#like this option is putting me in debt for the rest of my life

[strawberryshortpace]

Anyone else kinda force themselves to go to college simply because it was the only way to not live w your parents and also not be homeless

Cause I fucking hate this

[amonsteronmaplestreet]

Hi. My name's Seann. I'm writing this plea for myself, for my girlfriend Natalie, and for our guinea pig Edgar (full name Edgar Allen Pig).

Put simply, we are in debt. And at present, we can't get out of it. One these debts is Natalie's car payment, and if something isn't done about it immediately, we will be in serious danger of losing, well, everything.

Our Story

We moved in together about a year and a half ago. It was an exciting time. We love each other, and we were eagerly looking forward to truly starting our lives together. But a run of truly terrible bad luck started darkening our bright future.

First, and perhaps most dramatic, Natalie was trampled by a horse. She recovered, obviously, but the medical bills from her bruised and cracked ribs were a huge financial strain. Then more medical bills piled up less than just two months later: she was in a car accident. This left her car totaled beyond repair, and she ended up having to get a new one.

With her savings wiped out, we needed to work more to make to make up for it, but here's the catch: we both work with dogs. I'm an attendant at a doggie daycare and Natalie a groomer. The thing about grooming is that you need to utilize your upper body strength to lift up dogs and work with them, and with her injuries Natalie had temporarily slow down her work, which meant less money.

Still, we persisted. I ended up begging for money on Ko-Fi to make up the shortfall, but at last we got our apartment and the day of our move arrived. It was at this point, fate crapped all over us once again: when I walked out to my car that morning, it wouldn't start.

In fact, my car had completely broken down. I ended up unable to repair it. In the end, I had to scrap it and rely on the bus to take me to and from work. I have been doing this ever since we moved, and now a commute that should take twenty minutes takes anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, and requires me to walk a mile every time, leaving me tired and exhausted every day, with little time left over for anything else.

But we have each other. And we have Edgar. And even though it's been a struggle, we've managed to build a life together.

I love her. I love her so damn much. And it kills me that I don't have the money or resources to support her as much as I feel she deserves. No one ever got rich at a doggie daycare. My other source of income is writing, which is even less stable and less lucrative. I've tried. I've tried so hard. But once more I'm here, begging for the generosity of strangers online.

Our Car

My work is directly on the bus route. Natalie's is not. Her job is out in the more wooded part of our area, where public transportation options are few and far between. I may be able to get by without a car, but she absolutely cannot. Her ability to continue working rests on having one.

Like I said, it's been a struggle. But there's been a light at the end of the tunnel. Recently, the owner of Natalie's shop offered her the entire business. She is now, as of just six days ago, the owner of her own dog grooming salon. I'm so proud of her. This is huge!

But just like when we moved in together, some new problem has arisen.

When it comes to dog grooming, right now's the slow season. Natalie's doing her best, but even her most optimistic guesses don't have the business picking up until 2025. We're barely making rent right now, and we've had to take on some extra debt to get by, and in all the chaos and struggling, she fell behind on her car payments.

Now they're threatening to take the car away.

What We Need

So here we are. I'm going to take on more debt, via my Affirm card, to cover what she owes. Or rather, a chunk of what she owes. I'm close to the limit of what's approved for my account. But if Natalie loses that car, then she can't get to work, and her new business will be done for before it ever had a chance.

Which brings us to this. Which brings us to today.

I chose to set the goal for this campaign at $6000. I do not expect to reach it. There are people out there who need the money far more than we do, and I have nothing to offer to anyone who donates. But we'll take what we can get.

We owe $1400 on the car. That's the priority. If by some miracle we can raise that much, I'll be eternally grateful. The remaining $4600 would then go paying off our debts. My pie-in-the-sky is that we can at least get enough to put a dent in what we owe, and lower our monthly payments to something more manageable. By then, hopefully, business will have picked up, and we can devote ourselves to building our future together.

Writing this has not been easy. I feel like an incredible failure. I've failed in providing security to the one I love, and that's always going to weigh on me.

But if any of you reading this can find it in yourselves to ease our burden, then from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

[stonerskinny]

almost 1) downed three bottles of pills and half a bottle of fireball and 2) schedule sent a sewerslide note. but that was an hour ago and i have now put all of that stuff back in its place and prayed to my mother about my appointment that’s in like 7 hours now and decided that i accept defeat. on behalf of my eating disorder, that is.

i will never be satisfied with my weight or body for as long as i live in this eating disorder. and i have suffered enough. i have suffered abuse and abandonment at the hands of those who were supposed to love me since before i was born. i have done my fucking time and i think perhaps i don’t have to actually literally die to prove that to myself. and i already don’t need to prove it to anyone else because they all seem to be more aware of it than me somehow.

i am going to go wherever they tell me to go. i will probably sob about it if it isn’t residential, but i will go. and if it is residential then i will still sob but it will be like four hours later once im in the building. but i am begging and praying that my doctor signs my clearance letter and if she does — WHEN she does (#manifestation) — i will text my intake lady and ask her to change my admission to as soon as humanly possible. and they just had like three discharges and are 7 ppl below capacity so that may very well be like 10am tomorrow.

i fucking love you guys and i owe it to you all that i am still around rn. and i will miss you dearly when i am locked in eating disorder jail for god knows how long. because at the end of the day i guess i don’t know what the difference really is between 50k and 75k in medical debt. i’m gonna ignore it either way LMAO so like. whatever. i will call my cousin and ask her to co-sign a personal loan for me so i can get my house fixed and pay my lawyers and put a little money in my bank account to cover my deductible which i will meet by the end of the first week of january probably. and then my insurance will cover everything else for the rest of the YEAR and i can finish treatment and get a new job that i like more and experience life for the first time ever. and pay off my debt slowly but surely so i don’t ruin my cousins credit forever of course.

the thing is, at the end of the day, The Final Exit is literally always an option. so why not try my luck one more time at getting better? because i can’t know for sure that it wont stick this time. i can’t predict the future as much as i may wish i could, so instead of throwing in the towel before i even start i might as well make good on the steps i’ve already taken and the promises i’ve already made and just try it. one more time. and if it doesn’t work out then ill cut my losses and reevaluate. but who is Present Me to make a decision for Future Me?

i shall update y’all tomorrow after my appointment regardless of the outcome and if the outcome is admitting to res an hour later i will post the whole time im in the uber. hell ill take a fucking selfie when i get there and make it my profile pic until i discharge so y’all know where im at LMAO

[lynbaccha]

Primo's new summon is something he has not seen before, but the feeling is kind of mutual.

(Includes me bending the lore timeline, because I can. I mean, young Primo, can you blame me?)

The summoning was never an easy task. It was always about control. Each side fighting for it, each side struggling to get what they wanted. Most importantly, however…

Would the other side lose the battle? Would the other side make a mistake and bend, unwillingly, to the summoner’s mold?

This ghoul didn’t want to lose. For what felt like hours it fought back. Almost like a barbarian in legends against an enemy kingdom. All alone. Doing everything in its power to remain as a master of its own life. 

But, like a tired animal after a dragged out chase, the ghoul made a mistake. And thus, Papa’s magic got a hold of it. Its wrathful scream of defeat echoed in the ritual chamber, as it was dragged up from the debts it calls home. 

Then, silence. During it, the smoke subdued and smell of sulfur vanished, as soon as they have appeared, revealing the summoned demon. 

The battle was over. Papa had won.

Primo, exhausted and worn in his own right, expected to face confusion and questions, at most. Every ghoul so far had those. Why me? What is my purpose now? And countless more.

Not with this one, no. 

It remained silent. So silent it threatened to suffocate the surrounding atmosphere. Its piercing eyes slowly, cautiously, scanning the room. All the new ghoul had to offer to others, was fear and hostility. Not that anyone blamed the poor thing, though. The situation, when put into perspective, must have felt terrifying. 

However, because of how hostile and fearful it was, Primo immediately recognized the situation as dangerous. On top of that, the male ghoul was big. The biggest one he had seen so far. Slender looking, like a water ghoul, but they had powerful horns, and muscles, like an earth ghoul would. 

Did he summon a hybrid?

No matter... This situation could turn ugly. And he knew he had to prevent it.

So, Primo approached the new ghoul. The moment he moved, the other male’s head snapped directly towards him. The ghoul’s gills flared up, and a low growl left his chest. The demon was cradling a glowing lantern in his arms, as he curled into himself.

