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void-writing · 2 years

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One Batfam and Danny interaction that just came to me:

Danny, pointing fingers: How come that you can control those powers already?! It took me months not to clip through the walls!!

Whether or not said Batfam member really has as much control over their new, Danny-given powers as Danny at first believes is a different matter. XD It's about his outrage.

Hahaha lol.

I haven't gone into power shenanigans yet (that'll probably be an extra story somewhere down the line) but my thinking is that the Bats had a fairly easy time with their powers because 1) superpowers aren't that unusual in the DCU, so they have not only real live points of reference but people they can turn to with questions, and 2) they really only have to deal with 1 power whereas Danny was dealing with 3+ simultaneously.

Of course, I haven't shown it yet but like Danny, the Batfam's new powers are largely stuck in the "on" position if they aren't passive, and even then there's something of an adjustment period.

Dick floats if he's not mindful of it and now frequently hovers over his bed when he's sleeping, The Exorcist style. He kind of just lets himself do it when he's alone or in the company of other Bats or heroes, so it's not too much of an issue so long as he's not seen doing it in pubic as a civilian.

Jason is going to have a hard time getting needles through his skin now, so he better be careful about exposure to airborne chemical weapons. And also getting yearly vaccines.

Tim's astral projection doesn't necessarily mean that he's fully resting. The energy is more split between his astral form and his physical body, so the longer he spends in astral form, the less restful his sleep is. Also, the activation of his power depends on how tired he is when he goes to bed. If he's exhausted enough, he'll just sleep normally and not project at all.

Damian definitely melts a few things in his hands when he's not careful (canon seems to portray ecto-blasts as heat-based attacks, so I'm going to roll with that even though Danny is definitely more ice-affiliated).

Cass slips into the shadows a little too easily sometimes.

Steph sometimes ends up blocking herself with her own shields.

Barbara has to be mindful of what her new telekinesis grabs onto and from what direction it's coming from.

Kate is fortunate that her duplicates can't make duplicates, otherwise she'd have a harder time hiding it.

Duke definitely underestimates his own strength for a while after the abrupt buff. He may not have super-durability, which would enable him to punch through things or crush them without hurting himself, but he does keep accidentally pushing and pulling things too hard. Doors are tricky for him for a bit XD

Bruce regularly keeps blinking out of the visible spectrum, if not the entire detectable spectrum all together. Basically, his power has two settings: plain vanilla invisible (where he's just not detectable on a visible light spectrum), and Super Invisibility (where he just plain stops being detectable period). He can only maintain Super Invisibility for a few minutes continuously before it starts to wear him out (and you can bet that every time he uses it, Clark is sending him a "you good?" text or just straight up calling him to make sure he's okay XD). Of course, his power wants to be "on" all the time, so he has to be mindful of keeping himself within the visible spectrum, lest he just blip out of peoples' perception for a while.

And a note on Alfred's power: He's not going to "de-age" past his prime. I'm putting his age in CiM at around late 70's, early 80's. What his new power is doing is walking his physical body back towards the top of the "physical aptitude" curve, so he'll look like late 50's, early 60's instead of his actual age, but it won't go further than that. And most importantly, he'll feel like he's in his 50's again too :)

To note, when I say "Alfred is immortal now" I mostly mean that he doesn't age anymore. He can still be killed or fall ill, but time no longer wears on him like it used to (and really, as far as CiM is concerned, time was the only real threat to Alfred''s continued presence, so functionally, he is immortal now lol).

One thing that I do plan on writing later is that Jason and Duke spar a lot both for training and for fun because their powers kind of balance each other. Jason can take Duke's hits and Duke can wrestle Jason on fairly equal standing.

But we will be seeing Danny's reaction to the Batfam's swanky new powers fairly soon :)

#void answers #change in management #dc x dp #dc #danny phantom #batman #i recently read 'Batman and The Signal' and i loved jason and duke's dynamic in it #jason was the tough love older brother for duke but you could tell they were pals

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magicinaframe-part2 · 4 months

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"There's this man in a house somewhere in Iran and he has writer's block..."

Over the years in New York City, whenever a co-worker at one of my jobs would mention a movie that he or she had seen that I had not heard of, I usually would ask "What is it about?" The co-worker would give a quick description and... Well, maybe not a quick description. Maybe, really, a verbalization of a compressed glance is accurate -- as if the co-worker was doing something else and just happened to look over at a screen that was showing a movie and would explain what he or she saw and heard in his or her mind and, then, expect that anyone else will understand what he or she says.

These so-called descriptions were particularly amusing to me at crummy job #3 (the messenger job), since the office had a waiting area where many messengers (including yours truly) would sit, and, often, there was a radio tuned to an FM station playing music in the background. I rarely could hear myself think in that office. A day later, I would have to be reminded about what my colleague had said about a movie.

If the movie that I'm thinking about was shown on television during those years, a messenger co-worker would have used the words of my title to this piece at Tumblr.

In the case of the particular movie that I'm thinking about, today, the imaginary description does not begin to explain the plot. This movie is deep. And it's an example of what I mean when I saw that I don't need prior information before I watch a movie. It reminds me of that moment in the novel Steppenwolf when the character Harry Haller wanders along the street at night and sees the sign over the entrance that reads 'Magic Theater Not For Everyone.'

If I was moving from tv channel to tv channel with my remote control device and landed at a channel showing this movie, my interest in what was happening on screen would develop rapidly. And it would keep on developing...on and on. Watching this movie would be the one thing on my mind, the only thing on my mind.

The name of the movie is THE PEAR TREE.

A man who looks to be approximately 40 years old has returned to his family home in a village in a remote area of Iran. He's distinguished- looking, a writer, and he does not look well. He's upset about something. He paces inside the home which looks as if all of the furniture has been removed. He's lost in thought, he thinks to himself, and his thoughts are shared with the audience.

The man has been at the family house for a number of days already, at the beginning of the movie. What goes on outside the house seems to be getting in the way of his work; i.e., his work on a new book. I turns out that he does not know what to write about.

What's going on outside the house? The family property includes a garden with many trees. One of these trees has not borne any fruit during the current year and the gardener -- a man who looks like he's about 70 years old -- has been trying to get the man (the writer) to help him figure out what can be done with the tree. The village chief comes to help the gardener get the attention of the writer.

After many attempts at forcing the writer to make a decision, the two locals stand mute and wait for a response. The writer retreats to his study and, instead, tries to figure out in his mind what is it about this problem that's upsetting him so much.

Suddenly, he starts thinking about his childhood, when he and his family would spend the summer here.

The bulk of the plot plays out, in the past, in and around the house. This particular physical setting is one of the most convincing and compelling presentations of nature-as-paradise that I've ever seen on film.

The writer is referred to in his memories by his first name, Mahmoud. Mahmoud, at age 12, fell in love with one of his relatives -- a cousin, I assume, named Mimcheh who's a few years older than him. Slowly, Mahmoud, in the present, figures out that his unhappy relationship with Mimcheh explains a great deal why his life has become so negative.

THE PEAR TREE, at 95 minutes, is an absolutely wonderful movie experience that I recommend to everyone at Tumblr. And it should be thoroughly researched.

THE PEAR TREE (org'l title: DERAKHTE GOLABI - 1998) is available on DVD with English subtitles.

-- Drew Simels

#Iranian Movies

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bopinion · 2 years

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2022 / 31

Aperçu of the Week:

"How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?"

(Sting / Russians)

Bad News of the Week:

Nuclear Weapons. For decades, the epitome of terror. Even though it's often sold as a deterrent. As someone who grew up in Central Europe in the 70s and 80s of the last century, I know what I'm talking about. In childhood, I had to learn how to behave in the event of a nuclear attack. And in my youth I took to the streets against nuclear weapons - but "Petting instead of Pershing" did not really reflect the seriousness of the situation. And then the iron curtain fell. The "cold war" was over. But unfortunately not the end of the nuclear arms race.

Today marks the 77th anniversary of the terrible destruction of Hiroshima. It was the first and penultimate time in human history that an atomic bomb was actually used. With devastating consequences - for hundreds of thousands and for decades. Have we all lost this from our memory? Just because it wasn't reported on social media at the time, but only in the newsreels? That can't be true. That has to be not true. Because current history teaches us that there is still a problem. A fundamental one.

In the week that is coming to an end, the meeting on the "Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons" began in New York - as it does every five years. Unfortunately, lately rather a content-empty shell. For nothing new is to be heard from the five official nuclear powers - USA, Russia, China, France and Great Britain. The USA and Russia are modernizing their arsenals and accusing each other of violating control mechanisms. China is basically keeping its cards close to its chest. France and Britain are clinging to this dubious show of strength, as they do in the UN Security Council, in order not to lose even more geopolitical importance.

And then there are India and Pakistan as de facto nuclear powers, which are suspicious of each other - there, too, the "thanks" go to the United Kingdom. And Israel, which wants to use them to assert itself against perceived Arab superiority. Iran would like to have nuclear weapons, but is probably not yet ready. North Korea could already be further than it lets one sleep calmly. And when was the last time anything was heard from South Africa? Most recently, Russia actually seemed to be discussing the use of "strategic mini-nukes" in Ukraine - of all places, the country where the consequences of the Chernobyl meltdown are still being felt.

UN Secretary General António Guterres is once again living up to his role as chief moral prosecutor, saying the world is in a "time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War." And only one misunderstanding or miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation. Only the final destruction of all nuclear weapons would be a safe way out for humanity. After all, all the theories about deterrence, nuclear sharing, and balance of terror barely conceal what this Pandora's box really is: a gun powder keg. And we're all sitting on it.

Good News of the Week:

With ever new, mostly specious arguments, Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia had held up the Biden administration's climate protection and welfare package. Officially, the last word was that he wanted to curb avoidable spending in times of inflation. In truth, however, he fears only for his own wealth, which is based on coal production. His power in the Joe vs. Joe game is simply based on the fact that without his vote there would be no Democratic majority in the Senate, which has otherwise rarely been so clearly divided according to party.

But now Manchin has abandoned his opposition in negotiations with majority leader Chuck Schumer. This has cleared the way for a package - albeit a much slimmed-down one - that includes $369 billion over the next ten years for investments in climate protection and energy security. Financed by closing tax loopholes for large corporations. So it makes twofold sense. And finally a success for this so far richly bruised presidency.

"Build back better," then, could also apply to Joe Biden's historically low approval ratings. Perhaps the upswing - if it comes - will come just in time for the midterm elections in November. And Republicans may not succeed in winning a majority in both chambers of Congress that would pave the way for Trumpism to win the 2024 presidential election - whether with the original or Ron DeSantis.

Personal happy moment of the week:

As a freelancer, I always have a hard time taking vacation. Because what I don't do, doesn't get done. And doesn't get any better. And doesn't bring any money. That's why it's always hard for me to switch off when I’m not working. These days I'm trying something different during the six-week summer vacations: I'll work three days a week as normal and then take a four-day weekend. My plan is that nothing will be left undone for more than 48 hours. And I could therefore manage to clear my head. Right now is the first of these long weekends. It doesn't quite work yet, but all beginnings are difficult. But I am on a good way. And that feels good.

I couldn't care less...

...that Russia's judiciary sees itself as independent jurisprudence. First, Ukrainian militias are labeled as terrorists in order to be able to significantly increase their sentences. A joke - but it's probably about demoralizing Ukrainian troops. Then US basketball player Brittney Griner is sentenced to nine years in prison for importing drugs. This means waping cartridges and 5 grams of cannabis oil that was prescribed to her by her sports doctor as a painkiller. A joke - but it's probably about making an example against the class enemy. And about leverage for a prisoner exchange. Jurisprudence? A Joke.

As I write this...

