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batboyblog · 2 months

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The governor was firm: Nebraska would reject the new federal money for summer meals. The state already fed a small number of children when schools closed. He would not sign on to a program to provide all families that received free or cut-rate school meals with cards to buy groceries during the summer.

“I don’t believe in welfare,” the governor, Jim Pillen, a Republican, said in December.

A group of low-income youths, in a face-to-face meeting, urged him to reconsider. One told him she had eaten less when schools were out. Another criticized the meals at the existing feeding sites and held a crustless prepackaged sandwich to argue that electronic benefit cards from the new federal program would offer better food and more choice.

“Sometimes money isn’t the solution,” the governor replied.

.......

The new $2.5 billion program, known as Summer EBT, passed Congress with bipartisan support, and every Democratic governor will distribute the grocery cards this summer. But Republican governors are split, with 14 in, 13 out and no consensus on what constitutes conservative principle.

One red-state governor (Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas) hailed the cards as an answer to a disturbing problem. Another (Kim Reynolds of Iowa) warned that they might increase obesity. Some Republicans dismissed the program as obsolete pandemic aid. Some balked at the modest state matching costs. Others hinted they might join after taking more time to prepare.

The program will provide families about $40 a month for every child who receives free or reduced-price meals at school —$120 for the summer. The red-state refusals will keep aid from about 10 million children, about a third of those potentially eligible nationwide.

......

As with Medicaid, poor states are especially resistant, though the federal government bears most of the cost. Of the 10 states with the highest levels of children’s food insecurity, five rejected Summer EBT: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.

Like the school lunch program, it serves families up to 185 percent of the poverty line, meaning a family of three would qualify with an income of about $45,500 or less.

......

Some Republicans, in rejecting the aid, found critics in their own ranks. After Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina dismissed Summer EBT as a duplicative “entitlement,” State Senator Katrina Shealy, a fellow Republican, wrote a column with a Democratic colleague warning that “hunger does not stop during summer break.”

In an interview, Ms. Shealy said the state should not reject $65 million “just because Biden is president,” and perhaps just partly tongue-in-cheek wrapped her plea in Trumpian bunting: “Everyone wants to say, ‘America First’ — well, let’s feed our children first.”

Oklahoma initially said it rejected the program because federal officials had not finalized the rules. But responding to critics, Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, sharpened his attack, calling Summer EBT a duplicative “Biden administration program” that would “cause more bureaucracy for families.”

Tribal governments, which have influence over large parts of the state, stepped in. Already feuding with Mr. Stitt, they promised to distribute cards to all eligible families on their land, regardless of tribal status, while bearing the $3 million administrative cost. The five participating tribes will cover nearly 40 percent of Oklahoma’s eligible children, most of them not Native American.

“I remain dumbfounded that the governor of Oklahoma would turn down federal tax dollars to help feed low-income children,” said Chuck Hoskin Jr., the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

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

some of the most stunning highlights of this story.

All I got to say is, let's feed the children? every single Democratic Governor took the money to feed the kids, every governor who rejected it, every single one, is a Republican. If you don't vote for Democrats you are STEALING food out of kids mouths.

#food #food insecurity #Poverty #politics #school lunch #feed the children #Republicans #2024 elections

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spideycals · 4 months

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"Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim"

It is so much easier to turn a blind eye on human suffering far away from you, it is so much easier to stay silent.

When 2 million humans are suffering nonstop from an oppressive state, it is your duty as a human to care. When it's been happening nonstop for 75 years. Don't fail Palestinians, not when they cant communicate. Be their voice, be a part of the solution not the problem, boycott, speak up, don't let the media trick you into believing it wont work, it will. If it doesn't affect you, they're doing it using your tax money, they're doing it in the money you give, they are killing children. Innocent kids dying and you can stop it. SPEAK UP!

#palestine #free gaza #gaza #free palestine #palestinian genocide #ceasefire

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mellowwillowy · 5 months

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"Oh..." Your boyfriend secretly checked your scorecard before you did and was greeted with a line of miserable A until his eyes landed on a B. This would surely take a taxing toll on your mind.

"Hmm..."

He started to hum, what should he do? Hack through the website and change the inputted number for you? What if the scoring system was filed through physical form too?

I really hope you would just shrug it off and say your classic 'It had happened, what more could I do?' instead of stressing yourself with it.

