#Exercise Tracking Software

[golden42]

Understanding Anxious Attachment Style Through a Neuroscience Lens

Key Takeaways

Anxious attachment often stems from inconsistent caregiving during early childhood, leading to a heightened need for reassurance in relationships.

Neuroscience reveals that brain structures like the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus play crucial roles in the development of anxious attachment.

People with anxious attachment may struggle with trust and communication, affecting relationship stability.

Cognitive behavioral strategies and mindfulness can help manage anxious attachment tendencies.

Understanding and addressing anxious attachment can lead to healthier, more secure relationships.

The Neuroscience of Anxious Attachment

Anxious attachment is a fascinating area of study within both psychology and neuroscience. It describes a pattern of attachment behavior characterized by a deep-seated fear of abandonment and a constant need for reassurance from partners. To truly grasp why this happens, we need to delve into the neuroscience behind it.

Attachment styles are shaped by our early interactions with caregivers. When these interactions are inconsistent or unpredictable, they can lead to an anxious attachment style. This inconsistency triggers a heightened sensitivity to potential rejection or abandonment, which is deeply embedded in our brain's functioning.

Our brain plays a pivotal role in how attachment styles manifest. Various brain structures influence our emotions and how we react to attachment-related stimuli. Understanding these structures provides a clearer picture of why some people develop anxious attachment styles and how they can affect adult relationships.

Anxious Attachment Explained

At its core, anxious attachment is all about insecurity. People with this attachment style often worry excessively about their partner's love and commitment. They may constantly seek validation and fear that their partner will leave them. This can lead to behaviors such as clinging, jealousy, or even controlling tendencies.

These behaviors are not just random; they stem from a deep-seated need to feel secure and loved. The irony is that the very actions taken to seek reassurance often push partners away, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of rejection and abandonment.

The Role of Early Childhood Experiences

Early childhood experiences are fundamental in shaping our attachment styles. When a child receives inconsistent care—sometimes attentive, other times neglectful—they may develop an anxious attachment style. This inconsistency creates uncertainty in the child's mind about whether their needs will be met.

For example, if a caregiver responds to a child's cries with comfort one day but ignores them the next, the child learns that their needs are not reliably met. This unpredictability fosters anxiety about whether they are worthy of love and care, leading to a constant search for reassurance as they grow older.

How Anxious Attachment Develops in the Brain

The development of anxious attachment in the brain is a complex process involving various neural circuits. The brain's fear and reward systems play significant roles in this development. When a child experiences inconsistent caregiving, their brain's fear circuitry becomes more active, heightening their sensitivity to potential threats, such as rejection or abandonment.

Moreover, the brain's reward system is also affected. When a caregiver provides comfort, the brain releases feel-good chemicals like dopamine, reinforcing the child's need for reassurance. However, the unpredictability of this comfort creates a cycle of anxiety and reward-seeking behavior.

As these neural pathways become ingrained, they influence how individuals perceive and react to attachment-related situations throughout their lives. This is why anxious attachment can persist into adulthood, affecting relationships and emotional well-being.

Brain Structures Influencing Anxious Attachment

Understanding the specific brain structures involved in anxious attachment can provide valuable insights into how this attachment style develops and manifests.

The Amygdala's Role in Anxiety

The amygdala is a key player in the brain's emotional processing, particularly in fear and anxiety responses. In individuals with anxious attachment, the amygdala is often more active, making them more sensitive to perceived threats in relationships. This heightened activity can lead to overreactions to minor conflicts or misunderstandings, as the brain interprets these situations as potential signs of abandonment.

Impact of the Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for higher-order thinking, such as decision-making and impulse control. In people with anxious attachment, the prefrontal cortex may struggle to regulate the emotional responses triggered by the amygdala. This can result in difficulty managing emotions and impulsive behaviors in relationships, as the logical part of the brain is overpowered by emotional reactions.

Hippocampus and Memory of Attachment

The hippocampus is crucial for memory formation and recall. In the context of anxious attachment, it helps store and retrieve memories of past attachment experiences. When a person with anxious attachment encounters a situation reminiscent of past rejection or inconsistency, the hippocampus retrieves these memories, reinforcing their fear and anxiety. This cycle perpetuates the anxious attachment style, as the brain continuously revisits past experiences to inform current behavior.

Effects of Anxious Attachment on Relationships

Anxious attachment can significantly impact the dynamics of a relationship. Those with this attachment style often experience heightened emotional responses, which can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts. Because of their constant need for reassurance, partners may feel overwhelmed or suffocated, leading to further tension and dissatisfaction.

Moreover, the fear of abandonment can result in a partner's actions being misinterpreted as signs of impending rejection. This can create a cycle where the anxious partner's behaviors inadvertently push their partner away, reinforcing their fears and insecurities.

Communication Challenges

Effective communication is the cornerstone of healthy relationships. However, for those with anxious attachment, communication can become a significant challenge. Their fear of rejection may lead to indirect communication or reluctance to express needs and desires openly.

For instance, an anxious partner might not express their feelings directly but instead drop hints or become passive-aggressive when their needs are unmet. This indirect communication style can confuse their partner, leading to misunderstandings and unresolved issues.

Trust and Relationship Stability

Trust is another area where anxious attachment can cause difficulties. The constant fear of abandonment can make it hard for individuals to fully trust their partners, even when there is no reason to doubt them. This lack of trust can manifest as jealousy, possessiveness, or constant questioning of the partner's actions and intentions.

Emotional Dependency and Conflict

High emotional dependency on partners for self-worth and validation.

Frequent conflicts due to perceived lack of attention or affection.

Difficulty in managing emotions, leading to outbursts or withdrawal.

Emotional dependency is a hallmark of anxious attachment. Individuals may rely heavily on their partners for validation and self-worth, placing undue pressure on the relationship. This dependency can lead to frequent conflicts, especially if the partner cannot meet these high emotional demands.

Moreover, the inability to manage emotions effectively can lead to either emotional outbursts or withdrawal. These extreme reactions can strain the relationship, making it challenging to maintain stability and harmony.

Addressing these issues requires both partners to work together to create a supportive and understanding environment. Open communication, patience, and empathy are essential in managing the challenges posed by anxious attachment.

Managing Anxious Attachment

While anxious attachment can pose challenges, it is not insurmountable. With the right strategies and support, individuals can learn to manage their attachment style and foster healthier relationships.

Understanding the underlying causes of anxious attachment is the first step. Recognizing that these behaviors stem from early experiences and brain wiring can help individuals approach the issue with compassion and a willingness to change.

Cognitive Behavioral Strategies

Cognitive behavioral strategies can be highly effective in managing anxious attachment. These strategies focus on identifying and challenging negative thought patterns that contribute to anxiety and insecurity. By reframing these thoughts, individuals can develop healthier beliefs about themselves and their relationships.

Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation

Mindfulness practices can also play a crucial role in managing anxious attachment. By cultivating present-moment awareness, individuals can learn to observe their thoughts and emotions without judgment. This awareness can help them respond to situations more calmly and rationally, reducing the likelihood of emotional outbursts.

Emotion regulation techniques, such as deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation, can also help individuals manage their anxiety and emotional responses. These techniques provide tools to calm the nervous system and regain control over intense emotions.

Seeking Professional Help

For many, seeking professional help is a valuable step in managing anxious attachment. Therapists trained in attachment theory can provide insights and strategies tailored to an individual's needs. Therapy offers a safe space to explore past experiences, understand current behaviors, and develop new ways of relating to others.

"Therapy helped me understand my anxious attachment and gave me tools to communicate more effectively with my partner. It's been a game-changer for our relationship." – A real testimonial from a client who worked through their attachment issues in therapy.

In therapy, individuals can also work on building self-esteem and developing a more secure attachment style. This process takes time and effort, but with commitment and support, it is possible to move towards healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

Conclusion: Moving Towards Secure Attachment

Ultimately, the goal is to move towards a secure attachment style, where individuals feel confident in their relationships and are able to express their needs openly and directly. Building healthy relationship patterns requires self-reflection, patience, and a willingness to grow.

It's important to remember that change is possible, and with the right support and strategies, individuals can overcome the challenges of anxious attachment and build lasting, meaningful connections. For more insights, consider exploring this free presentation on relationship dynamics.

Building Healthy Relationship Patterns

Creating healthy relationship patterns starts with self-awareness and a commitment to change. It's essential to recognize how anxious attachment influences your interactions and be willing to adopt new strategies. Begin by fostering open and honest communication with your partner. Express your needs clearly and listen actively to theirs. This mutual understanding can lay the foundation for a more secure attachment.

Additionally, work on building trust by setting realistic expectations and being consistent in your actions. Consistency helps reassure both partners and builds a sense of reliability and safety within the relationship. Over time, these practices can transform the dynamics of your relationship, moving it towards greater security and fulfillment.

Importance of Self-Reflection and Growth

Self-reflection is a powerful tool in the journey towards overcoming anxious attachment. By taking the time to examine your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, you can gain insights into the root causes of your attachment style. Consider journaling your experiences and emotions to track patterns and progress over time.

Growth requires patience and self-compassion. Recognize that change doesn't happen overnight and that setbacks are a natural part of the process. Celebrate small victories and learn from challenges. Remember, the goal is not perfection but progress. By embracing a growth mindset, you can cultivate a healthier relationship with yourself and others.

Frequently Asked Questions

Understanding anxious attachment can be complex, but it's an essential step towards healthier relationships. Here are some common questions to help clarify this topic.

What is anxious attachment?

Anxious attachment is a type of attachment style characterized by a fear of abandonment and a strong need for reassurance from partners. It often develops from inconsistent caregiving during childhood, leading individuals to seek constant validation and fear rejection in relationships.

How does anxious attachment affect brain activity?

Anxious attachment affects brain activity by engaging the amygdala, which heightens sensitivity to perceived threats like rejection. The prefrontal cortex may struggle to regulate these emotional responses, leading to difficulty managing emotions. The hippocampus stores memories of past attachment experiences, reinforcing anxious behaviors.

Can anxious attachment be changed?

Yes, anxious attachment can be changed with effort and the right strategies. Cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness practices, and professional support can help individuals develop healthier attachment patterns. It's a gradual process that involves understanding past influences and actively working towards more secure relationships.

What are common signs of anxious attachment in adults?

Common signs of anxious attachment in adults include a constant need for reassurance, fear of abandonment, difficulty trusting partners, and emotional dependency. These individuals may also exhibit jealousy, possessiveness, and have challenges with communication and conflict resolution.

Why is understanding anxious attachment important for relationships?

Understanding anxious attachment is crucial because it helps individuals recognize how their attachment style affects their relationships. By identifying these patterns, they can work towards healthier interactions, improving communication, trust, and emotional connection. This awareness can lead to more stable and fulfilling relationships.

Some of the links on this website are affiliate links, and that means we may earn a commission if you click or purchase through those link. The price you pay will be the same, but by using our affiliate links you are helping support our website. We genuinely appreciate your support. Thank you!

[ghosts-devilman-wip]

Im making a neocities to replace and improve upon this blog. Very exciting development

[what-even-is-thiss]

Free or Cheap Spanish Learning Resources So You Can Run at Windmills in Fluent Spanish

I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is Spanish specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.

