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thegnomelord · 11 months ago

Note

I have had a thought.

What if dragons purr when you rub their horns..

Dragon!Price x Gaz and/or Nikolai,,,

Hehdhehehe

Hmmm, I don't usually write character x character but i'll give it a try so tell me if this sucks lol

CW: SFW, Price x Gaz, horn rubbing, purring, monster cod au, soft short and sweet. 1224 words. Cross posted to Ao3

Kyle is a good soldier. Strong. Competent. Reliable. Though the fears of losing him on every mission still linger, they're eased by the fact that Price never has to worry that his sergeant will stumble in those crucial moments when a second of hesitation can be the difference between life and death. Never has to worry that his Gaz will think of himself as expendable and rush into the hailstorm of bullets. . .

Kyle is also a menace.

Especially when he's perched on his desk and giving John the most pathetic puppy dog eyes he's ever seen. "Please, captain, just one time?" The imp of a harpy even has the gall to flutter his eyes, looking at him through his lashes because he knows how the light of the setting sun hits his eyes juuuust right to make the brown glitter like gold and amber jewels.

"Kyle." Price stresses. This really isn't the time to indulge his sergeant's need for mischief when he's got a week's worth of backlogged paperwork to go through.

"Sir." Kyle throws his tone back at him, but the way the word rolls off his tongue and he adds the smallest chirp to the end of it makes something inside him stir. "Come on mate, I promise it'll only take five minutes." Kyle's wings spread out so he can display the shininess of his feathers - peacocking transcends species it seems - the mundane dark color turned to that of rich obsidian by the sun.

"It never takes just 'five minutes'." He tries to argue, but the usual commanding rumble in his voice is gone. Price knows he's fighting a losing battle from the way his fingers itch for him to burry them into the smooth feathers and preen Kyle's wings until his treasure croons.

Kyle knows this. He's unable to hide the arrogant look in his eyes when he bites his bottom lip and leans back, muscles tensing, because he knows how such a display of his body will make John's eyes automatically roam across his hard earned muscles. "Pretty please." Kyle says, tail feathers gently twitching side to side.

Both of them know Price never stood a chance.

"That was dirty." John sighs, dejected by his own weakness. The distance between them is small, but Price purposely takes slow steps. Kyle eagerly scoots back on the desk and spreads his legs for John to fit between, hands raising to hold his biceps as Price braces his palms against the desk next to Kyle's hips.

Kyle snorts. "As if you've never stooped lower cap." He spreads his wings to wrap around Price, soft feathered wing wrists bumping against his back.

John just growls lowly in response. He doesn't resist his body's natural desire to reciprocate, to reaffirm the claim over his hoard. The atrophied muscles on his right side still ache with phantom pain after all this time, but that doesn't stop him from wrapping his one remaining wing around Kyle. The combination of their wings acts as a shroud from the rest of the world, soft feathers brushing against his green scales and their scents mixing together.

Price treasures these little moments.

The peace only lasts for a few seconds before Kyle ruins it with a grin. "Now come on, give me your horns." He says, not even bothering for Price to tilt his head before Kyle's clever fingers rise up his arms to cup his face, inching closer to where his horns grow out of his skull.

Price promises to himself to hunt down and shoot whichever wanker posted the '101 ways to make a dragon purr like a kitty' on the internet. Ever since Kyle found that blasted instruction manual he's been trying to go through the entire list to verify the information. Price had seen the article in question and had nearly choked when he'd read that the author thought pulling on a dragon's tail could get them any other reaction than an immediate bisection—

Kyle's impatient fingers still just enough to gently scratch the bumpy base of his scalp around the horns. It tingles, and Price isn't able to tell if the tingling sensation is of the good kind or a bad. A small sound rolls from his throat, but that doesn't satisfy Kyle.

"Come on John, sing for me." Kyle repeats the words Price tells him when he's preening him, voice light and just at the edge of taunting. Keeping one hand around his base, Kyle slides the palm of his other hand up the hard bone until he reaches the natural curve of Price's horn. He squeezes gently and moves his hand like he's jerking him off.

"O-oh." Price is grateful he's bracing against the desk because his legs go weak. The sensation of his palm and the pressure of his hand is neither good nor bad, just unfiltered feeling that his brain can't even begin to handle, so it shoots it down his spine like lightning. The buzz of sensation catches on every vertebra and makes his wing quiver, forces his tail to wag like he's some lost puppy.

"Not what I was expecting." Kyle confesses. Price can't see the surprise and wonder on his face as John's eyes close automatically. His head tips forward to rest his forehead on Gaz's chest, brawny biceps tensing to just support his weight and claws digging into the desk with enough force to tear through the wood.

Kyle moves his hands so he's holding Price's horns in both hands. The pale green horns are smooth under his palms besides the occasional scratch or chip in them. Kyle moves his hands with slowly and methodically, changing the pressure he uses on every stroke and paying special attention to the sharp tips of his horns.

That's all it takes to turn John's chest into an geriatric engine. Price manages to groan and mumble a curse under his breath before the only sound leaving his lips is the deep baritone purr. There's no way of stopping it; If Price was in a better mind he would question why the gentle stroking of his horns has him feeling like a puddle of goo but his brain is completely fried from the sensation.

Kyle has heard him purr before but this is different. All the other times his purrs would always be throaty and quiet. Now it feels like the sound is coming straight from the bottom of his chest and, fuck, Kyle can feel it, feel the rumble shake his ribs and the desk beneath him. The sound is loud and unpolished and so raw Gaz feels naked just hearing it.

Kyle can feel his heard beating a mile a minute, his surprise making his hands still just long enough for Price to look up at him. Kyle could die happy after seeing how fucked out Price looks — pupils dilated to the size of plates, panting, red faced, so open and unguarded. Comfortable. With him.

"You've been holding out on me John." Kyle smiles softly, starting to stroke his horns again.

Price purrs even louder, his tail curling around Kyle's leg, managing to pull the claws of one hand from the desk to grip Kyle's thigh and pull him closer, draconic hind-brain desperately seeking to get more of that gluttonous pleasure from Kyle's hands.

Safe to say they take longer than five minutes.

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papurgaatika · 8 months ago

Text

Scarcely Can Speak For My Thinking, What You’d Do To Me Tonight

Pairing: VA! Joel Miller x f! reader

Minors DNI with my work please!!

A/N: howdy howdy my lovelies. I know what yall are thinking: papaya didn't you post a fic literally less than two weeks ago? And to that I would say yes, yes I did. However, I have been working on this one for a while and somehow managed to finish it on the plane! Thank you as always to my lovely beta readers @carlynkurin and @joelsdagger The title is a Hozier lyric (are yall really surprised?) This is officially dedicated to my beloved @joeloverture and despite my darling vetty's step off of tumblr, she truly deserves the world. also if you're mean to her i will find you. that is a threat

I hope y'all enjoy the read, and that the filth keeps you going in times of need. Peace and love on the planet Earth from me!!! Remember that TLOU is created by a zionist so please look at the resources at the end of this fic and in my bio on ways to donate and educate yourself!!

Tags: Erotic voice actor Joel! AU, Young Joel, No outbreak AU, smut, condescension, degradation, f! masturbation, praise, squirting, smut, LOTS of dirty talk, oral (f receiving) friends to lovers, fingering, voice kink, Joel loves thighs, Joel Miller arm appreciation, the reader is a mess, no use of y/n, Joel can pick reader up but he’s HUGE so it makes sense, no description of reader, 18+ Word Count: 5.2k

Summary: you have been using audio erotica to get off for a month, and manage to accidentally let it play in Joel's car, leading to an awkward night in

You let out an exhausted huff as the dim light of your phone reflected on your face. Your headphones connected, your vibrator was charged, but in some godforsaken twist of fate, there was not a single thing worth listening to on the newest audio erotica page you could find. Videos hadn’t been doing it for you, the ethical concerns were too high for you to be horny, and as much as you liked a good fanfic, you had gone through most of the ones you liked and needed something new. You click on a post with semi intriguing tags, immediately rolling your eyes and exiting out of it when you hear the all too familiar vocal fry of men trying to sound hotter. News flash: you don't.

You were moments away from calling it a night and opening your backlog of smutty ao3 fics when another post caught your eye. You let out a snort at the username save_a_horse and glance at the tags. Okay you were definitely interested now, a degrading instructional… you hit play with baited breath, prepping for the worst, but you were so mistaken.

“Filthy little thing aint ya?” the voice rings in your ears, heat pooling between your legs embarrassingly quickly. “Must be so pathetic if you’re clicking on a mean stranger's voice to get ya’self off” his voice was like hot honey. Sickly sweet and keeping you waiting for his every word but with an edge that stung in the best way. You shuffle yourself back onto the pillows and throw your covers off, fully prepared to enjoy this rare gem. Your breathing picks up, heavy with want as the man in your ears calls you a desperate little slut.

“Go on, get your toy wet slut” his voice croons out at you “know ya have one, too fuckin’ needy not to.'' Always eager to please, your lips find the base of your curved g-spot vibrator and let the soft plastic fill your mouth, drawing sounds that were almost too debauched for you to be sitting in bed alone. “Bet you love havin your mouth filled like that.. Lord, I'd love to have your pretty little lips around my cock” your eyes practically roll back at that, spit running down the base of your toy before he finally tells you to put it in.

“Atta girl, such an eager thing” The toy sinks into your sopping cunt with ease as the voice envelops your mind, solely focusing on him. You listen with intense obedience as he tells you how deep, how quick, how much you were allowed. “Go on then, fuck yourself on it. We both know you want to”

You let out a soft cry as you slip the toy in and out, the curve just hitting the spot that makes your back arch. Your breathing hitches as you press down on the button to turn the vibrations on. “Creamin’ all over yourself I bet,” it was like he could see you. Like he was able to see your arousal dripping onto the sheets below you, how the damp sheets clung to your thighs as they shook and twitched with pleasure.

“Bet you’re so damn close.. Go on then slut, cum while listenin’ to me'' he taunts slightly as your orgasm washes over you in waves. “Gonna ruin ya,” his words are assertive, less of a promise and almost a threat “ain’t gonna cum unless it's to my voice anymore. Good fuckin’ girl” You take a few steadying breaths as the audio clicks off, and you blink up at your ceiling unsure of how to go on from there. You glance down at your phone which has made its way to the opposite side of your bed and move to grab it.

You hit play on another audio.

As the weeks go on, you and the mysterious cowboy in your ears have an immensely good time together. You practically spend every night listening to every one of his audios, leaving silly comments on the ones that make you cum particularly hard. It might have been an issue, how often you found yourself waiting for him to upload, how quickly you would pause your tasks to listen to new updates, but you were having fun and it wasn’t like you were hurting anyone in the process.

