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What the fuck is a PBM?
TOMORROW (Sept 24), I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!
Terminal-stage capitalism owes its long senescence to its many defensive mechanisms, and it's only by defeating these that we can put it out of its misery. "The Shield of Boringness" is one of the necrocapitalist's most effective defenses, so it behooves us to attack it head-on.
The Shield of Boringness is Dana Claire's extremely useful term for anything so dull that you simply can't hold any conception of it in your mind for any length of time. In the finance sector, they call this "MEGO," which stands for "My Eyes Glaze Over," a term of art for financial arrangements made so performatively complex that only the most exquisitely melted brain-geniuses can hope to unravel their spaghetti logic. The rest of us are meant to simply heft those thick, dense prospectuses in two hands, shrug, and assume, "a pile of shit this big must have a pony under it."
MEGO and its Shield of Boringness are key to all of terminal-stage capitalism's stupidest scams. Cloaking obvious swindles in a lot of complex language and Byzantine payment schemes can make them seem respectable just long enough for the scammers to relieve you of all your inconvenient cash and assets, though, eventually, you're bound to notice that something is missing.
If you spent the years leading up to the Great Financial Crisis baffled by "CDOs," "synthetic CDOs," "ARMs" and other swindler nonsense, you experienced the Shield of Boringness. If you bet your house and/or your retirement savings on these things, you experienced MEGO. If, after the bubble popped, you finally came to understand that these "exotic financial instruments" were just scams, you experienced Stein's Law ("anything that can't go forever eventually stops"). If today you no longer remember what a CDO is, you are once again experiencing the Shield of Boringness.
As bad as 2008 was, it wasn't even close to the end of terminal stage capitalism. The market has soldiered on, with complex swindles like carbon offset trading, metaverse, cryptocurrency, financialized solar installation, and (of course) AI. In addition to these new swindles, we're still playing the hits, finding new ways to make the worst scams of the 2000s even worse.
That brings me to the American health industry, and the absurdly complex, ridiculously corrupt Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), a pathology that has only metastasized since 2008.
On at least 20 separate occasions, I have taken it upon myself to figure out how the PBM swindle works, and nevertheless, every time they come up, I have to go back and figure it out again, because PBMs have the most powerful Shield of Boringness out of the whole Monster Manual of terminal-stage capitalism's trash mobs.
PBMs are back in the news because the FTC is now suing the largest of these for their role in ripping off diabetics with sky-high insulin prices. This has kicked off a fresh round of "what the fuck is a PBM, anyway?" explainers of extremely variable quality. Unsurprisingly, the best of these comes from Matt Stoller:
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-lina-khan-pharma
Stoller starts by pointing out that Americans have a proud tradition of getting phucked by pharma companies. As far back as the 1950s, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver was holding hearings on the scams that pharma companies were using to ensure that Americans paid more for their pills than virtually anyone else in the world.
But since the 2010s, Americans have found themselves paying eye-popping, sky-high, ridiculous drug prices. Eli Lilly's Humolog insulin sold for $21 in 1999; by 2017, the price was $274 – a 1,200% increase! This isn't your grampa's price gouging!
Where do these absurd prices come from? The story starts in the 2000s, when the GW Bush administration encouraged health insurers to create "high deductible" plans, where patients were expected to pay out of pocket for receiving care, until they hit a multi-thousand-dollar threshold, and then their insurance would kick in. Along with "co-pays" and other junk fees, these deductibles were called "cost sharing," and they were sold as a way to prevent the "abuse" of the health care system.
The economists who crafted terminal-stage capitalism's intellectual rationalizations claimed the reason Americans paid so much more for health care than their socialized-medicine using cousins in the rest of the world had nothing to do with the fact that America treats health as a source of profits, while the rest of the world treats health as a human right.
No, the actual root of America's health industry's problems was the moral defects of Americans. Because insured Americans could just go see the doctor whenever they felt like it, they had no incentive to minimize their use of the system. Any time one of these unhinged hypochondriacs got a little sniffle, they could treat themselves to a doctor's visit, enjoying those waiting-room magazines and the pleasure of arranging a sick day with HR, without bearing any of the true costs:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/the-doctrine-of-moral-hazard/
"Cost sharing" was supposed to create "skin in the game" for every insured American, creating a little pain-point that stung you every time you thought about treating yourself to a luxurious doctor's visit. Now, these payments bit hardest on the poorest workers, because if you're making minimum wage, at $10 co-pay hurts a lot more than it does if you're making six figures. What's more, VPs and the C-suite were offered "gold-plated" plans with low/no deductibles or co-pays, because executives understand the value of a dollar in the way that mere working slobs can't ever hope to comprehend. They can be trusted to only use the doctor when it's truly warranted.
So now you have these high-deductible plans creeping into every workplace. Then along comes Obama and the Affordable Care Act, a compromise that maintains health care as a for-profit enterprise (still not a human right!) but seeks to create universal coverage by requiring every American to buy a plan, requiring insurers to offer plans to every American, and uses public money to subsidize the for-profit health industry to glue it together.
