#Redline caps

[nobuverse]

[moodyeva]

[welcometogehenna]

Fate/type Redline

[ladydwarfbadari]

Made a critter on Mordor for ringwraith-hunting purposes, if anyone wants to hang out

[krabmeat]

ALSO LOOOVEEE BEING IN ADVANCED CLASSES ESP ADVANCED HISTORY ITS SOOOO FUN TODAY WAS OUR FIRSY ACTUAL CLASS AND I HAD TO HOLD BACK STIMMING EXACTLY 6 DIFFERENT TIMES

[astonmartinii]

cutie patooties | max verstappen social media au

pairing: max verstappen x fem leclerc!reader

just them terrorising the world with their cuteness (and collecting the younger drivers)

MASTERLIST | TIP JAR | SMALL BUSINESS

yourusername

liked by arthurleclerc, maxverstappen1 and 1,209,455 others

tagged: maxverstappen1

yourusername: he loves redline more than me 🙄

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user1: obsessed with how she's like "oh you wanna ship max with my brother" and then takes lestappen out back and shoots them

user2: as she should, she's the cutest leclerc by far

yourusername: true 😙

maxverstappen1: double true 😘

charles_leclerc: die.

yourusername: erm consider your ass REPORTED THIS IS HARASSMENT

maxverstappen1: did you just threaten my girlfriend ????

charles_leclerc: and what?

maxverstappen1: pull up, i'm outside

charles_leclerc: ???? leave ????

maxverstappen1: no i'm deadass don't disrespect my gf 😤😤😤

charles_leclerc: it's my SISTER

yourusername: when he's protective 😛😛😛

user3: screaming, crying, throwing up over the keychain

user4: i need someone *cough, cough* them to recreate it 🥸

landonorris: YOU WENT TO THE LEGO STORE WITHOUT ME? YOUR FAVOURITE CHILD?

yourusername: watch your tone

maxverstappen1: god forbid i want to spend time with my GIRLFRIEND on a DATE

landonorris: that's not a valid excuse

yourusername: also bold of you to assume you're our favourite child when oscar, yuki and logan are right there

oscarpiastri: snooze you lose lando

yukitsunoda0511: suck on that lando

logansargent: i'm just happy to be included

landonorris: damn...

maxverstappen1

liked by yourusername, danielricciardo and 1,203,513 others

tagged: charles_leclerc & yourusername

maxverstappen1: spent the weekend bothering my girlfriend's brother, what about you?

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user9: the way charles put his ferrari cap on y/n only for max to throw it into the crowd and put his own on her head instead

user10: those who know max's attachment to his caps, this is big.

yourusername: winning looks so sexy oh my

maxverstappen1: blushing like a motherfucker

yourusername: skip the debrief? they won't notice?

maxverstappen1: i think they might notice the driver of the race they're analysing not being there

yourusername: show them the pic i just sent you, they can't say no to my puppy dog eyes

maxverstappen1: helmut said fuck off 💔

yourusername: tell him i have a present for him (it's a pack of salt and vinegar crisps and a pamphlet for caskets)

user11: @yourusername winning IS sexy, tell your bf to tell charles win

yourusername: if charles wins it's suddenly decidedly unsexy, this isn't game of thrones babe

charles_leclerc: you ARE annoying that's right

maxverstappen1: annoyingly sexy

charles_leclerc: no comment, we're going to be family at some point soon

maxverstappen1: DAMN RIGHT WE ARE

yourusername: if you think we're annoying now, oh boy.

user12: i need max and y/n to be engaged right this fucking moment

user13: i think it would actually make my year

user14: after the championship win queen @maxverstappen1 ?

yourusername

liked by danielricciardo, oscarpiastri and 1,562,044 others

tagged: maxverstappen1

yourusername: @ the person who asked how much max weighs... god will deal with you

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user15: i'm obsessed with how obsessed they are with each other

user16: is max's wardrobe all red bull merch and t-shirts dedicated to y/n?

maxverstappen1: yes 😌

danielricciardo: i saw the clip... the time stamp was 3am - we RACE TODAY?

yourusername: i am happy to support my man's hobby

danielricciardo: yes but you also don't have to race with that man on three hours of sleep

yourusername: be real daniel, the only time you'll be close to max is when he laps you xxx

danielricciardo: EXCUSE ME??? MAX YOU GONNA LET YOUR GIRLFRIEND TALK TO YOUR FIRST LOVE LIKE THAT?

maxverstappen1: bold of you to assume you were my first love

danielricciardo: did on the couch mean nothing to you?

maxverstappen1: soz buddy this is a childhood friends to lovers narrative right now (and we were already together by the time i was at red bull)

charles_leclerc: WHAT?

yourusername: spare me the dramatics, you guys were deep in the ANGST and then austria happened so really it's your own fault that it took as long as it did

user17: one comment section where the girls aren't fighting? impossible.

oscarpiastri: omg the shirts look so good y/n !!

yourusername: we're ✨graphic designers✨

maxverstappen1: does having a dashingly handsome model help

yourusername: of course !!!!!

oscarpiastri: i'm not going to answer that question

maxverstappen1: :(

oscarpiastri: on another thought - yes!

yourusername: @landonorris this is why he's one of the favourites

landonorris: i'm not talking to yall

maxverstappen1

liked by fernandoalo_oficial, yourusername and 1,309,556 others

tagged: yourusername

maxverstappen1: weekend off racing means shenanigans and late night streaming

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user20: i know whatever poor soul went for dinner with them hated every second

yukitsunoda0511: working on being the favourite of the favourite children 🫡 and they paid for my meal at a really cool italian restaurant

oscarpiastri: game on

yourusername: so who is the lady and who is the tramp?

danielricciardo: THAT'S A TRICK QUESTION MAX DON'T ANSWER IT

maxverstappen1: you're not a lady... you're a queen 😘

yourusername: did you just fail the test, successfully?

danielricciardo: you smooth motherfucker

yourusername: stole your red bull drive and your nickname @carlossainz55

carlossainz55: why am i catching strays?

