#constrained change managers

[collaborationcourses]

Navigating the Challenges of Constrained Change Managers

In today’s fast-paced business environment, change is inevitable. However, for Constrained Change Managers, driving organizational transformation can feel like navigating through a maze of obstacles. Limited resources, tight deadlines, and organizational resistance are just a few challenges that these managers face daily. This blog explores the unique challenges faced by constrained change managers and offers strategies to lead successful change, even under difficult conditions.

What is a Constrained Change Manager?

A Constrained Change Manager is responsible for managing and implementing change within an organization but operates under various restrictions. These constraints may include:

Budget limitations

Insufficient manpower or expertise

Organizational silos

Time constraints

Lack of executive support

Despite these hurdles, the role is critical in ensuring the organization adapts to industry trends, technological advancements, or internal restructures.

Key Challenges Constrained Change Managers Face

Limited Resources Change management initiatives often require adequate funding, staff, and technology. However, constrained change managers must deliver results with a lean budget and limited human capital. This often leads to burnout and unmet goals if not managed effectively.

Resistance to Change Employees may resist change due to fear of the unknown or concerns about job security. Without the right tools and authority, constrained change managers may find it difficult to gain employee buy-in and support for change initiatives.

Time Pressures Rapid change is essential in competitive industries, but constrained managers may struggle to implement necessary adjustments within short timeframes. The urgency to deliver can compromise the thorough planning and stakeholder engagement that are crucial for successful change.

Lack of Authority Many constrained change managers operate without direct influence over key decision-makers, making it hard to steer the project in the desired direction. The absence of executive sponsorship can limit their ability to champion change effectively.

Strategies for Overcoming Constraints

Prioritize and Focus on High-Impact Changes When resources are tight, it’s important to identify changes that will deliver the greatest benefit to the organization. Conducting a cost-benefit analysis can help pinpoint areas where a little change can lead to significant improvements. Focus your efforts on high-impact projects to demonstrate value.

Leverage Cross-Functional Teams To overcome manpower shortages, collaborate across departments to leverage existing skills and resources. Cross-functional teams bring diverse perspectives and expertise, which can increase the chances of success while keeping costs low.

Cultivate Strong Communication Channels Transparency is key to overcoming resistance to change. Open, honest communication about why changes are necessary and how they benefit the organization can help alleviate employee concerns. Ensure that the change process is clear and that there’s an opportunity for feedback.

Use Agile Methodologies Implementing agile project management principles can help constrained change managers operate more efficiently under time pressures. By breaking down change initiatives into smaller, manageable tasks, you can adjust quickly and pivot based on immediate feedback.

Secure Executive Sponsorship Gaining executive buy-in is essential for constrained change managers. Present a solid business case that highlights the strategic importance of the change, how it aligns with the company’s goals, and what will be required in terms of support.

Tools and Techniques to Assist Constrained Change Managers

Lean Change Management: This approach focuses on delivering change in short, iterative cycles, allowing for faster feedback and adaptation. It’s particularly useful when time and resources are scarce.

Stakeholder Mapping: Identifying key stakeholders early and understanding their concerns and motivations can help constrained change managers navigate organizational politics and secure the support they need.

Change Impact Assessment: This tool helps prioritize initiatives based on their impact and feasibility, allowing managers to focus on projects that provide the greatest return on investment (ROI).

Final Thoughts

Constrained Change Managers may face significant challenges, but with the right strategies, tools, and mindset, they can still lead successful change initiatives. By prioritizing high-impact changes, fostering collaboration, communicating effectively, and leveraging agile methodologies, constrained change managers can navigate obstacles and deliver meaningful transformation.

If you’re a constrained change manager, remember that every challenge presents an opportunity for innovation and growth. Stay focused, be adaptable, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box to drive impactful change.

[leadership-courses]

Navigating the Challenges of Constrained Change Managers

In today’s fast-paced business environment, change is inevitable. However, for Constrained Change Managers, driving organizational transformation can feel like navigating through a maze of obstacles. Limited resources, tight deadlines, and organizational resistance are just a few challenges that these managers face daily. This blog explores the unique challenges faced by constrained change managers and offers strategies to lead successful change, even under difficult conditions.

What is a Constrained Change Manager?

A Constrained Change Manager is responsible for managing and implementing change within an organization but operates under various restrictions. These constraints may include:

Budget limitations

Insufficient manpower or expertise

Organizational silos

Time constraints

Lack of executive support

Despite these hurdles, the role is critical in ensuring the organization adapts to industry trends, technological advancements, or internal restructures.

Key Challenges Constrained Change Managers Face

Limited Resources Change management initiatives often require adequate funding, staff, and technology. However, constrained change managers must deliver results with a lean budget and limited human capital. This often leads to burnout and unmet goals if not managed effectively.

Resistance to Change Employees may resist change due to fear of the unknown or concerns about job security. Without the right tools and authority, constrained change managers may find it difficult to gain employee buy-in and support for change initiatives.

Time Pressures Rapid change is essential in competitive industries, but constrained managers may struggle to implement necessary adjustments within short timeframes. The urgency to deliver can compromise the thorough planning and stakeholder engagement that are crucial for successful change.

Lack of Authority Many constrained change managers operate without direct influence over key decision-makers, making it hard to steer the project in the desired direction. The absence of executive sponsorship can limit their ability to champion change effectively.

Strategies for Overcoming Constraints

Prioritize and Focus on High-Impact Changes When resources are tight, it’s important to identify changes that will deliver the greatest benefit to the organization. Conducting a cost-benefit analysis can help pinpoint areas where a little change can lead to significant improvements. Focus your efforts on high-impact projects to demonstrate value.

Leverage Cross-Functional Teams To overcome manpower shortages, collaborate across departments to leverage existing skills and resources. Cross-functional teams bring diverse perspectives and expertise, which can increase the chances of success while keeping costs low.

Cultivate Strong Communication Channels Transparency is key to overcoming resistance to change. Open, honest communication about why changes are necessary and how they benefit the organization can help alleviate employee concerns. Ensure that the change process is clear and that there’s an opportunity for feedback.

Use Agile Methodologies Implementing agile project management principles can help constrained change managers operate more efficiently under time pressures. By breaking down change initiatives into smaller, manageable tasks, you can adjust quickly and pivot based on immediate feedback.

Secure Executive Sponsorship Gaining executive buy-in is essential for constrained change managers. Present a solid business case that highlights the strategic importance of the change, how it aligns with the company’s goals, and what will be required in terms of support.

Tools and Techniques to Assist Constrained Change Managers

Lean Change Management: This approach focuses on delivering change in short, iterative cycles, allowing for faster feedback and adaptation. It’s particularly useful when time and resources are scarce.

Stakeholder Mapping: Identifying key stakeholders early and understanding their concerns and motivations can help constrained change managers navigate organizational politics and secure the support they need.

Change Impact Assessment: This tool helps prioritize initiatives based on their impact and feasibility, allowing managers to focus on projects that provide the greatest return on investment (ROI).

Final Thoughts

Constrained Change Managers may face significant challenges, but with the right strategies, tools, and mindset, they can still lead successful change initiatives. By prioritizing high-impact changes, fostering collaboration, communicating effectively, and leveraging agile methodologies, constrained change managers can navigate obstacles and deliver meaningful transformation.

If you’re a constrained change manager, remember that every challenge presents an opportunity for innovation and growth. Stay focused, be adaptable, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box to drive impactful change.

[changemanagement-marketing]

Navigating the Challenges of Constrained Change Managers

In today’s fast-paced business environment, change is inevitable. However, for Constrained Change Managers, driving organizational transformation can feel like navigating through a maze of obstacles. Limited resources, tight deadlines, and organizational resistance are just a few challenges that these managers face daily. This blog explores the unique challenges faced by constrained change managers and offers strategies to lead successful change, even under difficult conditions.

What is a Constrained Change Manager?

A Constrained Change Manager is responsible for managing and implementing change within an organization but operates under various restrictions. These constraints may include:

Budget limitations

Insufficient manpower or expertise

Organizational silos

Time constraints

Lack of executive support

Despite these hurdles, the role is critical in ensuring the organization adapts to industry trends, technological advancements, or internal restructures.

Key Challenges Constrained Change Managers Face

Limited Resources Change management initiatives often require adequate funding, staff, and technology. However, constrained change managers must deliver results with a lean budget and limited human capital. This often leads to burnout and unmet goals if not managed effectively.

Resistance to Change Employees may resist change due to fear of the unknown or concerns about job security. Without the right tools and authority, constrained change managers may find it difficult to gain employee buy-in and support for change initiatives.

Time Pressures Rapid change is essential in competitive industries, but constrained managers may struggle to implement necessary adjustments within short timeframes. The urgency to deliver can compromise the thorough planning and stakeholder engagement that are crucial for successful change.

Lack of Authority Many constrained change managers operate without direct influence over key decision-makers, making it hard to steer the project in the desired direction. The absence of executive sponsorship can limit their ability to champion change effectively.

