#ask game 05 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sonofnyx · 3 months ago

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DAMON ADDAMS, é filho de NYX do chalé NÚMERO VINTE E SEIS e tem TRINTA E UM ANOS. a tv hefesto informa no guia de programação que ele está no NÍVEL III por estar no acampamento há DEZESSEIS ANOS, sabia? e se lá estiver certo, DAMON é bastante DETERMINADO mas também dizem que ele é MUITO FRIO. mas você sabe como hefesto é, sempre inventando fake news pra atrair audiência.

biografia / playlist / conexões / aesthetic

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚ BACKGROUND;

Concebido a partir da união do Romaniano Andree Addams e da deusa Nyx, Damon Addams nasceu no dia 13 de Janeiro de 1998, na cidade de Cluj-Napoca, na Romênia, região histórica conhecida como Transilvânia. Foi onde passou grande parte de sua infância sendo criado por seus tios, pois seu pai partiu para os Estados Unidos da América atrás do sonho americano de uma vida melhor quando Damon tinha apenas três anos de idade. Os tempos passados junto de seus tios e primos não foram ruins, sua tia Catalina o tratava como se ele fosse um de seus filhos, seu marido era o típico pai ausente grande parte do tempo – por isso sua presença não importava na vida de Damon – e seus primos deixaram de ficar irritantes quando perceberam que o garoto não gostava de brincar nos gramados verdes que haviam por lá e não o importunavam mais para sair de casa junto com eles.

Essa parte tímida, reservada e reclusa da personalidade de Damon preocupava Catalina, que sempre deixava seu pai ciente das coisas que o menino fazia por meio de cartas e vice-versa, – sempre que sua tia recebia as cartas de Andree, ela nunca deixava de dizer o quanto o homem sentia falta do filho. Como da vez que Catalina descobriu Damon lendo livros no escuro total ou das vezes que ouvia o menino conversar sozinho a noite, ou com um amigo imaginário, como preferia acreditar.

Ao completar os oito anos de idade, Damon foi para os Estados Unidos, junto com um de seus primos mais velhos e já maior de idade, Sorin, o mesmo para ingressar numa universidade e Damon para passar a morar com seu pai. A mudança não foi fácil para o menino de oito anos, fuso horário e idioma diferente, escola diferente, ambientes e pessoas diferentes. Acostumado com seus primos para entreter à noite ao falar com e de seus amigos imaginários, como sua tia dizia, Damon sentiu-se ainda mais sozinho do que já era, mesmo com esses últimos ainda por perto. Por sorte tinha o rápido aprendizado e a habilidade da observação ao seu lado e não demorou muito a se adaptar às novas coisas.

De início sua relação com seu pai foi estranha e fria, não que ele tenha se sentido abandonado por algo que aconteceu cinco anos atrás e ele mal se lembrava, entretanto, o homem ainda era como uma estranha para si. Porém também não levou muito tempo até que se sentisse confortável com Andree por perto, ainda mais quando o homem parecia o entender bem e não estranhava seus hábitos noturnos e sua vontade de ficar na escuridão, como acontecia na antiga casa com seus tios.

Em seu aniversário de dez anos, seu pai lhe contou tudo sobre sua história, sobre sua mãe ser uma deusa e de como as outras pessoas não entenderiam e por isso esse fato devia ser o segredo dos dois e, por isso também, não demoraria muito para os dois se separarem novamente, pois em algum momento Damon teria que ir para um lugar mais seguro e onde haveriam crianças como ele. Isso fez com que o garoto se interessasse pela mitologia grega ao qual lhe deu origem e passasse a valorizar mais o tempo com seu pai, que não o estranhava e o incentivava a treinar suas habilidades, longe de olhos mortais obviamente.

