#called me from a pay phone they still got pay phones it cost a dollar a minute
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Chapter 31 - Rookie of the Year
Last regular chapter! We have the Drive to Survive episode and then the prologue left! I'm not going to say many words because my farewell to this story will come after DTS drops which will be tomorrow night around 8:30 pm CT
The end of To Do is To Dare is scheduled for this Saturday, 11:30 am CT.
I love you all!
“Kid, are those shorts?”
You looked up the phone in your hand up to Max, who was sitting in front of you in the limo. Your eyes flitted back down to your lap, where your dress had ridden up to reveal the basketball shorts that were supposed to be hidden.
You shot him a sheepish grin.
“Quite possibly.”
Max rolled his eyes. “And why are you wearing shorts underneath a 7 thousand dollar dress?”
“If Zendaya can do it, so can I. And besides, I’m taking them off when we get close. I just didn’t want to cross my legs in the car.”
A snort came from Arthur, who sat to your right. To his opposite sat Charles. The four of you were all decked out in clothing that could definitely pay for a high end sports car. The Armani suits were tailored to the two Monegasques. Max’s suit and your dress were from the newest Dior line, thanks to your own ambassadorship with the luxury brand. The heels on your feet costs thousands as well. You didn’t even want to think about how much the jewelry that adorned your wrists, neck, and ears cost.
Arthur leaned over, hand on your thigh. “Well you might want to take them off because we’re about 5 minutes away.”
A pout grew on your lips, but you appropriately slid the basketball shorts off your smooth legs. You definitely didn’t miss the ogling eyes of your boyfriend. You gave him an innocent smile, which made him glare at you.
“You think I’ll get rookie of the year?”
The question made the men groan.
You gawked at them. “What? I don’t know if they’ll do it since I was the only rookie. That’s like giving a first place trophy to the only alone person in a competition. Useless.”
Charles gave you a smile. “What previous awards have you won or records you have broken?”
Your eyes flickered to the ceiling in thought.
“Ok, so I was the youngest European Karting Division Champion in 2010, the youngest Italian Karting Division Champion in 2012, youngest F4 race winner and champion in 2018, youngest F3 race winner and champion in 2019, youngest F2 race winner in 2020. That year I was also Rookie of the Year and got the Jules Bianchi award. And then I was the youngest F2 champion in 2023. This year I was the youngest pole sitter in F1, I had the most points for a rookie year with 333 points, and then the most podiums for a rookie with 15 podium finishes. I equaled Lewis’s record of four wins in a rookie season. And I think that’s it…Why are you three staring at me like that?”
A blush formed on your face as the three men just stared. Max shook his head in disbelief.
“You’re more decorated than I am.”
A roll of your eyes had him arguing. With the jerk of the car, the two of you silenced. Through the heavily tinted windows, you could see the flashes of cameras. You inhaled sharply which caught Arthur’s attention.
“I’ll hold your hand the entire time ok?”
A nod of your head let him know that you’d be fine with that. The moment the door opened, the noise was deafening. People were screaming your name, along with Max, Charles, and Arthur. You flashed the best smile you could as you walked to the building. But a certain car caught your eyes. The familiar navy was beaconing you to go over. You let your hand slip from Arthur as you got closer to your season car.
“Hey buddy,” you whispered as you ran your hand along the carbon fiber body. You could still hear the flashes of the cameras but it didn’t matter to you anymore. You were back with your car that carried you so well during the races.
You leaned closer as if to tell a secret. “I’m still going to buy you so you can come rest with my other cars back home. I’m going to miss you Forum.”
The name was a simple call back to the Formula cars. But, in your mind, you couldn’t just call him Formula, because that would be weird. Max only smiled when you told him the name earlier in the season.
Apparently, the Red Bull cars were men.
You smiled over your shoulder at Arthur who had waited for you. Internally, you were trying to waste time so you didn’t have to sit through long boring speeches. But, the look of mild panic of being late in Arthur’s eyes got you to start moving.
Once inside, you welcomed the air conditioning. Arthur’s fingers found the open slot of your dress on your side. The comfort of the skin to skin contact was very appreciated.
Thankfully, they had decided to put the top three at the same table. Since you and Max were on the same team, and Charles got along with the two of you quite well, they didn’t see a problem with you all sitting together. It definitely made the night less boring.
When Max got up to say his acceptance speech, some tears rolled down your face. It was especially when he got to talking about you.
The Dutchman smiled down at the table, or well, at you.
“I don’t normally do this, but I also have to thank my teammate, Y/n.
“When I heard that she was going to replace Sergio at the beginning of 2024, I was a bit hesitant. I am used to being in a comfortable spot in life, but the world decided to throw a 20-year-old at me and said ‘here you go, have fun’.”
The crowd chuckled at his words, but you tried to laugh through the tears. Max continued.
“The first few races were great. I had to go find her after she borrowed a car, we played football on the Miami beach, and I got to really connect with drivers that I didn’t know I could be close to.”
You saw a bigger smile grow on Charles’s face. You personally knew that the Ferrari driver was more than thankful for Max’s close friendship. It made the season go so much better than in 2022.
“It was in Suzuka that I noticed that my teammate had become part of my family when I was so…scared to lose her. I know I wasn’t the only one that said I wouldn’t have continued to race if she had…”
Max didn’t finish the sentence as he wiped his eyes. Arthur’s hand gripped yours a bit tightly at the reference to your DNF at Suzuka.
The Champion inhaled before he spoke again.
“But what matters is that she was able to finish the season with me in third place. We were able to take home the constructor’s championship with her fastest lap.
“Y/n has meant so much more to me than a regular teammate. And I am thankful that we get to have more years of competitiveness together. I am 100 percent confident when I say that she will be a World Champion.
“Thank you.”
Max walked off stage as the crowds roared at the completion of his speech. You were up next, so you stood from the table and walked over to meet him. He brought you into a big hug and didn’t let go for a bit. You felt him kiss the top of your head before he let you go.
You shakily inhaled as you stood on the edge of the stage.
“And now, please welcome the Rookie of the Year and third place winner of the Driver’s Championship, Y/n L/n!”
Once you heard the clapping, you made your way to the middle of the stage. The man handed you two trophies that were a lot heavier than you thought. You awkwardly grinned as you stood still for pictures.
One the man gave you the signal to start, you bent down slightly to put the trophies down. When you rose back up, you took a deep breath. You gave the crowd a smile before you started to speak.
“First off, I’d like to thank everyone here today. It would be weird to be speaking to an empty room, so the audience is appreciated.”
Laughter came from the crowd, which let you know that you were doing great.
“Next, I’d like to thank my personal team. I wouldn’t be here without my physio, even if I continued to beg her to eat ice cream all the time. To my trainer, I don’t think I’d be able to even turn my steering wheel without him. And then to Vito, my manager. When I say that he is truly the only person who has stayed by myself through the years, it’s him. He didn’t have to stay, but he did. I’d be lost without him and probably driving an uber around cities to make money.”
Your voice gave a little crack at the end, but a chuckle covered it up. You saw Vito smile at you and hold his thumb up.
“Then there’s my found family. I’d like to thank the Leclercs for truly putting time and effort into my career. I can’t count the amount of times on my hand that Pascale sent me some extra food whenever she visited Arthur. I know she’s not here tonight, but she deserves all of my thanks. She truly treated me like her own, even if I wasn’t. She’s been the mother that I never got to have growing up.”
“To Charlie, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to race and compete against my childhood hero. But here we are, with you looking at my backside throughout the season.”
You heard a “hey!” from Charles that made the crowd laugh even louder.
“But, we both know you came out on top despite some difficulties. Thank you for being so kind to me. And thank you for signing all three pairs of my Lightning McQueen Crocs.”
Charles blew you a kiss which you pretended to catch.
“Last and not least of my Leclerc entourage, Arthur. I cannot begin anywhere to ever tell you how thankful I was to be your teammate in Formula 2. You saw a frightened and anxiety-ridden girl, who thought that the 2023 season would be the end of her driving career. But, you took me to dinner after our first meeting, and in the process might have taken my heart as well. I’m glad that it only took me crashing my car in Japan for you to finally confess.”
Once again, you choked a bit. But, you’re pretty sure that everyone in the room did as well. You sniffed as you wiped your eyes.
“But I wouldn’t have it anyway.”
At the table, there wasn’t a dry eye at all. Arthur was wiping at his eyes harshly in frustration. The tears would not stop falling. Even Max was crying and you hadn’t even said anything in his direction. The Dutchman knew that he would be a gonner the moment you said his name.
“To the Red Bull team. Like I’ve said all night, there aren’t any words that could sum up my gratitude. I remember hearing the news that Max was signed at 17 and I only thought, gosh they had balls.”
More laughter from the crowd.
“Charles might be driving for Ferrari, but I have always wanted to drive for the energy drink team. Their famous saying, Red Bull gives you wings, has been entirely true for this season. You took a chance on me and gave me my wings to fly and soar. Thank you Christian for treating me like the dad I never had. I’m excited to be driving for you for many years.”
You changed your card and looked down at the wobbly words due to tears. You looked up, and at that moment, you realized that your eye makeup must have been running. Oh well, who cares.
“And finally, but maybe the most important person of all in this room, other than me of course.”
Soft laughs could be heard despite the sobering moment to come. Everyone had been waiting to see what you would say about Max.
“If there was an award for best teammate, I would give Max the trophy over and over again. I was so nervous to meet him. I didn’t want to be disrespectful, because you don’t just become a three-time world champion’s teammate without doing something right in life. But that happened to me. Almost immediately, I could tell that Max would be a good one.
“The night we met, he took me out to get ice cream and showed me pictures of his cats for hours. At Christmas, he knew that I didn’t have any family to spend it with and all but dragged me back to his home in Monaco. He made sure I knew that I was welcomed and loved.
“Because that is what I admire about Max. Not his career, not his driving, and definitely not his cooking skills. I admire him for his ability to be kind and to love easy. I never had the best childhood, and Max knew nothing about it, but he treated me with such preciosity. He made me feel wanted for maybe the second time in my life.
“My childhood was filled with moments of unwantedness. I was a female going against the best boys and men in the motorsport leagues. I was treated unfairly sometimes, but I was never treated like that with Max.
“So, Maximillian, I can’t thank you enough for making a little girl’s dream come true. I might have won all of these awards tonight, but I only feel like a winner because I am walking away with a group that no family could beat.
“So thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
The amount of applause could not be contained in the room. Even the security guards outside the door could hear the cheers and claps coming from the different personnel in the room. It wasn’t long before everyone was standing for you as you walked down.
However, Max seemed to stand the straightest in pride for you. If it wasn’t for the tear stains on his cheeks, you wouldn’t even know that he had been crying. There was a genuine smile on his face. His arms opened for a hug when you got to the table. You put yourself there as he wrapped his arms around you. Your head rested gently on his shoulder. You felt his lips touch your forehead.
Once the hug was over, you felt another person wrap their hands around. You knew who is was once his lips touched your own. You melted a bit before Arthur leaned back.
“I am so proud of you.”
“Thank you mon bebe.”
A groan left his lips.
“You know what it does when you speak my language.”
A smirk grew on your lips. “Oh I know.”
Arthur only rolled his eyes.
“My rookie of the year.”
Max’s hands landed on your shoulder and Arthur’s. To be honest, you forgot that the rest of the word even existed. Oops.
