together, the wanting to cry, the disappointment, the growing cold. Then again when Kerry gives his father the gun and Kevin bores his eyes into Pam as if to say, maybe if we just pretend we aren't here it'll be okay. I cried very hard at the sight of absolutely swelling Zac Efron cradle his little baby. So beautiful and you just know that this man will try his hardest to not be his father (whether that means running away to protect them from the curse or by remaining and being triggered by his own grief). There was such a delicate balance of conveying his limited worldview, wanting to live up to his dad's expectations (manipulations), and support his brothers above everything else. Just masterful from Efron, and I didn't think I'd see that to this level. I came to this movie because A24, I love Richard Reed Perry, and I'm a huge fan of the talent that is Harris Dickinson. I think the final straw was that A24 mailed me my zine which had the pinup of my baby, Harris Dickinson. I hope to continue to watch everything he does (plug here for FX's mini series, Trust). Every time Harris was on screen I had the dopiest grin on my face because he just makes me happy and especially so as David. And then the unexpected happened. I didn't know anything about the Von Erich's and I certainly don't know anything about wrestling (I did love the Netflix series, GLOW), so this was almost completely foreign territory to me. Wrestling is just heterosexual drag, right? I knew this movie would be sad, and I knew that I'm super susceptible to anything that showcases siblingship, but this was a new level. The tragedy of it all. Sometimes the movie felt clunky but that kind of fit with the body shapes thematically. Some lines, especially from the father didn't feel natural to me. I think Maura Tierney was outstanding for what little screentime she had. The music, the costuming, as well as the camera work was all superb. I also did like seeing Michael J Harney and Lily James. Also I LOVE when a movie has a, Thank God I'm A Country Boy, needle drop (looking at you, Pauly Shore's Son-in-Law)!!! Once again, I was crushed by the ending dialogue and the way this movie just gets what it means to love your family. I loved that two background wrestlers were actual Von Erichs! Maybe I should rewatch Blue Valentine or Dead Man Walking before saying this is the saddest movie I've ever seen but man, I have not sobbed like that in a theater before. I'm glad I managed to stick with it. This movie bonzo gonzo'd my heart.

[adultswim2021]

Frisky Dingo #10: “Flowers for Nearl” | December 18, 2006 – 12:30AM | S01E10

This will likely be attached to a future post, but I stumbled on a Friday Night Fix promo (Adult Swim’s online video service that would debut new episodes on Fridays) that advertised this episode’s title as “Ten”, which makes me think these episode titles I’m displaying for Frisky Dingo came at a later date. It could also mean that whoever cut that promo together just didn’t know what the episode title was and didn’t feel like speaking to Adam Reed to figure it out.

Previously on: Simon is still a runaway. The Xtacles are still in danger of having their heads exploded each hour. Xander and Killface are both blind and being human trafficked. The Xtacles are planning to pass off Nearl, the local “retarded wino” as Xander Crewes in order to make the head explosions stop. 

This is a very memorable episode, and I remember thinking this was the best of the season. Standalone isn’t the right word, but there is a story here with a beginning, middle, and end, which is nice. It mostly focuses on the Xtacles giving Nearl a makeover, discovering that he looks exactly like Xander Crewes, and then injecting him with a brain serum to make him intelligent. He fulfills his intended purpose of making Stan think that the Xtacles have indeed captured Xander Crewes to make the exploding helmet thing stop happening.

This is when they learn Nearl’s true nature: the reason he looks like Xander Crewes is because he actually is Xander’s long-lost twin brother. He was hospitalized and abandoned on the streets when the hospital closed. This is how he became a homeless wino (Mr. Ford, the pet shop clerk from the last episode, is the orderly who drops him off). This plot thread ends when one of the Xtacles shoots him in the head point-blank. When the other Xtacles scold him, he defends his actions by claiming he was merely simplifying everyone’s lives, that the “plot” (of their lives, I mean) was getting too complicated and having a long-lost twin in the mix would only make things more annoying. The Xtacles begrudgingly, then enthusiastically agree. Real funny.

We also get a little scene showing where the real Xander winds up: with Killface in a sweatshop manufacturing Awesome-X dolls. Killface is popping off the Xander head and Xander is replacing it with Stan’s. Both of them being blind, neither of them have any idea what they are making. They do, however, find out that Simon is now running a rabbit knife-fighting ring. End of episode. 

