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elisysd · 1 year

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Beautiful People – Ed Sheeran

Masterlist - Previously - Next Chapter

Lamborghinis and their rented Hummers The party's on, so they're headin' downtown

Leaning over his piano, Charles is playing a sad tune. It’s not uncommon to him, he likes melancholic songs. But the one he’s playing is sadder than what he is used to. He just broke up with his girlfriend. Well, more like she broke up with him. For once he is not the one who breaks a heart and he has to admit that it’s not really something he enjoys.

Sure the relationship was far from perfect and he knew from the get-go that it would not go anywhere but still. He liked Marie’s presence. He met her during his winter break, when he had nothing else to do other than take care of him, following his dietician meal plan and exercising. He had plenty of time to see his family and friends. He met Marie through mutual friends and they clicked instantly. She was nice, funny, and down to earth. But he didn’t feel any sparks. He knew that he was not going to fall in love with her. He could have broken up with her then. He knows he should have. But then preparation for the season started and he didn’t have much time for her. The 2023 season began to go downhill quickly for Charles and all his focus was on his job and helping the team improve what they could. Calls and texts began to be rarer; she had her own life too. And in the end, it was her decision to break up. She told him that she thought she could handle his lifestyle but it was a mistake. She couldn’t. She needed someone to be by her side, not halfway across the globe most of the time. And he didn’t blame her. He knew that he was a lot to handle.

It was not a dramatic break up, it was amicable. They gave each other what they had to in the 4 months they stayed together.

What was painful to Charles was the fact that this relationship forced him to be confronted to what he was fearing the most when he started his racing career. Choosing between his passion and a family life. He started to think that he would not be able to have both. And it made him sad. He wanted the picture perfect family. A wife, three kids, a dog, and the nice white picket fence. And he wanted that sooner rather than later. He didn’t want to wait until he retired to have that.

So he was doing what he loved the most after racing to get his feelings off his chest. Playing piano. Completely lost in the music he didn’t pay attention to the time. The sun was setting and it was the perfect time to go to his daily running session. Grabbing a new and clean set of running clothes he headed for the front door while not forgetting to pick up his phone and airpods on his way out.

Running along the coastline was something he deeply enjoyed. The salty air from the sea coupled with the little breeze did him good. It was during moments like these, when he was on his own, running in the streets that he knew by heart, that reminded him why he loved Monaco so much. The landscapes, the people (real Monégasques not the filthy rich foreigners who were coming to the city to benefit from the tax system more than advantageous), the weather, it was home. He had the chance to travel so much, to visit so many places and learn so many different cultures but somehow nothing could ever beat Monaco to him. He wasn’t seeing himself live anywhere else.

Soon enough it was time for him to head back. He was sweaty and his muscles were aching. He was dreaming of a good shower. Passing the entry of the apartment complex he lived in; he hesitated between the stairs or the elevator. Not long though, like a sign from fate he heard the familiar “dong” of the elevator echoing, meaning that someone had already called it. Not wanting to wait for another minute to get home he rushed to the elevator.

He was quite surprised to not recognize the person waiting. Something Charles was proud of was that he knew all the residents of his building, so he quickly made up that she must be new. Now that he was thinking about it, the apartment above him had been for rent for a while. Before announcing himself, he took a little while to detail the woman before him. Short, her hair quickly pulled up into a messy bun from which a few strands escaped, she was carrying two huge shopping bags at arm's length that looked like they weighed twice her weight. From where he was, he could clearly hear the young woman's heavy breathing, a sign that she must have hurried home, or at least that she had made a physical effort that seemed to cost her.

Not wanting to be considered as a creep, he announced himself.

“Hey, hi. Are you new here? Never seen you before around here.”

She flinched, almost spilling the contents of her bags. With an annoyed sigh she turned to Charles.

“Well yeah. I haven’t been out very much” she confessed with a wince.

First thing Charles noticed is her accent. It’s slight, almost unnoticeable but it’s there. She is not from Monaco. Second thing, the fact that she doesn’t seem to go out a lot, takes him aback. He cannot comprehend how someone could not be out all day everyday while living in here. There is so much to do and visit. The elevator’s doors opened and both of them stepped inside. Charles pressed the third floor button while she pressed the fourth, confirming to him that she is indeed his new neighbor. Something he shares with her quickly.

“Oh, so it’s you that’s disturbing my sleep early in the morning!” she joked.

He didn’t have the time to reply that the doors opened to his floor. He is a little disappointed to leave now. He would have loved to talk to her a bit more and get to know her. It’s not everyday that he met new faces in his resident, much less a new neighbor. Before the door closed to separate them, he just had enough time to say to her:

“By the way, I’m Charles.”

She didn’t have the time to tell him her name.

#fiction #writing #charles leclerc imagines #charles leclerc x female reader #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc #cl16 #cl16 x reader

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posttexasstressdisorder · 6 days

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GOP has gone rancid—and it isn't fair decent people have to keep cleaning up after them

D. Earl Stephens

April 23, 2024 5:27AM ET

People await the arrival of former U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at the Miami-Dade Country Fair and Exposition on November 6, 2022 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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I’ve heard more than enough from people identifying as Republicans to last for whatever is left of my life.

By words and actions, Republicans have proven they are not serious people, and most definitely do not love or care for our country. We have learned without any doubt during the past decade that there is no line they won’t cross, rule they won’t break, or lie they won’t tell to further their dirty causes, which have absolutely nothing to do with making America great.

They are incapable of good governance, and have settled into mob rule. The Republican-led House of Representatives is a complete and nasty joke, where members literally elbow and hiss at each other, and that is both true and terribly, terribly sad.

With help from our inept Justice Department and a bought-off Conservative Supreme Court, Republicans are making a mockery of the notion that our nation is protected by the rule of law. They know better than anybody, that this simply is not true.

They have exploited a system they have learned to eagerly spit on by refusing to allow nominations for Supreme Court Justices in some cases, while rocketing other Conservative nominees through the Senate in record time.

READ: Breaking our democracy is all part of the GOP plan

They call violent terrorists who attack our country hostages, and expect the press to keep swallowing it whole, because that’s what they do.

Cheating and underhandedness is in their DNA.

They are long past the point of no return, and will either pay for their felonious behavior, or will somehow be rewarded for it at the polls this November, in which case we are done with our Democratic experiment after 248 years.

It is now up to Democrats to once again save this nation from the sick arsonists eagerly trying to burn it to the ground, and that is helluva lot to ask, and isn’t remotely fair.

Here’s a damn truth we don’t hear near enough about: If the Democratic candidate for president was facing 91 felony counts, had been convicted of fraud, was a serial abuser of women, told a documented 30,573 lies in four years, spread a big, toxic lie about an election he lost, and praised dictators, the party and the people who support it, would drop him/her like a rock.

He or she wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d be banished to the nearest dumpster. No decent person would want to be associated with such obvious scum.

The people who vote on the Left and the Right in this country are not remotely the same, and I am way past sick and tired of hearing that they are.

Something as despicable and odious as Donald J. Trump could NEVER happen in the Democratic Party. We simply would not allow it.

That right there is an ironclad fact.

Democrats and left-leaning people are not perfect, because no person is, but we still believe in truth, decency and manners. ALL children are important in our world, which is why we believe feeding them and getting them the healthcare and the childcare they need is vital, and far more important than paying the taxes of filthy-rich, bloated billionaires. We still believe that how the United States projects itself to rest of the world and our children means something.

We love our country, warts and all.

We still believe that when we’ve made mistakes, or said stupid, hurtful things we should apologize for them, not recklessly double down like ill-bred maniacs.

We have not, and will not, surrender to the lowest form of life like Trump. It is simply not in us.

As of this writing, I am officially DONE listening to the unmitigated gall that “both sides do it” or “both parties are the same” because that’s a complete load of bullshit. It is brutally insulting to the tens of millions of people in this country who play by the rules, believe all people are created equal, and still know a damn lie, or attack on our country when they hear it and see it.

The people who populate the Left and Right in our country are wired differently, and it’s time this was said out loud, and repeatedly. It is also long past time our media reported this. Especially because they know it to be true.

In the newsrooms where I used to work, if something so obviously bad and as evil as Trump and his enablers had burst on the scene, we would have been sounding alarms and reporting on it 24/7. The man means us and our country harm. We know this because he is SHOWING US AND TELLING US THIS.

There is seldom a day that goes by without him saying or doing something revolting and egregious. The media doesn’t even bother asking his Republican followers in Congress to account for his larceny anymore. They just accept it as somehow normal when it most certainly is not and never can be.

There are two sides to the story that should be told in America right now. One is called, good, the other is called, evil.

The only reason our national press does not report on this legitimately and accurately is simply because they are pathetic cowards, plain and simple. They know they are failing, but are carrying on despicably, anyway.

I’ll always have ammo to burn addressing their egregious behavior these days, but for now, I want to continue unwinding this thread of how the Left and Right are completely different and how unfair it is that we have to deal with the never-ending recklessness on the Right.

Back in 2015, when Trump laughably announced he’d be seeking the Republican nomination for president, many prominent Republicans rightfully scoffed at the possibility. You’ll get no better example than Lindsey Graham’s evergreen tweet: “If we nominate Trump we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.” Graham went on to call Trump, “a jackass.”

The Bushes, Rubios, and other red-blooded Republicans all saw Trump for what he was: completely disgusting and ridiculous. That was before the big-mouth, lifetime loser started blasting them off the debate stage by imitating a slobbering, belligerent drunk at the end of the bar.

Instead of bouncing him from the party, they allowed him to play to the delight of the silent minority in America, who had watched him bravely fire people on his TV show, and lick his toilet seat by degrading President Obama with his putrid, racist, noxious birther blather.

These were the fine people whose tongues bled from self-censoring the bile that flowed from their broken brains, into their big, fat mouths, and had taken centuries to finally go out of taste in this country. It killed them that there were actually awful, hurtful things they could not say out loud anymore.

Now they were free to be themselves again, and let the sludge flow freely from their chapped lips.

Their freedoms had nothing to do with breaking free from any chains, or breaking glass ceilings. No, their freedoms meant having the permission from the very top to be just as disgusting and appalling as they wanted to be. It meant belittling the disabled, and dragging women into the gutter. It meant coddling Nazis and calling cities that terrified them with their sophistication, “s--t holes.”

