#Noon Seller Lab

[growith]

Seller Lab Noon serves as a valuable ally for merchants on Noon, providing a suite of tools, guidance, and resources to elevate their selling experience and enable them to flourish within the burgeoning e-commerce market in the Middle East.

[growamazon]

Noon Seller Lab

We prioritize prompt and effective communication to address your queries and concerns. Our dedicated support team is available to provide assistance, offer solutions, and guide you through the processes involved in Noon Seller Lab. We understand the importance of quick response times, ensuring that your issues are resolved in a timely manner.

In addition to addressing specific concerns, our Seller Support services offer valuable insights and best practices to help you improve your sales performance. We keep up-to-date with Noon's policies and guidelines, ensuring that you remain compliant while optimizing your operations.

[growithamazon]

In the current digital age, a lot of retailers have signed up with online marketplaces like Noon. On the one hand, the digital marketplace enables these suppliers to connect with thousands of consumers across the nation. The marketplaces, on the other hand, provide service models that are incredibly well-designed to assist small sellers in getting more out of a limited expenditure.

Our Services

Noon Product Listing / FBN / Noon Seller Lab Management

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The one weird monopoly trick that gave us Walmart and Amazon and killed Main Street

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Walmart didn't just happen. The rise of Walmart – and Amazon, its online successor – was the result of a specific policy choice, the decision by the Reagan administration not to enforce a key antitrust law. Walmart may have been founded by Sam Walton, but its success (and the demise of the American Main Street) are down to Reaganomics.

The law that Reagan neutered? The Robinson-Patman Act, a very boring-sounding law that makes it illegal for powerful companies (like Walmart) to demand preferential pricing from their suppliers (farmers, packaged goods makers, meat producers, etc). The idea here is straightforward. A company like Walmart is a powerful buyer (a "monopsonist" – compare with "monopolist," a powerful seller). That means that they can demand deep discounts from suppliers. Smaller stores – the mom and pop store on your Main Street – don't have the clout to demand those discounts. Worse, because those buyers are weak, the sellers – packaged goods companies, agribusiness cartels, Big Meat – can actually charge them more to make up for the losses they're taking in selling below cost to Walmart.

Reagan ordered his antitrust cops to stop enforcing Robinson-Patman, which was a huge giveaway to big business. Of course, that's not how Reagan framed it: He called Robinson-Patman a declaration of "war on low prices," because it prevented big companies from using their buying power to squeeze huge discounts. Reagan's court sorcerers/economists asserted that if Walmart could get goods at lower prices, they would sell goods at lower prices.

Which was true…up to a point. Because preferential discounting (offering better discounts to bigger customers) creates a structural advantage over smaller businesses, it meant that big box stores would eventually eliminate virtually all of their smaller competitors. That's exactly what happened: downtowns withered, suburban big boxes grew. Spending that would have formerly stayed in the community was whisked away to corporate headquarters. These corporate HQs were inevitably located in "onshore-offshore" tax haven states, meaning they were barely taxed at the state level. That left plenty of money in these big companies' coffers to spend on funny accountants who'd help them avoid federal taxes, too. That's another structural advantage the big box stores had over the mom-and-pops: not only did they get their inventory at below-cost discounts, they didn't have to pay tax on the profits, either.

MBA programs actually teach this as a strategy to pursue: they usually refer to Amazon's "flywheel" where lower prices bring in more customers which allows them to demand even lower prices:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaSwWYemLek

You might have heard about rural and inner-city "food deserts," where all the independent grocery stores have shuttered, leaving behind nothing but dollar stores? These are the direct product of the decision not to enforce Robinson-Patman. Dollar stores target working class neighborhoods with functional, beloved local grocers. They open multiple dollar stores nearby (nearly all the dollar stores you see are owned by one of two conglomerates, no matter what the sign over the door says). They price goods below cost and pay for high levels of staffing, draining business off the community grocery store until it collapses. Then, all the dollar stores except one close and the remaining store fires most of its staff (working at a dollar store is incredibly dangerous, thanks to low staffing levels that make them easy targets for armed robbers). Then, they jack up prices, selling goods in "cheater" sizes that are smaller than the normal retail packaging, and which are only made available to large dollar store conglomerates:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

Writing in The American Prospect, Max M Miller and Bryce Tuttle1 – a current and a former staffer for FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya – write about the long shadow cast by Reagan's decision to put Robinson-Patman in mothballs:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-08-13-stopping-excessive-market-power-monopoly/

They tell the story of Robinson-Patman's origins in 1936, when A&P was using preferential discounts to destroy the independent grocery sector and endanger the American food system. A&P didn't just demand preferential discounts from its suppliers; it also charged them a fortune to be displayed on its shelves, an early version of Amazon's $38b/year payola system:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

They point out that Robinson-Patman didn't really need to be enacted; America already had an antitrust law that banned this conduct: section 2 of the the Clayton Act, which was passed in 1914. But for decades, the US courts refused to interpret the Clayton Act according to its plain meaning, with judges tying themselves in knots to insist that the law couldn't possibly mean what it said. Robinson-Patman was one of a series of antitrust laws that Congress passed in a bid to explain in words so small even federal judges could understand them that the purpose of American antitrust law was to keep corporations weak:

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

Both the Clayton Act and Robinson-Patman reject the argument that it's OK to let monopolies form and come to dominate critical sectors of the American economy based on the theoretical possibility that this will lead to lower prices. They reject this idea first as a legal matter. We don't let giant corporations victimize small businesses and their suppliers just because that might help someone else.

Beyond this, there's the realpolitik of monopoly. Yes, companies could pass lower costs on to customers, but will they? Look at Amazon: the company takes $0.45-$0.51 out of every dollar that its sellers earn, and requires them to offer their lowest price on Amazon. No one has a 45-51% margin, so every seller jacks up their prices on Amazon, but you don't notice it, because Amazon forces them to jack up prices everywhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

The Robinson-Patman Act did important work, and its absence led to many of the horribles we're living through today. This week on his Peoples & Things podcast, Lee Vinsel talked with Benjamin Waterhouse about his new book, One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America:

https://athenaeum.vt.domains/peoplesandthings/2024/08/12/78-benjamin-c-waterhouse-on-one-day-ill-work-for-myself-the-dream-and-delusion-that-conquered-america/

Towards the end of the discussion, Vinsel and Waterhouse turn to Robinson-Patman, its author, Wright Patman, and the politics of small business in America. They point out – correctly – that Wright Patman was something of a creep, a "Dixiecrat" (southern Democrat) who was either an ideological segregationist or someone who didn't mind supporting segregation irrespective of his beliefs.

That's a valid critique of Wright Patman, but it's got little bearing on the substance and history of the law that bears his name, the Robinson-Patman Act. Vinsel and Waterhouse get into that as well, and while they made some good points that I wholeheartedly agreed with, I fiercely disagree with the conclusion they drew from these points.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out (again, correctly) that small businesses have a long history of supporting reactionary causes and attacking workers' rights – associations of small businesses, small women-owned business, and small minority-owned businesses were all in on opposition to minimum wages and other key labor causes.

But while this is all true, that doesn't make Robinson-Patman a reactionary law, or bad for workers. The point of protecting small businesses from the predatory practices of large firms is to maintain an American economy where business can't trump workers or government. Large companies are literally ungovernable: they have gigantic war-chests they can spend lobbying governments and corrupting the political process, and concentrated sectors find it comparatively easy to come together to decide on a single lobbying position and then make it reality.

