#and get as many in debt and dying in hospitals

[mejomonster]

Republicans love to to after freedom to exist huh

[becauseimanicequeen]

A Short Note About the Timelines/Realities Bleeding Through in 4 Minutes

I opened up my dash around midnight last night (for the first time since the Olympics started) and saw general confusion around the Tonkla/timelines situation. I didn't have the time (or energy) to write about it then, but I do have some time right now. So, I thought I would give my 2 cents about it.

I've written my thoughts on the timelines/realities showing up in the first 3 episodes in a previous post (I'll expand on that post in reblogs as new episodes are released). What so many reacted to in this episode were, to me, the different timelines/realities bleeding through into each other.

This isn't the first time we've seen timelines bleed through. One of them is clearly revealed in this week's episode (Tonkla seeing his dead black cat in ep 1). But there have been other occasions as well.

Every time Great experiences his 4-minute phenomenon (which Den calls it in his research), Great's present situation (which I believe is the patient having a cardiac arrest in the ICU at the beginning of ep 1) is bleeding through:

The first time he has his 4MP (the hit-and-run in ep 1), there's a shot sounding as he "leaves his body" and is sent back in time. I think that sound is the sound of the defibrillator used on him in the present.

The second time (at the hospital in ep 1), there were blinking lights behind him, which could indicate the lights flashing in the ICU at the beginning of ep 1 where the patient (Great) was flatlining.

During his 3rd 4MP (where Title beats the shit out of Dome in ep 2), we can hear a sound that sounds like a heart monitor when a heart flatlines.

During his 4th 4MP (at the basketball court with Tyme in ep 3), there's another shot that sounds and Great's body visibly jerks as if he was hit, so, probably another shot of the defibrillator.

The 5th time (when he argues with Tyme at the hospital in ep 4) is the most interesting and confusing to me, at this point, because they focused so much on the train (which might have some other significance). I'm not sure about this one, but some images flashed white, which might be "the light at the end of the tunnel"?

During the 6th time (when Nan was shot in ep 4), there was another sound that sounded like a heart monitor when a heart flatlines and then we got a mix of shots, electrical sparks, and some of his images flashing in white, which feels like a mix of it all.

There's also the first time Great feels iffy in the elevator in the 1st episode (which isn't a 4MP). There's a shot and a brief sound of a heart flatlining.

But it doesn't just bleed through for Great or Tonkla either. We also have Tyme.

As we saw in the 1st episode, Tyme is dying at an abandoned site where there's a thunderstorm. As far as I can remember, thunder (and lightning) shows up:

When Tyme is in Manee's room in the 2nd episode, specifically when she talks about her son being in debt and taking his life and when Tyme realizes the flowers are from Great.

When he and Great get out of the car on the bridge in the 4th episode, especially when Great screams excitedly.

I think we'll see more thunder/lightning in the coming episodes if this truly is his present bleeding through and not just a coincidence.

Now, what does all this mean?

I have no fucking idea. (Well, it might depend on which character has the point-of-view, which I mentioned in my long-ass timelines/realities post, but I'm not sure...)

It will be fun to try and figure it out, though.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Podcasting "Let the Platforms Burn"

This week on my podcast, I read “Let the Platforms Burn,” a recent Medium column making the case that we should focus more on making it easier for people to leave platforms, rather than making the platforms less terrible places to be:

https://doctorow.medium.com/let-the-platforms-burn-6fb3e6c0d980

The platforms used to be source of online stability, and many argued that by consolidating the wide and wooly web into a few “curated” silos, the platforms were replacing chaos with good stewardship. If we wanted to make the internet hospitable to normies, we were told, we had to accept that Apple and Facebook’s tightly managed “simplicity” were the only way to get there.

But today, all the platforms are on fire, all the time. They are rocked by scandals every bit as awful as the failures of the smaller sites of yesteryear, but while harms of a Geocities or Livejournal moderation failure were confined to a small group of specialized users, failures in the big silos reach hundreds of millions or even billions of people.

What should we do about the rolling crisis of the platforms? The default response — beloved of Big Tech’s boosters and critics alike — is to impose rules on the platforms to make them more hospitable places for the billions they’ve engulfed. But I think that will fail. Instead, I think we should make the platforms less important places by freeing those billions.

That’s the argument of the column.

Think of California’s wildfires. While climate change has increased the intensity and frequency of our fires, climate (and neglect by PG&E) is merely part of the story. The other part of the story is fire-debt.

For millennia, the original people of California practiced controlled burns of the forests they lived, hunted, and played in. These burns cleared out sick and dying trees, scoured the forest floor of tinder, and opened spaces in the canopy that gave rise to new growth. Forests need fire — literally: the California redwood can’t reproduce without it:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/giant-sequoia-needs-fire-grow/15094/

But this ended centuries ago, when settlers stole the land and declared an end to “cultural burning” by the indigenous people they expropriated, imprisoned, and killed. They established permanent settlements within the fire zone, and embarked on a journey of escalating measures to keep that smouldering fire zone from igniting.

These heroic measures continue today, and they’ve set up a vicious cycle: fire suppression creates the illusion that it’s safe to live at the wildlife urban interface. Taken in by this illusion, more people move to the fire zone — and their presence creates political pressure for even more heroic measures.

The thing is, fire suppression doesn’t mean no fires — it means wildfires. The fire debt mounts and mounts, and without an orderly bankruptcy — controlled burns — we get chaotic defaults, the kind of fire that wipes out whole towns.

Eventually, we will have to change tacks: rather than making it safe to stay in the fire zone, we’re going to have to make it easy to leave, so that we can return to those controlled burns and pay down those fire-debts.

And that’s what we need to do with the platforms.

For most of the history of consumer tech and digital networks, fire was the norm. New platforms — PC companies, operating systems, online services — would spring up and grow with incredible speed, only to collapse, seemingly without warning.

