#cardboard prince

[cromulentreader]

Although I pictured Jude a certain way (physically) while reading the books, it really doesn't make much difference to the romance aspect of the trilogy. They didn't struggle with their feelings because Jude was ugly/plain/gorgeous. They struggled because their stations in the social hierarchy were polar opposites, yet they both resented each other. Cardan was a prince who saw his station as a play. He had no support network, his guardian beat him for fun, his friends were just using his birthright to get away with being turds. When Jude looked at him, she saw a spoiled prince who did whatever pleased him, blessed with being born into it and reminding her she would never be like them. And then Jude, who saw herself as human/weak/lesser than. Who spent 10 years letting insults slide and hiding under tables in hopes of raising enough in the hierarchy to - even if not truly belong there - at least be left the fuck alone. Cardan looked at her and saw the General's favoured daughter, raised as Gentry, never in rags or forgotten if she were to sleep on stables. Jude reminded Cardan what he did not have despite being a prince.

[zuppizup]

Finnegrin's Wants

So, I've been thinking a lot about Finnegrin's Wake (what Rayllum fan hasn't and yes, as is usually the case, this is because I'm a-fic-ing in this space), and so I've been pondering what Finnegrin's end game was when it came to Rayla.

Finnegrin is about trying to control everything. His crew, Archdragons, the ocean itself. He of all people knows this is impossible, but he's pretty damn good at working around that. His ship, his crew, and even Scumport marches to the beat of his drum.

So, when it comes to the Dragang, what's his ultimate plan? He wants Callum to give him the Dark Magic spell to take down Domina Profundis, and he seems to think he can bargain for this.

Instead of immediately revealing his trump card with the blood freezing spell, he tries to bargin with Callum, offering freedom for a "simple" exchange.

So, once he realises Callum "completely lost himself" seeing Rayla in pain, why dispose of her? Was it to try and completely break Callum? That runs the risk of only alienating him further, though. Rayla could have been the ultimate leverage. Why not subject her to the freezing spell in front of Callum again? Control him that way?

Or did he want Callum desperate? Did he intentionally leave him with the slugs hoping he'd break, resort to Dark Magic in a desperate bid to free the person he clearly cares so much for? Did Finnegrin gamble on Callum realising he was willing to do Dark Magic if given the sufficient incentive.

Was he bidding on him coming to Rayla’s rescue, only to fall victim to the freezing spell himself?

Was he then planning to subject Rayla to the spell once again, hoping to push Callum to agree to doing his Dark Magic bidding in exchange for her release from torture?

Did Finnegrin ultimately underestimate just how far Callum was willing to go for Rayla? He has no idea this is the same boy who jumped off the Storm Spire for her with only the desperate hope he knew how to do a spell the might save them both.

How could Finnegrin ever have known that the depth of Callum's love for Rayla would allow him to unlock hidden depths within himself and ultimately understand a new Arcanum?

[writer-room]

Honestly Rayla is equally 100% ride or die for Callum too.

That's so true I almost mentioned it in that post. They're so ridiculously feral for each other it's hilarious to watch. Callum's the legitimate "we ride AND die together" whereas Rayla is the "I will ride and die FOR you" sort of deal yknow?

Could be literally any situation, no matter how dangerous, and she's already decided she will die here. Does it ensure Callum lives? Then batter-up buckeroo we're going in swords blazing! Everyone cheer and clap for her human or she'll blow this whole place up. Kinda person who says "even if you hate me I'd still lose everything if it meant you were okay". She thinks they're in a tragic love story where she's always at risk of losing him but that's okay as long as it keeps him safe and happy like y'know Viren parallels, she'd risk losing her very self for him over and over. Except Callum would wait until the end of the world itself, and even beyond, and she wouldn't even have to ask.

The difference between them, really, is that Rayla will die for Callum on any given day. Callum will kill for Rayla on any given day. Something something matching sets

[jey-draws]

Have you consider drawing Prince with King again? Maybe with them dressing as royals like you said?

That's a nice idea, thank you :)

[stupidsexpotflanders]

🔥atla

Sozin should've been the Big Bad,and the timeskip could've been much shorter or outright be erased. He was treated as a human in a way Ozai wasn't.

Zuko and Azula not only would still work as Sozin's children,but their characters might benefit from having him to interact with. I mean,Zuko's moral struggle about the greatness of Fire Nation and his want to get approval from the same guy who started it all? Azula's whole "perfect child" thing not only as a daughter of Sozin "The One To Spread Fire Nation's Greatness" but also as a symbol of excellence for her entire country? Azula's own beliefs in the Supremacy of The Fire Nation,Might Makes Right and her own superiority? Sign me in!

