#transportation factoring companies

[artisticdivasworld]

Kickstart Your Trucking Business: Financial Relief and Support Solutions

Renee Williams, PresidentFreightRevCon, a Freight Revenue Consultants, LLC. company The average cost to start a new trucking company ranges from $10,000 to $30,000, not including the cost of purchasing trucks and trailers. Here is a breakdown of the typical startup costs: Semi-truck and trailer down payment: $18,000 Insurance down payment: $4,000 USDOT number registration: $300 Business…

[avaaltechnologysolutions]

AVAAL Freight Management Suite (Cloud based TMS)

AFM Suite is software solutions for Carriers, Freight Brokers, and Freight Forwarders. They offer the ultimate solution for freight accounting, freight auditing, freight tracking and many other freight management services. You can manage multiple freight, send, and receive important documents, access status of shipments, manage profitability and analyze financial trends conveniently in one single place. Automation: automating recurring tasks and data entry. Customization: fully personalized to suit your needs Integration: integrated with AVAAL Mobile Apps and all major 3rd party providers to offer a complete solution. Visibility: Complete 360-degree view of your business' orders, accounting, safety, and reports. Multi-company management under one account. Control: multi-level access for users. Easy to use, simple and flexible workflow. Convenience: cloud-based, connect from anywhere. Multi-version platform: Dispatch, Brokerage, Auto Hauler, and intermodal.

[aryawartapackers-blog]

The Importance of Choosing Reliable Packers and Movers in Dharamshala

Aryawarta Packers and Movers, a beacon of reliability in the bustling town of Dharamshala, stands out for its unwavering commitment to excellence in the realm of relocation services. With a steadfast dedication to customer satisfaction, Aryawarta goes above and beyond to ensure a seamless transition for individuals and businesses alike. Leveraging years of experience and expertise, the company employs a team of trained professionals who execute each task with precision and care. From meticulously packing belongings to navigating the intricacies of transportation, Aryawarta's meticulous attention to detail sets them apart as leaders in the industry.

At Aryawarta Packers and Movers, the pursuit of excellence extends beyond mere logistics to encompass a holistic approach to customer service. Recognizing the unique needs and concerns of each client, the company offers personalized solutions tailored to specific requirements. Whether it's providing additional packing materials for fragile items or accommodating last-minute changes to the relocation plan, Aryawarta prioritizes flexibility and adaptability. With a reputation built on trust, reliability, and integrity, Aryawarta Packers and Movers emerges as the premier choice for those seeking unparalleled service in Dharamshala's bustling relocation landscape.

How to Choose the Best Packers and Movers in Dharamshala

In the scenic town of Dharamshala, nestled in the picturesque Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh, the process of relocating can be both exhilarating and daunting. Amidst the breathtaking vistas of the Himalayas, one seeks the seamless transition of moving homes or offices, a task that necessitates the expertise of reliable packers and movers. In the quest for the best packers and movers in Dharamshala, meticulous selection becomes imperative. Understanding the nuances of this selection process, from evaluating reputations to assessing services, is crucial. Discerning individuals embark on a journey of research, weighing factors such as experience, customer feedback, and pricing structures. Equipped with this knowledge, they navigate through the myriad options, ensuring that their chosen movers align with their specific needs and expectations.

How to Pack and Move Efficiently with Packers and Movers in Dharamshala

Efficiency becomes paramount in the endeavor to pack and move belongings swiftly and securely. With the assistance of proficient packers and movers in Dharamshala, individuals embark on a journey of streamlined relocation. From meticulously packing fragile items to efficiently loading and transporting possessions, every step is orchestrated with precision. Techniques for optimizing space, safeguarding delicate items, and expediting the process are employed, ensuring a smooth transition to the new abode or workspace.

How Do Packers and Movers in Dharamshala Ensure Safe Relocation?

Central to the concerns of those entrusting their possessions to packers and movers in Dharamshala is the assurance of safety throughout the relocation process. These reputable service providers prioritize the protection of goods, employing stringent measures to safeguard against damage or loss. From employing trained professionals to utilizing high-quality packing materials, every precaution is taken to ensure the integrity of items during transit. With a commitment to excellence, packers and movers in Dharamshala adhere to industry standards and best practices, instilling confidence in their clientele.

What Services Do Packers and Movers in Dharamshala Offer?

The spectrum of services offered by packers and movers in Dharamshala encompasses a myriad of offerings tailored to meet diverse needs. From residential relocations to commercial moves, these versatile service providers cater to a broad clientele. Packing services range from basic to comprehensive, with options for customized solutions based on individual requirements. Loading, transportation, and unloading are executed with precision, utilizing specialized equipment and vehicles to facilitate the process. Additional services such as storage solutions, unpacking assistance, and furniture assembly further enhance the convenience offered by these professionals. With a commitment to customer satisfaction, packers and movers in Dharamshala strive to exceed expectations, ensuring a seamless transition to new beginnings.

[safexpress-pvt-ltd]

best logistics company in India

5 Key factors to choose the best logistics company for your Business

Elevate your business operations by partnering with the best logistics company in India. Our guide outlines 5 key factors to help you make the right choice. Prioritize reliability, scalability, and innovation for a seamless supply chain experience. Read this article to know more!

[artisticdivasworld]

Why Customer Credit Matters to Your Business

By S. Williams, Marketing at Freight Revenue Consultants, LLC. Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com Navigating the financial waters of the trucking industry requires strategic decisions, especially regarding how you manage cash flow and customer relationships. A decision you need to make is whether to engage in factoring or maintain operations without it, both of which are significantly…

[sunderwight]

Headcanon that Shen Yuan was hotter than Shen Qingqiu, actually.

Like yeah SQQ being a cultivator gave him a boost to enough attributes + being in a stallion novel where everyone is either unrealistic hot or dog's butt ugly got the Shen Qingqiu body extra points, and he wasn't bad looking to begin with. Plus not being ill is vastly more important to the new Shen Qingqiu than those extra hotness points (Without a Cure notwithstanding). But part of the reason why he's kind of like, meh, at least I'm not hideous or anything, is because Shen Yuan's original body was a knock out.

I also like him as chronically ill, and, as many people know, beauty standards and sustained suffering are not as incompatible as they should be. Shen Yuan was conventionally attractive in part because conventional beauty standards seem to want everyone slowly dying all the time. But even setting that aside, the man had flawless bone structure, an appealing figure, captivating eyes, and the kind of voice that stopped people in their tracks.

All of which was a contributing factor to his antisocial lifestyle, actually. Despite the fact that Shen Yuan does enjoy company and requires a certain baseline of social enrichment for his enclosure, his internalized homophobia and closeting did not play well with overtures from interested parties (regardless of gender). The only way to minimize the odds of him being asked out on dates was to essentially become a shut-in, especially since even Shen Yuan can only make so many excuses before he himself starts to notice that he's going to a lot of effort to avoid specifically that avenue of socialization. Far better to just remove himself from any risk of it, and then vocally lament that oh no he's just too much of a nerd to get anywhere with women!

Anyway this largely doesn't matter much outside of sheer comedy potential for any situation where SY gets his old body/life back. Like imagine a reveal scenario where the System is going to transport them back to their old lives.

Shang Qinghua: well bro I guess this is gonna be the ultimate test of love, right?

