#Salary disparity

[rodaportal]

🌐 Join the conversation on the growing disparity between the cost of living and salaries! 📊 Our latest video explores the economic, social, and individual impacts, offering concrete measures for a more equitable future.

[alwaysbewoke]

[graysongraysoff]

why everything gotta cost money

[cicadaknight]

got an interview for a design/web position at our local grocery store wish me luck!!!!

[maxwell-grant]

The Penguin Ep3 - "Bliss" Breakdown

oh

(Episode 1) (Episode 2) (Episode 4) (Episode 5) (Episode 6) (Episode 7) (Episode 8)

So that's what Victor's image in the credits was meant to represent the whole time. A still of him inside the last memory he has of his home, his perspective on the window before it all went to shit.

I get that it might have been obvious the opening was a flashback given the election was still ongoing and given we get to see Vic's friend, the one who was shot by Sofia, still alive, but they also peppered enough bits that hade me fully convinced we were just watching Victor's present life when he was out of earshot from Oz. The bombs were a genuine shocker.

Credit to @davidmann95 for pointing out that the rooftop pebbles are Victor's equivalent of the Crime Alley pearls, an extremely important detail to add to the other Batman parallels Victor's gonna be shown having in this episode.

I'm loving a lot of the choices that go into Oz's outfits and specifically what kind of outfits he wears around specific characters, the whole chameleon thing he's got going personality-wise reflective in his choice of wear, and I like how this extends to the people around him and his choice of vehicle and base and everything. He may not wear fine suits everywhere and for all occasions, but this is very much a Penguin concerned about fashion particularities and branding and ways to dress up himself and the people acting in his behalf.

This scene where Oz pays Victor is funny, but it importantly sets up an element that's gonna come into play regarding their relationship by the end of the episode, that is how hard Oz projects on Victor and how much of his insecurity and need for affection comes through in his attempts to deal with the kid. Two episodes in after all the shit Victor's done for Oz and it's the first time we're seeing Oz talk about giving him a salary. It's not an unusual comedy beat, sadly not a real life one either, but the thing is, Oz is not a cheapskate, far from it. Across the last two episodes, he's been very quick to fork over cash to smooth over negotiations, and he's more than happy to pay the kid and praise him for demanding double (even if he shuts down the idea), it just genuinely never occurred to him until the moment that, right, the kid whose job is driving me around and burying bodies and putting his neck on the line for me needs a paycheck, of course, he's gonna get a nice thousand per week because I'm a good boss who does that kind of thing.

Nice little reminder of the class disparity element of the show, in how Sofia looks at Oz's set-up and dismisses as tacky garbage, while Graciela calls it bougie and thinks Victor's basically set if his boss is letting him crash in a place like that. Also illustrated in the money scene earlier, because from what I've researched, a thousand per week is an average salary for a driver in New Jersey (which is where this Gotham is located), and despite Oz calling it a start, Victor's already shocked at how much money Oz is paying per week. Just these totally different conceptions of what money and good living entail across the board for our characters. SPEAKING OF totally different standards,

So it turns out that Sofia has been planning her own meteoric ascension into ruler of Gotham for about as long as Oz, and more effectively at that, and if there's anything this episode will establish for sure about her, it's that Sofia Falcone is an actual supervillain the way Oz is still some ways from being. Alberto's shipment wasn't the ticket for the two of them, just for Oz, and Sofia just needed him to drive her around and open the door once more.

Oz the whole time basically happy with running a club and pushing dope out of a warehouse to the point of crying to her in the end that it was the best thing that ever happened to him, while Sofia here casually unveils a Gus Fring hidden meth lab with a mushroom forest full of Arkham Super Drugs and another Batman Villain working out in the backroom to produce them. Oz spent the last years ass kissing and spinning plates and seizing his own little levers of power all over Gotham, while Sofia was enduring soul-redefining torment entrenched inside the Supervillain Factory of the world where she would discover and pillage the tool that would let her conquer the city in one swoop.

A tool that she debuts before the underworld with an intimidating yet casual speech, above the city writhing before her and falling by the minute into her grasp, before casually leaving and telling her grunt to wrap up negotiations for her. The Riddler showed Gotham what a supervillain is and can do, a call to the maladjusted victims and freaks everywhere to grab their masks and bombs and get in the action because this is how the world works now that Batman exists, but Sofia here shows us not just a different way the rot spreads across the city, not just a way in which Arkham can become the other force filling in the power vacuum, but that being a supervillain is also a business model every respectable criminal in the city is gonna have to get on board with real fucking quick.

I love/hate that we get to have a few scenes of Sofia and Oz working together and how good they are, glad they could at least give us those before everything gets turbofucked forever further.

I definitely encourage you to keep up with the Penguin podcast, and particularly the latest episode where they talk with Rhenzy Feliz and fluency consultant Marc Winski, where they go over the thought and care that went into depicting Victor's stutter and incorporating it into the character and show, it's a very insightful conversation.

Oz's empathy for people with disabilities shows up in him complaining at the waiter for speaking over Victor, and later in their scene with Johnny Viti when he berates him for calling her a psycho, and is consistent with lots of other little moments where it's come up. I like that this is a consistent thing with Oz, and not just one of the things he does for show - even when he's complaining about Sofia to Victor, he never disparages her based on mental illness, he calls her uptight and elusive and a problem he wants off his back, but he never insults her the way all the other mobsters do.

Even in the bathroom scene by the end of the episode, where he does lose his patience and rushes Victor to explain himself, only happens after they've reached a boiling point. I do think it's important, for his character and role, that Oz maintains some important principles, even if they are still self-serving.

Again, love how the show knows just when to drop the Penguin name to maximize hurt on Oz.

What a fucking show Farrell and Miloti and Feliz give us in this episode.

I said back when the trailers dropped that Sofia Falcone looked like she was going to be the prestige crime drama protagonist that this show would have if it wasn't about The Penguin, and that's the vibe you get out of these two together. She is the tormented HBO leading lady and he is the charismatic side character, he is her driver with a wacky voice and face that bites it tragically to motivate her revenge / bites it after the reveal of how he backstabbed her. Which is exactly where the Falcones liked him, that funny guy in a supporting role who drives them around and runs their club and digs up their graves, and it's partially how their last scene in the episode plays out.

"Yeah I know I ruined your entire life and led to irreparable damage to your mind and sanity and reputation and all that, but I really wanted a little piece of the action as a nightclub owner, is that so bad?" is a confession that Oz only survives because he's the main character. In any other show, him bearing the depths of his embarassing pathetic soul to Sofia like that would be the last thing he does before dying, tragically or cathartically.

But to his credit, it worked. Sofia actually sheds a tear for him. It's the first time Oz has seemed genuinely honest with her, and more importantly, it's the first time anyone has been honest with Sofia ever since she got back from Arkham. She really has no one else she can possibly trust but the least trustworthy person on the planet. Who on Earth could possibly be willing to make an ass of themselves before her like that if they weren't being truthful?

Lauren LeFranc: You know, I think Oz is a bit of a walking contradiction and I think he deeply believes what he believes in that moment. I think he genuinely feels that way. Also understands the benefit of her being on his side at the same time. Right? Like, if she doesn't believe in him, their operation currently goes to hell. Not to say that he's playing that up, I think that is a moment of genuine emotion from him. But I also think for a man like him, he's not quite sure where it begins and ends. He doesn't believe that it's bullshit. That doesn't mean that it's not. Like, I don't know if he can even identify it or if, honestly, if Oz takes the time to unpack that. He's not a guy who's like, "Hmm, let me think about my actions today.", you know? - The Penguin Podcast: Episode 3

I'm extremely curious as to what the Sofia-Oz dynamic is gonna look like in the rearview. Does he have enough of a lid on his temper to fake that masterfully being offended on Sofia's behalf while playing her attack dog? Does he genuinely regret that she got sent to Arkham over whatever he did? I think this and the ending scene go a long way in pending towards either way and that's interesting to me. Even if 90% of what he says is bullshit there's some of that regret / kinship that feels genuine

I am very curious to see what becomes of Eve and what more will we learn about her. She seems to be Oz's second-in-command when it comes to businesses he does with her and the girls, and I like that the girls and Victor form a personal squad for Oz (and crucially, he's promising all of them a bigger slice of the pie when he becomes a big shot, and just as crucially, all of them have massive targets on their back right now).

It is genuinely funny how appalled and offended Oz is, at the idea that maybe the kid he roped into this with a gun to the head only stuck around out of fear, not because the kid thinks he's a great guy giving him a chance. I call him the Michael Scott of crime and I mean it. But like most funny things about the Penguin it also has something sad and lonely and pathetic and human about it, the ever present disconnect between the gentleman he wants to be and the thug he acts like.

Like with the salary thing, it just did not cross his head at any moment prior to this, not when he threatened to kill the people he cared about or openly argued with Vic whether to shoot him and stuff him in a trunk, not when threatening to gut him like a fish for messing up or spilling his secrets or telling him to lie with corpses, that Vic was sincerely scared of him and his power and did not leave because he feared this known gangster would do exactly what he said he was going to do. To Oz, doing those things to "his guy" now would be unthinkable, but the question that Vic wanted to leave never even popped in his mind.

And it makes him genuinely upset. That scene at the bar, where he is fully alone, sad and tired with his drink, tired from all the plates he's had to spin and all the indignities he's endured and still endures, tired from all the hats he's had to wear, and sad because the only person so far he's been able to let down his guard around, the one person with whom he could at least wear a hat he liked just bailed on him.

Of course he'd never kill Vic for just wanting to leave, once he realizes that this is actually a factor in how Victor views him and obviously he'd be a bad boss if he did that. Of course he gets angry at Victor for wanting to throw away an opportunity given to him that Oz would have (and probably has) killed for, he's giving Victor the kind of help he desperately wishes he got and he's gonna throw it away? Of course he gets shocked at being reminded Victor is a guy with needs, a guy that Oz holds lethal power over, and not just a kid version of Oz that he can live out his Rex Calabrese fantasy by helping out and mentoring. And of course, none of the cruel and hurtful things he says to Victor before he leaves would sting if there wasn't just enough of a bitter truth to them, or at least, enough of it to stick with Victor.

What an excellent scene Victor's panic attack was, totally get why it was the editor's favorite

I was waiting for a Victor-centric episode and was not dissappointed, this is the episode where he first comes on his own as a character and we see how crucially important he is to the show, the from-the-bottom ground floor perspective on everything that Reeves and LeFranc have repeteadly defined the project around. I love getting to see such an on-the-ground perspective of how fucking monstrous Riddler's plan was, and the kind of lives it ruined. This poor kid thrust headfirst into a Batman/Robin origin story and situation.

It's like Feliz said in the podcast, the end of the episode is the first time we've ever seen Victor, and maybe the first time Victor's ever seen himself, outside of survival mode, outside of simply living to try and get to next hour and do what his parents/Oz tell him to, which is a painfully real state to be in for anyone who's dealt with poverty growing up or is dealing with poverty right now. It's the first time he really has an opportunity to decide on his own what he's going to do on his own. As much as we may know he's making a doomed choice, that he really should just hop on the first bus out of Gotham and join his girlfriend in the sun, well, he's a Batman character, he doesn't get to do that.

