#they’re all in order with their companies

[animeangelriku]

one piece au where instead of doflamingo killing rosinante on minion island, law gets out of the chest and vows to become the third corazón as long as doflamingo spares his brother. they’re both taken back into the family, with rosinante as a prisoner and with law continuing his training for his future role as doflamingo’s right hand man.

after they get to dressrosa and doflamingo takes over, viola meets law and realizes they’re both in the same boat, working for someone they despise in order to keep their loved ones safe, so they become, if not friends, at least allies. law takes any chance he can get to sneak away to rosinante’s cell and spend time with him, just being in his company. rosinante obviously clings to any moment with law he can have, but he warns law to be careful. if doflamingo finds out, they could both be in serious trouble.

meanwhile, doflamingo realizes that he can use law and rosinante’s attachment to each other to his favor, punishing rosinante whenever law steps out of line and therefore keeping him under his thumb and extinguishing any rebellious spark that may arise in him. of course, that doesn’t mean doflamingo leaves rosinante alone otherwise; his brother’s betrayal is still a crime that cannot be paid in anything other than blood.

law is resigned to be under doflamingo’s control for the rest of his life, because at least rosinante will be alive and as safe as law can keep him. but then law catches doflamingo torturing rosinante and realizes that they will never be free from doflamingo as long as he lives. so law starts to scheme and plan for a future in which he will be strong enough to take on doflamingo and defeat him.

law is officially named the third corazón when he turns 22, the same age rosinante was when he took the mantle. this means that while he is on sabaody when shit goes down two years later, he doesn’t intervene, but he does see luffy punch the celestial dragon and takes note of him. originally, law is at marineford under doflamingo’s orders, but he still saves luffy “on a whim” and goes radio silent until luffy wakes up.

(he definitely did not save luffy because luffy also has the middle name “d.” it’s definitely not because he knows the devastation of losing a sibling after promising you’d keep them safe. it’s definitely not because rosinante firmly believes that a new dawn is coming, and luffy seems to be at the head of said new dawn. it’s just “on a whim.”)

of course, upon law’s return to dressrosa, doflamingo punishes rosinante for law’s insubordination. law sneaks into rosinante’s cell later that night and apologizes, but rosinante tells him that all that matters to him is that law is okay, and that if law ever wanted to run away, on his own, that’s okay, rosinante understands, law doesn’t have to worry about him. enraged, law asks if rosinante believes he could be that selfish.

“sometimes,” rosinante says, “i wish you were.”

and law snaps and breaks down in tears. rosinante holds him against his chest and pets his hair as law screams and cries and curses doflamingo and all the donquixote pirates.

the next day, law is resolved to bring down doflamingo and kill him. he’s still not strong enough, but he’ll get there, and when he does, he and rosinante will be free, and they’ll travel the world together like rosinante said they would. law tells viola of his mission, and viola shares that the tontattas are planning a rebellion, so they join forces and decide to lay low until the moment is right. law keeps his plans secret from rosinante; the less he knows, the less he is at risk. and also, law just doesn’t want rosinante to worry about him more than he already does.

law still goes to punk hazard, though he does so as doflamingo’s corazón, and when he runs into luffy and the straw hats, he drops to his knees and begs for his help, figuring that luffy will agree as payment for law saving his life. luffy agrees, even before law tells him what he needs help for, so law still has the realization that the straw hats, and luffy especially, are insane.

punk hazard is slightly different, in the sense that law is playing double agent, but his duel with vergo still happens, except that he gets rid of vergo’s den-den mushi so he doesn’t have the chance to call doflamingo and tell him of law’s betrayal. as far as doflamingo knows, everything is still going according to plan in punk hazard, and law and vergo are on their way back to dressrosa.

law returns to dressrosa with the straw hats and meets in secret with viola to tell her he brought reinforcements. they need to act now, today, before doflamingo realizes anything, or they’ll lose their chance. he begs viola to keep an eye on rosinante and to free him and take him out of the palace if anything goes to shit.

at first, things seem to be going exactly as they planned, but then luffy disappears (because he’s in the colosseum fighting for the mera mera no mi), law gets caught by doflamingo and chained to the heart seat, doflamingo vows to kill rosinante in front of law, and all hope seems lost.

just as law is cursing himself for failing (and most of all, for failing rosinante), the tontattas (and usopp) knock out sugar, the toys turn back into humans, luffy, viola, and kyros burst into the palace and behead doflamingo’s string clone, and the rest goes pretty much the same as in canon for the most part, including the colosseum’s participants joining and aiding luffy in fighting the donquixote family executives.

one of the things that changes is that before doflamingo drags law back to the palace, rosinante is rescued by viola, who has no other option but to tell him what’s going on. after having several small heart attacks, rosinante leaves in search of law and finally manages to catch up to him on the rooftop, where law and luffy have been fighting doflamingo, trebol, and bellamy. with rosinante keeping trebol occupied, law gains a bit of an advantage in the fight.

and then doflamingo saws off law’s arm.

trebol gains the upper hand against rosinante, so he and doflamingo still beat the shit out of law, and then doflamingo tries to get law to perform the perennial youth surgery on him in exchange for a favor while rosinante yells at him not to, unable to do anything else because trebol has immobilized him.

law agrees to doflamingo’s deal, and the favor he asks?

