#even if they end up saying we should tax the rich more

[t-top-apologist]

At the end of the day the average civilian wishes to be catered to like an old money steel baron or perhaps one of those chaps from Downton Abbey. The entirety of modern society has come together to enable this, mass-producing cheap facsimiles of fortunes that should rightly either be built on child labor or perhaps serfdom.

Their lawns, taking up what could otherwise be used to grow crops or serve as "outdoor garage space," exist to ape the wide ranging estates meant for the nobility to chase down a fox while adorned in silly jackets. Their houses sport columns and stupid windows meant to imitate three different classical artforms at the same time because of something called "economies of scale." They even have male-centric social clubs meant for parlour games, discussing sports, and dining with friends, in this case franchised out under such names as "Buffalo Wild Wings."

This aping of the upper class continues to the hire of "artisans" to do relatively simple work deemed too complicated to warrant the time of the average citizen. It's not that the jobs are too taxing for your average person, but rather that the market has crystallized around the desire to live like budget royalty. Therefore they take their wafer-thin computers to artisans (now more commonly called "experts" or "Apple geniuses") for repair and have democratized the position of carriagemen to 22 year old dealership lube techs named Ryan who will turn a 15 minute job into a 30 minute endeavor thanks to frequent vape breaks and a brief brush with what the industry refers to as "a misplaced drain bolt."

The mid-40s project manager and mother of 3 is no less competent when changing oil than her grandfather before her who knew what "Valve Lash" is, but what separates the two is a series of wars in the 1900s that required an entire generation of men to become very familiar with operating and repairing machines better than the Germans and Japanese (an exercise that Chrysler would later abandon in favor of the phrase "if you can't beat em, join em").

This conflict ended with a surge of able-bodied men finding themselves returning to their project management jobs (like their granddaughters after them) but armed with captured German weapons and a comprehensive understanding of tubochargers. Just as a line can be drawn from troop drawdowns to political violence, there's a distinct correlations between GIs returning home and the violence with which Ford Flathead V8s were torn apart by inventive supercharging methods paired with landspeed record attempts.

Give a man a racecar and he'll crash it on the salt flats in a day. Teach a man to repair a racecar and it will sit in the garage of his suburban house for a few years in between complete engine rebuilds required by what can only be described as "vaporized piston rods."

Of course this hotrodder generation created the circumstances we live in today, as the market saw their fast cars cobbled together from old prewar hulks and simply stamped out new ones from factory, faster and more convenient for the next generation than building one from scratch. Now the project manager mother of 3 drives a 4wd barge with climate controlled seats boasting more computing power than the moon mission and an emissions-controlled powertrain with more horsepower than her grandfather's jalopy and her fathers factory muscle car combined. And she doesn't care at all.

Yet Amongst the average civilians there walks a rare breed: people who know how to change their own oil. We the chosen move among you silently, bucking the system, operating outside the cultural helplessness and trading in forbidden knowledge in almost-abandoned forum threads (flame wars over conventional vs synthetic).

While we do have a marked air of superiority about this, I can't say I haven't stooped to imitating the rich myself. I've been known to wear a silly jacket from time to time.

[kp777]

By Brett Wilkins

Common Dreams

Feb. 5, 2024

"Forty-seven percent of the voters are poor or low-wage," said one activist. "Getting that vote in is very important."

The Poor People's Campaign on Monday launched a 42-week nationwide mobilization of poor and low-income Americans to "wake the sleeping giant" of a voting bloc with the potential to determine the outcome of the 2024 elections.

"It is time for a resurrection and not an insurrection," Poor People's Campaign co-chair Rev. Dr. William Barber II said during a press conference in Washington, D.C. "We must engage poor and low-wealth people to change the political landscape."

"For far too long extremists have blamed poor people and low-wage people for their plight, while moderates too often have ignored poor people, appealing instead to the so-called middle class," he continued. "Meanwhile, poor and low-income people have become nearly half of this country and we are here today to make one thing clear: Poor and low-wage brothers and sisters have the power to determine and decide the 2024 elections and elections beyond."

"Economic justice and saving this democracy are deeply connected."

Poor People's Campaign co-chair Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis stressed that "economic justice and saving this democracy are deeply connected."

"In this rich nation that has the wherewithal to end poverty tomorrow where there's the political will, we must not overlook the voices and votes of poor and low-income people," she added. "We are mobilizing and organizing, registering and educating people for a movement that votes... for healthcare and debt cancellation. Votes for living wages and strong anti-poverty programs. Votes for fair taxes and demilitarization of our communities and our world. Votes for immigrant rights and more."

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said at the press conference: "In 2024, the election is going to be about mobilization... Democrats have an enthusiasm gap today and the progressive alliance and Democrats have fissures within their constituencies that make getting out the vote even more important."

"The biggest bloc of potential voters by far is low-income, low-wage voters," Lake noted. "Where the margin of victory is projected to be less than 3% in 2024, 30-45% of the voters are low-wage voters or low-income families... The turnout among low-wage voters and low-income voters today is... 20-22% below the average turnout. This is a huge bloc of voters, and it is a bloc of voters that votes 58-60%—at minimum—progressive, no matter how conservative the state."

"You're talking about a huge number—a game-changing number—of voters," she added.

The campaign's main scheduled events are a Mass Poor People's & Low-Wage Workers' Moral March to State House Assemblies on March 2 and a rally and march in Washington, D.C. on June 15.

"I have been struggling to pay my bills since I've been working at 16 years old. I work full time, 64 hours a week, seven days a week," said Beth Schafer of Raise Up for $15 during a video promoting the new campaign. "I am exhausted."

Crow Roberts, an organizer with the Indiana Poor People's Campaign, said in the video that "our government finds it necessary to ban abortion to say that they are saving our children, but more children die as a result of poverty in this country."

Guadalupe de la Cruz of the Florida Poor People's Campaign asserted that "we should not be cornered and forced to choose between one necessity or another."

Speaking at the press conference, Alabama activist Linda Burns said that "for three years I worked the assembly line at Amazon in Bessemer, Alabama. The work was grueling. We were expected to work like robots, moving like 1,000 pieces per hour."

"I got badly injured. My left arm," she continued. "I had two surgeries. I had to get a third surgery, but I didn't have no more insurance. Amazon, they cut my insurance off a year after. They let me go last October."

"Amazon let me go because I was helping organize the union," said Burns. "We didn't get the union in Alabama but I'm gonna do everything in my power to stand in solidarity. Organizing the union showed me just how many people were in the same situation I was. Not just in Alabama, but all over the world."

"Forty-seven percent of the voters are poor or low-wage. Getting that vote in is very important," she added. "We cannot settle for less, we've got to stand up for our rights. We are forward together—not one step back."

[tomorrowusa]

Nikki Haley intentionally contorts her positions in order to keep voters from knowing where she really stands.

Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman in the New York Times had a good column about Haley this week.

So it seems worth looking at what Haley stands for. From a political point of view, one answer might be: nothing. A recent Times profile described her as having “an ability to calibrate her message to the moment.” A less euphemistic way to put this is that she seems willing to say whatever might work to her political advantage. “Flip-flopping” doesn’t really convey the sheer cynicism with which she has shifted her rhetoric and changed her positions on everything from abortion rights to immigration to whether it’s OK to try overturning a national election. And anyone hoping that she would govern as a moderate if she should somehow make it to the White House is surely delusional. Haley has never really shown a willingness to stand up to Republican extremists — and at this point the whole G.O.P. has been taken over by extremists.

We pointed out about 10 days ago that Haley is just as anti-abortion as the other GOP candidates. As president, she would appoint justices to the US Supreme Court just like the Republican justices who struck down Roe v. Wade.

She is consistently with the radical right when it comes to economics and income equality.

Haley has shown some consistency on issues of economic and fiscal policy. And what you should know is that her positions on these issues are pretty far to the right. In particular, she seems exceptionally explicit, even among would-be Republican nominees, in calling for an increase in the age at which Americans become eligible for Social Security — a bad idea that seems to be experiencing a revival.

Do you wish to end up having to support your parents because President Haley got a Republican Congress to raise the retirement age to 70?

Republicans say there's a funding gap when it comes to Social Security. But instead of raising the disproportionately low taxes paid by their billionaire donors, they want to slash benefits.

[T]he system would need additional revenue to continue paying scheduled benefits in full. But the extra revenue required would be smaller than you probably think. The most recent long-term projections from the Congressional Budget Office show Social Security outlays rising to 6.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2053 from 5.1 percent this year, not exactly an earth-shattering increase. [ ... ] Anyone who says, as Haley does, that the retirement age should rise in line with increasing life expectancy is being oblivious, perhaps willfully, to the grim inequality of modern America. Until Covid struck, average life expectancy at 65, the relevant number, was indeed rising. But these gains were concentrated among Americans with relatively high incomes. Less affluent Americans — those who depend most on Social Security — have seen little rise in life expectancy, and in some cases actual declines.

