#Central Park neighborhood

[trendynewsnow]

Royal Caribbean's Star of the Seas Float Out Ceremony at Meyer Turku Shipyard

Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas Makes Waves at Meyer Turku Shipyard The anticipation was palpable as valves opened, allowing over a thousand workers to gather at the Meyer Turku shipyard in Finland for the grand “float out” ceremony of Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas. This monumental nine-hour process involves flooding a specialized dock with an astonishing 92 million gallons of water,…

[sydmarch]

had a dream about disco elysium 2 and it wasn't very good

[pagesofkenna]

as someone who's never been to New York, I've always been a little intimidated by the hypothetical size of the place. the way people describe it, or depict it in movies, it seems so BIG. I imagine someone walking from one end of Manhattan to the other and it taking, like, a day. it takes forever. the Central Park could house an entire city inside of it. and that's just one borough??? what even is a borough!?

anyway I'm watching Unsleeping City on Dimension 20 so this has been stressing me out even more and I decided to look up a size comparison to Los Angelos, the only city I am familiar with, and

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this because it's completely changing my worldview. Manhattan is small???? is this right???

like a) I know this isn't strictly showing LA city limits, but I'm not a local so I basically consider Long Beach and Burbank to be LA, and I guess I'd been assuming the distance between them was also the size of the [borough everyone talks about the most so I assumed it was the biggest] Manhattan?? Queens is barely the size (maybe barely a little more) of Downtown LA???

and b) I know because of California driving culture and New York Public Transit existence that the perceived sizes of these spaces is different, like the lived in experience of these spaces, and that's important I get it

I've just gone my whole life assuming the Expected Navigable Size of New York was larger. Because everyone makes such a big deal about it. I'm reassessing lmao

[we-re-always-alright]

seven years in a row!!!!!!!!

[vecationist]

Discover New York City: The Ultimate 4-Day Itinerary for 2023

New York City is one of the most exciting and diverse cities in the world, offering something for everyone. Whether you’re a foodie, a history buff, a culture vulture, or just looking for a good time, you’ll find it all in the Big Apple. With so much to see and do, it can be challenging to know where to start. That’s why we’ve put together the perfect 4-day itinerary for 2023 to help you make the…

[vartosa]

foundry cove neighborhood 🍃

at the very beginning of my account, I had shared a first version of the foundry cove neighborhood. nevertheless, I thought a lot about the style i wanted for my save and decided to redo everything. this neighborhood and willow creek central park are the most "swampy" parts of the city, unlike the other neighborhoods where you can find exotic plants. foundry cove is also the poorest part of the city, and it's also very poorly maintained, which is why it's polluted by a lot of garbage on the street.

you can find here:

a restaurant (a snack)

a national park

a two-unit residential rental

a three-unit residential rental

a vacation rental

[manifesto-of-a-femcel]

Beautiful Movies All Girls Should Watch

A list of movies that touch on coming of age, romance and complex female emotions.

May (2002): A socially awkward veterinary assistant with a lazy eye and obsession with perfection descends into depravity after developing a crush on a boy with perfect hands.

Audition (1999): A widower takes an offer to screen girls at a special audition, arranged for him by a friend to find him a new wife. The one he fancies is not who she appears to be after all.

Helter Skelter (2012): Top star Lilico undergoes multiple cosmetic surgeries to her entire body. As her surgeries show side effect, Lilico makes the lives of those around her miserable as she tries to deal with her career and her personal problems.

Ginger Snaps (2000): Two death-obsessed sisters, outcasts in their suburban neighborhood, must deal with the tragic consequences when one of them is bitten by a deadly werewolf.

The Craft (1996): A newcomer to a Catholic prep high school falls in with a trio of outcast teenage girls who practice witchcraft, and they all soon conjure up various spells and curses against those who anger them.

Malèna (2000): Amidst the war climate, a teenage boy discovering himself becomes love-stricken by Malèna, a sensual woman living in a small, narrow-minded Italian town.

Perfect Blue (1997): A retired pop singer turned actress’ sense of reality is shaken when she is stalked by an obsessed fan and seemingly a ghost of her past.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968): A young couple trying for a baby moves into an aging, ornate apartment building on Central Park West, where they find themselves surrounded by peculiar neighbors.

The Virgin Suicides (1999): A group of male friends become obsessed with five mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict, religious parents in suburban Detroit in the mid 1970s.

Sucker Punch (2011): A young girl institutionalized by her abusive stepfather retreats to an alternative reality as a coping strategy and envisions a plan to help her escape.

Piggy (2022): An overweight teen is bullied by a clique of cool girls poolside while holidaying in her village. The long walk home will change the rest of her life.

The Love Witch (2016): A modern-day witch uses spells and magic to get men to fall in love with her, with deadly consequences.

Pearl (2022): In 1918, a young woman on the brink of madness pursues stardom in a desperate attempt to escape the drudgery, isolation and lovelessness of life on her parents' farm.

Girl, Interrupted (1999): Based on writer Susanna Kaysen's account of her 18-month stay at a mental hospital in the late 1960s.

Black Swan (2010): Nina is a talented but unstable ballerina on the verge of stardom. Pushed to the breaking point by her artistic director and a seductive rival, Nina's grip on reality slips, plunging her into a waking nightmare.

Gone Girl (2014): With his wife's disappearance having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man sees the spotlight turned on him when it's suspected that he may not be innocent.

Jennifer’s Body (2009): A newly-possessed high-school cheerleader turns into a succubus who specializes in killing her male classmates. Can her best friend put an end to the horror?

Bones And All (2022): Coming of age romance about two cannibals

In the Mood for Love (2000): Two neighbors form a strong bond after both suspect extramarital activities of their spouses. However, they agree to keep their bond platonic so as not to commit similar wrongs.

Brokeback Mountain (2005): Ennis and Jack are two shepherds who develop a sexual and emotional relationship. Their relationship becomes complicated when both of them get married to their respective girlfriends.