“take back all the pain you took from cora-san these past 13 years. beg for his forgiveness, and then let him go.”

(and since he’s still a little shit, he also tells doflamingo to lick the asses of every single citizen in dressrosa. because of course he does.)

doflamingo, furious and enraged at law still continuing to choose rosinante over him, shoots law.

rosinante screams. doflamingo shoots law again and again and again and again and again and rosinante can do nothing except scream and cry and beg doflamingo to stop, please, doffy please stop don’t hurt him doffy stop please please doffy please please PLEASE—

rosinante rushes to law and holds him in his arms and pets his hair and calls law my boy, my boy, my sweet, darling boy and cries and cries and cries and cries

he kisses the crown of law’s head, lays law down as gently as he can, and lunges at doflamingo

doflamingo avoids his attacks easily, grinning that cruel fucking grin of his while rosinante snarls i’ll kill you, i’ll kill you, i’ll fucking kill you, until doflamingo stops playing with him and ties him up in his strings.

luffy gets back to the roof, and law defeats trebol, and luffy takes law and rosinante to the sunflower field with robin. rosinante is the one carrying law instead of cavendish, and law shambles them both to luffy while he recovers to use his haki again, and when luffy punches doflamingo through the ground and splits the island in two, rosinante pulls law into his arms and bursts into tears. law hugs him back with his one good arm and sobs quietly into his chest. the marines take doflamingo away, and for the first time in 13 years, law breathes easy.

[mariacallous]

For much of living memory, the United States has been a global leader of scientific research and innovation. From the polio vaccine, to decoding the first human chromosome, to the first heart bypass surgery, American research has originated a seemingly endless list of health care advances that are taken for granted.

But when the Trump administration issued a memorandum Monday that paused all federal grants and loans—with the aim of ensuring that funding recipients are complying with the president’s raft of recent executive orders—US academia ground to a halt. Since then, the freeze has been partially rescinded for some sectors, but it largely remains in place for universities and research institutions across the country, with no certainty of what comes next.

“This has immediate impact on people’s lives,” says J9 Austin, professor of psychiatry and medical genetics at the University of British Columbia. “And it’s terrifying.”

The funding freeze requires agencies to submit reviews of their funded programs to the Office of Management and Budget by February 10. The freeze follows separate orders issued last week to US health agencies—including to the National Institutes of Health, which leads the country’s medical research—to pause all communications until February 1 and stop almost all travel indefinitely.

The confusion is consummate. If the funding freeze continues through February, and even beyond, how will graduate students be paid? Should grant applications—years long in the writing—still be submitted by the triannual grant submission deadline on February 5? What does this mean for clinical trials if participants and lab techs can’t be paid? Will all that research have to be scrapped thanks to incomplete data?

Even if Trump fully reverses the freeze on research funding, the damage, multiple sources say, has been done. Although for now the funding freeze is temporary, the administration has shown how it might wield the levers of government. The implication is that withdrawing funding could be done more permanently, and could be done to individual institutions, individual organizations, both private and public. This won’t just set a precedent for the large East Coast or West Coast universities, but those located in both red and blue states alike.

While always an imperfect arrangement, science in the US is largely funded by a complex system of grant applications, reviews by peers in the field (both of which have had to be halted as part of the communications pause), and the competitive distribution of NIH funds, says Gerald Keusch, emeritus professor of medicine at Boston University and former associate director of international research for the NIH. According to its website, the NIH disburses nearly $48 billion in grants per year.

When it comes to medical research, America truly is first, and if it abdicates that position, the void left behind has global ramifications. “In Canada, we have always looked to NIH as an exemplar of what we should be trying to do,” says Austin, speaking to me independently of any roles and affiliations. “Now, that’s collapsed.”

Science is, in its very nature, collaborative. Many consortiums and alliances within scientific fields cross borders and language barriers. Some labs may be able to find additional funding from alternative sources such as the European Union. But it is unlikely that a continued withdrawal of NIH funding could be plugged by overseas support. And Big Pharma, with its seemingly endless funds, is unlikely to step up either, according to sources WIRED spoke with.

