#Annual Accounting Review

[tracychamberlainhigginbotham]

(via Wednesday Wisdom: The Real Bottom Line)

[shoutwiththedevil]

You are a horrible therapist. All you try to do is put people down.

lol sorry you feel that way from parsing my inactive 12 year old Tumblr account and knowing literally nothing else about me, maybe you should go find a better therapist than me to talk about how much this appears to bother you /:

[vague-humanoid]

Nearly all of the deaths in U.S. immigration detention facilities over a five-year period were preventable, but no officials have faced serious accountability, a new report found.

Of the 52 people who died in detention under the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from January 2017 to December 2021, 49 of the deaths, or 95%, were preventable or possibly preventable if appropriate medical care had been provided. The new report, “Deadly Failures: Preventable Deaths in U.S. Immigration Detention,” reviewed more than 14,500 pages of documents published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Physicians for Human Rights, and American Oversight on June 25.

None of the private prison corporations—which currently hold more than 90% of the detainees under ICE custody—have faced meaningful consequences as million-dollar contracts have been doled out to the same facilities where preventable deaths have occurred, the report showed.

“It is a system that’s rotten to the core,” said Eunice Hyunhye Cho, senior attorney at ACLU’s National Prison Project and lead co-author of the report. “From bottom to top, you see some very minimal slaps on the wrists and blaming of the lowest level employees, but there’s really no true accountability regarding the disaster of the medical care system in ICE’s detention facilities,” she said.

After deaths in detention, ICE failed to conduct rigorous investigations—failing to interview key witnesses, omitting key inculpatory facts, and allowing evidence to be destroyed, the report stated. ICE also withheld information from the relatives of the deceased. To obtain the medical record of a loved one, a family has to take ICE to court and litigate for years to receive often incomplete files.

“It is a system of impunity and lack of transparency as ICE and private corporations are working hand in hand in perpetuating dangerous and deadly conditions,” Cho said.

Amid medical neglect, cruelty, and abuse, more than 38,000 immigrants are held each day in an ICE network of some 190 detention facilities across the country, as of June 16. That number will only increase as Congress approved a record annual budget for ICE to detain 41,500 people daily at a cost of $3.4 billion this year. Most of the detention budget will go to the private prison companies—The Geo Group and CoreCivic being the largest—where most preventable deaths occur.

“The answer that we see over and over again to the failures that produce deaths is to give the detention system more money,” said Andrew Free, an attorney involved in more than 30 cases of deaths in ICE custody and contributor to the report. “That’s been the response at all levels of the system. It’s not just one facility. It’s not just one contractor. It’s not just one fiscal year,” he said.

@dirhwangdaseul @startorrent02

[nightpool]

If you are an auditor, and you call up the chief financial officer of the company you are auditing and ask “hey when is a convenient time for me to come to your office to review the books,” and he replies “no, no office, parking lot,” and you say “okay I’ll drive to your office and you’ll come down—” and he says “oh no, not our parking lot, a different parking lot,” and you meet him in a parking lot 40 miles from his office, and he hands you printouts of the financial statements and drives away, how should you begin your audit? Which of the financial statements is most likely to contain red flags or discrepancies to be addressed? I feel like the answer is “the parking lot”? If I were auditing those financial statements, most of my questions would not be about technical accounting matters but “why are we meeting in a parking lot again?”

Here is a story about the CFO of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, William Smith, who was arrested last week for allegedly stealing $40 million from the nonprofit:

"Mr. Smith’s grip on the nonprofit’s finances was so tight that even the nonprofit’s accountant, charged with tracking spending, could not log into one of the group’s bank accounts. Only Mr. Smith had the password. He gave her the bank statements on paper and met her only four times a year, in the parking lot of a Honey Baked Ham store 40 miles from the office. […]

"Brian Mittendorf, a professor who studies nonprofit accounting at Ohio State University, said that the conservancy’s official documents show that it took steps to safeguard its finances — including oversight from its board of directors and annual audits.

"‘All these things sound as if it’s an organization with a pretty robust review in place. On the other hand, only one person can access the money, and provides paper copies in a Honey Baked Ham parking lot?’ Mr. Mittendorf said. ‘Those sound like the opposite of a robust governance mechanism.’"

As it happens, Smith allegedly altered the bank statements by “[removing] the payments to himself and [replacing] them with fake payments to other vendors.” I still don’t fully understand the parking lot, though? Like you can meet the accountant in your office to hand over the doctored paper financial statements; just unplug your computer first. I just feel like meeting in the parking lot sends a pretty strong message of “I AM DOING CRIME” that you might want to avoid, if you are doing crime.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The vast majority (99%) of the 281,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2 equivalent) estimated to have been generated in the first 60 days following the 7 October Hamas attack can be attributed to Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by researchers in the UK and US. According to the study, which is based on only a handful of carbon-intensive activities and is therefore probably a significant underestimate, the climate cost of the first 60 days of Israel’s military response was equivalent to burning at least 150,000 tonnes of coal. The analysis, which is yet to be peer reviewed, includes CO2 from aircraft missions, tanks and fuel from other vehicles, as well as emissions generated by making and exploding the bombs, artillery and rockets. It does not include other planet-warming gases such as methane. Almost half the total CO2 emissions were down to US cargo planes flying military supplies to Israel. Hamas rockets fired into Israel during the same period generated about 713 tonnes of CO2, which is equivalent to approximately 300 tonnes of coal – underscoring the asymmetry of each side’s war machinery.

[...]

David Boyd, the UN special rapporteur for human rights and the environment, said: “This research helps us understand the immense magnitude of military emissions – from preparing for war, carrying out war and rebuilding after war. Armed conflict pushes humanity even closer to the precipice of climate catastrophe, and is an idiotic way to spend our shrinking carbon budget.”

[...]

Even without comprehensive data, one recent study found that militaries account for almost 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions annually – more than the aviation and shipping industries combined. This makes the global military carbon footprint – even without factoring in conflict-related emission spikes – the fourth largest after only the US, China and India.

[metamatar]

One of the world’s top arms exporters, Israel exports annually as much as $7 billion worth of military technology, or 2.2 percent of its Gross Domestic Product. An additional 1.35 percent of GDP is dedicated to military research and development, and 6.7 percent is spent on its defense budget— the world’s second largest military budget as a percentage of GDP after Saudi Arabia. All told, 10.25 percent of the Israeli economy is involved directly in arms. Comparatively, for the United States, the world’s top weapons exporter, arms account for around 3.7 percent of its economy. Israel is actually the world’s largest arms supplier per capita, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the World Bank, at ninety-eight dollars; it is followed by a distant Russia at fifty-eight dollars, and Sweden at fifty-three dollars.

These figures do not include the contribution from natural resources exploited under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.50 They do not factor in the service sector’s revenue or general industry and construction taking place in the West Bank. Such figures are difficult to quantify, since many companies operate in the West Bank but have offices in Tel Aviv to obscure where operations take place. Nor does this account for Israeli exports into the Occupied Territories, which are 72 percent of Palestinian imports and 0.16 percent of Israeli GDP. All told, the Israeli economy is deeply involved in a web of expenditure and profit around the ongoing occupation and expansion of settlements.

American military aid supplanting open-ended government grants has had the effect of increasing arms production and diminishing the overall economic reach of the state. No longer is foreign aid and imperialist incentive directly invested in the working class. Israeli workers are now rewarded through the arms economy. This is why, despite the lack of social mobility and the economic degradation of neoliberalism, the working class remains committed as ever to Zionism.

The working class has become dependent on the education, housing, and career opportunities that their participation in the IDF affords them. They have found routes for advancement in the military-fueled high-tech industry, with over 9 percent of workers concentrated in high-tech. And as pensions and real wages are eroded, the cheaper cost of settlement living in the Occupied Territories has become essential.

[prolifeproliberty]

There are 55 pages of jury instructions, but the most important pages are pp. 27-31

This is where the judge instructs the jury on what the charges are and what is required for a guilty verdict.

Many people have spread misinformation that Trump was just convicted of campaign finance violations. This is untrue. He was not tried on those charges.

The charges he was tried on were 34 felony counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree

This means they are saying Trump broke this law 34 separate times (in reality it’s that the same transaction is recorded and reported in multiple places, so each of those would be a separate count)

Normally, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor with a 2-year statute of limitations, which would mean they couldn’t have charged Trump with this UNLESS they could upgrade it to a felony.

