#Content Migration Services
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
#website migration service#seo migration services#website migration services#Content Migration Services#eCommerce Migration Services#Database Migration Services
0 notes
Text
Explore HireWPGeeks for Your Drupal to WordPress Migration Needs!
Drupal to WordPress migration is a crucial step for businesses looking to leverage the user-friendly interface and extensive customization options of WordPress. This process ensures a seamless transition of your content, ensuring that no valuable information is lost. With the right expertise, you can enjoy a hassle-free migration experience while enhancing your website's functionality. Choose professionals at HireWPGeeks who understand the nuances of both platforms to facilitate a smooth transfer.
#Drupal to WordPress Migration#WordPress Migration Services#Content Migration#Website Transition#Drupal Migration Experts#WordPress Development
0 notes
Text
Dominating the Market with Cloud Power
Explore how leveraging cloud technology can help businesses dominate the market. Learn how cloud power boosts scalability, reduces costs, enhances innovation, and provides a competitive edge in today's digital landscape. Visit now to read more: Dominating the Market with Cloud Power
#ai-driven cloud platforms#azure cloud platform#business agility with cloud#business innovation with cloud#capital one cloud transformation#cloud adoption in media and entertainment#cloud computing and iot#cloud computing for business growth#cloud computing for financial institutions#cloud computing for start-ups#cloud computing for travel industry#cloud computing in healthcare#cloud computing landscape#Cloud Computing solutions#cloud for operational excellence#cloud infrastructure as a service (iaas)#cloud migration benefits#cloud scalability for enterprises#cloud security and disaster recovery#cloud solutions for competitive advantage#cloud solutions for modern businesses#Cloud storage solutions#cloud technology trends#cloud transformation#cloud-based content management#cloud-based machine learning#cost-efficient cloud services#customer experience enhancement with cloud#data analytics with cloud#digital transformation with cloud
0 notes
Text
𝖍𝖙𝖙𝖕𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖊'𝖘 2𝖐 𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖈𝖎𝖆𝖑
welcome to the table of contents for my two-thousand followers special !
i am actually shocked that i reached this milestone, considering my writing managed to convince people to follow me even though i have not been active on this account. you all bolstered me to 2k through two hiatus' that i did not announce, and that i do sincerely apologize for. the next time i plan to disappear off the face of tumblr, i'll give you guys a heads up: no more ghosting :) but seriously, thank you guys for the never ending support, and i will make sure i return the gratitude by being more present on tumblr, and writing more often!
as previously requested and mentioned, this special event is the daniel ricciardo edition. i believe a majority of you wanted a part-two of the overstimulation with daniel ricciardo / max verstappen x black!reader from my f1 kinktober series, which will be included in this special. i also promised a few dr3 fics to some of you that requested--so all in all, all of the daniel ricciardo thirst that YOU ALL requested is listed below the cut. i hope this is enough of a peace offering, and i hope you all enjoy xxx
if you would like to be added to this special's taglist, send me an ask or leave a reply. all episode upload times are at 12 PM EST on their release date. posts tagged as # httpss :// 2k special. all works can be found in my table of contents (m.list).
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐨 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: it's his one-man show. you ask for danny ric, and he will always over-deliver. 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: daniel ricciardo x fem!black!reader 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: assorted oneshots.
view playlist? ↴
Pilot: Over-Stimulation Kink w/ Daniel Ricciardo & Max Verstappen
You can't remember the last time you've gotten to spend more than three days at a time with both of your boyfriends. You understand how demanding their job is but, you just can't remember the last time they really exhausted you...pleasurably. And then winter break comes around, and they have all the time they need to make you lose your mind.
Episode Two: Say, "Cheese!" | facial | 5/31/24
The day she gets her braces off will be the best day of her life. Maybe all the years she dealt with insults, underhanded compliments, and men who wouldn’t date her because of them, would be worth it when she sees her perfectly straight teeth. Of course, it sucks that she has insecurities stemming from her braces; her boyfriend, Daniel, says that they “add to her beauty.” If she believed him, she probably wouldn’t hide her mouth behind her hand when she grins or laughs. Don’t worry—Daniel has an idea of how to make that smile of hers…shine.
requested! insecure!reader. soft!dom daniel. oral sex (male receiving). serene's fave.
Episode Three: Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss | fake orgasm | 6/5/24
When Daniel isn’t feeling well, it’s no hardship for her to take of him. Except this time, he broke his hand and is proceeding to be an absolute nightmare to take care of. They haven’t had sex since before the accident in Zandvoort because she’s afraid that somehow she’ll end up aggravating his injury. Daniel, however, has convinced himself that he only exists to bring her pleasure. So, she comes up with a plan to soothe his service dom tendencies. Enter, Operation Fake Orgasm. How hard can it be? Spoiler alert: she’s a terrible actress.
requested! servicedom!daniel. vaginal sex. hurt/comfort. attempt at humor.
Episode Four: Tomorrow 2 | body worship | 6/7/24
She’s the least favorite Formula One WAG. At first, she was optimistic, the fans would eventually start liking her—but that was a pretty naive thought. She’s constantly compared to Daniel’s ex-girlfriend—she’s not as pretty as her, she’s not as supportive as her, etc. Unfortunately, in a moment of low self-esteem—she breaks and thinks maybe the fans are right. Daniel comes home and sees you gathering every belonging of yours that’s migrated to his apartment like you’re breaking up with him. He tries to change your mind with his words, but that doesn’t quite reassure you completely; so he has no choice but to do it with his actions, too.
requested! insecure!reader. light angst. multiple orgasms. manhandling.
Episode Five: TSA | soft yandere | 6/13/24
She’s too pure for him. She hasn’t been damaged by life like he has and he hopes she never will be. So, that’s why Daniel can never allow himself to be with her. He knows she’s convinced herself that she can fix him, but he knows the longer he sticks around, the more he’s ruining her. He finds it cynical: their relationship (or lack of one) reads like one of the books she’s obsessed with: right person wrong time or forbidden love. Daniel learns that it might be a little darker of a trope—like one of her books that she never allows him to see a page of.
requested! possessive!reader. mild angst. happy ending. morally grey.
