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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months ago

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Apple to EU: “Go fuck yourself”

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/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

There's a strain of anti-anti-monopolist that insists that they're not pro-monopoly – they're just realists who understand that global gigacorporations are too big to fail, too big to jail, and that governments can't hope to rein them in. Trying to regulate a tech giant, they say, is like trying to regulate the weather.

This ploy is cousins with Jay Rosen's idea of "savvying," defined as: "dismissing valid questions with the insider's, 'and this surprises you?'"

https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/344825874362810369?lang=en

In both cases, an apologist for corruption masquerades as a pragmatist who understands the ways of the world, unlike you, a pathetic dreamer who foolishly hopes for a better world. In both cases, the apologist provides cover for corruption, painting it as an inevitability, not a choice. "Don't hate the player. Hate the game."

The reason this foolish nonsense flies is that we are living in an age of rampant corruption and utter impunity. Companies really do get away with both literal and figurative murder. Governments really do ignore horrible crimes by the rich and powerful, and fumble what rare, few enforcement efforts they assay.

Take the GDPR, Europe's landmark privacy law. The GDPR establishes strict limitations of data-collection and processing, and provides for brutal penalties for companies that violate its rules. The immediate impact of the GDPR was a mass-extinction event for Europe's data-brokerages and surveillance advertising companies, all of which were in obvious violation of the GDPR's rules.

But there was a curious pattern to GDPR enforcement: while smaller, EU-based companies were swiftly shuttered by its provisions, the US-based giants that conduct the most brazen, wide-ranging, illegal surveillance escaped unscathed for years and years, continuing to spy on Europeans.

One (erroneous) way to look at this is as a "compliance moat" story. In that story, GDPR requires a bunch of expensive systems that only gigantic companies like Facebook and Google can afford. These compliance costs are a "capital moat" – a way to exclude smaller companies from functioning in the market. Thus, the GDPR acted as an anticompetitive wrecking ball, clearing the field for the largest companies, who get to operate without having to contend with smaller companies nipping at their heels:

https://www.techdirt.com/2019/06/27/another-report-shows-gdpr-benefited-google-facebook-hurt-everyone-else/

This is wrong.

Oh, compliance moats are definitely real – think of the calls for AI companies to license their training data. AI companies can easily do this – they'll just buy training data from giant media companies – the very same companies that hope to use models to replace creative workers with algorithms. Create a new copyright over training data won't eliminate AI – it'll just confine AI to the largest, best capitalized companies, who will gladly provide tools to corporations hoping to fire their workforces:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

But just because some regulations can be compliance moats, that doesn't mean that all regulations are compliance moats. And just because some regulations are vigorously applied to small companies while leaving larger firms unscathed, it doesn't follow that the regulation in question is a compliance moat.

A harder look at what happened with the GDPR reveals a completely different dynamic at work. The reason the GDPR vaporized small surveillance companies and left the big companies untouched had nothing to do with compliance costs. The Big Tech companies don't comply with the GDPR – they just get away with violating the GDPR.

How do they get away with it? They fly Irish flags of convenience. Decades ago, Ireland started dabbling with offering tax-havens to the wealthy and mobile – they invented the duty-free store:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty-free_shop#1947%E2%80%931990:_duty_free_establishment

Capturing pennies from the wealthy by helping them avoid fortunes they owed in taxes elsewhere was terribly seductive. In the years that followed, Ireland began aggressively courting the wealthy on an industrial scale, offering corporations the chance to duck their obligations to their host countries by flying an Irish flag of convenience.

There are other countries who've tried this gambit – the "treasure islands" of the Caribbean, the English channel, and elsewhere – but Ireland is part of the EU. In the global competition to help the rich to get richer, Ireland had a killer advantage: access to the EU, the common market, and 500m affluent potential customers. The Caymans can hide your money for you, and there's a few super-luxe stores and art-galleries in George Town where you can spend it, but it's no Champs Elysees or Ku-Damm.

But when you're competing with other countries for the pennies of trillion-dollar tax-dodgers, any wins can be turned into a loss in an instant. After all, any corporation that is footloose enough to establish a Potemkin Headquarters in Dublin and fly the trídhathach can easily up sticks and open another Big Store HQ in some other haven that offers it a sweeter deal.

This has created a global race to the bottom among tax-havens to also serve as regulatory havens – and there's a made-in-the-EU version that sees Ireland, Malta, Cyprus and sometimes the Netherlands competing to see who can offer the most impunity for the worst crimes to the most awful corporations in the world.

And that's why Google and Facebook haven't been extinguished by the GDPR while their rivals were. It's not compliance moats – it's impunity. Once a corporation attains a certain scale, it has the excess capital to spend on phony relocations that let it hop from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, chasing the loosest slots on the strip. Ireland is a made town, where the cops are all on the take, and two thirds of the data commissioner's rulings are eventually overturned by the federal court:

https://www.iccl.ie/digital-data/iccl-2023-gdpr-report/

This is a problem among many federations, not just the EU. The US has its onshore-offshore tax- and regulation-havens (Delaware, South Dakota, Texas, etc), and so does Canada (Alberta), and some Swiss cantons are, frankly, batshit:

https://lenews.ch/2017/11/25/swiss-fact-some-swiss-women-had-to-wait-until-1991-to-vote/

None of this is to condemn federations outright. Federations are (potentially) good! But federalism has a vulnerability: the autonomy of the federated states means that they can be played against each other by national or transnational entities, like corporations. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to regulate powerful entities within a federation – but it means that federal regulation needs to account for the risk of jurisdiction-shopping.

Enter the Digital Markets Act, a new Big Tech specific law that, among other things, bans monopoly app stores and payment processing, through which companies like Apple and Google have levied a 30% tax on the entire app market, while arrogating to themselves the right to decide which software their customers may run on their own devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

Apple has responded to this regulation with a gesture of contempt so naked and broad that it beggars belief. As Proton describes, Apple's DMA plan is the very definition of malicious compliance:

https://proton.me/blog/apple-dma-compliance-plan-trap

Recall that the DMA is intended to curtail monopoly software distribution through app stores and mobile platforms' insistence on using their payment processors, whose fees are sky-high. The law is intended to extinguish developer agreements that ban software creators from informing customers that they can get a better deal by initiating payments elsewhere, or by getting a service through the web instead of via an app.

In response, Apple, has instituted a junk fee it calls the "Core Technology Fee": EUR0.50/install for every installation over 1m. As Proton writes, as apps grow more popular, using third-party payment systems will grow less attractive. Apple has offered discounts on its eye-watering payment processing fees to a mere 20% for the first payment and 13% for renewals. Compare this with the normal – and far, far too high – payment processing fees the rest of the industry charges, which run 2-5%. On top of all this, Apple has lied about these new discounted rates, hiding a 3% "processing" fee in its headline figures.

As Proton explains, paying 17% fees and EUR0.50 for each subscriber's renewal makes most software businesses into money-losers. The only way to keep them afloat is to use Apple's old, default payment system. That choice is made more attractive by Apple's inclusion of a "scare screen" that warns you that demons will rend your soul for all eternity if you try to use an alternative payment scheme.

Apple defends this scare screen by saying that it will protect users from the intrinsic unreliability of third-party processors, but as Proton points out, there are plenty of giant corporations who get to use their own payment processors with their iOS apps, because Apple decided they were too big to fuck with. Somehow, Apple can let its customers spend money Uber, McDonald's, Airbnb, Doordash and Amazon without terrorizing them about existential security risks – but not mom-and-pop software vendors or publishers who don't want to hand 30% of their income over to a three-trillion-dollar company.

Apple has also reserved the right to cancel any alternative app store and nuke it from Apple customers' devices without warning, reason or liability. Those app stores also have to post a one-million euro line of credit in order to be considered for iOS. Given these terms, it's obvious that no one is going to offer a third-party app store for iOS and if they did, no one would list their apps in it.

The fuckery goes on and on. If an app developer opts into third-party payments, they can't use Apple's payment processing too – so any users who are scared off by the scare screen have no way to pay the app's creators. And once an app creator opts into third party payments, they can never go back – the decision is permanent.

Apple also reserves the right to change all of these policies later, for the worse ("I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further" -D. Vader). They have warned developers that they might change the API for reporting external sales and revoke developers' right to use alternative app stores at its discretion, with no penalties if that screws the developer.

Apple's contempt extends beyond app marketplaces. The DMA also obliges Apple to open its platform to third party browsers and browser engines. Every browser on iOS is actually just Safari wrapped in a cosmetic skin, because Apple bans third-party browser-engines:

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

But, as Mozilla puts it, Apple's plan for this is "as painful as possible":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24052067/mozilla-apple-ios-browser-rules-firefox

For one thing, Apple will only allow European customers to run alternative browser engines. That means that Firefox will have to "build and maintain two separate browser implementations — a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear."

(One wonders how Apple will treat Americans living in the EU, whose Apple accounts still have US billing addresses – these people will still be entitled to the browser choice that Apple is grudgingly extending to Europeans.)

All of this sends a strong signal that Apple is planning to run the same playbook with the DMA that Google and Facebook used on the GDPR: ignore the law, use lawyerly bullshit to chaff regulators, and hope that European federalism has sufficiently deep cracks that it can hide in them when the enforcers come to call.

