#30/04/2021

[aureliebella]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Reverse engineers bust sleazy gig work platform

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/23/hack-the-class-war/#robo-boss

A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION

Supposedly, these lines were included in a 1979 internal presentation at IBM; screenshots of them routinely go viral:

https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1385565737167724545?lang=en

The reason for their newfound popularity is obvious: the rise and rise of algorithmic management tools, in which your boss is an app. That IBM slide is right: turning an app into your boss allows your actual boss to create an "accountability sink" in which there is no obvious way to blame a human or even a company for your maltreatment:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

App-based management-by-bossware treats the bug identified by the unknown author of that IBM slide into a feature. When an app is your boss, it can force you to scab:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

Or it can steal your wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But tech giveth and tech taketh away. Digital technology is infinitely flexible: the program that spies on you can be defeated by another program that defeats spying. Every time your algorithmic boss hacks you, you can hack your boss back:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to

Technologists and labor organizers need one another. Even the most precarious and abused workers can team up with hackers to disenshittify their robo-bosses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

For every abuse technology brings to the workplace, there is a liberating use of technology that workers unleash by seizing the means of computation:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/13/solidarity-forever/#tech-unions

One tech-savvy group on the cutting edge of dismantling the Torment Nexus is Algorithms Exposed, a tiny, scrappy group of EU hacker/academics who recruit volunteers to reverse engineer and modify the algorithms that rule our lives as workers and as customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Algorithms Exposed have an admirable supply of seemingly boundless energy. Every time I check in with them, I learn that they've spun out yet another special-purpose subgroup. Today, I learned about Reversing Works, a hacking team that reverse engineers gig work apps, revealing corporate wrongdoing that leads to multimillion euro fines for especially sleazy companies.

One such company is Foodinho, an Italian subsidiary of the Spanish food delivery company Glovo. Foodinho/Glovo has been in the crosshairs of Italian labor enforcers since before the pandemic, racking up millions in fines – first for failing to file the proper privacy paperwork disclosing the nature of the data processing in the app that Foodinho riders use to book jobs. Then, after the Italian data commission investigated Foodinho, the company attracted new, much larger fines for its out-of-control surveillance conduct.

As all of this was underway, Reversing Works was conducting its own research into Glovo/Foodinho's app, running it on a simulated Android handset inside a PC so they could peer into app's data collection and processing. They discovered a nightmarish world of pervasive, illegal worker surveillance, and published their findings a year ago in November, 2023:

https://www.etui.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/Exercising%20workers%20rights%20in%20algorithmic%20management%20systems_Lessons%20learned%20from%20the%20Glovo-Foodinho%20digital%20labour%20platform%20case_2023.pdf

That report reveals all kinds of extremely illegal behavior. Glovo/Foodinho makes its riders' data accessible across national borders, so Glovo managers outside of Italy can access fine-grained surveillance information and sensitive personal information – a major data protection no-no.

Worse, Glovo's app embeds trackers from a huge number of other tech platforms (for chat, analytics, and more), making it impossible for the company to account for all the ways that its riders' data is collected – again, a requirement under Italian and EU data protection law.

All this data collection continues even when riders have clocked out for the day – its as though your boss followed you home after quitting time and spied on you.

The research also revealed evidence of a secretive worker scoring system that ranked workers based on undisclosed criteria and reserved the best jobs for workers with high scores. This kind of thing is pervasive in algorithmic management, from gig work to Youtube and Tiktok, where performers' videos are routinely suppressed because they crossed some undisclosed line. When an app is your boss, your every paycheck is docked because you violated a policy you're not allowed to know about, because if you knew why your boss was giving you shitty jobs, or refusing to show the video you spent thousands of dollars making to the subscribers who asked to see it, then maybe you could figure out how to keep your boss from detecting your rulebreaking next time.

All this data-collection and processing is bad enough, but what makes it all a thousand times worse is Glovo's data retention policy – they're storing this data on their workers for four years after the worker leaves their employ. That means that mountains of sensitive, potentially ruinous data on gig workers is just lying around, waiting to be stolen by the next hacker that breaks into the company's servers.

Reversing Works's report made quite a splash. A year after its publication, the Italian data protection agency fined Glovo another 5 million euros and ordered them to cut this shit out:

https://reversing.works/posts/2024/11/press-release-reversing.works-investigation-exposes-glovos-data-privacy-violations-marking-a-milestone-for-worker-rights-and-technology-accountability/

As the report points out, Italy is extremely well set up to defend workers' rights from this kind of bossware abuse. Not only do Italian enforcers have all the privacy tools created by the GDPR, the EU's flagship privacy regulation – they also have the benefit of Italy's 1970 Workers' Statute. The Workers Statute is a visionary piece of legislation that protects workers from automated management practices. Combined with later privacy regulation, it gave Italy's data regulators sweeping powers to defend Italian workers, like Glovo's riders.

Italy is also a leader in recognizing gig workers as de facto employees, despite the tissue-thin pretense that adding an app to your employment means that you aren't entitled to any labor protections. In the case of Glovo, the fine-grained surveillance and reputation scoring were deemed proof that Glovo was employer to its riders.

Reversing Works' report is a fascinating read, especially the sections detailing how the researchers recruited a Glovo rider who allowed them to log in to Glovo's platform on their account.

As Reversing Works points out, this bottom-up approach – where apps are subjected to technical analysis – has real potential for labor organizations seeking to protect workers. Their report established multiple grounds on which a union could seek to hold an abusive employer to account.

But this bottom-up approach also holds out the potential for developing direct-action tools that let workers flex their power, by modifying apps, or coordinating their actions to wring concessions out of their bosses.

After all, the whole reason for the gig economy is to slash wage-bills, by transforming workers into contractors, and by eliminating managers in favor of algorithms. This leaves companies extremely vulnerable, because when workers come together to exercise power, their employer can't rely on middle managers to pressure workers, deal with irate customers, or step in to fill the gap themselves:

https://projects.itforchange.net/state-of-big-tech/changing-dynamics-of-labor-and-capital/

Only by seizing the means of computation, workers and organized labor can turn the tables on bossware – both by directly altering the conditions of their employment, and by producing the evidence and tools that regulators can use to force employers to make those alterations permanent.

Image: EFF (modified) https://www.eff.org/files/issues/eu-flag-11_1.png

CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

[thealieninhiding]

The Katie McGrath Archives (WIP)

A repository of my ongoing digital archeology & archival work please contact me if you have anything to contribute and buy me a coffee if you value my content

message me if you want a link to her complete filmography 🤫

Updates

(last updated 2024-07-03)

2024-07-03

Scans:

2014-02-07 London Times - Dracula sets

Audio:

(Un)likeminded 2x02 How to Survive The Apocalypse

2024-05-24

Video:

2017 Katie McGrath interview [CW|KMcGsource]

2017 Supergirl Season 3 Sweet dreams (are made of this) Music Video

2017 CW SDCC Promo Supergirl and Arrow

2019-01-01 The CW Promo Open To All

2021-04-25 Supergirl Season 6 Katie McGrath Lena Luthor

2021-09-15 Supergirl Season 6 Katie McGrath Reflecting on Supergirl

2024-05-22

Audio:

Interview - 2009-07-17 Katie McGrath Mr Media interview

Interview - 2009-10-15 Geek Syndicate Merlin BTS special

Video:

BTS - 2008-10-08 Blue Peter Merlin BTS

Events - 2009 TV Choice Awards Digital Spy interview

Events - Getty Videos of 2009 TV Choice Awards, 2010 Merlin Series 3 launch, 2011 W.E. premiere, 2017 King Arthur Premiere

2024-05-17

Archived interviews

2008-12-07 Tribune Magazine - What Katie Did

2011-10-14 What's on TV - Merlin's Katie McGrath- 'Bad girls have more fun!'