Finale: K.O. ! | over-stimulation | 6/25/24
Okay, Daniel may have won the first round. He cleared her dry spell with no problem and used Max to do it, too. That’s completely fine, she will never complain about experiencing some of the best orgasms of her life. But, Max (the man unable to not have the last word) coerces her into giving Daniel a taste of his own medicine. As soon as they can manage to walk on two feet, without a wobble. Mark their fucking words.
requested! part-two of the pilot fic. multiple orgasms. polyamory. bondage.
current taglist: @saintslewis @cherry2stems @lorarri @inloveallthetime @mindless-rock @biancathecool @barnestatic @my-ylenia @katekipshidze @darleneslane @lovingaphroditesworld @smoothopz @vetteltea @tallrock35 @iloveyou3000morgan @smartstupyd @spideybv28 @lh383 @loomiscorpse @hiireadstuff @namgification @gg-trini @whatamidoingwithmylife-ramdom @multi-fandom-rando @dreamingofautopia @jayswifee @megatrilss1885 @nanamilkbread @sophia12345678 @benstormy @userlandonorris @xxniallxxsworld @starfusionsworld @hangmandruigandmav @spicybagel14 @itsmiamalfoy @ineedafictionalman @everythingabby101 @valent1na-ferrari @vetteltea @dark-night-sky-99 @svinzlec @angelfreckless
© httpsserene2024
#f1 x reader#f1 x black!reader#formula 1 x black reader#f1 smut#daniel ricciardo x reader#daniel ricciardo x black!reader#max verstappen x black!reader#daniel ricciardo x max verstappen#daniel ricciardo x max verstappen x reader#max verstappen x reader#poly f1#daniel ricciardo fic#daniel ricciardo imagine#daniel ricciardo fanfic#daniel ricciardo smut#daniel ricciardo fluff#daniel ricciardo x you#daniel ricciardo x female reader#max verstappen fic#max verstappen imagine#max verstappen fanfic#max verstappen smut#max verstappen x you#max verstappen x female reader#poly!formula 1#f1 x female reader#serene’s fave.#⋆⭒˚。⋆. series special: formula 1#♡ ༘*.゚ love interest: dr.#♡ ༘*.゚ love interest: mv.
352 notes
·
View notes
Photo
(via Tumblr will move all of its blogs to WordPress — and you won’t even notice a difference - The Verge)
Soon, all of the blogs on Tumblr will be hosted on WordPress. Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com and Tumblr, announced on Wednesday that it will start to move the site’s half a billion blogs to the new WordPress-based backend.
This update shouldn’t affect the way Tumblr works for users, whom Automattic promises won’t notice any difference after the migration. Automattic says the change will make it easier to ship new features across both platforms and let Tumblr run on the stable infrastructure of WordPress.com. (WordPress.com is a private hosting service built on the open-source WordPress content management software.)
“We can build something once and bring it to both WordPress and Tumblr,” the post reads. “Tumblr will benefit from the collective effort that goes into the open source WordPress project.” However, Automattic acknowledges that the move “won’t be easy.” It also doesn’t say when the migration will be complete.
207 notes
·
View notes
Text
Meanwhile, on Tumblr, or rather WordPress
Soon, all of the blogs on Tumblr will be hosted on WordPress. Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com and Tumblr, announced on Wednesday that it will start to move the site’s half a billion blogs to the new WordPress-based backend.
This update shouldn’t affect the way Tumblr works for users, whom Automattic promises won’t notice any difference after the migration. Automattic says the change will make it easier to ship new features across both platforms and let Tumblr run on the stable infrastructure of WordPress.com. (WordPress.com is a private hosting service built on the open-source WordPress content management software.)
“We can build something once and bring it to both WordPress and Tumblr,” the post reads. “Tumblr will benefit from the collective effort that goes into the open source WordPress project.” However, Automattic acknowledges that the move “won’t be easy.” It also doesn’t say when the migration will be complete.
Since acquiring Tumblr in 2019, Automattic has set its sights on revitalizing the once-thriving blogging platform with mixed results. After running experiments with live video and considering “core experience” changes to attract new users, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg wrote in a memo that Automattic was reassigning much of the Tumblr team to other projects, saying its long-term goal would be operating Tumblr in “the most smooth and efficient manner.”
125 notes
·
View notes
Text
Today in Jean and Neil's bestfrienderism. With a side of Andrew being Andrew. And domestic Andreil.
.
Jean is having a panic attack.
Well, not quite. It's not a full blown attack, yet. But it is close. Very, very close. He is thirty. He is alive. He is Jean Moreau and he has endured so, so much. He is, somewhat, free. As free as the cattle are in a pasture. As free as the shrimp are to the breeding pond.
He has a wonderful husband. He is reconnecting with Kevin. He visits Cat and Laila whenever their schedules allow them the time to do so. He has a dog — well, he technically has three. Charbon is his, and his alone. She is a wonderful Black Labrador that Dobson appointed him. The other two, Caramelo and Dulce, (both named by Catalina, of course) are his and his husband's.
Charbon is moving as soon as he's clawing at his neck. She knows what to do. She knows what to do.
"-breathe. In, and out. Com'on, Jean. It ain't hard. In, and out. You're, like, an athlete. In, and out. You don't even smoke. In, and out. Drew? Water, yes. In, and out."
That's, unfortunately, not the voice of a cybernetically enhanced service dog. It's a different type of animal. Neil Josten.
He manages to make his brain claw around, trying to find where his hand is (in his neck, of course) and puts it up, flipping the bipedal cockroach off.
.
Jean doesn't have a panic attack. Thanks, Charbon.
He's still on the edge. He plays with the dog's ears, floppy and bendy. She seems content to let him do so. They're all on the floor. The two cats are in Neil's lap. Andrew is in the kitchen.
"Breathing okay? Didn't break a rib, did you?"
Jean flips Neil off again.
"I take that as a no. But we did do a RCP training course, you know? Aaron was being a little bitch about me being 'death-prone' or whatever. So you wouldn't even have died. Not on our watch"
"Pretty sure RCP is not the standard solution to panic attacks, junkie" Andrew says, sounding bored, while he walks into the room, tray in his hands. "Panic attacks, also, don't really kill people that often. He would've fainted, at worst"
"Should be standard. Gets the heart right again, does it not?"
Andrew drops the tray to the floor. Only, he doesn't drop it. The jug full of ice and water is intact, as is the glass right next to them. Jean serves himself a glass, drowning it as quickly as possible. It stings. It helps, with the whole "I hate my throat" thing. Harm reduction, Dobson called it.
"You're such a fucking idiot" Andrew says, before reaching down to tug Neil's hair. Neil looks up, their eyes lock, and Jean feels so disgusted that he almost forgets why he's on the floor, to start with. Can they be any less PDA-inclined?
Then again, Jeremy and him are worse. So.
There's silence. And, then, "Jean. We could find a way"
Jean is confused. Andrew, clearly, is not. Jeremy and him love each other, but even theh can admit that there's no other couple with such a level of telepathy as the Josten-Minyard one. It's quite off-putting.
" 'We' sounds like a lot of people" Andrew complains, his tone one of slight annoyance. Regardless, he drops down next to Neil. One of the cats migrates to his lap. He absentmindedly scratches its head, just like he did Neil.
"I'm not following"
They both look at him like he's an imbecile. In return, he glares.
"To get you out of the contract" Neil clarifies. Except, that doesn't clarify anything. Jean Moreau, even as a free man, belongs to the Moriyamas. Not the Nest, or Riko, anymore. It's as much freedom as anyone like him can wish for. Jean Moreau has, is and will endure.
