#and who make money off gullible people
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darlingdaisyfarm · 2 months ago
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Tourist trap (Stan Pines x fem!reader)
minors dni
Stan is very fond of tourists who believe his stories.
tags: nsfw, smut, p in v, fingering, riding, desk sex, semi-public, praise, sir kink, rough sex
You shifted nervously from one foot to the other, wide-eyed and excited, as you clutched your little Mystery Shack brochure in your hand. It was all crumpled from being folded and unfolded too many times, but you couldn’t stop reading all the incredible things advertised on it.
"See the world-famous Sasquatch Skull up close! Touch the Alien Artifacts nobody else believes in!" 
You believed it all. Every last word. After all, you’re such a lover of the unknown.
Your group of tourists shuffles around you, mostly adults who looks really unimpressed, grumbling about the entrance fee. You’re the only one whose eyes are wide with excitement and who literally trembles from excitement to see everything the Shack have to offer. And that’s exactly what catches his eye.
Stan Pines stands in the doorway, leaning on his cane, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. You don’t notice how his eyes scans over you, how he takes in every little detail: the innocent excitement, the way you’re practically throwing your money at the gift shop already and that naive, gullible glow about you. You practically skip forward, not noticing how Stan’s eyes linger on you. He can tell right away — you aren’t just any tourist. No, you’re special. Too trustful. Sweet. The kind that believe every ridiculous thing he’d ever put on display.
And isn’t that just. . . adorable?
The tour starts and you trail behind him eagerly, eyes wide and shining as he tells stories about the various "creatures" and "relics" in the Shack. Part of you is convinced that every word is true, that you’re standing in the presence of real magic, real mystery. 
Stan notices you hanging on his every word and it makes something stir in him. The way your lips parts just a little, these little “wow” and “ohh” you make, the way your eyes follow his every move. Meanwhile other tourists roll their eyes or sigh, bored out of their minds, but not you. You’re his favorite kind of visitor — the kind that made his job fun
"So," Stan starts, turning to you with a glint in his eye as the rest of the group wanders off, "what do you think of this, doll? Pretty impressive, huh?"
You nod enthusiastically, clutching your bag of over-priced trinkets and souvenirs. "It’s amazing, sir! i can’t believe im seeing all this in real life! i mean, is the Sasquatch skull really real? And the alien artifacts, are they, like, actually from space?!"
"Well, aren’t you just the cutest little tourist I’ve ever seen,” he smiles, leaning slightly towards you and letting out a chuckle “most people come in here and they laugh it off. Say it’s all fake, but not you. You really believe in this, don’t you?”
“Yeah! ive always dreamed of visiting such a cool place! thank you, sir, it’ll remain a good memory,” you giggle.
“Ohh, sweetheart, if you’re such a fan, maybe i can show you some of the mysteries we keep hidden from the average tourists.” he absolutely loves how wide-eyed and trusting you are. You really believe every word he tells you?
Your eyes light up, completely oblivious to the hungry look in his eyes. "Really? You’d do that?"
Stan rubs his chin, pretending to think it over, though the grin never left his face. “Hmm,” he looks at you for a couple more seconds before he tells you you. “for you, dear? Anything.”
He leads you away from the main part of the Shack, down a hallway lined with dusty old portraits and broken light fixtures. You don’t even notice how quiet it is now as the rest of the tour group far behind. All you can think about was the excitement bubbling inside you, the thrill of seeing something “exclusive.”
Stan opens a creaky door at the end of the hall and motions for you to step inside. You eagerly obey, stepping into a dimly lit room filled with more strange objects, things that weren’t part of the normal tour. At least, that’s what Stan told you.
He closes the door behind him with a soft click, the two of you now alone and you never really noticed how close he suddenly got, his hand resting on your lower back as he guides you further into the room, its cluttered with strange artifacts, most of which hadn’t made it to the main display.
You’re buzzing with excitement as you look around at the dusty shelves. "Wow!" you gasped, wide-eyed. “What’s that? and that?! oh my gosh, is that a real shrunken head?!”
Stan chuckles, settling himself down in an old chair near desk before patting his lap. “Why don’t you come here, doll? I’ll give you a closer look.” there was something in his voice. . . something that should alert you, but you’re too caught up in your excitement to notice it.
Without a second thought, you plop yourself down on his lap, leaning forward to inspect the nearest artifact, still firing off a barrage of questions. "What’s this one? and where did you get it? oh god, is it really cursed?!"
Stan grunts, adjusting you a bit closer as his hands settled on your hips. He leans forward slightly, his mouth near your ear as he begins to explain some ridiculous story about the origins of the objects. But you barely notice how his fingers start to slip lower, just lightly brushing along the hem of your skirt.
You keep talking, completely oblivious, your words spilling out in an excited rush. “This is so cool! i can’t believe no one else gets to see this! i-“ your voice hitches as Stan’s hand slides further up your thigh, his thick fingers grazing the edge of your panties.
He continues talking as if nothing happens. “This here is an ancient artifact from South America. Supposedly cursed, but, eh, I wouldn’t worry about it too much.” he pauses, his hand gently pressing against the softness of your thigh as he keeps you pinned on his lap.
Your breath caught in your throat, but you tried to focus on his words, nodding as you squirmed a little. “W-wow, that’s- that’s so cool!” your voice breathy as Stan’s fingers brushes lightly along the edge of your panties, teasing you.
“Yeah, real cool, huh?” he asks you, still as if nothing happened, his other hand sliding up your waist to grip your side, so you wouldn’t move that much. His fingers dip lower, grazing the fabric of your panties before slipping just beneath it. “aaand this one here,” he continues, “it’s said to have belonged to an ancient tribe. Powerful stuff.”
You can barely process what he’s saying, your mind blank as his fingers lightly tease along your slit, collecting the wetness that was beginning to pool there. You shift in his lap, trying to stifle the soft whimper that escape your lips, your legs pressing together.
“Something wrong, doll?” he asks in a playful, no, mocking tone, while his fingers now lightly caressing your clit. “You seem a little distracted. Thought you wanted to hear about all these mysteries*.”
“I- I do!” you stutter. “It’s just- s-sir!”
“Just what?” Stan interrupts, his fingers now slipping lower, pressing firmly against your entrance. His other hand grips your waist, holding you firmly in place as you instinctively try to buck your hips against his hand.
You whine softly, barely able to form a coherent sentence. "I-I just. . . oh god-“
Stan smirks. “You’re so cute, sweetheart,” he nuzzles your neck, his fingers now teasing your entrance, pushing just the tip of one finger inside your throbbing cunt. “asking all these questions while sitting in my lap like a good little girl.”
You sob, your hips rocking against his hand without even realizing it. You can feel his cock, hard and pulsing beneath you, pressing against your ass, but Stan keeps his focus on you, his fingers slowly pumping in and out of your wetness, never stopping his stories.
“This one is said to have special. . . powers. Like it can make someone go crazy with just one touch.” he chuckles, his finger curling inside you, hitting that spot that made you gasp and clench around him.
Your head spinning, your body aching with need, completely at his mercy as he tease and play with you, all while still pretending like it was just another tour.
Stan’s smirk widens as he feels you trembling in his lap, the way you quietly moan, your face and body both hot. He keeps his voice steady, still saying some ridiculous story about the artifacts, but his fingers never stops their teasing.
“So, this piece here was said to be used in rituals. Uhh, something about unlocking a person’s deepest desires, makin’ ’em lose all sense of control.” its not difficult for him to imagine these false stories, he is an experienced lier after all. You try to listen, try to understand what he’s saying, but that’s just impossible to do as he presses his thumb harder against your needy bud, his fingers sliding through your slick folds. You whimper, barely able to focus on his words. Your body burning, every nerve ending tingling as his rough fingers stroke and tease your throbbing pussy. Your hips rock against his hand, desperate for more, but you’re too shy, too embarrassed to ask for it.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart? you were askin’ so many questions before, now you’re all quiet?” his thumb circles your clit a little bit faster and your body jolts from pleasure, a soft cry escaping your lips before you could stop it.
“I’m just-“ you stammer, your cheeks flushed with embarrassment as you squirm in his lap. “I c-can’t, sir, can’t think”
He chuckles, now pushing two thick fingers deep inside your tight, clenching cunt. You gasp and your back arch against him as he starts to pump them slowly, curling and scissoring his fingers just right, hitting that spot inside you that made your whole body tremble. What a lovely sounds you’re making.
“Aww you poor thing, so lost, huh? cant even think straight, can ya?”
You whimper, biting your lip as you try to stifle the noises that are spilling out of you, but it’s useless. Your hips are moving on their own, grinding against his hand as you clung to his shirt, “sir” and “please” leaving your mouth as his fingers stretch you so well.
“Just relax, doll, I’ll take care of you. Just listen to me.” his fingers pumped harder inside your pulsing pussy. “you wanted a tour, right?”
You nodded weakly, not even listening him, unable to focus on anything but the way his fingers were fucking into you, the wet sounds of your dripping pussy filling the small room. His thick digits stretch you open just good, making you lose your mind.
“So this here,” he continued, his voice still calm despite the way you were practically writhing in his lap, “was used by an ancient tribe. Supposedly, they thought it could help them communicate with the gods, but I think it’s more useful for somethin’ else. . . don’t you, sweetheart?”
You could only sob in response, your body trembling as his fingers drove deeper, stretching your tight walls, his thumb never leaving your poor sensitive clit, your muscles clenching around his fingers as he pushed you closer and closer to the edge.
“You’re such a good girl,” he praises as he watches you squirm in his lap, your wetness coating his fingers. “so cute, all worked up like this. You gonna cum for me, doll?” you nod , your hips bucking against his hand, his fingers thrusting deeper inside your aching cunt. Stan laughs at that pathetic sight, his fingers moving faster now, fucking you hard and deep, your pussy clenching around his digits. “Go on, princess, cum on my fingers.” you exhale when Stan finally let you finish. With a strangled cry, your body shakes, your cunt clenching around his fingers as your orgasm crashes over you. Your eyes rolled and brain fucking melted as you shudder in his lap.
Stan grinned, watching you with a satisfied smirk. “Good girl, such a good little doll for me.”
His hand rests on your breast, first slowly and gently caressing it. His fingers find your nipple and give it a light squeeze, drawing another sound from you. Stan smirks to himself as he feels you shaking in his lap, your body responding to every little touch he gave you. His fingers still buried deep inside you, moving at a slow, teasing pace that had you on edge, desperate for more. You can barely sit still, squirming against him, your breath coming out in soft, shallow gasps.
His fingers curling inside you again, and you whimper, your hips jerking in response. “You want somethin’, don’t you? you gotta tell me what you need, doll.”
Your mind foggy, every nerve in your body on fire as his fingers keep working you over, drawing soft, desperate noises from your parted lips. You could barely think straight, let alone put together a proper sentence. “pl-please, sir”
He chuckles, clearly enjoying your struggle. “Please what, sweetheart? you gotta use your words if you want somethin’ from me.”
You bite your lip, trying to keep yourself together, but it’s damn impossible with the way his big fingers thrusting inside you, hitting that perfect spot over and over again. You can feel the heat building inside you again, that desperate, aching need, but of something bigger than just his fingers. You need to be filled, to have your brains fucked out. “I need more. . .”