Strategies for Overcoming Constraints

Prioritize and Focus on High-Impact Changes When resources are tight, it’s important to identify changes that will deliver the greatest benefit to the organization. Conducting a cost-benefit analysis can help pinpoint areas where a little change can lead to significant improvements. Focus your efforts on high-impact projects to demonstrate value.

Leverage Cross-Functional Teams To overcome manpower shortages, collaborate across departments to leverage existing skills and resources. Cross-functional teams bring diverse perspectives and expertise, which can increase the chances of success while keeping costs low.

Cultivate Strong Communication Channels Transparency is key to overcoming resistance to change. Open, honest communication about why changes are necessary and how they benefit the organization can help alleviate employee concerns. Ensure that the change process is clear and that there’s an opportunity for feedback.

Use Agile Methodologies Implementing agile project management principles can help constrained change managers operate more efficiently under time pressures. By breaking down change initiatives into smaller, manageable tasks, you can adjust quickly and pivot based on immediate feedback.

Secure Executive Sponsorship Gaining executive buy-in is essential for constrained change managers. Present a solid business case that highlights the strategic importance of the change, how it aligns with the company’s goals, and what will be required in terms of support.

Tools and Techniques to Assist Constrained Change Managers

Lean Change Management: This approach focuses on delivering change in short, iterative cycles, allowing for faster feedback and adaptation. It’s particularly useful when time and resources are scarce.

Stakeholder Mapping: Identifying key stakeholders early and understanding their concerns and motivations can help constrained change managers navigate organizational politics and secure the support they need.

Change Impact Assessment: This tool helps prioritize initiatives based on their impact and feasibility, allowing managers to focus on projects that provide the greatest return on investment (ROI).

Final Thoughts

Constrained Change Managers may face significant challenges, but with the right strategies, tools, and mindset, they can still lead successful change initiatives. By prioritizing high-impact changes, fostering collaboration, communicating effectively, and leveraging agile methodologies, constrained change managers can navigate obstacles and deliver meaningful transformation.

If you’re a constrained change manager, remember that every challenge presents an opportunity for innovation and growth. Stay focused, be adaptable, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box to drive impactful change.

[safety-pin-punk]

yall Im so fucking tired. This month has been exhausting. I promise Im alive, just barely functional atm.

[reasonsforhope]

Federal regulators on Tuesday [April 23, 2024] enacted a nationwide ban on new noncompete agreements, which keep millions of Americans — from minimum-wage earners to CEOs — from switching jobs within their industries.

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday afternoon voted 3-to-2 to approve the new rule, which will ban noncompetes for all workers when the regulations take effect in 120 days [So, the ban starts in early September, 2024!]. For senior executives, existing noncompetes can remain in force. For all other employees, existing noncompetes are not enforceable.

[That's right: if you're currently under a noncompete agreement, it's completely invalid as of September 2024! You're free!!]

The antitrust and consumer protection agency heard from thousands of people who said they had been harmed by noncompetes, illustrating how the agreements are "robbing people of their economic liberty," FTC Chair Lina Khan said. 

The FTC commissioners voted along party lines, with its two Republicans arguing the agency lacked the jurisdiction to enact the rule and that such moves should be made in Congress...

Why it matters

The new rule could impact tens of millions of workers, said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist and president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. 

"For nonunion workers, the only leverage they have is their ability to quit their job," Shierholz told CBS MoneyWatch. "Noncompetes don't just stop you from taking a job — they stop you from starting your own business."

Since proposing the new rule, the FTC has received more than 26,000 public comments on the regulations. The final rule adopted "would generally prevent most employers from using noncompete clauses," the FTC said in a statement.

The agency's action comes more than two years after President Biden directed the agency to "curtail the unfair use" of noncompetes, under which employees effectively sign away future work opportunities in their industry as a condition of keeping their current job. The president's executive order urged the FTC to target such labor restrictions and others that improperly constrain employees from seeking work.

"The freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy," Khan said in a statement making the case for axing noncompetes. "Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand."

Real-life consequences

In laying out its rationale for banishing noncompetes from the labor landscape, the FTC offered real-life examples of how the agreements can hurt workers.

In one case, a single father earned about $11 an hour as a security guard for a Florida firm, but resigned a few weeks after taking the job when his child care fell through. Months later, he took a job as a security guard at a bank, making nearly $15 an hour. But the bank terminated his employment after receiving a letter from the man's prior employer stating he had signed a two-year noncompete.

In another example, a factory manager at a textile company saw his paycheck dry up after the 2008 financial crisis. A rival textile company offered him a better job and a big raise, but his noncompete blocked him from taking it, according to the FTC. A subsequent legal battle took three years, wiping out his savings. 

-via CBS Moneywatch, April 24, 2024

--

Note:

A lot of people think that noncompete agreements are only a white-collar issue, but they absolutely affect blue-collar workers too, as you can see from the security guard anecdote.

In fact, one in six food and service workers are bound by noncompete agreements. That's right - one in six food workers can't leave Burger King to work for Wendy's [hypothetical example], in the name of "trade secrets." (x, x, x)

Noncompete agreements also restrict workers in industries from tech and video games to neighborhood yoga studios. "The White House estimates that tens of millions of workers are subject to noncompete agreements, even in states like California where they're banned." (x, x, x)

The FTC estimates that the ban will lead to "the creation of 8,500 new businesses annually, an average annual pay increase of $524 for workers, lower health care costs, and as many as 29,000 more patents each year for the next decade." (x)

Clearer explanation of noncompete agreements below the cut.

Noncompete agreements can restrict workers from leaving for a better job or starting their own business.

Noncompetes often effectively coerce workers into staying in jobs they want to leave, and even force them to leave a profession or relocate.

Noncompetes can prevent workers from accepting higher-paying jobs, and even curtail the pay of workers not subject to them directly.

Of the more than 26,000 comments received by the FTC, more than 25,000 supported banning noncompetes. 

[moonsaver]

You were his sister's enemy.

Well, he rather assumes it.

Robin defends you whenever he scorns at you, and simply mentions you as someone who just has trouble communicating. Sunday, on the other hand, does not take to your mannerisms politely. Although distance and discord within branches of The Family have long shifted his attention from his sister and their once joint dream, it doesn't mean his protectiveness of it has vanished.

Your singing was nowhere near as perfect as his sister's, he believes. Robin defends you, saying you're great in your own way, and both of you have different styles of singing. He comments on your more mature look with disdain, thinly admonishing it as vulgar, while Robin tries to convince him you just work under a sultry concept. Everything you did, it was never as good as Robin's, and whenever even a single track of yours threatened Robin's on the chart, Sunday would be displeased. According to him, you were competing for fame with Robin, and even the audacity of you to go such lengths was disdainful.

Robin, however, has been trying to convince Sunday to be on better terms with her lover.

He isn't exactly unnoticing of Robin's new lipstick that's in a different shade than what she'd normally wear. A new perfume that's oddly charming, but expensive, not exactly what he sees her picking out. Hair accessories that he's never seen in her drawers, nail polish he's never seen her wear before, a new fresh change to her voice that's making it livelier as of late, which is suspicious, considering all of this takes place simultaneously after she leaves your room.

It's not long until Sunday manages to get a quiet moment with you. Confrontation isn't foreign to him, and neither are implied, cordial threats that are already schemed within the front of his mind as he gently turns the handle to your door.

You greet him politely, as expected, and both of you get talking. He gauges you out, asking you specific and roundabout questions, eyes scrutinizing the familiar color of nail polish on your fingers that were once on Robin's, the half-used bottle of perfume thats slightly peeking out of the poorly hidden drawer which he's sure is something Robin would pick, the glossy, sticky tissue which he assumes you used to wipe off some sheer gloss, which you obviously don't wear.

He's hostile, and he doesn't quite hide it. Warning, teetering on edge, observing and calculating his next question and your responses with every second. But alas, he finally leaves you alone, and silently takes his leave.

-

Sunday hates you. And that is a hill he will surely die on.

Or rather.. what else would you call this ugly, seething feeling inside his chest?

Seeing your eyes soften, your smile quirk up on your usually stoic face, your lazy, languid hands finding their usually hiding spot, tucked onto Robin's waist.

It makes him seethe seeing you do those things with his sister.

Or really, anything you do.

The laugh you share with an overly friendly employee, the side glance, silent communication with some of your audio-managing team, the playful pinching of your cheeks by another singer that's far too comfortable with you.

Your actions are.. despicable. Sure they are. And he starts questioning just why. He deludes himself with any reason that is clearly beyond rationale, and barely constrains a scoff when you try and ask him about his dampened mood.

Of course, he should find them despicable when they're done to him, too. But he doesn't.

And it's even more infuriating. He smiles softly and laughs at some of your words, playfully bumps you from time to time, and chuckles when you return the favor. He feels special when you make certain eye gestures, remember a few inside jokes, and wink at him to keep them a secret. And once he returns to his solitary confinement, it dawns on him, and he should be grinding his teeth to dust from the absolute fury you supposedly induce in him.

But he doesn't.

He's only left with a light feeling in his heart, which slightly, mournfully dampens when he sees you do the same with Robin.

They've shared a dream once. Surely, they can share a love, too?