But Apple is about to get a nasty shock. For one thing, the DMA allows wronged parties to start their search for justice in the European federal court system – bypassing the Irish regulators and courts. For another, there is a global movement to check corporate power, and because the tech companies do the same kinds of fuckery in every territory, regulators are able to collaborate across borders to take them down.

Take Apple's app store monopoly. The best reference on this is the report published by the UK Competition and Markets Authority's Digital Markets Unit:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

The devastating case that the DMU report was key to crafting the DMA – but it also inspired a US law aimed at forcing app markets open:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2710

And a Japanese enforcement action:

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

And action in South Korea:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/skorea-considers-505-mln-fine-against-google-apple-over-app-market-practices-2023-10-06/

These enforcers gather for annual meetings – I spoke at one in London, convened by the Competition and Markets Authority – where they compare notes, form coalitions, and plan strategy:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cma-data-technology-and-analytics-conference-2022-registration-308678625077

This is where the savvying breaks down. Yes, Apple is big enough to run circles around Japan, or South Korea, or the UK. But when those countries join forces with the EU, the USA and other countries that are fed up to the eyeballs with Apple's bullshit, the company is in serious danger.

It's true that Apple has convinced a bunch of its customers that buying a phone from a multi-trillion-dollar corporation makes you a member of an oppressed religious minority:

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

Some of those self-avowed members of the "Cult of Mac" are willing to take the company's pronouncements at face value and will dutifully repeat Apple's claims to be "protecting" its customers. But even that credulity has its breaking point – Apple can only poison the well so many times before people stop drinking from it. Remember when the company announced a miraculous reversal to its war on right to repair, later revealed to be a bald-faced lie?

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

Or when Apple claimed to be protecting phone users' privacy, which was also a lie?

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

The savvy will see Apple lying (again) and say, "this surprises you?" No, it doesn't surprise me, but it pisses me off – and I'm not the only one, and Apple's insulting lies are getting less effective by the day.

Image: Alex Popovkin, Bahia, Brazil from Brazil (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annelid_worm,_Atlantic_forest,_northern_littoral_of_Bahia,_Brazil_%2816107326533%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Hubertl (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2015-03-04_Elstar_%28apple%29_starting_putrefying_IMG_9761_bis_9772.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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afeelgoodblog · 11 months ago

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The Best News of Last Week - January 15, 2024

🎊 - As we embark on another journey around the sun, I am thrilled to bring you the first newsletter of the year, packed with inspiring, informative, and sometimes downright amusing stories.

1. Marijuana meets criteria for reclassification as lower-risk drug

Marijuana has a lower potential for abuse than other drugs that are subjected to the same restrictions, with scientific support for its use as a medical treatment, researchers from the US Food and Drug Administration say in documents supporting its reclassification as a Schedule III substance.

2. South Korea passes law banning dog meat trade

The slaughter and sale of dogs for their meat is to become illegal in South Korea after MPs backed a new law. The legislation, set to come into force by 2027, aims to end the centuries-old practice of humans eating dog meat.

3. After 20 years in a tiny cage, these 'broken bears' are finally feeling the grass beneath their paws

These bears, termed "broken bears" due to physical and psychological trauma from years of abuse, are treated at the Tam Dao rescue center with individually tailored diets, physiotherapy, and medical care. The bear bile trade, which involves extracting bile for traditional Asian medicine, has been illegal in Vietnam since 2005, but a black market still exists.

4. France just got its first openly gay prime minister.

Gabriel Attal is France’s youngest-ever prime minister at age 34 and the first who is openly gay.

5. Australian ‘builders without borders’ repairing war-torn homes and schools in Ukraine

Manfred Hin, a 66-year-old builder from Townsville, Australia, spent most of 2023 volunteering in Ukraine to rebuild homes and schools damaged by Russian attacks. Having contributed to over 50 house and a dozen school renovations, he worked with Ukrainian charity Brave to Rebuild, mentoring young volunteers and sourcing three tonnes of donated tools.

Inspired by Hin's story, Tasmanian carpenter Hamish Stirling also joined the efforts, learning Ukrainian, traveling to Europe, and volunteering for three months to help rebuild homes.

6. The age-standardized death rate from cancer has declined by 15% since 1990

The age-standardized death rate from cancer declined by 15%

Cancer kills mostly older people – as the death rate by age shows, of those who are 70 years and older, 1% die from cancer every year. For people who are younger than 50, the cancer death rate is more than 40-times lower (more detail here).

7. Germany Reached 55% Renewable Energy in 2023

In 2023, 55 percent of Germany’s power came from renewables — an increase of 6.6 percent, according to energy regulator Bundesnetzagentur, reported Reuters. Europe’s biggest national economy has a goal of 80 percent green energy by 2030.

---

That's it for this week :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to reblog this post with your friends.

#best news of last week

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niqhtlord01 · 8 months ago

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Humans are weird: Poop Crystals

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

The pace in which human technology progressed over the millennia was rather standard for a class 4 species. Even when accounting the periods of scientific degradation which resulted from natural plagues or religious persecution; it was expected that humans would not achieve advanced space travel until another 2-3 thousand years had passed.

Scientifically speaking human scientists were well more advanced than the society they lived in, but due to the technological limitations of the human race they were held back from implementing their designs. A primary limitation was the lack of a sufficiently powerful power source. They did have many different forms of power generators ranging from solar to nuclear, but to power larger machines often required equally large energy sources. To power their ships alone around a third of their vessels were dedicated to the power cores.

With these restrictions in place travel between stars for humans often relied on decade long journeys in cryo sleep; which ironically required even more power generators to maintain. Their large size made them easy targets for natural disasters such as space debris or prowling space pirates seeking an easy profit margin at the slave markets. These dangers became a standard for human travel until the Terran civilization encountered the planet Nolla 987 and the species that called it home.

During a long duration colonization trip the human ship “Midas” was struck by the trail debris of a rogue comet and knocked off course. The robotic caretakers tried their best to maintain the course, but with the damage done to the ship their primary programming to maintain the lives of the crew kicked in and diverted the ship to the nearest habitable planet for debarkation. Nolla 987 was the closest planet with a stable atmosphere. Originally charted several years earlier but deemed unsuitable for colonization or industrial expansion, it was not ear marked for either and left alone; until the Midas incident that is.

The landing was not a smooth one. Several engines had been damaged and multiple hull breaches resulted in portions of the ship being shredded away during the entry process. It would be safer to say that the Midas crash landed during the final stretch of the maneuver, but with a 73% survival rate of the crew a rather acceptable crash landing.

One by one the crew and colonists were unfrozen to find the ship a burning wreck and only a handful of robotic assistants still functioning. The industrial printing machines were relatively undamaged but without the ships power core they could not be used to print components or tools needed to make the necessary repairs. The crew was then forced to ration its remaining power supply and divided into two teams. The first team would comb through the wreckage and salvage what they could of the wreck while also building shelter. The second group would scout the surrounding area for anything of use and then report back.

It did not take long for the second team to stumble upon a nest of the dominant species of the planet. An insectoid called the “Sectar” which ranged from the size of a house cat to as large as a two story building. These insects digested their food and excreted the waste into a dense crystalian substance that they then used to build massive hive like complexes.

The occupants of the hive had been driven from the hive by the crash landing of the Midas leaving it almost completely empty save for a few eggs and new hatchlings who were not strong enough to flee on their own. Several of the second team members had been scanning the crystal structures while interacting with the newborn Sectar’s. To quote a journal entry of one of them, “They were like insect golden retrievers. Extremely derpy with at least four times as many sets of eyes. They followed us around on their legs like we were their mothers and clung to our legs when we began to return to our ship for the night.”

At least one of the second team was confirmed to have brought a hatchling back to their camp. There was a debate amongst the survivors on if they should try and eat it, but the notion was quickly squashed as they still had food reserves and no one was brave enough to see how the alien’s bio matter would react inside the human digestive system.

The same human who had brought the hatchling back offered it a portion of food which it eagerly ate. Not long after the hatchling excreted a hardened crystal roughly the size of a thimble. When the human made to pick up the seemingly beautiful gem they recoiled as an electrical discharge shocked their hand. This immediately drew the attention of the rest of the crew who began carefully examining the crystal substance. After some rather rough jury-rigging, the crystal was wired into one of the printer machines and to the surprise of everyone powered the machine. The crew quickly learned that the older Sectar’s would produce larger crystal excrements but were extremely hostile and territorial. Smaller Sectar’s were deemed more desirable for the time being as they were easier to train and harvest crystals from.

Within a matter of days the crew had not only collected enough crystals to power all of their machines and send out a distress signal, but also used the new found crystal power to create a full settlement on the planet complete with water filtration, crop fields, and a sizeable wall to keep out the native wildlife.

It would not be for another thirty years before a passing human shipped picked up their distress signal and went to investigate the planet. When they arrived on Nolla 987 they were astonished to find a fully functioning colony complete with limited orbital facilities. Nearly every human settler and their descendants had a Sectar in their household that they would take care of and feed and in exchange use their crystal excrement to power nearly everything they needed to live.

From there it was only a matter of time before the entirety of human space was aware of the events of Nolla 987 and the Sectar species. Within the decade the colony on Nolla 987 became the capital for a fully settled world with dozens of cities and communities. The Sectar species were transported throughout human space and began being implemented in all aspects of society.

