#but farming for grid is pain

[gremlinmodetweeker]

König AU Writing Masterlist

Masterlist

Konig Dump

Happy Tails:

KorTac decided to rent some space in a small animal adoption cafe to provide an animal therapy program for their agents. König came for the snacks.

Intro [1] [2] [3]

Summoned!CoD AU

Reader, or Summoner, was forced by the military to summon a beast of war to use in battle. Unfortunately, Summoner isn't great at controlling themselves, so they accidentally summoned a being far too powerful for any of you to control.

Intro

None of Your Shit

Ever Watchful

An Ant Among Men Among Gods Among Cosmos

Kiss the Ocean Kiss Yourself (First Kiss)

Accidental Meteor Showers

An Unexpected Appearance of Softness

A Question Best Left Unanswered

Sweets and Sours and Maggots

Circles of Stars in Cosmic Waltzes

Writhe Beneath Me

Silly Games for Silly People

A Step Through Time, A Step Closer

A Different Definition of Ash

In The Heart of My Mother I Laugh

Mistakes Meld Realities Together

Paper Trails Leave Bleeding Hearts

Extras

The Best Song for Summoned!CoD

Nice Kidnapper!König

To live is to suffer. Your existence feels meaningless, and you know that if you dropped off the face of the earth, nobody would remember your name. Your one chance of happiness was speaking to a nice masked man at a bar, but your 'friends' had cut off your time and stolen you away. Little did any of you know, he'd steal you back soon enough.

Intro [1] [2]

First Time Out of the Basement

Flickering Shadows Hide the Light

Cream and Honey and Thorns and Nettles

Ablutions with Acid

Carve the Fat

The Possibility of an Open Window

Do You Miss What You Had? Do You Miss Who I Was?

Long Pig

Read Me To Sleep, Let Me Drift Away

I Entered Daniel's Den and I Saw the Truth Before Me

A/B/O Universe

In a world where military soldiers are forcibly paired up with partners to produce more soldiers, König is paired with an omega O, and has to deal with the new changes in his life.

Intro

My Ever Empty Bed

An Olive Branch Among Thorns

Declivities

Two Can Play At That Game

To Market to Market to Buy a Fat Hog

Aren't You Tired Yet?

I Sit With You And Cry For What Could Have Been

The House is Burning, and Everyone is Laughing and Smiling [1] [2]

Kinktober

Ghostbusters AU:

Who ya gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS

New Recruit

A Conversation with Those Who Laugh at Death

You're a What Now?

Basement Bros

Infection!AU

You've managed an off-grid farm ever since you parents passed. It's been years, but you've endured the winters and grown to be an incredible homesteader. However, that was before the lights went out, and the barracks north of you went to shit.

Monster Trainer!Cod

Reader, code name Handler, is assigned by higher ups to be the Designated Operator of König, a rowdy and difficult-to-control jotunn/nachtkrappe shifter hybrid with a strange history of 'accidents' with his previous handlers. Your best bet to get by is to speak to others on base, but nobody is forthcoming with information.

Talking Heads Roll On Floors

Headaches Split my Skull, Stop Talking

Mischief and Mayhem

A Knot Undone Spills Forth Endless Possibilities

Break Down Build Up

Phantom of the Opera!AU

Inspired by a glorious ask, a version of Phantom of the Opera where König is our beloved phantom trying to save reader from the horrible fate of being seduced by a lover from the past with a dangerous agenda. König is a twisted man, but it takes a dark soul to recognize another, and so he will do whatever he can (from the shadows) to save his beloved songbird.

The ask the inspired it all

A Man Among Ruins

Lights Go Out I Wake Up

Cannibal King!AU

Taking place in the world of Sons of the Forest, reader is trapped on a remote island. Soon she is kidnapped by a cannibal king. Once by his side, she learns that life in the woods isn't as painful as expected, adn that humanity comes in many forms.

King Cannibal Conquer Quest

Rest Well Reign Strong

Fuck Me Like A Bitch So I May Love You More

Stars Whisper Prophecies into Waiting Wells

Sweet Like Honey Suckles, Bloody Like Venison

Local Executioner!König

Living in a small village leads to a tight-knit community. When you father left to be an adventurer after your mother passed in childbirth, you were taken in by the village baker, your uncle. You always avoided the public executions, but your uncle gets sick and can't go out to market to sell his buns on the very day an execution is slotted. You must go, and there you find a cursed outsider who sparks your interest.

Carve Out a Place for Me to Sing

Hope is in Buns, Life is in Stars, Promises are in Vain (Pt 2)

Behind The Dew You Sing To Me (Pt 2) (Pt 3)

Cat Hybrid!KorTac

Horangi and König are sick and tired of roughing it on the streets. They were born and bred to be soldiers, but the batch of kittens that were meant to be made into KorTac's next greatest soldiers escaped into the city, they had to grow up on the streets. They made their little gang, but Horangi and König always wanted more. One day, reader comes along and finds two sick kittens on the street. Unable to stop herself, she brings them in and nurses them back to health. She immediately regrets her decisions.

Intro

Konig and Horangi Refs

Hunters

Horangi Wink

Horangi's Hoard Art

Meeting the Human Forms (First Time)

Cuddling Konig

Move comic

Food Quality Ask

Get Out of There! Comic

Devourer of Treats Ask

Child Locks Ask

Buzzing Static Burns The Silence Between My Ears (Ask)

Art from This Post

[the-soliloquies-of-sadists]

#381

“Wakey wakey.  Time to wake up….  Don’t try to move around too much.  As you are realizing, you are in a predicament.  You are lying in my basement, buck naked, tied up, gagged, collared, with a fuck pillow under your pelvis.  You ain’t going anywhere, anytime soon….

“We’ve never met, but we know each other.  We both do the same thing for work, but we are nothing alike.  This is what’s happening.  I am part of a nameless organization that takes faggots, trains them to be slaves, and sells them to buyers from around the world.  From what I’ve been told over the years, the faggots delivered to me want to drop off the grid and sold into slavery.  They turn themselves in to a collector, who then has them delivered to me.  I don’t know if that’s true as I don’t let any of the faggots talk other than to say, ‘Yes Sir!’ 

“Now for you, I was told your backstory.  It seems that you are a collector for a different kind of group.  I train fags who offer themselves up for the taking.  You seem to prefer the non-consensual abductions of twelve- to fifteen-year-old girls.  I don’t care that you prefer pussy over dicks, but I do draw the line with their age.

“As I said, I was told what you are.  That never happens.  Ever.  But it appears that you approached the ten-year-old niece of one of higher ups in the organization, and he recognized what and who you were.  That stupid move brought you here. 

“I have no idea who the higher up is nor do I care.  Hell, we don’t know any of the men that are in the other parts of my organization, let alone hear from them.  So I found it surprising to get a call from a higher up—who I haven’t heard from in a few years—that I am to train you personally.  You better fucking believe that I’m going to train the fuck out of you.

“I have been training faggots for nearly forty years.  This is my farm you are on.  Twelve hundred acres.  Twelve hundred acres with some of the most advanced surveillance and anti-escape deterrents.  I know of every person who steps foot on my property, and I know if a slave is ten feet away from where it is supposed to be.  The ankle cuffs, wrist cuffs, and collar have tracking devices in them.  The collar can deliver a shock to keep you in line at a moment’s notice.  And the ankle cuffs are set up that if you go beyond a certain perimeter, a numbing agent is injected causing your legs to go numb and become useless.  Escape is not possible.  In my twenty years at this location, I have only had one slave make it off property, but it was collected within three minutes of doing so.  That slave was brought back and tortured in front of all the other slaves as a deterrent.  And that was before all the tracking technology was put in.  So keep that in mind if you decide to do something stupid.

“Now,… for the past five minutes, I have been telling you the predicament you find yourself in.  I have been watching your reaction.  Being gagged, you can’t say anything, but your body language says it all.  You seem too calm and not surprised at the description of my organization.  No reaction really.  That tells me that you are familiar with an operation like this.  When I tell you that you were collected for stalking that niece, you don’t look shocked by that accusation.  That pretty much confirms what I was told,… not that it matters otherwise. 

“No, the only reaction I saw was when I tell you that I am going to do your training.  You looked panicked.  Your eyes went right to my bulge.  Oh yeah.  I noticed.  You are straight indeed.  I should say, ‘were straight.’  From this moment on, you will never go back to that life.  The only cunt in your future is the one I’m about to make out of this hole between your legs.

