#Apex Hosting

[thishostingrocks]

Apex Hosting Review - Quality Game Server Hosting

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[ryonello]

a shrimp fried this rice :3

[dunmrsims]

Eye texture inspired by Catalyst from Apex Legends, because I haven't really made anything since May due to IRL things getting in the way of it all. Sorry it's not any of the projects I started (then abandoned) months ago.

Found in both Face Paint or Left Cheek Scar (there are two files, feel free to delete one if you don't want to use it), for teen-elder. Colors range from normal to not normal and are meant to be cartoonish and not realistic. Shitty PSD included for recoloring, or whatever you wanna do.

feel free to convert to infant/toddler/child because I probably won't (for a while, anyway)

download (sfs) backup download link (direct link)

bonus eye texture for bbgirl crypto included at the end btw

[ketavinsky]

losing my shit rn over the new nightmare country particularly azazel communicating with the corinthian....... i was really really truly hoping that the new writers would comment on the fact that azazel is stored with the first corinthian and whereas i think it was pretty obvious from like. The Very Fucking Start of the comic that there was going to be some kind of bastardisation arc going on (the return of the all-white fit, the need to be seen, bro’s genuine delight at the premise of being worshipped as a god..........) i am so so so thrilled to finally see him make some concrete steps in the direction of being a complete fuckshit bastard again. like...... yeah... he remembers so clearly being at the cereal convention and being confronted for his ‘failure’ walking the waking world. he remembers the crushing novelty of that feeling, and how his first self was only able to process it as rage. he’s had time to reflect. he’s had time to recognise it as shame, and the significance of that. and yet what snags his attention is a couple. he allows himself to be distracted, and though he announces himself as an emissary who is acting under dream, as he is supposed to, he allows himself to want in front of an entity that is so clearly hostile. azazel doesn’t need to employ trickery to tempt the corinthian- he’s happy to indicate that he’s on the other side and that the second corinthian is undoubtedly defying dream by even hearing him out. but, even so, the memories...

[elbiotipo]

Some notes on worldbuilding with carnivorous cultures:

Animals feed more people than you think. You don't kill a cow for just one steak, this is a modern misconception since we're removed from the actual animals we eat our meat from; a single cow has several kilos of meat. In fact, slaughtering a single cow often means a feast time for possibly dozens of people. Every part of an animal can be used, and you can see this in cultures that live by ranching and transhumance.

Here, you should look at the Mongols and the people of the Eurasian Steppe, the people of the North American Plains, the people of the Pampas (fun fact; Buenos Aires was called the "carnivore city"), European and Asian cultures that practice transhumance, and those of the Arctic circle.

There are many ways to cook meat, but arguably, the most nutritious way to consume meat is in stew, as it allows you to consume all the fats of the animal and add other ingredients. In fact, mutton soup and stew historically was one of the basic meals for the for people in the Eurasian Steppe, who are one of the people with the highest meat consumption in the world.

Of course, meat spoils away easily. Fortunately, from jerky to cured meats, there are ways to prevent this. In pre-industrial and proto-industrial societies, salted meat was the main way of consumption and exporting meat. This makes salt even a more prized good.

Often, certain parts of animals like eyes, the liver, the testicles, the entrails, are considered not only cultural delicacies but as essential for vitamins and nutrients unavailable in environments such as the poles. The Inuit diet is a very strong example.

Pastures and agriculture have often competing dynamics. The lands that are ideal for mass pasture, that is, temperature wet grasslands, are also often ideal for agriculture. So pastoralism has often been in the margins of agrarian societies. This dynamic could be seen in the Americas. After the introduction of cattle and horses, the Pampas hosted semi-nomadic herdsmen, natives and criollo gauchos. The introduction of wire eventually reduced this open territory, converting it into intense agriculture, and traditional ranching was displaced to more "marginal" land less suitable for agriculture. Similar processes have happened all over the world.

This also brings an interesting question to explore. Agriculture is able to feed more people by density. What about species that DON'T do agriculture, because they're completely carnivorous? The use of what human civilization considers prime agricultural land will be different. They will be able to support much higher population densities than pastoralism.

Pastoral human populations have developed lactase persistance to be able to feed on dairy products even in adulthood. This mutation has happened all over the world, presumably with different origins. In any mammalian species that domesticates other mammals such a thing would be very common if not ubiqutous, as it massively expands the diet. Milk provides hydration, and cheese, yogurth and other such products allows long lasting food sources.

What about hunting? Early humans were apex predators and we are still ones today. However, humans can eat plants, which somewhat reduces the hunting pressure on fauna (though not the pressure of agrarian expansion which can be even worse). An exclusively carnivorous species (for example some kind of cat people) would have to develop very rigid and very complex cultural behavior of managing hunting, or else they would go extinct from hunger before even managing domestication. These cultural views towards hunting have also arosen in people all over the world, so you can get a sense of them by researching it.

It is possible for pastoral nomadic people, without any agriculture, to have cities? Of course. All nomadic peoples had amazing cultures and in Eurasia, they famously built empires. But they traded and entered conflicts with agrarian societies, too. They weren't isolated. Most of nomadic societies were defined by trade with settled ones.

The origin of human civilization and agriculture is still debated. It would be probably completely different for a non-human carnivorous society. One possible spark would be ritual meeting points (such as the historical Gobleki Tepe) or trade markets growing into permanent cities. But in general, pastoralism, hunting and ranching favors low-density populations that would be quite different.

Fishing, on the other hand, is a reliable source of protein and promotes settled cities. One can imagine acquaculture would be developed very early by a civilization hungry for protein.

Other possibilities of course are the raising of insects and mushrooms, both very uncommonly explored in fiction besides passing mentions.

Of course, most carnivorous species have some limited consumption of plant matter and many herbivores are oportunistic predators. The main thing to ask here is what the daily meal is here. For most human agrarian cultures, it's actually grain (this is where the word meal comes from). What about species that cannot live with a grain-based diet? You will find that many things people take for granted in agrarian society would be completely different.

As I always say: the most important question you can ask is "where does the food comes from?"

I hope you found these comments interesting and useful! I would love to do a better post once I'm able to replace my PC (yes, I wrote this all in a phone and I almost went insane). If you like what I write and would love to see more worldbuilding tips, consider tipping my ko-fi and checking my other posts. More elaborate posts on this and other subjects are coming.

[lassieposting]

Been thinkin about Astarion + vampire biology so have some headcanons and the bits of game lore they're based on

Dialogue establishes that Cazador has been successfully passing himself off as a regular noble for centuries, and Astarion confirms that while he's considered a bit reclusive, he does mingle with the upper class of Baldur's Gate and has a property specifically for hosting fancy events.

Vampires are camouflage predators, whose primary hunting strategy is to blend in with their prey until the perfect time to strike. Their ecological niche is not a particularly safe or stable one - they live hidden in plain sight, usually in sizeable cities, for easy access to prey, but they know that if they are discovered they will be rooted out and killed or driven away. They are rarely able to get away with attacking in public, where city guards might rush to the aid of a screaming victim - they have to isolate their target before killing it. The ability to blend in, to be overlooked by their target, until it is too late is essential.

