#She doesn't try to fucking kill everyone she knows????

[brazenautomaton]

If lobbying didn't buy votes, companies wouldn't do it. The idea that lobbying money doesn't influence what policies get implemented just isn't credible.

You have no actual proof of these claims other than "things are a certain way, I think this party benefits from it, therefore this party caused it to be this way."

You have nothing specific to point to. The idea that "if lobbying didn't work companies wouldn't do it" fails the smell test: one, you don't consider maybe lobbying doesn't accomplish the thing you think it does and accomplishes something else (namely the thing I said, it's a reward for people who already like them), and two, we have seen example after example after example of things that The Corporations really don't like, that they have lots of money to try and stop, and a very good interest in stopping, that they absolutely could not have and didn't even attempt to buy votes against. Everyone was all aghast about how Verizon wanted to kill net neutrality and it was proof companies owned our democracy -- nobody mentioned how this policy would be very bad for Google because Google benefits from net neutrality, and Google has approximately one shit-zillion times as much money as Verizon, and Google appeared to have no ability to buy our democracy and preserve its interest. Banks have lots and lots of money, and banks don't like cryptocurrency, and somehow, nobody in government knows what to do about cryptocurrency and the Common People are all lamenting about how the government refuses to regulate cryptocurrency, when the banks should have been able to buy our democracy and regulate it out of existence. Fucking Disney can't even buy Ron DeSantis shutting the fuck up.

Political spending is a consumption good. The striking thing about money in politics is how little of it there is. The money at stake with these policies is so, so, so much higher than the amount of money being spent on lobbying that if money could buy votes, every CEO must be brain-dead because they haven't got the idea to spend 10 times as much money buying votes and get back a 1,000x return on investment.

When I talk about distributional efficiency in what claims get approved, I am not saying that every claim should be approved. I am saying that the US insurance industry does a bad job of rejecting claims based on how important they are, as opposed to whether patients are able to fight their case. IIRC an average insurance company rejects a little over 10% of claims, so maybe this would need to move to a little over 5% to eliminate unreasonable rejections, increasing premiums by 5% (or perhaps less if profits can be squeezed).

Do you have any math on how they specifically are bad at approving claims that are more important, and turning down claims that are less important? Obviously there's an error rate inherent in any process like this, and we both agree they turn down lots of care that is necessary. But do you think they turn down care at random? Are the mechanisms they use different from how socialized health care systems allocate care? Socialized health care systems also turn down care because the demand for health care is infinite (there is always a more expensive and less likely to work treatment you can try) while resources are finite. They also turn down care based on how expensive it is. Do we have any reason to believe that the lower rate of refusal is due to anything other than "health care costs less so their dollar goes further?" There are plenty of horror stories about socialized health care systems refusing to pay for treatment for things they don't believe are medically necessary or don't believe will work, and patients who strongly disagree and who tried to appeal. This story went around recently of a woman who needed very expensive surgery in Canada, the health care system refused to pay, she raised the money herself and went to California and had it done, and came back to Canada suggesting assisted suicide for her untreatable illness. Guess what, all systems must allocate scarce resources and sometimes they are gonna make a bad call. Do we have any reason to believe that American insurance companies are worse at determining necessity than Canada's health care system, when the obvious causative factor is "they turn down more treatment because it's much more expensive and they can't pay as much"?

Literally every single system, every single one, will allocate care based not on need but on how good people are at advocating for themselves. That is the proxy all human beings in these decision-making positions use for "how necessary is it." The group of things that nobody has to advocate for is larger in a system where health care is not ruinously expensive, but as soon as it becomes a question of if the cost is worth it, as soon as discretion is involved, then every single system every single one there is not an exception to this this is not exaggeration this is every single one of them will make decisions based on "how well is this person able to convince me, the decision maker, that they need this care and it would be worthwhile to pursue" instead of "how necessary it is and how worthwhile would it be to pursue." Because it is literally and not figuratively impossible for them to obtain information about that second thing! Any time they try, they just get the first one! It's how communication works!

And the idea that "to cover 5% more cases they would need to increase premiums by 5%" is obviously not true. The treatments American insurers turn down tend to be the ruinously expensive ones, and when there are treatments that are not ruinously expensive, they don't have trouble paying. That means that the scale is not linear. Reducing the rate of refusal from 10% to 5% would not cost them 5% more money because you're asking them to pay for the most expensive decile of medical treatments.

It is true that a lot of the discursive consequences of Thompson's murder have just been bloodlust, but it hasn't just been that. I think the BCBS case is an excellent example of that, because you left out the crucial fact that the cost of any difference in billed hours of anesthesia vs insurance-covered hours was going to fall on patients, not on hospitals. So that was a terrible policy that would have increased the number of people ruined by medical debt. But moreover, the fact that BCBS felt the need to reverse the policy shows that they felt a genuine policy pressure from the public, which wouldn't be the case if the reaction was merely bloodlust.

