#not that the way he uses his money and assets would put a dent to anything but yk

[duckiemimi]

if honesty corner stsg didn't get back together, gojo would be on track to become a billionaire ceo and geto would become a politician.

[hippolotamus]

Sentence Sunday ✨

I can show you lies 'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it" and I did Lights, camera, bitch smile, even when you wanna die I was grinning like I'm winning, I was hitting my marks 'Cause I can do it with a broken heart

Beloved mutuals and pocket pals... I honestly don't know what to say for myself. This is a case of 'I listened to a song too much, I had an idea I knew I was never gonna write' turned 'I'll just throw it out as a prompt' --> 'I'll just make a moodboard' --> 'Oh god, I've written over 1k words in place of a summary'. SO. Have... whatever this is, T Swift influenced Buddie actor au. Under the cut to save your dash.

Honestly, if the world still exists in the morning, Eddie Diaz doesn't really give a fuck. His girlfriend left, claiming he's still not over his late wife, and his teenage son, the last thread connecting him to said wife, went to go live with his grandparents. After, of course, blaming Eddie for pushing 'yet another one' away. Christopher wouldn't even look at him before he went.

Then there's Anita Mills, his agent, who is probably a few blood pressure points away from a stroke at this point. Assuming she doesn't fire him first.

Let her, he thinks, grabbing a bottle of Maker's Mark from the cabinet. He has a string of blockbuster films to his name, not to mention a commendable collection of Oscar's and Emmy's. Not that they made his parents proud or kept his wife from leaving him before she died. But they exist as proof that he's had a successful career. Between investments and liquid assets he has more money than he would know what to do with in a hundred lifetimes. So, fuck it.

Eddie breaks the wax seal and twists off the red cap. He doesn't even bother with a glass, not really seeing a need. He's never been a big drinker, but lately his tolerance has grown considerably. Indulging until he passes out seems like an ideal use of his time right now anyway. If he wakes up after? Well, he'll consider that a success.

------------------

"Hey! What the hell?!" Eddie manages, coughing and trying not to choke on the ice cold water hitting his body. He opens his eyes to see Mills towering over him, glowering and holding an empty vase. He swipes a hand across his face. "Seriously, Anita, what the fuck was that?"

"I don't know, Eddie, you tell me." She disappears for less than a minute, returning with a hand towel she unceremoniously drops on his chest. "Help me out here. What's today?"

He wriggles himself to something resembling sitting and leans back against the coffee table. "What's today?" He parrots back dumbly.

Anita crosses her arms and quirks an eyebrow. "I asked you first."

Today, today, today. Where was he supposed to be- "Shit! The interview with, uh, fuck." He snaps his fingers and racks his brain trying to remember a name or a face. All he knows is they're important.

"Claudette Collins. Very good, Eddie, you got it part way."

"Give me ten minutes, I'll put myself together and we can go," he says, fighting the violent wave of nausea that hits as he scrambles to stand up.

"Save your poor carpet from getting puked on and sit the hell down."

"What? No, I can-"

"Eddie," Anita interjects, "the interview was five hours ago. The interview with the Claudette Collins. The one that took me months of phone calls, groveling and cashing in favors to get for you."

Fuck. "Anita, I'm so sorry. How-"

"Save it." Anita holds her hand up, effectively silencing him. It takes him back to being seven years old and having to explain why his dad's truck had an enormous dent in it. She rests her hands on her hips, pacing back and forth as she purses her lips. Eventually she sits in the leather armchair situated in the corner. "Eddie, you and I have known each other a long time. A long time. I've been your agent since you walked into my shitty office back in Dallas. Given your impressive display of awards, I'd say we've done pretty well together."

She inhales sharply, rubbing at her temple. Anita doesn't mince words, it's part of why he's always liked her. He never has to question where he stands. She says 'jump' and he knows exactly how high. It's not difficult to guess what's coming next.

"Eddie, I know you're going through a rough patch. What you're dealing with is hard enough without seeing it splashed on every tabloid and trashy website. Not to mention none of those places knows the real story, so it's all a bunch of 'she said he might have said' bullshit. But you've made it through tougher things." Anita doesn't need to clarify that she's talking about Shannon's death and how his parents tried to take Christopher. "I don't know what's happening this time, but I need to take a step back. My wife has made it very clear that all of my attempts at stress management are not working and that if I can't get it under control I shouldn't be surprised when I come home to an empty house. So."

Eddie swallows, waiting for the inevitable and cursing himself for pretending he wouldn't care.

"I've talked to a few friends in the business and found someone willing to take you on."

What?

"What? You're not firing me?"

Anita's features soften. "Technically, yes. I am very much dropping you like a scorpion I found in my boots. However, like I said, I found someone willing to work with you. The name is Bobby Nash. He runs a smallish agency but don't let that throw you. He's cobbled together some pretty impressive talent. I assume you've heard of Evan Buckley?"

Eddie scoffs. "Of course I have. Who hasn't? Christ, he's everywhere you look. I can't pass a damn bus stop without seeing his face." A few details begin to click into place within Eddie's muddled brain. "Bobby Nash is his agent?"

"Sure is. And we all know the stories about Evan's past aren't the type you trot out at parties. My advice is that you don't look a gift horse in the mouth, go with Nash and do whatever he tells you to do. He even has a role in mind for you, costarring with Buckley. What do you say?"

What else was there to say? If Eddie didn't want to get blacklisted or wind up as some washed up tragic Hollywood story, being gossiped about where everyone - including his son - could see what a failure he was...

"I guess I say- when can I meet him?"

"Good answer." Anita clasps her hands together and gives him her signature smirk that tells him she approves. "Just leave everything to me."

Up to this point, Eddie has trusted Anita implicitly with all the messy business that comes with having him for a client. Why stop now?

tagged by @loveyouanyway @spotsandsocks @wikiangela @tizniz

np tagging @actuallyitsellie @epicbuddieficrecs @a-noble-dragon @mountedeverest @fortheloveofbuddie

@weewootruck @saybiwithme @bidisasterevankinard @shipperqueen6 @ramonaflow

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@daffi-990 @diazsdimples @your-catfish-friend

@thekristen999 @filet-o-feelings @underwaterninja13 @lizzie-bennetdarcy @rainbow-nerdss

@steadfastsaturnsrings @inell @jesuisici33 @rmd-writes

@shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @queerbuckleys @bi-buckrights @elvensorceress

@bucksbiawakening @giddyupbuck @hoodie-buck @indestructibleheart @ladydorian05

@lemonzestywrites @monsterrae1 @statueinthestone @slightlyobsessedwitheverything @the-likesofus

@thewolvesof1998 @watchyourbuck @welcometololaland @wildlife4life and anyone else who wants to 😘

[whitherwanderer]

4 // recycle (extra credit)

This was not part of the plan, Sif reminded herself as she sat behind the rusted out remains of a car twice her age.

The hardest part of the job was supposed to be finding the damn corpos’ drop point. Not hiding from what might be one of their infamously bloody asset liquidations. Gonk fixer would find a hefty inconvenience charge at the bottom of his invoice for the time she’d spend waiting for this to resolve.

The telltale whine of the drone drifting overhead drowned out any and all sound around her in the small valley between the literal mountains of garbage surrounding her, the wind kicked up by the engines blowing hot and sending various pieces of junk soaring past her hiding spot and making the smell all that much more pleasant just when she thought she’d managed to get used to it.

“God damn it…” she mouthed and her hand rose to her head, noting the tremors. She put those out of her mind for now as she turned to peek out of cover at the vessel, expecting some heavily armored monster to be waiting just beyond.

Instead, she found a banged-up, unmarked garbage vehicle, its blue and yellow paint flaking and faded, rusting over where a few well-placed bullets left pockmark dents in the hull. She recognized the model. Long out of commission, and yet, someone was still using it to fly their shit out to the edge of the city. Maybe she’d found her drop point after all.

She watched from cover as the hopper opened, letting a shower of junk spill out into the clearing below. Nothing particularly special at a glance, of course. Boxes and bags stuffed to bursting. Shredded tires and scrap. She sighed to herself as she realized that this was going to be a long night of picking through crap to find her cargo. Fortunately, it only took a few seconds longer for the sensors to recognize the hold was empty before the drone closed up and took off back towards the city. And once it was far enough, Sif slipped out of hiding.

She looked over the new obstacle with her hands on her hips and shook her head, ready to dig through the boot of her car and dig out her work gloves—

Her optics glitched. Or did they? She searched for the shape that had caught her attention and took a step back when she found exactly what she hoped she wouldn’t. Not a glitch, a man. Half-buried and probably dead if he was here of all places. Recently dead too, judging by his color. A hum rolled from her throat. She knew some folks who might throw her a decent sum for secondhand chrome, much as she didn’t like dealing with them…

“Who’ve we got here?” she asked herself, glancing over readouts that flickered into her vision. No name, no affiliation, no insurance coverage. She clicked her tongue. Victim of identity theft, maybe. Her readouts flickered red at her as an exclamation popped up across her optics in urgent lettering.

“Fuck, you’re alive?”

She spent the next ten minutes struggling to pull the man out of the heap, dragging him across the valley towards her own little pile of scrap, a Thorton that she’d poured more money into than the damn thing was worth for parts. The next order of business was propping him up and taking a moment to catch her breath as she knelt down next to him to get a better look at him.

He was a sorry-looking idiot that she likely wouldn’t give a second glance on the street. Dressed in plain, dingy clothes and denim, no notable features save for the circuitry that ran from his forehead to a spot above his ear, another implant on his opposite temple. She nudged his head sideways to try and look for his port, maybe she could find out a thing or two more about his condition—

As she reached for her cable, she realized the port on the side of his neck was completely incompatible with her tech. No cable she’d ever seen before would fit that. Foreigner, maybe? She mused this to herself with a huff, but there were other ways around the problem. She reached for his wrist to find his own cable, pausing once again at what she’d found, then humming her sympathy. Just beneath his skin, from his wrist to elbow, the veins in his arms ran blue-black as the night sky. A junkie with expensive taste.

“Suddenly, I ain’t so surprised t’ find y’ here,” she sighed at him, pulling his wrist to lay across his lap and standing up to lean into her passenger side window.

Was she opposed to having a man like that indebted to her for pulling him back from the grave? At worst, he’d ghost her. At best, she’d have a favor to call in, and in the clan she was raised, that was worth every eddy she’d lose for not finishing this job. She pulled her first aid kit and a laptop case from under the dash, then set both out, open and ready for use as needed. The laptop booted with a tap or two and, prayers abound, in went his cable. With any luck, he wasn’t bugged to hell before he was dropped in the trash.

Surprisingly, luck was in her favor. His diagnostics were squeaky clean. Suspiciously so, save for one program that was left running on him. She gave him a curious glance again as she tabbed over to vital signs and once more he gave her reason to pause. She hissed as she hurriedly punched in a command to kill the program. At least it gave up without a fight.

“Th’ hell are y’ supressin’ your own vitals for, y’ gonkbrain—” she stopped her ranting as the computer sounded an alarm at her, helpfully encouraging her to try and contact his Trauma Team policy agents as his heart rate soared to dangerous, even inhuman speeds.

She swore aloud as he seized up and fell over sideways, cable ripping from her laptop as she scrambled to get him on his side. She dragged her first aid kit to her side and pried an injection gun from its foam mold, picking up vials and dropping them until she found the one she needed. She plugged it into the injector and fought his arm with both her own, placing the injector against his skin right above a vein. Her breath held, the click of the trigger brought a few seconds of silence while she waited for the drug to take.

When he finally gasped for a breath and shuddered, the tension in his body falling back into limp stupor, she pushed him onto his back and reached for his neck to feel for a pulse. It was slower now, and the drugs she gave him were certainly aiding that, but he was seemingly stable. She let a nervous laugh leave her and sat back on the dusty ground, looking up at the few stars visible in the night sky.

“...You're gonna be m' problem now, aren’t y’?” she asked him with a weary groan.

—

OOC Notes: It’s yes. The answer is yes.

Cyberpunk AU!! Based on the world of Cyberpunk 2077, but older AUs will certainly make appearances later this month.

[nosferatvpussy]

distorted lullabies [chapter I]

Word count: 2,134 Warnings: none but please keep in mind this story will eventually delve into mature themes so go away if you’re not 18+ Pairing: Dracula x female reader

I’ll try posting a chapter per week. Any constructive criticism and feedback is very welcome (really, english is not my first language so I’ll take any help I can get). I’m waiting for ao3 to e-mail me an invitation so I can post it there, too. 

_______________________________________________________________

He heard her footsteps long before she knocked on his door.

He stood sat on his armchair with a book on his lap, waiting. A loud song reached his ears, making him tilt his head. Hm. Interesting how humans could go around now with a tiny appliance that played music directly in their ears. The gramophone had lost its appeal and the wealth associated with it. Now everybody on the street carried one of those metal and glass slabs with strings attached to it, bobbing their head to their song of choice.

