#rip any quality i managed to get for these

[thechy-fychannel]

I saw a few other blogs doing this so I thought I'd share my input on what I think would happen in the House MD universe in 2024:

the constant jokes abt house and wilson's relationship turns into the fellows jokingly writing fanfic abt their boss and his boy best friend. somewhere along the way they all get very serious abt the quality of it and it turns into a Whole Thing, a 150k+ novel that they vow to take to their graves.

house discovers the fic by accident and sends it to wilson. wilson discovers things abt himself and then he and house discover each other shortly thereafter.

house purposefully posts the fic online and credits the fellows by their entire full names so it embarrasses them more than house and wilson. It's never spoken abt again but it gets way more online attention than any of them expected.

wilson doesn't get how the Cloud works and accidentally uploads his and house's nudes to the google nest hub on his desk. He doesn't notice it until one of his sweet little old lady cancer patients points it out to him during their appointment. He throws the google nest hub into his trash can until he can figure out how to get the naked pictures off of it.

house has an alexa and abuses the hell out of it. sometimes ppl hear him screaming at someone in his office, only to walk in and find a robotic voice replying with "sorry, I didn't get that" and house throws it off the balcony.

wilson gets addicted to online shopping. house has to stage an intervention bc they do not have enough room in their closet for another pair of prada loafers and their kitchen is full of shitty gadgets that wilson bought off temu or something.

some right wing social media influencer comes in with a mysterious illness and ends up getting castrated as part of the solution. 13 personally does the procedure herself and house watches like a proud dad.

a patient reveals chase's grindr by shoving his phone at him and asking "is this you?" abt the headless profile with the ripped abs that says Dr. Feel Good, 0 feet away, in front of the rest of the team.

foreman finds the team doing tiktok dances bc house told them to learn it in order to understand their 15 yr old patient better.

chase medically murders mitch mcconnel and the entire hospital celebrates ding dong the witch is dead style.

there's a whole episode where house faces his transphobia bc of a trans patient that he connects with. the patient tells him to fuck off and go face his own problems instead of pretending to make it right by being nice to one trans person. And house does, even if he's not perfect, he really tries to do better.

13 gets her medical marijuana card and accidentally becomes the team's plug. her main customer is wilson who still supplies it to certain terminal patients. She hears "hey, can I hit your pen?" at least four times a day.

foreman buys a tesla and it blows up in the parking lot. they spend the entire episode trying to figure out who tried to kill foreman, but it turns out that teslas just do that sometimes.

there's an episode where house finds out that netflix is removing his favorite obscure tv show that ran for 2 seasons in 2002 and wilson recruits the team to hunt down a dvd copy of it without house finding out. they somehow manage to find one and spend a ridiculous amount of money on it, only to open the dvd case and find a copy of the porno wilson starred in that one time instead of the dvd of the show. park saves the day at the last minute by finding a copy of it in a box of dvds in her parents house.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What the fuck is a PBM?

TOMORROW (Sept 24), I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Terminal-stage capitalism owes its long senescence to its many defensive mechanisms, and it's only by defeating these that we can put it out of its misery. "The Shield of Boringness" is one of the necrocapitalist's most effective defenses, so it behooves us to attack it head-on.

The Shield of Boringness is Dana Claire's extremely useful term for anything so dull that you simply can't hold any conception of it in your mind for any length of time. In the finance sector, they call this "MEGO," which stands for "My Eyes Glaze Over," a term of art for financial arrangements made so performatively complex that only the most exquisitely melted brain-geniuses can hope to unravel their spaghetti logic. The rest of us are meant to simply heft those thick, dense prospectuses in two hands, shrug, and assume, "a pile of shit this big must have a pony under it."

MEGO and its Shield of Boringness are key to all of terminal-stage capitalism's stupidest scams. Cloaking obvious swindles in a lot of complex language and Byzantine payment schemes can make them seem respectable just long enough for the scammers to relieve you of all your inconvenient cash and assets, though, eventually, you're bound to notice that something is missing.

If you spent the years leading up to the Great Financial Crisis baffled by "CDOs," "synthetic CDOs," "ARMs" and other swindler nonsense, you experienced the Shield of Boringness. If you bet your house and/or your retirement savings on these things, you experienced MEGO. If, after the bubble popped, you finally came to understand that these "exotic financial instruments" were just scams, you experienced Stein's Law ("anything that can't go forever eventually stops"). If today you no longer remember what a CDO is, you are once again experiencing the Shield of Boringness.

As bad as 2008 was, it wasn't even close to the end of terminal stage capitalism. The market has soldiered on, with complex swindles like carbon offset trading, metaverse, cryptocurrency, financialized solar installation, and (of course) AI. In addition to these new swindles, we're still playing the hits, finding new ways to make the worst scams of the 2000s even worse.

That brings me to the American health industry, and the absurdly complex, ridiculously corrupt Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), a pathology that has only metastasized since 2008.

On at least 20 separate occasions, I have taken it upon myself to figure out how the PBM swindle works, and nevertheless, every time they come up, I have to go back and figure it out again, because PBMs have the most powerful Shield of Boringness out of the whole Monster Manual of terminal-stage capitalism's trash mobs.

PBMs are back in the news because the FTC is now suing the largest of these for their role in ripping off diabetics with sky-high insulin prices. This has kicked off a fresh round of "what the fuck is a PBM, anyway?" explainers of extremely variable quality. Unsurprisingly, the best of these comes from Matt Stoller:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-lina-khan-pharma

Stoller starts by pointing out that Americans have a proud tradition of getting phucked by pharma companies. As far back as the 1950s, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver was holding hearings on the scams that pharma companies were using to ensure that Americans paid more for their pills than virtually anyone else in the world.

But since the 2010s, Americans have found themselves paying eye-popping, sky-high, ridiculous drug prices. Eli Lilly's Humolog insulin sold for $21 in 1999; by 2017, the price was $274 – a 1,200% increase! This isn't your grampa's price gouging!

Where do these absurd prices come from? The story starts in the 2000s, when the GW Bush administration encouraged health insurers to create "high deductible" plans, where patients were expected to pay out of pocket for receiving care, until they hit a multi-thousand-dollar threshold, and then their insurance would kick in. Along with "co-pays" and other junk fees, these deductibles were called "cost sharing," and they were sold as a way to prevent the "abuse" of the health care system.

The economists who crafted terminal-stage capitalism's intellectual rationalizations claimed the reason Americans paid so much more for health care than their socialized-medicine using cousins in the rest of the world had nothing to do with the fact that America treats health as a source of profits, while the rest of the world treats health as a human right.

No, the actual root of America's health industry's problems was the moral defects of Americans. Because insured Americans could just go see the doctor whenever they felt like it, they had no incentive to minimize their use of the system. Any time one of these unhinged hypochondriacs got a little sniffle, they could treat themselves to a doctor's visit, enjoying those waiting-room magazines and the pleasure of arranging a sick day with HR, without bearing any of the true costs:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/the-doctrine-of-moral-hazard/

"Cost sharing" was supposed to create "skin in the game" for every insured American, creating a little pain-point that stung you every time you thought about treating yourself to a luxurious doctor's visit. Now, these payments bit hardest on the poorest workers, because if you're making minimum wage, at $10 co-pay hurts a lot more than it does if you're making six figures. What's more, VPs and the C-suite were offered "gold-plated" plans with low/no deductibles or co-pays, because executives understand the value of a dollar in the way that mere working slobs can't ever hope to comprehend. They can be trusted to only use the doctor when it's truly warranted.

So now you have these high-deductible plans creeping into every workplace. Then along comes Obama and the Affordable Care Act, a compromise that maintains health care as a for-profit enterprise (still not a human right!) but seeks to create universal coverage by requiring every American to buy a plan, requiring insurers to offer plans to every American, and uses public money to subsidize the for-profit health industry to glue it together.

Predictably, the cheapest insurance offered on the Obamacare exchanges – and ultimately, by employers – had sky-high deductibles and co-pays. That way, insurers could pocket a fat public subsidy, offer an "insurance" plan that was cheap enough for even the most marginally employed people to afford, but still offer no coverage until their customers had spent thousands of dollars out-of-pocket in a given year.

That's the background: GWB created high-deductible plans, Obama supercharged them. Keep that in your mind as we go through the MEGO procedures of the PBM sector.

Your insurer has a list of drugs they'll cover, called the "formulary." The formulary also specifies how much the insurance company is willing to pay your pharmacist for these drugs. Creating the formulary and paying pharmacies for dispensing drugs is a lot of tedious work, and insurance outsources this to third parties, called – wait for it – Pharmacy Benefits Managers.

The prices in the formulary the PBM prepares for your insurance company are called the "list prices." These are meant to represent the "sticker price" of the drug, what a pharmacist would charge you if you wandered in off the street with no insurance, but somehow in possession of a valid prescription.

But, as Stoller writes, these "list prices" aren't actually ever charged to anyone. The list price is like the "full price" on the pricetags at a discount furniture place where everything is always "on sale" at 50% off – and whose semi-disposable sofas and balsa-wood dining room chairs are never actually sold at full price.

One theoretical advantage of a PBM is that it can get lower prices because it bargains for all the people in a given insurer's plan. If you're the pharma giant Sanofi and you want your Lantus insulin to be available to any of the people who must use OptumRX's formulary, you have to convince OptumRX to include you in that formulary.

OptumRX – like all PBMs – demands "rebates" from pharma companies if they want to be included in the formulary. On its face, this is similar to the practices of, say, NICE – the UK agency that bargains for medicine on behalf of the NHS, which also bargains with pharma companies for access to everyone in the UK and gets very good deals as a result.

But OptumRX doesn't bargain for a lower list price. They bargain for a bigger rebate. That means that the "price" is still very high, but OptumRX ends up paying a tiny fraction of it, thanks to that rebate. In the OptumRX formulary, Lantus insulin lists for $403. But Sanofi, who make Lantus, rebate $339 of that to OptumRX, leaving just $64 for Lantus.

Here's where the scam hits. Your insurer charges you a deductible based on the list price – $404 – not on the $64 that OptumRX actually pays for your insulin. If you're in a high-deductible plan and you haven't met your cap yet, you're going to pay $404 for your insulin, even though the actual price for it is $64.

Now, you'd think that your insurer would put a stop to this. They chose the PBM, the PBM is ripping off their customers, so it's their job to smack the PBM around and make it cut this shit out. So why would the insurers tolerate this nonsense?

Here's why: the PBMs are divisions of the big health insurance companies. Unitedhealth owns OptumRx; Aetna owns Caremark, and Cigna owns Expressscripts. So it's not the PBM that's ripping you off, it's your own insurance company. They're not just making you pay for drugs that you're supposedly covered for – they're pocketing the deductible you pay for those drugs.

