#who are all largely wealthy elite

[blackbirds-on-the-marsh]

Every time I get an advertisement for MCU nonsense I remember why I rarely enjoy adaptations.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The true, tactical significance of Project 2025

TODAY (July 14), I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! NEXT SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

Like you, I have heard a lot about Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's roadmap for the actions that Trump should take if he wins the presidency. Given the Heritage Foundation's centrality to the American authoritarian project, it's about as awful and frightening as you might expect:

https://www.project2025.org/

But (nearly) all the reporting and commentary on Project 2025 badly misses the point. I've only read a single writer who immediately grasped the true significance of Project 2025: The American Prospect's Rick Perlstein, which is unsurprising, given Perlstein's stature as one of the left's most important historians of right wing movements:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/

As Perlstein points out, Project 2025 isn't new. The Heritage Foundation and its allies have prepared documents like this, with many identical policy prescriptions, in the run-up to many presidential elections. Perlstein argues that Warren G Harding's 1921 inaugural address captures much of its spirit, as did the Nixon campaign's 1973 vow to "move the country so far to the right 'you won’t even recognize it.'"

The threats to democracy and its institutions aren't new. The right has been bent on their destruction for more than a century. As Perlstein says, the point of taking note of this isn't to minimize the danger, rather, it's to contextualize it. The American right has, since the founding of the Republic, been bent on creating a system of hereditary aristocrats, who govern without "interference" from democratic institutions, so that their power to extract wealth from First Nations, working people, and the land itself is checked only by rivalries with other aristocrats. The project of the right is grounded in a belief in Providence: that God's favor shines on His best creations and elevates them to wealth and power. Elite status is proof of merit, and merit is "that which leads to elite status."

When a wealthy person founds an intergenerational dynasty of wealth and power, this is merely a hereditary meritocracy: a bloodline infused with God's favor. Sometimes, this belief is dressed up in caliper-wielding pseudoscience, with the "good bloodline" reflecting superior genetics and not the favor of the Almighty. Of course, a true American aristocrat gussies up his "race realism" with mystical nonsense: "God favored me with superior genes." The corollary, of course, is that you are poor because God doesn't favor you, or because your genes are bad, or because God punished you with bad genes.

So we should be alarmed by the right's agenda. We should be alarmed at how much ground it has gained, and how the right has stolen elections and Supreme Court seats to enshrine antimajoritarianism as a seemingly permanent fact of life, giving extremist minorities the power to impose their will on the rest of us, dooming us to a roasting planet, forced births, racist immiseration, and most expensive, worst-performing health industry in the world.

But for all that the right has bombed so many of the roads to a prosperous, humane future, it's a huge mistake to think of the right as a stable, unified force, marching to victory after inevitable victory. The American right is a brittle coalition led by a handful of plutocrats who have convinced a large number of turkeys to vote for Christmas.

The right wing coalition needs to pander to forced-birth extremists, racist extremist, Christian Dominionist extremists (of several types), frothing anti-Communist cranks, vicious homophobes and transphobes, etc, etc. Pandering to all these groups isn't easy: for one thing, they often want opposite things – the post-Roe forced birth policies that followed the Dobbs decision are wildly unpopular among conservatives, with the exception of a clutch of totally unhinged maniacs that the party relies on as part of a much larger coalition. Even more unpopular are policies banning birth control, like the ones laid out in Project 2025. Less popular still: the proposed ban on no-fault divorce. Each of these policies have different constituencies to whom they are very popular, but when you put them together, you get Dan Savage's "Husbands you can't leave, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, politicians you can't vote out of office":

https://twitter.com/fakedansavage/status/1805680183065854083

The constituency for "husbands you can't leave, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, politicians you can't vote out of office" is very small. Almost no one in the GOP coalition is voting for all of this, they're voting for one or two of these things and holding their noses when it comes to the rest.

Take the "libertarian" wing of the GOP: its members do favor personal liberty…it's just that they favor low taxes for them more than personal liberty for you. The kind of lunatic who'd vote for a dead gopher if it would knock a quarter off his tax bill will happily allow his coalition partners to rape pregnant women with unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds and force them to carry unwanted fetuses to term if that's the price he has to pay to save a nickel in taxes:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#tolerable-racism

And, of course, the religious maniacs who profess a total commitment to Biblical virtue but worship Trump, Gaetz, Limbaugh, Gingrich, Reagan, and the whole panoply of cheating, lying, kid-fiddling, dope-addled refugees from a Jack Chick tract know that these men never gave a shit about Jesus, the Apostles or the Ten Commandments – but they'll vote for 'em because it will get them school prayer, total abortion bans, and unregulated "home schooling" so they can brainwash a generation of Biblical literalists who think the Earth is 5,000 years old and that Jesus was white and super into rich people.

Time and again, the leaders of the conservative movement prove themselves capable of acts of breathtaking cruelty, and undoubtedly many of them are depraved sadists who genuinely enjoy the suffering of their enemies (think of Trump lickspittle Steven Miller's undisguised glee at the thought of parents who would never be reunited with children after being separated at the border). But it's a mistake to think that "the cruelty is the point." The point of the cruelty is to assemble and maintain the coalition. Cruelty is the tactic. Power is the point:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars

The right has assembled a lot of power. They did so by maintaining unity among people who have irreconcilable ethics and goals. Think of the pro-genocide coalition that includes far-right Jewish ethno-nationalists, antisemitic apocalyptic Christians who believe they are hastening the end-times, and Islamophobes of every description, from War On Terror relics to Hindu nationalists.

This is quite an improbable coalition, and while I deplore its goals, I can't help but be impressed by its cohesion. Can you imagine the kind of behind-the-scenes work it takes to get antisemites who think Jews secretly control the world to lobby with Zionists? Or to get Zionists to work alongside of Holocaust-denying pencilneck Hitler wannabes whose biggest regret is not bringing their armbands to Charlottesville?

Which brings me back to Project 2025 and its true significance. As Perlstein writes, Project 2025 is a mess. Clocking in an 900 pages, large sections of Project 2025 flatly contradict each other, while other sections contain subtle contradictions that you wouldn't notice unless you were schooled in the specialized argot of the far right's jargon and history.

For example, Project 2025 calls for defunding government agencies and repurposing the same agencies to carry out various spectacular atrocities. Both actions are deplorable, but they're also mutually exclusive. Project 2025 demands four different, completely irreconcilable versions of US trade policy. But at least that's better than Project 2025's chapter on monetary policy, which simply lays out every right wing theory of money and then throws up its hands and recommends none of them.

Perlstein says that these conflicts, blank spots and contradictions are the most important parts of Project 2025. They are the fracture lines in the coalition: the conflicting ideas that have enough support that neither side can triumph over the other. These are the conflicts that are so central to the priorities of blocs that are so important to the coalition that they must be included, even though that inclusion constitutes a blinking "LOOK AT ME" sign telling us where the right is ready to split apart.

The right is really good at this. Perlstein points to Nixon's expansion of affirmative action, undertaken to sow division between Black and white workers. We need to get better at it.

So far, we've lavished attention on the clearest and most emphatic proposals in Project 2025 – for understandable reasons. These are the things they say they want to do. It would be reckless to ignore them. But they've been saying things like this for a century. These demands constitute a compelling argument for fighting them as a matter of urgency, with the intention of winning. And to win, we need to split apart their coalition.

Perlstein calls on us to dissect Project 2025, to cleave it at its joints. To do so, he says we need to understand its antecedents, like Nixon's "Malek Manual," a roadmap for destroying the lives of civil servants who failed to show sufficient loyalty to Nixon. For example, the Malek Manual lays out a "Traveling Salesman Technique" whereby a government employee would be given duties "criss-crossing him across the country to towns (hopefully with the worst accommodations possible) of a population of 20,000 or under. Until his wife threatens him with divorce unless he quits, you have him out of town and out of the way":

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Final_Report_on_Violations_and_Abuses_of/0dRLO9vzQF0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22organization+of+a+political+personnel+office+and+program%22&pg=PA161&printsec=frontcover

It's no coincidence that leftist historians of the right are getting a lot of attention. Trumpism didn't come out of nowhere – Trump is way too stupid and undisciplined to be a cause – he's an effect. In his excellent, bestselling new history of the right in the early 1990s, When the Clock Broke, Josh Ganz shows us the swamp that bred Trump, with such main characters as the fascist eugenicist Sam Francis:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374605445/whentheclockbroke

Ganz joins the likes of the Know Your Enemy podcast, an indispensable history of reactionary movements that does excellent work in tracing the fracture lines in the right coalition:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/when-clock-broke-106803105

Progressives are also an uneasy coalition that is easily splintered. As Naomi Klein argues in her essential Doppelganger, the liberal-left coalition is inherently unstable and contains the seeds of its own destruction:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Liberals have been the senior partner in that coalition, and their commitment to preserving institutions for their own sake (rather than because of what they can do to advance human thriving) has produced generations of weak and ineffectual responses to the crises of terminal-stage capitalism, like the idea that student-debt cancellation should be means-tested:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/03/utopia-of-rules/#in-triplicate

The last bid for an American aristocracy was repelled by rejecting institutions, not preserving them. When the Supreme Court thwarted the New Deal, FDR announced his intention to pack the court, and then began the process of doing so (which included no-holds-barred attacks on foot-draggers in his own party). Not for nothing, this is more-or-less what Lincoln did when SCOTUS blocked Reconstruction:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court

But the liberals who lead the progressive movement dismiss packing the court as unserious and impractical – notwithstanding the fact that they have no plan for rescuing America from the bribe-taking extremists, the credibly accused rapist, and the three who stole their robes. Ultimately, liberals defend SCOTUS because it is the Supreme Court. I defended SCOTUS, too – while it was still a vestigial organ of the rights revolution, which improved the lives of millions of Americans. Human rights are worth defending, SCOTUS isn't. If SCOTUS gets in the way of human rights, then screw SCOTUS. Sideline it. Pack it. Make it a joke.

Fuck it.

This isn't to argue for left seccession from the progressive coalition. As we just saw in France, splitting at this moment is an invitation to literal fascist takeover:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/melenchon-macron-france-left-winner

But if there's one thing that the rise of Trumpism has proven, it's that parties are not immune to being wrestled away from their establishment leaderships by radical groups:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

What's more, there's a much stronger natural coalition that the left can mobilize: workers. Being a worker – that is, paying your bills from wages, instead of profits – isn't an ideology you can change, it's a fact. A Christian nationalist can change their beliefs and then they will no longer be a Christian nationalist. But no matter what a worker believes, they are still a worker – they still have a irreconcilable conflict with people whose money comes from profits, speculation, or rents. There is no objectively fair way to divide the profits a worker's labor generates – your boss will always pay you as little of that surplus as he can. The more wages you take home, the less profit there is for your boss, the fewer dividends there are for his shareholders, and the less there is to pay to rentiers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer

Reviving the role of workers in their unions, and of unions in the Democratic party, is the key to building the in-party power we need to drag the party to real solutions – strong antimonopoly action, urgent climate action, protections for gender, racial and sexual minorities, and decent housing, education and health care.

The alternative to a worker-led Democratic Party is a Democratic Party run by its elites, whose dictates and policies are inescapably illegitimate. As Hamilton Nolan writes, the completely reasonable (and extremely urgent) discussion about Biden's capacity to defeat Trump has been derailed by the Democrats' undemocratic structure. Ultimately, the decision to have an open convention or to double down on a candidate whose campaign has been marred by significant deficits is down to a clutch of party officials who operate without any formal limits or authority:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-hole-at-the-heart-of-the-democratic

Jettisoning Biden because George Clooney (or Nancy Pelosi) told us to is never going to feel legitimate to his supporters in the party. But if the movement for an open convention came from grassroots-dominated unions who themselves dominated the party – as was the case, until the Reagan revolution – then there'd be a sense that the party had constituents, and it was acting on its behalf.

Reviving the labor movement after 40 years of Reaganomic war on workers may sound like a tall order, but we are living through a labor renaissance, and the long-banked embers of labor radicalism are reigniting. What's more, repelling fascism is what workers' movements do. The business community will always sell you out to the Nazis in exchange for low taxes, cheap labor and loose regulation.

But workers, organized around their class interests, stand strong. Last week, we lost one of labor's brightest flames. Jane McAlevey, a virtuoso labor organizer and trainer of labor organizers, died of cancer at 57:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/jane-mcalevey-strategy-organizing-obituary

McAlevey fought to win. She was skeptical of platitudes like "speaking truth to power," always demanding an explanation for how the speech would become action. In her classic book A Collective Bargain, she describes how she built worker power:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

McAlevey helped organize a string of successful strikes, including the 2019 LA teachers' strike. Her method was straightforward: all you have to do to win a strike or a union drive is figure out how to convince every single worker in the shop to back the union. That's all.

Of course, it's harder than it sounds. All the problems that plague every coalition – especially the progressive liberal/left coalition – are present on the shop floor. Some workers don't like each other. Some don't see their interests aligned with others. Some are ornery. Some are convinced that victory is impossible.

McAlevey laid out a program for organizing that involved figuring out how to reach every single worker, to converse with them, listen to them, understand them, and win them over. I've never read or heard anyone speak more clearly, practically and inspirationally about coalition building.

Biden was never my candidate. I supported three other candidates ahead of him in 2020. When he got into office and started doing a small number of things I really liked, it didn't make me like him. I knew who he was: the Senator from MBNA, whose long political career was full of bills, votes and speeches that proved that while we might have some common goals, we didn't want the same America or the same world.

My interest in Biden over the past four years has had two areas of focus: how can I get him to do more of the things that will make us all better off, and do less of the things that make the world worse. When I think about the next four years, I'm thinking about the same things. A Trump presidency will contain far more bad things and far fewer good ones.