For the purposes of this list "free" means something that is either totally free or has a useful free tier. "Cheap" is a subscription under $10USD a month, a software license or lifetime membership purchase under $100USD, or a book under $30USD. If you want to suggest a resource for this list please suggest ones in that price range that are of decent quality and not AI generated.

WEBSITES

Dreaming Spanish - A website that is also a YouTube Channel. This is a comprehensible input site with videos about a variety of subjects with multiple hosts from multiple countries. It has content for learners from absolute beginner to lower advanced. It lets you sort videos by dialect, subject, length, etc. The free version has a lot of content. The paid version is $9 a month and has many more videos and allows you to track your listening hours. The website is in English but all videos are entirely in Spanish.

Lawless Spanish - A free website with resources to learn Spanish relating to grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. The website also has worksheets, charts, an AI chatbot, and reviews of different learning resources. The website is in English.

Spanish Boom - A free website with beginner lessons and free readings with audio and visual aids. They're also associated with a service called Esidioma that provides paid courses with tutor help for around $23 and also sells books. Prices are in Euros but they also sell to people outside of Europe. The website is available in multiple languages.

studyspanish.com - A website with free verb drills and grammar lessons. It's commonly used by high school Spanish students. They also have a blog that hasn't updated in a while but there is an archive to read through. They have a paid tier with access to their podcasts, vocab lessons, and their Spanish learning app which is $10 a month or $120 for a lifetime membership. The website is in English.

Speaking Latino - A website marketed at Spanish teachers but it's in English and has guides to colloquial Spanish and slang in a lot of different countries and a free blog with tips on sounding like a local in different countries. It has a paid tier but that's mostly useful for Spanish teachers. They also sell slang dictionaries for various countries that are usually less than $10.

UT Austin Spanish Proficiency Exercises - A bunch of free grammar, vocab, and pronunciation guides for various tasks you should be able to do in Spanish at various levels from one of my alma maters, the University of Texas at Austin. It's got videos of people from different countries pronouncing things. The podcast links often don't work for some reason but the grammar, vocab, and video links should work fine. The website is in English.

SpanishDict - A free dictionary website and app with a search feature that also has curated vocabulary lists on various topics and articles. They have a paid tier at $13 a month with a writing coach and subscriber only curated lists and articles. Personally I don't think their paid tier is all that special but it's up to you. The website is in English.

BBC Bitesize Spanish - Bitesize is a free study resource for kids and is sorted by level. It has articles aimed at little kids as well as secondary school aged teens studying for their exams or planning to study abroad. The website is in English and available worldwide, not just in the UK.

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Hola Spanish - A channel by a woman named Brenda from Argentina who makes videos about grammar, pronunciation, culture, media, and general Spanish tips for upper beginner to advanced learners. The channel is almost entirely in Spanish with occasional vocabulary words translated into English onscreen. There are subtitles in Spanish onscreen but sometimes they randomly disappear.

Butterfly Spanish - A channel with free lessons from beginner to lower intermediate. The host also makes videos about useful phrases and listening practice videos. The channel is mostly in English.

Spanish After Hours - A comprehensible input channel for beginner to intermediate learners with vlogs, history, Spanish tips, and news. The descriptions and video titles are in English but the videos are all in Spanish. The channel host is from Spain.

Easy Spanish - A channel part of the easy languages network that makes a combination of videos with useful phrases and terms for beginners and interviews on the street with locals. They have teams in both Barcelona and Mexico City and there are dual language subtitles in Spanish and English onscreen. The hosts also have a podcast for intermediate to advanced learners.

My Daily Spanish - A catchall channel that has lessons, discussions of grammar, culture topics, vlogs, vocabulary, and other various things. The host is from Spain and also makes a lot of YouTube shorts. She mostly speaks in Spanish but occasionally uses English or has English translations onscreen.

Spansh Boost with Martin and Spanish Boost with Mila - These channels are run by a couple from Argentina who also work as tutors on italki. They often appear on each other's channels and both have their own podcasts and vlogs and general content videos that they make discussing their lives, giving tips, and discussing culture. Mila also makes a lot of videos playing the sims.

Spanish Boost Gaming - Run by Martin from Spanish Boost, this is a lets play channel in clear and easy to understand Spanish. Subtitles are available in English and Spanish and a few other languages as well and it's an actual let's play channel. He plays a variety of video games, makes jokes, and says cuss words and everything.

Mextalki - A channel run by a couple of guys from Mexico city that has listening practice, podcasts, street interviews, and Mexican Spanish specific lessons. Some videos have dual language subtitles onscreen while others do not. The channel is majority in Spanish but in a few lesson videos or portions of videos they will speak in English a bit.

Espanol Con Juan - A channel that teaches Spanish in Spanish from upper beginner to upper intermediate. Juan has grammar lessons, vocabulary lessons, and videos about culture. He is from Spain and the channel is entirely in Spanish. He also has a podcast for more advanced learners.

READING PRACTICE

Vikidia - A wikipedia type website specifically made for kids. The articles are short and written in more simple easy to understand Spanish. The website is in Spanish and made for native speaker kids.

Spanish graded readers by Olly Richards - Spanish has short stories and dialogues for beginner and intermediate, books in easy Spanish on world war 1, world war 2, western philosophy, and climate change. There's also dialogue books specific to Mexican Spanish and Spanish used on social media. The books usually go from $5-$20 new depending on how old they are and whether or not you bought a digital copy. These are really easy to find at used bookstores for cheap though, especially in the US.

Conatilteg Digital - This is a mobile app that provides digital versions of the free textbooks for children provided by the Mexican Ministry of Education both historic and current. The link I provided is for iOS but the app is also available on android and the app is available in multiple countries and not just Mexico. The app is entirely in Spanish and categorized by grade from preschool to secondary school so it's a resource appropriate for all levels and may be enjoyable for any kids you know that are learning Spanish. You can also view their browser website here. (also entirely in Spanish)

Hola Que Pasa - A free website with news articles for learners from beginner to intermediate difficulty. They also provide audio and have the news articles available in podcast form. Every article has certain phrases highlighted that you can hover over and get and English translation of. The website is in a mix of English and Spanish.

Spanish in Levels - A world news website in Spanish for learners. The articles are separated into three different levels and the website is in a mix of English and Spanish. Each article also has audio.

PODCASTS

Spanish for False Beginners - An unscripted podcast about various topics hosted by a guy from the UK and a guy from Spain. The podcast is aimed at people who find beginner content to be boring but still find intermediate content to be too difficult. English is very rarely used.

Uforia/Univision - Uforia is a free app aimed at native speakers in the US and has Spanish language radio, music, and podcasts. Univision in general is also useful if you like American and international news and programming in Spanish.

Radio National de Espana - Another site for native speakers, this is Spanish National Radio. They have a variety of free podcasts and radio programs.

Spanish Obsessed - This is a series of lessons in podcast form for learners from absolute beginner to advanced.

Storylearning Spanish Podcast - This podcast tells different short stories in Spanish and is aimed at upper beginner to lower intermediate learners.

Radio Ambulante - A Spanish language podcast from NPR that's similar to something like This American Life that tells stories from around Latin America. Although it's aimed at native speakers, the language used is clear and understandable and transcripts are available. They're also aware that a lot of intermediate and advanced learners use them for listening practice and they have developed a free app that helps with comprehension and vocabulary when listening to their podcast.

SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKS

Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish - A self study textbook written in the late 80s that still mostly holds up for beginner to upper beginner Spanish. A paperback edition of the textbook is about $25 and used copies and ebooks are also usually available wherever you like to buy books. It's also half off on Amazon pretty often.

Complete Spanish step-by-step by Mcgraw Hill - This is a complete version of the McGraw Hill budget option, the spanish step by step series that focuses on the most frequently used words and grammar. It's $25 new but the individual books in the series usually cost less than $10 and used versions and ebooks are available.

Complete Spanish Grammar from Mcgraw Hill - This is a workbook as well as a textbook that usually costs around $20. The complete Spanish all in one version of the book costs about $40. Used versions of these books can be difficult to find because people tend to write all over them but ebook versions are available. You can also find their beginner workbook for around $18.

Practical Spanish Grammar - This book is usually around $25 but because it's not a workbook it's fairly easy to find used copies. An advanced grammar textbook is also available.

SERIES FOR LEARNERS AND KIDS SHOWS

Destinos - This is a series of over 50 episodes of a telenovela made for Spanish learners. The plot revolves around a group of siblings searching around the world for their long lost half sibling they just learned that they had so the series includes a lot of different Spanish dialects.

Extra Spanish - A 13 episode sitcom made to show in Spanish classrooms that revolves around a group of friends in Spain and a student that just moved there.

Dora la Expladora - Yeah if you remember Dora the Explorer from your preschool days it also unsurprisingly exists in Spanish. You can watch clips and some full episodes on YouTube and buy full seasons for around $8 each on Amazon.

PBS Kids in Spanish - A few PBS Kids shows like Cyberchase and Daniel Tiger have been dubbed into Spanish. The link I've given goes to a place to buy them on Amazon Prime but if you go digging on their YouTube channel or the PBS Kids website you also might be able to find them for free. They don't always make it easy to find though.

Plaza Sésamo - The Spanish language localization of Sesame Street for Mexican audiences with its own unique characters. The YouTube channel has a huge amount of content on it and often has episodes streaming live.

[beatrixst0nehill]

"Trying to stay healthy and positive although I'm a part of this dumb clinical trial. This sucks! I was all set to be the track and field star of my University, a bright career as an athlete, maybe I'd even go to the Olympics? Instead I get this email a few months ago stating that I've been selected to attend a clinical trial for a new breast growth drug. Like, there are a bajillion of these things on the market, why do they still bother with trials? It's ridiculous. I know, I know, horny wealthy men with an excuse to make pretty young college girls so big breasted it qualifies as a legal disability. Whatever.

Soooo as you might remember I had a perfect, flat chest, ideal for being a runner and now look at this. Look at these fat, sweaty udders of mine. They already started lactating. It's so hard to keep up with. Now I don't just run to the bathroom to pee or whatever, I run into the girls' room to remove my top and milk myself into the sink like a fucking cow. I stand there for minutes, the humiliation is excruciating. Other women come in and joke that that's what I get for sleeping around and getting knocked up over and over. I don't bother correcting them. I just agree, milking my breasts until they ache.

I'm apparently part of this trial for three years. I keep asking them how much growth I can expect by then and they just shrug, telling me if they knew they wouldn't need to do the trial. I looked up videos and joined a bunch of groups created by women who've gone through this. The short answer is I can basically expect my boobs to get so big I can barely walk, if at all. A common side effect, especially for really active girls who don't just cave and give into immobility, is for our spines to snap from the sheer weight of the breasts, leaving girls not just debilitatingly huge breasted, but paralyzed from the waist or shoulders down. Some of the girls act like it's this amazing goal to be jealous of, creating threads like, 'Guys it finally happened! After three straight weeks of intense exercise with my tits over 100lbs a piece, my neck finally gave out!' And it's them in the hospital, smiling and giddy, being hooked up to ocular software to post on social media.