Call Me By Your Name (2017): In 1980s Italy, romance blossoms between a seventeen-year-old student and the older man hired as his father's research assistant.

Maurice (1986): Two English school chums find themselves falling in love at Cambridge. To regain his place in society, Clive gives up Maurice and marries. While staying with Clive and his wife, Maurice discovers romance in the arms of the gamekeeper Alec.

Y Tu Mamá También (2001): In Mexico, two teenage boys and an attractive older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life, friendship, sex, and each other.

Caroline (2009): An adventurous 11-year-old girl finds another world that is a strangely idealized version of her frustrating home, but it has sinister secrets.

Corpse Bride (2005): When a shy groom practices his wedding vows in the inadvertent presence of a deceased young woman, she rises from the grave assuming he has married her.

[famousinuniverse]

Central Park, New York, United States: Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City that was the first landscaped park in the United States. Wikipedia

[reasonsforhope]

"Faced with declining membership, aging buildings and large, underutilized properties, many U.S. houses of worship have closed their doors in recent years. Presbyterian minister Eileen Linder has argued that 100,000 churches may close in the next few decades.

But some congregations are using their land in new ways that reflect their faith – a focus of my urban planning research. Some are repurposing their property to provide affordable housing, as the housing crisis intensifies across the country.

Take Arlington Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Virginia. In 2016, the church sold its historic stone building to the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing to construct a 6-story complex with 173 apartments, known as “Gilliam Place.” The building still houses space for the congregation, as well as La Cocina, a bilingual culinary job training facility and cafe. In Austin, Texas, St. Austin Catholic Parish is partnering with a developer to build a 29-story tower providing 200 beds of affordable student housing, in addition to new spaces for ministry.

Other houses of worship are pursuing similar projects today.

Same mission, new projects

Faith-based organizations have been building housing for many years, but generally by purchasing additional property. In recent years, however, more houses of worship are building affordable housing on the same property as the sanctuary.

This can be done in a variety of ways. Some congregations adapt the existing sanctuary and other faith-owned buildings, while others demolish existing buildings to construct a new development, which may or may not have space for the congregation. Another option is to build on excess property, like a parking lot.

Depending on how a development deal is structured, a faith-based organization may receive proceeds from the sale of its land, or from leasing their property to a developer – funds which they can then spend on ministry or on a new space for worship. If a new development includes space for the congregation, sometimes they rent out those spaces when the space is not being used for worship, which can also financially benefit the congregation.

Faith-based organizations often see these projects as a way to do “God’s work.” In some instances, they include community services beyond the housing itself.

Near Los Angeles, the Episcopal Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Placentia partnered with a nonprofit affordable housing developer – National Community Renaissance, also called National CORE – to develop 65 units for older people. The complex also includes a 1,500 square foot (140 square meter) community center. The city’s diocese has a goal of building affordable housing on 25% of its 133 properties.

For some congregations, these are mission-driven projects rooted in social justice.

In Washington, D.C., Emory United Methodist Church redeveloped its property and constructed The Beacon Center – which has 99 affordable housing units, community spaces, and a commercial kitchen that provides job training for recently incarcerated people – while preserving the sanctuary. In Seattle, the Nehemiah Initiative is working with Black churches in the Central District, a historically African American neighborhood, to redevelop its properties into affordable housing to keep residents from being displaced."

Potential to evolve

As states and cities struggle to provide affordable housing, studies have been conducted from Nashville to New York City on the amount of land faith organizations own, and their potential as housing partners.

In the D.C. metro area, for example, the Urban Institute found almost 800 vacant parcels owned by religious organizations. In California, a report from the Terner Center at University of California, Berkeley found approximately 170,000 “potentially developable” acres of land owned by religious organizations and nonprofit colleges and universities...

When thinking about the redevelopment process, Arlington Presbyterian member Jon Etherton told me, “the call from God to create, do something about affordable housing was bigger than the building itself.”"

-via The Conversation, July 19, 2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How finfluencers destroyed the housing and lives of thousands of people

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

The crash of 2008 imparted many lessons to those of us who were only dimly aware of finance, especially the problems of complexity as a way of disguising fraud and recklessness. That was really the first lesson of 2008: "financial engineering" is mostly a way of obscuring crime behind a screen of technical jargon.

This is a vital principle to keep in mind, because obscenely well-resourced "financial engineers" are on a tireless, perennial search for opportunities to disguise fraud as innovation. As Riley Quinn says, "Any time you hear 'fintech,' substitute 'unlicensed bank'":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

But there's another important lesson to learn from the 2008 disaster, a lesson that's as old as the South Seas Bubble: "leverage" (that is, debt) is a force multiplier for fraud. Easy credit for financial speculation turns local scams into regional crime waves; it turns regional crime into national crises; it turns national crises into destabilizing global meltdowns.

When financial speculators have easy access to credit, they "lever up" their wagers. A speculator buys your house and uses it for collateral for a loan to buy another house, then they make a bet using that house as collateral and buy a third house, and so on. This is an obviously terrible practice and lenders who extend credit on this basis end up riddling the real economy with rot – a single default in the chain can ripple up and down it and take down a whole neighborhood, town or city. Any time you see this behavior in debt markets, you should batten your hatches for the coming collapse. Unsurprisingly, this is very common in crypto speculation, where it's obscured behind the bland, unpronounceable euphemism of "re-hypothecation":

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/10/rehypothecation-may-be-common-in-traditional-finance-but-it-will-never-work-with-bitcoin/

Loose credit markets often originate with central banks. The dogma that holds that the only role the government has to play in tuning the economy is in setting interest rates at the Fed means the answer to a cooling economy is cranking down the prime rate, meaning that everyone earns less money on their savings and are therefore incentivized to go and risk their retirement playing at Wall Street's casino.

