#food allowance

[theriverbeyond]

i must not get takeout. takeout is the wallet-killer. takeout is the little-death that brings total obliteration. i will face the kitchen, fridge, and pantry. i will make choices about what to cook and then execute them. when hunger is gone there will be nothing. only i will remain.

[lordgroose]

my favorite work memory from this store will always be “hey remember when the subway inside the store closed down and they let me take a bunch of their shit for free and now it lives inside my house?”

my life is a joke

[artkaninchenbau]

People keep on asking for more Baby Robin and Papadile so here is more Baby Robin and Papadile. Now never ask anything from me ever again

[reasonsforhope]

Federal regulators on Tuesday [April 23, 2024] enacted a nationwide ban on new noncompete agreements, which keep millions of Americans — from minimum-wage earners to CEOs — from switching jobs within their industries.

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday afternoon voted 3-to-2 to approve the new rule, which will ban noncompetes for all workers when the regulations take effect in 120 days [So, the ban starts in early September, 2024!]. For senior executives, existing noncompetes can remain in force. For all other employees, existing noncompetes are not enforceable.

[That's right: if you're currently under a noncompete agreement, it's completely invalid as of September 2024! You're free!!]

The antitrust and consumer protection agency heard from thousands of people who said they had been harmed by noncompetes, illustrating how the agreements are "robbing people of their economic liberty," FTC Chair Lina Khan said. 

The FTC commissioners voted along party lines, with its two Republicans arguing the agency lacked the jurisdiction to enact the rule and that such moves should be made in Congress...

Why it matters

The new rule could impact tens of millions of workers, said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist and president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. 

"For nonunion workers, the only leverage they have is their ability to quit their job," Shierholz told CBS MoneyWatch. "Noncompetes don't just stop you from taking a job — they stop you from starting your own business."

Since proposing the new rule, the FTC has received more than 26,000 public comments on the regulations. The final rule adopted "would generally prevent most employers from using noncompete clauses," the FTC said in a statement.

The agency's action comes more than two years after President Biden directed the agency to "curtail the unfair use" of noncompetes, under which employees effectively sign away future work opportunities in their industry as a condition of keeping their current job. The president's executive order urged the FTC to target such labor restrictions and others that improperly constrain employees from seeking work.

"The freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy," Khan said in a statement making the case for axing noncompetes. "Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand."

Real-life consequences

In laying out its rationale for banishing noncompetes from the labor landscape, the FTC offered real-life examples of how the agreements can hurt workers.

In one case, a single father earned about $11 an hour as a security guard for a Florida firm, but resigned a few weeks after taking the job when his child care fell through. Months later, he took a job as a security guard at a bank, making nearly $15 an hour. But the bank terminated his employment after receiving a letter from the man's prior employer stating he had signed a two-year noncompete.

In another example, a factory manager at a textile company saw his paycheck dry up after the 2008 financial crisis. A rival textile company offered him a better job and a big raise, but his noncompete blocked him from taking it, according to the FTC. A subsequent legal battle took three years, wiping out his savings. 

-via CBS Moneywatch, April 24, 2024

--

Note:

A lot of people think that noncompete agreements are only a white-collar issue, but they absolutely affect blue-collar workers too, as you can see from the security guard anecdote.

In fact, one in six food and service workers are bound by noncompete agreements. That's right - one in six food workers can't leave Burger King to work for Wendy's [hypothetical example], in the name of "trade secrets." (x, x, x)

Noncompete agreements also restrict workers in industries from tech and video games to neighborhood yoga studios. "The White House estimates that tens of millions of workers are subject to noncompete agreements, even in states like California where they're banned." (x, x, x)

The FTC estimates that the ban will lead to "the creation of 8,500 new businesses annually, an average annual pay increase of $524 for workers, lower health care costs, and as many as 29,000 more patents each year for the next decade." (x)

Clearer explanation of noncompete agreements below the cut.

Noncompete agreements can restrict workers from leaving for a better job or starting their own business.

Noncompetes often effectively coerce workers into staying in jobs they want to leave, and even force them to leave a profession or relocate.

