#big data policing

[l-in-c-future]

How AI big data policing can reinforce and amplies bias and prejudice?

In the book Partial Truth: How fractions distort our thinking, Zimring explained how the rise of big data policing could amplify and reinforce bias and prejudices, even in a democractic country. Zimring's arguments were referenced from Andrew Gutherie Ferguson's The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race and the Future of Law Enforcement (NY University Press, 2017); Carlifornia State Auditor's report on the GalGang Criminal Intelligence System Report in August 2016, Chabria, et al. "California Bar Police from using LAPD Records in Gang Databasem Critics Want It Axed, Los Angeles Times, 14 July 2020 and the Editorial Board, "Who will kill or be killed in violence-plagued Chicago? The Alogrithm knows," Chicago Tribune, May 10, 2016.

What are the biases and prejudices AI big data can amplify that endanger enforcement discrimination that can endanger democracy? 1. Big data is NOT as those who advocate it as reducing human bias and prejudice because the data population where the data was compiled could be contaminated at multiple sources. Sources contamination and distortion would lead to bias alogrithimic results.

2. The ways how alogrithims are applied could be be biased. In another words, alogrithms methodologies could sustain bias and prejudices and even amplify them in subtle ways that the users of big data systems are not aware of the hidden biases.

3. It is a worry trend that innocent unrelated people can be falsely read flagged by the rise of big data big AI policing and surveillance. Galgang had wrongly flagged 42 babies as gang members because they happened to be RANDOMLY and UNCORRELATEDLY met two red flags criterion. Worse, people could be wrongly red flagged and wrongly ASSUMED to be related to gang members simply because they lived in areas where gang members HAPPENED to be living in the same area.

4. Big data policing can distort police's exercise of probable cause and reasonable suspicions in searching people's properties and making arrests because of the addresses they live.

5. The ways how the criminals/crimes 'fever billbord' generated by AI's alogrithm produced big data can influence numerous biases such as: distortion of the numerators and denominators of the data in the fractions in percentages; frequency; and proportional references to the data; attributable substitution; availability heuristic; confirmation biase and cherry-picking selective bias to reinforce existing assumptions. e.g. even two young men committed the same crime driven by different by different motives can receive different treatments by the police and the judicial system and whether the two people will leave a criminal record in the 'fever billboard' to become an automatic easily flagged person in the persons of interests billboard. SIMPLY because a person's address locates in a poor area WILL make him more likely to be stopped search by the police because that area is ALREADY red flagged by the big data as crime prone hotspots. (I experience similar traffic fare checks when I move suburbs. The frequency of the buses being stopped to check by a Traffic Officer is up to few times a week compared to the suburb I lived in the past and ALL other affluent suburbs I been to where I RARELY met ONCE even anybody check the fares every 10 yrs!) On the other hand, the same age young person lives at an affluent area has much lower chance being stopped search. So if the probabilities that BOTH of them actually commit crimes, in Ferguson's case cited as selling drugs to earn extra money driven by different motivations, the person living at poorer districts have MUCH higher chance to be stopped searched because the big data flagged his area as high risk where there will be more police presence. Under such situation, the person from poorer suburb will have higher chance to be caught for the same crime being committed as the other person who lives at an affluent area. Furtherdown even BOTH of them are caught, what lay before them can be different. The rich young person may be more accessible to better legal supports to defend against the crime, more ampathy from schools and the community. As a result, there is a higher chance that there will no criminal record left in the system. But the poor person won't have the same resources to defend himself. He only has one outcome whether he admit guilty or not-being convicted. The person will lost the job or evicted from school. ONCE he is convicted, he WILL leave behind a criminal record in the big data system. Even he is on bail or he has ANY on bail history, the alogrithm of choosing what are the 'high crime risks' criterion WILL put him back to the 'fever billboard'. And because he is reinforceably being red flagged by various flagging criterion, this person will have more chance to be stopped search. HOW ABOUT the reality is that a poor person who struggles to even earn enough to keep a living and therefore more prone to engage in criminal activities compare to affluent people who engage in criminal activities BECAUSE THEY WANT MORE MONEY to the ALREADY more money? How about the reality is that BOTH young people or adults from an affluent backgrond and a poor background have similar probabilities or chances to commit crimes? And even the crimes committed by people from affluent background are more severe than the crimes committed by those who come from poor background? The ways how the alogrithms or the designers of the big data's alogrithm's calculations can be overly generic or with hidden biase that are unbeknown to the users and designers of the big data. Worse, it is the designers DELIBERATELY put in bias and prejudice because of systematic injustice in enforcing the laws.

Big data policing can lead to enforcement injustice even in democracy, let alone in authoritarian and autocratic regimes, the big data policing under the state's BIG BROTHER SURVEILLANCE are common suppressive tools used to arrest and prosecute whoever the authorities want to silence and persecute.

Basing on the GalGang's 'red flag' criterion, I can elaborate how the Big Data Policing had caused police terror in HK during the 2019-2020 protests and after the PRC's National Security Law and Article 23 were introduced in HK. From what the police there had enforced how the searched, arrested, detained people, it is not difficult to deduce what are the big data policing flagging criterion used against people who the authority THINKS AND ASSUMES they are 'pro-democratic' "dissidents.

Those who admit to be members or leaders of any pro-democratic political parties or civil groups.

Those who are found or ASSUMED to be related or connected to pro-democratic public figures.

Those who are known to be members or leaders of any pro-democratic political parties or civil groups.

Those who are ACCUSED by China, the HK authority as 'dissidents';

Those who are SEEN 'frequently' appearring in protests risk places at critical political dates such as 8964 or 1st July namely Causeway Bay and Victoria Park of Causeway Bay. Police deployed heavy presence ANNUALLY. They surveilled NORMAL ORDINARY people who turn up there and are ready to arrest.

Being SEEN as wearing clothes or holding items that labelling themselves as pro-democratic or 'dissidents' who meet criteria above 5. i.e. Whever the police SEES somebody wearing a black shirt, a yellow shirt holding a candle, a bunch of flowers, ANYTHING showing 8964 at Causeway Bay WILL BE SURELY arrested.

Detention, categorization and interrogations according to whatever 'national security' crimes imposed by the laws imposed by China to HK.

Being SEEN as showing symbols, signals or hand gestures that let the authority THINKS that the individual is associated with advocacy of democracy or 8964 or ANYTHING China doesn't like to see or hear. This is one of the most common reason why an individual is arrested.

According to reliable sources of reporting or sources of reporting against a person being accused as 'pro-democracy' and THEREFORE AUTOMATICALLY treated as 'dissident' by the authority.

From UNVERIFIED and UNSUBSTANTIATED sources of allegations that a person or entity is 'pro-democratic', 'seditious', 'opposing' the authority or 'criticising' the authority. This is the MOST WIDELY AND VAGUELY source how a person is flagged in the big data BIG BROTHER's policing system through which how any person and entity is persecuted, arrested and prosecuted. Underlying the big data BIG BROTHER survelliance AI is the political ideologies and the VAGUE extensions of interpretations of the ideologies DELIBERATELY built in by the police system and the entire political system.

As a result, in a democracy, the prosecutors and jurors can fall into the trap of the prosecutor's fallacy like in the case of People Vs Collins. But in an authoritarian system where political crimes are trialed WITHOUT jurors and judicial independence judges, the trials will be conducted ALL in accordance with both the police and the prosecutors' fallacies. The verdicts had been long nailed before even the trials were conducted because the 'crimes' were already decided from the MOMENT a person is flagged in the big data policing system SOON AS they are politically labelled by China as 'problematic'.

Zimrang pointed out one IMPORTANT thing: big data is NOT the antidote of human's own prejudices and biases. The ways how people design and use big data alogrithms can worsen and amplify PRE-EXISTING prejudices and biases. Such biases don't even require human beings to cautiously and cognitively aware of, it only requires specific ways to code and programming the formulae in applications. And as long as whatever coded formulae are built into the alogrithms of the AIs, any silicon based computer processors will be equipped with such biases. Unfortunately, this is EXACTLY the current situations. So what is the implication to avoid big data to worsen and amplify prejudices and biases? I think the following are minimum essentials:

ALL sources information and data from which the machine learning alogrithms used as bases for deepn learnings MUST be made open to be counter examined and scruntinised by both the public.

2. Big data generated by AI, especially those produced by generative AIs, has to be flagged as AI generated contents.

3. The alogrithms and how they are built including the formulae how the alogrithms work have to be transparent and independently auditable, questionable and challengeable, especially in areas of applications that have significant public interests attached, such as enforcement, judicial uses, public health, public transports, critical infrastructures, etc....

4. A healthy check and balance to AI big data is not just having abundant of people who know how to made AIs or designs AI system, more fundamentally, it is imperative for the public to have the abilities to question, scruntinise, challenge, query the big data and how they are compiled. A lot of these skills are back to ABC: do we know and how much do we understand human prejudices and biases embedded in our thinking? How much can we detect sources of data contamination in big data machine learning? The public must be given a choice of opt out without subjected to political, economic, and social discriminations as a result of the choices to opt out big data and AI. The last part is most fundamental principle of a democracy. Choices must be given to the affected people without them being subjected to the disadvantages of imbalance of powers between individuals and the public versus the enormous supreme powers of those VERY FEW big technologies companies that develop and design big data.

[commiepinkofag]

EU ‘Going Dark’ Expert Group Publishes 42-Point Surveillance Plan For Access To All Devices And Data At All Times

Although this “chat control” law has been the main focus of the EU’s push for more surveillance of innocent citizens, it is by no means the end of it. As the German digital rights site Netzpolitik reports, work is already underway on further measures, this time to address the non-existent “going dark” threat to law enforcement:

The group of high-level experts had been meeting since last year to tackle the so-called „going dark“ problem. The High-Level Group set up by the EU was characterized by a bias right from the start: The committee is primarily made up of representatives of security authorities and therefore represents their perspective on the issue.

[T]he 42-point surveillance plan, manufacturers are to be legally obliged to make digital devices such as smartphones, smart homes, IoT devices, and cars monitorable at all times (“access by design”). Messenger services that were previously securely encrypted are to be forced to allow for interception. Data retention, which was overturned by the EU Court of Justice, is to be reenacted and extended to OTT internet communications services such as messenger services. “At the very least”, IP connection data retention is to be required to be able to track all internet activities. The secure encryption of metadata and subscriber data is to be prohibited. Where requested by the police, GPS location tracking should be activated by service providers (“tracking switch”). Uncooperative providers are to be threatened with prison sentences. The results of the hacking of an entire communication service, as in the Encrochat case (the evidence has been rejected by some courts), shall be used as evidence in court. — Patrick Breyer, June 2024

[miiju86]

We're on a dangerous route to a potential totalitarian mass surveillance police state. Besides the negative and repressive impacts such technologies already can/do have today (like impressively illustrated in the book "Automating Inequality" linked below) - just imagine a successful coup d'État taking place, a totalitarian regime coming to power.... and with that getting access to such technologies just like this.

What would keep them from just forcibly take all these infrastructures over? Would it even be possible anymore to organize resistance under such circumstances? Cash will disappear too - they're already working on that today - and we're basically screwed. How could you organize opposition and resistance; not to even mention funding them...?! With things like facial and voice recognition you no longer can just ditch potential tracking devices and leave them at home - you will get tracked anyways - anywhere, anytime.

Censorship would take on unprecedented proportions.

Social injustice, discrimination and inequality get even worse and more widespread through the use of "big data" / all encompassing data harvesting, since authorities, insurance companies, banks and more all get full access to relevant as well as not really relevant data about anyone they like without consent and without them even knowing. In a world where classism, racism, ableism, misogyny still run rampant it's not hard to see how this can - and already does - profoundly affect the lifes and perspectives of millions upon millions of people and how it can be potentially abused.

Now imagine the future & how it will be then.

Truly a dystopian outlook.

[reasonsforhope]

Double dose of articles about how crime is actually plummeting

From the UK:

"Seventy-eight per cent of people in England and Wales think that crime has gone up in the last few years, according to the latest survey. But the data on actual crime shows the exact opposite.

As of 2024, violence, burglary and car crime have been declining for 30 years and by close to 90%, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) – our best indicator of true crime levels. Unlike police data, the CSEW is not subject to variations in reporting and recording.

The drop in violence includes domestic violence and other violence against women. Anti-social behaviour has similarly declined. While increased fraud and computer misuse now make up half of crime, this mainly reflects how far the rates of other crimes have fallen.

All high-income countries have experienced similar trends, and there is scientific consensus that the decline in crime is a real phenomenon.

The perception gap

So why is there such a gulf between public perception and the reality of crime trends? A regular YouGov poll asks respondents for their top three concerns from a broad set of issues. Concern about crime went from a low in 2016 (when people were more concerned with Brexit), quadrupled by 2019 and plummeted during the pandemic when people had other worries. But in the last year, the public’s concern about crime has risen again.

There are many possible explanations for this, of which the first is poor information. A study published in 1998 found that “people who watch a lot of television or who read a lot of newspapers will be exposed to a steady diet of crime stories” that does not reflect official statistics.

The old news media adage “if it bleeds, it leads” reflects how violent news stories, including crime increases and serious crimes, capture public attention. Knife crime grabs headlines in the UK, but our shock at individual incidents is testament to their rarity and our relative success in controlling violence – many gun crimes do not make the news in the US.

Most recent terrorist attacks in the UK have featured knives (plus a thwarted Liverpool bomber), but there is little discussion of how this indicates that measures to restrict guns and bomb-making resources are effective."

-via The Conversation, May 13, 2024

And the United States:

"[The United States experienced a spike in crime rates in 2020, during the pandemic.] But in 2023, crime in America looked very different.

"At some point in 2022 — at the end of 2022 or through 2023 — there was just a tipping point where violence started to fall and it just continued to fall," said Jeff Asher, a crime analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics.