The "zero interest rate policy" shows what happens when this tactic is carried out for long enough. When the economy is built upon mountains of low-interest debt, when every business, every stick of physical plant, every car and every home is leveraged to the brim and cross-collateralized with one another, central bankers have to keep interest rates low. Raising them, even a little, could trigger waves of defaults and blow up the whole economy.

Holding interest rates at zero – or even flipping them to negative, so that your savings lose value every day you refuse to flush them into the finance casino – results in still more reckless betting, and that results in even more risk, which makes it even harder to put interest rates back up again.

This is a morally and economically complicated phenomenon. On the one hand, when the government provides risk-free bonds to investors (that is, when the Fed rate is over 0%), they're providing "universal basic income for people with money." If you have money, you can park it in T-Bills (Treasury bonds) and the US government will give you more money:

https://realprogressives.org/mmp-blog-34-responses/

On the other hand, while T-Bills exist and are foundational to the borrowing picture for speculators, ZIRP creates free debt for people with money – it allows for ever-greater, ever-deadlier forms of leverage, with ever-worsening consequences for turning off the tap. As 2008 forcibly reminded us, the vast mountains of complex derivatives and other forms of exotic debt only seems like an abstraction. In reality, these exotic financial instruments are directly tethered to real things in the real economy, and when the faery gold disappears, it takes down your home, your job, your community center, your schools, and your whole country's access to cancer medication:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/08/greek-drug-shortage-worsens

Being a billionaire automatically lowers your IQ by 30 points, as you are insulated from the consequences of your follies, lapses, prejudices and superstitions. As @pixelpusher220@dmv.community says, Elon Musk is what Howard Hughes would have turned into if he hadn't been a recluse:

https://mamot.fr/@pixelpusher220@dmv.community/112457199729198644

The same goes for financiers during periods of loose credit. Loose Fed money created an "everything bubble" that saw the prices of every asset explode, from housing to stocks, from wine to baseball cards. When every bet pays off, you win the game by betting on everything:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_bubble

That meant that the ZIRPocene was an era in which ever-stupider people were given ever-larger sums of money to gamble with. This was the golden age of the "finfluencer" – a Tiktok dolt with a surefire way for you to get rich by making reckless bets that endanger the livelihoods, homes and wellbeing of your neighbors.

Finfluencers are dolts, but they're also dangerous. Writing for The American Prospect, the always-amazing Maureen Tkacik describes how a small clutch of passive-income-brainworm gurus created a financial weapon of mass destruction, buying swathes of apartment buildings and then destroying them, ruining the lives of their tenants, and their investors:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-05-22-hell-underwater-landlord/

Tcacik's main characters are Matt Picheny, Brent Ritchie and Koteswar “Jay” Gajavelli, who ran a scheme to flip apartment buildings, primarily in Houston, America's fastest growing metro, which also boasts some of America's weakest protections for tenants. These finance bros worked through Gajavelli's company Applesway Investment Group, which levered up his investors' money with massive loans from Arbor Realty Trust, who also originated loans to many other speculators and flippers.

For investors, the scheme was a classic heads-I-win/tails-you-lose: Gajavelli paid himself a percentage of the price of every building he bought, a percentage of monthly rental income, and a percentage of the resale price. This is typical of the "syndicating" sector, which raised $111 billion on this basis:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-housing-bust-comes-for-thousands-of-small-time-investors-3934beb3

Gajavelli and co bought up whole swathes of Houston and other cities, apartment blocks both modest and luxurious, including buildings that had already been looted by previous speculators. As interest rates crept up and the payments for the adjustable-rate loans supporting these investments exploded, Gajavell's Applesway and its subsidiary LLCs started to stiff their suppliers. Garbage collection dwindled, then ceased. Water outages became common – first weekly, then daily. Community rooms and pools shuttered. Lawns grew to waist-high gardens of weeds, fouled with mounds of fossil dogshit. Crime ran rampant, including murders. Buildings filled with rats and bedbugs. Ceilings caved in. Toilets backed up. Hallways filled with raw sewage:

https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

Meanwhile, the value of these buildings was plummeting, and not just because of their terrible condition – the whole market was cooling off, in part thanks to those same interest-rate hikes. Because the loans were daisy-chained, problems with a single building threatened every building in the portfolio – and there were problems with a lot more than one building.

This ruination wasn't limited to Gajavelli's holdings. Arbor lent to multiple finfluencer grifters, providing the leverage for every Tiktok dolt to ruin a neighborhood of their choosing. Arbor's founder, the "flamboyant" Ivan Kaufman, is associated with a long list of bizarre pop-culture and financial freak incidents. These have somehow eclipsed his scandals, involving – you guessed it – buying up apartment buildings and turning them into dangerous slums. Two of his buildings in Hyattsville, MD accumulated 2,162 violations in less than three years.

Arbor graduated from owning slums to creating them, lending out money to grifters via a "crowdfunding" platform that rooked retail investors into the scam, taking advantage of Obama-era deregulation of "qualified investor" restrictions to sucker unsophisticated savers into handing over money that was funneled to dolts like Gajavelli. Arbor ran the loosest book in town, originating mortgages that wouldn't pass the (relatively lax) criteria of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This created an ever-enlarging pool of apartments run by dolts, without the benefit of federal insurance. As one short-seller's report on Arbor put it, they were the origin of an epidemic of "Slumlord Millionaires":

https://viceroyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Arbor-Slumlord-Millionaires-Jan-8-2023.pdf

The private equity grift is hard to understand from the outside, because it appears that a bunch of sober-sided, responsible institutions lose out big when PE firms default on their loans. But the story of the Slumlord Millionaires shows how such a scam could be durable over such long timescales: remember that the "syndicating" sector pays itself giant amounts of money whether it wins or loses. The consider that they finance this with investor capital from "crowdfunding" platforms that rope in naive investors. The owners of these crowdfunding platforms are conduits for the money to make the loans to make the bets – but it's not their money. Quite the contrary: they get a fee on every loan they originate, and a share of the interest payments, but they're not on the hook for loans that default. Heads they win, tails we lose.