2012-12-03 Fanhattan Blog - Colin Morgan, Katie McGrath and Bradley James on Season 5 and The Series Finale

2018-08-01 The TV Junkies - Supergirl SDCC 2018 Interviews- Lena’s Impractical Lab Outfits, the Return of Reporter Kara and a More Grounded Season 4

Audio

HHush samples

Interview - 2009-2011 Sci-fi Talk rewind merlin the series specials episode 1

Interview - 2011? Merlin S4 Sci-fi talk byte katie mcgrath on morgana

Interview - 2013 BBC Radio 1xtra part 1 & part 2

(Un)likeminded 1x02 While You Were Dreaming

Trees a crowd- Irish folklore segment

Magazine scans

2008-09-20 Radio Times

2009-06-08 TV Week (Aus)

2010-09-05 Sunday Express

2010-09-30 Totally Merlin Magazine

2011-12 Total Film

2012-03-14 Sci-Fi Now

2012-10-06 Radio Times

2013-04-06 Irish independent

2013-09-02 Marie-Claire (UK)

2013-12 Instyle

2013-12 Total Film

Video:

Fans - 2012-04-16 Merlin4 [carlospyrrhus]

Fans - 2017-08-30 Supergirl cast together on set [Joyce Law]

Interview - 2009-09-?? Merlin S2 audio interview with Katie McGrath [BJsRealm] part 1

Interview - 2010-09-06 Merlin Series 3 - BBC Radio 1xtra Interview with Angel Coulby & Katie McGrath [BJsrealm]

Interview - 2011-10-14 Merlin S4 Colin Morgan, Eoin Macken Katie McGrath on The Late Late Show

Interview - 2012-07-15 Colin Morgan and Katie McGrath at SDCC 2012 - innerSPACE [merlinnetwork2]

Interview - 2012-07-18 Katie McGrath Talks Merlin At Comic Con 2012 [ThinkHeroTV]

Interview - 2012-10-25 BBC Radio 1 Breakfast - Colin & Katie part 1 & part 2 [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2012-12-03 Merlin S5 Katie McGrath interview international press day [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2012-12-03 Colin, Bradley, Katie phone interview [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2013-11-09 Katie McGrath on BBC One Saturday Kitchen [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2019-07-22 ENTREVISTA SUPERGIRL Elenco fala sobre a nova temporada [Warner Channel Brasil]

Interview - 2019-07-23 Melissa Benoist Teases Directing An Episode Of 'Supergirl' [ET Canada]

Interview - 2020-02-21 ‘Supergirl’ Celebrates 100th Episode [ET Canada]

Panels - 2011-07-28 Merlin Comic Con 2011 Panel [ThinkHeroTV]

[bimu2ndo]

Alastor: Oops. Wrong address :)

——————

I felt like drawing sth silly :3

——————

Based on this meme:

[fullcoffeemoon-nem]

Timeline Theory

New upgrade here!!

First post: 09-21-23

Second update: 11-14-23

Third update: 05-01-24 (+ S2 Theory link)

Fourth update: 06-03-24 (+ S2 Theory upload)

Last update: 04-12-24

——————————————

Hi there!

After another re-watch and the head to pay attention to the small details, perhaps I have reconstructed a possible

Timeline of Helluva Boss

It would be better to define them as hypotheses. First of all, here is an outline of the episodes and their release dates.

I also included the one whose title we know, just for the sake of general overview. The theory for the moment covers 2 seasons out of 4 announced.

Here the synthetic timeline. From the estimate version I have removed the year here, we'll get to the reason.

Here I also report some of my thoughts:

Already from the first episodes there's a strong focus on clocks and time, it is much more striking in Oops, where Asmodeus' clock marks the whole day.

I'm not sure about the year, but also from the analyzes carried out later, 2021 could be the year of the narrative arc that goes from Murder Family to Ozzie's for sure.

(*) The Verosika's tour t-shirt was official and linked to the episode, at the moment I'm undecided on its validity at the year level, althought the date could be very possible.

However, my research started with Seeing Stars because it's the first episode to feature an almost specific date: the 20th of a 30-day month.

In my opinion it could be April chronologically and it's agreed with the information in the subsequent episodes.

The only problem is that the full moon would't coincide with what was marked by Blitz.

Noteworthy:

Blitz's calendar suggests that the full moon in that month is the 14th.

Stolas wrote in the Western Energy chat that Blitz was supposed to come that evening and that therefore the full moon was the 20th.

We are certainly either in 2021 or beyond given Moxxie's coin in Seeing Stars.

From the chat we can understand that:

About a month passes between the trio Ozzie's - Queen Bee - The Circus (1 moon)

About 3 months pass between Seeing Stars and Western Energy (3 moons)

Western Energy is placed a week before Oops and among these there's Unhappy Campers

From Millie's flyer we know that her and Moxxie's mission ends on Friday July 17th. We know from Blitz that this lasted a week, so it started on Monday 13th July.

According to what Striker says to Crisom, Western Energy should be set around July 11th and Oops around July 18th.

We should be in 2022 though, but in that case July 17th was a Sunday.

In Mammon's magnificent concert Blitz says on the call with Ozzie that it's a weekend.

There are two options:

It could be set on the week parallel (July 21-22th or 28-29th) to the events of Western-Unhappy-Oops.

It could be set on the following month (August).

Here we come to the gap:

(*) The Mammon's official t-shirt is clearly linked to the episode, but the date (2023) and month (October) cause the information to conflict.

So, at this point we have this options:

The official t-shirts are tied exclusively to the release date of the episode.

They are official only at the date level.

They're official and we're actually 2 years removed from Murder Family.

I think it is more canonical to consider a connection with the month of July shown in the episode and maintain the hypothesis.

Seeing Stars -> April

Wester Energy to Oops -> July

Full Moon → September or October 29th

In Apology Tour we have confirmation from multiple characters (and from the visit to Earth) that it is October 31th.

From the argument between Blitz and Stolas, it seems that it was 1 or 2 days after Full Moon. This creates some contradictions with the canonical month of the previous episode.

There are three options:

Full Moon Calendar has an "error"

It's been longer than it seems

Earth and Hell don't have the same chronological flow

I don't know which option to prefer.

From Ghost fu**ers the only information obtained is at the beginning of the episode:

Millie claims to Loona at the beginning of the episode that Blitz's crisis has been going on for over a month.

The client says that her murder occurred the day before, a Wednesday. So the current date is a Thursday.