There was initial resistance to the new power source by existing power blocks which realized Sectar power would be far more efficient than nuclear powered engines, but unlike other power sources they had squashed in development the Sectar power option had thirty years of trial and error to back it up with research as well as a fully functioning model with the planet of Nolla 987.

Sectar’s became a common sight on every human planet and were treated like common pets. It was even studied that when introduced to different food sources the energy output of crystal excrement could be increased resulting in certain food industries booming overnight. The composition of spices, cooking technique, and flavoring became an entirely new and highly prestigious academic field with the most successful of its practitioners being highly sought after by companies.

The technological capabilities of humanity experienced a massive surge in advancement within fifty years to the point humans no longer needed cryo ships to travel between stars. Those who had been studying humanity found themselves now being introduced to them as humans winded up on their doorstep with a Sectar on their shoulder and a perverse obsession with collecting its bodily waste.

#humans are insane #humans are weird #humans are space oddities #humans are space orcs #scifi #story #writing #original writing #niqhtlord01 #funny

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cathkaesque · 1 year ago

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Statement on Israel’s Use of Starvation as a Weapon of War in Gaza by the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Palestine

For five days, Israel has attacked Gaza with the aim of total destruction, and the situation is at an unprecedented level of urgency. Israel’s actions have amounted to a humanitarian catastrophe of unfathomable proportions. At the time of publication, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reports 1,055 martyrs and approximately 5,184 injured.

Israel has declared a total warfare stance on Gaza, imposing a ruthless blockade that denies over two million Palestinian residents of Gaza access to electricity, water, food, fuel, medical supplies, and any humanitarian aid. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant explicitly stated this strategy on 9 October 2023, saying: “We are imposing a complete siege on [Gaza]. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”

Israel’s deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war demands the international community immediately respond with unwavering urgency and resolve.

Israel is indiscriminately decimating hospitals, schools, mosques, markets, and entire neighborhoods. Further, Israel threatened Egypt that it would bomb humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, prompting Egypt to withdraw its aid convoys. The Rafah Crossing into Egypt, the sole international exit from Gaza, has been bombed by Israel three times in a 24-hour period. This calculated assault severs Gazans’ only means of escape from ceaseless bombings or access to essential humanitarian aid. With Israel cutting off Gaza’s source of electricity, the only source of power was the Gaza Power Plant, which has just run out of fuel. In the case that it receives more fuel, Israel has threatened to attack the plant.

Israel’s assault is deliberately destroying any infrastructure that allows Gazans to support themselves. Vital agricultural and fishing infrastructure, crucial for food production, have been mercilessly attacked. Fisher folk cannot access the sea, into which sewage is spilling. The seaport is damaged, and tools are obliterated. Farming areas, often near the fence, have become vulnerable targets in Israeli airstrikes, and farmers whose land has not been destroyed cannot access it for daily agricultural practices. The Ministry of Agriculture reports that the bombing has done immense damage to agricultural areas and poultry farms, but the conditions make it impossible to precisely assess the situation in the field. There is a catastrophic decrease in food stocks, with shops across Gaza reporting severe shortages. The land and sea will face unimaginable environmental damages following these attacks, further preventing efforts to rebuild livelihoods.

Israel’s strategy aims to ensure that those who survive the bombs are condemned to a future without sustenance.

OCHA reports that the assaults have disrupted the UNRWA food operation, impacting at least 112,759 families. The poultry and livestock sectors are on the brink of collapse due to the severe shortage of fodder, endangering the livelihoods of more than 1,000 herders and affecting over 10,000 producers. This jeopardizes the provision of animal protein and the availability of meat and fresh sources of protein for Gaza’s entire population. Transportation of poultry to markets has virtually halted, and dairy cattle milk cannot be refrigerated nor marketed to factories, resulting in an expected daily spoilage of 35,000 liters of milk. More than 4,000 fisheries are at risk due to the closure of the sea. Gaza’s agriculture, poultry, cattle, fish, and other products are suffering from a lack of refrigeration, irrigation, incubation, and other machinery due to electricity cuts, causing spoilage.

Israel’s use of these tactics is not new by any means. Before Saturday, around 65% of the Gazan population was food insecure. More than 46% of the agricultural land in Gaza was inaccessible, and the fishing industry was severely struggling since fishing off the coast of Gaza has been restricted by Israel to 3 to 6 nautical miles.

Food insecurity is a human-made crisis, and Israel is manufacturing a mass starvation of the Gazan people.

It is the moral and legal obligation of the international community to intervene and end this crisis immediately. Food, as a basic necessity, must be allowed to reach the people of Gaza, and the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure must cease without delay.

We call upon the international community to take immediate action to stop Israel’s massacre of the Gazan population, demand the lifting of the siege, and establish humanitarian corridors for entry of aid.

#palestine #la via campesina

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amuseoffyre · 5 months ago

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Today I ended up reading about the historical punishments meted out by the church in Scotland. I can safely say that the modus operandi of the Kirk of Scotland was to control and manage their people with shame and humiliation as the primary tools.

The Kirk sessions were a collection of elders in the church (always men, because lol, what else is new) in each parish who would hold court and pass judgement on the actions of their parishioners. Parishioners were encouraged to report each other for anything from "swore on the Sabbath" to "got married in another church without paying all the fees for the Banns!" to pre-marital sex and adultery.

Punishment varied from parish to parish, but universally, it was about shaming the people into not doing it again (and demanding a fine, if they could afford it).

The big hitters for the punishments were:

Sackcloth/bare feet the people in question were made to attend the church and stand either inside, in front of everyone, or outside the door in sackcloth and/or or bare-foot/bare-legged. They would be made to stand for hours, sometimes for days at a time, no matter the weather. Sometimes people protested about doing it in winter and were told if they stopped, they would have to restart the count all over again and do it all again.

The Stool of Repentance Does what it says on the tin - it was a stool/bench in a very visible place in the church, usually on a raised area, where people would be made to sit for a specific number of services, until they were deemed to be penitent enough. Robert Burns famously ended up on his kirk's multiple times. Between the drinking, the illegitimate kids all over and the serial adultery, he should have put his name on it.

The Mercat Cross This is very similar to the Repentance Stool (and ties into the next thing on the list), where there was a raised platform at the market cross in the centre of the town square. People were made to stand there, sometimes in pillories or jougs (more on this in a minute), to be lambasted by the community.

Jougs I have no idea if these were ever used anywhere else in the world for church punishments, but the jougs were brutal: a heavy iron collar shackle that was fastened around the culprit's neck, and they were forced to stand, wearing it, for set periods of time. They were mostly in churches, but occasionally found at places like the Mercat crosses, and every the time, they were chained to the wall. The one below is from Duddingston Kirk, in Edinburgh and is visible by the church gate.

Urban legend is that they stopped being used after an elderly woman was put into the jougs as a punishment, but she was too short, so they stacked some turf for her to stand on and went off to do their Good Christian Duties. When they came back, the turf had slipped away and the woman had hanged in the collar.

Needless to say the church had a powerful stranglehold on the community with people dragged in for punishments like this for something as simple as gossiping or swearing.

#history #history geek #scotland #scottish history

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spotaus · 2 days ago

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Shout-out to me rotating my goofy ahh New Age ideas in my head to no avail.

Ofc having said that, I'm still going to make a random little ramble post while I'm on the subject.

Right about now seems a banger time to flesh out Horror a bit and add more actual context to why he's even here, because it was like... beginning of everything the first time I mentioned him-

So, Horror. The basics are that he was initially brought back to the castle so he could teach Nightmare more about agricultural techniques from outside the kingdom. Horror's family in particular has very old traditions, and he had cousins and family friends move into the kingdom when they heard the crown had been passed on (times of turmoil leave for open land, usually). While Horror was staying at the castle, there was some sort of moment that led Nightmare to ask Horror to stick around and pick up training as a Knight.

Now, to dissect it a bit. When Dust is freed from his sentences in the dungeon, he's tasked by Nightmare to help him dismantle all the crime rings he knew of. Dust agrees (what's left to lose?) but quickly realizes that Night has no idea why they sprung up and what good they do for his people. So, Dust boldly informs him. Which leads Nightmare to put together the dots that... yeah, no, crops were meant to have weather, got by barely with altered methods for centuries, and now all the crops of the season were ruined. So, he obviously needs to start working on the whole Food Dillman before he can take down the black market for good, lest his people starve.

So, he decides he'll send out a few of his guard on a search. Find any farmers who know how to grow crops traditionally, foreigners, the poor, people who are deeply familiar, and report back to him. And, he gets several, but the most promising lead is a report of a monster colony at the edge of the kingdom. Their matriarch was selling perfectly good, ripe, crops at market for cheap. So, of course, Nightmare sends a messenger ahead of him before packing up Himself, Killer, and Dust (he does NOT trust Dust to be alone at the castle with Ccino and his other, mostly-loyal, followers. So he decides to babysit him.) and trekking out to the kingdom's edge discreetly to talk with these people.

When they arrive, it really is more like a colony. The monsters living in older buildings repaired with unfamiliar methods, farm tools discarded in favor of more natural-seeming ones, etc. But, it was obvious these people were managing alright. Not huge swaths of land, but enough to survive and sell a bit extra. As far as Night can tell, at least.