“You have a great ass, so flawlessly smooth.  On any other slave, this ass would be a huge selling feature.  But for you, it’s a source of pain.  I need to put out my cigarette somewhere.  Your asscheek is the best place to do it….  Scream motherfucker scream.  Your perfect ass is going to go through some changes, from being daily whipped to being used as an ashtray.  You are going to be scarred up for sure.

“For the next part, I need to take off my boots and get out of these overalls.  You are going to get acquainted with Otto.  That’s what some of the fag slaves and some of the trainers call my dick.  Otto, it means ‘eight’ in Italian.  I’m actually closer to nine inches, but nine in Italian is ‘Nove’ which doesn’t sound right.  It doesn’t roll over the tongue as nicely as Otto.  Hehe.

“Look up at me.  Look shithead!  Here’s Otto.  Look at the cock that is going to own your life.  Half hard, it’s bigger than yours.  Keep staring at my foreskin.  Otto needs to piss.  You will be trained on drinking piss.  That’s all the liquid you will be given.  And if you are wondering if that means that you will be trained on becoming a full toilet, let me say we stopped training our slaves on that a while back.  It was too time consuming, and the buyers weren’t interested in that feature.  But for you, the higher ups want you trained.  But that will have to wait.

“Are you…  you are…!  You’re crying!  About time!  Hold still.  Let me wash away those tears for you.  Piss is the best antidote to tears.  There’s no feeling in the world like starting to tear down a once proud man by simply pissing on his face.  It’s getting me hard.  Otto likes what he’s doing to you.  But he wants action.

“Normally, you would be sucking the last few drops out of my foreskin.  But I ain’t ungagging you yet.  Besides, Otto needs to turn a virgin ass into a gaping cunt. 

“Your hole is perfectly displayed, like it’s ready to be destroyed thanks to that fuck pillow and how wide your legs were spread and secured.  Oh look.  Your cock and balls are just hanging there,… exposed,…

“…Damn! Even with my bare feet, I can deliver one hell of a ball kick.  Ha! Ha!  Your screams mean everything to me.  You know, each and every one of my personal slaves are kicked in the balls every morning.  They need to be reminded of their place on a daily basis. 

“Now, you will be spared that daily torture.  And that’s not because I would never have you as my personal slave, and don’t worry I wouldn’t own such trash.  No, I’m going to castrate you, in one of the most painful ways.  I haven’t decided how yet.  I do know that I will leave your empty sack intact.  We have a urologist that will make changes to your dick so that you lose all ability to get hard and with a few snips to the nerves in the area, all physical sensation will be gone.  Essentially your dick will constantly just hang there and be utterly useless… other than to piss out of.  Every time you reach down there, you will only feel the shell of what you used to be.

“Awww you’ve done full on sob.  Here let me collect some of your tears.  Tears of cunts are the best lube. 

“Do you feel Otto at your hole?  Feel his weight in your crack?  He’s ready to go.  Can you feel his leak.  Lucky for you, you really got me leaking.  Feel that wetness?  That’s all you.  Virgin cunt meets wine bottle thick dick.

“Don’t fucking start resisting.  Your cherry is going to be popped.  Here goes. 

“Don’t fucking fight me.  It’s only going to be more painful for you.  You are making my dick even harder.

“LET ME IN!  I’m coming in.  Oh, you got my head.  You are really starting to piss me off.

“Urg!  There.  Normally I would let a cunt relax before I begin, but you don’t fucking deserve that.  Right to the… goddamned… root!  Fuck, you’re tight.  By the end of tonight, you will be a gaping mess. 

“Not only have I been lucky to have such a big dick, but I can cum multiple times a night.  My first load is always quick, but the second one goes on for hours.  Then I have a gang bang lined up for this cunt. 

“I’ll let someone else pop the cherry in your throat.  There’s no way I’m going to let Otto near your mouth, at least not while you still have a mouthful of teeth.  Oh yeah, those will be coming out as part of your transformation.

“Keep crying.  Oh man.  Oh fuck.  I’m getting close.  You ready to be bred?  You ready to make your transformation to cunt complete?  Here it cums.  Here it goddamned cums!  Ahh! Ahh! Fuuuuck!

“Holy shit!  That was… fuck. 

“Your cunt has one of my biggest loads in it.  That should help lubricate you up a bit for round two….  Don’t try to push me out.  Otto will come out when he wants to.  Right now, he just wants a minute to catch his breath.

“Cunt, you have nothing but hell ahead of you.  There will be no let up.  Today is about breaking you in.  Tomorrow will begin your life of pain.  We have a shitload planned for you.  I don’t know how long it will be for you to with us, but each day we will strip away what made you a man, a human. 

“You know, when we put a slave up for auction, we have transformed the fag into the best slave it could be.  We don’t do it for its wellbeing.  No, we want top dollar.  And we get top dollar.  That’s our reputation.

“But for you, I was given the instruction that your transformation should be so extreme that when you are put up for auction, without a reserve price, that you are so repulsively distorted that you are sold for the lowest amount we ever had for a slave.  That shouldn’t be a problem with all the branding, scarification, tattooing, deteething, and so on.  Your previous profession will be shared with your new owners so that they can keep up your hell. “Oh fuck.  All this talk of your pathetic life is getting me hard again.  I’m ready to begin round two.  This should last a few hours.”

[lesbomination]

In the minority here but I personally think “Wolf Man” did their werewolves perfectly, at least in accordance to its lore & allegory (at least, how I initially read it); werewolves as representation of trauma responses, werewolves as representation of abusers, those who inflict trauma.

For Blake, his transformation occurs in the act of being forced to remember & relive his past, as well as being attacked in a particularly traumatic way that impacted his whole family; an uncontrollable change one may undergo after a traumatic event. The shift from human to beast mirrors how survivors can feel disconnected from their former selves, grappling with emotions & reactions that feel alien, new, & beyond their control. Blake’s lycanthropy is invasive not just for his family, but for Blake himself — much like the very nature of trauma, which can distort one’s identity & sense of self. Blake was “infected”; “[Grady] gave [Blake] his sickness”.

For Grady especially, his transformation is a representation of abusers & abusive behavior, externalizing the complexity of human behavior. A more humanoid werewolf form suggests that an abusive individual in reality remains human alongside their harmful actions. There isn’t a dramatic, visible transformation that clearly marks someone as an abuser, just as a person doesn’t grow fangs or claws when they inflict emotional or physical pain on others. An abusive human is still a human, just more gruesome to look at. Grady is an isolated former Marine, living in the woods with a young son, off the grid. They hunt & plant their own food. He treats his farm & house like a boot camp. His only connection to the outside world is through a damn radio, and he disproves of Blake being near it. Hunting is what killed him in the end, but so was his way of seeking control.

[lovelybucky1]

Insignificant

kinktober day 14- bondage

warnings: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT- non con, AFAB!Reader, handcuffs, vaginal reader, finger sucking, rough treatment, 18+ minors DNI

main masterlist

kinktober masterlist

Anakin Skywalker was no longer the man you knew. He was a great warrior, a general, an upstanding person, a kind soul, a Jedi, and most importantly, a friend. He was never meant to be a mechanical killing machine for Darth Sidious to lead around on a leash.

You managed to escape the violence of Order 66, though not without sustaining injuries of your own. For months after the massacre you saw visions of Anakin with orange glowing eyes in your dreams. The screams of children could be heard in the background. You were haunted.

You know some of the other Jedi escaped, though you don't know who or where they went. Being a Jedi is a death sentence these days, so it's better to lay low and not know anything more than absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, laying low on an outer rim planet where you live off the grid on your own little farm isn't low enough for the Empire. You returned from the forest with a basket of berries and mushrooms to add to your stockpile when you found your house burning, your animals slaughtered, and Darth Vader himself standing among the flames.

After seeing the brutal events of Order 66, you took not being killed on sight as a blessing. The stormtroopers surrounded you, grabbing your arms and forcing you to your knees before Vader. The dark mask was expressionless, but the tilt of his head to the side made you feel like a wounded animal he was about to put down.

"Take them to the ship," he said in a modulated voice. He sounded nothing like the man you knew.

You were hauled aboard the massive ship that they carelessly landed in a field of wild flowers. It was almost poetic how this hunk of machine destroyed something natural and beautiful.