Before we knew it Nazis and white suprematists were coming out of their caves everywhere and lighting their tiki torches. They were finally on the march to the point of no return, where their disgusting leader was waiting to tell them that he loved them.

Once you have coddled a racist, a traitor, a two-timer, a friend of our enemies, an environmental terrorist, a serial liar, and a sociopath, you are completely lost and broken. Done.

Now the mob rules the Republican Party, which makes it fitting they are represented by this two-bit thug, who is currently sitting in a court room for hiding campaign money he paid to an adult movie star he slept with named Stormy, while his wife was at home caring for a newborn.

Yeah, that’s good and wholesome and normal right there.

A few have broken free of the madman’s grip in the Republican Party, while others have tried, and have crumpled into a heap and back into the mud and slime.

In February, Trump’s very own attorney general, the morally corrupt, Bill Barr, stumbled into bravery and truth when he said that voting for Trump would be “playing Russian roulette with the country.”

By this past Wednesday he had once again devolved and said, but “I’ll support the Republican ticket” if Trump leads it.

Also in February, New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu said of Trump: “A--holes come and go. But America is here to stay.”

On Sunday, he admitted he had changed his tune and said: “Look, nobody should be shocked that the Republican governor is supporting the Republican president.”

That’s exactly right, governor: A--holes come and go, and apparently you will do everything you can to hang around for a while. You are a revolting person, sport.

Nobody should be surprised by these things anymore, because the Republican Party is irredeemable and incapable of surprises. They can ALWAYS go lower, and prove it literally every day.

This is what happens when you are morally busted and are not bound by any rules or self-control that guides the rest of us.

This is what happens when you surrender to depravity.

This is what happens when you rubber stamp abuse of women, lies, insurrection and support for dictators as anything in the vicinity of normal.

So what happens when standing by the truth and playing by the rules gets you nowhere as a political party and as a country? What happens when millions discover there is no justice and a depraved mad man once again has the keys to the kingdom?

Thanks to the Barrs and the Sununus, and the tens of millions of below-average, broken-down Republicans littering our country, we are terrifyingly close to finding out.

It is up to the Left to take out the garbage once again in America, because the Right has lost its damn mind, as well as its sense of taste and smell.

At what point can all this FINALLY be delivered as fact and shouted on Page 1?

At what point can we quit pretending that both sides are even remotely the same?

NOW READ: What most assuredly happens when Trump sits down with the New York Times

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough and on his website.

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kwisatzworld · 5 months

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MotoGP mutterings: life ‘inside the goldfish bowl’

by Mat Oxley, November 2005

It’s not easy being Valentino Rossi. Imagine: you’re trying to get on with your day-to-day job of being the world’s greatest-ever motorcycle racer and you’ve got Ferrari’s F1 bosses all over you like an expensive Italian suit and the Italian media all over you like a bad case of the pox. (And not only that, between races you’ve got to work out how to blow your annual earnings of 15 million quid.)

Rossi’s life has been out of control for years, hounded wherever he goes by a pack of media sharks, but since the Ferrari F1 rumours shifted into top gear, his life in “the goldfish bowl” (as he calls it) has gone from uncomfortable to intolerable. The bike racer who courted fame like no other and whose stardom has eclipsed all others now finds himself embroiled in a guerrilla war with several Italian journalists whom he’s banned from his media conferences for writing stuff he doesn’t like. This is dangerous territory, so is everyone’s favourite bike racer commencing his descent into paranoid megalomania or Jacko-style meltdown?

Rossi has always insisted that he understands the nature of the Faustian pact he’s made with fame and fortune. But if he’s getting upset by what he reads in the papers, he’s obviously forgotten what it means. (And if he thinks he’s got a media witch hunt on his ass he should have a chat with the great Pete Doherty.) To remind him, the Faustian deal for 21st century celebrities goes something like this: you become unimaginably rich from a new kind of global fame which beams you into hundred of millions of homes around the world, day after day, week after week. You are a product with perhaps half a billion customers who all own a little piece of you, whether they’ve bought your T-shirt, drank the beer promoted during a MotoGP ad break or smoked the cigarettes advertised on the side of your motorcycle. It’s not pretty but that’s why you’re so filthy rich. If you don’t like it, there’s a really easy way out of this particular hell hole.

Apparently Rossi fell out with those Italian journalists because they’d written stuff about his private life – revealing details of his night-time shenanigans, questioning his status as a bona fide Italian tax exile, calling his family a bunch of gypsies and so on. Not nice, but that’s the nature of 21st century media, it’s a beast, as another Italian superstar knows all too well: “When a journalist write about the positive, he write five lines,” says opera legend Pavarotti. “When he write about the negative he become a poet.”

If Rossi is to maintain his sanity he’s got to stop reading the papers, whatever they’re saying about him, he’s got to ignore the media bullshit and get on with his life. And if the media give him a hard time for shagging girls, getting drunk or whatever, fuck ‘em. He is a motorcycle racer, after all, and that’s what racers are meant to do – live fast and loose. As someone once said of Rossi’s idol, Hollywood rebel and half-tasty dirt racer Steve McQueen: “Steve loved anything with wheels or tits, probably in that order,”. No reason why Valentino should be any different...

And from now on it seems that either two wheels or four will do for Rossi. Years back he hated F1 because he reckoned it was all about money but more recently he’s been seduced, either by the Ferrari gold or by the challenge of becoming only the second man in history after gentleman John Surtees to win world titles in both bikes and cars. Either way, he’s welcome to it. F1 is a stinking world of repugnant decadence and ostentation, full of money-grabbing, tax-dodging ego-maniacs and obsessive-compulsives with small penises. (I know this for a fact because I used to go out with a girl who once shagged one of F1’s more famous bosses, who failed to impress her despite having popped a Viagra after dinner. Charming, I know, but you get my drift.)

And as for the now relentlessly asked question – will Rossi be able to rule in F1 – two observations: one, who cares, it’s cars not bikes, two, of course he will win. Even former bike racer Damon Hill managed to win the F1 world title, and, hell, I used to beat Daisy (as he was called in the rough, tough club racing paddocks of the early Eighties) when we raced Yamaha LCs around Snetterton. So it really can’t be that hard, can it?

#valentino rossi #motogp #the valentino rossi files: everything i've ever written about vr #by mat oxley #reading

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duckywuckypookiepie · 5 months

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Leaving this here as a diary/remind/note kind of thing cuz I will forget this.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes has revived my soul.

and it is with a solemn heart that I say this.... Coriolanus Snow is one fineeeee man. THG really do love their blonde men. I too, love their blonde men, and Corio is not an exception to that. I CAN FIX HIM (no I can't )

Anyways. Imagine a world where he has a girl he's been vying for a long time now however she's in a different tax bracket than him. AKA filthy rich, and she does like him, it's just poor father dearest does not approve :(

But she likes him so much, and he her, that he literally will not give up on her and promised her, in front of daddy dearest, that he'd come back with the plinth prize and a ring. And she waits for him eagerly, helping him as much as she can.

But then he cheats. The games and on her, even though technically they weren't labelled anything (except he literally said get ready, I'm coming back with a ring), and she's devastated. When he leaves for the districts, he goes to say goodbye to her and is met with a locked front door and a smug looking father. He sees her in the window of her room, looking at him as he leaves, contempt and disgust apparent on her face, and they don't see or hear from each other until half a year after he came back to the capital. Him on one knee, asking for her hand in marriage as her father looks on with satisfaction, a stark contrast to the way he regarded Coriolanus in the past. It's at this moment she realizes her position as a pretty bird about to be captured and put in a gilded cage. Except unlike Lucy Gray, her wings were clipped and she had long forgotten what it felt to fly.

TLDR: Corio to CoriolANUS cuz he a booty hole in this one.

Will indeed be writing this once winter break rolls in

#coriolanus snow #coriolanus x lucy gray #coriolanus x you #hunger games #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #hes like literally so toxic and it was rude of them to cast daddy tom blyth as him and expect me not to act up #tom blyth #blondesamirite #If I was lucy #x reader

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catindabag · 10 months

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TBOSAS AU ✨CRACK! TAKE✨: The 10th HG Mentors According to Drunk Dean Highbottom. (Part 1)

⭐️❄️⭐️

In my TBOSAS Crack!AU (Read [this] & [this] for context), Drunk!Casca Highbottom has a major problem when it comes to pronouncing people’s names right (intentionally and unintentionally). Many even accepted the fact that the Dean just gave up correcting himself after the last PTA meeting.

Moreover, most of the time, drunk Highbottom thinks that his top student, Coriolanus Snow is the 2nd coming of the ever gorgeous Crassus Xanthos Snow. And yes, Crassus was in fact Casca’s former super dead lover, drinking buddy, and karaoke pal.

In addition, the Dean hates the Plinths with a passion. However, it is not because they’re District. Casca simply hates them because according to rumors, Strabo Plinth, who was also serving in the army with Crassus Snow at that time, stole (dated) Casca’s ex boyfriend after the infamous Crasca University Breakup.

And now, Coriolanus Crassus Snow is going to marry the rich bastard Sejanus Plinth after graduation. And Casca is still swimming in DENIAL. How the odds were never in Highbottom’s favor.😭🔪

So here are our Mentors according to Drunk Delusional Dean Casca Highbottom (plus with his personal side notes and opinions about them).

Here are the other parts: [2] [3] [4]

⭐️MENTORS⭐️

Crassus Xanthos Snow (Coriolanus Snow)

I hate you, I love you, Crassus!😭🔪

You smell like roses and cabbages.

Poor AF. That’s what you get for breaking up with me!!

Is currently dating that idiot Plinth. I don’t know which one.😩😭

Obviously, you only did it for the filthy money!

Has a severe case of OCD and Paranoia.

Depressed & Obsessed AF.

War orphan who can’t pay his taxes.

Can’t even pay for therapy.

Can’t afford to buy f*ckin’ shoes.

Wears old clothes from the last century.

I want to spoil you so bad!😩

I too have money, please 🙏 marry me!

Extremely smart, but stupid.

Sucks at Physical Education.

Can and will malfunction when in a state of confusion.

Needs to pet a fluffy fat cat to avoid going batsh*t crazy.

Snow lands on top?? He’s a freaking “bottom”😏 for goodness sake.

Almost got evicted by loan sharks.

Can be easily hoodwinked into marriage.

