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wtfaniii · 2 months ago

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Letters of destiny

● Summary: You entered the games for a reason, to pay for your husband's chemotherapy, there you meet someone who has a story quite similar to yours

● Note: This language is not my original language but I hope you like this one shot, I am open to recommendations and constructive criticism! <3

● Warning: Nothing, it's just a bit short since I'm not used to writing through this medium yet, but I hope you like it.

You didn't want to die, you had a man at home who adored you and was worried about you and you hoped to arrive with lots of money and a future resolved but the timer of the games only went backwards and you still couldn't find a group to join.

The carousel game had never been your strong suit, socializing was not your role but it was that or die, a group of 7 players and you were still standing there looking in all directions not knowing what to do until you felt someone pull your arm and in the blink of an eye you were in a compartment with 6 other people.

"Thank you..." The girl murmured, releasing the air she hadn't realized she had trapped in her lungs.

"It's nothing" answered player 456 also with accelerated breathing and taking gasps of air while he rested his hands on his knees, when the shots and screams were heard he looked through the half-open space of the door with sadness. You had already seen him, he was the one who guided them in the first game of green light and red light, the one who says he has already participated and won, maybe he tried to persuade people to withdraw from these games but he only encouraged you, it means that there is a chance to win.

"Thank you..." The young woman repeated, giving a slight bow to which he turned to look at her, confused, as did the rest of those who were there. "You motivated me to continue in these games."

You felt another look on you, only this one was full of curiosity and intensity. Without knowing it, you had said the same words as another person, only this time they were sincere.

"Are you crazy, women?" Another man shouted next to him, one with the number 390 "If what we want is for these games to end!"

You just stayed quiet with your eyes open, when your gaze moved towards the one who kept looking at you, you met with an intense and serious look, it made you shrink in your place just a little.

The door opened again and they all left together, happy to have been able to save their lives once again.

You were about to leave but before you could, one of them pulled you over with his arm around your shoulders with great confidence and shouted victoriously. "If we change her mind, we'll have another point in our favor!" he exclaimed, the number 388, pointing at the blue circle on your chest. "I don't understand."

"In the next vote, we want these games to end" said 456.

You remained silent again, not knowing what to answer. You didn't want to leave, or at least not yet. You wanted to gather more than enough money for your husband. Without realizing it, the same look as before fell on you.

[...]

There was a certain tension in the room, the participants had not yet voted but it was clear that the results would be almost even.

"My husband... has stage three lung cancer..." the woman murmured with her eyes downcast. "The doctors say that he can be cured, they would only remove the cancerous tumor but he would have to undergo several consultations and therapies that we cannot afford." The players surrounding her looked at her with pity and empathy. "I have already sold... many of our belongings, I have double shifts at work, I even mortgaged my house but it is not enough... and if I do not get enough money I will lose everything..." She did not even notice when the tears fell from her eyes without stopping.

It was horrible, most of them had debts but she would be left on the street and a widow if she did not get what she needed.

In-ho watched her silently as he bit his inner right cheek, the situation she was going through was not very different from the one he experienced, he knew that feeling of helplessness, of wanting to scream to the world how much he hated it for those cards of destiny "Does your husband know you came here?" he asked softly walking towards her to sit next to her.

She shook her head softly, wiping her tears with the sleeve of his jacket. "I just told him that I had found a way to get a lot of money." Now, that was cruel, even if she didn't achieve his goal and died on the way, her husband would think that she had abandoned him, along with his debts. "I want to go back home," she said after a few seconds of silence. "I think it's time to end this." She would vote to leave. The money they had so far was still not the amount they required, but it would be very helpful.

"You will get out of here," 001 said, placing a hand on her shoulder and giving her a slight closed-lip smile.

It was strange to feel that comforting and warm feeling from a stranger, but she was grateful for it. They say that eyes say more than words, and the look he gave her was one of genuine empathy.

As if he understood her in her current state of life.

"We'll get out of here," 456 now assured her with a nod.

Her knew them very little but without much hesitation her trusted them, even when Gi-hun told them about his plan on how to confront the guards and reach the people who led these games she agreed to help them, she needed the prize but not at the cost of more innocent deaths.

However, In-ho was not very happy about her following them, from the little he had read about her in her file he knew that she didn't hurt a fly, it would be useless to take her. Besides, the time to play in the yard was over, it was time to return to the command where he belonged and he didn't want the girl to be involved in this. But unfortunately for him he had no other option but to say "After you" as they left there being guided by the guard.

He was supposed to keep control over his emotions but it was inevitable, when he realized she was already too deep in his mind to let her die.

It was as if he had a chance to help his past self, that poor man who fell into misery being reflected by the young woman inexperienced in weapons who only sought to keep the love of her life alive.

It was an ironic and cruel letter from his destiny.

#squid game x reader #in ho squidgame #in ho x reader #hwang in ho #hwang inho x reader #squid game fic #Inho x readero #squidgame #fiction

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theambitiouswoman · 1 month ago

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Like it or not, you’re in a relationship with anything that takes up your time, thoughts, and energy— and that includes money. In fact, the two longest relationships you’ll have are with yourself and with money. Both of these relationships affect how you live & your relationship with money doesn’t have to be stressful.

Think about how you feel about money. Do you see it as hard to get or something that flows easily to you What do you want your money to do for you? Save for a trip? Buy a home? Setting specific goals gives you direction.

A budget is just a plan for your money. It helps you see where it’s going and where you can make better choices. Focus on what you already have instead of what you don’t. Gratitude can help you feel more abundant.

Create a budget and write down all of your expenses. Most people don’t know where their money goes because they dont take into account their pleasure purchases. Put some money aside for yourself before paying for other things. It’s a simple way to build up your savings. If you have debt, make a plan to pay it off. Start with the high interest ones first.

Don’t fear money. See it as a tool that can come and go. Believe that you can always create more. Share what you can, even if it’s a small amount. It helps you feel more connected to abundance. The more you complain about not having, the less you will continue to have. You have to learn how to think abundantly.

You can downloads any of these apps:

Mint

YNAB (You Need a Budget)

PocketGuard

Goodbudget

Undebt.it

Honeydue

Personal Capital

EveryDollar

———————————

Alternatively, here’s a templare you can copy and paste:

1. Income

• Primary Income: $_________

• Side Income: $_________

• Other Income (e.g., investments, bonuses): $_________

Total Income: $_________

2. Fixed Expenses

(Expenses that stay the same each month)

• Rent/Mortgage: $_________

• Utilities (Electricity, Water, Gas): $_________

• Internet/Phone: $_________

• Insurance (Health, Car, Home): $_________

• Debt Payments (Loans, Credit Cards): $_________

• Subscriptions (Streaming, Gym, etc.): $_________

Total Fixed Expenses: $_________

3. Variable Expenses

(Expenses that can change each month)

• Groceries: $_________

• Transportation (Gas, Public Transit, etc.): $_________

• Eating Out/Entertainment: $_________

• Shopping (Clothes, Household Items): $_________

• Personal Care (Skincare, Haircuts): $_________

• Miscellaneous: $_________

Total Variable Expenses: $_________

4. Savings and Investments

• Emergency Fund: $_________

• Retirement (401k, IRA, etc.): $_________

• Investments: $_________

• Specific Savings Goals (Travel, Home, etc.): $_________

Total Savings/Investments: $_________

5. Giving

(Donations, gifts, tithing, etc.)

• Charities/Donations: $_________

• Gifts: $_________

Total Giving: $_________

6. Summary

• Total Income: $_________

• Total Expenses (Fixed + Variable): $_________

• Total Savings/Investments: $_________

• Remaining Balance: $_________

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months ago

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The housing emergency and the second Trump term

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveill ance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/11/nimby-yimby-fimby/#home-team-advantage

Postmortems and blame for the 2024 elections are thick on the ground, but amidst all those theories and pointed fingers, one explanation looms large and credible: the American housing emergency. If the system can't put a roof over your head, that system needs to go.

American housing has been in crisis for decades, of course, but it keeps getting worse…and worse…and worse. Americans pay more for worse housing than at any time in their history. Homelessness is at a peak that is soul-crushing to witness and maddening to experience. We turned housing – a human necessity second only to air, food and water – into an asset governed almost entirely by market forces, and so created a crisis that has consumed the nation.

The Trump administration has no plan to deal with housing. Or rather, they do have plans, but strictly of the "bad ideas only" variety. Trump wants to deport 11m undocumented immigrants, and their families, including citizens and Green Card holders (otherwise, that would be "family separation" and that's cruel). Even if you are the kind of monster who can set aside the ghoulishness of solving your housing problems by throwing someone in a concentration camp at gunpoint and then deporting them to a country where they legitimately fear for their lives, this still doesn't solve the housing emergency, and will leave America several million homes short.

Their other solution? Deregulation and tax cuts. We've seen this movie before, and it's an R-rated horror flick. Financial deregulation created the speculative mortgage markets that led to the 2008 housing crisis, which created a seemingly permanent incapacity to build new homes in America, as skilled tradespeople retired or changed careers and housebuilding firms left the market. Handing giant tax cuts to the monopolists who gobbled up the remains of these bankrupt small companies minted a dozen new housing billionaires who preside over companies that make more money than ever by building fewer homes:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91198443/housing-market-wall-streets-big-housing-market-bet-has-created-12-new-billionaires

This isn't working. Homelessness is ballooning. The only answer Trump and his regime have for our homeless neighbors is to just make it a crime to be homeless, sweeping up homeless encampments and busting homeless people for "loitering" (that is, existing in space). There is no universe in which this reduces homelessness. People who lose their homes aren't going to dig holes, crawl inside, and pull the dirt down on top of themselves. If anything, sweeps and arrests will make homelessness worse, by destroying the possessions, medication and stability that homeless people need if they are to become housed.

Today, The American Prospect published an excellent package on the housing emergency, looking at its causes and the road-tested solutions that can work even when the federal government is doing everything it can to make the problem worse:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-12-11-tackling-the-housing-crisis/

The Harris campaign ran on Biden's economic record, insisting that he had tamed inflation. It's true that the Biden admin took action against monopolists and greedflation, including criminal price-fixing companies like Realpage, which helps landlords coordinate illegal conspiracies to rig rents. Realpage sets the rents for the majority of homes in major metros, like Phoenix:

https://www.azag.gov/press-release/attorney-general-mayes-sues-realpage-and-residential-landlords-illegal-price-fixing

Of course, reducing inflation isn't the same as bringing prices down – it just means prices are going up more slowly. And sure, inflation is way down in many categories, but not in housing. In housing, inflation is accelerating:

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-03-08/inflation-housing-shortage-economy-cpi-fed-interest-rate

The housing emergency makes everything else worse. Blue states are in danger of losing Congressional seats because people are leaving big cities: not because they want to, but because they literally can't afford to keep a roof over their heads. LGBTQ people fleeing fascist red state legislatures and their policies on trans and gay rights can't afford to move to the states where they will be allowed to simply live:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/11/business/economy/lgbtq-moving-cost.html

So what are the roots of this problem, and what can we do about it? The housing emergency doesn't have a unitary cause, but among the most important factors is fuckery that led to the Great Financial Crisis and the fuckery that followed on from it, as Ryan Cooper writes:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-12-11-housing-industry-never-recovered-great-recession/

The Glass-Steagall Act was a 1933 banking regulation created to prevent Great Depression-style market crashes. It was killed in 1999 by Bill Clinton, who declared, "the Glass–Steagall law is no longer appropriate." Nine years later, the global economy melted down in a Great Depression-style market crash fueled by reckless speculation of the sort that Glass-Steagall had prohibited.