Many people I like and trust have pointed out that they don't like Biden and think he will be a bad president, but they think Trump will be much worse. To limit Biden's harms, leftists have to take over the Democratic Party and the progressive movement, so that he's hemmed in by his power base. To limit Trump's harms, leftists have to identify the fracture lines in the right coalition and drive deep wedges into them, shattering his power base.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

[lordofdestructionm]

Wick Sable

The odd duck in the guilded cage

Despite this being a feral Mordecai and Viktor account I do occasionally like to dig into the others.

Wick is a character Lackadaisy fans love but don't talk about very much. He just the rich friendly geologist with a love of illicit beverages and a crush on Mitzi. Indeed he is all those things. But I want to dig a little into what may be hidden depth (geography joke haha)

Professional dissatisfaction

When we first meet Wick he is behind his desk looking very tired and beaten down. Forcing himself to keep working late into the night with excessive coffee. Attending to a large pile of paper work for tomorrow.

His expression shifts slightly when he sees the Lackadaisy pins fall out of the envelope and realises the letter is an invitation to him (and his fellow aristocrats) to the speakeasy.

This hatred of paper work and the administrative side of his business is a recurring issue for Wick. Making the reason for his reliance on the capable and attentive Lacy very obvious. Exhaustian and too much alchohol are no doubt partly to blame, but it seems to be something that puts him in a very depressed state of mind.

But when actually on the job, overseeing the hands on work of blasting a new quarry, his mood is much more positive. Indeed he has a very real and sincere love for geology and the nitty gritty work of his business. When he first went to the Lackadaisy he was spellbound by the lime caverns themselves as much by Mitzi's charm.

Its his special interest and he will go on long unprompted monologues on the topic if given the chance. Meaning it is specifically the being trapped in his office dealing with the red tape that makes him so unhappy not the industry itself.

Its almost sad that he is the one in charge of the company rather than in a role that puts him closer to the action which seems to bring him real joy. Like someone who loves cooking being in charge of a restuarant or someone that loves drawing running an animation studio.

They love the product/industry but that doesn't mean they enjoy their specific place in it.

Unimpressed Peers

Despite Wicks enthusiasm it proves not be infectious with his fellow elite, who complain about being dragged out of town to watch something, that while very important to Wick, they clearly could not care less about (even not that quietly mocking him and his love for rocks and construction)

When the evening doesn't go to plan due to the uninvited pig farmers Wick has an interesting exchange with Edmund Church, seemingly the most prominent of the St Louis upper crust in the group. Warning him about getting any more involved with an unsavoury crowd, especially Mitzi, outside of simply enjoying the occasional drink.

Wick doesn't take kindly to the snarky criticism and borderline threat to his reputation and responds with a much more direct statement on his peers sour nature

Tracy has mentioned that Church has a role yet to play in the story and it seems safe to assume from this it may well involve Wick in a less than friendly way if he continues to associate with his "lessers" as Church and the others see things.

Despite needing to remain on civil terms to keep them invested in his business, Wick clearly has little love for them, a feeling that is mutual as they have little respect for him and see him as an oddball, only tolerating him because his talent in his field can help make them a tidy profit.

But while he doesn't appreciate Church's sniping Wick IS concerned about his reputation, but not entirely for his own sake or that of his elitist associates, but for the many people who rely on him for employment, who could be hurt by extension of he gets pulled too deep into the less than repectable world of bootlegging

Romantic life

Outside of the crush he has had on Mitzi since first meeting her at the Speakeasy, we have very little information about Wicks love life before this. Being a handsome and wealthy gentleman from a good family, you would think he would he fighting women off with a stick, maybe even be a bit of a playboy.

Instead you get the impression Wick is pretty far away from being a ladies man. Mentioning to Mitzi that he doesn't even really know how to talk to women unless its about rocks, bugs or limestone.

He is clearly attracted to her and is tempted by her to risk his reputation and by extension his business to get closer to her, but so far his fear of the very real consequences are deterring him from taking that gamble.

Though there is that personal aspect to it, it seems that in a more abstract sense Mitzi's appeal to Wick is not just in her beauty and seductive personality, but in the excitement and thrill of her Speakeasy and bootlegging operations.

In that sense Mitzi represents that touch of danger and excitement that during prohibition many otherwise law abiding citizens enjoyed indulging in illegal drinking establishments. Being* just* naughty enough to give them a fun thrill while being detached from the more brutal blood soaked aspects.

Wick is a good natured person (the worst thing he has done is shoot a duck in his youth which he was forced to do) living a very "respectable" life, but that makes the superficial glamour of the world of underground drinking establishments and secret booze stashes even more appealing. Thats why despite his concerns and responsibilities he keeps going back ,not just to Mitzi, but to the Lackadaisy specifically. It has pretty geography, a pretty owner, and an open door to a more exciting avenue of life

Its for that same reason he doesn't seem to be overly uncomfortable with lovable bi disaster Zib flirting with him at the bar. He may have no intention of reciprocating, but it couldn't be a more different experience to the world he is used to

Even if he doesn't yet want to take the full plunge it all excites him enough to keep him circling the edges.

Because despite having so much going for him there are things about his life that not only bore him but make him unhappy. Whether its piles of paperwork, dealing with much stuffier "conventional" fellow aristocrats and not wanting to be like them, or just a general lack of true passion in his life, he is clearly a man looking for something more satisfying

Whether or not he remains a "tourist" or decides to take that gamble, throw his reservations to the wind, and take a more active role in the gang, is yet to be seen...

Assuming Rocky doesn't set fire to him first of course XD

[dcxdpdabbles]

thought: what if jason had the ability to see ghosts but only when tired. so he ends up thinking he’s hallucinating and doesn’t tell anyone because thats tims thing

There is a little girl singing nursery rhythms and spinning in small circles. Now usually, Jason wouldn't find that too out of place. Kids always found the strangest things entertaining.

No, what was strange was that the little girl was floating just above the rails of the stairway. She looks like a poorly edited clip slapped onto the backdrop of the gala he has been dragged to.

She's wearing a red dress and a large bow in her hair that seems to have been stolen from Alice on her way to Wonderland. Her skin had a greenish hue, and a slight glow was coming off her, reminding Jason of a miniature night light.

"Huh," He mumbles, taking another sip of the water he picked up. Bruce is the one who pretends to get sloppy drunk at all the parties, while in comparison, Jason has gained a reputation for never touching alcohol. It says a lot about how powerful the Waynes are if his presence ensures the hosts have other refreshments ready for him.

This means that the little girl is not a drunken hallucination. Maybe he's more tired than he thought.

"What is it?" Tim asks to his side. His disgusting CEO smile is still firmly in place, a twist of the lips that belie the hidden tension. Tim would appear relaxed and enjoying the party like any other elite if anyone glanced in their direction. "Trouble?"

The little girl is sticking her tongue out at some teenagers heading her way. She's not doing anything but making faces at random guests that walk by. "I don't think so."

"What is it then?"

Jason had a choice here. He could mention the little girl, but that would mean admitting he could see her. Based on the way, literally, no one is reacting; he's the only one that can.

She's likely another hallucination.

Jason has been getting those since he was young, usually due to a lack of sleep. Just last week, he saw a butcher wandering the streets of Gotham, wearing the highest heels he had ever seen. That had been after the five-day mission with the OutLaws, where he thinks he only had a chance to sleep maybe three times.

He should go home before the little girl starts doing something weird.

Not that he would ever let the rest of the family know, especially Tim. Seeing things that aren't there is Tim's thing, and Jason has teased him too often over the years about it to start admitting he's got the condition too.

He nods his head at the teenagers. Tim turns his body slightly, allowing his gaze to take in what he's looking at without making it obvious he's staring. Apparently, he can't make it known he's interested in someone. Ugh, another rule of high society that Jason will never bother to understand. "I've never seen them before."

He means the two accompany Samatha Manson. He's aware of the inventor's granddaughter, seeing as her family had ties with the Waynes, distant as they may be. It was Waynes who bought the rights to her grandfather's inventions many years ago, and his son was the one that started investing in some smaller shell companies of Waynes, further building the family fortune.

Jason didn't see her often at galas because while the Mansons were wealthy, they were new money. They had no connections, mannerisms, or mindset to be welcomed by the elites.

"Daniel Fenton and Tucker Foley. Foley is in the brown suit, Fenton is the one in the black one." Tim identifies quickly. He probably went over the gala invitation guest list to memorize everyone attending even though it wasn't a gala they were hosting. "Her best friends. Nothing that stands out too much about them except for Fenton. His parents are independent ghost hunters and researchers."

Jason blinks down at this brother. "Ghost hunters?"

Both brothers know how real ghosts can be in their line of work, seeing as Deadman has helped them with some cases before. Still, it's surprising to find civilians who are that close to the undead.

"More Ghostbusters than actual hunters." Tim shrugs when he gets a confused frown. "I looked into them to make sure Fenton over there wouldn't be a danger once in Gotham. His parents' inventions are marketed as ghost-hunting equipment but are authentic weapons. He's been known to show signs of rouge potential behavior."

Jason looks back at the black hair boy who is......talking to the little girl? Or trying to? She is spinning again, floating up to the chandelier, not caring for the teenage boy leaning over the railing towards her as Foley and Manson stand guard. If they trying to be inconspicuous, they are doing a poor job.

Jason spots Damian approaching the trio with a tense set of his shoulders. His youngest brother taps his finger against the glass in his hand in a specific rhythm.

If any of the Bats have seen Damian- which is all of them, given that everyone in the family always keeps an eye on Damian at galas- they have all been told the same message.

Possible jumper.

Granted, without the little girl, it looks like Fenton wants to take a leap over the railing. That's worrying.

Tim proves this by tilting his chin slightly in their direction, shoulders also tense. "Let's go."

Jason follows after Tim, trying his best to not make it obvious they are freaking out about a possible tragedy about to happen. Damian, thankfully, has already reached the teenagers but is stalled by Manson.

He can't hear what she's saying, but she's matching Damian's angry scowl with her own. Seeing the only two goth kids standing off with each other is hilarious.

Damian had told Bruce a few months back that he wanted to try and change his civilian persona a bit and had taken their dad's credit card with Raven to do shopping.

He's come back as a goth, giving Bruce a near heart attack, as Damian changed out all his suits to have a scull somewhere on his person at all times. Jason thought it was the best cover plan the brat could have ever done.

Mason's right eye twitches when she sees them, but other than glaring harshly, she doesn't say anything as they come up to stand behind Damian. Tim is in the perfect place to sludge for Fenton should the boy throw himself over. Jason is to tackle the two teenagers should they try to stop his brother.

"Dude, it's okay. Danny always does that," Foley assures as they finally climb up to them. "He's really into, ugh, parkour."

"It's dangerous," Damian particularly bites. Looks like someone needs more sensitive training.

Fenton stops trying to lean over the rail to glance over his shoulder to Damian. "I'm okay. Thank you for worrying about me, though."

Jason is standing in the prime location to see Damian's haughty expression melt away into startled wonder. He watches a tiny bit of red appear on the cheekbones of his youngest brother, and for a moment, all Jason can think is how much he will have fun teasing the boy later.

Gosh, if he wasn't so tired he would realize he wasn't the only one who noticed.

"He's red like a tomato!" A feminine voice chirps, and he can't help but laugh at the comment. Damian's face is slowly turning redder by the curious head tilt Fenton does in his direction. Cute.

"You got that right, kiddo, so red he's ripe for the picking. " Jason smirks down at his brother, who, for his part, dares to look confused.

"What are you babbling about?" Damian snaps as Tim's intense eyes swing over the boy's head to lock gazes with Jason.

"What the girl said"

"I didn't say anything," Manson denies, and Jason finally realizes he has responded to the little girl, who is grinning ear from ear. Shit.

"Oh." Fenton nods, stepping down the railing to look Jason dead in the eye and smile. "You see dead people."

"Cool, one of us. One of us." Foley chants with a grin, and even Mason seems to relax more, going from irritated to indifferent. The teenager stops his chat when the three brothers fail to find humor.

Danny just smiles near-vacantly, which causes Damian to look hot under the collar.

Maybe Jason should leave to take a nap in the safety of his room because he does not have the time to unpack all of this.

"Maybe we should find Bruce," Tim says after a moment, and that is when the little girl choices to fly right up to Tim and flick his ear. Tim startles so hard he slams into Damian, who loses his footing and falls over. Jason is fast enough to catch him before he rolls down the stairs.

Danny giggles, and for the first time since he's known Damian, he looks like he wants the ground to swallow him hole. What a weird night for Jason.

"What the hell was that?" Tim mumbles, looking around.

Manson grins a sharp, wicked thing. "A ghost"

"Of course it is." Tim sighs then he gives Jason a near-eye glare. "How long have you been able to see ghosts?"

"Honestly? Probably since I was six. I thought they were hallucinations."

"And why did you not tell anyone about having what you thought were lifelong hallucinations?"

"I'm not you. Hallucinations are your weird thing. Mine are guns."

"I like them," Fenton announces, and the other two finally step back. Only then does he come to the startling observation that Manson and Feley had been acting like bodyguards by placing themselves between Fenton and the Waynes?

What a strange night indeed.

"Todd, let me up!"

