#Increase profitability through productivity

[nishthasharmaa]

Get ahead of the competition with our 3 strategies for improving business productivity. Click to learn more! #efficiency #success"

[fishyartist]

Please learn what the Luddite movement actually was and why it failed I’m begging

[amazonmarketingagency]

Lab 916: Your Partner in Crafting Winning Amazon Strategies

Introduction: Lab 916's Expertise in Amazon Strategy

In the ever-evolving world of e-commerce, Lab 916 stands as a beacon of expertise, providing businesses with tailored Amazon strategies to succeed in the competitive marketplace. With a deep understanding of Amazon's algorithms, trends, and best practices, Lab 916 helps businesses navigate the complexities of selling on the platform and achieve their goals.

Strategic Planning with Lab 916

Lab 916 takes a strategic approach to Amazon strategy development, focusing on optimizing product listings, implementing competitive pricing strategies, leveraging advertising tactics, and fostering customer engagement. By customizing strategies to align with each client's unique objectives and market dynamics, Lab 916 ensures that businesses can maximize their potential on Amazon.

Optimizing Product Listings for Maximum Visibility

A crucial aspect of Lab 916's Amazon strategy is optimizing product listings to enhance visibility and drive conversions. Through meticulous keyword research, compelling product descriptions, and high-quality imagery, Lab 916 ensures that each product listing is optimized to rank higher in Amazon search results. By improving the visibility and appeal of product listings, businesses can attract more customers and increase sales.

Implementing Competitive Pricing Strategies

Lab 916 assists businesses in developing competitive yet profitable pricing strategies tailored to their market segment. By analyzing competitor pricing data, market trends, and consumer behavior, Lab 916 helps businesses set prices that maximize sales while maintaining healthy profit margins. Additionally, Lab 916 provides guidance on leveraging dynamic pricing tools and promotional strategies to stay competitive on Amazon.

Leveraging Advertising Tactics for Enhanced Visibility

Advertising is a key component of Lab 916's Amazon strategy, aimed at increasing product visibility and driving targeted traffic to product listings. Lab 916 utilizes Amazon's advertising platform to create and optimize sponsored product ads, sponsored brand ads, and sponsored display ads. By strategically targeting keywords and audience segments, Lab 916 helps businesses maximize their advertising ROI and generate sales on Amazon.

Fostering Customer Engagement and Loyalty

Lab 916 emphasizes the importance of fostering strong customer relationships to drive long-term success on Amazon. Through proactive customer service, timely responses to inquiries and feedback, and strategies to encourage positive reviews, Lab 916 helps businesses build trust and loyalty with their customers. By delivering exceptional shopping experiences and maintaining positive seller ratings, businesses can enhance their reputation and drive repeat purchases on the platform.

Conclusion: Achieving Success with Lab 916's Guidance

In conclusion, Lab 916 serves as a valuable partner for businesses seeking to excel on Amazon. With Lab 916's expertise and strategic guidance, businesses can optimize their Amazon strategies and achieve success in the competitive e-commerce landscape. By leveraging Lab 916's insights and best practices, businesses can unlock their full potential on one of the world's largest online platforms.

Introduction: Lab 916's Expertise in Amazon Strategy

In the ever-evolving world of e-commerce, Lab 916 stands as a beacon of expertise, providing businesses with tailored Amazon strategies to succeed in the competitive marketplace. With a deep understanding of Amazon's algorithms, trends, and best practices, Lab 916 helps businesses navigate the complexities of selling on the platform and achieve their goals.

Strategic Planning with Lab 916

Lab 916 takes a strategic approach to Amazon strategy development, focusing on optimizing product listings, implementing competitive pricing strategies, leveraging advertising tactics, and fostering customer engagement. By customizing strategies to align with each client's unique objectives and market dynamics, Lab 916 ensures that businesses can maximize their potential on Amazon.

Optimizing Product Listings for Maximum Visibility

A crucial aspect of Lab 916's Amazon strategy is optimizing product listings to enhance visibility and drive conversions. Through meticulous keyword research, compelling product descriptions, and high-quality imagery, Lab 916 ensures that each product listing is optimized to rank higher in Amazon search results. By improving the visibility and appeal of product listings, businesses can attract more customers and increase sales.

Implementing Competitive Pricing Strategies

Lab 916 assists businesses in developing competitive yet profitable pricing strategies tailored to their market segment. By analyzing competitor pricing data, market trends, and consumer behavior, Lab 916 helps businesses set prices that maximize sales while maintaining healthy profit margins. Additionally, Lab 916 provides guidance on leveraging dynamic pricing tools and promotional strategies to stay competitive on Amazon.

Leveraging Advertising Tactics for Enhanced Visibility

Advertising is a key component of Lab 916's Amazon strategy, aimed at increasing product visibility and driving targeted traffic to product listings. Lab 916 utilizes Amazon's advertising platform to create and optimize sponsored product ads, sponsored brand ads, and sponsored display ads. By strategically targeting keywords and audience segments, Lab 916 helps businesses maximize their advertising ROI and generate sales on Amazon.

Fostering Customer Engagement and Loyalty

Lab 916 emphasizes the importance of fostering strong customer relationships to drive long-term success on Amazon. Through proactive customer service, timely responses to inquiries and feedback, and strategies to encourage positive reviews, Lab 916 helps businesses build trust and loyalty with their customers. By delivering exceptional shopping experiences and maintaining positive seller ratings, businesses can enhance their reputation and drive repeat purchases on the platform.

Conclusion: Achieving Success with Lab 916's Guidance

In conclusion, Lab 916 serves as a valuable partner for businesses seeking to excel on Amazon. With Lab 916's expertise and strategic guidance, businesses can optimize their Amazon strategies and achieve success in the competitive e-commerce landscape. By leveraging Lab 916's insights and best practices, businesses can unlock their full potential on one of the world's largest online platforms.

[cathkaesque]

Relentless direct action has secured another victory in the fight against Israel’s arms trade, as Elbit Systems are forced to sell their ‘Elite KL’ factory in Tamworth.

The company had previously manufactured cooling and power management systems for military vehicles, but was sold on after stating that it faced falling profits and increased security costs resulting from Palestine Action’s efforts. 

After the sale was completed last month, Elite KL’s new owners, listed as Griffin Newco Ltd, confirmed in an email to Palestine Action that they will have nothing to do with the previous owners, Elbit, and have discontinued any arms manufacturing:

“Following the recent acquisition of Elite KL Limited by a UK investment syndicate, the newly appointed board has unanimously agreed to withdraw from all future defence contracts and terminate its association with its former parent company”.

This victory is a direct result of sustained direct action which has sought, throughout Palestine Action’s existence, to make it impossible for Elbit to afford to operate in Britain. Before they sold the enterprise to a private equity syndicate, Elbit had reported that Elite KL operating profits had been slashed by over three-quarters, with Palestine Action responsible: Elbit directly cited the increased expenditure on security they’d been forced to make, and higher supply chain costs they faced.

And these actions did, indeed, cost them. The first action at the site, in November 2020, saw Elite KL’s premises smashed into, the building covered in blood-red paint. Between March and July 2021, the site was put out of action three times by roof-top occupations – drenched red in March 2021, with the factory’s camera systems dismantled, before again being occupied in in May. Another roof-top occupation in July, despite increased security, saw the site forced closed – once again painted blood-red, and with its windows and fixings smashed through.

In February 2022, activists decommissioned the site for weeks – closed off after an occupation that saw over £250,000 of damages caused, the roof tiles removed one-by-one. After this, Elbit erected a security perimeter around the site – but to no avail. One month later, six were arrested after Palestine Action returned to Tamworth – again taking the roof and smashing through, preventing the production of parts for Israel’s military machine.

Elite KL is a ‘specialist thermal management business’. Since the sale, the company focuses on cooling systems for buses and trains, but it had, under Elbit, manufactured these systems for military vehicles. Until December of last year, Elite KL’s website was advertising its military and defence products, and it was known to provide parts for Israel’s deadly Merkava tanks, with export license records demonstrating its provision of ‘ML6a’ components for military ground vehicles to Israel. The company was also known to manufacture crew cooling systems, for the military vests of tank operators.

Elbit Systems itself provides 85% of the drones and land-based military equipment for the Israeli military, along with a wide range of the munitions and armaments currently being used against Gaza’s beseiged population. Its CEO, Bazhalel Machlis, has claimed that the Israeli military has offered the company its thanks for their “crucial” services during the ongoing genocide in Gaza

A Palestine Action spokesperson has stated:

“Each activist who occupied and dismantled Tamworth’s Israeli weapons factory did so in order to bring an end to Israel’s weapons trade, and to end the profiteering from Palestinian repression. Every defeat Elbit faces is a victory for the Palestinian people.

Kicking Elbit out of Tamworth shows once again that direct action is a necessary tactic. It is one which must be utilised and amplified in the face of the Gaza genocide.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

General Mills and cheaply bought "dietitians" co-opted the anti-diet movement

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in NEXT THURSDAY (Apr 11) in BOSTON with Randall "XKCD" Munroehttps://cockeyed.com/lessons/viagra/viagra.html, then PROVIDENCE, RI (Apr 12), and beyond!

Steve Bannon isn't wrong: for his brand of nihilistic politics to win, all he has to do is "flood the zone with shit," demoralizing people to the point where they no longer even try to learn the truth.

This is really just a more refined, more potent version of the tactical doubt sown by Big Tobacco about whether smoking caused cancer, a playbook later adopted by the fossil fuel industry to sell climate denial. You know Darrell Huff's 1954 classic How To Lie With Statistics? Huff was a Big Tobacco shill (his next book, which wasn't ever published, was How To Lie With Cancer Statistics). His mission wasn't to help you spot statistical malpractice – an actual thing that is an actual problem that you should actually learn to spot. It was to turn you into a nihilist who didn't believe anything could be known:

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

Corporations don't need you to believe that their products are beneficial or even non-harmful. They just need you to believe nothing. If you don't know what's true, then why not just do whatever feels good, man? #YOLO!

