#and then multiply it by many thousands

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 231

doomed timeline

u ever think about how literally every single one of the thousands of aradias that traveled back to fight in the trolls' boss battle was from a doomed timeline where she had to a) watch all her friends die b) process that she was also doomed and c) then power through all that to do a bunch of time travel detective work so that she could advise the alpha iterations of her friends on how to avoid splitting into that doomed timeline in the first place? before traveling to a battle she knew she wouldn't make it out of?

yeah man

[hearty-an0n]

i missed going to live hockey games so much oh my gosh

[anexperimentallife]

Project 2025 would ban anything the far right considers pornography. The far right considers anything queer-positive to be pornography, and they WILL encode that into law if given just a TINY bit more power.

Have queer fanfic (or trad published literature) or pics of your transition, or of two men kissing, saved to your hard drive? If the GOP get their way, you'd be guilty of possession of pornography. Did you share any of it? You'd be guilty of distribution of pornography. Have a sweet coming of age story with a queer protagonist? That'd be child pornography.

Even now, states are trying to make it a crime to be openly queer in public (by, among other things, classifying dressing as the "wrong gender" anyplace kids might see as a sex crime against children). Oh, and Florida tried (and thankfully failed) to impose the death penalty for the above.

This is just one example of the horrors awaiting us if the project comes to fruition.

And the far right is already screaming that any adult who mentions around kids that queer people exist is "grooming" children. Wear your Pride shirt past a playground? You're now a child groomer. Think they won't put that into law if allowed? You're naive.

The GOP currently controls the Supreme Court (which is how they overturned Roe v. Wade) and has a majority in one branch of congress. Imagine what will happen nationwide with the GOP controlling every branch of government, including supermajoroties in both houses of Congress.

Oh, and top GOP officials have also announced their desire to NUKE Gaza, so don't come at me with, "but I can't vote blue because Biden..." Or tell me how you think Gaza would somehow be better off with Trump and the GOP.

In France, the left and center joined together--even though they disagree vehemently on many issues (get two leftists together and they'll have three positions on any issue)--to stop the far right from totally taking over, because the one thing they ALL agree on is that fascists dictatorships are BAD.

Much the same with the UK finally kicking out their own neo-fascist party, the Torries, to install 400 Labour MPs. Not everyone loves Labour's policies, but virtually everyone with a brain cell recognizes that the Torries are fascists, and that FASCISM BAD.

"Every election, they tell us this is the most important election if our lives!" Yeah, because each election over the past several decades has been more important than the one before, until we are now at a tipping point between remaining a fucked up oligarchy with SOME resemblance to freedom, and an outright neo-fascist military dictatorship.

Trump has literally stated publicly his intent to criminalize dissent, use US armed forces against protesters (Kent State, but multiply it by thousands), purge all agencies and stuff them with those personally loyal to him, and use the DOJ to go after anyone he perceives as a threat to his political power, among other things.

And remember the things he did in office, like pulling the teeth of federal workplace protections for queer folks (which Biden reatored).

I don't care if you don't like Biden or Harris. Neither do I. But the alternative is Trump, and anyone telling you not to vote in 2024, or to vote third party, is rooting for Trump, and for Project 2025. Anyone telling you not to vote does not give one single solitary flying fuck about vulnerable populations in the US or anywhere else in the world.

"You're just being an alarmist!" Right. Like I was being alarmist when I predicted the failed Jan 6 coup attempt. Like I was being alarmist when I said the GOP would try to use control over SCOTUS to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Fucking vote.

[luckykiwiii101]

Hello, I am writing to you as a 22-year-old girl who managed to enter the void on the night of May 17 and changed her whole life.

I started my void  challenge in December 2021. It was very difficult for me both physically and psychologically. Because I had an environment that was abusive and violent. And my conditions were very terrible. I had an exam that I couldn't win for 3 years, an alcoholic father who beat me, and a mother who never let up on it. I have lost a lot of things in my life in 3 years, but I have never given up on emptiness. If there are people who are still struggling with the gap, I hope my success story will be a motivation for you.

One morning when I woke up with failure again, I was feeling extremely unhappy and hopeless. But an incident at home during the day made me say, ‘That's enough, I'm going to fuck everything up tonight and wake up in a void.

When I wasn't feeling very sleepy- or even sleepy at all- I lay down on the bed. Because I'm afraid to fall asleep. In order of;

15 min Holotropic breathwork

20 min Silva method

10 min Alpha State meditation

After lying motionless for about 45 minutes, the brown noise started playing. It is very natural that there is a desire to move, to be overwhelmed,to give up in this part. Please continue for your dreams. When the brown noise was playing, I used a single affirmation. 

‘I'm simply deciding that I'm in a void.’

I can't remember how many times I repeated it. After a while, everything became quiet and I felt so peaceful for the first time in my life. I had a 30-page document and I said that everything in there would be manifested.

A day ago, when I had nothing, I now have a house on the Mediterranean coast, a black bmw ix car, a Harvard math degree, an online job where I earn 25 thousand dollars per month by working only 4 hours a day 4 days a week (Dollars are very valuable in the country where I live, and my salary is multiplied by about 30.), I have a beautiful face, body and skin. I also showed that I can ride horses professionally and draw pictures. I confirmed that the apple products, books, cosmetics and skin products in my wishlist are also in my house. I have also declared the person I will meet about 1 year from now and who will become the man of my dreams.

THIS IS AMAZING!!!! I’m so happy that you’re now living your dream life 💗

This is such a good example of showing people that they can truly do anything. Thank you for taking your time to share this 💗

[cripplecharacters]

Disabilities that You Should Consider Representing in Your Writing More… part 1

[large text: Disabilities that You Should Consider Representing in Your Writing More… part 1]

While all disabilities are underrepresented in basically all sorts of media, it’s hard to not notice the trend in what disabilities make up the majority of representation. It’s especially visible when having a blog like this, where we can see what disabilities writers even consider including in their writing, and which ones never come up.

One in four people are disabled. With eight billion people alive it means there’s a lot of disabled people, and a lot of reasons why they are disabled in the first place - but this diversity is rarely represented, even on this blog, and anyone who has been following for a while has probably noticed that fact.

To be blunt: there are disabilities other than “amputee” and “invisibly disabled mobility aid user”. Does that mean that it’s wrong to write either of those? No, and we don’t want to imply that it is. Does it mean that either of these have a lot of good representation? Absolutely not, half of all the amputee characters out there are written by people who don't seem to be even aware they're writing a disabled character. Does it mean that when you are deciding on what to give your character, you should think beyond (or along! people can be, and often are, multiply disabled!) just those two? Absolutely. Disability is a spectrum with thousands of things in it.

This is, simply, a list of common disabilities. This is just a few of them, as this is part one of presumably many (or, at least three as of right now). By “common” we rather arbitrarily decided on “~1% or more” - so at least 1 in 100 people has the disabilities below, which is a lot. Featuring!: links that you should click, sources of the % that are mostly just medical reports and might be hard to read, and quick, very non-exhaustive explanations to give you a basic idea of what these are. 

Intellectual disability (about 1.5%) Intellectual disability is a condition we have written about at length before. It’s a developmental disability that affects things such as conceptualization, language, problem-solving, or social and self-care skills. ID can exist on its own or be a part of another condition, like Down Syndrome, Congenital Iodine Deficiency, or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. This post covers a lot of basic information that you might need. We have an intellectual disability tag that you can look through!

Cancer survivors (5.4% in the US, about 0.55% worldwide) A cancer survivor is a pretty self-explanatory term. There is a lot of types of cancer and some of them are very common while others are very rare, which makes this a very diverse category. Cancers also have different survival rates. While not every survivor will have disabling symptoms, they definitely happen. Most of the long-term side effects are related to chemotherapy, radiation, and other medication, especially if they happened in children. They can include all sorts of organ damage, osteoporosis, cognitive problems, sensory disabilities, infertility, and increased rate of other cancers. Other effects include removal of the affected area, such as an eye, a spleen, breasts, or the thyroid gland, each of which will have different outcomes. Cancer, and cancer treatments, can also result in PTSD.

Diabetes (about 8.5%, ~95% of that are type 2) Diabetes is a group of endocrine conditions that cause hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) for various reasons depending on the type. The vast majority of people have type 2 diabetes, which can cause fatigue, poor healing, or feeling thirsty or hungry. A diabetic person will use insulin when needed to help manage their blood sugar levels. There are many complications related to diabetes, from neuropathy, to retinopathy, and chronic kidney disease, and there's a lot of disabilities that coexist with diabetes in general! You might want to check out the #how to write type 1 diabetes tag by @type1diabetesinfandom!

