#Prima Power

[kari-go]

Prima Queen with the water, space, and ice power-ups

She's soo pretty, especially the ice power-up, which is more themed after ice skating since Chloe has a history with it. I don't have a name for any of these.

Anyway, I've been thinking about the power-ups a little and even considered removing them for a while. But then I figured out a nice reason for their existence that makes sense (at least to me). Still, I'm thinking about the creation of them. Whether to still keep them as potions or change them into something different, but I'll probably keep them as potions since they're more versatile that way.

[nimuetheseawitch]

KILLJOYS 1.06

Occupational hazard.

[lostl1sbons1ster]

Platinum blonde edition

[acotars]

Read in 2023:

Jasmine tried not to take it personally, but taking things personally was one of her greatest skills.

YOU HAD ME AT HOLA by Alexis Daria ★★★★

[aspiring-prototype]

New TF Headcannon: The Recorder Prime plays a recorder, and he jams on it whenever he isn't writing in the Covenant or dealing with other bots' slag. Or because he is dealing with other bots' slag.

[mirchloe]

weakest psychic in the world mirtala. the most girlie to have ever lived but she's 3% psychic, and she can barely do anything. she gets a nosebleed if she so much as gathers the firepower needed for a psi blast. she can levitate juuuust a little before getting tired. she'd rather "the ring" crawl toward someone at high speeds and scare the shit out of them. that someone is benny or bobby.

for mirchloe realness, she's glad chloe can find her brain in the collective unconscious and use telepathy to speak with her whenever she wants. if mirtala is on the road with her family, and she feels a cold breeze in her mind, like the vastness of space, it's chloe time! and they get to talk and catch up, and chloe keeps the connection strong, so mirtala can be mellow as she thinks.

[batemanofficial]

thinking about signing up for adult ballet classes when the semester starts. i did it when i was a kid but stopped in middle school and idk it seems like it might be a fun way to exercise

[mxescargot]

Not going to lie, I really don't want to spam numbers for the couple ask game right now, but I do want to know about your characters' relationship, soooo. 1-30. :3.

(You don't actually have to answer all of them if you don't want to, you can just do any you want to do- /gen) 🌻

oughhh tyty for the ask /gen

for those unaware, tl;dr: good princess/evil queen gfs :>

couples ask game for reference

princess prima garon (she/they/one) is the archetypical heroic good princess whose family was descended from a chosen one hero that defeated an evil overlord and sent them into exile. prima is the new chosen one to defeat a new evil: vindicta nox (any pronouns), queen of the neighbouring evil kindgom and descendant of the evil overlord prima's ancestor ousted. instead, they fall in love. (also turns out the kingdom's not that bad, just has a "villainous" aesthetic)

1. at first their families were. concerned. but over time stuff worked out and now they get along fine/their countries are allies

2. see above, i think it was harder for friends to get over distrust though

3. don't know, hmm.

4. i imagine prima's most relevant ex might be the lancer to her leader in their hero-team? but either way they're on good terms and that was a while ago, just ended up being kind of incompatible for a committed relationship. maybe prima dated around as well but this would be a childhood friend... turned first love or something? 👀 considering making them arospec and realizing that later/vindicta feels "different" from the rest. vindicta is definitely also a different type of person from the people prima thought they should be dating... xe's much easier to be around as a Partner. vindicta may have a previous ex that they also ended up not being too compatible with, but that ex had a worse attitude about it and it ended on worse terms.

5. initially, they don't get many chances to sleep in the same bed. however physical touch is vv important to them (totally not projecting /s) so when their families and the people in their kingdoms became more okay with it they spend the night together alllll the time. usually at vindicta's place because he's, yknow, actively ruling crows country and travel arrangements are a pain in the ass. ANYWAYS prima loves sleeping tightly curled up into vindicta. or the two spoon, they probably have one of those couples' pillows so your arm isn't crushed

6. they ABSOLUTELY give each other nicknames/pet names. vindicta calls prima riri, while they call xem vin. vindicta uses a lot of the typical flirty villain pet names: "my dear", "my sweet", etc. this happens to fluster prima a lot, though it's hard for one to admit the obvious fact that one finds it attractive. prima isn't big on pet names except using the ones her gf calls her sarcastically sometimes, which it finds kinda funny. sometimes they jokingly call each other their full names and titles.

