#settle in tax free country

[talentconnectworldwide]

Settle in Tax Free Country Now

Settle in a tax-free country can offer various advantages for individuals seeking to minimize their tax obligations and enjoy a favorable financial environment. These countries typically have low or zero income tax, capital gains tax, and sometimes no corporate tax, making them attractive destinations for residency and business establishment.

Moving to a tax free country provides the opportunity to retain a larger portion of your income and assets, allowing for greater financial flexibility and wealth accumulation. It can significantly reduce the tax burden on individuals, entrepreneurs, and investors, enabling them to allocate resources more efficiently towards personal goals and business expansion.

In addition to tax benefits, tax-free countries often offer political stability, strong legal frameworks, and favorable business environments.

It is important to note that tax laws and regulations can change, and compliance with local regulations is essential to avoid any legal or financial issues.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

GOP has gone rancid—and it isn't fair decent people have to keep cleaning up after them

D. Earl Stephens

April 23, 2024 5:27AM ET

People await the arrival of former U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at the Miami-Dade Country Fair and Exposition on November 6, 2022 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

I’ve heard more than enough from people identifying as Republicans to last for whatever is left of my life.

By words and actions, Republicans have proven they are not serious people, and most definitely do not love or care for our country. We have learned without any doubt during the past decade that there is no line they won’t cross, rule they won’t break, or lie they won’t tell to further their dirty causes, which have absolutely nothing to do with making America great.

They are incapable of good governance, and have settled into mob rule. The Republican-led House of Representatives is a complete and nasty joke, where members literally elbow and hiss at each other, and that is both true and terribly, terribly sad.

With help from our inept Justice Department and a bought-off Conservative Supreme Court, Republicans are making a mockery of the notion that our nation is protected by the rule of law. They know better than anybody, that this simply is not true.

They have exploited a system they have learned to eagerly spit on by refusing to allow nominations for Supreme Court Justices in some cases, while rocketing other Conservative nominees through the Senate in record time.

READ: Breaking our democracy is all part of the GOP plan

They call violent terrorists who attack our country hostages, and expect the press to keep swallowing it whole, because that’s what they do.

Cheating and underhandedness is in their DNA.

They are long past the point of no return, and will either pay for their felonious behavior, or will somehow be rewarded for it at the polls this November, in which case we are done with our Democratic experiment after 248 years.

It is now up to Democrats to once again save this nation from the sick arsonists eagerly trying to burn it to the ground, and that is helluva lot to ask, and isn’t remotely fair.

Here’s a damn truth we don’t hear near enough about: If the Democratic candidate for president was facing 91 felony counts, had been convicted of fraud, was a serial abuser of women, told a documented 30,573 lies in four years, spread a big, toxic lie about an election he lost, and praised dictators, the party and the people who support it, would drop him/her like a rock.

He or she wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d be banished to the nearest dumpster. No decent person would want to be associated with such obvious scum.

The people who vote on the Left and the Right in this country are not remotely the same, and I am way past sick and tired of hearing that they are.

Something as despicable and odious as Donald J. Trump could NEVER happen in the Democratic Party. We simply would not allow it.

That right there is an ironclad fact.

Democrats and left-leaning people are not perfect, because no person is, but we still believe in truth, decency and manners. ALL children are important in our world, which is why we believe feeding them and getting them the healthcare and the childcare they need is vital, and far more important than paying the taxes of filthy-rich, bloated billionaires. We still believe that how the United States projects itself to rest of the world and our children means something.

We love our country, warts and all.

We still believe that when we’ve made mistakes, or said stupid, hurtful things we should apologize for them, not recklessly double down like ill-bred maniacs.

We have not, and will not, surrender to the lowest form of life like Trump. It is simply not in us.

As of this writing, I am officially DONE listening to the unmitigated gall that “both sides do it” or “both parties are the same” because that’s a complete load of bullshit. It is brutally insulting to the tens of millions of people in this country who play by the rules, believe all people are created equal, and still know a damn lie, or attack on our country when they hear it and see it.

The people who populate the Left and Right in our country are wired differently, and it’s time this was said out loud, and repeatedly. It is also long past time our media reported this. Especially because they know it to be true.

In the newsrooms where I used to work, if something so obviously bad and as evil as Trump and his enablers had burst on the scene, we would have been sounding alarms and reporting on it 24/7. The man means us and our country harm. We know this because he is SHOWING US AND TELLING US THIS.

There is seldom a day that goes by without him saying or doing something revolting and egregious. The media doesn’t even bother asking his Republican followers in Congress to account for his larceny anymore. They just accept it as somehow normal when it most certainly is not and never can be.

There are two sides to the story that should be told in America right now. One is called, good, the other is called, evil.

The only reason our national press does not report on this legitimately and accurately is simply because they are pathetic cowards, plain and simple. They know they are failing, but are carrying on despicably, anyway.

I’ll always have ammo to burn addressing their egregious behavior these days, but for now, I want to continue unwinding this thread of how the Left and Right are completely different and how unfair it is that we have to deal with the never-ending recklessness on the Right.

Back in 2015, when Trump laughably announced he’d be seeking the Republican nomination for president, many prominent Republicans rightfully scoffed at the possibility. You’ll get no better example than Lindsey Graham’s evergreen tweet: “If we nominate Trump we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.” Graham went on to call Trump, “a jackass.”

The Bushes, Rubios, and other red-blooded Republicans all saw Trump for what he was: completely disgusting and ridiculous. That was before the big-mouth, lifetime loser started blasting them off the debate stage by imitating a slobbering, belligerent drunk at the end of the bar.

Instead of bouncing him from the party, they allowed him to play to the delight of the silent minority in America, who had watched him bravely fire people on his TV show, and lick his toilet seat by degrading President Obama with his putrid, racist, noxious birther blather.

These were the fine people whose tongues bled from self-censoring the bile that flowed from their broken brains, into their big, fat mouths, and had taken centuries to finally go out of taste in this country. It killed them that there were actually awful, hurtful things they could not say out loud anymore.

Now they were free to be themselves again, and let the sludge flow freely from their chapped lips.

Their freedoms had nothing to do with breaking free from any chains, or breaking glass ceilings. No, their freedoms meant having the permission from the very top to be just as disgusting and appalling as they wanted to be. It meant belittling the disabled, and dragging women into the gutter. It meant coddling Nazis and calling cities that terrified them with their sophistication, “s--t holes.”

Before we knew it Nazis and white suprematists were coming out of their caves everywhere and lighting their tiki torches. They were finally on the march to the point of no return, where their disgusting leader was waiting to tell them that he loved them.

Once you have coddled a racist, a traitor, a two-timer, a friend of our enemies, an environmental terrorist, a serial liar, and a sociopath, you are completely lost and broken. Done.

Now the mob rules the Republican Party, which makes it fitting they are represented by this two-bit thug, who is currently sitting in a court room for hiding campaign money he paid to an adult movie star he slept with named Stormy, while his wife was at home caring for a newborn.

Yeah, that’s good and wholesome and normal right there.

A few have broken free of the madman’s grip in the Republican Party, while others have tried, and have crumpled into a heap and back into the mud and slime.

In February, Trump’s very own attorney general, the morally corrupt, Bill Barr, stumbled into bravery and truth when he said that voting for Trump would be “playing Russian roulette with the country.”

By this past Wednesday he had once again devolved and said, but “I’ll support the Republican ticket” if Trump leads it.

Also in February, New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu said of Trump: “A--holes come and go. But America is here to stay.”

On Sunday, he admitted he had changed his tune and said: “Look, nobody should be shocked that the Republican governor is supporting the Republican president.”

That’s exactly right, governor: A--holes come and go, and apparently you will do everything you can to hang around for a while. You are a revolting person, sport.

Nobody should be surprised by these things anymore, because the Republican Party is irredeemable and incapable of surprises. They can ALWAYS go lower, and prove it literally every day.

This is what happens when you are morally busted and are not bound by any rules or self-control that guides the rest of us.

This is what happens when you surrender to depravity.

This is what happens when you rubber stamp abuse of women, lies, insurrection and support for dictators as anything in the vicinity of normal.

So what happens when standing by the truth and playing by the rules gets you nowhere as a political party and as a country? What happens when millions discover there is no justice and a depraved mad man once again has the keys to the kingdom?

Thanks to the Barrs and the Sununus, and the tens of millions of below-average, broken-down Republicans littering our country, we are terrifyingly close to finding out.

It is up to the Left to take out the garbage once again in America, because the Right has lost its damn mind, as well as its sense of taste and smell.

At what point can all this FINALLY be delivered as fact and shouted on Page 1?

At what point can we quit pretending that both sides are even remotely the same?

NOW READ: What most assuredly happens when Trump sits down with the New York Times

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough and on his website.

[yikes-kachowski]

Hey Yikes! I hope you're doing well!

What's the world like by the time Sakari ascends to the throne?

Hello friend! This is long and detailed so, settle in, get some water, maybe a snack. I consulted my esteemed colleague and co-writer/lore master to make the most comprehensive post possible since I've got a lot of ideas. If you have any further questions you can ask either of us :)

Here goes:

They are primarily working through economic and parliamentary reform. While they’ve been slowly liberalizing and democratizing, officially getting a parliament eight years after the war, the Fire Nation under Fire Lord Zuko is still fundamentally an autocracy (Zuko will later be known as an ‘enlightened despot’ by future historians, as will King Kuei), a Parliament works to delegate certain tasks to, and field research. All laws and reforms are still ultimately up to the Fire Lord, though Zuko has been putting in place laws that have been slowly decreasing monarchic power and influence in the Fire Nation.

