#Team Windfall

[xdraonarts]

Thinking of opening up commissions at some point and figured lil icons would make a great cheapo tier, Testing out a lineless style and some different shapes with some unintroduced OCs. Left to Right are

Kazuko the Wolf - Mai the Rabbit - Tatsu the Oarfish

[saccharine-curious-4]

boy has been breaded

[hale-nathan]

Trump Weird News - Dictator Wannabe

Strongmen: Powerful political figures who rule "by the exercise of force or violence."

Dictators: Rulers who are "unconstrained by law."

[sunderwight]

TSCTIR-inspired SVSSS AU.

Shen Yuan was just a regular (ehhh kind of) nerd when the invasions began, monsters and dungeons started showing up, and people started "awakening" as RPG-style superheroes with special abilities, enhanced strength/speed/etc, and ranked classifications.

Shen Yuan's older brother awakens as S-classes. His younger sister awakens as an S-class. Shen Yuan?

F-class.

Of course, chronically ill Shen Yuan told himself he wasn't really expecting any different. But there have been people who have awakened as higher classes despite their own lifelong health problems or disabilities, and in many cases awakening cured them, and so he'd hoped...

Well. It doesn't matter what he'd hoped.

The worst part isn't even that he's not some badass dungeon-delver himself (even though he is wildly curious about all the strange monsters and beasts and demons that have been turning up), the worst part is that his siblings have all but left him in the dust. They aren't just busy, he can tell that they've increasingly been avoiding him, until virtually the only time they speak to him is when they catch him trying to go into a dungeon again and then yell at him about it.

(Of course, his siblings have been increasingly aware of the danger SY is in whenever he's in proximity to them, but no one ever accused the Shen family of having strong communication skills...)

Nonetheless, if there is some possible way for Shen Yuan to increase his rank, he won't find it staying at home. And there are too many mysteries to investigate to just keep himself out of it, even if that would be more sensible. So, Shen Yuan arranges to be on various low-level dungeon teams. Often among the more questionable, misguided ones being attempted by the newly-awakened or by people who are just desperate to try and get some kind of windfall. Dungeons are dangerous, but a lucky item drop can still make someone more money in a minute than they could otherwise earn in a year. It's through these jobs that Shen Yuan meets fellow F-class Shang Qinghua, whose motives for entering the dungeons are definitely more financial than academic.

This is also how Shen Yuan ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, in a dungeon that has suddenly gone from low-level to a high-level boss, fleeing for his life. Just when it seems like he's about to become mincemeat, his older brother (Shen Jiu) shows up and takes on the dungeon boss. But it's too much for a lone S-class, even one as determined and vicious as SJ, and Shen Yuan can only watch in horror as his brother is killed by the terrifyingly powerful and weirdly beautiful Heavenly Demon Boss.

But the reason SY survived the initial assault, when no one else did, is thanks to his hidden ability. Which temporarily grants him the powers of anyone he has a bond with who has just died, x2. Previously, he had his bacon saved by Shang Qinghua's traumatic death, and when Shen Jiu dies, SY gains enough power to actually take down this mysterious Heavenly Demon boss.

It's a hollow victory. His brother is dead. His friend is dead. Even the boss monster seems inexplicably tragic to him somehow.

And why did SJ show up anyway? Between his siblings, Shen Yuan thought that his brother had grown the most distant from him, that he even hated him now! Why couldn't he have just... stayed away...?

Despite the traumatic horror of these events, killing the boss monster grants Shen Yuan a boon. It isn't a "raise people from the dead" boon, but it does permit time travel! In fact it seems kind of emphatic on that point, like something has gone really horribly wrong with reality and the world is struggling to hold itself together now somehow. Though that could also just be because Shen Yuan's world is struggling to hold itself together...?

Regardless, this new entity called "the system" refuses to let Shen Yuan go back to a point in time before he awakened, or before the dungeons appeared. But he can go back to a point before his brother died, which is definitely good enough. Accept, accept! Who has time to read the terms & conditions? Whatever it is he'll deal with it! Just send him as far back in time as he can go!

As such, Shen Yuan's memories are sent back five years in time. Along with him go a bunch of weird new unlocked abilities, and the system menu, which demands he fulfill certain tasks and complete certain quests as a stipulation of the time travel boon. Succeed, and he gets more rewards to help him keep himself and his loved ones alive. Fail, and he'll be rebooted back to the bad ending, except to the moment before the Heavenly Demon boss died but without any of his power boosts.

So maybe Shen Yuan should have read the fine print.

Though, even if he had, he still would have made the same choice.

Back five years in the past, he's got some thinking to do. Five years is a decent chunk of time. His siblings have both awoken, and begun distancing themselves from him, but their positions are still pretty different. Shen Jiu and his childhood friend Yue Qi had a falling-out over something (they wouldn't say what) at this point in time. Shen Jiu signed on with the Qiu Collective, one of the initial rich adventuring guilds that hired people to go into dungeons. But the Qiu Collective was corrupt even by the standards of a lot of dungeon-oriented corporations, and though Shen Yuan was never made privy to the details, he knew they mistreated Shen Jiu badly and that there were a lot of investigations. The collective ultimately went under when their office was destroyed by a rogue rampaging monster, after an undiscovered dungeon opened nearby. Dungeons that open but aren't found are especially dangerous, as the threat levels will steadily increase without anyone to clear them out, until the result is a dungeon break -- monsters escaping the dungeon and emerging in the normal world, causing havoc and Godzilla-style rampages.

According to the official reports, that was what caused the destruction of the Qiu Collective's head office and the death of their CEO.

Yue Qi, on the other hand, joined the Cang Qiong guild, which had fared a little better over the five year span. Yue Qi eventually even took over the guild, and after the Qiu Collective went under, Shen Jiu made up with him enough to join him there. Shen Yuan had hoped they would reconcile and maybe even answer some of his calls, but things remained strained between all of them even afterwards.

Shen Ying, his little sister, was sheltered and trained by their older brother until she was old enough to join Cang Qiong as well, but despite being S-rank, her youth and inexperience kept her more on the sidelines. Shen Yuan had thought they might bond over being kept out of the loop, but his last conversation with his sister had made it clear that as far as she was concerned, he was still world's away from her level.

(Read: Shen Ying told him he should keep away from dangerous things, was clumsy about it, and unwittingly fed some of Shen Yuan's worst insecurities.)

On top of that, though, was another consideration:

Luo Binghe.

Among the guilds that could rival Cang Qiong five years hence, the biggest one was Demon Path. Luo Binghe would start out as a member of Cang Qiong guild, recruited shortly after awakening. Shen Yuan had thought he was pretty cool, actually, but there was some bad blood between Luo Binghe and Shen Jiu, and it got bad enough that when Luo Binghe made his solo break he got Shen Jiu embroiled in some kind of legal investigation (something about the wrongful death of another guild member) on his way out. Demon Realm and Cang Qiong remained thoroughly at odds afterwards, and things only got worse when Demon Realm surpassed Cang Qiong's count of S-rank members, and conducted a successful merger with Huan Hua guild. That is, until Luo Binghe just mysteriously vanished altogether from the public eye.