We should be in November, if we consider that before this episode the 3 Shorts are placed probably at the end of the month.

(link Viv post about the Shors click here)

I was hoping Mastermind would give us some more details, but it seems either we're happy with the episode or we find different lines. Incredible, an episode with so many media, chats, newspapers, live broadcasts, posts and articles and not even a shred of date. We only have the usual clock that marks everything between the afternoon and the evening.

We have to wait for Sinsmas (obviously set in December) and hope that something more will be mentioned.

So that's what we now:

——————————————

As for the analysis with the theories on the trailer shown to us at the LVL UP on April 29th, for now I'll leave the post as it is. I don't think it makes sense to correct the opinions (only Sinsmas is missing), at most I'll modify it in terms of the relationship between Blitz and Stolas.

You can read it here.

I will let you now if I change it.

——————————————

In the end, I deleted Sinstagram post analytics for two reasons:

They hadn't reached this point in the serie

The Spindlehorse she disconnected from those accounts, making everything "useless"

( @timkontheunsure thanks anyway for the suggestion)

——————————————

What a mess...

What do you think about it?

Have you noticed any other details that could clarify the mystery? Make me know it and let's solve the mystery together :}

From Nem is all,

Bye~

[marybeatriceofmodena]

Think of me, think of me fondly...

In honor of the Phantom of the Opera Broadway production closing, here are a few gifts: audios and one video.

(As per usual, if you're the master of one of these and you want me to remove the link, please let me know.)

Audios

Michael Crawford, Patti Cohenour, Steve Barton, Judy Kaye, Nicholas Wyman, Cris Groenendaal, Leila Martin, Elisa Heinsohn, David Romano April 30, 1988 https://www.mediafire.com/file/aybwjye3k647bfy/POTO+Broadway+30-04-1988+-+Crawford,+Cohenour,+Barton.rar/file

Hugh Panaro, Lisa Vroman, John Cudia, Patricia Phillips, Jeff Keller, George Lee Andrews (u/s), Marilyn Caskey, Joelle Gates, Larry Wayne Morbitt May 10, 2003 https://www.mediafire.com/file/834a4sqxgjmsows/POTO+Broadway+10-05-2003+-+Panaro,+Vroman,+Cudia.rar/file

Gary Mauer, Jennifer Hope Wills, Michael Shawn Lewis, Janet Saia (u/s), George Lee Andrews, David Cryer, Marilyn Caskey, Jimmy Smagula (u/s) May 15, 2007 https://www.mediafire.com/file/70690zs3dpyb3dj/POTO+Broadway+15-05-2007+-+Mauer,+Wills,+Lewis.rar/file

Jeremy Stolle (u/s), Samantha Hill, Greg Mills (u/s), Michele McConnell, Richard Poole (u/s), Tim Jerome, Ellen Harvey, Kara Klein, Christian Sebek March 9, 2013 Matinee performance. https://www.mediafire.com/file/zfln9bh0thrg8dx/POTO+Broadway+09-03-2013+-+Stolle,+Hill,+Mills.rar/file

Norm Lewis, Mary Michael Patterson (alt.), Greg Mills (u/s) July 7, 2014 The real 11,000th performance (not the celebration, which was done the next day).  https://www.mediafire.com/file/jei306ekuy0usjj/POTO+Broadway+07-07-2014+-+Lewis,+Patterson,+Hays.rar/file

Laird Mackintosh (u/s), Mary Michael Patterson, Jeremy Hays, Michelle MConnell, Ellen Harvey, Christian Sebek December 13, 2014 Mary Michael Patterson and Ellen Harvey's last matinee performance.  https://www.mediafire.com/file/kt79nevlbc3yexn/POTO+Broadway+13-12-2014+-+Mackintosh,+Patterson,+Hays.rar/file

Ben Crawford, Meghan Picerno, John Riddle, Raquel Suarez Groen, Bradley Dean, Craig Bennett,  Maree Johnson, Sara Esty, Carlton Moe October 22, 2021 Re-opening performance on Broadway. https://www.mediafire.com/file/d4dcjwf9n40yseu/Phantom+of+The+Opera+Broadway+October+22nd+2021+Reopening.mp3/file

Jeremy Stolle (u/s), Kanisha Marie Feliciano (u/s), John Riddle September 17, 2022 https://www.mediafire.com/file/8elrbfv5bsgbfqq/POTO+Broadway+17-09-2022+-+Stolle,+Feliciano,+Riddle.rar/file

Video

Hugh Panaro, Mary Michael Patterson, Jeremy Hays May 3, 2014 Hugh Panaro's last performance, with speeches. https://mega.nz/folder/L6xDgahT#054peSCr8ADIj6aat2MNnA

[seoul-bros]

Jikook Week 20 Complete ✔️(23/04 - 30/04/2024)

Their twentieth week in the military is now complete and time to celebrate this milestone with a look back at this week in 2022.

BTS returned to Seoul from Las Vegas the previous week (18/04/2022). On the same day, Jimin posted photos from their concerts including this jikook snap on Instagram.

On the 21/04 we were treated to a little reminder of their time in LV with the release of their Butter stage from the 64th Grammy ceremony. This stage was rated as No. 14 in the Rolling Stone 30 Greatest Grammy Performances article published in February 2023.

Now they were back home, group activities had finished for the time being and, although we didn't know it at the time, the members thoughts turned to their solo projects. Jimin started working with Pdogg, Ghostloop and Evan to lay down the tracks that would later become Face.

But Face was not his first solo project to be released. On 24/04 With You the first ever track to be included on Jimin's Spotify listing was dropped with very little fanfare . It was a beautiful duet recorded with his close friend Ha Sung Woon and formed part of the OST of the tv series Our Blues. Billboard later included it in the list of 25 best k-pop songs of 2022. It was an auspicious start to his solo career.

Finally this week BTS began promoting the release of their Sowoozoo package which was recorded during this on-line Muster streaming event held on 13-14/06/2021.

It was an event that had gifted us these jikook looks and moments.

TwiX 1, TwiX 2

As well as some memorable performances including this amazing ensemble stage of J-Hope's solo song Chicken Noodle Soup.

Post Date: 30/04/2024

[mbbsgf]

a/n: this might be terrible and i'm sorry about it but keep in mind i js got into writing recently. all my stories will be inspired by a song that i will be putting below the story title. i truly hope u guys like it even i personally don't<3

- marie💋

ALL TOO WELL . pt1

warnings: swearing, crying, mean!matt, angst, no y/n, slight fluff at the end

based of all too well (10 minutes version) (taylor's version) (from the vault) by taylor swift (RED (taylor's version), 2021)

alexa is laying down in her bed, trying desperately to sleep as it's 4:30 in the morning. but she can't. all she can think about is the altercation with matt earlier in the day. she's trying so hard to understand why he hates her so much. what did she ever do to him for him to be that mean and that insensitive.

flashback, later that day.

"god, alexa. why are you even here anyway!?" matt shouts angrily as he sees the water spilled out all over the floor.

"i-i'm sorry! i didn't mean to, matt!" alexa raises her voice slightly but not to talk over matt or anything, just so he hears what she has to say since he always acts like he never does.