Yes, he hyperventilates whenever the topic of children comes up. Because Jeremy wants kids. A big, happy, loving family. Jean, unfortunately, wants the same.
He doesn't want kids as much as he fears his debt. Their future. His work. Their worth.
Andrew made the offhand comment of Aaron's twins coming to visit next week. About how it seems that the whole group of "Neil's friends" are eager to overpopulate the world with mini nuisances and how he pitied the teachers that had to ever work with such offspring. How it feels like they're the only ones sane enough to avoid such a burden. He didn't mean anything by it. That didn't stop Jean from spiraling. Intent and reaction are, often, not the same thing.
"I stress that you should just get the Care Bear to replace you. He likes Exy. He likes you. Surely we can guilt him into agreeing"
"Non," he answers immediately. They've had this conversation. Jeremy has offered. Jean has refused. It is enough, that one of them is tainted by the Moriyamas. Jeremy's life is not and has never been perfect, but Jean refuses to add a whole ass mafia deal to that.
Andrew shrugs, unapologetically. Jean is not offended. Andrew is a no-nonsense kind of man. A "straight to the point" kind of man. He, probably, thinks that his suggestions are helping, somehow.
"There has to be another way." Neil muses, looking at the ceiling. "We already negotiated with Ichirou, once. Maybe time's made him softer? He's got kids, now. Fatherhood softens people up. Or so I hear."
"Your father tried to kill you. At least thirty times. Almost succeeded half of those, too" Jean reminds him, trying to stay out of the whole family conversation. Neil has never been one for careful sentences. He doesn't mean anything by it. Then, again, intent and reaction.
"It's his personality. He brings out the worst in people" Andrew adds, interlocking his pinky with Neil's pinky, before leaning in and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. Gross.
"Rude. Also, Ichirou is way more level headed than Nathan. We could try, at least."
"Absolutely no, you neuron-lacking flea."
"Over my dead body, Josten."
"Again, rude. You two never let me have any fun. Kevin is influencing you too much, I swear."
Jean doesn't feel like thinking about Kevin, so he takes out one of the bobby pins in his hair and throws it at Neil's face. Andrew snorts. Charbon looks at the interaction with curiosity. So does Neil.
There is silence, again. For a while. And, then, "Neil will play Exy until he can't, anyways" Andrew points out.
Jean is confused. Neil, clearly, is not. He looks at Andrew with such an open expression of vulnerability and worry, that Jean has to look away.
"Drew, you know that-"
"I said 'life', didn't I? Same team. Same house."
"Five years ago."
"Haven't changed my mind."
"Still. I know you hate it."
"As much as I hate you. I've put up with you this long. I will handle it."
"Are you two always this fucking cryptic? Jesus Christ"
They share a look. Andrew nods. Neil hesitates. Andrew pokes him in the ribs.
"Andrew is willing to make a deal. We- we talked about it, some years ago, when Kevin had that skating accident. It's, uh, a backup plan. Asking Ichirou to pass the contract down."
"For a price." Andrew adds. As if that isn't the most unhinged, crazy and stupid thing Jean has ever heard them say. And God knows that that's a very high list.
"You're joking with me."
"Do I look like a fucking clown, Moreau?"
"As a matter of fact, yes. I will not pass down my burden to you. Plus, it is, surprisingly, a decent plan. There is no other goalie out there who is making more money than you. Ichirou would be stupid if he didn't agree. Which means that you have to keep that option open. Neil is constantly looking for new ways of getting himself killed. I will not tolerate having you, either of you, on the chopping block for me. Not if I can help it"
He is angry. Do they think so selfish? So entitled? So uncaring? He feels nauseous. Charbon puts her paws on his chest, licking his face. He shouldn't feel offended, but he does. They don't mean anything by it. Intent, reaction.
"I'm already involved with our dear asian Shobhuza. Pretty sure he doesn't like me, already."
"Non. Absolutely no. Don't even- no. No. Are you listening to me? Never."
They glare at each other. Years ago, Jean would fold, Andrew's gaze reminding him too much of handcuffs and needles. He doesn't.
"Dramatic" Neil mutters in singsong. They glare at him, now. He has the audacity to giggle.
"We'll figure something out." he says, so sure of himself. How can someone so short be so full of confidence, Jean will never know.
"Even if we don't," Andrew adds, with something close to warmth in his tone, "surely the two of you can survive without passing on those dreadful genes of yours for a few more years"
"We were thinking of fostering" he murmurs, softly. So softly that he's unsure if they heard him or not. Andrew freezes, midway through petting his cat. Neil's eyes widen. Charbon gives a friendly bark.
Andrew and Neil look at each other. Do they ever do anything else?
"We'll find a way," Andrew says. Promises. Begs. Asks. Neil nods, gaze heavy with duty. They hold hands. Neil squeezes. Andrew squeezes back.
Jean feels like he might have another panic attack. How can they be so reckless? For him, out of all people?
Then, again, he would do the same. Sacrifices and promises.
Is there any other way to live?
#aftg#andreil#all for the game#andrew aftg#neil josten#andrew minyard#neil aftg#jean moreau#guys they're my babies#andreil fluff#my kids#love them so much
114 notes
·
View notes
Text
I'd just like to say this is NOT about the President threatening to enact KOSA and delete TikTok. Stop celebrating that. Sure, taking down TikTok may be a "good thing" in your eyes, but as much as we hate it there are friends, communities, creators, on there. Them suddenly losing all their contacts and viewers with NO NOTICE would be very fucking evil. Plus, if they banned TikTok (which is mostly for it's amount of pro-left / queer content, by the way) then that's a gateway for them to ban other sites; tumblr, facebook, instagram, youtube... et cetera. Which would be HORRIBLE. Even if THAT doesn't sound bad, that means that no-one can create other social media sites because they would monitor the entire internet. Do you fucking want that. Do you want every fucking shred of content to be policed and controlled, every sentence, every profile, every word. No, you DON'T. You want free expression. So don't follow the cruelty of the morally immature, and you won't add to the problem.
TikTok isn't bad because it's "cringe" (which usually refers to minorities anyway), it's bad because it's a content-stealing, mind-wrecking, echo chamber that is usually filled to the brim with such pretentious pricks and content farms that when something becomes even slightly mainstream on there, no matter how intrinsically pure, it gets torn limb from limb. It's similar to watching one of those simulation videos where the organisms start fighting each other despite abundant resources due to their short-sighted, tunnel vision mind. Any horrible, discriminative, malicious content you can imagine is increased tenfold on that site. Not to mention the fact that it lowers people's attention spans with addictive short-form content, whittling down their brains until they can't research things for themselves. The nerd emoji, the yapping, the negligence of any sort of solid logic or fact. It's real. It's horrifying. It's a internet-ruining machine, along with the likes of AI and Meta. It's a mind-ruining machine. There have been so, so many counts of people's tarnished mental health improving after leaving that dumpster fire of a "social" "media". There's nothing fucking "social" about it, and there certainly isn't any content on there that I'd give the honourable name of "media".
