#irs law firm

[irstaxexpert]

Learn six proven tips to handle a CDTFA tax audit effectively. Discover how to prepare, organize records, and respond professionally. Safeguard your business with expert advice and reduce the risk of liabilities.

[lawfirm-elixir]

[taxlawcenter]

San Diego Tax Attorneys | Tax Law Center

Looking for expert San Diego tax attorneys to free yourself and your family from the burden of IRS collections? Contact the Tax Law Center today! Our experienced team of tax attorneys will provide you with personalized solutions to navigate complex tax issues. Having helped over 3,000 clients for over 20 years, we have fought the IRS in almost every tax scenario possible. Take control of your finances and call us at (619) 304-8305 to schedule a consultation now!

[madame-fear]

*ೃ༄ 𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐀 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐙𝐈𝐓𝐒𝐎𝐒 .ೃ࿐

★ amira speaks! : dedicated to my sweet @lady-ashfade. Happy Birthday, my most dear love! I hope your day is filled with people that love you as much as we all love you in here. I wish you health, safety, joy, and tons of success in your life !! I adore you, you are one of my fave people in here, and you deserve all the best. Enjoy this, sweetie! 🩷 ˗ˏˋ ꒰ summary : your husband, Lord Lucerys Velaryon, gets a bit too possesively jealous when another Lord flirts with you by making silly jokes and remarks, and you giggle along. But, your Lord Husband will teach you how to behave — and who you truly belong to. ˗ˏˋ ꒰ word count : 2.8k

˗ˏˋ ꒰ genre : smut, dom/sub (maybe, I think?). ˗ˏˋ ꒰ pairing : Jealous!Lord!Lucerys x Wife!Reader

WARNING.ᐟ THIS FIC CONTAINS ; possesive behaviour, Dom!Lucerys, spanking, slight profanity, fingering, cunnilingus (oral sex, female receiving), slight praising.

Jealousy was a fiery thrill when it came to your husband, Lord Lucerys Velaryon.

For him, it’s a juxtaposition between aggressive possesiveness, and arousal. It was knowing that, as much as he craved to turn into ashes the person provoking jealousy on him with a simple dragonfire, he would simultaneously get to have you under his mercy — prove who you belong to.

There was nothing that caused more jealousy on him, than seeing someone having the audacity to flirt with you. Not even his older brother Jacaerys was spared with Luke’s possesiveness, when Jace sweetly offered his hand to you for a dance one day, during a dinner feast.

Of course, Jacaerys was doing nothing but merely trying to be the gentleman he had always been with you, plus a good brother-in-law and friend you could trust in. Yet, Lucerys, despite being delighted at the sight of you being happy and bonding with his family, couldn’t help but feel that overwhelming burning jealousy over his older brother. And, as expected, the (then) young Velaryon prince fucked your brains out afterwards.

Despite having the need of being dominantly feral over you in a possesive manner — he managed to treat you softly, proving that he could be even far more delicate and loving than his brother; pampering you with soft kisses, neck bites, and fucked you in a way that made you crave for more of his gentle touch.

But, his gentleness over your body faded away at the sight of another man that wasn’t part of his family having the audacity to flirt with you right in front of his face. Especially, the audacity of another Lord that had tried to flirt with you during a feast Luke hosted in Driftmark, shortly after being officially named Lord and Lady of the Tides, right in front of his face.

The way giggles spurred from your lips so sweetly at the most stupid remarks the other Lord did, with a honey-like sound, inevitably made the young Velaryon boy clench his jaw discreetly with ire. You were so endearingly delicate, like the petal of a flower, and the most polite woman — needless to say, you were charmingly precious. How could the other Lords not try and flirt with you?

Which, of course, the second the Lord had gotten far too close to your body, Lucerys had to intervene by abruptly showing up by your side, pressing a quick smooch to your lips, and possesively wrap an arm around your waist while giving the other Lord a death glare. It was his way to establish his dominance in a public space, in front of other men.

And in private? This type of jealousy wouldn’t so easily fade away from him by merely gluing your body to his own in front of the other Lord. You had to be taught your lesson, of not trying to get along with other Lords so easily. And Lucerys would teach you how to behave.

The sound of soft, yet firm fleshy sounds echoed through the walls of your private quarters, along your own hushed gasps. Laying on Lucerys’ lap, your hands gripped on the silky sheets, digging your nails deep into the texture as you bit your lower lip. His hand continously kept smacking your sensitive ass that already had a shade of red forming on your skin with each slap.

“You can only belong to me.” another gasp spurred deep from your throat, making you grip yourself tighter on the sheets, feeling the bittersweet stinging pain in your ass as Lucerys kept smacking it; increasing the pressure as he kept going. “I’m the only one who can pamper you with my love. The only one that knows exactly how to fuck you.”

Every smack he did with the palm of his hand against your rear, also hit against your achingly needy, wet cunt. Occasionally, his fingertips brushed against your folds on purpose, for the fun of seeing you squirm. “And if I need to, I could spend all night long spanking your pretty little reddened ass, until you learn how to behave, and who you belong to.”

The way he spanked you was dreadfully delicious, enjoying the stinging pain leisurely appearing around your — already reddish — skin, and your stimulated pussy. “M-My Lord,” you whispered faintly, gasping with each smack, feeling your nipples harden in arousal under your nightgown. “I-I can only be yours, and no one else’s. I promise I will behave.”

Noticing the way your cunt was already stimulated, along your ass being reddened and the sound of quiet pleasured whimpers escaping from your beauteous lips, caused a grin to tug at the corner of his rosy lips. You were such a good girl when it came to being put in your place and behaving, as well as a fast learner that obeyed to every one of his orders. “Repeat that for your Lord, dōna riña.”

Another spank surprised you, making you whince as you clenched your jaw, feeling the sore skin on your ass stinging from the repeated hand motions, and the sounds increased the more firmer his hand became against your stimulated skin. “I-I am only yours, my Lord– Fuck!” his smile grew wider as in the middle of your stuttered words, he smacked your ass louder, and harder this time; enjoying how you were both wet from arousal, yet, Luke knew his spanking was rough at times and the pain was sore on your flesh.

“I... I only belong to my Lord of Driftmark, Lucerys Velaryon, and I will behave for him.” you managed to mumble out, trying to catch your breath. The tight grip you held on the sheets loosened, feeling your hands tremble weakly. His proud grin remained at your submission, as the same hand that was used to spank you groped your ass tenderly, making your breath hitch.

Not only his touch was warm, but as well it was firmly possesive over you; using his thumb to trace shapes on your sore flesh gently, squeezing your ass in a teasing manner. And in a ravenous manner for your cunt, his fingers moved upwards to brush against your pussy, enjoying the feeling of your moist folds being rubbed against his digits.

Gods, you were so pretty when you held back your moans and whimpers from pleasure. It was undeniable that Lucerys was the only one that knew how to be so rough, yet so gentle. And he could be rougher, if he wanted to.

“Good girl. So obedient for your Lord and husband.” he praised, looking down at you with his green hazel eyes. While doing so, his fingernails scraped your skin merely to admire the goosebumps you had when he touched you that way. “You deserve to be rewarded for learning who you belong to, issa perzītsos.” as you still remained laying on his lap, quivering under his touch, his hand continued to explore your skin, only to then slightly lower the skirt of your dress.

“Sit.” Luke ordered, in a firm whisper. Eagerly and obediently for your husband, you did as he had commanded to you. The marks and bruises left from the previous spanking, along the reddened sore flesh stung the moment you stood up, and the moment you sat at the edge of the bed. But of course, you weren’t complaining; you had great pleasure when your husband disciplined you just like that, and became feral from jealousy.

With trembling legs, you sat on the edge of the bed, with both of your hands at your sides. Quietly, you observed how your husband stand from where he had been sitting — and spanking you —, and place himself in front of you, only to immediatly lower himself on his knees. “Let me show you just how much I adore you.” at his words, your breath hitched, feeling your chest rising and falling constantly. Both his hands went to your legs, spreading them apart carefully, and you unconsciously helped him to do so by spreading them yourself as well. The sexual tension between the two of you lingering on the atmosphere made your pussy glisten with aroused moist, aching to feel his cock, or tongue, or fingers inside of you.