The crash of 2008 took down all kinds of industries, but none were so hard-hit as home-building (after all, mortgages were the raw material of the financial bubble that popped in 2008). After 2008, construction of new housing fell by 90% for the next two years. This protracted nuclear winter in the housing market killed many associated industries. Skilled tradespeople retrained, or "left the job market" (a euphemism for becoming disabled, homeless, or destroyed). Waves of bankruptcies swept through the construction industry. The construction workforce didn't recover to pre-crisis levels for 16 years (and of course, by then, there was a huge backlog of unbuilt homes, and a larger population seeking housing).

Meanwhile, the collapse of every part of the housing supply chain – from raw materials to producers – set the stage for monopoly rollups, with the biggest firms gobbling up all these distressed smaller firms. Thanks to this massive consolidation, homebuilders were able to build fewer houses and extract higher profits by gouging on price. They doubled down on this monopoly price-gouging during the pandemic supply shocks, raising prices well above the pandemic shortage costs.

The housing market is monopolized in ways that will be familiar to anyone angry about consolidation in other markets – from eyeglasses to pharma to tech. One builder, HR Horton, is the largest player in 3 of the country's largest markets, and it has tripled its profits since 2005 while building half as many houses. Modern homebuilders don't build: they use their scale to get land at knock-down rates, slow-walk the planning process, and then farm out the work to actual construction firms at rates that barely keep the lights on:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/its-the-land-stupid-how-the-homebuilder

Monopolists can increase profits by constraining supply. 60% of US markets are "highly concentrated" and the companies that dominate these markets are starving homebuilding in them to the tune of $106b/year:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3303984

There are some obvious fixes to this, but they are either unlikely under Trump (antitrust action to break up builders based on their share in each market) or impossible to imagine (closing tax loopholes that benefit large building firms). Likewise, we could create a "homes guarantee" that would act as an "automatic stabilizer." That would mean that any time the economy slips into recession, this would trigger automatic funding to pay firms to build public housing, thus stimulating the economy and alleviating the housing supply crisis:

https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialHousing.pdf

The Homes Guarantee is further explained in a separate article in the package by Sulma Arias from People's Action, who describes how grassroots activists fighting redlining planted the seeds of a legal guarantee of a home:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-12-11-why-we-need-homes-guarantee/

Arias describes the path to a right to a home as running through the mass provision of public housing – and what makes that so exciting is that public housing can be funded, administered and built by local or state governments, meaning this is a thing that can happen even in the face of a hostile or indifferent federal regime.

In Paul E Williams's story on FIMBY (finance in my back yard), the executive director of Center for Public Enterprise offers an inspirational story of how local governments can provide thousands of homes:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-12-11-fimby-finance-in-my-backyard/

Williams recounts the events of 2021 in Montgomery County, Maryland, where a county agency stepped in to loan money to a property developer who had land, zoning approval and work crews to build a major new housing block, but couldn't find finance. Montgomery County's Housing Opportunities Commission made a short-term loan at market rates to the developer.

By 2023, the building was up and the loan had been repaid. All 268 units are occupied and a third are rented at rates tailored to low-income tenants. The HOC is the permanent owner of those homes. It worked so well that Montgomery's HOC is on track to build 3,000 more public homes this way:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/affordable-housing-montgomery-county.html

Other – in red states! – have followed suit, with lookalike funds and projects in Atlanta and Chattanooga, with "dozens" more plans underway at state and local levels. The Massachusetts Momentum Fund is set to fund 40,000 homes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/affordable-housing-montgomery-county.html

The Center for Public Enterprise has a whole report on these "Government Sponsored Enterprises" and the role they can play in creating a supply of homes priced at a rate that working people can afford:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-12-11-fimby-finance-in-my-backyard/

Of course, for a GSE to loan money to build a home, that home has to be possible. YIMBYs are right to point to restrictive zoning as a major impediment to building new homes, and Robert Cruickshank from California YIMBY has a piece breaking down the strategy for fixing zoning:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-12-11-make-it-legal-to-build/

Cruickshank lays out NIMBY success stories in cities like Austin and Minneapolis adopting YIMBY-style zoning rules and seeing significant improvements in rental prices. These success stories are representative of a broader recognition – at least among Democratic politicians – that restrictive zoning is a major contributor to the housing emergency.

Repeating these successes in the rest of the country will take a long time, and in the meantime, American tenants are sitting ducks for predatory landlords, With criminal enterprises like Realpage enabling collusive price-fixing for housing and monopoly developers deliberately restricting supplies to keep prices up (a recent Blackrock investor communique gloated over the undersupply of housing as a source of profits for its massive portfolio of rental properties), tenants pay more and more of their paychecks for worse and worse accommodations. They can't wait for the housing emergency to be solved through zoning changes and public housing. They need relief now.

That's where tenants' unions come in, as Ruthy Gourevitch and Tara Raghuveer of the Tenant Union Federation writes in their piece on the tenants across the country who are coordinating rent strikes to protest obscene rent-hikes and dangerous living conditions:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-12-11-look-for-the-tenant-union/

They describe a country where tenants work multiple jobs, send the majority of their take-home pay to their landlords – a quarter of tenants pay 70% of their wages in rent – and live in vermin-filled homes without heat or ventilation:

https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/terms-of-investment/

Public money from Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac flood into the speculative market for multifamily homes, a largely unregulated, subsidized speculative bonanza that lets the wealthy make bets and the poor pay their losses.

In response, tenants unions are popping up all across the country, especially in red state cities like Bozeman, MT and Louisville, KY. They organize for "just cause" evictions that ban landlords from taking their homes away. They seek fair housing voucher distribution practices. They seek to close eviction loopholes like the LA wheeze that lets landlords kick you out following "renovations."

The National Tenant Policy Agenda demands "national rent caps, anti-eviction protections, habitability standards, and antitrust action," measures that would immediately and profoundly improve the lives of millions of American workers:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JF1-fTalW1tOBO0FhYDcVvEd1kQ2HIzkYFNRo6zmSsg/edit

They caution that it's not enough to merely increase housing supply. Without a strong countervailing force from organized tenants, new housing can be just another source of extraction and speculation for the rich. They say that the Federal Housing Finance Agency – regulator for Fannie and Freddie – could play an active role in ensuring that new housing addresses the needs of people, not corporations.

In the meantime, a tenants' union in KC successfully used a rent strike – where every tenant in a building refuses to pay rent – to get millions in overdue repairs. More strikes are planned across the country.

The American system is in crisis. A country that cannot house its people is a failure. As Rachael Dziaba writes in the final piece for the package, the situation is so bad that water has started to flow uphill: the cities with the most inward migration have the least job growth:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-10-18-housing-blues/

It's not just housing, of course. Americans pay more for health care than anyone else in the rich world and get worse outcomes than anyone else in the rich world. Their monopoly grocers have spiked their food prices. The incoming administration has declared war on public education and seeks to relegate poor children to unsupervised schools where "education" can consist of filling in forms on a Chromebook and learning that the Earth is only 5,000 years old.

A system that can't shelter, feed, educate or care for its people is a failure. People in failed states will vote for anyone who promises to tear the system down. The decision to turn life's necessities over to unregulated, uncaring markets has produced a populace who are so desperate for change, they'll even vote for their own destruction.

#pluralistic #hysteresis #bubbles #bubblenomics #finance #nimby #yimby #restrictive zoning #localism #maslows hierarchy of needs #realpage #the rents too damned high #housing #weaponized shelter #rent strikes #tenants unions #the american prospect

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 8 months ago

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The Farmer's Daughter 16

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Walter Marshall

Summary: You notice a peculiar change in a family friend. (short!reader, sorry size kink is out)

Part of the Backwoods AU

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

Walter helps you out of the truck, his hand firmly on your arm. As you stand on solid ground, his touch crawls around to your back, his longer fingers stretching between your shoulder blades. The residue of rain floods your nose as a coolness lingers in the air.

He retracts his arm, shifting the folder in his other. You face the house and walk in-step with him to the porch. He squeezes your hand then waves you up the stairs ahead of him. You pull open the creaky screen door and he catches it behind you, following you through the larger interior door with a sniff.

You put your shoes on the mat and he pauses to step out of his beaten work boots. You can smell coffee and hear the clink of porcelain. You sway in place as suddenly you’re in tunnel vision. The edges of your sight haze and you see only the doorway at the end of the entryway.

You walk forward, overly aware of the gigantic shadow hovering over you. Walt stays close as you tiptoe into the door frame and stop to stare. You mother rubs her eyes as she holds her head and Timmy stirs a cup of coffee.

“Mom,” you greet her and she sits up, “sorry I didn’t come back I...”

“She got caught in the storm,” Walter nudges you and you break the threshold.

“Oh, honey,” your mom preens, “thank you for getting her back safe.”

“Of course. Really came down last night,” he lingers by the door as your mother watches him and Timothy barely seems to comprehend anything beyond his mug.

You go to the counter and lean on it, making yourself smaller as you wait. Walter slides the folder from under his arm and waves it so it wobbles. He lets out an exhale. He grips it in both hands and rolls his tongue beneath his lower lip.

“Bank approved the mortgage, we’ll have to get signatures to switch everything over,” he crosses the space and holds out the folder to your mother, “I’ll let you look it all over, of course.”

Your mom swallows as she takes it and opens it slowly. She looks within. You barely remember everything they said at the bank. That daze remains, dulling your mind as you watch from behind a wall of fog. You put your signature all over those papers but you don’t really understand what you signed.

“Hm,” your mom hums thoughtfully, “and?”

She looks between the two of you. Timothy’s brow ripples as he does the same.

“Sweetheart,” Walter prompts and Timothy’s eyes widen.

You force out a breath, “yeah, uh, we’re... getting married.”

“It’ll be good for collateral. You know, I know how much this place means to you all--”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Timothy gestures from his forehead, “what? Married?”

Walter looks at her mom and she cringes, turning it into a smile, “sweetie, I... didn’t want to get ahead of myself,” she faces him, “but it’s a good thing. You always wanted a brother didn’t you and your sister, she’s old enough now--”

“Married?” He echoes, “them?” His voice turns pitchy, “but he’s Walter. He’s...” his eyes search the room and settle on you, “old?”