“More, baby? you want my fingers to go faster? is that what you mean?”
You shake your head frantically, your whole body aching for something else. “No, I need- need your cock, sir-“
He raise his eyebrows in a fake surprise. “Oh, is that what you’ve been tryin’ to say this whole time? you’re beggin’ for it now, huh? pretty little thing, all desperate for me to fuck you?”
You whimper softly, your hips moving on their own, trying to push down on his hand for more friction, more pressure, but he holds you still, keeping you right where he wanted you. “Please, sir,” you whisper and nearly cry because of horrible emptiness you’re feeling. “please just fuck me, sir, i need you!”
“You’re lucky I’m feelin’ generous today, sweetheart,” he tells you, his hand finally pulling away from your dripping slit. “don’t say i never gave you nothin’.”
Before you can even process whats happening, Stan shifts you in his lap, his strong hands lifting your hips and positioning you right above his length. You can feel his cock, already hard and throbbing beneath you, pressing up against your soaked entrance, and your whole body tense, your breath catching in your throat.
Stan’s hands grip your hips tightly, holding you steady as he lines himself up with your glistening cunt, spreading your folds. “You ready for it, doll?” he asks. “this what you’ve been beggin’ for?”
You nod quickly, fuck enough of questions, you thought. “Yes,” you whisper. “yes yes yes, ple-“ but before you can even finish, he slowly pushes inside you, stretching you open inch by inch. You immediately gasp at the new sensation, your hands gripping onto his shoulders as your body adjusts to the sudden fullness. Oh god, it’s thick, so hard, filling you completely and you can feel every inch of him throbbing inside you, every vein, it feels so hot.
Stan huffs out, his grip on your hips tightening as he buries himself to the hilt. “Fuck, you’re tight. like you were made for this, doll.”
You whimper softly, holding on him, your body trembling as you try to adjust to the feeling of him inside you. It’s almost too much, the way he stretches you so perfectly, the way he fills you completely. You can barely breathe.
Stan gives you a moment to adjust. his cock pulsing inside you. “There we go,” he mutters watching your brows furrowing. “Just like that. . . you’re doin’ so good, babygirl.”
You moan again, your hips shifting slightly in his lap, and you feel him twitch inside you,. “I. . . nhhah, s-sir”
He leans towards you and kisses your forehead, his hands guiding your hips to start moving, slowly at first. “Go on, princess. Ride me, let me see how bad you want it.”
You bite your lip nervously as you’ve never been in this pose before, you slowly start to move, lifting yourself up and then sinking back down onto his cock. It feels incredible, the way his cock stretches you open, hitting all sweet spots inside you. You feel the tension building inside you again, that same desperate, aching need, and you whimper again and again, your hips moving faster as your cunt tightening around him.
Stan’s eyes locks with yours as he guides your movements, kissing your neck. “That’s it, sweetheart, you feel so fuckin’ good, yesss, such a good girl, ridin’ me like that.”
You cry out at his words, what a sweet praise, your body moving on its own now, your hips grinding down against him, taking him deeper with each thrust. You can barely think, barely breathe, the pleasure overwhelming your senses, your mind clouded, you can’t even maintain the eye contact.
Stan’s hands moves to your waist, holding you steady as he starts thrusting up into you, meeting your movements with deep, powerful thrusts. You whine, your hands gripping onto his shoulders for support as he fucks you, your mouth hangs open while he fucks you faster and harder with each thrust, he holds you so tightly, squeezing your body while you ride him.
You gasp. “I- I’m gonna-“
“Go ahead, doll, cum for me, let me feel it.”
Your body tensed, your walls clenching around his cock as your orgasm hits you hard. Your body shaking, trembling in his lap as you cumming, rambling pleas leave your mouth when you feel the tip of his cock rubbing sweetly against your cervix. Stan groans, his grip on your waist tightening as he thrusts up into you harder, deeper, drawing out your pleasure as long as he can. “That’s it, such a good girl, baby. . . so fuckin’ tight.”
You fall on his chest, still shaking, your mind still spinning from the intensity of it all. You can feel him still throbbing inside you, still hard, and you whimper softly, your hips shifting slightly in his lap, he’s clearly not planning on pulling out.
After you manage to get your breathing back to normal at least a little you feel his hands still all over you, roughly dragging you up and laying you out on the old wooden table. Your legs tremble, spread wide as he stares down at you, taking in the sight like you’re his prize, his fucking reward.
“Not yet, sweetheart,” grin crosses his lips as he grabs your thighs, pulling you right to the edge of the table before slamming his cock back inside your pussy, forcing a cry from your throat. Your body jolts at the sudden penetration, and you moan again, legs wrapping around his waist as he starts pounding into you again. Hard. Rough. Fast. There’s not a drop of mercy in his movements, he's not holding back, fucking you like you're just a thing for him to use. Your sweet moans and that pathetic "sl-slow down!" sound like music to his ears.
His hands all over you, squeezing, groping, touching. He grabs your breasts, kneading them, pinching your nipples through your shirt so hard you whimper, arching your back off the table. He groans at that, leaning in close, his breath hot against your neck as he whispers, “Fuck, you feel heavenly, baby, can’t get enough of this sweet little cunt.”
His fingers finds your clit, rubbing circles around it, teasing you until you can’t stop the pathetic whines spilling from your lips. He keeps fucking you harder, his hips slamming against yours, the table creaking under the weight of it all. The sound of skin against skin fills the room, mixed with your gasps, your moans, your begs and his grunts as he’s pounding into you like he was starving for it.
“Look at you,” he looks down at your flushed, wrecked body, his hands gripping your waist tight enough to bruise. “Such a fucking good girl for me, huh? letting me use this pretty little pussy however I want.”
You can’t really form words, can’t do anything but take it. Your so brain fucked, body burning, you’re so close you can’t think straight. He’s rough, fast, his fingers rubbing your clit in time with his thrusts, pushing you higher, higher, until you can’t hold back anymore. You cum hard, again, your pussy squeezing his cock well.
But Stan doesn’t stop. He just keeps going, fucking you right through it, ruining your pussy, even harder now, his hips snaps into you, faster, rougher, and you can feel the slick mess between your thighs, the obscene sound of it only making it filthier. You're choking on your moans.
“Ugh, gonna cum inside you, doll,” he groans. “Gonna fill this sweet pussy up, you want that? you want me to fucking fill you up?”
You nod frantically, too far gone to care about anything else, and with one last, hard thrust, he buries himself so deep, his cock pulsing as he finishes inside you. You feel how warm it is, his cum filling you up, spilling out of you as he keeps thrusting, riding out his high.
Finally, he slows down, pulling out with a groan, and you collapse back on the table, spent, utterly wrecked. Youre literally shaking, panting, his cum dripping out of your used pussy onto the wood below. Stan stands there, catching his breath, looking down at you and all that dirty mess, what a beautiful sight: your legs trembling, your body marked with his touch and his cum leaking from between your thighs.
He leans over. “you know, guess I'll give you a discount for that pretty face of yours.”
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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months ago
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AI’s productivity theater
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Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!
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When I took my kid to New Zealand with me on a book-tour, I was delighted to learn that grocery stores had special aisles where all the kids'-eye-level candy had been removed, to minimize nagging. What a great idea!
Related: countries around the world limit advertising to children, for two reasons:
1) Kids may not be stupid, but they are inexperienced, and that makes them gullible; and
2) Kids don't have money of their own, so their path to getting the stuff they see in ads is nagging their parents, which creates a natural constituency to support limits on kids' advertising (nagged parents).
There's something especially annoying about ads targeted at getting credulous people to coerce or torment other people on behalf of the advertiser. For example, AI companies spent millions targeting your boss in an effort to convince them that you can be replaced with a chatbot that absolutely, positively cannot do your job.
Your boss has no idea what your job entails, and is (not so) secretly convinced that you're a featherbedding parasite who only shows up for work because you fear the breadline, and not because your job is a) challenging, or b) rewarding:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer
That makes them prime marks for chatbot-peddling AI pitchmen. Your boss would love to fire you and replace you with a chatbot. Chatbots don't unionize, they don't backtalk about stupid orders, and they don't experience any inconvenient moral injury when ordered to enshittify the product:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification
Bosses are Bizarro-world Marxists. Like Marxists, your boss's worldview is organized around the principle that every dollar you take home in wages is a dollar that isn't available for executive bonuses, stock buybacks or dividends. That's why you boss is insatiably horny for firing you and replacing you with software. Software is cheaper, and it doesn't advocate for higher wages.
That makes your boss such an easy mark for AI pitchmen, which explains the vast gap between the valuation of AI companies and the utility of AI to the customers that buy those companies' products. As an investor, buying shares in AI might represent a bet the usefulness of AI – but for many of those investors, backing an AI company is actually a bet on your boss's credulity and contempt for you and your job.
But bosses' resemblance to toddlers doesn't end with their credulity. A toddler's path to getting that eye-height candy-bar goes through their exhausted parents. Your boss's path to realizing the productivity gains promised by an AI salesman runs through you.
A new research report from the Upwork Research Institute offers a look into the bizarre situation unfolding in workplaces where bosses have been conned into buying AI and now face the challenge of getting it to work as advertised:
https://www.upwork.com/research/ai-enhanced-work-models
The headline findings tell the whole story:
96% of bosses expect that AI will make their workers more productive;
85% of companies are either requiring or strongly encouraging workers to use AI;
49% of workers have no idea how AI is supposed to increase their productivity;
77% of workers say using AI decreases their productivity.
Working at an AI-equipped workplaces is like being the parent of a furious toddler who has bought a million Sea Monkey farms off the back page of a comic book, and is now destroying your life with demands that you figure out how to get the brine shrimp he ordered from a notorious Holocaust denier to wear little crowns like they do in the ad:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2004/hitler-and-sea-monkeys
Bosses spend a lot of time thinking about your productivity. The "productivity paradox" shows a rapid, persistent decline in American worker productivity, starting in the 1970s and continuing to this day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox
The "paradox" refers to the growth of IT, which is sold as a productivity-increasing miracle. There are many theories to explain this paradox. One especially good theory came from the late David Graeber (rest in power), in his 2012 essay, "Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit":
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit
Graeber proposes that the growth of IT was part of a wider shift in research approaches. Research was once dominated by weirdos (e.g. Jack Parsons, Oppenheimer, etc) who operated with relatively little red tape. The rise of IT coincides with the rise of "managerialism," the McKinseyoid drive to monitor, quantify and – above all – discipline the workforce. IT made it easier to generate these records, which also made it normal to expect these records.
Before long, every employee – including the "creatives" whose ideas were credited with the productivity gains of the American century until the 70s – was spending a huge amount of time (sometimes the majority of their working days) filling in forms, documenting their work, and generally producing a legible account of their day's work. All this data gave rise to a ballooning class of managers, who colonized every kind of institution – not just corporations, but also universities and government agencies, which were structured to resemble corporations (down to referring to voters or students as "customers").