In other words, these crooks are intermediaries – they're platforms. When you're on the customer side of the platform, it's easy to think that your misery benefits the sellers on the platform's other side. For example, it's easy to believe that as your Facebook feed becomes enshittified with ads, that advertisers are the beneficiaries of this enshittification.

But the reason you're seeing so many ads in your feed is that Facebook is also ripping off advertisers: charging them more, spending less to police ad-fraud, being sloppier with ad-targeting. If you're not paying for the product, you're the product. But if you are paying for the product? You're still the product:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#adfraud

In the same way: the private equity slumlord who raises your rent, loads up on junk fees, and lets your building disintegrate into a crime-riddled, sewage-tainted, rat-infested literal pile of garbage is absolutely fucking you over. But they're also fucking over their investors. They didn't buy the building with their own money, so they're not on the hook when it's condemned or when there's a forced sale. They got a share of the initial sale price, they get a percentage of your rental payments, so any upside they miss out on from a successful sale is just a little extra they're not getting. If they squeeze you hard enough, they can probably make up the difference.

The fact that this criminal playbook has wormed its way into every corner of the housing market makes it especially urgent and visible. Housing – shelter – is a human right, and no person can thrive without a stable home. The conversion of housing, from human right to speculative asset, has been a catastrophe:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Of course, that's not the only "asset class" that has been enshittified by private equity looters. They love any kind of business that you must patronize. Capitalists hate capitalism, so they love a captive audience, which is why PE took over your local nursing home and murdered your gran:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

Homes are the last asset of the middle class, and the grifter class know it, so they're coming for your house. Willie Sutton robbed banks because "that's where the money is" and We Buy Ugly Houses defrauds your parents out of their family home because that's where their money is:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/#homevestor

The plague of housing speculation isn't a US-only phenomenon. We have allies in Spain who are fighting our Wall Street landlords:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#fuckin-aardvarks

Also in Berlin:

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

The fight for decent housing is the fight for a decent world. That's why unions have joined the fight for better, de-financialized housing. When a union member spends two hours commuting every day from a black-mold-filled apartment that costs 50% of their paycheck, they suffer just as surely as if their boss cut their wage:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

The solutions to our housing crises aren't all that complicated – they just run counter to the interests of speculators and the ruling class. Rent control, which neoliberal economists have long dismissed as an impossible, inevitable disaster, actually works very well:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

As does public housing:

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/red-vienna-public-affordable-housing-homelessness-matthew-yglesias

There are ways to have a decent home and a decent life without being burdened with debt, and without being a pawn in someone else's highly leveraged casino bet.

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/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

Image: Boy G/Google Maps (modified) https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

[northameicanblog]

Central Park, New York, United States: Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City that was the first landscaped park in the United States. Wikipedia

[librarycards]

do you have any advice for trying to build/find a community? i’m autistic with pretty severe social anxiety and haven’t had friends since grade 5 (i’m 29 now). i don’t work atm and didn’t go to college due to ‘mental illness’ or whatever. i’m really clueless about how to find a support system or even make a friend but it sure would be beneficial right now i think

sure! a great way to start is to get on some of your local facebook pages, or even nextdoor - it can be a shitty place for neighborhood karens, but at least my local page has people talking about free stuff they're leaving on the curb, someone whose grandma needs a ride, a bake sale at the school, and even meetups dependent on age/interest/etc.

some more ideas, starting w the obligatory: GO TO THE LIBRARY! they have so much centralized info there. there is probably a book club, there is probably some kind of volunteer sign-up sheet. there are probably bored librarians who can help you find other stuff. at least in my area, there are also fairly regular non-university-affiliated things (i live in a college town) at local bars, cafes, and art spaces/studios - check to see if there are any local IG pages posting about these events. that's how i found out about a bunch of mine. libraries have events, too, as do local bookstores, and they're almost always free.

the suggestions i'm throwing out all have basically the same goal: mix with people you haven't met before. building bonds takes time, and the process only starts when you and someone else say hello to one another. you don't have to be besties ever. you don't necessarily have to stay close. but knowing one person who maybe likes the same book as you, or shares some other interest, leads to more people, and soon you know someone who has a car, someone who has an extra ironing board, someone who can host a get-together in their yard because everyone else is a renter. support systems aren't found. they're not easy or inevitable. they're built through collective engagement and practice! and they start, generally, by happenstance, when people put themselves in each others' way.

when i moved here alone in 2020, i met some of my now-closest friends not primarily through grad school events (which didn't happen bc of lockdowns and such) but through going to the park and saying hi outdoors; stocking food in our local free fridges, and meeting tinder-friend dates masked, 6 ft apart in random public places. we kept doing that and our relationships strengthened, as they do. these days, i meet people through the friends i have - through shared classes back when i was in coursework, through organizing/union stuff and volunteering, through the occasional social event i just kinda show up at and hope for the best. there's a degree of inertia to this stuff - it gets smoother the more you do it!

you are *NOT* the only person around you who needs a friend. i promise. people are really lonely and often scared to admit it, and this is a great time to connect with people who also feel the urgency of community + anxiety around making it happen.

[minefield-of-a-ninja]

*image of Jensen Ackles is used with permission of the photographer Mandi Lea Photogtaphy.

Summary: After a significant career shift and subsequent break-up, Brandy Miller moves to Wayne County, Pennsylvania, to be closer to family. She invests in a small, sight-unseen condo in a “quiet, charming neighborhood with views of the Poconos and neighbors you can count on.” One particular neighbor seems to have a unique interpretation of what that means.

