#turvi is very lazy

[turvi]

I want to befriend a raven and make more raven friends and then start a raven army and make them say shit like

"YOU ARE NEXT"

[katskitoshi]

"sheepy!" with twisted wonderland 

synopsis: an accident it alchemy class tuns [name] into a sheep! how do the dorms react to sheep! [name] when they are tasked with taking care of them?

characters: heartslabyul, savanaclaw, octavinelle, scarabia & pomefire x sheep! gender neutral! reader

includes: imagine sheep mc! from obey me as you,

heartslabyul: riddle, trey, cater, ace & deuce.

you will be in pretty good hands with these five most of the time in heartslabyul. it's a nice dorm with it's pretty roses and a nice big rose maze to get lost in. you get along well with the hedgehogs and gossip about the flamingos with them! the halls are all twisty-turvy so it's easy to get around.

riddle is a good caretaker surprisingly. he is a stickler for the rules and has never collared you because he says it's animal cruelty even though you're still human(and he has a big fat crush on human you). he leaves you with the hedgehogs sometimes and like i said, you and the hedgehogs get along pretty good. he enjoys you in this form because he's now severely taller that you!

trey is so nice! he's a good caretaker too and makes sure to make special cups of tea for you to drink during unbirthday parties. he also lets you sit on the counter while he bakes, he might even let you attempt to crack open some chestnuts! he even gives you a mini chef hat to wear!

cater is fun to be around. he takes lots of pictures for magicam with you because you're so cute and lovable. he styles your wool sometimes to match his hair and puts it in cute little hair pins in the shapes of diamonds! (his top post on magicam is a picture of you in a teapot with the teapot lid on your head.) you are always held in his arms because its super magicam-able. he makes sure you see all the pics once you turn back human.

ace is very troublesome. he should never be trusted alone with you because he is very troublesome. he has (more than once) lost you, kicked you by accident, hit you with a basketball by accident, gotten you stuck in tree, spilt tea in your wool, cut your wool, and so many things. he gets his caretaker privileges revoked when he accidentally left you with floyd, who almost drowned you. he is currently doing all the chores of heartslabyul as punishment. he doesn't apologize after you turn back so you might need to look for a new friend.

deuce is mid when it comes to his caretaking skills. he sometimes forgets about you, but other that that, you are pampered! he distance himself from ace every time he has to watch over you. he avoids fights when he's with you.

savanaclaw: leona, ruggie & jack.

savanaclaw is a scary dorm to be in! despite all the beastmen who live here, it is not safe for a small sheep such as yourself. it is a hot dorm, so hopefully you can handle the heat under all the wool! luckily, you have three very good beastmen to take care of you.

leona is lazy. "[name]"? who's that? he only knows herbivore. he does the bare minimum if anything at all. he might let you have the veggies that are in his lunch if you're lucky and it proves his point that you're a herbivore. you live 24/7 as a pillow for him. when he's up, you're up. when he's sleep, you're sleep. being honest, he probably just throws you (literally) at ruggie to take care of you.

ruggie is a very good caretaker. he is very happy about taking care of you because leona is throwing extra money at him to buy you food. taking care of a tiny sheep and a lazy lion isn't too hard since you're always trying to help! leona probably forgot that you can't eat a full serving but ruggie will gladly eat for you! he leaves you in the botanical garden if he can't watch you.

jack is such a good boy about it. he is such a good care taker. he knows just the right way to take care of your wool and feed you and clean you and everything like that. when he's tasked with taking care of you, he's the only one who takes care of you unless he can't. and when he can't he always trusts you with someone responsible. when you revert back to human form, his old habits die hard and it takes a while. make sure to give him lots of head pats for his help!

octavinelle: azul, jade & floyd.

trust me on this, octavinelle might not be the safest place for you. it's bustling with students almost all day and some of the dorm members enjoy making your life living hell during your time in the dorm! shady characters try to make contracts with you or even try to use you as promotion for sales! also watch out for eels, some like to drown unsuspecting sheep like you...

azul always has you in his office or in the lounge for promotion. a cute little sheep who happens to be the prefect of ramshackle dorm loves the food, so you should too! he may or may not try to convince you into a contract. your human form for the rights to ramshackle, how does it sound? despite all the shady business he uses you for, he usually keeps you out of harms way!

it's hilarious to jade. he loves watching you scurry around the bustling floors of the monstro lounge avoiding customer's and staff. and it's so funny watching the fear on your face as you have to strain yourself to look up at him and literally anyone else. he will forcibly bring you along with him on his hikes for mountain lovers club. don't worry, he has a really pretty leash for you so you don't get lost!

floyd is happy with your change but is horrible at taking care of you. while you're in your sheep form, you only get called "sheepy" and never "shrimpy" even if you're more shrimp-like now than before. you're always scurrying away from him and that makes him sad. but in all fairness, he has almost drowned you, dropped you from on top of his head, stepped on you, lost you, dangled you over the deep-fryer and a lot of other crimes he should be accounted for.

scarabia: kalim & jamil.

scarabia is a very hot dorm so you'll probably sweat under your wool. at scarabia, you're treated like royalty and always pampered with gifts and food! this dorm is great and you have two caretakers to take care of you! well, how do they do?

kalim is barely taking care of you. if he isn't doting on or spoiling you, he's probably forgotten about you. but while he is taking care of you, you luckily have many sheep items and food at your disposal. you could literally be in this sheep form for like 2 hours and been in his care for 30 minutes and he's already spent over 3,000 madol on you. in short words, kalim is bad caretaker but you are a very spoiled sheep for however long he's watching you.

jamil is your main caretaker and honestly one of the best people you can end up with. he knows how to take care of you. he makes you delicious sheep-friendly food for you to eat! it tastes really good, promise! as long as you're not bothering him, he's fine taking of you.

pomefiore: vil, rook & epel.

the dorm of pomefiore is a is perfect for a sweet sheep like yourself! the dorm is filled with pretty things such as its students and leaders - oh, and the scenery too it seems. but don't worry, you have the three prettiest pomefiore residents to watch over you. you're in good hands with their perfectly manicured hands.

you are treated like royalty anywhere on pomefiore land. that's what vil schoenheit has made required. you will look like nothing but the fairest sheep while under his care. if he can't find sheep-care products for your wool and hooves and horns and whatever, he would mix something up with his amazing potion skills. i promise you, you will look like the prettiest sheep in all the twisted wonderland.

rook is having a bit too much fun with you in this form. he's not a good caretaker. he is instead chasing you around the pomefiore courtyards and such. you're unleashing his natural hunting instincts! run little sheep, a hunter is coming for you! he takes a billion photos of you like this and he has to make a whole new photo album of you in sheep form because the other 188 photo books he has of you are full.

epel is so sweet to you. he cuts you little apple slices. he lets puts you in the water and watches you swim around while practicing his singing. he finds your little "bah"'s and belts really cute! don't worry, epel is a really good caretaker when he has time. he even carves a sheep replica of you from an apple! he uses a preservation spell and gives it to you once youre back in human form!

[kandlewick]

In which the Reader meets a Stranger(?)

[pt.1] [pt.2] [pt.3]

If you were being honest, It wasn't hard to continue on with your life as if you hadn't discovered the long forgotten dorm. With every passing day, the memories became duller and grayer, as if they were being stretched thin against the edges of your brain like wispy cotton. Just thinking too hard on it left a lasting dull ache behind your eyes as if the very memory itself wanted to be forgotten.

"Hench-human!" You felt a furry paw slap against your face, claws nearly digging into your cheeks as you turned towards Grim who had made himself at home perched upon your back like he hardly weighed a thing, "You were slacking off again in class just now! What's got your head all messed up? You've been acting all weird ever since you met up with that weird guy, Lilia."

"Sorry, Grim," You gave him an apologetic smile, "I've just been thinking a lot but I just can't remember about what."

