#reduce power bill
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k12academics · 24 days ago
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Suncatcher Energy was started in 2018 by Curt Van Hove, MBA who as the owner remains very active in the day to day operations.
We sell, install and maintain Solar Microgrids and EV charging stations. To install any system, we can spend as much as 6 months doing an extensive analysis of your energy usage, project requirements and working with you to get company approval. All at no cost.
Our goal is to develop a system that is totally independent of the power grid at the right price. We also install Level 2 and 3 EV charging stations. By using your Microgrid, your charging stations always have power, use renewable
CAPABILITIES
Install Solar Microgrids and EV Charging Stations
Perform free upfront solar analysis and design
Obtain grants and rebates for you
Obtain payback of less than 5 years.
Generate Power 24/7/365 with no outages
Monitor and repair any solar installation
Generate passive income from Level 3 EV Chargers
Provide guarantees and warranties to minimize risk
Install solar panels on the ground or on a roof
Unsurpassed expertise in Fortress batteries and inverters
DIFFERENTIATORS
Use Made in America materials
We will virtually eliminate your power bill.
Been in the solar business for over 13 years.
Provide a written Guarantee.
Our owner manages every project
Our battery expert consults to the manufacturer.
Only use Lithium Iron Phosphate Batteries.
Specialists in SMB, Industrial, Commercial, Government
Considerably reduce or eliminate demand charges
Think out of the box, no cookie cutter approach
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uvpartybomb · 6 months ago
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Also theres confirmed time baby and bill cipher beef where he mentioned how Bills parents must be so disappointed in him
(Spoiler alert he killed his own parents)
HELLO?? Idk why that's so funny to me, the dorito and giant baby thing are beefing it out!!!
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solarjunction · 2 months ago
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digital-googly · 7 months ago
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horreurscopes · 8 months ago
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electricity-saver-card · 10 months ago
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Are you worried about your electricity bill? And looking at the answer of how can we reduce electricity at home?  No worries, the Enersyst electricity saver card is the best solution to your problem. Our electricity saver card reduces up to 20% on your electricity bill and helps you to reduce electricity bills at home. This innovative card optimizes electrical flow, reduces wastage, and trims down your energy bills. Simply place the card nearby MCB Box, and let Enersyst revolutionize your home's energy consumption. Save electricity, Save earth!
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readerviews · 1 year ago
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"The US 2023 High Power-Bill Crisis Cut Your High Power-Bills in Half Today" by John Rubio
5*- An Urgently Needed Resource for Saving Money and Power #books #bookreview #reading #readerviews
The U.S. 2023 High Power-Bill Crisis Cut Your High Power-Bills in Half Today John RubioArchway Publishing (2023)ISBN: 978-1665746380Reviewed by Tammy Ruggles for Reader Views (01/2024) “THE U.S. 2023 HIGH POWER-BILL CRISIS CUT YOUR HIGH POWER-BILLS IN HALF TODAY: The Simple Art of Reducing Energy Consumption -The Definitive Guide” by John Rubio, is the perfect book to read if you are looking…
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batboyblog · 1 year ago
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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau put forward a new regulation to limit bank overdraft fees. The CFPB pointed out that the average overdraft fee is $35 even though majority of overdrafts are under $26 and paid back with-in 3 days. The new regulation will push overdraft fees down to as little as $3 and not more than $14, saving the American public collectively 3.5 billion dollars a year.
The Environmental Protection Agency put forward a regulation to fine oil and gas companies for emitting methane. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas, after CO2 and is responsible for 30% of the rise of global temperatures. This represents the first time the federal government has taxed a greenhouse gas. The EPA believes this rule will help reduce methane emissions by 80%
The Energy Department has awarded $104 million in grants to support clean energy projects at federal buildings, including solar panels at the Pentagon. The federal government is the biggest consumer of energy in the nation. The project is part Biden's goal of reducing the federal government's greenhouse gas emissions by 65% by 2030. The Energy Department estimates it'll save taxpayers $29 million in the first year alone and will have the same impact on emissions as taking over 23,000 gas powered cars off the road.
The Education Department has cancelled 5 billion more dollars of student loan debt. This will effect 74,000 more borrowers, this brings the total number of people who've had their student loan debt forgiven under Biden through different programs to 3.7 Million
U.S. Agency for International Development has launched a program to combat lead exposure in developing countries like South Africa and India. Lead kills 1.6 million people every year, more than malaria and AIDS put together.
Congressional Democrats have reached a deal with their Republican counter parts to revive the expanded the Child Tax Credit. The bill will benefit 16 million children in its first year and is expected to lift 400,000 children out of poverty in its first year. The proposed deal also has a housing provision that could see 200,000 new affordable rental units
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its-mysun · 1 year ago
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Shining a Light on Savings: How the Solar Panel Government Scheme is Reducing Electricity Bills in India
Solar energy is shining a new light on savings in India as the government introduces a groundbreaking scheme to reduce electricity bills. With the rising costs of traditional energy sources, the adoption of solar panels has become an appealing alternative for many households. The solar panel government scheme aims to make this renewable energy source more accessible and affordable to Indian residents.
This initiative not only promotes a greener and more sustainable environment but also helps consumers save significantly on their electricity bills. By harnessing solar power, households can take advantage of the abundant sunlight in India and generate their own electricity. This reduces their dependence on the national power grid and eliminates the need for costly fossil fuels.
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The solar panel government scheme provides financial incentives, subsidies, and support to make solar energy systems more affordable for homeowners and small businesses. Eligible participants can install solar panels with reduced installation costs and benefit from the long-term savings on their monthly electricity bills.
With this innovative government scheme, India is leading the way in the transition to renewable energy and empowering individuals to take control of their electricity expenses.
Benefits of installing solar panels through the government scheme
The solar panel government scheme provides financial incentives, subsidies, and support to make solar energy systems more affordable for homeowners and small businesses. Under this scheme, eligible participants can install solar panels with reduced installation costs and benefit from the long-term savings on their monthly electricity bills.
The government has partnered with various solar panel manufacturers and distributors to ensure the availability of high-quality solar panels at competitive prices. Additionally, the scheme offers attractive financing options to make it easier for individuals to invest in solar energy systems. The government also provides technical assistance and guidance to help homeowners and businesses navigate the process of installing and maintaining solar panels.
Success stories of individuals and businesses that have benefited from the scheme
Installing solar panels through the government scheme comes with a multitude of benefits. Firstly, it allows individuals to significantly reduce their electricity bills. By generating their own electricity, households can offset a significant portion of their energy consumption, resulting in substantial savings over time. Moreover, the excess energy produced by solar panels can be fed back into the grid, allowing users to earn credits and further reduce their bills.
Another major benefit is the positive impact on the environment. Solar energy is clean and renewable, meaning it does not produce harmful greenhouse gas emissions or contribute to air pollution. By embracing solar power, individuals can actively contribute to reducing the carbon footprint and mitigating the effects of climate change.
How to apply for the solar panel government scheme
To be eligible for the solar panel government scheme, individuals and businesses must meet certain criteria. The scheme primarily targets residential properties, small businesses, and commercial establishments. Applicants must have a valid proof of ownership or lease agreement for the property where the solar panels will be installed.
Additionally, the property should have sufficient roof space or open land to accommodate the solar panels. The government also takes into consideration the solar potential of the location, ensuring that the investment in solar panels will be beneficial. Applicants are required to provide their electricity consumption history and undergo an assessment to determine the feasibility of installing solar panels.
Challenges and limitations of the scheme
Applying for the solar panel government scheme is a straightforward process. Interested individuals or businesses can visit the official website of the government scheme and fill out an online application form. The form requires basic details such as name, address, contact information, and electricity consumption history.
Once the application is submitted, it undergoes a thorough review by the government authorities. This includes an assessment of the property's solar potential and the feasibility of installing solar panels. If the application is approved, the applicant will receive a confirmation and instructions on the next steps to proceed with the installation.
Tips for maximizing savings with solar panels
While the solar panel government scheme has been largely successful, it does face certain challenges and limitations. One of the primary challenges is the initial investment required to install solar panels. While the government scheme provides financial incentives and subsidies, individuals and businesses still need to make a significant upfront investment. This can be a barrier for those with limited financial resources.
Another limitation is the availability of skilled professionals for installation and maintenance. The demand for solar panel installation has surged under the government scheme, leading to a shortage of trained technicians. This can result in delays in installation and difficulties in finding qualified professionals for maintenance and repairs.
Future prospects and developments in the solar panel industry in India
To maximize savings with solar panels, there are a few key tips to keep in mind. Firstly, it is important to invest in high-quality solar panels that are durable and efficient. While they may come with a higher price tag, they will generate more electricity and last longer, resulting in greater long-term savings.
Secondly, optimizing the placement of solar panels is crucial. Ensuring that panels are installed in areas with maximum sunlight exposure throughout the day will maximize their energy generation potential. Regular cleaning and maintenance of the panels are also essential to ensure their optimal performance.
Lastly, monitoring electricity consumption and adjusting usage patterns can further enhance savings. By being mindful of energy consumption and using electricity-intensive appliances during daylight hours, users can reduce their reliance on the grid and maximize the energy generated by their solar panels.
Conclusion: The impact of the solar panel government scheme on reducing electricity bills in India
The solar panel industry in India is poised for significant growth and development in the coming years. The government is committed to achieving its renewable energy targets and has set ambitious goals for solar power generation. This will further drive down the costs of solar panels and make them more affordable for individuals and businesses.
Furthermore, advancements in solar panel technology, such as the development of more efficient and lightweight panels, are expected to revolutionize the industry. These innovations will make solar panels more accessible and attractive to a wider range of consumers.
Source: https://medium.com/@itsmysun/shining-a-light-on-savings-how-the-solar-panel-government-scheme-is-reducing-electricity-bills-in-7dfdbd48720f
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nonbinary-octopus · 10 months ago
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if you got an additional line of income that guaranteed your basic needs would be met, (notes below)
notes:
- the money can come from whatever source you'd like to imagine. UBI, sugar daddy, magically delivered in unmarked bills onto your dining table overnight by elves, blackmailing jeff bezos, wherever
- it will keep coming indefinitely
- basic needs: housing, food, medical care, clothes, a bit of disposable income, etc. You would not be rich, but you would have enough. It will rise with inflation and such, to have the same purchasing power as before, and will cover you and your dependents
- any money you earn at your job (or anywhere) is on top of the basic needs money. How much you get is not affected by how much you make elsewhere
- vacation doesn’t necessarily mean you go anywhere; you just don't need to go to work
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cazort · 5 months ago
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Piece of financial advice, because I've seen too many people make this mistake: never pay off medical debt on a credit card unless you are 100% sure you will be able to pay the credit card balance off in full as soon as you get the first bill. Why? It is ALWAYS better to have medical debt than credit card debt. There is a long list of reasons why.