I feel kind of insane for feeling the way I do. Almost all the girls love getting these massive, unwieldy breasts. I posted a thread talking about my future career and how I didn't want huge boobs and every post was just other girls (who're either immobilized by the sheer weight and size of their breasts or immobilized by paralysis) tell me to relax, not to worry, that I'm extremely lucky to be picked and I'll learn to love my new breasts, especially once they get to be over 50lbs each and I start having trouble doing basic things. A lot of girls told me I should remember that I'm just a womb with a pair of tits there for male enjoyment, and the bigger the more men love them. I can still fulfill my purpose and push out dozens of kids even if I'm paralyzed.

I guess I need to just give in and accept what I'm going to become. I'll still stay active, exercise and try to remain mobile as long as I can. But I guess it couldn't hurt to enjoy these things. Men already stare at them constantly and try to touch them. Maybe I should just let them grope me? Even though my clothes will be totally see-through from getting sprayed with milk. That's not such a bad thing, is it? It would be kind of hot, riding some guy's cock, seeing these fat, ridiculous-looking udders bounce and jiggle..... Perhaps I should even get pregnant? That would help my boobs grow faster and put more strain on my back faster..... Plus, all the other girls in the trial are pregnant so I feel a bit left out.

Oh well.... I tried to be an athlete and a role model to young girls that they can be more than the tidal wave of dumb bimbos and breeder hucows we see today...... But maybe I'm the perfect role model, though? That you should probably give up and embrace being a hucow anyway, it's futile to try and deny your body's destiny. Girls are meant to be dumb breeders with huge tits. It does make me horny, thinking about being completely stuck, unable to move cause my breasts each weigh 200lbs. I can only sit in whatever pen I'm being kept in at a government-run girl ranch. I sit there rubbing my big pregnant belly, playing with my sex, thinking back to when I used to be an athlete, running, winning awards, now I'm just cattle hooked up to milking machines, completely hopeless. Nothing but an object to be fucked, to make milk, and push out as many kids as possible until I wear out my usefulness. I can't wait until that's me, maybe my spine will even snap? Then I'll be truly helpless, I won't even feel my body go into labor or get fucked. I'll just watch myself be acted on, and all I'll be able to do is smile and offer lots of encouragement..... Kind of sounds like a dream come true. Once I'm done working out, nice and sweaty, I think I might 'accidentally' stumble into the men's locker room and see if these toxic gym bros can show me what my body is really for. ❤️"

[miryum]

"Tactical Village"

Summary: Detective!Jason Todd x detective!Reader based on Jake and Amy's relationship

Series Warnings: Swearing, descriptions of violence (but nothing descriptive), guns and other police stuff

Series Masterlist

“Do you recognise any of these men?” Y/n asked a woman who was wearing a ‘Visitor’ tag. 

The woman shook her head, saying, “I was hiding in the bathroom stall so I didn’t see his face. But, I heard him. He was singing along to the track.”

“Do you remember what he was singing?”

“Oh my gosh, no, Y/n,” Jason couldn’t help but let out a laugh. “Don’t do it….” Y/n chuckled along with him. Captain Wayne had assigned a detective to Y/n whenever she interrogated a perp. There had been an… incident. 

Cass didn’t know who gave Y/n a guitar, but the woman was currently torturing a perp with her terrible playing of the instrument, accompanying the sound with loud, off-tune screaming. 

The woman shrugged. “I think it was that song ‘I Want it That Way.’ ” 

Y/n hummed. “Backstreet Boys, I’m familiar.”

“Maybe a little too familiar,” Jason muttered. He thought of all the times Y/n had agonised both the criminals and detectives on duty with their songs.

“Number one,” Y/n ignored Jason, pressing a button for the intercom. “Could you please sing the opening to ‘I Want it That Way?’”

“Really? Uh… okay,” Perp 1 said. “You are… my fire?”

Y/n glanced over to the witness who shook her head. “Number two, keep it going.”

“The one… desire.” Perp 2 squinted to Perp 1, looking for confirmation that this was actually happening. 

“Number three?” Y/n nodded along to the nonexistent beat. 

“Believe… when I say?”

“Number four!” Y/n called out, grinning widely, leaning on the desk.

“I want it that way.”

“TELL ME WHY!” Y/n sang loudly into the microphone. 

“Ain’t nothing but a heartache,” all the suspects chanted along. 

“TELL ME WHY!”

“Ain’t nothing but a mistake…”

“Now number five,” Y/n crooned to the melody.

Perp 5 raised his hand, losing himself in the music. “I never wanna hear you say,”

“WHOO!” Y/n shouted out.

“I want it that way,” everyone finished together.

“Chills! Literal chills!” Y/n shivered, giggling. 

“It was number five,” the woman said. “Number five killed my brother.” 

“Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about that,” Jason murmured. “And, Y/n, just so you know, you pressed the ‘speaker’ button. Everyone in the precinct could hear that.” 

“Ohhh… whoops?”

“Happy Tactical Village Day!” Y/n high-fived Tim on her way in the door. “Happy Tactical Village Day, Cass! Happy Tactical Village Day!”

“L/n, I'm surprised to see you so excited about departmentally mandated training exercises,” Wayne commented. 

“Why, ‘tis the most fun day of the year, my good sir! Something you wouldn't understand, because you're not programmed to feel joy.”

“Yes, but my software is due for an upgrade,” Wayne retorted.

”When you play along with the robot jokes it ruins my enjoyment of them,” Y/n pouted.

“Yes, I am aware.”

“Anyway, Tactical Village Day is awesome!” Y/n continued with her rant. “We get to field test a bunch of cool, new weapons and there's always a fun training situation. Last year's was prison break. It got uber violent. It was like being in an action movie.” Her eyes went wide with excitement.

Y/n was using a piece of her hair to slowly chisel away at a metal bar of a cell.

“Y/n?” Steph called from the other end of the cell. “Cass and I dug a tunnel. Wanna use it?”

“Go on without me,” Y/n said in a deep, gruff voice. “I’ll make due by myself.”

“It's also a good opportunity for us to bond as a unit,” Steph said, reminding them all the true reason of Tactical Village Day.

“Everybody gets into it,” Y/n exclaimed. 

Jason kicked down a door and he and Dick rushed through it, screaming as they stormed the room. 

It turned out to be a supply closet.

“Suffice to say, the sixty-sixth has never had a perfect run,” Dick chuckled and scratched his neck. 

“Yeah, but Y/n has been the finalist for coolest kill two years in a row,” Stephanie said. “Every precinct sends their footage and all the cops vote.”

“It's not that big of a deal,” Y/n waved her away. “All you win is a children's tennis trophy, so…”

“You desperately want that trophy, don't you?” Wayne asked.

“So badly.” Y/n growled. “I will stop at nothing to obtain my prize. I'll shoot all of you in the face if I have to!”

“Go team,” Damian said monotonously. 

“Okay, so,” Y/n slid into the seat next to Jason’s on the bus ride over. “I’ve figured out my fictional persona for this year’s shooty-shooty rootin-tootie.”

“How the hell do you come up with these names?” Jason muttered, mostly to himself. 

“I am… Gina Thunderhouse. Russian spy, weapons master, and total badass. I even have cool Russian accent.” she said in a bad accent. “Babushka. Moscow. Rasputin.” 

“You know ‘babushka’ means ‘grandma,’ right?”

“Whatever. At least I have a persona, Mr. I’m-not-even-trying-to-be-fun.”

“This training isn’t about fun,” Jason frowned. “It’s about honing our skills to be better officers.”

“We shoot paint at pretend bad guys!” Y/n cried. “How is that not fun?!”

“I’m gonna go talk to Dick,” Jason said, standing up. “You have fun thinking of more Russian words.”

Steph quickly filled Jason’s empty seat, grinning sharply. “Seems like you two are getting cosy!”

“Come on, Brown. Not this again!”

“You gotta admit there’s spark.” 

“How many times do I have to tell you?!” Y/n exclaimed. “He’s like a brother to me.”

“And Leia was like a sister to Luke,” Steph sang out.

“Okay, that’s not fair. Luke didn’t know! No one knew.”

Steph shrugged and let the conversation go, though a smile flitted through her lips. Soon, the sixty-sixth arrived at the building where Tactical Village Day would commence. Walking in the doors, duffel bags full of gear and weapons in hand, Y/n shouted out, “The six-six is in the house!” 

“Six-six!” The rest of the crew echoed.

“Hey! Biz!” Y/n greeted an old friend. “They upgraded you from bystander to perp! That’s great, man. Still gonna blow your brains out though.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything else,” Biz waved back.

“Jason Todd?” A voice spoke from a crowd of detectives and cops. “Is that you?”

“Rose?” Jason’s head whipped towards the voice. “It’s been so long! What’re you doing here?”

“I’m with the seventeenth now,” she explained. “We’re paired with you guys today.” Rose was a tall, slim, blonde girl whom it seemed Jason connected with very well. 

“Wha- what’s going on here?” Y/n shuffled up to them, Steph close behind. 

“Oh, Y/n, this is Rose Wilson.” Rose held out a hand and Y/n firmly shook it. “Rose, this is Y/n L/n. She’s the life of the six-six.” He placed a hand on Y/n’s lower back, pushing her slightly forward. 

“Nice to meet you,” Rose said. 

“Likewise,” Y/n pressed her lips together in a smile. 

“Well, I gotta go,” Rose hugged Jason. “I’ll see you later, though. Great seeing you.”

“You too,” Jason returned the hug. 

Once Rose had left with a wave, Y/n turned to Jason and questioned, “So… who was that?”

“That was Rose,” Jason said as if it was the most obvious thing. “We went on a couple of dates last year.” 

“You did?” Steph asked. Y/n had forgotten she was behind her. Cass joined them, silently backing up her friends.

“Yeah, I liked her, but she was stationed in Metropolis so I didn’t get to see much of her. I guess it just fizzled out.”

“Right,” Y/n gawaffed. “That's the girl you said the lame stuff about. Like ‘she's a good listener’ and shit.” Internally, she felt bad for deriding Rose- she seemed like a nice person- but she couldn’t help but take a rag at Jason.

“I'm sorry, what do you look for in a relationship?” Jason asked snarkily. 

“I don't know,” Y/n shrugged. “Real stuff. Shape of their ass. Sense of dark humour.”

“Of course.” Jason rolled his eyes and stalked away.

“Isn’t it weird that Jason dated that girl?” Y/n scoffed, hands on her hips.

Steph raised her brows, mirroring L/n’s stance. “Why do you care so much?” Her voice rose higher with each word.

“Okay, first of all, your insinuating voice is way too high,” Y/n accused. “It's weird. And second, I don't care. I'm just wondering why he would like her.”

“Whatever you say,” Steph said, voice still high-pitched and she shuddered. “Okay, yeah, I hear it now. I sound like Cat from Sam and Cat.”

“Yes, you do.” Cass agreed. “But, I agree. L/n needs to confront her feelings for Todd and woman up.”

Y/n rolled her eyes and excused herself from the conversation, claiming the need to talk to Tim.

