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moonastro · 24 days

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Juno persona chart

ASC in the signs

what is a juno persona chart? looking into juno persona chart gives more detailed insight of how the relationship and marriage overall of you and your spouse will be like. it also describes them in a sense as well. The Greek Goddess Juno is described to rule over love and marriage and hence why the asteroid is looked into for that theme.

the asc is our appearance, what we look like and how we are as a person outwardly. in the juno persona chart it symbolises how the couple within the marriage may be seen as, what aesthetic they give out and how they look together,

reminder: this is my interpretation from observations and first hand experiences, so don't take this to heart.

aries asc: when you get to know this couple, they are very comforting and very caring people, they allow everyone into their life and know the meaning of treating their guests right. they can seem to be very work work work however they do try to make time to spend time with their family and friends. they may be very mature with their finance and may even manage their finance professionally. on aesthetic wise, they are quite independent so you may see one without the other most of the time because the couple always have their own work to do. at first glance, this placements spouse may have noticed their drive, car, anger, eyebrows, head (hat, headband, hair, hairclip etc), their quickness, their vulgarity.

taurus asc: the couple within the marriage can be viewed or known as someone who were meant to be together, they have an indescribable bond that others cant seem to figure out. their family life may be well known, or even their families may be well known for example, this placements father may own a big company or this placement in law are famous investors and so forth. on the outside people may know them form social media, as they may also post a lot of their social platforms that allow them to grow a big platform on the internet. may also have lots of friends that support them and can be known for having lots of connections to people. at first glance, this placements spouse may have noticed their voice, accessories on neck, necklace, singing, their stubbornness, their beauty, their accessories in general, their glam.

gemini asc: the couple may be seen as very artistic looking in terms of wearing trendy accessories , style may be quite trendy and may also wear matching clothes. the couple may be recognised by their calm aura, may speak very softly to each other may speak very low tones with one another which makes others very curious of the couple. may be perceived as someone spiritual and very lucky. this couple may treat others in a very friendly and approachable way and always trying to include everyone in evens. always know how to have a good laugh also. at first glance, this placements spouse may have noticed their voice, their limbs, their communicative style, their knowledge, their sibling, their car, their social platform.

cancer asc: this couple are seen as very busy and chaotic, very independent and may be seen as quite energetic. they may portray a very nurturing aura when this placement first encounters other people and when people get to know them very well they are the mediators and love to listen to everyone and tell them their side of their story. may be known for their voices and the way they talk, perhaps this placement has a healthy way of communicating with one another and others notice or they just give very good advice and people just just come to this placement for advice. at first glance, this placements spouse may have noticed their chest area👀, their intuitive aura, their protective response, their comforting nature, their family, their roots, their heritage.

leo asc: the couple may be viewed as childish, may fight in public since taurus(throat) is in the 10th house (public eyes), may not care what others see and just act what others may view as immaturely. this couple may just get everyone's attention but may be because of difference in culture and religion (5th house of recognition in sag of culture). this placement keeps their home and family life a secret, they like to talk but keeps their personal life quite hidden and personal. spouse may notice this placement first because of their alluring appearance and may notice this placement because of it. at first glance, this placements spouse may have noticed their confidence, hair, their good heart, their fun nature, their child like appearance, their ability to stand up for themselves.

virgo asc: the couple may be seen as neat, organised and well assembled. when together they may be viewed as quite serious and may be seen like they are always on work mode. with 12th house leo, may be quite secretive, not a lot of people may see them or not even know that they tied the knot. may not even know that they are together or married, this asc with 4th house in sag, love to explore and learn about one another are very intensive about what the other has to say new about themselves, they love to keep discovering new things about one another. their families may have some cultural difference or the couple may have just grown up with different moral value. they may be known on social platforms as well with gemini sitting in their 10th house of public eyes. they may also be highly educated and may bring unexpected knowledge. at first glance, this placements spouse may notice their routine schedule, their pets, their good hygiene, good groomed hair, neat ironed clothes, may notice the little details.

ex. venus in 1st, may be glamourised about routine, routine may bring fulfilment, schedule may be aesthetic and may bring pleasure to both parties.

libra asc: this couple are quite loving and express their love and sensuality in public for others to see. they don't care who sees them because all they care about is the person that they love. this couple may find success on social media or get attention when in big crowds, they are the main character when it comes to a very big audience, in fact they may be very skilled at that. at first glance, the couple are very harmonious together, their aesthetic is very pleasant to look at and at that, this couple may get a lot of stares or double glances. at first glance, this placements spouse may have noticed their beauty and artistic representation whether its makeup, their perfume, their actual art, their fashion style, their soothing voice and so forth. may have noticed how graceful they are, may notice their skin also, may be very shiny and well cared after.

scorpio asc: this placement seems to catch attention from the public quite often. with leo in 10 house, they may act very bubbly, childish and love to have fun together. at first glance this placements spouse may think that they seem hard to read or even intimidating but when you see them doing their thing you get to see them enjoying themselves. they may also think they are quite mysterious and sexy. can seem to be someone that likes the occult and has been through many setbacks. when getting to know the couple at a personal level they may be quite detached from the idea of sharing things about their family to one another or they may be worried that the other may think differently of them if they tell the truth so they may hide their personal things for a while. this may cause frequent arguments and trust issue from time to time.

sagittarius asc: the couple may look like they are always having fun and you see them always laughing and smiling when they are together. the couple may be seen as quite cultural or culturally different, perhaps this signifies that its a biracial couple or couples that are different culturally. the couple may also seem quite normal in public, however they may receive criticality from outside eyes, lots of expectations from this couple also. when getting to know each other, it may feel like fate, every new thing the couple learn about each other they get a spark where they're like' is this fr'. like serious butterflies in the stomach because all the 'consequences' don't feel like consequences anymore. at first glance this placements spouse may notice of how open minded, fun, free, lucky, culturally different, educated they are. may also notice how tall, spiritually inclined, spontaneous, well travelled they are.

ex. pluto in 1st may have total different morals, cultural difference may bring transformation, here to break generational cultural setbacks.

capricorn asc: couple may be appreciated and respected and may be seen as so themselves. very well mannered and very respectful to one another. however, others may avoid approaching this couple as they may seem unapproachable or intimidating, they may seem very mysterious and others don't dare confronting this couple. also their day to day life is very busy and they may be perceived as self-centred as they may prioritise their schedule over making plans. if you get to know this couple, they are very independent and will say what they mean, will never tell what is not true and lastly can act quite immaturely. behind closed doors they love to freely talk to one another, without needing to worry about their public image, they may also argue over very little things assumingly from the pressure of the public eyes or career. at first glance, this placements spouse may have thought that they are very career motivated and very business minded, very mature and may even be older by far.

ex. neptune in 1st, may portray a dream like aura, may portray an illusion on their outward characteristics, may act completely different than what they put out for others to see.

aquarius asc: are seen as quite closed off, they may not like to be approached by other people. they may be known for their sexiness though, like they are a very powerful couple that just arrive with a bold aura. at home the couple love to chill, order food, and just relax with a homey atmosphere surrounding them. they love the practicality and they simplicity of life behind closed doors. at first glance, they may seem quite unfamiliar and something new for each other, at first meeting the couple may find each other quite conventional and unique.

pisces asc: these individuals are rather very well known with their free like nature, you see them moving and about all the time. at first glance the couple within the marriage may noticed each other as glamorous or just that they look good whether its style wise or actual appearance wise. this placement may also project how when at first meeting they may have imagined things with one another, a bit like meeting someone in a dream. people may know and talk about this placements siblings and may know about their home life but this placement may not know about that others know. however this couple love to talk with one another and learning from one another, communication is a staple in this marriage for sure. are very fun and portray a very humorous aura to the public, can be seen as the fun or funny couple that likes to never stay still always on the go and doing and exploring something, you never see them at their house. at home though they are very comfortable wherever they stay and fit in and make it according to their comfort.

thanks so much for reading!!🌼

#juno persona chart #astro observations #ascendant #astrology signs #astro #astrology observations #astro community #astro notes #astrology community #astro placements #future spouse

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queers-gambit · 5 months

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Menace

prompt: ( request that i accidentally deleted ) in essence, "drabble about Tangerine going to the bathroom and texting Reader 'come here'."

pairing: Tangerine x female!reader

fandom masterlist: Bullet Train

word count: 4.4k+

warnings: cursing, OC!Tangerine, we talk mental health (social anxiety), established relationship, busy public work settings, the request and then some, alcohol consumption, smut, bathroom sex at a work event (Cherry, what the fuck?), handguns and mild depiction of violence 'cause it's Tangerine, i give him a 'real' name (Aaron), not edited.

"This is such bullshit, sugar, c'mon, fuck are we doin' here?" Tangerine snipped in your ear, his arm curled protectively around your waist as he glared at those in rich suits and expensive colognes around him. "We don't belong 'round this lot, they're just here t'wave their money. There's no real reason for us bein' here, sweet girl, c'mon, let's just shove off. Better than chokin' on whatever this lot's wearin' - I mean, Christ Alive, smells like a bloody Bloomingdales, don't it?"

You smiled prettily in case of watchful eyes, telling him sternly in a sweet tone, "Lovie, I told you, my boss said we were needed for at least cocktail hour. We can leave before dinner, okay?"

"This is gonna last fuckin' hours, princess, c'mon, we should just go," he grumbled. "Fuck these people and these bullshit fundraisers."

"We'll be okay, I promise," you soothed sweetly, the honest opposite of Tangerine - leaning in to press a soft kiss to his cheek. You were constantly touching one another and early in your relationship, you realized how much you loved kissing him and completely forewent lipsticks or glosses because of it. Another peck and you told him in a soft tone, "C'mon, just remember we said we'd pick up Changs on our way home and there's that bottle of nice Merlot A - I mean, Lemon gave us," you almost used your boyfriend's brother's real name, but caught yourself with plenty of time.

"Hmm," he smirked, his favorite takeout place being a happy distraction. "Cheat day sounds nice, yeah, but still don't make this go any faster, now does it?"

"No, but we're not gonna be here forever," you soothed, turning into his chest to pet the expensive material of this navy three-piece suit. "You look so handsome, my love. Really love seein' you in navy suits, and the white button up looks really clean with it." Tangerine smiled down at you, the bustle around you melting away as he could only hear, see, smell, feel, and focus on you. Then, you spoke coyly as you fixed his tie, "If you behave the rest of the night, I promise I'll make it up t'you. Yeah? Maybe wear that li'l white thing you love?" He perked up, but before he could respond, you ended, "Or maybe I already have it on - anyways, so, listen t'me, I have to go talk t'some people and do the job that pays me, so I suggest you just take a deep breath; get another drink, find Lemon, and then we'll go soon, okay?"

He looked around the usual investors his private employer had to shmooze for donated funding and frowned when he was acutely aware of not just the sheer number, but how many "important" people attended the evening's gala. The Black Market was funded by multiple someones; most of whom were in this very room and while under the radar, it still made Tangerine feel as if a huge target was painted on the building's wall. There was always a need for services outside the law and these richie-riches couldn't take the money with them to the grave, so, they donated money if it meant they were "well taken care of".

The Twins' handler insisted they attend the gala tonight; being well aware that they were more like show ponies for being on display for investors to see. Putting a face to names made myth into reality, and your boyfriend was a hot commodity due to his skill as a contract killer. He and his brother were legends around the various active agencies, investors happy to see their money going to good use; all wanting to know what they had bought for a price-tag of several billion.

The common conversation of the evening was how readily available The Organization was able to offer their services with no questions asked, no matter what. Tan hated these events, feeling nauseated, overstimulated, overwhelmed; overall, exploited by his employer as attendees gossiped about the Bolivia Job, the Kyoto Crash, the Libyan Disaster, and a few other memorable jobs Tan and Lemon were involved in. Their beady little eyes followed him around, mouths hidden behind crystal flutes of champagne, and bodies always shied away from him as if he were a wild beast.

Sure, they pay to sit and gather in the arena, but flee when the raging bull they've helped antagonize gets loose.