These bannonfloods of shit are a favored tactic of strongmen and dictators. Their grip on power doesn't depend on their citizens trusting them – it's enough that they trust no one:

http://jonathanstray.com/networked-propaganda-and-counter-propaganda

Bannonflooding is especially beloved of the food industry. Food is essential, monopolized, and incredibly complicated, and many of the most profitable strategies for growing, processing and preparing food are very bad for the people who eat that food. Rather than sacrificing profits, the food industry floods the zone with shit, making it impossible to know what's true, in hopes that we will just eat whatever they're serving:

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003460

Now, the "nothing can be known" gambit only works if it's really hard to get at the truth. So it helps that nutrition and diet are very complex subjects, but it helps even more that the nutrition and diet industry are a cesspool of quacks and junk science. This is a "scientific discipline" whose prestigious annual meetings are sponsored (and catered) by McDonald's:

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/my-trip-mcdonalds-sponsored-nutritionist-convention/

It's a "science" whose most prominent pitchmen peddle quack nostrums and sue the critics who point out (correctly) that eating foods high in chlorophyll will not "oxygenate your blood" (hint, chlorophyll only makes oxygen in the presence of light, which is notably lacking in your colon):

https://www.badscience.net/2007/02/ms-gillian-mckeith-banned-from-calling-herself-a-doctor/

When the quack-heavy world of nutrition combines with the socially stigmatized world of weight-loss, you get a zone ripe for shitflooding. The majority of Americans are "overweight" (according to a definition that relies on the unscientific idea of BMI) and nearly half of Americans are "obese." These numbers have been climbing steadily since the 1970s, and every diet turns out to be basically bullshit:

https://headgum.com/factually-with-adam-conover/what-does-ozepmic-actually-do-with-dr-dhruv-khullar

Notwithstanding the new blockbuster post-Ozempic drugs, we're been through an unbroken 50-year run of more and more of us being fatter and fatter, even as fat stigma increased. Fat people are treated as weak-willed and fundamentally unhealthy, while the most prominent health-risks of being fat are roundly neglected: the mental health effects of being shamed, and the physical risks of having doctors ignore your health complaints, no matter how serious they sound, and blame them on your weight:

https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/11968083-glorifying-obesity-and-other-myths-about-fat-people

Fat people and their allies have banded together to address these real, urgent harms. The "body acceptance" movement isn't merely about feeling good in your own skin: it's also about fighting discrimination, demanding medical care (beyond "lose some weight") and warning people away from getting on the diet treadmill, which can lead to dangerous eating disorders and permanent weight gain:

https://www.beacon.org/You-Just-Need-to-Lose-Weight-P1853.aspx

Fat stigma is real. The mental health risks of fat-shaming are real. Eating disorders are real. Discrimination against fat people is real. The fact that these things are real doesn't mean that the food industry can't flood the zone with shit, though. On the contrary: the urgency of these issues, combined with the poor regulation of dietitians, makes the "what should you eat" zone perfect for flooding with endless quantities of highly profitable shit.

Perhaps you've gotten some of this shit on you. Have you found yourself watching a video from a dietitian influencer like Cara Harbstreet, Colleen Christensen or Lauren Smith, promoting "health at any size" with hashtags like #DerailTheShame and #AntiDiet? These were paid campaigns sponsored by General Mills, Pepsi, and other multinational, multibillion-dollar corporations.

Writing for The Examination, Sasha Chavkin, Anjali Tsui, Caitlin Gilbert and Anahad O'Connor describe the way that some of the world's largest and most profitable corporations have hijacked a movement where fat people and their allies fight stigma and shame and used it to peddle the lie that their heavily processed, high-calorie food is good for you:

https://www.theexamination.org/articles/as-obesity-rises-big-food-and-dietitians-push-anti-diet-advice

It's a surreal tale. They describe a speech by Amy Cohn, General Mills’ senior manager for nutrition, to an audience at a dietitian's conference, where Cohn "denounced the media for 'pointing the finger at processed foods' and making consumers feel ashamed of their choices." This is some next-level nihilism: rather than railing against the harmful stigma against fat people, Cohn wants us to fight the stigma against Cocoa Puffs.

This message isn't confined to industry conferences. Dietitians with large Tiktok followings like Cara Harbstreet then carry the message out to the public. In Harbstreet's video promoting Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs and Trix, she says, "I will always advocate for fearlessly nourishing meals, including cereal…Because everyone deserves to enjoy food without judgment, especially kids":

https://www.tiktok.com/@streetsmart.rd/video/7298403730989436206

Dietitians, nutritionists and the food industry have always had an uncomfortably close relationship, but the industry's shitflooding kicked into high gear when the FDA proposed rules limiting which foods the industry can promote as "healthy." General Mills, Kelloggs and Post have threatened a First Amendment suit against such a regulation, arguing that they have a free speech right to describe manifestly unhealthy food as "healthy."

The anti-diet movement – again, a legitimate movement aimed at fighting the dangerous junk science behind dieting – has been co-opted by the food industry, who are paying dietitian influencers to say things like "all foods have value" while brandishing packages of Twix and Reese's. In their Examination article, the authors profile people who struggled with their weight, then, after encountering the food industry's paid disinformation, believed that "healthy at any size" meant that it would be unhealthy to avoid highly processed, high calorie food. These people gained large amounts of weight, and found their lives constrained and their health severely compromised.

I've been overweight all my life. I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting when I was 12. I come from a family of overweight people with the chronic illnesses often associated with being fat. This is a subject that's always on my mind. I even wrote a whole novel about the promise and peril of a weight-loss miracle:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429969284/makers

I think the anti-diet movement, and its associated ideas like body acceptance and healthy at every size, are enormously positive developments and hugely important. It's because I value these ideas that I'm so disgusted with Big Food and its cynical decision to flood the zone with shit. It's also why I'm so furious with dietitians and nutritionists for failing to self-regulate and become a real profession, the kind that censures and denounces quacks and shills.

I have complicated feelings about Ozempic and its successors, but even if these prove to be effective and safe in the long term, and even if we rein in the rapacious pharma companies so that they no longer sell a $5 product for $1000, I would still want dietary science to clean up its act:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2816824

I'm not a nihilist. I think we can use science to discover truths – about ourselves and our world. I want to know those truths, and I think they can be known. The only people who benefit from convincing you that the truth is unknowable are the people who want to lie to you.

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/2024/04/05/corrupt-for-cocoa-puffs/#flood-the-zone-with-shit

[ayeforscotland]

What is Dataflow?

This post is inspired by another post about the Crowd Strike IT disaster and a bunch of people being interested in what I mean by Dataflow. Dataflow is my absolute jam and I'm happy to answer as many questions as you like on it. I even put referential pictures in like I'm writing an article, what fun!

I'll probably split this into multiple parts because it'll be a huge post otherwise but here we go!

A Brief History

Our world is dependent on the flow of data. It exists in almost every aspect of our lives and has done so arguably for hundreds if not thousands of years.

At the end of the day, the flow of data is the flow of knowledge and information. Normally most of us refer to data in the context of computing technology (our phones, PCs, tablets etc) but, if we want to get historical about it, the invention of writing and the invention of the Printing Press were great leaps forward in how we increased the flow of information.

Modern Day IT exists for one reason - To support the flow of data.

Whether it's buying something at a shop, sitting staring at an excel sheet at work, or watching Netflix - All of the technology you interact with is to support the flow of data.

Understanding and managing the flow of data is as important to getting us to where we are right now as when we first learned to control and manage water to provide irrigation for early farming and settlement.

Engineering Rigor

When the majority of us turn on the tap to have a drink or take a shower, we expect water to come out. We trust that the water is clean, and we trust that our homes can receive a steady supply of water.

Most of us trust our central heating (insert boiler joke here) and the plugs/sockets in our homes to provide gas and electricity. The reason we trust all of these flows is because there's been rigorous engineering standards built up over decades and centuries.

For example, Scottish Water will understand every component part that makes up their water pipelines. Those pipes, valves, fitting etc will comply with a national, or in some cases international, standard. These companies have diagrams that clearly map all of this out, mostly because they have to legally but also because it also vital for disaster recovery and other compliance issues.

Modern IT

And this is where modern day IT has problems. I'm not saying that modern day tech is a pile of shit. We all have great phones, our PCs can play good games, but it's one thing to craft well-designed products and another thing entirely to think about they all work together.

Because that is what's happened over the past few decades of IT. Organisations have piled on the latest plug-and-play technology (Software or Hardware) and they've built up complex legacy systems that no one really knows how they all work together. They've lost track of how data flows across their organisation which makes the work of cybersecurity, disaster recovery, compliance and general business transformation teams a nightmare.

Some of these systems are entirely dependent on other systems to operate. But that dependency isn't documented. The vast majority of digital transformation projects fail because they get halfway through and realise they hadn't factored in a system that they thought was nothing but was vital to the organisation running.

And this isn't just for-profit organisations, this is the health services, this is national infrastructure, it's everyone.

There's not yet a single standard that says "This is how organisations should control, manage and govern their flows of data."

Why is that relevant to the companies that were affected by Crowd Strike? Would it have stopped it?

Maybe, maybe not. But considering the global impact, it doesn't look like many organisations were prepared for the possibility of a huge chunk of their IT infrastructure going down.

Understanding dataflows help with the preparation for events like this, so organisations can move to mitigate them, and also the recovery side when they do happen. Organisations need to understand which systems are a priority to get back operational and which can be left.

The problem I'm seeing from a lot of organisations at the moment is that they don't know which systems to recover first, and are losing money and reputation while they fight to get things back online. A lot of them are just winging it.

Conclusion of Part 1

Next time I can totally go into diagramming if any of you are interested in that.

How can any organisation actually map their dataflow and what things need to be considered to do so. It'll come across like common sense, but that's why an actual standard is so desperately needed!

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Good Omens graphic novel update: April 2024

Admin & updates

PledgeManager

Earlier this month, we launched the PledgeManager, where shipping is being facilitated. If you missed it, you can read the initial announcement here. We have been adapting the FAQ page to add further recurring asks, so please do visit there if you have a particular query as a starting point. You can view this here. We are working through all queries received - some are taking a bit longer than others, as they need to be raised with PledgeManager, or others involved, so we appreciate your patience in these instances where we are yet to get back. The most common question, which we include here, is the sock sizes:

If you need to change your size, you have the ability to self-unlock your order and make any adjustments you need to. For socks that are part of a tier, there is a button to unlock and modify on the bottom of your receipt where you can alter your choice. If they were an add on, PledgeManager recommends that you remove the item from your cart and add it again with the correct size selected and complete their order to finalize the change.

Shipping

We are also aware of queries arising about the shipping rates themselves. While we have been open from the start of the project that shipping will be charged at a later date, we understand that the resultant cost has come as a surprise to some and that some prices are higher than expected. We want to be transparent on this: we have been working with our fulfillment partners on confirming product weights and the rates for shipping globally during the months since the project’s completion. The cost of doing this ethically - ensuring that everyone involved in the process from creators to those packing boxes is paid fairly, as well as ensuring the packaging is robust at this scale - is substantial.