Now, there's one more entity with power over the PBM that you'd hope would step in on your behalf: your boss. After all, your employer is the entity that actually chooses the insurer and negotiates with them on your behalf. Your boss is in the driver's seat; you're just along for the ride.

It would be pretty funny if the answer to this was that the health insurance company bought your employer, too, and so your boss, the PBM and the insurer were all the same guy, busily swapping hats, paying for a call center full of tormented drones who each have three phones on their desks: one labeled "insurer"; the second, "PBM" and the final one "HR."

But no, the insurers haven't bought out the company you work for (yet). Rather, they've bought off your boss – they're sharing kickbacks with your employer for all the deductibles and co-pays you're being suckered into paying. There's so much money (your money) sloshing around in the PBM scamoverse that anytime someone might get in the way of you being ripped off, they just get cut in for a share of the loot.

That is how the PBM scam works: they're fronts for health insurers who exploit the existence of high-deductible plans in order to get huge kickbacks from pharma makers, and massive fees from you. They split the loot with your boss, whose payout goes up when you get screwed harder.

But wait, there's more! After all, Big Pharma isn't some kind of easily pushed-around weakling. They're big. Why don't they push back against these massive rebates? Because they can afford to pay bribes and smaller companies making cheaper drugs can't. Whether it's a little biotech upstart with a cheaper molecule, or a generics maker who's producing drugs at a fraction of the list price, they just don't have the giant cash reserves it takes to buy their way into the PBMs' formularies. Doubtless, the Big Pharma companies would prefer to pay smaller kickbacks, but from Big Pharma's perspective, the optimum amount of bribes extracted by a PBM isn't zero – far from it. For Big Pharma, the optimal number is one cent higher than "the maximum amount of bribes that a smaller company can afford."

The purpose of a system is what it does. The PBM system makes sure that Americans only have access to the most expensive drugs, and that they pay the highest possible prices for them, and this enriches both insurance companies and employers, while protecting the Big Pharma cartel from upstarts.

Which is why the FTC is suing the PBMs for price-fixing. As Stoller points out, they're using their powers under Section 5 of the FTC Act here, which allows them to shut down "unfair methods of competition":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The case will be adjudicated by an administrative law judge, in a process that's much faster than a federal court case. Once the FTC proves that the PBM scam is illegal when applied to insulin, they'll have a much easier time attacking the scam when it comes to every other drug (the insulin scam has just about run its course, with federally mandated $35 insulin coming online, just as a generation of post-insulin diabetes treatments hit the market).

Obviously the PBMs aren't taking this lying down. Cigna/Expressscripts has actually sued the FTC for libel over the market study it conducted, in which the agency described in pitiless, factual detail how Cigna was ripping us all off. The case is being fought by a low-level Reagan-era monster named Rick Rule, whom Stoller characterizes as a guy who "hangs around in bars and picks up lonely multi-national corporations" (!!).

The libel claim is a nonstarter, but it's still wild. It's like one of those movies where they want to show you how bad the cockroaches are, so there's a bit where the exterminator shows up and the roaches form a chorus line and do a kind of Busby Berkeley number:

https://www.46brooklyn.com/news/2024-09-20-the-carlton-report

So here we are: the FTC has set out to euthanize some rentiers, ridding the world of a layer of useless economic middlemen whose sole reason for existing is to make pharmaceuticals as expensive as possible, by colluding with the pharma cartel, the insurance cartel and your boss. This conspiracy exists in plain sight, hidden by the Shield of Boringness. If I've done my job, you now understand how this MEGO scam works – and if you forget all that ten minutes later (as is likely, given the nature of MEGO), that's OK: just remember that this thing is a giant fucking scam, and if you ever need to refresh yourself on the details, you can always re-read this post.

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

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/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[galaxygermdraws]

The Luigi references to go with my Mario references. I have much more to say about Luigi, but before that, shout out to my friend @twigs-sprigs for the darker green color I used for Mr. L. It was kind of an accident BUT I like it.

Anyways notes time!

Luigi's hair tie is literally always red, it matches his button stitches and his socks. The only time it changed was during SPM, cause Mr. L saw the stupid thing and decided ew no red gross.

As Mr. L, he actually let stubble grow, and also he has earrings now! This will come back for symbolism. He got his cheek burns from the first Brobot explosion.

When he wakes up in the River Twygz and swims up, Luigi is. Still in Mr. L's clothes, but horribly ripped up. He's also half blind now, but has no memories on how this happens. He has vague recollections of being held down, an ominous laugh, and an explosion, but that's it.

After being found and taken to Flipside, Luigi manages to get a new pair of clothes thanks to some of the townsfolk having left over fabrics and sewing materials. He incorporates the Mr. L outfit into it, since it would be a shame to waste even decent quality fabrics.

Also, Luigi is much paler after Dimentio "kills" him, but that's because he only killed Mr. L. Mr. L, as he existed, is dead. So half of Luigi, in a way, is dead. So Luigi is like half undead. He isn't fully dead obviously, his heartbeat is just like. Significantly slower and he is much color. He has grey hair too, which is totally not connected to the Chaos Heart calling to him, or anything.

After SPM, he mostly goes back to how he looked before, although for a while his hair was permanently white, and he covered his scars up with makeup.

He gets little star earrings to try and "reclaim" the earrings he woke up with, they also match Mario's drawstrings

He eventually starts wearing his hair down more, not that that matters when his hair gets chopped during LM3. So now, his hair is MUCH shorter now, and it curls and poofs at the end kind of like Mario's

When he gets near any kind of magical artifact, his hair turns white. This can also be triggered if he uses a lot of magic (i.e. Thunderhand or any of the dark magic he has lingering in him because of SPM). His eye also glows red.

(reblogs with tags/comments are appreciated. Thankyuuuuu. You can ask about him also I will answer!!)

[artdotpage]

Problems facing modern artists & creators

I've talked with hundreds of artists and creators about the difficulties they face trying to earn a living from their craft.

This post covers two of the big ones (social media algorithms & bargain basement marketplaces), and what tools are available to grow your business despite these issues.

Social Media Algorithms and Audience Ownership

Social media platforms are a godsend for getting your work in front of potential clients and building a loyal fan base.

However as you will all have experienced, it can take a mastermind to figure out what kind of content the algorithm wants you to post, and if you don't do that you'd be as well throwing your content into the void as even your own followers might not see your post, never mind new viewers.

It also means you don't truly own your audience, if you post something slightly controversial your account could be deleted without warning, or perhaps a billionaire buys the site and everyone flocks to a new platform where you have to start growing your following all over again.

Solution: Build a mailing list

This is perhaps the single best marketing tool available to any business, and is sorely overlooked by artists and creators.

It's cost effective and because you own your mailing list it doesn't matter what's happening on social sites, you can always keep in touch with them.

The tricky part is converting people into mailing list subscribers. However I've seen plenty of creators successfully build one by offering incentives including free digital downloads, early access to content, discounts on your store etc.

Those who sign up to your mailing list would be considered high quality followers, someone who is much more likely to convert to a paid client and buy from you again in the future compared to the average follower on social media.

Tools

https://art.page/

https://substack.com/

https://convertkit.com/

Losing clients to undercutting competitors on the same platform/marketplace

If you run your business on a marketplace or platform, your clients are one click away from finding plenty of other choices who are willing to undercut everyone else to land a sale.

These sites have no incentive to make sure that traffic you drive to your profile actually purchase from you. Whether a sale is made through your listing or another seller, they collect their fee either way.

They also use uniform designs which reduce you to a generic product listing. Whilst this can simplify the customer experience, it means you have no control over the sales funnel and ability to differentiate yourself, making it harder to convert potential clients into paying customers.

Solution: Direct clients to your own site

Use your own personal website to make sales from, there are plenty of options with no monthly charge and lower fees than marketplaces. This lets you make dedicated marketing pages showcasing your best work to make a client excited about doing business with you, instead of just being a generic product listing.

Take advantage of marketplaces purely for their customer base. Don't rely on them as your sole business platform. This way, any fees you pay are worthwhile to generate sales you wouldn't have had otherwise. 

Tools

https://art.page/

https://www.bigcartel.com/

https://squareup.com/

Interested in more?

There's plenty more I have to share on this topic, including:

How to properly use Print on Demand without getting ripped off

Streamline managing your business so you spend more time creating and growing your business.

How to better utilize your brand to connect with clients and increase sales

So let me know if you’re interested and I’ll get writing!

Transparency

I'm building https://art.page to solve these exact issues, with the goal to create the best all in one site builder for artists and creators that makes running your business easy.

[midnight-bay-if]

Okay, that ask with MC dying in RO's arms. I can't help but reverse-angst any angsty ask I see, so now I HAVE to.

What if despite the MC seemingly dying, the team managed to call an ambulance and for it to arrive fast enough to like manage to restart their heart and ultimately save them? What I'm mostly interested in in this scenario is how would the ROs act during the period of uncertainty of "will they wake up or not", and when MC finally DOES wake up and is fine (cause well, they could have woken up but with all sort of issues due to the lack of oxygen and what not).

I live for hurt-comfort!

(A little bit of hope can go a long way. Let's do this :D)

S: The wait is excruciating. It's a difficult ask for S to set aside their usual cynicism in favour of a more optimistic approach. In the army, it was customary to carry a letter for loved ones should the worst come to pass. S had to deliver more than a few of those letters. They still carry one themselves out of habit. Preparing for the worst like some paranoid doomsayer has become their second skin.

But just this once, they don't want to believe in the worst. They don't want to prepare to break bad news to loved ones, nor imagine the empty space you could leave behind. Perhaps your inability to give up has rubbed off on them. It's a quality of yours they are counting on right now.

Then, the doctor exits the room and smiles, and S knows that their uncommon hope has not been blind after all. You don't wake immediately, but S guards your bedside the entire time. It feels like a lifetime, but when your eyes finally wake, it takes all their strength not to immediately pull you into an air-restricting embrace.

Instead, they grasp your hand in theirs, clutching it tightly against their chest with misty eyes. When you finally speak their name, the tears finally spill freely.

"Thank goodness," they whisper, grasping your hands as if in prayer. I don't know what I would have done if..." They breathe. Deeply. "I fear a very long lecture is teasing the tip of my tongue, but I will do everyone a favour and keep myself gracious instead. Something to look forward to, my darling."

They smile.

Rain: It’s impossible to sit still. Plagued thoughts of pained screams and bloodied hands keep them pacing the length of the waiting room. The others are here too, but for once, Rain doesn’t have enough space inside their head for everyone else.

The pattern sound of their pacing steps keeps them grounded. It’s something else to focus on... because otherwise, the alternative is remembering every sordid detail of what happened to you, and that is too bloody unbearable.

How could they let this happen to you? Are they truly resigned to a life of regret forevermore? Regret was already a heavy enough weight for them to carry as is.

