#crop maintenance

[techninja]

Increasing Farm Profitability Through Automation and Efficiency

Revolutionizing Agriculture with Robotics

Introduction

In recent years, agriculture has undergone a profound transformation, thanks to advancements in robotic technology. These innovations have not only revolutionized the way we cultivate crops but have also significantly improved efficiency, productivity, and sustainability in the agricultural sector. In this article, we delve deep into the world of agricultural robots, exploring their various applications, benefits, and the future they promise for farming.

The Rise of Agricultural Robots

Farm Automation

Agricultural robots, also known as agribots or agricultural drones, are automated machines designed to perform tasks traditionally carried out by human farmers. From planting and harvesting to crop monitoring and irrigation, these robots are capable of executing a wide range of agricultural activities with precision and efficiency.

Precision Farming

One of the most significant benefits of agricultural robots is their ability to enable precision farming practices. By utilizing sensors, GPS technology, and data analytics, these robots can accurately assess the health and needs of individual plants, allowing farmers to tailor their farming practices accordingly. This targeted approach not only maximizes yield but also minimizes the use of resources such as water and fertilizers, thereby promoting sustainability.

Applications of Agricultural Robots

Planting and Seeding

Agricultural robots play a crucial role in the planting and seeding process, ensuring precise spacing and depth for optimal germination and growth. Equipped with advanced navigation systems, these robots can navigate rough terrain and varying conditions with ease, covering large acreages in a fraction of the time it would take traditional methods.

Crop Monitoring and Management

Crop monitoring is essential for farmers to assess the health and development of their crops throughout the growing season. Agricultural robots equipped with sensors and cameras can provide real-time data on crop conditions, including moisture levels, nutrient content, and pest infestations. This allows farmers to identify issues early on and take proactive measures to mitigate potential crop losses.

Harvesting

Perhaps one of the most labor-intensive tasks in agriculture, harvesting is also one of the most critical stages in the farming process. Agricultural robots equipped with sophisticated manipulators and vision systems can automate the harvesting process, selectively picking ripe fruits or vegetables with precision and care. This not only reduces the reliance on manual labor but also ensures a higher quality yield.

Weed Control

Weeds compete with crops for nutrients, water, and sunlight, posing a significant challenge for farmers. Agricultural robots equipped with weed detection systems and precision sprayers can accurately identify and target weeds while minimizing herbicide use. This targeted approach helps farmers maintain crop health while reducing the environmental impact of weed control methods.

The Future of Agriculture

Advancements in Robotics

As technology continues to advance, the capabilities of agricultural robots are only expected to grow. From autonomous navigation to machine learning algorithms, future robots will be smarter, more efficient, and more adaptable to the changing needs of farming.

Sustainability and Efficiency

Agricultural robots hold the key to a more sustainable and efficient agricultural future. By optimizing resource utilization, minimizing waste, and reducing the environmental impact of farming practices, these robots can help ensure food security for future generations while preserving our planet.

Conclusion

In conclusion, agricultural robots are transforming the farming landscape, offering farmers a myriad of benefits ranging from increased productivity and efficiency to enhanced sustainability and profitability. As technology continues to evolve, the future of agriculture looks brighter than ever, thanks to the tireless efforts of innovators and entrepreneurs in the field of robotics. Embracing these technological advancements is not just a choice but a necessity for farmers looking to thrive in an ever-changing world.

[ggacworldwide]

Maximizing March: Best Farming Practices for Nigerian Regions

Introduction:As March unfolds, Nigerian farmers gear up for a pivotal period in agricultural activities. Tailoring farming practices to regional nuances and climate variations is crucial for maximizing yields and ensuring agricultural success. Explore the following best practices designed to optimize farming endeavors across Nigerian regions this March. 1. Northern Nigeria: Planting Schedule:…

[silverskye13]

Patron saint of leeks

Yaaaaasssss I will GLADLY be sainted to leeks. I love them so much. They're adorable they're tasty they're crunchy I wish I could put one in a hat and wear it places

[samoadoll]

NO BAD SPIRITED BITCHES. ANGEL ENERGY ONLY.

https://angelenergyareli.etsy.com

[sanguinesorcery]

Ponniyin Selvan Prt 1 -- Ponni Nadhi

The Ring Run is a bi-annual scheduled visit that any acting Imperial worth their title and prestige never fails to perform.

While visits from an Imperial usually means an emergency must be appraised and tended to, the Ring Run happens at the height of the dry season and after the rainy season. The Imperial and their advisors and councilors ride the full circumference of the outer ring islands, where agriculture and industry reside and the peoples are mostly rural populace.

It takes upward of two weeks when all is well, but has lasted nearly three when particular crisis hits. The average is about two and a half weeks, since any good Imperial will usually stay with the rural communities and ethnicities on each island to learn new cultural ticks to better align with their peoples and assess what needs to be addressed.

The height of the dry season is usually when the weather is at its worst, and those ring islands without springs or natural lakes are generally in need of water. While the pump stations and waterwork branches on the 'dry' islands are always working, those who are in the most dire need of it will have their stations output increased to make sure all needs between product and people are met.

The following weeks after the rainy season are more or less to assess the damages done by the tropical storms and monsoons that batter the Three and Ten and as there is no distinction between islands for the weather; all are hit by typhoons and tempests, therefore this Run is the longest to take. Damages will happen, but a better understanding of them with the Run if no immediate disasters are received will help bolster for the next season.

[medicaldevicesindustrynews]

Sustainable Farming: Navigating Trends in the Agricultural Lubricants Market

The agricultural lubricants market will touch USD 4,332.8 million, growing at a 4.1% compound annual growth rate, by 2030. The growth of this industry is because of the rising modern farming practices, the growing need to enhance crop yield, and the mechanization of agricultural procedures. Furthermore, the requirement for farming activities-related products are likely to surge at a rapid rate…

[kisakis-boyfriend]

might i request reader fucking boothill after they take off his arms and legs? he's got mechanical limbs, so it won't really hurt and they can be put back on again, but like. the brainrot. he'd look so cute fr fr ♦️

Author's Note: You must also be a mind reader, because I have been plagued with all sorts of scenarios like this. Either with a robot/android character having their innards played with, or robot/android reader. — All of that to say; I went with a mechanic reader doing some maintenance on Boothill, and things get a lil spicy 👀 (ended up making the reader a bit southern too??)

Pairings: Boothill x male reader

Warnings: Male mechanic!reader, dom/top!reader, sub/bottom!Boothill, robo sex, robo genital functions, Boothill's goofy swearing, fingering, grinding, mild objectification

“What seems to be the problem?” You ask. The man on the other side of the desk rolls his shoulder back a few times, complaining of some joint issues.

“Alrighty, follow me. I'll take a look at'cha”

The cowboy follows you into an examination room. Various posters are taped to the walls — cheesy motivational posters and diagrams of machinery, mostly. He comments on them, saying that he appreciates a place like this, as opposed to the squeaky clean shops he'd been referred to previously. You chuckle and thank him for the compliment.

Some tools are pulled out and placed on a workbench next to the table. As you're prepping things, you tell your customer to remove any articles of clothing and have a seat on the table.