We’ve done our best to minimise extra costs around shipping, while also not cutting any corners – we want your pledge rewards to reach you safe and sound. We have also subsidised costs across a number of territories, but costs for shipping to many locations remain high. The final thing we’ve done is lock in shipping costs now, a year out from fulfillment. We expect third party shipping costs to increase over the coming year, following the upwards trends across the board so far, but we will continue to absorb any subsequent rises.

We want to assure backers that the shipping does not include a profit margin for us, and every charge to our backers is something we’ve tried to minimise.

We absolutely understand that this is disappointing to many, and we endeavour to keep making the surrounding campaign the best it can be.

The timeline

The PledgeManager will run across 2024, and close at some point ahead of publication date (Spring 2025). When that date has been decided, we will give everyone as much notice as possible.

FAQ

As above, here is the centralised FAQ page. This will be updated over the coming year.

Cameos

Prior updates had noted the deadline for this has passed, however given the new publication date of the graphic novel, this has been extended slightly for God Tier and Archangel Tier backers. Please check your messages and emails if you backed either of these tiers and have not submitted your likeness.

Merch and more

Things are ramping up at Good Omens HQ, first of all with this delivery of one or two mugs at the warehouse:

We’ve also got David Aja’s print featuring Aziraphale, Crowley and Dog, in their glorious orangey hues which will appear in Serpent Tier+:

The trading cards are at the testing stage for game mechanics, while some of the early design prototypes are in for artist variants and we really can’t wait to start sharing these with you when they’re a bit further down the road. Almost there.

For those ready to capture your inner Pratchett and Gaiman on the page (Demon+), we have your notebooks:

More from Colleen…

We’ve continued to see gorgeous artwork arrive from Colleen and here’s one that slipped into our inbox this week:

And we thought we’d sign off this month with a glimpse at our favourite antiquarian bookshop:

[skelly-words]

Hey! If cool I was wondering if you could write tentacle smut. I’m not too sure on the plot but wanted reader to be very much in some sort of public setting with loads of people just watching as she gets railed by a tentacle. The kinks I wanted to ask if they could be in there is Voyourism (public sex), public nudity, squirting and/ watersports and overstimulation.

If not that is totally okay! I just wanted to ask :) and am exited to see what you come up with if your comfortable with writing this

okay cool so....

Not proofread, tags in the ask + spit a lil bit, ass eating, idk futa shenanigans, ahhhh milk (i kinda scared myself w/ this at the end)

My brain immediately went to big networking conventions that businesses have where the important people from the different corporate branches come together to drink, schmooze, and brag about sales numbers to each other.

Your boss asks you to come with her to help with the demonstration. The travel expenses and hotel costs are all covered, so you agree to spend the weekend on Wall Street with her.

I hate this, but there's the slightest bit of lore, so i ECOURAGE you to read the other parts first -> masterlist

MINORS DNI, stay away 18+ only

The presentation room of the hotel caters to corporate mixers like this. Circular dinner tables decorated with charcuterie fill out the hall. Your knee bounces nervously as people begin to file in. Saturday had been boring, spent bumming around the all-inclusive spa while your boss attended other company presentations not too dissimilar from this one.

"Relax." Your boss whispers. She sits in the squeaky folding chair beside you. Her hand lands comfortably on your thigh, stilling your knee with her warm touch. "All you have to do is bend over the podium."

You nod and try to emulate her flippant attitude. The bounce returns to your knee anyway because nerves are impossible to hide. The minutes slip by as people settle into their seats. The dimming lights act as a cue to hush the small talk and side conversations.

“Ready?” She gives your thigh a heady squeeze.

“Yea, ‘m ready,” you mumble.

Her gait is steady and comfortable up to the front of the room, and you trail behind in the shelter of her shadow. You smiled unsteadily at the sea of unfamiliar faces. Your boss tapped her knuckles on the podium, clearing her throat to get the rooms attention.

“Thank you all for coming,” she begins. “My branch is testing a few new methods of increasing productivity today. It’s all based on the same principle, ‘a happy mind is profitable one.’

“Of course, we’ll begin with the demonstration, just to prove how much it’ll help you focus on the rest of the presentation.”

An interested hum sweeps through the crowd as she leads you around the front of the podium. You aren’t wearing panties, only a skirt, which immediately becomes apparent as she lifts your waist up to the podium. The sturdy wooden surface slopes slightly up toward the room, propped up for dozens of eyes ogle your bare skin.

The position makes blood rush to your head, almost dizzy from the heavy heartbeat in your ears. Your skin feels hot and sensitive. The skirt tickles, sliding down the gentle slope of your back. You wonder if they can see how wet you are, cunt aching from all the attention.

The speech sounds so far away, like all your senses are dulling to make way for the electricity running beneath your skin. From the corner of your eye, you see a couple workers wheel three tanks up to the front of the podium.

The terrariums are large and damp, too fogged up from humidity to see anything through the glass. They're pushed into a neat line, starting at your side and progressing to the front of the stage in single file. The tank closest to you is the smallest. It's the only one you can properly look into because the creatures have suctioned themselves to the wet panes. Their round bodies flatten into mounds on the glass, little mouths busily opening and closing. You watch them, mindlessly observing them inch in little circles, around and round, maybe spirals if you spent enough time staring. You shiver, imagining the pattern it could suck into your skin. From your position now, you wonder if you look anything like that mouth on the glass to that polite crowd of people.

You feel a warm hand skim over your ass, inviting your neatly pleated skirt to drape over your back completely. The gauzy brown fabric went well with your blouse, and you remember packing it for this conference a week in advance. It feels silly now, to think what you're wearing matters when it's really the demonstration that's important.

The first tank slides open with a squeak, and your boss pulls a writhing blue tentacle out with a cloud of steam following it. You can barely see what's happening in your peripheral vision and only when you turn your head to the side. She wastes no time at all, taking the companies limited resources into account, the conference room was only reserved for an hour. Her other hand traces up and down your back, nails first, to scratch gently through the layers of fabric.

"You're doing great, hun." She whispers the reassurance into your ear, low and husky so only you can hear it. In one motion, she presses the end of the tentacle into your butt. It's bigger than what you had at home, which is what you prepped for. Her hand flattens to soothing circles when the pain comes through in your groans. You quiet to a whimper as the thing flails, twisting to orient itself inside you. It still hurt, but you were adjusting quickly to the pressure in your ass as it slithers down to find your pussy.

Now, no matter how you turn, you can't see what's going on. The suckers drag against you, that much is easy to discern from the sense of touch. The rest of your senses besides that have gone totally useless, so you watch the hypnotic pattern that the specimens in the last tank trace in the condensation.

The blue tentacle pushes into you. It's fat, thick and showy so the people in the back can see. Your eyes might be crossing from the way it slowly stretches you out. A shiny blue slime drips from every pore, sucker, and gland on the thing, making you squish obscenely from every movement. In. Out. In. Out. And your boss is still talking, you can even see the slides she flicks through when your eyes roll back, but it all sounds like white noise as the monstrous size shoves into your cunt, slipping out to momentarily attach an oozing sucker to your clit. Then it squirms right back into your hole, so slick that it runs down the inside of your thighs.

It's hopeless to imagine paying attention to anything else.

"But that's when we ran into the issue of hygiene. Clearly, this doesn't fit corporate dress-code."

That cuts through your thoughts, followed by light chuckles. The second tank slides open with a thunk, and you don't have to crane as much to see the pink tentacle calmy wrap around her arm.

"Oh, f-fuck," you finally make a sound audible over the disgusting squelch of that blue monster. She's trying to press the thick bulb at the end of the pink one into you, leaning real close, almost cheek to cheek as she forces it further past your rim. A glob of spit falls from her lips, you groan as she smears it around with her tongue.

"Just relax for me." And you're not even sure she's talking to you in that raspy tone. The hand on your back has inched lower to keep you pinned in place, and it's making you sore from how the podium’s edge digs into your hips.

Your sounds fall freely now, turning to whines as she licks you to ease the stretch. The hand on your back lightens up as the fat plug slides into place alongside the blue one. An affectionate smack lands on your ass, rubbing her warm palm over the spot as she watches the pink tentacle unfurl and flatten.

You can't see it, only whine as the weight shifts and adjusts inside you. The blue tentacle stops moving as if to behave and play nice with a friend. The gummy feelers attach as the pink tentacle latches on. It cups your swollen pussy, cleaning up the appearance quite nicely to the audience's disappointment. But your moans grow louder, echoing to let you know the sound made it to the back of the room. The little fingerlings lining the pink tentacles interior are so active. They pinch at your clit, making it slip between the soft jelly limbs while the others started playing with the rest of you.

"...And when properly stimulated, this specimen can be prompted to release its reproductive material on command." That faint comment reminds you of the eggs.

Your gasp is mixed between startled and concerned when her hand begins to brush the tentacle wrapped around your crotch. Being stuffed with the twitching blue tentacle makes you wonder where all the slimy eggs will go.

At her light brushes, the tendrils start to pull you apart. They slip inside you, just barely, enough to make your legs start to shake. You can feel them start to pour in as her thumb pushes down, squeezing out the soft spawn like horrific toothpaste as she slides the digit up from the base.

The blue tentacle comes back to life now, helping push the pink jelly into your poor pussy. You can feel the tiny limbs scoop and blue suckers fuck the eggs up against your sore cervix. And still, nobody can see. Your boss stands over you. Her hand trails between your thighs, tapping in the drying slick that's become tacky. She tugs at the tip of the tentacle, pinching firmly at the pink appendage and peeling it back.

Not all the eggs made it inside, rolling down your thighs as the mess is exposed. She's slow with her reveal, trailing her fingers through the juices to try the combination. You've gotten quieter, trying to keep your whimpers silent now that it's easier to hear. She starts to pull at the plug, and you have to bite your lip to keep it down. It doesn't wanna come out of your ass, still pulsing from so recently releasing eggs. Still, she tugs, making you squirm and clench your cunt. You've been on the edge for so long, and feeling the stretch to your rim makes your thighs squeeze together. They can barely shut to rub around your throbbing clit.

"I might as well introduce the last one then." She gives up on freeing the pink tentacle with a frustrated sigh and finally steps behind the podium to reach the tank in your eyeline. "They fit perfectly under your bra, so we'll both be demonstrating."

