#significant amount of oil

[sapphia]

USA please listen to me: the price of “teaching them a lesson” is too high. take it from New Zealand, who voted our Labour government out in the last election because they weren’t doing exactly what we wanted and got facism instead.

Trans rights are being attacked, public transport has been defunded, tax cuts issued for the wealthy, they've mass-defunded public services, cut and attacked the disability funding model, cut benefits, diverted transport funding to roads, cut all recent public transport subsidies, cancelled massive important infrastructure projects like damns and ferries (we are three ISLANDS), fast tracked mining, oil, and other massive environmentally detrimental projects and gave the power the to approve these projects singularly to three ministers who have been wined and dined by lobbyists of the companies that have put the bids in to approve them while one of the main minister infers he will not prioritise the protection of endangered species like the archeys frog over mining projects that do massive environmental harm. They have attacked indigenous rights in an attempt to negate the Treaty of Waitangi by “redefining it”; as a backup, they are also trying to remove all mentions of the treaty from legislation starting with our Child Protection laws no longer requiring social workers to consider the importance of Maori children’s culture when placing those children; when the Waitangi Tribunal who oversees indigenous matters sought to enquire about this, the Minister for Children blocked their enquiry in a breach of comity that was condemned in a ruling — too late to do anything — by our Supreme Court. They have repealed labour protections around pay and 90 day trials, reversed our smoking ban, cancelled our EV subsidy, cancelled our water infrastructure scheme that would have given Maori iwi a say in water asset management, cancelled our biggest city’s fuel tax, made our treasury and inland revenue departments less accountable, dispensed of our Productivity Commission, begun work on charter schools and military boot camps in an obvious push towards privatisation, cancelled grants for first home buyers, reduced access to emergency housing, allowed no cause evictions, cancelled our Maori health system that would have given Maori control over their own public medical care and funding, cut funding of services like budgeting advice and food banks, cancelled the consumer advocacy council, cancelled our medicine regulations, repealed free prescriptions, deferred multiple hospital builds, failed to deliver on pre-election medical promises, reversed a gun ban created in response to the mosque shootings, brought back three strikes = life sentence policy, increased minimum wage by half the recommended amount, cancelled fair pay for disabled workers, reduced wheelchair services, reversed our oil and gas exploration ban, cancelled our climate emergency fund, cut science research funding including climate research, removed limits on killing sea lions, cut funding for the climate change commission, weakened our methane targets, cancelled Significant National Areas protections, have begun reversing our ban on live exports. Much of this was passed under urgency.

It’s been six months.

[shrtcakeprncess]

𝒮𝐻𝒰𝒯 𝒰𝒫 𝒜𝒩𝒟 𝑅𝐼𝒟𝐸 ─── eren y. x connie s.

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺

─ you're a car enthusiast aiming to win a race for some extra money, but the handsome guys next to you already intended to take the victory.what happens when you three bump heads?

content warning ˚୨୧⋆｡˚slutty writing, 18+

word count ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ 6k

parings ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ eren x connie x reader

the scorching heat slithered against your shimmering skin like a venomous snake, poised to overpower you. summer was by far your least favorite season.you fucking detested every aspect of it - the unsettling bugs, the pollen, and above all, the unbearable heat.

it came as a shock when your father informed you that the two of you would be relocating from alaska to los angeles. the contrast between the two places was stark. alaska's rugged coastline was a sight to behold, and you were disappointed when you arrived in flat los angeles. while it had its downsides, you would miss the beautiful glaciers, crystal clear lakes, and towering mountains.

your wandering mind returned to focus when a bright pink butterfly settled on your grimy hand, its wings fluttering softly. as you inspected it more intently, you noticed the sprinkling of black and white across her wings.and yes, you instinctively assumed she was a girl.

you softly called out to the insect, "hi baby." it appeared to examine the car oil on your hands before fluttering off, causing you to furrow your brows.

“rude ass butterfly.���

you turned back to your vehicle, your baby, your most valuable possession. a 2021 porsche taycan, you had it customized in hot pink, your favorite color. you had rescued mia—yes, you named your vehicle—from a collision. you’d invested numerous hours and a significant amount of money into reviving her.

she was your greatest achievement, adorned with blacked-out rims, 5% tint, a hello kitty-themed pink interior, and a hello kitty bumper sticker middle finger held high as it read, ‘if you're going to ride my ass, at least take me out for dinner first’

you were doing an oil change for mia. it was well needed seeing as you’d exceeded your mileage. you felt grateful to your father for consistently bringing you along to his mechanic job, even though you disliked it initially - with its loud, smelly, and grimy environment. however, as you kept accompanying him, you gradually developed an interest.

you observed your father working, and one day he’d noticed your feigning curiosity. he called you over and you’d listened as he talked about his techniques.

you learned quickly, and by the time you were sixteen, you had secured a position working alongside your father.

after you finished high school, it wasn't unexpected that the first thing you did was to obtain your certification in automobile service excellence. you landed a job at one of the busiest mechanic shops in town, and your wallet was definitely happy about it.

exhausted, you let out a deep sigh as you completed the task of changing the oil and lowered the car to the ground. the final step involved installing and removing the oil dipstick to check the oil level.

“damn, if i were lesbian i’d be swooning right now.”

peering over your shoulder,you smiled looking at your best friend aaliyah walking towards you, holding two refreshing cold glasses of lemonade. you've been besties since junior high and she's like a sister to you. after school, you both snagged a spot together.

“i think i could still pull you,” you sprouted a fake pout while wiping your greasy hands on a towel. once your hands were clean, you pulled her close, planting a kiss on her cheek with a mischievous grin. the lightskin girl felt her cheeks warm, stomach fluttering as she pushed you away.

“tease.”

“always.” you winked.

you couldn't help but let out a satisfied sigh as you savored the flavor of your friend's homemade lemonade. it was the perfect balance of sweetness and tartness.

you had pleaded with her to share the recipe, but she always played the role of the mysterious chef, insisting that some secrets were meant to be kept.

`✦ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹

pink, scintillating bubbles piled up dangerously close to the edge of the bathtub, ready to overflow. the water had a tempting pink hue, which wasn't surprising considering the bath bomb you’d added was called "pinky pie".

a relaxed breath left your lips and leaned your head against the edge of the bathtub, feeling goosebumps on your skin as the cold metal made you shiver. without realizing it, you had sunk so low in the water that half of your face was covered by the foamy water, stopping just below your nose.

‘girls need love to’ playing quietly in the background.

the candles you lit beautifully contrasted with the dimmed lights, filling the room with a heavenly scent.

this was precisely what you fucking needed after a tough week: facing your ex, getting a drink thrown at you by an irate customer, and being dragged across the pavement when your great dane decided to chase a squirrel. and that was only half of your week.normally, you'd smoke to clear your mind, but you were flat out of weed and your plug was out of town.

just your luck.

you attempted to meditate and calm your thoughts, but the idea of coginating and being alone in your thoughts didn't sound the least bit satisfying. so here you were, endlessly browsing through tumblr: your eyes shifting from one explicit image to another. it was no secret that you'd been in a recent dry spell, not even your fling with armin could satisfy your naughty cravings.

if you were truly honest with yourself, he never did.

armin was too gentle, too soft. one fucking squeak from you and he was ready to stop, thinking he had hurt you. you enjoyed being taken roughly and aggressively, wanting to be called the vilest things. you craved a hand wrapped around your throat, choking until your lungs screamed for the sweet relief of air.

you desired to be put in your place and spanked until your ass stung. you liked armin, truly, but he wasn't satisfying you.

sure, you loved being cuddled and kissed, but it wasn't what you were looking for. yesterday , you went to his house looking for a release. he had you in doggy style for about two minutes before he was whining and cumming all over your back.

embarrassing.

your hands seemed to have a mind of their own as they slipped past your stomach and stopped at your tingling bud. just as you went to flick your finger across it a startling bang made you jump.

“omg! there’s a car meet in an hour and ony is taking me. you should definitely come! ony mentioned there would be some racing. you’d easily win with that death trap of yours.”

aaliyah burst through the bathroom door, yammering while her eyes remained glued to her phone, likely texting ony. ony was the embodiment of a man whore; he used his good looks and charisma to draw you in, only to string you along without any genuine intention of pursuing a real relationship. aaliyah and ony had been on-and-off since their freshman year of high school. every week it seemed as if they were at each others throat ,then lovey dovey the next.

countless times, you attempted to persuade your best friend to break up with him. you didn’t know what she saw in his narcissistic ass, and you made sure he knew how much you disliked him whenever he was around.

“okay, first of all, knock before you come in. secondly , i hate that nigga, so stop texting him. and third, my baby is not a death trap.”

aaliyah clicked her tongue and sat on the marble bathroom countertops,”ony is doing better y’know.maybe you’d see that if didn’t loath him.”

you scoffed,”weren’t you guys literally just arguing two days ago?”

“yeah but that was different!” she whined,crossing her arms.

“right.”

you had to admit a car show and racing did peek your interest, you got to gawk at hot guys and potentially walk away with five grand, you were so in. you figured you’d use that extra cash to add a couple more things to your car. you wanted to add pink heart shaped valve stem caps as well as a wing on the car,also pink of course.

it’d been almost a year since you last raced with your baby, remembering how stunned your opponents were that they’d gotten beaten by a girl in a fucking hello-kitty pink porsche.

men,and their fragile ass egos.

“sooo,you in? you can't pass up cash, cars, and pretty boys," aaliyah said, raising her eyebrows.

you nodded,giggling.

“fine,yes. now out!” you smiled, ushering her from the bathroom. aaliyah squealed with joy, kicked her feet, slid off the counter, and broke into a happy dance. 'out!' you shouted playfully, pointing towards the door until she listened.

as soon as you scrubbed away the week's events, you stepped out of the bath and wrapped your pink towel tightly around your chest. you still hadn’t figured out what you would wear to the car meet - something slutty enough, but not too slutty. at the moment, your focus lay on your skincare routine, with a pink plush bow headband pulling your hair from your face as you used a cleansing brush to work in the facial scrub.

although you were a greasy mechanic most days, you didn’t play when it came to hygiene. most of the time when you’d mention your job, you’d be met with a laugh as they thought you were joking. you definitely didn’t seem like the type of girl who'd know her way around an engine.then you'd rattle off some car facts and watch their jaws drop.

you splashed water on your face, then moisturized, finally moving onto the last step. brushing your lashes out technically wasn’t skincare, but you did it religiously so it might’ve well have been.

you were glad you had gotten your hair done the previous day,that would definitely cut your time of getting ready in half.aaliyah was studying cosmetology, so you often became her test subject for new styles, her latest being a pastel pink wig.

at first, you doubted if such a bright color would suit you, but you quickly fell in love with the final look.you decided you would have aaliyah do some crimps once your makeup was done.

`✦ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹

you chose to go for a subtle makeup look with a bright under eye, ensuring you sprayed your face three times with morphe setting spray. although the sun had went down july humidity was brutal.the final touch was lining your cupid’s bow with a brown liner and applying clear gloss over it. aaliyah decided to roll a joint, and you could hear her clicking her tongue and cursing at the gloss stains on the blunt.

after digging through your closet, you opted for a pink strapless tank top with a cute bow on the hem, matching it up with a short denim skirt that highlighted your figure. you accessorized with sparkling gold bracelets and oversized gold hoops before slipping into some pink wedge sandals.

damn, you looked good.

“i can’t wait to see some eye candy tonight!” aaliyah said excitedly as she pinned a section of your hair up and grabbed the crimper.

you peered up at her through your lashes,”aren’t you going with ony?”

“yeahhh, so? what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” she giggled,placing a neat crimp down and spraying hairspray on it.

“god you two are so toxic.” you huffed,crossing your legs

“maybe, but the dick is too good.”

“please don’t put the imagine of a naked ony in my head.” you scrunched your nose is disdain.

“whatever. hopefully you can find a guy you like tonight, i’m tired of hearing your rose toy at night.” aaliyah commented as she crimped the last piece of hair,holding it in place as she sprayed it.

you felt your cheeks warm up in embarrassment.it was true,your rose toy had been working overtime to please you but it could never seem to hit the spot. maybe you potentially could find a fling and and wipe your hands of armin.

you looked into the mirror and admired your perfect crimps that fell down your back,”you did your thing liyah,this is so cute!”

“i know.”

you giggled as you could see her head practically growing at the compliment.

a beep signaled ony’s arrival, and you rolled your eyes as aaliyah squealed like a high school girl. you inhaled from the blunt again. although not your regular choice, it somewhat alleviated your nerves about tonight.you ashed it out with a deep exhale.

here we go.