“Well shoot, at least take me to dinner first, darlin'!” He teases, smirking at you when you slowly turn your head around and playfully squint your eyes at his remark. Still, he does as he's told, and removes his cropped top, pants, hat. Literally everything is off, and he takes his seat, waiting patiently for you to begin.

“Lift this arm for me. Ok good. Now the other one.” You instruct him through a simple visual check. All four of his limbs seem to stutter through their movements, acting worse when he tries to rotate his legs.

“Ok... Um, I think this'll be an easy fix, but uh...”

“But what?”

“I... am going to need to detach all of your limbs to fix you–”

—

While your customer was clearly not used to a procedure like this one, he did a wonderful job of following your instructions so as not to damage anything while you're removing his appendages. All four of them detach smoothly, and you set them aside on a spare table until you'll need them again. With the heavy lifting out of the way, you're ready to go in for the delicate work of recalibrating his connecting joints.

“You know, you're probably one of my best customers.” you say as your fingers tug on one of the small wires buried deep within his hip socket, “Most people aren't too keen on doing it all at once. And even when it's two at a time, they squirm and babble anxiously.”

Boothill inhales sharply as the sensation of your hands literally inside of him stirs something within his belly. His lower lip is scored with the marks from his sharp teeth.

You tighten a few of the mechanisms in there, and he prays that you keep your eyes on your work, otherwise you'd see how stupid he must look as his eyelids droop and his mouth opens in a silent moan. It's taking all of his willpower to hold those sounds in.

“Geez, this one is crazy loose… do you uh, have regular maintenance done? Because you really sh-”

As you grip another wire and pull it, a compartment on Boothill's crotch suddenly opens up, revealing a fleshy, dripping hole.

If the cowboy still had legs at the moment, he'd be trying to close them and hide his arousal from you. Already, his breathing has become ragged and heavy, on the verge of making other, lewder sounds…

“Ah! O-oh I am so sorry–”

“Naw, s'okay…” Boothill slurs before the beginning of a moan, futilely attempting to hold composure that is clearly long gone by this point. He can't really buck his hips, but you can tell that that's what he's trying to do. You take the hint, and curiously move between his legs- or, what would be the area between his legs, anyway. He gives you permission immediately, almost begging to have this spot touched.

It's… strangely soft… humanlike in both appearance and touch. It's unclear whether this is human flesh or synthetic, but realistic flesh. Whatever it is, it has nerve endings of some variety, because Boothill whimpers as you prod around the edges of the opening. More liquid oozes out as you toy with him, gasping ooh's and aah's with a curious grin on your face. It's so much that you need to grab a couple towels and place them under his hips so it doesn't drip everywhere or seep into his open sockets. Seriously, it's like a waterfall after a couple minutes…

“You're sure this is ok? I'd hate to make you uncomfortable…”

The hole between his hips pulsates, opening up just slightly, as if it's inviting you inside.

“Darlin', please– you already had yer fingers inside of me today, just… put 'em back in.” The cowboy whines. And if a customer needs a little extra service, who are you to ignore them? Especially one as gorgeous as Boothill.

A rush of the sticky liquid comes pouring out when you push two fingers inside of his pretty hole.

“Fuck, not that I get around much, but I've never seen someone get so damn wet just from my fingers before. Is it always like this?”

A quiet 'mm-mm' is his response. His head flies to either side as your fingers sink in up to the knuckle, effortlessly, thanks to his built-in lube. His hair is hanging off the other end of the table, swooshing around every time Boothill flings his head around. It's so pretty, you really wish it was between your fingers right now…

For now, your focus comes back to the multitude of wet noises coming from Boothill's hole. The towels under him have long since soaked up everything spilling from his entrance.

“M-more… gimme more–!!” he moans, squeezing his eyes shut.

Removing your fingers, his hole squirts out a bit of liquid, and he resembles a sad puppy until he notices you removing your clothes. When your hard-on is more visible, Boothill drools at the sight.

You free your cock and give it a few pumps, licking your lips as your eyes flick between the cowboy's fleshy entrance and his sweaty face. He returns your gaze with his own obvious lust, lolling his tongue out once you touch him again.

It's incredibly soft and wet on your dick. You rub your length against the opening a few times, grinding against him and imagining how it will feel once you're inside–

“Shi- fuck! Mm that's tight, cowboy. Holy shit.” You exclaim, almost going cross-eyed from pleasure as his hole squeezes you so good. It doesn't take long for you to grab his hips and thrust like your life depends on it.

“Goddamn, yer like some hi-tech fleshlight! Oh yeah, take that dick! Take it, slut.” Mechanical wheezing is the only sound coming from Boothill now, unable to speak as you pound his hole mercilessly. In a moment of animalistic lust, you crawl up on the table and fuck him like a sex doll, curling over his body with your own and pistoning your hips, drilling into his gushing entrance as he squirts heavily.

You groan right into his ear, “M'gonna cum in you now- is that ok?” Boothill rapidly shakes his head, shivering at the way your breath hits his earlobe. Within seconds you're fucking your seed further into his squishy hole, ramming in so deep you make the cowboy's eyes roll completely back, and he exhales a shaky “Fork yeah~”. It's hard not to chuckle at the ridiculousness of what he said, but coming down from your high takes most of your energy — including the energy to realize that this man did just say "fork yeah" when you came inside of him……

His hole is still greedily sucking your juices in, and you can already feel yourself humping the glorified fleshlight that is your customer. Needless to say, this repair will take longer than you planned…

[prokopetz]

Ways your fortified points-of-light fantasy city with no discernible agricultural base supports itself that aren't "they eat the monsters":

There's no farmland spreading below the city's mountain fastness because all of the crops are above. Most of the mountain's surface area below the permanent snowline is taken up by a series of colossal hydroponic terraces fed by seasonal meltwater from the snow pack above. (Don't ask who built the terraces.)

The city's famed heaven-piercing towers are aviaries for millions upon untold millions of fruit and seed eating birds, which forage the surrounding countryside by day and roost there at night; their meat and eggs form the community's staple diet. In order to fend off ecological depletion, crack teams of combat-trained wilderness maintenance experts venture forth daily, escorting great cartloads of birdshit on targeted fertilising missions (though in truth they hardly need their swords, as the smell keeps the monsters at bay).

Those weird caverns that seem to be present under every random shed and outhouse are all connected. That's why the giant mutant rats in the basement of the local inn are such a big deal – they're not just annoying the guests, they're also obstructing the community's principal trade route!

For Reasons, the city's population is only about ten percent of its carrying capacity. The city's interior green spaces are presently sufficient for food production, and its citizens take turns dressing up as soldiers and manning the walls once a week to create the illusion of a robust military presence. Unfortunately, the ruse can't last forever, as they lack the manpower to maintain their crumbling infrastructure, nor will they be able to defend themselves when – not if, but when – the neighbouring city-states figure it out.

There's actually plenty of conventional farmland; it's just that the entire campaign takes place south of the city, and the farms are all to the north. Why don't the farms expand southward to claim the clearly arable land? Well, there's a funny story about that...