“This can’t be handed off to drug companies or biotech, because they’re not interested in things that are as preclinical as a lot of the work we’re discussing here,” says a professor of genetics who agreed to speak anonymously out of fear of retribution. “Essentially, there’s a whole legion of university-based scientists who work super damn hard to try to figure out some basic stuff that eventually becomes something that a drug company can drop $100 million on.”

The millions of dollars awarded to high-achieving labs is used to fund graduate students, lab techs, and analysts. If the principal investigator on a research team is unsuccessful in obtaining a grant through the process Keusch describes, often that lab is closed, and those ancillary team members lose their jobs.

One of the potential downstream effects of an NIH funding loss, even if only temporary, is a mass domestic brain drain. “Many of those people are going to go out to find something else to do,” the professor of genetics says. “These are just like jobs for anything else—we can’t not pay people for a month. What would the food service industry be like, for example, or grocery stores, if they don’t pay somebody for a month? Their workers will leave, and pharma can only hire so many people.”

WIRED heard over and over, from scientists too fearful for their teams and their jobs to speak on the record, that it won’t take long for the impact to reach the general population. With a loss of research funding comes the closure of hospitals and universities. And gains in medical advancement will likely falter too.

Conditions being studied with NIH funding are not only rare diseases affecting 1 or 2 percent of the population. They’re problems such as cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s—issues that affect your grandmother, your friends, and so many people who will one day fall out of perfect health. It’s thanks to this research system, and the scientists working within it, that doctors know how to save someone from a heart attack, regulate diabetes, lower cholesterol, and reduce the risk of stroke. It’s how the world knows that smoking isn’t a good idea. “All of that is knowledge that scientists funded by the NIH have generated, and if you throw this big of a wrench in it, it’s going to disrupt absolutely everything,” says the genetics professor.

While some are hopeful that the funding freeze for academia could end on February 1, when the pause on communications and therefore grant reviews is slated to lift, the individuals WIRED spoke with are largely skeptical that work will simply resume as before.

“When the wheels of government stop, it’s not like they turn on a dime and they just start up again,” says Julie Scofield, a former executive director of NASTAD, a US-based health nonprofit. She adds that she has colleagues in Washington, DC, who have had funding returned to their fields, and yet remain unable to access payment through the management system.

Austin says that already the international scientific community is holding hastily arranged online support groups. Topics covered range from the banal—what the most recent communication from the White House implies—to how best to protect trainees and the many students on international visas. But mostly they’re there to provide support.

“I’ve had a lot of messages from people just expressing gratitude that we could actually get together,” Austin says. “There’s just so much unaddressable need. None of us has the answers.”

Scientists, perhaps more than any other profession, are trained to “learn and validate conclusions drawn from observation and experimentation,” says Keutsch. That applies to the current situation. And what they observe during this pause of chaos does not portend well for the future of the United States as a pinnacle of scientific excellence.

“If people want the United States to head toward being a second-class nation, this is exactly what to do. If the goal is, in fact, to make America great, this is not a way to do it,” says the genetics professor. “This is not a rational, thoughtful, effective thing to do. It will merely destroy.”

This story has been written under a pseudonym, as the reporter has specific and credible concerns about potential retaliation.

[thekeithmeister]

Executive orders are NOT laws. EOs are basically a president saying “I want to make a plan to do this.” There’s no people yet in charge of said thing, no finances set aside, no enforcement policies in place, etc. The only bad things that have come from these EOs are from people, companies, hospitals, DECIDING they WANT to comply.

The real allies and the real Americans who actually CARE about the constitution and the laws of this country are already fighting. Trumps unlawful EOs have been challenged by multiple states and multiple plaintiffs. There are 27 open cases against him. This happened the last time he was president too, and he LOST 93% of all his legal battles the first time around. Because everything he does is illegal as fuck.

Do not comply in advance. Do not lose hope. Do not despair. This is all a fear tactic to try and trick people into obeying because they know they can’t legally do any of the shit they’re spewing.

[tomorrowusa]

First a heads-up. Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman has retired from the New York Times. But he is now fairly active at his Substack. Occasionally we'll be linking some of his work there.

In this piece, Dr. Krugman argues that the MAGA war on the "deep state" is also a war on America's health.

One enduring theme of the MAGA movement has been hostility toward the “deep state” — what people outside the movement might call professional civil servants. Trump and company believe that the deep state is out to get them, which is paranoid. But they’re not wrong to believe that public employees who see themselves as working for the nation rather than for whoever currently occupies the White House pose a problem for their agenda. So what will MAGA do, now that it���s in power? Many observers, myself included, have focused on plans to convert a number of civil service jobs into political appointments. But just a few days into the new regime it’s clear that the assault on professional government will be much broader than that — that it will involve an effort to intimidate and politicize civil servants, too. And early indications are that one prime target will be agencies devoted to protecting public health. [ ... ] Public health agencies, even more than the rest of the government, are in the firing line. You can’t talk seriously about health policy without taking race and gender into account; yet according to the New York Times, one contractor collecting demographic data for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has already been told to stop work, and the results of an already completed survey won’t be released. But wait, there’s more: federal health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes for Health, have been ordered to pause all external communications, including health advisories and scientific reports. NIH, in particular, appears to have been effectively put in lockdown, with even routine meetings canceled and employees forbidden to travel.