Victor wants to live his life and protect himself and the people he loves and make good choices and be a good person, but on a deep fundamental level, he just wants his family back, he wants his dad back, he wants to do right by them more so than by himself, even if that means doing things they would find detestable. Like the son of a doctor, a son who now chooses to inflict violence every night if it means he can avenge their memory, here we have the son of a nurse presented with a choice: He gets to honor the intentions of his parents by dying as a well-meaning decent nobody like they did, or he gets to make up for the shame of how they died by living a good life, one which was denied to them, by surviving and thriving as a criminal. He gets to honor their ideals, or get back at the shameful cruel reality of how they died, but he cannot do both. So he makes his choice.

Oz, in this episode, burns nearly every single bridge he has: with the Falcone family, with the Maronis, and with Sofia, and he even does it with Victor. If Victor hadn't come back, Oz would have died on that parking lot, and still Oz is ecstatic that his guy's come back, because all he wants is for someone to like him enough to stick around with him. Victor is not so sure he's not in for a horrible time now, but in his own way, he also burned his bridges, and he also got what he wanted.

Okay Vic, you wanted dad to not take shit from others and shoot for a better life, you got a dad who will teach you to do just that. You wanted to pal around with small-time criminals you were friends with even if your parents insisted otherwise, well, the king of hoodlums is the only guy you have left in your life now.

You have committed yourself body and soul to a dangerous life within the city you love, spurred on by the tragic injustice that took your parents in an event that destroyed your entire world? Great, welcome to Gotham, here's even a new name you get out of it.

[rilakeila]

formula of love: pt. 1, kyoya ootori, where he might just found the missing part of his formula

pairing kyoya ootori x fem!she!reader w.c. 2,563 t.w. none (class disparity perhaps) a/n she's multiple parts, slow burn rahhhh request yes (Hiii!! So I can’t believe that people still watch osch could I request a kyoya x reader where the reader is a commoner like Haruhi and Kyoya feels in love with reader after spending time working as his assistant ( I mean helping Haruhi pay her debt) . Once again, thank you !)

"class, please treat our newest student well. kyoya, i'll assume that you can show her around as well," the teacher introduced (y/n) who bowed to the class.

(y/n) was an honors student, transferring into ouran academy during her 2nd year. she was let onto the scholarship program after her father rose through the ranks of suoh enterprises in the financial department after finding out a revelation that allowed the company's revenues to shoot up. however, the raise in salary wouldn't have been enough to pay for tuition, but the president just had to feel so generous in helping the commoners.

her eyes followed to a student with onyx hair and glasses standing up and bowing. then, it trailed to the blonde haired boy next to him, a smile across his face, just like the one when he first met her. tamaki suoh. she noticed the teacher motion to the free seat to the right in the next column over near the student. she smiled and made her way over, settling her bag down to balance onto the leg of the table.

the teacher dismissed the class to allow themselves for free time during their homeroom, students airing out of the classroom, some lingering.

a throat clearing grabbed her attention, as well as the shadow casted over her desk. she looked up to see kyoya with a soft smile.

"wel-" he started until he was interrupted.

"(y/n)-chann!!" to both of the students, the cheer in the voiced was rather familiar. the blonde haired student made his way to the pair, arms in the air.

"tamaki, nice to see you again," she stood up, bowing her head as her greeting. (y/n) first encountered the french student during her tour of the campus where her parents also needed to sign documents in finalizing her transfer. president suoh had his son come along with him to show her around, hearing that she was the same year as tamaki.

"it's very nice to see you. this is my dear friend, kyoya, the class representative. i'm not sure where the vice class representative went off to, but she's sure a joy," he said, introducing kyoya for him.

"yes, i was getting to that. i'm ootori kyoya, it's a pleasure to meet you, (y/n)," his head bowed.

"likewi-"

"do you know what classes you have today?" tamaki interrupted once more. she felt her head throb at the constant interruptions but couldn't hold it against him. cheery seemed to be apart of his personality. one of the only things that seemed to throw her off is the heavy interest in commoners, asking if she has had "commoner's coffee" and all sorts of commoners question.

she looked at kyoya then to tamaki, "oh, i have finance, math, and modern literature."

"we don't have any classes today together but kyoya has finance today, isn't that right?" tamaki slung his arm around kyoya's shoulders.

"yes, that is correct. after free time, i can walk you to where that class is," kyoya said. in truth, he had already seen her entire schedule as part of his extensive research. they shared the entire day together, as well as some classes the next.

"before i forget, bring her to our club later today! i'm sure haruhi would love to meet her, commoners like to stick together." tamaki seemed to twirl away before conversing with other people.

(y/n) noticed the drop in kyoya's shoulders before he pushed his glasses up, "i apologize about him. he has been enthusiastic for everyone to meet you."

"i see, he's been a delight to have around. he has been great at making sure the atmosphere isn't awkward," it was the nicest way for her to say without being straightforward that tamaki can sometimes be a pain in the ass.

"it's alright to say that he can be of an annoyance, sometimes." he said.

'damn, it's like he read my mind.'

before any other words were spoken, the bell rang to alert the students to attend their next class. they both dispersed to grab their bags, which she nodded that she was ready to go. the rest of the day went smoothly, well. kyoya explained the necessary information that she needed to, answering her occassional questions, but (y/n) couldn't help notice the disparity between their social classes with the way he phrased things. it only pissed her off through the day.

"this is where the cafeteria is, assuming that you would be able to pay for such luxury."

'who does he think he is? president suoh allotted me a budget for the cafeteria. and i am more than educated in the managerial aspect in our finance class.' a hot aura surrounded her, as she reflected her day with kyoya on the way to the destination with directions that he written for her on a piece of cardstock that his family emblem. if tamaki wasn't less than a pain of an ass than kyoya, she wouldn't be walking towards this location.

music room 3. 'these damn rich people, why are there so many music rooms'

opening the door to the music room, there was a sudden breeze and rose petals seemed to coming her way. she blew out a petal off her lips, 'what kind of music room.'

"welcome!" a chorus of voices said. her eyes couldn't focus on what to notice in front of her. the out of ordinary knight outfits, the decorated medieval styled room, or the people. she opted for the familiar faces as she scanned each one: tamaki, haruhi, kyoya.. haruhi?

next thing she knows, she was being spun around in a hug, face on cold metal, "(y/n)-chan! you made it!"

once tamaki placed her down, the room seemed to be spinning. she placed her hand on the nearest still object except for it to be sort of wobbly. she seemed to be concious enough to see that there was a fragile object moving it, only to use her other hand to stabilize the stand. once the fragile object came to still, she sighed out of relief.

"see, haruhi, that's how you should save a vase." a harmony of voices also came to be, seeing it was a pair of twins.

"well, sorry, but (y/n)-senpai always had great reflexes, and the only person she has to worry about was tamaki-senpai," the annoyance in her voice was something that she was used to when haruhi's dad would come bother them.

"ohh, she's the honor student tama-chan has been talking about all week last week," the child-looking one said.

"wait, i thought you said she was a commoner. she has the uniform on," one of the twins commented.

"she has you beat haruhi. she has the uniform and can catch a vase," the other twin said.

(y/n) felt her eyebrow twitch, 'so rude, are all rich people like this'

"everyone, this is (y/n), as you all know from tamaki and haruhi, she's the new honors student," kyoya introduced her to the group, even if they already knew her. "well, places again, everyone, our guests should be arriving any second now."

"please enjoy yourself while you're here! please watch me save all of these maidens," tamaki dramatically said, pointing the knight sword, causing (y/n) to crouch as he swings side to side. there was no time for that line to send a shiver down her back as his corny lines typically would.

not even a second rolls by after they taken their places, there are girls flooding into the room. the volume and speed of girls coming in, just felt the need for (y/n) to clutch her pearls if she had any. she was never more confused on what activities rich people do in their free time.

"i'm sorry about that, (y/n)-senpai, but it's really nice to see you again," the familiar voice of haruhi seemed to calm her down.

"haruhi, it's great to see you especially in all of this unfamiliarity. are rich people always like this?"

"yeah, unfortunately. their comments about commoners get pretty ignorant, but i heard your dad got a huge promotion. good for him, he's way too overqualified to be doing simple sales work," haruhi congratulated. their families used to be neighbors within their apartment complex up until (y/n)'s dad received his first promotion allowing them to buy a larger space for their home.

"we moved twice since we lived in the apartment, i should invite you to our house! plus, luna misses you," (y/n) said. her pet cat has always found solace around haruhi when she was over.

"do you have a phone? i can put my number in if you do, and we can stay in touch this way," haruhi asked.

"i do, one of the great things that came to be when my dad got promoted," she pulled her phone out of the side pocket of her bag. the phone charm dangled as she opened it, pulling up the contact book for haruhi to create one.

"woah, your phone is pretty cute, never thought of decorating it," haruhi inspected the little stickers and played with the phone charm as she typed her number in.

her little brother decorated the phone with stickers that he found in her room. she chuckled as she took her phone once haruhi finished, "izumi couldn't help it and i couldn't get mad about it."

"haruhi, you have guests waiting to be served," kyoya called out from his seat, who was writing in his little black book.

"but, (y/n)-senpai is a guest," haruhi said.

"yes but not a paying one, those who pay have a higher priority. even then, she's only here per tamaki's request," there he goes again.

haruhi sighed, "i'll be back, please feel free to stay. even if he says that, we always end up leaving our guests time to time. i'll pour you a tea or coffee if you prefer."

"coffee would be nice." she motioned for you to follow her, the only vacant seat was the one where kyoya was sitting. haruhi gave her an apologetic expression as she pulled the chair out for her, which (y/n) responded with a hand that it would be fine.

she watched haruhi spoon out the coffee powder from the instant coffee jar, "is this what tamaki means by commoner's coffee?"

haruhi chuckled, "yeah, senpai made a big deal out of it. it's been a big hit with the hosts and guests."

"it also has reduced our beverage expenses, seeing how low cost it is," kyoya said. it seems that his nose is so far into that black book of his, he hasn't looked up once since club hours started.

"if you were to bulk buy the instant coffee at a wholesaler, you might be able to save trips to the supermarket and maximize the budget you have for it," (y/n) chimed in, pouring in two spoons of sugar. ever since her father has more than enough cushion in their family budget, he indulged in purchasing a membership with a wholesale store (costco), which lessened their trips to the market with the bulk quantity.

and that was the first time that she caught kyoya look up from his writing even if it was for a quick second.

(y/n) wrapped her hands around the cup, fiddling the side with her index finger as she waited for it to cool down. after her previous interactions with kyoya, she wasn't sure if she would be comfortable enough to talk to him. maybe, he only needed to talk to her out of the need of being class rep, but as it was after school hours, his role went away.