7. vindicta likes how strong-willed and determined her riri is, almost stubborn. however, this can almost be exasperating and sometimes prima doesn't know ones own limits. less decided/articulate on what prima likes and dislikes about vindicta

8. not gonna go into too much detail about this (i am a minor) but prima: vindicta's overall height/build (vin is the taller one), and voice if that counts as physical vindicta: probably into collarbones? and the uhh waist/stomach area yk.

9. didn't know what this was, looked it up. seems to be about commitment and also just, happiness in a long term relationship? so i guess so.

10. haven't built out too specific of a timeline yet but they've definitely had big fights over what i mentioned in #7 with vin getting frustrated over prima being kinda self destructive and almost obsessed with "the right thing"

11. idk how to articulate this 😭

12. the respective royal families/courts freaking out, crises in both of their kingdoms, probably a death in prima's family

13. as i mentioned, both really value physical touch. they also both do a lot of words of affirmation (building off of hero/villain banter). besides that vindicta leans more gift giving and prima more acts of service/quality time. in terms of unique expressions of love, they like sparring with each other and helping improve the other's swordsmanship. prima enjoys trying to cook things that vin might like and generally like... presenting skills she's learning to him. meanwhile vindicta likes surprising darks gf with gifts related to their interests in particular, dark really enjoys their reactions.

14. idk what really counts as a "little thing" but? prima: smelling petrichor after rain. finding shapes in the clouds, moon, or stars. experiencing hypnogogia before falling asleep. running your hand along cold, polished stone. enjoying a drink so warm it almost burns your tongue. vindicta: happy vestibular stimming. waking up as the sun rises. noticing the seasons change. aspects of prima's style of magic usage: a pinkish yet golden light, a hard-to-describe tingling feeling.

15. prima definitely picked up a bit of that "flirty villain" vibe in her mannerisms, while vindicta has grown a bit more lighthearted and energetic in conversation. they copy each others' stims.

part 2

[chestnutelm122]

I’M SO SORRY CYNTHIA ERIVO. I KNOW YOU’RE AN AMAZING ACTOR BUT YOU’VE GOT REAAAAAAAAAAAAALLY BIG SHOES TO FILL SO GOODLUCK ON THAT PRIMA FACIE MOVIE SWEETIE.🤭

But also like imagine if prima facie isn’t a limited run only play. They recouped after just a few months from opening on Broadway, imagine how much more they could’ve profited if they’re running for an extended period of time? That being said, I don’t think anyone can give justice to the role of Tessa Ensler better than Jodie. Dani Arlington would be an amazing replacement (and rightfully so) but let’s be honest here, replacing jodie would be really challenging since she swept almost all of the awards in less than half a year. Talk about pure fucking talent.

[harry-trumans-dishwasher]

Tagged by @nat-20s! (Louie Zong is especially high on the list, after I finished listening to Boss Rush, Tales from the Disc, and Business! today)

Anyway I’ll go ahead and tag @nat-20s back, as well as.... @overnightshipping @savefrog @slygirlboy @aiagob @auttoton @gigabytetroubadour

[commercialvehicle1]

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[kari-go]

Could you do prima queen with the power up stones then?

Done!

[shinobicyrus]

I've seen a lot of posts about Batman using his Bruce Wayne alter ego for the good of Gotham: job programs for felons released from prison, orphanages, charities, high wages for his employees, ethical business practices...the legendary post where Bruce Wayne goes to Wal-Mart.

