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jcmarchi · 6 months ago

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How Humans Can Navigate the AI Arms Race

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/how-humans-can-navigate-the-ai-arms-race/

How Humans Can Navigate the AI Arms Race

AI tools are seen by many as a boon for research, from work projects to school work to science. For example, instead of spending hours painstakingly examining web sites, you can just ask ChatGPT a question, and it will return a seemingly cogent answer. The question, though, is – can you trust those results? Experience shows that the answer is often “no.” AI only works well when humans are more involved, directing and supervising it, then vetting the results it produces against the real world. But with the fast growth of the generative AI sector and new tools constantly being released, it can be challenging for consumers to understand and embrace the role they must play when working with AI tools.

The AI sector is huge, and is only getting bigger, with experts stating that it will be worth over a trillion dollars by 2030. It should come as no surprise, then, that nearly every big tech company – from Apple to Amazon to IBM to Microsoft, and many others – is releasing its own version of AI technology, and especially advanced generative AI products.

Given such stakes, it also should come as no surprise that companies are working as fast as possible to release new features that will give them a leg up on the competition. It is, indeed, an arms race, with companies seeking to lock in as many users into their ecosystem as possible. Companies hope that features that allow users to utilize AI systems in the easiest way possible – such as being able to get all the information one needs for a research project by just asking a generative AI chatbot a question – will win them more customers, who will remain with the product or the brand as new features are added on a regular basis.

But sometimes, in their race to be first, companies release features that may not have been vetted properly, or whose limits are not well understood or defined. While companies have competed in the past for market share on many technologies and applications, it seems that the current arms race is leading more companies to release more “half-baked” products than ever – with the resultant half-baked results. Relying on such results for research purposes – whether business, personal, medical, academic, or others – could lead to undesired results, including reputation damage, business losses, or even risk to life.

AI mishaps have caused significant losses for several businesses. A company called iTutor was fined $365,000 in 2023, after its AI algorithm rejected dozens of job applicants because of their age. Real estate marketplace Zillow lost hundreds of millions of dollars in 2021 because of incorrect pricing predictions by its AI system. Users who relied on AI for medical advice have also been at risk. Chat GPT, for example, provided inaccurate information to users on the interaction between blood-pressure lowering medication verapamil and Paxlovid, Pfizer’s antiviral pill for Covid-19 – and whether a patient could take those drugs at the same time. Those relying on the system’s incorrect advice that there was no interaction between the two could find themselves at risk.

While those incidents made headlines, many other AI flubs don’t – but they can be just as lethal to careers and reputations. For example, a harried marketing manager looking for a shortcut to prepare reports might be tempted to use an AI tool to generate it – and if that tool presents information that is not correct, they may find themselves looking for another job. A student using ChatGPT to write a report – and whose professor is savvy enough to realize the source of that report – may be facing an F, possibly for the semester. And an attorney whose assistant uses AI tools for legal work, could find themselves fined or even disbarred if the case they present is skewed because of bad data.

Nearly all these situations can be prevented – if humans are directing the AI and have more transparency into the research loop. AI has to be seen as a partnership between human and machine.It’s a true collaboration—and that is its outstanding value.

While more powerful search, formatting, and analysis features are welcome, makers of AI products also need to include mechanisms that allow for this cooperation. Systems need to include fact-checking tools that will enable users to vet the results of reports from tools like ChatGPT, and let users see the original sources of specific data points or pieces of information. This will both produce superior research, and restore trust in ourselves; we can submit a report, or recommend a policy with confidence based on facts that we trust and understand.

Users also need to recognize and weigh what is at stake when relying on AI to produce research. They should weigh the level of tediousness with the importance of the outcome. For example, humans can probably afford to be less involved when using AI for a comparison of local restaurants. But when doing research that will inform high-value business decisions or the design of aircraft or medical equipment, for instance, users need to be more involved at each stage of the AI-driven research process. The more important the decision, the more important it is that humans are part of it. Research for relatively small decisions can probably be totally entrusted to AI.

AI is getting better all the time – even without human help. It’s possible, if not likely, that AI tools that are able to vet themselves emerge, checking their results against the real world in the same way a human will – either making the world a far better place, or destroying it. But AI tools may not reach that level as soon as many believe, if ever. This means that the human factor is still going to be essential in any research project. As good as AI tools are in discovering data and organizing information, they cannot be trusted to evaluate context and use that information in the way that we, as human beings, need it to be used. For the foreseeable future, it is important that researchers see AI tools for what they are; tools to help get the job done, rather than something that replaces humans and human brains on the job.

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seewetter · 17 days ago

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I think what actually might be happening here is again this flood of negative content that portrays an industry preying on sex workers as something that has the sex workers' opinions in its grip. That brainwashes them.

I encountered this view a few years back, when training with an anti-human trafficking org. People who believe, based on vibes, not based on research or on working with people, that all sex-positivity is just a PR move by the porn industry.

It gets especially malicious when people who are victims of human trafficking relate stories about their abuse (where their abusers used sex-positivity to paint a rosy picture of the trafficked persons exploitation during the exploitation process and people who were seriously abused were telling themselves that they were being empowered women right now) conclude that all sex-positivity and sex worker-positivity must be a ploy by that industry.

People don't realize they are jumping to conclusions and making blanket statements. They view their conclusions as fair conclusions to draw based on how serious it is not to underestimate abusers and industries. They feel the blanket statements might affect positive change by pressuring the industry by blanket vilifying it.

Of course, as Stormy Daniels nicely described, what really keep people chained to the porn industry is not being able to get a job anywhere else because this work is looked down on, is viewed as contemptible. If porn or sex work is abuse, then it's all too easy for employers to think of people who did that work (or do that work) as people who fell in with the wrong crowd or might hurt the company image. So they never get other jobs, so they are forced to be in the industry.

I doubt OP (girlfishes) realizes what it sounds like to call adults who work jobs to child labourers, and how unpersuasive it is to compare the two unless you explain how you are comparing them and why.

To gather some context, I want to respond to the comments and replies that girlfishes received, because the anti-porn people seem to be in her (radfem, I’m aware) orbit and there’s no one making an effort to engage these arguments at length. I'll put them under the cut.

2 days ago, johanna-may-june writes:

“I don't follow because there is child labour advocacy e.g a limit on the amount of hours a child can work per week, age required to work, etc. Sex work being legally recognised and advocacy for the rights of sex workers does the opposite of enabling sex trafficking and exploitation - as these aspects are illegal.”

Johanna-may-june is making a pro-child labour, anti-sex work argument. I’ll try to assume it is being made in good faith, but there’s two problems I have with the argument.

Firstly, advocacy for the rights of sex workers, the kind we for example recently have seen in the Netherlands, does not seem to enable or lead to either sex trafficking or exploitation and actually leads to more protection from pimps and exploitative practices, just as the child labour advocacy described above.

And I think johanna-may-june is correctly identifying that these things are not equivalent: because child labour results from general demands of large businesses for low-paying jobs. To discuss the American context, there are lots of Republican politicians, like Newt Gingrich, who argue that child labour is beneficial because instead of hiring one janitor, a business could hire 30+ children and they would make their families a bit of money. This type of argument is made because the businesses want to get 30 times the work of a regular janitor for the same price. They need to gain more and more profits to look good to investors. Which means over time, businesses across many sectors can build tremendous political pressure by working together to re-introduce increasingly exploitative child labour practices. The 19th century saw businesses and heavy industry heavily exploit child labour and there were child labour advocates then who merely espoused mild reforms and who enabled child exploitation and child trafficking. I assume this is common knowledge, but with how bad the American education system appears to be, it helps to give people pointers for research they can do so they don’t end up handing child exploiters the keys to the castle.

In response, also 2 days ago, girlfishes (the OP) writes

“I do see your point, but where I’m from the minimum age to work is in the teenage years, so I was speaking about literal children who are prohibited from working, not just underaged people. And sex trafficking and exploitation is a real concern, however I’m of the view that most prostitution or video sex has the real potential to be dangerous, so much so that there is no place for it in society. Some lines of work, even if they are optimally safe, aren’t safe enough. And with the fact that labor under capitalism is inherently exploitative, I do not believe that consent can be provided if it is for sale and someone’s livelihood is on the line if they refuse.”

What’s important is that sex work, when discussed by people, is often an abstraction. Girlfishes seems to not mind the idea that sex work might take place between consenting adults, but rather is opposed to it in practice. Taking some money and having some sex with some person you know and trust without any third party involvement seems to be (implicitly) okay, but girlfishes is worried about industry abuse and worker safety. Her argument is one of degree: industry abuse is so serious and dangerous that this line of work just should be regulated out of existence. It’s too much of a risk for the people exposed to it.

The thing with sex work is that it’s not marriage, however. A phrase like “I do not believe that consent can be provided if it is for sale” makes it sound like what is being sold is a life-long or at least year-long commitment and not a hook-up or access to viewing porn. The risks for pornographers are the risks of online content creators more generally – stalking websites are a good example, because they seek to destroy the lives of people (pornographers included) and insert themselves into the porn-viewing audience (to participate, as clients) and yet if we use the risk they pose to pornographers as evidence that pornographic material must be outlawed, then the risk they pose to various other life choices they both support and seek to destroy would lead us to also try to ban that. If radical feminism becomes even more targeted than it currently is and the stalking websites make expressing radical feminist ideas a huge safety issue, should we ban radical feminism? If the main thing the online stalkers hate is that radical feminists make money from online audiences, then are those audiences putting the radical feminists they pay for in danger and must this be made illegal? Even if we remove the activist angle to make the comparison more direct, if stalking websites target a specific line of work and make it dangerous to publicly share material from that line of work, does this mean that line of work needs to be made illegal? The crux I’m trying to get at through drawing analogies is: when a work environment is unsafe, is the problem the dangers or is the problem that the line of work exists? This is why I consider all that online content that treats prostitution as “in essence evil” as manipulative. It doesn’t describe the danger carefully enough to do anything about it. Except to ban the whole line of work based on vibes and based on stories of danger…which one is describing as “essential” to the type of work, which we would never do in other life situations. As girlfishes writes “Some lines of work, even if they are optimally safe, aren’t safe enough”. Then make them safer. The implication girlfishes wants to go for is “aren’t safe enough to be allowed to exist”, I think. But that idea falls apart under the tiniest amount of scrutiny. Pick any analogous “too dangerous to exist” work environment (or describe examples from prostitution and porn) and I’ll show you that the problem isn’t inherent to having sex or to getting money from people for having sex, but that the problem lies elsewhere entirely. I certainly don’t think the sex industry is some saintly institution who needs to be protected from criticism. I’m just highly skeptical that sex for money is in any “fundamental”, eternal and unchangeable sense unsafe.

justanotherbloodywoman, a day ago, contributed with some examples:

“Uninformed are also the women who will sell pics and make solo videos, too, btw. I've seen testimonies of women who got out with all sort of psychological issues by dealing with johns. Even if you won't do certain things, john will keep pestering them to do more and more degrading sexual acts, besides commenting in these women's bodies like they are lego pieces.”

And also 1 day ago, the same Tumblr user writes:

“I will never forget when a woman accepted to put cat food on her pussy for her cat to lick....”

“And that's what floated to the surface.......”

So here, the examples are:

clients of sex workers encouraging (maybe pressuring) them into extreme actions

sex workers who end up with psychological troubles after interacting with harmful clients

clients of sex workers making objectifying comments about women’s bodies

actions undertaken by (likely desperate) sex workers that involve shock value (or fetish?) content, although the Tumblr user does not explain this example in enough detail to know certain crucial details about in what ways this is considered wrong

Sex workers online are basically doing “sex content creation”, they are, in the wider sense of the word, content creators. I hate that word, “content”, but it describes the whole “pestering them to do more and more degrading acts” thing quite well. Remember Logan Paul going into a Japanese forest and filming the corpse of a suicide victim on YouTube? Or Logan Paul walking into Japanese restaurants and hurling Pokeballs at strangers who are trying to eat their food? Or Mr. Beast creating a 1:1 recreation of dystopian game show Squid Game and actually starved unwilling contestants, now being sued for human rights violations? Or Amouranth, a woman who revealed to her audience that her husband forced her to become a streamer? She is not a sex worker, but she is a trafficking victim. Will we ban livestreaming next?

I say this to hopefully get you to think about examples from the online world a little longer. I don’t just want you to dwell on my 4 examples, here, because that is the literal tip of the iceberg.

So when people talk about clients pressuring (or “encouraging”) more extreme content, yes, that’s how internet content creation works. That’s why so many people who work those jobs are burnt out and quit. “The algorithm”, the constant advertising reads, and people, like YouTuber Blaire White, who admitted to her audience that she makes more extreme anti-transgender and anti-feminist videos than what she actually believes because that’s what the algorithm rewards. And her audience does not care, encourages it! They are the clients and they don’t want honesty, they want extreme stuff. Just because she isn’t naked and its not sex work, doesn’t mean this isn’t exploitation. The online audiences that go to bat for extreme YouTube (and other) content are ridiculously unsafe, but the answer isn’t that online videos can’t exist or that you can’t do a game show or a political commentary video as long as the dangerous algorithm exists and puts real people in unspeakable danger and at risk of degrading material.

You think internet content creators aren’t in psychological trouble? Or the people that have to scrub the internet clean of too extreme content, working out of some cyberfarm in the Philippines or Kenya because they can’t get other work? Doesn’t that sound familiar? People who can’t get other work? Doing psychologically harmful and degrading things to themselves? Being asked to do unspeakable things?

And on a side note “commenting on women’s bodies like they are lego pieces” is not going to harm or kill those women and I think you should do some introspection to tell apart situations when those comments are harmful to those women and situations where that kind of comment might be fun to get – because being able to be vulnerable is something that human minds often do quite well through symbols of actual vulnerability and danger. And there’s a big difference between a comment (which can be a symbol) and abuse (which is less than symbolic).

Believe it or not, I’m actually answering all these replies by people in chronological order and I have not read them before, so I don’t know what the next comment is going to be:

17 hours ago, OP saltyfem responds to prev moniquill

“You're being a real pedantic asshole considering what you're advocating for is men's ability to legally coerse impoverished women into sex”

Aside from the tone, this is a decent response, because it (A) clearly states a problem that saltyfem wants to fix (“men’s ability to legally coerse [sic] impoverished women into sex”) and (B) it contextualizes what saltyfem thinks moniquill’s position is.

Saltyfem thinks that when sex work exists, men are automatically given the power to coerce women in poverty and that people who oppose efforts against sex work want men to have that power.

Furthermore, saltyfem felt that moniquill lost sight of this problem while gotcha-ing girlfishes for infantilizing adult women.

I want to state for the record that the problem with people opposing sex work is that they (A) give corrupt politicians loads of power (B) never actually fix the problem (sex work is simply driven underground as it is now part of criminality and even if only the johns or pimps are criminalized, they now are already committing a crime, so what’s to stop them from even more crime?) and (C) tend to be doing all of this without distinguishing between hands-on ways we can regulate and restrict harmful acts against women and other sex workers on the one hand and concerns about lust as an abusive or degrading thought and sex as an undignified activity, which is an assumption made either based on early Christian and Jewish writers (who in most cases (i.e. Tertullian and representatives of rabbinical Judaism) wrote a lot of heretical or at least suspicious stuff and who have not left us with a good account of why lust should be considered one of the deadly sins…many records explaining the religious judgments simply haven’t survived and from a current point of view these ideas have no firm foundation in ethics) or it’s based on people’s discomfort with other people enjoying what they enjoy, which gets us into a whole can of worms I’m unwilling to open unless people want to have that discussion.