Cazador is, as far as we know, the only true vampire in Baldur's Gate

This is because true vampires are aggressively territorial. Like most apex predators, they eat a lot, and need substantial territories to support them - even moreso if they have a partner or spawns. Ascendant!Astarion would need to hold onto the entire city, as Cazador did, to be able to feed himself and Tav without raising suspicion.

True vampires are relatively rare, but there are more of them than there are cities, so it's not uncommon for one to set up in an occupied city and try to oust the sitting resident. The challenger usually believes himself to be as strong or stronger than the current tenant: these territorial disputes usually end in at least one death, so they're not to be entered into lightly.

Astarion is very obviously a vampire: his fangs are visible, as are his bite scars; he's so pale multiple people comment on it; his eyes are red, etc.

Astarion is not a healthy vampire.

This is a man who has been kept on the knife's edge of starvation and tortured regularly for 200 years, and to another vampire, that would be clear from the state of him: Astarion is a camouflage predator who is so malnourished he is no longer able to blend in.

Tav will get an up-close look at his transformation over the course of the game and during the years afterwards: the more healthy and well-fed Astarion becomes, as his body catches up on its immense energy deficit and begins to recover, the better he will be able to mimic a living elf. His skin will be able to bleed, or blush, or bruise, none of which he's capable of while actively starving. Hia fangs will retract until he needs them, not invisible but less obvious - having them out all the time is a response to severe deprivation; he's so hungry his body can't risk losing prey to the split second it takes Cazador to snatch a rat back, so he's permanently in bite mode, hyperaware, ready to strike. Some body functions will come online that he didn't even know he had, the ones that are supposed to help him blend in - his eyes will start producing pigment to look darker, less scarlet and more burgundy, to be more easily mistaken for brown; his lungs will make him breathe automatically even though he doesn't need it, he'll start being able to eat normal food without getting sick again, though he still won't get any nourishment from it; he'll heal faster. He'll even be able to get drunk, though he'll burn through it very quickly. As it stands, all those extra systems have been shut down by his starving body - they're useful, but nonessential, and he needs every single bit of energy funnelled into just keeping him alive and functional.

There is probably an intentional bit of psychological warfare against the spawns on Cazador's part here - him starving them strips them of their natural defences, and every time he makes them leave the mansion to hunt, they have to do so knowing that they're poorly hidden and vulnerable. But it's established that true vampires treating their spawn poorly or outright abusing them is A Thing, so it's not the only reason - he sees them as property rather than people, he keeps them weak so they won't plot against him, he's acting out his own trauma from Vellioth on them, he just wants to - but it does feed into it.

Astarion can, at one point, identify old blood as belonging to the player character. He also gets excited at another point if an enemy character runs away, stating, "Now it's a hunt."

He says that "even stale, [he'd] recognise that bouquet anywhere." This confirms a few things for us:

He has a vastly superior sense of smell capable of identifying individuals by scent and - since he can tell who the blood belongs to even after some time has passed - following scent trails.

This confirms that although city-dwelling vampires may primarily hunt via luring a victim to a secondary location before killing it, they still have the "stalk down and chase" predator instinct. Since Astarion can't lure wildlife anywhere, this is almost certainly how he's been hunting to supplement his diet when he's not using the player as his personal caprisun.

The fact that he can scent out prey before killing it means he has this ability all the time - he can smell blood while it's still safely inside the owner's body.

So scent is probably relevant to how vampires process the world. The more time each companion spends with him, the more he gets used to their scent, starts associating it more with safety and camaraderie than with a potential meal, and so he becomes more relaxed around them. As he learns to link the player's scent with love and comfort and trust, the more likely he is to retreat to their tent over his own when he's injured or afraid or having a trauma moment. When he's fond of someone, something of theirs will go conveniently missing - he's moving their scent into his little safe space, it's comforting for him. He can tell when his lover is hurt or aroused or frightened - though not which of the three applies - from a distance, because his sense of smell can pick up the spike of adrenaline rushing into their bloodstream.

But that also means that he can never feel like he's got any distance from Cazador while he's living in the mansion - even if the man isn't in the same room, the entire place reeks of him, and it makes Astarion feel like Cazador is breathing down his neck all the same. Ascendant Astarion would have a really, really hard time sticking it out in that mansion with stale Eau de Cazador all over the place. It means that he's put instantly on edge by the faint scent of one of his siblings as he walks through the lower city - when seven vicious, territorial apex predators are confined to a single small dormitory, several hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, fights are going to be nasty and frequent, and although Cazador wouldn't allow them to kill each other, considering how many of his siblings refer to him as weak or a runt, Astarion probably didn't win them very often. So. Having a highkey advanced sense of smell is a mixed bag.

[missaengg]

His Dirty Little Secret

Day 8 of Kinktober: Visions of Temptations hosted by @xxsycamore found here Featuring: Love and Deepspace | Xavier x f!reader Tags: mdni, smut, smut and fluff, body worship, legs worship, cunnilingus, multiple orgasms, gentle kissing Prompts: Body Part Worship | “And here I thought you were an innocent one.” ao3 link here.

Xavier loved legs, or, more specifically, your legs. He worshiped them. Couldn’t keep his hands off of them. Drove him insane.

You’d be sitting together on the couch in your short little lounge shorts, and his hands would be crawling all over them, sliding up and down, kneading the soft skin, nuzzling his soft nose and pressing his plush lips all over them.

Your lap was his favorite pillow. The scent of you that enveloped him his aphrodisiac.

They were his joy, his exhilaration, his dirty little secret.

He started with tender hands and soft kisses, kneading the skin in a sensuous massage, exploring every exposed inch, breathy sighs warming up your thighs until they turned greedy… needy… fingers gripping you tight, eyes darkening with a carnal hunger. He drooled as he devoured them in his supple, needy mouth like they were the last, scrumptious meal he’d ever have, erotic throaty moans expelling from him with every caress.

He’d look up at you through half-lidded, lusty eyes, tongue gliding up your inner thigh, dangerously close to the apex between your legs.

Every time he looked at you with that longing smoldering in his beautiful sapphire blue eyes, your breath would catch, an overwhelming heat flooding your own body. 

And�� almost as if he knew how flushed you were becoming, he’d nudge himself in between your legs, burrowing his nose into your dampening slit, breathing in deeply, flicking his tongue against your sensitive, throbbing bud over your clothes, groaning at your arousal seeping through the fabric.

Until something deep within him snapped, and he just had to have a taste.

Emitting a low growl, he’d rip off whatever offending pieces of clothing were in his way, ruining many hapless pairs of bottoms and your favorite underwear in his haste, in his feral need to run his tongue along your slit, all in a desperate attempt to drink from you to quench his unbearable thirst.

Your fingers would thread into his silky, ash blonde hair, tugging at various levels of intensity based on what his mouth was doing, from tiny kisses along your folds to nibbling on your bud to plunging in as far as he could go, firm hands holding your hips in place while they jerked wildly into his fervent ministrations.