I miss our ✨Thursday Clubbing✨!😭

Come back to me, Snow Bae!

I’m still single and waiting for you!

We’re technically still dating, right?🥺

That infamous “University Breakup” NEVER happened!!😫

CRASCA FOREVER!!

Will most likely win the Hunger Games by acting like a weak (but hot) little meow meow before poisoning everyone with Nightlock Berries.

Syllabus Plinth (Sejanus Plinth)

Ughhh!😩 Just go back to District 2 already!

You rich social climbing bastard!

Stole my gorgeous boyfriend!😡🔪

Is reckless AF.

Is wasteful AF.

Is a natural born menace to me.

The idiot heir to the largest munitions empire of Panem.

Wants to become the President of Panem for some reason?🧐

Throws bread to the dead.

No fashion sense at all.

Dr. Gaul hates him for being too nice.

His boyfriend stealing father throws money at me all the time.

Does not know what “personal space” is.

Doesn’t deserve to date my Snow Bae!

How dare you steal my boyfriend!!

I’ll crash your f*ckin’ wedding!!🤬🔪

How dare you stand where I stood!

You have daddy issues!

Peace loving?! Your family sells guns and nuclear missiles for a living!

The audacity! Give me your sandwich recipe!

Once choked my former boyfriend with gumdrops.

Will NEVER WIN the Hunger Games!!🤬🔪 I won’t allow this boyfriend stealing bastard to win anything!

Fetus Creed (Festus Creed)

A self proclaimed “Professional Dumpster Diver.”

Panem’s garbage boy.

A menace to society and the food industry.

Likes to act innocent & clueless.🙄

A natural born leader for fools.

President of the Losers Club.

King of delinquents.

Loves to steal and eat my hamburgers.

Can’t afford to buy a slice of cheesecake.

Is currently dating the cannibal.

Breaks the law everyday, all day.

Peacekeepers loathe him but can’t arrest him.

The Academy’s very own village idiot.

Your family owns the largest construction company in all of Panem, but reconstruction is still slow AF because of your very existence.

Your family members are super weird and super annoying.

Claimed to have never received the 200+ expulsion letters that I’ve personally written and sent to his parents.😫🔪

Has received at least 70+ demerits from me.

Why can’t you attend at least one f*ckin’ detention?!😡

Hangs out with cabbage boy and Plinth’s idiot heir all the time.

Needs to be expelled ASAP.

Why do you succeed and fail at the same time?!

Your ODDS are a piece of sh*t.

Will most likely win the Hunger Games through sheer DUMB LUCK.😩🔪

Listerina Listerine Vickers (Lysistrata Vickers)

Gives free hugs drugs to friends.

Does not prescribe morphling bottles for free.😭

Founder and leader of the “Snowjanus” fan club.🙄🔪

Started the “shipping” war of the century.

Very responsible, but unpredictable.

Suspicious AF.

You’re super lucky that your mommy and daddy are working under the President.

Stop using your “My parents are famous doctors” card to get out of trouble!

Biology is her forte.

Broke my expensive office aquarium on accident purpose.

Gave me weird looking vitamins as an “apology” gift.

Will stab people for medical reasons.

Knows how to manipulate the law.

Your wannabe local drug dealer doctor.

Has a neat appearance, just like her parents.

Might be the leader of an underground illegal drug company that I can’t name.

May have manufactured medicine without the President’s consent.

Is secretly a cry baby.

Hangs out with stupid garbage boys.

Girl, your so called “Miracle Pills” might be lethal and illegal.

Empathetic, I guess.

Will most likely win the Hunger Games by secretly slowly hugging drugging everyone to death.

Philip Raven’s Bill (Felix Ravinstill)

Ultimate Nepo Baby of the century.

Everyone’s favorite boy by default.

Very cool and competent.

Was given the biggest bedroom in the President’s Mansion for some reason.

President Gran Gran’s favorite grandnephew.

Is very rich, but don’t ask why.

Can win a war through the power of friendship and stupidity.

Extremely likable AF.

Must be protected at all cost.

VIP student who can’t be arrested.

Is the Class President.

If he gets hurt, we all get hurt.

I’ll be dead before you get kidnapped.

Haven’t you heard? His granduncle is the current President of Panem.

Has common sense.

Your bromantic boyfriend is a freaking kleptomaniac.

What’s with the Hello Kitty merch?!

Your family is corrupt AF.

Hates his shady & scheming relatives.

Half of your uncles are banned from entering The Academy.

Can you file a very powerful restraining order for me?🥺

Needs to work on his “begging” skills.

Might have the power to end the Hunger Games forever.

Will most likely win the Hunger Games by hiding and having a lot of sponsors to keep him alive.

Andrew Keys Under Sun (Androcles Anderson)

A wannabe reporter like his mama.

A self proclaimed “professional kleptomaniac.”

Stole my morphling bottles.😠🔪

Stole my very expensive wristwatch.

Stole my personal diary journal.

Where is my freaking wallet, Andrew Keys?!

Is straight up a criminal.

Knows how to pickpocket like a pro.

Never give him a hairpin.

I gave you an inch, you f*ckin’ ran a mile.

You’re lucky that your mama can destroy my reputation.

Stole a thousand & plus items from school.

Is maybe secretly dating the Class President.

The only reason why you haven’t been arrested by the authorities is because of your bromantic boyfriend.

Your family only got filthy rich by blackmailing powerful people.

Can break into anyone’s house without being detected.

Dammit! Why do you have natural luck?!

The odds are always in your favor!😩

Can bribe anyone with a slice of pizza.

Will most likely win the Hunger Games by literally stealing everyone’s weapons, sponsors, lovers, mothers, fathers, and of course, your life.

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riot-writing · 1 year

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Howl's Moving Castle but when the prince of the other country come back to hit on Sophie1

(i actually hashed this out with a friend so there are some comments from her too!)

+Follow up thoughts on Howl’s Moving Castle: what happens when the prince from the neighboring country shows up to try and woo Sophie away from Howl?

+After the war is over he shows up like “Hey, man, glad she broke your spell, too, happy you’re alive, know she loves you dearly, but I gotta give it a shot” and Howl is 30% “Hey I can respect that” and 70% “this is MY emotional support curse breaking kind person and You! Can’t! Have! Her!!!”

+And I think Justin (that is his canon name, sorry you had to find out this way) shows back up knowing how it’s gonna go because Sophie wouldn’t be the woman he fell in love with if she were any less devoted to Howl or wishy-washy in her convictions so he shows up knowing it's not going to happen BUT what he doesn’t know is that Sophie has a very beautiful and kind sister

+So he’s visiting Sophie and meets Lettie and maybe Lettie is actually super smart, not just beautiful like she’s always been told is what matters most. Lettie’s enrolled in university!

+But she’s paying for it on her own because her mother doesn’t support such endeavors but Lettie is Determined!

+So maybe the first time Justin meets Lettie is actually at the cafe because Sophie is showing him around because her mindset is “this man can love me but I’m damned sure going to make sure it’s as a friend” and Sophie tells him her sister is starting university in the fall. And Justin - being the polite prince he is - asks Lettie what she’ll be studying and Lettie says international trade or economics or whatever the fantasy equivalent is and Justin is surprised. Lettie is easily beautiful enough to just marry for money and be a trophy wife, but he definitely respects her decision not to take the easy way out

+So because Lettie is a prepared bitch and she’s familiarized herself with all the readings for her first class already, she and Justin have a decent if very short conversation about how trade taxes have changed since the end of the war but Lettie has to go cause girl is at work.

+So Sophie and Justin have their tea and sweets and then return to Sophie’s mom’s house with her new filthy rich husband because you KNOW the woman would demand to host at least on dinner once she realizes a prince is interested in her daughter

+So there’s a dinner party and Sophie’s mom is being her insufferable self, but Justin is used to it, and he’s really interested in continuing his conversation with Lettie, but he doesn’t get to sit close enough to her at dinner so when the dancing starts, he has his obligatory dance with Sophie - and then one with Howl because the wizard is like “why do you only pay attention to Sophie” and sulks a little - and then goes to find Lettie, who is being nice to, but also trying to brush off a few marriage prospects her mother keeps sending her way

+So Justin cuts in and it’s not like you can say no to a prince so he asks Lettie to dance and she says yes because again you don’t really say no to a prince and she’s expecting him to lay on the charm to like get in good with Sophie, but he almost immediately jumps right back into their earlier conversation about trade clauses and taxation and she’s very surprised

+X: is this intentional wooing on his part because he knows she cares about it or is he genuinely interested in her thoughts?

+Absolutely genuine.

+Anyway the rest is like Justin discovering that just because Sophie is his one true love doesn’t mean she’s his Romantic one true love and that you can love more than one person at a time in more than one way

+Lettie can be considered radically liberal if she were to voice her opinions in some specific social clubs and Justin’s country has always been right leaning so she says some stuff that leaves him reeling and he just needs to know more

+I’m not saying that Lettie romances the heir of a country into changing political parties but I’m not not saying it either

+I also thinks it’s a Legally Blonde situation - Lettie def wants to marry this man but he’s not allowed to help her with school, he isn’t allowed to just give her money, and they don’t even announce their engagement until AFTER she graduates

+Which adds a whole new level of hilarity a la keeping it from her mom cause Justin proposes 6 months before Lettie graduates and they have to keep it hush hush so her mom doesn’t go blabbing about it

#xiaq #this is a thing im doing now i guess #surprise?#howls moving castle #lettie hatter #prince justin #i hate his name too #fanfiction #fanfic #studio ghibli #my writing #answered ask #asks are open #now taking requests

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automatismoateo · 16 days

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Look at what happened this week in Arizona with the religous right prevailing and successfully lobbying to convince the legaislature to make abortion illegal It never stops and look at Trump now lying to convince pro people on the fence that he is not 100% against abortion. via /r/atheism

