#it's such complete bullshit

[error-404-fuck-not-found]

Hey so remember how grocery prices suddenly jackknifed during lockdown and never went back down?

Well turns out the companies would have done that shit either way and had been steadily price-fixing for the last decade!

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson just announced more than $40 million in court-ordained Fuck You money from massive swaths of food production companies are to be paid out to households earning at or below 175% of the federal poverty level ($25.5k for 1 person, $34.5k for 2 people households) before Dec 31st of this year. Happy Holidays.

"The bottom line here is that my legal team took on two large corporate price-fixing conspiracies that increased the cost for groceries for Washington families. We've prevailed, and as a result, we are sending checks to over 400,000 Washington households."

Cannot stress enough the extent of the conspiracies he's talking about here. 15 out of the total 19 chicken producers got nailed in this lawsuit. Not the total number of conspirators, mind, just the ones who left enough evidence for the AG to kick their ass in so expedient a manner. Make no mistake, all 19 were in on it. The court case against the rest of them has been delayed until October of next year, though. None of them are making it out unscathed.

Tuna didn't escape antitrust horseshit either, because the CEOs of Starkist, Chicken of the Sea, and Bumblebee Tuna had a fucking group chat where they complained that the price of tuna was "too low" and they agreed to artificially inflate the price.

“What’s so maddening about the conduct of these companies is the reason that they engaged in this price-fixing conspiracy was greed. They wanted to make money."

So anyway the AG who nailed their asses to the wall and continues to do so is running for governor. If you live in Washington, could be worth your vote when primary season rolls around.

[lunisoular]

those aus where luffy is ten years younger

[hestiasroom]

it really is soooooooooooooooo like my dad to interrupt my otherwise peaceful Saturday to come around begging for $9,000 fucking dollars because he hasn't paid the mortgage in months, and somehow that's now my problem. but don't worry. if i don't have the money, he'll just beg my younger sister for it instead. that's totally not a guilt trip. why doesn't he ask his wife, you may ask? well, it's simple really. he's already drained her 401k so there's simply nothing left. that well ran dry.

It's almost like that's what happens when you quit your job with nothing lined up in December, and then spend the next 9 months fucking around in commission-only "jobs" that don't fucking pay because of course they fucking don't, continuing to try to make the thing work that hasn't been working for him for the last 8 years instead of humbling himself and getting a 9-5 job like every other normal human. you would think he would have realized back when he filed for bankruptcy in 2017 that his money management was off, but why fucking learn when there will always be a woman around to pick up the pieces of his mess? like, he literally quit another "job" at the end of August with absolutely no notice to my mom or anyone else because fuck it, that's why.

and now he fed me some sob story about how he's going to have to sue his former employer (with who's fucking money? does he also expect us to put up a retainer for him?) because they supposedly owe him 14k. I call bullshit. He doesn't stay at a job long enough to earn 1400 let alone 14k.

literally behind every broke or financially struggling woman is a man who is sucking her dry. i feel bad for my mom but also angry that she puts up with this and also allows him to come running to us when really this is an issue that should stay within their marriage.

bottom line i'm not handing over 9k just cuz he asked. i feel terribly that he's just going to pawn the issue off on my sister, but the ONLY thing I'm willing to do at this point is put up a PORTION of it, but only if my mom and sister also put up some cash. i'm so fucking sick of these secretive cash handouts that he is ALWAYS circling between the 3 of us for. if you know what i mean, then you KNOW how it is with people like that. they'll find a few "sources" and just circling between them. sometimes they'll even rob peter to pay paul.

i used to feel sorry for him but now i simply don't. he's in his damn 60s and has had time to realize that his "jobs" aren't working for him (i think he likes the "freedom" of getting to be at home when he isn't on sales calls, but he obviously isn't good enough as a salesman to make any kind of regular income, so he therefore does not deserve to keep chugging away at this failed dream when he has other responsibilities that he must meet, including his fucking mortgage). he has had time to redirect, get a normal fucking 9-5 that pays an hourly wage, so that he can be a reliable financial partner to his wife, but he's just too fucking selfish/lazy/clueless to do that. so i don't feel bad anymore.

god i am just so fucking mad about this. i can't even focus on my book anymore. there's just no consideration for ANYONE else. just give me the fucking money. he also NEVER pays me back ever. I'm so embarrassed sometimes to admit just how much my parents have held me back financially, and how much I allowed it to go on for.

[vaguely-concerned]

I understand and agree with a lot of the frustrations about the shortcomings of Inquisition as a story. but sometimes when I hear people complain about the chosen one narrative in it I do want to just be like... you know it's a deconstruction of the concept more than anything, right. the inquisitor isn't actually chosen by anything except stumbling into the wrong (right?) room at the right (wrong?) time because they like, heard a noise or whatever. or if you think they are chosen, as many do in-universe, that's something you have to take on faith, the maker-or-whoever moves in mysterious ways indeed-style. the Inquisitor isn't actually a Destined Chosen One, they're a Just Some Guy in a fancy hat, self-delusions of grandeur to taste as you'd prefer.

a running thread that goes through all of the personal quests of the companions is the concept of a comforting lie vs. an uncomfortable truth, upholding old corrupt structures vs. disrupting them, and the role of faith in navigating that. (blackwall the warden vs. thom rainier the liar and murderer. hissrad vs. the iron bull, or is that the other way around? cassandra and the seekers -- do we tell the truth about what we find, even if it means dismantling the old order of the world? and so on.) and your inquisitor IS at the same time a comforting lie (a necessary one, in dark times? the game seems to ask) and an uncomfortable truth (we are the result of random fickle chance, no protective hand is held over the universe, it's on us to make a better world because the maker sure as hell won't lift a divine finger to help anyone, should he against all odds exist). faith wielded for political power... where's the point that it crosses the line into ugliness? is it before it even begins? what's the alternative? will anyone listen to the truth, if you tell it?

