#I will never be ok with this fuckery

[sordid-dog]

draw your fav as this/silly

can you tell i didnt use any guidelines and i dont know how to shade

insp

[medouse]

so my main computer is uh. having issues. so i cant use my nice computer with my nice csp and all my pretty pretty assets but what i can do is take the laptop i've had since like. junior year highschool, put medibang on it (remember medibang?) and do some silly nonsense between assignments. so thats what i'm doing.

anyway hehe yay clio and caio.

[hydropophis]

the amount of things my brain has inserted hualian into at this point is astounding. tloz. pmmm. ffx. the epic of gilgamesh. More

[youssefguedira]

unsolicited medical advice from a customer today 😃

[saviorkink]

x

[justonefeather]

I didnt want to like derail or overtake a post by adding tags but my brain is trying to process this and I'm "talking out loud" about it here..

Regarding like unlearning all of the things society decided to imprint on me/us about black folks and poc. I wish had like. Concrete steps i could read so i could take them, if that makes sense. Like i try to be good at learning people-related things. But it's hard to understand when someone says you should just know [x] because it's not like i wouldn't love to know or I'm not trying to figure it out. I think it's one of those "things you don't know you don't know" situations. Like I understand that a lot of the way our society is built is detrimental to many peoples ability to live and live comfortably. And i understand some things will effect other people more than me because of things like their skin or heritage or some other trait. l guess i don't know how to find like. The answer to how do I make things better. Being considerate is cool but i feel like it's not enough. I just don't know how to get to what would be enough? And i don't know what string to put in a search engine in order to find that.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

wait fuck ok i’m back to being sad about it now

like the thing is that ed doesn’t really hang out with anyone but stede in season one, not really. and whenever he is talking to other ppl on the crew, stede is right there. the only exception to this is in episode 8 when jack brings the party energy and everyone is getting drunk and rowdy together specifically as part of jack’s efforts to exclude stede.

and as a fandom we always make jokes and theorize about what the relationship between ed and stede must look like from the outside, if they were all placing bets for when they’d finally hook up or if they had zero belief in stede’s ability to pull THEE blackbeard

but now i’m thinking about the crew’s perception of Ed Himself. of the crew’s perceptions of The Legendary Blackbeard and how that must’ve changed over the course of the first season. because when they first meet him they’re all impressed and starstruck bc yeah, duh, this is Pirate Beyoncé we’re talking about. they’re also in varying degrees “worried he’s gonna kill them.”

but they quickly see that the real pirate beyonce isn’t all leather and murder and head made of smoke. blackbeard swaps clothes with their cringefail (derogatory) boss for fun. he dresses up and goes to a fancy party just because he wants to—he’s not even trying to get anything out of it, doesn’t have an angle the way frenchie does, he genuinely just wants to go to a very un-Blackbeardy party and have fun. he tells them scary stories. he shows them some of his trade blackbeard secrets. he hypes them all up after their first fuckery (and i will never get over how cute that is exchange is, “scared the pants off me” and “i thought blackbeard didn’t feel fear” and “and i didn’t, until tonight” and the crew’s genuine excitement and pride). he goes on a treasure hunt with their cringefail (affectionate, now) boss and lets him dig in the ground to get it out of his system. they learn that ed isn’t just a scary pirate, he also can be silly and goof off and enjoy things that aren’t exactly compatible’s with the Blackbeard Brand

and beyond just not adhering 24/7 to the Brand, they learn that ed—that blackbeard—is human. is fallible. they see his first plan to escape the spanish fail, and they get to participate in the backup plan that he and stede come up with. frenchie sees ed get hurt at the fancy party in a way that he completely understands. lucius realizes that ed is just as into his cringefail boss as his cringefail boss is into ed, and over the course of giving ed a shovel talk he maybe learns that The Legendary Blackbeard might actually be nervous about a boy liking him back.

and none of this—NONE of this—makes the crew lose any respect for him. even pete never has a moment where his perception of his idol is shattered, where he’s disappointed that blackbeard isn’t all nine guns and zero mercy all the time. instead, pete expands his idea of what The Ideal Pirate (the ideal MAN) looks like.

i think by the time jack rolls around, ed is no longer on that Pirate Beyoncé pedestal to them. he’s still on a pedestal, a bit, but instead of seeing ed as this untouchable badass legend, they see him as like. the coolest guy on the ship. still a badass, still somebody they all respect and admire, but someone they can hang out with. someone they really want to hang out with. they want to impress ed because they want him to like them, they want to be his friend. and yeah, it’s played as a “your father and i are getting a divorce but we still love you very much” joke, but they really are so sad when ed leaves with jack.

and ed showing up with no beard and no stede, ed hiding in his cabin for. a day? multiple days? ed singing a song about his feelings. ed saying he no longer wants to go by blackbeard.

the crew is confused, but they’re on board. they don’t laugh at him for his (bad) singing, they don’t think less of him now that he’s sans iconic beard. ed, to them, is still The Coolest Guy On The Ship, and they want to be his friend. they’re excited to be his friend.

they want to put on a talent show.

and ed, right after getting stabbed in the back by jack and izzy, and then stede, and then izzy again—ed, who was so affected by the jeers of the rich fuckers at that fancy party, who grew up in a culture that doesn’t allow for friendship, a culture of everyone in various stages of fucking each other over—can’t see that. he’s got fresh heartbreak and fresh betrayal that are compounding on years of trauma and he hears them all chanting his name and he can’t trust this crew. he couldn’t trust his first mate, and he couldn’t trust his old shipmate, and he couldn’t trust stede. he cannot, cannot risk vulnerability with the crew. not again.

(and like, cmon, who is ed even kidding? he’s not made for things like softness and friendship and genuine camaraderie. trying to be anything other than blackbeard is like a wolf trying to fit in a sheep’s clothing, but the clothing is too small and everyone can see right through him and they’re all laughing and laughing and he’s the only one who can’t see what a joke he is. ed’s not an idiot, he knows there’s no way the crew is up their chanting his name and asking for another song because they like him. they just want the great clown pagliacci to come out and make them laugh.

so sure, ed’ll give them a show. they think ed’s funny? well he’s about to be fucking hilarious.)

EDIT: those of y’all seeing this in the ofmd tags are missing the additions where it gets even sadder

[signanothername]

hhhhhhh i love your art so much man it's just so rrrrrrrrg words can even describe it 💥💥💥

butt like like genuinely how do you figure out poses and shit that fit who you draw so well likeee

idk me personally i just struggle with that stuff, yk always stuck with the -looking front on with hands in pockets- or the dreaded -peace sign with hand in pocket- fjdjdj

sorry for the yap sesh butttt any advice would be like so cool

also the way you portray killer and nm is like godly just 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

HDHDHHDHD THANK YOU <333333

And oooh that’s a very valid struggle, cause the thing is, I used to struggle a lot with posing characters in a way that actually satisfied me, going for the stiff front look a lot dhdhhdhdh

But the thing is with art, is that it isn’t just lines on a page y’know? At least, I stopped treating my art as such, every time i draw an artwork i want the artwork to tell who sees it something, I treat every artwork as a story in of itself

Ok imma generally give you what I learned from my art journey so far, i’m gonna start with a more general advice and then get to how I choose poses for certain characters, and imma try to explain the best I can but I can be really bad with wording things so bear with me

Art can be difficult cause different art concepts are interconnected with each other, so sometimes you need to think of so many things just to be able to do something as simple as posing a character

Before we start tho, here are 2 tips:

-everything you know about anatomy? Throw it out the window, no i’m not joking I’m being completely serious

The reason many artists suffer with making dynamic poses is cause they think too much about anatomy, they think the anatomy should look correct and perfect, and no, anatomy is the biggest reason the pose you draw is going to be stiff, you need to forget “correct” anatomy if you want your poses to feel alive and dynamic

- practice gesture/figure art, IM ON MY KNEES I BEG YOU, cause it teaches you to let go of perfect anatomy and actually learn how to draw figures in motion (which is extremely important for fluid and dynamic poses!)