To make it a felony, the prosecution is supposed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that:

1. He actually knew and approved of falsifying the records (Trump does not do his own accounting, if you weren’t aware)

2. He did so or agreed to do so with the intent of covering up another crime

The jury instructions include one possibility of what that crime could be (campaign finance violation), but the prosecution could not prove that he committed that crime and he was not officially charged and tried for that crime. The judge proceeded to tell the jury that they did not need to agree on whether the campaign finance violation was the crime that Trump was supposedly trying to cover up (p. 31). They only needed to agree that Trump was covering up some kind of crime.

Again, for those who haven’t followed this case, here was what the prosecution said happened:

Michael Cohen, as an attorney for Trump, made a payment to Stormy Daniels in exchange for he keeping quiet about a sexual encounter she claims she had with Trump

Michael Cohen claims that he told Trump about the payment and was reimbursed for the payment, and that the reimbursement was recorded as a payment for legal fees (this is where they claim it’s being falsified)

Only the defense was able to completely discredit Cohen’s story about when he supposedly had this conversation with Trump about the payment. (The video has lawyers reviewing the transcript, reading it, and commenting on the significance)

And then there’s the fact that the only evidence that Trump even reimbursed Michael Cohen for this payment is a $420,000 transaction marked as legal fees. Thing is, the payment to Stormy Daniels was $130,000. More importantly, Cohen had previously testified that he had been receiving $420,000 a year as a retainer from the Trump organization for several years. That is, $420,000 was his normal annual retainer fee, split into monthly payments of $35,000.

In this video you can skip to about 49 minutes in to hear these lawyers read the transcript and discuss Cohen’s explanation of how a $130,000 reimbursement somehow ended up looking exactly like his normal annual retainer.

So based on this testimony, it looks like the Trump organization may not have even reimbursed Cohen for the payment, they just paid him his normal legal fees, which is why they were recorded as…legal fees.

So when I say this trial is a sham, this is what I mean.

[kremlin]

I do computer work but it's not very hard and kind of boring. How do I get to do hard computer work? Do I have to go to grad school?

hi i tend to miss these because of slipshod ublock custom filters im too birdbrained to fix.

i worked for a large american technology company which sold business machines internationally for close to a decade until laid off in successful accounting fraud scheme a few years ago. started as developer, erm, pardon me, i started as

junior developer

which is a role similar to routinely-executed court jester and human meatwave conscript meant to soak up enemy bullets to cause exhaustion of enemy bullet supply and finally guy that comes in big gross truck with a pump and a tank and a big hose used to suck the shit+piss out of portable toilet/malfunctioning sewer etc. this is for when you are 20 years old or so and they hit you with this work to calm your ass down a bit. my case was cloud bullshit on ancient rickety php stack. 5% keystrokes/clicks are php, 95% remainder is jira and other members of the axis of evil. LOT of dick sucking and butt fucking. Going into men's bathroom and making eye contact with cubicle neighbor before entering stall and fearlessly making disgusting noises. microwaving fish lunch thrice daily. you get the idea. meager paycheck but six figures takehome technically

next is staff dev, wait, god damn fucking tumblr, you can't adjust fonts mid-paragraph, and Big Text is just another type of font, in case you wanted Big Specific font. fucking fuck hold on. next step is

staff developer

no effective change besides greatly increased workload (click those motherfucking jira buttons!! suffer coworker's asinine bad-faith code review comments that HE AND HE ALONE must manually accept your responses to, on HIS time, before you are allowed to click the jira buttons that start the human meat sausage factory to get your 20 line maximum change into an RC and then release and then push candidate and then prod push!! pay raise one thousand dollars annually (lol). Emails. Now you deal with project manager too. speculate as to what sorts of grievous head injuries that man must suffer daily to describe his logic. his job is like the guy from office space that brings documents from one desk to another but he randomly reorders the words on the page in-flight. make plausibly-deniable wife fucking jokes about his wife in earshot. you're almost at the top of the suffering function. next is, no fucking cute font this time, senior developer, sounds cool right, lol, lmao, "senior" "developer" is like "tallest" "midgit".

no pay increase no workload increase but now manager emails you about extremely, extremely personal issues he's facing and also makes his most difficult problems from his boss your problems. one week will pass and then they will hit you with the "we're considering you for a team lead position". answer:

NO

answer no as this is the prescribed path, you take that role, you are maxxed out in workload, you are dealing with forty employee's worth of bullshit, another one thousand dollarinos a year raise, employer has solved efficiency problem with your sanity and burnout as variables. you're supposed to quit or kill yourself within seconds of hitting 30 y/o. don't fall for tricks. say "NO" in a creative way such as "i have tabulated some data and made it into excel pie chart quantifying diff. departments work output and am considering sending it to whoever Dave is, the guy that is one or two or three report levels over your boss' head, you know, his boss' boss' boss or whatever. or say "you are harassing me sexually, racistly" that kind of shit. make threat clearly.

was worth mentioning before, throughout all of this make as many friends and as much of a splash for yourself as possible as its time to trade on that goodwill, tell your boss you want an open relationship and you're going to fuck and suck other managers, and then find the good one with the good team of old fucking geriatric guys who could never be fooled into working more than a reasonable amount daily and also can kill people with their minds since they have been sitting on the bleeding edge of computing since 1969. their boss will usually be, suspiciously, one report rank higher than everyone else. e.g. their boss has a whole other boss + his reports under him. usually small team. go to their boss, say, hi, look at me, look at my beautiful plumage and captivating mating dance, please hire me, pleassseee. his team will say no, they will say things like "I don't know about that kiddo", "That guy seems like a candy-ass", they will read your papers and look at you in the eyes and say it is not compelling, the boss will kind of hire you anyway. if he doesn't you're fucked. if he does you're now a

STAFF ENGINEER

for fifteen minutes and then

ADVISORY/SENIOR/SPECIAL ENGINEER

and the suffering is over. no code minimal jira + squad of gremlin zerglings under your boss whom you can rank-pull and delegate bullshit to, they will be mostly suckers, take advantage of this. 80% of keystrokes/clicks will be in production of beautiful wonderful lovely .docx and .xlsx's, what a godsend, only in an emergency are you allowed to fuck with your zergling's code, usually in a cool way with bullshit procedure removed.

i worked on high performance computing shit. "what the fuck do you mean 2PB or so in and out a day on flash memory", "what the fuck do you mean special infiniband intel MPI library on CD-R stored in Craig's filing cabinet???". Meetings with company people: webcams off, responses optional, snideness allowed. Meetings with client: you must have your dress shirt starched and white glove the shit out of those motherfuckers. timezones = skill issue. i don't care where germany is, i don't give a shit, wake up at 3am for a 20m meeting i take on the toilet or while eating a boiled lobster complete with cracker + lobster bib. customers countable on one hand, invoices to customers not countable with 32 bits. no fucking mistakes ever allowed except for like whitepaper drafts, you cannot fuck the pumpkin on this one, your actual job relies on your ability to hit a button and suck down a week's worth of compute and millions of dollars, boiling swimming pool's worth of TDP, one mistake that leads result data to being able to be characterized as flawed and your balls are getting ripped off. Quarterly IRL meetings = normiepilled normiemaxxing. Dress sharp. leave at 5pm on the dot, go to bar with Old Fucker coworkers, drink wrecklessly with them, have a blast, let them give you a tour of a lab you are absolutely 100% not allowed to be inside, buildings that have posted weight limits per sq. ft. exceeding 250lbs, such a blast. every paycheck a FORTUNE every dinner a banquet every meeting an email every keystroke life or death. you get to meet /lib/doug mofos too one of whom i wrote a very poor kind of poem thing about. thats about it. hope this helps

[fatehbaz]

In 1901, Liang Qichao, a prominent Chinese journalist, wrote an essay entitled “The New Rules for Destroying Countries” (“Mieguo xinfan lun”).

In it, he presented what he had come to understand were the patterns of nineteenth-century Euro-American colonial-imperialist world domination into which China was being drawn. Egypt is the first among five examples he cited of a people and a state crushed by these “new rules.” No simple military invasion or despoiling occupation, the new rules proceeded under a subtler logic. According to Liang, English financial advisers had inserted themselves into the Egyptian court, inducing the state to indebt itself so completely that international bankers could take over from within. This ingenious mode of domination constituted what Liang called “formless dismembering,” hardly detectable as it proceeds, and announcing itself suddenly once it has taken place. Without quite articulating it, Liang was theorizing the advent of finance capitalism in relation to colonialism, with Egypt at its core. [...]

