#extracts from the book i'll never write

[ramen-writes]

"Where were you?"

"I was held hostage"

"by who??"

"...the police"

"....you mean you were arrested?!"

-extract/bit from my book

[spilledinkandtears]

I hated biscuits. Could never stand them. But then one day I bought some to get change for the washing machine and you thought I liked them. So you kept on buying them for me, and I grew to love biscuits. (Via @spilledinkandtears )

He is my love

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Greenwashing set Canada on fire

On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

As a teenager growing up in Ontario, I always envied the kids who spent their summers tree planting; they'd come back from the bush in September, insect-chewed and leathery, with new muscle, incredible stories, thousands of dollars, and a glow imparted by the knowledge that they'd made a new forest with their own blistered hands.

I was too unathletic to follow them into the bush, but I spent my summers doing my bit, ringing doorbells for Greenpeace to get my neighbours fired up about the Canadian pulp-and-paper industry, which wasn't merely clear-cutting our old-growth forests – it was also poisoning the Great Lakes system with PCBs, threatening us all.

At the time, I thought of tree-planting as a small victory – sure, our homegrown, rapacious, extractive industry was able to pollute with impunity, but at least the government had reined them in on forests, forcing them to pay my pals to spend their summers replacing the forests they'd fed into their mills.

I was wrong. Last summer's Canadian wildfires blanketed the whole east coast and midwest in choking smoke as millions of trees burned and millions of tons of CO2 were sent into the atmosphere. Those wildfires weren't just an effect of the climate emergency: they were made far worse by all those trees planted by my pals in the eighties and nineties.

Writing in the New York Times, novelist Claire Cameron describes her own teen years working in the bush, planting row after row of black spruces, precisely spaced at six-foot intervals:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/opinion/wildfires-treeplanting-timebomb.html

Cameron's summer job was funded by the logging industry, whose self-pegulated, self-assigned "penalty" for clearcutting diverse forests of spruce, pine and aspen was to pay teenagers to create a tree farm, at nine cents per sapling (minus camp costs).

Black spruces are made to burn, filled with flammable sap and equipped with resin-filled cones that rely on fire, only opening and dropping seeds when they're heated. They're so flammable that firefighters call them "gas on a stick."

Cameron and her friends planted under brutal conditions: working long hours in blowlamp heat and dripping wet bulb humidity, amidst clouds of stinging insects, fingers blistered and muscles aching. But when they hit rock bottom and were ready to quit, they'd encourage one another with a rallying cry: "Let's go make a forest!"

Planting neat rows of black spruces was great for the logging industry: the even spacing guaranteed that when the trees matured, they could be easily reaped, with ample space between each near-identical tree for massive shears to operate. But that same monocropped, evenly spaced "forest" was also optimized to burn.

It burned.

The climate emergency's frequent droughts turn black spruces into "something closer to a blowtorch." The "pines in lines" approach to reforesting was an act of sabotage, not remediation. Black spruces are thirsty, and they absorb the water that moss needs to thrive, producing "kindling in the place of fire retardant."

Cameron's column concludes with this heartbreaking line: "Now when I think of that summer, I don’t think that I was planting trees at all. I was planting thousands of blowtorches a day."

The logging industry committed a triple crime. First, they stole our old-growth forests. Next, they (literally) planted a time-bomb across Ontario's north. Finally, they stole the idealism of people who genuinely cared about the environment. They taught a generation that resistance is futile, that anything you do to make a better future is a scam, and you're a sucker for falling for it. They planted nihilism with every tree.

That scam never ended. Today, we're sold carbon offsets, a modern Papal indulgence. We are told that if we pay the finance sector, they can absolve us for our climate sins. Carbon offsets are a scam, a market for lemons. The "offset" you buy might be a generated by a fake charity like the Nature Conservancy, who use well-intentioned donations to buy up wildlife reserves that can't be logged, which are then converted into carbon credits by promising not to log them:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#greenwashing

The credit-card company that promises to plant trees every time you use your card? They combine false promises, deceptive advertising, and legal threats against critics to convince you that you're saving the planet by shopping:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/17/do-well-do-good-do-nothing/#greenwashing

The carbon offset world is full of scams. The carbon offset that made the thing you bought into a "net zero" product? It might be a forest that already burned:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/11/a-market-for-flaming-lemons/#money-for-nothing

The only reason we have carbon offsets is that market cultists have spent forty years convincing us that actual regulation is impossible. In the neoliberal learned helplessness mind-palace, there's no way to simply say, "You may not log old-growth forests." Rather, we have to say, "We will 'align your incentives' by making you replace those forests."

The Climate Ad Project's "Murder Offsets" video deftly punctures this bubble. In it, a detective points his finger at the man who committed the locked-room murder in the isolated mansion. The murderer cheerfully admits that he did it, but produces a "murder offset," which allowed him to pay someone else not to commit a murder, using market-based price-discovery mechanisms to put a dollar-figure on the true worth of a murder, which he duly paid, making his kill absolutely fine:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

What's the alternative to murder offsets/carbon credits? We could ask our expert regulators to decide which carbon intensive activities are necessary and which ones aren't, and ban the unnecessary ones. We could ask those regulators to devise remediation programs that actually work. After all, there are plenty of forests that have already been clearcut, plenty that have burned. It would be nice to know how we can plant new forests there that aren't "thousands of blowtorches."

If that sounds implausible to you, then you've gotten trapped in the neoliberal mind-palace.

The term "regulatory capture" was popularized by far-right Chicago School economists who were promoting "public choice theory." In their telling, regulatory capture is inevitable, because companies will spend whatever it takes to get the government to pass laws making what they do legal, and making competing with them into a crime:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/13/public-choice/#ajit-pai-still-terrible

This is true, as far as it goes. Capitalists hate capitalism, and if an "entrepreneur" can make it illegal to compete with him, he will. But while this is a reasonable starting-point, the place that Public Choice Theory weirdos get to next is bonkers. They say that since corporations will always seek to capture their regulators, we should abolish regulators.

They say that it's impossible for good regulations to exist, and therefore the only regulation that is even possible is to let businesses do whatever they want and wait for the invisible hand to sweep away the bad companies. Rather than creating hand-washing rules for restaurant kitchens, we should let restaurateurs decide whether it's economically rational to make us shit ourselves to death. The ones that choose poorly will get bad online reviews and people will "vote with their dollars" for the good restaurants.

And if the online review site decides to sell "reputation management" to restaurants that get bad reviews? Well, soon the public will learn that the review site can't be trusted and they'll take their business elsewhere. No regulation needed! Unleash the innovators! Set the job-creators free!

This is the Ur-nihilism from which all the other nihilism springs. It contends that the regulations we have – the ones that keep our buildings from falling down on our heads, that keep our groceries from poisoning us, that keep our cars from exploding on impact – are either illusory, or perhaps the forgotten art of a lost civilization. Making good regulations is like embalming Pharaohs, something the ancients practiced in mist-shrouded, unrecoverable antiquity – and that may not have happened at all.

Regulation is corruptible, but it need not be corrupt. Regulation, like science, is a process of neutrally adjudicated, adversarial peer-review. In a robust regulatory process, multiple parties respond to a fact-intensive question – "what alloys and other properties make a reinforced steel joist structurally sound?" – with a mix of robust evidence and self-serving bullshit and then proceed to sort the two by pantsing each other, pointing out one another's lies.

