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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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The largest campaign finance violation in US history

I'm coming to DEFCON! On Aug 9, I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On Aug 10, I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

Earlier this month, some of the richest men in Silicon Valley, led by Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz (the billionaire VCs behind Andreesen-Horowitz) announced that they would be backing Trump with endorsements and millions of dollars:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/07/16/trump-lands-more-big-tech-backers-billionaire-venture-capitalist-andreessen-joins-wave-supporting-former-president/

Predictably, this drew a lot of ire, which Andreesen tried to diffuse by insisting that his support "doesn’t have anything to do with the big issues that people care about":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/24/24204706/marc-andreessen-ben-horowitz-a16z-trump-donations

In other words, the billionaires backing Trump weren't doing so because they supported the racism, the national abortion ban, the attacks on core human rights, etc. Those were merely tradeoffs that they were willing to make to get the parts of the Trump program they do support: more tax-cuts for the ultra-rich, and, of course, free rein to defraud normies with cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes.

Crypto isn't "money" – it is far too volatile to be a store of value, a unit of account, or a medium of exchange. You'd have to be nuts to get a crypto mortgage when all it takes is Elon Musk tweeting a couple emoji to make your monthly mortgage payment double.

A thing becomes moneylike when it can be used to pay off a bill for something you either must pay for, or strongly desire to pay for. The US dollar's moneylike property comes from the fact that hundreds of millions of people need dollars to pay off the IRS and their state tax bills, which means that they will trade labor and goods for dollars. Even people who don't pay US taxes will accept dollars, because they know they can use them to buy things from people who do have a nondiscretionary bill that can only be paid in dollars.

Dollars are also valuable because there are many important commodities that can only – or primarily – be purchased with them, like much of the world's oil supply. The fact that anyone who wants to buy oil has a strong need for dollars makes dollars valuable, because they will sell labor and goods to get dollars, not because they need dollars, but because they need oil.

There's almost nothing that can only be purchased with crypto. You can procure illegal goods and services in the mistaken belief that this transaction will be durably anonymous, and you can pay off ransomware creeps who have hijacked your personal files or all of your business's data:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

Web3 was sold as a way to make the web more "decentralized," but it's best understood as an effort to make it impossible to use the web without paying crypto every time you click your mouse. If people need crypto to use the internet, then crypto whales will finally have a source of durable liquidity for the tokens they've hoarded:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/16/nondiscretionary-liabilities/#quatloos

The Web3 bubble was almost entirely down to the vast hype machine mobilized by Andreesen-Horowitz, who bet billions of dollars on the idea and almost single-handedly created the illusion of demand for crypto. For example, they arranged a $100m bribe to Kickstarter shareholders in exchange for Kickstarter pretending to integrate "blockchain" into its crowdfunding platform:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/untold-story-kickstarter-crypto-hail-120000205.html

Kickstarter never ended up using the blockchain technology, because it was useless. Their shareholders just pocketed the $100m while the company weathered the waves of scorn from savvy tech users who understood that this was all a shuck.

Look hard enough at any crypto "success" and you'll discover a comparable scam. Remember NFTs, and the eye-popping sums that seemingly "everyone" was willing to pay for ugly JPEGs? That whole market was shot through with "wash-trading" – where you sell your asset to yourself and pretend that it was bought by a third party. It's a cheap – and illegal – way to convince people that something worthless is actually very valuable:

https://mailchi.mp/brianlivingston.com/034-2#free1

Even the books about crypto are scams. Chris Dixon's "bestseller" about the power of crypto, Read Write Own, got on the bestseller list through the publishing equivalent of wash-trading, where VCs with large investments in crypto bought up thousands of copies and shoved them on indifferent employees or just warehoused them:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/15/your-new-first-name/#that-dagger-tho

The fact that crypto trades were mostly the same bunch of grifters buying shitcoins from each other, while spending big on Superbowl ads, bribes to Kickstarter shareholders, and bulk-buys of mediocre business-books was bound to come out someday. In the meantime, though, the system worked: it convinced normies to gamble their life's savings on crypto, which they promptly lost (if you can't spot the sucker at the table, you're the sucker).