Your eyes follow her hand, from the lid, to inside the tank, to the buttons on her shirt. You strain to look up at her because she's standing so close, watching with jealousy as that thing sucks on her nipple. Her breasts look bigger too, spilling from her bra when she tries to squish them back into her shirt. A glance back down makes you blush. A bulge starts to bubble from her pencil skirt. It wouldn't be very noticeable if it wasn't a few inches from your nose.

"My turn?" You look up at her from between watery lashes, bending to smiling crescents when she nods. She lifts your chest just enough from the podium to let the green lump latch onto you. It doesn't seem to mind being squashed against the wood when she lowers you back down. They feel good, sucking at your breasts in a perfectly alternating rhythm. You start to feel weird, hotter as your tits get sore. The mouths pinch a little, not enough to hurt, barely more than a warning bite. You groan, the throbbing in your ruined pussy is getting worse. It makes you imagine what your boss is feeling. The pre dripping into her underwear. You probably could take her cock too if she asked you. She's still giving a presentation, talking through a slide as the buttons on her dress shirt strain. Her hand slips back to your butt, where it was yanking the bigger plug out of you.

She braces the opposite hand on your asscheek, rocking the pink tentacle back and forth to coax it out. You can barely hold sound back, dissolving into pitchy breaths when the fat blue fucker decides to start up again. It starts slow, but that pace doesn't last. After packing you with eggs, it's eager to let its cum out. Every loud thrust makes the eggs probe deeper. You can feel it in your tummy, pressed flat to the uncomfortably hard podium.

Your sensitive nipples pulse in time with the relentless suckers. You can't even care to be surprised as they spurt milk, moaning instead from the toy twisting in your ass.

The pink tentacle finally slips out of you, put back in its tank where it belongs. But you're sore, hole left gaping for the blue one to fill in as it swells. It gets bigger in your pussy too, larger with each beat. Even as she talks, her fingers can't stop playing with you, either pinching at your skin or dragging a digit through your slit. Her microphone is ther only thing keeping her intelligible over your cries, strung out from the pleasure.

Her fingers swirl around your clit, so sensitive. The touch isn't any more than light nibbles on your chest, but it makes you gasp and jump against her hand. You start to cum when she twists harder. The moans inside you spill out in one cry as you squirt. The pinch to your clit makes you spurt all over the front of her clothes.

She gasps in disgust and yanks you off the podium. The flooring is carpet, soft enough for your sore ass when you slump against the sturdy wood.

Your boss brushes off the interruption like nothing, simply indicating the conclusion of the demonstration as the slides flick to a new segment. She steps carefully between your legs when walking back to her place behind the podium.

The front of your blouse is halfway unbuttoned, however much was needed to get those creatures on, and now you notice how swollen they made your tits. You whine as the blue thing keeps moving between your thighs. There's more leverage at this angle and you don't know if you should moan or cry. In a few stunted thrusts, cum starts to fill you up, thick ropes of it that still somehow leak out from between all the eggs and the fat tentacle.

The pretty blue sheen coats your inner-thighs and the conference room floor. Something’s still wrong though. The ache between your legs isn't gone, not completely no matter how much your sore body begs to stop. It's the milk, or the hormones that come with it asking for just a little more. The demonstration portion is over. You're done, everyone's supposed to be focused on the woman speaking.

You slip a hand to your clit, circling the bud with shaking fingers. Just one more, and you'll be fine. Your boss doesn't even notice the room's eyes drifting lower. The blue tentacle indulges you, lazily moving in your cunny along with a few pumps of its warm seed. You can look at the lump it makes in your stomach from this angle.

This time, the orgasm builds fast and you have to muffle soft pants against your hand as you cum. Your poor pussy hurts, but you still need another and the tight circles on your clit don't let up.

There can't be that much more time before the hour is up and she has to get these things off you. Yet, your wrist is getting sore and weak dribbles of piss leak out of you at each peak. You notice people in the crowd hiding their arousal, and that somehow makes your crazy mind even hornier. Your abused clitty gives a heartbeat to your thumb each time someone palms their crotch or crosses their legs, still trying to be politely discreet.

The lights brighten as the presentation ends and a few odd bursts of scattered applause break out at a few tables. You still don't have the decency to leave your needy cunt alone, finally closing your legs around the blue tendril still curled up inside you as the people leave the room to pick a brochure up.

I had another anon ask abt going to find a new tentacle with the coworker from pt.2, but I kinda decided they were aliens (pink and blue both would normally use a host for mating and the suckers kinda do the same thing but for food, ig they're all just parasites sorry if that's gross), so i added a new variety into this one for you <3

A/N- how'd she do that? i would've gone ngh~ *squish* IMMEDIATLY, sry can you tell idk anything about an office job? oh well, stfu and enjoy the smut then (this is way over the top 😭) Also why did i give myself the displeasure of two (2) unnamed characters, give me names for Ms. boss or i'll start adding y/n (a threat)

[emeritusemeritus]

No Good Deed. [George Weasley x Reader]

Title: No Good Deed. Part 1.

Pairing: {George Weasley x Reader} mentions of previous Fred Weasley x Reader.

Timeline: Set a few years after DH, loosely following Canon.

Summary: A few years after Fred’s death, the investors of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes demand changes to the name. All it would take is two years of a fake marriage to fix the issues, but no good deed goes unpunished.

Warnings: Fake marriage trope because we love the cliché. Mentions of death (Fred). Friends to lovers. Slow burn but mentions of kissing and eventual smut. Swearing. Tags will be updated with each chapter.

"How dare they! It's all I have left of him! I've already lost him once and now I have to lose him all over again?!"

You'd never seen George so angry as he stepped into the office, kicking a cardboard restore box under the table that stored this quarter's paperwork in sheer frustration. He tugged off his tie and ran his fingers through his flame red hair, trying to calm himself, his face downcast despite his anger. You silently stood in the doorway of the office, just observing him, not quite knowing what to say or how to comfort him after what had happened earlier that day in the meeting you'd both attended.

"Mr Weasley, there is one final notion on the mandate which must be discussed," the balding, sour-faced man says from the other side of the table, briefly looking up from his typed paperwork as he strains his neck once again, a habit you'd noticed him doing frequently during your hour long meeting which was thankfully coming to a close.

You'd accompanied George to a meeting with his investors in London, notetaking for him and assisting him with the figures that the investors required to see periodically throughout the year as per their contract. You'd always had an affinity for bookkeeping and had found your skills utilised upon employment at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes just after you left Hogwarts, immediately taken onboard by your childhood best friends Fred and George Weasley.

After Fred's death and the end of the war, funds had been low due to the long store closure despite their best efforts at an owl postage service and once George was ready to reopen the shop, he had needed to take on investors in order to get the money to replenish products and reopen the store, giving them shares in the company and the overall profits. Fortunately, the business had immediately boomed once again when the store reopened, only increasing in popularity and therefore profit when Hogwarts reopened and Diagon Alley bloomed with old and new shops opening seemingly every day. The investors were largely silent, providing money without any input to the business, proud to be associated with the more popular store in Diagon Alley, at least until today.

"It has come to our attention that you are providing services under a false pretence which we must discuss," another man says, much harder in his expression.

Your eyes flick to George who looks rightly offended and confused at the vague notion, seeing him shift in his seat somewhat uncomfortably.

"As there are no longer two of you, the name 'Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes' is redundant, incorrect and therefore unmarketable as it stands. We propose that changes must be made to change the name to 'Weasley's', moving the apostrophe so that it denotes the true ownership. Mr Weasley, you have 30 days to make the necessary change or else our shares will be pulled and we will no longer be investing in your business."

The meeting had come to an abrupt end as the investors exited, leaving you with a seething George who had surprisingly held it together until you both apparated to the outside of the shop. You'd struggled to keep up with George as he bounded up the stairs towards the office, completely ignoring Ron and a few regular customers who had greeted him. You shot them apologetic smiles, wordlessly trying to excuse his uncharacteristic behaviour as you followed him to the office.

He threw down his jacket onto your chair as you entered behind him and immediately began tugging at his tie in frustration.

"I can't change the name! It was always me and Fred, I've already lost him once I can't lose him again, not like this," his tone was no longer filled with anger or rage but rather deep sadness and heartbreak at the thought. You closed your eyes for a moment, unable to watch any longer as his words hit you like a freight train, the pain overwhelming you not only at the mention of Fred but of George's evident sadness.

You hear him throw himself down into his chair and you open your eyes again to see him looking completely defeated as he clearly plays out his options in his mind to prevent this from happening.

"Ginny's about to become a Potter, Bill and Charlie aren't in the bloody country, Percy's… well, Percy and Ron can't join in as a co-owner, the deeds are in mine and Fred's name. Six, well, five siblings and not one of them can help. Unless there's a way of bringing Fred back through the bloody veil, which I've exhausted all options in my bloody mind believe me, then I'm fucked. Everything Fred and I built is ruined."

You watch as his long fingers run over his face, rubbing his eyes which you suspect are brimming with unshed tears judging by his emotion filled voice.

Your words flew out of you before you could even comprehend what you were saying, surprising even yourself for a moment.

"I'll marry you."

George looks utterly astounded by your words as his eyes shoot up to yours, confusion evident over every single one of his features as your words sink in.

"Eh?" His brief reply conveys every inch of perplexity that his features show and at any other time the look on his face would have made you double over with laughter.

"Angel, I don't think now's the time," he says with a gentle frown, clearly treading carefully with his words despite his confusion. You fight to get the words out to explain yourself, knowing that somewhere before your unexpected outburst there was solid reasoning in your mind.

"You need another Weasley and the only way you can override the shared deed is by entitlement, like by marriage," you say, moving forward to stand in front of him before taking a seat on his wooden desk. Your leg brushes against his as you hop up and you don't miss how his eyes briefly flicker to the point where your legs touched just for a second.

"I've seen it with my parents, when my mum and dad divorced she was entitled to the interest of his business as a matrimonial asset. We'd have to check if there's a time limit on that but with Fred gone, it's the only way you'd be able to get another shareholder in his place."

You were trying to keep your explanation simple, pulling from your firsthand experience in similar matters but as you fought to explain yourself, you found yourself rambling a little under George's intense gaze.

"If we got married you wouldn't have to change the name, I'd take your name and we'd both be Weasley by law, cancelling out their demands. You'd have to put me on the business documents but we could draw up some sort of contract that doesn't actually entitle me to any money or profit from the business, but they don't need to know that."