The regulator, an independent expert with no conflicts of interest, sorts through the claims and counterclaims and makes a rule, showing their workings and leaving the door open to revisiting the rule based on new evidence or challenges to the evidence presented.

But when an industry becomes concentrated, it becomes unregulatable. 100 small and medium-sized companies will squabble. They'll struggle to come up with a common lie. There will always be defectors in their midst. Their conduct will be legible to external experts, who will be able to spot the self-serving BS.

But let that industry dwindle to a handful of giant companies, let them shrink to a number that will fit around a boardroom table, and they will sit down at a table and agree on a cozy arrangement that fucks us all over to their benefit. They will become so inbred that the only people who understand how they work will be their own insiders, and so top regulators will be drawn from their own number and be hopelessly conflicted.

When the corporate sector takes over, regulatory capture is inevitable. But corporate takeover isn't inevitable. We can – and have, and will again – fight corporate power, with antitrust law, with unions, and with consumer rights groups. Knowing things is possible. It simply requires that we keep the entities that profit by our confusion poor and thus weak.

The thing is, corporations don't always lie about regulations. Take the fight over working encryption, which – once again – the UK government is trying to ban:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/24/signal-app-warns-it-will-quit-uk-if-law-weakens-end-to-end-encryption

Advocates for criminalising working encryption insist that the claims that this is impossible are the same kind of self-serving nonsense as claims that banning clearcutting of old-growth forests is impossible:

https://twitter.com/JimBethell/status/1699339739042599276

They say that when technologists say, "We can't make an encryption system that keeps bad guys out but lets good guys in," that they are being lazy and unimaginative. "I have faith in you geeks," they said. "Go nerd harder! You'll figure it out."

Google and Apple and Meta say that selectively breakable encryption is impossible. But they also claim that a bunch of eminently possible things are impossible. Apple claims that it's impossible to have a secure device where you get to decide which software you want to use and where publishers aren't deprive of 30 cents on every dollar you spend. Google says it's impossible to search the web without being comprehensively, nonconsensually spied upon from asshole to appetite. Meta insists that it's impossible to have digital social relationship without having your friendships surveilled and commodified.

While they're not lying about encryption, they are lying about these other things, and sorting out the lies from the truth is the job of regulators, but that job is nearly impossible thanks to the fact that everyone who runs a large online service tells the same lies – and the regulators themselves are alumni of the industry's upper eschelons.

Logging companies know a lot about forests. When we ask, "What is the best way to remediate our forests," the companies may well have useful things to say. But those useful things will be mixed with actively harmful lies. The carefully cultivated incompetence of our regulators means that they can't tell the difference.

Conspiratorialism is characterized as a problem of what people believe, but the true roots of conspiracy belief isn't what we believe, it's how we decide what to believe. It's not beliefs, it's epistemology.

Because most of us aren't qualified to sort good reforesting programs from bad ones. And even if we are, we're probably not also well-versed enough in cryptography to sort credible claims about encryption from wishful thinking. And even if we're capable of making that determination, we're not experts in food hygiene or structural engineering.

Daily life in the 21st century means resolving a thousand life-or-death technical questions every day. Our regulators – corrupted by literally out-of-control corporations – are no longer reliable sources of ground truth on these questions. The resulting epistemological chaos is a cancer that gnaws away at our resolve to do anything about it. It is a festering pool where nihilism outbreaks are incubated.

The liberal response to conspiratorialism is mockery. In her new book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein tells of how right-wing surveillance fearmongering about QR-code "vaccine passports" was dismissed with a glib, "Wait until they hear about cellphones!"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

But as Klein points out, it's not good that our cellphones invade our privacy in the way that right-wing conspiracists thought that vaccine passports might. The nihilism of liberalism – which insists that things can't be changed except through market "solutions" – leads us to despair.

By contrast, leftism – a muscular belief in democratic, publicly run planning and action – offers a tonic to nihilism. We don't have to let logging companies decide whether a forest can be cut, or what should be planted when it is. We can have nice things. The art of finding out what's true or prudent didn't die with the Reagan Revolution (or the discount Canadian version, the Mulroney Malaise). The truth is knowable. Doing stuff is possible. Things don't have to be on fire.

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/2023/09/16/murder-offsets/#pulped-and-papered

[yanderestarangel]

Do you write pregnant sex?👀 If so, gentle Dom Grandmaster Bi-han x self conscious pregnant reader?

If not, do not feel pressured to write. Sending love💖, your blog is great!🙂

꒰ ♡ ꒱ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐱 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐢 𝐡𝐚𝐧 ꒰ ♡ ꒱

꒰ ♡ ꒱ TW: afab anatomy, lactation!kink, v!sex, soft sex, fingered, not revised, pregnant sex, mother/father used to refer to the reader, praise, soft dom!bi han, bi han!husband.

Bi Han was never a gentle man, your sex was always aggressive and practically animalistic, with Lin Kuei grandmaster growling and fucking you anywhere he could - however, upon discovering your pregnancy, he forced himself to be the more gentle.

He loved watching your belly grow slowly over a few weeks, knowing that it was his seed in there, you noticed his change, especially in bed... Your husband helped you relieve the pressure of pregnancy - in addition to generating a strong desire in helping to alleviate the milk heaviness of your breasts.

That night, he admired you in the dim orange light, watching you with your dress loose from your growing pregnancy.

"-I wouldn't want anyone to carry my child but you." Bi Han spoke cutting through the silence, standing up from the armchair while putting away the book she was reading-and reaching between your legs to caress and squeeze your growing belly.

"-Besides, you look even more beautiful with that belly, you know?" He continued with a playful growl, it was the few times in years or months that you saw him smile sincerely, he was anxious... But mainly, with such strong desires for you like that, round, pretty and so... Delicate.

Your partner noticed the milk leaking from the cleavage of your thin fabric, hurting them while you complained about the weight and pressure applied to your body by the natural process, so, he soon had an idea that could satisfy your needs and his as well.

"-Just lie down and I'll take care of it for you."

His voice was steady despite the growing lust emanating from him. Bi han reached out, gently grabbing one of your nipples between his thumb and forefinger, applying pressure to help release more milk. As he did so, he couldn't resist moving closer, his lips brushing your shoulder blade before moving down towards your neck.

"-You smell so good my bunny... And that little one inside you is already very strong... I promise to be the best father I can be." He whispered, practically moaning, his hands moved down, caressing your belly, feeling its softness and warmth.

"-I can't wait to see that belly grow even bigger and bigger, you just make me proud (Y/N), I'm the happiest fucking man in the world to have you." Bi Han spoke with his eyes focused on yours, his cold fingers traced a pattern on your nipples, until he completely removed your dress, his eyes widened in admiration when he saw your naked form, admiring how incredible you looked pregnant with his child.

"-You... will be the most beautiful father/mother anyone has ever seen" He then moved his mouth to your skin, sucking and teasing your breasts vigorously, he moved on to the other breast while his hand continued its obscene exploration of your regions bottom, finding the sweet channel of your swollen pussy, massaging the aching folds. With each thrust of his tongue against your sensitive bud, he slowly pushed two fingers inside your tight cunt, slowly stretching it. The sensation was unlike anything he had ever experienced; more intimate, but equally forbidden and beautiful.

"-You taste... so delicious..." Sub zero moaned, sucking harder on your nipple, extracting all the possible milk he could - it hurt slightly, but the sensation was extremely comforting compared to the pain you felt all day. His hands held your waist tightly as he looked into your eyes, looking for any sign of discomfort.

