#them and their 10 billion ship names | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

terapsina · 8 months

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Now that the writers and actors strike is about to begin being felt (and as we wait for those greedy billion dollar companies who are refusing to negotiate fair pay and conditions to give up) here's 10 of my favorite (all around best) fully finished older series you should definitely check out if you haven't watched.

I mean it, these are the shows with continuously great writing and a satisfying endings that manage to actually deliver on their promises.

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1. Leverage - (containing 5 seasons, or 77 episodes) - trailer here.

Hitter, Hacker, Grifter, Thief and Mastermind. Heists and cons. Stealing from the rich and giving to their victims. They provide... leverage.

Meant for anyone who enjoys bad guys being the best good guys, who will burn down the lives of evil CEOs and then gloat in the background. Very satisfying.

Hands down the best example of a found family trope I've ever seen on screen. Barring none.

2. Killjoys - (containing 5 seasons, or 50 episodes) - trailer here.

Space Bounty Hunters. Another case of found family trope. Bisexual space princess assassin. Quippy sentient ship. Green alien goo. Evil lesbians (but like... in a good way). The warrant is all.

More seriously though, it's a story about three killjoys and the bounties they go after. Initially. And then they have to save the entire Quad from some very terrifying... stuff.

Contains one of the best friendships I've ever seen on television.

3. Orphan Black - (containing 5 seasons, or 50 episodes) - trailer here.

Found family trope but with clones.

Low level grifter sees a woman who looks exactly like her kill herself and plans to take over her identity long enough to cash out. Except then there's two other women who also look exactly like her. And apparently they're all clones and someone's killing them.

Enter a global conspiracy. Human experimentation. Lots of clone shenanigans. Some serial killings. And a few murders 💖.

4. Person of Interest - (containing 5 seasons, or 103 episodes) - trailer here.

Okay I'm beginning to see how I might have a found family trope issue.

Former CIA agent gets recruited by a reclusive billionaire computer programmer who developed a... machine that can predict acts of terror before they happen. But it also predicts 'irrelevant' acts of violence that will result in someone's death.

Unless someone interferes.

I'd really like to spoil some stuff to get you all to watch this one. But I'm going to maintain self control and just mention that early on they get a dog named Bear. Bear is a very good boy. Watch it for Bear.

Also for excellent commentary on rights of privacy, government surveillance and what does 'greater good' even mean? But mostly Bear.

5. 12 Monkeys - (containing 4 seasons, or 47 episodes) - trailer here.

The very best time travel show out there. What starts out as a confusing mess of causality basically exploding, by the end of the series all makes complete and total sense.

(when that final timey-whimey loop slid into place and revealed the entire pattern it was like a choir of angels started singing in the back of my head. It was freaking glorious).

Anyway, a man from a post apocalyptic future travels into the past to stop a plague from decimating nearly the entire world population.

He has the name of the man who released the virus and it's supposed to be a single trip. One trip. One bullet. Simple. Done.

Except then things keep escalating, and escalating until time begins eating its own tail and it might start looking like the end of the world might be a better ending than erasing all of time and space from reality.

Because when our guys screw it up, they screw it up GOOD.

And oh yeah... found family.

6. The Good Place - (containing 4 seasons, or 53 episodes) - trailer here.

A self-proclaimed Arizona dirtbag opens her eyes and finds out that she's dead and got accepted in the Good Place. Except that as soon as she arrives the Good Place starts glitching, and she really, REALLY needs to become a better person before she can be found out and kicked out to the Bad Place.

Luckily her assigned soulmate was a professor of ethics and moral philosophy.

One of the funniest, most thoughtful and clever comedies I've ever watched. Ever. The characters are delightful and by the time the final minute rolled around I had sobbed my heart out multiple times (which, as we all know, is a sign of the very best comedies out there).

As for the question of whether or not this too contains Found Fami- Yes! Obviously, yes.

7. Avatar: the Last Airbender - (containing 3 seasons, or 61 episodes) - intro here (couldn't locate the trailer but it's basically the same thing in this case).

The four nations lived in harmony. Until the Fire Nation attacked.

It's been a hundred years since the beginning of the war when two kids from the Southern Water Tribe find a boy frozen in ice and wake him up. A boy who's able to bend all four elements... though not very well.

Enter multi-nation flying road trip (thank you Appa, we love you most of all) as they try to find teachers for the Avatar and save the world.

Includes found family (shut up), amazing fight scenes, the most heartfelt and vivid characters ever, and the best example of a redemption arc actually done well.

8. Love Between Fairy and Devil - (containing 1 season, or 36 episodes) - trailer here.

This one gutted me. I'm saying this as a compliment. But it had to be said. Completely destroyed me. I just haven't been the same.

A love story between an Orchid Fairy and the leader of the Moon Tribe that starts out with her accidentally releasing him from millennia long imprisonment and then takes you through the caleidoscope of all possible human emotions (it's a body-swap comedy through the first part, then a romcom, then a dramatic romantic tale, and finally a tragic love story).

But it's such a satisfying slow burn.

And it carries this... humanity through the whole thing that makes it so visceral.

If you're a romantic who's very tired of instalove and characters dropping all their morals because 'ooh, attractive person' then you've got to watch this. Because this story does NOT take the easy road there.

(my more extensive rec for this series can be found here)

9. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - (containing 7 seasons, or 133 episodes) - fanmade trailer here (it was better than any of the official ones).

This series did so much. Introduced Ahsoka Tano, and made us love her. Gave names and faces and souls to the Clone Troopers (okay, it's the same face but you know what I mean), to a point where their endings during Order 66 destroyed me just as much as the ending of the Jedi Order. And somehow made me both love Anakin AND be a million times more angry with him.

There are some arcs in this series that might be a bit weaker. But there were some... god, there's a reason I love Clone Wars more than any other series or trilogy in this universe. And I'm not even a little ashamed to say it.

Must watch for Disaster Lineage shenanigans; for the vod'e; AND for the Jedi (who did their best okay? They always did their best 😭💔).

(and on the subject of found family... do I even need to comment)

10. Nikita - (containing 4 seasons, or 73 episodes) - trailer here.

A rogue assassin that escaped Division - covert government agency that takes recruits out of prison, fakes their deaths and then forces them to become spies and assassins - has come back to take it down. Brick by brick if she has to. With guns and explosives too when that works better.

Contains soooo many cool fight scenes. Is full of incredible characters you'll fall in love with (and hate with) very quickly. And most of all has an incredibly complex relationship of mentorship and friendship between two women that holds both great admiration and betrayal, real care and love as well as rage and hatred, forgiveness, mutual respect and an unbreakable kind of bond that so very rarely involves even one female character on TV, let alone two.

(as usual, found family tropes up the wazzoo).

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In conclusion. We all know there's going to be a large space between seasons of our favorite shows now (and some shows that aren't going to survive it). Let's fill that space with some excellent TV we haven't had a chance to see yet.

And direct the blame for the wait towards the right place (i.e. the studios).

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katakaluptastrophy · 10 days

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Thinking about which Houses are on which planets, and particularly the question of whether the Third or the Fourth is on Saturn.

Mythologically, it could be both: the infant Zeus, son of Saturn, was raised on Mount Ida and Ops (the birthplace of Jeannemary) shares a name with the Roman equivalent of Rhea, the wife of Saturn.

But House order might shed some light on this. We know the House numbers are in order of foundation. The Second, on Mars, was established first. Mars is near earth, but it also had some significant infrastructure present pre res:

What about the Mars installation, what about the fusion batteries? We’ve still only got room for five million tops up there, guys, and we haven’t worked out how to feed them either.

As long as the early Second kept the numbers down, they were probably pretty good to go.

So what might the Third have grown out from? What other major infrastructure gets mentioned in NTN?

Even when they were constructing the other ships we got told straight-up that it was nothing, they were being sent off to the Kuiper installation to be on point for the full-population evac...

The Kuiper installation is mentioned alongside Mars as rejected possiblities for evacuating large numbers of people from Earth.

So where was the Kuiper installation? Probably near Neptune.

The other pre-res installation that gets mentioned is a "shell" being build at Uranus, presumably incomplete at the time of the Resurrection. If fan theories that the Eighth are Uranus are correct, they may be living somewhere very sci fi indeed. Perhaps by the time the last 'proper' House was founded, they had the time and tech to complete it.

If the Third are Neptune, originally the Kuiper installation, then by process of elimination that would put the Fourth on Saturn. There's no mention of any infrastructure near Saturn predating the Resurrection, but perhaps there was some kind of mining on its moons?

I actually have a theory about the Fifth. Why is the Koniortos Court an installation in the atmosphere of Jupiter? A cryo project for 10 billion would need a lot of helium 3. That's not hugely plentiful on earth. But it is in the atmosphere of Jupiter.

The Sixth seems to have been built ex novo. The Seventh on Venus I fear might be evidence that John is perfectly capable of fixing global warming when he so chooses.

And the Ninth? A drillshaft sounds rather like mining again.

#the locked tomb #tlt meta

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spitfire-of-the-sea · 11 months

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The Stowaway Series, Part 4: Karma

Guys. I know it's been *ages* but work is kicking my butt and taking away my will to write at the moment. (Thanks, science. No, it's great, please ruin all my hobbies for me).

Thanks for all of you who were waiting and encouraging me to continue. <3 The name for reader!Kitty is not yet fixed, if you have a preference, let me know in the comments!

And now, without further ado:

Find part 1, part 2 and part 3, if you want to read the beginning of this. =)

Word count: 3.4k Warnings: Still SFW. Just naked butts. Pretty safe, I think? Characters: Ace, Marco & Thatch… and cat!reader :D and Pops appearing, too!

The Stowaway Series, Part 4: Karma

You sat there, just watching them with zero thoughts in your brain for a couple of moments. Two grown pirates – one with a bounty of well over a billion, the other still with a respectable bounty of over half a billion – as they splashed each other with water and bubbles alike. Half-naked, of course, because none of them was wearing a shirt anymore.

