#edit: found them and added a link to the post!

[2bpoliticallycurious]

Dana Milbank, one of the few progressive opinion writers left at The Washington Post turned Bezos's new opinion guidelines on their head and wrote an opinion piece about how Trump and the GOP's authoritarianism is a "real threat to 'personal liberties and free markets.'" Surprisingly, the WaPo published it. Below is a gift 🎁link to the column, so there is no paywall.

Here’s the real threat to ‘personal liberties and free markets’

The rapidly spreading authoritarianism coming from this administration threatens all of our freedoms.

Here are some excerpts:

“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos wrote on Wednesday morning.  [...] In its plain language, this is unobjectionable. Personal liberties and free markets are part of the American creed. But many readers I’ve heard from suspect the words are cover for a plan to turn this into a MAGA-friendly outlet. I don’t yet know for sure. But this much is clear: If we as a newspaper, and we as a country, are to defend Bezos’s twin pillars, then we must redouble our fight against the single greatest threat to “personal liberties and free markets” in the United States today: President Donald Trump. [emphasis added] The rapidly spreading authoritarianism coming from this administration threatens all of our freedoms. Trump in recent days has declared himself to be a “king.” His Self-Proclaimed Majesty announced, Louis XIV-style, that “we are the federal law.” And he proposed that “we should take over Washington, D.C.,” and deny its 700,000 residents the right of self-governance. As for liberties, the day before the pillars announcement, the White House ended a century-old precedent and decreed that the government would handpick which news organizations would be allowed to cover and question Trump. [...] As for free markets, Trump on Thursday said he is raising tariffs on China an additional 10 percent, and that his previously announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico, our largest trading partners, will go into effect on March 4, “as scheduled.” [...] Trump hasn’t managed to deport any more undocumented migrants than the Biden administration had, but he has dramatically cracked down on legal immigration, undermining a sacred personal liberty.And, as The Post reports, the administration has allegedly been violating the human rights of migrants it has shipped off to Guantánamo Bay, keeping them shackled in cages, deprived of daylight, subjected to strip searches and denied access to lawyers. [...] At the United Nations this week, the Trump administration sided with Russia and other repressive, authoritarian states in blocking a resolution supporting democratic Ukraine’s territorial integrity. 

You can use the gift link to read Milbank's description of all the other ways that the Trump administration has trampled on "personal liberties and free markets.”

Although I'm conflicted, I'm continuing to read the WaPo to support journalists like Milbank. I also do so because it is the only journalistic news source I have found that allows for immediate comments on nearly every article. This allows me to join other WaPo readers who rant against any WaPo sanewashing of the Trump administration.

But even that won't be enough to keep me reading the WaPo if it loses too many more progressive journalists. It is truly tragic that Bezos chose to bow to Trump and in doing so to destroy one of the great American newspapers of the past century.

Consequently, it seems fitting to end this reblog commentary with the cartoon by the great Ann Telnaes, which the WaPo refused to publish.

IG source (before edits) of Ann Telnaes cartoon.

More than 75,000 digital subscribers to The Washington Post have cancelled since its owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced on Wednesday that he would radically overhaul the paper's opinion pages to reflect libertarian priorities and to exclude opposing points of view.

Wednesday's announcement led to the immediate resignation of Opinions Editor David Shipley. He had vainly sought to persuade Bezos to drop the plans, according to a person with direct knowledge. Shipley did not respond to requests for comment.

Bezos' decision also prompted an outcry from longtime Post figures, including Associate Editor David Maraniss and former Executive Editor Marty Baron. Baron called the move "craven" and told Zeteo News that Bezos, whom he praised extensively in his 2023 memoir, was "basically fearful" of President Trump.

[devils-yui]

Reposting this from a friend bc I think it is VERY important to know of this, and for immigrants, and other possible victims of the ICE Raids happening right now

Here’s to also a very huge edit, from the list of very helpful people who have been reblogging and providing more info.

I’m not as well informed but I will be relaying the information and tagging each person who added onto this post:

@onthedriftinthetardis -

The phone number in the first photo is ONLY for Orange County, California!

Look up your local ACLU affiliate here

@6feetunderwater -

It always makes me nervous to see a reporting phone number passed around without any links to verify it, so the number in the first pic can be found on the site for the Orange County Rapid Response Network, which is "an interconnected system of non-profit and grassroots organizations, civil rights attorneys, law school clinics, and individuals working together to respond to dehumanizing immigration enforcement activities and policies in Orange County"

@geekerypeekery -

The second warrant is not fake, but is an administrative rather than judicial warrant, and has no constitutional authority to bypass Fourth Amendment protections - in other words, it does not entitle the bearer to enter and search your home. It simply authorizes agents of the issuing department to contact you. Always ask to see the warrant before opening your door!

In addition to the ACLU links, try contacting the National Immigration Law Center https://www.nilc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Warrants-Subpoenas-Facts.pdf

@american-anger -

The phone number listed here is specific to Orange County in California, but you can look up other California counties here:

CALIFORNIA RAPID RESPONSE NETWORKS

@beaniebaneenie -

Unpleasant reminder: within 100 miles of the border (which is home to 200 million people and virtually all major cities in the US), ICE does not need a warrant to enter your home, your car, to search anything, or even to arrest you.

You are not automatically safe just because they don't have a real warrant.

The best and safest thing you can do is learn to have escape routes- quick ways to get out of the house or area you're in if you find out ICE or CBP are around. Those of us who do have documentation? Time for us to step the fuck up.

Film any interaction. Every interaction. If you're able, step into the conversation and be a Karen/Kyle- weaponize your privilege for Good. If you get asked about people? Use positive but vague statements so you a) cannot be caught in a lie, and b) do not give any information away.

"I don't know them that well, but I don't tend to socialize much. They seem great to me."

"I can't remember the last time I saw them."

"Maybe they speak another language, I can't remember details. But I picked up Duolingo during the pandemic and tons of other people did too."

"I'm not sure."

"I'm sorry, I can't help you."

Even if you're somewhere the 100-mile Exception doesn't apply and a warrant is in fact needed? I don't expect ICE and CBP to play by the rules for long, if at all. I fully expect this to get ugly, and fast.

Cheeto has already declared an emergency of national security at the border, and is mobilizing the military to have jurisdiction over a huge swath of the country. It's essentially tantamount to martial law. And it's only been four days.

Gear up for a long, hard fight. This is gonna be a marathon, not a sprint.

— I am leaving all of this as an edit because on the off chance someone does find the posts that have these people specifically reblogging, I don’t want it to be too late. So I’m comprising it all here

Here are a few other people’s reblogs I thought were important:

Thank you @onthedriftinthetardis @6feetunderwater @geekerypeekery @american-anger @beaniebaneenie @bunnychiffon @dubiouslynamed @trisockatops @witchy-disaster for contributing and helping me make this a more well-informed post. Thank you so much

[somewhereincairparavel]

percy had an 'im a big three son' moment when he choked a goddess with her own saliva (controlling a fluid that was INSIDE her body) annabeth was terrified.

nico had an 'im a big three son' moment when he disembodied bryce lawrence (quite literally dissipating and shrinking his LIVING soul into a spirit) and threw him to the underworld, smashing his zombie warriors. reyna was terrified.

yet we were robbed of jason's 'im a big three son' moment where he sucks the air out of someone's lungs and makes them stop breathing, or damaging a person's nervous system with his lightning control, and literally cause internal bleeding, or a damaged/fried skull if he electrocuted hard enough (look up the effects of lightning damage on body y'all will get a whole list, tbh he doesn't even need lightning to do any of this, air control is more than enough since air takes charge of everything going inside the body, but this is just an added effect.) he could give people STROKES if he wanted to. he's the literal definition of burnt out kid who was suppressed from discovering the magnitude of his abilities, because one, his dad's ego wouldn't be able to handle it, two, because he, for some reason, can't be allowed to do anything other than get knocked out :/

also adding on, hardcore pjo fans know that after the ending page of boo, there's this fan story that rick chose to publish in the last few pages of the book where a fan reimagines the ending of hoo, in that work, annabeth collapses from an attack and percy sobs clutching her body. jason calmly asks him to step aside, and kneels before annabeth, jason regulates her breathing using his wind/lightning powers and brings annabeth back fully from her cardiac arrest, causing percy to be relieved. (I wanted to link the pics of the pages here so bad but I didn't have the hard copy of the book with me, and this isn't available anywhere online either, only in the original covers of boo uk and us version, so I edited this post and asked people to reblog this post w the pics if they have the hardcopy, and a kind blogger found the story I'm talking about and reblogged the pictures of the pages, you can check my reblogs of this post for the pictures of the almost all the pages after this scene) considering rick approved and even liked the fan's work well enough to publish it in the official boo book, I'd say rick was aware and never completely ruled out expanding jason's abilities and had them in mind, he simply didn't incorporate it into the books. (also W fan for giving jason the rep he deserves, I will always remember you, you saw the VISION before any of us did, the story was very well written, with great dialogue.)

[emathevampire]

Qa’Imazha and Khajmira-do! My ESO vestige and her senche-raht bestie. I have not posted much about them, but I think of them fondly and often.

one day I will get my master angler achievement with them.

Btw, if anyone has/comes across an Ohmes/Ohmes-Raht/other rarely-seen Khajiit type OC send me a link please!!

I just think they're neat!

[emptymasks]

They're done! I really want to try and make prints again as it's been years and I've never felt like I was very good at making whole posters. Dipping my toe back in with these silly chibis of each Papa with every Ghoul they've had. Perhaps they can also work as a guide for those wanting to learn all the characters? I added in a fair amount of little references with the Ghoul's poses so it'll be interesting to see what you guys figure out and notice!

The prints are on pre-order and won't ship out until November. I've put up 25 of each to start with but if they get low on stock I'll keep adding more until I have them printed and then it'll be a set amount in stock.

Also a reminder about the stickers of every Ghost Papa and Ghoul that I made earlier this year that are also available as customisable badges! Thank you so much to everyone who already bought them and got Etsy to list them as a 'bestseller' for a while. They're still up and in stock.

EDIT: someone informed me Delta was not in Secondo's era so sorry little water ghoul but he got edited out of that drawing.

Characters featured on the prints and are also available on stickers and badges: Papa Emeritus I / Primo, Papa Emeritus II / Secondo, Papa Emerirus III / Terzo, Papa Emeritus IV / Cardinal Copia, Aether, Air, Alpha / Fire, Aurora, Chain / Water, Cirrus, Cowbell, Cumulus, Delta, Dewdrop / Sodo, Earth, Ifrit, Ivy, Lake, Mist, Mountain, Omega / Quintessence, Pebble, Phantom, Phil / Special Ghoul, Rain, Sunshine, Swiss, Zephy.

I can’t link to my Etsy without risking Tumblr hiding the post from tag search results, but the link is in my pinned post, my carrd, I’m emptymasks on Etsy. Reblogs help support artists more than likes ❤️

[ID: Four landscape drawings, one for each of Ghost's Papas and the Ghouls that were in the band with them while they were the lead singer. Each Papa is in the center with each of their ghouls standings to their sides. Every character has their name written above or below them, on brightly coloured backgrounds for each Papa's robe colour. Also, individual pixel art chibi drawings of 69 characters from various European musicals (listed above) that are available as stickers. These drawings are also available as badges where they are placed inside circles to show what they will look like as physical button badges, some of them with plain colour backgrounds and some with 1-3 different pride flags as examples of how you can customise the backgrounds.]