[whore-era]

infatuation - part 1

☁︎ delinquent!ellie williams x preppyfem!reader, enemies to lovers trope ☁︎ smut, angst, tiny bit of fluff ☁︎ summary: don’t let your boyfriend stop you from finding your girlfriend.  ☁︎ warnings: 18+ only. kissing, fingering & oral (r!recieving), masturbation, mentions of weed and smoking weed, mentions relationships w/ men, feelings, kinda mean ellie but then shes nice again, arguing and yelling kinda (let me know if i miss any more necessary warnings ty baes) ☁︎ a/n: i wrote this in like one day. hope u all enjoy this fic as much as i enjoyed writing it! ya nasties ;) ☁︎ word count: 4,347 ☁︎ 1/2 - part 2

you swore to yourself you’d never let yourself get involved with the university’s infamous delinquent— ellie williams. but you should’ve known that’d be hard to avoid, knowing she was just in reach as your roommate’s best friend. 

ellie was always, and i mean always, there in your dorm. either chilling with dina, talking with dina, or, much to your disliking, smoking with dina. 

ever since you ran into her on the first day of dorm move-in, she was constantly there, bickering with you, poking at you, and judging you for every little thing you did. 

ellie had this image of you; an image of this perfect, high maintenance, always put-together, prissy, goody-two-shoes. it was far from the truth, well, kind of. 

you did pride yourself on being one of the smartest girls on campus, and being very active in numerous extracurriculars at school. you were in the student body, the recycling club, the campus book club, the health club, the cooking club— you were just in a lot of clubs. 

but it would be an understatement to say that ellie williams is everything opposite of you. she was on the other side of the spectrum you were on. 

ellie williams was aggressive, a smartass, foulmouthed, risky, and usually up to trouble. always going to the dean’s office for a fight she probably started. the only reason why she hadn’t been kicked out from campus was because her stepdad is the dean's brother. don’t get yourself wrong, she was brilliant being an engineering major. but she was always doing something she wasn’t supposed to as if it fueled her drive.

you unlocked the door to your dorm, greeted with a fog of smoke. hacking out a cough, you switch on the lights, “dina!! what’d i tell you?” you lecture, stomping over towards the window to open it, “if you’re gonna smoke in here, at least open the window!”

“sorry, roomie,” dina coughed out, “we were just hotboxing.” 

you turned towards the pair, criss-crossed on dina’s bed, and furrow your brows, “what? hotboxing?” 

“yea, you know, smoking weed ’til the room fills up with smoke, so the high is more enhanced.” dina explained, you tilted your head to the side, still not fully comprehending whatever hotboxing was. 

the brunette girl leaned against the wall, giving you a smirk. “c’mon, dee. don’t waste your breath explaining,” ellie retorted, “i’m sure lil miss perfect here never smoked or drank before.” 

you scoffed, crossing your arms, “for your information, i have drank before.”

“oh yea? when was the last time, princess?” god, you hated that nickname. you hated the way it made you red in the cheeks. 

“….at church.” you muttered quietly, sending ellie and dina into a fit of laughter. 

“did you hear that, dee? at church! she said the last time she drank alcohol was at church!” ellie let out a boisterous laugh, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. 

“good one, princess.”

you huffed, rolled your eyes, and rummaged around your side of the room to search for what you were looking for in the first place.

was it so wrong for you to not drink or smoke weed? you didn’t think negatively about anyone who used it, but you just didn’t feel comfortable using something that had such an effect on you. you wanted autonomy over your body at all times. 

bingo. you found the cropped white baby tee you wanted to change into, finding it more comfortable than the scratchy sweater you had on currently. turning away from the chatter of dina and ellie, you lifted the sweater above your head, tossed it in your laundry bag, and slipped into the more fitted and more comfortable white tee. 

standing in front of your mirror, you checked your outfit. you thought a simple t-shirt and black yoga pants were cute enough to hang out with jacob in. you fixed your hair, and looked up at the corner of your mirror, your eyes meeting green ones. 

ellie bit her lip, watching the beautiful yet stubborn girl in front of her. she couldn’t tear her eyes away from you. you just looked so goddamn beautiful. she couldn’t help but take a peek at the way your bare back curved or how soft your skin looked as your sweater slid off your body. ellie definitely didn’t complain about the yoga pants either and how they hugged your ass and thighs in all the right places. 

knowing she was staring at you, you hiked your yoga pants higher and bent over a little, reapplying your favorite shimmering lipgloss in the mirror. you weren’t sure what came over you, but the feeling of knowing ellie was watching you, gave you butterflies in your belly. 

you see her smirk and break eye contact with you. picking up your backpack and your ‘Organic Chemistry 101’ textbook, you bid dina a goodbye. 

“i’ll be back later tonight dina, don’t wait up for me.” you said, slipping your shoes on. 

ellie cleared her throat, “where you headed off to?” 

“pi kappa alpha frat.” you met ellie’s eyes. they looked disappointed, but then quickly rolled to the side, masking whatever sadness you thought you saw.

“hm, i see,” ellie commented, “gonna go blow some frat dude’s cock, huh?”

you groaned, “ugh, no, idiot. i’m just gonna go study.” 

“mhm, whatever you say, princess.” you open the door and leave, hearing the sound of dina yelling ‘be safe’ right before you left. 

walking down the corridor, you thought to yourself ‘jacob isn’t that bad’. i mean, you both aren’t in a relationship by any means. you would describe it as ‘situationship’. jacob was nice, funny sometimes, cute, had a nice body, and was cool. him as a boyfriend though? you weren’t sure about that. he was good company, provided mediocre sex, and was nice to talk to, well, usually he’d talk about hockey and you’d listen. but that’s beside the point. you’re content with this situation, right? 

-

walking back to your dorm from what was probably the worst sex of your life was, quite frankly, embarrassing. you spend time changing into a cute outfit, fixing your makeup, and spritzing on a little bit of your favorite expensive perfume to show up to this dude’s room with him reeking of sweat and ham. you were disappointed, to say the least.

yet, you stayed anyways, unsure of what even compelled you to do that. you stayed for the company, and that company starts rubbing on your ass and tits not even 5 minutes into the netflix show. eventually, you give in, feeling in the mood from a little making out, and you were met with 3 thrusts and cum on your stomach. 

needless to say, you left in a hurry. currently cuddled under your pink duvet with your earphones on, you end up scrolling about on instagram, tapping to like and swiping up to comment on your friends posts. 

while aimlessly scrolling, a picture from @e.williams pops up on your timeline. you study her picture in fascination.

it was a mirror picture of her in the gym, she had her hair up in her usual half-up half-down style with a tight tank top accentuating her physique as she was flexing her arms. gosh, how could someone so annoying be so gorgeous? your eyes trail to her arms and hands. and so fine? you double-tap on the picture, looking at it for a second more before scrolling past to the next post. 

your phone vibrates, and you check the notification from your instagram dm’s.