As Vinsel and Waterhouse discuss, US big business has traditionally hated small business. They recount a notorious and telling anaecdote about the editor of the Chamber of Commerce magazine asking his boss if he could include coverage of small businesses, given the many small business owners who belonged to the Chamber, only to be told, "Over my dead body." Why did – why does – big business hate small business so much? Because small businesses wreck the game. If they are included in hearings, notices of inquiry, or just given a vote on what the Chamber of Commerce will lobby for with their membership dollars, they will ask for things that break with the big business lobbying consensus.

That's why we should like small business. Not because small business owners are incapable of being petty tyrants, but because whatever else, they will be petty. They won't be able to hire million-dollar-a-month union-busting law-firms, they won't be able to bribe Congress to pass favorable laws, they can't capture their regulators with juicy offers of sweet jobs after their government service ends.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out that many large firms emerged during the era in which Robinson-Patman was in force, but that misunderstands the purpose of Robinson-Patman: it wasn't designed to prevent any large businesses from emerging. There are some capital-intensive sectors (say, chip fabrication) where the minimum size for doing anything is pretty damned big.

As Miller and Tuttle write:

The goal of RPA was not to create a permanent Jeffersonian agrarian republic of exclusively small businesses. It was to preserve a diverse economy of big and small businesses. Congress recognized that the needs of communities and people—whether in their role as consumers, business owners, or workers—are varied and diverse. A handful of large chains would never be able to meet all those needs in every community, especially if they are granted pricing power.

The fight against monopoly is only secondarily a fight between small businesses and giant ones. It's foundationally a fight about whether corporations should have so much power that they are too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to care.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

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/2024/08/14/the-price-is-wright/#enforcement-priorities

[yutafrita]

[3:12pm]

Pairing: Faerie!Ten x Witch!Reader (she/her) WC: 1.8k Genre: College/ Magical School au Warnings: swearing Taglist: @nini0620

It was supposed to be a joke. He didn’t mean to make you actually fall in love with him.

He didn’t think the love spell the etsy seller had was real. Everything he knew of love spells of the sort required there to be actual face-to-face contact, not selling things through an online seller that also sold cute bracelets and overpriced candles.

“Ten, you should buy it,” Doyoung was staying the night at Ten’s after the two were working on their masters theses. While Ten got ready for bed every night he tended to leave a podcast on in the background, and tonight the hosts were cracking jokes about the online market for love spells.

“Yep.”

“$20 says it works,” Doyoung paused before adding, “and you have to clean my bathroom.”

“$20 says it works,” Doyoung paused before adding, “and you have to clean my bathroom.”

“You really are tired of doing your own house chores huh,” Ten tsked before he began the process of adding the spell to his cart. “It’s not gonna work.”

“Then buy it- better yet, do it on that girl in your cohort.”

At this, Ten frowned. He knew exactly who the warlock was talking about- you were hard to miss. The Potions department was generally small, and those getting a Masters that specializes in Healing Potions was even smaller. You were one of only two non-faeries in his cohort, the only witch, and breathtakingly beautiful.

You were also very shy.

Ten had tried chatting you up only for you to nervously nod in his direction and scamper away. Every time he tried speaking with you, it was always the same.

“She has a boyfriend,” Ten tried and failed to hide the irritation in his voice. The only guy he had ever seen you speak with was Mark- nice guy, but from what Ten could tell it seemed like you two couldn’t stand each other.

“Mark? You freak- that’s his sister,” Doyoung was annoyed, and laid himself down on the couch. “If it’s not gonna work then why are you so scared?”

“God, you are the worst,” Ten punched in his credit card information to the website, all the while taunting Doyoung. “Why do you even want me to try it anyways?”

“Dude…. I just want to mess with you, plus, if this works… easy income for me.”

“I thought you said no respectable witch would do a love spell?”

“If I don’t get a job after getting my masters and I have to pay for these student loans, I may not be so respectable.”

There was several reasons why love potions were either frowned upon or- depending on the country- were outright illegal. It was impossible to correctly gauge how long the effect would last for, consent would become murky at best, and the victim would often become incredibly obsessed with the person who the spell was made for them to love.

You were chewing on your last stick of gum, pouring over your lab notes. Mark was your half-brother, and the two of you shared an apartment across campus together. He glanced over at your notes and sighed.

“Why do you want to do medicine again? That’s a faeries job.”

“Witch’s have healing spells for a reason,” you reminded him. This was a song and dance you often had to do, especially when you were the only witch in your classes.

“Yeah, sure,” Mark went back to his bowl of cereal. “Have you spoken to any of your classmates?”

Your pressed your lips into a tight line, “do you like making me feel bad?”

“No, I just don’t want you to waste your youth not making any friends,” Mark loved his sister, but watching your shyness and awkwardness constantly get in your own way really harshed his mellow.

Annoyed, and frankly tired of being in the house despite it only being noon, you shut your textbook and grabbed your backpack off your chair.

“I’m going out.”

“To the library?”

“Take out the trash,” you snapped at him before charging out of your apartment. It was outside headed towards the university that you felt like you were hit with a bucket of cold water. It felt as if a hand had grabbed your brain and squeezed it, forcing any thought except one to flee.

All you could think about, was your classmate Ten.

The way he smiled. The way he smelled. The way his black faerie wings seemed to shine with a silver hue when would see him walking across campus. How he was the only classmate of yours that tried to speak with you.

You needed him. You needed him in every possible way.

You looked down at your sweatpants that wore a food stain- you would need to change before you could even attempt to speak to him. What should you wear? Well- something that matched with Ten would be perfect, but how could you even find out what he was wearing to class that day?

*****

Ten didn’t think much of it when the etsy seller called him to confirm your hair hair color.

“It should take affect sometime today, now to undo the spell -.”

Ten held back his scoff simply replying with, “you both need to eat a hornet stinger.”

“Yep! Call me if-,” Ten hung up on the faux witch, returning to reviewing his notes. He was seated in the school’s library with Doyoung across from him, who was eyeing the faerie with suspicion.

“Who was that?”

“That love spell scammer.”

“You don’t know if they’re a scammer,” Doyoung teased, “what if she like… actually falls in love with you?”

“Then I owe you twenty bucks,” Ten stuck his tongue out then, packing his backpack up, “I have class with her now, so I guess we’ll find out.”

Ten knew he fucked up when he entered your shared class that day. You were dressed in an adorable outfit- a flirty short skirt, a floral button up, and platformed sneakers. All perfectly matching Ten’s own outfit. How did you even know he was wearing a floral button up with black sweat pants? The shoes too- he just got them himself!

Instead of sitting in your usual spot in the back, you had taken the seat next to his typical one, much to the chagrin of his fellow faeries. Not wanting to be caught staring anymore, he quietly took his seat.

Ten was delusional- at least, he had to be, he thought. Yeah, he was being egotistical. There was no possible way you would have bothered to cast a simple observer spell to see what he was wearing so you could match him. And, maybe you just wanted to be closer to the professor today.

"Hi, Ten," your voice was soft, and he almost didn't hear you amongst the light chatter going on in the room before class.

Ten looked up at you, meeting your gaze in an attempt to be casual, and greeted you with a small smile. It was the way your eyes widened that made the hairs on the back of his neck raise.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

Panicking, he took his phone out and sent a flare to Doyoung.

Ten felt your eyes burning his side all throughout class. He had no idea what he was supposed to do until Doyoung finally texted him back.

Ten gulped, and once class was dismissed he looked your way with a forced, positive smile.

"You look-."

"Come over to my place," Ten cut you off, making your eyes become as wide as saucers as you studied his expression. You stood up, packing your bag up quietly, relishing as you were aware of the fact that not only was he near you, but watching you. You turned back around to meet his gaze.

"I'm a lady, Ten."

He blinked quickly- both confused and embarrassed. "Sorry I-."

"Are you driving?"