[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

[sinkovia]

Coffee Shop: VIII

Simon Riley x Fem!Reader

You work at a small cafe that Simon starts visiting when he’s not deployed.

Coffee shop Masterlist

In the following weeks that passed after you went over to Simon’s house, a subtle but noticeable shift occurred in the routine. Simon found himself lingering longer at the cafe, no longer constrained by a schedule. Conveniently, he managed to time his departures to coincide with the end of your shift, providing an opportunity to walk you home. 

Simon couldn't ignore the routine he'd established—walking you home, exchanging casual conversation, and the comforting warmth that enveloped him when you smiled.

In the beginning, he clung to the excuse that he merely enjoyed the way you made tea. He wasn't interested; he repeated the words like a mantra. But the days blurred, and a subtle transformation occurred. A small smile appeared unbidden on his face when you spoke, and your laughter became a melody that lingered in his thoughts.

As the weeks passed, he noticed a lightness in his chest, an unfamiliar sensation. 

Love. 

It took him a while to accept the truth. Denial crumbled like sand, revealing a simple reality—he was falling for you. Every day spent with you became a cherished moment, and he couldn't deny the truth any longer. You had woven your way into his heart, and he was grateful for the joy you brought into his life. His chest felt lighter, his heart seemed to skip a beat in your presence, and he couldn't deny the warmth that enveloped him whenever you were near. 

You made him happy, and, more importantly, you made him feel in ways he hadn't allowed himself to acknowledge before.

A week after Simon deployed again, you found yourself on the couch, surrounded by the comforting presence of Riley and Missy. To your surprise, the two pets, despite their differences, got along remarkably well. You couldn't resist capturing the moment, snapping a picture of them sleeping peacefully. You decided to share the moment with Simon, sending him the photo.

In the rec room at the base, Simon received the picture. A smile played on his lips, though his expression was hidden behind his balaclava. Johnny, his keen eyes catching the subtle change, teased Simon about you.

"How’s the missus?" Simon put down his phone and met Johnny's gaze with a poker face.

“She’s not my missus,” His tone betraying little.

“When you asking her out then?” Johnny grinned, fully aware of the dynamics at play. Simon fell silent, the notion of pursuing a relationship with you lingering in his thoughts. He contemplated whether you would even want someone with his scars and emotional baggage.

“I'm not,” 

“Why’d you have to think about it?” Johnny's smile grew wider, prompting Simon to huff in mild frustration. He abruptly stood up and left the rec room, Johnny calling after him.

“L.t she likes you, don't overthink it!” Johnny's words echoed as Simon disappeared back into his room, contemplating the possibilities that lay ahead.

A few days later, after getting out of the shower, Simon received a Facetime call from you. He quickly threw on a black shirt and answered. As the call connected, he saw Riley on the screen and smiled when he heard the dog whine.

“Miss me, Riley?” Riley whined again, and then your face came into view, a breath of fresh air after not seeing you for two weeks.

“How has he been?” you set up the camera so both you and Riley were in the frame as you sat on your couch. “He’s been good, he destroyed one of his toys.” You flipped the camera to the shredded stuffed penguin, the remains scattered around. Simon laughed, and you smiled, feeling warmth and lightness in your chest.

You flipped the camera back, “How have you been?” Simon set you down on the sink counter, drying his hair with a towel as he looked at you, not wanting to waste a second admiring you before the call ended.

“Been alright, wrapping up a mission tomorrow. I’ll be back in a week.” You smiled, and Simon noticed the way your eyes lit up.

“How have you been, love? How’s work been?” You rambled about a rude customer and then about the snowfall, covering your garden to protect the vegetables. Simon just smiled, loving to hear you talk, finding ease in your voice.

“There’s this book convention in two weeks, they raffle off a five hundred dollar Barnes and Noble gift card. Some authors go, and you can get your books signed too!”

“Five hundred dollars? Sounds like a steal.” You lay down on the couch with Riley taking up most of the camera.

“It is! You could tag along with me… if that’s something you’re interested in.” You nervously started petting Riley, and Simon smiled. “I’d love to, it’ll give me something to look forward to when I get back.”

“Okay, sounds like a plan.” You smiled, continuing to pet Riley. Simon’s attention shifted to his door, where Johnny called out that the captain wanted them in the debriefing room.

“I have to go, love. I’ll talk to you later?” You sat up and smiled, Simon's eyes lingering on it. He tried to burn the image in his mind, your hand going to Riley again, aggressively petting his head.

“Yeah, be safe, Si.” He smiled at the nickname you had been using for the past few weeks, relishing in the warmth it brought.

“I will, love.” You smiled and held up Riley, waving his paw. Simon laughed before hanging up the call. He sat for a moment in his room, the silence deafening. Was this really what his life was like before he met you?

Depressing?

You had truly become the light in his life.

His mission went by in a blur, and before he knew it, the day of the convention arrived, and Simon found himself on your front doorstep. He asked if you wanted to tag along while he took Riley to the park in the morning. 

Simon dropped the leash, and Riley ran around in the grass, chasing a small butterfly on a flower. He bit a dandelion before wiggling around in the grass. You laughed as you watched Riley, but Simon's eyes were on you as he smiled.

After taking some pictures of Riley on the slide and letting a few kids pet him, you decided it was time to head back. On the drive home, you pointed out a diner that had really good milkshakes and recommended it to him if he ever had the craving. Simon changed lanes and turned into the parking lot of the diner.

“Could I get fries and a vanilla malt?”

“What do you want, love?” he turned to you and caught you smiling up at him, to which he only smiled. Caught in the moment, the cashier cleared their throat, and you quickly muttered out what you wanted.

You sat in the booth across from Simon, admiring the retro-style diner. "Forever" by The Little Dippers was playing on the jukebox, and he smiled as he gazed at you playing with Riley in your lap. The waitress brought over a small cup filled with whipped cream for Riley, and you both conversed about random things as Riley destroyed the whipped cream next to you on the floor.

You checked the time on your phone after you both finished your food. “We still have a little over two hours before the convention starts.” Simon sat back in the booth, thinking for a moment. What could the both of you do for two hours?

“Is there a theater nearby?” You nodded and put your napkin on your tray. “Yeah, there is actually one right next to the convention.”

“Wanna catch a movie?” You smiled and got up from the booth. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

Simon drove back to his house and dropped Riley off before making his way to the theater. There was a showtime in about ten minutes, so you decided on watching "Priscilla." You both stood in line for concessions. Simon ordered you a Coca Cola slushie and nachos before you walked side by side to the theater, which was fairly empty. After the movie, you rambled on about how awful Elvis Presley was, telling him you hoped he was rotting some where.

“God, what an asshole. The way he whistled when that girl told him she wore Chanel, and Priscilla literally wears the same perfume!” You went on a whole rant as you waited in line to enter the convention, and Simon just laughed as you dragged Elvis through the mud.

You walked up to the raffle stand and wrote your names down with your contact information on small pieces of paper and slipped them into the big bowl.

“May the odds be ever in your favor, Si.” you smiled, and Simon quirked his brow, “You want me to win?” You opened your mouth, shocked.

“The Hunger Games?”

“Never heard of it.” You lightly slapped his arm with the back of your hand, “We need to watch them; they are the best movies. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes came out a few months ago, so it's perfect!” Simon smiled and nodded. He didn't know what a ballad had to do with the movies, but he was just happy that he was going to have another excuse to hang out with you.

For the next few hours, you and Simon walked around the convention, buying a few books and getting some signed by the authors. Simon wasn’t a book fanatic like you, but he loved the way your eyes lit up and the smile you had after an author signed a book you purchased. You would say how cool it was and even show him the signature, even though he was standing next to watching them sign it.

Simon observed from a distance as you eagerly approached the booth where another author sat, ready to get your book signed. His eyes narrowed with an unreadable intensity as he watched the author engage you in conversation. The author's questions seemed to linger a bit too long, and Simon, ever vigilant, detected subtle undercurrents of flirtation that you, in your excitement, remained blissfully unaware of.

Unbeknownst to you, Simon had subtly positioned himself right behind you, an almost protective aura surrounding him as he kept a watchful eye on the exchange. His gaze hardened when he noticed the author beginning to write something other than a typical autograph—numbers, perhaps. The scratch of the pen abruptly stopped as Simon cleared his throat.

Simon loomed over your shoulder, an unmistakable death glare fixed upon the author. The author's smile wavered as he met Simon's intense gaze. Hesitatingly, he put his pen down and closed the book, offering a swift, somewhat forced farewell, sensing the change in atmosphere. 

Simon's protective stance remained, sending a clear message that your excitement was to be respected, but not exploited. His hand subconcously went to your upper back as he guided you away from the table. 

You showed him the autograph, and he hummed before checking his watch, “The raffle is about to start; we should go to the main room.” You nodded, and you both walked over to where everyone was gathered. They began calling out the names for the smaller prizes, the gift baskets, and fifty-dollar gift cards. Neither of you won those, which was good since the people who got those prizes could no longer win the grand prize.