"well, i would fucking hope so you didn't mean to! you better clean all that shit because i'm not doing it!" matt yells, looking directly into alexa's big hazel eyes as tears start to form there.

matt's face softens as soon as he sees the tears in her eyes starting to form. as soon as he notices his own face softening, he tries to hide it but frowning angrily again. he didn't want alexa to see him show care for her but fuck, he did care.

"hey, what's going on here?" nick chimes in. he sees matt's angry face, the tears in alexa's eyes and the water all over the floor. he sighs. "i'll clean this. lex, go on the couch and relax. i'll join you in a minute." nick says softly, looking at alexa with a soft smile. he turns to matt and his expression becomes slightly angry. "and you. don't just stand there, move." he says harshly to matt, clearly upset about the way he's been treating alexa lately. alexa mouths a small "sorry" to nick before walking to the couch, sitting there.

matt goes to his room without saying a word but his face shows clear annoyance. alexa deeply sighs as she hears matt's bedroom door slamming shut. she buries her face in her hands.

"hey, don't overthink it, alright? it's just some water and you clearly didn't mean to. matt's just being an asshole per usual." nick says softly as he goes to sit on the couch next to alexa. he gives her a friendly smile as he rubs her back in attempt to comfort her.

"it's not the water that's bothering me. i just don't get why he hates me so much. all i ever wanted was to be friends and what makes me sadder is that we did use to be friends and pretty close ones." alexa says, her voice cracking and bottom lip twitching.

nick frowns sadly. he clearly understands what alexa is feeling right now. he scoots closer to her. "i know and i'm sorry but you know matt. he's always sucked at showing and expressing his feelings properly." nick says, making alexa look at nick with a confused frown on her face. "wait, what?"

before nick could reply, chris comes into the living room. "nick, c'mon we're leaving in 10." he lazily says.

nick mouths a small "sorry" to alexa before getting up and walking upstairs, to his room.

END OF FLASHBACK .

alexa sighs as she moves to face her nightstand where her phone is charging on. she turns it on. 4:50am. fuck it. she decides to text matt.

lex.

matt?

matt:(

what

lex.

why're u mad? what'd i do?

matt:(

i don't know what you're talking about.

lex.

come over.

matt:(

alexa, it's 4:55am. go to sleep.

lex.

matt please. i wanna know what i did.

matt:(

i'll b here in 5.

lex.

thank you

read at 4:57

5:04. alexa hears small taps on her window. she immediately gets the blankets off of her and walks to her window. her face lights up when she sees matt on a tree branch, looking around to check if anyone has seen him. she smiles to herself before sliding the window up, letting matt in.

matt gets in safely, trying to make as less noise as possible but also trying not to fall the window frame. alexa slides the window back down once matt is in her room.

"what do you want? it's 5:10am, alexa."

"it used to be lex.." alexa mumbles.

matt frowns.

"it used to be lex.. what changed?" alexa asks. she looks heartbroken as matt didn't even bother giving her any explanation on why he was acting the way he was.

matt stays silent as his gaze falls down to his feet.

alexa looks away as tears form in her eyes, just like earlier today.

"i'm sorry." matt mumbles.

"what was that?" alexa asks, waiting for him to repeat.

"i'm sorry."

alexa looks at matt, seemingly confused. matt sees no reaction from alexa so he goes on.

"i'm sorry, lex. i.. i'm a piece of shit. you never deserved any of that shit. i guess i'm just trying to make myself hate you because it's way easier to hate you than to just accept my real feelings." matt says quietly, playing with the rings around his fingers.

alexa frowns sadly at matt. he looks up at her and sees her dad frown. he takes a few step forward but she steps back.

"lex, please.." matt says as he stems forward again, grabbing one of alexa's hand into his.

"i don't understand, matt. i don't understand, what'd i do?" alexa asks quietly, her eyes full of tears threatening to fall.

"you didn't do anything, lex. it's not you. i'm just.." matt looks up from his hands. he looks at alexa's face and all he wants to do is kiss her. "i love you, lex."

alexa looks into matt's eyes as her eyes widen. "you- you what?"

"i love you."

alexa looks up at matt as she blinks the tears away. her cheeks now all wet from her tears. she looks away. matt pulls her into him and that's all it takes for alexa to melt into him and cry into his chest. matt leaves a few soft kisses on the top of her head as he whispers sweet nothings to her.

"it's okay, i'm here."

"you're okay, baby.."

"i'll never let go."

alexa could barely believe this. she's liked matt since they were 16 and now he's in her room, confessing his love to her after treating her like shit for months. alexa finally wraps her arms around matt's waist lazily as she buries her face into his chest.

this is gonna be interesting in the morning.

to be continued...

a/n: i truly apologize bc this is so shit. there's definitely gonna be other parts to this story so don't worry just not now lmaooo. thank u guys for reading and even if i don't personally like it, i hope u guys liked it🤍

taglist: @bernardenjoyer @querenciasturniolo @ev3rgreenxtrees @sturnybabes @recklesssturniolo @daddyslilchickenfingers @lustfulslxt @kvtie444 @mattsturn-love @soursturniolo

[journeytothewestresearch]

I’ve been doing my best to find proper descriptions of the pilgrims’ appearances, but my search results are being frustratingly vague, and the novel itself has a habit of giving this information in small, dispersed increments (which I struggle to find)—not to mention one or two costume changes on Monkey’s end.

So, I must ask, do you have any reliable sources for the crew’s physical appearance?

(Sorry if you’ve been asked this before!)

Sun Wukong - https://journeytothewestresearch.com/2018/05/30/what-does-sun-wukong-look-like-an-artist-and-cosplayer-resource/

Zhu Bajie - https://journeytothewestresearch.com/2021/08/08/what-does-zhu-bajie-look-like-a-resource-for-artists-and-cosplayers/

Everyone's height and also Tripitaka's description - https://journeytothewestresearch.com/2023/04/17/how-tall-are-the-main-characters-from-journey-to-the-west/

Sha Wujing's face and early clothing - https://journeytothewestresearch.com/2018/03/24/the-origins-and-evolution-of-sha-wujing/

[autumnslance]

LynMars's FFXIV Write 2024 Master Post

We're back again! The list and links for all of my completed prompts for this year's FFXIV Write. Stats and ramblings about writing will go under the Read More cut. Eventually these will be revised in some manner and tossed onto Ao3.

Asterisks again mean there's wolship nonsense happening.