There's a name for this: it's called a "bezzle." John Kenneth Galbraith defined a "bezzle" as "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." All bezzles collapse eventually, but until they do, everyone feels better off. You think you're rich because you just bought a bunch of shitcoins after Matt Damon told you that "fortune favors the brave." Damon feels rich because he got a ton of cash to rope you into the con. Crypto.com feels rich because you took a bunch of your perfectly cromulent "fiat money" that can be used to buy anything and traded it in for shitcoins that can be used to buy nothing:

https://theintercept.com/2022/10/26/matt-damon-crypto-commercial/

Andreesen-Horowitz were masters of the bezzle. For them, the Web3 bet on an internet that you'd have to buy their shitcoins to use was always Plan B. Plan A was much more straightforward: they would back crypto companies and take part of their equity in huge quantities of shitcoins that they could sell to "unqualified investors" (normies) in an "initial coin offering." Normally, this would be illegal: a company can't offer stock to the general public until it's been through an SEC vetting process and "gone public" through an IPO. But (Andreesen-Horowitz argued) their companies' "initial coin offerings" existed in an unregulated grey zone where they could be traded for the life's savings of mom-and-pop investors who thought crypto was real because they heard that Kickstarter had adopted it, and there was a bestselling book about it, and Larry David and Matt Damon and Spike Lee told them it was the next big thing.

Crypto isn't so much a financial innovation as it is a financial obfuscation. "Fintech" is just a cynical synonym for "unregulated bank." Cryptocurrency enjoys a "byzantine premium" – that is, it's so larded with baffling technical nonsense that no one understands how it works, and they assume that anything they don't understand is probably incredibly sophisticated and great ("a pile of shit this big must have pony under it somewhere"):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/13/the-byzantine-premium/

There are two threats to the crypto bezzle: the first is that normies will wise up to the scam, and the second is that the government will put a stop to it. These are correlated risks: if the government treats crypto as a security (or worse, a scam), that will put severe limits on how shitcoins can be marketed to normies, which will staunch the influx of real money, so the sole liquidity will come from ransomware payments and transactions with tragically overconfident hitmen and drug dealers who think the blockchain is anonymous.

To keep the bezzle going, crypto scammers have spent the past two election cycles flooding both parties with cash. In the 2022 midterms, crypto money bankrolled primary challenges to Democrats by absolute cranks, like the "effective altruist" Carrick Flynn ("effective altruism" is a crypto-affiliated cult closely associated with the infamous scam-artist Sam Bankman-Fried). Sam Bankman-Fried's super PAC, "Protect Our Future," spent $10m on attack-ads against Flynn's primary opponent, the incumbent Andrea Salinas. Salinas trounced Flynn – who was an objectively very bad candidate who stood no chance of winning the general election – but only at the expense of most of the funds she raised from her grassroots, small-dollar donors.

Fighting off SBF's joke candidate meant that Salinas went into the general election with nearly empty coffers, and she barely squeaked out a win against a GOP nightmare candidate Mike Erickson – a millionaire Oxy trafficker, drunk driver, and philanderer who tricked his then-girlfriend by driving her to a fake abortion clinic and telling her that it was a real one:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/14/competitors-critics-customers/#billionaire-dilletantes

SBF is in prison, but there's no shortage of crypto millions for this election cycle. According to Molly White's "Follow the Crypto" tracker, crypto-affiliated PACs have raised $185m to influence the 2024 election – more than the entire energy sector:

https://www.followthecrypto.org/

As with everything "crypto," the cryptocurrency election corruption slushfund is a bezzle. The "Stand With Crypto PAC" claims to have the backing of 1.3 million "crypto advocates," and Reuters claims they have 440,000 backers. But 99% of the money claimed by Stand With Crypto was actually donated to "Fairshake" – a different PAC – and 90% of Fairshake's money comes from a handful of corporate donors:

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-62/

Stand With Crypto – minus the Fairshake money it falsely claimed – has raised $13,690 since April. That money came from just seven donors, four of whom are employed by Coinbase, for whom Stand With Crypto is a stalking horse. Stand With Crypto has an affiliated group (also called "Stand With Crypto" because that is an extremely normal and forthright way to run a nonprofit!), which has raised millions – $1.49m. Of that $1.49m, 90% came from just four donors: three cryptocurrency companies, and the CEO of Coinbase.

There are plenty of crypto dollars for politicians to fight over, but there are virtually no crypto voters. 69-75% of Americans "view crypto negatively or distrust it":

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-of-americans-arent-confident-in-the-safety-and-reliability-of-cryptocurrency/

When Trump keynotes the Bitcoin 2024 conference and promises to use public funds to buy $1b worth of cryptocoins, he isn't wooing voters, he's wooing dollars:

https://www.wired.com/story/donald-trump-strategic-bitcoin-stockpile-bitcoin-2024/

Wooing dollars, not crypto. Politicians aren't raising funds in crypto, because you can't buy ads or pay campaign staff with shitcoins. Remember: unless Andreesen-Horowitz manages to install Web3 crypto tollbooths all over the internet, the industries that accept crypto are ransomware, and technologically overconfident hit-men and drug-dealers. To win elections, you need dollars, which crypto hustlers get by convincing normies to give them real money in exchange for shitcoins, and they are only funding politicians who will make it easier to do that.