‘up and down’ by doja cat blared from your car's speakers as you followed closely behind ony’s camaro. he drove wildly, forcing you to almost run several lights.he knew you hated him and probably found the whole situation hilarious. irritation churned inside you and if you didn't love your car, you'd have likely rammed into his.

you pulled up to the car meet, the lot lined with all sorts of vehicles, from sleek sports cars to rugged muscle cars. as you step out of your ride, you can feel the eyes on you, accompanied by a wave of chatter that ripples through the crowd.

the air is thick with the smell of burning rubber, marijuana, and alcohol, creating a heady mix that hits your senses. ‘like a g6’blares through the speakers, the bass so powerful that you can feel the vibrations pulsing through the ground beneath your feet. the night is alive with energy, and you can't help but feel a rush of excitement as you take in the scene around you.

"oh em gee!" aaliyah squealed with excitement as she stepped out of ony’s car, locking her arm in yours. "look at this!" she beamed.

“i know,it’s like i’ve died and i’m in car heaven!” you giggled.

the night air was crisp and warm, and you were glad you sprayed your face until it was stiff. you could see a group of friends approaching you. you were used to people asking to take pictures of your car, and you would be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy the attention.

the group approached with wide eyes and excited chatter, their phones already out and ready. you gave them a nod and a smile, feeling a sense of pride as they admired your ride.

the night was just beginning, and you knew it was going to be a memorable one.

as you sit on the hood of your car, a guy from the group steps forward, clearly impressed. "man, this ride is something else," he says, running his hand along the sleek lines of your car. "what kind of mods have you got under the hood?"

you smile, enjoying the chance to talk about your pride and joy. "thanks! I've got a turbocharger installed, upgraded the exhaust system, and did a custom tune. it really makes a difference in performance."

he nods appreciatively, clearly impressed. "i bet it does. the paint job is killer too. did you do it yourself?"

"yeah, i spent a lot of time on it," you reply. "wanted to make sure it stood out."

he grins. "well, you definitely succeeded. mind if I snap a few pics of you with the car?

"go ahead," you say, leaning back and watching as he and his friends take photos from different angles, appreciating the admiration and the camaraderie of the car meet.

“it’s not even that special,” you could hear ony grumble.

“awe,are you jealous you aren’t getting any attention?” you fake pouted while teasing him.

he rolled his eyes and flipped you off.

“right back at you bitch.”

you looked at him smugly before your eyes scanned the lot.

your brown eyes settle on two men,both looked like they’d just walked out of a model magazine. one has long, flowing hair that catches the light, while the other sports a neat buzz cut. both are wearing fitted black shirts that perfectly show off their intricate tattoos along with muscled arms.the long haired boy sported a pair of beat up converse and buzz cut sported black nike dunks.

they seem engrossed in a conversation, occasionally glancing at their cars with pride. almost if he can feels your eyes on him the man with the long hair locks your gaze.his green eyes were nothing short of mesmerizing, they held a seductive allure that made you clamp your legs together. his eyes seemed to sparkle in the dim light,flecks of gold dancing with the green.

he had those type of eyes that could see right through you,dark secrets,desires.

your heart fluttered as his lifted one hand and waved.

you sheepishly waved back.

you wanted to sink into the ground when when he nudged his friend and pointed towards you,his friend chuckled and shook his head when long hair had said something that you couldn’t make out. you suddenly felt exposed, and you turned your back to them and looked at aaliyah who was making out with ony.

you grimaced,”get a room freaks.”

aaliyah giggled as her lips never left ony’s,”you wish.”

you wished you’d brought your flask.

“when’s the race ony?” you questioned when the two had finally unlatched lips.

“mm,in like fifteen minutes i think. you joining?”

you nodded,”i think i have a good shot.”

he smiled,”type shit, you got it girl.”

your heart fell to your ass when you turned back around and saw those beautiful pair of green eyes and a pair of vibrant golden hazel eyes.

“sweet ride,this yours?” green eyes spoke,his voice was deep and guttural and matched him perfectly.

buzz cut nodded.

“definitely a head-turner.”

you smile as they compliment your car, but when they turn their attention to you, their expressions shift. their gazes linger a bit longer, and you can feel your cheeks heat up.

they're not just admiring the car, but also you.

“pretty car for a pretty girl.” green eyes smirked,”i’m eren,this is connie” he motioned to his friend who flashed you a pretty white smile.

“i’m y/n.” you stammered out.

god,why were you so fucking nervous?

“you racing tonight, beautiful?” connie questioned and you could feel your stomach flutter at the compliment.his voice was a higher pitch then eren’s but you still found it alluring.

“yeah! are you guys?”

they nodded.

“just letting you know we’ve never lost a race,but i tip my hat to you cutie.” eren stated,his eyes flickering over your body.

he found it hard to imagine you’d be racing.your big brown eyes peered up at him through wispy lashes,glossy lips pulled into a smile.your short skirt reveals just enough to make his imagination run wild. he’s taken aback; you look like you stepped right out of an episode of my little pony, hello kitty and kuromi tattoos adorning your left arm.he finds you sexy,and his imagination flickers over to him having you spread out as he uses that pretty little mouth of yours.

“ignore him,he’s…competitive.” connie butts in.

while eren found you sexy connie found you simply,cute.but just like eren he couldn’t stop his mind from wandering to you underneath him,whimpering, sweet little cries filling his ears in bliss as he rocked your body.

“well, may the best man win.” you gulp out,suddenly feeling a bit intimated by the two men towering over you,hungry look in their eyes.they were so close you could smell their colognes wafting into your nose,a mixture of musk and spice between the both of them.

“indeed.”

`✦ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹

the atmosphere is electric with anticipation. cars are lined up, engines revving, and the crowd is buzzing with excitement. you sit in your car, gripping the steering wheel tightly. your palms are sweaty, and you can feel your heart pounding in your chest.

eren and connie are in their modded out camaro beside you and you glance at them.they’re already looking your way, sizing you up. you can see the confidence in their eyes, and it only makes you more nervous. you take a deep breath, trying to steady yourself.

you can do this. just focus. you’ve got this.

you adjust your grip on the wheel and looks straight ahead. the signal lights start to count down, and you feels a surge of adrenaline. the moment the light turns green, you slam your foot on the gas pedal, your nerves transforming into determination.

the roar of the engines fills the air as the race begins. you can feel the car responding to your every move, and despite your initial nerves, a sense of exhilaration starts to take over.

“assholes.” you grumbled as eren caught up to your speed,connie rolling down the window with a smile.

“come on princess,put the pedal to the metal!” you could hear him laughing with eren and it only motivated you to go faster,your turbo engine was definitely working overtime as you flipped its switch,leaving the two of them in dust.

a smirk pulls across your lips.

in the distance, the finish line comes into view.

the checkered flag waves, signaling the end of the race. you can feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins, every muscle tensed with determination.

almost there y/n. just little further. you do this.

the car speeds forward, you expertly navigating the last few turns. the crowd’s cheers grow louder, urging you on. you can see eren and connie on your ass through your rear view and one final burst of speed, your wheels crosses the finish line, the car roaring triumphantly as it passes under the checkered flag.

“yes!” you squeal out in excitement,hands smacking across the wheel.

you’ve done it. you’ve won.

you stepped out the car with a grin,cheers filling the air just for you.

eren and connie are second,annoyed look on their faces as they stepped out.

“well cupcake,congrats. how does it feel to be a cheater?” eren asks with furrowed brows.

“i-“ you start but you’re cut off by connie.

“excuse my bitter friend,congrats pretty. you did great.”

you smile sheepishly,looking down at your painted toes.

“thanks,connie.”

the moment is interrupted as aaliyah pulls you into a hug from behind,” this is my best bitch and none of yall better not not touch her! ahh, you did so fucking good. i feel like a proud mother.” she pretended to wipe fake tears from her face.

you giggled,”thanks liyah.”

“i think this is cause for celebration,drinks? on me.” connie offered.

aaliyah shifted her eyes to the two men, then at you,a smirk pulling on her lips.

“i have a date but i’m sure y/n would love to.” she nudged you.

you bit your lip as you switched your eyes from your friend to the guys,a breathy ‘sure’ falling from your lips.

you were gonna kill aaliyah.

`✦ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹

you found yourself tipsy on the plush white sofa, laughing as eren and connie shared their life stories. you learned that they both hailed from los angeles and, like you, developed a passion for cars during their upbringing.

you found yourself enjoying the experience much more than you had anticipated, and they appeared to have moved on from their disappointment about losing the race. unsure whether it was due to the alcohol or your prolonged lack of intimacy, you felt arousal stirring within you as pressure built in your vagina.

spotting that gleam in your eyes, eren strolled towards you.

“are you ready for the gift we have for you?" eren inquired, a playful sparkle in his eyes as he sipped on a glass of don julio.

in a state of confusion, you didn't realize they had purchased a gift for you. however, when connie gently took your hands and guided you to their bedroom from the sofa, you offered no resistance.

you found yourself sprawled on the vibrant red silk bed, feeling a wave of desire rise within you as they gazed down at you hungrily.

“are you guys gonna fuck me or sit there and look stupid?”

connie was the first person to move and then eren.

eren assisted in removing your shirt while connie focused on undressing your lower half.

the realization of what you were engaging in was almost unbelievable.

what were you thinking? oh,that's right, you weren't fucking thinking at all.

a soft moan escaped your lips as you felt eren’s lips on your neck, causing your head to tilt to the side in satisfaction. deep down, you had been yearning for his touch, and you were aware that he felt the same way. you joined in by helping them remove their clothes, carelessly tossing them aside.

as you took in their toned bodies adorned with tattoos, you could sense the anticipation building as their erections twitched.

“lie down, i want to taste you," rasped connie. your lip caught between your teeth as you complied, positioning your head at the edge of the bed. connie’s mouth watered as he spread your legs, revealing your shaved pussy. he noticed your arousal dripping out and couldn't resist swiping it up with his thumb, eliciting a small cry from you.

"you taste as sweet as you look."

your clit had swollen with arousal, pulsating with every touch. your eyes closed in pleasure as connie cupped your thighs and skillfully worked his tongue on your quivering pussy. he licked at an inhuman speed, leaving you moaning uncontrollably.

eren, who had been pleasuring himself at the sight, seized the opportunity to use your mouth while connie pleasured your pussy. a deep moan escaped eren’s lips as he slowly thrust his throbbing member into your warm mouth.

"fuck," eren whimpered as he moved his hips rhythmically in your mouth, "you look so beautiful with my cock in your mouth."

overwhelmed with pleasure, you could only grip the sheets tightly, emitting a muffled moan as connie focused on your sensitive clit. you felt his hands holding your pussy open as he devoured you, and you were on the brink of screaming in ecstasy.

"such a gorgeous pussy," connie remarked between licks. eren had increased his pace as he thrust into your mouth, his testicles slapping against your face with each movement. you made sure to take a breath with each thrust.

eren’s thrusts intensified, causing your body to react with small whimpers and your pussy clenching tightly around him. each time he pushed into your mouth, he could see the indentation where his dick lay.

“taking all of me like a big girl, mama," eren groaned, using your breasts to leverage his movements and achieve a deeper angle. the wet sounds emanating from your throat as he rocked his hips were incredibly lewd, making his arousal even more intense as he heard you struggle to accommodate him.

tears welled in your eyes as eren continued to abuse your throat, while connie simultaneously pleasured your trembling pussy.

connie skillfully managed to insert two fingers into your tight cunt, while his other hand played with your clit, rubbing, slapping, and teasing the sensitive bud. the sensations were overwhelming, and you were grateful that eren had filled your mouth, preventing you from blurting out ‘i love you’ from the pleasure.

your body arched in bliss as connie delivered a sharp slap to your moist pussy. "you’re so wet, mmm. i’m goin’ to break you in," connie murmured, sliding three of his long digits into you.

gurgled moans escaped your lips as eren thrust his hips into your face, causing you to gag as his tip brushed against the back of your throat.

“ughhh, i’m about to nut.”

eren expressed his nearing climax, his words catching in his throat. despite the mess on your face, your focus remained on connie pleasuring your pussy and eren’s throbbing member in your mouth. with a final series of thrusts, eren climaxed, releasing warm spurts of cum into your mouth.

his eyes closed in pleasure as he felt your tongue working to collect every drop. as he withdrew from your mouth, you finally managed to voice your plea for connie to slow down, as he continued to finger you rapidly, the squelching noises echoing in his ears with each deep thrust.