Predictably, the cheapest insurance offered on the Obamacare exchanges – and ultimately, by employers – had sky-high deductibles and co-pays. That way, insurers could pocket a fat public subsidy, offer an "insurance" plan that was cheap enough for even the most marginally employed people to afford, but still offer no coverage until their customers had spent thousands of dollars out-of-pocket in a given year.
That's the background: GWB created high-deductible plans, Obama supercharged them. Keep that in your mind as we go through the MEGO procedures of the PBM sector.
Your insurer has a list of drugs they'll cover, called the "formulary." The formulary also specifies how much the insurance company is willing to pay your pharmacist for these drugs. Creating the formulary and paying pharmacies for dispensing drugs is a lot of tedious work, and insurance outsources this to third parties, called – wait for it – Pharmacy Benefits Managers.
The prices in the formulary the PBM prepares for your insurance company are called the "list prices." These are meant to represent the "sticker price" of the drug, what a pharmacist would charge you if you wandered in off the street with no insurance, but somehow in possession of a valid prescription.
But, as Stoller writes, these "list prices" aren't actually ever charged to anyone. The list price is like the "full price" on the pricetags at a discount furniture place where everything is always "on sale" at 50% off – and whose semi-disposable sofas and balsa-wood dining room chairs are never actually sold at full price.
One theoretical advantage of a PBM is that it can get lower prices because it bargains for all the people in a given insurer's plan. If you're the pharma giant Sanofi and you want your Lantus insulin to be available to any of the people who must use OptumRX's formulary, you have to convince OptumRX to include you in that formulary.
OptumRX – like all PBMs – demands "rebates" from pharma companies if they want to be included in the formulary. On its face, this is similar to the practices of, say, NICE – the UK agency that bargains for medicine on behalf of the NHS, which also bargains with pharma companies for access to everyone in the UK and gets very good deals as a result.
But OptumRX doesn't bargain for a lower list price. They bargain for a bigger rebate. That means that the "price" is still very high, but OptumRX ends up paying a tiny fraction of it, thanks to that rebate. In the OptumRX formulary, Lantus insulin lists for $403. But Sanofi, who make Lantus, rebate $339 of that to OptumRX, leaving just $64 for Lantus.
Here's where the scam hits. Your insurer charges you a deductible based on the list price – $404 – not on the $64 that OptumRX actually pays for your insulin. If you're in a high-deductible plan and you haven't met your cap yet, you're going to pay $404 for your insulin, even though the actual price for it is $64.
Now, you'd think that your insurer would put a stop to this. They chose the PBM, the PBM is ripping off their customers, so it's their job to smack the PBM around and make it cut this shit out. So why would the insurers tolerate this nonsense?
Here's why: the PBMs are divisions of the big health insurance companies. Unitedhealth owns OptumRx; Aetna owns Caremark, and Cigna owns Expressscripts. So it's not the PBM that's ripping you off, it's your own insurance company. They're not just making you pay for drugs that you're supposedly covered for – they're pocketing the deductible you pay for those drugs.
Now, there's one more entity with power over the PBM that you'd hope would step in on your behalf: your boss. After all, your employer is the entity that actually chooses the insurer and negotiates with them on your behalf. Your boss is in the driver's seat; you're just along for the ride.
It would be pretty funny if the answer to this was that the health insurance company bought your employer, too, and so your boss, the PBM and the insurer were all the same guy, busily swapping hats, paying for a call center full of tormented drones who each have three phones on their desks: one labeled "insurer"; the second, "PBM" and the final one "HR."
But no, the insurers haven't bought out the company you work for (yet). Rather, they've bought off your boss – they're sharing kickbacks with your employer for all the deductibles and co-pays you're being suckered into paying. There's so much money (your money) sloshing around in the PBM scamoverse that anytime someone might get in the way of you being ripped off, they just get cut in for a share of the loot.
That is how the PBM scam works: they're fronts for health insurers who exploit the existence of high-deductible plans in order to get huge kickbacks from pharma makers, and massive fees from you. They split the loot with your boss, whose payout goes up when you get screwed harder.
But wait, there's more! After all, Big Pharma isn't some kind of easily pushed-around weakling. They're big. Why don't they push back against these massive rebates? Because they can afford to pay bribes and smaller companies making cheaper drugs can't. Whether it's a little biotech upstart with a cheaper molecule, or a generics maker who's producing drugs at a fraction of the list price, they just don't have the giant cash reserves it takes to buy their way into the PBMs' formularies. Doubtless, the Big Pharma companies would prefer to pay smaller kickbacks, but from Big Pharma's perspective, the optimum amount of bribes extracted by a PBM isn't zero – far from it. For Big Pharma, the optimal number is one cent higher than "the maximum amount of bribes that a smaller company can afford."
The purpose of a system is what it does. The PBM system makes sure that Americans only have access to the most expensive drugs, and that they pay the highest possible prices for them, and this enriches both insurance companies and employers, while protecting the Big Pharma cartel from upstarts.
Which is why the FTC is suing the PBMs for price-fixing. As Stoller points out, they're using their powers under Section 5 of the FTC Act here, which allows them to shut down "unfair methods of competition":
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge
The case will be adjudicated by an administrative law judge, in a process that's much faster than a federal court case. Once the FTC proves that the PBM scam is illegal when applied to insulin, they'll have a much easier time attacking the scam when it comes to every other drug (the insulin scam has just about run its course, with federally mandated $35 insulin coming online, just as a generation of post-insulin diabetes treatments hit the market).