State and federal laws severely restrict medical debt in ways that credit card debt is not restricted.
Credit card debt can charge much higher interest rates, and in general it IS much higher in rate. Medical debt sometimes charges no interest, at least for a certain period of time. When it does charge interest, the rate is lower, and in some states it is capped as low as 5%, always at 20% or lower. Credit card interest rates are almost never below 15% and are sometimes MUCH higher than 20%.
Medical debt is less damaging to your credit history than credit card debt. And it is easier to eliminate in bankruptcy.
Medical debt also does not affect your spending limits on a credit card. If you use a credit card for monthly expenses, adding medical debt to it can bring you closer to your credit limit which might make you unable to use the card for expenses (even ones you could afford to pay off immediately.) This negatively affects your credit rating through increasing your credit utilization, it can reduce your potential to earn rewards, and it can reduce your spending power in an emergency.
Also, the penalties and fees for deliquency on medical debt are much milder and those for credit card debt are more severe. Again, laws are more restrictive on medical debt. You will have far fewer fees or penalties going delinquent on medical debt.
Also it is often easier to get medical debt forgiven or negotiated down, than credit card debt,
If you ever end up with medical debt, keep it as medical debt and keep paying it as medical debt. Go delinquent on your medical debt before switching it to a credit card. Once you put it on a credit card, you can't go back.
By keeping your medical debt as medical debt, you save money, protect your credit history, and increase your chances of having the debt forgiven, negotiated down, or eliminated through bankruptcy.
NEVER CONVERT MEDICAL DEBT TO CREDIT CARD DEBT.
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bekenty · 1 year ago
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Ground Power Generator - Is it worth to buy?
We live in an era of technology where energy supply is a significant resource helping to ease our lifestyles. Any disruption in the supply of energy can cause huge losses and affect our daily routine. You are exceptionally aware how most of our daily chores depend entirely on the electrical power supply, right from washing clothes to establishing communication with the outside world via the…
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joeloverture · 1 year ago
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hook 'em horny | j.m. x f!reader
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masterlist : coach!joel masterlist pairing: college football coach!joel miller x reader summary: [no outbreak] seeking petty revenge on your cheating quarterback ex-boyfriend leads you somewhere you shouldn't be — and then it lands you over the knee of his coach. warnings: (18+ mdni, don't make me say it again.) cheating done by a referenced oc, briefest mention of drugs, porn barely garnished with plot, age gap (22/52), smut, unprotected piv sex, creampie, vaginal fingering, potentially dubcon by way of power imbalance but consent is enthusiastic, daddy kink, sir kink, 'punishment' spanking, degradation, praise, brat tamer!joel, dom!joel, joel spits on her ass but otherwise no butt stuff, mild choking, body writing, so many pet names of so many varieties, aftercare, surprisingly fluffy [no use of y/n] word count: 6.4k a/n: this is a crazy idea to have considering joel can hardly handle ellie. i don't think he'd be able to handle ~118 college-aged boys. however, the idea of football coach! joel is hot to me (i mean, seriously, look at those sluts on the sidelines) so i made it happen. on a serious note, i am so sorry to the unnamed university this is based on. i toured you. i'm legacy. but... joel miller. let's make it clear this is for entertainment purposes only. this is a fictional work about fictional people that does not reflect the school itself, which is a fine institution whose head coaches historically do not fuck students in the locker rooms. shoutout to my dad who, unknowing what this information would be used for, explained to me how he snuck into this stadium 3x. don't do that, either.
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You can’t even remember the last time you made a good decision.
Your track record definitely isn’t the cleanest: you chose to go to school in Texas, and then chose to stay there for four years. Choosing to go to that frat party in late junior year wasn’t your brightest moment, either, evidenced by the resulting hangover from hell and, predictably, frat flu. All things considered, those choices pale in comparison to hooking up with their all-star quarterback, Lucas Scott.
Dirty-blonde, blue-eyed, muscled Lucas Scott. He’s the sort of guy who looks like an eight when you’re looking at him after a few shots of tequila and a four when you’re sober. The sort of guy who, after over a year of dating, makes you split the bill halfway after ordering the more expensive entree. Crowned as the most efficient, precise, and instinctive quarterback the Longhorns have ever had. Apparently that instinct hadn’t been enough to drive him away from dipping his wick in every sorority girl’s candle wax. 
No matter how much post-orgasm Lucas panted into his ear that he loved you, you weren’t stupid enough to trick yourself into believing it. Staying with him was the easier choice, not yet wanting to reduce yourself to locker room talk. Walking in on him sloppily fucking some redhead nursing major was the breaking point. When it became less about you and more about your dignity.
So, yeah, you’ve never been one for making good decisions, and you certainly aren’t about to start now.
You thought breaking into the stadium would be some sort of monumental task. Trespassing here was normally reserved for campus rooftops and after-hours exploration, but once you’d gotten this batshit crazy idea in your head, you knew it wasn’t going to shake until you at least proved it couldn’t be done.
The open garage at the back of the building doesn’t help to deter you. It’s like there’s a welcome-mat outside saying, ‘Come on in and get what you deserve!’.
Who would you be to decline such a sincere invitation?
The garage is empty apart from some cushy golf carts, and the steel door behind them couldn’t be more tempting. If it’s locked, you tell yourself, you’ll go back to the dorm and forget about your incident of near-trespassing. 
You take small steps to the door, testing the handle. It springs right open, and all thoughts of leaving dissipate from your mind.
Who leaves the garage open and forgets to lock the door? Probably people with just as little between their ears (and legs) as Lucas. You scoff in half-disbelief, half-luck as you close the door behind you.
The energy feels stagnant this late at night, no announcer on the loudspeaker or swarms of burnt orange hats and T-shirts standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Industrial lights flicker above, their hums loud enough to make you wonder if you have tinnitus. Concrete lines the hallways, interrupted by a few silver-painted pipes arranged in a labyrinth up against the walls. A few security cameras are pointed at you. Before going any further, you pause to raise the hood of your Longhorns sweatshirt.
Even if you should be, you aren’t in much of a rush; you amble about, really taking in the sterile ambiance of the empty stadium. You turn a few corners, going in what feels like the right direction. You figure you’re getting closer when you spot what looks like it could be a security tower. Crouching behind a trash can, you wait it out, trying to peer through the untinted windows to figure out if there’s anyone in there at all. When you’ve determined it’s unmanned and let out a shallow exhale, you go back up to full posture and keep wandering around unsupervised.
You know you’re in the right place when you find your toes hovering over a red line painted on the oil-stained concrete: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. 
Bingo.
Crossing that line without really thinking about it, you stick to your (so far) tried and true method of going wherever feels the most promising until you’re standing in front of the two black doors you were looking for. The door’s handle is an obnoxiously large longhorn, and you quite literally have to hook ‘em to get inside.
You’re starting to understand where the rest of the university’s funding is going when you walk into the locker room. After dating Lucas for a year, you know the football team is full of itself, but the Longhorniness of it all is… excessive. There’s the silhouette of the logo glowing on the goddamn ceiling, and if the jerseys the players are wearing on their digital nameplates isn’t enough of an indicator of who they play for, every backlit locker has a drawer with, you guessed it: a longhorn painted at the center. A brown vinyl couch wraps around the front of the room in direct view of a powered down videoboard that you can only assume replays highlight reels.
You roll your eyes. Again, your track record with decision-making isn’t the best, because you chose a school who puts every penny towards sweaty frat boys with brain damage from the amount of concussions they get.
And then you see it: a sign tacked onto the middle aisle of lockers that reads CORE VALUES. From top to bottom, HONESTY, TREAT WOMEN WITH RESPECT, NO DRUGS, NO STEALING, and NO WEAPONS. You have to physically clamp your jaw shut to restrict your laughter at the second one.
It doesn’t take you long to find what you’re looking for. Lucas Scott, #10.
His sweat-stained jersey hangs limply from the rack, and you eagerly tear it off, tossing it down onto the floor. Eager like a child ready to color outside the lines of a coloring book, you kneel down in front of it, pulling out the one thing you had prepared for tonight. A bold black Sharpie.
You pop the cap with your teeth, spitting it out somewhere on the floor as you start scribbling. Disguising your handwriting isn’t intentional, but you’re writing so carelessly and on such a foreign material that it comes naturally. Your tongue sticks out of the corner of your mouth as you work. In a year and a half, you’d never felt such satisfaction about — and certainly not from  — Lucas.
TWO PUMP CHUMP along the side. FIVE INCHES FULL MAST on the other. CHEATER at the bottom. WHORE across the front.
A throat clears behind you. You drop the Sharpie, a blot of ink forming on the mesh. You startle backwards, scooting until your back hits that stupid longhorn drawer. You’re expecting a janitor, maybe a security guard if you’re extra unlucky. 
That isn’t the worst of your options, apparently, because when you look up, it’s at Joel fucking Miller, head coach of the longhorn’s football team.
Your lower lip starts trembling, and that moment is when you decide maybe you need to start making good decisions. You’ve heard enough about Joel from Lucas to know he’s a total hardass. He could drag you by the ear to the dean and have you kicked out at the tail end of your second to last semester in this hellhole.
He glares down at you with his head cocked, hazel eyes far darker than they ever seem on TV. His scruff stipples his hardened jawline, lips thinned out like the worry lines pressed onto his forehead. If you were interested in digging yourself any deeper, you might stall to think about how good he looks: the faint trail of chest hair vanishing down into the neckline of his longhorns polo shirt, his fitted khakis, broad leather belt slung around his waist, and the slight bulge of tummy above it. You swallow hard and kick yourself for it.
“What exactly,” Coach Miller drawls, voice syrupy and sticky. “do ya think you’re doin’?”
Your mouth moves, but no words come out. He doesn’t seem very amused, his muscled arms crossing over his wide torso.
Joel shakes his head. “Ain’t a good look for you, hun, scrawlin’ that chicken scratch all over my QB’s jersey. Could get a real ugly charge for that.”
Heart crashing into your ribcage, you bite down on your lip. “I can pay the damages,” you blurt out.
He sizes you up all over again, eyes dragging up and down your body. They linger on your chest for a few extra seconds that you’re convinced that you just made up. “Can you, sugar? ‘Cause to me, looks like you’re the type to be chasin’ tips at whatever joint hires you.”
You don’t have the bandwidth to be as offended as you should be, especially because he’s right. You settle for glowering at him instead. A huff of laughter pinches out of him. “You give everyone you vandalize that blue look? Or is that lil’ number jus’ because you found out Lucas really ain’t that loyal?” With ease, Joel bulldozes over whatever thinning resolve you have remaining. 