As a political matter, "crypto" is a shorthand for "allowing scammers to steal from working people," which makes it a very Republican issue. As Hamilton Nolan writes, "If the Republicans want to position themselves as the Party of Crypto, let them. It is similar to how they position themselves as The Party of Racism and the Party of Religious Zealots and the Party of Telling Lies about Election Fraud. These things actually reflect poorly on them, the Republicans":

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/crypto-as-a-political-characteristic

But the Democrats – who are riding high on the news that Kamala Harris will be their candidate this fall – have decided that they want some of that crypto money, too. Even as crypto-skeptical Dems like Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester see millions from crypto PACs flooding in to support their primary challengers and GOP opponents, a group of Dem politicians are promising to give the crypto industry whatever it wants, if they will only bribe Democratic candidates as well:

https://subscriber.politicopro.com/f/?id=00000190-f475-d94b-a79f-fc77c9400000

Kamala Harris – a genuinely popular candidate who has raised record-shattering sums from small-dollar donors representing millions of Americans – herself has called for a "reset" of the relationship between the crypto sector and the Dems:

https://archive.is/iYd1C

As Luke Goldstein writes in The American Prospect, sucking up to crypto scammers so they stop giving your opponents millions of dollars to run attack ads against you is a strategy with no end – you have to keep sucking up to the scam, otherwise the attack ads come out:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-31-crypto-cash-affecting-democratic-races/

There's a whole menagerie of crypto billionaires behind this year's attempt to buy the American government – Andreesen and Horowitz, of course, but also the Winklevoss twins, and this guy, who says we're in the midst of a "civil war" and "anyone that votes against Trump can die in a fucking fire":

https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1813952816840597712/photo/1

But the real whale that's backstopping the crypto campaign spending is Coinbase, through its Fairshake crypto PAC. Coinbase has donated $45,500,000 to Fairshake, which is a lot:

https://www.coinbase.com/blog/how-to-get-regulatory-clarity-for-crypto

But $45.5m isn't merely a large campaign contribution: it appears that $25m of that is the largest the largest illegal campaign contribution by a federal contractor in history, "by far," a fact that was sleuthed out by Molly White:

https://www.citationneeded.news/coinbase-campaign-finance-violation/

At issue is the fact that Coinbase is bidding to be a US federal contractor: specifically, they want to manage the crypto wallets that US federal cops keep seizing from crime kingpins. Once Coinbase threw its hat into the federal contracting ring, it disqualified itself from donating to politicians or funding PACs:

Campaign finance law prohibits federal government contractors from making contributions, or promising to make contributions, to political entities including super PACs like Fairshake.

https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/federal-government-contractors/

Previous to this, the largest ever illegal campaign contribution by a federal contractor appears to be Marathon Petroleum Company's 2022 bribe to GOP House and Senate super PACs, a mere $1m, only 4% of Coinbase's bribe.

I'm with Nolan on this one. Let the GOP chase millions from billionaires everyone hates who expect them to promote a scam that everyone mistrusts. The Dems have finally found a candidate that people are excited about, and they're awash in money thanks to small amounts contributed by everyday Americans. As AOC put it:

They've got money, but we've got people. Dollar bills don't vote. People vote.

https://www.popsugar.com/news/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-dnc-headquarters-climate-speech-47986992

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

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/2024/07/31/greater-fools/#coinbased

#pluralistic #coinbase #crypto #cryptocurrency #elections #campaign finance #campaign finance violations #crimes #fraud #influence peddling #democrats #moneylike #bubbles #ponzi schemes #bezzles #molly white #hamilton nolan

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beattopia · 2 years

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Blackwood diffusion panel for the studio. #blackwood#diffusion#panels#studio#bespoke#woodwork (at Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjWmrTwPLtO/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#blackwood #diffusion #panels #studio #bespoke #woodwork

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heich0e · 5 months

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there's an east wind blowing beyond your bedroom window.

you know it's from the east because the rain falling outside is hitting the windowpane in a soft tap-tap-tap that occasionally intensifies on a particularly strong gust. you know your bedroom window faces east because every morning you can see the sun cresting in the distance, diffusing—soft and pink and warm on your favourite days—through the gauzy panels of your curtains.

"you up yet?"

it's not morning now. far from it, in fact. the night's still only new, though it's already fully-dark outside—and has been for most of the day thanks to the dreary weather. it's late enough in the evening that most businesses have closed their doors for the day and people have returned to their homes, but not quite late enough to justify the fact that you're already curled up tightly underneath the covers of your bed.

you roll over in your comfortable cocoon and spy touya in the doorway, leaning against the frame as he watches you.

he's got his coat on.