Noncompetes can prevent workers from accepting higher-paying jobs, and even curtail the pay of workers not subject to them directly.

Of the more than 26,000 comments received by the FTC, more than 25,000 supported banning noncompetes. 

[mellosdrawings]

Now I want to see the losers club. :)

Are you referring to the ACTUAL Losers' Club (aka the Stephen King's Losers Club) or my band of completely unlucky morons ? Whichever the case, you're getting more N2 Squad x)

Here's some random doodles I did to try and get their dynamics for an attempt at fanfic.

(With a very self-indulgent side of Jamil & Ruggie)

[bumblebeeappletree]

Every once in a while I’ll see some posts about everyone should become vegan in order to help the environment. And that… sounds kinda rude. I’m sure they don’t mean to come off that way but like, humans are omnivores. Yes there are people who won’t have any animal products be it meat or otherwise either due to personal beliefs or because their body physically cannot handle it, and that’s okay! You don’t have to change your diet to include those products if you don’t want to or you physically can’t.

But there’s indigenous communities that hunt and farm animals sustainably and have been doing so for generations. And these animals are a primary source of food for them. Look to the bison of North America. The settlers nearly caused an extinction as a part of a genocide. Because once the Bison were gone it caused an even sharper decline of the indigenous population. Now thankfully Bison did not go extinct and are actively being shared with other groups across America.

Now if we look outside of indigenous communities we have people who are doing sustainable farming as well as hunting. We have hunting seasons for a reason, mostly because we killed a lot of the predators. As any hunter and they will tell you how bad the deer population can get. (Also America has this whole thing about bird feathers and bird hunting, like it was bad until they laid down some laws. People went absolutely nuts on having feathers be a part of fashion like holy cow.)

We’re slowly getting better with having gardens and vertical farms within cities, and there’s some laws on being able to have a chicken or two at your house or what-have-you in the city for some eggs. (Or maybe some quails since they’re smaller than chickens it’s something that you’d might have to check in your area.) Maybe you would be able to raise some honey bees or rent them out because each honey tastes different from different plants. But ultimately when it comes to meat or cheese? Go to your local farmers. Go to farmers markets, meet with the people there, become friends, go actively check out their farm. See how the animal lives are and if the farmer is willing, talk to them about sustainable agriculture. See what they can change if they’re willing. Support indigenous communities and buy their food and products, especially if you’re close enough that the food won’t spoil on its way to you. (Like imagine living in Texas and you want whale meat from Alaska and you buy it from an indigenous community. I would imagine that would be pretty hard to get.)

Either way everything dies in the end. Do we shame scavengers for eating corpses they found before it could rot and spread disease? Do we shame the animals that hunt other animals to survive? Yes factory farming should no longer exist. So let’s give the animals the best life we can give them. If there’s babies born that the farmer doesn’t want, give them away to someone who wants them as a pet. Or someone who wants to raise them for something else. Not everyone can raise animals for their meat. I know I can’t I would get to emotionally attached. I’d only be able to raise them for their eggs and milk.

Yeah this was pretty much thrown together, and I just wanted to say my thoughts and throw them into the void. If you have some examples of sustainable farming/agriculture, please share them because while I got some stuff I posted from YouTube, I’m still interested to see what stuff I might’ve missed!

[applecidersstuff]

In Kaz’s office there is a special place where no one is allowed to sit. This place is the windowsill, this windowsill has a blanket and a couple pillows. Some of the Dregs tried to sit there if they were in the office, but very fast learned that it is fraught with being pierced by a cane. The one and only person who can sit there safely is Inej Ghafa. And why wouldn’t she? Kaz arranged that windowsill personally for her, so she could sit there comfortably and feed the crows

[amelia-yap]

@white-rose-week day 3:Vampire Schnees and Vampire Hunter Ruby

40% blood!