Your words hang in the air for a few moments, tense silence lingering between you as your words replay over and over in your mind, wondering if you'd gone too far and made things too awkward.

"I couldn't ask you to do that," George says quietly, averting his eyes.

"Georgie I'd do it for you without a second thought, it might be the only way you could keep the business exactly as it is," you say, reaching out to touch his shoulder, trying to urge him to listen to you.

He fell silent again for a few more tense moments and you could see the conflict on his face as he considered his options, allowing your proposal to sink in. He's quiet again when he replies and if anything he looks a little timid as he speaks.

"But you and Fred," he weakly argues, his words making your stomach lurch painfully. You sigh, closing your eyes for a moment. You hadn't considered this part, the mental and emotional conflict of your proposal. You and Fred had been something throughout your later school years and a little while after, but had never wanted to make anything official, a secret shared between you both that never allowed you to commit to each other.

"Are in the past," you unwillingly admit with a sad sigh, "Fred's gone, it's taken me a really long time to mostly accept it, but if this means keeping his memory alive just as it is then I'd do anything, for him and for you."

Things were a little awkward for a couple of days following your outburst and each time you saw or crossed paths with George you inwardly cringed. You'd shut yourself in the office most of the time, trying only to see him before store opening and packing up and rushing off just before close, ensuring you wouldn't have to spend any prolonged time together.

"I know you're avoiding me," A familiar voice behind you says as you gather your bag and mug off the desk just before the end of the day, 3 days after your outburst. You turn slowly and see him leaning on the door frame with a little knowing smirk on his face, though his eyes look sad. You bite your lip, knowing you'd been caught out and flick your eyes to your bag, to the clock on the wall and then back to George, not really knowing how to respond.

"It's okay, I understand," he says, taking a slow step into the office, "but there's no need to feel awkward, not with me, I don't take it personally that you regret offering."

"I don't regret it," you reply quickly with a frown, effectively cutting him off. Your words make his eyebrows shoot you a little in surprise, or maybe it was the conviction in your voice that surprised him. "I've been avoiding you because it's been painfully awkward to offer yourself like that and be rejected."

"I didn't reject you," he replies quickly but with a gentle tone, now cutting you off. Your eyes widen a little at the quickness of the reply and you can't help but look into his eyes, seeing his tongue poke out and wet his lip as he looks nervously back at you.

You both look at each other for a moment as a little tense silence falls and you both breathe out a chuckle at the awkwardness in the room.

"So to make it clear, I could still marry you?" He asks, walking forwards towards you.

"I think the agreement was that I'd marry you," you teased, smirk tugging at your lips which earned you a roll of his eyes. "But yes," you said, now with a more serious and honest tone. "My offer to get married is still very much open, for the sake of the business."

He stands before you and you crane your neck upwards towards his familiar height and there's an intimacy that passes between you both that had never existed before as you look at each other, communicating only with your eyes.

"Then I accept your proposal," George says, taking your hand mockingly and you gasp at him, pulling your hand away to smack his arm lightly.

"I didn't propose to you!"

"That's not what I'm going to tell our grandkids," he jokes, pulling you into a hug. You can't deny that even though his words were mocking, your tummy did a little nervous and excited flip at his words.

"Thank you, so much," he says as you pull apart, completely serious as he looks at you with such intensity if makes your knees a little weak. "This means so much to me."

"And me."

It was Saturday night and you'd invited George around to your flat after work, to talk over your agreement. You'd opened a bottle of wine and ordered a takeaway, a benefit of living in muggle London that you loved, and started writing out some plans to your agreement as you both sat on the sofa beside eachother, the coffee table littered with notebooks and paper.

"We should move in together, make it believable," George says, taking a sip of his wine. You look at him in surprise, not having expected those words to fall from his lips.

"Who are we trying to convince?" You ask, a little confused at how deep this was going.

"Oh yeah, right," he says, looking away, taking another sip of wine. You immediately felt a little bad seeing his apparent negative reaction to your words and considered his idea for a moment, thinking of the implications.

"Unless the investors ask for character references," you said, picking up your own glass. "I suppose it's possible, we'd have to tell your family wouldn't we."

George nods slowly, on the same wavelength as you.

"Would your family be able to lie if they were questioned?" You ask, looking up at George.

George snorts into his glass and shakes his head in reply, "About hiding Harry, yeah, about this? No way."

"Then we'll have to convince your family that we're actually married," you say, feeling a little uneasy at the thought of lying to the family you cared very deeply for. George made a vague noise of agreement and placed his empty glass down onto the coaster on the coffee table, smoothing the creases in his trousers out with his long fingers.

"How long would we have to be married for?" George asks with a frown and you can't help but feel a little stab in your chest at his words, as silly as it was.

"Oh I don't know, until the investors drop the demand? Or maybe get new investors?" You ask, placing a strand of hair behind your ear that had fallen into your face. George watches your every move and you can't help but stare back at him, seeing him paying close attention to you.

"How far away would we be from being able to do away with the investors? Business is good right, maybe I could cash in their shares and become sole owner," he says, flicking his eyes down to your work bag by the door, knowing that there's his accounting documents in there.

"Good idea," you say, placing down your glass and moving over to reach for your bag. You begin calculating the investors shares against the profits of the business and try and work out a timeline for how long it would take for George to earn the money to buy out the investors, assuming business stayed as good as it was now.

"Looks like two years, based on the projections," you say, placing down your pen. "If business stays at the rate it is, you'd be clear from all investors in just under two years."

"Is that, is that okay with you?" George says, looking up into your eyes, his voice suddenly quieter and a little more timid.

You smile at him and nod in reply, genuinely okay with that. "What about you?"

"Of course," he smiles, chuckling to himself a little as he picks at the tweed of his trousers, "you're doing me the biggest favour imaginable, I have the easy deal."

"You have to be married to me, I'd say that's not easy," you tease, picking up your glass and drinking the last sip of wine left.

"I don't know, I can think of many worse things than being married to you," he says with a grin, reaching out to refill both of your glasses. Butterflies erupt in your stomach at his words, a warmth spreading through your chest as you bite back a smile.

"I have to admit," George says, handing you back your glass, "I feel as if I'm treading on Fred's toes a little, he'd probably be conspiring to turn my eyebrows purple if he knew I was stealing his woman, that or he'd shave them off whilst I slept," he says with a laugh. You chuckle, picturing the scene in your mind but it doesn't stop the little pang of sadness running through you. You wanted to tell George the whole truth but you couldn't, especially not now and so you simply allowed yourself to laugh and took another sip of wine.

"He'd understand," you say, perhaps a little quietly as you try to tell yourself that it was the truth, trying to justify your actions in your mind. George makes a sound of agreement and just as his glass reaches his lips, the buzzer rings out alerting you that the food had arrived.

"So, we have to convince your family that we're getting married, without dating beforehand?" You say, both of you still chatting as you eat your Chinese food. At this point you were feeling a little buzzed from the wine and everything felt a little easier to get out, the hesitation and trepidation of your words no longer bothering you.

"Good point, though we've always been really close so I don't think they'd think it was too out of the ordinary," George says, taking a huge bite of fried rice. "Did anyone know about you and Fred?"

"I don't think so," you replied, thinking of all the time you'd spent at the Burrow and of each family member, "I think Ginny had her suspicions but she never asked me about it. Thank god you were identical, we could always lie and say it was you if anyone did notice something," you chuckled, earning an enthusiastic laugh from George.

"How do we explain the divorce though?" You asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence, your thoughts drifting into all possible outcomes. "I don't want to lose your family because I become your horrible ex-wife," you say, feeling sad about the potential of that.

"You'd never be horrible, not to me and not to them," George says, reaching out to touch your hand. "We could always say we were just better off as friends? That marriage was too constricting for both of us? That way no ones to blame."

"Yeah that could work," you say, feeling a weird sense of sadness at the concept of divorcing George.

"On a serious note though," he says, temporarily placing down his cutlery as he looks at you, his eyes staring intensely into yours. "If you don't want to do this, I completely understand. It's asking too much of you and I'm very aware of that. It would mean no open dating or seeing anyone else until everything was over," he says carefully. You hadn't really considered that but it was a price you were willing to pay. The fact that George had said no open dating had made you feel a little off, knowing he intended to still date even though you were married, which of course was normal in the circumstances but it still made you feel a little funny.

"You'd still want to date?" You asked, the words falling from your lips before you could stop them, immediately mentally cursing the wine you'd drank that had apparently released your filter.

"Merlin no," he says with a little self deprecating chuckle, "I meant for you."

"I don't want to," you said, perhaps a little too quickly as it earned you a confused flicker of a look from George. "I mean, everyone would think I was cheating on you and I couldn't do that, not to you."

He seems to understand as he nods his head, once again picking up his fork and loading it up with the food.

"We can cross that bridge when we come to it," he says, with a determination in his voice that seemed to settle your anxious thoughts. "So, I suppose we really should move in together."

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[metamatar]

One of the world’s top arms exporters, Israel exports annually as much as $7 billion worth of military technology, or 2.2 percent of its Gross Domestic Product. An additional 1.35 percent of GDP is dedicated to military research and development, and 6.7 percent is spent on its defense budget— the world’s second largest military budget as a percentage of GDP after Saudi Arabia. All told, 10.25 percent of the Israeli economy is involved directly in arms. Comparatively, for the United States, the world’s top weapons exporter, arms account for around 3.7 percent of its economy. Israel is actually the world’s largest arms supplier per capita, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the World Bank, at ninety-eight dollars; it is followed by a distant Russia at fifty-eight dollars, and Sweden at fifty-three dollars.

These figures do not include the contribution from natural resources exploited under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.50 They do not factor in the service sector’s revenue or general industry and construction taking place in the West Bank. Such figures are difficult to quantify, since many companies operate in the West Bank but have offices in Tel Aviv to obscure where operations take place. Nor does this account for Israeli exports into the Occupied Territories, which are 72 percent of Palestinian imports and 0.16 percent of Israeli GDP. All told, the Israeli economy is deeply involved in a web of expenditure and profit around the ongoing occupation and expansion of settlements.

American military aid supplanting open-ended government grants has had the effect of increasing arms production and diminishing the overall economic reach of the state. No longer is foreign aid and imperialist incentive directly invested in the working class. Israeli workers are now rewarded through the arms economy. This is why, despite the lack of social mobility and the economic degradation of neoliberalism, the working class remains committed as ever to Zionism.

