#jabs for jobless

[sophsweet]

Government Diet Advice Leads to Yo-Yo Dieting

I searched for anything on government diet advice and yo-yo dieting from misinformation and there was nothing so here goes

Weight management requires both daily activity and eating real food to get essential nutrients. Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay During lockdown, many people went from commuting daily to work, walking to the bus stop, going out during breaks, commuting home or going out. While at work we cannot snack. An entire industry of delivering food to workplaces has grown out of the shorter…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jonathan Nicholson at HuffPost:

Vice President Kamala Harris, in her first major economic policy address since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, unveiled Friday proposals to ease the costs of housing and food as part of a larger effort to create “an opportunity economy.” The speech in Raleigh, N.C., which had been widely anticipated to fill in some details of broader themes Harris has hit in her public appearances, also took a few jabs at rival GOP nominee Donald Trump and his proposals. Harris defined an “opportunity economy” as one “where everyone can compete and have a real chance to succeed. Everyone, regardless of who they are or where they start, has an opportunity to build wealth for themselves and their children.” The economy, and specifically inflation, is seen as one of Harris’ biggest weak spots, even as it has quickly recovered from the short but sharp downturn caused by the 2020 onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. While joblessness has remained below 4% for much of Harris’ term as vice president, inflation on a 12-month basis hit a four-decade high in 2022 and voters remain concerned about how high prices have remained. Harris’ proposals laid out Friday looked to assuage some of that concern and give voters a new target for their ire: greedy corporations. “When I am elected president, I will make it a top priority to bring down costs and increase economic security for all Americans. As president, I will take on the high costs that matter most to most Americans like the cost of food,” Harris said.

“I know most businesses are creating jobs, contributing to our economy and playing by the rules, but some are not and that’s just not right and we need to take action when that is the case,” she said. She cited proposals to penalize “opportunistic companies that exploit crises” to price gouge and to boost competition in the food industry. On housing, Harris said she will “take down barriers and cut red tape” to increase the supply of housing, with a target of 3 million new homes available for purchase or rental by the end of her first term. She also said she’d fight for a law to prevent corporations that own rental properties from colluding to fix prices and backed helping first-time homebuyers with their purchases by providing a $25,000 government payment toward their homes. Harris also said her proposals, which she did not put a price tag on, would be accomplished while reducing the government’s budget deficit. She did not provide details on how they would be paid for.

This afternoon, Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris delivered a brilliant speech on her economic plans, especially in regards to fixing the housing crisis and combatting price-gouging.

#HarrisWalz2024

See Also:

HuffPost: Kamala Harris’ Big Economic Speech Breaks With Biden And Continues His Legacy

[allamericansbitch]

it will never stop being hilarious to me that swifties take every opportunity to go after joe when he has not said a thing this entire time and then call him jobless lmfao. who is actually living rent free in whose brains now hm

(also i fucking hate the jokes and jabs at his career so much. like sorry employment is morally neutral and calling people you don't like jobless is just fucking mean. but swifties only know how to be nice to one person ig lol)

No it’s so funny now like why are they so obsessed why are they a passive aggressive joe alwyn update account

[witheredoffherwitch]

Please Alysmond is not a ~romantic~ story. It's about the rape of a woman whose entire family was murdered by a rapist prince. Comparing her tragedy to Daphne Du Maurier's romance trivializes other victims' suffering.

Okaaaay!!!

So this question is definitely a jab at my tags from this particular post (an excellent one, i might add):

If this harmless thing (that was OBVIOUSLY meant to be taken as a fucking joke) got you spitting nails in my asks, then I seriously hope some therapy is covered under your current healthcare plan. Because I hate to be the one to break it to you -- BUT the next three seasons are going to be insufferable on this platform. I highly recommend you 1) delete your twitter account if you have one, 2) get a job and 3) find some real purpose in life before you further short-circuit your fuse.

I am actually irritated at you for making me look these tags up! BUT it also lets me suspect that the anon from original post is also sent by you - because despite this slumping economy and rising joblessness, it still takes a special breed of talentless cretin to mald over these hashtags. And if my assumption is true, then these have to be the most milquetoast 'attack' against your indignant response for this particular ship. So yes, FUCK you!

I am not going to repeat my arguments for why I find this couple compelling. If anyone is interested, then I shall direct you to this post. Instead, I want to focus on this loser blaming me for 'trivializing' sexual assualt. Once again, FUCK you! The fact that too many of you are so media challenged is beyond me!! It's a fucking show, for FUCK's sake!

It's fine if you don't deem them 'romantic', and regardless of what you believe, I am not here to change your mind on Alysmond or any of these characters. You can engage with it however you like.. BUT it takes a special kind of privileged arsehole to go about attacking people for liking ships they are not comfortable with. It takes a special kind of imbecile to engage in these casual mudslinging over fictional characters. Such a classic ad-hominem response!

For shame anon, FOR SHAAAAAAME!

[aaronieros]

KWIS REJUV PLAYER??? okay for da asks: 10, 12, 14, 17, 20, aaaand 27!

HAVE U NOT BEEN SEEING ME GO STUPID CAZY ABOUT THIS GAME...... how did you dodge all my kierans i must not be posting enough about him

10. Favorite villain/antagonist(s)?

i already said kieran and zetta are my favorite characters overall so i will just choose another favorite antagonist. i wuv nastasia

12. Any personal headcanons? Feel free to ramble! (You can ask for a specific character as well.)

brother i have been coming up with so much random shit for kieran especially because i have been rping as him on twitter (the brainrot is so strong this is literally the first time i'm really doing any kind of serious rp and it's for him)

off the top of my head:

• due to Being A Robot, he has no sense of smell or taste and his sense of touch is basically just being able to sense that something is touching him but no actual Sensation.

• finds having cash on hand to be convenient but obviously is a jobless evil android so he just steals random strangers' wallets

• has jean's memories but frequently deletes them which resulted in the personality and identity he currently has, with no real attachment to his supposed former self

• this one is for jean but i think he was a little freak boy with food and would dip his bagels in strawberry yogurt (it's his favorite breakfast snack)

14. What character(s) did you initially not care about or dislike that grew on you after a while?

zetta was love at first sight but kieran i didn't know what to think about until The Disease spontaneously hit me. i remember having no real opinion on him and then he was tied up and zetta was talking about killing him and i was like "nooo don't kill kieran i like him he's fun :^(" and Then realized he's a fav. and my love has only grown stronger

17. Favorite aevian form?

as much fun as i've been having sweeping the renegade route with a debugged in aevian volcarona, i think aevian leavanny is still my babygirl. i have one named mercy in my main file that i use as a utility mon (intimidate with breaking swipe/struggle bug/fell stinger/poison jab)

20. What got you into Rejuvenation in first place?

i always play a lot of rom hacks but have only tried a couple of fangames. one of which was bushido which i really liked (mostly because of kuro. i am extremely in love with him) but it ran like absolute garbage on my laptop and i sadly assumed fangames just weren't really a possibility for me because i wasn't willing to play them in slow motion but rejuv looked so good that i decided to go ahead and see how it runs... and it works fine! :^o and now i have to wonder what other fangames i could try

27. Favorite rift pokemon?

hm. i actually don't like the rift mons very much. but i do like code: bella's design a lot (which. hardly counts as a pokemon considering.)

[perpetual-canon]

Perpetual Canon Chapter 1. Light in The End of The Rabbit Hole

before / 2. “we go way back” II - 2/2 / next where it started / navigation / about the story

Russ turned to Noodle.

“So that's your friend?”  

“Yeah,” she said. “‘Ts ma bestie. Great guy.” 

Russ raised his eyebrows.

“We go way back,” she added defensively.

Ace blinked. Alrighty then.

(ABOUT) THREE WEEKS AGO

To be honest, no person in their right mind would go to the club to listen to a solo bass performance.

Ace tried to master acoustic guitar back when he was a kid, but apart from bringing some skills and some change on the streets, it made him bored outta his mind. Besides, Ace couldn’t even mask his mediocre skills with singing. He was no Ed Sheeran, that much he knew.

But bass was another story. Ace was leaning mainly on intuition while learning to play, and all jokes about bass players aside, it proved to be possible to reach a somewhat decent level just by lots and lots of improvising, and some solid pointers from Grubber.

So one thing led to another, and Ace landed this part-time gig downtown. He was hired by a fairly successful local cover band for a set of services, which included:

1. Playing before said band in bars, to make up for them being constantly late due to various “mystical coincidences”. (Ace suspected the lead guitarist's drug addiction. It was quite mystical how she fell from the stage a couple times already in the past week Ace has been working with them.)

2. Watching over the band and being their designated driver in case something goes wrong. (Things did go wrong for them pretty often.)

Unfortunately, considering the quality of bars the band was performing in, unless you were Jaco Pastorius, there was always a slight risk of being shot on stage. So Ace’s act usually was brief and involved a lot of guitar-slapping.