“Not rookie anymore. Time for the sophomore year!” Max’s voice sounded above the crowd.
You looked up at the Dutchman.
“I’m going to win the championship this year.”
“No you aren’t.”
“You are both wrong. I will be the world champion.”
“Sure Charles, sure.”
y/n.89 has posted
y/n.89 wow, I didn't expect to be walking home with three trophies tonight 😚 all jokes aside, thank you to the FIA for naming me Rookie of the Year (even if I was the only one) and then for granting me the first ever Woman of the Year in Motorsports. I'm hoping that in the next few years, others will be able to be bestowed this award like I have been. Thank you everyone! See you in a few months for testing 💙 - rookie out
liked by arthur_leclerc, maxverstappen1, y/n.nation, and 6,204,957 others
y/n.nation if you look in the back of the fourth picture, you can see me drowning on my tears
arthur_leclerc I am totally fine being the trophy husband
y/n.89 awwww I'm glad that I can have you as the trophy husband
y/nxarthur HUSBAND?
maxverstappen1 HUSBAND??
charles_leclerc HUSBAND?????
y/n.89 I said what I said - haters gonna hate 🤭
box_box_express I cannot WAIT for preseason testing, why do I miss this already?
y/n&co I'm just waiting for the DTS episode, it's going to be so good
y/n4ever her speech tonight, I'm kind of worried for the episode...
lestappenlove oh gosh, Charles and Max looked like such proud older brothers (I don't think I've ever seen either of them cry before)
maxverstappen1 couldn't have done anything without you kid! even if you continue to call me Maximilian in front of thousands and thousands of people
y/n.89 I don't care - you'll always be my maximillian 😆
sophomore_y/n the trophies are so pretty 🥹
formula1_edits I can see all the videos and edits on tik tok forming now - maybe something Harry Styles 🤔
author everything is going to be all right - just like it always is
y/n.89 thank you for making this happen!
author anything for you kid...anything
charles_leclerc CAN I BE WORLD CHAMPION PLEASE?????
formulala_delulu WHY IS IT ENDING??? 😭
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Premium Aíre
AN: fun fact despite her grandpa being a mechanic, Miriam doesn't know anything about cars and car maintenance. It's loosely nased on this tiktok but it's not a prank lmao
Requested? By @nattinatalia bc we were tic talking and it came up so I wrote this blurb lol
Warnings: Miriam gets scammed and Jack gets mad, mean words were exchanged, a happy ending
Word Count: 1.6k words
Jack set his headphones out and walked out of the studio. He and Miriam were in Atlanta for a few days before they headed out to Aspen for a few weeks to enjoy the last of the snow. They were going to drive up to Colorado so they were taking his Jeep since it was built for that. It had been a few months since he got the car an oil change. He was going to take it to his go-to mechanic, but someone asked him if he was willing to get on a verse with him.
Miriam offered to take his car while he was at the studio. She and Daisy didn't have anything planned for the day. Jack was hesitant at first because Miriam doesn't know much about cars. He was still traumatized from when she was driving her Audi without getting any maintenance check. But he agreed for her to take his car. What put him at ease was that she was going to his mechanic. Miriam has gone with him beforehand when he took his Jeep and months later when they took her Audi so it wasn't like she was new to the auto shop.
He pulled out his phone and texted her, knowing she would be home by now. Or at least out shopping at Target and buying random shit she would find that apparently they needed. The most it takes is an hour
M 🍒🍑: I'm at a coffee shop waiting for your car
Jack read her message over, confused. There weren't any coffee shops near the auto shop. Not to mention she texted him three hours ago when she arrived at the mechanic. He checked her location and saw she was nowhere near the auto shop, so he facetimed her.
"Hey," she said, propping her phone against the napkin dispenser.
"Where are you?" He asked, cutting to the chase. He glanced down at her chest, admiring her cleavage when she bent down to get her airpods.
"I'm at this cute coffee shop. Like the aesthetics are everything." She flipped the camera and showed him her little corner where she sat on a mauve velvet couch with her book and almost empty mug.
"Why are you there?"
"Well I'm not gonna wait four hours while the mechanic changes your oil and stuff." Miriam shrugged.
"Miriam, it doesn't take four hours to change the oil of a fucking car." He said in an eerily calm voice.
"I know that, I'm not stupid." She laughed to herself. "Jared asked why I needed an oil change so I told him now we're driving to Aspen and stuff. So he offered to check your car and for like another two thousand dollars he's gonna–"
"Who the fuck is Jared? Where's Tito?"
"Oh Tito was closed so I went somewhere else." She said, reaching for her mug. She smiled at him. "Aren't you proud? I took initiative."
"Why didn't you call me? I would have told you to take it to the dealer instead." He rubbed his temples.
"Why don't you just take it to the dealer in the first place?" Miriam asked, confused.
"Because they're more expensive."
"You're a millionaire, I don't think twenty-five hundred dollars is gonna dent your bank account." She said in a duh tone.
"What do you mean? Did you pay that much for an oil change?" Jack looked at her incredulously.
"No, silly." She rolled her eyes. "Jared told me about this tire service that costs two thousand that helps the car drive easier in the snow. They have premium air for the tires too."
"I'm going to say this with love, but are you hearing yourself? You just got fucking scammed. You can't be this clueless about this shit." He snapped at her.
Urban looked at Jack, nodding what was wrong. Off camera, so Miriam wouldn't see, Jack motioned to him that he'll explain later.
"I don't fucking appreciate your tone right now." Miriam said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Seriously, why are you crying?"
Miriam didn't respond. She simply ended the call. Jack sighed and pocketed his phone.
"What was that about?" Urban asked. "You sounded rude as hell."
"I was not rude." Jack said defensively.
"No you're right. You weren't rude, you were patronizing." His best friend said.
"So now I'm the bad guy because Miriam got scammed while she took my car to get an oil change?"
"No you're the bad guy for being a dick to her."
"She got fucking scammed!" Jack repeated himself.
"That doesn't mean you should be a fucking asshole to her. She was doing you a favor and made a mistake. Instead of finding a solution or where she messed up, you talk down to her and make her feel like shit." Urban explained. "She comes from money of course she's not gonna know shit about that. But that doesn't give you the right to be a dick. You've done some dumb shit at events and she's politely corrected you so you don't look dumb. She's never once made you feel inferior to her or anyone."
Jack stayed quiet. Urban was right, he reacted poorly and made Miriam feel like crap. He decided to call it a day at the studio and ordered an Uber. He and the guys mostly brainstormed and wrote here and there. There wasn’t anything that needed to be recorded.
The ride to the auto shop from the studio wasn’t that far. In less than five minutes the driver pulled up. Miriam was sitting in the waiting area reading her book. Jack thanked the Uber driver and got out. He made his way to her and sat next to her.
“What are you reading?” he asked her, breaking the silence.
“A book.” she answered, turning the page.
“Look Miriam, I’m sorry–”
An older looking man in dark blue coveralls came out to the counter and spoke to Miriam in a language Jack didn’t recognize. Miriam got up and talked back to the man in the same language, smiling. The man handed her the car keys and said something else, making her laugh.
“Thank you Mr. Stavros and we’ll definitely go sometime.” Miriam told the older man.
She tossed Jack the keys and put on her coat while Jack packed her book in her tote. She took the bag from him and walked out to where his car was. Jack opened the door for her and closed it for her.
He drummed the steering wheel and turned to her. “Look, I’m sorry for how I reacted. It was uncalled for and you don’t deserve that.”
“It’s fine Jack.” Miriam said, shrugging off her coat.
“It’s not and you know that. I was an asshole and made you feel like shit.”
“Yeah you did.” she said in a quiet voice. “But I got it resolved.”
“You did?” he asked, curiously as he got into the street.
“Yeah, I called Beto after you made me cry because he’s the one who takes my cars in for maintenance and when I told him how much I paid he called me a dumbass. I cried more and I left the coffee shop. I overheard Mr. Stavros speak in Greek so I asked him ‘are you Greek?’ in Greek and from there we just started talking. I told him how this felt very familiar because my grandpa is also Greek and owns a car shop, but in LA. Then I casually brought up all the services Jared, who I’m assuming is his son because they look alike, charged me for and is doing it. He got mad and cursed Jared out then he gave me a refund. I felt bad that he had to redo what Jared did, so I paid him five hundred.”
Jack hummed in response. Miriam pulled out her book and kept reading while he drove. He heard her stomach growl, so he made a stop at chickfila. She was so focused on her book that she didn’t notice him get out and get food for them. By now she would have been dipping her fries into her oreo shake.
Truthfully Miriam was still mad at Jack. He knew that one of her biggest pet peeves is when someone questioned her intelligence and made her feel like she’s incompetent when she wasn't. Sure she got scammed out of a lot of money, but she was able to fix it. She was more embarrassed that he was able to see that she got played and instead of reassuring her that it’s something that could happen to anyone, he scolded her.
Jack reached over and shook her shoulder. “We’re home.” he said.
She nodded and put the receipt in her book to save her spot. She got out and followed behind him. The ride up the elevator was silent; they were on their phones. When they reached the floor to his place, Miriam went straight to the living room, but Jack caught her arm. She looked up to his apologetic blue eyes.
“What?” she sighed defeatedly.
“I am sorry for how I responded. It was shitty of me to talk down to you as if you were a child. You don’t deserve that and I apologize.”
Miriam couldn’t hold back her tears and teared up immediately. She turned away, but pulled her to his chest. She wrapped her arms around him and cried. Jack rubbed her back, letting her cry until she felt better.
“I’m sorry for acting like a baby.” she said quietly.
“You shouldn’t have to be apologizing. You're not the one who acted like an idiot.” Jack reassured her, leaning down to kiss her.
“Honestly, if your car got messed up I would have just bought you a new one.” she said, pulling away to get her milkshake.
Jack smirked. “With what money? You spent it all on premium air.”
“You’re not getting any tonight.” she deadpanned.
He feigned offense, pouting he asked, “Then how am I supposed to make it up to you?”
“Figure it out, Mr. I have solutions for everything.”
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👷♀️occupational hazards🐜
WorkerAnt, the world's app-first construction contracting platform, revolutionized the building-building industry. All you gotta do is just scroll through a couple of boring legal things on your phone and check some boxes and voila; you have everything you need to try and build a living with your own two hands! Who needs a fancy degree, or the hassle of going to a trade school? I certainly didn't!
They didn't even make me do a drug test, or ask why my name and sex didn't match what it still says on my license, so honestly it's like a win/win for everyone involved.
I did my paid training in like 20 minutes; I just needed to watch a few videos telling me where to go and what I’ll get fired for, plus one on how to use pronouns respectfully.
I already knew most of the stuff they were telling me, so I pretty much just got paid to relearn what the right things to call myself are for liability purposes. I usually do that for free!
Every day, all I gotta do is show up at the check-in location, get handed all my tools, and then I take my mandatory 30 minute lunch break in the app right as I wait in line for the elevator up to the job site, so I can focus on nothing but work for the next 12 hours. I don’t need to worry about food anyways, because they sometimes throw pizza parties for us, and there might be a few slices left when I come back down.
Most of the time work’s pretty boring; I'm just hammering some boards together or whatever. The whole building looks like it's basically already all built, so I'm not sure what all the things we're attaching and connecting to each other are supposed to do, and I don’t get paid enough to care.