He concludes...

If MAGA had been around at the time, do you have any doubts that it would have opposed all of these public health measures and accused their proponents of being part of some dark conspiracy? And when — not if — the next pandemic strikes, do you expect our battered, politicized public health agencies to keep Americans properly informed? If Trump is still in charge, do you expect him to respond effectively, as opposed to minimizing the threat and muzzling anyone who might contradict him? It’s hard to feel optimistic about any of these concerns.

Did I just hear the word "pandemic"? There is some distressing news out of Uganda from the Washington Post.

Uganda announced Thursday that a nurse, 32, had died of Ebola in the capital, Kampala, amid a new outbreak of the deadly virus there — the first in two years. The country has activated emergency response procedures, officials said. Uganda registered 164 cases and 55 confirmed deaths from Ebola over four months in late 2022. That outbreak ended early the following year. The patient died after experiencing fever-like symptoms and seeking treatment at several hospitals and from a traditional healer, Diana Atwine, permanent secretary of the Health Ministry, said in a statement on Thursday. His fever, chest pain and breathing difficulty progressed to unexplained bleeding, a common symptom of a severe case of Ebola. Forty-four close contacts have been cited for tracing, including 30 health workers and patients from a hospital and 11 family members.

Ebola makes COVID seem like a fun disease. The mortality rate for the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa was around 40%. The Obama administration took decisive action to limit Ebola in the United States. Thanks to quick science-based action, the number of Ebola cases in the US was limited to 11 (eleven). Out of the 11, just 2 cases were contracted inside the US. 2 of the 11 died – 18.2% or less than half of the international rate.

At the end of the Obama administration, his National Security Council staff authored a guide called "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents" and left it for Trump to use. Of course Trump ignored it.

Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook

The first COVID-19 case appeared in the US on 21 January 2020. Instead of taking decisive measures recommended in the Obama pandemic playbook, Trump said this to his favorite CNBC host.

While Trump dawdled and did the usual Trumpian things like rage tweet about the 2020 Oscars, the virus spread throught the US. He only got around to declaring a pandemic emergency on Friday the 13th of March – a day after the stock markets crashed.

^^^ dark red = deaths, orange/pink = infections

By March 13th, COVID-19 had spread to 49 states and DC. Ultimately, at least 30% of the US population became infected and 1.14 million deaths were reported.

If Ebola spreads to the US while Trump and RFK Jr. are in charge, expect a catastrophe.

[tunamuffiin]

[theshadowrealmitself]

Fell asleep last night thinking about an au where Norman recovers from being the Green Goblin, but he ended up doing some really creepy stuff beforehand including attacking Peter as he was Peter Parker and not Spidey and then keeping him locked up for several days (Peter ends up with a few scars from it)

Norman avoids any jail time because he’s rich and revealed somewhat of the truth, that a medicine he was working on for himself had terrible side effects, no one knows about him being the Goblin, they only know about him attacking Peter

Peter is able to successfully get a restraining order against him tho, but Norman’s a jackass who keeps hanging out on the fringe of the distance he’s supposed to be at and speaking/yelling at Peter, stuff like “when you finally forgive me and drop this restraining order, I’ll be here with open arms,” and “Uncle Ben wouldn’t want you to hold this hate in your heart” and because of the previous mentioned richness, Peter can’t do anything unless Norman steps too closely

And tbh Peter mostly got the restraining order because he was worried it would look suspicious if “Peter Parker” didn’t seem too badly affected by things, since he was used to being attacked by Norman as Spiderman

But now that he’s keeping Norman away, even if he still hangs around, and he has visible scars from it that everyone can see, and everyone knows about the court case and what happened and keep asking him if he’s okay, he’s…starting to acknowledge that it all was traumatizing, not just the kidnapping event but the whole thing with the Green Goblin, that he was just pretending it wasn’t because he’s a hero, and people seeing how badly it’s been affecting him is actually healing in a way

[dontmindme2600]

I really hope manga artists and ppl who work on anime start protesting because the conditions they’re forced to work under are terrifying, especially considering the MASSIVE amount of anime content that’s been being shit out these past few years. the stories of huge companies with high budgets having to hire amateur animators from twitter, the mass production of samey, bland stories and merch that everyone will forget exists two years later. Terrifying shit like stories of people just collapsing and dying at their desks, the stories of mangaka having no free time and not being able even meet with their own children, no breaks to eat or sleep, no living, having your dreams turned into a nightmare. The sad thing is that I know if these protests happens people are gonna be bitching about it, like we haven’t been absolutely spoiled enough already. Like dude just go back and watch the 5 anime that came out last season that were genuinely good, but you missed, because you were watching 3 other new ones at the same time. I would love for protests to break out, I’m actively hoping for them. I would gladly watch no new anime or manga come out for as long as it takes for these people to get good working conditions that don’t require them throwing away their lives.