Delete TikTok. Fucking do it.
#a quick explanation of what happens when a site shuts down:#1. there's usually a deletion notice for the site which says it'll be shutting down soon#2. nearer to the deletion date - extra features like livestreams will shut down and the app will be taken from all app stores#3. when the deletion date comes.. then the site returns a singular page for all links explaining that its deleted#Or itll just give a 404#If you had a friend or something on a deleted service you just have to pray they have a similar user on a newer service#or that the wayback machine crawled their profile and did so close enough to the deletion date#sometimes websites give the user a chance to download their content / migrate their account but only on rare occasions#or if the site is being deleted to transition to another site under a different name and company#sort of like the Mojang -> Microsoft Minecraft account thing#So basically if you're too late you're fucked#which is why this would be a horrible idea due to the sheer number of users on tiktok#imagine if TUMBLR shut down yeah? now imagine that for an even BIGGER USERBASE with MORE POSTS with hardly ANY WARNING#as much as we hate tiktok we wouldnt want that happen to US so why THEM?
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Better failure for social media
Content moderation is fundamentally about making social media work better, but there are two other considerations that determine how social media fails: end-to-end (E2E), and freedom of exit. These are much neglected, and that’s a pity, because how a system fails is every bit as important as how it works.
Of course, commercial social media sites don’t want to be good, they want to be profitable. The unique dynamics of social media allow the companies to uncouple quality from profit, and more’s the pity.
Social media grows thanks to network effects — you join Twitter to hang out with the people who are there, and then other people join to hang out with you. The more users Twitter accumulates, the more users it can accumulate. But social media sites stay big thanks to high switching costs: the more you have to give up to leave a social media site, the harder it is to go:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs
Nature bequeaths some in-built switching costs on social media, primarily the coordination problem of reaching consensus on where you and the people in your community should go next. The more friends you share a social media platform with, the higher these costs are. If you’ve ever tried to get ten friends to agree on where to go for dinner, you know how this works. Now imagine trying to get all your friends to agree on where to go for dinner, for the rest of their lives!
But these costs aren’t insurmountable. Network effects, after all, are a double-edged sword. Some users are above-average draws for others, and if a critical mass of these important nodes in the network map depart for a new service — like, say, Mastodon — that service becomes the presumptive successor to the existing giants.
When that happens — when Mastodon becomes “the place we’ll all go when Twitter finally becomes unbearable” — the downsides of network effects kick in and the double-edged sword begins to carve away at a service’s user-base. It’s one thing to argue about which restaurant we should go to tonight, it’s another to ask whether we should join our friends at the new restaurant where they’re already eating.
Social media sites who want to keep their users’ business walk a fine line: they can simply treat those users well, showing them the things they ask to see, not spying on them, paying to police their service to reduce harassment, etc. But these are costly choices: if you show users the things they ask to see, you can’t charge businesses to show them things they don’t want to see. If you don’t spy on users, you can’t sell targeting services to people who want to force them to look at things they’re uninterested in. Every moderator you pay to reduce harassment draws a salary at the expense of your shareholders, and every catastrophe that moderator prevents is a catastrophe you can’t turn into monetizable attention as gawking users flock to it.
So social media sites are always trying to optimize their mistreatment of users, mistreating them (and thus profiting from them) right up to the point where they are ready to switch, but without actually pushing them over the edge.
One way to keep dissatisfied users from leaving is by extracting a penalty from them for their disloyalty. You can lock in their data, their social relationships, or, if they’re “creators” (and disproportionately likely to be key network nodes whose defection to a rival triggers mass departures from their fans), you can take their audiences hostage.
The dominant social media firms all practice a low-grade, tacit form of hostage-taking. Facebook downranks content that links to other sites on the internet. Instagram prohibits links in posts, limiting creators to “Links in bio.” Tiktok doesn’t even allow links. All of this serves as a brake on high-follower users who seek to migrate their audiences to better platforms.
But these strategies are unstable. When a platform becomes worse for users (say, because it mandates nonconsensual surveillance and ramps up advertising), they may actively seek out other places on which to follow each other, and the creators they enjoy. When a rival platform emerges as the presumptive successor to an incumbent, users no longer face the friction of knowing which rival they should resettle to.
When platforms’ enshittification strategies overshoot this way, users flee in droves, and then it’s time for the desperate platform managers to abandon the pretense of providing a public square. Yesterday, Elon Musk’s Twitter rolled out a policy prohibiting users from posting links to rival platforms:
https://web.archive.org/web/20221218173806/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/social-platforms-policy
This policy was explicitly aimed at preventing users from telling each other where they could be found after they leave Twitter:
https://web.archive.org/web/20221219015355/https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1604531261791522817
This, in turn, was a response to many users posting regular messages explaining why they were leaving Twitter and how they could be found on other platforms. In particular, Twitter management was concerned with departures by high-follower users like Taylor Lorenz, who was retroactively punished for violating the policy, though it didn’t exist when she violated it:
https://deadline.com/2022/12/washington-post-journalist-taylor-lorenz-suspended-twitter-1235202034/
As Elon Musk wrote last spring: “The acid test for two competing socioeconomic systems is which side needs to build a wall to keep people from escaping? That’s the bad one!”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1533616384747442176
This isn’t particularly insightful. It’s obvious that any system that requires high walls and punishments to stay in business isn’t serving its users, whose presence is attributable to coercion, not fulfillment. Of course, the people who operate these systems have all manner of rationalizations for them.
The Berlin Wall, we were told, wasn’t there to keep East Germans in — rather, it was there to keep the teeming hordes clamoring to live in the workers’ paradise out. In the same way, platforms will claim that they’re not blocking outlinks or sideloading because they want to prevent users from defecting to a competitor, but rather, to protect those users from external threats.
This rationalization quickly wears thin, and then new ones step in. For example, you might claim that telling your friends that you’re leaving and asking them to meet you elsewhere is like “giv[ing] a talk for a corporation [and] promot[ing] other corporations”:
https://mobile.twitter.com/mayemusk/status/1604550452447690752
Or you might claim that it’s like “running Wendy’s ads [on] McDonalds property,” rather than turning to your friends and saying, “The food at McDonalds sucks, let’s go eat at Wendy’s instead”:
https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1604559316237037568
The truth is that any service that won’t let you leave isn’t in the business of serving you, it’s in the business of harming you. The only reason to build a wall around your service — to impose any switching costs on users- is so that you can fuck them over without risking their departure.