Each lick, each nibble, each suck, each dart all building into a sweet symphony of blinding, pulsing bursts of ecstasy, and he’d latch on with the entirety of his mouth, lapping eagerly in order to catch every last drop you weeped in an all-consuming bliss.

Each whimper you uttered sending him into an uncontrollable frenzy, and without providing you any respite from the electric jolts of his staggering provocation, his ravishment would start anew, teasing you into yet another swell of a glorious, dizzying crest, over and over until he finally had his fill of your sweet nectar, though it was never enough. 

Upon finally releasing you, he’d murmur how much he adored you, once again trailing the softest, fluffiest kisses away from your thoroughly loved sex while you trembled beneath him.

You’d peer down at him, a flushed fondness glowing in your eyes, drowning in his drunk gaze, and every time you’d say, “And here I thought you were an innocent one”, a whimsical smile gracing your lips. 

Closing his eyes, he’d wrap his arms around you, nestling his head back into your lap, and in a thick voice quip back, “But I am” before being lulled to sleep with your fingers stroking his hair, enveloped in the smell and warmth of you. 

Laying together for hours as the sun set and the room turned dark, wrapped up in one another.

[kalpeavaris]

Cyn - Creature/Furry AU - [Lore Post]

Worked at the Elliott Manor as a maid, was fairly shunned and often avoided by other Workers due to her appearance and clumsy behaviour. Often reprimanded by the Elliotts for her attitude and way of working, with Tessa encouraging Cyn & making sure she was kept on the estate.

Smaller than any of her siblings (who she does not know, sadly) or most Civets due to malnourishment during her younger years.

Tessa was actually the one to bring Cyn from the labratories she worked at into her home, as Cyn was being used as a "lab rat" for several testings due to her Albinism.

Cyn was the first and only person to come into direct contact with the sample of the "Absolute Solver", a mutated and self-aware Virus strain similar to Rabies or CWD (chronic waste disease).

Tessa brought the sample home in secret to hopefully continue working on cracking its code in her freetime, which is how Cyn found it while cleaning her room.

Due to Cyn's weak immune system the virus took hold of her fairly easily, nestling inside of her brain & being able to speak to her.

Thanks to the Solver's self-awareness of being a virus and its abilities it found the task of manipulating Cyn and using her as host to (hopefully) spread itself in the future fairly easy.

Over time, the Solver convinced Cyn that Tessa & her family were the Ones responsible for her being infected with the "sickness", convincing her to kill everyone on the estate on the night of a very important business meeting / gala event.

After wiping out the entirety of the Elliott family and their guests, Cyn fled the estate to Camp 98.7 where she hid and the Solver slowly started to mutate her body, taking inspiration from several animals and creatures in order to form the "perfect apex" for its plans.

The Solver deemed Cyn's fragile & rather weak appearance and demeanor as "not functional" for its plans, hence the rapid want to transform her. Using its abilities it had the upper hand and ability to change every aspect of the Civets outer appearance, almost shattering her mind while doing so.

What was left of Cyn during the story was... a chimera, all and nothing at the same time, made from parts the Solver deemed "useful" for the future plans it had on its mind. Horns for offense, wings to soar the sky, legs capable of running on both two and four legs, powerful jaws and teeth to kill, scales to protect the body - it saw her as imperfect, each change a desperate try to make her into something that could be deemed "perfect". Wielding the sword she had used to kill the Elliott family, she was ready to go to war for the Solver... albeit unwillingly. The Solver, appearing to her as a huge, grotesque hyena, was always there in the back of her mind (literally), steering her every move. It only allowed Cyn to move by herself when she was alone, often watching and belittling her for having issues to move and coordinate herself in this new body of hers. After the Solver arc and its destruction, Cyn was able to gain the upper hand over her mind - which took alot of time and help from other people (especially N and Uzi). She was capable of changing some aspects of her body "back" in some sense, however, alot is irreversible.

Was able to change her face slightly (removed the scaling on her snout, made it more cat-like with a more rounded appearence) & her ears rounder, similar to how they were as Civet

Made the wings way smaller as she dislikes them. Can't remove them entirely, but them being this small works. She hides them under clothes when she wears them.

Made her tail resemble her old one more with a more rounded tail tip & fluffy appearence.

Walks on both 2 and 4 legs, but due to her changed anatomy she involuntarily prefers 4 legs.

Whenever she walks on 2 legs she has to use the cane, as it's difficult for her to keep herself stable.

The Solver had used her body for so long that it became almost impossible for Cyn to act on her own - when she was possessed, it was like she was watching from a seat in her mind while the Solver moved her.

The first few weeks after her freedom was regained she almost didn't move at all without being told to or prompted by Uzi and N, not out of malice or to annoy them, but simply because she just... didn't know she had to move by herself. She was so used to someone else doing it that she forgot those instincts.

This also applies to her speaking - it was mostly the Solver speaking through her, so Cyn forgot her own voice and got kinda freaked out when she first heard it. Thanks to all the physical changes her voice also changed ALOT - from soft and timid to almost rasp, growly and deep.

Despite her looks she's still very timid. Way more extroverted than her former Civet-self, but still withdrawn from Strangers. When she first met Uzi properly she was kinda taken aback by Uzis extremely outgoing persona :']]

Bit Uzi once during an episode of flashbacks when Uzi assumed her to be conscious and came closer without warning, which resulted in Cyn biting off her arm (don't worry, Uzi gets a sick robotic replacement B]]) Uzi apologized profusely for the incident, while Cyn did the same for hurting her - fell in love at the first arm amputation /j

Found her confidence again thanks to Uzi dragging her along on her way to love herself.

[seuonji]

彡on a variety show w your svt bf!

๑ idol!svt x idol!yn secret relationship series! no storyline, just fun.

one ๑ two ๑ three ๑ four ๑ five ๑ six ๑ seven #mlist

notes ๑ variety show 'my alcohol diary' has mentions of drinking & getting drunk.

your group plays esports (valorant, leave of legends, apex, etc) against svt as a hybe special!

wonwoo gives you a look when you both sit at the end of your respective tables, you on the right, him on the left making you two sort of beside each other.

as you both play, the host points out that your skills are extremely good. your group member brings up the fact that recently you’ve been spending a lot more time gaming in your free time to which wonwoo rests his head on his hand to cover his smile knowing that he’s the reason you’ve been gaming more. the host adds on that your play style is a bit similar to wonwoo giving both groups chills. “perhaps it’s what’s adapted after a long time of playing,” you calmly respond.

on the other hand with soonyoung— he keeps messing up, at one point he shot one of his members, “the keyboard isn’t following what i want to do.” and you’d fr just face palm yourself. the host mentions, “even yn is getting tired of your antics.” “what antics!? im really trying.” you hope he can make it when technology evolves further. after filming you meet up with him. “wasn’t i cool earlier?” he asks. “i think my baby cousin can beat you.”

jeonghan would be such a menace in this scenario cause omg he would target you. like if he spots you he will not stop shooting and chasing until he gets you— your group member watching all of this go down would try to shoot jeonghan yet somehow he’s dodging and still hunting you down— “let me breathe!?” jeonghan shouts at your member. “you’re not letting ME breathe?” you shout back.