---

Aaron Jakes [...] takes up the relation between imperialist domination through the financialization of capitalism in the colonies [...] in his comprehensive account of the British occupation of Egypt from 1882 to 1914. [...] The [financial] crises, produced in the metropole [London, Paris, New York, etc.], were analytically and practically worked out by yoking colonies as productive places and colonials as laboring and culturally marked/racially othered bodies to metropolitan concerns over empire [...], making Egypt a “laboratory in which to settle those greater questions of the Empire” (25). [...] [T]he original goal of British colonial governance was to enhance [...] cotton-growing for export to the global market and capital investment/speculation. [...] The British restructuring of rural space and agrarian social relations [...] severely constrained the room for maneuver of the Egyptian peasantry, who had long used the porousness of the relations among land, property, labor, and power to gain whatever advantages they could. Peasants were now locked firmly in place, and when [...] [financial] crisis hit, their indebtedness left them relatively defenseless. By 1905, superficial prosperity hid roiling discontent with economic development but also with colonial legitimacy. [...]

---

[T]he Egyptian journalist Ahmad Hilmi recognized the British discourse of development as “gilded speech” that created an economistic reality without accounting for the lived complexity of actual Egyptians. As Jakes puts it: “despite the occupation’s command over the means of representation, the shared sentiments and experiences of the Egyptian people were irreducible to the charts and tables that adorned the pages of Cromer’s annual reports” (118).

In comparing Egypt’s poverty to the British-produced poverty of Ireland, for example, the economic boom of gushing capital investment was revealed to be a mechanism of wealth accumulation for the few. [...] [T]he gap between rhetoric and reality [...].

---

All text above by: Rebecca E. Karl. “Review of Egypt’s Occupation: Colonial Economism and the Crises of Capitalism.” Jadaliyya online. 21 June 2022. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[notfinancialadvice]

It's been awhile, but I have a new thought for folks starting out investing

This blog is called "not financial advice" so this is not financial advice. Nothing on this blog is.

And.

I am working on a large-scale D&D-style banking system for a private client (my job is weird). This is putting me in touch with a lot of people in very expensive suits and it I keep pinging them:

"Let's say someone has $100 to start investing, what should they do. Like, literally $100. With $0.00 added after."

I've cobbled together some thoughts (not advice don't sue me) and cut out the bullshit and sales pitches.

Start a high-yield savings account in an FDIC insured bank. As of this writing (April 27, 2023, United States-based), it'll be somewhere between 3.5 - 4.25% APY (annual percent yield -- i.e. interest)

Go with a bank that is FDIC insured. Banks pay for this, you do not. Here are smart people talking about what FDIC is.

The percentage difference listed above is 0.75%. Moving money is a bitch, is it worth chasing 0.75%? That depends on your situation, time, etc. Here are smart people who built a calculator to help you figure it out if it's worth it to you.

Touch it as little as possible.

Start a spreadsheet that tracks your finances.

In the cell that lists the amount of this balance, give it a name. Something fun, something that speaks to you. I did this as an experiment + to participate, mine is "Slime Research Adventurer Destruction Fund".

Write a prospectus (fancy word for "this is what the goal for this cash is to do").

Slime Research Adventurer Destruction Fund prospectus: Follow the path of high-yield savings rates at {bank}. Review quarterly if other banks have a substantially better rate (+1.5%).

The entire point is to break the idea of "them not me" and "today vs. someday" and "I cannot begin to build wealth vs. someone else can."

A $100 savings INVESTMENT IN A SAVINGS ACCOUNT with a rate of 3.5-4.25% will give you interest of $3.50-4.25 at the end of the first year, then continue on growing onwards.

That is your return.

Is it as high as investing in the market? No.

Is it safer? Holy fuck yes.

When you invest in stocks, bonds, etc. you are looking for a return. This is your return.

This is not a grindset mindset work 24/7 chunk of advice. This is not a reality-disillusionment "I am struggling I need to work harder."

You need to be knowledgable about how things can work for you so you can leverage what you have, where you are, when you have it, as you can.

A high-yield savings account is not going to make you rich.

It probably won't make a difference in an emergency.

It will absolutely make a difference in non-emergency times, over a period of time.

Slime Research Adventurer Destruction Fund Destroying Adventurers.

That last point is where I'm coming to.

If you don't have enough cash to invest and/or you're not comfortable investing, that's fine.

Give your savings account a name that speaks to you. This is your investment. Your savings account = your investment account.

There is no moral or ethical difference between "I have cash shoved into a savings account" and "I have cash shoved into the stock market."

The only difference is potential risk, growth, and fees (never pay for a savings account), liquidity ("how quickly can I convert this thing into cash to buy an apple at the grocery store, pay a bill, etc.").

Make money less scary via weird names and fun graphics.

Go to a piccrew site and make a catgirl with pink and blue hair.

Name your fund "Catgirlsnax Fundsies".

Make. Money. Management. Less. Scary. By. Taking. Control. Via your own. Desires. Goals. Weird quirks.

Here is to hoping these gifs are not from horrible shows I don't know anime I know money and business and monsters.

If they are then I apologize for it.

I've read the notes on my blog and a lot of you like anime. I'm hoping these resonate.

[archivistbot]

ELIAS: Jon, I must ask that you share the results from your annual employee performance reviews with me.

ARCHIVIST: [Flustered] Report? What… what do you mean?

ELIAS: The reviews. The ones you do for the board.

ARCHIVIST: [Confused] Performance reviews? What do you mean?

ELIAS: Yes. The reviews that everyone in the company gets. So please, if you could just, uh, share with me the results of those annual reviews?

ARCHIVIST: You’ve been in charge of the Institute for almost four years now you have never asked me to do annual performance reviews.

ELIAS: [Taken aback] I-I haven’t?

ARCHIVIST: [Growing more agitated] Not once.

ELIAS: Uh, I… you’re sure?

ARCHIVIST: I would hope so.

ELIAS: [Confused] You know, I seem to be not a very effective leader here, am I?

ARCHIVIST: You do not.

ELIAS: [Softly] Dearie…

Am I to understand I’m here at an academic institution that, uh, has almost zero accountability for the quality of either its employees or its leadership? Does that sound accurate?

ARCHIVIST: Yes. It does.

ELIAS: Have I ever, ever, in the entire time I have been at the Institute, communicated a single meaningful idea, generated a single meaningful suggestion, or tried to lead the Institute in a way that is of any value to its members or its field or its community?

ARCHIVIST: Not that I’m aware of.

ELIAS: [Very sickly] Thank you for your time.

[eirikrjs]

UPDATE 9/2/23

Wow, it's almost fall and I'm still kickin', so here's a proper update about what's been going on with me. I do feel great most days, and with Halloween in season around the US, it makes me very happy. As far as stroke recovery goes, my leg has a newly made brace and my walking in general has greatly improved the past few months. I really don't roll my left foot anymore, in other words, my foot can go flat instead of landing on the ankle and possibly causing injury.

My arm is still mostly nothing but a couple weeks back I was able to move my shoulder again so there's hope. I also got a home electrical stimulation device so I give my arm and hand a jolt for an hour everyday. With time, I feel confident i'll recover.

A great help with my recovery has been the amazing @dagdasgoddess , a fellow young stroke survivor who has been watching out for me and offering encouragement every day for a couple months now, exactly when I needed it. Mentally, stroke recovery is pretty damn tough but most days I feel positive about it, with great thanks to her.

And now on to some business. Shortly before my stroke I was planning on celebrating the 10th anniversary of my blog (which would have been in December of last year, but I was still in the hospital, obviously...) And one of the things I was going to do was photograph and review all the smt demon figures I have, using my special diorama table. I got around to starting the project a couple weeks before the stroke, naturally starting with the Leonard figure. Here's one of the pics:

I also made something of an anniversary banner, just because, I guess:

I also want to talk about some milestones reached, starting with some follower counts. By December last year I finally surpassed 2k followers, so thank you so very much. This is after Kanekos Crib Notes quickly dwarfed my own blog followers shortly after its establishment in like 2014. But now my own blog is even ahead of kcn, as undoubtedly its current annual schedule limits its growth and reach. (But hey, it's almost October, aka KCN MONTH)

The last milestone is above: my Stealing Knowledge blogger has reached half a million views! Unbelievable, thanks for reading and sharing over the years! Identity crisis part 3 remains the most viewed, with over 50k on its own.

Finally, I want to talk about the future. Another 10th anniversary plan was to try and monetize the blog somehow, probably via a Patreon for new articles and such and many other ideas, maybe even doing YouTube videos to answer asks instead of them being all text. I have lots of other ideas too, but they'll have to wait until my arm works again. So instead of monetizing the future, for now I'm just going to ask y'all kindly to chip in for the blog's past. I'm amazed at how much activity the blog still generates from--let's call it "legacy content".