“What’s that sign over there say? ‘Treat women with respect’?” You say. Joel’s backlit like all of those over budgeted lockers behind him. You squint your eyes. “You know that’s fucking bullshit. So what if I give him a taste of his own medicine when he’s been a minute man for every girl with a pulse on this campus?” You cap your Sharpie and clip it back onto your collar and get to your feet. So much for good decisions. “Fuck right off with that.”
“Hey, hey. Down, hun.” Joel holds his hands out to you, and you notice just how heavily you’ve been breathing, just how close you are to him. “Never said you were wrong. Kid’s a fuck up in all sorts ‘a ways. But I don’t like how you’re mouthin’ off at me, Miss Priss. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re in dire need of a spankin’ to set you right.”
Your breath cuts short and your cunt bottoms out without your permission. You don’t need a mirror to know your eyes just went glassy, your lips parted as your mouth goes desert dry. As discreetly as you can manage, you squeeze your thighs together.
Joel doesn’t miss it. You can tell from the moment his brows raise and his eyes sparkle, the corner of his mouth picking up a smidge. “Oh, yeah? That do somethin’ for ya, hun? Nasty little girl.” There’s a dangerous, uneven grit to his voice that has arousal burning like a candle in your stomach, the wax of your arousal syrupy against your thighs already. 
Your tongue darts out to wet your lips. Fuck.
“No,” you breathe out stubbornly, but you’ve already given yourself away, even to yourself. The insides of your thighs are molten, twitching with every throb of your clit between your legs. That flush of warmth from your pelvis is spreading, overheating.
Joel tuts. “You really think that? You can whine all you want ‘bout wantin’ respect, but at the end ‘a the day, you just wanna be treated like some whore, huh?” And, yeah, he has you figured out, has you in the palm of his hand. Even though you have no idea what someone like him could do to someone like you, you want him to do it. You want to find out. “I’ll tell ya what, sugar, you walk outta here right now and nobody but me’s gonna know you came pitchin’ a hissy fit in my locker room.”
You frown at that, a small arc of your pouty lips that has Joel’s eyes gleaming.
“Or,” he says. “You can pull those wet fuckin’ panties down – don’t gimme that look, I know they are – and I can give ya a real lesson in respect.” He shrugs, hands going to his waist as he looks you up and down.
He knows he has you the same way you know, but you aren’t just going to give in that easily. You flare your nose and counter, “If there’s nothing keeping me here other than a firm hand, why should I stay?”
He’s looking at you like he wants to take you apart. His fingers jump against his hips for the opportunity to break you down. 
“Sweetness,” Joel shakes his head as if it’s obvious. “if you let me, I could make you feel good. I’m guessin’ you got some vibrator sittin’ in the back of your desk drawer to use when your roommate’s out ‘n about, but you don’t wanna use that tonight, do ya? You want the real thing, hun, and I’d give it to ya real nice once I teach ya to behave.”
There it is again: Coach Joel Miller has you all figured out. Every syllable he says is doomed to send another shiver up your spine, and damn it, fuck playing coy.
You’re too busy tearing off your hoodie to think about how unsexily dressed you are, but the rushed nature of your actions punches a chuckle out of Joel. “Eager thing.” You’re halfway through kicking your shoes and leggings off when he saunters over to the couch, plopping down on the edge and patting his broad, khaki-covered thigh. Your mouth waters when you look back and see just how much the fabric strains against his leg. “Whenever you’re ready, hun.”
You waddle over to him, stripped down to the basics of your sports bra and everyday panties. It’s the furthest thing from erotic, but the way he’s looking at you isn’t. It’s primal and ravenous, enough to have you forgetting all about how you’d even gotten there in the first place. He licks his lips as he trails his eyes all over you, darkening a couple of shades when he looks at your cleavage. “Lucas is a fuckin’ idiot, baby.”
“Knew that already,” you mumble.
He pats his thigh again, bounces his leg. “C’mon, over my knee like the good girl I know you can be. Hurry up and I’ll only give ya five.”
You shuffle forward, relishing in the rubbing of your thighs that comes from it. He’s sitting on the corner of the couch at the perfect angle for you to rest your head on the arm. It doesn’t take any more convincing for you to put yourself over his lap, not that he needed to do much in the first place. You feel so much smaller than him. Your ass is up for him to do whatever he’d like to; it’s a tantalizing feeling you hadn’t gotten out of any intimacy – if you could call it that — with Lucas.
“Mmmmmm,” Joel groans as he runs a hand between your legs. He rubs at your slit through the soaked gusset of your panties. You can’t stop the way your hips buck, or the pitiful shout that jumps off your lips when he pins you down by the small of your back, robbing you of any friction. Between one arousal-riddled breath and the next, Joel tugs your panties off and flings them to the side. You know how it feels, tacky and cold on your core and thighs, so you can only imagine how it must look. Joel gives you a pretty good idea when he reveres, “Goddamn, pretty cunt is throbbin’ for it.”
He pulls apart your folds and you think you hear him lick his lips above you before he lets them go. The schlick noise your dripping pussy makes is nothing less than pornographic. Joel gropes you carefully, kneads the skin of your ass like you have all the time in the world. Under his ministrations, it’s easy to melt into the couch, forgetting why you’re there in the first place until his palm cracks down on your ass cheek.
The stinging impact has a slurred hnnnngh leaving your lips, and a fresh gush of wetness between your legs to accompany it. You keep your head tucked into the sanctuary of your folded arms, eyes squeezed shut so tight you swear you’re seeing stars. Joel’s quick to rub the spanked patch of skin, his palm soothing his ache. “That’s one, baby.” You nod into your arms. “Think you can take four more?” Another nod.
“I need to hear ya, hun. C’mon, head up f’me.” He taps the side of your cheek, and you prop your cheek up on your forearm. “Think you can take four more?” he repeats.
Your voice hitches, courtesy of the beating that echoes in your chest and between your legs. “Y-yes…” 
When the second hit lands, you don’t expect it. You flinch away from his hand when it comes down with a clap that leaves you squirming in his lap. “Yes, what?”
“Yes sir,” you whine out, back arching. Although a punishment, that spank has the same effect as the last: a live wire of arousal strung from your spine to your cunt.
“Takin’ it well,” he praises, squeezing your ass cheeks together. “Sure didn’t expect anyone to come crawlin’ in when I left that garage open, ‘specially not some slut like you with an ass that needs a spankin’ six ways to Sunday.” Just as quick as he can build you up, he can take you down a notch, but you can’t mind when it has you moaning all the same. “Oh, she likes that,” Joel clicks.
He rubs your ass again, and you’re bracing yourself for that next strike, pulled stiff with an arousing, anticipatory sort of fear. Only when you convince yourself it isn’t coming do you let all of that tension flood out of your body — and that’s when Joel smacks his hand across your far-too-trustworthy ass.
You cry out, pouting over your shoulder at Joel, who has a proud smirk drawn all over his face. You don’t even feel your hips rocking down, seeking whatever pleasure you can get until he reprimands, “Ruttin’ against my fuckin’ leg, now, huh? Don’t pretend you don’t like this.”
With a particularly good grind of your hips, you feel his bulge pressing into your thigh. From a mere graze alone, you can tell it’s huge. A whimper tears out of you at the same time he groans above you. “You got nothin’ to prove, ain’t gonna change the fact you’re a slut who needs to get spanked ‘n stuffed to talk ‘er into behavin’ a bit.”
“Can’t even follow your own rules,” you huff, apparently still interested in shooting yourself in the foot even when Coach Miller has you ass-up over his knee. 
“Don’t see how you care…” Joel slides a hand down between your legs. He rubs at your clit, an intense pressure that has you wanting more and less all at the same time, before dragging a thick finger across your opening. Arousal squelches between your legs and your hips jump – a dead giveaway to just how turned on you are, whether you like it or not. “when it gets you this turned on,” he finishes. Then that same finger is prodding at your mouth, glistening with your wetness. You whimper before tasting yourself, sucking obediently on his finger until he pulls away with a pop.
You sulk, “Don’t act like I can’t feel you ripping a hole in your jeans, Miller–”
The fourth spank is the hardest by far. The skin of your ass feels bitten by Joel’s ‘firm hand’. It’s the kind of hit that makes your legs kick in his lap and your fingers clutch in the couch’s arm for purchase. You wail, “Daddy!” Pain disappears from your mind when you realize what exactly you just said, quickly replaced by the churning coolant of embarrassment. If you were paying attention to anything else other than the shame suddenly inhabiting your chest, you might’ve been able to feel the twitch of his cock in his pants.
“Daddy, huh?” Joel hums, rubbing your hurt ass with one hand while the other strokes your shoulder. You bury your face back in your arms as an apology takes shape in the back of your throat. “Lucas your daddy, too?”
“No!” You squeak, adjusting in his lap. The hood of your clit catches on the rough material of Joel’s pants. Unable to stop yourself, you hump his knee again, shallow rolls of your hips. You can still feel his hardness against you. Needily, you tip your head up, panting as foggy pleasure hangs over your head. 
“Stop makin’ a mess of daddy’s dress pants, baby, unless you wanna be on your knees, lickin’ it up.” You keen, and he chuckles knowingly. “Shoulda known, little whore like you gets off on that.” 
Joel gives you a longer reprieve between the fourth and fifth spank. Instead, he strokes your ass and asks, “One more gonna be enough to set you straight, sweetheart?”
“Y..yes daddy,” you whimper. He hums in approval.
You shift back and forth, waiting for it to come — and when it does, it’s softer. It’s by no means a love pat, but it pales in comparison to his previous work. You still sniffle, squeezing your thighs together as he coos, “I know, I know. Poor baby, actin’ all high ‘n mighty. Can’t be on her high horse when she’s over Daddy’s knee.” Gentle, he pats your ass and guides you on all fours at the edge of the couch. He hums in approval. “See? Not throwin’ a hissy fit anymore. She’s all nice ‘n obedient when you get ‘er to act right.”
Joel spreads your pussy with his thumbs, and you hear the vulgar noise of him collecting his saliva before you feel his spit landing on your clenching hole. You’ve never felt so empty, not when your bottom drawer vibrator is buzzing against your core, definitely not when Lucas fucks you in the same old missionary. Whimpering for him, you arch your back to try to rub against his crotch.
“Quit your whinin’,” he snips, his thumb finding your clit in one swipe. Joel’s touch is firm, but not too firm, just enough to make your hips push down with a need only he’s ever made you feel. 
Without warning, his middle finger slides inside of you, thick and calloused and so, so right. “Fuckin’... tight.” Another slides in as he starts scissoring you open, apparently satisfied enough when he crooks his fingers deep in your cunt. Instantly, he catches that spongy spot that you can never reach on your own. You nearly crumple with the sensation, limbs going weak and buckling. “That the spot?” he asks, but he already knows.