The other ghouls almost held their breath, ready to jump on the new summon. Their job was to serve and protect Papa, and they took it seriously. The options all together were worse. And they hope the new guy will realize it sooner rather than later…

Under the demons watch, Primo took a few stepped closer, as he observed his new summon with as kind eyes as he could muster. In response, the ghoul showed his sharp teeth. The tail trashed behind him, and the young human man could see a stinger on it.

This is bad...

”Calm now…,” Primo spoke softly, and stretched his hand. Before he could say anything more, he felt a sharp pain in that very same hand, mere seconds after the new ghoul has buried his teeth in Papa’s flesh and bone.

From that, it was chaos.

Primo was pulled back by one of his ghouls, and the new summon was pulled into the other direction by two others. In an attempt to restrain the big ghoul, the rest twisted his arms enough to make him drop the lantern, that rolled directly in front of Primo. New Papa immediately picked it up, as the ghouls tried to restrain their fellow demon.

The effort was nothing but futile, as the chamber soon filled with snarls, growls and sounds of broken bones. The massive hybrid was pure rage and terror, and he felt threatened. Primo’s other ghouls tried to scratch, bite, and hit, and the hybrid did the same.

Primo observed. The new ghoul was panicking. In despair, even. After the lantern, it’s only possession…

And the moment the aggressive ghoul locked its eyes on him, he knew what to do.

The order was absurd to his ghouls. An order to stay back. To let the new summon to come to their Papa. The other ghouls fought against their Papa’s orders for a moment, until Primo reminded them of their duty. To obey their Papa.

The leap the new demon made was almost too sudden. Ghouls are faster than humans, much faster. However, this one was, again, was just summoned. Exhausted and not in its full strength. Without that fact on his side, Primo knew he would have been done for.

He reached the injured hand he carried the lantern in towards his ghoul. The hybrid came to an immediate halt, crouching a little in front of Primo. He wasn’t sure what to do, and it clearly was thinking the way out of the situation in front of himself. Both physically and mentally. This human cannot be trusted, Primo just dragged him from their home…

Why? That is the question Primo saw in the other’s eyes. Simple, yet full of confusion and uncertainty.

Gently, Primo put the lantern in the ghouls arms. Its owner’s another hand immediately reached to cradle the object, while the other was still tensed to its side. The demon’s gaze lowered to check for any damage to the possession, and he expressed its relief with a gentle bonk against the lantern’s glass.

Then, the two met each other’s eyes. Primo’s own were filled with compassion, as he laid his injured hand onto the other one’s arm. The demon tensed up a little, inhaling a sharp breath… Before he could relax, and feel the peacefulness in that feathery light touch from the being that he should despise.

”Easy now, tesoro,” Primo spoke once again. ”Easy now…”

The ghoul in front the Papa was full of confusion. Absolutely speechless in front of such kindness. From a person that dragged it off from its home. Even more confusing was that the ghoul couldn’t clearly remember when was the last time he had received gentleness. Scars on the gray skin told that much. The blind, green eye, framed with a scar, acted as a tattle tail of its brutal past.

”What is your name?” Primo asked. The ghoul answered with a blink. His name hasn’t mattered since small forever. He didn’t really need to even remember that. Just that he has one...

Yet, with surprising ease, the slightly strained voice whispers against the pressuring silence, gentle gaze of the another, and familiar warmth of the artifact;

”Arvak...”

[daddy-issues-99]

Repo!Man x Reader Smut

Nathan is kinda mid but the Repo!Man suit and mask-😫

Plot is very overused "hey don't kill me plz surly there's another payment" but it works.

1.2k words

Afab reader, knife play, unprotected sex, p in v, leather, just the usual smut lol

Everything was going so well. 'Was' being the key word. You didn't think you would ever end up here. Strapped to an upright operating table realizing that a damp, bloodstained wall is the last thing you will ever see.

You were so pissed at yourself. How did you let this happen? It was so simple, get a new liver, pay it off, go on with life. Simple. Or so you thought.

However that (obviously) didn't happen. You ruined your first liver and now you were gonna lose your second. Wonderful.

You jumped at the sound of a nearby door opening. The metal scraping against the floor making you cringe.

You looked to see a very tall man with broad shoulders in a Repo Man suit holding a bag of surgical equipment. He walked slow as if examining every inch of your outer shell before slicing into you.

He placed the bag down on a nearby table and intricately placed every item out on the table so they were perfectly spaced apart. Every item he examined, his gloved hands gently caressing every item to make sure it was perfect.

All you could do was stare, not at the tools but at him. How he examined the tools with such care and precision. How his broad shoulders made him look so intimidating even when just standing their. Not to mention how the suit only eradicated his features.

"See something you like?" He said, drawing you back into reality. "Huh?" "The tools. Beautiful aren't they? Perfect to cut that pretty little tummy of yours." Pretty?

"Please sir, I missed one payment. Surely there's something else that can be done." "No can do. Besides, its not my place to pick and choose who gets the knife." He said raising the scalpel to your stomach. "I'm just the one who makes the cut."

He pressed the scalpel into your flesh letting a droplet of blood fall to the floor. "Please sir! There has to be something you can do?" "No can do madam. As I said, its a thankless job. Unless you can make a payment in the next 30 seconds then its lights out."

Make a payment. "Ill give you my body as payment!" You blurted out. He let out a dry laugh. "Lady I already have your organs." "No! My body. My everything. Anything you desire, anything you crave, anything you ask I can give you!"

"And why would I do that? Your just some tramp from off the streets." "Exactly! I-I'm experienced. Anything you want me to do I can do."

He stood mere inches from you, scalpel still against your skin.

"How 'bout this sweetheart. If you can truly can fulfil anything I desire then I'll give you exactly 24 hours to pay off your debts. If not-" He held the scalpel up to your throat. "I'll see you again soon."

What other option do you have. You obviously didnt have money. Didnt have any power or athourity. Even this is pushing it but you didnt want to die, not yet and especially not like this.

"I'm waiting sweetheart. I suggest you don't make me wait much longer." You took a deep breath "Deal."

"Deal"

He quickly brings the scalpel up to your top and cuts it off, tearing the fabric away from your body leaving you in your bra. He brings his gloved hands up to caress your breasts, the cold leather sending a chill down your spine.

He traces the lace of your bra slowly and unclasps your bra roughly pulling it off of you and puts it in his jacket pocket. "A little memento to remember those beautiful features."

He brings his hands back up to your chest caressing your breasts, running his thumbs over your nipples. His hands trail down your chest to your waist, slowly caressing your flesh until he makes it down to your waistband, tugging on your belt loops. "I'm only gonna ask once." He said sternly, resting his hands on your hips. I give a simple nod in response.

"Good girl."

He quickly undoes your belt and tossing it to the side. He lifts up his scalpel again making me flinch. "Don't worry sweetheart, we had a deal and I'll respect that." He said bringing the scalpel to your shorts, cutting off the thin material and tossing it next to the rest of your tattered clothes, leaving you just in your panties. "Beautiful." He whispers

His knee pushes your legs apart bringing his hand to your clothed cunt, circling your clit through the thin fabric making you throw your head back against the metal slab, holding back a moan.

"Something you wanna say sweetheart?" He asks, circling your clit even faster. "Please~" "Please what sweetheart? Use that pretty mouth of yours." He asks leaning in inches from your face so you could see his eyes through the mask.

"Please-just fuck me already!" You whine. You hear a small chuckle through his mask. "So needy." He quickly undoes his belt letting his cock spring free pumping the shaft letting out a groan.

He quickly moves his hands toward your panties and ripped them clean off you making you yelp in surprise and a little pain.

He pulled your hips forward, positioning the head of his cock between your folds, slowly pushing in, both of you letting out a moan. His pace starts off slow making sure to enjoy every second of being inside you. His pace soon quickens, roughly thrusting up into you. The tip of his cock hitting your cervix with every thrust.

His grip on your hips is tight, the smooth leather cool against your skin. Your head lays against the cold metal of the operating table letting out a breathy moan with every thrust. He brings one of his hands down and begins to quickly massage your clit, moving in quick circles causing you to let out a string of curses.

"Enjoying yourself sweetheart?" He asked pounding into you. "Fuck-yes!" you say, drunk from the pleasure. "Good" He quickly pulls all the way out of you and slams back in harder than before, roughly thrusting up into you, hitting your g-spot with every thrust.