...the Voyager 1 spacecraft has already traveled 23.4 billion kilometers since 1977. And it's still sending signals. But these are recently only an incomprehensible gibberish, which NASA cannot explain. I can. Because I have seen the movie "Contact" by Robert Zemeckis with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. On the other hand - as the saying goes: the proof that there is intelligent life in the universe is that no contact has been made with us.

Post Scriptum:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has visited Taiwan. As #3 in the U.S. political system, it was the highest-ranking visit in 25 years. Which was not officially on behalf of the government. And explicitly does not change the "One-China" stance of the US. So it was a pure PR action full of flowery words like "We stand by the side of every free people" or "It is important to show our solidarity." Beijing's announced reaction began immediately: sanctions against Pelosi personally as well as the freezing of virtually all bilateral discussion formats, including on climate, maritime security or transnational crime.

But above all, a gigantic military maneuver - with real ammunition, cyber attacks, violation of airspace, etc. Experts see it as an exercise to cut off Taiwan's sea lanes. Be it in an invasion to finally reunite the motherland or "just" to cut off trade, the country's economic lifeline. Combined with export restrictions from China itself, this would make the Western world feel its dependence on Far Eastern manufacturing. Again. Globalization and multilateralism only work if everyone goes along. Xi Jinping is currently being shown by Vladimir Putin how to put the "free world" in a bind. Let's see how far his hubris reaches.

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suicidalgamergirl · 7 months

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So I spend 70 hours grinding to Battle Tier for this season on the TV, which gives me quite a headache. I’m at Tier 66.

I find out my aiming is much better at handheld mode cause I can move the Switch to get a better aiming shot. It’s how I got POTG twice as LifeWeaver, but it doesn’t count cause it’s an event.

I just figured out on TV mode, I need to move my controller to focus my aim better. Still does give me a headache after playing too long.

I can only play 4 games on the handheld before the battery on the Switch gets low.

I really want that Hanzo mythic skin cause of his pet dragons look so cool with him on said skin. But I have a bone to pick up with Hanzo, because he’s most likely to kill me via quick plays.

Least I’m up to 2000 credits I got while grinding. So I don’t purposely buy coins to get the Ashe skin. I prefer the Echo Victorian Doll instead. She looks very cuter than the Ashe Doll.

Maybe cause I’m biased because as a kid, my mom had a collection of porcelain dolls that looked similar to Ashe’s new skin. So I’m not in wanting it right away.

But I did get Space Radar Cassidy and his undead skin too. I want to focus my aim better and learn to finally play him. But regardless of constantly playing as support, I felt it was my calling. I want to heal teammates and do everything from the backlines.

Sorry for venting. I’m actually enjoy Trials of the Sanctuary and I did up to 90 games so far.

#overwatch #rant #nintendo switch #new skins #I’m finally learning how to aim better

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weaponbull69 · 2 years

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An Unbiased View of Roth IRA

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Roth IRAs have no RMDs in the course of the owner's life-time. The brand new technology lowers power usage when a individual demands batteries by 4% in a lot less than an hour. This cost savings does not indicate that RMDs maynot be utilized throughout low electricity usage durations, but it does indicate that RMD's will definitely not be eaten when the customer wants to bill an RMD. The electric battery's electric battery life is currently much longer after utilization than it was before. Some factors to presume concerning Modified adjusted disgusting revenue (MAGI) An amount utilized to determine a taxpayer's IRA eligibility. It will certainly take location when the taxpayer has finished his or her income tax return. If no citizen has accomplished he or her tax obligation yield and it does not detail the taxed year to which he or she is allowed, a IRS notice of proof of purchase will definitely be delivered to the taxpayer educating the taxpayer that he or she does not certify for IRA payment requirements under §4(e) of this part. Normally, it's the citizen's changed disgusting profit determined without particular reductions and exemptions. In this scenario, the readjusted international earnings tax obligation price was 38 percent. In comparison, this year's variety is 16 percent. Below's a chart comparing the four tax brackets for each household: This is the 2nd year that most Americans live listed below the hardship collection after income taxes and debts. In 2014, the government destitution line fell to 25 percent.

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Is your revenue OK for a Roth IRA? 1. Is my wide range OK for a Roth IRA? 2. Is my revenue OK for a Roth IRA? 3. Does your job use any incentives for taking out a Roth IRA? How do you define a "project deal"? You may determine your task deal in different ways after you've carried out your university education or a brand new task. For example, you're going to begin doing some social company, or some private sector training. If your revenue is as well higher for a Roth IRA, you might get to a Roth through the "rear door.". Here's how it works: You'll be paying all the income taxes you are obligated to repay, including passion, and on that income, all tax obligations due through the income tax place that's going to be at the next amount. That suggests you're spending all the income taxes that you owe on the volume of your Roth, including those you're not paying out on it. To utilize this technique, you'd start by positioning your contribution in a conventional IRA—which has actually no revenue limits. After that, you would open up a second account as you did when you were to begin with creating payments from the IRA to get the staying loan to open your profile for lifestyle. Eventually, you then apply with the total harmony for a second year starting in April 2014. What does that carry out to your credit scores score in the first spot, and how do you do it?

#roth 401(k)#roth ira #roth iul #roth 401k

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eurodita · 2 years

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solomonish · 3 years

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How To Keep Your Demon Entertained At A Walmart

Congratulations! You've earned yourself a few demon date days up in the human world! But what's this? You have errands to run? Well, we all know these demons can't function without you for more than five minutes....but an entity that's thousands of years old gets a little bored and restless in the hyper-market wasteland of a Walmart...

Nowdateables: coming soon!

Lucifer

if you don't want him getting passive-aggressive about how you should've done this before he got here (yeesh Lucifer some of us have jobs or responsibilities that we can't shove onto our siblings for a day to see our precious mc) then you better be ready to make conversation

definitely not the type to allow you to even think about sending him off so you can get stuff done. he's not even that bothersome, so he'll get offended if you even think about it, but also wouldn't you rather keep him around to reach the top shelves?

basically if you don’t want to keep Lucifer entertained, you have to be the one he needs to keep entertained

do that thing where you roll around on the cart like a skateboard and he’ll be trying to put a stop to it immediately

put random things in your cart that he knows you don’t need and let him take it out and put it back where it belongs

stare him in the eyes as you put that party size brownie mix in your cart then speed walk away. he will come up from an aisle in front of you and silently pluck the box out and take it back. he will come back to see seven boxes of corn dogs and momentarily considers breaking up with you

does not need a treat as a bribe, but will definitely forgive your antics if you bought something from the bakery to snack on as you go home (especially if you did it without him noticing, considering the eagle eye he’s had to have on your cart the whole time)

just don’t have the nerve to complain about the crumbs in your car after that

Mammon

I would say to ask him to scan the area looking for dropped coins on the floor but he'd probably knock down shelves trying to look beneath them so....maybe don't?

also please keep an eye on him or he WILL be shoplifting. human jail is (probably?) a step up from demon jail but like. let's aim for no jail, ok mammon?

instead, give him a pre-portioned off list and tell him it's like a scavenger hunt. he'll scamper off to explore the walmart and his duty to keeping you happy has like a 70% chance of preventing him from stealing anything too important

make sure the stuff you put on the list is kind of hard to find but not too hard. you wanna keep him occupied without risking him freaking out because he can't find this super specific spice you want

either that or only make a really vague list like. tell him you need bread and he'll stand in the bread aisle trying to remember if you like white bread or whole wheat bread until you come to retrieve him

bring money for a treat. if it's near st patrick's day go in the seasonal aisle and hope they have chocolate gold coins

he's not too hard to deal with, but figuring out what's sneaky enough to put on the list is a chore of its own so going by yourself is less work anyway

Leviathan

taking him to walmart was your final fatal mistake

seriously? he has to go in? you could have just left him in the car!!

you take him intending to have him pick out some normie snacks (since you don't have any limited edition whatever-the-fucks in your house right now) but he looks so uncomfortable you make a detour towards the games

just leave him to play on the trial device and go pick out a few things for him to choose from when you circle back to him

arguable the least stressful trip for you until you have to wade through the pool of kids surrounding him and watching him play when it's time to pay and leave

you won't have to buy him anything but you will have to wait for him to finish the level he's on before he lets you drag him away. and he'll probably complain a little bit in the car about how terrible it was to go in in the first place, which a treat would help minimize.

so i guess just pick your battles with this one?

Satan

satan is a refined individual with startling amounts of self control. he does not need pointed in the direction of the books. he can entertain himself on a grocery run.

point him in the direction of the books anyway

their selection is always small (because it’s a walmart not a bookstore) and half of it is children’s anyway so he’ll probably wander off real quick

satan doesn’t need to be entertained, no, he’s past that. he needs to be kept on a leash

you have no way of knowing where he’ll end up. sometimes he’ll be somewhere that makes sense like in the stationary but sometimes you’ll find him staring at the paint samples like it’s a masterpiece in a museum or over by the fishing hooks reading up about local fish populations and how to get a fishing license and you’re just like “???? i’ve been looking for you for twenty minutes???? don’t give me facts about salmon???”

will ask you why you need to buy tires in the same place you get your food. isn’t that suspicious? what do they specialize in?

answer him only with the word “bargains” and he’ll stop asking once he understands or gets annoyed

you don’t need to buy him a treat unless he finds a book he wants. then come on mc, you dragged him out here and you’re NOT gonna let him get this one thing??

Asmodeus

he's fine with making an errand run with you actually!

he's up on the human world for you baby, just make sure to hold his hand so he feels appreciated

asmo is far too entertained with the concept of a walmart for his own good. don't go with him if you want it to be a quick trip because he'll want to go around the whole store

thinks at first that it's kind of nifty that humans just dump all the things they need in one store but is quickly turned off from the novelty when he realizes how short the distance is between the clothes and the nearest package of raw chicken

even if the selection is small, he will want to spend time in the makeup department. probably goes on rants about how he can’t imagine this quality of product is good for your skin

will still buy nail polish though if you let him

overall? not terrible to have around, but make sure you don’t have anywhere to be in the next hour when you take him

Beelzebub

pack a gallon bag of cheerios like he's a toddler and get ready to fucking book it in and out of there

you know how you should never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry? what were you thinking bringing Beel around??

another brother who’s good for reaching tall shelves if you need it

Beel also has this talent where he can just list off the ingredients you need if you happen to forget your list

if you want, you can distract him momentarily by just throwing out random dishes and he’ll get the ingredients right every time (even though they’re human dishes!!) but you’ll end up giving him like five different cravings by the time you leave

only take him if you want to speedrun grocery shopping, because he will start eating food you haven’t paid for if you take too long

bring extra money for that too, just in case he gets caught :(

Belphegor

bringing belphie to walmart isn't a matter of keeping him entertained moreso than keeping him awake

which you will inevitably fail to do

so even if you only need like three things, get him a cart and let him fall into the basket

he’ll try to stay awake (and he’ll give very self-satisfied grins to the people who stare at him ((and especially the ones who say “wow i wanna do that”))) but he can only fight off his sin for so long

stop by the blankets so he can stuff a few soft things in (bc he’s gotta be uncomfortable cramped in the little basket) and he’ll make himself a tiny nest

the good news is you can put anything on top of him and he won’t complain. just don’t drop any gallons of milk on him or anything that’ll wake him up

go to a self check-out so the employees don’t yell at you

after you put your groceries in your car, just dump his ass on the pavement. he’ll forgive you if you bought him the blankets.

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edge0fmydesiree · 2 years

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WIP TAG GAME

Rules:

post the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

Send me an ask with the title than intrigues you and I'll post a little snippet or tell you something about it.

Tag as many people as you have wip.

Okay, so I’m finally getting around to responding to Tumblr asks and tags.

