#insurance company tricks

[life-and-health-insurance]

Don't Hide THIS or Your Family Loses Out

Thinking of lying on your life insurance application?

BIG MISTAKE!

This video reveals how hiding health info could leave your family with NOTHING when they need it most.

[hijinxinprogress]

Civilian Gothamites realizing they can get vengeance through Sword!Robin

Gothamites figuring out if they happen to mention a rogue treating animals poorly within hearing range of sword!Robin that rogue will be in custody with at least four fractures and a concussion and Damian being completely aware that like 63% of these people are lying but it’s the only way he can get experience with the nonlethal takedowns he’s experimenting with bc everyone keeps complaining about how he treats his opponents and allies 

Like he’s guiding a civilian to safety and they mention that “this would be the worst thing to happen to me today if riddler didn’t stab my fucking cat” and this civilian does not own a cat but they did own a car that was just paid off but riddler fucking crushed it with a stupid ass hot air balloon that’s shaped like a fucking question mark and Damian is aware of this bc he was the one that verified the insurance claim (but he’s been looking for a reason to punch Nygma in the throat since his last Arkham escape when he called Damian a moron)

And he also knows that if he plays along with it and says ‘as if I’d let that gaudy and tactless imbecile get away with committing such atrocities’ when prompted that he’ll get away with barely a slap on the wrist like he gets three half hearted but long lectures he’s not going to listen to and an online sensitivity training seminar he goads Tim into completing (Damian and Tim 100% try to trick each other into doing work they don’t want to do and full heartedly believe the other has no idea what they’re doing)

Bruce’s tendency for finding small crashouts at risk of becoming future rogues in Gotham and deciding they need love & supervision but what actually happens bc he’s so fucking awkward is they get almost the same amount of supervision just with like an hour of intense helicopter parenting a week but honestly besides that they just have more money and resources to do fuck shit

Tim 🤝🏾 Damian: using the manipulation tactics they learned from their mothers then later improved on with help from an assassin cult and bat/cape interrogation questioning techniques on the homies

[shitty-check-please-aus]

just a reminder that BetterHelp is selling your fucking data and that they themselves have said at industry meetings that they're a data-driven company more than a people-driven company

It feels like for a while in there that people were dropping them as a sponsor but now that the controversy has slightly dimmed there are so many ads for them again; do not give them your information, do not give them your money

I know insurance is a pain in the ass and mental health treatments cost too much out of pocket for most people. So do they, that's why they're making this little bait and switch operation. Helping people is, at best, a side product of their data harvesting, and at worst just a trick to lure people in.

[prefrontal-bastard]

I’m not sure if this is permitted in other countries, but here in the US, advertisers are allowed to use any kind of malignant psychology they want in their ads so long as those ads fit within the allotted time-frame.

Back in high school, my class watched a video on how a certain Coca-Cola advertisement was made. You may have seen it, but for those who haven’t: The ad featured a cinematic montage of a crowded beach with smiling thin white people enjoying their leisure time and drinking Coca-Cola out of a common plastic bottle.

The big takeaway from this video was that the ad wasn’t actually advertising Coca-Cola. It was advertising a lifestyle. By associating Coca-Cola with a desirable lifestyle (as well as qualities associated with desirability) it plants the association of “Coca-Cola” with “happiness” in people’s subconscious minds.

This becomes clear when you consider who the ad was meant for. The target audience wasn’t the smiling thin white people that the ad featured, but instead it was people who wanted to be smiling thin white people. This was an ad for the Gen X mom of three kids who worked full-time, who relied on shelf-stable foods to keep everyone fed, and whose nervous system was chronically fried from the stress of never having adequate time for herself.

If she was at the grocery store, and saw the very same bottle of Coca-Cola featured in that ad, she’d be far more likely to pick it up than she was before watching it. If she didn’t anticipate finding relief for her stress, then she could at least drink up the idea of it.

Of course, the thing about ads is that they stop working. Eventually, people’s minds grow wise to the fact buying a certain product doesn’t actually grant them the lifestyle associated with them.

But there’s a lot of other tricks ads employ beyond this.

The reason why Geico is the first company you consider when thinking about buying car insurance is because of the calm, consistent nature of their ads and the fact they’re ubiquitous enough to be familiar. Their mascot forms a kind of parasocial rapport with the audience, so Geico already feels familiar to you by the time you’re looking to buy insurance.

Cereal brands use cartoon-character-like mascots to make their product memorable to kids who can’t read. The reason why so many cereal mascots exhibit such frenetic, possessive behavior is to teach kids to emulate that behavior to compel parents into buying them the cereal, especially if they saw that behavior rewarded in the ad (with the cereal).

You only really see ads for apps on an app-based devices for a reason.

Then there are the ads that don’t look like ads, but look like people on TikTok sharing a new secret product with their audience using the only communication format we regularly trust: word-of-mouth.

And let’s not forget the sheer magnitude of ads that exist. I can’t go outside without seeing them. I can’t watch videos online without exposing myself to ads that wants to skewer my emotions within 10 seconds.

There’s no reprieve from it unless I wall myself off from our culture entirely.

Ads are parasites to both culture and to cognition, and they must be regulated.

[seresinhangmanjake]

Main Masterlist

Series:

Oh, Baby (dad!Jake Seresin): You might not have been his girlfriend, but when you left town one night a month after sleeping together, it completely broke Jake’s heart. Now, a year later, you’ve returned and you’re not alone. You have a new little companion that just so happens to bear a startling resemblance to Jake.

The One I Want (Jake Seresin x Plus Size!Reader): You're new in town and some guy named Jake is about to be your roommate. Being skeptical of new people keeps you lonely and uninterested in any entanglements, but Jake is desperate to change that.

Signed Away (Arranged Marriage AU): You find out about the contractual marriage your parents arranged with Jake’s when you were a baby. You’re plenty angered by it, but Jake doesn’t seem too bothered. He might even be happy.

Stolen Angel (Angel/Demon AU): You thought you were having a one-night stand with some random, normal guy. Turns out he's a winged, demon-like stalker who has been obsessed with you for years.

One shots:

Forgetting: Jake forgets to pick you up at the airport because of his ex, and for the first time, you think maybe you and Jake aren't mean to be.