Most of the laughs in here come from cultural references. Nearl is lured into the Xtacles’ ship because they told him it’s Babar’s house. The Wammy from Press Your Luck is a looming threat on the DNA testing machine (this scene also includes a bit of audio outtakes from the actor playing Stan. Come on guys, this isn’t Space Ghost. Nah, just joshin’, I think it’s funny, please rip-off Space Ghost more). There is a run of the 70/30 dickheads yet again flexing how well-read they are by recalling plot details of Flowers for Algernon (the plot of which largely inspired this episode, obviously), Harrison Bergeron (we get it, you’ve read Vonnegut. WELL SO HAVE I SO FUCK YOU BITCH), among other things. I think. Actually the next thing they reference is Tom Bergeron, so maybe I’m overstating things.

Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam is also referenced. I’m embarrassed to remember this but at the time this episode aired I did not know this band and thought the reference was instead to THIS SONG, which I knew because in the late 90s my mom bought it for me for Christmas. She was concerned that even though I was a teenager I did not ask for a single music CD, so she bought me Pauly Shore’s stand-up album, which had that song on it. Earlier this year I randomly found this video and realized I actually saw it in 1991 on MTV. Not only that, it was literally the first time I ever watched MTV in my whole life. I remember my friend Joe, a fellow kid who was also not allowed to watch MTV, turned to me and said “that’s why I love MTV, there’s so many babes!”

The apex of the exploding head gag is reached when one of the Xtacles mentions that he’s missing his kid’s recital, and they cut to a little girl at a piano in front of an audience at a school auditorium, sighing because her dad isn’t there and proceeding with her performance. She (and his new baby, being held by his wife shown in the crowd sitting next to an empty seat) is wearing an Xtacles helmet. The idea that his kids would have Xtacles helmets on, as if it’s an inherited trait, is so exquisitely stupid that I love it. The joke turns dark when they realize she’s susceptible to Stan’s random on-the-hour head explosions. Guess what happens next? This is a serious contender for the funniest joke in the entire series.

So that’s this one, a real peak for the series as a whole, and very likely the best episode of the season! I’m glad I got to it!

[SORRY THIS POST WAS POSTED LATER THAN USUAL I WAS JACKING OFF TO THE PAULY SHORE VIDEO]

[90363462]

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Past Special

Pauli Murray's Proud Shoes

A Classic in African American Genealogy

Exhibitions

Pauli Murray’s Proud Shoes: A Classic in African American Genealogyexplores the family history of Pauli Murray, a pioneering lawyer, activist, writer and priest. 

This 1985 interview with Pauli Murray focuses on the historical and religious ties of Murray's family to the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel HIll, NC

Her book, Proud Shoes: An African American Family, showcases the racial and social dynamics between the union of a free black family from the north and a mixed-race family of the south. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Murray lived with her aunts and maternal grandparents in Durham, North Carolina after her mother died tragically when she was only four years-old. There, she learned about family history from her aunts. 

Murray's great-grandparents, Charles Thomas Fitzgerald and Sarah Burton, were an interracial couple married in 1834 with six children that survived to adulthood. Her grandfather was a civil war solider and teacher, and her grandmother was born into slavery in North Carolina and served as a lifelong member of the Episcopal church. 

If Grandfather had not volunteered for the Union in 1863 and come south three years later as a missionary among the Negro freedmen, our family might not have walked in such proud shoes and felt so assured of its place in history.

Journey Through the Life of Pauli Murray

Explore the Storylines

01 / 04

Walking in Proud Shoes: Pauli Murray’s Family Genealogy Story

Explore the family history of Pauli Murray, who published an early but often overlooked work in African American genealogy. 

02 / 04

The Pioneering Pauli Murray: Lawyer, Activist and Priest

Pauli Murray was first in her class at Howard University Law school and the only woman. She is the first African American to earn a J.S.D. from Yale Law School and a co-founder of the National Organization for Women. In 1977, Murray became the first African American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. 

03 / 04

Pauli Murray's Literary Achievements

Strongly inspired by the memory of her father, William H. Murray, a teacher and poet, Murray found the time and resources to write and publish her impressive body of works. 