"I'm close." You say, closing your eyes tightly feeling your pleasure steadily building. He circles your clit even faster making you whine in pleasure, continuing to thrust roughly into you listening to you let out moan after moan after each thrust.

"Come on sweetheart, milk my fucking cock." He says watching as your eyes role back in pleasure as your orgasm rips through you, loudly cumming on his cock. He continues thrusting letting you ride out your high and he soon follows, coating your walls in his cum.

He pulls out of your exhausted body, both panting heavily trying to catch your breath. He stands back looking at your body and his cum leaking out of you. "Don't worry, I'm on the pill." You say between breaths. He lets out a sigh of relief, putting himself back together and quickly zipping up his pants.

He quickly moves next to you and uncuff your hands from above you on the operating table, letting your exhausted body fall to the ground.

"Well, we had a deal." He says motioning to the door. "Hope to not see you again." He said walking back over to the table and putting away his supplies. I quickly stand up grabbing my clothes and instantly stop.

"What do I wear to go home? You cut up all my clothes." He lets out a dark chuckle "That wasn't part of the deal sweetheart. Now, run along, that 24 hours is ticking away."

Side note: I am working on the fic from my last poll I'm just slow lol. May take a while

[transboysokka]

pls allow me to make a long life update ramble here bc im sick of irl people not understanding at all

I feel like I have a feel disconnected points to make

People like me aren’t meant to get bachelor’a degrees and we’re DAMN SURE not meant to get master’s

I’m 1000% just in survival mode right now and there’s theoretically a month left to go but idek if I’ll make it that long tbh

It has taken me YEARS to figure out a healthy/sustainable work-life balance that goes with my executive dysfunction but that’s NOT POSSIBLE working full time AND doing a degree

I’ve been feeling guilty for resting at all lately (and probably should) but yet if I don’t my health suffers majorly

It has always been hard for me to get simple things done, but now I can’t even THINK about simple necessary errands like walking to the supermarket or going to get a cell phone number or updating shit at the bank because ALL my energy goes to keeping me and my dog alive, keeping a job, and trying to stay in this program

I have delayed my transition by YEARS to pay for all this which was definitely the wrong call ughhhhh

I worked SO hard all of K-12 to get into a good university, when it came down to it didn’t even want to go, was too depressed to apply to hardly any, chose my best option still not knowing what I wanted to do but forced into it and forced to take out all of these loans when I didn’t even know what they meant.

Ended up never dealing with audhd shit, trauma shit, didn’t know what I was doing with my life, tried to get jobs to pay for school but couldn’t handle class and jobs at the same time so got more depressed until I stopped going to classes altogether and got kicked out

That would have been great for me tbh but I still didn’t know what else to do so I begged them to let me back in which they did and I ended up barely graduating with some pointless major I just chose to get me a degree. And also $80k of student debt I had no way to even comprehend knowing how to use

Didn’t know what to do after that either so I ended up in retail for a couple years before I got a random rare opportunity to get me out of there and doing what I always wanted

Well. I felt like I needed to make up for lost time degree-wise and ended up basically begging myself into this half-shitty program that culminates in this masters. I applied maybe five years ago, waited a little over two to start until I had money to pay for it (this is after fleeing the US and the 80k lmao) and somehow killed the first year of it.

I took another year and a half off trying to figure out the rest of the money which I eventually did and that’s how we end up here. I will hopefully have the degree in October but will still be paying for it the rest of the school year rip

So financially this sacrifice is obviously huge and on one hand I never thought I’d be able to do it so yay me and on the other hand I have NOT been able to pursue v v important trans stuff which I notice and deal with eVERY GODDAmn day thanks AND I will also probably not be able to make my every-18-month visit home next summer with my family which also gODDAMN SUCKS because family was EVERYTHING to me growing up and they’ve all forgotten it and probably think I have too but I miss those mfers so much and they would never buy a flight to come see me so.

ANYWAY yeah in undergrad I could NOT do a job and school at the same time so I’ve been proud of being able to handle it this time around but the last fourish months of this program are so intense and I am NOT handling it

Like I have done SO WELL up to now so I feel like I just GOTTA keep going but it’s SO HARD and I’m TOO STUPID and I’ve been told my whole life I’m not meant for higher education and now BOY DO I KNOW IT

I’m just trying to keep going. I order food and groceries to my house. I’m putting off super important errands and appointments as long as I can because I JUST CANT GET THERE I CANNOT WASTE SPOONS ON CELL PHONE PLANS RIGHT NOW I’m just trying to stay alive holy shit

I hate feeling so incompetent in my personal life especially because I’ve always put my professional life first out of like. Fear of losing it. and I KNOW this “laziness” is justified bc I’m spread so thin AND have executive dysfunction and a chronic illness but holy shit it still feels bad scoob. So fucking bad.

I think what I need to do is arrange time off work just to get this all sorted and finished but I’ve literally never taken a day off in my life so I’d feel bad and have MORE anxiety figuring out how to do it lololol ahhhhhhhh

[rivetgoth]

Tbh on the topic of college, I am always gonna be thee biggest proponent of community college as a pathway to higher education for those who desire it. It’s such a scam that it’s not talked about more often and the vehement classism associated with it is just wild. I was an extremely mentally unwell teenager whose grades tanked in the latter half of high school, I switched schools and still struggled, and then graduated at age 17… I don’t necessarily think I could’ve gotten into any kind ov “dream school” right out of hs nor would I have been ready to, but going the community college route meant I was able to pay out of pocket for the first 2.5 years of school, I was able to take my classes slowly and experiment around with what I liked without it literally putting me in debt for the rest of my life, I had the time to start participating in clubs, get a job and start saving money, got my associates for transfer, AND I didn’t have to take a single standardized test to get into my dream university :) I left community college with a 3.9 GPA, a scholarship, a full resume, off to my dream city…

It genuinely feels sickening to me how much it’s looked down on as an option. About a fourth of UCLA students are transfers but the stigma against transfer students and community college was massive. I genuinely enjoyed my time at UCLA but the absolute worst part of the experience was the way people talked about community college. So many UCLA students were spoiled rich kids who were paying their way through like $50k tuition and recoiled in horror at the thought of needing to take out a loan. On “transfer day” (special event for newly admitted transfers to come explore the campus for the first time, get info about the program, meet and greet with faculty, clubs and job fair, etc) the speaker gave a whole speech like “People may judge transfer students but we support you and we know the stereotypes aren’t true!” and having never been to a 4 year before I was like… huh? But it was SO BAD dude. I remember having coworkers at the campus tutoring job I worked make comments about how “they could always tell if a paper was written by a transfer student.” I’d be like What do you mean? and they’d go on about how Oh well you know, transfer students just don’t know what they’re doing, their writing is less skillful, they aren’t as experienced… and I’d be like Well I’m a transfer and they’d IMMEDIATELY back down like “oh I don’t mean people like you though.” One of my professors gave a whole speech in the first quarter I was there after our midterm like “Now I know it’s the fall quarter and there may be some new transfers here and this is probably the first midterm you’ve had on a four year university campus, if your grade isn’t what you expected DON’T feel bad, it’s a learning experience and many transfers don’t understand the rigor it takes to get high marks here…” I GOT 100% DUDE!! Not just on the paper but I had one of the highest final grades in the class, so high that my prof actually waived the final paper for me and a small group of other students with the highest marks in the class LOL!! Stuff like this happened alllll the time. I can remember like so many little instances of someone talking about how community college and transfer students themselves just Weren’t As Good, capable, smart, etc as traditional students.

I graduated UCLA with a 3.8 GPA, so my GPA went down by .1 point between community college and four year university. While saving tens of thousands of dollars lol. I don’t really feel like I struggled particularly hard at all, I didn’t feel unprepared, and I honestly enjoyed socializing with my community college peers more than my UCLA peers. I felt a lot of solidarity with all of the transfer students I met in my classes and while working, even the ones struggling more than me. At my tutoring job when I was working with a student who mentioned they were a transfer and I told them I was too their eyes would light up! It was genuinely a really nice connection. But it blows my mind that it was partially formed out of this almost necessary solidarity via the weird fucking way people viewed it. I feel like community college was a huge part of where I started to turn my life around and get my shit together. It was not perfect but it gave me opportunities I never would’ve had otherwise. It’s very obviously classism and it’s very obviously just blatantly false—The whole idea that you’re “less prepared” for college by GOING TO COLLEGE than being a fresh-out-of-high-school 18 year old who took a couple [expensive] multiple choice tests administered by third party organizations is insane. And aside from the classism element the obvious trickle down financial benefit the schools have in pushing four year university is just so nefarious. Like the money being given to the College Board (AP and SAT), ACT, Pearson, etc not to mention the universities themselves… The school district here literally has to keep track of how many 12th graders go off to 4 year universities for funding purposes, community college isn’t even considered, so there is financial gain on all sides in pushing students to rush into life altering decisions that could cost them tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars and push themselves far beyond their limits for no fucking reason and to no benefit to them. Gah I could rant about this forever but omg. If I have any freshly-graduated or about-to-graduate people following me or anyone considering going back to school after taking a break please please consider community college and fuck the haters for real.