She was humming along with the song as she walked down the corridor to his building. Shifting in his seat, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A hint of perfume, coffee, strawberries and honey. Curious. Not a scent of her blood yet.

The clicking heels stopped as she paused the music and he rose. He took his time on the way to the door so she could adjust her belongings. Another deep intake of breath and he came to a halt, a sigh escaping his lips. 

Oh, intoxicating.

He found that this new era had brought exquisite new flavours to his taste, but this one… ah, she was a mix of old european blood, found only in the hidden depths of the Carpathian Forest, and the lovely nuance of modernity. That old saying, you are what you eat applied to her as well. Whatever she was in habit of eating or drinking heavily influenced her scent. A nice, well preserved and safely kept bottle of wine, just for him. It quickly overpowered all the other scents surrounding her.

Knock, knock.

Throwing his head back to try and regain his composure, he opened the door. The door handle dented beneath his hand upon laying eyes on her. He expected her to pretty but he was met with far more than that. 

“Yes?”, was all he could manage. 

“I’m Y/N L/N,” she said as if it were explanatory. He stared at her blankly. “Renfield sent me, I’m from the lawyer firm? I brought you some documents to review.” 

“Oh, yes, of course,” he stepped aside, opening one arm to invite her in and putting a smile on display. 

She peered at him from the corner of her eyes as she passed him, quickening her pace as he took another whiff. He would have to be more cautious so as to not scare her away. But if she did flee that would only make him chase her and he would drink her down too quickly, without any appreciation whatsoever. And what a crime that would be.

“I brought you a cell phone, as well. Renfield mentioned you were stripped of yours when you were taken to the Foundation.” She placed her bag on a chair and her briefcase on top of large center table of his flat. She had her back to him, giving an opportunity to analyse her.

The tight clothes and missing fabric was still something he had to get accustomed with but he wasn’t complaining. If anything, he quite liked the fashion of this century. 

The fact that he could see her stockings was outrageous, black with a seam running down the center of her legs. In his time, she would have been lynched for having her undergarments on display like that. The black high heels were a nice touch. And then the tight pencil skirt outlining her curves… It left just enough for his imagination. 

She turned around to see him standing there like a statue, the door still open. Ah, pity. How unfortunate that those shirts were still in fashion. He couldn’t recall the name humans gave it in this era and suddenly he hated it. The collar covered her neck entirely. In fact, now that he realized it the only skin showing on her body was on her face and hands. 

“Count? Are you alright?”

“Perfectly fine, my darling,” he replied, closing the door at last and swallowing down the saliva that had welled up in his mouth. He strode over to her, placing his hands on the chair closest to her. “I apologise for my manners. It has been awhile since I had a guest over, you must think me a terrible host. Please, take a seat. Unfortunately I have only water and wine to offer you.”

She looked derisively to the chair offered to her. Her lips fought a smile and he encouraged it by smiling in return, but, no, she refused to give it to him.

“Renfield was right,” she whispered under her breath but he caught it. Louder, she said “Thank you but I’ll stand. I’m in a hurry today. Don’t you worry about me,” she extended a white box with a picture of that metal slab on the front. A cell phone, she had said. “Here you go, there’s already a simcard in it, your new number is written in the back. I’ve taken the liberty to set it up for you. I placed Renfield’s number on speed dial should you need it, he’s registered as 6. You do know how to handle one of these, right?”

“I catch on fairly fast,” opening the box and retrieving the phone. “And if I need to contact you?” 

“You have no need to contact me. I’m simply running an errand for my boss,” she stated dryly, averting her eyes. “Here, if you could sign these for me to release the rest of your assets,” a pen was offered to him. He plucked it from her small fingers automatically.

It was not often that he met someone that resisted his charms. He could count on one hand, in fact. The Van Helsings, Johnny and now her. At the very least Agatha and Zoe held some interest in him and Johnny had made himself a hero waging vengeance against him - especially now with the Jonathan Harker Foundation.

But not her. Not one sliver of interest.

“Are you signing them or should I come back another da- evening?” she corrected herself, one hand on her hip and another raising to push her hair back. He caught a glimpse of the skin beneath her ear, paler than the rest of her.

He took his time signing each of the documents. When he was done, he gathered the papers in his hands, holding them flush against his chest so she wouldn’t get them and leave. She bit the insides of her cheeks, meeting his eyes with clear annoyance on them. Oh, fiesty. She was an impatient one. Maybe he had caught her on a bad day but he had a feeling she was always like this. He could not stop his smirk, which only made her heart beat faster in anger. 

“And if I want to contact you? I promise you I will make it worth your while.”

“I don’t do dates with clients.”

“I’m not your client.” 

That made her scoff.

“Right. You’re Renfield’s,” her eyes traveled up and down him, granting him a little satisfaction. “Still, I don’t do dates.”

“What if it’s not a date? I am new to London and I would appreciate if someone could show me the sights.”

“I’m not a tour guide,” she replied, her expression hardening. 

“No, you’re a lawyer.”

“I’m well aware. Can I have those back?”, one hand out to him with a raised eyebrow. 

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Both of her hands went on her hips and she huffed, trying to make herself bigger as if she was demanding respect. The movement made her breasts press through her shirt, giving him a delightful sight. She grabbed her purse, swung it over her shoulder and proceeded to close her briefcase. 

“Fine. Keep them. I’m late to an appointment at court. I’m sure Renfield can send someone else to get those papers. In the meanwhile, enjoy life without all your money.”

“How insolent of you,” he shot back but he was smiling. He doubted she would address him like that if she knew just what he was.

“Yes I am. I don’t have time for games.” 

“This is isn’t a game.”

“Isn’t it? I see right through you. God, and you must think you’re so innovative with all the european sophistication. I bet you’re used to having women throwing themselves at you as soon as you mention you’re a Count.”

“Usually, I don’t have to mention it at all, in fact,” he intervened. She was about to continue but he carried on. “What was Renfield right about?”

Her eyes widened and her lips parted in surprise. He cocked an eyebrow, shaking the papers as if to say he would give them to her if she answered.

“That you are not from here and that you are old fashioned.”

Listening attentively to her heart and how it skipped a beat, he shook his head to the sides.

“That’s not all. What else?”

“He said that you would try and gain my affections.” 

The Count offered her the papers. 

“Perhaps I ought to change lawyers. He clearly speaks more about his own clients than he should. Would you be available?”

And with that she chuckled. Ah, so the façade could be broken… at least for a second. 

“I’m afraid I have a long list of clients at the moment, Count Dracula. If you commit a serious offense you may call on me to represent you,” she took the papers, her fingers briefly brushing against his cold skin. Her eyebrows furrowed but she was quick to conceal her startlement at his temperature.

She was walking to the door as she stuffed the papers inside her bag and he accompanied her.

“I might just murder someone to take you up on your offer,” he said from behind her, in a tone much more serious than he intended. Still, she laughed at that, the sound ringing through the room. 

He courteously opened the door for her and she turned on her heels, extending a hand for him. 

“I apologise for being rude before but I will not apologise for setting boundaries. I hope you understand that, Count. And if you do decide to murder someone make sure to hide the evidence so it will be a good case for us.”

“I will keep that in mind.”

He grinned at her and she smiled back but without the warmth he presented her. A large hand slipped into hers and she shuddered. Gazing down unto her eyes he shook her hand which made her smile grow more confident. She had started to loosen her grip but he held her firmly. He bent forward and his lips caressed the back of her hand. She stared at him the whole time as if hypnotized and for a moment he thought he had gotten her in the palm of his hand but then she blinked and cleared her throat. 

“Boundaries, Count Dracula, you should remember them if we meet again. Goodbye.”

“Bye now, my darling,” he called when she turned her back to him and started marching down the corridor, swaying her hips.

“Boundaries!” she repeated as she entered the elevator.

Before the doors closed he could swear he saw an amused glint in her eyes. 

The Count sat on his armchair again, the book now forgotten as he thought about Y/N. He was still indecisive about what to do with her. Simply draining her would not only be a waste of good blood but as well of character. 

She demanded respect with every step of her heels. He would bet that she could cower many men with that stare of hers. Dracula had never met many lawyers and those that he did meet were fascinating in different ways. Johnny was determined although slightly stupid. Renfield was a slave to his every wish. Should Dracula ask him to retrieve the fattest fish in the sea, the poor man would probably drown trying to get it. But she was an entirely different breed.

So strong-willed that it was a charm all on its own, without even striving for it to be as such. He had heard an expression on the television the other day that he thought might apply well to her - “my way or the highway”.

And such amazing beauty. Make up was far more popular in this century, he could tell, and he was quickly learning it could disguise many unwanted flaws but she used in such a way that it added to her beauty instead of covering it. 

Beautiful, impetuous, resolute… and a sense of humour that was surprisingly dark. 

Ah… She would make quite the bride if she could withstand the change. And if she did not, he would make sure to savour every curve and every last drop of blood in her body.

[ridiasfangirlings]

Why do you think Kisa got/stayed married to Niki? I just don't really see what she could've got out of her relationship with him. She seems to be as disinterested in him (if not even more so) than she she is in her son. (Probably a sign that her end goal wasn't to have a kid.) We know it wasn't for money, because Kisa's a CEO and isn't Niki unemployed? It could have been an arranged marriage, but why didn't she just divorce him? Was it just too much of a hassle when she could just avoid him?

I think the All Characters story with them gives a good idea of why they got married at least, because Kisa probably didn't realize how worthless Niki was until it was too late. It's mentioned that Kisa was really ambitious even in college and when she met Niki she was entranced by him because of his genius, feeling like she could accomplish even more goals with him beside her. I imagine on Niki's end he probably found Kisa pretty interesting (which for him is something like love, I guess) and so he kept up the eccentric genius routine as long as he needed to and by the time Kisa realized that Niki had no ambitions at all she was too deep into the relationship. I tend to think Kisa got pregnant before she and Niki were married (either way I 100% believe Fushimi was an accident and no one will convince me otherwise), like Kisa kept thinking maybe Niki would be helpful for her goals up until he got into her pants and got her pregnant. At that point marrying Niki was probably more convenience than anything, like even though she knew then that he had no ambition and that he was this twisted type of guy it also could have put a dent in her plans to be an unmarried mother.

And I actually could see his money being a possible reason why she stuck with him too, Niki's unemployed but I always had the impression that Niki's family is pretty loaded – it's mentioned in LSW in the scene with Niki's funeral that Kisa didn't need to bow her head and bargain for the inheritance because she's built her own wealth but that Fushimi did have inheritance rights, which indicates Niki must have had some kind of familial wealth. I don't believe it's ever been stated that Kisa comes from a wealthy family so it's possible that once she decided she didn't need Niki's brain she did at least figure she could use his assets – like use Niki's money as start up capital, build up her own business and then pay back the loan so she doesn’t owe him anything. By that point she could just ignore Niki and continue focusing solely on her career with him as just the occasional unwanted spouse (and I kinda feel like she used her son a bit in that regard too, like I could totally see her saying Niki's the one in charge of the kid, especially since the Mother's Day short story noted that Yata saw her even less than Niki when he was visiting Fushimi's place. So this way she gets most of Niki's attention off her and focused on her son, and that keeps her free to do her own thing. Whereas divorce would probably just catch Niki's interest even more and make him want to pay more attention to her, it's easiest just to stay married to him and avoid him, letting him focus his energies on the kid instead so Kisa can pursue her ambitions).

[wearevillaneve]

While We’re Waiting, What’s Next for...Konstantin?

I love the official BBC America character page for Konstantin Vasilev:

Konstantin is not afraid of anything or anyone (that’s a damn lie!) . He has     seen more broken bones and shattered spirits in his life than anyone would dare to imagine. (awww...Konstantin is sensitive.  Like a cold toilet seat) He recruits and runs assassins, but none more complex and demanding than Villanelle. He understands that her ego is a beast, and he is constantly walking the tightrope of being able to manage it. He doesn’t always know who she is going to kill, he just tells her she has to (including himself).

He is an opportunist. He tells her that he is devoted to the people who order the kills and she should be, too. But really, he doesn't give a fuck. He just wants money and a roof over his head (this.  all this).

Konstantin is not a psychopath, he’s more pragmatic and self-interested than that – he does whatever he needs to survive. He has a slow, masculine pace (because the ladies love his slow, masculine pace, right  Carolyn and Geraldine?). He gives off an impression of being a little weary, but when push comes to shove, he will fight for his life harder than anyone (hitting Villanelle with a log proved that).

That said, he also has an aversion to violence – to getting his hands dirty. Which is why Villanelle’s indifference to brutality makes her his most important asset. He’s probably the closest thing Villanelle has ever had to a stable relationship. Although you wouldn’t know it to look at him, Konstantin is a family man (yeah, and he sucks at it).