Thus far I've never personally seen anybody really dig into the persona of Bruce Wayne the Billionaire Playboy. A handsome, rich, powerful man who always is seen at fancy galas, art openings, charity dinners, and wild parties with at least one beautiful woman on his arm.

We know Bruce Wayne is the mask, and its Batman who has a...complex love life, depending on the iteration we're talking about. Talia, Catwoman, sometimes Wonder Woman.

Bruce Wayne's dates, on the other hand, are all "normal" people. Maybe they're an aspiring actress, a supermodel, a prima ballerina, the occasional reporter...and every time there's that bit of nervousness at the start.

Sure everyone knows Bruce Wayne. Everyone knows the story with him. Sometimes his wilder parties make the news, but there's never really been anything nasty reported about him. Never...allegations. But he's a billionaire. He's one of the most powerful people in the whole city, nevermind the country. If he did have some skeletons in his closet. Well. Men with power have a way of making those kinds of stories go away, don't they?

As time goes on the Date's fears dissipate pretty quickly. Bruce Wayne is nothing but polite, kind, and at times charmingly awkward in an 'raised by his butler in a mansion' kind of way with his dates. Some of them can tell he's holding back, of course. Maybe the more perceptive Dates notice he's smarter than he lets on - playing the himbo or hamming up the "know-nothing rich boy" act to the cameras or some of his wealthy peers.

He also listens, is the thing. He's always listening to what they're saying, is interested in hearing about their careers, their hobbies, their lives. Really listens, too. Might refer to something a Date said weeks later off-hand. Buy out the whole museum for a private dinner date with a famous painting from an obscure artist they like, or a private performance with another's favorite band.

He has anecdotes and funny stories for days that somehow says very little about his personal life. The Dates know he has kids (it's practically a running gag in the news that Bruce Wayne has adopted yet another orphan) and maybe she might spot one of them at the mansion, but Bruce seems very keen to shelter them from any intense spotlight and scrutiny, and they all seem happy if a bit weird like him.

Eventually, there's drifting. He's a very busy man, with a very busy schedule. On more than on occasion his nice old butler will call and extend apologies that Mr. Wayne will not be able to make it this evening. Sometimes it's virtually impossible to get a hold of him over the phone. After a while they stop trying. None of them feel quite surprised by that. In the end, it just doesn't work. Sure, he's a little distant and doesn't make himself emotionally available...but he's not a bad person.

Especially when the so-called "exes" of Bruce Wayne start networking. Gotham isn't a small city, but the social circles Bruce Wayne travels in aren't as big. They don't quite gossip or complain about him. More like...who else would get it?

(I touched his side once and he winced...like he'd been hurt real bad there. He laughed and said it was tackle polo. How does that even-?)

(Somehow, after two dates, he saw right through me and listened while I told him what that casting director tried to do. He nodded, gave me the contact details of a law firm, and said not to worry about the legal fees.)

(I don't know for sure it was him, but it can't be a coincidence that my building got bought out from under my shitty landlord and we were all able to buy our apartments under market value.)

(He got my brother in the best rehab program in the city after his relapse. It probably saved his life. We'd stopped dating months ago, I still don't know how he found out.)

(He gave me a card with a phone number and told me that if I was ever in trouble to call it. Said one of his cars would come to pick me up, any time, any place, no questions asked. The one time I did have to use it after a bad party, it was Alfred.)

I think any tabloid reporter digging around for salacious stories or dirt about Bruce Wayne's love life would be completely and politely stonewalled when they try asking his former Dates. Even when money is offered. Every single one of them.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Amazon illegally interferes with an historic UK warehouse election

I'm in to TARTU, ESTONIA! Overcoming the Enshittocene (Monday, May 8, 6PM, Prima Vista Literary Festival keynote, University of Tartu Library, Struwe 1). AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).

Amazon is very good at everything it does, including being very bad at the things it doesn't want to do. Take signing up for Prime: nothing could be simpler. The company has built a greased slide from Prime-curiosity to Prime-confirmed that is the envy of every UX designer.