You had just finished an audio before the blaring noise of a horn outside your door rattled you. The clock on your phone taunts you as do the several missed calls and texts from your best friend. “Fuck. fuck okay” you grumble, grabbing a towel and wiping yourself off before tossing a pair of comfy shorts on and grabbing your bag, and heading outside “have you never heard of a virtue called patience miller?” you quip as you slide into the passenger seat of his truck

“Had it for the first five minutes, but about 10 minutes after that, I was damn ready to break your door down myself” he scoffs “what took you so damn long?” he rolls his eyes as you fiddle with the bluetooth in his car, not wanting to be stuck with what you call ‘old home music’

“I was just finishi-” your words are cut off when the sound of a moan plays over the speaker. Just your luck. You kept the grumpiest man alive waiting and then played porn in his car. Hooray for you. “Jesus fucking-” you squeak, fiddling with your phone and closing out of the app “Joel-” you start, cheeks burning and excuses already at the tip of your tongue, before he silently shakes his head and puts the car in reverse.

The ride back to his house is awkward to say the least. “Joel listen I didn't mean for-” you mumble out meekly, but his sharp gaze on yours has you clamping your mouth closed immediately. You fiddle with your fingers, thinking about playing music, but it just doesn’t feel right anymore. The grip Joel has on the steering wheel is practically iron-clad, his knuckles almost white with the tension as he pulls into his driveway and puts the car in park. You walk into his house with a huff, your weekly game nights off to a bit of a rocky start, but you’ve had to deal with worse with him. Joel had given you moral support when your menstrual cup had gotten “stuck” during one of your first times using it, he could deal with knowing you listened to porn.

You plop down onto his couch, stretching your legs out on the coffee table while he gets you a glass of iced tea. You take a sip of your drink and mentally prepare yourself for how bad he was going to tease you about this, but are met with shocking amounts of silence. For a man who is ruthless on game nights, the lack of trash talk and absolute avoidance was almost irritating you. Finally, after you beat him in uno for a third time in a row, you snap “What is your issue tonight miller?” you groan, placing a +2 card down “Listen I know that was awkward but we’re both adults I don't see what the big deal is''

Joel groans and places another +2, changing the color (much to your annoyance,) “just drop it, nothin’s the issue” You, petulant and stubborn as ever, did not drop it. You huff as you have to take like 5 cards from the deck before getting one that you can play, and narrow your eyes at him.

“Bullshit” you move to sit cross-legged on the couch “I never beat you in this game, something is wrong with you tonight,” it was almost as if nobody had ever taught you not to poke a sleeping bear. Or maybe you figured that the bear was your best friend and probably wouldn't bite your head off… probably.

“Just drop it peaches,” his words are terse, hands gripping his, now slowly diminishing, uno cards much tighter than he needed to. You groan again when you have to get another few cards. The irritation at his childish behavior, coupled with the stack of 20 cards in your hand makes you more of a menace than you probably should.

“Don't be such a baby, Miller,” you poke his leg with your foot knowing full well he hates it, a yelp leaving your lips as he grabs your ankle and pulls you forward “Joel!” Your cards fly out of your hand

“Told you to fuckin’ quit it peach.” His voice is a low timber, stirring something deep in your belly. “Never fuckin’ listen to me”

You just snort at him when he releases your ankle, moving to pick up your cards, “you suck at uno today Joel” you hmph, rising to your feet “'m gonna get something else” you hear Joel protest and try to grab at your arm but you’re too determined and he’s far too comfy to get up quick enough. You manage to make it to his spare room, swinging the door open, imagining you’d see a shelf with his board games only to stop dead in your tracks, “what the fuck-”

What you had always assumed was just his spare junk room or random linen closet, was what looked like an at home recording studio. A desk with a PC and speakers, full microphone set up, and what you could only assume was something to help with soundproofing “What the fuck Miller?” Your voice is slightly full of awe, “are you recording shitty male superiority podcasts now?” you tease, a sly grin on your face.

Despite how pleased you are with that crack at him, he looks absolutely unamused. He practically clomps over at you, big finger poking your ribs ``you know damn well I ain't doin’ that shit.” He rolls his eyes at your teasing. The idea of Joel Miller getting on the internet to talk about women in a way that wasn't him sitting at his desk going ‘they’re the best damn thing’ was laughable. He was a perfect gentleman to everyone, except maybe to you, but frankly you deserved it for all the shit you gave him.

You squeak when his finger prods at your skin “okay, okay well what creepy shit are you doing in here then?” you wiggle your eyebrows at him, sauntering to his PC set up. The computer and speakers were calling out to you like a siren, and you did not have the common sense to plug your ears.

Joel knew you. He could read you like a fucking book with how close the two of you were. He used to say that the one braincell you had spent fifty percent of its time inside his mind with how predictable you were to him. “Peach do not fuckin’ dare-” his voice is low, warning you.

If you had better self preservation skills you would have probably heard the alarm bells ringing in your head telling you that he was serious, or paid better attention to the way his sweats were a little more tight. But you unfortunately were a complete menace, so neither of those items really registered to you. You clap your hands in an evil little giggle when you move the mouse “still no password? Shit you make my life so fucking easy-” you grin as you see the different clips of audio layered together in whatever program he uses

Joel has somehow silently appeared behind you, his hand pulling you away from the computer. “Quit it peach, I’m not fuckin’ around,” he grits out, the hold on your wrist almost impossibly tight. He means business this time, and despite how much of a hellion you can be to him, you didn’t have a death wish.

You scrunch your nose at him trying to pull your wrist out of his grip “okay jesus chri-” you yank your hand away from his, elbow bumping into the keyboard and are cut off with the sound of a gravely moan coming out of the speaker. Both you and Joel look like deer caught in the headlights. Your eyes flick between Joel, whose face has gone impressively red, and the screen of his computer. “I- joel this is-” you stumble over your words, unsure of what to say in this situation.

“Not a fuckin’ peep.” he practically growls at you. Your mouth clamps shut as he leans over you and presses pause on the audio. Your mouth is drier than it had ever been. That was a clip of your best friend, the one who was looming over you at this very moment, moaning into a microphone. You were certain that if you had listened any closer you would have been able to hear the sounds of his hand stroking his cock. The slight creak of his chair, the wet noise of the lube, or was he a spit guy? He however, was not interested in sharing any more of the audio with you, and you would deny it if anyone asked, you were a little disappointed.

You need to say something, you had to, and despite your better judgment telling you not to, you do. “I mean you sound nice-” You sound nice?? You were so fucking ridiculous, even you knew that wasn’t the thing to say. Joel’s eyes darken at your words, and for a moment you fear he’s going to kick you out, to get truly pissed off at you for the first time since you finished his Dr. Pepper stash. “I didn't mean-” you try to backtrack “I just meant- it... You sounded like you were enjoying yourself at least-'' you were actively digging the hole that you were in deeper, rambling and stuttering, all while Joel just stared at you silently, his eyes burning into you

You swallow hard, his eyes still not leaving yours “listen I can go I'm sorry I shouldn't have-” you go to make a beeline out of the room but a firm hand pulling you back into the chair stops you. You fall back with an oof and look up at Joel, who by all accounts looked pissed but there was something else. His pupils were blown and his eyes trace every single one of your movements. The bear had managed to lock in the own cage you had set out for him.

“Didn't tell you to leave.” he practically grunts at you. Ladies and gentlemen, your best friend, always the most well spoken person in the room. You move to protest again, but the look he gives you stops the words before they even form on your tongue. you bite your lip and fiddle with your fingers unsure what to do “think I sound nice peaches?” his voice cuts through the anxious rambling in your brain and you're almost certain you've heard him wrong

“Huh?” you look back up at him through your lashes. He was leaning against the wall where his microphone was set up. His sweats were riding low on his hips and his hoodie covered the toned muscles of his arms, that if anyone asked you had never stared at. The tanned skin you never dared to fantasize about in your bed. The hair that covered his arms, the veins that often made more appearances when you asked forced him to do manual labor that you refused to do yourself.

“Asked if you think I sound nice, Peaches?” he hums, raising a questioning brow at you. your mouth opens and closes ridiculously a few times before you simply just nod at him “that's good..” he muses as he comes back up to you “do you think about me?” he prods, a patronizing pout on his lips as you gape up at him. “when you're listening to those dirty little audios and lettin’ your fingers touch that needy cunt?” you can't help but squeak at his words. the way he said them, the way he spoke was just so… familiar “come on, pretty peach, tell daddy what you think about when you're fingering that slutty little pussy” he practically grins at you and it fucking clicks.

Daddy. Daddy. It was him. The stupid cowboy, the random man whose voice sent your tummy into knots, the one who had been getting you off for weeks now was your best friend. “Joel-” you practically whimper at him. You can feel your heart pounding in your chest and also very distinctly between your legs. “Listen i didn’t know it was you-” there’s a shit eating smirk on his face, one that you would have told him to wipe off his face before you smack it off in any other scenario.

“No?” he hums at you, his brow quirked up as he towers over you in that stupid recording chair “didn't know it was me when you were commenting all those pretty little reviews?” You whimper out a noise, somewhere between a no and a general sound of timidity, as his hand tilts your chin up to meet his eyes “Lemme see if I can remember what it was you said before I got you in the car today peach?” he takes a moment to obnoxiously tap his forehead mocking the way you recall things “what was it you said? ‘This made me late to see my friend, but it also made me ruin my sheets’? Was that it peaches?”

You take a shaky breath, your skin burning under his intense gaze, chin still in his hands. You nod softly at his question, knowing that if you didn't, he would just push you until you did. His grin turns wolfish at your confirmation, and you feel him shift his legs between yours, pushing them apart “yeah peach?” he tuts at you “made me wait for almost 20 minutes outside your house. just so you could cum to my voice… ain’t real nice of you” You take a wobbly breath at his words and try to reply, unsure of what you would even say. An apology maybe, an explanation? But before you can even move to open your mouth he’s cutting you off again

“Woulda just given you the real thing baby,” he tuts at you “all you had to do was ask.'' His voice is low and almost condescending. You shouldn’t let it turn you on, you should tell him to fuck off, but you feel yourself gush at his tone, your bottom lip getting caught between you teeth. He whistles at the look on your face, his cock practically straining against his sweats, “bet you’re just creamin’ in those slutty little shorts baby'' his words aren’t a question, he’s stating it like he can read you like a book because he knows he can. His legs shift to press your legs further apart until your knees are bumping into the arm rests, your eyes unwavering from his.

Your breath is caught in your throat as he leans down to you, his lips pressed up by one of your ears “Listen to me like this peaches?” he whispers into your ear, a warm breath making you shiver before he moves to the other side “like having me in your ears with your legs spread?”