“connie,please slow down," you pleaded as he drove his fingers quickly and deeply into your needy pussy. you could feel your slick cunt sucking on his fingers as you neared your high, tears streaked your face and your lips trembled with pleasure.

your pussy quivered around his fingers as your eyes rolled back in bliss. you almost snapped your legs closed as you felt him brush against your g-spot, arms pulling you down further onto him now that eren wasn’t occupying your face.

“i’m close, so close," you gasped as his fingers worked. you cried out as eren wrapped his pink lips around your raised nipples, his tongue flicking as your legs began to shake. you felt connie’s fingers pull out and his mouth munch back on your wet cunt, lapping you up hungrily.

your head fell to the side and your back arched involuntarily as a guttural moan escaped your lips, his tongue wildly flicking over your pussy now. with one more lick of your pussy, you screamed as your orgasm took over, connie locking you in place as he ate you through your orgasm.

eren was now knelt beside your face, cleaning it up as you shook in pleasure.

"mhm, let it out, baby," he whispered, talking you through your orgasm as connie ate you through it.

connie thoroughly cleaned you with his tongue, keeping his arms firmly wrapped around your thighs throughout. a series of moans escaped your lips as he persistently pleasured your sensitive clit. when he finally stopped, you let out a whimper.

"so fucking good," he huffed.

there was hardly any time for you to acclimate when eren lay on the bed and insisted that you straddle him. without hesitation, you complied, and he wasted no time in pulling you into a kiss.

your lips moved passionately over his soft pink ones, and your moans escaped into his mouth as you felt him grip your buttocks and part your cheeks. you could sense connie behind you,fluttering soft kisses on your back.

he was going to fuck you in the ass while eren fucked your pussy.

you trembled as you sensed the lubricant being applied to your anus.

“put me inside you pretty girl,”eren husked.

shaking with desire, you took hold of his shaft. his head was flushed and glistening with pre-cum, and you ran your thumb over it before taking it into your mouth. a mischievous smile spread across your face as eren whimpered. you positioned him at your entrance, your folds rubbing against his shaft, causing his leg to twitch slightly.

you let out a whimper as you sank down onto him, feeling his length and thickness stretching your sensitive pussy. a deep groan escaped him as he was enveloped by your tight pussy tensing around him from the intense stretching.

"so tight," he exhaled unsteadily.

connie surprised you by pushing into your backside before you could even react, causing a mixture of pain and surprise to escape as you both moaned.

the sensation of both of your openings being stretched caused your head to spin and your stomach to flutter. they remained still as they allowed you to adjust. eren’s lips returned to yours, kissing, sucking, and tugging, while connie planted gentle kisses on your back, sending a shiver down your spine.

“such a pretty ass,” connie murmured, his voice now dark,laced with lust.

“are you ready beautiful?” eren whispered into your ear, his green eyes locked onto yours as you nodded and squeezed your eyes shut.

as soon as they started thrusting, you felt the wind being knocked out of you. connie's gentle thrusts were soft yet deep, making you see stars. on the other hand, eren's rough hip movements against yours made you cry out in pleasure as he passionately took control.

“look at you, taking both of us like a slut,” eren gasped in pleasure,his tip hitting your walls making you mewl. his dirty talk made your stomach flutter,”tell me how you’re feeling baby,” he whispered,jaw clenched.

“i-feel,ah!”

your words caught in your throat as connie began picking up speed, balls slapping against your ass.he placed one hand on the back of your neck and the other on the small of your back,his thrust now matched eren’s,erratic and deep.

your toes curled in pleasure, tears welling in your eyes as they fucked you. each time they thrust their hips into you, both of your openings queefed, and you were too consumed by pleasure to care.connie's hand smacked your ass, you let out a cry, feeling the sting on your skin.

“don’t be rude pretty,tell eren how you feel,” he rasped.

“g-good!” you shuddered out.

connie's large hand delivered sharp smacks to your ass, eliciting cries from your lips with each strike. the stinging sensation on your skin made you anticipate bruising the next day as he continued to spank you. your head drifted forward in a state of euphoria, your arms trembling as you struggled to support yourself.

“sluts deserved to be spanked,” connie groaned out.

“you think we didn’t notice that look in your eyes, you’ve been waiting for this huh?” eren panted,hammering into you.

you struggled to find your voice, managing out a weak “y-yes.”

you were in disarray, tightly gripping the sheets with a clenched fist and an open mouth. connie and eren's intensity drove you to the brink. dry tear streaks marked your face, "you're so fucking sexy," connie grunted while vigorously moving against you, causing the bed frame to smack against the wall with a continuous bang.

eren's hand wrapped around your neck, making you suppress a moan. each powerful thrust of his hips engulfed you in ecstasy, and his tight grip made your head spin. you couldn't help but moan as you looked down at him, his eyebrows furrowed over his closed eyes, his face contorted in pleasure as he relentlessly made love to you.

you were certain he was going to suffocate you until you passed out, but just when you were on the brink, he released his hold.

“this pussy so good, you’re ours now” eren hissed.

you released a quivering breath as connie withdrew, leaving only his pulsating tip inside your anus. a cry escaped your lips as he thrust back in. you were a moaning, creaming wreck on connie's shaft, causing his head to fall back in ecstasy.

your tightness around him caused his legs to tremble beneath him as he spread your cheeks apart, greedily savoring the sight of you devouring his member.

“creamin’ on this dick so fucking hot.” connie mewled out,hands caressing your ass as he fucked you with dirty squelching noises.

eren complimented, "so fucking pretty," as he gazed at you. a light sweat kissed at your brown skin,eyebrows furrowed in pleasure, with your lip caught between your teeth as soft moans escaped. unable to resist, he gently sucked on your breast, causing your back to arch.

you body shook as eren prodded into your g-spot.

“a-ah eren,” you sobbed out, his hips drilling into that spot relentlessly.

“cum on this dick baby.”

eren persisted in striking at it until the tension in your stomach released, causing you to whimper as you climaxed on eren's member.he sensed his own climax nearing as your walls tightened around him, eliciting soft moans from his lips.

he inserted two fingers into your mouth and you eagerly complied, eliciting another moan from eren.

you were so sexy to him, and with a loud moan, he released hot bursts of cum inside you. he filled you completely, and you could feel him pulsating as his nut spilled out of you.

connie saw this as an opportunity to gently guide you onto your back, a soft cry escaping your lips as he entered your already filled pussy.

"connie, please go slower, i’m so sore," you whimpered.

"just a little longer, baby," he whispered, and you nodded in contentment. the sound of your filled pussy excited him, his hands intertwining with yours above your head as he kissed you passionately.

his tongue sought dominance as he kissed you eagerly, a moan escaping his lips as you wrapped your legs around him, pulling him deeper inside you.

he grasped your thighs and pulled your legs above your head, causing you to cry out at the new angle. he looked incredibly sexy to you, his hazel eyes now dark brown, jaw clenched in pleasure as he moved rhythmically.

“please, it's too sensitive!" you gasped as eren reached over and teased your clit.

seeing your clit being pleasured like that made connie's stomach tighten, and he released warm cum inside you, mixing with eren's as he let out a breathy curse.

he pulled out and watched as their fluids dripped from you, your contracting pussy pushing out the thick sperm.

a shriek left your lips as the bed railing gave out.

“well, looks like we’re going bed shopping tomorrow.” eren noted.

what a night.

@ CINNN4MON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.DO NOT STEAL OR MODIFY. MWAH, BYE

masterlist🏎️

[dresshistorynerd]

The Real Cost of the Fashion Industry

Atacama Desert, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile. (source)

The textile industry is destroying the world. The industry is wasting massive amounts of energy and materials, and polluting the air, the ground and the water supplies. It overwhelmingly exploits it's labour and extracts wealth from colonized countries, especially in Asia. I assume we all broadly understand this, but I think it's useful to have it all laid out in front of you to see the big picture, the core issues causing this destruction and find ways how to effectively move forward.

The concerning trend behind this ever-increasing devastation are shortening of trend cycles, lowering clothing prices and massive amount of wasted products. Still in year 2000 it was common for fashion brands to have two collections per year, while now e.g. Zara produces 24 collections and H&M produces 12-16 collections per year. Clothing prices have fallen (at leas in EU) 30% from 1996 to 2018 when adjusted to inflation, which has contributed to the 40% increase in clothing consumption per person between 1996 and 2012 (in EU). (source) As the revenue made by the clothing industry keep rising - from 2017 to 2021 they doubled (source) - falling prices can only be achieved with increasing worker exploitation and decreasing quality. I think the 36% degrees times clothing are used in average during the last 15 years (source) is a clear indication on the continuing drop in quality of clothing. Clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2015, while 30% of the clothes produced per year are never sold and are often burned instead (source), presumably to prevent the returns from falling due to oversupply.

These all factors are driving people to overconsume. While people in EU keep buying more clothes, they haven't used up to 50% of the clothes in their wardrobe for over a year (source). This overconsumption is only made much worse by the new type of hyper fast fashion companies like SHEIN and Temu, which are using addictive psychological tactics developed by social media companies (source 1, source 2). They are cranking up all those concerning trends I mentioned above.

Under the cut I will go through the statistics of the most significant effects of the industry on environment and people. I will warn you it will be bleak. This is not just a fast fashion problem, basically the whole industry is engaging in destructive practices leading to this damage. Clothing is one of those things that would be actually relatively easy to make without massive environmental and human cost, so while that makes the current state of the industry even more heinous, it also means there's hope and it's possible to fix things. In the end, I will be giving some suggestions for actions we could be doing right now to unfuck this mess.

Carbon emissions

The textile industry is responsible for roughly 10% of the global CO2 emissions, more than aviation and shipping industry combined. This is due to the massive supply chains and energy intensive production methods of fabrics. Most of it can be contributed to the fashion sector since around 60% of all the textile production is clothing. Polyester, a synthetic fiber made from oil which accounts for more than half of the fibers used in the textile industry, produces double the amount of carbon emissions than cotton, accounting for very large proportions of all the emissions by the industry. (source 1, source 2)

Worker exploitation

Majority of the textiles are produced in Asia. Some of the worst working conditions are in Bangladesh, one of the most important garment producers, and Pakistan. Here's an excerpt from EU Parliament's briefing document from 2014 after the catastrophic Rana Plaza disaster:

The customers of garment producers are most often global brands looking for low prices and tight production timeframes. They also make changes to product design, product volume, and production timeframes, and place last-minute orders without accepting increased costs or adjustments to delivery dates. The stresses of such policies usually fall on factory workers.

The wage exploitation is bleak. According to the 2015 documentary The True Cost less than 2% of all garment factory workers earned a living wage (source). Hourly wages are so low and the daily quotas so high, garment workers are often forced through conditions or threats and demand to work extra hours, which regularly leads to 10-12 hour work days (source) and at worst 16 hour workdays (source), often without days off. Sometimes factories won't compensate for extra hours, breaching regulations (source).

Long working hours, repetitive work, lack of breaks and high pressure leads to increased risks of injuries and accidents. Small and even major injuries are extremely common in the industry. A study in three factories in India found that 70% of the workers suffered from musculosceletal symptoms (source). Another qualitative study of female garment workers and factory doctors in Dhaka found that long hours led to eye strain, headaches, fatigue and weight loss in addition to muscular and back pains. According to the doctors interviewed, weight loss was common because the workers work such long hours without breaks, they didn't have enough time to eat properly. (source) Another study in 8 factories in India found that minor injuries were extremely common and caused by unergonomic work stations, poor organization in the work place and lack of safety gear, guidelines and training (source). Safety precautions too are often overlooked to cut corners, which periodically leads to factory accidents, like in 2023 lack of fire exists and fire extinguishers, and goods stacked beyond capacity led to a factory fire in Pakistan which injured dozens of workers (source) or like in 2022 dangerous factory site led to one dead worker and 9 injured workers (source).

Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 is the worst industrial accident in recent history. The factory building did not have proper permits and the factory owner blatantly ignored signs of danger (other businesses abandoned the building a day before the collapse), which led to deaths of 1 134 workers and injuries to 2 500 workers. The factory had or were at the time working for orders of at least Prada, Versace, Primark, Walmart, Zara, H&M, C&A, Mango, Benetton, the Children's Place, El Corte Inglés, Joe Fresh, Carrefour, Auchan, KiK, Loblaw, Bonmarche and Matalan. None of the brands were held legally accountable for the unsafe working conditions which they profited off of. Only 9 of the brands attended a meeting to agree on compensation for the victim's families. Walmart, Carrefour, Auchan, Mango and KiK refused to sight the agreement, it was only signed by Primark, Loblaw, Bonmarche and El Corte Ingles. The compension these companies provided was laughable though. Primemark demanded DNA evidence that they are relatives of one of the victims from these struggling families who had lost their often sole breadwinner for a meager sum of 200 USD (which doesn't even count for two months of living wage in Bangladesh (source)). This obviously proved to be extremely difficult for most families even though US government agreed to donate DNA kits. This is often said to be a turning point in working conditions in the industry, at least in Bangladesh, but while there's more oversight now, as we have seen, there's clearly still massive issues. (source 1, source 2)

One last major concern of working conditions in the industry I will mention is the Xinjiang raw cotton production, which is likely produced mainly with forced labour from Uighur concentration camps, aka slave labour of a suspected genocide. 90% of China's raw cotton production comes from Xinjiang (source). China is the second largest cotton producer in the world, after India, accounting 20% of the yearly global cotton production (source).