The Parliament (and other official positions) are appointed through an examination process, which is completely free, and open to anyone in the country who chooses to try it. The examinees are numbered, so there can be no bias when grading, or when they are brought to officials to be appointed into whatever roles they may qualify for. Local officials—like mayors—are elected, but there is rigorous oversight in the election process, because elections are still pretty new to the Fire Nation, and a lot of people don’t see the point in voting. The oversight is to try and mitigate local lords/landowners from pitting elections to be in their favor. Elections will expand under Sakari, though democratization is a decidedly slow process in the Fire Nation.

The Fire Nation has traditionally been a command economy, since the times of Fire Lord Yozor. Currently, they are trying to find a balance between privatization and socialization. Either way, the Fire Nation invests most of its resources into infrastructural development and social services. A big recent push has been outreaches to the Outer Islands, that have been traditionally overlooked by the monarchy, and tended to get far less funding than they needed, even under Zuko. Sakari is looking into simplifying they’re bureaucratic and bloated social service programs, and simplifying (some of them) into a universal basic income.

They’re also working on reforming their tax system into a far more simple land value tax. The dividends made with this system will be used for a universal basic income.

They are converting to a decimal monetary system, since they’re current system is incredibly complicated, and much harder to do international trade with.

Sakari will probably be remembered as having strong environmental protections, which will be somewhat of a roadblock to economic development in the industrial sphere, and for Cultural Demilitarization. Meaning, kids aren’t expected to go to military schools from the ages of 11 through 16.

True democratization won’t be implemented until the next Fire Lord.

And coronation sketches that I probably won't finish but never say never

[foreverlogical]

NEW YORK (AP) — The National Rifle Association and its former longtime leader were found liable Friday in a lawsuit centered on the organization’s lavish spending.

The New York jury found that Wayne LaPierre, who was the NRA’s CEO for three decades, misspent millions of dollars of the group’s money on pricey perks, and it ordered him to repay the group $4,351,231. Jurors also found that the NRA omitted or misrepresented information in its tax filings and violated New York law by failing to adopt a whistleblower policy.

LaPierre, 74, sat stone-faced in the front row of the courtroom as the verdict was read aloud. The jury actually found him liable for $5.4 million, but it determined he’d already paid back a little over a million.

The verdict is a win for New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who campaigned on investigating the NRA’s not-for-profit status. It is the latest blow to the powerful group, which in recent years has been beset by financial troubles and dwindling membership. LaPierre, its longtime face, announced his resignation on the eve of the trial.

NRA general counsel John Frazer and retired finance chief Wilson Phillips were also defendants in the case. Phillips was ordered to pay $2 million in damages to the NRA. Frazer, meanwhile, was found to have violated his duties, but was not ordered to pay any money.

The penalties paid by LaPierre and Phillips will go back to the NRA, which was portrayed in the case both as a defendant that lacked internal controls to prevent misspending and as a victim of that same misconduct.

James also wants the three men to be banned from serving in leadership positions at any charitable organizations that conduct business in New York. A judge will decide that question during the next phase of the state Supreme Court trial.

Another former NRA executive turned whistleblower, Joshua Powell, settled with the state last month, agreeing to testify at the trial, pay the NRA $100,000 and forgo further involvement with nonprofits.

James sued the NRA and its executives in 2020 under her authority to investigate not-for-profits registered in the state.

She originally sought to have the entire organization dissolved, but Manhattan Judge Joel M. Cohen ruled in 2022 that the allegations did not warrant a “corporate death penalty.”

The trial, which began last month, cast a spotlight on the leadership, organizational culture and finances of the powerful lobbying group, which was founded more than 150 years ago in New York City to promote rifle skills and grew into a political juggernaut that influenced federal law and presidential elections.

Before he stepped down, LaPierre, had led the NRA’s day-to-day operations since 1991, acting as its face and becoming one of the country’s most influential figures in shaping gun policy.

During the trial, state lawyers argued that he dodged financial disclosure requirements while treating the NRA as his personal piggy bank, liberally dipping into its coffers for African safaris and other questionable expenditures.

His lawyer cast the trial as a political witch hunt by James.

LaPierre billed the NRA more than $11 million for private jet flights and spent more than $500,000 on eight trips to the Bahamas over a three-year span, state lawyers said.

He also authorized $135 million in NRA contracts for a vendor whose owners showered him with free trips to the Bahamas, Greece, Dubai and India, as well as access to a 108-foot (33-meter) yacht.

LaPierre claimed he hadn’t realized the travel tickets, hotel stays, meals, yacht access and other luxury perks counted as gifts, and that the private jet flights were necessary for his safety.

But he conceded that he had wrongly expensed private flights for his family and accepted vacations from vendors doing business with the NRA without disclosing them.

Among those who testified at the trial was Oliver North, a one-time NRA president and former National Security Council military aide best known for his central role in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. North, who resigned from the NRA in 2019, said he was pushed out after raising allegations of financial irregularities.

After reporting a $36 million deficit in 2018 fueled largely by misspending, the NRA cut back on longstanding programs that had been core to its mission, including training and education, recreational shooting and law enforcement initiatives. In 2021, it filed for bankruptcy and sought to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, but a judge rejected the move, saying it was an attempt to duck James’ lawsuit.

Despite its recent woes, the NRA remains a political force. Republican presidential hopefuls flocked to its annual convention last year and former President Donald Trump spoke at an NRA event earlier this month — his eighth speech to the association, it said.

[samueldays]

Two hundred thousand pounds a year to be Company Priest

Nice gig, if you can get it.

I go on sometimes about the Peace and Truce of Westphalia, the big European religious peace arrangement from 1648 where the Catholics would have Catholic countries, and the Protestants would have Protestant countries, and they had a mutual agreement to stop trying to compel each other to convert, which laid the foundation for later "secularism", whatever that is, because I have growing doubts about that word.

Individual countries (and some sub-country units) still had state religions and might even be theocratic, which is an important piece of understanding what kind of religious truce it was. Roman Catholicism was the rule in Austria, while Sweden had Lutheran Protestantism as its state religion, but the Peace of Westphalia established an arrangement where Austria would not try to invade Sweden to change Sweden's state religion, or vice versa.

The First Amendment operated similarly in America a century later. The individual states could have state churches, and several of them did, but the Federal government was supposed to stay out. This was a truce and a compromise to reduce fighting by having there be multiple small 'prizes' rather than an existential fight for the single big 'prize' of capturing the central government.

Later, there was a rise in "secularism", and a lot of very clever abstract thinkers looked at an ad hoc compromise signed in blood, and decided they wanted to make a generalized universal principle out of it. 'European countries and American states should be secular too! For that matter, individual companies also should be secular - enforced by state power if necessary! Abolish the state churches! No more religious discrimination in the workplace!'

(I feel like this is a repeating problem: abstract thinkers trying to make contingent agreements into universal principles and overreaching, but that's another essay.)

The major churches mostly agreed and complied with the truce, with some foot-dragging, and gradually settled down in the hope of a peaceful new era and doing missionary work by reason instead of the sword, which was a lot less risky for everyone involved. Even if it was tempting for a church to [re]capture the state and simply order everyone to praise Jesus while helping itself to tax money and organizational power.

And then this happens. A "Chief Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Officer" is a Company Priest for a sort of nontheistic religion that is capturing the state and breaking the truce. It names itself 'antidiscrimination' in order to cover the very discriminatory practice of requiring it be taught to nonbelievers in schools, funded by the state, enforced at companies, and demanding important people sign affirmations of faith commitments to diversity. It is not a formalized religion - formalization would break its cover - but it is a particular religion with beliefs, creeds, and moral demands (particularly racial quotas) that are not merely the neutral "secularism" of keeping Protestants and Catholics from fighting. Its restrictions on "hate speech" and "hate facts" amount to nontheistic blasphemy laws.

This is not a novel thought, but sometimes I see a striking illustration of it like the exchange above, and I'm torn:

Part of me says that maybe someone could patch up the edges of "secularism", perhaps expand the definition of "religion", name the Name-Eating Thing as a religion to be kept away from government, or ban ideology from government (lol) and do classical liberalism better by preventing it from decaying into...this. The free market is the best cure for bigotry; Diversity Officers are useless wastes at best and bigots themselves at worst.

Part of me says that classical liberalism was always going to lead here via modern liberalism and leftism, and I should shed my lingering qualms about supporting a coercive state church, because evidently there is no alternative. There will be Company Priests, and given that fact, it is best the Company Priests be Christian not heathen. What looked like growing secularism was in retrospect a transitional period, not a condition that can be sustained in its own right.