Apart from that, it was nothing special – worse than it could’ve been, but better than the jobless void Ace was stewing in for a whole year. To be honest, it was hard. When he and the boys were living in a leaking bus on a literal dump, Ace was a proper leader, capable and (allegedly) even fearless. Now, when they finally were able to afford renting a flat, everybody proved to be more capable than him. Everyone managed to find decent jobs, and they even started a fund for Lil Arturo’s college. Sure, for now it was just a jar in a closet. But a big, promising jar. Full of wonders yet to come, as Big Billy used to say.

And then there was Ace. 20-something, good for nothing. He has been doing odd jobs, but couldn’t settle anywhere for long. Maybe he looked too much like a street rat to catch the eye of proper employers. And, in all honesty, he was one, no avoiding it. Wasn’t looking good in a resume tho.

So no, Ace was not complaining about the gig. He was just observing, making notes. Wasn’t his fault notes came out to be sorta greasy.

--

After Ace finished his routine, he sat down at the bar.

He watched the band perform, and let the familiar numbness blur the uncomfortable pangs in his chest. As a cover band, they accepted requests. Sometimes they were hilariously bad. Right now someone ordered Nickelback and it was a jab at the vocalist’s pride, so instead of singing properly, he was hissing like bacon on fire.

Ace swirled on a bar stool and heaved a deep sigh in hopes that the bartender would take pity on him. The bartender wasn’t impressed, but rewarded him with a glass of water.

The night was still young and people just started to gather, so the bar was not very busy.

Ace was wearing his dark shades again, and so could stare at people busying around without drawing attention. Some might say that only douchebags wear shades in the building, but Ace was ready to accept any label as long as it came handy.   

Aside from a couple of obvious regulars, there was also a tiny woman in a sickeningly bright hoodie. She looked quite out of place, like a teen who wandered in to take home her drunken father.

She sipped whiskey on rocks.

Maybe she was the drunken father.

Even with the hood covering her bangs, Ace couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something familiar about her. He vaguely hoped that it wasn’t because she was Asian and he had sight problems. He didn’t want to be That Guy.

In the meantime the band had finally finished torturing people with their take on Nickelback and got to another request.

“Somebody is feeling nostalgic!” the vocalist yelled in the mike. “Here is “Feel Good Inc”! Without the rap part tho, sorry”.

Ace felt a tingle of warmth rise up from under the dull blanket of boredom. To be honest, that was him who left this request. He figured that if he is going to sit here at the bar with only water in his system, he might as well try to enjoy it. And he knew for sure that this was the only Gorillaz song the band was capable of playing.

Humming under his breath, Ace glanced at the girl again.

She looked sorta tense now. She finished her whiskey in one gulp and called the bartender.

From the corner of the eye Ace saw her showing something to him. It looked like some piece of paper. Whatever it was, the bartender shook his head with a blank expression.

The girl was visibly disappointed by that and slided down from the stool, clearly about to leave. But then she looked up – straight at Ace.

He quickly darted his eyes back to the stage, burning with sudden embarrassment. The girl’s look was pretty intense.

By the time the vocalist reached the second windmill, she was already gone.

Only way later, when Ace was driving drunken band members home at night, it suddenly hit him. The reason why she seemed so familiar.

But it couldn’t be true. His vision must’ve been playing tricks on him.

It couldn't have been muthafuckin’ Noodle from muthafuckin’ Gorillaz.

--

The club was way more sleazy than the one they played at before. Ace half-expected that someone would throw a bottle at his head at some point during the performance. The band climbing on the stage was still hungover and slightly high, so for them the possibility was still on the table. Ace was already bracing himself for driving them all to the hospital instead of their houses.

Unfortunately it meant that, once again, he couldn’t get even a fucking Margarita.

Ace quickly slided between people and furniture, trying to find the least grease stained place for himself and his bass. He was pretty sure at least three couples were already fucking in darker corners of the bar.

That’s when he saw her again.

Same hoodie, same complexion. It was the girl.

She was diving through the crowd like a little koi fish, with a joint in her fingers and a hood on her head. Heart-shaped glasses sparkled dully under the dim lights.

Now Ace could say that he was quite intrigued.

Hypothetically, yes, it could’ve been Noodle. He was aware that The Band was staying in Detroit. But what could’ve prompted her to visit such smelly places? Aren’t stars supposed to club at the tops of skyscrapers with Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart making brownies, of something?

How dangerous exactly was it to get mixed in this?

--

So far things have been pretty intense. The guitarist ended up in ER two times in the last week, and the drummer caught some STD that didn’t allow him to sit properly.

But all this meant nothing to Ace. His thoughts were completely occupied by the hoodie girl.

For the last five clubs and bars they’ve been playing in, she was always there. She usually arrived well after the band started to play and there was a decent crowd in the venue already. She was always covered up in some way, took something to drink and chatted with the bartender. Then she disappeared.

By this point Ace was pretty sure that she was, in fact, the Noodle from Gorillaz herself. He’s made a point to google paparazzi photos just to compare how she would have looked without makeup and photoshop, and it was a match.

This time Ace was expecting her. The curiosity was bothering him like fleas (And he knew the feeling, the metaphor was quite literal here).

Would he get a chance to talk to her, to learn about why she keeps visiting all these places? Would it be better to ask her directly? Wasn’t she a direct person? What were the odds she’d hit him directly in the face?

As always, Ace sat down at the bar. Watching the drummer suffer on stage was quite entertaining, but he couldn’t stop looking around, waiting for a glimpse of the pink hoodie.

“Hey,” the bartender snapped his fingers, to get Ace’s attention. “You can’t sit here”.

Ace stared at him blankly, trying to remember if he did something to piss the guy off in the past. He appeared quite generic.

“Unless you buy a drink, you can’t take up the space. I don’t make the rules”.

Ace looked at the plaque behind the bartender. It said “My Bar – My Rules”. Right.

“Sorry chef. Ain’t got no money tonight. But you see, I need to watch those fuckas on stage. I’m, how do you put it… their nanny”.

“I don’t care, mate. Unless ya skinny ass ‘bout to order somethin’, Imma callin’ the security. We’ve got a hit up ‘bout ya folk, that stuff disappears here and there after ya’all performance. And from what I’m lookin’ at, you better leave the premises and wait for your friends outside”.

Ace clicked his tongue.

Fuckin’ band had a chance or even a plan to throw him under the bus for whatever junk they’ve smuggled from those shitholes? Not cool.

“That’s a shitty team to be on, that’s for sure,” chimed the voice from behind Ace.

He turned around.

The one and only Noodle from Gorillaz plopped on a stool beside him.

“I’m buying, man,” she said to the bartender. “Long Island for my friend here. And make it longer.”

She saluted Ace with her drink.

Bartender shot them a weary glance, but obliged.

Ace stared at Noodle, desperately trying to find some words to say that would not sound completely and utterly dumb.

“So,” he said.

“So,” she repeated. “Wassup?”

“Drummer got an STD and can’t sit properly,” blurted Ace. His cheeks burned. By the end of the sentence he was already accepting his imminent death.

Noodle raised an eyebrow and shot a quick glance on stage.

“Shit,” she chuckled. “I thought he was just energetic.”

“Gettin’ a solo in the middle of the chorus? Yeah, you can say so.”

Noodle snorted in her drink, splattering whiskey all over Ace’s shirt.

Great.

PRESENT TIME

“Music,” stated Noodle with a strainingly wide smile. “That’s how we know each other! Ha-hah”.

Russel was observing her quietly, with some sort of underlying intensity. Sure, it seemed that he was doing everything intensely, but Ace still panicked – just in case.

“Look, he’s got a guitar! So yeah. We jam sometimes. Don’t we?” She slapped Ace’s shoulder, probably dislocating it forever.

“We sure jam,” croaked Ace through the pain. “We jam very much”.

--

before / next where it started / navigation / about the story

[torchickentacos]

I never do this, but reblogs were off and I want to shout this at everyone. stealing this post.

more thoughts under read more. I know it's a popular saying and I never look down on people who say things like this before knowing the impact they have (or even after to an extent, I have too much benefit of the doubt to go around), as we all have things we say and do that have negative impacts, and sometimes you never know to change that until someone points it out. So this is NOT a call out post or whatever, this is my rambling emotional thoughts on a topic.

I think first and foremost, I'm bothered by the ableism of course. But secondary to that is my annoyance at seeing people act high and mighty about fandom discourse. Like, if you want to talk to adults with jobs, go to linkedin or something, not tumblr, where we do care about things, and where we do discuss things.

And I GET thinking some discourse is stupid. I DO! because guess what. some discourse is stupid skjfhsdjkjfhsdjfhkdjs. I've joked about the poke/amour stuff before. I'll clown on some things, and maybe that makes me a hypocrite, but I feel like a step is taken when you take it from 'making fun of the discourse', something we all do to an extent (which dare I say is a form of participating in it) to 'making fun of the people who engage in such discourse'. We are FREE to talk about how silly the voltron stuff was. We are FREE to be snarky about things because human nature is to be a bit of a hater sometimes. but do it in a way that jabs at the topic and not the people.