———

With that in mind, here are a few things i keep in mind when posing a character:

1- line of action

You hear these three damn words a lot yet no matter how much you research them you can never find a good explanation for what they mean (me after i researched this bullshit so much shbdhdhhs)

But simply put, think of the action line as the spine in a human, the more you bend it outta shape the more dynamic the pose is going to be

And it’s genuinely so important cause it can make a very simple pose such as a character standing doing nothing much more dynamic when you put line of action in mind

Even a very slight bend in the line can make the pose more natural/dynamic, because an action line dictates the movement of a character

So if you want to avoid a stiff pose? Avoid a straight action line (you gotta make that action line Queer af💅✨✨✨✨)

But here’s a mind fuckery, the tricky thing with action lines is that it’s better if you keep them in mind but not consciously think of them if that makes sense

You gotta understand them and implement them and practice them, but when you draw a character posing a certain way, thinking too much of the action line can actually make it difficult to maintain and in turn, makes your art stiff af too

Like you got to internalize this concept and to keep it in your subconscious rather than actually consciously think about it when you draw your artworks

Ok Anó, how the fuck do i do that? Start with practicing them consciously by actually drawing the action line and then the pose in art studies, and then level yourself up by practicing them by drawing characters posing a certain way WITHOUT putting an action line first, i’m sorry to say there’s no way around it, there are no short cuts

Here’s a helpful visual guide/summary of what i mean by the paragraph above cause words suck

(but sooner or later, what you learned gets burned into your muscle memory, and your hand would start doing all the work without you consciously thinking about it, then congrats!! Action lines are now part of your subconscious)

Ok but does that mean straight lines are bad/should never be used?? NO

I can never emphasize how important straight lines can be

One thing that’s beautiful in art is that there’s no such thing as “bad” or “wrong”, art is subjective, and something that’s perceived as “wrong” by one artist, can be right/ something implemented in another artist’s artstyle that makes it unique

In fact, straight action lines can be great to use depending on what you wish people to take/understand from your art (a simple example: a turn around reference sheet for a character tends to use straight lines, cause in a reference sheet you focus on clarity, and drawing with queer lines can cause that clarity to be thrown out the window)

But I especially love to use straight Action lines with Killer, I sometimes make him stiff as a fucking rock and it’s completely intentional on my part, cause i love to use stiff poses to enhance the uncomfortable/unnatural atmosphere Killer gives, or to further emphasize an already uncomfortable situation

So to summarize, if you wish your poses be more natural/dynamic and to avoid stiff poses, use queer Action lines, but straight lines are also great to use depending on what you want people to understand from your art

———

2- perspective (camera angle)

Variety is key!

What is the perspective you want to focus on? I know this seems like it doesn’t have anything to do with posing a character, but it does, (remember, art concepts are interconnected!) cause the perspective you decide to draw from can also influence the pose you decide to draw or vice versa, and help you make the pose more dynamic

Hell sometimes, perspective can do the poses justice even if they’re literally the most boring stiff poses you’ve ever drawn chchchhcch

Like are you going to draw the character from an upper perspective? Lower? Fish-eye? Third person? First person?

Is the perspective tilted? Is it normal?

What is the perspective you want and why did you choose it? What are you trying to tell the people who see your art?

Here are a few tips when it comes to perspective:

-More dynamic perspectives (upper/lower) are good for artworks that have tension in them, or have some sort of stakes going on (fights, horror, uncomfortable situations)

That of course doesn’t mean they can’t be used to simply make your artwork look cool :D

-choosing how many vanishing points there are (one,two or three points perspective) can also make your art tell a different story depending on the situation you’ve chosen them for

-and most importantly, when you draw a pose, foreshortening is going to happen to the body depending on the perspective!!

But my point is, I make sure i draw in variety, sometimes I draw the character from upper, lower, tilted or even a mix of all of them, all to enhance my poses to look more dynamic/natural

Ok Anó, got it, but what if I don’t care to include a crazy perspective and i want to draw in a normal perspective? Then how do i make my poses more dynamic?

That brings me to my next 2 points

———

3- camera shots

Same as perspective, there has to be variety!

Your art doesn’t always have to be full body, try to draw different shots, draw a headshot, draw closeup shots draw half bodies

If you go for different shots then you’ll be forced to think of different poses to fit such shots :D

———

4-bodies are like little toys, break them

One thing you can do to bring more variety to your poses is to have different body parts facing different directions, not all limbs have to face the same direction >:)

Generally the characters don’t have to face front! Try to mix it up and draw from the side or back

———

5-emotional weight and a story to tell

And this is where i’ll bring my point about treating my art as a story back

A really good way to actually put variety in your poses is to treat any sort of artwork/sketch you make as a story you’re trying to tell

Before you draw a character posing a certain way ask yourself, why is this character posing this way? What are/were they doing before that pose? Are they alone or are they reacting to something/someone?

Is there a point to them posing this way? (It’s ok if there’s no actual point to it! But the poses still would need to tell a story regardless)

Cause if you’re posing them reacting to another character (off screen for example), you pose them in a way that makes sense for their emotions of the other character right? (So if the character has negative feelings towards the other one then it makes more sense to draw them in a defensive stance or a fight or flight pose)

If you’re drawing them all alone then what are they doing alone, are they doing something important or is it their off time? If it’s their off time what are they doing for their off time? Do they like to spend it reading a book for example? What are they reading? Is it a horror novel that makes them scared? If yes then how do they deal with fear? Do they throw the book across the room or do they hide under a blanket?

Cause a pose also holds emotional weight, it shows you what emotions the character is exhibiting, it’s not just the expression of the character that tells you about their emotions, it’s their body language, and body language can be translated through poses

Let’s say they’re doing a peace sign pose for example, why are they doing it? Are they taking a picture with someone they love or are they doing it to annoy someone? Hell maybe they’re being forced to do it, and so they do it half heartedly maybe?

Get what I’m trying to say?

———

And now with all of the above in mind, time to get to the most important thing and the main point of this post

How do I choose poses for certain characters?

6- personality

who am I sketching? Cause each character is unique and each character is gonna act a certain way other characters won’t, and depending on the situation, the poses change too

Understand the character and how they act, try to analyze them and take in their quirks and behaviors, and before you draw a pose for them actually ask yourself, would this character EVER do this pose?

Like you say you fall in the peace sign trap right? Now think about a peace sign pose, but with Nightmare… it doesn’t make sense right? Cause the pose is an absolute striking contrast to Nightmare’s personality, like Nightmare would never do a peace sign till the day he dies, hell i’m sure if he’s forced to choose between death and doing a peace sign he’d choose death (it’s a lot more mercifull than the humiliation he’d feel making a peace sign hcchchch)

See what I’m getting at?

For example, I draw Nightmare with his hands behind his back a lot, but you won’t see me do the same with other characters often, not cause other characters would never put their hands behind their backs, but because it’s a quirk in Nightmare’s character, Nightmare TENDS to do that a lot, he acts so formal and royal like, and so i draw him do it a lot

But here’s the thing, if i draw other characters having their hands behind their backs like i do with Nightmare, i do it in a way that makes sense for them! An example is how i draw Nightmare and Dream with their hands behind their backs :D

But I also keep in mind Nightmare’s character, so whenever I pose him a certain way, I ask myself “would Nightmare actually stand/sit/lie down like that?” If the answer is yes, then I continue, if not then i change it to fit Nightmare

To further explain, I tend to think Nightmare is defensive in nature, so you’d see that I also pose him in a way that reflects that, with his hands crossed in front of his chest for example or generally his hands close to his body, sometimes hunched in on himself, I also think Nightmare is egotistical and self centric, but most importantly, he sees himself as an elegant King, and so I draw him crossing his legs or generally have him sit in such a formal manner or a hand on hip kinda pose etc

So when you draw a pose ask yourself if it fits the personality, mindset, and pattern of behavior for said character!

———

With all that being said, while it’s amazing to be able to do a variety of poses, I think it’s also important to keep in mind that art is supposed to be fun, take your time trying to learn, don’t overwork or frustrate yourself with learning new things, and it’s completely fine to not do poses that have meaning sometimes (do that peace sign to your heart’s content <333) it took me 10 whole years to get where i am today, and compared to many other artists my own progress is extremely slow, and it used to bother me cause I treated art like there was some sort of deadline above my head and that I should learn things in a timely manner (which is absolute bullshit), my point is, take your time with learning poses, even if it takes you years, the important thing is that you will get there eventually <33333

———

Finally, here is one art resource for poses that i think is really good/useful

Keep on creating and hope my endless ramble helps a lil chchchchchch <33333

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Worker misclassification is a competition issue

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/2024/02/02/upward-redistribution/#bedoya

The brains behind Trump's stolen Supreme Court have detailed plans: they didn't just scheme to pack the court with judges who weren't qualified for – or entitled to – a SCOTUS life-tenure, they also set up a series of cases for that radical court to hear.