Saltyfem also writes “#You know what she ment”. I don’t think moniquill knows what girlfishes meant, no. While moniquill certainly wrote a “gotcha” style response, girlfishes was absolutely saying that it’s obvious sex work needs to be illegal since children’s work is already illegal. Children, moniquill likely presumed, are a bad point of comparison for adults selling nude pictures or vidoes online, since children working in the mines or getting crushed by factory equipment are never going to work such dangerous jobs safely – you can absolutely report revenge porn online and have it taken offline, but you absolutely can’t uncrush a small child that got squished inside a large industrial machine. The two things are not necessarily equivalent. A client can degrade his customer, but if she has strong legal rights and protections, she can leave. A child working at Starbucks can get boiled by hot coffee and be scarred for life…and children probably make those kinds of mistakes, right? Do we expect a 5-year old to be able to use machines without making a few, really dangerous, mistakes? I absolutely expect adults to be able to take down revenge porn by submitting the offending material to a watchdog group. So no, moniquill did have a reason to be skeptical that this is a great comparison. Children can get into accidents even in seemingly harmless jobs as janitors (those floor waxing machines are far more dangerous than people imagine if not handled properly). Like there’s a reason we want children to not do certain things without adults’ supervision. Young children are not even able to safely handle leisure time activities like rollercoasters without parents, how would we expect them to be doing jobs?

17 hours ago, eldritchcougarwitch responds to the OP (girlfishes)

“Abuse is okay if someone likes it?”

The word “someone” is doing some heavy lifting here. Because if a person likes to abuse others, that doesn’t mean they aren’t harming their victims. By this logic, all abuse would be okay. Abuse wouldn’t even be abuse anymore, it would just be “things people do, that they like and others don’t like but that are okay because we only care about letting people do things, not about consequences of their actions”. I’ve seen that position before, there’s an alt-righter (JFG, the guy who keeps marrying and then taking advantage of developmentally disabled women) who holds that position. But it’s a monstrous position to hold and there’s no reason to accuse people of that position given how uncommon it is and how unlikely it is that people hold it. I’ve never seen anyone defend (or attack) sex work using that position.

So if “someone” refers to the person exposed to the abuse and the person likes the abuse, then we have to ask whether the abuse is harming their vital interests, basic rights or freedoms. Because, to be clear, it can. A person like their abuse because abuse is not a thing that always feels evil to people. But we know it is abuse because it is both liked and disliked, or because a person cannot meaningfully decide whether they like or dislike it because the action impairs their ability to consent. And I like how the anti-sex-work, anti-porn crowd responds to the word consent sometimes. Because I could have written that sentence as “because a person cannot meaningfully decide whether they like or dislike it because the action imparts their judgment” and the response would likely be “well sex workers judgment is sufficiently impaired” but once we bring in consent people realize that sex workers are in fact making business decisions. They are in fact adults who sign contracts and make other agreements. And suddenly that fear is in the room, that those legal contracts are made by the industry, the industry that pressures people, not the actual adult signing the contract. The poverty argument walks in the door, shaking the hand of all the people in the room and saying “these people are poor, they are like orphans who agreed to follow the rich man to his house because they were starving, they are impaired in their ability to make judgments and consent”.

I want to concede this point a little bit by using the show Squid Game (which I’ve never seen) as an analogy. Reportedly, the second episode of Squid Game shows how the participants all vote to leave and return to their (impoverished) lives. The episode is called “Hell” and it apparently shows that the participants of this game show just live in such abjectly awful conditions that no matter how awful the Squid Game is, it is better than their impoverished misery.

I think that’s how people think about sex work. Like it’s Squid Game but with degrading sex acts instead of murder. And there’s a lot of weirdness to that analogy. For one thing, not all sex workers live in poverty – which should affect how anti-sex workers talk about people who just pursue these jobs for fun and who have money to blow and actually can leave or sue someone at any time. But as important as it is that anti-sex-work people ignore them, for the purposes of understanding whether sex work is worth defending, we need to understand the dynamics for poor sex workers, not just for wealthy exceptions. So to understand that, we need to acknowledge the obvious fact that people in poverty are sometimes picking the sex industry or freelance sex work as the lesser of two evils.

What makes the idea fall apart is that what makes Squid Game bad is murder, is horrific violence. What makes the stories of poor orphans who follow the shady rich guy so unambiguous are similarly evil schemes that kill children. If we cherry-pick stories, the orphans might end up as slaves. Sexual slavery exists, it is a real problem. It is not the same thing as a paid job that is difficult to escape. Sexual trafficking is real and also can involve contracts, but we should be smart enough to understand that sexual trafficking involves contractual provisions that the person signing does not understand. Heck, consensual sex work in the sex industry can lead to extreme escalation, similar to what I described in an earlier part of my response (for justanotherbloodywoman, you should read that before you continue reading)

But crucially, that escalation exists not because sex work is sex work. That escalation exists because of a lack of sex workers’ rights. People can say “but it’s innate to capitalism that this pressure exists, how can we be okay with workers having to sign and resign exploitative contracts when they have so few other choices and the escalation is likely due to how extreme the demands of business are?”. That’s a decent objection, but as the historic track record show just leads people to criminalizing sex work and making it more unsafe. Making it more extreme. Capitalism also acts on criminal businesses, you know? Drug traffickers are also following the rules of free market competition. The crucial problem is also that the historic record shows how police interface with both prostitution and organized sex work crime. Trust me, it doesn’t improve matters. Like please use your brain and do some digging into the history. Assuming you, in good faith, care about the wellbeing of human trafficking victims, don’t sign away all the control we have by monitoring industries that officially exist by driving those industries into an illegal area where “working with them” to stop egregious abuse is no longer possible.

17 hours ago girlfishes (the OP) responds to moniquill (prev)

“No. I explicitly stated that what these two cases have in common is moral and ethical considerations that the free market is incapable of protecting.

And I never said anything specifically about women in the post either. The only one making the women=children connection is you.”

I think I’ve given anyone who reads this entire post plenty to think about.

1 day ago, medusa-strikes-back writes in answer to antiporn-activist

“#there used to be a graphic about consent called the “FRIES” model#the E stood for Enthusiasm#i interpret enthusiasm as genuine happiness to be doing something#aka if offered an alternative that they could accept with no negative consequences they would not make a different choice#and if we believe (i do believe) the stat that 95% of women in prostitution want out but cant because of money#you cannot in good faith believe that prostitution is consensual on the part of the prostitute#you cannot interpret this data in any way besides “prostitution is commercial rape” that makes a speck of sense”

The phrase “if we believe (I do believe)” gives me personally cold shivers.

Like, I want to be fair here. We all, on paper, seem to care about the wellbeing of other people. So, taking that at face value, shouldn’t we want to be grounded not in wishful thinking but in research?

When you need to fix your bicycle, you do research, you don’t follow some feeling or belief or vibe. If people are in danger, you should do the same. Understand the danger. Research so you don’t make it worse!

And as mentioned, if prostitution is non-consensual, this does not change the fact that anti-prostitution implements a worse, even more horrid status quo with even less consent and even less safety for the prostitutes.

1 day ago, antiporn-activist responds to girlfishes

“Ask them what happens if a child got trafficked into prostitution at age 15 and then eventually turned 18 but hasn't gotten another "job" yet.”

That’s the whole thing Stormy Daniels warned about: that the women who really get broken by the porn industry are the ones who can’t get jobs because the companies don’t want to hire someone who might make the company look bad. The sooner people stop blaming prostitutes and thinking of them as people with failed lives or embarrassing and unprofessional, the sooner a lot of people can safely leave working conditions in that industry that are coercive and unwanted.

2 days ago, dramaticbucket reblogs forwomenbiwomen

“The biggest issue I've seen people having with this child-labour / sexual exploitation argument is that they've been told children cannot consent, adults can. They do not care to think about why children cannot consent and why consent isn't the end-all be-all of everything.

The liberal obsession with consent, as if consent given has absolutely no basis in the type of life a person has led is dangerous and stupid. A person living in absolutely terrible conditions will consent to living in bad conditions, but that doesn't mean they WANT to live there. Some of them don't even know there's better things out there. Consent is great, but it's a start. Informed and non-coerced consent is what is important, not just someone saying "yeah okay as long as I don't die I guess". Most women (and men) going into this exploitative industry are doing so because of financial, social or other forms of coercion. Their consent is NOT free, it is very often uninformed. "Sex work" is NOT work.”

Again, I think the case being made here is fine. The problem isn’t that anti-sex-work advocates see a lack of meaningful consent despite contracts signed. The problem is that their efforts to criminalize the industry drive it underground and cause the abuse to skyrocket.

2 days ago forwomenbiwomen reblogs unoriginalthinkings

“And then it's like they said "uhm actually it's child work. I had a friend who worked as a child and she turned out fine!" And you're like good I'm glad she was ok but... you still shouldn't be doing that, you know that right? And advocating for it is insane. “

I could imagine some people who want to respond to my post by doubling down on the presumed equivalence of child work and sex work.

So in other words: we should picture advocates against the criminalization of child work saying “criminalizing child work will just drive it underground”. Obviously, that’s not a good reason to not care about children crushed to death in machines! And there’s a lot of less obvious harms to children (like the less obvious, less provable harms of prostitution and porn) that can make that presumed equivalence a bit more plausible, right? Not every human trafficking victim and not every child labourer goes through absolute hell, but probably there’s some invisible abuse occurring too, right? Absolutely.

But there are some crucial differences that make the comparison more than a little strained.

Child work is easy to criminalize because it is easy to identify. It is easy to prove. It is easily prevented through legislated efforts. You notice when the person working the dangerous coffee machine at Starbucks is a 5-year-old. A factory inspector can shut down a business after a single child is injured…it’s not a business model that works without the public agreeing to it. There might be some forms of child labour (like what Roblox is currently getting away with) that are a bit harder to spot…but even there, Roblox can pretty easily be held to account or dismantled.

Now try any of that with prostitution or porn. In porn, who are the people behind the camera? They don’t have to show their face, do they? Porn is fundamentally distributive, easily shared by thousands of websites – we can take down a lot of it (revenge porn watchdogs show that) but it is likely that even if all internet had a content ID, there’s just such a deluge of content that we never catch enough offenders to put an end to the phenomenon. It’s not like kids all working in a factory that you can encircle and raid. Child labour is like a beast, sex worker exploitation and abuse is like a virus. You can’t fight a virus through a law making it illegal. Not to mention that this virus isn’t really sex work specific anyway…it’s online content specific. The people starving in a Mr. Beast game show are as much coerced into it as the prostitutes and “pornstars” are. They are promised big things and then degraded instead. This is a virus the answer to which (like with anything that is dispersed in the ether rather than being physically fightable) simply isn’t laws or police actions. Like with any virus, you have to think before you charge forward. It is a dispersed problem, it requires quarantine measures. Right now, the best quarantine method we have is to regulate a legal industry. I would suggest taking that course of action seriously and not casually dismissing it.

“Sex work is work and should be protected” makes as much sense to me as saying “child labor is labor and should be protected”.

Many can clearly understand in the latter case why there are other moral considerations that remove child labor from labor advocacy. Or any other forms of labor exploitation for that matter. Why do they not extend the same evaluation to sex work?

Never mind, we all know why.

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the-firebird69 · 1 year ago

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Today they usually pile up and bunch up on him and bother him too much I want to attack today I got ready and I feel better and today is a day that they usually mess with us a lot and I'm sick of it the pseudo empire is going to attack and we should too and he told them this is a day that really blows and they found out why so having a meeting right now and we're going through why there are a few things happening here other than that they're worth mentioning

-they're amazing outside the 25th ring and Mara logo is a mess it's flattened down and there's nothing there really something a few buildings that have been rated fully empty it looks like Iraq and the whole area north of Miami and Northwest of Miami and west of Miami is flattened there's nothing out there it's a desert and the dust comes in just like in Saudi the flattened it out and they're going out there now they're going to make another attempt I'm sending people in to stop Trump he's ordered it again the guy is mocking people and sending orders out loud it is illegal

It's so overt and so loud nobody can stand that guy and he's right on top of our son doing that it's kind of s*** to him I want him out now. I want people involved in those movies to get it done and Apollo on Mars makes sense he's getting powerful

-there are a few other things happening I need to mention them besides our son not being as safe as we need the rest of society is in the same boat there's enough cars and trucks and things for people and they just took a whole bunch of motorcycles and we need to replace them and we do understand they're not taking CD ones and people need more of those and we had an emergency and started delivering we have a bunch of storage and whatever delivering light bikes that we had in our storage tons of them and they're leaving right now. All over the world too.

There are tons and tons of them coming out of the middle areas and we're going to start making ours the Davies Harley-Davidson and from scratch and other people will right now there's probably 10 companies that are making their own from scratch it's not a ton of them we're going to make a ton of them and they might copy it if we make them later they won't we're going to talk about that you said you can spread it out and we are going to try and do that cuz then we'll be able to make more otherwise it's going to take them forever

Our spies say they want him of assignment and he wants them to pick a captain from each sector and put it forward to Olympus and me. It also did a formulate a statement to Olympus about their situation in about recruiting

-we have a couple people who are yelling and screaming ass all the time and pretending they're us we know that actually having them do it but we're going to Target the Max and then as we always have and we're going to take care of business and we should have and we'll do it now

-we're in phase 5 as a two planets they both around the bend. And it's huge we finally got something done and people are seeing why it's an incredible adventure no it's something to do but really we are prepping now and he says that the others are not going to be this easy and I decided something is a lot more work it's the same amount of work no it's the same type of work it's just a lot of it and like you said we need armies armies of people and that's what it is

-several people in Charlotte county is going to be laid off and they have powerful positions and they're being laid off in Florida already to being laid off all over the world but not as fast as they are here and they just started losing positions in the Senate and Congress. Here they're starting to actually lay them off and their positions within the county and they're being replaced by a minority morlocks and it causes trouble between them yes and they are taking over jobs such as parks department. And county fish and game, stand in the Charlotte county and tax assessor and not today but really they have a list of people that are going to fire tomorrow but they're getting ready to by going after their people and the smaller groups that have not been doing well and the ones that have lost households from the neighborhood and sold the 200 it's only $200 but they decided to go ahead and start because they're getting very mean and nasty and doing things to people so they started doing this last week and they're getting down to the core here because our son says I just keep coming in here forcefully they agree too cuz they have decided to do it

-there's a lot of people who are concerned about this but they're going through with it so we need to have more personnel

Thor Freya

Olympus

Zues

It's tricky thing and what he's saying that and what I'm saying now is we know it's tough and it's going to get tougher and they just keep sending us suicidal people in here and that's what it does but they have to start somewhere and mainly with people that have control over the place at all

Hera

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atlanticcanada · 2 years ago

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More concerns around lack of family doctors in New Brunswick

After 50 years with a family doctor, Ben MacMichael is now joining thousands of other New Brunswickers who are without a primary physician.

“My brother asked his doctor, which said they couldn’t take on anyone. They couldn’t even take on someone in their own family, they’re so busy. We’re waiting on another family member to ask their doctor, but we’ve put our name on the list,” he said.

Right now, MacMichael, along with his wife and mother, is trying to figure out what’s next after his family doctor announced he’ll be closing his practice in just a few weeks.

“It puts a little bit of fear in our hearts in wondering what the next steps are,” he said.

MacMichael deals with two ongoing health concerns. He has osteoporosis and nutrient absorption issues.

“I need regular blood work, which are pretty extensive. How do I get those? Do I need to go to a hospital and wait, or how do I get that follow-up?”

The most recent data from the Department of Health says that 50,500 New Brunswickers are in the same position.

Bernadette Landry, New Brunswick Health Coalition Co-Chair, says the coalition is aware of the challenges and it’s definitely concerning.

“We need more family doctors because there’s all those people waiting to have a family doctor and just going here and there for temporary care with people who don’t know them and who they’re probably not going to see again, that’s not good care,” said Landry. “We deserve better than that.”

In a statement to CTV News, the Department of Health said “the 2023-24 provincial budget allocates $39.2 million to support improved access to primary health care.”

Officials say there is another $29.7 million earmarked for recruitment and retention.

Landry says the coalition knows of a lot of doctors who experience “burnouts” in the industry.

“It’s incredible the number of doctors who are on sick leave,” she said.

“They are exhausted, just like the nurses. They have really important responsibilities. It’s really tough on them. It’s a stressful job, they can’t allow themselves to make mistakes so it’s really stressful for them and that’s why some of them just, after a while, they need a break.”

She says the main message the coalition is trying to get across is that the focus needs to be on the public sector.

“If you open the door to private clinics and you encourage those professions to go in private clinics, well that’s weakening the public health-care system,” she said.

There’s also concern that with more family doctors choosing to close their practices across New Brunswick, it could have a trickle-down effect into other health-care sectors, like hospitals.

“One of the things that happens when you lose your family doctor is you often think, ‘Well OK, then I’m going to go to the hospital if I have a health problem,’ and it might not be the right place because the emergency room is for emergencies,” said Landry.

For MacMichael, he is hoping that he’s able to find a family doctor soon, but with required bloodwork, he might have to rely on different options.

“For me, the only option I know of right now is the hospital,” he said. “I haven’t looked into what happens next. I’m still having faith that I can get a doctor, so maybe a little bit of denial there, I don’t know, but we will have to look in the next month or two to see what happens.”

In terms of what can be done, Landry says New Brunswickers can put pressure on the government to fix the system.

“We need to hire more doctors and I don’t know to what point the government is doing something about that,” she said.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/9qtQXgf

#new brunswick #prince edward island #nova scotia #news #politics #canada #CTVAtlantic

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jangofctts · 4 years ago

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Mirrored Heart (captain rex x fem!reader)

rated: 18+ explicit

word count: 5.6k

warnings: smut, p in v sex, unprotected sex, creampies, fingering, blow jobs, clone space racism?

a/n: ANYWAY HERE IT IS. ive had this draft saved since like a year ago and just now finished it. anyway kwjrkejh here YALL GO. also thank you @jango-fettish FOR LETTING ME BORROW SYRENA

It's curious.

Well, you, as a whole are curious—completely outside the realm of what Rex considers normal. As far as senators go, that is.

You're grumpy for one—worse than Skywalker and far more snide than Kenobi—a near gargantuan task bordering impossible. Wit and cleverness come to you easier than breathing, but it's your unwavering kindness towards himself and his brothers that sticks out like a blaster burn against alabaster white walls.

He passed it off as a joke—some sort of mockery. Rex’s existence has been full of them. The past year it’s been made glaringly clear as to what the clones are to the people of the republic—tools. Mindless war machines dressed with flesh and bone, heart and sinew instead of durasteel and a circuitboard. Humanity has been skimmed over with excuses and debates over the hollow argument that clones were created for the sole purpose of war—nothing more. Ignorance is bliss when you are not the one fighting tooth and nail for petty skirmishes and the survival of your family.

Ithyea, your home monarchal planet, is a newer member of the Galatic Republic—one of the firsts to advocate for clone rights—cutting through each argument with the steel headed javelin of hope and determination. Controversial in the eyes of the galaxy but no less than true. Yet with controversy, comes chaos.

Wedged between Takodana and the Cerean Reach hyperspace lane—it’s an essential key to accessing more neutral space sectors without stepping on any toes. While the planet does mirror the size of a larger than average moon, there’s nothing but grandeur with the cutting edge advances in space travel and military innovations. An arts district too, one that’s presented multiple times for the Senate apparently. Rex has yet to see it. It’s an easy guess as to why Ithyea has gone under pointed attacks from the Separatists—it’d be foolish not to try.

And of course comes the intergalactic mess of politics. You are not Ithyea’s first senator. Or second…or third. Just in the last six months, three of your predecessors have been picked off—two disappearances and a suspicious poisoning sandwiched between them. Which sides these assassinations stem from is anybody’s guess—a mix of both perhaps—all to silence and stamp the voice of your people out.

Heavy are the shoulders that wear those abhorrent senatorial robes, and Maker did it take some convincing for another Ithyean to step to the chopping block. It’s just…no one thought it’d be you. The infamous captain of King Arrian Felian’s elite guard—trained in combat levels high enough to contend some of those within the ranks of the Jedi Order. When your name comes up in conversation, it certainly doesn’t scream diplomacy.

Rex is not surprised that you hold the current record of Ithyean senators for surviving the longest. Evading an astonishing two attempts on your life by the skin of your teeth. You were just downright lucky the third assassin missed their mark. Sure, the blade of Syrena Aster skimmed the right side of your cheek and left behind a nasty scar to remember her by, but kriff—even with your background and low levels of public presence, you’re a high priced target. Whoever placed an order with the Heretics, really wants to see you six feet under.

Rex hasn’t been given the full report on exactly who the Heretics are—a rag tag bunch of untrained Force users and skilled assassins from what he’s gathered—but regardless, this attack is just the beginning. Until the Senate and the Jedi are able to retract the price on your head, you’re stuck under protective custody. Usually ushered away into the Jedi Temple or tagging along with General Kenobi and Skywalker. Despondently, no matter the circumstances of your protection, it can’t shield you from the dreadful invitations to senatorial luncheons.

And yes, you tried to slip by for this one.

You don't brush elbows with other senator’s like many of the members in the Jedi Order and your own cohort do. In fact, you actively avoid even speaking to them unless necessary, let alone stand in the same room with seven of them. Odd for an elected official of diplomacy such as yourself to be so cold shouldered—Rex would think senators wanted to mingle.

It's curious because you're standing in plain sight and yet no one pays you any passing thought. General Kenobi and Skywalker hold the majority of their attentions, shoulders already taught with exasperation at keeping everyone from tearing out each other's throats for, kriffing five minutes. Yet you...you are completely at ease, leaning up against a stone pillar, observing the unfolding chaos from afar with a keen eye.

Before Rex realizes he's stepping towards your position, you glance over and dip your chin in greeting. The ghost of a smirk pulls at your normally grim facade—his heart skips. "Captain."

"Senator," he mimics, posting himself to your right. There’s still a thin, healing scab from the assassin’s blade that extends from the swell of your cheek to your ear. Ouch. “Enjoying the evening?"

You snort. "Hardly enjoying it, Rex."

Stars—you shouldn't be allowed to say his name. Your words are razor-sharp like a jagged vibroblade, meant to jab and pierce through armor—tear a person to pieces without having to lift a finger. Everything about you is rough, gritty, brutal, unbecoming of what a senator should be, but—

You mouth his name, purring out the singular syllable with such tenderness that it's like a punch to the gut.

It's hard to swallow and he needs to clear his throat—an embarrassing act on his part, but your attention has already returned back towards the meandering senators. "How d'you mean?"

"Well," you sigh, "let's just say smalltalk isn’t my strong suit."

"Aren't you senators s'pposed to like diplomacy n' such?"

Your thumb smoothes over your bottom lip in thought as you shrug. "Diplomacy? Sure. Politicians? Can’t say I like them. I just—"

You wave your hand around, gesturing vaguely to the crowd. "I just don't understand why they can't say what they mean. Telling someone to have a nice day shouldn't entail certain death, y'know?"

"Speaking from experience?" He teases, gently prying into that harder than beskar wall you've created for yourself. There's fissions in your foundation and he means to tear it down all for just a mere scrap of information.

Your eyes flick over, your lips curling into a vulpine grin. “Perhaps...Though, it was partially my fault, I have to admit.”

“You’ll have to tell me the story sometime, Senator.”

You nod. “Yes, one day—when there aren’t so many political ears jumping at the chance of gossip.”

A swell of laughter interrupts your chat, your attention gravitating to Obi-Wan—ever the charmer with the crowds. The end of your mouth pulls into a frown as you sigh and carefully scratch at your brow with the back of your thumb. Rex might be pulling at straws, but what he mistook as you being standoffish may just be your nerves. Socially awkward and flustered when speaking in such an intimate setting.

Rex’s first instinct is to reach out and place a hand over your shoulder in comfort, but he’s not sure how you’ll respond to the touch. Flip him over your shoulder probably—

Instead he forces himself to jumpstart the conversation—something to distract from your anxieties. “I hope you don’t mind me asking—“ His heart beat kicks up into a flurry of wild beats as you turn you head. “What uh..wh—did you want to become a senator?”

He likes it when you smile—like you’re letting him on some sort of coy secret. You shift your weight and shrug. “The king asked me personally. I’m flattered he thinks I’m clever enough—insulted he sends me to these abysmal gatherings like some sort of show pony.”

Rex chuckles. “Yeah, can’t say I like ‘em either.”

“Although…” Your thumb runs over your lip again, a sparkle of mischief igniting behind your eyes. “As a senator, I do get the occasional tidbit of gossip. Here, I’ll catch you up—“

The captain startles when you snatch his elbow and yank him closer. Maker he’s glad for his helmet because your lips brush against his earpiece as he leans down to reach your height.

“Look." You whisper, nodding casually in the direction of a particularly young senator with a shock of white hair. She's swathed in a pool of royal blue silk, much too large for her tiny frame, and all but hanging off Skywalker's arm with glittered nails filed into points. "That is Senator Ceci Paare of Corellia. She looks innocent, no?"

She does. Wide, crystalline green eyes stare up at the Jedi Knight as a pretty giggle escapes past her ruby painted lips. Skywalker grimaces.

"I quite like her," you continue with a sly grin. "Even if she does try to influence public opinion by an invitation to bed."

There's no time to process as you focus in on an older man. His hazy blue skin, ash white lips and vermillion green eyes cut an almost nightmarish profile, accentuated by mountains of black robes. Rex can’t recall what planet the senator represents. The senator holds his head stiffer than rebar to keep the ornate golden circlet from slipping off, his white lips curling in distaste as Orn Free Taa of Ryloth places a meaty hand over his slender shoulder.

"He is Lord Tal’en Sol Ra'ah. Cunning, but sympathetic to the pleasures of gambling."

It's a game to you—of perceptions and nuances only a trained eye can roll over. Rex expects nothing less. This sort of thing has been hammered into the very essence of your being since you were little—reading an enemy before they can strike. It works on politicians marvelously well.

Truth be told Rex should be paying more attention—but the closeness of your face to his helmet is maddening. His heart twists and coils as your bare hand skims along his gloved one—kriff. He’s not gonna make it before he bursts into a thousand little pieces.

Rex’s spell of lovesick yearning recedes as you swear under your breath. It was only a matter of time before someone approached your little corner.

"Oh, Maker save me," you hiss under your breath as a young Mirialan saunters over, the swatches of rich red and brilliant gold accentuate his violet skin like a bloody bruise. "Pretend you're speaking with me."

"I am speaking with you," Rex snorts.

Your hand waves in dismissal as your brows stitch together, hands balling into fists. Your jaw clenches as the senator in question puts on a dazzling smile. You look downright panicked. Rex has witnessed you face down numerous senators older than dirt and close to blowing away in the wind with plucky fervor, assassination attempts, being held captive, and you're frightened…by this?

This is too good.

Rex has half a mind to help you, wheel you away from your little predicament, but his intrigue with seeing your oh-so-solid resolve crumble is much too valuable and entertaining to pass up. He's going to remember this for years.

"Rex."

"Senator," he mimics, not at all frightened by your poisonous glare. "Some diplomacy might do you good."

You begin to snarl out a threat but are decidedly cut off by your object of horror planting himself before your hiding spot. You cower into the corner like a boxed in loth-cat. "Ah, my favorite Ithyean! I had begun to worry you would not make it, my dear friend."

"Senator Lin," you sigh. The smile you offer is tight and thin; a nervous one much in the same way one would be if presented with a box of toenails for a birthday gift. “How pleasant to see you."

Senator Lin’s deep violet lips part with an easy smile. He waves a hand in dismissal, his silver rings glinting in the warm lighting. "Please—call me Toluka. No need to bother with such formalities between companions."

Rex suddenly understands your trepidation with the Mirialan—he’s slimy. And, not to mention, not at all ashamed with the lecherous looks as his eyes sweep down your body. Rex clenches his teeth and folds his arms behind his back. He’s regretting not heeding your warning now…

Try as you might through brutal small talk and chilly answers, Senator Lin refuses to take the hint. A dark plume of venom green lashes through Rex’s chest as the Mirialan places a friendly hand over your shoulder. You grimace as Rex bristles and glares through the visor of his helmet.

Senator Lin’s lips pull into a gaudy smile as he glances at Rex and then at you.“My dear, don’t you know? It’s not worth wasting your time with a clone. After all, they’re all the same person. How boorish—come join us at the table.”

Your teeth bite into your cheek as your temper, like the silver of blade through the darkness, cuts through your steely irises. With poised nonchalance, you lift your hand and pinch Senator’s Lin’s fingers between your own and pry them off your shoulder. “Is that so?”

“Your campaign, valuable as it may be,” Lin continues, “is a useless endeavor. They are not our equals and never will be--you must know that."

Rex forces himself to remain calm—collected and certainly not imaging a thousand and one ways he’d like to see his fist breaking the fragile bones of the senator’s face.

"Fine buttons stitched upon your shoulders do not compel your worth, Senator,” the harshness of your words is a blow straight to Lin’s ego. His well-groomed brows furrow drastically as his tongue struggles to play catch up and find words to repair his shattered pride.

There’s no chance for Senator Lin to regain his footing as your snatch Rex’s wrist and sweep him out into the hall. Rex can feel your anger roll off of you in waves, frighting and holding the same caliber of roaring waves thundering against black, craggy rocks. It’s a miracle the night didn’t end with your hands wrapped around the senator’s throat or a blaster shot through the chest.

When you reach the lower halls of the cruise ship is when you release Rex’s wrist. You pinch the bridge of your nose between your fingers and release a long, dramatic sigh.

"You are worth far more than that pompous ass," you say with enough edge to slice through a droideka's shields. "He has no right to say those things to you."

“It’s alright,” Rex soothes, placing a hand over your bristling shoulder. “I’ve heard worse.”

Your features scrunch up into a wince. “That...that doesn’t mean you have to suffer through more of it, Rex.”

Sighing, you run a hand through your hair and loosen the heavy outer robes strung around your shoulders. You shrug out of them and fold the thick swaths of fabric over you arm—revealing the under layers of your uniform. You toss the bundle of fabric to the floor with a disgusted grimace and sit on the cargo crate closest to your left.

“Really—it’s ok.” Rex assures again. “I—“

You hold up a hand and shake your head. His mouth snaps shut. “I won’t hear it. To me you are nothing short of perfect and I refuse to argue about it. Maker knows I already do that for a kriffing living.”

There’s a fragile lull in the hollow space—the distant chatter of voices and strange music collecting in the corners. You stand once again, toe to toe with the Captain and there it is again, that elated pitter patter of his heart thrumming through his veins. The nerves of being so close to you—you sweet face and not being able to touch you.

“Let me see your face.”

His hands come up to the edges of his helmet without hesitation, a hiss of hair escaping the seal once he pries it off. You smile and take a step closer until the only thing separating you and him is his helmet.

Rex’s eyes flutter shut, leaning into your hand you gingerly place over his jaw. “I wish the entire galaxy could see you through my eyes,” you whisper, the warmth of your soft palm radiating out and warming his entire body.

It’s a matchstick to kerosene—his helmet clatters to the ground and there’s only a second to spare as both hands move to cup his cheeks, dragging him into a mouthwatering kiss.

He hasn’t kissed many people—save for those rare times at 79’s, head swimming under the haze of one too many shots of Corellian fire whiskeys where he could barely distinguish his ass from his hand. Those drunken make-outs were nothing like this.

No—this…this is what a kiss should be like.

He dreams about you all the time—so constantly ravenous that all he can feel some days is pure ache. Every and all words that spin around his head starts with you and finishes with his pounding heart close to bursting free from his ribcage. Not in the same way a flood rips through an unsuspecting village—more like the brilliance of a thousand doves, marble white plumage thrashing free from their gilded cage. Your lips taste like the core of a newborn star—scorching and yet still so sweet upon the tongue the same way caramelized sugar sticks to the roof your mouth. You are his first and last everything.

There’s a certain kind of tragedy hidden beneath your tongue, fragile promises and the eggshell thin shards of hope stapled to the roof of your mouth. Rex will take it—seize any threadbare strand and run with it—spool it into the palm of his hand until you’re wound so tightly together it’ll be impossible to untangle.

Just when the dizziness sets in from elation and not enough air, you part and leave a sticky trail of warm kisses up his jaw. Rex groans and hugs you closer, you humid breath blooming across his skin. “Let me take care of you.”

The words on his tongue crumble to ash once he nods in agreement. Your kisses dip lower, not even stopping when the reach the edge of his chest plate. Stars, you’re…he never entertained the idea that your lips could look so divine in contrast to the battered plastoid. When you fold onto your knees his heart leaps to his mouth, a flare of arousal flashing through his groin.

You rest your chin over his codpiece and smile. “Do you like seeing me on my knees, sir?”

Rex huffs and studies at the opposing wall—

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Your fingers find the claps over his codpiece. “Can I take this off?”

Rex jerks his head in a yes but grabs your wrist. Not a rough hold—a tentative one as hesitation swirls in his eyes. “Don’t—don’t have t’ do this for me—“

You quirk a brow. “I want to because I like you, Rexy.”

A rosy blush blooms over his sharp cheekbones. The captain nods again.

The codpiece clatters to the ground and immediately you move your hand to palm him through his blacks. He grunts and squeezes his eyes shut. There we go.

Biting your lip, you pull down his blacks as far as the plastoid plating allows, greeted with the hard length of his cock, beautiful and flushed a rosy brown. Fuck—he’s thicker than you thought. You wrap your fingers around the base, delighted by Rex’s airy gasp as he throbs in your palm. A bead of liquid shines at the tip and just the sight of it makes your mouth water.

Moons—you should’ve done this sooner.

With a stuttering inhale, Rex trails his forefinger along your cheek and tucks a stray hair behind your ear. The pads of his fingertips skim lower and lightly pinch your chin between his forefinger and thumb. Your eyes lift to meet his. “You—you sure?”

You answer with a kiss over the dip of his navel, the skin searing hot under your lips. Rex curses and rolls his head back onto his shoulders when your palm slides up the length of his cock and then back down. Your grip is firm and tight as Rex slumps onto the crate, goosebumps rushing up his exposed flesh. Stars, when’s the last time he’s gotten release like this?

You lean forward and lick a languid line from the velvety skin of his balls all the way up to the tip. Rex’s hips jolt. You purse your lips and suckle at the head, dipping your tongue over the slit then down to trace the ridge of his frenulum all the while your hand rolls up and down his shaft. Rex tangles his fingers into your hair with a hiss. You open your jaw a bit wider and take him down a few inches into the wet heat of your mouth, feeling your lips stretch around his cock. You you drag the flat of your tongue along the underside of his shaft to make the thickness easier to swallow down, but he's still only halfway into your mouth when he hits the back of your throat.

“Fuck—" Rex moans as his hips strain to remain still. “S’good—such a good girl.”

You glance up, eyes devouring the attractive length of his clean shaven throat and the underside of his chin. Rex swallows and let’s out another little sound. You whine softly in return and slip a hand into your pants, pressing your fingertips against your throbbing clit as you start to carefully bob your head up and down. Yeah—your jaw already aches just from holding his cock in in your mouth but fuck it—it’s worth it.

Rex's chest heaves with exertion as he mindfully rocks his hips up, pushing and rolling his cock deeper into your mouth until his shaft is nearly seated all the way in. Ditching your own pleasure entirely, you swallow around him, forcing down the urge to gag and simply hold him here. Allowing him a moment to just enjoy the soft warmth of your mouth before launching into the main event.

Rex murmurs your name and strokes his thumb over your cheek. “You’re beautiful—so pretty like—like this..ah—”

You pointedly hollow your cheeks and suck, his flattery warming your chest with pride. You swallow around him another time, squeeze his shaft, your fist following your mouth as you lift up then back down to the base. You grunt at the abrupt jolt of his hips. There’s no distinctive rhythm you can follow as you pull halfway up and let Rex rock his hips into your mouth—seeking out his pleasure without a coherent thought in sight. Just a cacophony of gasping breaths and rough moans of your name.

Soon enough he’s twitching in your mouth, his eyes fluttering shut as his head tips back onto his shoulders. The gloved hand sweetly cradling your cheek slips to the nape of your neck, tangling his fingers into you hair to anchor himself. He’s close—quiet gasps and broken curses tumbling out, hips unconsciously rocking into your mouth in search of release.

Rex whimpers your name, his leg jolting as you work your jaw wider and swallow him down, the dark curls tickling your nose once it brushes his groin. “Oh, fuck.”

You hum around him, delighting in the mumbled praises. Almost there…That’s it.

He’s dangling on the precipice—on tiny shove away from euphoria—

“Wait—“ Saliva dribbles down your chin when his cock pops out from your swollen lips, throbbing from the unintentional tease. “Maker—shit.”

If not for the gloves covering his hands, you’re sure they’d be turning white from how tightly he grips the edge of the crate. His eyes are squeezed shut, slightly bent forward as he falls away from the edge of his release. Rex sucks in a steadying breath, amber eyes meeting your confused ones.

“I don’t—can we—“ Rex’s eyes flit and focus on anything but you as he stutters and works up the courage to ask for what he wants. “Do we have time—“

You rolls your eyes and rest your cheek on his thigh. Silly man. “You wanna fuck me, Rexy?”

“Kriff, yes.”

You smile and wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. “I don’t think they’ll miss us."

Rex doesn’t complain when you take his hands and yank him onto the grubby floor and over your senatorial robes. He props his back against the crate as you shuck off everything below the waste and clamber into his lap. His hands, warm even through the leather, land over the swell of your hips and wrench you closer until your front presses up against his chest plate.

The rough prickle of his stubble is, in all sense of the word, addictive. He tilts his head to kiss you, the slick touch of his tongue on your bottom lip adding jet fuel to the fire low in your belly. Rex groans and cups your jaw, holding your mouth open to dance his tongue along the length of yours. You whine and shudder as he purses his lips and lightly sucks on your tongue before you both part.

Rex drags his teeth over your bottom lip as you both pant for precious air. His dark lashes sweep up his cheeks when he looks at you. This close you bare witness to the dazzling color of his eyes—crystalized pearls of amber over the crackled bark of pine tree in the midmorning sun. Muted gold threaded through the brown like fine lace and the slow shimmer of the sun dappled through water. To think such a man like him is dredged through the bloodied mud of war is despicable.

You blink away the swell of tears prickling at your eyes and kiss him once more. Sighing, you whisper down, mouthing soft nibbles and teasing kisses over his jaw and down his neck. Rex squirms and rock his hips up, your cunt clenching around nothing. You need him.

“Rex,” you groan. You slide your hand between your bodies and grab at his thick length. Rex gasps into your mouth, long fingers clamping onto your waist in a death grip. “I want you.”

“I’m yours.”

Your nibble at his earlobe as you grind your hips against his length, the folds of your cunt teasingly out of reach. “Touch me, Captain.”

Rex tears off his vambraces and gloves, hand wedging between your thighs, touching the very tips of his fingers to your throbbing clit. You whine and clench your jaw—the pleasure is raw—sizzling electricity that crackles with the deadly promises of your pleasure. It’s as if you’ve had the breath knocked out of your lungs the second he bears down a bit more on your clit, drawing tentative circles, each completion sending a shockwave of tightly spooled ecstasy through each and every nerve. You nearly sob as his fingers slip away.

“So wet already,” Rex moans as you tip your head back when two of his fingers begin circle your dripping cunt. They’re thick and long and perfect. Your hips stutter as your cunt easily accepts his fingers, the heel of his palm slotting perfectly against your pussy to stimulate your clit.

Maker you’re seeing stars as Rex rocks his hand into you—the bend of his fingers the perfect angle to catch all the right places that make you tremble. He kisses your cheek and moans your name into your ear, all low and gravelly—

Your body seizes up tight as you soar, plummeting off the edge only to tumble so fast and so hard that tears prick the corner of your eyes. Rex peppers kisses over your cheeks and runs his free hand through your hair, purring praise and adoration as you shudder—your mouth parted in a silent cry as you cum and dissolve into his hands.

When you suck in a steadying breath and open your eyes, Rex is gazing upon you with starstruck eyes—pure adoration that makes your cheeks flare hotter than the surface of two mini suns. Your teeth catch your bottom lip. You’re not sure you deserve to be looked at like this…

However, you’re impatient and running on stolen seconds. As much as you’d like to just simply stare at him—there’s not enough time. Rex wraps his fingers around the base of his cock and slides the tip of himself through your soaking folds. Each stroke against your still throbbing clit makes you buckle into yourself, but the angle that your knees are propped over his hips means you're stuck here.

Rex pauses and cups your cheek. His thumb scrapes over your cheekbone. “You want this?”

You place your hand over his and turn your head to mouth a kiss over the lines of his palm. Oh, fuck yeah. Kind of him to ask as if hadn’t just cum over his fingers but—no. “I need you to fuck me, Rex. That’s an order.”

Rex huffs out a low chuckle and bumps the crown of his forehead against yours. “As you wish, Senator.”

Rex runs the blunt head of his cock through your folds again, slicking himself up with your arousal. You mewl and dig your nails into the hard plastoid as the wide tip of him pushes into your entrance—he shudders as you clench and wiggle. It doesn’t hurt, but he’s in no small. You’ll feel him for days, you’re sure of it as your cunt swallows inch after inch.

You both groan as he finally bottoms out. His jaw his clenched tight as sweat beads at his blonde hairline—Stars above, he’s a sight, struggling not to loose control the second he’s buried inside of you. Desire tickles up your spine, tugging at the fabrics of your being until all you can focus on his how Rex isn’t moving. You shift your hips in tiny, almost imperceptible motions, and squeeze around him.

“Damn—“ A ragged moans slices through his words as your gentle rocking morphs into needy jolts. It’s easy to fuck yourself onto his cock like this, but the measly thrusts are meant to tempt him. “Fuck, cyare, you’re tight.”

You smirk and grab at his sculpted shoulders—it’s the push he needs. Rex snarls your name, cups his hands under the globes of your ass and pulls you off his cock nearly all the way out only to slam back in. There’s no time to adjust before Rex sets a pace, fevered and rabid All pent up energy collecting over the weeks you’ve known each other. Each roll of his hips borders erratic, taking his pleasure without thought—intent on reaching his own end after being denied for what feels like ages.

You squeal in surprise as Rex pushes you onto your back and hoists your legs around his hips. Rex buries his nose into the crook of your neck and moans your name like a sweet prayer wrapped in honeycomb. Rex shifts his weight, widening his knees to sink deeper into your cunt—his stubble tickling your throat as his staggered exhales burn hot over your skin.

You choke out a groan and feel your arousal begin to drip down your thighs—hear the thrusts of his cock into your cunt become shamefully wetter. Electric heat sears down each vertebrae in your spine, scorching through each and every veins with the catastrophic brilliance of an imploding star. Shit—

“So good t’me—so perfect,” he huffs into your ear. Rex turns his head and steals a kiss. “Feel fuckin’ good stretched around my cock."

You clench around him hard as Rex’s hand sneaks between your bodies and rubs tight, little circles over you swollen clit. There’s barely any build up to your orgasm—just a blinding surge of devastating warmth that sweeps through your body, from your aching center down to your toes. It steals away all the air left in your lungs and leaves your clutching his arm and shuddering for a hold in your own reality—the steady warmth of his body that’s unburdened by armor a much needed anchor for the madness that threatens to drown you.

His gentle, and pliant kisses morph into little pricks of his teeth over your neck and collar bone as his hips struggle to keep a definitive pattern. Rex’s curses string together and blur into nonsensical noises and loose tongue admittances that are comparable to moving inches from an imploding star.

“Where can—can I?”

You grab at his head and whine his name. “Anywhere—in me—you can cum in me.”

With a loving caress over back of his neck and a sweet whisper of his name, he reaches release. Rex’s moan is airy as his eyes slam shut and captures your mouth in a sizzling kiss. He’s twitching in your arms as his hips erratically jerk, hot spurts of his release coating your insides and beginning to leak over your robes you lay over. Whatever.

Rex nips at your skin as the last dregs of pleasure jolt up your spine. Neither of you say a word as Rex’s hips come to a slow. Time trickles through your fingers like sand through an hourglass half empty but instead of rushing to dress, you choose to lie on the ground—two halves of a mess someone’s been meaning to clean up for the better part of a long while. You feel at home here—content as your fingers run up and down the back of his head, a bit irked by the armor still covering his back. You’re terrified of the months to come—but at least you have each other. After all, gardens will bloom and flourish with fresh blooded love and wild mistakes sculpted from passion forever if you believe hard enough…wont they?

#we out here #yeehaw #my writing #captain rex x reader #captain rex x you #ct-7567 #captai rex #clone x reader #clone trooper x reader #the clone wars #tcw #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #star wars #sw

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copperbadge · 3 years ago

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i'm sorry if this has been asked before, i've tried searching around and gotten no results. but would you ever consider writing a guide on how a writer might (correctly) write a character who either runs or participates in (whether as management, regular employee, or unpaid volunteer) a nonprofit? i've had a story idea like that for a couple years but i haven't been able to find enough information. thanks either way!

Your dilemma reminds me of fandoms like Check Please!, where you get basically two kinds of fanfic: the kind not written by hockey fans, which mostly handwaves anything to do with practice or games, and the kind written by INTENSE hockey fans, which goes deep into detail about gameplay and technique. Both are valid, but they have very different ways of dealing with the need for specialized knowledge. (I’m a handwave kind of guy.) Some things are tough to research, because they’re not written about much in a way that’s accessible to outsiders. Though I do always advocate doing what Stephen King says -- write the story you want to write, then figure out what you need to research when you’re done.

With nonprofits, I'd certainly be willing to help with questions, but I don't know that there's a good way to write that kind of guide in a way that would be comprehensive. In terms of office structure, nonprofits are a lot like for-profit companies -- there are different departments and functions, and in various sectors they behave differently. They come in all sizes, and that’s going to impact the work too. It’d be kind of like saying you want to write a story about food service -- do you mean fast food, catering, casual dining, or fine dining? Are you writing about kitchen staff or waitstaff? Pasta or sushi? Are the clientele trendy urbanites or suburban families, or truck drivers?

I used to work in higher education, doing the same job I do now for a medical services nonprofit, but my function is pretty much the only thing that didn’t change when I moved jobs -- and even then I went from answering questions in a ticketing system and writing biographies of hedge fund managers to independent review of weekly giving and writing briefs on pharma companies. If you work for a nonprofit college then everyone from the faculty to the workstudy students to the fundraisers to the administrators to the custodial staff are nonprofit employees. You can see the diversity of skills and training required just in that list! Conversely, in a very small medical nonprofit like the one I work for now, we don't have faculty, and the building we rent office space from supplies the custodial staff. But we still have operations (paying bills, buying supplies), development (fundraising), outreach (support groups, helpline operation), events (galas, walks), communications (emails, flyers, posters), research (coordinating doctors and funding researchers), and a couple of others.

Now, if you work in a division like HR or book-keeping, your job at a nonprofit is virtually indistinguishable from what it would be at a for-profit, because that kind of work just doesn't change. But being a one-person HR office in a company of 40 people is way different from being an HR officer on a team of 12 HR officers for a company employing 500+ people.

Additionally, volunteering with a nonprofit is drastically different from working for one, except for extreme outliers like Ao3 that are entirely or almost entirely volunteer-run. Most volunteers won't ever actually meet much of our paid staff; they'll deal with a volunteer coordinator and maybe events staff. I've never spoken to probably 80% of our volunteers. When I’ve volunteered, I’ve very rarely met any of the “office” workers, just the volunteer coordinator and sometimes a fundraiser if I mention I’ve worked in Development. But again, if you’re volunteering at say an animal shelter, you’ll probably meet more of the paid staff just from the nature of the work you and they are doing.

So it would really strongly depend on what story you're telling -- what job the person does, what kind of nonprofit space they’re in, and how big the company is. But if you want to hit me up on email, copperbadge@gmail, I'd be happy to discuss specifics!

#nonprofits #charity

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anagentinwriting · 4 years ago

Text

Lifeline - Part 18

Summary: (First Responders!AU) Moving to Los Angeles and living with your brother, Thor, was never part of your plan nor was being a 9-1-1 dispatcher, but plans change when you are faced with your own emergencies. In your case, it was leaving behind a relationship that wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. Will this be the fresh start you were hoping for or will your past find a way to catch up with you?

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Odinson!Sister Reader

Word Count: 3800+

Warnings: Angst, blood, violence

Lifeline Masterlist / Main Masterlist

After receiving information from dispatch about the location of Billy’s cell phone, Thor called in an anonymous tip to Fury’s team, but instead of waiting around, Nat and Thor pulled onto the interstate, following the cellphone south to San Diego.

Thor stared out the window, resting his elbow on the window railing with his chin in his hand. “I’m sorry, Natasha, for acting like a jerk earlier. I know you were doing your job and following orders. I would’ve done the same.”

“We’ve good,” Nat replied, giving him a once over. “You doing okay?”

“I keep thinking everything will be okay, and everything will work out--” he rubbed his eyes “--but um, I don’t know… I don’t know what we are going to find when we get there? Is she gonna be mad at me, is she going to be hurt, is she gonna be…” Thor took in a sharp breath, clearing his throat. “Billy threatened to kill her once before, you know, and he almost killed Steve. I’m afraid of what we are going to find.”

“Don’t think like that,” Natasha reassured, patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll find her.” She bit her lip, nodding to herself for her own reassurance. “YN’s strong…and with everything she went through, she rebuilt her life and herself. Billy might have her, but I have a feeling he has no idea who he is dealing with now.”

Thor nodded, “If Billy lays another one of his grimy hands on her, he will suffer a fate worse than death. He’ll be…”

“More dead?” Nat asked, trying to contain a chuckle in this highly stressed situation.

“Yes, but I was thinking more like being stuck in rush hour traffic for the rest of his life,” Thor smirked, trying to keep the conversation light.

“Oh yes, that sounds so much worse.”

_____________

“Where are we going?” You questioned, sneaking a peek at Billy, gripping the steering wheel.

“We’re starting over. I’m saving us from this tricky situation you put us in.”

You leaned back into your seat, chewing on the inside of your cheek. “Right, because everything is my fault,” you grimaced, rolling your eyes. “Why don’t you get it over with and kill me? I mean, isn’t that your plan.”

“WHOA, WHOA, WHOA,” Billy retorted, widening his eyes. “I can’t imagine my life without you. Why would I want to kill you, YN; I love you. You’re all I have.”

“But, that’s it, you don’t have me,” you mumbled, wringing your hands together. “I just never got a say in the matter.”

He huffed out a breath, shaking his head. “What’s with this attitude?”

“Well…what more do I have to lose? I lost my friends and family…like yesterday, and now, you’re all I have,” you admitted with a shrug. “It’s what you wanted, right? Me and you, both ghosts, living in the shadows, or did this car come with new identities, too? Oh wait, is that what’s in the duffle bag in the backseat?”

“Why would you think that?” He narrowed his eyes, licking his lips.

“Well, a creepy guy with a scar and milky eye drops off a car at a gas station. Now, doesn't that sound like the start of a bad joke? I mean, he definitely didn’t look like a criminal or a bad guy in his dark suit, and his name sounded so original, Agent Orange. I think I know a few people by that name.” You pressed your lips together, tilting your head. “On the other hand, if he looked like a dad, wearing crispy white boys on his feet, jean shorts, and a polo shirt. It would have been an immediate red flag.”

Billy smirked, shaking his head. “Luckily for you, you don’t have to worry. I have our lives all planned out, but I did miss your snarky attitude. Whatever happened to it?”

“I will give you a hint,” you leaned over the center console, “if you look in a mirror, you could probably spot the reason.”

“Touche,” He added, cracking a smile, making the corners of his dark eyes crinkle. He gently grabbed your hand in his, sending an unpleasant shiver through your body, and brought it to his lips, kissing the back of your hand. You tried not to make a face as he lowered your conjoined hands back onto the center console.

“I want you to know it isn’t going to be like this forever. We’ll get past this like we always do. I will forgive you, you will forgive me, and we’ll start over in this new city, meet new people, and create a whole new life for ourselves.” He squeezed your hand. “You can forget about the life you created yourself because you're never going back to that. This is our chance to start over...together.”

____________

Nat pulled up behind two other police cruisers and a Chrysler 300 Black Sedan. Thor jumped out before she could get it into park and jogged up to the Chrysler but was stopped by Fury's hand.

“Thor, for what do I owe this pleasure?” Fury asked, his one eye-widening, looking him up and down.

“Is she here? Is my sister here?” Thor gulped, looking past Fury to try and get a better look, but the officers were retreating away from the vehicle.

“No, she’s not.” Thor’s shoulder sank, letting out a breath. “But, I assume you were the one who called in the anonymous tip.”

“Me… anonymous tip…no, no, that doesn’t sound like something I would do.” He shook his head while Nick stared him down.

“Odinson, I listened to the tape, and it sounded just like you.”

“Did it? Huh?” Thor rubbed his chin, staring hard at the ground.

“Seeing it will be better if we just work together at this point. I want you to know that we were able to recover the video surveillance from your sister's home, and we can confirm it was her husband, Billy Russo.”

“I told you this. I told you the night it happened.” Thor shook his head. “And it’s her ex. Ex-husband,” Thor corrected, placing his hands on his hips. “So what…we have nothing now?”

“Russo is smart and is playing his moves carefully. He knows what he is doing, making all the right moves, but he'll mess up, and when he does, we will find him.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less from him given his background,” Nat stated, coming up to stand next to Thor. “Are we even sure this is the right vehicle?”

Fury narrowed his eyes at her, raising his voice. “Believe it or not Ms. Romanoff, but we do know how to track a phone and find a vehicle.” She smirked at his change in attitude. “And for your information, there was a 911 call placed earlier this morning from a gas station near San Diego. A mother and daughter found a note with YN’s name, Russo’s name, the vehicle description, and the license plate number. It said to give this information to the police. This would explain how Russo’s phone ended up in this car.” Nick pointed over his shoulder at the Chrysler. “YN made a smart move, but Russo must have pulled a fast one on her and switched cars at the last minute, so it doesn’t do us much good right now.”

“Did they see YN at all? Was she okay? Was she hurt...”

Fury held up his hand, and Thor shut his mouth. “Yes. The woman mentioned her looking a little beaten up but seemed hopeful.”

“When I find this bastard, I am going to…” Thor bit his tongue, clenching his fist and punching it into his palm. He mumbled to himself, shaking his head, stepping away from them.

“How’s your friend in the hospital? Any word yet?” Fury asked Nat, who narrowed her eyes at the scene behind him.

“He’s in recovery now. They're keeping a close eye on him.”

“Good.” Fury’s eye caught on to Thor’s unexplainable gestures while he paced back and forth. “What would you say about getting your friend a bulletproof vest; he looks like he could do something reckless.”

“I do have an extra one in the cab; I’ll give it to him for safe measure.”

“Excellent.”

“Since this is the correct car, who is the man behind the wheel? Any connection to Russo?” Nat questioned, staring at the black sedan. Thor returned, giving Nat a reassuring nod.

“We haven’t looked into much yet, but his name is William Rawlins. He is the COO of Cerberus and says it’s a company vehicle but doesn’t know who used it before him. He checked it out to run a quick errand over his lunch break, but we are headed back to his office now to look over the record logs.”

“What’s Cerberus?” Thor asked, looking between Nat and Nick for more information.

“It’s a security firm in San Diego, but I think they have different branches all over the country now. It protects public officials, and they also have a private investigating sector that started up a few years ago. I was on a case with one of their ‘agents’ as they call themselves, and he was an asshole.” Nat informed him, Nick nodded in agreement.

“Sounds a lot like Anvil,” Thor added, rubbing a hand over his scruff. “If this is a company vehicle, then someone must be helping Billy. For all we know it’s this Rawlins, and he’s playing us.”

“As much as we want to speculate at this point, it’s too early to tell.” Nat shrugged, and Fury nodded.

“Why would Cerberus remind you of Anvil? What is this Anvil?” Nick inquired, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oh, it’s a security firm Billy works at in New York City. He’s in the private investigating sector there.”

“Is there any reason to believe that Anvil is a branch of Cerberus?” Nat raised a brow at him, and Thor narrowed his eyes, processing the information.

“If there is a connection between the two, this could be it,” Nick answered.

_____________

You sat back in the passenger seat, opening up the glove box, seeing a map of California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona. “Where is this new home of ours going to be?”

“You’ll see,” Billy replied with his elbow resting on the door and his head in his hand.

“What are you going to expect me to do? Am I going to get a job, or are you going to make me stay at home and be your trophy wife?”

“Would that be a bad thing? It’s not like you liked being a 911 dispatcher.”

You swallowed, wringing your hands together. “But, I did.”

He scoffed, shaking his head.“You like being in the action, getting dirty in the line of duty, and seeing it first hand. You don’t like being behind a desk, waiting to answer a monitor every time a call comes in.”

“I might not be where the action is, but I am still helping people. I might not see them or get to meet them, but I’m here to help them with whatever they are going through. Using your voice to help is hard, but sometimes that’s all people need to hear to put them at ease and give them a sense of safety.”

“Hmmm, okay,” he snorted, smirking into his hand.

“You have to give me something.”

“I don’t have to give you anything,” he grumbled, running his hand through his hair.

“Well, how do you expect me to trust you again if you don’t tell me what’s going on?”

He licked his lips, a slight smirk tugging at his lips. “Trust me; You want to know how you can trust me? That’s rich because I could ask you the same question. Can I trust you?”

“You don’t have to trust me, but don’t you think I should know what we are getting into. Shouldn’t we at least have a plan once we get to where we are going? People ask questions, Billy, and don’t you think it would be a good idea to figure it out before we get there?”

Billy remained silent, gripping the steering wheel tight. He licked his lips, scrunching up his face enough to form a crease on his forehead. “Do you think I’m an idiot? How do I know that if I tell you, you aren’t going to use the first phone you find to call someone.”

“You don’t,” you answered with a shrug. “But you’re gonna have to trust me a little eventually if you want to make us work again.”

He glanced between you and the road, fighting a battle in his head. He clenched his jaw, letting out a defeated breath. “You’re right; you’re always right.” He licked his lips, shaking his head. “I’m giving us the fresh start we both need, and everything we need is in the bag in the back.”

You turn in your seat, reaching for the bag, and put it on your lap. You unzip it, staring at the contents inside. A rubber band was wrapped around new Arizona IDs and new passports with new names on them. A container with an assortment of keys and enough cash that could get you through at least a few months.

You reached into the bottom of the bag and pulled out three framed pictures of you and Billy. One of you posing and smiling at each other when you first started seeing each other, another one of you at the wedding altar saying I do, and the third, standing close to each other on your honeymoon with the ocean behind you. You swallowed, staring at each one. They were supposed to bring back happy memories, but it only brought back the nightmares this relationship turned into.

“It’s not a home without a few personal touches, right?” Billy shot you a warm smile, and as much as you wished it was sincere, you knew it wasn’t.

“Right,” you breathed, putting everything back and tossing it in the backseat. “So we are moving to Phoenix, then what?”

Billy raised his eyebrows. “We’re going to lay low for a bit until this mess dies down, and I can trust you again.” He throws you a quick glance, rubbing his gauze-wrapped wrist where Cosmo bit him. “Then, once we are a happy couple again, I’ll be taking on a new position at the Cerberus Phoenix branch.”

“What do you expect me to do once we are a happy couple again?” You bit your lip, feeling a lump rise in your throat.

“Let’s not get into specifics right now.” He reached over and grabbed your hand. “I want you to focus on forgetting about your life in LA and everyone in it. They’re not important anymore. It’s you and me, together forever, like we always planned.” He nodded, squeezing your hand for reassurance.

You gave him a quick nod, fighting the tears threatening to escape. You turned your head to look out the passenger side window. The world outside was becoming a blur, and you were stuck inside with Billy, and there was no way to get out. He had a solid plan that left little room for error. Once they arrived in Phoenix, you wouldn’t exist anymore; Billy wouldn’t exist anymore. You would disappear, and those you cared about would be left wondering. Wondering if you were okay; wondering if you were even still alive; wondering how they let this happen to you. You blinked, feeling a few tears escape down your cheeks as you swallowed back a sob. Your friends, family, and Steve were gone, and right now, you might as well be too.

____________

The police unit pulled into Cerberus, following the Chrysler through the electric gate and up the short drive until they came across a facility beyond the gate. It was a modern building, heavily secured and well secluded from the main road.

Fury and Nat walked behind Rawlins while Thor stayed towards the back, taking everything in. He readjusted his bullet-proof vest underneath his shirt and sweatshirt, trying to get used to the tight feeling around his upper body. He didn’t want to wear it, but Nat insisted.

Inside the building, everything had white and gray tones to it from the furniture to the walls. Everything looked pristine and clean, almost like they were hiding something. Thor smiled at the lady behind the front desk, causing her to blush. He continued following the rest of the group up the floating steps to the second floor to an office at the end of the hall.

Fury and Nat began questioning Rawlins, sitting behind his desk. Thor stood off towards the back of the room, half-listening and half scanning his surroundings. If something was connecting him to Russo, he wasn’t going to talk about it; instead, he would have to search for it.

His office looked like every big wig’s office he’d seen in the movies. Floor to ceiling windows, showcasing a beautiful view of the trees on the property. Another wall was lined with artwork and a few bookshelves, filled with books that were probably more for show than actual reading. Thor’s eyes traveled to the walls behind him, noticing a bunch of framed photos hanging on the wall in sort of a college way. He took a step closer, noticing how each frame had an engraved plate under it, stating what branch of Cerberus it was and its location.

“Would anyone else have access to company vehicles?” Fury asked with his pad and pen in hand.

“No, only company employees.”

“Does that include employees from other branches of Cerberus or just current in-house employees, so to speak.”

“Nope, all employees from any branch are welcome to a vehicle as long as they have proper ID,” Rawlins answered, leaning back in his chair. “Who is the young lady that is missing? Maybe one of my teams can assist you. We don’t do many missing person cases, but we are more than happy to help.”

“Oh no, that won’t be necessary,” Fury replied, holding up his hand. “But, we do have reason to believe you know the captor.”

“I’m sorry.” Rawlins looked taken aback, and in some ways, offended. “But this is news to me. I have many employees, so you will have to be more specific.”

Thor read off the frames one by one and glanced at every single picture. He needed to find a connection so he could find you. He clenched his jaw, reading the plates: Vistacorp, Arizona; Vancorp, Texas, and his eyes stopped on the next photo. He didn’t even need to read the plate to know it said Anvil, New York City. He narrowed his eyes at the picture, seeing Rawlins shaking Billy’s hand, and he had that stupid smile on his face that could win everyone over.

“His name is Billy Russo.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t recall anyone by that name.”

Thor growled, tearing the picture off the wall, starling everyone, and marched across the room. “Don’t know him, then why are you shaking his hand in this picture,” Thor shouted, throwing the picture on the desk.

“Oh, look at that he works at the New York branch.” Rawlins scanned the picture before placing it back on the table. “Why are you including me in this accusation? I don’t have anything to do with him or this abduction. I didn’t even know he was in town.” He sat up straighter in his chair, folding his hands together, and placed them on the desk in front of him.

An officer opening the door pulled everyone’s attention away from Rawlins and to the female officer. She handed Fury a piece of paper, whispering something in his ear. Fury nodded, dismissing her. He unfolded the paper, reading what it said before folding it backup and stuffing it in his pocket. “It’s a bit funny how this picture is saying one thing, and you’re saying something completely different. It’s like the picture is lying, and you are telling the truth. I don’t know what I am supposed to believe.”

“I am telling the truth. I have had no contact with--” he pulls the picture back to him “--this Russo since this picture.”

“Then, why was Russo the last person to check out the car, and according to this, he has yet to return the vehicle back to this facility. So how did you check the car out at noon if it wasn’t even on-site?”

Rawlins sat on the other side of the table, staring blankly at the three of them. He licked his lips and tilted his head at them. “Huh? How about that?” He let out a dark chuckle, shaking his head. “Well, I honestly thought it was going to take you longer to figure it out, Detective Fury, but you surprised me. All of you did.” He pointed to each of them, his sinister smile never faltering.

“Where is she?” Thor growled, leaning over the table mere inches from Rawlins's face.

“That’s the thing about Billy,” he licked his lips, challenging Thor. “He is sneaky and quiet. He can hide in plain sight, is fast on his feet, and knows just the right time to strike. If you haven’t found them yet, you aren’t going to. They're both gone, and you’re going to have to live with the fact that you failed her.”

Without further hesitation, Thor punched him straight in the face and knocked him to the floor. Thor slid across the desk to find Rawlins, clutching his broken nose as it bled into his mouth. Thor grabbed him by the collar and punched him again when an officer rushed over and dragged Thor off of him. Thor grunted, pushing the officer into the wall with his nostrils flaring. He headed right back for Rawlins, but Nat stood in his path, pushing on his chest and forcing him to stop.

“Forget about him. Don’t listen to him, Thor,” Nat commanded. “He’s not worth it; put this energy into finding YN and Russo, and then take it out on him.” Thor stopped in an instant, giving her a quick nod.

The officer that held Thor back went over to Rawlins and put his face down on the hardwood floor. He started reading him his Miranda Rights and slipped the cuffs around his wrists.

“You’re lucky only your nose is broken, and both your eyes don’t match, asshole,” Thor threatened as Rawlins was escorted out of the office.

“Feel better?” Fury asked, standing up from his seat.

“No,” Thor answered in a gruff voice, leaning against Rawlins desk and crossing his arms across his chest. “He’s right, you know…Billy is good at hiding. I mean, we didn’t even know he was following her.” He ran a hand down his face. “He does this for a living. Reads crime scenes, follows the evidence, finds suspects, and solves cases. He knows what we are looking for and makes sure to drive us in the opposite direction. He is good at what he does and probably even better at making someone disappear.”

______

AN: Thanks for reading Part 18! Just when you think they have something to go on, they are one more step behind. Thor sure did sack Rawlins pretty good though, but he did deserve it. And it's a good thing Rawlins was slacking on his paperwork, or maybe he just didn't have time to change the name to who checked the car out! 🤷‍♀️ On the plus side, at least they were able to track Billy's cellphone (the wrong one, but it was something), they know about the note she left in the gas station, found 'the other guy' but still got nothing...or do they?! 🤔 Not sure if any of you understood the crispy white boys reference, but it's usually the white tennis shoes dads wear on their feet! It's an Instagram reference me and my friends use all the time now! 😂😂 I will say she is getting more confident and seems to be pushing all the right buttons to get information from him, but he isn't giving much away. And can she trust him enough to know that he is telling the truth? The plot thickens...as always thanks for reading! Comments are always welcome!

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years ago

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How unions de-risk work

Yesterday, I published an essay about how monopolies beget monopolies: when deregulation kicked off a wave of pharma mergers, the new pharma oligopoly gained the power to raise prices on hospitals.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/16/wage-theft/#excessive-buyer-power

The hospitals weren't able to form a cartel to insist on better prices: the US antitrust law created by Ronald Reagan's court sorcerer Robert Bork is incredibly tolerant of monopolist price-rigging, but violently opposed to cartels that price-rig.

Rather than forming a cartel, the hospitals gobbled each other up to create monopolies. If the CEOs of six hospitals insist on better drug prices, it's illegal. If the presidents of six hospitals (all owned by the same monopolist) do the same thing, it's fine.

Big Hospital wasn't merely better positioned to demand better drug prices from Big Pharma, they were also able to charge more to the fragmented, decentralized health insurance industry.

Predictably, this kicked off a wave of mergers that produced Big Insurance, a monopolized world that gives most Americans between zero and two insurers who'll take their business.

Freed from the risk of losing customers and bulked up to meet hospital monopolies on even footings, insurance companies could both insist on lower payouts to hospitals and *higher* premiums from patients. And at last we had some sort of equilibrium.

Pharma companies could charge more for drugs, but not too much more. Hospitals could lower the standard of care, raise prices, and squeeze workers' wages and working conditions. Insurance companies could cut payments to hospitals, raise prices and hike co-pays.

Everyone got what they wanted, except for two groups that can't form monopolies that push back against this monopoly-dominated industry:

* Patients, and

* Workers

Historically, the "monopolist" safeguarding patients' interests was the state: democratically elected lawmakers who relied on voters for re-election. The massive increase in corporate campaign finance was attended by steady erosion of political loyalty to the public interest.

And so the public lost its champion, and prices went up and quality went down and redress was whittled away to performative apologies after crises of too great a magnitude to be ignored, accompanied by fines that were mere fractions of the profits from corruption.

Meanwhile, workers' champions were their unions: solidarity organizations that corrected the negotiating imbalance between employers and employees by presenting a united front.

That unity extended beyond the gates of a single employer. Picket-line crossing was a grave sin, so if your hotel's maids went out on strike, the Teamsters wouldn't deliver your groceries and the taxi cabs wouldn't pick up at your entrance.

And related trades were able to bargain together: in Hollywood, the writers and actors and tradespeople would start each contract season by visiting the weakest studio as a body and demand the best deal, then require parity from other studios in turn.

Since the Reagan years, union power has been drained off. For example, the way Hollywood unions negotiate has been flipped on its head. Now, the *studios* visit the weakest union as a body and demand the most labor concessions, then take those to the other unions in turn.

It's been generations since union power was a given, and we haven't just lost our power, we've lost our imaginations - the sense of what is possible, what we are owed, how the system could work. We've learned to take precarity and low wages as a given.

That's why Reina Sultan's "8 People Describe How Unions Changed Their Lives" for Vice is so important: not because it is heartwarming (though it is) but because it is ripe with possibility, the recovered wisdom of a fallen civilization.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvxqvm/why-unions-are-good-first-hand-accounts-of-how-unions-change-lives

These eight workers describe how joining a union turned precarity into certainty. How the hotels they worked for had to promise to hire them back after the pandemic lifted. How they were promised ten hours of uninterrupted sleep between shifts.

How their employers had to accommodate their disabilities. How they were guaranteed health insurance that covered their whole families. How they were protected from being arbitrarily fired, and guaranteed severance pay when they were laid off.

These guarantees have a common theme: they de-risk being a worker and make it riskier to be an employer. Much of our day-to-day life is a series of negotiations over who should bear the risk that things will turn out bad.

Think of all the corporate bailouts, how these are "socialism for shareholders, capitalism for workers." When the fed bails out banks and employers but not mortgage holders and workers, they move risk off the finance-sector's balance sheet and stick it on our balance sheet.

When you run a business, you assume risks. Maybe you have a slow Saturday and end up paying workers to hang around with nothing to do. If you can book a worker's Sat, but unilaterally send them home two hours into their shift because it's slow, you shift your risk onto them.

The worker has to be available for you, but you don't have to use that availability. Likewise disability accommodations: when you hire and train a worker, you face the risk that they will become disabled, permanently or temporarily, on or off the job.

When that happens, you might have to pay to change the physical environment so they can do their job, or give them disability pay. If you can just fire them, you shift the risk onto the worker, and off your own books.

Every benefit described by workers in Way's article is risk being shifted from workers back onto employers. The right not to be summarily fired means workers aren't at risk from vindictive, bad bosses. It also means employers may struggle to shed "low-performing" workers.

It's a good reminder of the "struggle" in "class struggle." These risks are, by their nature, zero-sum. To decrease the risk of being stuck with a bad employee, you have to *increase* the risk of an employee being targeted by a bad manager. There's no win-win here.

Sure, employers will say that they share the workers' interest in rooting out bad managers, but there is an inescapable contradiction between reserving the right to fire anyone, for any reason, and making sure workers aren't unjustly fired.

The same goes for every benefit articulated by union members. If you're an electrician who wants to be able to get home, sleep and go back to work without being interrupted for ten straight hours, you push risk onto your employer.

Meanwhile, if you *don't* have that right, your employer gets to shove risk onto you. For example, they could underinvest in upgrades and preventative maintenance, knowing that when things break down, they can summon you to get them working again, without paying any overtime.

The project of worker solidarity comes down to this foundational question: who should bear which risks? Would you rather have bad bosses firing people over personal vendettas, or co-workers who are hard to fire even though they're not great at their jobs?

We don't need to pretend that moving risk onto employers' side of the ledger always produces better outcomes. It doesn't. Workers can be jerks, too. But an individual bad boss has the power to do enormous harm to their entire workforce over a long term.

Think of all the people maimed, killed and sickened in Amazon's warehouses because of one individual's willingness and ability to shift risk off his balance sheet and onto theirs.

It's true that an especially toxic unionized worker could make life miserable for many, many other workers - but that's still a better outcome than an especially toxic CEO, not least because unions give workers the power to address bad workers even when management won't.

Is it possible for things to be overbalanced, for too much risk to be shifted off of worker's balance sheets and onto employers' side of the ledger? Sure, theoretically. But that is a situation so far removed from workplace reality today that it's practically a fairy-tale.

And if we're really worried about too much risk landing on employers, then we can go back to the peoples' source of power: democratic governance. Unions represent a power-bloc that can (but don't always) hold politicians to account.

It's hard to imagine any political path to checking corporate power that doesn't include organized groups of workers *and* organized groups of citizens, working for political change.

If health insurance, disability accommodations, retirement pay, parental leave and other sources of workplace risk are moved onto the public's balance sheet, they cease to be things that workers or employers need to argue about. They're just a given.

Think of it this way: bosses and workers don't fight over who will pay to pave the roads to the business. They don't fight over who will fight fires, or allocate RF frequency for the office wireless network. These risks are moved to the public ledger, where they belong.

This kind of political change is also hard to imagine, after 40 years of Reaganomics. But unionization makes it more achievable, because another word for "risk" is "profit." Shifting risk from workers onto bosses shifts money from bosses to workers.

Monopolized employers extract monopoly rents from their customers and gouge monopoly concessions from their workers. This isn't just extra money to send to shareholders - it's also extra money to spend in the political realm, blocking reforms that benefit everyone.

That's how we get wage stagnation and ghouls like Manchin and Sinema tanking the $15 minimum wage. The money extracted from workers was sent to these politicians so they would vote to make it possible to keep extracting money from workers.

Unionization - workplace justice - doesn't win the war for political justice. But it *does* cut the enemy's supply lines, deprive them of the ammo they're using to fight us.

Image: still from "Union Maids" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74gvcvXlgnM

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dajaregambler · 3 years ago

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HeliosR - Gast Adler Card story “A gondolier’s task”

Translation of Gast Adler’s 4* “Waterfront City Guide” card story from ‘Helios Rising Heroes’.

Gast: Siiigh~....

Gast: (The two-day sightseeing tour should be wrapped up without any problems if things keep goin’ like this. Luckily…)

Gast: (I’m still nervous ‘bout interacting with girls, and got my doubts if I could tolerate it but, with Marion and others helpin’ me out I can somehow pull it off)

Gast: (....Honestly thankful for it)

Gast: (Anyway, been paddlin’ this gondola the entire time today and yesterday too, my arms are gettin’ all wobbly…)

Gast: (Goes to show that I gotta start training a bit more seriously, eh---)

???: Ah, this is a good spot....

Gast: Hm?

Gast: Who’s there!? You can’t just climb into the gondola like that….!

Faith: ….Huh? Was thinking who that’d be but it’s you, Gast

Gast: Faith….?

Faith: I see… Ochibi-chan had said something about North holding some kind of sightseeing tour, I think?

Faith: He was way too agitated going on about Marion this, Marion that, I totally didn’t get it but, are you and Ren involved in it too?

Gast: Y-Yeah we are… Hold on, don’t crawl in the gondola. C’mon, get out

Faith: I actually have a favor to ask of you. Can you let me take shelter here for a minute?

Faith: While on my way to going to this chocolaterie nearby, a group of girls that look they weren’t from here called out to me...

Faith: And then the local… former girlfriends of mine intervened, and somehow it ended up in a bloodbath

Faith: They started going on about how to not casually call out, while they were holding themselves back or whatever, and somehow during all of that it became how all of them wanna keep me company

Faith: I didn’t get any of it, and I was totally outnumbered so I fled while I could

Gast: Woah….

Faith: It’s a group of about 10 girls so you should be able to spot them immediately. ...Are you seeing them? They’re still prowling around there, right?

Gast: ...Uum, is that them? For real looks like they’re out for murder, so it prolly is them

Faith: Please, Gast, let me hide until these girls go away

Faith: It definitely would be suicide to go out there on my own, you get me?

Gast: Hmm~...

Gast: Right. These girls that called out to you at the chocolaterie do look like they were my customers...

Gast: Guess I gotta lend out a hand, you can hide until things cool down

Faith: What a relief…. Thanks, Gast

Gast: You sound like you got it rough, eh. Being so popular to the point where people are that fascinated by you...

Faith: ….Well, yeah. I don’t think it’s that much of a bother though

Faith: It’s more as something to appreciate. Since it means that’re people look out for me and think of me too

Gast: That is a pretty nice thing, yeah

Faith: Aah, you also reminded me of something. How you’re obviously, like... popular yourself too.

Gast: Eh? Uh no, just now I’m----

Marion: Oi what are you two doing

Faith: Hm? Uwah, Marion….

Gast: Said that while thinkin’ about my bros but… no one heard that, eh

Marion: What are you doing here. Do you not have the conscious to not interrupt those of others sectors while they’re on the job.

Faith: You’re under the wrong impression… Just got involved in something bad, so I’m temporarily hiding here...

Marion: That doesn't pass as an explanation. Be more clear.

Faith: Aaah… Over there’s no good, and here’s bad too. You don’t have to be that much on guard

Faith: We’re associates that went out to eat chocolate together at En Ciel and drank tea together, aren’t we

Marion: That’s unrelated.

Faith: Wow, how relentless♪

Gast: Didn’t expect you guys to get along that well? ….Actually, is it ‘cuz of the same age?

Faith: Mhm. We ended up being friends due how we felt a connection for being the same age

Marion: We might be, but I’m still a mentor. Know your place!

Gast: H-hold your horses, Marion… He’s only here ‘cuz a buncha girls are chasin’ him down, and if anything happens to him, I’d be responsible for it

Marion: Hah? You would…?

Faith: Aha, Gast’s so nice

Marion: ……….

Marion: Well… you’ve been seriously putting a lot of effort in your duties these past two days, I suppose I could excuse this.

Gast: Eh

Marion: Hmph… I do want you to stand on your own two feet without the need of my help by the end of this tour though.

Gast: !! Of course I’ll be doin’ my utmost best…!

Faith: Heeh, so that’s how Marion’s been training his rookies, huh. Looks like he’s a pretty good match with Gast too---

Girl’s voice: I FOUND HIM! He’s inside that gondola!

Faith: !!

Faith: Got caught, huh… Well, obviously they would when you two are pretty much standing out way too hard

Girl’s voice: Faith-kun! We’re not letting you get away this time!

Marion: W-what is this….

Faith: Hmmm…

Faith: Hey Marion, c’mere for a sec

Marion: ?

Faith: …………………………………………………………………………..

Gast: ?

Faith: And so… please, give me your support!

Marion: There’s no way I’m going to allow that! However you think about it, there’s nothing to be gained from th….

Marion: ….No, wait a second. This could work out

Faith: Really? Then, it’s an agreement?

Marion: It annoys me to do as you say, but I’ll let you have this one for now.

Marion: Oi, Gast

Gast: Yeah?

Marion: Go calm these girls down. And obviously treat them politely since you are dealing with women.

Gast: …..eeeEEEH!?

Faith: Sorry, Gast. I’m sure they’ll listen to you once they see you, though. ….Can’t say what’ll happen afterwards though

Gast: NO no no!!

Marion: Come on, go. Think of it as work… No, as practice

Gast: You gotta be kiddin’ me!?

Marion: Stop complaining and GO!

Gast: Hweh!?

Faith: Eh… Gast’s scared of girls?

Marion: Hmph, should be clear from just seeing that

Faith: I had no idea… Honestly, I just thought he was messing around

Faith: ….Kind of, feel like I should apologize to him later

Marion: No, this is fine. It’s a necessary trial for him.

Faith: Wow, so spartan… Is this what they mean when they say if you love your child, you send them out in the world?

Gast: Gh, I give up… I surrender, no more! Marion, Faith! Or whoever, please help me out here!

Gast: This is absolutely on hard mode, ain’t no damn way I’ll make it through thiiiiiiiis---------!

Notes:

Faith uses a Japanese proverb when he says ‘If you love your child, you send them out in the world’. There is somewhat of an English equivalent, aka ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’, although somewhat different in nuance. In this case I decided to translate the jpn one as is, given that jpn proverbs come up often and are discussed how they are of jpn origin because of Brad and his love for Japanese things. Also, it can be also taken in a literal sense in this case since Marion is sending out Gast to a pit full of lions (save for the lions part).

#heliosR #helios rising heroes #gast adler #faith beams #marion blythe

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rgr-pop · 3 years ago

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sorry tmi but i wouldn’t mind some insight from those of you with the Bad Degree* who have taken these courses have opinions on them hmu. half of you went to library school *still no plans to get the mlis

the certificate (after i finish which i will decide what i’m doing actually) is two core courses, three electives, plus the practicum. the ideal situation would be to take 2 courses this winter semester, 2 the next fall semester, and 2 the following spring semester. basically 1 core + an elective course each semester, then in the final semester the practicum + an elective. due to how they are offered, i probably won’t be able to do that very smoothly, but i could still finish at the same time. of the three electives, at least two have to be from this short list of core electives. the second class i’m considering for this semester would count as an elective, but it’s not on that list of core electives. if i didn’t take it, there wouldn’t be any other options i could take other than records management. i do not want to take records management but it is always offered, so i might get cornered. those of you who are in the field/have this degree: do you feel like you want to convince me to consider taking records management? i don’t plan on becoming a full time archivist (and could maybe take records later with an mlis if i did), and i don’t want to pivot into records management or work in the private sector (my regular career that i didn’t ask for is already circulation supervisor. i don’t need a second regular career i didn’t ask for.) is there anything portable for freelance work or any good reason you can talk me into taking records management.... my options for the two electives i need are, in order of how much i want to take them: digital archives, oral history, conservation, audio visual collections. only oral history would be offered in the fall. while i obviously want to take that, there are so many alternate ways to get that experience that i don’t feel like i absolutely need to--i probably will though because nothing else will be offered. digital archives isn’t going to be offered until summer of 2023!! this is the most useful and mobile class for me--although i may find that i can get this experience on the job fine. i feel like it’s crazy to not send off all your archives people with these skills (ergo offering it every semester), but maybe i will get more of it in the core courses than i am expecting. i should write off the possibility of taking this. conservation is offered this summer--messing up my schedule (and the concept of a free summer). i came into this plan really sure i wanted to take this course and that it would be useful for freelance preservation work but as i get to know a conservation librarian, i’m no longer convinced i need special training in conservation outside what you get in archival administration. i also no longer think it looks fun? i want to know what i need to do to ensure general basic institutional preservation but i don’t want to fix very many things. i don’t know if i need to do preservation planning. that’s a whole job i don’t particularly want.

i have no idea if i will find audiovisual collections interesting and useful or not. doesn’t that surprise you ? it surprises me. i might have to take this one so maybe i’ll decide to!!

#sorry i have to do planning #i think the electives will show themselves to my soul as i am in classes and doing more of the work

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sugarmaplewings-fics · 4 years ago

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The Price of Being A Hero

Pairing: Tamaki Amajiki x reader

Warnings: None really

A/N:

Could this be . . . angst? On my blog? Nah, I already did some/have been doing some, but I got this request a long time ago and finally finished it nearly a month later. Then took another month putting it through my system before I was able to post it . . . .

Yeah I have no excuse.

Huge thank you (and also sorry) to @why-am-i-here-please-help-me for requesting!

Enjoy!

-Sugar

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

When you’re a hero, fighting is a part of your job. It was an unspoken fact that every day, when you went out on patrol, you put your life on the line for your city.

Tamaki knew this, and so did you. It was what you had trained for since high school, and simply a small downside to your dream. A dream that you were now able to live every day of your life.

Today was a day as any other; you were wandering your route with your boyfriend, Tamaki, ensuring the sector of the city was safe. You made idle conversation with him, the sounds of your moving and shifting costumes quietly accompanying your voices.

This was how the two of you had met, and over the past few years, you’d only grown closer with each other.

The both of you rounded a corner, amiably discussing plans for a day off when someone ran up to you.

“Heroes! Thank goodness.” The man must have been about ten years older than the you, and looked distressed and out of breath.

“What is it?” you asked.

“That guy over there just blew up the bank!” The citizen pointed behind him and took off running again, along with a small crowd of other people trying to get away from the chaos.

Sure enough, when you looked a little further ahead, you saw smoke pouring out of the windows from a building. You and Tamaki ran towards it, eyes scanning for a possible culprit. It wasn’t difficult to spot him, seeing as he was the only one moving in the opposite direction of the crowd. Also, he had a large bag of cash gripped in one hand.

You commenced in pursuit, hoping he wouldn’t catch on to you and your boyfriend coming up fast after him. Unfortunately, he happened to glance behind himself, immediately picking up his pace at the sight of two heroes with their focuses trained on him.

He began weaving through pedestrians and hopping over cars, attempting to shake both you and Tamaki from his tail. You, however, happened to work very well as a team together. You were the faster of your pair, so Tamaki allowed you to go ahead.

Without the villain noticing, you cut him off, skidding to a halt in front of him as Tamaki came up from behind. In a last minute effort, your culprit turned and ducked into an alley. The two of you followed him into the narrow space, noticing that within a few meters, it dead ended.

It was as if both you and Tamaki had the same thought: Got him.

The villain took one look at the wall before him, whirling around to face the two heroes who had cornered him.

“A bank? Seriously?” you mocked, knowing that he was captured. “At least try to be more original.” You sauntered closer to him, mind intent on the best way to secure the man so you could drag him back to your hero station for Fatgum and the police to deal with. “You’re coming with us.”

“I don’t think so.” The man sneered at you.

You glanced up, reminding yourself that you had to be wary of his quirk, especially since there weren’t any physical signs to clue you in as to what it might be. That civilian guy had said he had bombed the bank? Maybe it was something explosive like that Ground Zero’s quirk. His friend, Red Riot, never quite shut up about him.

Just as you began to ready your own quirk for defense, the villain before you dropped his bag. You watched as his hand transformed into a single, long katana sword, silvery and serrated. Swift as lightning, he brought it down on you, slicing from just above your collarbone to your shoulder.

Tamaki witnessed the glinting flash of the villain’s sword cut you in slow motion. He hadn’t had enough time to react. You had been too far away.

Rage began to leak into Tamaki’s nerves. How dare he? It was a hero’s duty to safely capture and secure villains with minimal damage, but for the villains themselves, there were no rules. No regulations other than their own fleeting morals in the heat of a moment. And many of them had no objection to murdering a hero in cold blood. This was the risk you took every day, and this was the horrific price of justice.

Less than a second after the man’s sword came into contact with you, Tamaki raised his hand and activated his quirk, turning each of his fingers into long, red octopus arms. He sent two towards the villain, but the man was ready, slashing at the appendages with his saber-hand.

Tamaki’s world felt like it was shattering around him, time slowing as the metal blade sliced towards his writhing tentacles. You were everything to him, but now, because of this man, this man, you were hurt. You were suffering, and it had been all Tamaki’s fault for not stopping you from getting any closer. It should be him bleeding to death on the ground, never you.

Tamaki sent a third appendage, this one lower, at the villain’s legs. He dragged the man towards him and away from you, wrapping a shell-enforced tentacle around his manifested weapon.

You were always so cocky, too cocky for Tamaki’s comfort. The minute you felt like you were in control of a situation, you tended to exercise it, finding satisfaction in the defeat of law-breakers. Tamaki had brought it up only twice, but he guessed that it wasn’t enough to have made you stop. It wasn’t as though anything had ever come by it. Until now. And now you were both paying the price of actions already done.

Just as Tamaki pulled him within a foot of his body, the villain morphed his left hand into a second sword, slicing off the tentacle that had captured him. He took the moment of Tamaki’s wince of pain to stagger to his feet and try to bolt past him, only to be grabbed once more around his entire body.

All Tamaki could do was ensure that you would be avenged. This man would pay for his actions against you. The only thing Tamaki could do for now was to capture him. Maybe there was still a glimmer of hope for you. Maybe the ambulance would be fast, and you would live. This man was the only thing standing in the way of that.

Tamaki pulled him in, clocking him over the head with a hard clam shell manifested on his other hand, making sure the villain slumped completely forward, solidifying his defeat.

The hero double checked that he was out cold, noting how his body had gone completely limp. Next he whirled around, ready to help you, prepared for the worst.

Except, you weren’t on the ground. You weren’t even bleeding. Your costume was torn, yes, but otherwise, you looked perfectly fine.

“Wow,” you said, removing the hand that was holding up an edge of your costume to clap. “I’ve never seen you take down a villain like that before. You made it look so easy! Your form was perfect and everything. I really—”

Tamaki cut you off, running full throttle towards you and crushing you in a hug. “You’re alright!” he said, feeling pent up tears begin to spill a little from his eyes. “You’re here, you’re okay.” Tamaki continued to whisper these words for a few moments, solidifying to himself that you weren’t lost, and were instead in his arms. Right where you belonged.

“Hey,” you said, beginning to rub at his back. His hero cape creased and smoothed with the circular motions of your hand. He noticed you were shaking a little, and that only made him hold you tighter. “Don’t you remember?” you asked gently. “My quirk?”

Your quirk . . . that had been one of the last things on Tamaki’s mind. “What about it?”

“Metal can’t hurt me,” you explained. “I can get cut, but I heal really fast. It’s kind of a weird and random side effect to the other, more hero-ey aspect, but that’s just something I can do.”

Now that you said it, Tamaki did remember you mentioning that part of your power before.

“It’s alright now,” you said, pulling back so you could place a kiss on Tamaki’s forehead, which had grown damp with cold sweat.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Tamaki said, brow furrowing with his seriousness. You placed a hand on his cheek to brush away the small tear streak that had briefly run down his face. “I want you to promise me.”

“I will.” You averted your gaze, feeling foolish and slightly ashamed of your actions. If the villain had had any other, more dangerous quirk, you could very well have been dead right now.

Tamaki placed his hand over yours, tilting your chin with his opposite so you could once again meet his eyes. “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

“Me too.”

The sound of a car pulling up a few feet away from you caught your attention. A few policemen stepped out, looking from the passed out man on the ground to your hunched figures further back in the alley.

“This the bank robber?” one of them called over to you.

You pulled apart, walking up to the men and woman dressed in blue. “Yeah.”

Tamaki let you deal with everything, just as he always did. He watched from a safe distance away as you made your statements, gave your report, and even greeted a passing journalist.

Tamaki wanted to get going. Where there was one reporter, there would inevitably be a swarm, no matter how small the crime. Besides, he had something more important on his mind that he needed to do.

As if half reading his mind, you began to say your farewells to the policemen, making sure the villain was safely secured in the car. You came back and collected Tamaki, going about what you had been doing a few minutes prior.

“Well,” you said, looking down at your costume in dismay. It looked almost like some kind of cutoff, an almost straight line running just beneath and nearly parallel to your collarbones. “Guess I’ll have to pull out my spare. We should probably head back. A hero’s got to look their best, you know.”

Tamaki nodded and entwined his fingers in yours, happier than ever at the warm feeling.

You looped around the block in the direction of Fatgum’s agency. It wasn’t too far from where you were now.

You began to lapse back into light chatter with Tamaki at your side. It was clear you were still a bit shaken from what you’d just been through, but Tamaki was glad to see you weren’t taking it too harshly.

Even so, Tamaki was forever grateful to whatever divine beings may be watching over you. He couldn’t imagine what his life would be like without you. You were his sunshine, the one person who could light up his whole world no matter what. Keeping you safe at his side was what he intended to do for as long as he could, and there was nothing that would stop him from doing so.

The small ring box dutifully waiting in the darkness of his back pocket was enough to prove that.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Author’s Note:

At first I was going to rewrite this one because I hated it, but then I let it sit in my WIPs for a while and finally decided to just finish it as it was. I think it turned out ok, and I hope it was what you were thinking of when you requested! Sorry it took me like 2-3 months to do. I don’t really have any excuses, but thank you for being patient!

Love you!

-Sugar

Taglist: @basicaegyo @iiminibattlehero @katsugay @nabo39 @pyrofanatic @sendhelpimstupid @sokkasangel @xoxopam4

#tamaki amajiki #tamaki bnha #tamaki amajiki bnha #tamaki imagine #tamaki amajiki imagine #tamaki x reader #tamaki amajiki x reader #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha x reader #mha x reader #reader insert #request fulfilled #sugar fics

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yoditorian · 4 years ago

Text

lacuna- part 7

din/reader

cooking is my love language so i made it rebel’s too (as ever, thank you to my love my life @brothersdrxke for being my shara) 💛 there’s rly only two more parts after this huh

series masterlist // main masterlist

word count: 2.7k

warnings: i don’t think there’s any swears in this one but just to be on the safe side, rebel has PTSD although it’s more suggested than actually experienced there’s a couple of moments that are shaky, softness and domesticity or just sadness?, sadness, the usual type of smut, 18+ no babies thanks

“No.”

At least Colonel Cintass has the decency to look surprised, he blanches when you show no sign of joking and sits up a little straighter.

“If it’s a question of pay or location, both are negotiable. There’s academies all over the Inner and Mid rim, you’ll have your pick of the lot and a promotion if you accept.” He’s clutching at all the straws he has at his disposal, but you don’t budge. He huffs when you say nothing and asks, albeit agitatedly, what your plans are instead.

“Maybe I’ll go private. Pays well, I can do what I want-”

“There’s no glory in the private sector.” Cintass interrupts you, and your eyebrows furrow further.

“And there is here? If you joined up for glory, Colonel, I don’t think you should be calling the shots.” You’re right and you both know it. You’re all too familiar with the friends who’ve retired to find something quieter, and with the officers who spent their Rebellion days discussing facts and figures with politicians. People who’d never been on the front lines in the thick of it, never even seen a firefight, now in charge of fresh faced cadets and veterans with too many demons to feel like they belong anywhere else. You won’t stay here, not for any longer than it takes to pack your things.

You pulled out of Green Squadron the day after Shara told you she was retiring, the last of the original crew, you hadn’t wanted to fly any more missions without her. At least the Colonel heard you out and didn’t argue. He’d let you stay on as a temporary mechanic, while you figured out what it was you wanted to do. Although, now it’s clear he fought to keep you so he could get things in place to offer you a teaching job.

It’s a good position, in all honesty. Miles better pay than you’ll get for the same job anywhere else, the choice to relocate to any of the shiny New Republic Navy training centres across the galaxy. But you can’t look a bunch of teenagers in the eye and tell them that this is everything they hope for. Not when the war chewed you up and spit you out the way it did. The scars on your back ache at the thought of it.

Shara finds you in the hangar, loading up a couple of bags into your A-Wing’s pitiful storage compartment. All your belongings, your whole life, packed up and ready to go wherever you decide to take them.

“I don’t think you’re gonna be able to live in there.”

“Ah, I’ll get a couple of hanging plants, maybe put up some curtains,” You smile at her from the top of the ladder, “Could be cosy.”

You know why she’s here. Not to talk you into accepting the teaching job, she knows you better than that. The idea was one she’d had right after she and Kes had found the old farm on Yavin IV, in need of a little tlc and a lot of patience, it was the perfect spot for them to raise their boy. And the little house further down the track, right at the edge of their land, was the perfect spot for you.

“I’m not saying you have to stay there forever,” She starts when you open your mouth to decline again, “I’m saying that when you need some solid ground under your feet, you don’t have to go looking for it.”

“Shara-”

“We’re family. You will always have a home with us.” It’s final. Non-negotiable. And something about the look in her eye makes you want to cry just a little bit. You think about the collection of scribbles tucked carefully away in one of your bags, the more recent ones at least are a little easier to distinguish as people. Four multi-coloured potatoes with legs. As far as little Poe is concerned, he agrees with his mother.

You hop down the ladder and pull Shara tightly to you, maybe tighter than you have before. Because you’ve never really had a home, not a place you ever felt was worthy of such a title. But here she is, offering one to you like it’s nothing.

“So, where are you off to now?” She asks when you finally have the strength to let her go. Both of your eyes are a little watery, but neither of you mentions it.

“Well, I turned down Cintass so it's up in the air. I’ve got some old contacts, so as long as they’ve forgiven me I can get a little income before I have to make any concrete decisions.” You don’t tell her exactly who the contacts are. Something about the way she raises her eyebrow makes you wonder if she’s already guessed where you’re going.

It feels strange, guiding your A-Wing out of the hangar for the last time. You hope it's the last time. At least you had enough put by to get Green Four decommissioned and released to you, it might have been a little more difficult than you’d initially thought if you had to leave the ship behind. She’s old and you’ve put her through hell, but she’s yet to let you down.

You’re not overly surprised that your comm signal goes unanswered. You weren’t exactly the most gracious guest on your last visit. But you don’t get shot up on your approach, so maybe your old friends are feeling a little more amicable nowadays.

“Impressive.” Ran says when you hop out of the cockpit, helmet under one arm and a sheepish smile on your face.

“She used to be.” You know he’s already calculating how much he can get for it, or whether he wants to strip it for parts. Your heart aches at the thought of it but there’s not a lot you can do. If letting go of your starfighter is what gets you back on the team, then it’s what’ll have to happen. Even if it hurts.

Ran gestures at a couple of new crewmates, a Devaronian and a human, and you selfishly hope you won’t have to work too closely with them. There’s an insignia on the shoulder of the human’s jacket, one you don’t want to examine too closely for fear you’re right. He’s about to offer you your old room when the shooting starts.

The men are taking turns at a set of old side panels, blaster bolts melting the old steel on contact, and you know that. You flinch before you can stop yourself. Ran watches you suspiciously, but he says nothing. Before the war, you would never have even batted an eyelid at a little target practice. You probably would have been in the thick of it, laughing and betting and not watching your friends die over and over in your mind.

“You stink of soldier.” Xi’an sneers, although she means it more as an observation than an accusation. You don’t disagree, only shrug, and your hand hovers warily over your holster as you watch the shooting competition. Just in case.

“Where’s Qin?” You ask once your heartbeat returns to normal. Anger flashes across Xi’an’s face as Ran explains he’d outsourced a job a few years ago, and Qin hadn’t made it back. It’s unexpected, the odd way you find yourself a little disappointed. Even though he’d been cold with you on your last visit, even though you’d bickered and been at each other’s throats more than once. Qin had been a friend once, a lifetime ago. You suppose that’s exactly the problem.

“Are you still terrible at throwing?” Xi’an asks, and the awkward tension finally melts away. Her wicked smile returns and you find yourself mirroring it.

“I’m a little better.” You say. Although you’re still certain she’ll wipe the floor with you, it’s nice to see at least somebody around here missed you. It’s about as close to a confession as you’ll ever get from Xi’an. You’d be an idiot not to take the olive branch she’s so selflessly holding out in front of you. Maybe you won’t be so alone on the station after all.

Din’s wondering about you, some part of him always is, as he looks at the new pucks in his hands. A couple of humans, a mythrol, and a chiss. None of them should cause him too much trouble, but none of their last known locations are exactly close. He settles on one of the humans, last seen in the Yavin system, and tells himself it’s because he can stock up on supplies for some of the more long haul flights the new assignments will take him on. Definitely not because he could stand to be around people who might remind you of him, even just a little. Definitely not because he misses you.

Din watches you from across the market, chatting animatedly with a dark haired woman he’s half-certain he’s met before. The way she leans so casually, so naturally, against your shoulder as she laughs makes his ribcage ache. He wants that with you, always has. He wants to be able to take you to places like these. To hold you close in front of throngs of people and meet your old friends. He shouldn’t even be here.

The Armourer’s words still echo in his ears. He is responsible for the covert, their hardest working hunter. He cannot, should not, waste thought on times past.

He shouldn’t be here.

But it’s too late.

Your eyes zero in on him, abandoning the conversation, and your friend follows your gaze. Din takes that as an invitation, slowly making his way towards the two of you in the shadow of a baker’s stall. The crowds part, as they always do, and for the first time he finds himself wishing they wouldn’t. You might have a life here, for all he knows. It’s been long enough. You deserve one, really. To have a home. To feel loved all the time, to not have to wonder. And then he’s there, in front of you, just staring. What are either of you even supposed to say?

A small boy peers around your hip, looking up at him in wonder. Too old to be yours, if he remembers correctly, but for a moment his heart seizes. You rest your hand in the kid’s curls, absentmindedly ruffling them. You’ve always fiddled when you’re nervous.

“We should probably get home, but I’ll see you tomorrow?” The woman clears her throat, snapping the sudden tension into shards. Din’s careful not to cut himself on the edges.

You nod enthusiastically, every language you know still lodged uncomfortably in your throat, and wrap an arm around her shoulders for a brief goodbye hug. She calls the boy after her as she leaves, their matching black curls bouncing when she heaves him up onto her shoulders.

“Shara,” You say, watching the two disappear into the waning crowd, “She teaches some of the older kids piloting basics. I help out when I’m here, mechanics mostly.”

“You find somewhere to settle?”

You shake your head. Give him some vague answer about drifting where the wind takes you. He doesn’t need to know you went crawling back to the only thing you knew before the war. It’s quiet for a moment, and even though you’re standing in the middle of the market, it’s as though you’re the only two people on the whole street. Din’s floundering for something to say, something to keep you here for just another minute, until you break the silence and save him. Just like you always do.

“When was the last time you ate something that wasn’t a ration pack?”

Even with the way he treated you last time, you’re still showing him the kindness you always have. He’s still not sure he deserves it.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Come on.” You take his silence as an answer, and start towards an alleyway between two buildings. Din follows you without hesitation, and the path opens up to a small parking lot half-full of different speeder models. You lead him to an older one, yellow paint faded and scratched, and drop your bag in the backseat. He falters a little when you climb in and gesture to the seat beside you.

“Unless you wanted to sit in the back.” Your smirk is warm, familiar. It hurts to look at. So he hops in and settles on the front bench because he’s not sure he can bear to watch you look at him like that much longer.

The little home down the dusty farm track is not somewhere he ever expected you to call your own. You’ve always seemed like you should be on a background of stars, a hyperspace lane, not somewhere this domestic. At least that way he wouldn’t be consumed, so suddenly, with a very real idea of staying.

You just look so comfortable, bathed in the low light of the afternoon sun through the windows, pulling vegetables out of a fridge covered head to toe in kid’s drawings. The little boy from the market, presumably. And it makes his ribcage ache to know that this too, is something that’ll always be missing from his every day. He won’t get to sit at your kitchen table and watch you fuss over a pot of stew, or have you slide up behind him and kiss his shoulder as he follows your favourite recipe.

It’s the best stew he’s ever had. Easily. The sun has disappeared behind Yavin, bathing the whole moon in an odd red glow as he eats. The helmet seems to glare at him from the middle of your kitchen table. You’d ducked into the bedroom to eat before he could even suggest that you take the kitchen. Another sacrifice you’ve made for him. What does that make the number now?

His gloves stay on the table while he washes the dishes, at his insistence. Although you’d put up a little bit of a fight. Din doesn’t bother to pick them up when he passes the table, when he appears in your bedroom doorway and you look up from your datapad like it’s the most natural thing in the galaxy.

You’ve pulled the curtains, shut the world out, and the room is plunged into darkness when you flick the lightswitch by the head of your bed.

You’re expecting the warmth of his skin on yours when he finally finds his way to you in unfamiliar space. He always sheds his armour so silently. You don’t expect him to take your hands in his, and raise them to the sides of his helmet.

The breath catches in your throat, you know he can hear it. His fingers tremble slightly over yours but he doesn’t waver. He settles them both solidly on either side of his helmet, and guides you for a moment. Your hands follow the rest of the way when he drops his to your waist, you set it carefully on the bedside table and turn back to him. He’s not stupid. He knows you can’t actually see him. But it feels like every barrier between you is finally, melted away. And Din can lay you back on the bed as himself.

It’s strange to have him in a space that’s become yours. Knowing that in the dark his helmet is sitting on a bedside table next to a picture frame of you and Green Squadron. That he probably saw every drawing Poe’s ever scribbled for you stuck to your fridge. But you force yourself to forget that. You shove it right down until there’s no room in your head for anything but the way he’s clinging to you. Until he is all you know.

“Tell me you don’t love me.” You’re almost asleep when the traitorous words slip out.

Oh, you think you’re clever. You think you’re leaving him no choice but to confess. You think this is where things finally, finally, start to go your way. They don’t.

“I don’t love you.”

No differently than if he was recounting the weather forecast. And it hurts. But you don’t have it in you to run, to cry, to be angry with him at all. Instead, you fall back down to press your cheek against the warmth of his bare chest, defeated. He holds you there until you’re sleeping.

TAGLIST (add yourself here):

@brothersdrxke @rebloogggs @keeper0fthestars @remmysbounty @sirianisrock @thevoiceinyourheadx @firstofficerwiggles @1800-fight-me @ew-erin @chatterbean

#early drop lets go #why am i so nervous about this #lacuna #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #star wars #fic #liz does words #smut

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