Then, the doctor spills the good news, and Rain rushes into your room, shaking. They didn't think they had tears left to cry, yet they fall freely once more. Red-faced with puffy eyes, they collapse onto their knees beside your bed, tucking their face into the crook of your arm... Honestly, they would be embarrassed if they weren't so happy.

"Perhaps we should consider retirement," they offer once their tears have ceased and they can force a smirk back on their face. "We could settle down by the ocean far away from Albach Bay and grow old together under a canopy of stars. Or we could get on a boat and become pirates. Mind you, the mermaids might pose a threat... Hm, I'll workshop it."

They are only half joking.

Taj: It's easier to be angry. So, as Taj watches the doctors and nurses rushing around as they busy themselves with their work, Taj seethes. They still taste the metal tang of blood in their mouth from the assailant whose throat they ripped out. It taunts them.

'You were too slow', it goads. 'You have always been too slow.'

Taj growls, subconsciously scratching at their own skin as they dig their nails into their arms. Their aggravation must permeate throughout the waiting room because the staff are giving them a wide berth. Sometimes, they'll spot a nurse giving them a pitying look and Taj will dig their claws in deeper.

It's all they can do to prevent clawing at their throats.

They don't understand. Taj has fought tooth and nail to find 'home'. S and Rain came along and provided shelter, but they found a home in you.

Taj would flay the skin of every potential threat before losing that.

All that anger, all that pent-up rage, begins to finally trickle away when the doctors give the good news. It still exists—it's still there—but it softens, as does the self-flagellation.

At your bedside, they wait. When your eyes flicker open, and you whisper their name, they finally breathe. "I always knew you were annoying, Koel, but I never pegged you as cruel."

Pouting, they grasp your hand in theirs and hold it delicately up against their lips. "Thank you," they gasp, barely breathing. "For not leaving me."

N: N is losing what little patience they actually have. It feels like days since they absconded away with you, and there has been no news since. What in Hael do they do here? There may or may not have already been a few incidents of cornering medical staff in a somewhat threatening manner to demand they prioritise you above all others.

It's not like there is anyone of greater importance in this hospital. N knows that to be true, even without knowing who the other patients are.

It's too tempting... to want to reach out to the dark recesses of your mind and pull you back, but then fear takes over. What if they reach out and you aren't there? What if they scream into the void, and all they hear is their echo? It would ruin them.

So, they wait and wait, and finally learn what it means to be patient.

When the doctors, still maintaining a cautious distance, finally break the news N has been so desperately hoping for, N breaks. They rush into the room, practically tripping over their feet in their haste. For a moment, they forget all about their image as a Prince of Hael and choose, instead, to embrace one simple truth; they care.

"Do try not to die in the future, my dear. I would be awfully put out if you did."

Umbra: If it weren't for the others, Umbra would be burning through the very heart of themselves to skulk, watch, and stand vigil in your room as the doctors worked. But it was S who rightfully pointed out that if you were to wake and Umbra had become less of themselves in the meantime, it would only bring you more heartache.

So, instead, they continue to practice trust. They are choosing to trust in your strength, in your stubbornness, in your desire to live. Even as their instinct to fight scratches at the back of their skull, they choose to believe instead. It's hard and getting harder.

Umbra knows if it weren't for the others, they would have already stormed your hospital room with savagery.

When the doctors finally release Umbra from their torment and share the good news of your stability, it's all they can do before Umbra is at your side. God grant mercy to the person who attempts to remove them from that point on.

Overwhelmed with emotion and with their fear no longer gripping their throat, they daringly climb onto the bed next to you. With hushed apologies, they gently rest their head atop yours, listening to you breathe.

"I never noticed before," they whisper, breath shuddering. "You breathe so deeply."

(I'm sorry sorry this took so long! I wanted to do it justice since it feels like a short sequel, lol. It's been a busy few days since we rescued a cat from a family member who had to move house. I may or may not be using them as inspiration for Taj, haha.)

[entomolog-t]

Silly lil brainrot thats stuck in my head cause everyone's been talking about sizeshifters lately (AND I AM HERE FOR IT)

Just image a character looking for a roommate to help split rent, but their spare room is stupidly small. They put an add out, and get a few people coming by but no one wants that cramped of a bedroom, no matter how cheap they make it-

Until someone does.

They're frankly surprised- they figured at this point it was a lost cause but the person seems weirdly delighted??

Odd.

They are overjoyed at the price too- and character A can understand their joy- given the size of the room they were getting desperate price wise.

A week goes by and everything seems fairly normal. They put a lock on their door, but that seemed pretty standard when you're moving in with a stranger. They're clean, friendly, and pretty fun to be around- just a little forgetful, but who isn't?

By the second week though, Character A is noticing some weirdness. B doesn't seem to eat... They never see them cooking, theres nothing in the fridge, and they don't seem to go out for food either.

When A brings it up B brushes it off, saying they have a minifridge in their room and a lil personal stove. It seems like a good enough excuse until A realizes they've never seem them do dishes. Ever.

By the third week A is convinced theres something weird about B. They have to do some repairs on B's room and when they go in they're just in shock. It looks even smaller than before- B having put bookshelves along almost every wall- but theres no books in the shelves. Its all...

Miniatures?

Fantastically intricate rooms, ranging from something out of a fantasy castle, to influencer mansion type rooms. The longer they look, the weirder it seems though. The rooms are all connected- slides, bridges, ladders... Did they have a pet mouse or something??

Spying one room with a hamster wheel, A is convinced that B has the most spoiled pet in the world. Although... they never mentioned having a pet. Not that it was an issue, but A made it pretty clear that they should tell them if the have a pet in case of a fire or any type of emergency.

And then A sees it- or well, more accurately, doesn't see it.

They ... they dont have a bed??

Sufficiently weirded out but trying their best not to judge, A starts on whatever repairs they have to make, only to realize the project is not going to be a one and done job.

They let B know they'll have to go back into their room later this week and they work out a date and time-B assures them they'll be out of the house and will leave the door unlocked.

The day rolls around and when A goes to start the repairs they grimace. B forgot to leave their door unlocked. They really didn't have time for this. They give B a call, but it goes straight to voicemail.

With a sigh, they grab a credit card. It looked like a cheap lock anyways. Slipping the card between the door and frame they manage to bypass the lock with ease. It really was a cheap thing...

As they go to start the repairs, a little bit of movement catches their eye.

A small lump curled up under the covers of a massively luxurious bed.

Awe! So they did have a mouse!

and it slept under the covers?? Adorable.

It had to be pretty well trained if it didn't have any sort of actual cage? Maybe it was a rat? They could be pretty smart... though it was small.

Curiosity peaked, A pinches the tiny covers in their hand- not without noticing how incredibly soft and high quality they are- pulling the covers back.

A small hand rips the cover back, and they here a muffled

"Five more minutes..."

Eyes wide, they freeze, the world around them feeling frozen in this bizarre moment. A second passes. Then another.

The tiny figure in the bed bolts upright, head turning to A.

Their eyes lock in the most awkward dual realization.

"What are you doing-"

A interrupts them, holding up a tool.

"Repairs were today."

B nods, eyes wide.

"I uh... I forgot about that."

_____________________

I JUST THINK IF I WERE ABLE TO SHIFT SIZES I WOULD BE LIVING THE MOST LUXURIOUS LIFE

"BuT eNtO, DoNt YoU wAnT tO bE bIg?"

Yes obviously, but in this economy?? In the privacy of my own home I'll subsist for month off of 10$ in groceries thank you very much.

[xerith-42]

MCD Fighting Style breakdown

for @gonedreaminggg as a treat. I took your initial list, added a few ideas I came up with, had a breakdown, Bone apple teeth!

- Laurance: As seen in canon Laurance mainly uses a single large sword, though in his early appearances he uses a sword and a shield. I feel like Laurance has trained in multiple styles of combat to varying degrees. He's really good with a single sword of any size, and he can fight sword and shield. His dual wielding is lacking and he can tell every time he watches Dante fight. A lot of Laurance's movements are very basic forms of sword combat with slight variations and flare. Laurance is really light on his feet, so much so that when he really gets into a fight, it almost looks like he's gliding sometimes.

- Garroth: An absolute tank. Fuck what canon says here, Garroth has trained exclusively in fighting with a sword and shield. It is his bread and butter. His ass would not know what to do with a second sword, and nobody really tried to train him in anything else because he's so good at what he does. Garroth can and will always take the hits, he's a barbarian who manages to suppress the rage until he's forced to multiclass into paladin thanks to the relic. Always on the front lines, so good at throwing himself into danger, he wants to die a warriors death and go to Valhalla and both Aph and Laurance are like "Garroth please stop."

- Dante: Dual Wielding jack ass my beloved. Dual wielding isn't a super common style of combat just because it requires so much coordination and there's definitely a quantity over quality problem with guards in Ru'aun. Dante studies an unconventional style of fighting to stand out, and it works. He's super limber and flexible, at least when he's a teenager, and he's fast as fuck. Dante will absolutely be the one getting insane hit combos and doing like 8 attacks per round. He loves bragging about this so much, even though he has to slow down a little as he gets older and his body can't quite move the way it used to.

- Aphmau: Oh Aphmau... Can I call you Aph? You poor thing. In my brain Aph is partially trained by Garroth and Zenix in her early days, but she also just has some really good instincts from being Irene's reincarnation. She learns basic archery from Zenix, and a lot of basics in sword fighting from Garroth. She tends to prefer one lightweight weapon, though she does learn to get comfortable with larger weapons. She's shorter than a lot of her opponents so she likes having a lighter weapon that let's her move fast and go for the fucking knees. She does not fuck around in a fight, she will go straight for the kill. All the guards have some sort of honor/respect for their opponents. She doesn't. She will fucking kill you.

- Travis: Travis is the jack of all trades. You put a weapon in his hand and he knows how to use it. He's not particularly great with any one weapon, and he never has a preference. He was taught to always have his guard up and always be able to defend himself, so Travis is much more comfortable with being given a weapon and using it instead of having a preference. He carries a long sword with him everywhere he goes, but that's just in case he can't get his grubby little paws on something else. He also uses potions a lot more in battle than anyone else thinks to, so he's able to make up for any shortcomings in his fighting.

- Katelyn: Punch people at the perfect weak points of their body. Katelyn has done a lot of study into human anatomy and medicine, and she knows all the weak points of the body for taking someone out in a certain way. Want a quick knockout? There's a pressure point on the back of the neck she can hit while blindfolded. Want to make someone winded? Hit them in the solar plexus. Katelyn has honed her body for this style of fighting, she is ripped as fuck, and while she isn't the fastest fighter, mostly due to her still wearing armor, her strikes are powerful enough to make up for it.