“We will now pull the name of the winner of the five hundred dollar grand prize!” The room was silent as everyone watched him reach into the bowl and grab a slip of paper. He opened it and paused for a few seconds.

“Simon Riley!”

You gasped and turned to him, hugging his arm and shaking it, “Si, you won! Oh my god!”

“Everyone whose name was called can pick up their prize before leaving at the main desk.”

“Bloody hell, I did,” Simon smiled as you shook his arm again, “You just won five hundred dollars to Barnes and Noble! Do you know how many books you can get?!” Simon laughed at the fact that you were more excited than he was. He had already told himself that if he won, he would give it to you since he had more than enough money to buy books.

You were now on your way back home, going back and forth after Simon told you to keep the gift card. “Si, you won the raffle; I can't take it from you.”

“Love, I insist. I don't need it; I know you go through books quickly.”

“Si, I'll feel bad if I take it from you.”

“You can't refuse a gift, love.” You opened your mouth to protest but then sighed. He was right; if you tried gifting him something and he refused, it would break your heart.

“Fine, but I'll make it up to you.”

“Mm, maybe tea on the house?” You laughed and nodded, “Fine, tea on the house.”

As Simon pulled into your driveway, a slight sinking feeling settled in your chest, knowing that your time together was coming to an end. The day had been nothing short of amazing, and over the past month, you and Simon had grown remarkably close. Now, with the engine humming to a stop, you wondered whether it was the right time to express your feelings.

Thoughts swirled in your mind, wondering if he felt the same way. The connection you felt with Simon was special, and you found yourself yearning to spend more time in his company. His smile, his voice—everything about him seemed to captivate you. 

As he walked you to the door, you turned around and looked up at him, a smile playing on your lips. The moment felt significant, and you couldn't bear the thought of going another day without telling him how you felt. 

"I had such an amazing day today," you began, meeting his eyes with sincerity. "Thank you for everything. I honestly can't remember the last time I had this much fun... Your company means a lot to me."

Simon's smile softened, and he looked at you attentively. "I'm glad you had a good time”

Say it Simon, say you enjoyed being with her too.

“...I um… I enjoy spending time with you too," Simon's expression remained warm, and for a moment, it felt like time stood still.

Encouraged by his response, you both find yourselves face to face, the air charged with a subtle tension. Simon stands extremely close to you as he gazes down, and you meet his eyes, feeling a connection.

The moment seems to stretch on forever, and in the warmth of the shared silence, you decide to make the first move.

As you slightly leaned in, hoping to bridge the gap with a kiss, Simon unexpectedly leaned back on instinct, causing you to pull back, your heart sinking a bit.

The air shifted, and you took a step back, searching for clues in his eyes. There was a pause, a moment of uncertainty hanging between you. Simon's wide gaze remained fixed on yours, leaving the unspoken tension lingering in the air.

Simon watched as the pain of rejection etched itself onto your face, and in that moment, a whirlwind of thoughts raced through his mind. Why had he pulled away? Was it fear? Fear of letting himself be vulnerable to love? Fear of admitting that he cared deeply for someone? Fear that if you knew the real him, you might turn your back on him? Fear of not being good enough for someone as perfect as you?

Seeing the hurt in your eyes, Simon felt an ache in his chest, and the weight of his actions pressed down on him. He tried to find the right words, his brain going a million miles per hour, but all he managed to utter was a sincere, "I'm sorry."

The apology hung in the air, and Simon desperately wished he could articulate the maelstrom of emotions within him. The fear that had driven him to pull away now seemed like a barrier between what he desired and what he feared.

In that vulnerable moment, he struggled to make sense of his own feelings and reconcile them with the connection he felt with you. The air between you was heavy with unspoken words, and Simon knew he owed you an explanation.

He takes a step forward, desperation in his eyes, but you instinctively take a step back, your hand raised as if to stop him. "No, it's okay," you assure him, managing a small, understanding smile. "I understand."

Simon, desperately wanting to explain, takes a breath, "It's not what you think—"

Cutting him off gently, you shake your head, "It's okay. You don't need to explain yourself. I understand." Despite your attempt to hold back the tears, your eyes water, reflecting a mix of understanding and hurt.

“Thank you again for today simon, goodnight.”

Simon's heart splits as he sees your eyes water, and he's left standing there on your doorstep, feeling the weight of his choices. Silently, you turn away, leaving him outside as you retreat into the comfort of your home. Behind closed doors, you let the tears flow, the soft sobs muffled against your pillow.

[covid-safer-hotties]

The next pandemic is inevitable. Australia isn’t ready - Published Sept 23, 2024

(Before you Americans yell at me, It's already the 23rd in Australia. This is very late-breaking)

I thought this was a really good breakdown of the current situation given the government-approved covid denial we live in. Long, but worth a read.

By Kate Aubusson and Mary Ward

Top infectious disease and public health veterans at the nerve centre of the state’s war against COVID-19 are sounding the alarm.

NSW is less prepared today to fend off a deadly pandemic despite the lessons of COVID-19, say top infectious disease and public health veterans at the nerve centre of the state’s war against the virus.

And we won’t have another hundred years to wait.

NSW’s gold standard Test-Trace-Isolate-Quarantine and vaccination strategies will be useless if a distrusting population rejects directives, refuses to give up its freedoms again, and the goodwill of shell-shocked public health workers dries up.

A panel of experts convened by The Sydney Morning Herald called for a pandemic combat agency akin to the armed forces or fire brigades to commit to greater transparency or risk being caught off guard by the next virulent pathogen and misinformation with the potential to spread faster than any virus.

“It’s inevitable,” says Professor Eddie Holmes of the next pandemic. A world-leading authority on the emergence of infectious diseases at the University of Sydney, Holmes predicts: “We’ll have less than 100 years [before the next pandemic].

“We’re seeing a lot of new coronaviruses that are spilling over into animals that humans are interacting with,” said Holmes, the first person to publish the coronavirus genome sequence for the world to see.

“People are exposed all the time, and each time we are rolling the dice.”

The independent review of NSW Health’s response to COVID-19 opened with the same warning: “No health system or community will have the luxury of 100 years of downtime.”

Pandemic preparedness needs to be a “permanent priority”, wrote the report’s author, Robyn Kruk, a former NSW Health secretary, “rather than following the path of those that have adopted a ‘panic and forget strategy,’ allowing system preparedness to wane”.

Why we don’t have 100 years to wait for the next pandemic The World Health Organisation has declared seven public health emergencies of international concern since 2014, including the current mpox outbreak.

Climate change is turbocharging the factors that coalesce to create the perfect breeding ground for a pandemic-causing virus, including population increases, bigger cities, and better-connected global markets and migration.

“Animals will be forced into more constrained environments, and humans that rely on those environments will be again constrained in the same environments. There will be more wet markets, more live animal trade that will just increase exposure,” Holmes said.

“It was clear that we weren’t ready [for COVID],” said Jennie Musto, who, after seven years working for the World Health Organisation overseas, became NSW Health’s operations manager for the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre, the team responsible for NSW’s COVID-19 contact tracing and containment.

“Everyone had preparedness plans gathering dust on a shelf, but no one was actually ready to respond, and so everyone was on the back foot,” Musto said. “Perhaps none of us really thought this was going to happen. We were waiting 500 years.”

Who would willingly become the next doomed whistleblower? Eddie Holmes, known for his repeated assertion that SARS-CoV-2 did not come from a lab, is deeply concerned that when the next pandemic-causing virus emerges, chances are it will be covered up.

“My worry is that if the virus appeared in a small population, say, somewhere in Southeast Asia, the people involved wouldn’t blow the whistle now, given the fact that you would get blamed,” he said.

Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who tried to raise the alarm about a virulent new virus, was reportedly reprimanded by police for spreading rumours and later died of COVID-19.

The global blame game, culminating in a deep distrust of China and accusations that the virus was grown in a Wuhan lab, is why Holmes believes “we’re in no better place than we were before COVID started, if not worse”.

“I work with a lot of people in China trying to keep the lines of communication open, and they’re scared, I think, or nervous about saying things that are perceived to counter national interest.”

From a vaccine perspective, our defences look strong. There have been monumental advancements in vaccine development globally, driven by mRNA technology. In Sydney this month, construction began on an RNA vaccine research and manufacturing facility.

“But the way I see it is that nothing has been done in terms of animal surveillance of outbreaks or data sharing. The [global] politics has got much, much worse,” Holmes said.

Combat force Conjoint Associate Professor Craig Dalton, a leading public health physician and clinical epidemiologist, called for a dramatic expansion of the public health workforce and the establishment of a pandemic combat force that would routinely run real-time pandemic simulations during “peacetime”.

“No one is upset with fire brigades spending most of the time not fighting fires. They train. A lot. And that’s probably how we need to move,” he said.

“We need exercise training units so that every major player in pandemic response is involved in a real-time, three to four-day pandemic response every three to five years at national, state and local [levels].”

The federal Department of Health and Aged Care recently ran a health emergency exercise focused on governance arrangements involving chief health officers and senior health emergency management officials, a spokeswoman for Health Minister Mark Butler said. The outcomes of this exercise will be tested later this year.