Look at what happened this week in Arizona with the religous right prevailing and successfully lobbying to convince the legaislature to make abortion illegal, It never stops and look at Trump now lying to convince pro people on the fence that he is not 100% against abortion. Why is the religous right imposing radical views on us? I am non religous and find it deplorable. I teeter upon calling myself an Atheist but I do not belive in religion. It’s one big fairly tale to me and each religion has a different take on things, but I do believe in being moral and not hurting anyone which to me is what the message should be. Instead the religous right has become ultra politcal and get pissed if you do not agree with them. That is why I stopped associated with MAGA and any ultra Religous person who wants to change my views and how I live. No women intentionally wants to get pregnant to terminate, but health issues or even mistakes happen and that is why it must remain legal. If one is religous then do not have an abortion, but to impose your views upon others is horrible. My view on abortion is this. If the fetus can live outside the womb, then it’s too late to abort. Women need to decide and not the Government or Evangelicals. Then you have Trump and the radical Republicans wanting to cut programs for the poor and cut taxes for the filthy rich. It’s one big mess. We need more birth control pills and condoms available, plus more funding for Planned Parenthood to minimize abortions. No one wants abortions, but there a fact of life unless the Evangelicals win and that would be a shame. What scares me is how far the religous right can go. Perhaps giving tax breaks to Christians who regularly attend church and making the Priests keep track of attendance, It will not get me to attend church ever again, but our country is now full of many crazy people with many radial right wing ideas. And these people think they are normal and criticize the left. I happen to be in the middle and share the Libertarian view. Submitted April 13, 2024 at 04:50PM by BarberSpiritual1827 (From Reddit https://ift.tt/dJLWVoF)

#reddit

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rotting-creation · 1 year

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friendly reminder that not only did communism and socialism not work, but it is also INCREDIBLY insensitive to many people in countries that are/were communist and had to ESCAPE, not emigrate but ESCAPE the country so that they had better lives.

sure, capitalism is also shit and I wish that we could live in a society where everyone was equal and no one was filthy rich.

and not the 1% btw, the one percent isnt actually fully rich. 1% of people is still in the millions to ten millions, these are usually higher middle class/working class people. for context, according to this, 0.5% of adults in the united states identify as trans, while 1.4% of young people identify as trans. And we know, as a society, that there are MILLIONS of trans people, so if trans people are only in the lower percentages, then maybe the one percent isnt as small as you'd think. The real, filthy rich people are in the 0.0001% of the population. and that number is so small it's often harder to tax. The problem is that these people earn more than the entire rest of the population.

The problem with communism and socialism? you are putting everything into the hands of the government. Communism is a dictatorship. And in most countries with dictatorships, they're not only never truly evenly spreading money, rather distributing most to a select few and leaving almost all of the rest poor; but as it's a dictatorship, most of the time (if not all) they ban things like religion - ALL religions, not just judaism, islam, sikhism, paganism or other religions, but also religions like catholicism, and all versions of christianism. not to mention homosexuality, being trans, alternative, as well as A LOT of media censorship. People in countries like that often get KILLED for saying anything against the government. Communism isn't your gay little perfect society fantasy that you want it to be, it's just as much if not even more of a dystopian hellscape.

please PLEASE look into what happens/happened in countries that are/were communist. And please, consider why so many people in these countries struggle/struggled, why so many die/died, why so many starve/starved. There is a reason it doesn't work. Be considerate of the survivors and sufferers. The people that push this want you to believe that it'd be a perfect little life, nothing ot worry about because it's what everyone wants. Everyone wants a perfect little life to enjoy. That is propaganda, do not listen. Any time someone says they have something to make society 'perfect' they are usually wrong, there will always be problems in society. We can only do our best to make these problems less prevalent, but problems can never be fully eliminated.

I am not, however, saying that we should go into a fully capitalist society either. We can also very clearly see how that's going wrong, with the lack of healthcare in the USA and things like that.

(Side note from a brit, wtf USA? everytime we hear about how you guys have it and how normal it is i just think like wtf, that's normal? like sure the NHS is being fucked over, but at least we have some form of healthcare. you guys are really living in a dystopian nightmare, not just healthcare but everything else as well.)

in my opinion, the true solution is a mix of the two, mix the parts that work to eliminate the parts that don't. Tax the mega rich more. Bezos and musk and all those people do NOT deserve as much money as they have. take those taxes and give the poor free healthcare, housing and basic necessities, better and cheaper education for everyone. Sure in these societies you'll still have the rich, but the rich will be less rich and the poor less poor. You have a more even playing field, which helps to also break the cycle of poverty. Just look a bit at germany or even the UK, yes we have our own societal problems, but the USA is just SO much worse in comparison. I am also fully willing to civilly discuss these opinions, also if anything isn't clear or you want me to go more into depth, I am also very willing to/

(side note, your opinions should ALWAYS be changing, they're formed by facts. Learning new facts should make you either just add another building block to the building, or if it doesn't really fit, maybe re-evaluate your building and find a new place for the block to go. Or just throw it in there and acknowledge that your building has it's faults and problems. You can't just chuck a block to the side and claim that your foundations are the sturdiest when they are so obsolete that they are almost crumbling to dust.)

But when you're living in a society where if you're puking your guts out, you just deal with it and hope you don't die because the hospital bills are gonna leave you in eternal debt; a country where just getting an education puts you in life debt, i'm not too surprised that people are craving radical change. That they look for any way out.

also fun fact, finland was just GIVING the homeless houses, and guess what? when people don't have to worry about their next meal, if they're gonna live through the winter, they can finally start worrying about working and build a happier and better life. SUCH a big shock /s

#communism #socialism #capitalism #social issues #tw bezos #tw musky husky boy #also remember when everyone was simping over him?#yeahhh that aged like milk #anti communism (sorta)#anti socialism (sorta)#anti capitalism (sorta)#listen i am only semi against them #i agree with many parts but also disagree with some parts #its like my gender. I mix the bits i like to cancel out the bad bits

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yellingintothedarkness · 1 year

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To me straight across the board or none at all We need to know how come out filthy rich once and for all Corrupt Pelosi and House Drop Trump's Tax Returns Resulting in One Big Nothing-Burger

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/breaking-corrupt-pelosi-house-drop-trumps-tax-returns-resulting-one-big-nothing-burger/

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god-whispers · 1 year

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nov 1

regret or repent

"have mercy upon me, O God ... blot out my transgressions ... wash me ... cleanse me ... i acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. against You, You only, have i sinned ... purge me ... wash me ... create in me a clean heart ... restore to me the joy of Your salvation." psa 51:1-12

have you really acknowledged you filthiness before God or do you instead stand justified as the pharisee did when praying? "i thank You that i am not like other men — extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector." luke 18:11 are your comparisons made to others or to God?

repentance is a type of prayer that leads to forgiveness - one that issues out of true repentance. repentance is not simply remorse, being sorry for our sin. repentance is a true change of mind, which results in a change of volition, which then results in a change of action. the rich young ruler in luke 18:18-23 went away sorrowful but he didn't repent. pilate regretted his deed, as recorded in matt 27:24, but there is no evidence he repented. judas returned the thirty pieces of silver he had received for betrayal, but he did not repent.

to find true repentance and find forgiveness, first assume responsibility, seek reconciliation, and then embrace the restoration process.

one must acknowledge what they have done and make a determined effort to turn away from such. deliverance help may be needed to help some break free. some are keenly aware of their shortcomings and sin while it may not be obvious to others. dig deep within self and find those "secrets sins" we all have, safely hidden from others but not from God. again, we are not comparing ourselves to others, but to God.

then we must seek reconciliation. to be reconciled with God often means there must first be a reconciling with someone we have wounded. we should attempt to set things right with others as God leads and permits. it may not always work out as one hopes but an honest effort and attempt must reject any guilt or condemnation. "there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." rom 8:1

finally, restoration. clean before my Lord. praise God for His patience, mercy and grace. everything we attempt to cover, God will uncover. everything we freely uncover, God will cover. "he who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy." prov 28:13 that's the power of His blood!

"for He says: 'in an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.' behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." 2 cor 6:2

i don't want anything standing between your soul and your savior when He summons us home. just be sure. be very sure. we will have to live with the consequences for a very long time. "how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" heb 2:3

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heli0s-writes · 4 years

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Eat the Rich*

Summary: You’re just a girl in a bar way above your tax bracket and Ransom really doesn’t care for what you’re wearing.

A/N: There are no spoilers for the movie. But, there IS... Smut. Dirty talk. Class warfare in the form of hate-fucking. 2.9k words of FILTH. I need to be exorcised for this. Thank you @evanstarff and @tropicalcap for sending me straight to hell.

The entire lounge seems to turn when you enter. Eyes slide back and forth your way, mid-conversation mouths dipping into low frowns. Amidst the old-money frat boys from Cambridge, Beacon Hill Barbie socialites, and Downtown business young bloods, you’re a flagrant contrast in ripped jeans and an old hoodie.

A favorite hoodie. An incendiary hoodie.

The kind of hoodie that is worn with pride around these West End parts. Even the group you arrive with tried to hackle you out of it— bachelorette party decorum, they cried, will you please take that thing off?

Your cousin might be marrying Silverspoon Asswipe and stringing herself up pretty next to all his call-girl friends, but you are a Jamaica Plain girl through and through and you will not stuff yourself into a glitzy cocktail dress before this hoodie.

She waves her hand at the hostess to distract her from your outfit, rustling the satin sash over her glossy sweetheart neckline, “Reservation under Prentiss; it was booked this morning?” And then a sharp look at you as if to say, you made the reservations, right?!

Duh. Your eyes respond when the hostess begins to lead your party back. You follow the tail end of the throng, veering off towards the bar; the miasma of Chanel perfume is enough to gag, and the cigar smoke is only a tiny bit better. Not like they’d care or even notice.

“Do you have PBR?”

The bartender stutters and before you can make him any more uncomfortable, a deep voice from beside you nips it in the bud.

Broad shoulders turn until you see his face. Amused, with a single raised eyebrow, mouth just barely tilting up at one corner. Mid-thirties and extremely well-groomed. Slicked back brown hair and classic Ray Bans hang from the collar of his sweater. Too handsome for his own good with the unmistakable swagger of someone grown up filthy rich.

“She’ll have the Glenfiddich. Neat.”

Certainly smug enough to butt in like you’re old friends.

“Will she?” You ponder defiantly at the pursed lips nestled over a strong jaw.

His own thick crystal glass is easily tipped into his mouth when he takes a too-large swig. Signet rings on two left fingers glimmer, and with a low exhale bordering a growl, he hisses through his teeth, “Yeah. I think you will.”

Bold blue eyes roam over your top and the statement printed there for a second before he scrutinizes your face. Then, purposefully—and knowing that your eyes are on him-- he looks back down to the swell of your chest.

A hum of approval before he faces forward again, only giving you his side profile.