Characters: Brandy Miller x Soldier Boy, Serge Bernard, Kimiko Miyashiro (mentioned), Maggie Shaw, Annie January, Hughie Campbell, MM (mentioned), John James Davis (AKA Homelander but just as SB’s 21yo son), Butcher (mentioned)

Warnings/tags in this chapter: 18+ ONLY, sexual tension, sexual objectification, rough and degrading sex dream, alcohol, Soldier Boy is a terrible father, explicit sexual content

Words in this chapter: 3,500

Author’s notes: Soldier Boy will be referred to by many names in this fic. The full name I’ve given him is Benjamin James Davis III.

Thank you to @brrose-apothecary @stusbunker and @talltalesandbedtimestories for pre-reads and green lights!

This fills my #Inconsiderate Neighbor square for @jacklesversebingo

CHAPTER ONE

The last five years have been wild. A global pandemic impacted our life choices and decisions more than any other event in the previous 50 years. Career shifts, resettling in vastly different communities, honest declarations of who we are as people and who we love — these things I’ve witnessed first-hand.

I was an executive for a nationally renowned advertising agency. My partner of six years was a successful stock trader. About three weeks into our second lockdown, I realized I couldn’t stand the guy. I went through every reason why I’d have stayed for so long if he was so horrible. I wondered if he hated me too. Then one day, he told me.

“Brandy, I can’t do this anymore.”

He didn’t hate me; he just didn’t love me. He wasn’t horrible; he just wasn’t for me. 

Working remotely gave me a similarly renewed perspective on my career choice. I worked 12 hours a day from my home office overlooking Central Park, drank a bottle of wine to go to sleep, then got up the next morning to do it all over again. Meanwhile, everyone in America was tightening their purse strings on ad spend.

Now, I’m in the Honesdale borough of Wayne County, Pennsylvania, working as a freelance document review specialist. I’m single, own my two-bedroom condo outright, and spend Sundays with my sister Amber and her two teenagers over in Damascus. 

These changes introduced me to a set of concepts that I had previously denied. I thought I was happy, successful, content. 

But I’m told that a constant desire for more hinders contentment. Comparison is the thief of joy, as they say. A sense of entitlement will always bite you in the ass. A lack of gratitude prevents you from appreciating what you already have and fosters a need for something beyond.

As it happens, I have a prospective client meeting in Scranton this afternoon, and my brand-new Jeep won’t start. I guess they don’t make them like they used to. 

“Brandy, mon amie, where are you?” my friend Serge answers my call with worry in his voice.

“My truck won’t start,” I whine.

Last month, I complained to Serge and his partner-in-all-things Kimiko that government work was beginning to bore me. I like new things, which is a bummer, considering desire hinders contentment. Kimiko offered to introduce me to her brother, who works with one of the largest healthcare companies in the country. 

“Oh, cher...” Serge laments in sympathy.

“I know, I know. And this fucking podunk town’s got like two cabs and one Lyft serving the entire county.”

I roll my neck and eyes in frustration, and in my periphery, I glimpse a man inside a single garage stall working on a motorcycle. I’ve never seen him before, but judging by the military-themed tattoos, evident dexterity with the tools he’s wielding, and his proportions, he’s the ‘asshole military contractor’ my next-door neighbor, Maggie, told me about when I moved in. 

Serge frets in Frenglish on the other end of the line before returning to the point. “On se’n occupe. We will handle it.”

I watch my newly discovered neighbor deftly flex and twist and wonder if he’s as adept with other motor vehicles. “Please tell Kimiko I’m sorry and understand if this opportunity’s off the table now.”

My words are meant for Serge, but the man not 10 yards away sends me a subtle, knowing look. There’s an enduring facet of competence and perception in every flick of his eyes and wrist, every shrug of his thick, broad shoulders, and the taunting slant of his jaw. He knows I’m watching him and knows I’m in a bind. 

He pities me.

I tell Serge that I’ll let him know how things go with the car before ending the call then tentatively head toward my neighbor’s garage stall.

“Hey there, I’m Brandy.” I thumb over my shoulder, indicating the general area of my condo. “Are you BJ?”

He smirks at his greasy wrench before answering, “BJ, Soldier Boy, Captain,” then pauses as he drags his eyes from his task to pin me in place. “Take your pick, sweetheart.”

He looks me down and up, slow and heavy, licking his lips. His demeanor would be comical at best and frightening at worst if I weren’t so stunned by the sheer audacity. As he unfolds from a squat, his muscles shift and grind under his sweat-slicked skin. He wipes his filthy hands on a filthier rag and saunters toward me. I have never in my life been so blatantly objectified right to my face.

“Need a ride?” he asks, meeting my eyes again. The rounded toes of his grungy work boots tap the points of my Jimmy Choos.

“I-” I attempt to speak but don’t know what to say. I should be outraged. I should tell him he can’t just look at people like that. He can’t just invade my space.

He tilts his head, and his eyes drop to my chest. “You're all flushed, Brandy. Feeling okay?” He drops his rag to the concrete before ghosting a finger along my collarbone.

Air returns to my lungs and the flush in my chest rises up my throat to my face. I smack his hand away and take a step back. “What the fuck?! Do you always harass and assault women half your size, or is it just me?”

Centuries of gaslighting threaten to drown me from one single look. And then he speaks. “My bad. Didn’t know you were a prude.”

He raises his hands in feigned surrender before returning to his bike.

“I’m a prude because I don’t like being evaluated like a pig going to slaughter?”

He rolls his eyes and sighs. “Listen—no harm, no foul, alright? I thought you were game; you’re not, no big deal.”

“Man, I came over here as a neighbor to introduce myself. You clearly heard part of my call and know my car isn’t starting. I thought, since you’re in here working on a motorcycle, you might also know something about cars.”

He nods. “Got it. Is that where we’re at right now? You want me to take a look at your car?”

“Jesus- what?! Are you for real?”

“No? Okay, then.” He turns his back, and I stare at him for a moment.