Pollution

Synthetic dyes, which synthetic fibers require, are the main cause of water pollution caused by the textile industry, which is estimated to account for 20% of global clean water pollution (source). This water pollution by the textile industry is suspected of causing a lot of health issues like digestive issues in the short term, and allergies, dermatitis, skin inflammation, tumors and human mutations in the long term. Toxins also effect fish and aquatic bacteria. Azo dyes, one of the major pollutants, can cause detrimental effects to aquatic ecosystems by decreasing photosynthetic activity of algae. Synthetic dyes and heavy metals also cause large amounts of soil pollution. Large amounts of heavy metals in soil, which occurs around factories that don't take proper environmental procautions, can cause anaemia, kidney failure, and cortical edoem in humans. That also causes changes in soil texture, decrease in soil microbial diversity and plant health, and changes in genetic structure of organisms growing in the soil. Textile factory waste water has been used for irrigation in Turkey, where other sources of water have been lacking, causing significant damage to the soil. (source)

Rayon produced through viscose process causes significant carbon disulphide and hydrogen sulphide pollution to the environment. CS2 causes cardiovascular, psychiatric, neuropsychological, endocrinal and reproductive disorders. Abortion rates among workers and their partners exposed to CS2 are reported to be significantly higher than in control groups. Many times higher amounts of sick days are reported for workers in spinning rooms of viscose fiber factories. China and India are largest producers of CS2 pollution, accounting respectively 65.74% and 11,11% of the global pollution, since they are also the major viscose producers. Emission of CS2 has increased significantly in India from 26.8 Gg in 2001 to 78.32 Gg in 2020. (source)

Waste

The textile industry is estimated to produce around 92 million tons of textile waste per year. As said before around 30% of the production is never sold and with shortening lifespans used the amount of used clothing that goes to waster is only increasing. This waste is large burned or thrown into landfills in poor countries. (source) H&M was accused in 2017 by investigative journalists of burning up to 12 tonnes of clothes per year themselves, including usable clothing, which they denied claiming they donated clothing they couldn't sell to charity instead (source). Most of the clothing donated to charity though is burned or dumbed to landfills (source).

Most of the waste clothing from rich countries like European countries, US, Australia and Canada are shipped to Chile (source) or African countries, mostly Ghana, but also Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire (source). There's major second-hand fashion industries in these places, but most of the charity clothing is dumbed to landfills, because they are in such bad condition or the quality is too poor. Burning and filling landfills with synthetic fabrics with synthetic dyes causes major air, water and soil pollution. The second-hand clothing industry also suppresses any local clothing production as donated clothing is inherently more competitive than anything else, making these places economically reliant on dumbed clothing, which is destroying their environment and health, and prevents them from creating a more sustainable economy that would befit them more locally. This is not an accident, but required part of the clothing industry. Overproduction let's these companies tap on every new trend quickly, while not letting clothing the prices in rich countries drop so low it would hurt their profits. Production is cheaper than missing a trend.

Micro- and nanoplastics

There is massive amounts of micro- and nanoplastics in all of our environment. It's in our food, drinking water, even sea salt (source). Washing synthetic textiles accounts for roughly 35% of all microplastics released to the environment. It's estimated that it has caused 14 million tonnes of microplastics to accumulate into the bottom of the ocean. (source)

Microplastics build up into the intestines of animals (including humans), and have shown to probably cause cause DNA damage and altered organism behavior in aquatic fauna. Microplastics also contain a lot of the usual pollutants from textile industry like synthetic dyes and heavy metals, which absorb in higher quantities to tissues of animals through microplastics in the intestines. Studies have shown that the adverse effect are higher the longer the microplastics stay in the organism. The effects cause major risks to aquatic biodiversity. (source) The health effects of microplastics to humans are not well known, but studies have shown that they could have adverse effects on digestive, respiratory, endocrine, reproductive and immune systems. (source)

Microplastics degrade in the environment even further to nanoplastics. Nanoplastic being even smaller are found to enter blood circulation, get inside cells and cross the blood-brain barrier. In fishes they have been found to cause neurological damage. Nanoplastics are also in the air, and humans frequently breath them in. Study in office buildings found higher concentration of nanoplastics in indoor air than outdoor air. Inside the nanoplastics are likely caused mostly by synthetic household textiles, and outdoors mostly by car tires. (source) An association between nanoplastics and mitochondrial damage in human respiratory cells was found in a recent study. (source)

Micro and nano plastics are also extremely hard to remove from the environment, making it even more important that we reduce the amount of microplastics we produce as fast as possible.

What can we do?

This is a question that deserves it's own essays and articles written about it, but I will leave you with some action points. Reading about these very bleak realities can easily lead to overwhelming apathy, but we need to channel these horrors into actions. Whatever you do, do not fall into apathy. We don't have the luxury for that, we need to act. These are industry wide problems, that simply cannot be fixed by consumerism. Do not trust any clothing companies, even those who market themselves as ethical and responsible, always assume they are lying. Most of them are, even the so called "good ones". We need legislation. We cannot allow the industry to regulate itself, they will always take the easy way out and lie to their graves. I will for sure write more in dept about what we can do, but for now here's some actions to take, both political and individual ones.

Political actions

Let's start with political actions, since they will be the much more important ones. While we are trying to dismantle capitalism and neocolonialism (the roots of these issues), here's some things that we could do right now. These will be policies that we should be doing everywhere in the world, but especially rich countries, where most of the clothing consumption is taking place. Vote, speak to others, write to your representative, write opinion pieces to your local papers, engage with democracy.

Higher requirements of transparency. Right now product transparency in clothing is laughably low. In EU only the material make up and the origin country of the final product are required to be disclosed. Everything else is up to the company. Mandatory transparency is the only way we can force any positive changes in the production. The minimum of transparency should be: origin countries of the fibers and textiles in the product itself; mandatory reports of the lifecycle emissions; mandatory reports of whole chain of production. Right now the clothing companies make their chain of production intentionally complex, so they have plausible deniability when inevitably they are caught violating environmental or worker protection laws (source). They intentionally don't want to be able to track down their production chain. Forcing them to do so anyway would make it very expensive for them to keep up this unnecessarily complex production chain. These laws are most effective when put in place in large economies like EU or US.

Restrictions on the use of synthetic fibers. Honestly I think they should be banned entirely, since the amount of microplastics in our environment is already extremely distressing and the other environmental effects of synthetic fibers are also massive, but I know there are functions for which they are not easily replaced (though I think they can be replaces in those too, but that's a subject of another post), so we should start with restrictions. I'm not sure how they should be specifically made, I'm not a law expert, but they shouldn't be used in everyday textiles, where there are very easy and obvious other options.

Banning viscose. There are much better options for viscose method that don't cause massive health issues and environmental destruction where ever it's made, like Lyocell. There is absolutely no reason why viscose should be allowed to be sold anywhere.

Governmental support for local production by local businesses. Most of the issues could be much more easily solved and monitored if most clothing were not produced by massive global conglomerations, but rather by local businesses that produce locally. All clothing are made by hand, so centralizing production doesn't even give it advantage in effectiveness (only more profits for the few). Producing locally would make it much more easier to enforce regulations and it would reduce production chains, making production more effective, leaving more profits into the hands of the workers and reducing emissions from transportation. When the production is done by local businesses, the profits would stay in the producing country and they could be taxed and utilized to help the local communities. This would be helpful to do in both exploited and exploiter countries. When done in rich countries who exploit poorer ones, it would reduce the demand for exploitation. In poor countries this is not as easily done, since poor means they don't have money to give around, but maybe this could be a good cause to put some reparations from colonizers and global corporations, which they should pay.

Preventing strategic accounting between subsidiaries and parent companies. Corporate law is obviously not my area of expertise, but I know that allowing corporations to move around the accounting of profits and losses between subsidiaries and parent companies in roughly 1980s, was a major factor in creating this modern global capitalist system, where corporations can very easily manipulate their accounting to utilize tax heavens and avoid taxes where they actually operate, which is how they are upholding this terrible system and extracting the profits from the production countries. How specifically this would be done I can't tell because again I know shit about corporate law, so experts of that field should plan the specifics. Overall this would help deal with a lot of other problems than just the fashion industry. Again for it to be effective a large economic area like EU or US should do this.

Holding companies accountable for their whole chain of production. These companies should be dragged to court and made to answer for the crimes they are profiting of off. We should put fear back into them. This is possible. Victims of child slavery are already doing this for chocolate companies. If it's already not how law works everywhere, the laws should be changed so that the companies are responsible even if they didn't know, because it's their responsibility to find out and make sure they know. They should have been held accountable for the Rana Plaza disaster. Maybe they still could be. Sue the mother fuckers. They should be afraid of us.

Individual actions

I will stress that the previous section is much more important and that there's no need to feel guilty for individual actions. This is not the fault of the average consumer. Still we do need to change our relationship to fashion and consumption. While it's not our fault, one of the ways this system is perpetuated, is by the consumerist propaganda by fashion industry. And it is easier to change our own habits than to change the industry, even if our own habits have little impact. So these are quite easy things we all could do as we are trying to do bigger change to gain some sense of control and keep us from falling to apathy.

Consume less. Better consumption will not save us, since consumption itself is the problem. We consume too much clothing. Don't make impulse purchases. Consider carefully weather you actually need something or if you really really want it. Even only buying second-hand still fuels the industry, so while it's better than buying new, it's still better to not buy.

Take proper care of your clothing. Learn how to properly wash your clothing. There's a lot of internet resources for that. Never wash your wool textiles in washing machine, even if the textile's official instructions allow it. Instead air them regularly, rinse them in cool water if they still smell after airing and wash stains with water or small amount of (wool) detergent. Never use fabric softener! It damages the fabrics, prevents them from properly getting clean and is environmentally damaging. Instead use laundry vinegar for making textiles softer or removing bad smells. (You can easily make laundry vinegar yourself too from white vinegar and water (and essential oils, if you want to add a scent to it) which is much cheaper.) Learn how to take care of your leather products. Most leather can be kept in very good condition for a very long time by occasional waxing with beeswax.

Use the services of dressmakers and shoemakers. Take your broken clothing or clothing which doesn't fit anymore to your local dressmaker and ask them if they can do something about it. Take your broken and worn leather products to your local shoemaker too. Usually it doesn't cost much to get something fixed or refitted and these expert usually have ways to fix things you couldn't even think of. So even if the situation with your clothing or accessory seems desperate, still show it to the dressmaker or shoemaker.

If it's extremely cheap, don't buy it. Remember that every clothing is handmade. Only a small fraction of the cost of the clothing will be paying the wages of the person who made it with their hands. If a shirt costs 5 euros (c. 5,39 USD), it's sewer was only payed mere cents for sewing it. I'm not a quick sewer and it takes me roughly 1-2 hours to cut, prepare and sew a simple shirt, so I'm guessing it would take around half an hour to do all that for a factory worker on a crunch, at the very least 15 minutes. So the hourly pay would still be ridiculously low. However, as I said before, the fact that the workers in clothing factories get criminally low pay is not the fault of the consumer, so if you need a clothing item, and you don't have money to buy anything else than something very cheep, don't feel guilty. And anyway expensive clothing in no way necessarily means reasonable pay or ethical working conditions, cheep clothing just guarantee them.

Learn to recognize higher quality. In addition to exploitation, low price also means low quality, but again high price doesn't guarantee high quality. High quality allows you to buy less, so even if it's not as cheep as low quality, if you can afford it, when you need it, it will be cheaper in long run, and allows you to consume less. Check the materials. Natural fibers are your friends. Do not buy plastic, if it's possible to avoid. Avoid household textiles from synthetic fibers. Avoid textiles with small amounts of spandex to give it stretch, it will shorten the lifespan of the clothing significantly as the spandex quickly wears down and the clothing looses it's shape. Also avoid clothing with rubber bands. They also loose their elasticity very quickly. In some types of clothing (sport wear, underwear) these are basically impossible to avoid, but in many other cases it's entirely possible.

