#higs

[sassysophiabush]

[judas-isariot]

I hate that I cannot draw big man, lord, I want to draw Big man give Big hugs to everyone !!!

[elminster-big-naturals]

when its 4am and the whole squad is zooted out their gourds trying to read the overhead menu in mcdonalds

[omgitzlongdennis]

shout out to leslie being in the diamond dogs because otherwise it would be three of the most mentally unstable men giving eachother life advice

[ashes-in-a-jar]

My obsession meter

[lalagoona]

Rb to scare a g3 hater

[hoshigray]

hoshi mh.. would you ever be interested in writing sum w nanami and toji as like a 3sum for a sick minded person like little ole me.. the only issue is i have no ideas - megan anon

HELPPPPNANAMI AND TOJII!?!?? MANNNNNNNN, as a another fellow sick minded person, now THAT'S a duo I have to do a fic for!!! I would be so fucking down 🙇🏾‍♀️🙇🏾‍♀️🙇🏾‍♀️ Only problem is....I, too, have no idea what prompt to do for the both of them....

Oh+!! WAIT WAIT, HOLD ON, HOLD KN,HOLD. THE FUCK. OOOOONNNN!!! I TAKE IT FUCKING BACK, I actually made something on the spot right now!! Wait a fucking minute let me write this shit down....

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Greedflation, but for prisoners

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (Apr 21) in TORINO, then Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Today in "Capitalists Hate Capitalism" news: The Appeal has published the first-ever survey of national prison commissary prices, revealing just how badly the prison profiteer system gouges American's all-time, world-record-beating prison population:

https://theappeal.org/locked-in-priced-out-how-much-prison-commissary-prices/

Like every aspect of the prison contracting system, prison commissaries – the stores where prisoners are able to buy food, sundries, toiletries and other items – are dominated by private equity funds that have bought out all the smaller players. Private equity deals always involve gigantic amounts of debt (typically, the first thing PE companies do after acquiring a company is to borrow heavily against it and then pay themselves a hefty dividend).

The need to service this debt drives PE companies to cut quality, squeeze suppliers, and raise prices. That's why PE loves to buy up the kinds of businesses you must spend your money at: dialysis clinics, long-term care facilities, funeral homes, and prison services.

Prisoners, after all, are a literal captive market. Unlike capitalist ventures, which involve the risk that a customer will take their business elsewhere, prison commissary providers have the most airtight of monopolies over prisoners' shopping.

Not that prisoners have a lot of money to spend. The 13th Amendment specifically allows for the enslavement of convicted criminals, and so even though many prisoners are subject to forced labor, they aren't necessarily paid for it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

Six states ban paying prisoners anything. North Carolina caps prisoners' pay at one dollar per day. Nationally, prisoners earn $0.52/hour, while producing $11b/year in goods and services:

https://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2024/0324bowman.html

So there's a double cruelty to prison commissary price-gouging. Prisoners earn far less than any other kind of worker, and they pay vastly inflated prices for the necessities of life. There's also a triple cruelty: prisoners' families – deprived of an incarcerated breadwinner's earnings – are called upon to make up the difference for jacked up commissary prices out of their own strained finances.

So what does prison profiteering look like, in dollars and sense? Here's the first-of-its-kind database tracking the costs of food, hygiene items and religious items in 46 states:

https://theappeal.org/commissary-database/

Prisoners rely heavily on commissaries for food. Prisons serve spoiled, inedible food, and often there isn't enough to go around – prisoners who rely on the food provided by their institutions literally starve. This is worst in prisons where private equity funds have taken over the cafeteria, which is inevitable accompanied by swingeing cuts to food quality and portions:

https://theappeal.org/prison-food-virginia-fluvanna-correctional-center/

So you have one private equity fund starving prisoners, and another that's gouging them on food. Or sometimes it's the same company. Keefe Group, owned by HIG Capital, provides commissaries to prisons whose cafeterias are managed by other HIG Capital portfolio companies like Trinity Services Group. HIG also owns the prison health-care company Wellpath – so if they give you food poisoning, they get paid twice.

Wellpath delivers "grossly inadequate healthcare":

https://theappeal.org/massachusetts-prisons-wellpath-dentures-teeth/

And Trinity serves "meager portions of inedible food":

https://theappeal.org/clayton-county-jail-sheriff-election/

When prison commissaries gouge on food, no part of the inventory is spared, even the cheapest items. In Florida, a packet of ramen costs $1.06, 300% more inside the prison than it does at the Target down the street:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24444312-fl_doc_combined_commissary_lists#document/p6/a2444049