Obviously the PBMs aren't taking this lying down. Cigna/Expressscripts has actually sued the FTC for libel over the market study it conducted, in which the agency described in pitiless, factual detail how Cigna was ripping us all off. The case is being fought by a low-level Reagan-era monster named Rick Rule, whom Stoller characterizes as a guy who "hangs around in bars and picks up lonely multi-national corporations" (!!).
The libel claim is a nonstarter, but it's still wild. It's like one of those movies where they want to show you how bad the cockroaches are, so there's a bit where the exterminator shows up and the roaches form a chorus line and do a kind of Busby Berkeley number:
https://www.46brooklyn.com/news/2024-09-20-the-carlton-report
So here we are: the FTC has set out to euthanize some rentiers, ridding the world of a layer of useless economic middlemen whose sole reason for existing is to make pharmaceuticals as expensive as possible, by colluding with the pharma cartel, the insurance cartel and your boss. This conspiracy exists in plain sight, hidden by the Shield of Boringness. If I've done my job, you now understand how this MEGO scam works – and if you forget all that ten minutes later (as is likely, given the nature of MEGO), that's OK: just remember that this thing is a giant fucking scam, and if you ever need to refresh yourself on the details, you can always re-read this post.
The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!
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/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen
Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
#pluralistic#matthew stoller#pbms#pharmacy benefit managers#cigna#ftc#antitrust#intermediaries#bribery#corruption#pharma#monopolies#shield of boringness#Caremark#Express Scripts#OptumRx#insulin#gbw#george w bush#co-pays#obamacare#aca#rick rules#guillotine watch#euthanize rentiers#mego
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Clark: B, why do Kon and Jon have trustfunds?
Bruce: So that they'll have financial support in their lives. Don't they teach that in Kansas?
Clark: I know what a trustfund is, my question is why my kids have it from you?
Bruce: Oh I'm sorry, were you planning to have trusts set up for them with your reporter salary?
#superbat#just bruce wayne things#he would#because he's batman#superman#bruce wayne#clark kent#batman#they're co-parenting#but neither of them knows it#and even if they did they're too stubborn to admit it#sassy bruce#he pays for that reporter salary btw
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someone
#act 5 my beloved my beloathed#at this point in the game i think my brain was a bit fried cos i legit forgot how stories happen and was like yep this is how i die#made it so i straight up exploded afterwards lol just inconsolable#mal du pays#is me when i fucking gets you#cracking open a boy with the cold ones#oh to have your head grabbed in a vice grip by your inner demons <3#isat spoilers#like kinda big ones#isat siffrin#isat mal du pays#in stars and time#some pose practice kinda got away from me#turns out if you change up how you sketch it can make you a bit looser with it which was nice c:#in this case i sketched with light colour on a dark background#my art
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Netflix robbed us of seeing Cameron and Ruby act out the aching, mortifying scene of Lucy's reunion with Lockwood at her Studio Apartment of Depression and I'll never forgive them for it.
#lockwood netflix#lockwood & co#lockwood and co#anthony lockwood#lucy carlyle#lockwood and lucy#seriously never paying for that shitty subscription ever again#Cameron looking at his trainers with his big sad sleep deprived eyes#saying “its only been a few months i haven't suddenly started taking sugar in my tea”#you're permanently on my shit list Netflix#yo ho ho i got other ways I'm not giving you money no way
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i'm a sucker for the earring exchange trope
#Ouuuhhghrhghhgg. ok#trafalgar law#roronoa zoro#lawzo#zolaw#one piece#art#i did the sketch on artflow. got mega frustrated. ported it to sai and finished it there#maybe ill try krita next. im figuring out alternatives for clip#cos its about to expire for my tablet and idk that i can be bothered paying that much for it LMAO.#especially now that im leaning back into sai more...#i made them face away from each other on twitter but maybe.. i should have done it like this ahjbadjfvgbdfg
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For ghostlights: baby Ellie + tired Danny + Duke the baby whisperer?
He has no idea how his parents did it.
Babies are exhausting. Toddlers more so. Any infants in the strange stage in-between? Doubly so.
Ellie is wonderful and sweet and cute and such a terror that Danny genuinely has no idea how his parents managed to raise not one, but two kids. For all their eccentricities and absent-mindedness, he and Jazz turned out pretty well. Ignoring the whole halfa thing because that’s more his fault than theirs even if Jazz says they shouldn’t have created the dangerous environment in the first place.
That environment is exactly why Danny refuses to let Ellie go to his house in Amity Park. His parents say they’ve disabled all the weapons and ecto-sensors since he’s had to reveal himself as Phantom, but he knows that things slip their minds and if they can’t guarantee that the house is safe, then Ellie isn’t going in there. Simple as that.
This means that they live somewhere else now. Danny had thought about it, during the hours Ellie was asleep and he was awake, exhausted and worn down to his bones, and took Jazz’s advice to accept Vlad’s offer of buying a house for him. Except he argued Vlad down to an apartment in a city of his choosing where he wouldn’t stand out too much and he would be safe, or as safe as he can be, from anyone trying to hunt down ghosts.