The platforms want to be Anatevka, and we the villagers of Fiddler On the Roof, stuck plodding the muddy, Cossack-haunted roads by the threat of losing all our friends if we try to leave:
https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms-9fc550fe5abf
That’s where freedom of exit comes in. The public should have the right to leave, and companies should not be permitted to make that departure burdensome. Any burdens we permit companies to impose is an invitation to abuse of their users.
This is why governments are handing down new interoperability mandates: the EU’s Digital Markets Act forces the largest companies to offer APIs so that smaller rivals can plug into them and let users walkaway from Big Tech into new kinds of platforms — small businesses, co-ops, nonprofits, hobby sites — that treat them better. These small players are overwhelmingly part of the fediverse: the federated social media sites that allow users to connect to one another irrespective of which server or service they use.
The creators of these platforms have pledged themselves to freedom of exit. Mastodon ships with a “Move Followers” and “Move Following” feature that lets you quit one server and set up shop on another, without losing any of the accounts you follow or the accounts that follow you:
https://codingitwrong.com/2022/10/10/migrating-a-mastodon-account.html
This feature is as yet obscure, because the exodus to Mastodon is still young. Users who flocked to servers without knowing much about their managers have, by and large, not yet run into problems with the site operators. The early trickle of horror stories about petty authoritarianism from Mastodon sysops conspicuously fail to mention that if the management of a particular instance turns tyrant, you can click two links, export your whole social graph, sign up for a rival, click two more links and be back at it.
This feature will become more prominent, because there is nothing about running a Mastodon server that means that you are good at running a Mastodon server. Elon Musk isn’t an evil genius — he’s an ordinary mediocrity who lucked into a lot of power and very little accountability. Some Mastodon operators will have Musk-like tendencies that they will unleash on their users, and the difference will be that those users can click two links and move elsewhere. Bye-eee!
Freedom of exit isn’t just a matter of the human right of movement, it’s also a labor issue. Online creators constitute a serious draw for social media services. All things being equal, these services would rather coerce creators’ participation — by holding their audiences hostage — than persuade creators to remain by offering them an honest chance to ply their trade.
Platforms have a variety of strategies for chaining creators to their services: in addition to making it harder for creators to coordinate with their audiences in a mass departure, platforms can use DRM, as Audible does, to prevent creators’ customers from moving the media they purchase to a rival’s app or player.
Then there’s “freedom of reach”: platforms routinely and deceptively conflate recommending a creator’s work with showing that creator’s work to the people who explicitly asked to see it.
https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen
When you follow or subscribe to a feed, that is not a “signal” to be mixed into the recommendation system. It’s an order: “Show me this.” Not “Show me things like this.”
Show.
Me.
This.
But there’s no money in showing people the things they tell you they want to see. If Amazon showed shoppers the products they searched for, they couldn’t earn $31b/year on an “ad business” that fills the first six screens of results with rival products who’ve paid to be displayed over the product you’re seeking:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola
If Spotify played you the albums you searched for, it couldn’t redirect you to playlists artists have to shell out payola to be included on:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing
And if you only see what you ask for, then product managers whose KPI is whether they entice you to “discover” something else won’t get a bonus every time you fatfinger a part of your screen that navigates you away from the thing you specifically requested:
https://doctorow.medium.com/the-fatfinger-economy-7c7b3b54925c
Musk, meanwhile, has announced that you won’t see messages from the people you follow unless they pay for Twitter Blue:
https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-twitter-blue/
And also that you will be nonconsensually opted into seeing more “recommended” content from people you don’t follow (but who can be extorted out of payola for the privilege):
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/Twitter-Expands-Content-Recommendations/637697/
Musk sees Twitter as a publisher, not a social media site:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604588904828600320
Which is why he’s so indifferent to the collateral damage from this payola/hostage scam. Yes, Twitter is a place where famous and semi-famous people talk to their audiences, but it is primarily a place where those audiences talk to each other — that is, a public square.
This is the Facebook death-spiral: charging to people to follow to reach you, and burying the things they say in a torrent of payola-funded spam. It’s the vision of someone who thinks of other people as things to use — to pump up your share price or market your goods to — not worthy of consideration.
As Terry Pratchett’s Granny Weatherwax put it: “Sin is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
Mastodon isn’t perfect, but its flaws are neither fatal nor permanent. The idea that centralized media is “easier” surely reflects the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been pumped into refining social media Roach Motels (“users check in, but they don’t check out”).
Until a comparable sum has been spent refining decentralized, federated services, any claims about the impossibility of making the fediverse work for mass audiences should be treated as unfalsifiable, motivated reasoning.
Meanwhile, Mastodon has gotten two things right that no other social media giant has even seriously attempted:
I. If you follow someone on Mastodon, you’ll see everything they post; and
II. If you leave a Mastodon server, you can take both your followers and the people you follow with you.
The most common criticism of Mastodon is that you must rely on individual moderators who may be underresourced, incompetent on malicious. This is indeed a serious problem, but it isn’t the same serious problem that Twitter has. When Twitter is incompetent, malicious, or underresourced, your departure comes at a dear price.
On Mastodon, your choice is: tolerate bad moderation, or click two links and move somewhere else.
On Twitter, your choice is: tolerate moderation, or lose contact with all the people you care about and all the people who care about you.
The interoperability mandates in the Digital Markets Act (and in the US ACCESS Act, which seems unlikely to get a vote in this session of Congress) only force the largest platforms to open up, but Mastodon shows us the utility of interop for smaller services, too.
There are lots of domains in which “dominance” shouldn’t be the sole criteria for whether you are expected to treat your customers fairly.
A doctor with a small practice who leaks all ten patients’ data harms those patients as surely as a hospital system with a million patients would have. A small-time wedding photographer who refuses to turn over your pictures unless you pay a surprise bill is every bit as harmful to you as a giant chain that has the same practice.
As we move into the realm of smalltime, community-oriented social media servers, we should be looking to avoid the pitfalls of the social media bubble that’s bursting around us. No matter what the size of the service, let’s ensure that it lets us leave, and respects the end-to-end principle, that any two people who want to talk to each other should be allowed to do so, without interference from the people who operate their communications infrastructure.
Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg
CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
Heisenberg Media (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk_-_The_Summit_2013.jpg
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
[Image ID: Moses confronting the Pharaoh, demanding that he release the Hebrews. Pharaoh’s face has been replaced with Elon Musk’s. Moses holds a Twitter logo in his outstretched hand. The faces embossed in the columns of Pharaoh’s audience hall have been replaced with the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The wall over Pharaoh’s head has been replaced with a Matrix ‘code waterfall’ effect. Moses’s head has been replaced with that of the Mastodon mascot.]
#pluralistic#e2e#end-to-end#freedom of reach#mastodon#interoperability#social media#twitter#economy#creator economy#artists rights#content moderation#como#right of exodus#let my tweeters go#exodus#right of exit#technological self-determination
3K notes
·
View notes
Note
*waves shyly* Hello!! First off, I absolutely adore all of your stats and get excited when you post new ones -- thank you so much for all that you do!