@e.williams: you checking me out or something ??

you scoff, heat rising to your cheeks. luckily, ellie wasn’t here to see that, or else you would’ve never heard the end of it. you type back.

in ur dreams idiot 

you lay in bed closing your eyes, and somehow, your mind drifts off to that annoying green-eyed girl.

your mind goes to the way she looks at you when she thinks you don’t notice, or how even though she comments on everything you do, she’s so attentive about it. your mind plays in your head the way she calls you those stupid nicknames, and as much as you claim to hate them, you can’t deny the way it makes your heart flutter. 

then, your mind floats to the corner of your brain that you keep locked away. you think about the way ellie bites her lip when she gets anxious, how better her lips would feel pressed onto yours. you think about the way she flexes her arms and hands, wondering how they would feel stroking your most intimate parts. 

you find your hand inside your panties. luckily, dina was in the communal showers, doing her 25-step skincare routine. knowing you had the time, your hand goes down to your wet heat, rubbing your clit in slow circles. 

you close your eyes, picturing her in your head, imagining her fingers working on you instead. you think about how perfect she’d look above you, looking down at you with adoring eyes. you knew she’d take good care of you. you suppress the need to moan by biting down on the duvet. 

even when she wasn’t here, ellie had a way of drawing out unrecognizable responses from you. your finger still rubbing circles on your clit, an orgasm began to bubble in your stomach. you picked up the pace, legs beginning to shake, “fuck, ellie..” you manage to moan out as you finish on your fingers. 

gosh, what was this girl doing to me?

-

it was saturday night and you had managed to get another date with jacob. you rejected him at first, but he was very persistent and promised ‘mind-blowing sex’ and takeout from one of the best restaurants in town. you obliged, clearly in it only for the takeout. 

you thought it’d be a good idea to hang out with him. his hockey stories distracted you from the real person you had your mind stuck on, ellie. 

you thought about her all the time, it gave you a migraine. you couldn’t look her in the eyes anymore without feeling nervous. luckily, you managed to avoid her all week, hanging out at one of your good friend’s dorm room ’til you knew the coast was clear. 

you didn’t let yourself think about what it would be like being in a relationship with ellie williams. she didn’t like you at all, not in that way anyway. she’d probably make some comment like ‘hell would freeze over before i even look at you like that’. the two of you together would be a recipe for disaster. you literally despised each other. 

smoothing down your dress, you smiled at the mirror in satisfaction. you went over to your desk and sat down, getting ready to apply some light makeup.

hearing the door open and close, you assumed it was dina.

“damn, who died?”

your head turns and meets those stupid green eyes and that stupid smirk adorned with those stupid freckles that make your stupid heart race a little faster. god, you were so stupid. 

“ha ha, very funny,” you snapped, “what are you doing here, anyways?”

“dina doesn’t get off work for a couple of hours and i didn’t have jackshit to do, so i thought i would wait for her here,” ellie plops down on dina’s bed.

“hell, no. get out,” you demanded, pointing to the door. you really just wanted her to leave so you could let go of the breath you’ve been holding. it made you anxious being alone with her and the fact that she wore that stupid blue button-up that made her look so good didn’t make anything better either. 

“chill out, princess,” ellie said leaning back against dina’s head board, “you won’t even notice i’m here.” 

you huffed in frustration, trying to hide the crimson creeping up on your cheeks. you proceeded to get your mind off the brunette by continuing your makeup, intently dabbing your concealer in, and carefully curling your lashes. you pat your face gently with some powder and brush out your brows, once in a while looking to the side of your mirror, catching ellie looking at you before she quickly looks away, pretending to be on her phone.

“gettin’ all dolled up for your lil’ boyfriend?” she asks dryly, still looking down at her phone. 

“wouldn’t you like to know?” 

“please, do enlighten me, princess.” you swallow hard, “i’ll have you know that i’m going out with jacob anderson tonight.” 

“no fucking way, is that the shithead you’re seeing from pi kappa alpha?” she says, surprised with wide eyes.

“mhm,” you hummed in confirmation, still rummaging in your makeup.

“why am i even surprised, you did always gravitate towards the assholes.”

“what’s that supposed to mean?”, you paused and raised a brow. 

“you go for assholes,” she stated, “do i need to spell it out for you?”

“jacob is not an asshole, he’s really nice.” you muttered, patting on some blush. “he’s hell of a lot nicer than you.” 

okay, you knew that was a lie. but you had to think of a way to get her off your back.

“m’yeah, i highly doubt that. he’s a fucking tool,” she says nonchalantly, “where’s he even taking you anyways?”

“he asked me to meet up with him at the frat house, we’re gonna watch netflix and eat takeout and stuff,” you admit. 

“you fuckin’ with me?” ellie looks surprised and almost pissed. 

“no, why would i?”

“are you serious? it’s pouring rain outside and he asked you to come over,” she points out, “the asshole didn’t even have the decency to come over here and walk with you himself.”

your eyes look out the window, barely registering the pitter-patter of the rain hitting your window. you didn’t even know it was raining and you wore a dress. your mind was so consumed with classes, ellie, clubs, ellie, student body, ellie, and ellie. the small details just flew right over your head.

you stay silent, and she just gives you a look. a look you couldn’t decipher.

“you’re a real piece of work, y’know that?” ellie retorts, crossing her arms. jesus, why did she have to look so good like that?

“what’d i do this time? please, share with the class.” you say, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“you just go for guys who treat you like garbage or who’re way out of your league.” she argues, “they’re either too stupid or don’t give a fuck about you.” ouch. that kind of stung.

you close your eyes, waiting before answering back at her, “can you stop it?! just for once. stop judging every single thing i do.” you yell, exasperated.

ellie’s eyes widen and she lets out a laugh, which sets you off even more.

“you think this is funny? you always make some snide comment about me. i’m too high maintenance, i’m a teacher’s pet, i’m spoiled, i go after horrible guys—“ 

“because you do!” she yells back.

“and why do you care, ellie?!” you yell, becoming out of breath, partly due to the hard pounding of your heartbeat in your chest, “why do you care so much?

she goes silent. 

“god, you infuriate me, ellie williams.” you breathe out. you felt almost as if fire was igniting inside of you and your slow breaths were releasing the smoke. you close your eyes, attempting to calm down before opening them again and putting on the last finishing touches on your makeup. as you stand up grabbing your purse, and you hear ellie let out a heavy sigh. 

“you’re seriously still gonna go out with that fucking frat bro prick jacob anderson? after everything i said?” she snarks, “i thought girls like you were supposed to be smart.” 

“yea, as a matter of fact. i am still going,” you give her a mocking smile.

“why? so, he can fuck you missionary in the dark while he finishes in 3 seconds?” she lets out a harsh laugh, “how fucking romantic.” 

“again, why do you even care? you don’t even like me,” you counter, her head spins in your direction.

“who told you that?” ellie appeared angry, her eyes sharp and a serious tone in her voice.

“no one that matters.” 

there’s a pregnant pause in the air as if she’s hesitating to say something. 

“well, whoever the fuck they are, they’re wrong.” she confessed, her voice wavering.

“what do you mean?”

she sighs in frustration, running a hand through her hair before standing up in front of you. 

“i’m infatuated with you.” 

“huh?” you manage to croak out in shock. did you hear her correctly?

“yea. you heard me. i’m infatuated with you. you fucking consume every corner of my mind. every capacity of my being.” she comes closer to you, backing you up against the door, “you drive me absolutely insane.”

“then why do you treat me like this?” you ask, looking up at her with big, curious eyes. ellie’s eyes soften at you.