For those who want to know what the little references in the prints are and don't want to guess, they're under the cut:

Omega can be a stompy boy when he's playing guitar, Alpha likes to throw up peace signs, Air is very found of the rock horns hand symbol, there's one close-up photo of Lake out there where you can clearly see his black sclera contacts and he's doing double 'horns' hand symbol, Mountain infamously takes his shoes off when playing the drums and leaves them on the stage at the site of his drumkit, Dewdrop likes to like.. most things including his guitar and his picks and sometimes his own hand, Pebble liked to hand out his drumsticks at the end of shows by dropkicking them into the crowd, Omega wore a flower tucked into his guitar strap during one show and Terzo constantly flirts with him more than other ghouls, Delta is suspected to be the ghoul that attempted to kick an audience member off stage when they climbed onstage and attempted to kiss Terzo, Zephyr was the only band member and only keyboardist who sat down while playing, the special ghoul played by Tobias wore a nametag 'Phil' in an interview, Swiss constantly is showing all his teethies with his smiles and always wiggling and moving around, Aether and Dewdrop often interact with Dew teasing/bothering Aether, Dew and Rain also often interact with Dew constantly reaching to grab his neck and attempt to kiss him, aaaand I think that's everything I intentionally included other than just generally tried to get the poses and expressions to match the personality we've seen from each ghoul.

[z0mbieparty]

TW: GROOMING/P*DOPHILLIA I don't really care for writing about this stuff, but this person just came into contact with my friend who is a minor, and will not be named for their safety. This person, who is in the Welcome Home fandom, contacted my friend about writing an AU from what I was told? They linked my friend to their fic (which you can view under the cut, viewer discretion, I don't wanna make anyone uncomfortable.) and their Ao3 contained underage nsfw, including bookmarks to other people's fics that also contain underage nsfw. Please block them, thank you. -- (edit 2/7/25: realize I posted the same screenshot twice, and found out they had a reddit. Sorry, I was in a panic when I made this. Added a couple more screenshots. If you guys have anymore info please don't be afraid to let me know.)

[pyromaniac-cyndaquil]

It's been a lot of work over a lot of time but I think I can finally share this...

PMD:EoS, but with all of the starters!

...Including Grookey, finally!!!!! 🥳

Introducing PMD: Expanded Sky!

This is a public mod available to download now! It adds in all starters from unova all the way to paldea, as well as zorua, axew and rockruff, and allows evolving eevee into sylveon.

Speaking of which, fairy type has been patched into the game! Disarming voice replaces milk drink and moonblast replaces judgement, which was unused.

Some non-traditional starters are no longer available as hero options in this due to lack of space, but are still available as partners. (Skitty can be chosen as a hero in version 1.0.0 only, so download that version instead of the latest if you wanna use her! Riolu and Shinx are available in version 1.2.1 and below)

If one of your faves was taken off the hero roster (eg vulpix, skitty, riolu, munchlax, etc), I have a tutorial here on how to quickly edit the patched file to put them back in :)

Several regional variants have been added! Alolan Raichu, Alolan Marowak and Hisuian Typhlosion are now available as potential evolutions for their respective base stages.

Partners across both rescue team and all three versions of explorers are available too, including Cubone, Munchlax, Machop, Vulpix, Riolu, etc

Sprites and portraits are courtesy of the brilliant PMD Sprite Repository and the many incredible artists who contribute to it!

Credits for all improvement patches, sprites and portraits are included in the download, as well as an explanation on how to patch the game and the full starter list.

The mod is split in two versions to accommodate all the partners - MIDDAY version and MIDNIGHT version. The download includes both, as well as the tool required to patch your game! You'll need a clean US copy of pmd eos at hand.

A full list of moves learned by newly added Pokémon can be found here, as well as info on how to evolve them and their IQ groups.

If you run into any issues, feel free to drop me an ask or DM and I'll see how I can help/what I need to fix!

You can find the download for this rom hack here!

Edits/updates noted under the cut:

(27/04/23)

The overall mod now has a name - expanded sky! Reflected earlier on in the post.

I've been informed that the included patching tool (XDelta) doesn't work on mac, and after some digging around and discussions in dms we found this tool works for Mac instead.

Added graphics to the post displaying which heroes and partners are part of the hack.

(11/05/23)

Added link to learnset compilation for all new pokémon.

(17/05/23) Version 1.1.0 has been released!

Sobble is now a starter, replacing Skitty (Skitty is still accessible by downloading v1.0.0 on the download page). Sobble is also now a partner in MIDNIGHT.

Zorua/Zoroark's moveset has been tweaked slightly

Base forms of all new starters can now be found in Oran Forest, and can be recruitable in the post-game. The new fire starters can also be found in Giant Volcano.

Extra portraits and sprites were added for Cubone, Psyduck and Machop. Like the rest of the new assets in this mod, these were imported from the PMD Sprite Repository, and credits are on the title screen and in the readme.txt.

Extra credits + more in-depth instructions for patching the game included in the readme.txt.

(18/05/23)

Added a link to a tutorial on swapping out heroes for others already existing in the game.

(22/05/23) - Version 1.1.1 has been released!

Fixed genders for female starter options on the quiz. Updated Fuecoco to use new portraits and sprites. (Credits to Garbage)

(23/05/23) - Version 1.1.2 has been released!

Female starters from gens 5-9 can now evolve correctly (save for starters who don't have evolutions in the game yet - these are listed in the text file in the download)

Rockruff can now evolve, and Midnight Lycanroc's evolution method has been fixed to use the Lunar Ribbon as intended.

(15/06/23) - Version 1.2.1 has been released!

In 1.2.0, a second version of the mod was included in the zip compatible with melon emulator, and potentially others that were having issues with saving.

Fairy gummis were also made available as mission rewards and shop items.

There's a couple more things that can be seen in the changelog including bugfixes, but the main other thing promised was that Froakie and Litten can now evolve directly into Greninja and Incineroar. Due to an evolution flag not being set this ended up untrue, but has been fixed in 1.2.1.

This post claimed dazzling gleam is in the game, but it should've said disarming voice.

🆕 (10/03/24) - Version 1.3.0 has been released!

Dusk Lycanroc, Drizzile, Inteleon, Grookey, Axew and Fraxure have been added, as well as Alolan Raichu, Alolan Marowak an Hisuian Typhlosion.

Axew replaces Shinx in the hero roster, and Grookey replaces Riolu. Additional portraits and sprites added for starter evolutions, including vanilla starters. Sleep animations have been copied over to EventSleep/Laying/Wake animations if missing.

Greninja erroneously had the same moveset as Froakie. This has now been fixed.

Credits are no longer displayed on the title screen.

Sprite, portrait and patch credits can now be viewed by talking to a Cyndaquil NPC on the crossroads.

Evolution help can also be accessed by talking to this same NPC.

🆕 (23/05/24) - Version 1.3.1 has been released!

The uhh. Grovyle problem. Yeah. That should be fixed.

(Grovyle was missing several sprites as a side effect of trying to add new ones, due to his unique setup in the vanilla game as such an important npc. His sprites should now be reverted to a functional state, rather than leaving him to walk fowards on the spot all the time).

An issue present from the start that caused the game to freeze while advancing floors in dungeons occasionally should now be resolved.

[noicevibes]

DONT FORGET ROT FOR THE MALE MOANING AUDIOS

My dear, I'm going to use this ask of yours as a catalyst... All of my personal favourite ASMRs, vids, etcetera... beneath the cut. Not all of them are only male moaning! Literally just all my faves I've collected LOL.

Links will not only be audios; a majority of them are videos.

Links will be from any of the following: Twitter, the Hub, Audiomack, Soundgasm, and likely other sites, so be prepared because they're not labeled, lol. And sorry if any of the links are repeated; my bad.

BUT YES, THE MALE MOANING AUDIOS UGH 😮‍💨

BLUE TEXT MEANS NEW LINKS HAVE BEEN ADDED.

Links with sparkles are my personal faves.

Edited, more added July 21, 2023

CerberosVA Now, if y'all like your man extremely vocal, if you like whimpering, or lowkey, you like the whole subby bf thing, PLEASE, THIS MAN, I cannot recommend his shit enough. He's on twt, the hub, probably the mack; please support his official work on Patreon, if you can.

x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x

softxwarm (hub) This guy does both asmr and stuff with his girlfriend, but his solo ASMRs are pretty coo'. I'll just share my top three since you can just sift through his videos, anyway.

one (video; solo) | two (video; solo) | three (video; solo)

moonxx911 (twt) ANYTHING by this man. I won't even both being specific; I listen to his shit on repeat, rotated.

Akiradubs (hub) He mostly does character dub audios, but he has some simpler ones that I enjoy, like this one.

one (audio, gn!; sub male, ig?)

RedactedASMR I haven't gotten so deep into the lore of it, but Redacted has a whole series of ASMRs that tell long ass stories, so if you have the time, I recommend searching him out. I believe most of them are on YouTube? Personally, Lasko is my favourite (he's so cute with the stuttering, ughhhh). I'm just going to link my personal Redacted playlist I've started, rather than link specific ones. You can find him on more platforms, but I don't think his n/sfw ASMRs are on Youtube... idk.

ncvb RedactedASMR playlist (the mack)

SeikyuuVA (hub; also on the mack) Look, Seikyuu isn't everyone's flavour... there's only a couple specific ones I enjoy, just because he really goes over the top with the sounds and aggression sometimes, LMAO, and it gives me second hand embarrassment...

Lxvesickk (twt) Just found him, hehe. Just listen…

WickLuvsU (twt) His audios are... immaculate.

X | X (play these both at the same time... you're welcome.)

Video Links, general

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 ✨ | 19 | 20

21 | 22 ✨ | 23 ✨ | 24 | 25 ✨ | 26 | 27 | 28 ✨ | 29 ✨| 30 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 ✨| 36 ✨| 37 | 38 | 39 ✨| 40 ✨

41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 (mmf✨)| 46 (aud✨)|

Video Links, mlm

I had to put these links in a separate post because I reached Tumblr's 100 link-per-post limit? Didn't know that was a thing. So, please find them here! There's about 80+ links.

Video Links, wlw

1 | 2 | 3

Characters Like, the fake dubs. I dunno what they're called.

Hanma Shuji (hub, audio; Akiradubs) Zhongli (hub, audio; Akiradubs) Akira/Joker (hub, audio; Seikyuu) Take this Audiomack link, too; it's my other personal playlist that has a shit ton of character ASMR dubs on it, and then some...

I'll have more to add along the way; keep an eye on the update date!