[royal-confessions]

“I think social Media will ruin more Royal Families in the future, they were calmly living before it, when only Magazines and TV News and Shows speaking about them. but now everyone is gangsta about em in the Virtual World. especiallynow Monarchies are considered an old way, old fashion of running a country. Because the way the crown is being transmitted from Generation to Generation is against Democracy and Human rights (Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights), the Queens and Kings before their Birth are settled for their Jobs, and lavish style of living which of course is paid from people’s Taxes. Also, I wish Women or the Commoners that have been married into Monarchies cared more about Duty and serve people gracefully, being a fashion Icon or nominated the most elegant ain’t giving you Value. value and trust you gain it, when you serve the public, not for Cameras but for the people. Many royal women have been in Engagements just to take photos and post them.” - Submitted by cocostrauss9

[the-eyes-of-andyserkis]

Chapter 2 - "Tides"

Masterlist

Fandom: MCU - Age of Ultron, Black Panther Pairing: Ulysses Klaue x F!Reader Word count: 2.8K Chapters: 2/5 Rating: Explicit

Chapter Summary: After settling in to your new job in Romania, you find that even though you try you can't keep Ulysses Klaue out of your mind.

Warnings: Alcohol, Blood and Injury, Minor Injuries, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Masturbation

A/N: Thank you for your patience as I set things up, and now the real (but fun) work begins! This would have been up yesterday but I'm just emerging from a head cold. I was trying to edit yesterday but was just perpetually annoyed at everything, but thank goodness the sinus pressure finally broke today, so I still manged to stick to what I intended (it's still the weekend!).

In my mind this is set somewhere between "Avengers" and "Age of Ultron". I wanted to give myself somewhere to go, since I do kind of have plans beyond this! I'm not sure yet if I'll end up extending this work, or start a new one (in a same universe/established relationship kind of deal), but we'll see!

Title is from the song "Bringin' Home the Rain" by The Builders and the Butchers.

AO3 Link

And the weekends come and go like tides and they soak you to the neck And pretty soon the weekdays are all the same

Ulysses Klaue certainly wasn’t lying, although you'd argue that "non-traditional" was just a bit of an understatement

Yet here you are, on a six month contract in Romania tucked in the foothills of the Făgăraș mountains, and working for a black market arms dealer.

The pay was more than enough for you to agree to the six months, and at the compound you find that you have access to the most advanced equipment you've worked with which is a bonus. There are residences on site, a separate group of buildings connected through covered walkways to the machine shops and engineering sector, and everyone has their own private quarters with keycard access. It's nothing fussy, essentially just a bachelor’s apartment with a shower, small kitchenette, a double bed and desk, but it's comfortable enough and you don’t spend much time there anyway.

As for the work itself it’s pretty well what you expected - welding and metal work on both large and small scales, assembling, disassembling, unloading and moving supplies. However Klaue makes it clear to everyone who comes on board that even if you’re brought on with a specific set of skills you're still expected to step up and do whatever is necessary to keep the gears turning. 

One month in and you haven’t yet learned what this might entail, but you assume that it’s only a matter of time. 

The shifts are long and taxing but you do have two free days a week, though not always back to back. Fortunately, even though the compound is in an industrial area you're also pretty much right in the mountains with forests surrounding you. You’re also an hour and half drive from Bucharest with plenty of other smaller cities and towns relatively close by, so on days when you’re not completely exhausted you find opportunities to explore the new country that you’ve found yourself in.

You rarely actually see Klaue because as it turns out he’s an incredibly busy man: There’s this manufacturing compound in Romania, a salvage yard off the coast of South Africa, a network of mercenaries working for him around the world, and if he can’t do or acquire something himself he invariably knows someone who can. It’s a massive operation and you soon realize that you’re just a single cog in a huge machine.  

With this information and what you’re able to glean from others working for him you realize that Klaue is a deceptively intelligent man, and while he might seem like walking chaos at first glance he also has a code, such as it is. He figured out a long time ago how the world works and then found a way to make it work for him. He doesn't give a shit what people think of him, despises liars and hypocrites, and it’s quickly impressed upon you that you do not go back on your word with him. Ever.

Since arriving you've only seen Klaue from a distance and haven’t actually had any one on one interactions with him, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still cross your mind. 

You’ve been so accustomed to finding calm in the face of a storm your whole life that you’re still startled when you think about how he threw you off balance so easily with just his eyes, and frustrated that you never really found your footing after that. 

But then sometimes you think you were just having an off night, that you were exhausted by the heat and had just imagined the way that he looked at you. Yet even as you try to reason your way out of it you keep coming back to the feeling you'd had in his presence. The feeling of being caught in an undertow, of pushing and pulling, of resisting and succumbing. And then you think that maybe you shouldn’t be thinking that way about a man like Ulysses Klaue and tamp the thoughts back down again.

Klaue has returned to Romania to oversee a new shipment of raw materials and almost everyone outside of the night shift has gathered to wait for directions.

While he’s coordinating the offload with the foremen you try to pay attention, but as he speaks you notice how the overhead lights catch on the sharp line of his nose, and how the dark scruff of his beard accentuates the angle of his jaw as it sweeps down to a slight underbite. You feel an unbidden swell of heat swirl down between your legs as you find yourself wondering whether it would feel soft against your skin or- Oh.

You’ve completely zoned out so you don’t notice right away that he’s caught you staring from across the room, and by the time your brain finally shakes itself free of its reverie you realize that he's been looking back at you for several moments while continuing to speak.

He smirks when he notices you finally snap back in, ensuring you know that he caught you. You feel a little bit foolish (again), but this time you square your shoulders and don’t allow yourself to look away. Neither of you breaks eye contact until his attention is drawn by a question from one of the other workers and you finally release the breath you’ve been holding.

Once everyone disperses to get started on their assigned tasks you notice that Klaue is making his way over to you, still with the ghost of a smug smile hovering at the corner of his mouth.

"So. You’re settling in ok, then?" he asks as he stops in front of you.

On the surface it sounds like a simple question, just small talk with your boss, right? But beneath it you once again feel your skin prickle under the weight of his attention. At least this time you're anticipating it so you’re able to keep yourself from stammering this time.

"Yeah, pretty well actually," you're happy that your voice sounds steady. "It's a lot of work, obviously, but nothing I haven’t been able to handle so far."

"Good," he replies, his phone pings and he pulls it out of his pocket to read the message. "I need everyone here to work together and pull their weight."

You look up at him and smile politely. "Not a problem, sir." His eyes flick back to yours and he gives you a sharp look, your heart beats hard in your chest but you manage to keep your expression neutral.

“Good to hear,” he smiles in turn. “Let me know if there's anything that you need,” he says, before pocketing his phone and turning to one of the foremen who’s been trying to get his attention.

"Ok, sure,” you say, a bit surprised by that. “I will, thanks.”

He looks back at you as if he’s going to say something else, but then turns away to attend to business.

You watch him as he walks away, noting the way that the fabric of his shirt pulls against the muscles of his shoulders- Get it together, you think to yourself, wondering if you’ll ever come away from an interaction with Klaue and not feel flustered. 

As promised you continue to work hard and don’t give anyone a chance to question your being there.

Of course, just because you don’t give anyone the chance doesn’t mean that there aren’t those who simply don’t like that you’re there.

There is one guy in particular, a giant brute of man with a shaved head and a tree trunk for a torso (“No Neck” you’ve dubbed him), who perpetually looks like he’s just sucked a lemon and seems to have made it his primary pastime to stare menacingly at you. Maybe it's because you're a woman, though you're not the only one here, maybe you remind him of someone, or who knows? Maybe he just doesn't like your face. Either way it’s unnerving to be sure, but fortunately you work in different units and are rarely in the same area at the same time. 

One day however you're on your way back to your quarters after a grueling shift and a stop at the canteen to grab food, when you do happen to cross paths with him. Unfortunately you don’t realize this until he has his fists wrapped in the front of your shirt and you’re being lifted up.

With a startled cry you kick out with your feet but find that there’s no ground beneath you. You then try to direct your kicks at him but while you do make some contact your movements are essentially useless in this position. No Neck brings you in closer. 

“I don’t know who you think you are, but you won’t be here much longer,” he snarls in your face.

What?? Maybe he thinks you’re someone else? 

“Dude, I don’t even know who you are!” you yell back at him, quickly realizing that trying to reason with him is going to be pointless since he doesn’t seem to be in his right mind.

You can dimly hear voices yelling around you but you’re not sure if they’re trying to calm or encourage. Your adrenaline is soaring and even though you’re terrified it gives you a clear head through the panic.

You’ve been trying to pull and twist yourself free which is proving useless, so instead of wasting more energy you decide to switch tactics: you take as deep a breath as you can and on the exhale relax your body as if to signal surrender. 

This has the effect that you hoped for and you can feel his grip on you start to relax as you drop slightly. It’s in that space of a breath when he begins to lower his guard that you reach your hands out to grab his shirt in turn, and with all of your strength you wrench your head sharply towards his face. 

Even through the stars you can tell that you hit paydirt when you hear a crunch followed by an angry cry, and then you're falling.

He drops you awkwardly as he falls backwards and tries to bring his hands up to his now bloody face at the same time. You try to catch yourself but you fall in a way that causes your previously broken arm to slam down on his steel-toed boot and you let out a shriek of pain, white light blooming behind your eyes and nausea surging through your gut. 

Lying in a crumpled heap you can do nothing but try to keep breathing through the waves of agony, so completely unaware of anything outside of you that you barely notice that someone is helping you to maneuver to the edge of the hallway and siting you up against the wall.

As the worst of the pain finally begins to ebb your watery eyes refocus, and between blinks you realize that it’s actually Klaue kneeling on the ground there with you. The skin between his eyebrows is creased in a frown, his expression one you weren’t sure that he could make. Worry? 

