#e trade account

[elizasidepiece]

me when I listen to "Say Don't Go" by t swift and imagine remadora

[sohaibsmart]

Amazon Prime Day occasion begins, gross sales up 12% in first 7 hours: Report | Firm Information

Prime Day can function a bellwether for the vacation procuring season. 3 min learn Final Up to date : Jul 17 2024 | 12:10 AM IST Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Day gross sales rose virtually 12 per cent within the first seven hours of the occasion in contrast with the identical interval final 12 months, based on Momentum Commerce, which manages 50 manufacturers in a wide range of product…

[marketingprofitmedia]

Smart Ways to Make Money: Profitable Passive Income Ideas to Secure Your Future

Smart passive income ideas can secure your financial future and provide steady earnings. Explore profitable ventures like rental properties, dividend stocks, and online businesses.

Securing a prosperous future requires savvy income strategies that work for you around the clock. Passive income streams offer a way to earn money without the need to actively work all the time. These strategies include investing in real estate for long-term rental profits, engaging in the stock market for dividends, or leveraging digital platforms to sell products or create content that generates revenue continuously.

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Passive Income Essentials

Securing your financial future doesn’t have to mean working endless hours. Smart passive income strategies can unlock a world where earnings grow even as you sleep. There’s a wealth of options out there — each with its unique strengths. To navigate this domain, understanding the basics and choosing the right streams is vital.

Demystifying Passive Income

Passive income often seems shrouded in mystery. Many people wonder if it’s a practical goal. In essence, it’s earning money from investments or work you’ve done once. This could mean rental income, dividends, or sales from an e-book. Distinct from active income, it requires less time to manage daily.

Purchase and rent out property

Invest in dividend-paying stocks

Create digital products for sale

It’s about smart choices now for long-term benefits. For the ideal start, assess the potential risks and returns of each option.

Financial Stability Through Passive Streams

Passive income is more than just extra cash. It’s a step toward lasting financial safety. The goal is to create multiple income sources that can support your lifestyle, even if you stop working. Diversification is key — spreading your investments across different areas reduces the risk.

Type of Passive Income Benefits Real Estate Steady income and property value growth Stocks with Dividends Regular income plus potential stock value increase Creating an Online Course Earn with each new student enrollment

Review these options to align with your life goals and economic situation. Start building that foundation for a more secure and sustained income stream today. Remember, the path to financial freedom involves planning and the savvy generation of earnings on the side. Get started, and watch your financial health flourish over time.

Diving Into The Stock Market

Exploring the stock market opens up a world of possibilities for passive income. It’s a tried-and-true approach that savvy investors leverage for long-term financial gains. You don’t need to be a Wall Street expert to get started. With the right strategy, anyone can tap into this lucrative avenue.

Dividend-yielding Stocks

Dividend-yielding stocks stand out as a solid option for passive income. They pay out a portion of profits to shareholders regularly. This means you earn money simply for owning the stock. Consider these key points:

Choose companies with a history of stable dividends.

Look for those with potential for dividend growth.

Reinvest dividends to compound your earnings.

Index Funds & Etf Portfolios

Index funds and ETFs offer a more hands-off investment approach. They track specific market indices and spread your investment across numerous stocks. This leads to a balanced and diversified portfolio. Here’s why they’re advantageous:

Lower fees: Expense ratios are typically minimal with index funds and ETFs.

Automatic diversification: Instant exposure to a variety of assets helps mitigate risk.

Simplicity: They’re easy to purchase, making them ideal for first-time investors.

Comparison of Dividend Stocks vs. Index Funds & ETFs Investment Type Income Potential Risk Level Dividend Stocks High Moderate to High Index Funds & ETFs Varies Low to Moderate

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Real Estate For Residual Income

Earning while you sleep sounds ideal, and real estate often fits this dream. With strategic investments, you can build a robust stream of passive income. Real Estate remains top-tier for growing wealth. Let’s dive into real estate strategies that can secure a more prosperous future.

Rental Properties Revenue

Rental properties can turn a tidy profit monthly. Location is everything, so choose areas with growth potential. Starting can be more hands-on, but many opt for management services to handle day-to-day tasks. Here’s why rentals rock:

Steady Cash Flow: Monthly rent payments go straight into your pocket.

Tax Advantages: Deduct property expenses from your income.

Appreciation Over Time: Rentals can increase in value, boosting your net worth.

Your investment in real estate can grow with careful planning. Understanding the market helps ensure success.

Real Estate Investment Trusts (reits)

REITs are powerful for portfolio diversification. They allow small investors to earn from large real estate ventures without owning the properties themselves. Stock-like ease with real estate rewards! Key REITs facts include:

Pros Cons High Dividend Yields Sensitive to Interest Rates Liquidity Like Stocks Market Fluctuations Diversified Assets Less Control Over Investments

Credit: printify.com

Online Ventures That Generate Cash

Embarking on online ventures unlocks doors to a world where income flows even as you sleep. The internet is bustling with opportunities to create a stream of passive income. Let’s explore some smart ways to fill your pockets without the constant hustle.

Blogging And Affiliate Marketing

Blogging is not just a platform for sharing ideas. It’s a robust money-making tool. A successful blog captures the attention of thousands, opening avenues for monetization. Adding affiliate marketing turns your content into a cash magnet. Here’s how to start:

Select a niche that you love and know well

Launch a blog with a user-friendly CMS like WordPress

Regularly post high-quality content

Apply SEO strategies to increase visibility

Join affiliate programs related to your niche

Recommend products through your posts

Remember, consistency is key. Regular updates paired with SEO will drive traffic. Higher traffic leads to more earnings through affiliate links.

Creating And Selling Digital Products

Digital products offer a limitless income potential. They’re convenient to create, distribute, and sell globally. Popular digital products include:

Type of Product Examples Platforms to Sell eBooks Guides, Novels, How-tos Amazon Kindle, Your Website Online Courses Video Tutorials, Lectures Udemy, Teachable Stock Photography Photos, Graphics Shutterstock, Adobe Stock

To succeed, identify your audience’s needs. Create valuable content. Market through social media and email lists. An initial effort can translate into regular sales without any added work.

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Turn Hobbies Into Income Channels

Imagine your favorite hobby making cash while you sleep. Turn hobbies into income channels and see the magic happen. Your passion can unlock a stream of income. Transform leisure activities into lucrative ventures. Dig deep into hobbies and spot money-making potentials. Read on for smart ways to monetize your interests!

Monetizing Creative Skills

Got a knack for creativity? Harness this power for passive income. Here’s how:

Create digital products: E-books, courses, art pieces, and music tracks.

Print-on-demand services: Sell custom designs on tees, mugs, and more.

Stock photography: Click and sell images to stock photo websites.

Remember, quality content stands out. Polish your skills consistently. Keep your digital presence strong. Engage with online communities. These steps help sell more.

Leveraging Peer-to-peer Platforms

Peer-to-peer platforms are goldmines for passive income. Here’s a quick look at options:

Platform Activity Etsy Sell handmade goods. Airbnb Rent out extra space. Turo List your car for others to use.

Credit: www.bankrate.com

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What Is Passive Income?

Passive income involves earning money without active, daily involvement. It’s generated from ventures like rental properties or royalties from creative works. This approach can offer financial security over time through consistent, scalable streams.

Q. Can Blogging Generate Passive Income?

Yes, blogging can generate passive income. Once you create quality content and optimize for SEO, you can earn through affiliate marketing, ads, or selling digital products. Regular updates and marketing strategies help maintain and grow your earnings.