You clung to Ten's arm the whole five minute drive to his place, obsessively commenting on how cute he looked and how excited you were to actually see where he lived.

"What do you mean by actually?" Ten asked, parking his car out front his apartment complex. You pulled back then, keeping your grip on is arm but looking up as you tried to piece together an excuse. "You can be honest," Ten forced himself to sound giddy, his hands clammy as they stayed on the wheel of the non-moving car.

"Hm... maybe I'll say it when we get inside," you taunted, slipping out from the car. Ten frowned, but forced his smile back on as he got out from his car and led you to the front door to his place. Ten was taking his keys out from his backpack, and dropped them as soon as he felt you pinch his wings.

"Hey! Um, let's wait until we get inside," Ten urged, grabbing your hand and turning it away. You pouted, taking your hand back. Touching someones faerie wings were typically a sure-fire way of trying to turn on the other person, and while in another situation he'd be intrigued by your clear proposition, all he could do was be anxious and feel horrible for what he accidentally did to you.

Finally, Ten's apartment door opened, and seated on the couch was Doyoung. He held a jar of hornet stingers, but you didn't seem to care as you leapt onto Ten's shoulders, kissing his cheek vigorously as he shouted in surprise.

"Doyoung!" Ten cried out, rushing up to his friend with an outstretched arm. You stopped your assault on Ten's face, sending a glare at the person who to you was an intruder on your moment. Without an additional utterance Doyoung was slammed from the couch against the wall, knocking him unconscious immediately and sending the jar of stingers to fall from his hands onto the floor.

"Shit!"

"Tennn!" you whined as he peeled you off of him, bending down to collect the jar and whisper a small apology to his knocked out friend. Within seconds, Ten had cracked the jar open, slamming the stingers into both yours and his mouth. He kept his hand placed over your mouth, apologizing profusely as you fought back before you finally chewed and swallowed the stingers.

The craze in your eyes faded away as if something had finally been shut off. Nervously, Ten moved his hand away, and watched as you began to pace his apartment.

"I don't... what did... I'm sorry?" you were confused, just coming back to your senses full of shame.

"Don't... apologize. It's my fault."

Ten sat down with you, and explained everything. From the joke bet, and the way he didn't think it would actually work.

"Wow. Why... Why did you think of me?" you couldn't help the genuine curiosity you felt along with the shy blush you felt creeping onto your cheeks.

Ten, however, couldn't hide his blush at all, instead nervously laughing and turning towards his now snoring friend. "Wow um... maybe we should wake him up?"

“Maybe hold out until you can get him that 20 bucks?”

[sanoiro]

Housebreaking the Devil

The Deckerstar Network Christmas Exchange @thedeckerstarnetwork 

For @luxxiiee

Prompt Placebo - Hold on to me

Dragging a six-two feet blue spruce by herself just three days before Christmas had not been the plan. All the green firs were gone by the time Chloe had given up on reminding Maze that a tree was actually needed for the holidays and took upon her the task of finding one. 

There were of course none in the wider area by the time she had actually tried to find one. The only upturn at some point was that the seller had persuaded her that blue spruces were supposed to be lighter than green firs.

'They bloody well weren’t.' She thought, mocking once again her partner's British accent. 

Three steps forward with a half a second puffing and huffing had been the best she could do with the plastic cord digging in her already bruised flesh. Taking a long moment to rest she set her hands on her aching back and swore silently on everyone who had bolted their merry way today and out of this chore.

Maze had claimed a San Diego bounty which would mean she would appear again around the New Years something that suited Chloe's schedule just fine. Then there was Lucifer who for the past few weeks was following the Lieutenant like a moonstruck teen. That alone had Ella wither quietly in her lab with the blinds closed.

Lucifer’s persistence to shadow Marcus was expected by most to raise another yell out of their mild-mannered boss, however oddly enough that never happened. Hence why she was no longer surprised when her partner, in name only nowadays, had disappeared from the precinct around noon.

Wrapping the slippery cord around her wrist once more Chloe lastly damned her Ex. Dan was one of the reasons she had found herself with a tree to carry, an almost Ex to inexplicably mourn and of course a teenage crush on her superior at work.

An Ex who was currently calling her, no doubt in order to get off his babysitting duty and who was lucky enough to have a possible romantic relationship to freely pursue this Christmas.

“I’m almost at the door, with a tree and-“

“Where is Trixie?!” He demanded in alarm, his fingertips coming to a total stop. Fingertips drumming on the wheel meant that he was at a stakeout. 

“Not with me and I assume and hope not with you either! Where is she, Dan?” She fumed over the line, finally reaching for her keys. The final steps towards her door had seemed more effortless than before.

“Pierce sent me to a stakeout and assigned her to Lucifer around noon.” Dan sheepishly admitted, and Chloe would have sworn he was scratching the back of his neck nervously.

Moments like this she hated Lucifer's correct perception over Dan.

“Lucifer has gone rogue more times than I can count this month and you send him to pick our child from school?”

Rubbing the edge of her left eyebrow soothingly around the socket of her eyes, she prayed for the best possible outcome although all bets were off where Lucifer was concerned lately.

“You were supposed to be home around two, and it’s almost nine, whose fault is that?” He sighed in defeat as they both knew she would skin him alive or better yet have Maze do it, slowly!

“Pierce’s.”

“Marcus’”

They replied at the same time while she unlocked the door. The silence that followed was certainly a bad omen as she could hear his thick swallow from the other side of the line.

“Since when he is Marcus?” Dan questioned her carefully.

‘Damn it!’

��You know what Chloe? I don’t want to know. Not tonight.”

She knew he still cared but how could she reply when she wasn’t quite sure herself of that very answer.

Lucifer had been Lucifer since day one, the obnoxious yet charming asshole who she was honoured to call partner until they almost got together. After that, he had changed. He had become distant and yet clingy. Marcus had come shortly after, and things slowly changed once again.

The light in the living room had her exhale in relief which before she could convey it to Dan, Chloe heard her daughter dutifully repeating the same phrase.

"Le aseguro, oficial, que jamás las he visto antes.¡Esas no son mis maletas! Le aseguro, oficial, que jamás las he visto antes.¡Esas no son mis maletas!”

“Again! Honestly, officer, I've never seen them before. These are not my suitcases!” Lucifer requested from the little girl.

“Le aseguro, oficial, que jamás las he visto antes.¡Esas no son mis maletas!” Trixie delivered more passionately than before.

“Good!” The man said slurping what it sounded to be one of her daughter’s apple juice boxes. That explained why her kitchen storage stock of these was diminishing so quickly lately. Thank God she was buying them in bulk.

Gently Chloe removed her shoes and barely closed the door in order to not alert the rest of the people in the house with any passing cold drift. Trixie had taken her mother’s promise to deliver a Christmas tree today by heart as Chloe saw everything littered on the floor. She had managed to find and take down, obviously with Lucifer’s help, all the Christmas decorations and ornaments. 

“Extortion.” Lucifer supplied and took a bite from the half-eaten box of pizza which was laid on the coffee table.

“Extorsión.” Trixie replied swirling around Lucifer to untangle the various Christmas lights she took of the nearest plastic box. 

Divorce meant that last year Chloe had to use her Mother’s decorations and now with their own apartment, the half a dozen lights she and Dan had bought over the years on their child’s demand were now hanging over Lucifer’s lean frame.

The ones which were already untangled and out of the box were plugged and tested on Lucifer. His neck and arms were glimmering in various colours as he ate undisturbed his pizza slice.

“Blackmail.” Lucifer said passing a clean paper towel to the child after sweeping his hands off any residue.

“Chantaje.”

“With your mouth closed Dear. I don’t want any dairy byproduct on my green vest, thank you!” He scolded pointing the square paper towel he had just given her.