In cities big and small, from both coasts, violence has dropped.

"The national picture shows that murder is falling. We have data from over 200 cities showing a 12.2% decline ... in 2023 relative to 2022," Asher said, citing his own analysis of public data. He found instances of rape, robbery and aggravated assault were all down too.

Yet when you ask people about crime in the country, the perception is it's getting a lot worse.

A Gallup poll released in November found 77% of Americans believed there was more crime in the country than the year before. And 63% felt there was either a "very" or "extremely" serious crime problem — the highest in the poll's history going back to 2000.

So what's going on?

What the cities are seeing

What you see depends a lot on what you're looking at, according to Asher.

"There's never been a news story that said, 'There were no robberies yesterday, nobody really shoplifted at Walgreens,'" he said.

"Especially with murder, there's no doubt that it is falling at [a] really fast pace right now. And the only way that I find to discuss it with people is to talk about what the data says." ...

For cities like San Francisco, Baltimore and Minneapolis, there may be different factors at play [in crime declining]. And in some instances, it comes as the number of police officers declines too.

Baltimore police are chronically short of their recruitment goal, and as of last September had more than 750 vacant positions, according to a state audit report...

In Minneapolis, police staffing has plummeted. According to the Star Tribune, there are about 560 active officers — down from nearly 900 in 2019. Mannix said the 2020 police killing of George Floyd resulted in an unprecedented exodus from the department...

In Minneapolis, the city is putting more financial resources into nontraditional policing initiatives. The Department of Neighborhood Safety, which addresses violence through a public health lens, received $22 million in the 2024 budget."

-via NPR, February 12, 2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Conspiratorialism as a material phenomenon

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I think it behooves us to be a little skeptical of stories about AI driving people to believe wrong things and commit ugly actions. Not that I like the AI slop that is filling up our social media, but when we look at the ways that AI is harming us, slop is pretty low on the list.

The real AI harms come from the actual things that AI companies sell AI to do. There's the AI gun-detector gadgets that the credulous Mayor Eric Adams put in NYC subways, which led to 2,749 invasive searches and turned up zero guns:

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nycs-subway-weapons-detector-pilot-program-ends/

Any time AI is used to predict crime – predictive policing, bail determinations, Child Protective Services red flags – they magnify the biases already present in these systems, and, even worse, they give this bias the veneer of scientific neutrality. This process is called "empiricism-washing," and you know you're experiencing it when you hear some variation on "it's just math, math can't be racist":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/23/cryptocidal-maniacs/#phrenology

When AI is used to replace customer service representatives, it systematically defrauds customers, while providing an "accountability sink" that allows the company to disclaim responsibility for the thefts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

When AI is used to perform high-velocity "decision support" that is supposed to inform a "human in the loop," it quickly overwhelms its human overseer, who takes on the role of "moral crumple zone," pressing the "OK" button as fast as they can. This is bad enough when the sacrificial victim is a human overseeing, say, proctoring software that accuses remote students of cheating on their tests:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

But it's potentially lethal when the AI is a transcription engine that doctors have to use to feed notes to a data-hungry electronic health record system that is optimized to commit health insurance fraud by seeking out pretenses to "upcode" a patient's treatment. Those AIs are prone to inventing things the doctor never said, inserting them into the record that the doctor is supposed to review, but remember, the only reason the AI is there at all is that the doctor is being asked to do so much paperwork that they don't have time to treat their patients:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-health-business-90020cdf5fa16c79ca2e5b6c4c9bbb14

My point is that "worrying about AI" is a zero-sum game. When we train our fire on the stuff that isn't important to the AI stock swindlers' business-plans (like creating AI slop), we should remember that the AI companies could halt all of that activity and not lose a dime in revenue. By contrast, when we focus on AI applications that do the most direct harm – policing, health, security, customer service – we also focus on the AI applications that make the most money and drive the most investment.

AI hasn't attracted hundreds of billions in investment capital because investors love AI slop. All the money pouring into the system – from investors, from customers, from easily gulled big-city mayors – is chasing things that AI is objectively very bad at and those things also cause much more harm than AI slop. If you want to be a good AI critic, you should devote the majority of your focus to these applications. Sure, they're not as visually arresting, but discrediting them is financially arresting, and that's what really matters.

All that said: AI slop is real, there is a lot of it, and just because it doesn't warrant priority over the stuff AI companies actually sell, it still has cultural significance and is worth considering.

AI slop has turned Facebook into an anaerobic lagoon of botshit, just the laziest, grossest engagement bait, much of it the product of rise-and-grind spammers who avidly consume get rich quick "courses" and then churn out a torrent of "shrimp Jesus" and fake chainsaw sculptures:

https://www.404media.co/email/1cdf7620-2e2f-4450-9cd9-e041f4f0c27f/

For poor engagement farmers in the global south chasing the fractional pennies that Facebook shells out for successful clickbait, the actual content of the slop is beside the point. These spammers aren't necessarily tuned into the psyche of the wealthy-world Facebook users who represent Meta's top monetization subjects. They're just trying everything and doubling down on anything that moves the needle, A/B splitting their way into weird, hyper-optimized, grotesque crap:

https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-being-overrun-with-stolen-ai-generated-images-that-people-think-are-real/

In other words, Facebook's AI spammers are laying out a banquet of arbitrary possibilities, like the letters on a Ouija board, and the Facebook users' clicks and engagement are a collective ideomotor response, moving the algorithm's planchette to the options that tug hardest at our collective delights (or, more often, disgusts).

So, rather than thinking of AI spammers as creating the ideological and aesthetic trends that drive millions of confused Facebook users into condemning, praising, and arguing about surreal botshit, it's more true to say that spammers are discovering these trends within their subjects' collective yearnings and terrors, and then refining them by exploring endlessly ramified variations in search of unsuspected niches.

(If you know anything about AI, this may remind you of something: a Generative Adversarial Network, in which one bot creates variations on a theme, and another bot ranks how closely the variations approach some ideal. In this case, the spammers are the generators and the Facebook users they evince reactions from are the discriminators)

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

I got to thinking about this today while reading User Mag, Taylor Lorenz's superb newsletter, and her reporting on a new AI slop trend, "My neighbor’s ridiculous reason for egging my car":

https://www.usermag.co/p/my-neighbors-ridiculous-reason-for

The "egging my car" slop consists of endless variations on a story in which the poster (generally a figure of sympathy, canonically a single mother of newborn twins) complains that her awful neighbor threw dozens of eggs at her car to punish her for parking in a way that blocked his elaborate Hallowe'en display. The text is accompanied by an AI-generated image showing a modest family car that has been absolutely plastered with broken eggs, dozens upon dozens of them.

According to Lorenz, variations on this slop are topping very large Facebook discussion forums totalling millions of users, like "Movie Character…,USA Story, Volleyball Women, Top Trends, Love Style, and God Bless." These posts link to SEO sites laden with programmatic advertising.

The funnel goes:

i. Create outrage and hence broad reach;

ii, A small percentage of those who see the post will click through to the SEO site;

iii. A small fraction of those users will click a low-quality ad;

iv. The ad will pay homeopathic sub-pennies to the spammer.

The revenue per user on this kind of scam is next to nothing, so it only works if it can get very broad reach, which is why the spam is so designed for engagement maximization. The more discussion a post generates, the more users Facebook recommends it to.

These are very effective engagement bait. Almost all AI slop gets some free engagement in the form of arguments between users who don't know they're commenting an AI scam and people hectoring them for falling for the scam. This is like the free square in the middle of a bingo card.

Beyond that, there's multivalent outrage: some users are furious about food wastage; others about the poor, victimized "mother" (some users are furious about both). Not only do users get to voice their fury at both of these imaginary sins, they can also argue with one another about whether, say, food wastage even matters when compared to the petty-minded aggression of the "perpetrator." These discussions also offer lots of opportunity for violent fantasies about the bad guy getting a comeuppance, offers to travel to the imaginary AI-generated suburb to dole out a beating, etc. All in all, the spammers behind this tedious fiction have really figured out how to rope in all kinds of users' attention.

Of course, the spammers don't get much from this. There isn't such a thing as an "attention economy." You can't use attention as a unit of account, a medium of exchange or a store of value. Attention – like everything else that you can't build an economy upon, such as cryptocurrency – must be converted to money before it has economic significance. Hence that tooth-achingly trite high-tech neologism, "monetization."

The monetization of attention is very poor, but AI is heavily subsidized or even free (for now), so the largest venture capital and private equity funds in the world are spending billions in public pension money and rich peoples' savings into CO2 plumes, GPUs, and botshit so that a bunch of hustle-culture weirdos in the Pacific Rim can make a few dollars by tricking people into clicking through engagement bait slop – twice.

The slop isn't the point of this, but the slop does have the useful function of making the collective ideomotor response visible and thus providing a peek into our hopes and fears. What does the "egging my car" slop say about the things that we're thinking about?

Lorenz cites Jamie Cohen, a media scholar at CUNY Queens, who points out that subtext of this slop is "fear and distrust in people about their neighbors." Cohen predicts that "the next trend, is going to be stranger and more violent.”

This feels right to me. The corollary of mistrusting your neighbors, of course, is trusting only yourself and your family. Or, as Margaret Thatcher liked to say, "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families."

We are living in the tail end of a 40 year experiment in structuring our world as though "there is no such thing as society." We've gutted our welfare net, shut down or privatized public services, all but abolished solidaristic institutions like unions.

This isn't mere aesthetics: an atomized society is far more hospitable to extreme wealth inequality than one in which we are all in it together. When your power comes from being a "wise consumer" who "votes with your wallet," then all you can do about the climate emergency is buy a different kind of car – you can't build the public transit system that will make cars obsolete.

When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about animal cruelty and habitat loss is eat less meat. When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about high drug prices is "shop around for a bargain." When you vote with your wallet, all you can do when your bank forecloses on your home is "choose your next lender more carefully."

Most importantly, when you vote with your wallet, you cast a ballot in an election that the people with the thickest wallets always win. No wonder those people have spent so long teaching us that we can't trust our neighbors, that there is no such thing as society, that we can't have nice things. That there is no alternative.

The commercial surveillance industry really wants you to believe that they're good at convincing people of things, because that's a good way to sell advertising. But claims of mind-control are pretty goddamned improbable – everyone who ever claimed to have managed the trick was lying, from Rasputin to MK-ULTRA:

https://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

Rather than seeing these platforms as convincing people of things, we should understand them as discovering and reinforcing the ideology that people have been driven to by material conditions. Platforms like Facebook show us to one another, let us form groups that can imperfectly fill in for the solidarity we're desperate for after 40 years of "no such thing as society."

The most interesting thing about "egging my car" slop is that it reveals that so many of us are convinced of two contradictory things: first, that everyone else is a monster who will turn on you for the pettiest of reasons; and second, that we're all the kind of people who would stick up for the victims of those monsters.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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/2024/10/29/hobbesian-slop/#cui-bono

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

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

[talesfromlissom]

Hello!!! Your inbox looked loney :). Spare HC's for Optimus, Megatron, Smokescreen and Arcee for a bot!reader who's bigger than them? 😀😀

Reader whose taller than OP, Megs, Smokes and Arcee // TFP || Could be seen as either romantic or platonic

WARNINGS/TAGS - None, enjoy :)

A/N - I go feral when someone makes the reader bigger/stronger than the character they’re shipped with. Guys, give me big af and buff readers; cmon!!!

MEGATRON

He will try to fight you, like 100%. It doesn’t matter if you’re even more loyal to the Decepticon cause than Soundwave. He will try to fight you and won’t stop until he wins. What’s worst is if you let him win, he’ll demand a rematch. 

He thinks your size is excellent for virtually everything except that people will sometimes mistake you for the leader of the Decepticons (if you’re nearby) instead of him. This is primarily the rare, isolated species that the Decepticons stumble across when they travel the galaxy that know nothing of the war. 

If you want to mess with him, put his stuff in high places. Depending on your relationship, he might use you for spare parts, beat the shit out of you, or just begrudgingly ask you to get the object off of the high shelf. 

If you’re strong enough and can pick him up, he’ll be the angriest mech in the galaxy (he already is, but even more so). He’ll flail around, swear at you, and everyone will be shitting bricks and looking away from your ass whopping. Scruffing him like a kitten will guarantee this, but again, depending on how close you are, he might become a grumbling idiot. 

He might ask you to mass displace to feel better about himself sometimes because he’s an asshole

Laughs when your forehead or frame gets stuck/hits doorframes before doing the same thing probably 5 minutes later because he’s also tall 

OPTIMUS PRIME

The shared pain of being tall af is the first thing he thinks of before being wholly weirded out

The only person taller than him on Earth is Megatron, but Megatron also turns into a jet, so he isn’t sure if that counts. 

He most likely gives you a map of the base, marking off doorways and other entrances that are either too big or too small. He’s a big bot and has this map on hand at all times in his own data banks. Its most likely pulled up in the many, many tabs on his HUD. 

Don’t scruff him either. He doesn’t have much plating on the back of his neck, and his back is extremely sensitive due to it mostly being kibble, wiring, and being hit in his back way too many times for comfort. Picking him up regardless will most likely just prompt him to ask you to put him down before he threatens cleaning duty for the next month if you don’t. 

He won’t put you on cleaning duty don’t worry 

If you tease him about it he’ll tell Ratchet and then Ratchet will put you on cleaning duty. Beware the doctor. 

ARCEE

everyone is taller than her, so she doesn’t really care. Is having to crane her neck to look up at you annoying? Yes. 

Imagine that meme of the police officer having to stand on his car to flip the taller person off; that’s her to you on some days. 

Don’t pick her up either; she’ll stab you; she absolutely hates that. She’s like an angry chihuahua when that happens.