He’s amused by life and by Villanelle but he’s clever enough to be frightened of her. He is the only person we meet who isn’t powerless to Villanelle’s charms. He knows her too well. After all…he did create her (Frankenstein’s beautiful monster comes back to kill Dr. Frankenstein).

Konstantin's lovable rogue image took a hit in S3 between all his scheming and lying and deceptions. Throw in his unexplained role in Kenny's murder (I ain't buyin' none of this tripped-and-fell-off-the-roof jive) as well as his Big Daddy K and Geraldine shit (BLECH!) and I wanted Carolyn to end him.

I don't see Konstantin sunning himself on the shores of Cuba and even he can't be so cold as to leave Irina in a Russian detention center. He'll have to either go crawling back to Carolyn or to The Twelve. Give them back their money and swear he'll get Villanelle back for them.

Unless Carolyn and Konstantin are running another fake-out like they did in S2 when he popped up hale and hearty after being gut shot by V, I don't see his way back to MI6's good graces. Helene might be a bit more forgiving than Carolyn.

It would not break my heart to see Konstantin take a permanent vacation in hell and Eve being the one to send him on it. She's got a taste for this whole murder/death/kill thing now and Eve doesn’t like Konstantin.   She never has.  Despite his roguish charms, he has not dented Eve’s defenses at all.

She sees him for what he is: a bullshit artist, plus he’s a cock block between her and her boo.    Even Villanelle has had enough of his shit.   Their weird father/daughter dynamic of Season One was gone by Season Three due to his multiple betrayals of her trust, and Villanelle doesn’t trust a lot of people.   She certainly trusted in Konstantin more than even Eve, and he kept exploiting that trust for his own selfish, self-interests. Not no mo’.  Konstantin is a world-class asshole and a terrible misogynist.   He thinks of himself as a lover of women, but he only uses and abuses them time and again.  Villanelle, Carolyn, Geraldine, Irina and his nameless, faceless wife are all subject to his cynical manipulations.   Only Eve recognized him as the sleazy little shit he is from the jump.  

Maybe Villanelle will pop under from under the covers but this time to finish what she started.  Don’t be so stingy with your bullets, V.  Go full John Wick and double-tap two in the brain box to make sure.  Can’t put Kevlar around your head, Big Daddy K. Villanelle told Konstantin she didn’t want him to die, but  she also threw his “You’re not family” insult back in his face.  Eve is family now and if new family says old family’s gotta go, they gotta go.  I don’t see Konstantin dying in bed unless that’s where he is when E&V show to punch his ticket.  Remember, this is Killing Eve and this is not a show where men pass away in a peaceful, natural way.   When a man’s life ends the cause is a woman ending them.  The misandry is a nice change-up, wouldn’t you agree?

[much-obliged-timothy]

Whumptober #1

Borderlands - #1- Waking Up Restrained

*

Axton’s head ached terribly. He tried to open his eyes, but one wouldn’t cooperate, and the other promptly shut in the harsh light.

“He’s up.”

The voice was muffled despite how close it sounded. Someone kicked him roughly, and Axton forced his eye back open to see who it was.

It came back to him slowly as he stared up at the man towering over him. The mission. 

He and Gaige had been exploring a Dahl facility, collecting weapons and supplies for the Crimson Raiders. Then…

“Shit,” Axton said.

The man crouched down, his uniform all too familiar to Axton. He gripped Axton’s hair, sending a surge of pain through Axton’s head.

“That’s right, deserter,” he said. “You’re done running from the firing squad. We’re bringing you back.” 

He was supposed to be out of reach of Dahl here on Pandora. But they’d found him in the facility, and taken him hostage.

“Hey!” Axton said, hating how dry his throat was. “What the hell did you do to Gaige?”

“The girl wasn’t the deserter. We left her behind,” the man said, standing up. “I saw your wanted poster plastered all over the place when we got to Pandora. I want to say it’s just luck that I got my hands on you, but you were the one stupid enough to go snooping around an active Dahl facility.”

They hadn’t realized it was active. If they had, they never would’ve sent Axton on that mission.

And now here he was.

Wherever the hell “here” actually was.

He tried to shift, and realized that his arms were bound behind him. He was shackled to a metal support beam stretching from the floor to the ceiling of the room. With his eye open now, he realized that the lighting wasn’t actually harsh, and he was likely suffering a concussion.

He still couldn’t open his other eye. He was pretty sure it was either swelled shut, or there was so much blood dried on it that it was just stuck. Lovely. 

They’d been ambushed by a small squad of Dahl soldiers, and he looked around to see where the rest were. The one who appeared to be in charge stood nearby, watching him smugly.

The room was small, with only one door in or out. It was guarded by two of the soldiers, and he assumed the rest were on the other side somewhere. Axton tugged at the shackles again, but they were too secure to slip free of. 

One of his ankles was shackled as well, which he thought was excessive. Damn Dahl soldiers, needing to go overboard on everything they did.

“Do I know you?” Axton said at last. “Don’t remember any of you.”

“No. But I’d heard about you. They said you’d fled to Pandora, and that it wasn’t worth chasing you down,” the leader said. “They figured you’d be killed here sooner or later. Guess they were wrong. They’ll be more than pleased to end you themselves. And we’ll be more than pleased to claim the bounty Dahl put on you.”

Axton tried to fight past his foggy memory for the details of how he’d ended up here. Dahl had impressive security technology, and he remembered he and Gaige had accidentally set something off. Yes, that was it. 

They’d been separated. Gaige had gotten locked in the room they’d infiltrated, and Axton had been locked outside, left to face the Dahl squad on his own as they showed up to investigate. He was good, but even he wasn’t good enough to take on a mini squad by himself. 

The last thing he remembered was Gaige yelling his name as she tried to free herself with Deathtrap’s help, and one of the soldiers swinging a heavy chunk of metal at his head. 

So they were likely planning to go back and retrieve Gaige later. Arrest her for trespassing, and let her face the consequences. 

Axton hoped she could get out before then. 

If Axton could find a way out of this situation and escape back to Sanctuary, he’d be safe. It wouldn’t be worth it to Dahl to pursue him here. It’d cost them too much money for one troublemaker. 

But he was alone, injured, and chained up. The odds weren’t exactly in his favor.

He was tugging at the shackles again, trying to find a weakness in them somewhere. If he could get enough movement in his arms to reach his turret, he might stand a chance.

But then the leader came over, and kicked him roughly. “Stop moving. You won’t find a way out of this one.” He grinned, digging his foot against Axton’s chest, pressing Sarah’s ring against it. “Your ex-wife is the one who discharged you, if I remember right. I’m sure she’ll be glad to put you down. We’ll turn you over to her.”

No. No, no, no. Sarah had allowed him to escape. For all the trouble he’d caused her, she didn’t want him dead. If he got dragged back to her, she’d have no choice but to kill him. He didn’t want to put her through that.

“Why don’t you take your boot off and lick it since you love Dahl so much?” Axton snapped, tugging harder at the restraints. 

The man pressed his boot to Axton’s face. “Why don’t you take your own advice? You're at our mercy now, deserter. I can’t stand hero types like you. Why join the military if you were only out to make yourself look good? Waste of everyone’s time.” 

Axton turned his head away and spat on the leader’s other boot. “Better than the fucking prick you are, dude.”

The boot smashed into his face, and this time, Axton spat blood. The leader gave him a dark look and reluctantly backed off.

“Whine all you want. You’ll be dead by tomorrow. We’re just waiting on the transportation for you,” he said. 

He retreated back to the corner of the room, taking out his ECHO and messaging on it. Axton desperately tried to think of a way out of this mess. 

Just as he was starting to lose hope, there was a muffled thump and a yell from outside the door. The two guarding it both jerked in surprise and looked from each other to the leader.

“One of you, go investigate,” the leader ordered. He unholstered his gun and trained it on Axton. “Did you call for backup?”

“Yea, while I was unconscious I actually reached out to my friends in their dreams,” Axton said. “C’mon, man, what kinda stupid question was that? I’ve been conscious for, like, three minutes.”

He heard more screaming from outside, and the sound of a robotic trill. He instantly brightened.

“Oh, you fucked up, dude,” Axton said cheerfully. 

The leader pistol-whipped him in the face, and Axton winced, letting out a hiss of pain. He found the gun trained on his head.

“Be ready,” the leader ordered the remaining soldier guarding the door.

The soldier backed away and aimed his gun at the door. Axton already knew that wasn’t going to help him one bit.

Sure enough, the door flew open a minute later, and the soldier began to fire the instant Deathtrap came in. Deathtrap ignored the bullets bouncing harmlessly off him as he swiped at the guard.

Gaige rolled in behind him and shot the soldier dead since Deathtrap had shattered his shield. The leader snarled out a curse and tightened his hold on his gun.

“Stand down, or I kill him,” he said loudly.

Gaige looked over and let out a despaired noise. “Aw, man, what’d you do to his face? It was his best asset.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that since you came for me,” Axton said.

“How are you here?” the leader demanded.

“Uh, because I’ve been hacking Dahl security for years, duh. Super simple stuff if you know what you’re doing,” Gaige said. 

“Drop your weapon, and kick it to me,” the leader ordered. When Gaige didn’t comply, he fired a shot dangerously close to Axton’s foot. “Do it.”

Gaige dropped her gun and kicked it over to him, raising her hands. She flickered an uneasy glance to Axton, as if asking what she should do now.

She’d come to save him, but Axton was guessing she’d hoped to take his captors out quickly. The fact that one had him hostage at gunpoint put a dent in her plans. 

He just had to buy her a few seconds. She could grab one of her other weapons and take this guy out with Deathtrap’s help. But how?

Aw, fuck it. Bones would heal, but death was permanent. 

He swiped out his free leg, catching the leader by the ankles and sending him stumbling off balance. He then stuck his chained leg out, using his ankle to send the leader stumbling to the ground, and crying out as the force of it and the awkward angle thanks to the restraints broke his ankle.

Gaige didn’t hesitate; she had a shotgun out and firing in seconds. “Cover Axton, DT!”

Deathtrap surged in front of Axton protectively as the leader scrambled for his gun. Gaige’s shots were weakening his shield rapidly, and by the time he could fire on her, she had the advantage.

His shield shattered, and he tried to reach for a grenade. Gaige shot him in the shoulder, then the leg. The leader cried out, and Gaige slammed her shotgun against his temple, silencing him.

“Axton!” she cried, dropping to his side. “Are you okay?”

“Concussed, and my ankle is broken,” he said, gritting his teeth against the pain. “Why didn’t you kill him?”

“So we can question him and see who else he told about your whereabouts. I called the others for help. They’re on their way,” Gaige said.

“How did you find me?” Axton asked as Gaige began to fire on his restraints with a corrosive weapon.

“We’re still in that facility, just in the basement. I hacked their security system and found the footage of them knocking you out and dragging you along. Let me get you free and then I’ll give you health kits. You have a bad gash just above your eye,” she said. She hesitated, then threw her arms around his neck. “Fuck, Axton, I thought they were going to take you off-planet immediately.”

“Nah, I’ve got this badass friend who would never let them,” he said, using his now free arms to hug her back. “Thanks for saving my ass, Gaige. I owe you a drink. I owe you a lot of drinks.” 

Gaige stuck a health kit in him and let him lean against her. “I’ve got your back. We’ll fix up that face of yours, don’t worry.” She slung an arm around his shoulders. “The others will be here soon. Rest for now. When we get back to Sanctuary, you can buy me those drinks.”

He’d been alone for a long time, just hunting bounties and trying to find a purpose in life. But he wasn’t alone anymore. He had friends who came for him when he was in trouble. He had friends who would do anything to save him.

“Thanks, Gaige,” he said, gently wrapping his hand around the wedding band. “You saved more than just me.”

“Don’t get sappy on me!” she said, but she was grinning in relief. 

They sat together, arguing back and forth about who was sappier. Axton was tired and in pain, but as Gaige’s laughter echoed around the room, he knew he wouldn’t have his life any other way.

[ducktracy]

168. porky’s super service (1937)

release date: july 3rd, 1937

series: looney tunes

director: ub iwerks

starring: mel blanc (porky), elvia allman (woman)

though ub iwerks gets the director’s credit, bob clampett and chuck jones both tackled the directing duties on this one. this is ub’s last credit at warner bros, touting an interminable stint of 2 (technically 3 if you count his early involvement in porky’s badtime story) cartoons. bob clampett would be the one to inherit his unit—according to bob, when he came into work one monday morning, he found iwerks’ director’s chair empty and was told that he was the director. this will be touched on more when covering porky’s badtime story.

slapstick is galore in this final iwerks credit—porky runs a service station, but runs into trouble when he has to fix up a car and keep an eye out on a sadistic, violent baby at the same time. with chuck jones’ frustration comedy and bob clampett’s sadistic antics, both combine to make quite an amusing effort for the time period.

already, the title card greets us with some ambiance as the sounds of car horns and motors preface a jazzy rendition of “i’m hatin’ this waitin’ around”, the cartoon’s motif. already, a wise decision to preserve money as the opening of the cartoon is reduced to a few layouts and pans: an overhead view of the titular service station trucks into a vertical pan of gas prices. 