“Mhm,” you moan, chin instinctively tucking against your chest as if you can get away from the pleasure he’s giving you, as if you’d ever want to.
Then — he stops.
His fingers sit heavy inside of you, so close to where you need them to go. “What the fuck, Joel?” 
"Baby, s’that how you get what you want?” He rubs your thigh with his free hand and gives it a quick swat. “Help daddy out, tight girl. I'm not just gonna let you get away with bein’ a spoiled brat. Work yourself on my fingers."
You’re putty in the palm of his hand – malleable, docile for him to treat or mistreat you however gets him hard. You whine, punching your hips back nonetheless. Grinding down, down, down, your cunt unresisting when he gives you another finger. It’s crude, the way you moan for him.
Even though he’s hardly doing anything, just the hand you’re getting yourself off on, that all-consuming strain in your body only gets stronger. “Daddy – close, please…”
 “Attagirl, atta-fuckin’-girl, give it to me.” He rewards you with a press of his fingers against that golden spot inside of you. Your orgasm splinters through you, an ecstasy-charged mist fanning over your body. Your release runs down Joel’s hand and your thighs with every clench of your cunt, like you’ve been skinned and set ablaze by your own desire. You fall forward on the couch, no longer able to hold yourself up, arms a tangled mess as you gasp into the cushion. “You come so pretty, baby. Messy pussy, too. Soaked me up to my goddamn elbow.”
You’re still reeling from the best orgasm you’ve had in months, maybe ever, when you hear obscene slurping noises from behind you. You cast a look at him, your arousal returning with a vigor at the sight of Joel sucking his fingers clean. He groans at the taste, and you swear you see his cock jump in his khakis. Stomach warped with desire, you’re about to plummet off of the very dangerous edge of doing just about anything for him right now.
“Please fuck me, daddy,” you plead, and in any other position, with any other person, it might be mortifying, something worth clutching your pearls over. But this is Coach Joel Miller, the last person you ever expected to be fucking, giving you the best fuck you never expected.
“There’s those manners,” Joel praises, leaning over you to press a brief kiss to your shoulder blade. You can smell your release on his lips, a sweet smell that’s so distinctly you. He eases off of you, presumably to take off his pants. There’s the shuffling of fabric, and when he returns to your side, you’re disappointed to find he hasn’t even unbuckled his belt.
You pout at him again, still desperate to get your way. Eye-level with his bulge, you’re salivating over it. You had made a mess of his dress pants, a wet spot formed just above his knee, taunting you. You lick your lips. 
“Think it’s only fair,” he says, looming over you. He’s holding the Sharpie you’d brought along with you. Your brows furrow as you look up at him through your lashes. “If I give ya the same treatment you gave his jersey.” His gaze is cocky as he pops the cap with his thumb, giving the marker a twirl.
Oh.
It shouldn’t turn you on as much as it does. Nothing about this should turn you on as much as it does, yet here you are, in a puddle of your own sweat and cum, itching for the next thing he gives you. And if it’s marking up your body before he fucks your brains out, so be it.
He nudges his head, gesturing for you to get down on your stomach. You lift your knees up and flatten yourself out on the cushions. The vinyl sticks and pulls from your skin as you get where he wants you. A soft, surprised noise leaves you when he straddles your thighs, his clothed cock nudging at your seam.
“Holy fuck,” you breathe out, because it’s the only phrase you can think of that even holds a candle to what all of this has become. 
A laugh fans out from under his breath as he starts at your freshly spanked, raw ass. The Sharpie is cold and foreign, tugging at your skin as he inks you up. “Gotta make sure you match before I dick you down, don’t I? What is it you wrote on his jersey? ‘Whore’? Between the two ‘a ya, I woulda put my money on you for that one.”
If that wasn’t enough indication, you figure out what he’s doing by the time he gets to the right cheek, what feels like an ‘R’ taking shape across your ass. He finishes the ‘E’ and sets down the Sharpie for a moment, his meaty palms spreading your ass. It still thrums with the afterglow of his spanking. You don’t think you can throb any more than you already are, but then he spits on you for the second time that night, this time landing it on your puckered asshole. A gasp flutters from your lips as you grind down into the couch, his spit dripping down your folds.
“See? Real whorish, fuckin’ my couch.” He taps your ass for good measure. “Asshole makes a perfect fuckin’ ‘O’, baby. Looks a whole lot better than that chicken scratch shit you put on his jersey.” You think maybe, just maybe, he’ll dismount you and pull his cock out, but instead he keeps writing, scribbling on your back and upper thighs. Every pull of your skin under the bleeding ink has you aching for him.
When he’s content with his work, he lifts off of you, hands fumbling to undo his belt. It snaps apart, dangling open around his waist as his hands open up his khakis. “You let Lucas fuck that sweet lil’ cunt raw?” he asks.
“No, I don’t,” you admit, unable to tear your eyes away from his cock as he pulls it out, and fuck you. Your eyes don’t even feel big enough to take all of him in, and you have no idea how you’re going to fit him between your legs. You almost go cross-eyed at the sight of it, his head leaking precum.
“Thought so. You gonna let me fuck it raw?”
“Yes, daddy,” you breathe out, drool pooling in your mouth at the thought of having him inside of you, having him inside of you bare. Yet another thing you never gave to Lucas in a year of disappointing sex, but are eagerly giving up to Joel. 
“Gotta be a real nasty slut,” Joel says, returning to his place atop your thighs, his thick ones framing yours. Your breath hitches when you feel the weight of his cock gliding through your ass cheeks and down to your cunt. “to let your ex-boyfriend’s coach bareback ya in the locker room.” A heady gasp tears from you when the head of his cock bumps your clit. He teases you — his cock, slippery with a combination of your arousal, skating from your clit to your spasming opening, not quite nudging in.
“Daddy, please – I need it… need you to fuck me, fuck me–”
He doesn’t make you wait any longer.
When he pushes in, it knocks the air out of your lungs. The only proof that you’re still breathing is when you let out a pitchy, desperate moan. Joel grunts, teeth gritted as he flattens himself down against your spine so he can roll his hips into yours. The pain of his size becomes an afterthought just as quickly as the pain of your spanking, dwarfed by the pleasure he gives you just as easily. 
“Fuuuuck,” Joel groans, nuzzling into the crook of your neck and shoulder. Inch at a time, he works you open, grinding his hips into your opening. “Could you be any goddamn tighter?” He bites at your neck from behind with every rock of his hips into yours until he bottoms out.
“Big,” is all you manage to squeak out as he hauls you back on his cock, already prodding your g-spot with his head. Your eyes roll back as you clench around him. 
His fingers go up to run circles around your shoulder, soothing you, grounding you when his cock has you anything but. “Mmm, I know, I know. You can take it. All whores can.” With that, Joel starts fucking you, really fucking you, a punishing, relentless pace where he pulls out entirely before filling you to the brim. Each snap of his hips into yours fills the locker room with shameless sounds, the mere background to your depraved moans.
“Never had your pussy stretched by a man double your age before, huh?”
“N–no! Never… never had my pussy stretched mu…much at all–”
Joel slams into you, laughs at the strained noise that you make. “Yeah? Those dumbfucks on my team not doin’ it for ya, baby?” You don’t answer, don’t think he’s expecting one until his hand wraps around your front, forearm pressed firm against your tits. His thick hand wraps lightly around your neck, jostling you. It’s not hard enough to blur your vision, but just hard enough to remind you of the power he has over you. The power you allow him to have. It’s invigorating. Everything about him is. 
Moans spurt out of you as you fumble to answer, “No da– daddy! You — ah! — do it for m–me!” 
“And what do you say for that? For goin’ outta my way to show you what a real fuck is?”
“Thank you, Daddy!” you cry out. You’re spilling down his thighs, the wet suction of your pussy around his cock making noises more vulgar than you’ve ever heard in porn.
His hand squeezes again at your neck, and you feel floaty, a bubble just waiting to pop. Pleasure dances in every one of your veins, every nerve ending burning like a match that he keeps striking ablaze.
“There you go, desperate slut just needs a freshly spanked ass, a good dickin’ down, and a hand ‘round her throat to behave.” Joel’s pace stays just as harsh, crushing your g-spot with his cock. “Should keep you back here for when we lose, tie you to the goddamn desk. Let my staff take turns with you, see how much crybaby you have left in ya when a dozen men’s loads are drippin’ outta your reamed fuckin’ cunt. Bet you like it when men use you.” The whine that almost gags you on its way out is enough to confirm it.
If he keeps talking to you and the wind blows the right way on your clit, you know you’ll be coming. You’re wringing out his cock with every flutter of your pulsing pussy. The beginning embers of your orgasm turn into a wildfire when he wedges his free hand down between your legs, rubbing messy circles into your sloppy clit. “Fuck, please, please, please,” you sob out, too riddled with pleasure to care about how pathetic you sound or look as you hump his hand while he pounds you.
“Can feel you squeezin’ me, baby.” Joel rasps, nipping at your ear. The hand around your throat falls fully to your chest, pressing you solid against him so he can fuck deeper, deeper, deeper. It’s enough to make you scream, hands clawing and scratching down his muscular grip on you. “C’mon, hun, give it to me, come on my cock, fuck.”
With another thrust, he has you pushed right down onto his fingers, rubbing and flicking you every which way. It’s all you need to come undone, your second orgasm of the night unlatching through you like something forked and angry, battering your sore limbs until there’s nothing left of it or you. You’re a mess, spit oozing down your chin as you slur “thank you daddy” like a broken record, thighs clamping around nothing.
Joel groans as you clench around his cock and continues his relentless pace, hips slapping against yours. The hand he’d been using to rub your clit migrates to your tits, grazing and then thumbing and then tugging lightly your nipples. “There it is, told ya you could be a good girl. Lettin’ your daddy use this cunt to get off, lettin’ me use you. I’m fuckin’ close, baby, where do you want me?”
And you want it even if you shouldn’t, want his cum deep inside of you, want it to leak out into your panties as you walk back to your dorm. You’re still no good at making decisions, too fucked out to tell right from left when you beg, “I–inside, fuck, come inside me, daddy, please.”
Joel practically growls at that, thrusts losing their steadiness as his hips jump and he hurtles towards his release. “Yeah, you’re a goddamn whore, beggin’ for this cum. And you’re gonna fuckin’ take it, yeah… fuckin’ take it.” He slams all the way into you for the last time before shooting his cum into your cunt, swearing and moaning. Breathing like he’s run a mile, he goes slack on top of you, pets the back of your head while he comes down from the exhilaration of his high.
With a gentle kiss to your shoulder, he rises, and the fantasy is over. His cock slips from your pussy, and you feel hollow with the loss. This is where he tucks himself back into his pants, runs a hand back through his hair, tells you to never show your face in his stadium again, and shoves you out the door.