Though Luo Binghe of course wasn't the dungeon boss that actually killed Shen Jiu, he had certainly been trying to destroy him before Shen Yuan reset the timeline.

But going five years back in time... Luo Binghe had been a prodigy, the youngest to become a guild leader. Five years hence, he'd be around twenty years old.

Which means that right now, thanks to the rewind, he is fourteen or fifteen years old and hasn't even awakened yet.

It would be possible to take him out of the equation altogether.

Then, there's Liu Qingge. An S-rank who died in a dungeon under suspicious circumstances, which provided the crux of the investigation into Shen Jiu. He and Shen Jiu had also never gotten along, although once again no one had confided the details to him. Shen Yuan refused to believe that his brother had actually murdered Liu Qingge, though. If Shen Jiu was going to murder someone he'd be a lot less obvious about it.

But it would probably be better if Liu Qingge didn't die at all.

Lastly, there's the matter of Shang Qinghua.

According to Shen Yuan's mental math, Shang Qinghua won't have awoken his abilities yet either. Five years into the future, extensive research and several regrettable moves on the part of various governments and guilds would reveal that even though it was supposedly impossible to increase someone's rank after awakening, how a person awoke their abilities could have a great deal of impact on their rank.

Shang Qinghua was a textbook example of a bad awakening. His skills were mostly oriented towards stealth and item drop bonuses, but his awakening had been violent, prompted by a shady center that promised people an avenue to adventure and riches only to use mortal terror to trigger the awakening process. Being in extreme danger would work fine for those with combat skills, but wasn't so good for everyone else. A lot of people had their awakening stunted by such early methods, which were not only a bad way to go about it but also traumatic to boot.

Shen Yuan has a suspicion that someone like Shang Qinghua would actually be incredibly valuable for stealth missions and item farming, if only he'd awoken at full potential. Instead, he'd struggled to make anything of his abilities due to his lack of durability or access to the kind of high-level items that would compensate for it.

Gathering all this foresight, Shen Yuan sets about altering the future to protect his siblings.

Step one: find Luo Binghe.

Shen Yuan's initial thought was to just kind of, nudge Luo Binghe towards something different from Cang Qiong altogether. Maybe if he started out with Huan Hua guild, he could contain all his trouble there. But when he finds him, Binghe is in a bad situation. The kid's living in foster care with abusive caretakers, his adoptive mother has recently died, and he's waiting tables and picking up trash instead of going to school. His clothes are threadbare, he's too skinny, and he looks like he's been beaten.

Between a rocky introduction and an attack from a Moon Python Rhinoceros thanks to a nearby dungeon break, Shen Yuan manages to convince Luo Binghe to hire him as his agent (fee = 0% of all Binghe's dungeon earnings plus 0% from contracts), and determinedly takes over. The System seems to wildly approve of it.

Creepy. And suspicious.

But Binghe is actually a total sweetheart, as it happens, to the point where Shen Yuan can't imagine what inspired the enmity between him and Shen Jiu. This kid truly is a diamond in the rough. He just needed a little help and some actual guidance, that's all!

With Binghe on the road to a less antagonistic fate, the next most chronologically urgent item on the list is Shang Qinghua. Shen Yuan has a new ability that lets him awaken people to their full potential, and his chosen guinea pig is his own formerly deceased bro. Somehow, awakening Shang Qinghua's abilities ends up involving a near-miss with rescuing him from debt collectors, and running into (and rescuing) the S-class Mobei Jun, who had joined Demon Realm as Luo Binghe's subordinate back in the original timeline.

It's actually quite fortuitous, though, because Shang Qinghua's treasure-hunter and stealth abilities are best suited to him being accompanied by a high-ranking hunter who can pick up the physical slack. Shen Yuan had been thinking that at least awakening Shang Qinghua as a D-rank would make him durable enough to handle some dungeons without turning to sketchy organizations for back-up, but with Mobei Jun, the ice prince can ferry the man right to the most valuable loot!

Shen Yuan's on a roll!

He discovers that some of his new abilities have utility as beast-taming skills, and tackles several dungeons successfully with the help of Luo Binghe, Shang Qinghua, and Mobei Jun. They even manage to rescue A-class Sha Hualing from a sticky situation, and Shen Yuan learns that his abilities can, in fact, help other awakened level up their own rank (previously believed impossible). With enough of his influence, Sha Hualing could become S-rank one day.

But of course, it can't be too easy.

When Shen Yuan moves to intervene with the dungeon break that wiped out the Qiu Collective, and seemed to start all the controversies against his brother, he instead finds that there is no dungeon at all. Yet, clearly some kind of attack on the building is underway.

He finds out why when he comes across his brother in a fugue state, murdering his way through his own guild.

Turns out, most S-ranks creep people out. Most average people can barely tolerate being around them even before they awaken. But afterwards? Their oppressive auras and sheer strength tend to trigger everyone's flight-or-fight reflex. Shen Yuan never noticed, because he's grown up surrounded by S-ranks his whole life. Even upon watching Shen Jiu kill the Qiu members, Shen Yuan's chief source of upset is that they were apparently treating his brother so badly that they inspired a murder spree from someone ordinarily much more calculating and clever than that.

Apparently, Shen Yuan should have been taking the opportunity to move against them a lot sooner, rather than just mitigating the whole supposed dungeon-break disaster and then investigating after. His own fault. He thought that keeping his distance would help his siblings, but clearly, letting them hoard their secrets and do whatever they think is best isn't the way to go either.

Does he even know what's really happening with his sister? Or to Yue Qi over at Cang Qiong? At this point in time, his friend had stopped contacting him altogether for several months in a row. When he came back, he was definitely more subdued and even more distant than he had been before. And that's the same guild that Shen Jiu and Shen Ying will eventually join as well, presumably with its own skeletons packed into the closet.

Shen Yuan's going to have to adjust a lot of his plans, it seems.

But first -- he's got a murder spree to help cover up, and an older brother to take home and, uh. Calm down. Or something?

Damn. Maybe Shen Jiu did kill Liu Qingge on purpose. He's going to have to thoroughly figure that situation out too, if he wants to handle it right...

[servantofthefates]

I have always felt The Fates' work.

Way before my initiation into the craft. As early as when I was in Catholic school. And even during my skeptic period.

Windfalls? Miracles? Surprises? That's not them. That's Jupiter. Or Jesus, if he's who you believe in.

The Fates' movements always feel like a disappointment at first, before they reveal their blessing — a blessing in disguise.

In college, I was so upset that I didn't get into the freshman dorm at my university. It was quite prestigious. Instead, I'd been assigned to the all-girls dorm, which was a lot older and quite dilapidated.

But then... I found out that getting a dorm room at my university is a near-impossible thing in the first place. And that as you get older (in your sophomore, junior, senior years), it gets even harder because the slots are extremely limited, and freshmen are always the priority. However... getting into the all-girls dorm in my freshman year meant I was guaranteed a spot in the building until I graduate!