Walter clears his throat, “I’m not gonna pretend I haven’t let some years pass me by but I can take care of this place. I can keep it all in order--”

“But I’m... It’s my dad’s farm. I’m next in charge,” Timothy puts his mug down heavy, sloshing the coffee over the edge, “mom, what is that?” He charges forward to grab the folder. He skims the contents and confusion lines his soft features, “mom? Walter?”

“It’ll still have you attached. When we marry. It stays in the family,” Walter assures calmly.

“No, it’s my farm--”

“It’s your father’s,” your mother murmurs, “Tim, please, we can’t... we can’t get the approval. We’ve spent too much already on your dad’s care and we just don’t have the equity left.”

“I could!” Timothy insists.

“No, you can’t,” Walter insists, “your dad’s a smart man. He’d agree. It’s the best course of action. Otherwise, all this is gone.”

“No, you’re wrong,” Timothy snaps.

“He’s not,” your mom sniffles, “please, Timmy, we never would’ve got the sowing done if it wasn’t for Walter, you know that. He fixed the truck, the tractor, he built that ramp. We couldn’t have done it ourselves.”

“She’s right,” you finally find your voice, “dad put in all those years to give us this place, we can’t just let it go.”

“Whatever,” she spits and stomps up to you, “you’re only saying that ‘cause it’ll go in your name. What will I have?” He snarls and jabs his finger at you, looming over you, “huh?”

Walter moves subtly but decisively. He comes up beside you, then steps forward and puts his hand on Timothy’s shoulder, moving him away from you as he stands between you.

“Don’t talk to her like that. Ever,” Walt says evenly, “you will get exactly what you earn. I’m not kicking anyone out. Got it? If it’s better your dad stays and gets a full-time nurse, that’s what we do. If he needs a facility, well, I’ll make that work too. Thing is Timmy, you can’t figure any of this out alone, otherwise, you would’ve.”

Timothy is quiet. There’s electricity in the air. A tension with teeth. You feel it gnawing down as your brother huffs like a brat.

“Mom?” He whimpers.

“Dear, please, you can stay, keep doing what you’re doing, nothing’s gonna change--”

“What about me? What about when I get a wife? Have kids?”

“Lots of land,” Walter insists, “we can make it work. We won’t be staying in the main house. I’ll clear that patch to the west, build us our own. If you read,” he taps the folder in your brother’s hands, “you’ll see we got a subsidy for the building materials too. I got buddies from the yard, they’ll help me get it up too. You’re welcome to put in, might do to learn how to build.”

Timothy stammer and you hear the slap of the folder on Walter’s chest but he doesn’t flinch. He bends his arms and takes it as your brother stomps away. He scoops up his coffee and shakes his head, “well congratulations to the happy couple,” he barks, “hope you’re happy, sis, with the old fucking man.”

Walter growls but says nothing. Your mother whines and covers her mouth. Timothy storms out the back door as you lean to see around the larger man. It’s just like him. As much as it’s all a mess, they’re all right. He can’t handle the farm on his own.

“I’m sorry,” your mom says, “he’ll come around. He’s just... surprised.”

“Mm,” Walter nears your mother again and offers the folder back to her, “he’s young. Got a lot of growing up to do. Pity it has to be this way.”

Your mom nods and looks down at the paperwork. She slowly raises her head and peers over in your direction, “I’m so happy for you two,” she snivels as her eyes gleam, “it’ll be nice to have something to celebrate.”

“It will,” Walter backs up to put his arm over your shoulders, “we’re gonna go into the city and find a ring. Afraid I didn’t do it right.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” she flicks away her tears, “so lovely.”

“Would you like to come?” He offers, “I’d love to take my future mother to lunch.”

“Pat’s nurse isn’t here yet and I can’t go even if she is,” your mother gives a bittersweet next time, “no, you two, you have fun. Maybe next time.”

“Next time,” Walter agrees and turns to you, “why don’t you go freshen up,” he tugs at your sleeve, “rain’s got you all crusty still.”

#walter marshall #dark walter marshall #dark!walter marshall #walter marshall x reader #night hunter #au #backwoods #series #drabble #the farmer's daughter

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lilacxquartz · 8 months ago

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a bump in the middle of the night

oc male!demon × human female!reader

w.c: 1.1k

plot: a potential intruder sets midnight completely off and you learn just how dangerous he can truly be.

other works in this series.

—

The area I lived in was once decent, but now it was struggling.

A dwindling economy does that to a place. Most businesses that were once thriving were forced to close and those who could afford to leave, did just that.

Others stayed but they also struggled. I otherwise had the luxury of this apartment belonging to my grandparents so the mortgage was long settled, leaving me behind with only the regular bills to pay.

Most of the people that lived here did their best to just get by though, so for the most part it was safe.

But then the break-ins started to happen more often.

So maybe it was a blessing that I had a literal live-in demon cohabiting with me.

Keeping an eye on the things that went bump in the middle of the night.

Not that I could trust it. I still couldn’t bring myself to do so. Not one bit.

I woke up earlier during the night to a strange sound, though. I was a lighter sleeper than Midnight and would at oftentimes wake up to subtle sounds. This was initially annoying to me, but I quickly learned that as long as Midnight remained asleep, then there was nothing ever to worry about—so I always just dozed off again.

It was something about instincts, he said. If he’s awake during the night along with me, then that’s when I can feel worried.

I woke up to a noise just now, either way.

My eyes parted slowly, feeling the curl of his tail that looped around my legs. I could sense his breathing change and as he almost jolted awake. I shuddered at the sensation of his stare intensify at the back of my head as his body stretched, pulling me closer towards his chest.

Tonight, his instincts were on high alert.

“Quiet,” he whispered, noticing that I was awake too.

My voice remained hushed as I turned to face him, “Is someone else in here…?”

“Not yet,” Midnight replied, slowly bringing himself up to a sitting position, reluctantly letting go of me, “stay in bed.”

Something dangerous stirred within his presence and I harboured more fear for Midnight than the prospect of an actual intruder. It was as though his words were laced in something much more sinister, like a threat.

When the lock to the front door finally gave in, I could feel a change in the atmosphere almost right away. Midnight kept me grounded in bed by pressing his one arm behind him, locking me into place against the mattress. The way that he seemed to be guarding me felt territorial once again.

I remained deathly quiet as I felt the air continue to grow heavier; some type of droning sound playing from Midnight’s lips. His body reacted on instinct, almost, as his head jerked in slight movements—as though he was tracking something, or someone.

The hum slowly phased into a low growl, filling up the space with an unsettling aura that wafted through the confines of my home.

It was as though Midnight was making his presence known to send a warning.

People were reckless though. That’s what I started to understand after just a couple of weeks with him. Humans acted unpredictably, especially if influenced by fear.

So, perhaps he was just trying to strike enough unease into this person into leaving, but this didn’t seem to be the outcome just yet.

Midnight was gentle with me up until this very moment. He spent the last couple of weeks trying to gain my trust but he seemed to have a different priority right now. The way he seemed so tense during his investigation was quite jarring, especially now that he seemed hostile. Malicious, even.

Closer to an actual demon than ever before.

I felt afraid.

Noticing this, his demeanour softened for a moment, although it felt forced. He turned to face me, sensing my unease.

Cupping my face into his palms, he leaned in with a sedating kiss, “I’ll be right back.”

While his tone seemed calmer and while his touch bordered feather light, it was that same type of kiss that dulled my senses like all of those other times before.

Usually it was used as a nightcap for when I couldn’t get to sleep or for the earlier days when I couldn’t bring myself to relax within his company. However, it seemed to be for something else tonight.

Something seemed off.

His body language was different—almost erratic.

I drifted off into a fabricated sleep and phased on and off back into lucidity against my control. Certain sounds played in my mind, like screaming and low drawn out whines. Like bones waning and cracking. Faint imagery burnt into my mind of bloodied flesh and torn skin.

Under any other circumstance, I would have shaken that off as a vivid nightmare but it felt all too different this time.

Especially since the atmosphere since then felt even heavier than before and to an extent, almost suffocating.

My breath locked in my throat as I felt an anchoring presence settle over me, sinking me further into the mattress. I writhed just a little bit as my body tried to readjust into comfort, but I couldn’t move much at all.

I knew Midnight was on top of me, that much was clear.

I opened up my eyes once again, feeling the sedative finally fade. It was almost a jarring sensation, as if the ease washed away along with it. The air continued to thicken but now tinted with the smell of copper, my senses recoiling as something warm dripped from his lips and onto mine.

(Blood…?)

I couldn’t see him too clearly, but from the brief moments that the moonlight shone through the blinds—I could see it. He looked feral, almost as if he was drunk on something.

My breathing remained shallow as I felt some sort of innate fear settle deep within my core. I was starting to slowly understand why I felt so terrified in this very moment—my eyes widening in panicked realisation. I finally got it. My breath caught in my throat again as the dream-like stupor finally faded away, replacing itself with striking lucidity instead.

Midnight was savouring the taste of something.

Or someone.

Yet, despite catching onto my suspicion, he tried to brush away my almost overwhelming concern.

“Please don’t worry,” he cooed, that same soft tone returning as he finally settled, the one that carried the same facade as before, “go back to sleep, it will be okay.”

“But-“

“—the danger is gone, I promise,” Midnight purred as he stroked my cheeks with his fingers, leaning in closer as he licked the dried blood off of my lips, “in fact, the intruder isn’t just dealt with, he’s…”

“You didn’t?” I asked, finally able to say something. My voice sounded hoarse, almost dry.

Midnight simply smiled, his pointed teeth momentarily illuminated by the passing moonlight. He wasn’t going to elaborate even if he did suspect you knew. Instead, he fed you a cryptic response, sealed with yet another soothing kiss.

“Let’s just say that… he’s gone for good.”

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neogotmy-kat · 8 months ago

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haikyuu characters playing monopoly inspired by a 3 hour long game i just finished:

Suga: typically sits out as banker because of past instances where his competitiveness got the best of him (he flipped the board. twice.)

Hinata: gives it his all and gains like 50% of the properties but gets cocky and ends up having to mortgage most of them

Kageyama: could not care less about property, solely focused on gaining and maintaining money

Yamaguchi: rolls doubles so often that noya and tanaka start a campaign to have him eliminated because he’s “cheating” (he’s not, he’s just as confused as they are)

Tsukishima: Acts uninterested in the beginning but secretly develops a complex plan to win, and then poorly hides his annoyance when his plan fails

Noya: Is mostly focused on antagonizing others so he only gets like 3 properties but for some reason everyone keeps landing on them so he ends up with a lot of money

Tanaka: Gets pissed when everyone else won’t go along with his trades (“if you give me all of your greens i’ll buy you a soda” “you don’t even have a green???”)

Daichi: Remains quiet for most of the game and hides half of his money so people underestimate his wealth, then buys up everything at the end of the game and wins… every time.