She’s less likely to fight you if you are helping her. Sometimes, she likes to use you as a perch to climb onto things or just to be high up. Sometimes, she also likes to sit on your shoulders to pretend she’s tall. 

She’ll probably use you for shelter during rain, snow, etc. 

She claims she does it with everyone and you’re not special (you are) 

SMOKESCREEN

He’ll also perch on you like Arcee, but it's for silly reasons rather than a tactical advantage. 

If you have audio fins or something along those lines, he’ll grab those and pretend to use them like joysticks. Indulging him will encourage this behavior; do not fall for it. 

He likes to feel tall and will ask a lot of questions about what it's like to be tall, which is ironic given that he technically is of average height. 

Failing to answer these questions will result in more. 

Honestly, he’ll also hide underneath your frame while it's raining. He hates the rain because it gets mud all over his paint and undercarriage. It's annoying to clean out, and you’re the perfect umbrella, in his opinion. 

He can and will laugh at you for banging your head on doorways before he walks into the wall right next to you or trips over something. 

WORD COUNT - 686

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[ephemerensis]

Cologne // Tim Drake x GN! Reader

hay guys! where Tim Drake and Red Robin (ur bodyguard for the time being) smell suspiciously the same— it’s like you can’t even tell the difference! no angst, this took me so long oh my goodness i’m gonna stick to writing what i know. stay tuned for hurt/angst i have a lot of grievances to spit out! not proofread.

Part 2

—

Gotham was the last place you’d expected to be sent off to, but it’s where you found yourself now. Despite being disgustingly crime ridden, it was the center of trade, commerce, business, and more importantly— information. Which is precisely what you’d been sent to offer.

Your family’s company recently made a ground breaking discovery in pharmaceuticals, creating a drug that could limit the spread of cancer cells without traditional side effects; YB-V they called it. However, the by-product of production was much more severe, resulting in a chemical compound capable of mutating all the cells in a person completely to become something other as if they belonged to a different entity. Given the right motivations and means, the cells could be manipulated by a third party, turning them into fully conscious puppets of some sort.

With data leaks and security concerns, and the serious nature of the consequences if your drug had fallen into the wrong hands, you were sent to deliver the research and development to the production team personally; placed in charge of overseeing production until launch.

Which all sounded good in theory, but as you found yourself twiddling your thumbs in a blacked out office space, getting briefed on the gravity of the situation by a police task force with some vigilante character hanging around behind you, you began to question what it was all worth.

“So let me get this straight, an email between Wayne Corp and ourselves was leaked and now a couple big shot villains want to steal it? What kind of bad guy reads emails?”

A burly officer with a thick white mustache and a pair of square set glasses cleared his throat awkwardly, “That’s correct.”

“Some tech team,” you scoffed. “I’m the only one that can access any of the files, it’s all biometrically locked. While this certainly puts a damper on my day, we should be able to proceed normally.”

“They have your identity too,” the figure in the back voiced. Red Robin, you’d been informed, one of Gotham’s crime fighters in spandex (allegedly.) Up until now he hadn’t spoken a word, loitering while the police explained everything to you.

“Which is why we brought you here,” the commissioner pipped, reaching for his coffee mug as he spoke. “Red Robin has agreed to watch over your activities for the duration of your time in Gotham. For your safety, and ours.”

Have this guy tail you? As if. You were occupied enough without having a stranger watch your every move. A vigilante at that, it’s not like you could look at his resume and review his history.

“While that is a gracious offer, I have my own bodyguards. They’re well trained and—“

“Not for Gotham, you don’t.” Red Robin stepped out from the corner he’d situated himself in, arms crossed and a frown plastered on his face. “And unless you want to stay in a bunker for three months, I’m your best bet.”

Silence fell as you stared at the masked man, contemplating your options. The underground bunker was out of the question. On top of running production, you had a company to run and a reputation to upkeep; meetings, galas, charity events to attend. And as much as you hated to admit it, they had to be right. Gotham knows Gotham, and with the crises you’d witnessed on screen it was clear their criminals were on a polarly different level.

Pressing your hands to the table, you stood up and turned around, “I see. And you being around won’t make me more of a target?”

“Not even you would know I’m there.”

Closing the distance between the two of you in a few paces, you stuck your hand out to him, “In that case, I look forward to working with you Red Robin.”

Standing near him, the faint smell of lavender was imminent and something deeper lingered under it, an amber of some sort. It was pleasant; Red Robin had good taste in cologne. And that is all you needed to trust him.

It took a second for him to shake your outstretched hand. In your palm, his grip was firm, rough gloves pressing into your satin skin. Secure, you’d decided, secure and reliable.

And just as he’d promised, you hardly noticed him. On the contrary, you were also never attacked; not in the days following the abrupt meeting, nor the week after that, nor the month after that. There was the occasional mention of trouble, or something that went bump in the night— but whether it concerned you or not it didn’t matter. Nothing ever happened.

When he was tucked away it felt like he was really gone, not even the eerie feeling that followed being watched lingered. The only thing that drew you back into the reality was when you’d catch the scent of lavender lingering or in the few cases where he’d appear before you. In his absence you felt almost lonely, despite your work occupying it all. So you soon found yourself leaving notes.

“Bought coffee for the office.”

And he began to write back.

“Just black next time, thanks.”

…

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Cornflower blue.”

“That’s a dumb name. Your costume is red, I think you got out branded by Nightwing.”

“In my defense, I didn’t design it.”

…

He didn’t say much in them, nothing that you could glean in depth anyway. But you found yourself oddly pleased with his nothing. It’s not like you cared so desperately for his identity, that was his to keep of course. You did care for his presence. Something about it was magnetizing, and because he hardly appeared before you, these were the tidbits you found yourself drawn to.

Not that you’d kept them, he would see. Despite knowing the situation you were in, it still felt like a strange game— where he knew every detail about you, and you knew nothing of him. Your feelings, at the least, these you could keep on your own.

“Do you need lab access? I know you follow me in, but if there’s an emergency or something…” Production and distribution for YB-V was run by Wayne Corp and like all things related to your project it was kept secure in an underground bunker while you worked to transfer the information your company developed.

While the scientists and developers were mainly in charge of carrying out the project, none of it could move forward without you. The security system had been meticulously set up so that you, and only you, could access the files with the research and instructions. And beyond even your capabilities, every stage written into the plan had to be completed before the next could be unlocked. So you had to be there, supervise and guide them during the entirety of the process.

Archaic, you’d decided. But necessary according to the rest of the world.

Red Robin accompanied you on these trips. Being underground and all, it was one of the few moments he went with you rather than watching from afar.

“No, I’ll find a way in if I need a way in.”

You looked back at him questioningly. You didn’t doubt his capabilities of course, but he said it with such ease, “Is it that easy to break into? I should increase security.”

He scoffed, crossing his arms. “It’s secure. I’m the issue.”

You turned back around shaking your head with a snort. He was growing on you, sass and all. Stopping by a display of notes and charts, you looked them over to ensure they aligned with protocol.

“I have to attend a gala next week, by the way.”

He hummed in response, a couple steps behind you like he usually was when you visited the lab.

“It’s at Wayne Manor… and I can get you an invite. Security is stricter than it is here, I’ve been told. It’d be troublesome to sneak around.” Ruffling through the papers, you extracted the one you needed, holding it up to your face.

“And I don’t have a date,” you added.

“…are you asking me out?” You could hear a hint of a smile in his voice, making your face burn red at the accusation.

You set the paper down, abruptly whipping around with the most serious expression you could muster, “Strictly for my safety! I don’t know how credible everyone attending is and—“

The smile on his face shut you up. Embarrassed and slightly dejected you looked around the room for something else to lock eyes on, clearing your throat.

“I would’ve loved to, but I won’t be there. Something came up that I need to take care of. But like you said, security is strict, you’ll be safe,” he interjected before you could say anymore. Honestly you couldn’t even be mad, he let you down so sincerely you had to believe it. The small smile plastered on his face and the gentle tone he used in opposition to his usual curt one melted you down far more than you would’ve liked it to.

“Right.” It took you a second to cough anything out, like you were thirteen and starstruck again by any character that tossed you a bone, “so much for you or the bunker, I could’ve hired the Waynes’ security.”

But you were disappointed, and his answer did surprise you. Busy? He hadn’t left your side your entire stay as far as you were aware, granted you couldn’t see him 95% of the time, but in principle.

He must’ve picked up on your downtrodden state because he leaned in teasingly, that familiar lavender scent washing over you, “You have your own bodyguards though, right? They’re well trained.”

You wondered what color his eyes were behind the mask, a warm brown or a melancholy blue. Either way you’d decided you were done for, his were the type of eyes you could drown in; “Not for Gotham, I don’t.”

The night of the gala you didn’t expect much. You were supposed to represent your company of course, as their Gotham socialite, and you were to meet with your business partner. Up until now everything had been transactional, taken care of on invisible ends. Which was fine, but to maintain business relations you had to show up to these things.

And so it was about as dry as you’d thought it to be. Most of everyone was twice your age, many were so stuck in their desire for affluence it radiated off of them like maggots in a burn pile. Supposedly it was a charity gala, in reality it was an egoistic echo chamber and you were in no position to defy it.

Flitting around you sipped your champagne and made conversation and promises that didn’t matter until a hand graced your shoulder with the lightest touch, it felt almost invisible. Turning around you saw a boy with raven hair and the tamest of blue eyes. And he looked to be around your age, a moment of respite at last.

“Hi,” he breathed the word into a smile that was dazzlingly honest and strikingly warm in juxtaposition with the mood of the room.

“Hi,” you shook the hand he offered to you. His hands were rougher than you’d imagine an aristocrat’s to be, littered with callouses you attributed with a dedication to some sport, “I’m Y/N, I don’t think we’ve met before?”

“Sort of, I’m Tim.” In your correspondence with Wayne Corp, Tim had been your main contact; at least for big ticket decisions. In other words, he was your collaborator and your business’ partner. In your head you recalled all the times you poked fun at the archaic way he wrote his emails, like he was 52 and balding— in reality he was just the opposite.

“Oh! It’s nice to finally meet you! Thank you for working with us, we couldn’t have progressed this far without Wayne Corp.”

“On the contrary, thank you for trusting us. This project’s been a huge safety concern for you I’ve heard.”

You laughed, shaking your head, “Not at all! I have one of the best vigilantes in the city.” But this, he should’ve already known. Red Robin had to be cleared for access to certain things, and you’d corresponded as much through your emails. “I must say though, I was disappointed it wasn’t Nightwing at first, he used to be my favorite.”

Tim blinked at you for a spell and you couldn’t read his expression. Pleasant and cordial with some twinge of underlying distaste was the best way to describe it, something in the way his eyes glinted with a malice behind his smile. “Has that changed?”

He must love Red Robin.

“I suppose,” growing on you was an understatement. It was a strange ordeal because he wasn’t real. No name or title you could address, but everything you learned about Red Robin made you want to know more about Red Robin. He was magnetizing. “Have you met them? Is it a normal Gotham thing?”

“No,”his response came swiftly, “they’re usually in other parts of the city and I’m never out at night. Married to the office.”

“I see.” That would explain the emails.

“Do you… want to dance?” He extended his hand to you graciously, but with a gentle hesitance that made him seem softer than he was. In a way you felt like you were betraying your vigilante delusionship, but he hadn’t agreed to go with you and Tim was charming enough. Besides, business relations.

“Of course.” Placing your flute of champagne on a nearby table, you took his arm as he led you to the floor. He smiled in a demure sort of way that made your heart flutter like the excitement you’d felt interacting with Red Robin. Maybe you just liked the attention that much, that must be the correlation between the two.

“Do you know how to waltz?” Typically galas didn’t have much dancing at all, let alone organized ballroom dancing, but leave it to the Waynes to find a way to stun the crowd with their class and extravagance.

“Sort of, I’ve taken rudimentary classes.” Like when you were five.

“Perfect,” he grinned. He placed his hand faintly on the small of your waist while the other found purchase in your opposing palm, “I’ll lead. Just follow along, you’ll be fine.”

Miraculously you were fine. You started out with your eyes glued to the floor, following after him and avoiding his toes. But once you’d gotten into a rhythm, it all felt like floating.

“You haven’t stepped on my toes once,” he joked. Up close and under the mesmerizing ballroom light he looked angelic, the way the light caught in his lashes and the reflected off the blue of his eyes—like little golden flecks glimmering under supple flowing rivers.

“I’ve been trying not to!” you laughed.

“You look beautiful,” as if his eyes could get any more mesmerizing, they softened somehow with his words, “outfit and all.”

“Thank you,” at this you averted your gaze, and prayed the lighting didn’t highlight the flush of your cheeks. Out of being flustered or embarrassment, you didn’t know. On the one hand, a rich, beautiful, respectful man was complimenting you. On the other, you were wearing cornflower blue because it was someone else’s favorite color. Like you were twelve again and going to some middle school dance where you wanted to impress your hallway crush.

“Your Getty pictures don’t do you justice,” he continued. “Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t seen one bad photo, but you always look so serious and intimidating.”

It never occurred to you he’d Googled you before, it made sense now how he was able to single you out in the crowd. Maybe the thought was so foreign because you’d never paid him any mind, but now you were thinking you should’ve. At the very least because it’s polite and helpful to know the bare minimum, but if you were honest with yourself it’s because he struck a curiosity in you that needed to be sated—too breathtaking to be real and all you’d known was his face and arresting demeanor.

“Because I am serious and intimidating, I’m very good at my job you know. You’re not the only one married to an office,” you boasted. In reality you hated work, but worse still was posing for pictures. Especially at crowded social functions your parents ushered you to where you didn’t know a soul, you simply didn’t know what to do with yourself in front of a camera—that was your excuse anyway.

“That explains the dancing,” he quipped with a sideward smile.

Your eyes widened slightly in shock as your mouth fell open to scoff. “Hey! I thought I was doing pretty good!”