What it is, is that Horror's specific branch of his family had been struggling to make ends meet since he was young. They couldn't grow crops in their traditional way, the weather was harsh and the market expensive. It wasn't until the power shift when his extended family arrived and helped to revive bits of their field. Horror and his immediate family are very much still afraid it will get to drought territory again, and they'll need to start from step one.

Nightmare, after arriving, is greeted hesitantly. He's a bit paranoid, but overall he seems more focused on keeping an eye on Dust than acting hostile to any of the people. Killer and Dust unnerve them a lot, and Horror's mother and father are hesitant to speak up in any way to the new king. Being close to the border, they had the pleasures of hearing only the worst of the rumors.

I like to think that Nightmare tries to speak and ask for advice, but most everyone is too afraid of screwing up and getting themselves thrown out or killed. Horror is the one who comes back from chopping firewood, axe in-hand (and still pretty scrawny at this point, even though he towers). He stands in the doorway (fearlessly btw???) and hears Night out as well, before asking why he wants to know their crop techniques. Nightmare explains that he wants to be able to teach the farming communities to thrive in these new conditions. Horror shoots back that there's no point in teaching them new ways if the droughts would just turn back. Then Night explains the magic which had held back the storms for so many centuries. That he intended to never cast those rituals again, but that his good intentions left the kingdom floundering for support.

Horror, at that point, looks back to his mom and asks her a question in another language, before she seems more serious than nervous. They talk back and forth for a few minutes, before Horror nods and says that they'll talk to the others, but at the least hid mother wants to help. (Turns out, Nightmare completely missed a language barrier, so there was a huge misunderstanding for a good chunk if tine until Horror (fluent in both languages thanks to scrounging in the nearby town and learning quickly) shows from his chores.

After that point Horror's family welcomes them and makes dinner, and it's a huge communal situation that Nightmare (and Killer + Dust) are really flustered by tbh. Kids in the community hear their auntie call Nightmare and the other two friends, and they start convincing eachother to run up and tap his tendrils as they flick around nervously. The others who know some of Night's language talk to them quickly about what it's like in their homelands. It's a shockingly quick turn-around, but Nightmare's brought no hostility this whole trip, so they don't let the rumors persist. (Horror suggests to some of them to back off a bit a few tines when Nightmare seems antsy, but Killer is happy to entertain with stories of his missions (which unironically boost morale as Horror translates) and Dust is still in his sleepy era and no one minds when he slumps forwards and puts his head in his arms to nap. It's just a very kind little community.

That night, Horror, his mother, and a few of the other older women take Nightmare aside to tell him about the basics of their techniques. But... to really understand, he should see the whole process. Nightmare expresses that he simply doesn't have the time to stay (Ccino was alone... basically running everything in his wake.). And they cone to a standstill for a while, trying to think of a solution, but Night already knows. He needs someone to come back with him, give him lessons on how it all works. Every detail. Then he can summon prospective farmers to the capital to teach them new methods, reward them for cooperation, get the word spread and show that it works. Without bringing attention to the little paradise these people had built themselves.

It's after some more talking in their language, that Horror offers to go. He's heard the traditions his whole life. He could help. Plus, he could speak their language

After checking all bases (would his family be okay without him? What would they like in return? How often would he want to come back? He knows it's a long-term role, right? Horror agrees to all of the terms) they set out.

Horror can tell Nightmare has a good intention. If he didn't, Horror would've see him. Nightnare would've seemed disgusted ag his little cousins, or refused their meal (though he *did* silently have Killer take a chomp at it in test first), or, most damnibgly, Horror would've returned to Dust and flames. He'd heard of the old king. This one, though frustrated with his family, had mostly just looked distressed and tired at not recieving answers. He didn't order his men to attack, and his men seemed content (although the little guy *did* have a couple shackles (?) on from what Horror could tell). He wanted to help, and his little brother was big enough to pick up the slack he'd be leaving behind anyhow. (His family made him stop doing as much labor after his skull injury, since it still pained him on occasion, so there wasn't much he did nowadays anyways aside going to market for shopping + the occasional axe-work.)

This leads to him comfortably returning with Nightmare to the capital to start teaching him agriculture that can sustain the weather! (Also establishing that they need seeds from outside the kingdom for heartier crops because these ones are all dry and sad-). Horror is the reason there's a thriving little garden in the courtyard, and also the reason the servants treat it like a community garden later on! But at the start it's just Night and Horror figuring things out, while he has Killer and Dust back out dismantling the market.

When he feels more confident in his knowledge (and has seen Horror work wonders) Nightmare finally reaches out to those other candidates his guard had brought up. Those with partially surviving crops, who seemed willing to work to improve and revise after the storms. (Among them is Crop, yes this is where he and Horror first meet.) And he basically hosts a little banquet where he explains his hopes, offers compensation in-case the work were to go wrong and disrupt the land, and asks who'd like to participate. Everyone present says they would (I mean, their livihood went down the drain, they want it back!) And Nightmare has Horror explain what he knows, Nightmare is mainly just there to support him as a credible source of belief.

Skip some time, Nightmare and Horror often check in on the farms, and they seem to be doing well and spreading the word. By now Dust is free of his bands and started Knight training not too long ago. Horror, one day, boldly asks to join them. He expresses to Nightmare that he wants to be able to do his job more efficiently, and believes that it slows work down for Nightmare to have to babysit him. Killer goes off on missions, and he'd like to do the same for his peaceful check-ins. Along with that, he also has an insecurity that he might be broken beyond repair after his wound and starvation, so he wants to grow strong again. Not be just brittle bones.

Night, after careful thought, agrees. Horror has his head on straight and understands the full implications of the training. He would be prepared for knighthood. Horror insists that he appreciates Nightmare's goals and he's an improvement from the old King. A much, much, needed improvement. Night has to learn to prepare more physical training, but he decides that the best choice for that might just be to have Captain Rogers get Horror through the basics (under Nightmare's watch, of course). That way he can get a sense of Horror's strengths and weaknesses as they develop. But Horror is a quick learner, and once he gains enough mass back, Nightmare places Killer in charge of both new knight recruits and carefully supervises their training. Horror fits in no problem <3

#new age au

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electronalytics · 1 year ago

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yeyinde · 2 years ago

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"Don't trust me?" "I don't even know you—" His hand lifts, metal fingers spreading lazily as he holds his palm in front of you. A peace offering. The sight of it makes you scoff. "Fair. For what it's worth, I don't trust you much, either, but—" another inhale of his cigar. His voice is pinched when he speaks, his breath ghosting white with the smoke congealing in his lungs. "We have to make do with what we have, don't we, love?"

》 WARNINGS: allusions to political corruption, mild horror (maybe??), mentions of death and murder; more banter in a pub; Price has a past

》 WORD COUNT: 8K

》 NOTES: This was originally much longer but the second part delves heavily into the mechanics of the world (we FINALLY see MC—I'm not good at creative nicknames—go into the underground/black market and it is like, a Thing!!!!) and it felt like a bit of an overload with soooo much being revealed at once. So, I split them up. More Reader x Price in a pub. Bantering. Because, ummm, I’m so goddamn creative, lads.

SERIES MASTERLIST | PREVIOUS : NEXT

Makarov's outburst clots in the fibrils of your still reeling mind, replaying in an incessant loop that keeps you up into the early morning hours, unable to sleep.

Each time you close your eyes, you see the unavoidable truth in blood looming before you. Inner Circle. Inescapable.

All this time, you'd been under some false assumption that Makarov was the sole lender to whatever medical intervention was needed to bring you back from the clutch of death. It would make things easier.

People die every day.

It was the macabre ideal you clung to, digging into the notion until your nails cracked and bled. The only constant in your life that brought some semblance of hope.

After all, the dead can't collect any debts.

But a corporate entity can.

You're pulled out of your reverie when the sound of a news alert fills the silence of your penthouse. The screen flickers to life at the apex of dawn, just when the indigo sky above splits into a varicoloured smear of pastel pink, ochre, and lavender. The looming horizon—sun a hazy flaxen—swallows the tenebrous that gnaws on the skyscape outside of your window.

The vacuum fills the familiar jingle of your normal routine. A man sits behind a podium. The chyron below warns of a biblical rainstorm approaching, enough—

"—to wash the whole city away," the newscaster jokes as he jogs the stack of papers in front of him. A bead of sweat catches in the flushed light of the newsroom. The implants on his cheekbones flash; the chromatophore upgrade in his sleek skin shifting in a kaleidoscope of colour. "It comes at a good time, though, as reports of sickness are spreading through the medical bays. It must be flu season—," he titters before shifting his attention over to a man on the other half of the screen.

He wears a black poncho and a wide grin.

"A flu?" He echoes, the words swallowed by the passersby in the city square. The jumbotrons in the back bath him in a hazy, neon smear. "In this economy?"

They chatter in the background about a sickness spreading through the city, the storm looming closer, Atlas Corporation putting in a series of patents for some big, technological feat of engineering—Four Horseman has some steep competition this year! Atlas is the up-and-coming tech company that has new, innovative ideas and a focus on the environment!

It's the only mention of Four Horsemen Corp.

It doesn't surprise you.