But unsubscribing from Prime? That's a fucking nightmare. Somehow the company that can easily figure out how to sign up for a service is totally baffled when it comes to making it just as easy to leave. Now, there's two possibilities here: either Amazon's UX competence is a kind of erratic freak tide that sweeps in at unpredictable intervals and hits these unbelievable high-water marks, or the company just doesn't want to let you leave.

To investigate this question, let's consider a parallel: Black Flag's Roach Motel. This is an icon of American design, a little brown cardboard box that is saturated in irresistibly delicious (to cockroaches, at least) pheromones. These powerful scents make it admirably easy for all the roaches in your home to locate your Roach Motel and enter it.

But the interior of the Roach Motel is also coated in a sticky glue. Once roaches enter the motel, their legs and bodies brush up against this glue and become hopeless mired in it. A roach can't leave – not without tearing off its own legs.

It's possible that Black Flag made a mistake here. Maybe they wanted to make it just as easy for a roach to leave as it is to enter. If that seems improbable to you, well, you're right. We don't even have to speculate, we can just refer to Black Flag's slogan for Roach Motel: "Roaches check in, but they don't check out."

It's intentional, and we know that because they told us so.

Back to Amazon and Prime. Was it some oversight that cause the company make it so marvelously painless to sign up for Prime, but such a titanic pain in the ass to leave? Again, no speculation is required, because Amazon's executives exchanged a mountain of internal memos in which this is identified as a deliberate strategy, by which they deliberately chose to trick people into signing up for Prime and then hid the means of leaving Prime. Prime is a Roach Motel: users check in, but they don't check out:

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

When it benefits Amazon, they are obsessive – "relentless" (Bezos's original for the company) – about user friendliness. They value ease of use so highly that they even patented "one click checkout" – the incredibly obvious idea that a company that stores your shipping address and credit card could let you buy something with a single click:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Patent

But when it benefits Amazon to place obstacles in our way, they are even more relentless in inventing new forms of fuckery, spiteful little landmines they strew in our path. Just look at how Amazon deals with unionization efforts in its warehouses.

Amazon's relentless union-busting spans a wide diversity of tactics. On the one hand, they cook up media narratives to smear organizers, invoking racist dog-whistles to discredit workers who want a better deal:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/amazon-chris-smalls-smart-articulate-leaked-memo

On the other hand, they collude with federal agencies to make workers afraid that their secret ballots will be visible to their bosses, exposing them to retaliation:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-violated-labor-law-alabama-union-election-labor-official-finds-rcna1582

They hold Cultural Revolution-style forced indoctrination meetings where they illegally threaten workers with punishment for voting in favor of their union:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/business/economy/amazon-union-staten-island-nlrb.html

And they fire Amazon tech workers who express solidarity with warehouse workers:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-fires-tech-employees-workers-criticism-warehouse-climate-policies/

But all this is high-touch, labor-intensive fuckery. Amazon, as we know, loves automation, and so it automates much of its union-busting: for example, it created an employee chat app that refused to deliver any message containing words like "fairness" or "grievance":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/05/doubleplusrelentless/#quackspeak

Amazon also invents implausible corporate fictions that allow it to terminate entire sections of its workforce for trying to unionize, by maintaining the tormented pretense that these workers, who wear Amazon uniforms, drive Amazon trucks, deliver Amazon packages, and are tracked by Amazon down to the movements of their eyeballs, are, in fact, not Amazon employees:

https://www.wired.com/story/his-drivers-unionized-then-amazon-tried-to-terminate-his-contract/

These workers have plenty of cause to want to unionize. Amazon warehouses are sources of grueling torment. Take "megacycling," a ten-hour shift that runs from 1:20AM to 11:50AM that workers are plunged into without warning or the right to refuse. This isn't just a night shift – it's a night shift that makes it impossible to care for your children or maintain any kind of normal life.