[vigilskeep]

the basics of tevinter politics and social classes, as laid out in world of thedas and a little elsewhere

the archon is the supreme ruler of the imperium. their authority and magical power is believed to be divinely granted. they choose their successors before they die, so they are usually the sons, nephews, brothers, cousins, or apprentices of previous archons. (this phrasing implies that, like the black divine, the archon is always a man, and certainly the several named ones we know all are, but i’m not sure if this is necessarily always true.) if an archon does not choose his heir before he dies, the magisterium elects the next; these candidates cannot be magisters or hold rank in the chantry. technically the archon can overrule the laws passed by the magisterium, but he rarely does this. his power mostly stems from families vying for his favour, as he has the unique power to appoint magisters at will. a man named radonis is the current archon; he’s appeared in comics and a war table mission.

the magisterium are the mage elites who regularly gather to govern the imperium and pass laws. magisters become magisters in several ways:

one is chosen from each of tevinter’s seven circles of magi. it cannot be that circle’s first enchanter

the imperial divine and every grand cleric of the imperial chantry gets a seat

magisters can inherit seats

as i mentioned, the archon has the right to appoint any new magister if he chooses

tevinter society breaks down into four major social classes.

the first mage class is the altus class. these are descended from the original “Dreamers”, through ancient and wealthy magical bloodlines. most magisters come from altus families. characters like dorian and danarius belong to this class.

other mages belong to the laetan class. these are mages who cannot trace their ancestry to the dreamers, and may belong to families with no history of magic at all. many vie for power despite their origins, and one third of the imperium’s archons have been laetans. (the first laetan to rise to archon was such an outrage it caused a seventy year civil war, but that was, like, 1500 years ago-ish. they’re more chill about it now.) it feels safe to assume that neve gallus, who says in tevinter nights that she doesn’t feel at home in a wealthy estate because she has more templars in her family than mages, probably belongs to this class.

the soporati are non-mages who are still full tevinter citizens. they are allowed to own property and serve in the military, but they cannot have a direct say in government or rise above the rank of mother/father in the chantry. they can however be civil servants and merchants. a mage born to a soporati family is instantly a laetan.

slaves are not allowed to own property, or to hold military rank even when armed and serving as a personal soldier or bodyguard. they have become a more even mix of humans and elves since andraste’s time. mages can be slaves. if a slave is set free, either by their living owner before a judge or by their owner’s will upon their death, they are considered liberati. liberati are still not citizens and cannot have political say or hold military rank, but they can join a circle of magi, get an apprenticeship in a trade, take apprentices themselves, and own property. fenris was a slave, while his sister varania was implied to have become one of the liberati.

there is also a large surface dwarf population in tevinter. they are not considered citizens, but instead regarded as foreign dignitaries however many generations their families have lived in tevinter. they have large embassies in every major tevinter city, which at least in minrathous, neromenian, and qarinus are completely subterranean, meaning residents can retain their dwarven caste and may never come above ground all their lives. minrathous’ close ties to the dwarves mean it even has a massive proving grounds, as well as enormous stone golems known as juggernauts to guard the city gates. more than anywhere else in thedas, the dwarves do get a political say, with an elected body of representatives called the ambassadoria who advise the archon and the magisterium. it’s the imperium’s reliance on lyrium which gives them this kind of sway.

[racefortheironthrone]

What differs a Bronze Age Monarchy from a Feudal or Modern State Monarchy? For whatever reson I have always been given the impression that Bronze Age Monarchy is the ancient version of either the former or the later, but that does not sound right.

Yeah, that would be a major misconception.

Bronze Age monarchies:

were far more centralized than medieval monarchies, with large, year-round palace complexes that functioned not just as fortresses but also as judicial centers, religious centers, storehouses, state planning apparati, and so on. To operate all these various functions, they employed a large bureaucracy that had, if not a monopoly, something of an oligopoly, on literacy, numeracy, and higher learning.

were highly involved in planning the economy, from organizing irrigation and other labor-intensive farming practices to keeping detailed records on production and taxation to coordinating the complex network of international trade that regulated the flow of both key commodities like tin but also luxury goods.

had more of a monopoly on military force, especially when it came to elite units like chariots. Training an archer and a driver to work in unison with a team of horses specifically bred to the task and custom chariots was a long and expensive process that only a monarch could provide the necessary surplus food and other resources for.

were not Christian. I can't stress enough how important this was as a structural force - Bronze Age monarchs did not have to deal with a large, European-wide, literate bureaucracy, with immense cultural power, that owned more land than they did. This isn't to say that there was no interaction between the temples and the state - I've talked recently about the tendency of Bronze Age monarchs to either be god-kings or priest-kings - but that the terms of interaction between the two much more heavily favored the state.

By contrast, medieval monarchies - and I'm aware that the term is something of a moving target, because what it meant to be a king in CE 600 is very different from what it means in CE 1100 or CE 1600 - were:

decentralized. They had small, peripatetic courts, and initially almost no bureaucracy. Governing power was much more broadly distributed down to the regional and local level through feudal contracts, and it was a long and very fraught process for the monarchs to gradually wrestle that power back.

much less engaged in the economy. Aside from tariffs and monetary policy, which is important, you don't really see medieval monarchs telling peasants when to plow and which fields (outside of the monarch's own personal fiefs), because that was an interference with the decentralized manorial system. You see fewer and smaller building projects, in no small part because the monarch usually couldn't afford to do them.

had less of a monopoly on violence. While the feudal exchange was supposed to give kings military service in exchange for land, in practice feudal levies could be slow to form, quick to disperse, and very fractious about their terms of service. This meant in practice that the nobility could exercise more hard power than their nominal overlords, which is why noble revolts were a common feature. Similarly, it took a long time for the monarchs to establish the necessary fiscal architecture for assembling professional armies and then eventually turning those professional armies into standing armies and then eventually turning those armies against the nobility - and by that point, we're not really talking about the Medieval period any more.

were Christian. And while there could certainly be exceptions of Emperors who picked Popes (instead of the other way around) or kings who could weirdly judo-flip their piety into Galician-style control of their national church, over time the pendulum definitely swung in favor of the Church having more power than any one monarch. They were wealthy, their wealth tended to grow over time because they were a corporate institution that invested their profits back into the company, they had huge amounts of cultural power, they had huge amounts of political power, and so on.

[batmanlovesnirvana]

One thing I love about the Reeves universe is how realistic it is that the Riddler has a fanbase, even after his arrest.

His plan was basically a French Revolution, but with a flood instead of guillotines—taking down Gotham’s elite while exposing their dirty secrets.

Naturally, he’d attract followers. This is Gotham, after all, a city drowning in poverty where people despise the rich.

It’s no surprise that a guy like him would resonate with the downtrodden; he became a symbol of rebellion against the corrupt elite.

But let’s be real—his motivations weren’t about helping the poor or the miserable. It was all about his pure, unfiltered hatred for one specific family: the Waynes.

He cleverly capitalized on the anger and frustration of the masses to position himself as a champion of the oppressed, manipulating his followers to serve his own ego and vendetta.

While he may have painted himself as a revolutionary hero, his true agenda was personal. At the end of the day, his rebellion was less about uplifting the downtrodden and more about settling scores. It’s classic Riddler—crafty and cunning, using the guise of a noble cause to mask his true motivations.

His followers may have believed they were part of a movement for change, but they were just pawns in his game, and he reveled in the chaos he created. As much as he might have claimed to represent the people, his actions were ultimately driven by a thirst for revenge, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

The cost of his actions was far too high for the very people he pretended to fight for. It’s not just the Riddler feeling this way, either. There’s the guy at the funeral who lost his daughter, the crowd protesting at the mayor’s service, and even Selina, who basically said he wasn’t wrong…

The only people who didn’t agree with him? The rich, the cops, and the mob—because, surprise 😧, it messed with their money and their plans.

After the flood though, the Riddler’s follower count likely started to dwindle. His grand plan didn’t exactly help the poor folks of Gotham.

The flood mostly left their neighborhoods wrecked, with many people either dying or going missing, while the wealthy areas remained largely intact.

His motives may have seemed noble in theory, the execution? Not so much.

[memescomicswriting]

It's Nice to Have a Friend

Chapter 1: I Got Waisted Like All My Potential

Summary: Fate is cruel on how it goes about obtaining its desires. It must be fate, because there is no other explanation for how perfectly molded Y/N and Helaena are to one another. They complement one another like opposite sides of a coin. Where Helaena is shy, Y/N is outgoing. Helaena has a photographic memory. Y/N has emotional inteligence. They have the right temperament to be the missing piece in one another’s lives. Ying and Yang. Then there are the boys. Love them or hate them, they’re there. Even the adults cannot escape the Targaryen chaos, and the fallout doesn’t spare the minors simply because they’re adolescents. Follow how Y/N and those around her carve out lives for themselves amongst the weight of the Targaryen legacy in a modern Westeros.

Word Count 3.3k

Pairings: Aegon x Y/N, Aemond xY/N, hints of Jace x Y/N, Platonic! Helaena x Y/N, Father Figure! Harwin x Y/N, Mother Figure! Rhaneyra x Y/N, Mother Figure! Alicent x Y/N

Warnings: 18+ you’ve been warned

Lots of profanity, sexual innuendos, drug and alcohol use, boys being stupid jerks, infidelity, divorce, eventual smut

A/N: Chapters drop on Thursdays. Please, please, please, please share your thoughts. I wanna hear them. I don't bite, promise!

Sereies Masterlist

Thinking back on her adolescence, Y/N divided it into two parts: the quiet time and the time she never had a moment alone. The first ten years of her life were spent as a privileged vagabond. She learned how to read airport terminal maps before she mastered her multiplication tables. It was a unique childhood, but she knew what it meant to be loved and understood that she was cared for. 

Her mother was of Valyrian descent, old money, the old country. Her father’s family accumulated wealth as members of the merchant class. They weren’t nuevo riche as their status elevated  almost two centuries prior, yet nothing could compare to the ancient sway of Old Valeryian wealth. Though the empire came and went, those who could trace their ancestry back to the old lords were in the stratosphere of high society.

Her parents met as most wealthy couples do, through mutual friends. They attended the same college and shared a similar spark. Neither enjoyed the formalities of the elite. They preferred the country to the city, gardening to garden parties, but their lifestyle could never be described as rustic. Oh how the rich love to play pretend poor. Through her mother’s side, she inherited vast real estate holdings across the globe. Through her father, she inherited large shares in corporations the family had a hand in founding. Not to mention a comfortable lump sum in the bank. Yes, she was an heiress and for the large part of her minority she never fully grasped that.

Harwin did the best he could. When you agree to be the godfather of your best friend’s kid, you don’t expect to take on the role as it originally meant. He went from a semi bachelor to a girl dad and an orphan within a few hours. The fire marshal could never say with certainty what caused the Harrenhal Estate fire. His brother Larys escaped by being out for the night. Harwin escaped because he had caught Y/N up and out of bed. Back then he was just the fun uncle. He was the gentle giant that would flip her in the air and sneak her sweats. If he hadn’t woken up to her rustling and escorted her to the kitchens in the opposite wing, then they would have perished as well. Harwin tried to go back for his Father and Y/N’s parents, but when the flames reached the bar and all that old barrel booze there was no chance. Floors were caving in and beams falling.

When the CPS officer asked who Y/N’s next of kin were, the answer was Harwin. It was the summer holiday before her first year of middle school. She was left with her belongings from her parent’s penthouse and the guest room at Harwin’s apartment. It wasn’t an easy transition in the least. Y/N didn’t know what sedentary meant. She hadn’t stayed in one location longer than six months. Harwin, though very paternal, didn’t know how to parent a child 24/7. So he went to the one person who did, Rhaenyra.

Y/N had met Rhaenyra several times throughout her prior life. She’d introduced Y/N’s parents and Harwin. Y/N even joined in the family fun of one or two holiday seasons. Her reintroduction to Rhaenyra and her family marked the end of the quiet times. Going from the luxuries of an only child to one of eight adjacent children was an adjustment for sure. She never knew what it meant to share toys and games, to have someone walk into your space at any given moment on a whim, or not have everyone’s full attention by merely being present. Later, she’d come to appreciate how it forced personal growth on her. In the moment, she reacted by being a bit of a brat.

Over time she became accustomed to common space, sharing the spotlight, the fights, always making extra snacks, and the freedom that sedentary life brought. She could bike all over, something she hadn’t done before. Those whom she met the day prior she could continue to see for months, years on end. She learned what it meant to be amongst peers and the wondrous secrets of sisterhood. It certainly made high school bearable.

Another night, another summer party Helaena didn’t want to attend. That was fine with Y/N. She hated seeing Helaena uncomfortable and Helaena’s absence didn’t mean she’d be alone. She had many friends, many more acquaintances. She wasn’t the kind of popular person that climbed their way up the social ladder by having the right clothes, posting the right things, or the viciousness to pull others beneath her. No, she just was. She was kind and good humored. It didn’t hurt that she had Valyrian money and beauty.

Helaena didn’t want to go. If she brought Jace and Rhaenyra or Harwin suspected anything, he’d cave into their questioning. Aemond wasn’t an avid party goer. And Aegon, Aegon was grounded, again. His mother had been harsher on him as of late. The stress of her failing marriage manifested in a need to tightly control her kids- despite her eldest going into college, two in high school, and the youngest in middle school. Better caught by Alicent who’d never assumed Y/N was up to no good than another episode of awkward parenting by Rhaenyra.

The party was across the lake from the patriarch Targaryen residence. It wasn’t a secret that the children of the elite enjoyed a party now and again in the woods that made estate borders indistinguishable. So long as they weren’t too loud or too rambunctious, no one went looking for them. However, someone, probably a Baratheon or Florent, didn’t realize that you couldn’t replace your parent’s two-hundred dollar bottle of imported vodka with water. It would freeze. So this go around, some estate security guards were dispatched to break up the party. After all, calling law enforcement could mean a charge of underage drinking. Either way, the partiers saw flashlights and scrammed in every direction like cockroaches when you turn on overhead lights.

The path to Y/N’s house took her right past the guards. The scenic route was too far and it was too late. She was also tipsy. Who’s residence happened to be a shoreline walk away? Conveniently, her best friend’s. She’d snuck into the Targaryen house countless times. She practically lived there throughout Rhaenyra and Laenor’s divorce. Rhaenyra’s half siblings were just as guilty for sneaking into her house. Early on an agreement was made. Only one household could be in turmoil at a time. The kids needed some place to escape.