Can’t Let You Go: When you and Jake broke up, it hurt both of you more than you could handle. Now, after three months of barely seeing or speaking to one another, Jake walks in on the surprise of seeing you in a wedding dress, and it brings past memories and ruined dreams to the surface.

Rather Be with You: Jake has been away for six months and he just hopes you waited for him.

It’s oh so Quiet: you are in a bad relationship, and you just want to be with Jake.

Just a Little Weak:  You are Penny’s new bartender and she warns you to stay away from one particular pilot, so you do your very best to please your boss. It is only when Penny goes out of town for the summer, leaving you in charge of the bar, that the pilot finally makes his move, and you finally give in. 18+

Touch and Go: You and Jake had been sleeping together for months, and as sure as you were of your feelings for him, you were unsure of his for you. He, however, certainly knew how he felt about you, and after you decide to go on a long trip without telling him, he lets you know just exactly what’s on his mind. 18+

Lazy Mornings and Whatnot: After coming home from his last mission, Jake doesn’t want you to leave the bed and will do what he has to if it means insuring that you’ll stay, which leads to fluffy conversations.

Jealousy Game: You do a little experiment to try to make Jake jealous and it works, with unexpected consequences that change the way you thought the night would go. 18+

Jealous Jake and the Biting Problem; Jealous Jake and the Other Sleepover Buddy: You and Jake have a friends-with-benefits situation, but when he finds bite marks on you from another guy, he doesn’t handle it well. 

Split: You break up with Jake because his actions make you question everything you’ve had between you, but he wants you to take him back. 

A First and a Second: It’s soft Dad!Hangman from start to finish. And cute marriage stuff.

Wanting it all: Hangman ends up in the hospital from a very similar Phoenix/Bob/birds situation, and you suddenly regret keeping a big secret from him.  

Drunken Words, Sober Thoughts: You and Jake had a history of flirting and occasionally kissing if too much time was spent at the bar, but it never went any further than that. One night, after showing up at your house and passing out on your couch, Jake wakes up the next morning only to learn he had drunkenly confessed his feelings for you.

Alive: After you get into an accident, Jake has a hard time coping with how close he was to losing you.

More Than What We Are: You and Jake are friends with benefits, and you have one rule: No feelings! Jake decides that rule doesn’t work for him anymore. 18+

Less Misery, More Company: Jake has feelings for you but you don’t believe it, so you play a little trick to get back at him for all of his flirtatious teasing. But that little trick fails miserably, and as the weight of your mistake settles in, you realize you owe him an explanation, one that requires you to admit some things you’ve long denied.

Back for More: Jake up and left you without explanation right before a mission. Now he’s returned wanting you back, but you want that explanation before you’ll be willing to let go of the pain and heartbreak from his sudden departure a month prior. 

Scrapes and Bruises:  When Rooster and Hangman get into a fight over you. Basically, Rooster is not thrilled about your relationship with Hangman, and their issues with one another bring up some fears of your own.

A Mission of Another Kind:Jake is assigned to a mission he did not think he would have to take part in, despite training for it with everyone else. Considering its high level of danger, you had been happy he hadn’t volunteered for it, until he came to your house one morning to tell you he had been assigned and would be leaving within the hour.

Drabbles:

He Doesn’t - Jake doesn’t do relationships...right?

Early - Jake’s a sweet boyfriend when reader gets her period.

Jake helps his drunk girlfriend

His Princess

“The bed is cold without you here”

Perfect for me, Baby - Jake is there for you when you have body-image concerns. 

Get Me Through - Jake helps you through the death of a loved one. 

[refuzz]

UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance company in the US, is allegedly using a deeply flawed AI algorithm to override doctors' judgments and wrongfully deny critical health coverage to elderly patients. This has resulted in patients being kicked out of rehabilitation programs and care facilities far too early, forcing them to drain their life savings to obtain needed care that should be covered under their government-funded Medicare Advantage Plan.

It's not just flawed, it's flawed in UnitedHealthcare's favor.

That's not a flaw... that's fraud.

[hyperlexichypatia]

I think the way nonprofits and public agencies are funded leads us to adopt some of the worst aspects of a capitalist mindset towards our service users.

In a business, the goal is clear: Generate profit. Sell more product, to generate more profit. Recruit more customers, to generate more profit. Upsell customers to a more expensive product, to generate more profit. Convince customers to keep coming back and buying more things, to generate more profit.

Manipulation is built into the process, and it's understood by all parties. When a business does something "for you," it's in the hopes that you'll buy (or keep buying, or buy more of, or persuade other people to buy) their product. When a company offers free ice cream with your insurance quote, it's not because they like you and and want you to have ice cream; it's because they want you to come for the ice cream, stay for the insurance quote, and buy their insurance policy before you leave, so they can get your money. Everybody knows this.

Nonprofits and public agencies theoretically don't have this motive. Theoretically, the services we offer are for you, the service user. Theoretically, there is no profit motive, and thus no motive for manipulation. Theoretically, whether or not people choose to use the services we offer has no effect on us, so our only goal in promoting or raising awareness of our services is so that potential users can know about them and decide whether or not to use them.

Theoretically.

But in reality, public agencies and nonprofits are funded by governments, foundations, and donors. They demand "data" to justify their funding, and a major source of "data" is the number of service users. Markers of success have to be measurable and numerical, even if that metric doesn't really make sense. So even if there's not directly a profit motive for recruiting service users as "paying customers," there can still be a financial incentive for recruiting as many service users as possible, including using "sales" techniques like giveaways and gimmicks.

Now, this isn't inherently a bad thing -- after all, people in the nonprofit sector want people to use our services, so we want to get the word out about what we have to offer. I'm not saying it's inherently wrong for a nonprofit to use a raffle or a giveaway or a pizza party or whatever to get the word out and recruit new service users.

But since the services we offer are supposed to be for the service users' own benefit, sometimes the attitude around promoting them slips into the idea that the people we're ostensibly trying to serve have to be manipulated or bribed or tricked into accepting services for their own good, because they don't know or care what's good for them.

This can get into some really unfortunate implications territory in the context of the demographics of people who tend to work at nonprofits and public agencies, compared to the demographics of people those agencies tend to serve.

Attitudes can quickly morph into "Those People don't care about their children's health/education/etc., so we have to trick and manipulate and bribe them with food and prizes."