Even if you think all that record-keeping might be useful, there's no denying that the more time you spend documenting your work, the less time you have to do your work. The solution to this was inevitably more IT, sold as a way to make the record-keeping easier. But adding IT to a bureaucracy is like adding lanes to a highway: the easier it is to demand fine-grained record-keeping, the more record-keeping will be demanded of you.
But that's not all that IT did for the workplace. There are a couple areas in which IT absolutely increased the profitability of the companies that invested in it.
First, IT allowed corporations to outsource production to low-waged countries in the global south, usually places with worse labor protection, weaker environmental laws, and easily bribed regulators. It's really hard to produce things in factories thousands of miles away, or to oversee remote workers in another country. But IT makes it possible to annihilate distance, time zone gaps, and language barriers. Corporations that figured out how to use IT to fire workers at home and exploit workers and despoil the environment in distant lands thrived. Executives who oversaw these projects rose through the ranks. For example, Tim Cook became the CEO of Apple thanks to his successes in moving production out of the USA and into China.
https://archive.is/M17qq
Outsourcing provided a sugar high that compensated for declining productivity…for a while. But eventually, all the gains to be had from outsourcing were realized, and companies needed a new source of cheap gains. That's where "bossware" came in: the automation of workforce monitoring and discipline. Bossware made it possible to monitor workers at the finest-grained levels, measuring everything from keystrokes to eyeball movements.
What's more, the declining power of the American worker – a nice bonus of the project to fire huge numbers of workers and ship their jobs overseas, which made the remainder terrified of losing their jobs and thus willing to eat a rasher of shit and ask for seconds – meant that bossware could be used to tie wages to metrics. It's not just gig workers who don't score consistent five star ratings from app users whose pay gets docked – it's also creative workers whose Youtube and Tiktok wages are cut for violating rules that they aren't allowed to know, because that might help them break the rules without being detected and punished:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/13/solidarity-forever/#tech-unions
Bossware dominates workplaces from public schools to hospitals, restaurants to call centers, and extends to your home and car, if you're working from home (AKA "living at work") or driving for Uber or Amazon:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/02/chickenized-by-arise/#arise
In providing a pretense for stealing wages, IT can increase profits, even as it reduces productivity:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no
One way to think about how this works is through the automation-theory metaphor of a "centaur" and a "reverse centaur." In automation circles, a "centaur" is someone who is assisted by an automation tool – for example, when your boss uses AI to monitor your eyeballs in order to find excuses to steal your wages, they are a centaur, a human head atop a machine body that does all the hard work, far in excess of any human's capacity.
A "reverse centaur" is a worker who acts as an assistant to an automation system. The worker who is ridden by an AI that monitors their eyeballs, bathroom breaks, and keystrokes is a reverse centaur, being used (and eventually, used up) by a machine to perform the tasks that the machine can't perform unassisted:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men
But there's only so much work you can squeeze out of a human in this fashion before they are ruined for the job. Amazon's internal research reveals that the company has calculated that it ruins workers so quickly that it is in danger of using up every able-bodied worker in America:
https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-warehouses-hiring-shortage
Which explains the other major findings from the Upwork study:
81% of bosses have increased the demands they make on their workers over the past year; and
71% of workers are "burned out."
Bosses' answer to "AI making workers feel burned out" is the same as "IT-driven form-filling makes workers unproductive" – do more of the same, but go harder. Cisco has a new product that tries to detect when workers are about to snap after absorbing abuse from furious customers and then gives them a "Zen" moment in which they are showed a "soothing" photo of their family:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-bringing-zen-first-horizons-192010166.html
This is just the latest in a series of increasingly sweaty and cruel "workplace wellness" technologies that spy on workers and try to help them "manage their stress," all of which have the (totally predictable) effect of increasing workplace stress:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/15/wellness-taylorism/#sick-of-spying
The only person who wouldn't predict that being closely monitored by an AI that snitches on you to your boss would increase your stress levels is your boss. Unfortunately for you, AI pitchmen know this, too, and they're more than happy to sell your boss the reverse-centaur automation tool that makes you want to die, and then sell your boss another automation tool that is supposed to restore your will to live.
The "productivity paradox" is being resolved before our eyes. American per-worker productivity fell because it was more profitable to ship American jobs to regulatory free-fire zones and exploit the resulting precarity to abuse the workers left onshore. Workers who resented this arrangement were condemned for having a shitty "work ethic" – even as the number of hours worked by the average US worker rose by 13% between 1976 and 2016:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no
AI is just a successor gimmick at the terminal end of 40 years of increasing profits by taking them out of workers' hides rather than improving efficiency. That arrangement didn't come out of nowhere: it was a direct result of a Reagan-era theory of corporate power called "consumer welfare." Under the "consumer welfare" approach to antitrust, monopolies were encouraged, provided that they used their market power to lower wages and screw suppliers, while lowering costs to consumers.
"Consumer welfare" supposed that we could somehow separate our identities as "workers" from our identities as "shoppers" – that our stagnating wages and worsening conditions ceased mattering to us when we clocked out at 5PM (or, you know, 9PM) and bought a $0.99 Meal Deal at McDonald's whose low, low price was only possible because it was cooked by someone sleeping in their car and collecting food-stamps.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/20/disneyland-workers-anaheim-california-authorize-strike
But we're reaching the end of the road for consumer welfare. Sure, your toddler-boss can be tricked into buying AI and firing half of your co-workers and demanding that the remainder use AI to do their jobs. But if AI can't do their jobs (it can't), no amount of demanding that you figure out how to make the Sea Monkeys act like they did in the comic-book ad is doing to make that work.
As screwing workers and suppliers produces fewer and fewer gains, companies are increasingly turning on their customers. It's not just that you're getting worse service from chatbots or the humans who are reverse-centaured into their workflow. You're also paying more for that, as algorithmic surveillance pricing uses automation to gouge you on prices in realtime:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy
This is – in the memorable phrase of David Dayen and Lindsay Owens, the "age of recoupment," in which companies end their practice of splitting the gains from suppressing labor with their customers:
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-03-age-of-recoupment/
It's a bet that the tolerance for monopolies made these companies too big to fail, and that means they're too big to jail, so they can cheat their customers as well as their workers.
AI may be a bet that your boss can be suckered into buying a chatbot that can't do your job, but investors are souring on that bet. Goldman Sachs, who once trumpeted AI as a multi-trillion dollar sector with unlimited growth, is now publishing reports describing how companies who buy AI can't figure out what to do with it:
https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/gs-research/gen-ai-too-much-spend-too-little-benefit/report.pdf
Fine, investment banks are supposed to be a little conservative. But VCs? They're the ones with all the appetite for risk, right? Well, maybe so, but Sequoia Capital, a top-tier Silicon Valley VC, is also publicly questioning whether anyone will make AI investments pay off:
https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/ais-600b-question/
I can't tell you how great it was to take my kid down a grocery checkout aisle from which all the eye-level candy had been removed. Alas, I can't figure out how we keep the nation's executive toddlers from being dazzled by shiny AI pitches that leave us stuck with the consequences of their impulse purchases.
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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/2024/07/25/accountability-sinks/#work-harder-not-smarter
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Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg
CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
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celestialtarot11 · 7 months ago
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What do people underestimate about you when they meet you? 👀💐 PAC reading ☀️
Hi friends 💐☀️ it’s been a minute since I have made a post on here, but I am back! What do people underestimate about you when they meet you? Let me know below if it resonates with you, feel free to comment like and reblog ⬇️☺️
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Pile 1: Hi there pile 1’s!☀️🧘‍♀️💐 I feel like people underestimate your intelligence when they meet you. I feel you are the kind of person who observes a lot and doesn’t say much, until its necessary. A lot of people hate on the quiet kids but they’re the most dangerous because they know everything 😂 thats the vibe I’m getting. You’re quick witted, you’re quick with your comebacks and people don’t expect that. People expect you to be quiet, small minded and naive. But then they have a deep conversation with you and all of a sudden its like, “i was wrong to assume that of my pile 1, damn” and it hits them! What you say resonates because its like you get to the root of the matter and pull it out. Like weeds. You pull the truth out and say it. You guys have a powerful throat chakra and it’s something to be proud of! You don’t like illusions, lies and dishonesty. You prefer honesty, openness, and integrity! And lots of people aren’t able to match that so they end up feeling attacked, which was never your intention. Thank you pile 1’s for coming by 💗 I hope this resonated with you!
Pile 2: Hi there pile 2’s! Welcome to your reading 💐🧘‍♀️😻 People underestimate your resilience and bravery. I feel that some people see you as someone who is incapable of fighting, standing up or defending yourself. But you are the opposite! And people don’t expect that. They underestimate your ability to take on a challenge. Especially if you’ve been through a lot in your childhood, I’m feeling like family members perceived you as weak, gullible and naive. But you got up and healed and it took a lot of time, and you are still healing, but here you are setting boundaries and putting your foot down. This is something people do not expect. But then again im hearing “what did you expect? Did you expect me to really sit and take your bullshit?” On point!! You guys are quick, to the point, and do not hesitate in saying no or setting boundaries. For a long time you struggled with speaking up and it still may be a thing, which is understandable, and now you are healing enough to say no. People also may not expect you to be financially well off is something I’m getting. Your efficiency at saving money is something people don’t expect, or your savvy mindset when it comes to making 💰! People underestimate your resilience and your ability to take on a challenge. A true phenix from the ashes 💗 thank you pile 2’s for coming by! I hope this resonated. Please like comment and reblog for the support 💐☀️
Pile 3: Hi there pile 3! 💃🏻 This ones gonna be interesting 😂 in the best way possible! I feel that people underestimate your ability to leave. To say goodbye. To end situations and walk away. And move to a better place than you were before. People think you’ll stay in the mud, but you are the kind of person where if it gets uncomfortable you have no problem taking yourself out the pot. If the situation isn’t working, remove yourself from the equation is what im understanding 😂 love it! You guys don’t hesitate in moving to where you need to be and where your soul calls you, and right away you’ll know if someone is meant for you, or situation. People underestimate your ability to create abundance and move into prosperous places, but you manifest fast-and you move on to where you need to be with little to no issue. I feel like you guys know how to pack it up and make your decision, and the other person is shocked you thought about this without them. And your response is something of “I wasn’t aware I needed you in the first place to make this choice” 😂💗 I love it! You guys really know how you make an entrance and say goodbye 😻 thats the vibe im getting. People underestimate your presence in their life. The absence is felt when you’re really gone. Thank you pile 3’s! Please feel free to like comment and reblog to help this blog grow ☀️💐💃🏻
Thank ya’ll so much for reading 💐💗 it meant a lot to me! Your support is greatly appreciated. Enjoy the Aries full moon 🧘‍♀️
Paid Readings ⬇️💅🏻
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normansnt · 9 months ago
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Almost got you, bitch
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(Hazbin Adam x fallen angel!Male reader)
No warnings I think perhaps cursing
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You were a fallen angel.
You questioned heavens doings after finding out about the extermination, and of course heaven didn't like that.
When you fell, your best friend, Adam, was the most pissed off. Granted he was the one who told you about it one night when he was drunk and you had to get him home but he didn't know you were gonna make such a fuss about it.