“Yes.. fuck yes yes I do-” your words are rushed and lustful as you feel his hands dip into the waistband of your panties. Your hips jolt up into his touch, panties absolutely drenched with your arousal. Your eyes flutter shut for a moment, lips parting with a silent cry of pleasure.

“Knew she’d be droolin’ all over” he hums as he brings his slick covered finger up to his lips and tastes you with delectable pop when he pulls off. “Tastes like I fuckin’ imagined. Like a fuckin’ peach” he groans and for a moment you swear you could cum just like that.

“Shit Joel please-” he cuts you off with a shake of his head and a shushing noise, as he steps away from you. Your legs are still spread against the chair and you practically whine when he moves away from you, flicking on his recording set up. “Joel what-” he shushes you again, giving you a look that leaves no room for argument.

“Quiet,” he mumbles, fiddling with the mic and pulling the rolling chair closer to it. “Like listenin’ to me so much, thought i’d use you for better effects. You okay with that peaches?” he asks, looking down at you. Despite the teasing and the mockery, you knew he would stop if you told him you didn't want it. But the idea of him stopping, even for a moment was going to make you explode. You nod, maybe too eagerly for someone about to get fucked on microphone, and he grins.

“God always knew you were fuckin’ desperate for it” he kneels between your legs, and you stifle a giggle when his knees pop. “Quit it you menace” He swats at your thigh playful smirk on his lips, making you jump slightly. “Gotta stay real quiet for me, understand?” you watch with bated breath as he moves the mic so it rests delicately in the tension filled space between your spread thighs and his face.

You nod, lips parted, pupils blown, cunt practically dripping for him. He lets out a soft hum of approval, lips pressing a soft kiss to your thighs “nothing fuckin’ softer than a pair of soft thighs” he muses, half to himself, half to you and the mic “could just live between them forever, die happy if a girl pretty as a peach would let me bury my face there.” You feel yourself clench around nothing, feeling maddeningly empty all of a sudden. You shift to try to gain some friction, the chair giving a slight creak at the change in position. Joel looks up and glares at you, your body going still immediately under the intensity of his eyes.

He sticks his hand out behind him, pausing the microphone from recording. “You need to stay. still.” he grits out at you “don't need the whole internet hearing how much of a desperate little thing you are.” You nod at his words, hands gripping the armrests so hard your knuckles turn white. He flicks the mic back on and his lips find your thighs again. Nipping and kissing the soft flesh just below the hem of your shorts. He slides his hands further up, popping the button open and you have to bite down on your fist not to moan when he drags the zipper down with his teeth. He shimmies you out of your shorts, leaving your bottom half clad in your embarrassingly wet panties.

He lets out a growl at the sight of your cunt, clothed and practically dripping for him. “Look at her… practically creaming already and I ain’t even touched you yet” He lets his thumb press against the wet spot the slight pressure just barely teasing your sopping hole dragging a breathy sigh out of you. You look down at him, eyes hooded and lips parting, practically begging for him without uttering a damn word.

He looks up at you as he slides your panties to the side, blowing a stream of cold air straight onto your clit, making you jump. “Pretty fuckin’ pussy…” he practically salivates at the sight of you “nothin’ fucking better than seein’ a drippy, needy, little cunt in front of me…” he presses a kiss to the inside of your thigh, right next to where you want him, where you need his lips

You feel a shiver run down your spine at his words. Somehow it felt filthier being able to see the look on his face, the absolute need he had to taste you. The grip he had on your thighs was bruisingly tight, not helping your arousal die down in the slightest. His mouth finally finds your slit, tongue licking a hot wet stripe at an agonizingly slow pace. He lets out a guttural moan and practically salivates at the taste of you. “Taste so fuckin’ sweet” he groans, tongue dipping back down to taste more of your slick. One of your hands leaves the armrest of the chair and moves to cover your mouth when his lips place three gentle kisses around your clit before relenting and wrapping his lips around the aching bud, with a quiet hum.

You bite down on your hand to stifle the moans threatening to spill, desperate and eager to please him. Your thighs shake when he slips a finger into your dripping cunt and curls them to hit that spot. He lets out a chuckle, lips still sucking on your clit. The vibrations of his warm breath on your aching clit elicited a desperate wine from your mouth, despite how hard you were trying to be quiet for him “Ffffuck-”

He raises a brow at you, not even pulling away from your skin, his baby eyes just gazing at you from between your legs as his fingers work at you. Your bottom lip gets caught between your teeth in an effort to stop your sounds, but your attempts seem futile as your climax starts to draw near. Joel slips a second finger inside of you with embarrassing ease, the sound of his fingers curling inside you, joined only by your soft little breaths and his lips on your clit. His fingers stretch you in ways your fingers never have, scissoring and sliding inside of you with practiced precision. “Atta fuckin’ girl..” he growls as your toes curl instinctively, heels digging into his shoulder blades as the coil inside of you finally snaps. You feel yourself gush on his fingers, your thighs clamping around his head as he works you through it “squirtin’ all over daddy’s face huh like the needy thing you are.”

He pulls your legs off from his legs and hits save on the audio, before glancing back at you with a smirk. “Ain’t posting that anywhere..” he whispers, the gentleness a shocking turn around from the filth he whispered to you earlier. Your breath is still coming out in shaky pants, looking up at him through hazy lids “keepin’ that all to myself” he hums, pressing a little kiss on your head.

He scoops you up like you’re a ragdoll and practically clomps over to his bedroom, throwing you onto the bed. His fingers work deftly at the tie of his sweats, pushing them off. You squeak softly when you see the trail of hair going down his pelvis, the lack of boxers making heat rise to your chest. You work your top off, while he throws his hoodie across the room, a guttural groan leaving his mouth as he sees your breasts. “Fuckin’ perfect..'' His words aren’t necessarily for you, his thoughts just find themselves being voiced aloud. His calloused hands grope and knead at the softness of your tits before he presses wet kisses to each of your nipples. “Need to be inside ya” he practically begs, cock hard against his stomach leaking pre-cum.

You could salivate at the sight, hell you truly might have a little bit. “Fuck me, Daddy, need you to fuck me Joel, please i can be good im ready, I'm on the pill-” your words were babbled, fast and rushed together, your intense desire for the man in front of you the only thing your brain could comprehend. Your legs part on the bed, your arousal dripping down your thighs calling to him like flowers call to a honeybee.

“Christ, baby,” he groans before grabbing your legs and pulling you to the edge of the bed. He fists his cock and slides it through your aching pussy, both of you letting out simultaneous cries of shit when your wetness coats his length. He slides into you with gentle thrusts, letting you adjust to his size slowly, before sinking in all the way with a soft whimper “take me so good…” his words are quiet and breathless, almost as if he was in awe of how your body made room for him.

“Oh my god-” you cry out, your hands fisting in the dark sheets under your skin. “so fucking big joel..” you clench around him, body on fire with how good he felt inside you, with how perfect it was. It was like you were made to take him like this. His thrusts get faster and your legs curl around his waist, pulling him in as deep as you possibly could. The feeling of his hand pressing on your lower stomach has you arching your back into his touch.

“Perfect fucking thing,” he grits huskier than usual, with a thrust that knocks the air from your lungs. “Feel me peaches?” he thrusts into you again and presses on your tummy “right fuckin’ there.. Right where I god damn belong…” his words were lust filled and hazy, his own need and orgasm clouding all judgment. Your hips roll against his, the coarse hair brushing up against you, and your head lolls back into the mattress as his thrusts get sloppier.

“Inside, Joel fuck-” you whimper at him, eyes wide and pleading as your second orgasm builds in the pits of your belly “please cum inside me, wanna feel you please..” for a moment he swears he’s died and gone to heaven. The sounds of your pretty little moans and begging are like a dream come true for him. He just nodded and shifted so he was practically cradling your body under his, cock buried so deep inside you that you knew you’d be feeling it for days afterward.

He grinds his hips lazily against yours while his thrusts are shallow and pointed. Your legs shake while you meet his lips in a sloppy kiss, all tongue and teeth as you both fall apart practically molded together. “Jesus christ-” his breathing is ragged and hoarse “takin’ me so damn good, gonna fuckin’ fill you up” he gives a few more thrusts before he pulls out of your quivering pussy, your own orgasm sending stars into your eyes.

You both stay like that for a moment, Joel's forehead resting softly on your shoulder as his cum spills out onto his bed. You shift softly to pull him next to you and curl into his touch, giving him a cheeky smile as you tilt his face to meet your eyes. “You…” a breathless little laugh escapes your lips “how long did you know I was commenting on your posts?” you ask softly, brows raised at him.

He snorts at the question and flicks your forehead gently, earning a playful pout to be thrown in his direction. “Bout damn near two weeks ago” he replies, classic shit eating grin plastered to his face. “Figured it was you when you came over lookin’ like you’d won the damn Powerball and some little fan called peaches_and_cream left a comment about cummin’ three times to one damn post” you let out a muffled groan and bury your head into his chest, mumbling something about him being an asshole before you both shift into a comfortable silence.

He moves, patting your hip and telling you to go use the bathroom after a few minutes, preaching his favorite safe sex speech and you roll your eyes at him before you saunter over to his bathroom. “Oh and Joel-” you call out before you walk in, eyes meeting his as he waits for you to finish your sentence “send me that audio, would ya?”

A/N: From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free

READ: This account stands with Palestine unequivocally, and so— I require everyone who interacts to educate themselves, and support/donate. READ THESE; 1, HELP HERE, BOYCOTT. Silence is complicity, do not scroll past this.

DO NOT BUY THE REMASTER, TLOU2, TLOU1, OR ANY GAME FROM NAUGHTY DOG! neil druckmann (the creator) is a zionist.

PLEASE READ THIS. AND REBLOG THIS.

Thank you for reading, and free Palestine

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lanormie · 3 months ago

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blipped - mcu crossover au (pt. 6)

what if? the event of Thanos snap happened in the BNHA universe? you're forced to navigate the aftermath of The Blip, where half of the population get thrown back into existence after disappearing for five years. pairing: pro-hero!Shouto x f!pro-hero!reader (ft. slight katsuki x reader) read on AO3 previous part

Two months flew by, and the apartment search is going nowhere. The government has quickly seized up a large number of empty housings and facilities to turn them into temporary shelters, and now any new listing would immediately get scooped up as soon as they are posted, no matter the cost. Not like you or Shouto have time to stalk the market anyway, when crimes have been on a scary uptick for the past few weeks. Hawks has been apologetic about all the overtime, but you all know the world is far from peaceful.