Shen Yuan: what do you mean?

Shang Qinghua: our husbands are gonna see what we looked like back before we were glorious cultivators! they're going to have to track us down in our mundane, kinda shitty pre-transmigration lives! it's gonna be at least a little embarrassing, right?

Shen Yuan: *gets his old body back*

Shang Qinghua, normal human with average looks: ...

Shen Yuan, exemplary 11/10: ?

Shang Qinghua: what. the fuck?? bro what the fuck why are you hot???

Shen Yuan: don't make it weird

Shang Qinghua: make it weird??? why were you sitting at home reading my shitty novel when you could have been out there building your own harem???

Shen Yuan: stop exaggerating

Shang Qinghua: oh my god you've always been like this. this is it, isn't it? it wasn't even brain damage from the transmigration or something--

Shen Yuan: hey

Shang Qinghua: --you've just always been completely unaware, haven't you? every time I wrote a beautiful woman who didn't know her own appeal you'd be jumping down my throat--

Shen Yuan: because that's a stupid trope--!

Shang Qinghua: --JUMPING DOWN MY THROAT EXACTLY LIKE THAT but this whole time THIS WHOLE TIME it wasn't even a glow-up issue, you've just been that, personified, yourself--

Shen Yuan: look I know I'm not ugly but I'm not I'm hardly that good-looking

Shang Qinghua: YOU ARE NEVER ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE THAT TROPE AGAIN! oh my god. how many broken hearts did you leave behind when you died?!

Shen Yuan: none, I wasn't even seeing anyone--

Shang Qinghua: yeah full offense but I am nottt taking your word for that. I bet you had a harem you didn't know about in this lifetime too. I bet you had a fan club, like an anime prince

Shen Yuan: *mumbling*

Shang Qinghua: what was that?

Shen Yuan: I said... only in high school...

Shang Qinghua: oh my god

Shen Yuan: it wasn't a big deal!

Shang Qinghua: *frantically trying to see if he can find any trace of it on the internet now*

[halorvic]

The danger is clear and present: COVID isn’t merely a respiratory illness; it’s a multi-dimensional threat impacting brain function, attacking almost all of the body’s organs, producing elevated risks of all kinds, and weakening our ability to fight off other diseases. Reinfections are thought to produce cumulative risks, and Long COVID is on the rise. Unfortunately, Long COVID is now being considered a long-term chronic illness — something many people will never fully recover from. Dr. Phillip Alvelda, a former program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office that pioneered the synthetic biology industry and the development of mRNA vaccine technology, is the founder of Medio Labs, a COVID diagnostic testing company. He has stepped forward as a strong critic of government COVID management, accusing health agencies of inadequacy and even deception. Alvelda is pushing for accountability and immediate action to tackle Long COVID and fend off future pandemics with stronger public health strategies. Contrary to public belief, he warns, COVID is not like the flu. New variants evolve much faster, making annual shots inadequate. He believes that if things continue as they are, with new COVID variants emerging and reinfections happening rapidly, the majority of Americans may eventually grapple with some form of Long COVID. Let’s repeat that: At the current rate of infection, most Americans may get Long COVID.

[...]

LP: A recent JAMA study found that US adults with Long COVID are more prone to depression and anxiety – and they’re struggling to afford treatment. Given the virus’s impact on the brain, I guess the link to mental health issues isn’t surprising. PA: There are all kinds of weird things going on that could be related to COVID’s cognitive effects. I’ll give you an example. We’ve noticed since the start of the pandemic that accidents are increasing. A report published by TRIP, a transportation research nonprofit, found that traffic fatalities in California increased by 22% from 2019 to 2022. They also found the likelihood of being killed in a traffic crash increased by 28% over that period. Other data, like studies from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, came to similar conclusions, reporting that traffic fatalities hit a 16-year high across the country in 2021. The TRIP report also looked at traffic fatalities on a national level and found that traffic fatalities increased by 19%. LP: What role might COVID play? PA: Research points to the various ways COVID attacks the brain. Some people who have been infected have suffered motor control damage, and that could be a factor in car crashes. News is beginning to emerge about other ways COVID impacts driving. For example, in Ireland, a driver’s COVID-related brain fog was linked to a crash that killed an elderly couple. Damage from COVID could be affecting people who are flying our planes, too. We’ve had pilots that had to quit because they couldn’t control the airplanes anymore. We know that medical events among U.S. military pilots were shown to have risen over 1,700% from 2019 to 2022, which the Pentagon attributes to the virus.

[...]

LP: You’ve criticized the track record of the CDC and the WHO – particularly their stubborn denial that COVID is airborne. PA: They knew the dangers of airborne transmission but refused to admit it for too long. They were warned repeatedly by scientists who studied aerosols. They instituted protections for themselves and for their kids against airborne transmission, but they didn’t tell the rest of us to do that.

[...]

LP: How would you grade Biden on how he’s handled the pandemic? PA: I’d give him an F. In some ways, he fails worse than Trump because more people have actually died from COVID on his watch than on Trump’s, though blame has to be shared with Republican governors and legislators who picked ideological fights opposing things like responsible masking, testing, vaccination, and ventilation improvements for partisan reasons. Biden’s administration has continued to promote the false idea that the vaccine is all that is needed, perpetuating the notion that the pandemic is over and you don’t need to do anything about it. Biden stopped the funding for surveillance and he stopped the funding for renewing vaccine advancement research. Trump allowed 400,000 people to die unnecessarily. The Biden administration policies have allowed more than 800,000 to 900,000 and counting.

[...]

LP: The situation with bird flu is certainly getting more concerning with the CDC confirming that a third person in the U.S. has tested positive after being exposed to infected cows. PA: Unfortunately, we’re repeating many of the same mistakes because we now know that the bird flu has made the jump to several species. The most important one now, of course, is the dairy cows. The dairy farmers have been refusing to let the government come in and inspect and test the cows. A team from Ohio State tested milk from a supermarket and found that 50% of the milk they tested was positive for bird flu viral particles.

[...]

PA: There’s a serious risk now in allowing the virus to freely evolve within the cow population. Each cow acts as a breeding ground for countless genetic mutations, potentially leading to strains capable of jumping to other species. If any of those countless genetic experiments within each cow prove successful in developing a strain transmissible to humans, we could face another pandemic – only this one could have a 58% death rate. Did you see the movie “Contagion?” It was remarkably accurate in its apocalyptic nature. And that virus only had a 20% death rate. If the bird flu makes the jump to human-to-human transition with even half of its current lethality, that would be disastrous.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Americans also largely believe they do not bear responsibility for global environmental problems. Only about 15 percent of U.S. respondents said that high- and middle-income Americans share responsibility for climate change and natural destruction. Instead, they attribute the most blame to businesses and governments of wealthy countries.

While fossil fuel companies have long campaigned to shape public perception in a way that absolves their industry of fault for ecosystem destruction and climate change, individual behavior does play a role. Americans have some of the highest per-capita consumption rates in the world.