Buy from artisans and local producers, if you can. As said better consumption won't fix this, but supporting artisans and your local producers could help keep them afloat, which in small ways helps create an alternative to the exploitative global corporations. With artisans especially you know the money goes to the one who did the labour and buying locally means less middlemen to take their cut. More generally buy rather from businesses that are located to the same country where the production is, even if it's not local to you. A local business doesn't necessarily produce locally.

Develop your own taste. If you care about fashion and style, it's easy to fall victim to the fashion industry's marketing and trend cycles. That's why I think it's important to develop your personal sense of style and preferences. Pay attention at what type of clothes are comfortable to you. Go through your wardrobe and track for a while which clothing you use most and which least. Understanding your own preferences helps you avoid impulse buying.

Consider learning basics of sewing. Not everyone has the time or interest for this, but if you in anyway might have a bit of both, I suggest learning some very simple and basic mending and reattaching a button.

Further reading on this blog: How to see through the greenwashing propaganda of the fashion industry - Case study 1: Shein

Bibliography

Academic sources

An overview of the contribution of the textiles sector to climate change, 2022, L. F. Walter et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science

How common are aches and pains among garment factory workers? A work-related musculoskeletal disorder assessment study in three factories of south 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, 2021, Arkaprovo Pal et al., J Family Med Prim Care

Sewing shirts with injured fingers and tears: exploring the experience of female garment workers health problems in Bangladesh, 2019, Akhter, S., Rutherford, S. & Chu, C., BMC Int Health Hum Rights

Occupation Related Accidents in Selected Garment Industries in Bangalore City, 2006, Calvin, Sam & Joseph, Bobby, Indian Journal of Community Medicine

A Review on Textile and Clothing Industry Impacts on The Environment, 2022, Nur Farzanah Binti Norarmi et al., International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Carbon disulphide and hydrogen sulphide emissions from viscose fibre manufacturing industry: A case study in India, 2022, Deepanjan Majumdar et al., Atmospheric Environment: X

Microplastics Pollution: A Brief Review of Its Source and Abundance in Different Aquatic Ecosystems, 2023, Asifa Ashrafy et al., Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances

Health Effects of Microplastic Exposures: Current Issues and Perspectives in South Korea, 2023, Yongjin Lee et al., Yonsei Medical Journal

Nanoplastics and Human Health: Hazard Identification and Biointerface, 2022, Hanpeng Lai, Xing Liu, and Man Qu, Nanomaterials

Other sources

The impact of textile production and waste on the environment (infographics), 2020, EU

Chile’s desert dumping ground for fast fashion leftovers, 2021, AlJazeera

Fashion - Worldwide, 2022 (updated 2024), Statista

Fashion Industry Waste Statistics & Facts 2023, James Evans, Sustainable Ninja (magazine)

Everything You Need to Know About Waste in the Fashion Industry, 2024, Solene Rauturier, Good on You (magazine)

Textiles and the environment, 2022, Nikolina Šajn, European Parliamentary Research Service

Help! I'm addicted to secondhand shopping apps, 2023, Alice Crossley, Cosmopolitan

Addictive, absurdly cheap and controversial: the rise of China’s Temu app, 2023, Helen Davidson, Guardian

Workers' conditions in the textile and clothing sector: just an Asian affair? - Issues at stake after the Rana Plaza tragedy, 2014, Enrico D'Ambrogio, European Parliamentary Research Service

State of The Industry: Lowest Wages to Living Wages, The Lowest Wage Challenge (Industry affiliated campaign)

Fast Fashion Getting Faster: A Look at the Unethical Labor Practices Sustaining a Growing Industry, 2021, Emma Ross, International Law and Policy Brief (George Washington University Law School)

Dozens injured in Pakistan garment factory collapse and fire, 2023, Hannah Abdulla, Just Style (news media)

India: Multiple factory accidents raise concerns over health & safety in the garment industry, campaigners call for freedom of association in factories to ‘stave off’ accidents, 2022, Jasmin Malik Chua, Business & Human Rights Resource Center

Minimum Wage Level for Garment Workers in the World, 2020, Sheng Lu, FASH455 Global Apparel & Textile Trade and Sourcing (University of Delaware)

Rana Plaza collapse, Wikipedia

Buyers’ compensation for Rana Plaza victims far from reality, 2013, Ibrahim Hossain Ovi, Dhaka Tribune (news media)

World cotton production statistics, updated 2024, The World Counts

Dead white man’s clothes, 2021, Linton Besser, ABC News

[strawberrystepmom]

senku x f!reader. senku and reader are both 25, reader has a hair that can be tucked behind her ear. wc 1.5k

You aren’t sure what time it is. The sun has been set for long enough that you know it is well into nighttime, stars twinkling right outside of your window. The oil lamp in your home is still lit and you sit next to Senku on the floor, pages and pages of plans he has drawn in front of the two of you. He has spent most of the evening and night explaining his plans to you, each of them a bigger and bolder leap than the last. Usually you’d be listening to him raptly and you have done so for most of the evening but right now you feel a little…sleepy.

You keep catching yourself shutting your eyes and fluttering them open, the smooth and mellow sound of the scientist’s voice doing little to prevent your relaxation and comfort. Maybe you listen to him too much, wrapping his knowledge around you like a warm blanket, letting it keep you believing in the world the two of you desire for the people you care about. This is your usual evening routine, anyway.

He walks you to your home once dinner is done and the two of you talk all through the night. Neither of you sleeps easily; this is the first thing you learned about each other all those months ago. Racing minds with big plans rarely rest but the lead up into the summer has been grueling, planting and assisting with the late spring births of the horses and one of the cows.

It’s nothing personal against him. Tonight, you’re just sleepy.

“We would need to do some significant clearing of the forest around 38 kilometers away from here for this one, so we will need to build machinery first.”

Humming your response your eyes fall shut again and Senku chuckles when he turns to look at you. Your arms are folded over your chest and your eyes are shut so tightly it has to be painful. Exhaustion seeps from you and he moves closer in your direction, sliding across the floor until your hip touches his. The touch startles you awake and you smile when your eyes pop open and see him glancing at you fondly.

“Hey,” he mutters quietly. “You tired?”

You shake your head stubbornly and he smirks, watching you make a show out of straightening your slumped posture. Sighing, you smile again and wipe your thumbs over your eyes to keep them from closing again immediately.

“You said clearing the forest a ways out, right? We could probably do that now if we went with larger groups of people for shorter amounts of time, it would just take all summer.”

He nods, humming himself and scribbling your notes down on the plans he created for whatever he wants to build there. You can tell he’s writing because you hear his own handcrafted pen nib scribbling over the scratchy paper the settlement has been using ever since yourself and your friend, the doctor, started taking the time to make it.

It’s a reservoir, you remember and your eyes fly open with a gasp. Senku looks up at you and furrows his eyebrows, still scribbling away without even looking. Rather than show his concern, he turns it into a joke so he can gauge how exhausted you really are by how hard you laugh.

“You like the idea that much?”

Giggles bubble out of you uncontrollably and he cannot help but chuckle along at a few of them. It’s official, you are deliriously sleepy, laughing over nothing.

“Alright, let’s get you to bed…” your friend (although the blurry edges of friendship and lover seem more and more smudged every day) starts to rise to his feet but you grab his hand and stop him, pulling him back down to the ground beside you gently.

“No, I’m fine and I’m listening. Keep explaining.”

You have shown him this isn’t true but who is he to deny a willing audience? Settling back down, he begins talking about his second summer project which are technological improvements for the grain bins and corn silos to keep them climate controlled. Humming your interest every few words, your eyes feel heavy again and you no longer fight them, slumping forward. You just need to rest your eyes.

“Minor changes may help us keep larger quantities fresher for lon…”

Senku cuts himself off when he looks over at you. He dares to reach out, brushing a strand of hair that has fallen over your face behind your ear. This far the motion hasn’t startled you so he presses further, brushing the cold tips of his fingers against the shell of your ear. This startles you enough that your eyes open again and he feels the skin beneath his fingertips heat as you realize he’s touching you.

“Cold fingers.”

Your sleepy remark makes the man chuckle again and he brushes his thumb down the remainder of your ear lobe, feeling hardened cartilage and soft skin and long closed holes where earrings once resided.

“Let’s go to bed.”

You perk up slightly at the suggestion that he’ll be joining you. It would be far from the first time the two of you have shared this intimacy, falling asleep in shared space before either of you were aware of the other's feelings. Well, Senku was aware of your feelings at least considering that you’re pretty bad at hiding them. For a moment you worry you’ve overestimated his want to be around you and you pout, looking up at his now standing form and the hand he’s holding out to help you up.

“Will you stay?”

He nods, wiggling his fingers to make sure you know to grab his hand before standing. Tired legs are wobbly ones and it finally strikes him as funny that this is the moment you’re vulnerable enough to ask for what you want from him. Not the nights you’ve cried while talking about how much you miss your family or when you were sick with fever that made you babble half awake for days on end in the wintertime.

“Good,” you mutter while grabbing his hand. Your head swims with even the simplest touches from him and it makes you feel incredibly immature and silly, more of a girl pining so hard even a glance makes her giddy than the grown woman you are. He helps you over to the small area you sleep in, grateful you’re already in your pajamas, and helps you into the heap of furs and blankets.

Rolling into the mess of blankets, you pat the space next to you and he laughs at your eagerness to be this close to him, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it over his head. You are too sleepy to stay alert but your eyes, heavy as they are, simply cannot shut fully when he is half clothed standing this close to you. He unfastens his belt and lets it fall to the floor, keeping his pants on and crawling into the pile beside you.

“If you aren’t sleepy, you can keep talkin’.”

Your voice is thin and more of a mumble than it is anything else but Senku laughs, rolling over to face you and tucking the same unruly hair that keeps sticking out back behind your ear so he can look at your face. Your eyes are shut far more gently than they were moments ago and your mouth is relaxed and suddenly he realizes that your face is illuminated a little too brightly for likely the wee hours of the night…damn it he left the lamp on across the room.

He isn’t particularly sleepy anyway and he sighs, using his light touch on your head as a means to guide you in his direction, stopping just short of pressing his lips against your hairline. This wouldn’t be the first time he kissed you, the other time was during a far less chaste and aphrodisiac fueled scenario the two of you mutually agreed to never mention again after it happened, but he stops himself.

Senku has considered every mathematical possibility. Every scenario, every tried and true and tested theory, every last trail he could possibly chase in his own overflowing brain to figure out how he ended up in a situation he could ever be this close to you. It was improbable before petrification and probably close to impossible after it yet it happened.

He closes the small gap between your hair and his lips and kisses you so gently all your face does is twitch in response, sleep finally winning over your willingness to listen to your very good friend explain his thought processes until dawn.

Quickly rolling out of bed, he scurries across the floor as fast as he can to shut the lamp off and heads back into the warmth of the space next to you. You shift and smack your lips together, eyes closed and brows twisting.

“Senku?”

He gently brushes your arm with his index and middle fingers, lying on his side and watching you get settled back in.

“Right here, don’t worry about it.”

The assurance is enough for you to relax and he watches you return to sleep, smiling wistfully and considering how he could do this every night. He doesn’t want to consider the possibility of forever, knowing how quickly people one cares about can be ripped away in the new world, but it’s something to at least entertain while your breath comes in soft puffs at his side.

[t00thpasteface]

This is a reference guide to establish a clear foundation for the anatomy of the catcatfish, with attention paid to where the sarcopterygian half and actinopterygian half may be in conflict. I'm famously averse to drawing stuff on-model, and my own designs are no exception... I'll tweak a catcatfish's proportions as the piece demands it, and I like trying out different ways to stylize stuff. I made this to counterbalance/compensate for that, and reveal the baseline I've personally been working off of.

MUSCULOSKELETAL

Catcatfish have short, stocky limbs and a significant amount of body fat, giving them a hydrodynamic silhouette. The limbs are also widely spaced so that the catcatfish may undulate its trunk along with its tail during aerobic swimming. The body fat helps maintain buoyancy, as does the air that is held in the lungs while swimming. Nearly all of the catcatfish's body is covered in a short, dense, oily fur, with the exception of the fins, barbels, and toe pads; this fur traps body heat underwater and dries quickly on land.

The catcatfish's dorsal fin has one hard spine on the anterior edge, followed by several soft rays consistent with the number seen in the corresponding catfish species. These join to pterygiophores that interlock with the vertebrae to anchor the fin above the spinal column. The spine and rays of the fin are capable of a lever-like movement, allowing the fin to be raised and lowered for locomotion, communication, and thermoregulation. The adipose fin on the tail is composed of a thin, hairless skin without any spines or rays.