Then you came along and took on the brunt end of these social events. Tan was never quite sure how you got involved in this life, you always giving a new answer, but knew you had gone to university for multiple degrees - one being in something called "communications". Now, if you had asked Tan a few years ago, he'd've said that was a bullshit job, bullshit degree, a total waste of time. Now that his popularity had grown and he was exposed to more social obligations, he was was beyond grateful to have someone navigate this with him. Tangerine's bad attitude most of the time was just a deflection, being why you and Lemon could handle him; knowing the lad's anxiety often choked him past logic and made him a sarcastic, violent cunt.

When Tangerine forced himself back to reality after glaring at the other warm bodies mingling around, Tangerine's arm contracted tight enough that he could bring you in for a quick kiss. Quietly, he muttered in your ear, "I'll give you half an hour, darling, no more."

"No less," your eyes rolled but your lips were spread in a grin. He chuckled and softened his expression; whoever might've been watching feeling something akin to shock and awe (like one felt when they saw a lion in person for the first time), knowing Tangerine was a horribly stoic, violent, and short-tempered man. To see him now, amused and soft with such a beauty of a woman - well, it was jarring. He was still known to be an asshole, but it seemed you had a stronger leash on Tangerine than his handler ever did. But perhaps, no stronger than Lemon.

"Right," Tan sighed. "What was first on your list fa' me t'do?"

"You're gonna take a deep breath, get another drink, and then find Lemon," you repeated softly, "but I'm gonna say you owe me a kiss before that drink."

Tan huffed.

"That wasn't a deep breath, Tan, c'mon, we've been over this," you mock glared, feeling both his hands secure to your hips. He pet the expensive silk you wore with his thumbs, the pocket square resting over his heart a tailored square of the same material.

"Sweetheart - "

"In through your nose, out through your mouth, Tan," you cut him off. "Together, I'll do it with you, c'mon. In..."

Tangerine adjusted his stance in those shining Italian leather shoes you gifted him for Christmas that year. He took a steady breath in through his nose when you did, watching for your subtle nod, then exhaling slowly through his mouth - when you did. Again, together, in through the nose, your nod after about seven seconds, then exhaled through the mouth. After one more, you smiled at him in encouragement, both hands splayed on his lapels; his own moving so they coiled around you.

"All right," he grumbled, "yeah, it helps, pretty girl."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Feel better?"

"Don't push it, plum," he mumbled, bringing you in closer so he could kiss the hinge of your jaw, just below your ear while stroking your spine with his fingertips. "Thank you," he whispered, mustache tickling your skin, "always know how t'get me out me head, don't'cha?"

"I try, but you don't always make it easy, you know?" You rolled your bottom lip between your teeth to smother your grin, leaning into his chest. "Kiss me, please, then go get a drink and find Lemon. Don't talk to the investors," you warned, adding, "please."

This made a mischievous smirk spread across his lips, "Awe, hey, c'mon, aren't they here t'see me? I can say hello. You won't even 'ave'ta introduce me, they'll know me."

"Okay, yes, they're here t'see the lot of yah, but they're not here to get yelled at, yeah? Or called cunts? Insulted in any manner?" You sang in a light tone; caressing his cheek to guide him to your lips for a long desired kiss. The hand on his cheek curled around to grip the back of his neck, gently tugging the neat strands of hair as you tried to convey your pride.

Social anxiety was a bitch and though he'd deny it vehemently, Tan was riddled with it. Seeing him endure this evening (despite the constant complaining) was a mighty feat, wanting your kiss to spark something in his gut that would cause his confidence to soar so it'd put a bit of "pep in his step" to get through the rest of the evening.

And boy, did it.

After parting ways, Tangerine was left to get his drink with a full-chub that made him shake both legs out in an attempt to hide his arousal. Yet as he watched you melt seamlessly into the crowd, he couldn't get the picture out of his mind that maybe you were wearing that white thing he liked. Tan leaned on the bar top, cock stirring to life with each passing second; watching you mingle and mix and shmooze investors and wanting nothing more than to interrupt and get you alone. With his drink, he located Lemon, trying to forget the way his cock was begging for attention while you worked your magic on these walking-talking-money-bags.

"All right, bruv?" Lemon asked, the two standing with a few other agents that were wrangled in for the event.

"Hmm?"

Lemon glared, then snickered to himself. "Oh, fuck me, mate, you're fucked, aren't you?"

"Come off it," Tan took another slug from the expensive whiskey glass. "'S only me second."

Lemon blinked in shock, "That's not possible. You hate these fancy things, you don't like bein' sober at'em."

"I've been distracted."

"No shit, 'cause your lady's here, gotta be on your best behavior, don't yah?" Lemon snickered, sighing as he shook his head and accepted the champagne being passed around by a waiter with a full tray. "But enough that you ain't been drinkin'? Yeah, right - oh, shit, wait," he beamed, "didn't Y/N get that administrative promotion? It's that, ain't it? Ho-ho!" He laughed, "Yeah? Don't tell me you've been her arm candy all night, mate?"

"We've been tucked away, actually," Tan admitted, missing the way Lemon blinked in shock 'cause he was searching for you in the deepening crowd. "She knows I don't like these things, right, so, we stood away from 'em all, ova there," he pointed off to where Lemon knew was roped off for VIPs. "We were just talkin', laughin'. She makes these shitty li'l jokes, you know? Kept us more entertained than the rest of these fucks," Tangerine chuckled, hand hiding his grin of amusement as he wiped around his mouth to play it off.

This made Lemon nod with impression, "Yeah?"

"Yeah, but," Tan sniffled, "duty calls, she's gotta work a bit, get some donations goin'. Apparently, I'm not allowed t'talk t'the fancy donors."

Lemon checked his watch, "Fair enough, you did punch that Sultan - "

"Oh, come the fuck off it, that was three years ago! He was fine."

"You broke his nose, mate. You want another?"

Tangerine skulled the last of his drink, shaking his head. "Nah, I'm good, mate. Might be time t'go soon."

"I'll leave when you two do, wouldn't wanna be stuck here alone," Lemon agreed, the two turning away to stand at a cocktail table together and away from the others. "This is why we don't work inna office, this lot - Jesus, fuck. Oh, shit, oi, mate, you seen who all's here tonight? Fuck's sake..."

"Yeah, mate, I've seen 'em all, but there's too many t'know who the fuck you mean specifically." He pulled his phone out as Lemon rumbled on in excited impression about the evening's guests to send you a quick text,

wrap it up, pretty girl. i got things i wanna do to you that ain't for others to see unless they pay.

He could see you from where he and Lemon stood; and when your phone chimed, you checked it almost instantly, smiling at the message. He waited for your rapid reply,

if my panties had a crotch, they'd be soaked. love you in blue 💙

That was enough for Tangerine, who nodded at his brother, "Gimme a minute, yeah? Gonna pop off t'the loo before we go. Have another," he pointed to the drink in Lemon's hand as he backed away, "but not that frilly shit, mate, have a real fuckin' drink. Oi!" He snapped his fingers at a passing waitress, "Sorry, sweetheart, yeah, my bruva, there," he pointed at Lemon, who waved awkwardly, "will take a double whiskey, on the rocks, yeah, and he likes them lemon twists. That somethin' you can grab for him, love?"

"Absolutely," she nodded, high-strung ponytail swishing.

Tangerine snickered lightly, shelling out a hefty tip that she accepted, "And bring him a Lemon Drop shot, too, please."

"Anything else, sir?"

"Ah, if you'd like, maybe your number for him, too?" Tan instigated, hearing Lemon groan and grumble in embarrassment. "My bruva, there, he's bloody golden, yeah? Can't do no better, man just has no flaws - less we count tha' he's a wee bit shy, innit? Pretty ladies intimidate him a bit, but he's the bravest man I fuckin' know. Just gotta warm 'im up a bit, don't'cha know?"

"He sounds like a real gentleman. But maybe I can give mine if you give your number to my friend?" The waitress countered, pointing towards the central bar that the servers operated out of. There was a decently pretty girl with dark hair, twiddling her fingers at them with a pearly grin. "She's sweet, kind, absolutely wild in bed - "

"Sounds like an even deal, sweets, but you see - I've got a woman, yeah? And my lady? Well, she's kinda one of your bosses tonight, so, uh, might not be a good idea now, would it? She gets all territorial, protective, likes what's hers t'be just hers - ain't real big on sharin'." The waitress flushed in embarrassment. "But my bruva, here," Tan pointed back at Lemon while unlocking his phone, "he's a fuckin' don, yeah? Ain't nobody gonna treat cha' t'a better night. Oi, hey, I'll be back, bruv," he called to Lem with a smirk, then reminded the waitress, "double whiskey, lemon twist, on the rocks. And that Lemon Drop, please."

"Of course, sir, right on it," she agreed, Tangerine finally backing away fully. He typed you a new message,

meet me in the bathroom right now

Inside, it was decently spacious; unisex, six stalls, made of pristine marble, veiled fluorescent lighting, and there was a lock on the door - which Tan cared most about.

He planted himself behind the two other men at the walled-off urinals, hands clasping together in front of him. "Right, then, you two," he gestured between them, "got 'bout 30 seconds to finish yourselves and get the fuck outta here." He pulled the usual gun from his waistband, threatening, "Or I'll give you fuckin' fucks a show 'bout all them stories you love whisperin' 'bout. Yeah? How's that? Hey? Thirty! Twenty-nine! Twenty-eight!"

They were barely zipped up and gone by the time Tangerine got to second 21; you entering right as the two were scurrying for the swinging-open door. You yelped a little, jumping out of their way, offering Tangerine a strange look and musing, "Uh, what was that? You fightin' in the privy, again?"

He put his handgun away as he stalked towards you, "Just makin' sure we wouldn't be interrupted."

"Tan, hell no, there's so many people!"

He yanked you from the doorway, making sure it was shut before locking it loudly. "Then we gotta be quick, don't we? C'mon, doll, real fast, bosses won't even question you bein' gone."

"I still have work - "

"Nah, nah," he pawed your gown's skirts upward, "you been teasin' me all fuckin' night, lookin' too fuckin' good - I can't wait, baby. Just look so Goddamn pretty, feels like I'm losin' my mind. Lemme see yah," he got the silk bunched around your waist, gasping loudly when he saw your panties. "You really did wear 'em... Like the good girl you are," he purred, one hand dropping the silk to run his hand over the strappy and lacy material you wore. "Swear I'll take my time with yah at home, the way I want - but can't do that here, just needa be inside yah, sugar, c'mere."

"Baby," you gasped when his fingertips ghosted around your cunt that was bare due to the crotchless cutout. "I only need a-a-a," you trailed off, panting when one finger suddenly plunged into your cunt, "ohhh, shiiiit. Yes, baby, oh, God!"

"Keep talkin'," He smirked, backing you up towards the marble counter. "C'mon, tell me off. Tell me what's more important right now, huh? More important than this? Is it work? Huh? Work got you distracted? Wanna get back t'it instead of bein' here with me?" The heels of your palms slammed into the pristine counter, whimpering when he pumped erratically. "Aht, here you go," he smirked, pausing to pull his hand free of your warmth; seizing your waist and helping hoist you back onto the sink's ledge. Your lips meshed sloppily with his, Tan letting you dominate the kiss because you were mewling - so desperate for him, you were nearly suckling on him; hands trembling as they held his cheeks with your manicured fingertips. When your legs instantly spread to accommodate Tangerine's hulking form, grinding your hips into him, he seethed, "Good girl," before sinking his digit back into your wet heat that halted your ministrations out of pure relieving pleasure.

"You're a menace," you panted against his mouth when you remembered reality, Tangerine's belt rattling open and his zipper teeth shrieking when you shucked them open. "Gimme," you whispered, reaching for him; dropping his pants the rest of the way to take his pulsing cock in hand. "This what you wanted? Right? Why you texted me? Interrupted me?"

"Exactly," he licked his lips before smashing them to yours in a suffocating kiss, always the one to help you push boundaries and do things you never thought you'd ever do if not for him. "Why're you so wet? Huh? Why's that? Had this on your mind, too, didn't'cha, dirty girl? Why else would you wear my favorite?"

