Werewolf Anarchy

texas tech's quartback, brendan sorsby, was investigated for sports gambling. i know sports betting is all the rage right now, but athletes themselves are not allowed to do it. it is Rule Number 1 and it is the highest priority rule for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), who governs all athletic programs at about 1,100 colleges in the US.

the invesitagetion of sorsby revealed that, not only did he place more than 9,000 sports bets when he himself was a collegiate athlete, but 40 of those bets were AGAINST HIS OWN TEAM when he was playing at indiana university. immediately, this threatens the integrity of the sport, and especially because indiana is the hottest team right now as the defending national champion.

the NCAA, which is largely a sham organization these days (they've truly lost their grasp and college athletics are the wild west now) actually enforced their Number 1 Rule and told sorsby his career is over, that he would never play college football again (and, subsequently, that he would never get drafted into the NFL because his college career was cut short).

well, because the NCAA is a husk of its former self, sorsby and texad tech immediately took this to court. MANY athletes have learned these past few seasons that if you can find a judge who's a fan of your team, you can get any NCAA ruling overturned. that's exactly what texas tech did. they filed a suit in Lubbock, where the university is located and where every judge is an alum of texas tech. so sorsby was granted an injunction and will now only be suspended for the first 2 games od the 2026 season (which are alwayd against no-name teams that will be destroyed regardless of who's suspended).

every other school in the country immediately went on the defensive because this is a very clear integretiy issue. so nebraska and georgia (sic em dawgs) released statements saying that all currently-scheduled competitions witb Texas Tech in ANY sport will be canceled and there will be no future schedulings. at least 3 of the major conferences (SEC, Big 10, Big 12) , who account for almost all division 1 sports teams in the country, are also in discussions about cancelling comtests. Texas Tech is part of the Big 12, and there is serious talk of all other teams in the conference shutting texas tech out.

now would probably be time where i say that texas tech is one of the wealthiest programs in college football becaise there is a single billionaire alumnus pouring money into the program with hopes of essentially buying a championship. so texas techs integrity has always been questionable. anyway, the university president put oit a statement that he doesnt care that sorseby violated regulation and that texas tech will sue any school that refuses to play them because it jeopardizes their championship prospects if they're umable to play any games.

It’s totally fine if you’re talking about him being a sparkly yaoi blorbo of gay representation when you’re talking about certain specific adaptations of Greek myth that lead with that aspect of his characterization. But I think there’s something missing if you assert that he is a sparkly yaoi blorbo of gay representation in the Iliad and ignore that his establishing scenes set him up as someone thoroughly bought into an honor culture where you earn your positive reputation through the conquest, murder, and enslavement of people, and that includes completely disregarding the bodily autonomy and consent of women and treating them as war-prizes/objects in a gross scorekeeping game.

Like Achilles does end up questioning that system maybe the tiniest bit by the end of the Iliad but not enough to stop doing war and conquest and enslavement and war prizes about it. He will continue to attack Troy even after his temporary truce with Priam reminds him of his own father grieving at home. And I do think the Iliad depicts him as Loving Patroclus This Big, but I feel like part of what makes Achilles compelling is that how that love coexists with his capacity for rage and violence.

I’m also not saying that the Iliad is the one “true” or “original” depiction of Achilles but it is a highly influential early depiction that lays the groundwork for how his story is understood. (And look. I also think we need to talk about depictions like the one in Statius more—or at least know what comes from Statius vs Homer—or like, I think we should also pay attention to the version of Achilles we find in Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis and other depictions of Achilles in tragedy.) But I do get frustrated when people take the “Achilles was just so in love with Patroclus, omg OTP, ancient gay icons!!11” and see it as the defining feature of these ancient texts where we should probably also be talking about how that intersects with the misogyny and the desecration of corpses and the war crimes.

I’m 33 now, and I still discover a new joke every time I reread it.

*starts thunderously knocking on the doors of heaven*

In the UK, the book of the peerage is called Burke’s Peerage. Burke sounds like berk, which means a silly/annoying person. So Terry took ‘twerp’, another word for a silly or annoying person, and replaced the e with u. 

Trans silvas very simply translated into german would be über den Wald

Trans silvas -> Transsilvanien -> Überwald

The Venturi Effect is a scientific term referring to the acceleration of a liquid through a narrow tube (like a jet).

Selachii is a classification of sharks. (I discovered this when my stepson got really into sharks)

The Malleus Maleficarum is a very real, very nasty and absolutely batshit insane book from late 15th-century Germany, basically laying out the procedure for catching, torturing, and executing witches. Its title translates to The Hammer of Witches. The other titles are Pratchett's inventions.

Its a great way to pick up on something you may have missed. For example I would never have picked up on the Venturi and Selachii thing on my own, but I saw it on L Space.

Typing this from Graphene now, in fact. But, both of those take the Android Open Source Project, without all the bloatware--and largely de-Google the whole thing. They give you much more control over privacy and what the apps you choose to install can do and access on your phone.

I know Graphene sandboxes everything, including the optionally installed Google Play Services which a lot of apps unfortunately require to run. (Lineage uses an alternative to Play Services instead.) So, you can install what would normally be unacceptably intrusive apps and just lock them away from pulling any funny shit with your data, or phoning home. Including the couple of Google things I do still keep around.

I also prefer running much more transparent, privacy-respecting open source apps where possible. Besides the transparency, I'd rather avoid the shitty tech corps entirely where I can. There are pretty good alternatives available for a lot of the usual suspects.

An alternative app store:

Stash!!!!!

I found these in my stash (looking for something else ofc) and immediately wanted to do a Luminous Nine Patch.

Now, now listen.

I know I seem to be making a few of these.

But they turn out gorgeous! How could I not make them?? They’re so easy and fun to do.

Look at this thing! I love her! She’s gorgeous!

She’s bold and dramatic and demands attention!

I think this one is one of the best Luminous Nine Patch quilts I’ve done.

I was correct. The black cuddle and binding are just fab with this.

I did actually find a more golden yellow thread called Dessert Sunset that I used instead of orange to quilt with, and I love it.