Q. What Are The Best Passive Income Strategies?

The best passive income strategies include investing in dividend stocks, real estate rentals, peer-to-peer lending, creating an online course, and writing an ebook. These require varying levels of initial effort but can provide ongoing income with minimal maintenance.

Q. How Does Affiliate Marketing Provide Passive Income?

Affiliate marketing provides passive income by promoting other people’s products. You earn commissions for sales made through your unique referral links. It’s effective when you have a strong online presence and can persuade your audience to make purchases.

Conclusion

Embracing passive income strategies can transform your financial landscape, securing a brighter future. Diverse options, from real estate investments to digital products, offer paths to sustainable earnings with minimal ongoing effort. Start small, scale sensibly, and watch your wealth grow.

Your financial freedom might just be a well-chosen venture away. Dive in and let your money work for you.

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Thanks for reading my article on Smart Ways to Make Money: Profitable Passive Income Ideas to Secure Your Future

Affiliate Disclaimer :

This article Contain may be affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission at NO ADDITIONAL cost to you if you decide to purchase something. While we receive affiliate compensation for reviews / promotions on this article, we always offer honest opinions, users experiences and real views related to the product or service itself. Our goal is to help readers make the best purchasing decisions, however, the testimonies and opinions expressed are ours only. As always you should do your own thoughts to verify any claims, results and stats before making any kind of purchase. Clicking links or purchasing products recommended in this article may generate income for this product from affiliate commissions and you should assume we are compensated for any purchases you make. We review products and services you might find interesting. If you purchase them, we might get a share of the commission from the sale from our partners. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended.

Source : Smart Ways to Make Money: Profitable Passive Income Ideas to Secure Your Future

[lionblaze03-2]

holy shit guys. My YouTube is ten years old now. I’ve been posting about these fucking cats for ten goddamn years straight. That’s HALF OF MY ENTIRE LIFE. I’ve spent half of my entire life on that god forsaken platform making videos about fucking kitty cats killing each other. And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way 💖happy ten years me you did it. Still out there creating, always will. It’s been a crazy ten years. Here’s to ten more!

[city-of-ladies]

"Women could be found working on construction sites, if only occasionally, including in specialized roles such as carpenters and masons. The research is found in the article, “Appropriate to Her Sex?” Women’s Participation on the Construction Site in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” by Shelley E. Roff.

She surveyed a wide variety of records from throughout Western Europe, including tax records, inventories of wages paid on construction sites, and municipal accounts, and discovered numerous instances of women working alongside men on construction sites as far back at the 13th century. Most of these women were employed as day laborers, carrying out tasks such as moving water and building supplies around the sites, digging ditches and serving as assistants to bricklayers and stonemasons. For example, in the Spanish city of Seville during the 14th century, women were hired to dig trenches for the foundation of a new city wall, while at the nearby city of Toledo, one or two women were hired each day for the construction of the city’s cathedral, where they gathered lime and worked on the roof. Meanwhile in the French city of Toulouse, almost half the laborers working on the Perigord college site were women. Ross also finds several examples from England and Germany.

Roff notes that previous historians have seen many examples of women working on construction sites in their research, but they had believed that these were just abnormal exceptions caused by economic crises, or because the male population had been killed off through war or disease. But her new study suggests that women construction workers were more than just odd occurences. She explains that “the expansion of urban centers starting in the thirteenth century set off a trend of increasing female employment for day laborers and in the crafts, which only began to contract on occasion for women working in the crafts in the sixteenth century with ensuing economic crises.”

She also notes that in almost all accounts surveyed, the women were paid at a lower rate than the men, which would make the “a cost-effective solution” for site supervisors looking for ways to reduce expenses. The women who took these jobs would have come from society’s poor – those women who could not maintain their households and families just from their husbands’ (if they had one) income.

Roff also finds records showing women taking part in specialized building trades. In London in 1383, Katherine Lightfoot is recorded as the supplier of 2,000 painted tiles for bath in the King’s palace. Meanwhile, tax records from Paris during the years 1296 and 1313 reveal the existence of two female masons, a tiler and a plasterer. These women were not poorer individuals, rather they were the wives of male craftsman, and in some cases their widows. The 15th-century French writer Christine de Pizan noted in her book The Treasury of the City of Ladies that craftswomen, “should learn all the shop details so that she can properly supervise the workers when her husband is away or not paying attention.”

Women workers could be found on the medieval construction site, Medievalists.net

[saradika]

— invisible string

din djarin x vaguely force sensitive!reader

rated e - 1.7k

tags: divergent timeline, soulmate!au, takes place across season 1 & 2, missed connections, the Razor Crest lives, PiV, marking, creampie, magical elements

a/n: for the TS Challenge by @beskarandblasters! This was so fun, thanks so much for hosting this event! 💖 I was so excited to get this song & character

There's something about him, this man.

Deep down, it feels as if a string is tied around something vital inside you. A piece of you that you cannot live without, twined with its match inside him. Like the path you've taken has always led to this moment, this meeting.

You feel as if you are always out of step.

Too early. And then somehow - just a little bit too late.

As if you've missed something crucial. A prickle on the back of your neck. Eyes scanning the crowds of people as you weave through cities - looking for someone.

As to whom, though - you're never quite sure.

You think it's always been there. A similar sort of feeling that flickers when you're in danger. That was something you had cultivated. Manipulated into a force you can wield. A push and pull, an aid - when you need it. Something you draw from often, during your days as a smuggler.

But you're not sure what to do with this.

The feeling is pushed down on Nevarro.

Contacted for a job, one that had been easy enough. Your goods exchanged in a dingy cantina - a shipment of stolen fuel cells furtively traded to an irritated man that went by Karga. Your eyebrows raised at the charred hole in the man's fine clothes - a half-hearted wonder at how the man was still standing.

The Imperial credits he offers you do not get you far. He's unable to offer you a puck - his trade was in bounty hunting, not smuggling. You're not sure if you'd take one, and the cells are enough to keep his crew afloat for a while. A dead-end for now, but you think - not always.

After, your ship drifts along an unseen track.

To Tatooine this time. A big job for the Hutts that takes you two weeks. Days in the sun spent waiting for the payments to transfer to your account, and so in the meantime - you tinker.

Trading your way up. A broken blaster fixed, exchanged for ship parts. The parts installed, the labor paid for with two, beat-up old speeders.

Only to sell them both to a cocky hot-shot bounty hunter for double their value - his over-blown self-confidence eclipsing the fact that you were absolutely swindling him.

It’s not your problem.

Though here, you can't help but feel the urge to linger. An itch beneath your skin, as if you've missed something, again.

You ignore it. Trading up one more time - swapping Mos Eisley for the sea. The choppy waters of Trask washing away the grit and sand that clings to your skin.

There's always work to be found here - deals to make with the Quarren and Mon Calamari. Those days spent at the inn, with lunches of warm homemade chowder and wrapped in chunky-knit sweaters.

Eyes snagging on a couple that often sits together at lunch. Their features frog-like, affection clear in their soft chatter, the slow blink of their large, black eyes. You imagine it to be a stolen moment - meeting up in the afternoon, too eager to wait until evening to see each other.

It’s nice.

It follows you, back to your room.

You think about them later - the obvious connection. A bone-deep urge to find another that matches a part of you. Something you've never had.

Somehow you know it’s out there.

But it's not time.

The next day, your ship takes off again.

There's a feeling deep down that for once, you're right where you need to be.

Your path is not guided by a job. Something spinning inside your chest like the point of a compass, your fingers keying coordinates with a mind of their own.

It's not a sea. Not a desert. Not a growing town, slowly rebuilding.

You're taken to a forest. The trees are unlike those you've seen - stretching tall and thin towards the sky. Their leaves sparse, but still filling the space with the sheer number.