But I think a lot of it also hinges on how we see human value on a larger scale. People make fun of people who work retail, people who don't have jobs, people whose jobs are considered extra or undesirable like sex workers, et cetera, despite these jobs being IMPORTANT. It's disheartening to me to see people lean on these types of jabs, and I think it tends to paint human value as something purely based on what you can give out to the world. It leans on this sort of input-output based system of determining how valuable or worthy someone is. And if they don't meet that standard value of 'adult with job', then their opinions are moot as jobless losers in their mom's basements or whatever the fuck. I think the whole thing leans into the conservative 'special snowflake' attitude, which isn't something I think we should be leaning on in arguments or discussion.

And I think that the intent is usually not to be ableist. Most people don't start their day wondering how they can insult disabled people, I'd hope. But intent and impact are often detached, and good intent (avoiding discourse) can have a bad impact (making fun of people in the name of pointing out issues with disocurse). I also think race could be a component, given how racial discrimination in hiring is still a very real thing and is a real factor preventing people from getting 'GoOd ReAl JoBs', but I'll leave that side of the discussion to someone who is more qualified to talk on it than I am. Feel free to chime in with any insight on that side of the coin if you want!!! I imagine the same also goes for visibly queer people but I'm not going to get into the straight/cis passing stuff right now.

And maybe I'm looking too far into it. Maybe I'm just thinking about it too much, maybe it's just a funny little saying that TOTALLY doesn't affect actual people in any way. After all, I'm just some jobless disabled loser in my parent's house talking about discourse on tumblr, aren't I?

[bisluthq]

I don't know why anons are trying to dent that she didn't do those specific mashups for a reason. Like a literal line in the song is about some sleaze trying to tell her about how much her words are worth. Like that's a direct jab at joe who tried to imply ish in his daily mail article. We genuinely thought he was trying to exclude himself from the narrative but now it looks like he wants to get down in the mood. We'll, just so he knows, alwyn you will not win against a war of attrition against the taylor swift. He's jobless, got no career and couldn't get a starring role on his own break up album. A lot of swifties will finish him. Peace.

Enjoy “finishing” him lmfao. Then please check for black mold and get therapy. I’m not worried about Joe, because 1) idc that much idk him or her so like w/e 2) you actually won't because no one has ever "finished" someone online lol and your insanity is just making people who aren't totally batshit actually kinda like him. But I am quite genuinely worried about you guys lmfao because you people are NOT doing okay.

[arpov-blog-blog]

....“America’s now in one of the strongest job-creating periods in our history, in the history of our country,” Biden said from the White House Rose Garden.

“It wasn’t that long ago that America was losing jobs,” Biden continued. “In fact, my predecessor was one of only two presidents in history who entered his presidency and left with fewer jobs than when he entered.”

As Trump was leaving office in January 2021, the U.S. had roughly 10 million fewer jobs than before the COVID-19 pandemic. He also left before vaccines to combat the virus had become widespread.

Trump, who has long boasted about the booming stock market during his tenure as evidence of a strong economy, has attacked Biden on the issue and touted his push to shore up manufacturing jobs in the U.S. in a video released this week.

Friday’s jobs report showed the U.S. added 187,000 jobs in August, while the unemployment rate rose to 3.8 percent. Economists had expected the U.S. to gain 170,000 jobs and maintain the July jobless rate of 3.5 percent. “We created more jobs in two years than any president ever created in a four-year, single four-year term,” Biden added, noting the U.S. had a 6.3 percent unemployment rate when he took office at the end of Trump’s term."

[godsbox-a]

skin burned, wrapper over the kick to rebuke with a pointer finger jutting out, jabbing the air in emphasis ❝ that's why destination missions are way better      i get to run around like that. duh ? and i always get souvenirs. ❞ teeth flashed in the shape of a smile without much of the shine meeting his eyes even under their lens, cookie cutter motion blacking out under a narrowing crease, a tired burn beneath bottom lashes, a blink that'd held for two seconds too long. all molded up without room to pocket any logic for defensiveness over a shared path, shared conditions ( except the bridges set on a timer to burn by suguru's hand, maybe just bitching them all out would've given gojou his satisfied fill. and he'd still roll out of bed the next morning, button up his jacket, jump when he was told to jump. ) sucked . . . feeling on the short end, the receiving half of suguru's poor opinion. where and how and when exactly it'd all formed into bridge - burning was a blank space still, nothing but endlessness &. a patient faith holding him up off the ground where he stood shifting on the balls of his feet, smile downturned      taking it on a technicality. sucked. god damn jobless special grade girl.

he stuck his tongue up over the edges of his teeth, glancing aside with his hands back to fiddling with the inseam of his pockets while eyes roamed, dragging in lingering dashed lines along passing crowds and the flickering glow of eatery advertisements all lined up tight &. cramped. a hmm'd ! breath from his nose lifted high, amusement threaded through, leveling something soured with the sweetness of a hum, a short laugh, a lingering stare rising up over his glasses. ❝ you seriously mean that, huh ? . . . okay, then. find us a place we can sleep a little. and i'll get that from you in writing. ❞ suguru's just being dramatic, the idiot, should've shot for a soap opera career and lived all happy and handsome like this, been a crush to daydream about through a screen than just black glass    but wouldn't so many dead men with gojou's own shared blood be rolling with jealousy, their future clanshead hand picking someone so devoted ? it'd be a dream to rub it in, his own fortune catalogued &. pressed into pages. a real dream, the serious sort, types you'd hold off on until school was through, and. maybe now it was. gojou pulled in a breath, held it in a cheek puffed out like a balloon and tipped his head in a go ahead motion.

there's something to be said about the image of a perfect runaway trio , all gathering up the courage to take flight from all that they had ever known to find everything they ever wanted at the risk of death . a novel idea , a beautiful one , one that suguru would never admit to anyone that he'd wanted just as much as the potential vessel of tengen , even if he had to go hand to hand with the man ( ? ) himself , satoru would always be at his back . that idea had never once scared him , nor had any obstacles averted his eyes from the ideal world . alas , at the last second , it was ripped away from the two of them so cruelly . honestly , had geto been the sole survivor of the riko amani incident . . . no , he'd not be for long . he'd sooner slit his throat himself than live with that guilt , than take another step without his partner , than accept failure and be the scapegoat for faceless elders . lucky as it was for one to survive , especially so for two , three was too much for god . he fell short of saving the one life that deserved it most . riko , kuroi , he'd never forgive himself for any of it . but . . . it was hard to think with such brilliant blue eyes on him , and the trill of his curse . ( that curse is absorbed with one hand recalling it to him gently . rest , lay thine head down for now , he'll call again if you're needed . )

  ❝      you . . . really need to take better vacations .       ❞  there's a hint of disbelief in geto's expression as he watches them blunder through their steps in shock . what kind of vacation didn't involve rest . . . ? if anyone needed rest , it was them ! they were the ones who were taking the brunt of the missions and requests , while others were taking it easy . . . !   ❝      totally an option . one hour , four , twelve , i don't care . we're not on somebody else's time , we're on ours . that means if you want to stall for a while , we can . who's gonna tell you no ? me ? like hell .       ❞ 

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Singapore Anon again. It's been a while, and things have only gotten worse. From 15 Jan 2022, unjabbed employees will not be allowed to return to work even with negative tests, essentially rendering them jobless. The government is also "encouraging" citizens to get the boosters, and aims for 50% of the population to be boosted by end-Jan. Kids are also beginning to be jabbed. I know this sounds overdramatic, but please share this with everyone. I don't know what else I can do.

I'm sorry things are getting worse for you guys. I wish you had some way to get out of there. It's so important for us to not comply or get complacent and accept passports and mandates.

[joonsdiary]

the proposal

↳ part one of the: (not) the love of my life series

pairing. ceo!seokjin x hotelier!reader (female) genre. arranged marriage au // humour with a dash of fluff and sprinkle of angst (mayhaps future smut?) word count. 4,8k summary. after losing ownership of your hotel to the satan-spawned ceo-to-be, kim seokjin, you are forced by the powers that be (your parents) into marrying him. you agree under the assurance that you won’t be out of job, but with the title of manager instead of owner. as it turns out, he has other plans and approaches you with a proposal that’s hard to refuse.

note. a cliché, overused trope? check. a series with (maybe) no plot and is just about jin as a billionaire ceo? check. this was initially supposed to be a sequel, but i couldn’t follow it up with the same ambience and mood, so i decided to leave the drabble [as a standalone] and write a spin-off instead. this has been in my drafts for the longest time, so i’m excited to share to you a series that literally nobody asked for.

warning-but-not-really. not all corporate ceos are as chilled out as jin will be portrayed here. may give you high expectations of literally some of the worst people on this planet lmao also purely self-indulgent! read at your own risk tbh

the proposal | the first date | the ceo’s keeper | the engagement

The premise was simple.

Get married so you can keep running your hotel business or refuse and lose everything to the man your parents have personally hand-picked to become the owner.

Scratch that.

The man your parents sold your hotel to, thus making him the newly appointed owner.