“GAS 3 ¢” is emblazoned proudly on the sign at the service station, but as the pan goes down, the audience (and customer) is taxed for much more than they bargained for:

STATE TAX 6 ¢

CITY TAX 4 ¢

COUNTRY TAX 7 ¢

UNEMPLOYMENT TAX 3 ¢

SOCIAL SECURITY TAX 5 ¢

FARM RELIEF TAX 2 ¢

LUXURY TAX 8 ¢

CARPET TACKS 5 ¢ 

TOTAL 43 ¢

as much of a groaner and an eye-roller the punchline is, my pun-loving self can’t get too angry about this. this was actually one of the first looney tunes cartoons i checked out on my own, and it gave me a good laugh the first time i saw it.

the titular pig himself is busy at work filling up gas, befuddled at the placement (or lack thereof) of a car’s gas valve. a question mark pops above his head to convey his plight, an iwerks staple--iwerks would even animate a scene in the oswald cartoon oh teacher (1927), where a cat uses its own question mark as a tripwire in order to steal oswald’s girlfriend from him. porky, however, isn’t that sadistic (at least, not yet)--instead, he asks the car owner where the gas goes. the car owner responds back in a german accent, “you vant to know?” “ye-ye-yes, i veh-vant to know.” the owner then addresses the audience: “hmmph. should i tell him?” this is certainly a radio catchphrase of some kind, but which it belongs to, i haven’t found. i can confirm that it’s bubbled up in a few other cartoons, at the very least.

nevertheless, the car owner/dog lifts up the entire top of the car, where a gas valve is situated inside. porky heads over to pump the gas, a closeup on the gas take reflecting an iwerks “shiver take” as the arrow eventually approaches the 10 galloon mark. when the arrow approaches 9, a little cuckoo bird pops out of the gas tank, quipping “at the sound of the gong, it will be exactly 10 gallons”--a reference to time tones being played on the radio. the bird listens, and when the “clock” strikes 10, it retreats back into its rightful place. while perhaps not the funniest gag today, it does have some clever and smooth animation.

a nice bit of character animation as porky happily flips his shiny new coin, interrupted by the sound of an approaching customer. porky fills the customer’s car with oil as per request (”oka-okeh-okeh-ok-oka-ok-ok--alright!”), thus sparking a variety of odd job gags—alerting a flat tire to a rather angry patron, who literally goes through the (car) roof in anger before tying a knot in the rubbery tire himself to fix the issue (complete with some rubbery animation, ever so common in the iwerks cartoons), and hitting the dents in another car, including a spontaneous dent in the window, causing a broken window in the aftermath via hammer. the gags aren’t gut-busting, yet they have some nice animation to them, especially character animation with porky. however, the start of the opening is slow in comparison to the second half—a part of me wonders if iwerks had more influence on the first half before clampett and jones really sunk their toes in with the rest of the cartoon.

the second half of the cartoon is marked by the sound of an angry horn—that is, an angry woman honking her horn. elvia allman lends her voice to the persnickety customer as she rather bluntly asks (demands, really) porky to fix her flat tire. porky obliges, but is caught in a caveat—don’t wake the baby.

bob clampett is responsible for our introduction to the little dickens, animating porky popping his head in the car to remark “cute little fella.” and so, we see for ourselves just how cute this little fella is as he breaks his “slumber” to stick his tongue out at our protagonist. a nice sense of comedic timing and foreboding—we already know that nothing good is going to come out of this ordeal.

as porky dutifully busies himself with the tire, junior confirms the audience’s suspicions by whacking porky over the head with his bottle. porky, rightfully disgruntled, whips his head around to find the culprit before resuming his work. as he rotates the tire, junior assets his aggression even more by putting the car in drive.

and, predictably yet amusingly so, porky is sent whirling around the back tire. he, along with the tire itself, are let loose from the car as they both catapult right into a metal pole. iwerks’ dizziness lines as porky collects himself coupled with the perfect pig-shaped dent in the pole definitely make porky’s plight more amusing than painful. carl stalling’s gentle yet sardonic rendition of “my little buckaroo” adds another layer of sweet, incongruous irony to the entire cake.

porky’s suffering has only just begun—a suspended part of the pole gives way from the impact and gives porky another good konk on the noggin. as porky once more attempts to collect himself, he realizes that he’s stuck inside the tire. thus sparks a montage of him repeatedly straining to free himself, but to no avail--the timing itself at times is a little floaty and awkward (mainly when porky’s crawling around on all fours), and the sound effects don’t feel as natural as they could be, but the facial expressions are rather appealing, and the movement is fun and rubbery. at one point, trying to free himself, porky grabs the back of his overalls and accidentally pinches himself--certainly a bob clampett gag, as porky turns defensive and looks around to see who snubbed him. 

while porky struggles, the demon baby slings his bottle at porky, hitting him square in the arse and effectively freeing him from the tire (much to porky’s vocal discomfort). the timing of porky identifying the projectile and throwing it at the ground, shooting a glare at the baby, is absolutely priceless. he finally heads over to the car to confront the little dickens, but junior is peacefully sleeping, much to our hero’s head-scratching befuddlement. as he turns his back, junior once more shoots an angry glare, signaling that the fight has only just begun.

the frustration of porky becomes much more visible (and hilarious) with this next scene as he prepares to work on the engine. just as he lifts the lid of the car, junior, rife with sadistic energy, smacks the lid right over porky’s head, trapping him inside. junior’s gleeful expression coupled with porky’s visible temperament really add a lot of flavor and feeling--as the charade continues, porky finally allows himself to rip the hood of the car off its hinges and throw it off screen. timing is succinct and snappy and allow for the jokes to hit quite well, even if it is a tad predictable.

however, the timing of the next sequence is not as snappy, and feels a bit like an odd transition between scenes, with an overall more whimsical mood as porky listens to the engine for any problems. nevertheless, junior’s attitude hasn’t changed in the slightest: he turns the ignition on, causing porky to be electrocuted (with a rather ill-fitting scream not by blanc). junior gives porky enough time to recover, honking the horn just when porky’s listening to it, sparking some rather awkward animation of porky getting punchy from the impact. while this scene doesn’t flow as well as others, it’s still rather amusing and creative--the iwerks shiver takes and inverted colors during the electrocution sequence add a nice touch of individuality.

next, porky is dutifully oiling the engine, sparking junior to press the starter. the engine mechanics kick up, porky’s snout getting stuck to the rising and falling pillars. he finally frees his snout (the scene reminding me of of w.c. squeals’ snout sticking on the ice in tashlin’s cracked ice a mere year later), only to get thrown around by the rapidly pushing pillars of the engine. rather creative as we see multiples of porky bobbing around in a blur. misfortune is still high, however, for the top of the engine closes on top of him, and all we see is bumps rising and falling in the metal above. finally, porky is shot out of the exhaust pipe, his body covered in soot, landing against the gas pump/clock hybrid from before, the cuckoo bird adding insult to injury as it gives a call after the impact. 

a rather abrupt transition as porky, now unfazed, arrives back at the car to confront his foe once more playing possum. the facial expressions and overall timing give this away as a bob clampett scene as porky shoots repeated scowls at the baby, who returns the favor with some rather snide, mocking expressions of his own behind the pig’s back. porky finally believes he’s caught junior, who’s currently stretching his face out at porky--yet, sure enough, junior goes right back to “sleep” when porky turns around, causing the pig to give a frustrated snap of resignation. that doesn’t stop our protagonist from hatching a plan--he zips around to the other end of the car, right behind junior. surely enough, junior prepares to make a face, but realizes he’s been duped. wonderfully smooth animation of junior looking around in befuddlement, you can practically see those little gears turning. finally, he whips around, spots porky, gasps, and goes right back to sleep.

regardless, they both know that junior’s been caught as they make eye contact once more. finally, junior literally rolls away and heads to the window crank, sliding the window up and getting porky’s snout caught in the process. porky spits out a stream of threats and exclamations of pain (”OWW! ouch! o-oh, leh-leh-let go! i’ll fix you! eh-eh-eh-eh-don’t do that! s-s-stop! s-stop, ya hear me!?”) while junior sneaks out of the car, shutting the door and letting the pig dangle around helpless. in the midst of porky’s rant, junior heads off and arrives back with a hose, placing it matter of factly in porky’s overalls.

suddenly, we see that the hose is connected to an air pump. junior gives the wheel a few good turn, and air shoots through the tube and right into porky’s pants. porky is finally freed from the window, but is now rocketing around in the air, laughing hysterically. mel blanc’s performance of porky’s hysterical laughter, sounding eerily similar to daffy’s trademark HOOHOO! laugh is nothing less than contagious and commendable. 

while porky flies around in the air, junior makes matters worse by donning an oil gun and shooting spurts of oil right at the pig. and they said pig’s couldn’t fly! unfortunately for junior, porky’s movements are too erratic to make for a proper target, but no matter: a simple shut off of the air will do the trick. 

porky flops to the ground, having little time to grasp his bearings as junior shoots his face full of oil. the physics of the oil are nice and rubbery, very malleable, thick, and stretchy--certainly remniscent of the mud puddles in iwerks’ previous effort, porky and gabby. as i said before, i’ve always admired the physics in iwerks’ cartoons: you feel like you could grab everything for yourself. very soft, stretchy, rubbery, easy to manipulate. 

despite porky’s demands for junior to give up the gun, the little baby from hell only squirts porky with another helping of oil, this time covering his entire body. once more, the animation and physics of the oil are to be commended. porky slips around helplessly in the now fully formed oil slick, which sends him catapulting down a rather random set of stairs in the ground (though, upon further inspection, the stairs were present in the opening layout, so it’s not as spontaneous as it could be).

junior once more attempts to target porky, but no more oil comes out of the pump. predictably yet amusingly so, the little dickens turns the gun to his own face. as he pulls the lever, a nice, hearty gush of oil covers his entire face. sweet, slippery karma. 

now, junior is just as covered as porky is, and begins to wail. porky’s nods of satisfaction are a hilarious detail--as is his surprise when he notices the persnickety mother approaching. junior points at porky, who doesn’t appear all that blameless as he now holds the oil gun, attempting to hide it behind his back coyly.

the mother gives porky a good lecture about how he ought to be ashamed of himself, all the while disposing of her child like a rag doll and putting him in the back seat of the car. elvia allman’s speech is drowned out by the wails of junior, however, prompting the mother to give an eerily polite “quiet, junior, when mother’s talking.” the timing of the next joke is spot on: as junior continues to bawl, the mother smacks him right in the face. the way the smack sound effect even cuts off and the total silence of junior combine to make a great payoff, though the joke IS rather dark and not the most ethical. still, wonderful timing and execution on that one.

comedic timing is still rife as the mother, now oddly subdued, ponders “now... where was i? oh yes. I’M GOING TO REPORT THIS TO THE AUTHORITIES!” in the midst of her “it’s getting so that you can’t trust anybody anymore” ranting and raving, junior, who’s seldom learned his lesson, reaches for a nearby gas hose and ties it around the car tire. 

porky is left to his own devices as the mother and her hell child roll off into the distance. however, junior leaves one final impact: all three gas pumps are sucked out of their respective places and dragged behind the car. even more insult to injury, the entire service station collapses on top of the unlucky pig. a VERY creative close as the “PORKY’S SUPER SERVICE” sign lands right on top of porky, his disgruntled, oily self popping out right in the middle. who needs a drum when you have a wooden sign?

and thus wraps up ub iwerks’ directorial reign at warner bros. while his cartoons aren’t my favorite, i’ve certainly come to appreciate them much more, for their individuality (such as the shiver takes, visible reactions such as question marks and dizziness lines, and so forth) and rubbery animation. i definitely feel that this is his stronger effort out of his 2 pieces--it has a lovely score, the animation is fun and rubbery, and again, bob clampett’s sadistic energy coupled with chuck jones’ frustration comedy make for a delightful combination. porky is SUPER appealing in the iwerks cartoons as well in the design compartment--lots of really great expressions to freeze frame on. this cartoon is a winner for me--i say watch it! it’s not the most exciting porky cartoon by any means, and it still has its weaknesses: the beginning half is rather slow, there are a few timing issues, etc, but it’s still rather enjoyable overall. i almost wish iwerks had stayed longer, just to see what his other cartoons would have been like. thankfully, though, bob clampett took his place, sparking the reign of my personal favorite director.

so, overall, give it a watch!

link!