[nonbinaryresource]

hmmmm not sure how to phrase this exactly, but I've been looking through the questioning tag and thought I could try just asking specifically. (Sorry it got quite long!)

I'm pretty sure watching too many trans tiktoks did not make me nonbinary, but it sure brought up questions. Mainly, what if relating to nonbinary/trans experiences in my case is just that, relating? I'm thinking I might be nonbinary or trans, all because I suck at almost everything considered my gender, from looks to skills and so my "disphoria" is me not liking how others see me, rather than it being my body. I don't want to be my body to people first and then my person, besides I get the feeling top surgery would make me look and feel aesthetically cooler lol but that's just me

Is that a thing or I'm just extremely in denial?

Not sure if you caught the study we were just reblogging on how dysphoria and transness is not caused by "social contagion" like tiktoks, but if not, it feels relevant to link.

Researchers from the Fenway Institute disproved the theory of "rapid-onset gender dysphoria" (RODG) and determined that "social contagion" does not influence gender identity in the largest study of its kind, published earlier this month in Pediatrics journal.

"The hypothesis that transgender and gender diverse youth assigned female at birth identify as transgender due to social contagion does not hold up to scrutiny and should not be used to argue against the provision of gender-affirming medical care for adolescents," Dr. Alex S. Keuroghlian, the study's senior author and director of Fenway's National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center, and the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Gender Identity Program, said in a statement.

But I'm gonna focus on the idea of "what if I just relate to trans experiences but aren't trans?"

Okay.

So.

What if you do?

What?

Then what?

You...find out more about yourself?

You...discover new things about your own feelings and comfort?

You...consider all of the options and come to decide on which label is best for you to adopt?

I'm not seeing a downside here. I'm not seeing anything to panic about. The transphobes have turned exploration and experimentation into the boogeyman. Life is about exploration and experimentation. Capitalism has absolutely ruined us. It's ridiculous to expect children who aren't even done psychologically developing yet to know and pick their life path and dedicate the rest of their life to it, including going thousands of dollars in debt to get a degree if necessary. It's ridiculous to expect people to not explore and experiment and have some damn fun in life, whether that's trying out 60 different jobs to find something that they want to do or discarding and picking up a new hobby each every single week to find what they actually find enjoyable or playing around with genders/sexualities/names/pronouns/clothes/etc. to figure out their feelings and better get to know who they are.

There is nothing - NOTHING - inherently wrong, bad, or immature about exploration and experimentation in life period.

So what if you relate to trans experiences but are actually cis? So what you identify as trans now for whatever length of time and change how you label later? So what?

I am so tired of the idea that anybody knows what they are doing ever. Nobody knows! We're all just making it up! The imposter syndrome we're putting everyone through for every aspect of their lives - from their jobs to their hobbies to their genders to their sexualities - is out of control. The society we have built is not meant for people. And that's incredibly, incredibly heartbreaking.

People should be allowed to play and explore and experiment!

People should be allowed to grow and change!

People should be allowed to be confused and unsure!

People should be allowed to not know!

People should be allowed to try on identities like we try on clothes at the store!

Fuck the self-gaslighting society is pressuring you to put yourself through.

I don't care what you know for sure. I don't care if you're going by a label you're unsure of. I don't care if you're going by a label you know is technically not the most accurate. I don't care if you stuck up a bunch of identity labels on a dart board, threw a dart, and decided to identify as that one. I'm here for you. The messy, confused, complex, hard to understand you. The real you.

Could it be a thing that you relate to trans experiences, don't really relate to cis experiences, and yet are cis? Sure. (Slightly tangential, but I think you might get some food for thought out of this piece of writing.)

But don't sit here thinking you have to identify as cis because you don't have "proof" of being trans. That's not a thing. It's just what the transphobes want you to think. You can identify as any damn thing you want (let's avoid cultural appropriation, though!), even if you're only 0.5% thinking you might be that thing.

If you think you might be nonbinary, practice not giving into the thoughts like "but I can't really be nonbinary because I'm only just now thinking about it". Practice letting yourself try out being nonbinary! For at least several months, unless it's just too terrible and you realize right away that it's not right for you. Don't debate on this or put yourself through a court of law or beat yourself down. Just let yourself be nonbinary. In a couple months, then come back to the questions of "is this right for me?".

And there is no "right" or "wrong" reason to identify with whatever identity. Some people identify as nonbinary because they have a very specific, pinpointable, non-binary gender. Others identify as nonbinary because they're not really sure but nonbinary makes them the most comfortable. Others identify as nonbinary because they want to be nonbinary. Others identify as nonbinary because they don't relate to or don't understand or don't want to identify with the binarily gendered structure of our society. Whatever your reasoning, it's both valid and nobody else's business (though ofc you can tell anybody why if it's what YOU want to do).

~Mod Pluto

P.S. If anything in this ask comes off as angry or frustrated, it is not with you. It is towards society and bigots who purport attitudes that harm people, even if in seemingly "little" ways like making them feel like they can't trust their own feelings.

[evowolverine]

Ah yes ya right Ah shoulda just gotten a retail job dat would have been so easy wit my freaking demon eyes.... No offense but Gambit don't really have da privilege o taking normal jobs like y'all do who can mo easily hide ya mutant traits. And it ain't about earning money it's about what I need da money fo. Gambit need about 500,000 relatively quickly, next few years at most. It's what's best fo....everyone involved. Xavier didn't exactly hand me one o his magic little hogwarts-esque lettas at any point like he did your students, and due to a rather.....unforeseen embarrassing situation fo da family, putting up and continuing to work fo mah daddy weren't exactly an option for a while an ah don't wanna stay caught up in dat life anyhow. So Gambit had about three options: go into debt to who I need the money fo which if you knew about my situation a bit mo you'd realize was not really a good option, take up da payment plan I was offered which again given da person was not something Gambit could agree to, or work fo Magneto who pays a ridiculous sum an hour fo full-time wit paid time off, free housing, and dental, and most of Gambit's job dere just is making sure da other three chuckle fucks don't get Magneto killed and people don't manage to break in. Is pretty light work an ain't too taxin on da brain fo a former teif. So unless you got a better idea, blaireau, magneto it is fo now.

*logan stares at Gambit for a long moment*

I... gotta admit, ya got me stumped. Congrats.

Cause if what ya say is true, An' I hope for your sake ya ain't lyin', then...

*he sighs*

Damn it, I can't believe I'm sayin' this, but...

We might be able to help.

Well... dependin' on what ya need the money for, we might be able to help. I dunno the ins an' outs of all o' this, but Xavier's got a fund set up fer cases just like yours. There'll be background checks o' course an' questions.

But... it's what he always preaches to us; Everyone deserves a chance. Don't come easy to me, obviously, but then again... he didn't hafta help me an' he did. Didn't care that everyone, includin' myself, told him that I was bad news.

So... I guess I don't get to judge.

We could set up a meetin'. Rogue'll put in a word for ya. An' I can tell him what ya told me.

Rest is up to you.

An' for the record: I still don't trust ya one bit, Cajun. Just so we're clear. I'm doin' this for Chuck. And Rogue.

[thewhumpcaretaker]

The Broken Veil: Summary of Unfinished Remaining Chapters

As I mentioned in the author's notes, I've had a mental health crisis related to maladaptive dreaming/limerence/mania/I-don't-exactly-know while writing this story. I'm going to stop and focus on the real people who care about me. So, here's the spoiler-filled outline of what the rest would have looked like to prevent myself from returning to the project. If you want to know what would have happened, here it is!

With that, this blog is going dark.