[theherosvillain]

in case you were wondering, wren's origin story is basically

[starpros-sunshine]

I really want fine to go to the aquarium together can Toris center be mermaid themed or something,,,,

[felikatze]

harriet is to me very interesting as the obligatory tsundere because she breaks tradition in that regard

yes she has the short temper and is easily flustered, but a tendency with tsunderes (especially in more low-brow anime) is that she will be in some way superior to the protagonist and lord that over him. also slapstick violence! because, you know, violence is funny if its against men /s

initially harriet is a classist ass because she's born with a silver spoon in her mouth and she is completely used to everyone bowing to her talent and status. she gets to have this haughty persona because she's never been challenged before.

thus, she is easily flustered when she is challenged. reinhardt can get through her defenses so easily because he simply does not give a shit. he does not care about her status at all. (at least, he pretends not to care outwardly, but that's another can of worms).

Harriet is flustered because he is so far below her standards that she cannot fathom how he could do this. so she walls off and calls him an idiot which he also does not care about because he just throws it right back.

rich noble talented harriet is called an idiot by a beggar. of course she's angry.

(he just likes metaphorically pulling on her pigtails cuz her pouting face is cute. she is a wet kitten in a cardboard box.)

harriet learns that sometimes, there will be people she can't plead status to (like her father, or bertus) and people who will ignore her status (reinhardt, and basically all temple staff)

he forces her to interact like an equal for the first time in her life. she's all bluster. so she only manages to change their dynamic and gain his respect when she starts showing actual skills. ykno. accomplishments by her own merits.

i feel like this is first really seen in the fuckin. what's it called. king of the jungle arc. where she started learning useful small magic instead of just spell of huge explosion, which ends up having way more utility for the whole thing. like underwater breathing. or spell of flashlight. and then she does end up being one of the last people still in the game!

and even later then that. after the darklands arc she grows closer to her class bcuz reinhardt is too busy trying to cope with ptsd. and there we already see character development from her because in this situation where reinhardt is obviously struggling mentally she forgoes her usual banter and instead just has an emotionally honest conversation with him. and they do bond! as equals!

i do actually understand how her embarrassment from reinhardt's teasing would evolve into a crush? because again he's the first person to challenge her. it's not just love at first sight. he challenges her to be better.

again, he's the person who needles her into learning magic based on its utility and not the prestige of the spell. he's the one who shows off her skills to her classmates in the jungle arc. he's good at making other people better themselves. it's vry understandable for someone to want recognition from a person who does that.

and after the beach arc, where again, they have an emotional conversation and actually bond and show each other respect, their dynamic takes a definite shift.

harriet starts teasing him back. and he hates it. instead of attacking his own lack of status, she starts firing back his variety of insults, namely questioning his actions and motivations whenever she can, and now he's on the backfoot in conversation.

after a moment without teasing, its now full force from both sides, and shows off the utter truth;

they're both tsunderes. and always have been.

[fitzrove]

not to be emotional at 3:54 am but sjhdhkfj people putting nice freeform comments onto the last question in my uquiz :’0 <3 love so much

[catboirights]

HELP WHY DO THEY JUST HAVE A GUY NAMED CARL

Leave him alone!!!!!!!!

[cardboard-aliens]

tell that chick her tastes are mid. find her if you must

They have 74K followers on insta. i can find 'em, but i don't think they'll listen to ME 😔✊

[princiere]

raises hand

can I be annoying abt my new interest yet

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Inkjump Linkdump

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

It's the start of a long weekend and I've found myself with a backlog of links, so it's time for another linkdump – the eighteenth in the (occasional) series. Here's the previous installments:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Kicking off this week's backlog is a piece of epic lawyer-snark, which is something I always love, but what makes this snark total catnip for me is that it's snark about copyfraud: false copyright claims made to censor online speech. Yes please and a second portion, thank you very much!

This starts with the Cola Corporation, a radical LA-based design store that makes lefty t-shirts, stickers and the like. Cola made a t-shirt that remixed the LA Lakers logo to read "Fuck the LAPD." In response, the LAPD's private foundation sent a nonsense copyright takedown letter. Cola's lawyer, Mike Dunford, sent them a chef's-kiss-perfect reply, just two words long: "LOL, no":

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/04/19/apparel-company-gives-perfect-response-to-lapds-nonsense-ip-threat-letter-over-fuck-the-lapd-shirt/

But that's not the lawyer snark I'm writing about today. Dunford also sent a letter to IMG Worldwide, whose lawyers sent the initial threat, demanding an explanation for this outrageous threat, which was – as the physicists say – "not even wrong":

https://www.loweringthebar.net/2024/05/lol-no-explained.html

Every part of the legal threat is dissected here, with lavish, caustic footnotes, mercilessly picking apart the legal defects, including legally actionable copyfraud under DMCA 512(f), which provides for penalties for wrongful copyright threats. To my delight, Dunford cited Lenz here, which is the infamous "Dancing Baby" case that EFF successfully litigated on behalf of Stephanie Lenz, whose video of her adorable (then-)toddler dancing to a few seconds of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" was censored by Universal Music Group:

https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal

Dunford's towering rage is leavened with incredulous demands for explanations: how on Earth could a lawyer knowingly send such a defective, illegal threat? Why shouldn't Dunford seek recovery of his costs from IMG and its client, the LA Police Foundation, for such lawless bullying? It is a sparkling – incandescent, even! – piece of lawyerly writing. If only all legal correspondence was this entertaining! Every 1L should study this.

