#gw corruption

[alex-dontknow]

time for some gw headcanons since we're fixated again (under the cut)

Phantom only really likes food that's rather bland in taste. he doesn't mind some sweet / spicy things, but he'd rather play safely. (he also has a ridiculous spice tolerance but refuses to eat really spicy things regardless)

X is a metalhead.

Nova, when corrupted, tried to justify his actions by believing he was doing everything for the greater good, and the better for his Faction. Obviously he was wrong, and even after he was freed he spent quite a while trying to break from that mentality.

Everyone who was corrupted has some form of PTSD from it.

Sylph once made a tornado upon accident after sneezing.

X, Clover and Phantom have dubbed themselves the three Mixgeteers (X's idea, required some persuasion for the others)

Phantom once tried to teach Bones how to cook. He needed to buy a new hob after that.

Ellyn has ridiculous impulses. She once adopted a snake and it freaked out the other lunatics. (William Snakespeare reference)

Just a little theory I like to think about: Torch (see Cykopath: Birth) grew up to become Inferno (see Xkour Skylines)

[butwhatifidothis]

What gets me about GW defenders saying that "Claude siding with Edelgard shows how far he's willing to go to get what he wants, he'll use anyone to further his goals" is that, even if that were accurate to his character... that's not what he does in GW. At all.

Which one of Claude's goals are ever progressed once he sides with Edelgard? And how does siding with Edelgard, specifically, accomplish said goal?

Maybe... killing Rhea? But all of the reasons he says he wants her gone in this game are either completely unproven or blatantly incorrect - there's no proof of the Church forcing arranged marriages, Crests do not force obligations onto those that have them (which Claude himself literally proves), and the Church is helping Dimitri restore Duscur - a foreign nation - meaning they are actively willing to help fulfill Claude's main goal that he came to the officer's academy to achieve.

And... that's it! That is the only possible thing that even POTENTIALLY helps Claude's dreams, and taking a five-second look at it shows that it actually does nothing at all to help anything. But in the meantime? Claude weakens Faerghus through agitating Sreng and invading it himself, forcing Dimitri to fight a three front war; he actively helps Edelgard get herself out of a messy situation, even though not helping her and letting her die would have actually helped him and would have actually been him using her like people keep saying he's trying to do; he and Holst even admit that by the end of the war Edelgard is going to make a vassal state of Leicester after taking the lion's share of Faerghus' territory for themselves, which Leicester can't do anything about because of Adrestia's far stronger military. He is the one saying that! He is the one pointing out that that is going to happen! And yet he just keeps going anyway!

He is the one getting used. Very blatantly, and very extensively. Claude walked himself into a trap and lied to himself into thinking he's the one with the upper hand, which somehow managed to convince a large portion of the fanbase too. There's no gray morality here, there's no cunning being showcased, Claude is just an evil stupid tool

[archer-world]

corrupted lilith

[lumi-klovstad-games]

The Rise and Fall of the Wardens of Tamasa, and the Doom of the Euphoric Ravagers

In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, there is only War.

This Darkness and Conflict has a way of testing the souls of all men, and unfortunately many are found wanting in the end.

The Chaos Marine warband known as the Euphoric Ravagers are a cautionary tale, and a tragic example of how even the best and brightest might fall into corruption and heresy, and the greatest tragedy was that their fall stemmed from their genuine desire to serve the God-Emperor of Mankind and to live righteously.

Initially founded some time after the 34th millennium, the Wardens of Tamasa grew into an Ultramarine successor chapter of great repute. Their assigned sector in the Segmentum Obscurus was regarded by many as “a little Ultramar”, with a dozen worlds noted for their high populations, excellent standard of living, and exceptional degree of safety relative to other nearby sectors.

Having tempered their armor against Ork invasions and Khornate Cults, the Wardens developed a reputation as a noble chapter who could break even the sharpest blades turned against them. Steadfastly rooted in the teachings of their Primarch, Roboute Guilliman, they were driven by a strongly held deep desire to emulate his greatness and honor his legacy.

As the centuries passed, they became warrior philosophers who carefully studied the history of their Primarch and the deeds of their Ultramarine sires and their brothers in the myriad Ultramarine successor chapters. They sought to be the epitome of discipline, order, and strategic brilliance — a star for other Chapters to fix their course by and chart their way to greatness and glory in turn.

And, for a time, it was good. Very good.

By the 39th Millennium, the Wardens of Tamasa had become heroes known far and wide, household names celebrated throughout the Segmentum. Imperial Guard Regiments were proud to serve alongside them, and other younger Space Marine Chapters looked to them for inspiration. The worlds of their sector were called “The Jewels of Tamasa” and were both prosperous and patriotic. Their Chapter Master at this time, Uraius Goremman, led them with unwavering devotion to their cause of emulating their Primarch, and was regarded by all as a wise and just leader much as Guilliman had been.

But they had been noticed by a gaze apart from the adoring eyes of the Imperium of Man. A terrible unsleeping eye in the Warp had caught notice of something stirring in the hearts of the Wardens, a weakness the chapter was unaware of, and one that could be exploited for dreadful purposes. The Wardens of Tamasa had unknowingly acquired the interest of Slaanesh, the Emperor of Excess, Prince of Pleasure, Duchess of Desire, Lord of Lust, and Countess of Chaos.

It started benignly enough: friendly rivalries emerged between the Wardens and other Ultramarines chapters. These were encouraged by Chapter Master Goremman, as these rivalries inspired his men to do better and accomplish more. But in time, the chapter became less concerned with simply living up to Guilliman’s vision and more obsessed with becoming “Ideal Sons” of the Primarch. It was not enough that they live up to his vision and embody his values, they had to be better at it than the other Ultramarine successors, and perhaps even better than the Ultramarines themselves. 

The Wardens’ obsession with perfection began to take root and consume them, their once-noble and healthy pursuit of being better scions of Guilliman transforming into an unhealthy fixation on order and discipline, and a firm belief in the preeminence and supremacy of their Chapter over all others. The seeds of Slaanesh’s corruption had taken root, nurtured by the Wardens’ unquenchable desire to mirror their Primarch. Unknown to the Wardens, Slaanesh had seized upon this opening, this weakness that formerly was their strength. The God of Obsession and Prince of Perfection entangled their minds with visions and dreams of grandeur and glory, and promises of unspeakable power to enforce their will upon their sector. The whispers grew louder, growing into sweet and haunting melodies that gnawed upon the Wardens’ subconscious and dominated their dreams. Their obsession with discipline and order grew ever more engorged, and their need for precision and perfection, though it produced ever more glorious results upon the battlefields of the Segmentum Obscurus, gradually alienated their friends and neighbors as it became more and more of a liability.