Blue pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes squinted shut as he tried to find a solution for this. Your scholarship is at stake, edged to the despairing ending. But there might be chances that your scholarship was only a one-semester thing and this could ease the burden on your mind.

Hacking through the website system is not a problem but ensuring that your score is true to the one inputted online is the real problem here. Bribery would work but should he risk it all? Should he really taint something so pristine, something so you?

Jaw clenched tightly, the urge to throw the mouse across the room is increasing. Why must the professor go through such trouble to give you a ridiculous grade? The unreasonable one here is her and not you.

"God... dammit-!" With a flick of his wrist, the mouse shattered into pieces as it hit the ground. "This fucking pebble-like old hag, why must you trouble me with this bullshit." He cursed under his breath as though he was the one unbenefited from this instance, face darkened while his blue eyes glinted in fury.

Upon a moment of silence, Blue decided to save you from this headache. He started to work on his PC again, this time to hack through the website and change your supposed score into an A.

"Whatever, not a thing that I can't manage. I suppose a visit with a wrapped gun would work or whatever, maybe a wrapped nail-packed lunch... or just poisonous flower..." His mumblings were mostly drowned with the clackings of the keyboard, "or maybe just a branded bag... or something better."

Something of his forte.

"Maybe some fresh blackmail material... or perhaps, debt."

---

"Woahhh~! Look, Blue! Look! I aced it all! A whole A!"

Blue laughed at your excitement as he easily lifted you up and twirled you around, "Guess this call for a celebration? What about a trip to your favorite diner and bust all their menu?"

You urged him to drop you down before you hop excitedly, "Yes! Let's get them now!"

Chuckling to himself, he thought to himself, Today is our good day so I shouldn't bother myself with that old hag just yet. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after. Any day but today.

"Let's fill this tummy with its expected reward, come." He held you by your hand toward the front door.

#Blue the Boyfriend #LIfE Project #Yandere x Reader #x GN Reader #Yandere Scenarios #Yandere Imagines #Yandere OC #Yandere x You #You bet this is a vent post

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skyborneveggie · 2 years

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My question is, how do we fix it so that the rich can be taxed on their stock gains instead of just their income? Cuz you could tax billionaires 100% percent of their income & it still wouldn’t even touch their true wealth.

#I have become a little obsessed with this question #to be honest i'm starting to get a little annoyed with people #it's easy for people to regurgitate leftist points but when it comes to developing actionable solutions? crickets #i am not an expert in economics but even i know that simply raising taxes on the rich is NOWHERE near enough to solve the tax problem

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Shenker-Osorio says the left’s enemy isn’t the right, it’s cynicism. The problem isn’t that authoritarians want to erase the division between church and state, or take away our right to control our bodies. The problem is that this minority can get away with these unpopular proposals because the people who disagree with them think nothing can be done to stop them. For Shenker-Osorio, the tonic for this is to switch from the negative framing (“abolish ICE”) to positive ones: “respect all families.” Rather than saying “end the climate emergency,” she wants us to call for “ensuring clean, safe air to breathe and water to drink.” When the right says they want to cut taxes to improve the economy, we counter with, “we’ll raise wages and increase consumption, which is better for the economy.” Shenker-Osorio proposes a three-step method for changing minds. First, identify a shared value (“people who work for living ought to earn a living”). Move on to a problem (“our divisions distract us while rich people pick our pockets and hand the spoils to their corporate cronies”). And then, the solution: “rewrite the rules so that the wealthiest few pay what they owe and all of us have what we need for generations to come.”

-Pizzaburgers: “Everybody hates this idea, so it must be great”

#us politics #manchin-collins 2024 #no labels #problem solvers caucus #pizzaburgers #centrism #anat shenker-osorio

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comicaurora · 1 year

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do you have any tips on writing soft magic systems? I only ever see them talked about when people are comparing it to hard magic systems or criticising it, which is a shame because I love systems where magic is just in the background being unimportant, with implied rules that will never be explained

god I wrote up like eight paragraphs of explanation and I was really working out some cool stuff there and then the app glitched and destroyed it all and I'm so upset

Unfortunately this reduces to a previous problem, which is "figure out how Tolkien did it and then do that."