As criaturas estranhas lhe perseguindo e destruindo partes diferentes de seu colégio não eram um grande empecilho em sua vida, já que nunca fora um aluno exemplar por causa de seu TDAH, então ganhar o título de “trouble maker” solitário e ser suspenso várias vezes não era um problema – nem afetavam suas boas notas, já que sempre se esforçava para aprender as matérias sozinho ao ler os livros. O problema foi quando, já com seus quinze anos, Manticoras resolveram atacar sua casa. Com muito esforço, Damon conseguiu distrair as criaturas para que seu pai fugisse para segurança. Depois de muitas horas e muitos ferimentos, as bestas mortas, conseguiu se encontrar com Andree e sugerir para que o mesmo voltasse para Romênia, mesmo que temporariamente, para sair da zona de perigo, pois não queria colocar a vida do pai em risco. Andree não se opôs muito a ideia e lhe instruiu ir para Long Island, dizendo que lá haveria um lugar seguro para si; após ambos arrumarem as malas, Andree se despediu de Damon com um beijo na testa e cada um foi para um lado.

Chegando em Long Island, Damon foi recepcionado calorosamente por Harpias, fazendo com que o filho de Nyx corresse para o lugar mais escasso de população o possível para que não colocasse a vida de mais ninguém em risco. Damon foi encontrado e levado quase inconsciente para o acampamento Meio Sangue por um sátiro, após esgotar toda sua energia para destruir as criaturas e se manter vivo por uma semana inteira enquanto vagava as florestas de Long Island sem ter para onde ir.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚ PERSONALIDADE;

Damon tem a típica personalidade de um filho de Nyx; quieto, distante e reservado. Por ser frio e calculista, tende a pensar muito antes de tomar decisões e fazer algo; é impulsivo apenas em situações de vida ou morte, para se proteger ou proteger pessoas que julga importantes para si. Observador, tende a notar pequenos detalhes e coisas que acontecem ao seu redor, o que é uma grande vantagem para estratégias quando está em campo – porém por ter pouco tato com sentimentos e vida em sociedade, não percebe muitas coisas desses campos. Tem muita dificuldade de confiar e se abrir com os outros por ter sido sempre muito sozinho e, também, devido as pessoas sempre terem sido hostis ou mantido distância de si por causa de sua aura assustadora – de filho de Nyx. Mas isso não significa que Damon seja desprovido de emoções.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚ PODERES;

Ubracinese - Solidificação de Escuridão: é o poder de solidificar escuridão, sombras e trevas. Damon pode tornar qualquer matéria baseada em escuridão ou sombra em algo físico, podendo usa-la como membros extras, como braços e mãos, ou ferramentas, armas e armaduras, podendo danificar objetos e ferir pessoas com uma certa facilidade, além de poder ser tão duro quanto aço ou até mais ou ser flexível, de acordo com sua vontade. Por ser filho da personificação da Noite, seus poderes ficam um tanto enfraquecidos durante o dia e Damon se cansa mais rápido ao usá-los, diferente de quando os usa à noite, que é quando fica mais forte.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚ BENÇÃO;

Érebo já vinha observando Damon desde quando sua irmã havia lhe dado a luz; após o garoto descobrir suas raízes, sua devoção e respeito por sua irmã já lhe garantiram diversos pontos positivos com o Deus, porém o primordial passou dar mais atenção ao rapaz quando o mesmo teve sucesso em recuperar e devolver seu item mágico, o Chicote de Érebo, garantindo-lhe a bênção da Aura Assombrosa. Benção essa que concedeu a Damon pois notou que, há alguns anos atrás, o rapaz utilizou de sua umbracinese para parecer maior e mais ameaçador enquanto lutava contra as Manticoras para salvar seu pai.

Benção de Érebo - Aura Assombrosa: Apenas com a sua presença em um combate, o ambiente começa a esfriar, escurecer e enfraquecer efeitos quaisquer que gerem luz e esperança.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚ HABILIDADES;

Sentidos aguçados e agilidade sobre-humana.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚ ATIVIDADES;

Instrutor de Meditação e participante do Clube de Artesanato.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚ ARMAS;

Espadas Curtas Duplas — Moon&Stars: feitas de ferro estígio, Damon usa duas espadas curtas em cada mão. Treinado desde novo, e devido à sua agilidade sobre-humana, o estilo de Damon com ambas as espadas curtas parece quase que como uma dança.