But I can’t complain. It’s an honest job; I have tasks to accomplish and all the tools I need to accomplish them, as long as I don't fuck something up.
I'm very happy with this arrangement and it's all worked out really great for me so far.
It does get a bit lonely up there sometimes though.
There is my one coworker, Lana; I think she might also be trans, though it's kinda hard to tell under the hard hat goggles and respirator I always see her wearing. But she's always polite at me and doesn’t give me any trouble, and the bits of her voice I’ve heard that aren’t drowned over by power tools sound really nice.
Sometimes I think about it even when she's not around, which now that I think about it is kinda like stealing from the job site, and that’s a firable offense, so maybe I shouldn't be doing it.
She tends to work late like me, too. It takes us both longer than everyone else to finish all our tasks, but at least they pay us almost as much!
Tonight, it's New Year's Eve, and we're the only ones still up there; hammering stuff together, unable to look out at the empty city below, lit up and then abandoned for the season, because I'm being paid the minimum tipped wage to cut a 2x4 with a dinky little dollar store dremel, and we have to finish up before the sun sets, cause the cost of running the lights gets taken outta your pay.
BZZSCHLKK!
And now my finger hurts too.
I look down, staring at the little squiggly meat piece of guy lying on the workbench, and after a minute I realize that oh shit, that used to be part of my right pinky.
So might the scarlet mist that now covers most of the walls and floor. I’m gonna have to get THAT painted over before the end of my shift, too.
First things first, though.
"Um, hey Lana?"
The whirring echoing from the other side of the room powers down. Lana pulls her plastic goggles over the rim of her hard hat, both now spritzed ever-so-gently with my crimson phalangemarrow. She looks only mildly concerned as she swims upstream along the spatter pattern.
One of the stickers on her hat catches the sunlight, holographic prism reflections dazzling my vision before my pattern recognition software kicks in-
Y-yeah, I know what that logo is. I’m too afraid to ask her if she does, too though. They make s*x t*ys, after all, and I think those are by definition Not Safe For Work.
Without saying a word she grabs my wrist, yanking my hand up to her face to examine it. Even under the visor, her eyes are red; bloodshot, and they scare me a little, so I try speaking up.
"Um, Lana, I think I need to go to the, uh. Hospital, place,"
"Why?"
I stare at her, dumbfounded for a second, before a pulse of pain reminds me of the severance’s urgency.
"W-well, to get it, like, reattached, y'know?"
She looks at the little meat squiggum lying sadly on the bench, letting go of my hand.
"Not really anything left to reattach."
Her voice is muffled by the respirator, but her expression is one of almost boredom. I feel bad for offending her, even though I’m not sure how I did it.
I try flexing a bit. OUCH! Bad idea. I pinch hard just below the cut, to try to keep more things from coming out of me. "W-well, we have to at least try…"
She eyes her own workstation impatiently, dying orange skyfire burning in the reflections of her eyes. A little spurt of blood squirts out of my pinky stump.
"Look, if you keep wasting time worrying about stupid little things like that, you’re not gonna last long here.”
What the fuck is she talking about?! I’m very badly hurt, and I need to go get it checked out right away. Tears well up in my eyes as I keep staring at where my finger now ends, just above the second knuckle.
I'll never get to pinky promise silly things to my little sister again; I’d only have a reminder of this loss, something permanently removed I could never get back.
I inhale a sniffle. "P-please, we gotta go. I don't wanna go around rounding up the number of fingers I have for the rest of my life."
She rolls her eyes, reshielding them with her goggles. "Would a round number make you feel better?"
"What?"
My dremel's motor whines to life as she turns back to face me.
"For symmetry, y'know?"
Her tone concerns me.
She grabs my good hand, forcing it flat against the workbench. I try to pull free, but my knees are still a bit wobbly from the pain, and I don’t want to risk any sudden moves around the little spinning amputation death motor, so I can't try too hard.
“L-listen, I’m sorry for involving you. J-just let me go and I-I’ll just clock myself out, and get to the hospital on my own…” My hand grasps at her, trying to push her away, but all I succeed in doing is knocking her respirator loose, and I gasp as all the gouges and scars and other missing bits of her face come into focus at last.
I see her teeth click as her jaw clenches, bone trembling with the purest expression of rage. Her knuckles are white around the dremel.
"Long term, working here is gonna take a lot more of you than I’m gonna.”
BZZZZZZSZCHLRRKKRRRRRK--
“Oh, hold on, it got stuck.”
My vision doubles and quadruples, the room swimming around me as I try to keep myself from passing out. This is obviously a dream, and hey, I haven’t had one of these in a while, let’s just try to keep it going right hahahaha-
WHRRRGGZZCCHLLTLTTTTTT!
The spinny deathblade plants another gentle kiss against my fingerbone, tingling my entire skeleton with electromechanical sparks. I stare at a bead of sweat tracing down Lana's cheek as the blade grinds through at last with a spray of calcium white.
The whine fades as the disposable plastic motor inside the tool gets gummed up with mutilated chunks of gore. My mouth hangs open making a noise and I'm afraid it's probably kind of a pathetic one. The bottoms of my goggles are filling up with tears, but that means I’m doing a good job of keeping the crying contained inside, so there's a chance Lana might still think I'm cool.
“There you go. Eight plus two halves equals nine. Almost as many as before.”
“ohgodohgodohgodohgod-” I wish I had something more interesting to say.
“What? I thought you wanted a round number.”
“Ijustwantedmyhandstobenormalagain-”
She pauses for a moment, then wanders off into the neighboring room, leaving me standing there, trembling alone in the dark.
I think about trying to find my own way back to the elevator, but I’m afraid of tripping over a lead pipe or something on the ground and having to use my damaged limbs to break my fall and mangling them further, and I don’t wanna get my phone all bloody to use the flashlight either, so I stay put.
Fireworks burst off in the distance, prematurely celebrating the dawn of a big new thing. I try not to look down at my mutilated handflesh, instead insisting my gaze on the sunset bathing over the city.
It's a really nice view, and I don't know if I'll get to be up here to enjoy it ever again.
“Okay, here, I can fix everything.”
She's returned, and I can’t get away from her because I don’t want to say no, so I let her take my bleeding broken hands and lead me to the workbench again.
Behind her gore-spattered goggles, I can see her eyes are swimming with tears now too, like she doesn't know what the fuck she's doing either, but I don't even hate her for it, I don't think.
"Here, just hold onto me. I'll fix you."
She presses up close, close enough that I can feel a bit of her heat even through her jacket. She takes my unrecognizably mutilated hand in her own and strokes it softly.
The lead in my stomach sinks deeper when I see that she's holding a staple gun in her other.
I tighten my grip, spilling blood onto her palm.
THUNK.
THUNK.
THUNK.
----------------------------------------
She sweeps the remains of my amputated digits off the ledge with her boot, sending little chunks of meat tumbling into the glimmering city grid. Thankfully, the night is cold enough now that I can't feel much of my hands at all.
Staple gun didn't work out too good.
She fiddles with something on the side of her hard hat, and a light comes on. It's kind of dim, but it's better than nothing.
We walk past piles of unsawed boards, boxes of nails and wrenches and other tool things. Neither of us say anything to each other. Even more fireworks are whistling and exploding above the city in the distance but I'm not getting paid to care.
She stands beside me in the dusk-filled elevator. We descend slow, neither of us averting our gaze from the doors sealed tight in front of us.
“Um, Lana?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think I'm coming in to work tomorrow.”
“You’re not,” she states plainly. “Any injury sustained on the clock is grounds for termination, remember?”
“Oh, right…”
We’re quiet for a while. I don’t like the silence, the emptiness, so I try to fill it as always. “Um, I’m sorry for getting you involved…”
“It’s fine,” she lets out a quivering little sigh and turns to face me at last. “I don’t think they were gonna keep me on much longer, either way. I waste a lot of staples…”
I pick at a little crooked piece of metal worming its way through the layers of fat and muscle that once made up our entwined fingers, wondering how much more might need to be amputated by the time we get to a hospital, then a laugh catches in my throat, when I remember we no longer have health insurance.
ao3
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“money money money”
if you come from a prestigious family
(ben, alex, gerard, donald, wolf)
ben park / park humin
He was at a rather more high end area in Seoul, wanting to buy a new coat at this one store Gray had recommended.
While waiting for Gray to arrive, Ben would stroll around the nearby stores just to check things out since he’s already in the city.
When Ben saw you for the first time, he didn’t immediately think like, ‘Oh this person is rich.’ It’s more like, ‘What if this person is rich?’
You were there together with your friend. When you walked out, he was entering the store. As a result, the two of you crashed into each other.
“Ah! Oh my god! I’m so sorry..”
Your friend hurriedly take a handkerchief to wipe your stained uniform, as you did the same.
“I-I can pay for your laundry! If you want..?”
Ben was lowkey kinda nervous since this was a rich people area and all. So if you were another snobby rich brat, you could literally make his life hell with just one phone call.
Instead, all you did was laugh softly. Taking your blazer off before hand it to him.
“If you insist. When you’re done, come and bring it to Apartment X, penthouse unit A. If the security guard asks just say you’re there to see y/n.”
A little stunned, Ben absentmindedly take the drenched blazer into his hand. Your friend looked at you curiously, but went along to leave with you afterwards anyway.
“Hey, y/n. Are you sure it’s okay?”
“It’s fine it’s fine~ Plus, didn’t you see how cute he was?”
“Big Ben. Sorry, I accidentally dropped off the wrong lane. Did you wait for a long time?”
“Hey, Gray. Do you know what kind of school this uniform belongs to?”
Gray blinked at the dark green blazer on Ben’s hand.
“X School? It’s like one of the most expensive school around here, but why do you have it on you?”
“Oh shit.”
“Ben.. what did you do?”
“I think a rich girl might be interested in me.”
alex go / go hyuntak
I have a feeling Alex would be sort of intimidated if he finds out just how wealthy your family is.
The two of you met at a gaming center. You were struggling to get a specific stuffed animal.
“Come on.. please.. AH- YOU FUCKING SCAM!”
When he first saw you, he thought. ‘That’s one cute crazy mf.’
Still, he went and helped you.
“That’s not how you’re supposed to do it. Here.”
Inserting a coin inside, he pushed you to the side and within a few minutes, you got your doll.
Your starry expression almost made it all worth it.
“Thank you so much! What can I do to repay you?”
“Uh, you don’t need to repay me..”
“I know! Let’s go for a meal! My treat~”
Alex was about to decline when you bolt out of the arcade within seconds.
“Well, it’s free food I guess.”
Here’s the thing. You don’t.. look rich. You were dressed in a simple attire, t-shirt and jeans. And if they each cost more than a thousand dollar, Alex would really have no way of knowing.
So imagine his pleasant surprise when the two of you show up at one of the most bougie-looking hole in the wall restaurant he has ever seen in his entire life.
“O-oi, you sure this is okay? I don’t have the money to pay for the food here, ok?”
“Hah? I told you it was my treat why would you have to pay? Just follow me, this place is really good!”
Until you stepped inside the building, Alex still think that this might be a really really bad joke. But then the head chef himself greeted you.
“Y/N! What brings you here? Oh~ Is he your boyfriend?”
“Hehe, not yet. But anyways, uncle, we’re here to eat! What’s on the menu today?”
As the two of you converse about what type of meat you want for the meal, Alex finds himself breaking in cold sweat.