- Lucinda: Evil!! She uses her witchcraft obviously, which I have a lot of thoughts about. I think it's basically being a prepared/component caster, so how well she does in a fight depends on what components she brings into it. But Lucinda literally has like three bags of holdings, she can always whip up something to kick your ass. And if she can't, her staff is definitely made out of some ancient tree and she'll just sweep people off their feet with it and then concuss them with the giant curved end of it. She prefers to take people down non-lethally if possible, especially because witchcraft is very susceptible to accidentally killing people, but if you hurt her friends, it's on sight,

- Zane: Despite his high position, Zane isn't particularly good with any large weapons. I always envision Zane to be somewhat lanky in his stature, and definitely the weakest out of his brothers. He doesn't want to be seen as a threat initially, and as shown in the series, he'd much prefer to find a non physically violent way to kill you. If he has to, he's always got knives hiding on his person, in his robe, in his belt, in his boots, man's always has a way to kill just in case.

- Nana: Magic in this universe is spontaneous casting, where most spells don't need active prep work, and fewer components. Like she needs her dolls as vessels and some magical energy that's naturally present in her body and she's good. I don't think Tu'la was always a safe place, and she likely learned to defend herself from a young age. But Nana isn't really good with conventional weapons like swords or bows, no, she knows how to dent your brain with a frying pan. She doesn't like being violent, but if you threaten her friends or family, she will absolutely demolish you with a cutting board.

- Vylad: The archer!! I like to think Vylad tried to spar with Garroth like once and hated it so much. He hates eye contact and getting close to people, so instead they learn how to be an absolute master of ranged combat. Vylad knows how to stab someone with a short sword in a desperate situation, but he'd much rather be perched on a tree above the battlefield and rain arrows from above. Vylad is also incredibly stealthy and faster than anyone else. So people see his perch and try to get there to take him down or have their own archers fire back, but he's already gone.

- Sasha: Sasha moves so gracefully, so fluidly, and almost enchantingly. For her fighting is a performance, she's gonna kill several people and she's gonna look good while doing it. Even when she was a trained guard she made herself stand out with an affinity for smaller curved blades that naturally assisted her fluid movements. She makes fights into an endurance test, cutting people up and whittling them down. But if she needs to kill, she knows how to do it in a single swipe and knows the weak points that guards are taught to protect, and the ones they aren't. She's such a menace :)

[sylusjinwoon]

{ 012 }

- jjk boys as neko atsume cats pt. 1 -

featuring: megumi fushiguro; yuji itadori; yuta okkotsu; choso

crack; fluff

[ megumi fushiguro - tatami mat ]

megumi would be considered a rare cat, for sure. he is aloof and fiercely independent; and more often than not, he keeps to himself. being much more of an active cat during the late hours of the night, it was a surprise that you managed to catch him on your balcony on a moonless night.

you had spent the day studying for your exams, your work lasting well into the late hours of the night. you thought about continuing your studies, but the sudden ache felt against your head and the way your stomach was growling, practically begging for some sustenance was what ultimately makes you stop.

as you prepared some instant ramen, a quick and easy meal to satisfy your hunger pangs, your ears detect the faint sound of a low mrow. you look toward the sound and let out a gasp, seeing a gorgeous, black cat grooming itself on your tatami mat settled outside on your balcony.

during the mornings when you were able to relax without having to worry about work or your university life, you liked to brew some coffee or tea while sitting on your tatami mat to enjoy the cityscape, so you were pleasantly surprised to see a cat enjoying that same mat.

feeling intrigued by the cat, you shut off the tea kettle and placed your bowl of instant ramen off to the side. not wishing to scare off the cat, you searched through your cupboards to give to him as a treat and settled on giving him the wrapped chicken sausage.

you tiptoe towards your balcony, and the cat ends up hearing your incoming footsteps. he stands in a defensive stance, claws ready to rip through the tatami mat as it's startling, green eyes met with your gaze.

you slide open the glass door and gently coo at him. "it's okay you pretty thing. it's alright, i'm just here to give you a treat."

your movements were slow, and you carefully watch as the cat's fur steadily lost its bristling quality. wanting to get a closer look at him, you kneel down to his height, still keeping your eyes on him as you unwrap the chicken sausage and held it out for him to take.

"it's alright, here, why don't you have some?"

the black cat takes tentative steps forward, sniffing at the sausage before biting down on it. a pleased purr was heard coming from him, and you giggled each time he ate the sausage while seeming to vibrate with delight.

within minutes, the cat finishes off the sausage, purring loudly now when he gets off your mat and closer to you. his claws were retracted, and you giggled when he climbs on top of your lap, curling his body against you all while purring.

"you're such a sweet thing..." you continue to admire the gorgeous cat, somehow knowing that he would be yours from now on.

[ yuji itadori - strawberries ]

yuji is going to be the most common cat you will ever see! he is not shy, and each time you offered any snacks to him, he will happily devour it! although his favorite seems to be the fresh strawberries that you share with him. it's just a shame that your family won't let you keep a cat within the house...

you were simply in bed, scrolling through your phone when the sounds of a familiar scratch was heard outside of your windowsill.

with a wide grin on your face, you swing your legs out of bed and toss your phone against your pillow. trying to hold back your giggles, you open the window to let in the cat with cinnamon colored fur.

he greets you with a purr, allowing his face to rub against your arm when he jumps down against the hardwood flooring of your room. with brown eyes shining brightly, your silly cat lands on his back while squirming around, showing its belly to you.

"oh, you know i could never resist you!" falling down to your knees for him, you give him the much needed belly rubs you were certain he was craving for. while basking in his gentle meows, you scratch at the bottom of his chin, spending a few more minutes spoiling your favorite cat with your soft and eager pats.

"ah, i almost forgot! i brought your favorite snack!" you move away from your cat momentarily, earning a displeased mrow from him. you hear him huff, sitting on all fours with his ears twitching slightly. with an eagerness, you grabbed the bowl of fresh strawberries off of your desk, placing it on the floor as you held one of the juicy berries for him to take. "alright buddy, remember to eat this in moderation. go on, have some."

letting out a happy meow, your cat steps forward and munches on the strawberry, its teeth biting into the juicy berry all while purring. he ends up devouring the fruit within mere seconds, making you laugh upon seeing his mouth dyed in red.

"you are so cute!" you gush at him, already picking up the precious cat while settling him in your arms. as you were stroking its fur, a knock was heard at your door, revealing your father.

you freeze upon seeing him, feeling anxious at the thought of being punished by him. your parents had told you that keeping pets were a big no-

but you felt hopeful upon seeing your father's gentle expression.

"i'm sorry for coming in so suddenly, but... your laughter was heard throughout the house, and i had to check on you."

you remain silent, allowing your father to come into the room and settle down beside you. he smiles down at the cat, chuckling as it gave him a head tilt of curiosity.

reaching out a hand to pet the cat, your father sighs. "does this cat truly make you this happy?"

you eagerly give him a nod in response. "yes! yuji means the world to me!"

your father sighs while ruffling at your hair. "so you already named him?" he asks while trailing his eyes towards the bowl of strawberries, "well, i guess it's too late to get rid of him now. my mother always told me that once you feed a cat and name them, they're practically yours for life."

you watch him with wide eyes, still holding on to your yuji when you shakily ask him. "c-can i keep him?"

he faces you and gives you a wink, "i'll let your mom know that you'll take care of him." with those final words, he leaves you alone with yuji, basking in the sounds of your happy laughter.

[ yuta okkotsu - a comforting blanket ]

like yuji, yuta would not be much of a rare cat. he's a soft kitty that craves for love and affections. it doesn't take much to satisfy him, and he would make the perfect house pet for anyone that's willing to give him a chance...

you came home from a late shift at work, feeling the exhaustion seeping into your bones as you called out.

"yuta, i'm home!"

you frown when you couldn't hear the sounds of his eager meowing. usually, yuta would greet you with eagerness, grey eyes looking at your with adoration while he rubbed his tabby fur against your legs.

"yuta? yuta!" you end up searching your apartment in a bit of a panic, not stopping as you acted like a madman searching for your pet. you left not a single nook or cranny untouched, even forcing yourself to fall down to your knees to see if he was hiding beneath your couch.

by the end of it all, you were left a bit of a sweating mess, finally going into your room as you called out to him once more.

"yuta! yu-" you finally trail off, looking at your bed as something suspiciously round was seen buried beneath your blanket. a sense of relief was felt coursing through you the moment you land in bed with an audible oomf!

this catches yuta's attention as you could see his form shifting from beneath the blankets before popping his head out to meet with your tired gaze.

mrow?

"you silly booger, don't scare me like that...!" you reach out a hand to scratch at his ears, earning a purr from him.

as if knowing that you were exhausted, yuta comes closer and cuddles you, rubbing his head against your chest before laying next to you. with a happy sigh, you wrap your arms around who had to be the best cat in the entire world.

[ choso - bandages and canned tuna ]

choso would be a rare cat, mainly due to his shy nature and tendency to keep to himself. maybe it's because of how unsettling his eyes appear, but the other cats seem to feel scared around him, often attacking choso for no reason at all than out of self defense.

it was a rainy day when you decided to head out into the convenience store to buy something to eat. you held an umbrella and bag of your favorite foods comfortably within your hands, humming a gentle tune while making your way home.

what you weren't expecting was to see a cat with deep, ebony fur injured at the side of the road. letting out a gasp, you quickly got down on your knees to assess the cat. it was frail, with its body trembling while struggling to take deep breaths. on its side, you saw what looked like deep claw marks that was already oozing with blood.

"oh, you poor thing." the cat hears you, opening its eyes to reveal a startling, violet gaze. mustering all the strength it had, you felt it give your fingertips a gentle lick in response while letting out a weak and meager meow.

"come on, i'm taking you home with me."

not caring about the rain and how the cat's wet fur was staining your clothes, you hang on to the cat tightly while jogging you way back to your apartment.

tossing your umbrella off to the side, you unlock and enter your apartment with the injured cat still in your arms. as you settled him on the linoleum floors of your kitchen, you realized that it was a male cat and decided to help heal him.

for starters, you gently cleaned the claw marks settled on the side of his abdomen, feeling your heart break at the painful meows he was giving you.