He burst into a contagious laughter that hypnotically made you follow suit. But you wouldn’t settle for that after all your efforts to keep up. With a look to the wayside, you pretended to lose touch of the tandem between your steps and lurch forward, consequently stepping on his polished brown loafers. And then it was his turn to be shocked.

“Woah! So much for trying,”Tim teased. Not that he lost his footing, he was as stable as ever. In his eyes you swore there was a glint of mockery, as if he knew and anticipated it.

“Oh did I hurt you,” you feigned concern before slipping into the most innocent smile you could muster. “I’m a terrible dancer, I can’t help it.”

“Aren’t you petty?”

“You have no idea.”

“Petty and pretty, how dangerous.”

Before you could fire some witty retort you noticed your steps slowing to a halt with the swoon of the music. He’d brought his hand above you to spin you once, slowly. The other on your waist moved to your lower back to support you as he pulled you into a dip and all you could do was follow. Something about the atmosphere had your heart palpitating. Or maybe it was the way he was looking at you, like you were an art piece on display, overhead light illuminating behind him as he stared down at you like an angel emerging from the heavens.

Sundering you to the earth, you couldn’t fixate your eyes on anything else, and though it was only for a moment it felt like eternity. You were close enough now for the scent of his cologne to waft over you faintly amongst the throng of strongly powdered people in the room. Lavender. A familiar lavender with all the base notes that’d been lingering around you for the past few weeks. Your look of awe faded to confusion.

Red Robin’s.

“Is that—“

But he wasn’t looking at you. Instead you followed his gaze down to your chest, eyes widening as you saw the little red laser mark hovering over your heart. Before you could react, you felt the air get knocked out of your lungs as Tim shoved you away. The sound of the gun firing pierced cleanly through the noise of the glitz and glamour, and something burned across the skin of the side of your arm.

You couldn’t tell if it was broken glass that cut you or something else, you couldn’t feel much of anything with the adrenaline flooding your body. Scared and discombobulated, you scrambled backwards as panic set into the crowd.

In the midst of the onset of gunshots and people scattering towards exits, Tim had rushed over to you. Kneeling beside you, he gave you a quick look over and gently pulled you up by your uninjured arm. As soon as you were up he rushedly dragged you away from it all, winding through the hallways of the manor wordlessly. Though it was probably for the better, because you didn’t have an ounce of air left in your lungs trying to keep up with his pace or a thought in your head after what you’d just witnessed.

The further you trudged along, the heavier your limbs felt and the harder it was to pry your eyes open after blinking. Which was strange, you hadn’t lost so much blood, but it must’ve been the confusion of it all or something you ate. A couple halls and turns later you arrived at a room. He ushered you inside, seating you on the bed before rummaging through the drawers.

“Are you alright? Does it hurt badly?” from the drawer he procured a bandage. He sat himself next to you, promptly wrapping the cloth tightly around your arm.

“No, it’s not bad,” truthfully it felt numb, which you couldn’t decide was a good or bad thing. You couldn’t think much of anything, focused on keeping your eyes from fluttering shut.

“I should’ve known they’d do something,” he’d muttered. As he finished, pushing himself off the bed, your head suddenly felt too heavy to hold up and your eyes too tired to function.

“Hey… are you okay? You don’t look so good.” He pressed the back of his hand to your forehead, feeling nothing abnormal and deepening his concern. But you couldn’t process what he was saying. With a lilt, you fell to your side, feeling the injunctive relief of not having to hold yourself upright.

He undid your bandages to look at the wound again before scowling as it dawned on him, “Tranquilizers.”

After rewrapping your arm, he hurriedly stalked towards the door, “You’ll be safe here, I’ll send someone.”

With whatever consciousness you had left you managed to slur a sentence, “Where are you going?”

“To find my brother.”

If he said anything after you didn’t hear it, because the moment your eyes fluttered shut, they stayed shut.

You didn’t know how long you were out. Not terribly so. When you’d awoken, it was still dark out. Tim must’ve flicked the light off when he’d left too, the only light that flooded in was from the streetlamp out the window. The drugs hadn’t cleared your system yet if the pounding in your head and brain fog you were experiencing was any indicator. And they didn’t even hit you directly, who knows where you’d be if they did.

In the streets you could hear the panic of people and the wail of police sirens, which would’ve settled your stomach if not for the fact that it clearly wasn’t over and the police weren’t entering.

You jerked your head towards the door as a loud thud sounded just outside of it. Looking around the room for a place to hide, there was none. And if there was one, you couldn’t see it with the lights out. Some commotion followed before what sounded like a body hit the floor.

Not knowing what else to do, you wrapped yourself in the bedding, pulling it to the floor behind the bed and huddling there. At the very least, no one knew you were in there but Tim, and surely he’d locked the door.

Nope.

The sound of the knob turning made your blood run cold. You drew the blankets tightly around yourself, hoping you’d amalgamate into the cloths if you’d clutched them tightly enough.

With the bed obscuring your view, you couldn’t see the perpetrator and you didn’t want to. You screwed your eyes shut as footsteps creaked on the wood pacing towards you. Against your will, you hands couldn’t cease trembling and you wondered if the other person in the room could hear your heart beating out of your chest.

This was it. If someone wanted to swoop in, now would be great.

The footsteps halted on the opposite side of the bed. You considered jumping out at them, throwing the blanket and bolting for it, but your limbs felt like they were filled with lead. And in any case, if they were armed you were done for anyway. So you held your breath and willed them away instead.

To your horror they’d started again in your direction. Silence. And then a hand touched the blanket and you couldn’t help it, you shrieked and covered your head with your arms.

But instead of force or a bludgeoning, they’d knelt in front of you, gently grabbing your arms as you thrashed. A familiar voice called your name out a couple times before you recognized it and opened your eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s me! You’re okay,” in the dark you couldn’t really see his face but it was Tim’s voice that called to you. Delirious and reeling, the relief flooded your body so intensely, the tears didn’t even have time to well before they were streaming down your cheeks.

Throwing your arms around him, you sobbed for all you were worth, “I was so scared, why’d you just leave me!”

You felt him stiffen beneath you at the sudden intrusion before softening and patting the back of your head with a gloved hand. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

And it felt so safe there, in his arms, secure but soft all at once. The familiar lavender mixed with the champagney smell from the gala soothed you in a way you’d never thought you’d needed.

“I thought they were gonna get me,” you choked out between sobs. This was in no way attractive, “and then I’d get kidnapped, and everyone would turn into puppets!”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. Not mocking or laughing at you like your more awake self would’ve expected, he was mellow about the whole thing. Sorry and really sorry for it—and it wasn’t even his fault.

When you calmed down enough to sound coherent, he pulled back to wipe the tears from your cheeks.

“Let me see that,” he nodded towards your bandaged arm. You stretched it out for him and he undid the gauze, “This doesn’t look too bad. Shouldn’t scar.”

Procuring new dressings, he took his time with it this time, applying a salve before wrapping it around you again.

“Tim?” you said his name just to say his name, because you liked the way it felt to say and you wanted to hear him speak. Instead he paused before resuming his work, “I’m Red Robin.”

“Oh.” That’s embarrassing. You were so certain of it too, but he did say he would send someone and he was probably with his family or waiting outside for things to settle. So instead you got the infinitely intangible Red Robin, “I thought you were busy.”

“Plans changed.” He was never this curt with you, not after knowing you anyway. He had to maintain secrecy, you knew this, but he’d find ways to say more anyway.

You flinched as he constricted your arm with the bandage, “You’re pulling it a little tight.”

This made him pause again, letting go of the wrap altogether this time as the circulation breathed back into your marrow.

Exhaling, he ran a hand through his raven hair, “I’m sorry.”

You blinked at him, still fighting to keep your eyelids open but worried nonetheless. This was unlike him, “Red?”

“Sorry, I’m just on edge. I should’ve known, I could’ve prevented this,” shaking his head, it was if he made up his mind, “Everything is transferred now, the project can wrap up without you. We’ll get you on the next flight back tomorrow.”

Somewhere in you an inkling of anger stirred, as if you were an object that could be sent as needed. But the strain in his voice was evident, how could hold a grudge against that? “I don’t want to leave yet.”

“You’re going.”

You huffed, “I’m not. And you don’t have to watch me anymore if it’s too much, I never expected that from you! You’re here now, you didn’t have to be, but you are— that’s more than my useless bodyguards or Wayne security have done and they’re paid for it. You put up with me and nothing has happened to me. I’m sorry for being so vulnerable, that’s my fault. Don’t you dare berate yourself, you haven’t done one wrong thing!”

He said nothing, just stared at you with something like curiosity. Under the pale moonlight and with his face obstructed you could only speculate.

You stuck out your injured arm to him again, urging him to take it, “Hurry and finish, I’m still sleepy.”

Wordlessly he finished binding your arm. As soon as he was done you fell on his shoulder, closing your eyes.

“Tim—“

“I’m not Tim,” he reiterated. There was something in his tone that you couldn’t quite place; annoyance?

“Oh,” you mumbled, feeling sleep creep up on you again, “you smell the same... I think I like him.” Surely it’s fine to confess this much, or that’s what you told yourself as you started to drift off, words slurring and thoughts blurring, “you should meet him, he’s a big fan.”

—

i have a final in 5 hours please with me luck (it’s 2am)

[ghostytoad]

* Fun n' Games *

ROTTMNT Boys x GN! Leo-esque reader who enjoys drama, making jokes, and being overall awesome

Summary: The Hamato brothers unexpectedly fall for the smug, but genuine, fun-loving reader despite their egocentric habits Headcanons for: Donnie

GN! Reader; Romantic; Fluff || Words: 1.6k

Raph | Leo | Mikey | Bonus!!

Donnie:

his first thoughts upon meeting y/n is that literally nothing could be worse. he could be boiling alive in one of meatsweat's fancy culinary stews and be less bothered by that than having to endure not one, but TWO LEOS

there goes the fleeting days of being able to complete his work in peace and quiet; o call back yesterday, bid time return

really tho, all his eye rolling and indifference is just an act that he refuses to let up on (he has a REPUTATION to uphold after all!!)

it doesn't take much time for donnie to warm up to y/n though; he's more or less used to his twin's antics and smug behavior and with y/n being almost exactly the same, it's like they've known each other their whole lives

he chalks it up to being comfortable with the familiar, but his brothers can definitely see it for what it is: a crush

he enjoys the competitive tension between y/n and him, it keeps him on his toes and gives him a boost when he feels out of it and needs the motivation

doesn't much care for the whole ego thing, but it doesn't bother him as bad as leo's does; at least y/n has good reason to be as cocky as they are. they're funny, they're charming, they're cool, they're incredibly perceptive

in fact, he's secretly made a list of all the good qualities y/n has and all the things he likes about them… it's like a whole 10 spreadsheets worth of data

to be fair, he does keep a similar list for his brothers and april, so it's not like he's stalking y/n or anything; it's just his way of "bonding" with his loved ones

but y/n's list is a lot longer than anyone else's; there's just so much to like about them. it only makes sense that their list of good traits happens to match up pretty well with his list of "things to look for in a potential mate" (a secret list that he will take to his grave)

whenever they go on missions, he makes sure to fit y/n in all his latest gear he's made them for their protection; they might talk big game, but donnie still has to take precautions!

he may or may not have taken y/n on a few purple dragon-related missions - AKA "let's go put whipped cream in all of their hard drives and cover their hideout in tinfoil wrapping just to fuck with them"; turns out that the police do not find it funny

"let me just say for the record that nothing's illegal unless it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. and you can't prove that y/n and i were there so…"

y/n ain't no snitch, so don can trust them to keep their mouth shut if anyone ever gets suspicious of their misdeeds; this also makes them his go-to for some of the more emotionally heavier things that he can't talk to his brothers about

yeah, donnie's not great with emotions, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel them - he genuinely finds y/n to be a comforting presence, especially considering their amazing emotional perception and how well they can read him

he finds it much easier to work when y/n's hanging around the lab with him; they don't have to interact much, all it takes is a visit from y/n and he's hit with a burst of motivation

gets more work done with y/n around than he usually does and takes advantage of this productivity by making y/n stay with him for literal hours even if they don't actively take part in his work

he's even made them a little corner with all of their favorite things in the lab so they can keep busy while he works; they might be good for motivation and all, but he knows better than to leave y/n alone with one of his inventions considering their… impulsive behavior (rip stun-bo feature, we hardly knew ya)

"w-what, leaving? you can't leave yet! i've only just started on this upgraded micro-transmitter for the tank and i need your help! what do you mean you just sit there for hours doing nothing? that's entirely false, you are helping me out immensely! now sit right there and don't touch anything until i tell you to-"

their easy-going nature really complements his more rigid and particular personality; together, they are an unstoppable and wildly chaotic duo

he might be the funniest turtle of the group, but y/n has him in tears with their lame little jokes and one-liners; he mostly only laughs at the roasts and teases directed at his brothers though

overall, his brothers have an ongoing bet over how long it'll be before donnie finally realizes he has a MAJOR crush on y/n; leo has his bets on "not in my lifetime", april predicts it'll be sometime after casey jr's time, mikey's a little more generous and says "maybe in the next decade or two", and raph is just fed up with it and wants it over with NOW

The buzzing and whirring of various tools occupied the otherwise silently uneventful lab as Donatello worked away on his latest project, completely absorbed in his work. Tucked away in the corner, sitting snug in the soft embrace of a plush beanbag, Y/N busied themselves with another round of Smash Bros on their purple (totally not Genius Built branded) Switch. Most days in the lab were spent in comfortable silence, as the purple coded brother did his best work when there were minimal distractions. But for Y/N, that meant keeping all audible cries of excitement or groans of defeat to a minimum while gaming. And sure, that was a reasonable request for a while, but had it really already been four hours?! As Y/N glanced down at their phone for the time, they let out a loud, heavy sigh as boredom overwhelmed their usually active mind.