Rich people really are scary.
gerard jin / jin gayool
Like Alex, I feel like he would also feel intimidated. And probably.. a bit insecure?
He has to hustle to be able to afford treating himself once in a while, meanwhile your weekly allowance could pay for his school fee for the entire year.
When he first began hearing about you, there would be times where he would feel kind of conflicted.
(for the sake of plot let’s say you’re the daughter of a famous musician)
He’s not entirely sure whether it’s envy or something else. This ugly thing bubbling inside him. But seeing just how different your lifestyles are, Gerard can’t help but feel.. off.
In order to really win his heart, you have to prove that your money is not all that there is to you. Which, you did, successfully.
To begin with, you weren’t even snobby or bratty or anything like that. It’s just that Gerard heard about you from a friend of a friend, so your image that got portrayed onto him is just slightlyy 🤏 different from who you are as a person.
A mutual friend of yours and Gerard’s threw a party for their birthday. This would be the time he would actually meet you for real.
“Hi, I’m y/n.”
“Oh, hi.”
Gerard was surprised. You were unexpectedly pleasant to be around. Your experience in doing business gives you the advantage of gauging people. And your broad knowledge in miscellaneous things makes for a flexible and comfortable conversation.
“You’re not like what I thought at all.”
“Yeah? What kind of a person I am that you thought?”
“I don’t know.. privileged, nepo baby?”
You chuckled at his words.
“I mean they’re not wrong, are they? I’m aware of my privilege, and that I probably have things easier than most other people trying to get into the entertainment industry. But I’m not about to let things like privilege get to my head and make me slack off just because I get a head start.”
Gerard smiled. He supposed that the two of you may have more things in common than he initially thought.
donald na / na baekjin
Honestly. Donald would love it.
He loves connection and money. He would love it if you come from a wealthy family.
With some toxicity, he would also try to make you fall for him to spite your dad if he refuses to do business with him.
“Kingsley. I want you to compile a profile on the senator’s daughter. What her common interests are, where she usually shops, her favourite food, I don’t care. Just make it as detailed as possible.”
After getting your info, Donald will start to frequent places that you usually go to. And in order to get your attention, he would also make seemingly innocuous comments based on the profile he got from Kingsley.
He knows you’re peculiar. But what the hell is this.
“One ice baby yoda please. I’d like to get the custom face cocoa powder as well. And the gingerbread ears too.”
“Wow, mister. You have good taste.”
And you are a psychopath.
Donald smiled, grabbing the childish looking diabetes in a cup. He really didn’t want to drink that.
“Your usual?”
“To the tee. I actually almost got goosebumps when I heard your order.”
As time passes, the two of you began to get closer and closer to each other.
Soon you begin to sneak out of the dorms, going on late night dates, eating convenience store pizzas.
You were like a breath of fresh air in Donald’s ever so serious life. So carefree and full of life, a child-like glow surrounds you. It often reminded him of just how young he still really is.
Your friends tried to warn you about how he was being a bad influence, and your father tells you how he’s ‘worse than trash’. That he will ruin any future you have.
For some reason, though, that didn’t stop you from pursuing your romantic dream partner.
“What, so I just spray these on? Isn’t this vandalism?”
“It might be. But what are they gonna do? Fight you? While I’m here?”
You threw him a cheeky grin and began to spray paint on the concrete walls of the underpass.
Donald knows the reason why you were so lenient with having your name and possibly your whole future get dragged in the mud just from associating with him. You like it. The blood pumping through your veins when you’re doing something so out of your comfort zone. And the sense of security that whatever happens, there will be someone who is willing to take the dirt for you.
You like the freedom. He likes you.
Ah, how he wants to keep you.
(I love Donald’s narrative so much. Feels like a teenage movie.)
wolf keum / keum seongje
I’m gonna be completely honest with you, I don’t think Wolf would care that much about your family’s wealth.
At most, he would be mildly impressed with all the stuff your family could afford. But other than that, he won’t really look at you different or anything.
They didn’t have class by the fourth period that day, everyone was asked to gather at the auditorium to listen to some rich old dudes talk about where else to throw their money away for 2 hours.
Yep. Not Wolf.
He was smoking at the building behind the auditorium by the second floor window when he saw you.
Wolf scoffed. You look so damn out of place.
Your emerald uniform stood out in contrast from Ganghak’s deep red ones.
He recognised the uniform. X Academy, that’s quite prestigious. Not that Ganghak isn’t. The school that he goes to is known to also be pretty expensive. But X Academy is on a whole different level.
Wolf blinked lazily, taking a drag out of his cigarette as he watches you stroll around the pile of dumpster. Occasionally, you would stop and stare at some parts of the building before moving on to continue your stroll.
You were about to head in back into the building when a stray cigarette bud fell right in front of your feet.
“Careful there, rich girl. You don’t wanna get stunned do you.”
You looked up to see a Ganghak boy with purple hair smirking down at you. When you tilt your head confused, he would gesture for you to look down. And only then did you saw it.
A broken extension cord lying seemingly innocuous on the far edge of puddle just one step away from you.
“Not even a ‘thank you’? Damn, I just saved your life, you know.”
“Oh. Yeah, thank you. I didn’t see that. What’s your name?”
Wolf contemplated for a second.
“Wolf.“
“Ah, I see. I’m y/n, it was nice meeting you!”
Wolf frowned. Somehow a bit annoyed when you simply leave right after saying that.
So he took his phone out and called the only reliable person there is in Ganghak.
“Hwangmo, do you know anything about the old farts that came in today?”
#weak hero class 1#weak hero manhwa#weak hero webtoon#weak hero x reader#ben park#donald na#gerard jin#wolf keum#wolf keum x reader#alex go
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The abject narcissism of the insular Left is startling. They apparently believe the American public is amnesiac enough to forget what leftists once did, now that they're doing the utter opposite. And they assume we are to discount their hypocrisy and self-absorption simply because they self-identify as erudite and moral and assume their opponents are irredeemable and deplorable.
Impeachment
The Left is saturating the airwaves with outrage over the current House Republicans' impeachment inquiry. They allege that formally investigating Joe Biden's role in the family grifting operation is somehow a poor constitutional precedent, if not out-of-bounds entirely.
So we hear further arguments that it will be unwise to impeach a first-term president when he loses his House majority, that there is no reason to "waste" congressional time and effort when Biden will be automatically acquitted in the Democratically controlled Senate, and that the impeachment is cynically timed to synchronize with president's reelection efforts.
All of these are the precise arguments many of us cited when Donald Trump was impeached in December 2019 (as his reelection campaign began, and immediately after being cleared of the 22-month, $40-million-special-counsel Russian-collusion hoax).
The Democrats tried to remove an elected president over a phone call without a special counsel's report. So Trump was impeached only after the 2018 election led to a Democratic House majority, which went from eating up nearly two years of his administration in the Russian-collusion hoax straight into the impeachment farce. There was no concern about the cost to the nation of putting an elected government into a continual state of siege.
There is one difference, though, between the Trump impeachment and the Biden impeachment inquiry. Donald Trump was impeached because he accurately accused the members of the Ukrainian government of paying Hunter Biden, with his zero fossil fuel expertise, an astronomical sum to serve on the Burisma board -- as the costly quid that earned the lucrative quo from his dad Vice President Joe Biden.
No one now denies that Joe Biden got prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired by threatening to cancel legislatively-approved U.S. aid. Shokin knew about the skullduggery through which the Biden family eventually received $6.5 million from Ukraine -- and so Biden ensured his firing, and publicly bragged about it in performance-art fashion.
In sum, Trump had a perfect right as commander in chief to delay (he did not cancel) aid to Ukraine, to ensure that its government was not still paying off the Bidens for their lobbying efforts on its behalf.
It is also now clear that Biden serially lied about his ignorance of Hunter's shake-down operation. In fact, he was, as Devon Archer emphasized, "the brand" central to Hunter's scheme to coerce money from foreign governments. Joe was proverbially, in Hunter's words "the man sitting next to me" and thus able to either punish or reward foreign interests, depending on the size of the checks they wrote to his various fronting family members.
Offspring subpoenas
The left is now furious that Hunter has been subpoenaed by the House to testify in private about how he earned his multimillion-dollar income, whether he fully paid taxes on it, and to whom he distributed his winnings.
Hunter has refused to testify. He is now being held in contempt of the U.S. Congress -- to the silence of the usually self-righteous former senator Joe "pay your fair share" Biden.
We hear sanctimonious harangues that Joe is guilty of loving "his only son" Hunter too much, or that it is way out of bounds for a Department of Justice prosecutor to hound Joe Biden by going "after his family," or that Republican congressional subpoenas and contempt findings should be summarily ignored.
Ask Peter Navarro or Steve Bannon whether one can simply ignore a House subpoena. Ask Ivanka Trump whether she was, or was not, subpoenaed to appear before the January 6 committee. Ask the Trump sons whether they could breezily say "no" to Letitia James's subpoenas in her farcical real-estate-valuation suit against Trump.
Whistleblowers
Do we remember when, not long ago, whistleblowers were noble?
The alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella, an Obama holdover who had burrowed inside the Trump administration, had zero firsthand knowledge of the Trump phone call to Ukrainian president Zelensky. Ukrainian expatriate Lt. Col Alexander Vindman was on the call, as a member of the Trump national security team. He broke the law and apparently disclosed the classified call -- in outrage that Trump was apparently too hard on his native Ukraine -- to Ciaramella, and then hid the latter's identity. Both met privately with Rep. Adam Schiff (D -- CA) to engineer an impeachment writ.
This impeachment gambit was well-known to the media and the Democratic House. Both Vindman and Ciaramella were canonized as invaluable tools in wearing down Trump in a way that the failed Mueller prosecution had never done.
And whistleblowers now?
IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and 13-year Special IRS Agent Joe Ziegler never violated any statute or disclosed classified information. They did not leak a presidential phone call to a foreign leader.
Instead, both came forward as whistleblowers to testify before Congress about how the Biden Justice Department deliberately and carefully ensured that the mountain of evidence for the prosecution of Hunter Biden that they had presented had simply been ignored -- at least long enough for the statute of limitations to run out on his most egregious crimes.
When they both made their case that facts proved the Biden family received huge sums for selling access to or action from Joe Biden, they were roundly trashed by Democrats in Congress and pilloried as disgruntled politicos by a toady press.
Dictators
Never-Trumpers and leftists vie to predict the most nightmarish consequence of a 2024 Trump election win. Supposedly, he will commit every imaginable sin, from ending habeas corpus to jailing his enemies.
This fear-mongering has no basis in fact, especially given that the nation has already experienced a Trump administration for four years. And it saw none of the weaponization of the CIA, FBI, DOJ, and IRS that we have seen under the Biden and earlier Obama administrations. There was no concerted effort to destroy the 2020 Biden campaign in the manner of the 2016 Russian-collusion caper, no FBI suppression of evidence as we saw in the case of the Hunter laptop, no warping of a FISA court, no paying social media corporations FBI money to suppress news unfavorable to Trump. And so on.
The Burden of Familial Indictments?
Suddenly yet another new narrative emerges: Joe Biden is unduly preoccupied, bearing the enormous burden of Hunter's indictments. Apparently, we have never appreciated the supposedly unnecessary and cruel encumbrance on a president when his son is indicted.
So, we are told that a son's legal exposure is an unfair weight on a president.