[hideawaysis]

hello. absolutely hate involving myself in fandom drama, but ifeel this is an important post to make as i have seen a lot of people taking a certain post at face value and believing it.

im referring to this one, made by @/realultimatehater

now, before i say these things, i feel the need to preface this by saying that i do not personally wish to align myself in this fandom debate. i am a tax-paying adult and do not have any energy or time to put into arguing about a tv show on the internet. nonetheless, i have seen people blindly spreading this post around and i feel this needs to be addressed.

this person is lying.

it feels like it should be obvious with the levels of "down with cis bus" energy pulsating off of this, but it's a huge fucking lie.

this person is a known harasser and has targeted children in the past. they will do anything, and i mean ANYTHING to rack up attention and internet points. they have made bold claims like this with little to no evidence in the past all so they can garner more hatred for certain fandoms on the internet. testimonies here and here, and some pretty damning screenshots here.

i advise you all to stop reblogging the post ive shown. it's disinformation, a story fabricated to direct more vitriol towards a fandom with little to no proof that it can somehow make people like this or attract people like this. this person is either a troll or just plain deranged. please stop believing what they say.

tags added for reach.

edit: i received an anonymous ask giving me extra information on this topic, apparently this person is in fact an internet troll who has gone under countless aliases and will often fake identities in order to ruin the reputations of others. more information here and here.

edit 2: another anon ask gave me a preserved version of a post from realultimatehater's first account, showing how they'd crop screenshots of dms in order to make it look like they were being harassed for simply having a negative opinion on hazbin hotel. here's the post, though do know the reblog is from a supporter of them, make of that what you will. here's another version of the post ifound showing how they'd bait people into saying these kinds of things in order to make them look bad. and here's another one! wow!

i also found a few asks showing how this person would literally approach hazbin fans and just blatantly insult them, rather than blocking them. because yeah, when you detest a fandom, you clearly must stir up conflict! that'll keep them away from you! said asks can be viewed here and here

edit 3: the anon i received telling me realultimatehater was an internet troll who'd been trolling people for years apparently was not being truthful, this does not discredit the other evidence ive listed but id really appreciate if people would stop spreading that ask around. ive removed the link to the ask, sincere apologies to anyone affected by that

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in Skinner boxes

Enshittification is the process by which digital platforms devour themselves: first they dangle goodies in front of end users. Once users are locked in, the goodies are taken away and dangled before business customers who supply goods to the users. Once those business customers are stuck on the platform, the goodies are clawed away and showered on the platform’s shareholders:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Enshittification isn’t just another way of saying “fraud” or “price gouging” or “wage theft.” Enshittification is intrinsically digital, because moving all those goodies around requires the flexibility that only comes with a digital businesses. Jeff Bezos, grocer, can’t rapidly change the price of eggs at Whole Foods without an army of kids with pricing guns on roller-skates. Jeff Bezos, grocer, can change the price of eggs on Amazon Fresh just by twiddling a knob on the service’s back-end.

Twiddling is the key to enshittification: rapidly adjusting prices, conditions and offers. As with any shell game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Tech monopolists aren’t smarter than the Gilded Age sociopaths who monopolized rail or coal — they use the same tricks as those monsters of history, but they do them faster and with computers:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

If Rockefeller wanted to crush a freight company, he couldn’t just click a mouse and lay down a pipeline that ran on the same route, and then click another mouse to make it go away when he was done. When Bezos wants to bankrupt Diapers.com — a company that refused to sell itself to Amazon — he just moved a slider so that diapers on Amazon were being sold below cost. Amazon lost $100m over three months, diapers.com went bankrupt, and every investor learned that competing with Amazon was a losing bet:

https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-bezos-went-thermonuclear-on-diapers-com.html

That’s the power of twiddling — but twiddling cuts both ways. The same flexibility that digital businesses enjoy is hypothetically available to workers and users. The airlines pioneered twiddling ticket prices, and that naturally gave rise to countertwiddling, in the form of comparison shopping sites that scraped the airlines’ sites to predict when tickets would be cheapest:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/knob-jockeys/#bros-be-twiddlin

The airlines — like all abusive businesses — refused to tolerate this. They were allowed to touch their knobs as much as they wanted — indeed, they couldn’t stop touching those knobs — but when we tried to twiddle back, that was “felony contempt of business model,” and the airlines sued:

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/30/airline-sues-man-for-founding-a-cheap-flights-website.html

And sued:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/business/southwest-airlines-lawsuit-prices.html

Platforms don’t just hate it when end-users twiddle back — if anything they are even more aggressive when their business-users dare to twiddle. Take Para, an app that Doordash drivers used to get a peek at the wages offered for jobs before they accepted them — something that Doordash hid from its workers. Doordash ruthlessly attacked Para, saying that by letting drivers know how much they’d earn before they did the work, Para was violating the law:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/tech-rights-are-workers-rights-doordash-edition

Which law? Well, take your pick. The modern meaning of “IP” is “any law that lets me use the law to control my competitors, competition or customers.” Platforms use a mix of anticircumvention law, patent, copyright, contract, cybersecurity and other legal systems to weave together a thicket of rules that allow them to shut down rivals for their Felony Contempt of Business Model:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Enshittification relies on unlimited twiddling (by platforms), and a general prohibition on countertwiddling (by platform users). Enshittification is a form of fishing, in which bait is dangled before different groups of users and then nimbly withdrawn when they lunge for it. Twiddling puts the suppleness into the enshittifier’s fishing-rod, and a ban on countertwiddling weighs down platform users so they’re always a bit too slow to catch the bait.

Nowhere do we see twiddling’s impact more than in the “gig economy,” where workers are misclassified as independent contractors and put to work for an app that scripts their every move to the finest degree. When an app is your boss, you work for an employer who docks your pay for violating rules that you aren’t allowed to know — and where your attempts to learn those rules are constantly frustrated by the endless back-end twiddling that changes the rules faster than you can learn them.

As with every question of technology, the issue isn’t twiddling per se — it’s who does the twiddling and who gets twiddled. A worker armed with digital tools can play gig work employers off each other and force them to bid up the price of their labor; they can form co-ops with other workers that auto-refuse jobs that don’t pay enough, and use digital tools to organize to shift power from bosses to workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to

Take “reverse centaurs.” In AI research, a “centaur” is a human assisted by a machine that does more than either could do on their own. For example, a chess master and a chess program can play a better game together than either could play separately. A reverse centaur is a machine assisted by a human, where the machine is in charge and the human is a meat-puppet.

Think of Amazon warehouse workers wearing haptic location-aware wristbands that buzz at them continuously dictating where their hands must be; or Amazon drivers whose eye-movements are continuously tracked in order to penalize drivers who look in the “wrong” direction:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/reverse-centaur/#reverse-centaur

The difference between a centaur and a reverse centaur is the difference between a machine that makes your life better and a machine that makes your life worse so that your boss gets richer. Reverse centaurism is the 21st Century’s answer to Taylorism, the pseudoscience that saw white-coated “experts” subject workers to humiliating choreography down to the smallest movement of your fingertip:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

While reverse centaurism was born in warehouses and other company-owned facilities, gig work let it make the leap into workers’ homes and cars. The 21st century has seen a return to the cottage industry — a form of production that once saw workers labor far from their bosses and thus beyond their control — but shriven of the autonomy and dignity that working from home once afforded:

https://doctorow.medium.com/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk-463e2730ef0d

The rise and rise of bossware — which allows for remote surveillance of workers in their homes and cars — has turned “work from home” into “live at work.” Reverse centaurs can now be chickenized — a term from labor economics that describes how poultry farmers, who sell their birds to one of three vast poultry processors who have divided up the country like the Pope dividing up the “New World,” are uniquely exploited:

https://onezero.medium.com/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs-b2e8d5cda826

A chickenized reverse centaur has it rough: they must pay for the machines they use to make money for their bosses, they must obey the orders of the app that controls their work, and they are denied any of the protections that a traditional worker might enjoy, even as they are prohibited from deploying digital self-help measures that let them twiddle back to bargain for a better wage.

All of this sets the stage for a phenomenon called algorithmic wage discrimination, in which two workers doing the same job under the same conditions will see radically different payouts for that work. These payouts are continuously tweaked in the background by an algorithm that tries to predict the minimum sum a worker will accept to remain available without payment, to ensure sufficient workers to pick up jobs as they arise.

This phenomenon — and proposed policy and labor solutions to it — is expertly analyzed in “On Algorithmic Wage Discrimination,” a superb paper by UC Law San Franciscos Veena Dubal:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4331080

Dubal uses empirical data and enthnographic accounts from Uber drivers and other gig workers to explain how endless, self-directed twiddling allows gig companies pay workers less and pay themselves more. As @brianmerchant@mastodon.social explains in his LA Times article on Dubal’s research, the goal of the payment algorithm is to guess how often a given driver needs to receive fair compensation in order to keep them driving when the payments are unfair:

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-04-11/algorithmic-wage-discrimination

The algorithm combines nonconsensual dossiers compiled on individual drivers with population-scale data to seek an equilibrium between keeping drivers waiting, unpaid, for a job; and how much a driver needs to be paid for an individual job, in order to keep that driver from clocking out and doing something else. @ Here’s how that works. Sergio Avedian, a writer for The Rideshare Guy, ran an experiment with two brothers who both drove for Uber; one drove a Tesla and drove intermittently, the other brother rented a hybrid sedan and drove frequently. Sitting side-by-side with the brothers, Avedian showed how the brother with the Tesla was offered more for every trip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UADTiL3S67I

Uber wants to lure intermittent drivers into becoming frequent drivers. Uber doesn’t pay for an oversupply of drivers, because it only pays drivers when they have a passenger in the car. Having drivers on call — but idle — is a way for Uber to shift the cost of maintaining a capacity cushion to its workers.

What’s more, what Uber charges customers is not based on how much it pays its workers. As Uber’s head of product explained: Uber uses “machine-learning techniques to estimate how much groups of customers are willing to shell out for a ride. Uber calculates riders’ propensity for paying a higher price for a particular route at a certain time of day. For instance, someone traveling from a wealthy neighborhood to another tony spot might be asked to pay more than another person heading to a poorer part of town, even if demand, traffic and distance are the same.”

https://qz.com/990131/uber-is-practicing-price-discrimination-economists-say-that-might-not-be-a-bad-thing/

Uber has historically described its business a pure supply-and-demand matching system, where a rush of demand for rides triggers surge pricing, which lures out drivers, which takes care of the demand. That’s not how it works today, and it’s unclear if it ever worked that way. Today, a driver who consults the rider version of the Uber app before accepting a job — to compare how much the rider is paying to how much they stand to earn — is booted off the app and denied further journeys.

Surging, instead, has become just another way to twiddle drivers. One of Dubal’s subjects, Derrick, describes how Uber uses fake surges to lure drivers to airports: “You go to the airport, once the lot get kind of full, then the surge go away.” Other drivers describe how they use groupchats to call out fake surges: “I’m in the Marina. It’s dead. Fake surge.”

That’s pure twiddling. Twiddling turns gamification into gamblification, where your labor buys you a spin on a roulette wheel in a rigged casino. As a driver called Melissa, who had doubled down on her availability to earn a $100 bonus awarded for clocking a certain number of rides, told Dubal, “When you get close to the bonus, the rides start trickling in more slowly…. And it makes sense. It’s really the type of shit that they can do when it’s okay to have a surplus labor force that is just sitting there that they don’t have to pay for.”