"'T reward you for tonight," you panted, giving his cock a few pumps. "'S my scene, not yours, just so fucking proud of yah - for how you did, gettin' through it," you guided him to your weeping entrance after pushing his hand from you, both gasping when his cockhead notched on the lip of your cunt. "Yes, yes, yes, yes," you chanted, praising him as he sunk his hips into your own; effectively blurring your mind.

He grunted, needing a single moment to press his balls between you two as he waited for you to accommodate to his size. Forehead to forehead, your eyes remained shut; breathing the same air, feeling your insides fluttering at the size of him. His mouth was at your ear, demanding, "Tell me again, pretty girl."

You knew what he wanted, letting your legs spread a little wider and held onto his shoulders since this position didn't allow for much else. You whimpered, "You did so good tonight, baby. Oh, fuck, I'm so proud of you - you did so fuckin' good." He groaned and retracted his hips, beginning a brutal pace and messy rhythm to pump himself in deep strokes. You had to hold onto his upper arms now to allow him space to move. "Always so good for me, but tonight? Fuck - you're so good, Aaron. So fucking good - and tonight you were fucking amazing. I'm so proud, so fucking proud of you," you whimpered, his hands holding your hips so the counter could pose as leverage to allow him the angle to pound up into you while shifting you down on him.

"Almost there, baby," he begged, eyes all over. He loved the sight of your 'panties' still on; the criss-crossing of the straps and pattern of the lace still in place while his cock made a mess of you. Your gown glittered in this light, your skin tacky with a thin layer of sweat from your arousal that made him dip low and lick a bold stripe between your breasts. "Lemme see - lemme get a taste, doll, want you in my mouth," he muttered against your cleavage, still holding you on his cock as you pulled a tit free. You gave a shrill yelp when Tangerine surged forward suddenly and bit harshly on your budding, sensitive nipple; but it was in-sync with him changing the pace of his thrusting to something borderline painful.

It wasn't a secret he was well-endowed, there wasn't much to the imagination with the way his suits are tailored.

But having ten(plus) inches; fully swollen, engorged, jackhammering into you at this angle? It wasn't the most pleasurable at first, but with Tan licking, nipping, and sucking at both nipples now, you endured until moaning authentically. You were all but hanging off the counter by now, Tan the only reason you weren't on the floor; using upper body strength to hold onto him while slithering a hand toy your stomach to toy with your enlarged clit.

It took very little time of harsh pressure from your fingers to come undone, pleasure mounting to a crescendo before shattering your grip to reality. With a gasp, your hips humped into Tan's by your own blinding vocation; arms tight around his shoulders to remain upright as you milked yourself.

The contraction of your cunt was all Tangerine needed, and four slaps of his balls later had him doubling over and pinning you in a small slam, chest-to-chest, to the marble.

"Oh, my fuckin' God," you panted in appreciation.

"Shit," he realized, "shit, fuck, did I hurt you? Fuck - baby - "

"I'm not hurt," you panted, keeping a tight hold to refuse him from standing up, "just happy."

He deflated with a small chuckle. In your neck, he mumbled, "I can't feel my legs."

"Wanna sit?"

"Nah, not here," he mused, licking the sweaty skin of your pulse point. "Just had t'wear the li'l white ones, didn't'cha?"

"You get all worked up when I do."

"With good reason, should see yourself the way that I do - Goddamn, doll. My girl's divine, too good for these fuckers out here."

You were about to retort, but there was a loud, rapid banging at the locked door. "Hey! Hey! Whoever's in there! There's people that need in, you fucking arseholes! Get your dick wet at your own place, you broke bitches!"

You gasped and slapped a hand over your mouth as Tangerine finally stood off you, keeping you balanced on the counter as you sat up. "Oh, my fucking God, Tan! I-I-I-I'm gonna get fired! Oh, holy shit! This isn't happening!"

"No - "

"Aaron, we were literally just caught - "

"Hey, hey, just breathe," he paused, sighing as he caressed your cheek. "Let me handle this for us, okay? The way you protect me, let me protect you. Yeah?"

You nodded mutely, looking ready to burst into tears. After Tan pulled out and helped you clean up (ignoring the warm cum that dripped down your inner thighs), he simply wrapped you in his navy suit jacket, rolled up his crisp white sleeves, and pulled out his handgun. "Oh, baby, don't - "

"Trust me," he purred, arm secure around your waist. "Oh... Shit, hang on," he set the gun down to use his hands and fix your hair, your heart soaring by the sweet, domestic gesture. "I got'cha, pretty girl, one sec - there we go, yeah," he smirked, looking proud of himself. "Yeah, all right, there we go," he cupped your cheeks, "all perfect."

"Thank you," you whispered.

"Now, we're gonna walk out with confidence. Just don't stop, don't look at anyone. Actually, look a li'l smug," he instructed. "And we're just gonna grab Lemon and get outta here, yeah?"

You pouted lightly, "After I get the O-K from my boss."

"Nah, we don't ask permission, just forgiveness."

"Terrible philosophy."

"I prefer effective. Ready?" He asked, picking his gun up again. You nodded, latching onto him as his arm secured around you again, then approached the door. He unlocked it loudly and yanked it open, glare instantly taking over his expression as you were met with a gaggle of angry, grumbling patrons. "We got a fuckin' problem?" Tangerine sneered, his gun winking in the dim lighting; those who were waiting instantly backing off.

You did as he advised: didn't look at anyone, didn't stop, looked a little smug. He lead you through the throng of people, hearing a woman sneer under her breath - gasping when Tan turned his gun on her. "Tangerine!" You snapped, the people around you all freezing.

"Got somethin' t'say?" He taunted the woman, who shook her head. "No? You sure? Now?" He asked, shifting the weapon over to her date's forehead. She shook her head again. This made Tan smirk, "Jealousy ain't pretty on anyone, love. Keep your fuckin' mouth shut."

"Let's go, now," you insisted, tugging on his unbuttoned waistcoat to walk away together. "Can't shoot everyone who offers insult."

"No, but word will spread," he smirked. "Ain't nobody gonna say a fuckin' word to yah now. And if they do," he shrugged, "you'll tell me. All right, now, uh," he paused you both, nodding ahead, "that's a bit of my doin'. Question is, do we interrupt?"

You peered around a person or two until Lemon and a pretty waitress was in sight. She was giggling and grinning, the two deep in conversation; just enraptured and toying with each other's hands.

"We should probably let him know we're leaving. Maybe text him?"

"So, we are leaving, huh?" Tan smirked. "No more precious work to go run off to?"

Your lips moved beside his ear, licking the shell before speaking so your cool breath fanned over the wet skin, "I can't work with your cum leakin'."

His hand groped your arse cheek tightly, "If you do, I promise t'make yah my li'l Twinkie, huh? Fuck you all night, like you deserve."

"Oh, now you wanna stay? You fuckin' serious?"

"Yeah, but, now it's a game."

"You're a fucking menace!"

requesting rules and masterlist

Bullet Train masterlist

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diejager · 6 months

Note

Hallo! Truly loved the MonsterAU stories! Wonderful, amazing writing!

Would it be possible for you to write: what if human!reader was turned into a chimera?

Akin to this:

Feel free to ignore!

Chimæra

Pairing: Monster 141 x Chimera!reader

Cw: science experiment, human torture, human testing, gore?, blood, canon-typical violence, unethical human experiments, kidnapping, child abuse, malnutrition, child neglect, tell me if I missed any. Wc: 3.6k (A/N): credit to @bluegiragi’s monster 141 designs.

They were tipped off by an anonymous source that some shady and highly illegal things were being done in a small and remote town near the border of Belarus, their ongoings unknown to both the government and public of their country, but someone had given Laswell a file containing all the horrific tests conducted within the closed walls of the innocuous-looking compound —a laboratory dressed as a simple military base. The folder held snapshots of emails and files sent between scientists and researchers, small indications of what was being done to both humans and monsters, yet withholding important intel about certain things. It disclosed the location, the names and faces of every worker and leading figure in the compound, the number of security and their schedules, and what was done, but not what was truly happening, it left small clues, sublet words here and there with hidden meanings —never clear images, blurry ones as if the person was in a rush.

Despite not having clear indications of the illegal activities, Laswell had enough to have 141 sent to take it down, to bring the dehumanising lab to its ground and burn it down. She didn’t have trouble convincing them, it was telling enough to let them read the condensed files for them to read, to see themselves the monstrosity being done to children and monsters they took, kidnapped from around the world to be left at the deceitful hands of crazed scientists. There wasn’t much to be found outside it, the base wore the facade of a benevolent patron, bearing the crest of kindhearted investors wanting to rebuild rundown houses and reconstruct rough and broken roads and paved streets in the town they took to hide. It worked for the most part, they profited from this by acting without raising any suspicion from anyone, neither the authorities nor the people.

“Christ,” Gaz swore, looking down at the words in the file he received, the teased truth and the dreadful treatments through a thick layer of secrets and subtle wording, the only clear intel was from the straightforward emails sent to and from researchers and the heads of the facility, unabashed and shameless bragging of their success and the narrative to which these subjects could be used. “Why did it take so long?”

A recurrent theme of these was about a certain subject, it was about C34, spoken with such pride and joy about their creation, the work of the new world and the future made within these walls. Most emails were the exchanges between them about C34’s training, the ongoing treatments and every successful mission and exercises, they spoke of C34 as if they were a dog, a rabid mutt they captured and took on the task of domesticating it. It was demeaning, degrading and cruel, to look at another being as something lower, something needing domestication —it went against every rule and law put in place to protect humanity, the many conventions sworn to protect the goodwill and security of the innocents.

“We’ve had our suspicions before,” Laswell sighed, the images of the screen switching with the small click of her control, laser pointing at the images of various weapons cache and illegally procured weapons. “There was a slip up in the shipping, it was dropped here-” she motioned to a circled area in the map, a closeup of a secluded road near the town, “and we were able to retrace it to the facility. We needed more intel about the facility before acting and we needed to know what we're facing here, if we should send a team or send you.”

“What now?” Price tilted his head back, smoke leaving the sides of his frown, a deep and unpleasant one. He couldn’t even look at the intel given with a straight face, the shadowed truth of cruelty and dehumanising acts done by humans. “Figured you send us after seeing this, Laswell?”

Laswell nodded, jumping to another slide, showing blurred images of subject C34, a blurry figure, tall and imposing in every way possible. They stood high, stature seemingly one belonging to a monster or hybrid: on four legs and the wide, familiar shape of wings, everything about C34 cried monster. Perhaps one they captured as a child, taken from their mother and kept in this cell. There were many pictures of this one, blurry and disfigured, but others had smaller shapes, the size of children with various characteristics.

“Steamin’ bloody Jesus!” Soap spat, disgust dripping from his tone in waves, unending as were the other’s curses, each holding their level of horror and repugnance. His face was wound tight, brows dipped lowly and lips pursed, he balled his fists, anger rising within him with every image he saw, the deplorable conditions and the care given to the monsters —what could they even expect from this shady company engineering monster and human DNA to fit their preferred narrative, for money, for reputation, for strength. “We ‘ave tae do somethin’ about this, Price!”

Soap - Johnny - had always been the more emotional one, letting his good heart lead his decisions when the situation seemed to fit it. His wolf made him more susceptible to emotional attachment, a pack mentality driven deeply into his mind and heart, he was viciously loyal and wore his heart on his sleeve, uncaring of how he’d be hurt by a betrayal, he simply saw the best in the world, something many couldn’t after a while, but Soap could, Johnny was a good man at heart. That’s why he reacted the most out of everyone, voicing his distaste and hate, his need for revenge and the sanctity of the lives being stolen in the facility.

Soap pushed Price to agree, seeing no reason not to lead the breach, to uncover everything done to innocent lives. His eyes connected to the man hidden in the darkness, his blue eyes gleaming with fierce justice, a contrast to the wraith who lay in silence, abhorrent and seething quietness. Ghost peered at him, head tilted up with white pupils darkened by black eyes, death layering off him with calmness. He gave Soap a curt nod, affirmation for him to continue to voice his mind, to help those in need.

“Seems like it’s been decided, Kate,” Price gave her a lopsided smirk, amber eyes narrowed with what could be read as anger, teeth sinking into the girth of his cigar, ash falling. “When are we going?”