Obviously, Dobbs was the big one, but it's only part of a whole procession of trumped-up cases designed to give the court a chance to overturn decades of settled law and create zones of impunity for America's oligarchs and the monopolies that provide them with wealth and power.

One of these cases is Jarkesy, a case designed to allow SCOTUS to euthanize every agency in the US government, stripping them of their powers to fight corporate crime:

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/sec-v-jarkesy-the-threat-to-congressional-and-agency-authority/

The argument goes, "Congress had the power to spell out every possible problem an agency might deal with and to create a list of everything they were allowed to do about these problems. If they didn't, then the agency isn't allowed to act."

This is an Objectively Very Stupid argument, and it takes a heroic act of motivated reasoning to buy it. The whole point of expert agencies is that they're experts and that they might discover new problems in American life, and come up with productive ways of fixing them. If the only way for an agency to address a problem is to wait for Congress to notice it and pass a law about it, then we don't even need agencies – Congress can just be the regulator, as well as the lawmaker.

If there was any doubt that Congress created the agencies as flexible and adaptive hedges against new threats and problems, then the legislative history of the FTC Act should dispel it.

Congress created the FTC through the FTCA because the courts kept misinterpreting its existing antitrust laws, like the Sherman Act. Companies would engage in the most obvious acts of naked, catastrophic fuckery, and judges would say, "Welp, because Congress didn't specifically ban this conduct, I guess it's OK."

So Congress created the FTC with an Act that included a broad authority to investigate and punish "unfair methods of competition." They didn't spell these out – instead, they explicitly said (in Section 5) that it was the FTC's job to determine whether something was unfair, and to act on it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The job of the FTC is to investigate unfair conduct before it becomes such a problem that Congress takes action, and to head that conduct off so that it never rises to the level of needing Congressional intervention.

Now, it's true that since the Reagan years, the FTC has grown progressively less interested in using this power, but that's broadly true of all of America's corporate watchdogs. But as the public all over the world has grown ever more furious about corporate abuses and oligarchic wealth, governments everywhere have rediscovered their role as a public protector.

In America, the Biden administration altered the course of history with the appointment of new enforcers in the key anti-monopoly agencies: the FTC and the DOJ's antitrust division. But more importantly, the Biden admin created a detailed, technical plan to use every agency's powers to fight monopoly, in a "whole of government" approach:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Now, this can give rise to seeming redundancies. Take labor issues. The NLRB is a (potentially) powerful regulator that had been in a coma for decades, but has awoken and taken up labor rights with a fervor and cunning that is a delight to behold:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

At the same time, the FTC has also taken up labor rights, using its much broader powers to do things like ban noncompetes nationwide, unshackling workers from bosses who claim the right to veto who else they can work for:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

But the NLRB doesn't make the FTC redundant, or vice-versa. The NLRB's role is principally reactive, punishing wrongdoing after it occurs. But the FTC has the power to intervene in incipient harms, labor abuses that have not yet risen to the level of NLRB enforcement or new acts of Congress.

This case is made beautifully in Alvaro Bedoya's speech "'Overawed': Worker Misclassification as a Potential Unfair Method of Competition," delivered to the Law Leaders Global Summit in Miami today:

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Overawed-Speech-02-02-2024.pdf

Bedoya describes why the FTC has turned its attention to the problem of "worker misclassification," in which employees are falsely claimed to be contractors, and thus deprived of the rights that workers are entitled to. Worker misclassification is rampant, and it transfers billions from workers to employers every year. As Bedoya says, 10-30% of employers engage in worker misclassification, allowing them to dodge payment for overtime, Social Security, workers' comp, unemployment insurance, healthcare, retirement and even a minimum wage. Each misclassified worker is between $6k-18k poorer thanks to this scam – a typical misclassified worker sees a one third decline in their earning power. And, of course, each misclassified worker's boss is $6k-$18k richer because of this scam.

It's not just wages, it's workplace safety. One of the most dangerous jobs in the country is construction worker, and worker misclassification is rampant in the sector. That means that construction workers are three times more likely than other workers to lack health insurance.

What's more, misclassified workers can't form unions, because their bosses' fiction treats them as independent contractors, not employees, which means that misclassified construction workers can't join trade unions and demand health-care, or safer workplaces.

Contrast this with, say, cops, who have powerful "unions" that afford them gold-plated health care and lavish compensation, even for imaginary ailments like "contact overdoses" from touching fentanyl – a medical impossibility that still entitles our nation's armed bureaucrats to handsome public compensation:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/27/extraordinary-popular-delusions/#onshore-havana-syndrome

Cops have far safer jobs than construction workers, but cops don't get misclassified, so they are able to collect benefits that no other worker – public or private – can hope for.

Not every employer wants to cheat and maim their employees, of course. In Bedoya's speech, he references Sandie Domando, an executive VP at a construction company in Palm Beach Gardens. Domando's company keeps its employees on its books, giving them health-care and other benefits. But when she started bidding against rival firms for jobs funded by the covid stimulus, she couldn't compete – two thirds of those jobs went to other firms that were able to put in cheaper bids. Those bids were cheaper because they were defrauding their workers by misclassifying them. Thus, publicly funded projects were overwhelmingly handed over to fraudulent companies. Fraud becomes a fitness-factor for winning jobs. It's a market for lemons – among employers.

Employee misclassification is a pure transfer from workers to bosses. Bedoya recounts the story of Samuel Talavera, Jr, a short-haul trucker who worked for decades in the Port of Los Angeles. For decades, his job paid well: enough to support his family and even take his kids to Disneyland now and again.

But in 2010, his employer reclassified him as a contractor. They ordered him to buy a new truck – which they financed on a lease-purchase basis – and put him to work for 16 hours stretches in shifts lasting as much as 20 hours per day. Talavera couldn't pick his own hours or pick his routes, but he was still treated as an independent contractor for payroll and labor protection purposes.

This lead to an terrible decline in Talavera's working conditions. He gave up going home between shifts, sleeping in his cab instead. His pay dropped through the floor, thanks to junk-fees that relied on the fiction that he was a contractor. For example, his boss started to charge him rent on the space his truck took up while he was standing by for a job at the port. Other truckers at the port saw paycheck deductions for the toilet-paper in the bathrooms!

Talavera's take-home pay dropped so low that he was bringing home a weekly wage of $112 or $33 (one week, his pay amounted to $0.67). His wife had to work three jobs, and they still had to declare bankruptcy to avoid losing their home. When Talavera's truck needed repairs he couldn't afford, his boss fired him and took back the truck, and Talavera was out the $78,000 he'd paid into it on the lease-purchase plan.

This story – and the many, many others like it from the Port of LA – paint a clear picture of the transfer of wealth from workers to their bosses that comes with worker misclassification. The work that Talavera did in the Port of LA didn't get less valuable when he was misclassified – but the share of that value that Talavera received dropped to as little as $0.67/week.

Worker misclassification is rampant across many sectors, but its handmaiden is technology. The fiction of independence is much easier to maintain when the fine-grained employer-employee control is mediated by an app (think of Uber):

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

That's why those scare-stories that AI trucks were going to make truckers obsolete and create an employment crisis were such toxic nonsense. Not only are we unlikely to see self-driving trucks, but the same investors that back AI technology are making bank on companies that practice worker misclassification through the "it's not a crime if we do it with an app" gambit:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

By focusing our attention on a hypothetical employment crisis that will supposedly be caused by future AI developments, tech investors can distract us from the real employment crisis that's created by app-enabled worker misclassification, which is also the source of much of the capital they're plowing into AI.

That's why the FTC's work on misclassification is so urgent. Misclassification is a scam that hurts workers and creates oligarchic power – and it's also a mass-extinction event for good companies that don't cheat their workers, because those honest companies can't compete.