Not only would Haley not raise taxes on her billionaire buddies, she would cut them even further.

Haley, of course, wants to cut income taxes. My guess is that none of this will be relevant, that Trump will be the nominee. But if he stumbles, I would beg political reporters not to focus on Haley’s personal affect, which can seem moderate, but rather on her policies. On social issues and the fate of democracy, she appears to be a pure weather vane, turning with the political winds. On fiscal and economic policy, she’s a hard-right advocate of tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the working class.

The libertarian extremist Koch network has endorsed Nikki Haley. That's further proof that she's no moderate.

Koch family-backed PAC endorses Nikki Haley for president

Nikki Haley, a onetime member of the Trump administration, is little more than a more socially acceptable version of Trump. That does not make her moderate. She is to the right of George W. Bush who appointed Samuel Alito, the architect of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision which killed Roe v. Wade, to the Supreme Court.

As Tara Setmayer indicated in that video, just saying that somebody is better than Trump is a very low bar. A snake could walk over that bar.

Don't confuse what Paul Krugman calls Nikki Haley's "personal effect" with her actual far right views. We're voting for a President, not Ms. Personality.

[crashromance]

hi it's a me 🤠 give me brocede + cheating (it's monaco it's traditional)

anything for u lover

lewis/nico | 1k | karting days

The way Nico slobbers over his vanilla cone is anything but pretty. You'd think rich white boys bred in tax havens would have better manners—but that's Nico for you. Nothing about him is sweet or stomachable.

"Want some?" he asks, licking creamy drip off his fingers. He holds out the last bite to Lewis, wafer crumbs speckling his lopsided grin. Lewis wrinkles his nose.

"You're disgusting, man. Anyway, I already won."

That was two in a row for Lewis. He could almost hear room service's raised brows when they rang for the third time, dead set on breaking the tie.

The trick was to never make eye contact. Just buckle down and get the job done. Five minutes, no cheating, loser pays. Most of the time Nico paid even when he won, but Lewis doesn't let that happen often enough to feel any type of way about it.

Nico shrugs, kicking his feet up onto Lewis's lap just to be a shit. "I'll get you back next time on track."

Lewis cackles. He's welcome to try.

Nico's eyes narrow. "Maybe I'll even celebrate afterwards with what's-her-name," he continues loudly. "Brenda— Belinda. She seemed nice." 

His mouth goes sour. After last week's race, Nico had slunk off with some brunette with Rosberg emblazoned across her baseball cap. It was an hour later and eight of Lewis's fingernails chewed down to stumps before he swaggered out of an RV, his hair a mess and his belt through only half the loops. He'd looked as smug as if he'd actually won, instead of barely making the podium like he did. 

Lewis had won that day, and it still grates on something in his core that Nico managed to beat him to this. He'd always thought—he doesn't know why, but he'd always thought that between the two of them, he'd be the first to fuck a girl.

"How was she?" He rolls his eyes at last, shoving Nico off. 

Nico taps the side of his nose, palpably delighted at finally getting him to bite. "Come now Lewis, where are your manners? A gentleman never tells."

"That's why I'm asking you." 

Nico grins, wolfish. "Wet." 

So much for being a gentleman. Lewis is torn between revulsion and morbid excitement. Had she sucked Nico off? Stuck her hand down his stupid distressed designer jeans and gripped the weight of him, stroking slow and then fast as his breath hitched? Did she dig her nails into the meat of his stomach, his back, his chest? Would he still be able to see the impression of them if he rucked up Nico's shirt to check?

Lewis and his high school on-and-off had never gotten beyond second base, and then he just got too busy and realized he liked racing more than he liked girls. He decides he's done with this conversation. 

Sensing something in his demeanor, Nico leans over and kicks him lightly on the shin. "Don't sulk. We should go for another round."

Lewis huffs. "Dino's gonna put us on a diet for weeks, man.

"Didn't mean like that." 

He lets the words hang in the air for a second before pouncing.

Lewis is ready for him. He grabs Nico's shoulders, digging his knees into the mattress so they don't fall off the bed. Cheating prick.

"Play fair," he pants, tightening his grip. He goes for a headlock, but Nico squirms away, managing an elbow to his chest. Lately, Nico has grown bigger than him, his limbs longer, his shoulders squared—but Lewis is fast. Faster. At the end of the day, isn't that what counts? 

He gets a knee between Nico's legs and presses down—and that does it. Nico makes a high, breathy noise, his features contorting.

It's not. Unprecedented.

After all, he knows what Nico's doing when he rests his hand on Lewis's thigh in the sun-baked backseat of Keke's car; fingers creeping higher the longer the shadows grow. Lewis knows what it means when Nico locks eyes with him as he wraps his lips around an ice-pop. What the implication is when he says want some?

Nico glares at him, challenge apparent. There's a pale flush blooming across his bare chest as he grows hard under Lewis's clothed leg. His golden hair is splayed across the mattress like a halo—or a crown.

Most days, Lewis rolls his eyes at what the papers write about his teammate, their purple-prose descriptions of the Monaco prince. None of these journalistic types get it. Maybe it's because they've only ever glimpsed Nico from far away, in the sun or in the shadow of his father. You have to steal close to see him for real. Close enough to get under his skin. 

Lewis knows it all—Nico's small, mean mouth, the sweaty weight of his body on a hot day. How he drools like a dog in his sleep. There's a doughy, unformed quality to his features, like he hasn't grown into them yet, and his hips are soft, like a girl's. 

Even so, looking down at Nico pinned against their pushed-together twin beds, that characteristic closed-mouth smirk rattled into something more unguarded, Lewis thinks he gets it. Yes. Nico is kind of pretty. 

He rolls his hips down, insistent on making Nico admit something. What, he doesn't even know. 

"Did Brenda do this to you?"

Nico moans, but the sound turns into a laugh halfway, ugly and snorting. It pisses Lewis off to no end, Nico's way of making him feel like he lost even when he's won.

"Don't talk about other girls when I'm right here," Nico says, and reaches up to push two of his fingers past Lewis's lips.

His fingers that are still sticky with fucking ice-cream. Cheating prick.

[steampunkforever]

For every genre there is a "Standard" film that serves as the optimal example for what a film from that genre should be. Often it's one of the foundational films in the genre (sometimes it's even a pastiche film), and often it doesn't have to be the highest quality film in the genre. What matters is that it embodies the capital R Romantic idea of what ____ genre film should be. Saltburn is that standard film for what I've been referring to as the "eat the rich movies."

The outright prosperity of the Trump years paired with the social discontentment in the more educated elite classes of that period + the success of Parasite at the same time that all of LA's bored screenwriters went into Covid lockdown all mixed together into the perfect storm for a streak of movies about class consciousness produced by people whose tax write offs are larger than than my net worth writing for a luxury car company.

Of course movies like The Game and The Talented Mr. Ripley were examining class inequality long before The Menu, Knives Out, and Parasite hit big screens, but recent events have definitely seen Eat The Rich Films developing into a trend. No one loves trends more than shortform video/spyware app TikTok, and TikTok LOVES Saltburn, completely losing it over how messed up the movie is. any skepticism you're feeling right now is wholly warranted.

I'll admit that I had no desire to see this film. I knew it would be good (the director's most notable work after her minor acting role in Barbie 2023 is Promising Young Woman, which I gushed over) but frankly I had no ambitions of watching the movie and only saw it at the behest of someone who cajoled me into a viewing.

It's a very standard film, but social media certainly oversold how shocking the movie really is. Extremely pretty, with gorgeous visuals, a fantastic cast, and whip smart direction. My only quibble being the fact that the film shows a trailer-like split second highlight reel of all the major events in the intro as if we needed to be sold on the story, which betrays an insecurity I didn't see anywhere else in the film. The plot is wholly unremarkable. Poor kid usurps his way into inheriting a massive british estate from its out of touch rich aristocracy owners in what's basically Killing of a Sacred Deer for normies or Mr Ripley mixed with Knives Out.

The movie made some artistic choices that I appreciated, the ending sequence specifically is worth waiting around for, and the class criticism (just like the gender criticism in Promising Young Woman) is entertaining if not necessarily groundbreaking. Which is really something I can say for the entirety of the film. It's very pretty, very good, and the platonic ideal of what an Eat The Rich Movie should be, but didn't do much to wow me despite being more than adequate. Definite met the definition of "Standard."

Worth the watch, in my opinion, if only for the beautiful visuals and the scene where the main character has carnal relations with the fresh dirt of a recently-filled grave.