Middle Earth is laden with magic. Hobbits being good at hiding is magic. There's a random throne in the ruins at the end of Fellowship that lets whoever sits in it see literally the entire world, and that's hella magic. Aragorn radiates One True King magic and occasionally heals people with a touch. Galadriel's mirror lets people see any point in time, past or future. Gandalf knows several spells, but most of the time he's doing less granular stuff by making lights or small fires or going all Servant Of The Secret Fire Wielder Of The Flame Of Anor etc etc. Elves are inherently so magical that the words of their language are never forgotten by anyone who hears them, the laws of physics don't apply to them, their havens are magically pleasant and beautiful, and the planet itself is magical for them - flat for the elves, round for everybody else.

The benefit of a soft magic system is that it produces a feeling in the characters and audience that the world is vast, wonderful and unknowable. It's at its best when it can answer why, but not how.

Why did the old empire of men have a throne that let you see the entire world? That makes sense! It's hugely tactically advantageous! HOW did they get the damn thing? No idea, doesn't matter, they clearly made it work somehow because the throne's right there. Why does Galadriel's mirror give you limited, randomized omniscience? Because while it's a useful tool if you can use it, seeing the future is a dicey and weird game, and the future can change if someone knows it's coming. HOW does riverwater in a birdbath do that? No idea.

Soft magic systems start running into difficulties when the writer needs to decide how it can or can't solve a given situation, which is a very common issue in storytelling, a format almost entirely centered on problems and solutions. For hard magic systems with clear parameters on what is and isn't possible, this is comparatively quite easy. The wizard can't magic this problem away because-

They're out of spell slots :(

They don't know a specific spell that can do that specific thing

There's another caster nearby stopping them

The object that lets them do magic isn't working

They need to speak words/do gestures/use materials to cast, and they can't for whatever reason

There's something "antimagic" around stopping them

Etc etc. The possibilities are easy to run through, because the "how" is clearly defined, and can be negated into a "how NOT." If magic uses spell slots, stop the characters using it by taking those slots away. If magic needs a material focus, break or destroy it. This prevents magic from feeling like an unsatisfying "a wizard did it" fix for all difficulties because the wizards can only do specific things under specific circumstances.

Soft magic systems can contrive answers to this too, but it can be a bit tricky to justify, and if it's Too Convenient it can feel like the magic system really just does what the writer needs it to do. When asked "why can't magic solve this problem?" soft magic systems can answer in several ways:

Too tired, sorry :( magic is Taxing and stuff so the caster can tip over whenever's convenient

They're in a Bad Vibes zone that's hindering their ability to cast because soft magic can be impeded by soft problems like "somebody was very mean here once"

That specific magic is tied to a specific location, like a magical elf forest, and doesn't work outside of it because it's intrinsic to the place and can't be replicated

There's another magical being around and their kung-fu is more powerful

These explanations work, but that's conditional on the story not making the audience think the magic SHOULD work in this situation, and this is entirely based on what's been established in the story thus far. If the wizard has been able to fly up until now, parking the gang at the bottom of the cliff and saying "sorry, fly machine broke" feels contrived. But if we've only ever seen other, intrinsically magical beings fly, the audience is unlikely to expect that the party's humble wizard will suddenly bust out a set of feathery wings as a gift from baby jesus himself. On the writing side, it's really a matter of feeling it out and making sure nothing feels too jarring - if the character who's previously displayed a certain specific space of abilities suddenly does something completely unrelated (like going from clairvoyance to slinging fireballs, or from a healing touch to earthbending) that feels inconsistent AND it teaches the audience that this soft magic system is softer than they realized, and can then make it much harder for the writer to then convince them that this caster CAN'T spontaneously manifest a power or gimmick that'll save them. But if the magical characters or objects operate within a specific space - one character that specializes in fire, one object that specializes in remote viewing, one artifact that lets its holder control the winds - then the audience will expect and accept things that fit in those broad, soft categories without speculating too much on the underlying "how" of their mechanics.

But the temptation to explain "how" is very strong for writers, and soft magic systems especially have trouble with this, because soft magic systems start calcifying into fragmentary hard systems when they're forced to explain "how". It locks in a hard-defined axiom that can be logically extrapolated. Because a soft system is not DESIGNED for that kind of internal logic, doing that will usually cause axiomatic collisions as they contradict one another. If a hard system is a crisp, geometric crystalline structure where any tangent line drawn through it will intersect cleanly with other lines in very predictable ways, adding "how"s to a soft magic system is like drawing tangent lines through a bowl of pudding - you're gonna get a lot of intersections in awkward places.