Meanwhile, Cola has sold out of everything, thanks to that viral "LOL, no." initial response letter. They're taking orders for their next resupply, shipping on June 1. Gotta love that Streisand Effect!

https://www.thecolacorporation.com/

I'm generally skeptical of political activism that takes the form of buying things or refusing to do so. "Voting with your wallet" is a pretty difficult trick to pull off. After all, the people with the thickest wallets get the most votes, and generally, the monopoly party wins. But as the Cola Company's example shows, there's times when shopping can be a political act.

But that's because it's a collective act. Lots of us went and bought stuff from Cola, to send a message to the LAPD about legal bullying. That kind of collective action is hard to pull off, especially when it comes to purchase-decisions. Often, this kind of thing descends into a kind of parody of political action, where you substitute shopping for ideology. This is where Matt Bors's Mr Gotcha comes in: "ooh, you want to make things better, but you bought a product from a tainted company, I guess you're not really sincere, gotcha!"

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

There's a great example of this in Zephyr Teachout's brilliant 2020 book Break 'Em Up: if you miss the pro-union demonstration at the Amazon warehouse because you spent two hours driving around looking for an indie stationer to buy the cardboard to make your protest sign rather than buying it from Amazon, Amazon wins:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

So yeah, I'm pretty skeptical of consumerism as a framework for political activism. It's very hard to pull off an effective boycott, especially of a monopolist. But if you can pull it off, well…

Canada is one of the most monopoly-friendly countries in the world. Hell, the Competition Act doesn't even have an "abuse of dominance" standard! That's like a criminal code that doesn't have a section prohibiting "murder." (The Trudeau government has promised to fix this.)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-an-overhauled-competition-act-will-light-a-fire-in-the-stolid-world-of/

There's stiff competition for Most Guillotineable Canadian Billionaire. There's the entire Irving family, who basically own the province of New Bruinswick:

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/dynasties-2-the-irvings/

There's Ted Rogers, the trumpy billionaire telecoms monopolist, whose serial acquire-and-loot approach to media has devastated Canadian TV and publishing:

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/canadaland-725-the-rogers-family-compact/

But then there's Galen Fucking Weston, the nepobaby who inherited the family grocery business (including Loblaw), bought out all his competitors (including Shopper's Drug Mart), and then engaged in a criminal price-fixing conspiracy to rig the price of bread, the most Les-Miz-ass crime imaginable:

https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2023/06/what-should-happened-galen-weston-price-fixing/

Weston has made himself the face of the family business, appearing in TV ads in a cardigan to deliver dead-eyed avuncular paeans to his sprawling empire, even as he colludes with competitors to rig the price of his workers' wages:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-12/a-supermarket-billionaire-steps-into-trouble-over-pandemic-wages

For Canadians, Weston is the face of greedflation, the man whose nickle-and-diming knows no shame. This is the man who decided that the discount on nearly-spoiled produce would be slashed from 50% to 30%, who racked up record profits even as his prices skyrocketed.

It's impossible to overstate how loathed Galen Weston is at this moment. There's a very good episode of the excellent new podcast Lately, hosted by Canadian competition expert Vass Bednar and Katrina Onstad that gives you a sense of the national outrage:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/lately/article-boycotting-the-loblawpoly/

All of this has led to a national boycott of Loblaw, kicked off by members of the r/loblawsisoutofcontrol, and it's working. Writing for Jacobin, Jeremy Appel gives us a snapshot of a nation in revolt:

https://jacobin.com/2024/05/loblaw-grocery-price-gouge-boycott/

Appel points out the boycott's problems – there's lots of places, particularly in the north, where Loblaw's is the only game in town, or where the sole competitor is the equally odious Walmart. But he also talks about the beneficial effect the boycott is having for independent grocers and co-ops who deal more fairly with their suppliers and their customers.

He also platforms the boycott's call for a national system of price controls on certain staples. This is something that neoliberal economists despise, and it's always fun to watch them lose their minds when the subject is raised. Meanwhile, economists like Isabella M Weber continue to publish careful research explaining how and why price controls can work, and represent our best weapon against "seller's inflation":

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/econ_workingpaper/343/

Antimonopoly sentiment is having a minute, obviously, and the news comes at you fast. This week, the DoJ filed a lawsuit to break up Ticketmaster/Live Nation, one of the country's most notorious monopolists, who have aroused the ire of every kind of fan, but especially the Swifties (don't fuck with Swifties). In announcing the suit, DoJ Antitrust Division boss Jonathan Kanter coined the term "Ticketmaster tax" to describe the junk fees that Ticketmaster uses to pick all our pockets.