“Wow,” you scoff, “Dick.”

The grin that splits his mouth for a second looks angelic if angels could be full-grown men with full-grown egos to match. “Close. It’s Ransom.”

Amber sloshes when the bartender returns, and you chance a sip because even your pride isn’t stupid enough to pass on a free glass of Glenfiddich.

The whiskey bites for a second before rolling smoothly down your throat. There’s an inherently superior taste to these luxury drinks, but you pull a face all the same, unwilling to give him the satisfaction. Ransom chuckles, head turning just a tad as he looks to you from the corner of his eye.

“You making a statement with that thing on, or what?”

“You’re the one making a statement with that ladies wool scarf from Drake’s.”

Ransom jerks to you fully now, attention snatched by your wit as he leans in, “Where’d you come from, little girl? Not everyone walks into Carver’s dressed in rags.”

He really is a piece of work. When you tell him your neighborhood, as expected, he snorts with disdain, but his eyes fall back on you again, highly intrigued. “There’s more to you, isn’t there? My scarf, that attitude. Someone taught you a thing or two, didn’t they?”

The single-malt mouthful is singing in your veins and if your confidence was thinking about simmering down for a second, it’s forgotten itself inside the furious swirl. The hand around your empty glass clutches just a tiny bit tighter.

“Oh, come on,” Ransom waggles two fingers for another round, “Let’s see, I’m thinking… blue-collar parents, siblings, maybe with shared rooms in your dilapidated Jamaica Plain home?” A tap of his finger to that pink bottom lip too damn pretty to be on his wretched face, he pretends to mull a thought over.

He looks you up and down, taking just enough time to where you feel violated under his gaze, “I know: Public college. Two-year community. Working a day job in Back Bay made you bitter, didn’t it? Hence, statement piece.”

“Asshole,” you snap, unraveling at the seams with rage, and the bartender quickly flits away again, “Full ride to Northeastern, four years with honors. Back Bay can’t fucking afford me.”

You don’t know how he does it, but his derisive silence incenses you even more. He couples it with a slow flick of his tongue over teeth, flagrant staring, and the piercing blue of his eyes spotlight a trail—across your shoulders, down your arm, jumping from your fingertip to your thigh, and then it dips between.

Every inch of your body prickles alive with reaction, so naturally, you spit, “Fuck you.”

Ransom’s smile grows until it nearly looks genuine, but then the sharp points of his canines sink right into your gut.

“When?”

There is something ugly and incredible simmering behind his thick curtain eyelashes. A clear ocean grows stormy, sizzling like a cruel tempest rushing to life. The yellow gaussian blur from dim scone lights suddenly cast shadows over his sharp nose.

He slaps too many bills on the polished ebony and the swish of his scarf flicks over your knee when he stands. Ransom towers over you, light pink flush of inebriation and excitement growing hotter on his sculpted cheeks. He leans in, the open flaps of his overcoat falling around your shoulder, threatening to swallow you inside all his dark.

Low timbre and dusky spice goads, “Put your money where your mouth is, scholarship; that sweater’s not all talk, is it?”

Dick!

Big hands yank the hem up over your head for a second before something changes his mind. The heavy steel door is latched twice over and he’s pushing you into it with his imposing frame. Your skull hits the metal as his knee parts your thigh, leg shoving itself up in-between until you’re on your tip-toes, with nothing to do but land on him. The heat of it rushes all the way up to the top of your head, pouring from your mouth in a choked mewl.

Ransom rucks the top over your breasts until the words scrunch up at your collarbones and you think it must bring him some masochistic satisfaction to know their unforgiving glare:

Eat the Rich

His warning chills your spine.

“I’m gonna fuck that line from your brain. Fuck it right out.”

He yanks everything south of your waist to your ankles and pulls himself free from his pants, effortlessly tearing a condom from inside his leather wallet and slipping it on. Between the time he gets your bare ass on the counter and the sound of the rubber snap, he’s already branded a purple streak onto the side of your neck and you’re embarrassingly wet.

Your breath hitches in your throat when you see his length rising from beneath his cable-knit. Bright pink and angry, and so goddamn thick it makes you whimper. Ransom smothers it with his demanding and hungry mouth, impatient at being empty, stinging with whiskey and force. He’s probably never waited on anything in his life and within a short fifteen minutes of meeting him, you know that to be true.

Not a care in the world is given as goosebumps break out all over your arms.

He spins you into the sink countertop and then the two of you are staring at each other in the mirror’s reflection. His hands return to your hips with a bruising clutch and those thick fingers begin to rub the slick between your folds all over your thighs. Fucking A-- It’s good. Idiot rich boy does have the Midas Touch.

One long leg kicks your jeans completely off, sole of his shoes stomping all over them. He’s unforgivingly large and he knows it because everything about Ransom Drysdale is a statement: his clothes, his attitude, his dick. There’s a joke in here somewhere about him being the very epitome of it, but he’s glaring at you with that pretty bottom lip stretched between perfect white teeth and maybe you can forgive the fact that he’s leaving boot marks all over your jeans and bruises in the shape of fingerprints on your back.

“Tell me,” he teases, slipping one finger in, the metal of his ring pressing up against your clit, “Tell me you’ve had it like this before.”

A slow roll of his hips against your ass, letting the weight of his cock pressed hot and tight between his body and yours. You find yourself inching higher, micro-movements attuned to his, staring but unseeing at his face, buzzing with the raw need to be clenching around more than one finger.

“Not like this, not off Glenfiddich, in Jamaica Plain…”

And without thinking, because there isn’t much to think about, you hiss, “Oh, fuck you!”

Ransom chuckles into your ear because your voice breaks just a tad and he’s going to win this fight. Claws and teeth out sharper than knives, he bites down on your shoulder and slips in another finger. The distinct sensations—soft, slippery, strokes and the sting of his teeth—are scrambling your brain.

He grips himself tight, pushes in with uncharacteristic restraint, and you’re so desperate and aching for it all you can do is push back and pray the sound you might be making isn’t loud enough for everyone in the damn place to hear.

You stifle a grunt with his next languid stroke and Ransom raises an eyebrow, “What? You suddenly shy now?”

It might be just a restroom, but it’s one of the nicest places you’ve ever been inside. Carver’s cigar room’s private single occupancy nook and he’s usurped it to screw you senseless. As if reading your thoughts, he rolls his eyes and continues, glaring at your half-lidded reflection.

“Who gives a shit?” Then, another smirk, “If you’re gonna scream, get my name right.”

Your belly is quivering from the pressure, holding yourself together as best you can before he takes you to pieces. The grooves in his rings cut into your skin. His hand squeezes your neck, fingers crawling up your chin to shove inside your mouth.

Like everything else he’s ever wanted in his life, he’ll own this, too.

And then it’s only punishment. Ransom twists your hair around one fist, other forearm pressing like an anchor on your sternum, wrist shoved through the neckline, hand splayed open and clutching your throat and it goes nearly all the way around. The reflection of your panting mouth and bouncing breasts matching his every thrust is lewd and vile and so goddamn good.

“I bet you fuck on top, don’t you, scholarship?” He releases your throat to pinch your cheeks together, tipping your head derisively, making you nod yourself stupid—awful and humiliating but it unexpectedly thrills.

“Bet you’re too proud to ask.” He makes you nod again, “Bet you want someone to fuck you open just like this—all filthy and sloppy—“

And he doesn’t have to make you agree that time, you’re already limp in expectation and your reflection, damn her, she nods.

He’s still fully dressed, coat swaying to cocoon the both of you in what is probably a hundred thousand dollars. His watch, his rings, his fucking boxers. That stupid cable knit sweater.

A yelp leaks out with your orgasm- unexpected and high and quick, like a wounded animal as you tip your head back onto his shoulder. He doesn’t stop, even for a second. Ransom thrusts deeper, and on the cusp of your second undoing, he licks an errant bead of sweat down the back of your neck.

“You got one more. Yeah, that’s right— one more— God, your pussy loves it. Squeezing me fucking good.” He’s sick. He’s sick and Jesus Christ, aren’t you, too? “Yeah. Push back on my cock. Fuck yourself with it…”

He guides your fingers to your clit with his free hand and begins to rub in motions. Your eyes flutter when he breathes into your ear, “There you go, scholarship, you’ll never get dick this good again—so go ahead and be selfish. I wanna see you all fucked out, fucked stupid, coming all over my dick.”

With two fingers sluiced with your spit, Ransom crams them up next to his cock and you can’t believe how he did it so easily but maybe you can. Yes, filthy and sloppy and never like you’ve had before. Your hands grip the counter top so tightly the tips look white and bloodless and the strained coil inside snaps clean in two.

“Fuck! Oh fuck! God!”

You slump backwards, fingertips to toes shocked tingly numb, boneless and empty of all thought, but he holds you up with ease. Ransom shushes your gasps, paws your breasts and fluttering sternum, runs his hand over your face and throat. The pinch of his fingers returns to your cheeks and he drags his other hand from inside your pussy up into to your mouth. Slick and dripping, a little rubbery from the condom, but otherwise just like yourself.

“Well, look at that. Aren’t you just…”

He pauses to view your blissful face, covered in a sheen layer of sweat, head resting on his shoulder, slanted just enough so that the tip of your nose brushes his jaw. A quick laugh, strangely knowing and a bit sweet or maybe you’re imagining it in your delirium, before he turns cold again.

“Make good on your slogan. Get on your fucking knees.”

His hand looks ridiculous, big and strong and wrapped around the best part of him, completely filthy with you smeared over his fist and you slide to your knees, forehead resting briefly on his knee. His pants have fallen around his ankles, boxers still midway, and you’re so exhausted you can hardly do much more than give him a light kiss to his inner thigh—God knows why—before you peel the rubber off.

It lands into the toilet and you obediently stick out your tongue, still panting to catch your breath as Ransom aims toward your open throat. “There you go,” he groans, fisting himself, “That’s it. Don’t let a single drop go to waste.”

And you don’t.

“So,” your old mentor asks, familiar low drawl of his voice crackling with the tone of a lifelong smoker, “What do you think?”

A hum passes through from your end as you think about all the ways Ransom Drysdale Thrombey pulled you apart and in all the ways you’ll probably think about for at least a couple of months.

“He’s exactly who you think he is.” You rock back and forth on your feet near the curb, “Disrespectful…” Scholarship, Ransom’s voice sneers, “Selfish…” Who gives a shit? “Manipulative.”