With love for all whumpees, real and fictional,

TheWhumpCaretaker

Helen and John talk with The Bowery King. They explain why Helen is invulnerable and propose revolution. “How many assassins are there in New York alone? And how many of them chose this life? Don’t you think something is out of balance?” He agrees to back them. However, he is interested in using her powers to his own advantage.

The Director hears what’s been happening and puts out the call for information about Helen. Helen’s grave is exhumed. There is no body, only her clothes. The Director is afraid of hell. “It’s hard to tell who’s dead and who’s alive these days. Gianna D’Arentino’s dead and then she’s missing and then she’s back…and now this mysterious woman claiming to be Helen Wick.”

They go to confront Santino. Helen talks John down from killing Ares and they leave her with a knife in her aorta, incapacitated but with the option to survive if she doesn’t pursue them.

Helen shoots Santino. Winston: “Your wife is excommunicado.” Helen: “Can’t kick me out of a club I’ve never joined.” Unfortunately, John is responsible for Helen’s behavior while on Continental Grounds, so he may still be excommunicated too.

Conversation with Winston (and Ares?). “How do you know that that…thing is your wife? How do you know it’s not some bride of the devil?” “Because I am the devil, and she is my bride.”

Helen meets John’s new dog. Pure fluff.

The High Table holds a trail to decide whether John is liable for Helen killing Santino, his marker holder. Meanwhile, they are assembling a team, first contacting Gianna and Cassian. Cassian is immediately onboard, Gianna is not. Helen makes her realize how much she loves Cassian through some means and she joins them.

Others who join include Caine, Sophia, and Ares. Winston is reluctant to join, not wanting to let go of the world as he knows it and his position of power. John fears for his life in the coming war.

They discover that Helen is pregnant. “What if this is why you were sent back? What if we only have nine months together?”

John proposes to Helen for a vow renewal, because they said “till death do us part,” and now he knows that death will not part them.

At some point, mission to kill the head of the high table.

At some point, John is stranded in the rain with severe injuries until Helen can find him, followed by a sicfic chapter.

At some point, existential crisis chapter. Winston is wounded or dead. John asks, “Why are there beings at all? If we’re all headed for nonbeing…why can’t we just shorten the trip?” “Because of the becoming. Out there, nothing changes. Don’t you want things to change, John? We aren’t finished yet.”

At some point, the movement begins burning the money and leverage held by all heads of crime throughout the world.

At some point, they call for the end of all markers. “No debts, no markers.”

At some point, John and Helen’s vow renewal takes place.

At some point, shortly before the birth, they hold a revelation. An announcement broadcast to the entire world about the nature of death and the afterlife, with Helen as living proof. A new era of different turmoil begins, including religious conflicts and attempts to reach loved ones. The meaning of assassination is altered forever. Mediums are established.

Helen gives birth. I have yet to choose between three endings:

Happy ending: Apparently, she is still needed at John’s side, because she remains with him.

Bittersweet ending: Helen vanishes back into the afterlife and John spends his remaining days passing on all of his wisdom and fighting skills to his daughter, who is born between life and death and carries supernatural powers, including the ability to help them communicate at times.

Weird ending: There is a battle going on at the time. John dies to save the baby, but claws his way back from the dead just as Helen did. They reign together over a new world as immortals.

[zelda7999]

Accidentally Undercover Thoughts (tm)

SO WE ALL KNOW THAT THE WORLD MUST BE SOME SORTA HIGH TECH, BUT NO ONE STOPPED ME WITH HOW HIGH TECH SO HERE I AM LETTING MY BRAIN RUN WILD. I BLAME LUCE ( @lavenoon ), BUT MOSTLY MYSELF.

ALSO: I am not good at content warnings! So I am putting this here saying this MIGHT contain some mentions of Injury, hospitals, and perhaps even very minor and not permenate death. THO I PROMISE IT’S NOT AS BAD YOU’RE THINKING?? IT ALL WORKS OUT GOOD

UNDER THE READ MORE JKSLADHFASJDF vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

OKAY SO LIKE... 

This is kinda angsty... but what if something happened  to Robin? Something life threatening that sends them to the hospital kinda thing. We don’t know if Robin has any close family, but for a moment let’s imagine they don’t. If this happened post reveal I can imagine Sun/Moon being their emergency contact at work ‘cause who else could they call if something really happened to them? 

So again, we don’t know exactly how high tech the world is, but we have legit Animatronics walkin’ around n living in society. We’ve gotta be far along if that’s a normal, right? So what if there was a way to... idk, transfer a human to an animatronic body? I would assume this would be reserved for extremely wealthy people... Or people who work for a top secret agency perhaps? 

So this is super high tech, but what if robin got hurt and when they call their emergency contact (Sun & Moon), the hospital has to present them with a difficult choice. Let Robin go, or let them transfer them. (meaning Robin would have to work to pay off the debt of their new body, like how the boys did. Here’s the post about that world building if ya missed it -> here) I can imagine that if it’s between losing them VS having to help them adjust to their new existence, they’re gonna choose the option that keeps Robin with them. 

The first while would be SO MUCH relearning for Robin. So so much. How to move, relearning how parkour works for them, getting used to whatever material they’re made of, how they see and feel things, everything would be new to them. I can also see Sun & Moon having to remind them of a few things. Like the first few times they go grocery shopping Sun & Moon sadly remind them they don’t need to go to the food side of the store :( Or when at some Sun & Moon remind them to charge because WHOOPS they have to do that now! 

This would also be so hard on Robin, there would be so many emotions. A lot of comfort needed from the boys. There would be so much trauma from whatever happened to land them in this situation. ksjadhflksjdhf 

Idk where I’m going with the rest of this, but I needed to get the idea out there and thought others might ALSO find it cool. 

[saltqueer]

Very interested to hear more about and commerce flowed like blood 👀👀👀

so! and commerce flowed like blood, or flow, he/they, is my character for a heart campaign i'm in.

mechanically, his ancestry is cervine, a humanoid deer that's custom to the setting, he's a marsh deer specifically, his class is incarnadine, and his calling is forced (by incarne). his general mission from her is to use the incarnadine move network to set up a series of shrines to her all over sancoteaux, the name of the setting.

backstory wise, he grew up in a society of nomads and moved in to sedentary society as a young adult to attend a university on a scholarship. there, he found the lifestyle shift unexpectedly stressful and turned to gambling to cope. i don't gamble at all, so i haven't specified more than that cause i don't know much about the various types. they eventually became mired in gambling debt, letting their grades slip and losing their scholarship. one day he suddenly found himself on the street with gaping holes where memories should be, and a scarred handprint over his heart. incarne had claimed his life and his memories to recoup his debts.

ever since then they've been doing her bidding, communicated to them by a cold itchy feeling in the scar and writing on the back of a coin with her image on it. i don't really want to write a whole summary of the campaign so far, so suffice it to say they've been confused and stressed and stupid and hair trigger with their gun the whole time. their primary internal motivation is seeking comfort. i feel like there's a better word for what i mean there, but it isn't really shelter or security or rest either, sort of a combination of all four. this is really familiar to how i felt when i was homeless, super struggling to have any plan more than a day or two out and nearly unable to even think of any other way of acting if something could give me even thirty seconds of immediate comfort-shelter-rest-security, even if that compromised access to future comfort-shelter-rest-security, but so stressed and tired that i regularly couldn't follow through on those options either. i've been housed for several years now and i still super struggle to consider any kind of future, although in the last year i have managed to set and work towards two goals that will take me about 2 and 5-10 years to complete, which is very exciting!

back to flow though, right now they're supposed to be working on a scheme to gain control of the secrets network in the city we've been operating in, and they've fumbled it at least three times, almost completely unable to consider a long term plan like that. plus this isn't the kind of life they led before, so they're trying to pick up this new skill of scheming on the fly with no teacher while far too stressed and confused to learn effectively. this has led to many very funny (imo) moments of other characters assuming that because they're an incarnadine they have plans on plans on schemes on schemes, while they sit there exhaustedly thinking to themself that all they have is a gun (currently broken!) and pockets full of random shit.