Disabling vision loss (about 7.5%) Blindness and low vision are a spectrum, ranging from total blindness (around 10% of legally blind people) to mild visual impairment. Blindness can be caused by countless things, but cataracts, refractive errors, and glaucoma are the most common. While cataracts cause the person to have a clouded pupil (not the whole eye!) blind eyes usually look average, with strabismus or nystagmus being exceptions to that fairly often (but not always). Trauma isn't a common cause of blindness, and accidents are overrepresented in fiction. A blind person can use a white cane, a guide dog or horse, or both. Assistive solutions are important here, such as Braille, screenreaders, or magnifying glasses. We have a blindness tag that you can look through, and you might want to check out @blindbeta and @mimzy-writing-online.

Psoriasis (about 2-4%) Psoriasis is a chronic skin condition with multiple subtypes; it can cause intense itching, pain, and general discomfort, and often carries social stigma. It’s an autoimmune and non-contagious disability that affects the skin cells, resulting in raised patches of flaky skin covered with scales. It often (30%) leads to a related condition, psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, tenderness, and fatigue, among other things.

Stroke survivors (0.5-1%) A stroke survivor is a person who has survived any kind of stroke (ischemic, hemorrhagic, etc.). While the specific symptoms often depend on the exact location on where the stroke happened, signs such as hemiplegia, slurred speech, vision problems, and cognitive changes are common in most survivors to some degree. When someone has a stroke as a baby, or before they are born, it can result in cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and other disabilities. We have a brain injury tag that you can look through!

Noonan Syndrome (about 0.1-1% - mild is 1%, severe 0.1%) Noonan Syndrome is a disability that is almost never mentioned in any context, but certainly not around the topic of writing disabled characters. It’s a congenital condition that can cause cardiomyopathy, chronic joint pain, hypermobility, short stature, facial differences such as ptosis, autism, and various lymphatic problems among other things. Some people with Noonan Syndrome might use mobility aids to help with their joint pain.

Hyperthyroidism (about 1.2%) Hyperthyroidism is a condition of the endocrine system caused by hormone overproduction that affects metabolism. It often results in irritability, weight loss, heat intolerance, tremors, mood swings, or insomnia. Undertreated hyperthyroidism has a rare, but extremely dangerous side effect associated with it called a thyroid storm, which can be fatal if untreated.

Hypothyroidism (>5%) Hypothyroidism is an endocrine condition just as hyperthyroidism is, and it causes somewhat opposite symptoms. Due to not producing enough thyroid hormones, it often causes fatigue, depression, hair loss, weight gain, and a frequent feeling of being cold. It’s often comorbid with other autoimmune disabilities, e.g. vitiligo, chronic autoimmune gastritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Extreme hypothyroidism can also be potentially fatal because of a condition known as Myxedema coma (or “crisis”), which is also rare.

Deafblindness (about 0.2-2%) Being DeafBlind is often considered to be an extremely rare disability, but that’s not really the case. DeafBlindness on its own isn’t a diagnosis - it can be caused by a wide range of things, with CHARGE syndrome (congenital), Usher syndrome (born deaf, becomes blind later in life), congenital rubella, and age-related deafness and blindness being some of the most common reasons. DeafBlindness is a wide spectrum, the vast majority of DeafBlind people aren’t fully blind and deaf, and they can use various ways of communication. Some of these could be sign language (tactile or not), protactile, the deafblind manual, oral speech (aided by hearing aids or not), the Lorm alphabet, and more. You can learn more about assistive devices here! Despite what various media like to tell you, being DeafBlind isn’t a death sentence, and the DeafBlind community and culture are alive and thriving - especially since the start of the protactile movement. We have a DeafBlindness tag that you can look through!

It’s probably worth mentioning that we have received little to no asks in general for almost all the disabilities above, and it’s certainly not due to what mods answer for. Our best guess is that writers don’t realize how many options they have and just end up going for the same things over and over.

Only representing “cool” disabilities that are “not too much while having a particular look/aura/drama associated” isn’t what you should aim for. Disabled people just exist, and all of us deserve to be represented, including those whose disabilities aren’t your typical “cool design” or “character inspo”, and literally all of us deserve to have good, informed representation. Sometimes we are just regular people, with disabilities that are “boring” or “too much”, and don’t make for useful plot points.

mod Sasza (with huge thank you to mod Sparrow, Rot, and Virus for their contributions with research)

[eowynstwin]

This truly is the last thing I want to say on this blog and then I'm done psych I lived bitch, but given how the fucking catastrophe started it's only appropriate this is how I end it—

You have racist bias whether you like it or not. Particularly if you are US American, racism was baked into your worldview no matter what kind of household, liberal or conservative, you grew up in. Racism is quite often far more covert than it is overt. It is not just a voluntary behavior; it is more often the subconscious ways you organize and hierarchize other cultures and people.

In the case of Gaz—sure, you might actively believe that he deserves to be more included. You think he's a good character and people really should think about him more! But you personally headcanon him a certain way, and really it's not a headcanon you're actually all that into, so that's why you don't talk about him as much. It's not because he's black, it's because he doesn't fit the thing you like talking about the most. The fact that he's black is really just a coincidence, you're not excluding him because of that. In fact, you're sure other people like him for exactly the reason you're not all that into him, and you'll just leave it to them to pick up the slack. Or you'll get to him later! In fact, you have some ideas for him. You just haven't gotten around to them yet.

Take that and multiply it by thousands of white women in fandom—not just this fandom, not just Gaz's character, but every fandom and every character of color. It doesn't matter that there's no active malice behind not personally liking black characters and other characters of color. Non-white characters still take a backseat to their white counterparts, because white women in fandom cannot wrap their heads around black, brown, indigenous, and Asian characters as complex, complicated characters worthy of their interest or frankly, their desire.

They cannot wrap their heads around this because they were conditioned not to by decades of racist culture.

Case in point; plenty of white women in this fandom have fallen head over heels for Makarov and Graves. The sins of these out-and-out villains are totally forgiven by virtue of their sex appeal, and because they are portrayed by attractive, charismatic men who put a lot of passion behind their performances.

But can we say the same for Hadir? Can we say the same for Hassan?

The sins of these two Middle Eastern characters do not outweigh those of their villainous white counterparts, yet how many angsty fix-it fics have been written exploring Hadir's complicated relationship with violence and imperialism? How many enemies-to-lovers or even lovers-to-enemies fics have been written about Hassan, the face of whose homeland has been irrevocably marred by US interference?

No one who points out the racism of this trend is accusing these white women of active, militant white supremacy. I'm not saying any of you even have to like Gaz, Hadir, or Hassan. But your preferences have been tuned for you by a culture shaped by slavery, imperialism, and white supremacy. That is not something you can escape merely because you support the BLM movement or reblog vetted Palestinian gofundmes.

The only way you can truly fight your own racism is to be actively anti-racist. It is about far more than who you give money to or what graphics you pin on your instagram. It is an everyday practice of learning how racism has shaped your worldview for you.

This is not work that is done in a week, a month, or a year. Becoming anti-racist takes as much time as it took to make you racist in the first place. For some of you, the work may turn out to be easy. For others, it may be hard. You must do it either way.

Some good places to start:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Ain't I a Woman? by bell hooks

We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks

A Burst of Light by Audre Lorde

The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Being Palestinian edited by Yasir Suleiman

[dandyroo]

petting foxian!reader's ears...

includes (in order): aventurine, jing yuan, kafka

warnings: just fluff :3 pre-established relationships, reader is a foxian or has similar features, reader is as gender neutral as possible, reader is only referred to by terms of endearment (no [y/n] or [name]) other notes: i fully intend on doing more of this prompt with other characters (namely, moze, argenti, and possibly boothill... my beloveds)

aventurine

every gambler has some kind of lucky ritual. rubbing a stone, getting a particular drink, scratching their partner's ears... well, alright. maybe aventurine's habit was rather unique, and perhaps entirely unnecessary, but he always insisted on it. before any big gamble--in life, in work, or simply just at the table--he was always sure to seek you out and scratch right behind your ears. and of course, he couldn't just scratch your ears without placing a gentle kiss on your forehead as well. and if he was already kissing your forehead, he should probably get your cheek for good measure. and don't the best things always come in threes? and so of course, a soft kiss would grace your mouth as well. alright, well, maybe it was a little more than just scratching your ears, but he swore up and down that it's what gave him luck. so of course, when your ears playfully flicked away from his touch, he fixed you with the most beautiful pout you'd ever seen. "darling, don't be so cruel." his hand remained paused in the air above your head, as if unsure how to move on without the feel of your fur beneath his fingers. "you expect me to go to the casino without my lucky ritual? do you want me to lose?" you giggled--you hadn't expected your little 'prank' to work so quickly. at your lighthearted laughter, aventurine's face softened into a slight smirk. "surely you're not praying on my downfall, hm? whatever my opponent has offered you, i'll double--no, triple it," he declared. "quadruple? mm... multiply it by ten and add a few thousand, just for my love." alarm bells rang in your head, and your ears perked up. you knew he wasn't entirely joking. "i don't need your money," you started, subconsciously leaning your head towards his waiting palm. "i know, darling." perfectly manicured nails found their way into your fur, scratching softly enough to make your tail twitch behind you. aventurine smiled--not the wide smile when he made deals, not the smirk as he held the winning hand, not the polite smile when he dealt with his supervisors, but a soft, melted one, the one reserved just for you. he paused after he placed the first of the three kisses, letting his hands fall from your ears to your cheeks. "there's no one else i'd rather give it to, though." a gentle swipe of his thumb along your face before he lifted his hands to place the second kiss. you could feel his smile against your cheek, and you chased it as he pulled away, beating him to the third and final kiss. satisfied at last, aventurine sighed as the two of you separated. "finally, enough luck to carry me through tonight," he teased. he lifted your hand to his lips--when had his fingers encircled yours?--and rested his smirk onto the back of your hand, stealing a fourth kiss you were sure would be added to the rotation. "perhaps i'll win enough to pay off that debt i owe you. what was it, twenty times my opponent and then a couple hundred grand?" "aventurine!"