There's a difference between "Giveaways are a fun way to get the word out about our services" and "Those People don't care about their children's diabetes risk unless we make them sit through a lecture before we give them food." And way too many public agency and nonprofit workers, in private, in what they think is a sympathetic audience, are way too open about saying the latter.

[rikamae]

I understand now. I understand all of it.

All those times politicians claimed something was "too complicated" "not that simple" "we don't have the money" it's all lies to keep us complacent.

They did it about the situation is Israel. "It's too complicated" everyone said. It didn't look complicated when I did my own research, away from those shitty think pieces talking down to me. Israel was a state built off the blood of Palestinians, and they simply do not want you to think about it. Because there is oil in the middle east and Israel is our only "Ally"

Wow, so complicated! The complicated part being that our media is tricking us into thinking this is so complex so they can be evil in plain sight: yes, so complicated of a situation!!

And today I wake up to find that the House of Representatives (the lowest level of US government) has passed a bill offering 14 billion to Israel! It will go to the Senate to vote. Wow, billion with a B huh? I got a question for you.

Where the fuck did we get enough money to fund genocide? Where the hell was all this money when it comes to supporting the Americans you politicians claim to be representing? Where was this money for free college, universal Healthcare, covid precautions, the climate crisis??

"It's just too complicated! You'll make us do cuts on other programs! You'll make us raise taxes!! Think of the taxes!!!"

Then where did this money come from? Oh, the IRS, the fucking company that handles our taxes??? Yeah????? That was an option? Why wasn't it an option before but it is now? Were they over funded and we just didn't notice until now? Or are you taking advantage of the situation to cut funding to another service you hate?? The point being: if they really want something, they can find the fucking money. They haven't because they don't want to.

It's never been complicated. It's their job to move money around. It's their fucking job to raise our taxes and provide for us, but the only people they truly represent are the ones filling their pockets with lobby money. They could have done this long ago, given us what we've been demanding, but they coddled us and said it was too complicated and our baby brains couldn't handle it. And God forbid you be a woman!! That means you're double unable to understand!

Enough. Fucking enough. Every year congress votes to increase their wages and refuses to raise our minimum wage. Every year they take advantage of their medical insurance and benefits they get for "representing" us when nearly every adult I know is left to suffer with their conditions: untreated sicknesses, chronic conditions, the depression that looms over us because we live in the most wealthy country in the world but we can't make ends meet and our government is more concern with funding armies that feeding and housing us

Politics was never complicated. They just told us it was. To shut us up. To make us feel young and idealistic and stupid. And we fell for it. And now evil is moving through the wills of our leaders IN OUR FUCKING NAMES to support a genocide in the middle east. Their only crime was being born on that land. Their only crime is being Arab. That's not a fucking crime.

Our system isn't complicated. It's working as intended. Keep the people blind and claim that it's too hard, leave all the details to them. But we are smarter than they are. We are informed. The world is connected like never before and I refuse to let their propaganda ever reach me again.

Hold them accountable. Know their names. Write it in the history books. Let their legacy be known to the end of times.

Be loud about your anger. Go to protests. Write your reps to tell them your vote is on the line. And for God's sake vote in the damned elections!

THE IDEA THAT YOUR VOTE DOESN'T MATTER IS PROPOGANDA. THEY WANT YOU TO FEEL USELESS. THEY WANT YOU TO GIVE UP SO THEY STAY IN POWER.

They want you to think it's complicated. It never has been. Be loud. Vote. Use your right to protest. Use your right to free speech. Use your right to petition. Next Tuesday is election day. Make it fucking count.

[sysmedsaresexist]

Today we're once again reminded of the levels of cruelty people are capable of.

I missed most of the drama with the bait accounts, but I want to offer some positivity and solace to those affected.

Many of you actually cared about the fake child behind the screen. You wanted to help, you sent kindness and support, and I watched many of you worry in private on discord-- everyone was very realistic about the claims. Obviously they were probably wrong, but goddamn, they needed help.

Don't be embarrassed or ashamed that you fell for it.

You are a good person, who sees good in the world.

You aren't gullible or easily manipulated.

You are still capable of trust, and you should be so proud of yourself for manging to hold on to that trait after everything you've been through.

Don't let this do further damage to you. Don't be angry with yourself, don't lose that faith in the good of humanity.

Don't let sick people trick you into thinking the world is full of only horrible people. Don't let yourself become more skeptical, because that's what they want.

Continue to believe survivors

In Canada, we have a saying.

"Better that someone abuse the system, than for someone who needs it to not have access."

Stay with me, I'm going somewhere with this.

When we talk about Universal Healthcare with Americans, this topic comes up a lot. "But people will abuse the system."

Yes, but more people actually need and use the system appropriately. You can't allow bad people to harm everyone. Everyone loses in that case.

As proof:

We pay less in taxes than Americans, and still get free Healthcare. I take home more money than you, and still get more out of it. The myth that our waitlists are months long is fake and orchestrated by American insurance companies.

Consider, for a second, how your background plays into your beliefs and skepticism regarding these topics. Maybe I was just raised to be more trusting, I don't know.

But I certainly don't think the mindset is harmful.

You can read interviews on the isstd website with clinicians that were working during the satanic panic. One interview stood out to me in particular.

Imagine for a second that you have a patient sitting in front of you. They tell you that they have dreams about being abused by a satanic cult. They give you details of these dreams and you talk through them together. For now, you're focused on how these dreams affect them. Are they losing sleep? Is their daily life affected? Anxiety? They begin to tell you about their paranoia, and how people they recognize are in the dreams.

You probe a bit deeper.

They wonder aloud if maybe it happened in real life.

How do you respond? Really think about how your response will come across.

This was the satanic panic.

The ISSTD didn't find their patients themselves. Doctors from across the world referred their patients to the ISSTD's treatment program in Chicago. The doctors at the ISSTD trusted the referring doctors, who had already done the majority of work and background gathering (meaning the ISSTD met these clients long after they had made their claims, rather than "implanting" those memories themselves). Police were involved trying to sort through all the information to find real culprits. Everyone was terrified. No one knew what was happening or who to trust or believe. It looked real.

In the back of every doctor's mind was the question, "What if they're telling the truth?"