Choosing the latter and having your freedom would mean giving up your hard-earned company to the lousy billionaire’s first-born son, who happened to own half the hotels in metropolitan Seoul.

The Kims.

Notorious for their enormous amount of wealth, their class, and having three strapping young men for sons who knew nothing else, but privilege handed to them in a silver platter.

Despite growing up in a well-off family, you’ve always taught yourself that independence and hard work was the key to success. You distanced yourself as much as you could from your parents’ money, stuck it out for four years in college, and graduated with a degree. Running the hotel full time while attempting to finish your master’s in business administration part-time had been the theme for the past year. Until your parents dropped the bomb on you.

Words like, do you really think you had full ownership of that run-down hotel of yours and we had to sell, or we’ll go under had been thrown around. As if keeping the secret of having a huge amount of debt would make you feel better about seeing your hotel assimilated into Kim Hotels. Not only would you lose ownership, but you knew that you were bound to get fired, if not demoted. It usually came with the change of proprietor.

Conveniently enough, the Kims had other plans. Their current CEO, Seokjin’s father, agreed to let you keep working as the hotel manager instead of the owner, which is honestly miles better to you than being jobless. But it came with a hefty price: you were to marry their oldest son, Kim Seokjin. They drove a hard bargain, and you found yourself agreeing. You loved the hotel more than anything you’ve ever owned; having to pour your heart and soul into making it worth being proud of. And you were. That’s why hearing your parents say that it was in debt felt gut wrenching.

Initially, you tried to get a hold of him, hoping you could convince him to re-think the situation. You thought perhaps the media had been wrong about him, and all the talks of him being a calculating corporate shark was a lie. Maybe he would let you work as the manager without having to marry him. But the COO of Kim Hotels refused to meet with you, despite hearing from your parents that he’d been “more than willing” to be married to you.

You scoffed at their baseless statement. Seokjin had a reputation for taking women to bed one night before leaving them to dust by the next morning. As if selling his soul to the devil in order to be worth billions of dollars wasn’t enough; of course, he was sleeping around as well. You weren’t one to judge anybody’s lifestyle choices, but you were sure that someone in that calibre wouldn’t agree to be wed to a person they hardly knew just because. There was something in your gut that told you there was more to the agreement than a simple arranged marriage.

Or maybe the feeling in your gut was due to the bad pasta you had.

“Good evening, Ms. Hwang.”

You’re greeted by Mr. Park, the doorman as soon as you enter the lobby, cradling a piping hot tea you hoped would alleviate the stomach cramps you were having. His smile gave away his old age, wrinkles dotting the corner of his eyes and the lines in his cheeks. You returned the gesture.

“How was your dinner?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” you laughed softly, shrugging away your coat without spilling your drink. “I’m never eating out ever again. Please tell me Yoongi is in.”

He nodded, gesturing to the entrance not too far from the lobby. You bid him good night and head to the restaurant in the hotel, which was sparse with customers. Friday nights were usually teeming with life and excitement, but unfortunately business had been relatively slow all week. The worry pooled deep in your stomach – as if you needed any more ratification that your hotel needed to be bought, or you’ll close down.

“Yoongi! I need your cure-all soup,” you called out as soon as you sat on the barstool, propping your tote on the table. Jungkook waved at you from the far end of the bar, concocting a drink for the eager gentleman waiting in front of him. Yoongi popped his head out from the kitchen’s double doors to scowl at you but was met with your beaming smile.

He returned several minutes later with your request and you quietly thank him.

“Bad date?” he asked, wiping his palms over his well-worn apron. Jungkook had inched closer by this time, mindlessly wiping the area beside you.

You nodded. “And terrible food. I should’ve just asked him to take me here to Grigio instead.”

Yoongi raised his brows, but a grin was threatening to burst from his lips. “Why didn’t you?”

“He insisted on going to that posh new restaurant that just opened last week. Said it took months to book and he couldn’t just cancel on a whim,” you rolled your eyes, carefully blowing cold air into your steaming soup.

“This is why I told you to stop looking around,” Yoongi leaned into the counter, studying your expression.

“It’s cuffing season,” you joked. “Blame social norms for my behaviour.”

He gave you an impassive stare, before sighing. “You’re literally cuffed already.” He said, followed by a quiet, “I still can’t believe you’re getting married soon.”

You waved your right hand nonchalantly before lifting the spoon to your lips. You moaned as soon as the flavour filled your senses.

“Did you know you’re the best chef ever?”

“It’s just chicken noodle soup,” he said drily.

“Exactly! The simplest meal yet you manage to bring out so many spices at once.” He rolled his eyes at your attempt to boost his ego. Either way it was true; for you, nothing beat Yoongi’s cooking, no matter how simple he thought the meal was.

You forgo the tea and asked Jungkook for a bottle of white wine. “Nothing fancy — Les Capriades is fine. I heard they came in last month, and I have yet to try them.”

He nodded at your instructions before disappearing off to the back to find your drink.

“Stop avoiding the topic, Y/N,” Yoongi rested his chin in the palm of his hand.

“I’m not avoiding anything,” you stated confidently, yet you couldn’t meet his gaze. “The devil incarnate himself refuses to see me. I guess I’ll have to meet him at the altar.”

“Three weeks from now,” Yoongi said, almost exasperated.

“Until then, I’ll enjoy my freedom.”

“What freedom?” Yoongi scoffed, rounding the table to slide into the seat next to you. Jungkook returned with your promised bottle and your eyes beamed with excitement before quietly thanking him. “You didn’t even date around before any of this marriage circus happened.”

You agreed with the “circus” part and ignored the indirect jab. Besides not having a say in any of the planning for your wedding, your supposed fiancé refused to introduce himself when you tried to reach out multiple times.

Okay, perhaps it wasn’t multiple times. You called his office when your parents broke the news to you a week ago, but his assistant said he was busy with a meeting and that you should call back. You didn’t, and that was the end of it. You’ve been putting off trying again, but it’s been a week and he hasn’t contacted you back either.

Maybe it was mutual disdain; if one of you was testing the other to break, you didn’t want the first to be you. It already felt undignified to be marrying someone for the sake of keeping a semblance of ownership to your hotel, so you weren’t about to grovel and demand to be spoken to when it seemed like he wasn’t willing to spare you a second of his time.

Yoongi chatted for a bit before he had to go back to work, so you were left to pull out your laptop from your tote. For the next few hours you immersed yourself into finances, staring at the excel spreadsheet displayed on the screen far longer than was medically allowed. Surely, you’ll go blind before you see your hotel overcome the negative deficit you were in.

“See you tomorrow, Ms. Hwang,” Jungkook thrummed his fingers on the table as he passed by. You looked up in time to see him mime something unintelligible. Your brows raised in confusion.

“Your glasses,” he laughed quietly, fingers hovering close to your cheek. You mumbled a quiet oh, before pushing the rim higher until it settled snugly against your nose bridge.

“Thanks.” You sighed, tipping your head to one side. After feeling the satisfying pop! you turned back to Jungkook with a grin. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You slumped back to your work as soon as Jungkook was out of sight. Glancing at the clock on the corner of your laptop, it blinked 00:37, which automatically caused you to yawn. Yoongi should be out soon, so you willed yourself to stand up and prop the close sign by the entrance.

From where you stood, you could see the lobby clearly, as well as the spinning doors of the hotel entrance. A few patrons trickled in, no doubt coming in from their busy day, and filed sluggishly to the elevators where it would take them up their floors.

That was the most fulfilling part of being a hotelier to you. The satisfaction of giving people a comfortable stay, whether they were mere tourists or locals wanting a getaway from their normal life. It certainly isn’t as posh and sleek as the Kim Hotel with their towering glass buildings and boring black, white, and grey colour palettes. But what you had was something you were proud to consider your home, with the vibrant earth tones of the walls and furniture, as well as the rich velvet tapestry draped along the ornate windows. High ceiling chandeliers peppered the lobby, casting an ambience of warmth and security without lacking luxury.

“‘Night, Y/N.” Yoongi clasped your shoulder, startling you out of your mini daydream. “Stop using my restaurant as your office, will you?”

You mustered a small grin. “Bye, Yoongles. Drive safe.”

Yoongi turned to you as his face contorted violently. “I hate that nickname.”

“Love you too!” You called out as he exited through the revolving door before placing your hand down with a sigh. Back to work. You were about to turn and go back to your forgotten laptop when the door welcomed in another guest.

With bated breath you watched the man stalk towards you, eyeing you dangerously as if you were his prey. His midnight black suit made him look slim but highlighted his broad shoulders all the same. You were arrested at the spot, unable to look away and felt as if you’ve been robbed of oxygen. The more he stepped closer, the more unclear your thoughts became.

It’s not as if you hadn’t seen the man. He often appeared on several business magazines — gossip tabloids more so. Yet there was something different about seeing him in person, in front of you, in your hotel.

No. His hotel.

“Ms. Hwang. I was hoping to find you here.”