To get to the bottom of this phenomenon, you need to understand two concepts: network effects and switching costs.

Network effects: A service enjoys network effects if it increases in value as more people use it. AOL Instant Messenger grows in usefulness every time someone signs up for it, and so does Facebook. The more users, the more reasons to join. The more people who join, the more people will join.

Switching costs: The things you have to give up when you leave a product or service. When you quit Audible, you have to throw away all your audiobooks (they will only play on Audible-approved players). When you leave Facebook, you have to say goodbye to all the friends, family, communities and customers that brought you there.

Tech has historically enjoyed enormous network effects, which propelled explosive growth. But it also enjoyed low switching costs, which underpinned implosive contraction. Because digital systems are universal (all computers can run all programs; all nodes on the network can connect to one another), it was historically very easy to switch from one service to another.

Someone building a new messenger service or social media platform could import your list of contacts, or even use bots to fetch the messages left for you on the old service and put them in the inbox on the new one, and then push your replies back to the people you left behind. Likewise, when Apple made its iWork office suite, it could reverse-engineer the Microsoft Office file formats so you could take all your data with you if you quit Windows and switched to MacOS:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

This dynamic — network effects growth and low switching costs contraction — is why we think of tech as so dynamic. It’s companies like DEC were able to turn out minicomputers that shattered the dominance of mainframes. But it’s also why DEC was brought so low that a PC company, Compaq — was able to buy it for pennies on the dollar. Compaq — a company that built an empire by making interoperable IBM PC clones — was itself “disrupted” a few years later, and HP bought it for spare change found in the sofa cushions.

But HP didn’t fall to Compaq’s fate. It survived — as did IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook. Somehow, the cycle of “good fire” that kept any company from growing too powerful was interrupted.

Today’s tech giants run “walled gardens” that are actually walled prisons that entrap their billions of users by imposing high switching costs on them. How did that happen? How did tech become “five giant websites filled with screenshots from the other four?”

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040

The answer lies in the fact that tech was born as antitrust was dying. Reagan hit the campaign trail the same year the Apple ][+ hit shelves. With every presidency since, tech has grown more powerful and antitrust has grown weaker (the Biden administration has halted this decay, but it must repair 40 years’ worth of sabotage).

This allowed tech to “merge to monopoly.” Google built a single successful product — a search engine — and then conquered the web by buying other peoples’ companies, even as their own internal product development process produced a nearly unbroken string of flops. Apple buys 90 companies a year — Tim Cook brings home a new company more often than you bring home a bag of groceries:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18531570/apple-company-purchases-startups-tim-cook-buy-rate

When Facebook was threatened by an upstart called Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg sent a middle-of-the-night email to his CFO defending his plan to pay $1b for the then-tiny company, insisting that the only way to secure eternal dominance was to eliminate competitors — by buying them out, not by being better than them. As Zuckerberg says, “It is better to buy than compete”:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21345723/facebook-instagram-documents-emails-mark-zuckerberg-kevin-systrom-hearing

As tech consolidated into a cozy oligopoly whose execs hopped from one company to another, they rigged the game. They colluded on a criminal “no-poach” deal to suppress their workers’ wages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation

And they colluded to illegally rig the ad-market:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

This collusion is the inevitable result of market concentration. 100 squabbling tech companies will be at each others’ throats, unable to agree on catering for their annual meeting much less a common lobbying agenda. But boil those companies down to a bare handful and they’ll quickly converge on a single hymn and twine their voices in eerie harmony:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/16/compulsive-cheaters/#rigged

Eliminating antitrust enforcement — letting companies buy and merge with competitors, permitting predatory pricing and other exclusionary tactics — was the first step towards unsustainable fire suppression. But, as on the California wildland-urban interface, this measure quickly gave way to ever-more-extreme ones as the fire debt mounted.

The tech’s oligarchs have spent decades both suppressing laws that would limit their extractive profits (there’s a reason there’s no US federal privacy law!), and, crucially, getting new law made to limit anyone from “disrupting” them as they disrupted their forebears.

Today, a thicket of laws and rules — patent, copyright, anti-circumvention, tortious interference, trade secrecy, noncompete, etc — have been fashioned into a legal superweapon that tech companies can use to control the conduct of their competitors, critics and customers, and prevent them from making or using interoperable tools to reduce their switching costs and leave their walled gardens:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Today, these laws are being bolstered with new ones that make it even more difficult for users to leave the platforms. These new laws purport to protect users from each other, but they leave them even more at the platforms’ mercy.

So we get rules requiring platforms to spy on their users in the name of preventing harassment, rather than laws requiring platforms to stand up APIs that let users leave the platform and seek out a new online home that values their wellbeing:

https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/lawful-awful-control-over-legal-speech-platforms-governments-and-internet-users

We get laws requiring platforms to “balance” the ideology of their content moderation:

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/16/texas-social-media-law/

But not laws that require platforms to make it easy to seek out a new server whose moderation policies are more hospitable to your ideas:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/right-or-left-you-should-be-worried-about-big-tech-censorship

The platforms insist — with some justification — that we can’t ask them to both control their users and give their users more freedom. If we want a platform to detect and block “bad content,” we can’t also require the platform to let third party interoperators plug into the system and exchange messages with it.

They’re right — but that doesn’t mean we should defend them. The problem with the platforms isn’t merely that they’re bad at defending their users’ interests. The problem is that they can’t defend those interests. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t merely monumentally, personally unsuited to serving as the unelected, unaacountable social media czar for billions of people in hundreds of countries, speaking thousands of languages. No one should have that job.

We don’t need a better Mark Zuckerberg. We need no Mark Zuckerbergs. We don’t need to perfect Zuck — we need to abolish Zuck.

