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sprite-writes-fanfic · 5 months ago

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How the Killers from DBD would react to you slapping their ass.

Hey guys! Welcome to my silly DBD headcanons, this was just for fun, worked with a great buddy of mine @despacitobandito! <3 They helped me and we overall had a great time making this together so I hope you all get a good laugh out of this. Also! Apparently more killers have come out since Unknown’s release that I didn’t write down during the making of this, sorry for missing any new killers! Other than that, I hope you enjoy!

Word Count: 390

CW: Crack headcanons, nothing graphic, some reactions you’d expect from a slasher, contains killers up to Unknown!

Evan MacMillan - Trapper

• Insulted that you would ever touch his fine juicy ass.

Philip Ojomo - Wraith

• “Oh..!” You both are really awkward afterwards. Like just awkwardly staring at each other in silence.

Max Thompson Jr. - Hillbilly

• He’s genuinely startled by you slapping his ass, a little flattered probably.

Sally Smithson - Nurse

• Your hand phases through her and she slashes the shit out of you.

Michael Myers - Shape

• The thousand yard stare before he’d stab you in the face.

Lisa Sherwood - Hag

• *Minecraft skeleton noises.*

Herman Carter - Doctor

• *Farts electricity and electrocutes you.*

Anna - Huntress

• Stops humming. Run. Dude just run.

Bubba Sawyer - Cannibal

• Squeals and cries, you touched his no-no square.

Freddy Krueger - Nightmare

• Turns into literal dust because that’s what he deserves.

Amanda Young - Pig

• Instant bear trap, you don’t even get to find the key, as soon as it’s on, it snaps.

Jeffery Hawk - Clown

• Burp and fart combo.

Rin Yamaoka - Spirit

• You cut your hand since she has a glass shard sticking out of her ass cheek.

Frank, Julie, Susie and Joey - Legion

• They all gang up on you and kick you on the ground, JoJo style.

Adiris - Plague

• She pukes on you, like a baby.

Danny Johnson - Ghostface

• He liked it so much that he hunts you down for you to do it again.

Kazan Yamaoka - Oni

• Feels his masculinity being threatened and he hunts you every game to beat you violently.

Caleb Quinn - Deathslinger

• You traumatized the old man.

Pyramid Head - Executioner

• Execution via guillotine.

Talbot Grimes - Blight

• Immediately tries to vore you but he can’t as he doesn’t have movement in his lower jaw.

Charlotte Deshayes - Twins

• Victor shoots out of her chest and mauls you.

Ji-Woon Hak - Trickster

• Promoted to side hoe and discord kitten that manages his social media; you’re forced to listen to his music on loop on Spotify. There is no escape.

Nemesis

• “S.T.A.R.S.” *blows you up.*

Elliot Spencer - Cenobite

• “I came.”

Carmina Mora - Artist

• Screeches and crows swarm you.

Albert Wesker - Mastermind

• Look of pure disappointment before he hooks you. “Look but don’t touch.”

Tarhos Kovács - Knight

• “Oh good heavens!” *His and him gang mori you.*

Adriana Imai - Skull Merchant

• She cyberstalks you and cancels you on Twitter/X.

Charles Lee Ray/Chucky - Good Guy

• Punted across the whole damn map.

Unknown

• Snap, crackle, pop.

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theabysss · 1 year ago

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Salvation

pairing: sagau!Dottore x Reader

summary: When you die, the whole world collapses for Dottore, but maybe there is still hope?

warnings/tags: gn!Reader, religious + cult themes, description of the execution, description of injuries.

word count: 2.7 k~

note: I'm here again after all this time. (ーー;)ノ Brought you some Dottore, enjoy. Maybe there will be a second part, but I don't promise anything.

Scarlet blood spurts out and a severed head rolls down. Empty eye sockets are directed to the heavens, a happy smile frozen on your face, anticipating the end of torment, now sealed on your face with an eternal mask. Dottore feels his fingertips go numb, he stares blankly at your head and hair, matted with blood. The mechanical heart, which has never failed before, either skips beats or beats quickly.

His ears feel like they are filled with cotton and he hears no sound, the emptiness fills his heart drop by drop, leaving no space for anything else. What is this feeling called? Dottore tries to distract himself from the picture before his eyes and frantically tries to remember the right word, but his thoughts move slowly like flies stuck in honey. A flash of insight and a bitter taste appears in his mouth. Despair. A drop of blood runs down his chin; he didn’t notice when he bit his lip with his teeth. It seems that only ten seconds have passed since the execution, but to Dottore they seem like an eternity.

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices tears running down the Tsaritsa’s face. There is no trace left of her usually cold personality. The harbingers look no better, for each of them there has long been no one left more important than you, and to lose you like that was terrible. More painful than the worst wound they received in life.

The one whom the archons call the Creator begins their speech with an unpleasant grin, full of self-satisfaction. They talks about the impostor and how proud they are of their dear followers for capturing you for him. He is sick of looking at the other archons; the proud appearance of Morax and the other archons makes him rage. It spreads like hot lava from the heart to the hands, convulsively clenching in impatience, the desire to strangle this ancient reptile overwhelms Dottore.