yourusername: bored ❤️

user21: y/n really be like "oh the season's boring cause my bf wins everything? let me make it interesting by shading every driver on the grid"

maxverstappen1: do NOT give her a challenge

charles_leclerc: can you PLEASE stop taking such lovey dovey gross ass photos maman keeps getting them printed and I AM GETTING MOVED OFF OF THE MANTEL PIECE I AM ON THE BOOKSHELF, THIS FACE IS A MANTEL PIECE FACE NOT A BOOKSHELF FACE

yourusername: not reading all of that, i'm happy for you or sad that happened x

charles_leclerc: MAX DO SOMETHNG

maxverstappen1: step your pussy up bro

yourusername: when he catches your lingo >>

charles_leclerc: i am a VICTIM

yourusername

liked by arthurleclerc, landonorris and 1,450,387 others

tagged: maxverstappen1 & charles_leclerc

yourusername: invented babygirlism actually

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user22: y/n is so real for choosing a cute recent photo for herself and then just violating the guys

user23: she's funny as fuck for that

charles_leclerc: finally some fucking credit

yourusername: not everything can be about you all of the time 🤨

charles_leclerc: don't make me an ankle-biter again you're PUSHING ME

sebastianvettel: knew you were an ankle biter

yourusername: LOL

charles_leclerc: no seb no! i didn't bite ankles, just y/n's and that doesn't count

user24: what the fuck is going on here

maxverstappen1: you are the most babygirl to ever babygirl

danielricciardo: i think i had a stroke reading that

yourusername: awwwww you're so cute maxy

maxverstappen1: knew you were the one for me when we first met karting, you taught me the babygirl ways

yourusername: and you're delivering

oscarpiastri: you guys can't see but he's blushing so bad right now

landonorris: are you just attached to them

yourusername: yes he is, a babygirl in training

user25: how do i get adopted by y/n and max?

maxverstappen1: no but for real i love you, even if we are lumbered with your brother

yourusername: i love you too xxx

charles_leclerc: *brothers

maxverstappen1: nope arthur and lorenzo are sound

charles_leclerc: fUCK OFF :(((((((

FIN.

note: heyyyyyy you guysssss! we all know i have a soft spot for these two (plus oscar and alex) so i wanted to put out a little thing to celebrate 5k! thank you so much for following and reading my work, hope you enjoyed xx

[vivwritesfics]

Attention

Charles and Reader just want Max's attention. And they're gonna do anything to get it.

2.2k

Warnings: smut, p in v, charles is such a fucking tease lmao, oral (male!receiving), charles is in charge of this one lol, threesome, man giving oral to another man

"He's been sitting here for hours," she whispered as she and Charles peered around the door, looking at Max as he sat with his headset on his head.

Max didn't notice them. He let out a laugh as he pulled open his mini fridge full of Red Bull cans. "How many of those as he had?" Charles asked, his hand on her hip. The movement of his thumb normally would have been distracting, but the both of them were too focused on Max.

"I don't know," she whispered and tried to look for the empty cans of Red Bull. But Max was meticulously clean, and all of the cans were already in the bin. "But I swear it only takes, like, four of them to kill you."

At that, Charles released a small laugh. "Ma chérie," he began and pressed his lips to her cheek. "I think he has ten on a race day."

She pulled a face, mouth pulling to the side as she looked at Max. He'd been there for most of the day, not giving the two of them the attention they wanted. She turned, back to Max as he looked at Charles. "What're we gonna do?"

He looked past her, looked over her head at Max. He looked tired, but when didn't he look tired? He was always the last one to crawl into bed and, because of that, got the lumpy side of the mattress and the pillow that had lost it's shape. Their subtle way of punishing him.

"We're gonna get his goddamned attention."

To the rest of the world, she was Max's attention. She wore the Red Bull merchandise, wore Max's cap, held his hand as they walked through the paddock. The world saw her be friendly to Charles, but nothing more than that.

But, in the privacy of the apartment they shared, it was the three of them together. She got to hold Charles, to kiss him like she wanted to. Max got to kiss him, too, something they didn't get to do when they were out and about.

They were high profile men. They couldn't go out on dinner dates, according to their PR teams, and if they wanted to go anywhere as the three of them, she had to duck down in the back seat until the roads were empty.

But they weren't out in the public eye together. They were in their apartment, just the three of them. Well, the three of them... and Team Redline.

Charles stayed out of the view of the camera as she walked over to Max. He settled on the sofa, watching as she walked over and crouched beside him. She pulled off Max's headset, her hand settling on his stomach as she whispered something in her ear.

The stream caught as Max's cheeks flushed red. The other members of Team Redline said something, but Max couldn't hear it with the headset resting over his steering wheel. He turned back, looked at Charles on the sofa.

Looking back at the camera, Max raised his finger. He stood up and made his way over to the sofa, disappearing from stream.

It couldn't be seen as Max launched himself at Charles. He wrapped his arms around him, pushing him back against the back of the sofa. He pressed his lips against Charles's stubbled cheek. He hadn't shaved in a little while, and they both knew he was going to let it grow out (which they didn't mind, he looked damned good with facial hair).

"You guys know I'm streaming, right?" He asked as Charles wrapped his arms around him, holding him tight (unwilling to let him go).

Charles gave him a nod. His hand touched Max's cheek, his jaw. His thumb touched Max's pouty lips, asking for something more. "We know that, mon beau," he whispered as Max took his thumb between his lips. He looked up, looked at where she was still by his set up. "We just want some attention."

Max released Charles's thumb from between his lips. "Later," he said and stood up, making his way back to set up. "Let me finish up here." He sat back, sat in front of the stream, and placed the headset back on his head.

But she was still there, still pouting up at him. Max laid his hand on the top of her head, before turning back to the stream. She glared at him, knowing the moment would be clipped up and posted everywhere in moments. But that wasn't what she was glaring at.

Getting to her feet, she made her way over to Charles. The expression on her face softened as she threw herself down beside him, leg thrown over his lap. "He's being a dick," she mumbled as Charles's thumb moved over the bare skin of her lower leg.

"I know," Charles said and kissed the top of her head. "Let me deal with it."

He grabbed a coaster from the coffee table, ready to launch it at Max. But her hand on top of his stilled him. "Cha, don't," she whispered. "I'm gonna get branded as needy again."

The first time was Charles's fault as well. It was the exact same situation, Charles throwing something at Max to get his attention while he streamed. A little bit of hate came her way from that, twitter fans calling her needy.

Charles released a breath but put the coaster down. "Okay," he said and pulled his phone from his pocket. His fingers moved quickly over the screen, sending a quick text to Max.

The moment his screen lit up, Max read the message. He obeyed what the text said, and removed his headset from one of his ears, giving them slight attention. It wasn't enough, though, not for the two of them.

"What now?" She asked, lips so close to his own.

Charles looked over at Max. He hadn't glanced back at the two of them as he took his headset off one ear, still paying attention to the virtual race in front of him. But that was fine, because Charles still had a couple of tricks up his sleeve.

He pulled her onto his lap, hands holding the back of her thighs as she fell forward and kissed him. It was intense, as it normally was with the two of them. Intense, and all for Max.