In response, Ticketmaster has mobilized its own Loblaw-like shill army, who insist that all the anti-monopoly activism is misguided populism, and "anti-business." In his BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller tears these claims apart, and provides one of the clearest explanations of how Ticketmaster rips us all off that I've ever seen, leaning heavily on Ticketmaster's own statements to their investors and the business-press:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-to-break-up-ticketmaster

Ticketmaster has a complicated "flywheel" that it uses to corner the market on live events, mixing low-margin businesses that are deliberately kept unprofitable (to prevent competitors from gaining a foothold) in order to capture the high-margin businesses that are its real prize. All this complexity can make your eyes glaze over, and that's to Ticketmaster's benefit, keeping normies from looking too closely at how this bizarre self-licking ice-cream cone really works.

But for industry insiders, those workings are all too clear. When Rebecca Giblin and I were working on our book Chokepoint Capitalism, we talked to insiders from every corner of the entertainment-industrial complex, and there was always at least one expert who'd go on record about the scams inside everything from news monopolies to streaming video to publishing and the record industry:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

The sole exception was Ticketmaster/Live Nation. When we talked to club owners, promoters and other victims of TM's scam, they universally refused to go on the record. They were palpably terrified of retaliation from Ticketmaster's enforcers. They acted like mafia informants seeking witness protection. Not without reason, mind you: back when the TM monopoly was just getting started, Pearl Jam – then one of the most powerful acts in American music – took a stand against them. Ticketmaster destroyed them. That was when TM was a mere hatchling, with a bare fraction of the terrifying power it wields today.

TM is a great example of the problem with boycotts. If a club or an act refuses to work with TM/LN, they're destroyed. If a fan refuses to buy tickets from TM or see a Live Nation show, they basically can't go to any shows. The TM monopoly isn't a problem of bad individual choices – it's a systemic problem that needs a systemic response.

That's what makes antitrust responses so timely. Federal enforcers have wide-ranging powers, and can seek remedies that consumerism can never attain – there's no way a boycott could result in a breakup of Ticketmaster/Live Nation, but a DoJ lawsuit can absolutely get there.

Every federal agency has wide-ranging antimonopoly powers at its disposal. These are laid out very well in Tim Wu's 2020 White House Executive Order on competition, which identifies 72 ways the agencies can act against monopoly without having to wait for Congress:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

But of course, the majority of antimonopoly power is vested in the FTC, the agency created to police corporate power. Section 5 of the FTC Act grants the agency the power to act to prevent "unfair and deceptive methods of competition":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

This clause has lain largely dormant since the Reagan era, but FTC chair Lina Khan has revived it, using it to create muscular privacy rights for Americans, and to ban noncompete agreements that bind American workers to dead-end jobs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

The FTC's power to ban activity because it's "unfair and deceptive" is exciting, because it promises American internet users a way to solve their problems beyond copyright law. Copyright law is basically the only law that survived the digital transition, even as privacy, labor and consumer protection rights went into hibernation. The last time Congress gave us a federal consumer privacy law was 1988, and it's a law that bans video store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you rented:

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

That's left internet users desperately trying to contort copyright to solve every problem they have – like someone trying to build a house using nothing but chainsaw. For example, I once found someone impersonating me on a dating site, luring strangers into private spaces. Alarmed, I contacted the dating site, who told me that their only fix for this was for me to file a copyright claim against the impersonator to make them remove the profile photo. Now, that photo was Creative Commons licensed, so any takedown notice would have been a "LOL, no." grade act of copyfraud:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/the-internets-original-sin/

The unsuitability of copyright for solving complex labor and privacy problems hasn't stopped people who experience these problems from trying to use copyright to solve them. They've got nothing else, after all.

That's why everyone who's worried about the absolutely legitimate and urgent concerns over AI and labor and privacy has latched onto copyright as the best tool for resolving these questions, despite copyright's total unsuitability for this purpose, and the strong likelihood that this will make these problems worse:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

Enter FTC Chair Lina Khan, who has just announced that her agency will be reviewing AI model training as an "unfair and deceptive method of competition":

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4682461-ftc-chair-ai-models-could-violate-antitrust-laws/

If the agency can establish this fact, they will have sweeping powers to craft rules prohibiting the destructive and unfair uses of AI, without endangering beneficial activities like scraping, mathematical analysis, and the creation of automated systems that help with everything from adding archival metadata to exonerating wrongly convicted people rotting in prison:

https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

I love this so much. Khan's announcement accomplishes the seemingly impossible: affirming that there are real problems and insisting that we employ tactics that can actually fix those problems, rather than just doing something because inaction is so frustrating.

That's something we could use a lot more of, especially in platform regulation. The other big tech news about Big Tech last week was the progress of a bill that would repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act at the end of 2025, without any plans to replace it with something else.

