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#vast superstore
semiotomatics · 3 months
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*if you sleep with multiple blankets, choose whatever you consider the "main" blanket (the one on top? the one you use the most often? your favourite? idk man you decide)
also feel free to put in the tags whether you got the blanket new/as a hand-me-down, whether it was handmade/store-bought, or anything else you want to share!
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anarchywoofwoof · 6 months
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People in the U.S. are preoccupied with voting to an unhealthy degree. This is not to say that everyone votes, or thinks voting is effective or worthwhile; on the contrary, a smaller and smaller proportion of the eligible population votes every election year, and that’s not just because more and more people are in prison. But when you broach the question of politics, of having a say in the way things are, voting is just about the only strategy anyone can think of—voting, and influencing others’ votes.
Could it be this is why so many people feel so disempowered? Is anonymously checking a box once a year, or every four years, enough to feel included in the political process, let alone play a role in it?
But what is there besides voting? In fact, voting for people to represent your interests is the least efficient and effective means of applying political power. The alternative, broadly speaking, is acting directly to represent your interests yourself. This is known in some circles as “direct action.”
Direct action is occasionally misunderstood to mean another kind of campaigning, lobbying for influence on elected officials by means of political activist tactics; but it properly refers to any action or strategy that cuts out the middle man and solves problems directly, without appealing to elected representatives, corporate interests, or other powers.
Concrete examples of direct action are everywhere. When people start their own organization to share food with hungry folks, instead of just voting for a candidate who promises to solve “the homeless problem” with tax dollars and bureaucracy, that’s direct action.
When a man makes and gives out fliers addressing an issue that concerns him, rather than counting on the newspapers to cover it or print his letters to the editor, that’s direct action.
When a woman forms a book club with her friends instead of paying to take classes at a school, or does what it takes to shut down an unwanted corporate superstore in her neighborhood rather than deferring to the authority of city planners, that’s direct action, too.
Direct action is the foundation of the old-fashioned can-do American ethic, hands-on and no- nonsense. Without it, hardly anything would get done. In a lot of ways, direct action is a more effective means for people to have a say in society than voting is.
For one thing, voting is a lottery—if a candidate doesn’t get elected, then all the energy his constituency put into supporting him is wasted, as the power they were hoping he would exercise for them goes to someone else. With direct action, you can be sure that your work will offer some kind of results; and the resources you develop in the process, whether those be experience, contacts and recognition in your community, or organizational infrastructure, cannot be taken away from you.
Voting consolidates the power of a whole society in the hands of a few politicians; through force of sheer habit, not to speak of other methods of enforcement, everyone else is kept in a position of dependence. Through direct action, you become familiar with your own resources and capabilities and initiative, discovering what these are and how much you can accomplish.
Voting forces everyone in a movement to try to agree on one platform; coalitions fight over what compromises to make, each faction insists that they know the best way and the others are messing everything up by not going along with their program. A lot of energy gets wasted in these disputes and recriminations. In direct action, on the other hand, no vast consensus is necessary: different groups can apply different approaches according to what they believe in and feel comfortable doing, which can still interact to form a mutually beneficial whole.
People involved in different direct actions have no need to squabble, unless they really are seeking conflicting goals (or years of voting have taught them to fight with anyone who doesn’t think exactly as they do). Conflicts over voting often distract from the real issues at hand, as people get caught up in the drama of one party against another, one candidate against another, one agenda against another. With direct action, on the other hand, the issues themselves are raised, addressed specifically, and often resolved.
Voting is only possible when election time comes around.
Direct action can be applied whenever one sees fit.
Voting is only useful for addressing whatever topics are current in the political agendas of candidates, while direct action can be applied in every aspect of your life, in every part of the world you live in.
Voting is glorified as “freedom” in action. It’s not freedom— freedom is getting to decide what the choices are in the first place, not picking between Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
Direct action is the real thing. You make the plan, you create the options, the sky’s the limit.
Ultimately, there’s no reason the strategies of voting and direct action can’t both be applied together. One does not cancel the other out. The problem is that so many people think of voting as their primary way of exerting political and social power that a disproportionate amount of everyone’s time and energy is spent deliberating and debating about it while other opportunities to make change go to waste. For months and months preceding every election, everyone argues about the voting issue, what candidates to vote for or whether to vote at all, when voting itself takes less than an hour.
Vote or don’t, but get on with it!
Remember how many other ways you can make your voice heard. This being an election year, we hear constantly about the options available to us as voters, and almost nothing about our other opportunities to play a decisive role in our society. What we need is a campaign to emphasize the possibilities more direct means of action and community involvement have to offer. These need not be seen as in contradiction with voting.
We can spend an hour voting once a year, and the other three hundred sixty four days and twenty three hours acting directly! Those who are totally disenchanted with representative democracy, who dream of a world without presidents and politicians, can rest assured that if we all learn how to apply deliberately the power that each of us has, the question of which politician is elected to office will become a moot point.
They only have that power because we delegate it to them! A campaign for direct action puts power back where it belongs, in the hands of the people from whom it originates.
(Crimethinc, 2004)
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septembriseur · 3 months
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The other day I was talking to a friend who's a Muslim activist, and I made the connection between Amitav Ghosh's analysis of the climate crisis and my feelings about the genocide in Gaza and, more broadly, to the enforcement and regulation of inequality in our current moment. Ghosh refers to the way that we are living in the climate crisis as "the great derangement." There is a kind of collective madness, he argues, in the fact that we all know that climate change is happening and why it is happening and that every day we contribute to it happening, and yet at the same time climate change appears almost nowhere in our culture. We don't talk about it. We don't engage with it. Engaging it with would mean acknowledging that the premises on which our society is built are false and unsustainable. And the genocide in Gaza functions in a similar way: we know that it is happening and yet we don't talk about it or engage with it because it exposes the falseness and unsustainability of the premises of our society (premises that in this case include human rights).
I think that a lot of the things that Ghosh says illuminate how these two derangements are actually the same derangement, the derangement of what people in the environmental humanities have started calling the plantationocene. This has to do with a world ecology that sustains a hegemonic elite (and Eurocentric) modernity through the breakdown and (re)circulation of everything that is deemed to belong to the non- or subhuman. The world of the plantationocene is one that has always been defined by the ability of hegemonic power to treat both ("sub")human and nonhuman populations as interchangeable resources that can be deployed whenever and wherever they are most profitable to hegemonic powers: vide the relocation of African slaves and South Asian laborers, the disastrous ecological reshapings of colonized territories to better produce an elite European modernity.
To challenge what is happening in Gaza requires a challenge to several key principles of this world: that hegemonic elite modernity (which Israel has always formed a part of, as one can easily see by glancing at attempts to define the "Global North") has the right to regulate populations as it sees fit; that this regulation of populations is right because the sub-/nonhuman does not possess an unquantifiable wholeness that can be damaged or destroyed through civil destruction and forced relocation (i.e. it makes no difference to resettle indigenous peoples of the Americas or to transport South Asian laborers to islands halfway around the world, because their interchangeability means that nothing important is lost in the process— no more than transporting a plant to a different continent entails a loss or damage to the plant or botanical world); that the sub-/nonhuman exists as a resource to fuel, produce, and sustain hegemonic elite modernity, and can be simply wiped out if it becomes inconvenient or counterproductive to that modernity.