01. Steer - Vignettes of less sociable times over Aeryn's life. 02. Horizon - WoL at the end of Ultima Thule, EW 6.0. 03. Tempest - WoL returns to Amaurot to contemplate, EW 6.4. 04. Reticent - C'oretta & Dark Autumn have a chat. Sort of. 05. Stamp - Aeryn finds a memento while cleaning, post-EW 6.0 06. Halcyon - Tanzel, Emelia, & understanding grief. Backstory. 07. Morsel - Zenos heading to Camp Broken Glass, EW 6.0. 08. Free Day! 09. Lend an Ear - Emperor Varis is very much alone. StB patches. 10. Stable - Hydaelyn as the avatar of Light. Endwalker. 11. Surrogate - Weird West AU. Unexpected new roles for the Strikers. 12. Quarry* - Dominants AU. Thavnair comes to Tural's aid. DT 7.0. 13. Butte - Dark Autumn versus seedkin in Xak Tural. DT 7.0. 14. Telling - WoL reflects on Emet-Selch's expected reaction. EW 6.0. 15. Free Day! 16. Third-Rate - Aeryn's annoyed by the Unbound. DT Role Quests. 17. Sally - Dark pays a final visit to a traitor, post-StB 4.1. 18. Hackneyed* - Aeryn, Thancred, & terrible literature. 19. Taken - A young wood warder tries to save his sibling. Backstory. 20. Duel - Wuk Lamat's challenge does not go as expected. DT 7.0. 21. Shade - WoL ruminates on some of their ghosts. Thru DT 7.0. 22. Free Day! 23. On Cloud Nine - A chocobo & her Warrior of Light. End ShB 5.0. 24. Bar - 2 different adventurers starting out. Legacy & ARR. 25. Perpetuity - Aeryn, Deryk, & questions of faith. EW 24man raid. 26. Zip - C'oretta helping out Hamon at the Coliseum. Technically DT. 27. Memory - In a future, music makes Iyna remember. EW Patches. 28. Deleterious - Aeryn & Shale discuss regulators & history. DT 7.0. 29. (Free) Deleterious 2* - Thancred & self-recrimination. ShB 5.0. 30. Two Heads are Better than One - Gulool Ja Ja muses. DT 7.0.

Previous years: 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023

Ended up a touch Aeryn-heavy this year, though Generic WoL, various NPCs, the other OCs, forays in the FC's AUs, and some supporting family cast members make appearances. There's even a callback to a previous FFXIV Write entry. Lots of Endwalker and Dawntrail due to recency bias, but it manages to span the spectrum from backstories through various expansions.

I only did 1 Free Day, due to having 2 solid ideas I ended up writing for that prompt. It was right at the end of my annual birthday vacation week, so I was pretty rested (may also be why they're among the longer entries!). Unusually, the rest of that week's works are not any longer than the others.

I'm also still working on some original writing, though, so that did cut into fanfiction time.

Below 500 words: #2 Horizon (347), #3 Tempest (415), #7 Morsel (499), #10 Stable (400), #13 Butte (477), #14 Telling (355), #17 Sally (464), #20 Duel (499), #24 Bar (462).

500 - 1,000 words: #1 Steer (944), #4 Reticent (581), #5 Stamp (588), #11 Surrogate (964), #12 Quarry (844), #16 Third-Rate (564), #18 Hackneyed (577), #19 Taken (915), #21 Shade (764), #23 On Cloud Nine (728), #25 Perpetuity (958), #26 Zip (592), #27 Memory (810), #30 Two Heads are Better than One (500).

Over 1,000 words: #6 Halcyon (2,479), #9 Lend an Ear (1,326), #28 Deleterious (1,099), #29 Deleterious 2 (1,231).

Shortest: #2 Horizon Longest: #6 Halcyon

Total: 20,382 words. Not my shortest but far from my longest. Comparing with the previous years, I can see a clear improvement in my grasp of both NPC and OC voices, and more confidence in general.

Even so, "Butte", "Sally", "Bar", and "Zip" were the hardest for me this year, and I may need to warm up to them. I love "Halcyon" for a lot of reasons, and am also fond of the lighter offerings in "Duel" and "On Cloud Nine." I like a lot of the others, particularly when trying to get into NPC heads (even if they're really weird places to be ffs, Zenos).

Not too many shippy entries this year, one of them for one of the AUs, one mostly talking about it rather than seeing it, but I like "Hackneyed" a lot as it's been awhile since I've written about Aeryn & Thancred's literary tastes (and opposite ways of treating their books).

These will eventually be revised and added to Ao3, and then we await next year!

[bad268]

Writing Inktober 2024

Official prompts this year were ass, so this one's gonna be fun (sarcasm). I'm only doing like 3 from the actual prompts, so a lot ended up being song prompts.

01/10 Backpack

Jax Teller X Reader (W.C. 547)

02/10 Chains

Arvid Lindblad X Reader (W.C. 448)

03/10 Perfect

Callum Ilott X Reader (W.C. 446)

04/10 Ledge

Spot Conlon X Reader (W.C. 498)

05/10 Enchanted

Clement Novalak X Journalist! Reader (W.C. 463)

06/10 Passport

Max Fewtrell X Reader (W.C. 465)

07/10 Daisies

Ollie Bearman X Verstappen! Reader (W.C. 496)

08/10 Ride

Pezzy X Biker! Reader (W.C. 473)

09/10 Home

Michael Gray X Reader (W.C. 485)

10/10 Laugh

Harry Lewis X Reader (W.C. 476)

11/10 Rain

Corpse Husband X Reader (W.C. 465)

12/10 Drive

Chris Sturniolo X F1 Driver! Reader (W.C. 472)

13/10 Lesbian

Logan Sargeant X Parent! Reader (W.C. 483)

14/10 Here

Sodapop Curtis X Reader (W.C. 464)

15/10 Convince

Noah Sebastian X Reader (W.C. 476)

16/10 Strangers

Colby Brock X Reader (W.C. 486)

17/10 Bracelets

Luke Browning X Reader (W.C. 506)

18/10 Leave

TMR Newt X Reader (W.C. 479)

19/10 Peachy

Simon Minter X Reader (W.C. 454)

20/10 Tackle

Justin Herbert X Reader (W.C. 467)

21/10 Original

Elastic Droid X Reader (W.C. 501)

22/10 Always

Hector Fort X Reader (W.C. 512)

23/10 Picture

Jak Crawford X Dams! Reader (W.C. 553)

24/10 Alone

Marcus Armstrong X Reader (W.C. 554)

25/10 Betrothed

Finn Shelby X Reader (W.C. 466)

26/10 Goal

Fermin Lopez X Reader (W.C. 530)

27/10 Explorer

Big Puffer X Reader (W.C. 455)

28/10 Blindfold

Tadashi Hamada X Fiance! Reader (W.C. 586)

29/10 Pretend

Brad Simpson X Reader (W.C. 591)

30/10 Pumpkin

Paul Aron X Reader (W.C. 493)

31/10 Freak

Franco Colapinto X Reader (W.C. 574)

Bonus: Ending

Lando Norris X Reader (W.C. 509)

Average W.C. 479

Want to read other years’ Inktober stories, check these out:

2021 // 2022 // 2023 

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

[jockpoetry]

golden lovers (2018-2023)

to the dead - frank bidart // njpw road to tokyo dome (photo credit) - 12/15/18 // langston hughes // starrcast 2 // njpw wrestle kingdom 15 01/05/2021 // i have some friends - robert w. service // aew dynamite - 10/31/19 // wrestling with angels - robert stock // njpw g1 climax 28 & aew full gear 2020 // song of myself - walt whitman // 01/30/2021 // wild geese - mary oliver // aew full gear 2021 // wrestling - louisa s. bevington // 09/15/22 // 01/04/23 // aew dynamite - 07/12/23 // to you - frank o'hara // aew dynamite - 07/19/2023 // to the dead - frank bidart

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“Brand safety” killed Jezebel

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library this Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

Progressives: if you want to lose to conservatives, all you need to do is reflexively praise and support everything conservatives turn into a culture-war issue, without considering whether they might be right. Because sometimes…they're right.