Her lips parted in a proud grin, eyes gleaming with something dark and wrathful. She leaned on the table, head held high and shoulder broad while she flicked off the projector:

“Wheels up at 1500 tomorrow.”

You stared down the man before you, watching him tremble under your cold gaze, steps hesitant to approach you despite being seated, body prone on the hard floor you called a bed. He was new, possibly recently employed and his boss - or his direct manager - played a dirty game with him. It was some kind of rite of passage for every new employee courageous enough to accept their recruitment, all bright-eyed geniuses wanting to build their place on earth with forthgoing discovery, desperate and narcissistic; yet they were so easily tricked into you cage, locked in by cackling and grinning guards and coworkers.

He smelled young, fresh-faced and a bit nervous, most were when they first saw you. You remembered everyone who walked in, the smell of fear and anxiety, the disgusting scent oozing off their bodies, rotten and putrid like a rotting corpse. You would’ve gagged and choked if you weren’t used to it, having grown close to the smell of death, calling the reaper your friend. You weren’t bothered by him, only the cart he was wheeling over, a big and heavy cooler that smelled fresh. He was made to bring you food by his boss, a cruel joke played on every new scientist who was always so eager to meet you before cowering in terror once the lock clicked.

Standing before your third cage, he unlocked the small hatch and, with effort and a loud grunt, pushed the cooler into the hole, big enough for a big cooler but small enough to fit your arm through it. You waited until he stumbled away, distancing him from you before reaching for the container, it was light, weighing little in your palm. They fed you raw meat, sometimes buying the fresh catch of a Belarus hunter, usually an elk or a wild boar, but if they were lucky, a bison or a bear, other times they would have conserved meat shipped from outside the town, bigger cities or outside the border.

Today was an elk, the meat cold and free of rot, it smelled as good as a fresh kill did, bloody and heady. You ripped into it without care, tuning out the loud retch from the scientist as you gorged on your meal, claws tearing it in half and biting into the bloody meat. Blood rolled down your lip, painting your cheeks crimson and staining the cream-coloured rag they considered a shirt. It would be changed after your meal, as it always was. Despite the elk weighing around six hundred kilograms, you finished it quickly, with pointed teeth cutting and pulling flaps of meat and ligament, blood spraying and dirtying the metal ground near the hatch.

It was filling, albeit cold. You cleaned your hands of blood, licking it off like a grooming cat, tongue laving over the sharp edge of your claw and under your blunt fingernails. You peered at him from under your lashes, eyes gleaming in the darkness. You watched - pleased with yourself - him shudder, face growing green with unnerve at your show. You knew he was desperate to leave, to get a breath of fresh air outside of your cell, you understood his fear and wanted him to suffer for helping your owner, the man watching over your training, but you wanted him gone before he emptied his stomach on your floor. So you pushed the cooler out, clawed arm breaching past the hatch to leave it farther from your cage.

He left hastily, legs shaky and face pale.

“I want a bison next time,” you growled, words rolling off your tongue huskily from its rare use.

It looked as inconspicuous through the NVGs as it did in the pictures, a few grey buildings built lowly to hide an immense labyrinth dug into the ground, secret passages crossing unending halls with locked doors and tipped with surveillance cameras to watch over the whole facility. They studied the very walls that made this place a secret fortress, from the body to its heart, like mounting a brigade against a castle, Laswell’s team found the few hidden entrances that connected to the lesser-used passages, winding through many hallways and wide vents, big enough for humans but too tight for monsters the size of C34. Task Force 141 led the mission, infiltrating the base under the darkness of night where they could crawl and slink through shadows to catch what they hunted. They were joined by Marines, all experienced and skillful, wearing scars like a badge of honour. It would either be a quick in and out, or a long and strenuous infiltration.

Price took Gaz and led half of the Marines through the west, breaching the lab from above. They pushed in steadily, relaying information and physical cues to Watcher - Laswell - with a body cam recording everything they saw, the facade they wore above ground, hiding their dark enterprise. Ghost, as usual, has Soap watch his six, following closely behind him with puppy-like loyalty and the other half of the Marines. Team Two’s - Delta - mission started through the underground passage they sniffed out, a long and unwinding hall that went straight through the heart of the facility. Ghost’s team went dark, needing the cover of silence to stay hidden in a highly protected area of the base to run this clandestine mission. They spoke only when needing to, to make calls, to reaffirm intel or to let both Bravo and Watcher know a change, the tech team in the temporary safe house a few miles away from the compound watched through the cams, from the subtle change in the air to a jarring lead to what was happening.

While Price and Gaz worked on creating a distraction, taking a load off team Delta’s shoulders, they could work through the system faster and more efficiently with the fire taken off their backs and front. It was controlled chaos for both teams, creating a mass discordance within the enemy lines: panicked higher-ups at the sudden attack, while they had a small squad of personal soldiers, they were unprepared, taken by surprise by both teams attacking on two fronts; and confused mercenaries, their quiet and boring schedules made them lose the edge of suspicion, of wariness towards what awaited them and the sheltered job with little to no action apart from a few failed escape attempts by the subjects.

“Delta 0-1 moving in,” Ghost mumbled into the coms, his team following him closely, rifle held tightly with the muzzle pointed forward as they crossed the threshold of section C, heading towards the one holding the monster subjects.

They left behind them groups of bodies, slumped over the walls or limp on the ground, blood painting the sterilised and glossy walls, turning the once white hall into a grotesque place, dead bodies covering the length of the corridor like the ones they walked through before, leaving the stench of death that even the Marines could sniff out. It wasn’t clean - they weren’t aiming for it to be clean - but they wouldn’t need it to be clean when the Laswell would send a clean-up team to deal with this, Ghost would steal a bite before they arrived, quenching his hunger for revenge with them.

A few guards stayed to watch over the cells, doors unlocked by a keycard that most guards kept in their back pocket, Ghost would have to take one off a dead body. Under Ghost’s cover, Soap dashed to the other side of the hall, taking a few with him to corner the mercenaries, boxing them into a closed hallway until they all died. Despite a few of the Marines taking shots, bruising the skin under their plate, black and blue blossoming like a bloody flower under the thin layer of skin, they kept their heads high and minds clear, moving forward without a misstep or hesitation. Soap swiped a few cards from the bodies, throwing one to Ghost.

“Delta 0-1 to Watcher, can you hear me?”

“Solid copy, Ghost,” Laswell voice rang out clearly, reaching his ears in seconds.

“We found the cells,” his eyes roved over them, white paint over thick, cement walls to hold whatever they locked into the cells, perhaps the children the saw or the big one, C34.

“Do you have the keycards?”

“Affirm,” Ghost growled slowly, hearing Laswell's confirmation to continue. “Going in.”

He tapped the pad, a loud beep ringing in their ears as the lock’s mechanism creaked to life, unlatching from its metal hold to let them in. Both he and Soap walked in, leaving the others to watch their backs while they surveyed the first room. It was dimly lit as it was bare of any decorations apart from a visible toilet, a small sink and a few metal beds. It looked like any usual cells they came across, made barren and empty of anything useful to prevent the prisoners from escaping or causing a ruckus, but the people they kept in these cells were children. Soap swore under his breath at the sight of children huddled together, seemingly no older than 12, he lowered his rifle. They were backed into a corner, three older kids holding a younger one in their arms, protecting her from them, from whoever meant to harm these children.

They looked malnourished, left to slowly rot in these cement boxes until the scientist found something worthwhile in them, their cheeks sunken in, eyes droopy and swollen with bruises - they were beaten, it made something ugly rear its head inside Ghost dead heart - and lips dried. One was armless, having wings that they used to cover both of their cellmates, naked with only feathers covering their body, this one looked more like a harpy than it did human. The two others had arms, both having the lower half of a mammal, neither of them was sure which four-legged mammal it was, but one had a pair of wings, while the other’s back was bare of anything.

“We’ve found the children.”

You could hear the chaos from your cell, the blaring alarm and the smell of death. The building shook from its foundation, vibration emanating from both the ground floor and the basement, just farther from your hall, the closed and sectioned-off area. They separated you from the defective ones, all your young mistakes they made after achieving success —you. They tried to recreate it, but it never came out how they wanted it. Maybe it was a mistake on their part or maybe it was the lack of a certain gene in their DNA, a subtle difference that you and the rest had. You didn’t want to know and you didn’t want them to succeed a second time, it was painful, the shift, the tests and the change, the storm of pain, terror and confusion weren’t worth this power.

You could hear the booming sound of gunfire, a loud ricochet of the bullet when the nitrocellulose sparked and sent the bullet outwards, finding its destination in the warm flesh of human guards. You usually enjoyed this kind of chaos if you knew what started it, and laughed when something caused trouble for your captors, but you were cautious of this one. You neither knew who thought to disturb the peace nor did you know who was behind this, their scents strange and the sound of steps unknown. All you knew was that their steps were heavy, out of breath but pushing their way into - what you thought to be - section C. The place they kept the young and willful.

You might be blinded by your cell, but the guards outside your confinement knew how to talk, their chatter and barking orders loud enough for you to hear through the thick walls. From them, you knew they were strangers, unknown players on your board of pawns. You didn’t know their goal, whether they were here to let you out or keep you in a cage of their making, but you knew they were a gamble on your fate. As the noise got closer, you sat down, crossed your paws and waited, cautiously awaiting to see what your verdict would be.

Strangely enough, there was a different section, separated from the other one by many gates and stricter security, but they were able to break through it. Security was concentrated in one hall as if the monster they locked at the end of this hallway was of big importance. It had higher security, stronger and thicker. Ghost wondered if it was to keep the monster in or keep people out, either way, this meant that they found the thing they first came here for: the trained and dangerous subject C34.

Ghost was apprehensive about opening this metal door, built taller than any doors he’d seen, it was as wide as it was tall, metres over what would be considered normal for a human or monster, similar to the wide gates that protected British castles, tall and imposing, but the most worrying was it’s vast amount of security measures. He thought back to the blurrier giant he saw in the picture, their shape indescribable and otherworldly, almost alien-like. His eyes met Soap’s reassuring ones, standing steadfast and unyielding to do good in the world. So with a nod, Ghost worked through the locks and scans of the heavy, metal door made to keep this cement cage closed. This door clicked loudly, echoing down the hall with ominous intent, foreseeing something damming and destructive.

Yet they hadn’t expected to see another cage within the cage, a box made of reinforced glass, large and robust and inside of it was another cage, a rough metal one with bars for walls, a sick joke of a bird’s gilded cage. It would’ve seemed almost exaggerated to have three layers - three different cages - to keep one subject safely locked up until he caught sight of the monster. Lying on the cold, metal ground with legs folded in, tail curled around them and staring at both him and Soap with cautious curiosity. It looked like a gryphon if it were more reptilian than a mammal, this monster had a human torso, a head wearing a stoic expression, dressed in rags. Where there would normally be legs was the body of a bird, an eagle perhaps from the golden-brown plumage and reptilian legs from the knee down, followed by a fully scaled back, hind legs and a strong tail. Each toe was tipped with a sharp claw, big and deadly if it got its hands on someone, it could easily rip into anyone without putting in much effort. The biggest thing about it was the folded wings, feathered and equipped with a talon. If it could fly, these wings would be powerful.

He understood why they kept it locked, it was neither man, monster or hybrid. It was a beast of human creation, a creature made to be at the peak of its condition. It was smart, he could see it, the glint in its eyes and the pursed lips, mien kept monotone and calm —observant.

What did Laswell sign them into?

Taglist: @craxy-person @crowbird @dead-cipher @iwannabealocalcryptid @iizx7y @mxtokko @yeetusspagheetus @capricorn-anon @perfectus-in-morte @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @tallmanlover @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @vxnilla-hxrddrugs @havoc973 @angelcakes-22 @cassiecasluciluce @ramadiiiisme @ramblingsofachaoticthinker @ki-cant-spel @im-making-an-effort @love-dove-noora @jinxxangel13 @daisychainsinknots @0alk0msan @mul-pi @danielle143 @dont-mind-me-just-existing-sadly

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spaghettioverdose · 2 months

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Am I stupid or something because I agree with all of your post but I don't know what's wrong with small businesses. Am I a capitalist because I'm disabled and can only make money selling stickers or am I missing a bigger picture

Because this is tumblr and people in the notes will immediately read three lines of this and accuse me of pissing on the poor, I will begin with a disclaimer that I am neither comparing you to a Elon Musk nor calling you evil.