The rivalries grew more tense and strained, as they became less about pushing chapters to mutual excellence and more about proving the Wardens’ superiority. They started to treat their allies more dismissively — such allies served little purpose but to enable the glory and perfection of the Wardens of Tamasa, after all. This conduct gradually worsened as the Wardens treated any failure to uphold the Codex Astartes harshly, and any who failed to fight exactly as they perceived Guilliman would have were punished severely. As their micromanaging and perfection complexes grew, both their non-Astartes allies and the other Chapters became distant from the Wardens, dooming them to become even more entrenched in their darkening spiral as Slaanesh and its daemons subtly fed the Wardens' darker natures, pushing their obsession further and further.

The Jewels of Tamasa began to lose their sparkle, as the glittering worlds fell into the fundamentalist tyranny of the Wardens; the planetary governors obviously couldn’t be trusted to keep order adequately, so the Wardens literally replaced them. As the Jewels fell to the growing Military Junta of the Marines who once ensured their safety, the vivacious standard of living once known on those worlds and celebrated throughout the region diminished and was replaced by a totalitarian state who ensured order through fear and the harshest punishments for any infraction, as any crime or misstep, no matter how slight, became a blasphemy against the God Emperor and the memory of Roboute Guilliman. Every flaw had to be stamped out by force, because the Wardens had seen the true nature of humanity and realized that what they were doing was necessary, essential even, to realize the visions of their beloved Primarch and the God-Emperor of Mankind. Despite their brutality towards the populace, the Imperium of Man did little to respond; the Imperial Tithe was still being honored, and the populations held fast to Imperial Laws, and so the Wardens were permitted to manage the Jewels the way they best saw fit.

It is not known precisely when the Wardens of Tamasa had become irrevocably doomed to their fate, but the time of their fall into darkness is well known. Their push towards perfection damned them in the final decade of M39, as their habit of placing the Captain of one of their 10 Companies as the governor of each world of the Jewels led to an impasse — twelve worlds, but only ten captains. Chapter Master Goremman held council with his Captains as they strove to understand how their Beloved Primarch had failed to arm them for this eventuality and how to proceed. 

What followed broke the Chapter in two.

Chapter Master Goremman, having long held himself to be the paragon of Guilliman’s virtues, was the most vulnerable to Slaanesh’s insidious and corrupting influence. What had been whispers in the beginning were now a heavenly chorus guiding him at all hours, pushing him to seek answers in forbidden knowledge and rituals that promised him the strength and perfection he now constantly craved. In his desperation to attain what he most desired, Uraius Goremman sealed his own fate, and that of his chapter: Goremman decided that the words of the Codex were Absolute, sacred law. There were not "too few Captains" to govern the territory. There were simply too many planets.

With all the compassion and empathy of a raw blade swinging hungrily for the neck of an innocent, Goremman ordered "the surplus" to be "dismantled and redistributed"; two whole planets of the Jewels were to be destroyed after they were stripped of anything of value. This decision horrified the younger captains, who as far gone as they were still acknowledged that their Primarch would never destroy something so practically valuable as two whole Imperial worlds, especially heavily populated and productive worlds, to correct a math error. This disagreement swiftly led to fracturing in the chapter between the younger idealists that made up the Guilliman Loyalists and the older, more experienced (and much more thoroughly corrupted) Goremman Hardliners.

Goremman initially appeared to cede to the Loyalists logic, but their victory was short-lived and trivial, as Goremman emerged after a short period of seclusion and meditation in which he had consulted the heavenly chorus in his mind how he should proceed, and the music had answered. He ultimately declared what just a few months earlier might have been blasphemy in the chapter: Guilliman had been flawed, and not the Icon they had thought him to be. The Chapter Master “reconsidered” Guilliman to be “a flawed but well-meaning prophet”, a great and mighty but ultimately “lesser figure meant to kindle greatness in those who were truly destined for perfection”, namely, the Chapter Master and those who shared his views. It was up to them to “finish” the Codex Astartes by purging it of its imperfections and expanding it as needed to best accomplish their mission, including the establishment of as many companies as would be necessary to ensure the Chapter’s domain — and already it was obvious that the Chapter Master was anticipating expanding his realm further, turning greedy and lustful eyes to the neighboring and technically still-allied sectors as the music in his mind sang of how he could bring those neighbors closer to perfection as well. While the veteran companies agreed with Goremman, the younger Captains and Companies were incensed at the idea their Primarch and his Codex could have possibly been imperfect, and this insult to his memory and his magnum opus had proved the final straw.

Fractures in the chapter which had been developing for years over matters of orthodoxy, culture, and policy finally cracked wide open, and the Wardens of Tamasa split apart, roughly along the lines of older radicals loyal to Chapter Master Goremman, and younger idealists who felt the ideals the chapter stood for were more important than any individual leader, especially as Goremman's instability had been visibly growing. Someone needed to make a stand.

The resulting civil war tore the Chapter apart. After six years of hell, the damage done to the former Jewels of Tamasa was catastrophic. As the pro-Goremman Hardliners exterminated the Roboutian Loyalists, they succumbed to the pleasure of punishing the unworthy and the imperfect with brutal treatment, torturing them in hellishly delightful and horrific ways before taking the ultimate pleasure in executing the infidels. With the extermination of over half the chapter and their subsequent devastation of the worlds they once watched over for failing to live up to their impossible standards, their fall was now complete, and the Chapter was declared Excommunicate Traitoris by the Inquisition. A task force was hastily reassigned from any nearby Space Marine deployments and sent to wipe out the Wardens. Consisting of two companies of the Iron Hands successor chapter the Dawn Stalkers, one company from the Raven Guard successors the Mentors of Deliverance, and a company and a half from the Ultramarine successors in the Azure Magisters paired with the Astra Militarum’s Ephriosian Deathtalons and the Picicrean Black Hawks, the task force departed on a retaliatory Crusade that ultimately saw the Wardens of Tamasa cut and run rather than face destruction, with the now heretic chapter fleeing into the Eye of Terror, not to be seen for over a century.

What emerged from the Eye was not what went in over a century prior. While the Wardens of Tamasa had been corrupted, they had still ultimately desired the best for the galaxy, if only as they saw it in their narrow and murderously dogmatic view. However, the hundreds of Chaos Marines of the Euphoric Ravagers that revealed themselves were a different and even more dangerous beast. While within the Eye of Terror, Chapter Master Goremman had utterly surrendered to Slaanesh’s chorus in his mind. The tendrils of corruption snaked and wormed through his psyche, reforging his mind and soul into something beautiful and terrible: the Chaos Lord Argathes, the so-called “Lightbringer of the Violet Expanse”. His transformation had marked the Wardens’ final descent from well-intentioned extremists into blasphemous anti-crusaders who had eyes on establishing their OWN Imperium of Man, one free of the imperfections of the current system and where instead every soul with the power to act seized on their OWN sense of law and order. This blasphemous Imperium would have at its height Argathes himself, a twisted high priest to impart Slaanesh’s love, wisdom, and adoration to the people.