[rowan-sins]

As you wish

Dracule Mihawk x Reader

Synopsis: Mihawk's lips ghost your neck, tongue brushing against the still bruising bite mark. "Is that what you needed to get you to behave? Did you need my attention, my affection."

He leaves a chaste kiss against the mark. Everything is still for a moment, the castle air warm and clammy on your skin, suffocating in your lungs. The breeze has paused the branches rhythmic thumping against partially open windows.

Mihawk is perfectly still except for the tilt of his head to look in your eyes. "Why did you let your pride get in the way of me being a dutiful husband?"

Content Warning: Yandere, non-consentual marriage, abuse of power, dubious consent, alcohol usage, drunk intercourse, biting, blood, blood drinking, vampire, cums inside (in a possessive way not a breeding way), vague exhibitionism (window is open), my terrible Spanish not letting me conjugate verbs properly

Authors note: Translation notes are at the bottom! Special shout out to @ceylon-morphe286​ for commisioning and encouraging this very fun and sexy idea just in time for halloween/kinktober. A sequel might be on the menu for that fun event. And also a special thank you to @lawscorazon​ and @deathskid​ for previewing the original first have and saying and I quote “i swear you get possesed when you write mihawk” also a formal apology for all fluent Spanish speakers i wish i knew how to conjugate verbs

By clicking "Read More" you are confirming that you are 18+ and are consenting to read the following material after viewing the synopsis and the content warnings.

“And tell me why I should do anything with you?” You openly sneer at him, the man who calls himself your husband. Although, it’s more realistic to say he owns you. Owns the land you grew up on, owns your family and even your life. He was the lord that you served under.  In exchange for all of his realm paying taxes this year, the bastard had asked your father for your hand in marriage.

You were caught less than hours into your escape. Before noon, actually.

“Because I’m your husband, it’s proper we should eat dinner together.”

“Well, I want a divorce.”

“No.” He takes another sip of his red wine. His face is stone cold, except for his soft crows feet, which crinkle in amusement at your frustration.

“You’re insufferable, Mihawk!” And with that, you snatch the almost full bottle of wine off his study desk and promptly storm off further into the dark and empty castle. The halls are long, and it’s only by counting doors and grandiose foyers and empty dance halls that you manage to end up in your shared bedroom. You cursed its existence. The lack of privacy meant that while you constantly denied the advances of the man you shared a bed with, you couldn’t find the time alone to take care of your more private needs.

You take a swig from the bottle. You had intended to dump it all over your shared sheets, and make him change and wash them, you really had, but it slid so smoothly down your throat, with a rich fruity flavor that coated the inside of your mouth like fresh syrup. It was delicious. And so you had another sip, and another, until eventually the wine bottle was empty and on your nightstand, with you sitting near by it.

“I should probably-” you stop talking to hiccup “-go throw this away.” Your hand moves to grab the bottle, and yet somehow, the world slithers and swerves around your hand. The glass bottle grazes your hand, briefly, before bouncing off the counter and shattering with a thud on the floor. The only good grace you’d been offered that day is that you had drank it dry, and no wine had spilled onto the rug by your bedside.

You move off the bed to pick up the pieces, only to cut yourself on one of the shattered pieces. You bring the wound on your hand to your dress, only to pause when you hear the door creak open, and reveal Mihawk standing in the doorway. His shirt is mostly unbuttoned and loosely tucked into his dress slacks.

“Perfect timing, I really need you right now,” you whisper into the air with heated cheeks and wide eyes. Your hand is still holding the cut one, spreading the blood across your palms and fingers.

“You really did, considering you managed to cut yourself on a piece of a wine bottle.” He could be judgemental, he certainly sounded it, but the look in his eyes shows concern. He stalks closer to you, long arms picking you up from your current position, kneeling on the floor, before pressing you into the bed. He seems completely unphased by the cracking of glass under his shoes.

“Do you have a bandage nearby?” you ask, “or maybe some ointment? Mihawk it really hurts.” Your eyes water slightly. “Please take care of it for me.”

He tries to hide his smile. So you’re a needy drunk, he thinks to himself, oh, I wonder how this could play into my favor? He brings your cut hand closer to his face to inspect it, using his long fingers to spread out your palm so he can watch the blood bubble and drip out of the cut. “It’s okay, I’ll take care of you.”

He whispers soft words against your skin. You can feel his lips moving against your wrist, muttering words in some other language. You wish you could decipher it past the burning feeling his lips leave against your skin and the drumming of your own heart in your chest. He brings his lips to cut on your palm, and suddenly the sting disappears. His tongue laps at the blood, at the edge of the wound, and the pain underneath begins to fade too.

“Mi amor,” he says against the tingling cut on your palm. You can hear him now, that all your focus is on him, and nothing else in the dark bedroom. Not the flickering of candles, not the cold sea breeze through the open window. There is only Mihawk, as your eyes fixate on his.

“Eres Hermosa.” He brings his lips to suck at the base of your index finger before bending it down to kiss your knuckles. “Provoctiva.” His lips move against the rest of your knuckles, muttering praises in between. “Y ñeque.”

“Como un fuego-” His lips move against the back of your hand to your inner wrist, where he brings the flesh between his lips and sucks a mark into the delicate flesh. “-que arde para simpre.”

His lips follow up your arm as you tremble in his hold. Your other hand loosens its hold on the bed sheets and slips into his hair as he nips on your bicep, slowly kissing its way up the slope of your shoulder.

“Perdóname para esto,” he whispers against your neck, his hand finding its way in your hair, tilting your head to the side so he can freely explore your neck, “necesito probarte, por favor.” You feel his lips form into a snarl, before his teeth graze your jugular, and sink into your awaiting flesh.

The fire burning under your skin feels crisp and hot, burning with sharp corners and at such an intensity you can't help the moan that you let out. His hand holding yours guides itself between your legs, under your skirt, and you wreathe at the sensation of both your fingers sticking together because of your wetness.

“Touch me,” you whimper out into the air, as he sucks your neck, blood scarcely falling down from between his lips, “touch me and let me cum, please.”

He moans against your neck, grazing his finger against your clit before slowly pressing it into your walls, feeling them spasm and waver against his lone finger. It’s lithe and long, and the pad of it presses right against that special spot inside you, and as he gently rubs at it, barely thrusting his finger, your eyes roll back.

“More.” You whisper into the air. “More more more more more.” And he groans against your neck, more blood spilling from his tongue and down into the collar of your dress. Another finger breaches you. Slowly, and the stretch has you keening and arching your back into it.

His second finger reaches deep inside you, before pulling out to the first knuckle and slamming back in again, right against your g-spot. You can’t help the loud moan that escapes you, or the way you jerked away from his fingers, filthily fucking up into you. And when he presses you closer to him, one hand inside you, and one hand firmly wrapped around your waist, pressing your arching chest into his, you cum.

Your mouth opens in a silent scream as you clench around his fingers and let go, juices falling freely into his hand and onto his pants and sheets below. And when you come too, still gently shaking in his lap, does he finally let go of your neck and slip his fingers out.

He presses a kiss to the bite mark. And another. And his tongue licks at the trail of blood he left, nearing your chest. Your hands are quick to slip the straps of your cotton gown down your shoulders, leaving your chest free for him to explore.

“Mihawk.” You say firmly, looking down at him, his eyes meeting you from the level of your breasts.

“Don’t say my name like that or I’ll hold you down and fuck you into the matress.”

“Maybe that’s what I’ve wanted.” You can see the gears turned in his head, his eyes widened for a brief moment, before narrowing in sync with his smirk.

“As you wish.”

It’s within a blink of an eye that he has the both of you flipped over, so that you’re firmly in his lap, facing him, his back against the headboard. Mihawk's lips ghost your neck, tongue brushing against the still bruising bite mark. "Is that what you needed to get you to behave? Did you need my attention, my affection."

He leaves a chaste kiss against the mark. Everything is still for a moment, the castle air warm and clammy on your skin, suffocating in your lungs. The breeze has paused the branches rhythmic thumping against partially open windows.

Mihawk is perfectly still except for the tilt of his head to look in your eyes. "Why did you let your pride get in the way of me being a dutiful husband?"

“I-” It’s so hard for you to get the words out. “I don’t know.” He nuzzles his head further into your neck, so he traps himself in your embrace while you curl into yourself.

“Let me take care of you,” he whispers against the still tingling flesh. You can feel his hands leave you, the drift down from idly stroking your thigh and love handles to his pants, and you can hear the sound of the zipper echo in your ears only after you feel his length pressed against your thigh. You can feel it graze your entrance, hazily, like in a dream you had a hundred nights ago.

“I need you to tell me you want me.” He whispers. You can feel the head of his cock graze your clit. “Dime que me quieres.”

You move your hips, trying to catch him on your entrance, but feel him slip between to rest idly against your sex. “Dime que me necesitas.” 