So there she was, Y/N, once again using a column to climb to the roof of the porch. From the porch roof she could reach a lower balcony. Sometimes, she could sneak in that route. If it was a calm night and everyone was where she expected them to be, she could enter into the second floor den and sneak up the stairs to Helaena’s room. This wasn’t one of those nights. Light peered through the door blinds. Either Alicent or Viserys was up nursing a drink after yet another fight. Y/N had to quickly and quietly dart across that balcony to reach another. A great thing about being rich and owning gated property; you needn’t worry about how someone could scale your house and break in.

On the balcony roof, in one direction was Helaena’s room. In the other, Aegon’s. Normally, Y/N had no problem making it to her destination, However, tonight she had been drinking and her balance was off. The thought that she shouldn’t be climbing roofs had crossed her mind, but in her state, the cost benefit analysis seemed reasonable. Her foot shifted under a loose shingle and slipped down to catch on a gutter rail. She froze, eyes wide, wondering if the noise was loud enough to arouse suspicion. After all, a means of entrance was also a means of escape. That was more of Alicent’s priority. Quickly, at the realization that the music stopped, Y/N reached out an arm and hoisted herself up to the nearest window. It was unlocked, thank the gods, and she scurried in before the balcony doors could open.

She wasn’t exactly graceful. She was in a rush and intoxicated. She came tumbling into the room like a child at their first gymnastics lesson. She snorted laughter at her grand entrance. Her head threw back as her laughter grew. She’d definitely bruise, but that was a problem for later. Her laughter came to a sudden end when she was admonishingly hissed at.

“What the hells are you doing?” Aegon exclaimed as much as he could in a whisper. He was in bed, under the covers shirtless. His hair was in a wild state and his eyes were rimmed like he had just seen a ghost or had a heart attack. Y/N began giggling at the sight and situation. “My mother’s going to kill me thinking I’m trying to sneak out while grounded!”

“Don’t worry,” Y/N reassured while wiping tears of laughter. “There was music downstairs so it was probably Viserys. Alicent’s probably on the other end of the building sulking in her room.”

Aegon ran his hands down his face stretching his skin. “They’re fighting again.”

“I know.” She confirmed with a hum. There she was on the ground, legs out in front of her, back against the wall. She was a sight to behold in only her sandals and a barely covering bathing suit cover. A fantasy that definitely came across Aegon’s teenage male mind. No matter how much she got under his skin. Maybe because of it.

“Well go on then. You’ve gotten in, now get out.” He waved to the door.

Y/N tilted her head and examined him as he was. A Cheshire cat's smile beamed across her face. Under the covers, no shirt, hands sneaking back under the fabric. As if reading her mind, Aegon began to protest. “No, Y/n I swear to the gods!”

Too late. Y/N had hopped onto the bed like a predator would its prey. “Whatcha doing there, Aegon.” She hummed out with emphasis on his name. She tried to snatch the covers, but he beat her to it. Trying to catch the other compromised. A long running pastime for the pair.

“Praying.” He deadpanned.

“Bullshit.”

“Trying to sleep.”

“Nah, try again.”

“Would you just take your dumbass out of here?” He was getting pissy. She liked him pissy. If she wasn’t making him pissy then he was making her pissy.

She grinned that feline grin once more as she shook her head.

“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” He sounded exasperated by her presence.

“Nuh uh.” She shook her head fervently.

“Yeah huh.” He retorted.

“Fine,” She blew out an exhale. “I may have had a drink or two out by the lake.”

“The party Dane junior organized?”

“The very one you sadly missed.”

“That’s such bullshit.” He crossed his arms with a disagreeable pout. “I get grounded for taking the car out on a midnight snack run. Meanwhile, Harwin and Rhaenyra probably think you’re off in bed. Even if they catch you missing they’ll just assume you’re with Helaena.”

“Sucks to suck.” She said with a teasing shrug.

“Fuck you.” He scoffed back.

“That’s probably what you were just dreaming of.” There began another laugh of giggles.

“I fucking hate you.” He grumbled, very annoyed.

Y/N rolled her eyes dramatically. “Hate to love me. Love to hate me. Now come on.” With that, a bag of gummies magically appeared from between her breasts. How she hid them, he did not know but for sure wanted to find out.

“Get dressed and eat an edible with me.” She offered up the bag.

“How in the seven hells did a devil like you end up best friends with my Septa of a sister?” His gaze was wildly aggressive.

“Fine, fine. I’ll turn around and give you privacy.” She mocked.

Aegon took the opportunity and slipped his joggers back on. He knew if he protested she’d only retaliate and he’d be fighting her off.

“And your sister isn’t a Septa. She’s just not interested in being a whore like you. If you’d been there I’d be the only female you haven’t defiled in one form or another.”

He scooted up to the end of the bed next to her. “Huh, you’d be so lucky.” He plucked a gummy out of the bag and tossed it into his mouth. She might annoy him, but he wasn’t going to pass up free drugs.

“Where’d you get these anyway?”

“The Martell’s just got back from Lys.” She hummed.

“Of course they did. So I should’ve taken half.”

“I don’t know. Let’s find out.” With a shrug, she took one herself.

There they laid. Two semi-delinquent teenagers entertained by the ceiling fan. Aegon’s head was laying on Y/N’s stomach while she played with his hair. It was comforting. No one was this gentle with him anymore. His mother stopped long ago. Helaena was never interested in physical contact, even that of familiar or platonic. Aegon never stayed around long enough for one of his many hook ups to be tender. He’d get a hug from his older sister every now and again, but it was more of one of those pat on the back half hugs. No, it was only on rare occasions when he and Y/N were getting along. She allowed him to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her close. She’d run her delicate fingers over his scalp and trace patterns on his chest and cheek.

They’d stay like that for hours; until they heard someone approaching or one needed to sneak off into a respectable bedroom. There was a rarely spoken of companionship between them. Each made to grow up before they were ready. Smacked by the world. Both had ruined a marriage.

They had been silent for quite a while. Aegon was fiddling with the fingers of her free hand. A crease formed between his brows in curiosity. “Why didn’t you bring Jace or Aemond?”

Y/N tutted with humor. It was a common question between the two. If not Helaena, why not trust someone else? “Jace can’t have any fun without getting caught or ratting on himself. And Aemond wouldn’t have gone.”

Aegon turned his head to give her that questioning look. “Oh yes he would’ve.”

“Aemond? Our Aemond? Who only tolerates the majority of our peers and turns back into a pumpkin after midnight? We must not be thinking of the same Aemond.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“But I’m not wrong.”

“You are. I know you are because I know he has a crush on you. Everyone knows he has a thing for you. He and Jace both. You’re just the only one in denial about it. Well, and them.” He shrugs against her.

She lifted her head to glare at him. “Shut up.”

“I’m just saying, if you wanted to, you could have two guys waiting on your every whim.”

“Not my fantasy.” Rather than continue to go back and forth about the validity of his claim, she shot down any thought that she’d want it. That was enough for Aegon to drop it.

They fell back into comfortable silence. It was peaceful. For a moment the world stopped spinning and they were the only two conscious of it. They shared similar weights.

“Are you sure these are fresh? They don’t feel that strong.” Aegon broke the silence again. Though Y/N was normally the chatty one, when they were high or drunk they switched roles.

“Mhm.” She nodded. “Higher CBD to THC ratio. It’s what they had on hand.”

“Oh.” He breathed out, understanding the state they were in. “Who are you going to get high with when I’m gone for college come September?”

He extended his neck to watch her response. Selfishly, he wanted her to say no one because no one could fill his place in these moments. He wanted to be the only one in the whole wide world that she’d be this soft and vulnerable with. He knew that wasn’t true. She annoyed him. She got under his skin and could drive him mad. But he wanted these tender moments to be as sacred to her as they were to him.

“Helaena doesn’t mind edibles.” She answered simply. As if it were nothing. “And Jace is fine so long as he’s away from his mom until he’s sober again.”

Aegon propped himself up and over her. He frowned.

“What?” And this time, her innocence was truthful.

He tilted his head and his frown grew deeper. Y/N sighed. “Do you want me to stockpile all the edibles for when you get back? Is that it?”

Aegon shook his head and kept the frown. Y/N continued. “You won’t be gone that long. The school isn’t that far away and there’s like a dozen holidays in fall semester. Spring has the family trip and summer is right after. You’ll be back. Besides, Helaena and I will probably follow you there next year anyway. We’ll have endless time to take edibles and drool into covers.” She chuckled as it wasn’t as important to her.

He wants to fight her on it. He so desperately wants to make her say this is something special between the two of them. He rolls his eyes and lets it go. He sinks back down onto her stomach and nuzzles into the soft flesh there. “You’re going to be so bored without me.”

Y/N lets out an amused puff of air. “Bored. At peace. Same thing I guess. Hey, maybe Helaena and I will finally have tea without you stealing our cakes.”

A pang of jealousy struck a nerve in Aegon. “You, Helaena, and your tea. I’m surprised any boy is interested in you when you act like an old, married, lesbian couple.” 

He continued in a mocking tone. “Oh Helaena love, you look so beautiful in this light. Helaena, you’re so smart. You’re the smartest person I know. Helaena, I’d do anything for you. I’m surprised someone hasn’t walked in on the two of you scissoring.”

Y/N gave him a shove at that. It didn’t move him much. “You’re gross.”

“And you and my sister are gay for eachother.”

“Helaena doesn’t like girls.” She mumbled. “She doesn’t even like guys like that.”

Confusion flashed across Aegon’s face before it was replaced with stark realization. “No way she doesn’t like anyone. Asexuality is just an excuse you claim when you can’t get laid.”

Y/N went to shove him again but he caught her hands. Aegon was fully invested now. “One, you’re an ass. And two, don’t go around tormenting her with it or I will castrate you and you’ll be a nosexual. Besides, I don’t even think she knows yet. And there’d be no coming back from being the jerk that spoils that for her.”

“I’m an ass.” He clarifies. “Not an asshole.”

“Better be.” Y/N gives him one last threatening look.

Needing to switch topics away from his sister’s sexuality, regretting that he even brought it up as a joke, he asks. “Are you going to spend the night here?”

“I don’t know. Can you keep your hands to yourself?” Before he can make a snide remark, she looked at the clock. “It’s three in the morning. I’d have to be out before the others start to wake at seven.”

Aegon hums in agreement. “Set an alarm.”

It’s an unspoken arrangement. From all the years they spent fighting, wrestling over one insult or another, they became comfortable with being in close proximity to one another. It was almost nostalgic. Like the shared touch brought back fleeting ease; like they were twelve and thirteen and the biggest worry was who could make the other eat dirt first.

They shifted back to the top of the bed. Y/N got under the covers as she was cold. Aegon chased her touch. There they resided, limbs tangled in one another like they were lovers.

And as soon as they found peace the alarm rang.

Next Chapter

[jasmines-library]

Loving your whumptober so far! Spent like an hour reading through all of your entries and wow 🥰 if you’re still taking requests, maybe you could consider doing a batfam fic with a reader who used to be a member of the court of owls. I just think that’d be cute haha

The Cover Up

Summary: You're tired of living a lie. of living in a constant state of secrecy. You want out, but you have to wait for the perfect opportunity to strike. That finally comes in the form of Dick Grayson, but things so sideways when the Court send assassins after you and you are forced to rely on a team of masked vigilante's and long-time enemies of the Court to save your life. (gn reader :))

Note: I had to do a bit of research for this one but this was so much fun to write! Thank you for requesting anon!

Warnings: implied/ briefly mentioned abusive parents, assassination attempts, non descriptive injury, found family and a fluffy ending :)

Word count: 3.2k

⛤ BATFAM MASTERLIST ⛤

Galas were boring. At least they were in Gotham. They were all the same; a bunch of wealthy snobs dressed extravagantly all crammed into a room with delicately ornate ceilings and diamond shaped chandeliers. The sound of feet shuffling and heels clicking against the polished floors occasionally broke through the sound of chatter as guests mingled, drifting between one and other, passing around pristine champagne glasses that glistened when they caught the light that seemed to be obsessively bright considering it was dark outside and all you could see besides the moon and the stars were the street lamps that dwindled away into nothing in the distance. 

You had secluded yourself to the top of the stairs, tucking yourself into a corner by the bannister, trying to find a way to sit in your outfit that made you feel like the human embodiment of a wooden plank; the material was too stiff in some places, and if you moved in certain ways, it would ride up and sit uncomfortably on your skin. From up here you had a clear view of everything from below. You kept a keen eye on the Wayne boys as they dotted around the room, plastering on smiles to hide their clearly bored faces. 

You couldn’t help needing the constant feeling of being able to survey. It was something that your family had ingrained into you from the moment you were old enough to understand how to keep a secret. See, your family was part of a syndicate that dated back hundreds of years. It used its wealth and the power that came with it to manipulate its way into getting what it wants when it wants it. But, it wasn’t just your family. There were others, too. In fact, at least half of the people in the room were a part of the syndicate. The Court of Owls. The elite. Gothams deadliest. And you were lucky to be one of them. Or, that’s what you had always been told…but recently, you had been feeling off. Something hacked away at you, your life was one big lie. And what you were doing felt wrong… you couldn’t handle the blood shed anymore. Just a little bit longer, you told yourself. You would find a way out. 

“What are you doing?”

The gruff voice made you jump. Lost in your reverie, you hadn’t even heard the figure approach from behind you. His large figure and broad shoulders told you that his steps should have been heavy, but there was something else about him that screamed the opposite at you, but perhaps your hardwiring was making you overthink. 

“I uh…Sorry.” You mumbled, scrambling to stand up and failing to think of an excuse. 