You blinked up at him, not trusting your voice to form words under such immense pressure. His usually slicked back ebony hair is more mussed; a day’s worth of stress was evident in his restless feature.

When you didn’t reply, he took it upon himself to study you from head to toe, and your body went rigid. Your long, honey-coloured hair had been tied up in a lazy bun and glasses framed your face. You didn’t bother changing out of your mini black dress from your date earlier, whose thin straps clung onto your shoulders for dear life.

You squirmed uncomfortably, finding a small ounce of strength to wrap your hands protectively around yourself. “What are you doing here, Mr. Kim?”

“Please,” he rolled his eyes, supple lips bending upwards for a grin. “Call me Seokjin. Mr. Kim is my father.”

And with that, he welcomed himself in the threshold of your restaurant.

Technically, it’s his restaurant now, too.

You let your anger simmer for a bit before turning to follow him.

“You didn’t answer my question,” you declared. It was hard to keep your annoyance down when he had showed up unannounced after ignoring your existence for a whole week.

He slid next to the seat you had claimed yours, and you almost tripped in your heels as you followed, immediately snapping your laptop shut. There was no new information he could have garnered from looking at the finances of the hotel, as he’s probably aware of them. But the thought of him snooping around made you feel queasy.

“I wanted to see what had my father so enamoured that he’d actually buy this…” he trailed off, waving his hand dismissively, “…hotel?”

You hated the underlying judgement in his tone of voice. You had also heard rumours that he’s unabashedly forward and hard to deal with, on top of all the other rumours that plagued him. So far, all the boxes in the checklist were proving to be true.

“It’s quaint. Not at all what I expected.” His gaze studied you momentarily, and you can tell he wanted to say more but he smartly held himself back. Good. You don’t know what you would do if he strung one criticism after another.

“Well, you’ve seen it. You can kindly screw off now.”

Seokjin seemed taken aback for a second, but his surprise didn’t linger. He leaned back on the stool and swiveled forward before pointing at the shelves lined with alcohol.

“I’ll have a whiskey, neat.”

In an attempt to ignore his ridiculous demand, you powered up your laptop once more. No way in hell would you let him step all over you, not even when he owned the hotel where you now stood. “You have very capable legs and arms. I’m sure you can whip one up yourself.”

Was this man joking? Granted, you know your way behind the bar since you had the privilege to work as a bartender for a few years during your college tenure. But that doesn’t mean he’s welcomed here to treat you as if you were a subservient of his. Which, semantics aside, you were, though that’s beside the point. But if he made an effort to come down here and order you around like a scullery maid in an attempt to intimidate you or put you in your place, then he was barking up the wrong tree.

“I was told you have terrific hospitality. I guess they were mistaken.”

Not for the likes of you, I don’t. You rolled your eyes, not bothering with an actual reply.

Seokjin maneuvered off his suit jacket and unbuttoned his cufflinks before he rolled his sleeves up meticulously. He then rounded the bar and began grabbing materials with familiarity, not stopping to ask where anything was located. You watched in awe from the corner of your eyes, attempting to be discreet.

“Want one?” he gave you a slanted gaze.

You wrinkled your nose in disagreement and raised your wine glass.

“A refill, then?”

Pressing your lips firmly together, you gave him a defiant headshake.

The mild shock of seeing him traipsing behind the bar had rendered you absolutely mute. The fact that he knew where everything was piqued your interest. Was it an outcome of years of experience as a habitual drinker? Or did he often just randomly raid bars, hence his extensive knowledge of their layout? You didn’t want to know, but at the same time you did.

It took him a while to find a coaster before settling back to the spot beside you. Typing away at your laptop, you refused to give him even an ounce of attention despite his attention solely being yours. The silence that ensued was more uncomfortable than anything you’ve experienced.

Suddenly, you were all too aware of your crooked posture and your body snapped, straightening your shoulders rigidly. It felt stupid, but necessary for the sake of your sanity to keep your façade. Although it crumbled ever so slightly when Seokjin laughed beside you.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel tense,” his voice was languid and inviting.

You steeled yourself, refusing to be lulled into a trance by his intoxicating presence. “What did you really come here for, Kim Seokjin?”

“She speaks!” he exclaimed, clearly amused. You turned to give him an impassive stare. “Do I need a reason to visit my fiancée?”

His statement caught you by surprise, your poor heart bearing the brunt of suddenly having to pump more oxygen than usual. It brought warmth to your cheeks and you allowed yourself to fall into the fantasy of marrying the most eligible bachelor in all of Seoul. The fantasy, however, was short-lived as his wink broke the spell you were under.

“Don’t worry, this will be strictly business,” his back straightened up on cue. You tried and subsequently failed not to watch the way his deft fingers moved to loosen up his necktie. He then slightly deflated with a sigh, before grabbing his drink and taking a sip.

For courage, perhaps? It brought a small amount of accomplishment to know that you might have The Kim Seokjin nervous before you.

“It’s about the wedding, which you know is coming up soon.”

This was it. The topic you’ve been narrowly avoiding for the past week suddenly poured on you all at once like a bucket of ice-cold water. It wasn’t the most refreshing way of waking you up to reality, but it got the job done.

“I hope you aren’t getting cold feet now, Kim,” he grins at your attempt at humour.

“I apologize for not getting back to you sooner, by the way. My secretary said you tried to get a hold of me.” You remembered the woman’s monotone voice on the other end of the phone call. Part of the reason why you were reluctant to call back was due to nervousness from hearing her apathetic voice.

You shrugged in response, finding him less of an asshole than you had previously. Was your expectation of decency so low that you found anything remotely human he did to be an act of chivalry on his part?

Yes. Yes, it was.

“I tried calling because I wanted to know if I would be able to talk you out of this deal.”

Seokjin was visibly surprised by your candor.

“Oh yeah, and how would that have played out?”

You shifted uncomfortably in your seat. Surely, it was too late to take anything back, so you tossed all caution out of the window. He might as well hear your piece.

“The ceremony preferably cancelled. The Hwang Hotel back to its rightful owner, as if the whole thing hadn’t occurred in the first place.”

Seokjin regarded you with amusement in his eyes. The warm lights of the Grigio soften his rugged features, making it seem like he was glowing. You came to understand how he had the whole country enamoured by him. He was distressingly handsome.

You gagged at where your thoughts ended up and leaned back a little, terrified of feeling too intimate with the man who had claimed your hard-earned success for himself. The hotel means more to you in ways you know Seokjin will never be able to relate. A man who, with a little twirl of his fingers, would be making more money than you could ever hope to imagine. They say no hard work goes unpaid, but for him it was probably akin to: No hard work, but I get paid either way. How comfortable must it be to sit atop that domineering tower of his, overlooking the city he practically owns?

“And what do I get out of that possible scenario?” he began after a brief pause.

You refused to wilt under his imposing gaze. With a confident voice, you said, “The satisfaction of doing a noble deed.”

He barked out a laugh, tilting his head back in obvious enjoyment. You didn’t share the sentiment as you sighed before removing your prescription glasses. Perhaps hoping for the impossible was futile, after all.

“Look, I don’t care about this little passion project of yours,” Seokjin waved his hands around condescendingly, and you felt a familiar pang of anger surging from your chest. “And you’re lucky my father swooped in to purchase this hotel before you went bankrupt.”

“Thank you for the constant reminder,” you deadpanned, but he ignored you and continued. The gall of the man to show up and ridicule you made you irate. I take that back, he’s still an asshole in every aspect imaginable.

“To be frank, I think we’re both in a pinch here. You want your hotel back, and I’m willing to grant you that tiny little wish.”

You perked up; interest piqued. But you felt an ultimatum coming, so you squashed all hope arising from his statement. There was always a catch.

“My parents have been grooming me to become CEO ever since I learned how to walk. For me, acquiring the position is a no-brainer.”

“But?” you offered, and his grin widened.

“But lately my father refuses to hand me the reins. He’s been wanting to retire, but every year he keeps sticking it out. Then I unceremoniously learned my engagement with you. All of a sudden, his mood shifted, and his plans for retirement began piling up.”

Your brows creased in confusion, unable to see how you fit into all of this.

“My reputation precedes me, so I’m sure you’re aware of what I’m insinuating here.”

Something clicks in your mind, and you willed yourself to hold back a scoff.

“Enlighten me, Kim,” you propped your chin against your palm. If you were going to agree to this, you might as well have a little fun for yourself.

“My parents aren’t amused by my…” Seokjin trailed off.

“Decision to debauch half the women’s population of Seoul?” you offered, unable to hold yourself back. You grinned triumphantly; he had set himself up for that moral beating.

“I was going to say my inability to settle down, but sure, we’ll go with that,” Seokjin was unfazed, much to your disappointment. “He hadn’t explicitly said it but seeing the way everything is being handled so quickly, I can tell it’s what he wants. For me to get married; then maybe he’ll consider giving me the position.”

“And you didn’t oppose?” you asked incredulously. It seemed at the moment you were the one who is prepped to lose the most. What if it wasn’t you who the Kims chose for their son? Were you supposed to just accept defeat and give up your hotel?