Rather than pouring our resources into making life in the smoldering wildlife-urban interface safe, we should help people leave that combustible zone, with policies that make migration easy.

This month, we got an example of how just easy that migration could be. Meta launched Threads, a social media platform that used your list of Instagram followers and followees to get you set up. Those low switching costs made it easy for Instagram users to become Threads users — and the network effects meant it happened fast, with 30m signups in the first morning:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/06/meta-launches-threads-and-its-important-for-reasons-that-most-people-wont-care-about/

Meta says it was able to do this because it owns both Insta and Threads. But Meta doesn’t own the list of accounts that you trust and value enough to follow, or the people who feel the same way about you. That’s yours. We could and should force Meta to let you have it.

But that’s not enough. Meta claims that it will someday integrate Threads into the Fediverse, the collection of services based on the ActivityPub standard, whose most popular app is Mastodon. On Mastodon, you not only get to export your list of followers and followees with one click, but you can import those followers and followees to a new server with one click.

Threads looks incredibly stupid, a “Twitter alternative you would order from Brookstone,” but there are already tens of millions of people establishing relationships with each other there:

https://jogblog.substack.com/p/facebooks-threads-is-so-depressing

When they get tired of “brand-safe vaporposting,” they’ll have to either give up those relationships, or resign themselves to being trapped inside another walled-garden-cum-prison operated by a mediocre tech warlord:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-algorithmic-anti-culture-of-scale

But what if, instead of trying to force Zuck to be a better emperor-for-life, we passed rules requiring him to let his subjects flee his tyrannical reign? We could require Threads to stand up a Fediverse gateway that let users leave the service and set up on any other Fediverse servers (we could apply this rule to all Fediverse servers, preventing petty dictators from tormenting their users, too):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/platforms-decay-lets-put-users-first

Zuck founded an empire of oily rags, and so of course it’s always on fire. We can’t make it safe to stay, but we can make it easy to leave:

https://locusmag.com/2018/07/cory-doctorow-zucks-empire-of-oily-rags/

This is the thing platforms fear the most. Network effects work in both directions: if your service grows quickly because people value one another, then it will shrink quickly when the people your users care about leave. As @zephoria-blog​ recounts, this is what happened when Myspace imploded:

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

When I started seeing the disappearance of emotionally sticky nodes, I reached out to members of the MySpace team to share my concerns and they told me that their numbers looked fine. Active uniques were high, the amount of time people spent on the site was continuing to grow, and new accounts were being created at a rate faster than accounts were being closed. I shook my head; I didn’t think that was enough. A few months later, the site started to unravel.

Platforms collapse “slowly, then all at once.” The only way to prevent sudden platform collapse syndrome is to block interoperability so users can’t escape the harms of your walled garden without giving up the benefits they give to each other.

We should stop trying to make the platforms good. We should make them gone. We should restore the “good fire” that ended with the growth of financialized Big Tech empires. We should aim for soft landings for users, and stop pretending that there’s any safe way to life in the fire zone.

We should let the platforms burn.

Here’s the podcast:

https://craphound.com/news/2023/07/16/let-the-platforms-burn-the-opposite-of-good-fires-is-wildfires/

And here’s a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the @internetarchive​; they’ll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_446/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_446_-_Let_the_Platforms_Burn.mp3

And here’s my podcast feed:

https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

Tonight (July 18), I’m hosting the first Clarion Summer Write-In Series, an hour-long, free drop-in group writing and discussion session. It’s in support of the Clarion SF/F writing workshop’s fundraiser to offer tuition support to students:

https://mailchi.mp/theclarionfoundation/clarion-write-ins

[Image ID: A forest wildfire. Peeking through the darks in the stark image are hints of the green Matrix "waterfall" effect.]

Image: Cameron Strandberg (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fire-Forest.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[brucewaynehater101]

Part four of the Carrion Crow Crimelords AU ask saga

The four are gonna have some fun but also be stressed the hell out juggling civilian lives with being bats with being Carrion Crows (though Steph has it slightly easier since her Spoiler/Robin life is in the bin)

Like woof, having to balance out Carrion Violence duking it out with Batgirl or Signal, and when Carrion Light is needed to send orders for some workers?

And Carrion Promise is needed to put together profiles on new recruits?

Tim having to balance Batcomputer duty with Drake Industries work because Drake Industries work is code for Drake Industries AND Undying Carrion management?

==========

Also like, damn Nightwing is straight up not gonna have a good time especially in the scenario that Carrion Violence reveals herself as Stephanie

Give this poor man a hug

===========

+ Just imagine outside povs of the insanity of the bombshells the Carrion Crows drop

"Man I can't believe Red Hood is the Second Robin, not even death stops him from being a man of the people!"

"Didn't he beat the Third black and blue? In the words of Carrion Violence? The Fourth Robin?"

"you don't get it, the Third just up and left while Red Hood came to help making Crime Alley a more bearable place!"

"you must have amnesia because the Third Robin saved way too many of us from hospital debts and joblessness after Red Hood died."

=========

"Gotham really said 'you won't die until I let you' to those Robins of Batman, eh?"

The tabloids and news articles and Batfamily obsessed girlies are gonna be well fed, I can guarantee you that

Gotham gossips horrendously, but I would too if I lived in that hellhole. Between all the crime and everything that goes down, the gossip for masks would be interesting as hell. Bats seem to have some weird family drama going on.

Maybe the rumors that Gotham won't let Robins die lead to less people trying to kill them (cause what's the point). It may also mean people care less about injuring them cause they'll just pop back up anyways.

Poor Nightwing. Can his family members stop dying?

[thekrows-nest]

Angst:

Oh man… I hear about the medical debt situation in America, or how SSI keeps disabled people poor and they get their benefits cut if they marry.