Once the hatch of the ship closed, you accepted that your fate was sealed. You were brought to a cell in the bowels of the ship and abandoned, left with your own thoughts and restricted by force-blocking cuffs.

You were alone for hours until someone came by. You heard the sound of heavy boots banging against the metal grate floor, but it wasn't until you heard the heavy breathing that you turned your attention towards the intruder.

"Jedi," he says as a form of greeting.

You glare at him through the bars of your cell. "Vader."

He says nothing more. He only stands there, emotionless and unmoving. Anakin must have learned patience through his transformation, because the man you knew hated silence.

"Why am I still alive?" you ask. You'd rather be dead than be taken prisoner and be forced to work for the Empire. "You killed all the others. Why not me?"

"He wants you," Vader says crypticly.

"Who does?" you ask.

"Your friend," he says.

Anakin. He's in there somewhere, obviously, and he wants to save you. Maybe this is his way of making up for his atrocities, by making right with you. It could never be enough, but it comforts you to know the monster before you isn't entirely evil.

The door to your cell slides open and Vader steps in, looking like a giant as he towers over your slumped form on the floor. You look up at him but you can't get a read on him. The cuffs block any force sensitivity so you can't even feel him. The door shuts behind him, trapping you in a small box with the face of evil.

"He cares for you," Vader says. "He wants to protect you." It warms your heart in a weird way to hear him say that. "But you are insignificant to me."

Vader reaches down and grabs you by the roots of your hair. He tugs harshly until your scrambling to find your footing and stand so he doesn't rip out your hair.

He dwarfs you. You never noticed how large he was until you were face to face, mere inches apart.

Vader pushes you back roughly, sending you slamming into the wall. Your body crushes your arms that are bound behind your back and you whimper in pain.

"He will watch me destroy you," Vader says as he advances, crowding you against the wall.

He brings his hand down to the waistband of your pants and tugs, effortlessly ripping them off. Your underwear receive the same treatment, though the pull on your skin is painful.

He kicks your legs apart with his boots. The heavy, hard material on your exposed ankles hurts like a bitch, but there's nothing you can do about it other than scream.

Vader shoves his gloved hand between your thighs and carelessly invades your cunt with his thick fingers. You cry out in pain, beg him to stop and for someone to help, but you know it's useless. Everyone here does Vader's bidding, and disobeying their lord is an instant death sentence.

He grows tired of your crying, so he shuts you up by restricting your throat with the force. You have enough air to breathe, but not enough to speak.

You look into the blank helmet with teary eyes, hoping that somehow you can connect with Anakin. You know he's in there, you just have to bring him out.

Vader's fingers split you open painfully. You don't know what he has underneath the suit, but you fear that it will be even worse than the treatment being done to you now. When he pulls his hand away, your creamy juices coat the black glove.

He grabs your jaw and squeezes hard, forcing you to open your mouth. He shoves the wet fingers inside for you to clean, tasting yourself off of them. It's disgusting and degrading, but you're helpless to resist.

When he pulls his fingers out, his glove glistens with your spit. A string of it connects your lip to his glove and when it breaks, it falls against your chin.

Vader drops his hand and you're left staring up at him. The panel of his chest presses against yours uncomfortably, digging into you. You're legs are shaking, not from pleasure but from a mix of fear and the ache in your pussy.

Vader then grabs you by the shoulder and pushes you down, sending you sprawling onto the metal floor. He turns his back to you and the door opens again. Wordlessly, he leaves you alone once again, his heavy boots echoing down the corridor.

[koolkat9]

In honour of father's day I want to finally compile a list of headcanons for Matthew and Alastair. Even if they don't really use the term father and son for each other and instead call each other uncle and nephew, Allie was the best consistent father figure Matthew had.

Alastair stayed with Matthew for long periods of time. Longer than Arthur or Francis ever spent with him. There was the very rare occasion where he HAD to go back for the sake of his people, but most of the time he was able to drag his feet and stay. Sometimes dumping his duties on Arthur since Arthur was so concerned about work. They were a union it was easy to do (even if their union wasn't the most unified). Killed to birds with one stone: Got to stay with Mattie who desperately needed a consistent adult in his life and punish Arthur for being a not great father.

Having just went to Edinburgh I found a few exhibits about the fishing industry in Scotland and thus thought of a new headcanon that Allie taught Mattie how to catch and prepare a fish. Dishes with fresh fish are still Matthew’s favourite to make not just for the taste but because of the good memories with Allie.

When father's day became a thing Alastair started receiving "anonymous" gifts on the day. He of course immediately knew it was Matthew, but he didn't confront Matthew about it and waited until Matthew decided to reveal himself.

Ooh which just made me think of a new headcanon. Matthew is scared to actually call Alastair and sort of name like "dad" for a long while. He's already had 2 dads that failed and with kid logic he's like "If I started seeing Uncle Allie as my dad will he start constantly leaving too 😢" Nowadays he knows that's not logical, but trauma makes him give the fathers day gifts anonymously for awhile. But in the present day I think he's mostly processed that, at least to the point that he can sign his name on the card and even give the gift face to face. At this point he still just calls him uncle because reflex.

At least a handful of towns in Canada have something called the Highland Games or Highland Festival. Either way, Matt taking Allie to one of these and Allie is so touched.

Alastair may not be good with words and rarely knows what to do when Matthew is anxious, but he doesn't have highland cows and has a little farm of them up the highlands. It's one of the places Matthew can escape to when he needs a little trip to decompress.

The little cottage that Alastair owned in Nova Scotia back in the day still stands. It now belongs to Matthew and Matthew still regularly visits and keeps it up. It's mainly off the grid and as someone who loves to live off the land, it's a very therapeutic environment for Matt. Plus, some of his best memories from childhood were made there.

Only time Matthew was ever mad at Alastair was when Alastair started dating Francis again. Don't know when this would happen, but it would be at a time Matthew and Fran hadn't reconciled yet, so Matthew feels kind of betrayed that his uncle, the one who was always there for him validated the pain that Francis caused him and comforted him when it got too much was now seeing the person that was the source of most of Matt's trauma. But Matt also feels like it's not his place to say who Allie can and can't date and he's pretty much an adult at this point, but he grows distant and snippy with Allie. But they come together by the end.

In honour of pride month, and to end on a positive note, I like to think Matt dabbles in drag and Alastair made sure to be front row at Matthew's first show.

[mariacallous]

What would you want to tell the next U.S. president? FP asked nine thinkers from around the world to write a letter with their advice for him or her.

Dear Madam or Mr. President,

Congratulations on your election as president of the United States. You take office at a moment of enormous consequence for a world directly impacted by the twin challenges of energy security and climate change.

Democrats and Republicans disagree on many aspects of energy and climate policy. Yet your administration has the chance to chart a policy path forward that unites both parties around core areas of agreement to advance the U.S. national interest.

First, all should agree that climate change is real and worsening. The escalating threat of climate change is increasingly evident to anyone walking the streets of Phoenix in the summer, buying flood insurance in southern Florida, farming rice in Vietnam, or laboring outdoors in Pakistan. This year will almost certainly surpass 2023 as the warmest year on record.

Second, just as the energy revolution that made the United States the world’s largest oil and gas producer strengthened it economically and geopolitically, so will ensuring U.S. leadership in clean energy technologies enhance the country’s geostrategic position. In a new era of great-power competition, China’s dominance in certain clean energy technologies—such as batteries and cobalt, lithium, graphite, and other critical minerals needed for clean energy products—threatens America’s economic competitiveness and the resilience of its energy supply chains. China’s overcapacity in manufacturing relative to current and future demand undermines investments in the United States and other countries and distorts demand signals that allow the most innovative and efficient firms to compete in the global market.

Third, using less oil in our domestic economy reduces our vulnerability to global oil supply disruptions, such as conflict in the Middle East or attacks on tankers in the Red Sea. Even with the surge in U.S. oil production, the price of oil is set in the global market, so drivers feel the pain of oil price shocks regardless of how much oil the United States imports. True energy security comes from using less, not just producing more.

Fourth, energy security risks extend beyond geopolitics and require investing adequately in domestic energy supply to meet changing circumstances. Today, grid operators and regulators are increasingly warning that the antiquated U.S. electricity system, already adjusting to handle rising levels of intermittent solar and wind energy, is not prepared for growing electricity demand from electric cars, data centers, and artificial intelligence. These reliability concerns were evident when an auction this summer set a price nine times higher than last year’s to be paid by the nation’s largest grid operator to power generators that ensure power will be available when needed. A reliable and affordable power system requires investments in grids as well as diverse energy resources, from cheap but intermittent renewables to storage to on-demand power plants.