Grim narrowed his eyes for a moment before cracking a wicked grin, "You can't remember something you forgot? Myaahhh, well, I just think it wasn't worth nothin' important anyways if it's not worth rememberin'!"

Maybe he was right.

He was not right.

Because, you see, it just kept bothering you. Something was missing, something important. Between classes, you found yourself tearing Ramshackle apart thinking that it must've been a piece of homework or a forgotten ingredient for class or something! But nothing fit. Nothing felt right. It was driving you insane. You had asked the ghosts if you had been forgetting anything important throughout the day but they all just looked at each other and shrugged their shoulder and gave you the answer you were dreading but expecting. It just simply wasn't worth remembering. As much as it made you want to tear your hair out, you had to ignore the strange repetitive scratches against your skull or you really were going to go a little topsy-turvy chasing phantoms.

So you went on with your days, the memory still thinning even further into nothing but the ache. oh, the ache burned.

It all wouldv'e faded if one day, in-between classes, you had bumped shoulders with another student. The sash on their arm was different then the dorms colors you remembered. While it carried the same regal elegance of a Pomefiore purple, the ribbon was a deep and heavy blue. The student stopped for a moment as if shocked by your touch, before they abruptly turned on their heel towards you.

Quickly raising your hands in defense, you backed off, "Sorry, sorry! I wasn't paying much attention to where I was going so, like, it's my bad!"

The strange bespectacled student ignored your apologies and instead, in a fit of excitement, practically threw you off your feet in to a spinning embrace, his arms wrapping themselves firmly around you shoulders! You let out a desperate squeak as he twirled on his feet.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" You thrashed against his hold, arms pressed against your chest, "Let me go!"

You words were met with a laugh as he elegantly unraveled you from his embrace, twirling you around like you were part of an elegant dance, "You remembered me!"

Huh?

"Huh?" You lamely croaked out, eyes wide. This dude was absolutely bananas. He was a complete stranger to you. Surely you would've remembered someone dressed as frivolously as he was, dorm uniform messily put together but still having the same charm of a runway model in one of Vil's magazines. Not only that but you would've definitely had remembered the strange shade of ribbon he has sported on his right arm.

"Tell me," the stranger crossed his arms in a lazy manner, eyes crinkled in delight, "You've been having a weird sense of displacement from your thoughts. Nothing seems to be making any sense? Weird itch in the back of your brain that something feels wrong?"

"Thats..." You felt your tongue feel heavy in your mouth, "Well, you see..."

He cocked a hip to the side and his smile seemed to widen, his hair nearly bouncing in his excitement to let you in on what felt like a huge secret, "What if I told you I knew the reason why and can fix it?"

It didn't take long for him to drag you out of Night Raven and in to the courtyards and if you weren't so deathly curious about the thing you keep forgetting you've forgotten, You really would've been on higher alert around this guy. You could practically hear the sound of Ace and Deuce scolding you.

"You're following a dude you don't even know just because he asked you too? Are you an idiot or just dumb??" Ace...

"You should've called for me! I would've come to beat the guy up if he tried anything!!" Deuce...

You took a moment and apologized to the thought of them, knowing that they would've beat you upside the head because, you know, they care.

"We're here!" The sing-song voice of your mysterious senior shocked you enough to pull you out of your thoughts only for you to have found yourself almost nose to door with a monolith of a castle.

That was not there before.

With a hurried step back, you caught eyes with the boy, "What the hell is this doing on campus?? How come I've never seen it before?"

He only giggled before turning to admire the castle, "You wouldn't know it's here if you weren't looking for it." He almost sighed, be it with fondness or annoyance, you couldn't tell. You turned to follow him, gaze raised to the tower. The scratching at the back of your head seemed to grow with each passing moment your eyes never left the tile, like it wanted to chip away at the fog still etched into your skull.

"Do you remember anything yet?"

You shook your head, "Mmm... Nothing yet but..."

The student only offered an understanding nod of his head, his bangs bouncing, "Don't worry, it will all come back soon." With a measured push of the door, he offered you an arm to take as he lead you inside the mysterious news building.

Everything was dimly lit. The candles lighting the room were aplenty but the flames only brightened so much. Whoever lived here obviously preferred to keep to themselves in the dark.

"Welcome to dorm Rosenfluch."

"Rosenfluch?" You repeated, eyebrows knitted together, "I've never heard of - or seen any students from this dorm before at any of the meetings or at any of the events."

He smiled cheekily, "I could say the same about that ramshackle of a dorm you've got for yourself, Prefect. I'm sure others felt the same way when Crowley gave you that title and a space among the other dorm leaders."

That... made a little sense, actually but what was really confusing was why hadn't you seen any of them before? And even then, he still hasn't given you his name and you really didn't want to call him the creep upperclassmen to his face.

"Ah," He flushed. He reached back and twirled a strand of hair around his finger, pulling at it with a sense of embarrassment. He seemed almost let down, "Yeah. In my excitement, I must have forgotten you've forgotten. Not entirely forgotten but, you know, enough."

"Which reminds me," You thought back to when you two had brushed shoulders in the hallway, "Why would you have assumed I remembered you just from that? Seven, I don't even know your name."

"Mmm..." he hummed, finger once again wrapping around a loose strand, "You see.. that's the other thing. The forgetting is... that's normal. The touching? That means its gone."

"What's gone?"

"The sense of loss, I guess," He sighed, letting go of his hair and instead, he reached forward and offered a hand, his fingers long and sinewy, "It's nice to meet you again, Prefect." He breathed out, almost excited to say the next words, "My name Is Luc and I'm a student here in Night Raven College."

[yourlocaltrashpandaxoxo]

spare aran ryan or topsy turvy headcanons? 🤲

Absolutely!

(For those who don't know, Topsy Turvy is an old boxer from my 80s bracket. More on them another day!)

Aran Ryan:

- The oldest of six children. Yes, SIX kids! Himself, Moira, Sinead, Brian, Séan and Rory. He and Moira are twins, he's older by 2 minutes. Brian and Séan constantly fight over which one is older but Séan is older by 3 minutes.

- His childhood was garbage for quite a long time. His and Moira's dad was an abusive alcoholic that almost ended up killing Aran after smacking him with a broken beer bottle. Their mama, Saoirse, was not having this at all and fled the cottage with the twins and a newly born Sinead. She then got with the boys' dad, who was a lazy manchild, and then became pregnant with Rory after a drunken one night stand. Yeah, their family is a bit of a mess but they wouldn't have it any other way.

- An ass to his siblings but that's just their way of showing affection. He's fiercely protective of them too, especially of Rory.

- Has ADHD (currently undiagnosed) and mild Tourette's Syndrome. Got taken the piss out of in school which was partially what lead to him becoming the crack-headed madman he is today.

- The biggest prankster of the WVBA, nobody is safe from his wrath. There's not one staff member nor boxer who has yet to be pranked by the rat man.

- Speaking of rats, he adores the little critters with all his heart. He's recently began breeding them in his basement (don't worry, it's done safely!) and spoils each one rotten. He won't admit this but he gets very choked up when one of them eventually passes.

- He might be an absolute terror in the ring but, deep down, there is a slightly soft 'n mushy side to him. He rarely shows it but it is nice when he finally drops his psycho ways for once.

- Cannot sit still for more than five seconds. Even when sat in a chair, he'll be tapping his foot or drumming on his legs. Staying still just makes him feel uncomfortable.

- His flat is a mess. There's laundry on the floor, trash littered wherever, dishes piled up by the sink and just lots of general clutter around the place. His locker is even worse...

Topsy Turvy:

- Nobody quite knows where he's originally from. Even after his retirement, people are stuck on his nationality but the guessing won't ever end.

- Very energetic and bouncy and very, VERY friendly. Always had a jolly smile on his face in the ring and still does nowadays. You'll almost never catch him in a bad mood.

- He's the reason why Mad Clown is allowed his juggling balls inside of the boxing ring. He'd bring these heavy weighted balls and juggle with them before tossing them at his opponent. It lead to some pretty nasty bruises...