Softly, his lips were pressed against your knee. With tender smooches, keeping his lips lingering on your skin for several seconds before continuing, he moved upwards towards your inner thigh. Each kiss made a shiver run down your back, gripping the sheets tighter as your gaze was fixed on the way he so sweetly moved to kiss your inner thigh. Every passing second made you feel wetter in between your legs, with slick dripping from your cunt excitedly to feel him.

Having reached your inner thigh, his lips focused on placing several smooches on that overly sensitive zone of your skin, and occasionally nibbling on it as to leave a bitemark. Teasingly, as he focused on moving dreadfully slow towards your pussy with his lips, his fingertips began grasping against your wet folds, making you release a soft gasp from your partly open lips. “Fuck.” you breathed out, fluttering your eyes shut as you panted softly. The feeling of your wetness being enough to coat his fingertips as they stroked you gently made him proudly grin at his own work, moving his hand so his fingers would apply pressure on your clit. “So wet for me, already?” Lucerys teased, looking up at you with his green eyes before finally focusing on your aching sex.

“W-Why are you surprised, Lord Husband?” you retorted back in a stutter, slowly opening your eyes to stare at him, and in response, he scoffed in a playful manner. The seconds felt dreadful until the young Lord decided that it was time to give you your very much needed reward, but when he did, your eyes closed again and a groan escaped deeply from your groan. His hot breathing hit against your wetness, feeling his lips become glossy with your slick as they focused on pressing tender kisses on your folds. Not one inch of your genitalia was safe from his kisses, and his tongue that occasionally appeared between those pecks to tease you further.

You tasted just like sweet honey, and he couldn’t get enough of savouring you. By the time his tongue was already vehemently passing through your wet cunt, selfishly drinking from your moistness, his fingers began teasing your entrance. The sound of your growls and the feeling of your wetness increasing to the point it dripped down onto the sheets made his cock throb with need. He so badly wanted to roll you on your stomach, and fiercely fuck you from behind like you deserved to be fucked - but he preferred to patiently wait, and reward you with little treats and some pampering.

“You taste so, so sweetly, issa dōna riña.” Lucerys whispered, between his soft nibbling on your wet folds before moving to take care of your sensitive clit. His fingers immediatly entered your tight, hot pussy — making you lean your hips forwards to encourage Lucerys to move his fingers deeper. “L-Luke,” you moaned in between quiet pants, feeling your body nearly melt the moment his lips nibbled on your sensitive nub. “And you take me so well. What a beautifully obedient girl you are.”

Vehemently, his fingers began deeply moving in, and then out in a continous manner. His lips focused on your clitoris, nibbling, sucking, and kissing it desperately to increase the delightful sound of your moans. Whenever he groaned against your sex, and he increased his finger fucking, you could feel a knot forming inside your stomach. A fiery heat tightened on your chest, sliding your hand down onto the back of his head, intertwining your fingers in between dark strands of his hair, pushing him deeper. “P-Please, don’t stop.” you begged in between ragged moans and pants, in a rather desperate manner.

“I don’t intend to. I plan on drinking from your sweet tasting pussy tonight, my love.” Luke murmured, pulling apart briefly, with his lips glossy from your own lubrication before going back to his deeds. His mouth hungrily ate your throbbing cunt, trying to catch the strong flush of wetness continously oozing from you as his fingers moved faster and deeper inside of you, trying to stimulate you further.

The knot on your stomach became tighter, as well as the heat overwhelming your chest. Throwing your head back with your eyes shut, pulling him deeper in between your legs as he kept stimulating you, your moans intensified. Their sound became slightly high-pitched the closer you felt to cumming in his fingers and mouth, with some whimpers mixed in your moans. “L-Lucerys!” his name kept escaping mindlessly from your lips, not managing to form a proper sentence. “I-I think I’m about to cum.”

It seemed that your words were all that he needed to hear, besides your continous whimpers of pleasures and the way his name rolled from your mouth so endearingly. “Cum, then, my sweet.” he encouraged, with his own breath sharpened by the intensity of his arousal. One of his hand took hold of your leg, digging his nails deep into your skin, while his other hand moved his two fingers more intensely inside of you, making almost a fleshy sound.

Slowing down on the motion with his fingers, he managed for his thumb to stroke your clit and apply pressure on it. “Cum for your Lord Husband.” his tongue moved around your entrance, teasing it further as he delighted himself with the sweet taste of your cum. At his words, your shaking hand desperately caressed his messy brunette hair, pulling slightly strands of his curly hair as you could feel yourself reaching your climax.

In between hot, moaned pants, his name continously spurred from your lips as your eyes closed, throwing your head slightly back in pleasure. From your partly opened lips, all types of sounds escaped from them faintly, progressively becoming louder the closer you were to orgasming, and cumming into his mouth. The young Velaryon Lord seemed pleased with the noises he was making you do, growling pleased against your sensitive pussy as he desperately ate you out the wetter you became.

The knot that had formed on your stomach abruptly broke out, coming out as a pleasant flush of wet, slick cum against his lips, and his tongue wasted no time in taking all of the sweet taste of yourself that you offered to him — pussydrunk from your cum as if his life depended on it.

The way you yelled his name had intensified in sound, which satisfied him because, surely, it could be heard from outside your private chambers. Several satisfied growls escaped from him, enjoying the way your hand gripped his hair. His hot breath continously hitting against your wet folds as he devoured you, making you squirm under him. It felt as if a wave of relief washed over you the moment you felt all the built-up tension be released, and him being delighted by it.

Violently, your legs trembled as soon as you had finished cumming into his mouth. The feeling of your own lubrication oozing down from you, moistening your inner thighs and the sheets below, made you softly shiver. Your hands weakly gripped the sheet, digging your nails as Lucerys continued to caress gently your wet folds with his tongue and fingers for a few more seconds shortly after you had orgasmed, just to tease you further and observe the way you so beautifully squirmed delicately under his touch.

“I don’t think I could possibly grow tired of tasting you, my love.” before pulling away, moving his cum-coated fingers out of your pussy, he placed a kiss on your overstimulated nub; which made you shiver. His hazel green eyes stared at you as he scraped his nails on your leg, across your skin.

“You taste so good, I could spend hours like this... Seeing you squirm so beautifully, cumming on my tongue.” a little grin formed at the corner of his lips, rising slightly as he had been kneeling in between your legs, just to caress your skin under your chin. Noticing the crimson tint creepin on your cheeks, the young Velaryon Lord placed his glossy lips against you tenderly, allowing you to feel your own taste.

The kiss deepened heavily, as if he were devouring, and savouring your taste. As Luke pulled away, his lips lingered on your own, grasping gently against each other while his panting breath delicately hit your skin. “You are mine, and no one else’s.” his voice whispered quietly, as his fingertips continued tracing shapes on your inner thigh in a slow manner, while his rosy lips littered your chin, cheeks, tip of your nose, and lips with several loving pecks.

If this is what you would get for merely giggling at the remarks of another flirting Lord, you were going to make sure to get Lucerys as jealous as possible more often — it was as if Luke was encouraging to keep going, and you would.

♡ taglist : ♡

@jacesvelaryons @jjamieberry @anemicroyalcore @countsmoon @beeebo234 @manuholland6 @keiratonks @kyuupidwrites @tchatso @phantasyy @tasty-nutella @mstxdes @valeriecash @cookielovesbook-akie @zzz000eee @bellarkeselection @feliuuuksks @visenya-reigned @maria699669 @mariaelizabeth21-blog1 @sweethoneyblossom1 @jamiemydeer @snowprincesa1

[corruptedcaps]

Moral Objection: Part One

This is a custom story written for @callmekeira who suggested my new profile pic.

Keira's days began before the sun had even considered waking, her coffee-fueled determination propelling her through labyrinthine legal texts and intricate case studies. As a junior associate at a prestigious law firm, she had always harbored a genuine desire to help people, to right wrongs, and to see justice served. But the deeper she delved into the firm's operations, the more disillusioned she became.