๑

random play dance! (random song is played and you have to dance the correct choreography)

beforehand you'd ask seungkwan to help you with the dances but he was not about to help you out while you were in a different group! until in one of the rounds where you looked lost, seungkwan comes to the front and dances clearly as a way to help you. "you're helping the other groups! get to the back," competitive seungcheol would shout. "sorry i got excited," seungkwan laughs it off. being fr tho how does that man know that many choreographies.

i imagine seokmin/mingyu would whisper to you, "i got you, just follow me," and then he would be one of the first to be eliminated.

vernon keeps on looking at you and copying your dance— you can’t help but laugh at his facial expressions when he doesn’t know the dance but also somehow he’s surviving.

wherever you are in the arena, chan always ends up beside you.

๑

youngji's program 'my alcohol diary'

you’d go alone to promote your groups album. your episode was relatively short— they covered it up with 'yn got drunk super fast' but actually, whether you have a high tolerance or not, in the end when you got drunk, you just kept on gushing about your boyfriend. (bf can be any member)

when youngji asked you to teach her the dance of your song you went through it step by step until a certain part, “oh soonyoung choreographed this part and i gave it as a suggestion and it made the cut to the official choreo,” you said with a big smile. // “my boyfriend likes this part,” you danced the bit then nonchalantly continued to teach youngji but she’s standing, there still in shock of everything she’s heard.

after filming, your boyfriend would pick you up and take care of you till you sober up.

the next day youngji would message and reveal something to you.

yn: im so sorry for the short episode run-

youngji: if it makes you feel better, seungcheol/soonyoung/mingyu/minghao talked about you way more than you did about them.

๑

chinese whisper game as a mini game (there’s a given word/phrase and the word is passed on through all players, last players needs to shout it out word for word)

you’re standing in front of jeonghan/minghao and he keeps on blowing into your ear before he starts actually saying the given phrase—

but if it was the noise cancellation version (have to read lips or body actions to get the word/phrase)

seungcheol pouted at you when you couldn’t understand what he was saying which a lot of viewers found weird since he would usually only do that with his members.

you almost hug jeonghan/joshua/wonwoo when he got the word correct—

jun/wonwoo/jihoon keeps on giving you high-fives every round.

you consider choking soonyoung when he can’t get the word correct for shit.

you and minghao/chan kept on bickering over the way he would execute the word. the staff and your members would be more interested on how you guys fight rather than the word being finally passed over to the last person.

[felassan]

Post on the Dragon Age website:

"Journal #2 The Voices of the Veilguard Get acquainted with some of the voice actors and join us for our upcoming character panel at SDCC! --- Hey everyone, We're packing our bags and heading down to SDCC this week and alongside that comes more Dragon Age: The Veilguard reveals! Today, we're excited to reveal some of the voice actors who bring our characters to life - a few of whom will be joining us for our character-focused panel at the convention. ICYMI, our SDCC panel "Dragon Age - Meet The Heroic Companions of Thedas” will feature Creative Director John Epler and Creative Performance Director Ashley Barlow as they discuss bringing the cast of Dragon Age: The Veilguard to life. Moderated by Lucy James, host and video producer at GameSpot, panel attendees will hear from Neve, Emmrich, Harding, and Lucanis’ voice actors as they discuss their motivations and inspirations that have lit up the personalities and uniqueness of each companion. The panel will be held on Friday, July 26 from 3:15PM - 4:15PM in Room 6BCF.  If the panel isn't enough to satisfy your Dragon Age cravings and you'll be at SDCC in person, join us at the Dark Horse Comics booth (#2615) where we will have swag to give away as well as talent & developer signings. Keep an eye on our social channels for more information on this. Discord members who drop by the booth and show us that they're a part of the server will receive a Romancer pin while supplies last. For those of you who will be keeping an eye on SDCC coverage from home, we'll have the full panel video available at a later date. Stay tuned. With that said, let’s get into our cast."

-

"Four Rooks are Better than One Featuring the most comprehensive character creator in Dragon Age yet, your character, nicknamed Rook, debuts with four different voice overs to make this story truly your own. Rook is Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s leader in the making who has to bring the Veilguard together to take down the threats on Thedas. Immerse yourself even further by picking your voice, with two options from US/North American personalities and two from the United Kingdom/EU.  Rook’s voices have been provided by iconic television, film and video game personalities Alex Jordan (Cyberpunk 2077, The Amazing World of Gumball), Bryony Corrigan (Baldur’s Gate 3, Good Omens), Erika Ishii (Apex Legends, Destiny 2), and Jeff Berg (Battlefield 1, NCIS). What even is Dragon Age: The Veilguard without the Veilguard? These 7 companions stand ready to join the fight to restore order to Thedas. We're happy to announce that our cast of companions includes: - Ali Hillis (Mass Effect 3, Naruto), returns to the fray as Harding, the dwarven scout, a Dragon Age: Inquisition hero with a big heart, a positive outlook, and a ready bow – as well as unexpected magical powers. - Ike Amadi (Mass Effect 3, Halo 5: Guardians, Insomniac's Spider-Man) as Davrin, a bold and charming Grey Warden who has made a name for himself as a monster hunter. - Jee Young Han (Perry Mason, Unprisoned) as Bellara, a creative and romantic Veil Jumper obsessed with uncovering ancient secrets. - Jessica Clark (True Blood, Pocket Listing) as Neve, a cynic fighting for a better future, both as a private detective and a member of Tevinter's rebellious Shadow Dragons.  - Jin Maley (Star Trek: Picard, Silicon Valley) as Taash, a dragon hunter allied with the Lords of Fortune who lives for adventure and doesn't mind taking risks.  - Nick Boraine (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Black Sails) as Emmrich, a necromancer of Nevarra's Mourn Watch who comes complete with a skeletal assistant, Manfred, voiced by Matthew Mercer (Critical Role, Fallout 4). - Zach Mendez (Horizon Forbidden West, Married Alive) as Lucanis, a poised & pragmatic assassin who descends from the bloodline of the House of Crows, a criminal organization renowned throughout Thedas.  Last but not least, we’re excited to let you know Gareth David-Lloyd is returning as Solas, and Brian Bloom as Varric. We have so many more people to introduce you to, including some returning characters, but we’re not quite ready to reveal all those yet, because of you know - story spoilers.  While that’s all we have for now, we’re eager to meet those of you attending SDCC and to continue our summer filled with reveals from Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Talk soon. — The Dragon Age Team"

[source] [Twitter post]

[chipjrwibignaturals]

i technically have my own server but. i would def need to pay More to get enough space to run a modpack. and then also other ppl would need to still play on it JKDSJLK

bro i need to play multiplayer modded minecraft so fucking bad

[literaryvein-reblogs]

10 More Words Related to Medieval Art & Architecture

to include in your poem/story

1. Monstrance: A vessel created to display the consecrated Host, the body of Christ. They were first created in response to the Feast of Corpus Christ established in 1263 that enabled the faithful to see and venerate the consecrated Host on a crescent moon-shaped mount. Monstrances were used in liturgical processions, especially on feast days, and were also placed on the altar.