So here they are. Standing in the empty living room of their new apartment in Gotham.
Gotham may not be very safe as a city, but it’s good for two ghosts trying to pass as normal.
Danny sighs yet again, and looks at the space he’ll need to fill. At least Vlad is footing the bill. It’s the least he can do for creating Ellie. Frostbite was the one who was able to stabilize her, though it was almost too late and resulted in her reforming as a baby, just one and a half years old. Jazz is the one who’s choosing most of the furniture, thankfully, so it’s something that Danny doesn’t need to worry about it.
It’s a new start to their lives and it feels so empty. So overwhelming. How did his parents do it? How do any parents do it?
Ellie smacks a small palm against his cheek and babbles lightly.
“I know, Ellie,” Danny says, giving her a tired smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll have this place looking good in no time.”
He adjusts her in his arms, then heads towards the bedroom. It’s the only room that has any furniture, and all that’s there is a bed, a crib, and a bookcase. There are a few boxes on the floor, labeled ‘bedroom’ and ‘clothing’ and ‘books’. Most of it came from his bedroom in Amity Park, but he’s pretty sure he caught Jazz sneaking a few things in before they closed the boxes and loaded them up into the car.
“Can you be good for five minutes?” he asks Ellie.
She babbles again and smacks his shoulder.
“I’m taking that as an agreement. Just let me open these boxes and start unpacking before you start causing trouble, okay?”
Ellie makes another sound, but it seems agreeable so Danny carefully lays her down in the crib and gets to peeling off the tape on the boxes. The opens the one labeled ‘bedroom’ first, finding blankets and sheets folded and stacked in vacuum sealed bags. One of them is his old childhood blanket, the one he carried around everywhere that was faded with age, barely blue, with white bunnies decorating it.
He was so small when he had this. It makes him oddly emotional to unpack it and pass it on to Ellie, draping it over her so her pudgy little hands can grab at it.
This is no time to cry, though! He forces himself to focus and makes his own bed, shaking out the sheets and fluffing up the pillows. He’ll worry about washing everything later; Vlad made sure to get an apartment with an in-unit washer and dryer, which means he was actually sensible while apartment hunting for Danny.
He doesn’t mean to flop onto the bed once it’s made, but he ends up there anyways. He’s barely gotten a full six hours of uninterrupted sleep since Frostbite deemed Ellie healthy enough to leave his care. The drive up to Gotham was long and wore him down to his bones.
He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he does, drifting off as he wonders, distantly, when Jazz will be back from getting them dinner.
Ellie wakes him up at dawn with a loud cry. Danny jolts awake, heart pounding in his chest as he panics because Ellie isn’t here, she’s supposed to be in his arms, where is she? And then he sees the crib, where Ellie is staring at him through the bars, and he nearly collapses with relief.
“Morning, El,” he says, voice rough from sleep, as he picks her up. She just stares up at him, then leans forward and rests her head against his shoulder.
It’s quiet moments like these that make his heart melt. Ellie’s had a hard life already; he wants to give her a better one, this time around.
A quick check of the time on his nearly dead phone shows that it’s barely past six in the morning, and Jazz texted him a few times. All about furniture, saying that she didn’t want to wake them and that food is in the fridge.
It’s only the mention of food that makes him realize how ravenous he’s feeling. Danny makes a beeline for the kitchen, ignoring everything else, and pulls out the boxes of take-out Jazz left stacked in the fridge. He devours it like he’s been starving for weeks, then gives Ellie her Ecto-Jello, the only food she’s allowed to eat until Frostbite gives the okay for solid, human food.
Once he’s got her burped and cleaned up, Danny looks out of the kitchen and realizes that Jazz was very productive while he was asleep. The living room isn’t empty anymore; a dark green couch is against the wall, a low, rectangular coffee table made of dark wood in front of it. Two armchairs are on both sides of the couch, and a television has been installed, fixed into the wall.
Jazz is asleep on the couch. Her legs hang off an armrest and she’s drooling slightly.
Her phone is charging on the floor, so Danny takes it and snaps a picture of her for later teasing, then sends it to himself and writes a note to her that he’s going out with Ellie to explore the neighborhood.
He’s finally feeling more settled, energized from sleep and food.
In the warm dawn light spilling in through the windows, Danny looks down at Ellie and thinks that they’ll be just fine after all.
. . .
Four months ago, Danny had hope. He was optimistic.
Gotham was a fresh start, a new lease of life for Ellie. It is Danny’s attempt to be a single parent, sacrificing college for Ellie, and he’s planning to go out and beat the gangs black and blue if they start anymore shootouts in the next year.
He had just gotten Ellie to sleep. She was actually peacefully taking a nap.
And then a drive by shooter raced down the street, gunshots echoing down the road, and Ellie work up crying. She still hasn’t stopped, despite how Danny rocked her, soothing her as best he could.
They had been outside when Ellie fell asleep, her head on his shoulder. He had been catching up with Sam and Tucker when the car drove by, people ducking and crying out to avoid the bullets. Danny instinctively covered Ellie and made them both intangible, saving them from any stray bullets, but they ruined her nap and he needs to make them pay for that.