"-You are the most beautiful little thing I have ever seen, no lin kuei treasure, silver, gold or diamond compares to you my sweet little thing." Bi han whispered in your ear, lightly pinching your earlobe, he leaned forward, kissing you passionately, your tongue tangling with his, while his free hand went down between your legs, massaging your clit harder.

"-Let me know if I'm hurting you or if you want more." The combination of pleasure and intimacy was driving him crazy. His shaft contracted violently in his pants, stretching the fabric, with every angelic and chaste sound that came from your lips because of him, he knew how to relieve you-and most of all excite you.

"-Fuck, you really look like an angel now..." He murmured, unable to resist any longer; Standing right above you, he grabbed your hips and lifted you up until both your legs wrapped around his waist comfortably, he rested both muscular arms under you, as he lightly and slowly thrust his cock into your wetness, he was never so gentle with you... But the cyromancer had changed, with a slow and careful thrust, he closed his eyes, opening his mouth as he thrust himself inside your warm body, your walls swallowing every inch he had to offer.

You could look directly at every furl, every expression of his above you, how his length was only half inside you, how he didn't want to hurt you and just loved and adored you, every hot yet cold kiss placed on your face, every whisper of approval calling you "good boy/good girl" that he said between moans between cuts, was like a damn dream that you never wanted to end.

"-Ah- Fuck! So tight baby- Mmm-" Bi Han panted between each thrust, you could hear the wet sound and rhythm of his balls hitting your ass, how he was sighing beautifully as he controlled himself from slamming you into the mattress.

His hands gripped your ass tightly, lifting it a little before slamming back onto his dick, claiming ownership over you, he sped up but at a point where you felt pleasure, moaning his name loudly and cum - he loved you seeing it like that, pouring out compliments about how beautiful you were, how perfect you were, how you were his and his alone, his hips rocked back and forth rhythmically, creating a mesmerizing soundtrack for their intimate dance, however, even if he wanted it to last forever, he really needed to cum and especially to make you cum.

Sub zero grunted a few things, bending over again and sucking the sweet, thin milk from your breasts, pushing the head of his dick right into your G-spot, while you screamed that you were going to cum, he just sped up, being careful with your body and belly, encouraging you to let go of everything on him. He was there with you, teetering on the edge of release.

"-J-Just Tell me when... tell me when... Baby... Oh Yes- Fucking hell-" was all you could hear before milking his cock hard as you held on to one of his arms, your side in bed. Bi Han couldn't hold back any longer, the load erupted from him, filling his belly and breasts with hot seed.

His thrusts gradually slowed down, finally stopping inside you, he remained buried inside you, feeling every contraction of your pussy around his member. "-Ahh... That was... fucking incredible my love..." The grandmaster managed to say between panting breaths. With a groan of satisfaction, he pulled out of you slowly, his cock leaving trails of cum behind it. Wiping away some of the excess on your belly with the tips of his fingers, he leaned forward, placing a soft kiss on your forehead and remained sitting on your side, breathing heavily, Absorbing the consequences of the lustful and loving encounter between the two of you, Bi Han's mouth was dripping with your milk, as he sighed heavily, brushing away some stray strands of your hair, as he returned to massaging your stomach and pussy, you could see the love and careful with his brown irises.

Bi Han looked at you, marveling at how beautiful you looked, even covered in sweat and cum - He reached out, running his thumb along your cheek, catching some of the remaining beads of sweat. "-We did something special together, didn't we?"

©YANDERESTARANGEL 2023

[astro-hunny]

What if I just wrote Persona 6? Like. I could do it. I totally could. And I have ideas for it. Idk, maybe I'll do it maybe I won't. Vote time idk.

Ideas under the cut.

Did I hear a demand for FemC? Did I? Well even if I'm hallucinating, we have FemC in this P6! "Official" name for now is Minori Koto. Might change it later.

I'm sad to say... I can't set it in University/College without screwing with the timeline. I also have to set it in 2018 I'M SORRY IT'S FOR SOCIAL LINKS I PROMISE.

FemC moves to Tokyo from another-but-not-as-big city in Japan for her parent's work. As for where she's from, does it really matter? nahhhhh (i'm lazy/clueless rn)

Persona MC with present parents??? What??? That's a thing??? (might kill one tbh I'm bored)

We're going with a mix of P4 and P5 for how the other world works. Early on, our main character finds an odd book while looking for study material on classics. When she opens it, there's a portal instead of pages, and she gets sucked in along with her partner on the project/best friend character.

All of the other worlds are different books and follow the plot of said book, repeating over and over. The owner's shadow plays the main character, cognitions play all other named characters, and regular shadows play unnamed roles. The way to save the shadow is to either give them a happier ending or break them out of the monotony of the story. Burning the book would kill the owner.

Persona's are also book based. I haven't decided on if I want to name the Persona's after the characters or the authors, but it's one of those two. As for summoning, characters will get a massive tome that they rip pages out of, symbolic of tearing pages out to write their own story as well as a visual representation for SP/HP. (recovery items are things that would help repair the books, like adhesives of actual book binding materials.)

Social links. The bane of my existence. The two I actually have planned somewhat out are connected to 4 and 5 respectively. The next couple points are about them.

The first Social link you'd meet would be a first-year girl who recently moved to Tokyo from a very small town out in the country, also for her father's work. You also find out through her social link that she has a "big bro" in Tokyo who she goes to visit a lot, as well as his roommate and a lot of their friends. Her social link would generally be the two of you bonding over moving to Tokyo and our MC helping her study. If you've yet to realize, this social link would be Nanako Dojima from Persona 4. No, we can not see P4 MC. I'm sorry, that's for spin-off games. She would not join your party.

The second would be the owner of a small cafe you can find nearby the MC's house, who speaks of his kids and how much trouble they used to get into when they were the MC's age. He mentions his daughter getting into places she shouldn't and his son getting into too much trouble, but it's all said in a fond tone that tells you that he knows they were just kids. Eventually, he mentions a boy who used to come in and sit in the same spot you always do: the counter seat closest to the door. At your rank 10 with him, he'll ask you after the rank-up to look into it for him. He wants to know how to help his kids, but he doesn't have the means to figure it out anymore. You cannot tell him before the end of the game, but you can find a missing-persons case for one Goro Akechi that was never really resolved. This social link would be Sojiro Sakura from Persona 5, P5 MC being his 'son' and Futaba being his daughter.

As for velvet room, I desperately want to make it a library, but instead I shall make it an observatory. Personas are created through selecting two stars and crashing them into each other. Your attendant would be a gentle woman, maybe early twenties by the looks of it, named Agatha. She wouldn't be unwise to the world, but she would clearly be one of the less experienced attendants. Igor is Igor, he isn't possessed. for now. Also you could hypothetically walk around the velvet room if this was playable but idk how to make mods.

The team's outfits change in every storybook to match the theme. If you couldn't tell, I've been playing too much Love Nikki recently.

Yes, there would be a god as the final boss.

No, I am not making P6 Fes-Portable-Golden-Royal-Reload or whatever the fuck it would be named. It's in the original release like it should be.

I know we're tumblr, so I'll keep this last one brief. The best perk of all:

FemC gets to be gay. We are free.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, now please go vote.