"is there something on your mind about me?" kyoya questioned.

her face filled with nervousness and shock of how he seems to detect what she was thinking.

"you've glanced at me four times in the past minute, if that's what you were wondering," he shut his black book down onto the table, neatly placing the pen on top of it.

she cleared her throat, trying to pull herself together, "nothing. besides, what kind of club is this anyways? you guys seem to not do anything but just talk to girls."

it was what she noticed when haruhi was typing her number in. she thought a school club was supposed to bring community in and do activities together, not just entertain girls and fuel their egos.

"it's a host club. tamaki founded this club with the intention of making every girl happy, and it seems we have been able to do so," he said while she looked around, watching every interaction. peculiar options indeed: brotherly love, boy lolita and mysterious man, princely, and whatever haruhi is supposed to offer.

"and how come you don't have guests? this club also doesn't seem to be something haruhi would hang around for," (y/n) questioned. it really wasn't haruhi's scene, she would opt for academic clubs or just something that wasn't even this.

"haruhi has her reason to be here, it is up to her if she would like to share that," he answered, "and for me, i'm occupied maintaining the club with its operations and financials but do talk to the guests for promotional purposes."

(y/n) hummed, now watching him calculate the expense reports on his computer. she deduced that each member of host club must have their reason then, seeing that the variety of who were here just seemed to be too different from each other. 'oh well, it's not worth thinking about.'

"why waste time in using that formula to calculate that, there's a faster way to accomplish it," she thought out loud before sipping her coffee.

"there would be an error if i used it due to this variable," kyoya circled around the cause with his mouse on the computer before continuing with his calculations.

she choked on her coffee, she didn't mean to say it. she can't go back on her word anyways, might as well teach him. "then you aren't using it right. if you were to apply that forumla entirety by hand, it would work. the error might be a missing value within the range or you missed a comma when you entered it into the formula bar."

a smirk landed on her lips when the box's output came out to the same but minimal effort. he missed a comma. she noticed the minor raise in his shoulders before he cleared his throat, applying to the rest of the total boxes, changing the second variable based on each column goal.

"a good tip, i suppose. your coffee will be complementary today. however, next time, you will need to pay 1,000 yen for every cup," kyoya stated, slight irritation seeped into his voice. he never was able to figure out the use of the formula when he attempts to utilize it into his spreadsheet, and this commoner just seems to get it.

she almost spat her coffee out, "even going to an expensive cafe, that's a serious upcharge for 6 ounces. this specific jar is only around 800 yen."

"non-paying guests don't have the same benefits as those who pay," kyoya looked up to her who appeared to be grumbling about the upcharge.

"for someone who can't even use a formula properly, it makes me question if you're correctly charging the price for everything here," she laughed as she taken a sip of her coffee.

a small smile made its way onto kyoya's face. commoners are an interesting class, they surprise him everyday. and he would eventually be surprised for what this specific commoner would have for him.

pt. 1 completed, should i open a taglist ?

[ceasarslegion]

By the wishes of a few people, here's my advice post about living alone. Keep in mind I'm speaking from the perspective of a canadian urbanite, so this will not apply to absolutely everybody in every kind of culture, economy, living situation, those in rural areas, etc. This also is not assuming wealth disparities are a matter of personal attitude, i KNOW it's complicated. Get back with that shit right now, you know damn well this advice assumes you are able to achieve the financial means to live on your own and is not disparaging anyone who legitimately can't.

Let's cover the basics first.

Source of income:

This seems rather obvious, but your income should be regular and reliably the same or similar on a monthly basis. The most obvious way to achieve this is with a job, and I'm sorry but minimum wage is not going to cut it on your own anymore, which means you're going to have to swallow your pride and accept that you'll likely have to work for some industry or corporation with a dodgy moral record. Get used to it. There is no point in self-flagellation, the world is complicated, just take the 50-60k a year office job, no one actually expects you not to and nobody will hold it against you when the "moral" option is soul-crushing retail. The real world really doesn't give a shit what you have to do to afford a comfortable lifestyle as long as you do what good you can within your abilities, no one in the real world expects you to sacrifice your own wellbeing for a cause.

Salaried positions are your most reliable because you'll always pull the same amount, while hourly pay comes with the ability to pull overtime pay in exchange for more shifts, but if you run out of sick days you'll have to spend the rest of the year taking unpaid time off when you need to call in. Whichever one you choose depends on what's available to you and what's right for you physically and mentally, I can't make that call for you.

You also need a credit card. That is non-negotiable. If you don't have a credit score, you can't sign a lease. Bad credit is better than no credit. We can argue until the cows come home whether or not credit scores are good or bad, but it's just reality that you're going to need one. The good news is it's fairly easy to build credit from no credit: you just have to pay off your credit card in full on time every time. The bad news is it's equally as easy to tank your credit score, you just have to miss one or pay it too late, and it's very hard to build good credit back from bad credit. So don't see it as free money, only spend as much as you can pay back, and if you don't have credit right now, start with small things like lunch and little treats that you immediately pay off.

Looking for a place to live:

Once you have your regular and reliable source of income, you can start looking for your place. There's a few things you should keep in mind:

-Draw up a budget for how much you can spend on rent and bills. That includes all basic living expenses: rent, utilities, food, internet, phone, hygiene. Compare how much you make per month to what you can spend. 1/3 to 1/2 of your salary is a bit more realistic to expect to spend on rent alone nowadays, so work within that range when you apartment hunt. Think of everything when you're budgeting, like how much do you spend on haircuts per month? You probably didn't think of that, because I didn't either at first.

-Apartment buildings with some/all utilities included often have higher base rents. You have to keep in mind that this is so the landlord can balance out the utility bills of the whole building, which are unpredictable expenses and on them to pay every month. If you don't know how to budget yet or don't know how to do so with unpredictable bills, I highly recommend trying to find a place with utilities included so you know EXACTLY how much you'll need to pay every month and can plan in advance

-Older buildings tend to be both cheaper and more likely to have centralized utility systems, which means they have to include it in the price of rent because there's no way to tell who used how much of something. If it's your first place alone, you'll probably be tempted to get the brand new, expensive building down the road, but it won't actually make much of a difference when you move in. You will love it regardless.

-Never ever sign a lease until you've either seen THE unit you're considering, or one of the show units that is exactly the same layout. The last thing you want is to go off online photos only to move in and find out the building has a mold problem. You can arrange personal tours by contacting the building manager or the landlord directly. Phone calls are the best way to do this.

-If you want the unit after seeing it, you know you can afford it, there's nothing funny about the place, apply IMMEDIATELY. Places are usually on the market for a few days before they're snapped up by a new tenant, you have to strike while the iron's hot.

-If you've decided on the place you want and had your application accepted, read the lease carefully before you sign. Many places require tenant insurance that meet specific policy requirements, have registration rules about long-term guests, outline how the parking works, quiet hours, smoking rules, mail, laundry, all the way down to what kind of barbecues are allowed on your deck in the case of mine (I am in a wildfire danger zone, so any types that produce embers are strictly prohibited for fire safety reasons). Ask any question that comes to mind about the lease. Not everything in a lease is some human rights violation just because you don't like landlords, keep in mind you're living in the same building as dozens of other people, so there has to be ground rules established for everyone's sanity.

-Internet is often not considered a utility so you'll have a hard time finding any place that includes it. You can arrange to have your wifi set up in advance of a moving date on a specific time and date, do this right after you sign a lease so you don't forget. They won't charge you until you're actually hooked up to the network.

-If your utilities are NOT included, get those set up in advance too. The main ones are HVAC, water, and electricity. The companies that do this vary depending on where you live and what's available, so shop around online once you've signed your lease and sign up as soon as possible. The last thing you want is to forget this and then move into a dark freezing apartment with no water.

Budgeting:

After your living expenses are covered, you should have a comfortable amount of financial wiggle room leftover. If you wouldn't, the place you're looking at is either too expensive, or you're being overcharged elsewhere. It's completely normal for living expenses to take up most of your budget these days, you're doing just fine in the same boat as everybody else if that's the case, so don't panic yet. If you have absolutely NOTHING leftover though, then you're out of your price range.

You also need to set money aside for fun and saving. Do not forego fun money, your brain will try to kill you with hammers and knives if you never get or do things for yourself. And if you're on your own, you're the only one providing that for yourself now. And a solid building base of savings will only help you in the future, whether you lose your job, have an emergency, or even need a down payment on a house later in life. Don't be a doomer about your circumstances or the socioeconomic and generational cards that were dealt to you, chip away at it a little at a time. And don't fall for social media's insistence that anybody with anything at all is some bourgeois degenerate or that being fortunate enough to be able to have upward mobility makes you some ultra wealthy shithead, working towards a comfortable standard of living for yourself does not make you a rich elite or a bad person. You're working towards the standard we should all live as, not exploiting the poor or being a class traitor. I feel the need to add that last part since we're on the website of "struggling art students in NYC are bourgeois that are just bad with money and having a gaming computer makes you upper middle class." Don't listen to a word any of those people say, I know it comes from a place of very real hurt and pain for them but that doesn't make it grounded in absolute reality for absolutely everybody.

Social needs:

If you're by yourself, there's gonna be a lot more work you have to put in for your social and entertainment needs. I can not stress enough how important it is to give this the time and work it needs, do not neglect this.

Lots of libraries have clubs you can join that will get you out of the house and meeting new people regularly. They're either free or very inexpensive. This is a great place to start.

Take advantage of technology we have now. Hop on discord calls more frequently, make sure you're talking to your friends on the regular and try to make plans as much as you can.

Also, I advise finding lots of things you can do by yourself. You will be spending way more time alone than you ever have before, so find single-person hobbies. Go thrifting, get into knitting, go explore the city, read lots of books, do puzzles, just don't lock yourself inside all day in your free time. Even if you're doing it alone, going out and seeing that the world is bigger than your apartment and your workplace is very good for you.

Misc advice:

You don't need a conventional coffee pot maker. Single serving will suit you just fine.

Cleaning is easier when you have a routine. It doesn't all have to be done on the same day of the week, but having a regular schedule of what gets cleaned when for non-daily chores will help you keep on top of it. And please, god, don't neglect your cleaning and hygiene just because no one lives with you to see it. On that note, spray bottle all purpose cleaners are your best friend for daily spot cleaning and you should deep clean your washroom around every 2 weeks in my experience since that's where you'll be doing most of your personal hygiene. Also make your damn bed, yes you'll just get back into it at the end of the day but having a major part of your space neat and tidy will do wonders for your mental health.

Don't buy the cheap garbage bags. Some things you really do want the expensive shit for.

If you don't have a car, delivery service/rideshare subscriptions ARE worth it and legitimately economical in the long run. I do wanna circle back to square one and say that yes, most of them like prime and uber do have dodgy moral records, but sometimes you just gotta swallow your pride and accept that. Once again, no one in the real world expects you to spend your entire day on public transit looking for toilet paper that isnt 30 dollars a pack or lugging 50 pounds of groceries back on a bus just for a cause. It's not the fault of someone who needs these services for their quality of life that they do the things they do, don't put that responsibility on your or other's shoulders when the fault lies at the top of the corporate ladder.