And a part of your resolve breaks, snaps in half because pleasure that you’ve wanted so badly is right there. It’s your for the taking if he lets you have it. His hands snake their way up to your breasts, and his fingers tease your nipples while his mouth trails its way to your ear. “Tell me you want me to fuck you.”

You grind down on him again and he stops toying with your breasts to hold your hips still. “Mihawk,” you pant out, “let me, please I-”

“Say it.” He moves his head from the crook of your neck to rest his forehead against yours. “Set your pride aside and let me make love to you. Tell me you need me inside you.”

And you break, momentarily, a relapse in judgment sure to cost you your dignity by the way you cry that you need him inside you right this minute. And that you might die if you don’t have him tenderly fuck into you. Disgust and joy fester inside you like milk and lemon juice curdling when he finally moves his cock to your entrance and slowly sinks you down onto him.

The stretch is mild, a small burning that's easily distracted from his thumb moving down to your clit. A thumb that rolls soft circles around your bud that has your legs shaking in tandem with the heavy and slow rhythm he takes.

His lips meet yours again, and it’s only when the taste of your blood meets his tongue that he realizes that you’d been biting your lip this whole time, trying not to make noises. It’s coppery, metallic even, and he breaks the kiss to suck your lower lip and enjoy the flavor. He’s bathed in sensation, your legs moving around his waist, squeezing him even closer as he bucks into you. How your chest presses against him. Your heart beats quickly for the both of you, only separated by flesh and bone and muscle and whatever god was kind enough to make him rise from the dead just to meet you.

“Mi amor,” he moans as he breaks off the kiss, “¿Te sientes bien? ¿Te hago sentir bien?”

Your lips find his again, one hand cupping his cheek as the other scratches fine lines down his back, welts of blue underneath your own blood smeared on his back. You can’t help but break off the kiss and trail them to his cheek. “I’m close. Mihawk I’m close.”

His thumb quickens its pace on your clit, and he revels in the sweet keen that you let out, sure to be heard by those outside the open window. It coils something in his gut, brings him so close to the edge he knows he moments away. “Cum with me then.”

And that’s what sends you over the edge. Your head throws itself back in ecstasy while you scream, exposing your neck and the still healing bite mark, and Mihawk cums as you spasm around his length, and legs shake from around his hips. It’s the surge of possessiveness, that he owns you, that makes his high truly unbearable. His bite mark on your neck, his seed inside you, your scratch marks down his back and your blood on his lips. You are his. Truly.

You fall fully into his chest, your cheek resting on his clavicle as you slump into him. His hand leaves your cunt, to trail to your back and rub circles, soothing you as all those sensations leave your body.

“Are you ready to behave for me now, little one?”

Translation Notes:

You chuckle lightly, “I think the only thing I’m ready for right now, is a good night's rest.”

Eres Hermosa: You’re beautiful

Provoctiva: Provacitive

Y ñeque: And Courageous

Como un fuego-... -que arde para simpre: Like a fire that always burns

Perdóname para esto: Forgive me for this

necesito probarte, por favor: I need to taste you, please

Dime que me quieres: tell me you want me

Dime que me necesitas: tell me you need me

Mi amor: my love

¿Te sientes bien? ¿Te hago sentir bien?: Do you feel good? Do I make you feel good?

[agooberscast]

Chelle, do you consider yourself a good person?

"My, what a loaded question, no?" She leans back in her chair fully, grumbling to herself. "I'd have to say no...if only because I will not be remembered as such until much later."

She leans forward again, over her desk, thinking her words carefully. "I will do good by doing bad. Let me explain, yes. The mafia life ruined many a life before me and will ruin more after me, unless I do something to stop it. Petty squabbles and feuds over territory and money and things so material run this city through the underground and behind the scenes. Powerful people who abuse that power."

She shakes her head. "You could say I'm no better, yes. I am rich and have great connections, but I give back to my communities I protect. I don't do shakedowns, I don't ask for a tax or toll. I ask that people look after each other and let me know when something gets out of their hands. That is where I come in, you see~."

"When others cannot fight for themselves, I step in. I am so tall and I am so big and I am so scary to those small little people with power and money who don't know the right way to use it. You should bolster those around you, instead of just yourself. Otherwise, your friends and family and those you care for aren't well off enough to defend themselves when a big, bad wolf like me comes to pick you all off, one-by-one~."

"I want to give back and I want to end these petty wars in the city. When I am the only one left, I will gladly step down and disband my empire. I don't need it. I never did. I just wanted a happy life with my husband, but the mafia life does not let you have that easily. I made a promise and I intend to keep it. I will not be remembered as nice for what I'll have done, but it will be done before I am gone. When the city is finally safe from the families, then I can rest and protect this city from others who wish it harm. My methods may not be good or just, but they are effective. And that's the key~."

"I do not consider myself a good person. I have enough death at my hands for many a life sentence in prison. But I do it to clean the streets more than those corrupt pigs and politicians will ever do, especially those on the payroll of those powerful families! I will gladly help those who have been abandoned by this city and will build them up. I will cherish and bolster them! I do not forget my friends, you see?!"

She finds herself towering over her visitor, labored breathing from all over her movements and flourishes on her words. Her aura is out of whack of one who is a danger to those she deems a threat, but a welcoming beacon to those who need help. Her eyes glow dimly purple, even through her eyepatch, before she covers them up slightly and turns away.

"Forgive me, dear. I got excited to be able to tell someone else my goal. Be a dear and don't go telling anyone, hm? Otherwise we may have to talk again soon about a different matter~."

[bitchesgetriches]

I always find it hard to motivate myself to save for retirement because even though I know I should, the state of the world by the time I'd be old enough to make good on those savings (I'm 19) is increasingly dire and uncertain. The way this shitshow is going between late stage capitalism fuckery and ever-nearing irreversible climate change it doesn't look like I'll ever be able to retire no matter how much I save (if I even end up living long enough to retire.) But on the other hand I don't want to fuck myself over in the case of a miracle. I know saving for retirement is really important, but sometimes I can't help but feel like it's a sentiment usually parroted by the Suze Ormans of the world, people of a generation who understand finance but also grew up with a future to look forward to. Am I just catastrophizing? I'm desperate to hear your thoughts on all this.

You're not catastrophizing at all, my dear. And we're with you! In my darkest moments, it does feel a little bit like an exercise in futility. But I think I can convince you that it's still worth saving for retirement even in light of the downfall of democracy and irreversible climate change. Here goes.

You know who's not worried about climate change? Who's not freaking out about coups and the deterioration of democratic processes?

Rich people.

People with money have the ability to hoard power and safety in ways the rest of us can only dream of. Even a little bit of wealth is useful: buying property means you're not at the whims of a landlord; investing in a vehicle or emergency supplies gives you options in the event of a disaster; having enough assets to diversify gives you options when everything goes tits up; and a tax-deferred retirement fund can, if all else fails, function as an emergency fund. Hell, having money means you can spend it on, I dunno... bribes???

I'm a home owner with robust retirement, savings, and emergency funds. I own my vehicle outright. I have not only enough to take care of myself in the event of a disaster, but to bring my nearest and dearest with me, no matter their financial situation. If COVID was any indication, the shit doesn't hit the fan all at once, but in spurts over months (sorry not sorry for the gross imagery). Over those months you can take precautions... but those precautions will be expensive and you'll be glad you have a retirement account (saved tax-free) to fall back on, as well as other diversified assets.

Basically, what I'm saying is: money is power. And power is helpful in extreme situations when you need to protect you and those you love

But at the core, we Bitches are optimists! So realistically, use your money to influence change BEFORE the shit hits the fan! Contribute your time and money to activism and other ways to save you and your community!