[deklo]

um 🧍

[cherrysnax]

Demeter is afraid of bats so their main villian is gonna be this like. mad scientist who prolly created the spiders that bit her who is prolly experimenting on themselves to become some sort of bat creature.. like man-bat and the lizard mixed together but I don’t think this guy is in anyway sympathetic. he’s obsessed with evolution, he’s bored of humanity he’s prolly obsessed with spider-man (whichever spider-man exists in this universe is probably going to die or sumn 😭)

[daydreamerdrew]

Iron Man (1968) #51

[chronic-conjuring]

✨please stop playing the pain Olympics it doesn’t do you or anyone else any good✨

I don't know who needs to hear this but:

-"it only hurts a little" is still pain

-"I can ignore it" is still pain

-"I can cope with/manage it" is still pain

-"it's bearable" is still pain

-"I can push through it" is still pain

-"it doesn't hurt that much" is still pain

-"it doesn't stop me from doing x" is still pain

You don't need to be in agonizing pain to be in pain.

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk’s minions—from trusted sidekicks to random college students and former Musk company interns—have taken over the General Services Administration, a critical government agency that manages federal offices and technology. Already, the team is attempting to use White House security credentials to gain unusual access to GSA tech, deploying a suite of new AI software, and recreating the office in X’s image, according to leaked documents obtained by WIRED.

Some of the same people who helped Musk take over Twitter more than two years ago are now registered as official GSA employees. Nicole Hollander, who slept in Twitter HQ as an unofficial member of Musk’s transition team, has high-level agency access and an official government email address, according to documents viewed by WIRED. Hollander’s husband, Steve Davis, also slept in the office. He has now taken on a leading role in Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Thomas Shedd, the recently installed director of the Technology Transformation Services within GSA, worked as a software engineer at Tesla for eight years. Edward Coristine, who previously interned at Neuralink, has been onboarded along with Ethan Shaotran, a Harvard senior who is developing his own OpenAI-backed scheduling assistant and participated in an xAI hackathon.

“I believe these people do not want to help the federal government provide services to the American people,” says a current GSA employee who asked not to be named, citing fears of retaliation. “They are acting like this is a takeover of a tech company.”

The team appears to be carrying out Musk’s agenda: slashing the federal government as quickly as possible. They’re currently targeting a 50 percent reduction in spending for every office managed by the GSA, according to documents obtained by WIRED.

There also appears to be an effort to use IT credentials from the Executive Office of the President to access GSA laptops and internal GSA infrastructure. Typically, access to agency systems requires workers to be employed at such agencies, sources say. While Musk's team could be trying to obtain better laptops and equipment from GSA, sources fear that the mandate laid out in the DOGE executive order would grant the body broad access to GSA systems and data. That includes sensitive procurement data, data internal to all the systems and services GSA offers, and internal monitoring software to surveil GSA employees as part of normal auditing and security processes.

The access could give Musk’s proxies the ability to remote into laptops, listen in on meetings, read emails, among many other things, a former Biden official told WIRED on Friday.

“Granting DOGE staff, many of whom aren't government employees, unfettered access to internal government systems and sensitive data poses a huge security risk to the federal government and to the American public,” the Biden official said. “Not only will DOGE be able to review procurement-sensitive information about major government contracts, it'll also be able to actively surveil government employees.”

The new GSA leadership team has prioritized downsizing the GSA’s real estate portfolio, canceling convenience contracts, and rolling out AI tools for use by the federal government, according to internal documents and interviews with sources familiar with the situation. At a GSA office in Washington, DC, earlier this week, there were three items written on a white board sitting in a large, vacant room. “Spending Cuts $585 m, Regulations Removed, 15, Square feet sold/terminated 203,000 sf,” it read, according to a photo viewed by WIRED. There’s no note of who wrote the message, but it appears to be a tracker of cuts made or proposed by the team.

“We notified the commercial real estate market that two GSA properties would soon be listed for sale, and we terminated three leases,” Stephen Ehikian, the newly appointed GSA acting administrator, said in an email to GSA staff on Tuesday, confirming the agency’s focus on lowering real estate costs. “This is our first step in right-sizing the real estate portfolio.”