The Fates are like that. They don't give you the shiny thing. They give you the stable thing.

Same as when I started working. I'd graduated magna cum laude at the #1 university in my country. So I wondered why all my job offers came from boutique agencies and not from multinationals. I was so hurt and confused by this. I was the best, so why the fuck were the big players not interested in me?!

And then out of the blue, I got an opportunity to work abroad. My first job offer was SEVEN times the amount I was making back then. But had I been working for a prestigious multinational company, I never would've grabbed the chance to move. I would've stayed home, because I would've felt happy already. Which means I wouldn't have been able to afford all my luxury travel, my weekly salon visits, the Sephoras in my vanity, the Louis Vuittons in my closet.

That's the Fates. They deny you silver, so they can give you gold.

I did eventually get to work for a multinational. I loooved it. My boss and I were soul kin. One mind. One heart. Our work together was phenomenal, unparalleled, award-winning. We were the dream team.

And then he got fired.

I felt like a little girl whose lollipop got violently dragged out of her mouth.

My world came crashing down. I started questioning my faith, my ability to manifest, my power as a lineage witch. I thought I was protected by the divine. What the fuck was this tragedy then?

But... because my beloved boss was out of the picture, that meant I had to do his job for a while. That's when I started presenting to managing directors, to decision makers, to the CEO himself. That's when I earned a name for myself.

That's the Fates. They take away your comfort to give you the spotlight.

Even now, I have a lot of agnostic and atheist friends. I resonate with their critical thinking... their rejection of the status quo... their rebelliousness against authority. I share all of those values very strongly.

But I am not one of them. How can I be, when I have always felt the Fates writing my destiny?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The long, bloody lineage of private equity's looting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[sitp-recs]

currently reading a hpdm war fic where draco is absolutely useless. and i cant have that. so. do you perhaps have any recs for magically powerful draco? not necessarily powerful, but yknow. useful. 😭. thank you so much

I most certainly have, anon! Love me a competent and useful Draco 🤌🏼 I hope you enjoy these, I also have a spy!Draco list that might fit your request.

The Slytherin Urn by ICMezzo (E, 4.6k)

Nothing turns Harry on quite like redemption.

Wield Me by tackytiger (E, 10k)

Draco Malfoy, blacksmith, is renowned through the magical world for his skill and exquisite creations. He could quite easily spend the rest of his days making pretty trinkets for the fae court, and being handsomely rewarded for the privilege.

Sex on Legs in Six-Inch Heels by Tessa Crowley (E, 10k)

Draco Malfoy is a brilliant freelance cursebreaker and the only one who can help the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with a very dangerous case, but more importantly, he's wearing six-inch heels, and Harry cannot handle it, he really just can't.

This Unexpected Windfall by mindabbles (E, 11k)

Harry doesn’t like it when Draco is called in to work one of his cases. No. He doesn’t like it at all — at least that’s what he tells himself.

Yours Truly by skeptique (M, 15k)

Every single one of Harry’s exes has gone on to marry the next person they date, and with the upcoming nuptials of numbers six and seven to each other, Harry’s feeling exhausted by it all.

Countdown by dysonrules (M, 15k)

When the Wizarding world is plagued by random outbreaks of Dark Magic, the Ministry assigns Curse-Breakers to assist Auror teams on their missions. Harry shouldn't be surprised when Draco Malfoy is assigned to his team, but is Malfoy a Curse-Breaker, or a curse-bringer?

The Pain From an Old Wound, anon (T, 30k)

Getting hit with a mysterious blood curse is all in a day’s work for Harry Potter. Having to work with his former colleague, rival, bully, and boyfriend, is not. Harry’s not sure which is going to do him in first: the curse sucking his magic dry, or Draco Malfoy, as frustrating, condescending, and painfully attractive as he’s always been.

measures of our days and nights by flimsy (E, 40k)

Draco returns to London to help the Ministry decipher a spell, but things aren’t quite as simple as they seem.

Heal Thyself by astolat (T, 47k)

"Are you going for the course?" Lovegood asked. "You have the NEWTs.” “What course?” Draco said, then, “No, don’t be ridiculous,” when he realized she meant the notice pinned up on the board he’d been staring at: Applicants To The Introductory Mediwizard Course For The Coming Term Shall Present Themselves In The Chief Mediwizard’s Office By August 24th.

The Boy Who Only Lived Twice by lettered (E, 54k)

Harry Potter is an Unspeakable. Draco Malfoy is the wizard who shagged him. Adventure! Intrigue! Secret identities, celebrities, spies! It's all right here, folks.

Reparations by Saras_Girl (E, 87k)

Harry is about to discover that the steepest learning curve comes after Healer training, and that second chances can be found in unexpected places.

Any Instrument by dicta_contrion (E, 131k)

Draco Malfoy wouldn't go back to England for anything less than an exceptional case. Being asked to figure out why Harry Potter can't control his magic might be exceptional enough to qualify.

[agentem]

Three of Pentacles

I keep hearing people complain that the "sisterhood" of the Coven in Agatha All Along was a sham because they only exist to support Billy, the lone male.

But that's not true. *stamps foot angrily.*

They are Lilia's coven. In her reading, the "reason for her quest" is community. They are the reason she is on this journey. And she is the one who writes the names down and choses the team (although maybe she should've reconsidered writing Alice's name since she dies but what exactly happens when she writes the names down--and the lights flicker--seems to be differen than the time gaps. It also happens when she sees what William will become. It seems almost involuntary? Also Lilia mentions the "path behind" are lessons learned so Alice dying might be important to Lilia accepting her own death? She mentions the path behind is "lessons learned." And that might have something to do with the repeated "Death comes for us all" line. Not sure.)

Anyway! TLDR, she's the Nick Fury of these Witch Avengers.

I think she needs this group (Agatha, Billy, Jen and Alice. Rio and Sharon are not included on the list) to help her through her end. To accept her fate. And he's important to that, to helping her think outside of herself. But he's "the windfall" the thing that might happen, but only if Agatha's trauma can be overcome. Jen is the guaranteed "path ahead."

Agatha's lines about not being able to divine when Death will come, heal Nicky or protect him suggest that she also needs a Coven. But she never embraces this particular group like Lilia does when she tells them she loves them. Agatha does show growth by sacrificing herself for Billy and then joining him on his quest. (The reason for his quest is The Sun/Reunion and it isn't achieved by the end of the series.)

Although I do get that the ending feels a bit... unfinished and some people are unhappy with that. Lilia is the only one who completes her "quest." But I don't think Marvel wants to be done with Agatha or Billy yet.

[sensualnoiree]

astro notes: jupiter through the houses pt.3

Symbolizing wisdom, luck, and spiritual growth, Jupiter guides us through journeys of abundance and higher learning. As it rules Sagittarius and Pisces, and co-rules Pisces with Neptune, its reach extends to philosophical pursuits, foreign travel, and spiritual exploration. From its exaltation in Cancer to its debilitation in Capricorn, Jupiter's placement illuminates our beliefs, aspirations, and sense of justice. Throughout this exploration of Jupiter's journey through the houses, we unravel its transformative power and guiding light, embracing its blessings of prosperity, abundance, and divine guidance.