Worker misclassification is having a long-overdue and much needed moment. The revolutionary overthrow of the rotten old leadership at the Teamsters was caused, in part, by a radical wing that promised to focus the Teamsters' firepower on fighting worker misclassification:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/19/hoffa-jr-defeated/#teamsters-for-a-democratic-union

This has become a focus of labor organizers all around the world, as worker misclassification-via-smartphone has infected labor markets everywhere:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/22/kropotkin-graeber/#an-injury-to-one

Bedoya's speech is a banger, and it reminds us that labor rights and anti-monopoly have always been part of the same project: to rein in corporate power and protect workers from the insatiable greed of the capital class:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

[favoritebatfam]

OK, do you know how there’s so much age Fuckery in Canon?

I’m thinking that’s because no one actually has that many legal documents.

Dick Grayson was born in a circus. I don’t know if he was born in a hospital or if it was at homebirth, but it is also kind of likely and (I read it in a fic somewhere) where his parents lied about his age so that he could get away with performing.

Jason Todd was a crime Alley kid who is unceremoniously adopted. He is also still legally dead, and I feel like it is heavily debated in the family if you can count those months that he was dead as him living, or if they shifted his birthday somehow. Bonus points if you think about the post floating around that age resets after you end up in the pit so Jason is now the youngest.

Tim Drake uns so many secret identity scams, that I will not be surprised if he’s genuinely forgotten how old he is. I mean, Janet and Jack could’ve also done the same thing that the Grayson‘s dead and lie about ages so their son would be taken more seriously as an adult and just never remember afterward.

Damian Wayne tends to have more consistent ages, but I still think that his aging might be a little messed up due to the fact he was grown inside of a tube. This is straight from the comics. We don’t know if he came out as a baby, or he came out as a toddler. For all we know, he came out as like a five-year-old because Ra Al Ghul didn’t want to have to deal with his heir being weak.

With Bruce and Alfred, it’s a little hard to justify the age fuckery, but I’ve come up with some ideas things that might help.

I think that Bruce kind of stopped celebrating his birthday after his parents died. He might’ve picked up celebrating again after he adopted dick, but he probably doesn’t put any candles on a cake or anything or at least any number candle. Probably a lot of people have also forgotten how old he is, and a lot of the family are trying to look through newspapers to find out about Bruce’s birth. There could also be some sort of thing where there’s a debate about time travel counting towards his age and if he is older than he is supposed to be or younger or whatever.

Alfred just straight up immortal. he’s done so much in his life that it’s kind of hard to figure out how old or young he could be. I’ve seen a couple different theories floating around where He got blessed by some being, or if you go with the Gotham is sentient theory, Gotham is slowing both his and Bruce’s aging. Also, Alfred is very strong and has to be very fast in order to be able to clean all of the manner and not get sick or die.

Actually, this is kind of pointing towards maybe the bat family having so much to do with the general curses of Gotham or maybe even blessings from being safe, helped that they probably have fucked up ages. I genuinely don’t know. I am sleep deprived and very curious now and will probably make a skit later after I take a nap or look through more Tumblr posts.

Enjoy my ramblings.

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Immortal (Ghost x Medic!Reader Pt. 3)

"The path to paradise begins in hell."

— Dante Alighieri

Word count: 5.5 k

Summary: He knows now why he always returns to her. It's because he was injured. Badly, severely, life-threateningly injured – no, he was already deceased. What kind of a medic has the power to resurrect the dead? (Last part of Ghost stories.)

Tags/warnings: 18+ only. Angst, fluff, smut. Protective!Simon Ghost Riley. Graphic depictions of PTSD, suicidal thoughts and depression, mild violence. Emotional sex, love confessions, happy ending. Ghost POV.

"You can't come here, lieutenant. Not unless you're injured."

No one has ever scolded him.

He's the one who whips people into shape, who makes them recall who and where they are, that Task Force 141 is no place for fuckery. Now he's the one being reminded of his place. 

Somehow it's ok to bring her flowers before dinner, but ever since he started to bring her coffee to get an excuse to see her at work, she began to shut down. He can fuck her doggy style at her place, but if he so much as lifts his mask to kiss the back of her neck at her office, she bats him away like an annoying fly.

And he's fucking confused.

He thought he was doing the right thing. He thought that women like to be courted. Now he's standing in the middle of her apartment, waiting for… he doesn't even know what. Pardon, perhaps.

"Why do you always call me lieutenant?"

"Well I can't call you Simon at work, can I?"

She's chaste and decent. Has been like that for a while now, retreating back to her role of a distant professional. 

Something's troubling her, and he tries to get to the bottom of it. Tries his best to cheer her up, even if it's absurd that someone like him attempts to do that.

"Y'could use the alias."

"I'm not going to call you that."

She reads Virgil while making it clear that he's quite ridiculous. A ghost. It must remind her of a children's book rather than something stealthy and fatal; to her, it's a grown man's sad attempt to play a superhero.

"Did you come up with the name yourself?" Her voice has a whiff of irony as she finally spares him a glance from her hard-cover poetry.

"...No," he lies, too soon. Far too soon. She catches him on it, pants down.

"You're a silly, silly man." She shakes her head slowly and returns to her book. Last week, it was Dante who had better things to offer, far better things compared to him – such as a more poetic depiction of hell.

But even with the distant aura he can't quite pierce, she gives him a concept of what it would be like to have a home. A real home where you don't have to dread the evening and everything it brings out in people. Even when he was doing the SAS Fan Dance and lying on the cold ground to have a compulsory 2-hour shut-eye, he never missed home. The weather-beaten trail and a flapping tarp were still a cosier place than the one he'd left behind. 

The closest thing to an actual home was always solitude. A few days without routine. A cold shower in the morning to wake him, but not frigid enough to kill the erection. A good, unhurried fap and some stale spit circling down the drain. No one giving him a pitiful eye for tossing old takeaway in the bin and opening the cupboard only to be met with some canned food and table salt.

Now, the first thing in the morning is the sensation of her. Fingertips sneaking their way under his arm and ghosting his stomach, stirring him so softly he doesn't quite know if he's gone to heaven. Home is a sleepy nest and slow kisses followed by the sounds of brewing coffee. Home has become a place of mundane tasks: helping her water the plants and tasting whether the vanilla pudding she made has enough sugar. Changing sheets together, listening to the fitful sea as it breaks upon the shore. Watching how she reads of the Trojan War.

When he just stands there, admiring how her manicured nails glide over the pages, she talks to him again without raising her lashes from the book. 

"Did you need something?"

…You. All of you. 

Now and forever.

"Ya wanna go out to eat tonight?"

Finally, he grabs her attention. The distance between them is sewn up so fast even a jerk like him can understand he finally made the right fucking move.

"What about your… The mask?"

He shrugs.

"I thought you liked my cooking," she gives him a smile. Sly… Foxy.

"I do. But let me feed you for a change."

He sees in that stare and the way she purses her lips that she's trying to prevent a dirty joke from coming out of her pretty little mouth. As much as he appreciates that little cunning look, as much as he loves when that mouth gets a little dirty, he's more than serious now.

"Come on. Let me take you out."

"Well. If you insist," she smiles, shuts the book, and flies to her closet to pull out a stunner of a dress.

…..…..…..

Her fingertips always make his cock stir. They were supposed to go to sleep – a rare thing, to not slip inside her after a nice lil evening. To his surprise she starts to trace the few hairs on his stomach, threading through them as they thicken below. 

He can feel how she gets tense upon seeing that he's hard and heavy before she even reaches there. But she's not tense from anticipation.

"I overheard some of the guys talking about us. Or, well, me."

His cock gives a tug, and she still doesn't touch it.

"How I'm your luxury whore."

The curtain shifts as the wind plays with it: softly, while he's ripped out of the dark safety of the womb.

"Luxury…" She laughs, but it's bitter and thick. "Isn't it funny?"

He's hard now mainly because of the fury that rises. It ripples through his chest and pulls his stomach taut.

"Was it the rookie?"

He hears his voice from far away, from under the sea, but luckily, her hand brings him back. It's placed on him again, this time further up. She likes to trace the cavity between his pecs, pet the hair she finds there, too. Sometimes, she buries her face there and inhales his sweat, then uses that spot as her pillow. It's that very moment when he finds peace if he already hasn't by then.

"You don't have to defend my honour," the night speaks softly.

So, it was the rookie.