- Much to everybody's shock, he's never actually been in the circus business. All of his tricks and gags he simply learnt himself or from his friends.

- He's also the reason why make-up and facepaint is allowed in the ring as he'd enter with a full face of the stuff every single time. He'd look an absolute mess after each fight.

- Without his face-paint, he actually has quite tanned skin along with a beauty mark above his lip.

- Now that he's done with boxing, he works for several TV companies and often pops up on kids' shows wearing the same jester get-up he wore while boxing. The kids adore him and he loves to make them laugh.

[user5726816393]

I have a pretty weird, topsy turvy view on my work ethic. Throughout high school and undergrad, I thought I was a lazy, procrastinating underachiever. But at the same time, I did also work like 32 hours, 4 days a week, often going a whole month or more without a single day off from school or work.

I dare say, during my time at 85, I was pretty good at my job and worked hard to push out a lot of cakes and pastries. I like to bitch about how much I hated it and how much I needed to get out, but I didn't hate working in the kitchen; I just hated that the pay felt like a dead end and I was working under shit managers. If it seemed feasible, I think I would have been very content with a lifelong career in food service.

Then, after undergrad and quitting 85, I took it easy for a bit and was basically unemployed a while as I tried to figure out what to do. Only to get restless and go back to work, eventually pivoting into my job at Medtronic. I never thought I'd end up working the same job as my mom. For all her complaints about how lazy I was, I think a small part of her genuinely died inside when I fell into her line of work.

She had worked so hard to give me and my siblings every opportunity, and there I was in the trenches next to her, working 68 hours, 7 days a week. I was clearly unhappy there, but I think she worried a bit that I'd get complacent and get stuck.

Finally getting out, and having another shot at school, and able to actually make something of myself, I thought to myself, "we can't fuck it up this time." Despite that, and what I felt like pushing myself to be better, I couldn't help but feel like I was falling into the same old habits in my undergrad. Sleeping late playing video games, binge watching shows, sleeping through my first class in the morning. I thought I fucked up again. I didn't change.

But at the same time, I'm doing more work for classes than I ever did during my undergrad. I'm on top of my reading for more than 90% of my classes, I show up to networking functions and talk to people, I landed a pretty major fellowship my 1L summer, I cooked just about every single meal my 1L year, I'm competing in a moot court competition, and I'm on the executive board for APALSA my 2L year. Sure, I ran uncontested but the fact I was motivated enough to take it upon myself says something, right?

I used to say early on during my undergrad, that I'd give anything to not be a genius but instead to have a good work ethic. Well, in law school I've been truly humbled by the actual geniuses around me. I'm no genius, never have been. Instead, maybe I can finally say I'm not a lazy person. I may feel lazy, but I truly dragged my ass out of bed and busted my ass throughout my 20s. I should be proud of that. I am proud of that.

[nagipops]

shidou ryusei fluff headcannons pls T^T also yayyy i found a blog writing for blue lock \(^0^) / hope you have a nice day/night!!! also can i be anon (°^°)

- anon (°^°)

FLUFF HEADCANONS!

FEATURING: shidou ryusei!

A/N: glad to be of service :D welcome to my page, anon (°^°)! i went a little crazy with this one HAHAH I THINK I ATE TOO MANY BROWNIES FOR LUNCH 😭

there is never a SINGLE dull moment with this man

seriously, being in a relationship with him is the equivalent of riding a topsy-turvy loop-de-loop rollercoaster at 2000 miles per hour speeding through an endless maze that goes UNDERGROUND??? then back up into the atmosphere until you get into outer space and somehow reach heaven. yeah.

LOVES physical affection; he’s always touching you, whether its an arm around your shoulder, picking you up and spinning you in the air, giving you a piggyback ride, you name it

dislikes small displays of affection, like shyly holding hands, timid gazed across the roo— no, he need EXTRAVAGANCE! GRANDIOSE! GRAND GESTURES!

definitely confessed to you after scoring the winning goal in a Very Important soccer match

when shidou’s not the kool-aid man on steroids, he does have his energy crashes at times

when this happens, he gets kind of whiny and lazy and doesn’t want to do anything except cling onto you

so he just latches onto you EVERYWHERE

in bed, while watching tv, while doing the dishes, everywhere

he’s super tall, so he just loves draping his arms around your waist or your shoulders, it brings him so much comfort

it’s like you’re recharging his energy, because soon enough, he’s bouncing off the walls again

his “violent tendencies” kind of come into play here

he’d NEVER hurt you, but he does love to pat your head, give you hard high fives, squeeze the dang life out of your body during hugs, you get the gist

speaking of his hugs, he loves to shout your name from like thirty feet away while sprinting up to you at a hundred miles per hour, his arms stretched out wide before he finally barrels into you, sweeping you up effortlessly in his strong arms and twirling you around

every single hug starts like this. no matter the circumstance

he’s not very good with his words, so he shows it through physical touch

but he can also be super romantic when he sets his mind to it!

definitely has sprawled on the bed with a rose between his teeth after you came home exhausted, and it turned your entire day around

he knows just how to make you swoon, laugh, and smile, and he’s determined to always keep you happy and amused :)

if you enjoyed this post, likes and reblogs are much appreciated :) feel free to request here, and make sure to read the rules first! have a lovely day everyone <3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Paygo, false consciousness and the IRS

John Steinbeck diagnosed an important American pathology in 1966 when he called the US a nation of “temporarily embarrassed capitalists” — people who see themselves as the wealthy-in-waiting and therefore fight policies that reduce the power that comes from wealth.

It’s a restatement of Engels’ idea of “false consciousness,” and it’s the result of a deliberate strategy on the part of wealthy people — many of whom believe that they were literally genetically destined to be wealthy — to convince the rest of us that “anyone can succeed.”

Part of the false consciousness program is the money story that goes like this: the US government takes away “taxpayers’ money” from “makers” to fund “programs,” the bulk of which go to the “lazy takers,” who experience the “moral hazard” of subsidized unemployment.

But of course, that’s not how money works. Money originates with the federal government (and its fiscal agents, the banks). In order for the public to have money to pay off its tax liabilities, the government must first spend that money into existence.

The IRS doesn’t take our tax dollars, pile them up, and give them to Congress to spend on programs. When the IRS taxes our money, they annihilate it, removing it from circulation. When Congress spends, new money comes into existence.

The US government can’t run out of money any more than Apple can run out of Itunes gift cards. It can spend too much money — so much that prices go up because too many dollars are chasing too few goods — but it can’t run out of money.

Fed spending is constrained by resources (what’s for sale in dollars) not money (how many dollars there are). If the ratio of dollars to resources gets out of whack, there’s a risk of inflation.

There are many ways to fix this ratio. For example, the government usually issues T-bills (savings bonds) whenever it spends more than it taxes. When you buy a T-bill, you take dollars that might circulate around the economy, chasing goods and labor, and you sequester them.

A T-bill is just a dollar you’re not allowed to spend. In exchange for surrendering the right to spend your dollars for 1, 5, 10 or more years, the government offers you interest, trickling out that money over a long period.

That way the government can buy things today without bidding against your dollars.

But that’s not the only way to fight inflation while spending new money into existence. The other major way is taxation: simply removing money from the economy and annihilating it.

Taxation fights inflation. When the government runs a deficit, that means that it created more money this year via spending than it destroyed via taxes. The “government deficit” is the “public surplus” — the money left in the economy for all of us to spend on stuff.

Likewise, when the government runs a “surplus” that means it taxes more money out of existence than it spends into existence. In a year where the government runs a surplus, it means that the power of the private sector — you and me — to buy stuff has decreased overall.

This is fine if there was too much money to begin with — if inflation was kicking off — but if there’s not enough money in circulation (e.g. if there’s a recession), it just makes things worse…but not for everyone.

When the economy is starved of money, banks go to work creating new money through loans. These loans pay interest (to rich people like bank shareholders and people who securitize and buy debt).