There's a village - but you're drawn away from the tall walls. There's nothing inside that you seek. Drawn back to the trees you had seen from above. There's no tracks for you to follow, it's only your own boots pressed into the earth.

But you still go out, day after day.

It's on the third day, as you sit by the edge of a clear, shallow pool, that you hear the crack of branches under boots.

It should frighten you… but it doesn't.

It feels like an inevitability.

Your head turns, and there's a man there. His limbs encased in armor of shining beskar. A Mandalorian, you realize, when your eyes meet the dark visor that bisects his helmet.

"It's you." The words are a flat buzz, through his helmet. Unsurprised, somehow. Just as you are.

And it's him.

There's something about him, this man.

Deep down, it feels as if a string is tied around something vital inside you. A piece of you that you cannot live without, twined with its match inside him. Like the path you've taken has always led to this moment, this meeting.

You're not sure what that something is...

But think you are finally ready to find out.

His touch is familiar, though you've never known it. Much like everything else, it feels almost destined.

You know he feels it too. A slow circling dance, the weight of his eyes following you from behind the visor. That string inside no longer feels like a leash, but instead - a lifeline.

Finally being able to acknowledge that he has been what you've been orbiting around this whole time. Easing that ever-present ache of loneliness that had always followed you.

For some time, he had thought you would be the one to train Grogu. That perhaps this had been the reason why the fates had pushed you together.

You had tried, and failed. That part of you still too raw, too unfashioned. It lived inside you, but it was something you had been unable to teach another. How could you, when you did not even know the word for what it was?

And as time passed, you realized deep down that you were truly meant to be here now. Not for the before.

An aid at first, of course. You had gone with him to Tython. Traded in your ship, and traveled on the Slave 1. Had faced death by his side, staring into the black chrome of the Dark Troopers.

Had grieved with him, after.

You think this had been your place all along.

This liminal space, in those months that follow.

Giving him something to grab onto. Fingers sinking into flesh, your back hitting the mattress as he follows.

It’s dark, in the belly of his ship. With anyone else your senses would be screaming, a ringing alarm.

But you’ve come to know each room, fingers tracing the cold metal. From the walls, to the bunk, to him - the tips slipping under to tug at the fastenings of his armor.

He is quiet, like he often is now. But you can feel the heat that rolls off him in waves. The harsh buzz of his breath through the vocoder, before the light cuts out completely.

Before it’s just him and you.

His knees nudge your thighs wider. Pressing into muscle and flesh, forcing them up and apart. Your fingers twist in his curls, angling your mouth up to meet the kiss that is all teeth and tongue.

Fingers dip down, thick and calloused. Parting you, nudging inside to where you’re wet and waiting. Pumping deep with his thumb pressed snug against the button of your clit - leaving you dizzy and clenching and wondering if he just knew, as well.

You think he did. He does.

And when he works himself inside you, you finally feel full. Ripping a sound from each of you - his rough and swallowed, yours a broken murmur of his name.

Something else given in the dark, on another night akin to this. Pieces of himself peeled back and gifted, only to be carefully wrapped up and buried deep.

The pound of his hips itches at something you’ve been missing. Those hands tugging at your hips, pulling you to meet each harsh thrust. Fingers slipping down to swirl against you again - a spark rising each time you fit together, building swiftly to an inferno.

“Din,” You breathe, as something heavy flickers inside you, just out of reach, “Stars, please. Don’t stop-”

“I won’t,” It’s a low oath, as his cock grinds deep, “I’ve waited too long for you, cyare.”

He wrenches it from you, setting you ablaze. Your is cry loud in the tiny room as you come undone. The wild swirl of your senses narrowing down, until it’s just him. Din’s mouth against your neck, warm breath and teeth nipping marks into your skin - the pleasure flowing from you in pulsing waves, sinking into him.

Making him follow, no more than a dozen thrusts later. A gritted, bitten-back moan of your own name, before his hips are stuttering. Giving back what you passed to him, his cock throbbing inside you, buried deep.

Where he stays, until he’s gone soft. A pang of loss shuddering through you when he slips from between your thighs - expecting him to return to his own bunk.

To leave you, again.

But the mattress dips, next to you. The space narrow, a short sigh when you wiggle too much trying to get comfortable. Hands hooking around your wrists, hauling your hips over his. Settling you down on top of him.

And in the dark - he stays.

“Should have met you on Tatooine,” Din tells you later that night, unbidden. Letting your legs twine with his, thighs parted to make room for you. “I didn’t know it was you. If I had-”

His words end abruptly, hanging. Both of you thinking about all those moments when time hadn’t lined up. The synchronicity of your movements, just barely nudged out of time.

Both there, during that same moment. If you had stayed another day, maybe that would have been your meeting.

But you had left early, and he had came late.

“We’re here now.” You tell him, chin pressing against his chest. Eyes finding his in the dark, though you cannot see. “Isn’t that enough?”

There’s the brush of his hand along your spine - knuckles, and then fingertips as they unfurl.

“Yes.”

It is enough, for now.

You’re not sure if it’s forever. If, for some reason, you’ll be forced to part again. But tonight, you’re not worried.

Because, if you were to reach inside yourself and pluck that golden string right now - letting it thrum…

You think that he would feel it, too.

thanks so much for reading!! 💖

cyare - beloved

[legobiwan]

So I find it a little odd that Mario shakes his brother's hand like he's trying to win political office rather than having just been rescued (again) from one of King Boo's paintings at the end of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon.

But then I was thinking - this might be a kind of instinctual response.

From what we can gather over the three games, being stuck in a painting isn't a passive experience, but one that is disturbing, disorientating, and mostly likely tantamount to torture.

And given King Boo's abilities, who knows what kind of environment he has dropped his victims into with these settings. The landscapes, you might say. There's no definite background in any of the trapped paintings, ghost or otherwise, but it does beg the question of what can be felt, seen, heard, or otherwise perceived by someone who is trapped in a portrait. Does the hunter create the cage, enrichment area and all, or are the trappings beyond the frame (inside the frame) more akin to being trapped within one's mind and all the pitfalls that could emerge from that?

We see three iterations of Mario being freed from the painting in each game. The first being total confusion and possible injury; the second looking like some kind of hallucination, given Luigi's concerned expression; and the third being a form of decorporalization (not a real word, but whatever), as Mario seems shocked to learn he has a body again.

The first might be attributed to King Boo's insistence of straight-up physical torture combined with E. Gadd's more medieval equipment, which had likely been less-than-tested in extracting someone from a portrait. (And if the de-portraiting process was that bad, imagine what it was like for the ghosts going in. No wonder they held a grudge. I love E. Gadd, but oh boi, is he the pinnacle morally ambiguous mad scientist).

Anyway, in the third installment, Mario definitely shows signs of having been disconnected from his physical form, perhaps meaning that his time inside the portrait reduced him to a neutered, mental representation of himself, incapable of fighting back in the real world. But this being said, he seems to recognize Luigi on-site, rushing forward to give him an enthusiastic hug, which is the reaction you'd expect after being freed from a pair of diabolical ghosts, one of whom is trying to thirst-trap the other through psychological torture.

So what's the deal with Mario's reaction in Dark Moon?

My guess is that King Boo trapped Mario in a painting that was a distorted reality, or perhaps a distorted version of Mario's own insecurities. It would account for the disorientation and the fact Mario comes out of the painting gladhanding his own brother like a stranger. (Which would also account for Luigi's concerned reaction - what the hell is my brother doing?)