To that end, I have set myself up a kofi account where you can show your appreciation for that "legacy", kuwabara, kuwabara, if you'd like. All money earned will go towards paying down bills accrued during my recovery, like my hyperbaric treatments. In perfect honesty, it's been around 3000 US dollars so far. Don't feel obligated to contribute and thank you all for still sticking around with me despite my relative inactivity. And if course, continue keeping @sorenblr busy if you wish.

I would also not expect my own recovery before next year, that's just stroke for you. Thank you all!!!!!

p.s. I was featured as a stroke survivor again on another therapy facebook post:

[monarchisms]

so for those unaware, rooster teeth's annual extra life stream this year (2023) will be on november 11th at 10 am central time. the stream is back to being 24 hours long, and the schedule has recently been posted on rt's social media accounts. with this context, this post is going to carry a more somber tone than the usual extra life posts i used to make. this is because of the hospital that rt gives their donation money to: dell children's medical center. most of the links going forward are to articles from news sites i read through to gather and cross-reference any public information i can find to make sure what i'm sharing is accurate. general content warning for transphobia ahead.

in late april and early may, news started coming out that ken paxton, a texas attorney general, announced an investigation to "determine whether it [dell children's] is "unlawfully" providing certain gender-affirming medical care to minors." he made a statement about it on the 5th of may, and allegedly, said investigation was sparked by a video in mid-april shared by far-right activist group project veritas. i'm not linking the video directly because the group has a history of video manipulation and general disinformation throughout its existence, and i'm not a fan of, frankly speaking, spreading their bullshit, but it's linked in the nbc article for further context.

anyways, an alleged employee in that video claimed that patients at the hospital were provided gender-affirming treatment, and started to medically transition around the ages of 8 or 9 years old. dell children's official statement was shared around a week after the project veritas video was published, basically refuting the claim and explicitly stating that the hospital "prohibits surgery and prescribing hormone therapy for the treatment of gender dysphoria for children". they also note that they were "conducting a thorough review of this situation." as a result, many patients and their parents "began hearing that appointments with the hospital’s adolescent medicine specialists had been canceled and that their providers no longer worked at the hospital", leaving families to find another health provider in the state or consider looking into out-of-state resources and doctors for a better chance at receiving care. i didn't find a source that specified if those whose were no longer at dell children's chose to quit or were involuntarily fired, but it's still unfortunate either way.

keep in mind that like rooster teeth, dell children's is based in austin, texas, and the state of texas (especially within the last year) has a history of transphobia and general lgbtphobia with laws that have been proposed and/or put into effect. one of those laws that went into effect was senate bill sb 14, which went into effect on september 1st, and outlaws minors (those under 18 years old) from receiving hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and general gender-affirming care from medical professionals, as well as disallowing said professionals from prescribing care or performing surgeries to the patients.

now, the reason i typed all of this in the first place is that as far as i know (please tell me if i'm wrong here), rt hasn't made a public statement about this whole thing, nor has it been stated that they decided to give money to another hospital, or keep everything as is. i saw no one here on tumblr talking about it, and i didn't want to keep quiet myself, so i tried to make this as thorough as possible. i made a post last year noting that you can donate your money to your local hospital or donate through another individual or organization other that rt on the official extra life website. that also applies to this year's event.

whatever you decide to do or not do, always make sure to do your research on reputable, verified organizations. if you're donating your well-earned money somewhere, be confident that it's somewhere you can trust.

[hamletteprinceofdenmark]

I am asking everyone who has ever complained about how the Dream SMP is run and organised to sign up with their local community theatre program.

I’m deadly serious. Do it.

I don’t care what it is, whether you audition to be on stage, sign up to be part of the backstage crew, paint backdrops, or sell tickets. Just do something.

It is so painfully, painfully obvious that some of y’all have never been part of a large scale collaborative creative project and are talking out of your arse about hypotheticals you’ve never had experience in or been held responsible for.

Being a content creator is a job.

To be a part of the Dream SMP is a business opportunity. It’s a networking opportunity. It’s a chance to expand your audience (and by extension increase your profit margins).

It is of course, also an opportunity to hang out with friends, have a lot of fun, experiment, and do cool things creatively.

But at the end of the day, a lot of fucking work goes into something like this.

I’m not saying there should be paper and ink legal contracts, but having a universal understanding of the responsibilities you hold as a member of the Dream SMP (including the amount of hours you’re actively creating content - as a bare fucking minimum) is a really good idea.

You cannot simultaneously complain about how the Dream SMP has felt rushed, or disorganised, or like it’s dying, or about the lack of communication, or how different creators’ lore feels disconnected from each other, or the millions of other things that I see all over social media every day, and then get up in arms about those same creators putting rules and structures in place to fix those very same problems!!

This benefits you.

It also benefits the creators.

Having clear commitment guidelines, open communication, communal goals, literally anything and everything Dream and all the other creators have been talking about (and seem really excited for, can I just say!), is to help create a better product for you guys and to reduce stress on creators, not increase it.

Let me reiterate that one for the people in the back.

The Dream SMP is a product that you consume.

You exchange your time, your energy, your own creative endeavours - in the form of fan fiction, fan art, analysis, and other fandom interaction and collaboration (which is also free marketing btw), and yes, even your money, in exchange for a product that these creators make for you.

Any of those creators could choose to walk away at any time. They’re under no obligation to stay.

Dream isn’t being a bloody dictator (which can we just take a moment because oh my god no he is not and I saw that exact phrasing in multiple different places). He’s being a producer. And the sooner you guys see behind the curtain and understand what that actually means, the better.

TLDR: I personally guarantee that the official Dream SMP Discord has got NOTHING on whatever’s happening in your local theatre company’s annual review meeting.

Before jumping down cc’s throats, consider why they might want to hold people accountable for a collaborative creative project which many of these folks financially depend on.

No one wants to be the one person working on the group project.

That’s what this is preventing.

[knickynoo]

Back to the Future: The Animated Series, s02ep013 "Verne Hatches an Egg"

✨Last episode of the series!✨

Previous episodes linked here.

In this episode: Verne gains a cute little buddy, creepy Mr. Wisdom returns, and a jarring final moment with Real Doc

Well, friends, we've reached the end of our journey into the world of the animated series. It was almost exactly one year ago today that I posted my review of the first episode, and it's been a super fun project to work on. I'm kind of sad to be done with it.

Let's see what this last episode has in store for us, shall we?

We start in the lab, where Doc is making adjustments to his latest invention, the "ELB Pediatric Policer."

It's basically a lie detector designed to be worn by children, lol. When a child does something they know is wrong, or if they lie about something, it flashes with lights and blares a siren. He plans to present it at the Annual Convention of the Home Inventors of Mad Geniuses.

Gonna be real with you, Doc—not sure how I feel about this invention. Sounds like a good way to raise very anxious, paranoid children.

Anyway, this reminds Doc of something that happened to Verne when he was doing show and tell one day.

The cartoon begins with someone attempting the steal the DeLorean. They're shrouded in shadows, but it's pretty clear that it's Verne. He's got a pretty high track record for DeLorean thievery. Doc's security system catches him, though, locking him into the car, setting off an alarm, and taking a picture, which is sent directly to Doc's room.

Quick little sidenote, but I don't think I've mentioned that Doc regularly calls Clara "Clarabelle" over the course of the series. When he's woken up by the alarm system, it's the name he uses to call to her, and I was like, "huh. why have I never written about this in my posts?" I looked it up, and Clarabelle (the spelling according to the subtitles on the DVD) is a variant of the more official spelling, which is Claribel. It means "bright and beautiful" but seems to be a pretty obscure name, as it's only listed at .009% usage at the height of its popularity in 1893.

So, I'm left wondering: Is the animated series implying that it's perhaps her "real" name, with Clara being her nickname? Or is this just an affectionate nickname Doc uses for Clara? And if it's a nickname, is it something Doc simply thought had a nice ring to it, or is it because he's secretly a big fan of the Disney character Clarabelle Cow??

That's Clarabelle with her boyfriend Horace Horsecollar, btw. If you even care.

Verne tells Doc that he was only taking the DeLorean so he could go looking for something cool to bring to show and tell. Doc decides to help him out by letting him borrow an arrowhead he has. Verne is psyched, but before he can even reach the school building, Biff Jr. intercepts him and demands his lunch money. He steals the arrowhead from Verne.

Verne's teacher isn't happy that he had nothing to show or tell about, and she tells him that if he doesn't bring in something the next day, she's going to make him play Prince Charming in the upcoming school play. Which is a really weird threat if you ask me!! How does one force a child into a lead role of a play he doesn't want to be in just because he didn't have show and tell? What kind of school is this?