Donning garish colors and obscene symbols that marked them as Slaanesh’s devoted warriors, the Euphoric Ravagers became a force of unspeakable violence and debauchery. Their once pristine and gilded power armor was now adorned with the garlands of excess and perversion, reflecting their new allegiance and their disdain for the imperfect disciplines of the Imperium. Under Argathes’ leadership, the Ravagers stormed across the Segmentum, indulging in their newfound hedonistic desires, corrupting and devastating all they touched. Their acts of barbarity and perversion became the stuff of nightmares — men, women, and children fell to their knees, driven to howling madness by the overwhelming sensations and displays the Ravagers unleashed, and no one would be spared.

These veteran warriors’ obsession with perfection rendered them an implacable foe, as they had been driven by their madness to become the apex of the warrior's craft — their movements upon the battlefield were well drilled, and hypnotic in their perfect dance-like coordination. Each soldier’s form in combat was beyond reproach, with every shot and strike delivered with nanometer precision, the way they bobbed and weaved to avoid enemy attacks beautiful and graceful beyond compare. Countless of the Emperor’s faithful failed to so much as make a mark upon their glorious and ruined armor and flesh before being slaughtered in new ecstatic and rapturous ways.

So unstoppable and undefeatable were the Ravagers that they were not stopped for good until the Indomitus Crusade, when Roboute Guilliman, returned from the grave, heard what had become of his wayward successors. Despite the righteous fury that he rightfully felt towards the Ravagers and all that they had become and done, he also mourned them. He could not help but feel partially at fault for their fall, even though he fully admitted to his own errors. They had idolized him, and what he represented, and that had pushed them down a path from which the only redemption was death. Perhaps if he’d been more humble, or admitted to his imperfections more in his Codex… but Guilliman pushed these thoughts from his mind, for they would do him no good. He'd seen enough good men fall into darkness and corruption to know that in the end, it was the Wardens of Tamasa that had created an entirely unreasonable and distorted image of him to follow, and their fall had been their own doing. Now, they needed to be stopped, no more and no less.

And Guilliman knew exactly who to send to accomplish this mission.

Despite his initial wariness regarding the young chapter, the Redemptor Roses — a young chapter of Astartes that was crafted from leftover gene-seed from Guilliman’s fallen brother Fulgrim as an experiment of sheer desperation by the Imperium a few years before Guilliman’s return — had recently proven themselves at the Second Fall of Cannaey against a numerically far superior and far more experienced force of their “brothers” from the Emperor’s Children, and the Roses had not only emerged victorious, but had handily butchered the Slaaneshi Marines present on Cannaey to the last man. Even though the Imperium was unable to retain Cannaey at the battle, the Redemptor Roses had proven themselves both loyal and resistant to Slaanesh’s influence, and had already pledged themselves to eradicating the dark god’s influence wherever it could be found. Furthermore, they proved they had the skill and discipline to defeat Slaaneshi Marines who possessed superior numbers and experience, even in situations other chapters might have considered risky or hopeless.

When the Ravagers re-emerged, this time attacking the Fortress World of Agorus, Guilliman called for the Redemptor Roses to answer — and Chapter Master Gautier Boudreaux heartily answered, mobilizing over three hundred warriors to wipe out the Ravagers once and for all. Accompanied into battle by Agorus’ own Imperial Guard — the Iron Dragoons — with High Judge Archus Landaelian and his 2nd Court from the Ceramite Gavels lending their support, as well as the Sisters of Battle of the Order of the Valorous Sigil, justice was finally served upon the fallen Marines. Completely outnumbered and outgunned, with all escape routes cut off, the Euphoric Ravagers gradually realized that their quest for perfection had finally led to them biting off more than they could chew. Their deaths were assured.

And yet, in that moment, realizing that the end had come, something of the Wardens of Tamasa may have reasserted itself. It is said by all who remember the Euphoric Ravagers' destruction that their Last Stand was a PERFECT expression of the combat strategies laid out in the Codex Astartes — literally a textbook example. As justice for nearly 2000 years of blasphemy and depravity finally arrived and ended their reign of terror, they gave one last battle so beautifully executed it would have made Roboute Guilliman himself shed a single tear of appreciation.

Their last act had culminated in everything that they had originally pursued: the perfect example of Guilliman’s warrior values.

The fall of the Wardens of Tamasa serves as a grim reminder of the dangers of obsession and the treachery that may lurk in even the most noble aspirations. Their tragic fall and transformation into the Euphoric Ravagers is a testament to the cunning of the Ruinous Powers, as they were used as unwitting pawns in Slaanesh’s grand game. Their tale reminds all that no matter the purity of one’s intentions, vigilance must ALWAYS guard against the seductive whispers of the Warp.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What the fuck is a PBM?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

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

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

[moociaoafterdark]

Ultramarine Gene Flaw AU: Farm edition.

You thirsty bastards look what you did. You read the tittle. You heard of UltraMOOrines before. You know what you're about to read. The genetic flaw of the Ultramarines is that they're essentially cattle. Not just "GW's cash cows" kind of cattle. Not just "Throw enough Ultramarines at the problem and hope that will solve it" kind of cattle. They have cow/bull like features. It is mostly tied to their behavior. In this AU, they're much more likely to act out and be aggressive (something that may or may not be canon?? idk, I know Robu's geneseed is one of the purest ones). However, they're also way more protective of each other, as well as being more likely to be friendly with humans (unless they piss the Ultramoorines off). They do have other changes, though. The Ultramarines are split into two types: bulls and cows. Bulls usually stand out because of their increased height (being taller than their battle brothers), as well as being more aggressive, something that they learn how to temper. Some also may grow tiny numbs on their head, that if left untreated may turn into horns. This is often mistaken as a sign of corruption, but in reality, those horns are completely harmless and don't indicate anything. A bull Ultramarine may choose to surgically remove them, or, he may choose to keep them to use in combat. In those cases, they are equipped with specialized helmets, that allow for full head protection and coverage, but leave the horns poking out. Bulls are also noted to be the only Astartes capable of reproduction, albeit with their fellow battle brothers, cows in particular. Cows usually look no different from other Astartes, though they also can grow out horns, just like bulls, but this is a much rarer occurrence. In case a cow chooses to keep the horns, he also will be provided with a modified helmet. Cow Ultramarines are capable of lactation and the milk, as well as its consumption, has become an important part of the Chapter's culture. Sampling milk from one's battle brother is a very delicate and intimate process. Usually, though, it is gathered by the serfs and, in more notable cases, Apothecary, and is redistributed to the rest of the Chapter. Considering that the large quantity of milk in his chest makes the Ultramarine uncomfortable and feel heavy, he is more than happy to share milk. The milk of a cow Ultramarine is extremely nutritious and was proved to increase Astartes' healing capabilities. This is why cows, despite what one may think, are really valued as battle brothers. The cows are also still seen as Space Marines, therefore they are expected to and are sent to engage in combat. Cows are also capable of pregnancy, though they only can get impregnated by the bulls. The newborns are usually born as extremely promising, physically strong and in great health, meaning the Ultramarines and their Chapters are never in shortage of new possible recruits. Boys that were born from cow Ultramarines are also notably more likely to survive the grueling process of being converted into an Astartes. It is after birth that a cow's aggression levels rise significantly, which can only be explained by a supposed "maternal instinct" built into their genome. *ehem* So, which one of the Ultraboys is who? (the ones I can name from the top of my head)