A Dove that is disabled, needs a lot of hospital visits, or in general is just a huge financial burden on Krow? 😭 How is the birb gonna handle it

It is absolutely, monstrously fucked. There's so many horror stories of people dying because of medical debt or being forced to wait for care. It's ghoulish. I guarantee every person in America has a personal story regarding how fucked the medical system is.

Anyhoo.

It would honestly not be without great strife and hardship. Luckily, Krow is fairly able bodied and lacking some morals.

I've already said he does... things to get extra cash on the side that is far from what normal, good people do. He does it even with a Dove that is more able bodied, a Dove where they HAVE to rely on him to get/afford treatment?

Krow will do anything he can to make it happen.

Become a hitman? Make people disappear for their organs? Smuggles firearms, drugs or such? Yes.

There are some lines he won't cross, to be clear, some some... if he hadn't already, he would for Dove.

Even if it makes him feel ill and revolting.

[achronicallive]

An ideological difference that I’ve noticed between me and someone else in my life is about healthcare costs and whatnot.

He thinks that it would be good if healthcare could be free but that he doesn’t like it in practice because it means that taxpayers essentially end up paying for other people’s medical bills. Every time this gets brought up, he asks me the rhetorical question of if I would want to pay that for other random people I don’t know.

And you know what?

Yes. Yes I would.

I don’t want other people to have to avoid going to the hospital because they’re going to be in debt for life.

I don’t want other people to die because it’s the best financial option.

I don’t want someone to be permanently crippled or hurt or even just hurt/in pain for too long because they can’t fucking afford it.

I would, or at least would do my goddamned best, to pay a little bit of extra money to keep other people happy and health and safe.

Because you know what else it means?

It means that the barista I say hi to every day doesn’t have to pick up five more jobs so they can live for another one.

It means that the boyfriend of the man across the street can keep hugging his boyfriend because he has arms, even if they’re not his original ones.

It means that if my friends are hurt I don’t have to leave them suffering and in pain because I don’t have to worry about fucking up the rest of their life.

It means that if someone in my family is fucking dying I won’t have to let them fade away because the cost of keeping them alive is more than I can bear.

It means that if any of these things happen to me I don’t have to worry about that. I don’t have to worry about life debt, or constantly being in pain or unsafe, or making my friends and family watch me die or make them choose whether I have to.

It means that me and my anxiety riddled brain and my friends and my family and everyone else in this world can have one - and therefore many - fewer things to worry about

[impromptu-sketches]

Jinx chapter 37 spoilers & more predictions!!

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I have many many thoughts about how the rest of Jinx might play out!

First, I think Dan will be too sick to be able to help Jaekyung with his jinx before the match and Jaekyung will lose. And I think it's obvious to all of us that he'll blame Dan for it.

(Side note: if that happens I'm so curious if Jaekyung will try to find someone else last minute. I said to my bf, 'is he going to try to fuck Potato?!' I don't really see that happening though. And I don't think he'll try to find a stranger because they're in a foreign country and it's just too risky)

Some different scenarios/predictions in my head:

It's still possible that after losing the fight and going back to South Korea, Dan's grandmother passes away. And through that, Jaekyung continues to treat him terribly and it becomes too much for Dan and he leaves. To me, 1/5. Not very likely.

Jaekyung will blame Dan so much so that he'll fire him and kick him out of his place. I didn't really think this would happen at first, but if there's no other giant event (like Dan's grandmother dying) that makes Dan angry enough to leave, Jaekyung has to be the one to end things. I don't think it'll be Dan to walk away because 1. the debt 2. he'll feel really bad that he wasn't able to help with the jinx and feel even more awful that Jaekyung lost. He'll also blame himself. And overall Dan wants to support Jaekyung. So there's no reason he would leave him unless he got angry enough. Likelihood 3/5.

If Jaekyung fires Dan, maybe (because we know the entire team and coaches love Dan) the team will disagree with Jaekyung's decision (and they don't know about the jinx and their relationship/feelings) and walk away with Dan or just tell Jaekyung he's wrong. Either way, I think Jaekyung will stand behind his decision. So he may have a team that's upset with him or no team at all. 3/5.

Jaekyung loses and fires Dan, the team does nothing because they have no choice. There's a time skip with Jaekyung and Dan apart. 2/5, I think the team would at least try to convince Jaekyung that he was wrong to fire Dan.

Jaekyung loses the match and gets injured badly - either his shoulder or another injury - and he still blames Dan and fires him. But now he has to stop training to recover. 4/5. I think this is the most likely.

Like I said at the beginning of Jinx in a previous post, I HOPE that Jaekyung hits rock bottom. Hard. Then does some serious self reflection and realizes all of his mistakes and apologizes to Dan. Basically becomes a new man.

BUT the major thing to me is Dan's grandmother, because we know she's his #1 priority.

So, if Dan's grandmother passing away isn't part of them separating (which right now seems like it's not going to the case), I think it will be the reason they see each other again.

We know that Jaekyung seems to have a soft spot for her. He visited her in the hospital, chatted with her, and left a great impression. He didn't have to do -any- of that. But he did.

So, if after Dan's fired or they're separated for whatever reason, Jaekyung might seek Dan out to comfort him after he hears his grandmother passed away. Assuming there's at least a little time skip and he's done all of his self reflection beforehand. I think he'll secretly pay for a beautiful funeral or at least show up to pay his respects.

I'm also curious (worried) what would happen if Jaekyung doesn't fire Dan. Would he just abuse him more? Treat him so bad that Dan leaves him?? As always, I'm worried for Dan.