An anti-nationalist group called The Flag Smashers has been on the rise. They’ve been gaining more and more followers everyday, vowing to restore the world order to how it was before the re-emergence.

A world without borders and patriotism. Even as a pro-hero, you can’t say you disagree. But when the line between ideology and violence blurs and innocent people get hurt, you refuse to stand by.

“Here’s the address of the juvenile shelter on 42nd, please tell Mandalay I said hi when you drop him off.”

You hand the piece of paper to the sidekick who just showed up for the night shift, then turn to the small frame that’s clinging to your belt like super glue, tiny hiccups escaping from behind the mop of unruly hair that conceals most of his face.

Even though you can’t make out his features, you can tell he’s just a kid. A kid who had no family left when he returned, a kid who met the wrong people and got swept up in doing the wrong things. He was a lookout for a store break-in when you finally intercepted the group, and the grown men he was with had no problem turning him into a bargaining chip.

Nothing you haven’t seen before, sadly.

The standoff ended pretty quickly, with the men hauled off to the authorities. Your decision of keeping the little one from getting sent to the youth detention center thankfully didn’t encounter much resistance.

Everybody is too busy to care.

You send him off with a promise to visit once you find time, then take off towards the agency, the short conversation you had with him playing in your head like a record.

“Miss," The little guy meekly muttered in between sniffles. “When will things go back to normal?”

When?

Will they go back to normal?

“I don’t have the answer to that, I’m sorry. But in the meantime we can make the best of our new normal.” You emphasized the last part, but for him or for you, you didn’t know.

And you still don’t. If making the best of your new normal is working yourself to the brink of collapsing then do it all over again the next day, you’re doing great.

As the agency rooftop comes into view, you glance at the clock on your phone. It’s 3:30 AM. Looks like the sleeping bag under your desk is your friend again tonight.

There’s a warm light coming from the small covered patio on one side of the rooftop, and your eyes zone in on the figure sprawled out on the hammock, an open book resting on top of their face. Red and white locks peek out from under the book, or more accurately, the manga volume, now that you’re closer to see it. Broad chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, the arms resting on it coming along for the ride. You chuckle to yourself as you land. Shouto really does sleep like a mummy.

You lightly tap on the manga volume before lifting a corner of it. “You didn’t go home?”

Shouto squints at you sleepily. “I just finished the report–” He pauses to yawn. “Report backlog. And we have a shift at 7, so I figured it wasn’t worth it. Plus,” He picks up the manga and tosses it onto the coffee table nearby. “This is surprisingly comfortable. Here, try it out.”

Shouto slightly scoots over and stretches out the fabric to make space.

You should’ve known how much of an ordeal it is to get into a hammock with another person already in it. It takes a lot of maneuvering not to fall directly on top of your friend, but in the end you still end up smushed against Shouto’s left side. Despite that, he was right, this is terribly comfy.

The stretchy fabric cocoons you in like a swaddle, the cool night breeze gently caresses your skin, which you don’t mind too much cause the heat emanating from Shouto is more than enough to ward off the chills.

“Ten out of ten.” You conclude, eyelids growing heavier. Maybe all that overtime is catching up to you.

* * * * *

“But they look so cute!”

“I don’t give a shit, they’re about to be late.”

The sound of aggressive whispers pulls you away from your dreamless slumber.

Daylight greets you through your eyelids, as you register a certain weight draped over your side and some humid warm breeze fanning your forehead. Your bleary eyes open to find yourself face to face with a white T-shirt covered broad chest, and it dawns on you. You and Shouto both fell asleep on the hammock last night.

Groggily tilting your head up, you find Shouto already awake. His dual colored eyes are focused elsewhere, indicating that he’s listening in on the whispering match happening behind him.

“I’m going to wake them up.”

“Wait, Touya no!”

The hushed tone does nothing to hide the very distinct voices of Hawks and Touya, clearly being at odds (as usual) about letting their employees snooze on premise.

Shouto finally notices your stirring, and the cool arm that was lazily resting on your side curls in ever so slightly.

“Wait.” He speaks, voice low enough for only you to hear. “I want to see if we stay still, they're going to let us sleep in.”

Soft as his murmuring is, it still reverberates through his chest and onto you, and you try your hardest not to squirm at the proximity. In your still-freshly-out-of-a-relationship brain, hugs are different from cuddles. Not that you’d ever shy away from your best friend who mostly shows his affection through non-verbal cues (the majority of them is touch), cuddling with someone who’s not your boyf–, well, ex-boyfriend, is some sort of line you haven’t brought yourself to cross.

It’s a sort of intimacy that you didn’t know you longed for until this very moment, but god if it isn’t intimidating at the same time. Like standing in the sand staring out at the azure of the ocean, its calm waves gently ebbing and flowing around your feet, urging you to follow them into the depth.

Should you let them lead you further into its water, when you know what drowning in a stormy sea feels like?

You look up at Shouto, and find the ocean staring back at you from his left eye.

Its serene surface seems to glitter under the cloudless sky, featherlight breeze nudging its ripples ashore.

It’s so, so different from the crashing ocean of molten lava you used to call home.

‘You okay?’ Shouto mouths the words, puzzled by the way your eyes are trained on him but your mind is clearly elsewhere. His hand presses gently on your back, his thumb patiently draws small circles atop your spine, letting you take your time coming down from whatever plane of existence you find yourself on.

The world comes back into focus as you mutter an unconvincing ‘yeah’. As Shouto searches your face for the real answer, the bickering between Hawks and Touya is getting louder.

“Look how cozy they are!”

“Oh yeah? Cozy huh?” Touya then amps up his volume, like he really wants you two to hear this last part. “Cozy on the same hammock you got a blowjob on last week?”

You’ve never flown away from anything so fast.

Looking down, you catch a glimpse of Shouto scrambling off the apparently tainted fabric with a huffed ‘nope’, before you both turn towards Touya, who’s now doubling over in laughter, one arm holding on to a mortified Hawks and the other clutching his stomach.

“For the record,” Hawks exasperatedly yanks Touya’s collar like a momma cat to set the silver haired man upright. “He was just saying that to get a reaction out of you.”

“You knew we were awake the whole time?” You land back down in front of the two intruders.

“Uh, yeah. Birdy didn’t have these for nothing.” Touya reaches back to pluck a wonky looking feather out of Hawks’ wings and waves it in your face.

You can see Hawks visibly fights back a shudder. For a former spy, he sure seems to lose the grip on his reactions a lot when it comes to Touya. You decide to file the thought away to investigate later.

“Why were you two brats canoodling up here anyway?”

You sputter a barely audible ‘were not’ while Shouto finally approaches you three.

“We came off our shifts late last night. Going home would take too long.”

“It’s not the first time we’ve slept over at work.” You shrug, with a concurring nod from Shouto. “I’ll stick to my sleeping bag next time though, the blowjob hammock–”

“It’s not–” Hawks starts to protest.

“The Schrodinger blowjob hammock is all yours.” You cut him off, not entirely convinced by either of them.

“No luck on the apartment hunt?” Touya finally pipes down once you’ve mentioned your sleeping bag. He disguises it well, but some remnants of concern still slip through in his voice.

“Not in this area.” Shouto shakes his head.

“Not even studios? I mean by the look of it y’all have no problem sharing a bed.” Touya smirks, his teasing lilt creeping back in.

“Touya, can you not?” You frown, warning him to knock it off.

A faint wave of heat hits your side for a brief second before disappearing completely. You turn toward it but you’re met with nothing, just Shouto scratching lightly at his left arm. The poor guy must’ve got some bug bites last night.

“Hey, Touya…” Hawks quietly calls out to the blue flame user.

Touya turns to look at the winged man and seems to immediately recognize the look in his eyes. They proceed to have a back and forth exclusively through eye contact and unreadable facial expressions for about a minute long before Touya rolls his eyes and concedes.

He grumbles something about the blond's ‘bleeding heart’ then gestures to his feathered roommate(?) to go ahead, to which Hawks mouths a quick ‘thank you’ before turning to you and Shouto.

“You guys can come live with us while you look!” He chirps a little too excitedly, before reeling it back. “If you want to, of course. We have a spare bedroom and an office that we rarely use, and it’s only five minutes from here.”

Five minutes of commute is a dream. You’d be sad to part with Fuyumi’s cooking, but some extra hours of sleep every night sounds downright heavenly. You’d be foolish to refuse.

You look over to Shouto. “I’m down, you?”

“Likewise.” He nods, mind already made up since the moment you perked up at Hawks’ offer.

“Well, you’d better be.” Touya looks up from his phone. “Cause I already told my assistant to print some spare keys.”

* * * * *

Patrol is surprisingly slow today. Even evil is somewhat thwarted by inclement weather, you think. The rain spell has been unkind, thunder haunting the heavy grey sky above. You opt to walk, not taking the chance with the stray bolts that stretch the heavens every few minutes or so. You’ve been zapped by Denki before, while he was doing a Thor bit, and you’re not in a rush to experience it again.

The hood of your costume is waterproof, but it doesn’t help much since the frigid and earthy droplets of rain are coming from all directions, hitting your face like toy gun pellets and leaving a sheen of dripping water on your hair.

Step by soggy step, you trudge through the unusually barren streets. There’s only two minutes left on the clock when you hear the sound of water rushing gets louder and louder. You press forward, until you literally can’t hear anything else.

The man made waterfall at the entrance of the Memorial Park greets you, in all its deafening glory. You heard it was supposed to represent the flow of time as people move forward, or something like that. The flow of time seems obscenely intrusive, you think.

You head into the park, and you realize this is the first time you’ve stepped foot in here. Usually you would observe it from above, the long rows of dark granite looking like dots as you pass by. But now that you’re here, the maze of stone columns dwarf you, standing at least eight feet high. Rows and rows of letters are etched onto them, spelling out what must be millions of names in alphabetical order.

Names of those who disappeared during the Blip.

You carefully scale the letters, searching. People must have started coming here and crossing their name out, as you find multiple names with different levels of chicken scratch lines over them. Withering bouquets lay along the path, water pooling on their plastic wrapping.

All of the sudden, the rain stops pelting you, as the shadow of an umbrella appears above your head. Turning to find its owner, you come face to face with a pair of crimson eyes.

“It’s over there.” He tilts his head toward the north side of the park, and starts walking. You wordlessly follow.

You fall into steps with the man you’ve been trying to avoid for the past couple of months, and you mentally clutch your wound, praying it doesn’t reopen.

Katsuki is wearing civilian clothes, simple joggers and a plain tee shirt and some rain boots. On the hand he’s holding the umbrella with, a silver band decorates his ring finger. You have to physically tear your eyes from the sight.

He traverses the maze of stone like a seasoned navigator, knowing exactly where to turn and how many steps to take. Soon enough, you both stop in front of what you’re looking for.