Many doctors didn't believe their clients, but telling them that to their face would be bad practice.

This large scale hysteria was something no one was prepared for. They were flying by the seat of their pants, hoping for the best and that an answer would fall from the sky.

Yes, many of the claims were fake. Whether they were consciously made up, or stand-in pseudomemories for real abuse (a well-documented thing), and the rare cases mixed in that were genuine-- doctors tried to take their clients' claims at face value.

Imagine you tell your doctor about your abuse and they say, "that sounds a bit extreme, I don't think that's possible."

Programmed DID existed before the panic, it exists to this day. Just because you can't find the research doesn't mean it isn't there.

By claiming something specific isn't real, you also discredit the abuse leading up to it.

Let me put it another way, who cares if programmed DID is possible? Organized and ritual abuse is real. Trafficking, CSA films, war crimes, conversion groups, churches. DID is real.

Grey Faction and TST want you to stay in the mindset that it's more important to weed out fakers and malingerers than to trust people in the hopes you help just one person in a real way. They want you to be skeptical of everyone and everything in order to maintain their public image, because if you look too hard, you'll see the terrible things they have done.

GF has a bad habit of being like, "The TST doesn't take part in LARGE SCALE MURDER AND CANNIBALISM, that's not even real, it was debunked during the panic," as if to say anything less severe isn't worthy of note and also must not be real. It's surprisingly effective, and by connecting more absurd ideas with RAMCOA and the ISSTD, they manage to discredit huge swathes of the field.

Some people like to think they took the red pill, and that they've ascended to a higher level of intelligence with a new, better ability to look at things impartially, when they're really just assholes falling for bullshit. They hurt real survivors and still think they're in the right.

It's vile behavior done for cheap kicks and internet brownie points. Even 4chan types wouldn't go that far or be that pathetic.

Who else could look someone in the face and say, "I don't believe you."

They want you to think they're better than you, but which is better?

Outward and vocal skepticism and dismissal, or quiet, thoughtful reflection with the longterm goal of helping this person find their truth?

Some of you would make much better doctors than others.

The bad people aren't the ones "faking" or lying. Those people at mentally ill and still deserving of help.

The bad people are the ones who want to dismiss every claim because one person once lied about it.

Don't lose your faith. Don't let this set you back. We need more people like you.

I'm proud of you for caring about people.

What happened will further stigmatize survivors, it did real damage to people. You're not alone.

Don't let them win, you did the right things.

Stay safe, everyone.

We survived this kind of discourse once on a much larger scale. We'll do it again.

[rabbiteclair]

incidentally I found out why the pharmacy did not fill my med, and this time I can assign no blame to them. The order for my prescription of three 150 mg pills came in, they submitted it to my new insurance, and the insurance refused to cover it. ... so they called the doctor, the doctor changed it to one 300 mg and a 150 mg, and the insurance was like 'oh okay yeah that's cool' because nobody ever taught them arithmetic

tricking insurance companies into doing things with little fibs, like they're a cranky toddler or something, is a vital skill for a doctor in the US as far as I can tell

[argumate]

One thing I wonder about is: If you were designing a financial system from scratch, in 2024, would you come up with banking? That central traditional trick of banks — that they fund themselves with safe short-term demand deposits, and use depositors’ money to invest in risky longer-term loans, with all of the run risk and regulatory supervision and It’s a Wonderful Life-ness that that involves — would you recreate that if you were starting over?

Part of me feels like, if you started a new civilization and put smart but ahistorical tech people in charge of designing a financial system, it would never occur to them to recreate traditional banking. It is so messy and opaque and imprecise, using a shifting pile of demand deposits to fund long-term loans. Plenty of people — insurance companies, retirement savers — want to earn a return on their money and don’t need it anytime soon; their money can be locked up in long-term loans. The money that people keep in the bank just to pay rent and buy sandwiches doesn’t need to be pooled and invested in risky loans; it should just sit in the vault.

This idea — that bank deposits should just sit in the vault (or, realistically, in electronic money at the Federal Reserve), while risky loans should be funded by long-term investors who intend to take those risks — is sometimes called “narrow banking.” It has a long intellectual pedigree, it came back into vogue after the 2008 financial crisis, and it got attention again after last spring’s US regional banking crisis. All those crises! The traditional business of banking is necessarily crisis-prone; using risky long-term loans to back risk-free short-term demand deposits involves a fundamental mismatch, and every so often that flares up into a crisis.

And so, since 2008, but more visibly since last spring, banking really has become narrower. Private credit is the lending side of “narrow banking”: Private credit firms raise dedicated funds, with locked-up money, from investors who intend to invest in long-term loans to earn a return. And private credit is the hottest area of finance, making buyout loans and investment-grade corporate loans and funding consumer loans. And private credit is booming not just as a competitor to banks, but as a funding source for banks: Banks have the relationships and technology to make loans, but not the money, so they partner with private credit to fund the loans.

Meanwhile the deposit side of “narrow banking” is something like banks taking their customers’ money and parking it at the Federal Reserve. And in fact some money has shifted out of banks (which are not narrow) and into government money-market funds (which park the money in Fed repo or Treasury bills). Even within banks, there is less lending.

...

That’s narrow banking. I admit I have a certain emotional soft spot for traditional banking. There is something magical about how banking transmutes risky assets (loans) into risk-free liabilities (deposits). “A banking system is a superposition of fraud and genius that interposes itself between investors and entrepreneurs,” wrote Steve Randy Waldman in 2011; it allows society to use the money of risk-averse depositors to fund risky investments in growth. But it is possible that this magic no longer works: In a world of financial transparency and fast communications technology and flighty deposits, you can’t really expect to hide the risks of the banking system; you have to fund the loans with people who know they’re funding the loans.

I will say, though, that I have also written a lot about crypto over the last few years. Crypto really created a new financial system from scratch, and it started with a very strong philosophical bias against traditional banking. And then it really did recreate traditional banking! And also traditional banking crises: In 2022, it turned out that one of the main uses of crypto was to turn customer demand deposits (of crypto) into extremely risky loans (of crypto), which ended as badly as you’d have expected. “One possibility,” I wrote last year, “is that fractional reserve banking is deeply rooted in human nature.” If you started the financial system over, maybe banking would develop again. Even if actual banking is getting narrower now.