Thoughts swirl through my mind. Where is your spine, Brandy? Show him what you’re made of. This isn’t over until you say it is.

A slave to my guts and ego, I’m determined to re-engage. “Yes.” 

He slowly faces me again, eyebrows raised and head tilted in question. “Yes?”

“Yes. I’d appreciate it if you’d take a look at my Jeep.”

His expression shifts—softens, some might say, but his eyes remain hard and cold. “‘Course. What kinda neighbor would I be if I didn’t?”

He strides toward my two-car stall across from his, and I follow with no other excuse than my competitive spirit and morbid fascination with opposition. 

“You pay extra for two stalls?” he asks, glancing at the gym area I’ve set up beside my Jeep before rounding its hood.

From what I’ve gathered in this brief and bracing interaction, Captain BJ Benjamin Soldier Boy isn’t a small-talk kind of person, but I’m not sure yet why he’s asking a simple question like that. I decide to answer as simply.

“Yeah.”

He nods and gestures to the driver’s seat. “Pop the hood.”

I watch through my windshield and the slant of space between the hood and my dash as he quickly pokes and prods at things I know nothing about. Less than two minutes later, he drops the hood shut and walks around to the open driver’s side door.  

“Try it now.” He’s rubbing his hands together and his brow is slightly furrowed like he wishes he hadn’t tossed that rag aside in his garage.

I turn the key in the ignition, and it starts with no issue. 

My morning started with limited knowledge of this man and the inner workings of my Jeep. I had a single goal in mind to expand my client portfolio. I did not grow my business, I have not learned anything new about my vehicle, and my introduction to my neighbor has provided me with very little satisfaction. 

“Coupla loose terminals. It happens with new cars. Gotta break ‘em in.”

I flick my eyes to meet his. He holds my gaze, licks his bottom lip back between his teeth, then backs away before strolling away. 

+

“He’s the fucking poster boy for misogyny.”

Maggie nods as she tops off my glass of wine. “Yeah, calling him an asshole is an insult to assholes, honestly.”

“I felt like I was transported back to the 1950s or something. He’s a caricature of misogyny.”

“The embodiment,” Maggie replies, settling back into her sofa and sipping her wine.

“Does he think that works on women? Like, are there women in his sphere who respond favorably to his behavior? He can’t be rewarded by it. Maybe he’s conducting a social experiment.”

Maggie laughs. “You’re giving him way too much credit.”

“Then why?”

Maggie stares at me for a beat. “The question is, why do you care?”

I’ve thought of nothing else since he left me in my garage yesterday morning. I felt defeated by him. Used, somehow. Inconsequential in the end.

“I hate how he made me feel.”

Maggie remains silent and intent. She’s a great listener, and she never judges.

“I had a dream about him last night.”

She nods. “And how did that make you feel?”

I shake my head and draw a deep breath. It made me feel hot and wild. I was angry and hungry for him. Or for redemption, revenge, or victory. 

“It makes no sense. We interacted for like 10 minutes and I haven’t seen him since. That’s why I care. I can’t get him out of my head. I keep thinking of what I should’ve said or done instead of standing there like a deer in headlights.”

“Don’t let your pride rule you with him. He has no morals, no decency. You won’t win.” 

“You think I’m trying to win something.” 

She’s right. Maggie and I are a lot alike, but she’s smarter and more cautious than I am. Somewhere along the line, she learned a lesson I have yet to let sink in. She learned to resist a challenge and walk away. 

“Aren’t you?”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“Let’s change the subject,” Maggie suggests. “Did you get that meeting rescheduled, or is it dead?”

I fill her in on my chat with Kimiko. Kimiko’s brother Kenji was gracious enough to reschedule for next week, and I decided it best to go up the night before and spend the night with her and Serge in case I have any other car problems. 

Maggie opens a second bottle of wine and we proceed with our binge of Dead To Me on Netflix. 

+

I’m face down on my weight bench, straddling the padded seat with his fist in my hair and his cock hammering me from behind. He’s saying things to me, violent, hateful words, calling me names.

My wrists are bound, I’m blindfolded, and I am so wet. So wet from his rough hands, the way he slaps my ass and hips and pulls my hair. His voice is deep and rich, and it dominates the atmosphere and my mind. 

He’s had me so many times already, and he wants more. He wants to devour me. He can’t get enough of me.

And I never want him to stop. He treats me like a whore, tells me I’m his whore, and I can’t stop soaking his cock and slicking up the bench. 

“You fucking love my cock.”

“Yes, yes, yes, fuck me.”

I wake up in a sweat after a third night dreaming of him. I feel fractured and unlike myself. I’ve never wanted the kinds of things I’m dreaming about him. I’ve never wanted a man to degrade me or tie me up. 

And this man is a pig of a man. 

But I can’t get him out of my head.

I’m aching and breathless. My sheets are soaked from sweat and my pussy. I reach into my nightstand for my vibrator to soothe the twitching between my legs and rid him from my mind. I think about all the things that usually get me off, but he just keeps coming back around with big, rough hands and dirty words, and teeth that score my tender flesh.

I come silently, arching into my mattress, imagining his hands around my wrists and his cock driving into me hard.

+

When I told the newlyweds who live across the hall from my nemesis that I’d never been to our neighborhood bar, they invited me to join them for burgers and beers. 

“I know it doesn’t look like much, but Butcher’s is an institution. I literally grew up in this bar,” Annie tells me as her husband Hughie distributes sticky menus and napkin roll-ups. 

“I’ll get a pitcher,” Hughie says and heads to the bar.

“I like it. Thanks for bringing me.”

I glance around the space, taking in old pictures and carved sentiments in the wooden beams. It still smells faintly of cigarette smoke after decades of No Smoking laws have been enforced. It reminds me of my favorite New York dive bar.

“Well, I’m glad. I’m sure it can’t be easy to transplant to a place like Honesdale where everybody knows everybody.”