Wherever you find reverse-centaurs, you get this kind of gamblification, where the rules are twiddled continuously to make sure that the house always wins. As a contract driver Amazon reverse centaur told Lauren Gurley for Motherboard, “Amazon uses these cameras allegedly to make sure they have a safer driving workforce, but they’re actually using them not to pay delivery companies”:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88npjv/amazons-ai-cameras-are-punishing-drivers-for-mistakes-they-didnt-make

Algorithmic wage discrimination is the robot overlord of our nightmares: its job is to relentlessly quest for vulnerabilities and exploit them. Drivers divide themselves into “ants” (drivers who take every job) and “pickers” (drivers who cherry-pick high-paying jobs). The algorithm’s job is ensuring that pickers get the plum assignments, not the ants, in the hopes of converting those pickers to app-dependent ants.

In my work on enshittification, I call this the “giant teddy bear” gambit. At every county fair, you’ll always spot some poor jerk carrying around a giant teddy-bear they “won” on the midway. But they didn’t win it — not by getting three balls in the peach-basket. Rather, the carny running the rigged game either chose not to operate the “scissor” that kicks balls out of the basket. Or, if the game is “honest” (that is, merely impossible to win, rather than gimmicked), the operator will make a too-good-to-refuse offer: “Get one ball in and I’ll give you this keychain. Win two keychains and I’ll let you trade them for this giant teddy bear.”

Carnies aren’t in the business of giving away giant teddy bears — rather, the gambit is an investment. Giving a mark a giant teddy bear to carry around the midway all day acts as a convincer, luring other marks to try to land three balls in the basket and win their own teddy bear.

In the same way, platforms like Uber distribute giant teddy bears to pickers, as a way of keeping the ants scurrying from job to job, and as a way of convincing the pickers to give up whatever work allows them to discriminate among Uber’s offers and hold out for the plum deals, whereupon then can be transmogrified into ants themselves.

Dubal describes the experience of Adil, a Syrian refugee who drives for Uber in the Bay Area. His colleagues are pickers, and showed him screenshots of how much they earned. Determined to get a share of that money, Adil became a model ant, driving two hours to San Francisco, driving three days straight, napping in his car, spending only one day per week with his family. The algorithm noticed that Adil needed the work, so it paid him less.

Adil responded the way the system predicted he would, by driving even more: “My friends they make it, so I keep going, maybe I can figure it out. It’s unsecure, and I don’t know how people they do it. I don’t know how I am doing it, but I have to. I mean, I don’t find another option. In a minute, if I find something else, oh man, I will be out immediately. I am a very patient person, that’s why I can continue.”

Another driver, Diego, told Dubal about how the winners of the giant teddy bears fell into the trap of thinking that they were “good at the app”: “Any time there’s some big shot getting high pay outs, they always shame everyone else and say you don’t know how to use the app. I think there’s secret PR campaigns going on that gives targeted payouts to select workers, and they just think it’s all them.”

That’s the power of twiddling: by hoarding all the flexibility offered by digital tools, the management at platforms can become centaurs, able to string along thousands of workers, while the workers are reverse-centaurs, puppeteered by the apps.

As the example of Adil shows, the algorithm doesn’t need to be very sophisticated in order to figure out which workers it can underpay. The system automates the kind of racial and gender discrimination that is formally illegal, but which is masked by the smokescreen of digitization. An employer who systematically paid women less than men, or Black people less than white people, would be liable to criminal and civil sanctions. But if an algorithm simply notices that people who have fewer job prospects drive more and will thus accept lower wages, that’s just “optimization,” not racism or sexism.

This is the key to understanding the AI hype bubble: when ghouls from multinational banks predict 13 trillion dollar markets for “AI,” what they mean is that digital tools will speed up the twiddling and other wage-suppression techniques to transfer $13T in value from workers and consumers to shareholders.

The American business lobby is relentlessly focused on the goal of reducing wages. That’s the force behind “free trade,” “right to work,” and other codewords for “paying workers less,” including “gig work.” Tech workers long saw themselves as above this fray, immune to labor exploitation because they worked for a noble profession that took care of its own.

But the epidemic of mass tech-worker layoffs, following on the heels of massive stock buybacks, has demonstrated that tech bosses are just like any other boss: willing to pay as little as they can get away with, and no more. Tech bosses are so comfortable with their market dominance and the lock-in of their customers that they are happy to turn out hundreds of thousands of skilled workers, convinced that the twiddling systems they’ve built are the kinds of self-licking ice-cream cones that are so simple even a manager can use them — no morlocks required.

The tech worker layoffs are best understood as an all-out war on tech worker morale, because that morale is the source of tech workers’ confidence and thus their demands for a larger share of the value generated by their labor. The current tech layoff template is very different from previous tech layoffs: today’s layoffs are taking place over a period of months, long after they are announced, and laid off tech worker is likely to be offered a months of paid post-layoff work, rather than severance. This means that tech workplaces are now haunted by the walking dead, workers who have been laid off but need to come into the office for months, even as the threat of layoffs looms over the heads of the workers who remain. As an old friend, recently laid off from Microsoft after decades of service, wrote to me, this is “a new arrow in the quiver of bringing tech workers to heel and ensuring that we’re properly thankful for the jobs we have (had?).”

Dubal is interested in more than analysis, she’s interested in action. She looks at the tactics already deployed by gig workers, who have not taken all this abuse lying down. Workers in the UK and EU organized through Worker Info Exchange and the App Drivers and Couriers Union have used the GDPR (the EU’s privacy law) to demand “algorithmic transparency,” as well as access to their data. In California, drivers hope to use similar provisions in the CCPA (a state privacy law) to do the same.

These efforts have borne fruit. When Cornell economists, led by Louis Hyman, published research (paid for by Uber) claiming that Uber drivers earned an average of $23/hour, it was data from these efforts that revealed the true average Uber driver’s wage was $9.74. Subsequent research in California found that Uber drivers’ wage fell to $6.22/hour after the passage of Prop 22, a worker misclassification law that gig companies spent $225m to pass, only to have the law struck down because of a careless drafting error:

https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2021-08-23/proposition-22-lyft-uber-decision-essential-california

But Dubal is skeptical that data-coops and transparency will achieve transformative change and build real worker power. Knowing how the algorithm works is useful, but it doesn’t mean you can do anything about it, not least because the platform owners can keep touching their knobs, twiddling the payout schedule on their rigged slot-machines.

Data co-ops start from the proposition that “data extraction is an inevitable form of labor for which workers should be remunerated.” It makes on-the-job surveillance acceptable, provided that workers are compensated for the spying. But co-ops aren’t unions, and they don’t have the power to bargain for a fair price for that data, and coops themselves lack the vast resources — “to store, clean, and understand” — data.

Co-ops are also badly situated to understand the true value of the data that is extracted from their members: “Workers cannot know whether the data collected will, at the population level, violate the civil rights of others or amplifies their own social oppression.”

Instead, Dubal wants an outright, nonwaivable prohibition on algorithmic wage discrimination. Just make it illegal. If firms cannot use gambling mechanisms to control worker behavior through variable pay systems, they will have to find ways to maintain flexible workforces while paying their workforce predictable wages under an employment model. If a firm cannot manage wages through digitally-determined variable pay systems, then the firm is less likely to employ algorithmic management.”

In other words, rather than using market mechanisms too constrain platform twiddling, Dubal just wants to make certain kinds of twiddling illegal. This is a growing trend in legal scholarship. For example, the economist Ramsi Woodcock has proposed a ban on surge pricing as a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act:

https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-105-issue-4/the-efficient-queue-and-the-case-against-dynamic-pricing

Similarly, Dubal proposes that algorithmic wage discrimination violates another antitrust law: the Robinson-Patman Act, which “bans sellers from charging competing buyers different prices for the same commodity. Robinson-Patman enforcement was effectively halted under Reagan, kicking off a host of pathologies, like the rise of Walmart:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

I really liked Dubal’s legal reasoning and argument, and to it I would add a call to reinvigorate countertwiddling: reforming laws that get in the way of workers who want to reverse-engineer, spoof, and control the apps that currently control them. Adversarial interoperability (AKA competitive compatibility or comcom) is key tool for building worker power in an era of digital Taylorism:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

To see how that works, look to other jursidictions where workers have leapfrogged their European and American cousins, such as Indonesia, where gig workers and toolsmiths collaborate to make a whole suite of “tuyul apps,” which let them override the apps that gig companies expect them to use.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

For example, ride-hailing companies won’t assign a train-station pickup to a driver unless they’re circling the station — which is incredibly dangerous during the congested moments after a train arrives. A tuyul app lets a driver park nearby and then spoof their phone’s GPS fix to the ridehailing company so that they appear to be right out front of the station.

In an ideal world, those workers would have a union, and be able to dictate the app’s functionality to their bosses. But workers shouldn’t have to wait for an ideal world: they don’t just need jam tomorrow — they need jam today. Tuyul apps, and apps like Para, which allow workers to extract more money under better working conditions, are a prelude to unionization and employer regulation, not a substitute for it.

Employers will not give workers one iota more power than they have to. Just look at the asymmetry between the regulation of union employees versus union busters. Under US law, employees of a union need to account for every single hour they work, every mile they drive, every location they visit, in public filings. Meanwhile, the union-busting industry — far larger and richer than unions — operate under a cloak of total secrecy, Workers aren’t even told which union busters their employers have hired — let alone get an accounting of how those union busters spend money, or how many of them are working undercover, pretending to be workers in order to sabotage the union.

Twiddling will only get an employer so far. Twiddling — like all “AI” — is based on analyzing the past to predict the future. The heuristics an algorithm creates to lure workers into their cars can’t account for rapid changes in the wider world, which is why companies who relied on “AI” scheduling apps (for example, to prevent their employees from logging enough hours to be entitled to benefits) were caught flatfooted by the Great Resignation.

Workers suddenly found themselves with bargaining power thanks to the departure of millions of workers — a mix of early retirees and workers who were killed or permanently disabled by covid — and they used that shortage to demand a larger share of the fruits of their labor. The outraged howls of the capital class at this development were telling: these companies are operated by the kinds of “capitalists” that MLK once identified, who want “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor.”

https://twitter.com/KaseyKlimes/status/821836823022354432/

There's only 5 days left in the Kickstarter campaign for the audiobook of my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon's Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they're DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: Stephen Drake (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Analog_Test_Array_modular_synth_by_sduck409.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

 — 

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

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

 — 

Louis (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chestnut_horse_head,_all_excited.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A complex mandala of knobs from a modular synth. In the foreground, limned in a blue electric halo, is a man in a hi-viz vest with the head of a horse. The horse's eyes have been replaced with the sinister red eyes of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'"]

[verstappen100]

An ongoing Daniel Ricciardo video collection ❤️🍯🦡☀️

adding links to vimeo and youtube finds (under the cut, so it'll update reblogs as I add more links over time!)

hello!! This is definitely not a comprehensive list, mostly filing under things that are just new to me as a more recent fan! it's cool when I stumble upon a vid I haven't seen or one I recognize from a gif set! so I'm adding them in a list of links here in case anyone else is curious ❤️ some are like 30 second commercial spots & others are longer interviews, most so far from 2014-2020 🎥🎤✨

okay allons-y!!

Sourced from Vimeo

not chronologically organized (yet!) so I've just added the upload date atm for a date approximation; have yet to look into all the uploading accounts, too, so there is definitely way more out there to see!