Money is a powerful tool. Those who weren't already in their back pocket were quickly added, and those who couldn't be paid off were—

Enticed.

Whatever Anatoly—his primary enforcer—couldn't do, an encrypted file deep in Makarov's secured vault filled the gap.

The White Horse is a multifaceted venture. On its surface, a luxury club that caters to a specific clientele. Its exclusivity makes it desirable. People fall over themselves just for the chance to enter. The prestige alone from saying, "I've gotten an invitation," is worth more than money in the circle of the upper echelon. It's elusive. Draped in mystique.

Coveted.

They want to get in so bad, just for the sole purpose of throwing their weight around and saying they've been, that they don't stop and think about the potential dangers that lurk.

After all, a club funded by the Inner Circle and owned by Makarov—the White Horse—could hardly be dangerous.

It's not the club they have to worry about but the man who owns it. The one who has people in high positions of power froth at the mouth for a chance to attend.

It is impossible to convince a man with millions to risk his neck for someone else.

But blackmail does the trick.

From the utter silence of the media regarding this, barring a few fringe sites that are too small to bother with, you'd wager that your hard work was utilised now more than ever before.

"—pull out your umbrellas, because—"

You reach out, pressing the power key. It clicks off. The hologram darkens to sleek black.

Your face stares back at you, shaded in tenebrous. Empty. Vacant. Sometimes, you try to piece together what you might have looked like as a child, but all that surfaces is a void. Nothingness.

It isn't a mental block, but an absence of everything. Anything. A gaping hole.

You think of the missing man—Alex Keller—and something rotten gnarls between empty ribs.

Six days.

Three years.

You wonder if anyone is still looking for you now. If your face is plastered on the communication poles on some distant planet. If the uncanny likeness of you is whispered in a neighbourhood in Al Mazrah where your family mourns. Or if there is now an empty spot at a dinner table that will never be filled.

You doubt it.

Nothing ever appears in the searches. No one ever stops you when you wander down the streets, and belts out an unfamiliar name. The closest you'd come to some sense of recognition was that man. The closest you'd come to thinking finally, finally, someone knew you.

But he didn't. Doesn't.

He isn't combing the shady side of down for you, but for Alex. A missing man who's been gone for six days—long enough for the man to tear through the redlight district and force your hand to aid him in finding out where Alex had gone.

(You wonder if someone fought that hard for you.)

Ugly. Stupid.

No one is looking. Makarov assured you of this when you asked him.

You're a nobody, kitten. A stray. I picked you up off the streets and brought you back. You want your family? Well, all you have is me. Ain't that swell, kitten? What more could something like you ever hope for?

Worthless.

You're caged up like an exotic bird. A toy to be kept on the highest shelf until it's needed.

A pet. A plaything.

But Makarov's reach is everpresent. His eyes are everywhere.

You can run, and run, and run—

You should know better by now. No one touches what belongs to me.

—and he'll always find you.

You have this recurring nightmare that started a year into waking up.

Makarov's idea of avoiding the hassle of you constantly asking questions about the unfamiliar world around you was to just preemptively teach you about it all. In a single session.

Despite the hesitation from the man administering the chip that would flood your mind with knowledge of the world, he pushed for it. And really—who is going to stand up to a man who not only pays their bills, but funds a vast majority of the country?

Against all codes of ethics, you were given the chip.

There is no way of describing the pain of suddenly knowing, but it left a mental scar on your psyche, one that is fundamentally irreparable. A bruise that's always there. A sore spot in your mind as it slowly heals itself from the aftermath of information overload.

But in that knowledge, came the awakening of something else.

Something that the man touched on briefly. Your lack of implants. Cybernetics. The flesh on your body is unblemished by technology, save for a small port where your spine meets your skull. It's always been there. You woke up with it.

It is covered by a layer of tissue meant to keep debris from getting in, and most days you forget about it's existence entirely.

Until, of course, days like these.

When you remember a piece of that overwhelming puzzle that was forced into your head. Artificial intelligence. Androids.

Project Sentience.

It's now considered a cruel, awful experiment conducted by the forefathers who founded the technological epoch that bloomed, by many accounts, out of control and transformed life within a few, short decades.

The project was started with good intentions. They meant to mind the gap between the limits of knowledge and erase the blemish of human error. Where they dreamed up the impossible, the AIs were meant to fill in the missing holes in the theorems and puzzles.

Working, together, for a better future.

But there was an unseen flaw.

The sentience wasn't foolproof. The android working with the engineers thought themselves to be exactly what they were: human.

It was then that project commenced in secrecy. They led the androids to believe they were real, flesh and bone, but when the flawed aspect of the human ego (a byproduct of their tweaked code to mimic the behaviours of humans to seem more passably real) led them to declare themselves the greatest engineers of all time, it was then that human engineers made it known what they were.

It wouldn't be so bad, maybe, if they were just confined to the lab. But they weren't. They were meant to be human, and so—

They led human lives. Love, dislike. Heartbreak. Some had gotten married. Some had lobbied against AI agency.

All had thought they were human.

The ripping of the veil was a nasty one.

Their partners were ostracised. Lives ruined. Their agency was taken away from them in fear of an insurgence from the androids who were now feeling the distinctly human emotion of abject horror.

Everything they knew was culled overnight over something so disgustingly simple as human envy.

It was deemed too cruel to continue. Public outcry made it so that any android made with sentience was told they were artificial, and treated as such.

The lawing of this pulled people in different directions. Subservience. Superiority. Purist.

You think of that experiment, and then of the many markers left behind that give someone an advanced understanding of their anti-humanism. The first, naturally, being a lack of noticeable enhancements. Why would something made to be perfect need an upgrade or an implant when they can just be designed with that specific feature?

The second is a sudden awakening into cognisance.

An emptiness. Nothing. And then—

They're awake.

You think of that as you stare at yourself in the mirror, but it passes just as quickly as it came. Your attention was stolen away by flickering light overhead.

They warned of an oncoming storm, didn't they?

It draws your eye, and you watch the light recede in small bursts as it struggles through the power surge of the grid. It's a common sight. Static in the air. The taste of rain.

You've always been more attuned to the change in the weather, almost as if you could feel the building of kinetic energy buzzing across your flesh.

From the prickling goosebumps ghosting over your skin, you know it'll be a bad one. Biblical, they said.

You turn back, mind blank, sluggish. It's weird. All of this is—

The face in the mirror is not your own.

Well. No. No, it is. It's—

You.

But—

Your flesh drips. Raindrops of flesh slide down your cheeks, dripping into the porcelain basin of the sink where it hits the ceramic with a sickening splat.

(Pat, pat, pat—)

It doesn't hurt. You don't feel anything. Nothing, nothing at all—

And you should, shouldn't you? Agony over the slippage of skin falling off of your face in wet flakes until the smooth curve of metal is shown—

Metal.

Your chin dips. A mass breaks away, the ruination of Pangea, and falls into the basin with the rest until sleek gunmetal remains. Wires crossed, connected. You feel—

Nothing. You feel absolutely nothing.

Where terror should brim, you're empty. A vacuum.

(Made in his image.)

You force yourself to reel back, to fling away from the thing staring at you—the thing that can't be you, can't be, can't be, can't be—until you trip. Until you fall to the ground with a thud that you can only hear but not feel.

You know you're sitting down on the solid ground because you can feel the physical weight of gravity pushing against you, and meeting a barrier in the middle. Something stops it from sending you down, down, down.

The floor. Your fingers dig into the marble. The whine of metal across flat, recrystallised limestone meet your ears, but the breaking of your nails causes you no pain. No blood, either. Nothing. The uncapped tips of your carbon fingers leave scratches on the polished surface.

He'll kill you, you think, mechanical and distant. You ruined his floor.

It doesn't hit you the way it should. It doesn't do much of anything.

It feels like you're floating. Suspended. You can't feel the ground, or the floor, or the wall against your back. All that filters in is the knowledge that you are on a stable foundation, and not caught in a free fall.

You catch sight of yourself in the brass handle of the door.

A metal face stares back at you.

You open your mouth to scream but nothing comes out.

A blink back into wakefulness, and you're in your bed. The mattress is soft beneath your feverish body, the sheets saturated in your sweat. They cling to your skin, trapping you. You feel the weight of gravity. The solid frame of the bed keeps you up.

Your hands fly to your face, nails scratching against your skin.

—Skin. Skin.

It takes hours to calm down, and days to shake the terror of looking into a mirror.

You sit, huddled in your room, and wonder if maybe all the signs were there.

Sometimes you wish that if Makarov had really, truly, made you from scratch, he would have given you solid gold plates for skin, and diamonds for bones, so at least every pound of flesh would be worth something.

(Worthless.

You are—)

Your loyalty to Makarov is a tenuous thread, one frayed and knotted from the inherent sense of ownership he lays on you. An obligation of recompense for saving your life—something you'd never asked of him.

And so, it doesn't really feel like much of a surprise when you pull the rim of your hood low over your brow, tug your mask high up the bridge of your nose, and sneak past your guard for the evening to meet him instead.

The place he picked is known as Industrial City—so aptly named for its abundance of postmodern buildings from somewhere in the mid-to-late twenty-first century. The crumbling ruins of an archaic homage to humanity's progress now sit abandoned in a cluster of rotting steel, cracked concrete, and mouldering asbestos.