What was this?! A Coca-Cola commercial?! What kind of freak pirate ship had you ended up on?!

You blinked slowly, your drenched fur slowly dripping water and making a puddle around you. A bubble slid down your nose and made you sneeze.

Or, perhaps, this was the male version of pillow fights…?

Somehow, right then a bucket smacked Ace right in the face and you thought that you probably preferred the more traditional pillow fights. Like, the ones that didn’t break your nose or anything. Not that Ace seemed to have any problem – if anything, it was the bucket that seemed rather worse for wear now. Slightly deformed, very much melting.

You instinctively ducked when a piece of soap came sailing towards your head and thanked your feline reflexes for saving you from looking like a Persian cat. You shuddered at the thought and slowly, one by one, your brain cells blinked back into existence. This brought with it the revelation that you were absolutely drenched and dripping wet, still bubbly, and very much in need of a proper rinse.

It did, however, also come with the realization that those two were currently pretty distracted and for the first time, you weren’t held by a half-naked man, surrounded by pirates, or incapacitated by water. This, you happily noted, was your chance to get out of here and find a place to hide away with your ninja-like skills. A place that was…-

“Did those two boneheads just abandon you like this, kitty?” the voice connected to the two hands that picked you up cooed at you.

Okay, so your perception wasn’t the greatest at the moment. So what?! You’d been through a lot, okay?!

With a deep, deep sigh, you just hung there in those hands that had closed around your ribcage, not even bothering to fight anymore. You were so done with this shit.

1/10 stars. Do not recommend. Service personnel is pretty hot but ultimately fails at its job.

“Shall we finish the job, hm? Maybe by the time we’re done, Marco will have scrubbed that feral little raccoon clean, too,” Thatch murmured and you were taken over to the shower he had just occupied.

And then… with a start… you remembered that he had been in exactly that shower like a moment ago and he’d been utterly naked. You also remembered that you had visually confirmed only minutes ago that he had a fine ass and the rest of his anatomy had also been pretty convincing.

On the one hand, for the sake of your modesty, you should be very concerned with the fact that he was probably still naked and you were about to enter a shower – also fully naked because you didn’t really count fur as clothes – with a man you had met less than an hour ago.

Had he saved your life? Yes.

But still. You were a good girl. (Or at least that’s what you usually told yourself. Most of the time.) You didn’t climb into showers for some naked and very splashy adventures until you were reasonably sure you’d actually end up having a good time.

On the other hand… you twisted in his arms and threw a curious glance down his front, your tail twitching in interest. If the rest of his body was any indication, he’d be…

Awwww. Covered with a towel.

“Miss Kitty, have a seat,” Thatch said and placed you on top of a little stool. You blinked up at him, not fully unsatisfied with the treatment. For one, he was being polite, and additionally, he had basically perched you on a little throne. Yes. Yes. This was acceptable.

Happy to hopefully get rid of the surplus bubbles you generously offered him a paw, somewhat ignoring the fact that you were supposed to be a simply stray cat, and he took it with a chuckle and started to rinse it clean.

“Or should I call you Lady, hm?” he asked and kneeled down next to you, very carefully washing all the remaining shampoo from your fur as you glanced down at him regally.

Admittedly, this didn’t feel too bad, you had your little perch, a pretty damn good-looking guy kneeling in front of you and basically giving you the finisher of a spa treatment…

Maybe you’d actually give them like… 5/10 stars after all.

Within a couple of minutes, you were actually pretty much clean and he turned off the water and stroked you with long, even movements to squeeze the water out of your fur. It felt quite heavenly, to be honest, and you might actually have started to purr a bit again…

Of course, you just couldn’t have nice things, could you?

Because this was when the door banged open – you were pretty sure some tiles cracked at the impact, and a freaking giant entered the room. And not to be dramatic… but he barely fit through that damn door and by your very modest estimate, it was probably four meters high. You started to look up along the legs. And looked up. And up. And.. still up.

When your gaze landed on a bare chest – what the fuck else, this ship apparently suffered from a severe cloth famine – you noticed enough scars to supply a full battalion of soldiers. And as it traveled even further up, you noticed a white captain’s coat slung over wide, wide shoulders. And as it finally reached a face, ducking in below the doorframe, you saw a white beard.

White.

Beard.

You made a gurgling sound as all the air in your lungs suddenly rushed out of your body and you went first stiff, and then hot, and then felt the fur all along your body desperately trying to puff up against the forces of the remaining wetness in your fur.

Oh no. Oh no no no. This was Whitebeard. The legendary Whitebeard. The guy who’d fought the Pirate King and lived to tell the tale.

“I’m hungry,” he said by way of greeting, “and the boys told me to come here.”

The pressure in the room was almost overwhelming and your feral instincts kicked in before a single brain cell could so much as put a word in in favor of reason. He’d eat you. He’d fucking eat you. He was Edward Newgate, the famous Whitebeard. They’d cleaned you up to serve you to their bloodthirsty captain who ate babies and cute kittens for breakfast!

With a battle scream, you exploded out of Thatch’s hands onto the floor and barely managed to land on your feet in your blind panic. In a feat of pure elegance, you somehow tripped over your own tail only one step further, resulting in you face-planting on the floor for about 0.1 seconds, because that was all the time you allowed yourself to waste. Digging your claws into the tiles, you pushed off and actually propelled yourself onto the wall, just below knee height for the giant between you and survival. If you hadn’t been so busy not getting eaten, you’d have complimented your athleticism.

“What the…-,” Thatch managed to say by the time you took the second long leap towards the door.

You’d manage. You were swift. You were like the wind.

“Flight risk!” Ace screamed when you did your third leap and pushed himself off the floor to rush after you. Fate was in your favor. His foot landed on a bar of soap, his eyes widened comically, and his leg was pulled out from under him as he slipped. You’d have appreciated the beauty of it, probably, the arch his body described as his ass went up and his upper body went down and he landed – hard – on first his shoulders and then his head. You heard something crack and faintly hoped it wasn’t his head. It was pretty.

“Not so fast-yoi!” Marco chuckled as he plucked you out of the air in your fourth leap without breaking a sweat, wrapping a towel around you at the same moment. “And here I thought you were getting used to us.”

There was a select choice of words on the tip of your tongue. Among them were several that were connected to a certain part of his anatomy and the places he could shove it. You were not gonna be eaten! You’d scratch their eyes out! You’d carve your name into their faces! You’d fight until your last breath!

You had claws! You were a ferocious tiger, no matter how small! You had the devil’s power…! You… fucking… couldn’t get out of the towel!

“Now, what’s that?” Whitebeard asked, his tone rather surprised than particularly hungry.

“A cat,” Thatch answered helpfully and ambled closer, toweling his hair dry as he walked.

Maybe that was the problem. Maybe you should turn back into your human form to show them that you were not a cat and therefore, should not be eaten. Perhaps you should declare that you were not a virgin, either, just to be absolutely sure that they wouldn’t think you were useable for any sort of ritual or for feeding to the giant or…-

No. No. That was dragons. Dragons ate virgins.

What did giants eat?!

“I can see that,” Whitebeard answered, somewhat exasperated, and ducked lower to get a better look at you while you were fighting to get out of the towel. Your claws sliced through the cloth like a hot knife through butter and yet you just couldn’t get free. You shot a wild look at the giant captain.

You were no more than a snack for him. Surely, you weren’t even worth the effort!

But maybe it was no effort. He’d swallow you whole. Like that famous whale at the start of the Grand Line, that supposedly swallowed ships whole. You fought with renewed ferocity and Marco clicked his tongue at you, fighting to keep you under control.

Ace slowly tried to get up again, clutching his hands to the back of his head. “Ouch.”

He was still alive, then. Good. At least you thought it was good…? Perhaps…? At least you hadn’t gotten any cat-eating vibes from him.

The sounds of fabric ripping below your claws announced how close you were to freedom and Marco cursed under his breath, juggling you from one hand to the other to avoid giving you a chance to latch onto one of his fingers.

“Is anybody going to tell me why there’s a cat?” Whitebeard asked finally, his tone surprisingly even.

“It’s our new cat,” Ace said, rubbing at the back of his head. There were tears in his eyes as he tenderly felt around for the quickly forming bump.

“Our cat?” Whitebeard prompted, slowly sounding less patient.

“Yes,” Ace confirmed. “Spot.”

You sank your teeth into a piece of towel and ripped at it, glaring up at Marco, who reached for a second towel, frowning. “She doesn’t have a single spot-yoi.”

“I see lots of spots,” Ace muttered and blinked slowly. “I knew it all along. The soap almost killed me. Told you it causes more harm than good.”

“Your head is way too hard for that. You’re fine. Also, I think Whiskers is a far better name,” Thatch threw in.

Personally, you thought they were both pretty shit. With a low growl, you twisted in Marco’s hands, managed to graze his index finger with one fang, and then were rolled into a second layer of towel. You didn’t feel entirely unlike a burrito.

Heh. A Purrito.

You were hilarious, even when you were 5 seconds away from being eaten. But you were not about to give them any ideas.

“Would you stop that?” Marco asked you with a sigh. “It’s just Pops-yoi.”

“Fluffy?” Ace suggested and slowly came to his feet. Even upside down and pretty sure something horrible was about to happen you could appreciate that the drops of water glittering on his skin and slowly sliding down his very defined abs made him look fine as hell.

“Killer,” Marco threw in and you glowered, wiggling yourself forward and out of the towel wrapped around you millimeter by millimeter. You were still contemplating the idea of turning back into a human – both to be able to think straight again and to maybe tell them that you wouldn’t stand for such ridiculous names. Ah, and the detail to please not eat you or do something else horrible.

Thatch leaned forward and booped your nose. You snapped your jaws at him but he was too quick for you, you didn’t even manage to nick him. “Catness Everclean,” he happily suggested and you couldn’t help it, you rolled your eyes.