[bibiddibobiddi-boo]

November writing challenge 5

Hello my dear little lambs~! Welcome back to another prompt for November! I'll have to admit that this one had me giggling quite a lot~ Without further ado, here you go

Prompt 5: Venom Obey Me Lucifer x MC

MC rushed through the hallways, carefully carrying a vial in their hands. The concotion was a purplish blue, smooth, not thick. Exactly the expected result. MC rushed to the House of Lamentation until they found Lucifer in the library, doing some reading. "Luci!" MC exclaimed as they plopped on the couch, right next to Lucifer, who harbored a pleased smile upon noticing the human that entered the library. The demon closed his book and leaned his chin on his palm his elbow propped on the armrest as his other hand brought MC's legs to rest on his lap. "MC, darling, always a pleasure to see you." The dark haired demon replied softly, a tone unusual for this "impure" character. Well, unusual for someone who never saw him with his lover. "I managed a proper poison this afternoon." MC happily exclaimed and showeed the purplish blue liquid. "We extracted snake and scorpion poison venom during the class. I almost got stung!" They chuckled mindlessly, as the demon's face frowned with worry. "You almost got stung? Are you okay my love?" Lucifer questioned but MC merely chuckeld, reassuring the man before them. "I am well, dearest. I came here to give you the poison, not make you worry. I know you enjoy poison." MC's face softened into a minimal smile, a faint blush tinging their cheeks, offering Lucifer the small vial. "Oh..." The demon's face softened further and chuckled as he took the vial from the human's hand in front of him. "Thank you MC. The class you took today certainly had good taste, I happen to quite like scorpion venom. Thank you." HE repeated and popped the vial open, soon enough driking the liquid. He let out a sigh of satisfaction before closing the vial once more, putting it aside and finally he pulled MC ever closer, gently caressing their cheek. "Thank you, my love." He murmured against their lips, planting a soft kiss before he resumed his lecture as they cuddled, MC falling asleep with their head against Lucifer's chest.

[codename-adler]

WIP Game: aftg television soundtrack project

I love everything going on with this, just constantly imagining it in my head with different lines and scenes and everything 💖💖💖

my beloved, beloved insane project... i've already spoken about this here and there on my blog (i will organize a tag now that i think about it, dw), but in short i'm imagining AftG as if it were adapted as a TV series (first it was films, but i can do more with a show, and HBO TLoU changed me as a person and writer). it was 3 seasons, one for each book, but i've added a 4th season for TSC, and will add another one or 2 depending on how many more books Nora Sakavic blesses us with.

what i did was, i extracted the most impactful scenes from each book, those that would fit a soundtrack moment. i've created a sort of PowerPoint presentation, like a mood board for the scene, of how i'm picturing it shot, the angles, the pace, the tempo, etc. it is very, very clear in my head how everything goes. i'm not kidding. making playlists is my passion, and one i excel at i believe, but it brings me so much joy, pride and satisfaction. it's also really good for my mental. in parallel to this, i've also got the aftg x tlou project, which was wholly inspired by @cielalune 's own Andreil tlou AU fic turn out the lights, which i will NEVER shut up about. i have found a true kinship in their writing and musicality and i will forever be grateful for finding them and getting to exchange. all this to say, the playlist-making/planning for that fic is very time-consuming and brain-obsessing.

now back to the purely soundtracked wip. i'll share one of the first scenes i imagined and that has yet to change. this is for you too @minyard-05 <3

All for the Game (S2): The Raven King

"Betsy closed the door behind them. Neil could just make out the sound of her engine starting, and then it was quiet. Andrew was gone." (p. 255)

the slide currently looks like this as i haven't gotten to editing S2 of the project, but rest assured this is in no way the final look:

i'm going for a sort of echo-y, daze-y, numbing eulogy. TFC ends with Seth's death, and in a way, TRK ends with Andrew's. luckily it is a good "death" as he will come out of this freer, himself, accepted. but it is a death nonetheless. death of his past. a point of no return. a definite cross on all of it. no going back. and he also cannot bury this under his skin like before. over it. it's all in plain sight now. for as unapologetic as he is, Andrew was hiding.

Neil loses his best friend. Neil reckons with another's demons, and loses to them, loses him to them. That closing door rings the gong. And it's quiet. As manic as he may have been, Andrew was never noisy and full of life. Still he is missed. His absence is an abyss. It's not peaceful without the "monster"; it's deafening silence.

and the title of the song, too, is so perfect. Andrew leaving Neil behind that closed door, in that moment, means he is letting go of what he thinks is a hallucination. Neil will only be a memory now. he does not know yet Neil isn't a pipedream at all.

but both men will hold on to the memory of each other to survive what comes next.

[josefavomjaaga]

Hortense about Duroc's love letter

This is translated from Hortense's memoirs, Tome 1, for @sillybumblebeegirl. I'll add the usual disclaimer: I'm personally very suspicious about anything she writes that cannot be backed up by a second source. It's known that Hortense reworked her memoirs several times and that she was an excellent writer who knew how to captivate an audience.

That being said, here we go 😁:

Of all the young men around me, only one dared to aspire to my hand in marriage: Colonel Duroc. The recollection of the Consul's plan to have him marry his sister [Caroline] gave him the idea that he would not oppose a union with me. I had noticed that he was more embarrassed than others when talking to me, more frequent at Malmaison, but never a word had betrayed his impressions. Murat extracted his secret from him and set about making the marriage a success.

"She is a romantic young person," he said, "with whom you have to sigh for a long time before you can please. However, you also have to declare yourself and tell her that you love her."

Indeed, one day when I came back to fetch a book I had forgotten in the salon, Duroc approached me looking rather shaky, and gave me the book himself. When I got home, I opened it and found a letter. What should I do now? To read it seemed a great mistake. I went back down to return it. Duroc was no longer there: the Consul had just sent him on a mission. It was at the moment of his departure that he had dared to declare himself. I put the letter in my desk, which I did not close, as was my custom, and left my room.

As chance would have it, at dinnertime the Consul, who often took pleasure in intimidating me, entered the living room with my mother and finding me already there, said to me: "We've come from your room. We've been through all your things and read all your sweet notes. Ah, it's lovely to receive such beautiful declarations." I blushed, stammered and forgot that the joke was nothing new. I thought I was guilty: it was enough to make me look guilty. Uncertain of my answer, I rushed out and ran to the secretary: the letter was still sealed. I came back down more calmly. My emotion had not escaped the Consul and my mother. They told me with surprise when I returned: "Could it be true? Do you have secrets? You fled quite quickly to your room". Fortunately, dinner put an end to my embarrassment. That same evening, my mother was informed of everything. Duroc had left a letter with Murat to await my reply. I told Caroline that I would never make up my mind without knowing my mother's opinion, and I asked her to send back this famous letter. "I don't know," I added, "whom fate has destined for me, but I won't have to reproach myself for having read a love letter from someone other than the man who is to be my husband." I must confess that before handing it in, I had a good mind to try and read it without opening it to see how a declaration was written, but I resisted and thought I had deserved some credit for it. Duroc, though not the man my imagination pictured as worthy of all my affections, did not displease me. I recognised many qualities in him. His great respect for me made me believe in his feelings. Yet so often, when I listened to him, I would say: "That's not it yet".