When you're budgeting for living expenses, expect your income to be at the lowest and your expenses to be at the highest. I expect 2 call ins per month and to need to spend the max amount i have on groceries every time, that way I never fall short and never have to cut into my savings that I've dubbed my "oh shit, I'm broke" money. Your emergency reserve may look tempting to you, but as someone who has been in a position where they had to drain it to nothing in the past because of an unforeseen financial emergency, you REALLY are gonna want that untouched if and when shit hits the fan. Life is unpredictable, prepare to roll with the punches so they don't knock you out.

A few people wanted to be tagged in this, so here you go @lilsnatch and @kisstheashes <3

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Around 1,600 teaching assistants at McGill University announced that they would be on strike starting Monday, as the final sprint of the university year begins. Teaching assistants at the university voted 87.5 per cent in favour of an eight-week strike mandate last week. The main point in dispute remains salaries, said Fanny Teissandier, an anthropology teaching assistant since fall 2023. In an interview with The Canadian Press, she said that the negotiations aim to reduce the disparity between the average salaries offered at McGill University and those of other similar universities, which stand at $46.36/hour. "There is really a very, very big difference when we know that the salaries of teaching assistants (at McGill University) amount to $33.03," she said.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[wmarximoff]

𝐮𝐧𝐥𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 | 𝐰. 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐟𝐟

summary: because Wanda is unlucky enough to understands as much as you do about the responsibility of those with great power — and the losses that come with it.

warnings (18+): smut, angst, handjob, gender neutral reader has a penis, major character death. MINORS DNI.

pairing: emo!Wanda x spider!gn!reader

word count: 4k

masterlist|

(please, don't flag the work)

༺ᱬ༻

There was something gratifying you could point to in the idea that, propelling yourself into the air, climbing in that arachnid-like acrobatics with your own body to the zephyrs of frigid wind in furrows at that high enraptured speed, the world around you could well be so tiny and contained that it would even be deprived of external evils and annoyances when seen from above.

And you always watched it from above, from above, from the corners, in swaying webs, flight towards the urban labyrinth of a city marked by its own life, in a majestic and vigorous existence – a giant that shines even when the dusk of night falls, warm even in the face of a shroud of icy snow in the middle of that October winter.

Admittedly, the cosmopolitanly avant-garde structures that made up the metropolis of New York were sprawling, treacherous, and indeed even fragile, but the charm of the Big Apple was passed right over everyone else's heads, on the surface, when you didn't peer deep into the alley violence in that capitalist machine that encompassed you as much as it did any other New York passer-by.

Your distinguishing factor, however, your peculiarity, was that for many of those people you were a protector, a masked safeguard of their integrity in the face of the everyday hostility that the system so poorly failed to sustain. You were responsible for protecting the helpless, the underprivileged, the underserved, the mainstay of the marginalized and the forgotten. You were, in accordance with your moral duties, the friend of the neighborhood.

Swinging from one building to the next was part of the job at that point. Aerial locomotion became more practical and utilitarian when dealing with moving from one point to another between the skyscrapers that rose to the dark immensity of the night, like arrows shot to the top of the borough of Queens, where a kind of human spider like you moved upwards, climbing and shooting webs, leaving behind trampled footprints in the accumulated snow on the corners of the parapets and on the lightning rod antennas.

You propelling yourself into the dark sky, your muscle cords contracting, pumping blood, gusts of icy air sliding through the fabric of your dark mask, inflating the white eight-legged spider etching emblazoned on your torso. Feeling fucking alive.

In front of panes of glass, pale lights and hums, there was the frenzy of a city that never sleeps – in an intense rustling buzz, active and dynamic amid the white snow and the thousands of lighted lamps, with people carrying briefcases, with suits and ties and sheltered in heavy clothes, with children and with animals, alone or in packs, cars mottled on the white streets, advertisements flashing everywhere. Conversations meandering through the most disparate topics possible to parrot about, a veritable array of options.

Life was happening right below you, as you swung in a black and white suit over the tops of pylons and tall buildings, beads of icy sweat pouring down the length of your back, delirious ecstasy pulsing through your veins added to your warm, radioactive blood.

But, away from the noise of the night's bustle, your web swings that night were heading towards a final stop on an otherwise quiet round – a small apartment complex with thin walls, raised in stone and red brick and in poor plumbing, rather weather-beaten, with a rent worthy of the salary of a pizza delivery person (and part-time barista) like you in Northwest Queens. A place where you've resided since you found yourself being on your own, a little over a year ago, because you weren't exactly the lucky kind of kid.

However, no longer so far from the popular residence, huddled in an arachnid position right on top of the snowy tiles of a corner market, behind the acrylic lenses in the shape of tears, both your eyes compressed their lids in a comically expression, confused in a furrow of brows, since out of the glass of that window situated on the eighth floor were beams of a white lamp luminescence – and, as far as you held a knowledge in your memory, you had left your dwelling still by the end of that partially sunny afternoon, therefore, never having even turned on the lamps that day.

“Shit,” beneath the fabric of the mask you held your frigid breath, sharpening your senses into a state of alert.

It only took a single jump propelled by your lower limbs and an accurate web shot ejected from the shooter attached to your right wrist, aimed right at the edge of the building's terrace, for you to maneuver cautiously in the air, between the light poles, like an elusive feline to then crawling up the emergency stairs outside your living room window, peering in for a glimpse of who the intruder might be that would have crept into your residence while you were away, merging with the shadows that shrouded that cold night.

But the ice in your lungs soon softened into puddles of itself, and at what lay there, laid out for your view from within those four withered walls that encompassed the narrow cubicle you called home. Your heart pumped in liquid explosion inside your ribcage that spread to the pit of your stomach, taking everything in its path in a dizzying hot drag. And that's why a tiny silly smile allowed itself to be enjoyed by the commission of your lips, against the thin fabric of your mask – it was just a natural act for you, to smile foolishly at the splendorous vision of Wanda Maximoff.

The far view alone was enough for you to find yourself smiling and truly content at your core – Wanda lying on your own bed, between thick blankets and poorly stacked piles of pillows, so oblivious to the fact that she was being watched; the pale expanses of her ring-lined fingers so subtly being nibbled on by her teeth, her nails varnished by a black nail polish chipped at the tips, one opalescent knee crossed over the other next to her chest, her dark miniskirt exposing her firm thighs in a way just as appealing to your desiring gaze.

And you loved the fact that her brown hair modulated coffee-colored tones when arranged in the dead of night, only in the pale light of a lamp placed near the right end of the bed – how even though it seemed so dark in the confines of that room, Wanda glowed in her own light sweeping a strand of profuse chestnut hair behind the shell of her right ear, her ringlet gleaming silver, her gaze so intent on the little television set in front of her.

How her irises seemed to adhere to traces of a mossy hue so bleak out of the sun, yet almost bordering on the innocence of someone who was only enjoying a television program displayed on the squalid screen of the small television set that was placed in front of the opposite wall to the bed, just above a small second-hand wooden table.

Over her torso she wore an old dark sweatshirt of yours, made of thick, warm material, bought at a Hot Topic store a few years ago, when you were still in your high school years. And Wanda was beautiful – the owner of a casual beauty, a simple natural and simple neatness, the kind in which there is no effort to pretend to be pretty. A beauty that begins and ends with itself, just because she was beautiful. The most beautiful sight anyone's eyes could be graced with. The kind that made you feel lucky, lucky to have her for yourself.

But it was then that the cold came to haunt you in a gust of stiff wind, the frozen hand of winter tracing the vertebrae of your spine in a chilling contact on your epidermis, which gelled the blood flowing in your veins and turned your bones to ice. Only then did you realize the reality where you were hanging on the snowy emergency stairs outside your apartment, away from the warm weather and away from Wanda.

And so, with your gloved right hand, you managed to lift the window and head your way into the small room, stepping on the floorboards inside with your left foot.

“Hey little witch, are you breaking and entering now? And here I thought you were one of the good guys...”

“Y/n!” Wanda got pleased immediately and, from the bed, she turned with her chin towards your voice that came from the window, a smile emerging in the outline of those pink lips she had, then getting up to receive you properly.

“It's cold outside, get in quick! You're going to catch a cold!”

And her southeastern European accent, still bathed by the Adriatic Sea, made itself present in her low-toned speech, hardening the enunciation of that soft voice. That's why you smiled – the tone of Wanda's voice always warmed your loving chest.

“Fine, fine, I'm fine,” you muttered in an enthusiastic tone, bringing your left hand behind you down on the windowpane that prevented any more gusts of icy wind from piercing the blister of heat that had become infatuated through the walls of that small room.

“I'm in one piece, see? Healthy as a,” you smiled to yourself, “Well, as a spider.”

And a chaste smile flickered back between Wanda's lips, a hint of skin being scrunched across the bridge of her nose in an adorable way, “You're such a goof, web-head.”

So it was that the young woman came walking towards you, warm, smiling, with open arms to welcome you into her affections.

And you took her for yourself, pulling Wanda's body close to yours, whereupon clever fingers dressed in silver rings hooked on the seam cut of your mask right in the middle of your neck, slowly then hoisting it so that in front of the Wanda's gaze revealed the skin of your chin, and then the pulp of your lips; the jadish irises aimed at your mouth and, morosely, the young woman bent down to take a kiss from you herself.

You held her, groping your fingers around her waist, when it was that, in a dizzying, crimson electric shock, soaked in a jubilation of fiery delight, your lips touched in a prudish, measured way. It was a kiss of a simple nature, yet lingering on her lips and imbued with impetuous feelings – the need joined to longing, the happiness of a jovial and healthy love. Something in you just yearned to return to her arms every day, as if your soul fit hers like a jigsaw puzzle by your lips united in a single tune.

“Hi,” you lisped in the tiniest tone against her mouth.

“Hey, детка,” was Wanda's reply, who still had the hem of your mask pressed between her rings, before she hoisted her forearms up to her chin and completely removed the piece of cloth that covered your face expression as smiling as hers.

“I really love your eyes, Y/n.”

“I can say the same for you, my little witch.”

After a little simpler caress of love exchanged, more kisses and hugs and little oaths of longing, you two separated then in reluctance so that you would undress your cold spider suit, choosing to wear more casual clothes and comfortable on your body – a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of snug, vaguely baggy sweatpants. And while you were doing that, Wanda, sitting right on the edge of your bed, watched you in front of the tiny closet door nearby, where a small door opened onto a narrow, dark room with clothes hanging on hangers and a small yellow light dripping from the ceiling.

“I was looking over your crime board earlier, before you arrived, and...” as she talked, her chin was supplanted by the elbow resting on the right knee of her crossed legs.

“Mmm?”

Wanda looked at you for half a second, her face creasing in curiosity, “Who's Wilson Fisk?”

“Kingpin,” your voice was somewhat muffled by the dark shirt you were halfway pulling on over your head.