“Shh,” he soothes, “You’re okay. We’re both fine. It’s okay, El, it’s okay.”
Her little hands clutch at his back, twisting the fabric of his shirt, and she lets out a heartbreaking wail. He pats her back, hurrying down the street to get back to his apartment building, ignoring the looks people were giving them as they passed by.
“I know it was scary, but you’re alright. You’re always safe with me, El.”
Ellie’s cries down down a little, but they don’t stop. She whimpers, burying her face against his shoulder as he finally reaches their apartment building.
The door’s locked, which wouldn’t be a problem except Danny can’t get his keys from his pocket. He knows he has them! But his pocket refuses to relinquish them and he has to stop every few seconds to pat Ellie’s back, trying in vain to calm her down.
“We’ll be inside in a second,” he tells her, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice, “as soon as I can get these freaking keys!”
“Hey, you alright?”
Danny startles, whirling around so fast it makes Ellie go quiet, clinging to him so she doesn’t get flung into the air. There’s a guy standing before him in a gray hoodie, looking at him with clear concern. It speaks to Danny’s level of constant exhaustion that he hadn’t clocked someone sneaking up behind him.
The guy offers an awkward smile. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you or anything. Um, do you need me to open to door? I live here too.”
Danny wonders for a moment if this someone dangerous, someone hoping to hurt Ellie, but she starts to cry again and he steps to the side. “Please. I can’t get my keys.”
“I’m Duke, by the way. I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”
“Danny,” he replies, watching as Duke pulls out a large key ring, jangling with the amount of keychains on it, and easily opens the door. “I’ve been here a few months, but I’m usually inside. Or walking around in the mornings with this little monster.”
“That would explain it,” Duke says as he holds the door open, letting Danny in first. “I’m usually in classes at GCU, but I decided to take a mental health day after my lab, so here I am.”
Danny walks in and waits for Duke to follow, making sure the door closes properly behind them. “Thanks. How is GCU? What do you study? I was thinking of going there myself once she gets a little older and can go to school.”
“Oh, I’m majoring in English and Human Services.” He goes to say more, but Ellie wails again and Danny winces.
“I’m so sorry. That drive by woke her up and it’s really rattled her.”
“Hey, no need to apologize. I get it, Gotham is rough to kids.”
Danny tries rocking her back and forth, but it doesn’t help. He resigns himself to another hour of her crying before she exhausts herself, and makes for the stairs, going up to the fourth floor. Duke holds open the door again, then follows after them. It makes Danny wonder if Duke is planning to do something to them, then decides he can beat Duke in a fight, so it’s fine.
Duke doesn’t try to hurt them or steal Ellie away. He opens the door to their floor and stops before they do. “I’m in here,” he says, “If you ever need me to open more doors.”
“Thanks. Um, actually, I might need help opening mine?”
Duke just smiles and makes his way back to them, following them farther into the hall until Danny stops in front of his apartment.
“If I could just get my keys,” he starts.
“Here, let me hold her for a second so you can get them,” Duke offers. Danny wants to insist that it’s fine, but Ellie cries directly into his ear and Danny, at the end of his rope, passes her over.
Like magic, Ellie settles as soon as she’s in Duke’s arms. She sniffles and hides her face away, clutching to Duke’s hoodie, but she stops crying. They both go still, surprised, and stare down at her.
“Seriously?” Danny says as he finally pulls out his keys, “Are you trying to say that I’m the problem?”
Ellie babbles lightly, and Duke turns his head to futilely hide his grin.
He grumbles as he unlocks the door and pushes it open. Ellie is acting as if she’s never been upset before a day in her life, making herself at home in Duke’s arms.
“I can’t believe this. Betrayed by my own blood.”
Duke laughs as he follows Danny into his apartment, lightly patting Ellie’s back. “It’s always the smallest, cutest ones that do this.”
“Yeah? Do you work with a lot of kids or something? Used to being betrayed by the little ones?”
“I don’t work with kids per se,” Duke says, “But my foster family is a hot mess and the youngest of them likes to keep us all on our toes.”
“Family,” Danny says in a tired, fond tone.
“Family,” Duke agrees.
With his door open and Ellie calm, Danny’s ready to just lay face down on the floor for the rest of the day and not deal with anything else. He moves to take Ellie back, holding his arms out, and Duke tries to pass her over.
The key word being tries.
Ellie tightens her grip and kicks at Danny. She refuses to be taken away from Duke, making him awkwardly try to pry her off his hoodie. Danny really hopes Duke doesn’t notice how she goes slightly intangible to make his hands fall through her arms and legs. It shouldn’t be noticeable, but it’s hard to focus on anything but a kid that clings to you, so Danny holds out for Duke’s goodwill and silence.
“As nice as it is to meet you, you need to go back to your… parent?” Danny nods when Duke looks at him in askance. “You need to go back to your parent. Okay? Come on, kid, he’s waiting for you.”
Ellie shakes her head, makes a frustrated noise, and then turns and reaches out a grabby hand towards Danny.
She still refuses to be taken from Duke when Danny tries to pick her up again, so he settles with just letting her hold two of his fingers.