A noise left her lips, something close to a whine. Her eyes were wide as she pulled away from him slightly, glancing back at Max. Had he heard it? Had his stream heard it?

But Charles held the back of her head, didn't let her turn around to check. "He heard it," he whispered and kissed her cheek, kissed down towards her throat.

"What about his stream?" She whispered, voice hitching as he sucked on her pulse point.

That stopped Charles. He grabbed his phone again and began watching Max's stream, checking through the chat. She watched it too, looking for any mention of her name or anything that could indicate somebody hearing her noises.

"Nothing," he said and threw his phone to the other side of the sofa. "Where were we?"

His hands travelled into her shorts, holding her ass and squeezing. She let out another noise, but Charles could immediately hear that she was holding back.

All the time that Charles touched her and kissed her, played with her body, he was looking at Max. Not at her, waiting for some sort of reaction from their boyfriend.

He pulled her shorts down, exposing her to the air of the living room. "Charles," she whispered, pressing her face against his neck to try and keep the sounds she was making muffled.

"Let him hear you," he whispered, still looking at Max. His head twitched towards them, giving him away, but he didn't pull his eyes away from the screen.

Charles touched her. His finger moved through her folds, discovering just how wet she was. "Fuck, you're loving this," he whispered. Her cheeks heated up, breath hitching when Charles's thumb bumped against her clit.

Max's eyes were on the both of them, game forgotten about. Voices were coming through his headset, but he ignored it. He watched, shorts tightening, as Charles slipped his finger inside of her.

But then he was still. He held her, not very tight, with one finger inside of her. She whined pathetically, and Max quickly glanced at his chat. Nothing, nobody had heard it.

He was still, so still that the members of Team Redline and those watching his stream thought it was frozen. But then she lifted her hips slightly, and sank back down.

One single noise sounded in their apartment. One word, one syllable, four letters. "More," she whined, unable to keep herself quiet.

"Uh, Max? What the hell was that?"

His chat was blowing up, thousands of messages of people speculating what the noise was. A few people got close to getting it right, and that was what had Max apologising and logging off of the stream.

As soon as nobody could see or hear what was happening inside of the apartment, Max strode over to them. "You just couldn't wait, could you?" He asked as he grabbed her hips and pulled her back into him.

She made a desperate noise and Charles slipped another finger inside. "We said we wanted attention," he said with a shrug.

Her hand desperately grasped at Max's arm. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. "What do you need, Liefje?" He asked gently, caressing her cheek.

"One of you," she whispered, stilling her hips.

Charles pulled his fingers out of her. He held them up to Max, who opened his mouth and eagerly sucked on them. "You want her?" He asked and Max nodded.

He pulled her shirt over her head and got her onto the floor between his legs. He gripped her cheek, keeping her looking at him. "You know what to do," he said and squeezed her cheeks, forcing her to pout.

She freed Charles from his jeans. As she wrapped her lips around him, Max grabbed her hips and lifted her. He held her hips and pushed himself forward, pushing through her already soaked folds. A groan left his hips and he threw his head back.

"Fuck, Charles," he grunted as he looked down at her boyfriend. "She feels amazing."

Charles knew. He leaned back and watched the two of them. Her throat constricted around him as Max pushed her forward with every thrust. His hand was in her hair, helping to steady her as Max rutted his hips against her.

The sounds that filled the apartment was so damn lewd, more than anything Charles had pulled from her while Max was on stream. The grip Max had on her hips was bruising, and she loved every second of it.

Even had Charles tried to steady her head, it wasn't helping. She was unmoving, letting Max's thrusts do the work for her. Each time his hips snapped against her, she moved forward, taking Charles further down her throat.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, tears that Charles used his thumb to remove. She could tap out any time, she knew, two quick taps to Charles's side, and they would pull out of her. But she didn't want that. She was in her element.

Suddenly, the rhythm was broken. It had been steady, Max's thrusts keeping time. But he was getting close, loving the way she was squeezing him. "Shit," he grunted out, tightening his grip on her hip. "Shit, shit, shit." Two more sloppy thrusts, and he came inside of her. hips stilling, his legs shaking.

With Max still, she was unmoving. Charles's cock was still down her throat and she looked up at him through wet lashes. "You okay?" He asked, gentle for the first time since Max had logged off of the stream.

She nodded, humming around him. But Charles gently grabbed her and pulled her off of him. He pulled her back onto the sofa and set her down beside him, holding her close.

Immediately, Max was on his knees. He took Charles between his pillowy lips and immediately began bobbing his head. "Fuck, that's it," Charles grunted as Max ran his tongue along the vein.

It didn't take Charles long to finish, to spill down Max's throat. Max concentrated his efforts on Charles's tip, and that was what tipped him over the edge. His body tightened, hand reaching out to grip Max's hair as he came.

Still between Charles's legs, Max pulled himself off of his cock and wiped his mouth. "Happy now?" He asked breathlessly as he looked at the two of them.

"I don't know," Charles mumbled as he turned to her. His hand moved through her hair, staying soft with her. "Do you think we got the attention we deserve?"

She shook her head as she looked at Max. "Not just yet," she said.

Fuck, he was in for a long night.

a/n: this is one of the first oneshots i'm proud of in a while, something i managed to just sit down and write without overthinking it, stopping and starting because i hate it and then never posting. I'm not exactly back on my shit, but we're getting there

[multifandomgirl08]

Redline [Mini Verstappen Series]

Dad!Max Verstappen x Mother!Reader (Established Relationship)

Summary: "I'm sorry, mijn leeuwin. I know you were excited to announce it to everyone."

Warning(s): N/A

Words: 1.9k

Previous Part → Next Part Mini Verstappen Masterlist

It had been around 12 in the afternoon when Max had been streaming with Team Redline on iRacing during their normally planned Wild Wednesday. Max had been occupied looking at the virtual race track before him, being used to blocking out all of the sounds of the other guys in his ears. Crane had been jokingly reading through the chat like normal, throwing out random comments left and right.

“Max is busy, chaps.” Crane said. “With his wife, four kids, and three cats. He doesn’t have time for us anymore in his schedule.”

Max knew that Crane was exaggerating. Over the last few months Max hadn’t been partaking in Redline streams as much. Niki had started walking and he had been chasing him around the house. Nico needed help with homework in the evening before they sent him off to bed. Max, Nico, Y/N and Niki would sometimes spend weekends at the karting track giving Nico the tools to get ready for when he would be able to fully race in karts when he was a little older. Max always tried to make time for the Redline guys but it had grown hard in the last few months.