“He's one of the crime bosses around here, he's involved in some pretty serious shit around town,” at last, you tucked the shirt over your torso.

“And I've been on his tail for a few months now, but I need to get on with my work if I'm going to gather enough evidence to expose him to the public legally. It's going to be difficult since he has pretty much the entire political underworld in the palm of his hand and other stuff too, of course, but... but I think I'm getting somewhere with this, yeah.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, “That sounds… kinda dangerous, Y/n,” Wanda sniffed with her nose to the side, speaking more to herself than to you per se.

“Maybe if you talked to Clint or Nat they could help you with that. Steve too, even. I know they are all willing to help you if you ask. Steve… you know, he’d really like you to take a chance and be on the team for a while. He thinks you'd make a good Avenger.”

"Yeah, I don't know about that, Wands," you muttered back, raising your right eyebrow at the idea.

“I don't think it's in the Avengers' niche to worry about that kind of thing, you know? I mean, you guys kind of exist to deal with out-of-the-galaxy threats and crazed AIs and evil government organizations and all that shit, don't you? And, well, Fisk is a pretty big fish in his own way, that's true... but he's just a stupid old bald guy who blackmails the local politicians and has created a criminal empire out of bribery and corruption – which is not it's very different from the billionaires we know out there. The difference is that Fisk is not a threat on a global scale.”

At the not-so-indirect burn to Stark Industries that couldn't be ignored, Wanda couldn't help but giggle infinitesimally under her breath, an act that elicited a goofy little smile from you, swaying your shoulders into your baggy blouse.

“Well,” she smiled a little too, in a kind of assent to your words, “You're not wrong.”

“Yeah, I guess,” you turned your head toward her, as your right foot tucked into the seam of thick gray cotton sweatpants.

“Plus, I have this certain, umm, responsibility to the people of this town, I guess. It was a promise I made after all, I... I'm here for them, both to keep all that crazy shit from spilling over on them, and just to look out for them when no one else does. That's my job around here, my function. It's just what I do. I'm not a super spy, or a super soldier, a genius billionaire or a giant green strong guy, Wands. I’m, I’m only...”

“The friendly neighborhood web-head?”

At your roll of eyes, Wanda smirked, like a small rabbit with moderately larger front teeth than the rest.

“That's just mean, witchy. I really prefer Spidey, you know? Spidey.”

“Spidey,” the young enchantress reiterated to you, “Well, anything sounds better than the Witch anyway. That's so fucking pejorative, like, burn the witch or something, what the fuck. I’m not a fucking witch.”

“You aren’t?”

“Shut up,” she rolled her eyes out of their sockets comically.

“The Witch, huh…” you looked at her, almost laughing when you did, “People really aren't good at coming up with superhero names, are they? Because this one is really bad. Really bad.”

“No,” Wanda chuckled in agreement, shaking her head, “They're not, not at all. And I’m not a superhero.”

“I see,” you droned, “And what are you then?”

For a second, Wanda looked at you, “A unlucky person who has made a lot of bad choices in her life.”

The television, which was flashing some old episode of a sitcom that made up Wanda's favorite series collection, was the only thing that filled the room with any kind of light or sound some time later, since, after stuffing yourself with the chicken paprikash that your beloved had prepared for you and then packed and stored in your fridge, the two of you snuggled in each other's arms, away from the cold and the chill, under a thatched hut with thick blankets on your bed during that bitter winter night.

 But it was when you turned in search of a comfortable position to lean back against the pillows and your left elbow brushed Wanda's right, that you two looked at each other curiously as if only then had you realized how close you encompassed each other – two dark gazes in the middle of the room lit only by the artificial lighting of a meaningless program, together, alone.

And you craved the comforting body heat that Wanda radiated when as close to her as you were – the scent of red that wafted from her silky ebony hair and her smooth, pale skin. You felt, however, a gaze peering into you from the line of your jaw and cheekbones, and looking back, Wanda was staring at you with a voluptuous fixation on the darkened green corners of her irises. She looked at you like she could completely consume you, like something about her was going to swallow you up and eat you down, digest you to the bones.

And then, from beneath the cocoon of blankets, a subtle touch spread across your left crotch, still above the thick material of your sweatpants. Your gaze sailed from the heap of blankets placed in the region of your lap to the emerald gaze, so dimmed, of the young woman sitting next to your left elbow.

“Wanda...”

“Mm?” she hummed back, as innocent as could be, as if her fingers weren't so close to groping an area of your body that was already beginning to throb with signs of life.

“Wanda,” you lisped softly, again, so needy, pupils popping and blood bristling through your veins, “What are you…?”

“I missed you, детка,” her fingers dipped deeper and deeper into your crotch, her eyes still screwed into your field of vision as she did so, “I missed you so, so much… I get so lonely in my room in the compound, you know? And all I can think about in those moments is you... how much I miss you.”

She locked her upper teeth against the flesh of her lower lip, stifling a lusty, immoral smile when she realized something – already petrified in a flash of desire, beneath the fabric of your pants, was your semi-erection, a noticeable bulge that made Wanda's mouth throb with desire.

"And I bet you miss me too, don't you?"

“Of course I do,” you huffed out a breath of warm air, ���Fuck Wanda, every goddamn night… every goddamn night I miss you.”

The bright, lively hand, with thin fingers wrapped in rings and well-cut black nails, couldn't help but travel through the dazzling skin of your abdomen, exposed by the lifting of your long-sleeved blouse, starting from the south, from your navel, into your hips, into the hem of your pants. Wanda captured your thick member and gave your shaft an alluring squeeze – her face then hidden in the contour of your neck, in the joint of your shoulder, to nibble, there, a piece of skin.

“Uh-f-fuck, Wanda...” you squirmed out of your nostrils like steam released from your bruised lungs, in a hoarse wail, somewhat drunk with the acute excitement present in your system.

Wanda smiled against your skin, her thumb lethargic caressing the strained head of your cock inside your pants and, in performed innocence, she placed a chaste kiss on the bone at the tip of your jaw.

“Just enjoy it, malышка,” was whispered in her low voice right next to your ear, in an accent hard and robust, but so dizzying when it came out of the crack of Wanda's lips, “Let me show you how much I missed you.”

And again, followed this time by a shameless tone of voice, leaking the red color from her pores, Wanda pressed the plump shaft between her slender fingers, causing a softness on your part. Following your moan, she placed a warm kiss behind your left ear.

“Allow me to make you feel good, Y/n.”

Wanda's right hand began its harassed, pleasurable work, up and down the length of your nervous member, raised to the intimate of your burning thighs – and you, wrapped in an embarrassed tremor, were exasperated as Wanda kissed your corner of the half-open mouth and the fluttering earlobe, threading your fingers through her brown locks as if it were a need between your hands, just in search of something to support yourself during that very intimate moment, shared by a couple of lovers as young and needy as you two were.

“Y/n,” she called against your cheekbone, “I… I'm sorry, but I want you inside. Now."

“Fine,” was your airy reply, “Fine.”

And without delay, Wanda passed her thighs over your knees, linking the folds of her elbows to your neck, then sitting on your lap so that a pink and expert tongue could slide inside your mouth as the damp, warm walls from her cunt slid around your erection. And then, one hefty, powerful touch, palms wide open and pressed to the flesh of her ass beneath her skirt, you screeched out of the outline of Wanda's lips a savory moan that squirmed from the very core of your lungs to pulsate against her lips during the carnal act of penetration.

“Бля, детка… тобі так добре, Y/n…” she gasped against the shell of your ear in a drawling semi-moan, “Y/n…”

"Do you like it?" was your question against her skin, to which, girding your cock with her velvety walls, Wanda nodded, bobbing her head up and down.

“I love it,” and, drunk on a wave of scarlet ledice, Wanda smiled, “I love you.”

You fell silent for a measly second, in fact barely realizing what had happened. Television still featured some sitcom that no longer mattered to you or even her, who was most attracted to the thing between you two – not being as close as you were in that primitive, carnal or even lewd way; skin with skin, flesh with flesh. Raw, visceral, passionate. It was cold outside, but your chest had never felt as warm as it did during that moment. She loved you. She loved you.

“You love me?”

Pulling her face away from your neck, Wanda looked at you with bright eyes from under thick, heavy lashes. She looked at you like no one else but her ever had before.

“I love you, детка,” was a whisper, a promise, “I love you, Y/n.”

When she started to go down everything became hazy, pulsing, hot, red. Wanda was moving up and down your body and you felt her backs arch convulsively, still continuing, creeping towards her cervix, rubbing her from the inside with the head of your cock.

And she rode you with such firmness, moaning and crying out, doing the penetration herself while your eyes converged in a single vision; Wanda moving up and down, over and over, seeking with her hips, until you both came in a delirium of dizzying pleasure; you pouring yourself inside her walls, into her flesh, and her thighs pale, wet, at the meeting with your hips. When she sighed wearily against the hollow of your neck, you smiled into a lock of her hair.

“I love you, little witch.”

It was perfect, you and her. So perfect that you pledged your love two or three more times that night, loving each other in the flesh, in the core, in the heart. Making you cling to the luck of having that miserable moment reserved for you and her, wanting to multiply it, make it last as long as possible.

It was as if, about a month or two after the event, already at the end of that winter suffered on a late December afternoon, Natasha Romanoff had not found herself leaving the corridors of the compound, walking stiff towards Wanda’s room, the soles of her boots full of soot and snow.

As if, among the strands of that short fire-colored hair, the residue of shards of sparkling glass did not shimmer after a painful fall – as if the Black Widow's lower lip were not found bloody and swollen after an arduous fight, as if she had not left a child to fight alone until it was too late for her interposition to mean anything decisive. As if Natasha hadn't been advised by Captain America to let Wanda, still as young, as damaged as she was, digest what happened, still so recent in the popular imagination, on her own.

“She's going to need some time, Nat,” pleaded Steve in a disgustingly grim tone, when they, he and she, were still sharing the elevator space just after returning from the big city with blood on their hands.

“Give Wanda a break, she's been through a lot. She doesn't need it right now. She’s… she’s just a kid. An unfortunate kid.”

But Natasha walked into Wanda's room in that snowy early evening, the emissary of news so atrocious that it had just left the streets, with blood and glass and corpses everywhere, a body count so tragic it could have had more, much lower if you hadn't intervened. Of course, you. But you weren't the one there to tell Wanda what the result of that fight with Wilson Fisk that Christmas Eve night had been. Natasha was the figure standing there, clutching the remains of your mask between the fingers of her right hand. It felt so pointless. As pointless as telling a young girl her lover was dead could be. Your mask felt meaningless.

“Wanda, I…I…”

But Wanda was nowhere to be found in her spacious bed after the Black Widow entered the room filled with posters on the walls and ceiling, stuffed animals arranged next to the pillows and the books piled orderly on the shelves. That was a young person's room, Natasha thought. Wanda was young. The television bolted to the wall adjacent to the window followed the live narration that portrayed a hideous explosion in Hell's Kitchen, where the fire department was still in the process of fully assessing the high and enigmatic number of lives claimed that night.