“Splendid! Now... Tengo nueve años. ¡No puedo se me puede considerar culpable de ningún acto penal! I am nine years old I cannot be held criminally responsible!” Roll-waiving his hand Lucifer urged the girl to get on with it.

“Tengo nueve años. ¡No puedo se me puede considerar culpable de ningún acto penal!” The child replied with a winning dimple smile. A bit too winning for Chloe's taste. 

“Chloe!” Dan’s voice broke the easy-going atmosphere between the man and the child and she was left with two pairs of dark eyes turning sharply towards the door in surprise.

“If you would give me a moment. Yes, Dan?” Chloe cleared the throat turning her back to her daughter who was stealing two more pizza slices and a suspiciously reddening Lucifer.

“Is our kid involved in an upscale drug smuggling?” The nervousness in Dan’s voice was justified as was her biting her thumb’s nail.

“We cannot rule out anything. I’ll call you back.” With obvious uneasiness, she turned back to her daughter and Lucifer who appeared as if they had caught red-handed.

Trixie was chewing with difficulty as much as she could from her slices while Lucifer had tried to remove the rhythmically blinking lights with no real success. If anything he had tangled them around his torso and back. 

“Trixie. Lucifer. We have been over the rules, but I feel like we should go over them again.” With a tight smile, she counted everything hazardous to either of them but decided to begin with the obvious.

“Trixie no more than 3 pizza slices for you. Lucifer do not get plugged in or on anything you cannot get out without help.”

Her daughter nodded furiously, mouth still chewing the remains of two slices of who knows how many. Lucifer, on the other hand, stood defeated and rather colourful.

In times like this Chloe really hated him for his pose and ability to remain so captivating even after being partly trimmed for the holidays.

“And now what applies to both of you. No borrowing, no smuggling, no alcohol, knives, swings, marshmallows or duct tape. You know what I’m talking about!” She clipped at the conspiratorial look that passed between her partner and her child.

Tommy had been the last kid at Trixie’s school to attempt bullying her daughter. Rumors had been spread, but there was nothing to prove, nothing aside from Lucifer paying back Maze for some industrial duck tape he had apparently nicked once upon a Tuesday, a few months ago. She had considered herself being prudent over her refusal to not dig for more details in that incident.

“Finally nothing that contains sugar without my supervision.” Both faces fell before dark brown eyes glinted dangerously.

Chloe had to control their chocolate intake for her work and home life to be run smoothly as possible.

Now how an adult could run a sugar high and crush at the precinct evidence room. Well, that had been an uncomfortable talk with the Lieutenant after Lucifer had found the remains of her birthday cake in the predict's fridge. Not to mention that Marcus’ Nutella jars kept disappearing at an alarming speed whenever Lucifer was in one of his sour moods.

“Detective, I’m sure we can find a middle ground with a deal or something…” Lucifer honey-dipped voice rumbled a bit too deliciously for her overworked state. 

“That’s what got us into this mess! When will you ever learn!” Trixie snapped at him for the first time in her mother’s presence taking both adults by surprise.

“Your horrid accent got us into this mess child- Dear!” Lucifer reprimanded offended by the mere notion he was responsible for whatever situation her daughter and he were in at the moment.

“You little lady, manners and you, explain!” Chloe flicked her fingers on Lucifer’s sparkly decorated shoulder making him wince and rub the place that she had just abused.

“The homeroom teacher wants your child to improve her Spanish accent.” Lucifer sighed dramatically putting all the blame on Trixie who was currently glaring at him, hands crossed but not before she plugged two more bright lights that were hung from his neck.

Effectively blinded the man chocked a ‘Bloody hell’ and Trixie stepped in front of him to clarify what had actually happened earlier that day.

“He spiked the teacher’s lounge eggnog! Ms Lucia got a bit... funny and was speaking in her native Puerto Rican accent.”

“You spiked the eggnog? The school's alcohol-free eggnog?” Pinching her nose, Chloe raised her eyes upwards trying to lock her hands in place. Stabilizing the tree would be a piece of cake if Lucifer’s antics had gone too far.

“In the name of the holiday's spirit Detective!” He argued brushing a hand over his hair with the lights forming a halo behind his head. A rather fitting red halo.

Now that brought back memories... 

“You don’t believe in Christmas Lucifer!” Chloe moaned over the ongoing conversation that had started Lucifer since the first Christmas display was set in the late November.

“I believe in it but I do not understand what’s all the fuss is about. Wrong date, wrong season, wrong!” He concluded pointing the scattered ornaments and decorations around him.

“Ms Lucia was not pleased when he told her… Nor when he called me spawn. He could have dropped it but-” The child lamented drinking her juice in a disturbing resemblance of how Lucifer nursed his flask sometimes.

“So I argued about the whole thing in Spanish!” Lucifer said pleased with himself as if that explained everything.

“In her native accent which had her screaming over why I sound Mexicana when I have a Puerto Rican Daddy. To which he almost choked with a raisin.” Trixie shook her head at the silliness of the whole situation, and Lucifer’s rolled his eyes.

“I thought it was a melting chocolate chip cookie! Anyhow, I tried to explain that I was certainly not the spawns Daddy! And I was called rude! Can you believe it? Rude!” Lucifer huffed sharing an understanding look with the child who shrugged at the absurdity of Mc Lucia’s claims.

“And then she told me that my Mummy and I should housebreak Lucifer, or he will leave, but he is not a puppy!” Her daughter broke into laughter.

“To which I informed her politely that I was not going anywhere, but nonetheless I was partial to collars.” Lucifer smugly concluded.

Trixie’s eyebrows frowned and turned to her mother.

“I didn’t understand that one.” She admitted, eager to let her mother know what had led them eventually to this point. Lucifer was ready to explain in detail before Chloe raised her hand to stop him.

“Don’t you dare. All of this does not explain why you train my daughter on how to smuggle things around or why she is too young to be charged.” Chloe was feeling tired. Oh so very tired.

“I have to teach her my Puerto Rican accent if I ever want to pick her up again. Problem is I tend to use the mob's teaching method.” Lucifer petulantly told her trying to feign indifference but failing miserably.

“And Lucifer has to call me nice names only while I teach him what Christmas is all about. It was a deal he made.” Her daughter explained showing her mother how she had managed to fit five Christmas lights on Lucifer’s still pristine clothes.

“Did you mean that?” Chloe uttered with difficulty the words. 

There were no promises from him, and they never had been any. He was lost, but a part of her was adamant about holding on to him. Foolish but undeniably deeply rooted within her.

“It’s just an accent Detective. I think I can manage.” He grinned now relaxed under her tired slate gaze.

“There is a tree outside. It needs to be set up, watered, trimmed. Will you two manage?” She asked her daughter which was already sprinting to the door.

“As long as you don’t mind keeping me around for a little bit longer.” Unbuttoning his cufflinks, he set them next to the remote and went on to help Trixie bring the tree inside.

Getting to the kitchen to make a strong brew of tea Chloe enjoyed watching the unlikely pair struggle over the blue spruce. She would never understand him, and sometimes she had wondered if her words at the beach were true or they had faded as his attention towards her had. 

Would she forgive all of his mistakes? Was she the one capable of granting him the redemption he needed but always said he didn’t want?

There was no answer to be given only a trail of blue spruce needles left behind. No longer limited and bound by the illusions of time, responsibilities and character, in that room, there was Lucifer, Trixie, herself including the tree so she would hold on to that.

On her daughter, to the false magic of the Christmas tree and in an unexplainable way Chloe would always hold on Lucifer Morningstar.

He was her difficult life journey. The one that always led her closer to home for which she would always be thankful. That was enough for now. He had to be enough for now. He was.