Dalton said desktop simulations and high-level exercises involving a handful of chiefs didn’t cut it, considering the thousands of people working across regions and states. He instead suggested an intensive training program run in the Hunter New England region before the 2009 H1N1 pandemic provided a good model.

“We were ringing people, actors were getting injections, just like a real pandemic,” said Dalton, who once ordered a burrito in a last-ditch effort to contact a restaurant exposed to COVID-19.

Our heroes have had it The expert panel was emphatic that our pandemic response cannot once again rely on the goodwill of the public health and healthcare workforce.

According to the Kruk review, what began as an emergency response ultimately morphed from a sprint into an ultra marathon and “an admirable (yet unsustainable) ‘whatever it takes’ mindset”.

They were hailed as heroes, but the toll of COVID-19 on healthcare workers was brutal. Workloads were untenable, the risk of transmission was constant, and the risk of violence and aggression (for simply wearing their scrubs on public transport in some cases) was terrifying.

“We got through this pandemic through a lot of people working ridiculous hours,” Dalton said.

“You talk to a lot of people who did that and say they could not do it again.”

Tellingly, several expert personnel who worked at the front lines or in the control centre of NSW’s pandemic defences were invited to join the Herald’s forum but declined. Revisiting this period of intense public scrutiny, culminating in online attacks and physical threats, was just too painful.

So long, solidarity Arguably, the biggest threat to our pandemic defences will be the absence of our greatest strength during COVID: the population’s solidarity and willingness to follow public health orders even when it meant forfeiting fundamental freedoms.

The public largely complied with statewide public health orders, including the stay-at-home directive that became the 107-day Delta lockdown, and other severe restrictions prevented many from being at the bedside of their dying loved ones, visiting relatives in aged care homes and attending funerals.

“My worry is that next time around when those sorts of rules come out, people may say, ‘Well, don’t worry about it.’ They relax it in the future. Why don’t we just not stick to the rules?” said Professor Nicholas Wood, associate director of clinical research and services at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance.

“I’m not sure we quite understand whether people [will be] happy with those rules again,” he said.

Dalton was more strident.

“I tend to agree with Michael Osterholm … an eminent US epidemiologist [who] recently said the US is probably less prepared for a pandemic now than it was in 2019, mostly because the learnings by health departments in the COVID pandemic may not make a material difference if faced with a community that distrusts its public health agencies,” he said.

“If H1N1 or something else were to spill over in the next couple of years, things like masks, social distancing and lockdowns would not be acceptable. Vaccination would be rejected by a huge part of the population, and politicians might be shy about putting mandates in.”

As for the total shutdown of major industries, people will struggle to accept it unless the next pandemic poses a greater threat than COVID, said UNSW applied mathematician Professor James Wood.

The risk of the virus to individuals and their families will be weighed against the negative effects of restrictions, which are much better understood today, said Wood, whose modelling of the impact of cases and vaccination rates was used by NSW Health.

“Something like school closure would be a much tougher argument with a similar pathogen,” he said.

A previous panel of education experts convened by the Herald to interrogate pandemic decision-making in that sector was highly critical of the decision to close schools for months during NSW’s Delta lockdown.

Greg Dore, professor of infectious diseases and epidemiology at the Kirby Institute, said the public’s reluctance to adhere to restrictions again may, in part, be appropriate.

“Some of the restrictions on people leaving the country were a bit feudal and too punitive,” he said. “Other restrictions were plain stupid, [for instance] limitations on time exercising outside.”

Meanwhile, the delays to publicly recognise the benefits of face masks and the threat of airborne transmission “ate away at trust”, Dalton said.

“We shouldn’t make those mistakes again,” he said.

Transparent transgressions Uncertainty is not something politicians are adept at communicating, but uncertainty is the only constant during a pandemic of a novel virus.

Vaccines that offered potent protection against early iterations of the COVID virus were less effective against Omicron variants.

“[The public], unfortunately, got hit by a rapid sequence of changes of what was ‘true’ in the pandemic,” James Wood said.

Political distrust can be deadly if governments give the public reason to suspect they are obfuscating.

The expert panel urged NSW’s political leaders to be far more transparent about the public health advice they were given before unilaterally enforcing restrictions.

There was a clear line between public health advice and political decision-making in Victoria. The Victorian chief health officer’s written advice was routinely published online.

In NSW, that line was blurred as Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant stood beside political leaders, most notably former premier Gladys Berejiklian, at the daily press conferences.

Public health experts said that they looked for subtle cues to determine the distinction between the expert advice and the political messaging during press conferences, paying attention to body language, who spoke when and who stayed silent.

“It is fine for public health personnel to have a different view to politicians. They have different jobs. What is not OK is to have politicians saying they are acting on public health advice [when they are not],” he said.

The ‘whys’ behind the decisions being made were missing from the daily press conferences, which created “a vacuum for misinformation”, said social scientist and public health expert Professor Julie Leask at the University of Sydney.

“The communication about what you need to do came out, and it was pretty good … but the ‘why we’re doing this’ and ‘what trade-offs we’ve considered’ and ‘what dilemmas we’ve faced in making this decision’; that was not shared,” Leask said.

The infodemic In the absence of transparency, misinformation and disinformation fill the vacuum.

“We had an ‘infodemic’ during the pandemic,” said Dr Jocelyne Basseal, who worked on the COVID-19 response for WHO in the Western Pacific and leads strategic development at the Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute, University of Sydney.

“The public has been so confused. Where do we go for trusted information [when] everyone can now write absolutely anything, whether on Twitter [now called X] or [elsewhere] on the web?” Basseal said.

A systematic review conducted by WHO found misinformation on social media accounted for up to 51 per cent of posts about vaccines, 29 per cent of posts about COVID-19 and 60 per cent of posts about pandemics.

Basseal’s teenage children recently asked whether they were going into lockdown after TikTok videos about the mpox outbreak.

“There is a lot of work to be done now, in ‘peacetime’ … to get ahead of misinformation,” Basseal said, including fortifying relationships with community groups and teaching scientists – trusted and credible sources of information – how to work with media.

In addition to the Kruk review’s six recommendations to improve its pandemic preparedness, NSW Health undertook a second inquiry into its public health response to COVID-19, which made 104 recommendations.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said: “We are working hard to ensure the findings and recommendations from those reports are being implemented as quickly as possible.”

The expert panellists spoke in their capacity as academics and not on behalf of NSW Health or WHO.

The ‘As One System’ review into NSW Health’s COVID-19 response made six recommendations 1. Make governance and decision-making structures clearer, inclusive, and more widely understood 2. Strengthen co-ordination, communication, engagement, and collaboration 3. Enhance the speed, transparency, accuracy, and practicality of data and information sharing 4. Prioritise the needs of vulnerable people and communities most at risk, impacted and in need from day one 5. Put communities at the centre of emergency governance, planning, preparedness, and response 6. Recognise, develop and sustain workforce health, wellbeing, capability and agility.

[vilegores]

𝐀𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐏𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋. ♡

simon “ghost” riley x fem!reader

warnings: adult content(18+), feminine terms used (princess, she/her pronouns, etc.), mutual masturbation, inexperienced!reader, corruption kink, praise kink, slight daddy kink, phone sex, overstimulation.

simon loves the fact that you're innocent.

he thrives in knowing that you're such a naïve thing when it comes to the awareness of what goes on inside the bedroom.

it delights him at the thought of teaching you the things you've been deprived of; it was nasty of him and it's taking everything in his power to constrain himself.

so when you suddenly facetiming him at two in the morning, asking how to touch yourself, his brain just went haywire at the filth that filled his mind.

"how are you feeling right now, baby?" he questions, voice low and raspy as he tried to contain such impurities from spilling out of his mouth, his dick starting to stir against the tight fabric of his boxers.

you whine softly on the other side of the phone; too ashamed that you came up to him with such erotic questions, "i feel like—" you stop mid-way, taking a deep breath in, "—like i want to be touched." you answered truthfully, knowing better than to lie to him.

"does my angel want to touch herself?" he asks, tongue jutting out to wet his lips, now palming himself to soothe it's aching needs. "use your words, pretty girl."

the change in his demeanor, despite it being behind the cellphone screen caused you to fall into quick submission, “y-yes, simon, please.” your words causing your cheeks to glow a rosy pink at the realization that you have never even done it yourself. you looked away from his piercing gaze, voice soft and timid, “but i’ve never done it before”

those words were enough to make simon cream in his boxers from the euphoria he was feeling that you were, indeed, such an innocent being at his mercy. but he knew he had to take it slow, to pace things just so he wouldn’t overwhelm you with the activities he would love to do to you.

“then i can help you out, princess.” he says softly, shifting in his position so his back was against the headboard of his hotel bedroom.

his dark orbs blown with lust as he catches your uncertainty through the screen, tongue poking against the inside of his cheek. “do you want me to help you out, doll?” he asks, wanting to hear you say that you wanted to do this with him.

you nod, nipping at your bottom lip as you look back at him, his disheveled state making the unknown ache in the middle of your legs intensify. “yes, simon. please,” you ask once more, cheeks flaring up at the unusual way of begging.