“Four? Crane, Y/N hasn’t even had this one yet.” He let slip out trying to focus turning in the Formula 2 car he was driving.

“This one?” He heard from Gianni.

“Max moves fast.” He heard Crane say. “Like he currently is into turn 12 of this race.”

A moment later he heard from Crane again, “Max, people in the chat are asking if Y/N is in fact pregnant again.”

He barely let his eyes go wide. He was going to be in trouble with his wife.

“MAX!” He heard from the next room over. Y/N had been inside the baby’s room putting away some clothes that had been gifted to them from Victoria, Martijn, and Daniel.

He could hear her footsteps going from one room to another. He was lucky that the race had just ended and he had just finished P2. He was quick to mute his mic before looking at her when she walked into the room, heavily pregnant, holding her belly with a thin light blue dress under her fingers.

“Did you just let it slip on stream that I’m pregnant again?” She asked, holding up her phone to show a direct message of a picture of a tweet that she got on Instagram from a friend of hers.

The tweet in all caps read, IS Y/N VERSTAPPEN PREGNANT AGAIN???!!?!?!

He gave a nod to her, and could hear Crane in one ear saying that he was in trouble. He wanted to knock his headphones off his head, or at the very least reach up and turn his camera off.

“You weren’t supposed to say anything until next week.” She said with the hand that was holding her phone falling to her side.

It had always been the original plan to wait until she was closer to the end of her pregnancy to announce that she was pregnant to everyone who wasn’t family. 

Max reached his hand out towards her as she was standing close to his sim rig. She was just out of view of the camera so no one could see her belly. “I’m sorry, mijn leeuwin. I know you were excited to announce it to everyone.”

Given how busy they both were with the kids and both of their work lives they had waited much longer this time around to announce that Y/N was pregnant again. Things at home for them were just starting to slow down.

Maybe now would be just as good a time as any.

She hung her head for a moment, and Max was waiting to hear the sound of irritation in her voice but instead she just shook her head. Max caught her hand, moving to take his headphones off with one hand. He placed them on top of his keyboard, before dropping her hand and then moved out of the seat of his rig. He took her in his arms and placed a few kisses into her hair.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered again. “If you want I can make Crane apologize. You know that he was just joking around.”

None of the Team Redline guys knew that Y/N was pregnant. Crane had just thrown something out there and happened to be right this time. He felt her drop her head onto his shoulder and felt her shake it side to side.

He stroked his fingers over the small of her back and could feel a few drops of what could only be tears start to soak the fabric at the shoulders of his shirt. He kissed the side of her head, and could feel that she was pulling away from him. He looked to meet her eyes, and saw that they were red rimmed. He ran his fingers over her cheeks, removing the tear tracks, and kissed her forehead.

“You can post it later today,” He whispered. “I’m sure half of the internet won’t even notice.”

She gave him a stiff nod, and hugged him once more and he made sure to hug her back feeling her baby bump against his stomach, placing a kiss on her hairline in apology before she let go of him.

He watched her walk out of the room with her shoulders slumped forward. He let out a heavy sigh before climbing back into his sim rig and put on his headphones again. He looked at his screen to see that the stream had ended and it was just him, Crane and the rest of the team.

“Max,” He heard from Crane. “You’re being a little too quiet for my liking mate.”

Max pressed the button on his steering wheel, turning his mic back on. “Yeah, sorry guys. I have a very unhappy wife right now.”

He could hear the far away sound of a door opening, and it sounded like it was coming from Nico’s room.

“I’m sorry to hear that Max,” He heard from Crane. “Let Y/N know I didn’t mean to spill the beans.”

“I’ll make sure that she knows.” He replied with a tight tone to his voice.

Max stayed on talking to the Redline guys for a few more minutes catching up with them, hearing about how 24 hours of Nurburgring had gone without him this year. Before they had all logged off Crane apologized again. Max told him not to worry about it.

Later in the evening after dinner, Y/N seemed to disappear into Niki’s room for a while.

Max couldn’t tell if Y/N was still upset about earlier today. He knew that she had posted the photos that were taken of her to Instagram, with the almost jilted announcement that was her caption, Our secret got spilled a little early but I can't wait to meet you in July. After he had received several congratulations from being tagged in the comments of her post.

Max had been helping Nico with his homework, and by the time they were done Nico needed to head to bed. Max had loaded the dishwasher, and cleaned the counters quickly. He turned the light off in the kitchen and walked downstairs to the master bedroom to see Y/N on her side of the bed, she looked to be asleep, Niki and Nico were also in their bed, curled close to Y/N. Max changed out of his clothes from the day, throwing his team redline shirt to the side and took off his shorts before walking back into the bedroom.

Max had never been kicked out of his own bed before, but he walked to his side of the bed and moved to get his pillow. It seemed like he would be sleeping on the couch upstairs tonight.

He pulled the pillow from the bed and was just about to leave the room when he heard, “Maxy,” in Y/N’s sleep riddled tone.

He turned to look at her, and saw Niki’s head against her chest with her hand holding the little boy.

“Where are you going?” She asked, obviously seeing the pillow in his hand.

“Thought I would sleep on the couch.” He wasn’t sure if she was still mad at him, but he wasn’t going to sleep in their bed if she was.

He saw her shake her head a little before doing her best to reach over without jostling Niki while he slept and pulled the sheets back on his side. So, she wanted him in here, she wasn't as mad as he thought she was.

He climbed under the sheets eventually, dropping his pillow back in its place, and as Nico moved closer to him, Max made the assessment that they would need a bigger bed if the younger kids wanted to sleep in here at any point.

All five of them wouldn’t be able to fit into a king size bed anymore.

Nights like this didn’t happen often, and Max didn’t want to assume that Y/N’s reaction was because she was hormonal and pregnant even though he knew that it was. She was feeling emotional and needed to be surrounded by him and the boys. It was almost like she was nesting in a way, needing to have the things that were important to her in arms reach.

He moved Nico slightly, so the little boy's back was pressed up against his chest before looking at Y/N. She reached for him first, pressing her hand to his cheek.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered.

“I know.” Max laid his hand over hers. “It’s only a week earlier than planned.”

“It just slipped out.” He tried to reason. He hadn’t been dying to tell the world that he was going to be a father again in less than four months. He had been excited that Y/N was pregnant again and that they were having another boy but going through all of the extra things for the announcement didn’t do anything for him. He was more concerned with his wife giving birth without any complications and his son being born healthy.

“I know,” She pressed her head further into her pillow. “I know that Crane just says things while you guys are on stream. I know he didn’t mean anything by it.”