04 / 04

Pauli Murray as an LGBTQ+ Historical Figure

Pauli Murray's personal writings about her gender identity and sexuality have been a recent topic of study. Researchers have discovered that Murray may have identified as a transgendered man, but did not have the information or acceptance available during her lifetime to describe it.

Read More about Pauli Murray as an LGBTQ+ Historical FigurePrevious SlideNext Slide

A Closer Look 

Pauli Murray Walking Tour

Take a walk into Pauli Murray and her Fitzgerald family history in Durham’s West End Neighborhood to meet some of the people and places that shaped her life. Listen to stories about Murray's multi-racial ancestry and heritage, the significance of Black Civil War soldiers and the Freedmen's Schools movement.

RBG's Legal Hero

In this never-before-seen interview, Ruth Bader Ginsburg credits Pauli Murray for inspiring an amicus brief she wrote for the historic 1971 Supreme Court case Reed v. Reed, which was the first time the nation’s highest court recognized women as victims of sex discrimination.

Exhibition Profiles 

01 / 06

Charles Thomas Fitzgerald 

Pauli Murray’s great-grandfather Charles Thomas Fitzgerald was born in Delaware and enslaved by Samuel Lodge, whose son, George, manumitted Fitzgerald in 1832 at the age of 24. 

02 / 06

Sarah Burton

In 1834 while working on a Delaware farm, Fitzgerald married Sarah Burton, one of the farmer’s daughters. The interracial couple made their first home in New Castle County, raising 12 children, six of whom survived to adulthood. Burton is photographed with her youngest child, Agnes Fitzgerald. 

03 / 06

Robert Fitzgerald

Robert Fitzgerald, Pauli Murray's grandfather, served in the Union Army during the Civil War. When the war ended, Fitzgerald was part of a large body of northern educators who moved south to teach newly freed people. 

04 / 06

James Strudwick Smith 

In 1834, Dr. James Strudwick Smith, a physician, politician, and plantation owner purchased Pauli Murray’s great-grandmother Harriet Day for $450 as a personal maid for his daughter, Mary Ruffin Smith. Harriet was sexually assaulted by Sidney Smith, a son of Dr. James S. Smith. As a result, Harriet gave birth to Cornelia, Murray’s grandmother. 

05 / 06

Cornelia Smith Fitzgerald 

Pauli Murray’s grandmother, Cornelia Smith Fitzgerald, was born into slavery in North Carolina and served as a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church.

06 / 06

Agnes Fitzgerald Murray 

Pauli Murray’s mother, Agnes Fitzgerald Murray, died when she was four years-old of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1914. Murray went to live with her aunt and grandparents in Durham, North Carolina. 

Explore Moreabout Agnes Fitzgerald Murray Previous SlideNext Slide

Exhibition Papers

slide 1 of 3

01 / 03

James S. Smith’s bill of sale for Harriet Day, Pauli’s Great-Grandmother, 1834

Credit: Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

02 / 03

Baptismal record for Harriet Day's five children: Julius, Cornelia, Emma, Annette, and Laura, 1854

Credit: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. All rights with the Estate of Pauli Murray, used herewith by permission of the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency.

03 / 03

A Freedmen's Bureau commissioner's report records Robert Fitzgerald as a "day teacher," 1868

Credit: United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Records of the Superintendent of Education and of the Division of Education, 1865-1872.Previous SlideNext Slide

slide 1 to 3 of 3

Images courtesy of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, except where noted. All rights with the Estate of Pauli Murray, used herewith by permission of the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency.

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[rutaalrocknoticias]

Gira en España de THE HANGING STARS, hijos de los 60 y la americana cósmica

THE HANGING STARS

De la psicodelia folk al country cósmico, de los ritmos beat del Londres del 66 a las luminosas melodías de la California del 68. De los Byrds, CSNY, Big Star y The Jayhawks hasta Small Faces, The Kinks y Teenage Fanclub. Los británicos The Hanging Stars vienen a presentar esa maravilla llamada 'On A Golden Shore'.