So he read those types of books, huh? Probably also read romance novels and smut. You scoffed.

“Boys…,” Whitebeard said with a tone that you knew pretty well from your father. It was the tone he used when he was down to his last nerves and he was between giving you up for adoption and accepting his hand in making you the person you were. Your ears twitched.

“Can we keep her?” Ace asked, slowly coming closer, one eye squeezed shut and with one hand still at the back of his head.

“I don’t think…-,” Whitebeard started.

“Look how cute she is!” Ace immediately continued and grabbed you out of Marco’s arms. Still covered in one layer of towels, plus a few stripes of the first one. You tried to twist but his grip didn’t give an inch.

His effort was admirable, really, but with only your face visible in the layers of towels, and your eyes almost popping out of your head from the effort of fighting for freedom, you probably looked more deranged than cute.

“We already have a dog,” Whitebeard answered slowly.

You hissed, sounding somewhat suffocated. Probably due to the lack of air in your lungs at this current moment.

“Somehow, she reminds me of Ace-yoi,” Marco muttered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Is she trying to kill us? Sure. But in a slightly deranged and yet charming kinda way. You can’t really be mad at her. It’s cute, in a way.”

For that, he got another hiss. Sadly you couldn’t give him the middle finger right now. Which was probably good, you reminded yourself, he was an evil pirate, after all.

“Lady Floofiness,” Ace said as if he had heard nothing. When he tried to kick Marco who stood beside him, the older commander simply moved out of his way. “Once she’s dry, you can see for yourself. She’s really pretty and very, very gentle.”

Okay. You were pretty happy he hadn’t cracked his skull open. He was pretty cute. Plus, he probably wouldn’t let you get eaten. You hoped. At least he was your best shot in this room.

Marco snorted a laugh. “Gentle? She tried to amputate my finger. Again.”

“You held her wrong,” Ace hissed under his breath. “You need to support her…-“

“Butt. I know-yoi,” Marco answered with a shake of his head, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

What was this fascination with your butt?! You had a pretty great one, sure, but in your human form. That you were not about to show them. You had decided so. Perhaps your animal instincts had been a bit overwhelmed by the giant standing at the door, but you slowly lost the fear of somebody wanting to eat you.

Or perhaps you were just going numb. Whichever one.

You squinted up at Whitebeard, who was looking at you with a frown. His beard twitched as he regarded you and you quickly reversed direction and instead of trying to get out of the towel, you buried yourself deeper into it, away from his prying eyes.

“Stefan might not like it,” he finally said.

“He likes Kotatsu just fine,” Ace countered. “And she’s much smaller, won’t take up any space. She can sleep in my cabin.” He started to slowly unwrap you and you grabbed one corner of the towel and tried to hold onto it, suddenly not desiring freedom so much. Freedom meant having no barrier between you and those piercing eyes.

You were still holding onto the towel desperately when two giant fingers grabbed you by the scruff of your neck and picked you up. Gulping, you winced when your body went limb, suddenly unable to do anything but stare at the giant man who had picked you up. He held you in front of his face and you held your breath. This was it. This was the end.

He opened his mouth and you squeezed your eyes shut.

Goodbye, cruel world. I’m leaving you today.

“Stefanie,” he said then and you slowly opened one eye back up.

A brief moment of silence, then Thatch cleared his throat and Marco shuffled his feet, searching for words. Ace was less polite. “That’s a shit name, old man,” he blurted out.

“Fluffy isn’t much better,” Thatch murmured and Ace shot him a glare.

“Says the man who suggested Catness Everclean-yoi.” Marco crossed his arms in front of his chest and shook his head.

“Yeah, and Killer as a name for a teeny tiny fluffy cat clearly wins a prize for creativity,” Thatch shot back.

Marco shrugged. “We can also call her Calamity Jane, seeing as how she made Freckles almost crack his head open, made you bleed for the first time in, what, four years? And has actually managed to nick my skin here.” He lifted a finger with a frown and you could see a tiny drop of blood there for a moment before blue flames engulfed it and it was gone in the next moment.

Thatch, who saw the sparkle in Ace’s eyes, quickly shook his head even as he took a look at his forearms and registered with some surprise that you had indeed managed to scratch him. He dabbed at it with the end of his towel, still shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”

“I think it’s cool,” Ace weighed in and came to stand just below you, holding his arms out expectantly. You curled your tail around yourself and hoped that you’d indeed be handed over again. Ace was the one who held you in the most comfortable way – by far!

To be fair, perhaps you hadn’t given Marco much of a chance with your little panic attack.

But that was hardly your fault. You were in a room with Edward Fucking Newgate, also called Whitebeard. Also having the highest bounty in the whole of the fucking world. You were pretty sure a little panic was justified.

“You just like it because it fits into your little card naming scheme. Ace. Spade Pirates. Spadille. Calamity Jane,” Thatch accused him and when Marco raised an inquisitive eyebrow, he shrugged. “Queen of Spades? Calamity Jane?”

“Oh,” Marco made and rubbed at his chin. “Then no.”

“Hey!” Ace snapped and lifted himself on his tiptoes to reach for you.

You honestly shouldn’t feel so relieved at the guy heartily grabbing your butt, but at least Whitebeard let go of the scruff of your neck and you dropped into Ace’s outstretched hands. Gulping down a shiver – not quite successfully – you were happy when he brought you close to his chest again. Especially since he didn’t seem to mind that you were still wet.

“I haven’t said yes yet,” Whitebeard reminded them with a sigh. “At least I know now why they were all snickering like idiots when they sent me here.”

“You also haven’t said no yet,” Ace reminded him with a grin and started to stroke you with long, calming movements. Eyes unblinking and brain simply overloaded thanks to the last hour, you lay there against his chest and contemplated whether this was karma. Whether perhaps you had stolen one too many times from the rich and given to the poor. Mainly you, actually. But you were poor.

Ugh. You needed a cocktail with lots of rum and a cigarette.

And you didn’t even smoke.

#kitty!reader #stowaway series #reader x one piece #reader x Ace #reader x Marco #reader x Thatch #whitebeard crew #marco the phoenix x reader #ace d portgas #crack fic #kitty needs a cocktail after this #I feel like the others were funnier v.v #I hope it's not too boring for y'all!

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etherealspacejelly · 22 days

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ok so. i am currently working on a fic. its a story that has been rotating in my brain for years about an avengers OC. idk if i want to start posting it as a WIP or wait until it's finished.

what im gonna do is post the prologue here, under the cut. it is entirely worldbuilding because. i came up with a new alien species with Lore™️ that i made as canon compliant as possible because im a fucking nerd. so you kinda need to know all of that before i can tell the actual story.

if you're interested, please give it a read and tell me what you think and whether you would want to read more! if it gets enough attention i'll start posting the chapters i have to ao3. i have a tag list for my fics so lmk if you want to be added to that too.

quick summary of the fic as a whole: The last surviving member of the Light Elf race, Einar, is taken in by the Avengers when they are orphaned at 10 years old. They nurse Einar back to health, and slowly form a bond with them, helping them to process their grief and heal from their trauma. There's a lot of fluff, a lot of angst, a lot of hurt/comfort, and of course found family.

It starts during the events of Thor: The Dark World and follows the storyline of the MCU from there.

Prologue:

In the beginning, there was only darkness. The only world to exist in that darkness was a tiny, desolate rock named Alfheim. This was the home of my ancestors, the Elves, before time, before space, before light.

No one knows how long they lived like that, alone in the dark. All we know is that at some point that darkness ended. The universe began, and light and life exploded into existence. For most of the Elves, this was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. They swore to protect and nurture all life and to serve the light. But others believed that this was a perversion of the natural order, that the universe belonged in darkness and should be returned to that state. They vowed to destroy the light by any means possible.

War broke out between the two opposing sides, an Elvish Civil War that lasted for many billions of years, with both sides only ever coming together to kill each other. And so, they evolved separately into two species: the Dark Elves and the Light Elves. Each side became stronger and stronger with each generation, evolving new abilities and traits to give them an edge in battle.

A few millennia ago, a great battle ensued between these two sides on Svardalfheim. The Dark Elves tried to use their most powerful weapon, the Aether, to destroy the universe. The Light Elves fought with all their might, but the Dark Elves had the upper hand. That is until the Asgardians arrived.

Odin's father, King Bor, and his army tipped the scales and won the battle for the Light Elves. They confiscated the Aether and sealed it away where no one would find it. Malekith, the leader of the Dark Elves, fled in his ship and bombed the planet behind him hoping to destroy what remained of the Light Elf army, not caring if his own perished as well.

Only two Light Elves survived.

They fled to find a place to hide, to recover their strength for what they knew would be the final battle of the War. They needed a primitive, unknown, safe planet to seek refuge. They found one.

Earth. Dominated by a bipedal, fairly intelligent species descended from tree dwellers. No one would think to look for them there. It was on this planet in the middle of nowhere that these two Elves decided to take a risk, one last desperate attempt to give them an edge against the Dark Elves. They had a baby.

That child, the last Light Elf baby to ever be born, came to be in England, Earth, in the spring of 2003. They named the child Einar, an old Norse name meaning 'the lonely warrior', for that is the future they believed their child was destined for. Little did they know how wrong they would turn out to be.

#fanfic #fanfiction #space jelly writes #marvel fanfiction #marvel #marvel mcu #mcu

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beebslolz · 4 months

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Bruce Wayne’s financial history (minus the Batman expenses)

DISCLAIMER: THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE OTHER BIG AND OR UNNECESSARY USELESS PURCHASES!!!!

For example, in The New Batman Adventures episode 10, Bruce Wayne goes to an auction with Tim Drake. He ends up buying a rare magical artifact for his friend for one million dollars. Or another time like in Gotham the TV series season 4 episode 3, Bruce buys a knife for Two Million dollars. This also does not include any of his Batman expenses. Only Bruce Wayne’s purchases. Because I know the Bat-cave, the Bat-mobile, the Bat-computer, the Bat-suit, the bat-gadgets, etc, blah, blah, blah, all had to have costed a pretty penny. It would take forever to track down all of his expenses.