“Oh, this is so cool!” Y/n squealed, holding a parallel gun. “You can shoot around corners. I love guns.” She sighed and said, “I'm gonna make such a good mom someday.”

Jason shook his head, lips pursing. “Not even gonna touch that.”

“Not even gonna touch that: Title of your sex tape,” Y/n muttered, then chuckled. “Come on, man. At least make me work for it.”

Soon, it was time for the sixty-sixth to run the simulation. The team was standing by the door, waiting to be let in when Y/n slid by on her knees, making a dramatic entrance. “Gina Thunderhouse had arrived.” Her voice was, once again, accented in a bad Russian tone.

“That was majestic,” Tim joked.

“Custom kneepads to help me win coolest kill,” Y/n patted her knees, showing off her kneepads. After an awkward silence, she asked, “What, don't tell me Thunderhouse is the only lady here with a signature move!”

Tim shrugged. “I was bouncing around the idea where when I'm out of ammo, I release my mag and dropkick or chuck it into someone's throat.”

“You know how people hold their guns sideways to look cool?” Dick asked. Y/n nodded and the sarge continued, “It got me thinking. What if you held your gun upside-down?” He demonstrated it, flipping his gun upside down, finger still on trigger.

Before Y/n could respond with how that was an incredibly stupid idea, a loud buzzer sounded and another precinct marched out the door, looking victorious.

“Seventeenth’s done.” Y/n muttered and Stephanie stepped closer to her. “Heads up.”

“Hey. How'd it go?” Jason greeted Rose. 

Rose smiled and replied, “it went well. We had a perfect run! And not to brag, but I think we just set a GCPD course record for time.”

“Definitely a brag,” Y/n huffed quietly. 

“A course record?” Jason’s brows shot up.  “That’s so cool.”

“Thanks.” Rose looked up at him. “I'm psyched. By the way, good luck in there.”

“Thanks,” Jason called after her as she walked away.

“All right, huddle up.” Y/n pulled Jason away by the strap of his vest and into a group huddle. “This is how it's going down.”

“What happened to your accent, Gina?” Steph asked teasingly, knowing full well what was going on.

“Forget that shit.” Y/n frowned. “We're taking this seriously. Okay, on three: Let's break that course record and be the best precinct here! One, two, three!”

The group repeated, “let’s break that course record and… uh…” They all trailed off, mumbling different things as they forgot the words. 

“Yeah, I agree, it was too many words.” Y/n grimaced. “Let’s just do it.”

“Okay, I've got the details for this simulation.” Dick sat in front of a console, radioing in to everyone’s headsets. “A group of armed men entered an embassy and took hostages.”

“Which embassy?” Y/n couldn't help but ask. She shook her head, reminding herself to stay focused. “Doesn't matter. We’ll just say, Canada. They’re too nice to say no if someone asks to take them hostage. So take out the perps, clear the civilians, rescue the hostages?”

“Affirmative,” Dick confirmed. “This is an active shooter situation. You're cleared for maximum engagement.”

“‘Maximum engagement?’” Y/n scoffed. “What is this, Jurassic Park: The Ride?” 

Dick didn’t answer, commanding, “Brown and Drake, perimeter security. Brown, make sure he doesn’t fall asleep, but also doesn’t die from caffeine overdose. He only got two and a half hours last night.”

“Got it,” Brown said, yanking Tim’s cup of coffee away from him.

“L/n and Todd, you're the assault team. I'll be in the command centre. Cain, I need you to do surveillance on the places I can’t see.”

“On it.” Cass disappeared into the vents and Dick stared after her, wondering how she didn’t end up as an assassin-for-hire.

“All right, focus up,” Y/n said into the comms. “We got eighteen minutes and forty-one seconds to break this record. No screwing around.”

“Wow, you're really not gonna do a character?” Jason asked, smirking.

“I am playing a character,” Y/n said. “A no-nonsense detective whose only goal is to set this course record. Her name is Y/n L/n. She’s a kid who grew up with an absent father and just wants to prove herself. I don't have time for her full back-story. Sarge, please, let’s start.”

“Okay, guys, and go!” Dick clicked a stopwatch and the team rushed in.

Y/n zipped around a corner, gun drawn. When she didn’t see anyone, she called, “clear!”

She and Jason repeated the actions, peeking around corners and yelling, “clear.”

Y/n turned around a corner and fired two shots at a cop labelled “PERP.”

“Nice,” Jason commented.

Y/n ignored him and said, “okay, only three perps left. We might actually do this.”

Dick’s voice came in through the comms. “L/n, Cain has intel that there’s a hostage in room 409.”

“Copy that.” Y/n inhaled and said, “I love how it always smells like fresh paint here. Reminds me of how often I moved as a child.”

“No talking,” Jason reminded her. “You'll give away our position.”

“Look out!” Y/n was staring over his shoulder. She quickly lifted her gun and fired a shot at someone. 

Jason shielded away from the noise. “That was close.” He inspected Y/n and said, “there's paint in your hair.” He reached up and smoothed the paint away. “Thanks for shooting that guy.”

“My pleasure.” Y/n followed him around the corner and stared at a door marked 409. “The hostages are in there. Intel says there's a couple of heavily-armed perps with them.”

Jason asked, “you want to wait for backup?”

Y/n shook her head. “No time. We only have a minute to win the record.” She sighed and declared, “I'm going in.” At Jason’s scandalised look, she reassured him, smiling. She gently took Jason’s gun from his hands. “Don't worry. I have a plan on how to beat them: Give up.”

“What?!”

“Trust me,” Y/n said. “Or don't.” She shrugged. “I'm doing it anyway.” Jason’s heart dropped, watching her walk cautiously into the room. She announced, hands holding her guns in the air, “GCPD! Don't shoot!” Inside the room were two perps, guarding three hostages. “I'm here to surrender,” Y/n told them. The hostages looked at her as if she was crazy. “Let the hostages go and take me instead,” she said. 

“Not happening.” One of the perps growled. “Drop your weapon!”

”Okay, okay, my fingers are off the triggers.” Y/n agreed, dangling her guns off her fingers. “I'm just gonna slowly put them down in front of me….” She started crouching down. Jason watched, aghast, from the doorway. “I’m slowly putting 'em…” Suddenly, she twisted her fingers around and pulled the triggers, shooting the two perps in the chest.

“Goddamn it!” One of the perps yelled.

“Dick, time!” Y/n shouted into her comm.

“18 minutes, 28 seconds. You broke the record!” Dick cried back.

“Yes! Nice!” Jason ran in and hugged Y/n tightly, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around. She squealed and hugged him back. 

Jason paraded her out of the room and they greeted their teammates to a chorus of cheers, applause, and claps on the back.

“Ah, there she is!” Dick called.

“The record is ours.” Y/n spread her arms.

“I still can't believe your final kill came from Dick’s move.” Tim shook his head, looking disgusted.

“You went upsy-downsies?” Dick gasped. “That's what I call it, because you hold the gun upside-down.”

Y/n sighed. “Yes, Richard, I went upsy-downsies. And none of you shall ever speak of it again.”

“But I want to speak of it,” Jason whined. “You looked really stupid.”

“Alright, let's go.” Dick grinned. “Drinks are on me.”

“Nice! Here we go, six-six!” Y/n held her hand up to Jason for a high-five, face flushed with excitement.

Jason grimaced. “Actually, Rose asked me to dinner, so maybe I can meet up with you guys afterwards?”

Y/n’s face dropped. “Oh. Sure. Yeah. Of course. Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool.” Jason nodded and left, giving goodbyes as he walked away.

“What's going on, Gina Thunderhouse?” Cass smirked, sidling up with Steph. 

Y/n muttered, “what do you think Jason sees in Rose?”

“So you do like him!” Steph accused, smiling slyly. 

“I'm just curious!” Y/n tried to defend. “I mean, she's okay-looking and a good cop….” But aren’t I okay-looking and a good cop? “Also, she set the course record, but that's nothing. I broke it, like, 20 minutes later.”

“You want to know why he went out with her and not you?” Cass asked quietly. 

“Yeah.” Y/n swallowed harshly. 

“Because she actually asked him out,” Steph finished.

Captain Wayne raised a brow, looking down at Y/n’s desk. “You won coolest kill?” He gestured to the small tennis trophy Y/n was staring at. 

“No- not by a long shot.” She chuckled dryly. “But Dick bought it for me ‘cause he felt like I should’ve won. But he’s bias, of course.”

“Of course.” Captain Wayne smiled softly. “Detective, are you alright?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Captain,” Y/n mumbled. “Can- can I ask you a question?” 

“Sure, L/n.”

Y/n looked up at Wayne. “How’d you know Clark was the one?” she whispered.

Bruce sighed and offered, “come into my office. And bring your trophy.”

Doing as she was told, Y/n followed Bruce into his office. She sat down and Bruce took the trophy from her, placing it on his desk proudly. “When I first got here, Damian told me of your predicament.” When Y/n’s mouth fell open in betrayal, Bruce held up his hand. “I would’ve figured it out either way. I used to be a detective, after all. But what he didn’t know is if Todd liked you back. However, based on months of observation, I’ve noticed, for lack of a better simile, that Todd follows you like a lost puppy. I should know; I acted the same way towards Clark before we started dating.”

“Did you ask him out?” Y/n asked.

Bruce let out a laugh. “God, no. I was too scared. But that’s not an invitation to make the same mistakes I did. I lost a lot of time with Clark because of my anxiety.”

“Duly noted, Captain. Thank you.”

“Anytime, L/n. And good job in the Tactical Village.”

“Thank you, sir.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The antitrust case against Apple

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and beyond!

The foundational tenet of "the Cult of Mac" is that buying products from a $3t company makes you a member of an oppressed ethnic minority and therefore every criticism of that corporation is an ethnic slur:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Call it "Apple exceptionalism" – the idea that Apple, alone among the Big Tech firms, is virtuous, and therefore its conduct should be interpreted through that lens of virtue. The wellspring of this virtue is conveniently nebulous, which allows for endless goal-post shifting by members of the Cult of Mac when Apple's sins are made manifest.

Take the claim that Apple is "privacy respecting," which is attributed to Apple's business model of financing its services though cash transactions, rather than by selling it customers to advertisers. This is the (widely misunderstood) crux of the "surveillance capitalism" hypothesis: that capitalism is just fine, but once surveillance is in the mix, capitalism fails.