Nothing but a boy, younger than Soap and cockier than he was when he left Manchester with nothing but a duffel bag on his shoulder. Nothing but a boy, and she knows how boys are. She knows how boys talk. She wouldn't be in the Force if she took filthy quips seriously. 

But this is fucking different. The fantasies of what he'll do to the fucker when he gets back get sicker and more beautiful by the second.

"Just… don't come there anymore unless you're injured. Ok?"

He can't hear her because the vile word overrides even the gorgeous visions of torture. It gathers up his throat as bile, and he barely has time to take a deep breath to force it down before it's too late.

"I'm gonna go take a shower." 

"At this hour…?"

"Can't sleep anyway."

He reaches the bathroom just in time before the vomit flies. The power of it forces him on his knees, forces him to take hold of the door frame. Everything he fed to her shoots up, like it was only a dream that he could make her happy.

…Are you just here for sex?

Her shy question echoes from the tiles as another retch pulls the rest of his love out. 

He's sweating worse than the time they had to operate him in the field, back when a bullet had worked its way through the naked spot between the straps of his plate carrier. The shower washes some of it away, but the stench stays, the foul word and the insolence, all the shallow things he has given her coat the insides of his mouth no matter how many times he tries to spit it away. The water only does so much, and she's still not asleep by the time he returns to her. 

The luxury is waiting for him, silky and sweet. 

Wet, even, if he wants.

"Baby… Honey?"

Baby.

Baby.

He feels his guts in his throat again but swallows them down. She's beautiful, even when sad and sorry. Sorry, and for what? For him, instead of herself and what she's been called, the spite she has had to suffer simply for lying down in the filth with him. 

"Are you okay...?"

"Yeah."

He goes to her, pulls her in his arms, and hopes he doesn't smell of puke.

"They're just words. Right?"

I'm more than just your whore, right?

Her hand doesn't shy away from the sweat that breaks through his back. She's not afraid of him, even when he's the monster she never asked for. He can respect that kind of fearlessness. 

"You're awfully quiet," she tries. 

Baby, please don't go berserk, is what he hears.

"Go to sleep, pet," he calls forth his softest voice, relieved to notice it sounds more like a lullaby than a command. He allows her to kiss him, wondering if she can taste the grave. 

"Yes, sir," she breathes a soft smile in his mouth. Then she turns and coats herself with his arm. It must feel heavy around her, but she only gives a happy sigh. "I always sleep better with you. You feel so good… Safe."

He wonders how strange it is that love sometimes feels like pain. Her words come close to a knife slowly being pushed to his insides. They're still burning when she mutters the last essential thing, already half-asleep in his arms.

"They're just words, Simon…"

…..…..…..

He doesn't know much about poetry, but perhaps Dante was right. 

The heart of hell is not a fiery lake of torment but an icy, cold, stagnant place. There's nothing there. Everything is frozen: screams, thoughts, even dreams. 

He's walked through grey rubble and drenched asphalt, through alleyways of havoc and debris, he's trekked through desolate woodland and marsh. He's run through life like it's a day-to-day race to not get killed, but the worst of it isn't the bullets or the cold or the wind or the rain. It's the sleepless nights, the inertia. His soul in chains. On those nights, he wanted to get killed. 

And yet, he's not the only one who has suffered the unfortunate event of being dragged through every plane of hell. He's not the first man to go through the funnel, nor is he the last. It only looks bad in a society where he's supposed to own a credit card and a house. It only tastes like shit when someone asks "How does it make you feel?" 

People like him shouldn't go to therapy at all. His solution was to quit playing a modern man the minute he realized he's no longer fit for that role. He's simply a dead body, reanimated to serve a purpose. He's a sharp tool, a weapon. (A zombie.)

He serves the greater good, but everyone knows the greater good is propaganda too. There's no grand fight between light and darkness. Good and evil only conduct people's choices: even his old man must've thought he was making the world a better place by playing the rebel. He told him he served the Queen just to piss that sodded bastard off, but the truth is he never served anyone. Not even himself.

Now, there's an odd purpose to his task. Now, every cell in his body is full of animus. 

He's an animated corpse, perhaps, but they forgot to bury the wrath.

"Where's the rookie?"

"Getting stapled."

"Where?"

Which room? 

Which fucking room?

He doesn't stay to heed directions. He doesn't need them; his instinct tells him enough. He doesn't even bother to knock, simply barges in, only to see that the boy sits on the bed he used to sit on, in the exact same position as him. And he knows it's not just the blood loss that makes the fucker look so drowsy and smug. 

The fury is pierced with an ice-tinged sword as he sees her gentle touch – she's tending to the wounds of an ungrateful kid with the same compassion she gives to all her patients, and the first thing on his mind is that she would make a good mother.

"What're you doing here?" 

His voice is soaked in ash, but the boy only looks up from the bed with pure, trouble-seeking gall.

"What are you doing here…? Sir."

She's looking at him too. She's pleading with those eyes. Silently, desperately. 

"You can't come here, lieutenant. Not unless you're injured."

Her request only now makes sense as he sees how the boy looks him up and down and sees there's not a scratch on him. There's no reason for him to be here other than to relieve the pain in his loins.

"Well… Have fun," the rookie jumps from the table, and the rage threatens to pull him underwater like a tide. He never needed anything but his voice to stop a man in his tracks. Not size, not rank, not even his reputation, just voice. 

"My office. Five minutes."

The boy dares to give him another foul look.

"Is that all you need? Just five minutes?"

He even detects admiration in that stare – like he's some stallion, a prized old stud who receives fine mares to rut. Like the celestial woman standing behind this… boy is just some slag thrown to him like they threw to gladiators of old. His luxury whore.

The rookie finally catches the impending wrath that must swell and roil like sea inside the sockets of the skull. 

Yes, boy.

Death is coming.

"Sir," the boy swallows with an arduous blob, then walks out of the goddess's domain, finally with some humility upon those shoulders. 

The torture has already begun, and it shoots him full of sweet adrenaline. He tries to mask the rising war from her, but she sees enough just before he leaves her as well. Her words follow him but cannot penetrate the cloak of fury that shrouds him as he goes to prepare for carnage.

"Simon. I just stitched him together..."

…..…..…..

He doesn't solve the problem with a gun or a cock this time. 

He uses his fists and a knife.

It should disgust him; how much he enjoys it. It's one of those rare occasions when he almost loses himself in the riptide of blood. The things he imagines are far worse than what he finally allows himself to do. When the boy has a split lip and half his face swollen so bad he can't even see from the bruise, when the wetness dampens the crotch area and threatens to stain the carpet, he lets him go.

"Get out."

He's a different man when he rises from beside that broken boy; from next to the knife he plunged to the floor an inch away from his face to make his intentions clear. The boy is stripped of all arrogance and probably regrets the day he got the splendid idea to insult a woman. 

He doesn't have to get his hands deep into paperwork to have the rookie transferred; the boy does it for him. He leaves the base quietly as a shadow and with a face that looks like it has been forced through a waffle maker.

After that, everyone salutes him feet away.

His orders are obeyed without question, without a second's delay on missions. He has never pursued to be loved, but neither has he worked on making people fear him. Now he's not only a source of mystery and intrigue but also fear and wonder.

Soap isn't scared quite as shitless as the rest of them, but neither is he as friendly as he used to be. Price says nothing but he gets a few looks that tell him he has gone too far.

"You shouldn't have," she whispers when they're alone, stopping him in the quiet hallway. She's the only one who doesn't have fear and avoidance in her stare. If anything, the adoration in her eyes has deepened.

He has avoided her strictly, this time obeying her request not to go to her unless he has business there. He doesn't defend himself; he doesn't have the luxury to decide what should or shouldn't be done. He's not a saint nor a judge. He is territorial, though.

"You must be the craziest man I've ever met." 

She talks to his shadow as he's standing only a few feet away, unable to touch her.

"Good."

"...and the most incredible."

His sharp intake of air hisses between them as the artificial light casts shadows in electric blue. She tries to thank him for bashing a face in, all her noble Hippocratic Oaths forgotten.

She takes a step – just one, to make it perfectly clear she wants to touch him too.

"You're a brute, Simon."

The woman's eyes are a deep sea of gratitude. He wonders if she's equally as wet between those legs. Her voice says it all: she likes brutes.