“I’m so sorry about this,” he says to Duke, face burning. This is why he hasn’t been going out and being social since he moved in; Ellie is a handful even on the best days, and Danny doesn’t want someone to judge him as unfit to parent her and have her taken away.
Duke shakes his head, stepping closer. “It’s all good, man. I don’t mind. It’s not like I had any plans today. I’m already skipping my classes, might as well spend it with you two than sleep all day.”
“Are you sure? I’d be happy to invite you in, but I know Ellie can be a lot and not everyone wants to spend their day off with a baby.”
“I’m sure. Besides, I’d just be down the hall anyways. It’s no skin off my back, man.”
“Well,” Danny says, stepping to the side to give Duke full access to his open doorway, “Come on in, then.”
Ellie keeps them connected, one hand in Duke’s hoodie and the other holding Danny’s fingers, and though her cheeks are still red from how hard she had been crying, she’s calm now with her eyes shining with mischief.
As the door closes behind them, Danny realizes that this is the first time someone he’s not related to has been inside his apartment. Not even Vlad has come in, always choosing to invite Danny and Ellie out for lunch instead.
It should make him nervous, but Duke is calm and easy going and kind.
He’s making silly faces at Ellie to make her laugh, completely at ease with her in his arms, as if he’s done this a thousand times before.
Gotham is a second chance at life for Ellie. It’s a sacrifice for Danny, to be alone and without friends or family around. He’d been ready to give up everything for Ellie, to focus solely on raising her, but with Duke filling his apartment with laughter, he thinks that he can make a life here too.
All he needs to do is take that first step, reach his hand out, ask Duke to stick around.
He can do this.
#ghostlights#dc x dp#dp x dc#dcxdp#dpxdc#dc x dp fic#prompt fill#my writing#i really love writing about characters struggling to be parents v suddenly and thru unconventional means#so here's danny a year out of high school living on his own for the first time w baby ellie#and duke who needed some space and independence while he's in college. bruce pays for the apartment while duke works part time for grocerie#and ellie who had been fully developed but unstable is now a halfa baby who remembers stuff but is also. yknow. a baby.#she absolutely latched onto duke to force danny to have a life outside of her. but also she can sense that hes kind and calm#which danny needs bc he is Stressed (tm)#this leads to duke bringing over food for them and looking after ellie while danny goes shopping or naps#both of them ignoring how duke has to leave suddenly for Hero Related Reasons and how danny and ellie have Powers#it's a v delicate balance they keep for the sake of keeping ellie safe#yeah they're gonna co-parent and realize they're basically dating after MONTHS of pining#the bats have bets on who gives bruce a grandkid first and literally no one bet on duke but here he is lol :)#thanks for the prompt!!
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@ elon musk why can’t you do something that’s actually useful to society like giving Netflix a big chunk of money to renew Lockwood and Co.???
#i miss when rich people used to pay for things for us normies to enjoy#do it for the people elon musk#this will make us hate you less#elon musk#save lockwood and co#lockwood and co#locklyle#skullyle#anthony lockwood#joe cornish#lucy carlyle#george karim cubbins#george cubbins#george karim#ali hadji heshmati#cameron chapman#ruby stokes#lockwood x reader#anthony lockwood x reader#lucy carlyle x reader#george karim x reader#george cubbins x reader
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the fact that they made it illegal to make ads louder than programs on tv in 2010 but haven't updated it to apply the same regulation to streaming. who do i have to call.
#jack facts#like do they think we don't notice#i truly do hate it here#i really do think that we should get to a ''you ruined it for everyone'' threshhold with ads at this point tbh#circulating ads should be a need based allowance#below a certain nw you can circulate as many ads as you want provided they follow guidelines#then above a certain nw you get a quota. you can have x number of ads circulating at a time.#and i don't mean distinct different ads that can be put wherever. no. if you have an ad on youtube that counts as one#and if you put the SAME AD on a different platform or tv channel or at the fucking gas station pumps or on a billboard or ANYWHERE#each different instance of the ad counts as another ad in your quota!#& if you have like a 1min skippable + a 30sec unskippable v of the same ad on the same platform. that counts as two. FUCK you.#and then above another nw line. you cannot have ads at all. bye you don't need them they serve no purpose they are just annoyances.#also paying influencers to hawk your shit counts as ads! fuck you!! paid word of mouth is not actual wom that is also an ad! fuck you!!!#oh u want ppl to rec ur product & u don't have any ad spots left?? well sugar you better have a fucking good product then lol :) fuck you#also if a co breaks an ad reg that co and any co it owns/parents can never make another fucking ad ever again in its existence#AND if a ceo breaks an ad reg w one co then disbands it and makes a new co and breaks ad reg w that one#then the CEO or any co they have ANY % ownership or investment in can never make an ad ever again. FUCK you.#charities/nonprofits and sole proprietorships get one (1) appeal to a total ad ban#that's IT!! ENOUGH!!!!! ENOUGH!!!!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#AND ONE MORE THING. ''pay us not to see ads on our platform/app/other thing'' should also be illegal.#''pay us for basic ass functions'' illegal. pay to win. illegal. sale/product announcements in things that are not press. illegal.#creating an ad or listing for something that doesn't exist and only manufacturing it after it is purchased. illegal.#ads that are full screen when a user has not already selected full screen on a video player. illegal.#pop up ads. illegal.#ads with audio on a platform that doesn't. illegal. video ads on a platform that doesn't have video. illegal.#ads w epilepsy triggers. illegal everywhere forever always w out needing to be reported by consumers. cannot be circulated in the 1st place#ads w graphic violence or soundscapes that mimic it. see epilepsy triggers.#ads for things that are not actually consumer products. illegal.#anything else u want to circulate like an ad must go thru other regs to qualify as psa or edu. if it doesn't qualify tough shit get fucked.#[insert gif collage of people talking extensively while wildly gesturing for emphasis here]
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"Good morning."