“You know, it hasn’t been too bad. Between you two and Maggie, I’m meeting all the neighbors and learning the ropes like a real local.”

I don’t mention the man who’s rapidly infiltrated every dark corner of my brain since we’re having such a nice time. I don’t want to spoil it, but you don’t always get what you want.

“Ugh, BJ,” Annie gripes, reaching for a menu even though she surely has it memorized. “He is so gross.”

I hazard a glance in the direction of her glare to see the bane of my existence waltzing toward the bar. 

“He better not fuck with Hughie,” Annie says, narrowing her eyes as he brushes shoulders with her groom. 

Hughie gracefully ignores the man’s obvious intention to needle him, gathers three chilled pint glasses and our pitcher, and rounds the crowd away from Captain Creep to return to the table.

“Who’s the kid?” I ask, finally noticing a quiet young man with BJ at the bar.

“That’s his son John. That kid’s been through the wringer with BJ and his mom. I don’t know why he still comes around; he clearly cannot stand the man any more than us.”

John’s smaller than his dad. He’s almost delicate-looking with a thick swath of blonde hair and deep blue eyes. He doesn’t have the swagger of the man next to him, and he seems to wish he were anywhere but here.

“MM, my man, it’s my boy’s 21st birthday! Get him a whiskey and a round for the house on me.”

“Hey.” Hughie settles the pint glasses on the table before filling each one, serving Annie and me first, then sitting down to pour his own. “John’s 21st. This oughtta be an interesting night.”

Annie tells me stories about babysitting John when he was a kid. He was sweet and gentle, quiet but curious, and his dad taunted him for it.

“He called his 6-year-old son a pussy.” She shakes her head. “Who does that?”

John slides into a barstool and idly sips his whiskey. A few of the older patrons wish him Happy Birthday, and MM makes a point to keep his water glass and popcorn bowl full while John’s dad struts around, flirting with every woman and slapping the backs of every man. 

It’s odd to see people react to him positively. Men, no matter their age, appear to admire him, and every woman he smiles at blushes and giggles. 

“They don’t know him like we do,” Hughie says. “Should we order? Butcher’s in the back tonight.”

I decide on the ”Terror,” a half-pound beef burger with taleggio, prosciutto, and peperoncini, medium-well. Annie recommends the cheesy house fries with special sauce as a shared dish, and within 20 minutes, we have our food and a second pitcher.

A soft buzz from light American beer warms and loosens me up. In this state, I’m less critical of my thoughts about the man who’s starred in my most desperate and debased dreams this past week. 

He looks good. He’s agile and powerful, which is a spectacular combination. People laugh at his jokes. They gravitate toward him. They think he’s charming and handsome, and from the background of Annie’s stories, I learn that he’s a war hero. 

It’s nice to feel something other than the overwhelming angst and shame I’ve felt all week. He affects people; it’s okay. I’m not an outlier. I just have to ride this out.

We finish our food, and I excuse myself to the restroom. There’s a vanilla candle burning on a table beside a well-loved armchair, a basket with single-size toiletries, pads and tampons, condoms, hand soap, and lotion. Definite homey vibe.

As I step through the door into the hallway, I’m jolted from my chill by a deep voice.

“Look at you all caszh and relaxed.” 

He’s propped between the men’s and women’s, so close I brush his arm when I whirl around to connect the voice with a face.

“Jesus, you scared me.”

“Hmm.” He pushes off the wall and turns into me, backing me against the closed door.

“There’s that flush,” he murmurs. He does that thing with his finger again that made me smack his hand away earlier this week. This time, I let him.

“Is it because I scared you,” he pauses and catches my eye. “Or something else?”

I close my eyes and let my head fall back to the door, feeling the heat and buzz of a potentially malicious yet certainly pleasurable outcome. He slides a knee between my thighs and skims a heavy hand over my hip, nuzzling against my throat with a low chuckle.

My breath catches in my chest under the hand he has pressed there, holding me in place, keeping me where he wants me. Ire swirls and rises from my gut, and I grip his t-shirt in my fists to yank him into the restroom.

“There she is.” He stumbles backward with a grin as I throw the lock.

“Shut up.” I push him to sit in the chair before climbing astride him and diving in.

His lips are plush and demanding, his beard is soft, and his mouth is superheated and whiskey-wet. He’s hard and hot everywhere I touch as I tug at the button and zipper of his jeans. His hands roam over denim and my cotton t-shirt. He nips at my lips and toys with the button of my jeans.

“Fuck,” I growl, pushing out of his lap to get my pants down.

Before I know it, he’s spun me around, and he’s shimmying my jeans and underwear over my hips and down my thighs. He slumps into the chair and fits a condom over his length, then juts his hips forward to give me a place to rest. One long arm wraps my middle, and he slips two fingers over my wet slit. The wide pads of his fingertips swirl around my clit, and I brace my hands on the arms of the chair. Then he’s teasing me with his hard cock, rutting underneath, making me squirm. 

When he finally pushes inside, I shout and groan from the stretch and insane rhythm he’s keeping on my clit. I go off—ride him, pumping my thighs and elbows, using his arm around my middle for leverage. 

In less than a minute, I’m coming. One second later, he’s on his feet with me on my knees in the chair. He forces me to bend and hold onto the back, grips my bare hips, and pushes inside me again. He’s muttering, grunting, and, god, he’s hitting that spot with every thrust. 

“Come on, Brandy,” he gasps. “Lemme feel that tight little cunt come again. Make me come.”

I reach down between my legs and press over my mound, relishing his measured thrusts. I’m booze and fuck drunk, and my ears are ringing. His hands tighten on my hips, and we both come, swearing and howling.

Chapter Two coming soon...