She didn’t sound emotional now, and he knew that her hormones were back to normal, or as normal as they could be when she was 32 weeks pregnant.

“You’re not angry then?” He asked just to be sure.

“I’m not, Max.”

Then why did he feel like he still needed to find a way to make up for it somehow? Max started to run through what he could do to set it right. Maybe order her a big bouquet of flowers, or go and ask Victoria to take Y/N out to lunch the next time they were in Belgium? Let her max out one of their credit cards, even though he knew that she was too financially responsible to let that happen.

“I was hormonal and over reacted. Don’t worry.” She said as if that settled the matter. She pressed her head against his shoulder and he felt her eyelashes flutter closed against his skin. He was going to find some way to make this up to her.

Mini Verstappen taglist: @karmabyfernando, @barcagirly, @sachaa-ff, @iamahallucinationnn, @musingsbyshreya, @glow-ish, @nonsensical-nonsence, @fanboyluvr, @champomiel, @gothicwidowsworld, @lighttsoutlewis, @itsalwaysgay, @minkyungseokie, @mynameisangeloflife, @ursforever129, @aundercover, @bborra, @mindless-rock, @cixrosie, @barcelonaloverf1life, @taylorslovesswifties13, @konsti081, @mellowarcadefun, @smnthnclj, @brekkers-whore, @lpab, @thedecalcomania-blog, @xoscar03, @em-gvf01, @haikyuen, @shelbyteller , @geniusalpaca, @princessria127 , @mysticalnightenthusiast

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Utah’s getting some of America’s best broadband

TOMORROW (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the country, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading and downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.

This broadband service is, of course, delivered via fiber optic cable. Of course it is. Fiber is vastly superior to all other forms of broadband delivery, including satellites, but also cable and DSL. Fiber caps out at 100tb/s, while cable caps out at 50gb/s – that is, fiber is 1,000 times faster:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/why-fiber-vastly-superior-cable-and-5g

Despite the obvious superiority of fiber, America has been very slow to adopt it. Our monopolistic carriers act as though pulling fiber to our homes is an impossible challenge. All those wires that currently go to your house, from power-lines to copper phone-lines, are relics of a mysterious, fallen civilization and its long-lost arts. Apparently we could no more get a new wire to your house than we could build the pyramids using only hand-tools.

In a sense, the people who say we can't pull wires anymore are right: these are relics of a lost civilization. Specifically, electrification and later, universal telephone service was accomplished through massive federal grants under the New Deal – grants that were typically made to either local governments or non-profit co-operatives who got everyone in town connected to these essential modern utilities.

Today – thanks to decades of neoliberalism and its dogmatic insistence that governments can't do anything and shouldn't try, lest they break the fragile equilibrium of the market – we have lost much of the public capacity that our grandparents took for granted. But in the isolated pockets where this capacity lives on, amazing things happen.

Since 2015, residents of Jackson County, KY – one of the poorest counties in America – have enjoyed some of the country's fastest, cheapest, most reliable broadband. The desperately poor Appalachian county is home to a rural telephone co-op, which grew out of its rural electrification co-op, and it used a combination of federal grants and local capacity to bring fiber to every home in the county, traversing dangerous mountain passes with a mule named "Ole Bub" to reach the most remote homes. The result was an immediately economic uplift for the community, and in the longer term, the county had reliable and effective broadband during the covid lockdowns:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Contrast this with places where the private sector has the only say over who gets broadband, at what speed, and at what price. America is full of broadband deserts – deserts that strand our poorest people. Even in the hearts of our largest densest cities, whole neighborhoods can't get any broadband. You won't be surprised to learn that these are the neighborhoods that were historically redlined, and that the people who live in them are Black and brown, and also live with some of the highest levels of pollution and its attendant sicknesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

These places are not set up for success under the best of circumstances, and during the lockdowns, they suffered terribly. You think your kid found it hard to go to Zoom school? Imagine what life was like for kids who attended remote learning while sitting on the baking tarmac in a Taco Bell parking lot, using its free wifi:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/02/elem-s02.html

ISPs loathe competition. They divide up the country into exclusive territories like the Pope dividing up the "new world" and do not trouble one another by trying to sell to customers outside of "their" turf. When Frontier – one of the worst of America's terrible ISPs – went bankrupt, we got to see their books, and we learned two important facts:

The company booked one million customers who had no alternative as an asset, because they would pay more for slower broadband, and Frontier could save a fortune by skipping maintenance, and charging these customers for broadband even through multi-day outages; and

Frontier knew that it could make a billion dollars in profit over a decade by investing in fiber build-out, but it chose not to, because stock analysts will downrank any carrier that made capital investments that took more than five years to mature. Because Frontier's execs were paid primarily in stock, they chose to strand their customers with aging copper connections and to leave a billion dollars sitting on the table, so that their personal net worth didn't suffer a temporary downturn:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

ISPs maintain the weirdest position: that a) only the private sector can deliver broadband effectively, but b) to do so, they'll need massive, unsupervised, no-strings-attached government handouts. For years, America went along with this improbable scheme, which is why Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave the carriers $45 billion in public funds to string slow, 19th-century-style copper lines across rural America:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Now, this is obviously untrue, and people keep figuring out that publicly provisioned broadband is the only way for America to get the same standard of broadband connectivity that our cousins in other high-income nations enjoy. In order to thwart the public's will, the cable and telco lobbyists joined ALEC, the far-right, corporatist lobbying shop, and drafted "model legislation" banning cities and counties from providing broadband, even in places the carriers chose not to serve:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

Red states across America adopted these rules, and legislators sold this to their base by saying that this was just "keeping the government out of their internet" (even as every carrier relied on an exclusive, government-granted territorial charter, often with massive government subsidies).

ALEC didn't target red states exclusively because they had pliable, bribable conservative lawmakers. Red states trend rural, and rural places are the most likely sites for public fiber. Partly, that's because low-density areas are harder to make a business case for, but also because these are also the places that got electricity and telephone through New Deal co-ops, which are often still in place.

Just about the only places in America where people like their internet service are the 450+ small towns where the local government provides fiber. These places vote solidly Republican, and it was their beloved conservative lawmakers whom ALEC targeted to enact laws banning their equally beloved fiber – keep voting for Christmas, turkeys, and see where it gets you:

https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map

But spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible.