You've got this. Here's more:

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Repairing Our Busted-Ass World 

[mistprints]

I was watching the news about how LA banned homeless encampments near schools, as well as how Nevada was demolishing tiny homes made for the homeless based on a technicality about square footage allowed..and like. People demonize the homeless and try to make other people see them as immoral and criminal. While the US needs to handle its homeless problem like every other developed nation, with housing and the opportunity to get employed again once back on their feet, demonizing them under the pretense of "think of the poor children" is not going to help anyone. "But why do they deserve to get free help? We are all struggling and it's their own fault they're homeless." So many homeless were veterans and people that had one bad month or one bad disaster that any one of us could have gone through. And to say they aren't deserving of help when we DO have the capacity to do so....well, we are constantly lied to that it would cost too much and that the everyday taxpayer would suffer. It costs us more in taxes when the city builds hostile architecture, and when these people get very sick from being outside and are taken to emergency rooms. We fund and throw money into programs that don't do anything to help people *out* of homelessness, just temporarily slap a bandaid on it. And while that isn't nothing, it is not what the end goal should be. It is a lie that people end up homeless only due to laziness. It's a lie that the majority of homeless people are homeless from laziness. In America, it is so damn expensive to live, that 70% of Americans are one disaster away from living on the streets. Some of these people had to choose between their house and live-saving medical treatment. The way we treat them is disgusting, like untouchables and we pretend they aren't there except when it comes to putting them out of sight. I've known people who were working 9 to 5 jobs while living out of homeless shelters still. The wages weren't enough to get them any sort of rent. The median rent right now is $2,000 here. $15 minimum wage isn't going to cut it. We are being conned and lied to about not getting more pay than that. This is a capitalist hellscape, hostile to working-class (everyone who is not the 1%) human life. It shouldn't and does not have to be like this. Higher taxes for free healthcare would cost less than a monthly premium we would no longer have to pay, but we don't talk about that. We keep getting gaslit by politicians whose motives are not in our best interest. They are bought out [read: bribed] to keep the status quo and make the rich richer while ignoring our crumbling infrastructure, a predatory housing crisis, flagging wages, environmental crisis for the future of humanity, and healthcare. We fail at everything except profits, which get directly funneled to this vague "rich" class and hoarded. And more people will become homeless while the rest have a worse and worse quality of life. This is not sustainable. There are several things that could be done to fix these issues in a decade at most; I could narrow it down to 5 broad ones:

Raising the minimum wage -honestly one of the most effective ways to give the working class more spending money. Wages have not grown with the rest of the economy in decades. We work harder for less.

Capping Rent universally -can be adjusted for the cost of living in each city, but cannot exceed 30% of the minimum paycheck. ideally for at least 3 years. We also should not allow companies to buy up homes for sale in mass so they can rent them out eternally.

Universal Healthcare -take out the insurance company middle man. it is cheaper for everyone even for those that don't have health insurance (because we pay with higher taxes for high-risk people such as the homeless when they are taken in for dire situations.)

Education Reform -The American school system is deeply flawed. The curriculum has not been updated since the 60s. We fall far behind much of the world. This would include language classes and equitable funding for all departments. Ideally, this would include daycare too.

Environmental Action -Probably the hardest one to tackle and with a time crunch. This goes hand in hand with infrastructure reform; the energy grid wastes a ton of power because of how old and crumbling it is. Water infrastructure is also in danger with the recent droughts part of the country is seeing and the floods in the other. Reducing carbon emissions, using the other better and available energy options...I could make a whole post about this alone because it is what I majored in, but requires a lot more than just switching the lights we use and saving energy. This is bigger than just a consumer-level problem, and the biggest polluters are a handful of companies that ruin the environment, reap the benefits and keep them, then put the environmental costs on all of us. They need to be strictly regulated and required to change wasteful and environmentally harmful practices; and not just with carbon offsets.

our issues are way more complicated and numerous, and I do have more ideas on smaller issues too. But I think handling these would significantly impact the others to raise the quality of life here. We have to divert from the path we are charging down, because not all Americans are the bigoted and ignorant people shown all over the news. A majority of us want the best for each other and to live our lives rather than just survive until we die. Many don't know what to do to begin to change things and can't afford to even leave while a handful of men in powerful offices toy with people's lives all over the world just because they can and have the guns to force the rest of us into thinking we are powerless against them. They keep us divided and uninformed and we often get to choose between a bad and horrible choice for who ends up in charge.

If anyone reads this and wonders what they can do, the biggest impact an individual can do is vote. Vote in people that will make these things happen and who aren't being paid on the side to work for corporate and stock and pharmaceutical and defense industry interests. Vote in your primaries so that when the big decision finally comes, we aren't left with the worst options. Don't let them scare you and don't let them destroy the shreds of democracy we have left.

[nicklloydnow]

“When I put my economist hat on, a fact becomes clear to me. American life is a gigantic rip-off, one of the world’s biggest, and that’s why America is now effectively a country of poor people, and that makes it a nation of angry, cruel, and selfish ones, too.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start over. American life is the biggest ripoff in the world. Or at least one of the biggest, in the top five, certainly. Just…existing. It costs way, way more than it should. So much so that America cannot ever move forward as a society. So, trapped in a cycle, which economists call a “poverty trap,” Americans now stay poor.

(…)

Now we're going to pause and look at how just the bills above already mean the average American is going to be effectively poor. Not might be, not could be, but "is," in the sense of "inescapable, iron-clad, destiny."

The average American income is about $35K per year. That's about $2400 a month, if you're lucky, after taxes. What bills are we up to? $1200 for a crappy apartment. A few hundreds, let's call it two or three, for connectivity. And another $500 or so for basic utilities. That leaves you with about $400 for the month, or just $100 dollars a week.

That's American life. That's why Americans feel so poor. Because they are. American life is a gigantic rip-off.

The average American - after subtracting basic bills of shelter and utilities - has just $100 to spend on food, clothing, kids, medicine, all the other necessities.

(…)

The sad truth is that nobody can afford to live that way, at least not in a modern society. We know that because the average American doesn't. They go into debt. Deeply into debt. So deep that the average American now dies underwater to the tune of about $60,000. They've spent a lifetime paying off debts that they can never fully make good on - precisely because the system is rigged against them. In what sense?

Well, we're already at just $100 a week left after shelter and utilities for the average person. But the bills hardly stop there.

(…)

So what do Americans do to cope with this? If they can't live on what they earn.. then how do they live? We all know the answer to that. Credit. Credit cards, to be precise. Only those charge more than 10% interest. Profits are being made - huge ones - on the fact that Americans can't make ends meet, so they have to go into debt. Have to. The system really is rigged against them, because of course if you have to go into debt because you don't earn enough to live on, and that debt is compounding interest, then of course you can never pay it off. Which is just where most Americans are.

How deep in credit card debt are Americans? The industry itself will tell you that the average American owes about $6500 or so, though other sources report that the average American is in debt for almost $30K, excluding mortgages - and the majority of that is credit card debt. And maybe even $6500 doesn't sound like a lot, until you realise that for a family of four, that's more than $25,000.

(…)

I keep using the words "effectively poor." What do I mean? Well, that Americans are forced to live like poor people. Hand to mouth. No savings. Little disposable income. Exploited and abused, taken advantage of at their most vulnerable moments, like being charged a million dollars (LOL) for an operation. It sucks to live that way. It changes you. How? Why?

Americans are notoriously angry, hostile, aggressive, selfish people. Sorry if you don't want to hear that - but the rest of the world will tell you it's true. What makes them that way, though? Well, they've fallen into poverty. They've become effectively poor. And poverty will make anyone rightly angry, desperate, and afraid.

America's descent into becoming a country of poor people goes hand in hand with its plunge into becoming a nation of idiots, fascists, theocrats, and assorted other kinds of fanatics. Poverty makes people fanatics and extremists. Maybe your church gives you a bit of money and a place to leave your kids - the price is you come to believe you're the chosen ones. Maybe you come to hate everyone who's not true of faith or pure of blood like you - bang, the classic Weimar descent into fascism. Maybe you just get driven crazy and begin believing whatever crazy conspiracy theory explains your woes in the way that's the most fantastical and easiest to believe.

America becoming a poor country isn't just an economic problem. It's ripped America's social fabric and cultural values and norms apart. Americans don't like each other, trust each other. They hate and despise each other. Aggression and hostility are now norms - nobody expects anyone to be kind or gentle or nice, the way Canadians and Europeans are. Social bonds? If you're so busy trying to make ends meet, what room is left over friendship, relationships, ties? Bang. America's collapse into stupidity, hate, despair, and rage has everything to do with it's decline into poverty for the average person.

American life is one of the world's most gigantic rip-offs. It's eminently clear if you've lived elsewhere - and then you live in America for a while. The sad fact though is that's never going to be true for most Americans. They have a sense, maybe, some of them, that they're getting ripped off. But as a whole, American society and culture has no idea. How much of a rip-off American life really is.

(…)

Colossal, titanic, epic? All these seem like only giant understatement to describe the utterly mind-boggling scale of this cycle of folly, violence, stupidity, ruin.

(…)

That should change, but…it won't, and it's not. Because in America, there's no better business than ripping someone off with one hand, while you promise them the moon and stars with the other, and, incredibly, they cheer you on for making them poor.”

““Searching for the American middle class is a little like looking for air,” historian Loren Baritz wrote in his 1988 The Good Life: The Meaning of Success for the American Middle Class, stating that the group was “everywhere, invisible, and taken for granted.”

The middle class was the heart and soul of the United States, Baritz believed, and a construct that guided individual and collective thought and action. “America’s spirit and tone, its historical mythology and official aspirations, political bent, educational arrangements, the centrality of business enterprise, as well as the dreams of the vast majority of its people, derive from the psychology of the great imperial middle,” Baritz proposed.