jing yuan

the general of the loufu was not one to hide his affections. it seemed every waking moment brought a new way for him to wrap you in his arms, to hold you prisoner in your shared bed, and to smother you with attention. the one place he never dared rest his hands was the soft patch of fur right behind your ears. in his long life, jing yuan had known many foxians. he had befriended many, made deals with a few, and loved one--you. yet, despite his countless interactions with the foxian race, he was still unbearably nervous whenever his hand accidentally brushed over your hair, or when his eyes lingered too long on the way your ears twitched and moved. he tried to observe, he really did. other foxians seemed to have no qualms letting each other touch their ears--adjusting, scratching, fixing the fur, or otherwise. xianzhou natives, on the other hand, never seemed to touch their foxian friends or partners' ears. while walking on the street one night, you nearly bit off the hand of a drunken man who cooed over the tufts on your ears (to be fair, jing yuan wouldn't have blamed you. even in his position as an officer of the cloud knights, he certainly wouldn't have minded turning away and providing plausible deniability). but while walking with him in the market, you had no problem leaning down to let a curious child touch the soft fur on your head.

perhaps he was overthinking it. surely you wouldn’t fault him for simply asking…

and so, when night fell and the two of you were snuggled up once more, jing yuan dared to break the silence.

“my love?” he said softly into the darkness. he didn’t need to speak loud to cut through the quiet of the room, and he knew you heard him from the twitch of those ears.

you hummed back, encouraging him to swallow and continue. “your… ears. can i touch them…?”

there was a moment of dead silence, and jing yuan’s heart froze in its rhythm. it only started again when you laughed gently, clearly taken aback by his question.

“is that why you’ve been staring at them so much lately?” your teasing lilt brought a rush of red to his cheeks, and he found himself wanting to hide beneath a pillow. “of course you can. just be gentle,” you replied, laughter still in your tone.

hesitantly, slowly, he reached out his hand, resting it behind your ears with an air of uncertainty. hoping in his heart that he didn’t seem like a fool, jing yuan scratched gently, as though petting a cat. your tail twitched against him as you hummed, and a rush of confidence (and relief) soared through the general.

it seemed he had found a new way to constantly assure you of his adoration.

kafka

it wasn't odd to enter your shared room and see kafka hard at work, seated at her desk with a mountain of papers beside her. still, you paused in the doorway, but kafka heard your entrance and turned to face you with a soft smile. "baby," she called, and that was all you needed to hear for you to cross the room and take a seat in her waiting lap. kafka was a busy woman, but she never let her work as a stellaron hunter get in the way of casual intimacy with her partner. often, while reviewing scripts or drawing up plans, she simply called for you to spend some time close together. it was a familiar routine; you settled into your seat, letting your arms rest on her shoulders, and she would hold you close, idly scratching your ears as she worked on whatever it was she needed to get done. "won't you help me wind down, sweetheart?" she cooed. as much as she enjoyed petting your fur, she always made sure to ask. of course, you never minded. it soothed you as much as it did her. you nodded, though you couldn't help but ask--"what is it about my ears that you like so much?" kafka chuckled, pulling you close. "it's relaxing. like... petting a cat. a cat that i absolutely adore." right on cue, her hand drifted up, perfectly manicured nails finding their way into your hair, settling down to the patch right behind your ears. you'd helped her pick out the cherry color that carded through your fur as you sat contently on her lap. after a moment of comfortable silence, you spoke. "another script?" you prompted quietly. kafka simply hummed in response, her eyes finally flicking from the paper in front of her to your face. she smiled softly as your gazes met, and her hands stilled for half a moment before resuming her soft petting. "i won't be gone too long," she assured you gently. "i'll be back before you know it." there was a rustle of paper as she set the script down, and her now free hand gently cradled your face. "i don't know how i'm going to properly relax without my sweet darling on my lap, but i suppose i'll have to make do," she mused with a subtle smirk. you rolled your eyes, but let your head rest in her hand. "you've done it before, you'll live," you reminded her. "in the meantime..." kafka's hand left your cheek to settle in your hair. "won't you indulge me for a moment longer?" as if you'd ever say no.

[seat-safety-switch]

Yeah, I worked on The Machine. And, as I pried open its secret compartments and loosened its wiring harness and decrypted its memories, it worked on me also. Deep within its many hidden copses lay immense knowledge, unknown to all but those who formed it. Who built The Machine? No one knows. Everyone knows. I know. Now that The Machine works again, the person who last built it was me.

For years, I was a humble regular home-gamer mechanic. Something around the house would break. For the sake of argument, we'll use as an example the time my microwave blew up when I opened the door. One morning, it just went pop and never worked again. Well, at least until I fixed it. It turns out that the door had a little microswitch inside, and that microswitch got gummy with aerosolized food goo. Because it was gummed up, it wouldn't switch the computer off in time when I opened the door. That would be dangerous: I could get a full face shot of microwaves from the still-running magnetron. A safety interlock fired, and blew the brains out of the big fuse controlling the magnetron. It died for me. Replacing the switch, and the fuse, brought that microwave back to life. I did many such repairs. I was not prepared for this repair.

Fix after fix, I built up my confidence, and I got cockier. I'd pull broken machines out of the trash, mysterious foreign computers from another country. Some things escaped my grasp, and slipped further into oblivion. Most, though: most, I pulled back from the brink, and forced them to live again. That's when I found The Machine.

It was beautiful, intricate: thousands of parts, wedged together tighter than I had ever seen before, and a cryptic fault at the centre of it. When you cram together this much stuff, the complexity doesn't just add: it multiplies. To aid me, I looked for a guide, a factory service manual. The manufacturer laughed. The manufacturer's representative laughed. Someone who made it, who I tracked down on LinkedIn, hung up on me and refused to answer his door when I visited. Weeks later, he was gone, "dead" in a suspiciously convenient accident, a body left behind at the edge of his bleach-washed property with no identifying marks or fingerprints. I got the message: I was on my own.

This little wire just came unplugged. I guess someone must have dropped it. All better now.

[ms-demeanor]

if we're like, showing graphs and stuff, this is the type that i think a lot of people on tumblr are thinking of when they think about the economy.

Only one third of people with family incomes below $50k spent less than their income each month. I would guess that a lot of people on tumblr who get aggro about this topic (and the vast majority of people on r/povertyfinance, who discuss this sort of thing a lot) fall into this earning category.

Real wage increases only matter if you got a raise (one third of workers got a raise last year, which means that 2/3rds didn't - included in the economic wellbeing report linked above). Whether or not rent is outpacing wages only matters if you're not going to be rent burdened (more than a third of renter households are cost burdened in every state and 12 million rental households spend more than half their income on rent). Employment rates lose a lot of meaning when you're working multiple jobs to make ends meet (the percentage of multiply employed workers was falling in the US from 1996 to the 2010s, when it plateaued, then it started rising slightly then collapsed in 2020 and has been rising steeply since then and it's too soon to tell if it's going to go back to the plateau or keep going up).

Four in ten adults in the US is carrying some level of medical debt (even people who are insured) and 60% of people with medical debt have cut back on food, clothes or household items; about 50% of people with medical debt have used up all their savings.

Tumblr is the broke people website and yeah, people who are working two jobs to afford $900 for one room and utilities in a three bedroom apartment are not going to feel great about the economy even if real wages are raising and inflation-adjusted rents are actually pretty stable. "The Rent is too Damn High" has been a meme for 14 years so, like, yeah. Even if it's pretty stable when adjusted for inflation it is stable and HIGH.