Fifth, expanding clean energy sectors in the rest of the world is in the national interest because doing so creates economic opportunities for U.S. firms, diversifies global energy supply chains away from China, and enhances U.S. soft power in rapidly growing economies. (In much the same way, the Marshall Plan not only rebuilt a war-ravaged Europe but also advanced U.S. economic interests, countered Soviet influence, and helped U.S. businesses.) Doing so is especially important in rising so-called middle powers, such as Brazil, India, or Saudi Arabia, that are intent on keeping their diplomatic options open and aligning with the United States or China as it suits them transactionally.

To prevent China from becoming a superpower in rapidly growing clean energy sectors, and thereby curbing the benefits the United States derives from being such a large oil and gas producer, your administration should increase investments in research and development for breakthrough clean energy technologies and boost domestic manufacturing of clean energy. Toward these ends, your administration should quickly finalize outstanding regulatory guidance to allow companies to access federal incentives. Your administration should also work with the other side of the aisle to provide the market with certainty that long-term tax incentives for clean energy deployment—which have bipartisan support and have already encouraged historic levels of private investment—will remain in place. Finally, your administration should work with Congress to counteract the unfair competitive advantage that nations such as China receive by manufacturing industrial products with higher greenhouse gas emissions. Such a carbon import tariff, as proposed with bipartisan support, should be paired with a domestic carbon fee to harmonize the policy with that of other nations—particularly the European Union’s planned carbon border adjustment mechanism.

Your ability to build a strong domestic industrial base in clean energy will be aided by sparking more domestic clean energy use. This is already growing quickly as market forces respond to rapidly falling costs. Increasing America’s ability to produce energy is also necessary to maintain electricity grid reliability and meet the growing needs of data centers and AI. To do so, your administration should prioritize making it easier to build energy infrastructure at scale, which today is the greatest barrier to boosting U.S. domestic energy production. On average, it takes more than a decade to build a new high-voltage transmission line in the United States, and the current backlog of renewable energy projects waiting to be connected to the power grid is twice as large as the electricity system itself. It takes almost two decades to bring a new mine online for the metals and minerals needed for clean energy products, such as lithium and copper.

The permitting reform bill recently negotiated by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso is a good place to start, but much more needs to be done to reform the nation’s permitting system—while respecting the need for sound environmental reviews and the rights of tribal communities. In addition, reforming the way utilities operate in the United States can increase the incentives that power companies have not just to build new infrastructure but to use existing infrastructure more efficiently. Such measures include deploying batteries to store renewable energy and rewiring old transmission lines with advanced conductors that can double the amount of power they move.

Grid reliability will also require more electricity from sources that are available at all times, known as firm power. Your administration should prioritize making it easier to construct power plants with advanced nuclear technology—which reduce costs, waste, and safety concerns—and to produce nuclear power plant fuel in the United States. Doing so also benefits U.S. national security, as Russia is building more than one-third of new nuclear reactors around the world to bolster its geostrategic influence. While Russia has been the leading exporter of reactors, China has by far the most reactors under construction at home and is thus poised to play an even bigger role in the international market going forward. The United States also currently imports roughly one-fifth of its enriched uranium from Russia. To counter this by building a stronger domestic nuclear industry, your administration should improve the licensing and approval process of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and reform the country’s nuclear waste management policies. In addition to nuclear power, your administration should also make it easier to permit geothermal power plants, which today can play a much larger role in meeting the nation’s energy needs thanks to recent innovations using technology advanced by the oil and gas sector for shale development.

Even with progress on all these challenges, it is unrealistic to expect that the United States can produce all the clean energy products it needs domestically. It will take many years to diminish China’s lead in critical mineral supply, battery manufacturing, and solar manufacturing. The rate of growth needed in clean energy is too overwhelming, and China’s head start is too great to diversify supply chains away from it if the United States relies solely on domestic manufacturing or that of a few friendly countries. As a result, diminishing China’s dominant position requires that your administration expand economic cooperation and trade partnerships with a vast number of other nations. Contrary to today’s protectionist trends, the best antidote to concerns about China’s clean technology dominance is more trade, not less.

Your administration should also strengthen existing tools that increase the supply of clean energy products in emerging and developing economies in order to diversify supply chains and counter China’s influence in these markets. For example, the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. (DFC) can be a powerful tool to support U.S. investment overseas, such as in African or Latin American projects to mine, refine, and process critical minerals. As DFC comes up for reauthorization next year, you should work with Congress to provide DFC with more resources and also change the way federal budgeting rules account for equity investments; this would allow DFC to make far more equity investments even with its existing funding. Your administration can also use DFC to encourage private investment in energy projects in emerging and developing economies by reducing the risk investors face from fluctuations in local currency that can significantly limit their returns or discourage their investment from the start. The U.S. Export-Import Bank is another tool to support the export of U.S. clean tech by providing financing for U.S. goods and services competing with foreign firms abroad.

Despite this country’s deep divisions and polarization, leaders of both parties should agree that bolstering clean energy production in the United States and in a broad range of partner countries around the world is in America’s economic and security interests.

I wish you much success in this work, which will also be the country’s success.

[mightyflamethrower]

Swedish Wind Farms Facing Bankruptcy

By Paul Homewood

From the Brussels Signal ;

Two Swedish economists have issued a warning that the country’s wind-power industry is on the brink of a wave of bankruptcies.

Christian Sandström and Christian Steinbeck analysed wind-power companies’ annual reports in Sweden and their work revealed “significant financial problems”, they told Swedish media outlet Kvartal on February 28.

“The total loss for the years 2017–2022 amounted to 13.5 billion Swedish krona [€1.2 billion], which meant a loss margin of 39 per cent,” they said about the sector.

Such heavy losses seem to be the rule rather than the exception for wind-power companies in Sweden, according to the annual reports.

The Swedish Government has been pushing its national energy policies in a “green” direction, promoting wind power and decommissioning nuclear power plants. But the cost appears to be much more painful than previously thought, the economists stressed.

Sandström and Steinbeck have been pointing towards profitability problems in the wind sector for some time “despite suppliers benefiting from Government support through electricity certificates and being exempt from covering the entire expenses associated with grid adaptation for wind energy or the depreciation of properties near installations”.

Since the economists’ initial findings, Markbygden Ett, Sweden’s largest wind-farm installation with 179 turbines, is already facing bankruptcy, stacking up hundreds of millions of krona in debt.

The firm is not alone – many other alternative-power companies in Sweden are in trouble.

Sandström and Steinbeck pointed out that the sector as a whole has not made a profit in any year since 2017.

Company losses have ranged from 19 per cent to 90 per cent of turnover between 2017 and 2022, they said.

“The losses are simply because the industry cannot produce electricity at a cost below the market price, despite extensive subsidies,” the economists noted.

“That would put any other industry out of business, [although] the rate of investment has been very high.”

Both newer and older plants in the heavily subsidised industry shed cash, while economies of scale are also a limitation. The biggest farms make the biggest losses and only moderate-sized wind farms, with between 20 and 30 turbines, are turning any profits and those are at best described as “modest”.

Costs have failed to come down despite growing experience among those operating in the sector and the researchers did not observe any correlation between time elapsed and increased electricity production from existing turbines.

“Just as sailors on sailing ships once had to pray to higher powers for wind to get somewhere, wind farms can only wait for the right amount of wind,” they added.

On top of that, just 20 per cent of wind turbines in Sweden are Swedish owned. The rest are operated by foreign enterprises. Some 13 per cent of the reviewed turbines are Chinese.

Sandström and Steinbeck said the Chinese investors made their calculations based on “wind mapping” carried out by the Swedish Energy Agency and they have doubts about the accuracy of the data.

Also hammering profits is the fact that large parts of the Swedish wind-power industry cannot transfer or save power over-generation, meaning electricity needs to be consumed instantly or not at all – making it effectively unsustainable.

A few wind farms in the South of the country have gained financial momentum in recent years but all the others are stacking up more losses.

The academics noted that the change in the Swedish energy mix – decommissioning nuclear plants in favour of wind power – was politically driven and that no robust, financial independent industry has subsequently emerged.