Doctors fleece insurance companies/Medicare because they know insurance companies/Medicare will pay, and this causes health care to be more expensive for everyone. They do not do this directly to patients, because this makes health care much more expensive for one person who is unlikely to pay. It is an incentive that changes behavior.

"Old people will fall out of bed and injure themselves, necessitating more hospital time than the thing they were originally there for" used to be an iron law of hospital care. It was put forth as the law "Gomer goes to ground" in House of God, the "it's true but he shouldn't say it" book about what it is actually like to work in a hospital and what people there actually think. Then insurance companies stopped paying for care caused by falling out of hospital beds. Instead of gomer going to ground and then gomer having to pay for it, that incontestable law of hospital care completely vanished. The change in the insurance policy stopped rewarding negligent behavior, and the negligent behavior stopped. If this policy had been changed right before an assassination, they would have reversed it for fear of a bloodthirsty killer (I don't understand how you can say this proves it has nothing to do with bloodthirst), and health care would be more expensive as it had to pay for more care for old people falling out of bed, and a lot more old people would be injured falling out of bed. Booking giant blocks of time for anasthesia in surgery is negligent behavior. These procedures do not take that long, and the doctors know that, but they have no reason not to overbill. BCBS wanted to stop rewarding negligent behavior. It is good to stop rewarding negligent behavior.

You just seem really, really, really confident that a bunch of statistics and math you don't have access to all shake out to be really, really, really convenient for you.

I think political assassinations are broadly not very good but I do want them to jury nullify on mangione. I mean he already did the assassination he already did it can't take it back now. So why not let him walk as a free man?

[lexirosewrites]

Thinking about a Burn alternative that I didn't want to wait until Sunday to send in case I forgot! Okay, so, everything up through Eddie abandoning Steve still happens, but with some twists after that. He and Robin still get kidnapped and trapped under the mall, but they save themselves. Steve, in a rush of adrenaline wanting to save himself, his pup, and Robin, loses his shit on everyone who captured them and brutally kills the main ones. He gains the respect of the other members who were down there and it turns out they had a lot of issues with the Russians running things so they pledge allegiance to Steve instead, making him their matriarch. Wanting to establish security and safety above all else for her m and Dove, he dives into the role and gains a steadfast group of loyal followers and people. Robin operates as almost a double agent, staying as Eddie's accountant but running intel and such for Steve. Chrissy knows that she's doing so but doesn't tell Eddie out of loyalty to Steve. During all of this, Steve had covertly moved out of the apartment and disappeared, and Bob couldn't track him. Eddie knows he's vanished and is beside himself searching for him, leaving him distracted and room for Steve's new group to start sneaking in and taking things from him. Business deals, profit opportunities, you name it. He's become the leader of a powerful organization and remained anonymous. He gives birth to Dove and starts to raise her on his own. He's surrounded by tough people, and he has some alphas try to cozy up to him, but he doesn't entertain the idea of anyone other than Eddie. Eddie finally realizes that 1) he's been losing a lot of power and people to the anonymous leader and 2) Robin and Chrissy have been helping. He starts conducting his own investigation and decides to extend an invitation to the leader to meet and exchange pleasantries to hopefully stop a turf war from happening. Steve accepts, as he will be wearing a disguise, and they arrange to meet at his new home. The day arrives and Eddie is greeted by a lavish but small home and he's put in the sitting room. Steve comes in and Eddie immediately is struck by his scent, it seems so familiar. He shuts that thought down and focuses on the task at hand, starting a tense conversation with the anonymous leader. He keeps getting struck by the scent, and in one disastrously tense moment, they get into a tussle and Steve's disguise moves enough to show his neck and moles. Enough for Eddie to recognize him. Idk what happens after this, Steve leaves and Eddie is escorted out by armed guards. This begins a cat and mouse chase, angst, and some good make up fucking when they inevitably get back together but only after Eddie has grovelled in sorrow and accepted that Steve is his equal in all things. The end😌

it drives me insane to know i still haven’t finished writing “Ashes” so you guys don’t get the badass omega Steve that you’re all clearly craving😔 he deserves to be crazy and powerful like this!!!

(link to Burn in case anyone is confused about the source material for this ask)

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I know Wicked is not going to make Dorothy a young kid like in the books but I really like when dark versions of childrem literature do keep them as kids.

Not in "it's more fucked up" light but in this is also a metaphor for kids growing up in a weird scary world while most adults never actually explain anything and either expect them to already know or to be forever oblivious. And so the kids have to figure it out. To make themselfs the decision to remain kind, to learn to love the new world or at least the people in it.

And I do think being a kid is part of the reason Dorothy reacts to Oz so diferently than the Wizard. Yes, it is also because she is a good person. But Dorothy is a kid she is used to things that make no sense. So she goes to an insane new world and her first instinct is to learn. She is quicky to accept that animals talk and scracrows walk and tin man have life. Because she is open minded yes, but also because kids know they don't know everything in a way most adults don't.

But Dorothy also killed (she didn't but you get it) someone and was praised for it. And she is scared and she wants to go home. And everyone keeps teeling her she did the right thing and that all she needs to do to go home is meet this amazing all powerfull guy and kill the horrible mean witch. And every fairy tale has evil witches. So maybe it's okay. And she takes it. Because she is a child and she is new and they are adults.

But she is kind. She befriends all this traumatized adults with backstories and connections she does not know (just like real kids don't know the past of the adults they trust) and she just wants to help them. And she notices that the Tin Man already has a heart and the Scarecrow has a brain (Fiyero was likely lying from the start but Dorothy does not know that) and that the Lion does have courage. And she decides it also means she has to do the right thing so (and I'm going Wicked books here) when she meets Elphie all she wants is to apologize. She knows what is like to lose family and also she knows the witch protects the animals and Toto is her best friend, so anyone that protects animals cannot be that evil specially when the animals here are really just people but different shaped. She doesn't know if she will ever be forgiven but she wants Elphaba to know it was an accident, to know she is sorry, to know someone else is mourning her sister, to know that it is scary and unfair. To give her the shoes back if she can finally just take them off.

She is brave and when she discovers the Wizard is a farse she shows it to everyone. And it's not planned in any way because she is a kid. She doesn't have the maturity, the trauma nor the context Galinda has. Hell she must have noticed Glinda loves the witch and it might be the one reason she does not call Glinda out as well, not any strategy just thinking love can fix all cause she's a young kid.

[I also just think baby Dorothy would make everything funnier. And of course I have the personal fix it that Glinda and Elphie make amends post cannon as them (and Fiyero) find about Tip and raise Ozma as the polycule they should've always been (and also try to fix Oz from very different angles). Only as the Oz books go Dorothy and Toto come back (with Uncle Henry and Aunt Em this time) and she and Ozma fall in love (homoerotic best friends and co-princess wich is the same). And I think Ozma going to present Dorothy to her low key parents only to learn Dorothy has very diferent forms of history with them is golden.]

P.S: This was edited so I will add that in the original I made the point that I consider the three girls that best follow this lost child in a world of horror and wonder having to figure it out by themselfs with a but of an allegory for growing up and the expectations unfairy placed upon them as queer and neurodivergent even if unintented so (it's also accidentaly about gender in my head). The girls being of course Dorothy, Alice and Wendy.

P.S2: I know in the books they just die and in the musical they run for our world but it's my fix it and let's be honest Oz is in shambles and a very traumatized Glinda will not fix it all by herself and she deserves some support.

[bossuary]

I keep thinking that Bloodbath would be so different if Lucanis had remembered to look UP. In The Wigmaker Job, after Lucanis successfully kills a bunch of bad guys from his hiding places atop statues, on shadowy rooftops, on the fucking ceiling like an errant moth, Illario jokes that if the Venatori ever learn to look up, Lucanis will be in trouble.

Illario should not have been able to get the literal drop on Lucanis.

I mean, he does have a blindspot when it comes to Illario, and that it's literal in this moment with Zara is pure DA humor. The game thinks it's very funny for Lucanis to constantly break all of his own rules: no talking during combat? Pfft. Try and stop him from snarking and/or cheerleading during a fight.

Lucanis and Spite struggle, argue, when they should be killing Zara. It's Lucanis' attempt to control Spite, to get some answers for his trauma, that gives Illario the opening he needs to drop down and kill Zara himself.

It's such an important moment, why wouldn't he check his corners? Why wouldn't he look up?

A year earlier. Hell, a month earlier, Lucanis probably wouldn't have hesitated. That someone sold him out would matter less than making Zara pay.

Right out of the Ossuary, this man would not forget to look up.

I reckon if Bloodbath happens right out of the Ossuary: --Lucanis and Spite kill Zara without hesitation. (Illario doesn't intervene? but if he does, Lucanis clocks him, maybe literally.) --Lucanis never learns who betrayed him. --Illario kills Caterina, she's too much of a liability. --Lucanis never reunites with his grandmother. --Illario uses Elgar'nan's trinket to control Lucanis and Spite. --Illario takes over the Crows (eventually, a blood-magic-tortured Spite turns Lucanis into a full abomination, and carnage ensues.)

Caterina's loss galvanizes Lucanis, but fulfilling her contract with Rook changes him. He's hurt, damaged, possibly irrevocably, by what happened at the Ossuary. Rook and Co. show him that he can't ignore the very human need to know why someone hurt him, and move past it. The WHY matters a great deal to everyone in the Lighthouse...because HE matters a great deal to them.

Spite doesn't give a shit about any of that. Spite wants what they AGREED on: to kill the Venatori witch. KILL HER. She's right-fucking-there. We have SO MANY KNIVES. She's got nothing but her birthday suit covered in coagulated blood. Fucking. Kill. Her.

So, in their hard-fought moment of vengeance, when Lucanis stands there not killing Zara, holding out for answers instead of being an assassin and fulfilling their pact, Spite goes goblin-mode in a nuclear way.

Spite embodies the person Lucanis was. Of course that guy is at odds with the person Lucanis is becoming. Change is hard. To quote Andrea Gibson,"it hurts to become." Boy howdy, does it ever.

Lucanis says it's throwing off his game. As a professional, he should be able to work, he's shouldn't have missed Ghilan'nain, yadda, yadda. But like, the game has changed. A professional assassin who accepts that his life has changed...that is a whole new kind of Lucanis. Worse...what if that's good?

Of course he doesn't look up.

Some part of him has already decided that he's not that guy anymore.

[polyhexian]

Okay, so, y'know those AUs where Hunter can see the ghosts of the previous Golden Guards? Yeah okay so that except with your OCs, so it's immediately a clusterfuck.

The millisecond the Grimwalker Ghost Zone realizes this is an option, Jasper slaps a moratorium on that shit. Absolutely NOT. The deal was that Hunter lives as long as he stayed loyal. I DIDN'T MAKE A DEAL WITH BELOS TO SAVE MY BABY SO THE REST OF YOU COULD FUCK IT UP FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE PIT.

Everyone else is like okay, okay, yeesh, sorry, fine, we won't haunt Hunter. If nothing else they can respect the fact that Jasper himself is refusing to make contact with the kid he loves so much. And the excitement of this newfound aspect of their existence would've died down pretty quickly…if it wasn't for the fact that Enoch exists.

Enoch isn't gonna let this go. This is the perfect opportunity! They can actually make contact with the current Golden Guard and convince him to kill Belos, giving him all the intel gathered from nearly 200 Grimwalkers and their ortet over 4 centuries. They can't let this chance pass them by. She is GOING to talk to Hunter.

Jasper is NOT going to let her.

Hunter really wishes that these ghosts would stop fistfighting when he's trying to DO HIS JOB TITAN DAMMIT.

Jasper's plan to make sure no one ever talks to Hunter predictably falls apart upon making contact with the enemy (Enoch). Sure, Jasper manages to prevent Enoch from talking to Hunter, but everyone else is just kinda hanging out watching the chaos so like. Chit-chat is inevitable.

Granted, no one else tells Hunter anything Enoch actually wants to tell him, because most of the ghosts don't want the kid dead and the others don't want to face the wrath of Jasper and get dragged into the fight with Enoch.

But Hunter's smart. He knows all these ghosts are past Golden Guards, that's obvious because they're all in uniform. They've been haunting him since he started scout training, and for the most part they're pretty chill…except those two. He's 99% sure these people are his family, tho it's weird how similar everyone in his family looks and how many of them are Golden Guards. He has questions, but Jasper and Enoch's…everything…makes him think it's really not worth trying to get the answers. He kinda wishes they'd all go away, but he doesn't have the heart to sic the Oracle Coven on them.

Basically, just Hunter being haunted by the Golden Guards and being annoyed by every second of it while Jasper and Enoch are slapfighting in the background. He's like Stan Lee in that one Spiderman movie, except instead of being oblivious to the fighting going on behind him, he is well aware that it's happening and is refusing to acknowledge it.

Hunter lying in bed staring at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes at 3am while Jasper and Enoch wrestle and yell at each other on his bedroom floor until he finally snaps "WOULD YOU TWO TAKE IT OUTSIDE, SOME OF US HAVE TO WORK AT 4AM."

And while the other ghosts are not as obnoxious as Jasper and Enoch are, they are, unfortunately, useless. Hunter has tried to get something out of this haunting and there's just nothing to get, aside from the dubious pleasure of the ghosts' company. He asks Tell about coven policy and Tell distractedly answers while watching Enoch pull Jasper's hair and Hunter is just like "that hasn't been a thing for 50 years" and Tell is like "lol yeah it wouldn't be." He tries asking Dust for tips and Dust just glares at Enoch where she has Jasper in a headlock and tells Hunter to never ever EVER take some creepy little girl on as an apprentice and Hunter is like oooookay. He tries asking Virtue for tips and Virtue is like "dude, I only lasted 11 months" and Hunter's like. WTF. He asks for help with his homework exactly one time, sliding his textbook across the table and asking Caleb to quiz him, and Caleb looks at the book and says "I never learned how to read", and Hunter just throws his hands in the air and gives up.

He thinks he understands why his uncle never wants to talk about their family. Sure, it's probably because the pain is too much. But it's also probably because they are all fucking lunatics.

Of all people, Temperance ends up being the one Hunter gets along best with, and also the one who gets the plot/reveals rolling. Temperance knows what it's like to wonder about the family you have no idea about and no way to learn about them. Temperance knows how much that sucks. Temperance never learned the truth and was barely given a lie; he died looking for his family, and in death he found them, at which point he realized 1) Shit, the truth sure is messed up! 2) His family is a collection of maniacs connected only by their shared trauma and one man's DNA, and 3) You know what, he's going to get to know and love all of them anyway, fuck you Belos.

Temperance just starts casually hanging out with Hunter and making remarks that answer a number of questions Hunter didn't know how to ask and cements himself as the least-annoying, semi-useful ghost, whose company Hunter might actually sorta kinda enjoy, just a little.

At some point Temperance casually refers to Jasper as "your dad", which--well, Jasper often yells at Enoch about "leaving his baby alone" so now Hunter has two 2's to put together and he's like. Huh. Okay then. His father is the sort of person who will spend his afterlife slapfighting a teenager. No wonder Uncle never talks about their family.

Hunter: And why is…my dad…constantly bodyslamming a 15-year-old?

Temperance, sagely: Because he's a braver man than any of us.

Hunter has seen Enoch fight, and heard some of the things she shouts, and knows full well that none of the other ghosts want to deal with her, so he has to conclude that yeah, Temperance is right, his dad is braver than the rest of them.

Hunter still doesn't know how his overgrown family tree is supposed to be laid out, but he does glean that Enoch, for some reason, doesn't like Belos, and may have tried to assassinate? him?? at some point??? And seems to potentially want to tell Hunter to do the same, which. No. Hunter is not going to do that. But once he realizes that's what the constant fighting is about, he's a little more grateful for Jasper's intervention, even if he wishes they'd KEEP IT DOWN when he's TRYING TO CONCENTRATE, GOD. And also maybe wishes that his dad would take five minutes from strangling Enoch to properly introduce himself to his orphaned son, like, it'd only be polite. All the other ghosts have introduced themselves. Or at least kinda introduced themselves. But all the other ghosts have also made it clear that they refuse to get tangled up with Enoch (and that they're honestly relieved Enoch has been focused on Jasper instead of them for the last few years) so maybe his dad really can't take five minutes to introduce himself. Hunter doesn't really want to know what Enoch might get up to if Jasper stops holding her off.

Hunter, watching Jasper narrowly roll out of the way of Enoch's diving elbow drop: It's good to know that my father is so loyal and devoted to his duties as the Golden Guard that even in death he's doing everything he can to protect the emperor.

Temperance: *chokes*

I don't have any specific plot ideas for how things would unfold as we lead up to the show timeline, but I think it'd be funny if Jasper and Enoch are so preoccupied fighting and screaming at each other that they're just completely unaware that Hunter is just. Figuring stuff out. Either cuz Temperance tells him or cuz he's smart enough to put it together.

And I think every reveal needs to happen the most anti-climatic way possible. It starts with grimwalkers casually mentioning how they died while Hunter is like wait, what? Belos killed you? Well, you must've done something--Belos killed you too? And you? Well surely he didn't kill all of you, I mean--aha, see, he didn't kill Virtue! Wait, what? Not directly? Uh…okay.

At some point Caleb's like "well when I was your age, 400 years ago" and Hunter's like, wait, you said Belos was your brother. How are you his brother if you were alive 400 years ago? I'm sorry, he's how old??

Every reveal is just another moment of "this might as well happen." Hunter's brain is numb to it. By the time Hollow Mind happens, all he does when he finds the tree tunnel of Golden Guard memories is go "Oh, okay then. Cool" and walk in.

Luz: Hunter, this is awful, omg, are you okay?

Hunter, about to climb into a painting: Sure.

Luz, dragging him out: WHAT ARE YOU DOING??

Hunter: I just wanna see how Dust died, apparently it was really embarrassing and he never wants to talk about it.

Luz: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Belos: Yes, Hunter, what are you talking about?

Belos calls him a grimwalker and tries to kill him and Hunter is terrified but there's also a part of him that's like, ah, okay. A lot of things are suddenly making sense.

Can the ghosts show up in Belos's mindscape? Maybe the ghosts can show up in Belos's mindscape. Jasper and Enoch are going at it same as always and Belos watches Enoch suplex Jasper and is just like, well, there's no way that I would ever imagine this, so…this must actually be happening?

Enoch realizes she's inside Belos's mindscape the exact same moment Belos does and abandons Jasper to launch herself at Belos like a maddened chimpanzee.

Jasper lands hard next to Hunter and just lays there for a second, winded.

Hunter: Hey Dad.

Jasper: HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW THAT??

Hunter, knowing better than to rat out Temperance: You haven't exactly been subtle these last few years.

Luz has completely lost the plot.

Okay okay: Hunter pretends he doesn't see them. At first he thinks he's just insane and is like "well that's inconvenient but I still have to go to work I guess" and then is like "oh actually I think these are previous golden guards actual ghosts. That makes sense. They want to impart their generations of knowledge to me, their successor. Maybe this is a spell that gets cast when you get your mask or something. Anyway they've never been very helpful so I'm just going to keep ignoring them." Enoch keeps trying to haunt him and leave "KILL YOUR UNCLE" messages on chalkboards while Jasper is trying to claw her eyes out. He's also set down the firm "hunter will die if he is disloyal, so he must stay loyal until he is old enough and strong enough to escape." So basically the deal is NOBODY tell Hunter SHIT until he's like 18, and then it's loredump time. Well, telling people the truth has never really worked in the past. So. May as well.

I'm also imagining a kind of. Ghosts can't die but they can like. Reset. If you're a ghost and you get stabbed in the chest you go POOF and you're back in the ghost zone and have to get out again and it's deeply inconvenient. Jasper and Enoch keep poofing each other so they're not always around. Eventually the other ghosts realize Hunter can see them and decide that Jasper and Enoch should probably NOT know that.

So whenever jasper and Enoch are both temporarily benched Tell offers vaguely parental advice and avoids the question when asked what his actual kid was like. Dust is kind of a dick who isn't particularly invested but he WILL critique Hunter's form when he's practicing. Temperance is definitely the most sympathetic whom Hunter likes the most. Virtue tries to avoid conversation because he has no idea to talk to Hunter without him realizing he lived less than a year and he's not supposed to know that.

Miles isn't invested in shit. He doesn't care if Jasper or Enoch "win" but he likes being rude. He's also twelve and makes fart noises when Hunter is trying to stand silently at attention. Miles is the one who keeps fucking up and dropping lore because he's not even paying attention, he's playing games on Hunters phone (he made him get a scroll he does not use)

In Hollow Mind when the other Grimwalkers are there helping Hunter and Luz get out of there Hunter knows them all by name and jasper is like YOU COULD SEE ME THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME??? and that's how Jasper and Enoch finally came together to kick everyone else's asses

[fallloverfic]

I love singNsong again reminding people in Side Story that Dokja wanted other people to read TWSA (he wrote reviews and comments! It was his first wish), and he only stopped bothering because people harassed him for it. He didn't gate-keep the story. When he's avoiding talking to Sangah about it at the beginning of ORV, it's because he knows what happens when he tells people about the story, not because he's gate-keeping it from her. He notes he's not proud of his hobby (likely because he's been bullied all through his life, including for reading the thing he loves): he finds it embarrassing to talk about, and better respects her studying Spanish in her free time (learning another language is a generally accepted thing in society). He assumes she won't care or will look at him funny (or worse) for when she learns about the novel he's into.

Basically anyone writing "let's gatekeep ORV" posts because of the anime announcement or because they dislike the manhwa or some other weirdness, y'all are the villains in the scenario.

The literal climax of the story is about sharing ORV with as many people as possible. What story were y'all reading?

[snakpple]

i just think god should be sillayyyyy and slightly unhinged OK

[notquiteaghost]

my sister saw the psych & he said he won't refer her to a personality disorder unit because they're all privately run so you have to apply for funding and it's a whole thing. he didn't ask if she wanted to deal with that, he decided he didn't want to deal with that. instead he has prescribed her clozapine, an antipsychotic you have to start on an ineffectually low dose of in case it makes your heart dangerously slow. it weakens your immune system, increases your chance of seizures, may cause heart problems, and can cause a 'serious movement disorder' that 'may not be reversible'. she is still, also, on the highest dose of lithium they can give her. and she will continue to be on the lithium until the clozapine does something. but fuck forbid she has to go to a meeting!!!

[hauntingblue]

Zoro was about to tell luffy off for making a scene but luffy just says some guys spilled red bean soup and he starts to make a worse one. Amazing

[ed-nygma]

Everyone's life would be better if my sister just killed herself 😁😋😂

[helpimstuckinafandom]

Can vampire diaries stop reminding me how much better Stefan is than Damon in every conceivable way like I already know please we're halfway through the fifth season can we please work on making Damon tolerable for even a smidge a crumb please

[swankpalanquin]

i know i said this for thanksgiving but i am travelling for christmas next year, i don't care if it's just to a random hotel in pittsburgh or something

[girlivealwaysbean]

today is the first time in like forever that i kept my hair open for the whole day without hating them by the end of the day and they're so soft and i tried on dark maroon purple lipstick yesterday with my bestfriend and she was like whoa. you look like. hot. and Mature. and i told her i love her because i kept using pink because it's cute pretty girly and i wanna feel pretty but it didn't really suit me but this this dark shade it's perfect i feel so confident and sexy and i hung out with my cousin little sister rn we used to be closest bestfriends but we drifted apart because of papa-chachu drama in childhood but

[genderqueerdykes]

one of the most evil parts about me being told that i needed to lose weight before i could get my diseased gallbladder removed was that without telling me at all whatsoever, the physician's assistant who was responsible for my surgery consult silently gave me a referral for bariatric weight loss surgery. she told me that i'd have to get my gallbladder removal surgery with that department as well because they're used to working on bigger bodies.

she told me this, but that's not what she meant. she wanted me to get bariatric weight loss surgery all because i told her that i have poly cystic ovarian syndrome and that it's hard for me to willingly lose weight. when i called the bariatric surgeons about scheduling my consult for my gallbladder removal, they were extremely confused and were like "well is this for the bariatric surgery referral or the gallbladder removal referral?"

without my permission, without me asking, the physician's assistant silently signed me up for weight loss surgery that i never consented to. i never once mentioned wanting this surgery. i never once mentioned that my weight is affecting my health or bothering me. this person saw this as a mandatory step in order to get the surgery to remove my diseased organ. as if there were no other options. i never want to get bariatric weight loss surgery because i know it will completely devastate my health. this PA was so stuck on my weight. she could not get over it, she was literally obsessed. she did not care about my health, safety or well being, she was just obsessed with her hatred of fat people

she saw my weight as a higher priority than my diseased gallbladder. she was so stuck up her own ass that she was convinced that my weight was doing more damage to me than my gallbladder was. she wanted to keep blaming me for eating a high fat diet (i'm a vegetarian- i don't eat a high fat diet) and mocking me for being fat. she literally saw me being fat as a bigger issue than the fact that i had a literal rock stuck in the neck of one of my organs. if you ask me, if the surgeons and anesthesiologists have problems working on fat patients, that's a skill issue on them. that means you're a bad surgeon or anesthesiologist and you need to try to improve your skills. this is a literal skill issue, it's not the patient's fault that the medical professional fucking sucks at their job!

i can't describe to you how evil and insidious that is. the fact that she looked at me and went "oh my fucking god it's your weight that's the problem just go lose weight you fat asshole" just showed how much disregard she has for her fat patients. it's like she relishes torturing us or leaving us to be sick or die. there's no reason to behave this way. there's no reason to FORCE someone into weight loss surgery. my health is NOT being negatively impacted by my weight- gallstones are not caused by being overweight, and you can't give yourself gallstones. no matter how much fat you eat you can't give yourself gallstones- this is something that happens outside of your control

i hate medical professionals who are proudly fatphobic. they wear the fact that they let people remain sick and die as a badge of honor. like they're doing the world a favor. like staying sick or dying is better off for the patient. like the patient somehow doesn't "DESERVE" to be in good health. fat people DO deserve to be in good health. we DON'T have to "EARN" surgeries or life saving procedures. we are alive and human just like everyone else. this qualifies us for being cared for medically, no matter what. leave your prejudices at home. you can't just kill fat people because you don't like that we exist.

[nocontextlestat]

WHAT?! It's morning! I lost time. Things got a little heated— With a boy! Things got heated with a boy. I was at home picking lint off the sofa! I said to join us! The night's gone. The room's soiled and once again, I'm here with mop and mindlessness to clean it up. So the room got dirty, so what? I'll clean it up. No, I clean it up! You make the mess and I clean it up! Mark it on the calendar, align it with Ursa Major. Louis' tri-annual FUCK OFF and find me with apologies to follow. I'm sorry. SEEK comfort in the arms of lowlifes and unfortunates, and broken children, fine. Oh, fine! The fine that doesn't sound fine— But REVEALING our nature to a reporter you met in a bar ten hours ago? What if it was published? I was having some fun! You don't have enough to fear from Paris? I was in the middle of ending things, when YOU— YOU'D have been passed out on the floor next to him, Louis! Out on your feet from the drugs you stuffed him with! Oh, this is boring! You're boring! YOU ARE SO BORING! And here come the drugs. Colorless. Up the fangs, down the throat. Flavorless. Dull! Into the heart and off with the fingers, feet. Dull! Dull nights! And wallowing brain. Dull weeks, dull months, DULL AS FUCK! Suffocation by the world's softest, beige-est pillow! The ten hours I spent with that boy were more exciting, more FASCINATING, than DECADES with YOU! Oh, there it is! The half-blank, half-apocalyptic look! But what does it mean tonight, huh? Does he want to lick my boots or chop my hands off? Is it the gremlin or the good nurse tonight? Huh? Okay. Okay, perhaps. But am I as boring as the blather committed onto the ferric tapes of your fascinating boy? "Oh, it's so, so hard to be me." "Picking lint off the sofa?!" "It's so hard to kill humans." "I can feel their feelings as I drain them." You sat on your hands and put your ear to the wind. "Everyone I know wronged me." Okay. Okay, let's wake the boy up and let's try you. "I'm the vampire Armand and my daddy vampire groomed me into a little BITCH!" "My brother he tossed himself off a roof!" "Vampires who murdered my daddy made me pretend I didn't have a dick for 240 years." "My sister buried me alive. My daughter was my sister was my throw pillow. Well, he wouldn't look at me kindly. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat. Lestat." I talked shit about him the whole time. So what?! THE NAME!! The name! Unuttered in our home for 23 years, said over and over again until it was pounding in my brain like a hammer. Our problems aren't about him. And you threw her name around just for cover, but it always circled back to him. I loved her. But SHE didn't love YOU. Not like he did, not like I have. I know. I know! Yes! I know. Thank you for saying it. It's all creeping back. Paris and the, uh, what, what, what? But there's... all of it coming back. There's, uh, Paris. Paris. Can you hear that? Can you hear that, hm? Can you hear her? She's calling me.

[space-blue]

Disappointed in the Vander backstory

I fully expected that it was coming, but I'm disappointed in the timeline all the same.

The "Vander got upset because a fight against Piltover Silco instigated killed the woman he loved" was literally my first draft for my longfic Fathers and Daughters, and I ended up scrapping it because I felt it was too cheap and wouldn't justify the violence of his actions against Silco.