United Nations emissions gap reports have said that to reach global climate goals, the world’s wealthiest people must cut their personal emissions by at least a factor of thirty. High-income Americans’ emissions footprint is largely a consequence of lifestyle choices like living in large homes, flying often, opting for personal vehicles over public transportation and conspicuous consumption of fast fashion and other consumer goods. 

rather than shifting blame entirely onto govts and large businesses, ordinary americans should recognise the culpability in their own individual consumer choices, like their frequent lack of access to efficient short/long distance rail, high density housing development, or reliably long lasting garments

[mostlysignssomeportents]

For 40 years, Big Meat has openly colluded to rig prices

On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

Noted socialist agitator Adam Smith once wrote, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

Smith was articulating a basic truth: when an industry grows concentrated, it grows cozy. Cultural differences between dominant firms are homogenized as top executives move from company to company, cross-pollinating attitudes and approaches. Ambituous, firm-hopping workaholic top brass make all their friends at the office, and so their former colleagues from one or two jobs back remain in their social circles.

Once an industry consists of half a dozen firms, the people running those companies constitute an incestuous financial polycule. They are executors of one anothers' estates, best men and maids of honor at one anothers' weddings, godparents to each others' kids. They play on the same softball teams and take family vacations together.

It would be heartwarming if it wasn't so costly to the rest of us. Remember Smith's maxim: "the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices." Class solidarity among corporate executives forms a united front to screw us in every conceivable way, from corrupting our politicians to maiming and cheating workers to gouging buyers.

That's the basis of American antitrust law. When Robert Sherman was stumping for the passage of the Sherman Act, America's first major antitrust law, he thundered "If we will not endure a King as a political power we should not endure a King over the production, transportation, and sale of the necessaries of life. If we would not submit to an emperor we should not submit to an autocrat of trade with power to prevent competition and to fix the price of any commodity":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/

Or rather, that was the basis of American antitrust law – until the Reagan era, when the fringe theories of the Nixonite criminal Robert Bork were elevated to a new orthodoxy. Under Bork's conception of antitrust, monopolies were evidence of excellence. If a company puts all its competitors out of business, that must mean that it is "efficient."

In Bork's fantasy world, the only way a company could attain dominance is by being so beloved by its customers that every competitor withers away. Governments that bust monopolies aren't protecting the public from "autocrats of trade"; they're overthrowing the winners of an election where you "vote with your wallet" to pick the best company.

But Bork and his co-fantasists couldn't quite manage all that with a straight face. They grudgingly admitted that a certain kind of bad monopolist could hypothetically exist, one that used its "market power" to raise prices or lower quality. Only when these offenses against our "consumer welfare" occurred should the state step in to protect its people.

This may sound good in theory, but in practice, it was a dead letter. The consumer welfare test isn't as simple as "If prices go up after a merger, punish the company." Instead, the government had to prove that the price raises came from "market power," and not from an increase in energy or labor costs, or some other "exogenous factor," like Mercury being in retrograde:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/10/you-had-one-job/#thats-just-the-as

And wouldn't you know it, it turns out that the mathematical models prescribed to distinguish greed from unavoidable circumstance inevitably "prove" that the monopolist wasn't at fault. Surely, it's just just a coincidence that the priesthood that understood how to make and interpret these models were Chicago School Economists who sold model-making as a service to companies that wanted to raise prices.

Pro-monopoly economists insist that this isn't true, and that their theory still has room to prosecute bad monopolies and cartels where they occur – more, they say this is already happening. In particular, they insist that "greedflation" can't be real, because it would require the kind of conspiracy that Smith warned of, and that their sickly antitrust enforcement is sufficient to prevent:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/11/price-over-volume/#pepsi-pricing-power

This strains credulity. After all, the CEOs of giant companies in concentrated industries openly boast to their shareholders about how they've used the covid and Ukraine invasion shocks to hike prices to increase their profit margins – not just cover their additional costs:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/23/cant-make-an-omelet/#keep-calm-and-crack-on

While excuseflation is new, open, naked price-fixing by industry cartels is not. Take the meat-packing industry, dominated by a tiny handful of giant corporations whose executives literally ran a betting pool on how many of their workers would get covid each week while working in their cramped, unventilated factories:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55009228

These companies have seen their margins soar – up 300% over the lockdown – while their payments to ranchers and growers cratered:

https://www.reuters.com/business/meat-packers-profit-margins-jumped-300-during-pandemic-white-house-economics-2021-12-10/

All this might leave one wondering whether there isn't something a little, you know, "conspiracy against the publick"-y going on in Big Meat?

Let me tell you about Agri Stats. Agri Stats has been around since 1985. Every large meat packer pays to be a "member" of Agri Stats, and they each submit weekly, detailed statistics about every aspect of their business: all their costs, all their margins, broken out by category. Agri Stats compiles this into phone-book-thick books that each member gets every week, telling them everything about how all of their competitors are running their businesses:

https://www.agristats.com/history

The companies whose data appears in this book are anonymized, but it's trivial to re-identify each supplier. Tyson execs hold regular "naming process" meetings where they go through new books and de-anonymize the data. A Butterball exec confirmed that he "can pick the companies for rankings with 100% certainty."

As David Dayen writes in The American Prospect, these books are incredibly detailed: "bird weights, freezer inventory, and 'head killed per operating hour.'" Within the cozy meat cartels, Agri Stats acts as a clearinghouse that allows every business in the industry to act in concert, running the entire meat-packing sector as a single company:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-10-03-lawsuit-highlights-why-meat-overpriced/

As interesting as the list of Agri Stats members is, the groups that don't get to see Agri Stats' "books" is just as important: "farmers, workers, or retailers." Agri Stats also offers consulting services to its members. As an exec at pork processor Smithfield put it, Agri Stats advice boils down to four words "Just raise your price."

Agri Stats ranks its members based on how high their prices are – they literally publish a league table with the highest prices at the top. Meat packers pay bonuses to their execs based on how high the company's rank is on that table. Agri Stats meets with its members throughout the year to discuss "price opportunities" and to advise them to "exercise restraint" by restricting supply to keep prices up. When one Agri Stats member considered leaving the cartel, Agri Stats wooed them back by telling them how to make an additional $100k by raising bacon prices.

The reason Dayen is writing about Agri Stats now is that the DoJ Antitrust Division has brought an antitrust suit against them. This is part of a wave of antitrust actions brought by Biden's DoJ and FTC, who, along with his NLRB, are shaping up to be the most pugnacious, public-interest force against corporate power since the Reagan administration:

https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/29124-doj-sues-agri-stats-for-complicity-in-meat-market-manipulation

All this enforcement isn't a coincidence. It comes from an explicit rejection of neoliberalism's core tenets: inequality reflects merit, monopolies are efficient, and government can't do anything. In Biden's DoJ, FTC and NLRB, they're partying like it's 1979:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

What's amazing about the Agri Stats conspiracy to raise prices is that it's been going since the Reagan administration. It's a smoking gun proof that "consumer welfare" never cared about price-fixing and robbing the public (can a gun still smoke after 40 years?). There was never a time when consumer welfare antitrust cared about consumer welfare. It was always and forever a front for "a conspiracy against the publick," a "contrivance to raise prices."

Big Meat has been robbing America for two generations. Some of those stolen funds were used to corrupt our political process. The meat sector gets $50 billion in public subsidies and still gouges us on prices and rips off its suppliers:

https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/02/usda-livestock-subsidies-near-50-billion-ewg-analysis-finds

Which means that it's possible that we're simultaneously being ripped off with meat prices and that meat prices are artificially low. Try and wrap your head around that one!

The do-nothing, pro-monopoly neoliberal antitrust is a virus that spread around the world. The EU's antitrust laws were reshaped to mirror American laws after the war through the Marshall Plan, but since the late 1970s, European lawmakers and enforcers have ignored their own laws (just like their American counterparts) and encouraged monopolies as "efficient."

This Made-in-Europe oligopoly, combined with energy and grain shocks from Russian invasion of Ukraine, created the perfect storm for European greedflation. As food prices spiked across the EU, Austrian hacktivist Mario Zechner set out to investigate Austrian grocers' pricing. Using the grocers' own APIs, he was able to compile and analyze a dataset of prices at Austrian grocers:

https://www.wired.com/story/heisse-preise-food-prices/

When Zechner open-sourced his project, collaborators showed up to expand the project across other EU countries, and an anonymous party donated a huge database of prices stretching back to 2017. The data reveals clear collusion among the grocers, who raise prices in near-lockstep, and use gimmicks like cyclic price drops to hide their collusion:

https://github.com/badlogic/heissepreise

Not every grocer has an API, and even the ones that do have APIs could easily block Zechner and co from accessing their data. When that happens, they could – and should – turn to scraping to continue their project. They should also scrape grocers elsewhere, including in Canada, where grocers rigged the price of bread:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/25/deep-scrape/#steering-with-the-windshield-wipers

Because Big Meat's "conspiracy against the publick" isn't unique to meat. It's in all our food, it's in all our goods, it's in all our services. The fact that the meat industry was able to rob American buyers, ranchers and farmers for two generations under a 200' tall neon sign that blinked "AGRI STATS AGRI STATS AGRI STATS" night and day is frankly astonishing.

But there's never just one ant. If the meatheads running Big Meat were able to do this in broad daylight since the NES years, imagine what all the other industries were able to get up to in the shadows.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[akronus-writes]

the awakening storm

on then 23rd of march, a large chunk of silver that somehow created a low, but still tangible amount of radiation, was unearthed from the sea floor by an american mining company.

Before it could be transported to mainland, the transport vessel was destroyed in a storm, which quickly made its way to america, and through every single one of the countries cities and towns, and then to mexico, and on.

By the end of the day every single town on earth had experienced the storm, and due to whatever strange radiation the silver rock the storm had seemingly absorbed carried, something strange began to occur. Random people exposed to the storm began to develop super powers, quickly dubbed "meta abilities" by scientists.

These powers were completely unexplainable by scientists, and lead to a complete global revolution, due to the sheer threat these Metas provided to both governments, and the threat governments provided to Metas.

And, as expected, superheroes and supervillains began to surface. But along with this, a jarring, and even more revolutionary group revealed themselves.

Mages. Witches and wizards, Magus, whatever you wanted to call them, they were real, and so were a few other interesting things.

these are the stories of some of the most notable heroes and villains who came out of this "awakening storm"

the arcane trio

the widely recognized "harbingers" of the arcane, the triplets Akronus, Akrosion, and Chronos, revealed the existence of the arcane in one of the rare moments they agreed on something.

all three of them are obscenely powerful masters of the arcane, all three of them are part cat, and all three of them are on entirely different sides of the fight between good and evil. Often being in weakened states within the mortal world, within which they themselves exist as heroes and villains.

the first triplet, Akronus, is regarded as "the hero" being an eldritch deity capable of summoning other eldritch beings called eldritch abominations, who they also call their siblings. Running a for-hire occult detective service, Akronus has been seen assisting many groups of heroes deal with arcane enemies and the machinations of their siblings.

the second, Akrosion, is a powerful demon lord and the ruler of hell. Wielding a crow bar and powerful fire and demon magics, they have long wreaked havoc on the mortal plane through both their demonic minions, and their own two hands.

the third, the youngest and most chaotic, is Chronos, a chronomancer who is loyal to neither side of any battle. Wielding a pair of powerful magitech guns, she randomly joins either side of the battles she finds, often tipping the balance of the fights, only to disappear moments later.

the cybernetic detective

one of the more conventionally human heroes, Hallowed the cybernetic detective gained his moniker after he lost both an arm and eye, as well as his electricity manipulating meta boyfriend Deltan, in a gang shoot out.

a skilled detective and gunslinger, wielding the technologically advanced "silver gun", almost arcane trick bullets, and powerful high-tech cybernetics, Hallowed is a beloved superhero known to help almost anyone in need, even the arcane seems to respect him, being able to call upon the occult detective Akronus when it comes to the most dire of cases.

but something many do not know about him, is that he is practically immortal, kept alive by his darkest secret. His boyfriend Deltan survived by piggybacking off of Halloweds bio-electricity, practically merging with the detective and granting him a powerful healing factor.

the bloody queen

the run away daughter of a mob boss, Aldira was caught in the storm when it passed through new york, and granted her the ability to manipulate blood.

almost horrifically powerful, Aldira is a superhero who mainly does her work in order to stop men like her father, being a masterfully powerful meta who works to dismantle criminal undergrounds across the world.

But despite this, many still fear the sheer power she has. Having lived as the pampered daughter of a crime lord up until she ran away and gained her powers, many wonder if the Bloody queen will one day change from the name of a hero, to a villain.

the embodiment of fear

a well known board game and horror aficionado, Antros was caught in the storm when it passed through new Zealand, and gained the ability to absorb, manipulate, and weaponize others fear.

Turning other peoples fear into powers and tools that mimicked the slasher villains of horror culture, Antros quickly adopted the identity of a powerful superhero in order to protect others from harm. And gained an appreciative, if not wary, round of metaphorical applause globally.

But not even globally loved heroes can be ever-confident, and Antros fears that the nature of his powers may lead him to veer onto a path much darker than the one he now walks.

The wrath of nature

When the storm passed through London, one of the many people exposed to it was more ecstatic about his change then others, probably because he spent the entire duration of it outside, tending to his plants.

A borderline cryptid, the mildly reclusive groundskeeper for the London Kew gardens. Crow woke up the next morning with a pair of crow wings, and the ability to interface with both animals and nature, and quickly decided to become a hero.

But despite the adoration of many who believe in the sanctity of nature, many wonder if the hero's love of nature and protectiveness over the natural world may one day turn into flat out eco-terrorism.

The nanite soldier

The walking proof of the American military-industrial complexes evils. Nanonbyte was a CIA agent who was completely erased from any records after being caught by the Chinese government stealing a medical nanite prototype.

After being shot in the head an dumped in the ocean, Nanobyte should have died. But luckily for him, he had hidden the nanites inside of himself. And they quickly repaired his body, and kept him alive until he drifted onto land. Even if that meant cannibalising an entire arm and taking that arms place, or both of them.

But when he did arrive on land, all he found was a complete and utter betrayal from his country, one he had been so loyal to for so long. And one he could only now see the corruption of. And so, he took up the position of mercenary, becoming a renowned killer for hire with a particular love of hurting the American government and its allies.

the betrayed eradicator

caught in the storm when it passed through a small texan town, the Hero captain oblivion became a member of a powerful team of heroes, one which gained the love of the populace.

But unbeknownst to him, everyone in that town feared and hated his powers. And during one ill-fated fight, he was knocked out and sold to a group of scientists, and quickly forgot about.

But what that ton and its heroes didn't know, was that this betrayal would awaken the true depths of Erodicates powers, allowing him to see and manipulate the darkness and hatred of humanity. Within three days both the lab he was in and the town he once served as hero were destroyed, and a strange new villain began to stalk the world on a quest of pure destruction.

the author of fear

Originally a struggling horror writer, the author Samhain was caught in the silver storm when it passed through Perth, and gained the write his horror stories into reality, and a true understanding of horror.

Becoming a psychotic serial killer who summoned monsters from his writing to kill others, and then used their deaths as inspiration for horror. Samhain became a terror throughout the world, and a legend of the horror community.

But even now, despite how many times he is seen fighting heroes, no one ever stops buying his books. Perhaps his powers are able to manipulate the public perception of him? or is there something more sinister lurking in the monsters he writes to life?

the empress of the oceans

caught in the storm when it hit the abandoned oil rig she used as a staging ground, the smuggler queen as she is called. Gained the power to manipulate the very oceans themselves, and a new found respect for the water on which she operated.

Quickly eliminating or absorbing her competition, The empress of the oceans cemented her place as the queen of smugglers and pirates, and as a powerful supervillain willing to kill for her profit.

First truly fighting a superhero when Aldira attempted to dismantle her operations in Mexico, The oceans empress is one of the most influential criminal on the planet, controlling entire nations criminal trades and warlords supplies of weapons and ammo.

@good-wizard @gobodegoblin @f4y3w00d5 @monsterfucker-research-wizard @the-thing-of-worms @mango-lord-of-poision @be-gentle-with-littluns-2

[asphalt-cocktail]

Lead Us To Temptation- Chapter 3

Chapter 3- Hell Hath No Fury

Summary: In the small town of Eden Ridge, you knew several things to be true: church happened every Sunday, the saloon served free lunch with the purchase of a drink on Thursdays, coal miners left work at 7PM sharp, and Bucky Barnes was a man sent from the depths of hell dangling the threat of temptation and sin right in front of your face. All you need to do is reach out and grab it.

Pairing: Outlaw!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Fluff, Talks of crime, robbery, crime for hire, talks of violence and guns, kidnapping, talks of past smut, less religion than the previous chapters but its still there. Bucky is a criminal in this so idk what to tell you if you are shocked by the crime. There isn't any gore and nothing is described in graphic detail. Don't worry reader is a badass this is a love story with a happy ending.

Word Count: 2.9k

A/N: I just want to pop in and say how grateful I am for all of the lovely comments, reblogs, tags, and likes I have been getting over the last few weeks! You guys are the ones who keep me writing. I am not doing a tag list, but you can feel free to turn my notifications to get one every time I post a new chapter <3

Masterlist

Read me on AO3

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Staying in Eden Ridge was probably the longest Bucky had managed to stay in a town and not do something to get run out or have another wanted poster with his face printed on it and slapped on every shop bulletin. 

It was making the boys antsy. They could only hold up so many stagecoaches carrying rich assholes on the outside of town before they got too bored. 

“When are we going to hit the bank Buck? We’ve been here so long the damn seasons have changed.” John’s voice had the uncanny ability of springing a sudden and painful migraine behind Bucky’s eyes anytime he spoke. 

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. John pissed him off. “We need to wait a bit before we hit the bank. The ticket seller at the train station mentioned something about a train coming in to transport coal from the mines and take it back east. I guess the coal company is sending some bonds with it because the owner made a deal with Union Pacific.” 

“So what, they’re taking the bonds to the train yard?” 

“I’m glad to see you’re using the brain in that big fucking head of yours John.” To be completely transparent, Bucky harbored a strong dislike for John. 

Their association was almost solely due to John being Steve’s cousin, and Steve’s endorsement was something Bucky didn’t have the heart to dispute. Steve saved his life on more than one occasion. They’d gone through the Civil War together, they experienced the death of both of their parents together. You couldn’t get much closer to a man than that.  

The other reason being was John’s uncanny knack for survival. Despite the dangers of their lifestyle, John seemed to evade death, Bucky reckoned it was because God sure as hell didn’t want him and well, the Devil probably didn’t either so they just left him to do his business in the land of the living until they decided what to do with him.

Bucky was aware that his disdain for John might be uncalled for considering John’s role as the enforcer in their party. John was the one they sent out to take care of the more unsavory business transactions. However, these factors didn’t compensate for the fact that he was just plain weird and unpleasant to be around.

But Bucky was having such a lovely time playing house with you so, naturally he kept his plan to rob your father's train car transporting bonds to the Union Pacific rail yard. Management needed to cash them in and finalize the deal stating they were to use the Eden Coal & Iron as their main supply source. It was a deal that would make your father a very, very rich man. 

Robbing trains was as easy as stealing candy from a baby. An old, half balding, rich, man baby. Bucky could do it in his sleep. He didn’t feel bad about robbing your father. In fact he felt kind of good stealing from that rotten son of a bitch. 

Stealing these bonds would only be scraping the surface of the vast wealth your father accumulated by exploiting the hard working people of Eden Ridge. He was as crooked as crooked could be and there was no amount of praying or church going that would save his soul from the depths of hell once he died, god willing. 

If only you knew how your father treated the hard working miners who toiled in the depths of hell for him. He squeezed 15 grueling hours of labor from them 6 days a week, their backs bowed under the weight of his insatiable greed, all while their families languished in hunger. 

He wasn't the benevolent savior of Eden Ridge, rather, he resembled a vampire, voraciously draining the life force from the Earth and the good hearted denizens of the town you called home. Once he exhausted every able bodied man here, he’d slither away to prey upon the next unsuspecting community. 

Bucky’s plan was simple: wait a day or two several towns away to intercept the train and get to work. But he had to be careful If he got too reckless with his crimes, he’d have to leave. The question loomed in the back of his mind, when he had to leave would you come with? 

When he told you he was leaving to work a job you felt sick, “What do you mean leaving?” 

He cleared his throat and licked his lips, “I need to take the boys to deal with something for a few days. I promise I’ll be back by the end of the week. Two weeks tops.” He said hugging you tight, it pained him to see you worrying so much.

“But what if you don’t come back?” The question punched him in the chest and stole his breath. 

“Now don’t go talking like that.” He scolded you, “I’ll be back I promise.” You swallowed his words like a brick of lead. 

So for seven days you did the only thing you could do and waited. You sought comfort in Sam’s sister Sarah and her friend Natasha, spending most of your free time practicing needle work, reading, and chatting with the women. Sarah was a familiar and friendly face from the local church. Tragically widowed two winters prior, she was left with the responsibility of raising two boys on her own. To your knowledge, she had embraced her brother’s motley crew of friends, offering them sanctuary with open arms.

After your second meeting with Sarah she introduced you to Natasha, the local Madame. It took everything in your power to not turn your nose up at the idea of a woman engaging in sex for money. Your pious thoughts took a back seat when you remembered you were also engaging in sinful premarital acts with a man. 

Not sex though. No. 

Every time you thought today was the day Bucky shut it down. As much of a filthy bandit he was, he was still extremely respectful towards you. He always said he wanted to wait, the moment never felt right.