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d4rkwater · 9 months ago

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𝐉𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐏𝐇 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐑, ele é filho de 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐈𝐃𝐎𝐍 e 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑𝐎do 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐄́ 𝟑e tem 𝟐𝟒 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐬. a tv hefesto informa no guia de programação que ele está no 𝐍𝐈́𝐕𝐄𝐋 𝐈𝐈𝐈 por estar no acampamento há 𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐙𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐒, sabia? e se lá estiver certo, 𝐉𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐏𝐇 é bastante 𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐈́𝐒𝐓𝐀 mas também dizem que ele é 𝐓𝐄𝐈𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐎. mas você sabe como hefesto é, sempre inventando fake news pra atrair audiência.

❛ 𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐢𝐚 › 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧 › 𝐩𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬 › 𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐬 › 𝐜𝐧𝐧 › 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐜̧𝐚̃𝐨 ❜

nome completo: joseph barker. altura: 2m gênero/pronomes: ele/dele, homem cis. orientação sexual: heterossexual. nascimento: 18 de maio. ocupação: conselheiro do chalé três.

atividades: é adestrador de pegasus, membro da equipe vermelha de canoagem, membro da equipe vermelha de queimada e líder da equipe vermelha de corrida com obstáculos.

Joseph Barker nasceu na California, mas passou grande parte de sua infância viajando pelo mundo ao lado da mãe. O motivo era trabalho, mas para a criança era puramente diversão. Sophia é uma bióloga marinha renomada e atualmente muito conhecia em meio profissional, seu envolvimento com Poseidon foi durante sua época de faculdade, onde sem família acabou recebendo o apoio e carinho de sua professora e amigos de pesquisa. Joseph sempre teve contato com a água, era difícil vê-lo longe do mar ou de uma piscina e, durante uma viagem para o Havaí, sua personalidade extrovertida o levou a conhecer e ainda firmar amizade com surfistas da região. Desde então se tornou um amante do esporte. Sua ida para o acampamento aconteceu aos 11 anos, quando a casa que moravam foi invadida e destruída por monstros. Foi a primeira vez que Joseph viu sua vida passar diante dos seus olhos, mas acreditar em toda aquela história parecia demais para o menino que por semanas achou que o acampamento era um surto coletivo, uma mentira. Poseidon o reclamou de imediato, mas nunca se quer apareceu para conhecer o filho, nem mesmo em sonhos ou respostas as suas oferendas. Joseph cresceu ressentido e odiando suas raízes divinas, mas tudo em silencio. O único que sabia disso, até então, era Percy. Durante seus anos no acampamento se dedicou em tudo o que se propunha a fazer, em partes porque adorava os treinamentos, mas em outra por nutrir uma ingênua esperança de que o pai sentiria orgulho de seus feitos e apareceria. Hoje é Conselheiro do chalé três, apesar da cara de menino bobo, inocente, ele é totalmente o oposto disso. Joseph é muito forte, não é do tipo que precisa ser defendido, na verdade, é os outros quem precisam se defender dele. Com duas guerras no currículo e uma terceira a caminho, tem amadurecido e muito, tornou-se mais responsável e até exigente – especialmente com ele mesmo. O garotinho que antes tinha fama de Golden, agora é mais recluso, observador e bem analítico. Não busca ser o herói e tem raiva de quem o enxerga com esses olhos. Se realmente o conhecessem, saberiam que Joseph está mais para um antagonista.

#@ ︵‿ 01 ⸺ conversation.#@ ︵‿ 02 ⸺ visage.#@ ︵‿ 03 ⸺ musing.#@ ︵‿ 06 ⸺ dynamics.#@ ︵‿ 04 ⸺ extras.#@ ︵‿ 05 ⸺ about.#@ ︵‿ 07 ⸺ flashback.#@ ︵‿ 08 ⸺ ask game.#@ ︵‿ 09 ⸺ development.