"are you going out?" you ask him, your voice a little thicker than it usually is. you've been awake for a while, but your afternoon nap (that ran longer than you expected) has left it hoarse from disuse.

touya makes a quiet sound of agreement. not quite a grunt, nor a hum, but something somewhere in-between the two.

you push yourself up slightly in bed, propping your body upright on your elbows. "but it's raining."

touya hates the rain, and has for as long as you've known him. he's the first one to complain when dark clouds roll in, to curse as his teeth chatter and he shakes droplets from his hair when he steps through the door after getting caught in an unexpected downpour, to go out of his way to avoid making plans that require him to leave the house at the slightest mention of inclement weather.

"'s letting up a bit, i think," he answers from the doorway with a little shrug. "i just need to run to the convenience store, anyway."

he shuffles a little further into the room as you lift your hand and reach out for him, approaching the edge of the bed wordlessly and slipping his hand into your own. he peers down at you from your bedside as you lift his hand and press it to your cheek.

"what do you need at the store?" you ask him, your lips pursed slightly. it's not that late, and the weather really isn't that bad, but you'd still prefer he stay here with you.

"ran outta patches today," he replies, though there's something almost a little resentful in the statement. even his expression is a bit more annoyed than it had been a moment prior, in a way that almost makes you giggle—but you suppose the nicotine withdrawal could be playing a part in that.

"just patches, right? not patches and a pack—"

"not patches and a pack of cigarettes to tie me over on the walk home," he finishes the sentence for you before you get the chance, rolling his eyes a bit. "i know, i know."

he frees his hand from your grip and pokes your cheek lightly, earning him a little laugh you can't help but let slip through your lips.

"i'm 24 days in, you know. not about to throw it all away now," he reminds you pointedly.

"good," you reply with an encouraging nod and a somewhat cheeky smile. you never doubted him anyway. "make sure you take an umbrella."

he nods, his touch still lingering against your cheek. his fingertips skirt down, tracing along your jaw, until he reaches your mouth. he presses his thumb lightly against your chin, seemingly just to watch your lips part.

"d'ya want anything?"

you shake your head in dissent, but then pause, your eyes lighting up.

"can you get pickled ginger?"

"pickled ginger?" he asks you, a bit incredulously. "again? thought we just got some of that."

"i finished the jar earlier," you reply with a shrug.

"that can't be good for you," touya remarks dryly, letting his hand drop from your face. "you're gonna start pickling yourself from the inside out if you keep eating so much of that stuff."

"it's not my fault that pickling is the superior form of food preparation." you flop back lazily against your pillows, meeting his gaze resolutely. you lift your fingers as you list out the various accolades. "cold, crunchy, sour, kinda sweet, sometimes spicy—what's not to love?"

touya's nose wrinkles. he's never been a huge fan of pickles, but especially not in the volume you've been consuming them lately.

"whatever you say," he answers, knowing now after all this time when he ought to bow out of an argument before it starts. "mom texted me earlier and said she was sending yumi over with side dishes tomorrow, and there'll probably be pickled vegetables in there. so you can wait until then."

"fine," you sniff, and you may pout a little, but touya knows your excitement at his little sister coming to visit outweighs any annoyance you may feel about having to wait a whole twelve hours to get your fix.

outside, the wind picks up again, and the tapping against the windowpane gets a little bit louder.

"sounds like it's getting worse," you murmur, your face turned in the direction of the window. you glance up at him again, blinking from where you're sprawled out across your pillows. "you sure you wanna go out in that?"

touya nods, kneeling at the edge of the bed and dipping down so he can press a kiss to your forehead. you're still warm from sleep, and soft in all the ways he's come to depend on. you smell like your shampoo and your sheets—and a little bit like him too, since the floral-printed bedlinen is as much his own now as it is yours.

"be back soon," he speaks quietly into your skin before pulling away.

you wave him off tiredly, and as he leaves the room, touya wonders if you'll be asleep again before he returns.

he pulls his shoes off the rack in the genkan, tucked away next to yours, and leaves his slippers there as he stuffs his feet into footwear better suited for the elements. he grabs his keys off the little table in the entryway, the keychain you bought for him at the aquarium glinting in the light as he tucks them into his coat pocket. last, he grabs the umbrella from just beside the door—he doubts he'll even use it, but you told him to take it, so he does.

there's an unexpected break in the rain as touya steps out into the spring night, and he blinks up at the sky overhead a bit incredulously when he realizes his luck. he doesn't linger to appreciate it for long, knowing that at any moment his fortune could change, shuffling off in the direction of the convenience store at the other end of the street.

he sidesteps puddles along the sidewalk on his way, admiring how the streetlights ripple in the surface as he passes.

touya used to hate the rain, but he can't help but think that it's not so bad when he knows that he has somewhere—and someone—warm waiting to welcome him home.