That’s the one-two punch of spending cuts during a downturn:

I. The real economy is starved of the capital it needs to pay workers and make things for workers to buy;

II. The financial economy grows as desperate real-economy firms borrow from banks to keep the lights on.

Despite all their talk of “spending taxpayers’ money,” the wealthy understand how money works. That’s why they were totally indifferent to the running $1t/year deficits created by the Trump tax-cuts (and likewise about the Obama finance bailouts).

Giving money to rich people causes asset-bubbles (driving up the prices of houses), but not inflation (a sustained rise in the price of all goods). That’s because rich people can’t buy enough stuff (fridges, cars, oranges) to drive up prices.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/08/howard-dino/#payfors

After you’ve bought three houses and three SubZero fridges and filled them with the beef of three Kobe cows and three cases of Moet, there’s still a LOT left over (even if you’re Jeff Bezos and buy a superyacht with its own, smaller superyacht).

Those leftovers go to socially useless things, like buying houses to turn into rent-generating slums (Wall Street is fast becoming America’s biggest landlord, and single family homes are sold for cash to investment funds instead of families).

And they go to influence campaigns designed to make regular people defend massive cuts to the IRS and opposition to public spending on infrastructure, education, health, and other necessities.

This isn’t just about Republicans. For years, the Democratic leadership has supported “balanced budgets” (spending so little that no new money is left in the economy after all taxes are paid).

The “paygo” rule (which requires all new spending to be matched with cuts or tax-hikes) is religion for the likes of Pelosi and Schumer. That’s why the Democratic caucus is mired in stupid arguments about “how we will pay for the stimulus.”

As bad as the paygo rule is, though, Republicans have made it worse, by demonizing and starving the IRS. Paygo means that the US government operates under the artificial constraint of only spending if it can make cuts or raise taxes.

Raises taxes is really unpopular, for obvious reasons.

Now, raising taxes on the 1% — who have a lot of excess money that’s fueling political corruption and asset bubbles — is one way around this.

Theoretically, taxing the 1% should have a 99% approval rating.

But canny Republicans have figured out how exorcise temporarily embarrassed capitalists about the “unfairness” of taxing their bosses, in part by just flat-out lying about who new taxes would implicate.

But there’s yet another way to satisfy paygo’s artificial constraint, without changing the a single word in the tax-code: simply fund the IRS so that it can collect the trillions that the ultra-wealthy illegally avoid in tax-payments every year.

But this strategy is also a bust. The GOP campaign to destroy the IRS has been too successful.

It’s a longrunning campaign, but it achieved liftoff in 2013 when the Tea Party baselessly accused the IRS of discriminating against conservative groups seeking nonprofit status.

The work-the-ref strategy paid off, providing political cover for deep cuts to the IRS and putting IRS staffers on notice so they green lit every dark money group that applied for nonprofit status, no matter how obviously corrupt they were.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/fallout-from-allegations-of-tea-party-targeting-hamper-irs-oversight-of-nonprofits/2017/12/17/6403c1c0-c59e-11e7-a441-3a768c8586f1_story.html

After the cuts, the IRS grew easier to discredit. Understaffed and under siege, the agency’s behavior grew erratic, then indefensible. There were runaway automated processes that sent out erroneous property-seizure notices that no one could rescind:

https://theintercept.com/2019/01/14/irs-shutdown-federal-government-shut-down-irs-asset-seizures/

Then there was the aftermath of the Equifax breach, where the IRS first told Americans that it didn’t matter because they’d already been doxed by other bad companies:

https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/355862-irs-significant-number-of-equifax-victims-already-had-info-accessed-by

Then came news that the IRS couldn’t cancel Equifax’s no-bid, $7.5m anti-fraud contract because it didn’t have the resources to do its own fraud prevention (Equifax eventually lost the contract because it served malware from its anti-fraud site).

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/equifax-irs-data-breach-malware-discovered/

The rich waged a successful all-out war on the IRS. Take the Global High Wealth unit. For every hour an auditor from GHW worked, they brought in $4500 in taxes the super-rich had dodged. Even by the topsy-turvy logic of “government as a business,” this was good business.

After a concerted harassment and political influence campaign, the GHW abandoned the super-rich and switched to the merely wealthy, bringing in less money and pissing off a lot more people.

The other shoe dropped in 2019, when the IRS admitted it had switched to preferentially auditing poor people because it was too politically and legally fraught to audit rich people, even the most flagrant cheaters.

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-easier-and-cheaper-to-audit-the-poor

That was the first year that America’s 400 highest earners paid a lower tax rate than the average American worker:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html

The IRS’s transformation into a facilitator of illegal wealth retention by the super-rich and petty harassment of the rest of Americans made them very easy to hate.

To that, add the concerted corporate campaigns to use the IRS to rip off workers.

For example, for 20 years, Intuit lobbied the IRS not to make tax-filing automatic, painless and free, ensuring that Americans would continue to pay billions to send data to the IRS that it already had:

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free

Reading the IRS’s internal emails from this battle reveals an agency in retreat, where demoralized and ineffectual government employees simply rolled over for one of the greatest ripoffs in American history:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-tried-to-hide-emails-that-show-tax-industry-influence-over-free-file-program

Intuit wanted to rip us off with taxes. Microsoft, by contrast, just wanted to break the law. Working with KPMG, the convicted monopolist created a “transfer” scheme of breathtaking illegality, using its tax-savings to bankroll its war on the IRS:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher

Which brings us to today, where Democrats are held hostage to the “payfor” rule and trying to figure out how to mobilize the trillions Biden has pledged for infrastructure, health, and care.

Republicans — pushing the big lie of “taxpayer money” — are dogwhistling hard. Senator John Thune, responding to Biden’s proposal for $80b for the IRS, says any tax enforcement efforts “must strike an appropriate balance between taxpayer responsibilities and taxpayer rights.”

Meanwhile Senator Chuck Grassley takes the nonsensical position that funding the IRS won’t help it do its job (“simply throwing money at a problem doesn’t necessarily yield a solution”).

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/553704-lawmakers-bicker-over-how-to-go-after-tax-cheats

Then there’s Rep Kevin Brady, warning that a fully funded IRS would “unleash tens of thousands of new IRS agents on families, farms and businesses.”

But the Democrats own the paygo rule, not the Republicans, and their leadership have added their own special touch to make funding the IRS impossible.

https://prospect.org/politics/infrastructure-at-a-crossroads-biden-public-investment/

According to the rules Congress gives to the Congressional Budget Office (which calculates the cost of government programs), the CBO isn’t allowed to factor in the projected additional revenue from funding the IRS, only the cost of doing so (!).

Which means that they must factor in the salaries that IRS Global High Wealth auditors will draw — but they are forbidden from counting the $4500/hour they generate when they puncture the tissue-thin financial lies of the super-rich.

The payfor and “taxpayer money” are lies.

It’s a shuck sold to the rubes, not economics. Because it’s a shuck, it doesn’t have to make any sense — and it doesn’t. We shouldn’t run government like a business, but if we must, let’s at least count revenues as well as costs.

Image: Mike Licht/notionscapital.com https://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/48857033957/

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

[maxwell-grant]

The crossover fic + learning he's a favorite of yours has me curious: do you think it would be possible to tell a satisfactory Shadow vs. Mr. Mxyzptlk story? I think he'd fit surprisingly well in that milieu as a credible threat: he's something of an older, mistier, shadowy world, kin to fairies and elves and imps, pixies and sprites and genies, bound by old laws and dressed like a parody of 20s/30s class, beyond The Shadow's usual powers and yet...THAT. There a thematic in to this throwdown?

I had never actually thought of Mxy in that light, even though it's very much in line with what he is, because Mxy is one of those characters I don't tend to think about much. He's one of those ready-made perfect villains who pretty much guarantees a fun and creative time whenever he pops up uninvented. Like The Ventriloquist for Batman, he is so uniquely a product of how Superman works and what his stories allow for, that I can't say I ever thought of taking him for a spin outside of them. But there's definitely stuff to work with in putting him and The Shadow together.