You were in heaven, everything was fine you had your friends there, no one important to you fell before you, and most importantly you had him there, your best friend. Why would you care about those misfits in hell??
All though he shouldn't have been surprised, even though you put on a hard shell and make very similar jokes than himself you are a kind soul, a very kind one at that always helping others. But still, you fell, you are not here with him anymore. That sucked.
*flashback*
Heaven was a pretty new invention and adam and eve were trying to settle, for that god sent an angel, you.
When you knocked on the door adam went to open it.
"Who the fuck is here this early?" Was the first sentence he ever spoke to you.
Now you aint gonna take shit from nobody.
"Im the fuck who is here get you asses moving cuz we're going to heaven" you said with an equally annoyed tone.
Thats when Adam knew he liked you. And with the same amount of sass to each other the two of you became fast friends.
"I Almost got you, bitch" yelled Adam. You guys were playing flying tag cuz he just got his wings and they were completely new to him.
"You wish, fucker" you answer with a shit eating smirk. You were the one to teach him how to fight, the one who helped him through his divorce withe eve, you were his best friend.
*end flashback*
"...Shit" adam called seraphim, an idea occurred to him, how about they move up the next extermination, that way he has a reason to get down there sooner and bring you back, also slather some demons.
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When you woke up in hell, the first thing you saw was someone trying to cut out your organs.
"WAAHH...MOTHERFUC-- WHAT THE HECK R U DOING??" You jumped up and started yelling at the demon.
"Calm down pretty boy, the cannibals pay good money for fresh organs like yours."
"Well guess what jackass I dont give tiny rats ass how good those fuckers pay you my organs aint for sale" and with that sentence you quickly kicked him in the nuts and when he fell to the ground brocke his neck. Yeah...you were kind but god help people who mess with you...literally.
"Well shit, never had to fight without wings."
"...Interesting, and here I thought I would have to come to your rescue in exchange for your soul." Came a...static voice from behind you.
"Uhhh...thank you?? I guess, but there will be no taking my soul." You looked at the grinning man in a red suit.
"Such a shame, you'd be my first fallen angel"
"...Ok, listen can I help you with something ooooorr??"
"Not particularly I just wanted your soul, but alas that ship has sailed, however since you just fell I assume you have no where to stay" his grin stretched a bit as he said that.
"Well, you assume correctly but Im not gonna agree to any deal you have to offer just for a place to stay"
"Well, well, you are smart one even though angles can be so gullible, but no there is no deal the only thing you'd have to do is perhaps act nice"
"I can do that." you answered finally smiling at the strange man.
"They are coming" you whispered to yourself. After you arrived in hell, Alastor offered you a place in the hazbin hotel and you were happy to take it. This was over 7 months ago, in that time you grew close to everyone who was there, they were your found family and now you will protect them even if its against you first family.
Today was the day of the extermination, the day you'd have to fight heaven, the day you's have yo fight Adam. Even though you never admitted to yourself you had deeper feelings for him than friendship, but since he literally went around fucking bitches that kind of lowered your hopes.
The fight was raging on. Since you were the one who literally trained these exorcists they were no match for you. However Alastor was supposed to take on Adam, and that worried you. You knew how powerful Alastor is supposed to be but you have seen Adam's powers first hand.
Just as you suspected Alastor couldn't take on Adam. So Charlie had to take over which made you even more worried. You climbed up and saw Adam hitting Charlie into the hazbin hotel sign.
"NO" you yelled
Adam turned towards you with a smile that said he was ready to kill, that disappeared however when he saw that it was you.
"(Y/N)...."
He looked at you for a moment when someone punched him out of no where.
"Oh shit" you said while looking at Adam flying away and than back at who punched him. Lucifer.
"Lucy?" U asked baffled. You met him when he was still in heaven. Personally you loved his creative ideas while the making of earth so you guys would talk a lot. You also found it highly unfair when he fell and considered going after him, but Adam held you back.
"...Who--? SHIT (Y/N)? Omg why tf are you down here??" He asked half pissed half happy to see you.
"Well a little this, a little that, you know, also I fucking fell so." You replied while hugging him.
"How many of you fuckers do I have to beat before I can take (Y/N) home with me" said Adam very pissed after crawling out from the window he was punched into.
"What?" You asked
"I'm the only one that matters, you messed with my daughter and now Im gonna fuck you" said Lucifer proudly smirking. Everyone went silent while you were trying to hold back your laughter.
"Khmm...its fuck you up, dad" corrected Charlie
"Wait what did I say?" Asked Lucifer confused.
After this a kind of...fight started between Lucifer and Adam. Well, only adam was fighting Lucifer was mostly changing forms.
It was quite funny to watch.
At the end Lucifer won over Adam and he wanted to kill him, but your body moved on its own and you threw yourself at Adam.
Charlie also told his dad to stop.
You stood up from Adams body.
"Take your angel army, and go home" you told him in a soft tone.
He painfully stood up and looked at you with sadness...and something you couldn't quite place.
"(Y/N)..." come with me, please. Is what he wanted to say, but he knew you are still mad at him and that your answer will be no. Or he just didn't want to seem vulnerable in-front of demons.
"I Almost got you, bitch"
Your lips twitched upwards a little bit.
"You wish, fucker"
And with that the angel army and adam flew up to heaven.
When adam arrived in heaven, something downed on him.
"Fuuuuuuckkk..IM GAY-"
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Is he an (at best) mid white man who thinks he is the shit?
Yes.
Is he a fucking loser though and a lil bitch
Also yes.
BUT YK WHAT.
HE IS FUNNY AF I LOVE HIM AND HIS SONGS R FUCKING AWSOME.
HOPE MY FELLOW ADAM ENJOYERS LIKED IT THOUGH😎
I hope you enjoyed your reading ladies gentleman and others, good afternoon good evening and good night🦖🧡
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goxjo · 4 months ago
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omg the way you write wbk boys makes me dizzy.. love it sm. do you have any thots of suo that you’d like to share
nooonnniiiiie ૮꒰/ฅ//ฅ//꒱ა thank you for this ask !! I used to like him a normal amount, but because of two particular fanarts of him (and a few people from a lovely wb server I’m in), I’m afraid he’s aaalmost up there with my top 3 ;;
ANYWHO I think he would do very well in handling a partner who’s very shy but also very kinky <333
warnings: afab! reader, degradation + humiliation, choking, creampie, cum eating, likes to edge you in public, poor sakura, mean! suo, yeah I definitely like him a little mean sorry <3 (18+ only)
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mean boyf! suo who on the outside, treats you like the proper gentleman that he is. In public or while hanging out with his friends, he always appears to be whispering sweet nothings into your ear. It’s impossible to tell what you guys got going on as he’s always got that signature smile on his face - the one that’s known to either melt girls down to their knees or set off an opponent. All they know is, you’re very much invested in whatever he has to say. Good or bad, they could never tell.
On the inside, behind closed doors, within close proximity, or whatever, he likes to treat you like the filth that you are. Little do they know, he’s been secretly telling you over and over how much of a minx you really are for deceiving the people around you, himself included. You appear to be so sweet and innocent- so shy and gullible. But you always crave the feeling of his hands wrapped around your throat, always desperately begging for his cock to fill you up.
He lets you know he wonders how his friends would react if they knew of the filth that comes out of your mouth, you practically have to cry out to him, praying he fills you with his load till your thighs are sticky from all the seed that drips from you. He fucks you even when you’re stuffed full. Cum oozes out of your cunt, squelching with every roll of his hips. And you love the mess - the mess the two of you make, because at the end of it all, he gets to lick your pussy clean.
“Wonder how they’d react if I told them just how needy you are, hm?”
He ignores every single one of of your protests. You’re afraid someone might overhear. What would they think of you? They’d look at you differently. He pushes you over the edge sometimes it makes you want to cry, but he chuckles even as tears prickle your eyes. He tells you, “C’mon. Don’t act like you’re not wet from the thought alone of getting exposed. I know you’re drenched right now. Want me to tell Sakura? Want me to have him watch as I stuff you over and over again, spilling out every one of your dirty little secrets?”
And he’s right on the money. Every single syllable that comes out of his mouth tickles your core, so much that it forces you to ball your hand in a fist, squeezing it between your legs. Never mind the look of wonder on his friends’ faces seeing you unable to sit still in your chair while Suo’s lips are practically glued to your ear.
And god you need friction. You need his tongue, his hands, his lips. You need him to throw you a bone and fuck you with it, anything.
“See what you did? You can’t control yourself even out in public, you just caught Sakura’s eye. Poor guy, no wonder he’s beet red.”
“H-hayato, can’t take it anymore. Please, I need you.”
“Hm? What if- Sakura and I switch places tonight?”
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mariacallous · 4 days ago
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Democrats and liberal pundits are already trying to figure out how the Trump campaign not only bested Kamala Harris in the “Blue Wall” states of the Midwest and the Rust Belt, but gained on her even in areas that should have been safe for a Democrat. Almost everywhere, Donald Trump expanded his coalition, and this time, unlike in 2016, he didn’t have to thread the needle of the Electoral College to win: He can claim the legitimacy of winning the popular vote.
Trump’s opponents are now muttering about the choice of Tim Walz, the influence of the Russians, the role of the right-wing media, and whether President Joe Biden should not have stepped aside in favor of Harris. Even the old saw about “economic anxiety” is making a comeback.
These explanations all have some merit, but mostly, they miss the point. Yes, some voters still stubbornly believe that presidents magically control the price of basic goods. Others have genuine concerns about immigration and gave in to Trump’s booming call of fascism and nativism. And some of them were just never going to vote for a woman, much less a Black woman.
But in the end, a majority of American voters chose Trump because they wanted what he was selling: a nonstop reality show of rage and resentment. Some Democrats, still gripped by the lure of wonkery, continue to scratch their heads over which policy proposals might have unlocked more votes, but that was always a mug’s game. Trump voters never cared about policies, and he rarely gave them any. (Choosing to be eaten by a shark rather than electrocuted might be a personal preference, but it’s not a policy.) His rallies involved long rants about the way he’s been treated, like a giant therapy session or a huge family gathering around a bellowing, impaired grandpa.
Back in 2021, I wrote a book about the rise of “illiberal populism,” the self-destructive tendency in some nations that leads people to participate in democratic institutions such as voting while being hostile to democracy itself, casting ballots primarily to punish other people and to curtail everyone’s rights—even their own. These movements are sometimes led by fantastically wealthy faux populists who hoodwink gullible voters by promising to solve a litany of problems that always seem to involve money, immigrants, and minorities. The appeals from these charlatans resonate most not among the very poor, but among a bored, relatively well-off middle class, usually those who are deeply uncomfortable with racial and demographic changes in their own countries.
And so it came to pass: Last night, a gaggle of millionaires and billionaires grinned and applauded for Trump. They were part of an alliance with the very people another Trump term would hurt—the young, minorities, and working families among them.
Trump, as he has shown repeatedly over the years, couldn’t care less about any of these groups. He ran for office to seize control of the apparatus of government and to evade judicial accountability for his previous actions as president. Once he is safe, he will embark on the other project he seems to truly care about: the destruction of the rule of law and any other impediments to enlarging his power.