“prompt your camera somewhere on the bed, daddy wants to see you.” simon orders, his tone quiet yet firm. his eyes were glued to the screen as he watched you shift the camera for a bit until you had it prompted against a small pile of pillows, your body in full view for the camera.

catching a glimpse of you in his shirt made him throw his head back, a groan escaping his lips. “are you wearing anything underneath? take it all off.”

easily complying, you stripped off from his clothes only to reveal that you were completely naked underneath, earning another satisfied hum from the male. his voice was octave lower, “open up for me.” as he watched you with an intense stare, motioning you to open up your legs for him.

you spread your legs wide open, your soaking cunt glistening and in full view in the camera just for him. you can hear him mumble a string of curses mixed with praises from the sight, “show me what you know, princess.” you followed, a single hand snaking down as a single digit swipes your slit gently, eyes closing at the foreign pleasure.

simon was in heaven seeing you touch yourself, “go on, doll. just like that.” was all that he managed to say, taking his cock out of his boxers as he slowly started to pump himself, his thumb circling around his tip to catch some of the pre-cum that coated it.

you then stumble upon your aching clit, rubbing circles on the bud gently as waves of pleasure roll out your mouth, your back arching lightly as your legs tremble to stay wide open. “keep those legs open, pretty girl. daddy wants to see everything you’re doing.” his voice was low, soft grunts of his own pleasure ringing in your ear.

“i want to see everything that you’re going to do once i get home tomorrow.”

[cenorii]

Headcanons about Oldsker

I drew him quite a lot, so I managed to form an opinion about him. Yes, officially Oldsker exists only in our heads, but that doesn't stop us from coming up with something about him. Who is he? Read here.

— Of course, my main hedcanon is his appearance:

— I think Oldsker is the perfect version of Wesker, the final stage of his personal evolution. It's not only the result of his personal growth, but also the result of Capcom's labors to make a complete and final version of the character that will include all the notes and previous games, creating a coherent image out of all the vast information there is about him.

— Having limited himself all his life, Wesker was able to go all out after the volcano. Now that he wasn't bound by the confines of Spencer's upbringing, nor held back by the fulfillment of his dreams, he felt free. Now he was like a child who had been told by his parents to "do whatever you want." Wesker, who had never used foul language before, might start doing it. Wesker, who previously didn't drink and despised bad habits, might try them. Long hair and a different clothing style? He's just getting started. He's free and will probe that feeling in absolutely everything. Acting like a silly joker on the street? Easy. Create the image of the urban lunatic around him as a disguise? Oh yes, he likes that. He's free and his name no longer constrains him, because he'll change it too.

— I think Wesker got tired of having the same hairstyle for 50 years, styling his hair every morning, and so on. And he's already 61. Feeling completely free, like a teenager craving self-expression, he will grow his hair out and not care about styling at all. The only thing he will do with his hair is wash it. He doesn't even need a blow dryer anymore, just a towel, because now he loves himself any way he can. And he no longer needs to be "perfect" to like himself.

— He hasn't gotten rid of the habit of wearing sunglasses, but he really needs it to fit in with society. His eyes still tend to glow with emotion, and basically have an unconventional look. It's unlikely that colored contact lenses can override something so unusual.

— He doesn't forget about Chris. For Chris, Wesker's "death" means a lot, thanks to this event Chris realized that his fight was worth the lives saved. But for Wesker, this event is also very important. He has revised absolutely his entire life, changing the way he approaches it.

— Chris is his obsession. Wesker admires him, hates him, loves him, despises him, loves him, and so it is every day… every day is his struggle with feelings he is not familiar with, but tries to understand. Wesker has become free of any restraints, but the walls that were erected around his feelings still stand. And that's why he's such a noob in feelings, he doesn't know what he's feeling or how to describe it. That's why his relationship with Chris is so confused… He created Chris clones for some new purpose, but the purpose is just an excuse for his real attitude towards Chris.

— He continues to pursue his hobby and creates various weapons and names them after himself, paying homage to his "past life". Thanks to "Albert Wesker" he realized what he wanted out of life, and because of him he became the man he is today.

— I like the name Michael Baxter from this theory. I think that even though it's a weird nickname, it would be a great fit for Oldsker instead of his past name that was given to him by Umbrella and Spencer. He'd obviously want to stop being associated with "Wesker" because it's a dirty and disgusting project. But would he want to stop being Albert? Perhaps the name is too catchy and would expose his whole new image. So he would want to change his name completely, renouncing his past self.

— Oldsker hasn't changed, he's just become liberated and free. Perhaps there are scars on his body that have not been healed by regeneration, due to his powers becoming weaker.

— He probably knows Karl Heisenberg. It's unlikely to be any kind of close acquaintance, but they could very well turn out to be conversation partners by correspondence. Karl could be telling Oldsker about Miranda's plans, and Oldsker could be chattering unrestrainedly about Chris and his plans for him.

— Perhaps freedom would turn his head a little and he'd look for himself in completely unexpected directions. How about…writing a novel? Can this Wesker write NSFW about him and Chris? 😳

[nanowrimo]

Tips for Writing When Struggling With Executive Dysfunction

Executive dysfunction can make writing challenging. NaNo participant, August, has some tips on dealing with task initiation and how to keep writing so you can reach your writing goals. Embarking on a writing project is quite the undertaking. After years of sticking to short pieces, I decided to start working on my first novel last NaNoWriMo. However, it felt like I was fighting with my own mind to get things done.

Executive dysfunction is a term used to describe weaknesses in the cognitive process that organizes thoughts and activities, prioritizes tasks, manages time efficiently, and makes decisions. It’s common in certain disorders, such as Depression, ADHD, and autism. Executive function skills are used to establish structures and strategies and to determine the actions required to move a project forward. So for those of us who struggle with executive dysfunction, dedicating ourselves to a project could get quite overwhelming. Here are some little tips and tricks I’ve compiled throughout my experience.

How to start:

Task initiation is one of the biggest struggles when dealing with executive dysfunction. This is especially hard with writing, since you need time to muster the energy needed to jump into your story. Here are some tips:

1. Start a 1-3 minute timer and force yourself to write something, anything, before it ends. The words that come out don’t matter. You can just write, “I don’t know.” The point is to force yourself into the writing zone.

2. Leave bread crumbs for yourself at the end of each writing session to make picking up where you left off easier. For example, stop in the middle of a sentence or thought, so the next time you write you won’t have to tackle something completely new.  You just have to finish that incomplete thought and continue from there. You could also leave some notes about what happens next, cutting down thinking time in your next session.

3. Try free writing. This is a great way to get those creative juices flowing with minimal effort. Free writing alleviates the pressure of writing something good. Spend a few minutes writing about anything, like your day or a frustrated ramble about your story. It’s like a warm up before your writing session.

How to keep going:

So you’ve started your writing session. How do you keep writing? Most importantly, how do you keep working on your project?  When struggling with executive dysfunction, the regular “set a schedule” approach doesn’t tend to work.

1. Scale down your goal if your big, overarching goal for your project is overwhelming. Try changing your goal to something more manageable and short term. For example, try writing 500 words a day. This might make it less likely for you to lose steam half way through.

2. Try writing sprints if daily goals aren’t working. Instead of hitting a certain word count, you’re setting a timer and writing for its entire duration

3. Don’t feel bad for needing external motivation. Will promising yourself a pizza after you hit your goal motivate you to write? By all means, do so. Maybe you just need a friend to ask you if you’ve written at the end of the day. Find out what motivates you.

4. Find a writing buddy. This can be someone who can sit down and write at the same time to hold you accountable. Or it can be a critique partner that expects you to turn in something by a certain deadline.

5. Try something new. This is one of the best ways to combat how constraining and overwhelming your writing might feel. It’s okay to lose interest in your project for awhile and try something new. Unless you’re racing to meet a deadline, you have no obligation to keep working on a project that isn’t working for you. Setting a project aside doesn’t mean giving up on it. You might only need some time away from it before you are able to finish it.

Trying something new could also mean changing where or how you write. Usually write at home? Try a coffee shop. Do you usually type? Try hand writing. It might or might not work for you. But change could be quite refreshing for your mind.

6. Write whenever you can.

Sometimes the urge to write comes while you’re waiting for lunch to heat up, or right before you go to bed. Motivation can be hard to find with executive dysfunction, and designated writing times don’t always work. Have something on hand you can easily pull out to write with to take advantage of these moments. Jotting down a hundred words as you’re waiting for dinner to cool might not seem like much, but it’s still words contributed to your word count.

Some of these tips might work for you. Some might not. Writing successfully is mostly about finding what works and running with it. These are things I found helpful when I embarked on my first novel and I hope it would at least give you some ideas.

Happy writing!

August is a 19 year old self proclaimed nerd and aspiring writer. They are currently taking a gap year after high school and are planning to start their undergraduate psychology degree soon. They have been writing short poetry for two years and recently started work on their first fantasy novel. When not writing, they are busy reading or being a musical theatre enthusiast. Check out some of their writing on Instagram. Photo by Miriam Alonso from Pexels

[mimble-sparklepudding]

Summer Symbolism OC Questions.