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agentkalgibbs · 2 years ago

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I don't even remember why I started following you but I'm glad I did! :D

i'm glad you did too, my friend! and i think it had something to do with a certain caitlin todd, iirc, but what can i say? we have great taste in kate's men 😂

#you ask kal answers #ask games #minikate--24-05 #kate todd #ncis #kibbs

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nibwhipdragon · 2 years ago

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🖤🤎🕸🍻💞 for the ask game!

🖤(I admire you from afar)

Same here! I don't think our main interests line up too much, but it's nice to see your art and the sort of stuff you reblog!

🤎(I want to know you better)

Once again, I feel the same. We're mutuals, but it feels like we're not with how little we talk and know about each other haha

🕸(We've talked once)

...Have we????

Ok ok actually after giving that some thought I think I did send you an ask saying happy birthday once? It was before I followed you I think?

🍻(I want to talk to you)

SAME. I WANT TO TALK TO YOU SO BAD. Like. I know Arrax is my only mutual I talk to on a daily basis, even exchanging our discords and that, but like. I basically don't talk to you at all and I feel bad for it haha

You seem to post about final fantasy a lot, after I finish Sonic Frontiers (hopefully) I'll continue playing ff7 remake, and that'll pave the way to us talking more (and maybe I'll finally find out the context to "Me? Gongaga")!

💞(I love both your blog and the content)

Even the divorce stuff? Even the purposefully terrible drawings of characters doing weed and smoking massive blunts? That's...surprising for sure!

#'Me? Gongaga' haunts me. what is the context. is that what he actually says. who is saying it he looks like a terrible emo version of Cloud #what is a gongaga.#surely his name isn't gongaga.#in terms of knowing me better? pretty much russian roulette #so good luck with that!#ask game answers #also sorry for answering so late. i got the notif for this at literally 00:05 AM #and then went to sleep and forgor

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s-lycopersicum · 4 months ago

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#4 for ask game :)

4. what’s an inside joke you have with your family or friends?

Oh, let's see...

There's this popular saying (also a famous song title) along the lines of: "the sleeping shrimp will be carried away by the waves". In general, it's a warning that those who don't act will be left behind, but in this household it's used exclusively for justifying eating some food or snack the other's been sleeping on.

But the saying got abstracted to a point where there's just "shrimp" now. If someone gets the last slice of cake, or the last of a bottle of juice, they'll simply invoke "the shrimp rule", or say "shrimped", even just "you know how it is with shrimp".

#that fits right?#ask game 05 #ask

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claudiajcregg · 2 years ago

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5-6am me time! Please :) but really, any will be marvelous

(from the wips tag game you can find here!)

Thank you, Mia 🥰 This is actually the story I most recently finished (where finished = first draft), just three weeks ago, or so... And the one where the first line in this comes from! So, it still needs some editing and rewriting here and there.

The inspo came while rewatching the pilot, when CJ says, "Five a.m. to six a.m. I can work out, as you see. I can think about personal matters. I can meet an interesting man." I had a vague idea for the first story, then a few more came in – there are currently five total... I even remember writing quite a bit of this at work, lol 🙈

I suck at picking snippets without finding many, many faults in them. This is from the first of those, set in 1999 (circa "A Proportional Response").

It was always especially gratifying to work out after dealing with Hoynes, especially if she could do some kickboxing. Imagining punching the smug smile out of his face was always rather gratifying. The weasely vicepresident would forever be her worst, most incomprehensible mistake, the one time she should have known better but didn’t. C.J. hated the way she behaved around him, letting him walk all over her. Whether that was fear that he would one day use that night of awful judgment against her, or her own shame, she was never sure. The repulsion and resentment still remained, five years in. But today… Today’s thoughts as she ran focused on Sam. Sweet, naïve Sam, who had accidentally slept with a prostitute and – having later found out what she did for a living – wanted to save her, because he knew what was best for her. C.J. loved that ray of sunshine of a man like a brother, but the absolute belief that he could be his friend’s savior, as if that poor woman had no agency, annoyed her. Or maybe, just maybe, what got under her skin were his protests that his personal life and whoever he was friends, or more, with shouldn’t matter. Welcome to the club, Spanky. We can get jackets made.