📍Update 01-01-2025:

Btw if you click a link in the tumblr app and it shows a tumblr page saying "There's nothing here" sadly many of the vimeo links are not redirecting correctly atm 😭

the videos are still up and available (thankfully!! and they can be found by searching the titles on vimeo [which are listed for each vid before the upload date part below]) but!! I will be making like a Google doc with all the links, since tumblr insists on adding this redirect bologna and I'm not tech savvy enough to know why its not working hehe 🙃 I'll be back this weekend with a fix and the new link list!

lastly here's the link for DR's brand vimeo which also has the overall site search option at the top for easy access 🔍 not linked but copy-and-pastable into Google or Safari etc: https://vimeo.com/user50821531

thanks y'all!! ❤️

update 01-05-2025 I'm sorry y'all!! I have been fighting a fever all weekend 😭 so I have yet to compile everything, but the Google doc with all the working links will be here asap!! ❤️ (update 02-02-2025 omg I'm taking 5ever! Sorry y'all, I've not forgotten, life has been hella busy but I'll be adding all the vimeo links to a file soon!! Thanks for being so patient with me! hope everyone is well!! ❤️)

definitely starting with the dozens of videos on DR's official brand Vimeo (which has the delightful Sunday Night Flights series of casual post-race recaps) link

Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen paint Aston Martins in Hosier Lane - Uploaded on Mar 21, 2018 - link

Daniel Ricciardo - T Magazine Aus BTS spot - Uploaded on Jan 14, 2023 - link

Ricciardo, favorito para el GP de Singapur - Uploaded on Oct 25, 2016 - link

Red Bull - Camper Race BEHIND THE SCENES | Max Verstappen und Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on May 29, 2017 - link

Red Bull InFrames - Singapore GP with Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Oct 25, 2017 - link

Daniel Ricciardo drives Renault Clio - Uploaded on Jul 24, 2014 - link (ah the image in the collage above is for the other Clio commercial linked below and vice versa!! I got them mixed up when adding screenshots hehe. Pobody's nerfect)

Daniel Ricciardo | Race Service (parallel parking with some slightly haunting editing) - Uploaded on May 22, 2022 - link

Season Break - Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Jan 30, 2020 - link

Daniel Ricciardo x Hilton - Uploaded on Feb 7, 2023 - link

Optus TVC Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Dec 17, 2024 - link

Fox Sports - I Am Daniel Ricciardo (bananas editing /positive) - Uploaded on Apr 9, 2017 - link

ESPN AUSSIES ABROAD: DANIEL RICCIARDO - LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Opener - Uploaded on Apr 21, 2016 (I have yet to watch the full documentary!) - link

ESPN AUSSIES ABROAD- DANIEL RICCIARDO - LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Preview 2 - Uploaded on Apr 21, 2016 - link

Daniel Ricciardo: Uncut (😳🥴 sorry mind in the gutter, this is a longer interview tho!) - Uploaded on Sep 17, 2017 - link

Daniel Ricciardo Feature - Uploaded on Mar 28, 2018 - link

Renault Clio I Ricciardo I Augusto Gimenez Zapiola - Uploaded on Sep 3, 2020 - link

Sky Sports Ident - F1 - Ricciardo - Uploaded on Jan 5, 2018 - link

PIRELLI: DANIEL RICCIARDO P ZERO WORLD - Uploaded on Aug 12, 2016 - link

C4F1 Daniel Ricciardo Interview Australia 2019 - Uploaded on Mar 20, 2019 - link

Daniel Ricciardo_comp_1005 - Uploaded on Dec 11, 2017 - link

Daniel Ricciardo x Artura - Uploaded on Feb 10, 2021 - link

Daniel Ricciardo drives the Triple Eight Project Sandman V8 Supercar - Uploaded on Mar 16, 2016 - link

Red Bull Racing x PUMA USGP Launch at Austin Speed Shop - Uploaded on Mar 7, 2017 - link

TAG Heuer Aston Martin Red Bull Racing 2018 Global Commercial - Uploaded on Jul 12, 2019 - link

Red Bull : One day in the life of Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Apr 15, 2016 - link

Carsales // Celebrity Drive with Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Aug 1, 2023 - link

On_set_with_Daniel_Ricciardo.mov - Uploaded on Nov 22, 2021 - link

Castrol EDGE Daniel Ricciardo Live on The Edge - Uploaded on Jun 4, 2020 - link

Aston Martin Racing - Daniel Ricciardo vs Darren Turner - Uploaded on Dec 17, 2021 - link

Red Bull Racing Daniel Ricciardo Photoshoot - Behind the scenes - Uploaded on Sep 16, 2020 - link

Dan Ricciardo and Alissa Smith - Silverstone 2018 Interview - Uploaded on Apr 14, 2019 - link

YouTube

omg I have yet to properly dive into YouTube! probs this section will just be as I come across things (Vimeo is much more manageable for perusing)

[2017 F1]日本GP ダニエル・リカルド&マックス・フェルスタッペン トークショー Daniel Ricciardo & Max Verstappen's talk show - 10-08-2017 - link

Added 01-01-2025 - Daniel Ricciardo on Malaysian GP - 09-27-2017 - link

Added 01-02-2025 - Q & A with Tonio Liuzzi and Daniel Ricciardo - 08-31-2011 - link

Added 01-05-2025 - Trackwalk with Daniel Ricciardo, Korea - 10-17-2011 - link

Added 02-02-2025 - Daniel Ricciardo's "Ultimate F1 Track Layout" interview - 09-22-2016 - link

more to come soon!! ❤️ thank you for stopping by!

[gemmahale]

Ficbook.net and Unauthorized Translations - An Update

Update to the update: some of the fics have been removed! 🎉 This happened before I finished this write-up even!

You may have seen this post last night about some CoD X Reader fics having unauthorized translations posted to the Russian site ficbook.net. @karlachismylife was monumental in helping me understand what's going on, and there's some explanation in that link from her POV as well.

Basically - multiple people have copied and translated fanfics into Russian and hosted them on ficbook.net. They're rough translations, some going as far as to use literal translations for turns of phrase. Most likely, they were run through a translation software (Google Translate or similar) and then roughly edited. (Juju mentioned that there is a subset of jobs in Russia where that is your job description. 😖)

Most of them have come from Tumblr posts, some from AO3. Very few had attribution beyond "tagging" the original author. (Aka - no consent was given for these translations.)

@syoddeye took the time to compile a list found here (google sheet). At the time of writing, 65 fics CoD x Reader fics were found - we know there's more but we only have so many knives in a day. (Sy did not look into slash fics either.)

Authors that have been tagged in the comments: I'm sorry you found out this way. I wanted to tell you in person, but given Tumblr's likelihood of thinking I was spamming you, I felt that this was the best option to alert you, provide you with options, and let you determine how you wish to move forward.

So what can be done?

If you already have an account, please report the fics! I'm told that spamming reports gets it taken down. Also consider messaging the author and ask them to remove them - they do not have the author's consent to publish them.

If you want to make an account and report the linked fics, you can. I have chosen not to, because I don't want to give Ficbook any extra support I otherwise might by doing so (clicks, ad views, account numbers).

If the author does not have closed comments (or you have an account), you can leave a comment on the fic.

Russian: Автор оригинала лично подтвердил, что не давал разрешения на перевод и публикацию. English: Author of the work personally confirmed that they did not give permission to translate and publish.

Finally - check in on your author friends that are on that list. It's devastating to find out your work has been plagiarized, translated and hosted somewhere else without your consent. Reblog their work, share comments, hype them up!

A couple of notes: (Juju correct me if I've fucked any of this up 💚)

The posters are likely not making money off the unauthorized translations. The website and their owners definitely are (ads, "premium features", promotion tools, etc.)

Ficbook.net is the biggest Russian language fanfiction platform - somewhat akin to AO3, but it doesn't have a great reputation within Russian circles because of the stealing and underhanded practices the owners use.

AO3 is banned in Russia, and Tumblr is one of the few places Russians can easily (aka without VPNs and Mirrors) read English version of fanfic.

CoD isn't the only fandom affected - there are dozens that have more posted, and we only scratched the surface in our list.

Finally, if you want to translate works, TALK TO THE AUTHOR. A lot of folks don't like having their work shared without their consent. Even if you feel like you are doing a good thing spreading it to a wider audience, YOU NEED THE AUTHOR'S CONSENT. If they've deleted their presence and their stories from hosting sites (tumblr, AO3, etc) - you don't get to pretend you're doing them a favor by reposting them. Respect their decisions.

[gaypleasantview]

⋆˖⁺‧₊☆ shake the disease. // Autumn Drop Day 5 ☆₊‧⁺˖⋆

⋆ 2 mesh add-ons for Ladysimplayer8's 4t2 City Living Keyboard

⋆ floor version (60 poly) and wall version (68 poly), originally created by PixlMonster

⋆ 43 recolors in 512x512 textures

⋆ all files have been compressed and clearly labeled

Link, swatch, detailed credits and more info under the cut ♡

Hi people! Welcome to yet another thing I've made, and this one was a real pain in the ass sometimes but also an actually fun and rewarding experience! Just like my last upload, this one was inspired by @gothoffspring's very pretty pictures. I wanted to have whatever they're having, and it caused me to get into the intricacies of repositorying stuff, and damn was it hard, but it was all worth it in the end! The last few times I checked, this thing worked with absolutely no problems, but please do let me know if it starts pulling shit again.

Okay, let's get to the details now. I clearly got intrigued by the keyboard, and thanks to the absolutely priceless 4t2 conversion database, I found out that it has already been converted by Ladysimplayer8 on MTS, as was tons of other 4t2 stuff. It's a fully functional keyboard, too! To be honest, I first edited the mesh a bit to fit my preferred game style (separated the recolors + added a shadow), but the first time I thought to check the original creator's TOU was literally just now, and I realized too late they don't allow their meshes to be edited and posted, so I'll have to keep it to myself. However, all the other stuff I did was actually converted directly from TS4, so of course I'm sharing it!

The wall and floor add-ons are purely decorative, having been cloned from wall objects, but I find them to be super cute. You can find them in Hobbies.../Creative right next to the actual thing. They share the original's room rating and cost a little less, but still a reasonable amount of §700 because it is a keyboard, dammit.

As both of the add-ons are repositoried to the original, they will share whatever recolors the playable keyboard has. I decided to recolor them in options by gothoffspring and MsFrankenstein because they were all very pretty. I tried to clearly label every swatch but sometimes it's brain breaking (some of them turned out to look a little different in-game, too) so I sincerely hope the names all make sense!

Credits: base object by Ladysimplayer8 on MTS, mesh add-ons by @pixlmonster, recolors by @gothoffspring and @msfrankenstein910, this source for the graphics in the post

♡ Download ♡

As per creator's TOU, mesh (LSP8DigiRADKeyboardMesh) is not included, you will have to get it here. The add-ons won't work without it.

SFS | Mediafire

♡ Swatch ♡

⋆ 19 recolors by gothoffspring (original)

⋆ 24 recolors by MsFrankenstein910 (original)

[solangelo]

On the evening of September 30th of 2014, @solangelo was founded and many mods and ten years later this blog is still active! In honor of the duration say hello to this event!

All sorts of artists and creators are welcome, submissions of fanart, fanfic, fanedits, playlists, cosplays and anything else your heart desires are welcome to be added to the collection!