"Don, how much longer do I gotta sit here? I'm practically dying of boredom. I'm terminal now. Terminal!" They slumped themselves back over the cushion, causing it to wheeze under the shifted weight.

"Just a few minor adjustments left and we'll be as good as gold." Donnie hadn't even looked up from the tester bot he was tinkering with, something which Y/N met with a frustrated scowl.

"And by a few, you mean…?"

"I still need to work on recalibrating the external displays to account for the large-"

"UUUGH, no, how long! I've been here so long that my leg's've atro- asta-… ASTROFIELD!"

Donnie could hardly contain the snort that sounded from under his welding mask.

"I think the term you're looking for is 'atrophied' and no, I seriously doubt that the mere act of sitting is enough to deteriorate muscle tissue."

"Whatever. I'm dying here and you wanna lecture me on-"

They were interrupted by the soft thudding of approaching footsteps, the unmistakable sound of Raph entering the lab.

"Heya, D. Y/N. Sorry to barge in on y'all, just wanted to check in and see if y'guys needed anything. It's been, uh… A while and it's gettin' dark so-"

"Raph, will you tell Dorkie here to quit holdin' me hostage and let me go? He's been keeping me prisoner here and I haven't even gotten my one phone call!" Y/N teased. Their moniker was successful in tearing Donnie's attention away from his desk across the room to shoot them a bitter glare.

"Heh, y'know Y/N, you could leave anytime you wanted, right? It's not like he's actually gonna trap you here. Er… Right?" Raphael's playful expression tinged itself with a hint of concern as he, for a moment, considered the possibility of a hostage negotiation with his little brother.

"Nah, I'm actually good here. I just want something more to DO when I'm here. I can't just be here for moral support, y'know." They stuck their tongue out at the softshell as they rolled themselves off the bag and plopped softly onto the tile floor.

The eldest mutant scratched at the back of his neck with a chuckle. Of course Donnie would tell them it's for 'moral support'.

"Uh, Y/N. You do know he only really keeps you in here because he's got a thing for you, right? That whole moral support thing's a load of crock."

It was at that moment that the ambient hum of tools stopped and tense silence flooded in its place. Y/N propped themselves up on elbows and craned their neck towards Donatello who sat faced away from them with tense shoulders bunched up.

Sensing the awkward situation he'd now put them in, Raph let out a small hiss of regret between his teeth and slowly shuffled his feet back towards the door.

"Riiight… So, you guys good? Yeah? Yeah. I'm gonna just-"

And with that, he practically bolted for the door, leaving Y/N and Donnie to stew in the thick air of their own embarrassment.

"D-Donnie…" Y/N could barely squeak, their eyes fixed to the empty doorway as if they were pleading for Raph to come back and take the awkward with him.

Donnie took in a sharp breath and in one swift motion, pushed his work chair back and spun to face his companion with only his iron-will keeping him from running out of the lab himself.

"I-" He started, his face dark red and his lip quivering with anxiety as his mind parsed through the many scenarios in which this sort of confession could've gone.

"I knew it couldn't have been just for my good looks." Y/N's smug grin and flirtatious wink did little to alleviate the mutant's humiliation.

"Huh?"

"For the record…" Scooting up to Donnie's hunched form, Y/N gently took his hands into theirs and kept their gaze locked to the floor as the faintest blush dusted their cheeks, "I have a thing for you too."

Out of every scenario he'd managed to file through, this one was one outcome he didn't anticipate. But one he would happily accept.

[lost-and-created]

Consider the following:

The treatment of the unhoused/poor, including making being unhoused a crime.

The rising inability to afford housing, groceries, and utilities, even with full-time jobs that pay more than the minimum wage.

The genocide occuring in Palestine and the use of US funded weapons to commit it.

Rising rates of Neo-Nazis, antisemitism, and islamophobia.

The beating of a trans, Native American child at a public school, which resulted in death, being praised by an active senator who called trans people filth, when addressing the issue (Rest in Peace, Nex).

Trans people increasingly having their rights, especially to healthcare, taken.

Women increasingly having their rights to healthcare taken.

The migrants who are fleeing their home countries, leading them to the US-Mexico border, are being met with police violence, razor wire, and detention centers that have been reported to separate and "lose" children, as well as treat those within its walls with cruel amounts of negligence.

The subways of New York becoming flooded with cops and National Guard, making it a police state checkpoint for anyone that enters.

Police being able to justify the murder of a Black, autistic teenager, in front of his family.

However, the US government has deemed TikTok to be the largest threat to the nation and is the issue that they can all, collectively, agree on. Certainly can't be because it's been the main place for younger people to find current news that isn't gripped by corporate media. Can't be because it's a place for people to find information on the continued boycotts, divestments, and protests that are currently occurring and costing corporations millions of dollars, effecting how much those corporations can lobby their representatives. Can't be because it is the place people often go to when mainstream media refuses to cover the big stories that would otherwise be pushed under the rug. Can't be because our representatives, the people that we put in charge of making our voices heard, are sick of hearing what we have to say about their actions within and outside of their offices. Must just be because TikTok has a parent company in China (while the US servers and data are run through US based company, Oracle) and that it's a dangerous threat.

[mymoodwriting]

5.2k, android!Key, yandere, possessive behavior, alcohol consumption, drug use, police investigation, missing persons case, manipulation, loss of time, amnesia, delusions, adrenaline, rash behavior, kidnapping, needles, sedation, invasive technology, smut, fingering, breast play, penetration, vibrators, aphrodisiac, over stimulation, memory play, brainwashing, mind control (@starillusion13)

“Please, come back soon.”

Your eyes shot open and you took in a shaky breath. As you composed yourself you recognized your surroundings to be your room and the lack of sunlight let you know it was still night time. You reached over to your phone on the nightstand, checking the time. You groaned as you realized your alarm would go off in a minute and decided to just get up. Oddly enough you felt well rested, but this vague uneasiness was present. A dream you just had lingered in the back of your mind, but it was nothing but a blur that was fading away. There was no point in dwelling on a dream so you got ready for work.

What you should have been focusing on was your current case, and that’s what stayed at the forefront of your mind as you made your commute to the precinct. For the last week you had been investigating the disappearance of some individuals of interest. Unfortunately hundreds of people were reported missing everyday, but law enforcement rarely cared about those. Many were homeless junkies who probably just move to another city, or were later found dead of an overdose somewhere. Others were just average people who probably left without telling their loved ones. Or got mixed up with the wrong type of people. At least that was always one of the answers given to those who made a missing persons report. 

It was extremely heartless, but most officers had murder cases and high-end robberies to investigate. Except for this situation. You had been given a missing persons case, well, multiple in fact. These people weren’t your average blue collar worker or someone society cared little for, but someone whose disappearance was concerning. From the stack of files on your desk you actually recognized a few names. These types of people don’t just go missing, and there haven’t been ransom calls either. It seemed clear that someone was targeting the wealthy class, but that was the only real connection among all the victims. Many of these people never really crossed paths with one other. They all had different backgrounds, professions, and social circles. The only place these people could possibly co-exist together was at big events like a charity auction or gala. Which does nothing to help identify a suspect. You had very little to go off of but your boss was certainly pressuring you to find something since those related to the missing individuals of the case were pressuring him. You could only imagine the type of threats and incentives he was receiving.

As you walked into the precinct you greeted your coworkers, although a few gave you strange looks. You ignored them all, wanting to look over your case and see if you had any new leads, or new names to add to it. When you got to your desk you saw that it was a complete mess, likely someone going through your things, and clearly some files were missing. You wouldn’t be surprised to find out one of your coworkers wanted to solve this before you to get a promotion or some kind of extra reward. Some of the others had wanted this case, but it was given to you regardless of what your coworkers said. This was just childish behavior. For now you focused on tidying up and then hunting down your missing files. You started by going over the case data on your computer and getting rid of unnecessary things. Although before you got to the second part of that plan one of your friends came over, rather surprised to see you.

“There you are. About time you came back to work, how was your vacation?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been gone for two weeks. The boss said you suddenly asked for vacation time. He was super pissed but you were unreachable so he had to give your case to someone else. You’re gonna get an earful soon enough.”

“What vacation are you talking about? I was literally here yesterday and-”

You glanced down at your computer screen, finally noting the date displayed. It really was two weeks later, but those two weeks didn’t exist in your memory. You just went to bed last night and woke up in the future.

“Y/n! My office, now!”

“Looks like it’s time for that scolding. Good luck.”

Your friend scurried off and you made your way to the boss’ office. You shut the door behind you, feeling the heat in the air, he was certainly fuming.

“Sir, I-”

“I know you’re a hard worker y/n, which is why I gave you such a high profile case. So tell me why you ghosted me and took two weeks off! This case is time sensitive and extremely important! Do you have any idea what’s been going on!?”

“No. Not at all. I don’t remember what happened to me the last-”

“So you were out getting wasted?”

“No, I-”

“There are so many people with eyes on this case, important people. You think they were happy to find out the lead investigator went M.I.A and someone else had to start over with this!?”

“Sir, I’m also-”

“They want you dismissed.”

“What?”

“You abandoning such a case doesn’t sit well with anyone who was keeping up with it. They want you to turn in your badge and gun.”

“You’re joking, right? I have been missing for two weeks and you couldn’t care less! I never submitted a time off request and I have no memory of those two weeks!”

“What are you talking about? I have your request in the system, and I never even approved it!”

“Sir, please, just listen to me. You know me, I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, but I’m missing time. When I woke up this morning I found out two weeks had passed, and I don’t know what’s going on. This could be related to the case.”

“How so?”

“Like you said, this is a high profile case, it’s not really a secret who’s working on it. I was out investigating last night, or two weeks ago, however you want to look at it. I was following a common route one of our victims was known to take. I was in an area filled with high profile people and then… then… everything’s a blur… I woke up this morning and that’s it.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m not entirely sure… maybe I was kidnapped and interrogated… either by the culprit or someone who wanted information on the case… then they wiped my memory and dropped me off at home…”

“Y/n, you know-”

“I know, I know, this is all speculation, but you know I’m telling the truth. I’m missing time, and surely my sudden disappearance disrupted the case. It’s probably what they wanted.”

“Y/n-”

“I can do a drug test. You know it’ll come back clean, and I can get a brain scan. Surely there would be some sort of evidence of my memories being messed with and-”

“Stop, y/n, just stop. Everything you’ve said so far sounds crazy, and nobody’s gonna care. Someone else has already taken the case, and you do need to be reprimanded for your actions.”

“I’m not crazy! Something happened to me and it could be crucial to the case!”

“You’re already off the case. Whatever you have, you need to hand over to detective Choi. Then we’ll see about a disciplinary hearing.”

“No!”

“No? This isn’t open for discussion.”

“I’m not crazy! Something happened to me and I went missing! But because I’m not some member of high society you all couldn’t care less!”

“You keep talking to me like that and there won’t be a disciplinary hearing!”

“I don’t need one! None of you seem to care about what happened here, so screw you! I quit!”

You slammed your gun and badge down, loudly storming out of the office. Everyone watched as you went to your desk and grabbed your things. Then your friend quickly came over to your side, stopping you.

“Woah, woah, hey,hey,  what happened!? Are you okay? I heard-”

“I’m done.”

“You don’t mean-”

“I do. I quit.”

“What!? Why!?”

“Cause no one listens to me.”

“About what? You just got back from your-”

“No, no I didn’t. I wasn’t on some two week getaway. I don’t remember anything from those last two weeks. The last thing I remember was investigating those disappearances and instead of concern I’m met with disappointment and disciplinary action. So screw everyone, I quit. I hope they find those missing rich kids.”

“Y/n, don’t you think this is rash? Look, just go apologize to the boss and-”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“What is it?”

“If I do go missing, add my case to the others. I’m sure there’ll be a connection.”

With that said you made your way out of the precinct, not looking back. The adrenaline of the moment kept you going until you made it back to your apartment. You screamed and threw your things once the door was closed, collapsing to the ground. Now you could look back and reflect on your actions, realizing how stupid and impulsive they were. You had no idea why you reacted that way. Everything that was said just pissed you off little by little until you snapped and quit. In the moment that felt so good, but now you were just so confused about your emotions and actions. It didn’t seem like you at all.

Once you calmed down you got up and went to shower, needing to clear your head and process. The sane thing to do was go back and apologize, but you couldn’t do that, at least not empty handed. You had to continue this investigation without any information or authority. Thankfully you still had some case files at your place along with your own notes to look over. Although you didn’t necessarily need them. You knew where you needed to go. Back to where your memories ended. You had to admit you were a bit nervous. The last time you went out you lost time, a lot of it. You didn’t know what happened to you, and you also had no idea why you returned. To go back now, there was a chance you wouldn’t return at all. Still, you needed answers, and this was your job, even if it was just a moral obligation now.

You cleaned around your apartment and organized all the information you had about the case, getting rid of anything that wasn’t important and leaving it in your spare room. It was starting to get late and you knew you had to get going. The area you had been to before was only alive when the sun went down. You grabbed your bag and headed out. There was a strange sense of familiarity as you walked the streets, passing the same places again and again, although it was strange remembering you had been here two weeks ago and not yesterday. Things felt different and the same all at once. You kept to yourself as you walked, mentally going over what you had done before, and then you stopped. Where you stood was as far as your memories went. You had no idea where you went next or what you did. So you were stuck. You looked around, trying to see if anything triggered a memory.

“If you’re looking for a good time, you can find it at the Pleasure Shop.”