#miabicicletta #asks #thank you mia!!!!#I do like this story #awkward phrasing and everything aside #the current snippets are for 99 02 05 06 09 iirc #wips tag game

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jtl-fics · 4 months ago

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math nerd!

7/10/24 WIP Wednesday (Closed) | Math Nerd AU

So Andrew throws himself into practice blocking out most of Kevin, Neil and Seths shots on goal and whips the ball back precisely. He has to buy more training shirts because he sweats through his at such a rapid rate but it’s worth it because he gets closer every single time to forming a picture of the asshole.

Neil was shocked when Andrew had asked for specifics about his significant other the first time but now he answers the questions without hesitation.

“What color is his hair?”

“He’s blonde.”

#Math Nerd AU #AFTG #AFTG AU #Andrew Minyard #Neil Josten #Math Nerd - Crush - 05 #7-10-24 WIP Wednesday #WIP Wednesday Ask Game #37

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thcbakerboy · 2 months ago

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tag dump

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ursamajori · 11 months ago

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15 51

15– roses - carly rae jepsen

51– hum hallelujah - fob

(send a number 1-100 and i’ll say what it is on my spotify wrapped!)

#fob was my top artist this year there’s a lot of it .#i was in top … .05% ? and then crj was my 4th artist so #spotify ask game #astro answers #an anon

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zephyrchama · 6 months ago

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asserting your dominance over the demon brothers

01. You sit on Lucifer's desk while he's trying to work and slowly, slowly push things off. A pen here, a memo pad there. You make direct eye contact with him the entire time. If he attempts to get up (either to pick things off the floor or to get away from this ridiculousness) you use your pact to make him sit back down.

02. You sit in the driver's seat of Mammon's car. He gets a little grumpy. Mammon thought he was going to drive you around, and generally he's the only one allowed in that driver's seat. When he tells you as much and says to get up, you hit the gas pedal and drift forward. He runs to catch up. When he reaches the car you cheekily do it again.

03. When Leviathan looks away, you grab the controller for Player 1. He can be Player 2 for a few rounds. Upon noticing, he's just confused and thinks he picked up the wrong controller. Until the envy sets in. "But that's my controller," he pouts. "Does it matter? Are you cheating or something?" "No, but..." he doesn't have an excuse, and can't think of any good argument to get his controller back aside from "it's my game..." You get to choose the stage for the next round, winning easily because Leviathan is too distracted by his Player 2 status.

04. You walk up to Satan and put your arm in his empty jacket sleeve. He's not using it. He's at a loss for words trying to figure out what you're up to. "Are you cold? Do you want my jacket?" "No. I'm good." He furrows his brow and stares at you, trying to read you like a book. When he tries to walk away you drag your feet, keeping your arm firmly in that sleeve.

05. You agree to meet Asmodeus out on the town and show up in the most uncoordinated, eye-bleeding outfit you can assemble. You had to raid some of his brother's closets to create it, thus it doesn't fit properly. It turns heads because of how mismatched it is. It's pretty comfortable to wear. Asmodeus is hesitant to approach you. He offers to take you shopping and you turn him down, saying you like your current outfit. You tell him it'd be nice to match and that you'll prepare him an outfit just like yours.

06. You are diligent in your magic studies, always learning new things. Things like body enhancement spells. Spells that will make you really strong for a really short amount of time. Enough time to walk up behind Beelzebub and pick him up like a sack of flour. A guy like him isn't used to that. Beelzebub stiffens up. He's proud you've gotten so strong, but couldn't you have asked first if you wanted to use him for muscle training? It's a little embarrassing. You lift him above your head victoriously and make the most of holding him until your magic wears off.