If you start to pursue these ideas, you realize that the genocide in Gaza is enmeshed in the "border crisis" and "refugee crisis" in Europe and the U.S.; you realize that all of these are enmeshed in your ability to walk into a superstore and purchase cheap consumer goods produced and assembled under inhuman conditions; it is enmeshed in everything you touch. And it becomes so overwhelming that you simply do not know how to think about it, because the suffering and the culpability for the suffering become so vast.
But we cannot let ourselves perpetuate this derangement. We have to look straight at the fact that it is absolutely insane that Gaza is no longer even the top headline on news sites. It is absolutely insane that Americans and Europeans (and even some Israelis!) can walk around and go through their days and not think about it at all. It is absolutely insane that we know what is happening and don't act. And I think that a lot of what Ghosh writes in The Great Derangement about the nature of contemporary politics explains why we don't act— but we have to live in the dissonance and tension of how absolutely insane it is that we don't act. We can't let the derangement trap us inside of it.
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swagcoolcat · 2 months
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Different Superstore Characters and Their Autism
(These are all headcanons)
(some have canon support)
Dina
* Strong Points
* Math
* To the point of being able to do basic math in her head
* 198+535? Give her 5 seconds.
* Math always came easy to her
* Music
* Learned guitar very quickly
* Also can play piano
* She’s a very skilled singer despite never having lessons
* Speaking
* Dina is really good at keeping her voice and her words clear. She knows how to get her point across. Even when under stress, she usually doesn’t crack.
* Weak Points
* Social cues
* She’s not bothered by this, and she doesn’t care. It’s not her fault neurotypical bitches make things so complicated.
* Pop culture
* She does, however, know the most random niche information, and is appalled when others don’t also know the random trivia she knows.
* Takes everything so literally
* Her response to Jonah’s “soon we’re gonna have to pee in bottles” during Curbside Pickup comes to mind
* She’s also bad with common phrases
* “I don’t like you spreading lies about fish!”
* Doesn’t seem to recognize how dangerous some things are
* Or how fragile humans are
* Sense of direction
* This bothers her a ton because she feels like she SHOULD have a good sense of direction, but even though she’s lived in St Louis her whole life, she still needs a GPS to get the vast majority of places.
* Yums
* Sorting things, specifically by color
* Anything that isn’t sorted by color when she buys it is sorted by color no later than an hour after it’s purchased
* Eye contact
* She actually aggressively likes eye contact lol
* Socks
* Icks
* Physical affection
* She only sometimes tolerates it, depending on who it’s from
* She’s somewhat okay with being touched, but she doesn’t particularly enjoy it
* Changes in routine
* Includes things like having to buy a new Halloween costume, or having to get new pens (both canon instances)
* High pitched noises
* A lot of noises actually
* Masking
* Does not bother masking most times
* She does it so rarely that it’s very obvious when she is masking
* Stims
* Making noises vocally
* Jumping
* Waving her arms
* Twirling pens or knives in her fingers
* Special Interests (past and present)
* Birds
* Security
* Knives
* Music from the 1940s-1960s
* Coping Mechanisms
* Sex
* Hitting and breaking things
* Driving
* Yelling at people
* Other details
* Low empathy
* Strong sense of right and wrong
* Usually this is in a rule sense, but there are a few cases where her morals don’t align with rules, and she breaks them to stick with said morals.
* Biggest example in my opinion is her efforts to keep Mateo from getting detained
* Undiagnosed
* She’s the most likely to have a diagnosis, but probably still undiagnosed
* Blunt
* Cares a lot for animals
* Especially any type of bird
Jonah
* Strong Points
* Vocabulary
* He has a large vocabulary and prides himself on knowing a lot of words
* (He’s so annoying about it sometimes too- he’s just like me FOR REAL)
* This exercise is teaching me I’m more like Jonah than I thought lol
* You’d think with this he’d be able to get his point across well but you’d be wrong
* Vibe Check ??
* (Sorry I couldn’t think of a better way to put it)
* He just is really good about knowing when something is off
* Does he handle the situation well when something is off? Totally depends.
* Weak Points
* Bad at reading social cues
* In denial over his struggles with reading them, thinking he’s great at it, when in fact he’s exactly the opposite
* Implying he’s bad at reading social clues will offend him
* Auditory processing issues
* Tends to give too many details
* Specifically about pieces of media, he’ll share a bit too much. He’s not good at giving a quick synopsis.
* He’s just like me for real
* He’s so fucking impulsive
* HE CAME TO WORK IN RETAIL IN A COMPLETELY SEPARATE STATE ON A WHIM
* AND HE ONLY CAME THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE HE WANTED A SNACK LMAO
* Has some insomnia
* Very bad at staying on topic sometimes
* The way he’ll just randomly start talking about something else in the series? Canon. Canon.
* Speaking in general
* If he doesn’t think very carefully before he speaks, he will stutter. Even if he does think carefully, there’s a chance he’ll stutter anyway.
* He’s. Just. Like. Me. For. Real.
* Yums
* Loves physical affection
* To the point of pushing it, and not noticing when it’s too much
* He gives hugs a lot
* He and Amy are very much the loves affection x doesn’t like affection that much.
* He enjoys changes in his routine
* He would literally reorganize an entire house if given the opportunity, he loves change
* Unless it’s initiated by literally anyone else, but he likes to initiate changes often
* Socks
* Icks
* Loud noises
* RSD
* This isn’t necessarily an ick but he wants people to like him SO bad so I guess people not liking him is an ick
* Masking
* He cannot stop masking
* He doesn’t realize he’s masking, but he was raised to mask his entire life, so it’s just normal to him
* He is always exhausted because of this
* He always seems uncomfy when he’s not masking
* Stims
* Moving his hands or arms in any way
* Twirling pens
* Repeating words
* Tapping his fingers
* Pacing
* Special Interests (past and present)
* The Americans
* Politics
* Musical Theatre
* Constellations
* Horses
* Coping Mechanisms
* Comfort shows
* Talking about it
* Or yelling if he needs to
* Quiet alone time
* Cooking for others
* Other details
* Feels the need to prove himself constantly
* Out of the three, Jonah probably had the worst upbringing specifically in regards to his neurodiversity, with his parents showing very obvious favoritism to his older brothers, and with his brother, Josh, always bullying him because of his neurodiversity
* High empathy
* Strong sense of right and wrong
* Undiagnosed
* Also so in denial
* If anyone implies he might be neurodivergent he’ll be like “I couldn’t possibly be, not that there’s anything wrong, but like, couldn’t be me, actually”
* Not good at making friends
* He gets better at this over the course of the show
* He’s not good at this before the show because he never sticks with anything, so even though he knows more of who he is than he did in childhood (where he was more of an outcast) he doesn’t stick around long enough to make long lasting friends.
Eric
* Strong Points
* Details
* He’s very detail oriented and notices small things
* He’s good at recognizing when things are off center and it drives him crazy
* Weak Points
* Bad at reading social cues
* Literally the worst
* He knows this to an extent but he’s not aware of just how bad he is at it
* Especially bad at reading the tone of a social situation (whether it be serious, funny, sad, whatever)
* Generally more quiet and reserved
* With his ‘safe’ people he is literally the exact opposite
* Also this isn’t a weak point per se but this felt like the right place to put it
* Dissociates a lot
* Auditory Processing troubles
* He literally looks like he doesn’t know what’s going on sometimes and it’s always funny
* Yums
* Loves physical affection
* But he’s picky on who he’s affectionate with
* Likes to sit on the floor
* Socks
* Sorting things by color/organizing in general
* Mateo leaves Eric home alone. He comes back and the closet has been rearranged by color. This happens often.