Marneus Calgar - bull, of course. Did not remove his horns. Agemman Severus - bull. Removes his horns. Varro Tigurius - cow, of course. Also did not remove his horns. Has given birth to at least a couple of kids by now. guess who the father is Cato Sicarius - cow, much to everyone's surprise. Doesn't remove his horns in order to pretend to be bull. Haven't given birth to a kid... yet. Uriel Ventris - cow. Removes his horns regularly. Unknown if he has any children. Demetrian Titus - bull. Used to keep his horns, but after his time in the Deathwatch, got a habit to regularly remove them instead. Leandros - cow. Removes his horns. Was recently found to be with a child. Gadriel - cow. Doesn't remove his horns. Chairon - bull. Doesn't remove his horns. (honorable mention) Malum Caedo - bull. Removes his horns, surprisingly. Maybe he really likes his bird aesthetic? What of Ultrapeepaw himself, Roboute Guilliman? He got the best (and worst) of both worlds ~

@twerk4macragge @robot-roadtrip-rants THERE, YOU HAPPY NOW?

[hyperxsyrup]

📌

23f dummy loser

cw: <100lbs gw: 130lbs

Owned

too stupid, gullible, and fragile to play with Men

allowed to talk to girls or subs

beta bottom who needs to learn her place. heavy heavy heavy sa trauma from childhood. In trouble with Dad and mommy and writing this pinned to show what a nobody i am to learn my role.

tw: 3d, hardcore mindfuckery p0rn, pro-mis0gyny, pro-nc, pro- corruption, pro-patriarchy. pls unfollow if offended

limits: underage anything. Nothing else.

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[drunkenskunk]

There's a project related to my interest in Warhammer that I've wanted to do for quite some time, but I know I'll never get the chance to actually do it. At least, not properly. And it involves... I think "historical preservation" is probably the best word for it?

See, I like to occasionally sift through my collection of old "out of date" rulebooks and army codex books from earlier editions of 40k. The sort of things that have been out of print for many years. Games Workshop hasn't sold these books in 2 or 3 decades, and they've all been supplanted by the current rules. And I do this because I think it's interesting to see how the game - in both crunch and fluff - has changed since 1987.

More beyond the break...

For example: the different ways the galaxy has been depicted in 40k between the different editions. In the first rulebook, when it was still called Rogue Trader, all we got was a small, almost abstract, image on the bottom of the page. The 2nd edition rulebook that came out in October 1993 (specifically, the Codex Imperialis book) had a two page spread, but it was also very abstract with a few notes, but no real detail to speak of. As far as I can tell, the first time we got a map of the galaxy with the segmentum divisions that we're all accustomed to now came from a very unexpected place: the very first Tyranid codex that came out in August 1995.

Of course, my copy of the 2nd Edition book is a very poor quality black and white scan. Those segmentum divisions could genuinely be there, and I just can't see it. Not to mention, it's entirely possible that a map with segmentum divisions first premiered in an issue of White Dwarf first, because GW liked to do stuff like that in the old days where you'd see it in the hobby magazine long before it was "officially" released in a rulebook.

There are a lot of glaring omissions from a lot of the other files in my collection: poor scans, missing pages, corrupted files... There's a lot I still don't know, because it's impossible for me to currently confirm that the little I do know is, in fact, accurate. My collection is woefully incomplete. Plus, I don't really have much past 6th edition anyway.

And this, in essence, is my idea: try and complete the collection. Find pristine copies of all the old 40k rulebooks, army codexes, even old copies of White Dwarf, and digitize them all into a huge archive for the sake of historical preservation. Of a sort.

Basically, I want to become a Lexmechanic of the Adeptus Mechanicus, looking for Dark Age of Technology era STC's uncorrupted by the Heresy or the war with the Iron Men. Either that, or I want to become Trazyn with his Infinite Archive on Solemnace.

Unfortunately, there are many problems with this plan. The first being GW's overly litigious nature. They see all this Warhammer shit as "product" first and a hobby for people to enjoy a very, VERY distant second. Doesn't matter that these books (and the magazines) are long since out of print and they don't sell them anymore, effectively making the old editions the tabletop hobby equivalent to video game abandonware... if they got wind that I was attempting a project of this nature, I just know GW would smack me in the face with a cease and desist.

Of course, the other major stumbling block here is the financial issue. And I'm not just talking about buying the books. Obviously, there's the problem of the rarer books that go for upwards of $300 or more on ebay, but there's also a volume problem. Even if you find some good deals, and you're able to find older books for $10 or $15 a pop, there's just SO MANY books, that if I were to attempt this I would be wasting several thousand dollars that I just don't have.

More importantly, there's also the machine I would need to buy in order to do this project in the first place. Because if I was going to do this, I would want to do it right, y'know? I wouldn't want to simply shove the books into my dinky little scanner-printer combo hooked up to my computer. The only way I'd get a clean scan using that method would be to physically destroy these very valuable books, and that's the last thing I'd want to do. No, I would want to do it right, and get a machine like Scribe, the book scanner used by the internet archive:

Now, obviously, I can't get access to that machine, specifically, because Scribe was custom built by the engineers at the Internet Archive. But other V-cradle book scanners that let you digitize books without destroying them do exist... and they're all REALLY expensive. A good one to produce professional quality scans is, like, $25,000.

And I know what you're thinking: why do I even care about any of this? Even if this project was not entirely out of my reach, it's ultimately pointless, right? Why would I want to preserve all these old, out-of-date, no longer relevant rulebooks for a tabletop wargame that has only existed exactly as long as I have?

Because... let's be honest, this isn't really about Warhammer. The reason I want to do this stems from a much deeper desire to simply Remember. It's amazing and terrifying in equal measure just how easily history can be erased, either deliberately or simply through neglect. All of these things in our lives that are seemingly so important to us can easily vanish from history, like sandcastles when the tide rolls in.