interesting how you also get a mix of companion agency in this -- you have characters like dorian who ALWAYS choose one side of the comforting lie vs. uncomfortable truth dichotomy. he will always make up his own mind to go back to tevinter and try to dismantle the corruption of the old system no matter what you say, or how you try to influence him. meanwhile iron bull is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum -- so psychologically trapped and mangled, caught in an impossible spiritual catch-22, that his sense of identity is left entirely to you and your mercy. you cannot change dorian in any way that matters; you can be his friend or not, support him or not, but he is whole no matter what. you are given incredible and potentially destructive-to-him power over bull's soul. it's really cool (and heartbreaking) to think about.

this is a game about how history will eat you even while you're still alive, and shape you into whatever image it pleases to serve it, and for all your incredible power right now you are powerless in the face of the gravitational force of time -- of more than time, of History. you won't recognize yourself in what History will make of you, because you belong to it now. you don't belong to yourself anymore and you never will again. the further you were from what it needs from you to begin with, the more you will find yourself distorted in its funhouse mirror. (why hello there inquisitor ameridan, same hat!)

and to me this is so much the core of what Dragon Age is about right from the Origins days -- how and by whom history gets written, the inherent unreliable narration of it all. I hope you like stories, Inquisitor. You are one now.

I do think it's probably still the weakest of the games narratively, and it's hampered by its structure and bloated systems. but I also find it disingenous to say that there's nothing deeper or actually interesting going on with it, thematically. if you're willing to engage with it there is Some Real Shit going on under the high fantasy-tinted surface.

[eilraee]

I think forgetting about dream studio in the second film was a mistake. It has so much potential!

[feligayzed]

biiiiiig stretch

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

The more "empowered" Disney tries to write their heroines as, the less interesting and charismatic they become, ironically.

[mikurinkuwu]

Low-key wish you could just draw wholesome stuff between these two characters but you want to draw the sixteen year old feeling up the almost naked fourteen year old but who cares I know you don’t keep doing what you’re doing who cares anymore.

anon with all due respect, fuck off

[grimalkinmessor]

At the risk of revealing that I'm a Crazy Conspiracy Theorist I really do think that the biggest reason Hollywood seems to hate youtubers and wants nothing to do with them is because they are infinitely harder to control. People usually have to pay their dues to become famous, usually have to sign their damn soul away or do crazy awful shit in order to get a hand up—but you can't threaten obscurity to someone who already has a large fan base. Who is, in a lot of ways, already famous. A while back Mark talked about his time at a red carpet gathering and how no one would look at him or pay attention to him; almost like he was getting deliberately snubbed for being a youtuber. And yeah a lot of it is probably also the fact that "real" actors and directors don't see youtuber creations as valuable or Real Art, but I also think that a big part of that hostility is that he's not tied to it like they are. They can't make him do anything. Which, again I'm theorizing, is why I think Iron Lung is getting clotheslined. Because you know damn well that if Mark has enough money to produce it himself, then he has enough to advertise and release it himself. But he can't. For Some Reason. He's got to jump through hoops first because, well.

It really is all about control.

[lividbrunette]

I am so sick and tired of seeing all these “I know biden is bad, I know biden has done some bad things but vote for biden because trump will destroy our democracy” posts bc a) clearly our democracy is a sham and b) STOP DEFENDING BIDEN, STOP DOWNPLAYING WHAT HE HAS DONE! you do not need to, nor should you, defend biden to any degree. you can say that we cannot let trump win without that other bullshit. biden is pure evil, he is scum. and part of what makes him so horrendous and disturbing is the charade he puts on like he’s the good guy and trump is the evil, the bad to his good. quite literally the only thing that he has going for him is that his opponent is somehow even worse than him. that his opponent has no pretense of even trying to act like he doesn’t want to fully be a dictator. stop fucking defending biden. stop fucking downplaying all the horrendous, despicable, evil things he has done and is continuing to do. he is fully funding and supporting and enabling a genocide. it helps no one.

and if/when biden loses, he only has himself to blame.

ideally we would all rally behind a third party candidate and the electoral college wouldn’t exist. ideally these wouldn’t be our “choices”. idfk what to do because trump cannot win but how can any of us in good conscience vote for biden’s evil, fascistic, decrepit ass ??

what makes biden so different from or better than trump? nothing!!

- he is unconditionally supporting netanyahu and his genocide of Palestinians

- democrats have done nothing to protect nor help us as roe v. wade was overturned, we still have student loan debt, the cost of living is unaffordable and the minimum wage remains unchanged, biden has increased police presence and funding for police (more so than in 2020, despite the eruption of BLM protests and the murder of George Floyd and his promise to George Floyd’s family that he wouldn’t let his murder become just another number, another hashtag), and so. much. more.

- biden is building off of trump’s policies - specifically and most recently, biden has just announced an executive order to deny asylum requests. the increase in police funding and the further militarization of police was also built off of trump’s policies

the u.s. is an evil sham of a country.

as ethel cain said …

[lonesomenecromancer]

princess and her birb

[your-unfriendlyghost]

can I interest y’all in some low-effort stevepop in these tryin times?

[zipmode]

okkk last drawing of the night

[valtsv]

the silly verses. teehee.

[v5m4k]

shit hurts like hell fr

[dailyhmsw]

loop 71

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