Secondly, a friend and I have been discussing fandom longevity lately, and I wondered if you have thoughts? Subjectively, it seems to us that new fandoms tend to have more quick bursts of fandom activity when a new season/movie/book/etc comes out that fades quickly with time, whereas older established fandoms have more staying power. I'm curious if you have any insight about whether this is objectively true in most cases or not, and as to whether or not the type of canon source material matters (eg show-based fandoms vs book-based fandoms). I hope you're having a great day <3
Hi there, and thanks! :D This is a great question, and one I have been having a bunch of conversations about lately.
I share this subjective experience -- it sure seems like the attention span of fans and lifespan of fandoms is shorter than it used to be, when I think of how quickly people stop talking about a bunch of newer movies and TV shows these days. And then I see some of the older fandoms like Harry Potter still producing a ton of new fanworks, and I think, "Wow, maybe new fandoms just don't have the staying power of older ones." At the same time, I also question how objectively true/simple that story is for a few reasons, including:
Memory bias: When we look back on the past, the fandoms we remember most are usually the ones that lasted a long time. So our estimates of past fandom longevity may be overly generous.
Changes to fandom size: Maybe any changes to fandom lifespan are mostly due to some other change, like fandom size... Attention is more splintered these days than it used to be across more streaming services/etc, and I think there are more, smaller fandoms than there used to be. Maybe if a fandom doesn't get really huge, it's just not likely to last that long.
For TV fandoms -- changes to canon release schedule: most TV shows used to have seasons that lasted most of the year, so they had a lot more reason to stay in the public mind longer. Now many seasons are shorter and sometimes drop all at once. Perhaps if we compared popular TV procedurals with 22 episodes/season from now vs. ~a decade ago, we'd see similar patterns of fandom activity?
I've been thinking about ways to try to gather quantitative data about the changes, and testing out a few methods. A few ideas I've had:
Look at the Tumblr official lists of top fandoms and see whether the top fandoms tend to leave the top 20 rankings faster now than they used to. (The Tumblr rankings go all the way back to 2013 on a yearly basis, at least -- I'm not sure how long they've been releasing the weekly lists; those may have started later.)
Look at AO3 fandom activity after new canon infusions - how quickly does activity drop off after a new movie/book/video game release, or after a TV season ends? How has the rate of activity dropoff changed over the years? (And how much of that seems to be explained by other factors, like fandom size?)
See how quickly AO3 authors/creators tend to migrate to new fandoms, and how that's changed over time - many authors tend to be active in multiple fandoms, so we'd have to define what it means to migrate to a new fandom, but I think we could do so in a way that would allow us to look for changes.
Look at Tumblr, Twitter/X, and/or Reddit activlty after new canon infusions - same as AO3, but on a platform where people are posting shorter content and there's more of a discussion. (This data would be harder to collect, though.)
I'd love to also hear other ideas. I think I'm going to need some volunteers to help gather data if I do any of the above, though... Readers, if you'd be interested in helping to gather data for an hour or more to help investigate this question, please reply/DM and let me know! And/or join the new fandom-data-projects community.
Also if any readers know of anyone else who has looked into this/similar questions, I'd love to hear about it!
#fandom lifespan#call for volunteers#I'll also post more details later#but it would involve doing AO3 searches or other searches and copying numbers into a spreadsheet#questions for the tumblmind#asks#toasty replies#fandom stats#toastystats#50
58 notes
·
View notes
Text
safe and sound, major john egan
pairing: major john egan x amelia mae egan content: john manages to sneak away for london for a weekend and amelia meets him there. what he isn't expecting is a front-rowto seat to destruction. warning: descriptions of war. song: safe and sound by taylor swift (2012 version) tag list: @neeville @turn-thy-paige @ihe4rtisa @ineedafictionalman @lovebyceleste @alliewassobonum
At home, people-watching was an activity they both enjoyed. It was a Sunday morning activity before the local church service. His warm hands around her thighs would pull her out of her slumber where she’d be awakened by a bowl of oatmeal and a steaming mug of coffee.
They’d migrate to the living room and she’d perch herself on his lap, running her hands through his hair as they watched the leaves sway by the wind.
This wasn’t that. What was usually a blue sky, lit up red and white like the Fourth of July; thunderous booms and bangs that shook the building. Boom. Boom. Boom. A raging affair. No people to wave at as they walked down the sidewalk, but bodies collapsing against pavements, lifeless and still. What was usually enjoyable, was torment.
He fidgeted under her, the urge to glance out the window stronger than he preferred.
“Relax, honey,” she whispered against the shell of his ear. Her lips wrapped around the tip of his ear, nipping along the soft flesh. She smiled at the soft whimpers he failed to conceal. “Don’t look at that, look at me,” she instructed softly, using her hand to cup his jaw. Her nails pressed against his face lightly, small crescents imprinting against his skin. “Look at me, it’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay; she knew that. It was far from okay. There was a war waging outside their door and the culpability was eating him alive. She could tell by the way his body stiffened, his eyes faltered, and his hands gripped the edge of the couch. It was a complex situation; a soldier witnessing the brutality he initiated on others. Buildings fell, ashes rose, and screams echoed against the trees. They echoed in his ears like echoes of a snare drum. How could he stomach it without feeling the guilt crawl up his throat like bile?
“Amelia…” She swallowed his sounds like her favorite dessert, sweet and airy in her mouth. He was hesitant as his hands slipped off the edge of the couch and came around her waist. His palms were cold from sitting near the window, stinging her warm skin.
His voice was hardly audible over the sounds of destruction outside. His eyes pleaded with hers for reassurance, for a promise that everything would soon pass, and Sundays would be their portion.
Amelia’s thumb traced the scar on his cheek, her touch calming the raging seas within him. “I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m right here with you.” She brushed her lips against his forehead, offering him a tender kiss filled with reassurance.
John's grip on her waist tightened, seeking solace in her embrace. His heart ached with the weight of what he had witnessed, the echoes of destruction reverberating through his mind.
Amelia combed through his hair lovingly, guarding his view from the window with her arm. Who would have known it would have come to this, she thought. Where it all came crashing down. But, she’d always be there to catch him when he fell. And nothing would change that.
#saturnville#original writing#black!reader#original content#original characters#black reader#masters of the air#mota#major john egan x amelia mae egan by saturnville#john egan smut#john egan x reader#major john egan x reader#major john egan#john egan#bucky egan x black reader#callum turner major john bucky egan#bucky egan x reader#amelia mae egan
142 notes
·
View notes
Text
Guz grinned at her model, as it completed the first loop around the layout of her new quarters. Guz explained the contents of the train--solid rocket boosters for the North Meridian Space Launch Facility.
"It's not really prototypical though, is it?" Rutherford asked.
"A steam engine pulling high explosives does seem illogical," T'lyn said.