2. Ogee Arch or Ogive: An arch with a pointed apex, formed by the intersection of two S curves usually confined to decoration and not used in arcade arches. Ogee arches were used only in the late Gothic period.

3. Pediment: A triangular space above a window or entrance. Originally, the triangular space was formed by the end of a gable roof and later was used decoratively.

4. Quatrefoil: An ornamental form which has four lobes or foils. It may resemble a four-petaled flower.

5. Refectory: Dining room in a monastery.

Refectory at Mont-Saint-Michael, France

6. Scriptorium: Area in a monastery where books and documents were written, copied, and illuminated.

7. Trefoil: An ornamental form which has three lobes or foils.

8. Trumeau Figure: Statue decorating a trumeau (i.e., vertical architectural member between the leaves of a doorway. Trumenus were often highly decorated). Usually this was a human figure, usually a religious personage.

9. Tympanum (plural, tympana): The semicircular area enclosed by the arch above the lintel of an arched entranceway. This area is often decorated with sculpture in the Romanesque and Gothic periods.

10. West End: The area of the church opposite the east end. The west end usually functions as the main entrance to the church. When one enters a church from the west end, the left side is the north side, and the right is the south side.

If these writing notes helped with your poem/story, please tag me. Or leave a link in the replies. I'd love to read them!

Words Related to Medieval Art & Architecture (pt. 1)

[ladybyakuya]

| BRAZIL + TASUKU TSUBAKINO.

+cw. — advisor!Tasuku Tsubakino x fem!singer!reader, musical au,band au, bofurin as band, mention of show pub ougi bar so manga spoilers, first meeting, usage of some canonical elements, rockstar!umemiya hajime, angst,hurt, misunderstanding ( ? ), confession, smut, mature content ahead. title based on song brazil by Declan McKenna

+wc. — 2k

+syn.— Tsubaki likes you while you know that he loves umemiya hajime and that is where jealousy comes into play but when it does it always turns the world upside down.

+notes. — this is a collab piece via wind breaker server ( the bofurin brothel ) hosted by our beloved mel ( @gimme-hiragi ). i used tsubaki instead of tsubakino because that's how he likes to be addressed. he is one of my favs >:)). dividers by cafekitsune | redirect to blog navigation.

+tags. — @stunie @prettyiwa

The stage curtains are drawn out granting a manageable access for the sunlight to pour into the empty stage. The pebble bar lights are not alive. There is no need for those but only during nights. Tsubaki is staring at the stage with a daze in his eyes as you connect the chords, set the microphone, and grab the headphones. For someone who can ignite the dormant rhythm in people’s hearts with the melody of your voice, you are an eerily silent soul. You clean the headphones with your handkerchief before putting it on. The only sound that could be heard was breathing: one was even like a pond while the other was uneven like a mountain range. Despite how quiet you are, Tsubaki can still pick up the rhythm of your body and soul: the footsteps, the breathing, Tsubaki watches as you take the stance of singing in front of the microphone.  He always does. He comes every Friday morning to watch you practice and as for you, you practice singing without any instruments or gadgets every morning, when the entire bar is in deep slumber. Clearing your throat, you start to sing but at first, just with wordless tunes, scaling your voice.

The lyrics:

{ heard he lives down a river somewhere

With six cars and a grizzly bear

He's got eyes, but he can't see

Well, he talks like an angel, but he looks like me

Oh, Lord

Oh, Lord }

Tsubaki rests his chin in between the slit of his index finger and thumb, elbow fixed on the table beside the glass of a strawberry milkshake. His eyes straw away due to the jingle of the bell coming from afar that is located at the apex of the back door. Someone is here. Tsubaki can not see them until they step into the main arena. Maybe they are from the staff section he consoles himself. He looks at you to check if you are expecting someone’s arrival at this time of the day but he finds you immersed in your voice. With those headphones on he doubts you could barely hear anything.

The thing is your Friday mornings solely belong to Tsubaki so anyone else is just noise to him but you do not know that. You know that every Friday morning he turns up sharp at 9 o clock without his twin bodyguards. He murmurs under his breath, “The music you play in bars is more real than what I play in stadiums.” and sips the strawberry milkshake through the pink straw.

You cover the microphone with your palm; moving your head away from it a little you retort tartly. “Oh? That’s new. Are you mocking bofurin?”

Tsubaki's red lips have a tinge of the pinkish milkshake he just sipped. He could not even gulp it down. Azure eyes go static, a palm over his mouth. Awkward. Waiting. 

“That’s what I thought. You could never,” you chime with a smile plastered on your face that you often maneuver during interaction of any sort with customers. He finally gulps down the strawberry milkshake. It feels stale and does not help with either the heat or the bubbling tension amongst his chest ribs. The moment you were about to sing again, your eyes switched to the entrance of the bar lounge.

Tsubaki’s sky lake eyes follow as he murmurs, “Umemiya-kun. . .?” it sparkles as if the sun shone upon him after a cloudy day.

Your mouth fell open ajar. How courageous of Umemiya to roam as free as a bird carrying all the fame and fortune on his back. “I hope you’re not looking for a place to hide, Haji.” you quipped gaining the attention of pair of eyes in the room.

Umemiya swigs his palm in front of his face exclaiming with zest, “No. No. Not at all.” He walks towards the stage and stands in front of you. Now, you can see both: Tsubaki and Umemiya. “Can’t I come visit an old friend?”

That would be unusual for a rockstar of his status. He has just started new heights. Recklessness sure follows wherever there is popularity and financial prosperity. Even with all that, it is unusual for him to pay an unscheduled visit for him. Could it be he is out in the wild, hinting at his muse? 

“you’re stuck.” Umemiya’s gigantic smile disappears instantly. Oh! That must be it. He is stuck with his music. “Bingo.” 

“Hmmm. That's what I thought. I mean you can’t afford to pay a visit like this unless you need me.”You pull his leg a little as Tasuku fidgets with the hem of his dress revealing a fair amount of this thigh. How tactless! Or could be intentional? There is a bleak prospect of that so for the better or worse you do not follow the trail of that thought. It's your jealousy wrapped with anger trying to stretch your heartstrings and release it, snapping the string and rewarding you with a bleeding heart.

You excuse yourself for a minute because it truly feels like someone is already tugging at your heartstrings and it's none other than Tsubaki. The way he acts around Umemiya bothers you. The way he acts around you clams your heart but you can not run after that tranquility. Never. Not in this life.

By the time, you come back Tsubaki has already left and Umemiya is sitting, waiting for you by the window side. He spends nearly half an hour trying to schedule a time with you and you can not lie to him. You can not lie to him even if you want to because you have to appease Tsubaki. So, if you agree with him, help him with whatever problem he is facing. 