Hell, if you really want to know my feelings about this, just watch Jacob Geller's video on this very subject.

If I had infinite time and infinite money, and I didn't care about any kind of repercussions from GW's legal team, this project would not be beyond my reach.

But I do not have infinite time or money. And there are more things in my life that I need to be concerned with that are far more important than creating a... stupid archive.

Shame, really.

[whyse7vn]

NIGHTMARE BLUNT ROTATION-

[ot7 x reader]

JIN DAY ☠️

8 participants - 8 online

———————————

hobi: jin lit one up for you at exactly 12 am 🙏🏻

namjoon: you have a problem

hobi: ok but so did everyone???

y/n: we said we were smoking at 12 pm not am…

hobi: but that’s now??

yoongi: exactly

hobi: so i’ve been high by myself this whole time

what the hell guys ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️

jimin: jungkooks so gone

tae: rip 💓

jk: i cabt feel my face

but did i even have a face to begin with

tae: bro

jk: bro

jimin: watching the weed corrupt the youth in real time

this is crazy

jin: i’m seeing shapes

jimin: and the seniors

jk: are you born with the face or is the face born with you??

yoongi: one minute in and almost half of you have lost ur minds

yikes

tae: glass half full or half empty??

jk: is there even a glass

tae: omg…

y/n: happy birthday jin 💜💯‼️

jin: what the fuck????????????????

so you used the 100 emoji for what

do you think ur funny

cuz i’m telling you ur not

you’ve never been funny

not one bit

not a big bit

not a small bit

and definitely not a huge bit

y/n: ok….

jin: shapes

jimin: namjoon did you fr smoke???

y/n: HE DID

isn’t he a good boy

just like we told him to

did i have to hold his hand? maybe but he did it and i’m so proud

tae: so did i

am i a good boy

am i?

am i?

am i?

am i?

am i?

am i?

am i?

am i?

am i?

am i?

yoongi: shut up

namjoon: yeah i did

it’s not a big deal

i’ve done this before

jimin: yeah but not with US

this is going down in history 💜💜

namjoon: ur saying that like we’re all together rn

if anything i’m getting high with y/n not all of you

jimin: we are together in spirit

jk: or are we spirit in together

hobi: tomorrow x together

y/n: soobin’s birthday tomorrow

yoongi: fuck soobin

tae: am i a good boy?

jin: hexagon

hobi: i’m not even that high rn

jimin: that’s what happens when ur an addict i think

hobi: i’m not an addict

y/n: name a day you haven’t been high go

jk: 10th november 1412

hobi: ok just cuz i can’t think rn doesn’t mean ur right

jimin: gws addict

hobi: ur mad i can smoke you all out if i wanted to

jimin: yeah yeah whatever

tae: good boy am i?

yoongi: jin 31

y/n: crazy

jk: happy 21st

jin: thank you jungkook ❤️

jk: but when we say thank you who are we really thanking is it YOU or is it the you in thank you

hobi: did you do coke again be honest

jimin: where is namjoon gone

y/n: he’s on the floor staring at the ceiling rn

yoongi: is he dying?

y/n: maybe idk

hobi: just give him like 5 minutes

he’ll be fine

tae: good boy?

jk: tears of children

do you hear the children

jin: 25th birthday bash

y/n: what happened to 21st

jin: just turned 25

jimin: 250 😭😭😭😭😭😭

jk: dont cry jimin

don’t cry

do not

tae: @y/n

@everyone @all @bts @superjunior @yeontan @minions

jimin: wow this weed crazy

starting to feel hit

yoongi: weak

tae: can somebody comfort me i’m crying

jk: children are being held

some aren’t

the bigger issue is that we have no water

tae: thanks guys

namjoon: holy shit

hobi: welcome back bro

jin: i could run 427 marathons right now

yoongi: are you all fr…

hobi: be honest yoongi did you actually smoke cuz ur killing the vibe rn

yoongi: i’m not killing the vibe

hobi: u are

yoongi: not

hobi: y/n

y/n: leave me alone

hobi: y/n tell him he’s killing the vibe

yoongi: y/n tell him i’m not

namjoon: y/n kiss me

jin: y/n run

jk: what do we mean when we say run

jimin: run bts idk

jin: run over bts

namjoon: kiss bts

yoongi: kill bts

tae: crocodile bts

y/n: what

hobi: bts

tae: bello

minion langue

bello is minion for hello

am i a good boy

yoongi: you need therapy

tae: NO

jin: the government is coming for us

tae: say sike rn

i’ll cry

please say sike

oh please

jk: meow meow meow

namjoon: its like been reborn

jk: happy birth ❤️

jin: it’s my birthday

hobi: what about soobin

y/n: that’s tomorrow

jimin: who is soobin

yoongi: ugly

tae: he’s not good boy

jk: what is space

jin: big

jimin: LOL

space is so you

jin: whale

jimin: don’t talk about urself like that

ur beautiful

sorry i’m lying

ur pretty mid

namjoon: mid??

what’s mid?

yoongi: idk

jimin: jin

jin: are you calling me middle class rn

jk: fell in the middle of class once

was so sad

people laughed

but what does it mean to laugh

to fall

to conquest

hobi: conquest????

you mean conquer

tae: conker

jimin: what

y/n: what’s wrong with being middle class?

jin: nothing

i’m just not that

tae: ok like we get it you have money shut the hell up

good boy not u i’ll tell you that

namjoon: did that sentence make sense or am i just that high rn

jk: do fish have water inside their bodies

like cuz we have air inside ours

so do they have water in theirs

cuz water is their air

hobi: wait

yoongi: one conversation at a time pls

i fr can’t even comprehend this rn

hobi: the real question is when we go in the bath does water like go inside our bodies or not

jk: omg………..

does it????????!

tae: are we fish

jin: fishing

let’s do that

super tuna all the good stuff

namjoon: i like tuna

y/n: tuna is gross

jin: did you like my song about it

y/n: super tuna over the astronaut any day of the week

the astronaut a flop lowkey

jin: ok i didn’t ask for all of that

tf is ur problem it’s my birthday

tae: ok but if she said ur song flopped it flopped

jin: ok??? but at lest i wrote my song

i didn’t see ur name in ANY of the layover credits

yoongi: woah

namjoon: that’s crazy actually

tae: look here you old FUCK

y/n: hehe

tae: ur 31 years of age

31.

you have bigger problems rn

stop arguing with young people cuz ur sad ur turning into dust with every step

maybe instead of being a jealous bitch

you can go on a self healing journey and maybe you’ll finally find happiness in ur extremely long life

that or you kill your self

pick one cuz i’m sick of you

y/n: LMAO old fuck was crazy

jk: are we fish

hobi: octopus

jimin: octopussy

namjoon: ew

jin: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU

jimin: too pretty 😓

jin: you just weight

wiat

wait

y/n: wait by dino

jimin: jin friends with dinos

y/n: he is?????

wait whose dinos

i’m talking about dino

jimin: me 2

y/n: lee chan

jimin: what

y/n: ?

lee chan

jimin: bangchan?

y/n: bangchan?