So, you sell stickers. I would assume that in this context you are selling your own stickers with your own designs, rather than working as a cashier selling someone else's stickers, since you're disabled and you mentioned you can't work a job. You are therefore selling a product you own (whether you produce the stickers entirely yourself or use a 3rd party company) for a profit at a (presumably) online store instead of selling your labour power for a wage. This, by definition would make you petit bourgeois.

When communists talk about class positions, it is not a question of an individual's morality, motivation or amount of income.

Being a small business owner (or petit bourgeois), means that your class interests and the class interests of the workers (the proletariat) come into conflict. As a clear example, let's say in this scenario that you are selling a sticker design on a 3rd party website that specialises in this service, and they source the actual physical stickers from factories around the world. Here, you are essentially selling your intellectual property to the company in exchange for some of the profits from its further sale. Perhaps many of those factories are in the global south, in countires with very low wages and few worker protections (due to intervention from imperial core bourgeoisie powers). One day, the political struggle for worker rights and higher wages is won in some of these countries, driving up the cost of production for the stickers. Perhaps there is also a victory for a union of delivery service workers at home in the imperial core, driving up wages and protections for them as well, further cutting into profits.

The function of the 3rd party sticker company is to strive for ever-increasing profits the capitalists who own it and its investors. The cut in profit will have to be made up elsewhere. This will be done by investing in political groups that are willing to repress worker movements within these countries, shifting production to countries that have yet to achieve these worker victories, cutting corners on their imperial core workers, increasing their price of service by taking a larger cut of your profits, or a mixture of some or all of these.

In that scenario, the proletarian class interests (higher wages, more protections and regulations) are in direct conflicts with the interests of the bourgeois 3rd party sticker company (higher profits, meaning lower wages and less protections and regulations) and by extension, yours, as your class interests also revolve around profit. When workers gain more power, it cuts into your profits. As a petit bourgeois, you are incetivised to support and pursue bourgeois and petty bourgeois politics such as IP laws.

As an individual, you can be whatever kind of person with whatever politics and views you have. As a petit bourgeois small business owner, you have a certain class position that comes with a certain set of class interests. You can always choose to forego your own class interests and instead support the class interests of the proletariat by being a communist even while continuing to be petit bourgeois or even as full on bourgeois. Very notable example being Engles who, although he was a factory owner, he was also one of the two founders of marxism, with the other one being Marx.

The point I was trying to make in the post that probably got you to send this anon, is that there isn't anything inherently communist or "leftist" about supporting small businesses. It is both an incredibly common liberal policy and talking point to support small business, and it does not serve the interests of a proletarian political movement to protect the petit bourgeoisie or ally with them, except in certain instances and involving certain sections of the petit bourgeois, rather than a blanket statement of saying that the small business owner is a nobler form of capitalist.

#asks #anon

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lovelytsunoda · 1 year

Text

starstrukk // zhou guanyu

summary: there were many things that fred vasseur took on when he became the team principal of alfa romeo racing. the hardest task, however, seems to currently be keeping zhou guanyu away from his daughter.

or, the four times that y/n vasseur and zhou guanyu were almost interrupted by fred, and the one time that he found out about his daughter and his rookie

pairing: zhou guanyu x vasseur! reader

warnings: fred is in a constant state of disappointed father energy, there will be multiple sex or almost-sex scenes, so you have been warned. secret relationships, google translated mandarin. mentions of silverstone 2022.

author's note: this is pure crack. i came up with this idea during me real estate law test review when i should have been paying attention and just chose not to.

when y/n met zhou.

she hated parties. especially team parties.

there was no reason for her to be at the gala, and she'd told her father as much, but he wanted his family around him to open the 2022 racing season. and, as much as she wanted to protest, y/n vasseur was a daddy's girl through and through. she loved her father to bits.

which was how she found herself dressed in a cherry red gown she bought at melanie lyne for less than $500, the dress that she wore to all of these stupid events, with her forty-dollar skin-tone aldo heels on underneath, her dark hair curled in her apartment bathroom less than an hour before. the curling iron hadn't been hot enough, and her hair was already starting to lose it's shape.

she was sitting at the table alone, reading a romance book on her phone that followed an fbi agent and the woman he was sworn to protect. it wasn't the best thing she had read in her life, but it was better than following her father around and pretending to be interested in chatting with representatives from orlen and singha.

that was the night that she met zhou guanyu for the first time.

the driver looked like a deer in headlights as fred paraded the rookie around the room, brushing elbows with investors. valtteri was smart enough to slip away from fred at any chance he could get, but zhou hadn't gotten the memo. he was new to this. he probably didn't even know that there was a memo to begin with.

when she saw how miserable the driver looked, it was like something inside her changed. she knew well enough that she had had that same look on her face throughout every sponsorship event she had attended since she was thirteen years old. she found herself shutting off her phone and slipping it into her sequined clutch purse before she made her way over to where her father and zhou were talking to a tuxedoed representative from mitsubishi.

"hi." she cut in, introducing herself as she stuck a hand out for the rookie driver to shake. "y/n vasseur. has my father bored you to death yet?"

she felt a sense of accomplishment when zhou smiled at her, his hand heavy and inviting in hers. "not yet, but i think i lost a few decades since this whole thing started."

"oh, you and me both."

the first time fred thought something was up.

it was the third race of the year. y/n vasseur was sitting in a corner office in the alfa romeo motorhome, her thick hair tied in a clumsy ponytail, legs crossed underneath her as she hunched over her macbook, a ceramic hot chocolate mug rapidly cooling next to her as she narrowed her eyes at the pdf file she was reading.

she considered herself lucky to be allowed to work remotely. she worried about fred a little too often, and found herself accompanying him to a few races a year, not just for the atmosphere, but to make sure that her father didn't work himself too hard.

the office door slowly clicked open, something she barely noticed as she chewed on the end of her pen, music thrumming through the airpod in her right ear.

the door closed as quietly as it had opened, two strong arms wrapping her in a warm, comforting embrace as zhou guanyu kissed her softly on the cheek.

"don't work yourself too hard, bao bei. you've been stressed out all weekend. i'm worried about you."

"if anyone should be worried, it should be me." she joked. "my boyfriend is the one who's about to strap himself into a three-hundred mile an hour death trap".

she leaned back in her chair, looking over at the driver. he still had his arms around her, and she reached up to lace her fingers with his.

"have you eaten yet? i brought you a bowl of fettucine from hospitality." zhou hummed, kissing her forehead.

"thank you, baby." she said softly, standing up from her desk chair to properly wrap her arms around the driver.

her father still didn't know that she was seeing his rookie driver. she knew that frederic would overreact, and someone (likely zhou) would lose their job, and all credibility within the sport, especially given how high-stress everybody felt during a race weekend. she was planning on at least waiting until the summer break to tell her father.

"i love you." she hummed, kissing him softly, one hand gently carding through zhou's hair as he held her, his tongue moving softly with hers.

"i love you more." he hummed, cradling her body close. "my lucky charm."

"hm, yeah? i'm your lucky charm?" she giggled, pressing up on her tiptoes, looping her arms around her lover's neck.

"yeah, yeah you are." he hummed, kissing her again as she pushed him down onto the couch, halfheartedly looking over at the large tinted window to make sure that the blinds were drawn enough that nobody could see what they were about to do.

she kicked off her slip-on vans, straddling zhou with one knee on either side of his lap as she kissed him hard, grinding down on his lap, one hand on either side of his face. the driver clutched her thighs, moaning softly as he tilted his head back to allow the heated make-out session to take on a better angle.

"mhm, should i give you a little extra luck, baby?" she hummed, gently tugging at his hair before she kissed him deeply, one hand moving down his chest.

"mhm, yeah, how are you going to do that, angel face?" he breathed as she kissed his neck, hands fumbling with the buttons on his slacks.

"i can think of a few ways." she grinned, wrapping her palm around zhou's erection before moving her hand up and down his shaft, peppering kisses to his neck as she worked.

"oh, bao bei." he hummed, throwing his head back. "just like that, darling. just like that." he moaned as he bucked his hips into her hand, and she could feel the heat building up between her legs as she slipped off his lap, hand still working as she situated herself between his spread legs.

she smiled up at her lover, pressing a kiss to his thigh before taking his length into her mouth, hands braced on his thighs as zhou moaned in pleasure, biting his lower lip as so not to be heard through the thin walls before he mumbled something in mandarin.

"your mouth feels like heaven, baby." he hummed, reaching down to wrap his hand around her ponytail. "take it nice and slowly, let's not rush this."

he leaned back against the couch, another strangled moan leaving his throat.

until there was a knock on the door.

y/n had never sprung to her feet so fast, wiping the drool from the corner of her mouth with the hem of her cotton crop top, her lover's still-hard cock falling from her mouth as she looked over at the door.

"y/n? are you in there, kiddo?" fred vasseur's voice echoed into the room, panic sinking into y/n's bones.

"closet, now." she hissed, practically pulling zhou off the couch. "he can't know you're here." she turned back to the door as her boyfriend backed into the small closet, a throw pillow from the couch covering his painful hard on. "one second, dad!"

she kissed zhou apologetically before she closed the closet door, quickly giving her appearance a once over in her phone camera before opening the office door.

"hey, dad. what's up?"

"just checking on my beautiful daughter." fred vasseur answered honestly, pulling his daughter in for a hug. "are you coming out to watch the qualifying session?"

y/n nodded. "yeah, i need a break from my work. i feel like my eyes have gone numb from staring at that screen all morning. how are you doing? you aren't working too hard?"

fred shrugged. "you know how it is. have you had lunch yet?"

y/n nodded. "i had something brought up from hospitality, literally like ten minutes ago. i haven't eaten yet, though. when does qualifying start?"

"in about an hour. i'm trying to wrangle the drivers. you haven't seen guanyu, have you?"

"no, i haven't sorry." she wondered if she answered too fast, if her dad knew something was up.

if her dad knew that his rookie driver was hiding in her office closet. that zhou guanyu's cock had been down his daughter's throat not even a minute before she opened that office door. "dad, i hate to cut this short, but i really do have work to do."

fred cleared his throat "right, sorry kiddo." he looked like he was about to back away, when he paused. "do i smell men's cologne?"

shit. zhou's dior cologne had a very distinct smell to it, following the chinese driver around like a cloud.

"dad!" she warned, moving to close the door. "you have work to do!"

"no boyfriends in the motorhome, y/n! you know the rules!"

"goodbye, dad!"

at the sound of the door closing, zhou knocked on the closet door from the inside. "can i come out now?"

she opened the closet door, frowning sadly at her boyfriend. "hey. sorry about my dad. no boys in the motorhome has been a rule since i was sixteen. not like i ever had boys to bring in to the motorhome."

"it's okay." zhou said softly, kissing her on the forehead, one hand cupping the side of her face. "i know why you don't want him to know about us."

"thank you for understanding, guanyu. i love you, baby." she pressed up against her boyfriend to kiss him softly, her tongue slipping into his mouth before she gently bit down on his bottom lip.

"now, let's take care of that pesky little problem you've got down there." she hummed mischeviously, her hand sliding down the front of his boxers.

now fred definitely knows that something is up, but he doesn't know with who.

the sun was filtering through the sheer curtains into y/n vasseur's bedroom. she was curled up comfortably underneath the goose down duvet, zhou guanyu's arms wrapped securely around her, her head resting on his chest as she stirred awake.

"good morning, gorgeous." zhou hummed, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she nuzzled her nose into his bare chest.

"mornin'." she grumbled, pulling the covers up over their groggy bodies. "can i go back to bed?"

zhou laughed, running his fingers through her hair. "don't you have to go to work?"

she shook her head, hooking her leg over zhou's thigh before kissing him softly. "i'm working from home today. do you have to do anything?"