He scoffed lightly, shaking his head and extending a hand from his black suit jacket for you to take. When you took it, it was calloused but gentle, warm and followed by a chivalrous grin. 

“I don’t think we’ve met before.” He asked, cocking an eyebrow.

You shook your head. “Perhaps not. I tend to keep to myself at these kinds of things. Try to avoid them if possible.”

The boy smiled. “Agreed. I’m Dick. Dick Grayson.”

“Y/N.” You shook his hand, opting not to give him a last name. You knew that if you gave it away somehow you would slip up. “So, you’re one of Wayne’s kids? What’s that like for you?”

“Exactly as you’d expect it to be. Three whiny little brothers, a dad who’s barely there, but somehow still overprotective all the time. What more could one ask for?”

“Sounds like you’re living the life.” You agreed. You hated to admit it, but you were slightly jealous of the kid. You had always begged for a normal life. Well, as close to normal as you could get to. 

“Yeah.” Dick shrugged.

There was something about this stranger that made you feel safe. It was an odd sensation, but talking to Dick made you feel like a missing part of you had been filled. His voice was so comforting that it allowed you to get lost within his lilt for hours, losing track of time and purpose, forgetting about that oh so present worry of keeping the secret. It wasn't until a cold, bony hand wrapped around your elbow, tugging you up and away from the stairs. You weren’t even given a change to say goodbye to Dick as you were mercilessly dragged away. 

Your mother scolded you that night. Hurrying you down the dark pathway. She uttered the same words. It was always the same words.  “I’m disappointed in you, Y/N.” “That’s not how we act, Y/N.” “Oh, if only he could see you now he would be outraged at how useless you are.”

It would have been nice to say that you had to bite back the tears, but it was such a common occurrence now that you just kept your face stoic and marched on down the pathway, listening to the gravel crunch as it shifted under your shoes instead of your mother. 

It was that night that seemed to be the final straw.Another scolding from your mother at the Court meeting before bed, and you finally snapped. It was embarrassing, being belittled like that in front of your friends. So, although the plan was slightly rushed, it seemed to be the perfect timing. It was already late, and your parents had retired to bed with weary steps and droopy eyes. It was the perfect chance to slip out unnoticed. Or, so you thought. 

With your bag slung over your shoulder and your mask still pressed tightly to your face, you tried to slip out of the door. You were halfway down the driveway, keeping your back pressed to the dark shadows cast by the hedges when you heard it. A snap, and then an animalistic growl. And then there were the haunting green eyes that seemed to blink into existence out of nowhere; vibrant and angry they stared a never resisting stare at you as the humanoid honed in on you. 

Without thinking twice, you dropped your bag and ran, slamming your feet into the ground and propelling yourself down the drive and into the maze of buildings in Gotham City. The Talon was right behind you. You could hear it drawing in, feel its hot breath every time you began to slow, only for it to propel you on faster. 

When you found a fork in the path, you made a fake turn hoping to trick the Talon into going the wrong way as you clambered up an old steel ladder that made you wince as it echoed much too loudly across the alley for your liking. For one, bittersweet moment, you thought that it had worked, but after catching your breath at the top of the roof, you were forced back to running at the sound of a second charging at you even more persistently than the first. It was safe to say that you were now your family’s enemy. 

You cursed, leaping across the flat roofs as you tried to lose them, but the assassins weren't relenting. 

The darkness made it difficult to see where each building ended and the next one began, but you continued to hurl yourself across them, unsure of where you were actually trying to get to. All you knew was that you had to get out of Gotham. And fast. 

But your plan seemed to go sideways when they began to throw the knives. Small but deadly, they were rounded into a fine point a few inches below a well etched hole for them to be flung from the wielder's hands. Their poison tipped grooves glimmered unsettlingly as they whipped through the air with concerning precision, but your time with the Court gives you a one up on the average person and allows you to dodge a few of them. But only by mere millimetres. 

Despite the burn in your thighs, you sped up weaving around Gotham until you thought you had finally slipped their grasp. But the assassins were highly trained, and you should have known better than to trust your immediate judgement. 

Seemingly out of nowhere, a throwing knife found its place within your back, tearing away at the fabric of your outfit. You let out a gasp of pain, but pressed on racing around a corner. But then another found its mark deep within your calf. You cursed, biting down harshly on your lip then stumbling around a corner and pressing yourself against the concrete wall. With heavy breaths as though all of your oxygen had been snatched away from you, you listened anxiously. But you heard nothing besides the occasional car passing by in the street below. 

Without thinking twice about it, you tore the daggers from your skin, biting back your cry of pain hoping that if you got them out the poison wouldn’t spread, though fortune didn’t seem to be in your favour recently. After tearing a strip of material from your sleeve and creating a makeshift bandage around your leg, you hobbled quickly down the nearest set of steps winching each time the wound in your leg shifted. 

You didn’t think your night could get any worse, but it was then as you whipped around a corner that you collided with a firm chest. The figure was masked and decked with a blue insignia that somewhat resembled a raven. He was quick to grip you by the shoulders and slam you against the wall. 

Pushing at him feebly you tried to loosen his hold on you but you were outmatched by his strength and your body was beginning to succumb to the effects of the poison the Talons had laced their weapons in, so you just gazed at him wide eyed behind your mask. You were running out of time. 

“Please.” You implored, struggling against him “I have to get out of here. They’re coming for me.”

“What?” He almost barked. “Who?”

“I-”

“Answer me, Bird.” His jaw tensed. Your family didn’t have a very good history with Gotham’s vigilantes. 

“The Talons.” You gritted out.

You visibly saw confusion cross his face as he deepened his brow, but he loosened his grip when he saw the glowing eyes appear on the rooftop. 

“We need to leave.” You pushed yourself away from the wall and propelled yourself further into Gotham, not caring that the vigilante was close behind. In fact, it only occurred to you that he was following you when one of the assassins managed to approach from front to try and corner you. With your vision doubling your aim was off and the dagger sailed past your target, so Nightwing raced past you and moved to take it out with one swipe of his electrified staff only to be cut short by the sound of gunfire and the emergence of another masked figure, only this one was cloaked in red. The two vigilantes acknowledged each other seemingly commuicating to eacother in ways you couldn't hear. You nodded at him gratefully and continued to make a break for it, only glancing back once to fling the other stolen dagger at your pursuers and hoping that it did something useful other than clatter to the floor. 

It seemed life forever by the time you were able to stop running. You were on the far side of Gotham, away from all of the hubbub of the city. You breathed heavily clutching at the stitch in your side when your legs buckled and you had no choice but to sit down on the ground to unravel the blood soaked rag and examine the angry cut. 

Red Hood seemed to have other plans for when you tilted your head up, he was angling his gun towards you at you. 

“Why were they after you?” he demanded, scowling. “Who are you?”

“I-” You began to explain but you were overcome with a rush of nausea and soon the lights of Gotham city and the masked vigilantes faded to black.

~

Dick Grayson frowned as he studied your unconscious body tucked neatly into one of the spare bedrooms in the manor. It had been four long days since he had hauled you had succumbed to the effects of the poison and your body had raised an alarming fever that caused beads of sweat to form across your hot skin. You were so warm that he could feel the heat radiating from you by the chair he was sitting in albeit you couldn’t stop shivering. 

Tenderly he brushed the hair from your face. One of the first things that they had done was remove your mask, and it was safe to say that Dick was taken aback when he realised that it was you hiding behind the costume. When he carried you back to the manor he wasn’t entirely sure why. It would have been easier to have just left you there to rot, after all his family were no big fans of the Court of Owls, but there was just something about you that compelled him to. You seemed so scared and innocent, but he could tell you also had this fire that flickered inside of you, desperate to leap out. It was oddly familiar to him, but he couldn’t place why until he took off the mask. When he had met you that night you hadn’t seemed like the person who would be a part of the court. He and Jason had been studying them for years and your tenderness didn’t seem to fit the profile. But then they sent assassins after you, so perhaps you were never really part of them in the first place? There were so many unanswered questions that they made the vigilantes head spin. 

“They still not awake yet?” Tim asked, pushing open the door with his legs before setting down two mugs of coffee. He had taken a particular interest in you since you had arrived. All of the boys had. They had all seen you at Bruce’s galas, even spoken to you once or twice, so your entire predicament really interested them. 

It was then that you began to stir; muscles twitching and eyes blinking slowly. That was then followed by a low groan as all of your sensations flooded back to you all at once, hitting you like a ton of bricks as the headache and dull throbbing from the stitches kicked in. 

“Take it easy.” Tim said as you jerked up suddenly. “You’ll tear your stitches.”

You eyed him confused, but slightly calmer when you realised that you were out. That the Talons hadn’t ended your life. 

“How did I get here…?” You blinked.

The two brothers glanced at each other and then Dick sighed. The truth would only come out sooner or later. 

“We ran into each other a few nights ago. You passed out on me so I brought you back here… We managed to treat you for the poison, but you’ve wracked up quite a fever. It’s a good thing you took those out when you did.” He gestured towards the bandages that were wrapped securely around your chest and your leg. “Any longer and.. Well.”

“Oh…”

“Oh? That’s it? You don’t care that he’s just revealed our identities?” Tim asked.

You shrugged. “I guess it makes sense. Five of you. Five of them. And I suppose it’s only fair. You know who I am, now I know who you are.”

You trailed off. You still needed to get as far away from Gotham as possible. 

“Thank you for everything, but I need to go-” You tried to push yourself up on shaky arms but were stopped by Tim.

“Stay there. Your body still needs to recover.”

“But they’re after me. I need to leave. I’m putting us all in jeopardy just by being here-”

“Relax.” Dick told you, running his hand down your arm “You’re safe. They’re not going to hurt you here. Not under our watch.”

His tenderness caught you off guard. It wasn’t something you were used to having. 

“Get some rest, y/n.” he told you. “We’ll keep you safe as long as you need.”

~

Much to your surprise you had ended staying with the Waynes much longer than you had anticipated. 

At first, you told yourself it was just to get yourself back up on your feet before you disappeared under the radar, but you soon began to develop a strong liking for each other and your bonds with them began to grow.

You began to enjoy spending time with them; passionate talks with Tim or bingeing movies with Jason until ungodly hours in the morning before being scolded by Alfred for not getting a healthy amount of sleep and sparring with Dick to help maintain your combat skills that at first you had wanted to ditch, but were eventually persuaded otherwise. You had even grown close with Damian who although was reluctant to openly warm up to you at first had eventually become someone you shared nearly everything with. It didn’t take long at all before you were the voice that guided them through their ear pieces each time they set out on patrol. 

Time seemed to pass by in a flash because before you knew it, it had been months since you first arrived and you no longer felt as though you were an outsider. They had welcomed you with open arms, sympathising with your situation but allowing you that space for your own independence which you were often grateful for at times when you didn’t want to deal with their antics. 

The four of them felt as though they had a duty to protect you for a while after your escape from the Court. They had been incredibly helpful in keeping you out of your family’s watchful eye, even going as far as creating you a fake identity, but they also gave you a sense of security. It was their kindness and their love that allowed you to fall asleep at night, and it was their knowledge that allowed them to be there for you when it all just became a little too much and you were in desperate need of a shoulder or four to cry on. 

They made you feel safe. 

You cherished each and every moment that you shared with the Wayne boys. Both the good and the bad. Each one was a reminder of who you were. That you had carved your own path and were free to discover who you wanted to be. 

Thank you for reading! Hope you liked :)

⛤ MAIN MASTERLIST ⛤

[shamelesstragedyenjoyer]

Here's a refined breakdown of how I envision Stephanie Brown's style, a character whose perception is largely shaped by the male gaze;

While she's comfortable wearing feminine attire, her ultimate aesthetic leans towards more of a Adam Sandler-esque vibe. Her fashion sense, similar to Duke's in many ways, differs significantly from Tim and Bruce's habit of quiet luxury. Her gamine face and all American girl look creates an interesting dichotomy with the way she dresses. There's also a notable juxtaposition between how she navigates high society in comparison to Jason. Whereas the latter used to strive towards acceptance within Bruce's elite circle, Stephanie– and sometimes even Duke, when he feels like being a troublemaker– seeks rejection. She wears oversized men suits to black tie events to emphasize her different background. She leans more into it then– if only to make a point.

To touch back onto my understanding of the class dynamics at play within the Wayne family and how it reflects back on their personal style , I think there are five key-points to talk about– Upbringing, class, gender, race and generation.

Tim, Bruce, and Damian fall into a similar category, having been raised as wealthy boys in a racially homogeneous environment with privileged access to private education. Tim possesses a deeper awareness of his privileged worldview compared to Damian, who is more detached from poverty. Dick occupies a unique position due to his early adoption into the affluent world and his background as the son of performers, which cultivated his charm and adaptability. He seamlessly integrates into high society, drawing from his upbringing. Stephanie, Cassandra, Jason, and Duke, however, have experienced more time in lower-class environments than in financial stability, forming their own distinct circle. They share a mutual understanding rooted in shared experiences, vernacular accents, inside jokes, and nuanced awareness of class dynamics and microaggressions, which sometimes excludes the other group.

When Tim adopts a more casual, Gen-Z skater-boy persona outside of Wayne Enterprises' strict business casual environment, the second group sometimes call him a poser due to the African American roots of the skater style, which emerged in opposition to everything Tim represents– is. While they may be perceived as the "cool kids" within the house– and at school–, they are more protective of one another than malicious towards others, guarding their identity and personal struggles fiercely as an act of revendication.

She mainly listens to 90's and early 2000's rap music and blasts "Poor Lil rich" by 50 cent whenever she has a fight with Bruce or Tim.