07. When Belphegor falls asleep with his outdoor clothes on, you take the opportunity to put stuff in his pockets. Fruit, rocks, a Polaroid picture of himself sleeping. They jut out and poke him in the side when he rolls over. He knows it's you behind these mystery items, but you refuse to acknowledge it. If he keeps trying to make you confess, you might have to tie his shoelaces together.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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Google’s enshittification memos

[Note, 9 October 2023: Google disputes the veracity of this claim, but has declined to provide the exhibits and testimony to support its claims. Read more about this here.]

When I think about how the old, good internet turned into the enshitternet, I imagine a series of small compromises, each seemingly reasonable at the time, each contributing to a cultural norm of making good things worse, and worse, and worse.

Think about Unity President Marc Whitten's nonpology for his company's disastrous rug-pull, in which they declared that everyone who had paid good money to use their tool to make a game would have to keep paying, every time someone downloaded that game:

The most fundamental thing that we’re trying to do is we’re building a sustainable business for Unity. And for us, that means that we do need to have a model that includes some sort of balancing change, including shared success.

https://www.wired.com/story/unity-walks-back-policies-lost-trust/

"Shared success" is code for, "If you use our tool to make money, we should make money too." This is bullshit. It's like saying, "We just want to find a way to share the success of the painters who use our brushes, so every time you sell a painting, we want to tax that sale." Or "Every time you sell a house, the company that made the hammer gets to wet its beak."

And note that they're not talking about shared risk here – no one at Unity is saying, "If you try to make a game with our tools and you lose a million bucks, we're on the hook for ten percent of your losses." This isn't partnership, it's extortion.

How did a company like Unity – which became a market leader by making a tool that understood the needs of game developers and filled them – turn into a protection racket? One bad decision at a time. One rationalization and then another. Slowly, and then all at once.

When I think about this enshittification curve, I often think of Google, a company that had its users' backs for years, which created a genuinely innovative search engine that worked so well it seemed like *magic, a company whose employees often had their pick of jobs, but chose the "don't be evil" gig because that mattered to them.

People make fun of that "don't be evil" motto, but if your key employees took the gig because they didn't want to be evil, and then you ask them to be evil, they might just quit. Hell, they might make a stink on the way out the door, too:

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/13/google-china-search-engine-employee-resigns/

Google is a company whose founders started out by publishing a scientific paper describing their search methodology, in which they said, "Oh, and by the way, ads will inevitably turn your search engine into a pile of shit, so we're gonna stay the fuck away from them":

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Those same founders retained a controlling interest in the company after it went IPO, explaining to investors that they were going to run the business without having their elbows jostled by shortsighted Wall Street assholes, so they could keep it from turning into a pile of shit:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

And yet, it's turned into a pile of shit. Google search is so bad you might as well ask Jeeves. The company's big plan to fix it? Replace links to webpages with florid paragraphs of chatbot nonsense filled with a supremely confident lies:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

How did the company get this bad? In part, this is the "curse of bigness." The company can't grow by attracting new users. When you have 90%+ of the market, there are no new customers to sign up. Hypothetically, they could grow by going into new lines of business, but Google is incapable of making a successful product in-house and also kills most of the products it buys from other, more innovative companies:

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Theoretically, the company could pursue new lines of business in-house, and indeed, the current leaders of companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are all execs who figured out how to get the whole company to do something new, and were elevated to the CEO's office, making each one a billionaire and sealing their place in history.

It is for this very reason that any exec at a large firm who tries to make a business-wide improvement gets immediately and repeatedly knifed by all their colleagues, who correctly reason that if someone else becomes CEO, then they won't become CEO. Machiavelli was an optimist:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

With no growth from new customers, and no growth from new businesses, "growth" has to come from squeezing workers (say, laying off 12,000 engineers after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years), or business customers (say, by colluding with Facebook to rig the ad market with the Jedi Blue conspiracy), or end-users.