It doesn’t take you long to find your name. It’s at eye level, and you feel like it’s staring right back at you. Katsuki too, is peering at you through the faint reflection on the stone.

“I um…” He clears his throat. “I can find you a rock, or something. So you can scratch it out.”

“You’re encouraging vandalism now?” You look back at him through the reflection and joke, though it’s humorless.

“It’s a grave for the living.” He shrugs. “’s lost its meaning.”

“You know, the last time someone was talking in symbolism, you gave them shit for it.”

He’s quiet for a moment, before saying. “That was five years ago.”

Upon hearing his reply, you turn to look at him. Not through a grainy or blurry reflection. Not distorted by relief or rage or frustration. Truly, truly look at him this time.

The silhouette of the Katsuki you know is still firmly there, but like colors that bleed over the line, there are parts you no longer recognize. You’re reminded again that five years of layers have been added to the puzzle that is Katsuki, the puzzle you had a hand in breaking apart.

Did he heal alone? Or did his new lover help put the pieces back together?

You watch the fissure between you and him grow wider, and you desperately want to latch on to the other side and hold it close.

But you can’t. You’re too late. You’d fall into the crack if you keep trying to hold on.

“I think I’ll leave it be for now.” You turn your gaze back to the letters in front of you.

It’s a grave after all, and some parts of you did die. Perhaps when you’re not in mourning anymore, you’ll come back and scrape it away from existence.

Perhaps one day.

#todoroki shouto #shoto todoroki #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki x reader #shoto x reader #shouto x reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugou x reader #mha #bnha #mha x reader #bnha x reader #hawks #keigo takami #dabi #touya todoroki #mcu

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triviallytrue · 9 months ago

Note

I know webnovels are kind of irrelevant compared to... everything else, but do you have any recommendations in the vein of those you've talked about/posted before?

I'm currently caught up on Pale Lights and TWI, and I'm trying to fill out my schedule to one new chapter a week without resorting to catching up on wildbow's work, or rereading Practical Guide until aforementioned have a backlog. Completed works are fine as well.

Here's my full webserial opinions list, with the general caveat that webserials are, on average, longer, more poorly paced, and less polished than print novels, and if you aren't hooked pretty early on you should probably drop it:

Finished or currently caught up:

A Practical Guide to Evil

The gold standard of the medium imo, definitely my favorite. It has its flaws like any other, but I feel more comfortable recommending it than most.

Pale Lights

PGTE's author's new work. Still in progress, imo has even more going for it than PGTE does. The setting is more original and the shape of the plot plays to the author's strengths more. Very fun first book, maybe my first recommendation.

Worm

The experience of reading Worm is not very good, but the experience of having read Worm is great. Incredibly compelling story with shitty execution. Is it worth it? I dunno.

HPMOR

The 2% of people who won't find HPMOR too insufferable to read have already read it. Everyone else, steer clear.

UNSONG

Both short and polished by web serial standards. Weird, irreverent, mostly gets better as it goes. Some people will be put off by it, but if you like the first few chapters I think it's excellent.

Did not finish:

Ward

The sequel to Worm. Ward has all of the same issues as Worm with none of the redeeming qualities. Even if you really liked Worm, you still probably shouldn't read Ward.

Pale

By the same author as Worm and Ward, and (I think?) generally considered to be his best work (or best since Worm). I liked it but ended up petering out partway through - it's long even by webserial standards. Will probably pick it up again someday.

The Wandering Inn

I think the longest work of fiction in the English language? Or maybe any language? In a medium full of prolific authors, pirateaba puts them all to shame. Surprisingly decent, but nowhere near good enough to justify its length.

Almost Nowhere

Deeply weird, incredibly compelling, dense enough that I got stuck when I was trying to power through it. Will return to it sooner or later.

Are there more? There's definitely more. But this is off the top of my head, and most of the rest is schlock that is not worth mentioning.

#dunno how helpful this actually is

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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months ago

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Uplinkchump Linkdump

On June 20, I'm keynoting the LOCUS AWARDS in OAKLAND.

It's Linkdump Saturday! This is the day on which I clear the giant backlog of links from the previous week that I haven't managed to post in my newsletter's "Hey look at this" sections. This is my 19th linkdump; here's the previous 18 dumps:

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

Let's start with some fun and games. Liam is a high-schooler who created "Bad Plumbing," a Jenga-style boardgame using a variety of 3D printed shapes; the game was a smash hit at his local game-jam, so now he's kickstarting it:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/liamclift/bad-plumbing

The shapes are delightful and Seussian, and there's a very ingenious game dynamic that's not just "make the pile bigger." You can pre-order for $30, and for $100, you'll get a version with a custom-designed shape of your specification. I backed!

It's lovely to see something that's both excellent and delightful, but to be honest, the majority of this week's links are excellent and enraging. Most of these links from The American Prospect, which has, under David Dayen's executive leadership, gone from "a magazine I really like" to "the first thing I read every day."

This week saw a the Prospect publish a stunning series of articles on prices, a sacred object for neoliberal economists, who see them as the carriers of the information that allows society to order itself for maximum efficiency and broadest benefit. Unfortunately for these economists, the love-affair with prices is one-sided: they may love prices, but prices hate neoliberalism.

The dogma that says that any government interference in pricing will destroy the economy by "distorting" prices does not survive contact with reality. The instant the government steps away from regulating monopoly, and its handmaiden, fraud, prices go batshit crazy.

This week's Pluralistic newsletters were dominated by this brilliant series in the Prospect. On Wednesday, I wrote about the Prospect's investigations into algorithmic and surveillance pricing:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

And yesterday, it was the epidemic of junk fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/07/drip-drip-drip/#drip-off

There's more than I could fit into the newsletter, though, like Friday's excellent piece on the scourge of surge pricing by Sarah Jaffe:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-07-urge-to-surge/

Jaffe's piece was especially interesting given economist Ramsi Woodcock's compelling case that surge pricing is a per se violation of antitrust law:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/26/aggregate-demand/#pure-transfer

The Prospect series was so timely. After decades of pricing orthodoxy, economists like Isabella Weber are making huge waves (and attracting a tsunami of abuse). Weber's interview with Vass Bednar on the Globe and Mail's Lately podcast this week is a must-listen:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/lately/article-the-millennial-economist-who-took-on-the-world/

(Though if you get your econ ideas from the New York Times, you'd miss this whole revolution, as the Grey Lady's views on prices remain mired in the Reagan era:)

https://twitter.com/HalSinger/status/1798849195664916648

Few prices are more important than the price of the roof over your head – after all, "shelter" is only second to "food" in the hierarchy of needs. Dayen's Friday story for the Prospect in NIMBYism gets to the crux of the cost-of-living crisis: people who own houses want houses to be expensive, and will go to enormous lengths to make sure that shelter costs as much as possible:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-06-07-homeowners-want-housing-prices-to-go-up/

Dayen attributes this to "the wealth effect" – that is, most people would like to be richer, and the minority of Americans who have a positive net worth owe that status to rising house prices, and the plurality of Americans who have a negative net worth thanks to a mortgage are counting on rising house prices to flip them into the black.

When America threw off the Gilded Age, we charted two courses to prosperity for working people: labor unions and home ownership. The ruling class cannily convinced us to rely solely on the latter. The housing emergency raging across the country is the inevitable result of that decision:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

The Prospect's consistent brilliance isn't merely an editorial matter, of course. The magazine features a recurring cast of some of the best muckraking writers in the field, and the absolute peak of that impressive pile is Maureen Tkacik. Tkacik's work on Boeing is stunning:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa

Her labor coverage is second to none:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

And no one writes better than her about private equity:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

I am in pure awe of Tkacik's prolific and expert work. So when I read her piece on Long Covid in the Prospect this week, I was stunned to learn that she has been severely disabled by this heavily downplayed – but rampant – chronic illness:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-06-06-nih-perpetuating-long-covid-denial/

The fact that Tkacik is doing this career-defining, high-frequency work while being randomly smashed by a series of acute Long Covid incidents makes her achievements nothing sort of heroic. But Tkacik's Long Covid coverage isn't a lament for her personal situation – it's a characteristically brilliant investigative story about the systematic cover-up of Long Covid by the NIH, which has a long history of dismissing inconvenient illnesses as psychosomatic, from black lung to chronic fatigue.

Tkacik's Long Covid coverage adds yet another subject where I'm learning more from the Prospect than from other sources – part of a host of issues where the magazine leads the pack. An issue far more squarely in its wheelhouse is antitrust, especially the intersection of antitrust and labor rights.

This week, I eagerly devoured Luke Goldstein's story about the latest in a series of lies that Amazon executives were caught making to the US government:

https://prospect.org/labor/2024-06-06-senators-allege-amazon-lied-delivery-drivers/

You may recall when Jeff Bezos lied to Congress, claiming that the company didn't spy on its sellers and clone their best products:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58961836

Or when Amazon posted a lying rebuttal to a Congressman who objected to its drivers being forced to pee in bottles in order to meet its punishing schedules:

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/policy-news-views/our-recent-response-to-representative-pocan

The latest lie: Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy lied to the Senate about the company's relationship to its drivers, whom it insists are "independent contractors" because they are hired through cutouts called "Delivery Service Providers":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

These drivers work for Amazon. It dictates their working conditions. It installs cameras that watch their eyeballs while they drive. It enforces an illegal "no poach" system that fixes their wages. And it lies about all this. To the Senate.

You know what they say, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. Tech barons go through life in a warm bath of their own bullshit, surrounded by lackeys who are contractually prohibited from calling them on it. They forget that there are people out there in the world who won't offer them this deference – including lawmakers and regulators.

That's why Facebook lied to the FCC when they bought Instagram, withholding key information in order to secure regulatory permission for the merger:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ftc-claims-facebook-withheld-information-152834983.html

After decades of inattention, the world's governments have discovered a newfound energy for busting trusts and smashing corporate power. Five years ago, it looked like maybe this was a fixup by Big Cable or Big Content to take Big Tech off the board so they could claim more dominion over our lives:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/04/why-is-there-so-much-antitrust-energy-for-big-tech-but-not-for-big-telco/

Today, every sector is coming in for antitrust scrutiny, and the tempo is only increasing. Just this week, the FTC and DOJ opened investigations into Microsoft, Openai, and Nvidia:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/6/24172868/ftc-doj-antitrust-openai-microsoft-nvidia-investigations

Yeah, there's still a lot of policy focus on tech, but that's because tech has extended its tendrils into every area of policy. That's the end-point of a decades-long process of tech going from sitting alongside important policy questions to being inseparable from them. I've had a front-row seat for that transformation, through my work with EFF, whose brief just keeps expanding as tech infuses every aspect of our lives and rights.