"just a sponsorship meeting." he hummed softly, kissing her again.

"so we can stay in bed longer?" y/n said hopefully, raising her eyebrows as she moved to straddle her lover, silk pajama shorts riding up on her thighs.

"of course we can, angel face." zhou grins, his hands on her hips as he rolled their bodies over so that he was hovering over her, his arms caging her to the bed.

he kissed her softly, smiles of contentment blooming on their faces. y/n loved soft, cozy mornings like these. mornings where she could lie in bed with the man she loved, feeling safe, loved and secure. days where they would be content doing nothing at all.

"i love mornings like these." she hummed as zhou softly pressed kisses to her face, the knotted drawstring of his sweatpants pressing into her bare stomach where the old band shirt she slept in had ridden up. "just you and me. no worries, no responsibilities." she giggled as zhou blew a raspberry into her neck.

"so how do you want to spend this free morning?" zhou hummed, his fingers teasing the waistband of her shorts.

"i can think of a few ideas." she said huskily, raising an eyebrow as she slipped one hand down the back of her lover's sweatpants to cup the globe of his ass within her palm.

zhou smiled, leaning in to kiss her sweetly, and deeply. "i like the way you think, vasseur."

she hooked her leg over his thigh, grinding against the ever-growing bulge in her boyfriend's sweatpants as zhou slipped his tongue into her mouth. she moaned in contentment, burying her fingers in his hair as the driver gripped her thigh tightly.

zhou's nimble fingers began to unlace the drawstring resting just below his lover's navel when her cell phone began to ring from the nightstand.

"motherfucker!" y/n groaned, gently pushing zhou off of her. "again, dad! seriously?"

zhou chuckled, sitting back on his heels. "how do you know it's your dad?"

"because my phone is on 'do not disturb' and he's one of three people that are on the greenlit calls list." she groaned, throwing her arm over her eyes.

her lover looked at her thoughtfully, running his thumb over the soft flesh of her calf. "do you want me to run you a shower, bao bei? that way the water is all warm and ready for you when you're done talking to your dad?"

"that would be great, love. thank you." she hummed, sitting up and kissing zhou softly before reaching for her phone. once zhou was safely out of her bedroom, she swiped to answer the whatsapp video call from her father. "hi, dad. why in god's name are you calling me at seven in the morning on a friday?"

fred vasseur chuckled, looking at his daughter's dishevelled appearance and the messy, crinkled sheets that she had pulled around her shoulders. "i was just double checking if we were doing lunch today or tomorrow. your mother tried to get me on that google calendar thing, but i don't think it synced properly with my phone and i can't find the lunch anywhere."

y/n groaned, rolling her eyes. "dad, that could have been a text message."

"i know. but i just wanted to talk to my baby girl."

"dad, i'm twenty-two years old, hardly your baby girl any more." she chuckled, running a hand through her hair.

frederic smiled. "nonsense, y/n. you'll always be my little girl."

she could hear the shower in her miniscule ensuite bathroom whistle to life, the rush of warm water a comforting background noise through the pale pink wall.

"y/n, is there someone else in your apartment? is that why you wanted to get rid of me so easily?"

"no!" y/n said, again, a little too fast for her father not to have gathered that there was, in fact, another person in her apartment. "i just turned the shower on before i answered your call. you know how long that the water takes to warm up in my apartment."

"babe!"

fuck me. y/n visibly recoiled when zhou's voice echoed through the apartment.

"what body wash did you want?" the rookie driver grinned, sticking his head out the doorframe.

y/n glared at him, hiding the camera from her father as she made a slicing motion across her throat to indicate that the driver should probably stop talking.

"y/n y/m/n vasseur! do you have a boy in your apartment? and is that a hickey on your neck?"

"i'll meet you for lunch at 1:30, the usual spot." y/n said hurriedly, grabbing her cell phone from the mattress next to her and reasdjusting the duvet that was wrapped around her shoulders so that her father couldn't see the glaring red mark where her neck met her collarbone. "we are not talking about my love life at any point today."

"no, i think it's good that you've found someone!" fred beamed. "is it somebody that i know?"

"no, dad. i'm not dating within the sport." she wondered if her father could hear the untruths in her voice. "but i'm not ready to introduce him to the dumpster fire that which is my father's workplace."

"do i at least get a name?"

"goodbye, dad." she groaned, hanging up before she flopped back on the bed, head in her hands as she fought the urge to scream.

the time he guessed but knew better than to say anything.

the silverstone crash had rattled everybody. but what hurt y/n vasseur the most was having to keep her emotion under wraps as she watched her boyfriend's car flip over going into the first corner, the halo dragging across the tarmac and the grass before tumbling over a tyre barrier.

as far as her father was concerned, her friendship with zhou guanyu was strictly platonic, and she was struggling to keep her composure. she needed to be as calm as every other person in the alfa romeo garage as she stood on the pit wall next to her father, nervously clutching frederic's arm and chewing on her nails to distract herself.

to refrain from shouting out, refrain from sobbing.

her lover was strapped in a tin death trap, dangling from his seat and pressed up against the chain link fence, and she couldn't show any emotion whatsoever.

when it was confirmed that zhou was okay, and he had been transferred to the medical bay, y/n finally allowed herself to feel the torrent of emotions that she had kept bottled up like the seashells and sand she kept in that jar on her mantel.

she made her way out into the paddock, still struggling to force her weak, cement-block legs to move, trying to process the gut-wrenching, straight out of tv moment that had just unfolded in front of her eyes.

the first few silent tears began to fall, and when she walked past charles leclerc, who grabbed her by the arm and asked if she was okay, the monegasque driver's voice sounding like it was miles away, she woke up.

and she let out the first heart-breaking sob as she collapsed against charles' side, still unable to find the words.

how was she supposed to explain that she had just watched the love of her life almost lose his.

"i love him!" she coughed out, struggling to stand on her own two feet as charles gripped her arms, trying to avoid making a scene. "can you take me to see him, charles? i need to see guanyu."

if charles was fazed by how shaken up his former team principal's daughter was, he didn't show it as he guided her towards the medical bay, allowing the french girl to compose herself before going inside.

her face was red and puffy, and it was clear as day to all inside the room that she had been sobbing just moments before. she waved wearily at alex albon, who flashed her a look of discomfort along with a subtle raise of the hand as one of the nurses conducted an ultrasound on his wrist.

she quietly asked one of the nurses where her lover was before slipping behind the thin plastic sheet keeping zhou's condition private from the rest of the wards.

"you scared me, jackass." she tried to smile, voice shaky as she tried not to cry. "i'm glad that you're okay."

"oh, bao bei." zhou's voice wavered. "come here. i'm so sorry for scaring you, but i'm fine, see?"

shaking her head, y/n slipped onto the hospital bed next to zhou, gingerly wrapping her arms around him before pressing a single kiss to the side of his head, balaclava lines still visible on his face. "please, never do that to me again."

"i'm not going anywhere, angel face." he sighed, turning his head to kiss her. "i was so scared. i genuinely thought i wasn't going to be able to get out of that car. if it wasn't for george..."

"i know, honey." y/n sighed, resting her forehead against his as a tear began to fall down her face, following the tracks of the many salty emotions that had spilled over before it. "i love you." she whispered, her lips ghosting over her boyfriends skin as she curled into his side.

the plastic curtain slid open again, and fred vasseur jokingly knocked on the wall before making his way inside. if he was at all shocked at the sight of his driver and his daughter curled up in the hospital bed, he didn't show it.

fred had been beginning to suspect something was up in his daughter's love life for a few months now. but if this breif moment in time was confirming anything at all in his mind, he chose to keep it to himself.

"hey, champ. that's one hell of a recovery you've made."

and the time that fred vasseur walked in on a very compromising situation.

the moon was high as fred vasseur steered the alfa romeo into his daughter's driveway. the team had just had a sponsorship meeting, a gala if you will, and y/n and zhou had decided that it would just bea easier for zhou to just leave his car outside y/n's flat.

of course, what fred didn't need to know was that zhou guanyu had just spent the weekend at his daughter's flat, and had really all but moved in with her.

"thanks for the ride, dad. i'll call you in the morning." y/n said, leaning over the console to kiss her father on the cheek before opening the passenger side door and slipping out of the luxury vehicle.

behind her, zhou slipped almost ghost-like out of the backseat, waiting for frederic to reverse out of the driveway before he allowed himself to slip his arm around his girlfriend's waist, the couple turning to walk up the cobblestone drive to y/n's front door.

as soon as the front door was closed and they were certain that they wouldn't get caught, y/n slipped out of her leather jacket, spinning barefoot in the front hall so the shimmery black fabric of her gown swirled around her legs.

this was a different dress than the one she normally wore to such an event. she decided to change things up this far into the season. and it helped that her boyfriend was sponsored by dior and prada.

"i'm not going to lie," she hummed, reaching for zhou's collar and undoing the first few buttons on the white silk shirt she wore underneath his suit jacket. "it's been very hard to keep my hands off of you tonight. you look very sexy in a suit, my love."

zhou smiled, sliding his hands gently over his girlfriend's waist. "well, clearly you are the only one who had that problem."

"yeah, what were you thinking with that under-the-table stuff?" y/n giggled, playfully smacking zhou's chest. "i thought for sure that dad would realize something was up."

"i was barely touching you." zhou laughed, "my hand was literally just on your thigh."

"yeah, under my dress!" she smiled, pressing up on her tiptoes to kiss him softly. "i love you, zhou guanyu."

"love you more, y/n vasseur."

they kissed softly in the front hall, both parties finding it increasingly difficult to keep the kisses gentle and sweet as hands began to grip tender flesh tighter, hands fumbling with buttons on shirts, sliding up slits in dresses. teeth nipping at lips, tongues brushing up against each other, sharp gasps escaping throats.

zhou's suit jacket fell to the floor, his shirt hanging limply off his frame without the buttons to hold it closed, his lover's hands roaming his warm, soft skin as his lips dipped down to kiss her neck, backing her up against the kitchen island.

"zhou, honey," she breathed, fingers tangling in his hair as he sucked a hickey into her collarbone. "i'm not wearing a bra."

zhou paused, drawing away from y/n's neck to look her in the eyes, a cheeky grin on his face as he brushed her hair behind her ear. "just when i thought you couldn't get any sexier."

he kissed her again, hungry and full of passion as his hand slinked around her back to undo the ties holding her dress together, watching the straps slip down her shoulders and reveal her perfect, beautiful breasts.

"you're the most beautiful woman i have ever met." he mumbled huskily, kissing her again as her hands wrapped around his biceps, his hands moving to grope her chest, feeling himself getting harder with every breathy whine she let out.

switching his focus to her neck, he slipped his hands underneath the glittery lace of her dress, teasing his fingers along the outline of her lacy panties.

"guanyu," she whined, voice shaky and desperate, bucking her hips against his slender, nimble fingers. "i need you so badly. i need you to fuck me."

"i've got you, bao bei." he hummed, kissing her forehead sweetly before tugging at the waistband of her panties, doing his best not to rip them but simultaneously not caring if he tore them in half.

the skimpy fabric fell to the floor, y/n's hands flying to the fabric covering her lover's very obvious hard-on. she undid the button holding his slacks together, slipping her hand into his boxers before palming his cock and guiding it towards the center of her spread legs.

he sunk inside of her, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist as she cursed in french, the end of the curse pitching into a moan as he began to thrust inside her, a deep groan leaving his own throat

"fuck, just like that, baby." she whined, throwing her head back as her fingernails dug into his shoulders, his cock sliding in and out of her dripping core, each thrust sending shockwaves through her body.

"y/n?" a heavily accented voice called from the front hallway, followed shortly by the front door swinging shut. "you left your purse in my- holy mary mother of christ!"

"dad!? what the fuck?" y/n screamed, jumping off the counter and scrambling to right her dress as zhou hastily does up the zipper on his slacks, turning his back to his team principal. "you can't just barge into my flat!"

"you left the door unlocked!" fred vassuer moaned, his eyes still closed. "can i open my eyes yet? are you both decent?"

"uhh, i think so?" she said hesitantly, panic flaring in her bones as she scrambled to kick her discarded panties behind the island and out of sight. "what the fuck are you doing here?"