Jupiter in the 7th House:

With Jupiter gracing your seventh house of partnerships and relationships, you are blessed with a deep sense of harmony and balance in your interactions with others. Your marriage or partnerships tend to be supportive and mutually enriching, and you may find that your spouse or significant other plays a significant role in your personal and spiritual growth.

Your ability to see the best in others and cultivate a sense of fairness and equality in your relationships makes you a valuable partner and friend. You may find that you are able to resolve conflicts and navigate challenges with grace and diplomacy, fostering deep bonds of trust and mutual respect.

Business partnerships are also favored with Jupiter in the seventh house, and you may find that you are able to attract opportunities for growth and expansion through collaborative ventures. Your ability to see the bigger picture and inspire others to work towards shared goals makes you a valuable asset in any team or partnership.

However, it's important to guard against the tendency to become overly dependent on others or lose sight of your own needs and desires in the pursuit of harmony. With Jupiter's influence here, there may be a temptation to seek validation and fulfillment through external relationships, rather than cultivating a sense of self-worth that is independent of others.

Overall, Jupiter in the seventh house blesses you with harmonious relationships, mutual growth, and a deep sense of partnership and collaboration. Embrace the blessings of love and connection, and use them to create fulfilling, supportive relationships that nourish your soul and spirit.

Jupiter in the 8th House:

With Jupiter gracing your eighth house of transformation and rebirth, you are blessed with a deep sense of inner strength and resilience that allows you to navigate life's challenges with grace and courage. Your spiritual journey is profound and transformative, leading you to a deeper understanding of the mysteries of existence and the nature of the soul.

Your ability to embrace change and let go of attachments makes you a powerful agent of transformation, both in your own life and in the lives of others. You may find that you are drawn to explore the realms of the occult or engage in practices such as meditation or energy healing, seeking to unlock the hidden wisdom of the universe.

Financially, you may experience periods of expansion and contraction, as Jupiter's influence here can bring both windfalls and losses. However, your innate optimism and faith in the abundance of the universe allows you to weather even the most challenging of financial storms, emerging stronger and more resilient on the other side.

However, it's important to guard against the tendency to become overly fixated on power and control, or to use your spiritual knowledge and insight for selfish or manipulative purposes. With Jupiter's influence here, there may be a temptation to seek power and influence through secretive or underhanded means, rather than embodying the principles of integrity and authenticity.

Overall, Jupiter in the eighth house blesses you with profound spiritual insight, inner strength, and a deep connection to the mysteries of existence. Embrace the blessings of transformation and rebirth, and use them to embark on a journey of self-discovery and spiritual evolution that will lead you to greater levels of wisdom and enlightenment.

Jupiter in the 9th House:

With Jupiter gracing your ninth house of higher knowledge and spiritual wisdom, you are blessed with a profound thirst for truth and a deep sense of curiosity about the world around you. Your love for learning knows no bounds, and you may find that you are drawn to explore a wide range of subjects, from philosophy and religion to travel and cultural exploration.

Your expansive worldview and broad-minded perspective make you a natural seeker of wisdom and truth. You may find that you are deeply inspired by teachings from different cultures and spiritual traditions, and that you are constantly seeking to expand your understanding of the universe and your place within it.

Travel is especially favored with Jupiter in the ninth house, and you may find that you are drawn to explore distant lands and immerse yourself in new experiences. Your journeys are not just physical adventures, but spiritual quests that allow you to deepen your connection to the divine and broaden your perspective on life.

However, it's important to guard against the tendency to become overly dogmatic or self-righteous in your beliefs. With Jupiter's influence here, there may be a temptation to become rigid in your thinking or to insist that your way is the only right way. Remember to remain open-minded and receptive to new ideas, and to embrace the diversity of beliefs and perspectives that exist in the world.

Overall, Jupiter in the ninth house blesses you with a deep love for knowledge, a thirst for adventure, and a profound sense of spiritual connection. Embrace the blessings of higher learning and cultural exploration, and use them to embark on a lifelong journey of discovery and enlightenment.

follow for more astro insights like this and support me over on instagram @sensualnoire or yt @quenysefields

[anim-ttrpgs]

A.N.I.M. Team Bi-Yearly Payments

It’s the end of July, a new patreon update for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is coming this week, and the A.N.I.M. team are getting ready to pay ourselves with the Kickstarter money. We’ve already paid our freelance artists @chaospyromancy and @qsycomplainsalot for all their work in advance, and they’ve produced some pretty incredible art for us already, some of which you can see if you check out their blogs.

The rest of the Kickstarter and patreon money is to be split up among the permanent team members on a twice-a-year basis, with percentages for the first payment calculated from the amount of money we have on July 31st.

I’ll cut straight to the point, we’re poor and though this is going to be a bit of a windfall for each of us, it for sure isn’t enough to live on. We all have other jobs, and A.N.I.M. takes a lot of our time.

If anyone wants to donate to our ko-fi, subscribe to our patreon, increase their existing patreon subscription, etc. in time for our team’s payout on the 31st, that would be greatly appreciated. Even if you’re seeing this after July 31st it would still be appreciated because then that money goes to our ability to advertise, hire artists, and pay ourselves in the future.

As a reminder, we run the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club as a way to inject life into an industry/hobby that is being flattened under the weight of WotC's monopoly, and currently have a patreon milestone set for expanding it.

Signing up for our patreon at $5 or more gets you access to regularly updated beta copies of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, plus adventure modules and short stories!

Also as a reminder, for a limited time, you can currently get a beta copy of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy completely free just for joining the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club!

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but our Kickstarter page is still the best place to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, and where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more than just status updates, going forward you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and it’s adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[leoruby-draws]

Finally the last team for my au is introduced, Cass and her new friends!! Been waiting a while to post this but last week I was a bit under the weather. So I posted a bit earlier than usual this week.

Cass being part of a team means there are 5 kid teams (tho Dick's team are just about adults anyways), all the kids having their own friend group outside of the bat family was something I wanted to do. It took a lot of digging to find all available heroes that could not only fit into their age groups but also produce the character interactions that I wanted.

Cass was never really part of a 'teen titans' styled team of her own(well except for like two issues of Young Justice) tho she did occasionally interact with other young heroes. She would be part of (non-bat) teams sometimes, like the outsiders and currently Birds of Prey but not a kids team. Part of why is because she debuted as near adult (17) and also stuck mostly with the batfam. I also got the sense that Bruce wanted her to focus on her batgirl duties, and wouldn't want her to be distracted with having other hero friends.

Though circumstances are different in this au, and with Jason,Steph, and Tim having their teams, Babs gets the idea to get Cass a team of her own! Friends are important to have and Babs wants Cass to have the full benefits that friendship offers!