And you figure, Mario, at this point, is a kind of figurehead, an idol, a hero of the Mushroom Kingdom. It's become his identity, it's who he is, it's what he does and is known for. Of course, part of this role is going around and shaking hands, being present - at least physically - at press conferences and speeches and all the like. The people need a focal point, a representation of their hopes against the violent and numerous incursions upon their land they suffer from outside forces (although in complete transparency, my personal headcanon is that Bowser's kingdom used to be comprised of at least a part of the Mushroom Kingdom, and that that land and sovereignty was stolen through a series of bad treaties by his father and some of the more malicious factions of the Toad Council, thus leading to both the enmity between the kingdoms and some serious economic and trade repercussions in the Darklands, but that's a whole other post.)

Mario must be so used to blindly shaking hands and putting up that front, that character, so much so that he doesn't even think about it anymore, and it's my theory that this is the version of Mario that emerges from the portrait in Dark Moon, perhaps having been wrested from some situation where this almost desperate attempt at approval was manifesting from Mario's own subconscious.

And poor Luigi. You have to wonder if one of his latent fears is becoming another empty face in the adoring crowd surrounding his brother. The Mario that emerges is not 100% connected to the fact he is Luigi's brother, it seems, is just putting on airs and the right words and actions as he may have been trained to do by the Toad Council. (Who, incidentally, are one of my favorite scapegoats in the series). Talk about a nightmare come to life.

It fits, in a way. Mario's first abduction results in physical harm, his second in mental, his third in more of a depersonalization - perhaps a rushed spell enacted by King Boo as he was, by the time of the whole hotel debacle, was far more preoccupied with his idea of trapping Luigi than enacting harm on anyone else beyond imprisonment. Because by the time Luigi's Manion 3 rolls around, King Boo is almost deranged in his obsession with Luigi, and I wouldn't be shocked if his non-existent heart wasn't into the nastier sides of portrait capture when it came to Luigi's friends and family. But oh boi, if he had captured Luigi in one of those paintings - good night, nurse.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The long, bloody lineage of private equity's looting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[astrojulia]

Tarot Cards as Professions

Navigation:   Masterlist✦Ask Rules✦Feedback Tips

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Major Arcanas:

The Fool: Work with abroad, connections with imports, language teacher, multinationals, entrepreneur, intern, college student, art major.

The Magician: Entrepreneur, job that needs skill with the hands (acupuncture, hairdresser, artisan), actor, salesperson, influencer.

The High Priestess: Education, especially children, nutrition, psychology, cook, housewife, food engineering, toy factory, fortuneteller, spiritual advisor, librarian.

The Empress: Management, business administration, foreign trade, secretariat, translation, decoration, stay-at-home mom, model, cook, farmer.

The Emperor: Business administration, work related to areas of technological innovation, the military or sportsmen, CEO, tycoon.

The Hierophant: Philanthropic areas, ONGs, religious work, social work, diplomacy, and a degree, journalism, writer, editor, priest, spiritual guru, politician.

The Lovers: Sales area in any sector, tourism, theater, advertising, the arts in general, porn star, stripper, masseuse.

The Chariot: Activities related to transport, cars, the latest technology, chauffeur, mechanic, athlete.

Strength: Aesthetics, physical education and various body therapies, medicine, zoologist.

The Hermit: Teacher, writer, doctor, antique dealer, restorer, librarian, gardener.

Wheel of Fortune: Financial market, exchange offices, casinos, lottery houses, stock exchanges, and areas related to public relations, hospitality, game show host.

Justice: Public jobs, won through competitions, politics, police, with government positions, in the diplomatic area, law, insurance company worker.

The Hanged Man: Nurse, auditor, inspector, porter, secretariat, general assistants, yoga instructor, prison guard, philanthropist.

Death: Doctor, farmer, geologist, business administrator, gardener, accountant, assassin, death row executioner, surgeon.

Temperance: Working with liquids in general or with what is transported in liquid form such as alcoholic beverages, medicines, juices. chemist, chef, food critic, regional or even international traffic.

The Devil: Does not limit the individual to a professional wing, so he can also go to extremes for the desire he has, such as landlord, drug lord, sex trafficker.

The Tower: Social assistance, humanitarian aid, medicine, firefighter, police officer, construction worker.

The Star: Music, painting, sculpture, poetry, cinema, makeup artist, dressmaker, beautician, agent, promoter, sound artist, astronomer, harpist, dealer, meteorologist.

The Moon: Oceanographers, sailors, fishermen, owners of bars and restaurants or nightclubs, artists in general, medium, hypnotist, psychiatrist.

The Sun: Motivational speaker, entertainer, comedian, social relationships, work with the public, artist in general, member of society.

Judgment: Work done at home, connection with the law, lawyer, judge, work with disabled or people excluded from society, social assistance, board member, executive producer, director.

The World: Pharmacist, massage therapist, scientist, teacher, community leader, religious leader or priest, fashion designer, makeup artist, interior decorator.

Wands:

Creative industries such as advertising, marketing, and graphic design.

Entrepreneurship and starting your own business.

Athletics, sports coaching, or physical training.

Outdoor jobs like park ranger or tour guide.

Event planning or organizing.

Firefighters or rescue workers.

Ace of Wands: Entrepreneur, startup founder, motivational speaker, fitness coach, personal trainer.

Two of Wands: Business strategist, project manager, travel agent, international consultant, import/export specialist.

Three of Wands: Sales representative, marketing manager, e-commerce entrepreneur, market researcher, international trade coordinator.

Four of Wands: Event planner, wedding coordinator, party organizer, festival manager, hospitality industry professional.

Five of Wands: Conflict resolution specialist, mediator, lawyer, debate coach, competitive sports coach.

Six of Wands: Public relations manager, spokesperson, social media influencer, motivational speaker, winning athlete.

Seven of Wands: Defense attorney, human rights activist, political campaigner, advocate, civil liberties lawyer.

Eight of Wands: Courier, delivery driver, airline pilot, travel blogger, expedition guide.

Nine of Wands: Security guard, bodyguard, soldier, endurance athlete, self-defense instructor.

Ten of Wands: Overworked entrepreneur, project manager, event organizer, professional organizer, heavy equipment operator.

Page of Wands: Assistant in a creative field, aspiring artist, intern in a startup, social media coordinator, apprentice.

Knight of Wands: Travel journalist, adventure tour guide, professional athlete, race car driver, stunt performer.

Queen of Wands: CEO, business owner, charismatic leader, life coach, influential speaker.

King of Wands: Executive manager, entrepreneur, leadership coach, consultant, director of a creative agency.

Cups:

Counseling, therapy, or social work.

Hospitality industry, including restaurant management and bartending.

Wedding planner or event coordinator.

Artistic fields like poetry, writing, or acting.

Healing professions such as nursing or holistic therapy.

Psychologist or counselor specializing in emotions and relationships.

Ace of Cups: Therapist, counselor, social worker, holistic healer, emotional support specialist.

Two of Cups: Marriage counselor, matchmaker, relationship coach, wedding planner, love psychic.

Three of Cups: Event organizer, party planner, celebratory event coordinator, community organizer.

Four of Cups: Meditation teacher, mindfulness coach, spiritual counselor, psychologist, therapist.

Five of Cups: Grief counselor, trauma therapist, hospice worker, emotional healing practitioner, bereavement support.

Six of Cups: Child psychologist, teacher, daycare worker, children's book author, pediatric nurse.

Seven of Cups: Creative writer, fantasy novelist, imaginative artist, dream analyst, visionary.

Eight of Cups: Travel blogger, adventure seeker, spiritual pilgrim, explorer, wanderlust photographer.

Nine of Cups: Life coach, happiness consultant, gratitude coach, self-help author, wellness retreat organizer.