Americans who wish to stop Trump in this assault on the American constitutional order, then, should get it out of their heads that this election could have been won if only a better candidate had made a better pitch to a few thousand people in Pennsylvania. Biden, too old and tired to mount a proper campaign, likely would have lost worse than Harris; more to the point, there was nothing even a more invigorated Biden or a less, you know, female alternative could have offered. Racial grievances, dissatisfaction with life’s travails (including substance addiction and lack of education), and resentment toward the villainous elites in faraway cities cannot be placated by housing policy or interest-rate cuts.
No candidate can reason about facts and policies with voters who have no real interest in such things. They like the promises of social revenge that flow from Trump, the tough-guy rhetoric, the simplistic “I will fix it” solutions. And he’s interesting to them, because he supports and encourages their conspiracist beliefs. (I knew Harris was in trouble when I was in Pennsylvania last week for an event and a fairly well-off business owner, who was an ardent Trump supporter, told me that Michelle Obama had conspired with the Canadians to change the state’s vote tally in 2020. And that wasn’t even the weirdest part of the conversation.)
As Jonathan Last, editor of The Bulwark, put it in a social-media post last night: The election went the way it did “because America wanted Trump. That’s it. People reaching to construct [policy] alibis for the public because they don’t want to grapple with this are whistling past the graveyard.” Last worries that we might now be in a transition to authoritarianism of the kind Russia went through in the 1990s, but I visited Russia often in those days, and much of the Russian democratic implosion was driven by genuinely brutal economic conditions and the rapid collapse of basic public services. Americans have done this to themselves during a time of peace, prosperity, and astonishingly high living standards. An affluent society that thinks it is living in a hellscape is ripe for gulling by dictators who are willing to play along with such delusions.
The bright spot in all this is that Trump and his coterie must now govern. The last time around, Trump was surrounded by a small group of moderately competent people, and these adults basically put baby bumpers and pool noodles on all the sharp edges of government. This time, Trump will rule with greater power but fewer excuses, and he—and his voters—will have to own the messes and outrages he is already planning to create.
Those voters expect that Trump will hurt others and not them. They will likely be unpleasantly surprised, much as they were in Trump’s first term. (He was, after all, voted out of office for a reason.) For the moment, some number of them have memory-holed that experience and are pretending that his vicious attacks on other Americans are just so much hot air.
Trump, unfortunately, means most of what he says. In this election, he has triggered the unfocused ire and unfounded grievances of millions of voters. Soon we will learn whether he can still trigger their decency—if there is any to be found.
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midnightcinderella · 1 year ago
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People who would suffer at NRC
Each dorm has at least one of these students and god help them. This is very self-indulgent and each trait applies to me. If you relate, then rip to the both of us.
No proof-reading, we rawdog this shit. Word count: ~1300 Notes: no gendered pronouns for reader. mentions of ADHD, depression, and anxiety. mentions of illness. no romantic relationships
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Heartslabyul
People with ADHD. Rip to us fr.
You'd forget at least a handful of rules a day, but it's really not your fault. Riddle better get off your case istg.
The ones who are more devoted to remaining productive make big colorful signs all over the damn place.
In their own rooms would be stuff like a box that says "keys and wallet go here" or a sign by the door with a checklist of what they need before they go, like homework or textbooks.
There are signs in common areas, too. They'll say stuff like curfew times or reminders of jobs that need to be done around the dorm.
There's always backlash if Riddle tries to take them down for being an eyesore because not only do they help ADHD students remember what needs to be done but students without ADHD, too. No sane person is gonna be thinking about feeding flamingos 24/7.
Savanaclaw
People with asthma. Place is dusty as shit. And hot. And humid at times.
I'm surprised the beastman students haven't taken any measure to seal off the inside of the dorm to prevent and from getting in. Guess everyone doesn't mind inhaling dust straight into their lungs.
Not to mention regular exercise is a dorm-wide tradition. Shoutout to my fellow mile walkers <3
If you have asthma and a dander/dust allergy, I'd just drop out tbh.
People who easily overheat/sweat. Double rip to us.
Get ready to go back and forth with your dormmates about smelling bad after sweating. It's a common occurrence. Someone sasses you, you sass back, and you're friends again 3 minutes later.
Everyone will think you're dying when you're dripping sweat after some stretches outside. No, you're not tired, you're just hot.
Octavinelle
People who are bad at math/bad with money. Listen.
The dorm isn't full of people who are as business minded as Azul, but there are students that offer accounting help for a fee. Negotiate that fee for the love of god.
Thankfully, you won't be scammed out of house and home because:
(1) it's generally frowned upon to scam people within Octavinelle; you don't hurt one of your own. It's about loyalty.
(2) someone is likely to take pity on you and will throw you a bone, telling you about a huge sale or where to find good job opportunities.
People who are gullible. Once again, double rip.
And once again, thank the lucky stars that loyalty is such a big thing here so you might be tricked into doing someone's job for them like mopping the Lounge, but nothing that would hurt you too badly.
If a study partner tries to feed you false information for shiggles, that'll get shut down real quick by another student. If your grades go down, then the whole dorm goes with you.
Good thing that doesn't happen often, and Azul offers his study guides for a highly discounted price to his own.
Scarabia
People who don't do well with sudden changes in temperature. Man, listen.
Hellishly hot during the day and even more hellishly cold at night. Dante would be thrilled.
God forbid you have any athletic activities close to sunset because you'll have to shower off that sweat quick before you freeze to death.
If anyone has a problem with the sound of the hairdryer after sundown, they're just gonna have to deal with it or risk catching your inevitable cold.
Speaking of, if sudden changes in temperature make you sick, double rip. I know your pain.
Kalim may not be able to come see you in person, but if he finds out you're sick, he'll send meds and some warm food. If that food was made by Jamil, then you owe him one.
You don't wanna owe him one.
If you need to leave your room after sundown, you're going to do it wrapped up with a blanket over your head. If someone mistakes you for a ghoul, that's their own problem.
Pomefiore
People with depression. Listen. Someone without depression could find it hard to keep such a strict regimen day in and day out; do not expect too much out of us.
If you think that means you're getting out of it, though, you'd be wrong.
Group accountability is a thing here. If you need help sticking to your routine, you're getting it. You can't refuse.
You're all going to be beautiful together, goddammit.
If that chronic fatigue be hittin ya, you might get a pass for a few steps of your routine. But if a particularly caring dormmate decides you have to do the full routine and straight up does it for you, lol.
Depending on how you view that sort of help, it might be really nice. Or maybe a little humiliating.
The dorm kitchen is only going to have healthy ready-made snacks. So if it's a day where you can't cook or go all the way to the cafeteria, that is what you're working with. Either that or you crawl your way over the the Shop for a candy bar.
Ignihyde
People who struggle with technology. Yes there are young people who aren't great with technology. We exist. Mind your business.
No matter how many classes you take teaching you how to use MagExcel, it never sticks for long. Even if you pass the exams, all your knowledge leaves to go buy milk by the time the week is over.
You're gonna need to interrupt people's gaming sessions to ask for help. It may annoy them, but you're doing it anyway because you refuse the reinvent the wheel 12 times.
People who prefer paper over screens. Call me old fashioned but staring at screens all day Hurts My Eyes.
You'd get physical copies of your textbooks if you could, but those free pdfs your classmates pass around are too tempting to pass up. They're free, for god's sake.
You also might be limited to board games on game nights. They're not bad, but there's not a whole lot you can do with them. You're a wiz at Cards Against Reality tho.
Every so often Ignihyde has a dorm-wide game night where everyone sits around in the common room with their headphones in, playing their own games. Together.
Though the board game players are in the next room. Oddly enough, they're the rowdiest of the bunch, and it sounds like they have the most fun by the way they're yelling and cheering.
You have seen some nerd fights start over a game of Ichi.
Diasomnia
People who have anxiety. One, Lilia is a menace. Two, your housewarden is the Malleus Draconia. Meep.
Whether it's Lilia or Malleus you run into, it feels like your heart will explode at any time.
Not to mention it's so dark in and outside of the building for no good reason. What's a fella gotta do to get some fucking sunlight in here? You're sick of worrying about what could be behind every corner.
You once wondered if Malleus needed a UV/heat lamp, but knew better than to ask. That doesn't mean you're not curious, though.
People who dislike loud sounds. I don't think I have to explain this one.
At first you thought that staying near Silver meant that you'd be staying away from Sebek, but that wasn't the case and you were at a loss as to what to do.
Then you tried going in the other direction whenever you saw Malleus, but all that did was send Sebek after you personally, asking very loudly why you did not want to be around Lord Malleus.
At one point, you got sick of his shit and muzzled him via magic. Then Malleus showed up and you were all oh shit. But then all he did was chuckle about how you were getting along so well. You took that to mean he wouldn't ever stop you from muzzling Sebek.
You were right.
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solarmorrigan · 28 days ago
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Romance, Commitment, and Cake
For the @steddie-spooktober day 15 prompt: Baking Rated: T | Words: 733 | CW: None | Tags: established relationship, modern AU, Steve Harrington can cook, or bake at least, Eddie Munson loves Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington loves Eddie Munson, fluff Divider credit: @steddiecameraroll-graphics
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Eddie has always loved fall. He loves the way the world turns colors as the leaves begin to change, he loves how it gets cooler and he can wear his layers of jackets without feeling like he wants to die, he loves all the poetic themes of death and change, he loves Halloween. In more recent years, however, he’s learned to love fall because that’s when Steve starts baking like a man possessed, and doesn’t stop until the new year.
He doesn’t bother holding in the moan that wants to work its way out at the first bite of the pumpkin cheesecake Steve has presented him with. It’s perfect; creamy and light, the sweet and the spice blending and melting on his tongue. Eddie thinks he might actually need a moment alone with the cheesecake.
“Good?” Steve asks with a knowing little grin as he washes bowls in the sink.
“Marry me,” Eddie groans the moment he’s swallowed his mouthful.
Steve snorts out a little laugh. “We’re already married,” he reminds Eddie, holding up his sudsy left hand to show off the gold wedding band glinting there.
“This time it would be different,” Eddie says, taking a moment to get in another bite of cheesecake. “Last time I married you because you’re sweet, and you’re sharp, and you’re funny, and you’re beautiful, and because I love you. This time I’d be marrying you for your baking.”
“Man, don’t be shy, tell it to me like it is,” Steve says drily, but there’s a pleased, pink flush high on his cheeks.
“Just being honest with you, baby,” Eddie says with a grin before tucking back into his slice of cake.
“You know,” Steve says slowly, eyes trained on the dishes in the sink, “our anniversary is coming up. Five years.”
“Mhm?” Eddie hums around another mouthful.
“We can’t get married again, but we could… renew our vows, maybe.” There’s such a studied nonchalance to the suggestion that Eddie wonders if Steve hadn’t already been thinking about it.
And it’s a little funny that the idea of holding another ceremony, of putting on a suit and standing up and pouring his heart out in front of a group of people, of spending the day trading pleasantries and pretending to be at least halfway civil only produces happy little butterflies instead of the disdain it once would have.