The towering glass and steel façade of the law firm masked an undercurrent of ambition that disregarded the very values Keira held dear. Partners and senior associates reveled in their power, often at the expense of ethics. However, the embodiment of this ruthlessness was Elissa, the firm's most dazzling partner. It was an open secret she used her outrageous beauty to climb quickly in the law firm, but it was her cold, calculating gaze that left a lasting impression on anyone who dared cross her path.

Keira, despite her best intentions, had managed to draw Elissa's ire more than once, always advocating for fairness, for the human element in the cases they handled. And as the sun dipped beneath the city's skyline, the relentless buzz of fluorescent lights bathed the dimly lit office in an eerie glow. Keira was just packing up to leave when her blood went cold as Elissa's frosty voice cut through the air. "Keira, darling," she purred, striding towards her desk, "I need you to stick around. We have a bit of a situation with Alphabraun. They are threatening to move their business elsewhere and you and I are going to convince them to stay.”

Despite Keira’s dislike of Elissa she was somewhat flattered that she was being asked by a top performing partner for help. However her decision was easy, especially consider the clients.

“Alphabraun are amoral and disgustingly unethical. I say we let them leave, maybe then we can attract more right thinking and conscientious companies.” Keira said somehow finding the courage.

Elissa's eyes narrowed, her lips curling into a disdainful smile. "Oh, Keira, you truly have a lot to learn. Perhaps you need a little push in the right direction." Without warning, Elissa's perfectly manicured hand shot out, her nails cutting Keira's arm. Keira recoiled, shock coursing through her as her skin tingled beneath Elissa's touch.

"What have you done?" Keira gasped, staring at the faint, glowing mark on her arm. Elissa leaned in, her voice dripping with satisfaction. "Something to make you see my point of view, dear. You'll thank me later." Keira watched, both mystified and alarmed.

A rush of warmth surged through Keira's veins, radiating from the mark on her arm. Her heart pounded, and she felt her senses sharpening, as if the world around her was coming into crystalline focus. As the sensation enveloped her, she realized her wound was healing before her eyes, the skin stitching itself together seamlessly.

Suddenly, her skin seemed to glow from within, taking on a luminous quality that had been absent before. Her hair, once a simple shade of brown, transformed into cascading waves of rich, golden blonde silk, catching the light with every movement. Her makeup subtly shifted, enhancing her features and emphasizing her eyes, making them appear more enchanting and mysterious.

A generous swell graced her chest, giving her tits that caused the zipper on her sports jacket to open. And as she flexed her hands, she couldn't help but notice her nails, now elongated and perfectly painted red, eerily matched Elissa’s.

Elissa's icy gaze locked onto Keira's changed form, a triumphant glint in her eyes. "Well, any objections now?" she inquired, her voice dripping with satisfaction. Keira's gaze slid down to her own transformed body, a sense of delight replacing her previous resistance. An intoxicating sensation of power flowed through her, igniting thoughts that were wicked and bold.

Her previous thoughts of justice and right and wrong seemed laughable and childish to her now. Why should she care about anyone but herself?

Keira's lips curled into a seductive smile as she met Elissa's gaze. "Yes plenty but they all have to do with what I’m wearing," she purred, her voice carrying a newfound confidence and allure. Elissa's own smile widened, clearly pleased with her handiwork, as she gestured for Keira to follow.

They stepped into Elissa's lavish office, adorned with sleek furniture and an air of authority. Elissa led her into a closet bigger than Keira's cubicle. As Keira surveyed the array of garments before her, she felt a wicked excitement bubbling within her. Each outfit seemed to carry a feeling of dominance and elegance that resonated with her transformed being.

Keira's fingers glided over the fabric of the outfit she had chosen, a mischievous smile playing on her lips. The tight, deep vee neck dress was made of a material that was dangerously close to being transparent but it clung to her curves, accentuating her newly heightened figure in way she couldn't deny or pass up.

As Keira stood before the mirror, the transformation was complete. She was no longer the conscientious young woman who had walked into the office that morning. With a newfound allure and wickedness, she was ready to step into a world where power, seduction, and ruthlessness reigned supreme.

“You look divine darling. Ready to do whatever it takes to keep these men with us?” Elissa said beaming proudly at her creation.

“Try and stop me.” Keira said wickedly smiling back at her new friend.

Keira and Elissa glided into the upscale club, their entrance sparking immediate intrigue. The male clients, a group of affluent and self-assured men, shifted their attention to the pair of alluring women that had just graced their midst. As they approached, Keira felt the weight of their gazes, a mixture of lust and curiosity. She loved it.

Their haughty vanity that normally repelled her seemed intoxicatingly attractive to her. Amid the crowd, one figure stood out—Jack, an enigmatic alpha amongst the group. His intense blue eyes locked onto Keira's, their connection igniting sparks that seemed to reflect the dim club lighting.

Amid the throbbing bass, Keira found herself engaged in a playful exchange with Jack, her words laced with a wicked charm. "So, Jack," she purred, "we all know you have money and looks, but how are you on the dance floor?" Jack's confident smile widened as he matched her banter. "Only one way to find out," he shot back, his voice dripping with innuendo.

Their dance grew more intimate, and as Jack's hands encircled her waist, Keira whispered, her tone dripping with wicked allure, "are you as good a lover as you are a dancer?" Jack's laughter resonated in her ear as he pulled her closer. "Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea," he murmured, the promise of a thrilling secret hanging between them.

Keira's fingers intertwined with Jack's, her grip firm as she pulled him toward the exit, her eyes locked onto his. The desire to continue their flirtatious encounter away from prying eyes was undeniable, and she could practically feel the magnetic pull between them growing stronger by the second.

As they moved through the club, Elissa's voice, a soft whisper, brushed against Keira's ear. "Good girl, seal the deal. I'll see you tomorrow," she murmured, her mischievous grin and wink sending a thrill down Keira's spine. The words echoed in Keira's mind, fueling the newfound confidence that was coursing through her.

In the privacy of a luxurious limousine, Keira's lips met Jack's in a passionate kiss. The electricity that had sizzled between them on the dance floor now ignited with a fervor that was impossible to ignore. Between heated kisses, Keira began undoing Jack’s belt and slipped her hand under to grab his formidable member. Jack moaned wantonly as Keira stroked it with precision. As she felt his cock throb as it came closer and closer to cumming she mounted him but hover her pussy just out of reach of his aching dick.

“Now Jack, if you want me to give you the best orgasm of your life then you’re going to have to tell me what I want to hear.” Keira said as she hissed darkly into his ear.

“I love you?” Jack said confused and horny in equal measure.

“Awh that’s cute honey but what I want to hear you say is that you’re keeping your business with our firm.” She continued to whisper as she tantalizingly dipped her perfect pussy off the top of his dick for a moment before retracting quickly.

“Oh fuck yes yes! As long as you’re with the firm then that’s where me and my company will stay.” He groaned.

“Good boy.” She said with a wicked smile as she lowered on to his cock where they both moaned in unison. Keira rode his dick up and down slowly at first before picking up the pace. She felt an incredible amount of control over her pussy muscles like never before. Every time she felt Jack close to cumming she was able to squeeze just enough to stop it. It felt good to be in control.

When she recognized the building of her street out the window she finally allowed him to orgasm. She felt her inside get lined with his juices which made a satisfying slurp as she got off him. Before Jack could parse what was happening Keira was already clip clopping towards her apartment.

“Wait! Keira, come back to my place.” He called out. His desire was palpable, but she didn’t even break her walk or turn around, "Another time, stud."

Up in her apartment, a sudden exhaustion washed over her like a tidal wave. The whirlwind of emotions and experiences had drained her, and as soon as she lay down, she succumbed to sleep's sweet embrace.

To be continued…

[dhaaruni]

I'm literally dying at how in his new book, Citizen, Bill Clinton flat out goes, "I was broke after my presidency because I sent my daughter to Stanford (and also kept on getting in legal trouble #whoops) so I wanted to make money before I died (which was likely to be soon)".

I low key think Republicans hated the Clintons so much because they worked for their money and weren't born into wealth, and also because Hillary made 5x as much as Bill which to his credit, he was unphased by but the men of America not so much.