Matt Levine on narrow banking, we talk about this a lot as banks are so fundamental to how our entire civilisation currently functions and yet they're basically just hacks that lurch from crisis to crisis, more evolved than engineered

[pianokantzart]

Okay okay! !!! What if!!! .... What if Wario's background in the Movie-Verse is a reverse-isekai.

Wario's a prolific swindler who's been banned from more kingdoms than he can count. After his hundreth failed scam his long-time partner (soon-to-be Waluigi) ditches him, and Wario is left at the end of his rope and a little exhausted with the whole rigamarole.

Then he takes a wrong turn in a busted warp pipe and ends up in Brooklyn. He looks around at the abrasive behavior, streets littered with garbage, advance-fee loans, phishing scams... rental escalation... minimum wage rates... health insurance... and is like "oh, these are my people!!!"

He quickly makes himself at home and becomes fast acquainted with the ins and outs of underhanded business. At first he attempts to hide his physical differences, but soon decides to make his odd appearance part of his branding as he builds his own companies upon the fine line between "legal" and "illegal." Every so often he'll visit his old world to try out some of the "tricks" he's learned until one day, inevitably, he and Mario end up crossing paths.

[ralfmaximus]

Automakers have been selling data about the driving behavior of millions of people to the insurance industry. In the case of General Motors, affected drivers weren’t informed, and the tracking led insurance companies to charge some of them more for premiums. I’m the reporter who broke the story. I recently discovered that I’m among the drivers who was spied on.

Kashmir Hill is a technology writer who was duped into signing up for a secretive OnStar program that reported her driving habits back to GM, and then onto insurance companies. All without her knowledge or consent.

If it happened to her (a paranoid technology writer), she reasons, what chance does the average consumer have?

Unpaywalled article here.

[seat-safety-switch]

Everyone loves a rousing game of bumper cars, but as soon as you bring it onto the highway people get all uptight. That’s exactly the kind of hypocrisy that drives me nuts.

Insurance companies have been charging you for centuries to have massive accidents, investing your deposits to make even more profit, and yet very few people will ever collect on those policies. That’s your money. Now, I’m not one of those conspiracy theorists who think that the concept of “auto insurance” is a false mindworm produced by the Alien Forefathers to enslave the populace. I’m just asking questions. And one of those questions is: why don’t I start my own insurance company?

I live in a pretty free-spirited part of the world. The wingnuts who run the show around here don’t believe in getting in the way of a good time, unless that good time is being held by a minority or one of their political enemies. If you’re a corporation, you can get away with literally anything you want in the name of profit. If you’re a corporation. Starting a corporation costs three hundred dollars. Insurance is way higher than that.

Of course, being an insurance company, I still have to produce documentation that I am doing insurance-y stuff. I charge myself premiums, really fat ones. Those deposits are backstopped by a durable asset base: my backyard and garage full of old Dodge parts (worth a fortune, if you ask anyone trying to sell them on eBay.) And I don’t make it particularly easy for myself to make a claim. Luckily, I know someone at the top, so I can bypass all that red tape when it comes time to cash out the claim holdings for a new bumper or a couple cans of Princess Auto’s best tractor enamel spray paint.

It gets better, too: insurance companies will get mad at drivers, but they give other insurance companies a break. They know there’s enough moolah to spread around that they don’t need to get super froggy about any one job. Hey bro, our investment team had a bad day at the ponies, but we’ll be good for the next claim, can you spot me this one? Thanks dude! They pay for the GM dealership you just plowed through, and nobody has to know that your only “insured” is yourself. If they figure it out, they’re not going to tell their boss they got tricked. Just sweep it under the rug.

[cowboy-iliad-au]

Intro post!!!

My main blog is @please-be-nice-im-sensitive, so everything there applies here, but this is au specific!!

Here’s the community for this au:

Here’s the lore so far:

This is how it starts: There is an important man named Menelaus who owns an important insurance company focused on the potential of cowboy teams lose cattle so customers can be compensated for the loss of the cattle, and the cowboys can still get paid. So, of course he is vital for almost every cowboy out there. His wife is the leader of her own troop of cowboys, the Spartans, but one day her troop gets mugged, the cattle stolen, and everyone but her gets killed with her barely surviving herself. Soon enough, the owner of a popular railroad line, Aphrodite, notices her beaten up on the side of the road and takes her to a nearby town, Troy and has her apprentice, The mayor’s son, Paris, take care of Helen. Aphrodite believes since she and Paris helped out Helen so much, Helen should marry Paris so she can solidify a deal between the Spartans and the railroad company. But Helen is already married, and when Menelaus hears of this, he takes everyone who uses his insurance and takes them to Troy to get Helen back. In doing this, he sends some of his men out including his brother, Agamemnon, a famous gunslinger, who was able to trick Odysseus, leader of the Ithacan cowherds, into coming along. Eventually Odysseus himself is able to trick Achilles, a retired gunslinger, out of his job as a casino dancer by the name of Pyrrha, into joining the fight, and along comes his old troop, as well as his boyfriend Patroclus. A famous gunslinger named Diomedes joins the fight too because it sounds interesting to him, and this intrigues many rich folk into funding their side of the fight, while some decide to fund the trojans, who now have allied themselves with quite a bit of people as well. Soon, the mentor of about half of the major gunslingers in the country, Athena, joins the fight too on the side of the Myrmidons, and in return her rival, a retired famous wrestler, Ares, joins the Trojans. There is quite a bit of fighting, but nothing major occurs until Agammemnon steals the prize horse of a famous radio star, and has to return it. Enraged, he takes Achilles’s favorite horse and wrangler instead. Achilles is not happy by this happening, so he quits the fight but unfortunately doesn’t have the means to go home so he stays in his hotel room just outside of the fight with Patroclus. Patroclus himself is an incredible fighter so he does his best to make up for the loss of Achilles, but no one can match his aim, so after unsuccessfully begging Achilles to rejoin the fight, he takes Achilles’s hat, bandana, and one of his other horses and fights in his stead to build morale for the Myrmidons. Soon enough, Hector, the brother of Paris and sheriff of troy notices him and shoots him, mistaking him for Achilles. After finding out what happened to Patroclus, Achilles then finds new equipment and fights. He kills Hector and goes on a rampage including killing the bar tender. After about a week of nonstop fighting, Achilles collapses from exhaustion and Paris shoots him. However; Achilles put forward the turning point of the fight and soon enough Odysseus comes up with the idea of sending a caravan into Troy that was disguised as a shipment of gifts to Athena as gratitude for the help in the war, but was secretly full of cowboys. The trojans take the caravan and at night, the Myrmidons attack and take Helen back.