And he does: tucks his softening cock into his boxers, zips up his khakis, does his belt, tames his post-sex head of hair. You wince even if you expected it, leaning down over the edge of the couch to grab your hoodie, already moving to tug it over your head.
“What do you think you’re doin’?” Joel asks, and his tone sounds much more different than the first time he’d asked you. He sounds offended. You blink confusedly, dazedly at him with your arms halfway through the armholes. “Let me clean you up, hun.” Joel side-steps the pile of your leggings and shoes, adjusting the hoodie on your arms and pulling it down your torso. “I know Lucas ain’t done you right, but you deserve to be taken care of, pretty girl.” Your heart pinches in a way that it shouldn’t, not for a hookup with your ex-boyfriend’s coach.
You shift, and he can’t help but look back between your legs where his cum escapes your hole. He manages to pry his eyes away, but not without licking his lips first. “I’ll be right back, baby. Promise.”
When he’s back, it’s with a damp rag. He crouches down in front of you, taking it to the apex of your thighs and wiping away the combination of your releases, careful not to nudge your sensitive clit. He kisses your thigh gently before pulling back, folding the towel on the arm of the couch you’d been crying into just a few minutes ago.
Joel shimmies your ruined panties up your thighs, followed by your leggings. You let him, breath cut like a snipped wire from the sheer intimacy of it all, intimacy you’d lacked with Lucas even after a year of trying. You’d stayed with him for comfortability at your own expense. How stupid could you have been?
Joel pats your knee, eyes soft and weirdly sincere as he looks at you. “I’m sorry about Lucas, honey, but I meant it when I said you deserve to be taken care of.” He rubs the back of his neck before holding something out to you. A business card, his work number plastered in bold sans-serif font across the bottom. “I know this is in reverse ‘n all, but I’d really like to take you out and treat you right, if you’ll let me.”
Saying yes is your first good decision in a while.
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msmasims · 2 years ago
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How To Reduce Electricity Bills. Reducing electricity bills is a concern for many people, especially with the rising cost of energy.
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welcometoqueer · 3 months ago
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Some U.S. election news updates (as of afternoon November 7, 2024):
Many states, including major battleground ones, have started recounting votes on their own despite there still being no national call for a recount. Some of these states recounting or considering recounting as of November 7, 2024 include: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona (considering), and Texas (considering).
Most news outlets have been covering state laws regarding recounts and what a recount could mean. Notably, right-wing sources like Fox News have not mentioned the possibility of a recount or the high demand for one (hmmm).
In cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia, people took to the streets in a peaceful protest to demand a recount (wait, you can protest peacefully?? without starting an insurrection?? Crazy).
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More information alleging Trump cheating has come forward, although many people are expressing their frustrations over there being little to no coverage of election interference by the mainstream media. Additionally, many Democratic voters are vowing to boycott news sources such as CNN and MSNBC due to their apparent tone-deaf and lackluster response to the allegations.
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On Twitter, hashtags such as “Do Not Concede Kamala,” “Recount 2024,” “He/Trump Cheated,” and “Rigged” continue to trend nationally since election night.
Also in the Twitter hellscape, Elon Musk has been removing posts with resources, posts alleging Trump cheated, and posts with information on how to check your ballot and demand a recount. This is awfully suspicious and concerning behavior from someone who has also been accused of bribing voters, which is a federal crime.
Many people are also sharing their grief over the extreme likelihood of programs and services such as Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, the Department of Education, and others being diminished or fully gutted as many Republican lawmakers and Trump have promised to do. Already today (Nov. 7), House Republicans have proposed a bill that would reduce social security payments for U.S.Americans who receive disability benefits or a pension.
There are also concerns over imposed tariffs, the United States losing its NATO membership, and the potential dissolving of the United Nations.
Many MAGA Trump supporters have started to be more emboldened, not just in the Twitter space. Multiple parents have come forward to share that young boys at their children’s schools have also begun repeating the “your body, my choice” mantra, leaving other kids in distress.
Speaking of distress, nationwide, queer and trans people have been largely absent from work and school. Since election night, LGBTQ+ and other helplines have had long waits due to such high demand.
TW: suicide mention, skip the next paragraph
There’s been over 2000+ suicides of just LGBTQ+ individuals since election night and the numbers keep increasing drastically.
End TW
Politically, sitting President Joe Biden addressed the nation today to discuss a “peaceful transfer of power.” He addressed people questioning Donald Trump’s win and the election system saying: “It is honest, it is fair, and it is transparent, and it can be trusted, win or lose."
Needless to say, no one was pleased by his response and are still demanding an investigation or recount.
Other political figures such as Bernie Sanders and the Obamas’ released their own statements regarding the election.
The Obamas’ had a very professional yet disappointed statement.
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Bernie Sanders however, took a different approach, sharing the mass sentiment among democratic voters and criticizing the Democratic Party based on their response to the situation. “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
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[ID:
Multiple videos and images with election news and updates.
The first video, posted to Twitter, is of an Anti-Trump protest in Chicago.
These should be peacefully taking place all over the country. This is what democracy is about, not storming Capitol buildings. Right MAGA? pic.twitter.com/lgzsP41Lze — Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) November 7, 2024.
The video shows people in the streets of Chicago and in front of Trump tower peacefully protesting in demand for a recount and investigation.
Protesters chants include:
“Donald Trump, you will see!”
“Racist, sexist, anti-gay! Donald Trump, go away!”
and “You’re not welcome in this town! Donald Trump, you fascist clown!”
The second video was also posted to Twitter by CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) on November 6, 2024. It’s a video from MSNBC reporting on the strange behavior of Trump leading up to the election where he repeatedly said he didn't need votes. These statements seem to imply that regardless of how people voted, he expected to gain power.
The next image is of the official statement regarding the election results by Barack and Michelle Obama.
The statement reads:
STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT AND MRS. OBAMA ON THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION NOVEMBER 6, 2024
“Over the last few weeks and through Election Day, millions of Americans cast their votes - not just for president, but for leaders at every level. Now the results are in, and we want to congratulate President Trump and Senator Vance on their victory. This is obviously not the outcome we had hoped for, given our profound disagreements with the Republican ticket on a whole host of issues. But living in a democracy is about recognizing that our point of view won't always win out, and being willing to accept the peaceful transfer of power. Michelle and I could not be prouder of Vice President Harris and Governor Walz - two extraordinary public servants who ran a remarkable campaign. And we will always be grateful to the staff and volunteers who poured their heart and soul into electing public servants they truly believed in. As I said on the campaign trail, America has been through a lot over the last few years - from a historic pandemic and price hikes resulting from the pandemic, to rapid change and the feeling a lot of folks have that, no matter how hard they work, treading water is the best they can do. Those conditions have created headwinds for democratic incumbents around the world, and last night showed that America is not immune. The good news is that these problems are solvable - but only if we listen to each other, and only if we abide by the core constitutional principles and democratic norms that made this country great. In a country as big and diverse as ours, we won't always see eye-to-eye on everything. But progress requires us to extend good faith and grace - even to people with whom we deeply disagree. That's how we've come this far, and it's how we'll keep building a country that is more fair and more just, more equal and more free.”
The last two images are Bernie Sanders’ statement on the election results, criticizing the response of the Democratic Party.
Sanders’ statement reads:
NEWS: Sanders Statement on the Results of the 2024 Presidential Election November 6, 2024 BURLINGTON, Vt. - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today released the following statement in response to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election:
“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right. Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago. Today, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, many young people will have a worse standard of living than their parents. And many of them worry that Artificial Intelligence and robotics will make a bad situation even worse. Today, despite spending far more per capita than other countries, we remain the only wealthy nation not to guarantee health care to all as a human right and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We, alone among major countries, cannot even guarantee paid family and medical leave. Today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government's all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children. Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not. In the coming weeks and months those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions. Stay tuned.”
/end ID]
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ckret2 · 2 months ago
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Bill hates it when people mention Euclydia. Everyone thinks it's because he doesn't want to hear his home's real name; it's actually the opposite.
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Here, have some fic. The naming of Euclydia (among other things), the birth of the Nightmare Realm, and the Axolotl planting the seeds of a trillion-year-long plan to keep Bill from the death penalty.
This is the 🎉FINAL PART🎉 of a 9-part plot about the Axolotl in the aftermath of the Euclidean Massacre. If you wanna read the others (or look at the art), here's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight.
####
With the immediate crisis averted and the triangle, for the moment, not attempting to invade and/or demolish the multiverse, most of the god militia pulled back. A group remained stationed near the unstable border between dimensions to watch the triangle; but the less powerful gods could trickle back in to get back to their own work, first and foremost the construction workers doing emergency repairs to reformat and stabilize the neighboring dimensions.
The Axolotl—who, he suspected, would have been arrested himself for interfering if they weren't still focused on the triangle—wove through the crowd until he found the Time Giant; and then swam angrily up to her and demanded, "You used me as a distraction?"
She turned a stone-hard look on him. "That was the agreement."
"No! The agreement was that I'd try to talk him down! We'd only resort to distracting him if I couldn't get through to him!"
"Ya didn't get through to him." The Time Giant nodded at the Axolotl's burned side. "Look at you. Your leg's off."
He looked down at his missing foreleg. He'd been so distracted by the near end of the multiverse, he'd barely noticed the pain. "It's just a flesh wound," he insisted. "I'm an axolotl, it'll grow back!"
She shook her head.
"I would have gotten through to him! You saw me talk him down after an entire army threatened him!" the Axolotl said. "What if I had succeeded, and when we left my tank he found out you already wrote him off?! You never gave me a chance—"
"We did give you a chance," she said testily, "and I saw that you weren't gonna succeed." She hooked a thumb over her belt and tapped a finger on her time tape; the stylized symbol of the Time Giants glowed on the side, an unsubtle reminder that she knew what was coming far better than he did. "So I did my damn job."
So she'd sent him in already knowing that he would fail. The Axolotl was speechless for a second. "But—you couldn't know—I got so close, if I'd had just one more try to talk to him..."
"If I'd let you, I'm sure you woulda kept trying until the end of time," she said. "You seem like a good guy, Ax—but you can't save everyone." She pushed past him to get to work. "There's first aid near where Dimension 2 Gamma was. Get those burns looked at."
"They're fine."
She was wrong. He could save everyone. Because he wouldn't stop until he did.
####
"You're replacing it?" the triangle asked petulantly.
"I'm not talking to you," VENDOR said, turned away from the triangle. "You had your chance at diplomacy and you blew it." The crablike cop was holding up a clipboard with some paperwork for VENDOR to review, and didn't look pleased to have been temporarily reduced to a secretary.
"I'm just asking a question!"
"We're not speaking."
At the top of his lungs—which was, it turned out, very loud and very shrill—the triangle said in the direction of the reporters, "Oh wow, that's a crazy thing to say about Lady Morgenstern! And talk about obscene! She'd be furious if she could hear that—!"
