#collateral damage blog

[collateraldamage-inc]

#HOMEFREE BITCHES ENJOY THE TASTE OF BOOT LEATHER

No surprise, Homelander killed somebody.

No surprise 2, he killed somebody under the guise of PROTECTING HIS SUPER-POWERED SPAWN.

Vought's immediate reaction is HE JUST DID WHAT ANY FATHER WOULD DO

Motherfuckers, he is not just ANY father. He's fucking Homelander. His kid can fly. Literally nobody is a threat to that kid. Nobody. You know how genetics works? You inherit shit from your parents.

He's obviously inherited POWERS.

Kid isn't helpless. Kid is a weapon himself. Homelander's sycophants just love murder, that's all. They wanna commit murder over shit like somebody setting foot in their yard or looking at them funny when they're yelling about freedom.

We all know that #HOMEFREE is just POINTLESS because even if he's found guilty, what's gonna happen? He's a supe. He'll never stay in prison, we can't LOCK HIM UP because what's the point? Vought will do their thing and he'll get away with murder.

And nobody will be surprised unless they're a complete dipshit.

[collateraldamage-old]

THE BUTCHER

I've met Billy Butcher.

He smells like cigarettes, bad booze, and disappointment. He hasn't shaved in years. I don't know what the fuck is on his coat but it probably ain't seen a washing machine in at least a decade.

The man is the personification of rage in a way that I'm not. I have limits. I have morals. Exceptions.

He. Does. Not.

This man would kill me without a second thought.

I dunno where people get the idea that he's some soft cuddly sweet boi or whatever the fuck the internet slang is these days. So pure uwu

Motherfucker is the most single-minded person I have ever met.

I've chilled out in the past year. He never will. He's not gonna rest until he's dead or all supes are wiped out and Vought's a smoking crater or all of the above.

I'm at least willing to let some supes live if they know their place. See? Reasonable.

[blackrevell]

// Archive Entry: The poetic power of unbridled masculine camaraderie relieving the world of yet another Cold War — all captured within a single photograph, hidden away in the intimacy of one's desk drawer. The reasons of its concealment from the eyes of the curious remains unclear, and we are yet to discover if the decision was driven by hot passion, or hot shame. Or France.

[ manly men & the unfortunate victims courtesy of : @ouroboros-hideout & @olath124 ]

[majimasleftasscheek]

correct me if i’m wrong but you seem like a collateral damage enjoyer

I assume this is about the fanfic? I have never read it myself cuz I'm not super into x reader but I do know the author and their writing is lovely <3

I do have a fondness for slow burn relationship development and some drama 👀 it's something I mad struggle to write myself so I'm always impressed when someone can write so much hhhhhh

[justanotherdrfan]

Welcome back to DTS BREAKDOWN!

Please don’t open if you want to avoid spoilers!

S6E3 (Under Pressure)

-eww it’s Zak Brown

-‘we need to give them some time’ don’t you say Zak how’s about I give you some time with my fist in a boxing ring you absolute arsehole of a being

-‘Maybe this is the year we can turn things around’ yes Lando you keep living in delulu land and sign your life away one stupidly timed contract after contract with McLaren

-not Oscar not knowing how to get the door to open at McLaren HQ 😂

-‘He’s only like 15’, Lando commenting about Oscar (and you act like a 15 year old so please tell me the difference)

-You also said all the same things about Daniel Zak and look how you ended up treating him you absolute twat

-also your car is butt ugly

-Lando I see you laughing in the corner whilst Zak talks about championship worthy cars (and so does DTS)

-also your car is shithouse too

-17th and DNF on the first race (stellar car McLaren just stellar and karma is a bitch)

-CLAIRE WILLIAMS IS BACK

-And then they follow with Danica (fuck off)

-Lando ‘we have a clear plan’ moments after they show him tell Zak he’s going to walk into Red Bull and steal their front wing (sounds legit, also I know your trying but it’s not funny)

-Christian you can make out like you want Lando all you want but you love Daniel and Max together full stop (so stop kidding us and yourself)

-Zak: ‘block out all the nonsense’ (so can you be blocked from F1 then?)

-Lando trying to play the camera as if he’s Daniel (mate you will not and I repeat will not be the king of DTS. That is DANIEL RICCIADRO. AND DANIEL RICCIARDO ONLY.)

-Why am I watching these two twats play golf?

-Yes the golf cart is quicker than the McLaren (it’s not that hard at this point) 😂

-Lando once again is a brat on radio

-YES CHRISTIAN TALK SHIT ABOUT ZAK! (He’s such a daddy cub to Daniel)

-Not George airing out William’s dirty laundry about people drinking on race weekends 😂

-Zak and Lando clearly both live in delulu land

-All of McLaren’s sponsors grilling Zak about his shitshow of a car 👏🏽

-CLAIRE WILLIAMS I ADORE YOU

-McLaren with all this bullshit talking around the situation of their shit car just say what it is for what it is and stop playing for the camera (yes I know the shows dramatised but still)

-KEEP CLAIRE ON RETAINER I BEG OF YOU DTS

-‘I feel very responsible with what happens at McLaren’ well Zak I think that’s kinda of your job don’t you think?

-NOTE A DTS MOMENT BUT I HATE MCLAREN

-Ohh right your leading a race because Max isn’t just doing it so shits not always the same same

-Ohh look Haas has entered the chat only for it to be its engine on fire at Silverstone ( that Ferrari engine ahh) 😬🏎️🔥🧯

-FUCK OFF ZAK JUST FUCK OFF

-‘I’ve never won an F1 race’ (and you never will Lando you never will with McLaren)

THANK FUCK THAT EPISODE IS OVER! 😤

[rendoa-blog]

Just doomed myself into thinking about a fluffy relationship I ran over with a semitruck.

God they were so happy what have I done

[gummysworldofgarbage]

I can't wait until I'm done Supernatural and then I can start blogging about it like a 14 year old

[crochetlaydee]

Collateral Damage

In a slummy warehouse disconnected from the rest of the bustling district stood a young man of twenty-five years of age. He had found himself in a rather peculiar situation that night; the temptation of luxury was much too sweet to resist.