The tail vertebrae have pronounced neural and haemal spines to anchor the swimming muscles. Most of the muscles in the tail are white (glycolytic) muscle, which is used for short bursts of extremely rapid movement. Narrow bands of red (oxidative) muscle run down the length of the tail along the horizontal septum for slow, aerobic swimming. The limbs are used in a paddling motion during slow swimming and tucked in close to the body during fast swimming.

SKULL AND HEAD

Catcatfish have a feline skull, but its shape is more depressed than those of housecats.

The eyes and eyesockets are greatly reduced and widely spaced in most species, with more of the skull space devoted to the enlarged oral and nasal cavities, as they do most of their hunting by smell and hearing and are not very discerning about prey type.

Barbels are present in all life stages. The barbels are hairless and highly enervated so that they may function as smell/taste organs. Catcatfish will flex and wiggle their barbels to pinpoint food, navigate a low-visibility environment, and communicate with other members of their species.

Catcatfish have prominent canine teeth, but their molars and premolars are absent. They eat by swallowing prey whole, and prefer to hunt underwater by catching prey with their forelimbs and gulping it with powerful suction. If hunting on land, they may dunk their prey in a nearby body of water to make it easier to swallow. They are capable of pulling their lips relatively far back on their face and will do this as a threat display. They use their raspy tongues to groom themselves like other felids, distributing oils throughout their fur.

RESPIRATION

The gills of the catcatfish are located in the neck, just anterior to the clavicles. The throat is very wide to accommodate both the gill arches and whole swallowed prey. The esophagus and windpipe separate posterior to the gill arches so that the gill rakers can catch additional food as water is sifted through. Due to both the size and structure of the throat, the catcatfish's "meow" is very low and hoarse, and it will also vocalize with growling and grunting. Most communication between catcatfish is through body language, and vocalization is not possible underwater.

Air is inhaled through a negative pressure system, i.e. through the manipulation of a diaphragm below the lungs. Water intake uses a positive pressure system in which water is gulped into the mouth and "swallowed" via pressure from the tongue and hyomandibular complex to force it outward through the gill openings. While swimming at high speeds, the catcatfish will hold its mouth open to allow a continuous oxygenation without the additional energy expenditure of the gulping motion.

The lungs are comprised of seven separate lobes, nearly identical to those of a domestic cat. To prevent aspiration of water into the lungs, the windpipe has a fleshy valve that reflexively seals off the lungs as the animal goes underwater. Air held in the lungs maintains the catcatfish's buoyancy, and the catcatfish will periodically breach to exhale and inhale at the water's surface to supplement its oxygen intake while swimming.

Breaching occurs more frequently in waters with higher temperatures and/or salinities due to decreased oxygen saturation in the water. Catcatfish have a lower body temperature and slower metabolism than mammals, and during the winter, when temperatures are low and prey is scarce, they may periodically enter a state of torpor where they will exhale the air from their lungs and lie still on the bottom of a body of water without breaching to conserve energy for prolonged periods of time. Catcatfish prefer to sleep on land, but may sleep underwater in short thirty-minute naps if the water's oxygen saturation is high and the currents are relatively calm.

While on land, the operculum is pressed flat against the gills as a protective mucus is secreted over the sensitive filaments to prevent the gills from being damaged or drying out; this mucus sheds quickly when the catcatfish returns to the water.

REPRODUCTION

Catcatfish have one mating season annually, beginning in early spring shortly after the last major cold snap in the area (typically late March or early April) and lasting until autumn begins about six or seven months later. Within this window, a catcatfish may raise up to two litters, one immediately after the other, but may only raise one if conditions are not ideal.

The courtship process of the catcatfish involves the male building a nest on land very close to shore by digging a shallow pit into the earth, then padding and fencing it with soft plant matter gathered from the nearby area; catcatfish have also been observed collecting scrap fabric and discarded apparel for nest construction. The male will wait near the nest for a female to approach and the pair will engage in an elaborate courtship dance. They will remain in the immediate area for the next three months as the young gestate, nurse, and wean. Catcatfish are monogamous in a given mating season.

Catcatfish are oviparous; they lay eggs that hatch outside of the mother. The gestation time is about two months, but for the first half of the gestation, the eggs are retained inside the mother as they each develop a large yolk sac. Unlike egg-laying mammals, which lay waterproof leathery eggs, catcatfish eggs resemble those of bony fish; they are translucent, with the embryo visible inside, and they must be submerged in water for the embryo to receive oxygen.

Like many species of catfish, catcatfish are mouthbrooders. During the first half of gestation, and often even well before courtship, the male catcatfish will gorge himself to gain massive stores of body fat. After the eggs have gestated for a little over a month, the female will lay the full litter of eggs (typically 3 to 5 total) within the mouth of the male. Over the course of the next few weeks, the male will subsist on his fat stores, as well any small food items collected by his gill rakers, as he continuously carries the eggs in his mouth until they hatch. This protects the eggs from predators and ensures constant oxygenation via the water constantly being pumped into the mouth and out through the gills. The male is fairly inactive during this time and remains mostly underwater, with periodic breaches to gulp air; cooler water temperatures are preferred for the higher dissolved oxygen content. The female will remain close by to offer further protection, and she maintains their nest on land.

Mouthbrooding ceases once the eggs hatch. The larvae, called "kitterlings", hatch with a yolk sac still attached, which depletes over the next 24-48 hours, as well as with open eyes and all four limbs visibly developed, though they are virtually immobile while on land. They are also toothless and have no venemous barbs yet. As they hatch, the male will bring them onto land and deposit them from his mouth onto the soft bed of the nest. They will spend much of their time sleeping and nursing during the first two weeks after hatching, and the female will nurse them in the nest instead of underwater. The male will guard the kitterlings as the female occasionally hunts for her own food, but he may also carry prey to her while she nurses or rests. The rest of the time, the male will be eating frequently to replenish his greatly expended fat stores. The kitterlings grow and develop quickly and will be weaned after four to six weeks.

Hope you got a kick out of this! In the future, I'd like to explore a few of the many, many wonderful species of catcatfish in similar detail, as the one pictured in this post, the blue catcatfish, is only one of several known (and unknown) varieties.

I wrote about the "why" of their design on this post, and I recommend checking that out if you enjoyed learning about the "how". All the fun stuff I've posted about catcatfish is in my catcatfish tag.

Thanks for all the love so far, everyone! The catcatfish project is very near and dear to my heart, as you can tell... so your enthusiasm means more to me than I could possibly express. 🐈🐈🐟

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Liqueurs

Liqueurs

Also known as cordials.

Distilled spirits that feature flavorings such as fruits, herbs, and spices.

Heavy, sweet, and complexly flavored drinks.

These sweet alcoholic beverages are used to make cocktails, or can be served alone as aperitifs or digestifs.

Making Liqueurs

Involves adding fruits, sugar, cream, spices, herbs, nuts, and flavorings to a liquor base at a distillery.

The sweetness of liqueurs is their most common feature.

Although, they can range widely in sugar content.

Popular types of liqueurs: orange liqueurs, herbal liqueurs, and coffee liqueurs.

Liqueur vs. Liquor

Both are drinks with high alcohol content and similar-sounding names.

However, there are essential differences between these two categories:

Fermentation: Liquor—also known as hard alcohol, spirits, or distilled spirits—is a category of alcoholic beverages that ferment and undergo distillation. In the distillation process, heat and condensation increase the alcohol content, and a significant portion of the water boils off, concentrating the alcohol and particular compounds. Liquors usually starting with a grain base (distillers occasionally use fruits). The six main categories are whiskey, brandy, rum, vodka, gin, and tequila.

Flavorings: Most liqueurs begin with liquor as a base; then, distillers add herbs, spices, and other flavorings. Bartenders can serve liqueurs as-is or add them in small amounts to a liquor base to form mixed drinks.

Sugar: The main difference between liquor and liqueur is sweetness. Liqueurs are intensely flavored with the most predominant note usually being sweetness. Flavoring herbs and oils and added sugar provide flavor and texture.

Alcohol content: Both liqueurs and liquors have a range of alcohol content. Most liquor is in the 40 to 55 percent range of Alcohol by Volume (ABV), or 80 to 110 proof. Liqueurs typically contain more ingredients, so the alcohol content is generally lower, from 15 to 30 percent ABV or 30 to 60 proof.

15 Popular Types of Liqueurs

There is a wide range of liqueurs, from cream-based cordials to proprietary recipes.

Amaretto: An Italian liqueur made from apricot kernels, which give the liquor a distinctly bitter almond flavor. Its name comes from amaro, the Italian word for “bitter.” Sweeter notes of brown sugar temper the bitterness of the apricot pits. It contains 21 to 28% ABV and can be sipped alone or added to cocktails.

Amaro: A broad category of regional Italian bitters. Made from either a neutral spirit or brandy, this bitter liqueur is a staple in the Italian lifestyle. A curated blend of botanical ingredients—typically an inherited recipe that includes herbs, spices, and flowers, as well as barks and roots like gentian root, cinchona, and wormwood—gives each variety of amaro its unique flavor. Campari, Cynar, Fernet Branca, and Aperol are popular amaro liqueur brands.

Anise liqueurs: Anice, the primary flavoring agent in black licorice, is a popular ingredient in alcoholic drinks in many countries and cultures: Ouzo in Greece, Sambuca and Galliano in Italy, Pernod Absinthe in France, and Raki in Turkey, among others.

Chambord: A popular brand of raspberry-flavored liqueur. The ingredients are red and black raspberries, honey, vanilla, and cognac. Chambord is great for making Raspberry Mojitos and Raspberry Margaritas.

Cream liqueurs: Thick, sweet liqueurs made with the addition of milk or a milk substitute, along with sweetener, to provide a creamy sweetness to the drink. Baileys Irish Cream liqueur and Amarula are two examples of cream liqueurs.

Creme liqueurs: Creme liqueurs are thick, sweet, syrup-like beverages. Unlike cream liqueurs, creme liqueurs do not contain dairy. Instead, added sugar provides a thick consistency. Crème de cassis (made from blackcurrants), crème de cacao, (a chocolate liqueur) and crème de menthe are different flavors of this category.

Coffee liqueurs: These liqueurs contain caffeine, and the predominant flavor is coffee. Coffee liqueurs, such as Kahlúa from Mexico or Irish Sheridan, are generally served with cream and sugar.

Elderflower liqueurs: These herbal liqueurs provide a light, floral note to cocktail recipes. St. Germain is a popular brand of elderflower liqueur.

Limoncello: A liqueur flavored with lemon peel. Limoncello is strong, sweet, and bright yellow.

Medicinal: Some liqueurs, such as Chartreuse and Benedictine, were initially used for medicinal purposes. These liqueurs tend to be floral and highly complex, with an ingredient list that remains secretive.

Orange liqueurs: These liqueurs feature predominant orange flavors, and are broadly known under the labels curaçao or Triple Sec. Popular brands include Cointreau and Grand Marnier.

Schnapps: Some varieties of schnapps do not classify as liqueurs, but those with added sweetness and flavoring agents, such as peach schnapps and peppermint schnapps, are liqueurs.

Drambuie: This Scottish liqueur has a base spirit of Scotch whiskey and a proprietary blend of herbs and spices.

Frangelico: Italian liqueur flavored with roasted hazelnuts; comes in a uniquely shaped bottle, modeled after a Christian monk, complete with a rope belt.

Strega: Italian herbal liqueur that gets its name from the Italian word for witch. The distinctive yellow color comes from saffron, imparting flavor to the liqueur.

Source ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Cocktails ⚜ Food History Wine-tasting ⚜ Drunkenness ⚜ Drinking ⚜ Literary & Hollywood Cocktails

[writers-potion]

𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐀𝐭 𝐒𝐞𝐚

The Aims of Nautical Fights

Sink the other ship

Methods: ram, set on fire, blow a hole in the hull

Typical Contexts: out-and-out warfare, especially in the ancient Mediterranean

Advantages: fast, no person-to-person fighting

Drawbacks: getting close eough to the other ship exposes own ship, mass murder of the crew, no chance to get their cargo and provisions.

2. Plunder the Other Ship

Methods: disable the ship - damage mast/oars and other methods of propulsion - board the ship, get cargo and kill the crew - sink ship.

Typical Contexts: piracy, privateering

Advantges: valuable cargo sold for profit, much-needed drinking water and food sustain own crew for a while longer, selected captives can be ransomed or sold as slaves.

Drawbacks: dangerous, need to get close enought to gain access to the ship, crew unlikely to surrender, ferocious combat which poses significant risk to own men.