Verne is horrified by this news on account of he'd have to kiss some girl named Beatrice. He says he'd rather be, "dead like a dinosaur" which gives him a sudden idea. I sense a bad decision coming! And I bet Marty is going to be in on it because he always enables Varne in these types of shenanigans.

Yep. I knew it.

The boys take a quick trip to prehistoric times, where Verne swipes a dino egg for show and tell.

Shortly after arriving home, the egg hatches, and Verne finds himself caretaker to the world's cutest dinosaur.

Look at that guy. (Verne faints when he sees it)

Within the hour, the dinosaur has already grown significantly, and it escapes outside to the yard, where Verne begs Jules to help in hiding him. Just then, they hear Doc approaching and quickly work to form a ridiculous story in which the dino is their friend who painted himself green because they're playing a game involving aliens.

They're able to get away with it on account of Einstein is so afraid of the dinosaur that he launches himself at Doc's face and refuses to move.

Doc decides to take Einie to the vet, leaving his sons and their "friend" to continue their game. Jules insists Verne return the dino, but Verne wants to keep him as a pet. He names him Tiny.

It doesn't take long for Tiny to go missing in town. He ends up at the Tannen home, where Biff Jr. is watching Mr. Wisdom (who you may remember from an episode earlier in the season). If you don't, you just need to know that Mr. Wisdom is an evil children's TV show host who also happens to be one of Doc's old college roommates.

Mr. Wisdom announces that he's offering $50,000 to any viewer who can capture and send in an alien, bigfoot, or dinosaur. Very unfortunate timing, huh? Biff captures Tiny and sends him into the Mr. Wisdom show. After airing a special episode featuring Tiny, Mr. Wisdom plans to kill him and sell pieces of him to research labs for money.

Thankfully, Verne comes clean to his parents, and they work together to form a plan and sneak onto the set to free Tiny.

When Mr. Wisdom starts his show and reveals the "dinosaur," it's really just Marty and Jules on stilts.

Jules looks just like the monkey in that one meme.

The family gets home and prepares to bring Tiny back where he belongs. Before he goes, he spits out a baby tooth, which Verne is excited to be able to take to show and tell.

With that story wrapped up, we go back to Real Doc, who teaches us a little about eggs using a raw one. While he's talking, he takes out the lunch he'd packed, of which one of the items is a hard-boiled egg. Can you guess what happens? Yeah, he mixes up the two eggs. After some time to think about it, he feels pretty confident that he's figured out which one is the hard-boiled one and. And he just BITES into the egg, shell and all, like an absolute lunatic. And he's wrong about it being the hard-boiled one.

Who does this? Who on EARTH eats a hard-boiled egg in this manner? Are you telling me that Doc regularly leaves the shells on his eggs and bites into them like an apple?? He eats the shells? Is that what I'm supposed to take away from this??

We're ending the animated series with the revelation that this is how our beloved scientist finds it acceptable to eat a hard-boiled egg?? What am I supposed to do with this now? How will I make peace with this information?

Join me next time for nothing. The animated series is over, folks. Doctor Emmett Brown eats eggshells.

Adiós.

[totowlff]

pillowtalk

➝ request: a one shot where Y/N and Toto are in bed talking and, even though she doesn't understand anything, she asks him to speak in German until she sleeps

➝ word count: 6,8k

➝ warnings: none

➝ author’s note: and we have another one-shot! this time, with a cuter narrative, to make the heart warm. i hope you like it and keep sending requests! i am very happy to write your ideas.

The digital display of the clock on the bedside table indicated that it was past two in the morning. It had been exactly three hours and 12 minutes since Toto had turned off the lamp on his bedside table so the two of you could get some sleep. “Tomorrow is an important day”, he said, as he kissed you goodnight. 

It was going to be an important day, indeed. A few hours later, you’d be waking up for the first day of free practice in Azerbaijan, at a track described by Toto as “uniquely challenging”, where simply having a good car was not enough to win — you needed some luck, good strategy, and drivers performing at their peak. 

However, it wasn’t any of that keeping you awake.

It was you. It was going to be the first time you would ever set foot in a Formula 1 paddock, and you were going in a role coveted by many women in the world of motorsport.

Toto Wolff's girlfriend.

The two of you met by chance, at the accounting firm you worked for almost three years. You had been the accountant assigned by Tom, your boss, to do the annual tax filing for Marchsixteen, one of Toto's companies.

You expected it to be simple at first — the company was a small asset management and investment firm. You expected that all of the paperwork and statements would be in order, and that you’d easily be able to contact their internal finance department. However, all of their statements were in chaos, and the owner of the company was a close personal friend of your boss. Plus, he was very hands-on and wanted to be involved in every step of the process. 

“This is going to be a disaster”, you thought.

Little did you know that, between phone calls and emails, you would meet the love of your life.

Unlike other entrepreneurs you had already dealt with when making that type of report, Toto was much more relaxed, despite wanting to be involved. At first, you only communicated by email, but he was very good about keeping in touch. Every time you requested some document or record, you received a response quickly, even if it was just to let you know that he’d get you the information when he had access to his records. 

Until, one day, in the middle of a boring afternoon, while you were reviewing the company's March accounts, your cellphone rang. You picked it up immediately to stop it from vibrating on your desk, not even bothering to look at the caller ID. It was your personal phone, after all — a client wouldn’t be calling your personal phone.

— Hello?

— Hello, is this Y/N Y/L/N, from Moore Kingston Smith? — It was a male voice you didn’t recognize, with a heavy accent you couldn’t place. The fact that he knew your full name and your place of work was concerning.

— Yes, this is she — you said after taking a second to debate if you wanted to tell the caller the truth or not.

— Great — the man said. He sounded pleased — I wanted to talk to you about the last email you sent regarding February earnings and dividends.

You were silent for a few more seconds, wondering how a client got your personal number and trying to remember which client you had recently emailed about February earnings and dividends. You grabbed the mouse and opened your inbox on your computer.

— Okay, sorry… Just a moment — you stammered, trying to buy yourself time as you typed “February earnings” into the Outlook search box.

More silence.

— You don't know who's calling, do you? — the man asked seriously.

“Shit,” you thought, as his eyes scanned the list of search results in your email.

— No — you admitted.

You heard a warm laugh on the other end of the line.

 — Sorry, I just realized that we’ve never talked on the phone before. This is Toto Wolff, you're doing my company's annual tax filing, right? Unless there is another Y/N Y/L/N at your firm.

The muscles in your shoulders relaxed.

— No, I’m the only Y/N Y/L/N here, Mr. Wolff, I know that for sure — you said, smiling. You opened the inbox folder you’d made for Marchsixteen that contained all of your communications and documents that you’d exchanged since starting this process.

— Well, that makes me feel better — Toto replied on the other end of the line. He laughed again, and it made you feel a strange, fluttering sensation in your stomach. 

“Is it possible for a laugh to be attractive?”, you wondered.

— I'm glad, Mr. Wolff — you replied — By the way, may I ask how you got my personal number?

— After I received your email with your questions about February’s statements, I realized it would just be easier to explain over the phone, so I asked Tom if there was a good phone number to contact you. He gave me this one, I hope you don’t mind.

— No, not at all, Mr. Wolff — you said, quickly— It's just… This is my personal number and I don’t usually give it to clients.

— Oh, I totally understand — he muttered — Definitely unprofessional of me. I apologize.

— No problem, Mr. Wolff. There's nothing to apologize for.

You heard a few seconds of silence on the other end of the line.

— Well, shall we talk about the questions I had? — you finally said, opening the email you’d sent him.

— Yes, Y/N. But before we start, I have a request.

— Yes?

— Call me Toto, please. Being called Mr Wolff makes me feel 85 years old.

You couldn’t help but laugh at what he said, and it was the first of many times that day.

After that day, the two of you started emailing less and talking on the phone instead. Some calls were short — just a question or two — but other calls lasted hours, as was the case on one rainy Friday afternoon. You were at your office at the heart of London’s creative quarter, and you were feeling rather miserable. The numbers on your screen were no longer making sense to you — they may as well have been hieroglyphs. Your coffee cup was empty — the third of the day. You were on the phone with Toto, and he was saying something about the company’s investments the previous year, but you’d tuned him out. You felt exhausted. It had been a rough week at work, and a rough week in your personal life.

You were leaning back in your chair, thinking about what you were going to do when you got home once this week from hell was over. First, a shower, then, ordering Chinese takeaway in your pajamas and watching an episode of “Killing Eve”. You were trying to remember what episode you’d left off on when Toto’s voice snapped you out of your reverie. 

— Y/N? — you heard Toto say — Are you still there?