* Mateo doesn’t mind this tbh because he likes stuff organized that way too.
* Sometimes when he’s at Amy’s and he’s playing with her kids, he’ll get distracted and sort their toys
* Icks
* Dislikes changes in routine
* Loud noises
* A lot of clothing textures
* Velvet is the worst of these
* Strong perfumey smells
* Masking
* He does mask
* However, he unmasks around his safe people (Mateo, Amy, etc)
* He doesn’t really have the proper terminology for it but he’s sort of aware when he needs to put up a nice face or where he can just be stoic
* He’s good with eye contact and doesn’t hate it
* Stims
* Biting/Chewing
* Clicking pens
* Anything he can busy his hands with actually
* Whistling
* Repeating words
* Rapidly blinking
* Pacing
* Special Interests (past and present)
* Plants
* Specifically succulents
* Trains
* This one is literally so self indulgent but I don’t care lmao
* Baking
* Giraffes
* Filmmaking
* (Because of a line where Mateo says he’s using Eric’s projector)
* He definitely still has a VCR player and a good amount of VHS tapes, and you can pry them from his cold dead fucking hands
* Weather
* He likes thunderstorms in particular
* This one is also self indulgent but I also just think it’d be kind of funny for Mateo to have severe storm anxiety and for Eric to be one of those bitches that would stand outside and watch the tornado if given the chance.
* Coping Mechanisms
* Rocking
* Hugging his giraffe stuffy
* Baking
* Sorting things
* Other details
* High empathy
* He Must be wearing jackets
* He can be without one, but he tends to have a shorter social battery when he’s not wearing one
* He doesn’t know why this is, he just is like “hm, I don’t really like being upset all the time in public places, guess I’ll just wear jackets all the time”
* Short sleeve jackets are okay, it literally just has to be an extra layer
* It’s an extra weight thing but he does not know this
* Undiagnosed
* Ron Sosa is also aggressively neurodivergent so their family is just like “ah, so the men in our family are just fucking weird, carry on then”
* Blunt
* Less so than Dina but it is definitely there
* Most of his close friends are people he’s known for a long time
* Basically saying he’s not great at making friends that he hasn’t known since he was in school
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shopymart0167 · 4 months
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gamerkats · 2 years
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Prompt: Write a horror story based around an endless parking lot.
This was a super fun exercise. We don't have time for anything other than an outline, sorry.
Word Count 1,300+
Disclaimer: It's horror, so some references could be considered disturbing or triggering.
Title: Wheels On The Soul
Five different groups are introduced separately as they approach a superstore. All of them going for various reasons, and are at varying stages of problems in their relationships. They enter the large parking lot at different times and look for a parking spot. None are found. Every stall is filled with a different vehicle. Up and down they drive, getting more and more frustrated that there's no where to park. Eventually they decide to leave, but the entrance/exit is gone. And stranger still, they can’t see the superstore anymore. Just a vast, endless parking lot with snaking rows of vehicles.
As the groups find each other, grateful to not be alone and confirm they’re not crazy, they all weigh in on various explanations. Drugs. Dreams. A shared hallucination caused by a government experiment in telepathic suggestion. They don’t know. But they’re hungry and begin working together to break into other vehicles looking for supplies and clues.
The parking lot vehicles all have items that link them individually to a memory that reveals more about the characters. They don’t openly share with one another, but each of them has flashback experiences. None of them are comfortable with the other groups, and keep suspicion at a high. Especially the group that knows the most about unethical experimentation, and notice similarities of the setup and groups “chosen” to be there to interact. So, everyone is on edge and paranoid.
Then night comes.
Rows of vehicles away, a set of headlights flicks on in the darkness. One group wants to check it out, the others want to stay put; one group even locks down in their car. The brave group calls out and moves toward the headlights. One of their members is farther out than the others, they're the closest as a silhouette moves in between the headlights. They approach demanding for the silhouette to say something as they grip the crowbar they found tighter in their hand. Then they recognize the figure and panic, saying it’s impossible. And the silhouette moves and tears the group member apart.
The others scream and panic. The group that had been approaching (now down a member) retreat as the figure chases them. Car alarms go off. Lights are flashing and disorienting. They can’t find their way back to their car. They scatter and try to survive, one of them making it to another group's vehicle begging to be let in, but are pulled under the vehicle as the group inside listens in terror to the person banging below as they’re ripped to shreds. Another group watches as one of the people outside is tossed onto their hood and thrashed about before being killed.
Suddenly everything goes quiet and dark. The remaining four groups are locked in their vehicles and terrified. They can hear noises. Scratching. Knocking. Jiggling of their door handles. One group in their panic accidentally hit the button on their keys to open the trunk. Pop. The monster looks over at them. No one moves. One of the members gets brave and pulls down the seat in the back to carefully crawl. Reaching to grab the trunk and close it quietly from the inside.
They hear the monster right in front of them. There's a pause and growl. They breathe shakily before being ripped out screaming. The rest of the people in the car close up the seat and wait in trembling, silent tears. They hear and feel something get in the trunk now. They push against the back seats to keep them from opening. Fighting to keep the monster out of their area. A terrifying blade stabs through plunging into the forehead and killing someone. Then the sun rises and the blade fades away like a ghost.
The groups eventually leave their cars as they meet up, scream, panic, sob and eventually talk over the night. They’re scared. There’s a power dynamic being created for leadership and survival. They try to put together as much information as possible. They argue. One person goes into their car to calm down, and hits the dashboard in frustration as the glove box pops open and an envelope drops out.
It reads, "Your freedom lies with killing the source."
They show it to the others and everyone looks in their vehicles and find they all have one. More than that, the vehicles they have been raiding all have one in their glove boxes as well. They notice that the car from the other group that was killed isn’t where it was left.
It’s now parked in a stall.
They are now looking at the endless vehicles of how many others this has happened to. That they are going to become permanent fixtures if they die. This amps up the debates and decisions for how to proceed. There’s a physical altercation and the worst person ends up as leader because no one can contest them.
They all nap. It's hot so the windows are down, letting them hear and awaken to an engine approaching. A new vehicle joins them and a new person enters the group. Everyone is suspicious. The new person says the jerk leader’s plan won’t work, but they’re ignored and cast out to drive off on their own as no one trusts them.
That night, the jerk leader’s plan is put into action. To lure the creature to a trap and kill it. The monster shows up again, but circumvents the trap like the new person said. Then the monster goes after everyone. The jerk leader jumps in a car and closes the doors and locks it as the person behind them is locked out. Ample time to have let them in, but they are instead caught and killed. Jerk leader breathes easy, but hears something behind them. The window was still rolled down, so the monster is there and kills them too.
The remaining groups discover there’s more than one monster as they try to get in their vehicles, believing wrongly the one that followed the jerk was all there was. They all are cut off, and some of them are picked off. But new person comes back and loudly honks and the remaining run and pile into the back of the truck and drive around fending off the monsters until dawn.