Come to think of it, if there's a Superman villain I think Walter Gibson would have liked to play around with, it would be Mxyzptlk. Mxy stories are fundamentally about Superman being thrust into a position where his only way out is to solve puzzles and turn the tables using nothing but his wits, and Gibson spent the majority of his career before and after The Shadow as a writer of books on magic and puzzles, both of which show up a lot in The Shadow stories. You see it even in several covers which contained clues for the stories within.

To an extent, you could argue that The Shadow might figure out quicker a way to trick Mxy, because The Shadow's already has to utilize a constant amount of trickery and deceit and puzzle-solving in his daily adventures, it comprises almost the majority of what his stories are about under Gibson. The usual Mxyzptlk narrative is one that's well within The Shadow's domain.

But on the other hand, it's definitely some extremely unusual territory for The Shadow, villain-wise. A villain who eclipses his powers and scope to such an extent is completely unheard of. The one time I can think of where he fought a villain this weird and who he was completely powerless against was when he met Suven The Clown King of Venus (who's definitely a character that could show up in this meeting), and even then Suven was just a weird alien who looked gigantic next to the shrunken Shadow. Even on the few occasions where The Shadow encountered other aliens or eldritch monsters, he was able to find a way to stop the threat for the moment or even kill it, which is definitely not happening here, because Mxy is a whole other level.

Superman has the strength and endurance and superpowers to roll with whatever mayhem Mxy throws his way. If Mxy decides that The Shadow’s looking too pale so he's gonna give him a tan by throwing him in the sun, what the hell is he gonna do to stop him? I imagine that Mxy would likely take a different approach to messing with The Shadow, since he can't tank nukes like Supes and he's not really a good sport about the game. 

Fine, whatever, Mxy's a creative sort, he's got a couple of ideas for messing around with Mr Grim-n-Serious over there, show him what an Eldritch Monster looks like past the squid monsters and dragons he may have met.

The idea I'm getting here is, on one hand, Mxy attacking The Shadow with the usual goofiness he brings with him. And on the other, him realizing that messing with The Shadow's dignity isn't as fun as he thought he'd be, so he instead goes full SCP Foundation/Awful Hospital/Ice Cream Man on The Shadow until he's stopped, trapping him in amusing and horrifying eldritch nightmares and situations that he has absolutely no way to escape until he solves the puzzle. 

I mean, he's not fighting Superman here, he can kill this guy with a blink, even just stopping his heart with a thought. No fun in that. He's gotta beat the "Master of Darkness" at his own game. He's got a point to prove.

I imagine that much of the story would play out of The Shadow having to piece together what exactly has gone topsy-turvy in his reality, whether it's Commissioner Weston eating spiders for breakfest or the entirety of Manhattan sans him going blind and all lights going out across the country. And when Mxy comes out with that shrill SURPROISE!!!, assuming The Shadow already knows what he needs to do, then he falls for whatever gambit The Shadow's had to cook up to trick him. 

At the end, Mxy is an arrogant bully who lords power over those that can't fight back, and The Shadow's a master of beating those by turning their arrogance against them. It's Duck Amuck, except Bugs is a mind-breaking sadist and Daffy has to fight back.

I imagine something akin to a particularly funny scene from a story called Face of Doom, where a gangster traps The Shadow in a room surrounded by armed henchman so he can enlist him into taking down the city's leading criminal, The Face. The Shadow unmasks himself as Cranston to gain his trust, and the two proceed to talk plans. I'll post the sequence below

Calmly, The Shadow was removing his slouch hat. His arms spread, the black cloak began to drop from his shoulders. Clipper's nervousness changed to elation. If ever a criminal fooled himself, Clipper did so at that moment.

Though The Shadow voiced no agreement to Clipper's offer, the crook was confident that it was sealed. The Shadow was taking a step that no other criminal had ever witnessed.

When Clipper's squinty eyes saw the hawkish features of Lamont Cranston, the crook displayed another of his downward grins. There wasn't any question about the prisoner really being The Shadow.

"A ritzy mug, ain't you?" voiced Clipper. "Well, that makes you the real McCoy. One thing we'd all figured, Shadow — we guessed you was a high-hat guy.

"'You don't get out of here until The Face is croaked! Say, though — maybe one of your ritzy friends could put up a good front with The Face."

"There are others, who might serve. I have agents, you know."

A shrewd gleam brought new ugliness to Clipper's eyes. He had heard of The Shadow's agents. It would be smart stuff—using them to get The Face, then disposing of them afterward. Clipper couldn't hide the eagerness that betrayed his new scheme.

"Good stuff," agreed Clipper. "But how am I going to reach those guys and get them to work with me? They only take orders from you, don't they?"

In reply, Clipper saw Cranston pick up the black cloak and hat. He handed the garments to the crook. For the moment, Clipper was puzzled; then he saw Cranston's hand extend the discarded gloves.

"I get it," chuckled Clipper. "You want me to rig up like I was you. Then the guys that work for you will listen to me. How do you handle them—with some password?"

"Usually," replied The Shadow. "Try on the cloak and hat first, Clipper. I must study the appearance that you make."

It seemed like a give-away of The Shadow's game. Any one could stage this Shadow stuff. All he had to do was masquerade in black, spring a shivery laugh, and shoot quick with his guns. If Cranston could pull it, Clipper could.

The Shadow spends a couple of paragraphs calmly walking Clipper through the steps necessary to pull off a convincing Shadow performance, almost like he's directing him. And then this happens:

The back of Clipper's neck was exposed. Though The Shadow's voice was still the leisurely tone of Cranston, his left hand had lost its laziness. Behind Clipper's back, that fist whipped an automatic from a shoulder holster. Clipper didn't scent the move until the muzzle of the .45 iced his neck.

"It won't work, Shadow," rasped Clipper. "You know it as well as I do! One pop from that gat of yours, the mob will pile in and croak you! There's a wicket in that door; they'll use it!"

The Shadow had shifted low behind Clipper's back. The crook could no longer observe the reflection of Cranston's face. He could still feel the pressure of the gun muzzle on his flesh. "Climb off my neck, Shadow," warned Clipper. "It ain't getting you nowhere!"

It was getting The Shadow further than Clipper guessed. The gun muzzle was actually gone from Clipper's neck. His impression that it rested there was merely an after effect, from former pressure.

Crouched low, The Shadow had now reached the door. Before Clipper guessed what was up, The Shadow twisted the door knob. Wrenching the door inward, he pulled himself behind it.

At the same moment, The Shadow snapped a quick command, in a rasp that resembled Clipper's own harsh tone:

"The Shadow's yours, gang! Croak him!"

It ends for Clipper about as well as you'd expect.

One of the things I like most about Mxy is that you can't take shortcuts with him. It's not like how it is with Riddler stories, where you can half-ass the riddles because you know Batman's gonna win once he touches Riddler and the story's gonna end in a punch-up, Mxyzptlk is completely invincible unless you solve the puzzle he presents, and you'd think of course that, surely, he can't fall for it this time.

He's a wise guy, see, he's seen all of Superman's tricks by now, and what's that dumb old Shadow gonna do that he can't see a mile away? This is almost too easy.

It's so easy, in fact, that The Shadow even agrees, he's lost it completely, and the way he could possibly beat Mxyzptlk is by calling one of his agents to save him, and he's prepared a list of some of his smartest, cleverest agents for this moment. But, no, he wouldn't dare put them in such danger against this invincible, immortal genius, someone has to take this list from him and run, but ZOINKS, Mxy's taken the list. So he's gonna start seeing who is it that the Shadda thinks is smart enough to take him.