“Oh, trust me, I vehemently opposed,” you nodded at his statement. At least you agreed on something. That was a start. “But that’s partly the reason why I’m here.”

“What more can we possibly do? We’re basically left with no option,” you grumbled, turning back to your laptop. For you, there was no way around this. Both your families have decided for you, so you have to either fall in line or risk losing your business.

“What if I tell you we can go back to our normal lives a few months from now? We won’t be married to each other. You’ll have your hotel back, and I’ll still be the CEO.”

You inadvertently leaned towards him, eager to know where the conversation was going.

“We just have to convince my parents and yours, as well as the board of directors of Kim Hotels and the public alike how we’re hopelessly in love with each other.”

Your mouth formed into a visible scowl, forehead creasing in confusion. You searched for hints of frivolity, waiting for him to say just kidding! at any moment. But his stoic face told you that he was being serious.

“And we’re doing this because…?” your patience had worn thin, expression marred by weariness and fatigue. You had a lot to get back to; you didn’t have time for silly games.

“It will make the divorce more believable.”

You paused, the gears in your brain turning. The agreement your parents told you about hadn’t involved a divorce; so, you were curious as to where Seokjin was going with his idea.

He was offering you an out; a way to get out of his family’s mess unscathed. You’ll have your only prized possession, and he can go back to sleeping with as many people as he wanted while retaining his coveted position. The proposition was too good to be true.

“What’s the catch?” your lips pursed, and you found yourself considering his ludicrous proposal.

“No catch,” he holds his two hands up in surrender, the corner of his mouth forming a smirk. You eyed him with suspicion.

“Just that you give effort into this whole thing. Make my father and the board believe enough to think I’ve ‘cleaned up my act’,” he paused to roll his eyes, “so that they’ll hand me the position without question. I promise you full ownership of the Hwang Hotel, without debt, as soon as we separate.”

While your parents’ original plan had been to marry you off entirely (which you did not want at all) Seokjin was sensible enough to figure out that you had no desires of tying the knot to someone you barely knew. He probably shared the sentiment, hence his proposal.

“This doesn’t make sense though,” you said pointedly. “Wouldn’t they find out about your motives when we divorce? And our parents technically arranged this, so they’ll be mad — I’m sure yours will be more than mine.”

You’re all in for finding a loophole in this whole arrangement, but you’re not sure you’ll agree if it will give you more problems in the long run.

He shrugged, unconcerned. “They can question it all they want. But like I said, if we make it believable enough, we can always reason that we ‘fell out of love’.”

In an attempt to alleviate a developing headache, your hands slowly massaged your temples. The information was a lot to hand, but no matter how many scenarios you played in your head, they all seemed to have the finale you wanted. Regardless of what happened within the upcoming months, you were going to get your hotel back.

“If you’re really that worried, let’s just say I cheated,” Seokjin’s words snapped you out of your muddled thoughts.

Your eyebrows creased in confusion. “Wouldn’t that be worse for you?”

“The public already thinks I’m a man-whore,” he said wryly. “The board is not going to kick me out of office for something tedious like a divorce once I’m CEO. And I’m sure I can reason it out with my parents when the time comes.”

You laced your fingers together, hoping to wring the concerns away. There was no use in overthinking the situation; it certainly beats staying miserably married to someone you barely know.

You let out a shaky breath, before mustering the confidence to say, “Fine.”

“Great, I knew you’d be reasonable.” He flicked his wrist to look at his watch, gaze composed despite the tiredness in his eyes. “I’ll have my secretary e-mail you a written agreement.”

“Great,” you mimicked his deadpan tone. Gone was the casual Seokjin who paced around behind the bar with much familiarity. This was the COO of Kim Hotels Seokjin; precise and straight to the point.

Better get used to that.

“Thanks for the drink, future wife,” he slid off the barstool with poise, the distance between you and him closing ever so slightly. He smelled like pine and cedar, with a hint of citrus; it was enough for you to suddenly sober up, unaware you were inebriated, to begin with.

“No need. You forced your way in, anyway.” You said dismissively, pretending to switch tabs on your screen. Where was that random website you were looking at earlier?

With a quiet laugh, he turned to leave. You listened to his rhythmic steps and perked up when he paused.

“See you tomorrow, fiancée,” he said without turning.

“Tomorrow?” you tried not to give away the surprise in your voice.

“We have to start going on dates to convince them that we’re serious about this, right? Pick you up at eight, sharp.”

With a wave of his right hand, he stalked off towards the exit, leaving you alone in the restaurant.

Suddenly, the premise didn’t appear so simple. You reached for your glass of wine and finished the rest of your courage drink in one gulp.

NEXT ; 

thanks for reading! feedback is always appreciated ;u;

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

I'm finally back at the house.

The biggest issue that I didn't have time to get into in prior reblogs, was the fact that Bethy came to my room to tell me that Dave's dumbass friend, accused me of stealing the coffee that they drink every morning. And he told Bethy that if I don't give it back, he's coming to me room to get it himself.

This guy and I got into an argument a few weeks back because I was asking my mom about absentee ballots and he interrupted our conversation to stand over us making snide remarks about democrats and liberals and even followed me outside, making these comments as I had to wait for a Walmart order and the delivery guy was a black man, who had to hear a lot of M@G@ bullshit, as well the jabs about how I wasn't responding. So, I simply stated, "I don't break bread with Nazis," and got a snort from the delivery dude and a rant about how 'it's just politics' from the idiot.

Ever since then, for a guy who was supposedly unfazed by my words, he's been trying to claim I'm stealing his stuff at every opportunity.

He is homeless. Jobless. And a drunkard. He uses his disability payments on beer. He buys 2 24-pack cases every few days because he goes through them so fast. Everything my Ko-Fi and Patreon makes, goes to mom. She gets about $300 from me a month, which is basically me paying rent for this bedroom and the right to use the bathroom. That money often gets us food and toilet paper when we're out by the middle of the month.

He does not help with anything.

So, mom messaged me the other week to tell me he told Dave I ate his Pop-Tarts. They were about 5 weeks old and were on top of the fridge the entire time. I took one packet for myself, and mom saw there were Pop-Tarts and asked for some. I gave her the other box up there as it went untouched and unopened. Mind you, SHE bought them. He then started claiming I was drinking his soda.

Mom buys all the drinks. She drinks the ZERO versions of stuff these days whenever she gets it but gets a regular version 'for the house' as she calls it. That also sat there for 5 weeks because no one apparently liked strawberry Dr. Pepper(I think that's what it is). I asked to try one and she said sure(it was gross btw). He saw me take one. He whined to Dave about me taking his drinks.

The drinks that are for him specifically are Pepsi. Of all the things to accuse me of stealing, Pepsi would make more sense as it's close enough to Coke, but mom gets me Fauxke from Walmart now and then so I wouldn't even need it.

What I know is that while he was in prison for a month for assaulting a state trooper, Bethy got ahold of his card and used some of his money for groceries. On one hand, theft, on the other hand, if she didn't, he would have been several hundred dollars over the $2,000 max disabled people are allowed to have in the US. So, he would have lost his disability benefits entirely if she didn't use his money to get us food.

He first claimed not to care because he was glad not to have lost disability. Then a day later told Dave he was pissed and wanted all the money back immediately. Then said it didn't matter, and he didn't actually care all that much. Then barged into Bethy's room to scream at her over stealing his money. Then tried to claim a bunch of unrelated purchases were also her fault(they weren't) and tried to corner her into admitting it(she didn't). He's been very nasty to her ever since then.

It's been one dramatic thing after the other these past few weeks, so before Bethy and I left to visit mom, she came to tell me he was accusing me of stealing the coffee. Because I was supposedly eyeing it up. And in her words, she told him that, 'Helen doesn't drink coffee, and how would she make it without a coffee maker?'. And he claimed I could use my mini rice cooker to do it, so then she asked why he hasn't seen me using/washing cups of any sort when I regularly bring my cooker down to clean it. And why hasn't he smelled the coffee being made if I took it for myself? They can smell when I make ramen/pasta/rice, but not coffee?

He threatened to come into my room and get it if I don't hand it over.

So, in front of her, I hid a bunch of stuff in different places, cleaned up a bit, and left the broom in front of my door inside the room. It would blockade the door with the brush against the right wall and the handle leaning on the armoire to the left of my door. It was tricky to accomplish with the door mostly closed and would be hard to replicate.

When we got back, the broom had been moved. And the cushion on the sofa was shifted.

Neither mom nor I trust him, so I hid both of our laptops in the back of messy drawer in my armoire before going to the hospital. I brought both tablets with me. I hid my chargers and PS4 controller.

Bethy went back to the hospital, and they've given her permission to stay with mom for the night.

Finally, while at the hospital, Bethy confessed that dimwit has also accused me of abusing his dog. He told Bethy I kicked his dog super hard and that I need to keep my hands to myself, and Bethy apparently asked him why he'd care about the dog anyway since he was punching him in the face the day before yesterday and loudly screamed that he wasn't going to feed him all day as punishment(which he did in fact do, so Bethy fed him on the sly and got yelled at for it). That shut him up real quick. She also asked when this abuse supposedly happened because I never come downstairs unless it's to use the bathroom, and that dog doesn't come near me ever because he's either laying between mom's legs or lying beside his owner at any given moment.