Instead of providing alternate words, the prompts list has been divided into two sections, the first section seperates Will and Nico into individuals. The second prompt list is intended to be more focused on their relationship, and in most cases should be a word that connects to the corresponding word of that date for Will or Nico. For example, day 7 uses the words Refract and Crystal for Will and Nico and then Rainbow as their combined word.

The prompt list was intentionally designed to allow people who just want to create content for Nico or Will but not necessarily them together to also participate! Feel free to mix and match the lists throughout the week, or if you like an extra challenge you're welcome to try and use all 3 words for everyday of the week!

Prompts are only ever just a suggestion, so please feel free to submit works even if they are not necessarily inspired by one of the lists below!

Prompt List by date: Will // Nico

Day One (09/29/24) - Dawn // Stars

Day Two (09/30/24) - Growth // Earth

Day Three (10/01/24) - Light // Shade

Day Four (10/02/24) - Cure // Precious

Day Five (10/03/24) - Scry // Knowing

Day Six (10/04/24) - Endure // Insomnia

Day Seven (10/05/24) - Refract // Crystal

Prompt List by Date: Relationship Based Prompts

Day One (09/29/24) - Hearth

Day Two (09/30/24) - Life

Day Three (10/01/24) - Boundaries

Day Four (10/02/24) - Love

Day Five (10/03/24) - Reflection

Day Six (10/04/24) - Confession

Day Seven (10/05/24) - Rainbow

Please tag any submissions @solangelo directly or send us an ask for the best chances of us seeing your post, or you can also use the tag #solangeversary 2024. You can also always post or send links to content you've made for another platform like Instagram, Twitter, or Ao3 for us to share here. Late submissions are always welcome!

If you don't vibe with these prompts, you're welcome to check out @solangeloweek's auctober prompt list also!

Happy creating!

All art in the post is edited from the same wonderful creator of our header and pfp!

[kuroshitsuji-wiki]

Kuroshitsuji Wiki now on wiki.gg!

As of today (February 24, 2025), the Kuroshitsuji Wiki has left Fandom Wiki and moved officially to wiki.gg! The new wiki can be found here!

From now on, only this wiki will be updated, not the Fandom one.

Why did this happen?

Please read these posts to learn all the reasons why the wiki was ultimately moved.

TL;DR: Fandom's latest policy auto-blocked the word "fag," making a good portion of the wiki uneditable. Fandom, as a site and wiki farm, has become increasingly bad and hostile over the years for many, many other reasons too.

What is new?

Amongst others:

More information: I revised/expanded some pages during the onboarding phase. Not as many as I wanted to, but some nonetheless! I also revamped the layout of the arc pages, though the summaries are still works in progress. I've started adding voice actors to the episode pages (Season 1 is finished, the rest will follow). Ch108 was mistakenly sorted into the Blue Cult Arc though it still belongs to the Emerald Witch Arc; this was fixed. Etc.

(Screenshot from Harcourt's Fandom article. That was a pitiable section orz (Clayton and Cheslock were not better off, embarrassingly.))

More themes/skins: On Fandom, you could only switch between light and dark mode. I put together four different themes for the new wiki, two of which commemorate S4 and S5 :) I hope they are to your liking!

Link hover previews: If you hover over a link now, you get a little preview of the page!

A better, prettier mobile experience: Colours and customisations are now retained on mobile. The references section now looks normal and does not send you on an endless scrolling spree. References actually pop up when you click on them. Etc.

Less ads!!!: THE #1 grievance people have with Fandom Wiki. wiki.gg has very few ads (and they are unintrusive ads too) on both desktop and mobile. If you are logged in, there are no ads whatsoever.

The move of one particular spoiler page (information under the cut)

(And some more things that might be too boring to list here, heh.)

And, of course, the freedom from Fandom and its horrible whims. Pages containing the word "fag" can now be edited again :)

(The little trivia that started it all: I wanted to add it to Diedrich's page and move on to a gazillion other things when I got the notice that my edit was blocked by Fandom's spam filter. It's finally on his page! It only took four months and one site migration...)

What can I do?

You can help out the new wiki by...

... never going on the Fandom Wiki again. Every visit there only strengthens its SEO. Please do not edit the old wiki anymore too, and do not vandalise it now even if it's tempting. Edits only push it more. (Because of Fandom's shitty forking policy, the old wiki cannot be deleted, unfortunately.)

... adding the wiki.gg redirect and Indie Wiki Buddy browser extensions. They send/redirect you to the independent alternative of a Fandom Wiki if such an option exists. (This, of course, helps other wikis that moved too, not just KuroWiki.)

... by sharing the news. "How's the weather?" "Pretty nice, but have you heard that the Kuroshitsuji Wiki moved?"

... by editing. If you want, please feel free to come and edit the wiki! If you used to have a Fandom Wiki account, you can reclaim it here (help for how to do that), or create a new wiki.gg account.

... or by simply visiting and using the new wiki.

I'm so happy the migration is finally done. I hope you like the new wiki, and thank you so much for all the lovely words you had regarding this migration and for all your help!^^ I'll go and continue editing the wiki with new joy and getting to the gazillion things I planned but haven't been able to do during the onboarding.*

*wikis are just never done...

And hello...

:)

----

Regarding that one spoiler page (Ch129 onwards, if you know you know):

The article for Smile's older twin brother, the original and actual Ciel Phantomhive is called "Ciel Phantomhive" (with the quotation marks) on the Fandom Wiki. He's called "Ciel" in articles too.

This was done because when he showed up in Ch129, it was not 100% confirmed yet whether that was Smile's twin, not just a clone or whatnot. A month later, it was confirmed that this was indeed Ciel's twin the actual Ciel. However, the article's name stayed. This had the advantage that the real Ciel's page would not appear when you typed in Ciel in the search bar.

wiki.gg's search function is better than Fandom's though and, here, if you type in Ciel, the search bar suggests pages that contain that word, not just start with it.

(I, unfortunately, forgot to take a screenshot before renaming the page...)

This is better illustrated with the search results for butler:

Innocently typing in Ciel into the search bar would have sent people to the spoiler, and that would be very shitty, wouldn't it? Especially with the influx of anime-onlys.

(I've also seen people complain about the quotation marks too. And, for whatever reason, that way of referring to him made it to Wikipedia???)

The quotation marks messed up the image migration too. Files with quotation marks in their names were the only ones that weren't transferred "properly" (the quotation marks were removed during the migration. Ch130 Ciel and Ciel.png is a horrid file name).

Anyway, I ended up renaming real Ciel's page to Lord Phantomhive. Real Ciel Phantomhive or Ciel Phantomhive (real) would have had the same search results as "Ciel Phantomhive" after all. There could not be a given name in the title.

"Lord Phantomhive" is the title he held as an earl's first son. Also, the fact that Tanaka, apparently, used to refer to Smile as "Lord Ciel"/"Ciel-sama" (Ch19) before the fire and now only calls him "Young Master" was one piece of evidence often brought forward for the Two Ciels Theory when it was still a theory. And, despite Undertaker's words that "Earl Phantomhive is still alive":

"Earl Phantomhive" fell through as an option too. (And because people might have searched for it looking for Smile, and because "Earl Phantomhive" is also Vincent.)

In articles, the real Ciel is either called "the real Ciel" or "Lord Ciel" or "the older brother/twin" or such. I hope I made the distinction between the twins clear enough in the texts.

[starrihan]

My Youth is Free - Toxic! Boynextdoor Break Up Scenarios

-> Pairing: afab! Reader x toxic! Boynextdoor

-> Plot: toxic breakup scenarios for each of the members

-> Genre: angst, suggestive (only some, not WH), Sungho and riwoo are misogynistic and controlling, riwoo is a manipulator, Taesan is really cold, anger issues in woonhak’s, fwb! Leehan, Leehan and Taesan are assholes, reader is blunt and swears a lot, use of real names (Sanghyeok, Dongmin, and Donghyun)

-> Warnings: misogyny, swearing

-> Word Count: 5,935 (~800-1200 words per member)

-> Notes: toxic bnd is all that’s been on my mind recently but let me know if you would like a part 2 where they make up with reader 🤭part 2 where reader gets back them is posted here!

-> Side Note: I get a lot of my inspirations from songs (like 1 or 2 lines from a song) and obviously 20 was the inspiration for this one but I always forget to link the song in case someone doesn’t know it 🤦🏽‍♀️ so here is a little edit with the song added anyways enjoy reading~ 😚

༄ ༄ ༄

Sungho:

He couldn't stand the thought of you getting closer to your male coworker. You had recently gotten a new job that required you to work a little later than he did. Sometimes you’d have so much work to do that you’d bring it home to work on, not having had enough time during the workday to get important documents and files finished before their deadline. When you told him that you would be working on a project with a male coworker he was supportive, at first. Of course you guys had total trust in each other, so he didn’t mind you needing to stay later in the office to work with him. But even after your joint project was over, you would still hang out regularly amongst other coworkers. This is what got under his skin.

“You know he wants you, right?”

“Sungho, please. We’re going out with a couple of friends too. I only mentioned his name because you’ve met him before.”

“And the whole time we hung out he was eyeing you down like a piece of candy. C’mon Y/N, seriously? The only reason a guy would hang out with a group of girls is because he wants one of them. You told me that he doesn’t really know the other girls so he’s only going out because you’re there.”

“Yeah, because I’m introducing him to them. I’m the department head so he worked with me but he should know the other people in my department if we’re going to be working together.”

“Im just saying, why would he hang out with you if he didn’t like you?”

“Excuse me? You don’t think I’m fun or interesting enough to hang out with a guy? You think men would only hang out with me because they want to sleep with me?”

“Baby, that’s not what I meant I–”

“Save it. I’m leaving. I’ll be back by 11.”

That was the first conversation of many that led to the break up. It got to a point where you would tell him you were going out and he’d automatically assume you were hanging out with the coworker, throwing a snarky, “don’t come back if you smell like him,” at you before you bitterly slam the door in his face. Until one night you had a work party and you didn’t invite Sungho to come with you, not even mentioning it to him. He only found out because your friends had posted about it.

“So were you ever going to tell me about this? Why didn’t you invite me to come with you?”

Sungho shows you his phone screen with your friend’s post before slamming it on the table. 

“You’ve been so insufferable and insecure whenever I bring up anything work-related. If I invited you out tonight you would’ve punched the guy in the face when you saw him.”

“And why is that so bad, huh, Y/N? You don’t want me to punch your boy toy now?”

“PARK SUNGHO HE IS NOT MY BOY TOY AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SPEAK TO ME THAT WAY, UNDERSTOOD?”

You angrily throw down your stuff, marching up to him. 

“I haven’t done anything. He hasn’t done anything. WE haven’t done anything so why can't you believe me and move on from the fact that I have a male friend? Are you that insecure about me leaving you when I’ve never done anything to betray your trust? Do I mean that little to you that you won't even give me the benefit of the doubt?”

Tears are slowly making their way down your face as you try to wipe them away before smudging your makeup. His expression softens, not realizing how far he’d let his jealousy come.

“Y/N I–”

“Save it, Sungho. You clearly don’t respect me or trust me. I’ll be back later to get some of my things. I’ll stay with my parents until you can figure your shit out. Call me when you’ve gotten some sense back.”