Wanda was in the bathroom, after all, when Natasha walked over — sitting on the floor, hugging her knees, threading her fingers through her long hair, scratching the scalp as she squinted at her burning eyes where tears were streaming from; sadness that marked her cheeks. She looked as small and as young as could be. And then it was that Natasha remembered. She realized, indeed, what had happened.

Carrying your spidery mask with her, Natasha remembered that both you and Wanda were really just a pair of unfortunate children, as she herself had once been too – children who carried greater responsibilities than you could even handle, with a maturity as mechanical and precocious as what the world demanded of you two. Children like her. Unlucky children.

“What… what– what am I going to do Nat…?” Wanda sobbed, still not lifting her eyes to the open crack in the door, where the older woman was standing, still bloody, still injured, “What the fuck am I supposed to do now?!”

And Natasha wanted to answer her. She wanted to, she opened her bruised lips to do so and then utter that speech she had already had in mind since she had held your body in her arms, still tucked inside that spider suit, in the snow and in the dark. But she immediately contained herself, refraining herself even before doing so, because that was when she saw it – prepared eyes spotted beside Wanda's so small and curved body a plastic rod with two lines marked in a baby pink color.

“Wanda… is... is that…?”

“I don’t know what to do,” she cried, “I don’t know, I don’t know…”

A pregnancy test of the kind one can buy at any local pharmacy, and the result was positive. And your mask was in her hands because you were gone. She was supposed to give it to Wanda as a reminder of your memory, but Wanda would have more to remember you by than a simple torn and bloody piece of cloth. She was pregnant after all. And you – you were dead. You were nothing but an unlucky dead bastard.

“I… I don't know,” Natasha's fingers tightened on the damn tattered fabric, “I'm so sorry, Wanda. I don't know… I don’t know.”

Wanda's tears, wide and warm, dripped between her bare feet on the pale bathroom floor tile. She had never felt so unlucky as she did at that moment.

[covid-safer-hotties]

With COVID-19 relief gone, teachers are losing their jobs. It's a blow to diversity. - Published Sept 3, 2024

Erica Popoca's ninth grade English students were livid in the spring when she told them she wouldn't be back to teach this fall.

The district where she works in Hartford, Connecticut, terminated her contract because the COVID-19 relief money that covered her salary was about to dry up. Newer teachers such as Popoca were the first to be cut. Her students wrote letters urging school board members to change their minds.

Popoca, the founding adviser of the multilingual student club, worried she would lose bonds with Latino students she had taught for two years who identify with her culturally as a Latina and as one of the few teachers who speaks Spanish at the school.

The district ultimately came up with other funding to pay her, and in a win for her and her students, officials reversed the layoff.

Popoca is among the thousands of teachers and school staffers across the U.S. at risk of losing their jobs as districts balance their budgets and prepare for the shortfall after COVID-19 relief money expires. Districts have been scrambling to put unfunded staffers into different roles. The reality is that many students will lose contact with adults with whom they have built relationships in recent years.

The Biden administration granted schools $189.5 billion over the past few years through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) under the American Rescue Plan Act. School officials have until the end of September to commit the remainder of their money, and districts will no longer be able to pay for nonteaching staff roles with that money after Sept. 30. Schools nationwide used most of their relief fund money to pay for classroom teachers and support staff, according to a U.S. Department of Education analysis of district spending for fiscal year 2022. Districts across the country are now laying off recently hired educators, teaching assistants, counselors, restorative justice coordinators and other key staff at schools, or they're scrambling to find ways to retain them.

A recent survey of 190 district leaders by the nonprofit research group Rand found that teacher reductions were "the most common budget cut" officials anticipated. Conversations about staff layoffs cropped up in at least 28 districts ahead of the upcoming fiscal cliff, according to a tracker of media reports from the Georgetown University-based research center Edunomics Lab, which monitors potential layoffs at districts.

The post-pandemic layoffs have been widespread. Montana's Helena Public Schools cut 36 positions, including 21 teachers. The Arlington Independent School District in Texas cut 275 positions, including counselors, tutors and teaching support staff.

Newer teachers are the first to go in states that allow or require districts to use "last-in-first-out" policies, which protect tenured teachers – and many people terminated will be staffers of color, said Aaron Pallas, a professor of sociology and education at Columbia University. States that diversified their educator workforce in the past several years will see a backslide in that progress since "recently hired staff who are often more diverse" will be "laid off more than experienced staff who often are more traditionally white," he said.

Schools serving low-income students will be hit hardest by the shift in funding because those campuses received more federal relief money, Pallas said.

Schools were required to comply with some equity provisions when obligating the relief money. The end of the funding will disparately affect students of color and kids in high-poverty neighborhoods.

Popoca, who comes from the Bronx in New York City, is concerned about what the losses will mean for her school.

"I am relieved but wary because quite a few positions are still vacant," she said. "We don’t have the amount of staff we're supposed to have, and I'm concerned about how the lack of staff is going to impact the students and the school."

Which states are likely to lose new teachers? At least 11 states – Alaska, California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island – last year had policies explicitly requiring districts to consider seniority in layoff decisions, according to a 2023 analysis from Educators for Excellence, a New York-based nonprofit organization that supports state laws that rid of seniority-based considerations from layoff decisions. Some other states, including Connecticut, where Popoca lives, allow districts to consider seniority in layoff decisions among other factors, but it's not required. Some states ban districts from considering seniority as a factor.

Because junior teachers tend to begin their careers in higher-poverty schools, there could be cases in which schools lose high percentages of their staff, said Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University's Edunomics Lab.

"It's really disruptive for students," Roza said. "And it's not great for teachers."

When Popoca told her class of mostly Black and Latino eighth graders last spring that she would be laid off, they were heartbroken. She's one of a few new staffers of color returning to the district this year. A few of her colleagues lost their jobs in the spring and won't be back when school starts, she said.

What should families expect to see at schools? In addition to the emergency funding layoffs, Roza said, many teachers may leave of their own accord. Some districts may also try to shrink their staffing pools with attrition rather than layoffs.

"They're going to hope and pray teachers just leave," Roza said.

Most of the cuts will likely hit the pool of support staff districts beefed up during the pandemic to help kids recover, Columbia's Pallas said.

The counselors, nurses, restorative justice coordinators and teaching assistants added to campus staff in recent years will be gone, and students and their school communities will start to feel that loss by the start of this school year, he said.

Francis Pina is one of several staffers and one of few Black men hired by Boston Public Schools to train teachers how to infuse social-emotional learning into classroom teaching. At the end of last year, he learned his role and the jobs of most new staffers on his team would be dissolved because it was considered a short-term position. Boston Public Schools paid Pina with COVID-19 emergency money through the end of the past academic year.

Pina will return as a high school math teacher this year, but he worries about what will happen to the district's social-emotional learning program.

When he heard his role was coming to an end, Pina said, he was nervous because he felt it was "really important to support students" still facing pandemic-related academic, social and emotional setbacks. He says students in the district haven't worked through all of those losses, even if the district has gone back to the "status quo."

As a Black man who attended Boston Public Schools, he believes he offers a unique perspective to kids, including Black students, and helps them thrive academically and emotionally in school.

"Prioritizing this is important," Pina said. "Kids need to know we care about them."

Teacher diversification will face a setback Diversity among the teaching staff has improved in recent years in Massachusetts, where Pina teaches. But the state's last-in-first-out policy means schools will lose diversification in the workforce, Roza, from the research lab at Georgetown, said.

That's a problem considering students of color are the majority at public schools in the U.S. Nearly one-fourth of public schools did not have an educator of color on staff, according to a May analysis of state-by-state data from TNTP, a nonprofit organization focused on the needs of students of color and those in poverty. Academic studies show students of color perform better academically when they have teachers from diverse backgrounds

There's a surprising reason: Why many schools don't have a single Black teacher

Representation on campuses may be further diminished when the emergency funding ends.

To stave off those losses and rescind seniority-based layoffs, some lawmakers tried to change how layoffs work, but they ran into pushback from the state teachers union, which said the policies harmed protections for senior educators. In March, the Massachusetts Legislature rejected sections of education bills that would have removed seniority considerations as the sole factor for layoffs.

“While we are happy to see the legislature taking strides to improve teacher diversity in Massachusetts, it is disheartening to see that the Education Committee chose not to prioritize protecting these very educators in the event of district layoffs,” Lisa Lazare, executive director of Educators for Excellence's Massachusetts chapter, said in a news release.

More new staffers of color are expected to face layoffs this year, Roza said.

For now, Popoca, in Connecticut, is looking forward to returning to the classroom and seeing her students – many of whom come from Latin American countries and with whom she feels a special bond. She's worried about the cuts, she says, because the school needs more teachers and support staff, not less.

She already has heard from people she knows who had considered entering the teaching profession in Hartford or elsewhere who have pulled back because of the district's lack of money.

"It's really concerning," she said.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for disclosing how much my partner makes to an acquaintance?

For context my partner makes a fair bit of money at their job as an engineer. I have never made much more than minimum wage, work in a difficult field and am still in grad school. Essentially I have a net worth deep in the negatives from student debt and while my parents have helped me out on small stuff they are retired/partially retired.

The disparity of wealth in my relationship with my partner HAS been a source of strife between us.

In a casual conversation today, with my mom and some of coworkers who I know fairly well (I work pretty regularly with them and fill for absent employees at my moms work), they were asking some questions about my partner and our relationship. I expressed some stress in our relationship regarding funds and the disparity between where I am in my career/life and where my partner is.

My mom’s coworker asked how much my partner made so I told her. She asked so I told her. I didn’t really think twice - I’m pretty open with my own friends and family about how much I make and they are with me (I feel like a lot of young people are more open then older generations when it comes to salary) and I was also trying to emphasize my own frustration with some of my partners habits in our relationship. my partner is fairly obsessive with saving money/reducing spending which is obviously a lot easier to do when you make as much money as they do and puts that pressure very heavily on me despite our very different financial realities.

Also for more context - I don’t share funds or live with my partner. At most my partner pays for dates bc of their more stable financial situation - but other than that they don’t help directly besides offering advice.

Later that day my mom told me I was an asshole for sharing that as that coworker is having financial troubles right now and her husband is laid off. And telling her how much someone half her age makes is rude, since it’s a lot more than she and her husband make right now.

After hearing that I feel like I am the ass hole for being so willing to share that number since it is high. But I was not trying to brag (honestly if anything I was more using number to drive home how out of touch my partner is with what it’s like to legitimately struggle to buy food, pay rent etc)

One final note - I probs made my relationship sound toxic af. Don’t worry it’s all good - I’m all good my partner is good we just get into boring adult arguments about things like 401ks and credit scores. (And I’m in weird grad school limbo which makes trying to get on with your life annoying)

What are these acronyms?

[doberbutts]

Hi, I recently came across a post of yours that said

"The only thing men have to lose from supporting feminism is misogyny. Feminism is not about tearing men down. It is about lifting women up."