It was decided that after a gig, the next weekend his staff would come and pick you up from your house and drop you at his house. And, when the work is done his staff will drop you back to your house.

The next morning strikes with a devastation deadlier than death. 

There is a photo of you and Umemiya on the front page. It is blurred just a little enough to not recognize your face but people around you can tell easily that it’s you. Tsubaki certainly can. That’s the only thing that matters, not the contents of the photo or how ambiguous it is. You and Umemiya are standing close to each other, closer than normal people. He is touching your earring and the angle of the photo makes it seem that he is touching your cheek. Damn! These paparazzi. You try not to call any of the Bofurin members because by now the must be busy handling the situation, especially Tsubaki being Umemiya’s sole advisor. It is almost mid-day. You throw the paper in the dustbin and pour liquor before burning it. Sure, you are jealous of Umemiya but you do not pray for his down fall. It makes you feel horrible to even think such a case. If this the price of love you have to pay, you would rather fall out of love. As if you can afford to do that. You can perhaps but not now. You have your reputation to protect.

A few nights later, after your first show when you walk back to your green room you find Tsubaki waiting in your green room without the lights on in the dark Your green room is nothing out of the ordinary except for him. He is like a cilantro in dessert. He does not belong here, in the world of booze and cheap bar lights. 

“What’re you doing here?” you try to sound angry, even annoyed but it is the shock that he hears the most, maybe a fear hidden underneath your voice. So, he does not leave the chair but rather folds his legs, one over the other. The taut and toned muscles of his legs are on vivid display making it even harder for you to focus. 

 “It was easy. I sneaked in.” He responds with so much detest in his heart that it makes you think he is mad about the photo. But he has no right to be, you remind yourself. After all, he is the one to choose to turn a blind eye to your feelings.

“Well, I have another performance so you have to wait.” you tartly spoke walking towards the mirror for some touch-up. Tsubaki watches you as you put lipstick on your lips.

“Why do you think I’m here?”

“Let me answer you with a question.” You turn your face to him, your hand still being kept on the wooden skin of the dressing table. “Why do you think I didn’t join Bodurin?”

“So, it's true. The rumors are true.” This guy . . . 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” The opened lipstick clatters among the cosmetics separating the maroon part from the lipstick case as you throw it away. Tsubaki does not say a word; just spares a glance at the smudged part of your lips, must have happened when you swatted it away.

“All this time, I thought you . . .you liked him. You liked him.”  Tsubaki exclaims in a low voice leaving his seat and coming close to you. “So, I restrained myself. I kept reminding myself—” his fingers linger on your chin. “ That you are not mine to own.” Right! How could you not think of this? Tsubaki the smudged part of the lipstick and you let him. “Now, i don’t have to do that.” he whispers against your lips. You gulp. He still has not let go of your chin. You don’t think he is going to  . . . kiss you, right? He chins your face up a little expanding a little more access towards your collar bones. Tsubaki jocks down, kisses on your exposed collarbone. Just a peck. “That will do for now. Will quiet down the rumors too.” Tsubaki smiles. You look at the mirror to check your reflection. There it is the lipstick mark, as bright as a diamond. You do not dare to wipe it off. You don’t want to. 

Tsubaki stands behind you as you watch yourself in all glory. He moves aside the fall of your hair onto your left shoulder. You tilt your head, eyes glistening as you look at him through the mirror. There is hope. Want. Lust. Desire. . . Tsubaki wet his lips seeing you inviting him but he can not do that, not here. You have a show to host, and people to entertain. So, he unzips your dress exposing your skin. You must either be wearing a backless bra or nipple pads. If not none, you are getting an earful from him later but for now, he proceeds to place a trail of kisses, slow and full all over your back. It is frustrating how you can not see his face or the lipstick marks he left on your back.

Tsubaki stands up after kissing you till the dress would allow him. He zips it up as he stands. “I’ll wait for your show to be over. Then, after the show we are going home.” He whispers into your ear but he is too close so you shrink feeling ticklish all over your body. A few days ago he felt light years away, so out of your reach and now he is standing behind you, as close as he can get for now. 

“I’ll hurry after the show if .  .  .” you can finally find your voice now. Wait, can you sing properly? Of course, you can; you reassure yourself. 

“Oh don’t worry.” Tsubaki interrupts. “ I’ll make sure we will make up for all the time we have lost love.” He holds your hand assuring you that it's okay; he is not running anymore; he is not. If anything, he feels repentance for suffering all these years regretting his feelings for you but now that bitter feeling has sublimed he is so full of love that it feels like his heart will burst at the seams. It's not suffocating anymore. It’s liberating. Love is liberating. OH DEAR! What blind fool he has been to not to see the love you have for him in those galactic eyes.

@underratedcharactercorner @interstellar-inn

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The long, bloody lineage of private equity's looting

Tomorrow (June 3) at 1:30PM, I’m in Edinburgh for the Cymera Festival on a panel with Nina Allen and Ian McDonald.

Monday (June 5) at 7:15PM, I’m in London at the British Library with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Baroness Martha Lane Fox.

Fans of the Sopranos will remember the “bust out” as a mob tactic in which a business is taken over, loaded up with debt, and driven into the ground, wrecking the lives of the business’s workers, customers and suppliers. When the mafia does this, we call it a bust out; when Wall Street does it, we call it “private equity.”

It used to be that we rarely heard about private equity, but then, as national chains and iconic companies started to vanish, this mysterious financial arrangement popped up with increasing frequency. When a finance bro’s presentation on why Olive Garden needed to be re-orged when viral, there was a lot off snickering about the decline of a tacky business whose value prop was unlimited carbs. But the bro was working for Starboard Value, a hedge fund that specialized in buhying out and killing off companies, pocketing billions while destroying profitable businesses.

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/

Starboard Value’s game was straightforward: buy a business, load it with debt, sell off its physical plant — the buildings it did business out of — pay itself, and then have the business lease back the buildings, bleeding out money until it collapsed. They pulled it with Red Lobster,and the point of the viral Olive Garden dis track was to soften up the company for its own bust out.

The bust out tactic wasn’t limited to mocking middlebrow family restaurants. For years, the crooks who ran these ops did a brisk trade in blaming the internet. Why did Sears tank? Everyone knows that the 19th century business was an antique, incapable of mounting a challenge in the age of e-commerce. That was a great smokescreen for an old-fashioned bust out that saw corporate looters make off with hundreds of millions, leaving behind empty storefronts and emptier pension accounts for the workers who built the wealth the looters stole:

https://prospect.org/economy/vulture-capitalism-killed-sears/

Same goes for Toys R Us: it wasn’t Amazon that killed the iconic toy retailer — it was the PE bosses who extracted $200m from the chain, then walked away, hands in pockets and whistling, while the businesses collapsed and the workers got zero severance:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/06/01/how-can-they-walk-away-with-millions-and-leave-workers-with-zero-toys-r-us-workers-say-they-deserve-severance/

It’s a good racket — for the racketeers. Private equity has grown from a finance sideshow to Wall Street’s apex predator, and it’s devouring the real economy through a string of audactious bust outs, each more consequential and depraved than the last.