Section 230 is the most maligned, least understood internet law, and that's saying something:

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

Its critics wrongly accuse the law – which makes internet users liable for bad speech acts, not the platforms that carry that speech – of being a gift to Big Tech. That's totally wrong. Without Section 230, platforms could be named to lawsuits arising from their users' actions. We know how that would play out.

Back in 2018, Congress took a big chunk out of 230 when they passed SESTA/FOSTA, a law that makes platforms liable for any sex trafficking that is facilitated by their platforms. Now, this may sound like a narrowly targeted, beneficial law that aims at a deplorable, unconscionable crime. But here's how it played out: the platforms decided that it was too much trouble to distinguish sex trafficking from any sex-work, including consensual sex work and adjacent activities. The result? Consensual sex-work became infinitely more dangerous and precarious, while trafficking was largely unaffected:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-385.pdf

Eliminating 230 would be incredibly reckless under any circumstances, but after the SESTA/FOSTA experience, it's unforgivable. The Big Tech platforms will greet this development by indiscriminately wiping out any kind of controversial speech from marginalized groups (think #MeToo or Black Lives Matter). Meanwhile, the rich and powerful will get a new tool – far more powerful than copyfraud – to make inconvenient speech disappear. The war-criminals, rapists, murderers and rip-off artists who currently make do with bogus copyright claims to "manage their reputations" will be able to use pretextual legal threats to make their critics just disappear:

https://www.qurium.org/forensics/dark-ops-undercovered-episode-i-eliminalia/

In a post-230 world, Cola Corporation's lawyers wouldn't get a chance to reply to the LAPD's bullying lawyers – those lawyers would send their letter to Cola's hosting provider, who would weigh the possibility of being named in a lawsuit against the small-dollar monthly payment they get from Cola, and poof, no more Cola. The legal bullies could do the same for Cola's email provider, their payment processor, their anti-DoS provider.

This week on EFF's Deeplinks blog, I published a piece making the connection between abolishing Section 230 and reinforcing Big Tech monopolies:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/05/wanna-make-big-tech-monopolies-even-worse-kill-section-230

The Big Tech platforms really do suck, and the solution to their systemic, persistent moderation failures won't come from making them liable for users' speech. The platforms have correctly assessed that they alone have the legal and moderation staff to do the kinds of mass-deletions of controversial speech that could survive a post-230 world. That's why tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg love the idea of getting rid of 230:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/facebooks-pitch-congress-section-230-me-not-thee

But for small tech providers – individuals, co-ops, nonprofits and startups that host fediverse servers, standalone group chats and BBSes – a post-230 world is a mass-extinction event. Ever had a friend demand that you take sides in an interpersonal dispute ("if you invite her to the party, I'm not coming!").

Imagine if your refusal to take sides in a dispute among your friends – and their friends, and their friends – could result in you being named to a suit that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle:

https://www.engine.is/news/primer/section230costs

It's one thing to hope for a more humane internet run by people who want to make hospitable forums for online communities to form. It's another to ask them to take on an uninsurable risk that could result in the loss of their home, their retirement account, and their life's savings.

A post-230 world is one in which Big Tech must delete first and ask questions later. Yes, Big Tech platforms have many sins to answer for, but making them jointly liable for their users' speech will flush out treasure-hunters seeking a quick settlement and a quick buck.

Again, this isn't speculative – it's inevitable. Consider FTX: yes, the disgraced cryptocurrency exchange was a festering hive of fraud – but there's no way that fraud added up to the 23.6 quintillion dollars in claims that have been laid against it:

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/US-v-SBF-Alameda-Research-Victim-Impact-Statement-3-20-2024.pdf

Without 230, Big Tech will shut down anything controversial – and small tech will disappear. It's the worst of all possible worlds, a gift to tech monopolists and the bullies and crooks who have turned our online communities into shooting galleries.

One of the reasons I love working for EFF is our ability to propose technologically informed, sound policy solutions to the very real problems that tech creates, such as our work on interoperability as a way to make it easier for users to escape Big Tech:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

Every year, EFF recognizes the best, bravest and brightest contributors to a better internet and a better technological future, with our annual EFF Awards. Nominations just opened for this year's awards – if you know someone who fits the bill, here's the form:

https://www.eff.org/nominations-open-2024-eff-awards

It's nearly time for me to sign off on this weekend's linkdump. For one thing, I have to vacate my backyard hammock, because we've got contractors who need to access the side of the house to install our brand new heat-pump (one of two things I'm purchasing with my last lump-sum book advance – the other is corrective cataract surgery that will give me lifelong, perfect vision).