As you get some of your other senses back you start to massage your upper arm to try to figure out if there’s any serious damage. Your fear of a new injury has you removing your arm from the long sleeved protective layer you wear for welding, and evidently you haven’t completely gotten your thinking sense back yet because you’ve done this before you realize that Klaue is now seeing you with your shift half off - even if you are just wearing a sweaty sports bra underneath. 

Then, suddenly, his hands are on your arm. You jerk at the unexpected contact but he whispers a “Shhh” and calmly continues to check your skin, squeezing gently, asking if that hurts. Your breath is coming shallow and nearly stops when his fingers ghost along the ridge of your scar. You can only shake your head “no” in answer to his question, unsure if anything that might come out of your mouth right now would resemble an actual word. 

You drag your attention away from the pressure of his fingers and force yourself to make your own assessment. Though the area is turning red, you note with relief that you don’t see any blood and the pain is stabilizing to a deep but not catastrophic throb. 

“I’m ok”, you finally manage on a shaky exhale.

“Lift your arm,” Klaue says.

“Listen, I’m fine-” you start but he looks at you sternly, his eyes cutting you off. He's so close to you that you can see the beads of sweat on his brow.

“Up to your shoulder,” he continues.

With an annoyed frown you reach your arm out straight and slowly raise it up to shoulder level. The joint itself seems ok, and while you can feel the muscles pull and ache as they stretch out over where the hardware of your repaired injury sits it’s not unbearable by any means.

“Listen, it hurts, but in a way that just means I’m going to have some gnarly bruising tomorrow,” you say, lowering your arm and starting to pull your shirt back on. 

Klaue removes his hands allowing you to redress but he still seems hesitant, and after a moment says, “Take two days off”.

“What? No! I’m good, it’s not even my dominant arm and I’m not some fragile- “

“I wasn’t asking,” Klaue’s voice is low and you find yourself suppressing a shiver. “Forty-eight hours.You need to let it rest.” Then his face shifts, his blue eyes softening again with the concern you weren't sure you actually saw earlier.

Well, you're not quite sure what to do with that, so combined with your aching limb and exhaustion and the tremors you feel as the mild shock starts to wear off, you decide that it’s not worth arguing.

"Fine,” you sigh and then grumble, “but I don’t like it.” 

"You don’t have to,” he says with a dry smile and stands back up.

Satisfied for the moment at least, Klaue now turns his attention on your bloodied attacker who's been behind him this whole time. Reflexively No Neck tries to shrink back but he doesn't get very far since David and Cliff - the other man from Utrecht - are each firmly holding onto one of his arms. 

You can’t see Klaue’s face now but as he straightens up you can certainly imagine it, and it’s satisfying to watch the bastard’s face instantly turn ashen.

“If you want to keep your life," Klaue’s voice is a growl full of blood and grit, "you will leave. Now”.

You don't know exactly when he leaves but that's the last time you see No Neck, and no one bothers you for the rest of your time in Romania.

That night in your bed, after having showered and taken two percocet with a mouthful of whisky, you’re attempting to release some of the tension from the day. As your fingers move between your legs, though, they feel frustratingly ineffective and you think that maybe you just need to accept that you're drained, it’s not going to happen, and should just grab the ice pack from the freezer and try to get some sleep. 

You sigh and as you’re mentally running back over today’s events for the nth time, the image of Klaue’s hands on your arm as he knelt beside you flashes through your mind. A throb of heat rolls through your core and the circling of your fingers between your legs resumes, more quickly now. 

Strong, thick fingers slide up your arm, then move to grip the hem of your shirt to pull it the rest of the way off of you. Arms wrap around you, lifting and then adjusting your body so that you’re straddling his lap. His hands slide down the curve your waist to grip your ass and you smile at his groan as you arch your hips against the hard length you feel there, allowing you to find the desired friction against your clit through the fabric of your clothes-

Your orgasm peaks so suddenly that you cry out, rocking your hips frantically against your fingers, gasping as you chase the waves of startled pleasure.

Breathless, you can only lie there riding out the aftershocks that continue to pulse through your body as you try to process how quickly you came from just the thought of his hands. Through the fog of your receding orgasm you can't seem to come up with much in the way of coherent thought aside from one thing:

Oh. 

Shit.

Thank you again for reading! Just a smidge of smut this time, but chapter three will be where we start getting to the good stuff. 😉

[tagthescullion]

Brother In Arms

Fandom(s): Percy Jackson & the Olympians

Summary: Thalia's mother's dead and has left her with an apartment full of bad memories. Luke's now on the opposite side of the war, but he's still there to offer support. Just like when they were on the run. Just what Thalia needs.

Rating: T

AO3 link

Thalia was glad to feel LA’s strong sun after the cloudy weather she’d left behind in New York.

She hated heights but planes gave her a bizarre sense of safety. And they were a lot quicker than trying to cross-country the USA on foot or a bus. 

Not to mention there was nobody in the whole universe more unfortunate than her when it came to buses. Not a single time had she been on one and it had been free of monsters.  

She didn’t doubt her own ability to deal with whatever nefarious creatures were sent her way, anger made her powerful and the gods knew she was pissed off at everything these days. But the task she was facing was daunting enough without adding irritating stops on the way.

Thalia had decided it was time to face her past.

Or part of it, at any rate. 

She was going back to her childhood apartment. 

It had been a spontaneous-ish decision. She did have to go back because having found out her mother was dead, that meant everything the woman had owned was now hers —minus the inheritance tax, but Chiron had helped her fix all that legal crap—. Still, it had made the old centaur anxious that she’d be going to LA straight from camp and with no companion.

“Annabeth would be glad to accompany you,” he’d said.

“I don’t think a 14-year-old should be bothered by this,” Thalia had argued. “She’s got a lot going on, let her get settled into the new boarding school, that’s enough of a challenge.”

And she had believed her own words, Annabeth’s schooling had been nonexistent since she was in like, second grade, that girl needed to face the bureaucratic reality of the educational institution. 

She would hate it. But more would have Thalia hated to see her mother’s apartment while trying to keep an acceptable façade in front of Annabeth. 

Funnily enough, she thought as she took a taxi from the airport —after studying the driver’s face to make sure he wasn’t about to grow claws or any other mythological customisation—, she still had the key. Both for the front door, though the doorman had always been at hand, and for the elevator that would take her to the penthouse.

She asked the driver to drop her off a few blocks away. 

Her luggage was nonexistent, only a backpack and itself half-full at best. She didn’t own many clothes that fit her, and while she’d appreciated some of the people at camp trying to offer her their stuff, she doubted many of them had that many clothes to spare. 

She’d get her own clothes, she’d told them. What she didn’t add was that Beryl had left her a good amount of money, she’d buy all the shirts and jeans her mother would hate. All of them. 

She turned to Don Vicente Road —the street where she’d lived the first decade of her life— while she rummaged in her bag for the keys.

She didn’t really scan her surroundings. Instead, she relied on muscle memory as she walked towards the front door of her mother’s building. 

That proved to be a mistake.

“Hello, Thals.”

Thalia had triggered her shield, and had her spear pressed into the attacker’s neck before her bag had even hit the floor.

It took all of two seconds for Thalia’s senses to adjust for her to recognise both the voice and the face in front of her. 

A deeper pitch, an accent not quite the same as the one she remembered. His face was older —handsomer, her brain supplied uselessly—, and marred by that distinctive scar everybody at Camp Half-Blood knew to avoid.

Thalia’s resolve hesitated a fraction of a second, and that was enough for Luke to push the point of her spear away from his neck. 

She didn’t lower the weapon yet, though. First, she studied him until she was certain he was unarmed. Even then, her mind was too confused to completely let go of the spear.

“What are you doing here?” She demanded. 

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said. 

“To convince me to join you and my senile grandfather into that rebellion you’re planning?”

“No!” Luke shook his head. Then he tilted it a bit. “Yes? No. No, not because of that.” He hesitated another moment. “I wanted to see you. For real, I mean. To have the real you in front of me. To make sure…”

He looked a bit in awe. 

It did wonders to Thalia’s self-esteem, she loved being admired, but it made her completely mad that he’d have the audacity to talk to her just like that.

“Go away,” she told him. “Fuck off to your boat or wherever the hell you spend your time scheming.” 

He snorted. “I’m not Doofenschmirtz, I don’t scheme.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Right. He’s a cartoon character,” he explained. Calm as ever, as if this was another day on the run, deciding whether Aladdin or Tarzan was a better VHS to own. “He’s a funny guy, he does scheme.”

“A cartoon?” She asked, exasperated. “Could it be one that came out during the seven years I was a tree, perhaps? A tree that you poisoned recently?”

Luke’s face lost its joviality. “There was a plan for that. They’d resuscitate you.”

“I’m not fucking Jesus, Luke!” She snapped. “I didn’t need you to gamble with the life of the only thing left of me!”

He swallowed but he didn’t flinch back from her. 

“I was promised that you’d come back,” he said. “It made sense when it was explained to me, and in case you haven’t noticed, it worked.”

“It w— It worked? At what cost?” She frowned. “Annabeth’s life? Grover’s? You put people we both care about in danger, asshole! I chose to give up my life so you and Annabeth could be safe. You had no right to ignore my choice out of selfishness, or the off-chance it might bring me back!”