“because— i hate seeing you go on dates with those dicks who don’t deserve you. i hate seeing the way you dress in those short-ass fucking dresses and skirts for them. i hate knowing that they don’t even make you feel good. i hate that you waste your time on those assholes instead of—,” she breathes, “—instead of me.” 

you look at her, searching for any sign of doubt in her face. nothing. no. she couldn’t do this. she couldn’t spring this on you. she couldn’t act one way to you for months and then tell you something different the next.

“so what? you think you deserve me? you deserve my attention?” you snap ungraciously.

“as a matter of fact, yes. yes i do.” she whispers, getting closer to you. “you and i both know it,” her breath fans your face, “i’d make you feel better than any of those assholes could.”

you shift uncomfortably in your spot, pulling your eyes away from hers. 

“i can give you everything you deserve. i can give you everything you want.” she swears. “i can make your pussy feel so, so good, baby,” you can feel your wetness pool in your panties. 

“can make you whimper and moan,” ellie suddenly grabs you by the bare flesh underneath your ass, her warm hands hoisting you up and wrapping your legs around her waist. 

“jus’ give me a chance to show you.” she whispers lowly. you smash your lips onto hers, your hands holding onto the nape of her neck. you knew this was probably a bad idea, but god, the way her tongue felt in your mouth felt ungodly. her tongue rubbed against yours, exploring your mouth like it was something she was destined to do. 

walking towards your bed, your frame still wrapped up around her, she bent down to lay you on your bed. ellie pulled away from your lips and looked down at you, scattering gentle kisses below your jawline towards your neck, your legs still firmly wrapped around her figure.

with your eyes closed, savoring the feeling of her lips all over your neck, you attempted to put an end to this. “el, we can’t,” you nearly moan out.

“why? ‘cause of jacob?” ellie lets out an amused laugh, before pressing her lips against the weak spot of your neck, sucking on it. 

another moan vibrates through you, “god, ellie,” you let out meekly. 

“tell me to stop,” she commands, her lips moving to suck on the spot above your collarbone, the tip of her tongue gliding against your skin. don’t stop. 

“tell me that i’m wrong,” ellie murmured, “that i don’t deserve you.” you deserve me.

her fingers lift up the hem of your dress, exposing your stomach. her lips pepper sloppy kisses against the supple skin of your stomach, “tell me you don’t want me,” i want you, “that you don’t feel the same for me.” i do feel the same for you. 

“tell me, baby,” ellie kisses in the space between your breasts, “tell me you’re not mine.” 

your heart was beating in and out of your chest. this was it. this was your chance. getting an opportunity to be with ellie williams was a once-in-a-lifetime offer, and you weren’t passing up your dream girl. 

you grab her face, lifting her lips up to yours. “i’m yours, ellie,” you cooed, “i’m all yours.” 

leaning her forehead against yours, her lips curled into a smile, before pressing onto yours one more time. her warm hands rubbed against the skin on your waist, exploring every inch of warm, flesh. you whined against her mouth, wanting more. you needed more. you needed her. 

ellie’s hands trailed upwards, lifting the dress off you and discarding it somewhere in your room. she took this opportunity to pull away from you for a second, her eyes grazing your body. ellie found it hard to believe she was in this situation, with you underneath her, nearly naked and looking angelic. she took a mental picture of this moment, never wanting to forget how you looked at her— with love.

her fingers went behind you to unclasp your bra, letting it fall and tossing it to the side.

“fuck, you’re so beautiful,” she whispered, “you’re beyond anything i could’ve dreamt of.” 

your stomach erupted in butterflies, flushed at this newfound sweet side to ellie. her mouth placed sloppy kisses on your chest, sucking on the soft skin and leaving maroon-colored marks as a reminder of where she had been and where she belongs. 

she took your breast in her mouth, letting her tongue wrap around your hardened nipple. “oh my god, ellie,” you hissed. she smirked up at you, letting one of her hands massage and pinch on the other nipple.

“please, ellie,” you begged, “touch me, please.” 

she let out a sickening chuckle, the heat of her mouth fanning your skin, sending shivers up your spine. 

“where, sweet girl?” she said bringing her lips down to suck on your nipple again, “use your words.”

you bucked your hips up, “please, el, touch my pussy. pretty please.” you breathe out.

“ah, ah, ah, can’t hear you, baby.” she mocked, pulling her lips away from your now sensitive nipples.

“ellie, please,” you whined out, “i want you to touch my pussy. please.” 

she smirks, satisfied with where she has you. “that’s my good girl. how obedient, hm?”

she stands up, still in between your legs, and pulls your body to the edge of the mattress. her hands go to the waistband of your panties, using her fingers to ever-so-slowly peel them off of you. she was intentionally moving agonizingly slow. her hands caressed your inner thighs and calves, finally chucking your panties somewhere on the floor. 

“fuck, i’ve been waiting so long to do this,” ellie said, crouching down on the floor in front of you. you could feel her hot breath against your pussy, and you couldn’t bear it any longer. 

“please, i need you, el,” you beg, hoping for some relief. her hands lifted your thighs and placed them on her shoulders, her lips pressing soft kisses in between your thighs. she presses a kiss against your inner thigh, on your pussy lips, and then finally on your clit. 

ellie works slow and patiently, using her fingers to steadily spread your pussy lips apart and gather your wetness with her tongue. she uses one finger and inserts it inside you, eliciting a gasp from your lips. 

you throw your head back, “oh my god, ellie, yes,” you moan out, your eyes rolling to the back of your head. 

“look at you, getting what you want, you spoiled girl,” she mutters against your pussy, before putting her lips on your clit again, sucking on your sensitive core. her finger pumping in and out of you easily, the slick sound of your wetness reverberating throughout the room.

“you taste so fucking good, baby,” ellie hums against you, slurping up every drop of your juices. she adds a second finger, stretching you out a bit, but still sliding in and out of you with ease. 

her tongue flicking against your clit combined with her fingers fucking you was enough to almost send you over the edge, you cover your mouth with your hand, suppressing a loud moan that was tempted to come out.

“no, let me hear you, sweet girl,” ellie orders, “let everyone in this whole goddamn hall hear how good i’m fingerfucking you right now.”

you let your hand drop to your side, relishing in the ecstasy, and letting out a moan you were holding back.

“that’s my girl.” 

you hear your phone ring, knowing it’s jacob, probably wondering why you haven’t shown up by now. but here you were, with ellie, knuckles deep inside your pussy. 

she grabs your phone from the nightstand with her free hand, while the other is picking up the pace with her fingers, eliciting another moan from your parted lips, “hey fucker, leave a message. she’s busy right now.” 

you should’ve scolded her about how she answered your phone, but right now, any consequences you thought about vanished as she continued licking circles against your swollen clit while simultaneously curling her fingers up inside your leaking hole. 

“el—“ you barely choked out, “m’gonna— gonna—“

she kept the same pace, not for a second slowing down, “you gonna cum, baby? huh? you gonna cum for me?” 

you nodded weakly, clenching your pussy around her fingers and tightening your thighs around her head. 

“go ‘head, angel,” her pace never misses a beat, “show me who you belong to.”

your back arches off the mattress and you cry out, riding out your orgasm and letting your juices flow out of you. 

after cleaning your thighs with a wet wipe and towel, ellie comes up to hover above your face, planting a tender kiss on your lips. 