I disagree with this assertion. Well, the first one at least, I absolutely agree with the second one.

I think men, materially speaking, do have things to lose from supporting feminism, aside from just misogyny.

Men would lose the ability to take advantage of women's labor. Either for free in the form of labor around the house, or for cheap by paying them less compared to men (this usually being achieved by relegating the majority of women in the workforce to positions that have been devalued as a result of being associated with womanhood, like teachers or nannies or housekeepers and so on).

I don't believe it's dangerous to acknowledge that oppressors dont have material reasons to cease their oppression, because after all if they they would've stopped a long time ago. Misogyny is pervasive not because of some pure ideological effort, but rather because it's a convenient excuse for the people in power to take advantage of a quite large subset of the world population (and as consequence spread as an ideology).

Of course I do think that quite a lot of men, once they understand this reality, would choose to reject the privilege being offered to them as they recognize accepting it would mean taking part in and upholding the system, but in doing so they're clearly not only giving up misogyny, but a tangible advantage in life that would make their lives easier (not to mention that, even if they did want to do this, the system is nonetheless pervasive and inescapable in its current form, so they would still benefit regardless of their intention. That's male privilege, after all)

I also do believe that men of all sorts suffer from living under the system. I reject the idea that all men equally benefit from it and that none ever feel its aftereffects. That being said, I do still think it's relevant to acknowledge that even men whose manhood is questioned by the system (either rejected or seen as a threat or any other way in which it doesn't fit the perfect idea of a wealthy abled cishet white man) and suffer as a result are rewarded for being men in the first place, even if they can't take full advantage of the benefits reserved for the ideal male archetype.

(I'm largely leaving my thoughts on how trans men fit in all this because I believe that to be a fairly complicated discussion)

I hope I don't come across as picking a fight or arguing in bad faith, and I'm open to hearing counterpoints if you feel differently from me (of course, if you even care to engage at all. Feel free to ignore this if that's not the case)

I mean I don't think you're picking a fight I just think you're dramatically misunderstanding what I'm saying, partially to the point where you're saying you disagree while repeating my logic back at me.

Men have nothing to lose from supporting feminism except misogyny. Taking advantage of women's labor is, in fact, misogyny.

Feminism is not about tearing men down but about lifting women up. Yes, by losing male privilege, one could I suppose argue that there are a lot of losses that come with that. To me, that is not a material loss, because the only thing we'd be removing is the entitlement to that privilege.

When I say feminism is not about tearing men down but about lifting women up, what I mean is this:

There is a fairly well documented pay gap, with men of most demographics being paid higher (even if marginally so) than women of equal demographic. Fixing the pay gap isn't lowering men's salaries. It's raising women's. What they have stays the same. What they lose is the ability to pay women less- the misogyny.

There is a fairly well documented disparity regarding women in the workplace vs men, especially in physical labor and in STEM. Fixing this issue does not remove jobs for men- it judges job candidates on their actual ability instead of sex or gender.

This is also what I mean when I say this contributes to a net positive for both sides: don't hire a shitty welder just because he's the only man applying. Hire any number of the experienced and proven welders that are women who also applied. Return to teaching welding in schools, get any kid interested in the trade the knowledge they need to start. This will not only improve the quality of the trade skills your specific employer has to offer, but it will also improve the quality of trade skills for the future generation that will replace you when you retire or die. Literally the only thing men have to lose in this situation is misogyny- the misogyny of keeping women out of the workforce, and the misogyny of keeping women from learning the trade in the first place. They get more qualified people working and all for the low low cost of not being a jerk to women.

Misogyny, like most oppression, is about control. It is not about making things better for just one demographic, because often time that very same demographic does suffer under that oppressive system while simultaneously benefitting from it. As said in my previous example, continuing to hire shitty welders just because they're dudes while deliberately passing up good welders just because they're women just makes things worse for everyone.

Not accepting college applicants just because they're women while taking substandard men who can't get in without daddy's money just makes things worse for everyone.

Continuously questioning the credentials of accomplished and professional women traching a class while nodding along in agreement to some jerk-off man's half-assed non-researched opinion on twitter just makes things worse for everyone.

Voting for Old White Man #736194 because his opponents with politics that align more closely with what the country wants- and needs- are women just makes things worse for everyone.

Ditch the misogyny. That's all. Level the playing field by actually bringing women up to the standard we've set for men. Feminism is about lifting women up.

[namitomoon]

Why Scott Pilgrim dating Knives was WRONG:

(Disclaimer: I assume most people who read the comic/watched the movie/anime DO understand why it was wrong but I still felt like writing this short post because 1) some people still don't get it, 2) I'm bored and on a SP hyperfixation arc so I felt like writing stuff up so here we go)

Scott Pilgrim is kind of a douchebag at the beginning of the comic. It's not exactly hard to perceive it in the way his friends treat him. They don't hate him but they seem to be a little cold to him, as if they're tired of his antics.

For them, Scott dating a teenager while being a 23 years old adult isn't something ground-breaking for his friends that changes the way they perceive him. Rather, it's something they fully expect of him, which is why they are actually quite pissed off but don't really shout or yell at him.

If you notice the early chapters, you can see that most of the people of Scott's social circle dislike him a bit...except for Knives, his teenager girlfriend. And that's the thing. Knives REALLY loves Scott, she idolizes him, her eyes shine when Sex Bob-Omb plays, she tells him everything about her school and so on. Nobody doubts Knives is head over heels for Scott...but it's not the other way around.

You see, there's a reason Scott Pilgrim went specifically for a teenager. Stephen Stills says it out loud on the last volume in case you still missed it (get it, Stills...still, nevermind): It was easy for Scott. It was easy for an immature douchebag like Scott to impress an immature teenager with his whole "cool band dude" schtick. And Scott wasn't stupid. He knew. Which is why he did it. And his friends weren't stupid either, which is why they pressure him to dump Knives.

And you can see the after effects throughout the entirety of the comic: Knives is traumatized. But she is deeply traumatized. Scott dumped her in a pretty cold and abrupt way, then she found out he two-timed her...and yet, she is still deeply in love with him. The fact she becomes a sort of "Scott Evil Ex" serves as a way to warm us to the idea that Ramona is also a bad person by the way.

She finally lets him go of her heart by volume 6, almost a year later. But that won't erase the wounds Scott left there. For Knives, Scott was everything, a cool af boyfriend she enjoyed hanging out with. For Scott, Knives was just "a cute Asian chick" he got because that's literally all he could get. And even if she gets a boyfriend or husband (or well, girlfriend or wife) that actually respects her...she'll probably carry that trauma for the rest of her life.

And that is why it was wrong for Scott to date Knives OR ANY TEENAGER for that matter. Between an adult and a high schooler there is a huge gap in terms of maturity, worldview, objectives... Don't even get me started on power disparity. A high schooler lives with their parents, an adult probably has a full job and salary (although this angle was never explored because Scott is a fucking leech that lives off Wallace's goodwill)

It was never about the age gap (mainly). Yes, perhaps in many jurisdictions it's perfectly legal for a 23 y/o to have sex with a 17 y/o. But you still shouldn't. There is a potential for abuse, manipulation, power imbalance and traumas. O'Maley made Knives a 17 y/o and not a 15 y/o probably to make it less evident and leave it up more to the reader...and then apparently most readers, as O'Maley said in an interview, didn't really caught on. Hell, some people might even argue that the age gap as THE problem itself was a red herring. It was the reasoning. Which is why his final kiss with Knives after she is finally 18 felt so awkward on both sides. Because the age itself was never the main problem, it was the manipulation aspect.

[mariacallous]

Shira Fishbach, a newly graduated physician, was sitting in an orientation session for her first year of medical residency when her phone started blowing up. It was June 24, 2022, and the US Supreme Court had just handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, nullifying the national right to abortion and turning control back to state governments.

Fishbach was in Michigan, where an abortion ban enacted in 1931 instantly came into effect. That law made administering an abortion a felony punishable by four years in prison, with no exceptions for rape or incest. It was a chilling moment: Her residency is in obstetrics and gynecology, and she viewed mastering abortion procedures as essential to her training.

“I suspected during my application cycle that this could happen, and to receive confirmation of it was devastating,” she recalls. “But I had strategically applied where I thought that, even if I didn't receive the full spectrum, I would at least have the support and the resources to get myself to an institution that would train me.”

Her mind whirled through the possibilities. Would her program help its residents go to an access-protecting state? Could she broker an agreement to go somewhere on her own, arranging weeks of extra housing and obtaining a local medical license and insurance? Would she still earn her salary if she left her program—and how would she fund her life if she did not?

In the end, she didn’t need to leave. That November, Michigan voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that made the 1931 law unenforceable, and this April, Governor Gretchen Whitmer repealed the ban. Fishbach didn’t have to abandon the state to learn the full range of ob-gyn care. In fact, her program at the University of Michigan, where she’s now a second-year resident, pivoted to making room for red-state trainees.

But the dizzying reassessment she underwent a year ago provides a glimpse of the challenges that face thousands of new and potential doctors. Almost 45 percent of the 286 accredited ob-gyn programs in the US now operate under revived or new abortion bans, meaning that more than 2,000 residents per year—trainee doctors who have committed to the specialty—may not receive the required training to be licensed. Among students and residents, simmering anger over bans is growing. Long-time faculty fear the result will be a permanent reshaping of American medicine, driving new doctors from red states to escape limitations and legal threats, or to protect their own reproductive options. That would reduce the number of physicians available, not just to provide abortions, but to conduct genetic screenings, care for miscarriages, deliver babies, and handle unpredictable pregnancy risks.

“I worry that we’re going to see an increase in maternal morbidity, differentially, depending on where you live,” says Kate Shaw, a physician and associate chair of ob-gyn education at Stanford Medicine. “And that’s just going to further enhance disparities that already exist.”

Those effects are not yet visible. The pipeline that ushers medical graduates through physician training is about a decade long: four years of school plus three to seven years of residency, sometimes with a two-year, sub-specialty fellowship afterward. Thus actions taken in response to the Dobbs decision—people eschewing red-state schools or choosing to settle in blue states long-term—might take a while to be noticeable.

But in this year, some data has emerged that suggests trends to come. In February, a group of students, residents and faculty surveyed 2,063 licensed and trainee physicians and found that 82 percent want to work or train in states that retain abortion access—and 76 percent would refuse to apply in states that restrict it. (The respondents worked in a mix of specialties; for those whose work would include performing abortions, the proportion intending to work where it remains legal soared above 99 percent.)

Then in April, a study from the Association of American Medical Colleges drawing on the first round of applications to residency programs after Dobbs found that ob-gyn applications in states with abortion restrictions sank by 10 percent compared to the previous year. Applications to all ob-gyn programs dropped by 5 percent. (Nationwide, all applications to residency went down 2 percent from 2021 to 2022.)