Which brings me back to Utah, a red state with a Republican governor and legislature, and a national leader in passing unconstitutional, unhinged, unworkable legislation as part of an elaborate culture war kabuki:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165975112/utah-passes-an-age-verification-law-for-anyone-using-social-media

For more than two decades, a coalition of 21 cities in Utah have been building out municipal fiber. The consortium calls itself UTOPIA: "Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency":

https://www.utopiafiber.com/faqs/

UTOPIA pursues a hybrid model: they run "open access" fiber and then let anyone offer service over it. This can deliver the best of both worlds: publicly provisioned, blazing-fast fiber to your home, but with service provided by your choice of competing carriers. That means that if Moms for Liberty captures you local government, you're not captive to their ideas about what sites your ISP should block.

As Karl Bode writes for Techdirt, Utahns in UTOPIA regions have their choice of 18 carriers, and competition has driven down prices and increased speeds. Want uncapped 1gb fiber? That's $75/month. Want 10gb fiber? That's $150:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/15/utah-locals-are-getting-cheap-10-gbps-fiber-thanks-to-local-governments/

UTOPIA's path to glory wasn't an easy one. The dismal telco monopolists Qwest and Lumen sued to put them out of business, delaying the rollout by years:

https://www.deseret.com/2005/7/22/19903471/utopia-responds-to-qwest-lawsuit/

UTOPIA has been profitable and self-sustaining for over 15 years and shows no sign of slowing. But 17 states still ban any attempt at this.

Keeping up such an obviously bad policy requires a steady stream of distractions and lies. The "government broadband doesn't work" lie has worn thin, so we've gotten a string of new lies about wireless service, insisting that fiber is obviated by point-to-point microwave relays, or 5g, or satellite service.

There's plenty of places where these services make sense. You're not going to be able to use fiber in a moving car, so yeah, you're going to want 5g (and those 5g towers are going to need to be connected to each other with fiber). Microwave relay service can fill the gap until fiber can be brought in, and it's great for temporary sites (especially in places where it doesn't rain, because rain, clouds, leaves and other obstructions are deadly for microwave relays). Satellite can make sense for an RV or a boat or remote scientific station.

But wireless services are orders of magnitude slower than fiber. With satellite service, you share your bandwidth with an entire region or even a state. If there's only a couple of users in your satellite's footprint, you might get great service, but when your carrier adds a thousand more customers, your connection is sliced into a thousand pieces.

That's also true for everyone sharing your fiber trunk, but the difference is that your fiber trunk supports speeds that are tens of thousands of times faster than the maximum speeds we can put through freespace electromagnetic spectrum. If we need more fiber capacity, we can just fish a new strand of fiber through the conduit. And while you can increase the capacity of wireless by increasing your power and bandwidth, at a certain point you start pump so much EM into the air that birds start falling out of the sky.

Every wireless device in a region shares the same electromagnetic spectrum, and we are only issued one such spectrum per universe. Each strand of fiber, by contrast, has its own little pocket universe, containing a subset of that spectrum.

Despite all its disadvantages, satellite broadband has one distinct advantage, at least from an investor's perspective: it can be monopolized. Just as we only have one electromagnetic spectrum, we also only have one sky, and the satellite density needed to sustain a colorably fast broadband speed pushes the limit of that shared sky:

https://spacenews.com/starlink-vs-the-astronomers/

Private investors love monopoly telecoms providers, because, like pre-bankruptcy Frontier, they are too big to care. Back in 2021, Altice – the fourth-largest cable operator in America – announced that it was slashing its broadband speeds, to be "in line with other ISPs":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

In other words: "We've figured out that our competitors are so much worse than we are that we are deliberately degrading our service because we know you will still pay us the same for less."

This is why corporate shills and pro-monopolists prefer satellite to municipal fiber. Sure, it's orders of magnitude slower than fiber. Sure, it costs subscribers far more. Sure, it's less reliable. But boy oh boy is it profitable.

The thing is, reality has a pronounced leftist bias. No amount of market magic will conjure up new electromagnetic spectra that will allow satellite to attain parity with fiber. Physics hates Starlink.

Yeah, I'm talking about Starlink. Of course I am. Elon Musk basically claims that his business genius can triumph over physics itself.

That's not the only vast, impersonal, implacable force that Musk claims he can best with his incredible reality-distortion field. Musk also claims that he can somehow add so many cars to the road that he will end traffic – in other words, he will best geometry too:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Geometry hates Tesla, and physics hates Starlink. Reality has a leftist bias. The future is fiber, and public transit. These are both vastly preferable, more efficient, safer, more reliable and more plausible than satellite and private vehicles. Their only disadvantage is that they fail to give an easily gulled, thin-skinned compulsive liar more power over billions of people. That's a disadvantage I can live with.

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/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

Image: 4028mdk09 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_LED_Fiberglasleuchte.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[adimouze]

For u oomfie hand in rotten hand (it keeps growing I want more soft maxiel I will write it for all our needs)

--

He doesn't take the jet there. He thought about it. Doesn't want people - his people even, to know. To think they can stop him. He doesn't even text Daniel.

They talked before his flight, although Daniel doesn't know Max was leaving. Was landing. Max remembers saying something about sim work, words about the race half swallowed in embarrassment, in excitement. He remembers the soft smile - indulgent even, that Daniel kept throughout. You’ll win, he said and Max doesn't want to correct him.

He would. Could have. Still can – but Max does not want to. Or rather, he thinks – he wants, for himself, for the first time.

He wonders if Daniel has found peace now. Does it have Max’s name on it? Does it make a place for him? Max rubs sweaty palms into his jeans. Refuses the offer from the stewardess to have more to drink. Screws the cap on further against his brow just in case someone recognises him even when they boarded at 2am.

The gin doesn't taste as nice as in his own jet. He sweats more. Sleeps through a guy snoring even with the space between them in first class. He sleeps an hour, two. There are eighteen more to go.

Max watches the plane travel across the world on the screen instead. His heart doesn't stutter when it glances near Abu Dhabi. It flutters when they cross Hong Kong, aches as they cross the ocean and the Australian coast appears in the corner like the DVD logo of Max's childhood.

Words spill behind his tongue. Daniel’s name too. He rehearses what he wants to say. Mimes the words as the figure plane follows the dotted line. It doesn't get easier.

He turns airplane mode off when they land. It blows up with notifications. GP, Rupert – Christian emailed a schedule. He starts the sim session tomorrow. Today, in fact.

Max may already be late. He scrolls past them. Marks them muted. Crosses into Australian land and hot tarmac. It doesn't quite smell like the Melbourne track.

Daniel sent him memes in the last few hours. Before he started feeding the animals. Max has learnt and memorised their names. Even Maximilian the calf. It still makes Daniel snort when he says it - says the baby cow stares at him as much as Max does. Hence the name, Maxy.