They are more suspicious than ever of new person, as new person knew the trap wouldn’t work, and the monsters only approached the truck when the others jumped in it. They want to see their envelope, and new person says they didn’t have one. They just have a pamphlet on a lecture from the 1920's about a demon that feeds on guilt, and how it was trapped in a tree.
One of the people look at the location, and twisted tree photo, and tells everyone they remember reading an article about how the area was a heritage site until 1982, when it was sold and turned into commercial real estate called, Paradise Corner. There was a string of bad luck at all the old mom and pop shops, who sold their property to the superstore giant. Then everything was paved over. Someone makes a joke that, "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot." One of the people talks about how if the roots of the tree were deep enough, it is possible they weren't completely dug up. And so the demon could be trapped to never leave, but released enough to have power.
The new person tries to talk them all individually about their pasts. Trying to determine if they're feeding the demon. The new person has good advice, and tells everyone to stop blaming themselves and move on. To let go of their pain or it will destroy them. Like these empty cars, they're stuck in a moment of time. Waiting. They need to get out of park on their emotions and drive away.
They start recognizing the vehicles all have repeating license plates.
6U1 L7         15 7H3         50U RC3
They don’t recognize the patterns but they keep looking for clues. More flashbacks. It’s revealed they all caused accidents of some kind at one point and feel terrible about it.
The new person is found talking with a monster, and the groups talk and decide that the new person is possibility the source of the monsters, or the demon themself. That would explain their interest in everyone's pasts, and the other unexplained events.
They kill the new person when they return to the group. As the new person dies, they say that a demon that feeds on guilt isn't a bad thing if it means the guilt is gone after. The demon wasn't the one who put it there to begin with, after all. It's just the maggot eating the rotten flesh of the wound so it can heal, and to fear the creature that actually caused the wound. They then die.
But no exit or way out is given. They're still trapped. They were wrong, the new person wasn't the source. Instead, dusk falls and the monsters return. When one of the monsters is close enough, one of the group members recognize a locket around its neck. The monstrous distortion falls away, and it’s their younger self from when they had the accident or incident that hurt someone.
Everyone now realizes their monsters are themselves as well, and they are torn apart and killed. They were so broken inside, they tapped into the power of darkness (that is stuck in limbo from the tree roots still holding the demon) and created their own "demons" to give them a sense of penance. The last person realizing that the license plates spell, Guilt Is The Source. They have been punishing themselves for things they feel like are unforgivable.
Dawn rises and the new person, who has horns and a forked tail and goat legs in their shadow, (the person group had believed was the source) is standing in the light and watching it. The younger selves of the groups, that had killed the group members, are standing behind the demon. And they all watch as the same cars begin to drive into the parking lot again, just like chapter one, showing it’s repeating. A cyclical existence of torture in a vast parking lot; a representation of how we park our lives and cease to move when we can't forgive and let go of what holds us in stagnation, that memory punishes us over and over.
The previous vehicles are all pulled into new stalls making the parking lot even larger. There is a wide pull out description depicting hundreds of other cars entering in other sections, implying this isn't just magic making it vast and endless, there's that many guilt ridden people feeding the parking lot space.
The End.
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nakamopapina · 2 years
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Drew Regina, after I found out that the movie theatre in the Golden Mile mall is closing!
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Our beloved Rainbow Cinemas, a once cherished part of our community, is closing on the 25th of September!
I pretty sure that many people around my age here, have some pretty good memories of that place...
Racing from the theatre to the Smitty's on the other end of the mall and back when we were waiting for it to open....
(This was before Superstore ended up taking up like, half of the mall) It was vast, wide open spaces! You could run full speed around the mall and not step outside ONCE!
Running from Rainbow, to Smitty's, to Extra Foods and back, all of us kids (at least the ones I hung out with there) Naruto running, trying to see who had the most potential to be the next Cosmo Beauty...
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I'M ALLOWED TO CRY ABOUT IT HERE!!! RIGHT!!?? ;^;
Goodbye to those wonderful days....
(After the 25th, only the Bar and the Smitty's would be the only OG places from when I was a kid to still be there, and I still haven't moved on from when the movie rental place closed)
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middleschoolpunkphase · 2 months
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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Superstore (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Jonah Simms, Garrett McNeill Additional Tags: Jonah is depressed, Heavy focus on his depression and how he deals with it, Or doesn't deal with it, also suicidal thoughts Summary:
It's mid-April when Jonah realizes he isn't happy. He buys French fries at White Barn and eats them sitting on the grass lot across the street. Dipping them into a puddle of ketchup in the corner of the boat, he watches the sun set, and thinks about dying.
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Dreamland Discovery: The Top Mattress Shops in Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton, a city pulsating with energy and innovation, understands the pivotal role that a good mattress plays in achieving a restful night's sleep. As residents seek to create their own dreamlands within their homes, the quest for the perfect mattress becomes an essential pursuit. This exploration navigates through the city's offerings, uncovering the top mattress shops in Wolverhampton where comfort meets quality.
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1. Expert Curation: The Boutique Mattress Experience
For those who value personalized service and expert guidance, Wolverhampton's boutique mattress shops provide a unique and curated experience. With a focus on quality over quantity, these establishments carefully select mattresses that meet specific criteria of comfort, support, and durability. The knowledgeable staff in these boutiques are adept at understanding individual sleep needs and guiding customers toward mattresses that align with their preferences. Wolverhampton residents seeking a tailored and boutique experience find solace in these establishments where the emphasis is on the art of curated sleep solutions.
2. Cutting-Edge Comfort: Technology-Infused Mattress Outlets
In the era of smart living, Wolverhampton's mattress shops are not far behind in embracing cutting-edge technology. These outlets offer a range of mattresses infused with advanced features, such as temperature regulation, adjustable firmness settings, and sleep tracking capabilities. The integration of technology into mattresses elevates the sleep experience for Wolverhampton residents who prioritize both comfort and innovation. Exploring these outlets opens a door to the future of sleep technology, where every night's rest is a seamless blend of comfort and sophistication.
3. Sustainable Slumber: Eco-Friendly Mattress Stores
Wolverhampton, with its commitment to sustainability, hosts mattress stores that focus on eco-friendly and sustainable sleep solutions. These stores offer mattresses made from organic materials, such as natural latex, organic cotton, and recycled fibers. Wolverhampton residents who prioritize environmental consciousness in their purchasing decisions find a range of options that align with their values. Choosing a mattress from these eco-friendly stores is not just a commitment to a good night's sleep but also a contribution to a greener and more sustainable future.
4. Comprehensive Collections: Mattress Superstores
For those who prefer variety and comprehensive options, Wolverhampton's mattress superstores are a go-to destination. These establishments boast extensive collections, showcasing mattresses in various styles, materials, and price ranges. From memory foam to innerspring, these superstores cater to a diverse customer base. The vast array of choices ensures that Wolverhampton residents can find the perfect mattress that suits their preferences and budget, making the mattress superstore experience a one-stop solution for comprehensive mattress shopping.
5. Traditional Craftsmanship: Family-Owned Mattress Shops
Amidst the hustle and bustle of modernity, Wolverhampton retains its connection to tradition through family-owned mattress shops. These establishments often boast a legacy of craftsmanship, with a focus on handcrafted mattresses made with precision and care. The personal touch and attention to detail in these family-owned shops resonate with Wolverhampton residents who appreciate the artistry and heritage embedded in every mattress. Choosing a mattress from these establishments is not just a purchase; it is a connection to Wolverhampton's rich history and a celebration of traditional craftsmanship.