Well, perhaps I would have married him had it not been for my mother's formal opposition. The Consul did not object, but she only thought about it with sorrow. Brought up with the ideas generally held by the nobility, in her eyes it was a misalignment to enter a family that did not belong to it. Prejudice lurked beneath the care she took to welcome everyone equally. It had no influence whatsoever on her kindness, which extended equally to everyone, but nothing seemed to her distinguished enough for her daughter. Although Duroc was a gentleman, she would have liked to have seen greater distinction in him or in his ancestors. "I never could get used to hearing you called Madame Duroc," she would say to me. "'Would you love him? I would despair of it." I reassured my mother. I repeated that my heart was calm, my position happy and that I had no desire to change that.

This all takes place a short time after Murat's marriage, and I like how Murat is included in this. It's to be noted that at this point, Hortense and Caroline were besties, so Hortense could confide in Caroline without problems, Caroline then in Murat, and Murat could inform Duroc (who probably was on his way to Saint-Petersburg? Would that fit the timeline?).

As to historical events, I kinda doubt Hortense was really that clueless about Duroc's feelings for her. If I'm not completely mistaken I remember a letter by Eugène that mentioned Duroc wanting Hortense to come visit the army camp (before the Marengo campaign?). Which then had old Madame Campan throw an epistolary hissy fit about how unseemly this would be for an unmarried young lady.

In any case, Hortense clearly was not heartbroken over this event. If she had married Duroc, it would not have been out of love but out of lack for "better" options.

[litcest]

The House of Borgia: Sources and Scholarship

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |

When I got my hands on Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire, my plans were simple: read the book, do a write up about it and include a few notes here and there about who were the Borgias, the real family which Maguire re-imagines in a fairy tale setting. I did not expect that research into the Borgias would turn into a months long endeavour.

The result of all my efforts were a four parts series in which I try to lay out the known events and separate them from the myths and rumours that were spread about the family. I'm actually very proud of those posts, I love doing research (I mean... I love doing a good literature review, basic research is not much of my thing).

One thing that pissed me off a lot when researching was that I had no access to primary sources. I had to trust when an author said that "letters from the period confirm this". Like, tell me which letters and where they are, even if I can't actually access them because they were never digitalized, at least I would have names, years and quantity of letters.

As someone involved in academia, I know that the information I present is only as good as my sources. I didn't want to go doing in text citations because it can get very boring and also takes a lot of space. So, below, I present my references, and under the cut, I'll explain how I used each book. This way, I can have a clean conscience knowing that I did cite my sources.

References:

Batllori, M. La familia de los Borjas. Real Academia de la Historia, 1999.

Bradford, Sarah. Cesare Borgia: his life and times. Macmillan, 1976.

Burchard, Johann. Pope Alexander VI and His Court Extracts from the Latin Diary of Johannes Burchardus. Edited by F. L. Glaser, N.L. Brown, 1921.

Carrasco, Raphael. The Borgia Family. Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée, 2013.

Gregorovius, Ferdinand. Lucretia Borgia According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day. D. Appleton and Company, 1903.

Meyer, G. J. The Borgias: The Hidden History. Bantam, 2013.

Morris, S. Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia: Brother & Sister of History's Most Vilified Family. Pen & Sword Books, 2020.

Strathern, P. The Borgias: Power and Depravity in Renaissance Italy. Pegasus Books, 2019.

La familia de los Borjas, by M. Batllori

This book was used in the first few paragraphs. It's where I got the information of the Borja's genealogy and origens. The book is in Spanish and I don't speak Spanish, but it's similar enough to Portuguese that I was able to identify passages of interest and then send them to my uncle's girlfriend, who is a Spanish professor.

Cesare Borgia: his life and times, by Sarah Bradford

I used this one to get more details about Cesare's campaign in Romagna (which didn't end up being in the final post) and also to cross reference dates and events.

Pope Alexander VI and His Court Extracts from the Latin Diary of Johannes Burchardus, by Johann Burchard

This is the journal of Rodrigo Borgia's master of cerimonies, translated and edited by F. L. Glaser. It's where some allegations originate, specially the Banquet of Chestnuts.

The Borgia Family, by Raphael Carrasco

The Borgias: The Hidden History, by G. J. Meyer

Used to cross-reference and confirm information I found in other books.

Lucretia Borgia According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day, by Ferdinand Gregorovius

Used in my Mirror Mirror post to fact check Lucrezia whereabouts. It's a collections of letter for her, from her or about her.

This book sucks. Meyer presents of evidence for his claims that Rodrigo wasn't the actual father of Cesare and Lucrezia, and also tries to convince the reader that Rodrigo was a good man and did nothing wrong. And while I do think there was a defamation campaign against the Borgias, I also think there's no way that everyone was in it and that everything was forged. However, it did provide some background on the Italian political scene of the time.

Shitty book. I might just do a whole post complaining about it. Also, you know what Meyer doesn't do? Cite sources! He just claims things and expects us to take it at face value. His one source is Peter de Roo, who all other author claim was extremally biased and had an agenda to make Pope Alexander V (a.k.a. Rodrigo Borgia) seem a decent guy.

Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia: Brother & Sister of History's Most Vilified Family, by S. Morris

Once again, used to check if the information I was getting was indeed what was most accepted by modern historians.

The Borgias: Power and Depravity in Renaissance Italy, by P. Strathern

This is the best of the bunch. It was the first book I picked up about the Borgias and what my first draft of the post was based upon. From there, I picked other books that Strathern used as a source and then what those books were citing. Absolutely amazing work in my opinion, but I couldn't find what actual scholars think of the book (Strathern is not a historian). I think it was very unbiased and cited it's sources and didn't leap into any conclusion. But if it turns out I'm wrong, I'll gladly revisit this series and re-write using more academic accredited works.

[erysium]

You've talked about writing your comic in a few asks before, I was wondering if you have advice/ resources for artists writing their own comics? I've only ever scene stuff for writers writing for an artist and would love to see what goes into your scripts.

haha I'm a little shy about trying to give advice this, since I feel like I'm a lot weaker at writing than drawing! writing is really stressful & difficult for me.. I would never want to write for someone else, because a lot of my 'writing' process is really just drawing things out, and seeing what works. When I edit my scripts for anyone else to read over, I cut about 2/3rds of what I have written in as notes - stuff that mostly only make sense to me (ie 'referencing this scene in chapter 3,' 'an expression like in that scene in that cool amv' or 'this part inspired by the ending of that movie/book/etc') as well as the 2-3 what-if versions I have for every scene, that I sometimes only finalize/decide between when I'm working on thumbnails and finally seeing how it all flows on the page together. or after someone who's helping me edit takes a look and has thoughts. When I have an idea for a scene, it's also usually in some visual form - so I'll jot down some notes in my story doc, and then sketch out the acting & feeling I'm imagining to see if it feels like anything when it's down on paper. As it sits in my notes for months or years (while I'm working on and reading other stuff,) that moment might change a little in my memory, or develop more..or the point of that scene might feel less clear when i reread it with fresh eyes, and it might get cut.

I guess for overall advice - find a process that works for you! If you're a more visual person, you can find ways to work visuals first, and then trace your steps back to extract the story from those cool visuals, and then figure out how to puzzle piece all those cool visuals & moments together. & ofc, reading a lot, watching a lot of movies, listening to podcasts or anything narrative, is important for developing your voice & priorities & style as a writer, the same way you do as a visual artist. :-)

(This is what i wrote when I was reorganizing the flow of the first 10 pages in this chapter - I have an idea of the conversation's exact wording written down earlier, so I'm just figuring out if the emotional beats makes some sense with the overall tone in mind, sometimes having a good idea that pulls things together better (highlighted in purple so I don't forget it) or greyed out so I can ignore it (but not deleted, so that I remember that i already had that idea & discarded it for a reason) .. also Kye is always 'k' in my notes & Sonya is always 'v' because i don't want to write their names out all the time lol)

[pregnantseinfeld]

I believe that I made a post like this last year (though i can't find it because of how bad tumblr's search feature is), so here are some books I read in 2022 that I'd recommend!