That hit a nerve. Luke’s face went tomato red. 

“Annabeth was never supposed to be on that quest!” He argued. “She’d already gone off the year before into a suicide mission, I didn’t think Chiron would be stupid enough to—”

“Chiron wasn’t even there,” Thalia interrupted. “You sent him away by blaming him for the tree thing.”

“I didn’t blame him for anything, that was your father,” Luke explained, his voice tight. “Besides, gone or not, Chiron made Annabeth promise she’d protect Percy Jackson. He knew she would follow that little shit to hell and back. Literally.”

Thalia gaped at him. “I can’t fucking believe this.”

“What?” Luke sneered. “Chiron’s unreliability? You’ll get used to it if you stay at Camp.”

“Not that.” She rolled her eyes. “You. Your lack of self-awareness. How you’re washing your hands away from any responsibility when you should know perfectly well that if Annabeth had died, it would have been completely your fault.”

He swallowed again and Thalia caught a glimpse of guilt in his eyes.

“You do know.” She realised. 

“I never wanted her to be in the line of fire,” he said. 

His voice carried so much regret. Thalia wanted to believe it. And she could if she was honest. Luke had always loved Annabeth, Thalia would never doubt that. Affection that Kronos had helped twist into bitterness and resentment, no doubt, but Luke didn’t want to hurt Annabeth, he never had and never would.

“Let’s talk upstairs,” Thalia offered. This was her home turf, she would choose where and when they spoke. “I have to see what mess my mother left there, anyway.”

Luke nodded. 

They walked the few yards left to the door that opened to the lobby. 

It was still big, impossibly clean, and well illuminated. 

It was early afternoon already, and Maxwell, the old doorman —Thalia was surprised he was still there— was slouched in his seat by the front door desk.

“Afternoon,” she said.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Up now in Michigan. We’re doing this is several battleground states.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 24, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 25, 2024

Two years ago today, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. The vote was 6–3. 

The three justices appointed by former president Trump joined Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice John Roberts to strip a constitutional right from the American people, a right we had enjoyed for almost 50 years, a right that is considered a fundamental human right in most liberal democracies, and a right they had indicated they would protect because it was settled law. For the first time in our history, rather than conveying rights, the court explicitly took a constitutional right away from the American people. 

Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein, and Ilya Marritz of ProPublica reported that the night before the decision came down, 70 or so partygoers, including two dozen state and federal judges, met to drink champagne and eat fine food at the Maine home of the man who had hatched and then executed a plan to stack the courts with extremist judges: Leonard Leo. It was Leo who had helped pick or confirm all six of the justices who would, the next day, announce to the world they were overturning Roe. 

In the decision, written by Alito, the court said that the right to determine abortion rights must be returned “to the people’s elected representatives” at the state level. This construction of American law is central to the right-wing project of dismantling the federal government which, under the Fourteenth Amendment, is charged with protecting equal rights in the states. Centering the states, which determine who can vote within them, enables a minority to dominate the majority. In this case, a strong majority of Americans has always backed abortion rights while only about 10% of Americans wanted a complete ban on the procedure.

In the late 1970s, presidential hopeful Ronald Reagan courted religious traditionalists who objected to women’s equality with the promise of ending abortion access. Indeed, in her first statement on abortion in January 1972, right-wing activist Phyllis Schlafly focused not on fetuses but on women who wanted equal rights. 

“The ‘women’s lib[eration]’ movement is not an honest effort to secure better jobs for women who want or need to work outside the home,” she said. It “is a total assault on the role of the American woman as wife and mother, and on the family as the basic unit of society. Women’s libbers are trying to make wives and mothers unhappy with their career, make them feel that they are ‘second-class citizens’ and ‘abject slaves.’ Women’s libbers are promoting free sex instead of the “slavery” of marriage. They are promoting Federal ‘day-care centers’ for babies instead of homes. They are promoting abortions instead of families.”

Business leaders who wanted to slash taxes and government regulations led the Reagan coalition, but winning elections always depended on the votes of racists and the religious traditionalists who opposed women’s rights. But since a majority of Americans has always supported the protection of access to abortion, Republican leaders generally promised to end abortion without intending actually to do it. 

But the extremist religious judges Leo helped Trump put in place had their own agenda. 

As soon as the court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republican-dominated states began restricting abortion access. Now, two years later, 14 states ban abortion entirely. Seven others have restrictions that would have been unconstitutional two years ago. 

The overturning of Roe v. Wade upended American politics. The majority of Americans alive today have always lived in a country with abortion access recognized as a constitutional right, and had not thought they could lose it. Exactly what that loss means became clear just days after the Dobbs decision, when news broke that a ten-year-old rape victim had been unable to obtain an abortion in Ohio and had to cross state lines to Indiana, where the state attorney general, Todd Rokita, publicly attacked the doctor who treated the girl. Similar stories, as well as those of women who desperately needed abortions to save their lives or fertility, have driven support for abortion higher than it was before Dobbs. 

As state laws prohibiting abortion took effect, voters worked to protect abortion rights. In seven states, including Republican-dominated Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio, voters have protected abortion rights when they were on the ballot. Pollster Tom Bonier today called abortion rights “the most powerful single issue in politics.” 

Bonier recalled looking at the Kansas vote and finding such a surprising statistic he thought he had miscalculated. After Dobbs, almost 70% of the people in that state registering to vote were women. He said he has “never seen a registration surge among any specific group like this before, and [doesn't] expect to again.” He went on to find substantial gender gaps in registration in states where access to abortion was at risk, but not in states where it seemed secure. 

In 2022, Bonier said, “[i]n states and races where abortion rights were perceived as at stake, Democrats overperformed massively,” including in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona, but in states like New York and California, where abortion rights are protected, “the election was as you would have expected in a ‘normal’ midterm.” Bonier added that abortion rights “is likely more salient now than it was in 2022.” 

As the votes indicate, Dobbs has created a huge problem for Republicans, especially as Trump continues to boast that he is responsible for overturning Roe, a boast that the Biden campaign is highlighting. Voters eager to protect abortion rights are moving away from the party toward a more moderate and popular position on abortion.

It has also created a problem for the party on the hard right. Having lost the abortion issue as a way to turn out voters, leaders are whipping up the party’s base with ever-increasing extremism. In the realm of reproductive rights, that extremism has led MAGA Republicans to call for national bans on abortion, contraception, and in vitro fertilization (IVF). More generally, it has increasingly made them call for violence against their opponents. On June 21, for example, Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) posted on social media: “I do want to ‘ethnic cleanse’ by deporting white progressive Democrats—with a special bonus for rich ones with an Ivy League degree. I really do not like ‘those people.’”

Those extremists appear to be threatening Trump from the right, possibly considering a move to back Trump’s conspiracy theorist former national security advisor Michael Flynn at the July Republican National Convention. Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post reported Saturday that there has been a revolt against Trump in the Arizona delegation to the Republican National Convention, some of whom apparently worry that Trump has been captured by the “deep state” and is not extreme enough for them.

The promise to return decision making to the states has always been an attempt to enable a minority to impose its will on the majority, but the Dobbs decision revealed that minority to be so extremist it appears to have engaged, and enraged, people who before it were not paying much attention to politics. In the Dobbs decision, Alito wrote: “Our decision returns the issue of abortion to [state] legislative bodies, and it allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office. Women are not without electoral or political power.”

Amen. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[doodlboy]

Oh shit yeah I have more Pink lore, btw!! I forgot 2 even write abt it

[Child abuse, Abandonment]

Pink's parents were fairly well off people [politicians] in America, so well off, in fact, that they could have a child completely in secret and pay off anyone who was aware of the child.

Why did they do this, you ask? Simple, free assistant as soon as the kid learned how to walk.

Pink did not have a childhood, as soon as he was aware of his surroundings, he was already used to getting ordered around by his mother as if he were a personal assistant and not her own child.

And because his birth was completely concealed from the world, Pink did not legally exist. Which meant no social security #, no dependant cost for his parents, to extra taxes, nothing. Pink does not technically exist.

By the time he was 13, he was completely obedient and did everything his mother asked without any retort because it meant he got fed and didn't have to sleep outside.

So when their "assistant" began to act out in his mid teens, his mother suggested they eliminate the issue.

Under the guise of going on a business trip to Japan [to meet with Party of Worlds]. They took Pink with them and asked him to wait on a little bus stop while they just went to a store around the corner, they'd be right back for him.

Obedient as ever, pink waited. And waited. And Waited.

[Just imagine spinel in the garden ok? Good]

Took him almost 3 days before it settled in that they weren't coming back, abandoning him in a country where he couldn't speak more than a few words of the native language and had nowhere to go.

He stayed on that bus stop for a while.

Anyway, yeah, so he doesn't really exist legally, so it's not like he can be arrested or identified if he gets in trouble. That anonymity is something that he both enjoys and hates as it's a reminder that he was only born to serve a narcissistic parent who didn't want to bother just paying for an assistant and instead was groomed to be a nameless one since birth.