America's prisoners aren't just hungry, they're also hot. The climate emergency is sending temperatures in America's largely un-air-conditioned prisons soaring to dangerous levels. Commissaries capitalize on this, too: an 8" fan costs $40 in Delaware's Sussex Correctional Institution. In Georgia, that fan goes for $32 (but prisoners are not paid for their labor in Georgia pens). And in scorching Texas, the commissary raised the price of water by 50% last summer:

https://www.tpr.org/criminal-justice/2023-07-20/texas-charges-prisoners-50-more-for-water-for-as-heat-wave-continues

Toiletries are also sold at prices that would make an airport gift-shop blush. Need denture adhesive? That's $12.28 in an Idaho pen, triple the retail price. 15% of America's prisoners are over 55. The Keefe Group – sister company to the "grossly inadequate" healthcare company Wellpath – operates that commissary. In Oregon, the commissary charges a 200% markup on hearing-aid batteries. Vermont charges a 500% markup on reading glasses. Imagine spending decades in prison: toothless, blind, and deaf.

Then there's the religious items. Bibles and Christmas cards are surprisingly reasonable, but a Qaran will run you $26 in Vermont, where a Bible is a mere $4.55. Kufi caps – which cost $3 or less in the free world – go for $12 in Indiana prisons. A Virginia prisoner needs to work for 8 hours to earn enough to buy a commissary Ramadan card (you can buy a Christmas card after three hours' labor).

Prison price-gougers are finally facing a comeuppance. California's new BASIC Act caps prison commissary markups at 35% (California commissaries used to charge 63-200% markups):

https://theappeal.org/price-gouging-in-california-prisons-newsom-signature/

Last year, Nevada banned any markup on hygiene items:

https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/82nd2023/Bill/10425/Overview

And prison tech monopolist Securus has been driven to the brink of bankruptcy, thanks to the activism of Worth Rises and its coalition partners:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/08/money-talks/

When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. Prisons show us how businesses would treat us if they could get away with it.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/20/captive-market/#locked-in

[tedlassogif]

Heard the news. Ooh. Ouch. Looks like you're gonna lose another team. My God, you get through them like wives. Or mistresses. Or, I'm assuming, tubes of hemorrhoid cream. But in all seriousness, I... I do wish you the best... 'cause you are the fucking worst.

[moonlight-stalker]

# 50 dcxdp

The bats just broke up a huge trafficking ring they were checking over the kids and wanting for the police to get there when two of the kids came up to Nightwing, Spoiler and Red Hood, one was a girl with long orange hair, turquoise eyes and look to be about 9, with a 5-year-old boy behind her he had blue eyes and black hair he was prime adoption bait, she told them that her brother wanted a hug form one of them. Nightwing and Spoiler started arguing about which of them he wanted to hug they ask him who he wanted to hug the little boy lift his hand and pointed behind them at Red Hood.

[fluffybellyhog99]

I love just releasing my big round and massively heavy belly at work after I hide at the work toilet

[just-a-pole-sir]

[angelnicknelson]

every heartstopper hug -> 1x04: charlie and elle

[beaulesbian]

I need to talk about zolu in the terms of dnd because I can't get this idea out of my head!

Zoro who starts as a fighter class - a swordsman through and through - that's all he's ever know since childhood. He fights to become the best, the strongest, to keep his promise to Kuina.

But then, an impossible guy saves him from a certain death. A guy who becomes his captain, his guiding light. And Zoro becomes his, his pirate despite never wanting to have anything to do with them before.

Zoro has never believed in any gods or higher power or miracles, it's just not who he is - to depend on something or someone intangible.

But he believes in Luffy, because he's seen what he can do and knows what Luffy wants. Their goals allign.

He believes in Luffy so much that he saw him as a god before anyone else did. And that's where it changes - when he's faced with his biggest rival whom he wants to beat, defeated, and swears to Luffy an oath to stand by his side to reach their dreams together. Calls him the Pirate King.

He believes in Luffy so much, that he would swap their places in facing death just so Luffy could take another breath, pain-free. He believes in him with absolute certainty, even to become the King of Hell for him, and to defy Death time and time again, with absolute faith that he would keep standing and breathing, to stay by his captain and crew's side.

(Luffy believes in Zoro, too, in his strength and his words, that's why he can always trust and lean on him.)

With Luffy behind him, Zoro becomes his champion, his paladin, not only to the alternation of the Sun God Nika, but most importantly to Luffy as a person and what he represent - freedom, joy, infinite possibilites; and then he can show this trust to all the other people they're helping along their journey. It changes his whole world, but in a way he might not even notice- in the small every day things, like not traveling alone and knowing his crew has his back. Their bond - the oath, the promise - re-affirms the powers Zoro can wield (*cough* unlocking Concqueror's Haki), he's much more stronger now than he could ever be as a fighter with no other purpose except to fight. He no longer fights for the sake of fighting, but for the sake of protecting.

(Official art from here X)

[biannual-fixation]

Some more art for my fic, Charming's Not the Word I'd Use! Jody doesn't stand a chance 😔

[hektor-world]

I found my self lost on you