Black Reconstruction in America By W.E.B. Du Bois

I started this in late 2021. It's a big thorough book but this is so it can carefully dispel every myth about the period, while also using these details to demonstrate a bigger picture: revealing just how much was gained in a short time, and how massive a squandered opportunity it's end represented. I'll have to write more about this sometime because this history is so engrossing that even seemingly minor tangents it takes somehow made me drastically rethink aspects of present day politics. (pdf)

Capital Volume 1 by Karl Marx

Another tough one I'd started the year prior, I don't want to scare anyone off but I suggest looking into some kind of supplementary material online when tackling it. There's not much I can say that others haven't of course, so I'll leave it at this, once I put in the effort and it clicked, I felt... It's as if somebody told you just now for the first time that living things are made up of cells. I hope that makes sense. (pdf)

Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano

Read this one feverishly, it never hit me until this book how little I knew about this huge portion of the world. While as a historical text it is great, it's also is an excellent teacher on subjects like resource extraction and underdevelopment by using concrete examples. It builds a foundation to understanding the ways"wealthy" countries exploit "poor" ones. (pdf)

The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow

As the fear around climate change understandably mounts there is also a growing need to combat eco-fascist rhetoric. This book takes on the misconception that the day we planted too many seeds in one place we became doomed to an unavoidable demise by offering interesting examples from our extremely long journey as a species. It's a book about how much more complicated we are, and how many unique directions we've taken. We are far from predestined for failure because of Mesopotamian farmers. (pdf)

Other Honorable Mentions!

Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti (pdf) is a quick read and offered worthwhile new insights I hadn't considered, even if I was spoiled on the coolest passages from years of them floating around tumblr. A James Connolly Reader edited by Shaun Harkin is a great collection that got me really into Irish revolutionary and socialist James Connolly who was extraordinarily insightful and is not talked about enough!!! Since I cant find the book itself here's an online collection of his writing. Lastly Shame and Endurance by H. Henrietta Stockel (internet archives) is an account of the Chiricahua Apache's 27 years of imprisonment, a too often overlooked atrocity, that uses sources from this time period to document just how obviously observably cruel this situation was.

[spilledinkandtears]

no matter how loud I scream "I love you", it doesn't seem to matter

[wihinaphe-makhoche]

5/28 thoughts: why i hate transandentalism

today's ruminations about land access and landback.

i've been listening to this really amazing podcast episode by redefining conservation, part of the the sierra club maine.

part of my work around land access (and landback) is centered around the "re-story-iation" of land, a term coined by botanist robin wall kimmerer. i've been really focused on peeling back the layers of colonialism and how much our relationship to land permeates every aspect of our lives.

as a storyteller, artist, and lover of english classes (especially through high school), its difficult for me not to bring back my thoughts to artistic and writing movements. transandentalism, for those not in the know, was an american literary, philosophical, spiritual, and artistic movement in the 1820s and 1830s. it tended to be especially focused on new england. one of the biggest influences in the movement was henry david thoreau, known for his trip to walden pond in massachusetts, as well as his experiences in the maine woods near mt. katahdin.

while i've often understood it well, being raised unitarian universalist, i've found myself questioning and resenting the movement. something about it has never sat right with me.

both nyalat and lokotah highlight excellent points that have been needling at me for over a decade-- much as today's instagram and tiktok influencers sell the aesthetic of "off the grid" and more "natural" lifestyles, so too did transandentalists preach a lifestyle in seeing the divinity in the natural world. i think its understandable to seek to return to one's perceived roots as industrialization continues to whittle away at one's sanity. but we must ask ourselves who can afford to step away-- it is much easier for the wealthy to seek aesthetic resource extraction when the cities and towns become to "dirty" or "impoverished" for their liking. the natural world to them was-- perhaps is-- "empty" now that the indigenous people had been driven onto reservations, cities, or forcibly disconnected. but whose land are they stepping into? who are they driving out in their search for divinity in the natural world? what privilege does this speak of?

today, accessing a place like acadia national park for a week is $35; not much for some, but as the cost of living continues to hike and wages continue to stagnate, this may still be "too much" for a lot of people, especially those who have been historically financially and socially marginalized. as i wait for my paycheck and college funds to come in (which keep me afloat) and watch my bank account drain (and thus ask myself if i'll be able to afford rent, my car payment, and every other bill), this becomes more poignant. who can afford to experience the natural world? do they realize how much national parks are selling an aesthetic resource, that this is a sculpted landscape?

in a conversation with my mentor earlier today, i expressed the feeling of having land access denied as an elder being stolen. to indigenous people, our relations are not just other humans, but the land and all its inhabitants. as robin wall kimmerer puts it in her book braiding sweetgrass, humans are the younger brothers of all else. the trees, plants, and animals are our older brothers and sisters, our elders, our teachers. in my journey towards reconnection, i've found that returning to culture is in community as much as it is in reconnecting with land. turtle island is and always will be my home. in not being able to access these places, we are not able to connect and speak with our elders.

im glad that people can learn to value the natural world. but i think its worth examining who is able to access it--are they wealthy? white? who lived there before, what was the purpose of the place? what are their concepts of land ownership? who are they preventing access from?

more thoughts later. but what i've been ruminating on today.

what my thoughts have been guided by today:

the "redefining conservation" podcast

braiding sweetgrass

conservation's role in indigenous land-taking

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kickstarting “The Bezzle” audiobook, sequel to Red Team Blues

I'm heading to Berlin! On January 29, I'll be delivering Transmediale's Marshall McLuhan Lecture, and on January 30, I'll be at Otherland Books (tickets are limited! They'll have exclusive early access to the English edition of The Bezzle and the German edition of Red Team Blues!).

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to last year's Red Team Blues, featuring Marty Hench, a hard-charging, two-fisted forensic accountant who spent 40 years in Silicon Valley, busting every finance scam hatched by tech bros' feverish imaginations:

http://thebezzle.org

Marty Hench is a great character to write. His career in high-tech scambusting starts in the early 1980s with the first PCs and stretches all the way to the cryptocurrency era, the most target-rich environment for scamhunting tech has ever seen. Hench is the Zelig of tech scams, and I'm having so much fun using him to probe the seamy underbelly of the tech economy.

Enter The Bezzle, which will be published by Tor Books and Head of Zeus on Feb 20: this adventure finds Marty in the company of Scott Warms, one of the many bright technologists whose great startup was bought and destroyed by Yahoo! (yes, they really used that asinine exclamation mark). Scott is shackled to the Punctuation Factory by golden handcuffs, and he's determined to get fired without cause, so he can collect his shares and move onto the next thing.

That's how Scott and Marty find themselves on Catalina island, the redoubt of the Wrigley family, where bison roam the hills, yachts bob in the habor and fast food is banned. Scott invites Marty on a series of luxury vacations on Catalina, which end abruptly when they discover – and implode – a hamburger-related Ponzi scheme run by a real-estate millionaire who is destroying the personal finances of the Island's working-class townies out of sheer sadism.