In front of him was indeed a tricky situation: a suitcase filled with undiscovered treasures that could free him of his stresses and a fleshy child, a tender twelve years of age and the reason of his tossing and turning, shivering in a wettish puddle with a sharp metal muzzled against her head. A heavy tension suffocated the atmosphere as the plea of sheer desperation made her honey brown eyes quake.

          Despite this, the young man could only stifle in hesitation. He mulled over the times back when he left his meal to the worthless thing in front of him and starved for a full five days until a butcher took pity on his shriveled form and tossed him week-old expired ham. He thought of the times when goons dressed him with agonizing bruises and threatened him for refusing to relinquish those few sheets of paper, which he obviously didn’t have. He recounted the sleepless nights when, after the worthless thing had finally drifted to slumber, he’d huddle in the corner of their little alley, trying to remember the proper way to tie the knot for the noose his wife used to escape the debt. His mind halted.

            The young man refused to witness the consequences of his decision, knowing they’d make his joys taste so bittersweet. With a swift sweep, he latched the suitcase under his dirt-cased fingers as he gazed at the quivering, snot-nosed child who gaped in utter disbelief.

            “Who cares if it dies,” he grimaced with a penetrating sneer. He turned towards the exit illuminated by the bright moonlight.

            He took a step forward, and the guilt eroded. A muffled, broken wail of agony pieced the silence as a desperate shuffle squirmed its way towards the back of the young man. He kept his stride faced forward with no halts. No sooner than when he stepped outside with the new taste of a future filled with the luxury of three meals a day were the shuffles silenced with a fleshy thump echoing through the silence as the crisp scent of iron permeated the air.

[collateraldamage-old]

[CD BLOG] I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO

Hello, naughty children, I've heard through the grapevine that while I've been busy attending to my new and improved education the kids at God U have proved me right.

People died! Shit hit the fan! Wow, what a shocker.

What the fuck does Vought think is gonna happen when they take hormonal, super-powered college kids and stick 'em all together like that?

Maybe if they didn't fuck around they wouldn't find out.

I'm sure all this shit will get blamed on terrorists or something, some radical faction or whatever.

We'll see. I've been too fucking busy with my own education to catch up with my sources on this one—why bother? I know I'm right. It's just a fucking shock that all the bullshit didn't wipe out the whole city. Next time, mark my words.

Anyway, dear readers, you're gonna find I'm gonna have less to say than usual for a while.

I'm attending classes toward becoming a fire investigator, though not an ordinary one—NYFD has had concerns for a while about supe-involved fires and disasters, so I'm gonna be in the running to take on that particular portfolio once I'm done with this batch of training.

I probably have a year, year-and-a-half of formal college education and then another six months of specialized training.

Not that anybody knows what this position is gonna look like yet or how it's gonna work.

We just know that people die, it gets covered up, and we don't have shit to prove involvement the same way that fire investigators can figure out regular arson and fire cases. There's different shit to watch for. Classification levels. Top secret clearance.

I got told I might need to get firearms training and I laughed like, motherfucker, do you think that shit is going to work for self-defense? No.

I digress.

Your girl is gonna be joining the fight to make supes face real punishment for collateral damage, and doing it in a way that's actually gonna do something.

I can't fuckin' wait.

[will-it-be-finished-who-knows]

Amethyst took a shaky breath, and began. "Aja and I have been meeting up recently, just talking - and getting food, you wouldn't believe how horrible she is at taking care of herself," he added with a breathless laugh. "We tried to stay hidden, not good for her image to be seen with the number one most wanted." He grimaced, "Not that anyone thinks highly of her anyways, thanks to those assholes she works for.

"Apparently we weren't good enough, her superiors found out, and you can imagine how pissed they were - actually maybe you can't, they do a good job of filtering their personalities for the media. Anyway, they started hunting us, and with pretty much every state and federal run organization under their thumbs, it wasn't easy to avoid them, but we managed long enough to be problem." He swallowed, hard, "S-so they got help."

"From who?" the driver prompted, trying to cut off a spiral.

Amethyst hesitated, then whispered, "Operator"

--------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you to @miraculousglitter for reminding me this exists and I was going to add to it bc I totally forgot

You are a cabdriver. But you don’t drive any cab, you drive The Herocab, a cab that any superhero can call if they need to be somewhere urgently. Today you were called, only to find the hero a bloody mess on the ground and a villain, the hero’s phone in hand, standing over them.

[ellipsus-writes]

Each week (or so), we'll highlight the relevant (and sometimes rage-inducing) news adjacent to writing and freedom of expression. (Find it on the blog too!) This week:

Censorship watch: Somehow, KOSA returned

It’s official: The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is back from the dead. After failing to pass last year, the bipartisan bill has returned with fresh momentum and the same old baggage—namely, vague language that could endanger hosting platforms, transformative work, and implicitly target LGBTQ+ content under the guise of “protecting kids.”

… But wait, it gets better (worse). Republican Senator Mike Lee has introduced a new bill that makes other attempts to censor the internet look tame: the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA)—basically KOSA on bath salts. Lee’s third attempt since 2022, the bill would redefine what counts as “obscene” content on the internet, and ban it nationwide—with “its peddlers prosecuted.”

Whether IODA gains traction in Congress is still up in the air. But free speech advocates are already raising alarm bells over its implications.

The bill aims to gut the long-standing legal definition of “obscenity” established by the 1973 Miller v. California ruling, which currently protects most speech under the First Amendment unless it fails a three-part test. Under the Miller test, content is only considered legally obscene if it 1: appeals to prurient interests, 2: violates “contemporary community standards,” and 3: is patently offensive in how it depicts sexual acts.

IODA would throw out key parts of that test—specifically the bits about “community standards”—making it vastly easier to prosecute anything with sexual content, from films and photos, to novels and fanfic.

Under Lee’s definition (which—omg shocking can you believe this coincidence—mirrors that of the Heritage Foundation), even the most mild content with the affect of possible “titillation” could be included. (According to the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the proposed definition is so broad it could rope in media on the level of Game of Thrones—or, generally, anything that depicts or describes human sexuality.) And while obscenity prosecutions are quite rare these days, that could change if IODA passes—and the collateral damage and criminalization (especially applied to creative freedoms and LGBT+ content creators) could be massive.