So here's the members of this team:

Top row- Natasha Irons (Steel, like her uncle), Ray Terrill (the Ray), Arisia Rrab (Green Lantern)

Middle row- Traci Thirteen, Lorena Marquez (Aquagirl), Cass Cain (Batgirl), Connor Hawke (Green Lantern), Cody Driscoll (Risk)

Bottom Row- Jenni Ognats (XS), Grace Choi

Also while not shown on this page, there's also Wendy Jones aka Windfall and Carrie Levine aka Red Wing. You'll see them down below in the other drawings.

Over time I'd like to get more into team along with their interactions with Cass but for now lets just concentrate on a few of them. Starting with the Lantern of the group, Arisia Rrab.

Arisia is currently a Green Lantern in training, just like in canon her family has a history of becoming Lanterns. But Lanterns live dangerous lives and after the death of her parents Arisia was chosen by the ring to be next. Normally the corps don't induct children into their ranks, but Arisia is a special case. Since she just a trainee I decided to have her be mentored by Hal Jordan and John Stewart on Earth, similar to how Hal was trained by Sinestro. As for her sector, it's probably being watched by temporary Lanterns (maybe from the honor guard?)

Her training will probably last longer that Hal since Arisia is a kid and will need more guidance, also in my au the Guardians have a bit more rules regarding minors and more safeguards. So Hal and John try to take care of her and any accommodations she needs as a kid. Hal kinda hates the added responsibility, tho he's slowly learning to enjoy having a sidekick of his own. The other lanterns like to help out sometimes, with Katma being esp fond of her. Btw you know how right after crisis there were a bunch of lanterns living on earth and had this fancy house built, I think that's where I'm gonna put Arisia in as her living place. Like I said, Hal and John try to make sure she's still ok.

Also for added info, for John, he isn't a back up lantern like how he started out in canon. When he started out, there was only one lantern per sector but in the 2000s that got bumped up to two (earth is special and gets like a million lol). I'm just rewriting the rules in this au so that there's always been a 2 lantern per sector rule. He also started a bit earlier, not long after Hal.

Anyways, Arisia is now on earth experiencing earth culture and even attending school in Coast City, she loves learning and is focused on doing well in both school and GL training. She decided to join a kids team to get better experience in crime fighting and is enjoying making new friends. I wanted her with Cass because I thought Cass would benefit with having a mature, studious kid as a friend (Babs certainly thinks Arisia is a good influence on her) but also I'd think it would be funny if Cass does something profoundly weird and unhinged and Arisia simply assumes that all earthlings are like that ("oh, you just emptied my fridge while I was gone, I guess that's just normal on earth").

Also you can see up there that Arisia also has to deal with the other kid lanterns that are popping up, I've already posted about Rankorr and Miri. Miri is pretty annoying to Arisia and keeps trying to convert her to the violet lantern corps, Arisia tries to avoid her. She gets along a bit better with Rankorr but is a bit intimidated by him. You can also see that there's a Blue Lantern (Nicole Morrison) and a Yellow Lantern (Nax). I'll probably talk about them another time, suffice to say that Arisia seems to have been given the mission to keep an eye on these other young lanterns and see what exactly their up too.

Also I'm just gonna get this outta the way, I'm not aging up Arisia nor am I gonna her and Hal get romantically involved. Not even gonna elude to it, I'm just straight up ignoring all that. Arisia is a kid and staying that way, and Hal is just her loser mentor.

Now lets go on ahead to the speedster, Jenni Ognats aka XS.

Just like in the comics Jenni is from the future, and is the granddaughter of Barry Allen aka the Flash. Atm I'm not entirely sure how her story goes because there a lot of time travel involved and time travel plotlines always confuse me. Lets just say while trying to train for the Legion of Super-Heroes (who are kids not teens btw) try-outs, she ends up going a little too fast and ends up in the 21st century. Barry and Iris (who've just gotten engaged) are shocked by Jenni's abrupt appearance but decide to take her in and take care of her while they try to figure out how to send her home.

Barry adores her and both of them get along pretty well since they seem to have similar temperaments. Jenni likes to trail after him and help sometimes with fighting crime, its great training for her future with the legion. Wally down there is a bit jealous of their great bond but feels a bit guilty over it since Jenni is very sweet and likes/respects Wally as well. At least she doesn't annoy him like the other kiddie speedsters.

Jenni starts off a bit timid and insecure in the comics so thats how she's starting off here too. Maybe being in a team with Cass with help her out, hanging with someone very confident (arrogant even) can inspire her to be more secure in herself. Jenni also gets along with Arisia as well, their is an easy camaraderie between them. Plus they both know they both have a time limit on this earth/time and are trying to enjoy their time here while they can.

Lets go on with the others, like Ray Terrill aka the Ray.

Ray was one of the first members of the team I'd considered for Cass's team and thats because they share something in common. And thats a childhood kept in isolation, though it manifested differently. Ray lived almost his entire life (until age 18) indoors because his 'father' (actually uncle) told him sunlight would kill him. It was actually the opposite since Ray has the power of light. I suppose in this au his uncle died earlier so Ray discovers his powers sooner. Perhaps he also found his mother and maybe lives with her as well?

He and Cass tend to bond over their lack of interaction with society and how it affected them, honestly I don't think it got the focus it should have gotten in Ray's own comic. Being raised like that and only having the tv as your window into the outside world, Ray should be a much weirder and awkward person. But while Cass didn't even have television, she understands Ray few others can. I kinda want to make Ray a bit of a 'right-hand' man to Cass, and at first I even played with the idea of having Ray crush on Cass a bit. I dropped that when I learned he was gay in rebirth, tho I think having their connection be platonic makes it work better.

Here's some doodles of this team, along with a bonus Koryak.

Look at Ray and Cass looking cool, as they should be!

The girl in pink in the bottom row was me trying to figure out how to draw Natasha Irons, just trying to play around with color pallets and hair styles. Also looks like Lorena and Koryak seem rather interested in each other.

Speaking of Lorena aka Aquagirl, lets go into her.

I say Aquagirl but since Tula is currently using that maybe I should have her be Aqualass (should I make Koryak aquaboy? eh). Her being here basically means the Sub Diego incident occurred, I thought of her getting her powers another way but I liked that story line so I'm keeping it. She tends to split her time between Sub Diego and Atlantis and is currently being trained by Aquaman. Tula helps with training as well and is overjoyed at having her own mini sidekick.

Lorena, along with Ray, was one of the first members I put on the team and one reason is that I think that she and Cass would have a pretty good chemistry together. Kinda similar to what Cass and Steph had in the comics but certain vital differences. For one there's far less of power imbalance with Lorena being a meta, so Cass wouldn't see her as needing protection. This works on a social level as well, since not only in Lorena and Cass in different 'families', Lorena isn't outcasted like canon Steph.

Also, while I wouldn't call Steph insecure really, she had some baggage with how much better Cass was in hero work. Lorena doesn't really care about Cass's skill level, like at all, she treats Cass as an equal and expects the same in return. Cass kinda respects this in a way, and likes that someone just see her a someone 'regular'. Lorena is slowly teaching Cass to just chill out and hang out like regular kids do, which is one of the goals that Babs was aiming for.