Asks Max ten times if he gets the joke - Max, Max Emilian, Maximilian. Max nods, laughs anyway, as it makes Daniel laugh harder. Tells him his joke is silly, and Daniel replies he spent an hour thinking of the name thank you Max. Rambles about how he thought about it as baby cow not Max was being licked by his mother, calf hair sticking up everywhere just like my Max after a race.

Daniel doesn’t say anything when Max chokes on his water, when he breathes too loud. Chokes on Daniel’s name. Tries to find a joke about his hair and the baby calf. Doesn’t come up with one. Daniel smiles, pleased thing Max screenshots with clumsy fingers. It’s blurry. Max sets it as Daniel’s profile picture everywhere. Sends it to Victoria unprompted and gets a heart and a thumbs up from her.

Sends it to team redline. Mutes Luke’s dms for an hour or two after.

Max thinks he stares morethan Maximillian the baby calf anyway. Loves Daniel more than the baby cow. Wants the way Daniel smiles softly at it, the cooing in his voice making Max’s stomach tighten with need. The baby cow doesn't realise how lucky it is, to get Daniel’s affection so freely. Max will be there soon.

Max wants to beg Daniel to give it to him too.

Two more memes. He likes them all, even if Lando sent them to him two weeks ago, when they first appeared on TikTok. It’s cute. Max can't wait to watch them and hear Daniel laugh as he does so - always.

Daniel also keeps sending this guy - burly, hairy - working on a farm. Max always gnaws at his lips so he doesn't ask Daniel if he would like Max that way. Would Daniel be ok if Max burns under the sun instead, that his hair is blonde everywhere and will not be as dark as the TikTok man’s. He can get burly, he thinks — but Daniel will need to let him race with the team online, in exchange.

He knows there is a spare room, in Daniel's farmhouse. Max thinks he can fix his set up there. Can buy a new one. He already knows the ridiculous shipping fees, and has it on back order anyway. Can get Daniel to play with him maybe. He knows Daniel will say yes. Even if Daniel sucks at FIFA. Max tells him whenever he can.

--

My oomfie here writes the best fics btw!!!! This healed me!!!!!

[nobuverse]

( The amount of silent disapproval Nobu has for this man )

[moodyeva]

[oattoast]

im just flabbergasted that californians voted the opposite of me in most propositions on the ballot. we voted NOT to abolish prison slavery. we voted against a minimum wage increase. we voted against rent control despite skyrocketing housing costs and homelessness. we increased penalties for nonviolent theft and drug crimes (walking back a measure that lowered them to misdemeanors and saved taxpayers untold amounts and kept people out of prison). we voted to punish an HIV/aids healthcare nonprofit and restrict how it spends its money (a measure brought onto the ballot by landlords and housing developers as retaliation for that org supporting housing related causes like the rent control measure). just about the only progressive thing that passed was the repeal of the same-sex marriage ban we passed in 2008 (my first election, where i obviously voted no. "no on h8!" poor teen me; if only you knew what was coming). note we do not actually have enshrined same sex marriage (yet...? <- the question mark wouldn't have been there before i saw the 2024 election results).

this is one of the more progressive states, right? i am astounded at how many californians voted against our own interests and the interests of our citizens. is everyone a landlord? is everyone rich? does everyone have stakes in prison slavery? we couldn't say no to slavery. actual slavery.

this. this is real life.

i feel like grimes clowntweeting musk "this isnt your heart" when. of course. obviously this is the ugly beating heart of a state, and a nation, founded on violence, subjugation of the other, and bigotry.

california hasn't answered for the violent mission system, and the native tribe in my area, the tongva, are not federally recognized and their lands and sacred sites are routinely violated. as children in the public school system we had lessons on the california missions and how they "converted" and "anglicized" the natives, making it sound like spanish colonization was a quaint settlement of ranchos where the natives and the spanish worked side by side to make california a "civilized" place. we built models of our favorite missions and wrote cute little reports and took field trips to these sites where uncounted people, kidnapped from their families and used as slave labor by the spanish, are still buried in unmarked graves. craft stores sold model kits of these sites. we have streets named after and statues depicting the colonizer who led the charge. in 2015 he was made a saint by the catholic church. after one of the missions was intentionally set on fire (and after a statue of the saint/colonizer was toppled) many local latinos mourned the damage of a building where countless people, some of them their own ancestors, suffered, because that's where they attended church or got married or baptized.

not to mention more recent history. our beloved dodgers who won the world series this year have their home stadium built on land seized from poor mexican american families. "chavez ravine" is the former neighborhoods of la loma, bishop, and palo verde. families who had been pushed to the poor neighborhood by racism and redlining, and thus had nowhere else to go, were violently forced out of their homes for a baseball stadium. and now their descendants wear blue caps and set off fireworks for the franchise that makes millions off of them and gives nothing back to the community (besides financial support to one of the most violent police departments in the country... and a statement in support of israel's genocide...)

this is a picture from the LA Times in 1959 showing aurora vargas, one of the very last holdouts of the battle for "chavez ravine," getting carried out of her family home by LA sherrifs deputies. i remember this image whenever my fellow poor or working class latinos spend $$$ on dodgers merch or paint dodgers murals or celebrate in the streets when they win games.

as i get older and grow more and feel more empathy and learn about our real history, i get more radical, not less. it doesn't make sense to me that my community is getting more hateful and conservative, but there is an obvious basis for it. it's ingrained, despite a popular perception of working and middle class californians being liberal and accepting. it feels like i'm fighting against a riptide. my uncle, an immigrant with dark skin who speaks broken english, is a trump supporter, and i only found out today. do i even have the right to be surprised or disappointed?

i am obviously going to retain hope, and fight where i can, when i can. i just have to be mindful of where i come from and what we are capable of when we are enmeshed in and misled by powerful, deep-seated forces on this blood-soaked land.

[welcometogehenna]

Fate/type Redline

[mariacallous]

The Federal Communications Commission has voted—once again—to assert its power to oversee and regulate the activities of the broadband industry in the United States. In a 3-2 vote, the agency reinstated net neutrality rules that had been abandoned during the height of the Trump administration’s deregulatory blitz.

“Broadband is now an essential service,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said Thursday in prepared remarks. “Essential services—the ones we count on in every aspect of modern life—have some basic oversight.”

The rules approved by the agency on Thursday will reclassify broadband services in the United States once more as “common carriers” under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, subjecting broadband to the same public-utilities-style scrutiny as telephone networks and cable TV.