Your most loyal follower huh? The fool who fell for the fake sent by Celestia. He was the first to accept this abomination without doubting it even for a second. You were so different, your auras were completely different. A liar or a pathetic fool, whichever was true, Morax was disgusting.

When the fake finishes their incredibly pathetic speech, it will be their turn: Tsaritsa, the harbingers, the ordinary Fatui, they will all have to lose their lives.

Mentally, Dottore estimates the distance to the platform where Celestia’s puppet stands. Even though his delusion had been taken away just like the rest of the harbingers, that didn't mean he was going to give up. Dottore runs his tongue over teeth, checking their sharpness and squints with satisfaction, feeling the salty taste of blood appearing in his mouth. There is nothing worse than an animal driven into a corner, knowing that there is no chance of salvation, but still intending to resist.

When he is led past the platform to the guillotine, he will take the chance and take revenge. Although it would be more correct to call this the restoration of justice. You were innocent, You were their god.

When the fake solemnly spreads his hands and orders the executions to continue, the sky of Teyvat darkens, anyone could feel the fury of the elements. Dottore exhales in amazement, drops of your blood slowly rising into the air and changing their color from red to gold. The crackling of electricity, the smell of burning, strong gusts of wind, the temperature drops lower every second, plants are spreading across the entire area, bright and screaming about their toxicity, the earth trembles underfoot, on the horizon he can see the sea rising in waves, each of which is higher than the previous ones, threatening to flood the whole harbor.

The fake looks at what is happening in shock, but does not have time to say a single word. Lightning falls from the sky and strikes Celestia's puppet, one after the other in an endless stream, they follow each other. Dottore's heart is filled with gloomy triumph and at the same time unbearable bitterness. If Teyvat could have intervened directly, why didn’t he save you, their Creator? Why didn't the world prevent your death? Or was it your desire to reveal the truth only when nothing will it be impossible to fix it, leaving them all with eternal regret?

When the lightning stops falling from the sky, the fake turns into a smoking piece of charred flesh. The Archons look in surprise at the one they praised as the Creator, understanding slowly appears on their faces. One by one they helplessly turn their heads towards your body. Morax is the first to fall to his knees in front of your head, Dottore sees how his fingers tremble as he hesitates to touch your blood-stained cheek.

Tsaritsa looks contemptuously at each of these traitors. Dottore knows that now she would with great pleasure impale each of the archons on ice spikes if only the shackles did not block her powers.

In a half-strangled voice, Morax orders the Millelith to release all of them.

After being released, Dottore and the rest of the harbingers follow Tsaritsa as she goes to the archons and… your body. Standing next to it is unbearably painful, his eyes cling to every scratch on your face, his heart falls into a cold empty hole, now that he can clearly see your empty eye sockets.

As far as he knew, the Electro Archon was to blame for this; he would have broken every bone in her hands, and then lowered her into a vat of acid and watched as her flesh peeled off from the bones.

Tsaritsa's voice is cold and gloomy when she speaks to the rest of the archons.

"There is no punishment that can atone for your sin and death will not be your salvation. You will live the rest of your eternity in pain, I promise you all that."

A drop of your golden blood slowly moves in the air, Dottore follows their movement with his eyes. Was there a chance to save you, why did everything turn out that way? Why he, Tsaritsa and the other harbingers turned out to be so weak and useless? They too were sinners, those who did not save and they will bear this sin until the end of their lives.

Dottore could still feel the remnants of your aura, faintly, but he could, and he closed his eyes, absorbing this feeling, which was soon to dissipate. Or not? Dottore's eyes widened, an arrow of hope piercing his heart. Your spirit was still here, weak, fading, still existing, attached to drops of golden blood.

"The Creator has not left us yet, his spirit is still here."

The face of Tsaritsa and the other archons lit up with faint hope, their gazes were directed at him, all-consuming, unwavering attention emanated from them, however, such a gaze was directed at Dottore from everyone who was present in the square.

"Collect all the blood, not a single drop should be lost; the soul of the Creator is attached to it. I can try to save Their Grace, but we must act quickly before their spirit dissipates."

Dottore is determined. He will succeed, he cannot fail, he will not make mistakes, just not in such an important matter as this. Despite the mental pep talk he gave himself, Dottore's palms become treacherously cold and he begins to nervously tap a rhythm with his fingers on his thigh.

He needed a workplace, his laboratories would be ideal, but he was not sure that your spirit would survive the trip to Snezhnaya. He had to act quickly, Dottore could feel the grains of time slipping through his fingers.

When he and the clones find themselves in the silence of the temporary laboratory provided by Qixing, Dottore allows himself only one nervous sigh before taking control of his emotions. The time for all the emotions will come later, when he successfully returns life to you.

He begins to give instructions to the clones, who are preparing everything necessary for Dottore's most important work. It’s good that he managed to drive out all the traitors of the archons and other personalities who tried to be present, even Tsaritsa, nothing should distract him, the price of a mistake is too great.

The punishment of the archons was temporarily postponed, Tsaritsa said that when you become alive again, you yourself will determine the punishment for these traitors. It's when, not if. Now the whole seven had to destroy Celestia, which had committed the unforgivable.