Conclusion: Crafting Dreams, One Mattress at a Time
Wolverhampton's top mattress shops represent a diverse tapestry of options catering to the varied preferences and values of its residents. From boutique experiences that prioritize expert curation to superstores offering comprehensive collections, each shop brings a unique flavor to the city's mattress shopping landscape. The infusion of technology, sustainability, and traditional craftsmanship ensures that Wolverhampton residents have a plethora of choices when it comes to selecting the perfect mattress.
As the city continues to evolve, so do the offerings in its mattress shops, reflecting the dynamic spirit and changing needs of Wolverhampton's inhabitants. In each mattress, residents embark on a journey to their dreamland, where comfort, technology, sustainability, or tradition takes center stage. Wolverhampton's top mattress shops play a pivotal role in crafting dreams, one mattress at a time, and in doing so, contribute to the overall well-being and quality of sleep for the city's vibrant and diverse population.
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Unveiling the Thrill: Ohio Deer Hunting with Whitetail Heaven Outfitters & Elite Superstore
Introduction:
Ohio, a state known for its diverse landscapes and rich wildlife, has become a haven for avid hunters seeking the ultimate deer hunting experience. Nestled in the heart of this hunting paradise is Whitetail Heaven Outfitters & Elite Superstore, a name synonymous with excellence in the world of deer hunting. In this blog, we'll explore the unique offerings and unparalleled adventures that await hunters at Whitetail Heaven Outfitters, along with the comprehensive resources available at the Elite Superstore.
The Whitetail Heaven Outfitters Experience:
Embarking on a deer hunting journey with Whitetail Heaven Outfitters is not just an expedition; it's an immersion into the beauty of Ohio's wilderness and the thrill of the chase. With vast acres of prime hunting grounds, seasoned guides, and a commitment to conservation, Whitetail Heaven Outfitters ensures an unforgettable experience for hunters of all levels.
Prime Hunting Grounds: Ohio's landscape offers a diverse mix of woodlands, fields, and rolling hills, creating an ideal habitat for whitetail deer. Whitetail Heaven Outfitters strategically selects its hunting grounds, ensuring hunters have access to the best locations for spotting and pursuing their prized trophy bucks.
Expert Guides: The experienced guides at Whitetail Heaven Outfitters are not just navigators of the wilderness; they are passionate hunters dedicated to enhancing your hunting experience. From tracking techniques to strategic positioning, these guides are adept at providing valuable insights that can make all the difference in a successful hunt.
Conservation Commitment: Whitetail Heaven Outfitters is not just about harvesting trophies; it's about preserving the natural balance of Ohio's ecosystem. The outfitter prioritizes sustainable hunting practices, contributing to the conservation of deer populations and their habitats.
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The Elite Superstore: Your One-Stop Shop for Deer Hunting Gear:
Preparing for a successful deer hunting expedition goes beyond skill and strategy; it requires the right equipment. Enter the Elite Superstore, a haven for hunters seeking top-quality gear, apparel, and accessories.
Wide Range of Products: From state-of-the-art firearms to high-performance optics and camouflage gear, the Elite Superstore boasts an extensive selection of products from leading brands. Whether you're a seasoned hunter or a novice, you'll find everything you need to elevate your hunting game.
Expert Advice: The staff at the Elite Superstore are not just sales associates; they are seasoned hunters with a wealth of knowledge. Feel free to seek their advice on selecting the most suitable gear for your hunting style and preferences.
Convenience and Accessibility: Located in proximity to Whitetail Heaven Outfitters, the Elite Superstore provides unparalleled convenience. Hunters can conveniently gear up before their expedition, ensuring they have everything they need for a successful and enjoyable hunt.
Conclusion:
Ohio deer hunting reaches its pinnacle with Whitetail Heaven Outfitters & Elite Superstore. Whether you're drawn to the thrill of the chase, the beauty of Ohio's landscapes, or the satisfaction of a successful harvest, this dynamic duo offers an all-encompassing experience. So, gear up, embrace the call of the wild, and let Whitetail Heaven Outfitters & Elite Superstore be your partners in creating memories that will last a lifetime.
Name - Whitetail Heaven Outfitters & Elite Superstore
Address - 2047 Hall Rd, Nicholasville, KY 40356, United States
Phone No. - 800-689-6619
Website - https://whitetailheavenoutfitters.com/ohio-whitetail-deer-hunting/
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fooddatascrap · 4 months
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Significance of Online Grocery Delivery App Data Scraping of Top Ten UAE
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Significance Of Online Grocery Delivery App Data Scraping Of Top Ten UAE Groceries
Although online grocery is highly prevalent, it is still at the development stage in several places and earning only a marginal share of sales revenue. With the continuous expansion of online options, the share of online grocery sales will increase shortly, mainly because online grocery satisfies many consumer requirements.
Online Grocery Shopping in the United Arab Emirates
Online grocery shopping is considered the lowest-performing ecommerce category in the Middle East. But this percentage has got doubled since the pandemic. The e-groceries in the UAE have seen tremendous growth. Between 2015 to 2019, this ratio has tripled.Scrape online grocery delivery app data to understand the prevalence of online shopping. When COVID-19 was disastrous in several areas worldwide, online grocery grew exponentially. Between 2018 and 2019 in the UAE, online grocery sales jumped from $170 million to $299 million. Now, the market has reached more than $1.1 billion. It clearly states that the pandemic has completely changed how consumers behave, and with the increasing need to shop online, several grocers have come up. As the competition is furious, collecting several data for comparison becomes crucial. And this is only possible if you scrape grocery delivery app data from the top ten leading websites or apps.
During the forecast period, UAE online grocery delivery market predicts significant growth. The market growth is owing to the rising preference for online shopping among consumers for increased convenience and avoiding the inconvenience of visiting physical stores or superstores. The vast online payment options and new business strategies excite customers to shop for groceries online, including fast, one-hour, and more.
Significant advancements in technology and continued urbanization are playing a major role in increasing the growth of the UAE online grocery delivery landscape. Companies engrossed in the online grocery delivery market collaborate with food delivery companies, grocery stores, and suppliers.
With the continuous rise of online grocers, several data scraping companies are also emerging with their role to scrape data using advanced tools. It comes in the form of a grocery data scraper that automates scraping.
List of Data Fields Scraped from Top Ten Grocery Delivery Apps in UAE
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Store Name
Address
Product Name
Product Image
Product SKU
Product Category
Product Descriptions
Product Specifications
Product Price
Offers
Reviews
Ratings
Discounted Price
List of Leading Market Players in Online Groceries in the United Arab Emirates
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1. Instashop: Instashop is a popular online grocery delivery service in the UAE. It provides a convenient way to order groceries and other household items online and deliver them to your doorstep. It offers many products, including fresh produce, pantry essentials, beverages, personal care items, cleaning supplies, and more. Scrape Instashop grocery delivery data to stay competitive.
2. elGrocer: elGrocer allows users to order groceries online and deliver them to their doorstep. It partners with local supermarkets, grocery stores, and specialty shops to offer various grocery items and household essentials. Scrape elgrocer grocery delivery data to customize your product offerings.