Have we again forgotten the subpoenaed Trump children, much less the four weaponized indictments of Trump himself? Does anyone wish to compare the drug-addicted, prostitute-hiring, gun-losing, pornographic-photo-taking, shake-down grifting of Hunter with the conduct of the five Trump children?
What would Biden think if the next Republican Secretary of State had once tried to ruin him by rounding up "51 intelligence authorities" to blatantly lie that a Trump son's incriminating laptop was not his own, in order to affect the 2024 election -- all in the manner of the Antony Blinken 2020 ruse? Or imagine a future National Security advisor who had once tried, in Jake Sullivan's 2016 way, to concoct a malicious yarn that Hunter was engineering a computer ping correspondence from Biden headquarters to Moscow. Would those be burdens on Biden? Were they on Trump?
It may well be unwise to impeach a president in his first term when he loses his House majority. It may certainly set a bad precedent to subpoena the children of presidents. It may be regrettable that whistleblowers are either unduly demonized or sanctified. And it is of course wrong to smear a president as a veritable Hitlerian dictator.
But the left does not see such absolutes. Instead, once a supposedly morally-superior agenda is enunciated, then any means necessary are justified to obtain it.
And that alternate reality ensures that impeaching a president, indicting him, subpoenaing his kids, praising or libeling whistleblowers, or smearing a president as a dictator become good or bad things only by determining whether they prove useful to the progressive project.
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“Deku-kun!” Ochako chirps when Izuku finally picks up the phone. “Mina-chan told me she heard from Kirishima-kun who heard from Bakugou-kun! He’s coming back from America for New Years!”
Izuku’s heart leaps into his throat. He scrambles for a response that isn’t garbled noises.
“Excited?” Ochako teases.
“Yeah. It’ll be great to see him.” Izuku says as neutrally as he can.
It's been five years, eight months, and two days since he last saw Kacchan. But who’s counting? Almost six years of scouring youtube for videos of Kacchan (“Get that fucking camera out of my fucking face you shitty extra!” In irritated english), for interviews with Kacchan (“Excessive force is fucking real but what the fuck was I supposed to do? Sit back and jerk off while the fucker had hostages? He's still alive isn't he? I didn’t even fucking burn him!”), news reels of Kacchan (“Hey! Get back and calm down! I got this!”)
The Americans love him. His brand of rudeness, bluntness and arrogance helps him fit right in. His instagram (which he updates once in a blue moon and always with thirst traps of him working out) is full of fans begging him to spit on them. Izuku can respect that Kacchan found a market that would take him just as he is.
The problem though, with Kacchan being an american hero is that his merch is almost impossible to get. Shipping alone costs an arm and a leg, and Kacchan’s website doesn't do international shipping. Izuku thinks it's crazy that globalization can be such a thing and he has to pay forty dollars just to get a Dynamight brand key chain (it's adorable, shaped like a little grenade with Kacchan’s orange x logo across it, he needs it yesterday.)
Sometimes, Izuku almost gives in. He scrolls through his cart and thinks fuck it, I deserve a treat. I’ll do it! But he never does.
But now, Kacchan is coming back home.
Izuku deliberates for a long time. He swishes the idea back and forth like mouthwash, before he finally makes up his mind.
He opens a long ignored text thread with Kacchan (the last message was his birthday. A very simple series of emojis. A bomb. A cake. A party hat. Izuku had replied “thanks i think” and been left on read.) he sends a screenshot of the very fluffy winter uniform themed hoodie he's been salivating after and a message that says “you owe me six years worth of christmas gifts. Get me one and we’ll call it even”
He's left on read.
Three days after new years, Izuku stumbles over to the door to silence the incessant knocking. “Yes, what is— Kacchan?!”
There's Kacchan, hair a little windswept, nose red from the cold, a massive box under his arm. He’s still so fucking beautiful he makes his heart stop. “You gonna catch flies all night or you gonna let me in? It’s fucking cold.”
Izuku numbly steps aside. It's not like he expected Kacchan to look different. He updated his insta story just yesterday. But he’s here, in Izuku’s space, breathing Izuku's air, and Izuku doesn't even know what to say. Kacchan just huffs impatiently at him and shoves the box into his arms. “What's this?” He asks, already ripping into it.
Kacchan shrugs, slouching his way to the sofa and dropping into it like it's a throne. “You think I don't know your stalker nerd ass wants way more than the hoodie?”
The box is full of all sorts of Dynamight merch. Izuku’s eyes sting. “Kacchan—“ he starts, voice wobbling.
“Oh my god no. Don't get all sappy okay. It's no big deal!” Kacchan grouses. He looks at the wall of All Might merch, the light in the kitchen, the weave in the sofa’s fabric. “It's just been a while.”
Izuku abandons the box of merch to sit at Kacchan’s knee, letting his fingers rest low on his thigh, squeezing gently until Kacchan finally looks at him. “Thank you.” He says sincerely. And then, before Kacchan can cheapen the moment, “I missed you a lot.”
Kacchan sighs through his nose, shoulders relaxing. “Yeah.”
Later, Izuku is recorded off duty and proudly repping his Dynamight merch. The fan behind the camera giggles, “Deku! Are you a Dynamight fan?”
“The biggest!” Izuku answers proudly.
In America, Katsuki closes the video, snaps his Deku brand popsocket closed, and pretends he’s not in a really good mood.
#Bnha#mha#bakudeku#bkdk#post canon#fic#This has been living in my head rent free for so long so now i’m subjecting the internet to it#They are pro heroes and baku moved to america and deku just REALLY wants dynamight merch why is shipping so expensive?!
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Breakdown After Breakdown
So interest rates have gone up, making paying our already HUGE mortgage even more difficult. Partner’s wages aren’t exactly rising. And the cost of food is so high the government is now investigating our two big chain supermarkets for adding to the cost of living stress on the populace.
All this is happening at a time when my partner and I are experiencing major burnout, enduring family drama, and I received some truly terrifying health news (my GI tract is very literally melting from off-the-charts inflammation and I am at high risk for colon cancer, among other things).
We have been saddled with so much bad news and hardship that we feel we’re about to lose our minds, so we go fuck it, we NEED a break, and booked a cheap motel for two nights over Easter near a national park. We had the modest ambition of spending time in nature looking for orchids and birds.
Yeah, we got one day of that before our old second hand car (which we bought for a few thousand dollars from the side of the road last year) decided to break down for the umpteenth time, and we spent 12 hours of the second day of our 2 day vacation just trying to get home (eventually being towed). The SAME DAY my partner got a virus on his ancient laptop and my mobile phone started to fail. We purchased a new, bargain basement phone in town while waiting for the tow truck to arrive, and less than 2 weeks later I dropped it and smashed the camera on it. YAY.
So no break for us. Fine.
But then shit kept hitting the fan. When we got home, MY computer started to sputter out and die. We cannot afford a new computer right now, as we’re paying off a ton of medical expenses for me, so a week later my partner bought parts for it and rebuilt it himself.
And then there’s the car situation.
Since Easter, 3 mechanics have looked at the car, can identify there is a major problem, but cannot FIND it. So it remains broken. My car is also really old and sprung a leak in the boot and got soaked after a storm, so that now it stinks to high heaven from musty mold. But we cannot afford another car, so OH WELL. I have a severe mold allergy and a sensitive nose but we cannot afford to valet it, and partner has sincerely had no time to clean it.
Then: our vacuum cleaner broke and the very next day the lawn mower broke, too. The mower repair shop would not even repair it because “that brand is such a cheap piece of shit it’ll just break on you in a few more days and I don’t wanna be held liable”. Wow.
And then this morning the towel rail broke after I hit my head onto it for the millionth time, and the wheel came off the laundry trolley for the second time before a huge load of towels finished in the washing machine. I am already disabled and currently have an inflamed nerve in my right foot, so the lack of a trolley is REALLY not helpful.
This is the week I have to spend an ungodly amount of money on three separate medical professionals and order a very expensive medical test to maaaaybe find the pathogen destroying my gut.
I recently watched a TLDR Global news video about the fertility crisis in South Korea and the world at large and it rightly points out house prices and cost of living being a deterrent for people to have babies. Under the video was a comment that I feel sums up what it is like to be alive in this 21st century:
“Long working hours. Low wages. High costs. No chance of ever owning a house. 0 work-life balance without a child, let alone with one. Layoffs left right and center. Hard if not impossible to get a job even with experience. Life is stressful as is already. Low standards of life. Nothing is family friendly - work, life, schools etc. A lot of the institutions still have the same mentality of - man works, woman stays at home, and it just doesn't fit how people want to live now.”
We are childless and partially own our own home (and only with assistance from the Bank of Mum And Dad as the boomers love to call it) and WE are struggling. How the HELL is humanity going to keep going like this? I am so worn down by the grind of everything, and relative to fellow millennials, we’re doing WELL. The only freedom is money, which the vast majority of us do not have in amounts that would actually afford us quality of life.
All I can say in the face of all this, is fuck capitalism.
And also fuck Australia, which appears to be its biggest bitch at the moment:
Source: TLDR News Global
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From that ask dingus:
11. something on your wishlist?
21. how do you like your pizza?
27. what fascinates you about humanity?
11. A binder TwT but it’s costs quite a bit to get (and I am undecided on a style) so I’m holding off for now
21. Preferably I like thick chewy crusts but I don’t mind if I get thin ones
And honestly with me and pizza toppings anything goes as long as the combination isn’t disgusting! Hear me out on this: pear blue cheese and walnut pizza. Nobody understands that combination but me and my family! It’s freakin’ delicious! Try it I dare you
27. The capacity of the kindness and care of strangers.
I visited America once, and was using cash to pay for a meal at an automated order machine thing but it wouldn’t recognise my twenty dollar bill. A kind man swapped his bill with mine seeing my struggle ^^
Another time, I was really upset that I’d lost something important on public transport and a nice girl asked if I was okay, and told me how I could get it back when I explained everything.
But I think the event that stands out to me the most happened last autumn.
I was on my way back from a concert with a friend. It was your worst nightmare: phones are dead, it’s a Sunday night with work the next day, and we had to keep a family member updated with whereabouts for safety stuff. I wrote down the route back home on a piece of paper, and after accidentally going the wrong way on the bus, we managed to run into some other people from the gig who got on when we headed back the right way.
Now this is where fandom is very helpful; one of them let me borrow their phone and call home because I was wearing a Toby Fox pin. The shared understanding of something like that can bring people together, like allies helping allies.
The bus got to the station we needed to be at, and we then found a few more people who were all travelling the same way, so naturally we banded together. It was a tiring, but still enjoyable trip back chatting about the concert, the artists featured, the set list etc. Before we parted ways, I called home again to update them, thanked those lovely people for their help, and changed trains to head home.
We made it back in one piece despite the emotional turmoil of being underprepared and going to a gig on a freakin’ Sunday. If it weren’t for them I think we might have been in a bit of a bind…
If somehow the people who were there see this and remember us, thank you for sharing your phone and your company with us!! Still grateful after all this time 💙
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Please help Rowan
https://www.gofundme.com/f/hp3x4-help-me-not-lose-my-home?member=17624197&sharetype=teams&utm_campaign=p_na+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer
I know their go fund me looks fully funded but it’s not, that’s the goal that was set back in december and they haven’t updated it. They still need help.