#idk what this is if i'm being real w u all #touya i want to make an honest man out of u #let me domesticate u i'm begging #touya x reader #touya todoroki x reader #bnha drabble #bnha writing #writing

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transgenderer · 4 months

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i have this kind of crackpot theory ive been nursing here in germany that a lot of environmentalism is actually the repressed aesthetic inclination coming out. like i think because of its illegibility, and its diffuseness (and its inherently contested nature) american society has deprioritized living in a beautiful environment in favor of legible environment-design choices, square footage, school ranking, height, pedantic HOA restrictions, etc etc but expressing a desire for a more beautiful living environment is both nebulous and feels unserious so this desire is laundered through environmentalism, which is why environmentalism as a movement is so fixated on aesthetics and design over practical concerns (a massive field of solar panels, a nuclear power plant, these are not pretty, nor are they everyday, theyre way out in the sticks. but a green roof does not make sense as an environmental choice, only as an aesthetic one). and this isnt a crazy association to make, biology is in fact very beautiful. but like, green spaces in cities, for example. not important from the perspective of like...global warming or pollution or whatever. still very good, because its beautiful!

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noiseproblems · 2 years

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Tame the garage band with a sound attenuation blanket

It appears like experimentation with music is a rite of passage for several teenagers. Whether introduced to piano, drums or clarinet in school, so many catch the music fever that they want to play their own music and on their own terms. They want to do more than just download the latest music on iTunes or listen in the car with a diffuser panel.

For parents of children that want to pay an instrument or sing in a group, it may be a hard decision, specifically if you live in a residential neighborhood. Sound carries rapidly and conveniently depending on the weather conditions, nearness, and amount of foliage to deploy sound waves. How you can allow junior sing with his three best peeps without annoying anyone to death? The answer might be with a sound attenuation blanket.

While sound blankets and noise cancelling panels are basically used to safeguard furniture and other belongings during relocation, they are also good as a sound buffer due to the same qualities that make them the ideal protection option for furniture. The thick, heavy blanket absorbs and deflects sound, lessening its ability to travel away from its source. The semi-coarse texture of the fabric and the weave also work in, reducing the ability of sound to travel. These can be excellent qualities if you are able to invest in some moving blankets and set them up in your garage, or wherever your child wants to play.

You can utilize eyebolts set in the perimeter walls to hold the wire rope. Install some grommets or just snip some slits into the side of the blanket and weave the rope through, and then hang it on the eye bolts as you may a curtain rod. After you install some sound reducing curtains, you might find that your young musician is thrilled because he can do this thing, yet the neighbors don’t hate you.

#Diffuser panel #Noise cancelling panels #Sound reducing curtains #Sound attenuation blanket

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melbrewer367 · 1 year

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How To Override Apartment Hall Walls and Floors

If you, like everyone else I know, hate the apartment hallways and want to give them the face lift they deserve, here's how!

An override is actually super simple. You just need S4S for this. Step one is to choose override under Build, and then click Build.

Now you need to find the wall you want to override. For this example, I'm making an override for the apartment in the Hakim House building. That wallpaper is called "Plaster Makes Perfect." (I figured this out by just going into build mode and searching and painting a nearby wall inside the apartment until I found the right one.) I have it set to Wall, Base Game, and I'm searching the word "plaster" to find it more quickly. Just click one swatch of the wall and S4S will pick all swatches, and then click "Next." Also, all of these instructions are exactly the same for floors, you'll just choose floors instead of walls.

Name your file whatever you want. To be consistent I name all mine to follow the naming convention: username_description. We only want to override one swatch so you'll just click "Remove Swatch" on all of the swatches except for the one you want to override.

Once you're done, go ahead and hit "Save" and then head back to the main menu. Now we need to get the wall we want to replace it with. This time, pick "add swatches" and then click Build. This will only pick one swatch instead of all.

Again, just find the wall you want to use. Only select the actual swatch you want and then click "Next." You'll have to create a file here again, I just have a package called "test" that I save over for these instances where I don't actually need a new .package file, I just need to grab textures.

Now you'll go to the "Texture" tab and click "Export All."

On this save screen, create a folder for these texture files and then click "Select folder" to finish exporting.