[charlotteiscrying]

i always figured you wanted something real, because that’s what you told me. i thought you wanted something more than skin deep, you know that whole reason why you fucking other girls didn’t count as cheating to you. i allowed it, because i thought we had something more than just skin. i’ve always understood sex is just a verb, i believe that so much because ive never once been looking for only sex. yes you have a huge dick. but i love you for other reasons, for how you treated me, how you cared for me, kept me safe, protected me. how you helped me though my toughest times and inspired me to change n get through them. how you looked at me, the way that i can feel the energy radiating off your skin even when you aren’t touching me. how you hugged me, how you were able to be vulnerable around me. how you’d talk in ur lil jit voice, how whenever we saw a lil kid you’d tell me how bad you wanted a mini-us. how you gave me access to the version of you that no other human has, or will ever, see.

i asked you so many times to tell me why you loved me. to give me a reason, to say something nice so that i could get my mind (that was screaming at me to give up on you) to relax, to rest for at least one night. i wanted you to reassure me that you love me for the way i’ve helped you, for what i’ve done for you, for me caring n fighting to stay in your life thru all this. for me being the one n only person you’ve ever been able to open up to in this world. for me helping you through your toughest time in this life, when your ex told you she never loved you, it had always been fake. that crushed you. i saw the way you texted her for months after that. it took you six months of having me in your life to “get over her” enough to “date” me. if one year of fake with her caused that much damage to you, think of what two years of fake codependency, love, and drug addiction with you has done to me ? and, unfortunately, i don’t have a charlotte to come love me outta this.

i wish so bad i hadn’t told you how every man in my life has always only looked at me for only my body and what i have. i wish i hadn’t told you what i truly wanted. to be loved as the soul inside my body. you listened to exactly what i wanted, and you shoved your demon body into the cookie cutter shape my brain needed to see in order to feel love. you took residency up in my mind, just to take notes on what would get my hopes up, n what would crush them even harder. you’ve lived with me for the past two years. 700+ days, living in my family’s home, with me, because you had nowhere else to go, and i love you. even to this day, even after you’ve hurt me this bad, i’d rather let you live with me than know you’re homeless out in that snow right now. i bought you over $100,000 in drugs, because i’d rather sell my pussy for you than see you withdraw, and i love you. you crashed my bmw, you saved my life in the process, but i committed insurance fraud to keep you outta trouble. had i told my insurance the truth id have a brand new car right now. but id rather commit a huge mf crime (while im on probation for the second time) than put you in $40,000 of debt for crashing a car you didn’t own, that you were driving without insurance.

now im stuck here: no car, no money, no job, no you. you promised me so many times that once you had a job id never have to work a day in my life again. that just wasn’t true- when i flew out to you on my birthday you lied to me about having to pay for your mom’s cancer surgery and chemo, that’s why you couldn’t help pay for my flight, the rental car, the hotel. i should’ve known, i should’ve ended it right then and there. my ex lied to me about his dad being in the hospital, dying from cancer. i knew that was bullshit the second it came out his mouth. he was just saying the buzzword “cancer” because he knew my dad had died from cancer when i was seven, and he wanted sympathy outta me, so i’d give him more money, drugs, whatever he wanted. yet i realized you lied to me about paying for your mom’s chemo, to try and prevent me from flying out to you, and i didn’t blink an eye. my brain was screaming at me, but i ignored it.

am i stupid ? or were you just that good of a liar ? would anyone in my place have fallen for you for as long as i did ? i seriously think that all of us, everything, has just been you manipulating me to get what you wanted from me. once you took everything i could physically give you: you dipped straight tf out. you know what i said before wasn’t entirely true. i’d much rather see you outside, soaking wet and freezing cold from this snow, than EVER let you in my house again. if everything was fake, you never once meant it any of those times you’d say i love you, or when you would actually say the nice things i wanted to hear, you’re actually a demon. and i know you’d take that as a compliment- it should be an insult.

[daniellemchaney]

Help with medical supplies and bills 🩺🏥

Hello everyone I am Danielle Marie. 30 year old woman fighting a chronic illness every day.

Little Bit of my story:

In November of 2019 my life completely changed with no warning and no sign. I went into the ER after vomiting blood and found out my stomach was dying off. For four years I did so many EGD procedures to help with the bleeding and the process of emptying my stomach, but it did not work. Finally in May of 2020 I had to have a stomach revision surgery. I absolutely needed this surgery to save my life. That surgery ended up making everything worse. I fought infections, bleeds and pain for years. Then in April 2022 I had a total gastrectomy surgery (total stomach removal). This surgery was suppose to help return me to my life… but it didn’t. Since the total gastrectomy and in the last year I’ve been hospitalized every month for days or weeks at a time and sometimes more times during a month due to issues from the surgery. The person I knew in the mirror is now gone, I weigh 88 pounds because I can’t maintain my nutrition with always being sick. I’m skin and bones and live in constant pain. I’ve been under anesthesia 73 times in the last 5 years. In the last year I’ve had 5 major surgeries and 17 EGDs with esophageal stents placed 12 times and Nothing has helped. As of today August 13th 2023, I’m laying in this hospital bed writing all of you lovely people, on permanent care waiting for another surgery. This is my last chance. They are going to completely redo my total gastrectomy. But first I’ll be getting a G tube placed within the next couple days so hopefully I can regain strength for a successful total gastrectomy redo.

In these last few years I’ve acquired so much medical debt and now I’m going to need medical supplies for my G tube for whenever I get to return home. I don’t have the best insurance and can’t work due to always being sick and in the hospital. I’m just looking for some help to get me by until my disability benefits finally hits (been waiting for my benefits since January 2021). Anything you can give, will help me and my parents dramatically. Looking at the list of all the supplies I’ll need to just return home is so stressful. And I hate having to put this financial strain on my parents and support system since they have done so much for me already.

Money will go to:

Medical supplies not covered by insurance

G Tube machine backpack (for leaving the house)

G Tube sanitary supplies and equipment

Bedroom set up for machine and tubing

G Tube Pads for sterilization of the area and comfort

Doctors Bills and anything else I may need down this long road ahead of me.