As PE shows that it can turn profitable businesses gigantic windfalls, sticking the rest of us with the job of sorting out the smoking craters they leave behind, more and more investors are piling in. Today, the PE sector loves a rollup, which is when they buy several related businesses and merge them into one firm. The nominal business-case for a rollup is that the new, bigger firm is more “efficient.” In reality, a rollup’s strength is in eliminating competition. When all the pet groomers, or funeral homes, or urgent care clinics for ten miles share the same owner, they can raise prices, lower wages, and fuck over suppliers.

They can also borrow. A quirk of the credit markets is that a standalone small business is valued at about 3–5x its annual revenues. But if that business is part of a large firm, it is valued at 10–20x annual turnover. That means that when a private equity company rolls up a comedy club, ad agency or water bottler (all businesses presently experiencing PE rollup), with $1m in annual revenues, it shows up on the PE company’s balance sheet as an asset worth $10–20m. That’s $10–20m worth of collateral the PE fund can stake for loans that let it buy and roll up more small businesses.

2.9 million Boomer-owned businesses, employing 32m people, are expected to sell in the next couple years as their owners retire. Most of these businesses will sell to PE firms, who can afford to pay more for them as a prelude to a bust out than anyone intending to operate them as a productive business could ever pay:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

PE’s most ghastly impact is felt in the health care sector. Whole towns’ worth of emergency rooms, family practices, labs and other health firms have been scooped up by PE, which has spent more than $1t since 2012 on health acquisitions:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/17/the-doctor-will-fleece-you-now/#pe-in-full-effect

Once a health care company is owned by PE, it is significantly more likely to commit medicare fraud. It also cuts wages and staffing for doctors and nurses. PE-owned facilities do more unnecessary and often dangerous procedures. Appointments get shorter. The companies get embroiled in kickback scandals. PE-backed dentists hack away at children’s mouths, filling them full of root-canals.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/17/the-doctor-will-fleece-you-now/#pe-in-full-effect

The Healthcare Private Equity Association boasts that its members are poised to spend more than $3t to create “the future of healthcare.”

https://hcpea.org/#!event-list

As bad as PE is for healthcare, it’s worse for long-term care. PE-owned nursing homes are charnel houses, and there’s a particularly nasty PE scam where elderly patients are tricked into signing up for palliative care, which is never delivered (and isn’t needed, because the patients aren’t dying!). These fake “hospices” get huge payouts from medicare — and the patient is made permanently ineligible for future medicare, because they are recorded being in their final decline:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

Every part of the health care sector is being busted out by PE. Another ugly PE trick, the “club deal,” is devouring the medical supply business. Club deals were huge in the 2000s, destroying rent-controlled housing, energy companies, Mervyn’s department stores, Harrah’s, and Old Country Joe. Now it’s doing the same to medical supplies:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/14/billionaire-class-solidarity/#club-deals

Private equity is behind the mass rollup of single-family homes across America. Wall Street landlords are the worst landlords in America, who load up your rent with junk fees, leave your home in a state of dangerous disrepair, and evict you at the drop of a hat:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/16/die-miete-ist-zu-hoch/#assets-v-human-rights

As these houses decay through neglect, private equity makes a bundle from tenants and even more borrowing against the houses. In a few short years, much of America’s desperately undersupplied housing stock will be beyond repair. It’s a bust out.

You know all those exploding trains filled with dangerous chemicals that poison entire towns? Private equity bust outs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/04/up-your-nose/#rail-barons

Where did PE come from? How can these people look themselves in the mirror? Why do we let them get away with it? How do we stop them?

Today in The American Prospect, Maureen Tkacik reviews two new books that try to answer all four of these questions, but really only manage to answer the first three:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-06-02-days-of-plunder-morgenson-rosner-ballou-review/

The first of these books is These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs — and Wrecks — America by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/These-Are-the-Plunderers/Gretchen-Morgenson/9781982191283

The second is Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America, by Brendan Ballou:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brendan-ballou/plunder/9781541702103/

Both books describe the bust out from the inside. For example, PetSmart — looted for $30 billion by RaymondSvider and his PE fund BC Partners — is a slaughterhouse for animals. The company systematically neglects animals — failing to pay workers to come in and feed them, say, or refusing to provide backup power to run during power outages, letting animals freeze or roast to death. Though PetSmart has its own vet clinics, the company doesn’t want to pay its vets to nurse the animals it damages, so it denies them care. But the company is also too cheap to euthanize those animals, so it lets them starve to death. PetSmart is also too cheap to cremate the animals, so its traumatized staff are ordered to smuggle the dead, rotting animals into random dumpsters.

All this happened while PetSmart’s sales increased by 60%, matched by growth in the company’s gross margins. All that money went to the bust out.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/09/27/the-30-billion-kitty-meet-the-investor-who-made-a-fortune-on-pet-food/

Tkacik says these books show that we’re finally getting wise to PE. Back in the Clinton years, the PE critique painted the perps as sharp operators who reduced quality and jacked up prices. Today, books like these paint these “investors” as the monsters they are — crooks whose bust ups are crimes, not clever finance hacks.

Take the Carlyle Group, which pioneered nursing home rollups. As Carlyle slashed wages, its workers suffered — but its elderly patients suffered more. Thousands of Carlyle “customers” died of “dehydration, gangrenous bedsores, and preventable falls” in the pre-covid years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/opioid-overdoses-bedsores-and-broken-bones-what-happened-when-a-private-equity-firm-sought-profits-in-caring-for-societys-most-vulnerable/2018/11/25/09089a4a-ed14-11e8-baac-2a674e91502b_story.html

KKR, another PE monster, bought a second-hand chain of homes for mentally disabled adults from another PE company, then squeezed it for the last drops of blood left in the corpse. KKR cut wages to $8/hour and increased shifts to 36 hours, then threatened to have workers who went home early arrested and charged with “patient abandonment.” Many of these homes were often left with no staff at all, with patients left to starve and stew in their own waste.

PE loves to pick on people who can’t fight back: kids, sick people, disabled people, old people. No surprise, then, that PE loves prisons — the ultimate captive audience. HIG Capital is a $55b fund that owns TKC Holdings, who got the contract to feed the prisoners at 400 institutions. They got the contract after the prisons fired Aramark, owned by PE giant Warburg Pincus, whose food was so inedible that it provoked riots. TKC got a million bucks extra to take over the food at Michigan’s Kinross Correctional Facility, then, incredibly, made the food worse. A chef who refused to serve 100 bags of rotten potatoes (“the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in my life”) was fired:

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/michigan/prison-food-worker-i-was-fired-for-refusing-to-serve-rotten-potatoes/69-467297770

TKC doesn’t just operate prison kitchens — it operates prison commissaries, where it gouges prisoners on junk food to replace the inedible slop it serves in the cafeteria. The prisoners buy this food with money they make working in the prison workshops, for $0.10–0.25/hour. Those workshops are also run by TKC.