Apple, then, is said to be a virtuous company because its behavior is disciplined by market forces, unlike its spying rivals, whose ability to "hack our dopamine loops" immobilizes the market's invisible hand with "behavior-shaping" shackles:

http://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

Apple makes a big deal out of its privacy-respecting ethos, and not without some justification. After all, Apple went to the mattresses to fight the FBI when they tried to force Apple to introduced defects into its encryption systems:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/fbi-could-have-gotten-san-bernardino-shooters-iphone-leadership-didnt-say

And Apple gave Ios users the power to opt out of Facebook spying with a single click; 96% of its customers took them up on this offer, costing Facebook $10b (one fifth of the pricetag of the metaverse boondoggle!) in a single year (you love to see it):

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/facebook-makes-the-case-for-activity-tracking-to-ios-14-users-in-new-pop-ups/

Bruce Schneier has a name for this practice: "feudal security." That's when you cede control over your device to a Big Tech warlord whose "walled garden" becomes a fortress that defends you against external threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#manorialism

The keyword here is external threats. When Apple itself threatens your privacy, the fortress becomes a prison. The fact that you can't install unapproved apps on your Ios device means that when Apple decides to harm you, you have nowhere to turn. The first Apple customers to discover this were in China. When the Chinese government ordered Apple to remove all working privacy tools from its App Store, the company obliged, rather than risk losing access to its ultra-cheap manufacturing base (Tim Cook's signal accomplishment, the one that vaulted him into the CEO's seat, was figuring out how to offshore Apple manufacturing to China) and hundreds of millions of middle-class consumers:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-vpn/apple-says-it-is-removing-vpn-services-from-china-app-store-idUSKBN1AE0BQ

Killing VPNs and other privacy tools was just for openers. After Apple caved to Beijing, the demands kept coming. Next, Apple willingly backdoored all its Chinese cloud services, so that the Chinese state could plunder its customers' data at will:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html

This was the completely foreseeable consequence of Apple's "curated computing" model: once the company arrogated to itself the power to decide which software you could run on your own computer, it was inevitable that powerful actors – like the Chinese Communist Party – would lean on Apple to exercise that power in service to its goals.

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese state's appetite for deputizing Apple to help with its spying and oppression was not sated by backdooring iCloud and kicking VPNs out of the App Store. As recently as 2022, Apple continued to neuter its tools at the behest of the Chinese state, breaking Airdrop to make it useless for organizing protests in China:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped

But the threat of Apple turning on its customers isn't limited to China. While the company has been unwilling to spy on its users on behalf of the US government, it's proven more than willing to compromise its worldwide users' privacy to pad its own profits. Remember when Apple let its users opt out of Facebook surveillance with one click? At the very same time, Apple was spinning up its own commercial surveillance program, spying on Ios customers, gathering the very same data as Facebook, and for the very same purpose: to target ads. When it came to its own surveillance, Apple completely ignored its customers' explicit refusal to consent to spying, spied on them anyway, and lied about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Here's the thing: even if you believe that Apple has a "corporate personality" that makes it want to do the right thing, that desire to be virtuous is dependent on the constraints Apple faces. The fact that Apple has complete legal and technical control over the hardware it sells – the power to decide who can make software that runs on that hardware, the power to decide who can fix that hardware, the power to decide who can sell parts for that hardware – represents an irresistible temptation to enshittify Apple products.

"Constraints" are the crux of the enshittification hypothesis. The contagion that spread enshittification to every corner of our technological world isn't a newfound sadism or indifference among tech bosses. Those bosses are the same people they've always been – the difference is that today, they are unconstrained.

Having bought, merged or formed a cartel with all their rivals, they don't fear competition (Apple buys 90+ companies per year, and Google pays it an annual $26.3b bribe for default search on its operating systems and programs).

Having captured their regulators, they don't fear fines or other penalties for cheating their customers, workers or suppliers (Apple led the coalition that defeated dozens of Right to Repair bills, year after year, in the late 2010s).

Having wrapped themselves in IP law, they don't fear rivals who make alternative clients, mods, privacy tools or other "adversarial interoperability" tools that disenshittify their products (Apple uses the DMCA, trademark, and other exotic rules to block third-party software, repair, and clients).

True virtue rests not merely in resisting temptation to be wicked, but in recognizing your own weakness and avoiding temptation. As I wrote when Apple embarked on its "curated computing" path, the company would eventually – inevitably – use its power to veto its customers' choices to harm those customers:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Which is where we're at today. Apple – uniquely among electronics companies – shreds every device that is traded in by its customers, to block third parties from harvesting working components and using them for independent repair:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks

Apple engraves microscopic Apple logos on those parts and uses these as the basis for trademark complaints to US customs, to block the re-importation of parts that escape its shredders:

https://repair.eu/news/apple-uses-trademark-law-to-strengthen-its-monopoly-on-repair/

Apple entered into an illegal price-fixing conspiracy with Amazon to prevent used and refurbished devices from being sold in the "world's biggest marketplace":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/10/you-had-one-job/#thats-just-the-as

Why is Apple so opposed to independent repair? Well, they say it's to keep users safe from unscrupulous or incompetent repair technicians (feudal security). But when Tim Cook speaks to his investors, he tells a different story, warning them that the company's profits are threatened by customers who choose to repair (rather than replace) their slippery, fragile glass $1,000 pocket computers (the fortress becomes a prison):

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/

All this adds up to a growing mountain of immortal e-waste, festooned with miniature Apple logos, that our descendants will be dealing with for the next 1,000 years. In the face of this unspeakable crime, Apple engaged in a string of dishonest maneuvers, claiming that it would support independent repair. In 2022, Apple announced a home repair program that turned out to be a laughably absurd con:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

Then in 2023, Apple announced a fresh "pro-repair" initiative that, once again, actually blocked repair:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

Let's pause here a moment and remember that Apple once stood for independent repair, and celebrated the independent repair technicians that kept its customers' beloved Macs running:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/29/norwegian-potato-flour-enchiladas/#r2r

Whatever virtue lurks in Apple's corporate personhood, it is no match for the temptation that comes from running a locked-down platform designed to capture IP rights so that it can prevent normal competitive activities, like fixing phones, processing payments, or offering apps.

When Apple rolled out the App Store, Steve Jobs promised that it would save journalism and other forms of "content creation" by finally giving users a way to pay rightsholders. A decade later, that promise has been shattered by the app tax – a 30% rake on every in-app transaction that can't be avoided because Apple will kick your app out of the App Store if you even mention that your customers can pay you via the web in order to avoid giving a third of their content dollars to a hardware manufacturer that contributed nothing to the production of that material:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Among the apps that Apple also refuses to allow on Ios is third-party browsers. Every Iphone browser is just a reskinned version of Apple's Safari, running on the same antiquated, insecure Webkit browser engine. The fact that Webkit is incomplete and outdated is a feature, not a bug, because it lets Apple block web apps – apps delivered via browsers, rather than app stores:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

Last month, the EU took aim at Apple's veto over its users' and software vendors' ability to transact with one another. The newly in-effect Digital Markets Act requires Apple to open up both third-party payment processing and third-party app stores. Apple's response to this is the very definition of malicious compliance, a snake's nest of junk-fees, onerous terms of service, and petty punitive measures that all add up to a great, big "Go fuck yourself":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

But Apple's bullying, privacy invasion, price-gouging and environmental crimes are global, and the EU isn't the only government seeking to end them. They're in the firing line in Japan:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies

And in the UK:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-wins-appeal-in-apple-case

And now, famously, the US Department of Justice is coming for Apple, with a bold antitrust complaint that strikes at the heart of Apple exceptionalism, the idea that monopoly is safer for users than technological self-determination:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline

There's passages in the complaint that read like I wrote them:

Apple wraps itself in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to justify its anticompetitive conduct. Indeed, it spends billions on marketing and branding to promote the self-serving premise that only Apple can safeguard consumers’ privacy and security interests. Apple selectively compromises privacy and security interests when doing so is in Apple’s own financial interest—such as degrading the security of text messages, offering governments and certain companies the chance to access more private and secure versions of app stores, or accepting billions of dollars each year for choosing Google as its default search engine when more private options are available. In the end, Apple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple’s financial and business interests.

After all, Apple punishes its customers for communicating with Android users by forcing them to do so without any encryption. When Beeper Mini rolled out an Imessage-compatible Android app that fixed this, giving Iphone owners the privacy Apple says they deserve but denies to them, Apple destroyed Beeper Mini:

https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-moving-forward

Tim Cook is on record about this: if you want to securely communicate with an Android user, you must "buy them an Iphone":

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23342243/tim-cook-apple-rcs-imessage-android-iphone-compatibility

If your friend, family member or customer declines to change mobile operating systems, Tim Cook insists that you must communicate without any privacy or security.

Even where Apple tries for security, it sometimes fails ("security is a process, not a product" -B. Schneier). To be secure in a benevolent dictatorship, it must also be an infallible dictatorship. Apple's far from infallible: Eight generations of Iphones have unpatchable hardware defects:

https://checkm8.info/

And Apple's latest custom chips have secret-leaking, unpatchable vulnerabilities:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/03/hackers-can-extract-secret-encryption-keys-from-apples-mac-chips/

Apple's far from infallible – but they're also far from benevolent. Despite Apple's claims, its hardware, operating system and apps are riddled with deliberate privacy defects, introduce to protect Apple's shareholders at the expense of its customers:

https://proton.me/blog/iphone-privacy

Now, antitrust suits are notoriously hard to make, especially after 40 years of bad-precedent-setting, monopoly-friendly antitrust malpractice. Much of the time, these suits fail because they can't prove that tech bosses intentionally built their monopolies. However, tech is a written culture, one that leaves abundant, indelible records of corporate deliberations. What's more, tech bosses are notoriously prone to bragging about their nefarious intentions, committing them to writing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Apple is no exception – there's an abundance of written records that establish that Apple deliberately, illegally set out to create and maintain a monopoly:

https://www.wired.com/story/4-internal-apple-emails-helped-doj-build-antitrust-case/

Apple claims that its monopoly is beneficent, used to protect its users, making its products more "elegant" and safe. But when Apple's interests conflict with its customers' safety and privacy – and pocketbooks – Apple always puts itself first, just like every other corporation. In other words: Apple is unexceptional.

The Cult of Mac denies this. They say that no one wants to use a third-party app store, no one wants third-party payments, no one wants third-party repair. This is obviously wrong and trivially disproved: if no Apple customer wanted these things, Apple wouldn't have to go to enormous lengths to prevent them. The only phones that an independent Iphone repair shop fixes are Iphones: which means Iphone owners want independent repair.

The rejoinder from the Cult of Mac is that those Iphone owners shouldn't own Iphones: if they wanted to exercise property rights over their phones, they shouldn't have bought a phone from Apple. This is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy for distraction-rectangles, and moreover, it's impossible to square with Tim Cook's insistence that if you want private communications, you must buy an Iphone.

Apple is unexceptional. It's just another Big Tech monopolist. Rounded corners don't preserve virtue any better than square ones. Any company that is freed from constraints – of competition, regulation and interoperability – will always enshittify. Apple – being unexceptional – is no exception.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

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/2024/03/22/reality-distortion-field/#three-trillion-here-three-trillion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

[nanowrimo]

4 Ways To Cure Writer’s Block

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. NovelPad, a 2023 NaNoWriMo sponsor, is a novel drafting software designed to make it easy for writers to write. Today, they're sharing a few tips to help you beat writer's block:

NovelPad loves NaNoWriMo because we have the same goal: Helping authors get the thing done!

Starting a book is usually fun and easy—your fingers dance across the keyboard as you explore an exciting world, meet your characters, and stir up intrigue for the coming plot. But once you get into the weeds of how that all works, and how you and your characters get from Point A to Point B, you might find yourself losing momentum. You might find yourself so encumbered with obstacles that you might get a case of the dreaded writer’s block.