The worship in her stare makes him understand why wars have been waged – this is the reason why crusaders sloshed through rivers of crimson blood, why whole civilizations were destroyed. This is why swords are forged and guns are fired. He draws another breath to swear his allegiance, an oath bound in blood.

"No one's gonna call you a–"

She crosses the final breadth of air between them and lifts his mask.

…..…..…..

The waves crash on the shore like clockwork. To him, it's the sound of limbo. 

The sea used to pull him in like a seductive pit, especially at night, during the sleepless shifts when he walked to the beach with nothing but the ghosts of all the people he had lost to keep him company. Watching all the futures and should have been's slowly drowning in the sea. 

Now he’s here with a living being, and the cold, dead sea has turned into blooming fireworks of crimson and coral. The amnesia has turned into bliss; all the treasures lost in the depths suddenly wash up on the shore like a sunken hoard.

She takes her shoes off the minute they reach the shore, then descends the sands with laughter. She could be from a movie or a magazine, gliding through bleached gold with sunbeams in her hair, sandals dangling from the crook of her fingers, heathers kissing her feet as she dives down the path. Her smile eclipses even the setting sun, and for the first time ever, he thinks it might've been a stupid idea to enlist. 

If there’s an opposite to ice and inertia, it's this. 

It's her. 

"You lied to me," she turns around but doesn't stop walking. "You have been to the beach."

She tilts her head as if reprimanding him, but he knows she's just laughing at his expense. She laughs at his name… She laughs at his broodings, she laughs at his shadows and his hubris. 

"Does anyone else know about this place?"

"No."

There's no soul out here but theirs; even the seagulls have withdrawn to rest. She stops to admire the sun, features turning soft as she takes in her counterpart. Apparently, she likes his humble tribute, the scarcity he has to offer. Some hollow bones, his opinion of a beach. Emptiness… A day coming to an end.

"I have no words for this."

"It's just a beach," he offers, and swallows when she turns. When the fuck has he ever felt embarrassed? His mask is gone, so she can see him swallow again as she approaches. It's the strangest thing how she can still cause his heart to hammer in his chest. He's used to stepping into a hail of bullets, driving a truck through a wall, waiting for that last unaware step to lunge forth and slit a man's throat. The organ never wailed then.

Her eyes take in his every flaw and scar, the rotten work on his skin before she wraps her hands around his neck. 

"No. No it's not. This is paradise."

She has to rise on her toes to kiss him, and he's glad he got rid of the mask. There's nothing between him and the taste of summer anymore – she reminds him of some bright tropical drink, something pure and sweet and innocent, pure fucking fun, something he has come to understand and define only through movies and tv. 

And he knows now why he always comes back to her. It's because he was injured. Badly, severely, life-threateningly injured – no, he was already deceased.  

She has introduced him back to the world: the sun, the birdsong, the simple, good life. How it feels like to have curtains, or bake just because it's Thursday, or walk barefoot on the beach in order to feel the burning sand on your skin. 

What kind of a medic has the power to resurrect the dead?

"Simon," she shivers into his mouth. "I'm sorry. I didn't want people to think that… That we're just…"

"Pet. I know."

"They said you didn't trouble yourself with relationships."

Years of instinct and training make his spine tingle. He's holding another future in his arms and hopes it's not possible for a sea to swallow a sun.

"They?"

"Well, John. Captain." 

Her lashes hide what's going through her mind, but he can tell she's feeling shy from the way she shifts in his embrace.

"I asked about you. In spring. If there's someone… waiting for you."

He wrestles down a bitter laugh. The only lover ever waiting for him was nothingness in that chair; the only wife he came home to was shades, shadows, and dust. 

But he's starting to understand what she's trying to say. How, without even thinking about it, he just made the strongest possible declaration of not being here just for sex. He couldn't have sent a louder message with that boy.

Because not only Jonathan Price know that she's his. Soap knows too. Gaz knows too. Everyone working in Task Force 141 knows, even the fucking scrubbers and accountants know what's going on. Everyone knows that Ghost is real, and alive, and troubles himself with a relationship.

"I dreamed of you, you know." Her lashes flutter open, and he's met with the perfect example of total surrender. She's more than happy with the outcome, and why the hell shouldn't she be? Actions speak louder than words. He of all people should know that.

"Love–"

"Do you remember the day I found out you were a smoker?"

"...Sure."

She laughs, taking him back to the odd meeting in the yard when she was prying her suffocating latex gloves off, and he was trying to find some solace in a cigarette because he couldn't have her. 

"I was so angry at you. Playing with death at every turn..." 

"Yeah. Not the perfect man."

"But you were. You are." 

"Pet. If someone's perfect, it's you."

"No… I'm a hypocrite. I wanted you to just–just take me against the wall. After your stupid smoke."

He always wondered if she was suffocating too. In her gloves, in her beauty, in her sterile, medical, professional chasteness.

But he had no fucking clue that she–

"Or during, I don't care…"

Even the thought of her wanting him to tear apart her facades shatters the last sane thought in his head. He has tried to be civil, tried to suffocate the longing, but apparently, he doesn't have to. The image of burying himself inside her cunt while taking a drag from the thing she despises even more than his name or his mask or his guns is too fucking much. The fact that she views a dog like him as a perfect man makes his cock answer her call like a good, stout soldier. 

"Is that so?"

She stops breathing for a moment as he takes a drag from her now. She's raw whiskey straight to an empty stomach, the way his mind goes blank from sliding his mouth over the column of her throat. She tastes of sea there, and it's not pulling him in; it's pulling him under. The open-mouthed kisses make her jolt, he even draws out a moan or two; they swell between his legs. 

"You like that…?"

She answers to him with a soft whine. A soft nib of her ear, and her hips reply with a roll. The woman tries to latch onto him by gripping his shirt, threatening to do permanent damage to the fabric.

"No walls here, pet. Gotta take you on the sand," he gruffs in her ear, cock hard and ready from her tight little breaths. He could bet half his money that she's wetter than November down there. He could drag his cockhead across her cunt and the sound would be divine. 

"Simon–"

"I'll light a cig first."

"Stop teasing," she laughs, voice thick with hunger.

"...Roger that."

His hand is on his belt before he knows it. It's pathetic how much patience he has if he needs to crouch in a downpour and wait for a kill, but at the sight and smell and taste of her, he can't stop himself from wrenching his belt and pants open like a starved dog. It's a rush born of fear - that any time could be the last time.

She seems to shiver from his stare only when she lays herself upon the warm sand, naked as can be. She's like a vision on that beach: leaning on her elbows, thighs slowly parting, revealing the glistening sex between her legs. And she's fucking dripping, like an overripe peach. He could've safely bet all his money on her.

"How do you want me?"

Fucking fuck… 

He's walking in a dream: the most beautiful woman in the world is lying naked before his feet, bathing in gold, asking how he would prefer to take her. He doesn't even bother to get out of his clothes; he merely tugs his pants down and crawls between her legs, relishing the tight gasp he gets from being so crude.

Her eyes grow wide at the sight of him there, so close to her core, cock hanging heavy just an inch away from that tight cunt. She tries so hard to look composed while lying under his shadow, to not make it obvious that she wants that ugly thing inside. And it does feel like sin not to spread those legs and plough right in, especially when his fingers meet her silk and find that she's already throbbing.

"Want you just like this, pet," he rasps while dragging the pad of his thumb around her clit. Her back arches on the sand, forcing his fingers deeper into the dripping fruit.

It's different, her wetness; not thick and halfway there, but flowing, leaking, soaking good. The pussy is so glazed that he slips at the first attempt to slide a finger in. Her walls grip him the second he's seated deep, making it known how much she appreciates it that he's not here just for sex. 

"Someone's greedy," he's breathing rough, and she whines – he only gets to two fingers before she demands him to fuck her already.

"Want your–I need your cock…" 

She's begging, poor thing, almost crying on the sand, and he has no fucking choice but to remove his fingers and grab his cock instead.

"Have to go slow, love."

"Riley–for god's sake, now."

"F' fuck's sake…" He stumbles forward, all but gracefully, forces the tip on her soaked cunt as delicately as he can before pushing right in. She cries from the spread, fingers curling in the sand: a futile attempt to take him in without fainting.