Guz smiled and flapped her hands. "It is prototypical, and here's how it happened--"
Around the late 2330s, an oil crisis shocked Mellanus. It was a while before it got really bad, and the rationing had to begin, but it skyrocketed the price of gasoline and diesel and plastic products. As Omen approached, the railways identified a problem--there might not be enough oil to migrate everyone and move all the goods that need to be moved to support the migration as the climate changed. With the increasing diesel fuel shortages, railways had to start taking their old coal and wood burning steam engines out of mothballs.
This one, No.2475, was taken out of a museum. It only rarely actually ran, so it was in poor mechanical condition, but when it re-entered service its paint and brass was pristine.
The diesel locomotive that had been scheduled to take the train of SRBs ran out of fuel during the first hill climb, and the depot didn't have enough fuel to spare, so 2475 was diverted from its passenger duties to take the train the rest of the way.
Eventually most of the old timer steam engines ended up back in museums or scrapped, but as the oil crisis waxed, the railways invented Advanced Steam engines to be as fuel efficient as possible.
"--like that tank engine, Sam," Guz finished, pointing at the little yellow switcher that Rutherford and T'lyn had been inspecting.
#Brad Boimler#Eaurp Guz#Sam Rutherford#T'lyn#Lisdolin Kerman#Kerbal#Star Trek#Star Trek Lower Decks#Lower Decks#Rocket#SRB#solid rocket booster#launch vehicle#train#steam train#steam locomotive#locomotive#Garratt#art#digital art#fanart#star trek fan art#space program#mellanoid space program#Mellanoid Slime#Mellanoid Slime Worm#Slime Trains
36 notes
·
View notes
Text
HireWPGeeks Can Help You Convert Your Website to a CMS
Transform your online presence with HireWPGeeks, your trusted partner to convert website to CMS. Our expert team ensures a smooth transition, enhancing your website’s functionality and usability. Enjoy greater control over your content, streamlined updates, and improved user experience. Let us help you unlock the full potential of your website with a robust content management system.
#Convert website to CMS#HireWPGeeks#Website migration service#CMS conversion#Content management system#Upgrade website to CMS#Professional website conversion
0 notes
Text
Sneak Peek: Just Be Gentle pt 2
Gif credit by @javier-pena
I am SO delayed in this, but WIP Weekend it is! Recommended by the lovely @djarins-cyare, thanks friend!
I have not visited my drafts folder in sooo long, but I'm coming out of an unintentional writing hiatus and have fresh motivation to open the ole lappytop back up for a little sample to share. Part 1 of this fic was much beloved by yall apparently, so it continues here!
Pairing: Paz Vizsla x reader
Words: 1.9K (for now)
For my Star Wars | Mandalorian Masterlist, check it out here!
Paz watched the scene before him unfold; the heat of compassion bloomed in the gut like stoking a fire…
Din Djarin swore on the deed of his ship that he wasn’t exaggerating. He placed a flag solidly in her camp, and would go to arms for her as a returned gesture of loyalty. From that first meeting when the Hunter came back through the alcove to Nevarro’s covert, he spoke on his companion’s competence on several fronts. Namely, in all the ways that resonated with his people: creative thinking, handy know-how, and something more: empathy- a gift not to be ignored when it came to caring for others -himself included- in moments of high stress.
He praised her talents ‘all across the board’, citing moments in their brief stint together on the Razor Crest as testimony to his Mandalorian clan for her to remain there in shelter– to be the exception to their rules regarding outsiders. Aruetti.
A surprise to none, Paz Vizsla deemed that it would be up to him to judge such loyalties for himself; as a man more inclined to view actions as proof rather than words.
But then he met her. Every bit of what Djarin said was true. Better yet, she proved every assumption of his wrong: allowed her to take him by the crook of his arm, surrendered her best vote of confidence, and let him lead. Acquiesced to his strength, protected it, and encouraged him at every turn. Saved him the first of her meals, the best of her scavenged findings. Took to tending to his wounds herself, because he wasn’t gentle enough to do so on his own.
A few weeks have passed since that day, but his fondness for her didn’t wane like the moon’s phases did. Paz Vizsla made it his mission from that moment forward to carry an extra ounce of gentleness, just for her.
Then, the refugees came pouring in. Her arrival couldn't have been timed more perfectly, Paz thought; he’d only begun to see the full measure of little Song’s magic the moment he saw her skills at work.
A smaller covert made a quick exit and raced to safety after a raid depleted their stores a few systems over. There had been some rumors of their hunter clans taking the bait of Guild membership in order to make ends meet, as they’d seen in Djarin’s success. The Way instilled a sense of belonging wherever Mandalorians crossed paths, so merging on his covert’s territory for the upcoming season out of necessity was a given.
But now, in light of Nevarro’s storm season, it seems their numbers would be doubling indefinitely. The situation proved to be a strain and test of everyone’s flexibility and resilience, to keep everyone content and organized on such short notice… but with a Vizsla as Alorad, they flourished with the change in plans and watched on as Paz steeled himself against Fear, and made everything suitable. Supplies were rationed and rooms were stuffed to the brim, but they would make do.
While they may not have resources with them in tow, they more than made up for it by pulling their weight in preparation for the underground shelters. And that, would benefit all.
Song made herself indispensable, true to what Djarin had said. Moreover, she did so with caring smiles and solemn assurances to the migrating Mandalorians -young and old- who felt very out of place. To those men who lost their way in the bustle and found themselves turned around in the tunnels, she would give quick pointers about where to go– and thanked them for their service to the clan, each and every one.
Learning fast. Paz was grateful.
Upon nightfall, there was less commotion than normal. As the common spaces gradually funneled down, bedchambers were lit and sealed for the night. For the most part, it was the heads of families -adults- who went to rooms for the night as a chance to let down and get their heads on straight after such a sudden move. Surely not all slept right away, but took to tending to their armor and delving into their meditation practices.
Meanwhile, their children under ten or so were sent off to the creche where they could be watched over. The community room was next to the medstations, and as kids are often ones to complain of very little bout of aches, pains, or simple snotty noses, it was the logical choice.
Two crechemasters stayed in the spacious alcove of the Medbay annex overseeing the creche, as well as one of the resident tribe’s kitchen aides, a few men as guards near the entrance and supply doors… and a certain someone -with a voice like the Coming of Spring- that Paz Viszla could never refuse pausing for a minute to listen….
Clearly tugged by the soft spot within him, Paz volunteered to serve first watch over the children for their first night, which made their parents feel that much more assured of their protection. So with blankets pulled from every corner of spare storage, canvas mats laid this way and that, and with juvenile excitement despite the circumstances, the children all got to sleep and the staff interchanged periods of rest until all was quiet by the early waning hours of morning. Even the covert’s local young ones came to join this slumber party of sorts. For the sake of welcoming and strengthening bonds, the crechemasters allowed it.