It's a haven for small-time gangs, and at one point, was thought to be the hideout of a notorious Purist leader who tried to sever the dependence on technology, and plunge the world back into a natural darkness.

(He got as far as snipping a single wire from the Grid before he was detained for terrorism.)

Bathed in an inky black, and void of the artificial neon smear of lights and LEDs, it looks almost haunting in the indigo gloam. A graveyard of the past.

There's a prevalent feeling of unwelcomeness simmering low in the air around the abandoned buildings, one that grows ever-potent as you wander past it, and down the overgrown path leading to an old warehouse on the opposite side.

Tension thickens the air. You feel it clot in your lungs. An uncanny sensation of being watched. Hunted. Your eyes skirt the row of crumbling industrial buildings, peering into the black voids of the smashed windows. Jagged cuts of glass, opaque from a thick layer of dust, grime, and the inevitable decay passage of time brings, gleam in the pale light of the moon suspended in the aether.

It's dark. Uncannily so.

The only light illuminating your path is the jaundiced glow of the moon and the buoyant flicker of the shuttles docking on the station. An infinitesimal dot against Tycho's vast, grey dip. Barely enough to make a difference in a place that leaks a palpable sense of unwelcomeness from the tenebrous surrounding you.

Something shifts in your periphery. Your eyes dart to a third-story window of a vacant building.

The stark, unfathomable blackness gives nothing away but you still feel the unmistakable sense of something, someone, glaring back into your eyes. Eye contact from the void.

Your gaze drops to the underbrush.

The static in the air grazes your skin. You're being watched. Stalked. Hunted.

In the furze, you make out a depression in the dirt. Oval-shaped. Plain.

It's a footprint.

It rained all morning—a small appetiser to the biblical flood they promised: a looming thundercloud inched closer to the city each day—but the print in the wet ground was undisturbed. Fresh.

Above it, you find another. And another. Another. Until it disappears between a bottleneck of the two buildings.

The path leads you back to the broken window—to the vat of black.

The mini-gyrojet you stole from Yuri a long time ago sits heavy in the waistband of your trousers. Barely the size of your hand, and certainly less potent, but the laser is just as deadly as its parent. Comforting, almost.

Your fingers twitch. You stifle the urge to grab it, and force yourself to turn around. Back to the enemy. Stupid. You know better.

But whatever is looming in the shadows isn't a concern of yours.

(And maybe, maybe, if they did shoot you in the back, you'd know once and for all what your insides were made of.)

Stupid.

Nails bite into the soft skin of your palm leaving a crescent indent against your lifeline. The flash of pain, of discomfort, quells the knot in your stomach, the one that curls tight around your organs, and claws its way up your esophagus. Fear. Anxiety. They pollute inside of you with each step through the industrial mausoleum and toward the dilapidated building in the distance.

An old parking lot sits to your right. The cracked concrete is barely visible under the thick overgrowth that congeals around the space left behind. Nature reclaiming Her land. Against the hazy ochre smear in the distant horizon, slowly being consumed by the vat of indigo that follows swiftly behind it, the tangled vines of emerald green look ethereal in the gloam.

It's a vivid glimpse into the past when this place meant something to the people who ventured here. Office buildings. A parking lot where archaic vehicles using gasoline to run once sat, wheels on the concrete. Feet on the ground. They wandered to the buildings—just another cog in the machine.

You wonder sometimes what they would think if they could see the world today. The broken line between fantasy and reality where slipping a chip into their brain stem could create a gap in time, one that lets them wander through any period of history, any memory inside their head.

They called it virtual reality.

Another plane of existence they hadn't the technology to exploit fully. A digital dimension that lingered between the layered worlds.

Some live inside that realm exclusively, refusing to risk themselves in the physical plane where an errant jet could end their lives.

It's a strange juxtaposition from that to this. Where the graffiti that stains the crumbling ashlar is now considered with reverence to this world as a handprint in a cave was to that one.

A noise echoes through the vacant lot. The sound of a cut-off shout. Your eyes dart to the left, taking in the sight of two men standing outside of a Burger Town, jostling each other over the last jetbike parked in the charging dock.

Inside the restaurant, a man leans against the tinted glass, cigarette in his hand, watching the same tousle as you. Under the flickering neon sign, his lips quirk up in amusement when one of the men loses their balance, tumbling to the pavement.

It's another odd juxtaposition. A rotting graveyard of the past, some buildings salvaged and converted into a strange array of low-brow pubs, and—

Neon lips open, a pink tongue glides over the plump line of red before disappearing into a closed-mouth smile. It repeats.

—a pseudo redlight district for those who can't afford the rent on the main boardwalk.

The graffiti on the wall of the building is faded. The paint peeling, and weathered from the passage of elements. But you can still make out the shape of a yellow dick on the wall.

Bars. Fast-food. Sex. Testosterone.

The world might be different, but the people certainly aren't.

You pull your hood down lower over your brow, and quickly keep moving.

The converted warehouse doesn't have any markings on the outside to identify it as a pub, and you almost miss it until your tracker chimes, indicating your arrival.

Upon first glance, it's just a long, rectangular two-storey building made of chipped burgundy brick and scattered windows, all crusted with grime until it's tinted in a thick, opaque grey.

You check the map again—just once to be sure—and send off a delayed alert with a timer set to go off an hour from now to Yuri.

If you don't turn it off before the time runs out, he'll know where to find you.

(Or whatever is left of you.)

Everything about this, in hindsight, is pretty dangerous. Meeting a man who slings accusations at your saviour, and somehow knows about you, about your debt, in a graveyard that reeks of mildew and wet concrete is something people will hear about in passing, and wish you ill in the afterlife for being so stupid.

But you're here.

The choice has been made—whether or not it's a smart one has yet to be determined.

Military. They have power. Influence. However pantomime it might be in the face of overwhelming wealth, it's still something. You thought they were all corrupted by the Inner Circle's clandestine whispers of affluence—sign here, Colonel, and we can give you armour and weapons beyond anything you'd ever seen before (just look the other way while we sell the antis to your enemies—can't let you get too powerful, after all). It seemed like they were. The parade of men and women who congregated at White Horse, or any of the other subsidiaries around the city, the world, was a testament to that.

But he seems different.

(And really, you've always had a thing for gruff men who'll disappoint you in the end.

The heartbreak always tastes sweeter when they're worth something.)

You glance down at the screen, staring at the timer as if it was your last lifeline, and hope, desperately, that you have.

Your finger lifts. The screen fades to black. The white emblem of Four Horsemen Corp., gazes, almost accusatory, back at you.

(If anything, Makarov will kill you before the man has any chance of breaking your heart.)

Turning back now is forfeiture, weakness.

And you'd rather not walk through the graveyard again.

The door is made of rusted metal, and whines loud enough to echo through the barren landscape when you push it against the hinges. Muted gold leaks through the crack, spilling out onto the dirty pavement below your feet. Light catches on the motes dancing in the beam, and cuts through the murk of the falling night.

Inside, you hear the fading tune of an old song playing out its last chorus. The scrape of a mug being pulled across wood. A low murmur. And nothing else.

The normalcy of everything so far—or as normal as a strange retro pub in the middle of a mouldering neighbourhood could be—goes against the theatrics Makarov likes to pull, and you know from that alone that if this was somehow a trap, it wasn't his design.

Anatoly would be jeering at you from the very top of Makarov's tower, fingers pushing against your shoulders until you were forced further back with each question you didn't answer. All the way to the ledge, where Makarov would intervene—always wanting to play the part of a saviour—and spare you.

Just answer me this, kitten, and I'll put an end to it all.

But the moment you opened your big, stupid mouth and gave him what you wanted, he'd begin monologuing by the sidelines, pacing as he speaks, until—

Well. We can't all be heroes. Sometimes, we need to be knocked down a peg. Anatoly would move closer, oblivious to your pleading demands for leniency, and Makarov would smile, sharp and shark-like, and say, as if it pained him: or a few stories.

And you'd fall. Three hundred floors to your death.

By the time you hit the pavement, you'd be a wet puddle of mush. Unidentifiable. They'd ensure it by removing your identity chip, and anything else that would give the mess of your remains a name.

You've seen it play out enough times to know how it goes. The script might bend to fit the needs of the accused, but the plot was always the same.

Theatrical. Dramatic.

Your fingers curl into fists by your side, and find some solace in the fact that a two-floor drop probably won't kill you.

This is survivable as long as you're useful.

A new mantra is craved in the recesses of your mind. Useful. Useful.

You repeat it to yourself as you pull the door open wider, glancing in the room warily. Hesitant.

Whatever you expected, this wasn't it.

It's normal. Archaic in design.

Lanterns are strung across the rafters crisscrossing the ceiling, bathing the small room in a muted gold. It complements the raw topaz colour of the wooden decor inside—herringbone floors, shiplap-covered walls, dark spruce tables and benches—and something about it all feels almost homey. Comfortable.

The size and cut of it err into intimacy or claustrophobia, and you wonder if that's why he picked it.

On the opposite side of the entrance is a dark hallway. A flickering exit sign glows softly in the gloom. Two darker doorways branch off on either side of the back door. Washrooms. You can vaguely make out the light spilling from the insignia etched into the wood.

