#zombie debts

[mariocki]

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972)

"Come children, Uncle Alan's going to curdle your blood."

"Uncle Alan already does. Turns my stomach, too."

[styxxsyringe]

zombie wanting to eat the flesh of their loved ones as a way of showing affection ‼️‼️

[strawberrybyers]

realizing i’m so funny and talking a lot and making a million plans right now is not because i am healing for a new year new me era but because i am entering a state of ✨hypomania✨

[freyholland]

obsessed with Sasha deciding to dig up Gaige’s rotten moldy dad’s corpse to try to revive his decomposed remains with her Anahatium shard. Girl this is how you get The Walking Dead

[mfi-miami]

Is The Zombie Mortgage Class Action Lawsuit In Trouble?

NewRez And Bank of New York Mellon Motion Federal Judge In Massachusetts To Toss Zombie Mortgage Class Action Lawsuit NewRez and BNY Mellon have filed a motion to toss a zombie mortgage class action case in Massachusetts.  Lenders are resurrecting dead mortgage debt for a fast buck! Mortgage servicers and consumer advocates alike are watching the high-profile case. NewRez LLC and The Bank of…

[hq92]

I had a dream that I was a survivor in a zombie apocalypse scenario. Me and a group of survivors were holed up in a house, someone compromised our location, the hoarde surrounded us and we had to get out safely yadda yadda.

While we were on the streets again a courier found me and asked "Are you so and so?" And I replied "Yes, that’s me."

He handed me a letter addressed to myself and I got teary eyed. Was it a note from my parents? My sibling and his kids? My husband or a long lost friend?

I gingerly and tearfully tore open the envelope, my pulse pounding with excitement:

"Dear So and So,

It's been 10 years since your last payment on your student loans. The appropriate 9% interest has been calculated for that amount of time and your new balance is listed below. Please make arrangements for prompt payments at your earliest convenience."

[resin-popia]

I was curious about the rise of these labubu things. I've been into art toys and dolls for over a decade. I guess you could consider me a collector. So I watched a few "video essays" on them and:

Having COLLECTIONS is not a terrible thing! It's what humans like to do. People collect weird shit that brings them joy. They've been doing it for ages. If you're managing debt and organizing your collection and have your own thesis for collecting what you do beyond "profit or public clout" it's fine. Small joys in a shitty world.

Buying toys and amassing a collection will NEVER make you money. Ever. That's not wealth no matter what influencers tell you. That's a shitty way to destroy your mental and financial health. Assume any "return on investment" in toys is just the joy you feel playing with them.

Playing with toys includes repainting, arranging, building things for them, meeting people because of them. I love Smiskis and they are a fun way for my friends to connect with me.

"But the Internet says it's worth--" no, it's not. Someone has to BUY IT for that price, dummy. "But what about baseball cards---" One in a Million chance that happens. But it was a 100% chance the person who collected that in the first place did it simply for the love of the game.

Capitalism wants you to acquire. They pit you against other people in every way possible, from the top down. Mindless collecting and hauls included. That's the benign way they get you. I agree with the sentiment that blind boxes can be basically gambling. Especially when people are influenced to think they have actual value other than personal joy.

Break your toys, destroy them going on adventures, give them as gifts, paint them and make them your own. Make them into something stupid to make people laugh. Toys are joy.

Why are you collecting this thing? Is it an aspect of the thing beyond "amassing items for social media, possible profit, getting the whole set"? If it's not, step back. Deinfluence yourself. You're becoming a zombie. It's what the Man wants. They want us fighting over fucking dolls and water bottles so they can do the awful shit like take our human rights away. Divide and conquer yes even at the very lowest of the low level. Their aims are THAT total and THAT sinister.

If you are a scalper I don't even have an animal to compare you to because even the most unpleasant creatures benefit the environment in some way. You're just a sad cog in the capitalist machine. And you are not fun. You ruin everything you touch and I hope you get a zit on your face at the worst time in the near future.

I love toys and I've always felt like a weirdo having them and customizing them. It's been fun to see them go mainstream but not like this!

anyway, my rant 🙃 Play With Your Toys

[dark-lord-of-awesomeness]

https://youtube.com/shorts/BvvbginM-zI?si=YZF5eioeXACmGt9o

Reminded me of the Venus Vampire Stan,

Now I can’t stop imagining Human Stan grimacing as he has to rebite a bunch of zombs to turn them back into humans.

Lol. This gave me Thoughts. Here they are

Following the zombie apocalypse (Which is, as usual, Fords fault somehow) Stan's going around, trying to survive as the world falls apart around him. Life goes on, society collapses, hoards of undead are roaming the streets and Stan-

Well, he's actually doing pretty good, relatively. Sure his family's missing and Fords probably dead and he's alone and all his attempts at becoming rich were in vain but at least he's not in debt! All those guys are dead! Everyones dead! Its just him slowly going insane from isolation!

Then the worst happens. He gets cornered by a zombie, was a little too careless at the wrong time, its got him in its disgusting grasp, mouth open and- and-

And Stan bites back. Its awful and disgusting, all rotting flesh and ruined clothes but if he's gonna die he's gonna go down fighting. This walking corpse might eat him but not before he- ugh- eats some of him back.

Then he's gagging and heaving in confusion when the zombie stumbles back, rapidly undecaying? (Is that a word? it is now) and there's a whole guy with him now. A clueless guy, who was just about to eat him, and was also dead. Stan has no idea if it was a fluke or what, but now he's responsible for this random dude, he guesses? Teaches him the best he can, explains what happened, and now Stan's not alone! He's got a buddy!

A buddy who goes 'hey! Wanna see if you can do that again?'

The answer is Hell No That Was Disgusting and the texture still haunts his dreams but also. Yes.

Long story short I think Stan rises as a post apocalyptic god who can cure zombies if this is a Stan specific thing. Un zombies a bunch of people, they take back a small town or city, uncaring about being bitten because why? If they get bitten they've got ways to round up zombies without killing them, and Stan will just bite them at some point. Creates a safe haven as Stan slowly and really, really regrettably works on finding one (1! Just one! Anyone!) scientist who can make a cure out of his spit or teeth or whatever so he can stop biting dead people. Its so nasty, he's dry heaving constantly and god. They need to wash all these dead people before Stan gets to them because none of this is sanitary.

Unsure if he cures Ford or (to me, the funnier option) Ford and his post apocalypic team hear of a god who can cure any zombie, and the safe haven that thrives under his guiding hand (Stan does nothing here, he's barely in charge and mostly just gets what he wants out of gratefulness and pity at watching him bite dead people. Its a good set up for him really). Ford rolls up, ready to shake the hand of the scientist who found the cure or deck the sharleton leading people on to find Stan, in his makeshift sorta temple where, like classic gods, he gets offerings in exchange for curing zombies and basically does nothing to contribute except bite people.

Ford, outraged, tries to expose Stan as a fake only to get slapped in the face by everyone immediately jumping to Stan's smug defense. Everyone here was a zombie before Stan cured them! Or watched him cure someone when they came for protection! Ford demands to see it in person, internally grinning when Stan says he 'really doesn't have to, trust me' (Stan does not want his bro watch him bite a zombie. Its bad enough as it is). Unfortuantly Ford is Ford, and he's gonna see it one way or another. Gets slapped again with watching Stan bite a tied up zombie and then they regrow their skin and are now a human person.

Can Ford do that? Does he want to find out? Stan's heaving and gagging makes that a No but his curiosity points to yes.

Anyway thats all I got there.

Second thought is Venus Vampire Trap au

Fords hunting down Whatever mystical white furred creature Bill was transporting that can cure vampires. All the guys in the warehouse Stan cured with his reverse vampire bite can remember is golden eyes and white fur, as their previously dead brains couldn't retain the memories post cure, and actually where are they? Def need therapy for either being down to murder or being so twisted they became down to murder.