Ten of Cups: Family therapist, marriage and family counselor, foster care advocate, wedding planner, family mediator.

Page of Cups: Creative writer, artist in training, intuitive healer, aspiring therapist, dream interpreter.

Knight of Cups: Actor, romantic poet, musician, art therapist, love and relationship coach.

Queen of Cups: Psychic reader, intuitive healer, counselor, compassionate caregiver, therapist.

King of Cups: Therapist, counselor, intuitive mentor, emotional intelligence trainer, psychologist.

Swords:

Legal professions like lawyers, judges, or law enforcement officers.

Journalists, reporters, or investigators.

IT specialists, computer programmers, or hackers.

Teachers or professors specializing in critical thinking or philosophy.

Military or defense-related careers.

Strategic planners or analysts.

Ace of Swords: Lawyer, judge, legal consultant, investigative journalist, strategic planner.

Two of Swords: Mediator, conflict resolution specialist, negotiator, diplomat, relationship counselor.

Three of Swords: Divorce lawyer, grief counselor, trauma therapist, emotional healer, heart surgeon.

Four of Swords: Rest and relaxation specialist, meditation teacher, spiritual retreat organizer, yoga instructor.

Five of Swords: Military strategist, competitive sports coach, lawyer specializing in litigation, debate coach.

Six of Swords: Travel agent, relocation consultant, therapist specializing in transitions, boat captain.

Seven of Swords: Private investigator, spy, intelligence analyst, cybersecurity expert, undercover agent.

Eight of Swords: Social justice lawyer, human rights advocate, disability rights activist, therapist specializing in limiting beliefs.

Nine of Swords: Insomnia specialist, anxiety therapist, nightmare counselor, sleep coach, mental health counselor.

Ten of Swords: Surgeon, coroner, forensic scientist, mortician, grief counselor.

Page of Swords: Researcher, journalist, fact-checker, apprentice in a legal field, investigative reporter.

Knight of Swords: Military officer, police officer, attorney, competitive fencer, conflict resolution specialist.

Queen of Swords: Judge, lawyer, critic, journalist, literary agent.

King of Swords: Judge, attorney, CEO, strategist, military general.

Pentacles:

Financial advisors or investment bankers.

Real estate agents or property developers.

Agriculture, farming, or gardening.

Architects, builders, or construction workers.

Conservationists or environmentalists.

Accountants or bookkeepers.

Ace of Pentacles: Financial advisor, investment banker, wealth manager, entrepreneur, luxury goods retailer.

Two of Pentacles: Financial analyst, accountant, bookkeeper, event planner, stock trader.

Three of Pentacles: Architect, contractor, project manager, teamwork facilitator, craftsman.

Four of Pentacles: Wealth manager, investor, financial planner, asset protection specialist, treasurer.

Five of Pentacles: Social worker, philanthropist, charity organizer, financial counselor, volunteer.

Six of Pentacles: Philanthropist, humanitarian worker, non-profit manager, social worker, charitable fundraiser.

Seven of Pentacles: Gardener, farmer, agricultural consultant, sustainability expert, botanist.

Eight of Pentacles: Craftsperson, artisan, apprentice, skilled tradesperson, technical trainer.

Nine of Pentacles: Luxury brand manager, independent business owner, successful entrepreneur, vineyard owner, art collector.

Ten of Pentacles: Real estate developer, property investor, family business owner, generational wealth manager, financial advisor.

Page of Pentacles: Intern, student, apprentice in a practical field, aspiring entrepreneur, entry-level employee.

Knight of Pentacles: Accountant, financial planner, farmer, skilled tradesperson, meticulous worker.

Queen of Pentacles: CEO, business owner, property developer, hospitality industry entrepreneur, financial advisor.

King of Pentacles: CEO, business mogul, successful investor, high-level executive, financial consultant.

(CC) AstroJulia Some Rights Reserved

[wirewitchviolet]

It is absolutely ridiculous that I have no way to contact people I care about in 2023.

So I got up today, and saw a big announcement about a certain particularly large company in the games industry did an absolutely massive round of layoffs despite an amazingly good year. You know, as they do. As it so happens, this is a company that, last I checked, employs several people I consider to be pretty good friends, and I feel compelled to toss them a quick message asking if that affected them, ask if poke around on their behalf for freelance work or slap a project of my own real quick they can collaborate on, or whatever.

And it's suddenly sinking in to me that I can't actually do that.

Tabletop game work is writing work, and that means 90% of the networking for most of the past decade or so happened over Twitter. Someone announces they're working on a thing, you message them, e-mails get traded to formally send stuff around. I was on there until I wasn't, so normally, that'd be where I'd be doing my checking in. But that of course is off the table. And like, I don't even have read-access to the site to check if anyone's announcing anything there.

Well, we've traded e-mails, right? We absolutely have. Back when everyone I'm worried about was at this other company, which let this same pile of people I care about and then some go several years ago now. So... those e-mails are no longer valid.

Well, what else is there? Oh right, the one friend has a discord server. It's been super dead for years now since he stopped doing the big weekly social thing it was there for, but it's still - oh, no. It's actually closed out. Same with the one for this freelance artist in that same general orbit... and oh Discord redid usernames and forced everyone to pick new ones. Damn.

Well, there's tumblr here, maybe? Like, there isn't really practically any direct messaging on here but... no, no wait, none of them have posted anything on here since bad policies drove a bunch of people out years back.

There's Facebook? But no, I don't have an account, they're all real legal name focused, and for personal security reasons, I never actually use my legal name anywhere even if I could make one (see, they also insist my name "sounds fake" over at Facebook). Well surely I can just find people's personal websites and send an e-mail but... no, people just don't have personal e-mails anymore, and spam got so bad decades ago now that I can't remember the last time I saw ANYONE post a personal e-mail address anywhere visible. Used to be phonebooks, but I don't think they really adapted to everyone just having a cellphone, and even if they did, they're a local thing.

So yeah. I've got nothing here. Uh... on the off chance anyone's reading this who I'm concerned about, hey, I hope you're OK? I'm still at least periodically checking the e-mails you last used to send things to me? Feel free to reach out and let me know how things are going?

But yeah this just sucks.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Calls for a ‘return’ to a non-existent past are seductive precisely because it did not exist. In an increasingly hostile world, it is tempting to believe that things were easier before the onset of a nebulous ‘modernity’. These individuals hint that if we simply traded in social changes, such as gender equality, we would be rewarded with more acceptable material conditions. However, such ideas are born more out of a yearning for an imagined idea of the Fordist consensus and that such conditions must project backwards into the pre-modern world. Such yearnings are compounded by the fact that the history that most people are taught is rudimentary and often provides an unproblematised version of our countries’ past. These narratives help to shore up the power of our own governments and obfuscate the very real benefits that we still enjoy as a result of imperial plunder. Trad accounts, meanwhile, are encouraged by the very platforms they appear on. It is common for them to present themselves as ‘tutors’ or accounts promoting ‘classical’ art, architecture or philosophy. The unsuspecting see a picture of a lovely old church, click follow and then are slowly drip-fed pseudo-history. They are also introduced, algorithmically, to the host of other trad accounts, which will feed them the same ahistorical pablum, establishing a consensus that is blissfully free from fact and heavy on nostalgia. Even those, such as myself, who seek to argue against these falsehoods fall prey to the algorithmic churn. Engaging with bad faith actors is still engaging and it can spread the message further, allowing reactionaries to find others in their cohort. This all translates into money for the platforms, which thrive off engagement – positive or negative.