Tkacic traces private equity back to the “corporate raiders” of the 1950s and 1960s, who “stealthily borrowed money to buy up enough shares in a small or midsized company to control its biggest bloc of votes, then force a stock swap and install himself as CEO.”

The most famous of these raiders was Eli Black, who took over United Fruit with this gambit — a company that had a long association with the CIA, who had obligingly toppled democratically elected governments and installed dictators friendly to United’s interests (this is where the term “banana republic” comes from).

Eli Black’s son is Leon Black, a notorious PE predator. Leon Black got his start working for the junk-bonds kingpin Michael Milken, optimizing Milken’s operation, which was the most terrifying bust out machine of its day, buying, debt-loading and wrecking a string of beloved American businesses. Milken bought 2,000 companies and put 200 of them through bankruptcy, leaving the survivors in a brittle, weakened state.

It got so bad that the Business Roundtable complained about the practice to Congress, calling Milken, Black, et al, “a small group is systematically extracting the equity from corporations and replacing it with debt, and incidentally accumulating major wealth.”

Black stabbed Milken in the back and tanked his business, then set out on his own. Among the businesses he destroyed was Samsonite, “a bankrupt-but-healthy company he subjected to 12 humiliating years of repeated fee extractions, debt-funded dividend payments, brutal plant closings, and hideous schemes to induce employees to buy its worthless stock.”

The money to buy Samsonite — and many other businesses — came through a shadowy deal between Black and John Garamendi, then a California insurance commissioner, now a California congressman. Garamendi helped Black buy a $6b portfolio of junk bonds from an insurance company in a wildly shady deal. Garamendi wrote down the bonds by $3.9b, stealing money “from innocent people who needed the money to pay for loved ones’ funerals, irreparable injuries, etc.”

Black ended up getting all kinds of favors from powerful politicians — including former Connecticut governor John Rowland and Donald Trump. He also wired $188m to Jeffrey Epstein for reasons that remain opaque.

Black’s shady deals are a marked contrast with the exalted political circles he travels in. Despite private equity’s obviously shady conduct, it is the preferred partner for cities and states, who buy everything from ambulance services to infrastructure from PE-owned companies, with disastrous results. Federal agencies turn a blind eye to their ripoffs, or even abet them. 38 state houses passed legislation immunizing nursing homes from liability during the start of the covid crisis.

PE barons are shameless about presenting themselves as upstanding cits, unfairly maligned. When Obama made an empty promise to tax billionaires in 2010, Blackstone founder SteveS chwarzman declared, “It’s a war. It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”

Since we’re on the subject of Hitler, this is a good spot to bring up Monowitz, a private-sector satellite of Auschwitz operated by IG Farben as a slave labor camp to make rubber and other materiel it supplied at a substantial markup to the wermacht. I’d never heard of Monowitz, but Tkacik’s description of the camp is chilling, even in comparison to Auschwitz itself.

Farben used slave laborers from Auschwitz to work at its rubber plant, but was frustrated by the logistics of moving those slaves down the 4.5m stretch of road to the facility. So the company bought 25,000 slaves — preferring children, who were cheaper — and installed them in a co-located death-camp called Monowitz:

https://www.commentary.org/articles/r-tannenbaum/the-devils-chemists-by-josiah-e-dubois-jr/

Monowitz was — incredibly — worse than Auschwitz. It was so bad, the SS guards who worked at it complained to Berlin about the conditions. The SS demanded more hospitals for the workers who dropped from beatings and overwork — Farben refused, citing the cost. The factory never produced a steady supply of rubber, but thanks to its gouging and the brutal treatment of its slaves, the camp was still profitable and returned large dividends to Farben’s investors.

Apologists for slavery sometimes claim that slavers are at least incentivized to maintain the health of their captive workforce. This was definitely not true of Farben. Monowitz slaves died on average after three months in the camp. And Farben’s subsidiary, Degesch, made the special Zyklon B formulation used in Auschwitz’s gas chambers.

Tkacik’s point is that the Nazis killed for ideology and were unimaginably cruel. Farben killed for money — and they were even worse. The banality of evil gets even more banal when it’s done in service to maximizing shareholder value.

As Farben historian Joseph Borkin wrote, the company “reduced slave labor to a consumable raw material, a human ore from which the mineral of life was systematically extracted”:

https://www.scribd.com/document/517797736/The-Crime-and-Punishment-of-I-G-Farben

Farben’s connection to the Nazis was a the subject of Germany’s Master Plan: The Story of Industrial Offensive, a 1943 bestseller by Borkin, who was also an antitrust lawyer. It described how Farben had manipulated global commodities markets in order to create shortages that “guaranteed Hitler’s early victories.”

Master Plan became a rallying point in the movement to shatter corporate power. But large US firms like Dow Chemical and Standard Oil waged war on the book, demanding that it be retracted. Borkin was forced into resignation and obscurity in 1945.

Meanwhile, in Nuremberg, 24 Farben executives were tried for their war crimes, and they cited their obligations to their shareholders in their defense. All but five were acquitted on this basis.

Seen in that light, the plunderers of today’s PE firms are part of a long and dishonorable tradition, one that puts profit ahead of every other priority or consideration. It’s a defense that wowed the judges at Nuremberg, so should we be surprised that it still plays in 2023?

Tkacik is frustrated that neither of these books have much to offer by way of solutions, but she understands why that would be. After all, if we can’t even close the carried interest tax loophole, how can we hope to do anything meaningful?

“Carried interest” comes up in every election cycle. Most of us assume it has something to do with “interest payments,” but that’s not true. The carried interest loophole relates to the “interest” that 16th-century sea captains had in their cargo. It’s a 600-year-old tax loophole that private equity bosses use to pay little or no tax on their billions. The fact that it’s still on the books tells you everything you need to know about whether our political class wants to do anything about PE’s plundering.

Notwithstanding Tkacik’s (entirely justified) skepticism of the weaksauce remedies proposed in these books, there is some hope of meaningful action. Private equity’s rollups are only possible because they skate under the $101m threshold for merger scrutiny. However, there is good — but unenforced — law that allows antitrust enforcers to block these mergers. This is the “incipiency standard” — Sec 7 of the Clayton Act — the idea that a relatively small merger might not be big enough to trigger enforcement action on its own, but regulators can still act to block it if it creates an incipient monopoly.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

The US has a new crop of aggressive — fearless — top antitrust enforcers and they’ve been systematically reviving these old laws to go after monopolies.

That’s long overdue. Markets are machines for eroding our moral values: “In comparison to non-market decisions, moral standards are significantly lower if people participate in markets.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20130607154129/https://www.uni-bonn.de/Press-releases/markets-erode-moral-values

The crimes that monsters commit in the name of ideology pale in comparison to the crimes the wealthy commit for money.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farbenizers

[Image ID: An overgrown graveyard, rendered in silver nitrate monochrome. A green-tinted businessman  with a moneybag in place of a head looms up from behind a gravestone. The right side of the image is spattered in blood.]