A gentleman suddenly approached you and handed you a black card with a luxurious letter ‘P’ on it. You examined the card and looked at the gentleman, a strange sense of dejavu creeping into the back of your mind. There was something familiar about this whole interaction. The gentleman kept a smile on his face, gesturing to a building across the street. You looked over and when you looked back you were completely alone. The streets were empty and the night was quiet. Something told you to go to this Pleasure Shop, so you made your way there. The building was very dull, it didn’t stand out in any way and was probably constantly overlooked. Even the shop name above the door was small and blended with the plain wall. You looked for a handle but there wasn’t one. Instead there was a small scanner. It wasn’t big enough for a whole hand, and too small for a simple finger print, but you soon realized it was the perfect size for a business card, like the one you had just been given.

You placed the card against the scanner, hearing the machine do its thing before beeping twice. You could hear something unlock and then the door slid open. There was a dim light coming from the inside. It probably wasn’t a good idea to enter, but something compelled you to do so. You stepped through the door, cautious with every move you made. As you walked forward the door shut behind you. Before things got darker the place came to life. White lights came on, illuminating your surroundings and your path. On the other end of the room there was a bar and a bartender, as well as a small little couch and table off to the side. There was only one seat at the bar, which was certainly an odd choice. You took small steps forward and then came to a stop. The bartender was motionless, and now that you were closer you could see the wires and tech on them, they were an android, and not just that. They had the same face as the gentleman who had handed you the card for this place earlier. It was probably a business tactic but something certainly felt off here, along with a stronger sense of dejavu.

“Welcome back.”

The android suddenly speaking startled you, making you yell and take a step back. They still hadn’t moved though. Although those simple words made you question something.

“… back? Have I been here before?”

You got no response. It was likely the android was programmed to say that to all customers and it meant nothing but now you had to approach the bar if you wanted any more information. You did so quietly, and took the only seat available to you. The android merely took its hands off the table, letting them rest at their side, not a word spoken. You stared curiously for a moment then a realization came to mind. You held out the card you had been given and the android came to life.

They took the card and scanned it, their right eye glowing a soft blue. They placed the card down on their side of the bar and turned around to grab a glass from the wall behind them. You didn’t understand the design as there was no alcohol visible and all the glasses on the wall were empty. Still, you watched as the android placed an empty glass before you. Although it wasn’t empty for long. As they slid it across to you it seemed to magically fill from the bottom with a mercury colored liquid. Your eyes went wide, and then the memories came flooding in.

Two weeks ago you had been in the area looking around for leads when you had been approached by a gentleman offering you a card to the Pleasure Shop. It sounded like some club, and you figured it was a good place to go and ask about your missing persons. When you saw the building you definitely thought it was some high-end place that was meant to be on the down low. Especially when you realized the only way in was by scanning the card you had been given, meaning this place was invite only, definitely something the wealthy class would partake in. You went inside, finding a place with no business and feeling like you hit a dead end, but your detective side told you not everything was what it seemed. You walked to the bar, realizing the bartender was an android with a familiar face. Probably some marketing strategy and budget restraint. You took a seat, asking the bartender for a drink but they didn’t move, which you found odd. Then you thought to pull out the card and explain but the android soon came to life and took the card from you, scanning it. 

Now you were intrigued, moreso when you noticed the layout behind the bar. You were very confused about the empty glass handed to you until a liquid appeared on its own. You stared at it for a moment, looking at the bartender but they were motionless, not even looking your way. You figured you should at least enjoy the drink so you picked it up and held the glass to your lips. The drink had a lovely taste, and you had it all at once. Just as you put the glass down you began to feel dizzy. For a second you were worried and then a breathtaking euphoria took over all your senses. You felt so at ease, and so happy, all your worries completely washed away. You nearly fell out of your seat, but you vaguely noticed the bartender holding you up before taking you into their arms and carrying you elsewhere. In the moment you couldn’t put the pieces together, but you were absolutely on cloud nine. When you closed your eyes you found yourself somewhere completely different and beautiful, feeling as if you were living in a perfect world. There was no pain, or sadness, nothing but joy and endless wonder.

Time had no meaning, not that it mattered. You thought this could last forever, but eventually you laid down on the beautiful meadow. The soft grass becoming solid. You suddenly found it hard to move, your entire body feeling cold. The beautiful blue sky began to fade from your vision, replaced by a white light hanging above your head. You shook your head, reality starting to settle back in, and you were trying to properly snap out of this daze as soon as possible. You soon realized you were strapped down on a table, arms and legs restrained. You tried to free yourself to no avail. You took in your surroundings, noticing your things spread out on a table nearby, and some medical equipment around. This seemed to be some sort of lab. Then you heard a door open, seeing the android walk in with a tray.

“Who are you!? What do you think you’re doing!? Let me go!”

The android set the tray down on a cart nearby, bringing it over. You could see a needle and some tech but you had no idea what it was for. Either way, you were nervous.

“I am the keeper of exquisite beauty, but you may call me Key.”

“Who’s doing this!? Where is your owner!?”

“I move independently and follow my primary directive. May I ask, what is a detective such as yourself doing in the area? Law enforcement is rarely seen in these parts. Does it have to do with the missing persons case? Record shows you are the detective in charge.”

“I was investigating! This is kidnapping and obstruction of justice!”

“I’ve never had a detective here before, but I care more for your beauty than profession. You are an exquisite specimen indeed, although I understand your career can lead to problems.”

“Exactly! If you don’t let me go right now you’ll have my entire precinct on you!”

“Which is why I have already taken care of such matters. No one will be looking for you for quite some time. That is enough for me to take care of matters pertaining to you.”

“… what?”

“I don’t usually let such a wonderful specimen leave my care but you are a special case. I must tie up loose ends and ensure you return to me.”

“… what are you talking about? What are you gonna do to me?”

“Nothing harmful. I take very good care of my things.”

“I’m not some thing! And I’m definitely not yours!”

Key grabbed the needle on the cart, filing it with some liquid before looking for a vein on your arm. You tried to struggle, but he seemed completely unbothered and managed to hold your arm still as he pushed the needle in. All you could do was watch the contents be emptied out into you.

“What is that!? What did you give me!?”

“A sedative.”

Key put the needle down, grabbing the other items off the tray. Now you could see what they were. It was similar in design to what he had, like a headset, but less complicated. He gently lifted your head and adjusted the device on you. It wrapped around the back of your head and stayed in place by hooking onto your ears, although a disc seemed to completely cover your left ear. You had kept up your struggles but now you had little to no strength. You heard this device on you come to life, feeling something slither into your left ear. You screamed and tried to shake it off you but Key grabbed your head holding you still. His right eye glowing once more.

“It is a momentary discomfort.”

You felt strange knowing something was crawling around the inside of your head, but you soon adjusted to the sensation, beginning to feel oddly calm. Perhaps the sedation was really taking hold.

“Good, now we may continue.”

Key’s hands moved down your body, and that’s when you realized you were in different clothes. It seemed to be a white hospital gown, although this one had buttons going down your right side. He began to undo them and open the gown, revealing your naked body. He took in the sight before him, seeming to enjoy the view as a satisfied smile appeared on his lips.

“Beautiful.”

You heard a click and then felt Key pushing your legs apart, having them hang off the side of the table. Now you were completely exposed to him. Key unlatched a part of the table and folded it down, allowing him better access to you. Soon enough you felt cold fingers running along your core, followed by a little shock to your clit. You jumped a bit, still held down by your restraints.

“An exquisite specimen indeed. My data shows this would be a first time for you, I am honored.”

“No… no I…”

“There’s no need to be shy. A profession like yours would not leave you with much time to socialize.”

You felt his fingers along your center once more, and then one effortlessly slid in, coated in some warm lube. It was a new sensation, especially when you felt his finger start vibrating. It was a low thrum but a pleasurable one nonetheless. His finger moved agonizingly slow, as if he was being delicate with you. Then a second finger was added, the same wonderful thrum sending ripples of joy across your body. With two fingers he managed to go deeper, finding your sweet spot and starting to tease that. One sensation was piled atop another and another. Despite being exposed, despite the coldness of the lab, you felt warm. A little bundle of heat forming down below, slowly growing and growing.

“I have something more for you.”

You barely registered Key’s words, more focused on the sudden empty feeling inside you. Although that didn’t last before you felt something bigger against your core. You glanced down just as you saw Key pushing in his cock. He was slow and attentive, not wanting to cause you pain. The stretch made you throw your head back in ecstasy, feeling something indescribable. This was your first, and he was so gentle. As he went in inch by inch, you began to feel a familiar thrum, letting out a desperate moan. You felt as if he would keep going forever, but eventually he came to a stop, letting you feel every bit of him and adjust before he started moving. Of course he had such patience to move slow and steady, nearly pulling out all the way before going right back in.

Vibrating fingers began to trail along your body, making you squirm and lightly pull on your restraints. You still didn’t have much strength to move, not that you’d want to get away from this. As his fingers reached your nipples you mewled, feeling the vibrations tickling something delicate inside you. He stayed there for a moment before one of his hands trailed up to your face, losing their vibration. He ran his thumb along your lips before pushing a finger into your mouth. A sweet taste coated it and you couldn’t help but suck on it like a lollipop. You were starting to feel dizzy as he swirled his finger around before pulling it out with a loud pop. That same finger trailed down your chest, leaving a cold trail of your saliva before getting down to your core and massaging your clit, that wonderful thrum returning.

By now Key was moving faster, the vibrations stronger. The heat was only getting bigger and bigger, meaning you were so close to the edge. Key was well aware of this, yet he unlocked the restraints on your arms and pulled you up closer to him. You could see his face through hazy vision, seeing that satisfied grin still present. He kept a steady rhythm regardless of his pace. That was the thing about sex androids. Their stamina was endless and if you let them, you’d be completely at their mercy. That’s exactly where you were, having completely forgotten just what kind of predicament you were in. By now your body lazily moved with his, wanting to get as much pleasure as you could. He kept an arm wrapped around your waist, the other down between your legs before moving it away and caressing your face.

“Cum.”

It was a command your body had no choice but to obey. You felt yourself fall over the edge, throwing your head back as your eyes rolled to the back of your head. Your entire body shook in his grasp, squeezing him tightly as he kept moving and the vibrations continued to shake your sensitive self. Not to mention the other sensations. You swear your vision went white, but it wasn’t for a moment. All the right things were firing off, overwhelming you with this euphoric feeling, but there was no coming down from it. The same sensation kept playing in your body over and over again for a good minute, as if you were going through one orgasm after another and another. It was a feedback loop of pleasure that left you with your mouth hanging open and drool dripping down onto your chest.

The feeling did eventually settle down and you found yourself resting your head against Key’s chest, breathing heavily and very overstimulated. He had stopped his movements, everything still, but he remained inside you. As you were coming down from your high Key grabbed your chin and lifted your head to meet his gaze. You couldn’t see clearly but a stupid smile decorated your lips. Now that you were getting back to yourself you began to remember the circumstances that brought you here. You tried to move away, but your strength wasn’t there, and the smallest move just sent tingles along your body, hitting you with just a fraction of what you had just experienced. It was hard to do anything, and once Key noticed you regaining your senses you felt a subtle thrumming between your legs. A shaky moan escaped you, still very sensitive after that experience. Yet, you had some sense of self.

“Wat… what are you… doing…?”

“Providing pleasure. You see when humans achieve orgasm, for that small little moment the mind is blank. No worries, no pain, just pleasure. The little device on your head is monitoring your brain waves with the intention of learning how to mimic that blissful state of mind. It managed to do so a moment ago. That seemingly endless orgasm as it kept those particular neurons in your brain firing. Of course it takes a bit to perfect, but we have plenty of time.”

“… you… you did this… to others… didn’t you…”

“My beautiful specimens need to be taken care of. My drinks are nothing compared to the bliss of a blank mind.”

“… why… how… how are you…”

“Like I said before, I’m the keeper of exquisite beauty. I don’t care for status.”

“… that means… others…”

“When I see a wonderful specimen I will have them. Although, when it comes to you, I need to do more. You have valuable information, and there’s something I need you to do for me.”

“… what…?”

You didn’t get a response as Key pressed his lips to yours. That sweet taste from before hitting your tongue and making your mind fuzzy. You were in too deep, and Key wasn’t going to let you get away.

You yelled and jumped out of your seat, stepping away from the bar. You were breathing heavily as the memories settled in, showing you the truth. You couldn’t believe it, you didn’t want to believe it, but every ounce of your being was telling this was real. This whole time Key had merely been watching you, silently. You knew you needed to leave this place, you needed to leave this place now.

“Sit.”

Key’s voice startled you out of your own thoughts. His eye was glowing again, and something inside you seemed to calm down. After a moment your body moved on its own, going back over to the bar and sitting down. You were terrified. Even if you remembered being in this place, remembered what Key had done to you, there were still gaps in your memory.

“Did you do as I asked?”

“… yes…”

Your lips moved on their own, and you had no idea what he was asking about, but you knew what the correct answer was.

“You quit your job?”

“Yes.” Your eyes went wide. “How-”

“And destroyed all the vital data from your case?”

“Yes.” You were starting to panic. “What does this-”

“No one will be able to track you here, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl.” Key pushed the drink closer to you. “Drink.”

Your mind was racing, yet your hand moved to grab the glass, lifting it off the table. You fought against your body, the adrenaline in your system filing you with panic.

“You… you… your responsible for all the missing-”

“They’re in good hands. As are you, now drink.”

You couldn’t stop yourself from placing the glass against your lips and tilting it up, opening your mouth to welcome the sweet liquid. As soon as the glass hit the table you felt dizzy, trying to fight against this feeling, but it was all too familiar, and comforting, and so wonderfully rewarding. A smile spread across your lips before you collapsed onto the bar table. Entering a blissful dream you wouldn’t wake up from again. Key watched on with a smile on his face. Another exquisite beauty for his collection.

[linkyu]

tell me about your defense contract pleage

Oh boy!

To be fair, it's nothing grandiose, like, it wasn't about "a new missile blueprint" or whatever, but, just thinking about what it could have become? yeesh.