What is that psychology? A sense of belonging, certainly, and a literal buying into a consumerist lifestyle. Our Constitutional right to pursue happiness is also embedded in the psychological framework of the middle class, as is the idea of social mobility. Conformity too is part of its philosophy, along with subscribing to traditional values.

In short, middle-classness is a concept that heavily shapes the self-identity and behavior of most Americans, whether we realize it or not.

(…)

In my own The American Middle Class: A Cultural History, I proposed that the best way to define the middle class is simply by saying that it is those in the economic “middle,” whether measured by income or net worth. (I prefer the latter.) One-third of Americans are thus middle class, I propose, with the remaining thirds being, for lack of better words, upper class, and lower class.

Then why do close to 90 percent of Americans consistently say they are middle class when asked? In a 2015 Pew survey, for example, only 10 percent of Americans said they considered themselves lower class and just 1 percent thought they were upper class. Your doctor likely thinks she or he is middle class, and so does the person who flips burgers at McDonald’s.

The reason that the vast majority of Americans define themselves as middle class is that there are powerful psychic rewards for membership in the group. Because the United States was founded on the principles of democracy and equality, it makes perfect sense that “average” Americans are viewed as most symbolic of what makes this country great and different from others. The middle class reflects our national mythology of the “everyman,” an idea that is central to our national identity.

Conversely, those citizens who are not seen as middle class are often viewed with some suspicion and are considered somehow less “American.” Both the poor and the rich contradict the Constitutional precept that “all men are created equal”; that major class distinctions even exist is seen as a violation of our national creed. The reality is that there always have been great inequalities in wealth and social status in this country, of course, but the endurance of the mythology of classlessness illustrates its profound power.”

[mariacallous]

The chaotic emergence of Rishi Sunak as Britain’s new prime minister signals the end not of Brexit but of Brexitism – the ideology of delusions about Britain’s ability to go it alone that culminated in the world-beating farce of Liz Truss’s short-lived government.

Trussonomics took the logic of Brexitism to an absurd extreme, with predictable results. Over the past eight years, under this Conservative party, Britain has descended from the pragmatic Eurosceptism of David Cameron to the medium-soft Brexit proposed by Theresa May, to the hard Brexit of Boris Johnson, and thence to the fantasy Brexit of Truss. The Brexit revolution has followed a familiar pattern, except that whereas traditionally the “revolution devouring its children” has involved radicalisation towards the left (Girondins to Jacobins in the French revolution, Mensheviks to Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution), here it has been radicalisation towards the right.

“We set out a vision for a low-tax, high-growth economy that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit,” Truss said in her resignation statement. This vision was a delusion: slash taxes, make a bonfire of regulations, incentivise the rich and somehow, miraculously, Britain will be back to the magnificent dynamism of the 19th century. The rest of the world should believe this because we believe it. Instead, a journey that began with the slogan “take back control” ended with the most spectacular loss of control.

Reality has caught up with the Brexitists and the British public is beginning to catch up with reality. If there were a general election tomorrow, and people voted as they currently tell the pollsters, the Tories would be virtually wiped out. Even more tellingly, the residual belief in Brexit among those who voted for it, which held up for many years, seems to have snapped. In a recent YouGov poll, only 34% of those asked said Britain was right to leave the EU, while 54% said it was wrong.

Of course, not all Britain’s economic woes are due to Brexit. Even before the 2016 vote, the country had a chronic productivity problem, excessive reliance on the financial sector and a major deficit in training and skills. But as the Covid pandemic effect fades, we can see the Brexit effect more clearly. On many indicators, such as business investment and trade recovery after Covid, the UK economy has done worse than any other in the G7. The number of small companies with cross-channel relationships has fallen by about a third. On official projections, the country will lose about 4% of its GDP as a result of Brexit. The rating agencies Moody’s and S&P have both reduced the UK’s economic outlook from stable to negative. Yes, it’s the Brexit, stupid.

Sunak is anything but a convinced European. The axis of his world is Silicon Valley-London-Mumbai not London-Paris-Berlin. In 2016, he was a strong Brexiter. But if he ever shared some of the delusions of Brexitism, he has surely lost them by now. As he demonstrated in his Conservative party leadership contest with Truss this summer, he is a realist, putting solid public finances and market credibility first – as did Margaret Thatcher. And realism demands that, in extraordinarily challenging economic circumstances, you have to lower barriers to doing business with your largest single market (the EU), not further increase them.

There will be two immediate tests. One is well known: the Northern Ireland protocol. This is not only a difficult issue in itself, the stalemate over Northern Ireland is also blocking progress on other fronts, such as Britain re-entering the Horizon programme for scientific cooperation. The second test has been less widely noticed. Under the May government, all existing EU regulations were retained in British law unless individual regulations were explicitly replaced by new national ones. Under the Truss fantasy, a bill has been introduced that will make a bonfire of all existing EU-origin regulations by the end of 2023. Departments will have to make a special case for retaining each one of more than 2,400 regulations or replacing them individually with new national rules. If Sunak is serious about concentrating on what really matters for the British economy, he will throw out this crazy bill and start again.

Economically competent and realistic Sunak himself may be, but he will be governing with a chronically divided party at his back. The ideologues of Brexitism are still there in strength. In the name of party unity he will probably have to take some of them into his cabinet. If British democracy worked like most other major western democracies, the country would now have either a general election or a “constructive vote of no confidence”, bringing other parties into power. But it doesn’t. The Tories still have a large majority in parliament. Since on current polling most Conservative MPs would lose their seats in an election, the turkeys are unlikely to vote for Christmas. Yet such is the anger and dissension inside the parliamentary party, and so serious is the economic crisis, that Britain may yet tumble into a general election before 2024.

Whenever it comes, the British electorate will almost certainly, in traditional fashion, “kick the bastards out” – “bastards” here being an entirely non-partisan term – and elect a government of the moderate centre-left. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, is being excessively cautious on Europe, for fear of failing to win back northern English voters who switched to supporting Johnson so as to “get Brexit done”. He keeps parroting “make Brexit work” – a terrible slogan, which implies that the only thing wrong with Brexit is that it hasn’t been made to work properly. As public opinion is clearly shifting, he should start by changing it to “make Britain work”. (In spite of Brexit, that is.)

Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. A day in British politics is currently a long time. But the direction of travel is clear. Britain has at last begun its long, painful journey back from the delusions of Brexitism.

[whentherewerebicycles]

well this week i am experiencing my first taste of PNW winter aka very foggy drizzly mornings (although luckily the fog is still burning off by late morning and the afternoons are gorgeous). i do think this climate is going to be a bit of an adjustment after having basically 365 days of all-day sunshine for ten years!! but i have my little lightbox set up lol and once we get into actual winter i'm going to try to structure my workday so i can walk the dogs outside in the middle of the day while it's still light out.

mmm some other assorted life updates:

i was worried about the paint color yesterday but i am obsessed with it now. it dried so beautifully and i loveeee how it shifts over the course of the day. i'm definitely going to need better lighting in here and i still need to figure out how i want to put this room together but i love the color!!!

i did end up buying that gorgeous rich hunter green paint last night lol. just a quart of it!! i'm going to paint my little library nook because it'll be quick and easy to do and i think it'll make the white bookshelves really pop. but after this: no more painting for a while.

i have spent so much money in the last 6-8 weeks it does not bear thinking about aaaaaaaaaa. but i should be getting a check for unused vacation from my old job soonish and at least a partial security deposit back from my old landlord and SOMEDAY i will hopefully get my stolen tax return (although i just got another letter from the IRS saying they need to investigate further). all of that should pay off my credit card and at least partially replenish my savings. i took this job so i could spend a lot of money on the move without stressing about it!! it's okay!! and most of the money i am spending is on replacing furniture, appliances, etc i've been using for 7-10 years lol so it's fine it's not like i'm going to continue spending at these levels forever.

my friend is arriving tomorrow evening and that will be fun. i feel like i have gotten just enough solitary time to be ready to host again for a few days. but oh man it will be soooo nice to be able to actually fully settle into my new life next week and start figuring out what my routines will look like in this new place.

i also have one million small life tasks to check off my list today and tomorrow aaaaaaaa. ok let's see. i have meetings from 9:30-11, then after those meetings i'll have a half hour break where i'll try to finish this presentation before my 11:30-12 meeting. after that i want to block off 12-1ish to leave feedback on a student's grad school materials. then i want to do the following things:

finish presentation and send to AS

complete security clearance paperwork

find MC keys and put in an envelope to mail

call CP to schedule telehealth appt for med refill

email NK back

email SO back

email AU back with meeting times

pay TX tolls x 2

submit insurance cancellation paperwork

email HR about vacation days

I have many more little things to do but i think that's about what i can handle today

[shpadoinkle-day]

from Salon.com 

24/02/00

Pick me! I'm a real multimillionaire!