[mushsect]

Zavok and Zik

Zik is the oldest of the Deadly Six. Once a leader of his own pack, Zik has taken up a supporting role in his disciple Zavok’s group. He enjoys spending his time at the tropical zone within the Lost Hex, indulging in fruity drinks and practicing his calligraphy so as to not be rusty. Do not be tricked, however. Zik stands as the second most skilled in the six, making him one of the deadliest members. With his masterful control over the water and his walking stick, which acts as his brush and his weapon, this paradise for him is a hell for you.

Zavok is the leader of the Deadly Six, and by far the strongest. A ruthless, hot headed and brash fighter, he fought and clawed his way to the top of the food chain, sending any zeti not worth his time into hiding. He has a natural ability to produce a magma within him that shines blue, burning more than natural magma ever could. With this, he can spit it at his enemies in a fireball, or even coat his fists in the boiling magma to lay down his law. He has claimed the entire volcanic region of the Lost Hex as his own, setting up his base at the very top of the largest volcano. Zavok is a firm believer in discipline and guerilla tactics, and as such has structured the Deadly Six around his ideas. With all these colorful personalities in his pack, he finds himself butting heads with just about every member of his group, sans his own master. Despite this, Zavok deeply cares about each member of the six, and respects each of their abilities. This is his pack, his family. And he’ll make sure you’re just another name lost on the hex if you find yourself in his ire.

(zik likes to surf with his brush btw)

[trannyfaggotry]

if you see this pls reblog, this needs to get to the brazilians on this site asap

brazilian legislators are trying to make abortion illegal in any case, including when the pregnancy is a direct result of rape. read the whole post if you wanna know how to stop it from happening

What is happening:

some of you may not know but brazilian law only allows access to legal abortion on three cases:

- if the fetus has anencephaly, i.e. does not have a fully formed brain, and is incompatible with life (babies born with it die within a few hours or days; most pregnancies end in miscarriage);

- if the pregnancy presents a risk to the pregnant person's life;

- if the pregnancy is the result of rape.

a proposed amendment to the constitution that outlaws abortion in any case, including the ones already approved by law, has just been approved and it's own it's way to be voted for on two other comissions. If it is approved by these two other commissions it will become law.

What will happen if it is approved?

• Children under 14 years old that have gotten pregnant from rape will have to carry the pregnancy to term, at risk of losing their own lives. In Brazil, an estimate of 100 children up to 14 years old are sexually abused per day;

• People pregnant with fetuses incompatible with life will have to carry the pregnancy to term;

• It will also make in vitro fertilization illegal, as it establishes that "human life begins at conception";

• It will also make stem cell research illegal.

How can I help?

If you're not brazilian please share this, specially if you know a brazilian person that might be affected by this shit it if becomes law.

Já se você é daqui, você pode pressionar os representantes do teu estado por e-mail, acessando o site aqui embaixo:

criançanaoémae.org

Vou deixar tbm o link de um abaixo-assinado, criado pela Frente Nacional Pela Legalização do Aborto:

link do abaixo assinado no change.org (criado pela Frente Nacional Pela Legalização do Aborto)

Amanhã dia 28.11 vai rolar em São Paulo também o Ato Contra a PEC do Estuprador em frente à Câmara Municipal, as 17h30. Logo após, teremos uma Audiência Pública referente à Violação do Direito ao Aborto Legal Em São Paulo.

Quem tiver por lá e puder ir será muito mais que bem-vinde! Vou deixar aqui embaixo os informes.

Endereço: Viaduto Jacareí, 100

Mais info em: Insta

SIGAMOS FIRMES!

[meret118]

While it hasn't yet been approved, Musk has already threatened government workers on his social media site, X, which has led to online bullying. Now he's talking about targeting the agency that enforces laws that protect Americans from banks, mortgage lenders and other financial markets.

. . .

One person suggested it was akin to defunding the corporate police.

. . .

Since its founding, the bureau "secured more than $19 billion in consumer relief, while penalizing large financial institutions and technology firms for allegedly mishandling Americans’ money," the Post reported. "Its oversight often has stoked the ire of the nation’s biggest banks, credit card companies and other lenders, which have sued the bureau repeatedly over charges of regulatory overreach."

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Elizabeth Warren on weaponized budget models

In yesterday’s essay, I broke down the new series from The American Prospect on the hidden ideology and power of budget models, these being complex statistical systems for weighing legislative proposals to determine if they are “economically sound.” The assumptions baked into these models are intensely political, and, like all dirty political actors, the model-makers claim they are “empirical” while their adversaries are “doing politics”:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/03/all-models-are-wrong/#some-are-useful

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/2023/04/04/cbo-says-no/#wealth-tax

Today edition of the Prospect continues the series with an essay by Elizabeth Warren, describing how her proposal for universal child care was defeated by the incoherent, deeply political assumptions of the Congressional Budget Office’s model, blocking an important and popular policy simply because “computer says no”:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-04-04-policymakers-fight-losing-battle-models/

When the Build Back Better bill was first mooted, it included a promise of universal, federally funded childcare. This was excised from the final language of the bill (renamed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill), because the CBO said it would cost too much: $381.5b over ten years.

This is a completely nonsensical number, and the way that CBO arrived at it is illuminating, throwing the ideology of CBO modeling into stark relief. You see, the price tag for universal childcare did not include the benefits of childcare!

As Warren points out, this is not how investment works. No business leader assesses their capital expenditures without thinking of the dividends from those investments. No firm decides whether to open a new store by estimating the rent and salaries and ignoring the sales it will generate. Any business that operates on that basis would never invest in anything.

Universal childcare produces enormous dividends. Kids who have access to high-quality childcare grow up to do better in school, have less trouble with the law, and earn more as adults. Mothers who can’t afford childcare, meanwhile, absent themselves from the workforce during their prime earning years. Those mothers are less likely to advance professionally, have lower lifetime earnings, and a higher likelihood of retiring without adequate savings.

What’s more, universal childcare is the only way to guarantee a living wage to childcare workers, who are disproportionately likely to rely on public assistance, including SNAP (AKA food stamps) to make ends meet. These stressors affect childcare workers’ job performance, and also generate public expenditures to keep those workers fed and housed.

But the CBO model does not include any of those benefits. As Warren says, in a CBO assessment, giving every kid in America decent early childhood care and every childcare worker a living wage produces the same upside as putting $381.5 in a wheelbarrow and setting it on fire.

This is by design. Congress has decreed that CBO assessments can’t factor in secondary or indirect benefits from public expenditure. This is bonkers. Public investment is all secondary and indirect benefits — from highways to broadband, from parks to training programs, from education to Medicare. Excluding indirect benefits from assessments of public investments is a literal, obvious, unavoidable recipe for ending the most productive and beneficial forms of public spending.

It means that — for example — a CBO score for Meals on Wheels for seniors is not permitted to factor in the Medicare savings from seniors who can age in their homes with dignity, rather than being warehoused at tremendous public expense in nursing homes.

It means that the salaries of additional IRS enforcers can only be counted as an expense — Congress isn’t allowed to budget for the taxes that those enforcers will recover.

And, of course, it’s why we can’t have Medicare For All. Private health insurers treat care as an expense, with no upside. Denying you care and making you sicker isn’t a bug as far as the health insurance industry is concerned — it’s a feature. You bear the expense of the sickness, after all, and they realize the savings from denying you care.

But public health programs can factor in those health benefits and weigh them against health costs — in theory, at least. However, if the budgeting process refuses to factor in “indirect” benefits — like the fact that treating your chronic illness lets you continue to take care of your kids and frees your spouse from having to quit their job to look after you — then public health care costings become indistinguishable from the private sector’s for-profit death panels.

Child care is an absolute bargain. The US ranks 33d out of 37 rich countries in terms of public child care spending, and in so doing, it kneecaps innumerable mothers’ economic prospects. The upside of providing care is enormous, far outweighing the costs — so the CBO just doesn’t weigh them.

Warren is clear that there’s no way to make public child care compatible with CBO scoring. Even when she whittled away at her bill, excluding millions of families who would have benefited from the program, the CBO still flunked it.

The current budget-scoring system was designed for people who want to “shrink government until it fits in a bathtub, and then drown it.” It is designed so that we can’t have nice things. It is designed so that the computer always says no.