And while Lee’s last two obscenity reboots failed, the current political climate is... let’s say, cloudy with a chance of fascism.

Sound a little like Project 2025? Ding ding ding! In fact, Russell Vought, P2025’s architect, was just quietly appointed to take over DOGE from Elon Musk (the agency on a chainsaw crusade against federal programs, culture, and reality in general).

So. One bill revives vague moral panic, another wants to legally redefine it and prosecute creators, and the man who helped write the authoritarian playbook—with, surprise, the intent to criminalize LGBT+ content and individuals—just gained control of the purse strings.

Cool cool cool.

AO3 works targeted in latest (massive) AI scraping

Rewind to last month—In the latest “wait, they did what now?” moment for AI, a Hugging Face user going by nyuuzyou uploaded a massive dataset made up of roughly 12.6 million fanworks scraped from AO3—full text, metadata, tags, and all. (Info from r/AO3: If your works’ ID numbers between 1 and 63,200,000, and has public access, the work has been scraped.)

And it didn’t stop at AO3. Art and writing communities like PaperDemon and Artfol, among others, also found their content had been quietly scraped and posted to machine learning hubs without consent.

This is yet another attempt in a long line of more “official” scraping of creative work, and the complete disregard shown by the purveyors of GenAI for copyright law and basic consent. (Even the Pope agrees.)

AO3 filed a DMCA takedown, and Hugging Face initially complied—temporarily. But nyuuzyou responded with a counterclaim and re-uploaded the dataset to their personal website and other platforms, including ModelScope and DataFish—sites based in China and Russia, the same locations reportedly linked to Meta’s own AI training dataset, LibGen.

Some writers are locking their works. Others are filing individual DMCAs. But as long as bad actors and platforms like Hugging Face allow users to upload massive datasets scraped from creative communities with minimal oversight, it’s a circuitous game of whack-a-mole. (As others have recommended, we also suggest locking your works for registered users only.)

After disavowing AI copyright, leadership purge hits U.S. cultural institutions

In news that should give us all a brief flicker of hope, the U.S. Copyright Office officially confirmed: if your “creative” work was generated entirely by AI, it’s not eligible for copyright.

A recently released report laid it out plainly��human authorship is non-negotiable under current U.S. law, a stance meant to protect the concept of authorship itself from getting swallowed by generative sludge. The report is explicit in noting that generative AI draws “on massive troves of data, including copyrighted works,” and asks: “Do any of the acts involved require the copyright owners’ consent or compensation?” (Spoiler: yes.) It’s a “straight ticket loss for the AI companies” no matter how many techbros’ pitch decks claim otherwise (sorry, Inkitt).

“The Copyright Office (with a few exceptions) doesn’t have the power to issue binding interpretations of copyright law, but courts often cite to its expertise as persuasive,” tech law professor Blake. E Reid wrote on Bluesky.As the push to normalize AI-generated content continues (followed by lawsuits), without meaningful human contribution—actual creative labor—the output is not entitled to protection.

… And then there’s the timing.

The report dropped just before the abrupt firing of Copyright Office director Shira Perlmutter, who has been vocally skeptical of AI’s entitlement to creative work.

It's yet another culture war firing—one that also conveniently clears the way for fewer barriers to AI exploitation of creative work. And given that Elon Musk’s pals have their hands all over current federal leadership and GenAI tulip fever… the overlap of censorship politics and AI deregulation is looking less like coincidence and more like strategy.

Also ousted (via email)—Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. According to White House press secretary and general ghoul Karoline Leavitt, Dr. Hayden was dismissed for “quite concerning things that she had done… in the pursuit of DEI, and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.” (Translation: books featuring queer people and POC.)

Dr. Hayden, who made history as the first Black woman to hold the position, spent the last eight years modernizing the Library of Congress, expanding digital access, and turning the institution into something more inclusive, accessible, and, well, public. So of course, she had to go. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The American Library Association condemned the firing immediately, calling it an “unjust dismissal” and praising Dr. Hayden for her visionary leadership. And who, oh who might be the White House’s answer to the LoC’s demanding and (historically) independent role?

The White House named Todd Blanche—AKA Trump’s personal lawyer turned Deputy Attorney General—as acting Librarian of Congress.

That’s not just sus, it’s likely illegal—the Library is part of the legislative branch, and its leadership is supposed to be confirmed by Congress. (You know, separation of powers and all that.)

But, plot twist: In a bold stand, Library of Congress staff are resisting the administration's attempts to install new leadership without congressional approval.

If this is part of the broader Project 2025 playbook, it’s pretty clear: Gut cultural institutions, replace leadership with stunningly unqualified loyalists, and quietly centralize control over everything from copyright to the nation’s archives.

Because when you can’t ban the books fast enough, you just take over the library.

Rebellions are built on hope

Over the past few years (read: eternity), a whole ecosystem of reactionary grifters has sprung up around Star Wars—with self-styled CoNtEnT CrEaTorS turning outrage to revenue by endlessly trashing the fandom. It’s all part of the same cynical playbook that radicalized the fallout of Gamergate, with more lightsabers and worse thumbnails. Even the worst people you know weighed in on May the Fourth (while Prequel reassessment is totally valid—we’re not giving J.D. Vance a win).

But one thing that shouldn't be up for debate is this: Andor, which wrapped its phenomenal two-season run this week, is probably the best Star Wars project of our time—maybe any time. It’s a masterclass in what it means to work within a beloved mythos and transform it, deepen it, and make it feel urgent again. (Sound familiar? Fanfic knows.)

Radicalization, revolution, resistance. The banality of evil. The power of propaganda. Colonialism, occupation, genocide—and still, in the midst of it all, the stubborn, defiant belief in a better world (or Galaxy).

Even if you’re not a lifelong SW nerd (couldn’t be us), you should give it a watch. It’s a nice reminder that amidst all the scraping, deregulation, censorship, enshittification—stories matter. Hope matters.