I've been lusting after a heat-pump for years, and they just keep getting better – though you might not know it, thanks to the fossil-fuel industry disinfo campaign that insists that these unbelievably cool gadgets don't work. This week in Wired, Matt Simon offers a comprehensive debunking of this nonsense, and on the way, explains the nearly magical technology that allows a heat pump to heat a midwestern home in the dead of winter:

https://www.wired.com/story/myth-heat-pumps-cold-weather-freezing-subzero/

As heat pumps become more common, their applications will continue to proliferate. On Bloomberg, Feargus O'Sullivan describes one such application: the Japanese yokushitsu kansouki – a sealed bathroom with its own heat-pump that can perfectly dry all your clothes while you're out at work:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-22/laundry-lessons-from-japanese-bathroom-technology

This is amazing stuff – it uses less energy than a clothes-dryer, leaves your clothes wrinkle-free, prevents the rapid deterioration caused by high heat and mechanical agitation, and prevents the microfiber pollution that lowers our air-quality.

This is the most solarpunk thing I've read all week, and it makes me insanely jealous of Japanese people. The second-most solarpunk thing I've read this week came from The New Republic, where Aaron Regunberg and Donald Braman discuss the possibility of using civil asset forfeiture laws – lately expanded to farcical levels by the Supreme Court in Culley – to force the fossil fuel industry to pay for the energy transition:

https://newrepublic.com/article/181721/fossil-fuels-civil-forefeiture-pipeline-climate

They point out that the fossil fuel industry has committed a string of undisputed crimes, including fraud, and that the Supremes' new standard for asset forfeiture could comfortably accommodate state AGs and other enforcers who seek billions from Big Oil on this basis. Of course, Big Oil has more resources to fight civil asset forfeiture than the median disputant in these cases ("a low- or moderate-income person of color [with] a suspected connection to drugs"). But it's an exciting idea!

All right, the heat-pump guys really need me to vacate the hammock, so here's one last quickie for you: Barath Raghavan and Bruce Schneier's new paper, "Seeing Like a Data Structure":

https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/seeing-data-structure

This is a masterful riff on James C Scott's classic Seeing Like a State, and it describes how digitalization forces us into computable categories, and counts the real costs of doing so. It's a gnarly and thoughtful piece, and it's been on my mind continuously since Schneier sent it to me yesterday. Something suitably chewy for you to masticate over the long weekend!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/25/anthology/#lol-no

[miaroseindreamland]

Reaction to MOM'S DAY

Today is mother's day in my country so I thought about writing reactions about skz and the reader having a family together, and an established relationship.

Maknae Line

This will be the hyung line reaction. ☺️

BANGCHAN

You woke up to the gentle rays of the sun filtering in, accompanied by a delightful scent that filled the room. Glancing at your nightstand, you spotted a jar of your favorite flowers, a sweet gesture from your thoughtful husband. Stretching, you noticed your baby's bed beside yours was empty.

"Channie?" you called out, and your husband appeared at the door, holding your 3-month-old baby in his arms.

"Happy Mother's Day, my love," he greeted you with a kiss on your forehead. You couldn't help but smile at the sight of your baby boy in a onesie that read "Mom's Prince."

"Oh my goodness, he's adorable! Did you dress him?" you asked, amused.

"I did," he replied proudly. "Took me half an hour, but I think I did a decent job."

"It's perfect," you assured him, scooping up your little one. "My little prince."

"I love you," Chan said, gazing at you with affection as you kissed him.

"And I love you more," you teased, making him chuckle.

"Impossible," he countered, but your moment was interrupted by the sound of your baby boy crying.

"Looks like someone's hungry as mama," you remarked, getting ready to feed him. Chan helped you settle back against the bed frame and pillows.

"Hubby's going to whip up a perfect breakfast for you while you feed our little guy," he announced, and you nodded gratefully, focusing on feeding your baby as Chan headed to the kitchen to make you breakfast.

MINHO

You finished getting ready for the day and emerged from the bathroom to find your 6-year-old and 3-year-old, accompanied by cardboard and three cats wearing hats.

"Happy Mother's Day!" they exclaimed in unison, nearly causing you to jump.

"Oh my goodness!" you exclaimed, spotting your husband in the kitchen doorway, wearing an apron and thoroughly enjoying the scene.

"Next!" he commanded in a playful tone, as your 3-year-old daughter, adorned in a princess dress, stepped forward. "You're a queen, Mommy! You're the... the..." she hesitated, glancing back at her father, who silently prompted her.

"The best mommy ever!" she declared with a cute smile that resembled her father's mischievous one.

"And Dad's a king!" your 6-year-old son added enthusiastically. "Lee k-know and y/n are indeed a perfect match." You couldn't help but roll your eyes at your husband, who chuckled in response. "We love you, Mommy," they hugged you.

"Oh, I love you too," you hugged them. "And you too," you said, watching your three cats, not amused by their small cute hats.

"Look, Mommy, it's us!" Your daughter said, showing the collage she made on the cardboard.

"Oh my gosh, so beautiful! You did all of this alone?"

"Yes, Mom!" Your son said proudly.

"I'm impressed! It's beautiful!" You exclaimed.

"Mommy, Daddy brought a present for us to give you," your son said frankly, as Minho chuckled.

"He did?"