That distinction means that the agency can prevent internet service providers from blocking or throttling legal content, or letting online services pay ISPs to prioritize their content with faster delivery speeds. But it’s difficult, particularly in an election year, to say whether net neutrality is here to stay or whether the FCC’s vote is just another inflection point in a regulatory forever-war.

“Net neutrality rules protect internet openness by prohibiting broadband providers from playing favorites with internet traffic,” Rosenworcel says. “We need broadband to reach 100 percent of us—and we need it fast, open, and fair.”

This reclassification was first attempted by the Obama administration following a lawsuit by Verizon in 2011; the ruling pointed to reclassification as a necessary hurdle in efforts to bring broadband under scope of the FCC’s oversight. The outcome of that case prompted the introduction of the Open Internet Order of 2015, which not only reclassified the industry in line with the court’s suggestion but imposed a slate of new rules with “net neutrality” serving as the FCC’s guiding philosophy.

Two years later, those rules were overturned by the Trump-appointed FCC chair at the time, Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer. Back in the private sector now, Pai derided the FCC’s efforts this week as a “complete waste of time;” something, he said, “nobody actually cares about.”

The rules put forth under Rosenworcel are somewhat different than those previously introduced. Past FCC orders pursing net neutrality have been repeatedly challenged in court, giving the agency today a fair idea of which policies will be defensible in the onslaught of lawsuits definitely to come.

Though banning the creation of “pay-to-play internet fast lanes” remains a priority, the reasons for reclassifying broadband are not limited to warding off the industry’s well-documented predatory practices. The new order also gives the FCC the ability to more closely examine industry behavior; how, for instance, companies respond (or fail to) in the event of widespread network outages.

“Net neutrality” was not originally devised as a set of rules but rather as a principle by which regulators seek to strike a balance between the profit-motivated interests of megalithic broadband companies and the rights and welfare of consumers. It is often summed up simply as the practice of ensuring that “all internet, regardless of its source, must be treated the same.”

While the Trump FCC asserted that it had no authority to regulate ISPs, it paradoxically claimed—in a failed effort—the power to crack down on states working to create regulation for themselves. Still, in 2018 California successfully banned broadband companies from engaging in a host of anti-consumer activities, from digital redlining and data discrimination to zero-rating schemes, which enable ISPs to funnel consumers toward particular websites or services by exempting them from arbitrary data caps.

Net neutrality advocates typically credit laws like California’s with preventing “virtually lawless” service providers from going haywire over the past half-decade. Industry associations offer a counter-history: Net neutrality protections must have been pointless all along, since the sky didn’t fall once they disappeared.

State-level protections, however, haven’t prevented cable and satellite TV companies from pushing a menu of anti-consumer policies nationally. The industry has threatened to hike monthly subscription prices if ever prevented from charging early-termination fees to customers locked into yearlong contracts. It has opposed rules proposed by the Federal Trade Commission designed to “make it at least as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to start it.”

Rosenworcel and other net neutrality proponents point to the growing reliance on broadband as successive generations of Americans increasingly eschew forms of communication that traditionally fell under the FCC’s blanket. Broadband is undeniably a telecommunications service today—even more so now than when the FCC first sought to adopt net neutrality as its guiding principle.

“Today's action brings back moderate rules that have already passed court muster and are essential building blocks for a consumer-friendly and citizen-friendly internet,” says Michael Copps, a former FCC commissioner. “Our communications technologies are evolving so swiftly, affecting so many important aspects of our individual lives, that they must be available to all of us on a nondiscriminatory basis.”

Consumer reliance on digital platforms and tools for communication is only increasing: Teenagers today notoriously loathe—some say fear!—talking on the phone, while the landscape of communications dynamics shifted violently for US workers in the post-pandemic era. Nevertheless, Americans today have little agency on their own to combat predatory-pricing schemes and lopsided usage restrictions. Consumer advocates note that Americans cannot simply vote with their wallets while locked into receiving services from a de facto monopoly.

While having evolved far past its original conceit, net neutrality is at heart a policy of "non-discrimination," as Tim Wu explained in the 2002 white paper coining the phrase.

“The point of the neutrality principle is not to interfere with the administration of the internet-protocol side of a broadband carrier’s network,” wrote Wu, then an associate professor at the University of Virginia Law School. “It is, rather, to prevent discrimination in that administration.”

[oddygaul]

Porco Rosso

You know, I usually forget about Porco Rosso when thinking about my favorite Ghibli movies but it’s a banger.

After this rewatch, it’s hard for me to think of it as anything other than Miyazaki’s self-insert fanfic. Seriously, this is like his ideal world - everyone’s flying their personal planes around and parking them like they’re cars at the local diner, Porco’s this big cool guy who everyone respects and all the hot babes are into, and he gets to live alone with no one bothering him in a cool island cove. It’s even set in 40s Europe, so he has all his favorite fascist planes available*!

*oh yeah, you thought The Wind Rises was problematic? Let me introduce you to Studio Ghibli’s namesake and start unveiling the pattern here

behold - the intractable chaotic force that is two dozen kidnapped schoolgirls

Anyway, I think the strongest point in Porco Rosso’s favor is that it’s just funny as fuck. I don’t know how the Japanese audio track is, but the dub is some king shit. I get that this is a ‘when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail’ situation, but honestly it has Big Redline Energy imo.

We’ve got your classic early 2000s gravelly-voiced Steve Blum-alike too-cool protagonist, contrasted with a world surrounding him that absolutely refuses to take itself seriously with constant dumb gags and throwaway jokes. The American guy provides a lot of this (I died at the raw fuckboy energy exuded from him saying “That’s my favorite line from a screenplay I wrote”), but it’s everywhere - the fuckin Carnival Cruise liner deploying their own personal fighter jets to fight off pirates, with color commentator already on deck and raring to go, was probably my favorite. Even the dogfights, which for the most part remain somewhat grounded and above board due to Miyazaki’s plane fetish, get real goofy at points, with Porco and Curtis throwing wrenches at each other like a cartoon.

I mean, come on! ehh? right? just me?

sidenote: while grabbing these caps it was interesting to see the contrasting approaches to showing the engine's power in each of these scenes. In Porco Rosso, they focus on the characters themselves and their elastic properties, showing Porco's ears and jowls flapping wildly in the wind, which leads to some great freezeframes. Frisby doesn’t have much in the way of loose body parts, so instead they focus on his loose shirt billowing with the force - it doesn't really translate as well in a still but looks great in motion.

At the end of the day it has its issues - I’m still not convinced it’s just Porco that doesn’t take women seriously and not the movie itself - but it’s a damn good time.