“is it too late to ask you to be my girlfriend?” she asks, letting out a sincere laugh. 

“i thought we already established this, idiot.” 

read part 2 here

[dreamgrlarchive]

My Collection of Beauty Standard Inspo 💗

#PrettyHeiressDiaries

video vixens ❤︎︎

video vixens are the quintessential sexy girl that you either wanted to be or wanted to get. they’re almost always hyper girly and there’s a natural beauty to them that’s less prominent as of late. they ooze effortless sex appeal. not to mention the mystery they held. i mean they literally were just there to look good, be pursued, and look good some more. they weren’t talking, let alone telling their business.

thin brows

frosty lip gloss

jet black or honey blonde long hair

millennium/logomania designer pieces

very blingy detailz

revealing cuts + sexy silhouettes

vintage glam black women ❤︎︎

appearing effortlessly beautiful while giving high maintenance class. these women are EXPEN$IVE! striking personalities and body language that commanded respect and attracted the best treatments only. a very overt glamorous brand of femininity.

voluminous hair and curls

opulent accessories

fur coats + shawls

metallic, shimmery eyes

pendant jewelry

ultrafeminine bougie women ❤︎︎

women like kimora lee simmons, mariah carey, and nicki minaj (and fictional characters like hilary banks, dionne davenport and toni childs) all carry themselves with a super girly aura. they don’t mind the “diva” or “gold digger” label; embrace it even. they love pink and being the most sparkly in the room and are often very successful and headstrong!

pink, pink, pink

tweed, tartan, + plaid

natural glam makeup

silk presses and sew ins

blouses + skirts

crop tops, tube tops, + turtlenecks

iconic early 90s supermodels ❤︎︎

the golden age of fashion. these women walked in the most influential fashion shows for me; chanel ss95, chanel fw92, azzedine alaia fw91, versace 92, lanvin a/w 91. the epitome of untouchable glamour. the circle of the most beautiful, most hardworking women ever.

silk, tulle, chiffon

statement pieces

designer purses

houndstooth and cheetah prints

form-fitting silhouettes

an amazing strut

[artfight]

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[gothhabiba]

It's striking how frequently you can take a Zionist claim, exactly reverse it, and arrive at something much closer to the truth.

Zionists claim that the majority of Palestinian land was unproductive, that Palestinians were neglecting the agricultural potential of the land, and that the مشاع (musha') system of shared landholding (wherein plots were swapped around within a large family unit rather than belonging to one owner and their descendants in perpetuity) held back the land's potential—because the "Arabs" (of course, naturally selfish) would not want to make long-term improvements or allow standard maintenance (e.g. letting it lie fallow) of land if they could not expect the sole long-term benefit from doing so.

I expect that this system, like all systems, had its disadvantages, but Palestinians were demonstrably making long-term changes to the land which their whole unit would benefit from. Terracing, for example, must be accepted to be a long-term project which does not merely immediately extract the maximum yield from the soil year after year?

Meanwhile, while Israelis have invented and instituted developments in agriculture (drip irrigation and irrigation with wastewater as tools of water management, for example), these developments are ones that they have actively prevented Palestinians from making themselves by depriving them of land, water, electricity, capital, the ability to import or export anything, or anything else you would need to technologically innovate anything, since the late 19th century—

—and Israeli methods of agriculture often fall into the ethos of "immediately extract the maximum yield from the soil year after year," with nitrate pollution from their constant use of fertilizers poisoning well water (mostly to the detriment of Palestinians), pollution of soil with salt buildup, use of pesticides leading to high rates of breast cancer, overpumping aquifiers and causing them to fill with brackish water in pursuit of water-hungry crops that should not be grown in the south of Palestine, &c.

And meanwhile the agricultural methods that many Palestinians are now forced to use frequently approach "only think about this season's yield," because they have no faith that they will be able to reap the benefits of their investments (constantly being bombed and driven from their lands and having their farming equipment banned or destroyed) and because they cannot let their land lie fallow for a moment without Israel using that as a pretext to "legally" expropriate it. Zionism is what creates these habits.

Yet even in these adverse conditions, Palestinians use eggshells and fish excrement as natural fertilizers, grow plants without soil, return to the use of historical crops, &c...

[apas-95]

Couldnt it be argued that the US is still a slave republic? Domestically, there is slave labor through the prison system, human and labor trafficking, and only a few decades ago, if at that, systems such as convict leasing, share cropping, and debt peonage. Internationally, there is also the fact that for conflict minerals, coffee, chocolate, and other commodities, a portion if not the majority of it is sourced from slave labor.

The use of slavery in and of itself doesn't constitute the slave-society stage of production. Slavery continues to exist under feudalism and capitalism, but not as the driving force of society as in the ancient slave republics. Politically, in the modern USA, it is the bourgeoisie that are in power; and economically, it is the exploitation of waged labour (much of it overseas) that is the basis of production.

Further, slaves in the US are owned either by the state, in state prisons, and leased to private companies; or owned by large companies directly in private prisons. The individual or smallholder ownership of slaves was done away with in the USA's previous civil war: carried out between the industrial haute-bourgeois of the developed north, and the agricultural petty gentry of the southern hinterland. Slaves in the US today are the exclusive property of the bourgeoisie, through their corporations or bourgeois state.

While large amounts of raw materials are sourced through slave labour, as are agricultural goods, slave labour in the broadest sense is not applicable to industrial production of the type required by modern capitalism - if for nothing else than reasons of profitability. The slave labourer is effectively themselves human capital, part of the machinery bought wholesale - while they still effectively carry out labour, they fundamentally do not produce surplus value in the same manner as a wage-worker; it is necessary for their food and other reproductive labour to be given to them without cost, in the same way one carries out maintenance on equipment - whereas a wage-worker is only purchased and employed as capital for the duration of the workday, and then is responsible for their own food, housing, and reproductive labour. The principal exception to the use of slave labour in industrial production (which already has an exceedingly high fixed-capital cost compared to agriculture) is in the historical case of fascism, where primitive accumulation and war industry led to conditions favourable to industrial slave labour, which was carried out en-masse by e.g. German industrial syndicates using concentration camp labourers.

While the earlier USA, as a settler nation, made heavy use of both slavery and primitive accumulation, this was necessarily a historically-contingent process, one carried out by the European empires precisely because the Americas had not been 'brought up to' the level of social contradiction they had. Slavery's profitability necessarily fell as the USA industrialised, and remains now only in certain key industries like agriculture and military production. Historically, again, the movement to make slavery a profitable general venture in the era of capitalism is the fascist movement, which attempts generally to replace the proletariat at large by mobilising the higher strata upwards, into petty-bourgeois smallholders (e.g. wehrbauern), converting the middle strata into slaves, and exterminating the lower strata - a movement that fundamentally requires both large swathes of cleared land as well as mass depopulation, due to the lower population density such an essentially backwards mode of production can support. Ultimately, it is a project doomed to failure, due to the impossibility of turning back history - but one the bourgeoisie are inevitably driven to attempt when capitalism starts nearing the end of its profitability.