In drawing I posted a while back, I had Babs and Tula meet and become friends, primarily so that they could arrange a 'playdate' for Lorena and Cass. Leading into the rest of the team overtime. Here's the first meeting between them actually:

Lorena makes her splash into Cass's life, I wonder if Lorena will introduce Cass to actual mermaids.

Here's some extra doodles for the team.

Up there is Carrie and Wendy, who I didn't put in that first drawing, no room. Carrie on the left is the youngest of the team and shows it. She's very naive and looks up to the others a lot esp Cass (she's so cool!! :D), hopefully she has a better fate than what she got in the comics.

Wendy on right was part of the outsiders, and before that a villain group called the Masters of Disasters. Since she's younger (in fact I deaged her by a year or two) she got rescued from her abusive sister and is now trying to become a hero. Batman recommended her to Babs who put her on the team. Having a evil family member and being forced to be evil is something Cass understands, tho Wendy is still a bit intimidated by her a bit. But I think they could learn to get along. Also look at Ray looking fancy, always thought his costume looked like a band/military outfit.

Later on I can get into the others but I'm still reading and refining what I want out of their interactions with Cass so thats for another time.

Here's a concept doodle of the first team line-up here.

You can see that I put in Mia aka Cir-El as the super of the group, I thought that her being the 'daughter' of Superman it'd be funny to have her team up with Cass, the daughter of Batman. But I couldn't really make them click in my head and decided to go with Natasha as the super. I felt a bit bad cuz Mia was a fun little character but that's how it goes. Maybe she'll team up now and then as an ally of sorts.

And lastly, here's a group shot of the team after I finally settled on what I wanted the line-up to be! Here they are:

Btw, I don't have a name for this team, like with Steph, but if anybody has any suggestions let me know! I kinda asked for help earlier with Steph's team but I didn't get a name that worked for me (maybe I'm just too picky). In exchanged, I can give you a free doodle of any character of your choice.

Well, hoped you liked all of that, take care!

[nayatarot777]

{your next blessings ✨💫} • pac

• pile one •

cards: 8 of pentacles, 10 of wands, 6 of wands

your next blessings are related to a practical project or a work project that you’ve been really putting a lot of effort and energy into. it seems like you’ve entered an obsession almost due to wanting to perfect and master whatever craft this is. you’ve taken on a lot of responsibility for the sake of manifesting your vision into a reality, however, i’m seeing that your next blessing is going to be a lot of supporters to help you with all of these responsibilities. they may have become major burdens for you. i’m feeling like a lot of workaholics are in this pile - or you’ve stepped into workaholic energy even if that’s not you usually. but with the 6 of wands, you’re gaining a whole lot of new supporters within your work. your hard work won’t go unnoticed. this is a group of supporters that are set in stone for you and your work.

• pile two •

cards: 10 of pentacles, 3 of pentacles, 5 of pentacles

this blessing is definitely monetary or materialistic, due to the fact that every card is a pentacle card. a group of people who you’re working with is going to help you to achieve some major financial or materialistic abundance. some type of financial windfall or something significant to your physical world - and this is going to be a long term thing. long term stability - whether that’s financial stability, a home, a career. you could be in this 5 of pentacles energy currently. feeling a lot of lack in the physical world. but some type of team work with others who are helping you to achieve a common goal will really bring in a lot of tangible success that you can see or feel or touch. it’ll be the completion of something that you’ve been working hard towards for a long while. i’m also seeing that after you gain this major physical stability, your other blessing could be keeping some low vibrational people away from you thanks to this. if you’re living in a home that’s full of toxicity, this is you gaining a huge amount of abundance and leaving people out in the cold (where they belong). this could also pertain to an actual work project. this major financial windfall could also be an inheritance for some of you.

• pile three •

cards: ace of pentacles, 6 of pentacles, 9 of pentacles

the energy of materialism and money is strong in this pile, just like it was for pile two. so you could be attracted to both piles. your next blessing is a new job that’s being given to you. i feel like you don’t even have to chase after this or do much to acquire this. i believe that it’ll be handed to you by someone in a more privileged position than you. i’m also seeing that for others of you, you could straight up be given some money. some money to invest into yourself - whether that’s for self-care, bills, whatever the case. i’m seeing a lot of generosity towards you guys though, from this 6 of pentacles. whichever blessing fits you guys, this will lead to your self-sufficiency and a greater amount of self-esteem and stability. whatever this is, you’ll enjoy it thoroughly. especially if this is a job. i feel like it’s going to be one that you feel extremely comfortable in, and you might find it quite easy to do.

[mysticheathenn]

Intuitive Messages and Oracle Cards Reading

Hi, Hexlings!

This pick-a-card reading is all about messages that oracle cards have for you and what intuitive messages come through for you without tarot cards.

This is a general reading, remember to take what resonates and leave what does not. This reading does not supplement your need to seek professional help.

Take your time when choosing your pile. Ask yourself the question and choose the picture that you can’t stop looking at. Listen to your intuition.

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Pile l:

Song: Wishes by Diplo ft Trippie Redd (Intuitive Play) Tea Tree Oracle Cards: Family Wishes Come True, A Marriage will take place either romantic or business, Short Journey, PArting ways in either romance or business, Recognition reward for merit, Announcement, Keep your life in Balance.

Messages: Everything is a Reflection Hold Up the Energetic Mirror & Trust Your Faith. Dive into the Unfolding Journey.

Intuitive Messages: There are several Messages, take what resonates and leave what does not. What are you placing on hold pile l. What has been calling for your soul to do that you have yet to take action whether due to procrastination or out of fear. Why aren't you doing it? Look inside yourself and ask where does this fear come from and why am I allowing it to dictate the life that I am living when I know I deserve more. Are you so comfortable with living a life you hate that going after your dreams is more uncomfortable than living without the things you want and deserve? Ask yourself these questions and trust things will work out. Others of you why are you all work and no play? Why are you afraid to take a break as if you get off the grinding train you will fall immediately down to the bottom? Why do you believe this is true for you? Go outside and play, pick up a video game, or read a book for several hours, what is yours will never bypass you, trust. You will get to where you want to be in no time. But you can't reach that goal if you aren't taking care of yourself and running off on E. Lastly, What trauma have you been avoiding that you need to be healing? You are tired of people with the same personality just different meat suit coming into your life but you are not healing the wounds that are causing these people to trigger you. Heal, baby. You deserve to live a life without always feeling triggered or even better a life filled with people who want to give you genuine love and for you to trust they want to only love you without anything in return. So now I ask you what do you need to get rid of in order to invite this new energy of love in and are you willing to do it?

Pile ll:

Song: Christmas Kids by ROAR (Remix: Slō, Twilight, Tizzy-Spotify Shuffle)

Tea Tree Oracle Cards: Temporary Situation, New Creative Ideas New Ventures A Fresh Start, Pleasure from a close friend, Someone will try to make you do something against your will, climbing towards success, Happiness, A goal-oriented person, opportunity or windfall.

Messages: Express yourself creatively. Start something new. & You are the image maker. What you focus on manifests.