”How many companies does Bruce Wayne own?”

He owns six companies, not including any co-companies. He owns:

Wayne Enterprises (along with other Wayne companies)

Bruce Wayne has many companies under the Wayne name. Such as:

Wayne Biotech

Wayne Industries

Wayne Aerospace

Wayne Shipping

Wayne Foundation

Wayne Medical

Wayne Steel

Wayne Botanical

Wayne foods

Wayne Corp

Wayne Automotive

Wayne Pharmaceuticals

The Daily Planet

Yes, Batman actually gives Superman his salary. Bruce bought the ownership over the Daily Planet. Why? I dunno. He just did.

A Disco Club

In the Gotham TV show season 4 episode 7, Bruce Wayne has bought a disco club when they refused him entry.

A Hotel

Bruce bought a hotel in the movie Batman Begins because the two women Bruce was with wanted to swim in the pool but the manager asked them to leave so Bruce bought the hotel to change its rules.

A Bank

In The Justice League 2017 movie, Bruce bought a bank to pay off Clark’s debt.

Clark Kent : "Thank you, Bruce" is not enough for what you did.

Bruce Wayne : I just undid a mistake, that's all.

Clark Kent : How did you get the house back from the bank?

Bruce Wayne : I bought the bank.

A Record company

In the 1970’s Batman comic issue (Batman #222) Bruce Wayne invests in a record label known as Eden Records.

Questions:

“How rich is Bruce Wayne?”

This is a tricky question. The thing is, there isn’t really a set-in-stone answer. It depends on the comic, the writer, etc. but from what I have found, Bruce Wayne’s net worth is $80 billion dollars in Batman #93 (2018). Wayne Enterprises is estimated to be worth at around $31.3 billion dollars, and I’ll have to assume the rest is from his other smaller companies and or his investments that have been proven to be profitable and successful.

“How did Bruce Wayne get so rich?”

He was rich even before he was even born. His wealth comes from his long line of family. When Bruce’s great, great, great grandfather bought property back when Gotham was more of a small town and less of a busy city. This real estate fortune grew rapidly overtime and was passed onto Bruce’s great grandfather, Alan Wayne. Alan was the one who developed the railroads as well as the shipping ports and chemical plants in Gotham city. And this all happened during the Industrial Revolution. Bruce’s grandfather, Patrick Wayne, then inherited the companies that Alan had built. Patrick then created the Wayne Corporation, AKA Waynecorp after the Great Depression and the company expanded into technology. They then supplied the American army with aircraft’s and ships during the pacific war. Then this company was passed onto Bruce’s father, Thomas Wayne, who built Gotham’s monorail, and then Bruce eventually inherited it himself.

#batman #bruce wayne #brucie wayne #wayne enterprises

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mariacallous · 6 months

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On June 19, 2021, a convoy of armed men drove into the border city of Reynosa, Mexico, in the state of Tamaulipas, and opened fire on pedestrians. For more than eight hours, gunmen roamed four neighborhoods, kidnapping and killing 15 people, including two cab drivers, a nursing student, and a group of construction workers. After security forces were deployed throughout the city, four suspected gunmen were killed. In the days that followed, rumors spread on social media. People in Reynosa were afraid to go back out into the streets, factories shortened their night hours to protect their employees, and local businesses closed early.

Three days later, the attorney general of Tamaulipas, Irving Barrios Mojica, said the motive of the attack was to destabilize Mexican society. The attackers belonged to a cartel that was looking to gain control of the area surrounding the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border. The authorities seized a formidable amount of weaponry from the men: about 180 cartridge cases in total, as well as five long guns, and several .223-caliber magazines, which are commonly used in AR-style semi-automatic rifles. These weapons had one thing in common: They came from the United States.

The Reynosa massacre is just one recent entry in a long list of violent acts committed with U.S.-made weapons in Mexican territory. At least 70 percent of guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico between 2014 and 2018 were trafficked into the country from the United States. Although the exact number of weapons smuggled across the border is uncertain, a study quoted by the Mexican government estimates that 2.2 percent of the nearly 40 million guns manufactured annually in the United States make their way into Mexico, amounting to more than half a million weapons a year. Hidden inside vehicles, appliances, and furniture or trafficked by sea in sealed shipping containers, U.S.-made weapons are bringing violence from north to south, according to the Mexican government.

In 2021, Mexico filed an unprecedented lawsuit against U.S. weapons manufacturers and a firearms distributor in the District Court in Boston, the first suit filed by a foreign government against the U.S. gun industry. The lawsuit names gun manufacturers such as Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Colt’s Manufacturing Company, Smith & Wesson Brands, Glock, Beretta, and Century International Arms and aims to hold them responsible for facilitating the flow of weapons across the border.

The complaint was dismissed by the District Court in September 2022, and Mexico filed an appeal in March. On July 24, the Mexican government urged the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston to revive the suit, arguing that a U.S. law does not protect U.S. gun manufacturers from being sued over gun trafficking that leads to violence in Mexico. A ruling is expected in the coming months, but this lawsuit could potentially set a precedent for cross-border litigation and strengthen the global fight against the illicit arms trade. The Mexican government is seeking at least $10 billion in damages for economic harm, yet the primary aim of the lawsuit is more ambitious: to curb gun trafficking by forcing changes to the business practices of U.S. gun companies and pushing for tighter controls on their distribution systems.

Mexico has strict national gun laws. There is only one store in the country where individuals can legally purchase a gun. The store is owned and operated by the military, and fewer than 50 gun permits are issued annually, mainly to prominent businesspeople, public figures, or individuals who have been the victim of a crime and need a firearm for protection, said Lt. Col. Israel Martínez Valdés from the Federal Registry of Firearms and Control of Explosives, responsible for gun permits.

After a U.S. ban on assault weapons expired in 2004, the Mexican government’s suit argues, U.S. gun manufacturers increased production, “particularly of the military-style assault weapons favored by the drug cartels.” The lawsuit alleges that this accompanied a dramatic increase in homicides across the border after 2004. One of the most common types of gun smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border is the hormigas (“ants”) method, in which straw buyers—intermediaries with clean records who are sent to buy guns on behalf of third parties—pass weapons on to traffickers, who smuggle them in small quantities.

Zulia Orozco Reynoso and Gerardo Hernández, researchers at the Autonomous University of Baja California in northern Mexico, explained that local gun shows in the United States lack restrictions and controls, which makes it easier for weapons to cross the border undetected. Dealers purchase large quantities of guns from distributors and resell them at gun shows with no paperwork and no questions asked, the Mexican government’s suit states. Private or unlicensed sellers at gun shows in the United States are not required to conduct background checks or maintain records linking weapons to buyers, a fact known as the “gun show loophole” or “private sale exception.” Traffickers can buy several guns at once and smuggle them in private vehicles without being monitored by U.S. or Mexican authorities.

The California-Baja California border region, which stretches for 120 miles, is one of the busiest land border crossings in the world. Yet while an enormous law enforcement operation ensures that people do not travel from south to north unauthorized, movement from north to south is far less surveilled. The guns “come by land, by air, by sea, and through the tunnels along the border,” Hernández said.

Much of this trafficking is done by people with dual citizenship or Americans hired by drug cartels. Mexican citizens can face up to 10 years in prison for trafficking a gun and up to 30 years for trafficking weapons intended exclusively for military use. Yet foreigners introducing a single weapon to the country for the first time are merely fined, Orozco Reynoso said, and the weapon is returned to them when they leave the country.

“The risks for Mexicans are greater, or at least they are not given a second chance, unlike Americans,” Orozco Reynoso added.

Dangerous weapons don’t just end up in the hands of criminal cartels. Law enforcement and members of the Mexican defense ministry, the nation’s sole authorized importer of firearms, have also committed atrocities with U.S.-manufactured firearms. A 2018 report by the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights affirms that legally imported firearms have been used by police and military units in gross human rights abuses. The local police who attacked the 43 Ayotzinapa students who disappeared in September 2014 were armed with legally imported Colt AR-6530 rifles. In 2011, a man was arrested in Tamaulipas for allegedly belonging to a criminal organization; while he was in custody, a navy lieutenant killed him with a 5.56 mm Colt M16 rifle.

Legally acquired firearms from military and law enforcement stocks are also diverted with the cooperation of corrupt authorities. Between 2006 and 2017, more than 20,000 firearms were reported as lost or stolen, according to the Mexican defense ministry. Last year, a leak of more than 4 million confidential documents from the ministry by the hacker activist group Guacamaya revealed that high-level military members had sold guns, grenades, and tactical equipment to criminal organizations.

U.S. gun manufacturers know that their marketing and distribution practices have caused harm in Mexican territory, the Mexican government claims. According to its complaint, U.S. gun manufacturers have not implemented public safety measures in their distribution systems, such as comprehensive training for dealers and a code of conduct that requires distributors to keep better track of their inventories. Mexico contends that U.S. gun manufacturers design semi-automatic rifles that can be easily modified to fire automatically, a feature sought after among cartels. These practices “aid and abet the killing and maiming of children, judges, journalists, police, and ordinary citizens throughout Mexico,” the lawsuit says.

For Alejandro Celorio, Mexico’s lead attorney and spokesperson for the foreign ministry, this “lack of care” facilitates the illegal trade in their weapons. “It’s the number of guns but also the type of guns that are sold in the United States with total irresponsibility,” Celorio said. In the United States, “guns are sold to someone who wants to kill children in a kindergarten or to someone who works with organized crime.”

Mexico argues that these companies have access to firearms trace data that identifies specific networks of distributors and dealers that regularly supply drug cartels in Mexico. Based on reports from the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Mexican government revealed that over a four-year period in the mid-2000s, more than 500 Century Arms WASR-10 rifles originally purchased in the United States were seized at crime scenes in Mexico. Yet Century Arms, the lawsuit claims, continued to supply its rifles to the same distributors and dealers. (Century Arms did not respond to a request for comment.)