Scott's victory is bittersweet: sure, he blew up the Ponzi scheme, but he's also made powerful enemies – the kinds of enemies who can pull strings with the notoriously corrupt LA County Sheriff's Deputies who are the only law on Catalina, and after taking a pair of felony plea deals, Scott gets the message and never visits Catalina Island again.

That could have been the end of it, but California's three-strikes law – since rescinded – means that when Scott picks up one more felony conviction for some drugs discovered during a traffic stop, he's facing life in prison.

That's where The Bezzle really gets into gear.

At its core, The Bezzle is a novel about the "shitty technology adoption curve": the idea that our worst technological schemes are sanded smooth on the bodies of prisoners, mental patients, kids and refugees before they work their way up the privilege gradient and are inflicted on all of us:

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

America's prisons are vicious, brutal places, and technology has only made them worse. When Scott's prison swaps out in-person visits, the prison library, and phone calls for a "free" tablet that offers all these services as janky apps that cost ten times more than they would on the outside, the cruelty finds a business model.

Working inside and outside the prison Marty Hench and Scott Warms figure out the full nature of the scam that the captive audience of prisoners are involuntary beta-testers for, and they discover a sprawling web of real-estate fraud, tech scams, and offshore finance that is extracting fortunes from the hides of America's prisoners and their families. The criminals who run that kind of enterprise aren't shy about fighting for what they've got, and they're more than happy to cut some of LA County's notorious deputy gangs in for a cut in exchange for providing some kinetic support for the project.

The Bezzle is exactly the kind of book I was hoping I'd get to write when I kicked off the Hench series – one that decodes the scam economy, from music royalties to prison videoconferencing, real estate investment trusts to Big Four accounting firm bogus audits. It's both a fast-moving, two-fisted crime novel and a masterclass on how the rich and powerful get away with both literal and figurative murder.

It's getting a big push from both my publishers and I'll be touring western Canada and the US with it. The early reviews are spectacular. But despite all of this, I had to make my own audiobook for it, which I'm pre-selling on Kickstarter:

http://thebezzle.org

Why? Because Audible – Amazon's monopoly gatekeeper to the audiobook world, with more than 90% of the market – refuses to carry my work.

Audible uses Digital Rights Management to lock every audiobook they sell to their platform. Legally, only an Audible-authorized app can decrypt and play the audiobooks they sell you. Distributing a tool that removes Audible DRM is a felony under Section 1201 of the 1998 DMCA.

That means that if you break up with Audible – delete your Audible apps – you will lose your entire audiobook library. And the fact that you're Audible's hostage makes the writers you love into their hostages, too. Writers understand that if they leave the Audible platform, their audience will have to choose between following them, or losing all their audiobooks.

That's how Audible gets away with abusing its performers and writers, up to and including the $100m Audiblegate wage-theft scandal:

https://www.audiblegate.com/

Audible can steal $100m from its writers…and the writers still continue to sell on the platform, because leaving will cost them their audience.

This is canonical enshittification: lock in users, then screw suppliers. Lots of companies abuse DRM to do this, but none can hold a candle to Amazon, who understand that the DMCA is a copyright law that protects corporations at the expense of creators.

Under DMCA 1201 commercial distribution of a "circumvention device" carries a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine. That means that if I write a book, pay to have it recorded, and then sell it to you through Audible, I am criminally prohibited from giving you the tool to take it from Audible to another platform. Even though I hold the copyright to that work, I would face a harsher sentence than you would if you simply pirated the audiobook from some darknet site. Not only that: if you shoplifted the audiobook in CD form, you'd get a lighter sentence than I, the copyright holder, would receive for giving you a tool to unlock it from Amazon's platform! Hell, if you hijacked the truck that delivered the CD, you'd get off lighter than I would. This is a scam straight out of a Marty Hench novel.

This is batshit. I won't allow it. My books are licensed on the condition that they must not be sold with DRM. Which means that Audible won't sell my books, which means that my publishers are thoroughly disinterested in paying thousands of dollars to produce audiobooks of my titles. A book that isn't sold in the one store than accounts for 90% of all sales is unlikely to do well.

That's where you come in. Since 2020, I've used Kickstarter to pre-sell five of my audiobooks (I wrote nine books during lockdown!). All told, I've raised over $750,000 (gross! but still!) on these crowdfunders. More than 20,000 backers have pitched in! The last two of these books – The Internet Con and The Lost Cause – were national bestsellers.

This isn't just a way for me to pay off a lot of bills and put away something for retirement – it's proof that readers care about supporting writers and don't want to be locked in by a giant monopolist that depends on its drivers pissing in bottles to make quota.

It's a powerful message about the desire for something better than Amazon. It's part of the current that is driving the FTC to haul Amazon into court for being a monopolist, and also part of the inspiration for other authors to try treating Amazon as damage and routing around it, with spectacular results:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dragonsteel/surprise-four-secret-novels-by-brandon-sanderson

And I'm doing it again. Last December, I went into Skyboat Media's studios where Gabrielle De Cuir directed @wilwheaton, who reprised his role as Marty Hench for the audiobook of The Bezzle. It came out amazing:

https://archive.org/details/bezzle-sample

Now I'm pre-selling this audiobook, as well as the ebook and hardcover for The Bezzle. I'm also offering bundles with the ebook and audiobook for Red Team Blues (naturally these are all DRM-free). You can get your books signed and personalized and shipped anywhere in the world, courtesy of Book Soup, and I've partnered with Libro.fm to deliver DRM-free audiobooks with an app for people who don't want to mess around with sideloading.

I've also got some spendy options for high rollers. There's three chances to name a character in the next Hench novel (Picks and Shovels, Feb 2025). There's also five chances to commission a Hench short story about your favorite tech scam, and get credited when the story is published.

The Kickstarter runs for the next three weeks, which should give me time to get the hardcopy books signed and shipped to arrive around the on-sale date. What's more, I've finally worked out all the post-Brexit kinks with shipping my UK publisher's books to EU backers. I'm working with Otherland Books to fulfill those EU orders, and it looks like I'm going to be able to sign a giant stack of those when I'm in Berlin later this month to give the annual Marshall McLuhan lecture at the Canadian embassy:

https://transmediale.de/en/2024/event/mcluhan-2024

Red Team Blues and its sequels are some of the most fun – and informative – work I've done in my quarter-century career. I love how they blend technical explanations of the scam economy with high-intensity technothrillers. That's the the same mix as my bestselling YA series Little Brother series – but these are firmly adult novels.