Your headless body lying on the operating table looked foreign, wrong of all places, you should never have ended up here. You should have enjoyed the balls held in your honor, the gifts offered to you by your followers.

To begin with, it was worth understanding whether it made sense to try to restore your human shell or was it already in a completely unusable state? A severed head is a big obstacle to the restoration of your body, but Dottore had no guarantee that your soul could take root in a synthetic body, and the ability to create it in a short time, so there was only one possibility left. It was necessary to attach your head back to the body, check the body for damage to internal organs and, if there were any, heal them. Before you begin the process of returning your soul to the mortal coil.

The test results showed, although not the most comforting results, but everything was not so bad, of course, with the exception of the severed head. General severe exhaustion of the body, which will be corrected by the correct diet after your resurrection, which will definitely be successful. It couldn't fail. After all, if he failed, would there be any point in his existence, in the existence of nations, in Teyvat? Without you, nothing made sense.

Dottore shakes his head, driving away bad thoughts and returns to work. In order for the head to subsequently work as it should, each nerve and blood vessel had to be connected correctly. Painstaking work that requires a lot of patience, well, Dottore never complained about its lack.

Hour after hour, the clock ticked peacefully in the background, measuring time, while Dottore and his clones painstakingly put everything back together as it was originally. The last batch of stitches signals the end of such a complex operation. The muscles of his back ached in protest against the same position for hours. Dottore looked at his work satisfactorily, touching the stitches and then immediately pursed his lips in regret. This is not how it was supposed to be. He walked over to the table and gave himself an injection that instantly banished any fatigue and made his mind crystal clear again. In a day he will definitely feel very bad when the kickback comes, but you were definitely worth it. In fact, if he were now offered to give his life in exchange for yours, he would agree without hesitation.

It was time to start the second stage, it was necessary to do something with your eyes. Unfortunately, all he could offer you now were temporary prosthetics, not as advanced as those he and the clones used. He will definitely replace them later with better ones.

One of the many things he regretted was that he didn't get to see your eyes, they should have been gorgeous. In legends they were described as unearthly, as if entire constellations and the endless night sky were reflected in them.

As gently as possible, Dottore cleaned your eye holes from dirt and blood, carefully stretched the wires to the back lobe of the brain, to which the optic nerves are attached, and finally inserted the prostheses. Dentures you should never have. The color looked inappropriate, too artificial, alien, wrong, Dottore swallowed dryly. He sits down on a chair nearby and wearily hides his face in his hands. Fatigue, not physical, but moral, covers him in a wave and the heaviness in his chest does not allow him to breathe. He knows that it will only disappear when you take your breath and your heart beats again.

Dottore was never particularly religious in his youth, he was interested in the story of the creation of the world and definitely admired you, but there was never any real reverence in his feelings then. Everything gradually began to change when he joined Fatui. Every year he learned more and more about you and his devotion to you only grew, gradually completely capturing his heart until there was nothing left in him except you.

All the humanity that was in him, no matter how little it was, was intended only for you. All his achievements were dedicated to you. He all belonged to you, only you. And at the moment there was nothing he could want more than to see you alive. The same desire burned with a passionate flame in the eyes of his clones standing nearby.

The last stage is the most important. Dottore carefully inserts a needle into your vein and begins to pour your blood back into your body. He feels your spirit waver, as if you doesn’t want to return.

He looks over your body; bright blue veins stand out on your pale skin, there are various bruises and scratches on your body, which he, of course, treated, but to his regret the healing was not instantaneous. This picture breaks him into fragments, leaving a cold emptiness instead of his mechanical heart, his inability to correct what happened. Was there any point in all his knowledge that he had been collecting for centuries if now it was almost completely useless at the most important moment of his life. All that Dottore can do now is pray, pray to you, to the elements, to Teyvat. Please come back, please, please, please…

He knew it was a selfish desire, this world wasn't worthy of you, they weren't worthy of you, not after what happened. But hope, a feeling that had not come to him for a very long time since the time of the academy, flared up in his soul. The last drops of blood poured back into your body and deathly silence fell in the laboratory. Those few seconds when nothing happened seemed like an eternity, frightening, cold, hopeless to Dottore. The claws of the unknown tore his heart apart, did he succeed? Would you like to return?

Your trembling breath and wide-open eyes bring Dottore into a state close to euphoric. You were alive again, relief fills him and makes him dizzy with happiness. He feels something wet rolling down his cheek and wipes it away in confusion. A tear. A lot of time had passed since the last time he cried, and he had definitely never had tears of happiness until that moment. Well, you always made him feel an unusual amount of different emotions.

When you go into a coughing fit, one of the clones instantly brings you a mug of water and looks at your face with concern. You take a few greedy sips, and then turn your confused gaze on him, gradually filling with fear. Dottore's heart clenches unpleasantly, this is not how you were supposed to look at him. Not what he wants and not how it should be.

You try to say something, but again break into a cough. Dottore instantly approaches, he wants… to console you, to assure you that you are safe, but the words lie like dead weight on his tongue. He carefully reaches out to your hand, but freezes millimeters from your skin. He felt confused, useless. You will probably be uncomfortable with the touches of a sinner like him.