Now, in theory, we might never know exactly what led to the enshittification of Google. In theory, all of compromises, debates and plots could be lost to history. But tech is not an oral culture, it's a written one, and techies write everything down and nothing is ever truly deleted.

Time and again, Big Tech tells on itself. Think of FTX's main conspirators all hanging out in a group chat called "Wirefraud." Amazon naming its program targeting weak, small publishers the "Gazelle Project" ("approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”). Amazon documenting the fact that users were unknowingly signing up for Prime and getting pissed; then figuring out how to reduce accidental signups, then deciding not to do it because it liked the money too much. Think of Zuck emailing his CFO in the middle of the night to defend his outsized offer to buy Instagram on the basis that users like Insta better and Facebook couldn't compete with them on quality.

It's like every Big Tech schemer has a folder on their desktop called "Mens Rea" filled with files like "Copy_of_Premeditated_Murder.docx":

https://doctorow.medium.com/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself-f7f0eb6d215a?sk=351f8a54ab8e02d7340620e5eec5024d

Right now, Google's on trial for its sins against antitrust law. It's a hard case to make. To secure a win, the prosecutors at the DoJ Antitrust Division are going to have to prove what was going on in Google execs' minds when the took the actions that led to the company's dominance. They're going to have to show that the company deliberately undertook to harm its users and customers.

Of course, it helps that Google put it all in writing.

Last week, there was a huge kerfuffile over the DoJ's practice of posting its exhibits from the trial to a website each night. This is a totally normal thing to do – a practice that dates back to the Microsoft antitrust trial. But Google pitched a tantrum over this and said that the docs the DoJ were posting would be turned into "clickbait." Which is another way of saying, "the public would find these documents very interesting, and they would be damning to us and our case":

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/secrecy-is-systemic

After initially deferring to Google, Judge Amit Mehta finally gave the Justice Department the greenlight to post the document. It's up. It's wild:

https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-09/416692.pdf

The document is described as "notes for a course on communication" that Google VP for Finance Michael Roszak prepared. Roszak says he can't remember whether he ever gave the presentation, but insists that the remit for the course required him to tell students "things I didn't believe," and that's why the document is "full of hyperbole and exaggeration."

OK.

But here's what the document says: "search advertising is one of the world's greatest business models ever created…illicit businesses (cigarettes or drugs) could rival these economics…[W]e can mostly ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers, ad formats and sales."

It goes on to say that this might be changing, and proposes a way to balance the interests of the search and ads teams, which are at odds, with search worrying that ads are pushing them to produce "unnatural search experiences to chase revenue."

"Unnatural search experiences to chase revenue" is a thinly veiled euphemism for the prophetic warnings in that 1998 Pagerank paper: "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users." Or, more plainly, "ads will turn our search engine into a pile of shit."

And, as Roszak writes, Google is "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand." That is, the company has become so dominant and cemented its position so thoroughly as the default search engine across every platforms and system that even if it makes its search terrible to goose revenues, users won't leave. As Lily Tomlin put it on SNL: "We don't have to care, we're the phone company."

In the enshittification cycle, companies first lure in users with surpluses – like providing the best search results rather than the most profitable ones – with an eye to locking them in. In Google's case, that lock-in has multiple facets, but the big one is spending billions of dollars – enough to buy a whole Twitter, every single year – to be the default search everywhere.

Google doesn't buy its way to dominance because it has the very best search results and it wants to shield you from inferior competitors. The economically rational case for buying default position is that preventing competition is more profitable than succeeding by outperforming competitors. The best reason to buy the default everywhere is that it lets you lower quality without losing business. You can "ignore the demand side, and only focus on advertisers."

For a lot of people, the analysis stops here. "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Google locks in users and sells them to advertisers, who are their co-conspirators in a scheme to screw the rest of us.