Anyway×2 that's all the lore I got 4 now

[goldcnhearts]

(mecia simson, she/they, 36) announcing [ DAGMAR ROSENKRANTZ ],the [ DOWAGER QUEEN ] of [ DENMARK ]. people would describe them as a [  KING ], maybe that is why they are [ INDIFFERENT ] to the kingdoms working together. they remind me a bit of [ THE THUD OF AN ARROW HITTING ITS MARK, A BEDHALF EMPTY, TINY HANDS WRAPPING AROUND A FINGER, DARK HAIR PULLED AWAY FROM THE FACE ]

@royalhqzstart

name: dagmar helene rosenkrantz

age: 36

date of birth: december 18th

languages spoken: danish, german, latin, english, french

family: father, mother, elder brother, younger brother, younger sister, ivarr (husband, deceased), merete (sister in law, deceased), king of denmark (sibling-in-law), vidar (brother in law), tyr (brother in law), roselille (daughter)

sexuality: bisexual

bio: (death tw, grief tw)

you are the second born, a first daughter welcomed to the family- your father already has an heir but girls can be useful. he's a power player at the danish court, with a large estate and deep coffers, always whispering something to the king. it is no wonder when you grow close to the crown prince, he's so close in age to you and your father brings you and your elder brother to court so often.

two younger siblings come along- but they are never your father's shadows as you and your elder brother are. they remain at their family's estates with your mother.

you are raised to excel- your father cannot expect anything less than perfection from his brood of children. you ride horses as fast as any man, shoot as well as a marksman, play chess as well as any politican, speak languages as if they were born on your tongue.

you're bright, you're bold, you are self assured around everyone except your father. he always expects better, greater, perfection.

half of your time is spent at court, the rest in the country. both are your home- but the country allows for a freer life. there are less eyes on you- your father is busy running his estate, your mother is busy with your younger siblings. you are allowed to ride. frequently you join your father as he visits his tenants, collects his taxes and tithings from the people living on his land.

it is hardly surprise when the crown prince is betrothed. it is what future kings do- marry a foreign princess in some search for a dynastic alliance. your stomach turns in knots and you cannot place why. he is your friend, you must be happy for him. the princess- for that is all you have ever called her, never said her name, even if it was branded in your mind, the word sometimes spoken with drips of distain- never makes the travel. something about an increase in the dowry, the other family having no wish to pay such an increase.

the crown prince shall still be free to be your friend. you may dance with him when the music calls for it, you may ride with him in the forests, practice at shooting and swordplay (you tend to win the former, he the latter)- all under watchful eyes of others.

eventually your father speaks to the king. your father has deep pockets- the increase in dowry had been his idea, not that you were privy to the knowledge. he has always had the king's ear, and you will now have the crown prince's hand.

you wed, you attempt to settle into royal life- you have always been in the peripheral, have watched them for your entire life, but now you are one of them.

your husband comes to his throne, a crown placed upon his golden hair. you are there for every step- his queen, his consort, his wife, his closest friend. you settle into your new roles. you were taught histories and politics and languages- your father had made sure you were prepared for this, even if queenship had never truly crossed your mind. you had been educated to survive and thrive at court.

time passes, you settle into these roles. your life is content, you are happy. after years you learn you are expecting a child. your husband is overjoyed- he is to be a father, he is to have an heir.

then he falls ill. you had not expected this- he was still young, he was healthy, in the prime of his life. he passes, his brother takes his throne, and you give birth to a daughter.

your eyes have been since the night they had told you the news, but this is when the tears fall. as you hold your newborn, already half an orphan. you are drowning- but you must learn to swim in this sea, for you have never been allowed to sink before.

you hand your daughter off to a nurse. you must pull the shattered parts of yourself together.

when the time comes to travel to england a piece of you is relieved- you will not have to walk the same halls, sleep in the same bed, eat at the same table as you had with him. his ghost shall not haunt you. you must mend these broken pieces, put together the remnants of yourself.

[polyamorouspunk]

My girlfriend keeps hinting at/joking about getting married. We talked about it once before - we'd both generally be in favour, but have some differences re: having children, level of tidinesscin a home, interior design styles and idk. Stuff. Plus, we've first gotten together a literal decade ago and it's been a bit of an on and off relationship through the years (not helped by us living in different countries for like 8 of those years), and she's hurt me quite a bit on one or two occasions, and I'm still having a bit of a hard time sometimes believing that she's not just with me out of convenience and a desire for company (and knowing I'd forgive just about anything, probably, though that may be unkknd of me). So, when she mentions marriage, I don't know how to be sure she's not just worried about running out of time somehow and "settling" for me in a way. And it's really fucking difficult bc I've been thinking about marrying this person since I was 17, I want to marry her, pretty fucking badly, I'm just. Worried. That she'll end up resenting me and feeling trapped, and I'll have my heart broken once more.

I'm sending this bc your sleepover Friday thing suggests asking for advice lol but if you feel in any way uncomfortable with this, no need to respond! I also promise I won't base any life decisions on a single anonymous conversation with an internet stranger, I just thought it might be nice to get some outside perspective, insofar as that's possible from my one-sided account of the situation lol.

Anyway, have a good day/night/etc

Well reading your first paragraph, my initial reaction was “well if you don’t feel ready to marry her then don’t”. But you can want to marry someone and not be ready! My ex and I had plans to get married, but we weren’t ready at 19/20/21 etc. I’m assuming you’re older than that, and of traditional “marrying” age.

If you have been with someone for over a decade, I hope you feel comfortable enough to talk to them about how you’re feeling. While in the end my ex decided to cut me off, while dating we were fine with having open and honest conversations about marriage, even while living apart.

As someone who is polyamorous, I can understand the idea of being “trapped” in a marriage, but marriage isn’t permanent. You can very much reverse it. Is it going to suck if she decides she wants to divorce you? Yes. But is a divorce going to be more emotionally devastating than a normal breakup? Obviously there are going to be some legal stuff that goes on. In fact, at the end of the day, marriage is just a legal contract between two people. There are plenty of people in love who never get married, and plenty of people who are not in love who get married just to have joint assets, tax breaks, and an overall better financial situation. Yes, as an American society we treat marriage as the ultimate show of one’s love for someone. But in reality it’s really just a legal contract. I’m not suggesting you go and tell her “yes I would like to join our assets”. I think you should uphold the notion that marriage is romantic. But it’s not the end-all-be-all.

To me, though, someone wanting to marry someone isn’t “settling” for them. I didn’t want to “settle” for my ex when we talked about marriage: I wanted to solidify that they were my soulmate and that we would last for years (evidentially they did not feel the same lmao).

There were absolutely sacrifices I had to make to be monogamous to that one person. When they did eventually dump me, that left me free to explore things I couldn’t with them: and I learned some things about myself and what else I like in a sexual / romantic / other relationship! And that was nice! But I would have been willing to not have room to explore that to stay with them. It didn’t feel like “settling” it felt like “what I have is enough for me and I don’t need to look for more”. In terms of partners, yeah, of course I wanted to see other people, and throughout the course of our relationship I did. But I also decided that I wanted to be with them only for the time being when they broke up with me. Maybe that was a “sacrifice” but that was what I wanted.

Difference in what you want in life can be complicated, though. My ex and I agreed on everything. We knew the kind of life we wanted to lead. We “yes, and”ed each other. There was no differences on how clean we wanted to live, how many children or if we wanted children, etc. none of that. We wanted the same things, and that was important to me. I don’t know how I would feel if someone I was with wanted kids and I didn’t, or if they were fine with a messy house and I wasn’t. I can’t say for sure that it would be a “make or break” because I don’t really believe in that kind of thing outside of extremes. You can love someone in spite of their differences, but is that going to take a toll on you over the years? Possibly. I can certainly say I would much rather have someone who agrees with me on not wanting kids and wanting a clean house. I don’t want to have to compromise on those things in particular. I can compromise on what color to paint the bedroom, but not on lifestyle differences that are going to cause me internal stress I think.

I’ve also never had an on-again-off-again relationship with someone: but I imagine if I did I would want to keep them around unless I was the one breaking things off because they kept hurting me- but even then I know that I have unhealthy tendencies to want to be with people who aren’t the best. I can break things off with someone if it gets to be too bad, but it’s permanent when I do. If I’m breaking up with someone, I’m blocking them. If they break up with me, I’m blocking them. I’ve never gone back to someone I’ve broken up with. I can’t let myself get into a cycle like that because it’s too unhealthy for me. If I’m going to marry someone, I really can’t see it being someone I’ve had to break up with or who felt the need to break up with me multiple times. But that’s just me.

[whatisonthemoon]

Private Armies of Mindanao

From Filipino Free Thiners Private Armies of Mindanao Faraj Pangeran April 2, 2010 The Rise of Private Armies

Ever since the brutal slaughter in Maguindanao, it raised again the issue of private armies. Private armies exist everywhere in the Philippines and was an issue as far back as the early years of the American colonial regime in the Philippines. After independence was re-established in 1946, private armies were seen as essential to safeguarding the republic from the Huks. Since that time, private armies were seen more of a blessing to Malacanang Palace with the exception of Ramon Magsaysay who saw private armies not only as a lawless element but a threat to military readiness. According to the Philippine National Police, there are over 170 private armies in the Philippines and about 68 are found in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Land Struggles

The genesis of private armies in Mindanao can be traced to the discrimination experienced in the land system. Since time immemorial, both Lumads and Moros had a communal land system which meant that essentially as long as one took care of a piece of land, it was yours. When there was a dispute, a datu, chief, or sultan settled it for you and created a deed or edict.