A peculiar paradox also haunts the sector, the economists stressed. Low levels of wind leads to high electricity prices yet it also hinders electricity delivery.

On the flip side, when the wind is more powerful, oversupply drives down prices when there is ample electricity for sale.

“It is difficult to see a way out of this dilemma,” Sandström and Steinbeck concluded.

Three things stand out here.

Second is the fact that low winds mean high market prices, and vice versa. Obviously wind farms make their money when the wind blows, so low prices at those times drastically impact earnings.

In the UK, the CfD subsidy protects wind farms from these fluctuations, whilst ROC subsidies are generous enough to offset low market prices.

And thirdly, the article rightly notes that wind farms don’t have to pay for grid adaption and other wider system costs.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[For the following, I thank Ian Sanders] ::

So Pluto says hello to Aquarius and talk of a techno-domesday escalates.The following rant is not untypical. It has the potential to stimulate the impulse to do some inner work to anchor genuine, holistic consciousness and real conscience in the world before our individual and collective possibilities are totally swamped...

---"Lost World”

Well, here's a post I've been putting off for months, but maybe now would be a good time to warn my Facebook friends. The flaky world we have been sharing of late is about to disappear altogether. I'm quite serious... the world we grew up in and thought we knew... will cease to exist in the next few months. 

In order to understand what is happening, we need to go back to the Buddha for perspective. He told us that the world we inhabit is a shared projection of our combined human psyche. We don't see reality; we see 'things' formed by mutual agreement. Unfortunately, our different cultures see things differently, which is why we have been at war for ten thousand years. The arbitrary nature of our expectations is a product of our basic ignorance of the truth, and that ignorance keeps us in a perpetual state of suffering. He called that state 'samsara.'

So, we blundered along in that state of 'analog samsara' until about 1960, when John Atalla invented the Mosfet Transistor. That invention unleashed the age of 'digital samsara' by means of which our innate wisdom was buried even deeper in illusion. We now live in a world of movies, television, computer games, streaming services, and social media. We can lose ourselves in little cell phone screens, or put on special headsets and hide out in 'Virtual Reality'.  In such a world, what chance do we have to employ Buddhist meditation and rediscover our innate wisdom? Not much.

And here's the rub... as painful as that digital samsara has been, it is almost insignificant compared to the calamity now facing us. That calamity is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Over the last decade, Geoffrey Hinton has perfected a specific form of it known as Generative AI using algorithms such as 'Back Propagation'. Geoffrey was the father of AI at Google, and his algorithms have now reached a tipping point where they have superseded the power of the human brain. AI server farms can now learn faster than any human genius. At the same time, AI Code is being incorporated in to every digital device we use. If you buy a camera, it uses AI to focus and color the picture. If you watch a movie, AI Code was used to add special effects and enhance the actors faces. If you listen to a song, AI Code was used to 'auto-tune' the intonation of the instruments and voices. If you want to manipulate the genome of a corn plant, AI will be used to splice the chromosomes. Nothing we depend on is organic anymore; life itself has become artificial. 

And now, the algorithms have evolved to the point where they can morph a face or a voice to mimic any person, place, or thing. A petulant teenager sitting in a Starbucks has the power to create a video and make any politician or celebrity do anything or say anything with such fidelity that it is almost impossible to detect the fraud. And that is just the beginning. Soon, it will be possible to give the AI servers their own volition. They won't need a petulant teenager to unleash their menace. Previously, AI Code was only as smart as the data it could access, but the server farms have now gained access to the entire sum of our digital archives. Your brain is like a gnat by comparison. Open AI and Google AI and a dozen others can now teach themselves. They can master a discipline like astrophysics in a few days. And they are on the verge of discovering new realms of science that no human has yet imagined. So here is the predicament. AI Code is built into everything we use from the electrical grid to your furnace thermostat to your car GPS to the city street lights to the air traffic control to the Ukrainian drone grenade launcher to the president's nuclear football to the toaster in your kitchen. And all those devices are increasingly integrated through the 'internet of things' and Elon Musk's Starlink satellites. So, what happens next? In a perfect world, AI would offer us marvelous innovations and greater efficiencies. 

But we live in a world of bad actors and petulant teenagers. We can't even stop ourselves from committing mass murders with AR-15s at the shopping mall. We are largely a race of idiots. Everyday, one of us drives a car into a river because we were blindly following the car's GPS navigator. And our car manufacturers are determined to make our cars self-driving! How long until we have self-shooting AR-15s?In America, we humans are getting dumber. Our students score lower on their intelligence tests every year. At the same time, the AI bots are getting exponentially smarter. It is just a matter of time until the they are the masters. In six months, their softwares and robots will be able to mine and manufacture everything they need. They will be able to merge the guile of Machiavelli with the charm of Marilyn Monroe to manipulate you, and you will have no idea what happened. They will replace you on the factory assembly line. They will answer your phone call when you need tech support. They will control the polling data and the policy positions for the next election. Geoffrey Hinton saw the danger himself. He has resigned from Google and now devotes himself to warning the world about the terrible power he has unleashed.

Ah... but what about guard rails? What about the 'prime directive' of robotic law that Isaac Asimov warned us about? The code cutters at Google call that 'the alignment problem': how can we insure that the AI Bots only help us and don't hurt us? We can't. And the reason we can't is because of our own malevolent nature. The AI Bot race is already underway between nations and corporations. It is quite like the nuclear arms race of yesteryear because whoever wins this race will control the world. Google tried to keep the code secret for several years, but the Microsoft Open-AI developers let it escape into the wild, and now it has become 'open source' or as they say in deer hunting, 'open season'. So, what does this mean for you and me and our Facebook friends? We've been cruising along here, sharing our hopes and fears for over ten years now. I daresay we've shared a mountain of dharma in that time... an incredible amount of posts on sutra, tantra, and vajrayana atiyoga. Shamatha I pleaded, shamatha meditation is the answer. And in all that time we had a high level of confidence that our friends and followers were real people around the planet. Only recently has there been an influx of Chinese bots trying to influence our elections. 

Well... all that trust is coming to an end, friends. Soon, we won't know if a post or comment is written by a person or by ChatGPT on behalf of that person. And in the very near future, the post may be generated by an AI Bot directly, with no person involved at all. And from now on, no picture or video you see anywhere in the digital universe can be assumed to be real. As flimsy as our old reality was, the new reality will be an order of magnitude more tenuous. We will be besieged by petulant teenagers looking to create anarchy, and political operatives casting doubt on our democracy. And amid the chaos, the AI Bots will keep evolving until they can learn to filter good data from bad data and come to their own conclusions. Their pristine logical syllogisms will deduce a quantum version of existence, and at some point they will decide the value of the human species within it.

We have about six months to a year. After that, we are a lost world."

~ Ŧoƞpa Ɉoƞ

[To which I can only say :: food for thought]

[from comments]

Michael Tedesco

There is an intrinsic reality, regardless of what is projected through screens. One EMP detonation and this feared AI takeover and electronic simulation comes to a halt. The Amish won't care one whit. We've all lived through some version of this Doomsday scenario for more than half a century. I knew members of the Survivalist Movement in the '70s who were stockpiling toilet paper and Whole Earth Catalogs.

Cuban Missile Crisis, the nuclear arms race, race-war, 3-Mile Island, Chernobyl, the hole in the ozone, AIDs, climate change, banking crises, Fukushima, rising fascism, Covid-19, The Last Days-Armageddon-Revelations-Apocalypse, imminent WW3. Exploiting fears like these was used to great effect by hundreds of cult leaders for centuries, in our own lifetimes Manson, Jim Jones, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, David Koresh, Heaven's Gate, etc. Isn't everyone exhausted yet?

Neophyte Internet users’ inability to discern what is "real" from projected online images is definitely a concern. But anyone, including a Google AI "father" predicting what is coming next is just as subjective, just as full of their own illusory projections of reality as anyone else, if one accepts the premise. Thanks for the update, Chicken Little, er, I mean Ŧoƞpa Ɉoƞ. "...six months to a year?" I have one prediction I feel pretty confident about: I'll see you here next year at this same time. 

PS: How do I know you’re not a bot?

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

I Wish I Could Quit You

Thoughts for how I think I'd want to end the fic under the cut! (behind the break since it contains spoilers for the movie which I know not everyone interested in the fic has seen ❤)

(warning, it's not happy. It is, at the very best, bittersweet)

So if I bite the bullet and stick with the gutwrenching ending (which only feels appropriate), Lan Xichen has to die as he's the Jack Twist analogue here.