And we’re still writing.

Let us know if you find something other writers should know about, or join our Discord and share it there!

- The Ellipsus Team xo

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Of course we can tax billionaires

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

Billionaires are pretty confident that they can't be taxed – not just that they shouldn't be taxed, but rather, that it is technically impossible to tax the ultra-rich. They're not shy about explaining why, either – and neither is their army of lickspittles.

If it's impossible to tax billionaires, then anyone who demands that we tax billionaires is being childish. If taxing billionaires is impossible, then being mad that we're not taxing billionaires is like being mad at gravity.

Boy is this old trick getting old. It was already pretty thin when Margaret Thatcher rolled it out, insisting that "there is no alternative" to her program of letting the rich get richer and the poor go hungry. Dressing up a demand ("stop trying to think of alternatives") as a scientific truth ("there is no alternative") sets up a world where your opponents are Doing Ideology, while you're doing science.

Billionaires basically don't pay tax – that's a big part of how they got to be billionaires:

https://www.propublica.org/series/the-secret-irs-files

By cheating on their taxes, they get to keep – and invest – more money than less-rich people (who get to keep more money than regular people and poor people, obvs). They get so much money that they can "invest" it in corrupting the political process, for example, by flushing vast sums of dark money into elections to unseat politicians who care about finance crime and replace them with crytpo-friendly lawmakers who'll turn a blind eye to billionaires' scams:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/14/silicon-valley-the-new-lobbying-monster

Once someone gets rich enough, they acquire impunity. They become too big to fail. They become too big to jail. They become too big to care. They buy presidents. They become president.

A decade ago, Thomas Piketty published his landmark Capital in the 21st Century, tracing three centuries of global capital flows and showing how extreme inequality creates political instability, leading to bloody revolutions and world wars that level the playing field by destroying most of the world's capital in an orgy of violence, with massive collateral damage:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/

Piketty argued that unless we taxed the rich, we would attain the same political instability that provoked the World Wars, but in a nuclear-tipped world that was poised on the brink of ecological collapse. He even laid out a program for this taxation, one that took accord of all the things rich people would try to hide their assets.

Today, the destruction that Piketty prophesied is on our doorstep, and all over the world, political will is gathering to do something about our billionaire problem. The debate rages from France to dozen-plus US states that are planning wealth taxes on the ultra-rich.

Wherever that debate takes hold, billionaires and their proxies pop up to tell us that we're Doing Ideology, that there is no alternative, and that it is literally impossible to tax the ultra-rich.

In a new blog post, Piketty deftly demolishes this argument, showing how thin the arguments for the impossibility of a billionaire tax really is:

https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/2024/10/15/how-to-tax-billionaires/

First, there's the argument that the ultra-rich are actually quite poor. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg don't have a lot of money, they have a lot of stock, which they can't sell. Why can't they sell their stock? You'll hear a lot of complicated arguments about illiquidity and the effect on the share-price of a large sell-off, but they all boil down to this: if we make billionaires sell a bunch of their stock, they will be poorer.

No duh.

Piketty has an answer to the liquidity crisis of our poormouthing billionaires:

If finding a buyer is challenging, the government could accept these shares as payment for taxes. If necessary, it could then sell these shares through various methods, such as offering employees to purchase them, which would increase their stake in the company.

Though Piketty doesn't say so, billionaires are not actually poor. They have fucktons of cash, which they acquire through something called "buy, borrow, die," which allows them to create intergenerational dynastic wealth for their failsons:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/buy-borrow-die-rich-avoid-140004536.html

Billionaires know they're not poor. They even admit it, when they say, "Okay, but the other reason it's impossible to tax us is that we're richer and therefore more powerful than the governments that want to try it."

Piketty points out the shell-game at the core of this argument: the free movement of money that allows for tax-dodging was created by governments. They made these laws, so they can change them. Governments that can't exercise their sovereign power to tax the wealthy end up taxing the poor, eroding their legitimacy and hence their power. Taxing the rich – a wildly popular move – will make governments more powerful, not less.

Big countries like the US (and federations like the EU) have a lot of power. The US ended Swiss banking secrecy and manages to tax Americans living abroad. There's no reason that France couldn't pass a wealth-tax that applies to people based on their historical residency: a 51 year old French billionaire who decamps to Switzerland to duck a wealth tax after 50 years in France could be held liable for 50/51 of the wealth tax.

The final argument Piketty takes up is the old saw that taxing the rich is illegal, or, if it were made legal, would be unconstitutional. As Piketty says, rich people have taken this position every single time they faced meaningful tax enforcement, and they have repeatedly lost this fight. France has repeatedly levied wealth taxes, as long ago as 1789 and as recently as 1945.

Taxing the ultra-rich isn't like the secret of embalming Pharaohs – it's not a lost art from a fallen civilization. The US top rate of tax in 1944 was 97%. The postwar top rate from 1945-63 was 94%, and it was 70% from 1965-80. These was the period of the largest expansion of the US economy in the nation's history. These are the "good old days" Republicans say they want to return to.

The super-rich keep getting richer. In France, the 500 richest families were worth a combined €200b in 2010. Today, it's €1.2 trillion. No wonder a global wealth tax is at the top of the agenda for next month's G20 Summit in Rio.

Here in the US – where money can easily move across state lines and where multiple states are racing each other to the bottom to be the best onshore-offshore tax- and financial secrecy-haven – state-level millionaire taxes are kicking ass.

Massachusetts's 2024 millionaire tax has raised more than $1.8b, exceeding all expectations (it was originally benchmarked at $1b), by taxing annual income in excess of $1m at an additional 4%:

https://www.boston.com/news/business/2024/05/21/heres-how-much-the-new-massachusetts-millionaires-tax-has-raised-this-year/

This is exactly the kind of tax that billionaires say is impossible. It's so easy to turn ordinary income in sheltered income – realizing it as a capital gain, say – so raising taxes on income will do nothing. Who are you gonna believe, billionaires or the 1.8 billion dead presidents lying around the Massachusetts Department of Revenue?