Anger, shock, disbelief. Sungho couldn’t believe that he had let this get so out of hand. Why was he so jealous in the first place? You guys still hung out and had dates every week and you were right; you never gave him any reason to doubt your loyalty to him. 

He’d spend the next few days figuring out what it is he wants but more than that, he just wanted to give you your space. You didn’t want to leave so abruptly like that, but his toxic behaviors were driving you mad. Every time he’d spew some bullshit about you and your coworker you’d want to punch him in the face. You needed to give Sungho the time and space to figure out what his problem was, but more than anything you just wanted to be back in his arms. 

༄ ༄ ༄

Riwoo:

When you first met Riwoo, it took him some time to get used to your bubbly and outgoing personality. You loved being out and having fun and partying, while he preferred to stay at home. It never bothered you that he didn’t always want to go out with you and it never bothered him that you would always want to go out. It would cause some small tiffs between you two about where date night would take place that week, but other than that, there were no issues with your opposing lifestyles. But somewhere along the way, his attitude about your friends and your constant outings had changed. He would fight it more often, using lame excuses that you would take to avoid any more fighting. 

“I heard you’re going out with her (your friend) tonight?”

“Oh yeah, she invited me out after an argument she had with her boyfriend. We’re just going to the food stands so she can vent, nothing crazy.”

“Well, I heard she got into a fight with him because she was showing herself off to other men?”

“I mean, it is summer and she was at the beach? It’s not like she was 'showing herself off to other men,' she just wanted to wear a swimsuit. But apparently there's more to it she’s going to tell me about tonight.”

You were a little taken aback at his statement, not having expected him to find a problem with a woman wearing a bathing suit or moreso, using such a demeaning phrase against another woman, especially at the insinuation of wanting another man’s attention. 

He just rolled his eyes and you both awkwardly sat there, until you broke the silence, telling him that you'd be leaving now and that you'd be back later. 

Letting the rest of the evening play out, you came back with food for Riwoo, hoping that whatever he was saying earlier was just a result of him being hungry or having an off day and you knew food always made him feel better. 

“Honey! I brought you some food!”

You expect him to come running like he usually does when you bring home food, but this time he just walks up to you, phone in hand. 

“Thank you baby.”

He sits down and starts eating, waiting for you to tell him about your day.

“Okay so, apparently they’ve been having these issues for a while and this isn’t the first time he’s made some comment about her revealing her body or wearing revealing clothes. Just today he told her that she couldn’t wear jean shorts to meet up with me. Like it's 90 degrees out, what did he want her to wear, fluffy pajama pants?”

“I’m sure he has his reasons for not wanting her to wear revealing clothes in public? Why doesn’t she just respect his wishes?”

“Because he doesn’t have control over what she wears and how she wants to show off her own body? Yeah they’re dating but it’s not like she’s his to claim or anything.”

“Are you sure you should be friends with someone that doesn’t at least try to hear their boyfriend out?”

“Sanghyeok, what the hell are you talking about? What’s gotten into you? Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what? I just mean that I wouldn’t want you to be around people that don’t respect what others say. Who knows? Maybe she’ll start ignoring what you say and just move on to something else. She’s making a big deal over one thing so what if you get into an argument one day and she stops being your friend? I wouldn't want that happening to you.”

He rubs your arm up and down, trying to get you to understand his point of view but you move away from his touch. 

“I don’t know why you're talking like that, but I don’t like it.”

You walk away from him, but something in your mind starts reconsidering your entire friendship with your best friend. Was she really so bad for not respecting her boyfriend's wishes over her clothes? 

A few more instances arise where Riwoo tries to nicely reason with you on who you can and can’t hang out with, saying things like “I don’t want you to get hurt,” or “I don’t think you should wear that, the men around you might get the wrong idea.” And you slowly found yourself listening to him, so much so to the point where you didn’t have anyone left to hang out with besides him. 

You spent days at home, your bright personality dimmed from not having any social interaction outside of your boyfriend. It wasn’t until you got a message from one of your friends, reaching out after you had made an excuse that Riwoo gave you to not hang out with her. It clicked in your brain that your friends had done nothing wrong. It was actually him that was the problem. 

“Hey baby, ready for movie night?” 

“No, I’m not.” 

You stood up from your little blanket cocoon ready to confront him. 

“You know what I realized? This whole time, you telling me not to hang out with this person or that doing this is wrong, even telling me what I can and can’t wear? You were just manipulating me this whole time. Why? You don’t think I should do things on my own?” 

“Baby, I wasn’t manipulating you I—“

“Do NOT call me baby, you have no right. You don’t care for me and you don’t even love me. If you did you would let me be myself and not this shell of the person I once used to be. If you don’t like how I am then why have we been together this long?” 

“Y/N, I was just looking out for you that’s it.” 

“Well you can stop looking out for me, we’re done.” 

You decide then to leave him, packing your things without turning back. He can tell he’s taken it too far. He was too selfish wanting you all for himself. You deserved happiness and you weren’t going to find that with him. 

༄ ༄ ༄

Jaehyun:

The textbook definition of a workaholic. Jaehyun had expressed to you before how important his career as an idol was and that if you couldn’t handle days without seeing him or barely seeing him at all, then a relationship wasn’t the best idea. But you of course, in the optimistic honeymoon phase, denied the hardships of being in a relationship with an idol and agreed to date him anyways. Love was enough, right? 

At first, things were great. It was hard, admittedly, having to hide yourself whenever you walked into the building and even from the staff for a while, only being able to meet him in empty conference rooms after somehow managing to sneak up there by yourself. But slowly his members and staff found out and you were in the clear to freely be around each other during his practices. You even brought snacks and lunch for everyone on occasion. But you also working meant that you didn’t get to see each other much. Though this is what you had anticipated, you didn’t think it was going to be as hard as it was. 

Jaehyun would be busy hosting or in variety shows or interviews in the morning and then spend the rest of his day at the practice room or the studio. He was allowed to be over at your apartment but even then it was hard only being able to sleep next to him for a couple hours since he would be too tired to engage in anything other than a short conversation whenever he came home. He would always try to call and talk but even that got redundant since he was always so busy. 

The lack of physical contact and barely any contact at all was starting to put a strain on your relationship. You would constantly try to get him to rest or stop working but he would insist that his work was too important to stop, often insinuating that it was more important than you.

You would try to visit him whenever possible but it always felt like you were always putting more effort to see him than he would to see you. It all came to a head when he was able to get a day off. The whole group was given time off after nonstop preparations for award shows and their upcoming tours. You were finally able to get your hands on him, innocently and not so much. The night he came home was great, filled with love and passion and all the pent up emotions from the months of strain you had endured. But the next day didn’t hold the same feelings. 

Waking up to each other was all that you had asked for since the beginning of your relationship. You’d usually find yourself asleep when he came home and then he’d be gone by the time you woke up. An endless cycle of just barely missing each other was halted for just a day. Assuming that you’d be in his arms the rest of the day, you let him sleep in as you shower and work on breakfast for the both of you, taking your time. 

“Good morning baby, it smells amazing in here.” 

The cliché back hug while you cooked up eggs was exactly what you had pictured, never wanting this moment to end. After eating you let him rest while you cleaned up a little bit. Once you were done, you were slightly disappointed to have found him in the room playing online games with Donghyun and Sungho.

“Hey baby. I thought we were going to hang out today?” 

You say, all cute and pouty. 

“I know, baby. I’m only gonna play a couple rounds with them and then I’m all yours, okay?” 

He gives you a quick kiss before going back to his game, focus completely shifting as he tried to recover from his last death. You sigh as you walk away. You didn’t want to sound commanding and needy but you’ve barely seen him and wanted to hang out with him. 

You kill time by watching shows on Netflix. One hour turns into two and two turns into 4 as he emerges from the room, a disappointed look on his face. Upon hearing the bedroom door open, you turn back to see him. 

“I have some bad news…” 

“Oh no, Jaehyun, what is it?” 

“They called me into the studio just now. Apparently something happened to the usb drive that had a bunch of pre-released tracks on them and they want to see if I can save them.” 

You look at him in disbelief, tears welling up in your eyes. Voice broken, you respond,

“C-can’t they call a computer technician or something? Why are they having you go? Do you know how to retrieve the files?”

“Well no but—“ 

“So why do you have to go then?” 

“Y/N…” 

He comes closer, giving you a hug as you let your tears stream down your face and into his shirt. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t just not go.” 

You didn’t want to sound rude or ungrateful, but you couldn’t let your anger build up any longer. 

“You just HAD to play games with Donghyun and Sungho huh? Instead of spending time with me.” 

You pull away from him, eyes red and angry as tears continue to spill from your eyes and voice cracking in rage. 

“They wanted to hop on for a bit and wanted me to join them…” 

“You see them EVERYDAY!! I’ve barely seen you because your work is SO important, more important than me and then the ONE day you have off, you choose to spend half the day with the people you see LITERALLY everyday and now you’re coming out here telling me that you have to go BACK to work??? Jaehyun I don’t know how much more of this I can take…” 

Tears are slipping down his cheeks as his voice starts to break at his next words, 

“Baby I told you that it was going to be hard and that my work is so important. You know I cant say no to them.”

“So you’re choosing work again over me? Just like how you chose your friends over me? And like how you choose everything else in your life over me? Alright, that’s fine.” 

You wipe your tears as the sadness dissipates and is replaced by anger. You have no words left to say as you try to walk past him, his hand grabbing your wrist delicately stopping you from walking away. 

“Y/N please, that’s not fair. I’m so sorry. You’re so important to me and I know this is hard but can we talk about this when I get back?” 

“I’ve given you plenty of chances Jaehyun. You always refuse my help, refuse my offer when I tell you to rest or spend time with me. I have nothing left to say to you.” 

You harshly pull your hand away from his grip, closing and locking the bedroom door as Jaehyun gathers himself, washing his face before grabbing his things and heading out to the studio. Maybe love wasn’t enough. 

༄ ༄ ༄

Taesan: 

Taesan was good at everything. Almost. He was smart, always got good grades and he was very musically talented. He could sing, rap, dance and even play the piano. He was also very determined, attending both college and dance/ singing practices at his entertainment company, KOZ. You knew he was very busy but you shared similar classes and would always pair up together for projects or assignments so not being able to see each other was never an issue. The problems arose when he was stressed beyond belief. 

He seemed very chill and nonchalant to strangers, not really showing his mischievous yet funny personality. But you knew him as the fun, lovable, fake emo that was surprisingly affectionate and loved giving you cute couple gifts, like the guitar heart keychain on your bag. But when he was stressed, it was like he shut the rest of the world out, including you. At first you thought he just didn’t know how to manage that much stress yet and would cut him some slack, letting him figure things out on his own. But when his behaviors under said stress persisted even after a couple months of dating, you were starting to get sick of it. 

He was good at everything, except telling you how he was feeling. He would text you normally one day and then go no contact for multiple days, even avoiding you during classes. It would irk you the most when you’d see him hanging out with his friends right in front of your face, acting like everything was fine and then ignoring you. Finally fed up with all his antics you waited again until he hit another no contact stress period to confront him. 