Clyde BurKe? Like some dimestore journalist's gonna have a shot, just cause he solves crossword puzzles. Lamont Cranston, yeah, more like, LAMEONT CRANSTON. Harry VincenT, who, the dumb kid who tried jumping off a bridge once? Come on, you gotta give me a hand here, Shadda! Let's see, Pietro, what, some cook? Ya kidding? Moe ShrevnitZ...actually, Shrevy's allright, scratch that one. ShrevY, hey, come on, that's cheating, ya just put Shrevnitz's name again, ya dum-dum. Mr Xanadu, hmm, catchy name but probably not a real guy. And Margo Lane. Yeah, smart dame that one, she could probably figger something out. And ya keep writing everyone's name's weird - WAIT

I KNOW WHAT YER TRYING TO DO HERE.

I KNOW YOU GOT SOME CLEVER SCHEME HERE, I'D SEEN THIS BEFORE, IT'S AN OLD TRICK.

YOU EMPHASIZED THE LETTERS SO THE REAL SMARTEST GUY YOU KNOW WOULD BE HIDDEN WITHIN THEM, SO THAT SOMEONE ELSE COULD FIND HIM.

HAH, THAT'S RICH. THAT'S KID'S PLAY. WHAT, YOU THINK I CAN'T FIND THIS

KLTPZYXM

BY MYSELF?

.

.

.

aw crickets...

[marzgaperez]

Ian Gallagher: S3 versus S10

Gifs by @thisfeebleheart

Gif by @sickness-health-all-that-shit

How did we get here?

Long story short, Ian has been through a lot of shit over the years. That’s not to say that Mickey hasn’t as well, and it’s not to dismiss the way Mickey and the Gallagher siblings have tried to help Ian. For a brief but painful trip down memory lane, please continue...

I was rewatching S3 just for the angst of it all and stumbled upon the scene where Ian is talking to Lip about Mickey’s impending nuptials, back before our quite confident and madly-in-love ginger found out the hard way that love doesn’t always win. In that early phase of his budding relationship with Mickey, Ian didn’t need many reassurances from his hard-to-crack but softening-on-the-inside Southside thug. He knew in his gut that Mickey had feelings for him. And the above S3 scene occurred after that brutal beat down he instigated with Mickey in the abandoned courtyard.

Ian is absolutely convinced (and quite naive) that he and Mickey can somehow overcome the insurmountable forces keeping them apart, as long as they are together. He believes it in his heart of hearts and goes to Mickey, giving it everything he has to stop the wedding.

Gif by @mickeygifs

Mickey can’t give Ian what he wants, and we know why (aka, Terry will kill him). Even Ian knows why, but he believes so much in what they have between them, he’s blind and hopeful, and I know he would have stood by Mickey and tried to protect him. But the entire situation DESTROYS Ian, and he enlists in the Army too soon and for all the wrong reasons.

And likely, these events contribute to his bipolar manifesting, along with his failed stint in the Army, which was his dream, even before Mickey came along. And with all that went the boy who saw a world of possibilities, a world that made sense.

Once Ian leaves the Army, he falls into a topsy-turvy world under the influence of his reckless mother. He essentially prostitues himself and uses illegal substances to self-medicate. His bipolar disorder goes undiagnosed and untreated. Thank fuck Mickey realizes he can’t live without Ian, and knowing he’s somewhat responsible for what’s happened, goes to find him. We are given (almost) two beautiful and gut-wrenching seasons of Ian and Mickey reconnecting. Eventually, Mickey (and the Gallagher siblings) recognize that Ian is sick and try to get him help.

Enter Sammi and Monica (and BTS drama, broken contracts, and reshoots), but regardless, we see Ian begin to doubt that he is worthy of Mickey’s love and that he fears destroying his boyfriend’s life, rather than enriching it, though Mickey knows better. So much so, Ian breaks up with Mickey, and we all die.

Mickey gets ripped away from him (no need to debate that here - it’s awful all around), and Ian (miraculously) starts to find his way, including a career he loves, a few other dudes he’s lukewarm about, and eventually has the opportunity to escape to Mexico with Mickey and have all the time in the world together, which has never been afforded to them. But Ian doesn’t go.

Maybe it’s fear of his MI going unchecked, and he doesn’t want to hold Mickey back. Maybe it’s not wanting to give up the stability he thinks he’s finally achieved. Maybe he’ll miss his family too much. Maybe he’s just being selfish. Or a combination of all of the above. Truth be told, I wanted to see the eternally optimistic Ian from S3 emerge and make a run towards felices para siempre with Mickey, but that Ian was long gone.

Season 8 happens, Monica dies, Trevor sucks, and Ian’s life unravels. In his darkest hour, Mickey is there for him again, having sacrificed the freedom that Ian was so happy to see him achieve when he successfully crossed the border.

Mickey gave up everything for Ian. Again! Again?!? Does he deserve it? Plenty of people say no, though Mickey could give two shits - he loves his man. But the pressure! Oh, the pressure! Living in a tiny cell together, probably not dealing with their own shit, nor their unresolved relationship issues. At least not very well.

And to top it all off, Ian finds out that he’s getting released first - another turn of events he probably figures he doesn’t deserve and is willing to forfeit for Mickey’s sake.

I’m rambling now, and too lazy to recap some of the S10 foolishness, but I do want to point out how vulnerable and open Ian has tried to be with Mickey this season. I hate that he broke Mickey’s heart at the courthouse and that him checking on Mickey’s feelings came across as insensitive and a slap in the face. I believe he meant well, and I can understand why he is where he is, so far from that boy with all the love in his heart and dreams for something better - for him and Mickey - after everything that life (and the show) has thrown at them.

Gif by @mickeygifs

S3 Ian was shocked, shocked at this turn of events. He really believed he could convince Mickey to stay with him.

Well, S10 Ian, it’s time to go get your man! 😘

[jynzandtonic]

i am on my fucking knees. sweet fluff with Clyde where you teach him how to dance

HELLO IVY LOVE 🖤 Please accept these thots.

“Darlin,” he huffs, concerned. “I dance like I got two left feet—”

“That’s no reason not to dance.”

“—and no left hand—”

“Never bothered me.”

“—and what if someone sees? Blunderin’ around with a pretty lil’ thing like you…”

“I’ll close the blinds,” you say, making your way to the wide, wood-trimmed windows and snapping the slats shut.

It’s just you and Clyde in the bar enjoying the lazy afternoon—folks won’t start comin’ round for a few more hours—and the song that comes on the jukebox makes your heart go topsy-turvy. You just can’t resist.

“Come here, you,” you grin, waving him over.

He drops his head, looking all too much like a big puppy as he makes his way to meet you in the middle of the floor. Try as he might to pout, the corners of his mouth pull up of their own accord when you slide your body flush to his. You grab his wrists and pull them around you, bringing his hands to rest on your lower back.

As your arms lace up and over his shoulders—warm and solid beneath you—you rock up on tiptoes to whisper in his ear: “I’ll even let you grab my butt.”

He chuckles, a smile breaking freely across his face. “Will ya now?” His good hand dips lower, giving your ass a squeeze and pulling you closer to him. “That wouldn’t be a very gentlemanly thing for me t’do, darlin’, would it?”

You wink and say you won’t tell a soul.

His eyes are bright and soft when you lean up to find his lips, kissing him sweetly as you start to sway in time with the music, pulling him along with you. You tuck your chin to rest your cheek against his chest—and god, it feels so good to hear his heartbeat.

“What should I be doin’?” he asks, sounding concerned.

“Just this,” you smile. Your head doesn’t leave his chest.

The jukebox plays; the wood floor creaks underfoot. You and Clyde rock gently to the melody. His voice is soft in your hair when he finally speaks. “Ya know, this is… nice.”

[turvi]

do you have a masterlist, lovely?

I'm so sorry I don't 😭😭. I have been busy...but I'm trying to create a mastelist within this week.. I'll be little free after Monday and complete my masterlist

I have been super busy. It's in my draft I'll post it once I have cleared all the asks I have received.