The working class has become dependent on the education, housing, and career opportunities that their participation in the IDF affords them. They have found routes for advancement in the military-fueled high-tech industry, with over 9 percent of workers concentrated in high-tech. And as pensions and real wages are eroded, the cheaper cost of settlement living in the Occupied Territories has become essential.

[john-silvers]

      My father was a tailor in Leeds, as was his father and his father’s father. Time was if a man on the Avondale Road asked where he might find the finest clothes in northern England, he was pointed toward the shop of a man named Rackham. Then the men who sell wool decide they’d prefer not to compete with the men who imported fine cotton, and as the men who sell wool have the ears of the men who make laws, an embargo is enacted to increase profits and calico disappears.       And my father’s business that he inherited from his father and his father’s father begins to wither and die. And my father suffers the compound shame of financial ruin seen through the eyes of his son and descended into drink. I’d sit beside him as a boy at the Sunday service as he shouted at the pastor, at the altar - at anyone who’d listen, really - at the injustice of it all. And I’d put my arm over his shoulder as the insults began, help carry him out of the church. God the insults. At his funeral, our neighbors were kind enough to whisper them rather than call them out loud.       So, I set out to work, determined to rebuild what had been taken away. I was 13 years old, but I was determined...until a man arrived at my door claiming to hold debts belonging to my father, debts accumulated as my father drank, debts he claimed that now belonged to me, debts I could not possibly have hoped to repay, debts over which this man would have seen me imprisoned - imprisoned in a place where the debts would have been discharged only through hard labor, hard labor with no wages, working at - wait for it - the production of textiles.       “You people, incapable of accepting the world as it is” says the man to whom the world handed everything. If no Anne, if no rescue, if this is defeat for me, then know this: you and I were neck and neck in this race right till the end, but, Jesus, did I make up a lot of ground to catch you.

[probablyasocialecologist]

“People need to understand that ‘growth’ is not the same as social progress.” Hickel is one of the leading lights in a growing post-growth or degrowth movement. Its proponents argue that economic success cannot be measured through the crude metric of gross domestic product (GDP) and that there needs to be a managed reduction in growth in carbon-intensive countries and industries. “Growth simply means an increase in aggregate production, as measured in market prices,” says Hickel. “So, according to GDP growth, producing £1m worth of teargas is considered exactly the same as producing £1m worth of affordable housing or healthcare.” Hickel says that what matters in terms of social progress is not aggregate production but the production of specific goods and services that are necessary for improving people’s lives and achieving ecological goals – and a reduction in overall growth in high-emitting sectors and countries. “Every time a politician says they want more economic growth, we need to ask: growth of what and for whose benefit?” Opponents of the post-growth movement counter that a shrinking economy would be socially destructive, leading to a rise in unemployment, a reduction in tax revenue and therefore less money available for public services. This, they argue, would lead to increasing levels of hardship and destitution, which is already hitting marginalised communities the hardest. However, economists in the post-growth movement say a planned and purposeful reorganisation of the economy would benefit the vast majority of people. According to their vision, this could entail an organised downsizing in production of things such as mansions, SUVs, industrially produced beef, cruise ships, fast fashion and weapons – all of which are profitable to capital but ecologically destructive. At the same time, there should be a massive increase in investment in what would benefit people the most, from healthcare, public transport and renewable energy to affordable housing, nutritious food and regenerative agriculture, which offer less profit but are also less ecologically destructive. Hickel says: “In high-income countries like the UK, we have absolutely massive aggregate output. But this output is mostly organised around what is profitable to capital – and beneficial to elite consumers – rather than what is necessary for the wellbeing of everyday citizens. So despite high production we still have widespread deprivation … More than 4 million children live in poverty, and you can see the misery on our streets when you walk around. It’s madness.”

27 August 2024

[licorice-and-rum]

SOC and Neoliberlism

So, as promised, here it is my analysis of Six of Crows and how neoliberalism is amazingly portrayed in Ketterdam, and how the city is an example of what happens in a community that is not provided for.

Before we begin, I wanted to say that English is not my first language, and, considering I read SOC in Brazilian Portuguese, I might translate some names literally or differently from the English version but I think it's manageable to read and understand my point. If not, I'll edit the text.

The first thing we have to understand is how neoliberalism works and the theory behind it, and then we'll talk about how it's portrayed in Ketterdam.

So neoliberalism is a theory born more or less at the end of the 20th century (70s-80s), and it finds its roots in laissez-faire capitalism, meaning that it's a political current that tries to suppress and/or eliminate the State's influence from the market. The neoliberalist view understands that the market can supply by itself the population's needs without help or limitations imposed by the State.

The thing here is that most people listen to this and think neoliberalism is about electronics, cars, and other stuff. The truth is, that neoliberalism aims to suppress the presence of State-run facilities in ALL corners of society, such as health care, housing, water access, electricity, etcetera.

So, we can use the American and Brazillian health systems to understand it better, for example:

In the US, the ones providing health care for the population are great corporations - they decide the price of care, they work together with pharmaceutical companies to define medicine prices, and the laws that bind them are pretty much only offer and demand. There is almost none State intervention to provide the population with accessible health care.

However, this brings problems, of course: not everyone (actually, most people) has real access to health care simply because they can't afford it, or they can't afford it without taking a big financial hit, which threatens their other basic needs, such as food, housing, water, electricity, etcetera. Not everyone can provide for their medical needs, such as diabetic and disabled people.

That leads to:

(a) an increase in poverty;

(b) a decrease in educational levels - if you don't have the means to pay for higher educational levels because of health care debt, or if you're sick and need to go to class and tough through it but you're not really learning anything, and so on, which leads to a major workforce in base level production and a minor class who has access to this education;

(c) an increase in overworking people - meaning that we have a lot of people taking on several jobs to be able to pay for things like health care, which increases the competitiveness between people, making individualism levels go up and breaking up human beings' natural sense of community.

I could also talk here about how this breeds isolation and increases the potential for mental health problems but I think you got what I was saying.

On the other hand, we have the Brazilian health care system (SUS), which is a universal gratuitous medical care service through the whole country. Its purpose is not profit, it's providing health care for the community, so therefore, any SUS unit is bound by State law and run by the State. By law, every SUS unit must provide for anyone who enters its premises in need of medical care. Everyone, Brazillian and foreigners, poor or rich, must be treated if they need to. It's the law.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's all rainbows and flowers, there are definitely many problems in SUS. However, what I'm trying to showcase here is that, when the needs of a population are met, the population itself is more resilient, their life quality goes up and so does their participation in their community.

On the other hand, in neoliberalism, when the State is absent from these areas of community service, the market is, in theory, the one providing for the community. In practice, however, what we observe from neoliberal policies in cities with a great poor population in Latam for example, is that when the State doesn't provide for the community, the market is unable to step up for them because of their obscene prices.

The poor population that doesn't have their needs met by the State or the market sees a great boom in criminal activities within their spaces. That's mainly why criminal organizations are so present in slums and favelas throughout Latin America: criminal organizations are a way for the community to provide for themselves and, as a means to become more powerful, they provide for the community in exchange for their services (not to say they do that for the good of their hearts, of course not).

It's why it's so common, for example, that criminal organizations such as PCC in Brazil pay for kids from favelas to undergo Law school, for example.

And that's is where I wanted to go to start the conversation in SOC: one of the main traits of Ketterdam is the Barrel and, in the Barrel, we have the presence of many criminal organizations, such as the Dregs, the Dime Lions, the Menagerie staff (not the girls, ofc), etcetera.

This, as observed by Kaz himself, is one of the only ways to survive on the Barrel - you filiate yourself to a gang because you need to be able to provide for yourself and, more times than others, for your family as well.

Kaz's story is actually a perfect example of how Ketterdam is the representation of America in the early 20th century in full policies of laissez-faire (neoliberalism): as we can see in Titanic and many other historical fictions, the said American Dream had people believing the US to be this economical paradise where they could all enter the market and become millionaires.

The result of it is the Great Depression, of course, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

When Kaz and Jodi leave Lij for Ketterdam, Jodi believes he'll become a merchant - which is a pretty common belief of those who arrive at Ketterdam, as Pekka Rollins and Kaz himself state in Crooked Kingdom.

The reality of it, though, is much harsher, because the truth is that when you have a market that controls everything, as we see in Ketterdam with the Merchant's Guild (I think that's how it's translated?) and the Stadwatch as a police force, you see perfectly how neoliberal policies really work in real life:

You have a higher class who controls the market and the riches (question: who do you think got the money Shu Han sent to Ketterdam at the beginning of the first book: the people of the city/country or the merchants in the "government"?), and a lower class that, without support from the State or the market to have their needs met will turn to their own means to do so.

So you have the trafficking that brought Inej to the island, the unlimited gambling that Jesper was trapped in, the cons Jodi and Kaz fell for - it's all product of liberal policies.

And so, you have Ketterdam and its neoliberal policies (:

(I really love to make this kind of analysis, please, if you have something you want me to talk about, don't hesitate to ask)

[luxsky]

Acotar characters; "you're staring" "you're beautiful"

Summary: ACOTAR characters + Twitter trend "you're staring" "you're beautiful"

Warnings: Moderately inaccurate political economy information, I think that's it (let me know if I missed anything)

Author's Note: Okay, I had a lot of fun writing this, hope you enjoy!

Rhysand

Ruling a court comes with various responsibilities, including dealing with accounting. Deciding how much money goes into each aspect, where there will be investments or cuts, handling the demand for buying and selling prices, export profits, and import expenses – these are the matters a High Lord has to deal with.

And Rhysand hates it; he dislikes mathematics, numbers, and especially thinking about all the headaches that economics brings him. That's why, when we got married and he made me his High Lady to reign by his side, I volunteered to handle that part – the part he disliked but I enjoyed.

So, while Rhysand deals with the political aspects that don't interest me, I handle the ones that don't interest him. We often work together, despite having separate offices. We also have a shared one because, even though we sometimes prefer working alone, most of the time, we choose to work together, not only to spend time together but also to enjoy each other's company and deal with any situation requiring the other's opinion.

"I think we should invest more in the export of artistic materials," I say to him, standing on the plush rug in the office, papers scattered on the floor from where I was previously sitting. I've analyzed these two specific papers in my hands for several minutes, pacing back and forth until reaching this conclusion.

"Well, we could do that, but the demand would increase, and we'd have to invest in structures for mass production of materials," he murmurs in response, not lifting his head from his stack of papers, filled mostly with reports from spies and armies.