Rowan was kicked from their house in their teens (I’m sorry I’m using they/them because I’m not entirely sure on their pronouns I think it might be he/him but I don’t want to assume) for being queer. They spent some time being homeless and then finally got out of that and went back to school to become a mortician when they got diagnosed with cancer
Since 2020 I’ve been posting in a PMF thread called Passing Time In Chemotherapy: A Diary, which has been equal parts me talking about fighting Stage Four Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and being given two months to live, and equal parts screaming about how horrible the American Healthcare System is and trying to make a case for universal healthcare.
Briefly I went into remission and then my cancer returned. I also have Stage 1 breast cancer. These last two weeks I have been in the hospital with a kidney disease likely brought on by my chemotherapy treatments, and a lung disease which I need tests to rule out that it’s lung cancer.
The problem is I need $4500 to continue receiving care because I am am several hundred thousands dollars in debt due to my chemotherapy. Each chemo treatment cost me $50k after insurance, which no sane person has, so the debt has built up to the point where I am being held hostage for micropayments in the thousands of dollars range in order to receive life saving treatments.
I received mod approval to post a GoFundMe I set up in order to pay just for December healthcare bills. I will either lose treatment or lose my home, and I was recently homeless over a year a few years ago and would not like to repeat the experience. My wife is permanently disabled after her battle with Ovarian Cancer (and needs another $800 down payment foe a surgery but that’s ANOTHER can of worms).
Basically, without goon help, I am fucked. I have zero plans for Christmas or any holidays this season because I’m too busy fighting to keep my home and my health. My GFM is nearly halfway funded as it is, and on the off chance that it gets overfunded the excess will go towards my wife’s surgery.
Both my GFM page and my PMF thread show I am very transparent with where the money goes and what it’s spent on, so no worries there.
You can find my GoFundMe here! I intent to post an update to it this evening to keep everyone up to date with health stuff.
If you would rather donate something other than money, which I totally get, I have an Amazon wishlist here which is mostly household things we need and food for the cats. I will happily post pictures of them in the thread. They are very sweet baby who cry if a stranger comes to the apartment and doesn’t pick them up. I’ll try to stay on top of removing items from the wishlist as they get bought.
I’m not very good with signing off posts, but if anyone has any questions about Lymphona or chemo or the american healthcare system (or just want to see cat photos!) please feel free to ask and I’ll answer as best I can!
Thank you in advance for your generosity and kindness. Bless.
Edit 12/10: It was suggested that I throw my Venmo in the OP for those who would rather donate that way!
Venmo: @moringottos
Paypal (please ignore my deadname it’s a nightmare to change): paypal.me/necromancermoons
This is their update today, May 25 2022:
The minimum payments for my medical bills in arrears (mostly chemo) comes out of my bank account automatically to prevent them from suing me over it. I’ve already used my one (1) free grace period of “please give me a few more days before you take my money” according to the lady on the phone, so I’m left with $0.11 in my bank account with several bills, including rent, looming on the horizon. The electric company has already made it very clear they will not hesitate to cut off my power if I even act like I’m going to be late.
What do you even do when faced with this level of “fuck you entirely”? I keep telling myself that people are inherently good, but between this and the news and the man at the insurance company writing me a polite email that says “if you have another cancer, try dying this time”, I’m starting to have a hard time with it.
May 18, 2022 7:32 PM
Due to some concerning test results my oncologist is now pushing for testing for multiple myeloma. MM killed my birth dad. I think I may have sorta blacked out during half of what she said. I asked her if it was usual to have this sort of insane cancerous comorbidity, she said it’s not impossible.
The imagining center got back to me FINALLY. They said even though my insurance is up in the air and they usually require payment at time of service, my doctors have been hounding them enough that they will let me have a payment plan for x-rays and scans costs.
I’ve had enough biopsies that the MM tests don’t scare me like they would have two years ago. Immediately after my lung biopsy I threw up a ton of blackish blood so I feel inoculated to the trauma.
Anyways at this point it feels silly, like my body is throwing this massive temper tantrum that it doesn’t want to be here anymore and it’s like “understandable, but consider: we can’t let capitalism win”.
Also god won’t let me die because then I’ll be his problem.
the threads: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3987338&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 I believe this one isn’t paywalled
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3916924 but this one might be, this is their diary of day to days of discovering the cancer (they went to the hospital for covid originally). warning: this thread might be very upsetting and hard to read if you have hospital or cancer trauma. or even without
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HEATING GUY
*ring ring ring... ring ring ring
“Hi, ya, this is Danny, I ain’t here, leave a message.”
Robot lady: “After the tone, please record your voicemail. When you’ve finished recording, please hang up or press 1 for more options.” *beeeep
In my warmest voice: “Hii, Danny, this is Ben Johnson. You came out to my house to fix the heat on my back porch a few weeks ago, here in Mansfield. Well, the heat on the main floor seemed to stop working a few days ago. And the gas fireplace hasn’t been working for a few months. Just doesn’t seem to be our winter for the heating. Anyway, was wondering if you had any times to come out to look at this. I don’t know if I should call Leigh Nichols first and go through him or if it’s okay that I just called you. My number is 774-266-5588 and again, this is Ben. Okay, hope you’re having a good day and catching some of this sun and hope to hear from you!”
An hour later the phone starts buzzing and the screen reads: Danny the heating guy. Eureka, he’s calling back!
“Hiii, Dannyyy, thanks so much for calling back.”
“Hi, ya, who’s this?”
“Oh, it’s Ben, I left a voicemail about my heating not working, about an hour ago.”
“Who a you?”
“Oh, um, you came out to my house a few weeks ago to fix the heat on the back porch?”
“When was it?”
“Like two... three weeks ago maybe?”
“So what’s up?”
“So the heating on the back porch is still working, thank god, still a bit cold back there because the insulation isn’t the best, but it’s working, and the heating upstairs and in the basement is working, it’s just the heat on the rest of the main floor -- kitchen, dining room, living room -- that I noticed stopped working on Friday, when it was getting really cold.”
“And who a you?”
“Um, my name’s Ben? Johnson?... I live on Franklin Street in Mansfield? You were out at the house like two weeks ago? I got in touch with you through Leigh Nichols last time?”
“Oh, Leigh Nichols, okay. Right. So what’s the problem?”
“So the heat on the main floor has stopped working. Nothing coming out of the baseboards.”
“What rooms?”
“Like the kitchen, living room, dining room.”
“Nothin coming atta the baseboards?”
“Right, yeah, I noticed on Friday, when it was getting really cold. But I didn’t want to bother you over the weekend.”
“And who a you?”
“My name is Ben. I live on Franklin Street in Mansfield. You came out to the house very recently and fixed the heat in the back room. I left you a voicemail about an hour ago and explained all this, not sure if you got a chance to listen to that.”
“And what’s the problem? Heat’s not workin?”
“It’s still working in the back room. Just not on the main floor now. Should I go through Leigh and call him? I just want to make sure not to go around him if you guys have some kind of agreement.”
“And who a you? A person?”
“Yeah I’m just a person. My name is Ben. Talking to probably a three-time Trump voter and who I’m completely desperately depending on to get the heating fixed so then three other things can go wrong and my mother will pay thousands of dollars more to get them fixed, without having any idea what it’s gonna cost up front.”
“Okay, ya, I’ll come out tonight afta work.”
“Oh you’ll come out tonight! That would be great! Yeah, I’ll be here. Obviously I have no plans and my life is secondary to other people’s lives that are so busy while they stare at their phones twenty hours a day and judge people and act super dodgy. Do you need me to send you the address again?”
“Ya, why don’t you.”
“Okay, thanks so much, Danny, really appreciate it. I’ll text you the address right now.”
“Okay, ya.” *click
And this is what it’s like trying to communicate with every... single... fucking... person. But at least he called back.
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We Are Well Beyond Hypocrisy
Victor Davis Hanson
8–10 minutes
The abject narcissism of the insular Left is startling. They apparently believe the American public is amnesiac enough to forget what leftists once did, now that they're doing the utter opposite. And they assume we are to discount their hypocrisy and self-absorption simply because they self-identify as erudite and moral and assume their opponents are irredeemable and deplorable.
Impeachment
The Left is saturating the airwaves with outrage over the current House Republicans' impeachment inquiry. They allege that formally investigating Joe Biden's role in the family grifting operation is somehow a poor constitutional precedent, if not out-of-bounds entirely.
So we hear further arguments that it will be unwise to impeach a first-term president when he loses his House majority, that there is no reason to "waste" congressional time and effort when Biden will be automatically acquitted in the Democratically controlled Senate, and that the impeachment is cynically timed to synchronize with president's reelection efforts.
All of these are the precise arguments many of us cited when Donald Trump was impeached in December 2019 (as his reelection campaign began, and immediately after being cleared of the 22-month, $40-million-special-counsel Russian-collusion hoax).
The Democrats tried to remove an elected president over a phone call without a special counsel's report. So Trump was impeached only after the 2018 election led to a Democratic House majority, which went from eating up nearly two years of his administration in the Russian-collusion hoax straight into the impeachment farce. There was no concern about the cost to the nation of putting an elected government into a continual state of siege.
There is one difference, though, between the Trump impeachment and the Biden impeachment inquiry. Donald Trump was impeached because he accurately accused the members of the Ukrainian government of paying Hunter Biden, with his zero fossil fuel expertise, an astronomical sum to serve on the Burisma board -- as the costly quid that earned the lucrative quo from his dad Vice President Joe Biden.
Recommended
No one now denies that Joe Biden got prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired by threatening to cancel legislatively-approved U.S. aid. Shokin knew about the skullduggery through which the Biden family eventually received $6.5 million from Ukraine -- and so Biden ensured his firing, and publicly bragged about it in performance-art fashion.
In sum, Trump had a perfect right as commander in chief to delay (he did not cancel) aid to Ukraine, to ensure that its government was not still paying off the Bidens for their lobbying efforts on its behalf.
It is also now clear that Biden serially lied about his ignorance of Hunter's shake-down operation. In fact, he was, as Devon Archer emphasized, "the brand" central to Hunter's scheme to coerce money from foreign governments. Joe was proverbially, in Hunter's words "the man sitting next to me" and thus able to either punish or reward foreign interests, depending on the size of the checks they wrote to his various fronting family members.
Offspring subpoenas
The left is now furious that Hunter has been subpoenaed by the House to testify in private about how he earned his multimillion-dollar income, whether he fully paid taxes on it, and to whom he distributed his winnings.
Hunter has refused to testify. He is now being held in contempt of the U.S. Congress -- to the silence of the usually self-righteous former senator Joe "pay your fair share" Biden.
We hear sanctimonious harangues that Joe is guilty of loving "his only son" Hunter too much, or that it is way out of bounds for a Department of Justice prosecutor to hound Joe Biden by going "after his family," or that Republican congressional subpoenas and contempt findings should be summarily ignored.
Ask Peter Navarro or Steve Bannon whether one can simply ignore a House subpoena. Ask Ivanka Trump whether she was, or was not, subpoenaed to appear before the January 6 committee. Ask the Trump sons whether they could breezily say "no" to Letitia James's subpoenas in her farcical real-estate-valuation suit against Trump.
Whistleblowers
Do we remember when, not long ago, whistleblowers were noble?
The alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella, an Obama holdover who had burrowed inside the Trump administration, had zero firsthand knowledge of the Trump phone call to Ukrainian president Zelensky. Ukrainian expatriate Lt. Col Alexander Vindman was on the call, as a member of the Trump national security team. He broke the law and apparently disclosed the classified call -- in outrage that Trump was apparently too hard on his native Ukraine -- to Ciaramella, and then hid the latter's identity. Both met privately with Rep. Adam Schiff (D -- CA) to engineer an impeachment writ.