Now, go back to the main menu and open up your original file. On the texture tab, you now just need to import all of your texture files. You'll import a Diffuse, Normal, and Specular for each wall height. So 9 files total, these are what you just exported. Just click Diffuse, Normal, or Specular, and then click the wall height, and then click Import. Go to that folder of textures you just created and then choose the correct file. S4S named each one exactly what they are so it's easy to pick the right ones.

Keep doing that until you've replaced all 9 files, change your swatch colors, and then hit save. Congrats, you just made an override of that wall!

Hold up, you still want access to that swatch you just made an override of? There's a quick and easy solution. Go back to your main menu and choose "Add Swatch" and then click "Build." Find the exact swatch you made an override of, select it and click "Next." Give your new package file a good name.

Hit save and call it a day. That's it. Now, every wall in the game that is that brown plaster will be the wall with paneling BUT since I added that plaster swatch back, anywhere else that I wanted to use that brown plaster, I can just go and paint it right back!

For all the apartment wall and floor overrides I've created, go here!

Below is the walls and floors for a lot of the apartments:

Alto Towers

I ended up not making an override of this carpet so the swatch could be 10 or 12 but, as dark as it is, I'm pretty sure it's 12, plus I think 10 appears a bit too brown toned to be the right one:

Chic Street:

Culpepper House:

Jasmine Suites:

Landgraab Tower:

I missed getting a proper pic before placing my overrides but the original brown walls is the 23rd swatch of Basic Darks with White Trim.

The non-patterned carpet:

The Patterned carpet:

Spire Tower:

#the sims 4 #sims 4 #tutorial #override #build mode

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seiwas · 5 months

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the blade bleeds longer than the wound takes to heal | simon riley

wc: 2.2k

summary: progress is non-linear. simon is learning just that.

contains: any warnings that apply to cod, blood, mentions of serious injuries, recovery and healing, kind of non-linear, simon-centric with a splash of romance, hurt/comfort

a/n: first time writing simon and he's a tough one!! but i'm really happy with how this turned out! + a very belated birthday gift for @vierisqe! forgive the jumble of american + british english in this one (i've reread this so many times that it's mushed together in my head and i can't tell the difference anymore djhfbjas) i hope i wrote him well!!

Simon picks up a knife in the dead of the night.

At 2:00 a.m., the wind whistles outside your window, a wayward branch being thrown aimlessly against glass. The branches drag roughly against the delicate surface, scratching and banging in the gust of a predicted storm.

Simon wakes up, eyes shooting open as his fingers instinctively reach for the small blade slotted underneath your mattress, sandwiched between soft cushion and the wooden panels of your bedframe. He keeps it there—

“For monster hunting. Sneaky fuckers only appear when lights’re out.”

—in case anything happens, he doesn’t say.

(But you know old habits die hard, and Simon sleeps better with a weapon only layers away from his skin.)

You’re curled up on his chest, hanging tightly onto his bicep as your breaths lull in the steady beats of slumber. His eyes blend dark blue against the backdrop of the night, and the only light casting itself into your bedroom diffuses from the streetlamp a few flats down.

“We should keep a night light,” you’ve told him a few times before—if only to avoid small accidents, like tripping over folded carpets or bumping into the sharp edges of your dresser.

“No ghosts here but me, love.” is all Simon replies.

(You take his cheekiness and keep it close to your chest, sporadic as it is, snorting as you let go of the topic.)

He sees better in the dark—better than most, he’d like to think.

His gaze flits to the window, watching intently as the branches move haphazardly; the sound hits the glass like bullet cases clinking against marble flooring. The same white marble bloodied deep red—

An inhale tickles his side, a phantom sharpness despite his ribcage being fully healed. There is no puncture, no gaping wound like that day 8 months ago—only scar tissue formed thickly along the outline of the knife that pierced through him.

He breathes out, slow and steady, taking one last look at the window, before moving over to the door, checking for shadows and any suspicious movement. Then, his gaze rests on you—your hair splayed across his shoulder as you sleep soundly.

It’s okay. You’re okay.

Everything is okay.

Some days, he can breathe just fine.

Spring blossoms through the flowers in your garden, white chrysanthemums that give Simon the worst spring allergies but he insists you keep. Despite the morning sniffles, when pollen seems to dust his dawning breath, he finds breathing easier on these days than most.

You do your best to snip away at the blossoming buds, preparing to bundle them far away from the burly man they weaken.

But Simon stands beside you with a watering pot, tilting the spout to drizzle life onto the blooms he knows are your pride and joy.

He owes it to them, he supposes, for keeping you company months at a time.

It’s at the fizzling end of summer when Simon returns to you.

Captain Price had contacted you weeks prior to inform you of the incident—just three things Simon requested be divulged:

One, that he had incurred a stab wound to be monitored for a few weeks, most likely in military facilities.