Thank God, he was. 

                                                    The End

[smuttyfairy]

hello! i wanted to ask if you or anyone knows the name of a jimin ft jungkook fic? it’s basically about jimin being a fuckboy and the reader trying to give him a taste of his own medicine with the help of her friends who were also heartbroken by jimin. Thank you!

If you know any of the answers to the fic questions below please let us know via ask box!!

ALSO, please add a small description to whatever the fic was about so we know which fic question you’re answering without having to go back to look and the post of the questions as it tends to get drowned down into our archives really fast :) Please and thank you~

x-momochi-x asked:

Hey. I need a little help. If anyone of you or your follows can help me it would be nice. I’m looking for a fanfiction I read in June but I’ve had no luck. It was a jhope x taehyung x reader I believe, and it was about vampires. I thought the name was Crimson Killers or something like that. But anyways it was like that. I would really like it if I could get some help. If any of your follows know please pm me. Thank you~

anonymous asked:

Hello! Do anyone knows a strawberry farmer V’s fic where the reader is a seller at the farmers’ market and good friends with V since young and he always ask her out so they have a deal to got to his farm and he got to eat her out I believe? If anyone knows this kindly reply! Thank you!!! 🙌

anonymous asked:

Bts Jimin, Jungkook or Suga scenario to you trying to commit suicide after break up(Like cutting yourself)

anonymous asked:

Hello admins, can you help me find this fic abt female reader is friend with yoonji. oc had a crush on jimin and hes a jerk. yoongi is in it too, his role is older twin of yoonji. sorry for my bad english >

anonymous asked:

hi i’m looking for this bts jin scenario where rap monster lend him some pornographic cds and he fell in love with one of those girls and they actually ended up with each other. thank youu!

anonymous asked:

I’ve been banging my head repeatedly against the table edge for the past week over a fic and I was hoping you could help me? It’s a fic about Jimin and the oc is a mom and they meet up again at a highschool reunion and he’s all successful now Bc he wanted to show off or something but she’s so humble and he kind of falls in love with her again and wants to help her out and stuff? Please help me, thank you 😭😭😭

anonymous asked:

I’m looking for a fic where Jungkook is a rich college fuckboy, but the oc doesn’t know who he is and doesn’t give him any attention. He is intrigued by her and one night on his way to crash Yoongi’s party he almost runs over her with his car and he helps her back to her apartment and he tries to talk to her at college. I think the title is similar to “Something to hide” and it alludes to abuse of the oc by another person (likely Jimin). It’s a JungkookxOCxjimin fic.

anonymous asked:

Hi do you know the name of the fic where the reader is taken in by a royal family at a young age because she’s going to be in an arranged marriage with taehyung when she’s older and yoongi teaches her to read, write, etc.

anonymous asked:

EMERGENCY MUST FIND FIC ASAP: it’s taehyung fic where the reader has schizophrenia and thinks taehyung is real but he’s not, and her friend asks her to go meet someone but it’s actually a therapist (jungkook) at a cafe and he diagnosis her n tells her

anonymous asked:

hello can u help me find a jungkook x reader fic club!au in which the ‘club’ is for masturbating in front of strangers but touching is forbidden, I’ve been trying to find it for days now (sry if my English is bad)

anonymous asked:

hi, i was wondering if you guys can help me find a fic. It was jungkook and an older woman (noon) and it was her first time although he was older. she kept calling him things like muscle pig and he made fun of her for wearing a hot pink sports bra and batman boxers. I think he was wearing a detective conan outfit. she doesn’t like sex at first and then jungkook tries without a condom and he gets her burritos afterwards. Thank you!

anonymous asked:

Hi! Could yall help me locate a fic where I think it’s V/RM or one of the maknae line (?) where OC is a smart student, one day she has to do a lab project with V n she thought he was like her other partners lazy etc but he did everything on his part and one day before the submission he found a mistake n she freaks out n she wanted to see her mistake so they met in the lab and eventually he goes down on her etc (it’s a long fic and got to do with lab coats + partners), pls help tysm!

anonymous asked:

Hi do you guys know of a JK fic where the OC is JK’s secretary and you ask him a favor to be your date in this high school reunion and you guys almost have sex in a classroom and continue it in his house. I forgot the title and the author i was hoping you could help me thank youii

anonymous asked:

I have a fic question. It for a Yoongi model au. The reader is an up and coming model and she gets to work with yoongi, a famous model, and the photo shoot was them laying in bed together. The reader is a little anxious about taking off the men’s dress shirt she was wearing, but yoongi gives her encouragement. I hope that was a good enough description. I have been looking for it for awhile. Thank you.

namjoons-broken-toe asked:

Hey, I’m looking for this fic I was reading recently but lost. The main character is Hoseok and it’s a fuckboy/ friends with benefits/college au and the readers ex is Yugyeom who cheated on her?

anonymous asked:

hiiiii!~ if you don’t mind me asking, do you know this story where BTS is in a gang/mafia and oc is an intern/doctor? OC was staying at a diner and Rose serves her hot choco and muffins but then bts’ rival gang comes in and shoots Jimin so OC goes to the rescue and bts keeps her to protect her…

anonymous asked:

Hiiiii, I was wondering if you or any of your followers could help me locate a jimin smut where y/n works in the same office as jimin and during the day he’s the most boring underwhelming person ever but y/n runs into at a club at night and he’s all of a sudden looking like a sex god and then y/n and him fuck on his motorcycle shdjjdjdjdkdshfh

anonymous asked:

Hi I’m looking for a fanfic where the girl is in college with taehyung and they’re not on the best of terms. But they were signed up to a competition where they need to shoot the opponents with nerf bullets or something like that. But the girl works in a cafe with jin aswell, thank you.

anonymous asked:

hi ! i’m looking for a yoongi (yoonji) x oc fic where yoongi and the oc are dorm mates/best friends and he’s hiding the fact that he’s a guy so he could live in the cleaner girls’ dorms, and another reason i can’t quite remember. jimin has an interest in yoonji and the oc has one in jimin, so much so that she ignores his ramblings about yoonji. but he catches yoongi and the oc together when he’s going to their dorm to confess to yoonji

anonymous asked:

Hi! Do anyone have an idea what is the title of a fic where it's about ice hockey bunnies (?) I can't rmb who the lead was but I know there's jimin and blackpink members in it~ It's something like being a bunny and cheering for your school's ice hockey team etc~ If anyone has an idea please reply~~ Thank you so much!!

[shardclan]

The Aphaster Citizen

The Sunbeam Sentinel would like to present the first edition of the Aphaster Citizen, penned by our newest journalist: Pyrite of Moon Mist. The Citizen will be focused on the brief presentation of hyperlocal news and events.

Rubedo and Alala quietly married in a family only ceremony; couple settling in House Betelgeuse. First nest planned for Riot of Rot later this epoch.

Clan Skyboat building docks south of House Betelgeuse and north of eventual House Perihelion. The wind-based fae clan provides air transport to dragons without flight capabilities who would rather avoid Trader's Walk.

Two representatives join as Aphaster citizens: Mercury, an engineer for the skyboat; and Rydian, an ace of the clan's defending force: The Glasswings Corps.

The Blooming Grove: Tribunes begin talks with Mote to initiate contact and establish good relations with dryads discovered on island chain north of Mirrorlight Bay.

Serir, Draghonhome wildclaw from just off the Emerald Strait, joins as the clans scavenger and partners with the Logistics and Inventory sector to begin a recycling program. Mysterious relationship with Heaven that even Camellia can't explain?