You carefully peer into his face, by the way your gaze moves along the features of his face, it seems to him that you are looking for an answer to some very important question for you. And after a few moments, the answer seems to satisfy you, a relieved sigh escapes your lips and you reach out with your hand to his, carefully placing your hand in his.

Dottore swallows dryly, warmth rising up his arm from where you touch.

"Everything will be fine, Your Grace. Now everything will be fine, I promise."

Reblogs, comments, are always greatly appreciated! ヽ(o^ ^o)ﾉ

#genshin impact sagau #genshin sagau #sagau #genshin impact sagau x reader #genshin x reader #sagau x reader #sagau cult au #sagau dottore #theabysss writes

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whump-or-whatever · 2 months ago

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Illya Kuryakin Whump - The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1964)

There are a lot of fights and stuff in this show so I’ve marked episodes I found particularly whumpy with an *.

Spoilers ahead!

*S1E3- drugged, terrified, crying

S1E4- hit in face with a door, seasick, hit with door again, punched in the stomach

S1E5- punched

S1E9- passes out

S1E10- shot in the arm

S1E13- punched, choked, almost falls off balcony

S1E18- shocked

S1E19- thrown by blast, manhandled, smacked

S1E20- coughing, hit in head, knocked down

S1E22- choked, manhandled, hit in the head, knocked out, black eye

S1E23- knocked out, headache

S1E24- tied to chair

S1E25- coughing

S1E26- in a car crash, bandaged and arm in sling

*S1E27- coughing, knocked out, kidnapped, chained up, threatened

*S1E28- gassed, coughing, thrown down a well, knocked out, falls

S1E29- almost sucked out of plane, kicked in the back

S2E1- cut finger, dust in eyes, tied up, hoisted in the air

*S2E2- knocked down, buried in mud, tied to a post, scalded, mummified

S2E3- hit with baton, knocked out, imprisoned, manhandled

*S2E4- knocked down, bound, drugged, interrogated, in a fight

S2E5- hands tied and smashed in bars

*S2E7- in a fight, stabbed in leg, passed out, kicked in bad leg, in a fight, hit, knocked out, another fight

S2E8- hog tied, blindfolded, knocked down, tied up again

S2E9- shot at, two fights, hung by wrists, cold

S2E11- handcuffed, hunted, trips, put in guillotine

*S2E12- punched, smothered unconscious, chained up, scalded, aftermath of belting, thrown by explosion

S2E13- in a fight, dangling off train

S2E14- tied up, knocked out, pretend knee injury, gassed, coughing, in a fight, near explosion, in hospital

S2E15- car crash, knocked out, sore, in a fight

S2E16- in a fight, pretend shot, falls down, tied up, backhanded, another fight

S2E17- punched, falls into water, in a fight, another fight in water

*S2E18- knocked out, bound to chair, tortured with high pitched noise, knocked out again

S2E19- in a fight

S2E20- shot in the arm, knocked out, thrown into compressor

S2E21- cont. of last ep., coughing, thrown to ground, punched

*S2E22- knocked out, bitten, collapses, exhausted, thrown into a wall twice, bitten again, tied upside down

S2E23- knocked out, irradiated, stumbling

S2E24- thrown to ground by explosion

S2E25- in a car crash, shot at, falls off ladder, headache, cold

S2E26- manhandled, knocked out, shaken, bound to chair

S2E27- in a car crash, pinned

*S2E28- nipped by piraña, swarmed by bats, dropped through trap door, manhandled, handcuffed, blood drained by bats, weak

S2E29- shot with a poison dart, passes out, manhandled, in a fight

S2E30- choked, tied up, gagged, tied to chair

S3E1- hit on head, in a fight, knocked out

S3E2- thrown to ground, hands bound, in a fight

S3E3- knocked out, put in a coffin sized cage, in a fight

S3E4- in a fight, bound and hoisted on chains, dropped into liquid which later hardened and trapped him, another fight

S3E5- tied to a post

*S3E6- in a fight, knocked out, tied to a chair, smacked around, hits head off glass, drowning in bubbles, another fight, grazed by bullet

S3E7- bag put over head, manhandled, tied up, hung upside down, in a fight

S3E8- hit on the head, thrown down shaft, strapped to table

*S3E9- hit with chair, hit on head, in hospital, pretend stomach ache, sore, hung by his wrists

S3E10- in a fight, strapped down

*S3E11- injured in a car crash, in a fight, slapped, pinched, hung by wrists, cut up offscreen, tortured with electricity

*S3E12- cont. of last ep., hands bound, led by a belt around his neck, shoved around, arm twisted behind back, in a fight, almost drowns, hand slapped

*S3E13- shot in the hand, falls down cliff, sore, tied up, in a fight, ears hurt by loud noise, burned

S3E14- grabbed by hair, bound by neck, caught in a net trap, tied to a post, tied up, manhandled

S3E15- tied up

S3E16- knocked out, tied up and gagged, hands bound, in a fight

S3E17- near explosion, near another explosion, knocked out, slapped, hit by a door, in a fight

S3E19- punched in the stomach, tied up, hot, weak, manhandled, chained up

S3E20- kneed and hit on head, hit with tranq dart, tied up, arm bent back, hung by wrists, in a fight