[formulaphoe]

the brutality and unfairness of formula 1

image source: f1

formula 1 is often hailed as the pinnacle of motorsport—a glamorous world filled with speed, technology, and the elites of racing. yet beneath the polished surface lies a brutal reality that often leaves drivers and teams at the mercy of ruthless decisions and the cold calculus of performance. with the controversies surrounding recent driver sackings and the ever-looming shadow of financial disparity, it's high time to examine why many argue that f1 is not a fair sport.

ruthless reality

image source: williams racing

just recently, valtteri bottas made headlines by bluntly stating that formula 1 is "not a fair sport." this sentiment resonates deeply with fans and insiders alike, especially in light of the way teams handle their drivers. for instance, williams' mid-season decision to replace logan sargeant has raised eyebrows and sparked heated debates. was it a ruthless move? or was it justified based on performance? the circumstances around logan's sacking were especially harsh, underlining the pressure to deliver results in a sport that doesn't tolerate anything below excellence.

these decisions are just business, but they reflect a culture where loyalty and patience often take a backseat to immediate results and instant gratification. a planetf1 analysis of f1 driver sackings reveals a history of brutal firings that underscore the cutthroat nature of the sport. one moment a driver is a team's new big thing, and the next they can find themselves out of a job—often with little explanation and even less sympathy.

money talks

image source: planetf1

one of the most damning realities of formula 1 is the pervasive influence of money. while talent is certainly a necessity for success, it's increasingly clear that without financial backing, even the most skilled drivers can find their careers stymied. talent alone isn't enough—financial resources play a critical role in a driver's future on track.

the narrative is all too familiar: drivers from wealthy backgrounds secure seats, while those without such financial support are often left scrambling for alternatives. the talent pool is vast, but the pathways to success are often barricaded by financial constraints, leaving many deserving drivers in the dust.

pressure cooker environment

image source: f1

the intense pressure in f1 extends beyond just performance; it creates a hostile environment where mental health often takes a back seat. with every race being a high-stakes affair, the neverending pressure to perform can lead to a decline in mental health, resulting in public scrutiny and harsh critiques from fans and pundits alike.

this culture can be devastating, particularly for young drivers like sargeant, who may not yet have developed the thick skin required to withstand the scrutiny that comes with the job. in a sport where every mistake is magnified, the fear of failure looms large, creating a vicious cycle of anxiety and poor performance.

a system rigged against fair play

image source: valtteri bottas

as bottas pointed out, the very structure of f1 seems rigged. with teams prioritising sponsorship over pure driving skill, the sport can sometimes feel more like a corporate machine than a celebration of racing talent. the narrative that emerges is one where drivers are mere cogs in a vast, profit-driven engine—evaluated not just on their ability to race, but on their marketability and financial backing too.

this is a trend that not only alienates talented drivers, but also undermines the essence of competition. when financial clout trumps sheer talent, fans are left wondering if they are witnessing trye sporting excellence or merely a financial showcase.

a call for change

image source: reddit

the brutality and unfairness of formula 1 cannot be ignored. as we witness the rise and fall of drivers like logan sargeant and daniel ricciardo and hear the stark words of valtteri bottas, it's clear that something needs to change. the sport should be a true meritocracy, where talent is the primary determinant of success, rather than the size of a driver's bank account and mental health is valued and supported.

in a world that often glorifies the fast and the furious, it's time to take a step back and consider the humans behind the helmets. the brutal realities of f1 deserve a spotlight, not just for the sake of drivers like logan and daniel, but for the integrity of the sport as a whole. it's high time formula 1 balanced its fierce competitiveness with a sense of fairness, allowing true talent to shine without the heavy hand of financial disparity and mental turmoil looming overhead.

sources

woodhouse, jamie. "valtteri bottas delivers brutal f1 'not a fair sport' verdict after '10 per cent driver' claim." planetf1, 16 aug. 2024, www.planetf1.com/news/valterri-bottas-formula-1-not-a-fair-sport

beevi, zuhrah. "williams replacing logan sargeant mid-season: brutal or deserved?" medium, 28 aug. 2024, www.medium.com/formula-one-forever/williams-replacing-logan-sargeant-mid-season-brutal-or-deserved-b0bd57de94b9

mitchell-malm, scott. "the most damning part of william's ruthless f1 sacking." the race, 28 aug. 2024, www.the-race.com/formula-1/most-damning-part-williams-ruthless-sacking-logan-sargeant/

maher, thomas. "f1 driver sackings: the most brutal firings and bitter disputes in f1 history." planetf1, 17 july 2024, www.planetf1.com/features/brutal-f1-driver-sackings

"the cruel side of formula 1: talent not enough, without money there is no future on the track." scuderia fans, 8 sept. 2024, www.scuderiafans.com/the-cruel-side-of-formula-1-talent-not-enough-without-money-there-is-no-future-on-the-track/

if any errors or typos are noticed, PLS PLS point them out via comment, ask, or dm. if there is a specific topic you would like me to cover, send in an ask and i'll look into it!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Sacklers woulda gotten away with it if it wasn't for those darned meddling feds

The saga of the Sacklers, a multigenerational billionaire crime family of mass-murdering dope-peddlers, is an enraging parable about how the wealthy, the courts, and sadistic high-powered lawyers collude to destroy the lives of millions, profit handsomely, and evade justice.

But there's an unexpected twist to this tale. After the Sacklers procured a sham bankruptcy that denied their victims the right to sue while leaving their fortune largely intact, the Supreme Court – yes, this Supreme Court – saw through the scam and froze the process, pending a full hearing:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/us/supreme-court-purdue-pharma-opioid-settlement.html

The Sacklers basically invented modern, legal dope peddling. Arthur Sackler, the family's original crime-boss, revived the practice of direct-to-consumer drug marketing, dormant since the death of the medicine show, to peddle Valium. An aggressive and shrewd lobbyist, Arthur built the family fortune and, more importantly, its connections:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-the-sackler-family-built-a-pharma-dynasty-and-fueled-an-american-calamity/

A generation later, the family's business company created Oxycontin, and procured misleading and false research about the drug's safety kickstarting the opioid epidemic, whose American body-count is closing in on a million dead. Armed with inflated claims about opioid safety, the Sacklers' pharma reps bribed, cajoled and tricked doctors into writing millions of prescriptions for oxy.

This scam had a natural best-before date. As ODs flooded America's ERs and bodies piled up in America's morgues, it became increasingly clear that something was rotten. The Sacklers pursued a multipronged campaign to keep the truth from coming to light, and to keep the billions flowing.

On the one hand, they hired McKinsey to find novel ways to encourage doctors to keep writing prescriptions and to convince pharmacists to turn a blind eye to abuse. McKinsey had all kinds of great ideas here, including paying pharma distributors cash bonuses for every overdose death in their territory:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/business/mckinsey-opioids-settlement.html

When the issue of these deaths came up in public, the Sacklers blamed "criminal addicts" for their own misery, stigmatizing both people who desperately needed pain relief and the people who'd been deliberately hooked on the Sacklers' products. The legacy of this smear campaign is still with us, both in the contempt for people struggling with addiction and in the cruel barriers placed between people in unbearable agony and medical relief.

But mostly, the Sacklers kept their names out of it. They laundered their reputations by donating a homeopathic fraction of their vast drug fortune to art galleries and museums in a bid to make their names synonymous with good deeds.

The Sacklers didn't invent this trick. Think of the way that history's great monsters – Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, Ford – are remembered today for the foundations and charities that bear their names, not for the untold misery they inflicted on their workers, their crimes against their customers, and the corruption of governments.

But the Sacklers made those Gilded Age barons seem like amateurs. They invented a modern elite philanthropy playbook that Anand Giridharadas documents in his must-read Winners Take All, about the charity-industrial complex that washes away an ocean of blood with a trickle of money:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/10/winners-take-all-modern-philanthropy-means-that-giving-some-away-is-more-important-than-how-you-got-it/

As part of this PR exercise, the individual Sacklers kept their names and images out of the public eye. For years, there were virtually no news-service photos of individual Sacklers. When journalists dared to criticize the family, they used vicious attack-lawyers to intimidate them into retractions and silence (I was threatened by the Sacklers' lawyers).

They also worked their media mogul pals, like Mike Bloomberg, who added their names to the "Friends of Mike" list that Bloomberg reporters were required to consult before writing negative coverage:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/29/friends-of-mike-enemies-of-the-people/#sacklerbergs

But Stein's Law says that "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." As lawsuits mounted, the Sacklers found themselves increasingly synonymous with death, not charitable works. But like any canny criminal, the Sacklers had a getaway plan.

First, they extracted vast sums from Purdue and shifted it into offshore financial secrecy havens:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purduepharma-bankruptcy/sacklers-reaped-up-to-13-billion-from-oxycontin-maker-u-s-states-say-idUSKBN1WJ19V

Even as this money was disappearing into legal black holes, the Sacklers demanded – and received – extraordinary protection from the courts, who aggressively sealed testimony and materials presented through discovery:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-courts-secrecy-judges/

When this gambit finally failed, the Sacklers insisted that were down to their last $4 billion, and, with trillions in claims pending against them, they declared bankruptcy.

When a normal person declares bankruptcy, they are required to divest themselves of nearly everything of value they possess, and then still find themselves hounded by cruel arm-breakers who deluge them with threatening calls and letters:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation

But for the richest people in America, bankruptcy is merely a way to cleanse one's balance sheet of liabilities for any atrocity you may have committed on the way, without giving up your fortune.

The Sacklers are a case-study in how a corrupt bankruptcy can be conducted.

Purdue Pharma presents a maddening case-study in the corrupt benefits of bankruptcy. When it was announced in March, many were outraged to learn that the Sacklers were going to walk away with billions, while their victims got stiffed.

First, they converted their victims' right to compensation into "property" that the Sacklers themselves owned. This transferred jurisdiction over these claims from the regular court system to the bankruptcy court. A bankruptcy judge – not a jury – would decide how much each of these claims was worth, and then what how much of that worth these victims (now recast as creditors) would be entitled to through the bankruptcy.

Thus tens of thousands of claims were nonconsensually settled without a trial, by an administrative judge with no criminal jurisdiction, not a federal judge who'd undergone Senate confirmation:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/31/vaccine-for-the-global-south/#claims-extinguished

These "coercive restructuring techniques" are not available to everyday people who are drowning in student debt or credit-card bills – these are the exclusive purview of the wealthiest Americans, who enjoy a completely different bankruptcy system that is rigged in their favor.

Three judges – David Jones and Marvin Isgur of Houston and Bob Drain of New York – hear 96% of the country's large corporate bankruptcies:

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2021/05/judge-shopping-in-bankruptcy.html

These judges are unbelievably horny for corporations, embracing a legal theory "that casts the invention of the limited liability corporation alongside that of the steam engine as a paradigmatic development in the pursuit of prosperity":

https://prospect.org/justice/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-the-sacklers-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy/

Now there are more than three bankruptcy judges in America, so how do the nation's biggest companies get their cases heard by these three enthusiastic Renfields for corporate vampirism?

They cheat.

For example: when GM was facing bankruptcy, it argued that it was a New York company on the basis that it owned a single Chevy dealership in Harlem, and got in front of Judge Drain.

The Sacklers were – characteristically – even more brazen. They really wanted to get their case in front of Judge Drain, the nation's most enthusiastic supporter of "third party releases," through which bankrupt billionaires can wipe the slate clean, securing dismissals of all claims by the people they wronged.

Drain is also uniquely hostile to independent examiners, "an independent third-party appointed by the court to investigate 'fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, misconduct, mismanagement, or irregularity…by current or former management of the debtor."

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3851339

If you're the Sacklers, hoping to keep two thirds of your billions and extinguish all claims by your victims, there is no better helpmeet than Judge Robert Drain of the Southern District of New York.

So, 192 days before filing for bankruptcy, the Sacklers opened an office in White Plains, New York (a company may claim jurisdiction in a specific court once they've operated a business there for 180 days).

Then they filed a bankruptcy in which they altered the metadata on their casefile, inserting the code for a Westchester county hearing into the machine-readable, human-invisible parts of the documents they uploaded to the federal Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system (they also captioned the case with "RDD, for "Robert D Drain").

They chose their judge, and the judge obliged. UCLA Law's Lynn LoPucki is one of the leading scholars of these bankruptcy "megacases," and has written extensively on why these three judges are so deferential to corporate criminals seeking to flense themselves of culpability. She sees judges like Drain motivated by "personal aggrandizement and celebrity and ability to indirectly channel to the local bankruptcy bar. The judge is the star and the ringmaster of a megacase – very appealing to certain personalities."

Thus, these judges are "willing and eager to cater to debtors to attract business…[an] assurance to debtors that…these judges will not transfer out cases with improper venue or rule against the debtor…"

https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/02870w66d

This kind of judge-shopping goes beyond the Sacklers; the cases that Drain and co preside over make a mockery of the idea of America as a land of equal justice. "Prepack" and "drive-through" bankruptcies are reliable get-out-of-jail-free cards for capitalism's worst monsters: private equity firms.

Whether PE murdered your grandmother by buying her care-home and putting each worker in charge of 30 seniors:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/portopiccolo-nursing-homes-maryland/2020/12/21/a1ffb2a6-292b-11eb-9b14-ad872157ebc9_story.html

or poisoned your kids by filling your neighborhood with carcinogens:

https://www.webmd.com/special-reports/ethylene-oxide/20190719/residents-unaware-of-cancer-causing-toxin-in-air

limited liability wipes the slate clean.

30% of America's bankruptcies are private equity companies using the bankruptcy system to wipe away claims for their misdeeds, while keeping a fortune, thanks to the shield of limited liability.