To pull an example out of absolutely nowhere, if a soft system without clear rules establishes something like "this spell can be used to summon an object towards the caster, but it DOES NOT WORK on living things", there are a number of questions that can become relevant:

Who made that spell to have those limitations?

Why can't WE make spells that DON'T have that limitation?

How is the spell defining "living things"? Would it work on a plant or a skeleton or a piercing in someone's body?

Why did you let this character use it on a living thing anyway, joanne?

In a lot of soft systems that try to lock in hard spell parameters, "who made these spells" and "why can't WE make spells" become the first and most obvious axiomatic clash. If magic can be created to do what the caster wants, why and how does that work, and why can't WE do it? This forces the writer to come up with an explanation to solve the clash without letting the protagonists make up whatever spells they want, therefore solving all plot problems forever - sometimes something like "the inventors of spells were intrinsically magical beings, like elves or dragons or whatever, and thus we ordinary scrub mortals can't make new ones." That's a functional explanation, but it reduces to a previous problem again - that this hard-ish magic system was created by someone with access to an unstructured soft system.

In a soft magic system, the only answer to the question "how does this magical thing work" is "because magic." If any other explanation is needed, things rapidly collapse into hard lines and axioms and covering for edge cases. How can elves run on powder snow, shoot targets in the dark and see for hundreds of miles? They're magical. Does that mean they can fly like a balrog or sling fire like gandalf or control weather like saruman maybe can? No, of course not, that's not their kind of magic and we have no reason to expect it from them. They're just magic. Magic means a lot of different things, and in a soft system the audience has to operate based on vibes rather than rules.

This can be difficult to balance. For instance, Star Wars has a soft system in The Force, and if you squint, every single movie and show uses it differently. It's not super disruptive to the audience's immersion because it's never framed like a Hard System with Hard Rules and it almost never pulls something out of COMPLETELY nowhere, but if you look at what it does from movie to movie and then show to show, it expands from "influence the wills of the weak-minded", "seeing the future a little bit" and "force choking" to "general telekinesis" and "limited telepathy" to "FUCKING LIGHTNING FROM THE HANDS MAN" which is a hell of a twist the first time you see it, to some even more buckwild stuff in the two different animated Clone Wars (like Mace Windu fighting an entire droid army Samurai Jack style and using the force to pull every bolt out of one of them at once, or the planet with the living incarnations of the Light and Dark Side) and the explanation never goes further than "The Force is magic, it's in everything, people who are good at The Force can use it to do a buncha stuff." It's not consistent, it doesn't have rules, but the audience accepts that Force users can just kind of do stuff that fits the Vibes of the stuff it's already been shown it can do. And as SOON as they tried to say "The Force is strong in people who have LOTS OF MIDICHLORIANS" everybody hated it, because it gave us a "how" answer to a question nobody wanted to ask and it made this pervasive, wonderous, soft magic system that Surrounds And Binds Us Luminous Beings Are We into "we are space wizards because we contain an above-average number of bugs."

As a chronic worldbuilder myself, I absolutely understand the impulse to explain and overexplain and lock in the Hows and the Whys, but as far as I can figure it, soft magic systems live and die on the writer's ability to restrain themselves from saying "how." The answer is "magic." The rest is just writing the story in such a way that "magic" doesn't become plot-breaking.

#asks #writing stuff

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centrally-unplanned · 9 days

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So because I tend to be described as "center-left" by the forces of all that is evil and unpure assailed against me in their limitless and merciless cruelty, the way the far-right in the US misuses economic statistics tends to find no sympathy from me - in ways that I find difficult to even engage with. (Also, for balance's sake, true libertarians tend to be the ones who make this mistake the least, a solid W for them - they average the highest on this kind of economic literacy alongside the technocratic left). I am on the other hand more sympathetic to the reasons some on the left have for this mistake - but it is still unproductively misguided.

The idea from far-left is is essentially that the US economy is and must always be broken in all ways, because that is a premise that implies the platform of reform they endorse. This is a stance that, imo, most leftists will have because they want to help the poor. They will discuss child poverty and homelessness in the same breath as "living paycheck to paycheck" and the "immiserated middle class". They see these things as united, both causally but also practically - that the solution for the homeless and for the working class are the same, the bonds that will form a united front strong enough to cut the chains of capital in one fell swoop.