[ducktales-wco-oo]

🖤🖤🖤 Fenton say some negative things about Scrooge McDuck

{ ☆ } O-Oh. Well, normally he doesn’t like criticizing someone behind their back or at all if he can help it. But he supposes that if he MUST- “Uh... Mr. McDuck can be... brash at times. Prone to acting without preemptive thought to how it might affect those around him as well as himself.” Like in his haste to bet the employees to Glomgold. Something that still holds a fair amount of sting, since no proper apology was ever given. “Or just- not scrutinizing these results as heavily or giving them a proper amount of importance as he should be.” 

Like allowing the fate of the world to rest on the shoulders of ducklings.

Were those two negatives, or do they both correlate too closely with ONE point? Uncertain, Fenton decides to offer some more hopefully constructive and non-insulting thoughts, just to be safe. “He’s also notoriously- parsimonious. I understand being reluctant to spend too frivolously and the importance of understanding financial responsibility. But someone with his vast assets, his abundance of resources and- and influence, has the opportunity to offer so much more than he is! I mean, matching more than a dime towards the donations given to charity organizations would scarcely put a dent in his extensive savings...” 

He’s not OBLIGATED to help, of course. It’s his money and he worked tirelessly for it. Persevered and built himself from the ground up. But even so, shouldn’t those humble beginnings, shouldn’t that inspiring origin story inspire a bit more- empathy within the miser? A bit more drive to help those less fortunate like he used to be, rather than... continue to not only cling to the position of the world’s richest duck, but seem to have a never-ending need to ensure his standing by constantly SURPASSING his own record at every turn? 

“And his stubbornness is insatiable at times! His refusal to listen to the opinions of others if they contradict his beliefs or the course of action he’s already set. He might be smarter than the smarties, but that doesn’t mean he has a monopoly on intelligence itself. There are those with different ways of thinking who are JUST as valid and at times, even more insightful than the rules Mr. McDuck has etched in stone within his hardheaded ideals...” { ☆ }

[thephilosophiesofbea]

Is Socialism the Most Appropriate Form of Government for the U.S.?

BY BETHANY HANNAN.

Socialism: Utopia or Dystopia?

In the U.S., if you’re in need of medical care, how long does it usually take to obtain it? After walking into the doctor’s office, maybe ten to twenty minutes? Now, imagine if that time quadrupled. In places governed by socialism, it is common to get put on a waitlist to see a doctor; the time of which you’re on that waitlist can range between six to eighty days. Some areas in Europe are particularly fond of this method of social organization. Two summers ago, my parents took a trip to Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, and France. While in France, they came across a taxi driver who needed a knee surgery. He had been driving the taxi they were in for about five months, waiting for his turn to get a consultation. He was supposed to be on the waitlist for six months, but he had been waiting for a year to even figure out what he was supposed to do or what was going to happen. He didn’t get to pick his doctor, let alone for an important surgery that would determine whether or not he could walk afterwards. This is just one of the many different angles of socialism. This one, however, leans pretty heavily towards anti-socialism. Socialism has been, and always will be, a very controversial topic. But first, what is socialism? According to Lexico (funded by Oxford), socialism is “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole”. Most would call that a socio-economic score, but the history of socialism and it’s concerning determinism begs to differ. Socialism started primarily with one man: Karl Marx, creator of Marxist socialism and believer in the “true” socialism and communism. He built up his definition of socialism to be “a society which permits the actualization of man's essence, by overcoming his alienation. It is nothing less than creating the conditions for the truly free, rational, active and independent man; it is the fulfillment of the prophetic aim: the destruction of the idols” (Fromm 5). Marx thought that a mind under a common good would be more securely operational than a divided mind under a self-benefiting, centralized force would be/had been. He found freedom in the fact that one could find solace in the shared communion of society, whereas a capitalist or otherwise individualistic government would segregate the people into hierarchies of social acceptance; in some ways, he was right. “The freedom in this field cannot consist of anything else but of the fact that socialized man, the associated producers, regulate their interchange with nature rationally, bring it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by some blind power; they accomplish their task with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most adequate to their human nature and most worthy of it” (Fromm 3). But socialism has developed many different interpretations throughout the years that force the people to look at it from multiple angles. It used to be considered an “old man’s ideology”, but with the youth’s increasing political awareness and personal beliefs, it is now the talk of the political century. Many believe socialism could be the key to the ultimate utopia for our country, but there are many cracks within the glass that suggest otherwise. Considering the stats, it seems socialism has hindered some countries’ economic prosperity more than it has helped them.

In 1999, Venezuela came under the rule of a socialist government, all thanks to their late president Hugo Chavez. When Chavez got elected, he intended to alleviate poverty and the suffering of his citizens, but only promised economic degradation of his once-prospering country. In his article, Daniel Di Martino tells a personal anecdote about the effects of socialism saying, “The regime nationalized electricity in 2007, resulting in under-investment in the electrical grid. By 2016, my home lost power roughly once a week. Our water situation was even worse. Initially, my family didn't have running water for about one day per month, but as the years passed we sometimes went several weeks straight without it” (Di Martino 2-4). Hyperinflation burdened almost every family in Venezuela and many places governed under socialism. Everyday assets were hard to afford, meaning those who couldn’t afford them, or were simply stripped of them, had to pay the price for choosing a political party they didn’t quite understand the gravity of. Because of Chavez’s aspiration for a community that was not yet achievable, Venezuela’s economy collapsed and hyperinflation (inflation accelerated to 700 percent, says The American Institute for Economic Research) destroyed the country’s currency. Chavez also failed to console the public’s concerns about it. 

An editor from a Tribune Business News article states; 

As The New York Times reported in 2007: ‘Chavez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country's expanding price controls.’ Last year, his government seized a Cargill rice processing plant for failing to produce enough rice at regulated prices. Venezuela's government-run grocery stores present shoppers with two prices: the precio capitalista, or capitalist price, and the precio justo, or just price. (Tribune Business News 3)

Di Martino even tried to escape to the United States to rid himself of Venezuela’s lasting socialist ways, but he was only met with (and disgraced by) the States’ attempt (prompted by Sen. Bernie Sanders and others) to harness ultimately socialist ways as well. 

Granted, some will take the idealistic high road and argue that socialism works exceptionally well when everyone works under an “all-for-one” mindset. They defend their argument by providing evidence on how much the human mindset has already changed throughout the years we’ve existed because of the social status quo or a common statute or way of government, provided that capitalism has only existed for some 500 years, so there must have been some other way of functioning politically. 

In his article, Richard Ebeling provides an example of what some hyper-enthusiasts and idealistic believers in socialism think, saying; 

A true socialist society would mean more freedom not less, so it was unfair to judge socialism by these supposedly twisted experiments in creating a workers' paradise. Furthermore, under a true socialism, human nature would change and men would no longer be motivated by self-interest, but by a desire to selflessly advance the common good. (Ebeling 5)

But, to combat that far-fetched opinion, we must face the facts: man is powered by selfishness. It is in our DNA to want things only and tactlessly for ourselves, take the hunters and gatherers for example; only recently have we even considered, or more or less tolerated, sharing with others what we believe we worked hard for for ourselves. Although the human mindset contains room for growth and evolution and possibility for change, when it comes to sharing the fruits of our labors, it becomes a little less simplistic. We would become barbaric, or on the other side of the spectrum, realize we would never have to do anything ever again to earn said fruits, because they would be fruits of someone else’s labor. 

Socialism has a good intention set forth, but it still needs several reevaluations before it can be considered a true rumination. Although some try to argue that socialism is making a sizeable dent in the political forcefield, it’s quite the contrary; the lasting members of the socialist party for the US are nearing their demise. In his article, Robby Soave advocates for this detail, saying, “As recently as 2013, the average member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) was 68 years old. Even today, the ideology's best-known spokesperson, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is 77” (Soave 8). If anything, the socialist party will be fading come ten years from now instead of “uniting the people through means of commonality” like the enthusiasts hope. It could be possible, however, if the socialist party were to tweak some of their over-eager precepts, such as with Hugo Chavez’s plan to abolish poverty. Perhaps focusing on opening up more entry-level jobs for those that don’t have the money or experience for higher-level opportunities, thus preparing them for said higher-level opportunities by providing them work experience at large. Redesigning the whole government into a socialist “utopia” wouldn’t have been necessary, just redefinition of Venezuela’s old government. If we were to all agree to work towards a socialist world, the structure of every institution and every format of law would need to change. "Mere state ownership of key productive forces is not enough to create a socialist society; the people must exercise a sovereign rule over these productive forces and society as a whole, and the society must be organized to promote collective needs" (McChesney 11). Instead of reinventing the government in its entirety, the government should simply and unhesitantly address what caused all of the poverty. If it was actually democracy that ruined Venezuela’s socio-economic status or if, with any means of government, poverty would still be present in the country. In his article, Eric Foner brought the empty promises of socialism to the light, saying, “The Socialist party, although it elected hundreds of candidates to local office and obtained nearly a million votes for Eugene Debs's 1912 presidential candidacy, failed nevertheless to bridge the gaps between skilled and unskilled workers, and native-born whites, blacks, and immigrants” (Foner 2). Throughout the years, socialism and its tendency to manifest fickle infrastructure has never promised anything more than a contradictory mix of ensured laziness and chaos because of lack of assiduousness and satisfaction in one’s own achievements. 

But let’s not ignore the elephant in the room: capitalism, “an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state” (Lexico, funded by Oxford). The nation’s silent assailant isn’t as innocent of charges as we grant it to be. Capitalism has accustomed some to receiving all, and others receiving none, therefore the idea of socialism is a bizarre and frankly forbidden concept some refuse to accept. "In the development of U.S. capitalism, the wealth of some was inextricably tied to the poverty of others, and race and gender largely determined which were which: Native American land, Black slavery, Latin American resources, and the underpaid labor of women and children factory workers formed the pillars of capital accumulation" (Mankiller 3). Under this mindset, US citizens, and anyone else under a fundamentally capitalist way of operating, often slip into a disposition to where they believe they are entitled to free choice. But free choice is merely a side dish that comes alongside capitalism, almost as a “thank you” package for putting it into place. US citizens forget to acknowledge all of the delicacies that capitalism has graced us with (or, rather, addicted us to). Let’s take phones for example: phones, iPhones in particular, have become the poster child of our generation, all thanks to capitalism. We are able to buy one whenever we want, get whatever model we want, get whatever update we want when we want, get whatever apps we want on there (excluding incidences of parental restriction, but even then, that’s a freedom within itself). We have a million different freedoms right between our palms and we forget it every day. With socialism, people tend to forget that it’s an “all-for-one” mindset, therefore those decisions are made for you, and you have no say in it. This is no longer a democracy, whether you try your hardest to believe it so or not. Now the government makes every action for you. Makes socialism look a little more restricting now, doesn’t it? Well, you’ll have plenty of time to have your complaints sent to voicemail, since socialism sits idle in office for four lengthy years. Surprise! Welcome to autocracy and favored aristocracy. Population, you. Also, don’t think socialism will pick favorites among the people, because it won’t. It will only make life easier for those with millions flowing out of their britches every month. For a solid amount of people, that’s a tricky and unconstitutional notion that they want to avoid letting their kids grow up with.

Speaking of the youth, institutions such as schools would change structures completely. Public schools under a socialist government would alter the democratic way the teachers teach in the classroom. Some view this alteration as a blessing in disguise, one that eliminates material competition for students and eagerly encourages a positive reinforcement teaching method. Students would be “placed in work based on their strengths and not be penalized for their weaknesses” (angelfire.com). Many teachers currently argue that a more well-rounded and socialized instructional method would “build character” and “effectively teach right from wrong”. Students would learn quicker and would legitimately welcome teacher instruction without fear of potentially ill-fitted punishment. Karl Marx argued for “‘polytechnical education’, linking schooling with the real world of production” (socialistsalternative.org). He believed this new method of instruction would differentiate those who “labored” and those who “thought”, thus progressing our society into what it needed to be to better the circumstances we live in. In the 1950’s, an institution called the Socialist Sunday School (SSS) changed mainstream instructional ways into those encouraging socialism. The school taught more diverse topics, like Philosophy, and encouraged students to look at things from a new, more socialized perspective; one that, they argued, schools under capitalism failed to endorse. Margaret McMillan, one of the school’s utmost supporters, put forth that there was “new intimacy between teacher and taught” (Reid 5). She then proceeded to state the freedoms our kids should have, and would have under a more socialist way of schooling, saying, “our children should draw freely” and “they should write more and talk more than is possible in the day school” (5). Furthermore, privatized education, under socialism, would encourage charter schools to place their books under public scrutiny because of public funding towards it. Many who believe in “true” socialism also believe in this notion coming into fruition; the public paid for those books to be given to charter schools, and capitalism has denied them from even using them, so socialism would, therefore, grant rights to things that were previously deemed “privatized”, which is one of the reasons why so many people are in its favor. 