"Tried to warn ya–"

"Don't you dare stop," she gasps, eyes full of love. As always, her wish is his command, and the tightness makes it an endless journey to bliss. The basest parts of him think about dying – having a heart attack on the same beach he almost drowned in, about ceasing to exist just for the sake of knowing that nothing is as good as this. 

He's deep as can fucking be, and it's still not enough – it's never enough. He collects her in his arms with a frustrated grunt, cock giving a tight pull only when she's finally safe and snug in his embrace. It's a tight cuddle that leaves them both breathless.

"Hold me tighter..." 

It's a soft order, but he can't get any closer: chest plastered on her skin and balls pressed against her ass, the sand grinding against her back as he makes love to her. She’s not made of twigs, but he’s far bigger than her, already threatening to crush her with his weight.

"Tighter…" she begs on his lips, tries to pull him closer with her whole being.

"Pet, I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't," she sings, completely shieldless. Something warns him of danger, a reset far worse than drowning or being buried alive or shooting himself in a lonely apartment. He tries to calm her down with a kiss: he knows she loves kisses - but there are tears in her eyes, and his heart is hammering, hammering… 

"Simon, do you love me…?"

She asks that question right on his lips, and the first thing in his dog mind is that it's a stupid thing to ask when he's balls deep inside her and still trying to get closer.

"Yeah," he almost chokes on it, knowing it could be their wedding day and he would still choke on it because it doesn't taste like salt or metal or grave.

"I love you," she whispers. "Do you understand?"

No. No…

I fuckin' don't–

"And I'll always be here for you."

To his shock, there’s no sea water in his lungs, no dirt in his mouth. He’s not choking on anything, he's not in fact dying at all: he’s floating, somewhere between the sun and the sand and the sea. There's no more rush, no jaws of death snapping at his heels. He doesn't even long for heaven anymore. Not when there's a paradise on earth.

"Love, I need you to–need you to focus," he tries to stutter nonsense while she's pledging herself to him. Of course she only laughs at him: it hits him with the sweetest warmth.

"You're so silly…" 

"Yeah? I know." 

He's laughing too. It's just a few notes that get taken away by the sound of waves. It's just a breath from deep within, and still… Her gaze drops to his mouth, a flutter blinks back more tears.

"I love it when you laugh..." Her eyes shine brighter than the sun, riding the spine of the sea as one perfect tear rolls down her cheek. "Love it…"

The sun sets in tangerine, his new favourite colour. There's a whole bloom out there in the sky when she comes, fast and bright in his embrace. He comes right after, just from trying to stay inside her warmth, deep inside her, around her, and she says it, again and again and again��� Until he breathes.

….….….

"Remember when I said I could've managed? Without you," she asks when they lie on the sand, skin on skin, watching the sun set beneath the onyx sea. The waves rise and break, but around them, the air is still. He's still inside her as she pulls his hand over her heart, entwining their fingers together: it's the softest little arrest, but her squeeze doesn't lack strength. 

"I lied too."

"I know."

She chuckles softly. "Is there something you don't know?"

"...Yeah. Why you're here out of all places."

She turns her head from the sunset into the falling darkness of him, and he wonders if that's why she's here... To be with his night. She said that people always get the dark wrong: that it's not supposed to be scary at all. That the purpose of darkness is safety, security, that there are tales where the day chases the night, and the night chases the day. She said it's because they're in love with each other.

"You really don't know…?" 

"You were smiling before we met and now you're crying all the time."

She looks up at him with trust and devotion, his daylight, his sun. There's none in the sky anymore, but it doesn't matter. It lives in her eyes.

"People cry from happiness too, Simon."

[dwarf-vader-of-middle-earth]

Genuinely a HUGE shoutout to Nexusmods today!! /pos

So I didn't catch this, seeing as I hadn't gone on Nexusmods in the last 12 hours, but apparently today an author published a mod titled "Traditional Marriage", which took away the gay marriage options for players. But in the description, the author put TONS of homophobic bullshit and general bigotry.

And Nexusmods took it down almost IMMEDIATELY!!!

I only know of the mod's existence because of a thread I saw online where the person posting called out the mod maker's bigotry, but within around one hour of that posting, Nexusmods removed the mod completely.

Below is the screenshot of the description, which the thread copy-pasted from the mod page when it was up. But also, their commentary on the homophobic basis for this mod is GORGEOUS!!!

No, Karen, it's not a mod about "preference". It's about hating apples so much that you deleted them from your game so that you never have to see apples being sold at the general merchants or, Talos forbid, an apple pie on the table of some house you broke into in the middle of the night. Wanting to literally erase apples from existence so you never have to be confronted by the horror that other people out there prefer apples isn't "preference"; it's bigotry.

So shoutout to Nexusmods, seriously, for having deleted this mod so soon. Yes, people are and should be allowed to mod their games however they want! That's the whole point of modding! But when someone makes a mod for homophobic purposes and posts it to perpetuate homophobia, that is not ok, and that should not be permitted. Good on the site for understanding this.

And what's more is that TES, the game series for which the mod was made, has ALWAYS had LGBT+ rep in general. Hell, Vivec is gender fuckery incarnate. In ESO during the Vivec City questline, there's a woman who cries that her wife/girlfriend (don't remember which) is stuck in the rubble of the fallen temple. The Daedric Princes are all referred to as princes regardless of their gender presentation. Many of them are just... whatever the fuck eldritch horror they feel like being (looking at you, Mora and Hircine). The series is outright full of various representation for LGBT+ characters, and it always has been. One Skyrim dev even said something at one point regarding Nords which was along the lines of "The men are big, hairy and have beards. The women are big, hairy, and have beards."

TES is NOT the game to endorse bigotry in LGBT+ rep. And Nexusmods showed today that they don't endorse it anywhere on their site, either. I'm grateful for that.

[anachronismstellar]

OK OK OK I NEED TO SLEEP BUT

in celebration of @notsofrozt teasing art

(omg omg check this out ITS SO GOOL),

AND this fic reaching 35 pages (someone save me) here's more Airplane vs The System!

Let the games begin >:)

---

There was only one thing Shen Yuan hated more than being considered stupid and it was actually acting stupid.

Because why, WHY haven't they checked the bane of their existence, the persona non grata of binary code, the absolute most devilish collection of pixels and fuckery, aka the System?

It was right there, the notification blinking in green, marking it as a mission in progress.

He clicked, actually expecting more trouble on top of the Mobei business, only to be presented with-

Mission in progress: Author's favorite.

UV002 objective: aid UV001

Mission progress: 47%

What. The fuck.

He hadn't accepted any new missions, there wasn't even an obnoxious notification! And what's up with his objective?! Aid UV001?! How?! It didn't give him any other hint of what to do!

Oh he wasn't just angry, he was furious.

To the point that he had almost torn the door off its track when he opened it, the noise loud enough to startle Shang Qinghua into throwing his brush at him.

As if that would help against a real attack.

“Have you seen the new mission?!” He snapped as he entered Shang Qinghua's improvised office, glaring at the other trasmigrator.

“W-What?” Shang Qinghua blinked like a deer in the headlights, eyes puffed red as if had been crying moments ago.

Shan Yuan swallowed his pity, hardening his heart to focus on the task at hand. He closed the door to buy himself time before approaching the desk covered in parchment, slowly putting both hands on top of it to get closer to Airplane.

“Have you seen,” he pitched his voice low so they wouldn't be heard, doing his utmost to convey his fury through whispering. “The new. Mission.”

“Uh,” Airplane blinked again, scrubbing tears away, looking as lost as a puppy dropped from the moving truck. “Cucumber-bro-”

“Don't! You Cucumber-bro me,” he held himself back, closing his eyes to not lose his temper. “We're going to talk about your murderous ways later. Right now I need you to shut up and check. Your. System.”

He could see Airplane about to ask why, but his expression might have been terrifying enough because he just nodded and opened up his system, immediately frowning.

“What the fuck?”

“What? What is it?” Shen Yuan moved to get next to Airplane to better read what he was seeing. It never failed to amuse him how different their systems were: his looked like a proper video game menu, while Airplane's just looked like a lazy programmed blog.

“There's stuff missing. And I can't click on any missions. Like, I could at least check my old stuff? But now it's all gray?!”