on his way back home from this, one of the smartest of the Achaean cowboys, Odysseus tries to head home to his wife and their separate herding business as the other cowboys try to overthrow their business and cause it to be bankrupt because they’re missing most of their employees at Troy. He meanwhile has to deal with a rich man who will stop at nothing to make sure him and his gang don’t succeed, a brothel owner who lets his men stay for the night but ends up making them pay the debt off tenfold, a one eyed animal who gives some of them rabies, and a crazy farm owner who kills and mugs most of his crew after they slaughter his cattle. He ends up stuck at a remote cottage with a girl who won’t let him leave and he lost his horse and they’re hours from anywhere so he can’t leave anyways but eventually he is able to hitch a ride to a town and overcome more obstacles before he gets back to his wife and fires the other cowboys

Thetis lore:

Thetis was the child of a wealthy cruise line owner and she had many sisters too. She worked on her father’s cruise ships for some time but soon enough she got tired of the incessant flirting from two specific people. Zeus, the untouchable politician, and his brother, the man who found large amounts of copper in mines near the Pecos river and had then struck up a deal to have complete monopoly of the river itself. One day, they cornered her and she revealed that she indeed did not want to be with a mega wealthy man like them. Because of this, they cut off all her ties with wealth and she was basically broke. Then she ends up in a small but powerful town called Pthia. The powerful casino owner took a liking to her and promised that if she was to marry him for one year, he could restore her connections. So she agreed. Nine months later, she gave birth to Achilles. A beautiful boy with golden hair and hazel eyes. She decided that she would dedicate her life to him. But still, when he is one year old, he loses his foot in a boating accident and is stuck with a prosthetic foot. She is devastated and refuses to let anything happen to him, and when Agamemnon steals his horse as well as the horse’s personal caretaker, Briseis. she begs Zeus to help her, in memory of the day he told her he would do anything for her, so he agrees to sabotage the Myrmidons until Achilles gets his horse and it’s caretaker back

Patrochilles lore:

Patroclus was the son of an infamous mob boss with a gambling addiction, and an unknown mother. His father would travel from town to town essentially robbing every casino of it’s riches and from an early age, Patroclus learned to do the same, though he was not as talented as his father. Unfortunately one thing he did get from his father was his temper. When Patroclus was eleven years old, he lost a gambling match, and went to grab the man’s gun and shot him dead. Patroclus knew his father would be angry, so he ran into the back of the Casino, and that is where Peleus found him. Peleus decided to take in this poor child with a sad backstory, and hired him to work at that casino. That is where Patroclus met Achilles, Peleus’s son and by his father’s request, a skilled sharpshooter and a master guitar player. They grew up together and seemed to grow closer by the hour. Achilles and Patroclus were taught by a famous man named Chiron who had trained all the greats of music and of shooting and soon they became masters, but Achilles was not happy. Achilles soon told Patroclus of his dream to be a dancer at a casino, but his father never let him dress up in the pretty skirts and dresses and jewelry. One day, Achilles and Patroclus visited a casino a couple towns away in Skyros and met the owner’s daughters: Deidamia. Deidamia hatched a plan with these two: Achilles was to marry Deidamia and she was to move in with him, they were also to move in with another couple: Patroclus and Pyrrha (Achilles in disguise). They were fine with this arrangement since they all had feelings for one another so the plan worked, for a while. Deidamia had a child who they named Neoptolemus, and they were all happy for a while in their polyamorous relationship. Though soon enough, Odysseus, who had heard of Achilles’s sharpshooting skills went looking for him. They say that Achilles is out of town, but Odysseus figures out one of the casino dancers is Achilles, so he tells the dancers that whoever can hold his gun correctly will get a caravan full of gold, and when Achilles picks it up, it is effortless. Odysseus figures out this is Achilles and blackmails him into joining the war or he will tell Peleus that he is secretly Pyrrha. So Patroclus and Achilles leave and Deidamia stays behind to raise Neo, nicknamed “Pyrrha” after his “godmother”. When Peleus finds out Achilles is going to war, he gifts Achilles with several prize horses that are incredibly fast and strong. Each horse had their own Caretaker. The horses were named : Ligyron, Pelides, and Podarkes. His favorite was Pelides, who had a beautiful and talented wrangler and caretaker that was specific to him named Briseis. When Achilles lost Pelides and Briseis, he lost his will to fight and stayed in his hotel room with Patroclus and cried for the loss of his favorite horse and his lovely caretaker who was also his friend. Patroclus though, had grown fond of many of the people on their side of the war and decided to fight while Achilles stayed back. He was incredible, but Achilles’s image brought glory and will to fight on their side, so Patroclus comes up with a plan. He is to wear Achilles’s clothes, ride Ligyron, put on his cowboy hat and bandana, and that way the Myrmidons would gain momentum. Unfortunately, though Hector sees Patroclus and thinks this is Achilles and shoots him dead, taking his clothes and his Ligyron with him off of the corpse of Patroclus. Achilles goes nuts. He does not eat. He does not sleep. He only fights. When Achilles rejoins the fight, the death rate in Troy multiplies by six, but after eight days of no food and no rest, he collapses from exhaustion, and Paris shoots him in the heart.