A little list of OC questions based on the symbolism of Summertime.

Sunflowers - Growth and Success.

What is the most significant way in which your OC has grown since the start of their journey? Do they acknowledge this? Have others noticed the change?

How does your OC feel about their height? Would they prefer to be taller? Or more petite?

What is your OC's current ambition? Has this always been the same thing? Or has it changed over time?

What does success look like to your OC? Great riches? Fame? Immense power? A happy marriage? Or something else entirely?

What are the main barriers to your OC getting what they want? Whether in terms of their ambitions or simply their personal development?

Butterflies - Freedom and Spontaneity.

Does your OC believe that freedom is the most important value that a society should hold? Or does it rank below things such as security, social harmony or adherence to traditions?

Does your OC like to make decisions on the fly? Or are they more inclined to plan carefully and weigh up every decision before they commit?

Does your OC welcome committed relationships with friends or partners? Or does a sense of mutual obligation feel constraining or even stifling?

Does your OC like to keep a calender, planner or some other way of organising themselves? Or do they prefer to wake up each day with no clear plan?

What is something your OC has always wanted to try, but has yet to do so? What is holding them back?

Swallows - Travel and Adventure.

To where would your OC most like to travel? Assuming that cost, distance and other practicalities were no object…

Is your OC particularly adventurous? Or would they really rather prefer a quiet life, if such a thing were possible?

Does your OC like to travel light? Or do they prefer to take as much luggage as possible? Or even bring as many of the comforts of home as they can manage?

In order for your OC to consider something an adventure does there need to be a level of danger? Or are they happier enjoying risk-free excursions?

What is something your OC always takes with them wherever they go? Is this for purely practical reasons? Or is there an sentimental motivation also?

Picnics - Nourishment and Sharing.

What is your OC's favourite food to eat in hot weather? Or do they not have much of an appetite in the heat?

What foodstuffs might your OC pack for a long journey? What would be their prime consideration in choosing what to bring?

Does your OC willingly share food? Or do they jealously guard it from the wandering fingers of peckish companions?

If your OC were to attend a party or social gathering where they were required to bring food then what would they bring? Would they make it themselves? Or are they more likely to buy it on the way?

What food(s) will your OC eat because they know it is good for them, even if they really don't enjoy it? Or is the health and nourishment aspect of food not really a major concern for them?

Beaches - Warmth and Relaxation.

Does your OC find it easy to relax? Or do they need to be persuaded (or nagged) away from their duties and responsibilities?

What would your OC wear for a day at the beach? Would they chose something practical? Something skimpy and slightly scandalous? Or would they remain fully clothed/armoured at all times and make no concessions to the location whatsoever?

Does your OC enjoy warm climates? If so then is this because they grew up in a hot area? Or because they grew up in a very cold area and are pleased to get away to somewhere hotter? If they dislike warm climates then why is this?

What helps your OC to relax? Gentle music? The sound of softly falling rain? A stiff drink? A massage? Or something else entirely?

What would be your OC's ideal choice of chilled beverage on a hot day? A cold ale? A frothy milkshake? A fizzy lemonade? An outrageous and somewhat campy cocktail, replete with paper umbrellas, curly straws and slices of exotic fruit? Or something else?

[stormsbourne]

honestly though dragon age 2 was the exact perfect game to follow dragon age origins and it's almost entirely because of the things that most hardc0re gamerz hated most: the inability to change or divert what happens

you go from a game where you are a special rainbow star who the plot and world seems to rotate around to a game where you are just a person who ends up a significant figure mostly by chance. in origins you are one of the only survivors of a mass betrayal by the king's right hand man, and you have it drilled into you again and again that your choices matter. not only do they matter but they are the fulcrum the worldstate moves around. not a fan of the werewolves? kill them all off and let the guy who cursed them in the first place off scot free. think golems would be a sick way to really fuck up an archdemon? revive that ancient tech at the cost of who knows how many lower-class and casteless dwarf lives. you are the one who determines if the archdemon dies or gets reborn as a supernatural infant boy. it is all on you.

in dragon age 2 almost nothing is on you. the other characters have goals and motivations and you might be able to slightly affect them, but some things happen regardless. fenris always kills hadriana. anders always blows up the chantry. isabela always has already stolen the qunari artifact and merrill is not capable of being persuaded not to fuck with the eluvian. sure, you can affect their fates. do you sell fenris back into slavery? do you kill merrill's entire clan to protect her reputation or let her take the brunt of it to spare them? does anders live or die? bethany? carver? but the actions the characters take mostly happen regardless of hawke's input. the worldstate does not morph to fit what you want it to be anymore because the characters have too much weight in the people they already are.

and the wider plot reflects this, too. the qunari are unwilling to negotiate a peace, especially once they deem kirkwall too far gone to be worth saving. meredith is set in her ways and cannot be convinced out of her mindset. you cannot save leandra. anders, again, always blows up the chantry. hawke is involved in many of these events but they are far from being the fulcrum the world spins around. they are just a person, like most other people, caught up in the conflicts of forces so much more powerful and more ingrained into society than they are, that the best they can do is to ride the waves. to leap forward as the world changes around them, as flemeth fortells early in the game. the big reveal varric hesitates to tell cassandra for so long is that hawke was just a person, caught up in a million conflicts that they tried to stop but could not because the world was already too set against them. a fish struggling upstream for its whole life, and if you buy the depiction of hawke in inquisition, one who sort of resented the role they ended up playing in what became of the wider world.

it's perfect. it's beautiful. I know the narrative these days is that it's so constrained because of the short dev cycle, and while I do think that if the dev cycle had been longer there would have been more polish and shine, I think this theme was always intended because it's such a perfect foil to origins. origins says show me how important you are, the world your warden wants to create. da2 says that the world already exists, and the best you can do is try to keep things from getting worse, and make a tiny impact for the better in the lives of the people around you. the mages you help escape kirkwall while they can, the people you manage to save from slavers. maybe you can't change the world, maybe it's too set against you. but you can change something. some little things.

it slaps.

[inbabylontheywept]

I love your writing. It’s the type of writing that I love bc other than being easy to read, I admire it bc it accomplishes what I struggle with. It uses few words yet conveys across the idea efficiently, vagueness to its benefit.

Have you heard the phrase “I want to distill myself like poets do”? It comes from a tumblr post of someone trying to express the same thing as me rn.

Anyway the other part of what I wanted to say is that I’m autistic, and when I try to write, I always succumb to the urge to add as many details and overexplanations as possible to avoid being misunderstood. You’re autistic too, but your writing shines in doing the opposite, so I was wondering if you struggled with this too, and how you got better, or if your flavor of autism simply doesn’t manifest in this way and this isn’t a problem to you

Unfortunately, I do naturally tend towards condensed formats. So some part of this is just natural for me. If it makes you feel better, I tried several times to make serials while doing HFY and I never succeeded. I've also tried several times to write books, and I always just get kind of stuck. It's one of my big regrets, so if you have any experience in those, I'd love to hear it. Same from anyone else reading this, actually - if you've made the jump from short stories to long form, I'd like to know how you managed.

Still, despite it being a natural thing for me, I can give you three activities that I've done that improved my short story work very much.

First, improv classes. Attending them will help your writing in ways you will not believe, and also, as an autist, that shit's better than OT. My parents signed me up for some in the summer of my fifth grade year, and they were legit life changing. Way less social anxiety, better writing, I could sing their praises all day. If you do one thing on this list, do this.

Second, write poetry. I do not consider myself a poet, but I attend a weekly poetry writing club, and it has noticeably improved my prose. Find one and go. As you get better, try and constrain the poetry you write to things like rhyme and meter. Writing with artificial constraints is amazing for teaching people to be focused and direct.

And if you have room for a third thing, maybe try finding a way to do extemporaneous public speaking besides the improv. I grew up Mormon, which involves absolutely insane amounts of public speaking from an early age, but I also did stuff like that in middle school NAL and high school speech and debate. Those all helped. They were stressful, and not terribly fun, but they did help, and it's a good skill to have.

I love talking shop, so thanks for asking! And just to reiterate my request from before, anyone that's jumped from short stories to novel length works, please, tell me your secrets. Plz.

[pedgito]

YAY i’m so glad you’re writing again, i’ve missed it!! can i request some sweet and maybe kinda mischievous/giggly smut with eddie?

a/n: i have released myself from horny fic jail to bring you whatever this is, surely a mess. i'm slowly writing other fics but i needed to get back in my eddie groove. thank you for this!

cw: 18+ MDNI, afab!reader, unprotected sex, face sitting, light dom/sub (barely, if any), multiple orgasms

word count: 2k

Eddie’s fingers are dancing around the edge of your collar, cotton shirt worn with age and fraying in random places. He’s rubbing it between his fingers, flipping it over to watch it fall back into place, silent aside from the occasional huff of laughter that escapes him when he catches you looking at him. 

He enjoys this—the times in between, the before, the after. The small moments of vulnerability when it’s just you and him and your breathing. He’s managed to rid you of your jeans, his own too, your legs slotted securely around his hips and his lap turning into a makeshift seat. 