20 de septiembre. Dalecandela Fest, Bilbao 21 de septiembre. Little Bobby, Santander 22 de septiembre. Octavo Arte, Segovia (WIC) 25 de septiembre. Loco Club, Valencia 26 de septiembre. Rock & Blues Café, Zaragoza 27 de septiembre. Sala Clamores, Madrid 28 de septiembre. Factoria, AvilésTras ser galardonados por la Americana Music Association y actuar en la Blue Room de la sede de Third Man Records bajo la atenta mirada de Jack White, los británicos The Hanging Stars plasmaron en 'On A Golden Shore', su más reciente álbum, su visión peculiar de la americana cósmica. Su quinto álbum, y segundo para el prestigioso sello Loose tras su predecesor 'Hollow Heart' (2022), sigue la línea de discos como 'Goats Head Soup' de los Rolling Stones o 'Bright Yellow' de The Go-Betweens; una colección de canciones dispares entre sí que sin embargo van unidas orgánicamente por sus propios creadores. Grabado en los Clashnarrow Studios de Edwyn Collins, la intención del cantante y guitarrista Richard Olson, el batería Paulie Cobra, el teclista y guitarrista Patrick Ralla y el nuevo bajista Paul Milne era crear un álbum de country desde la perspectiva psicodélica de Jerry García y bañado por la brisa balear. Evocaciones psicodélicas, ecos al Lou Reed de los 80 que se transforman en piezas de country que podría haber firmado Tom Petty, baladas de corazones rotos, recuerdos a los Kinks, el espíritu de Tom Verlaine (que falleció la semana que se grababa el disco) y hasta devaneos funk inundan esta colección de canciones folk que dan forma a un álbum atemporal, todo un viaje (cósmico) por el espacio y el tiempo.

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 7.11

Beer Birthdays

John Gardiner (1825)

Joseph "Papa Joe" Griesedieck (1863)

Harry A. Poth (1881)

Don Younger (1941)

Lisa Morrison (1963)

Mike “Scoats” Scotese (1965)

William Reed

Jennifer England; St. Pauli Girl 2011/12 (1978)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Andrew Bird; pop musician, violinist, songwriter (1973)

Yul Brynner; actor (1920)

Suzanne Vega; pop singer (1959)

James McNeil Whistler; artist (1834)

E.B. White (writer)

Famous Birthdays

John Quincy Adams; 6th U.S. President (1767)

Georgio Armani; Italian fashion designer (1934)

Harold Bloom; writer, critic (1930)

Thomas Bowdler; editor (1754)

Liona Boyd; classical guitarist (1949)

Jeff Hanna; rock guitarist (1947)

Tab Hunter; actor (1931)

Lil' Kim; rapper (975)

Peter Murphy; pop singer (1957)

William Osler; physician (1849)

Lisa Rinna; model, actor (1963)

Richie Sambora; rock guitarist (1959)

Leon Spinks; boxer (1953)

Mindy Stirling; actor (1953)

Suzanne Vega; pop singer (1959)

Harry von Zell; radio and television announcer (1906)

John Wanamaker; merchant (1838)

Sela Ward; actor (1956)

[leanstooneside]

4-LETTER VERBS

◊ Armie Hammer's metabolic breast

◊ Lauren Conrad's motley breast

◊ Victoria Justice's insidious breast

◊ Megan Fox's strengthened breast

◊ Kanye West's biochemical breast

◊ Pharrell Williams's chapel breast

◊ George Lopez's barreled breast

◊ Bradley Cooper's storied breast

◊ Jessica Chastain's utter breast

◊ Princess Diana's faith-based breast

◊ DJ Pauly D's protracted breast

◊ Rob Lowe's codified breast

◊ Lily Collins's unearthly breast

◊ Matt Dillon's virgin breast

◊ Javier Bardem's piped breast

◊ Alicia Keys's convertible breast

◊ Nikki Reed's broker breast

◊ Maria Menounos's inflate breast

◊ Swizz Beatz's uncooperative breast

[pashterlengkap]