Warren calls for revisions to the CBO model, to factor in those indirect benefits that are central to public spending. She also calls for greater diversity in CBO oversight, currently managed by a board of 20 economists and only two non-economists — and the majority of the economists got their PhDs from the same program and all hew to the same orthodoxy.

For all its pretense of objectivity, modeling is a subjective, interpretive discipline. If all your modelers are steeped in a single school, they will incinerate the uncertainty and caveats that should be integrated into every modeler’s conclusions, the humility that comes from working with irreducible uncertainty.

Finally, Warren reminds us that there are values that are worthy of consideration, beyond a dollars-and-cents assessment. Even though programs like child care pay for themselves, that’s not the only reason to favor them — to demand them. Child care creates “an America in which everyone has opportunities — and ‘everyone’ includes mamas.” Child care is “an investment in care workers, treating them with respect for the hard work they do.”

The CBO’s assassination of universal child care is exceptional only because it was a public knifing. As David Dayen and Rakeen Mabud wrote in their piece yesterday, nearly all of the CBO’s dirty work is done in the dark, before a policy is floated to the public:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-04-03-hidden-in-plain-sight/

The entire constellation of political possibility has been blotted out by the CBO, so that when we gaze up at the sky, we can only see a few sickly stars — weak economic nudges like pricing pollution, and not the glittering possibilities of banning it. We see the faint hope of “bending the cost-curve” on health care, and not the fierce light of simply providing care.

We can do politics. We have done it before. Every park and every highway, our libraries and our schools, our ports and our public universities — these were created by people no smarter than us. They didn’t rely on a lost art to do their work. We know how they did it. We know what’s stopping us from doing it again. And we know what to do about it.

Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

[Image ID: A disembodied hand, floating in space. It holds a Univac mainframe computer. The computer is shooting some kind of glowing red rays that are zapping three US Capitol Buildings, suspended on hovering platforms. In the background, the word NO is emblazoned in a retrocomputing magnetic ink font, limned in red.]

[lawfirm-elixir]

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[shannendoherty-fans]

Shannen Doherty’s Untimely Death Sparks Important Conversations About Healthcare Access And Equity

By Janice Gassam Asare

Shannen Doherty, the actress best known for her roles in Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed has died after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 53. In a 2015 statement to People magazine, the actress revealed her breast cancer diagnosis, stating that she was “undergoing treatment” and that she was suing a firm and its former business manager for causing her to lose her health insurance due to a failure to pay the insurance premiums. According to reports, in a lawsuit Doherty shared that she hired a firm for tax, accounting, and investment services, among other things, and that part of their role was to make her health insurance premium payments to the Screen Actors Guild; Doherty claimed that their failure to make the premium payments in 2014 caused her health insurance to lapse until the re-enrollment period in 2015. When Doherty went in for a checkup in March of 2015, the cancer was discovered, at which time it had spread. In the lawsuit, Doherty indicated that if she had insurance, she would have been able to get the checkup sooner—the cancer would have been discovered, and she could have avoided chemotherapy and a mastectomy.

Under the IRS, actors are often classified as independent contractors, which comes with its own set of challenges. Although it is unclear what Doherty’s situation was, for many independent contractors, obtaining health insurance can be difficult. Trying to get health insurance as an independent contractor can be a costly and convoluted process. A 2020 Actors’ Equity Association survey indicated that “more than 80% of nonunion actors and stage managers in California have been misclassified as independent contractors.” A 2021 research study revealed that self-employment (which is what independent contractors are considered to be) was associated with a higher likelihood of being uninsured.

Doherty’s tragic situation invites a larger conversation about healthcare access and equity in the United States. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” was signed into law in 2010 and revolutionized healthcare access in two distinct ways: “creating health insurance marketplaces with federal financial assistance that reduces premiums and deductibles and by allowing states to expand Medicaid to adults with household incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.” The ACA helped reduce the number of uninsured Americans and expanded healthcare access to those most in need. It also helped close gaps in coverage for different populations, including those with pre-existing health conditions, lower-income individuals, part-time workers, and those from historically excluded and marginalized populations.

Despite strides made through the ACA, healthcare access and equity are still persistent issues, especially within marginalized communities. Research from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) examining 2010-2022 data indicated that in 2022, non-elderly American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) and Hispanic people had the greatest uninsured rates (19.1% and 18% respectively). When compared with their white counterparts, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders (NHOPI) and Black people also had higher uninsured rates at 12.7% and 10%, respectively. The Commonwealth Fund reported that between 2013 and 2021, “states that expanded Medicaid eligibility had higher rates of insurance coverage and health care access, with smaller disparities between racial/ethnic groups and larger improvements, than states that didn’t expand Medicaid.” It’s important to note that if a Republican president is elected, Project 2025, the far-right policy proposal document, seeks to upend Medicaid as we know it by introducing limits on the amount of time that a person can receive Medicaid.

When peeling back the layers to examine these racial and ethnic differences in more detail, the Brookings Institute noted in 2020 that the refusal of several states to expand Medicaid could be one contributing factor. One 2017 research study found that some underrepresented racial groups were more likely to experience insurance loss than their white counterparts. The study indicated that for Black and Hispanic populations, specific trigger events were more likely, as well as “socioeconomic characteristics” that were linked to more insurance loss and slower insurance gain. The study also noted that in the U.S., health insurance access was associated with employment and and marriage and that Black and Hispanic populations were “disadvantaged in both areas.”

Equity in and access to healthcare is fundamental, but bias is omnipresent. Age bias, for example, is a pervasive issue in breast cancer treatment. Research also indicates that racial bias is a prevalent issue—because the current guidelines in breast cancer screenings are based on white populations, this can lead to a delayed diagnosis for women from non-white communities. Our health is one of our greatest assets and healthcare should be a basic human right, no matter what state or country you live in. As a society, we must ensure that healthcare is available, affordable and accessible to all citizens. After all, how can a country call itself great if so many of its citizens, especially those most marginalized and vulnerable, don’t have access to healthcare?

[toa-secretsanta]

thou shalt not (bear false witness) - for cecil

(tw for descriptions of violence against women)

“You’re a liar.”

“Am not.”

“Lying is a sin. You’ll be punished for it if you’re caught.”

The red rose instantly on Collin’s neck, splotching his cheeks in a way that highlighted his freckles, little dappled stars against the rough patchwork sky of his face. His face was often either red, or scrunched, or both when speaking with Poe - it was now.

“I am not!” he huffed, fingers curling into little fists at his side. “I said I saw a person down in the grotto just the other day, and I meant it!”

Poe sniffed delicately, hands splaying out to adjust the fall of her skirt. “The grown-ups would have known if there was a person down there, and they would have brought that person up to the light,” she replied, reasonably, which seemed to stoke Collin’s ire all the more.

“But what if he’s hurt?”

“Oh, so it isn’t merely a person, but a man?”

“I heard the moaning on the wind, wasn’t no voice I’d heard in the village!” he insisted, gesturing in the direction of the grotto. “I didn’t see him tumble down there, but I did see the flames go down and the stars dim the night before, so it must have been - ”

“Must have been what?” Poe’s eyes flashed as she turned toward him fully, lips tilting in a taunting smile. “You are adding rather a lot of details - ”

“I’m not lying! You go down there, you’ll see him! You’ll see I’m not lying!”

She would. Poe had never been the sort of girl who would simply take another at their word - she had legs that could move, eyes that could see, and the good sense to pick through the information presented to her in a manner that made most logical sense, that aligned with the laws of the universe. She was no fanciful child, not like Collin and his gang, always telling little tales to get the girls of the village to look at them with something amounting to interest - she was a firm hand and a dutiful heart.

What she was not, unfortunately, was any manner of athletic outdoors adventurer. Poe had gone along the paths to the Grotto of Her Gracious Reverie, had dipped her head to her clasped hands and felt the wind ruffle her hair and been told that this was the graciousness, this was the reverie, and that she should cherish and reflect on it until the next time she was taken there, but never had she dared dream that she might travel downward and set foot within.

The railed paths were there for the protection of all in the village. To step out of these bounds was to invite whatever punishment fell upon whoever was foolish enough to make the attempt.