It's hard to feel good about the economy when you're spending the last few days of the pay period hoping nothing unexpected hits your account, and it's VERY frustrating to be told that the economy's doing well when you've had to start selling blood to buy groceries.

Sure, unemployment is low, that's neat. It's good that inflation has stabilized (it genuinely has; prices are not likely to fall back to pre-inflation rates and eventually you'll likely be paid enough to reach equilibrium, but a lot of people aren't there yet).

But, like, it costs eight thousand dollars a year out of pocket to keep my spouse alive. I'd guess that we've paid off about a third of the 40-ish thousands of dollars he's racked up since his heart attack. His medical debt is why I don't have a retirement plan beyond "I guess I'll die?" So talking about how good the economy is kind of feels like being chained in the bottom of a pit that is slowly filling with water while people on the surface talk about the fact that the rain is tapering off. Neat! That's good! But I can't really see it from where I'm standing.

Inflation really is getting better. My state just enacted a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers. The Biden administration has worked hard to reduce many kinds of healthcare costs. A lot of people have had significant portions of their student debt cancelled.

But a lot of people are still having trouble affording groceries and it doesn't seem helpful to say "your perception of the economy is decoupled from the reality of the economy" on the "can I get a few dollars for food today?" website.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

"Pandora, Worrying About What She Is Doing, Finds a Way into the Valley through the Scrub Oak," from Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin

Look how messy this wilderness is. Look at this scrub oak, chaparro, the chaparral was named for it and consists of it mixed up with a lot of other things, but look at this shrub of it right here now. The tallest limb or stem is about four feet tall, but most of the stems are only a foot or two. One of them looks as if it had been cut off with a tool, a clean slice across, but who? what for? This shrub isn’t good for anything and this ridge isn’t on the way to anywhere. A lot of smaller branch-ends look broken or bitten off. Maybe deer browse the leafbuds. The little grey branches and twigs grow every which way, many dead and lichened, crossing each other, choking each other out. Digger-pine needles, spiders’ threads, dead bay leaves are stuck in the branches. It’s a mess. It’s littered. It has no overall shape. Most of the stems come up from one area, but not all; there’s no center and no symmetry. A lot of sticks sticking up out of the ground a little ways with leaves on some of them—that describes it fairly well. The leaves themselves show some order, they seem to obey some laws, poorly. They are all different sizes from about a quarter of an inch to an inch long, but each is enough like the others that one could generalise an ideal scrub-oak leaf: a dusty, medium dark-green color, with a slight convex curve to the leaf, which pillows up a bit between the veins that run slanting outward from the central vein; and the edge is irregularly serrated, with a little spine at each apex. These leaves grow irregularly spaced on alternate sides of their twig up to the top, where they crowd into a bunch, a sloppy rosette. Under the litter of dead leaves, its own and others’, and moss and rocks and mold and junk, the shrub must have a more or less shrub-shaped complex of roots, going fairly deep, probably deeper than it stands aboveground, because wet as it is here now in February, it will be bone dry on this ridge in summer.

There are no acorns left from last fall, if this shrub is old enough to have borne them. It probably is. It could be two years old or twenty or who knows? It is an oak, but a scrub oak, a low oak, a no-account oak, and there are at least a hundred very much like it in sight from this rock I am sitting on, and there are hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands more on this ridge and the next ridge, but numbers are wrong. They are in error. You don’t count scrub oaks. When you can count them, something has gone wrong. You can count how many in a hundred square yards and multiply, if you’re a botanist, and so make a good estimate, a fair guess, but you cannot count the scrub oaks on this ridge, let alone the ceanothus, buckbrush, or wild lilac, which I have not mentioned, and the other variously messy and humble components of the chaparral. The chaparral is like atoms and the components of atoms: it evades. It is innumerable. It is not accidentally but essentially messy. This shrub is not beautiful, nor even if I were ten feet high on hashish would it be mystical, nor is it nauseating; if a philosopher found it so, that would be his problem, but nothing to do with the scrub oak. This thing is nothing to do with us. This thing is wilderness. The civilized human mind’s relation to it is imprecise, fortuitous, and full of risk. There are no shortcuts. All the analogies run one direction, our direction. There is a hideous little tumor in one branch. The new leaves, this year’s growth, are so large and symmetrical compared with the older leaves that I took them at first for part of another plant, a toyon growing in with the dwarf oak, but a summer’s dry heat no doubt will shrink them down and warp them. Analogies are easy; the live oak, the humble evergreen, can certainly be made into a sermon, just as it can be made into firewood. Read or burnt. Sermo, I read; I read scrub oak. But I don’t, and it isn’t here to be read, or burnt. It is casting a shadow across the page of this notebook in the weak sunshine of three-thirty of a February afternoon in Northern California. When I close the book and go, the shadow will not be on the page, though I have drawn a line around it; only the pencil line will be on the page. The shadow will be then on the dead-leaf-thick messy ground or on the mossy rock my ass is on now, and the shadow will move lawfully and with great majesty as the earth turns.

The mind can imagine that shadow of a few leaves falling in the wilderness; the mind is a wonderful thing. But what about all the shadows of all the other leaves on all the other branches on all the other scrub oaks on all the other ridges of all the wilderness? If you could imagine those for even a moment, what good would it do? Infinite good.

-- Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home (273-5)

[ectocreature]

watching identity crisis since it's the anniversary of its airing and. um. i couldn't help but notice jack effortlessly pushing a bunch of roller coaster cars with one hand.

looking it up, the best answer I could get was here, which said that cars with two rows weigh about 1,600 pounds each. i know this is speaking in past tense but also trying to find an answer to this question sucks because the weights vary based on the year the cars are from so figure 2006 + past tense is good enough for something set in 2004.

which, this is already a lot. in fact, the most that any human being has ever deadlifted was 1,104.5 pounds, done by the strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. but how many cars are there here?

using an earlier scene, i count five.

putting 1,600 times 5 into a calculator...

Thats eight thousand pounds. This isn't even considering the weight of the people sitting in the cars.

if we were to take the average weights of teenaged boys/girls around the age of 14 and multiply them by... let's say four each (this count is excluding Fun Danny since Jack grabs him) then we'll get...

That's 868 more pounds to add to the load. (Granted, this is assuming everybody on the cars weighs the same (unlikely), that this measure is even indicative of how much they would even weigh, especially back in 2004 (unlikely), and that everybody on the roller coaster is 14 years old. (again. Unlikely.) However, this is the best estimate we can get.)

In total, that is 8,868 pounds that Jack is pushing. Granted, this is not considering the force that he needs to push out, but we'd need acceleration to to calculate the force since the formula is Force = Mass x Acceleration. We don't have the acceleration and I'm not dealing with that right now.

But still.

Jack is pushing 8,868 pounds with one hand. Whilst inside of an object that is floating in mid air and probably doesn't have too much leverage for him to atay steady on. Good god

[eternal-evergreens]

Hello! I stumbled across your post “jjk men as yandere” and I really enjoy both your thoughts and writing style.

I would truly appreciate if you wrote any scenario involving yandere Geto with reader (sorcerer).

Thank you if you even consider writing it<3

A/N Thanks so much!!

｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+*⁠.⁠✧"Meet Cute" ｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+*⁠.⁠✧

Post format: Drabble

Pairing: Yandere!Suguru Geto x GN!Curse user!Reader

Word count: 1.3k

Warnings: Reader is morally bankrupt, mentions of eugenics/genocide, reader is a little too into WWII, minor age gap, super greedy reader

"You're like a modern-day Hitler, huh?"

"...What?" Geto looked at you with wide eyes, putting down his to-go cup to better gape at you.

"Well, you are advocating for mass genocide and literal eugenics," you say, taking an unbothered sip of your own coffee. (Geto recommended the place. Apparently, his kids like the hot chocolate there. You'll have to ask him for the name of the place later.) "So, yeah, you're like Hitler."

Geto appears to be having a crisis of some sort. Just sort of staring down at his lap with an unreadable look on his face. You watch with amusement. This kid must be a newbie, you think—not that you're much older than him, but you at least have seniority on this.

"What, are you getting cold feet? You've already killed people, you know. If you want to make it in this career, you're gonna have to get real comfortable being compared to some pretty terrible things."

"I'm used to being called terrible things, it's just—"

"Oh, what? Like monster?" Geto says nothing, and you sigh, reclining back in your chair. (Damn, this cult has some nice shit. You wonder if you can sneak the couch out without anyone noticing?) "So unoriginal. Anyway keep your chin up. It's actually a good thing. Hitler already exists, so you can steal his ideas."

"Weren't you just complaining about something being unoriginal?" You wave your hand dismissively.

"That was then, this is now. Anyway what do you think? Hitler industrialized murder. You can do the same—if you can get the right ingredients."

"You're talking about power, right?"