Two, that he’ll be discharged soon after.

And three, that you stay put and be calm; that you not worry.

(Your hands shake throughout the entire call, your knees giving way as you fall to the bunched up carpet of your bedroom floor.

To you, Simon is untouchable.

To you, Simon is impenetrable.

He never divulges any more than he has to, but you’ve always known he was good at his job. The silent yet commanding confidence he carries can only be born from years of expertise, his senses sharpened and tuned to the slightest sign of danger.

Over the years, without fail, Simon has always come back to you in one piece.

So when he walks into your flat with staggered breaths, smelling of antiseptic and sterile sheets, your heart aches.)

You give him a look, eyes glassy with your hands clenched on your sides as if avoiding to touch, should he be fragile; he holds that stare for a few seconds too long until he decides to fuck it, pulling you closer to his chest.

Fuck doctors’ orders that his stitches haven’t fully healed. Fuck doctors’ orders that he should ‘minimise thoracic pressure’.

Fuck doctors’ orders that he should watch his breathing, keeping it slow and steady only.

“Quit all ‘o that,” he clears his throat, hiding a wheeze from the impact, “Didn’t get me killed, ‘n it won’t. S’no grave to cry over.”

You can’t help it though, he knows, your fingers clutching tighter onto the ends of his jacket as you rest your forehead on his collarbone. The pain muddles together in his chest, soaked by the tears seeping through the fabric of his t-shirt.

There are many things Simon doesn’t tell you, many more that he won’t—

His body holds a litany of injuries, scars built upon scars; some lie on the surface of his skin, others residing deeper than any knife can sink into.

—last month, he nearly died.

A miscalculated raid had led him straight into a trap, isolating him from the rest of the 141. He was concussed and sedated, senses dulled by the chemicals injected into his bloodstream. It happened too fast—a blade, inconspicuously small but sharp, piercing through his ribcage; the hits that followed dealt greater damage.

Price found Simon lying in a pool of his own blood, deep red against the white brinks of death.

Three broken ribs—two that stabbed through his lungs along with the knife, and one that managed to puncture his heart. Doctors warned that breathing during recovery would be difficult, but he hardly finds it to be the most challenging part.

The paranoia is worse.

He’s been more fidgety since, constantly wary; uneasy. Worse compared to usual.

Every professional he’s spoken to has told him that progress is non-linear—

“So, give yourself some time. Some days can be easy and difficult the next, but the day after that might be—”

To that he says, fucking ‘ell.

You cut yourself while trimming your chrysanthemums.

It’s a small nick on your thumb, but that finger always bleeds more than the others do; blood red drips onto a few white petals—a striking contrast.

Simon finds you that way.

He moves on autopilot, rushing in to grab the first-aid kit you keep in one of your kitchen cabinets. On the surface, he is calm, face set straight and hardly rattled by the accident. This is the only good he sees in the snail-pace of his recovery—his jagged breaths conceal the real reason his hands tremble slightly holding yours.

A small cut shouldn’t need bandaging. A small cut shouldn’t need gauze and waterproof plaster. Simon shouldn’t insist on taking over, especially when the pollen clogs his nose.

But your white chrysanthemums should not be red.

He tells himself he’ll get you a pair of those cut-resistant gardening gloves.

Those petals should not be red.

The knife isn’t the problem, it’s what surrounds it.

Simon hasn’t been the same since his return, and you’ve begun to notice.

For a big and hefty man, he prefers keeping himself away from as much fuss as he can. Weekend markets with him have always been pleasant; he carries all the produce and you stop at food stalls to feed him bites of whatever catches your eye.

Not this time.

This time, Simon glues himself behind you, your back pressed against his chest as he navigates you both through crowds. He zeroes in on every single person brushing against you, searching for anything sharp.

When you wait by a food stall, he scans the area; his focus shifts from a family of four settling their toddler on a stroller, then to a man older but not nearly as large as he, bringing in sacks of flour inside a bakery. Off in a corner is a teenager, swallowed by the thick fabric of a hoodie similar to his own; Simon observes him a little longer, drawing suspicions about the movement concealed inside the kid’s pocket.

(You notice it when you ask whether he prefers peaches or mangoes for the crepe’s filling, only to be met with no reply.)

Then, a faint trail of smoke wafts out of the boy’s nose—it’s just a vape.

Simon turns away.

By brunch, which you always somehow seem to drag him into, you settle into your seat and ask the server for a butter knife.