But that's not right. For one thing, paying for a product doesn't mean you won't be the product. Apple charges a thousand bucks for an iPhone and then nonconsensually spies on every iOS user in order to target ads to them (and lies about it):

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

John Deere charges six figures for its tractors, then runs a grift that blocks farmers from fixing their own machines, and then uses their control over repair to silence farmers who complain about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

Fair treatment from a corporation isn't a loyalty program that you earn by through sufficient spending. Companies that can sell you out, will sell you out, and then cry victim, insisting that they were only doing their fiduciary duty for their sacred shareholders. Companies are disciplined by fear of competition, regulation or – in the case of tech platforms – customers seizing the means of computation and installing ad-blockers, alternative clients, multiprotocol readers, etc:

https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse-3cc01e7e4604?sk=85b3f5f7d051804521c3411711f0b554

Which is where the next stage of enshittification comes in: when the platform withdraws the surplus it had allocated to lure in – and then lock in – business customers (like advertisers) and reallocate it to the platform's shareholders.

For Google, there are several rackets that let it screw over advertisers as well as searchers (the advertisers are paying for the product, and they're also the product). Some of those rackets are well-known, like Jedi Blue, the market-rigging conspiracy that Google and Facebook colluded on:

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

But thanks to the antitrust trial, we're learning about more of these. Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – was in the courtroom last week when evidence was presented on Google execs' panic over a decline in "ad generating searches" and the sleazy gimmick they came up with to address it: manipulating the "semantic matching" on user queries:

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

When you send a query to Google, it expands that query with terms that are similar – for example, if you search on "Weds" it might also search for "Wednesday." In the slides shown in the Google trial, we learned about another kind of semantic matching that Google performed, this one intended to turn your search results into "a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape."

Here's how that worked: when you ran a query like "children's clothing," Google secretly appended the brand name of a kids' clothing manufacturer to the query. This, in turn, triggered a ton of ads – because rival brands will have bought ads against their competitors' name (like Pepsi buying ads that are shown over queries for Coke).

Here we see surpluses being taken away from both end-users and business customers – that is, searchers and advertisers. For searchers, it doesn't matter how much you refine your query, you're still going to get crummy search results because there's an unkillable, hidden search term stuck to your query, like a piece of shit that Google keeps sticking to the sole of your shoe.

But for advertisers, this is also a scam. They're paying to be matched to users who search on a brand name, and you didn't search on that brand name. It's especially bad for the company whose name has been appended to your search, because Google has a protection racket where the company that matches your search has to pay extra in order to show up overtop of rivals who are worse matches. Both the matching company and those rivals have given Google a credit-card that Google gets to bill every time a user searches on the company's name, and Google is just running fraudulent charges through those cards.

And, of course, Google put this in writing. I mean, of course they did. As we learned from the documentary The Incredibles, supervillains can't stop themselves from monologuing, and in big, sprawling monopolists, these monologues have to transmitted electronically – and often indelibly – to far-flung co-cabalists.

As Gray points out, this is an incredibly blunt enshittification technique: "it hadn’t even occurred to me that Google just flat out deletes queries and replaces them with ones that monetize better." We don't know how long Google did this for or how frequently this bait-and-switch was deployed.

But if this is a blunt way of Google smashing its fist down on the scales that balance search quality against ad revenues, there's plenty of subtler ways the company could sneak a thumb on there. A Google exec at the trial rhapsodized about his company's "contract with the user" to deliver an "honest results policy," but given how bad Google search is these days, we're left to either believe he's lying or that Google sucks at search.

The paper trail offers a tantalizing look at how a company went from doing something that was so good it felt like a magic trick to being "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand," able to "ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers."

What's more, this is a system where everyone loses (except for Google): this isn't a grift run by Google and advertisers on users – it's a grift Google runs on everyone.

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/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

#pluralistic #enshittification #semantic matching #google #antitrust #trustbusting #transparency #fatfingers #serp #the algorithm #telling on yourself

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