The latest example; EFF's "Surveillance Defense for Campus Protests" by Rory Mir, Thorin Klosowski and Christian Romero:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/surveillance-defense-campus-protests

The military has gone all-in on electronic surveillance, and campuses have gone all-in on militarized policing, so campuses are now sites of electronic warfare, and protesters are vastly overmatched. This is an excellent and timely guide.

Well, this is where this week's linkdump comes to an end. It only falls to me to send you off with one last week: Libro.fm's buy-one/get-one sale on DRM-free audiobooks, with a share of each sale going to an indie bookstore of your choosing! This is a heckin deal, and a great way to start weaning yourself off of the Audible monopoly (also, my latest novel The Bezzle, is in the sale):

https://libro.fm/bogo

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/2024/06/08/medley/#the-prospect

Image: Cjp24 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Automobiles_in_a_french_junkyard.jpg

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

#pluralistic

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thelibraryoferebor · 2 months ago

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Rarepairs for When You Wanna Switch it Up

Woah, it's been a while since I posted, but I still haven't stopped reading tolkienverse fics, so I have a large backlog of fics to recommend. It's just the matter of getting them on a list and to you guys that's the trick...For your sanity I encourage you to consider this blog all but retired, even though I am going to try to get out the lists that I've had in the works for a while.

This list is basically what it says: rarepairs. Except, rarepair doesn't actually mean that the pairings are all that rare, just that the central pairing isn't Thilbo, Gigolas, or Barduil, since that's what I recommend the most of!

Enjoy!

Spaces Between Us by Linguistic Jubilee

|| general - 7.9k - completed - Di/D ||

Thorin pauses. “You have to understand that what I am about to say is so uncomfortable for me that I would almost rather fight the white orc again than continue, but. Dis. You must be blind if you cannot see that Dwalin stares at you the way you stare at him.”

Notes: Ok. So. I love Dis/Dwalin so much. Like I'm not even sure entirely why, but I adore it. This fic especially kinda like encapsulates all the lovely feels of the two of them and I think does really well by both characters and is just so worth reading. Even if you're initially iffy on the ship idea, give it a shot, you won't regret it. Also, mayhaps be looking at a whole Dis/Dwalin post in the future.

In Loving You With My Whole Heart by Lapin

|| teen - 11.3k - completed - F/O ||

After the song comes on the radio, Ori is determined not to forgive Fíli. But it's not the first song Fíli has written about him, and it likely won't be the last.

Rock Band AU

Notes: This fic guys. It's just. So cute. And I love the Ori centric POV. It's desperately romantic and angsty all at the same time. I want more.

Fear and Family (Or, the One Where Kíli Is the Sensible One) by Lumeleo

|| general - 43.7k - completed - F/O;K/Ta;T/B ||

After the Battle of Five Armies, Bilbo isn't sure of his welcome in the mountain, and thus returns to the Shire as soon as he can. Somewhat to his surprise, Ori goes with him -- but it turns out Ori has his own reasons for leaving Erebor behind. Well, Bilbo's quite used to being the talk of the Shire.

The line of Durin might suffer of thick skulls, but fortunately Kíli is less stubborn than his uncle and brother, and decides to fix things, even if that means taking his newlywed wife for a ride all the way to the Shire and beyond. Of course, he doesn't yet know what he'll see there -- but he does know how to fix things. Even if it means giving up his claim to the throne.

(Let's not kid ourselves -- that's his favourite part.)

Notes: This is a bit of a fandom classic, tbh. I think that Kili is, tbh, the best part of this fic. He's so fun to read and I love the relationship between him and Tauriel (ofc) but also between him and Ori and Bilbo. The bond between Bilbo and Ori is also perfection.

One Hit by littlebrownshoe (Wolfy_Tales)

|| general - 7.9k - completed - D/O ||

Dwalin was so busy making sure Thorin understood the gifts Bilbo graced the king with that he did not give much time to think over the items Ori gave him. It took the scribe giving Dawlin a punch to get him to finally realize.

Notes: Awww, Dwalin. That's how I felt for most of the fic, though sometimes it became an arghhh Dwalin instead. Definitely worth reading.

Settling Down by Shay_Moonsilk

|| general - 1.8k - completed - F/O;D/N ||

Dori wants his brothers to settle down with a nice dwarf, but will he like the ones they chose?

Spoiler: Yes he does.

Notes: DORI!! He's so cool. So protective. So traumatized. I love him. And how much he cares for his brothers. Their relationship is explored and discussed in such a lovely way in this fic and I <333333 it.

I’ve Been Looking for You by Resacon1990

|| teen - 28k - completed - D/O;T/B;D/N;Bo/N ||

It starts on the wrist when you're young. The first words your soulmate will ever say to you are tattooed in a colour, red, green, yellow, blue, any colour each with their own meaning, and the day they're said and the moment you touch your soulmate is the moment they travel up to settle on your forearm.

Five stories, five different bonds, five endings.

Notes: This fic I read a long time ago, but I remember enjoying. I believe that it follows each pair in it's own chapter which is cool. But it also has a lot of interesting discussions about soulmates and almost the impracticality (???) of it, or the ways in which the system is imperfect.

A Perfect Match by Chamelaucium

|| general - 38.4k - completed - D/O;Bo/N;T/B ||

Bilbo tries his hand at match-making. What he doesn't expect is to find his perfect match in the process...

Notes: This is a classic trope. Almost the reverse of the Dwalin trying to get Bilbo and Thorin together fic from above. Def worth your time, a sweet little thing that just makes you feel fluffy.

In Carven Oak by bubbysbub

|| not rated - 26.3k - completed - T/B/D ||

It's Yule time when Bilbo arrives back in the Shire- with a host of Dwarrow at his back, the sentimental lugs. Except now the assorted Aunts and Uncles have gotten quite the wrong idea in their excited interrogation, and he's stuck pretending that he's married a few of the hairy fellows.

If he could just get through the assorted required Baggins and Took social events without outing himself as a complete fibber or drunkenly attempting to kiss Dwalin and Thorin under the mistletoe, it may just be a Yule miracle.

Another attempt at writing a common trope fic that went completely off the rails.

Notes: Ok so I know this is still technically Thilbo, but it also includes Dwalin who is epic. I really love how casually the polyamory is treated in this and I think that it is a great introduction to polyamorous ships in fanfiction if you're curious about it.

Heavy with Many Burdens by moonbeam (luvsbitca)

|| mature - 39.8k - completed - D/O;T/B ||

Bilbo leaves Thorin and the company following Thorin’s words before the BoTFA unaware that he is taking more from their relationship than a broken heart. Months later Dwalin finds Bilbo in need of help in the Shire when he is delivering Bilbo’s share of the treasure. He remains in the Shire unaware that he is leaving Ori behind in a precarious situation.

Notes: This is such a sweet fic with Dwalin and Bilbo's relationship especially feeling particularly special. Poor Ori and Thorin, though. It all ends well in the end, though!

Back in My Right Place by frodomybeloved (rosequartzstars)

|| general - 11.2k - completed - Fr/S;T/B ||

When Frodo is sick in time for Bilbo and Thorin's visit from Erebor, they spend an evening watching over him, along with a presence that has never left his side: Sam Gamgee. It is Sam who finally puts Frodo on the road to recovery with the unlikeliest of remedies— a kiss.

Eleven years later, Frodo is recovering at Rivendell, after being mortally wounded by the Witch King at Weathertop. He has been asleep for three nights, and already Sam fears he might never awaken. But when all looks dire, the same cure might be the thing to restore Frodo to life.

A story of two parallel evenings, years apart, created from art by YamBits (#98) for the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2021.

Notes: One extended word: awwwwwww.

#bagginshield #bilbo baggins #fic rec #fics #gay #lgbtq #tolkien #hobbit #lord of the rings

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jennyeverywhereday · 3 months ago

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A Special Announcement

Hi guys. Jenny here.

I know — crazy, right? It's not usually me doing these. Spoils the fun, doesn't it? Like hosting your own birthday party. Then again, I've done that. But the point is, there's something I've got to tell you.

Gosh, I don't know where to begin. Change… It's scary, right? Even for a girl like me who's always changing, story to story, world to world.

The short version, I guess, is… I've got a new guy looking after my affairs in this dimension. Bit stuffy, that phrase, but it'll do. Look, this website you're on right now, jennyeverywhereday.com… it used to be run by this bloke I know, Benj. Benj Christensen. The coolest, sweetest guy. He used to make comics about me. I love all my biographers, in every dimension — talk about making a girl feel special! — but he was proper special. Is proper special; he's not dead or anything, don't worry.

Every August 13th, he'd work day and night to collect all your artwork and stories about me, and keep it all organized. Fifteen years he did this. Fifteen. Years. Like I said, proper special.

But everything has its time, even things that go on forever. It comes and goes, waxes and wanes. Last year's JED didn't go quite as planned. After a day's worth of wonderful posts, Benj went to bed and then he never logged back on. Don't worry, he's alright, but… bit of the ol'burnout. Happens to the best of us. I'd never want any of you guys to wear yourselves out in my name.

Benj is better now, but it showed him… it was time. Time to pass the torch. Maybe you'll see him again around here, as an artist, just one more volunteer. I hope so. And you can still say hi. But he'd done his time running this place all by himself.

Hence — the new guy.

Don't worry, he's not dead either. That's just how he draws himself. A skeleton with glasses, wearing a top hat. He couldn't tell me why; he just does that. (You'll be happy to know he does at least own a top hat, but even then, he doesn't wear it much.)

He goes by Aristide Twain, and he's written an awful lot about me, too. Especially that me who's moved in with the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids. Though he insisted I tell you that in his own opinion, he's not nearly as good at drawing me as Benj was. And he's also in charge of the Jenny Everywhere Wiki, so at this point, it's fair to say I'm all over his resume.

But hey, you'll get to know him soon enough, if you don't already. Just look at him go! He's already been doing some refurbishing around here, spiffing up the FAQs and whatnot. I have an index now! Love an index. It's why I've got two on my hands. Right after you see this message, he'll be running through the backlog from the 2024 JED that halfway-wasn't; better late than never, I always say, especially when you've got infinity ahead of you.

And next August — that sounds so far away, doesn't it? but mark my words, it'll creep up on you — next August, he'll be the one running the sixteenth edition of this lovely little holiday you guys made up about me. Hopefully the first of many, many more, just so long as no one blows up the Earth.

For now, let's say goodbye to Benj, with honor, thanks, and love. There's something fitting about his final transmission, even though he didn't know that's what he was writing. I'd like you to read it again, now. Especially this bit:

I wanted to say a few things before I go. Firstly thank you to everyone who submitted this year. I really appreciate all the interest in our little Jenny and I’m so happy that she’s still out there getting in scraps.