He’s maneuvered himself against the wall behind his bed, legs angled up to act as a support for your back as the hand that isn’t currently fiddling with your shirt is rubbing a gentle pattern up your leg, rings catching on the material of your underwear with each glide upwards.

“What’s going on up there?” You ask playfully, tapping a soft finger against the center of his forehead. Eddie glances your way, eyes angled up slightly—menacingly, with a grin to match. 

“Don’t think I forgot about this morning.” Eddie responds, a softness to his tone that was unsettling, almost as if he’s speaking on a topic he loved, addressing the situation with ease. 

This morning. Front seat. A hopeful quickie cut short by the sound of the school bell cutting through the silence. Eddie begged for a moment longer, but letting your grades suffer on the account of being late? You just wouldn’t allow it.

Besides, it was his fault you were running late, therefore the punishment had been dealt. But now, it was coming back to bite you. 

“You are—“ The words die out on a squeal, his fingers digging into your sides until you’re keeling over, begging for mercy from the relentless tickling.

“Say it,” Eddie goaded, peeking up from where he had his face buried against your clothed chest, curls hanging in his face from how messy his hair had become during the short wrestle, “what am I?”

A list compiled in your head.

Funny. Caring. Obnoxious in the most loving way and a bunch of different traits that ultimately came back to the same point. But, the only thing that popped into your brain was—

“Ridiculous.”

Eddie nods, almost like he expected it.

“Go on.” He encourages.

“Selfish.” 

It’s a total lie.

He responds all the same, but the difference is the fingertips gliding along the column of your throat, a delicate glide as his touch tickles until it’s in a firm grasp under your jaw. He’s not squeezing or taunting, just holding. It feels like a caress, but the look on his face says otherwise.

“Infuriating.” You breathe out, eyes flicking up toward the ceilings as you bare your neck and there it is—the small force of pressure you were waiting for.

“Right.” Eddie nods calmly, palm shifting out behind him as support as he leans forward, legs falling as he forces you backwards an inch, slotting your cunt directly over the hard line of his cock, constrained by the tight material of his boxers. 

He repeats the three words calmly, punctuating them each with a kiss to the line of your throat as he ascends, stopping by his thumb, whispering a haughty, “Let’s see if I can change that.”

Eddie constantly lived his life in extremes. High highs, low lows, never settling on middle ground until he met you. He was teasing you, taunting you, mostly for your own pleasure but especially for his.

And he could admit that he was selfish when he wanted to be, but never with you. The words stung and ignited a fire, determined to change your mind.

His free hand curls a finger around the material clinging to your hip, teasing the soft skin underneath.

“Take these off for me?”

What an asinine question.

He releases his hold on you, watching you teeter from side to side as you shimmy the clothing down your hips, your legs, the material catching on your ankle in a way that has you giggling awkwardly. Eddie’s kind enough to lend a hand, his own laugh escaping as he reaches and discards them for you. 

It’s worse this way, not providing the friction you so desperately crave. Skin to skin. 

Eddie’s playing the long game.

“Go ahead,” Eddie encourages, “seeing as I’m selfish.”

“I was joking—“ You know it. He knows it.

“Ah ah,” He chided, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. His dragging a full once over, thumb digging into the curve of your hip bones. He guides you forward gently, a tantalizing and teasing glide.

“Take what you need, baby.” His teeth peek through his grin, eyes crinkling in a way that had your insides fluttering. “I mean, unless…you’d rather I be selfish.” 

You huff a breath through your nose, letting out a small yelp when Eddie jerks you forward roughly, expanding on the already growing wet patch on the front of his boxers.

“Go on,” He breathes, eyes slowly traversing to connect with your own, “touch me.”

It doesn’t take long for things to escalate, your hands slipping under his waistband, cupping him with a gentler hand than he expects before pulling him out with ease, shifting his boxers just far enough out of the way that they won’t be a nuisance and you’re slipping him inside you with no preparation.

It wasn’t like you needed it. You molded to him like the final piece of a puzzle, nothing but a soft release of breath shared between you both as you rock until you’re fully seated, hands pressed flat against his stomach for support, having shoved him down on his back with a force that has him laughing through a gruff expletive.

“Fuck,” He chuckles, “I’ll never get tired of this.”

This. You. All of it.

You nod knowingly, mouth hanging open in a quiet moan as your hips find a rhythm, alternating between a slow rock that catches your clit in a perfect pressure until Eddie gets slightly impatient, aiding in a subtle bounce until your ass is slapping against the front of his thighs at a hurried pace.

And it still isn’t enough, your body burning with desire. Your top comes off in haste, tangling with the shirt as Eddie slowly the pace for a moment, the material flying somewhere in the room haphazardly, a soft noise as it hits the floor and your fingers are struggling with the straps of your bra when it’s finally unclasped, all twisted up on the right side—your patience was wearing thin. 

Eddie’s nose wrinkles in amusement, coming to an abrupt halt when he can’t watch you suffer any longer. 

“Easy, easy.” He comforts you, amusement evident in his tone and face. He was enjoying this far too much. “That’s one of my favorites.”

“You say that about all of them.”

He can’t disagree.

“Because it’s true.” Eddie says defensively, “Every single one.”

You roll your eyes playfully, groaning when you resume the determined roll of your hips, clenching around the girth of him with every squeeze to your thigh, hips, watching as he falls apart beneath you so beautifully.

“That’s it,” He praises, eyes squeezed shut to focus, staving off the orgasm creeping up on him, “that’s good—so good, baby.”

Your head drops back, rhythm thrown out the window as you move wildly, aided by the unpredictable thrusts of Eddie’s hips. It’s the perfect view of your chest, the stretch of your body as you lean back in pleasure, moans following from your lips like a wave, gradually rising in volume.

“Always fuckin’ good for me,” Eddie admits, “shit—perfect. God, I can’t—“

“I can stop if—” You attempt, but god forbid Eddie let that happen.

“Don’t you dare,” He quickly deters you, “wouldn’t fuckin’ dream of it.”

He’s still reeling from the morning high, cut too short and he feels like he’s ripping at the seams now, grabbing and panting into whatever bare skin he could reach as his thrusts falter, leaning up and pulling you toward him in the same motion, arms draping over his shoulders as he releases with a groan he’s been holding back, the tip of his nose running along your collarbone as he huffs in exhaustion, quickly dissolving into a laugh that turns into a full on giggle-fest, satiated by his own orgasm but feeling so giddy he can’t hold back.

And it’s infectious, your own soft laughs following as he pulls back enough to catch the blissful smile on your face, earlier conversations and arguments forgotten.

Eddie, however, is still very determined to prove you wrong.

He’s got his hands around your thighs before you can second guess yourself, hauling you up and over his chest, legs barricaded around his arms, knees pressed gently against the curve of his shoulder as he grins at you. 

It’s so devious it has you clenching around nothing but the slow drip of his cum as it threatens to slip out of you. His fingers press inside you gently, eyebrows furrowing at the sensation.

“Didn’t think I’d let you off that easily, huh?” Eddie teases, “What kind of guy do you take me for?”

For one, you knew he wouldn’t let up until he was satisfied, giving you as many orgasms as you could handle until you were begging for a break.

The word was silly in hindsight, a freudian slip that managed to tick Eddie off just enough.

Selfish. Oh, he would show you.

Your answer never comes, silenced by the wet, warm press of his tongue over your clit as his fingers moved inside of you, a dueling pace between rhythms that had you thankful Eddie was experienced enough to manage them separately, so effortlessly. He liked to hum a particular song in his head, which he’d admitted once, but he’s never clued you in to what it actually was.

It has you snorting behind your hand that night, muffling the laugh that slips past your lips. It doesn’t surprise you in the slightest and that’s exactly why you’re so amused. 

It doesn’t take long either, fingers snagged tight around the curls at the crown of his head as you rock against his face, savoring the tiny grunts he releases, a sign that he enjoyed it just as much. You come with a sharp gasp, hips lifting up just enough that Eddie squeezes tight, not letting you wander far.

“Feeling okay?” Eddie asks after a moment, feeling your body settle.

“Yeah, yeah,” You respond shakily, “point proven, we’re even.”

“Oh…no,” Eddie argues playfully, “not even remotely close.”

You counter a look of disbelief, yelping when he shifts you suddenly and an arm is enveloping your waist to battle your current position and tucking you under him, a rough and calloused hand slapping at your thigh gently as he hikes it over his hip, a dull ache compared to the shaking, spasming muscles in your legs.

“I’m thinkin’ one, two—”

“Two?” Your eyes grow comically wide.

“Maybe three.” Eddie adds.

“Eddie.”

He knows it, that tone. 

“Swear you didn’t mean it?” Eddie asks, pressing a quick kiss between the valley of your chest, eyes flicking up at you, all soft and resembling a sad puppy.

“Swear.”

But, it doesn’t stop him from pulling another orgasm out of you, along with another of his own as he finds himself back inside of you, lazily guiding you both to that point.

Please consider a reblog if you enjoyed this fic! It’s makes a huge difference. ♡