"Is it a good morning, it Saturday I should be at bed not in the office doing extra work."
"Well at least it's just the two of us in the office."
"Lucky me."
Sam is your coworker, he always bullied you at work, and you never stood up for yourself. You enjoyed it especially when it is in front of other coworkers or boss. He is the tall charismatic guy your female coworkers had a crush on. Little did they all know you also did. Another secret was your foot fetish, you've never told anyone or did anything about it, but you fantasized about Sam's size 13 feet and daydreamed about them all the time.
You both started working and he made himself comfortable as he rested his feet on the desk facing you. This made you hard and less focused on your job. An hour in, he was asking you to get him stuff, prepare his breakfast, and clean his dishes. You complied with all his demands with a smile and a node. Halfway through you've barley finished any of your tasks, as his feet were taking all your focus.
"Go get me the stapler from that desk... Heyy buddy I'm talking to you."
He suddenly removed his feet from the desk and you realized what happened.
"Where you looking at my feet?"
"No... what? Did you need anything from me..."
"You freak were looking at my feet. Just when I thought you can't steep any lower."
"Why are you saying that? What do you mean?"
"Cut that bullshit off. I know you're faggot, look at how you'd anything to please me. But a foot faggot, you're so pathetic aren't you."
"No... let's just get back to work... we have to finish everything by today."
"That wasn't a question fag. Come to my side and kneel before me. Now."
You were never this scared in your life, you felt pathetic and worthless, but your dick was just getting harder than ever. You did what he ordered you to without thinking much of it.
"Yeah that's right fag. No need to lie to yourself anymore. I've had a fag in high-school and one in college, I know how to treat you well fag. Now, here's how things will work from now on, every single day you'll finish all my tasks before yours. I don't care how much overtime you work for yours. You'll address me as "Boss" even in front off our coworkers. Now I'll give you my feet to worship, but don't think you'll get them often. I might leave you my socks every now and then if you're a good fag. Now beg for my feet."
You bowed down and begged as he laughed.
"Please boss let me worship your feet. Please boss let be your fag. Please boss humiliate me. I beg you boss. I'm nothing but a lowlife faggot boss. I beg you boss make me your property."
"Pathetic, here lick my shoes clean."
His shoes were so dirty and smelly but that didn't stop you. You licked them both as hard as you can to make sure they're clean.
"Good fag, look at you taking your nutrients, maybe I should let you pass by my place and clean all my footwear. My college fag loved that."
You were so glad to hear that compliment, you made more effort in licking.
"That's enough shoes. Now take it off, I have a surprise for you."
You took his shoes off and he had no socks on, a stinky smell hit the whole office and made you almost faint. He laughed and pushed his foot on your face.
"Yeah I know you like that fag. Now you better clean them, you don't have much time. I texted my friends and they'll come and get me. I still have some tasks be sure to complete them then spend the whole night doing yours."
You didn't miss a second and attacked his feet, they were sweaty and big, his toes were perfect and his soles were soft.
"Well I guess that's it fag they're here, I have to go now."
"But boss I just started with your feet please give me some time."
He struck his foot against your face making you lose your balance and fall.
"A pathetic fag like you gets the opportunity to taste my feet and now you want more time, while fags would die to see my bare feet. I don't think you'll ever see my feet again faggot, and as a punishment I'll have your paycheck this month."
You knelt as he got his shoes on to leave and begged for forgiveness.
"I'm sorry boss. You're right. You always are, a faggot like me is lucky to be able to be kneel before you. I beg for your forgiveness boss."
"Yeah know your worth fag. For now, no foot duties to you. Let's see how good of a fag you are first."
"Yes boss. Thank you boss."
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It's Cucurucho's time to get locked up by a Brazilian! How the tables have turned haha
#qsmp#q!forever#q!cucurucho#lock him up mr president#make him pay for kidnapping all of your co parents#qsmp forever#qsmp cucurucho
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i’m new to the fandom and i saw you talk about how the fandom kinda views rob but what about charlie and glenn? what is the general consensus there?
Charlie is definitely the "fan favourite" of the three of them, which is acknowledged by RCG as well (as in, they very much are aware Charlie is way more liked than the two of them are) and it's definitely true. Some combo of Charlie Kelly being the fan-favourite character, Charlie Day's generally cheery demeanor, his insanely broad talent in every aspect of creativity, his support of fan content and shipping (see: Pacific Rim and Macdennis), and every interview he's ever done exemplifying all of that, kinda leads him to being more overwhelmingly liked than Rob or Glenn (plus, all of his social media content is either promo or him being a wholesome husband/dad).