Well look at that… aren’t you just… And the glimmer of those big blue eyes half-crazed with lust and control, drinking in your reflection in the mirror, makes you clench up right there in the parking lot.

“You think he’s a killer?” Blanc asks quietly.

“I don’t know,” You reply, “Depends. He takes what he wants when he wants it… Could care less if he burns the world down with him. You divine the rest.”

Benoit Blanc’s frustrated sigh is all the response you expect him to give. This case with the Thrombeys really has gotten him all twisted up. He wouldn’t have called you for a favor if it didn’t. Of course, when he asked you to check Ransom Drysdale Thrombey out, he’ll be at Carver’s tomorrow around ten, he probably had other scenarios in mind…

“Well,” he mumbles, “Thanks again. These people sure are hell to be around. Give the new Prentisses my best, won’t you?”

You say your goodbyes and tuck your phone back into your pocket, shifting with a wince when the soreness between your legs throbs again. With a sigh into the dark autumn night, you shove your hands inside the center pouch of your hoodie, keeping your head low but still wary enough to find your Uber.

Ransom left you in the restroom about ten minutes ago, sitting on your haunches, still trying to remember how your lungs work. Right before the door shut, he had turned around and gave you one last smirk, pointing right at your top with glee. “How’d I taste, baby?”

Blanc needs to be careful, not that he isn’t— because he always is, as nutty as his brain works, he is. But Ransom is the only Thrombey you’ve met and if there are ten more of them… Blanc would do good to watch his ass and maybe get some extra help.

A jangle disrupts the quiet when you begin to play with what you’ve taken. Jagged metal edges. Heavy iconic insignia laying benignly in your palm before you tug it out.

Idiot. Good dick or not, an idiot is an idiot is an idiot— especially his kind. Didn’t even notice you slipped these right out of his coat pocket. You swing the ring around your flexed pointer in swift, angry circles, keys clanging together before your hand shuts it up.

With a hard wind of your arm back, you fling the set long into the night, satisfied when it lands behind a building some distance away.

Ransom Drysdale, you think, enthusiastic smile growing on your face as your ride pulls around the corner, have fun looking for those tonight.

Dick!

Ransom tags: @mermaidxatxheart @dumbubblegum @sapphirescrolls @gothambrat @southerncross47 @bubblegumpeeeach @fiercephantasmagoria @saliarheva @amberakawolfie

Perm tags: @whothehellisbucky @serpentbaby @badassbaker @alagalaska @cake-writes @crist1216 @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @infinity-saga @jamesbarnesthighs @pinknerdpanda @xoxabs88xox @imsoft-barnes @momc95 @typicalangel @wretchedgoddess @readeity @iwannasail @ya-lyublu-tebya @geeksareunique @wildefire @satanxklaus @jhangelface0523 @wkemeup @ixcantxdecidexwhosxmyxfave

#knives out #ransom thrombey #ransom drysdale #ransom x reader #smut #fanfiction #reader insert #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale thrombey #ransom x you #eat the rich heli0s

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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I was hoping you would be able to help me form a response when my family says they're sick of hearing of systemic racism and white privilege because THEY have had to work for everything and believe nothing got handed to them (true in the way they're thinking, but you know what I mean).

Welp. First, I applaud you for taking the initiative to engage in difficult conversations with your family, since the only way embedded racist ideas are going to get confronted in white society is if racist white people hear it from their friends and family. They are going to cheerily ignore protestors, academics, newsreaders, popular culture, and certainly politicians who say anything to the contrary, but it’s harder to ignore and brush aside when it’s coming from people who are directly within your own family group. They can still then ignore it, but at least you’re trying to do something that is not at all fun but which is deeply necessary, and good for you.

First, there are a few things for you to consider. Is this a case where they actually don’t know the difference, but are willing to learn, or is this essentially sealioning (where they act like they don’t know the difference, but they absolutely do, and put the emotional labor on you to extensively define and explain and educate while never intending to change their stances on anything). If it’s the former, then there is some point in engaging in dialogue with them. If it’s the latter, it’s a giant emotional trap that you are within your rights not to engage with until they signal that they’re willing to engage productively. You don’t have to educate someone who is categorically unwilling to be educated (especially when it’s often deliberate ignorance). As people like to say, Google is free, and it’s their responsibility to take the first steps to change. You can continue to talk with them, but yes, that is contingent on them actually standing a chance of listening to you and not just you wearing yourself out on something that they don’t want to actually hear (because it threatens them and makes them feel Personally Wrong, and white people don’t like that).

There have been various books written on why it’s so hard to talk to white people about racism, which you may be interested in checking out, not least the book "Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” by Renni Eddo-Lodge. Ibram X. Kendi has also written “How to Be An Antiracist,” one of the bestselling books of this summer, either of which would be useful either in shaping your own arguments or (if they’re receptive) giving to your family. Once again, this is contingent on them signalling that they’re actually willing to listen, and not just to make you do pointless emotional labor. These books are probably available from your public library (though there’s probably a waitlist) or in other easily available formats.

Next, it’s a basic tenet of an anti-racist education that white people have never had to do this kind of reckoning, and thus get whiny, defensive, guilt-tripping, and “it’s not about ME I’m a GOOD PERSON” when it comes up. This also rests on the damaging and deeply intertwined effects of racism and classism, which has to be understood if you’re going to talk about it. One of the greatest tricks that racist capitalism ever pulled is convincing poor white people that they had more in common with their filthy rich white masters (people whose way of life will never in a thousand years be anything like each other’s) simply because they shared the inherent racial “purity” of being white. There have been political studies written on how poor/undereducated/working class white people have become such a reliably Republican constituency, because they have been successfully manipulated to believe that the white overlords are their “people” and they will constantly vote against their own economic, social, and cultural interests in favor of enriching amoral white demagogues who beat the populist xenophobic drum. Then they blame black and brown people for society’s ills and for the reason that they stay poor, rather than the rampaging oligarchs awarding themselves massive tax breaks and billion-dollar bailouts and refusing to extend unemployment benefits in case people “make too much money” from not working, just to name the most recent example. They are so poisoned on populist politics and white supremacy, which assures them that they’re better than anyone else by virtue of being white, that they actively attack politicians and policy platforms and other social welfare initiatives that would materially improve their own lives as “un-American.” This is maddening and sometimes baffling, but it’s how it works. Whiteness trumps all, currently literally thanks to the Orange Fuhrer. Problems in life are the fault of the Other.

This isn’t to say that poor white people are “dumb” and just unable to realize it, because they’re caught in a system that has done this literally from the start of America. In the early 17th century, indentured laborers and slaves in the American colonies were in fact more likely to be white. (The word “slave” comes from “Slav,” since that was the predominant ethnicity of slaves in medieval Europe; i.e. white eastern Europeans.) But even despite the fact that they were unpaid laborers, they were still white and thus recognized as human by their white masters, and thus when slave ships began arriving, it was easier for everybody to simply outright demonize and dehumanize the black African slaves. The poor white indentured servants got to feel better than the black slaves simply for the fact of their whiteness. Their lives obviously sucked, but their whiteness was in fact a mitigating factor in the suckiness that it involved once it was easier to use “animalistic” black people. And we wonder why America can’t ever confront its racist history properly. As Kendi calls it in his other book, it is stamped from the beginning.

As it has been put before, white people can and often do have difficult lives, because late-stage capitalism devours its workers no matter what color they are, but their whiteness isn’t a factor in why their lives are difficult. They will never encounter racial prejudice, race-based hate crime, discrimination for housing, education, employment, bank loans, daily microaggressions and identity erasure, constantly racist tropes in the media, politicians fingering them as everything wrong with America/the world, casual prejudices or assumptions even from close friends, assumed criminality based just on their race -- etc etc. The list goes on and on. Just because you have a hardscrabble economic background does not mean that your life has been made harder by your race -- because if you’re white, it hasn’t. (And as noted, poor white people have consistently voted for megalomaniac white men who don’t give a shit about them but promise them that everything is fine or should be better for them because of their whiteness, and then blame minorities for being the source of their problems.)

I honestly wonder if racism would still be such a problem in America if we had a remotely more equitable economic system, because when you’re well off and have your basic needs consistently met and don’t need to worry that you’re one paycheck away from disaster, it’s harder to constantly be paranoid that your differently colored neighbors are stealing everything from you and the cause of all society’s ills. The historian Patrick Hyder Patterson wrote a very interesting book on material culture in Yugoslavia in the 20th century, where he basically argued that despite the spectacular collapse of the federation into the Yugoslavian wars of the 90s, things didn’t really go to hell until after the economy crashed following Josip Broz Tito’s death in 1980. While there were obviously ethnic fault lines and conflicts between Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Albanians, etc, when there wasn’t any money and any jobs and everyone thought everyone else was to blame, THAT is when the whole thing blew up into a genocidal civil war clusterfuck. Food for thought.

This is why people talk about economic justice and racial justice as going hand in hand. When there is a scarcity of resources and no social safety net, people are obviously more inclined to look for scapegoats and to blame someone for taking their entitlement (while still somehow refusing to blame the billionaires and corporate oligarch who are ACTUALLY stealing from them). They indeed actively resist any attempts to make their own lives better as being “socialist” or “un-American” and take pride in the fact that there’s absolutely jacksquat nothing (until of course, something like the coronavirus pandemic hits and it’s revealed just how many of us were always one missed paycheck away from disaster). Then when they need government assistance (while disdaining the government as tyrannical the rest of the time, unless it’s Trump’s actively tyrannical lot, but hey, we don’t have time to unpack all that) it’s still shameful and something they shouldn’t be using, instead of their basic entitlement to a decent life.

This country is poisoned on a lot of toxic beliefs, but this is one of the deepest-running one, and which will always get in the way of poor white people dealing with racism: their lives suck, but they have ALWAYS been told that despite that, they’re still better just for being white, which is their consolation prize for supporting white populists who actively rob them, and they haven’t even always consciously registered that. They just feel that if they’re “fine,” even if they’re not fine, then black people are just malcontents and criminals who can’t hack it. In 2016, there was a lot of ink spilled over how poor white people felt a sense of economic grievance and being left behind, which was why they voted for Trump, but... Trump was never going to do a damn thing about that??? He doesn’t actually do anything for his supporters except feed them his jingoistic Orange Nazi stump speeches. They voted for Trump to feel vindicated, not to actually improve their lives, and it’s damn clear by now that not only has he NOT improved their lives, he has no desire to do so. He just wants them to cheer for him and feed his ego, not fix any problems.