3. Capture the Other Ship

Methods: Capture ship while causing minimal damage and keeping the crew alove - put own officers in charge - add enemy ship to own fleet or collect prize money from the government (the ship will get a new flad, renamed and refitted)

Typical contexts: 18th-19th C Europe (Regency period inclusive)

Advantages: minimal losses of life, humane, gaining a ship

Drawbacks: difficult to capture a ship iwhtou firs samaging it captains may take foolish risks in the hope of prize money, captive crew needs feeding, captive crew may munity.

Weapons

The ship's weapons:-

a ram at the bow - for driving into the hull of another ship. There's the danger of going down together if the ram gets stuck in the body of the other ship.

Artillery - hurling fire at enemy ships to bring them down.

Warships with carry canons.

The crew's weapons:-

Sailors will almost always carry multi-purposes knives which can turn quickly into weapons.

The swords used by marines were always slashing swords (for cutting, slashing, slicing, very sharp, with a lightly curving blade)

Cutlasses are most often associated with nautical combat.

Ship or Boat?

Consider the follow factors when differentiating between a ship and a boat:

the historical period (different periods have different definitions)

the vessel's size

vessel's weight (ships are heavier)

the purpose (fishing vessels, ferries and submarine are typically boats, regardless of size)

the number of masts (three or more masts is a ship)

the number of decks (with more than one deck, it's a ship)

the shape (flat bottom means its a boat)

where most activity takes place (if on deck - boat)

where the bessel travels (if on a river, probably a boat)

Avoid using the words "ship" and "boat interchangeably just to avoid repeating the same word. They are not synonyms!

Use words like vessel, ferry, schooner, the brigantine, cutter, crusier, etc.

Propulsion and Steering

A ship cannot stop, start, swerve and reverse rapidly like a car.

Wind power - high speed, enables long distances, doesn't require the vessel to carry fuel.

Can't move in the abscene of wind

Can't carry out speedy manoeuvres in a battle.

Felling the mast will cripple the entire ship.

Oars (rowing) - allow for greater manoeuvrability, rapid direction changes, and relaively quick starts and stops.

Doesn't achieve great speed and isn't suitable for long distances.

Steam - creates speed, doesn't depend on wind.

Requires carry coal, which limits the amount of cargo that the ship can carry.

Vessels felled with oil or nuclear power can travel faster and vaster distances.

However, they still can't stop, start, swerve and reverse as quickly as a car.

Space

The deck of a ship/boat is a limited space where fighters can fall overboard, climb up a mast, jump down, or leap onto another deck.

It may be full of obstacles: the masts, coiled rops, possible clutter, crates and barrels of cargo and provisions.

There may be livestock, chickens in cages and goats tethered to the mast, intended to provide fresh meat on the long voyage.

Atmosphere

A sea battle will have interesting sounds like roaring canons, crashing masts, splintering wood, panicked chickens, waves crashing against the hull, the wind whipping the sails, the splashing of men overboard.

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

[probablyasocialecologist]

Each time you search for something like “how many rocks should I eat” and Google’s AI “snapshot” tells you “at least one small rock per day,” you’re consuming approximately three watt-hours of electricity, according to Alex de Vries, the founder of Digiconomist, a research company exploring the unintended consequences of digital trends. That’s ten times the power consumption of a traditional Google search, and roughly equivalent to the amount of power used when talking for an hour on a home phone. (Remember those?) Collectively, De Vries calculates that adding AI-generated answers to all Google searches could easily consume as much electricity as the country of Ireland.

[...]

This insatiable hunger for power is slowing the transition to green energy. When the owner of two coal-fired power plants in Maryland filed plans to close last year, PJM asked them to keep running till at least 2028 to ensure grid reliability. Meanwhile, AI is also being used to actively increase fossil fuel production. Shell, for example, has aggressively deployed AI to find and produce deep-sea oil. “The truth is that these AI models are contributing in a significant way to climate change, in both direct and indirect ways,” says Tom McBrien, counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a digital policy watchdog. Even before Google’s AI integration this spring, the average internet user’s digital activity generated 229 kilograms of carbon dioxide a year. That means the world’s current internet use already accounts for about 40 percent of the per capita carbon budget needed to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius.

20 June 2024

[sickeninglyshoujo]

Idk if you do requests or suggestions n stuff like that, so feel free to ignore this, but how do you think Simon would feel about a significant other who got caught in an explosion or something that badly scared/disfigured half her face?

She’s not insecure enough to hide her face because of it, but she gets irritable when people stare, and will will sometimes make self deprecating jokes about being an, “eyesore” and how she, “ain’t exactly a beauty anymore”

a/n: this is actually the first time anyones requested anything from me and it made me so happy omg

masterlist here

buy me a ko-fi

warnings: mentions of injury, blood, scars, a dash of smut

word count: 1.4k

The scarring that covered a little under half of your face rarely bothered you. The occasional tightness or twinges of pain with the weather changes was the worst of it and nothing that couldn’t be remedied with a thin coating of bio oil and a gentle massage.

The appearance of the scarring didn’t bother you either, compared to the angry red skin that had first grown back after the explosion.

One misplaced charge by a newbie to blow open a door had sent you sprawled on your ass, your pride hurting. You’d hardly noticed the pain until you’d seen Johnny white as a sheet when he kneels down over you, “Don’ worry lass, ‘ve gotcha.”

“Johnny?” You ask, a little out of sorts from the shockwave of the charge.

“Lass, ‘ve gotcha!” He affirmed, stripping your helmet and his tac gear, before his thin cotton vest was pressed over your face.

“Ah know, lass, best ah can do now.”

“Can’t see, Johnny…”

“Hush, lass, gotta keep you covered. Yer in a state… Bleedin’ through already.”

Johnny kept heavy pressure on your face, barking out orders at the others on how to complete the mission, all the while holding his vest pressed tightly, so tightly onto your face.

“S-soap, i’ hurts,” you moaned.

“Hush, lass, we’ll get out soon,” His hands disappeared from your face and you were being hauled up into his arms, “Gotta finish the mission then we’ll get you to a medic, promise.”

Ghost is in the medical wing before your wounds have even been cleaned, “Where’s the fucking shithead who placed the charge!”

You blink, swiping at some of the blood covering your face.

“The rookie’s still in debrief, Ghost, she only came here because she needed medical,” Soap says.

“Get that little asshole in here, he’ll need medical by the time I’m done with him.”

The healing had been slow and painful as your nerves knit themselves back together.

“You don’ have to worry about getting revenge on the rookie, lass,” Johnny said one day as he visited you in the medical wing, “Ghost has been at the poor dog’s heels, not giving him a moment’s rest. Think he’s about to keel over and die from the amount of suicides hes been given.”

Ghost sleeps in the armchair next to your bed.

Ghost helps to remove the stitches after you insisted on not returning to the hospital.

Ghost is the one who helps to massage the medicated creams on while you grit your teeth at the bone deep pain that radiates.

Ghost is the one ready to bite off heads when people so much as let their eyes linger on the raised and angry skin.

“Don’t worry about it, Simon, I really don’t mind the looks much. People are just wondering what happened,” The mission had been need-to-know and even the details of your injury weren’t allowed to leave confidential briefings.

Your opinion changes as your scars settle into a raised and mottled mauve, pockmarks and dents covering half of your face, the stares on base continue.

“What, you’ve never seen an eyesore before? I think you’d be used to looking at one in the mirror every morning with a face like that,” You snapped at a new recruit who had completely stopped in his tracks, mouth opened in shock at your appearance, “Meet me in the gym tomorrow at oh-six-hundred. You’re going to learn to respect your superiors' battle wounds the hard way,” You snarled out at him.

Off base, the stares are worse so you begin to limit your time on leave.

You grit your teeth and set your face in a hard line in public, schooling your expression so that people don’t notice the way that their wide-eyed glances hit you like punches.

You don’t notice how fewer stare when Ghost is around, he’ll glare them down over your head and make them scurry away before their eyes even reach you.

You don’t notice the way Ghost’s eyes darken in the rec room when you make a joke to the lads about being “damaged goods” and “Frankenstein” even if your eyes are filled with tears of laughter as you cackle at your own jokes.

“Don’ like hearing you talk like that,” Simon corners you after you leave the rec room to refill your drink.

“Jesus Christ! Simon! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” You clutch your chest where your racing heart resided, “Give a girl some warning before I attach a bell to you.”

He didn’t speak for a beat, “I don’t want to hear you calling yourself ‘damaged goods’ anymore, love.”

“Just speaking the truth, Si,” You gestured at your face, the still painful and shiny skin, “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought it too? I know I wasn’t winning beauty contests before, but now I would probably be better as a scare actor.”

“Tha’s not true.”

“You don’t have to be nice to me just because I’m your girlfriend!”

“If I was bein’ nice I’d tell you tha’ you were the scariest,” Simon begins, still kissing down the line of scarred flesh, now reaching your chest, free of scars.

“You’re so pretty,” Simon murmurs against the line where healthy flesh met mottled scarring, “Want you to say it back to me, love. Need to hear you say it.”

The healthy skin of your face began to flush, nearly matching your scars in color, “Si-”

“I need you to know how pretty you are to me, before and now,” His kisses continue tracing your healed wounds, “Never seen a prettier bird.”

His hands trace your hip bones, settling at their crest, “Before I could only think how soft you were, that I had to protect you on missions. Nearly got my head blown off more than once. Now all I can see is how strong you are,” His hands begin to trail lower, petting over your stomach and then lower still.

“There she is,” He coos when you jump as his fingers make contact, “Now tell me how pretty you are for me doll, wanna hear you say it before I make you cry it f’ me.”

He makes you cry that night.

He switches from nipple to nipple, “Say it, lovie,” He tells you as he pauses to thumb at your nipple, giving his mouth a break.

“‘M pretty,” You whimper out.

“Again,” he says, kissing down your stomach, “Give yourself another compliment, sweet girl.”

“Si!”

“I’ll help you pretty girl,” He coos at you, in between mouthing at your hip bones, “You’re strong, now say it.

“I-I’m strong,” Now his mouth travels lower still, you wriggle trying to rush him into going faster. He can tell your game and deliberately pulls his mouth off, “You’re impatient too, lovie, but I’ll forgive it and give you what you need if you give me another compliment.”

“‘M not an eyesore!”

“That’s right, you’re beautiful, lovie,” He finally lowers himself to give tiny licks at your clit sending you jerking up into his mouth.

“Everytime you say those things about yourself it drives me mad that you don’t see what I do. Even with your scars you’re still beautiful and sexy and knowing you’re all mine makes me hard as a fucking rock.”

You whimper under him, trying to grind down onto is tongue to get more, more, more.

“So pretty for me, pretty face, pretty body, pretty cunt,” Simon murmurs into you, pulling his mouth away just long enough to watch his fingers tease along your hole before slipping one inside, “Givin’ me the prettiest little moans when I touch…here,” He crooked his fingers inside of you and made you jerk under him, crying out.

“The scars just make you prettier, dove,” Simon says, “Shows me you’re real and can take anything the world can give you. That you can’t be taken from me.”

His words fizzle into your brain as you grind down onto his finger everytime it thrusts into you, “Si, more,” You pant out, “Need more.”

“Gimme another one, pretty girl.”

“‘M brave,” You can barely get the words out, torn between trying to whimper out praise to yourself to try and get Simon to do more or to beg him for it instead.

“Good girl, you’re listening so well,” He slid another finger inside of you, “You’re so brave sweet girl,” He kissed your thigh.

[hussyknee]

Libs are like, "YOU CAN'T LET TRUMP WIN JUST BECAUSE BIDEN IS COMMITTING A GENOCIDE! THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR SINGLE-ISSUE VOTERS", when the fact is that people are already really fucking angry at him for funding two wars during a severe cost of living crisis. Biden's pet dog has already gotten Israel and the US embroiled in a steadily escalating conflict with Houthis and Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon, and now Netanyahu is trying to ethnically cleanse two million Gazans by pushing them out of the country into Egypt, one of the countries the US gives billions of aid money to make nice with Israel and help them trap the Palestinians. Egypt is already mad about this (although Idk what they expected lol) and if Israel creates a border conflict with them, Iran might press their advantage and then the whole region descend into an all-out war in which the US is embroiled. At which point oil prices will jump, the US economy get even worse, more tax money funnelled into TWO wars, one of which is due to the genocide.