#haikyuu #sugawara koushi #sawamura daichi #kageyama tobio #hinata shouyou #yamaguchi tadashi #tsukishima kei #tanaka ryuunosuke #monopoly #haikyuu hcs #daisuga #kagehina

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simply-ivanka · 6 months ago

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How the Biden-Harris Economy Left Most Americans Behind

A government spending boom fueled inflation that has crushed real average incomes.

By The Editorial Board -- Wall Street Journal

Kamala Harris plans to roll out her economic priorities in a speech on Friday, though leaks to the press say not to expect much different than the last four years. That’s bad news because the Biden-Harris economic record has left most Americans worse off than they were four years ago. The evidence is indisputable.

President Biden claims that he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, but this isn’t close to true. The economy in January 2021 was fast recovering from the pandemic as vaccines rolled out and state lockdowns eased. GDP grew 34.8% in the third quarter of 2020, 4.2% in the fourth, and 5.2% in the first quarter of 2021. By the end of that first quarter, real GDP had returned to its pre-pandemic high. All Mr. Biden had to do was let the recovery unfold.

Instead, Democrats in March 2021 used Covid relief as a pretext to pass $1.9 trillion in new spending. This was more than double Barack Obama’s 2009 spending bonanza. State and local governments were the biggest beneficiaries, receiving $350 billion in direct aid, $122 billion for K-12 schools and $30 billion for mass transit. Insolvent union pension funds received a $86 billion rescue.

The rest was mostly transfer payments to individuals, including a five-month extension of enhanced unemployment benefits, a $3,600 fully refundable child tax credit, $1,400 stimulus payments per person, sweetened Affordable Care Act subsidies, an increased earned income tax credit including for folks who didn’t work, housing subsidies and so much more.

The handouts discouraged the unemployed from returning to work and fueled consumer spending, which was already primed to surge owing to pent-up savings from the Covid lockdowns and spending under Donald Trump. By mid-2021, Americans had $2.3 trillion in “excess savings” relative to pre-pandemic levels—equivalent to roughly 12.5% of disposable income.

So much money chasing too few goods fueled inflation, which was supercharged by the Federal Reserve’s accommodative policy. Historically low mortgage rates drove up housing prices. The White House blamed “corporate greed” for inflation that peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, even as the spending party in Washington continued.

In November 2021, Congress passed a $1 trillion bill full of green pork and more money for states. Then came the $280 billion Chips Act and Mr. Biden’s Green New Deal—aka the Inflation Reduction Act—which Goldman Sachs estimates will cost $1.2 trillion over a decade. Such heaps of government spending have distorted private investment.

While investment in new factories has grown, spending on research and development and new equipment has slowed. Overall private fixed investment has grown at roughly half the rate under Mr. Biden as it did under Mr. Trump. Manufacturing output remains lower than before the pandemic.

Magnifying market misallocations, the Administration conditioned subsidies on businesses advancing its priorities such as paying union-level wages and providing child care to workers. It also boosted food stamps, expanded eligibility for ObamaCare subsidies and waved away hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt. The result: $5.8 trillion in deficits during Mr. Biden’s first three years—about twice as much as during Donald Trump’s—and the highest inflation in four decades.

Prices have increased by nearly 20% since January 2021, compared to 7.8% during the Trump Presidency. Inflation-adjusted average weekly earnings are down 3.9% since Mr. Biden entered office, compared to an increase of 2.6% during Mr. Trump’s first three years. (Real wages increased much more in 2020, but partly owing to statistical artifacts.)

Higher interest rates are finally bringing inflation under control, which is allowing real wages to rise again. But the Federal Reserve had to raise rates higher than it otherwise would have to offset the monetary and fiscal gusher. The higher rates have pushed up mortgage costs for new home buyers.

Three years of inflation and higher interest rates are stretching American pocketbooks, especially for lower income workers. Seriously delinquent auto loans and credit cards are higher than any time since the immediate aftermath of the 2008-09 recession.

Ms. Harris boasts that the economy has added nearly 16 million jobs during the Biden Presidency—compared to about 6.4 million during Mr. Trump’s first three years. But most of these “new” jobs are backfilling losses from the pandemic lockdowns. The U.S. has fewer jobs than it was on track to add before the pandemic.

What’s more, all the Biden-Harris spending has yielded little economic bang for the taxpayer buck. Washington has borrowed more than $400,000 for every additional job added under Mr. Biden compared to Mr. Trump’s first three years. Most new jobs are concentrated in government, healthcare and social assistance—60% of new jobs in the last year.

Administrative agencies are also creating uncertainty by blitzing businesses with costly regulations—for instance, expanding overtime pay, restricting independent contractors, setting stricter emissions limits on power plants and factories, micro-managing broadband buildout and requiring CO2 emissions calculations in environmental reviews.

The economy is still expanding, but business investment has slowed. And although the affluent are doing relatively well because of buoyant asset prices, surveys show that most Americans feel financially insecure. Thus another political paradox of the Biden-Harris years: Socioeconomic disparities have increased.

Ms. Harris is promising the same economic policies with a shinier countenance. Don’t expect better results.

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sgiandubh · 3 months ago

Note

So now Tony is listed as director at all of Cait‘s companies. What do you think about that?

Dear So Now Anon,

What a coincidence (not!) I just answered a very similar Anon sent to @bat-cat-reader, which I suppose is clear enough.

But to make it even clearer (if at all possible) and keeping in mind what I wrote in that post about Persons of Significant Control, let's check a couple of things, shall we? For all the three other companies C owns.

They probably split 50/50 already, which would explain the rather vague 'has significant influence or control'. Why?

Here is why:

The currently available Balance Sheet, covering the period until 31 December 2023 shows there is not much in there. Barely 100 shares (1£/share), about 59K £ assets and 11 K £ of debts. May I remind you a balance sheet covers the company's assets (available funds, including incoming funds), liabilities (debts) and shareholder equity (the company's net worth, which is roughly the result of subtracting liabilities from assets and dividing them by the number of shareholders). The net worth serves to describe what each and every one of those shareholders are entitled to, should the company be liquidated and all its debts paid off. In this case, the retained earnings, which is the figure quoted between brackets (11.292 £) means the company is in debt/in the red.

Now, this is very interesting, Anon. Albeit The Happy Couple ™ are now both appointed officers in this company (and T has been so since October 1st 2024), this company's designated PSC is ... Byron Benirras. And who is Byron Benirras' own designated sole PSC? A certain Caitriona Mary B. That is normal - serious 💷💷is indirectly involved, this time, as we know the bulk of her assets is placed there. Therefore, C has full control and sole ownership of Little Nugget Films, too, via Byron Benirras. Remember (ROFLMAO): a legal person (i.e. a company, in this context) has the same rights and the same obligations/duties as the natural (meaning 'real') person behind it (C).

Let's have a look at financials:

On 31.03.2023, the company's assets were about 2.500 £ only and its liabilities around 17K£. In debt/in the red, too. But a clear will to remain in firm control of things from C's side.

This appears to be a totally, carefully planned move, too - future plans, perhaps?

This company has not two, but three appointed officers, one of which is another specialized service company (perfectly legal, in the UK), in charge of all the secretarial work (perfectly legal, too):

Not one, but two PSCs. Same mechanism as for FMN Drinks UK (see above):

Such a nice, tidy, even split. Why? Heh, indeed: why? Unless...

Let's have a look at the company's balance sheet on 31 March 2023:

Unless you do acquire real estate using your own funds (a very easy cross check with another one of C's companies reveals the exclusive provenance of those funds - sssh!), no mortgage and no bank loan needed. Property that is legally defined as investment property, which means it cannot legally be a home, nor taxed as such:

[Source: https://prosperity-wealth.co.uk/news/before-you-buy-investment-property/]

Now remind me what real estate might have been bought anytime between 31 March 2022 and 31 March 2023 and valued at about 2.120.000 £?

You'd probably be correct to guess this one:

[ For a complete tour of the GLA Taj Mahal's legal intricacies: https://www.tumblr.com/sgiandubh/764266729372368897/anon-rebelde-detecto-un-nerviosismo-muy-revelador?source=share]

Let's have a second look and, surely enough...

Some simple maths?

2.292.567 (amounts falling due within one year, which covers the 31.03.2022 -31.03.2023 period) - 2.167.392 (net current liabilities) = 125.175 £ (cash at bank). Roger that. I think there is also a second investment property, bought before 31 March 2022 for 1.6 million pounds and shown as such (valued at cost first, then at its fair value, which is evaluated at 1.9 million pounds, in 2023 - a nice appreciation of the initial investment).

I hope this answers your question, Anon. And given the very long and very emotional day that ended (whew, already?) about four hours ago, I hope I didn't miss something or make any gross mistake. You know how some other Anons can be, don't you?

#anon #fandom #shitshow #business #legal

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sobeautifullyobsessed · 2 months ago

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Housing update...

As some following this blog might remember, I've been hoping to be able to move in with a relative who has been experiencing serious health issues (severe osteoarthritis in her hip), which would be of help to both of us; I'd be paying rent which she could put towards her mortgage, plus do the cleaning & maintenance on her condo which is now beyond her ability. She's already qualified to go on full disability, but she won't take it yet as she fears the reduction in her income would eat into her retirement savings too quickly. And while I had envisioned that I would be settled in with her by Christmas, she isn't ready to let me move in right now just in case her daughter (whom she subsidizes rent for) decides to move back home. So, I remain homeless in a state whose low-income housing waiting list remains closed.

As a result, I need to raise enough funds...

...to supplement my work income through the end of the year so that I can keep a roof over my head and a warm place to sleep. Nighttime temperatures have fallen into the twenties, so there's no way I can sleep in my car. I hope to raise around $500 for the remainder of 2024, with an immediate need of $175 towards next week's cost.

I know very well that just about everyone is going through financial stress right now (along with the added stress of the holiday season), so I understand that donations will be hard to come by. But in my desperation, I just have to try--while hoping for the best. I am sending out my love and gratitude to anyone who might help with a reblog or donation!

$0/$175 (short-term goal)

$0/$500 (goal for December)

#coping with homelessness #homelessness #tw: homelessness #ko-fi donations #ko-fi support #ko-fi aid #ko-fi financial aid #financial aid #charitable donations #charitable aid #charitable support #community aid #community donations #community support #kofi donations #kofi support #kofi aid #kofi financial aid

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ckret2 · 1 year ago

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Chapter 33 of human Bill is still the Mystery Shack's prisoner:

Stan takes Bill to get fillings from a creepy dentist in the back of a white van. And also they're handcuffed together the whole time.

Hijinks ensue.

Stan was startled from reading the paper by a shrill up-and-down whistle. Bill trotted into the kitchen, his voice a singsong lilt: "Incoming!"

Stan lowered the paper to glare at Bill. "Still doing that, are you?"

"Of course! I'd hate to scare you." Bill took the chair across the kitchen table from Stan. "Gooood morni—"

"Go away." Stan determinedly returned his attention to an article about the deathball arena construction.