"you left your purse in my car." fred glared, passing his daughter the small dooney and bourke handbag. "i've known somethignw as up since silverstone, but seriously? on the kitchen island? you guys haven't been home half an hour yet!"

"i'm so sorry, sir." zhou pleaded, reaching for his girlfriend's hand. "we never meant for it to be like this. we were going to tell you once the season was over."

"were you at least using protection? or not, i mean, i'd like to become a grandfather before i die."

"dad!" y/n scolded. "can we talk about this another time, please?"

"i am so taking that ferrari job."

Tags:

@sidcrosbyspuck @magnummagnussen @libraryofloveletters @daydreamingleclerc @scuderiamh @estevries

#zhou guanyu x y/n #zhou guanyu x reader #formula one x reader #formula 1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #lovelytsunodas katy perry series

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possumcollege · 2 months

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NOBODY needs to be defending these people. Major publishers, studios, streaming services, Tesla, Apple, Adobe, Amazon, social media companies- there isnt a single altruistic bone caught in their teeth. Profit from the output of exploited and captive labor IS their product now. When their contacts look like the one in question, the company is clearly stating that shareholders are the customers, not us!

Why else would it be anything but a stupid idea for Amazon to just nuke the majority of Comixology's self-published titles when they consolidated their services? If our experience was really foremost in their minds, why would they repeatedly purge, censor, demonitize, bury, and delete popular accounts with robust followings if not to allay the moral brainworms of shareholders and investors?

Forfeiting rights to our IP is not a "shitty deal," it's surrendering any potential ability to make money off of your own creative work. It's selling your property to a board of accountants to pitch into a portfolio. It's theirs to trot out as long as it's profitable and bury the instant its projected profit dips too close to the cost of maintenance. Hell, we've seen services drop popular series just because their projected profits started to flatten out! Mothballing it also has the added bonus of removing it from the market to further minimize potential competition. Like how there just weren't spider man movies for ages because the owner of the property didn't think it was worth developing but worth too much to sell.

They will make more money from suing you for trying to reclaim IP they mothballed than you did selling it to them in the first place. I guaranteee their budget for lawsuits is a lot deeper than the one they pay their "original" artists from.

By virtue of being a big, profitable, corporation, "their" IP is going to have an astronomically higher value in a court of law than any individual creator. The financial "damage" will be higher for infringing on their copyrights than any amount you can claim on your own. When it becomes theirs, their connections, their infrastructure, their reputation makes it an asset with much more value than you or I can possibly claim. So if you try to steal a bite back from them it's a bite of a *potentially* multimillion-dollar series. In their eyes, they bought the totality of your work, which you agreed was worth the price they gave you. It's value becomes more dependent on who owns it than whether it's even good.

You may not have the same potential to become flash-in-the-pan, short-term succesful without their resources, but you will still own your rights to distribute, alter, preserve, promote, and negotiate your share if you still own your work. That is worth everything as a creator who is passionate about what you've made and committed to protecting it.

The most effective power we can exercise as artists is our ability to say, "no" when someone else wants to pay us a disadvantageous fraction of our worth. You may lose potentially lucrative opportunities but "opportunities" presented by companies like Facebook or Twitter, whose real product is a platform for ads and data collection, with content as bait, are not opportunities to thrive on as independent artists. This specifically is an opportunity for the company to acquire property.

The myth that the publisher's strength is something for us to exploit, without them getting the lion's share is a trap that they feed from at will.

People like the poster up top are opportunists who see the process as a pipeline towards trading low-investment content for financial treats and maybe a share of ad revive. They're stalking horses for companies to exploit more talented but less experienced artists who are facing a daunting and overwhelming market where their work becomes harder and harder to show, let alone sell. A quick deal may feel like a win but it's selling the cow to save money on bottling the milk. Artists like this serve the publisher by making it seem like signing away your rights are just a necessary part of the game. However it's a game they are playing with exceedingly cheap stakes that weren't going to succeed on their own merit. So what if Mr. Business Perspective loses rights to his sexy Mario Bros. parody to a huge company? The point was always to unload it because it's a product, a bartering chip, a trinket. He's a Business Man, so he sees tactics that maximize profits to the business as maximizing their ability to buy whatever shiny tripe he cranks out. The business is his customer, not the reader. The business is his ally, not the creative community. Fuck him and fuck anyone who tells you the exposure is worth a damn if you don't retain rights to your work.

#comics #rant

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years

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Shelter in place

Shelter is a human necessity and a human right. A successful society is one that safeguards our freedoms and our rights. The decision to turn housing into the major speculative asset class for retail investors and Wall Street has made housing a disaster for people with houses — and a catastrophe for those without.

America has a terrible, accelerating homelessness problem. Many of us share this problem — obviously, people without houses have the worst of it. But no one benefits from mass homelessness — it is a stain on the human soul to live among people who are unsheltered.

However, there is an answer to the problem of people lacking homes, one with a strong evidentiary basis, which costs significantly less than dealing with the crises of homelessness: give homes to people who don’t have them. It’s called Housing First, and it works:

https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/

But Housing First has a fatal flaw: it merely helps people without homes find them. It does not generate excess profits for a highly concentrated sector. No one profiteers off Housing First, and so there is no well-funded lobby to promote it.

However, there is a highly concentrated industry with sky-high profits and a powerful lobbying arm that has its own proposal for ending homelessness. It’s the private prison industry, and its proposal is to make homelessness illegal and then put all the homeless people in private prisons:

https://invisiblepeople.tv/private-prisons-for-homeless-criminalization/

A wave of laws criminalizing homelessness has come before American statehouses, and behind them is a deep-pocketed astroturf campaign run by The Cicero Institute, a “libertarian” think-tank that has widely shopped model legislation called the “Reducing Street Homelessness Act.”

Under the proposal, anyone caught sleeping on the streets would be liable to imprisonment. Further, homeless people judged to have mental health issues by police officers would be either imprisoned or locked up in mental heath facilities. As Kayla Robbins writes for Invisible People, such a law would substantially raise the stakes for any homeless person seeking help from police or other services — if they decide you look “mentally ill,” they could lock you up indefinitely.

Where will the money for all these new prison beds come from? By diverting budgets currently allocated for permanent housing.

It’s weird that the Cicero Institute would devote so much energy to discrediting Housing First and promoting criminalization (“libertarians” who want to throw millions of people, mostly Black and brown, into prison indefinitely have a highly selective definition of “liberty).

But there’s at least a circumstantial case for why they would undertake this project: their founder is Joe Lonsdale, the billionaire Palantir co-founder whose VC firm 8VC has made sizable investments in private prisons.

Americans without homes are in a terrible place. How about Americans with homes? Well, obviously they have it better — but it’s not as though they’re well-served by market-based housing, either.

Treating a human necessity as a speculative asset has all kinds of negative outcomes — for your house’s value to continue to rise, the plight of tenants has to steadily worsen. The resale price of your home will include the expected returns from renting it out (even if the new owner doesn’t become a landlord, they’re going to have to bid against someone who would), and rental returns go up when tenancy protections go down.

Meanwhile, the spiraling price of housing — driven by the policy requirement to drive up asset prices to please homeowning voters — means that your kids are going to end up (someone else’s) tenants, exposed to the cruelties you promoted to safeguard the family asset.

You’re not even going to be able to pass that asset onto your kids — focusing on asset appreciation, rather than public service provision, means that you will have to liquidate the family home to pay for your eldercare and your kid’s student debts.

Back in 2021, I wrote, “The Rent’s Too Damned High,” about the way that treating housing as an asset rather than a necessity has made everything else worse:

https://gen.medium.com/the-rents-too-damned-high-520f958d5ec5

But here it is, 2022, and it’s even worse. Writing for Bloomberg, Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal describe the enweirdening of the housing market as interest rates rise.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-10/here-s-how-weird-things-are-getting-in-the-housing-market?leadSource=uverify%20wall

Housing is becoming less affordable: with interest rates going up, the cost of a new mortgage is unbearable for many working people. What’s more, banks are tightening up their lending criteria, making it harder to get a mortgage in the first place.

This may feel familiar — it certainly echoes the housing market after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. But unlike 2008, the people who have houses aren’t losing them in walloping great numbers. Partly that’s because we’re not letting giant banks steal their houses with mortgage fraud:

https://web.archive.org/web/20171005131636/https://www.thenation.com/article/how-americas-biggest-bank-paid-its-fine-for-the-2008-mortgage-crisis-with-phony-mortgages/

But it’s also because banks started requiring larger downpayments after the GFC, so borrowers aren’t saddled with terrible debt-to-equity ratios, and many homeowners were able to refinance at rock-bottom prices during the lockdown. And, unlike 2008, most mortgages today are fixed rate — even though interest rates are rising, your mortgage rate is locked in.

That’s produced a very weird circumstance: no one can afford to buy a house, but prices aren’t going down. For prices to go down, we’d need to see more houses on the market, and no one wants to build a new house in this environment.

With no new houses going up, any additional supply would come from existing homeowners selling their homes. But when you sell your home, you usually have to buy another one, and that means swapping your 2% 2020 mortgage for a a 5% 2022 mortgage — which translates to a six- or seven-figure increase in the overall price of your home.

Has someone offered you a better job in another city or state? Great! Is it worth paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more for your mortgage over the next 20 years? No? Okay, I guess the answer is no.

To recap: treating shelter as a speculative asset means that we’re about to permanently imprison thousands of homeless people at enormous public expense. It means that your kids are doomed to being rent-burdened tenants with no legal rights for their rest of their lives. And it means that you are locked into the house you were in when the music stopped, no matter how many reasons there are to go somewhere else.

Turning housing into an asset doesn’t help you, the person looking for a place to live. But it’s great news for Wall Street and billionaires like Jeff Bezos, who are buying up whole neighborhoods and turning them into high-rent slums:

https://www.benzinga.com/real-estate/22/08/28685878/jeff-bezos-bet-on-housing-slide-his-single-family-rental-play-is-well-timed

sImage: in0_m0x0 (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/marineperez/4698707308/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[Image ID: A row of barred prison cells; superimposed over them, in needlepoint font, is the motto 'Home Sweet Home.']

#pluralistic

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 months

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Supreme Court poised to appoint federal judges to run the US economy.

January 18, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

JAN 17, 2024

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on two cases that provide the Court with the opportunity to overturn the “Chevron deference doctrine.” Based on comments from the Justices, it seems likely that the justices will overturn judicial precedent that has been settled for forty years. If they do, their decision will reshape the balance of power between the three branches of government by appointing federal judges as regulators of the world’s largest economy, supplanting the expertise of federal agencies (a.k.a. the “administrative state”).

Although the Chevron doctrine seems like an arcane area of the law, it strikes at the heart of the US economy. If the Court were to invalidate the doctrine, it would do so in service of the conservative billionaires who have bought and paid for four of the justices on the Court. The losers would be the American people, who rely on the expertise of federal regulators to protect their water, food, working conditions, financial systems, public markets, transportation, product safety, health care services, and more.

The potential overruling of the Chevron doctrine is a proxy for a broader effort by the reactionary majority to pare the power of the executive branch and Congress while empowering the courts. Let’s take a moment to examine the context of that effort.

But I will not bury the lead (or the lede): The reactionary majority on the Court is out of control. In disregarding precedent that conflicts with the conservative legal agenda of its Federalist Society overlords, the Court is acting in a lawless manner. It is squandering hard-earned legitimacy. It is time to expand the Court—the only solution that requires a simple majority in two chambers of Congress and the signature of the president.

The “administrative state” sounds bad. Is it?

No. The administrative state is good. It refers to the collective body of federal employees, regulators, and experts who help maintain an orderly US economy. Conservatives use the term “administrative state” to denigrate federal regulation and expertise. They want corporations to operate free of all federal restraint—free to pollute, free to defraud, free to impose dangerous and unfair working conditions, free to release dangerous products into the marketplace, and free to engage in deceptive practices in public markets.