What did you think? Reblog to share if you liked it! And let me know your thoughts. xox

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[genderkoolaid]

The argument against kink in public seems to be, to my understanding, that any kinky act is has some inherent sexual component or motivation, and therefore kink in public is equivalent to sex in public, and therefore indecent. Wearing a puppy mask or a collar in public is done for sexual reasons, so its indecent.

And my question to them is: where do you draw the line?

If we agree that non-sex acts that have some kind of sexual component or motivation are indecent and should not be allowed in public, where do we draw the line? Should kissing be illegal, or maybe only kissing with tongue? Should revealing bikinis and thongs be illegal? Clothing that has sexual innuendos on it? Should grabbing your partner's ass be illegal in public? Should it be illegal for anyone to wear a dog collar, because it might be sexual? How can you tell if someone is doing something or wearing something because they are getting off on it, rather than doing it for other reasons?

What's most likely to happen is that the things that will be considered too indecent for public are the things that are considered non-standard sexuality. If enough people in your area view a gay couple holding hands, or an androgynous person existing, as sexual in nature, then it's indecent and shouldn't be allowed in public. Its entirely based on what the culture around you views as inherently sexual. If a straight couple is making out on a park bench, there is likely some sexual component or motivation to that act- do I have grounds to consider that indecent and sexually explicit? Why not? Because the people in my neighborhood don't find that especially jarring? Why shouldn't they be criticized for their sexually motivated public act? The people who are going to be targeted are going to be people who are already seen as abnormally, overly-sexual dangers to children. "Normal" sexuality is allowed to exist in public without being seen as notably sexual, but any display of "abnormal" sexuality is seen as overt and dangerous.

And that is why this is about queerphobia, too. You can't argue that the system of what is indecent exposure in public should be based off of what people consider inherently sexual, and then act like that will never ever be used against queer people- when a central part of queerphobia has always been that queer people are inherently sexual, and sexually perverted, and that any display of gayness or transness in public is inherently sexual. Basing laws off of what makes people uncomfortable is always going to allow prejudice to rule. That is why kinky people and queer people have an intertwined history; we were all sex freaks in the eyes of the law, and in many places, we still are.

This is why I feel the much better way of judging such things is: Are people actively engaging in a sex act (as in, they are having sexual intercourse)? Are genitals exposed? Are bodily fluids being left in public where they pose a health hazard? Is it causing genuine disruption to other people's lives?

[the1920sinpictures]

1925 Central Park West and West 99th Street was an African-American neighborhood on 98th and 99th Streets and between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue beginning in the 1920's. FB.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I’ve been reading some craft books and online posts about the world building because my story is an urban fantasy set in present day US, in a fictional town, and theres not a secondary world where the fantasy happens, it’s all in the real world, except the magic is a secret that only certain people know about, but all of the resources I find about world building only talk about fantastical worlds that exist by themselves and not the kind of more subtle world building that I’d have to do. Do you have any tips?

Guide: Creating a Fictional Town in the Real World

Step 1 - Choose Your Location - There are two ways to go about choosing a location for your fictional town. One is to go the "Springfield U.S.A." route, ala The Simpsons, and be vague about the specific location (borough, parish, district, county, region, state, or province) and instead give a broader geographic region... "the East Coast," "the Pacific Northwest," "Central Canada," Northern Scotland," etc. The other option is to go ahead and put your fictional town in a specific location. Just figure out where (for example, somewhere outside of Des Moines, Iowa) and go to Google Maps, click on satellite view, then start zooming in on big empty areas. Choose a place big enough to fit a town. Yes, in reality it's probably farm fields, pasture, or someone's property, but that doesn't matter. You don't have to actually show it on a map. It's just a plausible spot to build your town. Now you can measure how far it is to other places, you know what highways to take to get to it. You can even do street view to get the lay of the land, see what the landscape looks like and try to envision the buildings there. You can also use what's there to create parks, popular recreational areas, and anything else your town needs.

Step 2 - Choose Your Inspiration - Even when you're creating a fictional town, it's still a good idea to use a real town (or two, or three) from that general area as inspiration for your town. For a fictional town in Des Moines, I would zoom in on the map to find a nearby town of similar size... like Elkhart, then I can take a look around to see what it's like. Just looking at the map, I can see they have a couple of churches, a couple baseball fields, a very small main street/downtown area with a couple shops and restaurants, a post office, a few different neighborhoods, and a cemetery. This would be a great model for a small fictional town outside of Des Moines. And, as I said, you could look at a couple other sand combine them. Once you have your inspiration town/s, you can walk around on Google Maps street view, go to the town's web site, watch a tour on YouTube (if one exists), or look up pictures in Google Image search.

Step 3 - Start Planning - This is the really fun part! First, you might want to draw a basic map of your fictional town using your inspiration town/s as a guide. This doesn't have to be a pretty map... just a basic line drawing to help you envision where everything is. Think about some of the basic things this town might have, like the ones I listed in step two, and any other things you might want your town to have, like maybe a library, a hospital, a city hall, school, and maybe a movie theater. It might even be helpful and fun to put together a collage of pictures to represent your town so you've got something in mind as you write about it. You can even choose representatives for specific locations in your story, like your MC's house, school, and their favorite hangout.

Step 4 - Naming Your Town - Start by looking at the kinds of town names that surround your town. Look for common naming conventions... suffixes like -ton, -ville, -dale, -burg, -wood, -field, etc. Words in a particular language, like a lot of French-inspired town names, or towns with geographical terms (lake, hill, valley, river, canyon, gap, etc.) My guide to Naming Locations has additional tips.

Step 5 - Populate Your Town and Give it a History - Last but not least, make up a little history for your town, again, using surrounding towns as inspiration. Who founded it? When was it founded? What's the town's main industry? What are the people like in this town? What jobs do they have? What do they do for fun?

Here are some other posts that might help:

Five Things to Help You Describe Fictional Locations Setting Your Story in an Unfamiliar Place WQA’s Guide to Internet Research Happy writing!

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