But say you are worried that taxing ordinary income is a nonstarter because of preferential capital gains treatment. No worry, Washington State has you covered. Its 7% surcharge on capital gains in excess of $250,000 also exceeded all expectations, bringing in $600m more than expected in its first year – a year when the stock market fell by 25%:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/03/when-the-tide-goes-out/#passive-income

Okay, but what if all those billionaires flee your state? Good riddance, and don't let the door hit you on the way out. All we need is an exit tax, like the one in California, which levies a one-time 0.4% tax on net worth over $30m for any individual who leaves the state.

Billionaires are why we can't have nice things – a sensible climate policy, workers' rights, a functional Supreme Court and legislatures that answer to the people, rather than deep-pocketed donors.

The source of billionaires' power isn't mysterious: it's their money. Take away the money, take away the power. With more than a dozen states considering wealth taxes, we're finally in a race to the top, to see which state can attack the corrosive power of extreme wealth most aggressively.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/15/piketty-pilled/#tax-justice

[pome-seed]

The Soldier's Keeper ★ 39

Pairing: Winter Soldier!Bucky x Doctor!Reader

Summary: Bucky finds himself sinking into dark place as he's forced to face his past.

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: Mention of blood and weapons. Mention of violence. The Winter Soldier. 18+ Minors Do Not Interact.

18+ blog, Minors Do Not Interact.

Authors Note: A little shorter since I've been a little too focused on my dbf Bucky filth ALSO, if you want to be apart of the taglist, let me know :)

Series Masterlist Next Chapter

The Winter Soldier had many victims. Not just dozens, but hundreds. 

There were targets, and there were loose ends. Witnesses. Collateral damage.

More people than a person could name. More faces than one could remember. More blood. More tears. More anguished, terrified screams than any person could bear.

But he did. He had to. He had no choice. 

The Winter Soldier wasn’t human. He was a tool. A savage. A machine built to obey and slaughter. 

The Winter Soldier didn’t remember all their names. He didn’t remember why they were dead. Or what they’d done. He felt their ghosts, their spirits, haunting him, their spectral fingers clawing into his psyche, scarring his memories. 

He felt them. He felt the weight of their grief. He felt the guilt. The plaguing feeling of all encompassing death.

Horror was the only real true word to describe the Winter Soldier. It was the only word that captured the depth. The pain.

Horrors of blood and gunpowder. Sharp steel and cracked bones.

He could still feel the slick heat of blood spilling over his fingers. A knife slicing through tender flesh, carving up tendons and muscle. He could feel the shudder of the gun in his palm. Smell the smoke. Hear the squelch as a bullet lodged in a man's throat. Their kidney. Their liver. 

The ghost of death followed him. 

Rightfully so, he believed.

Because why should he be free? Why should he be allowed to live, to thrive, to breathe happily and easily, while all those bodies rot because of him.

Because of his work. 

His refined skill.

He remembered them because he had to. Because someone had to carry their memory. The truth. Someone had to know how they left this world, and that the one doing it took no pleasure. 

The Winter Soldier was a tool, with no choice in its creation or use. A tool, tossed aside when it's done its job. A tool, left to rust and fracture when no one was watching.

No one would mourn the death of The Winter Soldier. 

No tears would be shed.

He would pass, alone, forgotten.

Until there was you. 

“Look at me.”

Bucky’s distant gaze snapped to yours, the ringing in his head fizzling out quietly. He hadn’t even realized he zoned out. 

“Buck,” you whispered, frowning softly at him. You glanced back at Shuri, who stood with T’Challa and Ayo, a member of the Dora Milaje. Steve stiffened from across the lab, where he stared at scans of Bucky’s brain. 

You’d all gathered in the lab, two days after news of the accords being thrown out, to discuss Bucky’s pardon. Or rather, how to get Bucky pardoned. 

After only an hour of droning on about the science behind the work done on Bucky’s brain, the topic of the test came up. 

Where the trigger words would be recited, and you would truly know if the Soldier was really gone.

Some time during that discussion, Bucky grew quiet. Distant. Like he’d fallen into his own world. You felt him stiffen beside you. Felt the air turn sour, like all the warmth and life had been sucked dry. 

“Can we have a minute?” You blurted to the others, your soft frown curling deeper. 

T’Challa glanced at Bucky, a thoughtful expression softening. He nodded slowly. “Of course,” he glanced at the girls, then at Steve. He was the first to leave the room. Steve followed with a pained look, his gaze lingering on Bucky.

Once the doors slid closed with a soft click, you turned back to Bucky.

“Hey,” you whispered, tilting your head up at him. “What’s going on up there?”

He refused to look at you, his eyes trained somewhere between you. He shook his head, a shallow breath rising with his shoulders. “I just…”

You listened quietly, but then he pressed his lips into a thin line, and you knew he wasn’t gonna continue. Your gaze flickered over his features, over the shadow cast by the furrow in his brow. The dark circles beneath his eyes. His sad eyes, weighted and ashamed. 

“You’re afraid.” Bucky flinched. His jaw clenched softly. You sighed, stepping closer. “Please look at me,” you quietly begged. 

Bucky raised his head, his blue eyes flicking between yours. His throat bobbed slowly, as if he were physically swallowing his shame. You ghosted your palm over his cheek, your thumb brushing along his cheekbone. He leaned into your touch, his brows twitching together.

“You’re scared of the certainty, right?” 

He nodded, black hair falling into his eyes. You pushed it back behind his ear. “If they can’t fix me, then no one can- and I’m stuck like this.” He whispered, his muscles twitching tight.

You nodded, your thumb stroking against his skin. “I get that,” you sighed. “I understand why you’re scared, but Bucky, you can do this-”

“I can’t-” He shook his head, his teeth sinking into his lip. “Y/n I don’t-” he sucked in a shaky breath. “I don’t think I can do this.” His voice wavered, cracking with unshed emotion. “If it doesn’t work-”

“Nothing will happen,” you insist, cupping his face fully in your hands. “Bucky, breathe,” you take a deep breath, waiting for him to mimic it. It takes him a moment, but he eventually copies your steadying breath. “Nothing will happen, okay? If it doesn’t work, and the words trigger you, you won’t hurt anyone. You can’t without a mission, right?”