You both had a big exam coming up. Exams in this class were 20% of your grade, each, so you knew he would be stressed trying to juggle studying and practice. Like you predicted, a week before the exam he stopped messaging you. He didn’t even sit next to you in class, choosing to sit by himself in the corner of the lecture hall, face buried in his laptop and notes. You would find him later in the day at the student center, talking and laughing with his friends, still not having received even a single text from him for the last few days. You decided to take pictures of him with his friends, keeping it as evidence if he tried to deny your accusations. You waited until after the exam was over to message him, “let’s hang out today! I miss you :(,” hoping that your fake excitement was conveyed through the message. You weren’t surprised to see that he had messaged you back after, simply replying with “sure,” which made you even angrier. No talking for a week and the only thing he says back to you is “sure?” 

You’re with him in a solo practice room, the small space covered in mirrors on two sides a little claustrophobic for you. 

“Dongmin, we need to talk.” 

His sigh indicated to you that he knew what you wanted to talk about. 

“Alright, let’s get this over with.” 

His attitude was already bad, pissing you off even more. 

“Let’s get this over with? Why are you acting like this is such a burden on you? Ignoring me, your girlfriend, for a week because you’re stressed studying for an exam and being here at practice but you can hang out with your friends no problem?” 

“Y/N you’re being ridiculous I wasn’t hanging out with my friends and I have been stressed, you know that.” 

“Oh really?” 

You scoff, pulling up the picture of him laughing with a couple of his friends, the date being that of 2 days ago. His face doesn’t change, if anything he looks more uninterested than when the conversation started, not even caring that he was caught in his lie. 

“You’re really gonna stand here and tell me that you haven’t been hanging out with your friends all week when you have? Why can’t you just tell me why you don’t message me, why you ignore me whenever you have too much on your plate. All I ask is that you communicate but you never do!” 

“You’re just too much to deal with.” 

That one sentence shut you up, tears on the brink of falling from your eyes. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. 

“What?” 

“Recently you’ve been too much to deal with. Especially when I’m stressed. I can’t handle you and all my work and practice all together. And you know I’m not good at communicating. I don’t like to talk about my feelings.” 

It was the way that he had no emotion behind his sentences that made the lump in your throat even bigger. When did he stop caring about you? When did he stop loving you?

“Where is all this coming from? I thought everything was fine? You always acted normal after your little ghosting.” 

“You never saw that as a problem? That I would ghost you and pretend that everything was fine after? At first I was just learning how to juggle everything at once. But after a while, I started to get tired of this. I guess I just didn’t know how to say it.” 

He was so cold about it that you didn’t know how to react. Heart broken into a million pieces, you couldn’t believe what you were hearing. 

“You should’ve told me a while ago. Before things got this far. It’s been 8 months and you couldn’t tell me that you didn’t want to be together?” 

“Sorry. Like I said, I don’t talk about my feelings or emotions. You should’ve known that.” 

You couldn’t stand to be in that suffocating room with him any longer, shoving him out of the way as you bolt out the door, tears falling haphazardly as you exit the building. You were so lost, so hurt that he was feeling this way and never said a thing and yet he still managed to make you feel like shit about it. You wipe your tears away, removing the keychain he gave you from your bag and throwing it down to the ground, stomping on it. 

“Fuck you, Han Dongmin.”

༄ ༄ ༄

Leehan: 

The undeniably attractive, oblivious and kind hearted man that everyone loves. He was incredibly popular on your small campus, loved by men and women alike. So you were very surprised to find that he had taken an interest in you. You wouldn’t say you had a crush on him but of course you couldn’t deny his beauty. You weren’t shy per se but you didn’t put yourself out there. You had your circle of friends and did your part in the clubs you were in but that was it. 

Everyone knew him as the lovely fish guy, always talking about his pet fish and what he hopes to achieve in his tank in the future. You had only ever seen him at your school’s aqua life club, as he was the president of it. You worked with him before but you didn’t know him that well. 

“Hey Y/N.” 

There were a couple of other people helping to organize the fundraiser your club was hosting, Donghyun came to speak to you first.

“Hey Donghyun, how’ve you been?”

“I’m doing well. I actually had a question to ask you.” 

“Oh? What’s up? Did you need help with something for the club?” 

He nervously scratches the nape of his neck before flashing his bright smile at you. 

“Actually, I was wondering if you would want to go out with me sometime? I completely understand if you don’t want to but I just thought I’d ask.”

You were taken aback, not really expecting to have been asked on a date by him, but you agreed nonetheless. Which brought you to your current situation. 

Donghyun would constantly get invited out to parties by his friends or girls who thought they had a chance with him. You guys had more of a friends with benefits relationship, occasionally going on dates whenever he asked. But you inevitably caught feelings for him. You were scared to confront him about them, worried about what his reaction might be. The next time you saw him was when he invited you out to dinner. After eating, you went back to your apartment. Usually the time after your date was spent feeling each other up, as per your arrangement, but today felt different. Dognhyun could feel the tension radiating off of you so he waited until you were back inside to ask you about it.

“Everything okay? You seemed a little tense back at the restaurant?”

You fiddled with your jewelry, his nervous smile making you even more nervous. 

“Yeah it's just… there's something we need to talk about…”

“Oh, no. Don’t tell me you have a boyfriend now and have to end things with me? If you waited to tell me that after our date then that's just cruel.”

His laugh is lighthearted, almost mocking, as if the possibility of you getting a boyfriend and breaking things off him was unlikely. You reciprocate his laugh nonetheless.

“No… I actually think we need to end things for a different reason.”

His joking manner turned serious as the words left your mouth, sitting on the couch and pulling you down with him. 

“Did I do anything to upset you? I like this arrangement we have and if there's anything I can do to fix it please tell me.”

“No Donghyun, it's not you. It's just… I like you. I know that's against what our arrangement was about but I can’t help it.”

“Y/N… you know I can’t date you. It’d be too… weird. I don't meant weird but you know, I’m the president of aqua life and I have a big name here and-”

“And being with me would ruin your reputation so you decided to just sleep with me instead?”

He fell silent, confirming your previous statement and you felt your heart drop into your stomach. How had you not known how he truly felt this whole time?

“Why take me out on all these dates then if you strictly wanted it to be just sex? It’s not like everyone in the club doesn’t know anyways so this ruining your reputation bullshit doesn’t make much sense. Or were you just hoping that things would work out and you could throw me away when you got bored?”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t want a relationship with you. I took you out on dates to be nice so we could keep things like this between us. If I had known you were going to catch feelings for me I wouldn’t have done all this.”

“You’re such an asshole. You were giving me mixed signals this whole time, taking me out and treating me like a girlfriend, holding my hand and shit and you expected me not to catch feelings? Just so I’d stay fucking you in hopes that I dont realize just how much you suck? You’re a dick, Donghyun.”

He didn’t have it in him to try to argue with you or calm you down, getting up from the sofa.

“I feel like I’ve said a lot of things that were taken out of context. If you would like to talk more about this then let me know. But for the record, I do apologize for all of this. I wouldn’t have done it if I knew this is how things would go.”

“You can take your apology and shove it up your ass, Donghyun.”

You basically push him out of your apartment, slamming the door in his face. You waited until you heard his footsteps walk away to silently sob to yourself for not seeing his true colors sooner. 

༄ ༄ ༄

Woonhak:

A normally very sweet yet childish boy that had so much love to give you. His passive aggressive tendencies towards his friends would always make you laugh, his embarrassment at being babied by them entertaining to you. He could be the most perfect boyfriend ever, when he didn’t have anger issues. Even though he would never admit to it, Woonhak was very sensitive and it was very apparent when he was angry or ticked off. It didn’t help that he couldn’t control himself when he was angry, often opting to yell at the person that made him mad. 

The first time you saw him angry, he was in an argument with Jaehyun. With their comeback approaching quickly, tensions between all the boys were high and all the criticisms were getting to them. While the others had more sensibility and maturity when it came to controlling their anger, Woonhak would just explode. You had walked into the practice room to deliver dinner to the boys, a simple meal you got from the food stand down the road. You heard yelling come from the practice room but you just assumed it was an instructor giving them directions for their comeback stage. But upon walking in, you see Woonhak and Jaehyun fighting, screaming about the performance. 

You were quite soft spoken yourself, so hearing Woonhak yell like that scared you, making you drop the food on the floor, alerting the two boys of your presence. They both looked at you seething, but Jaehyun’s expression softened up when he saw you there, standing frozen as the food had started leaking from the bag and onto the floor. Woonhak looks at you but just huffs and walks away, probably embarrassed that you had to see that. You slowly clean up the food in shock, Jaehyun apologizing while helping you clean. 

You go to see Woonhak after and see that he had tear stains down his cheeks, visible through his messed up makeup. Thinking you were Jaehyun, he started yelling again, asking to be left alone before looking back at you, seeing the tears in your eyes in fear of being yelled at by him. He quickly apologizes to you before walking away, mad at himself for being such an idiot and blowing up at you for no reason. You were scared and upset, not being able to handle being yelled at from anyone, especially your boyfriend. 

You had waited for him to come to you and when he did, he immediately apologized again and hugged you, asking for your forgiveness. You of course said yes, as long as he doesn’t yell at you ever again. He agreed and you guys were fine for a while. After the comeback and promotions, they were right back to practicing for another comeback plus the first part of their tour. You had learned that Woonhak just needed space when preparing for comebacks, so you always gave him distance when he was at his busiest, but recently, everything seemed to piss him off, including you. 

You would be at his dorm, preparing food for the boys after practice and he would come home mad, stressed and tired. You’d politely offer him a try of the food you are making, only to be swatted away by him and ignored, making you feel less than adequate. He did this a couple times and your patience slowly dwindled, until you met your breaking point. 

A particularly rough afternoon had resulted in him getting into a fight with Taesan over lyrics to their new song. He was being reprimanded for trying to add lyrics that were shot down multiple times. You just so happened to get caught in crossfire, and he would blame you, saying that it was your constant need for his attention that distracted him. Upon hearing this you felt the tears well up in your eyes. 

“Is that what you think of me? A distraction to your music career for simply wanting to be by your side?”

Taesan looked like a deer in headlights, excusing himself from the situation, afraid of feeling your wrath. 

“Y/N, you know that's not what I mean, I’m just frustrated.”

“That's the issue Kim Woonhak, you’re ALWAYS frustrated. You're always stressed and there's always something wrong. Anytime I try to help you, you treat me like I’m a burden and I can never be good enough to help you. You always ignore me when I’m here so I’ve stopped asking for your attention in hopes that you’d come to me for once but you never do. Do you even want to be with me anymore?”

Tears were flowing down his cheeks not being able to hold them back any longer after your confession. 

“Y-Y/N, i love you so much. I’m sorry I’m so busy… I want to be with you I swear I can treat you right I just need some time during this comeback and–”

“I’ve given you nothing but time, Woonhak. I don’t have any more of my time to give you. I can’t stay here while you yell at me and I can’t stand the fact that you think I’m the one holding you back. So I won’t be here to hold you back anymore, Kim Woonhak. We’re done.”

You can no longer hold your tears back, letting them roll down your face and onto the ground as you slowly pack up your belongings, giving him one last hug before leaving, wishing him luck on his upcoming comeback and tour.