Thank you, @yikeshereiam & @ash-mcj for the tag. ❤️

I haven’t published a fic in a while, but I’ve been working on a few new fics behind the scenes.

I have a lot of WIPS.

These are the ones I’ve been working on recently, and actually have words written down in the google docs.

1. It Was Never About What I Wanted. THIAM.

More of a novella. 3 Chapters. I’m looking at around 70-100k words. It will NOT be published until it’s finished. I’ve learned my lesson from the other two unfinished works I’ve published. WHICH I'M STILL WORKING ON. I’m just super slow, i.e. lazy, who gets distracted by other writers’ fics and chooses to read them, and all their other works, instead of writing. Don’t judge me.

It’s set after the war. The pack is still on the hunt for Monroe. Theo is helping the pack—forced to help? He thinks so anyway—look for Monroe.

Other Packs are introduced, original characters, as well as other hunters.

2. Meeting The Parents. THIAM.

A short fic, a Tumblr request actually. Human, HighSchool AU.

Bad-boy/Nerd type. Basically what the title says. Liam forces Theo to have dinner with his parents, to introduce him as his boyfriend.

Update: I couldn't help myself and added a little angst. It was meant to be humour and fluff, but, eh, what are you gonna do.

3. You Were Unexpected, But The Best Thing To Happen To Me. THEREK.

Canon divergent. Multi-chapter fic. 10-15k words.

Honestly, I don’t know where this fic is going. I went through a Theo/Derek faze and got inspired by their dynamic.

Set straight after the war at the hospital. Theo tries to sneak away and meets Derek.

Theo attempts to avoid the pack. Deals with a lot of guilt and a few pack members' hostility. Spends time with Derek, who can kind of relate, and helps Theo assimilate after the war. Now that he’s actually free and not under anybody's control. Slow burn, kind of. Eh, like I said, I’m winging it at this point.

4. Where You Bean All My Life? THIAM. This fic is testing me, ngl.

Human, Café AU. Humorous.

Liam works at a cafe, meets tall, dark and handsome, and instantly decides that the stranger is his future husband. Cue, lots of pining, awkward and embarrassing floundering, and ultimately a happy ending.

5. Not My Alpha. THIAM.

Canon. Set after the war. Angst, comfort, ultimately happy ending. 10-15k words.

Theo (I, the writer, me!) holds some bitterness and resentment towards the pack--Scott, for what they did to him. After some remarks from certain pack members, Theo has had enough. But so does a certain blue-eyed beta who has some choice words for the pack.

6. Bringing Me Back. THIAM.

Multi Chapter fic. Shifted Theo. Courting Fic. A Feral Theo and a stubborn determined Liam.

For almost a year, Theo has been Feral and been stuck in his shifted form, living in the preserve. While the pack has slowly given up, Liam refuses too. He's going to bring Theo back, and if that means camping out in the preserve and tempting Theo out with treats then so be it.

7. Wake Up, Little Wolf. THIAM.

One-shot. 10-20k. Theo's POV.

After a fight with hunters, Liam is injured and in hospital. Liam's werewolf abilities are hindered, leaving him essentially human. This fic is basically about how Theo handles seeing Liam in hospital, vulnerable, and how that envokes all these feelings in Theo that he's tried to push down.

9. Sometimes I Wonder If Love Is Worth Fighting For. Then I Look At You, And I’m Ready For War. THIAM.

The pack uses Theo to fight for them, but then ignores him and his suffering. Heavy guilt-ridden Theo, and guilty Nolan. Pining Liam.

10. Holding Onto The Memories Of Us. THIAM.

Multi Chapter fic. Original Characters.

Theo and Liam hide their relationship from the pack, but then it becomes too hard for Theo. He ends things with Liam and leaves Beacon Hills. Theo starts over and finds himself. But, people from his past keep showing up. Just not the person he wants.

Tagging anyone who wants ago. I highly encourage it. And make sure to tag me, because I'm NOSY and WANT to know.

#thiam #teen wolf #ao3 writer #writer #archives of our own #theo x liam #theo reaken #liam dunbar #teen wolf fanfiction #liam x theo #theo raeken #thiam angst #thiam au #current wip #my wips #wip stuff

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heauxzenji · 3 years

Note

queen, how about a kenma nsfw alphabet if you haven’t 👀

Haha- hah- yeah 😌 yeah let’s do that....

NSFW Alphabet: Kozume Kenma

Gn!Reader like always

Nsfw below the cut, you should know this drill by now... 😘

𝕬 - 𝕬𝖋𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖈𝖆𝖗𝖊

He needs it just as much as you do. He has a tendency to drop afterwards, so he finds it comforting to spend time coming down from it all with you. Lots of cuddling and definitely food and knocking out together, both making sure to constantly reassure each other.

𝕭 - 𝕭𝖔𝖉𝖞 𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖙

Does- does hair count as a body part? You know what fuck it its my blog I make the rules. He’s into hair pulling, both doing the pulling and having his pulled. He’ll give it a rough tug when he's behind you, but also expects you to take hold of his hair from time to time as well- with a very tight grip.

𝕮 - 𝕮𝖚𝖒

Facials. That’s really it. It’s facials. He isn’t a fan of super messy, but he always makes an exception when it comes to painting your pretty face. It;s a reminder that you belong to him so intimately in this sense.

𝕯 - 𝕯𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖞 𝕾𝖊𝖈𝖗𝖊𝖙

Kenma doesn’t only spend his money on video games. He actually has spent a significant amount of money on a very lavish collection of lingerie and little costumes for you to wear around the house. He’s always buying new pieces and adding them to your playroom- oh yeah... you have a playroom.

𝕰 - 𝕰𝖝𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖈𝖊

I feel like Kenma’s experience comes solely from porn and stories Kuroo has told him that he never wanted to hear in the first place. But- that is a good enough teacher. He knows enough of what he’s doing to get you there, and prefers the challenge of trying various things on you until he realizes what really works to get you there fastest- like a game.

𝕱 - 𝕱𝖆𝖛𝖔𝖗𝖎𝖙𝖊 𝕻𝖔𝖘𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

8/10 times he’s going to want you on top. It doesn’t matter how. He likes you on top because of the pressure your weight provides. Since he’s so little he likes to feel surrounded.

He also loves to fuck your face. The sight of your face getting lost in his pubes while you gag and get all teary-eyed as you struggle to meet his gaze drives him insane.

𝕲 - 𝕲𝖔𝖔𝖋𝖞

He’s not really the type to make jokes or anything in the moment. He’s focused on making sure you feel good and nothing else.

𝕳 - 𝕳𝖆𝖎𝖗

I’m so sorry- but like…. no lol. It’s almost a jungle. It’s not that he doesn’t care but he can’t be bothered. If you ask him he’ll definitely clean up, but you have to ask him or it’s just gonna stay that way.

𝕴 - 𝕴𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖒𝖆𝖈𝖞

Likes cockwarming for the closeness. You two can be laying in bed or chilling on the couch and he’ll just slip in, rutting into you every once in a while but mostly staying still and enjoying your warmth and tightness. You both enjoy it when you’re to tired to have sex, but still want to feel something

𝕵 - 𝕵𝖆𝖈𝖐 𝕺𝖋𝖋

He doesn’t like to do it himself, but instead opts for you to do so sometimes while he streams. You mostly do so because you want to though, he’s pretty indifferent. It’s just not really his thing. When he feels like he just has to- he’s 100% a pillow humper.

𝕶 - 𝕶𝖎𝖓𝖐

Roleplay: Anything that’s an escape from his normal he enjoys, and that also comes with your sex life too.

Breath Play: Kenma is 300% into breath play, and no I will not explain it he just is and I won’t take criticism. He holds his breath when he feels you start to get close- he doesn’t allow himself to breathe until you cum all over him- he’d rather let his lungs completely burn out before he leaves you unsatisfied. He holds his breath when he cums too, it intensifies his high.

Edging: that being said, you also have to work for it. If he's in a more domming mood, he’ll bring you to the brink and rip it away for hours… sometimes even days. If he’s being really mean, he’ll fuck you until you’re practically sobbing, but he won’t let you cum. He’ll cum and just leave you there, and don’t you dare touch yourself or you’ll just add to your punishment later

Voyeurism: you love letting him listen to/ watch you shower. He thinks you don’t know he’s there, but you can faintly hear the way his breath shudders over the water hitting the tiled walls. You can only imagine what he’s thinking of doing to you, and it turns you both on.

𝕷 - 𝕷𝖔𝖈𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

If you think he’s going to do it anywhere but a space with a bed/something to sleep on after- you’re wrong. Sadly this limits you to the confines of your home or the occasional hotel. The baby just exhausts himself too easily and needs to recharge after you’re done.

𝕸 - 𝕸𝖔𝖙𝖎𝖛𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

He’s encouraged by you begging for him. Every time you moan out his name- every time you plead for him to let you cum- it makes him feel powerful. He’s not just a subby baby! He gets off on the power dynamic between you. He knows how apathetic he comes off at times and he uses that to his advantage- loving nothing more than for you to beg for him to touch you. He likes to ignore you on purpose to build up the tension.

𝕹 - 𝕹𝖔!

Ken loves to watch, but that’s it. That being said, he doesn’t like being watched. So he’s not much of an exhibitionist. You’re the only real exception to the rule.

𝕺 - 𝕺𝖗𝖆𝖑

He never lasts long when you do go down on him, so he prefers to wait it out until he’s close, or he’ll let you suck him off when he really needs to cum. He loves it but he can’t control himself, so he doesn’t ask super often, but he does like an occasional morning surprise bj- it’s made him a morning person

𝕻 - 𝕻𝖆𝖈𝖊

If he’s fucking you- its so slow its painful at first. Since he wants you to beg, he’ll coax it out of you slowly, building you up until you’re a hot mess, but he never goes faster until the last second. If he’s the one getting fucked, he’s all about you being even and setting a good pace for him. He prefers it when you start slow and gradually get faster, slowing down again once he gets close, and milking it out of him.

𝕼 - 𝕼𝖚𝖎𝖈𝖐𝖎𝖊

Absolutely not. He wants to be able to take his time. Like any gamer, he’s not going to be satisfied until he gets a perfect score. So that means he needs time. Its the same thing when you take control. He wants you to take your time exploring him, he wants you to take the time and care to make him fall apart slowly and meticulously. If you’re particularly needy, he’ll give in to hold you over- but expect it to be lazy and sloppy, and a bit unsatisfying. He’s going to leave you wanting more.

𝕽 - 𝕽𝖎𝖘𝖐

Again, not much to see here. He’s not vanilla in the slightest, but he knows what he likes, and he knows what works. Instead of trying a bunch of new things, he prefers to try different combinations of his tried-and-trues, with a sprinkle of something else here or there- that’s how he keeps you on your toes.

𝕾 - 𝕾𝖙𝖆𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖆

Prefers quality over quantity, so most of the time his rounds are one and done. But that one and done can last hours- he has a lot of control over himself and will hold off until he’s sure you’re spent. He’ll give in to a few more rounds of you ask him nicely- he can’t resist when you bat your pretty eyes his way… but he’ll probably get you off with toys or his hands instead.

𝕿 - 𝕿𝖔𝖞

Likes to use toys on you, especially when he’s tired or feeling particularly lazy that day. He likes the fact that you can still get off by his hand without him having to do much. He will use it to his advantage though, which means you need to be prepared to be edged for awhile most days...

𝖀 - 𝖀𝖓𝖋𝖆𝖎𝖗

He’s VERY easy to tease. Gets flustered by the smallest actions, no matter how innocent they are. Can’t really control his boners so you have to be careful with him. He hates being teased but lives to tease you.