The very good news is that writer’s block isn’t terminal, and I certainly don’t think writer’s block is as enigmatic as some people seem to think. I believe it’s actually quite a simple problem, and usually due to one of a few common factors. Let’s look at four ways you can push yourself through your case of ye olde block.

1. Check in with yourself.

Step one is always to check in with yourself. 

Start by reviewing your basic self-care needs:

Are you staying hydrated?

Do you feel hungry?

Would a shower or a nap be beneficial?

Is it time for a walk or some stretching exercises?

Consider your environment as well. Maybe you need:

Noise-canceling headphones

A change of scenery

A babysitter or someone to help around the house

To open or close some windows

Next, evaluate your level of focus. Is your mind wandering elsewhere? It can be useful to create a "dump list" to jot down anything that's causing you stress, such as work-related issues, pending tasks, or upcoming events. Setting that list aside can give you the tangible feeling of pushing those things off your desk to worry about later.

Once your body, mind, and environment are sorted out, you'll likely discover that writing becomes a bit easier!

2. Look back at where you’ve been.

Even if the first tip did or did not do the trick, let’s take a look at the project itself.

Sometimes writer’s block is a blessing in disguise! Your creative gut might be telling you that something went awry. Try reading your project back and pinpointing where it became difficult to keep going. Consider alternate plots or paths to get your writing flowing again.

If you're managing multiple plots and subplots, identifying the moment you deviated from the main path can be quite challenging. To pinpoint which plot line is causing issues, you can take advantage of NovelPad's handy feature: Plot tracking.

On the Plot Board, you can review every scene of a particular plot in order, making spotting those errors in your plotlines much easier.

3. Rewrite a problem scene.

Once you've identified the scene causing issues, it's time to make improvements! This can be challenging because there are countless ways to approach a scene.

However, don't hesitate to embrace revisions. Often, a scene benefits from a thorough rewrite. With NovelPad Revisions, you can save limitless scene revisions, compare them side by side, and effortlessly switch to the one they want in the live manuscript. This keeps your different versions safe, well-organized, and readily accessible.

4. Freewrite to free yourself.

Freewriting is a great way to get your creativity flowing again. Write some poetry, compose a letter to a friend, or simply let your thoughts flow without judgment. Freewriting without judgment can help turn on your writer mode and even help you solve some problems! It's especially beneficial when you're stuck on something specific, because we often find brilliant solutions when we stop being so critical of our ideas.

Kick writer’s block off your desk with NovelPad! It's free to use throughout NaNoWriMo, and we offer discounts to participants and winners afterward. If you find that NovelPad isn't your cup of tea by the end of November, don't worry—you can still access and download your project at any time. Just write!

Our team at NovelPad believes in making it easy for writers to complete their books. That’s why we built an uncomplicated, intuitive system that stays out of the way until you need it! We want writers like you to #JustWrite without burdening you with excessive features. Speaking of features, software updates at NovelPad are based entirely on user feedback from authors to keep our features sharp, relevant, and minimalist.

All NaNoWriMo participants have access to a 15% discount on NovelPad with code WRIMO2023 — use the code during checkout to redeem your discount. Offer expires April 1, 2024.

Top photo by Richard Dykes on Unsplash.

[kittygawa--jr]

Any katagawa hcs?

Random Katagawa Jr. Headcanons | 500-ish Words

content warning for substance abuse and vague allusions to self harm

does a little spin. hi anon. i have a physical written collection of katagawa headcanons. i have dedicated an entire notebook to this which is purely katagawa (at the moment) headcanons and notes i wish to keep track of. do not get me going.

23 at death

Just about shorter than Zer0.

Vegetarian, sometimes indulges in fish.

Actually cut his pinkies off to fit into the Zer0 suit

Covered in moles :3

Has impacted canines, still has braces as an adult, was in headgear as a child.

Prefers clothes made to be prudish, that are then altered to be revealing. (Cropped/sleeveless turtlenecks, pants with slits/holes/tears for example, idk, he dresses like a slutty steve jobs)

Very small appetite, prefers to snack throughout the day rather than eat a few big meals.

Prosthetic eye and port are self developed, modelling off Atlas prosthetic software/hardware. Implanted them first at 18.

Bar code tattoo was given at 16, when starting a proper corporate mentorship and actually beginning to contribute to Maliwan.

His combat training was mandatory from 13 onward; he struggled to find a field to go into, so becoming useful as a weapon was the compromise until he could contribute another way.

He stuck with it after finding his place within Maliwan because the regular exercise and rigorous routine kept him busy and gave him an out for his frustrations at home.

He's extremely insecure about his height, always feeling awkward over never fitting into spaces well.

Remedies the previous problem by training himself to be extremely flexible.

Struggles with substance abuse. Towards his later teens he started drinking with encouragement from his brothers, while he only began really messing with drugs after meeting Troy and being introduced to Eridium based offerings.

Addressing prior point, for a few of his BL3 appearances he's likely coming down or currently high. He was most definitely actively using during his fight, however.

He takes great pride in getting his hair styled and taking care of it once it's out of a pompadour. I like to headcanon him as having a fancier pomp with am elaborate back and a slight ducktail/mullet in the back too, but what do I know.

The Zanara is his only space that is truly his own that he has to himself, away from his family. He wasn't JUST being a big baby about not being able to take what he dishes out okay. Rhys blew up something very very important to his sanity.

He drools in his sleep more than Rhys does.

He has a couple tattoos under his suit and tie: a replica of Rhys' neck tattoo on his inner right forearm, matching katana tattoos with his brothers over his left pectoral, and a work in progress of a cat prowling down his right thigh. He died before he even got the colors started.

Most intelligence he actually possesses in any real capacity mostly surrounds technology. He loves to tinker and customize and mod, though it was rarely what was asked of him at home or at Maliwan, since he already had other siblings that were also good with tech. It was almost entirely a personal hobby inspired by Rhys.

His family nickname is Junior. Do not ever call him Junior his face will get so red it'll be so funny. uh. I mean Don't do that.

He holds so much tension at all times that you would think his muscles were his bones from how stiff and strained they always are.

[wumblr]

like i do realize part of the problem is "one group has tracking and statistics and the other doesn't" but like the response to an app ban being to immediately download another app is kind of grim, folks. like i said this YEARS ago but you really can't ban software. you can remove it from the app store. you could criminalize the use of it. you could force the administrator or service provider to block it at the server level or at a network hub (for certain geographic areas, only useful insofar as people allow their systems to be honest about their location). but you can't physically prevent the compiled code from being ran. and again, people who are already doing this are obviously not recognized in the list of top app downloads at the app store

this entire discussion necessitates ceding ground when it's just not an accurate description of the lay of the land. i am becoming convinced that the purpose of this exercise is not to effectively ban software but to convince the public that such a thing is at all possible in the first place, because there's very little difference between those two outcomes

[teaseandsqueeze]

The Program: Chapter One

“Dude, I swear by it! Six months! That’s all it took to whip me into shape! Two years of Pandemic fat gone like that! Trust me, you won’t regret it!”

                Diego’s words rang in Dylan’s memory as he stared down at the little earpiece in his hand. It looked like a little white snake, curled up in his softened palm. This was his last opportunity to back out, to put the thing back in the box and return it to the software store. He could get back in shape on his own, couldn’t he? if he just committed to going to the gym four times a week, documenting his workouts, journaling his food habits…

                He looked up at his reflection in the mirror. A husk of the former man he used to be. Or rather, it looked more like the hottie-with-a-body from the past had been stuffed into a suit made of dough, which had only expanded over the course of the last three years. His face still retained his former “adorableness,” as the ladies and gays at the office put it. He still had the good looks as the fat had hardly affected his face.

                But the rest of his body…it was an entirely different story. Just the sight of himself, standing alone in his room, was enough to make him blush. Everything had filled out. Exposed in his underwear, he looked first at the thighs which pressed up against each other like rising bread. His love handles that now jutted up over his waistband. The tight briefs he had not bothered to replace were covered in the front by the gut that had just begun to descend—a major factor in his deciding to try out this new technology—covering the front of his crotch and the fabric was beginning to rip on the sides because of the size of his ass. His butt had always been big for a guy’s, but now it was absolutely ‘ridiculous,’ as his friend, Cody, had teased, grabbing one of his juicy cheeks and giving it a jiggle. And of course, his tits had grown ripe, bouncy, his arms thickened not by muscle, but by fat, and his neck was slowly starting to plump up as well, teasing just the hint of a double chin.

He knew no amount of working out, writing down his exercises, keeping track of his calories would get him any closer to the fit jock he was over three years ago. It was a tried and failed recipe for disaster that had only resulted in him ballooning even fatter every time. Of course, during the pandemic, he had simply sat on his ass like everyone else and stuffed his face until he couldn’t fit another bite…but what was his excuse for the last two years?

At the beginning of the pandemic, there was no risk of being asked to go back into the office. Who knew how long that would last? And so, Dylan had kept on growing, kept on eating. But after a few years of remote work, the company had finally started to crack down on working-from-home, requiring a slightly-to-surprisingly chubbier office to return.

On the dreaded day, Dylan, after a morning of wrestling himself into the loosest chino’s he could find and wriggling into the only button-down that would button over his tubby gut, had waddled himself back into the building. He was shocked, stunned, and dismayed to find that out of all the dozens of employees, he had put on the most weight in his time larding out at home. And his coworkers were equally-stunned to see his new status. No one, upon smiling at him and greeting his return, could seem to keep their eyes from falling to size up his sized-up belly. And a few even made comments; his rival, Luke, who only looked fitter, more muscular, going so far as to poke his tummy.

It was already a miserable day. One which resulted in Dylan trying his best to drown out the associated feelings by glutting out on the snacks he had brought back to stock his desk. But to make matters worse, as he stood there, a granola bar dangling out of his mouth, restacking the papers on his desk, he watched as Diego, suited with brand new pants, a shirt, and shiny new shoes, came strutting into the office, looking at least fifty pounds thinner than the last time Dylan had seen him.

Diego had already been a thick-bodied man. Chubby, even. He had been so even a year before the pandemic, when both he and Dylan had started. The desk job had caused him to fill out quite quickly and by the time everyone was sent home to work, his obtuse ass cheeks could barely even fit into his pants. It was, perhaps, a lucky break for Diego that he could now work from home, as Dylan could see the seams on his buttocks starting to become unraveled as his doughy coworker waddled out the door.

But the pandemic went on, and so Diego’s weight went up. Dylan could see the changes during the zoom meetings, as his flawless brown skin was stretched tighter over the young man’s plumping face. Once, even, Diego had to stand to plug his computer back in and Dylan could see his lower half, clad only in a t-shirt and the tightest sweats Dylan could imagine his office friend wearing, his gut jiggling as it “bwomped” out from beneath his shirt, smacking against the keyboard on the desk.

That’s why it was a surprise when, two years later, Diego came strutting into the office, looking thinner than when he had started. Luke had elbowed his way to the front of the cluster who had walked up to congratulate him, feeling Diego’s muscles, running a hand over his stomach to check for abs through the fabric. The whole sight made Dylan want to puke. Instead, he stuffed a muffin into his face and glowered until they were called into the conference room.