Eddie had never gone in for romantic conformity, never thought marriage as a social convention was worth shit. He’d scorned the idea of perfect little white weddings, of the elitism and the privilege and the inherent heteronormativity. Marriage was a trumped-up gimmick made to sell needlessly expensive things to gullible couples with more money than sense.
And then he’d met Steve.
Steve, who had rocked the foundation of Eddie’s way of looking at the world; Steve, who Eddie loves more than anything; Steve, who loves romance, even if he won’t say as much out loud; Steve, who Eddie had proposed to, because he’d wanted to claim him and show him off to the world in as many ways as possible, wanted everyone to know that no matter which way they look at it that Steve is with him.
“It doesn’t have to be a big thing,” Steve says when Eddie’s been quiet a moment too long. “We could just have a small party; family and friends.” He gives Eddie a sidelong glance. “I could make a cake.”
“A cake, huh?” Eddie asks, biting down on a sly smile as he puts his empty plate down on the counter and sidles up to Steve at the sink. “What kind of cake?”
“Any kind of cake you want,” Steve says, looking back up at Eddie with eyes dancing with amusement. “You’re marrying me for my baking, after all. Only seems right you should choose.”
Eddie hums, moving around behind Steve and wrapping his arms around his waist. “You’ve convinced me, sweetheart,” he says, pressing a kiss to the crook of Steve’s neck. “Let’s do it.”
“Yeah?” Steve cranes his head around to look at Eddie, showing off the luminous smile lighting his face.
“Yeah, baby,” Eddie says, leaning into Steve a little further. “Lemme tell everyone how much I love you all over again.”
The way Steve practically melts against Eddie is worth all the pomp and ceremony in the world, Eddie thinks.
(But the promise of cake doesn’t hurt.)
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porterdavis · 6 days ago
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A great long read from Tom Nichols of The Atlantic:
“Democrats and liberal pundits are already trying to figure out how the Trump campaign not only bested Kamala Harris in the “Blue Wall” states of the Midwest and the Rust Belt, but gained on her even in areas that should have been safe for a Democrat. Almost everywhere, Donald Trump expanded his coalition, and this time, unlike in 2016, he didn’t have to thread the needle of the Electoral College to win: He can claim the legitimacy of winning the popular vote.
Trump’s opponents are now muttering about the choice of Tim Walz, the influence of the Russians, the role of the right-wing media, and whether President Joe Biden should not have stepped aside in favor of Harris. Even the old saw about “economic anxiety” is making a comeback.
These explanations all have some merit, but mostly, they miss the point. Yes, some voters still stubbornly believe that presidents magically control the price of basic goods. Others have genuine concerns about immigration and gave in to Trump’s booming call of fascism and nativism. And some of them were just never going to vote for a woman, much less a Black woman.
But in the end, a majority of American voters chose Trump because they wanted what he was selling: a nonstop reality show of rage and resentment. Some Democrats, still gripped by the lure of wonkery, continue to scratch their heads over which policy proposals might have unlocked more votes, but that was always a mug’s game. Trump voters never cared about policies, and he rarely gave them any. (Choosing to be eaten by a shark rather than electrocuted might be a personal preference, but it’s not a policy.) His rallies involved long rants about the way he’s been treated, like a giant therapy session or a huge family gathering around a bellowing, impaired grandpa.
Back in 2021, I wrote a book about the rise of “illiberal populism,” the self-destructive tendency in some nations that leads people to participate in democratic institutions such as voting while being hostile to democracy itself, casting ballots primarily to punish other people and to curtail everyone’s rights—even their own. These movements are sometimes led by fantastically wealthy faux populists who hoodwink gullible voters by promising to solve a litany of problems that always seem to involve money, immigrants, and minorities. The appeals from these charlatans resonate most not among the very poor, but among a bored, relatively well-off middle class, usually those who are deeply uncomfortable with racial and demographic changes in their own countries.
And so it came to pass: Last night, a gaggle of millionaires and billionaires grinned and applauded for Trump. They were part of an alliance with the very people another Trump term would hurt—the young, minorities, and working families among them.
Trump, as he has shown repeatedly over the years, couldn’t care less about any of these groups. He ran for office to seize control of the apparatus of government and to evade judicial accountability for his previous actions as president. Once he is safe, he will embark on the other project he seems to truly care about: the destruction of the rule of law and any other impediments to enlarging his power.
Americans who wish to stop Trump in this assault on the American constitutional order, then, should get it out of their heads that this election could have been won if only a better candidate had made a better pitch to a few thousand people in Pennsylvania. Biden, too old and tired to mount a proper campaign, likely would have lost worse than Harris; more to the point, there was nothing even a more invigorated Biden or a less, you know, female alternative could have offered. Racial grievances, dissatisfaction with life’s travails (including substance addiction and lack of education), and resentment toward the villainous elites in faraway cities cannot be placated by housing policy or interest-rate cuts.
No candidate can reason about facts and policies with voters who have no real interest in such things. They like the promises of social revenge that flow from Trump, the tough-guy rhetoric, the simplistic “I will fix it” solutions. And he’s interesting to them, because he supports and encourages their conspiracist beliefs. (I knew Harris was in trouble when I was in Pennsylvania last week for an event and a fairly well-off business owner, who was an ardent Trump supporter, told me that Michelle Obama had conspired with the Canadians to change the state’s vote tally in 2020. And that wasn’t even the weirdest part of the conversation.)
As Jonathan Last, editor of The Bulwark, put it in a social-media post last night: The election went the way it did “because America wanted Trump. That’s it. People reaching to construct [policy] alibis for the public because they don’t want to grapple with this are whistling past the graveyard.” Last worries that we might now be in a transition to authoritarianism of the kind Russia went through in the 1990s, but I visited Russia often in those days, and much of the Russian democratic implosion was driven by genuinely brutal economic conditions and the rapid collapse of basic public services. Americans have done this to themselves during a time of peace, prosperity, and astonishingly high living standards. An affluent society that thinks it is living in a hellscape is ripe for gulling by dictators who are willing to play along with such delusions.
The bright spot in all this is that Trump and his coterie must now govern. The last time around, Trump was surrounded by a small group of moderately competent people, and these adults basically put baby bumpers and pool noodles on all the sharp edges of government. This time, Trump will rule with greater power but fewer excuses, and he—and his voters—will have to own the messes and outrages he is already planning to create.
Those voters expect that Trump will hurt others and not them. They will likely be unpleasantly surprised, much as they were in Trump’s first term. (He was, after all, voted out of office for a reason.) For the moment, some number of them have memory-holed that experience and are pretending that his vicious attacks on other Americans are just so much hot air.
Trump, unfortunately, means most of what he says. In this election, he has triggered the unfocused ire and unfounded grievances of millions of voters. Soon we will learn whether he can still trigger their decency—if there is any to be found.
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jeonscatalyst · 8 days ago
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As someone who's been into kpop for over 10 years, I just wanted to comment on the saesang ask. Saesangs aren't in their right mind, most of them are deeply obsessed with the person they are stalking and also have an element of desiring control over the person/wanting to feel closer than other fans. Most of them don't aim to air out an idol's private life, unless they get pissed off i.e. find out the idol is dating and feel like a jilted lover for example, so they lash out and leak private info. Most of them either have a mother or lover complex (for male idol saesangs) and want to control them. Their goal isn't to leak info, but to feel close and special to the idol.
There are some saesangs who do it for money by selling info about idols. BTS is so famous now that this isn't really viable because other than really really gullible people, most people realize that anyone could make stuff up about bts and call it "insider info". They're so big, it also makes more sense to go to Dispatch or something like that with "real info" to get top media dollar than sell to random fans. Even former saesangs say you'd have to be an idiot to buy bts "info" nowadays because its all going to be bullshit.
I want to be clear that any "legit" saesang rumor comes from idols having their personal life invaded without consent. I'm not saying their is a rumor about jikook out there, but even if there was, no one who actually gives any amount of fuck about them (especially korean fans who have a history of gatekeeping stuff that could harm the boys) as human beings would spread it, because it'd basically be outing them because actual saesangs have a terrifying amount of knowledge and connection to these idol's inner lives. I wanna be very careful how I say this, but for example there were group chat messages from an infamous saesang that got leaked years ago that in my opinion, implied some things about a kpop idol that had no right being implied publicly without their consent. You might wonder, well what about antis who hear the rumor, won't they spread it? But once again, most saesangs aren't looking to spread info about the idol they're stalking, and even if they do, a lot of them seem to mostly engage with other saesangs of the group their idol is in because they are, in some messed up obsessive unhealthy way, still a "fan" of the idol. So unless the groupchat gets pissed and someone leaks it or the saesang feels jilted by the idol they stalk, most of that stuff stays there.
Now in regards to jikook, the obvious reality is that they're bandmates. There's nothing crazy about them hanging out or being seen together. They even tell us themselves how much time they spend together privately at times. They aren't going to makeout in public, so what would a saesang say anyway even if they wanted to reveal stuff about them (which as I stated before, most of them don't aim to do anyway)? They saw them together? So what? Also as you @jeonscatalyst said, these people aren't god, just stalkers. Even they have limits and all saesangs aren't equal in terms of access to their idol, opportunities, etc. that allow them to get "info".
Also, pretty much all the "rumors" we hear about jikook even in heterosexual relationships don't come from saesangs, its just made up shit from random korean forums (this is actually the case for a lot of kpop rumors, not just related to jikoook or bts). This isn't to say jikook is real or something, but that we actually don't hear from "actual" saesangs as much as people like to pretend. I think i-fans of kpop think that term comes with authority because it implies a closeness to the idol from being a stalker (which is fucked up because why are we putting stalkers on a pedestal but I digress), so they kind of slap it on any rumor, but that's really not the case, especially for a group as famous as bts. You think if someone wants to make money off a rumor about them or aims to leak private info to take them down, they're going to sell it or share it into the fandom? No, they'd take it straight to the media or competing k-pop companies who would pay top dollar and be frothing at the mouth to take down the biggest kpop group in history. Basically, even if a saesang does want to spread something, its not coming to us in the form of fandom rumor. And since this is a jikook blog, let's pretend a saesang thinks jikook are a thing and for one reason or another, decides to share that info. How does spreading that info even work? What media company is going to not only out someone, but also risk looking like an actual buffoon for thinking two group members are together? The group aspect of bts gives plausible deniability for everything up until actual romantic/sexual physical contact pretty much, something which a saesang is never going to get evidence of unless they figure out how to become the actual wallpaper inside jikook's apartments. Even if they spread it though the fandom, fans will just look at them like a shipper. Like "aww you have a pic of them out at a restaurant? how cute! #jikookarethebestbros". I think it can't be overstated how much them being in the same group and shipping culture (+ homophobia) aid in downplaying any possibility of an actual romantic relationship being there.
Also just a sidenote, but saesangs are just extremely disturbed fans, they can be y/n's (most of them are), they can be homophobic, etc. Jungkook has some of most y/n fans of any top male kpop idol. Do I think its beyond a saesang to see their fave idol in a same-sex relationship and think "I can fix him (make him straight)?" Not at all. Do I think it would be above them to start seeing the other member/partner as "the other woman" and start hating them or blaming them for tainting their beloved idol? Not at all. In this scenario, I doubt they'd want to spread this info they think is "shameful" about their fave idol, they would just think he needs "fixed" or pulled away from the person "contaminating" him.