The U.S. gun-makers filed a joint motion in 2021 to dismiss Mexico’s claims, arguing that the injury is not traceable to the gun manufacturers but rather stems from violence committed by criminals in Mexico. They further argue that allowing foreign law to apply “would invite other nations to likewise invoke their own laws to attack the U.S. firearms industry.”

“The scope of liability the complaint suggests well exceeds what any U.S. court would permit at common law, even under strict product liability. And such a pervasive assault on the firearm industry would imperil civilian access to firearms—a right guaranteed by both the U.S. and Massachusetts constitutions,” the joint motion states.

On Sept. 30, 2022, when Judge F. Dennis Saylor dismissed Mexico’s lawsuit, he stated that “while the Court has considerable sympathy for the people of Mexico,” the Mexican government’s claims do not outweigh the protections provided to gun manufacturers by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a U.S. federal statute that bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers liable when individuals use their guns illegally. Since 2005, the PLCAA has granted gun manufacturers and dealers broad immunity from lawsuits when deadly crimes are committed with their products. Saylor added that while the PLCAA contains several exceptions, such as claims for damage caused by a defective firearm or for entrusting a gun to someone the dealer knows is high risk, none apply in this case.

However, in its appeal, the Mexican government argues that because crimes were committed on Mexican territory, U.S. federal law does not apply; instead, Mexico should be allowed to sue the companies for breaches of Mexican law. When U.S.-based corporations cause injury abroad, the U.S. Constitution and statutes allow other nations to sue for violations of their own laws, the lawsuit states. It further argues that the defendants violated Connecticut and Massachusetts consumer protection laws by knowingly marketing their products to criminals and drug cartels.

Heidi Li Feldman, a law professor at Georgetown University and an expert on gun litigation, said the Sandy Hook settlement provides a road map for how to circumvent PLCAA protections with consumer protection laws. In that case, the families of nine victims of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School argued that Remington Arms, the manufacturer of the AR-style semi-automatic rifle used in the shooting, violated state laws by marketing its Bushmaster XM15-E2S to “at-risk” young men as a combat weapon and allowing the gun to be depicted in video games. They reached a $73 million settlement with Remington in 2022.

“The suit’s going to be fiercely fought on the grounds of whether PLCAA applies to it in the first instance,” Feldman said. The PLCAA was never meant to apply extraterritorially, she said, and it would be “politically unpopular” in the United States to allow foreign governments to sue.

Mexico filed a second lawsuit in a U.S. federal court in October 2022, this time against five gun dealers in Arizona. That lawsuit seeks to prove that the dealers knowingly sold weapons to straw purchasers.

The complex and extensive web of protections for U.S. gun manufacturers, mainly created by the PLCAA, makes it difficult for Mexico to beat the industry. But the lawsuits have received international support. Among those who submitted supporting amicus curiae briefs are U.S. prosecutors and district attorneys, activists, victims of armed violence from both sides of the border, and Latin American and Caribbean countries that argue that guns smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border do not end up only in Mexico—they continue to flow into other countries throughout the Western Hemisphere, while more weapons are transported from the United States directly to the rest of the region via shipping companies and commercial airlines.

“We have come a long way, and this conversation about the illicit arms trade is becoming more and more questioning about the irresponsibility of companies,” said Celorio, the lead attorney.

A new piece of legislation in the United States, the first major federal gun safety law passed in nearly 30 years, also may change smuggling patterns. Signed into law in June 2022, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act cracks down on straw purchasers, allowing them to be punished with up to 15 years in prison or 25 years if the firearms are linked to serious criminal activity such as drug trafficking. In September 2022, a 25-year-old U.S. citizen living in Mexico was driving south to the port in Laredo, Texas, with 17 handguns. He is the first person to be convicted under the new law. According to Justice Department officials, between Jan. 21, 2020, and July 11, 2022, the 25-year-old purchased 231 handguns.

The success of the Mexican lawsuits, however, depends largely on lifting the general immunity that the PLCAA grants to the powerful gun industry and lobby. A win for Mexico could open the door for other foreign governments to sue U.S. gun-makers for violence in their countries. Whatever the outcome, the litigation raises a question that the United States has not wanted to answer: Who will hold U.S. gun manufacturers responsible for the violence they cause abroad?

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watari-apologist · 3 months

Note

top 10 attractive traits of watari, GO

ON IT, BOSS

10. extremely rich

the man is Absolutely Fucking Loaded. like if we take "L: wammy's house" as canon, we are talking multi-millions or -billions kind of rich. he owns real estate. if you're going to fuck him for no other reason, fuck him for the fact that he will shower you with expensive gifts

9. impeccable fashion sense

every outfit we ever see him wear in canon is FIRE. the trenchcoat + hat + mask combo? mysterious. alluring. if he had only ever worn this in canon, the death note fandom would have been shipping him with L from DAY ONE and never stopped. his suit? simple yet effective. he knows it's a classic for a reason. whatever the fuck that attack helicopter outfit during the higuchi chase was? literally So Cool. my man CANNOT MISS

8. good manners

he's a gentleman through and through. will keep your secrets, discreet as all hell. unfailingly polite even if he's torturing you for information

7. tall

according to "how to read 13", watari is 5'9" (175cm for people like me who don't know the imperial system) which makes him slightly shorter than L, but i categorically disagree with that. like, this book also tried to tell me that he weights 51kg/112lbs compared to L's 50kg/110lbs estimation and i REFUSE to believe that watari, a well-built elderly man, weighs only slightly more than a 24yo twink with an eating disorder. like come the fuck on. those numbers are all made up. watari has the vibes of a man who is 6ft, and tall men exist only to be climbed like a tree

6. loyal

he will die for you without question or complaint, and otherwise protect you with his life. anyone who tries to harm you will end up mysteriously disappearing within a week tops, never to be heard from again. no amount of money or persuasion would ever convince him to betray you. it's like marriage, but more romantic

5. the voice

i don't know how to explain this one to you. if you don't already get it, i fear you never will. but an endlessly calm, soft-spoken british accented voice can be Everything - and it is. to me. ALSO since we are on the topic of voices, this is my chance to mention lutz mackensy, who plays watari in the German Death Note Audio Drama (reset the clock, i mentioned it again). he obviously doesn't have a british accent, but he DOES have the sassiest and most INEXPLICABLY HORNY watari performance to ever exist. the heavy breathing and Forceful Dom Voice "Komm schon" during misa's torture scene have been living rent free in my brain since the moment i first heard them and i will Never Recover

4. really good cook

sweets, pastries, cakes, chocolates - you name it, the man can make it. according to "L - the prologue to death note: spiraling trap" (or whatever we're calling it these days), he makes ALL of L's sweets and is in fact so famous for his sweets making skills that he has a whole mysterious alias associated with it (phantom patissier my beloved). feeding L sweets to gain his affection is LITERALLY a game mechanic in communicator mode and watari has been doing it for like a decade before your fbi agent showed up on the premises. seduction via food is his modus operandi

3. really good cock

some people say that sex with an older man is gross, but those people are cowards. don't let them fool you. watari has decades of experience under his belt (literally) and will gladly show off his skills. he knows where the prostate is. he knows where the g-spot is. he KNOWS where the clitoris is. additionally, he owns two hands and one mouth and a wide variety of expensive sex toys if the dick isn't quite the right thing for your pleasure. you are not walking away from that encounter without At Least three orgasms (unless you're into that, in which case he will edge you within an inch of your life and then just fuckin leave lol)

2. handsome

i mean...

i could elaborate, but i don't feel the need to. as brian david gilbert once said: "i don't know what to tell you. if you're not attracted to this, you're wrong"

and finally, the NUMBER ONE ATTRACTIVE QUALITY that watari possesses:

1. problematic

he owns orphanages all over the globe and at LEAST one of them is a front for a super-detective training agency that traumatises children. he works for L, a guy who has zero qualms about violating human rights, and is in fact not only complicit in kidnapping, but is seen actively participating in ACTUAL TORTURE when ordered (watari_pulling_on_gloves.gif my beloved). he shoots a sniper rifle at an occupied, moving vehicle in the middle of tokyo without a SECOND'S hesitation. something is Deeply Wrong with this man. i couldn't fix him if i tried, but honestly? whatever is wrong with him is way more fun and interesting anyway, so i might as well hang around to watch the ensuing train wreck <3

#original words #[REDACTED]

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phoenixyfriend · 1 year

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International Taxes

Ko-Fi prompt from Ethan:

All I know about tariffs is that they're special taxes for international trade but people talk about them all the time. Please help explain

So we are going to talk about three things here:

Tariffs

VAT

Customs/Duties

I'll be using the US for most of my examples, because that's what I know best... and also because it's a very convenient example for the way VAT works on an international level.

Tariffs

You are correct that tariffs are special taxes for international trade. These are essentially fees that are applied to products being shipped in and out of a country in order to promote domestic product or impact a foreign one.

A common example is US steel. The United States has a fairly robust steel industry, and the government promotes that industry domestically by applying tariffs to imports. Back in 2018, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on steel imports and 10% on aluminum (something that the WTO said was illegal, but that's not relevant right now). The steel tariff had previously been a range of 8-30%, implemented by Bush in 2002. Prior to that, the steel tariff had generally been under 1%.

In applying that tariff, the federal government prioritized domestic purchasing. If domestic product is nominally $90 for one unit, and foreign product is $80, then it is cheaper and more appealing to buy from a foreign producer. With a 25% tariff, the foreign product is now functionally $100 per unit, making it more appealing to buy domestically. While the actual cost of the tax is born by the producing country, in the case of import tariffs, the result is the raising of costs when selling internationally.

Tariffs are also applied to specific countries. Once again using a Trump example, a $50 billion tariff was applied against China in 2018. This had negative impacts on the economy, as it led to worries of a trade war; China did retaliate by applying tariffs directly to specific products from the US, including wine and pork.