The proposed changes extend even inside the physical spaces at the GSA offices. Hollander has requested multiple “resting rooms,” for use by the A-suite, a team of employees affiliated with the GSA administrator’s office.

On January 29, a working group of high-ranking GSA employees, including the deputy general counsel and the chief administrative services officer, met to discuss building a resting room prototype. The team mapped out how to get the necessary funding and waivers to build resting rooms in the office, according to an agenda viewed by WIRED.

After Musk bought Twitter, Hollander and Davis moved into the office with their newborn baby. Hollander helped oversee real estate and office design—including the installation of hotel rooms at Twitter HQ, according to a lawsuit later filed by Twitter executives. During the installation process, one of the executives emailed to say that the plans for the rooms were likely not code compliant. Hollander “visited him in person and emphatically instructed him to never put anything about the project in writing again,” the lawsuit alleged. Employees were allegedly instructed to call the hotel rooms “sleeping rooms” and to say they were just for taking naps.

Hollander has also requested access to Public Buildings Service applications; PBS owns and leases office space to government agencies. The timing of the access request lines up with Ehikian’s announcement about shrinking GSA’s real estate cost.

Musk’s lieutenants are also working to authorize the use of AI tools, including Google Gemini and Cursor (an AI coding assistant), for federal workers. On January 30, the group met with Google to discuss Telemetry, a software used to monitor the health and performance of applications, according to a document obtained by WIRED.

A-suite engineers, including Coristine and Shaotran, have requested access to a variety of GSA records, including nearly 10 years of accounting data, as well as detailed records on vendor payments, purchase orders, and revenue.

The GSA takeover mimics Musk’s strategy at other federal agencies like the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Earlier this month, Amanda Scales, who worked in talent at Musk’s xAI, was appointed as OPM chief of staff. Riccardo Biasini, former Tesla engineer and director of operations at the Boring company, is now a senior adviser to the director. Earlier this week, Musk cohorts at the US Office of Personnel Management emailed more than 2 million federal workers offering “deferred resignations,” allegedly promising employees their regular pay and benefits through September 30.

The email closely mirrored the “extremely hardcore” note Musk sent to Twitter staff in November 2022, shortly after buying the company.

Many federal workers thought the email was fake—as with Twitter, it seemed designed to force people to leave, slashing headcount costs without the headache of an official layoff.

Ehikian followed up with a note to staff stressing that the email was legitimate. “Yes, the OPM email is real and should be taken very seriously,” he said in an email obtained by WIRED. He added that employees should expect a “further consolidation of offices and centralization of functions.”

On Thursday night, GSA workers received a third email related to the resignation request called “Fork in the Road FAQs.” The email explained that employees who resign from their positions would not be required to work and could get a second job. “We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” it read. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”

The third question posed in the FAQ asked, “Will I really get my full pay and benefits during the entire period through September 30, even if I get a second job?”

“Yes,” the answer read. “You will also accrue further personal leave days, vacation days, etc. and be paid out for unused leave at your final resignation date.”

However, multiple GSA employees have told WIRED that they are refusing to resign, especially after the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) told its members on Tuesday that the offer could be void.

“There is not yet any evidence the administration can or will uphold its end of the bargain, that Congress will go along with this unilateral massive restructuring, or that appropriated funds can be used this way, among other issues that have been raised,” the union said in a notice.

There is also concern that, under Musk’s influence, the federal government might not pay for the duration of the deferred resignation period. Thousands of Twitter employees have sued Musk alleging that he failed to pay their agreed upon severance. Last year, one class action suit was dismissed in Musk’s favor.

In an internal video viewed by WIRED, Ehikian reiterated that GSA employees had the “opportunity to participate in a deferred resignation program,” per the email sent by OPM on January 28. Pressing his hands into the namaste gesture, Ehikian added, “If you choose to participate, I offer you my heartfelt gratitude for your service to this nation. If you choose to stay at the GSA, we’ll work together to implement the four pillars from the OPM memo.” He ended the video by saying thank you and pressing his hands into namaste again.