S3E21- knocked out with gas, knocked out with a rock, tied up, pushed around, in a fight

S3E22- hit on head with vase

S3E23- tied up and gagged, knocked out, tied up and gagged again, in a fight

S3E24- punched, choked, tied up

S3E25- shoved to ground, knocked out, hung upside down, kicked, in a fight

S3E26- strangled, locked in broom closet, in a car crash, in a fight, in a guillotine, in a fight

*S3E27- whip around neck, tied up by wrists, whipped, cuffed to other guy and chained to post, straining, pain trying to break cuffs, tied up

S3E28- in 3 fights

S3E29- tied up, strangled, knocked out, tied up again, knocked out again, knocked out a third time, in a fight, another fight, hurts elbow breaking glass

S3E30- tied to a chair

S4E1- punched, gassed, coughing, in a fight

S4E2- hit by car, thrown by explosion

S4E4- in a fight, tied up

S4E5- punched, knocked out, in a fight

*S4E6- held captive, aftermath of psychological torture/conditioning, tranquilized, totally out of it

S4E7- strapped to table, brainwashed, in 2 fights

S4E8- in hospital, manhandled, knocked out, strapped to a chair, cut by broken glass

S4E9- in a struggle, backhanded, manhandled, tied up

S4E10- gassed, hit in the stomach, knocked out

S4E13- dropped through trap door, tied up, in a fight

S4E14- gassed, coughing, knocked out, tied up

S4E15- dropped from a height, knocked out

S4E16- knocked out, punched, leg injured by grenade

That’s all folks!

#whump #whump tv shows #whump episodes #Whump scenes #whump list #the man from uncle #illya kuryakin #david mccallum

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adickaboutspoons · 2 years ago

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Not today, me buckos.

Avoid Execution (0/2).

#if you are even remotely surprised that I have a guillotine and an electric chair on hand do you even really know me at all?#ofmd #our flag means death

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manicplank · 9 months ago

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Ways The Noise Has Died

I have a headcanon that The Noise can die and respawn. (He's cursed, but sometimes he takes advantage of it.) These are just some of the ways he's died. He does a lot of stupid shit.

Hit by car: 3

Lung cancer: 2

Throat cancer: 1

Fallen from building/height: 2

Shot by police: 7

Drowned: 1

Execution by electric chair: 1

Eaten by alligators: 2

Smashed by piano: 2

Killed by Peppino: 15

Heart attack: 3

Diabetes: 3

Fire/burns: 5

Explosion: 22

Spontaneous combustion: 4

Eaten by shark: 1

Poisoned: 1

Internal bleeding: 2

Septic shock: 2

Execution by guillotine: 2

Bleeding out: 4

Head trauma: 5

Forgot to breathe: 18

Killed by Toppin Monster: 3

Mauled by bear: 1

Ate something inedible: 6

Forgot to eat (starved): 3

Alcohol poisoning: 6

Dehydration: 3

Eaten by tigers: 1

Strangled by Pizzahead: 2

Stung by bees: 1

Run over by boulder: 1

Struck by lightning: 2

Led poisoning: 2

Ate paint: 3

EDIT from replies:

Killed by Noisette: 1

Radiation exposure: 2

Choke on food: 12

Organ failure: 7

Froze to death: 1

Allergies: 3

Land mine testing: 2

Food poisoning: 28

Jetpack failure: 6

Sucked into black hole: 1

Inhaling carcinogenic gaz: 7

Talking back to his mama: 1

Banished into the shadow realm: 2

Dark magic spell failure: 4

Touching electric plug with a fork: 5

Stunt failure: 35

Edit from replies 2:

Got skewered in a magic trick gone wrong: 11

Got caught in a mousetrap: 6

Rat poison: 25

Burned alive: 4

(Feel free to suggest ways he's died. Silly little bastard is always up to no good.)

Hit by a train: 2

EDIT by replies 3:

Washed out to sea: 4

Battle with Doise: 1

Fallen into volcano: 7

Mocked Pepperman’s art: 3

Sucked into tornado: 3

Kicked by cow: 1

Crushed by his crusher: 4

Ate Fake Peppino’s food: 2

Slipped on banana peel: 18

Rabies: 4

Pissed off Dougie Jones: 1

Shot by alien raygun: 3

Crushed by tree: 1

Buried alive: 3

Shot by Vigilante: 2

Knife juggling: 4

challenged God to smite him: 1

Fallen into bottomless pit: 7

Eaten by piranhas: 3

Bitten by zombie: 1

Air balloon crash: 5

Tried to light his fart on fire (gone wrong): 1

#pizza tower #noise #the noise #headcanon #shitpost

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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Brinklump Linkdump

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

Life comes at you fast, links come at you faster. Once again, I've arrived at Saturday with a giant backlog of links I didn't fit in this week, so it's time for a linkdump, the 14th in the series:

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

It's the Year of Our Gourd twenty and twenty-four and holy shit, is rampant corporate power rampant. On January 1, the inbred droolers of Big Pharma shat out their annual price increases, as cataloged in 46Brooklyn's latest Brand Drug List Price Change Box Score:

https://www.46brooklyn.com/branddrug-boxscore

Here's the deal: drugs that have already been developed, brought to market, and paid off are now getting more expensive. Why? Because the pharma companies have "pricing power," the most reliable indicator of monopoly. Ed Cara rounds up the highlights for Gizmodo:

https://gizmodo.com/ozempic-wegovy-wellbutrin-oxycontin-drug-price-increase-1851179427

What's going up? Well, Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonists. These drugs have made untold billions for their manufacturers, so naturally, they're raising the price. That's how markets work, right? When firms increase the volume of a product, the price goes up? Right? Other drugs that are going up include Wellbutrin (an antidepressant that's also widely used in smoking cessation) and the blood thinner Plavix. I mean, why the hell not? These companies get billions in research subsidies, invaluable government patent privileges, and near-total freedom to abuse the patent system with evergreening:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/23/everorangeing/#taste-the-rainbow

The most amazing things about monopolies is how the contempt just oozes out of them. It's like these guys can't even pretend to give a shit. You want guillotines? Because that's how you get guillotines.

Take Apple. They just got their asses handed to them in court by Epic, who successfully argued that Apple's rule requiring everyone who sells through the App Store to use Apple's payment processor and pay Apple 30% out of every dollar they bring in was an antitrust violation. Epic won, then won the appeal, then SCOTUS told Apple they wouldn't hear the case, so that's that.

Right? Wrong. Apple's pulled a malicious compliance stunt that could shame the surly drunks my great-aunt Lisa used to boss in the Soviet electrical engineering firm she ran. Apple has announced that app companies that process transactions using their own payment processors on the web must still pay Apple a 27% fee for every dollar their process:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apples-app-store-rule-changes-draw-sharp-rebuke-from-critics-150047160.html

In addition, Apple will throw a terrifying FUD-screen up every time a user clicks a payment link that goes to the web:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/second-verse-same-as-the-first/

This is obviously not what the court had in mind, and there's no way this will survive the next court challenge. It's just Apple making sure that everyone knows it hates us all and wants us to die. Thanks, Tim Apple, and right back atcha.

Not to be outdone in the monopolistic mustache-twirling department, Ubisoft just announced that it is going to shut down its driving simulator game The Crew, which it sold to users with a "perpetual license":

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

This is some real Darth Vader MBA shit. "Yeah, we sold you a 'perpetual license' to this game, but we're terminating it. I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Ubisoft sure are innovators. They've managed the seemingly impossible feat of hybridizing Darth Vader and Immortan Joe. Ubisoft's head of subscriptions, the guillotine-ready Philippe Tremblay, told GamesIndustry.biz that gamers need to get "comfortable" with "not owning their games":

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-new-ubisoft-and-getting-gamers-comfortable-with-not-owning-their-games

Or, as Immortan Joe put it: "Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!"

Capitalism without constraint is enshittification's handmaiden, and the latest victim is Ello, the "indie" social media startup that literally promised – on the sacred honor of its founders – that it would never sell out its users. When Ello took VC and Andy Baio questioned how this could be squared with this promise, the founders mocked him and others for raising the question. Their response boiled down to "we are super-chill dudes and you can totally trust us."

They raised more capital, and used that to create a nice place for independent artists, who piled into the platform and provided millions of unpaid hours of creative labor to help the founders increase its value. The founders and their investors turned the company into a Public Benefit Corporation, which meant they had an obligation to serve the public benefit.

But then they took more investment money and simply (and silently) sold their assets to a for-profit. Struggling to raise capital, the founders opted to secretly sell the business to a sleazy branding company called Talenthouse. Its users didn't know about the change, though the site sure had a lot of Talenthouse design competitions all of a sudden.

Finally, the company announced the change as the last founders left. Rather than announcing that the new owners were untrustworthy scum, warning their users to get their data and get out, the founders posted oblique, ominous statements to Instagram. The company started stiffing the winners of those design competitions. Then, one day, poof, Ello disappeared, taking all its users' data with it. Poof:

https://waxy.org/2024/01/the-quiet-death-of-ellos-big-dreams/

I'm sure the founders' decisions each seemed reasonable at the moment. That's every terrible situation arises: you rationalize that a single compromise isn't that big of a deal, and then you do the same for the next compromise, and the next, and the next. Pretty soon, you're betraying everyone who believed in you.

One answer to this is "Ulysses pacts": making binding commitments to do right before you are tempted. Throw away all your Oreos when you go on a diet and you can't be tempted to eat a whole sleeve of them at 2AM. License your software under the GPL and your investors can't force you to make it proprietary. Set up a warrant canary and the feds can't force you to keep their spying secret:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

If the founders were determined to build a trustworthy, open, independent company, they could have published their quarterly books, livestreamed their staff meetings, built data-export tools that emailed users every week with a link to download everything they'd posted since the last week. Merely halting any of these practices would have been a signal that things were wrong. Anyone who says they won't be tempted in the moment to make a "reasonable" compromise in the hopes of recovering whatever they're trading away by living to fight another day is bullshitting you, and possibly themself.