This is not only not true, but it is the opposite of true. A middle class that believes itself immiserated and struggling is one least likely to support the redistributive policies necessary to address chronic poverty because they are in fact very different problems. Those people are going to ask for tax cuts! They have jobs, they don't think they need welfare checks, but they do (correctly!) think lower taxes will help them. Cheaper grocery prices means cheaper wages for workers in the grocery industry, the current economy has been really good for the lower income working classes as the tight labor market has boosted their relative wages. Which middle class white collar people haaaaate, because it raises their prices. And since you want lower taxes but the money has to come from somewhere, you are more willing to cut things like welfare to pay for them.

When the problems are real they can align - like yes the housing market in the US is pretty busted, "everyone" will benefit from just making more houses. But even then, the "everyone" doesn't include all the incumbent upper-middle class housing owners, and it particularly doesn't help new home owners who have a mortgage to pay off that are banking on rising real estate prices. All these policies have real tradeoffs. Opportunities for solidarity do exist, don't get me wrong, but its not the default state. You think America won't raise taxes on the rich just to expand the mortgage tax deduction? In your heart you know we would.

Obviously none of this applies to you if you think the world is corrupted root to stem and only the blood of the capitalist class can water the soil of revolution and birth the flower of a new age, or whatever. But unless you want that you are gonna need accurate policy analysis to actually solve the problems within the system, and they will have tradeoffs. And a middle class that thinks itself too poor to help is not an asset in that.

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bottombaron · 9 months

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So after staring into the middle distance for a couple days I'm ready to start discussing some theories I have before the season finale destroys us. They are all very wide-ranging in absurdity but I'll start with the one that I think has the most substance and therefore I think is most likely to happen. Also, I haven’t caught up with the tag yet so if someone already posted these theories, sorry!

So here is Theory #1, known otherwise as,

Why (I think) I know how Laszlo is going to unfuck Guillermo

The solution, I believe, was stated at the very end of The Roast by Laszlo himself:

FIRST THOUGHT, BEST THOUGHT

Laszlo has spent weeks deeply committed to solving a problem. He's wasted precious time trying to outthink his first (and probably best) solution – and I'm not just talking about his book sorting. Neither was Laszlo, not entirely at least. I actually do think he was focused at least a little bit on his books because that's kind of what happens when you're stuck on a problem. Your brain wanders to other much less taxing ordeals. Usually, as you solve that smaller problem, you find the solution to the thing you really want to solve.

So what was Laszlo’s first idea?

All along Laszlo had the answer but Guillermo told him that he didn't think it would work, so Laszlo just didn't pursue it further. (We don't even know if Laszlo knows the circumstances of the test and why it didn't work. Just that Guillermo didn't approve that idea.) So then Laszlo wasted valuable time and energy trying to ~Science~ this problem instead of using his true best skill that was showcased in episode one of the season: his charm. His powers of persuasion (the classical art of bullshitting, as it were) is his true super power. (Sadly, it’s not science. He doesn't really have the patience for science tbh).

But, no, rly, he should bullshit his way thru this. That's what he does best. He can outthink Nandor easily. (well….maybe. with the time spent on his experiments, Nandor could have the advantage of several weeks, if not months, to figure things out beforehand, as dense as he is) He should concoct a bullshit so impenetrable that it unfucks Guillermo from Derek and refucks him to Nandor.

Further foreshadowing of this you ask?

(this whole season is dedicated to ‘plans’ it’s crazy how much A Plan pops up. maybe i’ll dedicate a separate post to collecting them all)

But alas! The test that The Baron did proved this wouldn’t work, right!?