Anti-trans bills keep citing The New York Times

New York Times columnist Pamela Paul argued in a 4,500-word op-ed earlier this month that transgender health care procedures amount to “unproven treatments for children,” despite major medical associations’ support for gender-affirming care and the widespread view that it is lifesaving. The piece, which builds upon Paul’s record of espousing anti-trans views in the pages of the country’s most important paper, was roundly condemned by trans journalists over what they alleged was an argument rife with inaccuracies.   Yet for all the criticism it unleashed, or precisely because of that very criticism, conservative groups seized upon Paul’s piece to pursue anti-trans legal maneuvers. In Idaho, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the powerful conservative legal group known for its critical role behind the strategy that overturned Roe v. Wade, specifically cited Paul’s Feb. 4 column as evidence of the “ostracism, pain, and lifelong regret” young people experience after receiving gender-affirming health care. The legal brief, which aimed to overturn a federal judge’s December ruling that blocked the state from enforcing a ban on gender-affirming health care, was ultimately unsuccessful. But it underscored the right’s enthusiasm for including New York Times pieces that have been accused of cherry-picking data and citing problematic sources in their defenses of anti-trans legislation across the country.  Related: New Hampshire lawmakers pass anti-trans bills as 150 such bills are filed nationwide 2024 is already looking worse than 2023. “It’s not surprising that the ADF would cite Paul,” Gillian Branstetter, Communications Strategist from the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, told Mother Jones. “They have been working to manufacture doubt around the safety and efficacy of this care.” Stay connected to your community Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our daily newsletter. My colleague Madison Pauly has reported on this very effort. In May 2023, Pauly uncovered leaked emails that showed ADF working behind the scenes to pressure Republican lawmakers to create some of the most restrictive bills in the country. That strategy often involved citing misinformation and experts some view as unqualified or biased.  Paul appears to follow a similar tactic. In her February piece, Paul claims that some professionals who question the gender-affirming care model feel silenced, afraid that airing public concerns over procedures would get them labeled as transphobic. Paul references Stephanie Winn, a therapist in Oregon who primarily works with parents of gender non-conforming youth “worried that [their] child’s new ‘identity’ may be influenced by peers, media, underlying mental health issues, or trauma.” But Paul failed to mention that Winn is not a neutral professional: She has promoted invasive techniques for parents to encourage their children not to be transgender; and supported theories like “RODG” and hormone imbalance caused dysphoria, both of which have not been supported by science; and testified against Oregon’s ban on conversion therapy.  Paul also appears to follow ADF’s pattern of misrepresenting data. When her piece claims that “30 percent of people on hormone therapy discontinue its use within four years,” Paul declines to include key context to that statistic: The study focused specifically on military families who stopped refilling their hormone replacement therapy prescriptions through Tricare, a health program for active duty service members. In the study, the researchers state “our findings are likely to underestimate continuation rates among transgender patients” because patients may have switched to an alternative insurance plan or private pay. Erin Reed, an independent trans journalist, also pointed out that the last two years of the study data coincided with Trump’s ban on transgender service members, another… http://dlvr.it/T3Drpm

[lboogie1906]

Anna Pauline "Pauli" Murray (November 20, 1910 – July 1, 1985) was a civil rights activist who became a lawyer, gender equality advocate, Episcopal priest, and author. Drawn to the ministry, in 1977 she became one of the first women—and the first African-American woman—to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. She moved to NYC to attend Hunter College and graduated with a BA in English. In 1940, she sat in the whites-only section of a VA bus with a friend, and they were arrested for violating state segregation laws. This incident, and her involvement with the socialist Workers' Defense League, led her to pursue her career goal of working as a civil rights lawyer. She enrolled in law school at Howard University, and she graduated first in her class, but she was denied the chance to do post-graduate work at Harvard University because of her gender. She earned an MS in law at UC Berkeley, and she became the first African American to receive a Doctor of Juridical Science from Yale Law School. As a lawyer, she argued for civil rights and women's rights. NAACP Chief Counsel Thurgood Marshall called her book, States' Laws on Race and Color, the "bible" of the civil rights movement. She served on the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, being appointed by John F. Kennedy. She was a co-founder of the National Organization for Women. Ruth Bader Ginsburg named her as a co-author of a brief on the case Reed v. Reed, in recognition of her pioneering work on gender discrimination. This case articulated the "failure of the courts to recognize sex discrimination for what it is and its common features with other types of arbitrary discrimination." She held faculty or administrative positions at the Ghana School of Law, Benedict College, and Brandeis University. She left academia for activities associated with the Episcopal Church. She became an ordained priest, among the first generation of women priests. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #deltasigmatheta https://www.instagram.com/p/ClLvZFgLU4k/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=