[paganimagevault]

Female Europid Mummy from the Necropolis of Subexi III, Grave M6, Turfan District, Xinjiang. 5th-3rd C. BCE. Source: Baumer, Christoph.The history of Central Asia. Vol.1. The age of the steppe warriors. London : I.B. Tauris, 2012. pg. 218 left DS329.4 .B38 2012. Image via University of Pennsylvania. See maps in the post before this one for a better understanding of the geography discussed.

"Section 26 – The Kingdom of Nearer [i.e. Southern] Jushi 車師前 (Turfan)

1. ‘Nearer Jushi’ 車師前 refers to the kingdom or state centered in the Turfan oasis or, sometimes, to the tribe which controlled it. There can be no question that Nearer Jushi refers here to the Turfan Oasis. See for example: CICA, p. 183, n. 618; also note 1.5 above. For the etymology of the name Turfan see Bailey (1985), pp. 99-100, which is summed up in his sentence: “The name turpana- is then from *druva-pāna- ‘having safe protection’, a name suitable for a walled place.”

“One other oasis town is currently under excavation. At Yarghul (Jiaohe), 10 km (16 miles) [sic – this should read 10 miles (16 km)] west of Turpan, archaeologists have been excavating remains of the old Jushi capital, a long (1,700 m (5,580 ft)) but narrow (200 m (656 ft)) town between two rivers. From the Han period they uncovered vast collective shaft tombs (one was nearly 10 m (33 ft) deep). The bodies had apparently already been removed from these tombs but accompanying them were other pits containing form one to four horse sacrifices, with tens of horses for each of the larger burials.” Mallory and Mair (2000), pp. 165 and 167.

“Some 300 km (186 miles) to the west of Qumul [Hami] lie [mummy] sites in the vicinity of the Turpan oasis that have been assigned to the Ayding Lake (Aidinghu) culture. The lake itself occupies the lowest point in the Turpan region (at 156 m (512 ft) below sea level it is the lowest spot on earth after the Dead Sea). According to accounts of the historical period, this was later the territory of the Gushi, a people who ‘lived in tents, followed the grasses and waters, and had considerable knowledge of agriculture. They owned cattle, horses, camels, sheep and goats. They were proficient with bows and arrows.’ They were also noted for harassing travellers moving northwards along the Silk Road from Krorän, and the territories of the Gushi and the kingdom of Krorän were linked in the account of Zhang Qian, presumably because both were under the control of the Xiongnu. In the years around 60 BC, Gushi fell to the Chinese and was subsequently known as Jushi (a different transcription of the same name).” Mallory and Mair (2000), pp. 143-144.

“History records that in 108 BC Turpan was inhabited by farmers and traders of Indo-European stock who spoke a language belonging to the Tokharian group, an extinct Indo-Persian language [actually more closely related to Celtic languages]. Whoever occupied the oasis commanded the northern trade route and the rich caravans that passed through annually. During the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) control over the route see-sawed between Xiongnu and Han. Until the fifth century, the capital of this kingdom was Jiaohe.” Bonavia (1988), p. 131.

“Turpan is principally an agricultural oasis, famed for its grape products – seedless white raisins (which are exported internationally) and wines (mostly sweet). It is some 80 metres (260 feet) below sea level, and nearby Aiding Lake, at 154 metres (505 feet) below sea level, is the lowest continental point in the world.” Ibid. p. 137.

“The toponym Turfan is also a variation of Tuharan. Along the routes of Eurasia there are many other place names recorded in various Chinese forms that are actually variations of Tuharan.” Liu (2001), p. 268."

-Notes to The Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu. Second Edition (Extensively Revised and Expanded). John E. Hill. University of Washington.

[zenkindoflove]

Pull Me in Deeper - Eris x Male OC - Ch 21

Rating: E, NSFW

Status: Multichapter, WIP, 21/23

Summary: Needing more alliances, Eris strikes a deal with Helion: go to the continent and find out information for him, and Day Court will support him usurping Beron. What he didn’t account for is the beautiful Day Court emissary accompanying him that makes his heart race while being such a thorn in his side. 

READ ON AO3

Start at the beginning | Masterlist

Tag List: @crazy-ache, @animezinglife, @lucienarcheron, @castielspelvis, @clockwork-ashes, @teddyhoneybear , @summerbummin , @works-of-heart , @secret-third-thing , @julesvanslutta , @the-darkestminds , @fieldofdaisiies , @chunkypossum , @bonecarversbestie , @jules-writes-stories , @mistandmemories

Snippet: Jocasta and Daphne paused to watch them push the furniture to the walls. Jocasta cringed a few times and Daphne had to stop her from jumping in to help. Once a space was cleared, Eris straightened his clothes and smoothed back his hair before requesting a song.

“Brahmpin’s fourth, please.”

Daphne nodded her head, quickly thumbing through her sheet music and then settling her fingers to the keys. As she played the first notes, Eris bowed formally to Alexius.  When he raised his head, he offered him a stretched-out hand. Alexius held his fingers in front of his mouth in anticipation.

“May I have this dance?”

Eris felt pure joy at the squeal of delight that erupted from Alexius. He tried to suppress his laugh as Alexius composed himself to match his formality.

Alexius placed his hand on his palm and Eris pulled him into a waltz.

“Oh!” Alexius exclaimed as their middles touched. “I guess I’m supposed to dance the female part then.”

Daphne and Jocasta cackled from the other side of the room and Eris squeezed their joined hands. “We can trade on the next one.”

[jukey]

Blue Lock x Reader Headcanons

Hiori x Reader Headcanons + Scenario

Hiori may seem distant at first, but his heart softens around someone special. when he doesn't feel like practicing, he would love spending quality time with you, going on peaceful strolls in the park, hand in hand, sharing gentle smiles and stolen glances.

His reserved exterior melts away whenever you gives him a surprise gift or a heartfelt compliment. His cheeks turn slightly pink, and he bashfully thanks you, trying to hide his growing affection. This would mean the world to him and even if you see this as something small, he would never forget this.

Hiori's idea of a perfect date involves a cozy movie night at home. Snuggled up under a warm blanket, he enjoys romantic films, secretly hoping you notice the subtle similarities between your love story and the ones on screen.

He finds comfort in sharing his deepest fears and dreams with you. Through your support and understanding, Hiori realizes that vulnerability is not a weakness as his parents described, but a path to emotional intimacy.

Despite being a skilled soccer player, Hiori is adorably clumsy in matters of the heart. He might accidentally drop a love note or fumble his words when trying to confess his feelings, making you giggle at his adorable awkwardness.

Hiori's eyes light up when you surprise him with homemade snacks. His heart is won through delicious treats, and he can't help but feel incredibly lucky to have someone who cares for him in such sweet ways.

Playing video games together becomes your favorite bonding activity. It's a way for Hiori to showcase his skills and teach you the tricks of the trade, all the while relishing in the joy of shared laughter and friendly competition.

He becomes an unexpected romantic, planning little surprises like leaving heart-shaped notes in your locker or sending you encouraging messages during the day.

Hiori might be stoic in public, but he becomes quite the cuddler behind closed doors. He loves wrapping his arms around you, feeling your warmth against him as you snuggle together.

At the end of the day, Hiori cherishes the quiet moments of simply being in each other's company. Whether you're watching the sunset or stargazing, he finds contentment in your presence and knows that with you, he's found something special.

"gg"

"im shaving off your eyebrows."

all you could hear were distorted laughs coming out of your headset from the menace who had beaten you four times in a row by now.

"you don't have to let me win every time, you know? let's play fair and square!" hiori said, suppressing a giggle. he knew damn well you were fighting for your life over here and still teased you about it

"that's it. done. play with your e-girlfriend or something, I'm logging off," you dramatically said to him. mouse hovering the 'leave party' button as you waited for him to take it all back and beg for mercy.