Anyway, I have spent waaaay to long in the kpop fandom, even pre-bts (when saesangs almost seemed worse back then) and this is the general consensus I have garnered about why saesangs are the way they are.
Thanks anon, for your very insightful input💜
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thefiery-phoenix · 7 months ago
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Yandare gun park who got obsessed with a foreigner reader working for him as his secretary of something head canons ?
Sure :)
YANDERE GUN PARK WITH FOREIGNER SECRETARY READER
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Love was something Gun never had a positive opinion of, he always viewed it as something trivial when he had better things to do in life like extort money from gangs and traumatize people. The only things he desired was power and money, he honestly couldn't care less about anything else till he met you. He needed someone to take of some mundane paperwork Charles Choi decided to throw towards him and thought of making Goo do it till he realized he'd have to deal with his incessant whining which was something he wasn't overly fond of till he got the idea of hiring a secretary for himself. He could tell from the get go you weren't from around here since you spoke in a different accent and looked out of place. Gun's eyes were focused on you and he didn't understand why he felt intrigued by you. You worked as a barista and the way your apron hugged your frame and you spoke to people with a smile, you looked...innocent and somewhat gullible in his opinion as his eyes never left your figure
He spotted your manager yelling at you a while later and you had tears streaming down your face while your lousy scumbag of a manager berated and insulted you. Something inside him told him to intervene, he couldn't believe he was actually doing this for someone who he didn't even talk to yet but something in him compelled him to do so. "Hey...shut up. It's annoying to hear you scream like a whining man child. Get lost'' said Gun as he waved his hand dismissively and lit a cigarette and let out a puff as he glared at your manager. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT TO-'' screamed your manager on top of his lungs however he was cut off when Gun grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and his hands gripped his face in a vice like grip as he leaned closer towards him and whispered something in his ear. You didn't know what he whispered into your manager's ear since it wasn't audible to you but whatever it was that the stranger said to your manager, he went pale and shivered slightly as he let out a pathetic whimper and scampered off. You've never seen your manager reduced to such a state as you looked at the stranger in apprehension and slight fear as you fidgeted nervously
"Don't worry, I won't bite...unless you want me to'' said the stranger as he smirked at you and you could feel his intense gaze behind his glasses you had an awkward smile on your face. "Um...thank you I guess...I don't know how to repay you though'' you said as his smirk widened. What an eager polite little thing you were, you looked like a typical goody two shoes and he felt a strange desire growing inside him to corrupt you, to have you for himself and devour you whole, to OWN you. "There is something you can do for me...'' he started as he took another puff of his cigarette and watched your confused and nervous look as you reminded him of a helpless little prey which gave him a power surge and a sense of satisfaction to see you squirm. He made a mental note to make you squirm for him even more later on in the future, your expressions were so amusing for him
"Work for me...as my secretary. You can start tomorrow'' he said in a tone which indicated you didn't really have a choice in the matter as you took the card and looked at it. You looked at the man in front of you and you couldn't help but get an uneasy feeling that he was dangerous. "You shouldn't refuse if you know what's good for you. It would be...unwise'' said the man in front of you as your heart almost stopped beating at his words. You slowly nodded as you sighed and went back to your house. You were too tired to comprehend what to do anymore as you headed for bed after you had a quiet dinner. Meanwhile Gun headed back to his residence and pulled out his phone. "Oi brat, I need a favor from you'' said Gun. "You call me that one more time, I swear I'll kill you'' grumbled Kouji from the other end as Gun chuckled slightly. "I'd like to see you try pipsqueak. I need some information on Y/N, think you're up for the job?" he asked Kouji as he was met with a few moments of silence. "You really think I have nothing better to do in life huh? Fine...but I'm charging you double. You interrupted my game MF'' he grumbled as he cut the call. 15 minutes later Kouji sent a file to Gun as he spent the rest of the night reading everything about you from your likes, dislikes, hobbies and such. The fact that you weren't from Korea made things better, he could make you rely on him more, make you dependent on him and have you for himself easily as he smirked to himself, waiting for the next day when he'd see you again
The next day, sure enough, you showed up to his residence and you had a smart attire and Gun was somewhat surprised you actually held up your end of the promise. You were so easy to take advantage of and he couldn't wait to have you in his clutches. "You actually showed up...congratulations, you got the job'' said Gun as you quirked your brow in slight confusion. "Aren't you going to conduct an interview or something?" you asked him curiously as his mouth curved into an amused grin. He wondered whether or not he should tell you how he already knew everything there was about you including how you lived alone and your current address and such but he didn't want to scare you off just yet so he decided to withhold that information. For now at least as he mentioned some vague answer of not wanting to bother with tedious and nonsensical procedures and preferred a more direct approach towards things
He's amused how skittish and nervous you're around him. Your actions never cease to delight and amuse him and he loves to call you out on your flustered and shy behavior at times and gets a kick of your cheeks going red whenever he makes slightly suggestive comments towards you. Which just proved his theory that even the devil had his day. He always insists that you have lunch with him and don't even think of skipping out on lunch with him, he'll drag you to eat with him anyway telling you that you can always work later. He'll take you out to fancy restaurants at times to a private booth where the two of you would be undisturbed and he'll ask you questions about your life and such. Even if you hide something from him he'll find out eventually through his sources so there's no room for you to keep a secret from him anymore
It kind of goes without saying you know, when you're working for Gun, you'll meet Goo as well and Goo knows Gun inside and out and he immediately understands his fighting obsessed psychotic friend has taken an obsessive unhealthy liking towards you when he caught him stalking you in the shadows when you went back home. Of course Gun immediately warned Goo to keep his mouth shut as Goo grinned at him in amusement but honored his wish. Goo being the infuriating little brat he is at times loves to tease Gun and getting a rise out of him by hanging out with you, it's amusing to see his eyes get all fired up with possessiveness and jealousy, an emotion he'd never expected him to have before but at the same time, he acts like a wingman for him and encourages his twisted obsessive love for you, snitching on you to Gun anytime you have plans with your pesky little friends in which case Gun would have to personally take care of them for being a distraction for you. Don't feel too upset when they don't lift your calls anymore, you still have him. You wouldn't know about what he actually does, you're in the dark regarding all the money extortion and the crew related things he does, he wants to keep you in that sheltered little bubble and make you rely SOLELY on him alone
Personal space be damned, he's always doing things to make you flustered like kissing the back of your hand or being too close to you. He'll find a way to monopolize your time and attention to be focused on him and only him, nothing else should matter to you. He likes to trace his thumb over your bottom lip and whenever he speaks to you in that husky deep voice of his, his lips would teasingly graze over to your ear and the nape of your neck which would send shivers and tingles down your spine as he has a firm grasp around your waist. It just feeds into his god complex of an ego how much of an effect he has on you. He's looking forward to having you on his lap one of these days, while he runs his hands over your beautiful body meant for him
When you spring the news that you're going back to your country permanently and want to live there, he stops whatever he's doing and simply glares at you. Even though he's wearing his glasses you could feel the heat and intensity of his heated stare which was practically burning a hole through your soul. However, he has a fake smile on his face and invites you to one last dinner before you leave. Little did you know, there was quite an unexpected surprise in store for you. You headed to his residence for dinner that night and he loved how shy and bashful you were being. No way in HELL would he allow you to leave him, you were his since the moment he laid his eyes on you. You couldn't exactly put a finger on it but you felt like the food tasted somewhat strange and by the time you finished your last bite, you started feeling drowsy and sleepy. "I'm...I'm feeling tired. I think...I think I better go home'' you mumbled sleepily and yawned. A few seconds later your vision started becoming blurry and you blacked out on his couch as he gently ran his fingers through your hair and caressed your cheek. How dare you try to leave him? He'll have to discipline and punish you later for trying to leave him. It doesn't matter if you'd hate him after you wake up, you'll love him eventually, he'll MAKE you love him even if he needs to use force...
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emeraldspiral · 2 months ago
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Listen, if you think Dib would ever be an Elon Musk stan/Silicon Valley Techbro, you could not be more wrong.
Invader Zim is a satire where the entire point of Dib is to be The Cassandra, trying to warn people about a very real problem that everyone else is too ignorant, apathetic, or complacent to do anything about. Zim is a metaphor for stuff like climate change, the anti-vax movement, the failures of capitalism, the increasing stranglehold of corporations and special interest groups on politics, and the creeping rise of fascism that Dib is the only person woke enough to notice. Sometimes it's not even a metaphor, he just outright calls out mundane real-world corruption like sending kids out to fundraise for their dilapidated, underfunded public skool but then spending the money on prizes instead of desks, or a megacorporation getting kids to invent products for them to make money off of without compensating the creators.
He would NOT be an Elon Musk stan. Elon Musk is the closest equivalent we have to a real life Zim. An obviously incompetent, narcissistic attention whore who still somehow manages to swindle gullible people into buying whatever bullshit he spews and who we could probably trick into fucking off forever if we just played to his ego and told him we had an important mission for him in outer space. Except even Zim is at least a real tech genius. Which brings me to my next point.
Dib is at least a third generation scientist/inventor. He and his father and his grandparents all know how to do actual math and coding and experimentation and physically build their own tech. They don't just come up with a half-baked idea and then pass it off to someone else to actually figure out how to make it workable. No way in hell would Dib be fooled by Muskrat's phony "real life Tony Stark" persona.
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yellowocaballero · 11 days ago
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RE: Your post about Israel. You want me to just, hate a country? Many of my friends are Jewish or Israeli. It seems reductive to say “if you support Israel at all DNI.” Big “Us Vs. Them” and “Inability to separate government from people” vibes.
You're embarrassing yourself. Defending a genocidal ethnostate online from the mean bloggers who tell its defenders to get out of her sight with these limp and tired 'points' is embarrassing for you. I hope you're a teenager, because thinking of you as a gullible teenager is the nicest way I can think of you.
It's massively insulting to Jewish people to equivocate being Jewish with being pro-Israel Zionist. Apparently you believe that "living in a country" = "supporting a country's actions", which matches up well with your obvious inability to have a single thought for yourself when you can deepthroat apartheid propaganda instead. It is actually kind of funny that you're clutching your pearls over being told I hate a country, when I'm guessing that you share Israel's fundamental belief that all Palestinian men, women, and children should be wiped off the face of the Earth.
More than that, it's actively depressing that in my inbox contains a criminally stupid Zionist who got offended when I drew boundaries in my own blog and decided to send a crying anon about it to me; and next to it I have an ask from a Palestinian begging for money so he can save his family's life. Delivering cool dunks against you would be extremely easy and would make me feel like a cool #activist but it feels actively stupid to do so at this point in time. I made a post blasting the fact that I don't want to engage in a debate and that I'm deeply intolerant of pro-Israel and Zionist views, and you rolled up trying to debate with me over it instead of blocking me and moving on. I'm not going to step into your Tumblr slapfest out of the desire to give sweet dunks or delude myself into thinking that I can change the mind of someone who just wanted to start an argument for the sake of it. My greatest hope for you as a person is that you're deeply ashamed of yourself in ten years, but at this point you're probably so entrenched into your victim complex that you've chosen to die on the hill of people shooting children in the head.