LEE chan

hobi: australian

naurrrr

yoongi: isn’t that the ninjas guy?

y/n: lee chan? no??

jimin: what

y/n: pls don’t tell me wait

him

jk: pls don’t tell me wait is a long name

is he american?

namjoon: so whose austialian then?

hobi: naur it’s me mate

howdy

jin: howdy?

are you a cowboy?

hobi: turn on the bbq jin mate

oh naur where my brolly gone mate

tae: ninjas

i like ninjas

lego ninjago

kai 😍

y/n: kai?

pretty girl you like peaches kai?

tae: not a girl but thank youu 🫶🏼

jin: i don’t know dino

i don’t fuck with seventeen like that the hell

their like ew

why would i talk to a bitch called dino

that’s stupid

jimin: seventeen???

who the hell talking about seventeen rn??

y/n: us

jimin: bangchan is in seventeen???

y/n: no?

jimin: ??

y/n: i’m taking about LEE CHAN

jimin: tf is lee chan?

y/n: dino

jimin: dino?

dinosaur

what

hobi: g’day mate

jk: no i can’t feel my toes rn 😞

tae: sorry for ur loss

jk: but is it a loss or a gain

have i gained the ability not to feel my toes or have i lost it

jin: the hexagon is back and bigger

jimin: ur bigger

y/n: sighs

namjoon: she smells so good

yoongi: ?

jin: can you guys sing happy birthday to me please

tae: happy birthday to you

hobi: oy wahnna sie hahppy buhthdie t' yah

jk: birthday birthday day birthday song

y/n: birthday by ten??

or by somi !!!

or happy birthday to you by nayeon

or the one by joy

yoongi: isn’t then ten one about sex?

jin: sing that one

yoongi: ew no

jin: why the fuck would i be talking to you

yoongi: ???

tf is that supposed to mean

jin: that i wouldn’t fuck you

yoongi: ok??

jin: ok

yoongi: why would i fuck YOU

jin: i’m hot

yoongi: you’re you…

jin: exactly

yoongi: no

jin: ?

what are you trying to say rn

cuz it can’t be that you think i’m ugly

yoongi: u make me want to throw up

jk: when ten said got no self control cuz i want it all so ima make you feel like tonight’s ur birthday

what did he really mean

tae: maybe he meant that hes got no self control cuz he wants it all so he’s gonna make you feel like tonight’s ur birthday

hobi: oy croy on moy buhthdie

he wants me to croy

fucking bugger mate

well pissed

y/n: what the fuck are you saying

tae: is ten 10 cuz if he is why is he singing about sex

jimin: ben 10

jk: he’s singing about a birthday

yoongi: birthday sex

y/n: by jeremih

hobi: crikey she thinks she’s me mate

she bloody not

jin: square

namjoon: square up

y/n: come at me

namjoon: hits you

(with my lips)

(on your lips)

(gently)

y/n: wow

jimin: um

tae: i love when you rp joon

jk: what is rp

jin: real pussy

hobi: love a cheeky bit of puss mate 😝

yoongi: never say that again

ever

like i’m fr

hobi: puss

cheeky fucking puss mate

yoongi: ur so lucky i can’t drive rn

hobi: cheeky mate xxx

naur the weeds getting to ya hey?

can drive the old tin can anymore?? right shame mate rigjt shame

jin: what langue is this i’m so confused

tae: with great power comes a cold heart

y/n: that is not the quote

tae: says who

y/n: facts

tae: requesting a fact check not by nct haha !!!!!

get it lol

fact check nct

LOOOOOOOOL

heh

wait

nct.

nct….

it’s not funny anymore

i hate nct

FUCK nct

i’ll kill nct

nct count ur days

namjoon: i’m so horny rn 😭

jimin: okay!!!!!!!

jin: ??

y/n: oh

tae: good boy

yoongi: getting high with you all has actually been the worst experience ever

jk: did we get high or did the high get us

jin: the high definitely got you

tae: ok but ur the one whose seeing shapes the end of the day not jungkook

jin: i’d rather see shapes lthan lose my mind at the end of the day

y/n: you have lost ur mind tho?

jimin: so have you?

y/n: and YOU think you’re any better rn

jimin: yeah…

yoongi: you all can’t handle weed how about you shut up now

hobi: idk why ur acting like you’ve not been effected mate

i knaur for a fact mate if we were all together rn ur hands would be all over a certain someone haha lol wink mate

and mate i definitely knaur you can’t even stand up right rn daunt act like ur better i see straight through ya mate

yoongi: you know nothing

and look at you

talking in that annoying “australian” accent

ur just as high

hobi: mate i would talk like this bloody sober

and i think ya knaur that don’t ya?

it’s ourkay to admit ur a little off ur head righ nour mate its okay mate

we won’t judge

yoongi: shut up

hobi: you see

sorry forgot the mate

you see mate

i knaur you all like the back of my bloody hand ok

joon the horny high

kook the stupid bloody questions and logic high

tae the sensitive and kinda a freak high

jin is like a paranoid

yoongi touchy and all muscles seem to stop working in your body high

jimin dumb ass bitch high

y/n my sweet silly giggly high

yoongi: ur wrong

hobi: yoongi mate

it’s natural to feel exposed when you’re this type of information mate

don’t think about it too much

just breathe

yoongi: i am breathing fuck off

jimin: IM NOT DUMB HIGH WHAT THE HELL

y/n: do i giggle???

namjoon: a lot baby

been giggling this whole time

goes straight to my dick

hobi deleted a message

hobi: ok namjoon stop taking!!! go take a nap

you WILL regret this

made me stop don’t my accent and everything

sighs it’s hard being the only REAL smoker in this world

namjoon: yolo

jk: is yolo yo low

or yeow loh

tae: hugs and kisses are needed on nights like these

jimin: am i dumb high fr…

i could name all 17 us states rn

don’t play

yoongi: 17?

y/n: seventeen

jin: fbi is coming for us

hobi: how about everyone goes and takes a nap!!

that’s such a real and cool idea

wow well done hoseok

thank u hoseok ur really cool

aw thx u too!!!!!

jimin: ur the dumb one you weed addict

hobi: yess so real so true

got to sleep jimin!!!

jimin: whatever kys i’m going out

hobi: harsh

but i don’t think that’s actually a good idea you should like stay inside lol

y/n ur still and joons house right?