[endstar]

Adding to the grief AU:

Doug, after bonding with the now HEAVILY depressed Malak. Is now the most ride or die person this demon ever had the blessing/curse to be friends with.

Doug will sneak into dangerous demon territory to make his friend feel better. Since grave peril is definitely a good distraction from failing to save his family.

Malak mentions he misses a demonic meal he used to eat? Doug breaks into a demon Noble's house and steals their food. Gets caught, but escapes with the food. The two eat like demon kings, and Doug compares demon food to human food.

Malak says something about how he wishes he could hug his daughter again? He breaks back into bierce's territory, to steal plushies from the carnival. The agatha plushies...

Malak mentions a drawing agatha made for him, that he couldn't nab before he was forced to leave. Doug gets it, and if bierce tore it up? He steals tape from her and fixes it for Malak.

He mentions missing doing agatha's hair. Doug steals some of her old hair stuff, and offers to grow his hair out for the sake of Malak's comfort. So he can still do something that brings him joy for nostalgia's sake.

Malak gets seriously hurt. Doug breaks into a hospital, the reaper nurse's or some other demon's. Gets a med kid, and a student's guide to a demon's body to fix Malak up.

Malak misses a record, doug steals mama bear's record player, and the record Malak loved.

Dude is used to running on dangerous missions to obtain something. He collected so many shards and ring pieces, he's used to the danger. But now he isn't doing it for his dead family. He's doing it for his enemy turned friend, who's slowing dying inside because guilt and grief is eating him up. It's so much more rewarding too, because he's met with more and more thankfulness from the demon, and more and more concern.

Worst part? Malak feels somewhat bad about it. All he does is complain and whine to a mortal who shouldn't even CARE about him. And what happens? This man gets him something in an attempt to make him feel better, risking his life doing so.

...and he can't repay him.

Being a demon, I'm sure he's used to things being eye for an eye, arm for an arm.

So being unable to do anything in return makes him feel in debt to the man. He has no power, no magic, no money, and no strength from how his grief is making it hard for him to take care of himself. He has nothing, but being thankful, and thankfulness doesn't feel like enough.

He wants to repay the man, but physically can't. The mortal he was trying to kill. The one he taunted with his dead family. The one he tortured for who knows how long he was working with bierce....

Showing kindness, and comforting him after losing everything. Plus risking his life to bring that comfort.

That brings up why Malak is concerned when doug goes on his little comfort missions. Malak is scared of losing him too at that point. Doug is very much mortal, and the first mortal that was kind to him... if he loses this man, who will he have left? His monsters abandoned him out of the sake for their own lives, his friends turned their backs on him the second he was weak, their monsters will kill him on sight, his daughter is dead... this man is the only good thing this demon has left. And he could die, at any moment...

All to try and get him a gift. He can't even repay him for his kindness.

Not what he thinks is fair pay, at least. The fact he's trying to stay alive for the mortal is payment enough, since Malak is now his only friend.

Them again the world.

If they get back to the mortal realm doug would probably take Malak shopping and show him mortal things :)

[pinkopalina]

x

there's actually a lot more going on than just my dumbass car that I need financial help with. I'm in debt and it won't kill me but it pulls me thin over weeks and months and years. I was kicked out of therapy for my debt because my insurance coverage dates didn't kick in when I wanted them to and I don't know if I could call anyone and correct that. I don't know who's wrong. the job was a call center online, there's not an office I can go to.

my mom's been sending me money even though she's out of work. her mother, my grandma, is addicted to opioids and taking double doses and calling the ambulance to use as an Uber whenever she's out of drugs but she doesn't understand she won't GET more just because she runs out because they are REGULATED. they can tell she's getting too many too fast.

my wife's mother I'm actively afraid of dying. she just got brain surgery and demanded to be released before she was ready. I don't know how the hospital let her go. she's incoherent. my wife is taking care of her but my MIL doesn't recognize her, talks about her in the third person. has been crying about wanting to die and being in pain for two days straight.

I don't know how much longer I can go on like this. I need another job? or to doordash nightly, consistently, after working full time, for the extra income? commissions, when I can figure out to pull myself out of the laziness exhaustion hole I've been thrown down? if my hands stop hurting long enough for me to do them, maybe I just need to push through harder

I just don't understand. it all went to shit. is it just shit for me? is god real, does he hate me that much? what sin am I atoning for, this life has never been one that I wanted to live

i spreadeth my hands for aid and there is neither help nor comfort

my job, the owner, has a brand new farm. sends me home early so as not to pay me overtime, where I make $15 an hour, and I pay my $1100 rent

if I am to lay down and die all I ask is that the pain be absorbed with me, and that it ends, and no one else needlessly endlessly experience it

[redflowernews]

KDKA Investigates: In Federal Lawsuit, Local Inventors Say InventHelp Let Them Down

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - As a kid, Brian Antonelli was tethered to his mother's apron strings, helping her make her signature Italian wedding soup. When she died, he had a dream -- to market the soup with his mother's name and image on the label.

"Cause that was the promise I made to my mom as she was dying in her hospital bed that I was going to do something for her."

Hopes of realizing that dream came into sharp focus when Antonelli contacted InventHelp, a Pittsburgh-based company, which as they name implies, offers to help would-be inventors find companies to develop their products and sell them to the public.

Antonelli: "They promised me that they were going to market my soup and get it into market." Sheehan: "And you were going to make a lot of money?" Antonelli: "I was going to make a lot of money." Sheehan: "Did that happen?" Antonelli: "No."

Soon after convincing him to take out a $10,000 loan to pay for their services, Antonelli says InventHelp disappeared, stopped returning phone calls and, he says, never shopped his soup to prospective companies. Today, he's in debt and his credit is ruined because he stopped payment on the loan. But that's not his biggest sorrow.