[10001gecs]

i think there’s something to be said about how the gig economy makes things ostensibly more convenient but also worse. and not just like, doordash guys take too long to get to you so your food is cold. but because the business model is centered around a million people doing work without any familiarity with what theyre doing and decentralized from the businesses they’re working with, you get service that’s being reinvented from scratch every time it’s purchased.

it happens all the time that I’ll order an uber and when they pick me up, they’ll just stop in the middle of the street with their hazards on, making me dodge traffic to get to them and pissing off the cars around them. and then I’ll get in the car and chat with the driver and find out they’re actually from two counties over and they’ve never driven here before, so they don’t know where parking is or whether they’re heading to a wide open parking lot or a busy downtown. and then you start to realize that they’re not being a dick, they’re just given as little information as possible every time they pick up a ride so they have to just guess how and where to pick up a passenger. and since they’re paid by ride, they’re incentivized to pick you up as fast as possible. and all the people who cared about finding a safe place to pick you up quit the app or stopped doing that so all you’re left with is the pissed off cockroach motherfuckers.

and then you see that this happens with every fucking app. doordash sucks because you pay 8 million dollars for delivery and you still have to hike half a mile to find the guy because he got lost in your apartment complex. Instacart sucks because the guy picking your groceries couldn’t care less about getting ripe fruit and replaces your heavy cream with shaving cream. customer support for all this sucks because the guy helping you can’t do anything more than offer you $5 credit, beg for your forgiveness, and hope you get out of the queue fast enough for him to go to the bathroom. because all of them aren’t given enough time to do a good job or enough money to care.

and every time a gig worker makes the experience suck for you, it’s a rational decision. they’re evaluating the money they’re being paid and if it’s worth getting paid less to do a good job, and correctly deciding that it isn’t. so you can’t even get mad, because you’d do it too. and so the company manages to pass on its race to the bottom to its lowest-paid employees.

[classyrbf]

boss!nanami who has this cold and off putting demeanor, seeming to intimidate everyone in the office. His voice is always stern and deep and he quite observes the rest of the employees without saying a word. No one has ever dared to disobey his orders or deadlines, feeling the need to impress their boss who sits in his locked office all day, having meetings and filing through tedious paperwork. But what everyone is so unaware of is that office assistant, you, are secretly on your knees every morning, waiting under the bosses desk like you should be. He simply greets by cupping you face, running the pad of his thumb along your cheek while you snuggle into his palm, undoing his belt simultaneously. He’s already hard, an obvious bulge in his pants.

A low grown emits from his throat the moment you take him in your mouth. You’re swirling your wet tongue around his swollen tip, licking up every last drop of pre cum while jerking him off. He leans back his chair, eyes shut as he sighs in bliss. “Good girl, just like that.” He places his hand on the back of your head and pushes you further down, his cock stretching your throat until your gagging on it. “Nnnghh, fuck!” He grunts. A knock on the door startles both you and Nanami and he’s quick to pull you off his cock so you can breathe.

“Sorry, sir, I don’t mean to interrupt. I just have the reports that you wanted. They’re completely filled out and the information from the sister company also did their part.” A woman spoke, her voice shaking. She was clearly nervous.

Nanami stroked your hair as you sucked on his balls, dragging your tongue all the wall from the base to the tip, placing a soft kiss on the head. His hips slightly jerked at the sensation. The hand that was petting your hair now tugging at it as a warning sign.

He cleared his throat, taking the file from the woman. “Thank you. I’ll look into it.” And with that the woman left. Nanami scooted his chair back, looking down at the sloppy mess your were creating. “You tryna get caught?” He glares at you only for you send him a smile in return. “Yeah, I bet you are. Bet it gets you all excited just thinking about it. You wouldn’t care if everyone in this office watched you take me down your throat, hm?”

“No, sir,” you batted your eyelashes at him. You took him back in your mouth, bobbing your head up and down his veiny shaft.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” he scoffed, trained eyes fixated on the way you sucked him off, loving how messy you get. “I’ve got a meeting in five, so be a good girl and make this quick.” He ordered, pushing your head down lower. His entire body shivered when your throat squeezed around him.

He knows you’ll be able to do it, you have every morning for the past three months since you began working here. And when everyone else goes home, he’ll see you again as well. You could say he enjoys coming to work a little more just because of you.

[tteokdoroki]

ᯓ★ ONCE UPON A FUCK ME !? — kinktober 2024 !

mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the filthiest fairytale of them all? your favourite storybook characters, reimagined.

✧ there’s a note from your fairy godmother - hello my angels !! welcome to another kinktober. i hope you guys are as excited as i am. wave your magic wand here ! to join the taglist. rb for a happy ending ₊˚⊹ ᥫ᭡.

✧ read the blurb - each of the following fairytales contain nsfw and dark themes. fem!reader. each fic comes with its own warnings. minors, blank and ageless blogs do not interact.

✐ᝰ.ᐟ CHAPTER ONE RAPUNZEL - satoru gojo.

[OCT 1ST ★ BONDAGE] once upon a time, a girl trapped in a tower with nothing but her extremely lavish, long hair as company decides…fuck it and sleeps with a handsome stranger to get what she wants.

additional kinks. orgasm control, sensory deprivation, edging, thigh riding, spit kink, outer-course, begging, switching.

✐ᝰ.ᐟ CHAPTER EIGHT BEAUTY & THE BEAST - katsuki bakugou.