Oh, and also that bit:

Again, thank you to everyone who submitted. You are literally what makes this event possible and I couldn’t keep it going without you.

Right back at ya, Benj! Enjoy your rest; you've earned it!

Shifter, out!

#2024 #Aristide Twain #Benj Christensen #Jenny Everywhere #Jenny Everywhere Day #jennyeverywhereday

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silkmoon777 · 1 year ago

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Dove | Simon "Ghost" Riley

A/N: Hello lovely people, I have a backlog of short stories written for things like Avatar: The Way of Water, MWII, Stranger Things, The Arcana, Outer Banks, and many more that I have never posted and keep to myself. I'm talking hundreds of pages worth of fluff, angst and eventual smut - you've got to get through some plot first, though. HOWEVER, if anyone likes my writing and wants to task me with stuff to write, like straight smut, I'm all ears. Anyway, if anyone is interested in reading stuff I could potentially post, here is a snippet for a little Call of Duty fic.

Synopsis: You're to play the materialistic wife of a rich, well-connected husband during an undercover mission. You're to-be husband is a temporary recruit of the 141, who is to supervise your every move. While getting ready, you have a surprising interaction with your Lieutenant, Ghost, who you swear has made it his mission to treat you like a stranger day after day. Until now.

Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x f!reader

Contains: pretty much nothing of importance, just Ghost being as unreadable as ever, causing reader to have their mind blown by the smallest of crumbs

• • • • •

I look in the mirror at the woman who is supposed to be Lyanna Winstead. She’s the partner of Dario Winstead, son of a wealthy businessman. Everything about Lyanna is a carbon copy of myself. Her smile, her hair, her figure, her voice. Only, she presents herself in a way I haven’t in a long time.

Gone is the tactical gear and camouflage colours. Instead, she wears the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. The outline of the dress is simple yet captivating to suits the old Hollywood theme. Silver cascades down her body, creating the illusion of a mercury waterfall. The sweetheart neckline and thin straps compliment her full breasts and soft arms. Adorning the bodice are glistening silver designs that remind me of old, swirling boarders on French mirrors. The designs fall away, melting into plain silver threads that fall to the floor and pool at her feet. The dress hugs her body like a second skin, only melting away at her knees. The silhouette fit her hourglass figure well.

The silver jewellery she wears is modest so as not to take away from the dress’s magnificence. On her neck is a dainty Vivienne Westwood necklace, the inner planet of the pendant a pearl. Matching dangling earrings hang from her lower lobe piercing. The rest of her ear piercings are small diamond studs and silver hoops. One wrist displays a thin diamond tennis bracelet and a Van Cleef one with emerald clovers. On the other is the only ode to myself: the evil eye bracelet I never take off. The thin silver chain and bejewelled eye thankfully blend into the rest of the accessories. Small rings cover her fingers, few in number and easily ignorable. The bands are thin and any jewels are small and clear. However, one stands out; a breathtaking sight on her left index finger.

Glittery diamonds cover the band, giving way to a large, circular moonstone. Rainbow shimmer comes to life in the milky stone when the light hits it just right. Separating the band and the centrepiece are two small flowers with diamond centres. Two separate rings sit beneath and below the main one, shaped in V’s to follow the curve. At each point are flowers similar the the others, with curved leaves flowing from the petals. All three are gold, contrasting against the silver to make a statement.

I’m not just looking back at Dario’s partner. I’m looking at his wife.

I’m Will’s wife.

Fake wife, really. I nearly shake my head in wonder. I still look like myself, but everything about this makes me feel like I’m wearing a second skin. Lyanna’s skin. Every so often I stare at the ring in amazement. If anyone ever proposes to me, I would hope for nothing less than the magnificent that is this ring. All that adorns my body is courtesy of Will. Unbeknownst to me before this mission, he’s filthy rich, and a filthy rich man needs a filthy rich wife. All the designer jewellery, the dress, the shoes, and the engagement ring are authentic and top dollar.

After the last touch-ups of make-up, fragrances, and hair, I’m making my way to the courtyard. I’m to have one last briefing and run over of the plan before getting in Will’s blacked-out Corvette. I have to give it to him: he really knows how to pull off a lavish life with style.

Already am I wishing to rip off the damn stilettos on my feet. While I could live in the dress and jewellery, this is the one day a year I’m willing to wear heels.

The air is cool, the last golden light of day painting the courtyard and walls of Alejandro’s HQ in a luminescent glow. A low rumble fills the air from my 'husband’s car. Will leans against it, speaking with the 141. Ghost lingers back by the front door, arms folded and back leaning against a pillar. Weaving between his fingers with precision is a small dagger. His head turns at the sound of approaching heels.

“Was starting to think you were a no show,” he says gruffly.

I stop beside him to adjust my dress. It doesn’t really need adjust, but suddenly being subjected to his gaze makes me anxious. “Told you it would take a while. Gotta look the part.”

The way his eyes travel over my body almost makes me shrink away. Every curve is on full display. The tight bodice holds up my already full breasts, and somehow my waist-to-hip ratio is even more accentuated. Wearing my uniform doesn’t exactly hide my figure thanks to the tight shirts and cargo pants that aren’t exactly loose from my mid-thigh up. However, a lot of me is lost beneath the vests and belts.

“Stop...inspecting me, or whatever you're doing,” I mumble. “Makes me think I need to fix something.”

I begin taking the skirts in my hand as I survey my descent. It’s not too much, but the steps are steep enough to be an issue. The heels on my feet are no help.

Ghost shakes his head. “Don’t. You look…”

“Important?”

“Pretty.”

I stop in my tracks to look back at him, unsure if I heard him correctly. He doesn’t look away or seem embarrassed to have said so. Then again, when does he ever. No-nonsense and prideful in his emotionless character, Ghost is not one to regret his words. Everything he says is a calculated move. Compliments are certainly something to be calculated in a sense, but I don't think of it to be a compliment, even when a small part of me screams for more. I'm playing my part well; there'd be a problem if I wasn't looking pretty. A slow smile quirks at my lips, teasing in nature as I raise my brows. The teasing turns to surprise, however, when he offers me his arm.

“How chivalrous,” I quip as I lightly take his offered arm. Even the slightest contact sends thrills beneath my skin. “Careful, Lieutenant. I might start to think you actually like me.”

Ghost’s eyes train on the ground. At first, I wonder if he doesn’t want to meet my eyes, only then to realise he’s watching my footing. I barely catch a glimpse of his squint.

“I like you in one piece,” he corrects. “This job will be over the second you sprain your ankle on a flight of stairs.”

I hum. “Ahh, there it is.”

He looks up at me then. “There’s what?”

“Thinking about the job, as always.”

As always, I keep my tone light and teasing, but there's an accusing hint. A subtle jab I let slip that I pray goes unnoticed.

There's no room for emotions in this job, and though I've compromised that with the rest of the 141, Ghost is a difficult case. An impossible riddle, a mind-numbing equation with no real answer. Nothing about him should be likeable. He's painfully honest and dismissive when he bothers to speak, he's angry half the time, his attention is never lingering and his mind is an impenetrable fortress. It would make more sense to give in to Alejandro's shameless flirting or Gaz's sleazy grins. Only, it's Ghost that keeps me up at night. It's Ghost, who sends a pang through my chest when he reminds me any care is from pure investment in performance. I'm useful, nothing more.

I can count on one hand the number of times he's thrown me small morsels of care as if I were a stray dog whining and begging for food. Even then, I wouldn't have made it past three fingers. A greedy piece of me spins those memories into something that serves my desire. See, he's returning your interest, that hopeful voice purrs in my ear while feeding me botched versions of what really happened. I know better than to give in to the delusions. The ending of those memories is what sobers me, and it's no different now. I need you in shape for tomorrow. Keep your head in the game. I'm just making sure this isn't interrupting the job. He's always quick to redirect any concern from me to the job.

Maybe, just maybe...what if he was trying to save face? Does he not want to care?

Ghost remains silent for a moment. In consideration or because he doesn’t care to answer, I can’t tell. But when he does answer, his voice has my full attention. It’s low and rough, each syllable laced with something intoxicating. Something I've never heard before and never thought I would hear. Something I want to hear again and again.

“You have no idea what I think about, dove.”

Dove.

The response catches me so off guard I almost forget to take another step. We’ve reached the bottom of the steps, now. The second both my feet are on the flat expanse of the concrete driveway, he breaks away from our linked arms. There is no follow-up, no hint of a miscommunication, not even a look in my direction before he's gone from my side. All I can do is hesitantly trail behind him, lost in my thoughts.

Ghost has never given me a nickname before. Hell, he barely refers to me as anything other than my callsign. When I do hear my real name, it's never for good reasons.

The nickname that pours from his lips comes in a deep voice curled into a sensual tone, sounding like silk-covered marble, low and intended for my ears only. It's strangely intimate—something a lover would purr with lustful eyes and a seeking touch. Somehow it seems to invoke a phantom touch that glides across my skin. Gooseflesh puckers in its chilling wake. In the span of only a few seconds, I seem to experience every emotion humanly possible. Shock, surprise, a sickening, perverse enjoyment...and irritation that I must now join the rest of the team as if a mind-numbing heat was not boiling in the pits of my stomach

• • • • •

I'll get the formatting of posting these to be prettier btw I promise 🙏🙏 But anyway just interact with this or tell me directly if you want more.

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spurious · 1 year ago

Note

Your McShep fics are giving me life. I'm CRAVING McShep content recently - its so hard to discover a love for old fandoms that are now less active! Please send me all the great other McShep fics you stumble across, I've burned my way through your whole library

Oh my goodness!!!! This ask plus the one from a few weeks ago are really telling me I need to get back to doing fic rec posts regularly!!!!!

First of all thank you so much for your kind words about my fic 💖💖💖💖 honestly for me SGA fandom feels soooo active, even though I know it was an actual juggernaut back in the day lmao. BUT that means that there’s a MASSIVE backlog of stuff to read!!!! Just insane amounts of staggeringly good fics!!!!

And second of all you can check all my previous rec posts here: the tag is sometimes ficlets I’ve reblogged but also lots of links and lists in there!!

ANYWAY. Let me see if I can rustle up some new recs for you my friend! I have a couple of unposted recs in my notes so we’ll pop those in first:

Five People Who Know by hestia_lacey | ~4k, rated E

Five people who know exactly how John Sheppard feels about Rodney McKay.

Only read this if you’re prepared to have your heart stomped on, but ahhhhhhhh. The first part, with Jeannie, is definitely my favorite.