Take Millennium Health, JamesS lattery's fake drug-testing company, which promised to help nursing homes figure out whether seniors were abusing (or selling) their meds by testing their piss for angel dust and other drugs. Slattery defrauded Medicare and Medicaid for millions, borrowed $1.8 billion (Slattery got $1.3 billion of that). He eventually walked away from this fraud after paying a mere $256m to settle all claims, and kept a fortune in assets, including the 40 vintage planes his private company ("Pissed Away LLC" – I am not making this up) owned:

https://prospect.org/justice/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-the-sacklers-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy/

For the wealthy, bankruptcy is the sport of kings, a way to skip out on consequences. For the poor, bankruptcy is an anchor – or a noose. This is by design: judges who preside over elite bankruptcies speak of their protagonists as heroic "risk takers" and tiptoe around any consequences, lest these titans be chained to a mortal's fate, costing us all the benefits of their entrepreneurial genius.

PE companies helped the Sacklers design their own bankruptcy strategy, and it was a standout, even by the standards of Bob Drain and his kangaroo bankruptcy court. But now, the Supreme Court has pumped the brakes on the whole enterprise.

The judges ruled that the exceptions the Sacklers took advantage of were intended for bankrupts in "financial distress" – not billionaires with vast fortunes hidden overseas. In so doing, the court threatens all manner of corrupt arrangements, from "the Boy Scouts, wildfires and allegations of sexual abuse in the church diocese — where third parties get a benefit from a bankruptcy they themselves aren’t going through.”

The case was brought by the DoJ's US Trustee Program, which lost in the Second Circuit when it tried to halt the Purdue bankruptcy and argued that the Sacklers themselves had to declare bankruptcy to discharge the claims against them.

Now the Supremes have hit pause on the bankruptcy the Second Circuit approved, and will hear the case themselves. It's only one step on a long road, but it's an unprecedented one. Some of the country's filthiest fortunes are riding on the outcome.

Going to Defcon this weekend? I’m giving a keynote, “An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse,” tomorrow (Aug 12) at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

Image: Edwardx (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Serpentine_Sackler_Gallery,_June_2016_05.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[corporationsarepeople]

Contrary to far-right fantasies like QAnon, this campaign by the elites was no conspiracy. It took place right out in the open, starting with politicians like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and running right through the present day. “The Davos elite aren’t eating our children,” Naomi Klein writes in her new book, “but they are eating our children’s futures, and that is plenty bad.”

To hide their undeserved gains, some of the wealthy downplay the helping hands they have received, whether from family (Donald Trump’s referring to $60.7 million as “a small loan from my father”) or the government (Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s criticizing government subsidies even though his companies have received billions from the government).

Mostly, though, they and their political servants (in the U.S., that means especially, but not exclusively, the Republican Party) stoke fights on battlefields small and large. Gurner blames young people’s monetary struggles on avocado toast and overpriced coffee. Major Republican donors like Rebekah Mercer donate millions to conservative media outlets and candidates who stoke fears of culture wars, drag queens and people of color — and who, when they get into office, prioritize tax cuts slanted toward the wealthy.

And some are more brazen. Klein quotes the mid-20th century Belgian leftist Abram Leon’s observation about the Nazis’ use of antisemitic conspiracy theories: “Big business endeavored to divert and control the anti-capitalist hatred of the masses for its exclusive profit.” If that sounds like an extreme comparison, remember that of all the organizations and people who have criticized Musk’s ownership of X (formerly Twitter), he is blaming the collapse in the company’s value on the Anti-Defamation League.

[dailyanarchistposts]

F.6.3 But surely market forces will stop abuses by the rich?

Unlikely. The rise of corporations within America indicates exactly how a “general libertarian law code” would reflect the interests of the rich and powerful. The laws recognising corporations as “legal persons” were not primarily a product of “the state” but of private lawyers hired by the rich. As Howard Zinn notes:

“the American Bar Association, organised by lawyers accustomed to serving the wealthy, began a national campaign of education to reverse the [Supreme] Court decision [that companies could not be considered as a person]… . By 1886, they succeeded … the Supreme Court had accepted the argument that corporations were ‘persons’ and their money was property protected by the process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment … The justices of the Supreme Court were not simply interpreters of the Constitution. They were men of certain backgrounds, of certain [class] interests.” [A People’s History of the United States, p. 255]

Of course it will be argued that the Supreme Court is chosen by the government and is a state enforced monopoly and so our analysis is flawed. Yet this is not the case. As Rothbard made clear, the “general libertarian law code” would be created by lawyers and jurists and everyone would be expected to obey it. Why expect these lawyers and jurists to be any less class conscious then those in the 19th century? If the Supreme Court “was doing its bit for the ruling elite” then why would those creating the law system be any different? “How could it be neutral between rich and poor,” argues Zinn, “when its members were often former wealthy lawyers, and almost always came from the upper class?” [Op. Cit., p. 254] Moreover, the corporate laws came about because there was a demand for them. That demand would still have existed in “anarcho”-capitalism. Now, while there may nor be a Supreme Court, Rothbard does maintain that “the basic Law Code … would have to be agreed upon by all the judicial agencies” but he maintains that this “would imply no unified legal system”! Even though ”[a]ny agencies that transgressed the basic libertarian law code would be open outlaws” and soon crushed this is not, apparently, a monopoly. [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 234] So, you either agree to the law code or you go out of business. And that is not a monopoly! Therefore, we think, our comments on the Supreme Court are valid (see also section F.7.2).

If all the available defence firms enforce the same laws, then it can hardly be called “competitive”! And if this is the case (and it is) “when private wealth is uncontrolled, then a police-judicial complex enjoying a clientele of wealthy corporations whose motto is self-interest is hardly an innocuous social force controllable by the possibility of forming or affiliating with competing ‘companies.’” [Wieck, Op. Cit., p. 225] This is particularly true if these companies are themselves Big Business and so have a large impact on the laws they are enforcing. If the law code recognises and protects capitalist power, property and wealth as fundamental any attempt to change this is “initiation of force” and so the power of the rich is written into the system from the start!

(And, we must add, if there is a general libertarian law code to which all must subscribe, where does that put customer demand? If people demand a non-libertarian law code, will defence firms refuse to supply it? If so, will not new firms, looking for profit, spring up that will supply what is being demanded? And will that not put them in direct conflict with the existing, pro-general law code ones? And will a market in law codes not just reflect economic power and wealth? David Friedman, who is for a market in law codes, argues that ”[i]f almost everyone believes strongly that heroin addiction is so horrible that it should not be permitted anywhere under any circumstances anarcho-capitalist institutions will produce laws against heroin. Laws are being produced on the market, and that is what the market wants.” And he adds that “market demands are in dollars, not votes. The legality of heroin will be determined, not by how many are for or against but how high a cost each side is willing to bear in order to get its way.” [The Machinery of Freedom, p. 127] And, as the market is less than equal in terms of income and wealth, such a position will mean that the capitalist class will have a higher effective demand than the working class and more resources to pay for any conflicts that arise. Thus any law codes that develop will tend to reflect the interests of the wealthy.)

Which brings us nicely on to the next problem regarding market forces.

As well as the obvious influence of economic interests and differences in wealth, another problem faces the “free market” justice of “anarcho”-capitalism. This is the “general libertarian law code” itself. Even if we assume that the system actually works like it should in theory, the simple fact remains that these “defence companies” are enforcing laws which explicitly defend capitalist property (and so social relations). Capitalists own the means of production upon which they hire wage-labourers to work and this is an inequality established prior to any specific transaction in the labour market. This inequality reflects itself in terms of differences in power within (and outside) the company and in the “law code” of “anarcho”-capitalism which protects that power against the dispossessed.

In other words, the law code within which the defence companies work assumes that capitalist property is legitimate and that force can legitimately be used to defend it. This means that, in effect, “anarcho”-capitalism is based on a monopoly of law, a monopoly which explicitly exists to defend the power and capital of the wealthy. The major difference is that the agencies used to protect that wealth will be in a weaker position to act independently of their pay-masters. Unlike the state, the “defence” firm is not remotely accountable to the general population and cannot be used to equalise even slightly the power relationships between worker and capitalist (as the state has, on occasion done, due to public pressure and to preserve the system as a whole). And, needless to say, it is very likely that the private police forces will give preferential treatment to their wealthier customers (which business does not?) and that the law code will reflect the interests of the wealthier sectors of society (particularly if prosperous judges administer that code) in reality, even if not in theory. Since, in capitalist practice, “the customer is always right,” the best-paying customers will get their way in “anarcho”-capitalist society.

For example, in chapter 29 of The Machinery of Freedom, David Friedman presents an example of how a clash of different law codes could be resolved by a bargaining process (the law in question is the death penalty). This process would involve one defence firm giving a sum of money to the other for them accepting the appropriate (anti/pro capital punishment) court. Friedman claims that ”[a]s in any good trade, everyone gains” but this is obviously not true. Assuming the anti-capital punishment defence firm pays the pro one to accept an anti-capital punishment court, then, yes, both defence firms have made money and so are happy, so are the anti-capital punishment consumers but the pro-death penalty customers have only (perhaps) received a cut in their bills. Their desire to see criminals hanged (for whatever reason) has been ignored (if they were not in favour of the death penalty, they would not have subscribed to that company). Friedman claims that the deal, by allowing the anti-death penalty firm to cut its costs, will ensure that it “keep its customers and even get more” but this is just an assumption. It is just as likely to loose customers to a defence firm that refuses to compromise (and has the resources to back it up). Friedman’s assumption that lower costs will automatically win over people’s passions is unfounded as is the assumption that both firms have equal resources and bargaining power. If the pro-capital punishment firm demands more than the anti can provide and has larger weaponry and troops, then the anti defence firm may have to agree to let the pro one have its way. So, all in all, it is not clear that “everyone gains” — there may be a sizeable percentage of those involved who do not “gain” as their desire for capital punishment is traded away by those who claimed they would enforce it. This may, in turn, produce a demand for defence firms which do not compromise with obvious implications for public peace.

In other words, a system of competing law codes and privatised rights does not ensure that all individual interests are meet. Given unequal resources within society, it is clear that the “effective demand” of the parties involved to see their law codes enforced is drastically different. The wealthy head of a transnational corporation will have far more resources available to him to pay for his laws to be enforced than one of his employees on the assembly line. Moreover, as we noted in section F.3.1, the labour market is usually skewed in favour of capitalists. This means that workers have to compromise to get work and such compromises may involve agreeing to join a specific “defence” firm or not join one at all (just as workers are often forced to sign non-union contracts today in order to get work). In other words, a privatised law system is very likely to skew the enforcement of laws in line with the skewing of income and wealth in society. At the very least, unlike every other market, the customer is not guaranteed to get exactly what they demand simply because the product they “consume” is dependent on others within the same market to ensure its supply. The unique workings of the law/defence market are such as to deny customer choice (we will discuss other aspects of this unique market shortly). Wieck summed by pointing out the obvious:

“any judicial system is going to exist in the context of economic institutions. If there are gross inequalities of power in the economic and social domains, one has to imagine society as strangely compartmentalised in order to believe that those inequalities will fail to reflect themselves in the judicial and legal domain, and that the economically powerful will be unable to manipulate the legal and judicial system to their advantage. To abstract from such influences of context, and then consider the merits of an abstract judicial system.. . is to follow a method that is not likely to take us far. This, by the way, is a criticism that applies…to any theory that relies on a rule of law to override the tendencies inherent in a given social and economic system” [Op. Cit., p. 225]

There is another reason why “market forces” will not stop abuse by the rich, or indeed stop the system from turning from private to public statism. This is due to the nature of the “defence” market (for a similar analysis of the “defence” market see right-“libertarian” economist Tyler Cowen’s “Law as a Public Good: The Economics of Anarchy” [Economics and Philosophy, no. 8 (1992), pp. 249–267] and “Rejoinder to David Friedman on the Economics of Anarchy” [Economics and Philosophy, no. 10 (1994), pp. 329–332]). In “anarcho”-capitalist theory it is assumed that the competing “defence companies” have a vested interest in peacefully settling differences between themselves by means of arbitration. In order to be competitive on the market, companies will have to co-operate via contractual relations otherwise the higher price associated with conflict will make the company uncompetitive and it will go under. Those companies that ignore decisions made in arbitration would be outlawed by others, ostracised and their rulings ignored. By this process, it is argued, a system of competing “defence” companies will be stable and not turn into a civil war between agencies with each enforcing the interests of their clients against others by force.

However, there is a catch. Unlike every other market, the businesses in competition in the “defence” industry must co-operate with its fellows in order to provide its services for its customers. They need to be able to agree to courts and judges, agree to abide by decisions and law codes and so forth. In economics there are other, more accurate, terms to describe co-operative activity between companies: collusion and cartels. These are when companies in a specific market agree to work together (co-operate) to restrict competition and reap the benefits of monopoly power by working to achieve the same ends in partnership with each other. By stressing the co-operative nature of the “defence” market, “anarcho”-capitalists are implicitly acknowledging that collusion is built into the system. The necessary contractual relations between agencies in the “protection” market require that firms co-operate and, by so doing, to behave (effectively) as one large firm (and so resemble a normal state even more than they already do). Quoting Adam Smith seems appropriate here: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” [The Wealth of Nations, p. 117] Having a market based on people of the same trade co-operating seems, therefore, an unwise move.

For example, when buying food it does not matter whether the supermarkets visited have good relations with each other. The goods bought are independent of the relationships that exist between competing companies. However, in the case of private states this is not the case. If a specific “defence” company has bad relationships with other companies in the market then it is against a customer’s self-interest to subscribe to it. Why subscribe to a private state if its judgements are ignored by the others and it has to resort to violence to be heard? This, as well as being potentially dangerous, will also push up the prices that have to be paid. Arbitration is one of the most important services a defence firm can offer its customers and its market share is based upon being able to settle interagency disputes without risk of war or uncertainty that the final outcome will not be accepted by all parties. Lose that and a company will lose market share.