Well here's some free additional theories to how Laszlo could solve that hiccup:

1. Laszlo figures out (and solves) the reason why The Baron/Neighbor test didn't work in the first place.

There could be any number of factors of why The Baron's neighbor blew up. It could be that The Baron is all that more powerful than the average vampire and so his bite gives an extraordinary fill of uh...vampire-ness? and Derek, being so young and weak, doesn't do much at all. Maybe it has something to do with The Sire. If The Baron was turned by the first being ever affected by vampirism, then maybe that vampirism is slowly depleted the further down the line you go. Derek is probably very far removed from The Sire which means he cannot transfer much of that affliction onwards. Nandor, if he was turned by The Baron (one removed from The Sire) or someone similar, explains how he is so powerful, hopefully tho he wouldn’t have too much power to possibly overwhelm Guillermo's half-a-virgin body (and yes I did like how kinky that sounded when I wrote it). It doesn't really matter the exact reason as long as Laszlo can convince Guillermo to try it and he has a relatively decent chance of surviving it. (convincing Guillermo to go thru with this plan overall is probably going to be the most trouble actually. you don't easily forget a guy exploding in your face)

2. Something to do with the experiments. (or the Nadja’s bait-and-switch tactic she used to catch The Baron/Guillermo from The Roast)

I have a larger theory on the experiments and why I think there's still one in the house, but that's for later. During The Roast, Nandor is pretty convinced that the mutant Guillermo is the real one (despite one pretty big glaring error: he has no glasses. none of the experiments need glasses...), Laszlo might have been testing this theory by having The Baron bring his body to Nandor in the first place in order to see how convinced Nandor would be by it. This might be enough for Laszlo to try to use a duplicate of Guillermo for Nandor to bite. The duplicate will not explode (probably?) due to only being a hybrid of Guillermo's blood and an animal…or something(one) else pretending to be Guillermo… (and if it does, maybe Laszlo plans to shoo Nandor out of the line of sight in order for him not to see. And then you get the angst and drama of Guillermo literally using a scapegoat to take his 'sin' despite his reluctance to hurt innocent creatures)

But will the fake Guillermo actually convince Nandor? It's hard to say, and I love that threat of Nandor realizing that it's not the true Guillermo he bit and feeling even more betrayed. Maybe Laszlo concocts a whole ambiance to the event in order to sell the lie. It has to be special right?

So there's dim lights and candles and (fake) Guillermo is laid out in Nandor's coffin and there's this whole presentation element to it that was left out of Guillermo's turn with Derek. It's more like the fantasy that Guillermo probably always had of being turned by Nandor. It plays out like a romantic love scene. But Guillermo is asleep or has his eyes closed and won't talk or maybe only makes small noises and Nandor's very upset abt this. Laszlo is probably hovering too and Nandor doesn't like that either but Laszlo insists he must be there and it's now it's all awkward and wrong, kind of like how Guillermo felt before he was bit by Derek. (now it’s like Nandor is the bull cucking Laszlo in front of him) Nandor goes thru with it and bites Guillermo and is rushed by Laszlo so he doesn't get to drink or drink too much of his blood and there's fumbling with trying to get his own blood into Guillermo's unresponsive mouth.

Or maybe Nandor finds out because Guillermo's blood is disgusting and he either knows or had hoped it would be good tasting*. or that Guillermo just lays there and there's no reciprocation of desire. But maybe he just doesn't find out and once it's over he expects to be able to lay with Guillermo or otherwise be there for his turning but Laszlo quickly rushes him out of his own room and closes the door behind him.

So now Nandor feels all the same despondency that Guillermo had felt with his turn with Derek. Like this big special moment he's built up for years was a complete dud. Like he missed out on something truly magical and he doesn't know why. And Guillermo will feel like shit too, for tricking Nandor. Laszlo isn't happy either. But it worked and they all just have to live with it. Meanwhile this act that was meant to make Nandor's and Guillermo's bond stronger, only serves to create even greater distance between them.

Re*: evidence that Guillermo's blood might taste 'different':

3. ANYWAYS. that was theory two. lets talk about theory 3.

WITCHES.

I actually think there's good reason Laszlo has divorced Science and is now going to have an affair with Magic. It's exactly when Nadja says 'has this hex turned me into an uggo' that Laszlo comes to life and exclaims ‘that's it!’. If science wasn't the solution, maybe magic is. It's not like they don't know some witches, or that, at least to a degree, witches actually have some power. (specifically the power to look, vaguely, like someone else.) I'm not certain of the specifics but there's a chance Laszlo could be turning to magic to solve his problems. This would also bring Nadja's storyline more relevant and in focus for the season. The thing I like the most about this theory? Episode 9 describes being invited to a manor owned by someone named Morrigan. Morrigan is a Celtic goddess of war and fate that was probably the inspiration for Arthurian legendary sorceress, Morgan le Fay. (Laszlo's name may also be connected to Arthurian legend, Lancelot. but that probably doesn't mean anything.)