Clytemnestra lore:

Clytemnestra was a tomboy as a kid, but her parents didn’t mind much so she would remain that way. When she was nine years old, she saw her first rodeo show and was enamored. She immediately started doing everything she could to see these rodeos. When she was 14 years old, she had already created an alter ego, Clyton the abomaton Who would win every game and by 16 she became a bull wrestler. People would travel far and wide to see her, she loved the glory but she loved the job more. Soon, she started to gain notice from the son of the mayor, who fell for her even before she revealed that she was a girl. They were engaged but then she faced an issue, she was pregnant and could not pretend to be a man still. Somehow a famous wrestler named Agamemnon hears about this and he tells her that he can find her a job in wrestling even after she has given birth. She agrees, but does not realize she has to leave Tantalus behind for this. Soon enough though, Agamemnon uses his leverage on her to get her to marry him. Unfortunately though, she miscarries a week later. She is stuck in a town that he basically owns and her contract with him ties her down incredibly. Soon she is pregnant with his child and she is not ready for the world of being a mother and having Agamemnon be the father. But this child is different, she is sweet and cute and Clytemnestra’s whole world. Iphigenia is her name. Agamemnon seems to love her too, kissing her forehead before every match and buying her horses he will gift to her when she is older. When she is older, she is entranced by the horses and is soon the best horse wrangler in the town. Soon though, Agamemnon hears that his brother needs help with an issue with his wife, and he summons the whole town. One night as he is traveling to Troy, Iphigenia gets sick and instead of taking care of her, Agamemnon leaves. Iphigenia dies soon after. Clytemnestra shuts herself out, not letting herself give any love, even to her other children. She soon finds a rival wrestler to Agamemnon and they hatch a plan to kill him when he gets back from Troy, poison his drink. With a poison that would make him suffer the same way Iphigenia did.

Ithaca Family lore

Icarius and Tyndareus were the owners of one of the most powerful banks out there. Icarius was for the most part, an introvert who didn’t let the public know a lot about him, and rarely left the bank. Tyndareus was the opposite. He flaunted himself openly and hogged every bit of attention he could find. They were close as they could be. When they got older, they both had children.

Icarius married a beautiful but reserved woman named Periboea. They had several children, but seldom flaunted them to the public, to the point that everyone thought they only had one, Penelope. Penelope grew up along the children of Tyndareus and they did everything together. They shared their hopes, their dreams, their lives with one another. Helen dreamed of being a wrangler for a cowherd, Clytemnestra dreamed of being a bull wrestler, but Penelope did not know what she wanted. She was always close to Helen, so she decided that perhaps they could work together as adults, that she could manage financials and Helen could herd the animals. They did however lack the funding, so they moved away and almost gave up on their dreams. Almost.

Although Helen and Penelope can’t see Clytemnestra as much, they still go to her wrestling matches, even when she is forced to move by Agamemnon. At one of Clytemnestra’s wrestling matches in Crete, Helen is cornered by companies trying to hire her for their cowherd. She has a way with animals and they were also quite eager to hire her because of her beauty. There is one man, however who draws her attention: Menelaus. He offers to give her a loan to start her own cowherd and she falls for him instantly, however the other companies are quite tense about who she chooses, threatening a fight to break out. One of Menelaus’s friends, Odysseus makes a plan to stop the fight, and to impress Penelope, who he had developed feelings for. Helen was to make the choice to be with Menelaus, and Menelaus was to provide a discount on insurance for the cowherds in exchange for them leaving Helen alone. It works. And he most definitely impresses Penelope along the way.

Odysseus was a skilled forager and sharpshooter, who wanted a new job. So he suggests to Penelope that they could work with Helen in her cowherd. They work together for a while, but Odysseus misses his home. One day after work, Odysseus tells Penelope his feelings for her, but he also tells her that he wishes to go home. He tells her that she can come with him if she wishes to, but it is her choice. She decides to stay with him. They set up a checkpoint at Odysseus’s home, Ithaca for Helen’s business. They have stations for where cattle can eat, there is grass everywhere, and they have a small inn for Helen and her troop to stay. Odysseus handles the cleaning and the managing, and Penelope handles the business aspect. They receive profit from their little checkpoint and they become quite happy. They marry soon and not long after, Penelope becomes pregnant with their child, Telemachus. Unfortunately while Telemachus is still an infant, Helen is trapped in Troy, and a Odysseus has to come to help. Penelope is left to raise Telemachus and to manage their checkpoint on her own. She teaches Telemachus everything she knows, but they very much struggle, since she had very different expertise than Odysseus. Odysseus faces many challenges in troy and on the way home. After about seven years of Odysseus being gone, the employees and the men in their town start to try to take over Odysseus’s position as the checkpoint manager, and as Penelope’s husband. She is very much outnumbered, so she and Telemachus must come up with clever plans to stall until Odysseus gets back. Odysseus is taking a very long time to come home and they have almost left home when Athena, Odysseus’s old mentor visits them to help out. She doesn’t know much about hotel management either, but she provides a shoulder to lean on when she can be there, and when she can’t she leaves one of her owls with Penelope and Telemachus (she has quite a few, but her favorite, Pallas, is the one to stay with them.) When Odysseus finally gets home, he and Telemachus fake a stampede to scare the men away and they can finally be a happy family.

Diomedes lore

Diomedes grew up with a father who was a legend.

Tydeus was a former bank robber in his home town of Calcydon and a very successful one at that. He ran a total of 36 heists and only one of them was stopped. He was arrested, he fled, but he had to leave his hometown forever. Tydeus decided after this that he was going to start his life anew, in service to the law instead of against it. He was loyal to the mayor of the new town he was in, named Adrastus, and even ended up marrying his daughter. However one day, Tydeus was summoned to fight to help his brother in law, Polynices, get his town back (he had been a mayor previously, but a riot forced him out of Thebes) Tydeus and seven other men ventured off to help Polynices, but the rioting continued and all of the men were killed, leaving Diomedes with only stories about his father. Despite this, Diomedes decides he is going to get revenge for his father’s death and climbs the ranks in the town Argos until he has gotten himself to the seat of assistant mayor, and having the mayor suggest a marriage between Diomedes and his daughter.

Ten years after his death, the children of the fallen men sought revenge for the deaths of their fathers and were able to get Thebes back and establish it as a democracy with the new mayor being the son of Polynices. As Diomedes was gone, the mayor of Argos died, leaving him as the one in charge, but he felt opposition since his family line was not tooted in the town. Because of this, he followed the previous mayor’s instruction and married his daughter, Aegialia. They were not compatible. Though not related by blood, they grew up together and viewed each other as less of spouses and more of a sibling that they simply cannot get along with. The only solace Diomedes found between his taxing job and the toxic relationship he had with his wife was sharpshooting. As a child he had trained with the famous sharpshooter Athena so he could avenge his father, but even after Thebes was taken back, he found that sharpshooting helped him stay grounded, and he was not alone. Sthenelus, one of the others who went with him, soon joined in, until it became an expectation that if Diomedes was to go sharpshooting, Sthenelus would be there. And not just that, Sthenelus became Diomedes’s assistant mayor and helped him stay happy in his life instead of drowning in the stress of his job and marriage.