"i know i know, it hurts but it's gonna be okay." you coo at the cat with the vivid, violet eyes, grateful that the cut wasn't too deep while carefully bandaging him. with his wound covered, you immediately grabbed two small bowls from your cabinet, filling one of them up with water as you set it in front of the cat.

you watch as his cute little snout sniffs at the bowl, slowly crawling forward before finally taking rapid drinks from it. the sight of the cute cat drinking with such fervor made your heart ache, wondering if no one had ever taken care of him before.

as he was busy drinking, you reach into your bag to pull out a can of tuna. you thought about making a light sandwich, but figured that your cat needed this more than you did. as you popped open the can, you scooped out half of its contents into a bowl before kneeling down once more, offering the morsel to him.

as if smelling the delicious tuna, your cat moves away from the bowl of water and steps closer to the tuna, making you laugh when he seemed to prance towards the bowl.

letting out an eager mrow, you watch as your cat dives into the tuna, letting out purrs whilst he ate, knowing that he felt more than a little content now.

with a smile, you continue watching the cat enjoy his meal, giving him gentle pets while musing to yourself. "i guess it's just you and me now... i wonder what i should name you."

your mind races with a plethora of names, not stopping until a rather unique one falls from your parted lips. "how about choso?"

the moment those syllables were uttered, your cat stops eating, meeting your gaze with a tilt of his head. you smile and coo at him, "do you like that name? choso? my little choso?"

choso ends up letting out a loud and drawn out mroowww in response, completely ignoring his food to come closer and cuddle next to you. with a giggle, you continue to stroke at his deep ebony fur, kissing at his forehead for good measure just to make sure he knew how much you loved him.

a.n. - i got into this super cute game called neko atsume, and i cannot stop 😭😭 playing it made me think of how our jjk boys would be as cats, so it's very silly! i hope you readers enjoy this anyways 🥹

all stories are written by rei; reposts, translations, and plagiarism are not allowed.

[starstruckunknown-princess]

Cornflower - Poe Dameron x Reader

Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) - Meaning: Hope in love

Summary: Your feelings for Poe come to a head after a night of drinking.

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Word Count: 856

Warnings: Angst/Fluff, Alcohol use/slight drunkenness, reader has feminine qualities (wears makeup and a dress) but is otherwise not physically described, use of nicknames (sweetheart, sweetness, starshine), confession of feelings, kissing

Day 18 is for Fluffy endings! Slight angst but ends with fluff.

In Bloom Masterlist

Likes, Comments, Reblogs are ALWAYS appreciated! ❤️

“Maker above, Dameron, what will it take for you to ask me out already?” 

The cantina was mostly empty by now, and your body was buzzing with the alcohol you’d consumed. You’d gotten all dressed up, styled your hair — kriff, you’d even worn makeup in the hopes that after months and months of flirting Poe Dameron would finally ask you out. Dropping hint after hint that night had frayed your nerves and now that it was just the two of you left in the booth, you had snapped. 

Poe’s face looked like you had slapped him, perfect lips parted before setting into a firm line. He scooted back a bit, putting distance between you for the first time all night. 

He sighed, long and hard and your stomach clenched. 

“Look, sweetheart—” he started. 

“Oh, no,” you interrupted, gut falling into your shoes. “Did I misread this? All the flirting, the touches, the lingering glances — it’s all been in my head, right?” 

“No!” Poe said as your panic spiked and you looked around you, ready to bolt. “No, sweetness, it’s not all in your head.”

He put his big hands on your shoulders to keep you from running away. The haze of booze made his grip feel heavier than it actually was, the warmth radiating from his hands was insanely comforting. 

“But I…I can’t right now,” he said, tone laced with regret. 

You tilted your head at him in confusion. “Can’t what, Poe?” 

His dark eyes met yours, brow furrowing to convey the seriousness of his position, “Look, my job right now is to hop in an X-wing and blow things up and in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not the safest of occupations.” 

You nodded gravely, knowing how many good pilots hadn’t come back. 

“So I can’t get into a relationship right now,” he said, trailing his hand down your arm and taking your hand in his. “Because I can’t be the reason someone like you falls apart in case I don’t make it back.” 

Your heart broke for him then. Suddenly, the string of one-night stands and broken hearts left in his wake made sense. All you wanted to do was wrap him in your arms and assure him that you could handle it, you wouldn’t fall apart if he didn’t come back from a mission. 

But that would be a lie. Even with him as a friend, you knew you wouldn’t recover if Poe died in the line of duty. Of course, you knew it was a risk every time he got in his X-wing but that was just a fact of life in the Resistance. You had something bigger you were fighting for. Everyone on base was prepared to die for it. 

What would it take for Poe to live for it? 

With his hand over yours on the table, his thumb absently tracing your knuckles and slowly driving you insane, you couldn’t take it anymore. 

You ripped your hand from under his and slid out of the booth, making a mad dash for the door. You didn’t slow down until you were back in your room, and that’s when you let the tears fall. The alcohol in your system wouldn’t allow for you to put this into any kind of perspective tonight, you knew that, so you resolved to just let yourself cry it out and go to bed. 

Stripping off your dress and getting into your pajamas was a herculean task, but you managed it. Just as you crawled into bed, you heard a knock at your door. 

“Sweetheart?” Poe’s muffled voice came from the other side. “Please let me in.” 

You sighed and shuffled over, punching in the door code to see Poe on the other side, looking like he’d aged ten years in the last fifteen minutes. He came in when you stepped aside. 

“I’m stupid, okay?” he declared, whipping around to face you when you closed the door and leaned against it. “What I said back there, it…I’m just…”

“Scared?” you supplied. He nodded, adam’s apple bobbing when he swallowed. You giggled at his response. “Poe Dameron, hero of the Resistance, ace pilot and bane of the First Order is afraid of little old me?” 

Maybe you were still a little drunk. 

But Poe’s incredulous laugh was worth it. You smiled at each other, moving toward each other like there was some gravitational pull between you. 

“Yeah, starshine,” he said lowly, “I’m terrified of you.”

His hands landed on your waist and yours sought out the warmth of his broad chest, neither of you looking away from the other. You didn’t stop, leaning up on your toes as he leaned down. Your lips met in the middle, and fireworks exploded behind your eyes. Heat flooded you when he deepened the kiss, his strong hand resting on the side of your neck and his thumb tracing along your jaw. 

When the two of you came up for air, he rested his forehead against yours. Breaths mingling, he asked. 

“Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” he breathed out and you couldn’t resist teasing him. 

“I’ll think about it.”

[seriousfic]

Having recently hate-watched The Flash and then more recently watched Sonic The Hedgehog 3, I was kinda fascinated by the difference in quality. The Flash is a bizarre and off-putting watch; Sonic is a shockingly well-written and executed movie. So I wanted to compare and contrast:

Sonic's setpieces always focus on his speed. Flash's setpieces continuously sideline the Flash so they can focus on Batman or Supergirl.

Pretty simple here. Sonic has superspeed. When he gets into a fight, it's while speeding through Tokyo or going so fast that he and his opponent go into different time zones with each exchange.

The Flash... not so much. There's an opening scene that is pretty much a naked rip-off of the Quicksilver scenes from X-Men (hero goes so fast that everything is motionless, so he saves everyone in danger at whimsical leisure) except without the charm or humor. (Why are you joking about infants dying? Even if they're saved, most people don't want to contemplate babies being horribly killed! Especially not when they're horrible CGI.)

I get that it's hard to do action scenes with a character who can basically spend an hour doing whatever he wants before the other characters make their first movie--but it's a Flash movie. You should figure this out, not depower the Flash so you can do more conventional action scenes with Batman riding a motorcycle and Supergirl punching people really hard. You don't see Superman movies where Clark loses his powers so he spends the whole movie getting into John Wick gunfights.

Bizarrely, they've removed Reverse Flash from the narrative entirely, then introduced an entirely different 'Evil Flash' character... who doesn't even get into a proper fight with Barry, he just has a brief scuffle before accidentally erasing himself from existence.

2. I think there are actually less jokes in Sonic 3 than there are in The Flash.

The Flash is about a man who wants to save his murdered mom and spare his father a decades-long unjust imprisonment. He fails at this and has to accept that his mother is dead and he can't get back the years his dad spent in jail.

Seems like a pretty dark story, right? Probably have a tone that's pretty solemn? The material cries out for a treatment that's moody, even cynical, because the hero doesn't win at the end. His 'victory' is admitting that he can't fight fate.

Sounds depressing, I know. Which is maybe something you should think about before you make a movie out of these particular comics, even if they do give you a chance to include a super-nostalgic Michael Keaton ('member Batman? I 'member!)

But someone at DC wanted to make a happy, lighthearted, super-fun movie out of a guy who's so obsessed with his dead mom that he destroys the universe (having erased all his friends in the Justice League from the timelime, Barry spends a lot of time going "well, sucks to be them" and just trying to utilitarianily replace them with Supergirl to stop an alien invasion. Our hero, ladies and gents).

So every scene in The Flash is jokey, smirky, pandering, in-your-face. Ezra Miller turns in a performance worthy of Jerry Lewis as he capers and trips and mugs and pratfalls and stutters and simpers in every last scene! They even introduce a second Ezra Miller who theater-kids still harder!

It's like the movie cannot be serious for one minute; even in the climax, they're doing 'crowd-pleasing' cameos from CGI Nic Cage. It's the equivalent of those jokes where they add stim videos and Subway Surfers to classic movies so that Tiktok viewers don't get bored.

Sonic 3 is a children's movie and it still manages to shut up once in a while and take itself seriously.

Some of the subplots and their payoffs are honestly affecting. It's not that it doesn't have sense of humor about itself. It's just that it knows a movie can't be all empty calories and have any staying power. It has to slow down and treat the characters as real people now and then, not just joke dispensers or action figures.

[a-not-so-clean-blog]

Nu carnival x ftm period

Mentions of blood, general pain, dysphoria, and drugs

♦️Garu, Aster, Morvay

Yakumo

Boy is comforting by nature and he will do anything in his power to make you feel better. Warm soup, mint tea, any kind of comfort food; he'll make it all for you. If he needs to he will even fight the awkwardness and ask his grandma for advice on how to make “someone” on their period feel better. He knows better than to out you to anybody, even to the people he trusts most. He just wants you to feel better.

Edmond

He's going to need some help. He heard that people like chocolate when this happens so he gets you expensive chocolate confections from your favorite bakery. If he's not too busy he might make some with you. Quality time is important to him and he wants you to know he's here to support you even if he's too awkward to express it with words. He will make time to try and comfort you as much as he can but it will be in all non verbal ways.

Olivine

He will pray for your recovery. He sympathizes with you, he understands how much his essence imbalance hurts him so it makes sense that your hormone imbalance hurts you. It hurts him seeing you so uncomfortable and him not being able to help. He really doesn't want to leave you alone and it hurts him when he can't be by you to help. Even if it's simply grabbing something for you he wants to take as much of your burden as he can.

Quincy

Quincy is big and I think he's very warm too, especially his right hand because of the gem. He cuddles up to you and uses himself as a hot water bottle. Resting his hand on your stomach and letting you use him as a pillow. If you have any kind of mood shifts he takes it in stride. It kind of reminds him of dealing with a cat; wanting pets one moment and biting his hand the next. It doesn't bother him much though and it's nice having a grounding personality like his around while you wait out the pain. He probably offers some natural pain killers if it gets bad.

Kuya

He has a herb that he gives you to help. You don't know what the plant is but it helps. All the pain and discomfort are gone but it makes you feel weird in the head. You've tried finding the plant but no book or even Quincy knows what it is. Kuya just tells you not to worry about it and enjoy not being in pain. You should probably be more weary of him but the herb works so well that you can't really say no.