3. Kibsons: Kibsons is an online grocery delivery service in the United Arab Emirates. It provides fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood, dairy products, pantry staples, and other grocery items. Scrape Kibsons grocery delivery data to perform market research.
4. NOON: Noon Grocery platform offers everything you need, from fresh fruits and vegetables to kitchen and household items. If you are looking to scrape Noon grocery delivery data, Food Data Scrape is your perfect solution.
5. CAREEM NOW: Careem Now is the "Everything app" that lets users order food and groceries online. With several different modes of payment, it allows users to make hassle-free payments online. Scrape Careem Now grocery delivery data to understand consumer behavior.
6. Now :Now is the one-stop solution for everything that can deliver products online in an hour. From groceries to electronics, you can find everything you want. Scrape NowNow grocery delivery data to stay competitive.
7. Spinneys: Spinneys is a full-service supermarket chain that offers a wide range of groceries, including fresh produce, meat, poultry, seafood, dairy products, bakery items, pantry staples, household essentials, and more. It is a well-known supermarket chain that operates primarily in the Middle East, with a strong presence in countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Lebanon, and Qatar. Scrape Spinney's grocery delivery data to perform market research.
8. Fresh to Home: Fresh to Home is an online grocery delivery platform that delivers fresh seafood, meat, poultry, and other perishable food directly to customers' homes. Scrape Fresh-to-Home grocery delivery data to generate more revenue.
9. Hello Chef: Hello Chef is a meal kit delivery service that provides customers with pre-portioned ingredients and step-by-step recipes, allowing them to cook restaurant-quality meals at home. The meal kits typically include fresh produce, proteins, grains, spices, and sauces in the exact quantities required for each recipe. Scrape Hello Chef grocery delivery data to make data-driven decisions and generate more leads.
10. NRTC FRESH: NRTC Fresh is an online grocery delivery service that provides fresh fruits, vegetables, and other perishable food items. It offers a wide range of fresh produce, including fruits, vegetables, herbs, and salads. Scrape NRTC Fresh to understand your customer purchasing behavior.
Reasons Why Customers Prefer Online Grocery Shopping in the United Arab Emirates
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Flexibility: In-store grocery shopping offers consumers unlimited advantages, but not more than online shopping. In terms of availability time frames, in-store shopping imposes several restrictions too. Online grocery, on the other hand, allows customers to plan their food shopping. It creates flexibility in their daily schedule. If you are in the online grocery business and want to stay competitive, seek professional help from grocery delivery app data scraping services to collect enormous data.
Time-Saving: In-store grocery shopping is associated with driving into the store, looking for parking, and waiting in a long line to checkout. All these processes are very time-consuming. When coupled with timely delivery, online offers, online grocery shopping can help speed up the grocery shopping process.
No Limitations of Closing Hours: Sometimes, due to their busy schedule, people often visit a store late and find it closed. People, especially in the workforce, can't manage to visit the store during its opening hours. On the other hand, an online store is always open for business, allowing consumers to order groceries online at any time, irrespective of day and night.
Spontaneous Shopping: Online grocery shopping allows customers to order anything they want, irrespective of any situation. Scrape grocery delivery app data to understand what strategies competitors are using.
Home Delivery: Home delivery service offered by food retailers to their consumers can save them unlimited time. They no longer require to struggle with heavy shopping bags. Overall, it makes life much easier
Wide Variety of Choice: A local grocery store has limited storage to an online store. But, these limitations do not apply to an online store, so online grocers can offer their customers a vast range of products and fulfill even their unusual demands.
Enhanced Product Presentation: Only grocery stores have several additional formats to display products and help customers to buy them from completely arranged and categorized sections.
Lucrative Deals: Who doesn't love offers and deals? Several attractive online deals are standard, mainly because several grocers are competing with each other. And these offers seem attractive for penny pinchers.
Convenient Price Comparison: Comparing in-store prices is laborious and time-consuming. It has given emergence to price comparison sites for online shopping. It reflects real-time data to the consumers that the retailer offers.
Scraping Grocery Delivery Data Can Be Important For Several Reasons
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Price Comparison: By scraping data from different grocery delivery services, you can compare prices for various products across multiple platforms. It enables you to find the best deals and make informed purchasing decisions, potentially saving you money on groceries.
Maintain Availability of Product: Scrape Grocery delivery data to check the availability of specific products or brands from different retailers. It lets you identify which stores possess the needed items, ensuring you can find the products you want without visiting multiple physical stores.
Convenience: Grocery delivery services offer convenience by allowing you to order groceries online and deliver them to your doorstep. Web scraping grocery delivery data helps identify which services are available in your area, their delivery options, and any associated fees. This information helps you choose the most convenient and suitable grocery delivery service based on location and preferences.
Time-Saving: Scraping data from grocery websites can save you time by providing a collective view of different delivery services, their available products, and delivery timeframes. Instead of visiting multiple websites or apps individually, you can quickly compare options and make efficient choices for the grocery shopping process.
Meal Planning: Access to grocery delivery data allows you to browse product catalogs and create shopping lists for meal planning. You can search for specific ingredients, compare prices, and add items to your cart for easy ordering. It helps organize your grocery shopping and simplify the meal preparation process.
Deals and Discounts: Grocery delivery data scraping services inform you about special promotions, discounts, or loyalty programs offered by different retailers or delivery services. You can identify sales, coupons, or additional benefits to help you save money on your grocery purchases.
Wrapping Up: Finally, we conclude that data scraping UAE grocery apps is one of the best solutions to collect data on multiple competitors in the United Arab Emirates.
For further details, contact Food Data Scrape now! You can also reach us for all your Food Data Aggregator service and Mobile Grocery App Scraping service requirements.
know more>> https://www.fooddatascrape.com/online-grocery-delivery-app-data-scraping-of-top-ten-uae-groceries.php
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thepartiesoverco · 4 months
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People in the U.S. are preoccupied with voting to an unhealthy degree. This is not to say that everyone votes, or thinks voting is effective or worthwhile; on the contrary, a smaller and smaller proportion of the eligible population votes every election year, and that’s not just because more and more people are in prison. But when you broach the question of politics, of having a say in the way things are, voting is just about the only strategy anyone can think of—voting, and influencing others’ votes.
Could it be this is why so many people feel so disempowered? Is anonymously checking a box once a year, or every four years, enough to feel included in the political process, let alone play a role in it?
But what is there besides voting? In fact, voting for people to represent your interests is the least efficient and effective means of applying political power. The alternative, broadly speaking, is acting directly to represent your interests yourself. This is known in some circles as “direct action.”
Direct action is occasionally misunderstood to mean another kind of campaigning, lobbying for influence on elected officials by means of political activist tactics; but it properly refers to any action or strategy that cuts out the middle man and solves problems directly, without appealing to elected representatives, corporate interests, or other powers.
Concrete examples of direct action are everywhere. When people start their own organization to share food with hungry folks, instead of just voting for a candidate who promises to solve “the homeless problem” with tax dollars and bureaucracy, that’s direct action.
When a man makes and gives out fliers addressing an issue that concerns him, rather than counting on the newspapers to cover it or print his letters to the editor, that’s direct action.
When a woman forms a book club with her friends instead of paying to take classes at a school, or does what it takes to shut down an unwanted corporate superstore in her neighborhood rather than deferring to the authority of city planners, that’s direct action, too.