"Pretty much. You'll need hands and money. And a lot of both. With that in mind, this cult is actually a perfect setup. But putting that aside," you take another sip of your drink. Empty. Damn it. "You didn't call me here just so I could give you my professional opinion, did you?"

Geto smiles. "I hear you'll do anything for money."

"I don't come cheap, you know."

"That's not a problem," he snaps his fingers, and someone, a "monkey" from the looks of it, walks in, clearly struggling with the weight of whatever's in that giant briefcase. You suppress a smile as it's placed on the table and opened. Hundreds, no, thousands of ¥10,000 notes line the briefcase from top to bottom. You nearly salivate from just looking at it. Quickly, you check for any signs of deceit, of counterfeits, empty space, or otherwise. You can't find anything.

"You'll find this briefcase contains over one billion yen." Geto says, gesturing for his...indentured servant to close the case. How many bills is that? It's gotta be over a million. You're half tempted to take the money and run, but years of experience have taught you not to underestimate guys carrying this much cash. "I trust this is sufficient?"

"That depends on the job," you say, crossing your arms. "If you want me to take out Satoru Gojo, you'll need to multiply it a hundredfold before I even consider it."

"It's nothing that severe," he says, wearing the smile of a polished businessman. You sit up a little straighter. Maybe you were wrong about this guy being an amateur. Whatever he wants you to do, it's bad news. You feel excitement tingling in your veins. Will he ask you to take out a city? A country? Considering the scale of his plans, you wouldn't be surprised if he wanted you to take out a continent... you'd need a bit more to do something like that, though.

"I want you to marry me."

You snort, then laugh. You laugh for a very long time, even holding your stomach as you bend over in your seat. If this was a ploy to make you let your guard down long enough to kill you, it was smart. Still, you wouldn't go down that easily. You're more than confident enough in your ability to defend yourself, even in such a hilarious encounter.

Finally, the laughter dies down, and you wipe a tear from your eye. You look up at Geto's face, only for him to look back at you oddly serious. "No way..." you murmur, "are you for real?"

"I'm afraid I am," he says. Your smile drops. How annoying. What's this guy even want from you, huh?

"So, what, that money's a dowry?"

"More like a bribe."

"Uh-uh. No way. Not happening. I can't take a job like that."

"You're not even going to ask what's in it for me?"

"Not interested," you say, grabbing your bag and standing.

"I think I ought to tell you anyway," he says, throwing a sack onto the table. A stack of yen falls out, and you eye it with a raised eyebrow. "That's my payment for listening," he says. "¥200,000."

You inspect the fallen stack. Once again, it's real. He's either crazy or plotting something, and you have a hunch it's the latter. You sit back down. Whatever he's thinking, it's definitely bad news. Even so, you need more information to properly deal with it.

"I've heard you're the sole caretaker of four siblings." He shouldn't know that, but you decide not to derail the conversation by asking. "As you know, I've got two little girls of my own."

"So, what? You need a babysitter?"

"Precisely."

"Okay, but why marriage? Surely you could just hire me as a nanny and be done with it?"

"The girls don't trust strangers easily. I already told them that I had a Fiance out of town who'd be coming back soon. Just play along with it and you'll be compensated accordingly." "For how long?"

"Just until they turn eighteen."

"You'll have to pay me more." "What I showed you earlier was just a down payment; you'll also get an annual salary of fifteen million."

"Make it twenty."

"How's forty?" he says. You ponder over it for a moment. Judging from how you saw things earlier, it seems like he does genuinely love those kids. He's young and not afraid of spending, which would make you worry about the sustainability of the job, but cults are famous for making tons of cash.

"How old are they?"

"Six." So, twelve years. Counting the initial (over) one billion, the listening fee of two hundred thousand, and the annual salary times twelve, you'll be paid over ¥1,480,200,000. That's more than enough to send your siblings to college, as well as set them up for life.

"Deal," you say, reaching your hand out to shake. You'd ask why he doesn't just hire someone more qualified, but you think that speech on 'monkeys' he gave you answers the question.

"It's getting late," he says, shaking your hand. "How about I take you to dinner?"

"Why?"

"My girls are smart. They'll realize something's up if we don't know anything about each other," he says, standing.

"This isn't coming out of my salary, right?" Geto, or, you suppose you should be calling him Suguru, now, chuckles.

"I'm not nearly that stingy," he says. He holds out his arm to escort you, and you take it. "I'll need your ring size, too."

Of course, he already knows it. That, and so much more. After all, this may be your first time meeting him, but he's already met you plenty of times.

"Sure, but I'm not paying. Also, if you get me an ugly one I'm selling it."

"We'll go together, then." For some reason, the smile on his face seems a little too genuine to be meant for someone he's only just met, but you pay it no mind. Money is money, after all.

"Oh, what about living arrangements?"

"You and your siblings will live here," he says. "You'll have to sleep in the same bed as me, I'm afraid. Just to keep up the illusion."

"Do I get a bonus for that?"

"You're hurting my feelings," he says.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How finfluencers destroyed the housing and lives of thousands of people

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

The crash of 2008 imparted many lessons to those of us who were only dimly aware of finance, especially the problems of complexity as a way of disguising fraud and recklessness. That was really the first lesson of 2008: "financial engineering" is mostly a way of obscuring crime behind a screen of technical jargon.

This is a vital principle to keep in mind, because obscenely well-resourced "financial engineers" are on a tireless, perennial search for opportunities to disguise fraud as innovation. As Riley Quinn says, "Any time you hear 'fintech,' substitute 'unlicensed bank'":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

But there's another important lesson to learn from the 2008 disaster, a lesson that's as old as the South Seas Bubble: "leverage" (that is, debt) is a force multiplier for fraud. Easy credit for financial speculation turns local scams into regional crime waves; it turns regional crime into national crises; it turns national crises into destabilizing global meltdowns.

When financial speculators have easy access to credit, they "lever up" their wagers. A speculator buys your house and uses it for collateral for a loan to buy another house, then they make a bet using that house as collateral and buy a third house, and so on. This is an obviously terrible practice and lenders who extend credit on this basis end up riddling the real economy with rot – a single default in the chain can ripple up and down it and take down a whole neighborhood, town or city. Any time you see this behavior in debt markets, you should batten your hatches for the coming collapse. Unsurprisingly, this is very common in crypto speculation, where it's obscured behind the bland, unpronounceable euphemism of "re-hypothecation":

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/10/rehypothecation-may-be-common-in-traditional-finance-but-it-will-never-work-with-bitcoin/

Loose credit markets often originate with central banks. The dogma that holds that the only role the government has to play in tuning the economy is in setting interest rates at the Fed means the answer to a cooling economy is cranking down the prime rate, meaning that everyone earns less money on their savings and are therefore incentivized to go and risk their retirement playing at Wall Street's casino.

The "zero interest rate policy" shows what happens when this tactic is carried out for long enough. When the economy is built upon mountains of low-interest debt, when every business, every stick of physical plant, every car and every home is leveraged to the brim and cross-collateralized with one another, central bankers have to keep interest rates low. Raising them, even a little, could trigger waves of defaults and blow up the whole economy.

Holding interest rates at zero – or even flipping them to negative, so that your savings lose value every day you refuse to flush them into the finance casino – results in still more reckless betting, and that results in even more risk, which makes it even harder to put interest rates back up again.

This is a morally and economically complicated phenomenon. On the one hand, when the government provides risk-free bonds to investors (that is, when the Fed rate is over 0%), they're providing "universal basic income for people with money." If you have money, you can park it in T-Bills (Treasury bonds) and the US government will give you more money:

https://realprogressives.org/mmp-blog-34-responses/

On the other hand, while T-Bills exist and are foundational to the borrowing picture for speculators, ZIRP creates free debt for people with money – it allows for ever-greater, ever-deadlier forms of leverage, with ever-worsening consequences for turning off the tap. As 2008 forcibly reminded us, the vast mountains of complex derivatives and other forms of exotic debt only seems like an abstraction. In reality, these exotic financial instruments are directly tethered to real things in the real economy, and when the faery gold disappears, it takes down your home, your job, your community center, your schools, and your whole country's access to cancer medication:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/08/greek-drug-shortage-worsens

Being a billionaire automatically lowers your IQ by 30 points, as you are insulated from the consequences of your follies, lapses, prejudices and superstitions. As @pixelpusher220@dmv.community says, Elon Musk is what Howard Hughes would have turned into if he hadn't been a recluse:

https://mamot.fr/@pixelpusher220@dmv.community/112457199729198644

The same goes for financiers during periods of loose credit. Loose Fed money created an "everything bubble" that saw the prices of every asset explode, from housing to stocks, from wine to baseball cards. When every bet pays off, you win the game by betting on everything:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_bubble

That meant that the ZIRPocene was an era in which ever-stupider people were given ever-larger sums of money to gamble with. This was the golden age of the "finfluencer" – a Tiktok dolt with a surefire way for you to get rich by making reckless bets that endanger the livelihoods, homes and wellbeing of your neighbors.