Blade

He freaks out when you tell him you're bleeding. He thinks you're injured and immediately goes into protection mode. You have to explain it happens to some guys monthly. That's satisfactory for his curiosity for now. It's best to just tell him what helps you manage pain. If you don't he will take the initiative to look up what will help…and he will want you to try the weirdest home remedies. So unless you want him asking you to put a frozen potato wedge cover in sesame oil in your underwear, I suggest being open with him very early. It's so hard to say no to his puppy eyes when he's just trying to help.

Garu

This gets a little weird so continue with caution. He smells it right before you start bleeding and it scares him the first time. It hurts your heart to have him look at you so worried for a week. You know he's just concerned but honestly it doesn't help the dysphoria at all.

Karu

He is confused. Normally if something is causing you pain he just breaks it. Like when you stubbed your toe on the table, no more table no more problem. However he can't just rip your guts out, that would just make more of a problem. He tends to keep his distance unless you give him a specific task, once the task is over he's going back to keeping his distance though.

Dante

He is no help. Honestly he has no idea what to do. Normally the guys he's around only bleed when they are stabbed, but at least he knows how to dress a stab wound. This however, is out of his league. When this time starts he will assign a personal assistant to you to help. They have full permission to get you literally anything you need. Dante doesn't want to know about periods and assumes you don't want anyone to know about yours either, so your assistant is also sworn to secrecy.

Rei

No help in the beginning. I don't think he's been around many AFAB people so you are going to be his first reference point. After this happens a few times though he actually figures out the best ways to help you. He will learn what makes you feel better in terms of painkillers vs muscle relaxers, he learns if any foods make you feel worse and avoids them. Yeah he treats it like an experiment but as long as it helps in the long run he doesn't think it matters. Also he memorized all the early signs and is fully prepared for when it actually starts. I'm not sure how skilled he is with a scalpel (or if you can trust him with a scalpel) but he may offer to remove the problem if you want.

Eiden

I think he's the only one on this list who truly understands how much this week triggers your dysphoria. He will do anything he can help physically, but he is also extra protective of your masculinity during this time. He will literally fight anyone who misgenders you, and makes sure to give you lots of compliments. “Y’know most guys can't handle pain as well as you do. I've even seen knights cry at the sight of a paper cut haha!” He's very proud of you and will make sure you know just how manly you are.

Aster

Also kinda nasty so read at your own risk…. “Free meal”. He uh, gets pretty excited when it happens. He tells you stuff like “you look so handsome today~” and other masc compliments but it's all a ploy to get in your pants. Honestly he's more pushy than Morvay is when you're bleeding. It's just that the constant smell of your blood is impossible for him to ignore. He helps with pain management but is really only invested in the clean up.

Morvay

He heard an orgasm helps with cramps… this is the only thing he will do to help, but being a service bottom he does it so well. He will bring you food in bed, let you eat, make you cum till you can't see straight and pass you, rinse and repeat for a week. He gets so pouty if you leave because “doctor Morvay” just wants to make you feel better.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

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

[b33zlebubz]

RIGOR MORTIS | CHAPTER THREE

SIMON RILEY X AFAB READER | MASTERLIST | AO3 PREV CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER TAGS: reader uses she/her pronouns, blood violence & death, suicidal ideology, slow burn, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, toxic workplace environment “Abandoned in a battlefield with the one person you thought you would never see again; you're forced to come to terms with the ghosts of your past."

MONDAY APRIL 22ND 2024  MEXICO, 2200 HOURS

Your camp is the cabin of a wrecked SUV.

You're not sure what did it, yet; what wrecked the car and left the side of it charred.  Air strike, landmine, a very high-quality grenade launcher…you don’t really care what specifically, you just know that it's supplies and shelter.  It's lodged into the mud on the side of a dug-out, having crashed some time after the battle turned sour.  The rain has cooled the metal over the course of the past day leaving the back somewhat intact.  One of two of what must be the soldiers that drove it are now laying in the ditch; shot from the front window during the wreck, you imagine, charred and dead.  Their uniforms and helmets suggest they’re part of your battalion, but you try not to think about it.

It makes a decent shelter; dry and shielded from the rain that still pelts against your helmet.  The inside stinks of gunpowder and ash as you usher Ghost into the back and he collapses against a supply crate pressed in a corner.  He grunts, breath quick and heavy against the soaked cloth of his mask as his head falls back against the container.  First aid training kicks in and you’re listening for any sign of a punctured lung or liquid in his lungs.  

"We gotta get that mask off," you huff, helping him fumble with the straps to his helmet.  With the adrenaline fading, your own voice sounds muffled to you, the product of damaged eardrums.  "You're waterboarding yourself."

He lets out something that might be a humorless chuckle, his eyes closed as he juts his chin up.  His hands are clumsy and useless as they pull at the strap.   "Wouldn't be my first time, sergeant."

"Colonel."

You lift his helmet off and he blinks at you blearily, "what?"

"It's Colonel, now," you say, taking off your own helmet and tossing it aside.  Your hair free from the heavy armor, it sticks to your face in wet clumps.  "A lot can change in eight years."

You could be imagining it, but you swear you see a flicker of hurt in his eyes before he grimaces, his neck lulling before you catch his head.

Ghost strains, his breathing growing labored.  Still, he finds the energy to smile through the rip in his mask, and a rivulet of blood flows from the side of his cheek and into his mouth.  

"Knew you could do it, love," he slurs.

You hate how your heart twists with fondness that still lingers, and it tastes like copper and bile when you swallow it back.

"Never doubted it," you say, words softer.  You pat the side of his face and he grunts.  "Stay awake.  I don't know how bad you're hurt yet."

Your hands grasp at the torn edge of his soaked balaclava.

You watch his eyes flicker through water and blood.  Dark brown irises with uneven pupils glance down at your hands through lazy eyelids, and then up at you—but he doesn't resist like you imagined he would.  Instead, he can only manage a heavy swallow and a resigned nod.

He hisses as you lift the fabric away from his head as carefully as you can.  A five o'clock shadow crisscrossed with scars greets you before a broken nose on a ghostly-pale, angular face.  Sandy hair is cropped short, dark with blood that cakes high on his temple.  

If it were another situation—another time—you think, maybe, you would've stopped to marvel at him.  Commit the facial features you had once wondered about so much to memory while you traced the sharp curves of his face with a gentle finger.  Instead, you can only focus on how your injured hand fumbles with the first-aid kit on your vest—pulling out a sterile cloth that you press to his injury.

"Fuck," you hiss.

"I'll live," he breathes, closing his eyes again.  He places a hand over yours, applying more pressure that's weak, but still more than you can manage at the moment.  "Looks worse than it is.  Head wounds always do.  Just keep your hand there."

"Yes, sir," you mutter, falling back on old formalities as your bloody hand quivers against his face.  He squeezes it before his grip loosens, and his head lulls again.  You grab him by the chin.

"Ghost.  Don't."

His eyes flicker open again briefly before they sink shut once more.  When he doesn't reply, a flicker of panic sparks in your chest.

"Stay with me, Lieutenant," you pat his face again, trying to keep him awake.  "Ghost?"

"You," he whispers, his voice barely a breath against your face.  “We’ve met before…yeah?"

You swallow thickly.

"Angel," you tell him.  "It's…it’s Angel, Ghost.  It's me."

"Angel," he repeats with all the softness eight years of distance, blood, war, and anger can muster—and the idiot is still smiling as his hand slides off of yours, leaving a bloody handprint in its wake.  "'Missed you."

Panic ebbs at your mind, and you grab his arm as you get in his face.

"Ghost don't fucking fall asleep, you hear me?"  Disparity makes your voice crack, "Don't fucking leave me here."

No response.  You shake his shoulder.

"Ghost," you beg.  "Simon!"

His head lulls against his chest as his eyes sink shut, and your breath catches in your throat.  Slowly, you remove your hands, backing up against the side of the van.  You sink against the opposite wall.  Unable to catch your breath, your heartbeat thuds in your ears.  The sound is backed with the static of rain that still pours down around you and Ghost's unconscious breathing while thunder rumbles distantly across the sky above, mocking you.

You're left, once again, with only the corpses of your dead squad outside to keep you company.

[obxsummer]

Lean on Me // JJ Maybank

pairing: jj maybank x neutral!reader

summary: as much as you love being the go-to person for your friends, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. all it takes is a shitty week and an argument with your boyfriend for your strong exterior to break.

warnings: angst, arguments, brief wound description

a/n: i lowkey hate this bc it didn’t turn out how i intended but whatever. enjoy!

navigation

--

The Outer Banks was lucky to have you. That’s what JJ would say within a heartbeat. He knew there were a lot of deserving people amongst his friends, but man, you were way too good for the Pogue life. He owed you so much in the year and a half that the two of you had been dating. You were his rock against all odds, between his shitty dad and the raising anxiety in his chest after almost losing John B, you kept him grounded.

JJ loved watching you interact with your friends at the current kegger on the beach. You were so gentle and weaved your way along them them like it was second nature. The smile on your face was addicting, you seemed so carefree under the glow of the bonfire. The summer air, warm on your bare skin.

“Hey there, handsome.” You plopped on the log next to JJ, elbow nudging him gently as you made yourself comfortable. “You okay?”

JJ could really only force a nod and pushed a smile onto his face. He leaned close to press a kiss on your temple and let his arm fall around you shoulders. “Just love you, a lot.”

You were a little shocked at his outward affection but smiled nonetheless. “Love you too. A lot.”

--

You fell into a caregiver role naturally. Growing up, you had to learn how to take care of yourself first and foremost and when you did enough of that, you went for those around you. The broken bits of your upbringing reinforced your selflessness but increased a lot of anxiety and stress at a young age. You tried to never let it get to you, and if it ever did, you handled it in private.

Your friends adored you in every way possible. You were always there when they needed you - a reassuring rock to lean on at any moment. You were the best listener and always gave such great advice and the best hugs. Your overall presence could comfort a room without any words. They were internally grateful for everything you did.

It was very rare the Pogues saw you lose your cool, but in all honesty, this week was creeping up on you. Tensions were on the rise with the investigation of the Cross of Santo Domingo, and as much as you loved your friends, you were growing exhausted. You missed the way life was before the gold, when you would all just mess around without any worry while doing stupid teenager things. Your anxiety was growing and it felt like you would break at any sudden noise. You knew you needed some space, maybe a good cry if it came to it, but there was a lot going on right now.

“Y/N, hey!” John B came barrelling through the door with a burst of energy. You winced at the loud noise but forced a smile regardless.  “Are you able to make a quick grocery run really quick? You can take the Twinkie. We just need some basics.”

You had just settled down on the couch and wanted nothing more than to lay there in silence. “Yeah, yeah sure!” Pushing yourself off the couch, you grabbed your own keys from the table, opting to just drive yourself in hopes that it would lessen your stress. “Just text me a list!”