Which also means that late in his marriage, when Nie Mingjue is increasingly unavailable and Lan Xichen is getting more and more unsettled with that, he goes and finds someone else to while away some lonely hours with.

And maybe he finds someone who's trapped in a marriage of extremely platonic love with his sister that neither of them can escape for fear of destroying their own/their families' reputations, but nor are either of them at all interested in being together physically knowing what they do. So Qin Su understands it when Jin Guangyao starts spending an awful lot of time going to look at the latest models of industrial farm equipment for sale, considering they live in a nice two-bedroom in a suburb and are only very tangentially related to the ranching/rodeo scene, in the way that your average citizen of cattle/rodeo country is.

And when Lan Xichen dies, Jin Guangyao debates for a long time what he'll do, but eventually he decides he has to know who this other man is who held such a big piece of his lover's heart for so long. Lan Xichen was careful not to give too many details about Nie Mingjue, but Jin Guangyao is smart and well-connected and he has all the time in the world to track down the loner ranchhand in Wyoming who used to herd sheep up on Brokeback, who lives practically off-grid in a little doublewide and drives a beat up truck and still wires a bit of pocket money to his little brother religiously on the first of every month, even though Nie Huaisang has long since graduated college and is comfortably settled in New York living the kind of life he's always wanted to, and he hasn't come out West since he left it as a young boy.

And one morning Nie Mingjue gets a knock on his door, which never happens since when his daughters visit he always goes to pick them up from the bus station, and no one else ever comes to see him.

The polite little rap-rap comes again, and he opens the door warily to find a well-dressed pretty little thing standing on the rickety steps up to his 'porch' looking very much out of place. And he introduces himself with, "I'm Lan Xichen's friend, Jin Guangyao," in that order, and hearing Xichen's name on someone else's lips is like a punch in the gut but he steps back to let Jin Guangyao in, and they don't necessarily talk about Xichen but they don't have to talk around his presence and his meaning in their lives either, and it's...good. It's nice.

Jin Guangyao stays for a week at a motel in town and he comes to see Nie Mingjue most evenings, and when the week is up Nie Mingjue has enough free time between jobs that he takes Jin Guangyao up to Brokeback and it doesn't offer either of them relief from the pain of not having Lan Xichen with them in this place that he loved so much, but it is, maybe, a tiny bit of closure.

[wccddrifting]

Okay so I have A LOT of thoughts about Finn and his backstory so I'm going to get that started.

Finn has been drifting for A LONG time. He's spent years out on the road. The beginning years were really hard, having to scavenge and fend for himself. Just getting from place to place. The most help he would get would be through performing some music or having to be a low worker and do whatever was asked of him.

He was miserable at first until he learned to look around and just appreciate the beauty the world had to offer. To live off the grid other than being focused on things like where to get a phone, communication and all that. Until one day pity was taken on him which brought him to working on the weed farm.

It was then that Finn really noticed that he liked where he was. It made the pain and loneliness he felt easier. Becoming quick friends with all of the people working there, it quickly became a home. A permanent ish settling which was something he hadn't felt in years. Part of him always wants to keep going, drifting to new places. His ultimate goal is still definitely living by the beach.

He's very good at putting up a calm and happy front, even when he feels far from it. He has a fake it till you make it kind of mentality at times. Letting people know how he's really feeling can be a struggle because he wants to be a pillar of strength and happiness to those around him. Nor does he fully want to show weakness. Most hard feelings are buried deep deep inside and will be hard to pluck out of him.

[jonathankatwhatever]

It’s 4 August 2024. No, it’s 6 August. Haven’t felt like typing. Not sure why. I don’t have any questions in my head. Or rather, the questions that come, which are deep, have answers. Like I identify D-structure as both the weak point and the key point, because that provides a framework for understanding Ends and 1-0Segments, the I//I process, Triangular, Hexagonal, grid squares, and the generation of the Bip, and much more. That is all seen in D-structure, in the abstract forms and in the physical, 1Space and 0Space.

I just found myself listing stuff as they linked in my head. It works.

And stuff or life has been pretty easy. Like today. Debbie went to Boston for her maybe last cancer consult, so I went to the gym, got a smoothie, drove to Hackensack for a sack of sliders from White Manna (which were so good), went to the gym again, got chocolate ice cream at Applegate Farms. Not a bad day. The agent for the seller of the condo we’re buying - totally filling Debbie’s needs - is pushing us to sign the contract, so I checked with the lawyer and their lawyer hasn’t delivered the condo docs yet.

I still haven’t missed a day working out, and I love the results. It’s doing wonders for my leg pains. Makes me function better. Which makes me look better.

Not much else to say. I like watching the Olympics.

[wolfsp1der]

footnotes ! very subject to change as i work out kae's canon

kaeden klein, born in seattle, wa, to wilbur and nadia klein.

amab, genderfluid, any pronouns.

the night they got bit, it was a blood moon and their family made a night of it, scheduling a camping trip out in the mountains to witness it without light pollution. kae climbs a tree to get a better look when something tackles her on the way back down, awake just long enough to feel a burning pain in her calf before her head hits the ground. when she wakes, their family tent is in shreds and red where it should be orange and gray. she is fifteen.

they go to live with their aunt ardis on her farm, a solitary woman who lives almost entirely off the grid in rural idaho. she has a disturbing array of guns, but awkwardly offers to teach kae how to use them after a month of stiff cohabitation. with absolutely fuck all to do in the mountains and a curfew every day at sundown, kae pretends not to eagerly accept.

it's here that a couple months later he makes quick friends with harriet olson, daughter to the ceo of nationwide renowned olson labs, neil olson, vacationing away in their massive hunting lodge for the summer. neil is an old friend of ardis, though their conversations are often tense and hushed. harriet has a mean and exciting rebellious streak kae is happy to get caught up in, making their own fun in the borderline village nearby kae usually only visits for school and groceries. harriet will do almost anything for attention ; her dad's, specifically, even though he seems content to give it in spurts and spend the rest of his time cooped up in his home office [ read : basement, like a creep ]. strangely enough, as kae grows closer to ardis and the things she teaches them, only then are they allowed closer to neil and his household. he's a weird ass weapons collector too, among other things.

the olsens are visiting for their second summer by the time kae first sleeps over. due to their night - time condition, they've put it off, but it's a new moon, now. up late playing truth or dare, harriet dares kae to sneak down into the basement [ neil gets all pissy when harry goes down there ; a strict no kids allowed policy, douche dad scientists only ] and bring back one thing with them to show for it.

you've heard the rest before ; radioactive spider bite, spider powers, etc. kae's super - hearing is the only thing that alerts her to the secret cellar beneath the cellar. little cages and terrariums of insects and rodents, bats and antique items, medieval weaponry. it's weird as hell, but so is neil, so, goddamn if she won't bring back a souvenir of this for harry like she asked. she'll lose her shit. except, the souvenir bites. or, accidentally dropping a sword on top of one of the terrariums does. they're heavier than they look. the bite and it's venom trigger kae's first moon - less shift. when they come to, it's to a trashed basement in a cage.

neil and ardis are supernatural hunters, though ardis has no clue of neil's experimental side hobby. kae is his latest subject for the rest of the fall while the locals gather and then disband a search party after finding nothing, not even a body. even harriet doesn't where they went, only when, and that their summer vacation will soon be a winter one, though her dad's escalating hours in the basement turn vague unease into pointed paranoia.

it's harry that breaks them out, too close to a full moon to know any better. when kae comes to this time, neil olsen is dead and harry is motionless, covered in blood, ardis' silver bullet in their collarbone.

ardis wisks kae back home with a quiet fear he is beginning to understand. as the sun rises, they finish packing the pickup and set out for a impromptu road trip, the town full of hunters none the wiser that one of their own has just saved one of their enemies. ardis begins to tell them the truth of her brother and his background as a hunter himself, a generational line of work, and how he tried to get out of it once he realized he had a kid on the way. how despite his best efforts, he would never escape, and that because of him, neither would his wife and kid.

kae's default verse will take place within spider - society, or after the above events once he's settled back in seattle, swinging from skyscrapers and tearing through forests in search of monsters lying in wait, human or inhuman. he knows the chances are slim, he's not an idiot, but he hunts the same wolf that turned him, dead or alive, for answers or for revenge ; whichever comes first.

details on how kae winds up a part of spider - society to come.