Remember early in the Trump presidency, when conservatives all woke up and discovered that America's spy agencies – excuse me, "the intelligence community" – were dirty-tricking psychos who run amok, lawlessly sabotaging democracy? Progressives have been shouting this ever since Hoover's FBI tried to blackmail MLK into killing himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter

But millions of progressives forgot about COINTELPRO, CIA dirty tricks and CIA mass spying when this "intelligence community" temporarily set out to wrong-foot Trump. Remember James Comey votive candles?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/30/james-comey-fbi-memo-leaks-trump-inspector-general-report-column/2157705001/

Anthropologists have a name for this phenomenon, in which one side reverses its positions because their sworn enemies have done so. It's called schizmogenesis, and it goes like this: "If they hate it, we love it":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

Schizmogenesis is an equal-opportunity delusion. Within living memory, white evangelicals supported abortion, because their sworn enemies – Catholics – opposed it. Some of those white Boomer women who voted Trump because abortion was literally the only issue they cared about held the opposite position on abortion not so long ago – and completely forgot about it:

https://text.npr.org/734303135

The main purpose of the culture war isn't immiserating marginalized people – that's its effect, but its purpose is to distract low-information turkeys (working people) so they'll vote for Christmas (the ongoing seizure of power by American oligarchs). For the funders of conservative movement politics, the cruelty isn't the point, it's merely the tactic. The point is power:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars

Which brings me to "woke capitalism." Conservative string-pullers have whipped up their base about the threat of companies embracing social causes. They (erroneously) claim that corporations have progressive values, and that big business is thumbing the scales for causes they despise. The purpose here isn't to sow distrust of capitalism per se. Rather, it's to stampede talk-radio-addled supporters into backing the oligarchy's agenda. Remember when culture war leaders told their base to support being gouged on credit-card junk fees "to own the libs?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

That's schizmogenesis working against the conservative rank-and-file, tricking them into taking the side of a cartel of wildly profitable payment processors who are making billions by picking their pockets (credit card fees are up 40% since the covid lockdowns), because (checks notes), Target pays these profiteers a lot to process its payments, and Target sells Pride merch (no, really):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

It's easy to point and laugh at conservative dopes when they're tricked into shooting themselves in the balls to own the libs. This is not a hypothetical example:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/28/holographic-nano-layer-catalyser/#musketfuckers

But progressives do it, too, particularly when they embrace monopolies as a force for positive social change. Remember 2019, when people got excited about playing loud pop music at Nazi rallies in the hopes that the monopoly video platforms' copyright filters would make any video from that rally impossible to post?

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/clever-hack-that-will-end-badly-playing-copyrighted-music-during-nazis-rallies-so-they-cant-be-posted-to-youtube/

I warned then that if this tactic worked, it would be used by cops to prevent you from recording them when they're macing you or splitting your skull with a billyclub, and yup, within a couple years, cops were blaring Taylor Swift music in hopes of preventing the public from posting videos of their illegal conduct:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/07/moral-hazard-of-filternets/#dmas

Conservatives are (partially) right about woke capitalism. It is a threat to democracy. Concentrating the power to decide who gets to speak and what they get to say into the hands of five or six corporations, mostly run by mediocre billionaires, is bad for society. The moderation decisions of giant platforms are a form of (commercial) censorship, even these don't violate the First Amendment:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

(The progressive delusion that censorship only occurs when the First Amendment is violated is a wild own-goal, one that excuses, for example, the decision by school book-fair monopolist Scholastic to remove books about queers and Black and brown people from its offerings as a purely private matter without consequences for free speech):

https://www.themarysue.com/scholastic-response-to-authors-and-illustrators-on-diverse-books/

Conservatives are only partially right about woke capitalism, though. Here's what they're wrong about: corporations don't have values. Target isn't selling Pride tees because they support progressive causes, they're selling them because it seems like a good way to increase returns to their shareholders. Individuals – even top executives – at Target might endorse the cause, but the company will only durably support the cause if that endorsement is profitable, which means that when it stops being profitable, the company will stop supporting the cause:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/23/business/target-lgbtq-merchandise/index.html

The idea that corporations have values isn't merely stupid, it's very dangerous. The Hobby Lobby decision – which allows corporations to deny basic health-care expenses for women on the basis that a Bronze Age mystic wouldn't approve of an IUD – rests on the ideological foundation that corporate personhood includes corporate values:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores,_Inc.

Citizens United – the idea that corporations should be allowed to funnel unlimited funds to politicians who'll sell out the public good in favor of investor profits – also depends on a form of corporate personhood that includes values:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

There are undeniably instances in which corporate monopoly power benefits progressive causes, but these are side-effects of corporate power's main purpose, namely: taking money and power away from working people and giving it to rich people. That is what monopoly power is for.

Which brings me to ad-tech, "brand safety," and the demise of Jezebel, the 16 year old feminist website whose shuttering was just announced by its latest owner, G/O Media:

https://www.metafilter.com/201349/This-is-the-end-of-Jezebel-and-that-feels-really-really-bad

Jezebel's demise is the direct result of monopoly power. Jezebel writes about current affairs – sex, politics, abortion, and other important issues of great moment and significance. When we talk about journalism as a public good, necessary for a healthy civic life, this is what we mean. But unfortunately for Jezebel – and any other news outlet covering current events – there are vast, invisible forces that exist solely to starve this kind of coverage of advertising revenue.

Writing for the independent news site 404 Media, reporter Emanuel Maiberg and former Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler go deep on the "brand safety" industry, whose mission is to assist corporations in blocking their ads from showing up alongside real news:

https://www.404media.co/advertisers-dont-want-sites-like-jezebel-to-exist/

Maiberg and Koebler explain how industry associations like the World Federation of Marketers' Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) promulgate "frameworks" to help advertisers automatically detect and exclude real news from consideration when their ads are placed:

https://www.peer39.com/blog/garm-standards

This boycott makes use of scammy "AI" technology like "sentiment and emotional analysis" to determine whether an article is suitable for monetization. These parameters are then fed to the ad-tech duopoly's ad auction system, so Google and Meta (who control the vast majority of online advertising) can ensure that real news is starved of cash.