[OCT 8TH ★ MONSTER FUCKING] once upon a time, a village girl thinks to herself — fuck it! being trapped inside a castle with a monstrous sexy bloody beast isn’t so bad… she might as well make it worth her while.

additional kinks. bath sex, soft sex, blood play, size kink, praise kink, body worship, body modifications.

✐ᝰ.ᐟ CHAPTER FIFTEEN CINDERELLA - tobio kageyama.

[OCT 15TH ★ MUTUAL MASTURBATION] once upon a time, a soon-to-be crowned princess, once down on her luck, says fuck it and settles on consummating her marriage with the crown prince before they’re actually due to be married.

additional kinks. oral sex, clothed sex, cherry chasing, first time, corruption.

✐ᝰ.ᐟ CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE LITTLE MERMAID - eijirou kirishima.

[OCT 16TH ★ FUCK OR DIE] once upon a time, a princess decides — fuck it! fuck the engagement. who cares when a sexy half-man, half -fish…prince? whatever! needs to drown her in an ocean of pleasure in order to survive…

additional kinks. underwater sex, ritualistic sex, voice kink, pain kink, choking, quickie.

✐ᝰ.ᐟ CHAPTER TWENTY TWO SLEEPING BEAUTY - seishiro nagi.

[OCT 22ND ★ SOMNOPHILIA] once upon a time, a brave knight, destined to marry someone she’d never met, says fuck it and plans to reap the rewards of saving the prince from eternal slumber. without realising that he’s already awake…

additional kinks. hold the moan, overstimulation, cockwarming, dacryphilia, outer-course, free use, dub con, cumplay.

✐ᝰ.ᐟ CHAPTER TWENTY NINE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD - yuuji itadori.

[OCT 29TH ★ KNOTTING] once upon a time, a curious little girl says fuck it and disobeyes her mother’s only wish. stay on the path when you visit your granny, you don’t want to get snatched up by the big bad wolf.

additional kinks. wolf hybrids, mating season, oral fixation, sweat + scent kink, pregnancy kink, lactation, breeding, a/b/o.

✐ᝰ.ᐟ BONUS CHAPTER: GOLDILOCKS & THE THREE BEARS - bachira, isagi 'n nagi.

[OCT 31ST ★ CUCKING] once upon a time, a sweet little bear hybrid on her own in the woods decides... fuck it! she'll teach that pesky thief goldilocks what it really means to share. with the help of friends, of course.

additional kinks. bear hybrids, double penetration, mutual masturbation, deep throating, brat taming, exhibitionism, multiple orgasms, foursome, dub-con, coercion, marking, oral sex.

꒰ end. — all rights reserved © tteokdoroki 2024. do not copy, repost, translate, feed into ai & recommend elsewhere.

[reasonsforhope]

"For [Tanner] Green, the chief engineer at Not a Wheelchair, this is one of the thousand complications standing between his team and a rather lofty goal: upending the manual wheelchair marketplace.

If you’ve heard of Not a Wheelchair, it’s likely because of its owners, Zack Nelson, the star of the 8.8-million-subscriber YouTube channel JerryRigEverything, and his wife Cambry, a para and manual wheelchair user. The Nelsons got into the mobility equipment business a few years ago when they released The Rig, an electric, adaptive off-road device with a simple yet robust and functional design priced significantly lower than anything else on the market. Now, they’re bringing that same ethos to manual wheelchairs.

Not a Wheelchair aims to offer a base-model, custom manual wheelchair at a similar or better quality than most of the insurance-approved wheelchairs in the U.S. for $999.

Yes, that’s just under $1,000 for everything — wheels, handrims, tires, side guards and rigid, angle-adjustable backrest included. And the company plans to have a turnaround time of weeks, rather than the monthslong slog that it typically takes from order to delivery.

When I first heard about this, it sounded awesome and a bit far-fetched. It’s hard to find a pair of quality wheelchair wheels for less than $500. Same with a rigid backrest. How were they going to offer both, plus a custom wheelchair frame without compromising on quality? I drove to their headquarters in Utah to find out...

So how does Not a Wheelchair’s base model chair stack up to other options on the market? I hate to sound like a preacher, but … it’s totally reasonable! It hits the mark of being at least as good, if not better, than the majority of insurance-approved wheelchairs in the U.S.

Touring the factory, I saw other prototypes scattered all around the facility. There’s a beefier, four-wheel drive version of The Rig that the company just launched. There’s a track wheelchair that’s still in development. It’s clear that Not a Wheelchair doesn’t intend to stop at a simple, manual wheelchair. Inexpensive components, more advanced electric off-road devices, power assist, it’s all on the table. “We’re just really excited to see where this leads,” says Green."

-Article and video via New Mobility, October 1, 2024