"Urgh, okay, let me look into that," I crouch down, sitting on my heels as I shuffle through the scattered papers on the floor, searching for specific ones.

I make a satisfied noise when I find what I need, also grabbing a pen and starting to scribble some calculations and values on a blank sheet. Information here, consequences there, trying to find the best way to expand the Night Court's export market.

Rhys's pen stops, and I glimpse a movement from the corner of my eye, but I'm too focused on what I'm writing. I search for another paper, Mother, I should start organizing myself better. I lean to reach it, using the values there to compare with the ones I noted down, another paper comes to my hand, and my head is filled with numbers, values, and variations.

At some point, my concentration begins to wane because I feel eyes piercing my side. Perhaps my partner is trying to hint that my murmurs are bothering him, or maybe he wants to say something and is waiting for the right moment.

I put the papers back on the floor and look at him. Contrary to what I imagined, he's leaning back in his chair, a smirk on his lips, and his arms crossed over his chest. He doesn't look away or say anything, so I make a face and go back to shuffling my papers, still feeling the burn of his gaze on me.

"Rhysand, love, you're staring," I murmur, starting to stack the papers I had spread all over the floor, attempting a fake organization. I hear the sound of his chair scraping on the floor, and I look up to see him in front of me, crouching to be at the same height as me.

The smile on his face grew. "You're beautiful, dear, especially when dealing with all this math," he murmurs, and his hands cup my cheeks, his thumb caressing my face.

"Well, someone has to do the hard work, don't they?" I reply playfully, mirroring his smile. Rhysand leans in, kissing my lips, then my nose, forehead, and finally my cheeks. He continues planting various kisses all over my face, and I'm laughing by the end when he pulls away, looking at me with a loving gaze.

My laughter slowly fades, but the smile remains on my face. "You're my clever and beautiful little thing, dear," he murmurs, planting a final, very slow kiss on my forehead.

Cassian

Waking up early is one of the things highlighted on my list of things I hate and prefer not to do. My routine has always been organized with the goal of waking up as late as possible without disrupting my responsibilities.

And this routine worked perfectly until Cassian and I started living together, and he decided that my routine was somewhat unhealthy, insisting that I should start the day with him. The problem is, my beloved partner has a bizarre predisposition to wake up very easily before the sun even thinks about rising. And he doesn't rest until he wakes me up too.

"Come on, babe, we still need to have breakfast before we start training," his voice muffled as my face is buried under two pillows and protected by a thick blanket. "If you don't get up soon, we'll be late."

"Cassian, how could we be late if the sun hasn't even woken up yet?" Irritation in my voice is palpable, but perhaps the pillows somehow contained that annoyance in their feathers because the Illyrian has the audacity to laugh, a loud laughter that comes from the depths of his chest.

Before I could curse him with every name I know, my blanket is abruptly pulled off my body. As I cling to the pillows, trying to prevent him from taking them away, I feel the mattress shifting and his weight being placed on me. Peeking under the pillow, his forearms are bracing on either side of my body, preventing his entire weight from resting on me. His wings are spread, and a few strands of his hair escape from the bun.

"Are you going to get up, or do I have to take these pillows away too?" His voice is pure amusement, and I'm sure he's wearing that typical smirk of his.

With a very dissatisfied sigh, I push the pillows up, removing them from my face. As I suspected, his smile is evident on his lips, Cassian's face hovering above mine, very close.

I make a face and poke his cheek with my finger. "You really have no fear of death, do you?" Despite my words, the irritation of being woken up so early is set aside for a moment. Cassian's face so close to mine erases any resentment I could have for him being a morning person.

"Not when it's this beautiful," his hand moves, pushing strands of hair away from my face, his features softening. His eyes travel across the expanse of my face, and he's so focused on tracing the contours of my cheeks with his finger that he doesn't realize he's been doing it for a few minutes.

"You're staring, General," I murmur, a playful smile forming on my lips as I see his eyes darken with the title used. His finger doesn't stop caressing my cheek, but his face descends a bit, his lips hovering a few inches from mine.

He whispers to me, his breath mixing with mine, "With a sight like this? You can't blame me." He doesn't wait a second after finishing the sentence to press our lips together, a warm and desire-filled kiss.

My hands grab his hair, and the bun easily unravels as I grip the strands, his mouth dancing over mine as our tongues connect and dance. When he breaks the kiss, it's only because we need to breathe, but he plants soft and quick kisses while stabilizing his breath, then descending and leaving a trail of wet kisses on my neck.

I bring his face up, looking into his eyes, the previous amusement replaced by lust. My arched eyebrow and mischievous smile draw his eyes back to my lips. Before he can kiss me again, I speak.

"I thought we were going to be late for training if I didn't get up soon." The amusement in my voice prompts an eye roll from him in response.

"Screw the training; my only commitment now is with your body." And his lips resume leaving trails of kisses, descending from my neck to my collarbone. Laughter escapes me as his wife reverberates throughout the room, Cassian focusing on kissing me everywhere.

Azriel

Azriel's lips passionately met mine, his hands gripping my waist, pulling me closer. I'm a complete mess; one of my hands supports me on his arm, while the other grabs his hair. My feet barely touch the ground, striving for height to reach his lips. His warm mouth against mine, our tongues entwining, he pulls back just enough to capture my lower lip between his teeth, causing delightful shivers.

His hand moves up to my neck; his thumb rests on my chin, tilting my face upward. His lips trail down, planting a kiss on my jaw and then on my neck. He lightly bites and kisses the spot that never fails to elicit sighs from me.

As he pulls away, I open my eyes, meeting his brown, sparkling eyes admiring my face. His hands cup my cheeks, a small smile playing on his lips. My lip throbs, feeling swollen, yet Azriel gazes at me with such devotion that all I can do is smile back, my heart racing as if it's the first time he's touched me this way. It isn't, but my body seems to forget that in the moment.

Azriel continues watching me, but my attention is momentarily diverted as a bright flash catches my peripheral vision. I turn my head, his hand moving from my cheek to hold mine as I observe stars falling from the sky. They start timidly, but as seconds pass, more appear, the sky glowing with the trails they leave behind.

I love this. I love the starfall, sharing the moment with my partner, and more than that, I love how he still hasn't taken his eyes off me, even though the brilliant sky is far more beautiful and interesting to watch.

"You're staring," I murmur, my eyes still fixed on the sky. Azriel wraps his arms around my shoulders from behind, his wings blocking the wind around us. He places a gentle kiss on the top of my head, then lowers his lips to my ear, whispering in response.

"You're so beautiful; it's hard not to look, my love." His voice in that tone is incredibly sensual, and the shadows dancing on my arms as I hold onto his bring a delightful sensation.

I don't respond with words; instead, I send all the love and warmth I can through the golden bond that connects us. My eyes remain fixed on the stars detaching from the sky above us, but I'm sure he's still trying to study any detail he hasn't memorized yet, even with our closeness.

Feyre

The sun warming my skin is a very welcome sensation, the fabric of the sheet that Feyre and I spread on the grass earlier is a bit disheveled, but I don't mind.

The comfortable silence we're in is filled with occasional sounds of pages turning in my book and the strokes Freyre makes on her canvas. I lie on my stomach, reading the new suspense novel my lovely partner gifted me a few days ago. The story is at a particularly tense point, a crucial revelation is imminent, and I can feel it.

This may have been one of the best ideas Feyre had in the last month. She was recently inspired to paint landscapes and planned an outdoor day. With all the shared love, she asked if I wanted to accompany her. We didn't go far, choosing a spot near the Sidra River. We arrived in the early afternoon and planned to stay until the sun gave way to the moon.

Despite wanting to continue reading, Feyre's gaze distracts me. Giving up on reading, I sit up, looking at her. From my angle, I can't see what she's painting very well, but the paints are still scattered around us, and she's still holding the brush, so I deduce she hasn't finished the painting.

"Baby, you're staring," I stretch, trying to see what she's painting, curious to see her progress, but she quickly pulls the canvas away from my view. The warmth that fills her cheeks as she looks away from me gives me a hint as to why she was staring at me.

A mischievous smile forms on my lips. I lean forward, innocently running the tip of my nail on her bare leg. "You know, when you said you wanted to paint the landscape, I didn't think you were referring to me."

She chuckles at the teasing, rolling her eyes as she mumbles something. She places the canvas in one of the paints, away from my sight, and turns to me, her hand reaching to grab mine. Her finger is smeared with paint, and as she runs it over me, I get stained with the hue she was using, but I don't complain.

"You're too beautiful; it's hard to capture you in a painting," she confesses to me. Her brown eyes meet mine, her freckles reflecting the sunlight and seeming to glow. It's ironic for Feyre to say this about me; the beauty she carries is otherworldly, yet I am the one challenging to be captured in paints.

"Pfft, you can turn anything into the most beautiful art, Fey," I roll my eyes at her, her hand drawing a pattern on mine gently. "But I can be your muse whenever you want. I don't mind how long it takes for you to finish your painting."

She smiles at my response. Her other hand, which previously held the brush, holds my face tenderly, and she stares at me for a few more seconds in silence, studying and analyzing my face, imprinting the details with her eyes and fingertips. When she finishes, she goes back to grab the canvas and the brush, speaking excitedly.

"Alright then, get into a comfortable position. This will probably take some time," she starts mixing colors and dipping them into the brush as I lean back, sitting in a more comfortable way.

When she resumes painting, I'm still laughing, and as the sun sets, giving way to the moon, she remains focused, alternating her gaze between me and the canvas, until she completes her masterpiece.

Nesta

In this, Nesta and I have developed a small tradition in our relationship. At least once a month, we go to any bookstore we choose at the moment, even if we don't plan to buy any books or have only bought a few days ago. We simply go, wander around the store, and talk – sometimes we browse through books on the shelves, other times we just observe. It doesn't matter much what we do in the bookstore; we just go.

That's why the day after I return from a political trip to the Day Court, Nesta wakes me up early. We have breakfast together, then leisurely stroll to a new bookstore that opened while I was away. The place is beautiful and cozy, the smell of books is relaxing, and Nesta's hand in mine brings a sense of comfort. We are almost at the back of the bookstore, in the erotic books section, when one of the covers catches my attention.

"Oh! Helion had this book in his library; I read it while I was there." I release Nesta's hand to pick up the book. The cover is as discreet as the title; at first glance, nothing would indicate the content inside this book, except for the category it belongs to.

I flip through the book, reading some random passages and recalling the story. A laugh escapes my throat as I turn to Nesta and show her one of the excerpts. "Look at this."