[inkly-heart]

Hi! I hope you don't mind answering this question but seeing the animals in the BC world made me wonder, do Hueväris eat them too? (I love the designs so much by the way! 😍💕✨)

Like some of them, not all. Like how humans eat cows, pigs, lamb meat, fish etc. It's just me curious about it~ If so, is this considered like a "monster cuisine" (definitely not referencing Dungeon Meshi)

Thank you and have a nice day! 💕✨

.

[lazycranberrydoodles]

modern AU where they meet again at the fast food place Xie Lian works at and Hua Cheng has to figure out how to romance a customer service employee

[gummybearstastelikesadness]

DPxBatfam crossover

So back with the HC of ectoplasm being acidic. Continued exposure to acids can damage taste buds and make food taste blander or completely different.

Danny grows up with ectoplasm exposure in almost everything around him even before the accident, his taste is probably most gone. Meaning he can’t really tell how good or bad food tastes unless it’s really good, or closer to poison than a meal.

Have Danny be adopted, friends with, or with one of the bats and he eventually just eats one of their failed cooking attempts without even battling an eye at how inedible it actually is.

Eventually, Danny would end up as the batfams’ food taste tester. If he says it’s good, it’s probably amazing. If he says it’s fine it’s a coin flip. But if Danny says it’s bad it would probably kill a normal human.

It would be even funnier if Danny could cook, like he only makes food that would make Alfred cry in joy because that’s what tastes good to Danny. Although he’s not allowed to cook anything that’s meant to be spicy anymore, because he made over half the batfam including Batman cry from pain due to the heat level.

[misc-obeyme]

Hello hello!!! I just saw your kink/flufftober post and wondered if I could request “biting” with barbatos? It can be either fluff of nsfw, whichever gets the creative juices flowing more! As always, love the work you do here, thank you!!!!

Hello and thank you I'm so glad you're enjoying my writing! <3

I was doing so well keeping within my word count limit until now. I can't act like I'm surprised, it's Barbatos we're talking about lol. And I decided to use this as a kink prompt because ooooof I love biting. So you know, having two things I very much enjoy as a prompt ended up with something slightly longer than perhaps intended. But I think it turned out okay still!

Thank you for submitting a prompt!

KINKTOBER 2023

GN!MC x Barbatos

NSFW MDNI

Warnings: biting, a little bit of blood, oral and penetration (both reader receiving)

You were in the kitchen at the Demon Lord's Castle, helping Barbatos make red velvet cupcakes. Since it was a flavor from the human world, you had agreed to help out with making them, passing final judgment on how they turned out. You were currently mixing the red food coloring into the batter. While the recipe you had used was a classic red velvet recipe, the bright color of the cake still needed that extra vibrancy from the food coloring.

Barbatos was beside you, mixing vanilla into the frosting.

Normally, Barbatos entered a sort of flow when baking. It was almost meditative, the way he moved around the kitchen so easily. But at that moment, you noticed that he seemed a little distracted. Certainly the frosting was looking delicious, but he seemed to be focused elsewhere.

You stopped what you were doing and looked over at him. He froze, meeting your eyes for a moment before flicking his gaze down to your fingers.

You looked down at your hands and saw that they were covered in red food coloring.

You laughed a little. "Sorry," you said. "I'm making a mess, huh? Is that why you're so distracted?"

Barbatos closed his eyes and frowned. "You needn't apologize, MC. I'm afraid seeing that brilliant red on your skin has made me think of things I shouldn't."

You were puzzled by this response. You cocked your head curiously. "Such as…?"

Barbatos opened his eyes and the hunger you saw there made heat run through you. Barbatos put down the spatula he'd been using to mix the vanilla into the frosting and took one of your hands instead. He brought it to his lips and kissed away some of the red. The way it painted his lips was so sensual your knees went weak.

You let out a little gasp as Barbatos circled behind you, putting his red stained lips to your neck. You had to grip the kitchen counter for support as he sucked for a moment, his arms going around your waist.

Barbatos let his teeth scrape gently across your skin as he pulled his lips away. "Forgive me, MC. I am not sure what has come over me."

His arms moved as if he was about to move away from you, but you put both of your hands on them. You didn't care that you were likely getting red food coloring on him. You just wanted to hold him in place. "Don't stop."