Finfluencers are dolts, but they're also dangerous. Writing for The American Prospect, the always-amazing Maureen Tkacik describes how a small clutch of passive-income-brainworm gurus created a financial weapon of mass destruction, buying swathes of apartment buildings and then destroying them, ruining the lives of their tenants, and their investors:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-05-22-hell-underwater-landlord/

Tcacik's main characters are Matt Picheny, Brent Ritchie and Koteswar “Jay” Gajavelli, who ran a scheme to flip apartment buildings, primarily in Houston, America's fastest growing metro, which also boasts some of America's weakest protections for tenants. These finance bros worked through Gajavelli's company Applesway Investment Group, which levered up his investors' money with massive loans from Arbor Realty Trust, who also originated loans to many other speculators and flippers.

For investors, the scheme was a classic heads-I-win/tails-you-lose: Gajavelli paid himself a percentage of the price of every building he bought, a percentage of monthly rental income, and a percentage of the resale price. This is typical of the "syndicating" sector, which raised $111 billion on this basis:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-housing-bust-comes-for-thousands-of-small-time-investors-3934beb3

Gajavelli and co bought up whole swathes of Houston and other cities, apartment blocks both modest and luxurious, including buildings that had already been looted by previous speculators. As interest rates crept up and the payments for the adjustable-rate loans supporting these investments exploded, Gajavell's Applesway and its subsidiary LLCs started to stiff their suppliers. Garbage collection dwindled, then ceased. Water outages became common – first weekly, then daily. Community rooms and pools shuttered. Lawns grew to waist-high gardens of weeds, fouled with mounds of fossil dogshit. Crime ran rampant, including murders. Buildings filled with rats and bedbugs. Ceilings caved in. Toilets backed up. Hallways filled with raw sewage:

https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

Meanwhile, the value of these buildings was plummeting, and not just because of their terrible condition – the whole market was cooling off, in part thanks to those same interest-rate hikes. Because the loans were daisy-chained, problems with a single building threatened every building in the portfolio – and there were problems with a lot more than one building.

This ruination wasn't limited to Gajavelli's holdings. Arbor lent to multiple finfluencer grifters, providing the leverage for every Tiktok dolt to ruin a neighborhood of their choosing. Arbor's founder, the "flamboyant" Ivan Kaufman, is associated with a long list of bizarre pop-culture and financial freak incidents. These have somehow eclipsed his scandals, involving – you guessed it – buying up apartment buildings and turning them into dangerous slums. Two of his buildings in Hyattsville, MD accumulated 2,162 violations in less than three years.

Arbor graduated from owning slums to creating them, lending out money to grifters via a "crowdfunding" platform that rooked retail investors into the scam, taking advantage of Obama-era deregulation of "qualified investor" restrictions to sucker unsophisticated savers into handing over money that was funneled to dolts like Gajavelli. Arbor ran the loosest book in town, originating mortgages that wouldn't pass the (relatively lax) criteria of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This created an ever-enlarging pool of apartments run by dolts, without the benefit of federal insurance. As one short-seller's report on Arbor put it, they were the origin of an epidemic of "Slumlord Millionaires":

https://viceroyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Arbor-Slumlord-Millionaires-Jan-8-2023.pdf

The private equity grift is hard to understand from the outside, because it appears that a bunch of sober-sided, responsible institutions lose out big when PE firms default on their loans. But the story of the Slumlord Millionaires shows how such a scam could be durable over such long timescales: remember that the "syndicating" sector pays itself giant amounts of money whether it wins or loses. The consider that they finance this with investor capital from "crowdfunding" platforms that rope in naive investors. The owners of these crowdfunding platforms are conduits for the money to make the loans to make the bets – but it's not their money. Quite the contrary: they get a fee on every loan they originate, and a share of the interest payments, but they're not on the hook for loans that default. Heads they win, tails we lose.

In other words, these crooks are intermediaries – they're platforms. When you're on the customer side of the platform, it's easy to think that your misery benefits the sellers on the platform's other side. For example, it's easy to believe that as your Facebook feed becomes enshittified with ads, that advertisers are the beneficiaries of this enshittification.

But the reason you're seeing so many ads in your feed is that Facebook is also ripping off advertisers: charging them more, spending less to police ad-fraud, being sloppier with ad-targeting. If you're not paying for the product, you're the product. But if you are paying for the product? You're still the product:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#adfraud

In the same way: the private equity slumlord who raises your rent, loads up on junk fees, and lets your building disintegrate into a crime-riddled, sewage-tainted, rat-infested literal pile of garbage is absolutely fucking you over. But they're also fucking over their investors. They didn't buy the building with their own money, so they're not on the hook when it's condemned or when there's a forced sale. They got a share of the initial sale price, they get a percentage of your rental payments, so any upside they miss out on from a successful sale is just a little extra they're not getting. If they squeeze you hard enough, they can probably make up the difference.

The fact that this criminal playbook has wormed its way into every corner of the housing market makes it especially urgent and visible. Housing – shelter – is a human right, and no person can thrive without a stable home. The conversion of housing, from human right to speculative asset, has been a catastrophe:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Of course, that's not the only "asset class" that has been enshittified by private equity looters. They love any kind of business that you must patronize. Capitalists hate capitalism, so they love a captive audience, which is why PE took over your local nursing home and murdered your gran:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

Homes are the last asset of the middle class, and the grifter class know it, so they're coming for your house. Willie Sutton robbed banks because "that's where the money is" and We Buy Ugly Houses defrauds your parents out of their family home because that's where their money is:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/#homevestor

The plague of housing speculation isn't a US-only phenomenon. We have allies in Spain who are fighting our Wall Street landlords:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#fuckin-aardvarks

Also in Berlin:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/16/die-miete-ist-zu-hoch/#assets-v-human-rights

The fight for decent housing is the fight for a decent world. That's why unions have joined the fight for better, de-financialized housing. When a union member spends two hours commuting every day from a black-mold-filled apartment that costs 50% of their paycheck, they suffer just as surely as if their boss cut their wage:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

The solutions to our housing crises aren't all that complicated – they just run counter to the interests of speculators and the ruling class. Rent control, which neoliberal economists have long dismissed as an impossible, inevitable disaster, actually works very well:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

As does public housing:

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/red-vienna-public-affordable-housing-homelessness-matthew-yglesias

There are ways to have a decent home and a decent life without being burdened with debt, and without being a pawn in someone else's highly leveraged casino bet.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

Image: Boy G/Google Maps (modified) https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

[marlboro00999]

The Philip Morris corporation has been accused of "creating a major pollution crisis" due to it's heavily polluting factories which are being built at speed to deal with the rapidly increasing numbers of customers buying their cigarettes and disposable vapes.

Built on the banks of rivers in pristine countryside in order to use the water that the production processes require, the corporation has been lampooned for releasing toxic byproducts into the rivers.

In response to the criticism, a spokesman for the company issued a statement.

"We at Philip Morris understand the environmental concerns, and we are focused on achieving our corporate goals in that regard. The recent increased popularity of the Marlboro brand requires that we multiply production fourfold in order to match the rapidly rising demand, and our success is testament to the high quality of the Marlboro products... which we believe everyone should try.

Should you ask any of the hundreds of thousands of our recent customers whether they are more concerned about protecting the environment than they are about satisfying their own needs, we are confident that customer's personal requirements with be their sole concern.

The Marlboro brand's priority is to provide for our customers and grow the customer base. That is what would be expected of any corporation, and we don't apologise for that."

When questioned about the 'army' of men on bikes in the factory locations who have been accused of intimidating visitors, the spokesman's replied:

"The safety and health of our workforce is a priority for Philip Morris. We will do whatever is required to keep them safe from the violent demonstrators and so-call environmental activists who have been trespassing and causing criminal damage. We will not tolerate violence and intimidation towards our employees. The Guards treat all visitors with respect.

It is testament to the moderation and patience of our Guards that many of the demonstrators have had their views changed and are now happy employees working in the Marlboro factories."

[forever-rogue]

I just love your Steve writings and I'm absolute obsessed with the way you write. I have a little request if you don't mind? We all know Steve wants his six little nuggets but what if reader can't have children? I never saw someone write something like it and I think you would write it perfectly. The story and how they communicate about this is totally in your hands but I would just LOVE to read a happy ending.

AN | Please, this is such a sensitive but soft concept. He would be the best about it, fullstop. It has a happy ending 🥺

Warnings | Language, Mentions of infertility 

Pairing | Steve x Fem!Reader

Word Count | 2.2k

Masterlist | Steve, Main

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“I…you - what?” your eyes grew wide as you looked between Steve and the small velveteen box in his hand. Your heart felt like it was about to beat out of your chest as you anxiously fidgeted with your hands. Steve grew confused - and worried - as he looked at you in worried anticipation. 