Education and political affiliations are bound to be interconnected. Differing governmental styles have a heavy influence on the infrastructure and lesson plans of a school’s curriculum. It ultimately determines what the students are exposed to, thus those who learn more prevalent material during their school years tend to have better chances to succeed later in life. Voxeu.com states, “treated individuals, who were exposed to socialist schooling for one less school year, exhibit 2% higher employment rates and 1.5% higher hours worked. For the older birth cohorts, less exposure to non-meritocratic access restrictions in the treated group leads to 4% higher wages and a 5% higher probability of having a professional job” (12). Schools functioning under socialism would presumably be more efficient as the years went on and the pure definition or representation of morals of socialism would be reevaluated. They would offer higher level thinking opportunities and give time for students’ problem solving skills to develop due to lessened authoritarianism in the classrooms. Socialism, in this instance, would solve many unnecessary setbacks in educational settings. 

My parents’ taxi driver’s experience with socialism continues to be the poster child for why observers of any political movement should look at both sides of the road before crossing. Public healthcare in places dominated by socialist governments such as France could be considered an actor with an excellent facade. It will hold up it’s act until the curtains close and the lights begin to fade and nobody is around to see how genuinely flawed it really is. It’s mask is slowly developing cracks, yet those cracks are not enough to enforce change in legal structures. It won’t be enough until it breaks completely and tanks France’s governmental state too. Universal healthcare has not only shot down opportunities for free choice when it comes to doctors or waitlists, but it has also driven away any competition in the healthcare business due to one business centralizing all profit. 

In his article, John Sieler demonstrates how ruinous universal healthcare could be if manipulated by those fighting for said centralization, saying; 

TennCare (another experiment in medical socialism), explains the entry in Wikipedia, ‘was designed to expand health insurance to the uninsured through the state's Medicaid program by utilizing managed care.’ Centralization was supposed to reduce costs, with ‘free’ money from the federal government picking up any financial slack. But predictably, many companies stopped providing medical insurance, forcing employees to sign up with TennCare. ‘In short order, one quarter of the state's population was on TennCare,’ Patrick Poole wrote on AmericanThinker.com last January. TennCare ‘has forced dozens of hospitals out of business, pushed thousands of doctors and other health care professionals out of the state, destroyed any semblance of a competitive health insurance market, and nearly drove the state government into bankruptcy.’ (15-16)

Universal healthcare proves beneficial in theory, but as anything more than a hypothetical, it severely lacks any strong foundation. As it’s carried out, those who practice business under it will benefit, whilst those who are forced to live under it will fall prey to extended wait times and lack of free choice.

Socialism, as a whole, poses many thoughts about what freedoms man is granted at birth and upholding those freedoms throughout one’s lifetime. Moral and socio-economic angles have to be approached to come to a sensible conclusion. As of right now, the most logical conclusion, given the state at which socialism is currently, is that the political movement is not ready for export. Socialism begs too many questions and leaves too many loose ends free for it to be properly dished out. The leaders wanting to fight for socialism to become as mainstream as capitalism will ultimately let the centralized power get to their head, and subsequently, lose control of what was once a stable country. Karl Marx had a clear vision to which he was ready to manifest into fruition, given the economic state of the world around him. But the vision he wants to implement is too fool-hardy and quick to the gun. Maybe Marx’s dream for socialism will come true some day, once all is taken into revision. Then we, as human beings, can finally say we learned the way of mental plasticity, true change, and, thus, a reason to never doubt the supposedly impossible. But until then, man will continue to harvest, blindly and exclusively.

Works Cited (and Interesting Sites to check out!)

Ebeling, Richard M. "Why Socialism is "Impossible"." Freeman, Oct 2004. Sirsissuesresearcher, https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2267936372?accountid=41449.

Foner, Eric, and John A. Garraty. "Socialism." , 1991. Sirsissuesresearcher, https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2265463961?accountid=41449.

Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola and Masella, Paolo. 05 June 2016. 

https://voxeu.org/article/long-lasting-effects-socialist-education

Fromm, Erich. ��Marx’s Concept of Socialism.” 1961.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch06.htm

Glover, Juleanna, et al. “What Would a Socialist America Look Like?” POLITICO Magazine, 3 Sept. 2018, www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/03/what-would-a-socialist-america-look-like-219626.

Mankiller, Wilma. Socialism. , 1998. Sirsissuesresearcher, https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2265472802?accountid=41449.

Martino, Daniel D. "Socialism Destroyed My Home, Venezuela." USA TODAY, 19 Feb 2019. Sirsissuesresearcher, https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2264363868?accountid=41449.

McChesney, Robert W. "Capitalism, the Absurd System." Monthly Review, 06 2010. Sirsissuesresearcher, https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2265594180?accountid=41449.

Soave, Robby. "Socialism is Back, and the Kids are Loving it." Reason, Aug 2019. Sirsissuesresearcher,

Reid, Julie. The Guardian (pre-1997 Fulltext); Manchester (UK) [Manchester (UK)]02 Jan 1996: T.014.

BY BETHANY HANNAN.

[codenamed-queenie]

ohhhh i just blew my own mind. consider this: six of crows batfam au. not sure how it'd work but they're fully qualified and the banter would be insane.

You just blew my mind too, anon! 😲

This is a really great idea, and I think we need to get fic writers and artists on this ASAP! I swear not all my headcanons are gonna be this long, but here’s just my take on what this would look like:

Barbara Gordon: She and her father traveled to Gotham to make their fortune after Barbara’s mother passed away, and the family farm went under. A mob boss calling himself the Joker spotted a pair of easy marks and moved in. Barbara’s father was killed, and Barbara herself took a bullet to the leg. She walks with a permanent limp now, and relies on a weighted cane topped with a pair of bat wings.

Vowing revenge on the Joker, Barbara joined a Gotham City gang called the Signals (Bat signal? Eh? Eh? Yeah, I feel like I should come up with a better name…)  and quickly rose through the ranks. She always keeps her face hidden behind a masquerade mask, just in case Joker or any of his people might recognize her (he’d know her face, but not her name), and the act itself becomes a local legend. People can’t decide why she hides her face, and it only adds to her mystique. Especially once she starts going by the moniker ‘Oracle’. As in, ‘All-seeing’. Once she was powerful enough amongst Gotham’s criminal community, she formed her own inner circle within the Signals starting with a sharpshooting street kid she recruited and a Suli acrobat she rescued from a brothel.

Jason Todd: A stray kid from the streets of Gotham. He knows his way around a gun, and has a mind almost as sharp as his wit. After falling into heavy debt with Joker’s gang, he resorted to thievery, and even tried to steal Barbara’s cane to earn the money he needed. He almost got away with it too, but Barbara caught him in the act, and offered him a job. Work for her, and the Signals would have his back. Turn down the generous offer, and she’d kill him. Jason, surprisingly, agreed.

Dick Grayson: Grew up in a family of Suli acrobats, performing all over the world. One day, he and his little sister Cassandra were kidnapped from their family’s tent, and sold into slavery in Gotham, far away from their home. Dick went to a brothel, and Cassandra was sold elsewhere. One day, he ran into Barbara on one of her trips to collect protection money from the brothel’s owner, Tony Zucco, and impressed her with his stealth and ability to read people. (Much like Inej’s backstory in SOC) Barbara bought Dick from Zucco, and recruited him into the Signals, giving him the choice to join or walk away freely (deciding that the man had suffered enough.) Dick decided to join up, on the condition that Barbara help him find his little sister. Barbara agreed, and took him on as her right hand man and personal spy. On the streets, he’s known as the Nightwing, a name that earns almost as much fear and respect as ‘Barbara Gordon–the All-seeing Oracle’. Dick has since fallen head-over-heels for her, but Barbara’s only loves are money and revenge. (Or, at least, that’s what she tells herself…)

The trio received a tip on a job from Councilman Dent. A dangerous endeavor involving a highly-addictive drug that can supposedly grant humans ‘meta powers’ like the Grisha, and rescuing the only man who knows how to make it from the clutches of the Al Ghul clan. The man’s name? Bruce Wayne. The score? Thirty Million Dollars. The stakes are high; no one has ever crossed the Al Ghuls and survived. But if they do nothing, the metagene drug will be released on the world–and worst of all, they won’t get paid.

But first, they need to put together a good crew. Barbara’s first choice is

Stephanie Brown: A bright and bubbly Grisha Heartrender (The SOC equivalent of a metahuman with the ability to manipulate the human body at a molecular level) with an enormous love for waffles. (I thought Steph and Nina were way to similar to overlook!) She works for the Signals as a healer and assassin, but relies on the gang for protection. Currently, she’s on the run from the Al Ghuls–vicious Grisha killers who believe that Grisha power needs to be controlled or else wiped off the face of the earth. She had a run-in with one of them, but managed to escape…landing squarely in the Signals’ cross-hairs. Barbara has been hiding her, and the two share a strained relationship. Stephanie only agrees to help on one condition: her friend/partner, Duke Thomas, gets safe passage away from Gotham.

Duke Thomas: Duke wasn’t sure how he ended up in this situation. One moment, he’s living a quiet, normal life, and the next thing he knows, the mob leader Joker is extorting his family for everything they own. After the mobster kills his parents, Duke is left adrift on the streets of Gotham, never a safe place to be when you’re a lone Grisha. He was found and picked up by Stephanie Brown, and together, they do odd jobs for the Signals in exchange for shelter from the other gangs. All he wants is to get out of Gotham, but he’s willing to see one more job through if it means finally escaping this cursed city.

With the two Grisha on board, Barbara, Dick and Jason have one more potential recruit to pick up:

Timothy Drake: As the Signals’ best demolitions expert and chemist, Tim makes a valuable asset. But as the estranged ward of Councilman Dent, he makes even more valuable collateral. After running away from his legal guardian, Tim tried to make it on his own in the streets and alleyways of Gotham. He lasted about a day and a half, before he was cornered by a pack of thugs working for the Joker. Lucky for him, Jason and Dick were both in the neighborhood, and managed to fend off the attackers. They took the younger boy under their wings (after voting on whether or not to take him for everything he owned. Dick voted ‘no’. Jason voted ‘maybe’.) Barbara recognized him immediately, and decided to keep him around. Only so she’d have something on Dent. Not because she developed a soft spot for the wide-eyed little society brat. No. Not at all…

The last member of the crew arrives a bit later, but he proves to be every bit as valuable:

Damian Al Ghul: The heir to the Al Ghul clan, Damian was cast out of the family for showing mercy to a Grisha he’d been hunting in Gotham. Thanks to his quick thinking, Stephanie was able to get away. But when she turned him over to the police, he was unceremoniously thrown in prison. His family stripped him of his assassin rank, and essentially disowned him. But no walls could hold the pint-sized Al Ghul for long, and he escaped with a bitter mission to take revenge on the blonde Grisha. However, he seriously underestimated the people backing her up, and was beaten quickly. Barbara recognized a valuable asset when she saw one–an ‘in’ with the Al Ghuls, if you will–and offered him a deal. Run this one job against his family, and he’d have his pardon and safe passage to anywhere his heart desired.

But unbeknownst to the Signals, they aren’t the only gang after Mr. Wayne and the valuable information he holds. The Black Sirens, the Rogues and the Owl Court are all gunning for the same prize. Plus one more mysterious player…

Just kidding. It’s:

Cassandra Cain-Grayson: Raised in a Suli acrobat troupe, she and her brother Dick were kidnapped and separated. Cassandra was sold to the notorious Al Ghul family, and forced to begin training as one of their assassins. She has been tasked with protecting Bruce Wayne and his secrets with her life. If she can manage to destroy the thieves who are out to steal him, the head of the family, Ra’s Al Ghul, will grant her her freedom. And at last she will be able to seek out her brother and reunite them with their parents…

Aaaand, there you have it! I totally agree with you, anon, that the banter would be absolutely golden. You’d have gems straight out of the book, like:

Barbara: “Stephanie, love, always hit where the mark isn’t looking.”

Tim: “Who’s mark?”

-

Duke: “You have no finesse! No technique!”

Jason: “Sure I do. I practice the art of ‘pull his shirt over his head and punch till you see blood’.”

-

Steph [smirking]: “I can hear the change in Barbara’s breathing whenever she looks at you.”

Dick: “You…you can?”

Steph: “Mm-hmm. It catches every time, like she’s never seen you before.”

-

Jason: “ Usually people don’t start hating each other until a week into the job, but you two have a head start.”

[Steph and Damian glare at each other]

-

Duke: “She’s going to get us all killed!”

Dick: “Nah. Statistically, she’ll only get some of us killed.”

-

Barbara: “Who’d deny a poor cripple her cane?”

Damian: “If the cripple is you, then any man with sense.”

-

Steph: “ If any of you survive, make sure I have an open casket. The world deserves a few more moments with this face.”

-

Jason: “If the Joker kills us all, I’m going to get Tim’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.”

Barbara: “ I’ll just hire Damian’s ghost to kick your ghost’s ass.”