He stared at you for a moment, his firm frown softening as he licked his lips. He thought over your words, trying to rationalize his fear. “Right,” he whispered. “She could just leave me there, have me wait it out…”

“Exactly,” you pet his cheeks, his stubble rough against your palms. “They won’t let you hurt anyone.”

“But it’d still be in me, Y/n,” he whispered, tilting into your touch. “I’d still be him- I could still lose myself if someone said those fucking words.” He wavered, his tongue swiping over his dry lips.

You stared up at him with sorrow, with pity and aching grief. You wished you could take the weight he carried. Wished you could ease the burden. But you couldn’t fix Bucky, no one could. You couldn’t erase what had been done. You could only be there for him.

“Bucky,” you whisper. Dark blue eyes met yours. “You are not what they did to you. What they put in you, that’s not you. No matter what happens today, or tomorrow, or next fucking week, we will figure it out. We will find a way to make you feel safe in your own body.” You urge, gently shaking him. “We’ll find a way.”

He stared at you in silence, the burning in his skull growing dull. Your words sank through him, like stones skipped across a lake, before succumbing to the water. He exhaled a shaky breath, his warmth fanning across your skin. 

He leaned into you, his forehead pressed against yours. His lashes fluttered as he blinked through tears, his eyes sliding closed. You stroked your thumb down his jaw, leaning in. You took another deep breath, Bucky mimicked it. His hands slid onto your waist, his fingers curling in your clothes. 

“We’ll find a way,” you whisper.

You both knew you couldn’t fix him. He knew that better than you, even. But he also believed you when you said you would help him. You would wait for him. You would stay with him. 

He believed you, because you never once lied to him.

You never once hurt him.

Your presence was the only solid innocently kind thing in his life. 

You steadied him, grounded him. You made him remember what it's like to be still. What it’s like to live.

“We’ll find a way,” he repeated, nuzzling his head against yours. The tip of his nose tickled yours. 

You nodded into him. “So you’re gonna go out there, to the middle of nowhere, and you’re going to be strong, okay?” He nodded along to your words. “You’re going to hear those words, and you’re going to be okay. And then when you come back, you can be weak. And I’ll be weak with you.” 

He huffed, emotion flaring in his chest. He begged himself to keep it down, to smother it. He needed to be strong. For you, for himself. “Okay…” he whispered, sighing shakily against your skin. He swallowed, pressing his palms into your hips, feeling the weight of your body against his. “Okay.”

Ayo stood strong above Bucky, who trembled on his knees. Flames flickered against the gentle breeze, heat brushing his cold skin. Crickets in the distance fell to silence under the crackling tension in the air.

“Longing,” Ayo stated in practiced russian.

Bucky’s body locked up, tension spreading through his body like a wildfire. The single word set him on edge. His distant gaze stuck to the bright flames. 

“Rusted.”

“It’s not gonna work-” He grit, emotion welling in his throat. 

He couldn’t do this. It wasn’t going to work. 

“Seventeen.”

His spine strung tight, pain, grief, and shame curling around his bones. He couldn’t do this. You were wrong. They all were.

“Daybreak.”

He was going to kill someone. He was going to hurt someone. Those people- they won. He knew they did. He always did. He could feel them. Their hands. The pain. The ghosts.

“Furnace.”

Gurgling sobs fell from his lips as he wound his jaw shut. So tight he just might crack his teeth. His fingers pressed into his thighs, bruises and torn skin already breaking beneath the pressure. 

“Nine.”

He kept his eyes open, through the tears and smoke, and the blinding need to pretend this wasn’t happening. He kept them open, because if he blinked, he feared he might see them. The dead. The tortured. The blood. Or maybe himself.

“Benign.”

Sobs fell from his lips as panic welled tight around his throat, smothering what little air he still clung to. What little control he still had. 

“Homecoming.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, tears blinding him, like a fog falling over him. It wasn’t going to work. 

“One.”

He could hear that whistle, far in the distance, in the back of his mind. He could feel their grueling touch. The seam of his shoulder burned and ached in a phantom pain, like the skin was being torn- like muscle was being sawed from bone, all over again.

“Freight car.”

A loaded silence fell over the hill, broken only by Bucky’s trembling breaths, and the crackle of the fire. 

He couldn’t breathe. 

He couldn’t do this. 

“It worked.” Ayo’s calming voice spoke, her chin lifting in sentimental pride. 

Bucky’s tear soaked face lifted to hers. His carefully astonished gaze met hers. Like a dam breaking, like lightning striking, like a cord snapping, relief soul shattering sorrow flooded Bucky’s system.

“You’re free, James.” She whispered. “You are free.”

You waited for Bucky just outside the city. 

You waited with bated breath, anxiety burrowing deep in your stomach. Steve paced beside you, nearly tearing his hair out as he waited. Shuri sat in the back of the car, waiting to take you all back to her lab. Her leg shook nervously as she poured over her data.

But you couldn’t see them. You couldn’t see anything past the fear sporing dark spots in your vision. 

This was what you’d been waiting for.

This is what it was all for. 

All the pain, all the fear, all the loss. It was to get to this moment. To free Bucky. To bring you home. 

And now, after all you’d been through, it meant more than just that. You didn’t just want this for yourself, or just for him to be free of the soldier. You wanted this because now you knew him.

You knew Bucky, probably better than anyone else alive. You knew him and his fear. You knew what this meant for him. 

You knew what it would do to him if it didn’t work. 

So even as the world was submerged in darkness, warm air still nipping your skin as stars began to glow in the sky, you waited. You waited for him.

Just like you always would.

You fell into your own rhythm of panic, pacing beside Steve as you hugged your arms around your torso. You squeezed your eyes shut, praying you wouldn’t hear his screams echo in the distance. 

And when you finally opened them, you came to a staggering halt. Your shoes rooted in place as you saw the subtle bob of his head as he trailed down the path beside Ayo, illuminated by a single lamp.

Your blood went cold as you waited with bated breath, watching him grow closer. 