Direct action is the foundation of the old-fashioned can-do American ethic, hands-on and no- nonsense. Without it, hardly anything would get done. In a lot of ways, direct action is a more effective means for people to have a say in society than voting is. 
For one thing, voting is a lottery—if a candidate doesn’t get elected, then all the energy his constituency put into supporting him is wasted, as the power they were hoping he would exercise for them goes to someone else. With direct action, you can be sure that your work will offer some kind of results; and the resources you develop in the process, whether those be experience, contacts and recognition in your community, or organizational infrastructure, cannot be taken away from you.
Voting consolidates the power of a whole society in the hands of a few politicians; through force of sheer habit, not to speak of other methods of enforcement, everyone else is kept in a position of dependence. Through direct action, you become familiar with your own resources and capabilities and initiative, discovering what these are and how much you can accomplish.
Voting forces everyone in a movement to try to agree on one platform; coalitions fight over what compromises to make, each faction insists that they know the best way and the others are messing everything up by not going along with their program. A lot of energy gets wasted in these disputes and recriminations. In direct action, on the other hand, no vast consensus is necessary: different groups can apply different approaches according to what they believe in and feel comfortable doing, which can still interact to form a mutually beneficial whole.
People involved in different direct actions have no need to squabble, unless they really are seeking conflicting goals (or years of voting have taught them to fight with anyone who doesn’t think exactly as they do). Conflicts over voting often distract from the real issues at hand, as people get caught up in the drama of one party against another, one candidate against another, one agenda against another. With direct action, on the other hand, the issues themselves are raised, addressed specifically, and often resolved.
Voting is only possible when election time comes around.
Direct action can be applied whenever one sees fit.
Voting is only useful for addressing whatever topics are current in the political agendas of candidates, while direct action can be applied in every aspect of your life, in every part of the world you live in.
Voting is glorified as “freedom” in action. It’s not freedom— freedom is getting to decide what the choices are in the first place, not picking between Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
Direct action is the real thing. You make the plan, you create the options, the sky’s the limit.
Ultimately, there’s no reason the strategies of voting and direct action can’t both be applied together. One does not cancel the other out. The problem is that so many people think of voting as their primary way of exerting political and social power that a disproportionate amount of everyone’s time and energy is spent deliberating and debating about it while other opportunities to make change go to waste. For months and months preceding every election, everyone argues about the voting issue, what candidates to vote for or whether to vote at all, when voting itself takes less than an hour.
Vote or don’t, but get on with it!
Remember how many other ways you can make your voice heard. This being an election year, we hear constantly about the options available to us as voters, and almost nothing about our other opportunities to play a decisive role in our society. What we need is a campaign to emphasize the possibilities more direct means of action and community involvement have to offer. These need not be seen as in contradiction with voting. 
We can spend an hour voting once a year, and the other three hundred sixty four days and twenty three hours acting directly! Those who are totally disenchanted with representative democracy, who dream of a world without presidents and politicians, can rest assured that if we all learn how to apply deliberately the power that each of us has, the question of which politician is elected to office will become a moot point.
They only have that power because we delegate it to them! A campaign for direct action puts power back where it belongs, in the hands of the people from whom it originates.
(Crimethinc, 2004)
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virginiaprelawland · 4 months
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The Legality of Fast Fashion: Temu and Shein
By Elizabeth Wolnik, George Mason University Class of 2024
November 24, 2023
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Low prices have become an increasing draw when it comes to luring customers to a website. The new up and coming retail giants, Temu and Shein, are changing the way people view online shopping by catering to the need for things to be reasonably priced [2].
Temu is known as an “online superstore for virtually everything” and initially garnered mass media attention when they made their advertising debut during the Super Bowl this year [1]. Temu was established in 2022 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Even though it is still a new company, it is currently ranked at the top of the U.S. iOS app store. Temu is an extensive digital marketplace that offers a wide range of products across more than 250 categories. Their primary goal is to “foster a safe and inclusive environment and enable customers to shop with confidence without compromising on quality while enjoying the best online prices available”. Although many people have compared Temu to Shein, the two have some major differences. Temu connects consumers with small businesses who sell directly to them instead of generating fast fashion as Shein does. Temu hosts independent third-party sellers which allows customers to find virtually any product they can imagine [1].
The fashion brand Shein is one of the most popular brands with Gen-Z, due to their trendy clothing being offered at extremely low prices [1]. The brand initially gained exposure through TikTok and Instagram during the COVID-19 pandemic through videos of people showing off their vast clothing hauls from the website [3]. As the company expanded, they developed a supply chain with thousands of manufacturing partners. Because Shein doesn’t own the factories that make their products, their high order volume makes them a primary customer. Shein also sells directly to consumers in small batches to maintain their low prices, however this often results in product shortages [1].
Both Temu and Shein have faced scrutiny due to their ties to China [4]. As US-China tensions remain high, American legislators have increased attempts to restrict technology linked to foreign entities. In April of this year, a US congressional commission called out Shein and Temu in a report that suggested the companies were potentially linked to the use of forced labor, exploitation of trade loopholes, product safety hazards, and intellectual property theft. Part of the concern comes from the fact that Temu was launched by PDD Holdings. PDD Holdings was founded in China but has recently begun calling itself a Cayman Islands company by citing new corporate registration there. PDD also owns Pinduoduo, an immensely popular Chinese e-commerce platform that was found in a recent investigation to have the ability to surveil its users [4].
The low prices on Temu and Shein has caused some people to reconsider their purchases from the platforms [4]. Transparency and traceability of a product is becoming more important to consumers to want to shop more ethically. The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Around 85% of clothing ends up in landfills or is burned, and the problem is even worse with fast fashion. Fast fashion is defined as the rapid design and production of cheap and low-quality clothes that respond to fleeting trends. The items that fast fashion companies make are not meant to last long, which keeps the consumers coming back when their clothing falls apart or a trend goes out of style [4]. In response to this, Shein states that its business model enables it to reduce waste and overproduction by producing small batches and only responding with larger production if demand is shown. Temu says that they limit unsold inventory and waste by better matching demand with supply. However, researchers who study textile waste and sustainability in global supply chains say that these companies need to go a step further [4].
With the public intensely watching companies like Temu and Shein get into legal and ethical trouble, it brings up conversation about the conditions of fast fashion. The fast fashion industry employs about 75 million factory workers worldwide, but less than 2% of these employees make a livable wage [5]. Many employees work over 16 hours a day and child labor is a prevalent occurrence. To sustain mass production and meet consumer demands, fashion companies often take advantage of legal loopholes, like offshore outsourcing in developing countries. Because of this, employees in the fast fashion industry have limited rights and work in unsafe conditions. Companies commit to offshore outsourcing because labor costs are cheaper and there are less regulations surrounding it. There are currently no U.S. federal laws that regulate offshore outsourcing [5]. 