High tariffs theoretically lead to an increase in domestic trade, but they also lead to higher rates of smuggling. They are also a form protectionist policy, which was at its height in the 19th century for the US.

VAT - Value Added Tax

If you look up VAT, you get a lot of explanations that talk about how it is a tax that is levied against the consumer on the basis of the cumulative value of the product, and generally things are confusingly worded, so I'll save you some time:

It's sales tax.

If you are American like me, that's all it is. It's a different name for sales tax.

You get something for $8 at the store, but the final cost is $8.42? Those 42 cents are the VAT.

What does that have to do with international trade? Isn't that a domestic thing?

Well, yes and no. We'll start by comparing the US to most European countries.

See, the US has a different application of VAT than a lot of other places. In the US, sales tax is added at the very end of a purchase for the vast majority of places. This is because there is no federal sales tax. Instead, taxes are set by the state, county, and city governments. Take a look at this map of New York, and you'll see how much sales tax varies by just a few miles.

Given how much a pricing can vary from one town to the next, large corporations generate a greater profit by listing prices in their pre-tax form, and then adding that tax at the end. The consumer knows that there will be a higher price at the counter than is listed, because the standard in the US is to not include that tax. So your Arizona Iced Tea will be a $1 in Portland and $1 in Queens County, matching that promise on the can... but you'll still be paying $1 in Portland and $1.09 in Queens, because only one of those areas has sales tax, despite both being in the same country.

This works out for the retailer, because the consumer does not blame them for raising prices across county lines, if there is a sales tax hike. The thought of "it's cheaper ten miles down the road, I'll get to it later," followed by never getting to it and thus never making a purchase, is rarer, because the listed price is still the same. It also means having to print or design fewer price tags; imagine having to manually change every price in a supermarket magazine! Every coupon needs to have its price changed by a few cents, to account for tax!

...or you can just print the same magazine with the same prices and write "plus tax" after the listed cost.

All this to say, Americans are used to adding sales tax at the end, and knowing that the price they see is not the price they'll pay.

Other countries Do Not Do This.

I mean, some do. But we're talking about the ones that don't, which includes the entirety of the EU, India, some of Japan, and the country I actually have extensive experience with: Serbia.

I am currently in Serbia, which means I'm in a country with a sales tax/VAT that is higher than I'm used to (20% on most goods, 8% on essentials). In every store I've been to, the tax is included in the listed price. If it says 87 rsd on a carton of milk, I will be paying 87 rsd at checkout. The baseline price is 80 rsd, and then there's the 8% tax, and the final price is 86.4, which gets rounded up to the 87 that is listed on the tag.

If you aren't accustomed to thinking about VAT like in the US, online shopping can be... a trial.

If I purchase something from, say, Canada, and have it mailed to the US, I am given the sales tax as part of the purchasing process. It will format the receipt as the product plus sales tax. This is familiar to me.

To someone from the EU who does not purchase internationally (specifically from the US, Canada, or other countries that don't include sales tax in the sticker price), this tax can often come as a surprise.

And, finally, in some cases... the will be paid at the very end, at the point of pickup, along with customs. I recently purchased something from an English creator that was manufactured in Germany and then shipped to Serbia. I anticipated that I had paid the VAT for Serbia when purchasing the product. It was instead added at the point of purchase, as Serbia is neither in the EU nor in a trade agreement with the relevant countries that would allow for me to pay the VAT online, I had to pay the 20% in addition to customs when picking up the package from the postal office.

Despite not being a tariff or customs/duty payment, VAT can have a direct impact on international purchasing.

Customs/Duties

Customs and duties are taxes applied to products based on those product characteristics.

There is overlap with tariffs. As a consumer, you are... not going to be very affected by the difference between customs and tariffs.

Customs are like VAT, in that they are paid by the consumer rather than by the manufacturer.

You can think of tariffs as a fee that a manufacturer pays to sell something internationally (though that cost is often passed on to the consumer), and customs as a fee paid by a consumer to receive that good.

Hope this helps!

(And if anyone here is more familiar with the subject than I am, please feel free to add on or correct me! I'm generally pretty good about international policy, but I'm not an expert, and this subject can be a complicated one.)

(Prompt me on ko-fi!)

#taxes #tariffs #taxation #customs #duties #sales tax #vat #phoenix posts #ko fi #ko fi prompts #economics #ko-fi #economics prompts

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foralleternityidiot · 2 months

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SHIPPER TAG GAME

tagged by @negrowhat

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore?

Hmmmm. I wasn’t the biggest shipper as a teenager and all the ships I did obsess over still own my fucking soul. I ship for life.

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

That’s a toss up between Monica x Chandler (Friends), Mulder x Scully (The X Files), Cory x Topanga (Boy Meets World), and Rick x Evie (The Mummy) I can’t remember which came first because they all were pretty simultaneous.

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

Romione. Although I remember dabbling in writing fan fiction in a spiral bound notebook at the age of 14, it was always sort of self-insert non-romantic LOTR character building. My first actual fanfiction (reading and/or writing) was Ron x Hermione when I was 19.

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

100% LOTR… but I don’t remember which pairing. Probably like Frodo x Sam or Legolas x Gimli, but I didn’t get into MM shipping until I was a full blown adult about to finish college.

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

Somewhat when I was in the Glee fandom but that fandom was a clusterfuck of ship discourse. I pretty much lived on the corner of fuck off and leave me alone.

6. Did you used to have any no-otp or have it currently?

Maybe? But I didn’t really care too much about looking at anything outside my own ship OR I was a multi-shipper. So I don’t really remember a specific notp. I’m sure there were some though. There was so much trash in the glee fandom, I’m sure I hated something.

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

I haven’t touched a fan fic in over 10 years so (I should get a chip!) the last one I read was likely Klaine. Holy shit wtf time has flown.

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs?

Approximately 1.9 billion. Oh you want names? Well Hualian (TGCF), Wangxian (MDZS) and most recently Ranning (2ha) are the top three out of the 1.9 billion. Remember, I collect ships and keep them in my heart for all eternity.

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

Sam x Jack (Stargate SG1). It’s somewhat implied but my god I still yearn.

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

I didn’t dislike Cory x Shawn but I didn’t really get it back in the Girl Meets World hay day and it wasn’t even on my radar at all during Boy Meets World. (Remember, I’m old and the internet was not what it is now during my youth so I didn’t even know about the Cory x Shawn ship for literally decades). Sometime after GMW ended and tiktok became popular there was a resurgence of BMW popularity and a lot of CxS analysis that opened my eyes. I enjoy the ship now but I’m still Cory x Topanga 4eva.

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

Tbh not really. I used to be pretty boring. I definitely have some in the present that would though. 🤐

12. What was your favorite crack ship?

There were so many in the Glee fandom but I gotta go with Sebastian x Cooper just because it brought two of my friends together in a RP group and they ended up actually getting married. Ah… memories. I’m gonna tag @believesinponds in this post for the nostalgia.

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics of?

None. But if I did it would absolutely be wangxian or hualian. Don’t fucking tempt me.

14. What most of your ships usually have in common?

In the past: Canonical.

Now: Canonical and Queer.

15. What do you absolutely hate in a ship?

Im gonna keep was Eboni wrote because it’s spot on: “Miscommunication and the noble idiocy trope.”

I'll tag @believesinponds @linameka @ommited-miscellaneously @ipromisedthesunset @kennyomegasweave @youdontnohme

#tag game

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zeydaan-isabella · 8 months

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Phazon Echoes - Zeydaan

Story by Metroid711 - Seeing their transformation abilities at work in Smash. Samus recommends Zeydaan/Isabella for a highly classified mission. Recreating the conditions to make dark samus in order to combat a NEW phazon threat. It's good they're used to this kind of thing.