"can't, she's busy rn," he snorted when you gasped, almost taking him seriously. soon an uneasy silence filled the voicecall.

"you there? I was joking, you know. i could never replace my one and only teammate," he filled you in. "besides, carrying you in games is much better than letting you do all the work," it would be a lie if you denied that your heart skipped a beat by how soft-spoken he sounded.

"forgiven. I'm not selling your account anymore, mwah!" you blew a kiss through your mic.

"you were what?!1?"

"nothing, nothing let's play again!"

it's safe to say he played a little less extreme for you to win a few games <3

HIORI BRWINROT HIORI BRAINROT

guys plspslspslspl request something

[edwad]

a few weeks ago i saw a video on twitter thats of some guy talking about how amazing it is that all these people make a pencil and then you can buy it etc. is this the type of stuff you/cordelia mean when youre talking about how some people actually take domination to be a great thing (not only consciously but as an actual articulated value, i mean)

i assume the video was friedman's "i, pencil" riff, which does get at some of those points (and which other socialists have responded to on similar terrain, doing the thing i talk about of merely describing the same processes but with different moralizations), but also at a more general level in the sense that the impersonal mechanisms of capitalism are seen as nondiscriminatory, which for liberal theorists is a major advance over the more direct forms of coercion found in pre-capitalist societies. the benefit here is that markets don't really care about your background, your money is as good as anyone else's, and there's a certain universalizing tendency which comes out of the formal equality which is baked into this logic.

this is echoed in the writings of plenty of classical liberal thinkers like walter e williams that argued segregation would've dissolved on its own if free market forces had been left to run their course, unhindered by racist laws upholding the forced separation of people. eventually, certain business owners would've put their profits before their potential racism, and other firms would've been forced to similarly accommodate in order to stay competitive. williams (who was black) actually criticized some of his friends at the time for spending their money in white businesses that they'd been previously barred from, because in their attempt to stick it to the shop owners that the day before had refused to service them, they were unintentionally enriching racists instead of giving their business to firms that would've taken their money all along, had it been legal and easy to do so. this particular problem (and its market solution) are sometimes dealt with in the context of things like the sears catalog during the jim crow era, which was a big talking point a few years ago as an instance of this market anonymity/impersonality delivering a certain form of economic fairness.

for a lot of marxists, this nondiscriminatory element isn't acknowledged for the merits of not caring about your background, but in some sense for not caring about you at all. everything is reduced to the merely economic. marx pretty famously says as much in the manifesto when he writes:

"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."

this is also what's at stake in the formal equality of the worker in marx's capital, who, as a newly emerged legal subject with all the rights that entails, discovers their double freedom -- free to work or free to starve. and as he says there in v1, "between equal rights force decides".

what i think is significant here is that these aren't really two different accounts of how the system works. for people like smith and hayek, this impersonal mechanism (the invisible hand, etc) is understood as a kind of coercive force which pushes firms toward particular ends which are independent of the wills of any singular capitalist (and in fact express the whole of human economic activity in the aggregate) and which result in the universal generalization of particular principles throughout society, increasingly undermining lingering prejudices (eg smiths capitalist arguments against slavery). marx's analysis is pretty much identical (and this is the point), except in its normative angling. the totalizing character of capitalist production which recreates the world in its own bourgeois image and strives to constantly overcome its own self-imposed limits is similarly impersonal and indiscriminate, but this is presented as a problem to be overcome. hayek, even moreso than smith, recognizes this aspect of the price system which gets at the exact issue which marx is trying to highlight with his analysis of value.

both are aware of the historical uniqueness of the social formation and have no illusions about it via cliche appeals to "human nature" etc, and as i've mentioned above, its not really a difference in analysis, or even really in results (as cordelia has said, the strong form of the marxian complaint isn't that capitalism is doing something poorly, but that these are the effects when it is working well/asserting itself fully). so the point im making and have made repeatedly is that what's at stake here is a set of underlying normative commitments which marx and marxists have basically left unjustified. the usual claim is that marx was too scientific for that sort of thing, but i don't think that's really a possible reading (and if it is, it's not a good/internally defensible one).

if anything, the immanence of his analysis to the liberal theory which constitutes his object sets the limit on his ability to express himself fully, but it also provides the only adequate place to ground his normative account. his notion of contradiction is supposed to do a lot of the heavy lifting here, but to the extent that these contradictions are located in liberal theory itself, they *necessarily* don't go unaccounted for by liberals. he's not saying or demonstrating anything which hasn't also been posed as a liberal political problem. if you don't like crises, then very well, you can be a keynesian (maybe even a radical one). you don't think that works? well, your argument probably sounds a lot like hayek's. what is marx able to contribute here that isn't already understood as a careful balancing act -- if not a definite limit -- in liberal theory? the potential salvation of communism, which is supposed to overcome the problems (whatever they are taken to be) of capitalism, necessarily stems from some set of normative commitments that can't be written off. if his critique is tightly immanent, as it arguably was, then what marxists need to justify isn't really the account of the system (you don't even have to be a marxist for that!) but the case for its abolition.

if your problem with it is "domination", you need to be able to demonstrate what's wrong with the mechanisms that word is intended to describe, and it can't just be that they're impersonal or coercive. liberals feel the same way about these things and all of us experience gravity that way. you have to be able to say something more than that, but contemporary marxist accounts tend to only go as far as calling it "domination" and getting away with it because the marxists nod along, knowing that domination is naughty, otherwise why would we call it domination?

so, although cordelia can surely speak for herself, this is part of the project that i think she and i have sorta been picking away at in different ways for a while, with me catching on a bit later (maybe too late tbh). when i expressed my frustrations on this point, directed at chambers, i was in some sense admitting that she'd won me over on this style (if not the specific line) of questioning.

all of this aside, this is of course not a defense of liberalism in the liberal sense, but it is a kind of "defense" of liberalism as a project which has to be taken seriously and can't be written off or dreamed away. in this sense, i am merely following in marx's footsteps, who i think felt very strongly about the need to grapple with liberalism on exactly this kind of terrain, but i am turning the ruthless criticism on the ruthless critic, because i don't think he or his contemporary disciples in the value-as-domination literature have done a good job of navigating this problem. probably though, like nearly everyone else, i'm simply left waiting for cordelia's book.

[beaumars]

ain't no sunshine - j.seresin

Hi Everyone! Lori here! As I stated in this post, I once attempted to write an OC insert for TGM but I never got around to posting it because life got in the way -- and also because i deleted the tumblr app because i had gotten bored with it. i've had other accounts since then dedicated to other fandoms and when I got bored i would delete the app, a truly vicious never ending cycle. however, my tiny little lizard brain always came back to the Top Gun: Maverick fandom and so I once again redownloaded the app to check out the new content. Over the course of my tumblr career i have used a plethora of emails, i couldnt remember the last one I used for my last account so i tried the ol' reliable that I always used (i use another email now for work and professional purposes) and alas! i find my way back to beaumars, an account i forgot i had.

Back to the post I had linked above, though. When i opened my drafts i saw this fic, my proto-fic if you will, just sitting there and i realized i had no fucking idea where this was going, so for the past couple of days i fiddled with my brain and used a good section of a journal to plot out and world build the new and revamped version of this fic. So without further ado, i present Aint No Sunshine.

Special thanks to @credince--writes for assuring me that an OCs backstory can never be too tragic, @j-hauke for solidifying that dr. pepper is a funny call sign, and @thespillingvoid for encouraging me to post this two year old fic as I work on the newer version.

A multiple-part fic with an OC.

What would have been a multiple part fic with an OC.