"Yes!" The kids went to the room to pick it up as Minho walked to you.

"Happy Mother's Day, kitty," he said, stealing a kiss as you hugged him.

"It couldn't be better," you said, kissing his cheek. "Dori seems to struggle with the hat."

"Trust me, I struggled more to put the hats on," you chuckled, seeing some scratches on his arm.

"I love you," you expressed against his cheek as he pulled you to him with a smirk.

"I love you too, even when you're being a brat."

"Oh, that's true love," you chuckled as he kissed your cheek. You moved apart when the kids appeared in the living room again, excited to show you the present.

"I'm going to finish breakfast," Minho returned to the kitchen as you stayed with your children happily.

CHANGBIN

You were laying in bed, trying to catch a few more moments of sleep, when you heard noises outside your room. You searched for your husband Changbin, but he was nowhere to be found. Sitting up in bed, you glanced at the slowly opening door, and there stood your husband, ushering your daughters into the room with a tray adorned with a flower and breakfast.

"What's all this?" you asked, a smile spreading across your face as one of the twins excitedly exclaimed, "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!" She leaped onto the bed, grinning and hugging you tightly.

"Yeah!" your husband, Changbin, chimed in, laughing at the moment.

"Daddy, I can do it!" the other daughter insisted, attempting to push her father away, but he continued to assist her.

"Dad's got it!" he sighed, smiling at you as he helped the little one hand you the tray. "But Dad wanted to help you, sweetheart," he explained, earning a chuckle from you.

"Oh, thank you, beautiful princess!"

"We did all this, didn't we, princesses?" Changbin asked, one of your daughters looking at him in confusion.

"No, a man brought it," you laughed, picking up a grape as Changbin playfully scolded his daughter.

"Yah! Harin!" he chided her.

"Hari, Daddy said not to say that!" the other daughter admonished, and you glanced at him.

"Oh..."

"That's okay, baby. Mommy loves it either way," you reassured them, pulling them into a warm embrace. "I'm so lucky for having Harin and Hajin in my life." You kiss both of them.

"You're the best mommy," Hajin said, making your heart swell with love.

"Oh, babies, I love you so much," you whispered, kissing their cheeks as you hugged them. "Shall we eat?" Changbin joined you, turning on the TV to watch cartoons. The girls were engrossed in the show as they snacked on grapes and strawberries.

"Thank you," you whispered, glancing at your husband, who smiled and tenderly kissed you

"Don't thank me. You deserve so much more, babe," he said, pulling you closer and kissing your temple. "You gave birth to our two beautiful girls. You so good for me. I love you." he whispered against your skin.

"I love you too." you replied, closing your eyes and cherishing the sweet moment.

HYUNJIN

"Appa! Red!" exclaimed a cute baby girl while a man fed her baby food.

"No, sweetie. This is black," he corrected her, pointing to his shirt.

"No, Appa red," she insisted, pointing to his back. The man looked back and jumped.

"No, no! The hotteok!" he yelled, rushing with a kitchen cloth to extinguish the fire.

At the same time, you entered the kitchen, still half awake.

"Hyunjinnie?" you called out sweetly, gasping as you saw him putting out the fire. "What happened?" You picked up your daughter from the baby chair.

"Daddy's clumsy," she said, as you chuckled at seeing him throwing the pan into the sink.

"I was trying to surprise you. I wanted out Hyunae to bring you breakfast in bed," he explained. "I even made your favorite juice."

"Oh, honey," you kissed his cheek. "Thank you."

"I'll order food," he suggested.

"No, why don't we do it together? It's our day off and Mother's Day. Nothing would make me happier than making memories as a family," you suggested, and he smiled cheekily.

"Really?" he asked, and you nodded happily. "We can make cookies!" he suggested, and your daughter jumped with excitement in your arms.

"Hyunjinnie? You called him while he was looking for the ingredients.

"Thank you for taking the day off. I love you," you said, tears starting to appear in your eyes.

"Don't thank me, I will do anything for you and Hyunae." He smiled and picked hyunae to place her in the baby chair.

"Dad is bad." Hyunae said as you both chuckled while hyunjin placed the food in her front.

"Oh, wait!" he exclaimed, remembering something. He dashed inside and returned with roses and a present, and from the looks of it, it was a painting.

"Red roses, your favorites! And a present," he said, handing you the roses as you eagerly opened the big gift. It's indeed a painting. You holding your daughter. You recognized the scene from a vacation you three had taken where you were rocking Hyunae to sleep while memorizing the sea in front of you. It was so peaceful.

Your eyes filled with tears as you looked at him.

"hyunjin..." You hugged him.

"Did you like it?" He asked with a smile while he hugged you back.

"I loved it," you said, your voice filled with emotion. "They are happy tears," you assured him as he placed his hands on your cheeks and stole a kiss. "I love you so much." you said, wiping away your tears.