This impeachment gambit was well-known to the media and the Democratic House. Both Vindman and Ciaramella were canonized as invaluable tools in wearing down Trump in a way that the failed Mueller prosecution had never done.
And whistleblowers now?
IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and 13-year Special IRS Agent Joe Ziegler never violated any statute or disclosed classified information. They did not leak a presidential phone call to a foreign leader.
Instead, both came forward as whistleblowers to testify before Congress about how the Biden Justice Department deliberately and carefully ensured that the mountain of evidence for the prosecution of Hunter Biden that they had presented had simply been ignored -- at least long enough for the statute of limitations to run out on his most egregious crimes.
When they both made their case that facts proved the Biden family received huge sums for selling access to or action from Joe Biden, they were roundly trashed by Democrats in Congress and pilloried as disgruntled politicos by a toady press.
Dictators
Never-Trumpers and leftists vie to predict the most nightmarish consequence of a 2024 Trump election win. Supposedly, he will commit every imaginable sin, from ending habeas corpus to jailing his enemies.
This fear-mongering has no basis in fact, especially given that the nation has already experienced a Trump administration for four years. And it saw none of the weaponization of the CIA, FBI, DOJ, and IRS that we have seen under the Biden and earlier Obama administrations. There was no concerted effort to destroy the 2020 Biden campaign in the manner of the 2016 Russian-collusion caper, no FBI suppression of evidence as we saw in the case of the Hunter laptop, no warping of a FISA court, no paying social media corporations FBI money to suppress news unfavorable to Trump. And so on.
The Burden of Familial Indictments?
Suddenly yet another new narrative emerges: Joe Biden is unduly preoccupied, bearing the enormous burden of Hunter's indictments. Apparently, we have never appreciated the supposedly unnecessary and cruel encumbrance on a president when his son is indicted.
So, we are told that a son's legal exposure is an unfair weight on a president.
Have we again forgotten the subpoenaed Trump children, much less the four weaponized indictments of Trump himself? Does anyone wish to compare the drug-addicted, prostitute-hiring, gun-losing, pornographic-photo-taking, shake-down grifting of Hunter with the conduct of the five Trump children?
What would Biden think if the next Republican Secretary of State had once tried to ruin him by rounding up "51 intelligence authorities" to blatantly lie that a Trump son's incriminating laptop was not his own, in order to affect the 2024 election -- all in the manner of the Antony Blinken 2020 ruse? Or imagine a future National Security advisor who had once tried, in Jake Sullivan's 2016 way, to concoct a malicious yarn that Hunter was engineering a computer ping correspondence from Biden headquarters to Moscow. Would those be burdens on Biden? Were they on Trump?
It may well be unwise to impeach a president in his first term when he loses his House majority. It may certainly set a bad precedent to subpoena the children of presidents. It may be regrettable that whistleblowers are either unduly demonized or sanctified. And it is of course wrong to smear a president as a veritable Hitlerian dictator.
But the left does not see such absolutes. Instead, once a supposedly morally-superior agenda is enunciated, then any means necessary are justified to obtain it.
And that alternate reality ensures that impeaching a president, indicting him, subpoenaing his kids, praising or libeling whistleblowers, or smearing a president as a dictator become good or bad things only by determining whether they prove useful to the progressive project.
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Rob Ratcliff
Hey. How ya doin'? As you can see, my name's Rob Ratcliff. I'm not really here because I think I deserve to be here ... but Kia was a sugar and insisted I belonged her because of the circumstances of my, shall we say, transformation. Me, bein' a rat and she's a lioness, I thought I'd better agree.
I left home when I was pretty young because my parents and I didn't much get along well and I had grandiose dreams of being a rock star. I played guitar and sang, but I really didn't hit the big time like I'd wanted. My dad died sometime after I left, and I felt so much shame that I never went back home. I was working at a restaurant in the daytime and worked as a musician in bars at night. This isn't what I wanted. I got into a band as lead singer and guitarist and we went on a college tour, gaining a little popularity. Then, when I'd gone near my hometown, I saw that there was a fundraiser going on to get this girl an operation to save her eyesight and if she didn't have the operation, she would eventually go blind, or worse, the tumor would continue to grow and kill her. My mouth dropped when I saw that it was my little sister, Sarah. I didn't want her to know I was there ... so I went to the hospital and talked to the doctors to find out just how expensive the operation was going to be. The cost was several hundreds of thousands of dollars and although they had insurance and had raised a lot of money, they were still about $34,000 short. I couldn't afford that ... but I couldn't let Sarah die either ... That's when I saw the ad for a clinical test subject. They said the non-physical test subject would be given a bonus of $25,000 and would receive comfortable living, including a residence and furnishings, clothing allowances and pay of $2500 a month. Anxiously, I called the number and waited for an answer. After a few minutes of talking to the woman on the phone, I was overjoyed to hear that no one had yet filled the non-physical test subject. In twenty minutes, I was on my way to be interviewed. The woman who interviewed me was attractive, if a little older than me and she sat me down to fully explain what was expected of, and what was going to happen to, me. She told me that Gainex 6 was a dietary supplement that was designed to give extra energy to athletes or to provide extra nutrition to those who were malnourished or grossly underweight. In order for me to, basically be set for life, I would take the supplement as if I were a world class athlete but refrain from doing any strenuous activity. In essence, they were gonna see how much fat I gained taking the supplement if I did no exercise. I agreed. The woman asked me why I was doing this. She asked if I was a feedee. I told her I didn't know what that was, but my little sister needed an operation and without she'd die. I told her how much the operation was and she made arrangements to have the bill paid when I began treatment. I asked her not to tell my mom and sister where the money was coming from. I didn't want them to know. The woman agreed. The next day, I had all my physical stats measured and documented. Then the twelve week treatment began.
End of First Week: By the end of week one, I've gained 20 pounds, bringing my weight to 181 lbs. I'd been given the dosage of two pills twice a day. I have a hard time believing how fast and easily the weight had come. I hadn't eaten any more food than I normally did and now my pants are really tight in the gut. It's really dawning on me why I 'm the only one to volunteer ... or be chosen.
End of Second Week: The second week shows me a gain of 25 pounds, for a total of 45 so far. I had to wear my belly over my pants by the middle of the week because I couldn't get them fastened any other way. Weighing in, I was 206 pounds. It's my heaviest weight ever. I feel depressed and a little disgusted at myself, having to resort to being a lab rat to help my little sister. It sucks.
End of Third Week: An additional pill for each dose was added to my regimen daily and by the end of the third week, I gained 50 pounds. 256 pounds. I can't even get my jeans up past my hips. My gut is getting huge and my thighs look pretty fat. If I'd gained 95 pounds in three weeks ... I can only cringe at the thought of the remaining nine weeks. I understand why the stipend is so high. I'm not going to be able to do anything. What have I done? What have I done?
End of Fourth Week: When I woke up this morning, I was 60 pounds heavier for the week. 316 pounds and 155 for the study. Over the last week, I stopped to really take note of myself and what was going on. There were worse things in life than growing obese. Lots more. And if it meant that Sarah would be well again, who cared how fat I got? If I got bigger than a house, then at least my baby sister would be taken care of and that's what mattered to me. The research scientist, Hollie Ward, noted my more jovial attitude and complimented me on it. She was quite pretty when she smiled and I began to look forward to her thorough weekly exams.
End of Fifth Week: This morning was a bit of a benchmark as I'd gained 75 pounds. I am 391 pounds now and my stomach is getting bigger and bigger. And softer. Every single pound I've gained went right below the skin, so when I walk around, I jiggle like Jell-o. Hollie cut me back to one pill three times a day and we both waited to see what would happen.
End of Sixth Week: Call me crazy, but I am acually disappointed to find I've only gained 32 pounds this week. I'm up to 423, but I feel as good as I did when I was thin. Actually, I felt better. Funny, huh? My face has gotten rounder now, and I have a distinct double chin, but I feel very contented. Hollie wants to keep me on a lower dosage and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
End of Seventh Week: This morning's weigh-in confirms that the drug doesn't stay long in the system, because I've only gained another 31 pounds. I'm up to 464 and I'm hoping Hollie will up the dose again. I feel very good about being fat now and I do want to be bigger than I am right now. I'm going to talk to her about it tomorrow when I go in for my weekly supply of pills.
End of Eighth Week: Still no increase in pills. In fact, she took me down to one pill a day from three. Over the week, I gained a miserable four pounds. I'm only 468. Shoot! I think I can do better than that on my own by just eating a couple of pies. My fat is kinda like a drug, because I want more. I'm not addicted or nothin' but I would like to be fatter.
End of Ninth Week: I'm now up to a whopping 473 due to the fact that I'm still on only one pill a day. I guess I should be grateful because I'm not losing weight. I took time off during the week to check in at the hospital to see how Sarah was doing. She'd had her surgery the week before and the doctor said she was doing very well and that the surgery was an incredible success. She must have heard me asking the doctor about her, because I had seen her peek out from her room and look down the hall at me. She said my name, as if she sorta recognized me, but wasn't sure. I almost looked at her, but instead, hurried away. She came after me, calling my name again, but I was into the elevator before she could really see my face. How grateful I was to have my fat body. She wasn't sure it was me, and I didn't want her to know it was me. I couldn't come back into their lives now ... not when I'd abandoned them. That would be too selfish.
End of TenthWeek: Success! Hollie gave me eight! Eight pills a day for one week only! When I rolled out of bed this morning, I waddled (yes, I no longer walk - I waddle) to the office for my weigh-in. Drum roll please! I am now 602! That's 129 pounds gained in seven days! My total weight gain in ten weeks is 431 pounds. I've gained more than three times my original weight. Hollie seems to linger a little longer these days when she's measuring my waistline. I asked her if she liked me ... as boyfriend material. I told her I wasn't as smart as she was, but I could sing to her and play my guitar to serenade her. She smiled and told me yes. I couldn't believe it! She said she liked me as a boyfriend ... but then I asked her if she had a boyfriend. She told me yes. My heart sank. She told me about him. His name was Robert, but he went by Rob and that he was a very fat guy, but he was sweet and selfless and that she had been dating him for about ten weeks. Imagine my shock!
End of EleventhWeek: This week, Hollie cut me back to four pills and I only gained 35 pounds because I was using more of the calories to maintain my weight. If I wanted to stay big, I'd have to continue taking 2-3 pills a day. If I wanted ... If ... as I sit here and write this down, there's no doubt in my mind. I don't want to be thin ever again. I love this man that I've become, down to the last flabby inch and pound. I'll never go back unless my health fails, but again, I feel better now with all this poundage than I did when I was skinny. Hollie says that the medicine has adapted my body for extreme fatness and that the fat has made me healthier. Sounds really odd, but I believe her. My weight this morning was 637. Maybe I'll make it closer to 700 for next week. It's my last week. I can feel my pants getting tighter every day and it won't be more than three or four days before these pants are history. I can barely get them on now. As for my neck, it's history. I've only got chins. =) )) I'm happier now than I've ever been. Thank God for this clinical trial!