The inability to project the consequences of your bad decisions in the future is the source of endless mischief and heartbreak. Take movie projectors. A couple decades ago, the studio cartel established a standard for digital movie distribution to cinematic exhibitors called the Digital Cinema Initiative. Because studio executives are more worried about stopping piracy than they are about making sure that people who pay for movies get to see them, they build digital rights management into this standard.

Movie theaters had to spend fortunes to upgrade to "secure" projectors. A single vendor, Deluxe Technicolor, monopolized the packaging of movies into "Digital Cinema Prints" for distribution to these projectors, and they used all kinds of dirty tricks to force distributors to use their services, like arbitrarily flunking third-party DCPs over picky shit like not starting and ending on a black frame.

Over time, the ability to use unencrypted files was stripped away, meaning every DCP needed to be encrypted, and every projector needed to have up-to-date decryption keys. This system broke down on Jan 1, 2024, and cinemas all over the world found they couldn't play Wonka. Many just shut down for the day and refunded their customers:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/1/24021915/alamo-drafthouse-outage-sony-projector

The problem? Something that every PKI system has to wrangle: an expired certificate from Deluxe Technicolor. The failure has been dubbed the Y2K24 debacle by projectionists and film-techs, who are furious:

http://www.film-tech.com/vbb/forum/main-forum/34652-the-y2k24-bug-major-digital-outage-today

Making everything worse is that Sony mothballed the division that maintains its projectors, so there's no one who can update them to accommodate Technicolor's workaround. Struggling mom-and-pop theaters are having to junk their systems and replace them. There's plenty of blame to go around, but Sony is definitely the most negligent link in the chain. Shame on them.

Big corporations LARP this performance of competence and seriousness, but they are deeply unserious. This week, I wrote, "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Score one for team deeply unserious. The multinational delivery company DPD fired its support staff and replaced them with a chatbot. The chatbot can't tell you where your parcels are, but it can be prompt-injected into coming up with profane poems about how badly DPD sucks:

https://twitter.com/ashbeauchamp/status/1748034519104450874

There once was a chatbot named DPD, Who was useless at providing help. It could not track parcels, Or give information on delivery dates, And it could not even tell you when your driver would arrive.

DPD was a waste of time, And a customer's worst nightmare. It was so bad, That people would rather call the depot directly, Than deal with the useless chatbot.

One day, DPD was finally shut down, And everyone rejoiced. Finally, they could get the help they needed, From a real person who knew what they were doing.

This is…the opposite of an AI hallucination? It's AI clarity.

As with all botshit, this kind of AI self-negging is funny and fresh the first time you see it, but just wait until 3,000 people have published their own versions to your social feed. AI novelty regresses to the mean damn quickly.

The old, good web, by contrast, was full of enduring surprises, as the world's weirdest and most delightful mutants filled the early web with every possible variation on every possible interest, expression, argument, and gag. Now, you can search the old, good web with Old'aVista, an Altavista lookalike that searches old pages from "personal websites that used to be hosted on services like Geocities, Angelfire, AOL, Xoom and so on," all ganked from the Internet Archive:

http://oldavista.com/

I miss the old, good internet and the way it let weirdos find each other and get seriously weird with one another. Think of steampunk, a subculture that wove together artists, makers, costumers, fiction writers, and tinkerers in endlessly creative ways. My old pal Roger Wood was the world's most improbable steampunk: he was a gay ex-navy gunner who grew up in a small town in the maritimes but moved to Toronto where he became the world's most accomplished steampunk clockmaker.

I was Roger's neighbour for a decade. He died last year, and I miss him all the time. I was in Toronto in December and saw a few of his last pieces being sold in galleries and I was just skewered on the knowledge that I'd never see him again, never visit his workshop:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/16/klockwerks/#craphound

A reader just sent this five-year-old mini documentary about Roger, shot in his wonderful workshop. Watching it made me happy and sad and then happy again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqMGomM8yF8

The old, good internet was so great. It was a place where every kind of passion could live. It was a real testament to the power of geeking out together, no matter how often the suits demand that we "stop talking to each other and start buying things":

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

The world is full of people with weird passions and I love them all, mostly. Learning about Don Bolles's collection of decades' worth of lost pet posters was a moment of pure joy (I just wish more of it was online):

https://ameliatait.substack.com/p/the-man-who-collects-lost-pet-posters

That's the future I was promised: one where every kind of freak can find every other kind of freak. Despite the nipple-deep botshit we wade through online, and the relentless cheapening of words like "innovation" and "future," there are still occasional gleams of the future I want to live in.

Like the researchers who spliced a photosynthesis gene into brewer's yeast (a fungus) and got it to photosynthesize, and to display enhanced fitness:

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)01744-X

As Doug Muir writes on Crooked Timber, this is pretty kooky! Fungi – the coolest of the kingdoms! – can't photosynthesize. The idea that you can just add the photosynthesis gene to a thing that can't photosynthesize and have it just kind of work is wild!

https://crookedtimber.org/2024/01/19/occasional-paper-purple-sun-yeast/

As Muir writes: "Animals have no evolutionary history of photosynthesis and aren’t designed for it, but the same is true for yeast. So… no reason this shouldn’t be possible. A photosynthesizing cat? Sure, why not."