his most recent fumble of the scheme was that he found his way to a safehouse free of divine oversight owned by jorritt jessey, local priestess of azure and person in control of most of the secrets network in the city. he literally collapsed to the floor when the constant stress of incarne's presence left him as he entered. she wasn't super happy they were there, but after a "negotiation" where they were exhaustedly sitting on the floor the whole time and in their tired rambling absolutely blabbed their mouth about stuff they shouldn't have she ended up agreeing to give them access to it if they put her in contact with bernard tchoch-quay, the party vermissian knight, so she could buy a train ticket somewhere else. they were so consumed with the need to be able to access a place like that regularly that they completely forgot to try to bargain for control of her network after she left the city. the idea only occurred to him after a full night of sleep. so he's currently working on getting bernard to meet her and have that be part of the ticket price, and then having him give it up to flow as a finder's fee. this is the first fumble where he's realized later that he missed an opportunity to advance the scheme, so there's some progress happening! this also made him consider for the first time that he could try to get away from incarne at all. before this i was very adamant that they did not have the presence of mind to come up with that possibility themself, reflecting, again, my own experiences in an abusive and controlling religious situation that governed nearly all my memories. we're using the house rule that you can have a third beat slot for your zenith beat, and after this i added the beat "end the control your master has over you"!

he is certainly learning and trying to have plans longer than a day or two out, but i definitely want his situation to pull him back to that position a few times before he dies/gets out so i can luxuriate in bad decisions and failure and just desperately seeking thirty seconds of comfort-shelter-rest-security at not the cost of the rest of my own life

[roseinbloom02]

I am BEGGING people to not have kids until they are financially and emotionally stable. Kids need time and attention. If you want them to turn out kind, you also need to show them love, care, and affection because the other option is to let them turn into bullies. Raising kids is a full time job that you shouldn't half ass, and at 21, you likely don't have enough money saved for emergencies (someone getting fired, emergency surgery, baby getting sick, divorce, etc)

Life is not a race, we're not meant to constantly be competing with each other over who can make the most kids. This is not the hunter-gatherer stage anymore where more kids = survival. In this day and age, more kids = debt. Unless one of you is rich, I wouldn't recommend having a big family or even 2 babies at 21.

Not to mention the possibility of your kid becoming/being born as disabled. My older brother had a head injury when he was a little over a year old and now he has to take medications for life + have a caretaker looking out for him. He can barely speak English, he can't drive, he can't clean himself up, he will forever be reliant on others for the rest of his life.

I have adhd coupled with a bunch of other mental disorders. I can live just fine for now, but during the pandemic I hit an all time low and had to go on medications. My little brother has eye problems and also has undiagnosed adhd. I would know because he acts just like me as a kid.

Unless you are willing to potentially put yourself in debt for your kids, please please PLEASE think twice about having kids. If you really want to have kids, we can't stop you, but if you turn out homeless due to financial burdens or your kids go non contact when they're older for your shitty parenting, that's on you.

Also, if you have your first kid at 21, it's likely you had your first at 19. 9 months pregnant + at least 3 months rest + 9 more months is 21 months or 1 yr 9 months. And that's assuming it's a back to back pregnancy with very little wait time in between. She would've been an average college sophomore at her first pregnancy. How many are willing to bet she didn't even finish college?

imagine thinking this is a flex i would kill myself if this was my life

[itsweirdtiming]

10/2/24 Entry 1

Jesus, holy fuck.

I don't know why I'm in this position. I have no idea why. I want to do more with my life, with my body, with my time. But everything and everyone is so limiting.

I shouldn't complain, I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that I'm very fortunate, and that I've come a long way, that things are ultimately gettting better, yadayadayadayada.

It's just not enough for me.

It's not enough for the world, according to what I've been told my whole life.

Let's start with my job. Well, I think it's just fine. It's a fine job. I get paid more than any job I've had before, but that's just about it. I actually do really like my coworkers. They're very lovely people.

My boss doesn't like me though. And it's apparent. And I've had that problem with every job I've been at. The boss never likes me. I tried really hard this time, and I still try, but it just always ends up like that. I think it's one of my astrology placements, because one of my placements told me so a while ago.

Well, I wish I didn't have to work so much during college. I wish I had all the time in the world to be involved with the extracirricular activities that would have allowed me to end up at a better graduate school. And don't get me wrong, I love my school, I just wish I at least had padded my application enough to get a really good scholarship to have at least one less load off my back. I do have enough debt already, but not going to graduate school just wasn't an option for a degree like mine.

Oh yeah, and that brings me to that: I'm repeating the same problem. I'm working too damn much, not enough time outside of that. I'm grateful for these opportunties, but they all come with a catch that makes things harder on me in this moment.

I don't even remember the last time I finished a book on my own accord. The last time I read obsessively was in middle school. Over a decade ago.

I wish I didn't stay with my ex-boyfriend as long as I did. I kept putting off the pain of the breakup, and that drove us both in too deep before we knew it. I know that we both know neither of us are right for each other, but now there's this painful bond that will be there for the rest of our lives. This painful attachment to a person who doesn't care about us the way we wish they did. It applies to both of us. It hurts so badly, and I'll always miss him, but he will never be enough for me, and I will never be enough for him. I wish he would just find someone new, someone who is perfect for him, someone who makes him a better person. So I can watch him grow and not feel so guilty about doing the same.

Why is it that it all feels suddenly so horrible now that I'm getting enough sleep? Before two days ago, I have been consistently getting sporatic sessions of sleep. Maybe 5-7 hours on the week days, and weird timings on the weekends from having odd timing for days.

I miss getting high every day. NO, nothing crazy. Just shitty fake weed from the store. But it helped me. Now I can't even turn to that because of my job. Yes, it's worth it, but I miss it. CBD isn't the same. (Obviously)

And how pathetic can someone be? Falling in love with someone they have never met, and possibly will never meet? My delusion that one day I will meet her, one day I will have the chance to be her friend, and the possibility that it could blossom into a life-long love? Seriously? How fucking pathetic. The part of me that has faith it'll happen is there. I believe it wholeheartedly. That I could be the safety she needs. Or am I just projecting? Am I just projecting the years of tormet that I went through in my previous relationship to make myself feel better about the trauma that I still haven't processd yet?

It's been 8 days since I last texted my ex. Only recently have I become comfortable in calling him my ex. This is probably the longest we have gone without speaking since March of 2020, when we started talking. It feels like such a blur. I regret it so much. At least I learned to never compromise my standards and what I need for a man who doesn't even treat me the way I wanted to be treated.

I hate not being able to be unapologetically myself. Sometimes I wonder if I'm a lesbian with the world's most horrible case of comphet. I can't be openly myself here the way I could at my college town. (undergrad of course)

[cking398]

CHAPTER 4: Best Broker : 1996-2003 My life had gone to plan I thought. By the year 2000, I was 27 and my own boss, respected by all my clients and starting to make some real money.

By 2003 I was not so sure. I had come to Asia seeking wealth and here I was, rolling in it. I had the pad and, I thought, the girl. Problem was I was depressed, underneath, I hid it, but my life had become a continuous nightmare. The job was getting to me. This one client especially. I had proof this guy tried to take me down. He was just a jealous prick. Got bullied at School, for sure. He did not attack me physically, but he had attacked my only baby up until that time. My baby was my business. Funny thing is this guy works now at the firm I created with my partners back in 2010 De Riva HK ltd. I named it like that because the name contains the first 6 letters of the products we were broking; derivatives and because Da River card in texas hold’em decides the game and this company was going to be my last play in finance.

To most of you, saying equity derivatives probably makes as much sense as saying gobble-di-gook. Nothing. Indeed to most people in finance, derivatives remain incomprehensible. Futures are simple derivatives. They can be based on a stock, a stock index, a commodity, a currency or an interest rate. They follow the price of the underlying instrument, for example if Oil goes up by 5 percent the price of the futures based on that product should go up by a similar amount. You can short them, sell them hoping they go down, as easily as you can buy them, I brokered these which just involved placing orders on the exchange. Options are less liquid than futures on indices and have wider prices (the bid offer spread is wider), so banks that need to do size generally use a broker. Options, give the right to the buyer to purchase a particular financial instrument at a particular price for a stated period of time. I was principally a broker specialising in exchanged traded listed options in Asia, I also did futures and I brokered the odd OTC trade.

There is a widely used equation to price these instruments known as Black and Scholes. The equation is brilliant but ultimately flawed. The equation does not take into account "Black Swans" as famously talked about by Mr. Taleb in his book of the same name. The two Professors who came up with this equation Mr. Black and Mr. Scholes eventually won the Nobel prize for the equation that they came up with in the 1970s. It had revolutionised finance. In the 1990s they created a fund called Long Term Capital Management with the help of friends. Long Term Capital Management ended up to be a fund which became very short term turning the Long Term in the funds name on its head. The fund famously blew up and had to be rescued by the federal reserve in 1998 after Russia defaulted on its debt. From inception to destruction it did not even last 5 years. In those five years, the managers became extremely rich while their shareholders were less fortunate. Brilliant men, clearly, but flawed, like the rest of us.