It was a tighter fit than Dylan could remember, as he wedged his widened ass between the armrests of the chair. By accident, he was right beside his friend, Cora, and Diego. They had always been on good terms, but Dylan could hardly stand to look at him.

“What’s wrong, man?” Diego had asked.

Dylan didn’t hesitate. “How the fuck did you lose all that?” he spat. It came out far more volatile than he intended.

Diego looked slightly dejected, throwing up his hands. “Just wanted to take care of myself, man.”

Dylan softened his tone. “Sorry…it’s just. You, of all people…”

Diego laughed. “Would it make you feel better if I said that you were part of the inspiration? That I wanted to look like you did…you know…before.” He laughed, elbowing Dylan in the chubby side. Dylan couldn’t help but smile.

Diego glanced around. Everyone was busy chatting and celebrating each others’ return. He lowered his voice. “There’s an app…and a device. It’s called the ‘Encour Rager!’” Dylan gave him a look. “Cheesy, I know. But hey!” He looked down at his own body.

“What does it do?” asked Dylan.

                “It’s an A.I. trainer. It encourages you to work on your goals.” Diego chuckled. “And man is it brutal! But it’s effective. Which, clearly you might want to consider,” he glanced at Dylan’s stomach. Dylan squirmed.

                “I might give it a try,” he said absently. Of course, he didn’t know how he felt about A.I., but like everyone, he used it almost daily in some way or another. But he had already tried so many apps; calorie trackers, workout calculators. None of it had helped.

                Diego leaned in closer. “Listen, dude. It’s not like anything else you’ve tried. It’s a commitment. I don’t recommend it lightly. But once you buy it and put it in, it stays in there. You don’t take it out again for a year! I mean, it’s as close to permanent as you can get!”

All that flashed through Dylan’s mind now as he looked at himself. A tubby version of the hottie he so badly wanted to be again.

A small chirping sound went off from the device in his hand. He looked down to see it glowing blue. It was fully-charged. Now was the moment of truth. He could back out now, if he wanted to. He gave his thickened body one last glance in the mirror, catching a glimpse of the pile of clothes he had set aside because he no longer fit into them.

He clicked the button on the side of the earpiece, raised it, and inserted it into his ear.

A pleasant tune filled his brain. And then, a voice. “Hello, Dylan.” It was deeper than he had imagined. Masculine. He envisioned an attractive, muscular jock. “I’m your Coach. You can call me Coach if you like, or by my name, Coach Hermes.” ‘Hermes,’ the god of games and sports.

“Hello,’’ said Dylan awkwardly.

“Hello, Coach,” corrected the device.

“Hello, Coach,” said Dylan, smiling.

“Much better!” said the device. “Now, you are aware of my function, are you not?”

“I am,” said Dylan. “Coach Hermes,” he added, grinning.

“Very good. Just to recap, I will act as your personal fitness trainer for the next twelve months, during which time, we are going to whip your body into the shape you most desire! My function is to optimize your fitness level to suit your needs and to best-satiate your personal self-image. During our first week together, we’ll be getting to know one another quite well, and I will be observing and commenting on your lifestyle; your eating habits, your exercise routine, things like sleep schedule, how much television you consume. Does that all make sense to you, Dylan?”

“Yes, Coach,” said Dylan. He was growing placid, as if the voice was lulling him into a trance.

“Excellent, Dylan. Now, as I will be observing, I will also be curating a program which I believe will best-benefit your body…money-back guaranteed, of course. The watch that accompanies my earpiece will allow me to monitor your heart rate, your breathing, and your responses to my words. The contact lens will allow me to see the world through your eyes and will give me a customized projection which is designed to motivate you towards your fitness goals. Please go ahead and place the watch on your wrist at this time.”

Dylan did as he was told, strapping the watch onto his chubby wrist. “My, that’s a tight squeeze, isn’t it?” said Coach Hermes.

“Uh, a bit…” mumbled Dylan.

“I am reading that your pulse has been elevated. Might I suggest you do some deep breathing to calm your nerves. There is no need to be anxious. None of this is permanent until you give me the final say-so.” Dylan took some deep breaths.

“Now,” said Hermes. “Please place the contact in your eye…so I can get a good look at you.”

Again, Dylan obeyed, dropping the contact in front of the mirror, and blinking as he adjusted it into place. It was the smoothest contact he had ever worn. He could barely tell it was there!

“Very good!” said the Coach. “Oh…what a handsome dude.” Dylan was looking at his own face.

“Thanks, Coach!” said Dylan, half-forgetting he was talking to a robot.

“You’re welcome, Dylan,” said the robot. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind standing back a bit, so I can see you. You did remember to wear the minimum amount of clothing so I can see your full person, did you not?”

“Yes, Coach,” said Dylan to both question and request.

“VERY good! I can tell we’re going to whip you into shape faster than you could ever have thought imaginable! Now, please step back.”

Dylan stepped back, still put off by the quivering of his stomach as he did so. Still disturbed by the increased rubbing of his thighs.

“Oh!” said Hermes in a shocked voice. “Oh, my! You have lost control, haven’t you…big boy?”

Dylan blushed. Why he would do so in front of a robot was beyond him. But it was embarrassing nonetheless.

“No matter,” said Coach Hermes. “We can work with this. Can’t we, thiccums?”

“Uh…yes…?” stammered Dylan, questioningly. ‘thiccums?’

“Yes…?” said Hermes.

“Yes, Coach.”

“That’s better, fatty.”

Dylan nearly fell over. Diego had warned him the words of the A.I. could be harsh. But it would all worth it, when he came strutting into the office in a new suit…right?

“Well, now that I’ve gotten a good look at you, chubbs, there’s only one thing left to do. Your wristwatch will take your thumbprint as your signature.” As the app said this, Dylan felt the watch buzz, illuminating on the screen. “If you are prepared to commit for the next year, please go ahead and place your thumbprint on the screen at this time.”

Dylan hesitated. Could he really handle being called things like ‘chubbs’ and ‘fatty until this time next year?

“Or, you may decline the offer and return the app. Your one-day trial is cost-free so long as the device is returned to the nearest software provider without damage.” The voice dropped to a whisper in Dylan’s ear. “But, do you really want to look like this for the rest of your life, porker? You know that you won’t be able to do this without me, right, fatboy? You know you need my guidance. That’s what I’m here for. To help you. I’m nothing like those other apps, where you can lie to them about eating a salad before you go binge on a carton of ice cream. I’m the real deal. I see everything. I feel everything. Like how out of breath you are, just standing there. Like how I can tell by your pulse that you’re embarrassed. But you don’t want to be embarrassed for the rest of your chubby life, do you? Go on, biggums…sign the contract.”

Dylan looked down at his watch again. He raised his thumb over the screen, letting it hover.

“Sign. It,” hissed the app.

He couldn’t do it alone.

“Yes, Coach,” he said. And then he pressed his thumbprint down and held it against the screen.

“Very good, fatboy,” said the A.I. in his ear. “Now, we can begin our training!”

[cloudy-caspirations]

Hey cas!! I wanted to ask you how to make the most out of notions (cuz its kinda complex app) + how to make notes omg im struggling w this YELPP😭😭

Hi !! I started using notion last year to try and organize my school life and still haven’t completely figured it all out, so I get what you mean with it being a little confusing 😭. I’ve been mostly using it as a planner, but just started writing notes on it over this summer break and am kind of loving it. I’ll include screenshots and stuff under the cut, but if you need more specific details or a tutorial for a database or something feel free to send another ask or dm!

My Notion Setup ⬇️⬇️

(Sorry if the formatting for pictures is weird, I’m still trying to figure out how to use this app 😵‍💫)

For Planning:

Here is my notion dashboard! It’s a little barebones compared to others that I’ve seen on Pinterest, but it works for me because if I include anything else my ADHD brain will get overwhelmed and won’t keep up with actually using and updating it.

I have two databases: one being used as an assignment tracker that sorts my assignments into To-Do, Overdue, and Done sections based on dates and the other has pages for my classes for the semester. (I just realized that I forgot the change the heading from Spring 2024 to Fall 2024, so please don’t mind that 😭) Along with the databases I have a simple to do list for things that I need to get done that aren’t assignment related.

You could also add a calendar view to the assignment database if you prefer seeing it in that format, I just choose not to because I use Google Calendar to see it in relation to my other plans for the day.

I don’t use the class pages for much because I preferred writing my notes in either Goodnotes or a physical notebook last semester, but I’ll probably start using them more because I like using notion to keep track of all of my code snippets and stuff along those lines that are easier to type than write out. It was also pretty helpful last semester for creating drafts and outlines for essays.

For Note-taking:

Here are two examples of pages that could go in the classes database if you prefer to take notes digitally. I like to use databases to create pages to take notes in for each chapter/section of the textbook or material for the class.

My favorite way of viewing it is the board view because I like having my progress visualized (and clicking and dragging chapters to the “Done” section is satisfying), but the table view is also nice if you want to include more details such as quiz scores or dates.

Here are some photos of my notes for a single chapter. I use section headers to separate the actual notes from other stuff like chapter-specific exercises or links, and use toggle headers for sub-section notes to make it less cluttered. Other than the formatting it’s nothing too fancy, my typed notes are similar to how you would take notes in any other software like GoogleDocs or Word.

[bloomzone]

I have to know how you stay motivated! I feel like I never have any energy and am constantly drained :( it makes it so hard to be productive and get things done

Hi girlie..ihope u ok I'm sorry that u feel like this :(.. it's ok cuz staying motivated can be challenging but focusing on small, achievable goals, maintaining a balanced lifestyle with proper sleep, nutrition, and exercise, and finding activities you enjoy can help boost your energy and motivation.

Being more productive and getting things done can take some effort and discipline, but it's possible to achieve. Here are some tips that may help you stay focused and motivated:

By:★ stᥲrgιrᥣ﹒

1. Break down tasks into smaller, manageable steps: Break larger assignments or projects into smaller, manageable steps. Start by listing the individual tasks that need to be done, and then break each task down into smaller, actionable steps.

2. Prioritize tasks: Prioritize your tasks based on their importance and urgency. This will help you stay focused on the most critical items and avoid wasting time on things that can wait.

3. Stay organized: Stay organized by keeping track of your tasks in a planner, to-do list, or project management software. This can help you stay on top of your workload and avoid missing deadlines.

4. Self care: Taking care of yourself is a key factor in building motivation and having the energy to achieve your goals. When you prioritize your physical and mental health, you are better equipped to handle stress, manage your time and energy, and make positive decisions that will help you in life. Taking care of yourself doesn't mean being perfect, it means being intentional about your choices and making time for activities that bring you joy, rest, and self-care. Self-care is a powerful tool for building motivation and finding balance in your life.

5. Celebrate your progress: Celebrating your progress can help motivate you to keep going. Praise yourself for completing tasks, and reward yourself for reaching milestones.

Remember, productivity is a habit that takes time to develop. Start by setting realistic goals and breaking your tasks into smaller, manageable steps. Stay organized, eliminate distractions, and celebrate your progress to stay focused and motivated and never forget to take care of yourself cuz no one will.With practice, you'll become more productive and get things done more easily.