She sighed gently, propping hands on her hips in thought for a moment, eyes seeking about the space for any safe ports of ingress downward into the caverns proper. The paths had not been designed for this, the area to be seen from a distance but not touched, the better to appreciate its holy splendor in the diffused light, but where there was a will…

Poe had oft been described as willful.

“Ah,” she murmured, ducking beneath a partition to move from civilized to wilderness, the earth crunching somewhat beneath her heel as she pressed forward to where the soil became loamy and soft, and for a moment she thought to herself well this is not so bad.

But what was soft would give, as she would learn time and away, and the earth gave way beneath her, shuttling her down past where the green stretched into the forest and to where the stone of the caverns yawned to greet her. She hissed at the scrape of rock against her skin, wiped her abraded hands on the torn white linen of her skirt, and the sound of her voice mingled gently with the wind and the overlapping harmony of another voice.

Squinting into the darkness, Poe saw the shape of him first, decidedly man-shaped, decidedly prone before her eyes adjusted and she was able to pick out the finer details.

He was breathing, for one.

He was looking directly at her, for two.

“Well,” she said primly, straightening as though she were not a right mess, her voice lilting somewhat with the slightest upward curve of her lips. “It seems at least that Collin was not entirely mistruthful.”

A grunt, though she could not have been certain if it was acknowledgement or discomfort. “Who’s Collin?”

“A boy from the village. Though would it not be rather more polite to ask who I am, since I am immediately before you?”

Another grunt, and this one she knew to be discomfort. “All right. Who are you?”

Her smile widened, creased at her eyes. “A girl from the village. But what is more important, I think, is who are you?”

She had drawn closer now, her eyes had adjusted to the oppressive dark of the cavern, and she could see him in his entirety - a ragged scrap of a man, in truth, abrasions and bruises blossoming a bouquet of red and purple and ah! that telltale mottled yellow which let her know that he must have been down here for quite some time.

But the whens were less interesting than the wherefores

The man grunted once more, and shifted, dragged himself to an approximation of upright, back against a stone which appeared to have been dragged there for that purpose. “Just a wanderer. Passing through. Got stranded by a fall - same as you, it seems.”

Poe’s smile widened. “Oh, I don’t believe that is true. You do not seem to have made your presence known - indeed, if Collin had not been spreading such stories, why, I believe none would have found you down here. Could it be that you did not wish to be found?”

There was a beat of silence when the man’s gaze settled on her, a mirror of hers on him - assessing, processing, both noticing in tandem that from where he sat currently, he could not reach her.

“Could be,” he admitted, slowly, now seeming to see her for the first time, the smile growing on his own lips as he spoke. “But what reason would I have for that? No, much more likely that I’m just some unfortunate sod, banged up by his own foolishness.”

“Then shall I tell my mother about you? Our elders? I’m certain they’d love to help a traveler in need.”

It was the same sensation, meeting his eyes, as holding a hand just above a candleflame, snapping one’s fingers to snuff it out before it scalded. She was not entirely certain what game was being played, but she had always been a canny child and a quick learner.

“You could,” he said, tilting his head and leaning forward just slightly. “You could tell everyone about me, could tell them that you’ve found a poor soul bruised and bloody and just in need of help and attention, and they’d come running, because you’re a town of sweet little hearts, aren’t you?”

She did not like the way his lips curled, she realized, did not like the odd timbre that his voice was beginning to take, the strange glint in his eyes in spite of the darkness of the cavern where they sat.

“But they won’t believe you, child.”

“Oh? And why would that be?”

Poe had not even noticed that he’d moved – or, not, he had not, had he? He had remained seated, and by all accounts should not have been able to reach across the space that separated them to brush against her, and yet she found his hand instantly nearer to her face, a single finger extended to press the button of her nose with a sly grin and a strange rush of wind.

When she had blinked, she found herself in exactly the same prim seated posture but once more on the loamy earth above the grotto, for all the world as though she had not taken her tumble and seen the strange figure in the caverns but for the rip of her skirts and the sting of her scraped knees.

Poe stood, hesitant, attempted to pat the cave dust from her shins, and that was when the vertigo hit, dropping her to her knees with a wave of disorientation and nausea.

//

“Look at the state of you!” her mother had cried, hands fluttering, distraught. Poe had not realized the extent of her excursion until she had stepped from the greenery of the forest surrounding the grotto and back onto the paved path back into the village, the warm lamplight in the streets and in her foyer coating her in a softened glow.

The stark contrast of her mother’s gaze shattered the illusion soundly, bringing the sting of her knees and the grit of mud on her hem into sharp relief.

“Apologies,” she demurred, allowing her mother to fret as she would, their waitstaff to hand with a change in shift, a basin of warm water, a soft cloth, a drink of cool spring water. Poe remained silent, eyes flicking over the gloved maid’s hands as they pressed ointment onto her scrapes, to her mother picking grass and leaves out of the weave of her skirt, agrouse of concern and complaint.

“Mother,” she said finally, “there was a man.”

“A what?” Her mother’s brow furrowed, eyes narrowing on the task of assessment, the fine fabric in her hands ruffling gently.

“A man. Down in the Grotto of Her Gracious Reverie.”

That stilled her hands, but only so long as to bring them down into her lap, dragging the lines of her face along with it. Her mother had always been pretty, all curves and light, but there was a dourness there, enhanced by the light and her disappointment as she settled her gaze heavily on Poe.

“No, Poe. There isn’t. And there is no skirt in the world worth you spilling mistruths at my feet.”

It was Poe’s turn to frown, and she pressed, “No, I mean it. I fell into - ”

“That’s enough. There’s no way to get in or out of the Grotto. You know that. I know you think you’ve gotten clever as you’ve grown, and you have, but your cleverness is no virtue in comparison to purity of spirit. Every lie from your lips stains you as badly as this grass on chiffon. Remember that.” A sigh, the sigh her mother had been letting escape more and more lately of things left unsaid for which she had not quilted the words together quite yet, and she shook her head. “Just go get yourself cleaned up for supper.”

It was clear from her mother’s tone that what she wanted to say was to drop the matter, to leave it behind and speak no more of it, and so Poe did just that: she spake of it no more.

However, she did dwell.

She dwelt on the swirling vertigo that had overtaken her, on the pitch in her gut when she instantaneously moved from one place to another with no recourse for her brain to connect the two other than knowing she had been in both. She dwelt on his choice of locale, the sanctuary promised by the innate privacy of such a place. She dwelt on that sly look on his face, the way the light had reflected in his eyes and all of the things that he had not said.

And her wherefores. She hadn’t gotten those yet.

But she was tenacious.

And she was clever.

Like a dog with a bone, she dug – methodically, not approaching that place in the forest for some time while she hunted about, asked the scholars of the village and those talented in arcana until they had given her enough of a trail to sniff out what she wanted to know, and to immerse herself in heartily.

Small things, trinkets, odds and ends moved about in safety, some tumbles nicking the hardwood of her floors, and some smaller still, granular and down to their basest level that had her mother wondering aloud when the blue soap washes had become so effective on such fragile textiles.

She gazed down at the grotto thoughtfully, and took a deep breath.

It wasn’t her first time moving something so large, but it was her first time moving herself, and though Poe had gotten the heady scent of victory in her nose with each successive progression in skill, there was something different when it was this close to her heart.

Ducking under the partition, she held her breath and took a step in -

 - and then out, the shock of the dark causing her to blink once, and for her lips to instantly curl upwards at the glint in the cavern.

“Well, hello again."  She did not immediately seat herself beside him, eyes creasing in a way that might have reflected her smile if it were any other face – her footsteps continued, a gentle half-moon around his form, less prone but still crumpled and scuffed. "I see that you are looking no better than you were before.”

A grunt, neither in discomfort nor dismissal, but amusement. “Been getting by. Crazy thing, haven’t had any other visitors since our chat. Must not have mentioned the strange man to dear mommy, huh?”

Her head cocked, as though shocked to hear it. “Hm. Poor dear. Perhaps I need to emphasize your charming disposition. They’ll come around, fear not. In the meantime, I hope that my company is sufficient, because you see, I had some questions. I’ve brought you tea, even.”

“Oh have you?”