Basically, racism and capitalism and the American political system intersect in multiple deeply toxic ways to do precisely what you’re talking about; producing poor white people who feel that they shouldn’t be included in the reckoning with racism because if THEY worked hard and they don’t live in a mansion, somehow racism is fake and black people should just shut up and get a job etc etc. This is because poor white people have been systematically conditioned to support white supremacy at the direct expense of their own economic and social interests; it’s terrible, but that’s how it functions. They will never in a million years have anything in common with the (white) ruling class, but they still instinctively identify with them rather than people in their own deprived economic class who are different races or colors or religions. That is how white supremacy has supported the hyper-inequality of the industrial age, and vice verse, and it is one of capitalism’s best functions for survival, so it’s in the interests of the overlords to maintain it. Stop the workers from recognizing pan-racial solidarity based on economic grievance, and compete with each other and blame each other rather than the overarching system, easy!

Anyway. Once again, this is long. But in short, the attitudes your family are exemplifying are a direct result of both racism and classism as they have been deliberately cultivated in the American social and political system, and the interlocking causes and symptoms of both have to be recognized (and acknowledged) before they can get to dealing with that. I don’t know how that will go, and I don’t have an easy shortcut. But I’m glad you’re trying. Good luck.

#politics for ts #history of racism #long post #anonymous #ask

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odinsblog · 4 years

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Andrew Cuomo is NOT Your Friend

(by Akash Metha)

The message is clear. #PresidentCuomo, as a trending hashtag dubbed him, will give you the real facts where President Trump gives ‘alternative” ones; is even-keeled and trustworthy where Trump is mercurial and self-interested; knows what he’s talking about where Trump spouts misinformation and lies.

It’s an effective public relations campaign — so effective that you could almost forget that this is Andrew Cuomo we’re talking about.

The man who summarily disbanded the corruption commission he’d ran on creating when it began to investigate his allies. The man who made a host of videotaped promises in exchange for the Working Families Party’s endorsement only to turn around and break them all. The man who secretly worked for years to ensure Republican control of the State Senate, protecting himself from the flak that would come with having to veto progressive legislation.

And lest you thought he had turned a new leaf, Governor 1 percent is insisting on taking an ax to the state Medicaid budget even at the cost of $6.7 billion in emergency federal aid — and lying about it. In the most unequal state in the nation, he is fighting to protect the rich and impose austerity on everyone else. Make no mistake: even in a pandemic, Andrew Cuomo is not your friend.

When asked how average New Yorkers can be expected to make rent amid coronavirus’s economic devastation, Cuomo claims he “took care of the rent issue” — but he ignores rent-cancellation legislation that is currently supported by dozens of legislators. He uses the pandemic as cover to roll back last year’s bail reform laws that have reduced the state’s prison population by thousands. He not only uses $2/hour prison labor to rebottle hand sanitizer, but also refuses to release elderly and sick inmates from filthy, crowded jails like Rikers Island.

And perhaps most scandalously of all, he continues to push to meet a budget shortfall by enacting deep Medicaid cuts rather than passing wildly popular tax increases on the 0.01 percent — even though this would require him to turn down billions in federal coronavirus aid to the state.

Last week, even as New York became a global epicenter of the pandemic, Cuomo’s “Medicaid Redesign Team” (MRT) released its proposals to cut $2.5 billion from the state Medicaid budget, including $400 million to hospitals as they battle coronavirus in the next year. Cuomo justifies the cuts as reining in out-of-control Medicaid spending. But as Roosevelt Institute fellows J.W. Mason and Naomi Zwede note, Medicaid spending is already under control; it’s been rising at the same rate as New York’s economy as a whole.

(continue reading)

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angryhausfrau-writes · 3 years

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I Travel Troubled Oceans: Chapter 13 - In Which Charles Vane Wanders Towards Domesticity Via Bareknuckle Boxing And Jack Feels Feelings

Charles has been... not ignoring Jack – he's never cold or brusque – brusquer than usual, anyway. But he is giving Jack space that he's never really given him before. Space that they've never really had, living in doorless squalid squats always in arms reach of each other and often closer. But it's fairly easy to stay out of each other's way in a house this big.

And Jack has been exerting plenty of effort to stay out of Charles's way. Unfortunately, Charles has noticed – how could he not, when Jack routinely followed him like a particularly persistent shadow. And damn Anne for pointing that fact out, for now Jack can't help but acknowledge the truth of his long infatuation – there, that's a good word for it – infatuation, not crush, no matter what Anne says.

Anyway, Jack's is pretty sure Charles thinks he's is mad at him when in fact the problem is that entirely the opposite is true – Jack is lovestruck and giddy in Charles's mere presence. Practically doodling little hearts with his and Charles's names written inside them in pink glitter gel pen like it's still the nineties and he's just discovered the magic of perfectly coiffed boy bands. Which Chaz would tease Jack mercilessly about if he ever found out – tease him for both his teenage taste in music and for his feelings for Charles.

So Jack has continued to cloister himself in his workroom with Christine to work on his next fashion show. An activity that isn't quite as much of a safe harbor after the conversation Anne had with her. Something about managing Jack when he gets in a “mood” - as if Jack has moods! And if he does, as a rich eccentric creative genius type person, he's more than entitled to whatever moods he cares to have. So there!

Charles has been out of the house more often than not over the past few weeks. Partly because Jack's been holed up with Christine, putting together another fashion show. And every time Charles has tried to butt in – to remind Jack to eat something, damn it, or to just take a break – he's been very summarily excused by Jack. And ok fine Jack's in a tizzy, what else is new? But it's not like he really wants to be around for that shit.

And. And. And he's got that itch under his skin that means he needs either a fight or a fuck.

Fucking's off the table, cuz he's Jack's pretend boyfriend and they're supposed to be monogamous. Not that he couldn't find someone reasonably discrete and reasonably removed from the world they're moving in now. The world of rich marks who think a night of slumming it means going to clubs that only have twenty pound cocktails on the menu rather than fifty. So he could find someone who'd never have a chance of encountering one of the rick fucks who'd know him as Jack's boy toy and not as a scourge of the streets.

Hell, he could go find a lower class prostitute who doesn't give half a fuck about anything about him other than that he's got cash to pay for their services. Christine may even have been amenable before Jack had driven her crazy with all his ridiculous demands. But he had and now she flees the house at the end of every day, desperate to be away from his shit. Or maybe she's got something to rush too, rather than away from – Charles doesn't know or really care to. Regardless, that's that plan scuppered.

Of course, there's always other fish in the sea. Or corner boys and girls looking for a John. Christine is just the most available. But there's another reason he doesn't go seek someone else out – another prostitute or even just someone looking for a casual fuck after a long day of being a boring corporate drone.

It's because Charles knows now, after months of collecting information and blackmail on various rich shitstains, just how far some of them are willing to go to see their enemies brought low. Hell, Flint's boyfriend – or husband or whatever their actual relationship is with one another – Thomas Hamilton's own father had him exiled. Left him homeless and destitute and unacknowledged simply because his relationship with Flint might someday be a liability to his business.

All the so-called civilized motherfuckers are so ready to toss aside anyone they think of as lesser and then climb the pile of corpses to even more wealth and power. And Charles refuses to hand any one of those sorry fucks any leverage against him or Jack or any one of their crew. Refuses to see their plans, everything they've worked for, thrown away for a quick fuck.

So Charles keeps himself company. And starts looking for a fight.

He's not so far separated from his days on the streets that he doesn't still remember how to find the underground bare knuckle boxing ring that floats through London's abandoned warehouses and highrises. The place where all the flotsam and jetsam of the criminal underbelly congregate to see a little blood spilt. Or to spill it.

And Charles is not so far separated from his days on the streets that the guy watching the door – some big hulking bearded fucker who dwarfs Charles – doesn't gape and stare but still let him in. In to the derelict parking garage that was meant to serve a set of luxury condominiums that were never built and so the land remained solely as a tax dodge for an absentee landlord to launder his actual business's shady money through.

Charles descends into the dank depths of the service corridors underneath the garage. And he stands face to face with a ghost.

Some fucking idiot, with more money than taste – not that Charles himself is a paragon of that, but some of Jack's obsessive rants about good design sense had to have rubbed off on him – some stupid fuck has installed a huge black door, mirror shiny, at the entrance to the illegal fighting ring. And it reflects his face from endless murky depths.

He looks like a dead man.

He looks like he did before. Before prison and before Jack taking over the crew and before Max and before playing pretend. Before dressing like a rich fuck almost too stupid and self obsessed to notice anything beyond his own reflection in the mirror.

He looks strong. He looks casually cruel – looks like a man whose only goal is to gather strength about himself and to crush out weakness. He looks ready to spill blood and have his own spilled.

Charles pushes open the stupid, ugly, ostentatious door.

His reflection may not look changed, but everyone there, all the hard fuckers, all the street trash, they know what happened to him. They know where he's been and what – who – he's been doing. So he gets a lot of shit on first walking in, shit for being a poof and a dandy. For moving out of the streets and into a house – a big posh house and not a crumbling council estate. But mostly he takes shit for him and Jack being bum buddies.

Cuz news like that's always going to travel right down to the lightless, scummy depths of the lowest places in London. Especially when it's about someone like him. Someone strong, since they see that as a weakness. Someone masculine, since they see that as inherently emasculating.

No one had been surprised about Jack swinging both ways, for instance. He looks like a poof and acts like a poof, no big mystery there. And him so unapologetically larger than life like he is, it's not like he kept it quiet. Although the street's acceptance of him might have had something to do with Anne always lurking at his shoulder, ready to slit an adversary's throat before they even knew it had been cut. And with Charles too backing Jack when he'd been in charge of the crew, making it known that if anyone fucked with him they'd have Charles Vane to deal with.

Charles himself, though. That is a surprise. One that ripples around the ring of fighters like the wave that pulls back before a tsunami is unleashed.

Charles steps into the center of the ring. A dare. A challenge.

And once he's knocked a few dozen heads together, knocks a few dozen teeth in. Once he's standing bloody and bruised but unbowed, with his vanquished enemies at his feet. Well, they all leave it alone after that.