𝖁 - 𝖁𝖔𝖑𝖚𝖒𝖊

Very breathy, very shaky. He’s not necessarily super quiet, but there’s a lot of deep breathing and exhaling as opposed to outright moans. When he does actually moan it’s so delicate and pretty. He does talk to you as well, he tells you how pretty you look in your lace, and how much he likes pretty things like you.

𝖂 - 𝖂𝖎𝖑𝖉𝖈𝖆𝖗𝖉

His favorite post fuck meal is mac n cheese. Kuroo fed it to him in celebration when Kenma lost his virginity and he has now been essentially pavloved to associate sex with the Kraft blue box.

𝖃 - 𝖃-𝕽𝖆𝖞

It's not like, pretty- it's cute- Under the mess of hair anyway. Very uwu cute. He’s not a shower but he has maybe 5-6 when he’s ready to go. It's pink all around and chubby. Honestly it looks like those adorable little smiling mushroom plushies- you know the ones.

𝖄 - 𝖄𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌

His sex drive isn’t low, but instead its moderate. You’re a lot more needy than he is, so you tend to always be the one initiating- but he’ll also never be shy about asking you when he wants you.

𝖅 - 𝖅𝖟𝖟

He’s out before he even hits the pillow most times. He loves to fall asleep in your arms, resting his head on your chest to time his own breaths with your heartbeat. The only drawback of how cute this sight is is that kenma snores like a 70-year old man in dangerous need of a cpap.

Taglist Starseeds (link in nav to join): @honey-makki @acciobrooms @sen-brainrot @the-3d-sky-sister @minato-hoe @strawberrymakki @prettyforpapiiwa @dxddykeiji @arixtsukki @freyafolkvangr @ukaisgratefulwhore @tetsurolls @milanapolitana @notjasmin @velvesagi @keishinsuke @amanda0121gg @bluntkingkuroo @ellapurineko

If ur url is in bold- shoot me a dm ✨

#daisy’s red light district 🚨#haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu headcanon #haikyuu smut #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu hcs #kenma smut #kenma x reader #haikyuu drabble #hq x reader #hq smut #hq headcanons #hq headcanon

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zet-sway · 3 years

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Spiritual Shrios Summer - Release

PROMPT WORD: RELEASE - | - WORDS: 2686

Rated: "E" for Extremely Spicy - not for children AO3 Link: "Singing Southward" Pairing: Thane / FemShep Summary: "But her blood is singing southward, and that's a good thing, right? A reassuring, human reminder that maybe she's still Shepard - a woman - not just a Cerberus machine."

Full disclosure, this prompt fought me and kicked my ass the whole way. I can't look at it anymore. I hope it's more enjoyable for people who haven't been looking at it for like two weeks lmao. Many thanks to Rosenkow for that excellent playlist that really inspired my Shrios muse.

The heavy thrum of battle is where she loses herself. Shepard would take sweat and the pounding pulse of combat any day over the silence between stars.

Swirling winds whip sand across her face and body. It crunches in the joints between her armor and she hates the sound but it's easy to ignore as she slams another heat sink into her shotgun and charges into the last remaining crawler. It's thrown by the impact, the momentum of her body splits the carapace against her armored fist. The smell of viscera in the air, the humming of biotic barriers. Her body sings. She feels untouchable. The keystone slams the ground again.

The ground beneath her feet rumbles and she hears an unholy sound. A thresher maw. Her battle-lust is broken instantly and she snaps to attention, every sense laser focused.

Her shotgun and fists will be little help to them now. She exchanges glances with Grunt and Thane, waving them toward cover while she hunkers down on point, grenade launcher at the ready. It's not the biggest thresher maw she's ever seen but their size isn't the only thing that makes them dangerous. Positioning is critical when fighting something that can burrow and spit. Her combat HUD tracks its movements through the ground and she directs their movements, their gunfire to its next point of exposure.

But there's a problem. Her visor's sensitive electronics were never meant to be used in a sandstorm.

The maw dives again and this time the data is wrong, pinging across the arena, indicating wildly different trajectories that conflict with the laws of physics. Not great, but there's nothing she can do about it now. Adapt, improvise.

She tears the headset from her face and makes her best approximation of where it's going to appear next, signaling the team. They open fire, it dives again. Then the rumbling stops. Her best is not enough. There's a split second of silence before the beast bursts forth not twelve feet away from her position. Dust and debris erupt in a disorienting cloud and she can tell by the shadow cast over her that she's in deep shit, struggling to find her footing on the fractured, quaking ground.

A scorching heat envelops her and her vision goes dark. There's a shout in her comm, a weight pressed upon her, and the grenade launcher is wrenched from her hands.

Then a burst, an explosion, a blinding flash of light. Acid sizzles against her barrier and it pops, the sound rattling her ears in the darkness.

The orange sun of Tuchanka blinks back into existence as the dust begins to settle.

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

Thane slumps into the stinking puddle of meat and organs, still clutching Shepard's grenade launcher. His scales are stinging and the pain is growing more intense by the second. Beside him, Shepard is calling in an evac while she rips at the panels of her hardsuit. Her under armor is a patchwork of holes beneath, and her skin is a frightening shade of red where the fabric is being eaten away. Thresher maw bile.

He's never actually seen a thresher maw before, much less fought one - he's more shaken than he would like to admit. Her voice is his anchor. By the time she's done shouting for Grunt to maintain a defensive position, she's torn the suit at the waist and stripped the top half from her body. She uses it to wipe the viscera from his head, chest, and hands before tending to herself.

Her ease of determination has him transfixed. He's trembling from their encounter, but Shepard- he's never seen her more focused. Brows knitted in concentration, voice firm, but calm. Her chest rises and falls with each measured breath. Wearing only her belt, legplates, and a black compression bra, she's slathering herself in medigei, a whirlwind of sand and dirt sticking to exposed burns across the hard expanse of her body.

Her skin is so vulnerable compare to his scales that she should be shrieking in pain. Instead, she seems completely unfazed. Adrenaline, perhaps. Or maybe she's every bit as otherworldly as he's coming to understand she is.

Their evac shuttle arrives and they pile on. Grunt is the first one to break the silence.

"Quick thinking back there, Krios."

Grunt looks at him with the same piercing gaze all krogan seem to have. Thane has always found them hard to read.

"Never thought I'd see a drell dive into the mouth of a thresher maw. You're tougher than you look."

He smiles, then. And Shepard smiles with him.

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

Doctor's orders: 24 hours rest.

Shepard's armor clatters to the cabin floor and she strides into the bathroom, trying not to itch the scabs tightening over her skin. The burns are superficial - irritating, but not serious. In the mirror, they look worse than they feel. The sting is enough to drown out the other weird pains that live inside her reconstructed body. Her ears hurt. Her tear ducts feel swollen and pressurized. Her fingers are sore. There's a constant ache in her sternum and a soft wooshing in her ear. It's from her synthetic heart, and the abundance of blood it requires. But it means she'll heal faster, too.

The water hisses out of the showerhead and she sets to work cleaning the caked on grit and viscera from her skin. When she's focused on herself like this, it's hard not to think about all of the ways her body has changed.

On the SR1, she'd been in shape, perhaps even proud of her body. She'd thought of herself as a well oiled machine. She watched her nutrition carefully, spent just as much time honing nerves as she did strength and endurance. Her body, a product of her own work and service.

What she sees now is not what she remembers.

Notably, she's about 70 pounds heavier, almost exclusively due to her implants and the additional muscle she's put on to carry them. Adapting to the added weight of cybernetics and artificial bones had been an uphill battle since she rolled off that Cerberus operating table. Even her breasts are one cup size larger, and that one change carries perhaps the most bitterness. Her body is no longer her creation.

She sees herself as though through a stranger's eyes - a construct. The Commander they wanted. Not the woman she remembers.

Her new body is all about performance, both in the public eye and on the battlefield. Miranda had already told her she should be grateful for her various "upgrades." Her titanium fingers that never tremble, her artificial eyes that can see colors and details normal human's can't. Heightened olfaction, improved hearing, even joints with a higher range of motion.

A superhuman.

No, she corrects herself, with no small amount of vitriol.

A supersoldier.

The trouble is, being a soldier is what she wants. Control over her body is as much a necessity as a beating heart, and she demands it of herself every way she knows how. The problem isn't the upgrades. It's the autonomy ripped from her hands as soon as she was too dead to spit in their faces.

But this is the hand she's dealt, so she works with it, even if learning how to use her own body is still a learning curve. Testing her limits, evaluating response times, and sometimes... trying out shitty supplementary tech that can't stand up to a little bad weather.

Outside the bathroom door, the remnants of her visor are crumbled together next to her terminal. Thane had crushed it underfoot when he dove between her and the thresher maw. That split second confusion in the field could have cost her life if he hadn't intervened. She hadn't expected a lone wolf assassin to mesh so well with the team.

She towels off and stuffs her armor back in its locker. The automatic cleaning cycle hums to life, and her thoughts whirl with it.

Thane's opened up a bit more since the night they spoke about Alchera. He has a surprising way of coloring the air with his words. And, perhaps most alarmingly, the more time she spends with him, the time she wants to spend with him. She tries to chalk it up to regular team synchronicity, but there are moments she catches herself wondering him on more than just a professional level. Tiny curiosities slither into her brain. Does he kiss like humans do? The very notion warms her blood.

How long has it been since she'd kissed someone? It feels like a lifetime.

And then - just one impulsive little thought, summoning the things she's not even dared herself to think. Does he fuck like humans do?

Almost timidly, she allows her imagination to wander.

Greeting the morning together in the shuttle bay, the harsh fluorescent lights casting dramatic shadows over his body as he bends through another impossible stretch. All that tension coiled within him, the hard planes of his torso, those absolutely delicious ass-kicking thighs...

For a moment, she feels as though he's close enough to share his heat. There's an old, familiar warmth in her blood - exquisite, tiny shivers flickering just beneath her skin - arousal.

Her eyes drift closed. She owes her XO a mission debrief, and she owes her pilot new destination coordinates. But her blood is singing southward, throbbing between her legs, and that's a good thing, right? A reassuring, human reminder that maybe she's still Shepard - a woman - not just a Cerberus machine.

Maybe those obligations can wait a little bit longer.

Scooting up her unmade bed to rest against the headboard, she tentatively rests a hand against her belly and traces a line from her navel to the juncture of her legs, almost as if she's afraid of what she'll find. Her flesh is reassuringly warm, and she passes over her center, teasing and smoothing back over blood-warmed skin, testing its sensitivity. At least here, her body feels like she remembers.

Thane's unfamiliarity excites her. She's never spared much thought for bunking with another species before, but he's more than handsome. Shepard wonders if drell are as introverted as Thane. Likely not, but his guardedness only intensifies her intrigue. The idea of touching him seems forbidden, like a closely guarded secret. She wants to run her tongue over the darkened skin below his lower lip, wants to trace the ridges down the back of his neck and feel the warmth of the flushed skin at his throat.

Her mind fumbles with the thought of him, unclothed and willing. He could be any number of iridescent shades of green under that tight leather getup - by the tantalizing gradient of color across the firm swatch of his exposed chest, he must be. Those dark stripes down his shoulders are trails she's hungry to travel, winding paths across the exotic unknowns of his body. Her fingers itch to follow them wherever they lead - with any luck, all the way down.

And down to what, exactly? For a moment, Shepard considers pulling up the extranet to satiate her curiosity and then decides against it. If he's not biologically equipped the way she hopes, better to find out later, when she's not vividly imagining the shape and color of his erection. Maybe green? But then, he hopefully isn't packing scales down there. No, more likely a familiar blush of color, like the frills of at his neck, or the inside of his mouth.