"Shhhhh!" VENDOR rounded angrily on the triangle. "You don't even know who she is!"
"I know her name and I'm not afraid to use it," the triangle said. "You're really replacing my dimension?"
"If I can be left alone long enough to finish signing the authorization paperwork," VENDOR muttered. "The construction crew's already out here and waiting, so if you don't mind..."
"It just seems pretty tacky, replacing a universe just like that." The triangle spoke like dimension he was talking about was just a pawn to be used in a trivial argument about etiquette, rather than everyone and everything he'd ever known. "No memorial or anything? Yeesh."
"So hold a memorial for it," VENDOR said. "We don't have any choice, we have to repair all the fallen walls to keep reality stable. If you'd let us into your hovel to sweep up what's left of your old dimension, it could have at least been incorporated into the new one."
The triangle half reached for his hat, stopped himself, and curled his hand into a fist and thrust it down at his side. "Over my dead body," he said. "Which I'm pretty sure got incinerated! So that means never!"
"You're pretty sure?" VENDOR asked archly.
"It... I had more important stuff to take care of, okay? I'm a busy guy!"
"I'm sure," VENDOR said. "Well, it's too late for any cleanup operations anyway. Enjoy rotting away in your landfill."
"Wow, that's how you talk to a refugee from the biggest disaster ever?" The triangle laughed. "Hey, bet the muckrakers over there would love to hear how sympathetic you are to the—what'd you say I am—the 'last surviving soul from my dimension'—?"
"Let's find somewhere quieter to work," VENDOR said to the cop.
He looked relieved "You got it."
As VENDOR and THEIR impromptu secretary moved away from Dimension Zero, the triangle shouted after THEM, "Hey! How do I vote for Municipalitron!"
Volcanoes on several of VENDOR's planets erupted. THEY whipped around to face the triangle. "You don't! You aren't in my district!"
"Well, whose district am I in? This Morgenstern creep you keep bringing up?" the triangle asked. "How's voting work, do you toss a ballot across the border and I toss it back—?"
"You're not in anyone's district! If you were, you'd have been arrested already!"
The triangle stared in dumb shock. "Wait, so I don't get to vote for which of you idiots I have to deal with?" He hollered at VENDOR's retreating back, "That's fascism!"
Fuming, VENDOR passed the Axolotl muttering under THEIR breath about showing the triangle fascism; then stopped, abruptly turned to face him, and snapped, "You."
"You," the Axolotl agreed.
"You're an optimistic fool."
Yes, well, he knew that already. He'd been voted Most Adorably Idealistic in his law school yearbook for a reason. "I don't think I like you, either."
"No one does." THEIR camera whirred irritably as they looked the Axolotl up and down. "What are you doing here, anyway? I assumed you'd been sent to figure out who's liable for this whole mess—but no, you only handle afterlife cases, don't you? Who sent you?"
The Axolotl was silent.
Furiously, VENDOR said, "Are you serious?! We could have avoided half this mess if it weren't for you!"
"If it weren't for me, he'd have knocked down the multiverse before anyone realized he's setting the fires," the Axolotl snapped. "And if you had figured that much out, you'd have gotten your cops killed before anyone realized he's a god."
"The professionals here to handle the situation could have figured it out faster if you weren't derailing their investigations," VENDOR snarled. "And arguing about jurisdiction! We could have arrested that that little troublemaker the moment we figured out just what he's done—"
"Right after you arrested that kid with the spray can who didn't have anything to do with this?"
THEY growled in frustration. "Forget it! I hope you're happy with your genocidal pal over there—you seem about as concerned with public safety as he is." THEY stormed off, the cop with THEIR paperwork chasing after THEM.
The Axolotl watched VENDOR go; then turned to look ruefully toward Dimension Zero.
When the triangle caught his gaze, he formed a heart with his fingers over his top point and called out, gleefully singsong, "Genocide paaals!"
It wasn't exactly the reaction he'd hoped for.
####
The Axolotl was attempting to distract himself from scratching his itchy leg while it regrew by eavesdropping on the triangle. It seemed like the triangle was entertaining himself by darting around the border of Dimension Zero to start arguments with anybody he happened to recognize (except the Axolotl, whom he seemed to be trying to ignore outside of throwing a few odd quips at him.) At the moment, the triangle and the Time Giant were hollering at each other about her decision to reinforce the second dimensions by making them splinter into multiple timelines.
"So you're really willing to sacrifice zillions of lives by letting me incinerate all their parallel timelines?" The triangle laughed in disbelief. "And everyone here thinks I'm the killer! That's not a good look for you, buddy!"
She glanced up from a table full of paperwork to give him a totally neutral look. "You're the one who's willing to incinerate them. You could not do that."
"When I do it, it's justified."
The Axolotl was distracted from the argument as the storm cloud with the apoc agents gloomily blew past him. It was talking into a walkie-talkie as it went: "Yeah, I know he's a nut. But he's a nut that can't throw fireballs outside the border of his dimension, and I've got to finish this report before we can get outta here." He sighed at whatever the walkie-talkie said in response, and said, "Yeah. We'll rendezvous after I have his testimony." It let its tornado suck the walkie-talkie back in and drifted to the Time Giant. "Mind if I steal your conversation partner for a minute? ATTF business."
She grabbed a binder to try to shield her papers from the worst of the storm's rain. "Please. Take him."
"Thanks." It floated closer to Dimension Zero and raised its voice to bark, "Hey! Magister Mentium!"
The triangle looked over mistrustfully. "What?" As he'd talked to the Time Giant, he'd been playing with the fabric of reality, creating a circle out of raw... stuff. The Axolotl couldn't tell what the stuff was, but it looked like it was some sort of animal tissue, except far too uncannily homogeneous to be natural, disturbing in its uniformity. Like a slice of baloney. When he saw who'd called out to him, he rolled his eye and turned his attention to extruding the circle into a baloney cylinder. "Heeey, Officer Fun Police! Here to rain on my parade again?"
"Rain jokes aren't as funny as you think they are," it said. "No, this is Apocalyptic Threat Task Force business."
The triangle's eye narrowed. "What business? Are you gonna complain about my renovations again?"
"No. If you're not about to knock reality down, I don't care what you do anymore," the cloud said. "It's not my business to punish anybody for previous apocalypses, I just want to prevent future ones. Answer a few questions for our incident report and I'll be out of your life." There was an implicit and you'll be out of mine in its tone.
"All right," the triangle said dubiously. "Fffine. Then we're on the same side. I'm not fond of apocalypses either."
It paused like it wanted to argue with that claim, but said, "Good enough for me." It pulled out the soggy notepad it had been using all day, flipped through it, couldn't find a free page, and with a sigh pulled out a tape recorder instead. "You're from Dimension 2 Delta, right?"
"If you say so," the triangle said, lifting his hands in a shrug. "You guys are the ones who named my dimension."
"Uh-huh." Under its breath, the cloud muttered, "Not exactly a name, but... If you're from 2Δ, that makes you the only direct witness to how your universe was destroyed."
The triangle paused. "Mm."
"Can you explain what happened, exactly?" When the triangle didn't respond, the cloud added, "I'm not gonna arrest you for it. If we want to have a chance of stopping something like this from happening in the future, we need to know what happened here."
"Uhhh, yyyeah. Suuure," the triangle said.  It wasn't clear exactly how Dimension Zero rearranged, but the view of the eternal dance party simply vanished. There was no sign of the millions of shapes. The music had fallen near silent, just a constant distant low thumping noise, like your heartbeat in your ears; quiet enough that it couldn't drown out the whispery hiss leaking out of Dimension Zero. "It's not like I have anything to hide." Whatever he was about to say, it seemed like he wanted to hide it from his party prisoners, at least.
A bolt of lightning shot through the storm's recorder, turning it on. "You said you were an active participant in the end of the world, right?"
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" He eyed the recorder suspiciously. "What is this, some trick to try to get a confession out of me?"
"Again, I'm not a cop. And you already confessed in front of a thousand reporters," the storm said. "If you were involved, you've got a different perspective than some guy ten superclusters away who only witnessed it, that's the only reason it matters."
"Oh," the triangle said. "Then—yeah, I was there for the whole thing. Start to finish."
"Great," the storm said gruffly. "Then could you explain in your own words what happened when the universe ended and, to the best of your knowledge, what caused it."
"Oh. Yeah. Right. The cause," the triangle said. "It... it was a—monster."
"I thought you said you—"
"It was a monster," the triangle said, more confidently now.
The cloud hesitated. "All right," it said. "Tell me what happened."
The triangle took a deep breath. "Okay. So. It uh—started with the third dimension."
"The monster came from the third dimension?"
"No, we were going to the third dimension. But we needed—"
The hissing background static exploded into a roar.
The void filled with the staticky screams of countless dead voices, pleading for mercy, pleading for it to stop. Death rattles, howls of agony, wails of terror. Most of the crowd of gods outside Dimension Zero fell silent, turning to stare at the disembodied hysterical shrieks.
One voice, strained with pain, rose above the cacophony, crackling, "Emergency services! We need medical assistance! Ambulances, or—please—I don't know what happened—it's like everyone's internal organs spontaneously ruptured, there's—there's hundreds of people here! Some of them are missing parts of their body, they just—disappeared! I'm hurt too, I don't know what it is—I can feel it inside me—"
A second voice replied, "We can't send assistance. Everyone's bleeding, the whole city's dying! We can't help you!"
Whatever the triangle said was lost beneath the roar. He didn't even seem to notice it. His eye was filled with static. The word "blood" was just barely audible. The word "mandibles."
Another voice, trying to sound professional, trying to sound authoritative, but trembling with fear, "This is an emergency announcement! This announcement will not repeat! The fire can transmit over radio waves and sound waves! Turn off all radios and TVs! Turn off all radios and TVs and destroy any wireless phones and pagers! Do NOT listen to the screams! Again, the fire is transmitting over radio waves, this message will not repeat, destroy your radio and warn your neighbors!"
The Axolotl saw images flash in the triangle's eye, too fast for him to mentally process one before another ten had gone by: a plane like infinitely thin glass with tiny delicate shapes painted on its surface shattering in a rolling wave; a bleeding body reduced to shards and then the shards reduced to chips and then chips reduced to dust; fire spitting and crackling into every crack split in existence; a light shaped like a triangle. (Was that the light that had blinded the Oracle's seer?)
Another voice gasping, "It's doing something to the gravity, I-I don't understand—we don't even have the equipment to read... it's like gravity's turned in a direction that doesn't exist! Does anyone know how to stop it?! Our universe is tearing ap—" and the words were cut off with a scream; and the scream was cut off with a sudden silence that was swallowed whole by the other voices.