With the establishment of American rule in Mindanao, a new land tenure system was imposed. This included “nationalizing” (really confiscating) ancestral communal lands of the Lumads and Moros into “public lands” under the Public Land Law of 1903. Lumads and Moros now had to register their land claims in Spanish or in English to the American authorities either in Zamboanga or in Manila and non-Christians were allowed only to claim up to 10 hectares while Christians could claim up to 16. It also voided any deeds or land claims made by sultans, chiefs, and datus. Furthermore, all Moros, Lumads, Igorots, and Aetas came under the supervision of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes of the Department of the Interior under the Governor-General. This meant in certain circumstances, a Moro or Lumad needed permission to even apply for a land title from the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes. With the Public Land Act No. 2874, enacted in November 1919, this was increased to 24 hectares. At the same time, Moros and non-Christians were only allowed to claim up to 8 hectares. The amended public land law of 1936 reduced the homestead size back to 16 hectares, and cut the land claims for Moros and non-Christians to four hectares.

What this essentially did was not only to  strip away the ancestral domains of Moros, Lumads, and every other indigenous group in the country, but made religion even a basis to gaining a land title. It also became a land bonanza for American corporations (i.e., Dole, Goodyear, etc.) and Filipino landed families including the Cojuancos, the Arroyos, and many others.

Beginning in 1912, landless peasants from the Visayas and Luzon were shipped to Mindanao and allowed easy access to claim land while Lumads and Moros were forcibly put into re-settlement programs on non-agricultural lands and monitored by the Philippine Constabulary. Christians on the other hand were encouraged to settle in the more productive lands especially along the coasts and corporations were given tax breaks and other measures to develop in Mindanao. This in turn also attracted a number of landed families particularly from Cebu and Manila who saw the opportunities, in particular, logging and mining.

Since technically a Christian person could only claim a certain amount of land, what some Filipino politicians and landlords in the Visayas and Mindanao did was to have their workers claim the land that they wanted, have their connections in Manila process the claim, and then the worker would “sell” that claim to them. Sometimes the workers were not even aware that they had even processed a claim. In this way, some families were able to establish huge estates and plantations in Mindanao without being in violation of the Public Land Laws.

This was compounded with the fact that Moros and other “non-Christians” could not vote, which is one of the reasons why there were no elected Moro, Lumad, Aeta or Igorot politicians during the Commonwealth. The non-Christians were supposedly represented through the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes which were always staffed by Roman Catholics and never headed by a non-Christian.

During the resettlement programs under Magsaysay, Garcia, and Macapagal settlers were given land for free or simply had to pay a processing fee. These factors are actually the root of the conflict in Mindanao.

In the 1950s, friction began to occur not with just the indigenous populations of Mindanao and the new settlers but between competing politicians. Malacanang began to see the potential of Mindanao in giving that extra–often controversial–votes during elections; private armies had enjoyed support from whomever was president who naturally also came from a political dynasty. Thus, private armies in Mindanao had a two fold purpose: to maintain the political and economic power of political dynasties; and to legitimize the land claims of Christian settlers. In turn, this also would ensure that Mindanao would be part of the Philippine nation-state–something that many Moros still contest–and eventually be “Christianized”. In addition, there were new problems arising from the rise of Communism which gave the Armed Forces of the Philippines an excuse to supply private armies as a counter-insurgency measure.

Generally speaking, warlordism is most pronounced in Sulu, North Cotabato, Davao provinces, Lanao del Sur, South Cotabato, Surigao, Zamboanga, South Cotabato, Sarangani, and Sultan Kudarat–all areas where competition for agricultural land and natural resources is very high. Except for Sulu, North Cotabato, Lanao del Sur, and Sultan Kudarat, these private armies have been recognized at one time or another as a CVO or CAFGUs and are all employed by mining companies, plantations, and/or political dynasties.

Some of the more well known private armies in Mindanao include the Kuratong Baleleng of Ozamis City Mayor Ronaldo O. Parojinog. The Kuratong Baleleng was also instrumental in both Aquino and Estrada’s all out war in Minandao. In North Cotabato vice Governor Emmanuel Piñol maintains another private army. His private army includes its own factory in Mlang and produces mostly M-79 grenade launchers and improvised M-14 armalite rifles. North Cotabato Mayor Roger Taliño has several groups registered as Civilian Volunteers Organization (CVOs) and/or Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGUs), which means it received official backing and were given supplies by Armed Forces of the Philippines or directly by the Department of National Defense.

Not to be outdone, Muslim politicians–particularly in areas where land is contentious–began to arm themselves. “The Barracuda”, the private army of the late Lanao del Norte Governor Ali Dimaporo, is one such example. Dimaporo’s army was reputed to have more firearms than three army brigades and would make Ampatuan’s army look like a boy scout troop. Again, it should be remembered that many of these private armies–whether Muslim or Christian–were encouraged and supplied by our own government and therefore our own taxpayers’ money helped to pay for these armies.

Vigilantes and Liberation Fronts

A by-product of these private armies and the land situation led to the formation of the various Moro liberation fronts as well as the introduction of the New People’s Army (NPA) and vigilante groups in Mindanao. From a Moro perspective, the loss of land was not just seen as an alienation from one’s ancestral ties but as a deep humiliation. The Sultanates of Sulu, Maguindanao, and Lanao were symbols of resistance to foreign rule. But these sultanates were basically gutted by the Public Land Laws and everything else Moro were belittled by the Commonwealth and later the Republic of the Philippines. This was exasperated by the settler programs in the 1950s and 1960s where over a million people from especially the Visayas region displaced the indigenous populations and became the new majority on lands that were part of the Sultanate. Then to further highlight the position of Moros in the country, the Jabidah Massacre occurred in 1968 where 28 Moro recruits were executed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) after the AFP decided to abandon its plan to invade Sabah and destablize Malaysia.

The MNLF

In light of all of this, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) was formed in the 1970s and began waging a protracted war for independence. The chairperson of the MNLF, Dr. Nur Misuari, was a former professor at the University of the Philippines-Diliman and had been a member of the Kabataan MakaBayan (KMB) of Jose Sison. The KMB members later formed the nucleus of the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Since the beginning of the armed struggle, the MNLF made it clear that their main issues in Mindanao were not religious in nature but were for self-determination and for the social and political inequalities that existed not just in Philippine society but within the BangsaMoro themselves. In the late 1970s as the MNLF began to spread through the Moro majority areas of Mindanao, the Communist Party of the Philippines at the same time began operations in non-Muslim areas in Mindanao.

This in turn led further government support of CAFGUs and escalated the violence, leading to the creation of right wing Christian vigilante groups whose goal was to wipe out both the Muslims and the Communists. These included the Alsa Masa, NAKASAKA, Causa Manifesto, Tadtad, and the Davao Death Squads. The Tadtad group was infamous for its practice of ritual cannibalism and keeping the ears of their victims as souvenirs.

Despite all of this, these groups got official approval not only from the government but also from the Roman Catholic Church who refused to condemn the killings or the death squads. The Auxiliary Bishop of Cebu, Msgr. Manuel Salvador, for example, said in 1986 that ”We really cannot blame these civilians who decide to arm themselves.” Certain other groups were also heavily supported by other Christian churches such as Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, and by anti-communist groups in the US. With the rise of right wing Christian groups, this lead also to the formation of fundamentalist Islamic groups such as the Abu Sayyaf.

One of the Legacies of President Aquino

One of the great ironies of all is that most of these right wing groups–both Christian and Muslim–did not form during the martial law, but during the administration of President Aquino. In 1987, President Aquino praised such groups as a ”concrete manifestation of people power”. The roots of the armed struggle in Mindanao was not originally rooted in religion but in the social inequalities and discrimination until the rise of groups such as the Alsa Masa which occurred during Aquino’s presidency. Likewise, it should be remembered that many of the Muslim politicians like the Ampatuans received their start in politics by being appointed to office by President Aquino and these same people continued to build their private armies with the support of Ramos, Estrada, and Arroyo. Many of these vigilante groups and right wing paramilitary forces still exist today.

The MILF

In 1986, the MNLF and the Aquino administration entered into talks and the MNLF gave up its goal of independence. This gave birth to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Moro National Liberation Front-Reformist, and other smaller groups. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, in particular, is not secular. It not only believes in BangsaMoro self-determination but also in “Making the Word of Allah Supreme”.

It is also an open secret that the MILF is supported by elements within the Prime Minister’s Office of Malaysia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia in their special “Moro Desk”. The Malaysian government has a vested interest in the MILF not only because of the Philippine government’s past support of Indonesia during the Konfrontasi but also because the MILF is predominately Maranaw. The MNLF on the other hand traditionally has its mass support from the Tausugs. The Tausugs have claims to Sabah and have been close to Brunei and Indonesia–Malaysia’s rivals. The Maranaw do not have any territorial claims to Malaysia and traditionally have been close to Malaysian royalty. So the struggle between the MNLF and the MILF is not only an ideological struggle (i.e. secular versus Islamic, integration into the Philippine nation-state versus independence, etc.) but also in a way a proxy war between Malaysia and the Philippines over Sabah.