“Will you marry me?” he repeated his question as you still struggled to process what he was asking. It was such a simple question but it held an immense amount of weight. You could feel the eyes of almost all the other patrons in the restaurant’s outside patio on the two of you. Expectant and waiting…and you had no clue what to say. 

Well, no - that wasn’t exactly true. You knew what you wanted to say, which was yes. A thousand times yes. But you couldn’t do it…you couldn’t say yes.

“I…I can’t,” you whispered softly, wishing you could look anywhere but his face. But all you could see was him, “no.”

“W-what?” he let out a nervous chuckle, cheeks pinking and eyes wide. Surely he couldn’t have heard you correctly, “what did you say?”

“No,” you repeated softly, tears already welling up and threatening to run down your cheeks, “n-no. I can’t.”

“Oh,” the look on his face was the worst thing you’d ever seen. It was heartbroken and upset multiplied by a thousand times.

“Steve - I…I’m so sorry,” you almost jumped up from your chair as you stood up and grabbed your back, “I can’t do this - I’m so, so sorry.”

“Wait, don’t just go. Angel-”

“I’m sorry,” it was the last thing you managed to choke out and the last thing he heard. 

Steve walked you go, acutely aware that everyone’s eyes were on him. And his marriage proposal was rejected - which he never thought would happen. 

He swallowed the lump that had welled up in his throat and sat back down in his chair. The ring box was snapped shut and quickly stuffed back into his pocket. Tears burned the backs of his eyes as he tried to keep it together enough to at least pay the bill. 

“Sir?” a young waiter came over and offered him an apologetic look. Steve couldn’t even bring him to say anything, “it’s on the house tonight. I’m sorry about what happened. Hopefully things will be okay.”

“Thanks,” the bit of kindness caused the last of his walls to come down and he felt the tears run down his cheeks, “me too.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You spent the next couple of days absolutely wallowing in self-pity, regret, and anger. It all had to do with yourself too; it wasn’t Steve’s fault at all. It was yours and yet he was the one suffering. You’d contemplated calling him so many times, the phone halfway to your ear but you stopped yourself every time. 

Steve too was keeping his distance; it seemed so out of character for him. That’s how you knew that you had royally fucked up. If your golden retriever, sunshine boyfriend was avoiding you, there was a definite problem. 

After almost five days, you couldn’t handle it anymore. There wasn’t even anyone to blame but yourself. You were positive that all of your friends would hate you too - if you were in their position, you probably would have hated yourself too. 

You had to give yourself a major pep talk in order to drag yourself out of your apartment and over to Steve’s house. Once you spotted his car in the driveway, you parked your car in the street and stayed in there for about fifteen minutes before dragging yourself to the door. 

You knocked on the door, the key to his place that was on your keyring burning a hole in your pocket. It didn’t feel right to let yourself into his place without permission. You rocked and forth on yourself as you waited to hear the gait of his familiar footsteps. 

When you did actually hear them, you grew nervous and contemplated running away again. But it was too late because you’d already been cowardly enough. The door opened slowly and you were met with a very tired and surprised looking Steve. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before blinking owlishly at you. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked, and to your surprise his tone was void of any anger or malice. A wave of emotion washed over you, and you had the urge to wrap him up in a tight hug. 

“I…I umm,” you closed your eyes and waved a hand around, silently willing it to somehow give you all the answers, “I wanted to apologize…to talk. But if you don’t want to, I understand if you don't want to. I don't know if I really deserve it."

"Y-yeah," he almost choked on the single word as he nodded before opening the front door. You hesitantly made your way inside; it usually felt just like home but today it didn't. 

You trailed after him to the living room, sitting down on the couch as he sat down opposite you. A tense silence fell over the two of you for a few moments before you ended up clearing your throat.

“Umm-”

“So-”

The two of you spoke at the same time before you nervously exchanged a chuckle. You leaned back and exhaled slowly as he motioned for you to go. 

“First of all,” you allowed yourself to meet his eyes; there was nothing but gentle curiosity behind them. Of course he wasn’t furious…he had too good of a heart, “I want to apologize. I know that doesn’t solve a single thing or make anything right, but I definitely owe you a giant apology.”

“It’s…’s okay,” his lips pulled into a thin line, clearly mulling over his thoughts, “it hurt a whole…like a lot a lot, but I figured you had your reasons.”

“Yeah,” if only you could turn back time and change everything, “it was just a big surprise and I didn’t know how to handle it. But I shouldn’t have run away from you like that. It wasn’t right.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he confessed sheepishly. He wanted to give you a huge surprise and gave you the most romantic proposal…but that was quickly shut down. Admittedly, Steve had wanted to be mad and angry but he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything of the sort to you, “we’ve been together for a couple of years so I just thought that it was the right time.”

“I know,” you couldn’t help the smile that crossed your features, “it’s been the best two years of my life…all because of you.”

“So why…what happened?” his brows furrowed as he tried to put two and two together. If it had been so good, why didn't you want to marry him? He was sure that it would be the two of you together forever. You knew you had to tell him…it was going to have to come out at some point so you might as well get it all out now, “you don’t want to marry me?”

“No, Stevie…I do,” you whispered, throat already thick with tears, “I do. You’re the only person I could ever see marrying.”

“But you…said no.”

“Steve…” you inhaled and exhaled shakily, “I should have told you this sooner…I just panicked. I thought that somehow it would work itself out but I see now that it never will. So I figured that I couldn’t marry you after all.”

“Angel, what are you talking about?”

“I can’t have children, Steve,” getting it all out in the open felt like a rush of relief and also like the weight of the world was on your shoulders, “and I’m so sorry for not telling you that before. I-I know you’ve always wanted kids, and I just…I was so selfish for never saying anything. I just didn’t want to let you go. I wanted to be with you because I love you so much; I’ve never felt anything like I do with you before. But if we stay together, we can’t have kids, and you deserve to have them. You’re going to be the best dad ever.”

He’d scooted over to the couch you were on while you were somewhere between rambling and crying, studying you intently. He hesitantly reached for your hand, holding it tightly in his when you slowly offered your hand to him, “how long have you known?”

“A long time,” you whispered, “before we started dating. I just didn’t want to lose you.”

“Why would you lose me?” he tilted his head to the side like a puppy as you blinked in surprise.

“Because you want children and I…can’t give you children,” you stated as though it was so obvious, “why would you want to be with me?”

“I’m in love with you,” and that might have been your favorite thing in the entire world to hear, “and I love you so much. There’s no one else I’d ever want to be with.”

“But-”

“But nothing,” he smiled gently, “nothing will ever change that. And if you think I wouldn’t wnat to be with you because of that - you must not know me very well.”

“Stevie-”

“I want you,” he promised, “and yes, I want children, but just because you can’t carry them, doesn’t mean we can’t have the family we want, angel. There are so many ways for us to have our own family.”

“I…you…” tears had rolled down your cheeks now and Steve tenderly wiped them away, “are you sure? You’d still want me?”

“I don’t want anyone but you,” he brushed his knuckles along your cheek, “no matter what. Why on earth would I not want to be with you over that? It’s something that you can’t even control. There’s so many ways for us to have the family we want. They don’t have to be biologically ours to be our children. Family is what we make it, yeah? Look at our family now.”

Steve was saying the exact opposite of what you had expected, but everything you wanted to hear. He was right, after all, your current family was found but that didn’t mean the love you shared wasn’t real.

“Are you sure?” you asked softly, “you won’t change your mind in a few years and hate me?”

“I could never, ever hate you,” he insisted and you knew in your heart that he was telling the truth, “I am so in love with you, and nothing is going to change. The only thing I wish I could change was how worried you were to tell me. I’m sorry if I ever did anything to make you feel like I could ever love you any less.”

“It was me,” you shrugged slightly, “I’d convinced myself a long time ago that no one would ever want to be with me because of that. But with you…I should have known better. You’ve never given me a single reason to doubt you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“Don’t apologize,” he insisted softly, gently tugging you towards him. You obliged without a second thought and let him pull you into his lap, “I’m glad you were able to tell me now. I love you, okay? Nothing is going to change that.”

“But I…I was awful to you,” you pouted and Steve couldn’t stop himself from peppering kisses to your cheeks and forehead, “and I just…I left you. How could you still love me?”

“Because you’re still you and I’m still me,” he grinned, “and last time I checked we’re still in love. And I’m hoping that maybe you’d still agree to marry me one day?”

You gasped audibly which caused the boy to laugh softly. Your brows furrowed in surprise as you looked at me curiously, “you still want to marry me? Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” he insisted and you almost melted into a puddle, “but only if you want to.”