Her fingers brush carefully over her clit at the thought of his mouth, those gorgeous clit-sucking lips. An excited chill zips down her spine, settling - picturing him in this exact spot, head bowed reverently between her legs to worship her with his tongue. It's been so fucking long since someone ate her out.

The memory is old and faded - breaking fraternization rules with a youthful dark-haired recruit in the barracks. They hadn't even finished basic yet. Shepard had come harder than ever before in her life, only to later discover that recruit had told nearly everyone that they'd hated every second of it. She wouldn't have been upset if Cerberus took that memory from her.

But there's something about Thane. He's nothing if not a gentleman, she likes to think he'd be wickedly good at this. Warm, firm lips, an agile tongue... those fused fingers edging her on.

She uses her own to test that hypothesis, biting her lip at the familiar slick of arousal concentrated in her core.

There was a time when she'd rather be incinerated than suffer gentle lovemaking. She wanted it hard and fast, pleasure so blindingly hot she'd sneak out to the airlock for a cigarette in the afterglow. But her new body is a labyrinth of unknowns. Sex in this new skin, not knowing her limits, how much she can take. She wants to take her time.

Middle finger first, then following with another, she tests her reconstruction. Maybe she's just imagining it, but she feels a bit stiffer than she remembers.

But in the blurry comfort of her fantasy, Thane is a gentle lover. He's slow and patient, giving her ample time to acclimate both her body and her racing thoughts. Her fingers slip inside as far as they'll reach, leaving her palm to flex against her clit. She sighs, luxuriating in sensation.

It feels so good to be touched.

It's been years, in fact, and the roaring flame of her lust is surprising even to herself. To have him here, moving inside her, filling her with every stroke...

When her hand curls against her inner walls, her eyes roll back and an unholy sound leave her throat. Holy shit. Either this is the pleasure time forgot, or Cerberus spared no expense reconstructing her nerve endings. It wipes every other thought from her mind.

She's lost in the fantasy now. Hopelessly spellbound beneath the roll of her own hand - Thane's hips - languidly pushing the heights of her pleasure in body and mind until she's deliberately edging her orgasm because it seems a damn shame to end it so fast. Her head is swimming, discomfort collecting dust in the rational corners of her brain until her nerves are burning with adrenaline and wanting. Scattered thoughts come in incoherent bursts. All that matters now is the caldera of pleasure between her legs. Her mind. His body.

She can almost feel his voice. The words are lost but the sensations are loud and clear, encircling her, flowing through her, filling her. She wants to feel his desire, wants him to come undone inside her, calling her name, riding the high of his climax and all but demanding she come with him. In her mind, they gasp together, his arms tightening around her, his face buried in her neck, her walls clenching around him.

The electricity of release pulses through her nerves - organic, synthesized, and everything in between. For one sweet second, she's weightless. Then the spots are clearing from her vision and she's floating down from whatever far flung corner of the galaxy her soul's been launched to.

In the silence that follows, the gentle hum of the ship is the only sound.

"Fuck," she breathes out into the empty room. He's gone. The reverie slowly evaporates, vanishing into the metal bulkheads of the hull.

The familiar guilt of indulgence tugs at the edges of her fading euphoria. She hadn't banked on masturbating to her crew, but here she is.

It's just a daydream, no harm done.

But as she gets dressed, she asks herself why it's been so long since anyone's crept into her mind like Thane.

Shepard shakes her head, straightening her back. A little movement to clear the errant thoughts trashing her rationality. Her scabs itch. Her mouth is dry. There are more important things to be doing. Things that will quiet the tiny voice in her head that whispers 'no one wants your weird cybernetic body.'

At least she can still show herself a good time. Small victories are perhaps even sweeter during wartime. Maybe she feels just a little more human than she did an hour before.

#shrios #spiritualshriossummer #thane krios #fshrios #spiritual shrios summer #zet writes things #me in the background screaming like that video of the old man in the mountains with the cowboy hat #ITT: femshep gets herself off #aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

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mshermia · 3 years

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Full Circle - Webpril 01: Field Trip

summary: Peter and MJ are less interested in the field trip and a little more invested in spending time with each other. Someone, who's not spending any time with MJ at all is Tony, very much to his annoyance...

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Nothing could ever even compete with the way Peter's stomach would flip when he would swing through the urban canyon that was Manhattan. Sure, Queens was awesome, it was his home after all, and there came a special sense of accomplishment with protecting one's home.

But there was absolutely nothing like swinging from one skyscraper to the next.

Now, it had been forever since Spider-Man had been seen in Manhattan. Not since that day he had climbed onto that spaceship. He hadn't gone out there patrolling for a while after that final battle. When he had put his suit back on for the first time, it had seemed more important than ever to stick to his own neighborhood.

But patrol was not why Peter was back in Manhattan.

He craned his neck, eyes narrowed as he looked up to the very top of the MetLife Building. The name pulled an uncomfortable cringe on his face. It wasn't right. Years ago, the Stark letters had stood up there, only to be replaced by the Avengers symbol after the invasion of New York.

A cold shiver ran down Peter's neck and his entire back spasmed at the sensation. Aliens. The purple grape man. He shook his head. All that was in the past.

"Hey, you okay?" MJ's hand slipped into his, hidden by their jackets from the rest of the group.

Peter forced his lips into a smile. Well, it honestly came easy whenever he looked at her. His skin broke out in goosebumps once again, in a good way though. In a way that matched the crazy rhythm, the butterflies in his stomach were dancing to.

MJ squinted up at the very top of the building herself now. "You ever been up there? When this was still Stark's?" She kept her voice low. It hadn't taken her long to figure out just how far she had to drop her voice for her words to stay just between her and Peter's enhanced-hearing.

"Long time ago," Peter nodded. "A few parties and tests in the lab before he sold it."

"Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity, Penis."

Peter stumbled to the side as Flash push himself past them, right between him and MJ. With a heavy sigh, he stopped right in front of them, hands perched on his hip like he was supposed to be the center of attention.

"Actually, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results," Peter hisses through his teeth.

"Well, you would know, Penis, wouldn't you."

Peter's eyes flickered close in resignation, his arms tightly crossed in front of him.

"Get lost, Flash." MJ stepped back next to Peter and pushed him to the other side of the group.

"That's so sad," Flash laughed. "Look at you all whipped, Parker!"

"Just ignore him," MJ mumbled, eyes now on Mr. Harrington who was handing out lanyards to every student.

Peter nodded, eyes on his feet. It was embarrassing, always had been. It was way worse though with MJ right there to witness it.

"Dude, I'm so psyched!" Ned had been first in line to get his lanyard, excitedly waving it in Peter's face. "How close do you think they'll let us get to it? You think we get to touch it? I mean at least the... the exterior... wall... thingy?"

Some of the tension fell off Peter. His lips slowly pulled back into a genuine smile at Ned's excitement. "Not the way you're buzzing, man... you'll have to be careful not to trigger a fission reaction."

Ned's face morphed into a mask of serious consideration. "That would kind of defeat the clean energy aspect."

Peter laughed. "Exactly!"

"But..." Ned's fingers were drumming against his chin like he was preparing for his full transmission to mad-scientist. "...it would get me Tony Stark's attention though for sure!"

"Ha," Peter barked. "Yeah, but not the kind of attention you're looking for, dude."

Ned grinned at him before he stormed back to the front of the line. Peter however decided to hang back after Mr. Harrington handed the last two lanyards out to him and MJ.

They walked into the lobby side by side though MJ didn't reach for his hand again. Instead, she was craning her head along with everyone else, looking at the oversized window fronts that were projecting different things from facts about the building's layout from floor 1 to 70, the different companies renting office space as well as the event plan for the next few months. When the Tower was still owned by Stark Industries they had had information on all kinds of things that were happening in SI buildings all over the planet projected there, all the way up to the tall ceiling of the entrance area.

"You ever seen one?"

Peter glanced at her. "An arc?"

"Yeah." Her eyes were now following the lines of the interior design along the columns to the exquisite marble floor.

"I have. Not this one though," he shrugged. "They had one at the Compound upstate."

It had been where Peter had spent most of his real intern days, long after the Tower had been sold, after Toomes but before the purple grape man.

"Not this one? No parties next to the big bulb of energy then," she smirked.

Peter shook his head, glancing over at her. "Nah. Most of Tony's guests prefer the top floor to the basement."

That did get her attention. "The top floor, hm?"

She said it in a tone that made those butterflies in his stomach tumble excitedly. "Great view up there..."

"Yeah, I bet." She held his gaze for a moment before a lady from the security team ushered them through the barrier.

The students in their group were bouncing excitedly, following behind the tour guide towards the line of elevators on the far side of the entrance area.

"You know," MJ said, her tone as aloof as always. "I've always been more into architecture than energy technology. Structural engineering, that kind of thing."

Peter kept his eyes on the group, his fingertips buzzing with a new kind of excitement. "You love clean energy."

"I love to use it, but it's not like I necessarily want to build the things that generate it..."

Peter chanced another glance at her, MJ's eyes waiting to meet his. They were halfway across the room when Peter decided to hell with it, he'd just go for it. One hand on MJ's arm, he held her back for a couple of steps, letting the gap between the two of them and the group expand before he pushed her to the left, heading straight for another corridor that forked off and led to a single elevator.

They kept their heads low as they stole around the corner out of sight. The corridor was empty like it always had been even when this had been Mr. Stark's personal elevator. The doors opened right away as Peter pressed the call button and they both slipped into the waiting elevator car.

MJ shot a glance over her shoulder then grinned at Peter as the doors closed behind them. "You know, if they arrest us for this..."

"Can't arrest us for something they didn't outright ban us from, can they?"

One hand clutching her heart, MJ beamed up at him. "Peter Parker, I'm so proud. I bet they'll change the procedure from now on and move the lecture on which sections are off-limits to before they hand out these." She gave the lanyard around his neck a little flick.

Peter barked out a laugh. "Proud of how you're corrupting my pure innocent soul?"

She stepped a little closer to him. The hand that had just been resting on her heart came to lie on his cheek instead. "The circle is now complete." She leaned forward, her lips softly brushing against Peter's. "Student... master... someone becoming the other..."

The butterflies in his stomach, well... they were excited. Excited enough that a flush of heat was rising up to the very tip of his ears. His eyes were falling shut as he leaned against MJ, her lips warm and soft against his until his eyes flew back open. He leaned away from her just enough that MJ staggered forward a little, her eyes flickering open as well.

Peter studied her face, his mouth still gaping a little. "Did you just quote Star Wars to me?"

The confusion fell off her face. With an un-ladylike snort, she dipped her forehead against his shoulder. "Let's say it's your reward for the rule-breaking initiative." Her hand found his as she turned towards the elevator wall. "Let's do this." Her head spun back and forth a couple of times before Peter even caught on to what the problem was. "Wait, there's no control panel."

"Shit..." His heart sank. That tiny detail was going to ruin this for them. "No panel, it's voice-activated. Fuck, I forgot."

"So, you just say the floor and it gets you there. That's pretty cool." MJ looked up at the ceiling. "Level 70."

For a moment, they both froze in anticipation but the elevator didn't move an inch.

Peter rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead. He was starting to sweat. This had been such a dumb idea. "You need clearance for it to work," he grimaced. "Shit, sorry. That was a bit anti-climactic."

Like he was taunting the universe, the doors of the elevator opened and both of them jumped in surprise.

"What up, Parker," Flash chimed up amused. "Trespassing, are we?"

"Jesus Christ, you gotta be fucking kidding me," Peter hissed under his breath, clutching his heart.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Ned was right behind Flash and followed him into the elevator car.

"Nothing. We were just leaving."

"Eww, were you trying to sneak off to hook up with her?" Flash made a face, his upper lip curled up as he looked from Peter to MJ and back. "What a sleazy move."