The day didn’t seem to ease up as the grocery store was packed, not to mention one of the bags ripped and spilled chips and yogurt across the parking lot. You managed to keep it cool until you were back in the safety of your car, letting a few tears slip before taking a deep breath and moving on.

After loading everything into John B’s kitchen, you set to work prepping dinner knowing everyone could use a home cooked meal and some quality time together. Shoving a pack of beers and a few wine coolers into the fridge for later, you decided spaghetti and meatballs sounded entertaining enough. Putting a pot of water on for the noodles, you managed to find some garlic bread in the freezer to heat up too.

The chaotic noise of your friends soon filled the room, lots of laughing and conversation filling the suffocating silence. “There you are!” JJ’s voice overtook the others as he came sliding towards you. You smiled at the motion, letting him wrap his arms around you as you stirred the noodles ahead of you.

“Hi,” You murmured, leaning back against him in comfort for a second to press a kiss on his lips before he disappeared right after. The beer was soon discovered, Sarah grabbing a seltzer and kissing your cheek in thanks before joining the rest of the crew on the patio. 

Normally, you didn’t mind them having fun while you busied yourself with something for them. It just felt like the pressure in your chest was building and you didn’t know how to slow it down.

Opting for a cup of water in hopes that it would help, you started grabbing dishes from the cabinets. One of the glass cups slipped past your fingers, a sharp gasp escaping your lips as it shattered against the worn hardwood floor. You stepped back in shock and managed to land right on a shard of broken glass, slicing through the skin of your foot in a second.

“Shit!” Being a bit more cautious, you avoided as much glass as possible and grabbed a wet paper towel to handle your foot. Admitting defeat, you sat on the ground and tried to slow the bleeding.

“Hey, babe? Food ready?” JJ slammed the screen shut behind him as he entered the room. Eyes scanned the room for a moment before he realized you weren’t in the kitchen. “Babe?”

You winced at the harsh cut in your skin and put pressure on it. “Down here.” JJ’s face came into view seconds later, taking in the scene of you on the floor.

“Hi, hey.” He carefully avoided the glass, although his boots could withstand some damage, and made his way over to you. “Let me grab something.” He returned shortly after with a hodgepodge of supplies from John B’s cabinet in hopes that some of it would work.

You took some peroxide and gauze from him before cleaning the scrape. “Thanks, J.”

JJ busied himself with cleaning up the broken glass while you did your best to stop the bleeding. He watched you for a moment, concerned about your lack of reaction. “Are you okay?”

You nodded, refusing to look at him because you knew you were holding on by a thread. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault and you felt bad for making them think that - if they even did. Grabbing some gauze, you laid it across the scrape before wrapping your foot and taping it off as a temporary fix. “Dinner’s almost ready if you want to get everyone.”

Everything seemed to move smoothly. Dinner was great, all of you laughing and joking around with some delicious food. The summer air was warm and the sound of crickets chirping was calming. You had hopes that this was just a momentary flicker of weakness and you’d be fine before bed tonight.

Sarah joined you in the kitchen to tackle cleaning dishes. “So, Y/N… are you joining Kie and I for our vacation weekend whenever life blows over?”

A question you’d heard many times before. Kie and Sarah had been joking for a while now about a getaway weekend since all the three of you did was spend time with your significant others. Of course, it was always pushed back for the chaos of your lives and would probably never happen, but it was a comforting question nonetheless.

You laughed in response, nudging her gently as soap splashed from the sink. “You know I’d be there in a heartbeat, Miss Cameron.”

“What trip?”

You turned to glance at JJ, the smile not leaving your face as you stacked the plate in the strainer. “Nothing. We’re just joking.”

JJ obviously had lost his fun mood and stared at you with an incredulous face. “You’re going on a trip out of OBX? When?”

Tossing the towel on the counter, you moved to fully face JJ. “J, I’m serious, we’re just-” You didn’t get a chance to explain before someone interrupted you.

“You’re leaving?” John B’s voice came in next, looking at his girlfriend with a goofy smile. “Do I finally get a weekend to myself?”

You shook your head aggressively, not suspecting the sudden third degree. “No, we’re not leaving and no, you don’t get a weekend to yourself. JJ, what’s going on?”

You didn’t know what had been set off in him, but this was not the same JJ that pulled you into his side five minutes ago and held you like no other. JJ aggressively ran his hands through his hair. “I just don’t understand why you’re hiding things from me.”

“Excuse me?” Your shoulders tensed at the tone of his voice, knowing this wasn’t going to end well. “I’m not hiding anything!”

JJ tossed his hand out. “First, you won’t tell me what’s wrong and now you’re jumping on vacation when we have some serious shit going on here? What the hell, Y/N.”

“JJ, nothing’s wrong! And we aren’t going right now, John B and Sarah literally just got back and we have the cross to look for.” You put your hands on your hips. “Why are you starting an argument with me over a joke? That’s so unlike you.”

“Yeah, well maybe you don’t know me!” His voice rattled around you. Your friends were quick to seclude to the pullout and create their own conversation to give you space. “You’re so busy fucking taking care of everyone else that I barely see you anymore, and when I do, you barely talk to me!”

Shaking your head you didn’t break eye contact with him. You had no idea where this change of heart was coming from, but you were already on a thin sheet of ice today and knew you couldn’t argue with him all night. “JJ, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here literally-”

“I’m talking about the fact that you’re not here for me. If you’re going to leave me, Y/N, just fucking do it. Rip the bandaid off. I don’t need you to linger and make it hurt worse.”

“You know what JJ… you’re right.” You folded your arms across your chest as tears burned in your eyes. You weren’t fighting over this, not with him. “You’re right. Don’t know why I even bothered. Sorry for trying.”

You left the words in the air and brushed past him, trying your best to walk on your injury. A heavy sob broke rattled through you as soon as you made it out of the Chateau. Your chest burned with pressure, unable to let enough emotions out at one time. You needed to stop doing this.

Climbing in the car, you slammed the door shut and immediately curled into yourself. You tried so hard to keep everyone happy. You did everything you could to keep your friends, your family together as much as possible. Always putting everyone first, never saying no if you could help it. Everything you did was for everyone else and it still wasn’t enough. You wouldn’t ever be enough.

Back in the Chateau, JJ knew he fucked up. When the screen door slammed shut behind you, he let out a loud groan and slammed his head against the counter. “Okay,” Kie was up in a second and pulled him away from the possibility of sharp objects. “Let’s not give yourself a concussion now.”

“I fucked up,” JJ whispered as he dropped to the floor and covered his face with his hands. “I fucked up so bad.”

Pope let out a scoff. “Really? I didn’t think so,” He answered sarcastically. “Seemed like such a loving conversation.”

JJ didn’t have the energy to glare at his friend. “I just… Dad got in my head earlier and I totally just reacted instead of talking it out.” He knew he shouldn’t have stopped at the house, but he knew even more to never listen to what his dad had to say about him.

“You don’t need to tell us,” Sarah tried to guide him as best as possible. “I’ve never seen Y/N that close to tears, in all honesty.”

JJ pulled himself off the ground and peeked out the window to see your headlights still shining across the grass. He surprisingly avoided eating shit on the rug and took off outside, scrambling to talk to you.

Your vision was blurry as you tried to blink tears from your eyes. You couldn’t even bring yourself to drive home, knowing it would be too difficult with everything going on right now. The whole argument was more dramatic than you intended for it to be, and maybe if you weren’t already upset, you would’ve just walked away instead of yelling back.

Your car door was suddenly ripped open as you flinched away in shock. JJ’s form appeared a second later, his heart dropping at the sight of you so upset. He took a moment, observing the rapid movement of your chest and your tear-stained cheeks. He could curse himself a million times over for doing this to you.

“Babe, you gotta breathe,” JJ’s voice was gentle as he moved your seat back so he could get closer. He knew the telltale signs of a panic attack a little too well.

You let your head relax against the headrest and forced yourself to take a deep breath. It was shaky, but it was enough to start calming your racing head down. When you were young, you were taught to never show weakness in front of anyone, no matter how bad it got. You hated that JJ was seeing you like this…vulnerable, weak.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Tears of his own were building in his eyes. He hated to see you in any pain, but knowing he was the cause of it was even worse. He rarely ever saw you cry. “I saw my dad earlier a-and I took it out on you what he said… Y/N, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Your voice cracked as you looked away from him in an attempt to break eye-contact.

JJ’s fingers were gentle as they turned your gaze back on him. “No, it’s not. What I said in there, it’s not true. You do so much. For me, for our friends. We don’t deserve you, not one bit. You never expect a thank you, never ask for anything. I am so grateful, I’m so so lucky, to have you in my life. Don’t ever think differently, please. Even if it comes out of my own mouth. We all know I can be pretty dumb every now and then.”

“Don’t say that,” You whispered. You hated when he talked down on himself like that.

“See, proving my point. I hurt your feelings and you’re still being nice to me even if I don’t deserve it,” He countered. JJ reached over to turn your car off and took your hand to guide you out. “Come on, let’s get some ice cream and I’ll make it up to you.”

Sniffling, you climbed out with his help and let him close the door behind you before wrapping you into a hug. Another shaky breath escaped your lips as you clung to him, letting him hold you tightly until you could catch your breath and calm down fully. You were so grateful for JJ and his bubbly energy. Sometimes, it was hard to keep up with their busy lifestyle but you wouldn’t change it for the world. As long as you had your chaotic boyfriend with you at the end of the day, everything would be fine.

--

navigation

[ghost-bxrd]

hope you feel better soon wrote some haapy batfam i hope will cheer you up..

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"This is going to be the best prank in the history of pranks." Wally snickered, watching Dick pour out the windex from the bottle. "I know, I know. You have to stay hidden while you record it though. I don't want B to see you." Once all the windex was out, Dick started filling the bottle with water and then pouring it out, making sure it was really clean. "He's going to get so mad, you know that right?" Wallu was fiddling with the video camera he found. It got way better quality videos than any other regular camera, so when wally and Dick would watch back the footage after, it would be more like a movie.

"Yeah, I know. But, it'll be so worth it in the end. Okay, we're ready!" Dick exclaimed after pouring in the blue Gatorade. Wally was literally vibrating with excitement as he followed Dick into the Cave. Bruce would be back in about 5 minutes, and he had told Dick to wait in the cave for him so they could work on a suit upgrade. Wally raced to hide behind one of the unfinished suits turning on the video camera and trying to hold in his laughter. Dick took out his phone and scrolled through Tumblr, liking about every post complimenting Nightwing. Bruce strolled in casually, wearing a very formal suit and black sunglasses. Hed just arriced from dealing with bruce wayne things "Ready to get to work?" He asked, pulling the sunglasses off to look Dick in the eyes. "Sure, lemme just get a quick drink." Dick murmured, and Bruce waited patiently as Dick walked over to the workbench where there was the windex bottle.