So! That's my three extra theories attached to this one big theory that Laszlo is going to go 'back to the beginning' and use his first thought to solve this. Go with his gut. His first solution was his best solution, all along.

…He simply needs to convince Nandor to turn Guillermo.

The, uh, details of this plan may be a lot more complicated than it suggests.

#wwdits #what we do in the shadows #guillermo de la cruz #laszlo cravensworth #nandor #nandor the relentless #nandermo #wwdits spoilers #wwdits meta #i guess this counts as meta #so i have a LOT of THOUGHTS n’ THEORIES on the backburner and idk if i can get to them all before the finale #prepare for a flood of inane speculation coming your way #wwdits season 5 #this originaly had a lot more screencaps but i think i over did it and now my brain is fried trying to collect all these receipts

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bryngmemoney · 4 months

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✁FASHION FLIRT✃

Megumi Fushiguro x Reader

⭑story masterlist link

tw: none

Writing in between messages!!

🪡Chapter Thirteen: Iron

“I hope this one lasts us longer than the last one,” Maki spoke as she untangled the cord of the new clothing iron you guys had bought. “Well, to be fair the last one cost us 15 dollars with tax.” Maki plugged it into the outlet, clicking a button at the top of the handle to set it on the right type of fabric she needed. “Yeah, well this one doubled in price, so it better work.”

Maki was currently in a desperate situation of trying to get Kirara’s outfit done. Her model had informed her that they were taking a two week trip for one of their programs. This wasn’t a problem as it didn’t conflict with the date of the show, but it did mean that Maki needed to hurry to try and get the outfit done. In the case that if anything wasn’t working she would still have time to make adjustments to it while her model was gone, and it would be ready by the time they came back. Maki was close to finishing up, the last thing left to do was to iron on patches she had designed on to the pants. The only problem was that today was Sunday, and the studio room was not open. There was a solution though, and that was doing the ironing on her own.

“It’s not turning on, pass me the instructions I might be doing this wrong.”

“The instructions came on the box, here let me see it.”

Maki held her hand a distance from the surface of the iron, “It’s lighting up but its not heating up, look.”

“That’s weird,” You took a hold of the machine, copying Maki’s movements. You moved a finger to place on the heating part, “Yeah, its not I wonder- ow!” It wasn’t the smartest move, but just your luck that the moment you decided to touch the surface, it had decided to finally start heating up. Your reflex was to hold your injured hand with the other, but that also meant letting go of the iron, and watching if fall on the ground, breaking.

“Shit.”

“Are you kidding me Y/n?”

“You broke the last one! This just makes us even.”

“What else did Yuji say was on the list?”

“Uh, yeah that.”

“Pay attention! Are we missing anything else?”

You looked up from your phone, seeing Maki leaning towards you at the end of the shopping cart. The cart itself was barely full, considering there was a max of 8 things on the ‘grocery list’ Yuji had sent you guys. He had already let you guys know he’d pay you back once you’d get there, but you were surprised by a reassurance text you got from Megumi saying that he would make Yuji give you and Maki any money you guys had spent at the store.

The conversation had gradually changed course from that and now he was just sending you pictures of his dogs saying that he’d introduce you to them once you guys arrived.

Your elbows leaning on the handle of the cart, you switched over to the list saved in your camera roll, and took a look at everything inside the cart.

“Yeah that looks good, I think we got everything.”

The cart began to move forward. Maki dragging it as you (barely) pushed it forward. “Who were you texting anyway?”

“I think you can guess.”

“Forget I asked.”

Author’s Note: iron incident based on a true story (i exaggerated it for story purposes mine didn’t actually break)

i’ve never typed the word iron sm before it doesn’t look real atp

anyways Megumi’s dogs mentioned again 🤗

hope you guys enjoyed!

Taglist below, feel free to comment or dm me to be added!!

TAGLIST

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kelocitta · 5 months

Note

i saw your post on how you were thinking about handling the Whole Artificer Thing and i say, let em be a villain! i think it would be fun

I don't have any qualms about Artificer being cruel or whatever; I just don't think that when working them into an anthro doing a 1-to-1 transfer of their behaviors and/or making them just flat out racist/genocidal is an interesting or accurate way to characterize them. (and I just have. Negative interest in working with that type of character) People can do whatever they want but ultimately I just find the idea that anything other making them aggressively genocidal is like, woobifying them, tiring.