A "shocked and outraged" Trey Parker speaks out on Fox's fumble.

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

By Carina Chocano

Feb. 24, 2000 | Oh sure, he meets lots of girls. They follow him around even.

But "South Park's" Trey Parker is still reeling from news of the cancellation

of Fox's "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?" I caught up with Parker at

home in Hawaii, where he is attempting to recover from the loss.

"I am shocked and outraged," says Parker. "I had finally figured out how I'd

find my wife-to-be. I can't believe they cancelled the show because of one

asshole."

You think he's kidding? You try being famous and looking for love in Los

Angeles. "It makes perfect sense. You get 300 people together and have your mom

narrow it down for you."

How did Fox manage to mess up the solution to what Parker calls "my problem"?

("What problem?" "The problem of not being able to find anyone to marry." "Oh

... Really?" "Yeah! We work all the time and live in Los Angeles." "Oh.")

"The producers messed up," he says. "They had plenty of time to really check

these people out."

When he first heard about the show, he says, he wondered, "What makes a

millionaire? I mean, how much was this guy worth? I don't remember who said

that 'Nowadays, any asshole with a million dollars thinks he's rich.' It's

totally true. To be a millionaire now you need at least $4 million, after taxes

and other stuff. I wouldn't wipe my ass with $750,000. [Laughs] I'm a

millionaire! I'm the guy they should have brought on the show!"

Then there was the problem of the questions. If they really wanted to rip off

"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," they should have asked questions that that

required, say, "a minimal understanding of history. So you could have an

intelligent conversation."

So here's what Parker proposes. Fox does another special, he'll be the

bachelor. But the rules have to change.

First, no secret bachelors. "There isn't any reason to have the guy concealed."

I suggest that, in this particular case, there was.

"Well, see, that's the problem. They shouldn't be talking to 40-year-old guys

worth $2 million. They should be talking to 30-year-old guys worth $15 million.

That's the shit."

Second, "and this makes it more fair to the women, once [the producers] pick

the guy, then they should send out that guy's picture and bio, and women can

decide, based on that, whether they want to go on the show. Then both are

making the choice. It's not just, because you're a woman, all you get to know

about is the money. So they would say, at the end of a show: 'Here's who's

going to be on next time, call if you want to be on.'"

Third, "You ask mentally challenging questions, and if they don't get them,

they're out. I would ask questions that would at least show that they knew

something. Like, 'What's the difference between astronomy and astrology?"

"I have the two most important questions to ask a woman," Parker says. "The

first one is, 'How's your relationship with your father?' Because nine times

out of 10, if the answer is 'I hate my father,' or 'I haven't seen my father in

10 years,' or 'My father is dead,' then they have issues. It doesn't

necessarily mean no way, but it's a big warning.

"The second question is, 'Who won the Civil War?'"

Parker's roommate later asks, "Did he tell you the story? He asked one girl,

just as a joke, who won the Civil War, and she had no idea. Then he asked

another one, and she said, 'The North,' but had never heard of the Union or the

Confederacy. Then it just became a running thing."

And finally, to keep the stakes really high, you'd be bound by the rules of the

game. "It could even be funny," he says. "Say there's this woman you're totally

attracted to, she's totally beautiful and she's gotten a lot of questions

right. You're totally stoked on her. And then they ask her, say, the Civil War

question and she gets it wrong? She's out, whether you want her to be or not.

That would be sweet! 'Cause then you'd be like, 'Nooo!' Meanwhile everyone was

rooting for her and you were too!"

Also, he says, that would have taken the sting out of making it as sexist as it

was. "It would then be equally fucked-up for everybody."

(We are briefly interrupted by a woman asking Parker a question. "That was my

cleaning woman. For my house in Hawaii. I'm a millionaire! I'm not fuckin'

around!")

Then the conversation takes a tender turn.

"I'm actually in a smaller but similar situation. I got nominated for an

Academy Award [for his song "Blame Canada," co-written with Marc Shaiman for

the "South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut" soundtrack] and I'm trying to get a

date for the show. 'Cause that's a sweet date! I should be able to get an

awesome date for that! But, again, everyone that I know, I already know. And

everyone in L.A. that I know ... I don't really like that much. And I'd rather

take someone who has nothing to do with that scene.

"My dream would be either someone who is a marine biologist or a forensic

scientist."

I am momentarily confused. "Like Quincy?"

"Not an autopsy person necessarily," he says. "Someone who takes the bullet and

says, 'It came from this direction, he died then because of this.' Or a marine

biologist. One of those chicks that does stuff with Shamu. I would be so stoked

on that! Those two things I totally get into, but I don't have time for them.

So if I had a partner that was, it would be awesome. Crime-story stuff? I love

that stuff.

"And the problem is, my choices are all the people I know in L.A. And we'd just

talk about Hollywood. And I hate talking about Hollywood because I live

Hollywood. It's pretty hard to find a marine biologist or a forensic scientist

here."

"Someone from where I'm from, like Colorado or Arizona, someone who's getting

their masters in one of those two things ... well, I guess you wouldn't be

getting your master's in marine biology in Colorado, but you know what I mean

... that would be great. But, obviously, I have no bones about saying that she

should be a knockout ... 'cause I deserve it! 'Cause I'm not big, fat and gross

or anything."

"Yeah, but last time I saw you," I say, "you didn't have any hair."

"I'd shaved it off. But it's all grown back now."

Then I think. Then I say, "You're not serious about any of this, are you?"

"Oh, yeah!" he says, "Totally!"

[cazort]

I see this attitude from a lot of people nowadays "Why should I have to pay money just to live? The basic necessities should be free!"

Let me tell you why. The answer is efficiency and sustainability. Basic necessities cost resources to produce, food, housing, clothing, it takes labor, material costs, energy, and other resources to produce these things, and it also takes resources to get these things to the people who need them. And it takes societal structures, businesses, organizations, infrastructures, to do it. And some methods of production and distribution are more efficient than others.

When people have limited money, and have to buy basic necessities, they shop around for the lowest price and for deals. And the act of doing this, helps to select for more efficient ways of producing and distributing goods. It also creates incentives to preserve things, like keeping clothing or equipment longer instead of just throwing it out. All of these things create incentives for protecting the environment too, because things that cost more to make often are using more energy or material resources that have negative environmental impact.

When people don't have enough money to buy basic necessities, instead of saying that the problem is that the necessities cost money, you could say that the problem is that they don't have money. Money is power to buy things, and the problem is that some people are so disempowered that they cannot even get their basic needs met.

Solutions like UBI or various social welfare programs address this by simply giving people money regularly.

I think this is often a better solution than simply giving people resources for free. If something is free, people will be more likely waste it, or to take more than they need. This makes the program more expensive than if people bought only what they needed. Someone is still paying for those free things, and if it's funded by a government grant, the whole supply chain of producing and distributing it probably isn't going to be as efficient. So even if no one took more free handouts than they needed, it still would be more expensive than simply giving people money and allowing people to shop around for deals.

Note also that the existence of ultra-rich people undermines the efficiency created by markets and the money system. If someone is rich past a certain point, they become insensitive to the cost of most goods, and they end up buying things for whatever prices they are available at. As a result they often end up buying things that took incredible amounts of resources to produce, and they thus end up having a disrpoportionate environmental impact too. This is why we see all this stuff about how the richest people are responsible for the most carbon emissions and pollution. It's also why you have problems like billionaires buying up tons of properties in London and driving up the cost of living, shaping the whole housing market so that developers build luxury housing instead of affordable housing.

The problem with our world isn't that money exists or that it rules the economy, the problem is simply that the money has been ridiculously concentrated in the hands of a tiny portion of people, and that the economic system and tax system and laws are designed such that it stays that way. Some people have too much money and others have too little and it creates problems on both ends. The solution isn't to eliminate money, it's to eliminate the regressive aspects of our tax code, laws, and economic system.

If there were only modest wealth disparities between people, all people had enough money to comfortably buy basic necessities, and no people had so much wealth as to be insensitive to cost, it wouldn't be a grave injustice that you need to pay for these things. It would just be part of the system that helps society to run more efficiently. And I think that would be a much better society to live in than one where we try to (centrally or decentrally) coordinate how to care for people without money.

[daisyachain]

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Great!! movie!!

The movie splits into two halves: Part 1, underdog heroine finds her strength in a game of sci-fi cat and mouse; Part 2, woman comes to terms with her own dissatisfaction and regrets, learns to embrace the chaotic nature of life and stop worrying about perceived insufficiency. Part 2 is where it gets literary/highbrow, but I was 100% down for Part 1. If the film never went beyond an absurd action movie, I would still love it for the worldbuilding and the tense pace as the Alpha world collapses and Evelyn turns to more and more extremes to escape.