Barbatos pressed himself into you and there was no mistaking the erection you felt against you as he put his lips back on your neck.

You moaned as he bit down gently, as though he couldn't resist but he also didn't want to hurt you too much.

You deliberately pushed yourself back against him, making it clear that you knew how turned on he already was.

Barbatos laughed softly against your neck. "What is it you would like from me, MC?"

"I want you to bite harder," you said.

Barbatos put his lips on your ear. "As you wish."

A tingle ran up your spine at the sound of his voice in your ear. He turned you around in his arms, then lifted you bodily. He set you down on the kitchen counter, on a spot that was far away from where you had been attempting to make red velvet cupcakes.

In moments, Barbatos had removed your clothes and put his lips on your inner thighs. Your hands flew to his head, fingers running through his hair. You gasped and tried desperately not to pull when he bit down on the sensitive skin there, harder than before just as you had asked. He worked his way up your thigh, biting the whole time, making you gasp and whine as he did.

When he finally put his tongue between your legs, you cried out his name, your legs squeezing around his head involuntarily. He stayed there for a long time, but he never let you get too close to orgasming.

Barbatos finally stood up, causing you to whine and grip at his arms unhappily. You squirmed on the counter top as you tried to pull him closer to you. He obliged, moving closer to stand between your knees.

Barbatos reached out and put his fingertips to your neck where he had been biting it earlier. He wasn't wearing his gloves, of course, he had taken them off long before you even started baking. Now his fingers were covered in the red food coloring.

"Barbatos," you said as you pulled on his pants, unzipping them and pulling out his cock. You rubbed it in your hands for a moment before looking at him. "Please."

"Normally I would not allow such a mess to occur on my kitchen counter," Barbatos said quietly, putting his hands on either side of you and leaning in to your neck once again. "But I'm afraid you've awakened something in me, MC."

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders in an attempt to pull him closer. You realized that the counter here was a bit lower than it was in most of the other places in the kitchen. Which meant that you were at the perfect height. You smirked a little when you realized that Barbatos knew exactly what he was doing when he placed you here.

The smirk was gone in an instant as Barbatos pressed his cock into you, his teeth leaving marks on your neck at the same time, his hands gripping your hips. You had to hold on because as soon as he was inside you, Barbatos did not hold back. You felt your entire body heat up as he thrust fast and hard, his teeth continuing down your neck. He reached up to pull your top out of the way so he could bite down your shoulder.

The sweetness of his cock inside you mixed with the pleasurable pain of his teeth was almost too much sensation. You couldn't hold still and you couldn't keep quiet. You were already close from when he was using his tongue and it wasn't long before you were crying out, clamping hard around him. You felt his cum inside you only moments later.

When Barbatos pulled away to look at you, the red of the food coloring was still bright against his lips, but there was a slightly darker red next to it now. He leaned back in and kissed the bite marks he had left.

"Your blood is much prettier than this food coloring," he said softly in your ear. "I do hope I did not hurt you too much by drawing it."

You sighed against him, leaning your head on his shoulder. "Next time you can add the food coloring to the batter."

Barbatos chuckled, taking your face in his hands and kissing you. Later you would need to wash the red off your hands as well as your lips, cheeks, neck, and thighs.

flufftober | kinktober | masterlist | Thank you for reading!

taglist: @anxious-chick @t0tallycoolname @libidinous-weeb

[princehendir]

Finding out that buy and large what people mean when they say "it's dangerous to reheat rice!!" is that if rice is held at a tepid temperature for an extended period of time it tends to grow cultures that can cause food poisoning. A fact that is true about pretty much everything.

[lazylittledragon]

happy deathiversary to the queen. can we do the rest of the bastards now

[malaierba]

Thoughts on Toshiro’s eating behavior, restrictive ed/disordered eating habits, and ARFID (obvious warnings apply).