— Yes — you replied. You couldn’t help but sound a bit startled, but tried to recover — Yes I am, Toto. Please go on.

Clearly you didn’t sound convincing.

— Are you okay?

— Yes, I’m fine. Why?

— I don't know, you sound tired, or distracted. Did something happen?

You swallowed hard.

— It’s fine, you don't have to worry about me — you said, but he was persistent.

— Sorry Y/N, but I can't ignore it. You don’t sound like you’re well. What happened?

— It’s just been a rough week, Toto, it’s not a big deal — you sighed.

— Do you want to talk about it?

— Yeah… Actually, I do. — you said. You stood up from your desk and walked across the office, giving a small smile to the receptionist as you opened the door to the building’s stairway. You walked down a flight to make sure that none of your coworkers would overhear you, and took a seat on one of the steps below the landing.

Then, you just started talking. You didn’t have anyone to talk about these things with otherwise, so they spilled out of you. You talked about your parents and their constant bickering and their need to have you play mediator for them. You talked about your neighbors in the flat next to yours who had been carrying out noisy renovations for what seemed to have gone on for a year already. You talked about your co-workers, who were unhelpful and unpleasant most of the time. 

Toto listened to your ramblings, only interrupting to ask questions to help understand the various situations you discussed. After you’d finished talking, he told you that it was important to find a good balance between work and leisure, saying that nobody could cope without balance forever, mentally speaking. He ended the call by inviting you out for coffee when he would be in London next, which was the following week. You agreed, almost sure that he’d never remember anyway. He was a man that had a very busy, unconventional job outside of his investment firm — there’s no possible way he’d have time to get coffee with someone like you.

But, you’d made a mistake.

You’d realized it a week later, when you were leaving your office to meet Toto at a coffee shop nearby. Seeing him sitting at a table in a corner of the room, with his eyes fixed on his cell phone, you couldn't help but feel the same feeling that came every time you heard his laugh over the phone.

Butterflies.

He smiled widely, and stood up when you approached the table, giving you a cordial kiss on the cheek in greeting. He was so much taller than you’d imagined he would be, and much more handsome than he looked in the pictures you’d seen on the social media account for the Formula 1 team he was the CEO of. “I didn’t know it was possible for him to be more handsome”, you thought, as you sat down and pulled a folder out of your work bag.

— What are you doing? — Toto asked you, an eyebrow raised.

— Taking out the documents for us to review — you said, setting the papers down on the table.

— Oh, no, we’re not. Don’t you remember what we talked about last week?

You blinked. You talked about a lot of things last week, you weren’t sure what he was getting at.

— I told you that nobody can cope without striking a balance between work and leisure — Toto added, putting his cell phone in the inside pocket of his blazer — We’re not going to talk about work, Y/N. This is for leisure.

— But…

— No buts, Y/N. Put that folder back in your bag. We’re going to talk about other things.

You were a little annoyed and somewhat uncomfortable, not realizing he’d intended this as a social visit. But, you complied anyway, shoving the folder back in your bag. You had no idea what he wanted to talk about or where to start, but he did. 

— So your parents have decided on selling the house? — he asked, smiling, as the espressos he’d ordered arrived.

As it turned out, the two hours you’d spent talking in that coffee shop didn’t feel enough. You felt like you could talk to him forever. He must have felt the same way, because he asked to meet you for coffee again when he would be back in London in two weeks. 

After that, another coffee date.

Then, another.

One more after that, and then, your coffee dates became a dinner date.

Your first dinner with Toto was extremely pleasant. He’d reserved a table at Norma, and the two of you enjoyed the restaurant's tasting menu amid jokes, laughter and a little flirtation here and there. You knew you’d long crossed the line of what was professionally acceptable as far as meeting with your clients go, but you couldn’t help but be enchanted with Toto, with his infectious smile, his sense of humor, his kind personality, and devastating good looks. He was definitely not just a client anymore.

“Maybe we’re friends, now?”, you thought as he drove you back to your apartment near the Apollo Theatre, even after you said you’d be fine walking home. It was raining, so he insisted on driving you. He pulled the black Mercedes C-Class to a stop in front of the building's entrance and you stared into the side mirror, analyzing the raindrops that ran down in the reflection. Then, you felt a hand wrap around yours. Your eyes darted toward the touch — you felt a warm, almost-electrical jolt through your body. It felt like all of your senses sharpened immediately.

Looking up, you found Toto looking at you, a shy smile on his lips as his brown eyes took in every detail of your face. A few seconds of silence later, you smiled.

— Well, I guess this is my stop. Thank you so much for the evening, Toto.

— I must thank you for accepting my invitation. It was indeed a — he paused, somewhat dramatically — Lovely night.

You felt that feeling in your stomach again that you felt more often than not with Toto, now. Butterflies. 

— Lovely — you repeated softly.

— Yes — Toto stammered — Just like you.

Your cheeks heated up and a disbelieving smile played on your lips. “It’s just the wine talking”, you thought, looking down at your leg, where your fingers were still under his palm.

— Please… I’m nothing special. — you muttered.

— You’re the only one who thinks that you’re nothing special — Toto replied, bringing his hand to your chin, gently lifting your head. His eyes explored your face slowly, analyzing your features in the dim lighting from the streetlights and the car’s dome light — You're a truly fantastic woman, Y/N.

You felt your heart start to race.

— And you are a truly fantastic man, Toto.

He smiled, his gaze alternating between your eyes and your lips.

— Y/N…

— Yes — you whispered, answering him before he even asked the question. You already imagined what Toto would ask of you, and you would say yes to anything he wanted.

It was inside that Mercedes with tinted windows that you shared your first kiss. It was quiet, slow, and loaded with a tenderness you never imagined possible. His hand that was on your chin slid towards your cheek, cupping it gently. You leaned into his touch and brought one of your hands to the back of his neck, your fingernails skimming over the skin there.

You had no idea how much time the two of you spent there, exploring each other's mouths, the taste of wine still on your tongues. Eventually, you pulled your face back from his to breathlessly whisper four words:

— Come upstairs with me.

— Yes — Toto replied, brushing his nose against yours.

The following Monday, your body carried clues as to what had happened that night in your apartment. Your neck and chest were bruised and marked where his gentleness had turned into passion. You'd spend nearly half an hour in front of the mirror, trying to cover the marks with makeup, before choosing a shirt that covered everything up anyway.

You wanted to keep your relationship discreet, but Toto seemed to have other ideas. When you arrived at the office, a sumptuous bouquet of roses was waiting for you on your desk. After getting curious and even envious looks from your coworkers, you opened the card that was nestled in the middle of the flowers and smiled as you read what was written on it in elegant calligraphy.

— Killing Eve, season 1, episode 8, minute 35:48 — you muttered, a smile on your face as you ran your finger over his initials in the bottom corner. You had talked about the series, but you hadn’t imagined he would have bothered to watch it, never mind using a reference from it. Sitting down on your desk chair, you took your cell phone out and gave him a call. After a few seconds, you heard his voice.

— I didn't expect a call from you so soon.

— And I didn't expect a giant bouquet of roses on my desk so soon.

Toto laughed.

— I hope you understand the card.

— ‘I think about you all the time’ — you recited, remembering the scene where Eve was sitting on the bed across from Villanelle after destroying Jodie Comer's character's apartment.

— Exactly.

— Are you watching the series?

— Well, you seemed to think it was good, so I decided to take a look. Besides, I have some downtime during flights, so it seemed like a good way to spend time.

— And what do you think?

— Exciting, lots of action scenes. You have great taste.

— Thank you — you smiled — Not just for the compliment, but for the flowers as well.

— You're welcome, Schönheit — Toto replied, giving you the familiar feeling of butterflies once more.

You continued to meet regularly, both at your London flat and at Toto's home in Oxfordshire. It didn't take long for him, during a dinner in a restaurant in Vienna, to hand you a velvet box. Eyes wide, you opened it, finding a silver ring with a small oval diamond in the middle. Looking up at him, you couldn't believe what you were seeing.

— Toto — you stuttered, your eyes filling with tears.

— I think it's time to make what we have official, Schönheit.

— Make it… Official?

— Y/N, do you want to be my girlfriend?

You nodded, a side smile on your face. As Toto put the ring on your finger, you felt something explode inside your chest, like fireworks. Taking his face between your hands, you kissed him tenderly. It was definitely the happiest moment of your life.

However, it didn't take long for reality to barge in eventually.

Even though Toto was dating you, he was married to his job. One thing he made clear to you, even from the beginning, was that even though you and his children, Benedict and Rosa, were the most important things in his life, he still had a commitment to Mercedes. That commitment meant practically ten months flying around the world accompanying the team, limiting your interaction to phone calls, video calls and WhatsApp messages.