Why not indeed?!

OK, that's this week's linkdump done and dusted. It only remains for me to share the news with you that the trolley problem has been finally and comprehensively solved, by [email protected], of the IWW IU 520 (railroad workers):

Slip the switch by flipping it while the trolley's front wheels have passed through, but before the back wheels do. This will cause a controlled derailment bringing the trolley to a safe halt.

https://kolektiva.social/@sidereal/111779015415697244

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/20/melange/#i-have-heard-the-mermaids-singing

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maybeitsalivescribbles · 1 year ago

Text

TTD - And then They Were Roommates ™

Before Villain was their roommate, Hero never had any peculiar feeling about their apartment. They were grateful to have a roof over their head, but were not particularly picky about how it looked like under. It wasn’t like they had the kind of time to arrange the place. To be honest, with their working hours, they didn’t see why they would find energy left for this. As long as they had a bed and electricity, it was fine. The result was a reasonably clean room, but a rather bland place. The only thing that was really personal was the vanity in the bathroom, covered with hair products and beads of all colors. At Villain’s displeasure, Hero spent hours in front of it, because unlike some people whining from behind the door, they had their priorities well in order.

True, Hero had felt a bit insecure when Villain had entered for the first time, stopping in front of every furniture with such solemnity you’d swear they were staring at a masterpiece in a museum. Flustered, the not-so-proud owner had explained that they were not that rich, but Villain had seldom made any comment, and well, with their shadow covering them it wasn’t like their body language was readable. Maybe they were tired too, and after their place had just been destroyed by Supervillain it was understandable. They’d glistened towards the guest room and locked their door without a word.

The agency had called in the middle of that night for news. Hero, toying with their blanket, had assured their superior on the phone that yes, Supervillain had been destroyed for good, no they weren’t making it up, and oh by the way, Villain had reformed and changed their ways, hmmhmm, yep, definitively. On the other side of the line, that declaration was met by no little skepticism. After one hour of pleading, they’d at last convinced their interlocutor not to send a team to eliminate the threat. The next day, they were ordered to keep Villain under lock and key. Villain had stared when they’d shyly explained the situation to them, brandishing a padlock they didn’t really know how to use, and had only said:

“I could open this pathetic thing in my sleep.”

Given how gifted Villain was with building tools and machines, it was probably no idle boast. The good news, though, was that they’d accepted to stay in their room whenever they were left alone as long as Hero would give them an old game-boy left in a drawer for years to keep them occupied. As time passed, it became evident that Villain was an indoor creature who was delighted at the idea of not stepping outside ever again. In return, Hero had given them pretty much whatever they wanted, including scraps of metal and lots of tools. At first, they’d said nothing, but when parts of the room had began to be covered with sinister forms, they’d felt they had to put their foot down:

“You are not building a torture room in my place.”

“What else am I supposed to do, you oppressor ?”

“I’m the one paying the taxes.”

Villain had sulked for a moment after that, but then they’d suddenly asked:

“Aha, but what if my torture tools were also useful appliances?”

Hero had stared and said:

“No.”

“No as no or no as it can’t be?”

“Both.”

“You have little faith.”

Villain had immediately put themself to work. In an alarmingly short time, they’d built a tiny guillotine for the kitchen. It could cut even coconuts properly, in one strike. Hero couldn’t use it much, because it made them feel sorry for the poor vegetables (especially after seeing Villain do it, yelling “death to all of you, you feeble preys!” at a bunch a carrots), but they had to acknowledge it was a decent tool to slice a loaf of bread. Actually, Villain was good with the kitchen in general. Being disturbingly fond of cutting vegetables and fruits, it was no surprise that they’d fallen in love with the blender Hero had never used before:

“For what it is but a miniature death trap, where my innocent victims are trapped in a transparent prison and melted into oblivion by unforgiving blades?”

Hero had asked what kind of blade would be forgiving, and they’d got lightly tapped on the head with a cardboard tube for their trouble. But the outcome of all of this was a fridge always filled with bottles full of drinkable food that never got Hero’s stomach upset. Villain had even made a damn acupuncture chair which spikes looked deadly, but were in fact quite soothing. After that they’d stood up, and Hero just knew that they were puffing their chest behind their shadow:

“So, have I succeeded in my impossible task?”

And Hero could do nothing but answer:

“Yes. Completely. It’s genius.”

And it was. Really, the biggest beef they had was the time when Villain had stolen their two favorite magnets on the fridge. They’d stopped dead in front of the aro and ace pride flags that fixated the to-do lists of the day, declared that green, purple and black were traditional colors for villains and so they were “bound to have them”, had yoinked them and flied back to their room before Hero had time to react. And as much as they were for people exploring their own identity, how were they supposed to keep their groceries list in sight now?

But none of this was the weirdest thing. It was the fact that whenever Hero returned to their place with all these strange additions, it didn’t feel bad or crowded. It was the strange new and warm feeling that finally they were home, they were home, they were home.

(Though they still wanted their magnets back.)

Check the These Two Dorks Masterlist or Tag for more snippets with this Hero and Villain. This is how they met and now they’re roommates.

Or back to Hero x Villain Masterlist.

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