“Indeed,” she confirmed, settling herself in a swirl of petticoats, flicking at the dust as though it made any matter before pouring from a travel flask for the both of them, steam curling upward like a sunbeam. “I don’t suppose that asking directly why you are here would yield results any different than our last conversation, however I did hope that you might perhaps explain why here.”

As though in demonstration, she gestured a delicate hand about the dimly lit space. For all that it was a holy space, revered and respected by all that Poe had ever known, it was quite frankly not an ideal place for convalescence.

Unless one wanted, quite specifically, to hide.

Unruffled in the slightest, he reached for the tea cup that she had placed, just out of his reach, chuffing a little laugh when she tugged it back farther and pinning her with a glance until she acquiesced and nudged it just a bit closer to him.

Blowing on the steam, he seemed to think about the question for a moment as he took as sip, before, with a hum, he said, “These views.”

“Oh! Merely a tourist, then? Come to see the splendor of our fair grotto? It isn’t quite as damp this time of year as it is in autumn, you have missed a real treat.” It was not that Poe disliked her hometown, it was merely that she was a realist in what it had to offer outsiders, and what it did not.

“You know what, though?” He seemed to be in a fair enough mood to humor her, which made it all the easier to seem interested in what he had to say.

It might have simply been her mind, wishing to reach, wishing to fill in gaps where there were none, but the lines of his face once more took on that sly quality, pinched around the eyes as he shifted where he was, turned to face her wholly.

“Prettier girls here than where I’m from. Friendlier, too, it seems.” That smile of his crept upward at an angle that struck Poe as viscerally displeasing, so she imitated it in kind, and he laughed. “Not that there are many left - ”

“Left? Oh, you don’t mean to tell me that yours is a tale of tragedy?” she added, pointed gaze assessing the myriad healing cuts and bruises - and now that she sat closer, there were bumps, his joints at odd angles which might have hinted at fractures, if she were not much mistaken.

“Oh, quite the tragedy,” he agreed, eager now, leaning forward. “Not all in one night, but over the course of, hell, must have been weeks - months! One by one, finding ‘em in the river - the girls, that is. Their pretty faces carved clean off.”

She had thought that she was steeled for whatever response he might have given, or at the very least incredulous, watchful of any nonsense, but she must have had a physical reaction, some reflexive instinct which caused him to bark a cackle at her.

“Oh, not many of them, only a couple dozen, only the best ones, only the ones whose mouths had laughed such pretty laughs.” Here, his eyes flicked down to her mouth, and he cackled again, this time louder.

It was at this point she realized that she was no longer smiling. She lifted the teacup to her mouth, but did not drink.

“Just a joke, of course! You do hear these horror stories, don’t you?”

He brought the cup to his lips and sipped, delicately, sighing in great relief as though it were the only thing he’d drank in days.

//

“Have you heard - ?”

“Shh, not around the children.”

“I know, it’s just - ”

“Poe, darling, I had ordered a few yards of silk and some thread, would you pop down to the shop to pick it up for me? To repair your skirt, from your little expedition. My little girl thinks she’s an adventurer now, did you know?”

If it was meant to chasten her, it fell short, and she simply inclined her head dutifully, not needing to hover long at the door to hear her mother’s friends pick up the thread just where they had left off, now that her tender ears were apparently not within range.

“ - All of them?”

“Not all of them, to hear it, but what was done to them was - ”

“Oh, don’t repeat it, I don’t want to hear. Ghastly! Could you imagine my Dove? Your Poe?”

A sigh, that familiar sigh, soft, as though there were words she wanted to say but had not yet been able to piece together the thought.

//

“You’ve become quite popular, did you know?”

This got his attention - not her entrance, because she had become rather good at simply appearing, had gotten used to the tilt of the world as she passed through it with greater speed, greater precision, greater confidence.

“Over here,” Poe supplied helpfully, crossing her arms across her stomach, near the mouth of the cavern. “My, you are recovering nicely, aren’t you? In no time you’ll have emerged from the dark of this little hovel you’ve created for yourself and walk amongst the living again. Perhaps you might even pay my village a visit. Would you like that?”

Though his lips canted, that sly smirk which was becoming so familiar to her, his eyes narrowed. It was a jab, of course - he was moving about, seated upright, and even coming to stand for moments at a time, but each tentative step forward resulted in a crumple to the ground and the whisper of wind which might have been a laugh if there had been a mouth for it.

“Oh, maybe I will. Maybe you’ll be the first I visit.”

“Wouldn’t that be kind of you,” she replied airily, taking long strides about the space he inhabited - another jab, easier to make. “After all of the time I’ve spent down here with you. Alas, I don’t believe our time is much longer.”

“No?” A sheen glimmered on the whites of his eyes, not quite curiosity, not quite the eagerness of a hound on hunt. “Getting tired of me?”

“I simply think that you might not be long for this world.” Another step, and another, deliberate presses of her heels into the dust of the cavern, a large and hollow circle about the entirety of the cavern - long strides, at first, but increasingly her steps became gentle, lighter, until she felt as though, for a moment, she was walking on the very air.

He did not have time to respond, each of the little portholes that she had left in her wake converging as one, swallowing great gulps of earth and stone hungrily as Poe sought out that face in the swirling of the dust, smile widening as she stepped back, felt the grip and pull of that strange vertigo until she heard birdsong and felt the crunch of loamy soil underneath her feet.

“But I did want to say goodbye, one final time. May the face of God greet you with all the grace you deserve.”

Later, when the village was in an uproar at the loss of their holy site, Poe vaguely heard the ladies at their gossip, some devout and pious and others less so. She heard them chitter and chatter about the scope of the damage, of the shape that it left not merely in the earth but in the paths their daily lives took, and she heard, idly, in passing, someone mention how fortunate it was that so much of the calamity had been contained, had merely sunk inward and compressed in on itself rather than grown like an imploding star.

And she could not deny the little thrill in her heart when she heard her mother say, “It must have been divine intervention.”

“Poe! Poe!” Collin shoved his way through the crowd to reach her, extended his hand until his fingers brushed against her sleeve. Urgency pinched at his face, and the red crept up, splotchy, in a way that highlighted his freckles. “Poe, he must have still been down - !”

“Darling?” her mother turned, flicked eyes from boy’s face to girl’s. “Poe, what is he talking about?”

“Nothing mother.” The reply fell easily from her tongue, and her face lit up brightly. “I don’t believe there’s anything down there. Be careful, Collin. Lying is a sin.”

[mariacallous]

A US judge has cleared the way for billions of dollars to be refunded to former customers of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.

At a court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday, judge John Dorsey gave final approval to FTX’s reorganization plan, the terms of which had previously been put to creditors and voted through by a landslide.

“I think this is a model case for how to deal with a very complex Chapter 11 proceeding,” said Dorsey. “I applaud everyone involved in the negotiation process.”

FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022 after running out of funds to process customer withdrawals. Billions of dollars’ worth of FTX customer deposits were missing. The money, a jury later found, had been swept into a sibling company and spent on high-risk trading, venture bets, debt repayments, personal loans, political donations, luxury real estate, and other illegitimate dealings.

A year later, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy, then sentenced to 25 years in prison. In September, coconspirator Caroline Ellison received a two-year prison term after testifying against Bankman-Fried at trial.

First proposed in May, the FTX bankruptcy plan charts a path to a full refund, plus interest, for former FTX customers—a level of recovery rarely seen in bankruptcies. “Generally, anything over 100 cents on the dollar is close to miraculous,” says Yesha Yadav, associate dean and a bankruptcy specialist at Vanderbilt University Law School. “What tends to happen is that unsecured creditors get cents on the dollar, if they’re lucky. The expectation is that it is a process of scarcity.”

In this case, though, the administrators of the FTX estate were able to recover billions of dollars by liquidating investments made by the exchange’s venture capital arm, FTX Ventures, and its sister company, Alameda Research, along with other assets. A rise in the price of cryptocurrencies in the period since FTX filed for bankruptcy, meanwhile, raised the value of the coins left in exchange coffers.

Under the plan, government bodies in the United States—including the Internal Revenue Service and the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission—have agreed to suspend high-value claims against FTX until creditors had been repaid (although the IRS will receive a $200 million upfront payment as part of the settlement).