——

The moon hung low in the inky black sky as Bucky and his crew of bandits moved like vultures closing in on their prey. They moved silently, night as their accomplice- the thick fog veiling their actions, the rhythmic clatter of wheels masking the sounds of struggle. No witnesses meant no loose ends, and Bucky knew it well. 

It was quick. Efficient. 

Kill everyone on the train and then set it back on course so some poor sad sack could clean up the mess left behind. 

When Bucky’s eyes laid upon the bonds, your father’s exceptionally neat handwriting looping on the paper, he grinned like a snake. Peter could easily get a few hundred for the bonds. Having such a young boyish face always made him seem more trustworthy than the other members of the gang. 

To make up for leaving you worried half to death Bucky bought you a lovely hair pin. It was copper with a small decorative flower on the end of it. “If you think all it’s going to take is a pretty hair pin to forgive you, you’re wrong.” You lied through your teeth snatching it from his dirty hands and pinning it into your prayer veil, because of course Bucky returned just in time to take you to Sunday mass and have lunch with your family afterwards. 

Since midweek, your father had been in a downright rotten mood. He’d spent the last few days late at work and when you showed up to the office to bring him dinner he was yelling at his assistant every time without fail. 

“Tell them to double the guards! Put a damn Gatling on the top of the roof! Send the Pinkertons! I don’t care what you have to do, get that money to the train yard.” 

“But sir-“

“I said figure it out god damn it!” The way he slammed his hands on his desk made you jump. 

It wasn’t often your father lost his temper, but when he did it was frightening. 

At lunch your father glared daggers at Bucky while your mother preened over him. It was nice to see things hadn’t changed during his week away committing crime. 

“James, dear, you should work for the mining company!” Your mother kindly suggested, “My husband is always looking for strong young men such as yourself.” 

It took every fiber of his being to not scoff at the thought of selling his soul to the company, “I rather like the ranch work I’ve been doing for Miss Wilson, but thank you ma’am. If I have a change of heart you’ll be the first to know.” 

On the record Bucky was a ranch hand for Sam’s sister, sure he helped out here and there for the woman but he wasn't getting paid for it, your family didn’t need to know that. 

“We have some friends that are ranchers down in Texas, let us know if you ever venture down there and I’ll send a telegram to them for you.” Your mother was a bonafide socialite. She knew people of all walks of life and thrived on making connections for people, “Your horse is trained so well, they could use someone with your talent.” 

“Alpine?” Bucky grinned thinking of his beautiful white mare, she was almost as stubborn as you are, “I have to say she’s probably my second favorite girl.” 

Your father hated seeing Bucky around the house. He hated how Bucky was always a perfect gentleman whenever he came around. It didn’t matter, no daughter of his was going to marry some rough neck, dirty ranch hand if he had any say in it. 

There was something just plain not right with James Barnes and your father was going to get to the bottom of it. 

As it turns out, it took very little effort to find out the history of a career criminal. This was worse than if Bucky was actually a ranch hand, not only was he a criminal, but he robbed the damn train your father used to transport the bonds not once, but twice in the span of two weeks. 

He couldn’t believe he let a man who stole from him into the safety of their home. He couldn’t believe he let a criminal court his daughter (not that he even approved of the courtship). Bucky was probably sitting in his room at the inn laughing and counting the dollar bills that belonged to in his pocket. 

And the image of that pissed him off to no end. 

It pissed him off so much that he paid off a group of bounty hunters to finally deal rid him of the man once and for all. Bucky wasn’t going to come gracefully, but lucky for your father, Bounty hunters had loose morals and business practices much like he did. When he told Brock Rumlow "I don't care how you do it, just get rid of him!" your father didn't know he opened up a new, lawless realm of possibilities.

----

The late summer sun hung low in the sky as you quickened your pace home, the two men behind you following relentlessly, footsteps crunching on the dusty streets. You couldn’t make out their faces as they stayed just out of your line of sight but the feeling in your gut only harbored malevolence and fear. 

Your path meandered through town, twisting and turning to ensure they truly were following you.

Two turns left. Three turns right. Then a detour past the butcher.

Dread settled inside you and you quickened your pace, ragged breaths gasping as you neared the outskirts of town and broke into a full sprint as best you could, bunching your skirts in your arms so as to not trip. The buildings thinned, and the darkness deepened as you drew further and further from the bustling center of Eden. 

Further away from anyone who would hear you scream.

Rough hands grabbed you, forcing a bag over your head as you fought, kicking and screaming. Hissing and spitting like a feral cat. Their powerful builds quickly overpowered you, sitting on your legs as you thrashed trying to squirm away, clawing at the dirt and wedging it under your fingernails and covering your fine dress. Then they tied you, bound your arms and legs and threw you on the back of a horse like a sack of grain.

When the horse finally halted you were dragged off, stumbling and disoriented. The hood was yanked off and you were roughly pushed into a small, dark room. You turned finally able to make out the face of your captors who reeked of sweat and malice. He was tall and broad, skin tanned by the sun, with dark hair and eyes. He would have been handsome if this were any other circumstance.  

Your nostrils flared like an angry bull as you exhaled and spat at him in defiance while he manhandled your still fighting body, “Let go of me!” You shrieked, anger overpowering your feelings of fear. 

How dare they! How dare these filthy men put their hands on you and soil a perfectly good dress. How dare they throw you on a horse with a bag over your head and force you into this filthy damp room. Your rage bubbled over, you’d never felt this level of anger before. But the sheer callous disrespect of a lady pushed you over the edge. 

You should have been afraid, fearing for your life even. But the type of men who did this? Well they were cowards. Lower than the lowest cretin to walk the Earth. 

“Well look at you, now I know why Barnes has taken such an interest in you Missy.” The man in front of you grinned like a snake. His hand trailing your jaw, fingers lingering against your skin, “you’re a little firecracker ain’t you?” 

You turned your head to bite him, teeth snapping together as you snarled.  Ordinarily, you epitomized the quintessence of a respectable lady—devout and pious, a paragon of Catholic virtue. Yet, confronted with this dehumanizing treatment, a primal instinct awakened within. If they insisted on regarding you as a beast, then, in the eyes of the Almighty, you would unleash the ferocity of one. “Let me go.” You hissed, “You… you cretin!”    

The man shoved you roughly away, narrowly dodging your bite, “Easy there ma’am, we ain’t gonna hurt you.” For some reason you had a hard time believing him with the kidnapping, the pushing, the bag over your head, “We just need you to bring us out cash cow.” He said and slid over a wanted poster with an uncanny portrait of Bucky on it.

Oh

Now it all made sense. 

You took the poster and read the script:

WANTED CAPTURED DEAD OR ALIVE James “Bucky” Barnes  For multiple accounts of murder, theft, and fraudulent activities. Known leader of the Barnes Gang, responsible for numerous bank and train robberies across the Midwestern and Western United States. This is a dangerous individual who will not hesitate to murder.  Mid thirties, brown hair, scar on left arm. Last scene heading west towards the Eden Mountain range.  If spotted DO NOT APPROACH; contact local authorities.  Bounty of $5,000

Of course they’d take you as bait to lure a man with a $5,000 bounty and his gang of merry bandits out from hiding. Something told you that these men thought taking down Bucky would be easy. But you knew this would probably be the hardest $10k they were going to make. They’d probably die doing it! And silently you hoped they would.