And then he lifted his chin, his bloodshot eyes meeting yours. 

You knew in an instant what the look on his face meant. Your breath left you in a trembling gasp, your hands smacking over your mouth in shock. 

As Bucky grew closer, you could see the wavering smile on his lips. 

You stumbled forward, jogging towards him. “Did it-?”

Bucky caught your wrist and yanked you into his arms with a sob, his tears staining your skin as he curled himself around you. Your shoes barely grazed the grass as he pulled you into him. You threw your arms around him, your fingers curling in his hair as you blinked back tears. “I’m free,” he choked the words barely making it past his lips. Like his body wasn’t used to it. “I’m free.”

You pressed a forceful kiss to his hair, cradling him close as you sucked in greedy breaths. 

He’s free.

It worked.

He’s free.

A/N: Not a big fan of this one.... but I'll make it up next chapter for sure!!!!

@rafesgurl @pleasecallmeunhinged @jason-todd-fangirl-14 @frog-fans-unite @lonelyghosts-stuff @cherryandsugar @a-world-with-pure-imagination @unicornqueen05 @cupids-mf-arrow @sharkylalala @littlesuniee @meineguete @hawkinsavclub1983 @theconsultingdoctor10 @dollface-xoxo @bloodmocha @natalia42069 @nicolebarnes @fallen-w1ngs @justachillgirllui @avaout @local-crazy @nynxtea @cherryheairt @soupiemeowmeow @akkklys @escapismurmom @sleepysongbirdsings @bumblebeebutter @lalaren @valyriantarg @hosshihusshi @mysoulbelongstobuckybarnes @sebastians-love

[identitty-dickruption]

this blog caters to freaks & kinksters & addicts & disabled people and them only. everyone else is collateral damage

[prentissluvr]

abstract (psychopomp) — sam winchester

cw : gn!reader, angst, hurt/comfort, idk just like a lot of feelings, animal death, some descriptions of injury, blood, crying, mention of character death, 1.9K words. listen to abstract (psychopomp) by hozier.

summary : sam realizes that he loves you as you hold a dying cat in your arms and cry over its loss.

MOVED BLOGS TO @sammyluvr !! no longer active on this blog! all fics can be found there!

your gasp startles sam. all had been quiet after the hunt, the cruel, clawed monster killed and the rumble of the impala filling the space in the silent air. the street is slick with fresh rain and clouds block the moon and stars.

“pull over,” you insist suddenly. sam glances over at you, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. you’re very serious.

“what is it?” he asks, tearing his eyes from you to focus on the road. he’s already easing up on the gas.

“pull over, sam,” you repeat with more strength, voice imploring. he obliges, expression concerned as he swiftly brings the car to a stop on the side of the road. the tires screech from the effort because sam thinks something is horribly wrong. he’s worried about you, and that feeling only increases when you rush out from the car, leaving the door open as you run down the empty street back the way you came. it’s lit solely by a single flickering street lamp and the impala’s headlights.

“wait, hey, what are you–” he can’t get in a whole sentence before you’re gone. he puts the car in park and follows after you. greeted by the sight of you kneeling on the side of the road, back facing him, his frown deepens and he breaks into a jog. his long legs get him to your side in moments. you sit right underneath the orange light of the street lamp, your form illuminated by the gold of october leaves.

there’s something in your arms. something small and shaking and reflecting the light of the lamp. the smell of rain and grass is heady and delicate all at once.

your eyes are shadowed until you look up at him. then they’re shining with the threat of tears. sam crouches next to you and places a gentle hand on your shoulder.

it’s a cat, its tabby brown fur marred with blood and these deep, horrible gashes. its blood stains the road and mixes with newly fallen rain. it shines in orange light above you. the cat's eye glistens, and it’s still alive, barely, moving in your arms. clearly, the monster you just killed got to it, before you even arrived, and the poor creature’s been bleeding out slowly on the side of the road.

sam imagines that its body isn’t as warm in your arms as it should be. you hold it so gently, your hands so delicate and full of intention. with a pang to his heart, sam realizes that you just want to hold it as it passes. its eyes must’ve held fear as you gingerly lifted it into your arms. but that fear is gone as you softly, so softly, brush your fingers over the fur of its tiny head.

“shhh,” you hush sweetly, quietly. sam wonders how everything could be this silent. sam knows it would be wrong if it weren’t, though. “it’s okay. i’ve got you now. you’re alright.” your voice is lulling and murmuring and trembling.

it slows in your arms. it stills. sam puts a hand over yours and he feels where its fur is soft and silky, untainted by blood. the cat doesn’t breathe in again.

sam looks at your face, and as a tear rolls down your cheek, past the shadow over your eyes, it catches the light. his heart aches. it aches and it aches and it aches.

for the sweet, small creature, innocent and swept aside by unnatural claws. discarded and truly nothing more than collateral damage. its tiny paws and darling brown ears and its good-natured animal heart which all deserved nothing but soft and unconditional love. cat hearts are small, sam recalls. about fifteen times smaller than a human heart. he doesn’t remember where he read that.

he doesn’t even realize that he’s begun to rub small circles over your back. while he has a soul full of compassion for the pretty tabby cat, his heart aches for you the most.

you look so distraught. you’re still crying. there’s a dead animal in your arms.

the way that you hurt makes him feel it too, makes him desperate to fix it for you. he wonders if the tip of your nose is starting to get cold like it always does when it’s windy outside.

and there’s just… your humanity. all he can see in this moment is how it shines. how you’re better than anything he’s ever known. 

he thinks that sometimes it feels like the two of you choose what you’re doing. and then he realizes that it’s tearing at your hearts. he remembers that he’d choose anything but this if he could.

he knows you would too. you’d always choose a home and a purring brown tabby cat and house plants over this view; mangled bodies of the innocent, blood in the road, and weeds through the concrete. then again, it’s that humanity of yours that keeps you going. you can’t just leave it all, knowing you could save even one life with the knowledge that you have. you keep him going too.

sam wishes more than anything that this wasn’t it for you. sam knows better than anything now that he loves you. and this is the moment he realizes it. in orange light and a dark blue sky. in a haunting shadow and a soft brilliance. 