"It stopped me from making a promise to my mom, and that hurt me more than anything," he says.

Antonelli is one of several hundreds of plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court accusing InventHelp of "a deceptive and fraudulent inventing promotion scam that has bilked thousands of aspiring inventors into paying millions of dollars."

The suit claims the company dangles the prospect of riches, pressures prospective clients into expensive contracts, then reneges on their promise to market the product through a so-called "databank" of participating companies.

"In truth and in fact, many of these companies on these lists do not even exist and/or are sham companies. Others have not agreed to 'review new ideas in confidence,' have not signed non-disclosure agreements, and have no relationship whatsoever with InventHelp," the suit says.

Attorney Julie Pechersky Plitt said: "I would say this is fraud, pure and simple from start to finish. False promises, false companies, false licensing agreement. Everything about it is fraudulent."

KDKA's Andy Sheehan visited InventHelp's headquarters here in Pittsburgh -- he called and sent emails, seeking a response to these allegations but only received this short reply:

"InventHelp is very confident that it will prevail in (this) case, and is proud of the quality services it offers to inventors across the country."

On its website, the company prides itself on being "The Honest Invention Company," saying it's very upfront with would-be inventors about all of its fees, services and the long odds against their invention ever being developed or marketed.

InventHelp says it "makes no promises and does not imply a likelihood of success."

Sean Giliberti says the InventHelp representative he spoke with was very enthusiastic about his liquid therapy lamp -- which he describes as "a lava lamp on steroids."

He paid InventHelp $12,000, and while the company did secure a patent for the lamp, it also promised to market the lamp through its "databank."

But when Giliberti did not hear back, he decided to check himself. He found that several of the companies listed didn't exist, and he got this response from the ones he was able to contact:

Giliberti: "The people in charge were like, 'who's InventHelp? We don't know what you're talking about.'" Sheehan: "They never heard of them." Sheehan: "Not one person I called ever heard of InventHelp."

[redbards]

Statement on 2 years of inter-imperialist war in Ukraine by FKO (Federation of class-struggling organisations)

(translation from the original published in German on 27. January 2024)

Take to the streets on February 24, 2024: Stop the war over Ukraine! Stop German arms deliveries! No to rearmament and conscription!

Around 500,000 soldiers have already been killed or injured on the side of the Ukrainian and Russian armed forces since 2022. The war between Russian imperialism and the various imperialist forces of NATO for control of Ukraine seems to have no end. It is being fueled by the super-rich and warmongers on all sides - but it is the workers who are dying.

The German government is also part of this brutal struggle for imperialist influence. It is using the war in Ukraine to secure the long-term profits of German corporations in Eastern Europe. Since the start of the war, Germany has therefore already supplied the Ukrainian military with weapons and money to the tune of 20 billion euros. At least another eight billion are to follow this year. Chancellor Scholz has even announced that he will take on more debt to further fuel the war. A German combat brigade is also to be sent to the eastern flank. The war against Russia is also to be practiced with 12,000 German soldiers over a period of months with the "Steadfast Defender" and "Quadriga" manoeuvres.

German imperialism is also fanning the flames of war in order to further militarize our society. Would we simply accept the ongoing armament if the war in Ukraine were to end? If the German media could no longer threaten us with the spectre of the "evil Russian"?

But although fear is being stirred up among many, we can see: While there is supposed to be no money for schools, hospitals, railroads and good wages, the military is being massively pumped up. Not only are 100 billion euros in "special funds" flowing in, but the military budget is also being inflated while there are cuts for the rest of us. On top of this, there are plans to reintroduce compulsory military service. They want to get young people ready to be used in the next wars. We will not allow this!

Stop the war over Ukraine!

No arms deliveries to Ukraine! No German troops on the eastern flank!

No more rearmament! No to compulsory military service! No to the NATO war games Steadfast Defender and Quadriga!

To end the war fairly, the Russian army must withdraw, the Ukrainian government must stop oppressing its own people and NATO must also leave Ukraine. They will never do this voluntarily. This war can only be ended through the fraternization of Russian and Ukrainian workers at the front and through strikes and protests in the hinterland. There is still a long way to go until then.

But what can we do in Germany? We can show international solidarity with the forces against the war in Ukraine and Russia. But above all, we must build up pressure on our government!

Even if the anti-war movement in Germany is currently weak, many people are calling for an end to the war in Ukraine. Let us therefore take to the streets on February 24, 2024 - two years after the escalation of the war in Ukraine - to send a clear signal against war and rearmament!

[alsjeblieft-zeg]

304 of 2023

Look out of the nearest window. What do you see? Details, please.

Last time I’ve seen the pine forest; now it’s the other side of the street, the neighbours’ house.

When you think of the word “posh”, what springs to mind?

Knokke-Heist. I used to live there for a few months and I didn’t like it.

When you have chocolate, do you eat it room temperature? Or are you like me and stick the bar into the fridge first?

I don’t eat chocolate.

What’s the most shocking thing that’s happened in your part of town?

There was a burglary in the local bookstore, twice.

Which brand are your headphones/earbuds?

Beats. I absolutely love them.

Do you see planes fly over your house at all?

On occasion. They are more present at my parents’ place, which is the military area.

Are there any constellations you recognize just by looking at them?

Just Orion, Ursa Major and Cassiopeia, and maybe Coma Berenices.

Which room of your house/apartment do you spend the most time in?

Living room.

Which insect do you find the most beautiful?

Ew no.

Did you have crafts/woodwork at school growing up?

Yeah, I did. I was pretty decent at it.

If so, what was the best assignment you did for it?

Probably the keyring.

Do you have a friend who likes to tell you everything?

Yeah, Bianca. She’s pretty annoying at times.

What was the last thing you got very excited about?