A bead of sweat was running down the side of Peter's face, anxiety clawing its way under his skin.

"Don't be such a perv, Flash." MJ had her arms crossed, a dangerous glint in her eyes.

"Whatever," Flash mumbled as the doors of the elevator shut again. He craned his neck looking around the car. "How does it move?"

"It's voice activated," both Ned and MJ groaned in union.

Peter squinted at Ned. "Wait, how did you even know where we went?"

"Saw you sneak off, didn't we... floor 70," Flash called out to the ceiling. When nothing happened, he pursed his lips. "Floor 70, please?"

Ned snorted, pulling a scowl onto Flash's face. "Well, I saw you. That one," he pointed at Flash, "just stalked me."

Eyes narrowed, Flash turned on Ned. "Maybe you should work on your sneaking skills if you don't want to be followed."

Ned waved him off. "You try it, Peter!"

Excitement rang in Ned's voice, like Peter had the secret key to make this work. All it did was make his heart sink. It would have been bad enough to disappoint MJ, but Ned had just skipped out on the very thing he had been daydreaming of for years, seeing the arc, to follow them to a different adventure that Peter would not be able to deliver. Letting him down was even worse than embarrassing himself in front of Flash.

Peter pressed his eyes shut in resignation. There was no way the elevator would move. Without FRIDAY, he had no clearance. If it hadn't been for Flash and Ned, he might have made use of his web-shooters to steal up the elevator shaft with MJ... well, if it hadn't been for Flash...

Still, he owed it to Ned to at least try.

"Floor 70, please," Peter mumbled, resigned to the trip turning out to be the bust he had expected it to be.

His knees almost buckled underneath him as the elevator started to move.

"Woohoo!" Ned cheered, clapping him on the shoulder. "Dude, you did it!"

MJ grinned at him, only Flash looked a little pale around his nose. In all honesty, Peter didn't feel much better than Flash looked as the elevator was climbing higher and higher. This shouldn't have worked. He hadn't been in that building for, well 2 to 7 years, depending on who you'd ask. Tony had sold the Tower in 2016.

His head still a little fuzzy, Peter hesitated as the doors opened onto the top floor. He had almost expected them to crash some kind of function. That would have certainly explained why the elevator worked, but the entire floor was empty. It was almost eerie to see it like this when Peter had only ever experienced it lined with cocktail tables and packed with people in fine evening wear.

"Shit, this is so cool," Ned mumbled, slowly advancing towards the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Manhattan. "You can basically look right into the Chrysler Building!"

Flash had walked up next to him and waved towards the other building like a little kid waving at all the other cars passing through the rear window of a car. "You know, my dad said he's gonna buy this whole thing one day. So, if you ever want to be invited to one of my parties..."

"Well, he's a little late for that. I doubt the Tower will go back on the market for the next few decades."

Peter's insides froze. For a moment, he was hoping that it was just an illusion, that maybe he was just having a stroke or a minor concussion from patrol he hadn't noticed before. But when he turned, there was no doubt. The man that stalked towards them, decked out in a three-piece suit, dark shades on his face, was no other than Tony Stark.

Both his friends and Flash had turned at once.

Ned looked like he was hyperventilating while his high-pitched whisper rang through the room. "Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod..."

"Oh. My. God," Peter groaned. "What are you doing here?"

Tony gasped, his face pulled into affronted shock. "Is that how you greet your favorite Avenger?"

One hand twisted in his hair, Peter could only stare at him. "I can't believe this is happening right now," he mumbled, staring straight at Tony.

"Okay, while Peter is still trying to reboot that genius brain of his." Tony pointed at Ned who's eyes were in danger of bulging out of his head. "Ted, I presume. Don't know this one," he mumbled as he pointed to Flash, but then his attention singled in on MJ. He strode right past Peter, an outstretched hand extended to her. "That means you must be MJ..."

MJ's eyes were wide, shifting from Tony over to Peter and back. "Mr. Stark..."

"Call me Tony." The smile underneath his dark-tinted glasses was blindingly bright as she shook his nano-tech hand. That in itself left Peter at a loss for words. "I wish I could say I've heard a lot about you, but that would be a lie." He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder a couple of times in Peter's direction. "You'd think he was guarding Fort Knox. Scratch that, it was easier to get in there than getting anything out of Peter when it comes to his new girlfriend."

"Oh god, please, stop talking!" Peter's face was hot, glowing like the surface of the sun. Even as he was hiding behind his hands he felt like he was illuminating the entire room.

"See, even now he's acting like this is all a big secret. Like I wouldn't notice how he rather spends his weekends in the city now than with dear old me, but I noticed and I do have his aunt's number. I mean, what does a guy have to do in order to be granted some time with their... well, intern. I only saved the universe, well, half of it. The lost half. You're welcome, by the way." He pointed at Ned and Flash as well. "You too, I guess."

Unaccustomed to Tony's rambling nature, MJ, Ned and Flash were sporting an identical look of opened-mouthed wonder, eyebrows slightly pulled together as they tried to follow Tony's chaotic monologue.

"It's not like I don't still have about a million things to teach him. Lesson number one," he turned to Peter. "You never ever stop making out with a girl to point out a Star Wars reference. I didn't think anyone would have to be taught that!"

Peter's jaw popped open. "Oh my god, you were watching us this whole time?"

He waved a hand at Peter. "FRIDAY and I were quite amused, I'm not gonna lie, but-- hey, come on!"

One hand on Tony's upper arm, Peter pushed him toward the other side of the room. While the other three were rooted on their spots in stunned silence, Peter had no such reservation.

"What in holy hell do you think you're doing?"

"Would you calm down? You're the one who's sneaking off without thinking about the 5 gazillion cameras that are installed in this building."

"And how exactly do you still have access to all these cameras, huh? Did you bribe someone to spy on my field trip?"

"Yeah, talking about that field trip, you know you could have just told me your team wanted to see the arc and I could have—"

"Don't change the subject!"

Tony tilted his head a bit to the side. "I don't usually have to bribe anyone to access what's mine."

Even though his eyes were almost entirely hidden behind the dark-tinted glasses, Peter stared at him. But no matter how long he did, Tony did seem entirely serious. "You bought back the Tower."

It wasn't a question and Tony didn't bother to pretend like it was either.

Peter's shoulder's slumped in resignation. "When did this happen?"

Tony shrugged, suddenly suspiciously quiet.

His nerves reaching an all-time high, Peter blew out a long breath. "Was this before or after my school's decathlon team happened to be invited to visit the arc?"

"Erm..." Tony pursed his lips, pretending to think. "I mean, I'm not sure about your little club's time table or anything like that so I wouldn't be entirely sure if—"

"You gotta be fucking kidding me." Peter ran both hands through his hair, at a complete loss. "What the hell is going on with you?"

"Hey, it's not like you gave me much of a choice." Tony's finger was pointed at him, his eyebrows raised above the dark rims of his glasses, like Peter was in the know of what was going on.

"I have no idea what you're even talking about."

He huffed out an annoyed little breath. "Well, why is it that May got to meet your girlfriend and I'm still wondering if you made her up or not? And even that just because Pepper let something slip that May wasn't supposed to talk about when—"

"Okay, please..." Peter's arms and hands were stretched out, voice low like he was trying to calm a skittish animal. "...please tell me, that you didn't buy back the Tower just so you could meet MJ."

Tony crossed his arms in front of himself. "Oh, don't flatter yourself, Underoos."

"Oh god..." His head was hurting.

"I did not. Pepper would skin me alive."

Peter wasn't quite sure if he meant for spending that kind of money or for meddling with Peter's love life in general. "Then why didn't you just tell me you bought it?"

His arms twitched with another shrug. "I thought it would be a fun surprise."

Peter glanced over his shoulder in the direction of his friends and Flash, but they were well out of sight. "Listen, I'm sorry I haven't made it out to the cabin that often. It's not... it's not like I don't want to come out, it's just... it's the other side of town and—"

"And there's not enough room and you don't have a desk there to work at and the basement is too small and Morgan's up at what feels like dawn and has you grumpy in the mornings and the woods are creepy and you still don't like driving and what did I miss?"

Peter's head was bowed low. He had never said those things to Tony. Not out loud. He'd thought them for sure though.

"I know things haven't been ideal and with the Compound gone, well... this will be the better option."

Peter frowned, slowly looking back up at Tony. "The better option?"

"The lab in the Tower will be big enough that we can have like three desks each, easily. It's close enough for you to drop by whenever you want or go home in time so you, you know, don't miss a date or something. If you want to stay over there's no reason your room has to share a wall with Morgan's, the kitchen, or the living room, so no early wake-ups. No creepy trees outside your window and the subway station is just around the corner."

Peter's eyes were burning. Somehow... somehow this did sound a lot like he was the reason why Tony bought back that damn building after all.

With a swift motion, Tony took off his glasses, the expression on his face soft but sincere. "I miss you, kid. I'm not happy with how things have been going since they... well, since we've moved back to the cabin full time."

Peter moved his weight from one foot to the other. It wasn't like he hadn't missed Tony. He didn't even mind the cabin all that much, things had just been, well, different.

It wasn't just about where Tony lived now, that he was married with a kid. It wasn't that he had retired Iron Man, not really.

Everything was just so different and for some reason, Tony of all people acted like nothing at all had changed between them.

"Listen, Pete, I don't mean to—" He stopped himself, lowering his voice little further. "If I overstepped and you actually... well, if you actually just want your space and you want to cut back on the erm... internship, either way, that's perfectly fine and of course, we can figure out a new routine for the... neighborhood side project to—"

"I can't believe you bought the fucking Tower for me," Peter mumbled.

Tony tilted his head to the side. The corner of his mouth was pulled back into a soft smirk. "I invented fucking time travel for you, kid."

Peter's throat was dry, but he tried to swallow the growing lump anyway. "You did that because of the purple grape. Because of what he did to like 50% of the universe."

There was a beat of silence between them. Tony held his glance, staring at him unblinkingly. "Did I?"

Peter's lips parted, but there was nothing to say, his mind simply blank. "Tony... I... I'm not sure—"

"Alright now..." Without another moment of hesitation, Tony stepped a little closer, his arms pulling Peter into a tight hug. "We won't do that now. Not here. Not today," he whispered. One of his hands, the human one, was on the back of Peter's head when he quickly pressed a kiss against his temple. "I missed you, buddy."

Peter's fingers were clinging to Tony's back, his eyes pressed shut as he tried not to think about what Tony had said. Tried not to analyze what it meant if he had really done all of it just for him.

It took a few more mumbled words from Tony until he let go. His head held low, Peter ran the sleeve of his shirt over his eyes.

"You want this?" Tony held out his glasses for him to take.

With a wet snort, Peter waved his hand away. "Yeah, 'cause that's not super obvious at all..."

Tony shrugged, the smirk on his lips deepening. Just before he pushed his glasses back onto his face, Peter caught a glimpse of the glassy brown eyes, a little red probably not unlike his own. With an overly heavy sigh, Tony wrapped an arm around Peter’s shoulder. „Come on, buddy... I think at least one of your friends is dying to see that technological marvel in my basement.”

Peter scrunched up his nose, not even trying to pull away from him. “Can you at least try not to be weird?”

“I won’t make any promises.”

"You could make up for it and let Ned touch the arc." He bit his lip, hiding a smile. "He really really wants to..."

"Why do you want to break that thing I just bought for you?"

Peter let his head drop against Tony's shoulder. "It's okay, I'll help you fix it."

This is the first time I've written something for this fandom that is *not* whump, so let me know, what you think!