In the USA, historically, the exploitation of indigenous nations and external colonies has provided a source of profit and primitive accumulation that has rendered a genuine fascist movement effectively unnecessary, despite the middle-class yearning for it, but these systems are themselves drying up, and the US, while not a slave republic, will soon start attempting to fashion itself into one by carving up its population.

I hope this has answered your question, thank you for writing in!

[lxvvie]

A DITL with Ghost would consist of:

Pup waking Ghost up at the ass-crack of dawn for his first walk of the day. Today was supposed to be the day that Simon put his foot down—"Let Daddy sleep some more yeah, Pup?"—but your furbaby wasn't having it. And so Pup Riley continued to whine and harass his papa until Simon got up.

Which leads to you waking up. While he prepares to take Pup and the garbage out, you're busy preparing tea and breakfast.

Ghost hits you with the first disappointed dad look of the day because the first tee shirt he grabbed was the one you repurposed into a crop top out of pure boredom. Your cheeks balloon because you're trying not to laugh in his face as he stares at you in say sike right now, mate with said shirt on. Said look is usually reserved for Pup.

Breakfast being an uneventful affair. Kind of. Pup won't stop badgering you for table food even though Simon's in denial that he spoils him, too.

Pantsing him just enough that his ass cheeks are out in the open while he's at the sink. You don't get far before he's caught you and now you're a laughing pile on the floor with a grumpy Simon. Again. And then Pup comes and covers his face in licks. Cheers, darling.

Sharing a shower. You make some bullshit excuse about conserving water but it's really so you can touch all over Simon. Not that he's complaining, mind you.

Simon doing some minor maintenance around the house while you straighten up some.

Simon also making the bed but Pup thinks it's a game and won't get off and keeps doing zoomies.

He also chases Pup around the place because he's convinced that Papa's socks are toys and they are... absolutely not. Papa gives the fuck up and just smokes and enjoys his cup of tea as Pup does what he does best: exasperate Simon lmao.

Stepping out later on with Simon for a cigarette run which turned into getting a lot of other shit you weren't intending to. Like sweets.

Having a minor argument over what you want for dinner because every time he asks you, you say you don't know and when he suggests something, you shoot it down. This leads to the second disappointed dad look you receive today and you finally settle on curry.

Ending the day lying on the couch, having random ass conversations with Pup resting by your feet. By bedtime, you and Simon can't be bothered to move so you sleep on the couch. You'll feel it in the morning but the couch and Simon are so cozy right now.

At least you managed to earn your third and final disappointed dad look when you blew raspberries on his stomach. AGAIN.

[bokutoko]

hello!! i really enjoyed your writing for kita! i was wondering if i can request one where reader (fem) gets really emotional over little things (ex. smth doesn’t go as planned) and kita comforts her?

smile

character: shinsuke kita (timeskip!kita)

word count: 792

warning(s): emotional dysregulation, kita is a blunt sweetheart, fluff, slight cursing

content: there's a reason your boyfriend is the farmer and not you...

a/n: hi anon!! thank you so much for the love and the req🫶🏻 this was healing for me to write bc i tend to get emotional over the little things sometimes too. i hope i did our fav rice farmer justice once again <333

Growing up around his grandmother, Kita always had a green thumb. Ever since he was taught that all life was built by small, daily acts, he was always patient with his crops. He made sure to be thorough with maintenance all throughout harvest—up until they reach the consumer’s hands. Because of this, he ensured the highest quality of rice.

You, on the other hand, were not-so secretly known as every plant’s worst nightmare. Of course, you didn’t mean to kill all your plants, they just always somehow died!

But you decided to give it another shot. Watching Kita work so hard outside made you feel confident; if he could manage countless acres of land, you could handle a little garden. You excitedly picked out your favorite fruit and vegetable seeds from the local market, and Kita was happy to build you a little enclosure for your plants.

Now here you were, standing before your little plots of soil with tears in your eyes. You’d tried so hard, but you forgot to water them for one day, and to just your luck, they all died due to an unforeseen heatwave in Hyogo. 

“What the actual fuck?” Huffing in frustration, your eyes squeezed shut, letting the first couple tears fall. Despite the extreme heat, a cold, harsh wave of embarrassment washed over you, and you couldn’t help but feel like a complete failure for messing this up. How was it possible that your boyfriend managed the entire farm, having a near-perfect harvest every year, and you couldn’t even take care of a 6x10-ft plot?

—

Out in the fields, Kita removed his cap, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and looked to the sky. With sunset approaching, he began his trek back home to see you after a long, satisfying day’s work—just a couple more months until harvest. 

As he stepped into the clearing behind your home, he was expecting to see you waiting for him with your usual bright smile that still made his heart skip a beat. But instead, you were standing with your back to him and your hands on your hips.

Uh oh. He walked up behind you, calling, “Evenin’, darlin’.”

You shot around, and he took note of the tear stains that you quickly wiped away. “Hi, Shin,” you greeted with the slightest quiver in your voice. 

“Everythin’ okay?” He looked down at your little plants that were vaporized from the sun, then back to you, noticing your glistening eyes.

“Why do all plants hate me?”

“Ya know plants can’t hate ya.”

“It sure feels like they do!” you snapped, immediately feeling guilty for your attitude when Kita did nothing wrong. You were well aware, as was Kita, when spurts of overwhelming emotions engulfed you—whether happy, sad, angry, embarrassed—your instinct reactions were to either get snappy or briefly cry. Or both, in this case.

Kita watched as fresh, hot tears rolled down your face as you whispered a soft, genuine “I’m sorry,” and he stepped forward to comfort you. You immediately wrapped your arms around his waist and smushed your face into his chest in defeat, mumbling, “I feel so dumb, Shin. What the hell am I doing wrong?”

Always to your rescue, Kita removed his gloves to gently tip your chin up to look into his pretty brown eyes. “Yer not dumb or doin’ anythin’ wrong. Sometimes, plants don’t sprout, an’ sometimes, the ones that do just die. Ain’t nothin’ else about it,” he assured as a gentle thumb wiped your eyes. “Somethin’ as small as this sure ain’t worth yer tears, though.”

You shut your eyes and released a small sigh, your bottom lip jutting out. “I know.”

Kita leaned forward and pressed three tender kisses against your forehead, signifying three words: I love you. “We can always plant some more. We can go ta the market tomorrow an’ pick out more o’the seeds ya want,” he suggested, “and I can help ya take care of ‘em.”

“But you already do so much for me,” you objected.

“It ain’t a big ask, sweetheart,” he reasoned with a loving gaze, “and ya know I’d do anythin’ ta see ya smile.”

You squished your face into his chest in a tight hug again. “You’re kinda cheesy, Shin,” you teased as you hid your reddening cheeks.

He chuckled, grateful that the slight sun on his face hid his own blush, muttering, “Guess I am.“

From that day on, Kita never forgot to give your garden a little extra love in the mornings before tending to the farm. It was worth seeing your big, proud grin when it was time to pick your first round of thriving produce. 

And to Kita, anything was worth doing to keep a smile on your face. 