Been thinking about how Toshiro’s eating is described in the manga. Especially when you consider the context within which he snaps — which is jokingly referred to as “he has hangry”. Interestingly enough, emotional deregulation IS a common symptom of EDs. That, alongside all the symptoms that Ryoko Koi chooses to illustrate in him… it’s done too accurately for it to be dismissed as him simply choosing not to eat and starve, as if it were that easy.

Basically, I think Toshiro’s inability to eat is ARFID-coded, and that’s symbolism in itself. I also think food is one of the few areas in his life where he exerts control effectively.

Assuming that he was under the influence of the dungeon (not necessary for this analysis to work tbh), his behavior is a quite accurate depiction of how desire works for people who are chronic ascetics in general, and ED'd in particular:

According to Maizuru, he’s a person who's denied themselves all their life (“saving Falyn was his first selfish request“),

Who seems to only experience a sort of self-agency when it's linked to deprivation (not really eating food from anyone who wasn’t Maizuru as a child, turning down her food as an adult even though he’s otherwise easy to pull around),

Who's actively reaching towards something for the first time in their lives (so he doesn’t know how to work towards it without burning himself out).

A common trigger (perhaps the main one) in EDs is the desire for control. The logic often goes, what's easier to control than what you eat? what do you own more fully than your body? It tracks in Toshiro’s case: when he is picky that's one thing he can fully control, no one could force him to eat not when he was a child nor as an adult. Toshiro's “whims” are most indulged when he restricts or rejects food, rather than when he reaches for it.

The reason why I’m getting ARFID vibes from him is Maizuru’s wording. On the screenshot I shared, she said “he never ate much, but he ate plenty of what I made”, making it sound like he’d try stuff made by other people, but in the end, Maizuru was the only one who could tailor it to his tastes the best (and made it with love). Rather than fighting him or forcing him, he worked with him, which is the best course of action for parents with kids who are being picky eaters.

There’s also the wording used by Maizuru: I think he's ARFID and perhaps ortho coded, or some other restrictive ED. Here we have to note that EDs aren't exclusively or even always about weight, weight is often a secondary effect of the behaviors that are motivated by the ED. In layman terms, they're eating disorders not weight disorders.

With the established, I do see a narrative relevance to giving Toshiro this type of relationship with food:

It sets him in obvious opposition to Laios: You need to eat and take care of yourself to succeed, neglecting yourself equals not taking your goals seriously vs. I’ll sacrifice everything recklessly, myself included, in the pursuit of my goals.

Tangentially related but lol, can’t help but think of Laios getting SO mad when Toshiro’s reaction to his plan (admittedly thought of on the spot) to get back Falyn is “you aren’t even EATING” which, SO fair, you can strategize and make detailed long term plans all you want, but as they say the secret to your future lies within your daily habits.

It makes him a mirror of Falyn, her passiveness reflecting Toshiro’s own. Falyn explicitly says at the end of her adventure, while she’s turning down Toshiro’s marriage proposal, “I’ve always wanted to travel; I’ve always just done what my bother and Marcille want, I want to try doing what I want now”, which is reminiscent of Maizuru saying “He was always such a well-behaved, reasonable boy, so much so that it worried me sometimes. The only time he ever made a personal request was for this task” <- person disconnected from their desires. (More on this idea here, I love it as a narrative choice).

And then (here’s where I get suppositional). It could be an extrapolation of the way his upbringing has permeated so deep within himself that he overtly controls what he eats even under normal circumstances. This extreme exertion of self-control, this constant self-monitoring, would be unsurprising in the guy who’s a little too good at following social scripts and masking (fun fact, did you know that ARFID is often co-morbid with autism?).

I often think of him in this scene, where he seems to be telling Senshi that he’s had enough / he doesn’t want something (featuring the other Weird With Food character, my beloved Kabru, maybe trying to help him? or maybe hassling him too lol):

Looks like some habits are hard to break. But, Laios does get through to him when he kicks his ass, and Falyn seems to have reached him too with his words, so perhaps there’s hope.

Look at him forcing himself to eat a burger while holding so much distaste in his heart. Did he and Laios order for each other? At least Laios seems to like his meal.