Instead of a smuppet site that makes millions, Grandpa Strider has an online doll shop where he creates different types of dolls for people to buy. They come in a wider variety than the ones seen in the picture, but those in particular are popular. The business provides a rather reasonable income for the two Striders, and Grandpa has been making and selling dolls for quite some time, since he was a young man in fact and discovered his fascination with them through Lil Cali. Regardless, it gives them food and a nice place to live, so it’s all good, and Lil Cali seems to enjoy watching.
However, Grandpa Strider has no clue where Lil Cali came from, only that he’s had her for as long as he can remember. (She came with him on his meteor, but hell if he knows about that.) Lil Cali is well-cared for though and has long been a close companion for Grandpa Strider. (Usually his only one.) He rather enjoys using her to fuck with people however, and it isn’t strange to see him carrying her in a baby sling while out and about or to make her move around the house to freak Dave out. (“To keep you on your toes,” he says.)
Sometimes though Grandpa finds Cali in places he never actually put her, such as on the sofa or in Dave’s room. Dave thinks it’s his Grandpa who puts her there, but honestly, it’s easier to think that than to consider that his Grandpa might not actually know how she got there. He locks his door at any rate. The dolls greatly unsettle Dave, and his grandpa is such a piece of shit for keeping them lying around everywhere. He wants to eat his breakfast in peace without blank, glossy eyes staring at him, thank you very much. Goddamnit grandpa.
More information on Lil Cali, the doll theme, and why it was chosen can be found here.
True story – There are historical accounts (well, there’s at least one historical account) in which English people whine about how the Norse men bathe so often they’re able to seduce the local women away from their husbands.
^^^ Yep. Turns out the women were way more into the hot well groomed muscular dudes who liked to smell nice.
*Hot, well groomed men who liked to smell nice and knew their way around sharp objects.
“I just don’t know why you couldn’t marry a local boy sweetie.”
“What can I say dad, Hjalmar bathes regularly, smells nice, has shoulders, can wield a sword and can wield his sword ifyaknowwhatImean, and when he comes back from raids likes to shower me in rare gifts from overseas. Look at this necklace! The amber beads came from the lands of the Rus! Also, he’s teaching me how to shoot a bow and use a spear because he thinks it might be nice if I could go on raids too someday.”
Hjalmar – Honey! I’m home! While I was out I picked you up a new bow and 44 arrows. It would have been 45 but I shot this boar for dinner with the one.
**Drops boar on table**
Oh and look what I picked up from France! **sets 12 bottles of floral perfume on countera** Half for you, half for me. I like the one in the blue bottle. I’m going to go clean up, I’ll be a while. Can you start prepping the boar for dinner?
Elizabeth – **swoons first. Preps boar second. Goes out to shoot bow with Hjalmar after dinner** you’re cooking tomorrow, I want to practice with this more tomorrow.
Hjalmar – of course! Need you ready for going viking next spring.
“Insulin products costs very little to manufacturer, but prices have skyrocketed in recent years. A vial of insulin that once cost around $25 now goes for about $400 to $500. The activists are demanding that Sanofi immediately lower the price of its insulin products by 90 percent.
…"Dr. Vikas Saini, co-director of the Right Care Alliance and an organizer of the protest, pointed to recent researchshowing that the cost of manufacturing insulin is so low that companies like Sanofi could drastically reduce their prices and still enjoy a 500 percent retail markup. Saini said insulin has been around for a century and costs about $5 to manufacture, so nobody should die from lack of access.
…"Under a for-profit health system, even people who have health coverage can find medicine unaffordable.
…"The three major insulin manufacturers have come under increasing pressure to lower prices as this crisis continues to make headlines.
…"A class-action lawsuit filed in a federal court in New Jersey accuses Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi of acting like an insulin “cartel” and raising prices “in lockstep,” and the court recently granted the Type 1 Diabetes Defense Foundation permission pursue a parallel lawsuit against insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers for their role in the affordability crisis, along with manufacturers.”
The Associated Press correspondent at the border just reported that we’ve started tear-gassing toddlers:
The context is that asylum-seekers have been trapped in overstretched shelters in Mexico by a series of policy changes by the Trump administration and agreements between the Trump administration and the Mexican government, and today a group of refugees marched to the U.S. border to request dialogue + petition to be allowed to make the asylum claim that under standard interpretations of international law they are entirely entitled to make. The U.S. closed the border crossing. One woman with a tear-gassed three-year-old told reporters that the U.S. launched tear gas at the crowd when some refugees started trying to squeeze through the fence. No one crossed into the U.S. Thanks to the strong winds, migrants who weren’t near the fence were still choked by it.
It would be legal and manageable under U.S. law to admit every one of these families, give their case for asylum a hearing in a court of law, and allow private charities and churches to provide for their safety and settlement in the U.S. pending those cases. The administration decided to make this their hill to die on instead, and has pushed for the use of lethal force.
There’s a really dangerous and scary phenomenon where someone becomes convinced that any shred of humanity or decency they show will be a foot in the door, and that their only option is to keep buckling down, and to take all failures to get what they want as evidence they weren’t forceful enough. It’s the spiral of escalation that leads to choking toddlers with gas grenades and feeling like you’re in the right because if you granted these people a hearing some of them would stay in the country and that’d encourage more of them and there’s no way at all to reach any kind of equilibrium except vicious violence at the outset, made more vicious every time the current level of force fails to get everything you want from every single person out there. I’m scared that the forces at the border will keep escalating.
I don’t really know a good way to have institutional checks that go “our objective here is not that we win and they lose, no matter what; our objectives also include not being drawn into tear-gassing toddlers.”
Cheloneuniverse 