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please do not copy, alter, or repost my work. ©bokutoko 2024.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Fighting junk fees is "woke"

“Populism” isn’t intrinsically left or right. The distinction between the two is often obscured by jargon, but there’s a simple litmus test (courtesy of Steven Brust): “ask what’s more important: human rights, or property rights. If they say ‘property rights are human rights,’ they’re on the right.”

Which is to say, both the left and the right can be populist, but the populist left seeks to improve peoples’ lives, no matter what that takes, while the populist right is only willing to make the world better when that doesn’t interfere with the interests of property owners.

This is how you get the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire equating publicly produced, free insulin with forcing enslaved Black people to pick cotton in the fields:

https://newrepublic.com/post/174485/libertarian-party-suggests-former-black-lawmaker-pick-crops-free

For right populists, the property rights of pharma giants are human rights, so anything that interferes with those rights is equivalent to any other human rights violation.

This is not only wrong, but it’s also a huge vulnerability in the right populist mindset. It’s a button that, when pushed, produces a reliable and reflexive outrage.

This is essential for the creation, maintenance and expansion of plutocracy. In a plutocracy, a small minority owns most of the property (we live in a plutocracy). By definition, plutocracy isn’t popular, since it’s a system that benefits a small minority at everyone else’s expense. In its natural state, plutocracy is only popular with its winners, and not the vast majority of losers it creates.

So plutocrats need to find ways to get turkeys to vote for Christmas. One important trick is to convince us all that the system is fair, guided by an invisible hand that performs mystic passes over our heads at birth and locates the very best of us and elevates us to the apex of the social pyramid.

But there’s a problem with this: plutocracy is self-sustaining. The story that we’re all just “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” who can rise to the top with hard work and smarts falls flat in the face of the reality that nearly everyone at the top was born there. If the system selects rulers based on merit, and if everyone the system selects was born rich, then the rich must have some genetic trait that makes them destined to rule.

This is why plutocracy always turns into aristocracy: the idea that some people are suited to rule because they have “good blood.” Eugenics is, above all, a way to excuse inequality. Fitness to rule is determined primarily by whose orifice you emerge from, and only secondarily by any obvious competence or skill.

So right wing footsoldiers are mired in a terrible and shameful swamp of self-loathing. By definition, their lack of wealth and power is their own fault, and not merely their fault, but the fault of their genes. Being on the bottom is proof that you deserve to be there. Your failure to rise proves that you don’t deserve to rise.

No wonder the right is so irony-poisoned. Remember 2020, when gun-nuts got “revenge” on gun safety scolds by photographing themselves pointing loaded guns at their own penises? The participants insisted that they were just trolling, and they were…by pointing loaded guns at their dicks:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/28/holographic-nano-layer-catalyser/#musketfuckers

Plutocrats understand that there are limits to irony, and that at a certain point, irony poisoning becomes so acute that your rank-and-file literally start blowing their balls off. To relieve the pressure, plutes scapegoat other people based on their gender, sexual orientation, race, or nationality.

This provides an important resolution to the cognitive dissonance of meritocracy. The reason you’re doing so badly isn’t that you lack merit, it’s that affirmative action has elevated unworthy people to the positions that you deserve. You are a temporarily embarrassed millionaire — but the riches you deserve have been snaffled up by welfare queens and DEI consultants.

Cruelty isn’t the point of culture war bullshit: the point is power. Cruelty is merely the tactic:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars

Culture war bullshit is a very reliable way to get turkeys to vote for Christmas. Take the campaign against junk fees, which have ticketmastered every part of your life with “fees” for things like “paying your rent by check” and “not paying your rent by check”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/30/military-industrial-park-service/#booz-allen

There is no broad constituency for junk fees. Scam artists (including scam artists in the C-suites of Fortune 100 companies) love them, sure, but junk fees make everyone else furious.

What’s a plutocrat to do? Well, it turns out that culture war bullshit can make right wingers point (metaphorical) guns at their own junk — all plutocrats need to do is put the word out that getting rid of junk fees is “woke” and low-information right-wing thumbsuckers will demand the right to be charged junk fees.

Here’s an example: one especially pernicious form of junk fee is the “swipe fees” that credit-card companies charge merchants. In an increasingly cashless age, these companies — dominated by the Visa/Mastercard duopoly — have figured out how to scrape 3–5% out of every single retail transaction in the entire fucking economy.

Every merchant you patronize has to charge more — or reduce quality, or both — in order to pay this Danegeld to two of the largest, most profitable companies in the world. Visa/Mastercard have hiked their fees by 40 percent since the pandemic’s start. Forty. Fucking. Percent. Tell me again how greedflation isn’t real?

A bipartisan legislative coalition, led by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) have proposed the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA), which will force competition into credit-card routing, putting pressure on the Visa/Mastercard duopoly:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1838/text?s=1&r=3

This should be a no-brainer, but plute spin-doctors have plenty of no-brains to fill up with culture war bullshit. Writing in The American Prospect, Luke Goldstein unpacks an astroturf campaign to save the endangered swipe fee from woke competition advocates:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-08-04-wall-street-culture-war-swipe-fee-reform/

Now, this campaign isn’t particularly sophisticated. It goes like this: Target is a big business that runs a lot of transactions through Visa/Mastercard, so it stands to benefit from competition in payment routing. And Target did a mean woke by selling Pride merch, which makes them groomers. So by fighting swipe fees, Congress is giving woke groomers a government bailout!

It’s literally that stupid. It’s being pushed by a dark money group based in Kansas, which is targeting Senator Marshall’s constituents with mailers that warns voters they’ll “lose their credit card points” because he’s thrown his lot in with “liberal politicians”:

https://punchbowl.news/caf-marshall-mailer-kansas/

The fliers also warn that competition could result in “your financial data could be processed by partners of the Chinese Communist Party” (the bill bans foreign companies from routing transactions, and bans China UnionPay by name).

The fliers are anonymous. The only ghoul shameless enough to put his name on the campaign is Grover Norquist, whose Americans for Tax Reform tells its Christmas-voting-turkeys to “side with consumers, not woke retailers.”

The dark money org pushing this line have placed op-eds in newspapers across red states, comparing transaction routing competition to your kids’ data being snaffled up by Tiktok:

https://www.theflstandard.com/senators-rubio-and-scott-must-protect-the-personal-financial-data-of-floridians/

This nonsense was peddled by League of Southeastern Credit Unions president Samantha Beeler, whose org has spent $20,000 fighting the CCCA, claiming that a “cheaper” system would be “less secure”:

https://disclosurespreview.house.gov/ld/ldxmlrelease/2023/Q2/301493985.xml

But that’s small potatoes. Millions are being spent, right now, lobbying against CCCA — $5m from the American Bankers’ Association, $2m from the Credit Union National Association, another $400k from Mastercard.

For these rentiers, corrupting our government with millions is a stellar bargain if it lets them continue to collect rent every time we spend money. And millions of people who’ll end up paying that will demand the right to do so, provided they’re told that they’re fighting “woke capitalism” and China.

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

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/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

[Image ID: A mechanical credit card imprinter (AKA 'zipzap') emblazoned with a US flag Punisher logo. It is imprinting a blank credit-card slip with a red Visa card bearing the GOP logo. It sits on a weathered wooden plank table, stained a dark brown.]