Glenn is more complex, because his moodiness and some of his insane and incessant personal opinions (on food and health, especially) put him in a weird spot with a lot of fans...a huge chunk see him as off-putting or too similar to Dennis that he's scary. BUT that's not really representative of a chunk of the fandom, because that moodiness and his hang ups are kinda seen as the weird girl™ patheticism we see in Dennis that ends up making Glenn...obsessively likeable? Lmao. (And how do I politely work in the fact that he's the most obviously queer one of the three of them...) So the general consensus of Glenn is kinda hard to summarise... he's like manic pixie dream girl for Tumblrinas and a weird out-of-touch white guy to other fans... BUT I will say it seems like the public opinion of Glenn has shifted quite a bit since the start of Four Walls (and the end of the Podcast) in his favour. Who knew handing out free alcohol and getting drunk with fans instead of yapping about how vegetables are slowly killing you could make you more likeable ? (lmao)
I think I have it right generally but anyone can feel free to add on to this or send another ask if they think I'm far off-base, cos again my perspective is definitely affected by my interactions with them.
#and some people here just dgaf and ignore RCG#i find that hard cos like. on top of them producing/writing/directing/acting in this show#so much of sunny is self inserted or inflicted upon meta lol#you unfortunately do get more depth out of the show and the characters by following and paying attention to RCG#but i get not wanting to even touch them if youre here to enjoy a comedy and thats it#im deep in the weeds tho i need glenn to save me truly#he can have all the freak personal health opinions he wants if he keeps smiling at me like that#rcg#ask#charlie day#glenn howerton
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How to tell you're gay 101:
#guys this is so fuckgin stupid#omgomgomg#also they said theyre paying homage to sa2 by including some sa2 themed levels#I CANNOT FUCKIGM WAIT#OMLLLL#sonadow#sonic the hedgeog#shadow the hedeghog#sth#sonic generations#sonic x shadow generations#joke#<- bc ik theres gonna be that one mf thats gonna go 'so crossign each other in and x formation is gay now ok'#cos ik theres many ppl like that out there who dont let shippers have fun
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okay listen I had no interest in having Vasilli von Holtz actually show up in the game but one of my players bought a mirror in the general store for the express purpose of looking for vampires by checking to see if they don't have a reflection
and god now I desperately want to orchestrate a scenario where Mr. Holtz befriends the party, helps them fight monsters, chills in their camp, and then one day the player tries to use their mirror for something and happens to see he doesn't have a reflection
the chances of it actually happening that smoothly are next to none but imagine the looks on their faces if I pulled it off
#there's no way this would work#either my player forgets they have a mirror#or they use it on literally everyone the second they meet them#but i gotta pay off this choice with SOMETHING#queued post bc lazy#dming is hard#barovia#curse of strahd#cos#strahd campaign#dnd strahd#dnd#dnd shenanigans#strahdposting#dnd campaign#dnd5e#d&d campaign#d&d 5e#d&d#dungeon master#dungeons and dragons#cos spoilers#curse of strahd spoilers#spoilers for curse of strahd#vasili von holtz#strahd von zarovich
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it's your home too, after all. ~ jonathan stroud
LOCKWOOD & CO.
#lockwood & co#lockwood and co#lockwoodandcoedit#anthony lockwood#anthonylockwoodedit#lucy carlyle#lucycarlyleedit#georgekarimedit#george karim#smallscreensource#tvedit#cinematv#userbeccaa#pearlcaddyedit#pearlcaddy l&co#500#super quick edit--i wish i wasn't so deep in thesis mode so i could make something nicer#but i wanted to pay tribute to my beloved show and trio#i know my dash and tags will be full of (understandable) rage for a while but for me personally the rage makes it hurt more#so i just wanted to express some gratitude for the show and the lovely new narrative home and found family that it gave me#and what i'm sure will be beloved books when i have a chance to read them#i'll still be making l&co fanworks for ages and i know i'll return to portland row throughout my life#so thank you to portland row and my favorite trio
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HD version of a classic Ween photo (probably AI upscaled). 1992-ish.
#pretty sure this is ai upscaled cos it reminds me how specifically good ai is right now for bringing out family resemblance#cos looking at gener here i'm like oh hi ashton!#like how i noticed for the first time how much i have my grandad's eyes when i ran an old b&w photo of him through a pretty basic app#and if you did it yourself you could be influencing that subconsciously but the app doesn't know who this person is to you#i'm not a big ai proponent but noticing little accidents like that could actually help us to make it more useful...#if we could do something before the CEOs figure out they don't need to understand it as long as they're paying the people who do#oops i mean#lol jk am dumb pleb don't listen to me#ween#tangent#everything is ween related#90s
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valid reasons to reunite your band (twice)
you miss them so so much and your life is falling apart and the only thing that's going to get you through this low point is being around your oldest friends once more regardless of any interpersonal conflicts in your past
your auxiliary percussionist is in debt from betting on horse races
#i have to post about pavement cos naomi isn't around to to do it anymore#3. the olympics. i fucking guess#4. your bassist passes away and you have to spend the next two to three years lovingly paying tribute to him#text
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