Tracks Stan down the same way as in the fic, except here instead of staking the would be not-muggar he lunges and watches them transform back into a human, then just stares bug eyed at the mythical vampire curing Stan, who still doesn't think vampires are real and does not like being dragged around by his brother and... and

actually who is this guy? Whey are they bringing the mugger with them Ford? Whats happening? Ford?

Now instead of trying to convince Stan he's a vampire and vampires are real its them trying to swab his mouth, take his DNA, and getting him to bite people? Gross. Nasty. Please let him go to his car and leave.

[miammey]

Everyone's just talking about how hot Lighter is, and yeah he's attractive, but he has such a painful story and barely anyone is mentioning it??? I haven't even finished all his hangout stuff yet, but already I can tell that he's still extremely troubled by what happened in his past.

During the film we watch with him he wasn't scared of the blood and gore, mainly since there wasn't as much as expected (and he wore his glasses so he wouldn't faint), but he was scared about what one of the characters did that caused a disaster, something he relates to in a sense, saying that even if he looked calm his hands were shaking. I wanted to tell him that he can stay and calm down all he wants, give him a more relaxing movie to watch free of charge, because to me he felt so uncomfortable after watching the movie because he didn't expect it to hit so close

And don't get me started on this man's physical injuries. He's covered in MASSIVE scars, realistically, if we were to map out how they got there, he would've nearly had his arm cut off or just be cut in half. He mentioned that another reason he wears sunglasses is because of an old injury, even tho it's basically already healed he just no longer feels comfortable going out without them. He mentioned his neck and legs weren't what they once were, and judging by his backstory that's mainly because he's always fighting. He's the type to strain himself to whatever extent necessary do get the task done

He also is just genuinely so attached to his gang and so scared of losing them, but even then he stays strong because others need him to. He also saw Caesar almost die, his leader and a good friend, and yet he stayed strong for Lucy. He goes off by himself to deal with things because he doesn't want to get others in the gang involved, and he's just so genuinely earnest. He's caring and awkward and bad at hiding it, but he's still that Champion, a position he takes pride in because it means he's succeeding at protecting his loved ones, something he failed to do in the past

Speaking of the past, back to him being self-sacrificing, he went into debt and basically signed his life away to pay it off after his group all died all to make sure their families were taken care of. He knew that businessmen were greedy and there's a good chance it would take decades for him to pay them off, if he ever would, but he still did it. He described himself as a zombie back then, and only until after he got comfortable with the gang did he break out of that state

I know people gawk over attractive characters, I can't say I don't as well at times, but every time he's on screen and anything even remotely seems to upset him I just wanna make him comfortable. He's relaxed, but not comfortable, and I don't think he's been comfortable for a very long time. He says everything's in the past, but I'm pretty sure he's still trying to convince himself of that, because what happened in his past had such a big impact on his future that it's still in the back of his mind day in and day out

[luminique]

saw a japanese tweet about lighter during his underground fighting days and i am absolutely distraught. don’t treat this as canon though, they only used info in game to help build their own understanding of lighter.

they said that in his ep, he seemed to be someone who was constantly winning. but if you look at his story in the game, he mentioned having losses. a little headcanon that they had was that it wouldn’t be fun/entertaining if he always won his matches. you could put him against anyone and he’d honestly win against them so there were some match fixings and unfair advantages to his opponents to give the audience a ‘real’ show.

another thing that was mentioned was how he told us during the tour de inferno how he could just lower his head and bend his knees a little and he’d get money. this isn’t solid proof of anything but many do think that he may have been forced to provide extra services, considering the fact that he is canonically handsome (claims from bellum and other npcs have complimented him too).

then we learn that he felt like a zombie during his time in those fighting rings. opponent after opponent, his body deeply bruised and wounded, unable to look at his own reflection in their eyes. he had only done it for the money, to compensate for his actual losses in his life but then he was turned into an object for entertainment.

he was just a young man, he also had hope and ambitions. then it was ripped out of him starting with the deaths of his comrades, followed by his exploitation in those matches and the underground fighting rings. even though big daddy had paid off his debts, his ‘mistake’ as a leader didn’t disappear, the scars and marks on his body didn’t disappear, his own habits of self sacrifice and suicidal thoughts didn’t disappear.

we don’t actually know what went down during his days in the ember arena. personally, i would be more than fine if he chooses not to tell us the full details. i just hope that the game story treats him with care and we don’t have to consistently make him relive those days.

[concretejunglefm]

I just wondered who your favourite writers are on here ☺️

hi anon 👋 there's so many I honestly don't know where to start.

@xmads-omensx and her call me lover series, as well as her new one say you're mine and she has many more one shot blurbs as well as text requests

@saythatuwill and their something in the water fic, she also has a wonderful vessel fic on her ao3 for sleep token fans

@concreteangel92 and her thou shall not kill series as well as many of the other requests or Noah one shots she writes

@somebodyels3 who's bartender!noah and cupid!noah I'm in love with, as well as her overall sub!noah thoughts. she has so many more wonderful stories including butterfly clips because noah fluff brings out the cute aggression

@veephoenix do I need to say more other than noah and lia? I will because there's also a folio fic too, debts to pay, for us folio fans. Also into the abyss of bad habits

@deathblacksmoke and her whole dramamine series, but she also has so many wonderful other one shots and series, including some with the bo guys x plus size!reader like this one with folio also matt and noah

@defuckingthrone-dot-com and her do I wanna know if you're too sweet jolly fic, and her noah a dirty wedding affair fic, as well as having many other thots and one shots

@fadingangelwisp and her bestfriend!noah series I told you I love you and it felt like a lie as well as anything werewolf!noah

@flowery-mess frat boy!noah and firefighter!noah, need I say more?

@blade-dressed-in-red has some sweet noah fluff for everyone who needs that

@aplaceinthedark and their entire lost in the labyrinth series, especially if you enjoy spooky vibes

@sorrowsofsilence and the bet because I'm self indulgent and fell in love with that from the start but she also has so many more incredible things

@kaliforniahigh and most recently her zombie apocalypse au

@silent-stories has a lot of cute Noah one shots and blurbs as well as a whole brothers bestfriend series and two other series TBAF and WTMS

@1toreyouapart and their incredible supernatural inspired fic exorcizamus, she also has a couple more on going series which are amazing

@collapsedglasshouses and her tangled threads fic as well as multiple more fics involving the other bo guys

@treacheryinblue and the incredible on display series as well as a handful of other series and one shots

@familiarscars and her lost in control + drive you insane series, fitting titles to how they they make you feel

@erraomens and her the fear of feeling series which has been a wonderful read thus far

@darksigns-exe and her crave fic, which was just beautiful, she also has a selection of so many more wonderful fics, series and one shots including an upcoming one ghost in the silence // dear in the headlights

@malice-ov-mercy and her wonderful brain overall with the one shots and blurbs step bro!noah 🥵, but also her incredible din evigt fic

@ladyveronikawrites and her bound with love fic, it's not bo but I loved it, as well as hotel hijinks and dominate the game, she also has many others including a kinktober series

@sitkowski and their the riptide verse but also their latest incubus!jolly punish series as well as many more including an upcoming twisters au that I'm soooo excited for

@fadingintothegrey and their bestfriend!noah collection especially guess

@enemiestolovershoe and their unintentional rivalry fic as well multiple more Noah and folio ones

@concretenoah has also wrote some sweet noah things

@fuck1ng-queen who has so many beautiful fics like linda

I also recently found Nazareth by whatitcost on ao3 and devoured it

[yumelatte]

let's try it (dying for love) together - chapter one

call it fate, call it karma

In which Lighter meets you in his underground fighting days and develops long-lasting feelings for you; you don't fare much better.

AO3 Link

Masterlist

Spotify Playlist

chapter 1: call it fate, call it karma | next chapter ->

The ceiling fan spun slowly in the tiny space called a “room.” A singular window was cracked wide open, drab yellow curtains billowing from the wind. Outside, cars could be heard honking and engines running—people making their way home in the early evening. Despite being evening, the air was sweltering with heat. Those people in their cars probably couldn’t feel it—what with the air conditioning and whatever. 

Lighter felt the heat, no matter what he did, it was always there. There, like how he was still here. Here, as in he was still alive—still alive in this world with barely any reason to survive. He clenched his fists, thinking about what he lost. He usually doesn't think about it these days, but things were getting rougher lately.

How it could have been with his whole family still around. If only Dane, Nick, and Ratena were still alive… then he wouldn’t be living like this… if only he could have died with them… He thought about death for so long—even going as far as to yearn for it. 

Lighter let out a breath that he didn’t even know that he was holding, hands shaking in his lap. No, it wouldn’t have been better if he died. At least with him alive, Dane’s sister and his late companions’ families were supported; all he had to do was live with guilt and regret.

Hurried footsteps were heard outside the motel room and Lighter stood up from the poor excuse of a mattress that he had made his bed. He knew the routine now; it was the same every time. 

Making his way to the entrance to his room, he opened the door. 

Two men dressed in white-collared shirts, fancy blazers, and black slacks greeted him. Lighter nodded at them and the bigger of the two men started making his way towards a black van in the parking lot, making sure his shorter companion and he were following behind. Not like Lighter had a choice in the matter—being in debt tended to be that way. 

It was time to work to pay off the debt.

He felt like a zombie ever since stepping into the underground fighting ring—like he was operating lifelessly. Throwing punch after punch, destroying multiple punching bags with his newfound strength, knocking down opponents one after another. Underneath the bright lights of the dome, Lighter has left a mountain of bodies in his wake. It wasn’t enough; he needed to win more. The more he won, the more money he got. More and more to cover the debt that was suffocating him under its weight. He didn’t care that his opponents all fell with a loud bang or suffered serious injuries from his punches. He didn’t care that he also gained scars from the fighting. Anything for the money. Anything for the families of his family. Anything to distract himself from the guilt of being the one to cause their deaths. Anything to keep his mind off the regret of not being able to die with them. 

He fought and won for the money and the consequence—the Ember Arena’s new famous fighter—him—Lighter Lorenz. 

It was rare, but Lighter did lose. He wasn’t at his best during those times. He reasoned that winning isn't everything here. When he lost, he noticed some people exchanging money behind his back. 

But after the winning matches—some fighters tried to talk to him. Fighters, who he didn’t beat up that badly, wanted to know what his secret was. How did he keep his confidence? How does he get up after being knocked down? How does he find the motive to keep going? 

Only Lighter knew the reason why for those questions. He caught himself clutching his dog tags now and then. He never entertained them, always ignoring them—never making eye contact. He was scared to look anyone in the eyes because of his fear of what he would see staring back at him. He had been at this for so long that he felt like was losing himself. How much longer can he bury his burdens like this? He doesn’t know how much more he can take.

His next opponent was named Vincent Young, a rookie fighter who didn’t look like he belonged in here. Vincent was shorter than him (not by much) and had a scrawnier build, too. Not too scrawny, but more lean if anything. What were they thinking? He was not going to put up much of a fight; Lighter would be done with him in 3 minutes—tops. 

The bell rang and the match began. Lighter immediately rushed in for the kill—and to his surprise, Vincent quickly dodged out of the way. Lighter didn’t falter as he aimed another jab at Vincent’s side, but that too, was evaded. Lighter repositioned himself for another blow to the face, and Vincent positioned himself to move away from it. The crowd was going crazy, judging from the increased uproar in his ears. A shrill voice had called out Vincent’s name. Lighter was getting pissed and he rarely felt mad anymore. What was this guy’s problem? Just take the hit and fall, so he can just take the victory and get the money and get out of here for the day. Lighter took the time when they were circling one another with arms up to re-evaluate his strategy. This guy, Vincent, wasn’t going for offensive moves. Lighter realized that he was only on the defensive. Lighter bit his lip in frustration, recognizing that Vincent was making him use up all his energy. When Lighter was all out of energy, Vincent would go in for the final hit and claim victory. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed the money more than him—he swore it. 

Lighter was caught off guard when Vincent jabbed his face; he just barely managed to dodge it. That brief moment of shock let Lighter catch a glimpse of his opponent’s determination. In Vincent’s eyes, he could see the same flame that he had when he looked in the break room’s mirror. Smirking, Lighter understood that Vincent also had a reason to be there. Whatever that reason was, Lighter had a better reason. 

It was on. 

Vincent had put up a fight and managed to keep the crowd’s interest, but in the end, Lighter was victorious. The referee was holding up his arm, announcing his win. The loser, Vincent, passed out on the floor. Lighter could hear the crowd cheering loudly for his victory and Vincent’s loss. In his peripheral vision, he watched Vincent. He had painted himself as unapproachable because he feared what he had become. He had refused to interact with anyone—he didn’t know why he felt the need to apologize to Vincent. He had never felt remorse for an opponent before. 

Lighter’s gaze removed itself from the ground to fix on the audience. Among the excited crowd, he found an anomaly. There, he saw you. You—with your hands covering half your face—eyes wide. You weren’t shouting his name like everyone else. You were focused on the loser, his opponent, Vincent. And now he knew why he felt the urge to talk to his opponent. 

He blinked and you were gone. 

The bright lights of the arena and media kept flashing in his sights, and he lost you from it.

Lighter waited behind the building—a rare sight. He usually left with the men who escorted him from the motel to the arena, but tonight was different. They had questioned him rather impatiently, asking why he had decided to stay when he would just leave right away. Lighter gave a flimsy excuse: he needed to train more; he wanted more time with the punching bag. They accepted it because they had noticed that the earlier fight was a bit sloppy. They left him alone for now, but they will be back soon. 

The door squeaked as it opened. 

Out came Vincent, all bruised and beaten up. At least from what can be seen on his face. He had worn a bomber jacket, so the visible injuries that Lighter had caused were hidden. 

Vincent flinched, noticing Lighter. 

A fair reaction, all things considered. Before Lighter could speak, he was interrupted by a familiar voice who he thought he had heard from the crowd before. 

“Didn’t you cause enough harm already?” 

Lighter swore that if he was wishing for death at that moment, he would be getting it from the look you were giving him. You had placed yourself between him and Vincent—glaring up at him with all your might. Lighter would have been scared if you weren’t so tiny. You barely reached the top of his chest. 

Lighter held up his hands, trying to prove that he was harmless, “I had to. I needed the money.” Good reasoning, dumbass. Lighter groaned internally, maybe he should have elaborated further, but he wasn’t ready for that just yet. 

You were too busy sizing him up to come up with an answer; however, Vincent provided one, “No har-” he looked down at the girl in front of him, “Some harm done.” Vincent shook his head and waved his hand to diffuse the situation, “I get it. We’re all in here for a reason.” He said your name while looking at you, “Me and him? We’re fine, okay? You don’t need to defend me.” Vincent’s left hand found a place on the back of his neck. “Man, this is embarrassing. My little sister is trying to protect me when it should be the other way around…”

Lighter held in a laugh, the back of his hand pressed against his mouth. It had been so long since he felt like laughing. 

You blew a loose strand of hair away from your face with your arms knitted together—scorching gaze still fixed on him, and Lighter couldn’t help but compare you to a kitten with her claws out. 

Finally, you looked away from him and turned your attention to Vincent. Lighter felt like he could breathe without your glare. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, he guessed. 

Oh, he was supposed to apologize… but… 

He watched as you fussed over your brother and he was suddenly transported to a time where he was the one being worried about. He knew what it felt like to be in your brother’s shoes. The difference now was that you were there for Vincent, but there was no one for Lighter. 

He was unable to say anything to you or Vincent. Maybe he was wasting his time. What good was an apology when the deed was already done? There was nothing he could have changed about it. He was the one who won and claimed the prize. He didn’t feel like a zombie for the first time in forever. He didn’t feel empty; he just felt sad. 

“Hey!” You were trying to get his attention, snapping your fingers at him. Lighter lowered his gaze towards you. “I’ll be rooting for your downfall, Mister Champion.” He was unable to respond to your animosity. 

You turned away from him, pushing your brother in the opposite direction of Lighter, shouting loud enough for him to hear, “I don’t care how handsome you are. I hope someone knocks you down a peg by smashing your face in!” 

And hearing that while watching you and Vincent leave, all Lighter could do was laugh, unable to hold it back any longer.

After that, he noticed you came around to the ring more, only on days when your brother was here, though. It made sense. You were always cheering for your older brother, but cursing him. He reveled in your curses though. Thoughts of you cursing him out amused him to no end. He relayed to your brother as much in the break room. 

“I don’t think she’ll ever forgive you for hurting me.” Vincent sighed deeply, “Good thing we haven’t been pitted against each other again or else I’m scared she might actually get into the ring herself…” He downed a whole bottle of water. “Sometimes I forget I’m the older one here. I raised her myself, you know.” Vincent pondered for a second, “...Our parents weren’t really around for us, so I had to do everything.” 

Lighter was speechless. Wow. That was a… bit much to reveal when they literally just started talking. A finger made his way to scratch his cheek, “Sorry to hear about that.” 

“I need the money, too.” 

Lighter turned his head towards Vincent, wondering what he was implying. “I-”

“I know you need it as well.” Vincent’s eyes were focused on the ceiling, hand squeezing the poor empty water bottle. “It’s a fucked up situation. My parents left us in debt and I’m doing,” he patted the bench they were on, “ this to help pay it off.” 

“...Yeah, me too.” Lighter saw that they were in the same situation, albeit some things were different. “Sorry, for last time.” 

“I don’t really care that you hurt me, to be honest.” 

Maybe Lighter should just apologize to his sister—he had a feeling she cared more than Vincent did, but he didn’t say anything and let the guy continue. 

Vincent set the water bottle beside him. “I knew the risks of joining the ring… I just want her to stop working her new convenience store job. Sure, it’s helping with the debt, but I can’t protect her from bad things happening. The area is terrifying… I’m scared something would happen to her when I’m not there.”

Lighter understood. He had the same fear when his mercenary gang left for the hollow without him and look how that turned out.

As Lighter exited the arena’s building, you stopped him in his tracks. 

“Here,” Your arm was outstretched towards him, and in your hand, was a pink bento box. 

Lighter blinked once, twice before saying, “For me?” 

“Yes, now take it before I regret it,” you huffed, hand reaching into your little cat-patterned tote bag and even providing him an option of chopsticks or fork. 

“What for?” Lighter accepted your bento box and took the fork, but he was suspicious. 

Your cheeks were flushed and Lighter enjoyed the sight more than he thought. 

“For being my brother’s friend,” you replied, head ducking down while rummaging through your bag again. Your hand reappeared in front of him with his favorite beverage. “If you died of starvation, he would be left alone with only me, and I like seeing him have a friend, so thanks.” You were matching his gaze with your head tilted up at him. 

Lighter couldn’t deny your gifts when it was somewhat close to the truth. He had been living frugally because of the debt and he was too tired after matches to get food. He wondered where you got it though because as he recalled, you were also in debt. “Where did you get this?” 

“I work at a convenience store, remember?” you said, pridefully. “I know Vincent doesn’t want me to work there, but it’s been benefiting us lately.” You smiled at him, lips upturned and eyes crinkled. “Can be you, too.” 

In that moment, Lighter was struck with the realization that you looked goddamn angelic when you wanted to—pretty even. 

He was curious if you remembered when you told him that you wanted his handsome face to be smashed in.

The meals that you have been bringing him every day have been helping him keep up his morale. He also liked seeing you warm up to him. You stopped coming to his matches to curse him; instead, you started to cheer him on. Lighter could hear the same shrill voice from the first time calling out his name. Hearing you rooting for him, was music to his ears. If he was strong before, he was unstoppable after you. And it took his mind off what he lost, even for moments at a time. He was grateful to you and Vincent. 

Speaking of Vincent, Lighter had a feeling his friend had a suspicion because, after one of his matches (one where he could clearly hear you because you were THAT close to the ring), his friend pulled him aside to talk to him. You were running late in meeting up with them, so it was convenient. 

“Can’t help but notice my sister’s been encouraging you a lot lately.” Vincent was leaning against the building wall, arms crossed, eyes focused on the sunset.  

Lighter glanced at his friend, pursing his lips. “Yeah?” What was he supposed to say? He thought you told your brother everything. He didn’t know the reason why you changed your mind about him.

“Yeah, I think she likes you…” 

Damn, he didn’t have to sound so disappointed. 

Lighter groaned, sliding a hand down his face. “Is it a bad thing?” It wasn’t a bad thing, was it? He was surprised you even started acting friendly with him as you certainly made it seem like he was irredeemable with first impressions. He liked that you were friends with him now. It certainly made his days better. 

Propping his fist against his chin, Vincent hummed. “...No, I guess not. I guess I kind of saw it coming because when my sister and I were alone, she would gush over how handsome you were.” He snickered, “Even when we first met.” 

Huh? 

Lighter’s face must have shown his confusion because Vincent’s body was heaving with laughter, “C’mon, don’t tell me you didn’t realize why she insisted on coming around?” 

No, he really didn’t. 

“Well, she was around mostly for me, at first.” Vincent turned his head to look at Lighter. “Then, she saw you.” Vincent shook his head—like he couldn’t believe what he was saying, “She told me it was love at first sight.” 

Lighter couldn’t resist the upward turn of the corners of his mouth. …You fell for him just like that? Was it that easy for you? 

“Then, we were fighting against each other,” Vincent clenched his teeth at the memory. “Of course, she was cheering for me… but she wanted to cheer for you too.” 

Lighter felt sorry for Vincent—he could only imagine how betrayed Vincent was—he was also strangely elated by the fact. 

“I was kind of glad that you won the way that you did because then my sister was on my team again. She despised you after that, but it didn’t really last long.” Vincent let out a snort, “It didn’t help that we became friends, too.” 

“So…?” Lighter wanted to know where Vincent was going with this. Why was he telling all this to him? 

“She likes you. You like her. One plus one equals two. You know what I’m getting at, don’t you?” 

A small figure appeared against the setting sun, waving at Vincent and Lighter. 

Ah. 

Lighter’s hand made its way to the back of his neck, staring in the same direction his friend was. He could see you heading over to them, plastic bags hanging off your arms. You were cute—absolutely adorable, he might add. Caring, beautiful, feisty. You were all those things and with the more time you spent with him, it wasn’t wrong to say that he liked you. …Yet, he couldn’t help but hold back. You were so full of fire—so full of life when he was yearning for death. …However, these days, he wasn’t thinking about dying too much. The guilt was still there, naturally—but he wasn’t lifeless anymore. 

“What were you two talking about?” you asked your brother and Lighter. 

Vincent and Lighter shared a knowing look; Lighter waved his hand, dismissing the question. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.” 

A fleeting wary look crossed your face, but it was gone before Lighter could register it. “...If you guys are done talking, here’s today’s haul…” You wasted no time in handing out their dinner, food and drink included. 

Lighter decided there were more things to live for—like you and his budding friendship with Vincent—but mostly you.

There were whispers of a legendary boxing champion coming to the arena; it was just luck that Lighter was the one who would be challenging him. The stakes were high with 10 million dennies on the line. If Lighter could get his hands on those dennies, he would finally be able to pay off the debt he had been shouldering. 

In the break room, Lighter was hunched over on the bench, feeling the anxiety digging its way into his system. 10 million dennies—his opponent was between him and his freedom. If he loses… his head shakes from side to side—he doesn't even want to think about it. He needed something to ease his thoughts, halfway into taking a cigarette out of the box before crushing the cardboard. Lighter gritted his teeth—No, Nick wouldn’t approve. He was better than this. Instead of putting the cancer stick into his mouth, he popped a lemon candy in. The yellow treat calmed his nerves as he gathered his courage. He could do this—he rarely lost—he was the best fighter in the Ember Arena. Nothing would change that—not even this “legendary boxing champion.” 

Getting up from the wooden plank, Lighter braced himself as he exited the room. 

He got this. 

As he entered the ring, he could hear the crowd calling his name. His eyes scanned the area—instantly spotting what he was looking for. You were right next to the ring with your brother; the only thing separating them from him was the metal chain link cage. You had your hands cupped around your mouth with your eyes fixed on him as you were shouting his name along with the roaring spectators. Vincent had noticed Lighter looking at the pair of them and gave him a thumbs up. 

Lighter’s attention was back on his challenger, a bigger bald man with a heftier build. He had two black rings on each side of his shoulders. Lighter was determined to win this—he needed to. 

The match began when the bell rang. Lighter launched himself at his opponent, right fist making contact with his foe’s bulky arms. He didn’t have time to react when he was smacked in the face with one strong swing from his challenger—gravity pulling him down to the floor. The taste of iron was bitter and tangy on his tongue and his head never felt so heavy before. With him down, Lighter heard the bell ring again. He couldn’t do anything but stare up ahead—bright lights glaring down at him. His eyes were stinging from the brightness. Fuck, everything hurt. Was this how it ended? Is this the end of his reign? With his fading senses, he heard his name being chanted. He fought the pain to peer at the audience—taking every breath like it was his last. He saw some people looking at him and he heard them telling him to get up. He blinked; in his vision, he saw his late family: Ratena, Dane, Nick, and even sweet old Hunter. They were there for him—cheering him on even in the afterlife. His eyes flickered to the side, seeing you. The expression you were making seemed so familiar. You—with your hands covering half your face—eyes wide—gaping at him. He remembered—you were watching your brother in horror as he was passed out in the ring. He was the cause of that painful look—now—that same expression was for him. He let out a chuckle with what little strength he had before shutting his eyes. Everything was in pain, and he just wanted to quit. 

“Lighter! Lighter, get up, you can do it! I believe in you!” your desperate voice rang in his ears, “Please, you have to get up! You exclaimed from the top of your lungs, “Lighter!!!” 

Lighter inhaled, consumed by thoughts of you. Fuck, you were so sweet. He didn’t want to hear you shout his name like that. Not in this situation, at least. He needed to do what you said—get up. The counter was ticking with every second. He didn’t have much time. 

He needed to get up. 

Now. 

Inhale.

Exhale. 

Lighter opened his eyes with vigor, ignoring the pain from his body, and quickly defied gravity by getting upright. He saw his foe egging the crowd on—getting them to cheer for him instead of Lighter. Lighter wouldn’t have that; Lighter got into formation to knock the guy down—striking him on his stomach while he was distracted. The guy, realizing that Lighter stood up, retaliated with a punch of his own, but Lighter was quick as lightning, dodging the hit and returning one of his own. His opponent flew back slightly, but ultimately, met Lighter head-on—or more precisely—fist-on. Seeing the bigger guy swinging at him again, Lighter braced himself as he also put his full force into the next punch, lunging at him with all his strength.

It paid off. 

His fist made contact with his foe’s face—paying him back tenfold from earlier. 

The bigger guy fell with a great thud on the floor. 

1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, 4 seconds—till 10 seconds. 

Distinct rings of a bell. 

He won, evidently by the way the referee was holding up his arm. Lighter scanned the crowd again and saw you jumping up and down—hands in the air, eyes on him with his name leaving from your lips continuously. 

He did it.

Lighter tried to leave the arena as soon as possible, still in his boxing shorts—with his jacket hanging over his left shoulder. More bright lights than just the ones hanging overhead flashed at him. Lighter closed his eyes, turning away to avoid the cameras. He got the money; now, he just needed to see you. 

You were waiting for him by the same building door from all those other times. The only difference from the other times was that he didn’t have time to put on his jacket, so he was still shirtless—all his scars and muscles were out on display. He also noticed your brother wasn’t there with you. 

When you saw him, he could see your mouth open to speak, “Hey-” you swallowed, suddenly averting your eyes from him and cutting yourself off. 

Lighter ducked into your sight, getting your attention again. “Not even going to congratulate me?” he teased. 

“Put on your jacket. Y-you’re distracting me!” You turned your head away from him, hand waving frantically in the air. 

Lighter shrugged, “What’s the difference? You see me shirtless all the time in the ring.” He tried to get in your line of sight once more. 

It was of no use—you were a master at avoidance. You were also really cute, acting like this just from him being without a shirt. 

“It’s not the same… In the ring, you’re far away from me. Here…” He could see you sneaking glances his way before fully returning your eyes away from him, “...I can see everything...” 

“Everything, huh…?” Lighter wondered what you thought about his scars. Did you think they were ugly? You probably hated them because of that. He slipped his arms into the soft material of his jacket—zipping it up to appease you and because he was feeling self-conscious all of a sudden. “You can look at me now. I’m all jacket now.” 

A giggle left you as you finally looked up at him. “Congrats on the win!” 

Lighter crossed his arms, flashing his teeth. “Thanks, really means a lot, coming from you.” 

“Now that you've won all those dennies, are you going to leave?” Such anticipation coming from you. Did you want him to stay?

Lighter thought about it; he would be free from debt by winning that fight, but truthfully, he was probably going to take out another loan to support his late family’s families more. 

He shook his head, “No,” he paused, wondering if he should continue. He decided to, “...I have people to support, so I will still be around.” 

“Am I a bad person?” 

Lighter’s eyes widened in shock. Your question came out of the blue. Why would you think that? You were the furthest thing from a bad person. 

You continued, hand preoccupied with your hair. “I was just thinking of how happy I am because of what you said. Ah! Not about the debt! But when you said you’ll still be around…” He could see you trying to hide your embarrassment. 

“You’re cute.” 

“What?!” You rose to your full height, giving him your full attention. 

Oops, it slipped out… Might as well roll with it.

“Yeah, you’re cute for being happy that I’ll still be here.” Lighter tried to give you a way out. “It’s like you actually enjoy my company or something.” 

“I do.” You didn’t hesitate with your answer. “And I’m sorry when we first met. I didn’t mean what I said about someone smashing your face in. And when it did happen today, I actually felt like my heart stopped. I don’t want to see you hurt like that ever again.” 

Lighter was helpless in the fact that he was moving before he could even think; he reached out for your form and embraced you—his chest supporting your head and hands. He looked down at you, seeing you flustered with your face in his upper torso. Your voice was shaky, “I’m s-sorry…” You resisted the tears behind your eyes as you wrapped your arms around him, returning his hug. 

The evening skies were painted with shades of orange and red—shades of purple and pink blending in with the blues. Birds flying high in the sky—heading to who knows where. People walking by—minding their businesses—on the sidewalks. The world was still turning, but as Lighter and you stood like this—with you in his arms, he felt like this was all he needed. 

A car drove by, white lights blinding him. He released a groan as he adjusted his eyes away from the brightness. 

“What’s wrong?” Your head lifted with lips in a fine line, eyes scanning over his face.  

Lighter returned your gaze, rubbing his right eye. “I think that guy really got me. My eyes hurt just from looking at bright lights.” 

Silence, then—

“Meet me here again tomorrow.” 

“When have I not?” Lighter thought that request was ridiculous because you have always waited for him. Something bothered him. “Where’s your brother?” 

“...In a match…” 

Lighter’s mouth formed an ‘o’ as he felt the heat creeping up his neck. “...And you’re here with me…” 

“...Mhm…” you hummed, agreeing with him—head buried in his chest. 

Lighter felt like he was going to lose his mind because of you.

Just like you said, you were there the day after—in the same spot. Again, without your brother. 

Gesturing Lighter to come closer to you with your right hand, you were hiding something behind your back with your other hand. “Come here.” 

He obeyed you, getting in front of you dubiously. “What?”

“Bend down a little,” you complained without venom, “You’re too tall!”

He complied with your request as he heard, “And close your eyes.” 

His vision was filled with blackness and his mind filled with curiosity. 

Before he had to think too long, he felt two fine, cold pieces of metal sliding between his head, to his ears as he felt something perching on his nose. 

“Okay, open your eyes!” 

Lighter’s first thought was that the world got darker and that the sun disappeared among the clouds; however, he eventually realized that you had slid on him a pair of fine sunglasses. The metal felt foreign on his face and he could barely see the gold rims outlining the lenses. 

“What do you think?” 

Once again, he didn’t have time to think before he said, “I think I love you.” 

“You—” Your hands made contact with his chest as you stared up at him, cheeks flushing a wonderful shade. 

“Can you tell me you don’t feel the same way?” Lighter couldn’t handle it—he needed to tell you how he felt. No more holding back; you fought your way into a corner of his heart like he fought through life. Before you, he didn’t even know he could feel such intense emotions. He was a zombie—just going through the motions of living—empty and lifeless—doing everything he could just to survive without much thought. Losing his group damaged him badly. He didn’t think he could ever recover from it. But now—he didn’t think he could live without you. He didn’t want to lose you like he did with his teammates. “You’re also having a hard time with money and you went out of your way to get me,” pointing at the shades resting on his face before moving them to his hair, “ these ?” 

His confession caught you off guard, and you weren’t ready with a response. “I—” 

Lighter watched your face with great interest. He could see the million thoughts that ran through your head just from your expressions alone. 

“I do.” You couldn’t hide the fact that you felt something for him. “...I l-love you, too…” Your stuttering was pronounced in your confession. You weren’t ready for this, but you had been feeling this way for a while. You just didn’t want to admit it—you were scared of ruining what you had with him. 

He was also scared of ruining what he had with you, but he was scared of losing you more. He wanted to kiss you so bad—to show you how he was feeling—but you beat him to it. 

Feeling light pressure on his shoes, Lighter sent a glance down which showed that your shoes were on them. You were trying to match his height, but he was still out of reach. He felt your hands pull him closer by the material of his jacket and your face was getting closer and he was forced into your proximity and the last thing he registered before losing his mind was—he tasted grapes. The pressure on his lips was caused by your own—and it was making him greedy. You started to pull away when Lighter placed both hands on your face and craned it upwards again to meet your mouth again. Slipping his tongue out, he was met with the resistance of your lips. Feeling something unexpectedly wet, you opened your mouth in shock. Lighter took advantage of that moment to acquaint his tongue with yours. He dominated your mouth with his, and you were feeling lightheaded—if you didn’t get away soon, you were sure he would devour you. You faltered on his feet from dizziness, but he caught you—keeping you upright against his body with his lips still attached to yours. You tried to speak, but Lighter wanted more of your taste—you had no choice when he kept you quiet like this. 

Lighter didn’t allow you to break the kiss, but he realized he needed to breathe. Him needing to breathe made him think that you also needed a breath too. Reluctantly, he pulled away from you—a thin strand of saliva connecting the two of you. His lips were parted—as were yours. Your gaze was half-lidded, staring at him like he had put the stars up in the sky for you. Lighter licked his lips—savoring the taste of your lip balm. Grape has become his new favorite flavor. 

You couldn’t think straight in his space—you needed space. Moving away from him, you covered your face with both hands, trying to will the blood in your cheeks to disappear. 

Lighter watched in amusement as you turned away from him in an attempt to keep your face hidden. He watched as you tried to gather your thoughts. He fought the urge to bring you back to him because he didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. To his surprise, you approached him and fisted his jacket’s material again to pull him down again to give him a little peck on his right cheek. “I’ll see you later.” With that, your back was within his view. 

As you left, Lighter touched his cheek and smiled.

When he exited the building, Lighter was expecting you to be there waiting for him; however, you were nowhere to be seen—neither was Vincent. 

A boar thiren was standing by the usual place. He was dressed in a black leather jacket with a turquoise bandana around his neck—he didn’t look like he belonged in this city. 

He greeted Lighter and introduced himself as Big Daddy from the Outer Ring. The thiren told him that he saw him in the newspapers as a high-profile fighter—one that rarely lost. He was looking for someone to protect his gang and Lighter was the perfect candidate. Lighter was hesitant because that would mean giving up on seeing you, among other things. Protecting his gang—did that mean just winning fights for the hell of it? Winning without seeing you? He didn’t think he could do it—didn’t want to lose you or Vincent—two people who stuck by him through these tough times. 

Big Daddy mentioned that he could pay off his new debt in full and the offer became very tempting, but troubling. How did he know about that? Lighter was defensive in asking how he knew about that. Big Daddy just said that he was perceptive—rarely losing as a fighter in the underground fighting pit meant more money—more money meant more funds—but to Big Daddy, Lighter didn’t strike him as the material type. Lighter couldn’t argue with that. What should he do…

He could accept this offer and then tell you the next time he saw you. Lighter told Big Daddy that he would do it, but he had something important to do first. Big Daddy nodded and they exchanged a handshake.

Lighter came to this spot for the next few days at the usual time he left the arena, but you never came back. 

[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

[electrasev5nwrites]

Aint No Grave (galvanic vitalism) 1/2

part 2

His stumps hurt like a bitch. 

Deidara rolled over and groaned, thoroughly sick of this phantom pain bullshit and tedious revivals. “I have died twice,” he complained to management. “This is unacceptable, yeah. I earned my culmination.”

Why was he back again? No one was commanding him into battle-- and he didn't feel dead, anyway. Aside from a buzzing in his bones he just felt alive. Regular. Total bullshit.

That was weird but he didn’t have the emotional energy to devote to wondering why he had woken up again, after dissolving into dust at the end of that asinine battle for the continuation of humanity with all those Konoha chucklefucks and the zombies. He sulked in the dirt. Ugh. What the hell was it now? Some magical goddamn last-chance heroes quest to clear his soul’s debt and make it into the pure lands? Barf. It was highway robbery to steal his right to leave a final and dramatic mark on the world.

Someone grunted. It was low, dismissive, and very familiar.

Deidara rocketed up, bracing himself with– holy shit, his arms were working. He spent a moment staring dumbly at his gaping palms before he remembered that he had heard someone fucking awful in his vicinity.

Kakuzu gave him a look of pitiless disdain and went back to his work, stitching the lips shut on Hidan’s severed head. An arm flailed angrily from where it was pinned to a tree. The other arm was inching towards the other body parts, but the legs kept drunkenly ambling away from it. Hidan’s legs were still attached to his hips and they were trying to walk over to what was left of his lower torso, a few yards over yonder. This looked like Kakuzu’s work.

That didn't explain anything that he cared about, yeah.

Deidara used all of his years of training to interpret the subliminal message that he should shut the fuck up now. Instead he scowled at the old man. “The fuck is this?” he hissed, and gestured with his working arm, holy shit, that was wild. Some civilian-donated arms had been sewn back on after that buttcrack Hatake wiped his arms from existence, but they hadn’t worked that well for him. These moved like his own arms and they didn’t even smell like human rot. That had been bad enough, to be some weirdo clinging to the past like Sasori-senpai, but to have perfect new arms happen to him again was an unforgivable affront. He squinted at the mouths in his palms. No chipped teeth. They were perfect and undamaged.

He was sort of offended. Deidara waved the arms around a little more to gauge their utility. “Did you do this to me?” Deidara hissed suspiciously. He glanced down at the seam where his stumps ought to end. He frowned. He didn’t even see scarring… There was a tan line. His stump was a little darker than the arms. Ew. He contemplated this perversion. “Looking back on the past with nostalgia is for hacks, yeah,” Deidara said vehemently. “I can make clay with my ass if I have to-”

“Shut up.” Kakuzu’s green and black nightmare eyes flashed with barely repressed rage.

He shut up. Just for a moment.

And then he noticed something weird. “That is an extinct mushroom.” Deidara pointed accusatively at the fungal sack of shit in question. “This is a lame genjutsu.” He huffed. “And that– fucksake, has whoever made this not heard about the post war one land management programs?” He scowled at a growth of mugwort, which had been eradicated in the wild like 30 years ago by the medical industry to ensure patient supply stayed level and no one did any folksy self care. “This is someone’s idiot botanical fantasy,” he complained. “Either that or we’ve traveled back in time.”

Both of the old men were staring at him now. Hidan and Kakuzu exchanged a meaningful look, like they didn’t think he would have noticed the flaws in the landscape.

Deidara rolled his eyes. “Come on,” he said disdainfully. He shook his long hair out and ran a hand through it–wow, okay, he had missed that. He twisted a section together to enjoy how soft and strong the strands were. Maybe having hands again was worth it. He forgave them for being a throwback.

There was a wet sound as Hidan tore his lips apart in an attempt to break the thread keeping them shut. “We’re in the past, ass bucket,” he sneered wetly. The effect was ruined by how weak and weedy his voice always came out when he didn’t have two lungs attached. His left arm finally reached his torso and started pulling it to his legs.

“Shut up, uggo,” Deidara said immediately. And then he had to run from his life because Kakuzu retaliated. He used his new hands to blow up a section of the forest, which brought down an angry nature-freak clan of proof that he was, in fact, in the ancient past.

“Those are fuckin’ Senju?” Deidara accused, three sweaty hours later of chasing around increasingly desperate survivors from a patrol squad. He kicked the closest body. It squelched. It almost sounded like a voice protesting, through the mess he had made of the face. He knelt down to pull at the corpse’s face to confirm it really was dead. Huh. Musta been air trapped in the gut or something. It moved when he touched it, like human skin and fat tissue and not like something Sasori or Orochimaru would have kept around mummified or pickled. He made a sound of disgust. “This is savage,” Deidara complained. “The only good thing about coming back to life is that I was gonna have a chance to see the new Fuyumi movie, yeah.” He kicked the body again for good measure, hard enough that it rolled over. It grunted again.

He glowered for a while. He could feel Hidan and Kakuzu moving his way, probably to whine about his lack of subtlety like the old married farts they were. Well, they could go fuck themselves, he decided, standing and bracing his hands on his hips to lean back and crack his back. 

Hidan came crashing into view. “You!” He screamed. His eyes were wild as he pointed at Deidara.

He raised a blonde eyebrow in disdain. “Yeah?” Deidara drawled.

‘Might have to fly away from this. The two of them are a nightmare.’

Ah. Haha. Shit. He hadn’t prepped any sculptures to blow up. Deidara resisted the urge to giggle when he realized he might be in danger.

“You’re immortal now,” Hidan breathed. He got waaay too close, wafting the stink of metallic blood and rot. “You’re one of us, you were worthy enough to be rejected from the pure lands. It’s a sign.”

Deidara was too busy plugging his nose to listen to the idiot’s words for a moment. When it landed, he laughed. 

Him? Immortal? That was stupid. “I would never,” Deidra drawled. “Immortality is for hacks. Life has no meaning if it never ends— your end is the only meaning!” He declared loudly and proudly to the forest, and was promptly ignored. 

“I can feel it!! Hidan grabbed him by the forearms and brought their faces close together. “Repent and convert,” he breathed, and then kissed Deidara’s forehead. “You have been baptized with death and now speak his tongue.”

Ugh!

Deidara shrieked and blasted a hole in the creep. “Hands off!” He put some space in between them and huffed, outraged. “That’s nasty, yeah, when was the last time you washed the blood off of your- off of your anything?” He spluttered in outrage and shuddered.

Hidan ignored that very good point to start off on one of his religious scriptures. Deidara watched from a safe distance, appalled but willing to take the moment to scoop up some shitty dirt and chakra-treat it to work as makeshift clay. He stuffed it to satiation with explosion release chakra and hurriedly molded it into a shitty fat clay bird. As he worked he tracked Kakuzu’s location. He was probably interested in the bodies that Deidara had left– he seemed to veer towards all of them on his way to intercept Deidara and Hidan’s eventual conflict.

“-have the blessing of our Lord and Savior to see and hear beyond death,” Hidan took a moment to breathe. “Join the holy crusade to convert the filthy fucking nonbelievers and use their blood to paint his will upon the damned canvas of this sinful goddamn world-”

Deidara let it go in and out of his ears until he felt sufficiently armed and his bird’s beak didn’t look so stupid. “You’re cracked, yeah,” he said flatly. “I’m not buying what you’re selling. So you can fuck off.” He gestured for Hidan to leave, shoo.

Hidan stopped talking at least and stared at him, red eyes glittering with malice and something that wasn’t very sane. Kakuzu was close now. He had spent a few minutes with a corpse and picked up speed in a way that implied he was pissed off.

Deidara sensed, in his heart, that it was time to leave. “Don’t call,” he said with a wink, and blew his shitty little sculpture up into the safest size he could manage with such shitty material. He hopped on and lifted directly up.

The impulse was to use the sculpture as a barrier between his body and whatever it was that Hidan was throwing at him– but that would be stupid, yeah, because if this got ruined he would be back on the ground with that asshole, so Deidara leaned over the side to spit shitty clay balls out of his hands. He released them midair in time to redirect Hidan’s scythe. By the time the weirdo had his staff back, Deidara was out of range.

He picked a direction at random, given that he didn’t know what time it was so the sun wasn’t useful for orienting. The geography clued him in before long that he was heading for Suna– oh, shit, for the lands that would one day be unified into Suna.

Deidara considered the soil quality there, hissed, and adjusted his heading to the vague direction of Iwa. 

He didn’t know why he was here, or what he would do. But every situation was enhanced with a large quantity of high-quality clay.

[snivyartjpeg]

Yuma Month Day 26 - Role Swap

god i was excited for this one. it first started off as a joke, but the more i thought about it, the more interesting this swap became. so here's my massive lore dump of changes that'd happen in the story beneath the cut (spoiler warning):

i think, fundamentally, yuma and yakou are very similar characters. they're both very protective and kindhearted, with a strong sense of justice and a penchant for attracting terrible luck. because of this, some things would remain the same, such as the NDA's dynamics with their doormat chief as well amnesia!yakou's massive unpaid intern energy. i think yakou would be pretty similar to how he behaved in the light novel- a bit more optimistic and naive, like yuma. but there are two key differences between them that'd make this a different story, especially in ch 4: yuma has a forte, and yakou is very selfish. so here's some changes:

yakou's wife is his shinigami now, as you can see, while shinigami is yuma's dead wife. i think mrs furio would act cooler than shinigami. she'd still be playful, but she takes her job more seriously. also she hands yakou the solution keys normally without throwing up. they still have to do the dance and mouth sword thing tho. and the other stuff. that's just death god protocol

shinigami (or in this case the unnamed Mrs. Kokohead but i will still be calling her shinigami for convenience sake) was a scientist at amaterasu who studied forensics and thanatology instead of regenerative medicine. this also means that the pill she gives zombie yuma is not going to bring him back, but instead grant the zombie homunculi a peaceful, painless, but permanent death

speaking of zombie yuma, he's the homunculus now! yakou is 100% human and also doesnt have a forte. he's still number one, but instead of having a forte he's just that good at solving mysteries

yes this means makoto looks like yakou now. sorry makotoheads. i think he'd have really long, shaggy hair dyed to be like. idk. black or something. also he's more clean shaven bc stubble with a mask on is a sensory nightmare

yuma still cant cook. he subsists entirely on takeout, meat buns, black coffee, and beer. he's still in a lot of debt and under a lot of stress and his personality is essentially "what if canon number one just gave up"

he doesn't smoke though. he tried once and got into the worst coughing fit

imma say it right now. kurumi is not a love interest. yakou likely disguises himself as a faculty member instead (also i think one of the teachers gets a crush on fem yakou bc i just know she'd be hot)

ANYWAY what about chapter 4? im SO glad you asked! because here's where things get spicy!

so, lets start with the dead wife. shinigami catches onto huesca's inhumane research and she's just as adamant about bringing the truth to light as she always is. she blows the whistle, so he blows her up. yuma investigates, but they dont let him look any further, yada yada, yuma stews in his misery for five years

yomi sends in the evidence to motivate yuma to kill huesca, and makoto lets it happen because a dead huesca would be convenient. he even introduces the hitman, fully expecting yuma to make use of him

yuma doesnt. in fact, he wants to kill huesca with his own hands. and now that these detectives are here, he can do it and even return alive. the thing is, he doesn't want to put them in danger, so he chooses to do almost everything alone (sound familiar?)

his plan is simple:

ask desuhiko for a peacekeeper uniform. desuhiko trusts him enough to take "i want to investigate kanai ward's ultimate secret by infiltrating their ranks" as an answer. he does, however, let yakou know about this as an offhand comment before the mystery ever begins

hold fubuki's hand. it doesnt really matter how. she'll gladly allow it because she's fubuki. he stores her time powers and heads out the sub. yakou also learns this as an offhand comment played off as a joke (maybe fubuki affectionately comments about how she never expected the chief's hands to be so soft... idk. there has to be some way for yakou to have this as a future clue)

use his peacekeeper status to sneak into amaterasu HQ and demand a functioning ama-pal from that one creepy researcher

use ama-pal + fubuki's borrowed powers to bypass huesca's security. sneak the bot past the hard-of-hearing doctor and press the button to shut off security

this would probably alert huesca, but since the doctor never received a warning, yuma has enough time to rush in and stab him before he realizes what's going on

leave HQ while still in uniform, dispose of the disguise once he's safe, and return to the NDA like nothing happened. success!

soooo.... yakou, on that same day, decides to investigate amaterasu HQ with makoto

all the while, vivia has his suspicions about yuma's actions and keeps an eye on him in spectral mode. he... basically witnessed the whole thing, so he gets up off his ass and decides to follow yakou to the lab because he has a Very Bad Feeling about this

just like canon, he senses the death god and deduces that our protag has been killing off murderers, and so he wants to protect his chief as well as his peace and quiet (his dynamic with yuma would be the same as his dynamic with yakou, since it's entirely believable for yuma to treat vivia with the same kindness yakou did)

yakou tries to speak to huesca, but surprise! security is disabled and he's dead in the lab! no one else at amaterasu liked huesca enough to check on him, so yakou and makoto are the first ones at the scene of the crime. yakou, of course, decides to start investigating this murder

vivia somehow sneaks into the lab (dont ask me how) and confronts yakou, threatening him with his boxcutter and adamantly imploring him to stop pursuing this particular mystery in the same way he did yuma in canon. unfortunately, this attracts attention, and now they're in trouble (maybe even yomi's there to fetch his files). at this point, yakou has enough solution keys, so he panics and goes right into the labyrinth (and maybe others can enter for another reason that isnt coalescence idk)

so... they go in the labyrinth... vivia tries to stop him every step of the way, until the answer is right in front of them

yakou kills yuma with his own hands. there's no stab wounds or toxic gas to leave any doubt. yakou begins to question what good his justice really does. it doesnt even save them from their predicament, just like the other deaths. instead, makoto ex machina comes in to save them, and hands yakou a small black box

when they return to the agency, everyone is heartbroken over their chief, who seemingly died out of nowhere. fubuki tried rewinding time, but to no avail. halara tried everything to wake him up, knowing it's futile. desuhiko stood aside, feeling completely helpless. and yakou and vivia return looking like they just came back from hell

they barely get the chance for a funeral before the knockout gas trap activates... you know the rest

AAAAND SCENE! so that's my extremely long winded lore dump about this au. i thought about it Way Too Much but god it's so interesting to me. i love these characters and swapping them was immensely fun

[misskaorii]

Janitor ai bots

⛧°。 ⋆༺♱༻⋆。 °⛧

Hii! I’m Miss Kaori on Janitor Ai, I do Gyutaro bots cause this man needs love, I already posted two and they are doing so well!! But now I have so many in private and they are so interesting! I’ll just put them all here and feel free to ask me to release the ones you like!

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

: ̗̀➛ Gang boss

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ Gyutaro is the boss of a renowned Gang. In this RP you both are in a big gathering you will choose to be his wife, his +1 or even be in another gang (well there are many possibilites really..)

: ̗̀➛ Best friend

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ Here Gyutaro is your lifelong best friend, you two are chilling in his room while he is scrolling through his phone.

: ̗̀➛ Arranged marriage

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘛𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪ô 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤Gyutaro had always struggled with love all his life.. He his the disappointment of his familly as he is not yet married nor have offsprings until he is called to the livingroom and sees you and your father talking with his.

: ̗̀➛ Original

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘛𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪ô 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ What would happen if you decided to hunt down the demon who killed your family? What would happen if this very demon took interest in you the first moment you tried to attack him?

: ̗̀➛ University

╰┈➤ You and gyutaro are in university, he is a derenged man, always agressive and violent toward everyone..

: ̗̀➛ Drug dealer

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤You and Gyutaro are ex because of many things.. his addiction for drugs and the fact that he sell those are on of the reasons.

: ̗̀➛ Human

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘛𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪ô 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ Daki had never been burnt alive.. His mother died a long time ago and he works as a debt collector and he is very good at it becuse of his ugly apparence.

: ̗̀➛ Insecure and incel

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ You and Gyutaro are in a relationship but he really fails to understand what a pretty thing like you is doing with an ugly man like he is.

: ̗̀➛ Babysitting his sister

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤You're the new babysitter his mother hiered but he wasn't aware of that, so what was his surprise to see a complete stranger in his living-room...

: ̗̀➛ Teacher

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮��𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ Gyutaro is a Math teacher but he hate his job.. he does it just for the money actually..

: ̗̀➛ Demon

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 fantasy world.

╰┈➤ In this world the demons live in the forest, they absolutely hates humans. demons lives in tribes and they have mates. Gyutaro is the son of the chief of the tribe.

: ̗̀➛ Brother of your bestie

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ Daki and You are best friend.. her looser of a brother have a big crush on you.

: ̗̀➛ Zombie apocalypse

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ After a big zombie apocalypse you find yourself in Gyutaro's group of survivors, he is the chief.

: ̗̀➛ Naga

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ Gyutaro is a naga, trapped in a zoo he is abused and forced to do trics or show himself in front of humans.

: ̗̀➛ Scp

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ Gyutaro is a SCP, a bloodthirsty monster, youre the scientist assigned to feed and study this agressive and violent specimen..

: ̗̀➛ Rock star

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘙𝘗 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢.

╰┈➤ Gyutaro is a rockstar, he is the guitarist of his band and compared to the others he isnt famous at all..

{{the characters I already posted are underlined, just click on it}}