It's flush against the rightmost wall where a series of old photographs sit, crookedly, on the panels. The images are too faded, jaundiced from time, for you to make out the shapes, but they all look human. Humanity from a bygone era. You catch sight of an old aeroplane, the vessel barely longer than the height of the man standing in front of the large propellers.

The rest of them are of people standing together near old landmarks that no longer exist.

Metals line the interior of one, kept guarded behind a new protective seal. They shine in the soft glow, and the label beneath reads: chest candy.

These are personal photos. Family heirlooms. Staring at them, struggling to make out the full shapes of the children, the men, and the women, standing around and smiling happily make you feel a touch voyeuristic. Gazing into a tomb not meant for your eyes.

You pull away from the wall, glancing at the one that sections off the washrooms from the main room. It, too, is decorated in photographs, but these ones are less personal. Images of long-gone celebrities. Artistic renditions of landscapes that evolved over the last centuries into something new, something different.

The theme of the wall is aerial. You make out old etchings of aircraft in all sizes. Commemorative pieces. Militaristic in its design.

Three booths sit flush against the wall, all made of dark wood, and each seat empty.

Against the leftmost wall is the bar itself, separated from the seating area by a long, oak countertop with six bar stools pushed up close. A mug sits, half-empty, in front of one. An empty glass in front of the other beside it. An ashtray in the middle of the two seats, filled with cigarette butts. One still burns away, wheedling down to a snubbed point.

The wall is lined with bottles. A tap behind it. At the end is another doorway which must lead to the back area. The sign above says employees only.

Near the only window in the room is where you find a solitary table with three chairs. In the seat facing you, back angled between the cut of the walls, shoulder turned to the bar, is where you find the man. Watching you.

A glass rests in front of him, half-empty. A burning cigar in an ashtray curls wisps of smoke over his face.

The implant in his eye glows sapphire blue, expanding as he reads the information in front of him. The other is darkened under the flushed light, almost black. Gazing right at you.

It's a contrast that makes you shiver.

"Made the right choice then," he says, words low as he lets them fade under the steady cadence of the song playing somewhere in the back of the bar.

It isn't much of a perfunctory greeting, but you take the opening all the same, and make your way toward him.

"That's yet to be determined."

"You're still here."

The wood is warm under your palms when you press them against the grain, shuffling into the bench across from him. Warm, and sticky.

You peel your fingers off, glancing at them warily. "Not much of a choice, though—" your eyes find him, narrowing into slits when he snorts, shaking his head at the disgust in your gaze. "What's so funny?"

He huffs and the blue light flickers out, fading into dark blue. "You," he offers as if it was obvious. The condescension bleeds from his lips when he speaks, and leaks into his clear eyes when you fold your hands into your lap. "Not the kinda place Makarov normally takes you, hmm? Ain't you spoiled."

"Makarov doesn't take me anywhere."

"That so? What? You his dirty little secret?"

Your brow furrows. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothin', love. Nothin' at all."

He's baiting you. The condescending draw of his voice, thick with derision, sets your teeth on edge, and makes the knots in your stomach tighten.

"Look," you start, sticky fists cleaned tight in your lap, irritating the indents in your flesh from earlier. It's enough to ground you. "I didn't come here for games. This is my head on the line, and—"

"Mine, too."

You scoff. "You started this."

"And it's my men who are out there, yeah?"

He leans forward slowly, the wrinkles in his brow deepening under the hazy glow until all you see is darkness cascading over a rucked canyon. Anger pinches at the corner of his eyes, the near snarl of his mouth.

He'd go for the jugular, you think. Sink his teeth into your flesh until a pound is ripped out, reaping his dues.

You wonder if his fury is as animalistic as the teeth he bares in anger, in warning.

"Gettin' injured, killed. Goin' missin'. Fighting a battle your men are waging."

"Makarov isn't waging anything. You don't know much about him, do you? The only thing he cares about is his stocks and his public image. Whatever you think he's doing, or he's behind, I can assure you—he isn't."

"You sound certain. What, hmm? Ain't the kinda pillow talk he likes to indulge in?"

"Pillow talk?" His words make you reel back until you're flushed against the chair, eyes widening. "I think there's a massive misunderstanding here."

He says nothing, merely opting to reach for his forgotten glass of scotch and dwindling cigar.

Pillow talk. "You think me and Makarov are—? No. No! That's—" you fight a shiver of disgust, knuckles digging into your thighs. "No. Makarov wouldn't—it's not like that. He's—"

"He's what?" He implores, resting his elbow on the countertop, cigar dangling dangerously between his lax fingers. The look in his eye is sharp, keen.

"He's my—"

You bite your tongue suddenly, stopping the familiar words from slipping out. It's the response you give when people ask what you are to Makarov—why he keeps you around on such a short leash.

My saviour.

The words have different connotations inside Makarov's sprawling skyline palace. Where his guards simply nod, in understanding, and accept your words as is, because he, too, is theirs as well. A common ground where nothing else needs to be explained as one word covers everything.

You won't find that here. Not with him. And maybe, maybe, some part of you is shying away in shame over the word. Saviour. You sound like the zealots running around proclaiming they heard god whispering to them in the grid, and felt Its holy touch when they plugged something in.

Electric, they say, reverently. Our saviour is stuck inside the machine—!

(You wonder, now, if Makarov chose that particular word on purpose, and know, immediately, that he did.)

"I owe him money. Why wouldn't he keep me around with such a staggering debt?"

Bringing it up gives you the opportunity you need to shift the conversation away from the game of Messiah and Disciples Makarov likes to play, and you knot your trembling fingers together tightly in your lap.

"Speaking of—" you huff, gaze fixed on him. Taking everything in. You might not have the same implant that he does, one that allows him access to the net in an instant, and feeds it right to his cerebrum, but you've always been good at reading people. Catching their tells. "Makarov isn't the one my debt is owed to. It's the Inner Circle. Still think you can erase it?"

He hesitates. Briefly, almost indecipherably, but you catch the dip of his cigar when his body tenses, fingers tightening too quickly on the stem. It twitches only once before he steadies it. His eyes cut to yours, impassive and unreadable, as he takes in the information you just offered.

The Inner Circle banking division was notorious for having contracts upon contracts to avoid buyouts without some hefty fee attached to make up for the lost interest.

It's a roadblock. Almost everyone you've met so far, ones with idealistic dreams of stealing you away from the clutch of Makarov, bulked at the number alone. This, this new piece of information, was bound to make him flee. Cut ties. Run.

Another hero with too much on his shoulders to bear another burden, leaving you behind to rot.

Tough luck, kid, one of them said after a three-week-long courting period that left you feeling moon swept and dizzy. Wide-eyed and jejune. Naïve little kitten, Makarov taunted the morning after you found yourself alone on the dock, bags packed, waiting for a man who'd never show. But Makarov met you there. Yuri, with sorrowful eyes, took the bags gently from your trembling hands, downcast as he murmured in your ear, you'll be okay, kitten.

Anatoly's biting laughter haunted you for months. Christ, he howled. You really thought there was a man on earth more powerful than Makarov? Damn, he swindled you good, dumbass. Was he at least a good fuck? I'd be so goddamn pissed if this happened to me and the idiot was lousy in bed.

But it was Makarov's palm against your cheek that broke you the most. The icy eyes never softened despite the coo of sympathy in his voice.

It hurts, doesn't it, kitten? Who knows if this is your first heartbreak, but I'm sure it feels like it is, doesn't it? Ahhh, You should know better by now. No one touches what belongs to me.

"Now about this betrayal…"

He had you locked in your flat for months, and everything iota of your time monitored in some capacity. The leash was shortened. The collar tightened.

The punishment for your betrayal came weeks after, when a package arrived at your flat. A golden box weighed down with precious gems and metals.

A holographic card popped up when you opened the package, hands shaking around the heavy box.

Makarov's voice flooded the room. What's more precious than gold and diamonds? The latch on the box clicked. You lifted the lid. At first, it didn't make sense. Your mind blanked, wiped, as you struggled to figure out what it was you were staring at.

A heart, kitten. His heart.

Then—

Horror. Stomach-churn terror.

Your hands snapped back, and the box dropped to the floor as mocking laughter met your ears, static and faded over the recording.

The still-beating heart tumbled out, connected to an array of small wires that kept it alive without a host. Without—

Your hand pressed against your lips as you fought the bile rising from your throat.

Betray me again, he said, and I'll make you cut it out next time.

You stare at the man across from you and know that the wishfulness inside of you will soften his flaws, blur his lies until anything he says just sounds right. A dangerous precipice. The yearning knotting around your mouldering ribcage is hungry. Wanting.

He'll ruin you. And you'll be forced to ruin him. To carve his heart out as Makarov keeps him alive the whole time. The last thing he'll ever see would be you holding his still-beating heart before Makarov makes you crush it between your trembling, bloodied fingers.

The image surfaces—horrific, garish, gut-wrenching—and you wish you were a little more jaded, a little less idealistic, to have that alone snuff the last vestiges of hope from your rotting heart.

"Doesn't change anything," he grouses, and then brings the glass to his lips. He downs the scotch in two swallows, and you can't pull your wide eyes away from the way his throat bobs, and stretches, as he tilts his head back.