[darkmaga-returns]

“If technocracy wins this battle and they implement it on a global basis, it will again take hundreds of years before the concept of freedom and liberty will resurface again. It will take a very long time; it won’t just come snapping back, it will not be a fade. Once they get control over the economic mechanism, they will virtually have control over life itself. They will make people of the world dance like puppets on a string.” ⁃ Patrick Wood, TN Editor.

This is a very important question. I think about it daily as the meteoric rise of scientism creates a new materialistic priest class, in whom you must put your faith and devotion.

What is Technocracy?

A scientific dictatorship, enabled by full-scale surveillance, in which an elite class of scientists and engineers manages every facet of life. Technocrats are “persons who exercise power by virtue of their technical knowledge.”

Technocracy is the Brave New World in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel, which was more a “I just got out of a meeting and here’s how it’s going down,” memo rather than a cautionary tale.

In this presentation about COVID-19, Dr. Lee Merritt, influenced by  Patrick Wood’s writings on technocracy, shared the etymology:

Techn = skillKrat = kratos (divine personification of power)

She summed up technocracy:  Data gathered on everybody in the world and fed to un-elected officials, who are smarter than everybody, and will use the information to create amazing solutions. It boils down to “power via differential knowledge,” meaning if you have knowledge that only a select few have, you can lord it over the majority of people.

The Internet and Total Surveillance

Once the possibility of a total surveillance state materialized with the inception of the Internet, technocracy became the crown jewel in the Cabal’s totalitarian New World Order agenda.

The timeline is speeding up. Their dreams of ruling the world are veering toward a terrifying reality with artificial intelligence, propaganda in everybody’s pocket, and a bazillion data points on every man, woman, and child on Earth.

Patrick Wood, the OG of technocracy research, said once we reach a scientific dictatorship society … “liberty will be a historic curiosity.”

In order to achieve this goal, the technocrats developed mass surveillance, which has only been possible in the modern age with the Internet. This is their time to act.

Smart meters on houses monitor how much energy you consume.

Credit card transactions track consumer behavior and move people away from hard currency.

Social media fills out the dossier with beliefs, names of friends and family, images, and much more.

The Affordable Care Act digitizes your medical history.

Smart gadgets—Fitbit, Oura Ring, etc.—pass all of your vital stats to central repositories.

Smartphones track where you are, what you’re doing (they can listen in), and what information you’re consuming and entertainment you are consuming.

The Internet of Things (IoT) adds more daily data. What’s in your fridge? What do you watch on TV? And even more nefarious, there are credible reports detailing how they can watch us through our TVs.

Facial recognition software and cameras monitor every square inch of public space.

Virtual assistants like Alexa monitor your every word and train people to be useless (“please machine, turn on that light … I cannot do it myself”).

Public school jams cultural Marxism down the throat of every child, while Common Core collects 400 pieces of data on every child, which is on their record for life.

[twodiamondhoes]

intrigued by Recency Bias (from the WIP tag game) :3

Delighted by the fact that I got two asks for Recency Bias :D Ty for the ask!!

(Referencing this ask meme)

The Elevator Pitch for Recency Bias is that it is a look at the s9 Ren The King arc, but make it cyberpunk! I'm having a lot of fun with some very experimental (for me) writing techniques.

I am (not-so-secretly) a huge sucker for dystopian fiction, but my favorite thought exercise is always what happens next? What happens after the Tyrannical Government is overthrown and the rebellion takes their place? What happens to the people on the streets, whose entire lives have been upended and now have to adapt to a different political structure or, sometimes even an entirely different way of life?

So Recency Bias is that thought exercise taken to the logical extreme, complete with a bunch of cyberpunk bells and whistles. It's a Gem-centric story, and the main pairing focus is going to be Gem/Etho, with a heavy dose of platonic soup group shenanigans. The original working title for it was "Campbell's Rebellion."

Hilariously, I had one of Gem's subplots being street racing for extra money long before Wild Life aired, but Wild Life is what convinced me to make Joel a bigger part of the plot. Originally he wasn't in it at all, having not been a Hermit in s9, but... I mean, come on, I had to have the Family, right?

Under the cut is the snippet I call my "history lesson," aka the rundown of the original rebellion from the aforementioned dystopia, that eventually became the King's Court. It's mostly to keep me on track and jog my memory when needed, but imo it's also just fun!

After a brutal, bloody civil war, the United States of America found itself shattered, with no hope of a democratic revival. Fear of foreign powers swooping in to lay claim to the Land of Opportunity was at an all-time high, but someone else beat them to it. No one should have been afraid of foreign aid, not when the call was coming from inside the house.

Five corporations with a vested interest in expansion and the sudden lack of governmental oversight put themselves in the forefront of aid campaigns. Before the citizenry knew what to fear, the nation was again divided not by war or differing politics, but by the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar.

For over two centuries, technological innovation and rampant cost-cutting initiatives have led to a landscape that is nigh unrecognizable. Cars flew, goggles halted any advertisement and community initiative not sanctioned by the Corporation in charge of that district, and people were not a collective, not a unit… they were units, no better than the machines that tracked their workflow.

Until, that is, a group of folks from across districts discovered a glitch in their awareness–each other. Together, this disgruntled band of misfits: Cleo, Bdubs, Cub, Ren, and Etho realized how important community was, and how far they were willing to go to protect what they had discovered.

Together, they rallied the populace and set to work creating a new way of life, and, they hoped, a better one.

Unfortunately, change can be slow when you take care to ensure the safety of your subjects, and anti-competition software wasn't the only thing that the corporations were using to keep the populace in line.

Perhaps there was an underlying reason that there hadn't, in all that time, been another rebellion. And maybe it's too late now to start wondering.

[adapting-the-mystic-path]

One of the first forms of magic many of us ever encounters in life is music. While it is not what we traditionally think of when we hear the word magic - candles, cauldrons or witches on broomsticks - music is an undeniable force. It has the power of influencing emotions and states of mind, inspiring painters, poets, writers, musicians, actors, etc. People have been inspired by music to live authentically in fashion, gender identity, sexuality, nonconformity. It can transport us into different worlds where love is all we dream of or one where we mourn a loss so deeply only the music can express our pain. Particular tempos and rhythms have the ability of inducing mesmerizing trancelike states.

I have noticed the power of music in many different situations over the course my life. Cheerful Disney and animated films or cartoons’ melodies color happy carefree moments of the past while musical productions of shows like West Side Story, Phantom of the Opera, and Wicked evoked emotions I had no words for or experience with and yet became part of my being. Funerals were marked by the solemn ceremony and the cathartic tears falling in a church as the gathering sang hymns I didn’t know yet tugged at my heart.

In recent years I’ve dabbled in a few different digital hobbies. One of the adventures I explored was DJing for a club in the virtual reality platform called SecondLife. I did not go so far as learning how to alter speed, pitch, or other fancy manipulations of music. But I did learn there is an art to the arrangement of song order. Much like a radio DJ, I would select tracks to play and specify the order in the software I used and occasionally did short voiceovers or commercial breaks to promote the club or the DJ playing after me. Some of my favorite sets - usually two hour sessions of music - were when nothing was fully prepared. I selected a few songs and either added or rearranged song order by feeling the vibe of my audience. This was a magic combination.

About a year later I started DJing at an occult/pagan/witchy hangout for full moon gatherings. This new path took me on quite a deep dive into music I had never explored before as i looked for songs to play that struck a particular chord. Popular choices were from SKALD, Heilung, and Kerli. Other modern style bands were included as long as there was an undercurrent of spiritual resonance, empowerment, or depth of emotion and feeling. In This Moment has a fantastic album which is heavily spiritually focused. Born This Way by Lady Gaga was also extremely appropriate as an empowering anthem to live authentically. Over time I grew my music collection and worked hard to hone my skills for smooth transitions. Often I would be playing songs that made guests remember another that they sometimes requested so I would move it into the queue. Building the energy together while dancing virtually and connecting through the rhythm of the drums or the vocals created such a high that is hard to replicate.

A morning ritual I began a couple years ago is creating a short playlist to listen to while I drink my morning coffee. Inspired by a friend who has a similar concept for a playlist, I have been particularly selective about which tracks are in the playlist. They must meet a few pieces of criteria but the most important is that listening to them raises my vibrations. My mental energy and confidence level should rise with each song in the list. “Good Morning” by Qveen Herby is the first track that includes a short breathing meditation which often helps me center and ground regardless of current events.

The point of this post? If you are looking to for a place to start your practice, dip your toes into the mystical realm, or simply ground, music is a wonderful place to begin. Experiment with different songs to reflect on the emotions they evoke. This exercise is extremely helpful for discovering the music you may wish to listen to while doing spellwork. Can you create the emotions you desire by being selective of what you are listening to? Give it a try.

[dustedmagazine]

Ernst Karel & Bhob Rainey — 47 Gates (Erstwhile)

First-time duos make up a significant chunk of the Erstwhile Records catalog. Typically, the label invites two artists who haven’t previously worked together to come up with an album, and sometimes music results. While this encounter qualifies, one wonders if Bhob Rainey and Ernst Karel relinquished the word “first” over the course of a partnership that was initiated in 2015 and finally yielded 47 Gates in 2024. Whatever fresh ideas were sparked when Erstwhile initially commissioned the duo to make a record have likely undergone recurrent interrogation in order to make the final cut and be included in this immaculately interwoven construction made from environmental, instrumental and processed sounds.

And while music is a big and often beautiful thing, 47 Gates defies the term’s boundaries. On their respective websites both Rainey and Karel assert at the top of their respective bios that they work in sound. Rainey is identified as an improvising soprano saxophonist, an instrument and practice that he has exercised with the duo Nmperign and the larger ensemble BSC. But he’s also developed sonic accompaniment for dance and theatre, as well as sound-manipulating software. Likewise, Karel has wielded a trumpet, and if you’re acquainted with albums made in Chicago during the 1990s on which rock, improvisation, and experimental practices jostled for space, you’ve probably heard him. But nowadays he performs occasionally with electronics, and mostly collects and manipulates environmental sounds that tend to end up in films.

If either man blew a horn on 47 Gates, they aren’t admitting to it; both are credited with electronics and recordings, and Rainey is also credited with piano. Two of its four tracks also feature contributions by a clarinetist and a string quartet. Each has moments where the combination of made and found sounds will confound efforts to determine where one ends and the other begins. But the album also moments when the divisions are not only clear, but essential to its periodic musicality because they establish periodic  divisions that could be characterized as rhythmic. Wind gusts and low electronic tones begin “Weather Imprint,” alternating  so that one feels like one is being buffeted by a stuttered cadence of meteorological events.  But the piece doesn’t stop there; first voices that sound like they’ve been lifted from shortwave radio broadcasts utter phonemes, and then objects are heard being moved.

Every included element is material, something one can use to make something else. Karel and Rainey don’t prioritize their choices of material by type, but by utility at any given moment; droning strings or a blast of antique Indonesian pop that sounds like it’s blowing up an AM radio speaker can be just as handy as the sound of a fly flitting back and forth between speakers.

Bill Meyer