Space … an ever expansive, never ending darkened void that was filled with billions upon billions of stars. And mixed in with these stars, several light years away from each other are planets. The Milky Way galaxy is one of these, neighbor to the Tetra Galaxy. These two astronomical wonders were inhabited by a multitude of species and creatures across dozens of planets and civilizations, and most of them would fall under the caring watchful eye of the Galactic Federation. A special government who’s main duty was to keep the peace between the races that inhabited the many worlds, and to prevent the strength of those who may pose a threat to that peace. For about half a decade, the Galactic Federation had to deal with the threat that almost tore the very galaxy apart, Phazon. This extraterrestrial radiation would be used and abused by a number of villainous parties that almost led to the extinction of all life in the galaxy, until their top bounty hunter put a stop to it and its vassal. However, a new threat has begun to reveal itself, returning in the form of Phazon once more. Phazon’s origin had come from the planet it was named after, Phaaze. The planet had been destroyed, but since that occurred, almost 3 years later, Federation members have detected another planet naturally producing the radiation. The scientists have theorized it may be some sort of planetoid like Pluto, albeit still just as toxic as the original planet. They have named it Phaaze Minor, but it has presented an issue that cannot be fixed the same way it was before. Since her last mission, Samus Aran has become far more susceptible to radiation on account of her Metroid DNA mutating to a full body transformation. While she can switch between the two, this factor has made it impossible for her to attempt the destruction of Phaaze Minor. Because of this, Federation leaders have enlisted the help of an independent research group known as the Hawkmoths. One of their members has the unique ability to adapt their form to specific situations, including physical attributes. They have been transported to the Federation research facility closest to Phaaze Minor to begin Phazon mutation adaptation testing, with the overall project being titled Operation Aquamarine. All of this information was what Zeydaan would be reading over. Ever since they were shipped out for this operation, they had gotten into the habit of looking over the federation researcher’s notes. It was helpful as, well, despite being told what would be happening, they didn’t wish to have any details left out. The ship they were currently resting in was piloted by a few select Federation soldiers that were similarly acting as the Fae-Wolf’s body guards. A knock on their room’s door and after Zey opened it, one of the suited men would be standing there. “We will be docking at the research station in 10 minutes, please be prepared to board.” As serious as the guard’s tone was, Zey knew they had the best intentions. Intergalactic governments like this tended to get a bad rep simply for stereotypes. After a bit of shaking and some clicks, the guards would open door for the fae-wolf as they stepped out with them. The station was impressive to say the least. There were large ship docks for medical vessels, military gunships for protection, even a couple small scouter ships probably used to examine the planet a good couple light years away. Zey would walk alongside the bodyguard group of guards as they would lead them through the shipping area and through a series of hallways and doors with scientists, doctors, and other workers walking past. Several would give them glances; some stared the whole way. Heck Zey remembered one of them even smiling and applauding for them, which felt … weird. Zey was led to an enclosed room, although it was by no means decrepit. It had a comfy bed, a computer table, some shelves with reading, its own bathroom, even a mini fridge. They weren’t surprised by this however, as it was one of the requirements their Hawk Moth friends put forward. Zey wasn’t to be treated as a test animal or lab rat like most experiments, they were to be given good and comfy treatment and kept healthy throughout the process. Only during the metamorphosis itself was Zey meant to be kept in quarantine, but they understood that part. “You will remain in here until the head scientist comes to pick you up for test screening, please refrain from wandering around the station. We will not stop you, but I doubt the good doctor would wish to play hide and seek with this galaxy’s only hope.” The soldier had a bit of a snarky attitude which caused a twinge of annoyance to spark through Zey, but they would roll their eyes and nod in response. The guard would nod back before the door closed behind them. Zey would have relaxed in that room for a couple hours. They were tempted to leave despite warnings but honestly it was probably best to get this done and over with, and that meant no issues caused for the others. It was going to be a long enough process after all, as they would sit on the bed and stared out the reinforced glass window. It was the swirling, gorgeous vast expanse of space Zey would be met with, something they honestly could never get used to with how pretty it was. However, besides this, far off in the distance was the cause of this whole fiasco. From here it was no bigger than a dot, but the glowing blue blot on the spatial sky would pierce it like some kind of stain. Zey knew they were outside its range of radiative influence but even then, they could feel just how wrong something like that should exist. While they were glad to be of service, getting mixed up in a material with such a legacy of destruction and corrosion behind it made them nervous. It wouldn’t be much long after this when there was a knock at the door, as it would open to reveal a stereotype that seemed to reign true still. Of course the head scientist was the sketchiest looking person they had ever seen. Stumpy and shorter, bald with small round glasses and tiny rat like eyes sitting behind them. He had a big somewhat concerning grin with a couple missing teeth. “I’m glad you could get here so quickly, this is … truly a special situation~” despite the fact he was talking about a planet comprised of one of the most volatile substances in the galaxy, that didn’t sound like the best tone of voice to take. He would gesture them to follow, and so they would, without really questioning much. The less they asked questions and thought about this, the more annoying it’d end up being. This guy probably wanted to use Phazon for his own means in some way, although while Zey didn’t know what, it didn’t matter to them. He would babble on about the importance of all this and his research and how this would be for the good of the whole galaxy. Zey would be led into the main lab, assumedly where they would be a majority of the time once this all started. “The process is quite simple! ~ Every day for five hours, on the hour, you will be exposed the Phazon samples we extracted from the newly discovered planetoid. Your special … abilities … will cause your body to adapt and mutate with the substance, far faster and differently than most would. I’m only slightly fluent in how your powers work, so I will trust you will be able to handle any attempts of the radiation trying to corrupt you mentally. Once we have deemed you fully adapted to the substance, we will inject you with the DNA of the Bounty Hunter Samus Aran. We had a few of her samples on file before her … recently completed mission. Once your metamorphosis is completed, we will send you to the planet to place the means of destroying it. Do you understand all this?” Zey didn’t even want to know how this all worked, but they would nod as the scientist would cackle a little and clap his hands. “Splendid! ~ I truly am looking forward to how this will go ~” Zey would step into a changing room to slip into something similar to the zero suit Samus wore. It was tight, but it was meant to be that way so it would stretch and adapt to the mutations same as Zey’s body would. They knew they’d have no trouble with the mutations, this isn’t something they haven’t dealt with entirely before, but their main concern was the Phazon’s infamously known effects it has on people’s minds. Samus’ bounty hunter party got driven completely insane to the point of trying to murder her, and Zey didn’t want to end up becoming the enemy because of all this. “You may step into the chamber when ready to begin the first dosages ~” Zey would step out, the purple colored zero suit shifting with their movements as they stepped inside the chamber. It was fairly well built, if anything. Having to deal with Phazon for a good decade or so allowed security measures to be made to deal with the radiation. The walls were comprised of a special alloy embedded glass with the corners and roof made entirely of the same allow. This material supposedly was taken from the remains of Samus’ old suits back when she was investigating the Phazon on Aether and Tallon IV. Once Zey gave the okay, the scientists would be messing around on some of the computers, and with the press of a button a square hole in the floor would open up. It would raise a platform in which sitting upon it would be a large 2 foot tall cannister of the pulsating, bright blue substance. Phazon, pure corrosive Phazon that has nearly caused the destruction of the galaxy three times over and yet it still somehow continues to exist. It was a plague; it should not exist, and it shouldn’t continue to exist. And knowing this was why Zey took the job in the first place, because if they didn’t it would cause more problems. Either in the hands of the Space Pirates, or probable scumbags like the scientist. “Beginning test 1 of the Phazon dosage … now!” and the front of the cannister would slide open, and instantly Zey had to take a step back as the waves of radiative energy blasted throughout their very being. It was like the waves of the ocean knocking them back over and over in a rhythm of cacophony. It felt wrong, but it was for the better of the future as they would grit their teeth and grunt. Already they began to feel their abilities going into effect, albeit small to start. The major mutations wouldn’t come until much later, with this time they felt their fingers began to crack and extend, shifting as their claws got slightly longer. They would gasp and arch their back as it would crack and creak, making them hunch only slightly as the muscles would expand slightly. That was something they were aware of Phazon being capable of, boosting and mutating the physical capabilities of creatures at the cost of their minds. This process of being pounded with the radiation would go on for what felt like forever, but it was only in fact about 30 or so minutes. Once it was done, Zey collapsed against the glass wall, panting and breathing heavily as the cannister would shut. They had 30 minutes to relax before the next dosage, but doing this five times a day was going to get exhausting. And they hadn’t even begun to feel the mental effects yet, as the scientist would turn the intercom on inside the chamber. “When today’s tests are done, you will be given a physical examination to see what sort of mutations your form has gone through for future research purposes.” That didn’t bode well, but they were too tired to care as they were trying to catch their breath. Zey would feel the second test ripple throughout their body, and by the end of the 5 tests they really began to feel the effects. Their muscles had expanded slightly, with their fur a little stretched across their frame. It was the basic physical implements Phazon was known for as they felt their strength being far better than it was. Although there were sensations that were more alien, with their claws and fingers having extended a bit longer, and their back felt somewhat hunched with more of the muscle bunching up there. Despite all this, Zey still looked relatively normal, but this only meant they hadn’t fully adapted to the body. The cannister would lower into the ground, and after a few minutes they were let out and taken to their room. A benefit of Phazon at least: unless it was directly pure, it couldn’t influence anybody. It wasn’t like normal radiation and being around Zey was toxic. Instead, what made Phazon so dangerous was how psychotic it would make those who’s minds it destroyed. Speaking of which, as Zey lay in the bed with a little less comfort from before, they felt a slight headache induced twinge of pain. And for but a moment there was a flash … of something in their vision. Nothing they could remember; it was there and gone faster than they could fully recognize it. But they realized it was a hallucination, something in the corner of their room, before it was gone instantly. This wouldn’t be the last they’d probably see of these, and they know they’d get much worse. The many who had succumbed to this alien radiation usually had hallucinogenic symptoms, hence why a majority of them tended to go insane simply from being unable to understand what was real. The next day would come quickly, especially since Zey could barely sleep. They were having the strangest dreams … they weren’t mutated yet, but they were walking around the testing facility. Everything was dark and murky, and space outside had been replaced by what felt like a dark desolate black and blue void. Glowing blue tendrils had snaked up the walls and ceiling and everything looked deformed and decayed; like nobody had been there. They would call out to get no response, wandering the empty abandoned facility. But it didn’t feel like wandering, it was like with every step in their dream they were approaching something important further and further inside the facility. However before they could go deeper to see what it was, they would wake up. Their muscles throbbing a little from their body not being entirely used to it all, as they would sit up. There would be a knock at their door and the guards opened it to allow Zey to proceed back to the testing chamber. Today was particularly stressful because the head scientist and his team was upping the dosage. That was the plan, taking in more each day, allowing Zey’s absorption abilities to adapt to more of it. Eventually the plan was to physically assimilate piece of the substance into them. The