Bill laughed. "You're funny. Anyway!" He noted Stan's plate of eggs and salsa was hidden behind his newspaper, and quietly slid the plate across the table as he spoke. "I need you to do me the teensy, tiniest little favor—"

"Nope."

"Take me to your dentist."

"No." Stan didn't even lower his newspaper. "The last time I took you anywhere, you almost made my niece cry, my brother left a Shopliftaholics Anonymous flier on my bed, and all I got out of it was a crummy ring. You wanna go somewhere, talk to Soos."

But, Bill noted, Stan was wearing said crummy ring. "Spend a day with that loser?" He rolled his eyes. "Please. I'd rather pry out my fingernails."

"You'd probably enjoy that, you freak."

"Not the point." Bill stuffed half an egg in his mouth. "Anyway, it has to be you. I need fillings, and Dr. Illing does them for free."

Stan squinted over the top of his newspaper. "How do you know about Dr. Illing?"

"What part of 'all-seeing eye' don't you get?"

Dr. Illing was a wandering dentist who spent the warm summer months in Gravity Falls. He squeezed his van and trailer into alleys between businesses in town, where he both lived and provided dental services until the police caught wind and chased him and his van out into the woods for a few days. On days with good weather, he'd pop open the back hatch of his nondescript trailer and set up a sign that read "COME INSIDE! FREE CANDY (for new patients)". He didn't attract many customers.

What really made him stand out was his unusual pay structure. He charged typical rates for regular teeth cleaning and dental maintenance; but if a patient had a cavity, he gave them a gold filling for free, and he paid them if he needed to pull their teeth.

Stan thought he was terrific. He hadn't had to pay for dental care in thirty years! Granted, he also wore dentures now; but hey, Dr. Illing had helped pay off Ford's mortgage, and at least the dentures were on the house.

Bill said, "You're the only one in the shack who knows all the places Illing might set up shop. Besides, he might be less jumpy in front of a stranger if an existing patient can vouch for it."

"I can see where you're coming from," Stan said. "But my answer is no, because I don't wanna."

Bill scowled in irritation. He sat back and ate another of Stan's eggs as he reconsidered his approach.

"Stanley—I'm a simple shape," he said. "A simple shape who's used to being coated peak to base in pure, lustrous, 24-karat gold. Having skin makes my skin crawl. I don't need any dental work done, these teeth are fine—but I'd really, really like just a bit of gold, somewhere on my body, so I feel a little more like myself in my final days."

Stan muttered, "You're trying to appeal to sympathy I don't have, Cipher."

"And then, once I'm dead," Bill went on, "I suppose I'll be leaving behind a corpse with a mouthful of free gold that whoever's disposing of my remains can do whatever they want with, do you catch my meaning Stanley?"

Stan lowered his newspaper just enough to grimace at Bill. "That's absolutely disgusting," he said. "But okay, I'm bribed!" He tried to fold the newspaper. "If you want your mouth to fund me and Ford's next year of globe-trotting, fine by me. Least you can do for messing up our summer."

"Mhm." Bill shoveled the last egg into his mouth while Stan was distracted by the paper and slid the plate over to Stan's side.

Stan slapped the paper down. "But we're not telling Ford about this. Agreed?" He offered a hand to shake.

"Agreed." Bill took Stan's hand, with the wrong hand—but before Stan could figure out what to do with that, Bill jerked his hand back like he'd been burned. "We'll take this to our graves."

"Or to your grave, anyway!" Stan laughed loudly, slapping the table.

Bill watched him with a forced smile. "Great. Deal made. Let's go get the magic friendship bracelets and—"

"Ohhh no," Stan said. "I'm not trusting a little bit of colored lace and some mystical hocus-pocus to keep you contained. If we're going anywhere, I'm making sure you can't escape."

"Okay," Bill said, a touch warily. "Fine. How?"

####

Soos took the handcuffs out of his toolbox, removed the key and stuck it in his pocket, and asked, "What side do you want it on?"

"Left," Stan said. "Gotta keep my punching arm free." Bill rolled his eyes.

Soos closed the cuffs on Stan's left wrist and Bill's right, then tightened Bill's half until it actually held his tiny wrist. "There."

"Ha!" Stan grinned at Bill. "Try escaping that!"

"I wasn't planning to escape."

"Sure, pull the other one." Stan pointed toward the door. "Now... to the car!"

####

They stared in dismay at Stan's car.

The El Diablo was a classic of the 1960s American automotive industry—and it was in terrific condition. (Notwithstanding the recent dents, scrapes, and keyed scratches in the paint reading "TRICK-OR-CHEATER!!") It came with the features standard to American cars of the time, like a steering wheel on the left, and a wide front bench that provided space for multiple passengers to sit to the driver's right side.

Bill was handcuffed to Stan's left side.

"Wow. You're stupid," Bill said.

"I'll break your smart mouth."

"What do I care, we're headed to the dentist anyway." He sighed. "Okay! Let's go inside and tell Questiony how stupid you are."

Stan did not want to tell Soos how stupid he was. "No! How do you know I didn't do this on purpose? Maybe having my right arm free is more important than—er... driving."

Bill considered that with pursed lips. After a pause, he ventured, "Do you want me to drive—?"

"No, no, nope, I am not letting you drive my car, under any circumstances, ever! Not a chance!"

"Then how are we doing this?"

####

Stan gripped the steering wheel with both hands, knuckles white and jaw clenched.

Bill was uneasily cuddled up against Stan's right side. The handcuff forced him to stretch his right arm across Stan's chest.

They were both wearing tank tops. Their bare upper arms were plastered together with sweat.

They were getting cricks in their necks from how far they were tilting their heads away from each other.

On the radio, a hit 50's soul song crooned romantically, "Oh, my sweet love... you're my lovely sweetie... and I never love you more, than when you're pressed to my side... as we go for a sweet loving car ride..." Neither of them could reach the radio dial without touching each other even more. They'd silently decided to pretend as hard as possible that they couldn't hear the radio.

"Welp," Stan said. "Out of all the times I've been handcuffed in a car, this is one of the worst."

####

They spotted Dr. Illing's "FREE CANDY" sign posted surreptitiously near the barrel and crate factory, and circled the block to park the car in front of a business that looked responsible enough to file a missing persons report if the car was still abandoned there by nightfall.

They tumbled out of the driver's side door with a maneuver that looked like a cross between a waltz and a mugging. Stan kicked the door shut. As they untangled themselves, in a surprisingly decent impression of Stan's voice, Bill said, "Gotta keep my punching arm free. How's that working out for you?"

"Bold words from a guy in punching range, you little—" As Stan finally separated himself from Bill and straightened out, he caught sight of Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland halfway up the block. "Oh, great. Cops. Exactly what you want around when you're doing something weird." Stan shook his head. "Well, as long as we go the other way and don't make eye contact—"

"Hi Darryl! Hi Edwin!" Bill stood on his toes and waved wildly. "Hey! Working hard or hardly working? Haha!"

"Oh, hey Goldie!" Durland waved back, and he and Blubs headed their direction. "How've you been, did you have a nice Summerween?"

"Ahh, I was stuck in the house—"

"Bill," Stan hissed. "Whaddaya think you're doing? Do you want them asking questions?"

"Hey," Durland said, "Why're you handcuffed to Stan?"

Bill turned toward Stan. He smiled at him. It was a smile that said I did not think this through.

"You need some help there?" Blubs asked. "I bet we've got a key that matches that handcuff model."

Stan bet Bill would love to accept that offer and go traipsing off with the cops. "Nope! That's fine! Thank you officers, but we're keeping the handcuffs on," Stan said. "Because." He paused. "They're necessary. For... uh... for me."

The cops and Bill watched him expectantly. Bill had that awful gleam in his eyes that he got when he saw an opportunity to make up a story.

"Because I'm old," Stan said. "It's to keep me from wandering into traffic."

Bill laughed, "Yep, that's true!" He jabbed Stan's shoulder with a finger (harder than necessary, he thought). "This guy's cataracts are so bad, sometimes he asks us if he's dying because all he a see is a white light in a dark tunnel! And the way his mind's going, woof—"

Stan growled, "All right you don't have to lay it on so thick—"

"—he's so addled it's like he's completely forgotten the last century of technology, he'll just walk right off the curb and expect the horse-drawn carriages to stop for him—"

"Hahaaa, but we won't bore you with my medical history!" Stan jerked on the handcuffs. "C'mon, Goldie, you're gonna make me late to my heart doctor appointment. You don't want my life on your hands, do you?"

Bill murmured, "Don't threaten me with a good time."

"Hold on," Blubs said. "You can't see? Didn't we just see you get out of the driver's seat of your car?"

Stan and Bill exchanged a look. Stan said, "Goldie's giving me directions."

"Oh! That makes sense," Durland said.

"All right," Blubs said, "We'll let you get to your doctor's appointment. You folks have a nice day."

As the cops left, Bill called after them, "You too! Hey, I'll see you guys at Rainbow Club!"

"See you there!" Durland turned to Blubs. "Y'know, I think Goldie's a step up from that seeing-eye bear."

Bill and Stan eyed each other. "All right, you're not bad at improv," Bill said. "I can respect a decent actor."

"You too," Stan said grudgingly. Bill looked at Stan like he expected a little more than that; but Stan kept his mouth shut. Bill didn't need the encouragement.

####

Dr. Illing's "FREE CANDY" sign leaned hopefully near a gap in the fence around an overgrown lot by the barrel factory. The gap was large enough that a reasonably limber human could duck through with little difficulty; however, Stan was old and Bill was still controlling his alien body like a rookie puppeteer learning the marionette, so they circled halfway around the lot until they found a gate in the fence to push open. They trod across scraggly grass, a row of dying mushrooms, and years-old litter to reach an unmarked white van hooked up to a camper trailer.

The back hatch of the trailer was flipped up to serve as a makeshift metal awning, and inside, a tall, spindly man was snoring atop a military cot in his underwear, using a white lab coat like a blanket. Stan cleared his throat loudly, and when that didn't disrupt the snoring, knocked on the side of the trailer. "Hey! Doc!"

Dr. Illing jolted upright with a yelp, seized an enormous wireless power drill off the floor to point at them like a gun, lowered it slightly as he registered he wasn't under attack, then realized he was nearly naked and yelped again. He tumbled off the cot, flailed his way to his feet, and turned his back to them as he jerked on his coat and buttoned it. "Just—just a second!" He got on one sock, couldn't find the other, and gave up, pulling on his sneakers with one bare foot. "Sorry, so sorry, I must've—just—nodded off for a second, there—"

"Maybe we should have made an appointment," Bill said wryly. "He looks busy." Stan snorted.