I'll try to fill a bunch of these prompts, because I love running from my WIPs. Don't hate me for it ;) <3

#webpril #webpril 2021 #webpril 2021 day 1 #field trip #peter parker fic #irondad #IRON DAD AND SPIDER SON #iron dad fic #tony stark lives #tony stark fanfiction #fluff #post-endgame

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years

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Basic income works

The right has long held that homelessness is a symptom - of a lack of self-control, a lack of foresight, of addiction, mental illness, etc - and therefore the solution to it is training, incarceration, rehab, or rigid discipline.

None of this stuff worked.

For more than a decade, there's been a more pragmatic approach to homelessness: giving people homes. The housing first movement has repeatedly shown that the best way to make homeless people not homeless is to give. them. a. home.

https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/

After all, if you are struggling with addiction, mental illness, etc, or if you eed structure in your life, the chaos of not having a home only makes this a thousand times worse.

(Oh, and giving homeless people homes is MUCH cheaper than treating homelessness as a crime)

In a similar vein, the Foundations for Social Change's New Leaf Project tried simply giving homeless people money (CAD7500). If the right is correct and homelessness is a moral failing, then this should make everything worse ("they'll just blow it on drugs").

So this experiment isn't just a test of the best way to address homelessness; it's also a test of whether the right's frame of homelessness as an individual failing is correct, or whether the left's conception of homelessness as a system problem is right.

The results are definitive: 18 months on, grant recipients found housing a year earlier than the control group; 70% experienced less food insecurity. Money went to food, clothes and rent, with a 39% decline in spending on booze, drugs and cigarettes.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f07a92f21d34b403c788e05/t/5f751297fcfe7968a6a957a8/1601507995038/2020_09_30_FSC_Statement_of_Impact_w_Expansion.pdf

The randomized, controlled study had 115 subjects aged 19-64, all of whom had experienced homelessness for at least six months. On average, they saved CAD1000 of the initial grant over the 12-month study. Participants spent more on their kids and other family members.

The participants' 12-month, $7500 cash grants amounted to less than half of what it costs to billet a person in a homeless shelter over the same period.

This is both amazing and obvious. The best cure for homelessness is a home. The best cure for poverty is money.

It's a very powerful argument for a basic income, too.

But not necessarily for a UNIVERSAL basic income.

Here's the problem with UBI: imagine two people, one of whom is in the 10% or 1% or 0.1% and has all their needs met every month; the other person does not.

Give each of them $1000/month. The poor person experiences a huge difference in their life: they go from not having their needs met - that is, not having a home or food or utilities - to having them met. This is transformative.

What about the rich person? Well, they put the money in a 401(k) or other tax-advantaged savings.

Fast forward a decade.

10 years later, the poor person still has their needs met. They have better health outcomes, their kids have better educational outcomes. SUCCESS!

The rich person, meanwhile, is A QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS RICHER, thanks to the miracle of compound interest.

We have reduced one of the worst aspects of inequality, but inequality itself remains intact, along with all the toxic, corrosive problems it creates.

The system remains rotten to the core.

Can we get the benefits of UBI while still addressing inequality?

Yes. Basic income remains a no-brainer. The problem is universality. We shouldn't give subsidies to rich people.

But that doesn't mean we should do means-testing.

Means-testing is humiliating and cruel. Universal services promote solidarity. Means-tested services are a form of Apartheid.

Imagine if you had to prove your poverty before you could go to a public library, or let your kid play in a public park or attend a public school.

But public parks, schools and libraries are a subsidy to the wealthy. We could insist they use country clubs, private schools and subscription libraries instead.

It's easy to understand how this ends: wealthy people use their political power to defund the public sphere.

The money they'd lose by having to pay for country clubs and private schools wouldn't reduce their spending power enough to prevent them from accumulating outsized political power.

To do that, we need to tax them.

That's what taxes are for: to reduce the private sector's spending power so that when the government creates new money to fund the programs we need, the new money isn't competing with the money that's already in circulation for the same goods, which creates inflation.

Governments, after all, don't pile up our tax money and then send it out again to pay for programs. When currency-issuing governments tax their citizens, they just annihilate that money. When they pay their citizens to do things like build roads, they create new money.

All the money in circulation is money the government has spent, but hasn't taxed out of existence All the money you and I have to spend is the government's deficit. If governments don't run deficits (if they taxed as much as they spent), there'd be nothing left for us!

Federal taxes don't pay for programs, but they DO something important. They keep rich people from getting too rich - getting so rich that they can distort our political process.

High tax rates on top wages and wealth solve the UBI vs BI conundrum without cruel means-testing. If you're rich, you get the UBI, but you lose it at tax-time; just like you get to use the library for free, but we tax away the money you saved by not going to the bookstore.

All of this also reveals the incompleteness of cash transfers. As powerful as this experiment was, it is even more exciting when combined with Housing First (if you think finding a home in a year is a good outcome, imagine how great getting a home TOMORROW will be!).

Likewise other progressive, universal programs like a Federal Job Guarantee, which would set a TRUE minimum wage - the wage every person who wants to work is guaranteed, irrespective of whether anyone in the private sector wants their labor.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/22/jobs-guarantee/#job-guarantee

Without such a guarantee, the true minimum wage is $0 - the price your labor fetches if no one in the private sector has a job for you.

Such universal programs must be complements to social programs like direct transfers, disability benefits, etc, not replacements for them.

When the current crisis is over we're going to face a massive unemployment and homelessness crisis. The private sector won't be able to solve it. The right's version of fixing this is workfare: Build Trump's wall or starve.

We need a powerful progressive alternative: grounded in caring, universality, and repairing the Earth. Direct transfers, housing first, and a jobs guarantee are policies that work:

Need money? Here's money.

Need a home? Here's a home.

Need a job? Here's a job.

If those sound expensive to you, consider the unbearable cost of mass poverty, homlessness and unemployment.

Image: Grendelkhan https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homeless_encampment_near_I-580_onramp_in_Oakland.jpg

CC BY-SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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kyrievali · 4 years

Note

I've been reading your posts and in one of them you mentioned that Iroh in fact is very shady and Azula has every right to hate him, may you explain why?

Sure, I’ll go into it.

Let me start off by saying that I actually really like Iroh as a character. I think he’s great and well-written. I think the fandom tends to gloss over his flaws and label him as “perfect”, which is not true. One of his greatest failings (aside from making two teenage siblings fight each other for the throne...or really not intervening at all where Ozai is concerned) is his treatment of Azula, and him saying “No, she’s crazy and needs to go down” and essentially writing her off when, if you compare Azula’s personality with Season 1 Zuko, they’re really not all that different. Azula, people tend to forget, is a 14 year old girl who was as much a subject of abuse as her brother. Zuko and Azula were essentially pitted against one another to both gain Ozai’s affection and, more importantly, avoid punishment. The only difference is that she was rewarded and praised by Ozai for her power and cruelty, while Zuko was punished for his “shortcomings”. Zuko’s entire storyline proved how important it is to have a good, guiding parental figure in one’s life, and it’s tragic that Azula didn’t have that.

Now, let’s talk about why Azula probably hated her Uncle.

1. She thinks he’s a failure and, worse than that, weak

And I don’t mean weakness in terms of his firebending skills. Let me explain - Fire Nation citizens are ingrained with Nationalistic pride and complete loyalty to the Fire Lord from a very young age. Iroh, once upon a time, was the heir to the Fire Nation’s throne and the favored son of the notoriously cruel Azulon. He laid a 600 day siege against Ba Sing Se during which his son, Lu Ten, was killed. This tragic event caused him to withdraw his troops, despite having breached the outer wall.

Upon his return home, his father dies under mysterious circumstances and decrees that Ozai will be the heir to the throne. Instead of contesting it, Iroh leaves the Fire Nation and ostensibly spends his time traveling the world, meeting with the Dragons, and getting in tune with the Spirit World. Doing so gives him the knowledge and wisdom to see the error of his ways, at which point he returns to the Fire Nation and serves as a General in the army.

Let’s look at this from the perspective of Azula, or really any other citizen of the Fire Nation. Their country waged a nearly 2-year long siege against the Earth Kingdom - and right when they make progress by breaking through the first wall, the Crown Prince gives up because his son died. Countless Fire Nation lives and resources were spent on this 600 day campaign, and they end up with nothing to show for it. If you look at the philosophy of Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai, they likely would have used the death of Lu Ten to galvanize the troops and double their efforts, in an attempt to exact revenge against the Earth Kingdom for daring to spill royal blood - and so that their sacrifices thus far would not have been in vain.

And then, not only does Iroh withdraw from Ba Sing Se, he also abandons his duties and his country completely. Iroh had a reputation as a fearsome Firebender and cunning strategist - and he just leaves. So now not only is he a failure, but he’s also a deserter, one who abandons his nation while it’s reeling from a humiliating defeat and the loss of its Sovereign, Azulon (who, by the way, ruled for about 80 years).

In Azula’s eyes, all of this amounts to weakness, and as we all know from how she was raised by Ozai, weakness is unacceptable.

2. She is parroting her father’s feelings of resentment

Given that Azula was the favored child of Ozai, it’s likely that she idolized her father and thought he was superior to her uncle, the Crown Prince (for the first few years of her life, at least, Iroh WAS the Crown Prince) and should have been the true heir to Azulon. We don’t see a whole lot of Ozai or his backstory/characterization, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that he, being many years younger than Iroh (it’s never officially stated, but Ozai is around 45 at the time of the show and Iroh appears to be in his late 60’s/early 70’s) had an inferiority complex growing up, and probably some form of sibling rivalry. After all, Iroh is already an adult by the time Ozai is born, and the Crown Prince, who has been groomed from birth to be Azulon’s heir. Ozai is an afterthought; an insurance policy, who at the very moment of Lu Ten’s birth, is outranked by an infant.

Ozai probably resented Iroh his entire life, so it is not unlikely that Azula would probably feel the same way.

3. He’s a traitor to the Fire Nation

Azula is a Nationalist and Ozai’s most loyal enforcer. Iroh’s a traitor, and as far as she knows, a corrupting influence to her brother, Zuko. She also probably thinks that he’s committing treason because (she doesn’t know any better) Iroh wants to be the rightful Fire Lord, and she is not going to stand for that.

4. He reminds her of her mother

Azula is used to being the golden child - a prodigious Firebender, the favored daughter of her father, representative of everything the model Fire Nation child should be. And yet, her own mother does not appear to love her. Her Uncle has stated distaste for her. She thinks she’s doing everything right - because according to Sozin and Ozai’s philosophies and the emphasis of power and loyalty to the Fire Nation - she is; so why do two of her own family members prefer Zuko, the “screw-up” of the family - to her?

It’s clear that Azula craves the love and adoration of others, but she doesn’t really understand it. I think as she grew older and saw more of the world and how people behaved toward her, she understood on some level that she was considered a “monster” and that people were afraid of her; but that’s how she was raised. Fear was power, and power was everything. And growing up, she was only ever positively reinforced for her ruthlessness and cunning by her father (of whom she is very much afraid, by the way...that is made perfectly clear in her attempts to bring Zuko home and also give him credit for allegedly killing the Avatar. Part of it is actually probably due to some level of affection she has for him, but part of it is definitely motivated by having someone else take the heat off of her in an abusive household) and she witnessed firsthand how perceived weakness was punished - so she did everything she could to achieve the ideal of perfection that Ozai, Azulon, and Sozin had proliferated. So she probably never really understood why her own mother and Iroh didn’t like her. And the fact that they both seemed to prefer Zuko, who she’s been taught to think she’s better than, would only further that resentment.

She thinks she can earn people’s affection by being a perfect Fire Nation soldier, because that’s what works with her father - and when it doesn’t work with Ursa or Iroh, two important adult family figures in her life - she doesn’t understand why and, even worse than that, it makes her feel inferior to Zuko.