The last of the beastshifters from the Exodus arrived. Flaga, a mossy cerdae turned wind pearlcatcher, has spent his time as a newly made dragon studying with Clan Fimbur. He came to Aphaster voluntarily when he learned of the other beastshifters, and seeks to learn why unicorns have been in decline while cerdae populations rise.

A shadow pearlcatcher was found without a pearl on the edge of the Tangled Wood. The young female was partially feral--clearly abandoned as a hatchling and left to fend for herself. Dalma is currently teaching her how to behave among other dragons, but Camellia has opted to formally adopt the girl, who she has named Ginger, when her rehabilitation is nearer to completion.

A celestine crown was gifted to Queen Telos. It is currently unclear if this was a an act meant to offend, or if it was simply the result of another assumption that the Morning Queen is an Acolight. Either way, it isn’t something an Arcanite can wear and so it has been placed in the vaults.

Enyi joins the Twilight Artisans as the clans dye-maker, to the disappointment of many who hoped he would re-join the spa. He claims he still has much to do in the way of beautifying both the present House Betelgeuse and the future House Perihelion. 

Suncore and Amonix join Twilight Labs, bring solar power to the clan. Amonix, Lightning-born, brings photovoltaic engineering skill. Suncore, Light-born, was born with wings that naturally stored sunlight over the course of the day and could be released similarly to magic. The two are founding the Leyline Solar Farm just southeast of the Leyline Gardens.

Noon Point Food Fair announced to celebrate the opening of a full compliment of culinary markets:

The Happy Harpy Creamery will be providing free samples of rare Rosy Peryton Cream and spicy Fiendcat Cheese.

The Sundial Brewery will be doing 5g beer samplers, and tastings of their big sellers: Sparkling Sparking Charged Duneberry Wine, Starmoss Mead, Darkwoods Stout, Summerland Pale Ale, and Sunbeam Whiskey.

The Honeyglow Bakery will be having it’s grand opening. Run primarily by Macchiato of Noon Point Inn, the Bakery will eventually be run as a partnership with Foster. The young imperial is a prodigy at breads, cakes, and other temptations and will be offering free samples of any number of treats to make a good impression of his eventual business. Macchiato will be providing teas and coffees of all types.

Jazz, a coatl of Ever-Autumn, has expanded the Leyline Garden orchards and opened a specialty shop by the name of Ambrosia. The shop specializes in apples, be they dried, fresh, juiced, or otherwise, in addition to products from the apple trees themselves: leaves, bark, flowers, seeds, and even apple skins are available for everything from composting to cooking. A wide variery of nuts, vegetables, other fruits, and snacks that compliment the apples are also available. The coatl will be talking apples and providing free samples of recommended pairings.

Fadil, a former bodyguard-for-hire, has opened a butcher shop. While his meats are not typically cooked on site, he will be offering samples of meat cooked using rubs and brines of his own design. They will be 1g bites, and he invites the especially bold to try some of the stronger flavors. 

[growlegalweed-blog]

Legal Weed Resources

Check out... https://legalweed.gq/420/ohio-highway-patrol-confiscates-55-gallons-of-cbd-oil-during-traffic-stop/

Ohio Highway Patrol Confiscates 55 Gallons of CBD Oil During Traffic Stop

State troopers confiscated 55 gallons of CBD oil last week after discovering several buckets of the hemp extract during a traffic stop, according to a press release from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The driver and a passenger of a U-Haul truck that had been pulled over for a “marked lanes violation” on Interstate 70 were arrested and taken into law enforcement custody.

Troopers observed “criminal indicators” during the traffic stop just after noon on February 25 in Muskingum County, about 60 miles east of Colombus, according to police. After an OSHP drug-sniffing dog alerted to the vehicle, a “probable cause” search of the moving van was conducted and troopers discovered eleven plastic buckets containing 7,040 liquid ounces of CBD oil, with an estimated value of $165,000.

Both the driver, Joshua Sellers, 37, of Providence, R.I, and the passenger, Richard Defedele, 37, of North Kingston, R.I., were charged with possession of a schedule 1 substance, a first-degree felony. If the men are convicted, they could face up to 11 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000.

CBD Tightly Controlled in Ohio

Despite the legalization of hemp and CBD at the federal level with the 2018 Farm Bill, cannabidiol remains a controlled substance in Ohio. In December of last year, state regulators announced that CBD from any source fell under the auspices of the Ohio medical marijuana program that was passed into law by the legislature in 2016. With CBD now considered a form of medical marijuana, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy said that products with cannabidiol would only be allowed to be sold by licensed cannabis dispensaries.

“All marijuana products, including CBD oil, can only be dispensed in a licensed Medical Marijuana Control Program dispensary,” the notice reads. “Those marijuana products will have to comply with the rules and regulations of the program. All products must have a known source, as well as known quantities of active ingredients. Testing procedures will be conducted by testing laboratories licensed by the Ohio Department of Commerce.”

“Until dispensaries are operational,” the board wrote, “no one, including board licensees, may possess or sell CBD oil or other marijuana-related products.”

That announcement came despite the fact that retailers across the state had been selling CBD products for years, leading some shop owners to liquidate or remove their stock of CBD goods and others to openly flout the new rules.

Alison Rinehart, the manager of the High Up Head Shop in Columbus, told local media in December that the CBD products sold at her shop should not be confused with marijuana.

“None of our products are derivative from cannabis in any way, shape or form. They come directly from hemp,” said Rinehart. “They all have certified insured lab reports behind them as well. There’s no THC content in them whatsoever.”

E.R. Beach has sold CBD supplements at his four Hemptations pipe shops in Dayton and Cincinnati for seven years. He told local media that he did not intend to stop selling them because of the ruling from the Board of Pharmacy and issued a challenge to police.

“They [law enforcement] are going to have to charge me, and if they charge me, it’ll be for possession of marijuana, and when they test the product, they’ll find that it’s not a marijuana product,” he said. “They could do that at any time.”

The post Ohio Highway Patrol Confiscates 55 Gallons of CBD Oil During Traffic Stop appeared first on High Times.

[growith]

Noon Seller Lab stands as an invaluable resource and support hub designed specifically for sellers on the Noon platform. It serves as a comprehensive toolkit equipped with various tools, insights, and educational resources tailored to elevate the success and efficiency of sellers within the Noon ecosystem.

[blogsurge-blog]

The Insider Secret on Best Dropship Bag Exposed

If you opt to dropship beach towels online from Printful, remember that beach towels are sometimes a seasonal products, meaning they're more inclined to sell better in the summer months instead of in winter. It is very important to discover the ideal dropship wholesaler or supplier for your leather bags to ensure it is possible to serve your clients and keep them satisfied. An oversized bag should incorporate plenty of further features like a mobile phone pocket, long handles, and many compartments for storage of an assortment of items.

If you're looking for a specific niche to concentrate on, selling oversized designer handbags at wholesale prices may be an ideal fit. The beauty with handbags is that there's a wide number of styles to pick from and so you can sell all the various types and still establish a massive client base. But if you reside in the US many men and women appear to like Doba and it could be because of the top quality handbags they supply.

There are various varieties of handbags. They are popular because they are usually inexpensive and have a large customer base. Designer handbags are really an important portion of a wardrobe.

Take time to research what's in style and locate a company with the finest wholesale rates. If you're dealing with low-cost items, the price of returning the item may not be well worth it. In addition to that when folks are given a better quality product, they can make return purchases later on, and that means you'd spend remarketing budget far more efficiently than with Chinese products which noone is likely to purchase again.

If you're a seasoned on-line seller already, you may locate a few fresh suggestions for finding inventory, too. As soon as you have the item that you wish to sell, you have to put it on your site. The web site has beautiful category tools for you to filter and search depending on the products that you're attempting to sell dropship tas, together with an industry research lab to choose the most well-known products to sell on your store.