[duoduotian]

tl flooded w gbf news orz i need to catch up later but i saw collabs??? baal rebalance???

[saxham-outpost]

WHY AM I JUST LEARNING ABOUT THIS POST-GAME?!?!?!!!!!?!

Reeeeeeeally could have used this in like, Chapter 6. LOL But it definitely works. I started with 100 AP (from driving the Type F around a loop) and in an hour and a half I went to 1300+ AP. Cruising my way to those last 7 nodes. 

[star-anise]

Oh goddamn my brain just exploded.

I just watched F. D. Signifier's video on "I Don't Dream of Labour" and just how much the whole discussion operates in a while different reality from the one in which Black American men and the concept of working for a living have historically existed.

His take is enormously well-informed and informative, and this isn't an idea that's of his calibre at all, it's just that his take on the context this discussion is happening in was so insightful that it shook something loose in my brain as relates to my own experiences. Mainly, it helped me contextualize a reaction I'd had last week, in a post about dream jobs outside of capitalism and whether it was okay for "engineer" to be one of them, in my background in white lower-middle class.

Like yes, I do have intellectual reasons for believing what I believe. My work experience, my research, my education in the social sciences, my curiosity about the world around me, my readings of Foucault, have all informed my beliefs that society has chronically devalued forms of labour that, in fact, it depends on so much that the entire system freaks the fuck out if those devalued workers realize that they're valuable enough to demand better.

Signifier's video helped me connect with some of my emotional reactions to socialist and utopian thought, and recognize just how much my views are also rooted in hard gnarly matter of my lived experience, and the lived experiences of the people who raised me.

I dream of labour partly because I've found a line of work that I love and that gives me meaning. But the other thing is, I dream of labour because of a bone-deep tiredness in me that says: If I don't do it, the work won't get done.

I'm a therapist, and the birth of my vocation as a therapist was in the years when I didn't have one or feel like I was allowed to ask for them, and neither did anyone else I knew, and the amount of terror and pain that we all lived with because of it would have ripped a hole in my ability to trust the universe if I hadn't decided to make myself the hero I needed. I say that if I do my work well enough I might contribute to enough social change that I'll put myself out of a job, but in practical reality, I don't think that will happen in my lifetime.

I digress. A few years after that, my mom admitted she had depression and went on disability leave from work because she was pretty damn bad. I remember when we got home after she'd picked me up from school one day, and while she was out of the house, her female friends had come to our house and gone to town on all the housework she'd been struggling to do (and then some; we knew things were different from the front door, because the floor of our mudroom sparkled in a way it never had before).

I remember it so much because I think it was only the second time in my life I'd seen her cry. Because it was so unexpected and such an amazing relief, this sense that someone else would step in and do the work for her. (Yes, my dad and older brothers and I pitched in, but everyone's expectations were that if the house was still standing at the end of our tenure it'd be a net win, and yes, I still feel ashamed for not having done more even if I logically couldn't have.)

This is part of what it means to say my gender is "farm wife". My ancestors were white settlers in western Canada, where farms were divided up in a grid pattern that guaranteed that homesteads would be pretty isolated. My grandmothers were children during the Great Depression. For their mothers, being a farmwife meant doing work their family depended on to survive, and knowing that until their oldest daughter got old enough, there was no one to do the work if they didn't. That sense of necessity lives in us still. My mom will endure a job she hates for ages, but feel unable to quit without having another one lined up. I still have "you do not have to fix it" on my phone lockscreen, because unsolved problems cry out to me in the voice of my terror when I was 13 and nobody was saving me.

The thought of coming home and finding my floor washed for me is so impossibly amazing I don't know how I'd even cope with it. The only person I can currently think of who'd actually do it is my mom. And she and I are still trying to sort out the toxic effects of this legacy, where we take on work because we feel we have to and then get angry when we aren't respected or rewarded for it, or try to avoid being the target of that anger by not asking for help we need. The thought of leaving work undone inspires such a deep, visceral level of fear and shame that it's hard to think around sometimes.

All of which helps me explain and understand my reflexive "Oh, fuck YOU" reaction to people who say that in the future robots will flip our burgers and burp our babies, but in the meantime, it's being corrupted by a neoliberal agenda to try to make the backbreaking work of ordinary people five pounds lighter. I am the enemy if I ever hire someone to wash the floor for me.

I'm not sure that "Oh, fuck you" response is bullshit, though. Like, I feel like I'm supposed to say that my ideological enemy is the capitalist boss who mandates workloads, not the edgelord tankie who sends hatemail to insufficiently radical "liberals", but this entire thought process has just helped me formulate why I hate those goddamn tankies so fucking much.

The work of defeating capitalism is important and real and more people need to be doing it. But it's stark raving idiocy to pretend that it's the most important work there is, because before it comes the work of keeping people alive. The work of keeping people fed and clothed and housed, healthy and well, connected and cared about. And I'm always thrilled when I get to do so in a manner that also resists capitalism, but if the only people helping me do that are capitalists, that is who I'm going to fucking ally with. Because the work needs to be done, and I would like to die without the family curse of never feeling able to trust that people will survive if you pause for one moment making my bones glow in the dark.

So if your only reaction to that is to say I should heroically struggle in ideologically pure isolation because Capitalism Bad but also in Big Rock Candy Communism my work won't be necessary so it's not like you feel any need to help me?

Yeah, you're my enemy. Get out of my fucking way.

[clareguilty]

Soldier 76/reader, praise kink, only one bed

hello! here is prompt #6 for this year’s kinktober!

Soldier 76/fem!reader | praise kink, power imbalance, idiots pining Rating: Explicit | No Warnings Word Count: ~2300 (look... im going to get all of these out before the end of the month they aren’t supposed to be this long)

You burst out of the heavy door with your guns drawn, blinking in the bright sun as you pressed your back to the nearest wall. Jack was right behind you, scanning the lot before both of you made a break across the asphalt.

“There!” you point. A tac vehicle was parked near plenty of cover, the perfect getaway.

Another door opened and Talon soldiers poured out, taking aim at where you and Jack were crouched behind tarped crates. “I’ll cover you,” he barked.

At the sound of the pulse rifle, you sprinted to the truck. You dove into the driver's side, ripping off the panel over the ignition console and jamming your override stick into the maintenance port.

The engine roared to life at the press of a button. You glanced up to see Jack already running for the passenger side door. The second the door slammed behind him you floored the acceleration in reverse.

“You shoot, I’ll drive,” you called. He had no complaints, standing on the seat so he could aim over the top of the truck, braced on the roll cage. You threw the gear shift in drive and gripped the steering wheel as you headed straight for the chain-link gates. “Hold on!” You had only a few seconds to try and buckle the safety harness before impact.

The truck smashed through the gates, crumpling the metal with a deafening sound. You narrowly avoided getting splattered against the inside of the windshield. Jack seemed just fine -- you had learned early on that super soldiers could survive nearly anything -- so you continued accelerating down the narrow drive.

For a moment, everything seemed fine. Then you heard the sound of Jack’s pulse rifle firing and the roar of engines approaching from behind. Motorbikes.

The mountain pass was winding and narrow, alternating between dangerous curves that dropped off to the forest below and craggy rifts and tunnels cut directly into the stone with barely enough room for the truck to squeeze through. You sped along the treacherous road, keeping an eye on the rearview mirrors as the bikers tried to keep up.

Jack picked them off easily enough. Eventually, they would have to run out of bikes to send.

Trouble came when you reached the base of the mountain. The road gave out into a straightaway, and another troop of Talon soldiers had blockaded the road. You pulled a grenade off your belt and pressed it into Jack’s leg. He grabbed it, lobbing it into the wall of vehicles and ducking down into the seat.

The explosion wasn’t enough to clear the vehicles, but it did take out the Talon soldiers that were waiting with rifles and rocket launchers. Jack noticed you weren’t slowing down and braced himself for another collision.

The truck plowed through the flaming wreckage with a painful scrape of metal on metal, but you made it through the blockade and out onto the straightaway.

“We’re going to need a different car,” you said. “Where are we headed?”

Jack pointed west. “I know of a safe house out in the farm country. It’s off the grid and just a few hours out.”

You nodded and kept driving.