The US economy is the largest, most robust economy in the world because federal regulators impose standards for safety, honesty, transparency, and accountability. Not only is the US economy the largest in the world (as measured by nominal GDP), but its GDP per capita ($76,398) overshadows that of the second largest economy, China ($12,270). The US dollar is the reserve currency for the world and its markets are a haven for foreign investment and capital formation. See The Top 25 Economies in the World (investopedia.com)

US consumers, banks, investment firms, and foreign investors are attracted to the US economy because it is regulated. US corporations want all the benefits of regulations—until regulations get in the way of making more money. It is at that point that the “administrative state” is seen as “the enemy” by conservatives who value profit maximization above human health, safety, and solvency.

It is difficult to comprehend how big the US economy is. To paraphrase Douglas Adams’s quote about space, “It’s big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is.” Suffice to say, the US economy is so big it cannot be regulated by several hundred federal judges with dockets filled with criminal cases and major business disputes.

Nor can Congress pass enough legislation to keep pace with ever changing technological and financial developments. Congress can’t pass a budget on time; the notion that it would be able to keep up with regulations necessary to regulate Bitcoin trading in public markets is risible.

What is the Chevron deference doctrine?

Managing the US economy requires hundreds of thousands of subject matter experts—a.k.a. “regulators”—who bring order, transparency, and honesty to the US economy. Those experts must make millions of judgments each year in creating, implementing and applying federal regulations.

And this is where the “Chevron deference doctrine” comes in. When federal experts and regulators interpret federal regulations in esoteric areas such as maintaining healthy fisheries, their decisions should be entitled to a certain amount of deference. And they have received such deference since 1984, when the US Supreme Court created a rule of judicial deference to decisions by federal regulators in the case of Chevron v. NRDC.

What happened at oral argument?

In a pair of cases, the US Supreme Court heard argument on Tuesday as to whether the Chevron deference doctrine should continue—or whether the Court should overturn the doctrine and effectively throw out 17,000 federal court decisions applying the doctrine. According to Court observers, including Mark Joseph Stern of Slate, the answer is “Yes, the Court is poised to appoint federal judges as regulators of the US economy.” See Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, The Supreme Court is seizing more power from Democratic presidents. (slate.com)

I recommend Stern’s article for a description of the grim atmosphere at the oral argument—kind of “pre-demise” wake for the Chevron deference doctrine. Stern does a superb job of explaining the effects of overruling Chevron:

Here’s the bottom line: Without Chevron deference, it’ll be open season on each and every regulation, with underinformed courts playing pretend scientist, economist, and policymaker all at once. Securities fraud, banking secrecy, mercury pollution, asylum applications, health care funding, plus all manner of civil rights laws: They are ultravulnerable to judicial attack in Chevron’s absence. That’s why the medical establishment has lined up in support of Chevron, explaining that its demise would mark a “tremendous disruption” for patients and providers; just rinse and repeat for every other area of law to see the convulsive disruptions on the horizon.

The Kochs and the Federalist Society have bought and paid for this sad outcome. The chaos that will follow will hurt consumers, travelers, investors, patients and—ultimately—American businesses, who will no longer be able to rely on federal regulators for guidance as to the meaning of federal regulations. Instead, businesses will get an answer to their questions after lengthy, expensive litigation before overworked and ill-prepared judges implement a political agenda.

Expand the Court. Disband the reactionary majority by relegating it to an irrelevant minority. If we win control of both chambers of Congress in 2024 and reelect Joe Biden, expanding the Court should be the first order of business.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Corrupt SCOTUS #Robert B. Hubbell #Robert b. Hubbell Newsletter #Expand the Court #Chevron deference #regulatory agencies #consumer protection #government by Federalist Society

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sgiandubh · 9 months

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In property we trust

A recycled Anon from Mordor (¿Quieres un chicle? ) sent this pearl to @bat-cat-reader :

What a gargantuan twat, this one. I am howling with glee.

You do not buy a house under a trustee, you fool. You either sign a Declaration of Trust when you buy a new property OR you put a house you bought in a trust, for crying out loud. These are two slightly different situations, but both point out towards the absence of normality.

First situation: you sign a Declaration of Trust when you buy that house. The person or company who paid the money (always for tax reasons) is the settlor and you are the trustee(s) who sign the document:

To cut the story short, I found this very clear article, explaining everything better than I could at almost 1 AM local time (https://www.elitelawsolicitors.co.uk/declaration-of-trust-for-property/):

You basically buy a property like you would buy shares in a firm. You are business partners of sorts, because there is no prior cohabitation agreement between you and you want to be clear about how you would split the money between the two (or more) of you, if you sell that house for a benefit.

Why would you do it? IF THEY DID IT.

First reason: you are not married.

I am not going to discuss this. I am just leaving it here, for reference. You are free to make up your mind. It is my professional duty to explain, though, that this is the most logical and frequent reason you would choose to sign this document.

Second reason: the 'partner' has an abysmal credit history and is NOT solvable

Therefore, that person is NOT on your mortgage, simply because I doubt the bank would enter in such a financial arrangement with you. Remember my Legal Anon? I explained that she did not, by design, include McSideburns into the ownership paperwork for Cleveden Drive. Now it all makes sense. I believe that this is the reason why they signed a Declaration of Trust. But this is my opinion and I do not force anyone to join me.

Third reason: if something goes awry, the partner can prove he/she has a right to some of the sale's benefits, while the major investor has his/her investment safely protected, too

Why would you sign a Declaration of Trust to "protect yourself against any disagreements and misunderstandings that may arise later down the line" if your Remarkable Weekend was, what, four years ago? Déjà?

The above questions should be construed as rhetoric.

Second situation: you put a house you bought yourself (C) and with your money exclusively, under a trust benefiting McSideburns. For example.

This is the situation I alluded in the comment thread under @bat-cat-reader's post. For reference, the wee legal article is here: https://www.leaders.co.uk/advice/why-buy-a-property-via-a-trust

Now, before I let my Magic Highlighter do its tricks, let me explain something really quick.

In Roman Law (and also in Civil and Common Law countries, which is wonderful), the notion of legal property can be split in three:

The Usus: this is my house. I bought it with my money. I own it, I pay taxes and mortgage, if needed, for it and take full responsibility for it.

The Fructus: this is my house. I rent it to some nice, solvable people/tennants and I cash in the money. This is my cashola. Period.

The Abusus: this is my house. I don't like it anymore. I have kids. I need an extra bedroom. I want to move from Flushing to Manhattan (I won the lottery). I am selling it. The proceeds are my cashola. Period.

When you put your house in a trust, that means: I bought this house with my own money (C). I am putting it in a trust. I still have the Usus - it is still my house. I will give the Fructus to T, because he needs to sleep somewhere and/or the cashola from the rents. I could sell (abusus) that house under certain conditions, if I choose to.

Here is the article. It is particularly well-written and, in my humble opinion, very clear. It takes the example of a real estate investment on behalf of a child who goes to study out of town, but this is just an example:

You can even put up, as a settlor, a Lifetime Interest Trust, if you want: that would enable, for example, McSideburns to live in that house or rent it and keep the cashola until the end of days, for free.

I could go deeper with my analysis. For the moment, I will restrain myself to this very short overview.

I rest my case. Different opinions are always welcome.

#Anon

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onmyyan · 1 year

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Okay okay okay I swear to the moon and back this is gonna be my final and 3rd addition to the neglected! reader idea.

I was considering the Lex Luthor path for after the reader, after years of vying for the batfamily, leaves the manor.

But no, you've got to think big. Think back to how organized crime even starts- in impoverished areas and places with low law enforcement. A lot of organized crime begins as a way to protect these poor neighborhoods from more significant threats and corruption- before they're inevitably corrupted themselves.

Reader, however, is different. A special case. Even if not directly raised by Bruce, they still have that desire for order and good in them. It can turn them into a brilliant, peerless vigilante, no doubt.

But an even better villain. After all, who better to keep all the villains in the city in line than a bigger, scarier villain. Reader might work alone on their own, at least in the beginning, but it's not long before they amass resources and connections of their own.

It starts the moment they leave the manor at 18- maybe even 16 who knows. They're forced to fend for themselves in the poorest and most destitute part of Gotham, but they survive under the radar.

They're still Bruce's kid at the end of the day after all.

Over the span of months they go from vigilante to slowly working with others and gathering up influence and control. It starts off with owning one building. Then another, then the whole street- then the whole neighborhood.

They aren't some new protege under Lex Luther, no no no, Lex is an investor in their plans. Any villain with half a brain and the intention of surviving under the new power shift in gotham is already bowing their heads.

It takes a couple years, but now another faction, another sector of gotham is born. It's crime rates are low, surprisingly so. Any and all crime no longer pointed at defenseless civilians but at corrupt businesses and people who haven't bowed down to reader's reign.

Too distracted by the reader's disappearance, the bat family doesn't even notice the near crime-free area until it's advertised on the news.

Once again, the reader's presence or lack thereof, robs them of something they had grown so familiar with.

Bruce, with the hero and savior complex of his, sees that beautiful potential for good in reader, sees how even when they deal drugs in the neighborhoods of gotham- the needles, the drugs themselves are clean.

It doesn't stop the addiction, but it minimizes the damage.

Jason bumps into reader all masked up, failing to stop a break in at city hall but noticing the way no citizen seems to flinch from your presence. Sure, they turn from your goons and their guns but not you. Never you.

There's a new, darker symbol of hope in the city now.

Tim, investigating your new crime ring sees a shipment from lex corp and notices how you build your guns for your goons. Nonlethal rounds, rounds made to stun and incapacitate. He sees your kindness and your mercy in the bullets and each time one of the bat family comes back from a run-in with your goons they are reminded of that fact.

It's a mercy they know they don't deserve

Dick wanted to break out of gotham and make an impact in another city- and he does. But there's something about the way your mere word can now send ripples through gotham that has even him shuddering a little. You're good. Very good. Efficient even. A part of him wants to be at your side, taking you by the hand and pulling you away from the darker parts of yourself that have formed. He only wonders if he'll ever get close enough to do it.

The best part or worst part about becoming a rich and wealthy individual with a crime ring at your back is that it pushes reader back into the limelight in a way that makes them untouchable to the ones they called once called "family".

Even when the sources of reader's money are... dubious, hospitals and schools are opened because their influence. Just imagine them being there for an opening event or a charity gala, brushing the shoulders of bruce wayne and dick grayson like its nothing. Maybe they change their last name, going by their mother's. Something to add distance between the two. Or even better, reader actually politely smiles when seeing them. It's sweet and serene to anyone watching but they know better. They know reader. Or at least they knew enough about reader to know there's no warm behind those eyes. Not for them. The way your eyes would crinkle when it was genuine- gone- that is, until you turn to someone else, then they see that they've been deprived of for months, years.

And they can't help but crave it.

Just imagine how independent reader is, the bat-shaped void in their heart now filled with all their work and accomplishments. They're shady, but a benevolent force to gotham, one that may rival even the wayne family so says the whispers on the street... (little did they know lol)

The press eats it up, the people eat it up, and the rest of the bat family are forced to their portion as well.

God, the bat family just being in pain at the darkness that rests in reader's hard, their desperate attempts to appeal to a reader that is now in a higher position, a higher position in comparison to some of the members- it's got to drive them all insane.

ANd oH, should they ever face reader in battle, all masked up and suited, every part of them breaks. They try to go soft, go easy, but you now have people by your side that aren't gonna let that happen. People they so desperately wish to replace.

AND IF they see you the next day at some event or maybe just taking a stroll around the park, bruises on your knuckle from punching them or a small nick on the cheek from a stray batarang... They'll be more than destroyed at what they've done... maybe even unrepairable.

ngl having written all of this in like 25 min I realize I might continue ksajhfkj if i get any ideas

FREN....this is delectable!!! I reread it like four times cuz of how amazing it is!!! You're so talented omg thank you for sending this in!! If you do write more please send it in cuz this is perfection, These concepts you've been sending are so good I think I'll have to write something for all of them omg omg loved this like villain reader with a heart of gold?? Getting shit done for her city, not caring how dirty her hands get lawd it's so good! Especially if one or more of Gotham's big bad's go Yandere for her as well.. coughyandereroguesgallerycough

#yananswers #yandere batfamily #neglected reader #villain reader

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