(Simon stays silent most times, with the occasional dry retort or witty quip directed at any silly thing he notices, but he’s been completely quiet this entire day. The slightest bit of tension pinches the skin between his brows as his eyes dart from one person to the next—like roaring waves rushing to catch the shore.)

It happens all too quickly, how he pins the server’s wrist down onto your table when you’re handed the butter knife.

Everybody in the restaurant pauses to look at you two.

The shock on your face mirrors the server’s.

Simon lets go immediately, mumbling his apologies as his hands dig inside the pocket of his hoodie. You turn to the server sheepishly, standing up to follow him to the cashier.

(You know Simon well enough that he hates all the attention, so you quickly settle everything with the manager, explaining as best as you can that it wasn’t intentional. The server is kind enough to let it go, his wrist red but otherwise uninjured from Simon’s grip; you still give him a tip, for the shock and trouble.)

The whole trip home is tense. Simon can’t look you in the eyes, and even when you both walk into your flat, he heads straight for the kitchen, preparing to clean and wash the vegetables.

He rolls up his sleeves and opens the tap, rinsing carrots and potatoes, along with some of the lettuce you managed to pick up for half off.

(Something stabs at your heart seeing him curl into himself even more, but Simon will talk when he wants to—never before or after.

So, you walk towards him instead, wrapping your arms around his waist as you rest your cheek against his back.)

He stops moving, and the water continues running.

(You can hear his heartbeat, feel each slow breath he’s taking.)

Simon doesn’t tell you of the sleepless nights, of the terrors that plague his waking mind more than nightmares do. He doesn’t tell you that he sees you in his spot that very same day, on that same marble floor—your own pool of red against the very same white that your chrysanthemums bloom into.

“I’m okay,” you whisper against his back, landing kisses on each of his shoulder blades. The fabric of his hoodie is soft and thick, but he feels you through it.

“You always do a good job of keeping me safe.”

Your words layer on him like tactical gear, arms tightening around his abdomen akin to the belt that holds his ammo.

“Let me take care of you now,” you close your eyes, voice a little shaky, pleading, “okay?”

Simon holds his breath.

Your chrysanthemums sit in a vase by your kitchen sink, water droplets catching onto the petals and leaves.

Simon sneezes every time he washes his hands, but he’s the one who put it there—

“S’called exposure therapy, love.”

(And who are you to argue with a man on a mission?)

—along with the cut-resistant gloves he stores in a drawer near your kitchen tools.

From the corner of his eye, he watches you drag your chef’s knife to fillet a chicken breast. He keeps his gaze locked on your every movement, fingers twitching as if they itch to reach for you. Pain tingles at the side of his chest, a faded remnant of how it felt when the wound was still fresh.

You fillet the breast successfully, and he releases a breath.

Simon has keen sight and he uses it to his advantage—sniping, scoping, watching. He notices the sharp edge of the open cupboard door over your head and reflexively lays his palm over it, cushioning the impact when you hastily move to the side.

If you notice, you don’t show him any signs.

Tonight’s menu is honey glazed soy chicken, a recipe you’ve been wanting to test out. He’d offered to help but you insisted that he sit back and relax; and of course, in typical Simon- fashion, he only partially heeds your advice.

He sits back and relaxes all right, but on the barstool by the kitchen island, ready to spring into action whenever you need him.

And he sees it all—that near-mishap by the cupboard, how dangerously close your fingers are from your chef’s knife; your cut-resistant gloves are ready-to-use in the drawer next to your garden tools. He still keeps that small blade between your mattress and bedframe.

Old habits die hard, the aftereffects of near-death moreso, but Simon is a man on a mission, and when he watches you hiss away from the brief ‘pop!’ of oil splattering from your pan, he stays right where he is, convincing himself he can leave you to handle it.

You’re okay.

This is progress.

It’s a start.

a/n: this turned out a lot more serious than i intended, but i enjoyed picking simon to see how he would act in a period of adjustment back to regular life, especially after something potentially traumatic. i find simon an incredibly difficult character to write because he carries so much with him and i could go on about this, but the tldr is: i think he's become desensitised to a lot of things, which is why i don't think he's afraid of wounds or knives no matter how much he's been hurt by them. i don't imagine him being afraid of dying either, because it's what they do—it comes with the job. i do think though, that his close call with death here shifts his fear to the idea of loss, particularly, losing you. and as a protector, he finds himself responsible for that.

thank you notes: to @soumies my gawd!! for helping me with dialogue and proofreading, practically beta reading this entire thing!! you are the heart of this fic 🥺 simon would not be simon in this without you!! love u love u love u!!!!

comments, tags, and reblogs are greatly appreciated ♡

#ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #cod x reader #simon x reader #call of duty x reader #shotorus.writes #cod #ghost

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