The triangle had peeled open, shining golden panels stretching out like petals, his mandibles unhinged and curling around his eye in a ring of teeth, like a blooming carnivorous flower, sun-soaked and mesmerizing. God, he was so bright. He shot light in every direction like an explosion that never ended. Like a star trapped in the moment of supernova.
Another voice, shaking with rage, "Did you hear that, you monster?! I told you we weren't ready yet! Why didn't you listen?! I can see the destruction from here—the sky's on fire, everything is burning. How could this happen?! YOU killed them all—" and the rage cracked, revealing the fear and grief just barely hidden underneath, "Remember us. If you're the only one left, you have to remember us. Please—"
The static snapped off; the triangle's body snapped back into place; his eye snapped back into focus; "—and then they appointed me their god," he said cheerfully, "and here we are!"
And with only a couple more dying cries of pain and pleas for help, the voices fell back to their constant background whisper.
The storm cloud had started sleeting.
The Axolotl had stopped breathing. Just the sound of the carnage was enough to make him sick.
But the triangle sounded perfectly at ease—more than he had before he'd answered the cloud's question. "So is that all you needed?" He'd resumed playing with the cylinder of meat he'd been constructing—extruding it further, and then, dissatisfied with the results, collapsing it back into a circle.
His hands were trembling as he messed with the cylinder. There was a tightness around his eye.
"What..." The storm cloud let out a low rumble of thunder, ahem, "what... did you say about blood? I didn't catch it."
The triangle blinked blankly at the storm. "I didn't say anything about blood."
It paused.  "All right, then—what about the other voices? Who were they?"
"What voices?"
The storm stared at the triangle, baffled sunbeam fixed on him; then swung the sunbeam over to the Axolotl. "You heard—?"
So his eavesdropping had been noticed. He nodded. Oh, he heard, all right.
The triangle glanced between them. "I think you guys are hearing voices," he said. "The only one talking here is me."
He said it like he meant it. The Axolotl was sure he did. Had he not heard the voices?
"Never mind, forget it," the cloud said uneasily. "You said someone... Who appointed you their god?"
"Uhhh..." the triangle tilted to the side as he tried to think. "Pretty much all my people? Yeah. It was everyone!"
"Your people? From your universe?"
"Yup!"
"They didn't appoint you their god," the cloud said. "They're all dead."
The triangle scoffed. "I don't know what you're talking about. They're all in here with me!"
"You mean the mortals from the other universes?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," the triangle repeated, a little slower, warningly. "They're all from my universe."
For a moment, the cloud just stared at him, at a loss. It glanced again toward the Axolotl. The Axolotl had nothing to offer it.
"Is that everything?" The triangle tried to keep his voice peppy, but there was an edge of exhaustion that hadn't been there earlier. (Yeah, him and everyone else here.)
"I guess that wraps up that part of the questionnaire," the cloud muttered uneasily, trying to recover its professional tone. "Just a couple more questions. I need your name. For the report."
Dimension Zero's hissing background static rose again: "The murderer... The name of the murderer... is—"
"NOBODY ASKED YOU!" The triangle turned and chucked the cylinder he'd been working on into the Dream Realm. He grumbled under his breath, created another circle, and started stretching it out again.
The triangle could hear the voices. Then why hadn't he been able to hear them earlier? Unless he had been able to hear them—and he just... couldn't remember that he'd heard them?
Even if the Axolotl hadn't known about the incomparable trauma the triangle had survived/caused, it would be pretty obvious by now that something was going terribly wrong inside his head. Contradictory stories about his own reality, memories he refused to remember, facts he simply set aside as not relevant. Was he refusing to face them, or was he unable?
From their conversation in the Axolotl's tank, he thought the triangle understood more than he was willing to admit. But the Axolotl might be the only one who knew that.
And that was beginning to give the Axolotl an idea.
"Just—put me down as the Magister Mentium, okay?" the triangle told the cloud. "Everyone'll know who you're talking about."
"If you say so," said the cloud. "What was your universe's name?"
"Its name?" The triangle glanced up from his new cylinder and gave the cloud a perplexed look. "You asked already. You said it's Dimension 2 Delta."
"That's its serial number. Every dimension's assigned one at its Big Bang. But it's standard to let a dimension's own residents choose its name. It makes it more personal." The cloud sounded as though it had memorized this explanation. The Axolotl wondered how many times it had had to take statements from a destroyed dimension's grieving survivors. He hoped it usually got to give this spiel to witnesses of a narrowly averted apocalypse. "Typically the first explorers to leave their dimension get to name it; but the only person ever known to leave 2Δ is... you."
"Oh," he said. "Right."
"So, what did your people name your universe?"
He stared at the storm like it was stupid. "We called it... the universe?"
"Everyone calls their universe The Universe," the cloud said. "Followed by The World, The Dimension, Reality, and Home. They're all taken, come up with something else."
"Seriously? You're making me name my whole universe and now you're telling me how to name it?"
"They're not my rules," the cloud said. "If you don't have a native name, we usually name a dimension after the first known explorer to leave it. Was that you?"
The triangle was quiet for an uncomfortably long moment. His gaze twitched away; and for a moment the Axolotl thought he saw another image flash in his eye: a triangle floating in space, eerily serene, dead. His voice was small when he said, "No."
Surprised lightning quietly flashed in the storm's cloud. "Oh. Do you know the name of the first?"
"Of course I do. He's my..." He stopped himself. He said, too evenly, "His name is Euclid."
Obviously, the triangle wasn't speaking a language that can be spoken with human mouths or written with human symbols. "Euclid" is a stand-in word for an unpronounceable name; trying to say the name without the right anatomy—without even the right laws of physics and sound waves—would only mangle it.
But the rest of the multiverse didn't have the right physics or anatomy either. "Euclid," the cloud repeated, mangling it. The triangle winced. "Fine. How's Euclydia sound?"
"It sounds stupid," the triangle said.
"Well, it's your dimension. Do you have a better suggestion?"
"I..." The triangle floundered helplessly. "That... Okay hold on, I've had a very long..." He floundered again as he tried to figure exactly what kind of time span he'd been having a long one of.
"If you want me to come back later..." said the cloud, who very obviously did not want to have to come back later.
"I don't knowww, gimme a second," the triangle whined. "I've never thought about a universe having a name! It's—it's fine. Euclydia's fine."
"If you're sure—?"
"Of course I'm sure," the triangle snapped. "Euclydia. Yeah. Great. Fine."
"All right." The cloud zapped its tape recorder, turning it off. "Thanks for your time."
As it started to hover off, the triangle said, "Hold on! I answered your questions, you owe me some."
The eye of the storm reluctantly swung back toward the triangle. "What?"
He held up the shape he'd been extruding. "What do you call this... 3D circle thing?"
The sunbeam swept over it. "A cylinder?"
The triangle pointed toward VENDOR, who was out at the edge of the crowd answering the questions of some reporters who'd caught THEM attempting to slink away from the scene. "And what are the 3D circle things Coin Slot over there is hauling around?"
It glanced at VENDOR's stock of planets. "Spheres."
The triangle shook his cylinder. "Well, what am I doing wrong, then!"
"I don't know, math's not my thing," the cloud said. "Try rotating it."
The triangle waited until the cloud had moved on; then created another circle, extruded it again, but curled the extrusion around into a circle. He ended up with a shape like a donut. He said, quietly, "Oo-oo-ooh." He sounded impressed.
The Axolotl swam up alongside the storm cloud as it left. "So. Find out what you wanted to know?"
The cloud laughed ruefully.
That was what he thought. "Are the interviews you've been taking classified?"
"No, our reports are open to the public. Anyone can request copies. The database is a nightmare to navigate, though."
"Let me know who to contact for the records on this incident. Especially the witness testimonies."
"I take it you're also planning to go through that noise we just heard with a fine-tooth comb?"
"That's hardly the start of it."
If the Axolotl had been convinced of anything during all his conversations with the triangle today, it was that the triangle could barely begin to grasp just what it was he'd done to his dimension and all the dimensions around it—and he did a very poor job of communicating what he did grasp.
And if the Axolotl could prove that—if he could build a convincing argument that the triangle hadn't understood what he'd done, psychologically couldn't understand, that even now he only had the fuzziest comprehension of what he was involved in...
Someday, that triangle's sins would catch up to him. Someday, he would be in the hands of the gods of death and justice, and they would have to decide what fate his actions had earned. And when that day came, it would be the Axolotl's job to ensure that the triangle didn't end up damned or erased from existence.
As it was now, that triangle didn't stand a chance in the multiverse of being found innocent. But there was more than one way to avoid a "guilty" verdict.
By the time the triangle stood before a judge, the Axolotl would make sure that the right laws were in place for him to do what he wanted to do.
####
Where there had been swarms of firefighters earlier, now the scene swarmed with construction workers, working on the emergency genesis of over half a dozen replacement universes—carefully, so that the big bangs didn't do any further damage to an already unstable situation; but quickly. Already every destroyed one-dimensional universe had been replaced. Several half-burned dimensions had been supplanted with oddly-shaped undersized universes that met at the older universes' burned edges; jagged 1D dimensions sealed the gaps between these dimensions like a line of solder between two panes of stained glass.
By now, the flat planes and edges surrounded the zeroth dimension like the sleek shifting surfaces of an infinity-sided die; all except for one last missing wall in the middle of the damage.
Dimension 2 Delta. "Euclydia."
The construction workers were already setting up the scaffolding and equipment to set off another big bang.
As the Axolotl looked at the copious warning signs around the construction site—"DANGER! COSMIC EXPLOSIVES" "GENESIS IN PROGRESS"—the specialized equipment, the veritable army of workers, the mountain of papers the Time Giant had been reviewing earlier to ensure that everything was up to code and nothing would go wrong... he couldn't help but think of the triangle holding the seed of a big bang in his bare glowing hand, threatening to set it off right there. The Axolotl had known it was foolish, but seeing all the workers' preparations put just how reckless it was into perspective. Like a toddler holding a stick of TNT over a campfire.
He spotted the Time Giant among the workers, flickering back and forth across the scene as she tried to literally be multiple places at the same time. When she settled down for a moment over a worktable to double check a pile of blueprints and forms and calculations and even more paperwork, she caught sight of the Axolotl passing by, and tipped her chin up at him in greeting.
He paused, then nodded back to her. No hard feelings. He was just following his principles; and she was just doing her job. They'd each found their own way to help hold up the multiverse.
"Hey," she called out, and gestured for him to come over. As he did, she said, "Your leg's healing nicely."
He glanced down at it. His new toes were stubby, but at least they were back. "I don't like being uneven." He'd take a few more days on his tail. "I'll probably pay for it tomorrow, though." When he finally got home, he'd have to see if he could cancel his morning appointments.