But reality is not brand-safe, and high quality, reputable journalistic outlets are concerned with reality, which means that the "brand safe" outlets that attract the most revenue are garbage websites that haven't yet been blacklisted by the ad-safety cartel, leading to major brands' ads showing up alongside notorious internet gross-out images like "goatse":

https://www.404media.co/sqword-game-dev-sneaks-goatse-onto-a-dozen-sites-that-stole-his-game/

More than a fifth of "brand safe" ad placements end up on "made for advertising" sites, which 404 Media describe as "trash websites that plagiarize content, are literally spam, pay for fake traffic, or are autogenerated websites that serve no other purpose than capturing ad dollars":

https://www.ana.net/miccontent/show/id/rr-2023-06-ana-programmatic-transparency-first-look

Despite all this, many progressives have become cheerleaders for "brand safety," as a countervailing force to the drawdown of trust and safety at online platforms, which led to the re-platforming of Nazis, QAnon conspiratorialists, TERFs, and other overt elements of the reactionary movement's vanguard on Twitter and Facebook. Articles about ads for major brands showing up alongside Nazi content on Twitter are now a staple of progressive reporting, presented as evidence of Elon Musk's lack of business acumen. The message of these stories is "Musk is bad at business because he's allowing Nazis on his platform, which will send advertisers bolting for the exits to avoid brand-safety crises."

This isn't wrong. Musk is a bad businessman (he's a good scam artist, though). Twitter is hemorrhaging advertisers, notwithstanding the desperate (and easily debunked) stats-juking its "CEO," Linda Yaccarino, floats onstage at tech conferences:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/10/11/math-problem-for-linda-yaccarino-if-90-of-the-top-advertisers-have-come-back-but-are-only-spending-10-of-what-they-used-to-how-screwed-are-you/

But progressives are out of their minds if they think the primary effect of the brand safety industry is punishing Elon Musk for secretly loving Nazis. The primary effect of brand safety is killing reality-based coverage of the news of the day, and since reality has a well-known anti-conservative bias, anything that works against the reality-based community is ultimately good for oligarchy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

We can't afford to let schizmogenesis stampede us into loving things just because conservative culture warriors have been momentarily tricked into hating them as part of oligarchs' turkeys-voting-for-Christmas project. "Swivel-eyed loons hate it, so it must be good," is a worse-than-useless heuristic for navigating complex issues:

https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

A much better rule of thumb is "If oligarchs love something, it's probably bad." Almost without exception, things that are good for oligarchs are bad for the rest of us. I mean, this whole shuttering of Jezebel starts with an oligarch imposing his will on millions of other people. Jezebel began life as a Gawker Media site, beloved of millions of readers, destroyed when FBI informant Peter Thiel secretly funded Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against the publisher in a successful bid to put them out of business to retaliate for their unfavorable coverage of Thiel:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker-trial/554132/

This, in turn, put Jezebel under the ownership of G/O Media, who are unwilling to pay for a human salesforce that would – for example – sell advertising space on Jezebel to sex-toy companies or pro-abortion groups. G/O has been on a killing spree, shuttering beloved news outlets like Deadspin:

https://deadspin.com/this-is-how-things-work-now-at-g-o-media-1836908201

G/O's top exec, an oligarch named Jim Spanfeller who answers to the private equity looters at Great Hill Partners, is bent on ending reality-based coverage in favor of "letting robots shit out brand safe AI-assisted articles about generic topics":

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/ai-articles-disinformation-future-g-o-media-rcna95944

Three quarters of a century ago, Orwell coined a term to describe this kind of news: duckspeak,

It was not the man’s brain that was speaking it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words but it was not speech in true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness like the quacking of a duck.

When investors and analysts speak of "content" (rather than, say, "journalism"), this is what they mean – a warm slurry of platitudes, purged of any jagged-edged fragments to render it a perfectly suitable carrier for commercial messages targeted based on surveillance data about the "consumer" whose eyeballs are upon it.

This aversion to reality has been present among corporate decisionmakers since the earliest days, but the consolidation of power among large firms – ad-tech firms, online platforms, and "brands" themselves – makes corporate realityphobia much easier to turn into, well, reality, giving advertisers the fine-grained power to put Jezebel and every site like it out of business.

As Koebler and Maiberg's headliine so aptly puts it, "Advertisers Don’t Want Sites Like Jezebel to Exist."

The reason to deplore Nazis on Twitter is because they are Nazis, not because their content isn't brand-safe. The short-term wins progressives gain by legitimizing a corporate veto over what we see online are vastly overshadowed by the most important consequence of brand safety: the mass extinction of reality-based reporting. Reality isn't brand safe. If you're in the reality based community, brand safety should be your sworn enemy, even if they help you temporarily get a couple of Nazis kicked off Twitter.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/11/ad-jacency/#brand-safety

[captainelliecomb]

2023 Fic Stats

February 2023, I decided to start tracking the amount of fic I read. I travelled a lot last year, quite a bit more than normal. I read a lot of fic when I travel.

I did a half year update at the end of June 2023. Between February and June, I read just under 13 million words.

February through December, I read just over 30 million words and 2,049 individual fic (though several are the same fic on a reread).

Some stats:

First read: Head, Hand, Heart by ddagent (@ddagent) (GOT canon divergence, Jaime/Brienne) (04 Feb 2023)

Last read: Other Brother by AlynnaStrong (ASOIAF canon divergence, Tyrion/Brienne) (31 Dec 2023)

Top 5 Most Read Authors

By number of fic. I reread frequently, so this is number of times I read a specific fic, not the author necessarily having written that number of fic.

ddagent, 78 fic (@ddagent)

Aviss, 72 fic (@aviss)

winterkill, 62 fic (@thebrimmingheart)

Lady_in_Red, 61 fic

chrkrose, 58 fic (@chrkrose)

By word count.

cardinalgirl75, 1.8 million words

winterkill, 1.3 million words (@thebrimmingheart)

sdwolfpup, 1.1 million words (@sdwolfpup)

angelowl, 1 million words (@angelowl-fics)

Aviss, 900,000 words (@aviss)

SeeThemFlying, 900,000 words (@seethemflying)

Top 5 Most Read Completed Fic

This includes number of times I read the entire fic while they were works in progress, which skews numbers. I'm doing something different in 2024.

so all the world can see by EllisJay: 12 (ASOIAF, Jaime x Brienne)

Simple by languageintostillair: 11  (GOT fix-it, Jaime x Brienne)

when the sun shine, we shine together by cardinalgirl75: 9  (Modern AU, sports, Jaime x Brienne)

Runaways by greenmtwoman: 7  (@greenmtwoman) (ASOIAF canon divergence, Jaime x Brienne)

Undisclosed Desires by Roccolinde: 7  (GOT fix-it, Addam x Jaime x Brienne)

Top 5 Longest Fic Read

The Keeper by PalyGirl, 532,733 words (GOT canon divergence, Aegon (Young Grif) x Brienne, Jaime x Brienne) (WIP)

Heart Full of Gasoline by sdwolfpup, 406,767 words (@sdwolfpup) (Modern AU, sports, Jaime x Brienne)

Diamond in the Rough by cardinalgirl75, 374,333 words (2x)  (Modern AU, sports, Jaime x Brienne)

Honor Compels Me by angel_deux, 335,399 words (@angel-deux-writes) (GOT canon divergence, Jaime x Brienne)

Truth and Measure by Telanu, 271,584 words (Devil Wears Prada, Miranda x Andrea)