Cuz he's still Charles fucking Vane.

And he feels that more clearly here than in the posh streets of Camden or the West End they now frequent. Feels it in the brutality of the fight for his place here, his life. Feels it in the friendlier sparring that replaces it once he's proved he's worthy to stand among them – sparring no less brutal than his earlier fights, but much more full of camaraderie and less full of a genuine desire to kill one another. And it's nice to feel like his old self, to know he's still him even after everything that's changed.

But that doesn't mean it's not nice to go home at the end of the night, bruised and bloody and with his blood finally cooled and settled under his skin. Nice to emerge from the dank underground into the grey miserable filthy dawn of London streets and know he's got a home to go to.

Jack... Well, he's not waiting up for Charles, because that would imply that he's anxious about where he's gone. And Charles is a grown man, more than capable of going wherever he'd like at whatever hour he'd like.

But he may admit to waking up a bit earlier than usual and, when he passes by Charles's room and finds his bed empty and unslept in, drinking his morning coffee in the sitting room that faces the street so that he can see Charles first thing when he arrives.

Not to be a nag or a mother hen or anything. But simply because he finds he's rather missed having Charles around – barging into his space and interrupting his work and generally making a nuisance of himself. And it's Jack's own fault Charles has started going out more. It's Jack who's been driving him away. But Jack misses him.

And Jack's going to nut up and tell Charles he's missed him. Because he doesn't want to keep going on this way. And his feelings aren't Charles's problem and Jack never should have made them be.

So he's going to fix this, he is...

And then he sees Charles coming up the street. At first, Jack thinks he's just drunk – or fucked up. He's moving a little strangely, like his legs won't quite carry him in a straight line. But as Charles gets closer, Jack can see that he's dead sober – and that he's been beaten to a pulp. His hair is stuck to his face with blood from the cut on his forehead and he's got one hell of a bruise blooming on his cheek and his knuckles are split all to hell.

He looks wrecked. He looks almost as bad as he had after he'd killed Albinus.

Jack runs out to him, where he's standing looking lost and alone out on the pavement.

Charles smiles at Jack as he approaches - Jack who must make a ridiculous figure, rushing outside in nothing but a silk robe and fuzzy slippers - and his teeth are stained red with blood and the smile is really more of a baring of teeth.

“Chaz.” And there Jack stops, because he's really not certain how to go on.

“Jack.” And Charles's voice is steady, even if his footsteps aren't.

Jack places an arm under Charles's and helps him towards the house, towards the hanging open front door and the warmth and safety beyond. “Charles, what the fuck happened?”

Charles slumps against the hallway wall while Jack turns to close the door. “Got in a fight.” And he's grinning up at Jack, looking absolutely fucking unrepentant.

Jack throws his hands up in exasperation. “Really Chaz? You got in a fight? I never would have guessed.”

Charles's grin just gets even more smug.

“Who, pray tell, were you fighting? And why?”

Charles moves further into the house, to the hallway bathroom, where he starts dabbing at his cuts with a delicate hand towel. And yeah, that stain's probably never coming out. But it wasn't his decision to buy white towels, Jack. “Just some street toughs. And as for why...” He shrugs. “Sometimes a man just wants a fight. You know how it is.”

Jack certainly does not know how it is. He's always had the philosophy that fights are to be avoided at all costs – he would never seek out a, a recreational skirmish.

And Charles seems to realize that, because he turns away from Jack and begins dabbing in earnest at the cut on his forehead with a now dampened – and frighteningly bloody - hand towel.

Jack purses his lips but squeezes into the bathroom alongside him. “Here, Charles. You'd better let me do that.”

#black sails #charles vane/jack rackham #anne bonny/max #i travel troubled oceans #chapter 13

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seashellsoldier · 3 years

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“A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear” by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling

This is undoubtedly the most entertaining book I’ve read in years. Not that libertarianism isn’t hilarious on its own ridiculous footing, but every attempt at some microcosmic utopia fails miserably. Free Town probably earns second prize in crackpot ideas though, just behind Jonestown. “Get yer gov’ment out of my taxes!” “Get yer gov’ment out of my Medicare!” “Get yer gov’ment out of my unemployment insurance . . . those COVID relief checks . . . my potable water . . . the electrical grid . . . fire departments and hospitals and community centers . . . school systems and healthcare and libraries . . . game wardens . . . and bridges . . . and roads . . . and dams . . . and get yer g’damned gov’ment out of my guns, Guns, GUNS!!!!” (To libertarians, it seems, everything can be resolved with guns.)

“The creation of America’s first Free Town was so ambitious in scope that it seemed doomed from the start, and indeed, almost every such population-level social experiment in history has failed spectacularly. Most efforts at planned communities involve artificially populating an uninhabited place, like a stretch of desert or an island—as in 1972, when a Nevada millionaire and his libertarian friends declared independent ownership of an island off the coast of New Zealand (a claim that was promptly quashed by the New Zealand military).

The building of utopias is limited by the rarity of visionaries with deep pockets. Building a new community from scratch requires millions or billions of dollars to create an infrastructure and overcome the challenges preventing people from living there in the first place. Henry Ford, whose assembly line kick-started the automobile revolution, learned this the hard way when his planned Amazonian utopia, Fordlandia, succumbed in the 1930s to the threats of rainforest blight, cultural clashes, and an unhelpful Brazilian government.

The four libertarians who came to New Hampshire had thinner wallets than Ford and other would-be utopians, but they had a new angle they believed would help them move the Free Town Project out of the realm of marijuana-hazed reveries and into reality.

Instead of building from scratch, they would harness the power and infrastructure of an existing town—just as a rabies parasite can co-opt the brain of a much larger organism and force it to work against its own interests, the libertarians planned to apply just a bit of pressure in such a way that an entire town could be steered toward liberty” (p. 48).

New Hampshire really is a microcosm of Caucasian America’s problems, fueled by Ayn Rand’s Galt’s Gulch rose-filtered parable, and the Free Town Project a fringe of that, with Free Town having a fringe of their fringe, and a fringe of that fringe’s fringe on downward into those who wet-dream of 1790s’ live-off-the-land pioneering colonialism.

“For Grafton’s Free Towners, Rand’s vision of a market-driven society was what kept them privatizing and deregulating everything they could. For seven long years, they joined thrift-minded allies in issuing vociferous challenges to every rule and tax dollar is sight; one by one, expenditures were flayed from the municipal budget, bits of services peeled away like so much flesh”</i> (p. 125). The results are predictably ruinous. Infrastructure fell apart; crime went up; disputes, blame, and tribalism poured from social media feeds into the streets; and all the while, the bears foraged throughout. <i>“What seemed clear was this: in a town that refused to allow the government to protect it from bears, vigilantism seemed the only option. Just as libertarians wanted, it was every man, woman, and bear for themselves” (p. 234).

BBQ BEER FREEDOM

From Ruby Ridge to the Capital Hill insurrection, ignorant flag-waving yokels have screamed for their moronic “freedom” from the chains of civic responsibility, the duties of citizenship, and simple Christian moral accountability. “Freedom. Freedom! To the obedience-averse libertarians, the clarion call was—ironically—irresistible, a liberation-tinted tractor beam that drew them deep into Grafton’s wilds.

Those who moved to Grafton under the banner of the Free Town Project between 2004 and 2009 were free radicals, unbounded to existing living situations, because they had either too much money or not enough” (p. 78). It’s better to watch your neighbor’s house burn down than fund a local fire department.

Now of course if governments big and small managed their budgets better, libertarian-bashing would be an easier argument, Charles Koch, Roger Stone, Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump and their ilk be damned. It’s almost impossible to count how many hundreds of billions—maybe even trillions—of dollars get wasted every year, from healthcare to the military, grift and graft, bridges to nowhere, etc., food and electricity and potable water, subsidies for monolithic industries year after year and decade after decade, and tax breaks/shelters/loopholes for the filthy rich and their corporations, while our physical and human infrastructure continues to suffer and degrade year after year and decade after decade. Our plutocratic priorities are backwards (unless you’re a plutocrat), and finding an unbiased assessment of waste in the US, for me, is challenging. Ugh, I digress.

This really is a funny book; I laughed out loud often at the author’s wit and sarcasm. Hongoltz-Hetling’s literary voice harkens back to the glory days of A Prairie Home Companion, and this cast of characters fits perfectly into the good-natured buffoonery of such backwoods stage-play. These aren’t your Nazi-saluting gym rats cosplaying Call of Duty soldiers with their American flag capes and InfoWars codpieces. These are “rugged men” (and some women) who languish (not unlike Ted Kaczynski) in the woodland fortresses of their own Fantasyland, armed to the hilt and proud of it, and they have apparently been infecting the entire state with their wingnuttery. If New Hampshire tries to “secede from the Union”, I say let ‘em. “From my cold, dead hand!”

(shrug) “OK.”

The bears, of course, have a serious role too, and Hongoltz-Hetling gives them pleasant prominence. Patrick Blanchfield reviewed this book for The New Republic as well, highlighting the problems of New Hampshire overall (https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project): “The bear problem, in other words, is much bigger than individual libertarian cranks refusing to secure their garbage. It is a problem born of years of neglect and mismanagement by legislators, and, arguably, indifference from New Hampshire taxpayers in general, who have proved reluctant to step up and allocate resources to Fish and Game, even as the agency’s traditional source of funding—income from hunting licenses—has dwindled. Exceptions like Doughnut Lady aside, no one wants bears in </i>their<i> backyard, but apparently no one wants to invest sustainably in institutions doing the unglamorous work to keep them out either. Whether such indifference and complacency gets laundered into rhetoric of fiscal prudence, half-baked environmentalism, or individual responsibility, the end result is the same: The bears abide—and multiply.”

Another imploding social experiment, but it will surely not be the last. “I have no doubt that Grafton will make the news again, in some wild, unpredictable way. The soil there may be rocky, but it’s fertile ground for dreams, and humans will always be drawn to places where they can slip off the radar of communal oversight and nurture their own private worlds” (p. 316). This nation as a whole needs serious course-correction, and such Petri dishes like the Free Town Project show symptoms of a sick society desperately grasping for alternatives. The fabric is frayed, fraying further, possibly deteriorating for certain circles, and I wonder if it can ever be sewn into the beautiful tapestry it could possibly be.

#libertarianism is moronic

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