When he's finished, he huffs. The glass hits the countertop with a clang that seems to shake something inside of you.

"They're all rotten," he snarls, words a rough rasp that makes you shiver. "All of 'em. Rotten to the fuckin' core."

The corruption never surprised you. Maybe the exposure to it all, feeding Makarov the names of the politicians and diplomats that wanderers through the club's door numbed you to it all, but seeing his visceral disgust over it makes something swell inside of you.

He's not too different from the heroes you've met, the ones you read about, but where they cut their anger into pieces of understanding and compassion, he wields his like a claymore. A battle-ready man brimming with a fury that leaks from his marrow and into the icy blue of his steel gaze.

He doesn't give you kind smiles or false promises. No, he gives you third-degree burns on your flesh from the molten heat of his rage.

"Who are you?" You demand, the words slipping out before you can chomp them down. "And why do you think I can help you?"

It doesn't make sense, not really.

The look he levels at you knocks the air from your lungs.

Fear curls in your gut. Wariness. The urge to flee wells, and you just barely manage to push it down.

"I told you already, didn't I?" He leans closer, drawing the cigar to his lips. "Heard about you, 'bout your debt."

"Yeah, and you thought I was Makarov's—lover—;" the word nearly makes you recoil. "But I'm not. He tells me nothing. Still so certain I can help?"

He takes a drag of the cigar, the tip burning through the dim interior of the empty pub. His eyes never waver from yours, but you know that this piece of information must, in some way, change things. He sought you out specifically because of your assumed relationship with Makarov. The precariousness of your debt has doubled into not just an inconvenience, but a legal issue with extra fees added.

You're more trouble than whatever you might be able to weasel out of Makarov.

More trouble than your worth.

The smoke curls in front of him like a hazy shroud of white. The light catches the indent in his cheekbone, and down the side of his face where his implant sits, humming with kinetic energy even while unlit.

Without the beanie on his head, you can make out more of the circular insignia on his temple, but the crest is unfamiliar to you. Unknown. You've never seen it before, and that unnerves you.

You know all the clubs, the crests, the gangs that roam the streets. From the upper echelon of the Shepherd family to the 54 Immortals seizing the power gap left behind by the fall of Brakov in a neighbouring country. It comes with knowing the underground. With making friends in the shadows.

But this one escapes you.

He shifts, moving the cigar from his lips. A waterfall of smoke rumbles from his mouth when he breathes out.

"Yes," he says, pinched from lingering smoke in his lungs. "I do."

"How?"

"Told you, love. Heard 'bout you—from many sources."

The back of your neck prickles under his reproachful stare. Something in those cerulean depths makes you tense.

"From who?"

His metal knuckles clink against the glass when he nudges it out of the way, resting his forearm down on the wood, bringing himself closer to you. With your spine flush against the back of the chair, there is nowhere to run. It hits you, then, when he draws himself into the scant space separating the two of you, angling himself until he takes up the entirety of your periphery, that this was intentional.

Of course, it was. Of course.

"Oh, from lot's a'people a lil' thing like you shouldn't be hangin' around." Despite the derision in his voice, his brows lift, arching high until his forehead wrinkles, and you catch something that seems almost impressed when he dips his chin, staring at you from down his nose. "You get places most can't. That's useful."

"Useful enough to wipe a debt? How do I know you're good for it, and this isn't some scam?"

"You don't," he answers simply, and something snaps inside you.

"Are you joking—? Do you have any idea what Makarov will do to me, and you can't even give me some—"

"Like I told you, I know people in high places." He shrugs like it's nothing. Like it isn't your life in balance. "They want to remain anonymous, but can settle your debt."

"How?"

"Don't trust me?"

"I don't even know you—"

His hand lifts, metal fingers spreading lazily as he holds his palm in front of you. A peace offering. The sight of it makes you scoff.

"Fair. For what it's worth, I don't trust you much, either, but—" another inhale of his cigar. His voice is pinched when he speaks, his breath ghosting white with the smoke congealing in his lungs. "We have to make do with what we have, don't we?"

It isn't fair. It isn't right. A part of you wants to rebel, to grab the cigar and crush it under the heel of your palm. The anger wells inside of you, white-hot and aching, and brings with it the strong urge to scream yourself hoarse.

You believed him—if only for a moment, for a single second, but it was long enough for the vestiges of hope to claw their way up the prison you kept it in, and leak back into your marrow. A pollutant that wrecks you viciously.

But—

Maybe you expected this. It doesn't sting as much as you thought it would. He's never really committed, and said—

"But," he continues, and you wish he would shut up, shut up, shut up, shut—

"I promise it'll go away once we're done, yeah?"

Fuck.

Your voice wobbles when you speak, soundly dangerously thick, and wet. You peer up at him and wish with everything inside of you, there wasn't a thin veil of tears gathering across your lash line. Weak. You haven't cried in two years—

(You look so cute when you cry, kitten—)

"You promise, huh?"

He lifts his hand to his temple and taps his index and middle finger against the strange insignia implanted there. The hard metal of the crest meeting the soft polymer cover of his fingertips makes a muted thud not at all dissimilar to your beating heart.

"On my family name, I swear it."

Why—

To go so far for someone he barely knows, and doesn't trust—

And then it clicks. It isn't about you at all, but some personal vendetta, a promise to himself, that he'll accomplish what he sets out to do, and so, making this little oath with an outsider, the pet of the enemy, is nothing to him. It's performative as much as it is sincere, and the warring contrast makes your chest ache, and heat bloom under your skin.

"You—;" you start, but stop yourself.

He's not at all unlike the heroes you've read about in fantastical stories or the ones you'd met. The one whose heart you held in your trembling fingers as it slowly stopped pulsing in the palm of your hand. Whose blood you scoured from your skin until it was raw.

But where they offered a smile at the end of the promise they swore they'd keep, he frowns.

He doesn't strike you as the type of man to go out of his way to make others feel better. He believes in himself, and his prowess, and speaks about that in clipped, gruff declarations that are not meant to sway, but reinforce what he knows.

He will win. This isn't a question or a belief, but a statement. A truism.

Hope surges. The levee cracks.

"Who are you?" You ask, dazed.

The man who cupped your cheek, and whispered to you about escaping the clutches of this festering city, of going so far away, that grasping hands could never reach you, and greedy fingers would never again touch your flesh, didn't fill you with this same sense of awe, of pure belief in the words he said. But this man, this man, makes you feel like anything is possible. Hope blooms, brims bright inside of your chest like an inflating balloon drifting up to the heavens—

His mental hand splays flat over the table. "Names John Price."

The man sitting across from you is someone you know.

It makes sense, then. The insignia on his temple is the Price family emblem—a conglomerate in its own right, mostly composed of military men with staunch, unflinching moral codes. The incorruptible. The untouchables.

They were the ones who led the counterattack on the coup that changed the political landscape from the Feudalistic tyranny of the past, to—

Well. It was meant to be free reign, or maybe democratic, but the technological boom a few years after the liberation from the iron fist made little things slip by as the world was suddenly painted a lovely shade of roseate. Why worry about mega corporations becoming richer than most of the governmental bodies, and countries, when they made this new piece of cybernetics that let you see like a hawk, that introduced a new colour spectrum to the general public, when sickness, injury, and even death itself came something that could be bartered over for the right price.

The things that they let slip stacked up. It piled higher and higher until the free future the Price family, among others—Laswell, Shepherd, Walker, MacTavish—foresaw was smothered out in favour of the blatant mega capitalism that rules.

It might not be with an iron fist, but it is with a monetary chokehold that always seems to get tighter.

Their legacy is one founded on a strong moral core that is unbendable.

It makes sense why you didn't recognise the emblem at first.

The last of their pristine lineage—tarnished.

The man responsible for the power gap left behind by Brakov. The one who threatens his superiors, and uses brute force to get his way. John Price—the one who gave into temptation and was ousted from his family, and from the military, for taking bribes from people in low places. A man who'd side with anyone—for the right price.

Political turmoil and espionage must run in the family, then, as you somehow find yourself sitting across from the man implicated in a failed coup. One that resulted in the collapse of Urzikstan.

John Price.

Disgraced former captain. Rotten to his core. There's a graveyard filled with people who died because of his choices; a massacre that made headlines just a few months before you woke up. A man you know by sordid, rotten reputation alone, who somehow escaped condemnation for the people he indirectly (and, by many accounts, directly) killed.

John Price. Swindler. Scoundrel. Swine.

"John Price?" You echo, numbed. "The John Price?"

He leans back in the chair, posture relaxed, at ease, as if this wasn't a massive reveal. As if he wasn't a war criminal who was exonerated because of those friends in high places he so casually mentioned before.

"So," he rasps, pulling his cigar back to his lips. Despite the ease in his mien, his eyes tighten. A cobra ready to strike. "You've heard of me."

(—it blooms, and then all at once, it bursts.)

Nothing says cyberpunk like a morally ambiguous character.

#captain price x reader #john price x reader #captain john price #captain john price x reader #neon medusa #the smell of plot in the air #UMMM #i forgot how much i hated multi-chaps #cod price #call of duty modern warfare #cod: mw price #price x reader #price x you #captain price x you #john price #john price x you #captain john price x you #captain price #i'll come back and edit this in the AM

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