5. My final point is purely speculative, but...He didn’t do anything to directly stop Ozai’s rise to power

In the years after the war, after recovering from her mental break and maybe rehabilitating to become an advisor to Zuko (let’s be totally honest, a Nation whose entire economy for the past 100 years has been built on war and imperialization is not going to have an easy transition into peace, especially when they are expected to give up their colonies and play nice with an equally corrupt government that was controlled by the Secret Police force which has no qualms about brainwashing its own citizens...also the new Fire Lord is a banished Prince who is the apprentice of the Disgraced Prince and who returned to defeat the pride of the Nation, Princess Azula, Ozai’s Chosen Heir and the Conqueror of Ba Sing Se), Azula’s going to be pretty pissed that her supposedly wise and worldly uncle did not intervene in her megalomaniacal and abusive father’s rise to power.

If my uncle, who never liked me, lost countless Fire Nation lives and resources in a battle that ended with him retreating, abandoned the Crown to go on a sightseeing tour of the world, returned and became a traitor to the nation by foiling the Admiral’s conquest of the Northern Water Tribe resulting in the loss of more Fire Nation lives, escaped from you multiple times and went on to become a tourist and small business owner in an enemy nation, turned your brother against you, did nothing to stop his own brother whom he knew was deeply abusive even after he came back after gaining all this supposed wisdom, and THEN also left you alone with your abusive father while taking your inferior brother under his wing and helping him become an extremely powerful bender who eventually defeats you with the help of a Water Tribe peasant...yeah, I’d be pretty pissed at him, too.

To be fair, she probably never would have willingly gone with them because they were basically just sent on a wild goose chase at that point...but he never even tried to help her.

Anyway, that’s why I think Azula hates Iroh and honestly, she has every right to hate him. He abandoned her Nation and wrote her off completely, so there’s no reason she wouldn’t do the same.

#a:tla #avatar #azula #iroh #a:tla analysis #anon answers #i actually do like iroh btw #i just don't think he's perfect #and don't give me that he's perfect because he's imperfect crap #he's predominantly portrayed as wise #so when he says Azula is crazy and needs to go down #all the fans think that too #and it's sad because azula doesn't get any love #not even from her mother whoops

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algernoninwonderland · 4 years

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Marinette/Ladybug and Adrien/Chat Noir are mostly reactionary characters within their own story, which is to say that they mostly react to things that happen *at* them instead of taking more active roles from the very beginning. They are not a force for change, they maintain the status quo. And… Well, that’s only good for so many episodes?

Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing fundamentally bad with starting your show with such protagonists. They often are audience surrogates at first, being introduced to the world and all, they can only react to it. It’s the case with most early episodes in tokusatsu shows and magical girls shows. And again, it can be done really well!

Only, few of these shows, and few shows in general, spend more than 70 episodes with its lead characters being nothing but that. (Well, there’s Bleach, but Bleach got bad, and while Ichigo isn’t the only reason, he’s a pretty big one. Stuff happens at Ichigo. Ichigo reacts and he overpowers his enemy. Yay!)

By the middle of these shows, our protagonists often do stuff themselves, because they are active, well, actors, within the plot, they go after the big bad (like in Sailor Moon), actively pursue relationships of all sorts, and get better at the things they do (which is a perfect excuse to sell more toys, too, because each transformation/power up looks different enough to justify making a new toy).

And when the main characters are still trapped in that reactionary role, if somewhat decent writers are in charge, it’s often for meaningful reasons. I’m not the biggest fan of Madoka but it’s something the anime does really well, showing the flaws and dire consequences that come with being a strictly reactionary character for the most part of the show. Utena (you really thought I wouldn’t talk about this one? You fools! Everything is an excuse to talk about Utena!) does that even better (it has more time to do so, to be fair).

In Miraculous, akuma attacks happen, Ladybug and Chat Noir have to prevent things from getting ugly, or are caught in the middle of said attacks and have to act. It’s fine for ten episodes, say, twenty six if I’m feeling really charitable. Three times that is getting tiresome.

So, in the Collector, Ladybug almost catches the Villain with a capital V. Only, she’s outsmarted by that evil evil man. And never bothers trying to find whoever sends all these butterflies ever again. Because if she did, the show would have to reinvent itself. Which it kinda does, but only for episodes with little if any consequences.

If you ask me, The Collector came out way too early within the show’s structure (as if it had any) and the reason that was the case is probably that That Guy & co were afraid that the audience would lose interest in the series without the promise than something groundbreaking would happen, truly happen, and that LB and CN would do things rather than have to deal with things done to other folks/the city/whatever else.

Nothing truly happened in the Collector. Our heroes haven’t significantly grown since the first episode. Well, outside of the two Origins episodes, but that’s two episodes out of seventy-something, and they’re more of a prequel thing than anything. Stuff still happens at them in 95% of all episodes. It’s not “the adventures of LB and CN”, it’s “Kids React to yet another akuma: LB & CN edition.” Also, LB and CN get selective mind wipe to not learn anything. These characters haven’t stagnated to make a clever point, to serve an astute meta-commentary on the state of monster-of-the-week shows, Miraculous isn’t subtle, it would have made that point impossible to miss. It’s not a case of “they’re just kids” either. Do you remember Copycat? Oh, I remember Copycat. Don’t get me started on Copycat. These kids are only kids when the show demand that they do stupid things.

Could that all change? Marinette has just had a new role forced on her. Does that mean she will have to be a force for change, instead of playing damage control? I’d love to see it.

We’ve had seventy-something episodes of not-that. That’s not exactly a great track record.

Let’s politely say that I have little faith in Miraculous at this point.

#miraculous #ml #ml salt #long post #ml analysis #ml writers salt #ml writers contempt #utena #madoka #sailor moon #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #the collector #gabriel agreste

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babbushka · 3 years

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I’m confused, I was always taught that Reagan was one of the best and most progressive presidents we ever had, granted I went to a Catholic school way back when, what did Ronny do? (In a not accusatory or snippy way)

Hello my dear anon! Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to talk about this, because while I am firmly a believer that everyone can have their own political opinions, objectively, Raegan literally ruined the country through something called Raeganomics -- and that's not just an exaggeration.

Here are some of his biggest lasting legacies that make people remember him in a negative light:

Purposeful inaction on HIV/AIDs

Purposefully widened income inequality through 'trickle-down' economics

Suppression of unions

Slashing of public assistance

Excessive corporate influence on government

Explanations under the cut (with links to articles for further reading, if you're so inclined)!

Purposeful inaction on HIV/AIDs

One of the most notable things that Raegan was responsible for was his failed response to addressing the HIV/AIDs crisis. The first case was recorded in 1981, but one of the first nationally pieces of recognition, the New York Times, posting an article about it in 1982. This was when it was first called GRID, or Gay-Related Immune Deficiency. Because it was affecting primarily gay men, the general public, and the government itself, did not feel any need to stop the disease from spreading. Literally, because it was the gay disease, the overall perception was that this was God sending a cure for the country.

Raegan said and did nothing, not about the disease, or about the deaths, or about the hate crimes that were growing more and more prevalent against queer people. So despite YEARS of begging and marching and millions of people dead -- it's not until 1985 when he even publicly acknowledges the disease that had thousands of Americans dropping dead on his watch. It's not until 1987 when the administration finally forms a committee to look into trying to cull the disease. 47,000 Americans are estimated to have been affected by AIDs by then. It's not until Ryan White, a straight white young man who contracts AIDs and dies when he is only 18 in 1990, that the disease becomes a matter of importance for the rest of the country, because suddenly they understood that disease does not discriminate. HIV/AIDs is still a disease that we deal with today, with over 1.1 million people living with AIDs today in the united states.

Purposefully widened income inequality

It is no secret that associated with the Raegan administration is something called 'Raeganomics', which, while being a very complicated economic theory, ultimately boils down to establishing a "trickle-down" economy. Where, in theory, those at the very top who hold the majority of wealth in the nation, allow that wealth to move down through the middle and lower classes by either investing it or spending it in communities.

And of course, as is well evident, that just, didn't happen. The wealthiest of the nation received large tax cuts in order to hold onto their wealth to trickle down, but instead of actually spending it, they put their money into off-shore banks and then asked for more. I could get into the why's or how's of economics, but just know this -- the tax rate used to be anywhere from 71 and 94% for the highest tax bracket, money that was used to fund this nation's infrastructure, roads and schools, maintain a healthy economy, provide public services and budgets for progressive programs.

Raegan slashed it down to 28%, and in doing so widened the income inequality gap almost immediately, something that we're still seeing today. The reason why you and your family pay more money in taxes than billionaires like Bezos and Musk is directly because of Raeganomics.

Suppression of unions

The backbone of this nation has always been fought by the Unions, which are organized groups of laborers who fight for better working conditions, safer working conditions, and good pay. The reason you have a weekend is thanks to the unions. The reason why we don't have child labor is thanks to the unions. And in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, unions were an incredibly powerful part of working society, because they ensured that workers would not and could not be exploited by the CEOs who want so desperately to exploit them. Well, thanks to Raeganomics and the tax cuts, CEOs were starting to play a much larger role in the The Raegan administration, and ultimately, Raegan sided with them to effectively put measures in place that slashed the importance or power of unions.

It first started with dismantling the Air Traffic Controller's union, then followed up with slashing taxes for the elite rich who employed the union workers. Then it continued when the recession that the tax cuts caused laid off workers in the auto industry, and still declined when he appointed a "management-sided" man named Donald Dotson to chair the National Labor Relations Board.

But what really put the nail in the coffin, was his push for something called the Right To Work law, which mean that state governments have the option to not fund or support unions, removed protections for unions, and that employees do not have to join unions if they don't want to. What happened as a result, is that companies began firing employees who threatened to unionize, turning the unions from having great PR, to being a thing of fear.

This is directly related to why minimum wage has been so low for so long. Thank Raegan for that.

Slashing of public assistance

Because of the enormous tax cuts for the ultra rich, the country fell into a deep recession, and as a result many programs were cut for the poorest of the nation. Food Stamps, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, Federal guaranteed loan programs for higher education, Legal Assistance, etc., all took a big hit.

The reason your student loans are through the roof? Raegan. The reason unemployment benefits are near impossible to navigate? Raegan. Directly his fault.

Excessive corporate influence on government

I think one of the things that's very important to understand is that Raegan was a film actor before he went into politics and became president (sound like someone else we know?) and he was actually neither a Democrat nor a Republican -- he was a Libertarian. And what Libertarians do, is look at America like a business. Which is exactly what Raegan did, and exactly why his presidency fucked up our nation. He thought that the president was like the CEO, and that the people were employees, which, is fundamentally not how that works.

So it's with no surprise that he allowed SUPER-PACs to completely take over political parties in accepting money donated heavily by them to write the policies that shape this country. The reason why so many politicians, particularly Republicans, are in their seats of power is because of the millions or sometimes billions of dollars that CEOs fund them, to write the laws they want. That's entirely Raegan's fault, and at his encouragement.

So, from these 6 major things alone, we have a country that has been ravaged by disease, thrown into poverty and recession, killed the middle class, boosted the wealthy 1%, accrued enormous amounts of debt, and prevented economic mobility for anyone to hope to climb out of it. And that's not even mentioning his war on drugs and increase of mass incarceration for privatized prisons, his insane military budget leading a larger budget deficit, the Iran-Contra scandal, among many many other things.

As I said earlier, people are allowed to think he's a great president if they want, but factually, his actions (and inactions) have fundamentally and irreparably broken the economic landscape of our nation for the poor, working classes.

I encourage you to research further into this, if you so desire. There's a lot more than I mentioned here, I only picked what I thought to be the most famous of his failures as a president.

#<333 #sorry this got long he just #really fucked up so much of our country #lol #i could really continue on and on

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