So, let's go.

For context, this is taking place in the early 2010s, where I was working as a dev and manager for a company that mostly did space stuff, but they had some defence and security contracts too.

One day we got a new contract though, which was... a weird one. It was state-auctioned, meaning that this was basically a homeland contract, but the main sponsor was Philip Morris. Yeah. The American cigarette company.

Why? Because the contract was essentially a crackdown on "illegal cigarette sales", but it was sold as a more general "war on drugs" contract.

For those unaware (because chances are, like me, you are a non-smoker), cigarette contraband is very much a thing. At the time, ~15% of cigarettes were sold illegally here (read: they were smuggled in and sold on the street).

And Phillip Morris wanted to stop that. After all, they're only a small company worth uhhh... oh JFC. Just a paltry 150 billion dollars. They need those extra dollars, you understand?

Anyway. So they sponsored a contract to the state, promising that "the technology used for this can be used to stop drug deals too". Also that "the state would benefit from the cigarettes part as well because smaller black market means more official sales means a higher tax revenue" (that has actually been proven true during the 2020 quarantine).

Anyway, here was the plan:

Phase 1 was to train a neural network and plug it in directly to the city's video-surveillance system, in order to detect illegal transactions as soon as they occur. Big brother who?

Phase 2 was to then track the people involved in said transaction throughout the city, based on their appearance and gait. You ever seen the Plainsight sheep counting video? Imagine something like this but with people. That data would then be relayed to police officers in the area.

So yeah, an automated CCTV-based tracking system. Because that's not setting a scary precedent.

So what do you do when you're in that position? Let me tell you. If you're thrust unknowingly, or against your will, into a project like this,

Note. The following is not a legal advice. In fact it's not even good advice. Do not attempt any of this unless you know you can't get caught, or that even if you are caught, the consequences are acceptable. Above all else, always have a backup plan if and when it backfires. Also don't do anything that can get you sued. Be reasonable.

Let me introduce you to the world of Corporate Sabotage! It's a funny form of striking, very effective in office environments.

Here's what I did:

First of all was the training data. We had extensive footage, but it needed to be marked manually for the training. Basically, just cropping the clips around the "transaction" and drawing some boxes on top of the "criminals". I was in charge of several batches of those. It helped that I was fast at it since I had video editing experience already. Well, let's just say that a good deal of those markings were... not very accurate.

Also, did you know that some video encodings are very slow to process by OpenCV, to the point of sometimes crashing? I'm sure the software is better at it nowadays though. So I did that to another portion of the data.

Unfortunately the training model itself was handled by a different company, so I couldn't do more about this.

Or could I?

I was the main person communicating with them, after all.

Enter: Miscommunication Master

In short (because this is already way too long), I became the most rigid person in the project. Like insisting on sharing the training data only on our own secure shared drive, which they didn't have access to yet. Or tracking down every single bug in the program and making weekly reports on those, which bogged down progress. Or asking for things to be done but without pointing at anyone in particular, so that no one actually did the thing. You know, classic manager incompetence. Except I couldn't be faulted, because after all, I was just "really serious about the security aspect of this project. And you don't want the state to learn that we've mishandled the data security of the project, do you, Jeff?"

A thousand little jabs like this, to slow down and delay the project.

At the end of it, after a full year on this project, we had.... a neural network full of false positives and a semi-working visualizer.

They said the project needed to be wrapped up in the next three months.

I said "damn, good luck with that! By the way my contract is up next month and I'm not renewing."

Last I heard, that city still doesn't have anything installed on their CCTV.

tl;dr: I used corporate sabotage to prevent automated surveillance to be implemented in a city--

hey hold on

wait

what

HEY ACTUALLY I DID SOME EXTRA RESEARCH TO SEE IF PHILLIP MORRIS TRIED THIS SHIT WITH ANOTHER COMPANY SINCE THEN AND WHAT THE FUCK

HUH??????

well what the fuck was all that even about then if they already own most of the black market???

[gothhabiba]

On the one hand, people who take a hardline stance on “AI art is not art” are clearly saying something naïve and indefensible (as though any process cannot be used to make art? as though artistry cannot still be involved in the set-up of the parameters and the choice of data set and the framing of the result? as though “AI” means any one thing? you’re going to have a real hard time with process music, poetry cut-up methods, &c.).

But all of this (as well as takes that what's really needed is a crackdown on IP) are a distraction from a vital issue—namely that this is technology used to create and sort enormous databases of images, and the uses to which this technology is put in a police state are obvious: it's used in service of surveillance, incarceration, criminalisation, and the furthering of violence against criminalised people.

Of course we've long known that datasets are not "neutral" and that racist data will provide racist outcomes, and we've long known that the problem goes beyond the datasets (even carefully vetting datasets does not necessarily control for social factors). With regards to "predictive policing," this suggests that criminalisation of supposed leftist "radicals" and racialised people (and the concepts creating these two groups overlap significantly; [link 1], [link 2]) is not a problem, but intentional—a process is built so that it always finds people "suspicious" or "guilty," but because it is based on an "algorithm" or "machine learning" or so-called "AI" (processes that people tend to understand murkily, if at all), they can be presented as innocent and neutral. These are things that have been brought up repeatedly with regards to "automatic" processes and things that trawl the web to produce large datasets in the recent past (e.g. facial recognition technology), so their almost complete absence from the discourse wrt "AI art" confuses me.

Abeba Birhane's thread here, summarizing this paper (h/t @thingsthatmakeyouacey) explains how the LAION-400M dataset was sourced/created, how it is filtered, and how images are retrieved from it (for this reason it's a good beginner explanation of what large-scale datasets and large neural networks are 'doing'). She goes into how racist, misogynistic, and sexually violent content is returned (and racist mis-categorisations are made) as a result of every one of those processes. She also brings up issues of privacy, how individuals' data is stored in datasets (even after the individual deletes it from where it was originally posted), and how it may be stored associated with metadata which the poster did not intend to make public. This paper (h/t thingsthatmakeyouacey [link]) looks at the ImageNet-ILSVRC-2012 dataset to discuss "the landscape of harm and threats both the society at large and individuals face due to uncritical and ill-considered dataset curation practices" including the inclusion of non-consensual pornography in the dataset.

Of course (again) this is nothing that hasn't already been happening with large social media websites or with "big data" (Birhane notes that "On the one hand LAION-400M has opened a door that allows us to get a glimpse into the world of large scale datasets; these kinds of datasets remain hidden inside BigTech corps"). And there's no un-creating the technology behind this—resistance will have to be directed towards demolishing the police / carceral / imperial state as a whole. But all criticism of "AI" art can't be dismissed as always revolving around an anti-intellectual lack of knowledge of art history or else a reactionary desire to strengthen IP law (as though that would ever benefit small creators at the expense of large corporations...).

[echojulietfoxtrot]

Okay, everyone's had a few days to be sad. But the world didn't end, so there is stuff to be done. Mid terms are in 2 years.

This post isn't going to tell you anything other people haven't done better or in more detail, and I'm not even American, so what the fuck are you listening to me for, but I think it might be useful to somebody as a place to start, and I think it's useful to keep in mind that none of us are helpless - no matter how much it might benefit somebody else to let you think so.

I'll add to it as and when I can.

NOW

Check your ballot. Tell everyone you know to check on their ballots. Spread the word to everyone you can possibly tell to check their ballots. The Presidential election is absolutely not going to be reversed, but local races and initiatives can be decided by twenty, a dozen, two votes. The window's closing on this by now, so check into this immediately if you haven't already. And if there is any possibility for a recount where it might achieve something, make noise for one.

You would be absolutely amazed how much harm can be spared and how much good can be done at the Parks & Rec level, no matter what's happening up top. Do not waste the chance to make friction for bad guys later on, or lay down some tools for the good guys in advance.

Then, if you have a Dem Senator, call their office and urge them to confirm all Biden's judicial nominees now, right now, ASAP. Here's a rough call script.

Btw mid terms are in two years.

NEXT

Spend the next two months -

Buying a little extra boring ass shelf stable food and water on your grocery runs, and build up as much food security as you can. You're probably not gonna need it, but it's good to have, even only as a hedge against inflation or unreliable weather/disaster relief responses.

Stock up on medication you might need if you can. Organize whatever procedures you might need done if you can, including contraceptive measures. And find a reason to need a Morning After Pill or two in the next few weeks, somebody you care about might be real glad you did.

Consider making any big ticket purchases that will be affected by proposed tariffs (electronics etc), or any... slightly less conventional things you want to buy, now - but otherwise it would be a good time to lay some money aside if you can.

Get in the habit of paying for things in cash, and limiting how much information on your habits are out there. Stash a little cash somewhere, for if you want to buy something less visibly in future, too.

Do your homework about your digital footprint. Accounts, posts, doxxable clues, data, behavioral info, browsers, wifi links, cookies, consumer history, always-on "Smart" speakers and devices, think about all of it. Your phone is telling everyone where you are at all times whether the Location stuff is on or not - get in the habit of leaving it at home, so that suddenly not having it is not, in itself, a sign of anything. Your fitness wearables are mapping your entire lifestyle - it is effectively recording where you work, what time you finish, what routes you take, what stores you go to, where your friends live, where you go for recreation, where your family lives and what your relationship is like with them (where's your fitbit at Thanksgiving, Christmas etc?). Don't use fingerprint or facial recognition for anything, ever, if you can help it - apart from cataloguing your biometrics, it is much easier for a third party, police included, to use these to access your stuff than a password. It probably goes without saying, do not digitally document your menstrual cycle in any way.

Figure out what channels you can use in future to retain access to as much as possible if someone decides you shouldn't have it, or wants to know if you look for it. VPNs are a starting point, but not the end point. Do your homework on this now, before you need to know it.

Look into securing documentation that might be of use in future, this includes property, legal stuff like Power of Attorney, passports etc. (Though that doesn't necessarily mean carrying it at all times to everything, just sayin'.)

What's your ACA status? Are you currently availing of absolutely everything you're currently entitled to? If not, work on it. Government resources are always harder to take away from you once you're getting them than to deny you outright.

If there's any gay shit you like or want preserved, it would be a good time to buy/download/back it up. This includes movies, fics, books. It would also be a good time to seek out and subscribe to independent and non-digital gay media, zines, etc, and get to know your in-person scenes. You might be surprised how much stuff still exists and happens in ways that are invisible to the internet, gay and otherwise.

Don't forget that mid terms are in 2 years.

THEN

The mid terms are in 2 years.

Mid terms are 2 years away. Which means the campaigns for them start in a year, which means the work for them starts now.

All else aside, Democrat flips elsewhere in the government structure at that point would make it way, way harder for them to keep smashing everything, and there is work that you can do towards making that happen. For better and sometimes worse, the American political system is a very big and very awkward machine, and King Dipshit and his cronies cannot wave a magic wand to get their way everywhere all the time as a result. Look into your immediate local political scene, and figure out what you can do for it.

You might be getting sick of everyone talking about "building community". What this usually means in practice is firstly, seeking out local or neighboring orgs and groups that are doing what you want done, and joining them; or else, starting them yourself.

That might sound daunting, but it's not hard to start an interest group, just very annoying early on. You'll have to do a lot more printing than you might expect. You're going to have to deal with some deeply irritating people who are, nonetheless, very good at getting good shit done, and you're going to have to learn that's a You problem to deal with.

I'm involved in a couple of local groups in my country and it is WILD how much even one person can get done purely because nobody else gives enough of a shit about boring small potatoes stuff to notice or oppose it. That can be a blessing and a curse, so make it the first one.

Apart from this stuff being generally good, it will stop you losing your fucking mind. No, you're not going to community garden your way out of this one, sure, but that community garden might stop you letting the bullshit beat you into the ground before you can do something more important down the line. And it might introduce you to the girl who knows somebody with the thing that can do the shit you need around then too; it might teach you a lot of practical and psychological stuff you'll be glad of sometime.

It might even teach you how to get much more important things done in your local political infrastructure, who is on your side, who isn't, how to get the best from either - some of the most valuable shit I've learned about my little universe was picked up in the course of volunteering for a haunted house.

I am as guilty as everyone else as looking at the outlook and saying fuck it, bad guys won, but that is legitimately irrational no matter where you live. They never win, not outside of stories, because real life doesn't end like a story does. There is stuff to be done to make life more bearable than it would be otherwise, more bearable until it's possible to make it even better. There is so much stuff to get doing, instead of just feeling bad.

[quirkyaether]

Two wips I'll probably never finish

I dunno man I'm too lazy for this stuff

Nightmare is 42 and a drug dealer in this AU (his hair is naturally blonde but he dyed it) Killer is his assassin who works for Nightmare in exchange for shelter to get away from the police, and dust is his negotiator who works for him in exchange for free drugs, and Horror is his fixer who works for him in exchange of a place to stay and food to eat for pap and himself

Dream (his twin) is a police

Error is 23, when he was a child his father took his custody cuz momma Cq couldn't provide everything for 3 sons with big issues, hospital bills, home school, hospital, outfit, food, babysitter, child therapy, and other stuff with being an office employee. A few years later Error had an awful car accident, and lost his memory and no longer remembers his mom and brothers (but he'll eventually see them when he gets older) he also had to get face surgery because of the accident and the bleeding in the eye after the accident caused acquired heterochromia. When he gets older he'll work as a Cybersecurity Analyst (A cybersecurity analyst is responsible for protecting an organization's computer systems, networks, and data from security breaches, cyber threats, and anomalies.). he uses a pill named Fentanyl which is a a really strong and expensive painkiller drug (and that's how he meets Nightmare and others)

Fresh is 20 and Geno is 27

Error sans and Fresh sans belong to @loverofpiggies

Nightmare sans belong to @jokublog

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The specific process by which Google enshittified its search

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me SATURDAY (Apr 27) in MARIN COUNTY, then Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

All digital businesses have the technical capacity to enshittify: the ability to change the underlying functions of the business from moment to moment and user to user, allowing for the rapid transfer of value between business customers, end users and shareholders:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

Which raises an important question: why do companies enshittify at a specific moment, after refraining from enshittifying before? After all, a company always has the potential to benefit by treating its business customers and end users worse, by giving them a worse deal. If you charge more for your product and pay your suppliers less, that leaves more money on the table for your investors.