y/n: YEAHHH

we are laying on the floor together i do think he fell asleep tho

hobi: yeah ok i’m omw

everyone drink some water take a nap sober up

next time we will definitely be smoking together irl geez who knew you were this weak ☠️☠️☠️

will save me the stress

cant even enjoy my high anymore sighs is this what joon feels like sober

this is kinda hell idk

tae: am i a good boy?

hobi: GO TO BED

—

tags: @piw6n @92jinnies @birdie-vhs @kooksmilitarywife @hob3loveofmylife @jujubiism @bloopkook @ratchetpizza1 @myntalks @arloo00 @watamotee33 @y2kcy3brz @taiwan0618 @indigobsessed @freyadanvers @gguksbeloved @raetf @bbsantc @winuvs @medicinemybish @bxnnyhime @leleluvsbts @baetukki @zyaaaszn @thelilbutifulthings @jazminethecreator @k4ngelz @jmnscutie @sopebubbles-replies

i have things to say but i won’t say anything whyse7vn self love era im trying i really am

[nerdknowledgepool]

I was going to start a new series on Destiny today, but in light of Bungee using stolen art and GW taking a hard stance against neofascism, here's a Warhammer conversion instead!

Blade of Antwyr

Melee Weapon, Longsword, Artifact

(Requires Attunement)

A weapon forged from the soul of a Daemon of the Warp, once wielded by an apostle of The Blind King to raze entire sectors.

Damage: 1d8 (1d10)

Damage Type: Slashing

Modifiers: Attacks +3, Damage +3

Properties: Versatile

Daemonic Fortitude: While not attuned to this weapon, it remains more deadly than most. You may wield this blade without attuning to it as an otherwise typical +2 Longsword.

Black Blade: While attuned to this weapon, a creature hit by this blade must make a Constitution Saving Throw with a DC equal to 12 + your proficiency bonus. If they fail this saving throw, they gain a number of Mortal Wounds equal to the difference between their roll and the DC of the save. At the start of your next turn, each creature with Mortal Wounds takes 1d4 Necrotic Damage for each Mortal Wound it has.

Warp Corruption: At the end of your turn, if a creature died to Necrotic Damage caused by this weapon’s Black Blade ability, you must succeed a DC 17 Wisdom Saving Throw or be corrupted by the warp until the end of your next turn. While corrupted by the warp, you must spend your action attacking the nearest creature with this weapon.

[katyspersonal]

Somehow I will discover super elusive and obscure connections in the lore, and then will misinterpret something as simple and plain as Goldmask's ending kghygcnh

The notions that it does make everyone equal before it and that it is opposite of Ranni's ending ARE still true! But for some reason, for the longest time, I've been reading it as giving everyone the opportunity to interpret it and gain from it in their own way! Ranni yeets the Elden Ring, and by effect the GO "infinitely far away" for the next thousand of years, so everyone is free to forge their own fate! So I thought Goldmask did the same, but minus the "remove all golden things that stemmed from GW" part. Think like, removing the preachy guy from religion that tells HOW to read the holy book, but keep the book 🤔

I did think of it from a slightly wrong angle, and it IS simpler! GO is bad because it is effected by human logic. Their biases, their subjective vision, conveniences of the timeframe, their whims and ambitions maybe.. all the things that guarantee it won't and CAN'T please everyone and be fair to everyone! The darn thing can't even be consistently unfair, ffs! Crucible having been divine before but becoming condemned later comes to mind.

The "problem" is that the principles come from an imperfect, human in all but status mind, and there is no individuality that could fit everyone. Human mind just can't think of a one shoe fits all solution, and human mind in power will always have to hurt someone or favour someone. Goldmask ending makes the thing objective for everyone, as someone's individual mind, with all their biases, flaws and treachery is removed from the picture. In Goldmask ending, GO becomes something that cannot be debated, cannot be misconstructed, cannot be doubled or challenged! It is simply how things are, without any "interpretation"!

In a way, it is more liberating than Ranni's ending! People might be freed from the influence of GW that dwelled in Elden Ring and Marika/Radagon, but they are not freed from being people. Flawed, chaotic beings, that won't know what to DO with their freedom besides inventing new ways to cripple it by themselves. Making new oppression for self and others. Perfect Order deals with the problem of people having "will weak and minds young", having the rules and principles come from a much more transcendental and objective source instead. No guarantee that truth without any interpretation is always pleasant, of course. Who can tell if "objective reality" is FAIR to everyone? Except this time, if someone gets a shorter end of the stick, it can't be blamed on corrupt person in power... This is horrifying to think about.

At the same time, it is also better world than what Miquella wanted in the end! He was opposite to Ranni in the way of striping people of their freedom "for their own sake", but Perfect Order is not forced by anyone. It is just creation of "objective reality" that can't be debated, in can be both a blessing or a curse. People have freedom, but they also have answers, so they can "calm down" if that makes sense...? There is harmony to be found, for sure. Though both Ranni and Miquella suggest that any world can only be "a thousand years voyage", so for sure EVENTUALLY someone would just become Marika/Radagon 2 🤔 Perfect Order is just a long rest before another inevitable turn of the vicious cycle of existence, but honestly, it is the best option

[rizzoreads88]

It’s been 1,470 days since we found out canonically Elain and Azriel are into each other.

It’s been 1470 days since Azriels Soltice scene with Gw¥n and that the next time he was around her He was still thinking about Elain.

It’s been 1470 days since Azriel questioned the cauldron over Elain.

& It’s been 392 days since SJM confirmed said cauldron was in fact corrupted.

[flowersforthemachines]

Oh, I didn't know you were playing the WIP folder game! Pick your poison, please?

ty for asking!! full list of wips from the ask game can be found here!

This is actually inspired by one of your Rook story time prompts: GW!Rook having a nightmare of the Archdemons. (and thank you for sharing those prompts again, those are all lovely!)

I had the idea of Rook (and Davrin) experiencing more and more nightmares during the course of the game as the Blighted Gods' corruption spreads. But then Rook notices a pattern: there are no nightmares whenever she goes to bed drunk. So, naturally, her next idea is to approach Davrin with the suggestion of getting drunk together for a week to see if that actually works, and stick to the alcohol if it does.

One dialogue exchange I had in mind for this is Davrin asking if Rook isn't worried about her liver if they keep going at it, and her shooting him down with "Davrin, I have maybe 10 years left to live, I don't even need a liver."

(yes, it's the 4th time I'm talking about the idea of "okay but what if people got drunk together" fic. no, I do not have alcohol problems. I actually don't drink at all, but am deeply fascinated by the concept, apparently).

[thunderboltfire]

No Nightmares: a DA:TV theory

I know I've reblogged the posts abot GW Warden and Davrin having Blight-induced nightmares before, but now that I thought about it more deeply, I think it makes sense that they don't have them.