Right after the 0300 guards changed out, Paz heard it. Inside the alcoves inset bunks, one of the smallest boys -nearly four years old- was making a steady and increasing amount of noise, until he startled himself awake and clearly didn't know where he was. He was calling for his babuir in their native tongue; but by his aimless flailing about, it’s clear he’s looking for just about anyone bigger than him that might come to his cry for help.
Before Paz could overstep one of the sleeping children nearest him to respond, he caught the woman he'd know to know as the 'Songbird of the Covert' slipping out of the window jumpseat like a sparrow off its perch, flying to the child's stuttering form up on the riser.
"Well hi honey, g'morning to you too~ Pretty early, isn't it?"
Seeing a soothing figure coming to his call, little threadbare arms immediately shot out and spoke brokenly in bits and pieces of a particular Sundari dialect. Basic wasn't his strong suit. Then again, it gave way to crying in minutes anyway, so his distress was clear and the language barrier mattered little.
"Hm?-- ohhh, aw c'mere bub..” the woman set the child on a hip as he clutched to her. She set them in a sway, “Yeah, you can stay up with me– I can always use some snuggles, too."
The toddler nuzzled in but by his whimpers, Song moved towards the open atrium with more room to walk around and hopefully not disturb the sleeping of any others.
Paz met her there. She'd looked his way with a pitiful expression, traipsing about with the little one in her arms and keeping his little shoulders pressed in close.
"Bad dreams, I'd say," she murmured low to Paz, in Basic. "But I can't tell if anything else is wrong. Doesn’t feel too warm, not coughing. Seems trusting though, poor thing. " she shrugged, motioning to how easily the child was settling.
Through his careful watch of her across the room, he’d caught her sneaking the back of her hand to his forehead earlier in a move masked as just fixing his curls, but fortunately, he must not have been found feverish to warrant more worry.
Paz came to bring a big, steady hand on the child's back. The kid turned his head from her neck to find the new Alorad tilting his helmet to match, and made a big sniff to put on a brace face. Shy and no doubt aware of this elder’s importance, he snuck out a little wave back in acknowledgement.
"//Be at peace, young one. You're safe in the Reliable one's arms, that you are.//"
Whatever Paz said to this "adika" -as he seems to have called him- brought relief to the child, as he hugged her neck tighter and made himself comfortable again in her arms.
An amused whisper graced his ears as she looked up at him,
"What'd you say?"
"That he has nothing to worry about," Paz shared kindly. "He seems to like you."
"I wouldn't think these kiddos would trust strangers so easily after what they've been through," she smoothed back the child’s hair gently- thankfully, his breathing evened out into sleepy sighs.
"They've had quite the eventful last few days."
She kept humming away for a minute, trying to subconsciously lull the child the rest of the way. She looked absently over the nursery if other young ones, but Paz was captivated by her alone.
This instinct must have been what Djarin was talking about. She hadn't hesitated to jump right in, even though she must have been on the edge of sleep herself- if her state of dress was any hint. Shed opted for no outer protective layers for this reason perhaps- a source of comfort for the little ones, and though perhaps it was also to signify to them she was not a warrior or someone too formal for them to shy away from.
Finally seeing the child dozing back fully, Paz offered to take the child from her and set him back on his bunk above them.
She let him, adjusting her loose cardigan back onto her shoulder. Shed opted for that over her cropped black body glove that acted as a breastband, and the loose comfy pants that honestly have fit Paz better, but she made do with her current wardrobe and didn't bother worrying about outfits too much.
Here, just over his shoulder, she watched the Big Blue tuck -yes, tuck- the child in. Stepping away only when he saw the child try to settle into his new sleep position did he step away and back towards her retreat to her watch corner.
"Teacher and carer? You're the dual package, Mr. Vizsla."
"I do what I can. It's not often I get to see our children be children- I would preserve that wonder in them if I could."
Childlike innocence: to hear the hardest-working, stoic soldier speak on such tender things was a thing of wonder itself.
“I’ve only ever seen the little ones work their drills here– recitations, history lessons.” She looked about the room. “I haven’t seen kids this young in a year, much less so many crammed into one room.”
“Well, the rooming arrangement is common practice,” Paz explained, his trademark patience a soothing constant- even through the helmet, “You’ll find a nursery like this in every covert across the galaxy.”
Then, a more sobering thought, one that brought pity to the forefront of her mind:
“If– you weren’t all living down here, would they be going to a normal school? Making other friends? At least while they’re young?”
As if she expected any other answer, Paz’s reflex came through the form of his gentle whisper: “This is the Way.”
“That it is,” she firmed up a knowing smile. “There’s so many of them, going through so much newness at their age.”
Paz agrees, though knows no other way than the community that sleeps before them. To watch the woman’s empathy radiate from her being -those angel eyes- was to know the warmest ray of sunshine in the pit of winter. Such a calm presence… that’s what these youth need, after all. She’s exactly where she should be.
#paz vizsla#paz vizsla x reader#paz vizsla x you#paz#the mandalorian#the mandalorian fanfic#the mandalorian fanfiction#big blue mando#paz viszla#give me paz all day every day#have you hugged your heavy infantry mando today?#welcome to the haitus#paz lives#the armorer#ragnar vizsla
21 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ok so, commissions. I'm pretty much all set and ready and here's how it's going to work this time.
I'll be doing sketch portraits like this (just want something a bit easier for myself for now, but I'll be opening more slots than usual to compensate).
Now here's where I'm running into a bit of an issue. I'll be migrating to yet another "sell your digital content" platform so that folks have option to pay with paypal as the service I've been using before only accepts cards for now. I've read some mixed reviews about the verification process but dw it's gonna be my headache only.
So, if everything goes well proper commission post and the request form will be up tomorrow 🤞
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
So Google banned AO3 from showing up in search results in Germany. What now?
Start using (and paying for, if you must) standard VPN services that offer a wide range of international servers to choose from.
Stop using Google. Use Brave, for example. DuckDuckGo has also started filtering content just recently, so don't go there.
For that matter, use different search engines from time to time and avoid those based on google algorithms. Startpage, for example, uses google result. They're committed to privacy but not to neutrality.
Be aware that your government wants to curate your internet experience for you. It's all about control. They treat you like children, so be aware that they're trying to install "child safety" measures that you're probably not even aware of. The internet is a huge open space, but the things they permit you to see are getting fewer by the day, whether it's people, porn, or politics.
De-centralize your own internet experience. Don't use just one social network, one platform, use ALL of them. Just so that in case you're banned somewhere, you have a space to migrate to.
Back up your works. Back up your works. Back up your works. Do not use company-owned cloud spaces as back-up, save your works the old-fashioned way on external devices.
Start looking into peer-to-peer networks and blockchain technoly. Just in case.
BE AWARE THAT THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING.
544 notes
·
View notes