The depiction of mundane life was as fun as the world shenanigans. Loved the set dressing of all the lived-in spaces, the realism was rich and tense instead of boring. I really did feel stressed-out looking at the tax slips! Without getting you invested in the stakes of the Wangs’ “normal” life, the remaining story doesn’t work--why is Evelyn so resistant to new things? Why is she so terrified/enthralled by her world of possibilities? The slice of time we spend in their daily routine is so well-fleshed out that the rest of the movie can stand on that foundation.

Evelyn! I feel like there’s a tendency to give older woman actors ‘girlboss’ roles when cast in Western action movies (which is rare enough) -> see Judi Dench in James Bond, Angela Basset in Mission Impossible, Helen Mirren. A few quippy lines, 0 depth. Evelyn being a struggling, middling underdog was just so refreshing to see! Like every other hero she has to come up through her insecurities, her fears, in a way that has been missing from even some of Yeoh’s recent roles (Discovery and Crazy Rich Asians off the top of my head).

Waymond! Stole the show. One thing that sticks with me is Quan’s high voice. Like height it’s never something you think about, but cinema has an aversion to tenor-range men that doesn’t stand out until you find one! That real-world context doubles down on his awkward self-effacement. I feel like my mom (world’s foremost advocate of calling the customer service representative) would love him. There isn’t much I can say that hasn’t already been said about him, only that his breakdown in the van over the divorce papers is fantastic.

Unfortunately Joy wasn’t as standout a character to me as Evelyn or Waymond, but boy was she real. There are Joys that I have met. One of them I play DnD with. I wish some of her disaffection had been more directly explained the way Evelyn’s/Waymond’s despair was. Their relationship clearly isn’t good, just somehow it didn’t quite feel as heartbreakingly awful as it should have to make Jobu Tupaki feel natural. Contrast Gong Gong and Evelyn, who were truly hard to watch.

Alpha Gong Gong showing up was one of my top 5 moments in the movie. Go granddad!

The action scenes were superlative, no notes

In an age where more experimental stuff gets made, they pulled off the absurdity! I find a lot of stories that go for ridiculousness fail, they get self-conscious, they try too hard to be weird and end up just being pathetic. Like a high schooler’s comedy routine. The film managed to keep up a hectic pace of bizarre happenstances, the off-colour jokes were funny, the bright lights and glittery costumes were exactly as dazzling as they were meant to be.

The one point where the shenanigans felt forced was the joke of the Everything Bagel, which gets a pass because of the circles -> cycle of reincarnation -> opposing googly eyes/bagel -> rolling rocks -> black circle motif, the bagel itself isn’t a joke, but rather a joke made from the leftovers of the circle motif + title. The bagel follows, it doesn’t lead, so why not make it into a pun!

I am so glad I saw the googly eye/bagel post before I saw the movie

The 2001: A Space Odyssey Sausage Fingers scene had me laughing in the second-run theatre with 8 other people in it

Sausage Fingers universe was surprisingly poignant which I hated, because it did make me cry, and I stayed distraught until wedge cut Evelyn talked it out with foot pianist tax lady

I think my sister would have the hots for Racacoonie guy, I should ask her

Favourite 2-second gag: the guy photocopying his ass in the sex room ambush

The sci-fi lover in me wanted to see more of the different alternate universes even if I know there would be budget issues

It took me a very long time to realize that the Movie Star Universe is actually the Michelle Yeoh universe in which Evelyn is Michelle Yeoh ;;

Laundry and taxes scene was exactly as good as everyone says it is

Divorce! I love divorce narratives so much, or at least I love narratives about two peers with an intense relationship on the verge of breakdown (Infinity Train s4, CDRW, Gotham, Magnus s4). I don’t talk or think about it often until I saw EEAAO and it was the best romance that I have seen or read or thought of since...The Magnus Archives? Which was a romance designed to appeal to me personally.

Specifically I loved how you can see where Evelyn and Waymond fit together, the jagged edges that line up as the borders of Brazil do with the Gulf of Guinea. Her stubbornness, his flexibility, her fear, his quickness, her conviction, his despair, you can see how good they have been for each other and could be again, why she nuked her relationship with her family to follow him, why he accepted it when she started treating him as an employee instead of a partner. They need each other to climb out of the pit--shown literally through Alpha Waymond teaching Evelyn about the universe and...everything about current universe Waymond. But it’s almost as painful staying together as staying apart! I love to watch two people have to think about why they need each other, have to break down their own relationship in the way that I-the-viewer am doing it.

The ending! Again, nothing I can say that hasn’t been said, the one part that I will pick out is Evelyn listing her grievances. The movie doesn’t comfort the audience and say ‘actually the kids are right, stick it to the old folks’--it says that communication is what is right, that it’s down to Evelyn and Joy to negotiate what each should do to repair their relationship, that we the audience can’t fully judge either.

[what-if-nct]

hello today's reminder is I'm not american but, like a lot of the world, grew up on your pop culture so here's an incomplete list of things i want to experience there:

1. pop tarts. they look delicious but then i once had fruit loops and i couldn't have more than one bite because it tasted too much like straight-up chemicals so i don't know if american sweets are for me

2. target. we have superstores here but the way people talk about it is like it's another world so I'm curious. although I'm led to believe that the cashier has to make conversation with you and the mrp doesn't include tax so I'm a little wary

3. a multiple-day road trip. don't get me wrong, my country is massive too but no one drives more than an 8 hour distance unless they're a truck driver

4. a cul-de-sac because I'm not quite sure what it means but it sounds fancy. i think it's a suburb thing? but then i don't even really know what a suburb is other than they have moderately rich people in houses with picket fences. which again is a big thing but i don't really get it.

5. a historical reenactment. i don't think I'll believe they really exist until i see one with my own eyes. i wanna dress up and pretend to get shot in an old war too

6. a pawn shop/garage sale. we have places that buy gold but those are usually jewellers. if you wanna get rid of other stuff you just have to throw it out. but I've spent too much of my life watching pawn stars and storage wars so i need to know.

Pop Tarts, everyone's opinions vary widely but I personally don't like the fruit ones kinda taste like jam and cardboard. But the dessert flavored ones like hot fudge sundae, cookies and creme and cinnamon are my favorite. Also taste better in the freezer. There is Birthday Cake, and birthday cake is my favorite flavor of anything but birthday cake pop tarts just taste like sweet card board. A lot of people prefer Toaster Strudel which is better, I like the strawberry creme cheese, last time I had it it was a mean girls edition and came with pink icing. You just put it in the toaster and pour the icing on yourself. So good. Yeah, I hate fruit loops, my sister loves it but she also pours sugar in her fruit loops and frosted flakes, any sugary cereal really, yeah.....its wild to watch.

Target, okay Target does have the reputation of being bougie compared to Walmart. I will say I prefer Target, some Target's come with a starbucks and it's calm, the bright white lights and the silence, it's so quiet. But it's also so damn expensive. I spent less the 100 the other day and was shocked I spent so little. but it's just the vibe is different. Like I see so many girls just having a night out at Target with their friends. My friends and I havent had a Target night in awhile we should, It's the same with TJ Maxx and Home Goods it's place to walk around, look at stuff, drink starbucks and spend way too much money.

Multiple Day Road Trips, I also want to experience that. I've only been from Miami to Orlando but that only took like two days. It'll probably take a few days to get out of Florida and I can't even imagine Texas. The New England area is the only combination of states that it wouldn' t take days to escape one state. But it does look so fun in the movies. Just gotta be real carful in the south. Yeah don't do anything in the south.

I kind of live in a cul-de-sac It's just like a dead end street where its one way in and one way out and a circle of houses. My best friends cul-de-sac had a gazebo at the entrance, once walked to the gazebo barefoot during an anxiety attack at a party, it was a really calming place. Everyone did come looking for me cause I left without telling anyone but just needed to calm down. And Suburbs I'd say ranges. Like I didn't live in a suburb suburb till 5th grade and my family was probably upper low class. Now I'm a good lower middle class. But middle class suburbs do look different from upper class suburbs. Actually a bunch a rich people are trying to control what's considered palmetto bay so that us peasants won't be lumped in with them. Haruhi was right, damn rich people.

I don't even know historical reenactments are real either. Like those actually happen and it's not just a plot point in shows. I know theres colonial Williamsburg but like people actually reenact wars. I wanna see. Probably just in New England.

It's fun to look at things from pawn shops and garage sales. I've never bought anything from either. I like to buy things brand new to make sure it's not haunted. You never know. But it is fun to look at things and see how much it's worth.

also heres a video to best describe Target and Walmart's vibe.