Then there's Jeff Bezos's war on his workers' kidneys. Amazon warehouse workers and drivers notoriously have to pee in bottles, because they are monitored by algorithms that dock their pay for taking bathroom breaks. The road to Amazon's warehouse in Coventry, England is littered with sealed bottles of driver piss, defenestrated by drivers before they reach the depot inspection site.

There's so much piss on the side of the Coventry road that the prankster Oobah Butler was able to collect it, decant it into bottles, and market it on Amazon as an energy beverage called "Bitter Lemon Release Energy," where it briefly became Amazon's bestselling energy drink:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

(Butler promises that he didn't actually ship any bottled piss to people who weren't in on the gag – but let's just pause here and note how weird it is that a guy who hates our kidneys as much as Jeff Bezos built and flies a penis-shaped rocket.)

Butler also secretly joined the surge of 1,000 workers that Amazon hired for the Coventry warehouse in advance of a union vote, with the hope of diluting the yes side of that vote and forestall the union. Amazon displayed more of its famously selective competence here, spotting Butler and firing him in short order, while totally failing to notice that he was marketing bottles of driver piss as a bitter lemon drink on Amazon's retail platform.

After a long fight, Amazon's Coventry workers are finally getting their union vote, thanks to the GMB union's hard fought battle at the Central Arbitration Committee:

https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/04/26/amazon-warehouse-workers-in-coventry-will-vote-on-trade-union-recognition/

And right on schedule, Amazon has once again discovered its incredible facility for ease-of-use. The company has blanketed its shop floor with radioactively illegal "one click to quit the union" QR codes. When a worker aims their phones at the code and clicks the link, the system auto-generates a letter resigning the worker from their union.

As noted, this is totally illegal. English law bans employers from "making an offer to an employee for the sole or main purpose of inducing workers not to be members of an independent trade union, take part in its activities, or make use of its services."

Now, legal or not, this may strike you as a benign intervention on Amazon's part. Why shouldn't it be easy for workers to choose how they are represented in their workplaces? But the one-click system is only half of Amazon's illegal union-busting: the other half is delivered by its managers, who have cornered workers on the shop floor and ordered them to quit their union, threatening them with workplace retaliation if they don't.

This is in addition to more forced "captive audience" meetings where workers are bombarded with lies about what life in an union shop is like.

Again, the contrast couldn't be more stark. If you want to quit a union, Amazon makes this as easy as joining Prime. But if you want to join a union, Amazon makes that even harder than quitting Prime. Amazon has the same attitude to its workers and its customers: they see us all as a resource to be extracted, and have no qualms about tricking or even intimidating us into doing what's best for Amazon, at the expense of our own interests.

The campaigning law-firm Foxglove is representing five of Amazon's Coventry workers. They're doing the lord's work:

https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/05/02/legal-challenge-to-amazon-uks-new-one-click-to-quit-the-union-tool/

All this highlights the increasing divergence between the UK and the US when it comes to labor rights. Under the Biden Administration, @NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo has promulgated a rule that grants a union automatic recognition if the boss does anything to interfere with a union election:

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

In other words, if Amazon tries these tactics in the USA now, their union will be immediately recognized. Abruzzo has installed an ultra-sensitive tilt-sensor in America's union elections, and if Bezos or his class allies so much as sneeze in the direction of their workers' democratic rights, they automatically lose.

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/2024/05/06/one-click-to-quit-the-union/#foxglove

Image: Isabela.Zanella (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballot-box-2.jpg

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

[wanventures]

Last week, I saw one of the most incredible, powerful and a very impactful play called Prima Facie. I thought the play told a deep story, touching on important themes such as raising awareness for sexual abuse. Overall, the play was filled with dark humor at times and intense serious moments which made the audience go on an emotional roller coaster.

If you are a theater fan, I highly recommend this play. You can read more about this in my newest blog post — link in bio.