Anyway I did not care about the formula. I was a broker, it was important to know where volatility was sometimes but not essential. I was the guy who put prices together. Say a bank wants to buy Hang Seng Index options (the equivalent in America would be options on the SP500, the Hang Seng is the Hong Kong equivalent), they call me, I ask a market maker which are generally small firms that make bids and offers for banks and the market in general. In return they get a preferential fee schedule from the exchange . Now I have a buy price and a sell price. My job is to put them together and trade. I would go back to the trader at the bank which asked me for the price and he would give me a bid or an offer if he wanted to sell the option. I would try and find a counterparty for the other side. Everyone knew where the fair value was because traders were basically working off the same formula. I would make a lot of calls. I was the broker with the best contacts in the market. This was important because I could probably get the best price for the guy or gal who had asked me for the price on the option. That’s why traders dealt through me. To be a good options broker, you had to be a good guy. People could always take their business elsewhere.

I was basically the best listed options broker on one exchange, in one country in the world, China. I was an IBD. Inter-Bank dealer. I had no retail clients, only institutional. Karim had taught me the job at Fimat but when he left for Japan for a similar position on the Japanese market, I had single handedly opened all but three of the accounts for KGI Asia Ltd. These included JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, UBS, Merrill Lynch, Societe Generale, BNP, Bear Stearns amongst others. There were three agreements already signed when I joined KGI Asia ltd. A broker called Dun Lee had begun opening the accounts until he decided his best bet was to start an internet shop in 1999 with his mates.

I opened the rest 40+, this included around 5 market makers and small funds. I managed to do this by always being forthright with clients, sure there were tricks of the trade that I used when broking, but on the whole, people passed orders through me because I was the most trustworthy and best broker in Hong Kong. I had done this through a combination of consistency, charm and humbleness. My British School of Brussels education had primed me to be good at this kind of work. The school where I had grown up had over 100 nationalities among its students. I had no racist bone in my body.

I knew I was the best not because I said so, but because clients regularly told me and they voted with their order volume. I knew the game, It was a game of respect, this was the game of equity derivatives broking, the same 'game' I had played on the street and in School. Being a straight shooter. Not always straight with the law when I was growing up, but straight with my friends.

People talk in finance and they obviously liked my story. Whenever a new trader came to town I would invite them for lunch, drinks or dinner. Normally lunch. I would always try and make the first meeting one on one. People are different in groups; They watch their words more carefully. One on one you can really get a sense of a person. People tended to like me.

When I was starting out on the Hong Kong Options desk at Fimat, it was 1996 and they gave me one real client. I spoke to the market makers. But these weren’t real clients as they generally did not cross the bid offer spreads, the other brokers all guarded their clients, the banks, from each other like precious cargo. I was 24. It was the middle of the Asian financial crisis. This guy who worked for Chase Manhattan bank was a prick, an English prick. Now I think of him, he reminds me of David Brent from ‘The Office’ (UK office series) but with none of the humanity. Anyway, he rarely traded, no one wanted him as a client. So they gave him to me. This one day, we had 100 lots on the offer on some option product. It was a regular sized order the problem was everyone wanted to buy. In this case it was normal practice to split the size up and not give it all to the first one who said buy them. We split the order into 4, the smallest size we allotted was 25 on trades. Anyway he wanted to buy, as did about 8 other clients. I managed to secure 25 for this guy, from the 4 batches we were giving out. This bloke turns round and says “give them to your grandmother”. He was insulted by the size he was allotted. Anyway, without a moment's hesitation, I said to him “if you mention my grandmother again I will cut your line”. At the time, as I mentioned, I had one client, one line. He tried to laugh it off. I wasn’t laughing. After that story made the round of the market. I was kind of a hero. Apparently, no one liked him. Later, he was leaving Hong Kong to go to work in London and tried to sell me his car, a Saab. I did not have a parking space and did not make enough to justify owning a car in Hong Kong. I met him by chance in a club in Hong Kong a week later, just before he was about to leave. He goes into this story about how he really got one over on some guy who bought his car cause it had all these malfunctions. As I said, he was a prick, he probably didn’t even remember trying to sell it to me.

By the end of 1998 the volume really started to die on the listed options market. The Asian financial crisis was in full swing by this time. The authorities had tightened the rules on warrant trading which was where most of the order flow from the banks originated. Volume collapsed and the good brokers on the desk had moved on. There was only Karim left. He seemed more interested in playing computer games than broking. He let me talk to his clients which was basically the whole market. He would go to lunch with the clients, I would tag along. I got to know all of them. He got an offer from a Japanese IBD and moved to Tokyo. By then I was the best broker in town, I had been on the desk for 5 years and knew the game inside out. David Friedland (Sherphardic Jew), a top man at interactivebrokers in Hong Kong which had a market making arm, and was a friend, told me about a possible deal at KGI, a Taiwanese bank. It was commission only, I had to put a deposit down to insure against my losses. I did the maths. Even if I did 50 percent of current volume, I would make more than the shitty money Fimat was paying me and I would be my own de facto boss. I jumped all over it.

When my boss at Fimat found out I was leaving, he asked me what deal they offered, he said he wanted to see if maybe he could match it. The deal basically let me keep 70 percent of what I made, it was one of the best deals for brokers in equity derivatives in the world. Still now, the best brokers only get 50 percent and they have all these charges added to them (for example, rent of their seat, telephone costs, back office costs etc). I gave him a chance, I told him what KGI was offering, he said he could not match it and I left. A couple of weeks later I found out he was going round Hong Kong telling people he had planned to make me a star. What a buffoon. I was already a star. Before moving on, when Karim was sick or took the day off I had to sit next to my boss on the  dealing desk. There was an empty seat between us. I will always remember when we closed a deal and he spoke to one client and I had the opposing client on the other side. He would yell at me. Instead of saying calmly I will buy them from you or just simply done. He would yell it, like we were on the floor of the exchange or in a movie or something. When we had company get-togethers, he would have it at his exclusive country club. These so called get togethers pissed me off. He introduced his wife to me three times and every time he would tell me her uncle was the CEO of BNP Paribas. Awkward for me, I can only imagine what she thought. Poor woman. She did not have much of a personality, if truth be told. I only had one-on-one lunch with him twice and both times this prick would talk about money and only money. That’s the only thing he ever talked about. Talk about a boring asshole. A few years after I left. Rumour had it that they found some discrepancy in Fimat’s accounting. He was fired. Of course, they never took him to the authorities, bad publicity. A lot of that goes on in finance. 

In the markets my day would really start when traders asked for a market on an options structure. Around 10am, when the stock market opened, we would check prices of various options structures from market makers or when it turned electronic, more often than not, straight from the screen and show them around in the hope of getting a bank to show some interest. If traders showed an interest straight from the off in a particular structure we would not have to show random markets around. This was better but it was slow going from 1998-2000, so more often than not we had to check structures we had recently traded previously or ‘invent’ structures to check we thought people would have an interest in. Anyway, barring orders coming in this is what I did at Fimat. I was also responsible for covering the Japanese and Taiwanese futures markets. Japan would open at 8am Hong Kong time. This was generally orders coming from the Fimat london office. So from 8am to 9:45am when the HK market opened I generally read a book or the South China Morning Post, the most prominent English newspaper in Hong Kong. There was a young reporter there who would call me up to find out about market action. When he first did it I was only 24. It gave me a kick to see my name in the paper. I would say ridiculous things and they would appear in print the next day. Like he asked me why the market went up and I would say there were more buyers than sellers. We went out together a few times, a young Australian guy. Good bloke. My old boss, not the one from the previous paragraph, put a stop to me quoting for the newspapers after he got wind of it. When my boss guy arrived from the Fimat Tokyo office, the guy from the previous paragraph, he would bother me literally every morning. Standing next to me and saying “well” (the french equivalent, “alors”), so this ‘tool’ expected me to turn round and entertain him as if I was some kind of lackey. Something else that pissed me off about him. He would not bother Karim as Karim was a lebanese christian and they did not get along. He was a French Ashkenazi jew who probably followed the Talmud. Not that I have anything against jews in general but there seemed to be a lot of them in finance in Hong Kong and most seemed to be of the Talmudic variety (The Talmud is a truly disgusting document which refers to Gentiles as pigs). As far as I could tell at all the French banks, the bosses in equity derivatives were all French jews. Weird.