You would like to say that you understood, and that you were fine with it, but you always felt a tightness in your chest seeing him leaving your apartment on Wednesday morning, dragging a suitcase and promising that you wouldn't even notice his absence. 

You always noticed. It hurt like hell.

He had an idea one day, seemingly by chance. You were sitting on the bed, helping him organize the suitcase he was going to take to Melbourne that weekend. Between packing black socks, Mercedes shirts and perfectly rolled belts, Toto looked at you from under his glasses with a thoughtful expression on his face.

— Honey? — you asked, raising an eyebrow.

— Why don't you come with me?

You blinked.

— What?

— Come with me.

— To Melbourne?

— Yes.

— What would I do there?

— Well, you could see the city, stay at the hotel — he hesitated for a few seconds — Or you could come with me to the paddock.

You pressed your mouth into a thin line. When you explained to your parents why Toto hadn't met them yet, you had told them that he was a CEO who traveled a lot, but that wasn’t the whole story. He didn't just walk into boardrooms and make decisions like a normal CEO would. Toto was also the team principal of the Mercedes F1 team, which meant he was one of the faces of the team, along with the team’s two drivers. As one of the faces of the team, his presence was constant on both social media and news sites. There was hardly ever an occasion when you opened the BBC Sport website and couldn’t find an article with his picture on it. He’d been in his role for a few years and was used to handling the pressure of the media, but you weren’t sure you’d be able to.

— I don’t know, darling…

— It would be a way for us to spend more time together.

— But… We spend time together — you said.

— Sleeping in the same apartment isn't exactly what I call ‘spending time together’.

— It’s something.

— Well, it’s not enough — he returned, a little too sharply.

You wordlessly stared at the wall, mulling over what he'd said. He was right — you didn’t spend enough time together. It was a struggle to squeeze a simple dinner into both of your schedules. You lived with a feeling that something was missing in your life, like a puzzle with one missing piece, and you knew where the piece was, but you couldn’t do anything to get it, just like you couldn’t do anything to change Toto’s schedule or the nature of his job. 

— Schönheit — Toto whispered, sitting down beside you. He took your hand in his, caressing the back of your hand with his fingers — You know it was just an idea, right? You don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to. 

— I know, Toto — you muttered.

— I was just thinking it would be nice to spend time with you and to show the fun part of my job, since all you get to see are the boring parts.

— The very boring parts — you said, smiling.

— It would mean a lot to me if you came to a race with me sometime, though.

His words branded your mind like a hot iron — Toto wanted you to go with him. He wanted you to be next to him in the Mercedes garage, wearing one of those giant communications headsets, looking at the incomprehensible graphics that he looked at on a computer screen during races. He wanted you to be there with him, smiling and laughing with him as his team brought home another victory, another trophy.

— We’ll see, honey. Not this one, but maybe soon — you said shyly, smiling as you pulled his hand towards your lips, placing a gentle kiss on his knuckles.

“Maybe soon” was good enough for Toto to be excited about the possibility of having you by his side in an upcoming race, so much so that he’d made a point of talking about you to Sky Sports' Ted Kravitz on a segment of Ted’s Notebook during the race in Melbourne.

— Hello Toto, how are you? — Ted asked.

— I’m doing very well — he replied, ruffling his hair.

— I noticed you were smiling when you saw me and Pete coming your way — the reporter joked — Which is unexpected. Are you finally happy to do interviews or is there a special reason?

— There's a special reason, Ted.

You shifted on the couch, your heart pounding in your chest.

— Care to share with the audience?

— Actually, the reason is in your audience. My girlfriend just sent me a message telling me that she is watching your broadcast right now. She's in London and is probably wrapped in a blanket with a cup of black coffee in her hand to try to stay awake until qualifying.

You'd texted him a picture of your TV with the Sky Sports broadcast playing, a subtle hint that you were watching for him. However, the fact that he knew you were sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket with a steaming cup of black coffee in your hand had taken you by surprise. You were apparently not the only one who was surprised, as Ted took a few seconds to ask another question.

— You mean Mrs Wolff is watching our programming at this late hour?

— Well, not Mrs Wolff, not yet — he chuckled, making you smile — But yes, she's watching.

— Would you like to tell her something?

— Can I?

— Of course, the microphone is all yours.

The camera zoomed in on Toto and he, looking into the lens as if he was looking into your eyes.

— Schönheit, 1, 8, 35, 48. Never forget.

You smiled, hearing the code the two of you used every time you wanted to say you were thinking about each other. It was one of the little things you cherished in your relationship, something that made your heart race, and made you sure that he was the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.

"It would mean a lot to me if you came to a race with me sometime, though", you heard his voice say in your mind. The idea of going with Toto on a race started to seem… Almost fun. Spending a few days with him, in another country, watching your first F1 race, getting to see a new side of his world.

“It could work”, you thought.

It was the biggest mistake you’d ever make, so you thought.

After that race, you didn’t talk about it again. You were starting to watch the races more and get more interested in Formula 1, but if Toto seemed like he was going to bring up the idea of you going with him again, you’d change the subject.  You definitely didn't even want to think about stepping into the paddock.

But the idea never left his mind, which you found out the hard way when you arrived at your apartment after work one day and saw Toto dragging your silver suitcase into the living room. He had the key to your apartment, so the fact that he was there when you got home wasn’t unusual. You thought he had stopped by to enjoy a few hours with you before his flight to Azerbaijan.

— What does this mean? — you asked, a little confused. Toto smiled broadly — Where are you going with my suitcase?

— Well, I'm not going anywhere with it, but you are.

— Where am I going?

— Baku.

You blinked.

— Baku?

— Yes, with me.

You laughed, a little incredulous.

— Toto, I work tomorrow, I can't go to Azerbaijan…

— I already spoke to Tom. He’s giving you a few days off so you can come with me.

Your eyes widened.

— You… Talked to my boss?

— Yes, he is my friend — he said, walking towards you and wrapping his hands around your waist — And he was very happy to know that we are together.

You had no idea what to say.

— Are you okay? — Toto asked you, putting a hand to your cheek — I thought you would be happy.

— I am! — you said, a bit too quickly — I am. No matter where we are, I'll be happy if I go by your side.

"Liar", you thought, your eyes returning to the clock on the bedside table next to you. Three hours and 45 minutes from the moment Toto had turned off the lights in your suite. Three hours and 45 minutes you were brooding over the fact this was the biggest mistake you’d made in your life. “I never should have come, I never should have come, I never should have come”, you mentally repeated, your eyes filling with tears.

You rolled over onto your back and tried to take a deep breath to calm yourself down. The last thing you needed was to wake Toto in the middle of the night with your crying. However your mind kept tormenting you with images of what could happen the next day, when Toto stepped into the paddock hand in hand with you, revealing to the world that his mysterious girlfriend was just some ordinary British accountant.

— I never should have come — you whispered into the darkness, your tears running down your temples.

Suddenly, the lamp on the end table turned on. You covered your eyes, blinking a few times to get your eyes used to the sudden light. A few seconds later, you noticed that Toto was propped on one elbow, eyes fixed on your face.

— Schönheit, what are you… Are you crying? What happened?

Looking at him, you felt your bottom lip tremble and your eyes fill with tears. You covered your face with your hands again, your crying breaking the silence of the room.

— Y/N… C’mere — Toto muttered, pulling you against his body, wrapping you in an embrace. With your face nestled in his chest, you finally allowed yourself to cry in earnest. It was like he’d opened a pressure release valve. You finally got a chance to let go of the mixture of anxiety and anguish you'd felt building up inside you from the moment you'd stepped off the jet at Heydar Aliyev International Airport.

You couldn't tell how much time you spent sobbing. However, the entire time, Toto's fingers ran down your spine in an attempt to calm you down. The thought of having him worried about you made it even worse. “He doesn't deserve this, Y/N”, you thought, feeling more tears welling up.

— Calm down, Y/N. Take a deep breath — Toto murmured, placing kisses on your head as his fingers continued drawing imaginary figures on your back — I'm here with you. Keep calm. Breathe.

Time dragged on until your breathing returned to something close to normal. Toto pulled back slightly from you to look into your face. Meeting his worried gaze, you felt your throat tighten again as a fresh tear trickled down your cheek.

— Schönheit — he said, bringing his hand to your face and wiping it away  with his thumb — What happened?

— I shouldn't have come, Toto.

He blinked. 

— Why not? You sounded so excited, talking about what you read about Formula 1, about the team…

— I shouldn't have come because… No one will like me — you stammered.