In February of this year a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators wrote to Shien, pressing them to disclose their supply chain practices [4]. They said, “We are concerned that American consumers may be inadvertently purchasing apparel made in part with cotton grown, picked, and processed using forced labor”. The inquiry was made following a report that showed lab testing that found garments shipped to the U.S. from Shien were made with cotton from Xinjiang. This is problematic because Washington has banned all imports from Xinjiang over concerns of forced labor. A spokesperson from Shein said that the company has zero tolerance for forced labor and has worked with third parties to audit supplier factories. To ensure compliance with U.S. laws, Shein requires that suppliers purchase cotton from only approved countries and has built tracing systems to get visibility into the origins of the cotton it uses. Shein also made headlines in December of last year when a documentary alleged exploitation at two Chinese factories belonging to its suppliers. The documentary alleged that staff were working 18 hours a day and making pennies on each item of clothing they made. Shein responded by saying that independent audits have refuted most of these allegations, but the investigation showed that employees at two of its suppliers were working longer hours than allowed [4].
On top of the controversies surrounding Temu and Shein, they have also entered into litigation with each other. Beginning in December 2022, Shein sued Temu in Illinois federal court alleging that Temu had enlisted online influencers “to make false and deceptive statements” about Shein to promote its own goods [3]. Temu filed to dismiss the suit, but the case is still pending. Shein has also accused Temu many times of copyright infringement [3].
Temu has also sued Shein, filing a lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts of this year, accusing them of violating anti-trust laws by attempting to monopolize suppliers and engaging in other forms of illegal behavior [3]. Temu claims that Shein has “engaged in a campaign of threats, intimidation, false assertions of infringement, and attempts to impose baseless punitive fines” on apparel makers that were thought to be working with Temu. They also allege that Shein “forced” exclusivity deals on clothing manufacturers to prevent them from working with Temu. A court filing says, “As a result of its fast growth, Shein now views itself as being ‘at war’ with Temu and has engaged in an elaborate and anticompetitive scheme aimed at stymieing Temu’s business”. Temu also alleges that Shein tried to force manufacturers to sign loyalty agreements to vow not to do business with Temu, and that Shein would issue fines to suppliers that worked with Temu [3].
As of late October 2023, Temu and Shein have applied to end their lawsuits against each other. Joint declarations were filed in Chicago and Boston by lawyers representing the companies, requesting that two legal cases be dismissed without prejudice by the judge. The filings did not contain details on why the companies decided to drop the complaints or if any settlements were made [6].
As Temu and Shein continue to make waves in the online retail landscape, consumers should be mindful of the ethical concerns surrounding these companies. Balancing the allure of low prices with the need for responsible and ethical business practices is crucial for the long-term success and sustainability of these emerging giants. Only time will tell whether these retail powerhouses can strike a balance that satisfies both the demands of consumers and the expectations of an increasingly conscientious public.
______________________________________________________________
[1] https://fashionweekdaily.com/temu-and-shein-a-deep-dive-into-their-differences/
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/talking-points-too-good-to-be-true-deals-on-temu-and-shein/
[3] https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/19/tech/temu-shein-lawsuits-intl-hnk/index.html
[4] https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/23/tech/temu-shein-us-concerns-intl-hnk/index.html
[5] https://www.thenulj.com/nuljforum/fastfashion
[6] https://www.reuters.com/legal/low-cost-e-commerce-rivals-shein-temu-shelve-us-court-cases-2023-10-27/
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Finding Quality Used Engines Near Me | Autoparts miles
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Introduction:
Welcome, engine enthusiasts and bargain hunters! Today, we embark on a quest to discover the ultimate hidden gems – Used Engines for Sale Near You. Whether you are a seasoned gearhead or simply someone on a mission to keep your beloved car running smoothly, this article is your treasure map to finding the finest used car engines for sale in your area.
1. Understanding the Art of 'Engine Scavenging':
Searching for used car engines can be compared to an adventurous treasure hunt. But fear not, we have compiled some expert tips and tricks to help you navigate this seemingly challenging terrain. From online platforms to local junkyards, there are several avenues to explore when it comes to finding engines for sale near you.
2. Online Platforms: Your Digital Engine Superstore:
The technological era has gifted us with unprecedented access to a vast array of resources. Several online platforms now serve as virtual marketplaces, bringing buyers and sellers together. Discover the advantages of these platforms, their search filters, and key strategies to make the most of your virtual engine shopping experience.
3. Brick-and-Mortar Wisdom: Unearthing Engines at Local Junkyards:
While the convenience of online platforms cannot be denied, visiting local junkyards can be an adventure of its own. Unveil the hidden treasures among the piles of discarded metal, and learn how to strike the best deal while ensuring the engine's quality and compatibility with your vehicle.
4. Dangers of the Search: Ensuring Quality and Reliability:
As with any purchase, the search for used car engines also carries some risks. However, with our guidance on decoding mileage, identifying red flags, and conducting thorough inspections, you can minimize these risks and find a reliable engine that suits your needs.
5. Weighing Cost vs. Quality: Finding the Sweet Spot:
Money matters, and this section delves into the delicate balance between cost and quality. Explore the importance of price research, negotiating skills, and the value of warranties when searching for used engines near you. Find out how to strike the perfect deal without compromising on the performance of your vehicle.
Conclusion:
Congratulations, my fellow adventurer! You are now well-equipped to embark on your quest to find the best-used engine for sale that is nearest to your heart. From online platforms to local junkyards, there is a treasure trove waiting to be discovered. Be savvy, be diligent, and with our guide in hand, you will navigate the world of used engines with confidence and finesse. Happy 
1-888-855-1808
Address:
1102 Buschong St Houston Tx 77039 USA
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autohouse11 · 7 months
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Auto House Superstore: Your Go-To Source for Used Cars
Are you on the hunt for a reliable and affordable used car? Look no further than Auto House Superstore! Our name is synonymous with excellence in the automotive industry, and we take pride in offering an extensive selection of top-notch used vehicles that cater to every need and budget. When you choose Auto House Superstore, you're choosing a trusted partner in your quest to find the perfect used car. Auto house superstore used cars
Why Auto House Superstore for Used Cars?
Vast Selection: Auto House Superstore boasts a diverse range of used cars, trucks, SUVs, and more. Whether you're in search of a fuel-efficient compact car for your daily commute or a spacious SUV for family adventures, we have the perfect used vehicle for you.
Quality Assurance: We prioritize your peace of mind. All our used cars undergo rigorous inspections and comprehensive maintenance checks to ensure they meet the highest standards of quality. Our commitment to excellence ensures that you drive away in a reliable vehicle.
Competitive Pricing: We believe that owning a quality used car should be affordable. That's why we offer competitive pricing and flexible financing options to suit your budget. Our team will work with you to find a financing solution that aligns with your financial goals.
Outstanding Customer Service: At Auto House Superstore, our customers come first. Our friendly and knowledgeable staff is dedicated to assisting you every step of the way. Whether you have questions about a specific used car or need guidance on financing, we're here to provide the support you need.
Trusted Reputation: Auto House Superstore has built a solid reputation for trustworthiness and reliability in the automotive industry. Our satisfied customers can vouch for our commitment to offering top-quality used vehicles and exceptional service.
Visit Us Today!
When you're in the market for your next used car, make Auto House Superstore your first choice. With our vast selection, quality assurance, competitive pricing, and outstanding customer service, you'll quickly realize that Auto House Superstore is the ideal destination for finding unbeatable value in used cars. Come visit us today and experience why Auto House Superstore is your go-to source for quality used vehicles. Your dream car is waiting!
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canadianjobbank · 8 months
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Apply now: https://canadianjobbank.org/stock-clerk-retail-4/
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