Thank you ❤️❤️

[shivermewhiskerz]

I wanna draw Topsy & Turvy just being stupid with the warners but I’m also too lazy & very tired but not tired at the same time

[whales-and-recovery]

Well, I don’t typically do things like this, but I think it’s worth the effort so I can come back and see this again at a later point.

9 Things / Experiences / Moments / Triumphs I am grateful for this year:

1) Firstly, wow, what a year it has been. This is the first year of my life that I have truly been on my own. It has been very difficult not having any parent figures around and really figuring everything out on my own, but I did it and I’m doing it. I was in one relationship for 5 1/2 years and another soon after for nearly an entire year, but as of now I have been single for quite a while. It’s been weird navigating on my own but absolutely worth it. I’ve earned my independence. There have definitely been some rough patches, but I am really proud of myself for being able to do this because it’s been a pretty scary ride.

2)  I got my wonderful dog Thor last year in September, but since I moved here in January it has just been him and I. I’ve really gotten the opportunity to connect with him and he is my everything. I love coming home to his smiling face every day, despite the fact that sometimes he is a huge pain in the ass.

3) From January to September, I was working a job in downtown as a receptionist at a condominium. This is a very, very wealthy part of Miami and I worked in a residential building full of very - very successful people. The opportunity to meet many of these people and make good connections was amazing. I also got the chance to meet my very good friend George. Also a pain in my ass at times, but such a genuinely good and kind hearted person.

4) This is a big one, after two years of wanting nothing more than to be back in school, I am finally back in school! I am eligible for financial aid but as I am still considered a dependent student by fafsa guidelines, regardless of the fact that I am completely independent, and the fact that my mother refuses to comply with the application process as she does not want me to go back to college, I don’t get any aid. That means that I have to pay my own tuition for school. It’s been rough, but oh so rewarding. I am so, so, so happy, grateful, and excited to be furthering my education and working towards my career as an aspiring Maribe Biologist. I want nothing more.

5) I finally started SCUBA diving again! I found a new instructor to help me as I was having major issues equalizing my ears before which was causing me intense pain and discomfort. My last instructor did not take it seriously and I could have permanently damaged my ears. This new instructor is just so amazing and takes the time and puts in the effort to really help me figure everything out. You get what you pay for. I’m so passionate about the ocean / diving and I was fearful before as I was scared I would not be able to fix the problem with my equalizing but he helped me and I did it!!!  I am just ecstatic.

6) I’m actually working a new job now. I’m working as a narrator on a glass bottom boat in the Keys. This is just wild for me. This is the first job that I’ve had that has anything at all to do with the field I want to be in. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been / can still be extremely daunting as public speaking is definitely something I’ve been fearful of for a long time, but now I’m spending hours talking in front of large crowds of people with a microphone strapped to my face. I’m really glad I was able to make some leeway on that fear and I am actually owning it! I’m getting paid to look at and educate people about dolphins, sharks, turtles, and coral all day. Sometimes I get applause when I’m done. Definitely not used to that part yet.

7) I’ve really realized how precious some of the relationships I have in my life are. I’ve had some very, very good friends move away to other cities and states chasing their dreams. While it’s definitely been saddening to see them go, my heart is so full of joy that I have met these wonderful people who are just as hungry as I am to have a spectacular life and not let ANYTHING hold them / us back from the wonder that life has to offer. I am so, SO proud. Obviously, I’ve also missed my dad since he passed away almost 9 years ago, but this year has definitely made me realize just how much I miss him. I wish he was here and I hope dearly that he is proud of the woman I’m becoming.

8) This year I’ve had so much wild stuff happen. Besides the craziness of 2020, my personal life has been particularly topsy-turvy as well. I sold my beloved Miata as Thor was getting too big for it. I ended up buying a Volkswagen rabbit which had very bad brakes which resulted in me hydroplaning and completely losing control of the car on Mother’s Day, spinning out, and slamming into a wall. I got the car fixed and literally a week later as I was driving it home from work again, it Caught. On. Fire. I had to jump out and call fire rescue. The car was sold to me as is. There was nothing I could do about it and I couldn’t get my money back. I am currently borrowing a friends car (thats another story).  Thor also had another emergency surgery this year as he tore up my bedsheets while I was working one day and swallowed a big chunk. Another instance that happened not too long ago was where I was walking him at night in 65° weather (That’s cold for people in Florida guys, also I’m a pussy) and his collar just gave out and popped off of his neck. He saw a duck and took off straight into the lake which resulted in him swimming all the way out to the very middle of the lake at 9 PM which resulted in me having to jump in and swim out after him to get him back because he’s a little stupid sometimes and I know he’s never been in that deep of water. He’s a lazy dog, he tires out pretty easily, had I not jumped in, there is no doubt in my mind that he would’ve drowned. Definitely wasn’t expecting the lake to be that deep at all, not to mention that the water was freezing and it was basically pitch black out there. At one point I couldn’t see him anymore and I really thought he had drowned. I found him, alive, I got him back. We are safe. Very scary night. My life feels like a movie sometimes, the list of crazy stuff goes on. Despite the book I can write on the insane amount of stuff that’s happened this year alone, I truly admire my resilience. I know sometimes I can be very hard on myself and times get very tough, but when I fall down 753 times, I stand up 754.

9) This one sort of - kind of goes along with the last one, but at some point last year, I kind of lost the sparkle in my eye. I really lost the appreciation that I found for life. As of recently, I have been working very hard to push myself back to a point where my mental health is nothing but a priority. I am once again regaining the passion that I have for living, being able to wake up in the morning, even breathing which I forgot was a privilege.  I am once again hungry, in the best sense of the word, for life. I can’t wait to continue growing and moving forward in this chaotic existence. I am so appreciative for the things that I have and how hard I have worked to get where I am. It has been truly rough out here on my own but as I said earlier, I am so proud of how resilient I have become.

I can’t wait to see what kind of incredible things I accomplish next year. I am so hopeful for the future. Looking forward with bright eyes y’all! I hope everyone has a wonderful New Years and that you can all look back on the craziness that was 2020 and find the good in it as well. Thank you @always-the-2nd for challenging me and always keeping me in mind. It warms my heart to know that you’re in my corner as I am in yours.

[nishaapologist]

Proved You Right (Fallout 4, Sarah Lyons/NB!LW - First Sentinel AU)

a small note: this mentions having a basement in Home Plate, but that’s actually because i have a mod that lets me stick basements down to have a bit more space to breathe. for the sake of I Did It In My Game So It Counts, there’s also a basement in this au too! so yeah. anyway have this gay shit.

(sarah’s pronouns are she/her, rookie’s are they/them)

—

“This probably comes as, like, no surprise, but man... I love this city.”

Finding out there was a balcony, of sorts, on the roof of Sarah’s home in Diamond City — home plate, as they call it, which was a name that’d flown right over Sarah’s head until Rookie had gleefully explained the term — had been a pleasant surprise when Sarah had thrown down the two-thousand or so caps to buy the place, clambering up the rickety old ladder to the roof on her first inspection of the house only to find herself in a little sitting area that overlooked the market. She hadn’t made great use of it right away, more interested in the basement underneath that would later become her new base(ment) of operations in the Commonwealth, but then Rookie had shown up to Diamond City on the coattails of a local merchant, and now they spend near every evening sitting in the shell of an old caravan that’s been welded down to the corrugated sheets of the roof, drinking lukewarm beer as they listen to Myrna holler anti-synth slogans, or quietly singing along to songs on the radio until exhaustion makes all the words collapse into mumbles.

It’s a moment of peace, of relaxation, in a time increasingly fraught with battles and tension, and Sarah actually looks forward to tinkering with weapons or armour on her lap at the end of the day, Rookie beside her and resting on an old sunlounger as they hum along to the radio. It helps to put things into perspective, rather than grinding herself down to a sliver as — many years ago — she would have always done.