Even FTX equity holders, typically the last to be repaid in a bankruptcy, stand to make back a portion of their initial investment—a maximum of $230 million between them—paid for using funds recovered by the Department of Justice through the prosecution of FTX insiders.

But despite the abnormally high expected recovery, some creditors believe they are still getting a raw deal by virtue of the way their claims have been valued.

Many customers held crypto assets like bitcoin on the FTX platform, but through a process called dollarization common to bankruptcies, their claims have instead been assigned a dollar value based on the price of those assets on the date of the bankruptcy filing. When FTX fell, the crypto market was in the doldrums, but it has since lurched to new all-time highs, meaning some customer claims would be far more valuable if the refund were mapped to the present value of crypto assets. Therefore, though dollarization is proper under the bankruptcy code, “saying [the return] is over 100 percent is just wrong,” says Yadav. “For the average person, it’s very far from that.”

Among the parties that stand to gain the most from the approval of the plan, meanwhile, are investment firms that spent millions of dollars purchasing claims from people with assets stuck in FTX, who either preferred to take a haircut and reinvest the money or had urgent need of the funds. Those claims were typically purchased at a cut-price rate before a handsome recovery was considered likely—some for less than 10 cents on the dollar—but are now worth multiples of that.

“In terms of internal rate of return—holy shit. It’s the best trade I’ve seen in my lifetime,” says Thomas Braziel, cofounder of 507 Capital, an investment firm that specializes in buying up bankruptcy claims and took a large position in FTX, and 117 Partners, which brokers claim sales. (In July, Braziel was ordered by a Delaware court to repay $1.9 million that he misappropriated as receiver of failed financial services company Fund.com to make investments and luxury purchases.)

In August, a number of former FTX customers filed formal objections to the plan with the bankruptcy court. The customers objected, variously, to the legal immunity provided under the plan to those that have administered the bankruptcy, the likelihood that cash payments would trigger costly taxable events for creditors, and other elements of the plan. “I felt vindicated when Bankman-Fried went to jail—and I believed that would flow through to bankruptcy court,” says Sunil Kavuri, one FTX customer to cosign an objection. “I’ve been unpleasantly surprised.”

In the course of the five-hour hearing, Brian Glueckstein, an attorney at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell and counsel to FTX, responded to each objection in turn. “There is no evidence on the record that somehow these debtors are not providing maximum value—none,” said Glueckstein.

In providing his approval, the judge rejected the pending objections and cleared the way for FTX administrators to begin to execute the plan.

It remains possible to lodge an appeal against the plan after its confirmation in limited circumstances. Logistical complications may also delay repayments to creditors, expected to begin late this year at the earliest. But few realistic options now remain for parties hoping to change the course of the FTX bankruptcy.

The confirmation hearing “is the last chance in a practical sense for changes to be made,” says Yadav. “This is the defining day.”

[timeless-fanfic]

Maybe Jesus stops the Pharisees from yelling at a teenage girl or comforts her after when she’s crying. Protective Jesus😭🙏

A Father’s Protection

Word Count: 1151

Jesus x (Platonic) Reader

The streets of Jerusalem bustled with life, the steady hum of conversations blending with the shuffle of footsteps as people hurried through the city. In the midst of it all, a young girl, no older than sixteen, stood frozen near the entrance of the temple. Her eyes were wide, brimming with unshed tears as harsh voices echoed in her ears.

"You should know better, child!" a Pharisee barked, his finger pointing accusingly at the girl. His face was twisted in disdain. "Have you not been taught the law? You dare approach the temple unclean, and on the Sabbath no less!"

Another Pharisee, standing beside him, shook his head. "You have no place here. This is a house of God, not for those like you—those who live in sin."

The girl trembled, her body rigid with fear. She had only come to the temple seeking solace, desperate for answers, but now she was the center of the Pharisees' ire. Their words cut deep, stinging her heart, making her feel smaller and more ashamed with each passing moment.

A few onlookers paused, watching the scene unfold, but no one stepped in. No one dared challenge the Pharisees as they scolded the girl for her perceived transgression.

And then, amidst the crowd, a figure moved toward her, His steps calm and measured, but filled with purpose.

He had seen the entire exchange from afar, His heart stirring with compassion as the Pharisees berated the girl. As He approached, the air seemed to shift, a peaceful presence washing over the scene, even before He spoke.

"Enough," Jesus said, His voice gentle yet firm.

The Pharisees turned, their faces filled with surprise and annoyance at the interruption. They hadn't expected anyone, let alone Jesus, to challenge their authority.

"Teacher," one of them sneered, "this is not your concern. This girl has disobeyed the law. She should be punished, not comforted."

Jesus met their gaze steadily, His eyes calm but filled with an unshakable resolve. "The law is not meant to destroy the brokenhearted, but to guide them toward God's love. She came seeking Him, not your condemnation."

The Pharisee huffed, crossing his arms. "She is unclean. Unworthy to enter the temple."

"Who among you is without sin?" Jesus asked, His gaze moving between the men. "Is it not written in the law that God desires mercy, not sacrifice?" (Hosea 6:6). His words were soft, yet they carried weight, causing the Pharisees to shift uncomfortably. "If you knew what that meant, you would not condemn the innocent."

The crowd was quiet, tension thick in the air, but the Pharisees, though agitated, had no answer. They muttered under their breath and slowly backed away, their authority momentarily shaken.

Once they were gone, Jesus turned His full attention to the girl. She was trembling, tears now freely streaming down her face. Her hands clutched tightly at the edges of her cloak, as if trying to hide herself from the world.

"Are you alright?" Jesus asked, His voice a soothing balm to the fear that had gripped her heart.

She couldn't bring herself to speak at first. The tears continued to flow, and she nodded weakly, though her body told a different story. She was clearly shaken by what had just happened, and her spirit was crushed beneath the weight of their cruel words.

Seeing this, Jesus knelt before her, His eyes full of kindness and compassion. He waited patiently, allowing her to catch her breath, to calm the storm inside her heart.

Finally, in a small, broken voice, she spoke. "I... I just wanted to pray," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I wanted to ask God to forgive me, but they... they said I wasn’t worthy."

Jesus’ expression softened, His heart aching for her pain. He reached out and gently placed a hand on her shoulder, offering her a comforting smile. "You are worthy," He said, His voice full of love. "Do not listen to them. God sees your heart, and He loves you more than you could ever imagine."

Her tear-filled eyes lifted to meet His, a flicker of hope stirring inside her. "But... they said I’m unclean. That I don’t belong here."

Jesus shook His head, His thumb brushing away one of her tears. "There is no one who is unworthy in the eyes of God. He invites all to come to Him, no matter their past or their mistakes." His voice grew even gentler, as if speaking directly to her soul. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3)

The girl sniffled, her shoulders relaxing just a little, as if the weight of the world had been lifted, even if just for a moment.

Jesus continued, His words like a lifeline. "Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)

The girl’s tears slowed as she listened, her heart taking in the truth of His words. She felt something shift deep within her—something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Peace. Acceptance. The knowledge that she was loved, despite what the Pharisees had said, despite what the world had told her.

Jesus rose to His feet and extended His hand toward her. She hesitated for only a moment before placing her trembling hand in His, allowing Him to help her stand.

"You don’t have to carry that burden anymore," He said softly, as she stood beside Him. "God is with you, always. He is not far away; He is here, now, and He sees you."

A small, shaky smile crept onto her face, the first sign of light breaking through her clouds of sorrow. "Thank you," she whispered, her voice still hoarse from crying, but filled with gratitude.

Jesus gave her one last, warm smile before turning to the crowd. The people who had watched in silence were now standing in awe, whispers spreading among them about what they had just witnessed.

Jesus led the girl away from the center of attention, offering her a quieter moment of peace. As they walked, He spoke to her softly, reminding her that she was loved by God, that she had nothing to fear in His presence.

For the first time in a long while, the girl felt like she could breathe again. The fear, the shame, the crushing sense of inadequacy—it all began to melt away, replaced by a peace she had never known. In that moment, she knew she had encountered something, Someone, far greater than the judgment of men.

Scripture references:

Matthew 5:3: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 11:28: "Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Hosea 6:6: "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings."