#Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars in Debt | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snelbz · 3 years

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Watching and Waiting {Elorcan Smut}

Anon Prompt: Could I humbly request some awkward best friend “we both need release” mutual masturbation from the smut queens?

Written, as always, with the magnificent @tacmc.

Warning: NSFW, 18+. Obvi. ;)

It was the last semester of Lorcan’s final year at the university, and he was so done with going to school that he’d thought about dropping out, forgetting his degree, and giving the University of Orynth a big fuck you.

And he was still pre-med.

Hadn’t even started medical school.

The thought alone made him hurry up the stairs to his best friend’s apartment a little bit faster.

Once he got there, he didn’t bother knocking. The door was unlocked, and Elide had already texted him telling him to come in once he arrived. She was starving, and Elide Lochan was not pretty when she was hangry.

Which she was when Lorcan waltzed into her apartment, carrying a giant bag from the bar and grill down the street.

“It’s about time,” she moaned from where she was flopped on the couch. “I’m starving.”

“Well you could’ve picked up the food,” Lorcan muttered. “I just left the library half an hour ago. Exam tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yeah, but it’s your last one for whatever-the-hell that boring class is called,” Elide said, gathering herself into a sitting position on the couch cushions.

“Biochemistry,” Lorcan corrected, plopping down on the couch next to her. He shot her a look.

She was already looking at him, a suppressed smile on her mouth. “Nerd.”

“Yeah, well,” Lorcan began, chuckling. “One day this nerd is going to be a doctor. You know, if the ten thousand years in school don’t kill me before then.”

Elide hadn’t gone to college. After her uncle had died her junior year of high school, he’d left her his business in his will. Once she graduated, she began working there, and alongside the help of her uncle’s trusted employees, learned how to become one hell of a boss lady at the age of twenty-three. Far better than her uncle had ever been.

“Throwing a pity party this evening?” Elide asked, opening up the bag that he’d set on the coffee table and pulling out her to-go box.

“Not a pity party,” he defended, taking the one she held out for him. The burger inside smelled delicious. “Just abso-fucking-lutely stressed, trying to cram a semester’s worth of cumulative recap into my head, and ready for the school year to end. I need a break.”

Elide stood and walked into the kitchen, returning with two beers. “Well here,” she said, handing one of the bottles to him. “Maybe this can help take things off of your mind. And then once your school year is over, we’re going to the Dead Islands with Aelin and Rowan. And that will certainly take your mind off school.”

Lorcan was looking forward to that trip more than he cared to admit. Yes, he’d have to deal with Rowan’s bitch of a girlfriend, but it was also uninterrupted time with Elide, which the two of them never had anymore.

At least, time with Elide when Aelin wasn’t stealing her time and attention.

Lorcan had a love/hate relationship with Aelin.

It went both ways.

Lorcan put the bottle to his lips and drank. Elide chuckled, watching as he downed it. She hadn’t touched the other one. She handed it to him, then went back to the fridge to retrieve another for herself.

“You know what your problem is, Lor?” Elide asked, taking back her seat next to him on the couch. “You think too much, stress too much. You know every little damn thing that’s going to be on that exam, and you still spent your entire day in the library. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m also already sixty thousand dollars in debt, so forgive me if I don’t care to stay here for an extra semester,” Lorcan said, his mouth full of his bacon cheeseburger.

Elide laughed, quietly, as she stirred up her chicken pasta before taking a big, cheesy bite. Her eyelids fluttered shut and she let out a long, soft moan. “That’s delicious.”

Lorcan gave her an amused, sideways glance before agreeing with her. “So, enough about my day. How was yours?”

“Shit,” she answered, shortly. “Movie?”

“That’s all I get?” Lorcan laughed, popping a fry into his mouth.

“Yep,” she said, reaching into his box to steal one for herself.

He swatted her hand away, but said, “Choose whatever.”

“Fine,” she said, and flipped through the channels until she found the rerun of The Notebook.

Lorcan groaned. “I have, unfortunately, seen this movie a million times. All of them with you, might I add.”

“It’s a great movie,” Elide said, tossing the remote aside. “Don’t act like you don't like it and cry at the ending every time.”

Lorcan just rolled his eyes and took another bite of his burger. “It’s completely unrealistic.”

“It is not, it’s romantic,” she sighed. “A spoiled rich girl falls for a boy from the wrong side of the tracks?”

Letting her head fall back against the couch, she rested the back of her hand against her forehead as she “swooned”.

Lorcan scoffed. “It’s not even that. It’s that the world thinks they’re wrong for each other because she’s got money and he doesn’t and they prove everyone wrong.”

“You so love this movie,” she smirked, tipping her beer back and draining it.

He snorted, but they quieted down while they ate, watching the movie. They had flipped it on just before Noah and Allie got to the old abandoned house, where she played piano for him and they shared an awkward, but sweet first time together.

Elise sighed, and Lorcan glanced over at her, as she gazed dreamily at the television. “What? Yearning for your teenage years of inexperienced lovers again?”

“Shut up,” she snapped, nudging him with her foot where she was still taking up most of the couch, despite being half of Lorcan’s size. He caught her foot and massaged her bad ankle. It was something he always did. “It’s just… It’s romantic,” she repeated. “It’s been a long, long time since anyone has looked at me like that. Or even touched me like that.”

Lorcan lifted a brow. “How long are we talking?”

She shot him a look, but as her eyes trailed back to the television, she shrugged. “A couple months. Six months. Seven, maybe.” She cleared her throat. “Nine.”

Lorcan stared at her while she contemplated.

She was looking back at him when she said, “Fine. It’s been…almost a year.”

“Almost a year since you’ve slept with someone?” Lorcan asked, his fingers stilling around her ankle. “Seriously?”

Elide scoffed. “Oh, don’t act like it hasn’t been a while for you, too.”

Lorcan blinked, his fingers resuming her ankle massage. “And how do you possibly know that?”

“Because I can always tell after you’ve slept with someone,” Elide said, amused as she watched him. “You’re not the best at hiding it.”

Lorcan snorted, and looked back to the screen. Allie’s dad was telling Noah that he wasn’t good enough for his daughter.

“What a dick,” Lorcan muttered.

“Allie doesn’t care, though,” Elide said, quietly. “She has her own mind and refuses to see what her parents do. Romantic.”

Lorcan hummed as they watched Allie chase Noah out of her mansion.

“You think she would’ve reacted that badly if they hadn’t just fucked?” Lorcan mumbled.

Elide shot him another incredulous look. “Seriously?”

“I’m just saying,” Lorcan said, shrugging. “Sex complicates everything. You know, for women.”

“I’m going to pretend like you didn’t just say that,” Elide said.

Lorcan’s grin told her that he very much knew he was messing with her. ��Fine, you don’t think sex complicates things, go down to the bar and get yourself a one night stand. Takes care of your little problem.”

Elide scoffed and took her ankle off of his lap. “Okay, first of all, it’s not a problem. And, secondly, I’m not just going to hook up with some random stranger. I don’t know where they’ve been or who they’ve been in.”

Lorcan chuckled. “Ask a friend, then.”

Elide arched a brow. “Are you volunteering?”

As if they both realized what she had said at the same time, they went still.

Lorcan cleared his throat and said, “I’m gonna get another beer,” at the same time Elide mumbled, “That came out wrong.”

He stood, heading for the kitchen and she heard her cabinets opening and closing. When he returned, he had not only another beer for each of them, but also the bottle of vodka from Elide’s freezer. She raised her eyebrows.

He shrugged, dropping back down on the couch. “If we’re having conversations like this tonight, beer isn’t going to cut it.”

“Hope you don’t wipe away all that studying you’ve done in the process,” she murmured, smirking.

“All the more reason to drink.” He poured each of them a shot, but tossed his back before she’d even reached for hers. He made a face and shook his head. “I don’t see how you drink this shit.”

“I don’t see how you don’t,” Elide commented, tossing hers back, effortlessly. “Better than whiskey.”

Lorcan looked offended, but he still poured himself another shot.

“I would, you know,” he said, pouring himself a third. Last one, he told himself, knowing it was completely a lie.

Elide blinked, sipping from her beer. “Would what?”

He downed that third shot before opening his own beer. “If you needed an outlet, someone to bang one out with, I’d do it. No strings attached, of course.”

“Bang one out?” Elide repeated, barking a laugh. “Oh, so tempting, Lor.”

“You laugh now, but I have some pretty good reviews,” he said, grinning at her laughter as he refaced the TV screen.

She snorted, but reached for the bottle and refilled her own glass. “Send me some of your Yelp reviews and maybe I’ll consider it.”

Her foot was next to his leg again, so he nudged her. “Brat. I was just trying to help.”

Elise emptied her glass. “And I appreciate that, but I am more than capable of doing what needs to be done with these.” She lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers in his face.

She was drunk, she absolutely had to be if—.

“Are you talking about getting yourself off?” Lorcan blinked, staring at her again.

“Yeah. Like you don’t do it,” she replied, flopping back into the pillows of the couch.

“Well… Yeah, but…” He shook his head. “I’m a guy.”

Elide raised an eyebrow as she looked at him. Her eyes were most definitely glassy, so she was tipsy, but he could tell she wasn’t drunk. Not yet at least. “And just because I’m a girl, I can’t pleasure myself?” Lorcan hesitated, and Elide’s grin spread. “Are you...blushing?”

“No,” he said, all too quickly. Elide laughed, quietly. “I just...don’t know how you can possibly get yourself off with those short, little things.”

Elide lifted her hand in the air and admired her fingers. “And I assume that all the women you’ve pleasured that have left you such great reviews say that you’re so magical with your fingers?”

Lorcan raised his hand and pressed his palm flat against Elide’s. His hand could swallow hers whole. “Well, my fingers are much longer, anyway.”

“It’s not all about penetration,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes. “With all your glowing reviews, you should know that.”

“Gods, we’re talking about penetration,” he murmured, withdrawing his hand. “I need another shot.”

“You’re the one who said you’d be willing to help me bang one out,” Elide replied, sliding her glass alongside his for him to refill as well. “You technically mentioned penetration first.”

He pointed at her after he drank, the liquor not quite burning as bad as it had before. “Not as explicitly as you did. I was beating around the bush.”

His unintentional choice of words registered with both of them and though they should have been past the point of blushing, they both still did.

“Masturbation is a very natural thing.” Elide shrugged as she got comfortable on the couch again. “Everyone does it.”

Her foot was pressed against his leg again and he was having a hard time focusing on the movie now. Instead, he was thinking pretty damn hard about his best friend getting herself off.

Lorcan cleared his throat and his voice was rough when he asked, “Do… Do you do it a lot?”

She glanced over at him. “Define a lot.”

“Like—.” He dragged a hand down his face. He couldn’t believe they were talking about this, that he was about to ask this. “Like on a regular basis?”

Elide shrugged. “I don’t plan it out or schedule it. Mostly just when I need the release. Sometimes every night. Sometimes every other night. More often than not I do it before bed to help me fall asleep.”

Holy fucking gods.

Lorcan cleared his throat again and rubbed the back of his neck.

Elide’s cheek fell against the couch cushion as she looked at him. “Does that surprise you?”

“I just never…thought about it before.” It was a lie. A massive lie. Lorcan had thought about what Elide was like in countless sexual scenarios before, and judging by the grin that graced her lips, she knew it, too.

“That would be like me never thinking of you like that,” Elide said, at last. “Bullshit.”

Lorcan raised a brow. “You’ve thought of me…like that?”

Elide snorted and drank from her bottle. “Of course, I have. We’ve spent nearly every day together for six years. I’m human. To tell you that I’ve never thought about you sexually would be a straight up lie.”

He drained the rest of his beer, trying to put his attention back on the movie and resituate. The topic at hand had made the current state of his jeans an issue and he tried to adjust before Elide noticed. But apparently it was no use.

She shimmied lower on the couch and the foot that had been pressed against his thigh, brushed over the pronounced bulge in his jeans. “Got something you need to take care of?”

He nearly choked but looked over at her. “You’re drunk.”

Shrugging, she sat up, removing her foot from his bubble. “A little. And horny, but clearly so are you.”

“You’re turned on?” His words were quiet.

“Beyond,” she admitted, toying with the waistband of her leggings. “I can just hide it better since I’m a girl.”

Clearing his throat, Lorcan sat up a bit. “And what are we supposed to do about this information?”

Elide shrugged one shoulder. “We can do nothing about it. We can pretend this entire conversation never happened and go home and take care of our problems later.” She caught his gaze. “Or we can take care of them now.”

Lorcan was almost positive he wasn’t breathing.

“Do you want to watch me, Lor?” She asked, cocking her head to the side.

He blinked. “I… I don’t… Is that a trick question?”

She slowly shook her head and tugged the waistband of her leggings down, just so that he could see the thin, lacey band of her panties.

Yeah, Lorcan was certain he wasn’t breathing.

“You watch me,” she breathed, and dipped her hand inside of her leggings, “and I watch you.”

Lorcan swallowed, and couldn’t help as his tongue darted out and wet his lips.

“What do you say, Salvaterre?” she asked, eyes bright as he watched her hand move inside of her leggings.

In response, Lorcan shifted his body so that he was facing her on the couch. He unbuttoned his jeans, and watched as she slipped off her leggings.

Lorcan swore as he observed her in nothing but her tank top and little, lace panties.

Elide watched every movement in his face, every spark in his eyes, before her eyes trailed down to where his fingers sat at the button of his jeans.

“Your turn, Lor.”

“You really want to do this?” He asked, his hands still unmoving.

She bit her lip and nodded. “No touching though. Watching only.”

He swallowed roughly, but nodded, tugging his zipper down and pulling his jeans off. He pulled his shirt over his head, too, and was left in nothing but a pair of dark gray boxer-briefs.

Elide’s eyes widened as she took in the outline of what was on display in front of her. “Wow. That’s really… Wow.”

He was staring between her legs, at the lace that was just barely see-through. It was already damp. He began to stroke himself through the fabric. “What?”

“You’re…bigger than I expected,” she admitted.

Blinking, his eyes found hers. “You thought my dick would be small?”

“No, gods, no.” She shook her head and gestured to him. “But I figured you’d at least be average. That’s just…impressive.”

Lorcan’s lips quirked into a little grin, but before he could say anything, Elide said, “Let me see it.”

Lorcan arched a brow. “So eager.” Elide rolled her eyes and nudged him in the leg with her toe, but couldn’t help her quiet laughter. He said, “You first.”

“Why me first?” she asked, amused.

“Because you started this,” Lorcan said, his voice low. “You may as well be the one to lead the way.”

Elide’s head fell to the side. “You like the women in charge? I didn’t expect that, either.”

“Learning a lot about me tonight,” Lorcan said, eyes trailing back down to her lace covered sex.

“I have a feeling I’m going to learn a lot more before the night is over,” she breathed, and shimmied out of her panties before tossing them onto his lap.

Lorcan immediately cursed her No touching rule, even if it were just in his head. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it was the trim, neat trail of hair that ended just above her clit, which was just barely peeking out. He licked his lips, picking up her panties where they’d landed on his erection and was about to drop them to the floor. Until he felt the subtle wetness against his fingers. “Shit,” he murmured, looking down at them. He rubbed them between his fingers, swallowing harshly again.

He shifted his hips as he took off his underwear and dropped both pairs to the floor. He stroked himself, watching her as she watched him.

Her lips parted as her breathing hitched.

Lorcan wondered if she was cursing her no touching rule, too.

He continued to stroke himself, slowly, and for a moment she did nothing but watch, but then her hand slid between her thighs and Lorcan sank into the couch a little bit more as he watched her, carefully.

With her eyes on his cock, Elide ran a finger between her slick folds and slowly began to circle her clit with the tip of her index finger.

She sucked in her bottom lip as she moaned, softly.

She spread her legs wider for him.

“You are…” Lorcan’s words fell off as he shook his head. He tightened his grip on his cock. “God, you’re so fucking sexy.”

Her other hand had remained idle but she reached up and cupped one of her breasts. “Should I take my tank top off?”

His eyebrows rose. Was she serious?

“Definitely,” he nodded, his hand slowing.

She glanced down at his fist again. “Don’t stop. I like watching you.”

Fucking hell.

“I won’t,” he promised. “But take your shirt off. I want to see you.”

“You’ve seen me in a bikini before.”

Elide paused and sat up, pulling her top over her head. The bra she wore was simple. Black satin hugged her breasts, which Lorcan had absolutely jacked off to the thought of before.

Not that he’d tell her that.

“I’m naked,” he said, gesturing to himself and then to her. “It’s only fair that so are you.”

“Fair is fair,” she agreed, and pulled herself up on her knees as she reached behind her and unclasped her bra before slowly pulling it down her arms and tossing it away.

She was close to Lorcan on her knees, and she stayed there for a moment for no other reason than to give him a lingering close up.

Which he took full advantage of.

As he admired her bare breasts, he gripped his cock a little tighter and took a long, slow breath.

Elide didn’t linger too long, though. She fell back against the pillows soon enough, and opened her legs wide.

Lorcan’s eyes didn’t leave her body for a second.

He watched as she circled her clit again and rubbed it slowly. Dipping her finger lower, she slipped it into her entrance, probing slightly, and when she pulled it back out it was slick and wet. As she started to rub herself again, Lorcan thought about how badly he wanted to know how she tasted. He didn’t realize it, but he’d begun to stroke himself in time with the slow circles she made over her clit.

She moaned quietly and he looked up at her. Her other hand was squeezing and kneading her breast, her fingers gently tugging on one of her nipples. Her bottom lip was between her teeth.

“Is that you meant about it not being about penetration?” He asked, eyes flicking back down to where she was still rubbing her clit. He sounded breathless. She’d picked up her speed, and Lorcan could see how wet she was. She was practically dripping. “Is that what makes you come?”

A quick nod was her response, meeting his eyes as she tugged on her chest a little harder. She looked down at where he was picking up his own pace, a slight twist to his wrist as he stroked now. “What does it take for you to get off?”

Looking at you like this.

“Depends,” he said, at last. “I like it…rough.”

Elide’s hips bucked against her hand and Lorcan refused to act on his natural response to groan. “Now that…doesn’t surprise me. What else?”

“Start slow, get fast,” he said, unable to even sort out his thoughts. He could barely come up with something that made sense. “What’s on my mind helps.”

“And what’s on your mind now?” Elide asked, breathlessly.

“That your no touching rule is fucked up,” Lorcan noted.

He said it before he could think better of it, but in this given situation, Lorcan’s thought process wasn’t exactly in its best state.

“Do you want to touch me, Lor?” Her head tipped to the side, and she looked at him through heavy lids. “Or do you want me to touch you?”

Fuck, those words nearly undid him.

“Yes. Either.” He shuddered as his orgasm started to creep up on him. “Both.”

She let her other hand trail down her body and pumped two fingers inside of herself as she circled her clit furiously. “And have you thought about touching me before?”

He was incapable of lying to her right now. “Yeah.”

Elide whimpered quietly, biting her lip. “I think I’d like to touch you. See how you feel.”

“I’m okay with that.” He looked down at her hands. He thought they’d be much softer than his own.

“Not right now though,” she sighed. “I’m enjoying watching you too much.”

Lorcan cursed, outloud, outright.

Elide gasped, and her moans grew louder, ran into one another. Her eyes remained open, though, on Lorcan’s hand as he worked himself.

Her back arched against the cushions and her body grew rigid as she continued pumping those fingers in and out of herself, continued to circle that sensitive, throbbing nub.

In the midst of her moans came one name, his name, in a gasp as she came into her hands.

The sight alone had Lorcan groaning, unable to control his own oncoming orgasm as it completely consumed him.

He let his head fall back, coming onto his stomach, groaning her name. It came out harsh, in a way he’d never said her name before. It took him a minute to catch his breath, but when he did, he reached over and grabbed a couple of the napkins left over from their dinner and cleaned himself off.

She was still watching him. He was still watching her. Neither of them made a move to do anything, to redress. Their clothes still laid in piles on the floor.

After a second, Lorcan breathed, “Is that no touching rule still in effect?”

She shook her head. “No, but I don’t—.”

He was across the couch before she could react, his lips crashing into hers. She froze up at first, but then she melted into him, where his body covered hers, her hands finding his broad shoulders.

She was a good kisser.

Lorcan had wondered how she’d kiss countless times, but she certainly knew her way around a man’s mouth.

Knew how to put her tongue to good use.

Her hands swept past his shoulders and around his neck, and she clung to him as he pulled her closer to him, careful not to put his entire weight on her petite frame.

Pulling away, Elide pressed her forehead against his. “I’ve wanted you to do that for so long.”

He blinked, his gaze locked on hers. “You’ve wanted— Really?”

“You’re so oblivious,” she laughed, pulling his lips back to hers.

Lorcan decided then that apparently he needed to spend a little less time obsessing over his studies and a little more time focusing on his best friend.

Or maybe, she was his girlfriend. He’d have to spend a little more time figuring that out.

But for now, he was content to kiss her until she told him to stop.

He hoped she never would.

#elorcan #elorcan smut #snacmc collabs

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sanderssidesfanfiction · 3 years

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If There’s a Place I Could Be - Chapter Sixty Two

If There’s a Place I Could Be Tag

October 5th, 1992

“So...what exactly is a trust fund?” Emile asked, cocking his head to the side.

“It’s a bank account where your money can stay safe and sound until you can spend it as an adult,” his grandfather said. “When you’re twenty one, you’ll be able to use it for whatever you want.”

“That’s ten years from now!” Emile groaned. “That’s gonna take forever!”

“It will creep up on you faster than you think,” his grandfather said. “But your grandmother wanted to make sure you’d be responsible with the money, so that’s why you have to wait.”

Emile sighed. He understood, but he didn’t like it. “Does this mean Mom and Dad aren’t gonna give me an allowance any more?”

“I don’t think so!” his grandfather laughed. “After all, the money is of no use if you can’t exactly use it yet! They should still give you money you can use for whatever you want as an allowance.”

“Oh! That’s okay then,” and Emile ran off to finish the book he had been reading before his grandfather called him in to talk about Grandma’s will.

May 3rd, 2002

Emile could hardly believe it. Today was his twenty first birthday, and he had driven out to the nearest branch of the bank his grandmother used to set up his trust fund all those years ago. He had never been told the exact amount of money that was put in the fund, just given an estimate of somewhere around one hundred fifty thousand dollars.

Grandma definitely knew how to invest, and because his great-grandfather had been a self-starter and had gotten a modest alcohol business off the ground, his grandmother had inherited half of that money, the other half going to his great uncle, her brother. And Emile was the only grandchild she had when she died, so all the money she didn’t leave with his grandfather, she decided to save away for him.

Still, though, Emile’s breath was blown away when he talked to the bank manager and saw the number for himself. Two hundred fifteen thousand dollars. If he wasn’t already sitting down, his legs would have given out from underneath him. He had wondered how his grandparents could afford the house they had, but this number cleared up any questions he might have had.

“God,” Emile breathed, still staring at the number on the screen.

The bank manager looked him over. “You look like you’re about to pass out, do you need some water?”

“I’ll...” Emile choked on his words. “I’ll be okay,” he breathed.

“Your grandmother was a very lucky woman,” the bank manager said.

“Luck was her being born into the family she was. Smarts are what made her be able to get everything she needed and have this much money left over,” Emile said.

The bank manager looked pleased. “You’re rather insightful yourself,” he said. “I know this seems like a lot of money to you, but I hope I don’t have to explain to you how fast that money can go away if you’re not careful.”

“No, believe me, I know,” Emile said, sucking in a breath. “Oh, God. I was planning on investing most, if not all, of the money I inherited, but this is a much larger number than I anticipated.”

The bank manager sniffed a laugh. “Son, this is hardly the largest trust fund this bank has seen.”

“This alone could pay off my college debts,” Emile said, deathly serious. “It’s a lot of money to a broke college kid who’s been working retail to make ends meet with his partner working two jobs just to stay afloat.”

“I see your point,” the manager conceded. “But don’t spend it all in one place, you understand? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Emile said, swallowing. “I could buy a house, or pay off my debts, or any number of things. But I’ll probably be investing it for the time being, watching it grow a little before I decide exactly what I’m going to do with it.”

“You’re smarter than most of the college-aged kids who get these sorts of funds,” the manager said, leading Emile out. “We’ll have the money ready for withdrawal in a couple days. Until then, think wisely on what you’re going to invest in, all right?”

Emile mutely nodded as the manager left him to walk into the front of the bank, and Remy stood up from where he was waiting on a bench. “Hey, there, stranger!” he teased. “What did they say?”

“Oh, God, let’s get to the car first, okay?” Emile said. “You’re going to freak.”

“That much?” Remy laughed. They left and got into the car, Remy looking over at Emile. “So what was it? One hundred fifty thousand, like your parents said?”

“Apparently...my parents low-balled the estimate,” Emile said, sounding slightly hysterical. “I have over two hundred fifteen thousand dollars in that account.”

“What?!” Remy asked, incredulous. “Emile, you’re rich!”

Emile laughed. “Apparently the bank has had much higher trust funds than even that, but yeah, I’m...I don’t understand how I got to be that lucky.”

“What are you going to do with it?” Remy asked.

“Honestly? I think I’m going to be boring and invest most of it,” Emile said.

“Get more money? Hey, no complaints from me,” Remy said. “You could quit your job and we’d be fine.”

“I’m going to keep working,” Emile said. “That money isn’t going to last forever, and if I use it towards what I want to use it for...well, that’s going to take a huge chunk of change.”

Remy looked over. “What are you thinking of using it for?”

“Possibly a house?” Emile said, driving away, slightly sheepish. “Like. Property and stuff. Health insurance. Boring things that I can suddenly afford. But I want to invest most of it first.”

“Makes sense,” Remy said with a nod.

“Would you want to quit one of your jobs?” Emile asked. “Because I can afford to pay a little more rent now, you only need one job...”

“I mean...” Remy sighed. “It would be nice to only have one job, but I don’t want you to spend any more money on me than you have to.”

“Remy, you’re my boyfriend, of course I’m going to spend money on you now that I have money to spend!” Emile insisted. “You’d better get used to it, because now that we can afford to not go to thrift shops when we wear something through, you’d better believe I’m going to offer to go to retail stores!”

Remy laughed. “Oh, we’re really rolling in it!” he crowed. “We can afford new shirts!”

“You’d better believe it!” Emile exclaimed with a laugh. When his laughter died down, he glanced at Remy. “So, did you apply for the manager position opening up?”

“Yeah, I did,” Remy sighed. “But the manager told me, point-blank, that he didn’t expect me to get it. Nothing against my work ethic, but they wanted someone who had credentials. Like, degree-in-business credentials.” Remy pulled a disgusted face. “As if I didn’t know anything that goes into managing a coffee shop.”

Emile wrinkled his nose. “That sucks.” He considered, and figured now was as good a time to poke the bear as any. “Would you want to start your own shop? In all honesty?”

“I mean, honestly? At this point? Yes,” Remy said. “Neither store is going to promote me, and I don’t want to work two jobs for the rest of my life. I don’t have the funds to buy a property, but if I saved up enough to rent, then maybe I could do my own thing.”

“Rem, you realize that I have enough money to help you on the property front?” Emile asked.

“Emile, no, I would never ask that of you,” Remy said. “I can save money on my own, I’ve been doing that for two months now. And it’s not a lot, but it can add up. If your investments are working out, maybe I can invest in the same things. I could get enough money to start up on my own. Might take a couple years, but I would get the money for the property, as well as the food and the staff and everything needed inside. I could get enough for the first few months of the shop just by saving until December, if I played my cards right.”

“Really?” Emile asked. He had been considering December for checking his funds, checking the market, and getting property for Remy to start the coffee shop. But if this lined up that perfectly, there was no way he could turn it down.

“Really,” Remy confirmed. “You don’t need impossibly huge amounts of money to start up a business if you know what you’re doing, and some of our friends are social butterflies, which means free advertising, and if I come up with my own unique recipes for the shop, and come up with coffee blends that by and large our friends like but the shops I currently work for wouldn’t be caught dead selling, well! I’d be officially in business!”

Emile laughed. “So, that’s something you want to try? You want to try to start your own shop?”

Remy deflated a little. “I want it...but can I actually do it? I mean, I could definitely run a shop, but there’s so many factors I don’t know about. I want to try, to see if I can do it, but if it fails...that’s so much money gone to waste. The biggest hurdle would be the space, and if I can afford the space to give it a try, but I can’t keep the shop afloat, that’s easily thousands of dollars down the drain.”

“Remy, if you think you can do it, I say you save up to give it a try,” Emile said. “You have the confidence and the culinary skill to keep a shop afloat. All it would take is the right advertising and the right people to find you, and you’d have business in no time at all. Go for it. We both invest our money, get the rewards and use them to fund whatever dreams both of us have.”

Remy still seemed uncertain. “I want to, Emile...I really want to. But I can’t stop thinking about the possibility of it going under.”

“If it goes under, it goes under. You get a different job so no one says ‘I told you so’ and we continue on. If you get a good enough property, we might be able to use it as an apartment of sorts,” Remy laughed at that, and Emile smiled as he continued, “It’s not the end of the world if something you try doesn’t succeed, Rem. But I think that this has a really good chance at succeeding.”

Remy nodded. “All right. I’ll save up the money and give it a try for you,” he said. “Do you know what you’re going to do with your money outside investing it?”

“I have a couple ideas, but nothing solid,” Emile said. He didn’t mention that Dice had agreed to take Emile’s job offer and was going to look for Toby. He didn’t want Remy to get his hopes up, and he definitely didn’t want Remy to demand he save the money because he thought it was a fruitless venture.

“Well, when you get some solid plans, let me know, okay?” Remy asked. “Because I want to know if we can get strawberries and blueberries for pancakes for breakfast.”

Emile laughed. “Of course, we can get more fruit. And better ingredients that aren’t just on discount. If you want, we can go shopping right now as a little celebration?”

“Sure! When do you get the money?” Remy asked.

“Couple of days,” Emile laughed. “They couldn’t afford to give me that much money all at once, because it’s a small branch and I’d be taking all of their hundred-dollar bills.”

Remy shook his head. “You’re Mister Rich Kid, now, you realize,” he said. “And you’re never living that title down, not once I let our friends know.”

“Oh, God, I hadn’t even thought about that!” Emile laughed. “Our friends could hardly believe I had a trust fund at all, let alone one that potentially had over a hundred thousand dollars! They’re all going to freak!”

“Even more than I will when this whole day finally sinks in,” Remy said sagely. “It’s going to take some getting used to, having wiggle room in case we screw up.”

Emile turned the car on the road they took to the supermarket. “It’s going to be nice, though,” Emile said. “We buy some food we don’t like, we’re not, y’know, obligated to eat all of it because that’s the only food we have for that night.”

“We can buy stupid things like movies that we don’t know if we like because we didn’t get the chance to see it in theatres,” Remy pointed out.

“We can go to see those movies in the theatre in the first place,” Emile pointed out.

“True!” Remy exclaimed. “Emile. This is. The best!”

Emile laughed.

#if there's a place i could be #sanders sides fanfiction #remile #emile picani #ts sleep

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fiddleabout · 5 years

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are you for or against private health insurance?

i am for fully affordable, fully accessible coverage for every person residing in the united states. full stop.

but let’s talk for a hot sec about why you felt the need to pose this question the way you did, because it indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the health care system is structured in the united states and what it takes to fix it:

like it or not, the system we have now isn’t going to just go away. do you remember the aca? that was the most monumental systemic overhaul of the health care system in united states history, and it didn’t even try to get rid of private insurance in favor of a single-payer system as a way to create universal coverage. it was designed to create universal coverage via medicaid expansion and individual mandate, and it was gutted from the start by the nascent tea party in 2009. it was still passed and showed marked improvement in providing health care for people in the us over time, and then 2016 happened and now you have trump’s administration and seema varma, the cms administrator, doing their level fucking best to shit all over it every day until it falls apart the rest of the way.

now. let’s say your best case scenario happens. bernie wins! (i’m going out on a limb to guess you’re a bernie sanders fan. no idea why.) we get a democratic senate and house! medicare is expanded to cover every person in the united states! private insurance is eliminated! yay!

this is probably just a weirdly technical hangup but roll with me for a minute: what happens to said insurance companies? bcbsa has something like 35 companies within it but if they’re all suddenly kaput, where does their capital go? is the government seizing their liquidity? what about their debt? united health group is one of the largest insurers in the united states, yeah, but they also have a bunch of data analytics subsidiaries and clinical consulting arms, not all of which are located in the united states and some of which are heavily intertwined with the insurance branch. how do you split that up? what about employees that have been investing their bonuses in stock options? what about the stock exchange in general if you eliminate an entire multi-billion dollar industry? does the government cover all of that?

but: now a lot of people are now unemployed. and i’m not talking about insurance company executives, i’m talking about the hundreds of thousands of admin-level employees. i used to be one of them and i made barely above minimum wage. those people don’t have a golden parachute or cushy savings account to fall back on, and now there’s a heavily crowded employers’ market picking and choosing overqualified, nearly retirement-age people who are all looking for jobs. idk if you remember what the job market was like post-recession in 2009/2010 or. like. if you were even out of the sixth grade at that point. but i was fresh out of undergrad and interviewing for minimum wage jobs against people with 20+ years experience, and basically none of us were getting jobs no matter how much experience we had because there would be sixty people, applying for one minimum-wage no-benefits receptionist job that required you to have a bachelor’s degree and minimum three years experience in an office just to be a mail clerk. the economy would be crippled.

but let’s say that white jesus has decided that everyone who was working at a private insurance company will be guaranteed a government job of some kind, or like. just. any job. idk. i’d hope anyone that proposes eliminating an entire industry that employs over two million people would have a contingency plan in place to help them find employment. but let’s say he does! now we have a true single payer system, where everyone is covered, and private insurance is illegal, and everyone has a job. things are GREAT.

okay. awesome. but now you have to integrate everything into one system. there are a handful of major electronic medical record systems– epic, cerner, allscripts, etc.– in the country. most hospital and provider systems have invested millions of dollars in custom-designed systems that integrate across multiple sites and interface directly into their major insuring partners’ systems. billing is based on icd-10 codes but aside from that unified– and, importantly, clinical, not specifically billing– coding system, billing requirements are wholly different. do you push everyone onto one system? will there be subsidies to provider systems who, in good faith to maintain compliance with the government’s ongoing meaningful use requirements to date, have invested millions of dollars in functional ehr systems that they’ll have to potentially completely overhaul now that the billing approach is completely different?

but let’s say that they figure THAT out. everything is great. medicare for all! no private insurance! the private companies were broken up completely and amicably and no national, state, municipal, or county economy was crippled! all of the millions of people who lost their jobs immediately found new ones! the billing system was perfectly designed and implemented and everything is beautiful smooth sailing! this is good shit, yo.

not to be a wrench or anything, but: remember that bit up there about the aca being gutted even more once the administration changed? yeah. so. this administration that’s done all of these nigh-miraculous things? ends in eight years. then what? it’s been less than one term since obama was out of office and the system has been put into a steeper nosedive than ever as the shit trifecta of trump/varma/azar pulled back on patient protections and price regulation, started pushing for medicaid work requirements and block grant funding, and generally are doing their damndest to just fuck everyone who isn’t them over. so what happens when we hit that term limit in eight years after whomever it is–sanders, warren, literally anyone– leaves office?

the backlash against obama came in a myriad of ways– racism and islamaphobia, sure, but also very deeply rooted in values-based (and let’s be clear because i’m sure someone is going to warp this: i don’t agree with those values that say that all-for-me-bootstrap-your-own-way-up, but the fact remains that they are, in fact, value judgments in a value system) policy objections, and the aca was the thing that was most cited against him by rival politicians. do you really think that an even larger, more drastic overhaul of the system won’t account for more egregious backlash? i’m all for the importance of ideals and values, but i’m also a fan of things working and surviving. i’m not even confident we’re going to make it out of this administration with medicaid intact, to say nothing of the way that social security–y’know, medicare– is going to be insolvent by like 2030. our best case scenario won’t be starting on the foot we’re on now, it’ll be starting five steps back in the midst of a pending economic downturn.

it’d be great if we could get rid of private insurance. honestly. like, full stop, no sarcasm. i have existed in this health care system in so many ways– as a patient when i was fortunate enough to have great coverage; as a patient when i had terrible coverage; as a patient when i had no coverage; as a minimum-wage analyst at an insurance company who had to come into work deathly sick for a month straight just so i could almost make rent; as a consultant working with a bunch of other people who’re doing their actual fucking best to try and make a broken system work in a way that makes it affordable and accessible to everyone. i’m fully away of the problems caused, iterated, and perpetuated by private insurance– and i am painfully, brutally aware of how extraordinarily broken it is. i’ve had to choose between paying medical bills before they go to collection and paying for rent or food. i’ve stayed above water solely because of luck and privilege. my entire career is tied to trying to find a way to fix some of these problems in a way that lasts.

but i also know that the wholesale removal of the private insurance industry is hamstrung by the way the country’s government is set up and that as nice as it is to talk about living in a world where this system– this capitalist, racist, sexist, homophobic, cruel, vindictive system– the fact remains that this is where we are. this is what we have, and we have to live with it, and i’d rather fix it right than keep going forward one step and then back two, like what happened with the aca and like i very much believe would happen with a medicare for all implementation. i’d love to be proven wrong, truly; i just don’t think that i will be.

so let’s go back to your original question. maybe you want me to say that i support private health insurance so that you can call me a dirty capitalist who’s been fooled into hating on medicare for all by lobbyists and propaganda. but let’s go with a few nice and concise tl;dr bullet points:

i think accessible, affordable healthcare is a fundamental human right

i think the united states needs to have universally available, universally accessible, universally affordable healthcare coverage for every person living in the country

“are you for or against private insurance” is a grossly reductive question that presumes that the existence of private insurance is the one fundamental deciding factor regarding the health care debate, and it’s not

so if you’re looking for a simple answer, let’s go with this: universal, affordable, accessible coverage. that’s what i’m for.

#Anonymous #us politics #answer this yes or no question so i can gauge your opinions about a subject i clearly don't understand #i am so fucking tired of people coming at me on this #every year when that enrollment post is going around #a fucking REFERENCE post on hey our system sucks here's how to navigate it during open enrollment #i get people either reblogging it to shit on anyone who isn't gungho on M4A #or coming into my inbox to blast me about it #and now there's this bullshit #i watched this tank kamala harris's fucking candidacy and i'm still livid about that #and not in the mood to play nice and pander by being like #hurr durr ofc private insurance is evil #like fucking yes of course it is #but it's so fucking embedded in the gd economy that you can't just get rid of it #i lived through one recession and jobs crisis i do not want another one #especially when it won't! fucking! fix the problems!#and i stg if someone tries to throw that yale article at me i'll fucking scream #their numbers are based on best case and eve nthen their assumptions #like #80b in potential savings from avoidable hospital admissions bc of increased preventive care #when preventive care provision is NOT proven to mitigate all unnecessary hospital use unfortunately #you'd think it would! but it doesn't as much as we think!#M4A isn't going to magically fix things and i'm sorry if that complicates your idealistic little bubble #but that's the real world! i'd love if it wasn't but it is!#we live HERE and NOW and all we can do is try to make positive lasting change #and if someone can make M4A work then like fuck man i'll eat every hat i own and gladly #but i just do not see how this industry that i live my life in is going to change like that #it's just not

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thejoyofviolentmovement · 7 months

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New Video: Pissed Jeans Share a Bruising and Ripping Meditation on Harsh Truths

New Video: Pissed Jeans Share a Bruising and Ripping Meditation on Harsh Truths @ThePissedJeans @subpop @subpoplicity

Allentown-based punks Pissed Jeans’ highly-anticipated sixth album Half Divorced further cements their longtime reputation for crating feral punk with their acerbic sense of humor. Thematically, the material mercilessly skewers the tension between youthful optimism and the sobering realities of adulthood but while still managing to be — perhaps inadvertently — fun. “Half Divorced has an…

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#Baby&039;s All Right #Cling to a Poisoned Dream #music #music video #New Video #Pissed Jeans #Pissed Jeans Cling to a Poisoned Dream #Pissed Jeans Half Divorced #Pissed Jeans Moving On #Pissed Jeans Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars in Debt #punk rock #Sub Pop Records #Takoma Park MD #Tonal Park Studio #video #Video Review #Video Review: Cling to a Poisoned Dream #Video Review: Pissed Jeans Cling to a Poisoned Dream

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naomixhill · 4 years

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“Aren’t you the one who got expelled from DeSales?” These were the first words that you said to me as you approached me at David’s bonfire in 2011. We were seventeen years old. A group of us came here after a Friday night football game. There were a handful of neighborhoods in our village, perhaps five important ones, but the one we were in that night was the best – the one where sophistication meets elegance meets English-inspired architecture. There was a twenty-seven Jack Nicklaus golf course in front of David’s home. Inside the house was a grand reception room, medium sized ballroom, martini parlor, two dueling libraries, a small art gallery, and a wine cellar. Throughout the home, opulence of the tenth degree: marble floors and 18’ high ceilings and two servants. Just beyond where I was sitting, there was a heated pool, veranda, and small tennis court. Jews get everything. This whole village was Jews, new money snobs, and plastic surgery. But I never minded.

You repeated the question, “Hellooooo, Naomi, right?” I looked up at you with red, glossy eyes. I was stoned, and David’s two servants had been serving Cabernet since we got there. I smirked, raised my head at you, and said, “Who’s asking?” You extended your hand and introduced yourself with the charismatic, all consuming smile that I would one day become familiar. I did not return the warm reception; I had a magical sadness about me that year that began with the death of my rapist and ended with my name being the topic of more than one scandal. I hardly remember much of the year at all, but I remember meeting you there that night. In That Place.

You acted like you were meeting a celebrity. You mentioned a few of the rumors that spread around DeSales about me, most of which were incredibly true, and I told you that night, “It doesn’t matter what people say about you unless you believe it.” You told me that you had just transferred to the village school and that you were incredibly lucky: You lived in a modest home on the edge of town that had not been seized by Wexner for further construction of his brick empire. I was completely awestricken by you. You were so bold, so empowered to speak truth, so nonchalant in the way you spoke, and had this magnetic flowerchild persona. If it hadn’t been for you that night, I would have drank alone at the firepit of David’s home. It was true that I was still frequently invited to events that year and next, but I was never really one of these people and I always remained on the outskirts of parties and social gatherings. When the night ended, I told you not to talk to me again. You needed a fighting chance to assimilate in this odd, wealthy village school that was more reminiscent of an episode of Gossip Girl than a place in Ohio. You were never going to get that if you associated with me.

We reconnected in February 2014. It was a historically brutal winter in Ohio, frequently closing down the university, and I was frailer at 106 lbs, more contemplative, and battling an autoimmune disorder that was so severe that I was sure it would have killed me. Looking back on it now, there is no doubt in my mind that your antithesis to everything that I was saved me. From the moment we reconnected, there was rarely a moment that we were apart. Every morning, you held back my hair as I spent the morning vomiting into a dormitory toilet. When I would try to crawl back into bed, you would force me into a warm bath, lay out clothes for me, and often blow-dry my hair when I was too weak to do so myself. Without fail, and for the entire semester, you would walk me to the cafeteria, watch me eat breakfast, and we would undoubtedly end up back on the bathroom floor for several more hours. But you’d still make sure that I attended my afternoon classes, even if that meant sitting on the business halls’ floors in effort to see that I didn’t leave. You were the only person who knew how bad my health had gotten that year.

Because to everyone else, I was confident and had accomplished in my studies precisely what I had in my social circle of business students—complete mastery, complete command. I was fastidious, wearing almost exclusively Brooks Brothers button downs that tucked into dark colored slacks or designer jeans, and carried myself with an air of superiority that few ever questioned. In school and in the finance society, I was the best. I maintained a portfolio of investments that had achieved a 56% return that year, and when I shared my opinion on what our club should be investing in, I was rarely wrong. It awed some, and frustrated many male egos that couldn’t understand it. I was an excellent financial analyst to be, interviewing at several bulge bracket investment banks in New York and Chicago that year. And when anyone questioned me or alluded that I couldn’t possibly being doing as well as I was, I would raise my prominent nose nostrils at them and say nothing at all.

I didn’t dress, walk, talk, or play like other college students did. I was incredibly aloof and malicious, whereas you were a never-ending ray of sunshine. You were bohemian and buoyant and wise all wrapped into a blonde package of beauty. My persona was much more overpowering and chilling. Yet, you liked me, and you held my secret, and no one ever questioned why you—the special education major—were in the business hall at 2 pm, 4 pm, 8 pm, and 10 pm everyday. In fact, most of my companions that year really preferred you to me and it was often a relief to have you there as a shield.

In the summer of 2015, we moved into an off campus apartment in what would be considered the Chinatown of Columbus, Ohio. With my full-time job in financial services and lucrative investments from the prior year, I had tried to convince you to live downtown in a high-rise apartment, but you wouldn’t have it. You always wanted to pay your own way, and Chinatown was what you could afford. So we lived there with Ethan Allen furniture, your bohemian nonsensical decorations, including a plethora of crystals, bags of cannabis, and music posters. By the end of the summer, I was showing signs of recovery, though the months of medical bills had put me in a tougher spot financially than before. I was still able to casually pay our rent and fixed expenses, afford food, and pay my own tuition without much concern. Though it was in September that everything changed.

You worked at a Bob Evan’s right behind the university that summer to save for college, but you had racked up $17,000 on a credit card that was accruing monthly interest. You wanted to save, but you were forced to pay that down and there was never an expense that you met that you didn’t like. It has always been who you are: you spend too much on others, too much on holiday decorations, too much on latest clothing styles, too much online, too much on fast food, just too much. So even though you worked your sixty hours a week until that political bill made everyone like you work thirty-seven and a half hours and not a moment more, you couldn’t make tuition. And I couldn’t help you.

I remember one night we were in Cincinnati for a Cal Scruby concert when the idea came to me. I said, “There are a lot of girls in Pi Phi that I know that use this escort site to make fast cash, and you are much prettier and have a much better personality.” So while we waited for the concert to begin, we turned the Marriott hotel room into a glamorous studio for photos, and wrote you a descriptive, alluring profile on that website. Looking back on this now, I am not sure what I was thinking except that it seemed like a perfectly sensible thing to do, and everyone else was doing it. An older, established Cleveland man solicited you within the hour. You planned to meet him later that week. A thousand dollars just like that.

But that fateful morning, you confessed that you couldn’t do it. And I knew then that if you didn’t return to school that semester, you might never. And I thought about your credit card debt, your newly broken down car, and your ambitions slipping away from you. And I couldn’t let you, the brilliant bohemian with so much to offer to the world, possibly lose it all that easily. So I knew what this all meant for me, but the way I saw it, and still see it, is that it was the least I could do for the person who likely saved my life. So I became you: I went to a hair salon that day and dyed my harsh, almost black hair, to bleach blonde; I bought extensions; I bought baby blue eye contacts; I used makeup to manipulate a small mole on my cheek; I contoured my face, used drugstore eyelashes, and it was convincing enough. That night, I wore a pink kimono with ripped jeans and pale high heels. I wasn’t nearly as tall as you, but I hoped our Cleveland man wouldn’t notice. And he didn’t. And that was that.

These visits continued twelve times, and we never spoke about them. It was our next big secret, and one I never planned to mention them to a soul. Your fall tuition was paid and I was relatively healthy, and we had our oasis in Chinatown. Everything was finally alright, it seemed, until December.

There was only one problem: That Piece of Shit Heroin Addict. Back in the summer before the school year began, you had met Josiah. Perhaps it was my jealously of losing part of you, but I never took to him. You could have had any of my friends majoring in finance – we both know that they all loved you, and could have given you the life you wanted – but you chose him. I am certain that your biggest flaw has always been loving flawed people and thinking that you could positively influence the outcome of their lives’ through love and belief alone. Josiah was everything that I loathed about a person: he was uncouth to a fault, sported a horribly unkempt appearance with long, blonde, greasy and tangled hair, had terribly patchy facial hair, had lightly yellowed teeth from years of smoking and drug abuse. Best of all, he drove a sports car. His family was from the neighboring county, and in Ohio, if you don’t live in the capital county, you might as well live in the middle of a fucking farm wasteland infested with heroin, blue-collar jobs, and Mountain Dew.

I tolerated this boy in the summer because you loved him. But it worried me when you would come home at 3 a.m. with him and his cronies, and they would all end up sprawled out on the floor of our apartment. These people were not good enough for you, and they brought you down with them. I would have done anything to better myself that year—I associated myself with the most elite people our university could offer, all of whom today ended up becoming prominent investment bankers and private equity directors, some traveling internationally, some making over half a million dollars annually – but you always found yourself attracted to the bottom.

He manipulated you. He told you lies about me, and made you think differently about me. He fed you drugs. He sedated your sunshine and stole your youth. And then in December, he convinced you that I was nothing more than a haughty, arrogant, self-serving person, which perhaps was right to some degree, but never with you, and that you needed to leave. So one night in December, when I was traveling, you stole everything out of our apartment – right down to the kitchen table and bath curtains – and left me to come home to nothing. You never returned my calls or texts, and it was more than a year before I ever got an explanation.

You went from my fascination to my friend to my caregiver to my roommate and best friend to my deepest regret.

In fact, for the next six years, you tried to contact me sporadically, pleading for forgiveness, but there was nothing that I could offer you. At times, you would comment on my life events that you could see through social media. You told me how happy I looked in my wedding photos, but little did you know for those four years that I was getting beaten, evens sometimes being held at gunpoint, literally; you told me how successful I had become from my work, but little did you know that I was facing more than one harassment suit; you would tell me you were happy that my life had become so wonderful, but you had no idea that at the very time you sent that, that I was sitting in a hospital waiting to be radiated for cervix cancer. And through all of it, I thought of you frequently, sometimes spitefully, sometimes with more regret than a person can carry, sometimes with fondness.

But I never returned any of your correspondence until last week. And now, here we are at a Panera in a rundown suburb, and I am staring right at you. The passage of time has not been your friend: you wear bold framed glasses that remind me of Buddy Holly. Pregnancy has turned your beautiful blonde hair into an ashy brown shade and your long, cascading curls have been cut into curly short strands. You have gained perhaps thirty or forty pounds, hidden under a large, flowing hippy blouse – so that has remained, your style.

When I approach you, you throw your arms around me for what feels like an eternity. I had planned to dig into you; I had wanted you to feel the internal war that has been raging inside of me since your departure. But I can’t do it. As you pull away from our embrace, you try to speak but your lower lip trembles. Your eyes are red and strained and you weep as you grab for my hand. People around us begin to stare, but my sole focus is on you. I suppose it always has been. You begin a long soliloquy of apology, that at times is so incoherent and sincere, I can only help but think that this has eaten away at you for as long as it has me. So I don’t chide you for abandoning me, I simply smile and say, “I Forgive You.”

As we catch up, it seems our friendship is a marker in time for you much like it is for me. There was before you, you, and after you. Your “after you” is dark – things have been much harder for you for the past six years than they have for me. One unplanned pregnancy, another planned pregnancy, multiple lost jobs, government assistance, an alcoholic partner, and death threats galore. It is hard to imagine the young bohemian that I once knew has achieved such a disappointing life. You never finished college and you work as a PSA in a hospital. You mentioned repeatedly how tired you are, and I see you: it’s a spiritual exhaustion that knows no bounds. It is the type of exhaustion that one can only feel when they have done nothing that they set out to do in life. I am familiar.

I often take your hand in mine. We talk until the Panera closes, and then promise to meet again soon.

#b #memories #best friend

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fereality-indy · 4 years

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Debt Between In-Laws

Dipper: How much could I possibly owe you? Fifty/sixty bucks? Pacifica: Two thousand, four hundred and thirty seven dollars. Dipper: Dollars?! Wait, of course dollars. Why was that the part I was surprised by?

#gravity falls #dipper pines #pacifica northwest #incorrect quotes

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 5 years

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Okay, so let me take this back to a week or two ago.

I owe one of my roommates 1200 dollars. My rent is 800 bills included. I make ten dollars over what counts for me getting no food stamps of financial assistance. I kept going to this job, because i was hoping that an opening would soon happen for me to get a job that i had before the closure of the other location. The explanation of this, in order to make it remotely interesting, would be a story in and of itself and would take too long.

I have had a rough go of it. I fell back into an eating disorder this winter, i went to home feeling sick and cold and heartbroken. Every night. I was completely isolated, i never went to anyone's house, i stopped even seeing a future for myself. the best days i had were ones where i would walk around the mall and stare at clothing i couldn't afford. Because the guy i was in love with randomly flipped on me one morning and told me to leave. I felt completely used, and gross about myself, and i just stopped eating. My bus home always took an hour and a half, i was shaking starving and so fucking poor that even if i wanted to eat more i couldn't afford it. I wanted to cry on the bus after work every night, but i forced myself to choke it down. I listened to last podcast on the left constantly to entertain myself. I texted him even though he had hurt me, and he ran back and apologized after, but somehow it was never the same. I'm not even mad. It just wasn't the same.

Anyway, i snapped about three weeks ago. I woke up, did my budget, and realize the reason i was having such a hard time was that i was literally not making enough money. Everything was about suppression and reduction of needs, to the point where i had very few enjoyments, and i was becoming so lonely i was becoming neurotic. And the more neurotic and lonely i became, i feel like the less people would want to hang out with me. After awhile, any attention i got from this guy was better than nothing. If i didn't have someone that paid some attention to me i was losing my will to even get up in the morning. Because what is the point of getting up for nothing, to do another day that makes you sad, with no purpose or friends? I felt like i was withering away, and nobody would even notice when i was finally just gone. I mean, maybe that is for the best, but i don't know. I feel like the initial love i poured into coming to this city has become dark and uncertain, and i miss the early days a lot. I feel like i am always chasing a feeling, that i am whatever chemical combination is hitting my neurotransmitters.

I made the decision to find a better job, realizing I wasn't going to get out of this mess unless i had money to at least rid myself of the basic and constant fear of not having enough. I'm tired of being in debt. So, i kinda did that. I ended up getting offered this job, and i just let myself run around with my money moreso, for the last few weeks with the mindset that i would have at least seven hundred more a month. I stopped dieting (unfortunately gaining back some weight). It's not that i don't need to diet, but i need something to distract myself if i am going to run around shaking with hunger all the time. I can't live on self hatred, at least not for too long.

Then, the covid 19 virus just started spreading, and at first it was nothing, but then i kind of turned into this thing where sickly people are going down in numbers. And now nobody is going to hire me because all restaurants are closed and the economy fell apart and everyone is pretty scared, i got laid off from the place i work at now, which i feel like it's not even going to reopen at this point. Thousands of workers in the city just like me now have no way to pay their rent, meanwhile the hospitals will likely continue to fill with patients, and grocery stores are half empty, and this is just a small taste of what the future likely holds. So even when this virus comes and goes and does it's damage, i think things like this are just going to keep happening. And rich people will be fine, but poor people won't be. I mean, funny memes aside. Our entire economic system and healthcare system and so many things are going to collapse in my lifetime, it seems futile to even try to make it now. I know that sounds really pesimistic.

The last few weeks i have been meeting him in secret, but he's not really cuddly like before, and he seems like he wants me to be gone when he's done with me, and he dotes on his other friends and I just feel very taken for granted and when we are with our friends who aren't supposed to know, i just don't feel like someone he's that excited to be around. And he seems to engage in conversation, but with me he just kind of talks over me to imply i am dumb, and i get tired of that. Honestly, there is nothing endearing about it. It's insulting and tiring and i am so deeply worried about the world around me, that even my own heartbreak seems like nothing. I am genuinely very scared about the state of the world, and even an idea relationship would not save me from this. Like, yeah, i feel really used and hurt, but also we are losing animal species and the ocean is polluted and there is a pandemic, and overpopulation in certain areas of the world that are going to be swallowed by global warming. Sometimes this train of thought takes me into an entire three sixty because i wonder if it isn't just best to enjoy every person and experience for what it is because my life might not give me that much to look forward to in the future, and there is only so much i can do to fix the world or the people in it. Do i really want to put my foot down and tell him i don't want to see him anymore, when he's the only person i have, and i know too that he struggles with addiction?

Furthermore, my brother panicked and lost his mind and went on attack towards my sister who he was living with, and now he's moving back with my abusive parents. That's a whole story in and of itself. And that is that. I won't be seeing him anymore. He was so scared about economic and societal collapse. And then my workplace wrote me and said they don't have money to even give me my last paycheck, and i am lucky that my old dad is working overtime at the factory to send me money. Honestly, i was panicked before, but now i just feel resigned and afraid. It helps that there is no way i can get evicted right now, but at this point i just have a bad feeling that things are just going to keep getting worse.