Dismantling the Private Armies

With the outburst of public anger about the massacre in Maguindanao, the current president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, vowed to dismantle private armies. Of course the same sentiments had been said since the time of the Commonwealth. However, the roots of the conflict in Mindanao, the rise of private armies, and the formation of right wing groups are all tied together because it is all based on the social inequalities existing in the entire country (especially regarding land), on the weakness of the judicial system, and to a degree prevailing cultural and religious arrogance. Until there is genuine land reform, genuine electoral reform, a fairer distribution of resources for Mindanao, mutual cultural acceptance, and an efficient, fair and independent judiciary where no one is above the law–the country will always have Communist guerrilla fighters, right wing factions, private armies, and other CAFGUs types.

Originally posted here: https://filipinofreethinkers.org/2010/04/02/private-armies-of-mindanao/

[leam1983]

As a Canadian, and as someone living in a country that has a UBI framework, I think a lot of people misunderstand just how basic Universal Basic Income is.

TL;DR: I agree on principle, but identifying greed as a problem doesn't solve deeper systemic issues.

I see some armchair social theorists on here say that UBI is enough to fight more pressing social battles; that it empowers you to demand better rights as a worker, as a citizen. I've been on UBI and, well - no. UBI is enough to allow you to survive. If you want to invest in a project, if there's a worthwhile cause you want to get involved in that requires some involvement or some capital injection (even something as simple as buying supplies to fashion picketing signs) - that's on you. In Canada, UBI is calculated based on median income, which means that it isn't enough to kickstart some people's Post-Work-Era Roddenberry-Powered Magical Socialism where nobody works and everyone contributes out of sheer passion and drive.

UBI is there so you can survive, and so you can eventually have the resources and skillsets needed to contribute to Society without UBI lining your pockets. More importantly, UBI is there to ensure that there are no "bad jobs" to speak of, because even the fast food joint's janitor who's on Minimum Wage starts with better conditions than a UBI beneficiary. In Canada, a kid with no diploma who makes a living manning a Tim Hortons' cash register doesn't have to fight with the system to obtain credits related to his living conditions. The real problem has three prongs:

Welfare kings and queens who make it harder for legitimate demands of financial assistance to go through;

The corporate world that's forgotten that the very first rung past UBI needs to be 100% livable and needs to allow for at least some measure of savings to be something that can be planned for. UBI should facilitate survival, what happens when even minimum wage doesn't allow you to live right?

Slum lords who buy off properties initially set aside for Affordable Housing programs and who drive market values so far high that entry-level workers have to settle with living several hours away from their place of work.

But Sweden and Norway - Hold it. Sweden and Norway are filthy fucking rich. Sweden and Norway are Petrostates. Canada? Not so much. Year after year sees Affordable Living programs or revisions to UBI being floated that would turn it from a lifeline to an actually workable form of remuneration, but year after year sees my local politicians butt their heads against the fact that any kind of serious Social Security net can't just pay for itself; and Canadians are already sadly renowned for living in a country choked by taxes - all because our already-present pro-Social infrastructure is complex, inefficient and sadly vital for most low-income residents.

Imagine how insane implementing it would be on a per-State level, on the American side. Imagine the work that needs to be done; not just in terms of greater education, but also in the sense that there's an entire infrastructure you guys never put in place. Some of my colleagues are American expats, and their first big shock came in the form of their first tax bill on Canadian soil. Free healthcare isn't free, the load is just spread across the country's residents. It also means that UBI and Free Healthcare programs can only cover so much, seeing as even if you put the load primarily on those above a certain income level, those below it are still going to feel the pinch. God knows I do, every tax season, and even if it's for a fundamentally good cause.

So. Beyond harping that UBI is a basic right and that we all deserve to rest, ask yourself how wealthy your State is, first. Try and model the kind of help you'd be getting. Try projecting it as a deferred hit on your salary or your savings - one that you need to account for year after year, forever.

The social model where none of us work and all of us effectively play with shelter and rest being in-built facets of our social contract would require a total upheaval of our current system - and something tells me most people wouldn't like the transitional period between the two. Would people really maintain power stations or work hospitals just because it's the right thing to do?

Call me cynical, but I've been alive long enough to really, really, seriously doubt that logic. Sooner or later, someone's going to want to look out for Number One. The USSR fell for that very reason, and my own country's very pro-Social policies are rife with examples of what happens when someone with good intentions gets unfettered access to a chequebook, supposedly for the good of all. Remuneration is a great control system, in that respect, especially when we know that in an Egalitarian system, there's always going to be one or two chucklefucks who think they're more Egalitarian than the rest.

Greed is in all of us; the only thing that keeps you or me honest is our lack of power. Money, as they say, is the root of all Evil. Remove money from the equation and something else will take its place. Social status, most likely.

Then let's make all of us equal! Communism FTW!

you're likely American if you're reading this, how do you think most people will react to that kind of assertion?

even in an ideal system, the Overseer would have more power. That, right there, is enough of an imbalance for unfair treatment to surface.

Again, we've seen what happened with Soviet Russia, and I'm not saying this to be a bootlicker. Open a history book: Lenin barely managed to approximate Marx's idea of an Egalitarian state and Stalin identified the cracks in the system and pushed them wide open, priming it for collapse.

UBI needs to happen. via antiwork

[relocationcompaniesinsingapore]

10 Reasons Why Singapore Is a Top Destination for Expats

Singapore has earned its reputation as a preferred destination for expats worldwide. This vibrant city-state offers a blend of opportunities, a high standard of living, and a multicultural environment. Whether you're relocating for work or seeking a better lifestyle, Singapore is a destination that checks all the boxes. Let’s dive into the top reasons why expats are drawn to Singapore.

1. Economic Opportunities Singapore boasts a robust economy with a thriving job market across sectors like finance, technology, and healthcare. Its status as a global business hub attracts professionals from all corners of the world. If you're considering moving here, explore reliable relocation services in Singapore for a seamless transition.

2. Safety and Security Renowned for its low crime rates and strict laws, Singapore is one of the safest cities globally. This level of safety provides peace of mind for expats and their families.

3. High Standard of Living With world-class infrastructure, efficient public services, and excellent healthcare, Singapore offers a quality lifestyle unmatched by many other countries.

4. Strategic Location Situated in the heart of Southeast Asia, Singapore is a gateway to explore neighboring countries. Its efficient airport and excellent connectivity make travel convenient.

5. Multicultural Society Singapore celebrates diversity, with various ethnic groups coexisting harmoniously. The multicultural environment ensures expats feel welcome and find it easy to integrate. Check out our relocation companies in Singapore for expert assistance in settling in.

6. Quality Education The city offers top-notch international schools and excellent higher education institutions, making it ideal for expat families with children.

7. Clean and Green City Known as a "Garden City," Singapore takes pride in its lush greenery and clean environment. Its commitment to sustainability enhances the living experience.

8. Efficient Transportation Singapore’s public transport system is fast, reliable, and affordable, making commuting hassle-free.

9. Tax Benefits The city-state has a competitive tax system that appeals to professionals and businesses alike, making it an attractive place to work and invest.

10. Vibrant Lifestyle From cultural festivals and shopping hubs to fine dining and outdoor activities, Singapore offers an exciting and vibrant lifestyle. It’s a city that never runs out of things to do.

If you're planning to move, trust HelpXpat to provide tailored relocation services, making your journey smooth and stress-free. Start your new chapter in Singapore with ease!

[vanandmannow]

Tips for moving in London city

London boasts stunning views and captivating landscapes, rendering it an extraordinary place to reside. It fulfills the aspirations and dreams of people globally however, given its diverse nature,  planning is essential. A smooth and hassle-free move demands thorough preparation, precise execution, and meticulous organization.

Here are a few tips to help you understand your move to London city:

1. Diligent research: Before moving to London City it is important to scour the internet to understand the diverse neighborhoods, the cost of living, and the job market. One has to do in-depth research on the job market based on one's expertise. If you already have a job do budgeting considering the income and expenses incurred in the city to give a fair idea of financial standing. It is advisable to approach reputable packing and moving services to get a fair idea of settling in a new place.

2. Visa requirements: One should be aware of the rules and regulations of the visa and immigration rules. If you are an immigrant please apply for a work visa. Defying or sneaking leads to forced eviction from the country.  

3. Accommodation:  London known for its diverse and expansive neighborhoods comes with a hefty price tag. If you are alone try to share a place with friends or acquaintances. That will not put a financial strain and help you make new friends. It is always advisable to consult a lawyer regarding the tenancy agreement to avoid any last-minute glitches and surprises.

4. Plan a budget: It is better to plan a budget before moving to a new place. Moving to a new city or country requires one to start afresh. It is an expensive city to survive with the soaring expenses. Plan your budget and stick to it.

5. Transportation: Buses and the London Underground (Tube) are just two of many public transportation options in London. For affordable travel, think of getting an Oyster card or use contactless payment. Because of the unpredictable traffic in London, many citizens opt not to own a car.

6. Taxes: One should understand the tax structure of the UK to understand what percentage of the income would be taxed and how much will remain for your expenses.

7. Inclement weather conditions: The weather in London is highly unpredictable. If new to the city then one of the prerequisites is to carry an umbrella or raincoat to manage the rain. 

8. Networking: Once you reach  London City try to be a part of social circles with similar interests. Many newbies will be eager to be part of a group. One should approach neighbors or others from the neighborhood and try to be friendly with them. Attend local events and expat groups to learn more about the culture, tradition, and local customs.

Van Man Now Residential Moving is a reputable packing and moving service that has earned a reputation for being professional in dealing with clients by understanding their requirements and customizing them according to the client.