"I love you too," he said, gently helping to wipe away your tears. "Now, let's cook?" You nodded, feeling grateful for the love and warmth surrounding you. Hyunae called your attention and you picked her to help with cooking.

Too much fluffy? 😅

Anyway, happy mother's day! Specially to my mommy 😍😍

[lightningidle]

A thought about Gerard’s scene in Episode 18, which is: Elody watches the conversation between Gerard and Rapunzel.

                                                    ——————

Princess Elody is a tactical motherfucker, so even when these cool young women approach her and say all the right things, things that make sense, she doesn’t fully buy in. Not at face value.

When they talk about princes, it’s somehow both completely flippant and with caustic derision — like these young men were props meant to move the plot along, sole owners of agency in stories that weren’t even titled after them. (Elody wonders about their treatment of the princes as the fairies’ deux es machina, wonders about how easy it is to “kill a lot of princes” as Snow White explains. And by their own logic, how likely is it, really, that the princes are cardboard cutouts if Cinderella is so sure her stepmother, not even royalty, has her own book?)

There’s evidence to the contrary of this in her story specifically, which she has no trouble recounting. There’s no way her prince was meant to pacify her into an idyllic life, because he’s a layabout! He’s unreliable! And sure, he’s charming and fun, yes, he tried to pull her away from the war table, but that wasn’t because of any scheming to get her to stay in line, it was just because he wanted attention. He’s frivolous, he’s not a monster, she says. She’s so passionate in her defense of Gerard’s personhood that she almost misses the shared look of the princesses, the glint in Rapunzel’s eye.

Let us show you, Rapunzel says, what a monster looks like.

The scrying ritual is completed quickly and without fuss. Rapunzel stares into a mirror that ripples like water, and then, on the other side, there he is. More froglike than he’s ever been.

“You’re a prince, friends are probably pretty expendable, right? How many friends have you really had, other than Elody?”

Now hold on, Elody wants to say, that’s goading him. That’s not fair. Cinderella puts a firm hand on her shoulder and shakes her head no, to stay quiet, to wait it out. Elody bites her tongue and waits for Gerard to prove one of them right.

“Your friends seem to really value you as a person. I’m sure it’s a comfort to know that they’re not just sort of putting up with you because you’ll tag along and swing your sword, prove a little bit useful.”

Gerard has snowball fights with his friends. He has friends? He has a dedicated workout buddy? She’s not sure he’s ever been dedicated to anything, except for gossip... or her. Now that she thinks about it, he has always been unquestionably devoted to her, hasn’t he?

“I have seen some titanic feats of strength from my companions the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White. Truly impressive acts of heroism.

I do not think I have seen any of my sisters strain more greatly than the Princess Elody to find something kind to say about you.”

Elody does open her mouth to speak this time, which turns out to be a huge mistake when a writhing mass of knotted hair wraps around the lower half of her face. Not to constrict, only to silence. A pit forms in her stomach at the thought that Rapunzel might not be lying, that in trying to defend Gerard she only condemned the worst of him.

“Yes... I don’t... I don’t doubt that.”

Her heart breaks for the second time.

“But I haven't seen the Princess Elody in a while, and I think it's telling that I'm seeing you in this lake and not her or any of the other princesses. I think you’re... manipulating people, or not telling them the full truth.”

Her eyes dart to the other princesses. Snow White’s expression remains unchanged, though Cinderella’s darkens slightly. When Rapunzel speaks again, it does not escape Elody’s notice that she doesn’t acknowledge what Gerard pointed out; she deflects. Elody is getting angrier, now, tugging at the hair around her jaw, hardly even hearing the next bit until a third voice speaks up, says the Princess Elody cares for you deeply.

“Not quite the same thing.”

“It's not, but seeing as the last thing she saw of me was me running away after I had already done that, I’m grateful that she still cares for me at all.”

The hair gathering around her tenses. Elody was brought here to see that, when Gerard thought nobody else could hear, he would prove himself to be just an agent of the fairies, or an empty vessel, or a selfish monster. What she’s seeing is none of those things. But she’s also not seeing the man she knew as her husband: he’s grown and changed, almost become someone else entirely. She wants to call out to Gerard. She wants to get to know him all over again.

“Gerard,” Rapunzel hisses, “what do you think the odds are that it got into Elody's head that the virtuous thing to do was to fall in love with a cold and slimy frog, and that every kindness she has paid you in your life has been a testament to her charity, rather than anything about you that would bring her joy?”

Elody freezes.

“I don't know that I can answer that.”

“It doesn’t seem very fair to Elody that you can’t.” 

“... I agree.”

The image in the mirror of the man who will never be a man again ripples and vanishes. Elody’s hands have fallen away from the hair around her face, which is convenient, as she finds herself suddenly holding a book. The hair recedes, and she doesn’t register what it is Rapunzel is saying to try and placate her, because the book in her hands is a slim volume, bound in her favorite shade of green and embossed in golden ink.

On the front is the title — The Princess Elody.