Intuitive Messages: Several messages like Pile l take what resonates and leave what does not. Some of you are in a situation that isn't healthy, safe, or possible while not toxic is draining you mentally, emotionally, and maybe even physically. You may or may not believe in the law of attraction but if you are spiritual and believe in such things ask yourself how can I change this situation? How can I manifest a better ending for myself? Pray to your spirit team if you are unsure they want to help you but you need to be willing and open to help. See the light at the end of the tunnel as your oracle cad says this situation is temporary but you need to buckle your shoe straps and be prepared to be optimistic see the light and go full speed running towards it instead of letting the darkness take over your life. You are a ray of sunshine and whatever situation you may be in sees that and wants to keep you hidden just like your chosen song from Spotify about a couple who are in a toxic chaotic relationship. Others of you go for a walk. When I say walk I mean don't have anything on your mind just be present during your walk. Look at the trees notice the small things around you that you may not have noticed before and let whatever ideas and downloads come to you, come to you, and act on those ideas. There is something that is meant to find you that is an idea that will bring you a rainfall of abundance and change your life around for the better but you must act and be open to receiving this idea and not judge yourself. Release imposter syndrome. Remember that if you weren't capable of doing the idea or whatever this is you wouldn't have received the opportunity. Lastly, why are you listening to sheep who follow other sheep and not from if not yourself from those who lead their own path and walk their talk. "I'll be damned if I listen to facts up out the mouth of a man with an unwashed ass" is what I am hearing." You are not meant to be a follower but a leader. Stop following or listening to people who lead their own lives off of cliffs with no parachutes or care as to how and if they will land.

Pile lll:

Song: Gone or Staying by Sleep Theory (Spotify Shuffle)

Tea Tree Oracle Messages: You will receive a gift, Reconciliation, Beware of great pride, Hard work ahead, Unsuccessful outcome to a problem, Increase your efforts if you want to achieve your goals, Spiritual guidance and protection from harm, Happiness, An emotionally secure loving family is important to you, & unsuccessful plans.

Message: Your Purpose is personal expansion.

Intuitive Messages: This is my love pile that again has several messages so take what resonates and leave what does not. Some of you are single but go back and forth between wanting a relationship and "I'm an independent person and I don't need no person" and I want to laugh a bit because I am also in that stage but deep down I know I want that can't eat can't sleep kind of love. The reassuring love, the love where I know I don't have to worry about my partner even entertaining other people, and better my love being reciprocated x10 and until then anybody can stay away. I get it but sometimes you have to be honest with yourself and do the work to invite this kind of energy in. It can be scary but it's definitely worth it. The number of times I have seen a person glowing not just physically but in their personal life as well is just unreal sometimes to me that I know it's truly worth it. Now for others who are in the talking stages or even in a relationship, it's okay to let your partner help you. It's okay to lean on others and when I mean it's okay I mean people you truly can trust. If you aren't sure about that then you may not have anyone in your life that you trust but if you do there are signs such as do they throw information or things they do for you back in your face, when you call them are they there, if you had to give any of your friends keys could you trust them to not use it for personal gains if the answer is no to all of them find a better community but if you answered yes to these trust that you are in good hands. Stop being Hercules all the time and give people at least some form of entry into your life instead of always hovering over them waiting for them to fuck up and going see I knew it, out the door. Stop..stop it. People can't show you they mean well if you don't allow them to show up. Lastly for those who are in a relationship, someone is coming back into your life but I need you to ask yourself the important questions before you allow them back in again. Are they coming back into your life to see if you are still stupid for allowing them back in or is this a relationship that is healthy overall but has their issues and that person has worked on themselves to help better the relationship? If you don't know this answer ask yourself did this person make you feel loved not have good memories that were occasional but did you feel loved, did they shower you with compliments, gifts, their time, and reciprocate the energy you gave them...if the answer is no please continue staying single. They are coming back to see if you are still stupid enough to let them in again. Release your codependency from this person and find someone who values you, your efforts, and your time. For others of you while things will go great this time around it isn't without hard work from both ends.

Pile lV:

Song: Moscow Mule by Bad Bunny (Spotify Shuffle) / The Kings Affirmation by Iniko (Intuitive Play)

Tee Tree Oracle Messages: May, September, Family wishes come true, Major challenges to overcome, Advice from a friend, Work achievement success, wish will not be granted, celebration fun enjoyment, take care or there will be a loss of material wealth, someone is working against you behind your back, you should accept valid criticism, a goal-oriented person, dealings with or relationship with a woman, Things will not always be this way a change is coming, Someone will try and make you do something against your will.

Message: Eliminate Distractions. Stop shining a light on things you are not. & Don't run from the darkness. Embrace your shadow side.

Intuitive Messages: l Why are you self-sabotaging? Why do you not want to accept great things can happen to you in this lifetime? What is causing you to be afraid that you are willing to throw away everything you are working on or have worked on to settle for less than? Are you okay with mediocrity if so stop what you are doing and continue down the path of self-sabotage? You are meant for greatness, allow it to happen for you? Stop allowing distractions to stray you from the path. It's okay to have enjoyment but if that enjoyment is causing you to have thoughts that are not your own or even cause you to waste time putting off things that you are supposed to be doing remember that instant gratification is great until you realize 10 years from now you are still getting fake dopamine off of instant gratification of scrolling or seeking things that are quick get rich schemes that never work. Be mindful of what you give your mind to. Be careful of the things you watch on television, the music you listen to, and even the people you follow. These are all things that you somehow correlate with. If they are not somehow speaking positive energy into your life or at least giving you joy or motivation release it. This goes for people as well in your life. Others of you are running away from your problems. As soon as you feel that things are getting tough you stop and then talk yourself into negative talk about how that wasn't meant for you or whatever it is that you tell yourself when things get too hard. Stop. You are extraordinary. You know this, I know this, your loved ones know this even your potential haters know this. Stop being afraid of the person you can become and are. Embrace the hard things. Embrace everything that feels uncomfortable. How are you going to grow as a person if you keep running away from things that are meant to help elevate you as a person? You may be the type of person who watches YouTube videos where the person gets up at 5am, the gym, journals, etc etc and you keep going through the cycle of restarting your life and quitting when you miss a day or two and then go well there is always next year...why next year pile lV, why not now. Now is the time. Not 2025. not 2026, but now. If you are wanting to lose weight or whatever it is imagine it being September you could have already lost 30lbs by then instead of finally getting the nerve to do it in September. Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock says it best "You have two options either day on or one day." "Everything you want to do is going to be hard you just have to choose your hard. Staying in your situation that is hard or achieving what you want that is going to be hard. Choose your hard" You can't sit in a victim mentality when you are your own villain.

Thank you for liking and reblogging my readings. I always appreciate you guys on here and on Patreon.

Stay Safe and Be Blessed

[writingquestionsanswered]

how can i make a fake framed traitor out of an extremely kind, virtuous and genuine character that the main character trusts wholeheartedly? what could i use to make the MC and reader be like ‘yes this is unlikely but unfortunately makes sense’ just to make a reveal later?

Making a Framed Traitor Seem Genuine

There are three things you can do to make a framed traitor seem like they're genuinely a traitor...

1 - Make the Motive Make Sense - Any traitorous act must have an underlying motive... the reason that anyone would commit the traitorous act to begin with. So the key is to find a way to make that motive make sense for that character, no matter how random it may seem. Like, maybe a side benefit to committing the traitorous act is a cash windfall, and maybe the framed character also happened to recently mentioned being in need of cash for some legitimate reason. It may not mean they're guilty, but the motive fits.

2 - Sweeten the Pot with a Little Plausible Deniability - Try to think of some additional coincidental thing that will make them look even more guilty, but which also gives them some plausible deniability. Like, maybe one of the orchestrators of this traitorous act also happens to own a popular night club in town. And maybe the framed character is known to never go to night clubs, ever, but maybe one night they were peer pressured into attending a barely known co-worker's bachelorette party, and during that party they got separated from the group and had to wander into several different nightclubs trying to find the group again. And maybe they happened to wander into the bad person's nightclub without even knowing it, and were spotted going into said nightclub by one of the about-to-be-betrayed friends, which obviously looks very bad for the framed person. Because now, in addition to having a reasonable motive for the betrayal they are accused of, they've also been seen in a place that suggests an association with one of the other perpetrators. And although they have the plausible deniability ("I didn't go there because I wanted to... I was looking for the group I was with...) there's no way they can prove that's true.

3 - Drop a Few Other Subtle Hints - That may be enough to make your character look guilty when they're not, but if you need to, you could drop in one or a few other hints earlier on in the story that accomplish the same thing on a more subtle level. Something that will look bad in retrospect but hardly be noticeable at the time. Like, maybe one of the soon-to-be-betrayed friends invites them to their slam poetry reading, and the framed person texts at the last minute that they can't come because they have to work late (which is actually true), and then later the group will learn that Team Bad did some big thing that night. At the time it seems like nothing, but in retrospect--thinking that framed-character was involved in the traitorous act, now it makes sense that they missed the slam poetry night because... of course! They were actually with Team Bad doing the bad thing they did that night. Again, this wouldn't occur to the characters or reader at the time, but when connecting the dots in retrospect, it all adds up. Of course, the reality is it was just a coincidence and they really were at work that night.

Just be careful not to go too far in making them look really guilty. You don't want to weight them down with so many coincidences that look bad that they always look a little guilty, even once absolved.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[oensible]

Here's a little behind the scenes on my shrambling empire. This is what my NHL66 stats look like as of the NHL Christmas break.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with NHL66, they have two systems: 1) (the important one for our purposes) their betting simulator where you start out with $1k and can bet up to 3% of your current balance on each match that day, and 2) predictions is where you just assign up to four points based on how confident you are in your favored team for each match.

edit: just realized this looks long af in the tag lol, continued under the cut

I always just bet the max on the Sharks and make smaller bets on a handful of my other, less floppy teams that are playing that day to hopefully subsidize some of the losses when the Sharks lose :P (which is often). As you can see, this strategy has a net loss of $142.62, putting me at a balance of $857.38 at time of this post! I have been at a net loss ever since pretty much the start of the season, except for a few days when I had a net gain from the massive windfall of the SJS@NJD lobster shutout ($80.01 return on a $29 bet) and also a lot of Columbus wins.

I don't care about prediction stats at all because the leaderboard isn't important to me, just the shrambling empire bit. I still do them because I love to click on buttons and I always put 4/4 predictions on all available matches (which is usually only like half of them for some reason), since prediction points are unlimited and I don't have to conserve funds for the Sharks like I do with the betting simulator. I included them here because I think it's really funny that my prediction stats aren't too shabby; I've guessed 50.42% of 357 points correctly lol. Anyways, I don't care about prediction stats, BUT I do think it's kind of funny to see the disparity between that and how badly I'm doing in the betting front due to my shrambling.

In conclusion: sports gambling is further confirmed to not be a sustainable way to make money lol, and real life shrambling would be equivalent to actively pouring money into a bottomless pit 👍 would not recommend!

[blueiscoool]

‘Horrible’ Painting Found by a Junk Dealer Could Be a Picasso Worth $6 Million

An Italian family had long debated throwing away the unconventional portrait.

It’s not often you sit down to read a book about the greatest masterpieces of art history, then look up to find a stellar example hanging on your own wall. Yet this was apparently the experience of Andrea Lo Rosso, who began raising questions about a peculiar painting in his parents’ living room at their home on Capri in Italy. Could it possibly be by Picasso, the forefather of Modern art himself?

For years the man’s parents had argued over the unconventional portrait, which was discovered by his father Luigi Lo Rosso in the cellar of a villa in Capri 1962, given a cheap frame, and put on the wall. This did not please his wife, who despaired at the female sitter’s strangely contorted face. The scrawled name “Picasso” in the top left hand corner meant nothing to either of them.

“My father was from Capri and would collect junk to sell for next to nothing,” Lo Rosso told the Guardian. “He found the painting before I was even born and didn’t have a clue who Picasso was. He wasn’t a very cultured person.”

“My mother didn’t want to keep it—she kept saying it was horrible,” he added.

The family sought out the counsel of the Arcadia Foundation, which carries out art attributions and appraisals. A member of its scientific committee, Dr. Cinzia Altieri, a trained graphologist or handwriting specialist, studied the signature on the painting. The foundation also enrolled the help of famed art detective Maurizio Seracini, who led a chemical-scientific analysis of the work.

As a team, these experts have confirmed the attribution to Picasso. The painting has been identified as a portrait of Dora Maar, the French Surrealist photographer, painter, and poet who was at that time Picasso’s mistress.

It is believed to have been made some time between 1930 and 1936 during a trip to Capri, where Picasso often visited, although he first met Maar in late 1935 or early 1936. The pair had a relationship lasting nearly nine years and, though she was an artist in her own right, Maar’s work has only recently received the attention it deserves. In 2019, a landmark retrospective of over 250 works by Maar was presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Tate Modern in London.

If the attribution turns out to be true, the Lo Rossos can expect a financial windfall. The Arcadia Foundation has valued the alleged Picasso at €6 million ($6.7 million).

The artist painted many portraits of Maar in their time together, and several reside in major museum collections today. The auction record for a painting of Maar by Picasso was set in 2006, when Sotheby’s New York sold Dora Maar au chat (1941) for $95.2 million, according to the Artnet Price Database.

Unfortunately for this team of Italian art sleuths, their rediscovered modernist masterpiece piece is unlikely to fetch in the millions until it has been legitimized by official Picasso authenticators.

Andrea Lo Rosso said that, so far, the Picasso Foundation in Malagá, Spain has refused to even assess the work, which it believes to be a fake. The foundation declined to comment publicly on the work when contacted. It reportedly receives hundreds of authentication requests every day.

The Picasso Administration in Paris has also been reached for comment but did not respond by publication time.

By Jo Lawson-Tancred.