A man’s head isn’t worth $5,000 because it’s easy work taking him down. It’s worth that much because he won’t hesitate to fucking kill you in the worst way possible. You didn’t know exactly what Bucky was capable of doing, but you couldn’t help the shiver that crept up your spine when your eyes landed on the big, bold DO NOT APPROACH, “I think for your sake, you should let me go.” 

Perhaps there was a touch of madness in relishing the thrill that such a perilous man inspired within you. Yet, it was the very specter of danger that ignited a fervent blaze deep in your core. To you, Bucky was a flame dancing provocatively over a pool of oil—intensely captivating and inherently volatile.

The dark haired man scoffed, “Your beau ain’t the big bad man everyone seems to think he is. Not when he’s got such an easy weakness to exploit.” 

It was true, Bucky was having the time of his life in Eden Ridge playing house with you. He was living in utter domestic bliss.   “If it’s money you want, my daddy will pay you.” You offered. You had to exhaust all your options and if these men were money hungry then your father would be more than happy to give them the $10k for your life. You didn’t know how much money he had exactly, but you knew it was a pretty penny. 

“Sweetheart, your daddy already paid us.” He mocked you. 

You blinked, brain barely able to comprehend the words he said to you. What a weird thing to say. 

Unbelievable even. 

You were going to have to dissect that at a later date when you were in a better position. 

[anarchistfrogposting]

How would anarchists deal with Climate change?

This does include: How would they communicate it to everyone; how would *enough people* *comply enough* to stop/reverse the effects?

What type of polution would remain?

The thing you have to be conscious of is that the most significant impacts of climate change are really not about individuals. The shift of focus from the big polluters to individuals, more often than not the poor, was a targeted and co-ordinated campaign that was designed to take building heat off polluting companies. And it worked. It worked because the idea that we can’t (and shouldn’t) change systemic conditions and that we should individualise our problems and work only on our own relationship with climate change and pollution sits well with the individualist metanarrative of liberal capitalism. Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of things we can personally do to help the environment, but the real blows to carbon emissions and pollution will come from systemic change.

So a lot of the factors driving climate change would be eliminated in an anarchist society. Capitalist overproduction would be curtailed because there’s no currency- people get what they need when they need it. So waste is drastically reduced, reducing pollution and carbon emissions.

Because there’s no profit motive, and no need for overproduction nor driving factors for overconsumption. Industries don’t have to curtail environmental provisions for their production methods, and instead they can even make it their focus to produce goods sustainably; after all, literally why not?

Communitarian organisation has an inherent lean to reducing reliance on cars and focusing on public transport, so car emissions would be reduced (it would simply be more convenient to use the vastly improved public transport network!).

There’s no need for a lot of the factors driving food waste, so agricultural land can be repurposed into natural reserves. I think around 50% of the food produced in America goes to waste. Think about what you could do to reconstitute the American prairie, European Forests, and Jungles across the world if we co-ordinated a reduction in food waste like that. Think about the biodiversity we could win back. All of these environments are huge carbon sinks in their own right. Agriculture produces a huge amount of greenhouse gases. And we don’t need nearly as much as we have! Those hunger/famine/starvation crises we hear about? They’re necessary to the function of capitalism. They’re crises of poverty. They’re crises of market exclusivity.

Have no doubt about it. Climate change is an inevitable consequence of Late Stage Capitalism. I believe the drastic impacts of climate change we are going to see in the coming decades are what will eventually bring about its end. It’s up to us to make sure that the system that rises from the ashes is one that is better for all.

[ivys-garden]

The thing that continues to shock me about the modern world is the multitude of ways we let cars ruin are lives.

Private cars continue to be a Blight, an obsession and focus on speed and size in car culture leads to accidents becoming more and more deadly.

Counties like China used to be completely dominated by bikes, now Beijing has some of the worse air quality in the world. Globally respiratory conditions in adults and children continue to rise. And co2 drives us ever closer to climate collapse

Switching to electric and hydrogen doesn't fix this either, parts still need to be mined, rubber still needs to be produced, as does plastic and old cars and bygone petrol stations need to be scrapped as many cannot be converted

Streets and cities used to be a place of community, but now they are dominated by cars. Want to go to the park? Sorry, it was torn up for a parking garage. Want to cross the road? Yeah, just wait ten minutes for all the cars to pass and get over in 10 seconds before someone decides that getting to mcdonalds is more important than traffic laws. Oh, and I hope you've not got a motor disability or are in a wheel chair or your royaly fucked.

Pedestrians used to have the right of way always, never cars. You never had to teach children to look both ways because cars were expected to stop. Of corse motor companies started paying schools to teach traffic safety and over the decades streets became devoid of people to the point where some see hanging around on a conner or playing curby as a crime.

Cars themselves cut of connections, drivers get ever more angry at simply mistakes and spend acumelate years of there life in traffic Jams. And don't think Lane expansions help, that just means the jam expands to meet the new capacity

The private car in the modern day is pointless and dangerous, cars do have a place, like for businesses or the police or I'd your disabled and public transport in nonaplicable, but other than that the car is of a bygone era

There's a reason that more young people don't buy cars and not just because there expensive and bad for the planet - though that is a factor - cars are simply to dangerous and difficult to use.

Edinburgh has experimented with banning cars from several Streets, reinstating conections and allowing kids to play. They up parking charges to dissuade people from using there car and clogging up the narrow streets, they instal low emissions zones to stop the most polluting cars entering.

And it works.

More and more people in Scotland are using public transport, the tram lines have been expanded, as have the train and bus routes. Travel becomes cheaper and these measure have begun to spread.

It's not just Scotland either, Ireland and prodigal have done similar. Brazil has expanded bike lanes to make cycling safer and introduced a bike share system.

Spain went even further and made train travel free and German citizens even tried to get Berlin to completely ban cars

The era of the car is ending, and the sooner people accept that public transport is safer, more affordable and better for the environment, the sooner and smoother the change will occur.

One day, when I'm and old lady sitting on by garden chair, I will look out and smile because coming down the street will not be and endless cavalcade of cars, it will be the odd company van, the single decker bus carrying passengers and merry children running down the streets.

Or you know we could keep using the car and literally destroy the world via climate change whatever you want really.

[sokkastyles]

This is the post that I mentioned in my previous ask, if you still want to take a crack at it.

And this is the reblog.

OP put in a few picture from the comic which I haven't put here, but I'm sure you could guess which ones they are.

Sigh. The thing about this "Oh, they assumed she was dangerous because stigmatization of mental illness, they didn't ask her who she was seeing, blah blah" argument is that they don't assume she is dangerous because she is seeing things or acting irrationally or exhibiting signs of mental illness. They assume she is dangerous because she has attacked them in the past and continues to do so, and is the defeated princess of an imperialist nation who tried to commit genocide. Her entire worldview makes her dangerous. There's no reason for them to stop and consider that Azula's behavior is out of the ordinary because to them, it isn't. The idea that people who Azula has personally victimized need to stop and ask her why she's trying to kill them and should be blamed for not doing that is ridiculous.