So, the panic from mom being hospitalized, getting stuck there for hours without a ride, and knowing this asshole was left free roam of the house for hours before Dave got back from work, had me stressed tf out.

Bethy thinks he might have gone into her room, though she wasn't too sure. He's been making all kinds of accusations as of late, so this is where we're at.

I hate having to rely on ppl for things cuz Bethy left to get something and I've been stranded at the hospital for 2 hours and visiting hours are now over.

[sandvvich]

I hope you don't mind if I go on a "quick" family rant...

I'm up right now after a bad reflux fit and thinking about what my dad said yesterday. I was discussing with my brother how high school wake up times are crazy for young people (discussing since he's in high school). And my dad comes by and says something along the lines of "says the lazy jobless person who gets up at noon every day" (edited a bit to remove a blatant yet specific jab at my character and misgendering)

Um, we are in a major recession caused by a virus and he was the one emphasizing that I couldn't go back to retail for months and months because how dare I work and potentially make him or my mom sick, as their income is a lot more important. Now my old job is full due to the hiring done in response to covid and its no longer an option. Others in the area declined me and the bus is crazy expensive, so not really able to justify borrowing bus money for a job that won't pay me well enough to pay my parents for the bus back immediately and thus end up paying them for a long time for what should have been like 50 dollars in their warped view of what should be owed to them (a bit vague, but something similar has happened before)

So that leaves stuff in my field, which I've been doing personal projects for for a while now as well as sending out applications. Even with a CS degree, coming out with no experience into a virus- caused recession economy made December 2019 the worst time ever to graduate for reasons that I could not have predicted beforehand.

I also don't wake up at noon everyday; I'm usually awake by 9-10 (earlier on mornings like today where I have something just waking me up at various times throughout the night) and just do various things before getting up. Like, he seriously thinks I just sleep through when the kids come down at like 10 on days they have off with blaring music to shoot in the basement room immediately next to me that they retrofitted for hockey (against my wishes, mind you). But this is the person whose preferred wake time is 5:30 on days he's not taking kids to hockey before then.

Enough justifying though, as this is the same family who believes it's perfectly healthy for these kids to go to hockey before school, often getting them up around 4 several times a week, which is especially cruel for the kid that doesn't even like doing it (they say it's for the exercise sake, but doing something for the exercise shouldn't be the same routine as with the kid who hopes this to be his career in the future). Not to justify the behavior, but I can't really debate the ethics of something like that with someone who will easily make low jabs and is so incredibly biased.

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: January 2021

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of January 2021 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

Once again, we knew that Donald Trump wasn’t going to take losing well, but when a legion of his most boneheaded supporters storm the Capitol demanding the election result be overturned because a certain thin-skinned orange gobshite had spent several weeks screaming about electoral fraud and, by the way, also set the date of January 6th for some major event, even Mike Pence couldn’t sanction his buffoonery any longer - especially when said buffoonery involved him saying “I love you” to people who were guilty of sedition and, by the way, murder - all of which led to him finally, finally, getting the boot from various social media platforms

...all while Lauren Boebert appeared to be trying to help out the insurrectionists by livetweeting the location of Nancy Pelosi, presumably because Boebert forgot about that Glock she claims to take to work with her every day and was looking for a convenient meat shield, which naturally has nothing to do with her tweeting the day would be like 1776 earlier that morning

...but the real victim in all of this was Melania Trump as it interrupted a photo shoot she was doing, which she somehow thought it was a good idea to mention several days later in a statement riddled with two opinions: “both sides” and “me, me, me” which shows she didn’t realise the optics of rearranging the china as Washington burned around her

...but according to Laura Kuenssberg it was merely a “scuffle” at Congress, as opposed to an organised group attempting to stage an armed insurrection against the government complete with at least one member carrying zip ties

...and finally, we had Ian Austin reminded us that he’s still alive by saying the exact same thing would have happened in the UK with Jeremy Corbyn supporters storming parliament, as if that happened in the four years Corbyn was wishing Austin would go away, then did go away, but sadly didn’t go away

Once again the Tory government think they know better than virologists, epidemiologists and pharmacists with their one-two punch of thinking they can just mix and match the various vaccines available rather than give people two doses of the same vaccine, but they further weaken any chance of vaccination succeeding by ignoring Pfizer’s recommendation the second dose be given within three weeks of the first by adopting a policy of the second dose is given three months later, and it it’s just as likely to be the less effective but cheaper Oxford vaccine they get a dose of

...swiftly followed by the BBC did their bit to encourage people to get vaccinated by reporting a story of a nurse getting a dose of Covid six weeks after her first vaccination jab not by reporting how she was three weeks overdue for the second dose (or, if you prefer, six weeks before her second one) but simply saying that people vaccinated can get Covid, which goes beyond the BBC’s sociopathic inability to criticise Tory fuckups into being downright fucking dangerous - as does their putting sentient testicle Toby Young on Newsnight to say how we’re all overreacting as it's not as bad as all that

Of all the things proven liar Boris Johnson should have said when the UK’s Covid death toll officially passed 100,000 (as opposed to unofficially, which would have been last December), “We have done our best” was not it, because if their best includes not going into lockdown in order to protect landlords, having Dominic Cummings dictate herd immunity in spite the fact that you need vaccinated people for it to work, refusing to have quarantine at airports until July, thinking it would be a bright idea to tell people it’s their patriotic duty to go to the pub, giving them £10 vouchers to go to restaurants, putting children going back to school ahead of any concerns about every single school could become a petri dish and countless other horrifically mismanaged instances, then we should be kept up at night dreading what their worst would be

The fact that Chartwells were given a contract to provide free school dinners with a budget of £30, and the supposed lunches that arrived had £5 worth of food in them which begged the obvious question where the other £25 went, is appalling - but not surprising, as the Tory government gave them the contract and, equally unsurprising, Chartwells was founded by a Tory donor, and equally unsurprising their response to their grift being exposed was to tell all the public school clients they cater to a pack of lies while hoping nobody found out about them doing so...which worked about as well as you can guess

Something possessed the EU to ramp up the row over the AstraZenica vaccine not passing the rigorous tests for over-65s by threatening to trigger Article 16 and limit the number of vaccines that Northern Ireland received, and that something was it was hopelessly misguided as it allowed the Tories to get their hapless response to the pandemic off the front pages for a few days and let the Leave headbangers say this is why we left the EU...in spite this threat would have never been in play if we were still in the EU

There is no way to make jokes about Kellyanne Conway posting what was, in effect, revenge porn photos of her 16-year old daughter, because that sentence is so far out there that it is borderline incomprehensible

In the space of less than twenty seconds proven liar Boris Johnson claimed that there was no prior warning of the new strain of Covid, he had the SAGE paper stating it was coming which was handed to him last September held up in his face, and then said the government acted accordingly.  Yes, you read that right, he claimed the government acted accordingly to something they had no prior warning about, which is literally impossible, all in the space of ten seconds

In the latest hire by the BBC which is cause for both comment and concern, they announced their new chairman would be Tory donor Richard Sharp, whose credentials for the position are being Rishi Sunak’s ex-boss at Goldman Sachs, donating at least £400,000 to the Tory party, and having no background in journalism whatsoever

Smirking bully Priti Patel said that the UK should have closed its borders in March 2020 in order to prevent the spread of Covid.  Presumably she forgot that she was a.) Home Secretary in Marsh 2020 so could have done that, and b.) Home Secretary when she said that the borders should have been closed as that indicates she doesn’t know what’s going on

The terrifying world which Alison Pearson lives in has now started to cross over into our reality due to her responding to one of the four people she hasn’t blocked on Twitter calling her what she is - namely a liar - by siccing the Torygraph’s lawyers on them claiming libel, doing the usual cry bully tactic of learning the person she is harassing works for GlaxoSmithKline so promptly went to their CEO demanding he be fired, and howling about the hate campaign being waged against her - while telling the person, who was saying he was thinking suicidal thoughts after the pile-on that Pearson had instigated even after he had deleted the tweet and apologised , that “You’re finished”

Someday in the future, scholars will study Ted Cruz responding to Biden rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement within hours of getting his feet under the Oval Office desk by pontificating about how terrible it is that Biden is more interested in the citizens of Paris than the jobless of Pittsburgh and wonder just how somebody who doesn't know why the Paris Climate Agreement was named the Paris Climate Agreement ever got to be a senator

...and judging by how Lauren Boebert also latched onto this brainless rhetoric, not only can it be asked how she got to be a senator when she had the opportunity to actually realise Cruz’s mistake, she also begs the question how she can be a senator after her publicly trying to use Nancy Pelosi as a meat shield during the Capitol riots