“What do you mean?” At this point he was almost putting his face next to Airplane's so he could see, the bland white screen making his eyes burn. “Urgh how can you stand this, can't you change to dark mode? And go check for new missions.”

“As if, your system is way nicer than mine. Wait, do you have a new mission?”

“Yeah, it's called Author's Favorite. But it says nothing, just to help UV001. It's your user, right?”

-------

See you guys in the next update!

[demisexual-in-distress]

get my huskerdusters in this bitch

ok so I havent made a post of my own in a fuckin while but I needed to say this.

Angel Dust is a feminine man, okay, right, got that. Husk prefers to present more masculinely. Ofc, go off kings, great. Before I say any more, and I've only said 2 things, I want people to understand I AM ALL FOR GENDER FUCKERY, ESPECIALLY IN FANDOM! Make that man wear a dress! Give him some makeup, I don't care if it's out of character! Genderbends are really fucking cool! However, when it comes to huskerdust, some things are looked past. Some of the things they've done with Angel in fanfiction and fanart wouldn't be okay if he was a woman, they'd be considered misogynistic.

I used a bunch of tags in this post talking about this before (please read that post itself too!!)

Angel Dust is not a woman. We all know this by now, unless you've been living under a rock since the pilot came out. And, if you've been following hazbin hotel, I'd like to assume you're all for rights no matter what gender you identify with and, most likely, are a feminist.

So why and how is this being done to Angel Dust, a(n, as of current knowledge,) CIS MAN?

In so many fics and fanart, Husk is painted as the savior. Angel is a damsel in distress, even though we've clearly seen that he knows how to defend himself. Angel was in the mafia. We heard him in episode four, "I can handle myself, baby." He clearly doesn't need Husk to protect him, and never has. And Husk, as far as we know, has never really taken on that savior role, or ever really needed to. It isn't pressured onto his character. This isn't to be confused with his protective nature, which derives from his parental tendencies.

Sometimes, even, I've heard people use terms like "Mrs" or "Mommy" (not in a kinky way stfu it was regarding fat nuggets and his parents) to refer to Angel Dust, when we know he's not a woman. Again, I'm all for headcanons, but this is in situations where such headcanons aren't applied.

Still don't get it?

It reminds me a lot of the lesbians thing where people ask, "Who wears the pants in this relationship?" or "But who's the man/woman?" If you're watching Hazbin Hotel, I'm also guessing you are either (A,) really fucking queer, (especially if you're making huskerdust fanwork lol) or (B,) a big fucking ally. You should know that THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS, THAT IS NOT RIGHT!!! There is no "man" or "woman" of the relationship when it comes to queer love! The fandom has pushed heteronormative and sexist roles on a gay relationship. Whether that was the intention or not, it's what's become of it. I hate it. I hate seeing people make Angel some sort of housewife, unable to protect himself and in need of a savior, just because he presents femininely. No matter what gender he considers himself, Angel can present as feminine. It doesn't make him any less of the man that he is/considers himself.

In the end, it's some strange form of misogyny. The only reason people aren't calling it out is because Angel is just a femboy, he's not a woman.

Does that make sense?

[vaspider]

I have a really big question that you may not have the capacity to answer, and that's totally ok, but I thought I would try asking anyway.

How did you successfully start a business and get it to the point that you could survive/live comfortably and pay other people on it? How did you survive the psychologically damaging years of hell work while you were building it up?

Well.

To start with, I don't want to give you the impression that we're totally financially stable and have a bunch of full-time employees. We aren't, and we don't. We're still in the building and growth phase, and we're lucky to have people who can work part-time for us (in part because we pay them what we pay them per hour - there's no way they'd be able to hack it if we were paying them $10/hr or even $15/hr).

Quite honestly, I don't think we would have survived the pandemic as a business if it weren't for the fact that my wife has a stable IT job. Emet and I work on the business full-time, and Evie works full-time at her fancy IT job and works with us on events and does IT and infosec stuff for us, and then we have 2 part-time employees, Jake and Erykah.

So I'm glad that we give the impression of having it all buttoned up, but we don't, and I think that's one thing you need to know. We are ducks, friend: serene on the top of the water, paddling like hell underneath where y'all can't see it. The building phase lasts ... well, a long, long time.

I remember what it's like working for Wells Fargo, and I never want to do that again. I remember what it was like working for a mortgage processing job where we knew the company was fucking around with people's escrow accounts and we couldn't do anything meaningful about it. People anonymously reported things to the Attorneys General of various states, but nothing ever came of it. My spouse got demoted for "anonymously" reporting the fake account fuckery at Wells Fargo and I basically got run out of the company for the same thing -- they just made it so miserable for me to work there that I quit. That's part of how I survive it, honestly: I remember the alternative.

But it comes down to the fact that you really do have to desperately love what you're doing. You have to love it so much that you cannot imagine not doing it. And on the days when you might struggle to love it that much, you just have to hate the alternative a little more than you hate the hard parts of running a business.

Now that I've made art for a living -- something that my parents told me I'd never be able to do, as I'm sure most artists were told -- I can't imagine doing anything else. I keep my wacky sleep schedule, and it's fine. Right now, I'm sitting alone in the living room putting together the cotton sleep shirts/housecoats that we're launching this fall, and I'm like... really excited to be able to share these with everybody. I'm anxious about the show we have tomorrow, yeah, and I'm anxious about money and a bunch of other stuff but I'm also really excited about seeing somebody put on a brand new skirt they just bought from us and twirl. I'm excited about seeing somebody laugh when they turn a page in the patch book and see a particular patch. I'm excited about the way that people's eyes light up when Jake pulls out the Aromantic or Agender or Genderfluid patch book and they realize just how many choices we have in their kinda-rare flag.

And I'm really excited about sharing these zip-front housecoat jimmyjams with y'all.

That's how I keep doing it. I can't imagine not doing it.

Hope that helps, because that's all I've got. :)

[queenlua]

ok, this Kevin Woo guy is the most fantastic chad i've heard of in a while:

The journalist who exposed Lambda School wasn't a journalist by trade. Vincent Woo was a successful entrepreneur best known for CoderPad, a collaborative coding website used extensively in programming job interviews. After he sold CoderPad for millions of dollars, he focused on the public interest, such as housing activism.

Woo's work on CoderPad gave him expert insight into the programming job market, and in 2019, Austen's outrageous hiring numbers set off red flags. Whenever pressed for more details on his outrageous claims, Austen said a full report was coming soon, but six months would pass without any updates.

Woo obtained an investment memo Lambda School sent out to Y Combinator titled, "Human Capital: The Last Unoptimized Asset Class." In it, they disclose, “We’re at roughly 50% placement for cohorts that are 6 months graduated,” contradicting the very front page of their website.

Where did the 86% on their homepage come from? In 2018, Lambda School submitted a single report about 72 graduates to CIRR. CIRR is an organization formed by the boot camp industry following the boot camp crackdown of the 2010s, to cleanup their image. Bootcamps are supposed to submit their hiring stats every six months, in one standard format, to prevent underhanded boot camps from fudging the numbers. In two years, Lambda School had produced nothing beyond that single, small report.

Woo reached out to Sabrina Baez, Lambda School's former Director of Career Readiness. Baez oversaw job placement in those early days, and Austen had reprimanded her for low hiring rates. She told Woo that probably only 50% to 60% of graduates found jobs.

Finally, Woo obtained private communications with investors revealing the quiet deals with hedge funds. This flew in the face of their marketing's, "We don’t get paid until you do," and Austen's now-deleted tweet, “We never, ever get paid upfront for ISAs.”

With all the damning evidence, the story was ready. Most reporters would now email their subjects for comment, but Woo elevated the story to performance art. He asked Austen for a recorded interview, without revealing its nature. Austen, lulled into a false sense of security by tech press puff pieces, agreed. What followed was the most riveting hour of tech journalism I've ever heard.

Austen: "Our goal right now, is that if a student is endorsed, call it graduation, that we place 80% within 120 days."

Woo: "Why did you tell investors 50?"

Austen: "What… I don't know… what communication you're referring to."

The interview went downhill from there, as Austen scrambled to invent excuses.

#rekt

bonus: check out this dude's hilariously understated linkedin:

(also, the whole article's worth a read. i'd been following the Lambda School saga for a while but there's a bunch of new fuckery here that even i didn't know about. smh)