"When she died I lost my head" he says in the letter.

But when she died you actually dropped your gauntlets and picked up the girls and everyone has been assuming this was the moment you swore off violence...

The fact she goes on to let Vander name her kid, and seems to be thick as thieves with them, and ALSO tells them of the pregnancy before she builds up the courage to tell her partner... Tells me that surely... SURELY by the time Vi is 10-11, whatever she is on the bridge in season 1, she would KNOW SILCO as her mom's bestie, no??? Not just Vander.

It feels like this entire angle is pulled under the rug to simplify the conflict in act 1.

I do appreciate being right on the money with Silco knowing and being friends with the mom, and having known Vi as a baby. I think it makes sense, especially if he was an important community leader.

I just hate her death being the catalyst of Vander's actions against Silco. It means that the timeline actually like this:

Mom-Silco-Vander are best friends. Silco is "Bozo 1" and has been leading the transformation of the Lanes with Vander's help. He's already planning his nation of Zaun. His notebook is literally saying "NZ" for Nation of Zaun.

At an ONGOING confrontation with enforcers, Silco throws a molotov cocktails that doesn't seem to even kill an enforcer (Powder and her innefectual bombs parallel? The entire scene is intercut with the monkey bomb clapping so... The scene leading to a friend's death also parallels the events of Jinx's birth.)

As the smoke clears/the POV looks down, we have the reveal that the girls' Mom is dead.

Vander admits the blood was on his hands as well, meaning he either started this confrontation with Silco, or fought just as badly/increased the violence (and we see him murder enforcers later on). Anyway he admits to carrying the blame, and apologized in person to Silco for the dubbed "betrayal".

Then he went home, shaved, dragged Silco into the Pilt, and tried to drown him *because their common friend died at the failed uprising*.

He's then haunted, seemingly, by visions of Silco being dead:

To me it's sort of weaker and sadder, as it establishes Vander as someone more flawed and less ruthless. It's not that he wanted the Lanes, it's not that Silco was getting in the way of what he wanted.

Vander was out there happy with everything they were dishing out, right until their actions cost the life of a friend, and he broke, emotionally, and BLAMED it on Silco, going so far as to kill him (or try).

He surrendered his gauntlets, picked the children up, tucked them in at home, shaved (I cannot stress this enough), then took Silco into the fucking river and brutally attempted to murder him.

Then he massively regretted it and left little breadcrumbs of apologies in case Silco found them and returned to him.

So, canon couple, first off lol

Fellas, is it gay to hang your jackets inside each other's in your secret hideout? Is it gay that all your core hidden memories begin with your mate smiling at you?

Yes, yes it is. Zaundad is canon and I'm not taking commentary.

Secondly, that means Vander was an emotional ticking time bomb who wasn't ready for the price to sacrifice in order to gain their freedom. I really wonder what the alternative reality would have been like, were Silco the one dying on that bridge.

Anyway, it brings some twisted sadness to the situation, because the mom wanted Zaun "no matter what" for Vi's sake, her child's future. But Vander decided that lives weren't worth spilling over that dream and tried to kill Silco over it, before teaming up with Grayson to continue enforcing a status quo.

So that means that Silco, even as he raises Jinx, is continuing her mother's dream, of building Zaun, a country that's safe for her children, "no matter what".

But very sadly the show also acts like Silco doesn't know the kids, and like the kids don't know him. Powder, sure, but Vi not knowing Silco is just downright stupid. Not even knowing him by name? When her mom was out fighting alongside him??? The mom is ALSO a miner, very clearly working with Silco and Vander, alongside the nameless poor husband.

I feel like this doesn't really solve the issues that were already raised when we speculated about act 1. It just clarifies that Vander was truly, willfully a force of oppression inside the fissures, working against the revolution necessary for Zaun becoming possible.

But it implies Silco didn't recognise Powder and Vi, and that Vi didn't recognise him or understand how he knew Vander. It's a disservice to the story, because that tie, that old bond, could really have worked to dramatize the sacrifices Silco is ready to make, as well as the depth of Vi's hatred for him.

But the show acts like they're strangers and that Vander's death is the core beef between them until Jinx enters the picture.

And then there's the Benzo scene, when Vander holds his wound from Silco's knife, and says "we both know there's worse than enforcers out there" WHO ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT??? Yourself? You seem to be the worst thing around here! It seems clear he knew Silco was alive but had nothing to blame him for by then.

I'm left with holes that take the shape of "shock value" and "plot twist".

"Ooooh Silco knew the mom, twiiiist, but please don't think about the implications, because we wrote season 1 without taking this in consideration."

Feels like another job for fic writers, but IDK if I have the strength for it. I just like my own version better.

At least now we know that Silco did not IN FACT DO anything to "deserve" what he got. I'm sorry, but throwing a molotov at enforcers when fighting for your freedom is based and Vander was dishing death right there next to him.

The base violence necessary for change, eh? Vander just delayed the price being paid for Zaun's creation.