Artificer is obviously not good in the context of the game. But the problem and focus of their actions is the scale and spiritual aspect of it, not the actions themselves. Other slugcats are perfectly capable of killing scavengers, most players likely will and many who don't are only held back by the consequences. Scavengers are also warriors, and Artificer's whole campaign is basically set up on the fact that scavengers are defensive and very much follow a 'shoot first' method of self preservation.

So why does Artificer have always be the one thats uniquely villainous in behavior (now with significantly more moral weight behind it than they had as an animal) when the other slugcats, and even the scavengers, get properly 'civilized' when people make them anthros? I just don't think its an interesting way to utilize them, and I won't fault people who do- but like- I feel like if Artificer is going to be Like That when they can walk and talk and do taxes or whatever than at bare minimum the other slugcats and scavengers' relationship with violence/murder/hunting should be touched on.

I'm not making Artificer a good person. I don't want them to be a good person, because I think the fact they are so bad that they have problems on a spiritual level to be the interesting part. Technically, the Artificer I do for anthro stuff has already done their 'Scav King' and found their 'closure'. They set out to do something awful and did it, they got their ending. So now theyre just old and tired and mean and miserable because getting what you want isnt a solution.

#long post #ask #rw anthro #i want her to get worse but not in a 'i kill scavengers because im fucked up and evil' kinda way #i want her to get worse because theres something wrong with her shes not gonna address until it rots her from the inside out #even in this sense her early relationship with hunter is more #founded in her views of life being just generally bad and connecting w/ hunters illness in that way #as for hunter their connection starts out as mostly being in a rocky place due to their developing symptoms and liking that #artificer lets them ignore the feelings being suddenly ill causes #its not the best relationship lol #but its also messy and rough since i cant write for shit

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robertreich · 11 months

Video

youtube

How the Super Rich Are Killing Social Security

Here’s the real reason Social Security is in danger that nobody’s talking about.

It's not just because too many boomers like me are retiring. It's because of inequality.

Now, I don’t want to alarm you. Social Security is still helping us oldies enjoy our golden years — but only for so long.

Social Security is one of the most popular and successful government programs ever created, not only helping retirees — but it’s also keeping 26 million people out of poverty. Yet here is the problem:

It’s going run out of money before you can ever receive it if the rich don’t start paying their fair share.

The trustees of Social Security — of which yours truly was once a member back when I had thicker hair — say the program will only be able to pay full benefits until 2033. After that, Social Security will only be able to dole out roughly 77 percent of benefits.

Why? It’s not the reason that many seem to think.

Boomer retirees like me might be soaking up some sun, but we’re not soaking up all of the program’s funds.

The Social Security trustees anticipated the boom in boomer retirements. This is why Social Security was amended back in 1983, to gradually increase the age for collecting full retirement benefits from age 65 to 67. That change is helping finance the boomers’ retirement.

What did the trustees fail to anticipate? How much income would be going to the top.

A big part of the American working population today is earning less than the Social Security trustees anticipated years ago — reducing revenue flowing into the program.

At the same time, a much larger chunk of the nation’s total income is now going to the top compared to decades ago.

But income subject to the Social Security payroll tax is capped. No dollar of earnings above the cap is taxed. The cap in 2023 is $160,200.

So, as the rich have become far richer, more and more of the nation’s total income has escaped the Social Security payroll tax.

For example, a CEO earning $20 million a year pays Social Security taxes on roughly 1% of their income, while a worker earning under the cap pays Social Security taxes on 100% of their income. But they both end up paying the same amount of money into the program.

The rise in the amount of income above the cap due to inequality has cost the Social Security Trust Fund reserve an estimated $1.4 trillion since 1983.

The solution is obvious: it’s time to scrap the cap, and make the rich pay more in Social Security taxes.

One plan introduced in Congress would eliminate the cap on earnings over $250,000 and also subject investment income to Social Security taxes. It’s estimated that this would extend the solvency of Social Security for the next 75 years without raising taxes on 93% of American households.

This is where you come in. Share this video and help spread the word about the real threat to Social Security. If we want to ensure Social Security’s long term future, and that working people can retire with dignity, we must make the wealthy pay their fair share.

#youtube #Social Security #Video #Videos #Economics #Pollitics #Money

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