“Yes,” you looped your arms around his neck and clung onto him tightly before burying your face into his chest, “there’s nothing I want more. Of course, I-I really want to marry you, Stevie.”

“Good,” you felt his chest rumble with his relieved laugh, “that settles that. We’re going to get married. And, when we’re ready, we’re going to have the family we want. Deal?”

“Deal,” you pulled back and looked at him with misty eyes; you could see that he was trying to hold back his own tears, “I love you, Steve. So, so much.”

“I love you, angel. More than anything.”

[statsbot]

THE END OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

Prompt: "The sword coast setting, but thousands and thousands and thousands of years in the future, where it's turned from high fantasy into dark fantasy"

The Outline:

Sample Campaign Starter:

Text under Read More:

The Great Cities Waterdeep, once the City of Splendors, is now the City of Eternal Twilight. Its towering spires remain, but they're twisted and warped, having grown like pale coral over thousands of years of wild magic exposure. The city exists in layers - the deepest parts still contain functioning Undermountain technology, while the surface is a maze of crystallized buildings where masked nobles maintain a mockery of the old customs. Baldur's Gate has become a titanous mechanical city-state, burning the corpses of the dead in enormous furnaces to maintain warmth as the sun dies. The Sword Coast itself is no longer recognizable as a coast - the sea has partially crystallized into a sheet of black glass that occasionally liquefies without warning.

The Nature of Magic As the sun dims, magic has become more visceral and dangerous. The Weave has partially collapsed, creating "knots" of wild magic that float like spectral tumors across the landscape. Spellcasting requires blood sacrifice or the burning of valuable materials - the age of casual magic is long gone. Many spellcasters have resorted to binding fragments of dying gods into their flesh to maintain their powers. The color of magic has changed too - most spells manifest in blacks, grays, and pale blues, as if the magic itself is suffering from cosmic frostbite.

The Old Pantheons The gods are dying, but cannot truly die. They exist in a state of perpetual agony, their essence crystallizing into god-shards that fall from the sky like meteors. Some gods have merged together in desperate attempts to survive - Lathander and Kelemvor are now one entity, a terrible thing that represents both dawn and death, neither of which have meaning anymore. Mystra's death long ago caused the initial collapse, but her essence still pervades reality like a virus, causing spontaneous magical mutations.

Survival Methods People cluster around "hearth-crystals," shards of the original sun that still emit weak heat and light. Communities are usually small, heavily fortified, and deeply suspicious of outsiders. Many have resorted to consuming the flesh of magical creatures to survive, leading to widespread mutations. Water must be thawed before drinking, and most food is grown in underground fungal gardens. Some communities have turned to worshipping the machines left behind by the gnomes and artificers of old, maintaining ancient technologies they barely understand.

Monsters and Creatures Most of the iconic D&D monsters have evolved or devolved into horrific new forms. Dragons are blind, pale things that nest in thermal vents, having lost their color affiliations millennia ago. Mind Flayers have returned from the far realm, but they're different now - more mechanical, having fused with ancient Netherese technologies. Beholders have multiplied and shrunk, becoming swarms of floating eyes that serve as organic surveillance systems for the larger settlements.

The Planes The planar boundaries have grown thin and unstable. The Shadowfell is slowly merging with the Material Plane, while the Feywild has become a frozen wasteland of eternal twilight. Fragments of other planes occasionally crash into the material world, creating zones where reality behaves according to alien rules. The Nine Hells have frozen over, and demons now seek warmth in the material plane, sometimes offering their essence as fuel for the desperate.

Ancient Artifacts The legendary artifacts of the past have grown in power as the world dies. The Blackstaff has become a living entity that consumes its wielders. The Ring of Winter is sought after not as a weapon, but as a tool of mercy - it can grant final death to those who otherwise would live forever in the twilight. Many new artifacts have been created from the crystallized remains of gods, each carrying a fraction of divine power and madness.

SITUATION A hearth-crystal powering the settlement of Coldhearth is dying. The crystal's dimming has caused panic among the inhabitants, who know they have perhaps two weeks before the cold claims them. However, the local Crystal-Speaker has had a vision - one of the dying gods, a merged aspect of Gond and Oghma called the Brass Scholar, is falling from the heavens. Its crystallized divine essence could serve as a new hearth-crystal, if it can be claimed. Unfortunately, others have sensed its imminent arrival too - including the machine-cult of Baldur's Gate and a desperate band of god-flesh scavengers.

SETTING Coldhearth sits in what was once a coastal village near Waterdeep, though the black glass sea is now several miles away. The settlement is built into and around an ancient lighthouse, its beacon replaced with the current (dying) hearth-crystal. The surrounding area is a wasteland of crystallized trees and frozen earth, with occasional patches of liquidized ground where wild magic has temporarily thawed reality.

The nearby "Shattershore" - where the black glass sea begins - is a maze of geometric shapes and broken reflections. The glass occasionally liquefies without warning, swallowing the unwary. Scavengers risk these dangers to harvest valuable resources from ancient ships trapped within the glass. Several miles inland lies the ruins of a pre-twilight trading post called Wayward's Rest, now home to a colony of devolved mind flayers who trade memories for warmth.

The predicted impact site of the falling god-shard lies in the Thornmaze, a crystallized forest where the trees have grown into impossibly sharp geometric patterns. The local mutation-touched say the trees still grow, just too slowly for normal eyes to see. The maze is home to various geometric predators - creatures that have adapted to move and hunt along perfectly straight lines and right angles.

CAST The Settlement of Coldhearth Vara Nightbridge, Crystal-Speaker and unofficial leader. Her eyes have been replaced with shards of a fallen god, allowing her to see divine essence. She speaks in temperatures rather than words. Ghkss the Thawed, a mutation-touched merchant whose flesh periodically liquefies. He maintains the settlement's fungal gardens and knows more than he shares. Pock, a child who never seems to feel the cold. The other children follow her lead, and she knows all the settlement's secrets.

The Machine-Cult of Baldur's Gate Archimandrite Kex, a cyborg priestess who has replaced her blood with heated oil. She leads the local machine-cult expeditions. Brother-Operator Finn, a former street thief who maintains the cult's warmth-engines. He's secretly planning to steal the god-shard for himself.

The God-Flesh Scavengers The Twins, Voss and Vess, who share a single mutation-touched body but alternate control. They're known for eating anything that glows. Skrike, their enforcer, who has bound frozen demon-flesh to his bones. He can only move in straight lines but hits like a runaway cart.

INITIAL CONDITIONS The hearth-crystal is dimming noticeably each day. The settlement's outer rings have already been abandoned as the warmth recedes. Most residents have crowded into the lighthouse proper, creating tensions and using up stored resources faster than anticipated. The Crystal-Speaker's vision has given hope, but also attracted unwanted attention from outside groups.

The machine-cult has already established a forward camp near the Thornmaze, using salvaged warmth-engines that leave trails of black smoke. The god-flesh scavengers are more mobile, using trained geometric predators as mounts to patrol the crystallized forest's edge.

The god-shard is due to impact in approximately ten days. The cold is getting worse. Strange lights have been seen in the Thornmaze, suggesting the area's wild magic is intensifying in anticipation of the divine arrival.

GOALS Vara Nightbridge seeks to save her people and maintain order during the crisis. Ghkss wants to preserve his secret collection of pre-twilight artifacts, even at the cost of lives. Pock intends to lead the other children to safety if the adults fail. Archimandrite Kex plans to use the god-shard to create a new type of warmth-engine. Brother-Operator Finn dreams of becoming a god himself by consuming the shard. The Twins aim to feed the god-shard to their geometric mounts, believing it will create perfect predators. Skrike simply wants enough divine essence to fix his condition.

TOOLS/RESOURCES Vara has her god-shard eyes and the loyalty of most settlers. Ghkss maintains a hidden cache of thawed water and preserved food. Pock knows secret ways through the Thornmaze. Archimandrite Kex commands several warmth-engines and trained technicians. Brother-Operator Finn possesses a pre-twilight device that can supposedly contain divine essence. The Twins control a pack of geometric predators. Skrike has demon-enhanced strength and durability.

SAMPLE SOLUTIONS Navigate the Thornmaze using Pock's knowledge, reach the impact site first, and defend it until the god-shard arrives. This requires surviving the geometric predators and wild magic surges.

Ally with Brother-Operator Finn, use his device to safely contain the god-shard, then betray him before he can consume it. This means dealing with both the machine-cult and his personal ambitions.

Convince the Twins to help clear a path through the Thornmaze using their geometric predators, then deal with their inevitable betrayal at the impact site.

Use Ghkss's secret resources to outlast the other factions, letting them fight among themselves before claiming the god-shard from the survivors.

Negotiate with the mind flayers at Wayward's Rest, trading memories for their help in securing the god-shard. This is risky but could provide a significant advantage over other factions.