Dr. Illing turned around, smoothing out his rumpled lab coat. He was a jumpy, twitchy man with heavy circles under his eyes, short badly-cut hair, and a 5 o'clock shadow that had evolved into a 25 o'clock shadow. His gaze darted nervously between their faces. "Sorry. Hi, hello, can I help you? Are you maybe here for a tooth extraction, or—or perhaps wisdom teeth removal...?" His gaze caught on Stan's face, and he started. "Stan Pines! I haven't seen you since I pulled your last tooth ten years ago! What are you doing here?" His brows creased in worry. "You're—you're not mad about that, are you—?"

"What? No! The dentures are—fine. They're actually lower maintenance than teeth. Sort of. In a way," Stan said. "No, I'm here to refer a new customer." He pointed at Bill.

Bill made a gesture like he was tipping an invisible hat. "Hi there!"

"A customer?" Dr. Illing said blankly. "Oh—yes! Of course, hold on—" He pulled a hospital curtain over the front half of the trailer to hide a dinette covered in laundry and old magazines, lifted one end of the military cot and slid a step stool under the legs to keep it raised, and tugged the arm of a dental light down from the ceiling to aim it at the chair.

Stan said, "So, do I get some kind of referral bonus, or..."

"Oh—sure, sure. Have a, uhh..." Dr. Illing opened a heavy yellow and black tool bag, pulled out a battered cookie tin, withdrew a gold coin, and offered it to Stan. "One of these or something, here."

"Huh." Stan inspected it. No idea what currency it was, but a gold coin was arguably cooler than actual cash.

The dentist batted aside the hospital curtain to grab a tiny stool from the dinette, shook a damp towel off the seat, placed the stool beside the cot, and sat. "Okay!" He clapped his hands. "New customer! What can I do you for?"

Bill had been gazing in naked longing at the bag hiding the gold coins; but at the question, he looked up with a grin. "I'm here for fillings!"

"Ah! Wonderful. No charge for fillings, of course." He started rummaging through his tool bag for supplies. "Do you know which teeth need them?"

"Whichever you think would look best with some," Bill said. "Driller's choice!"

Dr. Illing stopped rummaging to give Bill a perplexed look. "I—sorry, come again?"

"I said I'm leaving it in your hands." Bill climbed into the trailer and put his free hand on Dr. Illing' s shoulder. "I'll be straight with you, Frankie: all that matters is that my teeth do not currently have any gold in them, and I want that to change by the time I leave. I'm not too picky about the details beyond that."

The dentist stared at Bill, then glanced at Stan for confirmation. Stan shrugged and nodded. "Oh-kay!" Dr. Illing wasn't quite smiling, but there was a strange, eager gleam in his eye. "Super! This'll be fun!" He gestured for Bill to sit on the cot. "Let's see what I have to work with."

He ushered Stan in, and pulled the trailer's hatch shut.

####

"Your teeth are amazing," Dr. Illing said, voice hushed with awe. "Perfectly white. Who's your usual dental hygienist? Did you just get these cleaned?"

"Nope," Bill said, forgetting for the third time that humans keep their teeth and their voice in the same hole and he shouldn't talk with the dentist's fingers in his mouth. Dr. Illing quickly pulled his hand back. "Just basic toothpaste, floss, and dish soap."

Dr. Illing shook his head in disbelief. "Well, they look amazing. And no wear at all, remarkable... Have you ever considered having any of these pulled? Do you mind if I take a few pictures?"

Stan shuddered as the dentist pulled out an old film camera and started snapping photos. "Yeesh. I forgot how creepy you are. Kinda glad I ran out of teeth."

Dr. Illing straightened up, snapped off the dental light, and sighed. "Well, I'm sorry to say that all your teeth are pristine. Not a hint of cavities—not even plaque. It'd be a shame to drill such pretty specimens. You're sure you don't want one pulled...?"

Stan grimaced, but Bill pursed his lips thoughtfully, as if he were considering a perfectly normal question. "As fun as that sounds, I said I want to leave with gold today, and the whole extraction-and-implantation process for gold teeth takes ages. Unless you happen to have a little secret magic trick to speed up the process?" Bill laughed, fixing Dr. Illing with a piercing stare.

Dr. Illing looked nervous. "Er—no."

"Then just the fillings. But who knows, maybe I'll feel naughty and be back in a couple of weeks." Bill laughed again. "Just pick a couple of your least favorite teeth to drill into!"

"Okay, suit yourself." Dr. Illing shrugged and fished around in an overstuffed cardboard box under the dinette table. "Let's gas you up and get drilling."

"You can skip the sedative," Bill said. "I don't mind a little pain. I prefer it, actually! It adds some zest to the experience..." He trailed off as he caught sight of the label on the gas canister Dr. Illing had pulled out. He pointed at a word, "I thought that additive was illegal."

Dr. Illing flinched guiltily. "Not in the state where I got it."

"Oh, buddy. I didn't realize I'd climbed into the party van!" Bill settled back on the cot, laced his hands behind his head, and got comfortable. "You know this stuff has something like sixty percent odds of causing hallucinations? Most people get either haloes around lights, or spiders. Go ahead, gas me—I wanna find out which I am."

####

In five minutes, Bill was overjoyed to report that the dental light had a spider halo. He did not explain what this meant.

Since Stan had typically been under anesthesia himself whenever Dr. Illing operated on him, this was the first time he'd had an opportunity to watch the dentist at work. Stan discovered that when Dr. Illing drilled into a tooth, he didn't suck the resultant dust up with one of those little dental vacuums with a plastic tube Stan was more familiar with. Instead, when a bit of dust had accumulated, he reached in with what looked like a cotton swab, wiped up the tooth dust, and scraped it off into a Petri dish; and only then did he use the vacuum to suck out any saliva and continue. Was he saving the leftover tooth dust? He was an even bigger creep than Stan had thought.

By all appearances, Bill didn't handle the gas well. It wasn't that it made him sick, or that he wasn't having the time of his life. It just made him completely forget how to operate a human body. When Dr. Illing told him to hold his mouth open, he also held his eyes open until they watered; and whenever he lost the battle to keep them open, he automatically shut his mouth too, often to his own peril as Dr. Illing shouted about the drill jostling. Within ten minutes, Dr. Illing had given up on convincing Bill to keep his mouth open and instead started giving him blink breaks when he could shut his mouth.

It helped some, but they couldn't do anything about the fact that Bill had fully forgotten he couldn't talk while getting dental work done, and kept up a regular chatter—during which he cheerfully mentioned he'd died recently, attempted to explain that the entire universe was actually an elaborate hologram projecting from the "true" third dimension, and asked Dr. Illing all about the cruise to Panama he'd recently stowed away on (which the dentist hadn't mentioned). During one blink break, as Bill closed each eye separately, Dr. Illing leaned toward Stan and muttered, "So... what's her story?"

Stan tilted his head toward the Petri dish. "What's with the tooth shavings?"

Dr. Illing considered that, slowly nodded, and got back to work.

####

After several hours, Dr. Illing wiped his brow and sighed in relief. "All right, that should do it. You've got fillings on five teeth now." Under his breath, he muttered, "It would have been two, if you hadn't kept talking while I was drilling."

Stan shook his head in amazement. "Doesn't that hurt?"

"Yes," Bill said. "I've never felt pain like that before. What a rush."

"If you do come back for a tooth extraction, I'm getting a dental gag to keep your jaws open." Dr. Illing finished pulling out the array of clamps and barriers around the filling sites and wearily dropped down onto his stool. "There. The rest of the sedative should wear off gradually over the next few hours. Usually I tell patients to wait three or four hours before eating to let the swelling go down, but..." He waved wearily. "You can do whatever you want."

"Admit it, you like having an enthusiastic patient!" Bill heaved himself off the military cot, forgot he couldn't float, and immediately collapsed to the floor.

"Whoa there—" Stan helped Bill back to his feet. The handcuffs prevented him from getting an arm around Bill's back, so instead he helped keep him upright by firmly squeezing his upper arm. "I don't know about you, but I'm eating as soon as we get home. You made me miss lunch—and for some reason, I feel like I barely had any breakfast." Bill inexplicably found this declaration hilarious. Probably the sedative, Stan reasoned.

Bill waved at the dentist as Stan tugged him out the trailer's hatch, chattering the whole way: "Thanks for the gold, the sock you were looking for is a bookmark in the March issue of Floss Girls, Atlantis is rising as we speak, you have less than seven years to prepare for the plague, tell the little lady I said hi! Byyye!"

Stan squeezed Bill's arm tighter and muttered, "Would you cut that out?

Bill stumbled across the uneven lot. "I made up the part about Atlantis."

"Okay just shut up and stop saying weird things."

Bill attempted to walk sideways all the way back to the car.

####

Stan gripped the steering wheel so tightly, his arms were trembling.

Bill was sprawled all over the front bench, the dashboard, the seatback, and Stan's shoulders.

On the radio, a hit 80's R&B song with a sexy saxophone was playing, "Babe, the sad things you've been through... I swear I'll make it up to you... If it takes a thousand years..."

Bill was singing at the top of his lungs directly in Stan's ear, "I'LL WIPE AWAY ALL YOUR TEARS, WOO!—sax solo!—BA DA-DA DA, BA DA-DAAA—"

Stan turned off his right hearing aid.

Every once in a while Bill attempted to grab the steering wheel and turn it in time to the song, like a kid playing in a toy car; Stan had given up telling him to stop and instead started just smacking his hand away every time he tried. After another smack, Bill draped his arm awkwardly over Stan again, and announced, "I can't feel my tongue at all! I bet I can chew it off!"

"Don't do that."

"The last time my mouth was this numb, my girlfriend had just gotten done with me, haha." Bill stuck his finger in his mouth to experimentally poke at his tongue. "I couldn' thee for the nex' hour from all the thporeth—"

"I swear if you don't shut up—"

Bill flopped his arm across Stan again. "I just realized I haven't gotten any action since I died. Wow. What's normal for humans, couple times a week until you start the slow lingering decline toward death?" He looked straight at Stan. Stan could feel that side of his face start to sweat. "This isn't a weird time to bring that up, is it?"

"Bill, if you say one more weird thing, you're riding home on the roof of the car."

Bill was quiet for three seconds. And then he started poking Stan's bicep. "Your arm's a lot meatier than Sixer's! What's your favorite flavor of cancer?"

####

Mabel asked, "Why are you on top of the car?"

Bill—eyes wide, hair disheveled, one arm hanging through the driver's door, sprawled out clinging to the roof like his life depended on it—replied, "I don't know, it's all a blur."

Stan opened the car door and jerked on the handcuffs. "All right, get off my car."

Bill shakily climbed off, lay in the dirt, and tried to catch his breath. "That was fun. We should do that more often."

"Not on your life."

Eyeing the handcuffs, Dipper said, "What were you doing, anyway?"

"Nothing!" Stan snapped. "Why? Who's asking? I wasn't sneaking the demon out to get a shady back-alley dental procedure!"

Mabel and Dipper stared up at him.

Stan pointed at them. "What are you doing?"

"Going camping," Dipper said, turning so Stan could see his stuffed backpack.