“I mean, I don’t like the mayor, or his whole ‘no-ghouls’ bullshit or anything,” they quickly add when Sarah glances up from under her eyelashes, head bowed as she turns the extended magazine of a 10-mil pistol about in her hand. Back in the Citadel, over a decade ago, weapon modding was never really a thing Sarah had needed to do, but it turns out that after years of maintaining Power Armor she has quite the knack for it. It’s just a bit more fiddly than she’s used to, is all. “But I really like everything else. The people, mostly. The market. The stands. All that stuff.”

Sarah snorts under her breath, squinting back down as the sunlight slowly dims on the horizon, a cool evening ushering in a breeze and making the hairs on her arms prickle. Spring is approaching the Commonwealth, the months quick to pass, and soon the most hardy of trees will be flush with life again, Ragstag fawns wobbling on unsteady legs, Yao Guai slowly waking from hibernation. It’s a new year, and 2288 is already shaping up to be an exciting one. “You sure that’s not just ‘cause we’re on a baseball field? Pitch?” Sarah screws up her nose. “Stadium?”

“Baseball park?” Rookie offers, though there’s no surety in their voice. “We called it the baseball diamond back in the Vault, since that was pretty much all we had space for.”

“Baseball diamond, then. You sure it’s not ‘cause of that? Isn’t this, like, your wildest dream, or whatever?”

Rookie kicks one leg out at Sarah, too far away for their foot to even hope of landing anywhere near her, but she jerks backwards to dodge it anyway, laughing at their grimace as they retract their foot. “Oh, please! I have bigger dreams than arguing with Moe fuckin’ Cronin about how ass-backwards he got his baseball rules!”

That first argument with Moe had been quite the spectacle, and one Sarah knows Diamond City won’t forget any time soon; Rookie had been checking out his stock with wide eyes, giving each bat a practice swing to feel the weight and heft as it arced around, and when he’d leant down to tell them how crazy Pre-War baseball had been — one team would beat the other team to death with things called Baseball Bats, and the best bats were called Swatters — Rookie had given him a public dressing-down that even Sarah had sidled away from, lest Rookie’s faithful bat, grasped in increasingly irate hands, accidentally found an arc directly into her skull by mistake. It had ended most excitingly with a lot of swears, intervention from the guards, and Rookie’s solemn declaration that they were never gonna buy bats from ‘such a dipshit’, and even now they and Moe glare daggers at each other from across the market, much to Sarah’s ongoing amusement with the whole thing.

As if remembering the same incident, Rookie takes a swig of beer, glowering off at the floodlights that shine down onto the city. “At least Alex agrees with me about him. This shit’s a dying art, apparently.”

Sarah pauses for a moment, and she can’t help the way her gaze tracks towards the far stands, glancing through one of the glassless windows to where ramshackle abodes sit, suspended, above the common rabble. Alex — or the Sole Survivor as some call her now, after her story about the Vault got published for hundreds of eyes to see, and for many more mouths to gossip about — had been granted a house in the upper stands by Mayor McDonough out of the kindness (or manipulation) of his heart, offering her a safe place to adapt to the new and unforgiving world she’d found herself in. Since they’d met, Sarah had struggled to get much more out of her than single-syllable words and pleas for her to find her son, but it was only when Rookie had shown up that her sturdy, Pre-War walls had finally begun to crumble, just a little.

Really, it’s because they’re a Vaultie, too — different experiments be damned — and it helps that they’re someone who was also thrown into the topsy-turvy world of the wastes with nary an idea for the horrors within. They might not quite be out of time, but they do understand being out of place, and when it turned out that Alex is (or, perhaps was) quite the baseball buff herself, they’d forged a connection that made her, initially, a little warmer. Nowadays, Alex is very nearly sociable.

But she still very much keeps to herself, and it’s enough to have Sarah worry. She sees a lot, maybe too much, of Rookie in her — back when they met in Chevy Chase, still new to this world — to be strictly comfortable leaving her to her own devices, but there’s not much else to be done. It’ll take years before she’ll ever really adapt, Rookie had said, years until she can really grapple with the world she doesn’t know. It’s just tough shit.

“Yeah,” Sarah murmurs absently, drawing herself from her rabbithole of thoughts, and Rookie follows her eyeline carefully, knowing exactly where she’s looking. “Well, hey. I guess you have to think of it this way; you and Alex make up two people who know how to play baseball, right? How many more do you need for a full team?”

Rookie laughs at that, sombre face breaking out into a toothy grin, and they slide even further down the lounger as their hat slips over their eyebrows. “Hah! Find me six more Vaulties, and then we’ll really be talking. I’ll be able to hit the first homerun in two-hundred fuckin’ years.”

“Wait,” Sarah says with a frown, doing the maths. Even to her ears, it doesn’t seem to add up right. “Only eight people? You sure?”

Rookie snorts, and then they reach up to take their hat off with a lazy pluck, eyeing Sarah up seconds before her vision goes dark as it’s tossed, haphazardly, onto her head and over her eyes.

“Baby,” Rookie coos fondly as she splutters, nearly dropping the magazine to the ground whilst she scrambles to whip it off her head. “Bold of you to think you can worm your way out of being our pitcher.”

The hat gets launched back at Rookie’s face, the brim making a dull impact on the bridge of their nose, and their shout of pain and laughter echoes right across the city.

[bestworstcase]

gotta say, as a eugene fan, it is extremely funny to me reading between Cassandra and Rapunzel's POVs and their views on the man. there is no neutral opinion here, it is very funny

honestly? as a fan of him also it’s really funny to write too. mr polarization.

it’s also sort of fun, because i think with this sort of pov switching situation where neither pov character has an unbiased view of a non pov character, it’s easy to lose your grasp on what the character in question is actually doing at any given time. so it’s something you need to sorta juggle in the back of your mind, to avoid flanderizing or caricaturizing—like for example with eugene, i think he sort of defaults to rambling about his appearance to fill the silence as an expression of nervousness more so than pure vanity. so from cass’s perspective he just seems self absorbed, and from rapunzel’s this is just sort of an endearing quirk, but in eugene’s mind his good looks are something familiar that he can control when the rest of his life is all topsy turvy and he’s on the brink of having to reevaluate everything about the assholish flynn rider persona he cultivated, and that’s scary and hard so all this anxiety gets poured into preening and taking potshots at cassandra (who is a bit of a dick to him yes, but also an uncomfortable reminder of all the emotional crap he’s avoiding, because she keeps calling him on acting lazy, entitled, and self-centered).

and like even though the narrative isn’t “seeing” that, it has to be there, under the surface or in my mind as i’m writing, or else he stops feeling like eugene and those shifts between him acting excessively vain and him being perceptive and unconditionally supportive of rapunzel start to not ring true.

anyway i think this is true of canon eugene also but it’s really fun to explore in a written medium because it makes the perspective shifts SO much sharper.

[seat-safety-switch]

I think there is both some kind of talent and a curse with my constant tinkering. Sure, I’m never really “bored,” but I also can’t be left alone in a room with a machine for too long before I demand to know its innermost secrets. Just the other day, I had to wait a few extra seconds for the elevator due to some construction mishap in the building, and the strain was so much that I had popped the control panel off and was busily trying to figure out how to dump the firmware by the time it finally reached the lobby.

In a very real way, I understand the textures and thought patterns of these unknown assholes who designed things a lot better than I do myself. That’s because although I don’t work especially well, neither does anyone else in this topsy-turvy world. Ooh, take that, capitalism.

A lot of people think that engineers and scientists and software developers are particularly smart and dedicated to their job, but in actual fact this assumption is what prevents them from knowing that everything around them was built by lazy assholes at the last minute. This is the true understanding of our civilization. Because I am, myself, a lazy asshole, I speak the lingua franca. I have the same assumptions. Intuitively, I know how I would cut corners on a device. It’s those omissions that I look for first.

What I’m trying to say, officer, is that it’s not my fault. The hospital orderlies were the ones who left that sweet new pacemaker on the desk when I was picking up the herpes medication for my cat. You don’t hear Old Mr. Jones complaining now that he has a 13,000-RPM rotary engine where his heart used to be, do you?