There are a couple of moments that stood out in the first couple of months after I had joined KGI. It was the end of the year 2000 and the market had crashed again, this time with the internet bubble. Volumes had fallen. Even so, in my first month I made 12,000 USD with only 75 percent of regular accounts open and this included a big loss on my error account. 

The first moment that stood out was involving one of my best friends at the time and, who also was one of my best clients, worked at Bear Stearns, an American lady called Susan Chan, she headed a group of traders out of Tokyo. She placed orders on the Hang Seng futures market through me. KGI had given me a direct link to the exchange. I only had 50k USD (400k HKD) to guarantee my trades, this represented most of the money I had been able to save after 5 years at Fimat. This was the insurance money KGI requested to cover any losses I might produce. I had never had a loss of more than 10k USD on any brokered deal through my five years at Fimat so I thought that 50k USD was more than enough to cover any losses I might have over any given month. One day in the summer of 2000, Susan placed an order to buy 100 Hang Seng futures contracts at 11,000. The market was trading a couple of hundred points higher. Not anticipating any other orders (it was quiet), I had already checked a few markets, no interest. I leaned back and started reading the paper. The market was electronic, one window showed my open orders, the other filled/executed orders. After five to ten minutes of reading, I glanced at the screen to see what the markets were doing. 11,060 they were approaching my buy level. I looked at my open orders window, nothing. I looked at my filled orders screen, fuck. I had inputted the order wrong. I had bought 100 at 11,100 instead of 11,000. In the three years that the market had been electronic I had never made a mistake of this magnitude. I calculated my loss quickly 40 points x 50 HKD per point x 100 contracts, 200k HKD (around 25k USD gone in a few minutes), half of what I had managed to accumulate in 5 years. The market was moving fast and it was illiquid. If I sold my position at the market it could easily drop another 40 points wiping out the entirety of my 5 years of savings. I considered calling Susan to see if she would take them but then I would look like a fool. I sold 20 at 11,060, the market rose I sold another 20 at 11,080, it rose again, I sold the balance of 60 at 11100 where I had bought them. My loss ended up being only 30 points on 40 contracts representing 60k HKD (or around 8k USD). The funny thing is that it never touched 11,000 after it went back up to 11,100 it kept on going. It finished the day up a 1000 points. If I had not checked my screen for another 5 minutes I would have been in the money big time. The market ended up having one of the biggest rallies of the year that day 11,060 was the low. Weird. I was proud of myself though. I had done the right thing. I had shaved a third off my net earnings for the first month but I had survived. I was in the game for the long term and for that, survival was key. Also, I had not gone to Susan telling her about my error and asking her to take the futures off my hands like a beggar. I had swallowed the loss and could hold my head high. Years later, after she was no longer a client of mine, I told her about that day. She turned to me and said “why didn’t you call me, I would have taken them” “honour” I said. This was true but I had also considered that maybe her impression of me would have changed if I had called her for her help. You never know how people will act if you ask them for favours. Or how they will view you afterwards. Also, if they refuse, they might feel guilty about it and that is not conducive to a good business relationship.

The other moment involved a trade I placed on the exchange literally in the last second of trading. I think it was in the second month I was there. A bit of background first. They were straight shooters at the Taiwanese bank and I liked my bosses and the people there. Never cheated me on the original deal I made with them. I was the only white guy in a dealing room full of Chinese. The office was open plan. I sat in the corner of a massive trading floor. Maybe 300 retail brokers worked there, but I was the only institutional broker. This also meant I had one of the only phones systems with direct lines to my most important clients. They could call me by pressing a button and it would come over the speakers. I could do the same to them. They put me close to the senior traders at the bank so they could watch me. I was the only white guy working at KGI but they never made me feel uncomfortable. Most of the other brokers dealt only with retail clients. The only other foreigner was a Japanese guy who made a lot of money apparently. He had Japanese clients and he had set up some sort of legal tax dodge for his rich Japanese clients. Not quite sure how it worked, his English was bad and we were on opposite sides of the trading floor. Anyway, back in the day the stock exchange closed at 4pm, so the floor was deadly quiet at that time, including our trading floor. The other brokers would be doing their end of day paperwork. My market, the options and futures market only closed at 4:15pm. I had been negotiating a deal for about 15 minutes after a furious day of broking options. At 4:14pm I closed the deal verbally but I still had to post it on the exchange, doing so the next day was complicated and would have led to a lot of phone calls between my clients and I, with explanations and so on. I typed furiously into the exchange’s computer, I had to adjust the delta, the details aren’t important. Anyway, I clicked on the send button not having looked at the time but knowing I had maybe seconds left. I looked over at the executed/filled window. It had gone through. I looked at the exchange ticker, 4:15:00 I was the last trade on the exchange. I had never been the last trade on the exchange. I stood up, not thinking about where I was. I yelled “Ya motherfucker” real loud, pumping the air with my fist, I scanned the room and saw three hundred heads and eyes turned my way. Shit, I quickly ducked. Embarrassed but still happy.

[greenbirdtrash]

Yet another bad thing just came up.

I was about to make a small update about our previous situation thanking the people who reached out to help, but there's new problems now. Massive ones. I feel like everything is happening at the worst timing possible, and the stress is too much for me to bear with.

Probably good news for you: I am about to open NSFW slots. I don't know if there's a demand, or if anyone is generally interested in commissioning this from me, but i have no other options but to try it. Things are really getting progressively worse, to the point of me thinking about leaving my comfort zone and planning to distract myself as much as possible while dealing with lots of uncomfortable things and fetishes i generally prefer to avoid. Like i said, i am willing to try it as my last resort right now. We're really sinking down to the bottom.

I will not dive into details about the exact numbers here, but if anyone comes to my dm with questions, i'll answer. I do have the medical papers for that eye surgery on hand, too.

Bad news for me: this is really the only quick way to cover up the current debt i could think of when i look at the amount of trouble we're currently in. Things were going okay, we payed our bills, worked on our projects without any worries, for a few months we were saving up what we could, and few days ago, we put the majority of these savings (including the money i earned on my previous comms and also the rest of the grand i was personally saving for my driving lessons) into an eye surgery and the follow-up medication for my granny, and she's recovering just fine, finally starting to see the contours of the surrounding things again. The thing is..We are already scheduled for at least a few more intravitreal injections, and it was highly recommended by her doctor that we should get her other eye fixed as well before her cataract gets worse. All these things are already expensive as hell, oh, and the worst part?

Our credit card got blocked today because of the massive debt and the crazy additional percentage we got since the start of the war. This card always acted as a safety buffer for the times when our salaries got delayed (which gradually happens more and more over the last year, we already lost around 30% of our initial income, and the life quality dropped as a result, too. Well. I do talk about that from time to time, you probably saw my posts there and there..), we tried to transfer any leftover money (if there were any) to cover up the debt whenever we were able to, but I guess everything eventually comes to and end. And it did.

This post is mostly me screaming into the void, i do not expect anything or anyone to help me or magically save me from all this, i lost any hope about the future long time ago, and I'm just.. completely burned out, existing like that for a few months already. Sometimes it's better, sometimes i get to distract myself with things i like and interactions with friends. And sometimes…i just sit there in complete darkness, so scared and lost.

Unfortunately, this is the new reality in which war goes on, lots of my people are dying, and the ones who live… let's just say, our own collapsing economy is slowly tearing the rest of us apart in many different ways, from increasing the rent bills and taxes (even tho technically we should've had some "discounts" as a frequently attacked near-frontline region, but.. guess what. We asked, and they told us we're somehow unable to get that. Could've just said "fuck you"), cutting our salaries, even firing us to save up the municipal grands they'd have to pay us with in the normal conditions, and i have to deal with all that. One way or another. I do not like it. I do not like it at all, and i feel like I'm already at my limit. I love my country, i really do. But this is only getting worse. I don't know anything about fundraising, and i just can't beg for help or donations despite everything that's currently going on.

I feel like i am just a tiny grain of sand in the gigantic ocean, and it's slowly drowning me, waiting for me to disappear completely.

And someday..maybe i will.