zero suit that was covering their slightly enlarged form would begin to stretch further as the larger cannister would be opened, releasing twice the amount of radiation into the fae-wolf. The effects were a little more grotesque this time, with their slightly elongated fingers starting to stretch and crack further. They had been shifting from a light and dark grey set of paws into enormous wicked gangly claws that only an alpha beast would use. The radiation was doing its job and increasing Zey’s physical capabilities, including evolving the latent animal traits they had. Each finger would crack sharply, the stretching fingernails that had been hardening and blackening would start to glow a bluish color on the ends of the sharpened tips. They couldn’t help but wince a tad, especially as the skin and fur over their arms began to slough, with the arms elongating. Their small hunch would become more prominent as their head lurched forward, back cracking as the fur was starting to fall off slightly in clumps to reveal the joints of their spine had hardened and protruded out their enlarged swelling back into natural armor-like spines. They had a feeling their fur would start to go, as this was much like normal radiation in a way. The enormous gangly claws had already been shed of all fur, with their creaking and elongating arms losing the grey fluffy substance in slight clumps. They winced a tad from the deformation of their regular body structure, but in the end it was worth it. And at the very least its not like their final form would be keeping them. Their tail was slumping a bit, with their spine restructuring they felt the nerves becoming numb in that extra limb. It didn’t fall off or anything, but Zey imagined it wouldn’t last the next day. Especially as their legs would tremble a tad. With how their body was restructuring it almost felt like they were losing their humanoid stance and taking a more digitigrade one. Eventually the day would be over, and the pounding in their head had increased. And as they were hobbling back to their room, they could’ve sworn they saw that same figure watching them from down the hall … around the corner. They were still too far away to make out, but Zey figured the hallucinations would get more vivid as this went on. More of a reason to keep getting sleep and not falling into the corruption like so many had before. The dream that night was more of the same. They woke up in the same place of the facility, back to normal, everything swallowed up by corruption. However, this time Zey practically heard a voice whispering, although they couldn’t make out any words. They were drawn deeper into the mental space catacombs, getting a little deeper this time. The veiny blue vines would have glowing pustules of Phazon across them, almost like it got worse the deeper they went. However like before, they would reach a certain point and then wake up. Zey could’ve sworn the direction they were going in the dream was to the main testing labs. Speaking of which, day three back in the large radiation proof chamber and this was the time for the scientists to expose Zey to pure uncontained Phazon. The mix of goo and crystallized blue plasma would be raised up on the pedestal, with it pulsating and glowing as Zey had to take a step back from the shocking sensations of it. This time it was worse, they felt their entire skeletal structure reshaping, falling forward as their back piled up with muscle. Fur falling away to reveal blackened smooth almost hard skin underneath, with their tail shuddering and detaching. It flopped against the metallic floor and disintegrated, as Zey gasped out with their legs creaking and shifting. Their knees bent as their paws would sharpen and stretch into similarly blue tipped black gangly claws. Their stance was more befitting of an animal in a way, with their chest having expanded further out. Most of their fur on their torso had shed, with only small patches remaining attached to the pitch-black skin. Although Zey felt an urge, just a small one. But this urge was enough to make them lurch forward and dig their claws into the pure Phazon, being a bit ahead of schedule as they felt the need to absorb more of it. It would suck up into them as the glowing blue substance would begin to flow through their veins. That of which would begin to glow a similar blue as they started to thicken and throb, moving up their enormous longer blackened arms. Thick glowing blue veins that pulsated across their body as their neck strained, Zey clenching their eyes shut as they felt their voice gargle into a growl. The whispers were growing louder, pushing them to further this, but they shook their head. They asked for this, they weren’t going to let it take over, although a bit of mutation could be fun at least. Their head looked so off, sitting on their hunched forward blackened neck, with their head having barely any changes, more than likely that would be the focus of tomorrow. Their body size was five times what it was before, with their veins bulging and blue. Their furless skin like a thick blackened hide, with sharpened wicked curved blue tipped claws and an enormous muscular spiked hunch of a back. They would lumber out, winking at the scientist who looked almost disappointed. Zey could only gather he was wondering why the corruption hadn’t broke their mind yet. Zey had been through a lot of situations like this, so they knew how to fight these sort of attacks. They were taken to a different room this time, with it being much larger than their former. Their bed was replaced with a large hanging hammock fit for their grotesque mutated body. Although they didn’t mind it, going to lay down into it with a creak. The hallucinations had increased as well, with a black and blue figure standing in the corner and getting closer. Zey recognized it as the end goal of this whole experiment, a hazy phantom of the Phazon fueled doppelganger of Samus Aran. The cause of all the trouble in the past, and it seems she was trying to use Zey as her own new host. However as she held her hand out, all Zey would do was smirk and turn over not giving her the time of day. Zey had another of the same dream they had been having, however they would finally make it to the decrepit door of the labs. It would open to reveal the testing chamber, a large glowing blue pod undulating inside like a cocoon. It would crack open as the wolf stepped in, and crawling out would be none other than Dark Samus herself. She would let out a soft, echoing hiss and reached out to them. “Join me … and we can rule the galaxy far better than they ever could.” Her voice was like poison, like every word could melt through solid stone. But Zey would approach her, staring at her outstretched hand, and the fae-wolf simply shook their head. “Sorry, but you had that chance, and you lost it already. And this time, I’m gonna make sure you stay gone” They placed their hand on her visored face, and with a small gasp and a flash of blue light, everything around Zey in the dream dissipated into a bluish dust. This was Dark Samus’ last remains. Despite the displays and showmanship, she was just a ghost. Zey woke up the next morning, feeling more at home with their enormous monstrous mutated form. And they were ready to complete the first phase of all this, before preparing to borrow the form of the one who had been trying to puppet this for their own gain. Zey would squeeze inside the chamber, as the last globules of Phazon rose up. The scientists watched in curiosity as Zey lifted them up … and bit down into them. They would munch and slurp them down like large gummy candies, with them not even really having much of a taste if not more of a texture. As they swallowed they felt their face cracking and shifting, their skull elongating as their black and red streaked hair began to fall off in clumps. Their front teeth sharpened into long sabretooth like tusks, with the rest of their wolf canines getting more deadlier. The only way to describe what was happening was that it felt like their skull was pushing out of their old head. The furry skin parted like paper to reveal a skeletal black material underneath. It was like their hide of the rest of the body, but like they had a pitch black animal skull for its shape. No hair, with their eyes almost blinking away into blue goo to reveal empty black crevices filled with glowing blue dots. But what made the changes more prominent would be how the Phazon moved across the rest of their enormous body. Different parts of them would bulge and splurge out into enormous tumors. This was pretty common for Phazon mutations, with a majority of them having radioactive growths like this. Usually it was a sign that their forms had over mutated, but in this case it was good. Zey felt an extra large one push out one of their skeletal eyeholes and the top of their head, with it obscuring half their vision. Honestly given the fact they felt entirely fine, this was pretty dang cool getting all grotesque and monstery. But that was it, all the Phazon left. Their giant overly mutated form had been completed, ripe for the final phase to prepare them in their mission for Phaaze Minor. Before they left the testing chamber they were given a single injection to their larger spine. According to the scientists, it was some of Samus Aran’s DNA from before her last mission. Once this was done, Zey returned to their room, although escorted by hazmat wearing guards, who they actually struck up nice conversation with. It was a little hard to talk with such a gnarly jaw, especially not having lips or a tongue. But Zey managed, and as they stepped in the room, they would get a look at themselves in the full body mirror on the wall. They looked scary as hell, which was exactly the intentions. This night they were not supposed to sleep, to allow the metamorphosis to happen and for their reactions to better be recorded by the camera in the top corner of the room. It only took a couple hours, with them feeling sharp pinches across their skeletal structure again. While it had expanded all this time, it was once again compressing and shrinking down. Their black mutated skin was beginning to lighten and even grow more … transparent. The lighter in color it got, the more they could actually see the effects of the transformation happening in real time. Their animalistic shapes were becoming more human-like, if not glowing and shaped like nerves. They felt one of their enormous claws start to compress and round out, fingers becoming useless as they would fuse into some sort of living carapace. An indent was forming in the middle of the stump like growth as their other clawed hand was compressing into smaller sharpened fingers. What was the weirdest part was their head, as the glossy see through blue skin was swallowing up their skull, as if performing the reverse of the previous mutations. Their maw would shrink back and close up to form no mouth at all, with the blackened texture becoming a bright blue, and their eyeholes becoming a set of pure piercing yellow eyes. Their face looked ghastly, like an abnormal artistic drawing of an alien or a human. They recognized this as Dark Samus incomplete form, with it being an in between state of her original Metroid Prime look and how she was in the end. Although this wasn’t too last long, thank goodness. Zey didn’t know how they felt having all their internal organic parts on display. As their shoulders bulged and enlarged, filling with Phazon, the thin see through skin layer started to harden and solidify. Zey felt their vision growing brighter, a light blue tint taking it over as their alien-like head would begin to fuse with the thin outer layer of skin. If all the mutations were weird, nothing compared to feeling their facial features flatten and extend into a visor in their places. Their claw like feet would smooth over into solid, yet almost breathable boots. Their fingerless arm had taken the form of the familiar weaponry Samus was known for, and their head was a fully visored black and blue helmet. Every part of them felt alive, like they were breathing and feeling out of every organic piece of armor they called their form. They felt the Phazon flowing through them, powering them, allowing Zey to float up, light as air. All this power felt amazing, and it was genuinely a spectacle to experience such a bizarre yet original metamorphosis. It wouldn’t be permanent, but they could at least enjoy it as long as they could. After getting a feel for their new body, they would float out of the room, only to see surprisingly that the head scientist was being dragged down the hall kicking and screaming by some of the federation soldiers. “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, THIS IS FOR THE GOOD OF THE GALAXY! YOU ARE DESTROYING EVOLUTION!!” He would scream out, seems they … or well Zey supposed she was female now given the circumstances, had their suspicions proven right. Zey would float up to a couple of soldiers who would salute her, as they stepped aside to reveal Samus herself walking up to the newly created darkened twin. She would look Zey up and down and let out a small chuckle, “and here I thought I’d had seen the last of this look. ~” One of the soldiers would let out a soft gasp, almost in shock that the silent and stoic bounty hunter even could speak. She would put her armored hand on Zey’s larger shoulder, going to pat it with a small nod of admiration. “At least its in the hands of someone who will use it for the right reasons.” Zey would nod back, a little flushed at that compliment, watching her walk past as the new Phazon conglomerate floated up to the window to stare at the corrupt planet off in the distance. Samus would have stared down at her hand as she was out of sight of Zey, wanting to make sure of something. She mentally noted the fact no Phazon had been leftover on her hand, letting out a soft chuckle. She was confident this would go well now, and that such power was controlled by someone worthy of it. One of the guards would stop behind her, bowing slightly before he spoke: “A ship is ready for you ma’am, are you prepared for the mission?” Zey turned around, giving him an emotionless look due to the visor face, and she felt a swelling of excitement in her chest. Yes, she was ready for anything.

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