Fic Over 100,000 Words Read More Than Once

Brienne-centric Kinktober 2021 by dancinginthecenteroftheworld, 101,177 words (3x)  (@dancinginthecenteroftheworld) (Brienne x all sorts of people and settings)

let's exchange the experience by cardinalgirl75, 116,080 words (3x) (Modern AU, Kimi no Na wa, Jaime x Brienne)

None But the Lonely Heart by OccasionalAvenger, 121,079 (3x) (ASOIAF, Jaime x Brienne) 

To Reach for Spring by Kadi219, 173,394 (2x)  (GOT fix-it and canon divergence, Jaime x Brienne) (WIP)

when the sun shine, we shine together by cardinalgirl75, 126,951 (2x) (Modern AU, sports, Jaime x Brienne)

Anima Dannum by motorbike_on_the_avenue, 121,021 (2x) (Modern AU, soulmates, Jaime x Brienne)

come on now, baby girl by angelowl, 119,957 (2x) (Modern AU, Veronica Mars, Jaime x Brienne)

Cubs and Gemstones by ddagent, 113,073 (2x) (Jaime x Brienne in all sorts of settings)

Brienne Pairings

I am here for Brienne of Tarth stories, and I will read her paired with almost anyone. Jaime x Brienne is my favourite, but here are several other Brienne pairings I read in 2023.

old Jaime/young Jaime/Brienne

Addam/Jaime/Brienne

Aegon (Young Griff)/Brienne

Arthur Dayne/Jaime/Brienne

Brienne & Brienne

Bronn/Brienne

Cersei/Jaime/Brienne

Cersei/Brienne

Cersei & Brienne

Dickon/Brienne

Dothraki OC/Brienne

Hyle/Jaime/Brienne

Jon/Brienne

Leonette Fossoway/Brienne

Margaery/Brienne

Melara & Brienne

Multiple people/Brienne

Oberyn/Brienne

Oberyn/Jaime/Brienne

Oberyn/Ellaria/Jaime/Brienne

Olenna & Brienne

Pevensies & Brienne

Susan/Brienne

Peter/Brienne

Podrick/Brienne

Podrick & Brienne

Renly & Brienne

Robb & Brienne

Sandor/Brienne

Sansa/Brienne

Sansa & Brienne

Thor/Brienne

Tormund/Brienne

Tyrion/Brienne

Tyrion & Brienne

Tywin/Brienne

Settings

Almost 1,000 fic were marked alternate universe. Various AUs include:

Apocalypse and dystopia

Fairy tale

Historical (including 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 19th century, Regency, Victorian, Vikings, WWI)

Horror

Modern (including actors, artists, bikers, bodyguards, celebrities, doctors, chefs, farmers, firefighters, mafia, models, museums, photographers, politicians, reality tv, royalty, sports, students, superheroes, teachers, veterinarians, wedding planners, and writers)

Space

Western

Canons Used in Crossovers or Fusions

Belinda Blinked

Blade Runner

Dungeons & Dragons

Dragon Age II

Dune

Fight Club

Full Metal Alchemist

Frasier

Fury Road

Ghost and Mrs Muir

Inception

Kimi no Na wa

Leftovers

Leverage

Mountain Between Us

Narnia

Nutcracker

Old Guard

Only You

Pacific Rim

Persuasion

Ponyo and Dory

Romancing the Stone

Sense8

Sharknado

Ted Lasso

MCU Thor

Tortall

Veronica Mars

Westworld

When Harry Met Sally

Witcher

What We Do in the Shadows

Zombieland

Canon settings and divergence

Canon: 303 fic Canon divergence: 747 fic Fix-it: 666 fic

Most of the fic I read last year was Jaime x Brienne. For GOT, I consider canon divergence any story that diverges from Jaime returning to King's Landing in Season 8 and fix-it any story that deals with that return.

[frigid-moon-fall]

Alright I'm tired of it being locked up in a notepad, here's the chronological release dates of all things Destiny that I know of. I'll add to it if someone knows more.

Dates are YYYY/MM/DD. Blue is Destiny 1, pink is Destiny 2, pretty much just prefix everything with the normal full title of either game. I'm trying to keep it easy to read. Kasukabe's artbook is on here because it has extra comics. The anthologies are non-canon but officially licensed and all by multiple artists (far too many to list) as far as I know. I am not dedicated enough to find the localization dates of everything, just know that various things have received localizations in languages other than English, sometimes several years after their initial publication.

1997/12/23 - Tales of Destiny PS1 release 1997/12/25 ~ 2000/10/30 - 神の眼をめぐる野望 (first manga adaptation by Shinki Kitsutsuki) 1998/03/01 - ルーティのルール (novel by Ryuuji Saiki) 1998/09/01 - 青の記憶 (novel by Sara Yajima) 1998/09/10 - 天地戦争編 (novel by Ryuuji Saiki) 1998/10/23 ~ 1999/01/23 - First half of drama CD 1999/04/24 ~ 1999/06/26 - Doujin drama CD (by Tomokazu Seki (Stahn's voice actor) and Yuka Imai (Rutee's voice actor)) [???] 1999/06/10 ~ 1999/08/28 - Second half of drama CD 1999/12/28 - Mini Drama CD 2000/05/31 - 運命をつぐもの (novels by Sara Yajima) 2000/07/18 ~ 2003/01/18 - Second manga adaptation by Iqura Sugimoto 2000/07/27 ~ 2001/09/27 - Super Comic Gekijou (Anthology) 2000/08/25 ~ 2002/01/31 - Broth Comics Anthology (Anthology) 2001/01/19 ~ 2001/10/19 - 4koma Manga Gekijou (Anthology) 2002/09/28 - Tales Ring Archive drama CDs 2002/01/31 - Tales of Fandom vol.1 2002/11/29 - Tales of Destiny 2 PS2 release 2003/01/01 ~ 2003/03/25 - Novels by Shou Yuuki 2003/02/21 ~ 2004/10/29 - 4koma Manga Gekijou (Anthology) 2003/03/01 ~ 2003/11/24 - 蒼黒の追憶 (novels by Sara Yajima) 2003/03/10 ~ 2004/08/27 - Super Comic Gekijou (Anthology) 2003/04/26 ~ 2003/08/22 - Drama CD 2003/05/17 ~ 2006/03/18 - Tales of Destiny 2 manga adaptation by Makoto2Gou 2003/09/01 - 朱鷺色の風 (novel by Sara Yajima) 2006/11/30 - Tales of Destiny PS2 remake 2007/02/16 - Tales of Destiny 2 PSP port 2007/03/01 ~ 2007/05/30 - 蒼黒の想い (novels by Sara Yajima) 2007/03/22 - Gangan Comics Anthology EX (Anthology) 2007/04/10 - BLADE Comics Anthology Collection (Anthology) 2007/12/27 ~ 2011/02/26 - 儚き刻のリオン (DC manga adaptation by Akira Kasukabe) 2008/01/31 - Tales of Destiny Director's Cut release 2011/07/13 - Akira Kasukabe's Tales of Destiny artbook 2013/11/18 - Pachislot........ 2014/02/04 - Pachislot Android/iOS port 2021/11/19 - Tales of Reading Live

By the way, anyone know if the android/iOS port of the pachislot was ever archived?

[maulweek]

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