People might not care about Muslims living thousands of miles away, but they have some very strong opinions about putting food on the table. At this point there's a pretty significant shift in the Black community towards Trump because Biden has INCREASED funding for police, is supporting Cop City that someone DIED protesting, and hasn't made a dent in mass incarceration (the marijuana pardon was fucking hilarious in a depraved way). The right has also been weaponizing Black people's resentment against Latino "illegal aliens" and Biden's "concessions" towards them, when actually his immigration policies have barely been less draconian than Trump's all this time. The reason he's making those concessions is that he has to look more progressive than him, except he's also been slowly escalating ICE crackdowns, keeping kids in cages and building a border wall. So the Latin voters are entirely fed up with him too.

So far, he's lost the Muslim vote, the Latin vote, the Black vote, the youth vote (people of ages 18 to 35 are the most outraged at the genocide in Gaza), and they're hemorrhaging the working class votes. These are the extremely angry and betrayed people the liberals are currently working overtime screaming at about Trump "bringing the death of democracy", like democracy means anything to them compared to losing jobs, money, visas, family members, health (Biden's first and ongoing genocide is disabled people due to his COVID policies), social infrastructure and money.

Y'all said Blue Not Matter Who and elected a career racist and known incompetent who supported segregation, was an architect of mass incarceration, got Clarence Thomas elected to the Supreme Court and spewed rhetoric against Arabs so genocidal that motherfucking Menachem Begin was like "....bro." And you got exactly what you paid for. If Trump gets on the ticket next year he's going to win, and no amount of screaming at people online is going to change that. So I suggest you start organising now. The age of trying to create a revolution at the ballot box is over.

[anarchywoofwoof]

Full Article Text:

The United Kingdom is facing dire food shortages, forcing prices to skyrocket, and experts predict this is only the beginning.

What's happening?

According to a report by The Guardian, extreme weather is wreaking havoc on crops across the region. England experienced more rainfall during the past 18 months than it has over any 18-month period since record-keeping began in 1836.

Because the rain hasn't stopped, many farmers have been unable to get crops such as potatoes, carrots, and wheat into the ground. "Usually, you get rain but there will be pockets of dry weather for two or three weeks at a time to do the planting. That simply hasn't happened," farmer Tom Allen-Stevens told The Guardian.

Farmers have also planted fewer potatoes, opting for less weather-dependent and financially secure crops. At the same time, many of the potatoes that have been planted are rotting in the ground.

"There is a concern that we won't ever have the volumes [of potatoes] we had in the past in the future," British Growers Association CEO Jack Ward told The Guardian. "We are not in a good position and it is 100% not sustainable," Ward added.

Why is it important?

English farmers aren't alone — people are struggling to grow crops worldwide because of extreme weather.

Dry weather in Brazil and heavy rain in Vietnam have farmers concerned about pepper production. Severe drought in Spain and record-breaking rain and snowfall in California have made it difficult for farmers to cultivate olives for olive oil. El Niño and rising temperatures cut Peru's blueberry yield in half last year. Everyone's favorite drinks — coffee, beer, and wine — have all been impacted by extreme weather.

According to an ABC News report, the strain on the agriculture industry will likely continue to cause food prices to soar.

If these were just isolated events, farmers could more easily adapt — bad growing seasons are nothing new. The problem is that rising temperatures are directly linked to the increasing amount of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere.

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, humans have burned dirty energy sources such as coal, oil, and gas, which release a significant amount of those gases. Our climate is changing so drastically that the 10 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred in the last decade.

"As climate change worsens, the threat to our food supply chains — both at home and overseas — will grow," Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit analyst Amber Sawyer told The Guardian.

What can we do about it?

"Fortunately, we know many ways we can make the food system more resilient while reducing food emissions. The biggest opportunity in high-income nations is a reduction in meat consumption and exploration of more plants in our diets," said Dr. Paul Behrens, an associate professor of environmental change at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

If we replace a quarter of our meat consumption with vegetables, we could cut around 100 million tons of air pollution yearly. It may seem strange to suggest eating more vegetables with the decline in crop production. However, reducing the land and water used for animal agriculture and diverting those resources to growing more produce would drastically help the declining food supply.

Growing our own food is also a great way to reduce our reliance on store-bought produce, and it can save you hundreds of dollars a year at the grocery store.

[transingthoseformers]

Speaking of energon, I wonder how often cybertronians need to fuel. It probably depends on how big their rations are at the time, how purified the fuel is, frame specificities such as size, how active they are, and continuity differences. Because I feel like it changes?

In mtmte, it seems like they need to fuel wayyyy more than in the other continuities, but this might be a matter of having more energon but in general more dilute energon or energon with more impurities (some of which being desired, such as in energon goodies or drinks that get them overcharged. And whatever the fuck is in nightmare fuel). And when these guys get hurt they bleed like absolute hell so that probably factors into it.

In TFA, we pretty much never if at all see them consume energon, but we do see them drinking types of oil so their systems might be adapted to deal with impurities, but I feel like they need to consume at least some energon? Because I know the energon shortages are a whole plot point thing, and they certainly bleed energon. But iicr from the initial Meltdown episode their energon is more goopy than you'd anticipate.

Do we see them consume anything in Bayverse? Ik they needed more energon specifically for the hatchlings, and iicr Megatron fed them... Something in DSOTM, so it might be requirements that change with age? Either energon is green in bayverse or they can bleed a wide variety of substances, and even then we don't see a lot of said substances in the gruesome fight scenes.

In g1 they seem to be less fuel efficient, but again energon is way easier to make and purify so y'know a game of checks and balances.

In Aligned I feel like they're sort of the middle ground when it comes to fuel efficiency, but methinks energon is a little more concentrate in it (but it seems to vary? Dark energon seems to be very dery powerful in general but also pretty toxic, Tox-En is just. Deadly as all hell and motherfucking useless as a fuel. Red energon seems to be harder to extract from the ore but when you do a little goes a long way. A major problem with the Synthe-en was how quickly it burned through their systems.). Chompazoids being an outlier as Underbite can fuel on metal, I feel like he can likely fuel on metal alone if need be, and the rest of the Pack gives him dirty looks for this.

In beast wars it seems like the Maximals and Predacons actually can fuel pretty well on the organic life (... And each other...) and significant amounts of actual energon can fuck them up pretty good (possibly a trait the autobots and decepticons before them didn't have that evolved in response to energon crises?)

In Earthspark yet again we see shortages and them needing quite an amount to fuel on (excluding the Terrans, they seem to be fueled by water????), especially considering the sizes of some of the cubes we see. We also see them bleed quite a fair amount in the later episodes of the second episode drop (I will never forget the absolute horror when Bumblebee and the Malto kiddos found Brawl's offlined corpse)

[mapsontheweb]

European Countries With/Without "Deserts".

Although deserts are characterized by harsh climates, they are also important. Deserts are important sources of sand for construction, and significant amounts of oil can also be found underneath many deserts, especially in Asia. Deserts are also habitats for several species of plants and animals. Interestingly, ancient civilizations, such as Egypt and Israel, began in the desert Although Europe has no major deserts, some countries such as Italy, Poland, Serbia, Greece, and Spain have semi-arid areas.

by very_useful_maps

[blueiscoool]

US Returns $80 Million-Worth of Stolen Artifacts to Italy

It looked more like a museum exhibition of Italian art than a crime scene, but in the Central Institute for Restoration’s offices, located inside a former women’s prison in central Rome, some 600 works of art were put on display Tuesday morning.

Ranging from life-sized bronze statues to tiny Roman coins, from oil paintings to mosaic flooring, the pieces span the 9th century BC to the 2nd century AD and amount to just one year’s stolen and trafficked art confiscated by Manhattan prosecutor Col. Matthew Bogdanos’ team and returned to Italy.

The trafficked works, pillaged from the Italian regions of Lazio, Campania, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily, were sequestered in New York and New Jersey last year.

The returned works, together with 60 items repatriated last year, are worth more than $80 million (or roughly €73.6 million) — but are just a drop in the bucket when it comes to artwork still hidden away in private warehouses and on display in museums in the United States, Bogdanos said on the sidelines of a presentation to the media on Tuesday.

Bogdanos said the $80 million of items does not include a further 100 items his team has just seized in the US.

What makes the seizure and return of stolen artifacts so difficult is that authorities often have no idea what they are looking for, according to Gen. D. Francesco Gargaro, commander of the Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.

“When artifacts are taken from clandestine graves, they have never been cataloged,” he said. That means that, in addition to the items themselves, their historical context was stolen, robbing archaeologists of valuable information. (Instead, investigators work backwards, assessing paperwork and provenance claims for artifacts provided by their owners, as well as undertaking technical tests to best confirm a piece’s true origins.)

Most of the recent items returned to Italy were dug out of clandestine excavations or stolen from churches, museums and private individuals, Gargaro said.

Among the items on display on Tuesday was a cuirass and two bronze heads dating back to the 4th-3rd century BC that were confiscated from a gallery owner in New York.

There was also an Umbrian bronze statue depicting a warrior stolen from an Italian museum in 1962 that was found in a well-known American museum.

And a mosaic floor depicting the myth of Orpheus enchanting wild animals with the sound of the lyre from the mid-3rd to mid-4th century AD was recovered after being stolen from a clandestine excavation in Sicily in the early 1990s. It was confiscated from the private collection of a well-known New York collector.

Italy’s Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection unit uses artificial intelligence to search for stolen cultural assets under a new program called “Stolen Works Of Art Detection System” (SWOADS), which searches for taken items by scanning the web and social media for images.

“The return to Italy of cultural assets of such importance, both for their numerical consistency and for their historical-artistic value, is another significant achievement, Italy’s culture ministry undersecretary Gianmarco Mazzi said Tuesday.

“In addition to being works of art of inestimable value, they represent the high expression of our history, our culture and our national identity.”

In 2023 alone, 105,474 pieces of art worth more than €264 million (or $287 million) were found and confiscated worldwide thanks to the artificial intelligence project, according to Gargaro.

By Barbie Latza Nadeau.

[lushlovers]

hi my love! would you possibly be interested in writing a joe blurb/one shot (whichever fits best) where the reader is alone/at home or something and gets injured and we see some fluffy, lovable panicked joe when he finds out? thank you!!

Who's Cutting Onions, J Burrow

summary; you really wanted to make him something nice but you aren't the most steady-handed...

warnings; mentions of injury with a knife, knives in general, blood, anxious and protective joe, domestic fluff!

word count; 330

note; if anything mentioned in the warnings sounds remotely triggering for you please sit this fic out, i have plenty of others coming out and already available for you to read. that aside, thank you nonnie for the request, i had loads of fun writing it for you:)

Cooking never has been your specialty, but when it comes to impression Joe in any way possible, you're quick to jump to do so, even if it meant preparing something in the kitchen. The counters were covered with the various ingredients needed to make your mom's spaghetti recipe.

Whilst your olive oil was heating in the pan, you chose to start slicing your vegetables for the sauce. Everything was going relatively smoothly until somehow your index finger got in the way. The cut was small but big enough to bleed a significant amount.

"Fuckin' shit," you instinctively shake your hand around manically, trying to soothe the stinging feeling shooting through your finger as you run in the direction of the guest bathroom. The spaghetti is long forgotten now, as your next mission is to search the cabinets for Neosporin and a band-aid.

Once located you turn the sink on and let the warm water wash away any remnants of blood on the wound and quickly follow up with some soap. As you're doing so, Joe's making his way into the house, when he passes the kitchen he sees the oil boiling on the stove and rushes to turn the burner off.

When he notices the knife and blood on the cutting board next to it, his heart skips a beat, "Baby?" he shouts, frantically looking around for you. He hears the water in the guest room running and how you yell back that you're in there, he lets out an exhale that he hadn't realized was trapped in his lungs.

"Are you okay?" He questions, obviously worried, and you want to just kiss him all over his flustered face simply for being him. He's always so protective, especially when it concerns you. "I'm alright, Joey, it was tiny," you smile, stepping up on your toes to kiss his cheek, and using your bandaged finger to pull his lower lip from between his teeth to prevent his nervous gnawing at it.

[communistkenobi]

like other people have said the focus of these protests should always be on Palestine itself because that is the root of this violence. but I’m also just taken aback at seeing department chairs and deans and professors being arrested and fired for supporting these campus encampments because the architecture of western universities is structured to maintain teaching programs & hiring decisions & public images that are welcoming to individual and corporate donors, something that is true broadly but especially in the US. like we don’t get buildings named after oil companies and billionaires on university campuses by accident. obviously this is not the first time western profs have ever engaged in protest and put themselves on the line, but seeing people specifically in positions designed to support that structure - in the United States no less - is kinda flabbergasting, like there has to be a pretty significant amount of rage and discontent for chairs and deans to be willing to risk their incredibly high paying and comfortable jobs to support divestment from israel