"Something's been stealing Pacifica's alpacas at night, so we're going on a stake-out," Mabel said. "They took Giorgio. It's personal now."

"We think aliens might be abducting them," Dipper said.

From the ground, Bill said, "It's not aliens."

"Ah, taking the law into your own hands. It builds character," Stan said approvingly. "You need firearms?"

They exchanged a glance. "We're good," Mabel said. "Grunkle Ford loaned us his freeze ray. It seems less lethal."

As the kids headed toward the road, Bill finally heaved himself up. "Well, that was fun!"

"No it wasn't," Stan said.

"Your opinion doesn't matter. Anyway—" He shook his cuffed wrist. "We're home, get me out of this thing. It makes you look like my ugly accessory and I want my hoodie."

"I elevate your whole look!" Stan protested. "And I don't have the key, it's with Soos."

Mabel turned back to shout at them, "Soos is out! He's got a dinner date with Melody!"

Stan grimaced. "Uh-oh."

Bill shrugged and said, with a confidence Stan didn't share, "He left the key behind."

####

"Oh man, sorry dudes," Soos said over the phone. "I totally forgot I still had it. Yeah, it's on my key ring. Is that, like, gonna be a problem, or...?"

"It's fine," Bill said, sitting atop Soos's office desk and leaning all the way across it to reach the phone. "Just pass it through the phone, we'll catch it."

"What?"

"Ignore him." Stan shoved Bill's face away. Bill gave him a dirty look as he straightened out his eyepatch, which he'd finally gotten to put on once they were home. Stan spun the desk chair away from Bill so he couldn't try to join the conversation again. "He's hopped up on psychedelic laughing gas. When are you gonna be back?"

"Uh..." Soos thought for several seconds. "Nooot for a while. Abuelita and I were talking about maybe kind of staying the night?"

"Well—pfff—can't you duck out and bring the key?"

"Uhhh. I would but, this is the first time Abuelita and I are having dinner with Melody's parents, and I'm really worried about impressing them parents, and the casserole's about to come out, and I think they might judge me if I leave, it would probably ruin dinner..."

"Okay, fine. What if we drive over to get the key?"

Far louder than necessary, Bill asked, "Stanley can I drive this time—!"

"Absolutely not!"

"Oh sure, that'd be fine," Soos said. "I'll give you directions, Melody's parents' place is in Portland. You got a pen?"

Stan frowned. "Portland."

"Yep."

"As in, outside the magic bubble trapping Bill in town."

Soos paused. "Oh, right."

Well, Stan wasn't about to make Soos look bad in front of his future in-laws. He'd never had in-laws, but he'd seen enough sitcoms to know how messy that could get. "Never mind. We'll figure something out. You kids enjoy dinner." Stan hung up the phone, sighed, and turned to face Bill. (Bill had plucked a figurine of a bulky robot in a cute girly pose off of Soos's desk, and was staring at it in wonder, like he'd never seen overpriced anime convention merch before.) "You got any other bright ideas?"

"We could still call Darryl and Edwin..."

"No way," Stan snapped. "I am not calling the cops for help! Never gonna happen. I'd rather wait for Soos to get back in the morning if I have to!"

"Oh would you." Bill laughed scornfully. "And what do you plan to do until then?"

####

They got TV dinners and grumpily watched Cash Wheel together.

####

(This entire chapter was just an extended excuse to annoy Stan and Bill as much as possible. But mostly Stan. Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed I'd appreciate a comment or reblog!!)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #grunkle stan #stanley pines #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher #(please pretend the first song sounds like Unchained Melody)#(please pretend the second song sounds like Careless Whisper)

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shadowcanine · 2 months ago

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the bath school disaster (or, the deadliest massacre you’ve never heard of)

information will be under the cut; as always, this post is strictly for educational and research purposes.

It’s May 18th, 1927 in Bath Charter Township, Michigan. 10 miles from Lansing- the capital. A little over a year has passed since 55 year old Andrew Philip Kehoe lost the election for township clerk, and his opponent winning meant an increase in taxes. Not only did he lose, but he was also notified in June of the previous year that his mortgage would be foreclosed.

Kehoe had a reputation for being difficult- in personal dealings, but also within the school board. He had once shot and killed a neighbors dog for barking, which annoyed Kehoe. When his horse would not cooperate to his expectations, Kehoe beat it to death.

His financial problems seemed to be the breaking point, though. For much of the time in between his defeat and May 18th, Kehoe purchased explosives- over a thousand pounds of them in total- and hid them on his property, as well as under Bath Consolidated School.

Kehoe has a wife; Nellie. She’s terminally ill with what is resembling tuberculosis, but there’s no cure or treatment yet. She’s discharged from the St. Lawrence Hospital in Lansing on May 16th, but nobody has heard from her since.

Kehoe wakes up early on May 18th; he triggers the bombs on his property, blowing his farm to smithereens. He isn’t satisfied with just, though.

It’s important to note that Bath was divided into three “sections.” There was the North Wing, South Wing, and the central part of the school.

The bombs underneath the North Wing were attached to an alarm clock. At 9:45AM, the bombs are detonated. It sets off explosions in the North Wing- the impact rips through everything in it’s path; the roof is collapsed, a fire has broke out, and 36 children and 2 teachers were already dead.

The town immediately tries to initiate a rescue mission; doing what they can to try and save those who may still be alive, but it’s not over.

After the catastrophe in the North Wing, Kehoe drives his truck to the schoolyard. The bed of the truck is filled with metal debris layered on-top of dynamite; makeshift shrapnel. Kehoe shoots at the bed of the truck through his rear-window, and triggers the dynamite.

Kehoe is dead; along with those who were near the truck, including: the school’s superintendent, a child who had escaped the initial North Wing bomb, and 2 other adults.

During the second attempt at a rescue mission, 500 pounds, or 230kg of explosives are found under the South Wing of the school by searchers. These bombs, for whatever reason, did not detonate. If they would have, everybody inside Bath Consolidated School would have died, and the school would have been leveled.

As Kehoe’s property was searched, a sign would be found- wired to the fence on Kehoe’s farm, which read:

“Criminals are made, not born.”

Searchers would then find Nellie- Andrew’s wife- at the top of the hill on the farm. She was dead- badly charred from the explosions on the farm. Her body was placed on top of hay in a wheelbarrow, and left on top of the hill. It’s not clear when exactly Andrew killed her, but it was sometime between May 16th, the day she was discharged from the hospital, and May 18th, the day of the bombings.

In total, 45 people would be killed. 38 students, and 5 adults.

The Bath School Disaster would go on to be the deadliest school massacre in U.S history to date. The school was torn down once in 1928, and a new school was put in it’s place- the Jamez Couzens Agricultural School. JCAS was torn down in 1975, and a memorial park for the original Bath School was put in it’s place. To this day, the park remains there as a reminder.

# Thanks for reading- The Bath School Disaster holds a special place in my heart. It’s without a doubt the most tragic case I’ve heard of, and it seems to have been forgotten by time. Below is the headline of the Lansing Michigan Journal from May 18th, 1927- the day of the bombing.

#tcc #true crime #tccblr #teeceecee #tcc tumblr #tc community #tcc fandom #bath school disaster #bath school massacre #tcc columbine #columbine school shooting #dylan columbine #eric columbine #columbine 1999 #columbine massacre #sandy hook #shadowsresearch

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until-another-one-comes · 4 months ago

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I've been thinking of Swansea's monologue in the game. The saddest thing about his monologue is him admitting that even after getting married, having kids and getting a stable job for years, in his final moments, he realised his happiest years were him getting black out drunk.

It's depressing, him realising that being drunk out of his mind and passed out in his bed made him happier than his wife and kids ever did. He knew he was facing his final moments, and he knew this was the truth.

But something that also struck me during his monologue is what he said before that:

'So I got a collar shirt, mortgage and a credit card. All the things that make a good man.'

All the things that make a good man. Not things that he always wanted to do but couldn't or something he thinks is what make a good man. Just simply what make a good man. What society and everyone always say make a good man. A stable job, a stable income. None of those things are what Swansea actually wanted.

And that makes me wonder- was him getting married and having kids just the second part of what 'make a good man'? Did he really want to get married and have kids, or was that simply what he THOUGHT he had to do to become a 'good man', just like getting a stable job and a credit card?

Isn't that the same thing as what we always hear in real life? Get a job, settle down, anything less than that is not ideal? Everyone is different, but we constantly feel like we need to fit in the mold thats expected of us in order to be 'good'.

I'm not an alcoholic nor do I relate to Swansea's life, but this line really re-contextualize the next part of his monologue. It really feels like, to me, Swansea was unsatisfied with his life because none of the things he did after sobering up was what he wanted, it was just what he THOUGHT he had to do to fix his life. But it wasn't something that made him happy. You can't be fully happy if you just do what you think you need to do instead of what you want to do. At least, that applies to Swansea.

As miserable as being drunk all the time was, at least Swansea didn't feel like he had to be a drunk. On some level, it was what he wanted to do, what he enjoyed. And although he snapped out of it and realised that he didn't want to stay that way, he remained more miserable because his vision of what a good man is never fit him. There are many, many ways to turn your life around that isn't the cookie cutter way Swansea thought it was, but because that was what he'd been taught is what make a man good, Swansea followed it, and he never felt joy in it.

Some people want a stable job and settling down. Some don't. There are other ways of living, but since Swansea never learned otherwise, his entire life even after sobering up became a lower point than when he was drunk.

#mouthwashing #im pointing out the obvious here i know but *shrugs*#mouthwashing swansea

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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When private equity destroys your hospital

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW in PHOENIX (Changing Hands, Feb 29) then Tucson (Mar 9-10), San Francisco (Mar 13), and more!

As someone who writes a lot of fiction about corporate crime, I naturally end up spending a lot of time being angry about corporate crime. It's pretty goddamned enraging. But the fiction writer in me is especially upset at how cartoonishly evil the perps are – routinely doing things that I couldn't ever get away with putting in a novel.

Beyond a doubt, the most cartoonishly evil characters are the private equity looters. And the most cartoonishly evil private equity looters are the ones who get involved in health care.

(Buckle up.)

Writing for The American Prospect, Maureen Tcacik details a national scandal: the collapse of PE-backed hospital chain Steward Health, a company that bought and looted hospitals up and down the country, starving them of everything from heart valves to prescription paper, ripping off suppliers, doctors and nurses, and callously exposing patients to deadly risk:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-02-27-scenes-from-bat-cave-steward-health-florida/

Steward occupies a very special place in the private equity looting cycle. Private equity companies arrange themselves on a continuum of indiscriminate depravity. At the start of the continuum are PE funds that buy productive and useful firms (everything from hospitals to car-washes) using "leveraged buyouts." That means that they borrow money to buy the company and use the company itself as collateral: it's like you getting a bank-loan to buy your neighbor's mortgage out from under them, and using your neighbor's house as collateral for that loan.