I actually do find the depiction of mental illness in this comic distasteful, but that's because it's unnecessary as an explanation for Azula's violence, not because a person with mentall illness is being wrongfully depicted as violent. That's also why no one asks her what's going on, because they already know why she might want to kill them. Her whole motivation in this comic could have been easily explained without any of the mentall illness stuff. I can believe she might want to kill Ursa, who she has fixated on as the source of all of her problems in lieu of admitting that her father was at fault, without the hallucinations. In fact, it diminishes the compelling story of the family drama and Azula's feelings of resentment towards her mother to have Ursa show up as a hallucination that torments her because then it makes the conflict about her mentall illness instead of her actual relationship with her mother. Nobody asks Azula what is going on with her because none of her behavior in this comic is surprising. She was always mean, vicious, cruel, violent, and manipulative and that hasn't changed, except she's maybe crueler and sloppier, but that comes from being in a diminished position that she resents being in. These people act like Azula was a nice, happy person before being put in the asylum who has no reason to feel resentment towards the gaang so it must be that she was abused. Of course she is angry and hateful and not getting better, she's a cruel, arrogant person who was taken down from the privileged position from which she lived most of her life and not allowed to get away with being cruel and arrogant anymore, and she hates that.

There is also NO proof she was in a straight jacket "24/7" and these people state it like it's a fact. It's not. It's not even implied. We see Azula in one when she's in the company of people she wants to hurt, and one other patient in the background who is also being transported in the open. I don't give a shit about whatever "realism" people want to try to apply, this is a fantasy cartoon and it's ridiculous to apply realism to ATLA's concept of chi blocking, not to mention that Azula can create fire with her hands, which, you know, might factor in to why she is in a straight jacket to begin with.

She also did not get chi blocked "for no reason." She got chi blocked because she hit Zuko with the tea tray he gave her because he was trying to be kind to her. She attacked the Fire Lord. Even so, Zuko protests, because he wants to help his sister even at risk to himself, but Ty Lee sure has ample reason to want to protect herself and the people around her from Azula, and also says in the comic that she is still afraid of her. And how does Azula respond to her former friend? Does she say "Ty Lee, my dear friend, how could you do this to me?" Nope. Instead she wants to know how Ty Lee "lost her fear" of Azula. Wow, what a nice person and great friend who does not deserve such treatment! I know, I know, the stans will say this is Yang "demonizing" Azula and isn't what the "real" Azula would do, but then point to other things Yang wrote as one hundred percent canon and evidence of abuse. Guess it's only canon if you can make it look like Azula is a victim, huh? They probably might also try to play the mental illness card here to explain Azula's attitude toward her friend, except Azula treated Ty Lee with the same dismissiveness and controlling behavior always.

And lol, how does Ozai have better conditions? Maybe Ozai is being abused offscreen just like they think Azula is? Something also tells me that if Azula had her bending taken away and was imprisoned and shown to look as bedraggled as Ozai, these same people would be foaming at the mouth about the "abusive" conditions.

Azula also wanted to commit genocide in the Earth Kingdom, had no intention of stopping the war, and cheered about Zuko being burned and made fun of his scar twice. It's also ridiculous to act like Azula is getting unfairly punished for being "crazy" in comparison to freaking Ozai, because homeboy is characterized as pretty off his rocker and nobody even suggests that he needs any mental help. And Zhao? Are you serious? Are we saying Zhao is characterized as sane and not made fun of by the show for it? We're also not gonna argue about how Azula "didn't do anything worse" than Zuko or Iroh again, because the key, once again, is that they stopped trying to hurt people and Azula did not.

I can think of a few women in media who are similar to Azula, in that they become abusers because of being abused by male relatives, and tbh, I'm tired of seeing tumblr go to bat for abusers and try and call it feminism. Trying to compare this to women being abused in real life is actually disgusting.

Also lololol at the first "evidence" of the abuse in the asylum being that Azula complained sarcastically about the food! She's a princess of a powerful nation who is used to having servants do everything for her and she hates the asylum in general because she does not want to be there, thinks there is nothing wrong with her, and resents having to face consequences for her crimes. Even if the food were less than what she might be used to as a princess, that's hardly evidence for abuse and the attempts at appeal to authority OP makes are laughable. But it's hardly surprising that Azula would complain about anything given to her in the institution, since she resents being there.

Again on the point about straight jackets, even if this wasn't a ridiculous overanalysis of a few panels, it's still trying to make real world comparisons to a fantasy setting and a villain who can create fire with her hands. There are obvious reasons why Azula is restrained so comparing this to real cases of abuse is hugely trivializing the real world issue of the abuse of mentally ill patients.

I also really dislike the way these people always argue that Azula did the other patients such a favor by breaking them out, when the panel where she says this is this one:

Where she's talking about how much these women owe her because she broke them out and so they have to do her bidding. She's emotionally manipulating and using a group of women who probably had nowhere else to go. This isn't evidence of how horrible the asylum is, it's evidence that Azula is still the same manipulative person who is willing to blackmail others into doing her dirty work. You want to talk about abuse of the mentally ill? Maybe we should talk about this.

I also don't wanna hear that shit about Zuko "projecting his negative feelings towards Ozai onto Azula." Zuko has good reason to feel negatively towards Azula for the ways she treated him and the ways she sided with Ozai against him and continues to do so. These people do not get to talk about abuse and then say things that callous and dense.

[rideboomindia]

What are the differences between RideBoom and Indrive in terms of pricing, quality of service, and features offered for corporate clients?

RideBoom and InDriver (formerly known as InDrive) are both ride-sharing platforms that offer transportation services to customers. While they have similarities in terms of their business models, there are some differences between them in terms of pricing, quality of service, and features offered for corporate clients.

Pricing:

RideBoom: RideBoom offers competitive pricing for its ride-sharing services. The fares are determined based on factors such as distance traveled, time taken, and demand-supply dynamics. They also provide various payment options, including cashless transactions through digital wallets and electronic payment methods [2].

InDriver: InDriver stands out by allowing passengers to negotiate fares directly with drivers. This unique feature gives passengers more control over the pricing and ensures transparency and fairness in determining the ride cost [3].

Quality of Service:

RideBoom: RideBoom is committed to providing reliable, convenient, and affordable transportation solutions. They prioritize safety by implementing robust safety protocols and technologies, including stringent driver screening processes, real-time trip monitoring, and emergency assistance features within the app. They also focus on delivering a personalized customer experience by leveraging advanced data analytics and machine learning technologies [2].

InDriver: InDriver emphasizes community involvement and aims to create a sense of trust and reliability. They allow users to see mutual friends or contacts they have in common with drivers, enhancing safety and accountability. InDriver also provides driver profiles with ratings, vehicle details, and reviews, allowing passengers to choose their preferred driver based on these factors [3].

Features for Corporate Clients:

RideBoom: It is unclear from the available search results whether RideBoom specifically offers features tailored for corporate clients. However, as a leading ride-sharing company, they may have partnerships or programs in place to cater to the transportation needs of corporate clients. Further research or contacting RideBoom directly would provide more information on this aspect.

InDriver: There is no specific information available regarding features offered by InDriver for corporate clients in the search results. It is recommended to conduct further research or reach out to InDriver directly for more details on their offerings for corporate clients.