Vacation in Poland. It was great, but too short.

You can go to any city in any country you want. Which city do you go to?

Tampere, Finland. I’ve always wanted to visit.

Do you like gardening? If so, what do you grow?

We don’t even have a garden.

Do you enjoy puzzle games? If so, which one’s your favourite?

I don’t.

Is there a substance you avoid at all costs? If so, what is it and why?

Alcohol, cigarettes, coffee and all drugs. Anything that potentially messes up with my medication.

What would you absolutely hate living next door to?

Our Dutch ex-neighbour lol. He was smoking weed in the backyard.

What would you love to live next door to?

All my friends, my parents and my sister.

What gives you nostalgia?

My hometown, the sea, the city of Hasselt, visiting old places I have an emotional attachment to, particular smells, forests, food such as croque-monsieur because my grandma made the best ones..

When you think of a classy drink, what comes to mind first?

Red wine.

Do you prefer eating out or cooking your own meals?

I enjoy both.

Which language do you think is the most complicated to learn?

Chinese or Arabic? I don’t know.

Is there a place that you might call your second home?

Where my parents live.

How do you imagine your later life to look like?

Hopefully without problems.

What is a job you would never in a million years want to do?

Cleaning. Did it once,e never again.

Is there a piece of jewelry that you feel naked without?

Yeah, my wedding ring.

Do you ever “go commando”?

Did yesterday out of must, XD but typically I don’t.

What’s the sweetest thing someone’s done for you?

My husband was visiting me every dy when I was in the hospital. He’s been taking care of me.

Which wild animals are a common sight in your area?

Rabbits.

What’s the weirdest building in your city?

Can’t think of anything.

How do you keep in touch with friends usually?

We rarely do. Mostly through texting or visits.

Do you get a lot of visitors?

As in my city? Way too many.

Is there a subtle way your partner gets you excited easily?

His spontaneous ideas for road trips.

Do you recognize friends’/family’s vehicles by sound?

I recognise ours, that’s enough.

Which Disney villain is your favourite?

I don’t give a fuck about Disney.

On a regular day, what do you usually do at 3 o'clock in the afternoon?

Eeither travel somewhere or being at the physiotherapy.

Which possession would you not want to inherit from a relative?

Debts, hands down.

What is something you would never dare to do in public?

Have sex or jerk off, I guess. XD

Would you/ did you have a hen night/bachelorette party?

No, I didn’t.

Has anyone taken you on holiday somewhere? If so, where?

My husband. Several times to Poland, France and the Netherlands. Once to Berlin and twice to Wallonia.

When you left the house last time, where did you go?

To the car :P unless our vacation abroad counts.

How did you spend your last birthday?

I gave candy to my workmates.

[gl0ssyeyed]

A little morose

As of yesterday, I have made a decision. I am not going to live past 32. I don't see a point in it, life just seems like this running game where you're just going to lose in the end. I’d like to lose on my terms. This isn’t in a depressed way or an I-hate-my-life way, just a general, life isn’t worth it way. There are so many intricacies to life. You're born and the years that shape your personality—you don't remember. Then you start to grow up you're in your good years until you get older and realize that maybe those years weren't that good. Then you’re sad and stressed all the time. About school, love life, and family, and you could have the best life but somehow still convince yourself that life is awful. Happens to everyone, without fail. When you realize that and start to appreciate the people in your life, you move away, start a new life, and redo everything that you've done in your last 18 years of living. Put your energy into a whole new environment, a new set of people. But mind you, while rebuilding yourself, you need to be concerned with jobs, what work are you going to go into to have a happy life free of debt, AND find someone to love. Let's skip past all the heartbreak and assume that you do find a good job, well guess what. Your entire life is work. That's all you do, that's all you breathe, and now you have no time to be happy with the people that you care about. Say you decide to start a family, there are two ways this could go; you have a good family or a bad family. In the case that your family is good, how do you know your kid isn't gonna be an asshole. How do you know you're raising them right. How do you know you're not putting all your love and energy into someone who’s gonna end up hurting other people. And no matter what you do, they're still gonna feel depressed, upset with you, and hate you because they could live the best life and still find a problem with it. On the other hand, say your family falls apart and you're raising these kids alone (if you don't end up losing them), you're watching the life that you brought into this world fall into a spout of depression. It was your job to make them happy and your thinking that you had it in you to raise a kid is the reason why their suffering. Then they grow up and leave you, might even become a drug addict, and get themselves killed. Either way, the kids leave. If you still have a lover, good, because that's around the time your parents die (assuming they haven't earlier). So yeah, the people that brought you here, raised you, gave you your first ounce of love, they kicked the bucket so have fun mourning. Then you move on and grow up but so do your kids, they never talk to you again, and all of a sudden you're sick. I mean obviously. You’re old now. Your body doesn't work the same. You get sick because of everything. Your bones hurt your back aches your ears don't work cuz of all the music you listened to growing up, and your eyesight is gone, and that's not even the bad stuff. You are breaking down as a person. Unless of course, you have some immune disease and you're already dying. Nonetheless, money is down the drain from all the hospital visits and surgeries you had to get. Then boom. People start dying. All your old friends, your new friends, your neighbors, and thereeeeee goes your spouse. You're alone now. Completely. Maybe you have your kids but they have their own life. And from then you're supposed to just…wait until you die. I don't want to wait. Like I said this isn't a ‘depressed’ thing, I just don't think that there's a point in waiting so long for death. So that's why I chose 32. I have time to live my life and experience those happy moments, but those end. Eventually it all just catches up to you and you realize there's no point in waiting for it to get hard and waiting for it to end. In the words of cobra kai “strike first, strike hard, no mercy.” Though of course, I think this plan is the biggest form of mercy. Anyways, that's my plan, I wanted to write it down because obviously, this isn't something I can say out loud.