The Bezzle came out great. I hope you'll give it a try – and that you'll come out to see me in late February when I hit the road with the book! Here's that Kickstarter link again:

http://thebezzle.org

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/2024/01/10/the-bezzle/#marty-hench

[purecommemasolitude]

outsiders week 2024 progress report to hold myself accountable

Sunday, Nov 3 - "gang" or "Ponyboy"

already chosen the fic for this one, it's the one i've been working on for the longest (literally since at least june last year) and i am soo close to being done. there's just one exchange i need to refine because i'm not satisfied with it. but it's book-verse about ponyboy after the track tryouts the same year as everything goes down* not getting the placement he wants and finding a moment of understanding with darry about it because darry's the only one who #gets it. this fic was spun out of that one line in the book where ponyboy says soda never got the importance him or darry placed on athletics

*when i was combing the book to figure out the timeline of track/what grade he was in there was a) never a concrete answer b) a lot of things that could be interpreted in conflicting ways, so i just went with he's a sophomore who was on the track team last year and track tryouts happen in like may or whatever

Monday, Nov 4 - "gold" or "Cherry"

there is a fic already started that's hopefully going to be the one for this day, but also it's probably gonna be long and it's an exploration of musical!cherry's turmoil after bob dies seeing the witch hunt against the greasers (basically it's inspired by the fact that she takes her promise ring off after JFT and not after the break up) and i want to try and do my vision™ justice instead of rushing it so this may not be done in time we'll see. if it's not done i may extract the bit where she finds out about two-bit's jumping from marcia and just post that because it's the part closest to being completed

Tuesday, Nov 5 - "rumble" or "Sodapop"

so i have two started but incomplete fics that could go for this day. one is following musical!soda & darry at home in tulsa while ponyboy is out in windrixville. it's probably my first choice, but this one is also an i don't want it to rush and lose some of its potential in the writing process so we'll see. the other one is a stevepop fic that's largely centered around sodapop's queerness (it's basically a 5 + 1 of members of the gang realizing/revealing that they know that he's not straight. evie is in it with her and steve as each other's beards and she's the catalyst for soda's own realization that he likes men)

Wednesday, Nov 6 - "hair grease" or "Darry"

fic chosen and started for this one too! (this is what i was up until like 2:00 yesterday working on 🤪) it's musicalverse again and it's gonna follow a possible explanation for why darry's called darrel now, aka him slowly transitioning to going by darrel after the death of their parents and the reasoning and rationale for that change

Thursday, Nov 7 - "rodeo" or "Bob"

...okay for this one i truly have no idea. i want to keep it vaguely on-theme for the prompts even if i end up not following them, but the two other soc-related fics i have simmering are ones that i want to also not rush and really make sure they're the best i can get them (asian!paul exploration and marbit's journey post-book) so probably not those two tbh. two ideas that i have are snapshots of various characters reacting to his death, though i haven't picked a universe for that yet, or something following the non-character prompts for once and maybe some of the characters as kids at a rodeo? i'll be honest the only rodeo experiences i've had that i can really remember are riding the docile horses on like a real-horse carousel so basically i'd just be planting outsiders characters into that experience

it is also possible that i'll end up with nothing (midterms go crazy), in which case i'll post my backup that is semi-completed, a whooole bunch of outsiders characters recreated in this picrew

Friday, Nov 8 - "tuff" or "Dally"

this one is not only decided upon but finished if y'all can believe it. i might make some revision edits before i actually post it but this one is a product of me going insane over the course of three days and writing a character exploration of dally on the train tracks delving into his relationship throughout his life with suicidal ideation

Saturday, Nov 9 - "vacant lot" or "Johnny"

unfortunately once again no idea lads. actually i lied there is something but it doesn't follow any of the prompts very much so we'll see. following the prompts i have no idea, most i've got is maybe a short thing about johnny some quiet night in the vacant lot (both prompts in one fell swoop). maybe he's looking at the stars idk. if it's the other one, which could also function as a backup for any of the days, it's a sickfic about two-bit that's actually just an excuse to write two-bit appreciating his mom. the google doc for that one is called sick TB mother appreciation to illustrate how central that is to the fic

if you've read all the way to the end hello 👋 and feel free to send any thoughts or questions my way! i need to lock in and start hustling on these soon and interaction is always a great way to improve willpower

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 38- Part 13

Florence and Snow…what very specific names. Are those references to characters from the Orre games? I'll have to look into that later…

(Future edit: I did look it up, and I couldn't find any mentions of characters named Snow or Florence in either Colosseum or Gale of Darkness, so…the names are just there, I guess.)

But regardless…he asked for someone to look after the Pokémon, and that's what we're gonna do.

It's an Eevee, baby!! All those previous Eevee references in Spinel Town are paying off!!

To be honest, I have no idea where “Elio” came from. I just wanted his name to start with an ‘E’ because ‘Eevee’, and that name just kinda…came to me. 

Now, as for this other item here…

Ooh, I can use that for yet another encounter! Not now though, another time.

And now the matter of actually getting out of here…well. The captain may not have been able to figure out the layout of this place, and neither have I, but Xera came just a bit more prepared than he did…

There's no beating an Escape Rope, baby.

Also, the PokéDex entry, for the record:

As for the final actual encounter, we go back to-

Oh, the Egg hatched! And I was right about what it was! Brilliant!

Thorn because…cactus. Yeah. But fun fact: Thorn is also the name of a very cool character from one of my favorite book series of all time, Wings of Fire. Fun fun fact: Thorn is also the name I gave my Nymble (later Lokix) in Scarlet, who was a permanent fixture on my team for that game. 

…I really need to come up with a new naming theme for the next time I do a Pokémon playthrough…

Anyways, another Dex entry for y’all:

Now, after swapping out Thorn for the usual team back at a PC, we go back to Reborn City one more time, specifically to the eye-melting candy shop. Now- let me see if this is going to work…

Aha, it does! Usually you buy an ice cream from a salesperson who shows up in Opal Ward on sunny days, but that's never happened for me because the weather dislikes me greatly, so buying one at Spinel Town is the next best option.

And now, let me show you what's so special about this particular ice cream machine.

Well, we bought chocolate last time, sooooo…why not vanilla? Nothing suspicious about that at all!

I lied, the machine lied, we all lied!! It was a free Pokémon all along!! Surprise Vanillite, folks!

Frost isn't just a reference to the fact that it's an Ice-type, but also a nod to frosting- y’know, because Vanillite is based on a type of dessert. 

At any rate, here's the PokéDex entry:

Aaaaand that's all, everyone! Those are (more or less) all the new Pokémon we can catch for right now! And that means we have everything we need now to prepare to challenge Serra- at least in terms of teambuilding. But that’ll have to come another time- and by another time, I mean after I get some darn sleep, aaaah-

(Future edit: And that also means the chapter is going to end off here! I had the foresight to screenshot the PC Boxes after all the encounters just in case, but not to screenshot the save screen, but whatever. So next time- and I know this is true because I already played it and I’ve got what I need to write the chapter- we’ll ACTUALLY check out the Voclain Estate and challenge Serra. No more delays, that sixth Badge will be mine, and so will that Herbal Extract, I hope!)

CURRENT TEAM:

Riptide

Species: Feraligatr

Gender: Male

Level: 49

Ability: Sheer Force*

Item: Protective Pads

Brave nature; Alert to sounds.

Glare

Species: Arbok

Gender: Female

Level: 48

Ability: Intimidate

Item: Black Sludge

Naughty nature; Highly curious.

Bloom

Species: Roserade

Gender: Male

Level: 49

Ability: Technician*

Item: Big Root 

Docile nature; Alert to sounds.

Prong

Species: Vikavolt

Gender: Female

Level: 49

Ability: Levitate

Item: Zoom Lens

Rash nature; Loves to eat.

Crater

Species: Camerupt

Gender: Female

Level: 49

Ability: Magma Armor

Item: Quick Claw

Hardy nature; Often scatters things.

Kirin

Species: Girafarig

Gender: Female

Level: 48

Ability: Sap Sipper*

Item: Odd Incense

Quirky nature; Thoroughly cunning.

CURRENT BOXES:

NUMBER OF RELOADS: 28

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