Damian: “ My ghost won’t associate with your ghost.”

Honestly, this was too fun. Maybe I should write a fic on this??? 🤔

Btw, if any of you haven’t read the book yet, definitely give it a try! You won’t regret it!

[fantabulousfunnelweb]

Spider-tober prompt response dump part 2 (Parts 7-11)

200+ Words per prompt, Critique/Feedback Appreciated! (Warning: Vulgar Language use in Day 10)

Day 7: Snack

Convenience stores. The height of suburban dining… At least that was the thought on Funnels brain as they hopped right through the worn-out sliding doors. “Evening Mr Phil!” a mock salute bouncing off their forehead towards the cashier by their right. The entire establishment bore an almost old charm, its middle-aged guardsman standing for what seemed eternally behind the reinforced glass as tired eyes perused whatever customers it had, the novelty of an urban icon in his store fading long ago, leaving the costumed kid just another customer. “What's good today?” The Spiders voice rang from the cold drinks aisle in the far back, eyes perusing the glowing display of drinks as if it were a beacon of hope. Phil perked up attentively at the mention of his name, peering over the counter to catch a view of the inquiring Spider, “Restocked the Candy a day or two ago, no more stale caramel chews.” Funnels cheek let loose a dry huff at the hearing of such news, “Thank god, Ms Marvels been this close to cracking at me about always buying her the stale stuff.” Thankfully the Spider had only himself to look out for tonight, happily spending a portion of his small allowance on a bag of chocolate almonds. “You know the drill kid, I keep quiet about you…” “And I’ll keep quiet about your partner, are they okay?” Phil's brow furrowed, the dense lines of grey hair curving as his eyelids dropped to half-way, a lip-curling on one side like a man who knew too many secrets and wished not to share them with you. “He’s doing okay, My boss would kill me if he caught me with Phil Jr. at work, Pet Policy & all, but he's the only thing that keeps me company.

Day 8: Arms

“Wait, You’ve been making what?” “A Nanotech extension for the suit Kyles, are you even paying attention?” Silence washed over the young man’s expression, answer enough to the Scientist prodding at his suit-clad back incessantly, tweaking minute elements of the metal harness that compressed his shoulder blades. “Wait, why aren’t we just using that suit Stark made for you ages ago?” Maydays grip pushed itself further up his shoulder, grasping at his padded shoulder to provide ample support for their next little check-up, “I dismantled that thing like, last month, where do you think I even got all this Nanotech from?” Kyles tried his best to break what would no doubt be another bout of silence, issuing the first response that comes to mind, ���Ahh, Charity? That or you stole it all from SHIELD.” “Shut up Jonathan.” The unmasked Spider perked his brow high, expression fraught with a mix of amusement & frustration, channelling it into a weird scoffing laugh that ultimately leads to his somewhat malicious compliance, “Whatever, you’re the boss, Aunt May.” The nickname came from a place of earnest, and the history behind the mere title was already one in the books, so it put May in a tough spot when it came to receiving it. “Alright, We’re all set.” sealing the harness shut and stepping herself back, the nanotech cylinders submerged within the reinforced plastics & steels that coated Kyles backside, “Put on the mask & hook up the suit, we’ve got tests to run.”

Day 9: Eyes

The deafening crack of wood upon the Spiders impact with the vintage walls echoed around the studio like thunder, giving way to the dull thud that followed moments later. Funnels eyes twitched as they peeled themselves off the concrete bound pool of splinters and onto their feet, hazy vision darting around as they attempted to make heads or tails of where they just ended up. “Ugh… If you’re gonna fight me in an old place like this, can we at least use some rinky-dink music? Like Ragtime or something? I could’ve worn my trilby if I knew this is where we’d end up.” Beck had a lovely habit of being seen soon after being heard, the trudge of his metal, servo clad boots slowly growing louder & louder before silence rocked the old studio once more.

“Oh? You’d love an audience, wouldn’t you?” the regulated fog billowing from the dented valves around the armoured man's jugular, obscuring his face to seem as if the smoke were devouring him. Funnel could barely realize his rhetoric before the building lit up with a spark, cameras spreading out & littering the scene as the supposed studio had much more to than meets the eye, “Well, I’m always courteous to my adversaries, besides, when was the last time someone apprehended a criminal on live television?”  

Day 10: Snap 

Funnel winced at the visceral sound of splintering bone, from his hiding place ontop the shadows of the ceiling, he closed his eyes as their ears became polluted with the informants wailing cries, his raw shrieks of pain sending Funnels senses into alarm. It guilted him to observe such mindless torture, even on those who deserve it, but May’s orders were strict, and unlike most occasions, they couldn’t cheekily skirt the lines for fun. If the Debt Collectors knew that they were being tailed, there would be no chance to find their headquarters. “Good God.” his quiet plead to higher forces stifled under the growing arguments between the animals he observed. “Randy, get your shit together or else I’m gonna break another bone, you understand!?” “The Moneys in the goddamn cabinet upstairs, please!” Adjusting their grip on the steel bar they used as a weapon, the collector let it sway below by his feet, “Better be, Don’t go anywhere.” Disappearing up the stairs to their right in a matter of moments.

“They’re collecting the money now Mayday, just a bit longer before we can find out where they’re stationed.” The Spider was left only to observe the remaining debt collector & their victim, whose continued sobs of sheer pain echoed across the old office complex.

Day 11: Demon

“Demons, huh? Weren’t these the guys wh-” “Had a hand in the Devil’s Breath tragedy back in 1987, Yes.” Jonathan's lips pursed in exhale, somewhat calming the latent fear within him as his mind was far too busy consuming the information provided. “But didn’t they supposedly putter out sometime back in the 2010s?” Dragging a daggy sleeve across the desk, Maydays hands held out another file, pinched & printed straight from SHIELD Records & Archives. “After Mr Negative disappeared, Yes.” “Okay, are you gonna say anything other than yes?” “Ye- I will just keep reading.” Letting out a huff, Kyle’s hazel eyes fell on a particularly recent entry listed within the reports, bringing the fine, freshly printed text up close to examine, its contents prodding at his interest like a child tugs a grown-ups coat for attention. “Surveillance personnel have concluded in their most recent report that inactive financial assets for the Demons have recently been drained to several off-shore accounts, attempts to retrieve location deemed unsuccessful”. Rolling his broad shoulders, the Spider used whatever excuse of deductional abilities they had at their disposal to make a guess, “Maybe they’re finally salvaging the wreckage? With all this asset moving to unknown locations before SHIELD could drain them, it could just be some former manager wiring all these up into his own pocket.” May Parker shrugged, typing away at her keyboard as their mind too weighed up options. “If I could guess, you’re going to need help on this, you said Patriot was good with computers, right?

[arionwind]

A big part of this issue is with the idea that Bruce Wayne has to be one of The Richest on the Planet, which in the modern age means a billionaire. The thing is, if you actually have a billion dollars that you can use freely*, as Bruce appears able to in most depictions, you legitimately do have the capital to outright solve:

Hunger

Homelessness

Education

Infrastructure

A ton of other social issues leading to crime

And I mean solve. Not "put a dent in by funding a clinic", the man, if a billionaire who can spend as freely as he seems to, could trivially buy up and forgive all medical debt in the US and keep doing so in perpetuity. The core issue is that if Bruce is on the level of "richest in the world", the way he is addressing social ills is egocentric and asinine.

Thing is, he doesn't need to be one of the richest in the world for his character to work. At his inception "man wealthy enough to afford all these tools and support all of these social programs" was synonymous with "among the richest people to exist", but it isn't anymore. If he "only" has somewhere in the mid-tens or low-hundreds of millions, at that point he can still afford anything and everything he needs for crime fighting with enough left over to give out scholarships and fund clinics and the like, but not nearly enough that he could personally solve even one of the core crime-generating social ills without devastating his fortune.

TL;DR - If you can spend "billions" like Bruce does, you can fix more than he is shown to. So as long as Bruce is a billionaire he's gonna come off as an egocentric asshole. So the solution is to not make him a billionaire because nothing about him needs to be - multi-millions will do it all just as well.

* It's difficult to spend that kind of money freely not because of some mealy mouthed "but it's stock options and assets, not liquid" nonsense, but because there's legal caps on charitable giving if you want to avoid that money being taxed to hell and back, thus disproportionately funding the military industrial complex, thus the surplus that leads to police abuse, etc.

Though thinking about it, I could see room for a Batman who is a billionaire where the narrative focuses on ways to get around all of these issues with spending billions on good things. Using tax havens and shell corporations and all the other stuff billionaires do to disguise their fortunes for benevolent ends. Run a vast global charity like it's a super-villain organization. But that would be a much bigger departure from what people expect from Batman than just making Bruce a multi-millionaire.

People who don’t understand Batman: “Batman is just a white billionaire beating up the poor and mentally ill!”

Meanwhile, actual Canon Batman:

Tear gassed a room full of his own investors after he realized they were looting Gotham’s economy

Unleashed an actual goddamn tank on the police when they tried to attack some poor people

Has a godmother who runs a free clinic in one of the most impoverished parts of Gotham and he spends time there frequently, as well as pretty much bankrolling the clinic himself

Has an agreement with Bane that whenever they’re not fighting each other they partner up to help provide for Gotham’s orphans

Has spent the last decade fighting the secret society of rich people that runs Gotham

Met a woman whose entire job was burgling the wealthy and thought she was so rad that his only option was to marry her

[breedoesathing]

Joining the Avengers Part 1: The Offer

Summary: You were picked up after a mutant fight by the police when you get an offer that is hard to refuse.

Word Count: 819

Warnings: None. Just a little sass.

A/N: This is the little prologue to a small thing that was in my head after binge-watching all the Avengers movies.

| MasterList |

Here you were, sitting cuffed to a table, staring at the mirror on the wall in what you would assume was a police station. You couldn’t help but drum your fingers against the metal table as you looked at your reflection of what you had to guess was a two-way mirror. Your lip was badly busted and you could see a bruise starting to form on your cheek. It wasn’t your fault that you were detained in the mutant brawl. It was the muscley guy’s fault. He started the fight, you finished it, why are you the one getting punished? Before you could even begin to reflect on this evening’s events, a loud buzzer rings throughout the room and the door opens.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N). You’ve got quite a record.” In the doorway adjusting his coat is standing the one and only Tony Stark. THE Tony Stark. “Let’s see, we have a total of six fights with other mutants within the last year, caused almost a million dollars of damage to the city of New York and, petty theft? Really?”

You couldn’t help but shrug your shoulders. “Does it really count as stealing if they took it from you first?” Tony then goes to the seat across the table from you.

“Once you got a hold of him you threw both him and his car into the fourth floor of a nearby building-”

“An abandoned building.” You corrected. “Besides, he shot me and then proceeded to hit me with his car! When he saw I was getting up, backed up and hit me again! At that point, I’d say he deserved it.” You explain while you rest your chin in your hand.

Tony leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You’re a sponge.” He deadpanned.

“Excuse me?”

“Your power, it’s like a sponge. You absorb all of the kinetic energy in the attacks against you, store it, then immediately use that energy to fuel your own power. That’s a pretty nice gift. A potentially dangerous gift but a useful one.” You can’t help but eye Tony.

“And what about it?” Tony then pulls out a small tablet and places it in front of you. He clicks play on the video. You could almost feel the video and couldn’t help but lick your busted lip as you re-watched the fight you participated in. As you watched yourself take hit after hit you look up at Stark.

“Keep watching.” He instructs. You look back down at the warehouse fight and a small smile creeps onto your face when you lift up your attacker and throw him into the neighboring equipment. The video then pauses and zooms in on your attacker, his body stuck in the machine, the metal dented. “You see that machine you tossed him in?”

“Yeah.”

“That machine is made out of Carbon Steel. The same metal used to build skyscrapers and make warehouse equipment for heavy duty jobs. It is extremely impact resistant and you dented it. In a very artful manner if I may add.” Tony then takes back the tablet.

“Ok, I dented metal. What’s the big deal?” You huffed impatiently. It’s getting late and you want to go home.

“That metal’s only job was to be resistant to heavy impacts. You stored enough kinetic energy to throw a man almost through it. A truck driving at its max speed couldn’t even scratch it. That’s an ability that could level cities.”

“Alright, I’m a danger to society as we know it, I got it. So are you here to put me in chains, lock me in a deep hole where no one can find me? Or are you only here for the physics lesson?”

“I’m here to offer you a job. Join the Avengers.” You let out a snort.

“Yeah, I’ll be an Avenger alright. Just let me go get my spandex and I’ll be right there. Oh damn, I left them in my other bag. Maybe another day.” Stark rolled his eyes.

“Kid, you are in way over your head. You have a power you can barely control and you are still charged with all of the damages you caused.”

“I’m capable of being under the radar.”