End of Twelfth Week: Hollie was an angel! She rigged it so I would gain close to a hundred pounds. A little under, but I'm happy to be an enormous 721 pounds. Now that I'm so obese (and happily so!) she's taking me to the wonderful home I now own. I was really shocked to see the house. It's so huge! Everything inside is geared for my size. My bed, bathroom, everything is designed with a super-sized person in mind. There's even a bidet! Lord knows I need one, as big as my butt is. For the first time since this started, I got to look at myself in a full length mirror. Man! I'm a lard-bucket! A handsome, super-fat man. I could see that my belly was down to my knees and my thighs and calves had rolls of fat on them which made them a little lumpy, but it was fine with me. Happy at last. My sister was being cared for, and I had a place of my own and money to keep me living comfortably.
Twenty-fourth Week after Treatment: My weeks of bliss turned to terror today. Sarah and Mom ... they found me. Seems Mom insisted to know who provided the aid to pay for the surgery. When White Plains Research Center's name came up, she called and through some smooth talking, she managed to get enough information out to get my name. A little more sleuthing and she found my home. When the doorbell rang and I waddled up to answer it, imagine my horror to see Mom standing there, eyes wide as saucers and slackjawed. She'd last saw me three years ago, at 160 pounds and looking rather rough. Now I was in the grossly obese category, even though quite cleaned up. She spoke my name and I nodded, telling her that it was, indeed, her son Robert. Sarah pushed past Mom and pushed herself up against my gut. She said "I knew it was you, Rob!" in a rather, "I told you so" tone of voice. Mom told me that she'd wanted to find out who'd paid the hospital bills and that she'd gotten the info from the research center. She asked me where I got the money to help out. I put my hands on my fat belly and told her I volunteered to be a guinea pig and let myself be fattened by the Gainex 6 pills to pay for Sarah's operation. Mom's eyes filled with tears and she moved to me and hugged me. She told me I'd always be her little boy. Mom and Sarah's moving in with me and Hollie has agreed to marry me. I'm not a hero. I'm just an average guy who managed to get three wishes to come true: 1. I was able to get my sister cured. 2. I was able to come back home and find a girl who loved me without condition (save that I never decided to get thinner =D)) and 3. I've found what makes me truly happy. I've been very lucky. Thank you, God.
*A note from Akia: I've had the immense pleasure of meeting Rob in person. I've never met anyone as jovial and happy being so fat as he is. Hollie decided to take a week's worth of pills and now she's a plump 270 lbs herself. Take a look at Rob's band's album: Twenty Jars: Finding Yourself. Released on NewVision Records.
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Currently Feeling Like The Worst Person Alive
Rant post ahead, skip if you don't like sad/angry pouting.
This is my beautiful princess, Tonks. She's about 7 years old and is the most pampered baby I've ever had. She's also my first long-term cat, as before I'd only fostered a few.
She's always been a bit delicate, specifically regarding her health(little colds all the time, possibly allergies), but never anything serious...at least until the last year or so. A few months ago, she got a hematoma(swelling of the ear) that required a cannula(drain tube/surgery), and these past few weeks we've been dealing with a combination UTI/ear mites situation.
Luckily at her checkup, the ear mites seems to be taken care of, although the UTI came back after getting back from the appointment(was worried she had a blockage this time, but the pee -did- come out eventually, just took her a few tries).
So you may be wondering why I feel like a horrible person because of this? Well, it's because she also has shitty teeth and needs a deep cleaning/possible extraction...but of course it's going to cost over $700 dollars. Those who know me, and maybe those who don't can probably guess that I don't have that kind of money. I had to beg help from my parents just to cover the antibiotics/checkup(about $200 including vet fees for current issues, nearly $400 last year for the cannula).
I feel horrible because they've told me a few times over the years that her teeth weren't great and she'd probably need to have them cleaned. And because of the cost, I just keep putting it off, hoping that someday things would turn around financially and I'd be able to get her the help that she needs.
This has not happened yet...but I'm still hoping. She hasn't really been eating much the last few weeks, possibly because of the stress of medicine/appointments/uti pain...but her shitty teeth probably cause her pain every day too.
So here are my options:
1: Commissions: My primary source of income, and preferred method if I'm being honest. Cosplay costumes, dresses, purses, hell I've even done a few plushies now. If it's sewn, I can probably make it, and I use Paypal mostly(invoicing system allows for payment plans), but I also accept CashApp, Stripe, and a few others I can't remember. You can contact me about this in any form you wish. Tumblr message, IG, FB, email, anything except phone call(I don't have a 'business line', just a personal phone).
2: Patreon- I don't post newd stuff, but I do occasionally do tease things, but only for the higher tiers. I have a whole bunch of stuff planned to add to this if it ever actually gains traction, but for now I just post a set of pics(cosplay/casual/sometimes boudoir) once a week.
3: Donations- My least favorite, but possibly has the highest potential? I don't use GFM because they are greedy bastards that abuse the shit out of desperate people, so instead I use Ko-Fi(and CashApp too I guess?) If you don't wanna pay monthly, and don't have the funding for fancy-custom-made garments, but still want to help, this is the way to go. I also have a handful of digital patterns here as well, which I guess is a way to donate while still getting something back.
Sorry this griping ended up so long. I like to type when I'm extra frustrated and depressed, and I know Tumblr isn't the best place for money-raising, but I honestly just don't have the energy to attempt building a following anywhere else. I've been on IG for 8-10 years and still haven't hit 500 followers, so I just don't think I'm one of those people that flourishes in the spotlight.
Still, for the sake of my sweet little princess(I also have a dog with recently-developed seizures, and the other cat Cirilla is fine on health but just recently added to the bills with vaccine updates), I will keep trying until my dying breath.
#personal#begging#cat#commissions#help needed#desperate#I also have other crap happening#but the health of my kitty is the only thing I really care about right now
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6/27/23
Life for me is still content. My biggest complaint is an auto shop overfilled my tires and popped on the highway in a construction zone. I got a new tire for 67 dollars but needed a new rim. Then ended up needed to get all new tires, they were older tires and then over filled with tire pressure costing me over 800 dollars after spending 400 dollars on the car already. That's about a paycheck and a half for me.Thankfully my partner was there with me to calme.me down as we waited three hours in the middle of nowhere for a tow and then be told he'd be back later since he did not have room for both of us to be taken to the shop and we had to call my partners mother who thankfully just got out of work. My phone is also badly damaged and I'm in desperate need of a new one and due to the car am having to hold of awhile longer rather than sooner.
Besides that I still have my adoring partner, a wonderful roommate, a cat, and a dog. Sunday we got more free groceries from my roommates family and were very thankful for that and my boyfriends mother always gives me eggs her chickens produce. With out the help i don't know how well we could stick our pantry and fridge I'm very grateful for them. I have a vacation coming up in July with my partner at cedar point in a cabin we rented alone. Then after my vacation I will attend another parade with my friend in a pirate charity group. Their father, who was the captain, recently passed away and they are continuing his work as the new captain. This parade will be in my home town and I am excited to see my family and friends there. My relationships with those around me are well, even my mother and I have bonded more especially with a kitten she's adopted that doesn't have a tail.
Though my relationship are they also have their struggles. My roommate still is looking for a new job and worried about driving. Their lack of transportation has been stressful on both of us. I told her when I finally save up for a new car, after getting a new phone, I would sell her the one I currently have if its still in good (and by good still safe and running) condition. Her place of work, where I used to work and my pirate friend works, is now open to 12 am and she gets home at 1am or later. I often have to pick her up which is also hard for both of us. My next closest friend is helping out her mother. Her mother's boyfriend/father of her child overdosed and they kicked him out of the house. It's a stressful situation. She is trying to get into trade school, but she is vocal about how nerve-wracking it is for her. My pirate friend is trying out the dating scene and has been quite lonely with her mother gone often with her new job running tour/party buses. The other night we went to the bar at Applebee's after spending a day on the beach. We were bought drinks and it was fun, however their was a drunk and sexist man who wouldn't leave us alone and hugged on us a couple times. She seemed okay and I handled him well, but that part was still unfortunate. My partner also struggles. He hit a deer on his way to see me two months ago and his car is still in the shop. He borrowed his oldest brother's car since he was jobless, but his older brother took his car back to Door Dash due to family pressures and needing to pay his medical bills. His car should be back this week and he is relieved about that.
I did change jobs as of last week. I moved up into a CMH building in a poorer county. I get paid less but there's health insurance, pto, paid holiday, and a union, which makes up the difference. I would of had my RBT, but due to how awful online testing is with their anti heating system I was disqualified when my face became out of view when asked to show what was in the background. So I'll have to take it again.
There are some concerns with my coworkers. They are wonderful techs and has nothing to do with their work with the children, but their standpoints. Even though it is a mental health there has been racist and transphobic comments from half of the techs. One of the techs also admitted to violently robbing hookers as a teenager. This shocked me especially since she is newly a mother. The comments however I am not surprised about since it's a poorer rural area and I have seen dozens of trump stickers on staff members cars. Even things on the road made me realize how rural the area is such as a diy wooden nativity scene with signs saying "FEAR NOT GOD" and "REPENT WHILE THERE IS TIME". I also am not a big fan of the puzzle pieces in the shirts and cubicles on staff when it comes to autism awareness, but most autism centers have puzzle pieces so I am not upset, but rather uncomfortable with it. The company autism speaks, which uses the puzzle piece, has many faults and often covers up the voices of autistic individuals rather than lift them up. I prefer the rainbow infinity symbol made by the autistic community. I find it hard to by myself there.
My supervisor assigned me a mentor. I would be job shadowing but due to subbing in the building for half a year I do not need to job shadow. My mentor in this case is someone to go to for questions, which I tend to ask the first person I see truthfully. My supervisor picked the newly mom who used to violently rob hookers. She said she needs to soften up and I need to toughen up. So far it's gone well, but we don't speak often. I do think she is a wonderful tech and that there is much I could learn from her.
National news is all over. Trumps next trial is in December and he is running. His old vice president he almost let get killed is also running so that should be interesting. I like this one women who is running named Marianne Williamson. She seems to be quite honest about what is going on in the country especially after the pandemic. I am still nervous about all candidates even her. I don't trust our system and I don't believe capitalism and democracy work together. Greed tends to overpower freedom. Whatever freedom means now a days.
There were also some multimillionaires who died in a submarine on their way to the titanic. We all joked about them online and I am guilty of this. The submarine was poorly built and for the trip cost them about an iced Starbucks coffee to us. Lots of tax payer money was spent finding the already dead millionaire as they let immigrant boats sink killing thousands. So there were more laugh than tears for the rich. I do feel bad for the child, 19, on board.
Russia has a coup that was stopped in a day, however it shows the Russian citizens and even military grows tired of the war in Ukraine. It may even spark or already has sparked a civil war.
Pride has not been fun this year I did not do much for it as I wanted to. In fact a national emergency has been called for LGBTQIA members. It makes me nervous, I know I have a male partner at this time which keeps me more safe but I am still afraid. Two women who kissed each other were arrested since a child has seen it. They are now considered sex offenders and in one state that crime is punishable by death. They are finding ways to kill us. Trans have it the worst and our country is committing genocide against them it's no secret. Again even at work the hatred of trans are spoken of. I have friends who are trans and I worry for them. It really is a national emergency.
I think that sums up the last few months. It's almost 4am here now. I fell asleep around 8pm and woke up when my roommate came home. I had an apple took my medicine and began to write all this down. I will likely write again in a few months.
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