"Reckon we'll all be feeling this tomorrow." She tilted her head toward Dimension Zero. "I've got a message for the god of DIY over there. I think you're the only one he likes—you mind carrying it over?"
####
It wasn't hard to find the triangle; he was leaning against the membrane around the zeroth dimension, moodily staring out at the third. He seemed to be gazing past all the gods, unfazed by their hubbub. The Axolotl tried to see what he was looking at, and didn't spot anything of note. As far as he could tell, the triangle might as well just be stargazing.
Along with the police tape and the ATTF barrier and the long-forgotten cordons to hold off the reporters, there was now an additional grid of orange cones set up blocking anyone from getting too close to the destroyed wall and the construction site. The Axolotl glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention before he slipped past the cones and swam up to the triangle.
When he approached, the triangle was muttering under his breath: "Stupid, now it sounds like an STD. I should've named it something cooler. Like... Triangletopia. Or the Party Plane. Or Margaritaville—I bet no one's ever used that one before..."
"Magister," the Axolotl said.
The triangle's eye snapped to him. "Hey, look at that! The pompous psycho is back! If you're even thinking about sticking me back in your 'office'—"
The Axolotl held up his forelegs appeasingly. "I'm not." He wasn't even crossing the threshold into the triangle's turf. "This is the last time I'll speak to you today."
"Finally, some good news," the triangle grumbled. "What do you w—ha! Ah-haha! I caught myself, that one didn't count."
The Axolotl decided not to count it. "The Time Giant wanted you to know they're about to set off the big bang where Dimension 2 Delta used to be. You probably don't want to be too close to the wall when it goes up."
The triangle's expression darkened; but he just said, "All right. Fine. Have fun. Not my problem! Just keep the construction noises down."
That was all he'd been sent to tell the triangle; but he added, "If you ever want to leave your dream realm, this is your last chance."
The triangle groaned. "This again? Listen, frills, I already told you I'm not interested! And you don't have the right to drag me out, this is my sovereign god territory—"
"I'm not threatening to," the Axolotl said gently. "I just—wanted to make sure you know. If you change your mind later, you physically won't be able to leave."
That gave the triangle pause. "I... don't see why not."
"For something to pass from one dimension to another, it needs a large enough hole to pass through," the Axolotl said. "For a person carrying the mass and energy of an entire universe to cross from one dimension to another... they need a hole the size of a universe. The missing wall where 2Δ was is the size your universe used to be. And now... it's the only exit big enough for you to pass through. Do you understand?"
The triangle stared at him silently. There was that hard, heavy look in his eye. It was awful to see. He did understand.
"If you don't come now..."
"We came up with a way to fit my entire universe into this one," the triangle said. "If I ever want to leave, we'll invent a way to get it back out."
"Your universe didn't fit in without incinerating it."
The triangle tapped the side of his hat with a finger; somewhere inside it was the speck that used to be his universe—the seed of a big bang. "It's travel-sized now. The next time will be easier."
For the first time since seeing the awful ruin of Dimension 2 Delta, the Axolotl forced himself to turn his fearful gaze chronologically forward. He squinted toward the hazy, far-flung future; and then he gave the triangle, in the present, a sorrowful look. "No, it won't," he said. "But I'll do what I can for you."
The triangle stared sullenly at him, unmoved by the offer. "I don't see what you're getting out of helping me. Everyone else is dying to send me to ghost jail or however things work around here."
"Isn't it enough to help you just because you exist and that makes you worth it?"
"If you ever, ever say something like that again, I'll kill you. I will find a way."
He wasn't particularly surprised. But that was truly what the Axolotl believed—and believed strongly enough to guide everything else he did. 
The things this triangle had done were too ghastly for even an ancient, experienced god to fully wrap his head around. Without exaggeration, he might have done the worst thing anyone anywhere in the multiverse had ever done.
But.
But if the Axolotl could prove that he, the worst person ever, was worth giving a second chance—that he could change, that he could show remorse for what he'd done, that he could be a force for good in the multiverse... then he would have proven that everyone, no matter what, was worth it.
The Axolotl had been voted Most Adorably Idealistic, but he'd never been called soft. His ideals were harder than diamond and sharper than obsidian. He hadn't decided to protect the triangle in spite of the impact that might have on the multiverse; he was protecting him because of the impact it could have. 
The Axolotl was a god of justice, of monsters, of second chances, and through his actions he could shape what justice meant throughout the multiverse as if he were sculpting clay; and he thought a small, sharp little equilateral triangle would make a perfect sculpting tool.
"In truth, I just don't believe in punishment. Not even for you." The Axolotl lay a forefoot on Dimension Zero's bubble. "But I don't see why you trust me." Because it was clear the triangle did. He'd trusted the Axolotl to judge the character of the other gods. He'd kept looking toward him like he was trying to gauge his own situation based on the Axolotl's reaction to it. He'd admitted the truth about the remains of his universe and his plans for it. It seemed like the Axolotl was the only one the triangle trusted in all this mess.
The triangle thought that over; then said, "You seem like a grade-A sucker."
He laughed. "I'll try to live up to your opinion of me." He had a guess what kind of people this triangle thought were suckers. The charitable; the caring. The people who didn't think that seeing the worth in everyone was a kind of illness.
"You should know, I intend to legally register my tank as a purgatory. I'll probably submit my application before the end of the week. If you claim it as your afterlife, you'll be transferred to my tank for holding while awaiting trial to decide your final afterlife."
"Ugh, now it all makes sense: you're starting a cult! I don't wanna join your cult, frills—I've got my own."
"But you do want to go straight to your lawyer's office if you're about to go on trial for your sins," the Axolotl said pointedly. "I don't intend to house anyone in my tank permanently. It will just be a transfer place for clients preparing for trial or figuring out where they want to go next—another afterlife, reincarnation... You're already technically dead; you can request at any time to come to my tank, and you'll be there."
"Sounds great for your other clients! But I'm not planning to go on trial and I don't want to be in an afterlife," the triangle said testily. "I'm pretty sure we've been over this!"
"I know you don't. I wish you didn't have to face it. But when you have no choice," the Axolotl said. "When you need it. When your time comes to burn like your people—" (the triangle flinched) "—call me. I'll offer you a second chance at any time."
"Low blow," the triangle muttered. "Don't put yourself out on my account. I'll be fine by myself."
"I'm sure." The Axolotl suspected he'd be putting himself out on the triangle's account for a long time. "What's your name? Your real name."
The background hiss of cosmic noise roared louder. The echoes of billions of erased ghosts said, "THE NAME OF THE MURDERER IS—"
With a flinch, the triangle cranked the distant dance music louder so it spilled cacophonously out of Dimension Zero again. It was too late, though. The Axolotl had heard the triangle's real name.
He pretended he hadn't. He waited.
The triangle didn't answer for a long moment. "You probably wouldn't be able to pronounce it."
"Maybe not." He'd seen how the triangle had winced hearing the cloud try to pronounce the name of some other shape. "I still want to know who you are."
He wrestled with his words; then finally gave up and asked his question. "What... is this place? We're not in the third dimension. When I—freed my dimension, I expected to go up; but we went... down. I didn't know there was a down." He confessed his ignorance in a near whisper, almost drowned out by his own music.
"You're in Dimension Zero." But that wasn't right. Dimension Zero was—should be—a point, and it's impossible to be "in" a point. A point simply is. "You are Dimension Zero."
The triangle said, "Then call me King Zero."
The Axolotl considered that. "Yes," he said. "I think that is your name."
Someone shouted, "Clear the way!" One worker at the construction site was looking directly at the Axolotl. "That means you! Unless you wanna be boiled frog legs!"
"I'm not a frog," the Axolotl muttered; but, he turned one last time to newly-crowned King Zero, said, "Call me," then hastily swam to the safe side of the orange cone barricade.
"Five, four, three..."
The Axolotl watched the triangle—and the triangle watched him—until the detonation. The big bang went off in a flash of light bright enough it would have incinerated anyone in the vicinity had it not been contained to a flat plane.
When the Axolotl looked away from the light, the afterimage of a triangle was burned into the center of his vision.
Dimension Zero was sealed off from the rest of reality—locking its king in for the next trillion years.
####
When the triangle said his name was "King Zero," of course, he wasn't speaking English. English wouldn't exist for a long time. The name King Zero is simply a convenient translation.
The English word "zero" comes from the French zéro. Zéro comes from Italian zefiro. Zefiro comes from Medieval Latin zephirum. And zephirum comes from the Arabic صِفْر—ṣifr.
####
Centuries ago, in the dream of a naive, trusting human, the human asked in Arabic, "What should I call you?" And King Zero responded, "Call me Ṣifr."
And years later, a dreaming human asked in Medieval Latin, "What should I call you, o muse of mathematics?" And of the two Latin words descended from his current Arabic nickname, Ṣifr responded with the one he thought was closer: "Call me Cifra."
A dreaming human asked in Old French, "What's your name?" And he replied, "My name's Cyffre."
Speaking Middle English, he told a dreaming human, "My name's Siphre."
And in Modern English, he told Edward Bishop Bishop, "The name's Cipher. But you can call me Bill."
In a year's time, and two years before his death from sleep deprivation, Edward would write Flatworld, a book about a 2D shape and his Muse journeying up to the highest dimensions; and also all the way down, below the spaces and planes and lines, to the self-absorbed King Zero, buried in the point-sized zeroth dimension, who thought a whole universe was contained inside him.
####
(It's FINISHED. 🎉🎉🎉
Hi y'all, if you just joined us for this Axolotl plot arc, usually this is a post-canon human Bill fic. I took a break from the main plot for one week to post a one-chapter flashback and then it was nine chapters. This bitch is 50k words. It's a novel unto itself.
Anyway if you only showed up for this story about the Ax, it only exists in service of a much longer story; so if you enjoyed this check out the rest of the fic. This is technically chapter 69 (lol). (If human Bill isn't usually your thing, I've been told that this is The Human Bill Fic For People Who Don't Like Human Bills because Bill is clearly very much a triangle unhappily trapped in a human body, rather than just chill with being human—so you might wanna give it a shot.)
And for the regulars who are already reading the whole fic: OH MY GOD IT'S FINALLY FINISHED, WE'RE FREE, WE CAN RETURN TO THE PRESENT. Listen I love the Ax and his bizarre but unbending morality, but guys. Guys. I miss Mabel so much.
Pre-warning that I may end up needing to skip a chapter or two before the end of the year, because work's piling a LOTTA extra work on me this month and I might just flat out not have time to edit & do art. I'm up at 3 a.m. editing & queueing this post and I was up til 3 a.m. another night doing the art because I HAVE NOT HAD TIME this week to do it any earlier. I did this because I love y'all.
No that's a lie, I did this because I want to FINISH this DANG ARC. That's my birthday gift to me.
Anyway lemme know what y'all think!! 💕)
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