“And let’s pretend I believe that. You still don’t have the money to pay for all of the damages and will be classified as a bad guy since you already have a police record and now refuse to answer to your charges. Join the Avengers and we can eliminate the money aspect and convince everyone else that you’re an asset and not a threat.” Tony then gets up. “Up to you.” He then turns and heads to the door. The buzzer sounds and he opens the door.

“Wait!” You called. “When can I start?” Stark smiled.

“Tomorrow morning, be at Stark Tower at nine. Oh, and pick up some coffee before you show up.”

[newstfionline]

India replaced its currency to wipe out illegal money stashes. Now the central bank says it didn’t work.

By Vidhi Doshi, Washington Post, August 29, 2018

NEW DELHI--When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the replacement of 80 percent of India’s cash in 2016, he sparked a currency crisis that led to huge job losses and stalled growth as it hit India’s vast informal sector.

For months, people lined up at banks and ATMs--sometimes for more than eight hours--to withdraw limited amounts of cash to pay bills or buy daily groceries.

Their troubles were a sacrifice for the nation, Modi said at the time. Old notes would be handed back to the banks, and the vast reserves of untaxed “black money” being used for dodgy deals among fat-cat businessmen, dirty politicians and Pakistani terrorists would be invalidated in one fell swoop.

Now, newly released data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows that 99.3 percent of high-value notes in circulation--worth about $216 billion--came back to the banks. That means that those illicit hoards that the government was hoping to flush out of the system were not in the form of cash and are still out there.

And the long lines for cash, not to mention the losses in jobs and growth? Not necessary.

“The RBI has in effect said that the prime minister’s premises and claims were dubious, and, in as much words, he didn’t know what he was talking about or getting into,” said Mohan Guruswamy, founder of the Center for Policy Alternatives and a former adviser to the finance minister.

India’s economy runs mostly on cash, so Modi’s demonetization thoroughly shook the country. The New Delhi-based Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy estimated that the shock move caused the loss of 1.5 million jobs, though other economists have put the number lower.

In the weeks and months after Modi’s bombshell announcement, small-business owners said their customers stopped coming because they had no cash. Marriages were delayed because cash stacked up to pay for venues and caterers was now worthless. Millionaires joked about borrowing cash from their maids to buy cups of chai.

Some found clever ways to avoid the long lines, such as bribing bank managers or paying people to stand in their place. But many who stood in lines said they supported Modi and his efforts to clean up India’s economy at the time.

Guruswamy said the new data suggests that the entire policy was never thought out properly. “All reports on [black money] categorically stated that the undeclared incomes were mostly invested in properties and assets in India and abroad and in gold and jewelry. The cash with people was cash in stock and deployed for everyday business and living,” he said.

India’s economy is now showing signs of recovery after the disruptions of demonetization, the RBI report said. Growth rates, which slowed to a four-year low, in part because of the “lingering impact of demonetization,” have now bounced back.

But as elections approach, the debacle could dent Modi’s reputation as an economic magician with the answers to all of India’s problems.

[dipulb3]

India is the biggest prize in tech. Meet the gatekeeper

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/india-is-the-biggest-prize-in-tech-meet-the-gatekeeper/

India is the biggest prize in tech. Meet the gatekeeper

Between March and November last year, even as the coronavirus upended lives and devastated economies around the world, India’s richest man was handed more than $27 billion to make a bet on the future of the internet.

The recipient of all those billions is Jio Platforms, part of Ambani’s sprawling conglomerate Reliance Industries. Jio started as a mobile network in 2016. Since then it has amassed around 400 million users and launched a streaming service, a video conferencing app, a fiber broadband network and digital payments.

Its super-cheap data has helped bring hundreds of millions of Indians online for the first time. When Ambani launched Jio, India had fewer than 350 million internet users. Now, it has 750 million.

Jio has become the gateway to India’s internet, and Ambani holds the keys.

“A lot of this change, especially in terms of bringing people online, has happened on the back of the positive disruption that Jio triggered,” Ajit Mohan, Facebook’s vice president and managing director in India, told Appradab Business. “Jio has been the hero in that story in terms of providing that access, and I think that sets the context for our investment and Jio and our partnership, because… we saw alignment of the vision.”

Ambani’s vision keeps getting bigger.

After raising more than $20 billion for Jio Platforms, Reliance went courting investors for its retail business. Between late September and early November, Reliance Retail raised around $6.4 billion, much of it coming from Jio investors including Silver Lake, General Atlantic, TPG as well as the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.

Ambani’s retail chain is the biggest in India, with more than 12,000 stores. And he has made no secret of his ambitions to combine his retail and tech empires to take on two big US players. Amazon (AMZN) and Walmart’s (WMT) Flipkart dominate online shopping in India, controlling more than 60% of the market between them. Ambani is making an aggressive play for a slice.

He’s doing that with JioMart, an initiative announced in 2019 to bring online thousands of India’s mom-and-pop stores known as “kiranas.” And Reliance Retail recently acquired one of its biggest Indian rivals, Future Retail, for $3.3 billion — a deal that has kicked off a protracted and complex legal battle with Amazon.

Even as he digests all of that, India’s richest man is already looking to the next big thing — bringing 5G to India in the second half of 2021.

“It will be powered by an indigenous developed network, hardware, and technology components,” Ambani told a virtual audience at the India Mobile Congress in November, in a possible nod to calls for China’s Huawei to be excluded from building the country’s 5G network.

Any one of those plans on its own would be a big undertaking and executing them all together is a huge ask even for one of the world’s top billionaires. His ambition is to fundamentally transform the way more than a billion people communicate, do business and make purchases.

And the ultimate goal is to reach billions more.

“We are creating compelling homegrown solutions in education, health care, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services and new commerce,” Ambani said in his speech. “Each of these solutions, once proven in India, will be offered to the rest of the world to address global challenges.”

Geography vs Technology

But the billionaire, who is reportedly looking to take Jio public in the United States, may find it challenging to parlay the company’s meteoric rise in India into success on the global stage.

“Reliance does not have any one area where it has a technological edge and superiority like say Google’s search, Facebook’s portfolio of social networks, Amazon’s e-commerce engine, Alibaba’s combination of strengths in e-commerce and payments or Tencent’s super app,” said Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi, research director at the Institute for Business in the Global Context at Tufts University’s Fletcher School.

Rather, Jio’s dominance has been largely geographical, helped by a regulatory regime that supports homegrown players.

“One would be hard pressed to come up with a meaningful list of technological innovations and IP that Jio created that could be the basis for its expansion abroad,” Chaturvedi added.

India is, of course, a massive prize in itself that Jio has largely already captured.

The country’s online population of 750 million — second only to China, which has shut out US companies for decades — is the biggest draw for global tech. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix (NFLX) and Uber (UBER), to name a few, have already spent several years and billions of dollars to crack open the market.

“For Silicon Valley, the Indian market alone is bigger than the five next biggest consumer markets — by population — in the world combined,” said Chaturvedi.

Where China has its “Great Firewall” of online censorship that keeps out US tech companies en masse, Ambani has succeeded in creating a “Great Indian Paywall” that runs through Jio, Chaturvedi argues.

Global tech firms have been forced to navigate a series of regulatory hurdles from an Indian government that has shown a greater willingness to clamp down on foreign players — whether blocking Facebook’s efforts to provide free internet, changing how companies can store and collect data or, more recently, shutting out Chinese tech companies over a border dispute.

Ambani has been the biggest beneficiary of many of those regulations, and the billionaire has been a vocal champion of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his campaign for a “self-reliant” India.

A few cracks — albeit small ones — have started to appear in Ambani’s dominance. Barely a day into 2021, the Securities and Exchange Board of India ordered Reliance Industries and Ambani to pay a $5.5 million fine over what the regulator described as a “fraudulent and manipulative trading scheme” over a former subsidiary in 2007.

But that’s unlikely to dent his tech ambitions. Ambani, who declined multiple requests to be interviewed for this article, is used to making audacious bets and having them pay off — usually with enormous resources at his disposal and a fair political wind at his back.

“After all he’s India’s richest man, he has therefore the deepest pockets in this country,” said Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, journalist and co-author of Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis. “I can say without any risk of contradiction that he has been supported by a favorable political dispensation and a regulatory regime,” he added.

From Oil to Jio

The corporate empire that Ambani presides over today looks rather different to the one he inherited.

His father, Dhirubhai, started a small yarn trading firm in Mumbai in 1957 that he subsequently spun into a thriving textile business. Over decades, it grew into the sprawling conglomerate Reliance Industries spanning energy, petrochemicals and telecommunications. Dhirubhai’s death in 2002 kicked off an acrimonious succession battle that split the business in two.

Mukesh Ambani ultimately took over the company’s main oil and petrochemicals assets, while his younger brother Anil assumed control of the newer ventures, including telecom and digital businesses.

Then, in September 2016, Mukesh Ambani stormed onto his brother’s turf with an offer that blew the lid off India’s telecom and internet growth. Jio gave every new customer six months of free 4G internet and Indians signed up by the millions, triggering a brutal price war.

“You lure your users by giving something free, and once they’ve got hooked onto it, you gradually start increasing the prices,” Thakurta said. “It’s the classic way all kinds of monopolies work across the globe.”

One of the major casualties of the price war was Anil Ambani. His Reliance Communications company announced in late 2017 that it would sell most of its assets and exit the mobile business. Two days later, Jio acquired Reliance Communications. And two years later, the elder Ambani underscored the divergence in the brothers’ fortunes by helping pay off an $80 million debt to Ericsson (ERIC), keeping Anil out of jail.

Jio’s meteoric rise has helped offset some of the volatility in oil that cost Ambani billions last year and set up Reliance for a future that’s further removed from its core business. In fact, a company spokesperson previously told Appradab Business that the name Jio — which means “to live” in Hindi — was chosen in part because it’s a mirror image of the world “oiL.”

The bold attempt to transform his $170 billion conglomerate faces a massive test in 2021 as the Indian economy recovers from its first recession in nearly a quarter of a century. Like other tech companies around the world, Jio has strengthened during the pandemic, but the question is whether it can continue to grow fast enough for the company to meaningfully transition away from oil.

Ambani charted his course years ago.

“Data is the new oil,” he said in 2017, just six months into his campaign to disrupt India’s tech landscape.

India first, then the world

For American tech giants, having a big homegrown player in your corner often makes life easier in a foreign country, and Jio is by far the biggest in India.

“Why did Facebook, why did Google…put in their money in Jio at a time when the world economy is in a mess, the Indian economy is in recession, why would they do it? Obviously because there is more than an economic angle,” said Thakurta. “It’s also I believe, indirectly… a political insurance of sorts.”

Mohan, Facebook’s India head, denied that government regulation was part of the conversation.

“That didn’t have anything to do with our investment in Jio or the partnership,” he said. “It really did come from recognizing that this was a special company that had done pretty amazing work in transforming the digital infrastructure of India in a short period of time.”

From Ambani’s perspective, a wide-ranging coalition of some of the biggest names in tech is just a way to further Jio’s command over all aspects of India’s internet.

The company already controls a lion’s share of the pipes through its vast mobile network. Through Facebook, it is working to integrate JioMart with WhatsApp, the only platform in India with a user base comparable to Jio’s. With Google, it’s gunning for control of mobile devices by jointly developing an “entry level, affordable smartphone” for India’s huge middle class. And it’s even got an eye on the chip technology that underpins those networks and devices through partners such as Qualcomm.

“As digitization of the Indian economy and Indian society picks up speed, the demand for digital hardware will grow enormously. We cannot rely on large-scale imports,” Ambani said last month. “I clearly foresee India becoming a major hub for a state-of-the-art semiconductor industry.”

Qualcomm, a longtime Jio partner, joined the investment bandwagon by spending around $97 million in July for a 0.15% stake. Jio’s commitment to building out its own network while also developing a smartphone presented the chipmaker with a unique opportunity to get involved on both sides of Ambani’s internet access plan, according to Quinn Li, senior vice president and global head of the company’s investment arm Qualcomm Ventures.

“If you look at operators across the world, not many are that vertically integrated,” he told Appradab Business. “Given we’re the technology supplier to the industry, we’re I think best equipped to work with Jio both on the device front as well as infrastructure.”

Ambani appears ready to leverage the global backing for Jio and Reliance Retail into IPOs, saying in June that he would “move towards listing of both these companies within the next five years.” An IPO for Jio Platforms on Nasdaq could come as soon as 2021, according to several media reports and industry analysts. Reliance did not respond to a request for comment on its IPO plans.

“I wouldn’t be surprised in the least,” said Thakurta. “Once you’re on Nasdaq, you give all these investors a good exit route.”

Ambani seems confident he can get the world to buy into India’s moment, anchored in his company. And given his track record so far, he has no reason not to be.

“Friends, we are about to step into a glorious decade of the India story,” he declared. “Nothing can stop India’s rise, not even Covid-19. This is our chance to create history.”