You're wasting your life and polluting your soul, so do what I told you to do in the first place and go someplace where I'm not asked to waste my own life speaking to you.
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nana-mania · 2 years ago
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pls can you do a part 2 for the red flags of bllk characters!! it was so good!
࿐*ೃ sure!! i actually plan to do for more characters in part 3 so characters suggestion is highly encouraged! (4 CHARACTERS MAXIMUM)
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“HIS RED FLAGS” - PART 2 - what does he do that make him an obvious red flag?
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╰┈➤: ̗̀➛ headcanon
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࿐*ೃ feat : reo mikage, seishiro nagi, oliver aiku, rin itoshi
࿐*ೃ fandom : blue lock
࿐*ೃ extra : gn! reader, angst.
࿐*ೃ trigger warning : cheating, manipulation, profanities, toxic relationship.
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REO MIKAGE
╰┈➤: ̗̀➛ Reo would be the best, most perfect partner ever if only he believes that not everything can be resolved through his wealth. He loves you, he does but you're never his priority. All he cares about is his football career. He barely has time for you, often spending time with Seishiro to practice soccer together until dusk nearly everyday. When you tell him about your worries, you expect him to take action and finally considers to mend the relationship again. But he never. He just gives you tons of money and tells you to have fun by yourself to cheer you up. When you insist him to spend quality time with you, he harshly rejects you by saying he is busy. Indeed, he is busy. He is busy being Seishiro's servant and prioritizing his happiness more than yours.
“Sorry, Y/n. Not today. I have practice.”
“I told you, I don't have the leisure time to play around. I need to practice soccer!”
“Just take this money and enjoy yourself. Leave me alone and never speak about this matter ever again.”
SEISHIRO NAGI
╰┈➤: ̗̀➛ Seishiro...is lazy, in general and in all ways. Relationship is a hassle for him to handle due to his lazy nature. He never make an effort to spice up nor mending his relationship with you. If it happens, it happens. That's his motto, one that he never fail to hold onto. Seishiro basically doesn't even care about you let alone your feelings for him in the slightest bit. He is solely using your vulnerability to his advantage. In all honesty, he only engages in relationship with you because he thinks you would be useful to assist him with his daily needs. You're a gullible person who simply follows all his orders like a servant, only thinking you only do this out of love and casting aside the fact you're being manipulated by your own boyfriend. He asks for breakfast? You make one for him. He tells you to wash all his clothes while he play games? You gladly do so. This goes on for a while until you realize how wrong this is and confronts Seishiro about it. The result, he never give a flying fuck. Instead, Seishiro manipulates you into thinking this is your own fault and makes you feel much worse.
“So...what's your point actually? You're blaming me over your own stupidity?”
“You're really dumb, Y/n. So dumb that it took you this long to notice.”
“Apologize? I never do anything wrong. It isn't like I hit you or anything.”
OLIVER AIKU
╰┈➤: ̗̀➛ We all know what this man is capable of; cheating. From the start of the relationship, he has dropped countless obvious hints. During date, you will always find his eyes lingering on other people as he “admires” them with a lustful smirk on his face. When you confront him, Oliver just brushes it off and says you're overreacting. It doesn't matter how many times you scold him, he will repeat his doing. And as time passes, he straightout flirts with anyone that catches his interest right in front of you. Daring to even exchange number while his lips curves into a seductive smirk. He barely has time for you and frequently leaving the house to have fun with his “friends”, which turns out to be his secret lover, one that he has been cheating on you with for a long time.
“Jeez, you're overreacting too much. I'm just being nice to them.”
“What's wrong with getting their number? You know me, I like making new friends!”
“Come on...can you just be open-minded and let me do anything I want? I can date anyone I want besides you. You have no control over my life.”
RIN ITOSHI
╰┈➤: ̗̀➛ You and Rin were like dream lovers, perfect for each other and completed each other's heart. That's it, until the dispute between Rin and his older brother happened that drastically changed him...and his relationship with you. Rin is not as sweet and as caring he used to be, solely focusing on his goal to surpass and beat his older brother in their unhealthy rivalry. He has become more distant and acts colder toward you. There is no spark of joy in the relationship anymore, with Rin drifting apart from you and you hurting from his cold-hearted treatment. You try to be there for him, supporting him in his journey to be the best striker to prove to his older brother but your efforts are often overlooked and left unappreciated by Rin. In fact, he sees you as a nuisance rather than his biggest supporter.
“I don't have time for you. Screw off, (Y/n).”
“You interrupted my practice to tell me to fucking rest? Are you telling me to laze around?”
“From now on, stop visiting me during practice. You are a fucking nuisance.”
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࿐*ೃ thanks for reading this headcanon! likes and reblogs are deeply appreciated ♡
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soizoukoi · 1 month ago
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Okay, I hesitated a bit before writing this because I don’t want to add more drama to the drama, but I think some points about this whole NFT situation need clarification.
First of all: Yes, I agree that not clearly explaining to the fanbase that the raffle ticket was an NFT was a bit shady, and like many others, I would have appreciated more transparency on this.
That said, while the NFT market was indeed a speculative bubble where cryptobros jumped in to scam naive people with ugly monkey drawings, that bubble has burst, and most of those scammers have since moved on to other ways of making money off gullible people. As for Käärijä’s case, is the sale of his NFTs a scam? The raffle ticket was free, and the Euro Pass gives you access to exclusive content for €15, which is much cheaper than an OnlyFans subscription, and I hope it will be managed more professionally. Also, you don't need to use cryptocurrency to access these bonuses. So honestly, I find it hard to see where the scam is here.
As for the environmental impact: While it was indeed a major issue, it seems to have been addressed in the past two years. According to Wikipedia, this correction has reduced energy consumption by over 99%. Therefore, I think the real environmental impact of NFTs is no worse or better than that of Google or any other digital platform we all use.
I’m also including the thread from @/linkhundr on Twitter, who seems to know a bit more about the subject, for further information.
That’s it, this post isn’t meant to spread hate towards anyone for their opinions on this subject. I’m just trying to bring some perspective and nuance to something that, in my opinion, isn’t really a big deal.
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heeseung-min · 1 year ago
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Yandere Jungwon mafia liking yn but yn already likes sunoo and vice versa. So sunoo and yn get in a realtionship but jungwon hates it and wants yn to himself. Can you make a one-shot about this?
Sorry for the late reply😓😓 Hope you enjoy this😄, in this story i make all of them are in same year which means all of them are 23 years old.
[22:31]
"Finish them. Make sure to kill them slowly cause I want him to feel the suffering."
"NO! PLEASE I'M BEGGING JUST GIVE ME FEW DAYS AND I WILL PAY BACK!!!"
Jungwon glared to the pathetic man where his face already ruined with punches and kicks that he got from Jungwon and his men. He hates when people couldn't fulfill their promise. This man can be an example for that. Jungwon already gave him few months to pay him back but instead when he stalked this man, he found out this man just using his money for gambling and even borrowing more when he lost.
"I gave that already many times, Junghoon. But your disgusting ass can't even do something good to earn the money to pay me back."
Junghoon hold Jungwon's legs to beg again. Quickly, Jungwon kicked the man until his face fell down to the floor. Jungwon groaned when he saw some blood on his outfit.
"FUCK!! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THIS COSTS? HOW DARE YOU TOUCH ME WITH YOUR DISGUSTING DIRTY HANDS??!! AHHH FUCK YOU BASTARD!!!!"
Jungwon stepped real hard on the man's face and kicked it for the last time. He clenched his jaw while watching his men started to torture Junghoon. He closed his eyes in satisfaction when he heard the scream. He went out from the place and let his men finished their task.
While he was driving, he thought about getting new suit since the one he was wearing right now already got dirty. He stopped at the shop he always goes to buy new suit. When he went inside, the manager there already knew what is he looking for.
While the workers were showing some suits with different design, another worker made a trouble by spilling a drink that was made for Jungwon. He rolled his eyes at the clumsiness while the manager seems to be embarrassed.
"Y/n!!! What do you think you were doing?!!"
"I'm- I am sorry I accidentally slipped."
Y/n apologized to her manager and turned to Jungwon to apologize to him too. Jungwon was strucked by her appearance and went speechless for few seconds before he came back to realization.
"Forgive us. Mr. Jungwon. Y/n is new here so she's still clumsy. I will teach her lesson."
Jungwon looked at you who only stared down to the floor with guilty expression. He wanted you to pay attention on him.
"It's okay. It's not like she spilled that on me. Stand up, y/n. No need to bow down. You should give her another outfit too since the drink also spilled on her. I will pay for it."
"No sir- I mean, there's no need for that. I'm good"
"I didn't give you option. So, just take it."
Since that day, Jungwon will come to the shop every week just to see you although he's not really interested to get new clothes. He's a bit frustrated when other staffs and not you serve him. So, he requested at your manager for you to serve him alone.
"What style you prefer, Mr. Jungwon?"
"Just call me Jungwon. No need to be so formal."
"Umm, okay Jungwon."
Jungwon smiled at your shyness. He wonder how would you be when he make you fluster. He went closer to you suddenly and put his hand on your waist.
"Umm, what are you doing?"
"Stay still, doll. There's a bug on your hair."
Your eyes widened at his statement which made him wanted to laugh at how gullible you were. There was nothing on your hair. He did that just wanted to feel closer to you.
"Is it gone?"
"Yeah."
One day, he went again to the store to see you but became disappointed when the manager informed him you were having off day today. He let the other staffs served him while thinking about you. Oh, how boring he is without your existence here.
"Do you see Y/n's boyfriend?"
"What? I didn't know she has boyfriend."
"It's the barista nearby our shop!!!"
"My my I guess they are really a good match."
"Y/n, we are so sorry for your lost."
You nodded at what your coworkers said. It's been two weeks since your boyfriend's death. You felt useless when the doctor told you the cause of death was suicide. You took few days off since you can't focus without thinking about Sunoo.
Now, you were on the beach enjoying the scenery and breeze. There was not much people so it feels okay to sit there alone while looking at the water and the sky.
"Even though you are sad, you should at least take care of yourself."
You immediately turned to the very familiar sound. Jungwon stood beside you with some foods on his hands. He then sat beside you and put one of the meals he bought on your hands. It's a new style you see from Jungwon. Usually, you just see him in suit but this time he was wearing white shirt and short pants which is comfortable to be at the beach.
"What are you doing here?"
"Why? I can't come to the beach because I'm rich now?"
"Erghh, I didn't mean that."
Jungwon sighed when he saw you back to you sad mood. He decided to put your head on his shoulder.
"Cry."
"W-what?"
"Just cry, y/n. No one is here so you can cry as much as you want. I won't judge you, just do it."
Jungwon smiled when he heard you cried. He finally got rid of that bastard aka Sunoo, your boyfriend. Now, he can finally make you his. As long no one disturb both of you, he will make sure no one can even get closer to you.
Ayo, I hope you guys like this. The ending feels rushed ...im so sorry
Taglist: @stacey-stonem @duolingofanaccount @obsessed1with1straykids @huggyuvita
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