***

SOMEWHERE, STATESIDE

"Sanchez! Seresin! Stop flirtin' up there, goddammit!"

Major General Thomas Avery wasn't usually known for sugarcoating shit. His tone of voice and way of flight was powerful and commanding, earning him the call sign 'Zeus', it left no space to play games, especially in the skies he seemed to reign on. Avery may be a patient and understanding man on the ground, but when it came to his domain, no one could escape his wrath. Not even the two aviators currently in the air. Without context, one would think the two were trading coy remarks with one another. They're far from right.

"Seresin, you smug ass! Cover me!"

Their objective: drop the dud on target while avoiding the 'enemy'. For every ten minutes they failed to get tone on one of their fellow aviators, another came into the sky to play. The final boss would be Major General Avery, who preferred hands-on methods when it came to flying with the aviators that passed through his base. So far, no one had even come close to even getting their sights on the older man before being 'shot' down. Seresin and Sanchez were the last pair.

Ego's, bragging rights, and a pink slip to the Major General's 1960 El Camino were on the line.

"You got it twisted if you think you're getting that damn car, Sanchez."

Christina Sanchez would roll her eyes if she wasn't focused on trying to complete their exercise, "I could give two shits about the car, Jake. I'm trying to do my job!"

"Keyword. Trying. You're not doing a very good job at it, Chris." He sassed.

"Keep up the chatter and I'll come up earlier than you want me to," Avery threatened. Promised. Stated. It didn't matter, they were screwed either way.

The sun had begun to set ten minutes ago after the longest-running pair had put up a good fight. Some Air Force pilot whose last name was Torres, and her very own wingman: Olen Reeves, callsign 'Icarus'. Jake and Christina were relentless in the heavens, taking their 'shot' no more than ten seconds after Falcon and Icarus entered their air space. In theory and on paper, Sanchez and Seresin are a great team, but their manners towards each other at the current moment were proving otherwise.

On the ground, he could only pray she didn't physically tear Seresin a new one when they landed.

"C'mon, Chris. Get him out of your head," he whispered.

The last rays of light were escaping the flying duo, both of them cursing their terrible luck, knowing what was to come.

Jake got tone on their last aviator, "Jesus, Chris, we would've been done by now if you'd stop leaning on me."

"You keep leaving me out to dry, shithead!" She retorted, "Maybe if you actually stuck closer and acted like a wingman, we wouldn't be in this situation."

"You need to stop relying on others, sweetheart. What are you gonna do when you're all alone up here with no one to watch your back? What're you gonna do then?"

"Shut up," she chastised.

"Suddenly, I spit some truth and you want me to be quiet?-" Jake was in disbelief, he knew the girl was prideful, but he didn't think he went that far in his critique.

"I said shut up, moron," she said, her breathing getting heavier.

"The hypocrisy is deadly, San-"

"Jake! Shut up!" She panicked, "it's gone quiet."

"Fuck."

"Strike three," was the only warning Zeus gave.

Both let out a string of curses as they barreled to avoid being targeted.

Using the last gleam of light in the evergrowing dark sky, Chris commanded, "Alright, Jake, take a hard left when I say," but as she turned her head to get a look at him, she saw that he had left her side in pursuit of Zeus, "you little shit, did you just leave me hanging!?"

"The only one hanging on is you, Sanchez. Get with the program or get shot."

Thomas Avery hated to admit it, but the Seresin kid was putting up a hell of a fight, and Sanchez was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, it would be his downfall, as the sky went dark, Zeus taunted Jake, "Mistake number one: you left your wingman hanging, Seresin."

"My wingman is currently on the ground. Ain't that right, Falcon?"

On base, Falcon laughed, out of concern and amusement, "Zeus is gonna hand him his ass on a silver platter."

A chorus of 'mhm' and 'damn straight' could be heard in the vicinity.

Nearby, Olen Reeves could only look out the window and try and make out where the three of them were, once again praying, this time for her safety and that of her impromptu wingman.

Seresin was wearing a shit-eating grin until the next words fell from the Major General's mouth, "Mistake number two: you're up here with me now."

Jake went silent, he knew he fucked up, and now he was hoping Chris would come out of radio silence and tell him that she was on her way.

Nothing.

She wasn't even showing up on his radar.

"Why the sudden silence, kid?" Zeus was just playing with Jake's mind at this point, with the younger aviator already in his sights, ready to take the shot.

"Sanchez, I could really use your help right about now!"

Once again, nothing.

"Sanchez! Don't leave me hanging!" Jake could only maneuver so much in a dark sky he wasn't used to. He could hear beeping, letting him know that the experienced man was closing in on his plane. Jake mentally prepared for the call, but it never came.

"Sometimes a chef's gotta try what he's cooking, Seresin," Chris came out into the radar at the last minute and used her flares to temporarily blind Zeus and distract him, giving Jake an escape.

She barrelled and went right under her commanding officer's plane, hiding for a good second before hitting the brakes, using the hard stop; Zeus flew right past her. She sped back up and tailgated the man, being careful as to not end up in his jet wash, it only lasted so long before she and Zeus were engaged in a minor dogfight.

"Seresin, where are you?"

"Trying out the daily special, send my compliments to the chef," he said as he pursued Zeus on his own.

"Damnit, Seresin! Can you be a team player for once?" it seemed that in his presence all she could do was complain and vice versa. So bad together, yet so good, if only they could throw their egos out of the cockpit.

"You're hanging on well, Seresin. Unfortunately, it won't be enough," the beeping was loud, it was a lock, "that's a shot."

"Fucking shit!-"

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Zeus toyed, "Fly back to base, kid. It was a good run."

Was.

It was a word that would haunt him for years to come.

"Now, Sanchez. Where could you be hiding?" Thomas asked himself out loud.

It was silent for a good thirty seconds when he felt a force push him towards the right, "There you are."

Zeus went to follow the plane when suddenly, the force came from the right this time, rattling his plane and giving him difficulty locking on her. He didn't know how she was doing that or how fast she was coming at him or even where she was coming at him, but it was starting to unsettle him, dare he say, she was scaring him.

The older man leveled his breathing, taking a minute to recompose himself. Mistake number one.

The beeping came too fast, followed by the lock, and three words, "That's a shot."

Down below, everyone, from crew to pilots alike had their mouths hanging open.

"Holy shit, she did it," Olen breathed.

Another pilot by the name of Carol then shouted, "She got the fucking car!"

The silence then turned into groans of defeat.

Jake sat in his cockpit, having landed minutes beforehand, ripping his helmet off in anger as he heard Chris' announcement.

"Get back to base, kid. That was one hell of a fight you put on."

"Thank you, sir," she acknowledged breathlessly. Chris was riding a high as she landed, the first person to greet her on the tarmac was none other than Olen.

He crushed her in an embrace for a few seconds before pulling back and reprimanding her, "what the hell were you thinking?"

"I- well- I wasn't exactly-"

"Thinking." Finished the Major General, he came up from behind the embracing pilots, "she was doing. Those are the makings of a great pilot, ladies, and gentlemen. You all could learn a little something from that."

Sanchez turned to see that all the other pilots and WSOs had congregated, Jake hanging in the back.

"Seresin," Zeus called out to the man, "You had me on the ropes there for a bit too, young man."

"Let me guess, gotta stop leaving my wingman hanging?" his tone with little to no emotion.

It was late, and Zeus just wanted to go home, so he just stayed silent for a moment before reaching into his flight suit pocket and pulling out a piece of paper, "As promised... Nyx."

Confused, Chris asked, "Sir?"

Zeus just smiled and walked away, "I want everyone back on this tarmac by o six hundred hours, not a minute later," he called over his shoulder.