Your cart system ought to be in a position to inform you just how many people clicked on a specific promotion and how many people bought. In terms of writing your product descriptions, be certain you are connecting with your prospective customer. In fact, however, a chaotic selection of product lines can induce shopper confusion and lost sales.

There are clearly numerous benefits of dropshipping. It is to find products that are already moderately popular, but not so popular that the market is oversaturated. There are many current product niches it's possible to compete within, but you may also combine or overlap niches to carve out your own space in the industry.

This list will including all info you will need for your site. Buying after viewing a webpage photo isn't the exact same as actually handling goods prior to making a buy. They record your visit to our website and the content you interact with, and may also be used to manage the number of times that you see an advertisement.

Among the toughest areas of dropshipping is to discover an organization that would provide products. Find out more about the wholesale or dropship company to make sure they have a great track record with their customers. Figure out how promotional products can assist your company find solutions.

As a developing business, the notion of dropshipping can be a fairly attractive one with obvious advantages. Assessing whether dropshipping works for your company is dependent on your wants and preferences. You may enjoy many advantages by picking a dealer.

The choice to choose express shipping seems like it ought to be a given. Before drop shipping handbags, you will wish to consider the price selection of the products that you want to sell. Additionally, it helps if you select low-risk items to dropship that don't cost too much and won't be too difficult on you in case you have to eat the price of returns from your customer.

Be aware that Bestchoice doesn't guarantee items in stock. Additionally, if a product doesn't sell, then I am not stuck with a lot of inventory to clearance. Make certain you test your merchandise and order samples for yourself.

It takes lots of work but there's plenty of opportunity, said Nousain. It is very good for every household and particularly for smaller children who sleep alone.  There are plenty of techniques to spend less, but you have to read and navigate the forms.

Below are some suggestions for products to sell on your dropshipping site. By this time, you most likely already have two or three ideas for a great dropshipping store offer in 2019! Valentine's Day can obviously be a huge opportunity for a great deal of dropshipping organization.

[growithamazon]

Noon Seller Lab Management Service Provider

The noon Seller Lab program puts you in control of your business success. Using the Seller Toolbox you can track your success.

In order to start using Noon Seller Lab, you first need to sign up on Noon.com by visiting the registration page and following the instructions.

After you are registered, you can apply for Noon Seller Lab on the relevant website. As part of the application, you need to provide information about your business, products, and documents such as your trade license and bank statement.

After submitting the application, you need to wait for the approval. The approval usually takes a few days, during which Noon will assess your eligibility for the program.

Once you are approved, you can log in to your account and start setting up your store. You can create product listings and manage your inventory.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

MIT libraries are thriving without Elsevier

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you start seeing it everywhere. Democrats – including elected officials – all wanted Biden to step down, but none of them wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.

Patent trolls use bullshit patents to shake down small businesses, demanding "license fees" that are high, but much lower than the cost of challenging the patent and getting it revoked. Collectively, it would be much cheaper for all the victims to band together and hire a fancy law firm to invalidate the patent, but individually, it makes sense for them all to pay. A collective action problem:

https://locusmag.com/2013/11/cory-doctorow-collective-action/

Musicians get royally screwed by Spotify. Collectively, it would make sense for all of them to boycott the platform, which would bring it to its knees and either make it pay more or put it out of business. Individually, any musician who pulls out of Spotify disappears from the horizon of most music fans, so they all hang in – a collective action problem:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/21/off-the-menu/#universally-loathed

Same goes for the businesses that get fucked out of 30% of their app revenues by Apple and Google's mobile business. Without all those apps, Apple and Google wouldn't have a business, but any single app that pulls out commits commercial suicide, so they all hang in there, paying a 30% vig:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

That's also the case with Amazon sellers, who get rooked for 45-51 cents out of every dollar in platform junk fees, and whose prize for succeeding despite this is to have their product cloned by Amazon, which underprices them because it doesn't have to pay a 51% rake on every sale. Without third-party sellers there'd be no Amazon, but it's impossible to get millions of sellers to all pull out at once, so the Bezos crime family scoops up half of the ecommerce economy in bullshit fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

This is why one definition of "corruption" is a system with "concentrated gains and diffuse losses." The company that dumps toxic waste in your water supply reaps all the profits of externalizing its waste disposal costs. The people it poisons each bear a fraction of the cost of being poisoned. The environmental criminal has a fat warchest of ill-gotten gains to use to bribe officials and pay fancy lawyers to defend it in court. Its victims are each struggling with the health effects of the crimes, and even without that, they can't possibly match the polluter's resources. Eventually, the polluter spends enough money to convince the Supreme Court to overturn "Chevron deference" and makes it effectively impossible to win the right to clean water and air (or a planet that's not on fire):

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/us-supreme-courts-chevron-deference-ruling-will-disrupt-climate-policy

Any time you encounter a shitty, outrageous racket that's stable over long timescales, chances are you're looking at a collective action problem. Certainly, that's the underlying pathology that preserves the scholarly publishing scam, which is one of the most grotesque, wasteful, disgusting frauds in our modern world (and that's saying something, because the field is crowded with many contenders).

Here's how the scholarly publishing scam works: academics do original scholarly research, funded by a mix of private grants, public funding, funding from their universities and other institutions, and private funds. These academics write up their funding and send it to a scholarly journal, usually one that's owned by a small number of firms that formed a scholarly publishing cartel by buying all the smaller publishers in a string of anticompetitive acquisitions. Then, other scholars review the submission, for free. More unpaid scholars do the work of editing the paper. The paper's author is sent a non-negotiable contract that requires them to permanently assign their copyright to the journal, again, for free. Finally, the paper is published, and the institution that paid the researcher to do the original research has to pay again – sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per year! – for the journal in which it appears.

The academic publishing cartel insists that the millions it extracts from academic institutions and the billions it reaps in profit are all in service to serving as neutral, rigorous gatekeepers who ensure that only the best scholarship makes it into print. This is flatly untrue. The "editorial process" the academic publishers take credit for is virtually nonexistent: almost everything they publish is virtually unchanged from the final submission format. They're not even typesetting the paper:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00799-018-0234-1

The vetting process for peer-review is a joke. Literally: an Australian academic managed to get his dog appointed to the editorial boards of seven journals:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/olivia-doll-predatory-journals

Far from guarding scientific publishing from scams and nonsense, the major journal publishers have stood up entire divisions devoted to pay-to-publish junk science. Elsevier – the largest scholarly publisher – operated a business unit that offered to publish fake journals full of unreveiwed "advertorial" papers written by pharma companies, packaged to look like a real journal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090504075453/http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/

Naturally, academics and their institutions hate this system. Not only is it purely parasitic on their labor, it also serves as a massive brake on scholarly progress, by excluding independent researchers, academics at small institutions, and scholars living in the global south from accessing the work of their peers. The publishers enforce this exclusion without mercy or proportion. Take Diego Gomez, a Colombian Masters candidate who faced eight years in prison for accessing a single paywalled academic paper:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/colombian-student-faces-prison-charges-sharing-academic-article-online

And of course, there's Aaron Swartz, the young activist and Harvard-affiliated computer scientist who was hounded to death after he accessed – but did not publish – papers from MIT's JSTOR library. Aaron had permission to access these papers, but JSTOR, MIT, and the prosecutors Stephen Heymann and Carmen Ortiz argued that because he used a small computer program to access the papers (rather than clicking on each link by hand) he had committed 13 felonies. They threatened him with more than 30 years in prison, and drew out the proceedings until Aaron was out of funds. Aaron hanged himself in 2013:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Academics know all this terrible stuff is going on, but they are trapped in a collective action problem. For an academic to advance in their field, they have to publish, and they have to get their work cited. Academics all try to publish in the big prestige journals – which also come with the highest price-tag for their institutions – because those are the journals other academics read, which means that getting published is top journal increases the likelihood that another academic will find and cite your work.