The following is heavily based on conjecture, it's basically a headcanon/theory.

The nightmares would make the double Blight simply impossible to ignore by the Wardens. The First Warden is a buffoon, of course, but I don't think he'd be able to just dismiss half of Weisshaupt reporting that they've dreamt about the archdemon out of the blue. What he says about the Blights being predictable is fundamentally untrue, but the Wardens do have safeguards, outposts and scouts. He may, in his arrogance think they'd notice if something was amiss. A default life expectancy of a Grey Warden is 30 years from the Joining, and it's been 20 years since the Fifth Blight. It's in their living memory, so the veterans would be able to identify the archdemon - induced dreams without a shred of a doubt.

Except if there were no dreams and the only reports of the suspicious corruption the First Warden got came from Rook Thorne, whom he sees as an unreliable idiot, and who, to be fair, starts their report with completely outlandish claims.

Then suddenly, the tainted dragons show up in Treviso and Minrathous, and that is something that's difficult to ignore. The Wardens don't have the Crossroads at their disposal - it'll be days to weeks until the news arrive at Weisshaupt, and at this point, it's already too late. Reports from the scouts come in - the darkspawn are amassing an army and are marching onto Weisshaupt. Something is terribly wrong, but this cannot be a true Blight, can it? The Wardens scramble to mobilize their forces, and it'll be weeks until they'll arrive from all over Thedas. The units from Ferelden are so far away, there's no way they arrive in time. The Orlesian Wardens have either been exiled by the Inquisitor, or have broken from the main branch of the Order. Weisshaupt itself has a powerful garrison and good defenses, and Anderfels chapter of the Wardens is the strongest of them all, but could they stand on their own against a full army?

The reports flood in. The horde is much bigger than one at Ostagar. It has all the trappings of a Blight, but there can be no certainty, because no-one has seen an Archdemon yet. With a horde this large, several Wardens should've had nightmares showcasing it - but there's no sign of it. Until it shows up at Weisshaupt itself, malformed and seemingly a puppet of something else, giant and foreboding and its screams reverberate under the skull of each Warden present at the fortress.

----------------------------

Simply put I think that the lack of the nightmares (and physical sightings of the archdemon) would contribute to the Wardens delaying their response and getting caught off-guard by this being not only a Blight, but a double one at that. The Taint can work differently under the evanuris' control, as we have seen that the archdemon essense doesn't get absorbed by the Wardens and Ghil's darkspawn are built different, not even needing armor or weapons, which presumably would make their logistics quicker and more unpredictable. I think the First Warden's complacency made them susceptible to being unprepared, but I don't think the whole higher echelons of the Wardens, including all Warden-Commanders and oficers are utter idiots, who would turn a blind eye to a developing Blight. This time there was simply less warning signs than usual, and the crucial time window to prepare was slim and passed without notice, while the Blight progressed at an unprecedented pace.

I'm also a big believer in a headcanon that what we've seen at Weisshaupt wasn't the full force of the Wardens - the reinforcements from the more remote outposts and chapters likely didn't have enough time to mobilise and march across whole Thedas, especially if the first Warden didn't yet confirm it was a true Blight. It also makes sense the Wardens haven't called for the contingency forces from the various nations and organisations of Thedas, because the treaties allowing for this were only in force during the actual Blight. I think the Taint worked so differently, that until the last moment they weren't sure what they're dealing with.

[cat-mermaid]

@modeus-the-unbound made this great post:

They put into words something that has sat in my brain but I didn't know how to address it, so now I do:

THIS

YES

THIS DAMMIT

Even after Miq sheds off all of his parts, and even after using Mohg to further his goals, I’ve still always thought that the Miquella we see at the end of the game is the best damn leader the Lands Between/Shadow Lands could have even gotten

I’M EVEN COOL WITH MIQUELLA TRYING TO STEAL MY CHARACTER’S HEART AND HAVE ME JOIN HIM, THAT SOUNDS DOPE AS FUCK

“Divinity is a cage!” who is caging him if the GW is gone? What is this cage? Why is it bad? Why is it so bad that it would be better for him to be dead then continue on as a god who wants to save us all from the consequences of his mom’s actions?

“Becoming a god means he’ll be beyond saving and forgiveness!” FROM WHAT TRINA, FROM WHAT. If she would to elaborate just a little more, saying something like what Gandalf said in LOTR about the one ring, how though he himself would try using it for good, it would end up corrupting him and make him a monster?

If Trina had just said a little something along the lines of-

EVEN THE MOST NOBLE SELFLESS SOULS WILL BECOME CRUEL AND UNYIELDING UPON GAINING THE MANTEL OF GODHOOD. MIQUELLA WILL BECOME A MONSTER GREATER THAN THOU CAN IMAGINE

-OR WHATEVER THEN I MIGHT BE DOWN TO PUT MIQUELLA DOWN LIKE OL YELLER

in past fromsoft games, I’ve always accepted the vagueness of the plot and the lack of answers, because at no point in demon/darksouls/bloodborne does anyone ask the question “how did this happen” everyone is just living in the moment and you are just plopped into and given a goal, your character and the characters around you aren’t trying to solve anything, just to obtain somthing

but the thing is that in Elden Ring, we are given way more plot and character backstory about NPCs(specifically Marika and the Demigods) then the past games, and thus we’ve become way more invested in them then characters like Gehrman, Lady Maria, Annalise, Micolash or Eileen the Crow

we the player haven gotten so much lore about the Demi gods, especially Miquella, that care about their destinies, their goals and their success/failure.

You think I cared about anyone in Dark Souls 3? Not really because we don't get any really deep interactions with many of its denizens. ALSO that world was pretty doomed, no real saving it.

You think I cared about anyone in Bloodborne? Kinda but most of them died right away and ALSO That world was SO doomed unless you became an infant great one.

In Elden Ring we’re told Miquella is the equivalent to Jesus/Buddha, and that he has the potential to mend this world, set it right and make it a better place for everyone. We’re disappointed when we see that he’s just ended up in a cocoon in the end, withered up and old because Mohg seemly fucked up his attempt to fix his body and ruined the haligtree plan

But when we the player find out that in the dlc Miquella is actually fine and wandering the Shadowlands, trying to get the to gates of divinity and ascend so he can right his mom’s wrongs? HOLY SHIT YES!

Previous fromsoft games have never done this kind of thing, usually every character meets their tragic end and thats it! No hope, no second chances.

So thats why I think it hurt the fanbase so much to go through that emotional roller coaster only to be told at the end oh lol you have to kill him now its for his own good yeah the sleepy gal said so

All it leaves is a sense of bafflement, bitterness and disappointment. Being a Fromsoft game, maybe thats wat they were going for

(what am I saying its Fromsoft, of course thats wat they were going for lol)