Once the buyout is done, the PE fund pays itself a "special dividend" (stealing money the business needs to survive) and then starts charging the business a "management fee" for the PE fund's expertise. To pay for all this, the PE bosses start to hack away at the company. Quality declines. So do wages. Prices go up. The company changes suppliers, opting for cheaper alternatives, often stiffing the old company. There are mass layoffs. The remaining employees end up doing three peoples' jobs, for lower wages, with fewer materials of lower quality.

Eventually, that top-feeding PE company finds a more desperate, more ham-fisted PE company to unload the business onto. That middle-feeding company also does a leveraged buyout, pays itself another special dividend, cuts wages, staffing and quality even further. They switch to even worse suppliers and stiff the last batch. Prices go up even higher.

Then – you guessed it – the middle-feeding PE company finds an even more awful PE bottom-feeder to unload the company onto. That bottom feeder does it all again, without even pretending to leave the business in condition to do its job. The company is a shambling zombie at this point, often producing literal garbage in place of the products that made its reputation. Employees' paychecks bounce, or don't show up at all. The company stops bothering to pay the lawyers that have been fending off its creditors. Those lawyers sue the company, too.

That's the kind of PE company Steward Health was, and, as the name suggests, Steward Health is in the business of stripping away the very last residue of value from community hospitals. As you might imagine, this gets pretty fucking ugly.

Steward owns 32 hospitals up and down the country, though its holdings are dwindling as the company walks away from its debt-burdened holdings, after years of neglect that have rendered them unfit for use as health facilities – or for any other purpose. Tcacik's piece offers a snapshot of one such hospital: Florida's Rockledge Regional Medical Center, just eight miles from Cape Canaveral.

Rockledge is a disaster. The fifth floor was, at one point, home to 5,000 bats.

Five.

Thousand.

Bats.

(Rockledge stiffed the exterminators.)

The bats were just the beginning. One of the internal sewage pipes ruptured. Whole sections of the hospital were literally full of shit, oozing out of the walls and ceiling, slopping over medical equipment.

That's an urgent situation for any hospital, but for Rockledge, it's catastrophic, because Rockledge is a hospital without any hospital supplies. Steward has stiffed the companies that supply "heart valves, urology lasers, Impella catheters, cardiac catheterization balloons, slings for lifting heavier patients, blood and urine test reagents, and most recently, prescription paper." Key medical equipment has been repossessed. So have the Pepsi machines. The hospital cafeteria had its supply of cold cuts repossessed:

https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/comments/1agc1j4/comment/kolicqo/

It's not just Steward's nonpayments that reek of impending doom. Its payments also bear the hallmarks of a scam artist on the brink of blowing off the con. The company recently paid off a vendor with five separate checks for $1m, each drawn on "a random hospital in Utah" (Steward recently walked away from its Utah hospitals; its partners there are suing it for stealing $18m on their way out the door).

This company – which owns 32 hospitals! – has resorted to gambits like sending photos of fake checks to doctors it hasn't paid in months as "proof" that the money was coming (the checks arrived 22 days later).

Steward owes so much money to its employees – $1.66m to just one doctors' group. But the medical staff keep doing their jobs, and are reluctant to speak on the record, thanks to Steward's reputation for vicious retaliation. Those health workers keep showing up to take care of patients, even as the hospital crumbles around them. One clinician told Tcacik: "I watched a bed collapse underneath a [patient] who had just undergone hip surgery."

Rockledge has nine elevators, but only five of them work – the other four have been broken for a year. The hospital's fourth floor has been converted to "a graveyard of broken beds." The sinks are clogged, or filled with foul gunk. There's black mold. Nurses have noted on the maintenance tags that the repair service refuses to attend the hospital until their overdue bills are paid. The fifteen-person on-site maintenance team was cut to just two workers.

Steward is just the latest looting owner of Rockledge. After the Great Financial Crisis, private equity consultants helped sell it to Health Management Associates. The hospital's CEO took home a $10m bonus for that sale and exited; Health Management Associates then quickly became embroiled in a Medicare fraud and kickback scandal. Soon after, Rockledge was passed on to Community Health Systems, who then sold it on to Rockledge.

Steward, meanwhile, was at that time owned by an even bigger private equity giant, Cerberus, which then sold Steward off. That deal was performatively complex and hid all kinds of mischief. Prior to Cerberus's sell-off of Steward, they sold off Steward's real-estate. The buyer was Medical Properties Trust, who gave Cerberus $1.25b for the real-estate: three hospitals in Florida and three more in Ohio. Steward then contracted to operate these hospitals on MPT's behalf, and pay MPT rent for the real-estate.

This complex arrangement was key to siphoning value out of the hospital and to keeping angry creditors at bay – if you can't figure out who owes you money, it's a lot harder to collect on the debt. The scheme was masterminded by Steward founder/CEO Ralph de la Torre. De la Torre is notorious for taking a massive dividend out of the company while it owed $1.4b to its creditors. He bought a $40m yacht with the money.

De la Torre was once feted as a business genius who would "disrupt" healthcare. But as Steward's private jet hops around "Corfu, Santorini, St. Maarten and Antigua" as its hospitals literally crumble, he's becoming less popular. In Massachusetts, politicians have railed against Steward and de la Torre (Governor Healey wants the company to leave the state "as soon as possible").

Florida, by contrast, is much more friendly to Steward. The state Health and Human Services Committee chair Randy Fine is an ardent admirer of hospital privatization and is currently campaigning to sell off the last community hospital in Brevard County. The state inspectors are likewise remarkably tolerant of Steward's little peccadillos. The quasi-governmental agency that inspects hospitals has awarded this shit-and-bat-filled, elevator-free, understaffed rotting hulk "A" grades for quality.

These inspectors jointly represent a mismatched assortment of private and public agencies, dominated by a nonprofit called Leapfrog, the brainchild of Harvard public-health prof Lucian Leape, who founded it in 2000. Leapfrog likes to tout its "transparent" assessment criteria, and Steward are experts at hitting those criteria, spending the exact minimum to tick every box that Leapfrog inspectors use as proxies for overall quality and safety.

This is a pretty great example of Goodhart's Law: "every measurement eventually becomes a target, whereupon it ceases to be a good measurement":

https://xkcd.com/2899/

But despite Steward's increasingly furious creditors and its decaying facilities, the company remains bullish on its ability to continue operations. Medical Properties Trust – the real estate investment trust that is nominally a separate company from Steward – recently hosted a conference call to reassure Wall Street investors that it would be a going concern. When a Bank of America analyst asked MPT's CFO how this could possibly be, given the facility's dire condition and Steward's degraded state, the CFO blithely assured him that the company would get bailouts: "We own hospitals no one wants to see closed."

That's the thing about PE and health-care. The looters who buy out every health-care facility in a region understand that this makes them too big to fail: no matter how dangerous the companies they drain become, local governments will continue to prop them up. Look at dialysis, a market that's been cornered by private equity rollups. Today, if you need this lifesaving therapy, there's a good chance that every accessible facility is owned by a private equity fund that has fired all its qualified staff and ceased sterilizing its needles. Otherwise healthy people who visit these clinics sometimes die due to operator error. But they chug along, because no dialysis clinics is worse that "dialysis clinics where unqualified sadists sometimes kill you with dirty needles":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-dirty-business-of-clean-blood

The bad news is that private equity has thoroughly colonized the entire medical system. They took hospitals, fired the doctors, then took over the doctors' groups that provided outsource staff to the hospital:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#prop-bets

It's illegal for private equity companies to own doctors' practices (doctors have to own these), but they obfuscated the crime with a paper-thin pretext that they got away with despite its obvious bullshittery:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#looted

The financier who decides whether you live or die depends on an algorithm that literally sets a tolerable level of preventable deaths for the patients trapped in the practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/05/any-metric-becomes-a-target/#hca

Private equity also took over emergency rooms and boobytrapped them with "surprise billing" – junk fees that ran to thousands of dollars that you had to pay even if the hospital was in network with your insurer. They made billions from this, and spent a many millions from that booty keeping the scam alive with scare ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/21/all-in-it-together/#doctor-patient-unity

The whole health stack is colonized by private equity-backed monopolies. Even your hospital bed!

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/05/hillrom/#baxter-international

Then there's residential care. Private equity cornered many regional markets on nursing homes and turned them into slaughterhouses, places where you go to die, not live:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

The palliative care sector is also captured by private equity. PE bosses hire vast teams of fast-talking salespeople who con vulnerable older people into entering an end-of-life system before they are ready to die. Thanks to loose regulation, the nation is filled with fake hospices that can rake in millions from Medicare while denying all care to their patients (hospice patients don't get life-extending medication or procedures, by definition):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

If you survive this long enough, Medicare eventually tells the hospice that you're clearly not dying and you get kicked off their rolls. Now you have to go through the lengthy bureaucratic nightmare of convincing the system – which was previously informed that you were at death's door – that you are actually viable and need to start getting care again (good luck with that).

If that kills you, guess what? Private equity has rolled up funeral homes up and down the country, and they will scam your survivors just as hard as the medical system that killed you did:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/09/high-cost-of-dying/#memento-mori

The PE sector spent more than a trillion dollars over the past decade buying up healthcare companies, and it has trillions more in "dry powder" allocated for further medical acquisitions. Why not? As the CFO of Medical Properties Trust told that Bank of America analyst last week, when you "own hospitals no one wants to see closed." you literally can't fail, no matter how many people you murder.

The PE sector is a reminder that the crimes people commit for money far outstrip the crimes they commit for ideology. Even the most ideological killers are horrified by the murders their profit-motivated colleagues commit.

Last year, Tkacic wrote about the history of IG Farben, the German company that built Monowitz, a private slave-labor camp up the road from Auschwitz to make the materiel it was gouging Hitler's Wehrmacht on:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Farben bought the cheapest possible slaves from Auschwitz, preferentially sourcing women and children. These slaves were worked to death at a rate that put Auschwitz's wholesale murder in the shade. Farben's slaves died an average of just three months after starting work at Monowitz. The situation was so abominable, so unconscionable, that the SS officers who provided outsource guard-labor to Monowitz actually wrote to Berlin to complain about the cruelty.

The Nuremberg trials are famous for the Nazi officers who insisted that they were "just following order" but were nonetheless executed for their crimes. 24 Farben executives were also tried at Nuremberg, where they offered a very different defense: "We had a fiduciary duty to our shareholders to maximize our profits." 19 of the 24 were acquitted on that basis.

PE is committed to an ideology that is far worse than any form of racial animus or other bias. As a sector, it is committed to profit above all other values. As a result, its brutality knows no bounds, no decency, no compassion. Even the worst crimes we commit for hate are nothing compared to the crimes we commit for greed.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/retaliation#charnel-house

#pluralistic #Rockledge Regional Medical Center #private equity #looting #Steward Health #ponzis #maureen tcacik #Medical Properties Trust #Ralph de la Torre #Massachusetts #florida #Cerberus #too big to fail #pe #guillotine watch

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