If academics could all agree to prioritize other journals for reading, then they could also prioritize other journals for submissions. If they could all prioritize other journals for submissions, they could all prioritize other journals for reading. Instead, they all hold one another hostage, through a wicked collective action problem that holds back science, starves their institutions of funding, and puts their colleagues at risk of imprisonment.

Despite this structural barrier, academics have fought tirelessly to escape the event horizon of scholarly publishing's monopoly black hole. They avidly supported "open access" publishers (most notably PLoS), and while these publishers carved out pockets for free-to-access, high quality work, the scholarly publishing cartel struck back with package deals that bundled their predatory "open access" journals in with their traditional journals. Academics had to pay twice for these journals: first, their institutions paid for the package that included them, then the scholars had to pay open access submission fees meant to cover the costs of editing, formatting, etc – all that stuff that basically doesn't exist.

Academics started putting "preprints" of their work on the web, and for a while, it looked like the big preprint archive sites could mount a credible challenge to the scholarly publishing cartel. So the cartel members bought the preprint sites, as when Elsevier bought out SSRN:

https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/17/disappointing-elsevier-buys-open-access-academic-pre-publisher-ssrn/

Academics were elated in 2011, when Alexandra Elbakyan founded Sci-Hub, a shadow library that aims to make the entire corpus of scholarly work available without barrier, fear or favor:

https://sci-hub.ru/alexandra

Sci-Hub neutralized much of the collective action trap: once an article was available on Sci-Hub, it became much easier for other scholars to locate and cite, which reduced the case for paying for, or publishing in, the cartel's journals:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.14979

The scholarly publishing cartel fought back viciously, suing Elbakyan and Sci-Hub for tens of millions of dollars. Elsevier targeted prepress sites like academia.edu with copyright threats, ordering them to remove scholarly papers that linked to Sci-Hub:

https://svpow.com/2013/12/06/elsevier-is-taking-down-papers-from-academia-edu/

This was extremely (if darkly) funny, because Elsevier's own publications are full of citations to Sci-Hub:

https://eve.gd/2019/08/03/elsevier-threatens-others-for-linking-to-sci-hub-but-does-it-itself/

Meanwhile, scholars kept the pressure up. Tens of thousands of scholars pledged to stop submitting their work to Elsevier:

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

Academics at the very tops of their fields publicly resigned from the editorial board of leading Elsevier journals, and published editorials calling the Elsevier model unethical:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/may/16/system-profit-access-research

And the New Scientist called the racket "indefensible," decrying the it as an industry that made restricting access to knowledge "more profitable than oil":

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032052-900-time-to-break-academic-publishings-stranglehold-on-research/

But the real progress came when academics convinced their institutions, rather than one another, to do something about these predator publishers. First came funders, private and public, who announced that they would only fund open access work:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7

Winning over major funders cleared the way for open access advocates worked both the supply-side and the buy-side. In 2019, the entire University of California system announced it would be cutting all of its Elsevier subscriptions:

https://www.science.org/content/article/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open

Emboldened by the UC system's principled action, MIT followed suit in 2020, announcing that it would no longer send $2m every year to Elsevier:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#nerdfight

It's been four years since MIT's decision to boycott Elsevier, and things are going great. The open access consortium SPARC just published a stocktaking of MIT libraries without Elsevier:

https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base/unbundling-profiles/mit-libraries/

How are MIT's academics getting by without Elsevier in the stacks? Just fine. If someone at MIT needs access to an Elsevier paper, they can usually access it by asking the researchers to email it to them, or by downloading it from the researcher's site or a prepress archive. When that fails, there's interlibrary loan, whereby other libraries will send articles to MIT's libraries within a day or two. For more pressing needs, the library buys access to individual papers through an on-demand service.

This is how things were predicted to go. The libraries used their own circulation data and the webservice Unsub to figure out what they were likely to lose by dropping Elsevier – it wasn't much!

https://unsub.org/

The MIT story shows how to break a collective action problem – through collective action! Individual scholarly boycotts did little to hurt Elsevier. Large-scale organized boycotts raised awareness, but Elsevier trundled on. Sci-Hub scared the shit out of Elsevier and raised awareness even further, but Elsevier had untold millions to spend on a campaign of legal terror against Sci-Hub and Elbakyan. But all of that, combined with high-profile defections, made it impossible for the big institutions to ignore the issue, and the funders joined the fight. Once the funders were on-side, the academic institutions could be dragged into the fight, too.

Now, Elsevier – and the cartel – is in serious danger. Automated tools – like the Authors Alliance termination of transfer tool – lets academics get the copyright to their papers back from the big journals so they can make them open access:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

Unimaginably vast indices of all scholarly publishing serve as important adjuncts to direct access shadow libraries like Sci-Hub:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#cornucopia-concordance

Collective action problems are never easy to solve, but they're impossible to address through atomized, individual action. It's only when we act as a collective that we can defeat the corruption – the concentrated gains and diffuse losses – that allow greedy, unscrupulous corporations to steal from us, wreck our lives and even imprison us.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

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/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier

[boring-desert-blog]

Joshua Tree • 5/27 • 11am-3pm • Memorial Day Observance and Concert BBQ • Joshua Tree Memorial Park 60121 29 Palms Hwy, Joshua Tree, California 92252 • We welcome the community and beyond to our 16th Annual Memorial Day Observance and Concert in the Cemetery, Monday, May 29, 2017. The event is free. Parking is available on the festival grounds (first come first serve). Limited seating is available for the Memorial Day Observance. Blankets and lawn chairs are welcome for the the second half of the event (Concert/BBQ). The following is the schedule of events: Memorial Day Observance: (Featuring performances by the Luminators, Palm Springs Youth Chorale, and Marine Sandpiper Joel Daniels. Guests Speakers include Pastor Abe Casiano, Colonel Hal J. Sellers, and Navy Chaplain Cornelius Johnson.) 11 a.m. - Noon 2017 Joshua Tree Memorial Park Concert in the Cemetery Stage Schedule Main Stage* 12 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. Shadow Mountain Band 1:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. - Pre-Prize Give Away 1:30 p.m - 2:45 p.m. – Gutter Candy 2:45 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. - Prize Give Away Events*: Free Community BBQ: Noon- 1 p.m. Prize Giveaway (Morongo Basin No Kill Shelter): 1 p.m. - 3 p.m. Kids Games, Jump House, Petting Zoo, and on Site Vendors: Noon - 3 p.m. Food and Beverage Vendors: 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. (*line up, food and events subject to change without notice) Prize Donations (so far) by: Aquarius Resort Casino ArtFx & Furnishings Blo-dry Bar & Spray-tanning Cactus Flower Florist Colorado Belle Casino Color Bar Denny’s DG Hair Stories Dickey’s BBQ Pit Dinner Detective Edgewater Casino Gadi’s Restaurant & Bar Envy Styling Saloon Hoodoo Joshua Tree Coffee Co. Joshua Tree Saloon Las Palmas Living Desert Pamela Marshall Hair Salon Oasis Dry Cleaners R&B Studios Riverside Resort Ron’s Automotive Sandy Paws Pet Grooming Sizzler Sue’s Health Foods Strata Tattoo Lab Wal Mart Wiefels

[growith]

Seller Lab Noon

Seller Lab Noon serves as a valuable ally for merchants on Noon, providing a suite of tools, guidance, and resources to elevate their selling experience and enable them to flourish within the burgeoning e-commerce market in the Middle East.