Nesta's eyebrow arches as she reads the passage I showed her. A quieter laugh, compared to mine, also escapes her, and her eyes meet mine as she says, "Well, it's a... uninteresting scene."

I nod, agreeing with her, and turn back to the shelf, running my finger over the covers. "I really didn't expect that while reading, although it makes sense when compared to the rest of the story." Then I briefly start recounting the story – how the main couple faced various challenges when together but always had a significant tension between them.

I pick up another book, turning the cover and reading its summary. It seems interesting. "Look, Nes, it's from that new author you were interested in. The story sounds good; it's about..."

When I turn to show her the book I found, she still has the previous book in her hands, open to the page I handed her. Her eyes stare at me with an affectionate gaze, causing my cheeks to flush with the attention she gives me, and I release a nervous giggle.

"Darling, you're staring at me," I murmur, shyness covering my voice. This seems to snap Nesta out of the trance she was in because she blinks, very slowly, and a mischievous smile forms on her lips – a smile that sends shivers down my spine.

She closes the book in her hands, takes the one in mine, and puts both back on the shelf, pulling me close to her. "You look too beautiful when you talk about the books you like," she murmurs, her lips nearing mine.

Her eyes burn with mischief, her hand moves up to my nape, pulling me closer, our lips inches apart. "Tell me more about the book, about all the books you read while you were away," her lips meet mine in the next moment.

Morrigan

Morrigan's dissatisfied murmurs filled my ears as I watched her argue with herself through the vanity mirror about the three dresses scattered on the bed. Smiling at her indecision, I resumed applying makeup, finishing the products on my eyes and cheeks, adding color and life to my face.

Digging into Mor's vanity drawer, I searched for a lipstick to complement the outfit I chose for the night. Once I found the perfect shade, I glanced back at the mirror.

Swiftly applying the lipstick, I examined my face—it was perfect and would be even more so when I put on the golden earring that matched Mor's. With that thought, I sought her reflection and found her staring at me through the mirror with a puzzled look, still undecided on her choice. Turning to face her, still seated on the stool, I raised my eyebrows at her pout, and she scrutinized me with puppy-dog eyes.

"You're staring, babe," I stood up, approaching the bed with the intention of helping her choose her outfit but was interrupted when she pulled me close, pressing her body against mine. Her eyes descended to the lips I had just painted, now adorned with a mischievous smile.

"You're beautiful; I can't help but look," I playfully rolled my eyes, accustomed to her flattery.

She brushed a strand of my hair back, clearing it from my face, and leaned forward, sealing our lips. I got lost in the kiss, engulfed in the passion she radiated. Our mouths moved in harmony; my hand held her face, preventing her from pulling away. We only broke the kiss because we needed air. As her lips moved far enough from mine for coherent thought, I noticed the color on hers.

She furrowed her brows, confused by my exasperated sigh. When I quickly distanced myself and walked back to the vanity, she became even more perplexed. Until I looked at myself in the mirror and realized the chaos my face had become—lipstick smeared everywhere, ruining the makeup I had done.

I groaned and turned to her, attempting to hide a laugh behind her fist, "Morrigan," I whined, "now I have to clean up and redo it."

She approached again, her hands running up my arms and stopping at the base of my neck, her fingertips playing with my hair. "Well, at least I'll have more time to decide what to wear," she chuckled loudly as I huffed indignantly.

[whencyclopedia]

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World

In "The Fabric of Civilization," Virginia Postrel explores how the history of textiles is akin to the story of civilization as we know it. As evidenced throughout her book, Postrel treats each chapter as a standalone story of its production and journey, all the while masterfully weaving it together to show the story of human ingenuity. While academic in nature due to its incredibly well-researched methodology, the general reader will enjoy the book's unique style and approach to world history.

In The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, Virginia Postrel expertly demonstrates how the history of textiles is the story of human progress. Although textiles have shaped society in many ways, their central role in the development of technology and impact on socio-economics have been exceedingly overlooked. Attempting to remedy this issue, Postrel organizes her book into two distinct sections: one focusing on the different stages of textile production (fiber, thread, cloth, and dye) and the other on the consumers, traders, and future innovators of said textiles. To strengthen her argument, Postrel pulls from different primary sources across many regions and cultures, such as the works of people like entomologist Agostino Bassi and the accounts of disgruntled Assyrian merchants. However, Postrel goes beyond relying solely on books and peer-reviewed articles; she personally interviewed textile historians, scientists, businesspeople, and artisans who offered their own insight regarding the importance of textiles in the world. To help the reader envision the intricacies of textile manufacturing, the book is riddled with images that range from ancient spindle whorls and Andean textile patterns to nineteenth-century pamphlets raging over improved cotton seeds. It is quite a laborious task to explain the history of textiles, but Postrel’s way of organizing her chapters and style of writing does an excellent job of conveying her argument.

In Chapter One, Postrel illustrates the many uses of fibers and how their multipurpose functionality served its role in world economies. From the domestication of cotton in the Americas to sericulture in ancient China, such fibers left an indelible mark on trade and technology. Chapter Two looks at the use of thread's connection with social and gender roles as Postrel argues that dismissing fabric as feminine domesticity ignores its integral role in the social innovations that products like clothing and sails provided. Chapter Three connects mathematics with weaving through handwoven textiles by Andean artisans and in the notations written down in Marx Ziegler’s manual, The Weaver’s Art and Tie-Up Book (1677). Chapter Four explains how dyes not only contributed to the distinction between social classes, such as the use of Tyrian purple by Roman emperors but also the ingenuity of humans to ascribe meaning and beauty to a variety of colors. Furthermore, the increasing and competitive trading of dyes in the 16th and 17th centuries would eventually contribute to the discovery of synthetic dyes.

Textile traders and consumers also helped to foster cultural exchanges. Postrel then highlights how traders often also served as innovators. The implementation of the Fibonacci sequence in European trading not only helped traders with bookkeeping but also gave a new perspective to the practicality of learning math by helping traders understand profits and calculate prices. Readers explore in Chapter Six how the Mongol Empire expanded across many different lands for their desire for valuable woven textiles. Under the Pax Mongolica, the textile trade flourished as the Mongols protected the Silk Road, resulting in cross-cultural and technological exchange between Europe and Asia. Lastly, in Chapter Seven, Postrel introduces synthetic polymers like nylon and polyester, where the efforts made by scientists like Wallace Carothers, Rex Whinfield, and James Dickson have revolutionized the use of textiles. Companies like Under Armour use polyester to create water-repellent clothing. Despite synthetic polymers currently being used innovatively, many still seek to look into the future of textiles. As Postrel explains, imagine your pockets can charge your phone or your hat could give you directions. The future of textiles is incredibly exciting.

As an avid writer of socio-economics, Postrel expertly showcases her knowledge of the subject. Postrel’s previous books, such as The Future and its Enemies (1998) and The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion (2013), cover the interconnectedness between culture, technology, and the economy. Postrel has also worked as a columnist for several news sites, is the contributing editor for the magazine Works in Progress, and was a visiting fellow at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University. This book is a wonderful intellectual contribution that feels like a documentary series, perfectly threading the reader through cultures and regions like a needle through fabric.

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[gothhabiba]

The immediate impact of the Israeli occupation was to exacerbate unemployment: service jobs for the Egyptian army and UN forces vanished, trade with Egypt halted, and the port was closed. Moreover, since the combined GNP of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was only 2.6 percent of the Israeli GNP in 1967, they faced inevitable integration into the Israeli economy as the occuption continued. Furthermore, Israeli policies increased the Strip's dependency. These practices included permitting only certain Gaza products to be sold within Israel, flooding the Gaza market with Israeli goods, restructuring Gaza's agriculture, and encouraging Arab laborers to work in Israel.

The Balance and Composition of Trade. After only one year of occupation, 72 percent of Gaza's imports came from Israel; no imports were allowed from Egypt, and 1 percent of its imports came from Jordan (the balance came from Europe). This represented a dramatic shift, since all the prewar trade had been either directly with Egypt or with Europe and Asia through the Gaza port. [...]

A decade later the shift in trading patterns was even more pronounced. [...] 91 percent of imports came from Israel, and nothing was imported from Jordan or Egypt. [...] Dates, strawberries, and vegetables were also sold to Israel, and local industries engaged in subcontracting for Israeli firms.

Agriculture and industry were both hard hit by Israeli competition. Israeli eggs, poultry, and even vegetables sell at lower prices than local produce, and virtually all canned and bottled goods come from Israel. [...]

A 15 percent excise tax and soaring inflation erode the profits of merchants and factory owners. Gazans have no way to hedge against inflation, since the Israeli shekel is the only legal tender on the Strip.

Restructuring Agriculture. Israel has prevented farmers from exporting to Israel any items that compete with Israeli produce and has imposed restrictions on the planting of certain crops. As a result, the output of melons, onions, grapes, almonds, olives, and fish has decreased. Farmers need permits to plant trees and vegetables.

[...] The government has encouraged production of some specialized crops, such as strawberries and dates. Farmers in Beit Lahiya village say that they were ordered to grow strawberries and would otherwise have been prevented from using their land and well. These strawberries are marketed exclusively through Ashkelon port by the Israeli export firm Agrexco. No permits, however, have been given to farmers to plant such crops as mangoes and avocados, which are also grown in Israel.

Arab Labor in Israel. In 1970, 10 percent of the Gaza labor force was employed in Israel, but at present approximately 40 percent (35,000 persons) work there. This includes 25,000 workers who are registered with the official labor exchange and another 10,000 who work illegally. The high unemployment within the Strip and the fact that wages inside Israel were five times those in the Strip made such employment irresistible.

[...] Even those holding regular jobs face difficult conditions. For example, it is illegal for them to remain inside Israel from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. But employers and workers collude in circumventing the law so that the workers will not have to spend several hours every day commuting. Farmers let laborers sleep in huts, abandoned buses, or even in the open under the orange trees. In town, workers jam into hostels, sleep on construction sites, or spread out on the floor in restaurants. There have been cases of disasters when workers locked into factories at night were unable to escape when fires broke out. [...]

The overall impact of Israeli economic policy is to turn the Gaza Strip into a large labor camp. The Strip is a source of cheap labor for Israel and its internal economic base is continually eroded.

– 1985. Ann M. Lesch, "Gaza: Forgotten Corner of Palestine." Journal of Palestine Studies 15.1, pp. 43-61. Emphasis mine.