Of course, it's not that simple. While cheating, price-gouging, and degrading your product can produce gains, these tactics also threaten losses. You might lose customers to a rival, or get punished by a regulator, or face mass resignations from your employees who really believe in your product.

Companies choose not to enshittify their products…until they choose to do so. One theory to explain this is that companies are engaged in a process of continuous assessment, gathering data about their competitive risks, their regulators' mettle, their employees' boldness. When these assessments indicate that the conditions are favorable to enshittification, the CEO walks over to the big "enshittification" lever on the wall and yanks it all the way to MAX.

Some companies have certainly done this – and paid the price. Think of Myspace or Yahoo: companies that made themselves worse by reducing quality and gouging on price (be it measured in dollars or attention – that is, ads) before sinking into obscure senescence. These companies made a bet that they could get richer while getting worse, and they were wrong, and they lost out.

But this model doesn't explain the Great Enshittening, in which all the tech companies are enshittifying at the same time. Maybe all these companies are subscribing to the same business newsletter (or, more likely, buying advice from the same management consultancy) (cough McKinsey cough) that is a kind of industry-wide starter pistol for enshittification.

I think it's something else. I think the main job of a CEO is to show up for work every morning and yank on the enshittification lever as hard as you can, in hopes that you can eke out some incremental gains in your company's cost-basis and/or income by shifting value away from your suppliers and customers to yourself.

We get good digital services when the enshittification lever doesn't budge – when it is constrained: by competition, by regulation, by interoperable mods and hacks that undo enshittification (like alternative clients and ad-blockers) and by workers who have bargaining power thanks to a tight labor market or a powerful union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

When Google ordered its staff to build a secret Chinese search engine that would censor search results and rat out dissidents to the Chinese secret police, googlers revolted and refused, and the project died:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)

When Google tried to win a US government contract to build AI for drones used to target and murder civilians far from the battlefield, googlers revolted and refused, and the project died:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/technology/google-pentagon-project-maven.html

What's happened since – what's behind all the tech companies enshittifying all at once – is that tech worker power has been smashed, especially at Google, where 12,000 workers were fired just months after a $80b stock buyback that would have paid their wages for the next 27 years. Likewise, competition has receded from tech bosses' worries, thanks to lax antitrust enforcement that saw most credible competitors merged into behemoths, or neutralized with predatory pricing schemes. Lax enforcement of other policies – privacy, labor and consumer protection – loosened up the enshittification lever even more. And the expansion of IP rights, which criminalize most kinds of reverse engineering and aftermarket modification, means that interoperability no longer applies friction to the enshittification lever.

Now that every tech boss has an enshittification lever that moves very freely, they can show up for work, yank the enshittification lever, and it goes all the way to MAX. When googlers protested the company's complicity in the genocide in Gaza, Google didn't kill the project – it mass-fired the workers:

https://medium.com/@notechforapartheid/statement-from-google-workers-with-the-no-tech-for-apartheid-campaign-on-googles-indiscriminate-28ba4c9b7ce8

Enshittification is a macroeconomic phenomenon, determined by the regulatory environment for competition, privacy, labor, consumer protection and IP. But enshittification is also a microeconomic phenomenon, the result of innumerable boardroom and product-planning fights within companies in which would-be enshittifiers try to do things that make the company's products and services shittier wrestle with rivals who want to keep things as they are, or make them better, whether out of principle or fear of the consequences.

Those microeconomic wrestling-matches are where we find enshittification's heroes and villains – the people who fight for the user or stand up for a fair deal, versus the people who want to cheat and wreck to make things better for the company and win bonuses and promotions for themselves:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

These microeconomic struggles are usually obscure, because companies are secretive institutions and our glimpses into their deliberations are normally limited to the odd leaked memo, whistleblower tell-all, or spectacular worker revolt. But when a company gets dragged into court, a new window opens into the company's internal operations. That's especially true when the plaintiff is the US government.

Which brings me back to Google, the poster-child for enshittification, a company that revolutionized the internet a quarter of a century ago with a search-engine that was so good that it felt like magic, which has decayed so badly and so rapidly that whole sections of the internet are disappearing from view for the 90% of users who rely on the search engine as their gateway to the internet.

Google is being sued by the DOJ's Antitrust Division, and that means we are getting a very deep look into the company, as its internal emails and memos come to light:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

Google is a tech company, and tech companies have literary cultures – they run on email and other forms of written communication, even for casual speech, which is more likely to take place in a chat program than at a water-cooler. This means that tech companies have giant databases full of confessions to every crime they've ever committed:

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

Large pieces of Google's database-of-crimes are now on display – so much, in fact, that it's hard for anyone to parse through it all and understand what it means. But some people are trying, and coming up with gold. One of those successful prospectors is Ed Zitron, who has produced a staggering account of the precise moment at which Google search tipped over into enshittification, which names the executives at the very heart of the rot:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

Zitron tells the story of a boardroom struggle over search quality, in which Ben Gomes – a long-tenured googler who helped define the company during its best years – lost a fight with Prabhakar Raghavan, a computer scientist turned manager whose tactic for increasing the number of search queries (and thus the number of ads the company could show to searchers) was to decrease the quality of search. That way, searchers would have to spend more time on Google before they found what they were looking for.

Zitron contrasts the background of these two figures. Gomes, the hero, worked at Google for 19 years, solving fantastically hard technical scaling problems and eventually becoming the company's "search czar." Raghavan, the villain, "failed upwards" through his career, including a stint as Yahoo's head of search from 2005-12, a presiding over the collapse of Yahoo's search business. Under Raghavan's leadership, Yahoo's search market-share fell from 30.4% to 14%, and in the end, Yahoo jettisoned its search altogether and replaced it with Bing.

For Zitron, the memos show how Raghavan engineered the ouster of Gomes, with help from the company CEO, the ex-McKinseyite Sundar Pichai. It was a triumph for enshittification, a deliberate decision to make the product worse in order to make it more profitable, under the (correct) belief that the company's exclusivity deals to provide search everywhere from Iphones and Samsungs to Mozilla would mean that the business would face no consequences for doing so.

It a picture of a company that isn't just too big to fail – it's (as FTC Chair Lina Khan put it on The Daily Show) too big to care:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaDTiWaYfcM

Zitron's done excellent sleuthing through the court exhibits here, and his writeup is incandescently brilliant. But there's one point I quibble with him on. Zitron writes that "It’s because the people running the tech industry are no longer those that built it."

I think that gets it backwards. I think that there were always enshittifiers in the C-suites of these companies. When Page and Brin brought in the war criminal Eric Schmidt to run the company, he surely started every day with a ritual, ferocious tug at that enshittification lever. The difference wasn't who was in the C-suite – the difference was how freely the lever moved.

On Saturday, I wrote:

The platforms used to treat us well and now treat us badly. That's not because they were setting a patient trap, luring us in with good treatment in the expectation of locking us in and turning on us. Tech bosses do not have the executive function to lie in wait for years and years.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/22/kargo-kult-kaptialism/#dont-buy-it

Someone on Hacker News called that "silly," adding that "tech bosses do in fact have the executive function to lie in wait for years and years. That's literally the business model of most startups":

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40114339

That's not quite right, though. The business-model of the startup is to yank on the enshittification lever every day. Tech bosses don't lie in wait for the perfect moment to claw away all the value from their employees, users, business customers, and suppliers – they're always trying to get that value. It's only when they become too big to care that they succeed. That's the definition of being too big to care.

In antitrust circles, they sometimes say that "the process is the punishment." No matter what happens to the DOJ's case against Google, its internal workers have been made visible to the public. The secrecy surrounding the Google trial when it was underway meant that a lot of this stuff flew under the radar when it first appeared. But as Zitron's work shows, there is plenty of treasure to be found in that trove of documents that is now permanently in the public domain.

When future scholars study the enshittocene, they will look to accounts like Zitron's to mark the turning points from the old, good internet to the enshitternet. Let's hope those future scholars have a new, good internet on which to publish their findings.

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/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

[petrolstationflowers]

Up to your neck in true crime and feel you can really get into why burglars keep stealing your toilet? Then perhaps the Criminal Psychologist career is for you! This was another request from Catrillion and I had to do a fair bit of digging to make sure this one was accurate.

This job is available for YA - Elder, and you can join via the Police Station. Please note you will need University installed as one of the requirements is the Science skill!

No opportunities or books.

If you want to use this, you must have Nraas Careers installed for it to show up!

There are three custom tones to level your skills:

Build a Rapport (Logic) Write Your Report (Writing) Study Previous Cases (Science)

Coworker tones are the same, and skill tones and uniforms appear from level four. The carpool doesn't appear until level three -- you're a poor postgrad, after all!

Levels under here:

Positive Postgraduate - 10 simoleans p/h, 09:00 - 17:00, M-F Description - It’s been a long road to graduation – plenty of sleepless nights watching true crime documentaries and making flash cards for exams, because Watcher forbid you muddle up the Hansford Prison Experiment and the Toto Doll study. You’ve decided you want to jump right in and get an internship, but where to start? Better start cozying up to your professors and making some phone calls! Enthusiasic Intern - 15 simoleans p/h, 09:00 - 18:00, M-F Description - After laying on the praise and asking very nicely, you’ve managed to secure an internship for the year. The pay is nothing special and the hours are long, but you’re learning a lot, working at the local police station, accompanying jail, and the mental health unit over at Sunset Valley General. You’ll be profiling offenders and writing out risk assessments for those living with Unstable personalities, writing recommendations to make the prison nicer and holding therapy sessions. Better hope they’ve got good coffee! Criminal Psychologist In Training - 30 simoleans p/h, 09:00 - 18:00, M-F Description - If you thought you escaped the classroom, think again. Sure, you’re finally getting to put your skills to use, but while you’re still helping out at the precinct, you’re also trying to put together where your skills lie. Would you be best working at HMS Sunset Valley, overseeing prisoner rehabilitation, or in the interview room at the police station working on a report for Sunset Valley Plumbbob Court? Best find a quiet spot in the legal library and do some studying – oh, and your manager wants those reports by the end of the day.

Junior Criminal Psychologist - 40 simoleans p/h, 09:00 - 18:00, M-F

Description - You’re not quite working in the big leagues yet, but you’re getting there. You’ve been assigned to the psychiatric unit, triaging those who have been sent your way and helping out with various studies being conducted around the facility. You are, however, getting to sit in on diagnostic intakes and occasionally are being trusted to write up your own. Hopefully if you format the reports nicely enough, you’ll be allowed to steer the ship yourself.

Clinical Researcher - 70 simoleans p/h, 09:00 - 18:00, M-F

Description - Now you’ve found your feet, you’ve been assigned to work on a clinical research program. Sure, it’s only a contract job, but you’re learning about kleptomania and why certain sims are compelled to steal street lights. Lots of note taking, interviewing people, and staring at graphs until the numbers blur, but when you finally see patterns and correlations, it’ll all be worth it!

Treatment Psychologist - 80 simoleans p/h, 09:00 - 18:00, M-F

Description - The data about street lights proved fruitful, and the local government have decided that the results are valuable enough to be put into practice. Sunset Valley General has set up a specific ward for those suffering from kleptomania, and you’ll be setting up therapeutic workshops and treatment programs to try and cut down on their thievery. It’ll take time, patience, and empathy – luckily, you’ve got those in spades.

Psychologist - 100 simoleans p/h, 09:00 - 15:00, M-F

Description - Out on your own now, with an office and everything! No longer chained to a hospital or a ugly precinct storage room, you’re free to pursue topics that interest you and studies that make your brain light up. It’s back to assessing and evaluating patients, setting up group studies and making recommendations for them to take a long holiday to Barnacle Bay for the sake of their health. The hours are shorter and pay is better – maybe you’re finally at the top?

Senior Psychologist - 120 simoleans p/h, 10:00 - 17:00, M-F

Description - Business is booming, but there’s something missing; counselling snobby sims through their affluenza or prescribing pills for cowards who can’t stop running away from Bonehilda isn’t as fulfilling as it used to be. You’ve been keeping an eye on local job postings and there’s one that’s caught your eye; something about working with the police force to uncover exactly how their minds work. Perhaps it’s time to spruce up your CV…

Investigator in Training - 150 simoleans p/h, 09:00 - 18:00, M-F

Description - You’re back to long hours and endless studying, but this one is paid well and comes with lots of benefits; namely, finally getting to study some of SimNation’s most intriguing criminals up close. You’re not being turned loose quite yet, so for the moment you’ll need to shadow your fellow officers and write up dictated reports on just why you think the Tricou family died and who had the motive to arrange Bella Goth’s disappearance. Keep your nose to the grindstone and soon you’ll be free of hours long recordings and into the interrogation rooms yourself.

Criminal Investigator - 200 simoleans p/h, 09:00 - 18:00, T,W,U

Description - That work has paid off and you’re finally where you wanted to be – sitting across the table from some of the most dangerous people in SimNation. When Circe Beaker has been hauled in for illegal experimentation and Roderick Synapse has finally been arrested for kidnap, it’s your job to sit down with them and pick apart their alibis. You’ll need to walk the fine line between professional and friendly, keep a cool head when you’re hearing the horrors, and be able to put together everything you’ve learned in a well written report – best get the coffee ready.

Translations: I've included the English Strings in the file; if anyone is talented enough to translate, I would be incredibly grateful, so please let me know in the comments!

With thanks: To MissyHissy's career building tutorial!