you are the soft brilliance. in all of your pain and weariness and honest devastation over the loss of a small animal you never knew. that’s what makes him love you, so fully and truly and with no room for a drop of doubt.

he’ll remember this view. it’s fucked up and horrible. it’s the most genuine display of unconditional love and humanity that he’s ever seen. it makes him wonder if someday he’ll be you, and you’ll be the cat, curled up and cold in his lap. the blood drains from his face and he almost starts to cry with you.

but he loves you too much now to go back. it’s strange, he’s loved you a long time. a long time, and now he finally knows it. and he loves all of you. his love for you just rushes through his veins, it overwhelms his senses, it multiplies the aching of his heart.

he sits all the way down, pressed close against you as he wraps his arm around your shoulder and draws you to his chest. the cold wet of rain that’s stuck between the grooves and bumps of the asphalt soaks up into the thick fabric of his jeans. his warm hand smooths up and down your arm. the other stays splayed over yours and the poor cat, like he can somehow protect you both. that hurts him because one of you is already gone.

sam doesn’t just let you take the time to mourn. he mourns with you. he lets go of the part of him that fights to push it all away, to pretend it isn’t there, to just play through the pain. instead, he lets himself feel it. the loss and the sadness and all the wishing that this never happened. that so many things never happened. you always bring sam back to himself.

eventually, sam realizes you need a bit of help with moving on. as soft and quiet as he can, he peels off his jacket to wrap the cat in. you shouldn’t have to keep staring at its bloody wounds. the cat shouldn’t have to be so cold. he lays the jacket on the ground in front of you.

“here,” he murmurs. you inhale sharply, like you’re coming out of a daze. when you look up at him, your eyes still shine. ever so gently, you place the poor thing over the fabric of his jacket. sam wraps it up, safe and warm for you. he tucks it carefully into one arm, silently and sadly marveling at how small it is. then he holds out his other hand for you.

he exhales softly through his lips when your trembling hand meets his. you look so tired, so worn as he pulls you to your feet. but a bit of burden has been lifted since he took the cat from your lap. there’s streaks of blood on your clothes, smothered over your gentle, calloused hands.

your hand doesn’t slip from his as you walk back to the car. you open the trunk and pull out salt, gasoline, and matches. sam locks the car and you walk out into the grass until you can barely see the road. the lump of sam’s jacket, with the cat’s sweet head and closed eyes framed by the fabric and the rest of its body hidden away, is set gently on the ground. it’s silent as the two of you build up a tiny pyre of sticks and dried leaves.

sam softly covers the animal’s face when he sets it over the sticks. the cat receives a proper hunter’s funeral. sam lights the match and sprinkles the salt. he doesn’t want you to have be the one to set it alight.

you sit on the dewy grass and watch, rather than stand so you can be closer to the small thing. sam sits beside you and wraps an arm around your shoulders. he’s a bit cold without his jacket, but he doesn’t care. the heat from the fire reaches him, though it's mostly swallowed up by the wind.

he looks at you, quiet and subtle in his movements. your features are lit up by orange light for the second time tonight. the fire flickers in your eyes and the shadows cast a haunted look over your face.

sam is afraid of losing you. he’s terrified. and he’s still glad he met you. all of his love and terror is poured into you. he won’t tell you that he loves you today. he’s unlikely to tell you tomorrow. he wonders if he’ll tell you the next day, or the next month or year. he will tell you. and before that, he’ll show you.

every moment from now, he’s utterly dedicated to you. to your humanity, love, passion, kindness, and soft, immovable goodness. he’ll hold you close and kiss that goodness and make sure that no one can touch it. he’ll make sure you know that it is seen and loved and honored so that you don’t ever feel that you have to tuck it away for the sake of looking strong. really, your strength is undeniable.

maybe any other day, you’d take a long, deep breath, then stand and walk back to the car before the fire flickers out. but sam’s understanding and willingness to do all of this for you is so unwavering and true that you don’t do anything at all. instead, you let yourself be.

the night is so slow. the clouds in the sky shift and swirl and reveal the stars sometimes. the moon shines bright and clear in the a.m.s once the storm clouds clear. tonight’s fire is stubborn and long lasting. it still sparks and crackles as the sky ever so slowly lightens. deep and heavy blue turns to soft purples and baby blue. the straggling clouds are wispy and sweet cotton candy pink as the sun touches the horizon. sam notices the lingering tears in your eyes as you gaze up at the honeyed tenderness of the morning.

the earth from a distance. see how it shines.

[collateraldamage-inc]

NOT READY TO MAKE NICE

It's been two years since a JACKASS SUPE decided to play hero and killed my father and I. TWO YEARS since I had to get more metal shoved into my body than what's contained in the average AMERICAN CAR.

Motherfuckers, I am not going anywhere.

EVERY DAY Vought gets away with more and more shit. Pro-Vought trolls do their damnedest to make me unplug but I fucking won't. I don't give a shit what they try to pull. You fuckers want to keep licking boots? Go right ahead. It won't get you anything and you'll be running back here so I can say I TOLD YOU SO.

For those of you that are new and don't know how to use the Archives, my dad and I were firefighters with the NYFD. There was a fire in an apartment building, with two occupants inside. We went in. We knew what we were doing, NYFD had it under control.

A supe decided that it was his DUTY to blast his way into the building to "help". His entrance destabilized the structure and sent three floors' worth of brick and flaming wood down on our heads. Chief was livid. Supe didn't check on the situation, he just acted.

I was pulled out of the wreckage without vital signs and my father was crushed under the rubble, it took a week to find him. The trapped occupants on the ground floor died in the collapse, too.

You know what Vought offered me and my family? Hush money. They tried to pressure my grandfather into taking a deal while I was in a fucking coma. Good thing he's stubborn. I've been fighting with them ever since. They wanted me to keep quiet about what happened but what good would that do?

There are hundreds of people like me, each and every one of them with their stories silenced by Vought in favour of keeping their "heroes'" reputations squeaky clean. They don't want you to know the truth.

And I won't shut up until Vought's gone, or I am.