Last month, two preliminary pieces of research presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists uncovered more perturbations. In Texas—where the restrictive law SB8 went into effect in September 2021, nine months before Dobbs—a multi-year upward trend in applications to ob-gyn residency slowed after the law passed. And in an unrelated national survey, 77 percent of 494 third- and fourth-year medical students said that abortion restrictions would affect where they applied to residency, while 58 percent said they were unlikely to apply to states with a ban.

That last survey was conducted by Ariana Traub and Kellen “Nell” Mermin-Bunnell, two third-year medical students at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta—which lies within a state with a “fetal heartbeat” law that predates Dobbs and that criminalizes providing an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The law means that students in clinical rotations are unlikely to witness abortions and would not be allowed to discuss the procedure with patients. It also means that, if either of them were to become pregnant while at med school, they would not have that option themselves.

Before they published the survey, the two friends conducted an analysis of how bans would affect medical school curricula, using data collected in the summer of 2022. They predicted that only 29 percent of the more than 129,000 medical students in the US would not be affected by state bans. The survey gave them a chance to sample med students’ feelings about those developments, with the help of faculty members. They also founded a nonprofit, Georgia Healthcare Professionals for Reproductive Justice. “We're in a unique position, as individuals in the health care field but not necessarily medical professionals yet,” Traub says. “We have some freedom. So we felt like we had to use that power to try to make change.”

Ob-gyn formation is caught between opposing forces. Just over half of US states have passed bans or limitations on abortion that go beyond the Roe v. Wade standard of fetal viability. But the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, a nonprofit that sets standards for residency and fellowship programs, has always required that obstetric trainees learn to do abortions, unless they opt out for religious or moral reasons. It reaffirmed that requirement after the Dobbs decision. Failure to provide that training could cause a program to lose accreditation, leaving its graduates ineligible to be licensed.

The conflict between what medicine demands and state laws prevent leaves new and would-be doctors in restrictive states struggling with their inability to follow medical evidence and their own best intentions. “I’m starting to take care of patients for the first time in my life,” says Mermin-Bunnell, Traub’s survey partner. “Seeing a human being in front of you, who needs your help, and not being able to help them or even talk to them about what their options might be—it feels morally wrong.”

That frustration is equally evident among trainees in specialties who might treat a pregnant person, prescribe treatments that could imperil a pregnancy, or care for a pregnancy gone wrong. Those include family and adolescent medicine, anesthesiology, radiology, rheumatology, even dermatology and mental health.

“I’m particularly interested in oncology, and I’ve come to realize that you can’t have the full standard of gynecologic oncology care without being able to have access to abortion care,” says Morgan Levy, a fourth-year medical student in Florida who plans to apply to ob-gyn residency. Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks; a further ban, down to six weeks, passed in April but has been held up by legal challenges. In three years of med school so far, Levy received one lecture on abortion—in the context of miscarriage—and no clinical exposure to the procedure. “It is a priority for me to make sure that I get trained,” she says.

But landing in a training program that encourages abortion practice is more difficult than it looks. Residency application is an algorithm-driven process in which graduates list their preferred programs, and faculty rank the trainees they want to teach. For years, there have been more applicants than there are spaces—and this year, as in the past, ob-gyn programs filled almost all their slots. What that means, according to faculty members, is that some applicants will end up where they do not want to be.

“Students and trainees do exert their preferences, but they also need to get a training spot,” says Vineet Arora, the dean for medical education at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and lead author on the survey published in February. “Would they forgo a training spot because of Dobbs? That's a tall order, especially in a competitive field. But would they be happy about it? And would they want to stay there long term?”

That is not a hypothetical question. According to the medical-colleges association, more than half of residents stay to practice in the states where they trained. But it’s reasonable to ask whether they would feel that loyalty if they were deprived of training or forced to relocate. “If even a portion of the 80 percent of people who prefer to practice and train in states that don't have abortion bans follow through on those preferences, those states that are putting in abortion bans—which often have workforce shortages already—will be in a worse situation,” Arora says.

An ACOG analysis estimated in 2017 that half of US counties, which are home to 10 million women, have no practicing ob-gyn. When the health care tech firm Doximity examined ob-gyn workloads in 2019, seven of the 10 cities it identified as having the highest workloads lie in what are now very restrictive states. Those shortages are likely to worsen if new doctors relocate to states where they feel safe. The legal and consulting firm Manatt Health predicted in a white paper last fall: “The impact on access to all OB/GYN care in certain geographies could be catastrophic.”

Faculty are struggling to solve the mismatch between licensing requirements and state prohibitions by identifying other ways residents can train. They view it as protecting the integrity of medical practice. “Any ob-gyn has to be able to empty the uterus in an emergency, for abortion, for miscarriage, and for pregnancy complications or significant medical problems,” says Jody Steinauer, who is vice-chair of ob-gyn education at UC San Francisco.

Steinauer directs the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program, a 24-year-old effort to install and reinforce clinical abortion training. Even before Dobbs, that was hard to come by: In 2018, Steinauer and colleagues estimated that only two-thirds of ob-gyn residency programs made it routine, despite accreditation requirements—and that anywhere from 29 to 78 percent of residents couldn’t competently perform different types of abortion when they left training. In 2020, researchers from UCSF and UC Berkeley documented that 57 percent of these programs face limitations set by individual hospitals more extreme than those set by states.

Before Dobbs, the Ryan program brokered individual relocations that let trainees temporarily transfer to other institutions. Now it is working to set up program-to-program agreements instead, because the logistics required to visit for a rotation—the kind of arrangements Fishbach dizzily imagined a year ago—are more complex than most people can manage on their own. And not only on the visiting trainee: Programs already perform delicate calculations of how many trainees they can take given the number of patients coming to their institutions and the number of faculty mentors.

Only a few places have managed to institutionalize “away rotations,” in which they align accreditation milestones, training time, and financing with other institutions. Oregon Health & Science University’s School of Medicine is about to open a formal program that will accept 10 to 12 residents from restrictive states for a month each over a year. Oregon imposes no restrictions on abortion, and both the med school’s existing residents and the university’s philanthropic foundation supported the move.

“I'm very concerned about having a future generation that knows how to provide safe abortion care—because abortion will never go away; becoming illegal only makes it less safe,” says Alyssa Colwill, who oversees the new program and is an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. “There are going to be patients that are going to use unsafe methods because there's no other alternative. And providers are going to be placed in scenarios that are heartbreaking, and are devastating to watch.”

The accreditation council now requires programs that cannot train their own residents in abortion to support them in traveling somewhere else. But even at schools that are trying to accommodate as many learners as possible, trainees can attend for only a month—the maximum that fully enrolled programs in safe states can afford. After that, they must go back home, leaving them less-trained than their counterparts. As faculty look forward, they fear a slow spiral of decay in obstetric knowledge.

This isn’t imaginary: Already, research has shown that physicians practicing in red states are less likely to offer appropriate and legal procedures to treat miscarriages. Receiving abortion training, in other words, also improves medical care for pregnancy loss.

“Ultimately, I do not think there is capacity to train every resident who wants training,” says Charisse Loder, a clinical assistant professor of ob-gyn at the University of Michigan Medical School, who directs the program where Fishbach is training. “So we will have ob-gyn residents who are not trained in this care. And I think that is not only unfortunate, but puts patients in a position of being cared for by residents who don't have comprehensive training.”

Doing only short rotations also returns residents to places where their own reproductive health could be put at risk. Future physicians are likely to be older than in previous generations, having been encouraged to get life experience and sample other careers before entering med school. Research on which Levy and Arora collaborated in 2022 shows that more than 11 percent of new physicians had abortions during their training. Because of the length of training, they also may be more likely to use IVF when they are ready to start families—and some reproductive technologies may be criminalized under current abortion bans.

As a fourth and final-year psychiatry resident, Simone Bernstein had thought about abortion restrictions through the lens of her patients’ mental health, as she talked to them about fertility treatment and pregnancy loss. As cofounder of the online platform Inside the Match, she had listened to residents’ reactions to Dobbs (and collaborated on research with Levy and Arora). She had not expected the decision to affect her personally—but she is in Missouri, a state where there is an almost complete ban on abortion. And this spring, she experienced a miscarriage at 13 weeks of pregnancy.

“I was worried whether or not I could even go to the hospital, if my baby still had a heartbeat, which was a conversation that I had to have with my ob-gyn on the phone,” she says. “It didn’t come to that; I caught the baby in my hands at home, hemorrhaging blood everywhere, and the baby had already passed away. But until that moment, I didn't recognize the effects that [abortion restrictions] could have on me.”

This is the reality now: There exist very few places in the US where abortion is uncomplicated. Faculty and their trainees do not expect that to change, except for the worse. Staying in the field, and making sure the next generation is prepared, requires commitment that they will have to sustain for years.

“Part of the reason why I sought advanced training in abortion and contraception is because I think there will be a national ban,” says Abigail Liberty, an ob-gyn and fellow in her sixth postgraduate year at OHSU. “I think it will happen in our lifetime. And I see my role as getting as much expertise and training as I can now and providing care while I can. And then coming out of retirement, when abortion will be legal again, and training the next generation of physicians.”

[maaarine]

Half of Spanish men feel discriminated against amid feminism backlash (James Badcock, The Telegraph, Jan 16 2024)

"Spain has pivoted towards feminist-friendly policies in recent years under Pedro Sánchez, its Left-wing prime minister.

Some 44 per cent of men agreed that society had “come so far in promoting women’s equality that men are now being discriminated against”, according to the survey by Spain’s National Centre for Sociological Research.

Almost one-third of women also agreed with the statement.

The male respondents most likely to feel discriminated against were young.

In the 16-24 age group, 52 per cent felt that the drive for women’s equality had gone too far.

Since 2018, governments led by Mr Sanchez have introduced a consent-based rape law and guaranteed menstrual leave from work for women with severe period pain.

His cabinets have always had at least 50 per cent female participation and the government is currently preparing a law to force all management boards to have women make up at least 40 per cent of their number.

Meanwhile, Spain’s gender pay gap between average men’s and women’s salaries fell from 28 per cent to 21 per cent in the decade between 2011 and 2021.

Despite the changes, a majority of Spaniards agreed that “major inequality” still exists between men and women, according to the study.

But while some 67 per cent of women believed there were disparities between the sexes, only 48 per cent of men thought the same.

The survey, based on interviews with 4,000 people, also showed that Spanish women continue to bear a larger burden in terms of care and housework.

On a weekday, women spend an average of just under three hours on chores, 50 per cent more than men.

Among parents, Spanish women dedicate 6.7 hours to their children per day, almost double the number clocked up by men.

The findings sparked concern among feminists that Spanish men were confusing a loss of historic privileges with an invasion of their rights.

Sandra Sabatés, the TV presenter, said: “Getting your meals cooked, bed made and house cleaned isn’t a right; it’s full bed and board.”

(…)

According to the survey, 88 per cent of male [far-Right] Vox voters said that they felt discriminated against, compared with 22 per cent of men who support Mr Sánchez’s Socialist Party."