Therefore, the market set-up within the “anarcho”-capitalist “defence” market is such that private states have to co-operate with the others (or go out of business fast) and this means collusion can take place. In other words, a system of private states will have to agree to work together in order to provide the service of “law enforcement” to their customers and the result of such co-operation is to create a cartel. However, unlike cartels in other industries, the “defence” cartel will be a stable body simply because its members have to work with their competitors in order to survive.

Let us look at what would happen after such a cartel is formed in a specific area and a new “defence company” desired to enter the market. This new company will have to work with the members of the cartel in order to provide its services to its customers (note that “anarcho”-capitalists already assume that they “will have to” subscribe to the same law code). If the new defence firm tries to under-cut the cartel’s monopoly prices, the other companies would refuse to work with it. Having to face constant conflict or the possibility of conflict, seeing its decisions being ignored by other agencies and being uncertain what the results of a dispute would be, few would patronise the new “defence company.” The new company’s prices would go up and it would soon face either folding or joining the cartel. Unlike every other market, if a “defence company” does not have friendly, co-operative relations with other firms in the same industry then it will go out of business.

This means that the firms that are co-operating have simply to agree not to deal with new firms which are attempting to undermine the cartel in order for them to fail. A “cartel busting” firm goes out of business in the same way an outlaw one does — the higher costs associated with having to solve all its conflicts by force, not arbitration, increases its production costs much higher than the competitors and the firm faces insurmountable difficulties selling its products at a profit (ignoring any drop of demand due to fears of conflict by actual and potential customers). Even if we assume that many people will happily join the new firm in spite of the dangers to protect themselves against the cartel and its taxation (i.e. monopoly profits), enough will remain members of the cartel so that co-operation will still be needed and conflict unprofitable and dangerous (and as the cartel will have more resources than the new firm, it could usually hold out longer than the new firm could). In effect, breaking the cartel may take the form of an armed revolution — as it would with any state.

The forces that break up cartels and monopolies in other industries (such as free entry — although, of course the “defence” market will be subject to oligopolistic tendencies as any other and this will create barriers to entry) do not work here and so new firms have to co-operate or loose market share and/or profits. This means that “defence companies” will reap monopoly profits and, more importantly, have a monopoly of force over a given area.

It is also likely that a multitude of cartels would develop, with a given cartel operating in a given locality. This is because law enforcement would be localised in given areas as most crime occurs where the criminal lives (few criminals would live in Glasgow and commit crimes in Paris). However, as defence companies have to co-operate to provide their services, so would the cartels. Few people live all their lives in one area and so firms from different cartels would come into contact, so forming a cartel of cartels. This cartel of cartels may (perhaps) be less powerful than a local cartel, but it would still be required and for exactly the same reasons a local one is. Therefore “anarcho”-capitalism would, like “actually existing capitalism,” be marked by a series of public states covering given areas, co-ordinated by larger states at higher levels. Such a set up would parallel the United States in many ways except it would be run directly by wealthy shareholders without the sham of “democratic” elections. Moreover, as in the USA and other states there will still be a monopoly of rules and laws (the “general libertarian law code”).

Hence a monopoly of private states will develop in addition to the existing monopoly of law and this is a de facto monopoly of force over a given area (i.e. some kind of public state run by share holders). New companies attempting to enter the “defence” industry will have to work with the existing cartel in order to provide the services it offers to its customers. The cartel is in a dominant position and new entries into the market either become part of it or fail. This is exactly the position with the state, with “private agencies” free to operate as long as they work to the state’s guidelines. As with the monopolist “general libertarian law code”, if you do not toe the line, you go out of business fast.

“Anarcho”-capitalists claim that this will not occur, but that the co-operation needed to provide the service of law enforcement will somehow not turn into collusion between companies. However, they are quick to argue that renegade “agencies” (for example, the so-called “Mafia problem” or those who reject judgements) will go out of business because of the higher costs associated with conflict and not arbitration. Yet these higher costs are ensured because the firms in question do not co-operate with others. If other agencies boycott a firm but co-operate with all the others, then the boycotted firm will be at the same disadvantage — regardless of whether it is a cartel buster or a renegade. So the “anarcho”-capitalist is trying to have it both ways. If the punishment of non-conforming firms cannot occur, then “anarcho”-capitalism will turn into a war of all against all or, at the very least, the service of social peace and law enforcement cannot be provided. If firms cannot deter others from disrupting the social peace (one service the firm provides) then “anarcho”-capitalism is not stable and will not remain orderly as agencies develop which favour the interests of their own customers and enforce their own law codes at the expense of others. If collusion cannot occur (or is too costly) then neither can the punishment of non-conforming firms and “anarcho”-capitalism will prove to be unstable.

So, to sum up, the “defence” market of private states has powerful forces within it to turn it into a monopoly of force over a given area. From a privately chosen monopoly of force over a specific (privately owned) area, the market of private states will turn into a monopoly of force over a general area. This is due to the need for peaceful relations between companies, relations which are required for a firm to secure market share. The unique market forces that exist within this market ensure collusion and the system of private states will become a cartel and so a public state — unaccountable to all but its shareholders, a state of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.

[hotreadingwitch]

MADE TO LIE - the mission

Y/N 

All heroes had flaws, for some, they were fatal. Tony had his arrogance, Steve his loyalty Natasha her guilt…Y/n Y/l/n, was too honest for her own good. She was a valued Avenger, sure, she succeeded on missions, comforted her teammates when they needed it, and always cleaned up after herself in the compound. On principle, however, she refused to lie, not knowing that her righteous honesty might be holding her back more than she realized. 

As she walked down the long windowed halls of the Avengers compound in Upstate New York she wondered why Tony had called to meet with her. She arrived quickly at the meeting room to see him sitting on the edge of the large table instead of in one of the tall-backed leather chairs.

“Hi Tony,” Y/n said with a smile, coming towards the billionaire before engulfing him in a tight hug.

“Hey Y/n” he greeted her warmly, squeezing back.

For a while, the pair chatted Tony occasionally glancing at the clock on the wall as he waited for the third member of their party to arrive. A moment later, Y/n saw Bucky appear on the other side of the room’s glass door. Her eyes widened, Bucky was tall, and Y/n had to admit it, handsome. He had thick eyebrows, high cheekbones, sparkling blue eyes, and cropped brown hair. Though he was usually freshly shaven, Y/n noticed that tonight he had a sprinkling of 5 o’clock shadow that somehow added naturally to the dramatic canyons of his slightly worn face.

She’d technically known Bucky since she’d become an Avenger a couple of years ago but she didn’t know him well at all. All she did know was that he appeared to be brusque and mostly kept to himself, only really warm in manner when talking to Steve, whom he trusted more than anyone else.

“Alright you two, I’m assigning you a mission,” Tony said interrupting Y/n’s thoughts. He looked between Bucky and Y/n with uncharacteristically serious eyes, “I’m sorry for being so mysterious”

“Who are we after this time?” Bucky questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“The Crane siblings” Tony continued, handing them each a file folder full of news clippings, photographs, and documents.

“Why do I know that name?” Y/n said to herself as she flipped through the pages. She remembered them vaguely, perhaps from the news, but she couldn’t recall all the details.

“They’re a pair of ruthless twins who run an underground group of criminals,” Bucky told Y/n before looking at the ground, “I worked with them in my Hydra years” 

A small silence descended upon the large room but Tony cleared his throat and quickly began to further describe the mission, discussing the Cranes and their illicit behaviour. Y/n noted that the wealthy twins mainly worked in ransom cases and money laundering while somehow managing to maintain a spot in New York’s high society. It wasn’t unheard of for the city’s elite to sneakily ignore crime and the police to take bribes but this case seemed worse than usual. 

“Sounds like a cheery group,” Y/n said sarcastically.

“Quite” Bucky added, his lip quirking upward into a small smile.

Their eyes met and Y/n could’ve sworn she saw an unexpected spark of something reflecting back at her. 

“We were hoping to set up a ruse that would pull them right into our net so that the Avengers could arrest them for good” 

He continued, detailing how they’d have to go undercover, to an extent. The idea made Y/n squirm her seat.

“Why pick Bucky and I, Tony?” She queried, “Not that I don’t trust your judgment…” 

“You two are the only single Avengers at the moment” he replied with a small chuckle as if the secret he was clearly sitting on the whole meeting had just tickled him gently in the ass. 

“Why do we need to be single? What is it exactly you want us to do?” Y/n asked then, her mind starting to race with possibilities.

“Well,” Tony stated, taking a deep breath, “You’d have to pretend to be a couple…”

Tony’s words sucked the air out of the room. He was asking her to lie, exactly what he knew she’d spent the last years of her life trying to avoid doing as best as possible. It wasn’t that she couldn’t lie, in all honesty, she was ironically a great liar due to her past… That didn’t mean that she wanted to. 

“You want us to date each other?” Y/n questioned incredulously, her aversion to the idea showing clearly on her face.

Bucky stayed quiet, as usual. 

“No” she responded stubbornly, “I won’t do it”

“Y/n, please” Tony begged, “No one is better for this mission than you two or else I wouldn’t be asking”

Y/n’s eyes narrowed slightly as she pondered Tony’s proposition. She’d have to go against all her beliefs and lie. But at the same time, she’d be helping to take down an evil group of criminals that were a danger to the world. Her mind spun as she went back in forth between the two thoughts. Could she justify lying if it was to help keep people safe? 

Somehow another thought wormed its way into her mind, one that seemed so raunchy and intense that she had to squeeze her eyes closed. Being in a fake relationship with Bucky, being affectionate, maybe even kissing him…She shook away any notion of potential romance, remembering that this was strictly a mission, one that required her focus, her ‘A’ game. 

“Fine” she affirmed, sighing, “I’ll do it, but Tony, how will we convince them that we’re together so quickly? Won’t it take months of public outings or of social media posts to actually plant the seed in their minds?”

“Well you’re right about the public dates, we’ll put you two out in the field as bait eventually” Tony stated, “…But I’m also suggested you do something else, something more immediate and effective”

“What, Tony?” Bucky countered, his voice seemingly annoyed yet stern, “There’s something you’re not telling us” 

Tony smiled a practically evil grin…“We want you to make a sex tape”

“You’re joking—you—“ Y/n protested, looking frantically between the two men, “You can’t be serious Tony, what could possibly be the point of that?”

“It would leak and convince everyone that we were together instantly as long as we backed it up soon after with another outing” Bucky spelled out quietly.

Y/n looked over at him in disbelief. Was he really okay with this?

“Look” Bucky stated practically as if he’d heard her inner thoughts, “I know what you’re thinking Y/n, but I’ve done much worse in my life…a sex tape is nothing if we don’t make a big deal of it”

But it was a big deal to Y/n, having sex with someone just for the sake of a mission, in addition to lying about their relationship? Was this really necessary?

“You need to think about how essential this mission is. We want to lock those criminals up for good” he added, his eyes swimming with something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. 

“I do too Bucky” Y/n replied gently, meeting his gaze, “I’m just not 100% comfortable with, you know…everything we have to do”.

“Our comfort doesn’t matter” he snarled, “Don’t you get this is bigger than us?”

“Yes, but you have to understand that there’s more to this for me than you know” she replied, this time snapping back, all her softness gone. 

“It doesn’t matter how you feel Y/n…Like I said, it’s bigger than us”

“Well, I guess I know where you stand,” she huffed, angrily. 

“Settle down you two” Tony interrupted, “You’ll need to put your differences aside in order for this mission to work. My mistake, I was under the impression that you were both professionals…” 

His challenging words hung in the air. 

“Fine” Y/n grumbled hesitantly, finally conceding, “For the good of the mission”

“Anyway,” he continued, “At some point soon, we’ll send you two out on a fake date after the tape has leaked with the hopes that they’ll come for you both, our team will have people waiting in the wings, we have a solid plan” 

“And what if they succeed, what if he gets hurt?” Y/n questioned, discomforting bile suddenly clinging to her throat. 

Tony’s eyebrow hitched upward.

“Neither of you will be in real danger” he spelled out slowly, eyeing her suspiciously, “the rest of the team will swoop in and arrest them as soon as they come for you” 

“If you think this is a good idea, Tony,” Y/n said, looking at her feet, “I trust you” 

She then got up and walked out of the room. Though she was clearly offended by the thought of the mission she couldn’t help but also be curious. A heat spread then on her neck. She turned, looking back at the two men, her y/e/c eyes meeting a pair of stormy blue ones. 

~

[shinhoebakuhoekitten]

NSFW

Okay, I know the idea of Gl*ry h*les are kind of over played but just the thought of newly appointed Pro Hero Dynamite not only going there, but being a frequent attendant.

There is a special place that only the elite and wealthy know about. Think pro heroes, government officials and celebs that allow them to enjoy such obscene acts in a peaceful and quite arena.

They have a more “open” space that’s the typical scene. Just a quirk proof wall with small holes in them, just large enough for a hero to stick his leaky cock in for a nice, wet, blowie. It’s the cheaper option and for those who have no shame (read ChargeBolt).

Then of course they have private rooms for those who are a bit more dignified and that’s where you see Bakugo quite often, at least more often then you would ever expect. He never fully sees anyone (a private curtain hides the attendant that collects the money at the beginning and to get to your room is simple, just follow the long hallway of wood floors to the numbered room the attendant gives).

It takes a few times before he finds the person that he always requests, you.

Normally requesting a person is taboo, but Bakugo throws enough money at the place and you that the place allows him to break the rules (even the biggest rule of all, knowing your schedule as soon as you do so he knows when to come in).

He has no idea what you look like, and hell, even you have no clue who specially requests you all of the time, you just enjoy the fat bonus you get every time he comes in.

Bakugo uses you as a warm hole to get himself off and you both love every second of it.