Wally was almost choking on his muffled laughter, trying to hold the camera straight. Dick unscrewed the top of the bottle, and Bruce tilted his head to the side, obviously confused. Dick tilted the bottle back and drank the Gatorade, successfully hiding his large smile.

A moment passed.

Bruce lunged at Dick and almost knocked the bottle out of his hands. "Dick That's poisonous! You know that" Bruce was rightfully horrified, attempting to grab the bottle away. Dick was pulling it back, and managed to get another sip in. "Dick, STOP! What  is wrong with you? Did you get gassed... mind controlled?" Bruce was trying his best to analyse but it was getting a little hard to stop his voice was from shaking. Was the kid TRYING to kill himself? He tried to channel his batman persona but a situation like this called for bruce the dad not batman the knight.

"It's good!" Dick pointed out, taking another sip of it. Bruce ripped the bottle out of his hands and poured it all on the floor, not even caring about the mess. Alfred could clean it up later. Why had dick done thia? Out of all his children hed expect eithier tim or Jason to be the one to deliberarley injest poision not Dick. "Dick! We have to get you to the Medbay now! I cannot believe you just did that. We have to get your stomach pumped, and you must be drunk or something to think that Windex is able to be consumed by humans." Bruce or was it batman growled, pulling Dick toward the door before Wally burst out laughing, and so did Dick "O-Oh my god, I cannot! That was so much better than even I could imagine!" Wally choked out between laughs, and Dick was rolling on the floor laughing. What is going on?" Bruce demanded That only made him laugh harder and Wally stopped filming, setting the camera on the workbench. "It was a prank, old man! There's Gatorade in the bottle, not Windex." Dick explained, motioning to the spilled liquid on the floor. That was when it made sense.

Dick recieved the infamout Batglare.

Dick stood up and sat on the couch, hiccupping with laughter still. Wally sat beside him and they high fived, laughing. "You're going to give me gray hairs. Im telling Alfred"

"Sorry, B but it was just too funny of an idea to pass up." Dick had stopped laughing, but still had a bright smile on his face. 

"No Cereal for a Month Master Dick" Alfred announced from upstairs.

Dick looked horrified.

Wally started laughing again, and fell off the couch.

Omg yesssss peak humor!!! Unfounded fears and gremlin Robin!!!! This made me grin so hard thank you so much 💚💚💚💚

I can just see Bruce’s “no thoughts, head empty” look when he sees Dick drink the windex. And then scene computes. And he’s like that terrified pet owner who just saw his beloved companion swallow plastic and is just trying to pry his jaw open, yelling “WHATCHA GOT IN YOUR MOUTH!?” And “SPIT IT OUT RIGHT NOW!!!!”

Bruce totally has five more gray hairs after this ordeal 😭🤣

[blues824]

Talking about the uppermoons how would they react to the female Solomon reader.

🧙‍♀️Learning that a human has cured ubuyashiki and later on muzan learning that it was not just a regular human but a human that has reatched his goal in life to become immortal and learning that she was born around 1000 bc and is one of the strongest sorcerers in the world.

✨How pissd of whoud they bet that a regular human became immortal on accident because of her shitty food when they though she did it on purpose but later on find out it she became immortal on accident.

🧙‍♀️Them later on finding out that she used to be married to yoriichi and that her even had the pact of Solomon (and kokushibo not knowing about it and being angry that his younger brother outdid him by being married with the most powerful soreror )

✨And her helping the demon slayers ever since and now has resurfaced and is helping the hashira and ubuyashiki again .

🧙‍♀️Them learning that the used to be royalty with a 1000 lovers and wives learning that they library of Solomon holds books that can destroy the world that only she can enter because of her magic.

✨Imagen them kidnapping her and hers summenig her 72 demon and telporting away and later on telling the demon slayers and ubuyashiki about the location of the infinity castle.

🧙‍♀️The uppermoons and muzan learning that she has pacts with demons that are way stronger than them and don't eat human flesh but their soul.

Does not include Hantengu or any of his other personas. Sorry, but it’s too much. I did include Gyokko and Nakime, tho.

Muzan Kibutsuji

He knew you existed, and for years he had been searching for you. After all, you were the wife of one of his greatest enemies, as well as an incredibly powerful ally to the Demon Slayer Corps. Not just that, but you were immortal and could roam the earth. You also cured Kagaya Ubuyashiki, so it was no wonder he wanted to see where you got your magic from.

However, when he did manage to somehow kidnap you, you didn’t do anything to demonstrate your power. In fact, you just sat there as you teased about how he was just so angry that he couldn’t conquer the Sun while you had 1000 spouses since he had become a demon. You could even destroy all of demonkind with just a whisper of an incantation, you further pissed him off by saying this.

Eventually, you got a bit tired and you knew that the demon slayers were struggling trying to get you back, so you activated each and every demon pact you had and proceeded to beat his ass and stomp it into the ground. As he laid there, battered and bruised, you stated how sorry you were for the diseases he had in his life and how they led to the decline of his quality of both life and demon-life.

Kokushibo

He was very angry that his brother managed to outdo him once again, but this time in picking a spouse. You were a legend all over the world, with powers unmatched and immortality, along with being able to roam about in the Sun, his brother won the jackpot. But, as furious as he is, he follows Muzan’s order to keep you alive.

The Rip-Off Michael Jackson himself had put everyone on shifts to look out after you and make sure that you weren’t up to deep shit. But, Kokushibo was aware that you would try to use his brother against him. What he didn’t expect was for you to say ‘I dreamed of meeting you, based on the wonderful things Yoriichi had told me about you. At least his wish was granted’.

This threw him for a loop as he just stared at you in shock. You took the chance to summon the 72 demons you had pacts with and quickly made an escape. As strong as your brother-in-law was, he stood no chance against the demons you associate yourself with. In addition to that, the demon slayers that were trying to get you back got assistance from a different kind of demon.

Douma

This man was not opposed to being assigned a shift of watching over you. In fact, he was very excited. But once he walked into the room with a smile, you (with a matching smile) told him to drop the cheery exterior and show his real self. Well, you didn’t have to be such a mood killer, now did you? He asked, after ditching the fake ass smile.

To be fair, while you were being held captive, you got to read Douma for who he really was. You were aware that he was idolized as a child for his eyes, and you were also aware that he was leading people to a false paradise that he didn’t even believe in. However, you knew that it was real, and that it was the Celestial Realm. You didn’t think it would be worth arguing with him, as it was his belief.

However, you drew the line when he said that it was sad how you didn’t make your husband immortal as well, and that it must have been because you were selfish. You let your emotions get the better of you, as this was a matter concerning the man you loved. Thus, Douma was trampled by the 72 infinitely stronger demons. Not completely dead, but he did not recover fast enough to stop you from making your escape.

Akaza

He wanted to challenge you to a fight to see if you were strong, but Muzan had ordered him not to. Unfortunately, for his shift, he was paired up with Kokushibo… the goody-two-shoes who always followed the rules. But, upon entering the room where you were tied to a chair, you said ‘I wish I could have been there. I could have healed your father, and your wife’.

This stopped the Uppermoon in his tracks, as there was no way you could have known about his life when he was a human. To be fair, you were a powerful sorceress, but to have this amount of power over him with just words. His partner didn’t have much mercy taken upon him either, and he knew that this would be a struggle.

At some point in the night, you sensed that the demon slayers were struggling due to a spell you had set in place, and you summoned the 72 demons you had on standby to pummel the two into the ground. You needed to escape, and you were aware that you wouldn’t be able to recite a spell quickly enough. You had to admit that you did feel bad for just layering on more pain, but to be fair, you were the one who was kidnapped first.

Gyokko

To say that he wasn’t excited to be ‘babysitting’ you would be the understatement of both his and your immortal lives. However, you weren’t exactly happy to be here either. Whenever you would attempt any form of small talk, he would bark at you to keep quiet and tell you that he was only here because the master had ordered him to be.

But, you were able to see into his human life, and you had to admit that he had been pretty fucked up as a kid. The villagers didn’t help either. You, in a moment of quiet, whispered that ‘an interest and fascination with the dead after seeing your parents’ corpses isn’t unusual’. This caught Gyokko’s attention, as he was constantly ostracized for his peculiar and even mortifying interest.

However, this little dance of trying to understand him was getting too tiring, so you summoned your 72 strong-as-hell demons and broke out of the restraints. It was saddening, as you wished to know his entire story and how you could help him reach the Celestial Realm. But, it was no longer your concern. What was your concern was making sure that the demon slayers didn’t die for you.

Nakime

Upon meeting her, you knew that this would be a rather boring night. Her responses to any questions you asked were kept brief and to-the-point, not wanting to let you receive any more information than what Muzan deemed necessary. Plus, there was danger in you knowing more than you needed to know.

But, you were the most powerful sorceress in the world, and you already knew more information than was given to you. You even said that you thought her music was beautiful, but that her husband was shitty. Her hands stopped one one of the strings on her biwa, surprised at what you had said.

When you felt some of the demon slayers you had a personal connection to shout your name with the spell you had once given to your husband to seal away, you knew that it was time to wrap up the show. You ordered your demons to not kill Nakime, as you knew that it would disrupt the fate planned out for her, but they left her incapacitated enough for you to escape and help the demon slayers.

Daki 

So, she also wasn’t exactly pleased to be put on a shift. After all, the master was showing clear favoritism towards you. She wasn’t able to lay a single finger upon a single strand of hair on your head. But, she didn’t want to anger Muzan, and thus followed his order. However, she did not indulge in any small talk.

‘You are fortunate to have your brother, but it’s disheartening to know how you have struggled in life and in your current afterlife’. This caused Daki to do a double take, as she knew that there was no way you could have known about her human life. She had to recompose herself so that you wouldn’t be able to see her as vulnerable.

As the night went on, you suddenly got a chill down your spine: a demon slayer had been killed. You summoned all 72 demons and ordered an attack to get you out, and you broke out of the restraints. It was all a whirlwind, but you used your magic to make it an easier escape. You were very angry, to say the least.

Gyutaro

Another person who is not excited to be watching over you, but he had received a warning from his sister that you would try to manipulate him by telling him that you were saddened by his human life. So, he went in expecting it, but you didn’t say anything. Instead, you just watched him as he took a seat in front of you.

What you did say was, ‘You regret being a bad influence to your sister. Don’t be. You taught her to be strong and resilient, and I saw that during her shift.’ Well, you just hit close to home, didn’t you? Gyutaro didn’t really know what to say in response, so he just stayed quiet. However, he saw that you were very graceful and very tender, but he tried not to let his guard down.

Eventually, you got the all too familiar shiver down your spine, and you knew that it was time to leave and help the demon slayers. You summoned your demons, and you were sad that Gyutaro was fighting his hardest while the 72 demons on your side were barely giving their ten percent.