I feel like poor people are being spread too thin, and it's going to eventually create a sense of rage. It's been happening for a long time. They just keep cutting programs, or making it harder to afford rent, or go to school. For instance, i have a friend who is an ambulance driver. He makes twelve dollars an hour, he's literally scraped up dead children off the side of the road, but he doesn't get free healthcare. If he ends up on the other end of his ambulance van he's fucked. It's stuff like this that is unbelievable. You'd think someone with his job of all people would be more than entitled to free healthcare, not that we all don't, but like, it might come with some benefits given he works in the industry and the level of seriousness his job entails. But there aren't any. And truly, he doesn't even make as much hourly as someone who works in a restaurant. It's nonsense. And it's accepted. And we need ambulance drivers.

Anyway, there is a lot that branches off. I don't know what direction i should go in, the mental health aspect of myself, or my family dynamics, the economy, the healthcare industry, my personal strifes, my conflicting relationship stuff, or what the future holds. All i can say is i feel terribly alone and terribly scared and it's hard to articulate it or feel grounded in myself at all. Sometimes it's like a numbness that tells you to keep pushing forward because it's the routine and it's supposed to lead to somewhere, right? I feel like in the last year, i am learning how to put my foot down and say no. I am learning to love people and know i am not loved back, and not even care anymore. I am also exhausted. When i am not around people, i fall asleep. A mysterious exhaustion i have never had before has taken over and i really just want to sleep for days and days straight, and some little part of me just wonders if it wouldn't be better if i didn't wake up again. I am not suicidal, but what's the point?

And I guess lastly, who am I to even complain? So many people have had it worse and now everyone is falling apart and struggling around me, so I am nothing special. It’s just hard to know what to do right now. There seems to be no distraction from the nothingness of it all.

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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Civilization is collapsing, the revolutionary political crisis is approaching, but, worse than that Heartiste has stopped posting on game, and Roosh has turned tradcuck. So even though I have sworn this is not going to be a game blog, and my life has demonstrated times without number that no end of men are better qualified to post on game than I am, I guess I will have to step into the gap, at least a little bit.

The three magic words are not “I love you”

The three magic words are “You are mine”.

…

I have followed the Sixteen Commandments of Poon both instinctively, and through long and painful experience, long before Heartiste started blogging, and they are the greatest short summary of that small part of game that can be put into readily intelligible words.

Game, however is more readily intelligible if we understand it through the lens of Evolutionary Game Theory, which should be understood as a materialistic account of the spiritual truths of the first part of the Book of Genesis, Evolutionary Game theory being, for higher animals, primarily evolutionary psychology, evolutionary psychology being in large part the application of game theory in the context of natural selection, the moral consequences of material and effective causation, the Logos.

Evolutionary Game theory is an account in terms of material and effective causation, in terms of chance and necessity, the Book of Genesis tells us something about how the consequences of Evolutionary Game Theory are the Will of Gnon.

…

For about the cost of two dates, you can have a hooker, and it is not an adequate substitute. Hookers are only a marginal improvement over masturbation. What progressives offer men, a rotating series of hookups, is just not what most men want, as revealed by men’s actions.

…

Look at the typical male polyamorist. He is psychologically scarred and mentally crippled for life. Having a bunch of whores rather than owning a woman, or better, owning two women, just really sucks brutally. Those guys are traumatized for life.

It unmans men, as if every day a bully beat them up, and they could do nothing about the daily humiliation but suck it up. Just look at what it does to men. It would be kinder to cut their balls off, which is pretty much what progressives are planning to do to us.

The typical male polyamorist looks as if a fat blue haired feminist has been beating him up every day – indeed, he would probably love it if a fat blue haired feminist beat him up every day.

Whores are a marginal improvement on beating off to anime, and hookups a marginal improvement on whores. When men are reduced to such desperate straights, it totally crashes their testosterone and they buy an anime cuddle pillow and weep bitter tears upon it.

We are maladapted to watching the decline from the pool.

Roosh took the wrong redpill from realizing that banging sloots becomes unfufilling after a while. He wants a 50s family life as men generally do, but needs to realize its impossible without a restoration of some degree of de jure patriarchal authority.

A convincing claim to be backed by the supreme alpha, and a plausible willingness to carry out his will on adultery, adultery as defined in the Old Testament, serves as a substitute for de jure backing of patriarchal authority.

The Old Testament prescribes the death penalty for a man who sleeps with someone else’s wife or betrothed, and the death penalty for the woman if she consented. And who gets to carry out that penalty?

Well, that is not defined. In the time of judges, Israel was somewhat anarchic, so presumably the husband and his family and friends. In the book of Proverbs, King Solomon assumes that system, though he implies some regulatory restraints, so that continued to be the system under King Solomon.

That is the best system, because the state or the official priesthood monopolizing the killing of adulterers emasculates the husband, and thus makes adultery more likely.

…

Listen to Heartiste, but, as Roosh discovered, there are better lives than watching the decline. Heartiste speaks the truth, and an important truth, and everything he says is true and important, and unlike most of Satan’s servants should be listened to with attention, but when he truthfully tells you that that watching the decline from poolside is the easiest way, and the better way is hard and dangerous, and likely to end in terrible failure, he is telling a truth that serves his master.

…

You cannot make a housewife out of a ho in our current environment, because she will see you as weak compared to numerous pimps she has been with. However late eighteenth, early nineteenth century Australia had swift and total success in making ho’s into wives. When the elite shotgun married them off, they reacted as if abducted from the weaker tribe into the stronger tribe, and completely internalized the values of the stronger tribe – which required and expected respectable female behavior. Female virtue is more easily obtained if you are more manly than anyone she has been with previously and a bit scary than by searching for it. Of course, in today’s environment, you don’t have backing from your tribe, you have hostility from your tribe. This makes things far more difficult than in late eighteenth century Australia, but not impossibly so. You have backing from God.

…

The mating dance has not been accurately depicted in media since the sixties. (Though it is still accurately depicted in Communist Chinese media, but the Chinese are too alien, too different.)

If you don’t perform the mating dance correctly, will get nowhere fast. The dance is complimentary but asymmetric.

…

This is why, when you are trying to get a chicks attention, it never helps to something nice for her, even to rescue her from danger. Rescuing the damsel in distress is a trope for male viewers. In books and movies targeted at women, the male love interest never rescues the damsel, he endangers her. Negs work, asking her to do something for you works, commanding her works. Stuff that a man would find ridiculous or insulting, and would either make him angry or make him laugh at your pretensions, works.

Negs work astonishingly well, even if so lacking in wit that they are actually insults and would make a man bristle up.

I have actually rescued a chick from danger in real life, with entirely predictable results. Protecting people registers with men as strength, but not with women as strength. Endangering people, innocent people, including the woman herself, registers as strength. I know this from my personal life experience. If you doubt me, check out the love interests in books written by women for women. All women are like that.

…

You don’t plant trees on land you don’t own, and if you don’t have some land and plant some trees for your grandkids, it hurts.

Roissy truthfully tells us how to operate in defect/defect equilibrium with women. But the point is to achieve cooperate/cooperate equilibrium.

…

Female behavior that appears wicked, foolish, and self destructive to a man is entirely intelligible when we realize that the proud independent rapidly aging overweight barista with one hundred thousand dollars in college and credit card debt is unlikely to have children, and is likely to die alone and be eaten by her numerous cats, but if abducted by Islamic State and sold on the auction block naked and in chains would probably have seven children and twenty five grandchildren, and would die surrounded by loving family.

If a man is defeated, conquered and subdued, perhaps because his tribe and country is conquered and subdued, he is unlikely to reproduce. If a woman is defeated, conquered and subdued, she has escaped from defect/defect equilibrium, escaped from prisoner’s dilemma, and also been transferred from weak men and a weak tribe to strong men and a strong tribe, and is therefore likely to be highly successful in reproducing. As a result, women have no country, no tribe, and no ingroup. When they are daughters, they have their father’s tribe, when wives, their husband’s tribe. A woman without a father or a husband is a stateless person, and if a state piously declares her to be a citizen, the state is deluding itself, or deluding its actual citizens in order to commit treason against them.

Thus female behavior that is seemingly wicked, self destructive, and crazy, makes sense when looked at through the lens of Evolutionary Game Theory.

…

But there is no escape from shit tests. Mohammed had a large harem, absolute power, and it clear he had a hard time. This is a chronic problem with large harems, and empires frequently die of it, as is the Turkish empire did and the Chinese empires often did. Genghis Khan had no women problems, and neither did his sons, but his grandsons were lesser men than he. Women will find a way to shit test you.

#james a donald

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