— What do you mean, nobody will like you, Y/N? — Toto asked you, in a serious tone — Where did you get that idea?

You eased yourself out of his embrace and sat up on the bed. You focused your gaze on the blanket and fidgeted with it, nervously. A moment later, Toto sat up too, leaning back against the headboard, his fingers caressing your back.

— Remember that interview in Melbourne?

— Which one?

— The one you talked about me. The one with Ted Kravitz when you said I was sitting in the living room wrapped in a blanket with a cup of black coffee in my hand to watch the race. When you looked into the camera and said our little code and Ted had no idea what you were talking about — you said, a smile coming to your face at the memory

— Yes, I remember — he said.

— After your interview, I went to my Instagram and had an update from a Formula 1 news account that I follow. Your video was there, and I clicked on the comments — your voice dropped, you were almost ashamed of what you'd done.

— Schönheit…

— A lot of people said it was cute, and some other people were trying to speculate what the numbers meant. But — you hesitated for a few seconds — Some said it didn't make sense for you to have a girlfriend and not bring her to the paddock unless she was… Ugly.

You didn't dare look at Toto's face. However, the heavy sound of his breathing indicated that he was not happy.

— There were comments saying I was probably going to be boring, dull, that you were ashamed of me, and that was why you didn't take me to the paddock. There was a woman who even said you didn't show up with me because you knew Geri Horner was better-looking than me.

The silence stretched for a few seconds.

— And… Do you agree? — he asked you, dryly.

— With what? — you turned to face him, meeting Toto's serious expression.

— With what those people said. That you're ugly, boring, dull, that I'm ashamed of you. Do you agree?

You swallowed hard.

— Well, yes.

He raised his eyebrows, looking surprised.

— What?

— Yes. There's no point in pretending that I don’t.

— Y/N…

— Toto, it's reality and I've accepted it — you continued, feeling your throat tighten again, your eyes filling with tears — I'm just an ordinary accountant, who works in an ordinary place, with ordinary people, who has an ordinary routine and who, by some quirk of fate, met a fucking Formula 1… Rockstar and fell in love with him right away.

— Rockstar? — he raised an eyebrow.

— Yeah. A rockstar. That's what you are. You live surrounded by cameras, microphones, sycophants — you hesitated for a moment — Women.

Toto remained silent for a few seconds.

— As flattered as I am, I'm not a rockstar. Just like you are far from being just an ordinary accountant.

Your bottom lip quivered at Toto's words. He pulled you back by the waist, positioning you so that you leaned back against him, your head nestled against his chest. You could hear the beating of his heart, and you could feel his voice in your head.

— When I contacted Tom about the tax filing for Marchsixteen, I asked for it to be done by the best accountant on his team. He didn't even hesitate when he told me that he knew exactly who he would choose to do the job. When I asked who it was, he told me your name. He told me that you were the most detail-oriented and helpful person that he knew and that there was no better accountant on his team than you.

You stayed silent, concentrating on Toto's words and the sound of his pulse. It was deep, even, and soothing.

— When you sent me the first email, your tone was formal, professional, I suppose. It was just a request for documents. When I got to the end of the message and saw your photo in your email signature, I felt something. An attraction. I just couldn't help it.

His fingers came up to your head, playing in the strands of your hair.

— Every time I got a notification on my phone or my computer, I hoped that it would be from you. As much as you've always kept your tone professional, I couldn't help but look at that tiny little photo of your signature and wonder what kind of person you were like outside of work. Then, I wondered what your voice would sound like.

His fingers trailed from the strands of your hair back to your back.

— So, overcome by my curiosity, I called Tom and asked for your number. I told him that there was something urgent I needed to talk to you about. I couldn't believe it when he sent me your number without asking any other questions. So… I called you. And when you answered, I swear, I thought I was going to pass out.

The ghost of a smile appeared on your lips. You had never heard his side of the beginning of your relationship before.

— I was so nervous I forgot you'd never heard my voice, so you didn’t even know who was talking. That's why I asked if you knew who you were talking to, and when you answered no, I realized we were already on the wrong foot, but you handled it with such grace and good humor that I felt relieved.

Still settled against Toto’s chest, you lifted your face up to look at his.

— After that day, I always made a point of calling you to answer your questions instead of emailing you. I needed to hear your voice like I needed air to breathe. Then, you started calling me, too. Whenever I saw your name on my cell phone screen, my heart did a somersault inside my chest. I always stopped whatever I was doing to take your calls.

You liked to hear Toto speak. There was something about his accent, the way he pulled out certain syllables that always made you feel something warm inside. And in that moment, his voice felt like a balm, relieving the pain you felt in your chest.

— One day, I noticed that you seemed distracted. You kept asking me to repeat myself, and something sounded off about your voice. I got worried about you and tried to find out what was wrong, and you opened up to me so naturally. I felt overjoyed that you already had so much trust in me, even though you hadn’t even met me in person at that point.

Slowly, you closed your eyes, listening to Toto ramble.

— When I invited you for coffee and you accepted, I thought I was dreaming. I guess I only realized I wasn't dreaming when you sat across from me with your briefcase and started pulling out all of my tax forms, saying you wanted to discuss them with me. I remember being scared by how you only ever seemed to think about work and never about yourself.

You smiled against Toto's chest, your fingers drawing invisible figures against his skin.

— But you opened up again. You talked about your tastes, your beliefs, your opinions… And every time you talked to me, you had this smile that I just couldn’t help but be drawn to. The more I listened to you, the more in love with you I felt. Each time we went to have coffee together, I was even more sure that I was with someone who wasn’t just an ordinary accountant, but one of the most fantastic women in the world.

You felt your chest fill with comforting warmth.

— Go on — you whispered.

— Then came the day of our dinner. It was funny how nervous I was, looking at the clock all the time, completely restless. And you arrived in that stunning green dress and that smile of yours. You were so beautiful. I was sure then that you were the love of my life. It could only be you.

A smile appeared on his face.

— When I first kissed you, I finally felt, um — he stopped, searching for the word — How do you say it in English? Damn, I only remember how to say it in German.

— You can say it in German. I don’t mind.

— Ganze. I felt ganze. Mein Herz ist ganze.

More silence.

— Could you… Go on like that?

— Like what?

— In German. I like hearing you speak German.

— Dein Wunsch ist mir Befehl — Toto replied, his fingers going back to playing with your hair — Als ich dich an dem Abend, an dem wir zusammen zu Abend gegessen haben, in diesem grünen Kleid vor deinem Gebäude sah, hatte ich das Gefühl, einen Schlag in die Magengrube bekommen zu haben. du warst schön oder eher umwerfend.

— Yes — you muttered, not even understanding a word of what he was saying. It didn’t matter. You could listen to him talk forever.

— Ich hatte nicht erwartet, an diesem Abend Sex mit dir zu haben. Scheiße, ich hatte nicht einmal damit gerechnet, dass wir uns küssen würden. Und buchstäblich zehn Minuten, nachdem ich dich geküsst hatte, lag dein Kleid auf dem Boden deines Schlafzimmers und du hast mich geritten. Meinen Schwanz in dir zu spüren, war das beste Gefühl, das ich je in meinem Leben hatte.

You laid against his chest in silence. Your eyes were closed, and your breathing was slow and even. Underneath you, you felt Toto stir, as if checking to see if you were asleep. Then you felt his hand rest on your head again. Then, you felt his lips come to your forehead, kissing you gently. 

— You are much more than a simple accountant, Y/N — he said, returning to English — You are the most beautiful woman in the world. The smartest, hardest working, most amazing woman I've ever met. You have the most beautiful heart in the world.

Your heart was racing. It felt like there was a Formula 1 car in your chest.

— I would never be ashamed of you, Schönheit. Nobody in the garage can stand to hear me talk about you anymore, about your achievements. You have no idea how proud I am of you.

You wanted to bring your lips to his and kiss him until you were out of breath, but you didn't dare move.

— Y/N, I never told you this for fear of scaring you, but the truth is, I don't just like you. I'm not just in love with you. I love you, fully and completely. I love you with all your strengths and with all your flaws. I love your intelligence, your stubbornness, your optimism. I even love your bad mood in the morning before you’ve had your coffee. I just love you, Y/N.

— I love you too — you whispered, not being able to hold back the wide smile that appeared on your lips.

You opened your eyes and looked up to find Toto staring at you in mild surprise.

— I thought you had fallen asleep.

— And miss the chance to hear you talk to me more? Never — you rested your chin on his chest.

The two of you stared at each other for a few seconds in silence.

— I meant it, Y/N. Every word of it. I love you.

— And I love you too, Toto — you replied, cupping your hand against his cheek, and kissing him.