Unifying force Keir Starmer stated that Labour should be devoting their time to fighting the Tory government rather than fighting court cases, somehow forgetting that by breaking the guidelines of the EHRC report (which he pledged to follow without question months before it was published) is the reason that they’re fighting court cases, and just so happens to be the reason why people are asking how a meeting attended by Starmer, Angela Rayner, Len McCluskey and others either didn't have a single person taking notes, which is David Evans’ entire defence, or they did take notes by quite conveniently lost them

Oh boy, did Wall Street cheerleaders not take it well when r/WallStreetbets exposed to the entire world that the stock market is little more than a game people play with other people’s money - because the teams the Wall Street cheerleaders support started losing, and all it took was a few Redditors investing in Gamestop and Bed Bath & Beyond 

Nice of Shaun Bailey to remind everyone that he’s a Tory by giving his suggestion for how the homeless could get on the property ladder, namely by saving a minimum of £5000

Clearly Marjorie Taylor Greene didn’t get the memo about the Streisand Effect, as the first thing she did after taking her seat in the House of Representatives was go on a mass deleting spree of Facebook posts - which only served to draw attention to her video saying that Nancy Pelosi be executed for treason, her track record of spreading conspiracy theories about the Parkland and Sandy Hook shootings, and her claims that a Jewish space laser is responsible for the 2018 California wildfires

Insufferable self-promoter Jess Phillips got her 2021 off to a good start by tweeting out that, as Britait has happened, we should shut up and accept it.  To the surprise of nobody other than insufferable self-promoter Jess Phillips, this led to a lot of people saying that, no, they will not accept an advisory referendum somehow being bolted onto the Ten Commandments, especially as numerous things that were promised wouldn’t happen such as a border in the Irish Sea, leaving Erasmus, losing freedom of movement, leaving the Common Market have all happened

It is wrong to say that smirking bully Priti Patel has lost 150,000 police files.  The actual figure is closer to 400,000 - which begs the obvious question as to what those files were, for example if those files also happened to fall under the same category as the ones that 55-year old ex-minister Mark Francois might want to have disappear for the sake of convenience

At last CD Projekt Red took some responsibility for Clusterpunk 2077 being such a cyberfuck...if by “taking responsibility” you mean “taking responsibility, dumping it all on the QA testers, and saying that everyone should blame them for everything” - and then with perfect comedic timing CD Projekt Red released an update for Clusterpunk 2077 that was so broken they had to release a hotfix for their broken patch

Expenses-fiddler Robert Jenrick decided that the most important thing to protect in the United Kingdom at this exact moment in time is...statues.  Not key workers, not the vulnerable, not any human life at all.  Statues.

So either Rafael Behr wrote a column for The Guardian where he tried to blame Jeremy Corbyn for his heart attack which saw Guardian higher-ups remove that passage from their print edition but forgot to remove it from the online version of the article, or The Guardian deliberately left the passage in the online version of the column in order to get some form of engagement from rage clicks while allowing Behr to act as if he is suffering some great injustice

Of course it wouldn’t take long for Steve Baker to try and claim some spurious victory for Britait, namely him claiming that tampon tax he spent so long fighting against being abolished is proof of the sunlit uplands of our post-EU nation...which ignores the fact that a.) It had nothing to do with the EU in the first place, and b.) The fact that Baker voted to keep it in place in a 2015 Commons vote

Employer of the year WWE went for an interesting twofer, as one minute they were proudly stating that WrestleMania would go ahead with a prospective 30,000 in attendance without any concerns for social distancing or any other Covid preventative measures, and the next telling the wrestlers on their roster that they would not be supplying them with Covid vaccines at the exact same time the NBA were floating the idea of providing vaccines for all their players

Make no mistake, the criticism that Erik Lamela, Sergio Reguilon, Giovani Lo Celso and Manuel Lanzini have received due to the four of them flouting lockdown regulations to attend a New Year’s party is justified - however, the fact that Duncan Castles tried to chase a headline by claiming that Lo Celso and Lamela had tested positive for Covid in a swiftly-deleted tweet is a new low for the noted barrel scraping rumour monger

Self-awareness sceptic Laurence Fox was entirely predictable in his response to the news that talkRADIO had been booted from Youtube for repeated violations of their ToS, specifically the part about spreading Covid misinformation, screaming the usual things about being “cancelled” - and then, within hours, responded to the BBC announcing a plan of educational programming to help during Lockdown III by saying he will be shielding his children from being “indoctrinated” by the BBC’s “left-wing bias” - which not only means he’s cancelling the BBC, but also had people remember that Billie Piper has custody of his children so it's not like he can even enforce his rules on what his children can and cannot watch

...by the way, Fox said nothing about Lord Sumption appearing on the BBC’s Question Time (the same show where failed actor on the grift Laurence Fox announced his new career as a clueless right wing irritant) where he told a woman with bowel cancer that her life wasn’t valuable, it was merely less valuable as she has less life left.  Yes, that is eugenics getting free airtime on the BBC, thanks for noticing

Somehow the best choice of words the BBC could find when reporting the death of Phil Spector was “talented but flawed” as if murder is some character flaw instead of, oh I don’t know, a criminal activity?

You would have thought that Twitch would have simply retired the PogChamp emote permanently in the wake of Gootecks going all insurrectionist, but no, instead they thought of having a rotating cycle of emotes of various creators, in spite of those creators telling them this would be a bad idea - and those creators were proven right when Critical bard was inundated with racist and homophobic abuse in his chat that led him to close his social media profiles when he was selected for rotation, with Twitch doing fuck all about it

Fashion editor no matter what she claims she is Hadley Freeman had a really clever take about The Sopranos...actually, no she didn’t, she had an absurd belief that it’s the exact same show as Sex in the City but people overlook it Because Misogyny, and when she was lambasted for missing the point so badly she had noted dipshit David Baddiel rushing in to her rescue to mock those getting “triggered” by her insipid take while saying he never liked The Sopranos because, as he isn't an Italian-American mobster, the show did not speak to him - in other words, he made himself a subject of equal mockery

...but there was no sign of Baddiel when Hadley Freeman then jumped on the BidenErasedWomen bandwagon alongside the TERFs of Twitter as soon as Biden got his feet under the desk, which also happened to show hard centrist extremist Freeman say how she thought Trump did far more for women than Biden ever has, which as takes go is so bad that the best explanation is that she briefly forgot the difference between the words “for” and “to”, before she then deleted the tweet and tried to deny ever posting it with increasingly nonsensical explanations that rapidly looked uncannily like gaslighting

...although David Baddiel wasn’t quite done being a bellend, as he was soon yukking it up with professional victim Rachel Riley about his latest book which accuses the entire progressive left of antisemitism

The oppressed underclass known as Manchester United fans really showed their colours, first by responding to a loss to Sheffield United by sending racial abuse to Axel Tuanzebe and Anthony Martial on social media, and a couple of weeks later responded to a draw with Arsenal by sending racial abuse to Marcus Rashford, because apparently when your team drops points the most important thing is to look for which member of your team you can racially abuse

And finally, oh so finally, we have Donald Trump and his discovery of electoral fraud at last - electoral fraud that consisted of Donald Trump calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger demanding he change the result and all he needs is Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes while also saying that he had proof of vote-counting machines being removed early...and when told they were still in Georgia, changed his lie to say the inner workings had been removed without anyone noticing.  By the way, the only reason anyone knows about this is because Raffensperger told Trump that he wouldn’t release the call to the public if Trump didn't say anything about it - so, of course, the Orange Overlord took to twitter, ran his mouth, and the Washington Post had one hell of an exclusive as a result

[i-am-delaney]

Am I wrong for being hurt by this?

Was feeling extra down around the 20th of November (still jobless after being laid off due to COVID, no friends, no romantic prospects, money running so low that I may lose my apartment, etc), and happened to get a call from my mum. She asks how I’m doing and I tell her I’m feeling low, but the good news is that BTS’ new album dropped so I have something to look forward to. Know what she says?

“Why are you even excited? It’s not like you’re any of their girlfriend, so why does it matter?”

Um. For one, I’m not a delulu who even fantasizes about being a girlfriend of a BTS member. I know I don’t stand a chance in any reality of that being a possibility, and I’m quite perfectly fine about that.

Two, oh idk maybe because listening to BTS is what makes me feel any smidge of positive emotion I have left in me because depression has left me all but physically dead over the course of being alive for 28 years.

My life has gone to shit, and I wanted to make light of it all by saying I was excited for the new album. Does not help to rub it in my face that I’m not someone’s girlfriend. Again, I don’t wish I was a girlfriend of ANY BTS member, because I know my place in the world and the reality upon which I live in. It just kinda felt like a stab to my already crippling ego and self-esteem. I don’t know a better way to describe it other than she saw an opportunity to squash any light I had to look forward to because she could. She’s done shit like this to me all my life. You’d think I’d be used to it and could just ignore it, but honestly I’m just fed up with her jabs.

I want to be a good man’s girlfriend/partner/mate/wife someday, although I don’t see that happening at all for myself, but man was that a way to shove my face into the mud of the shitty reality I live in.