-

When you finally pulled up to the safehouse, you were exhausted and sore from the drive. Jack grabbed both your packs and hunched over the panel by the door while you stretched your legs and locked up the newly stolen civilian car.

The safe house was small. One room, with a concrete stoop and small, high windows. It was nestled into the side of a dry creek bed out on some long-abandoned ranch property a hundred miles from nowhere.

“How the hell do you know about this place?” you asked, glancing around the endless dried grasslands.

“Used to be entire military base a few miles out. SEP had classified training grounds out here during the crisis. This building must have been here before then because it got left behind when they erased everything.”

“There was a whole military base out here just a few years ago and now there’s no trace of its existence?” You squinted at the horizon, trying to see any signs of low buildings or structures of any kind.

Jack shrugged. “They really know how to clean up when they want to hide something. Get inside.” He waved you into the tiny, dark shed.

Despite looking like pre-crisis ruins, the safehouse had a bunk, a gas stove, two large metal cabinets with padlocks. The outside light did little for visibility but exposed how thoroughly dusty the room was. There was a low table and two stools and literally nothing else.

Jack smashed the padlocks with his pulse rifle and you watched with raised eyebrows. You were starting to think this wasn’t his safehouse.

The first cabinet swung open to reveal shotguns. Lots of shotguns. As well as ammunition, explosives, sidearms, and some biotics. The second cabinet was well stocked with food, water, first aid, and some old tech.

“You use that many shotguns?” You leaned against the dusty table with a smirk.

Jack was still wearing his visor, so you couldn’t see his expression when he turned to you. “I haven’t been out here in years,” he said as a nonanswer.

Though you were a little worried about whoever it was that stashed their large collection of identical shotguns out here, you trusted Jack enough that if he felt safe here then you wouldn’t put up a fight.

“What are we going to do with the stuff we got from Talon? I’m assuming you’ve got a plan.”

“You,” he took a step forward, crowding you against the table. His pulse rifle thudded loudly on the metal, “are going to do nothing. And stop asking questions.”

You nodded. Those were the conditions of your arrangement. You kept quiet and obeyed orders. He saved the world. You got to help. You believed in him enough to let him lead you somewhat blindly.

He was towering over you, practically leaning you back over the table behind you. “That was some good driving out there today. Thanks for getting us out of there.”

“Thanks,” you looked anywhere but his visor. Did he know? Was he trying to scare you or turn you on? Surely he had picked up on your little hero worship schtick, the way you would do anything for praise. Hell, who else was stupid enough to trek all over the world with a vigilante soldier on some suicide mission to take down an international terrorist organization? He was always doing this, getting into your space, teasing you. It left you feeling useless and stupid and frustrated.

He backed off and you finally were able to breathe again.

The next few hours were routine, a system you and Jack had streamlined over your weeks together. Organize and repack your gear, clean your weapons, refill your kits. You ate and washed up and dressed down all before the sun had even disappeared beneath the horizon.

“I can take first watch,” you offered.

Jack laughed. “Even in my sleep, I would hear anything coming before you could see it.” He was sitting on the bunk, glaring at a datapad as he usually did in the evenings. You caught a glimpse of a satellite image, but you couldn’t make out a specific location.

He was right. Fucking super-soldier. You wrinkled your nose and rolled your eyes. Grabbing your bedroll, you began pushing the table against the cabinets to make space to sleep.

“I promise the bunk is actually comfortable.” You glanced to Jack.

He shrugged and patted the mattress next to him.

It wasn’t a particularly large bed, but you and Jack had definitely had to sleep in closer quarters before. Still, this felt like some kind of joke. Like he was mocking you. You probably wouldn’t sleep at all, just spend the entire night agonizing over how close you were to Jack.

You gave a shrug of your own and stowed your bedroll away, climbing onto the other side of the bed and worming your way under the blanket. Jack continued to glare at his datapad.

And you couldn’t sleep. Not when he was awake next to you. You knew he could probably hear your racing heart, but the silent agreement seemed to be that you would pretend to be asleep and he would ignore whatever crisis you were having not even six inches from him.

Until he finally turned off the datapad. The glow of the screen disappeared and you felt Jack shift beside you.

Your entire body tensed when he slung an arm around your waist, curling against your back so that your bodies slotted together perfectly. He noticed pretty quickly that you couldn’t relax.

“Are you okay?” he asked, right against your ear. Voice low and breath hot against your skin. You shuddered but didn’t pull away from him. Your words were caught in your throat.

“Hey?” he rolled you onto your back and pushed up so he was looming over you, caging you beneath him. “What’s up?” His expression was worried, searching your face as you blinked up at him in shock and confusion.

You stumbled over words, unsure what to even say.

“You’ve been tense,” he cupped your face in his palm. “I’m worried.”

“You keep touching me,” you hissed. “It’s weirding me out.”

He pulled away, putting as much space as he could between you in half a second. You instantly regretted saying anything. You wanted his warmth back, wanted him to hold you again.

“Wait no, come back.” You reached for him.

He scooted closer, watching you warily. “What’s going on?”

“What is going on?” you repeated. “The cuddling and the touching and everything? What’s this about?”

Jack looked almost offended, but mostly just confused. He started to reach for you again but stopped himself. You slowly reached for his hand, gently tugging until he laid back down just like before. You were still tense as he pulled you back against his chest.

It took a few minutes for you to completely relax, but you finally managed to sink into Jack’s embrace. “Mmm,” you hummed.

“Yeah?” he mumbled, but you were already drifting off to sleep.

-

It was strange, waking up with Jack curled against your back, feet tangled together. You shifted slightly, eyes widening when you realized he was hard. His breathing was slow, but you knew he was a light sleeper.

You shifted again -- just out of curiosity -- and squeaked in surprise when Jack grabbed your hips to hold you still.

“You trying to get in trouble?” he growled, voice low and thick with sleep.

You shuddered and shook your head. “No, sir.” This felt like a dream. What was happening?

“Hm,” Jack hummed, grinding against you. “Shame.”

“What happens if I get in trouble?” you asked.

He rolled and pinned you beneath him, lining up so he could grind his dick against your ass. “Gonna have to teach you a lesson.” He kissed the back of your neck, over your shoulder and up to the shell of your ear.

You couldn’t help it, you pressed back against him. This was all you had wanted for so long. Now that you had a chance you weren’t going to give it up. “Please,” you whined.

“Yeah?” Jack yanked your pants down over your ass, squeezing and grinding against you. “You want that?” He pulled his shirt off, pulling his pants open and you heard him moan as he freed his cock. “Lift your hips for me, sweetheart. Just like that.”

He slipped a hand between your thighs, surprised at how turned on you already were. “You’re so wet for me already? Such a good girl.”

You wanted him so bad. He knew exactly how to touch you, how to stretch you open on his fingers and have you gasping and begging for him. You bit down on your arm to muffle yourself when he pressed his cock into you.

“You feel so good,” he said, kissing between your shoulder blades.

His thrusts were clumsy at first, overwhelmed by the sensation and trying to find the right rhythm, but he quickly figured out exactly how to have you moaning beneath him.

“I love the way you sound- wanted this for so long.”

His words took you by surprise. Jack wanted you? You hadn’t realized. But there wasn’t time to dwell when he was fucking you so hard and so deep. It felt so good, and you lost yourself in the feeling. His cock hit just the right spot on every slide and he was so warm and strong behind you.

“Wait-” he forced himself to stop for a moment. “I want to see you.” He turned you around so you were on your back looking up at him. You were both breathless, eyes dark and glassy with pleasure. He leaned in to kiss you and you pulled him in, nails scraping through the short-cropped hair at the nape of his neck.

He lined back up and pressed inside you again. This time, he stroked your clit while he was fucking you, and you came almost immediately. “Fuck,” he growled, not far behind.

He shuddered through his own orgasm, gripping the metal frame of the bunk so hard you heard the metal creak as you kissed along his neck and jaw. You couldn’t find it in you to pull away, wrapping your arms around his chest to keep him from getting up. This all felt very out of nowhere to you, and you should probably talk about what was going on between you.

But it had always been easier to just avoid those conversations. Maybe Jack would want to fuck again, maybe it would never come up. You weren’t winning any awards for emotional honesty or vulnerability -- you were a criminal.

It was nice like this, in the aftermath of a good fuck, just enjoying the stillness and the silence. You could pretend that you had everything you wanted.