Athena visits Diomedes some time later to tell him about the war in Troy, and how he would have a chance to get in on the action and start training with her again. He agrees, and brings many people from his town with him, including Sthenelus. Diomedes is stressed by all the sudden changes and the enormous amounts of hubris on the side of the Achaeans, but Sthenelus and his new friend, Odysseus help him keep in touch with his humanity, and he helps them keep in touch with theirs. Odysseus and Diomedes would train with Athena, and they would all celebrate every victory with some beans and whisky. Odysseus tells stories of home, his wife, and the inn they ran, and Diomedes and Sthenelus would tell stories of Argos, the times they would stay up all night shooting pumpkins and laughing. Diomedes finds happiness, and because of his, he also finds success. He becomes the second best warrior of the Achaeans after Achilles, even injuring ones such as Ares, the famous wrestler, and Aphrodite, the railroad line owner who had backed in to save her son, Aeneas from dying. While the conflict with Achilles and Agamemnon is going on, Diomedes continues fighting, even reaching a point where he nearly kills Hector.

When the powerful senator, Zeus shows that he is siding with the Trojans, the Achaeans almost lose hope, but one day Odysseus and Diomedes are able to spy on the trojans and figure out a weak point of one of the allied towns nearby that provided great support to Troy and soon enough Odysseus comes up with a plan to overthrow Troy once and for all.

Troy was near a gold mine that had run out decades priar, but The Acheans set up a rouse. They were to acquire gold, take it to a nearby cave and “mine the gold” build a caravan that appeared to be full of gold, but really had a large central area built into it where men could hide, The Trojans took the caravan into the walls thinking it would help them gain riches, but in the night, the Achaeans took down the walls of Troy and get Helen back.

After all of this has gone down. Diomedes soon learns that he has been marked off as dead in the town census and framed for embezzlement by his wife. Because Diomedes can no longer go home, Athena offers him an apprenticeship so that he will one day become famous like her

Lore snippets:

Remember this: Athena in this au canonically has many pet birds, each are named after her epithets. The one who stays with Penelope and Telemachus while she is away is Pallas!!

Helen of Troy was the most talented wrangler out there so every cowherd wants to hire her, but one time she mentions to Menelaus that she would just like to own her own company, he gives her a loan for it and she falls in love instantly

As Odysseus is going home, he comes across an armed madman who thinks he looks just like his ex-wife and tries to kill Odysseus and his other cowherds and running away after stabbing him in the eye, Odysseus tells the man his name. Little does he know that the only bridge to cross the river he needs to cross to get back home is owned by the madman’s father

Aeneas is a furniture maker!!! He is a small business owner of a furniture store in Troy when his second cousin, Paris gets involved in this drama, and so he joins the fight, but often gets swept away by his mother who is scared for his safety.

Calypso is an independently wealthy plantation owner who lives hundreds of miles away from every nearby town and does not own any horses. So when she picks Odysseus up after he is mugged, he can’t leave, until someone comes by with a caravan across the road and takes pity on him

after lots of happenings, Odysseus and the cowherds are very tired and find the nearest place to rest, a brothel. But unfortunately the owner of this brothel charges incredibly high prices to stay there and it takes them forever to pay her back, and meanwhile they sleep in her pig Sty

used ideas made by @justvea18 and @nymphachilles and @nightmarearian and @brainrotroulette

[yantalia545]

Yandere America with a serial killer darling

The news has heard a lot about a mysterious man killer lately. You were notorious for luring innocent men to their fates in the dead of night. Time and time again you would strike. Leaving nothing to go on but your trademark heart carved into the victim's cheek. Giving you the infamous name; Cupid's Fallen Angel.

For the first time in a long time, America was entertained. He was determined to finally catch this sweet little killer and bring you to the light of justice.

He was hooked from your first story when your kill was broadcast on the morning news. Cupid's Fallen Angel had left a corrupt banker in a pool of his own blood behind a floozy bar. A heart caved into his cheek and a red lipstick kiss planted on the right side of his neck. Articles of his misdeeds left behind for all to discover spread out over his body.

Three weeks later Cupid's Fallen Angel strikes again. An insurance company CEO was poisoned with hydrofluoric acid. America could only grimace in sympathized pain for the poor man. It must have been an agonizing death as he read over your second kill. That was until he caught why you had targeted this man.

The insurance CEO was responsible for sleazy deals that left millions without coverage when they needed it most. Basically throwing them out to their financial deaths.

As time went on, his own police were left astray time and time again as you slipped right through their fingers and seized more victims. America could only read in awe as one after another you would slay these rotten demons. Each kill was unique in its own way from stabbings to arson. All left with your signature mark.

It wasn't uncommon. There were plenty of killers in the world who had pure-hearted motives that he could somewhat sympathize with. They, like him, were just trying to bring justice to a world full of corruption. America understood your cause and slowly began to see you as the antihero you were. His beautiful little angel of judgment. He just needed to show you the path to righteousness.

There were so many nights where America would find a stay hand unbuttoning his pants as he read over your latest marks. So many nights he would dream of you under him. In his bed. He'd fight but endeavor in the end to dominate you. The nights would be everlasting, but passionate.

He needed you. He had to have you.

So, how does one catch a killer? String yourself as the killer's next victim of course. And so, here he was, playing as if you were the one having their way with him. America even got you to lead him to his apartment.

His heart couldn't have been beating any harder than when he finally had you under him. In his bed of all places. Just as he's dreamed. America could feel his heart racing as he trailed hungry kisses over your tender body. You were finally here, in the flesh.

Time seemed to have moved slowly as he could feel you reach down to pull out the dagger you had strapped to your thigh. You were about to make your strike upon him. That was until America pulled out a trick of his own.

A syringe was quickly pricked into your neck and his serum was pushed through your veins. His own sickening laugh ruptured through the apartment suite as he watched your helpless body squirm underneath him. His free hand cupped your cheek as he watched the fight slowly leave your eyes as you fell unconscious.

America's first step was complete and now your reconditioning could begin.