Wishes on a Wheel by waterfalliam | ~3.2k, rated T

The sun is gentle, faintly wrong against his skin. The wind whispers against his arms and neck that he’s alive and that counts for something, he’s never wholly alone, he still has himself—but it’s nothing like the sea breeze that feels like home.

Absolutely beautifully sad introspective Epiphany!John piece, dealing with his depression and feelings of abandonment, with a sweet ending 💖

Solitary by @esteefee | ~5k, rated M

Four days in solitary gives a guy time to think. Unless he's an idiot.

Aggggh the John voice in this is immaculate (as is to be expected from esteefee ofc). Sardonically funny with a soft and chewy emotional core that just...takes a little time and a little chipping away at to get to. But, you know, worth it.

Followed by two faves from this year’s sga secret santa, both of them variations on the theme of John and Rodney making up:

In the Dark of the Night by @hero-in-waiting | ~5.8k, rated M

The problem with arguments is that they never happen at a good time. Which is a to be expected given their nature. And the problem with trying to make up is, at least in the Pegasus galaxy, they come at an even worst time. Especially when John and Rodney get stuck off world, running from some locals who took a dislike to them immediately and five days after an argument that, in John's opinion, had started over nothing.

But at least they were together?

Love the concept of this one, love them being forced into life or death situations before being able to talk about their feelings, looooove the misunderstanding on Rodney’s part 🥰🥹

When I Think of All the Worries That People Seem to Find by @audioletter | ~2.3k, rated G

After ten years of being together, John acts like John and Rodney acts like Rodney.

Absolutely cried reading this I love it so much. The depth of knowledge that they have for each other after so long is so apparent in the best, most beautiful way.

Aaaand let’s round it out with a nice long one:

Inukshuk by murron | ~80k, rated M

A mission-gone-south isolates Rodney and John from the rest of the team. Forced to search for an Ancient outpost, they struggle to keep each other alive until the time their kidnappers prepare to sacrifice the one and purify the other.

This is absolutely a mcshep fic but I almost found that taking a backseat for me in my enjoyment of the way that the plot unfolds, the way that it’s written? Absolutely spellbinding work, I struggled to put it down.

#fic rec #mcshep #made by me

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ghostinthegallery · 8 months ago

Note

Hey there!! I really enjoyed your insight the other day about how writing a serial differs from a plotted-out-and-written-in-advance novel! As someone who's just dipping my toes into posting as I write, any chance you could give some advice or tips you've learned about that style of writing specifically? 💚

(from @inquisitor-gayfax)

Why yes! I'd love to (thank you for giving me the excuse XD)

The main thing I have realized is that experience with traditional, "complete on arrival" novels is actually super helpful for serial writing. The principles of character writing, world building, and all that still apply, but even more importantly the beats you want your story to hit are all pretty much the same. You want that into, the inciting incident, the midpoint turn, etc. Those are all vital to keeping your story on track. Especially as serials are prone to meandering. It is so easy to get lost and lose sight of the forest for the trees. For me, always checking with myself that I am hitting or actively working towards those major beats helps to keep me on track.

Also note that one big thing will be different is the length. Serials tend to get much longer and thus the beats are stretched out. The length is because each chapter essentially functions as a short story in and of itself. It has to be a satisfying reading experience on its own as well as in the context of the larger work. This oftentimes means fleshing things out more than you otherwise would and bam, longer work. (not necessarily as long as I often go! but the tendency is there). FWIW, I find editing these chapters as I got to be much easier than editing a whole novel. I do miss being able to move big chunks and scenes around (cut and paste, my beloved), but it is worth the tradeoff to me.

The nature of the chapters functioning as short stories (minus a definitive ending of course) is probably going to be the biggest difference if you are someone who writes the entire thing ahead of time and then posts chapter by chapter, as opposed to posting as you write or posting with a backlog but not a finished novel.

Now, the other biggest difference if you are posting as you go is that you will not have the chance to revise the entire story the way you do with a traditional novel. You cannot go back and change things, add foreshadowing or a character beat or anything. Once you publish that chapter, the events are set in stone.

I actually enjoy this! It is a fun challenge to work with what I have established. But...I also cheat. I have a tendency to drop little things here and there that could be hints at larger plot points or things that are setting up things later on, but they are vague enough that I am not fully locked into anything.

The secret is that your readers are unlikely to remember a small detail in chapter 3 that didn't really go anywhere. But they will remember that detail in chapter 4 that got paid off in chapter 35 and you will look like a super genius (I am 99% sure Eiichiro Oda, possibly the greatest serial fantasy writer/artist of all time has done this writing One Piece, alongside his legit 5-D chess long game reveals)

To call myself out, here is an interaction from chapter 5 of The Silence & the Storm (poster child of fics that got too long)

Before he turned to go, he placed a hand on Anrakyr’s shoulder. Anrakyr tried to shake him off, but his grip was as strong as his bulky build would imply. Through an interstitial message he said, “If you ever wish to hear of Pyrrhia, you need only ask. Perhaps you still have friends there? Perhaps not. But would you not like to know?” “What are you—” Zultanekh broke the connection. He started back down the corridor, and Anrakyr had to choose whether to chase him, or remain with this stranger.

I had no idea what had actually happened on Pyrrhia when I wrote that. I just knew I wanted to address Anrakyr's backstory and why he left his home planet, so I left myself that set up figuring I would pay it off later. And then in chapter 48 we got this:

“Do you remember back when the mot was called,” Anrakyr said. “You told me that if I wished to know about Pyrrhia I need only ask. That I might still have friends there. Was that true?” “Would I lie about such a thing? Never,” Zultanekh replied, surprisingly softly. “Did my own wanderings take me to Pyrrhia? Yes, they did. An unlucky clash with some orks left this ship in need of repairs—although make no mistake the orks were far worse off! Space debris after we were done with them.” Anrakyr flashed a glyph of impatience. “In any case,” Zultanekh continued. “We landed, declaring our intentions to repair and leave. Had we heard rumors of lost Pyrrhia? We had, however the planet itself was quite…orderly. Calm.”

The conversation goes on as Zultanekh describes more of what he saw because 33 chapters later I, the author, now know what happened and can start giving that pay off. Sometimes I will get really lucky and find something I didn't intend as foreshadowing but that happens to work! Those are good days.

Now this is a risky strategy. You can limit your options when you do this, and you have to make the pay off make sense given whatever you set up. I've definitely wished for the power to go back and edit some of my vague hints in the past. But that is the challenge! True you could actually be good at planning and meticulously plant all your little seeds and reveals. Or you can be me, a creature of vibes and chaos.

Speaking of vibes, I think it is important to talk about the audience. And how they will influence you. When you present a finished story, that is it. It is done. The audience can talk about the story all they want, but it cannot retroactively influence how you wrote the book. With serial writing 99% of the time readers will be able to comment. And I think we writers have to be very careful about how we let that affect our writing.

The Game of Thrones writing team apparently at some point decided that "fooling the audience" and being unpredictable was more important than telling a good story, so they changed plot points when too many audience members predicted certain outcomes. This is bad. However, sometimes audience feedback is good! I personally unlocked a whole subplot because a commenter asked about a character I had included totally at random. It was a filler name! I did not realize this character was in a game, but realizing that gave me incredible stuff to work with. I'm glad I listened to them! Not to mention the incredible kindness and support that has kept me going through some rough patches in my life. By that same token, negative comments can feel awful. I have not found that to be an issue in my corner of the 40k fandom, but it is absolutely a consideration in other spaces (especially outside of fanfic) so just be aware.

I hope that answered your question! Probably too much, but as we have firmly established, I am verbose ☺️

#answering asks #writing #serial writing #ghost rambles

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onthesandsofdreams · 3 months ago

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The Author [2/?]

Fandom: ASoIaF Character: Sandor Clegane Summary: Sandor Clegane would rather die in a fire before admitting he wrote fanfiction. Words: 553 Notes/Warnings: None.

Read @ AO3

Sandor Clegane would rather die in a fire before admitting he wrote fanfiction.

Which even by his own estimation, was rather extreme, but Gods be damned, he had a hardass reputation to maintain and he could not, would not loose it if it somehow got out that he wrote romantic fanfiction.

Oh, he did not object to it. He considered it a love letter to the original work; but… he was the owner and face of The Hound Gym, the one spot where people who were serious about their fitness and many, many bodybuilders had started and could hardly be seen or let it be known that he was a sucker for romance or that he still wrote about knights and ladies.

He had a bit of reputation and had created this image of him. One that would clash with his writing. He was gruff, a grouch in the words of Brienne Tarth, a bitter bastard in Jaime Lannister's constant reminder. So, who could actually understand his need to create stories about knights, maidens and romance? To be fair, Brienne would, that woman was a complicated one, she had been hurt many times because she wasn't conventionally attractive, but inside she was still a girl who believed in stories.

And that is why he still wrote about knights and maidens and romance. Because he still believed in them. He still thought them worth it, he would never scoff at anyone who believed in soulmates, who believed in romance. Not that he would admit it under pain of death, but he would never dismiss anyone's dreams and hopes the way his own had been.

Yes, he was still bitter about it.

Once upon a time, he had been a young boy. Hopeful, full of bright eye enthusiasm to be a knight and find a maiden and have adventures. Once upon a time, he had hoped to go to university and take a writing degree. Both dreams had died when his brother 'accidentally' had near killed him. His face scars still made people flinch away from him. And his father had lost whatever money he had trying to pay for his medical treatment, only to die a few years later. And with Gregor in charge, he knew he could not afford to dream of writing.

And so, he hustled. He worked in Gyms and as a bartender, until he had gotten his certification as a personal trainer. That paid more than his previous work, and began to post his routines on social media, he had gained a decent following and soon enough, he had had enough money in the bank to buy a gym that was failing.

It had taken blood, sweat and tears to get The Hound Gym to where it was. But through it all, he had had fanfiction. A place where he could loose himself in stories from people in the past, from books he had read, until he began to write himself.

One of those stories, had gotten the attention of a big name fanfiction writer, LadyWolf had complimented his work and soon enough, she had gone through his backlog and now, followed his stories eagerly. and he would never admit it out loud, but he was thankful to whomever LadyWolf was, for every little comment always, always, brightened his day.

#sansan #sansa x sandor #sandor clegane #asoiaf fic #asoiaf #modern westeros #the author

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poupeesdecirque · 3 months ago

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I'm procrastinating on writing this entry since late October.

Here is my 2024 Hobby Review & an outlook to the coming year.

Bear in mind I had this planned differently, some graphics are outdated and I am not in a mental state in which I truly see anything as accomplishment.

I just think I made the graphics and ... it would be time wasted not to use them. More about that later.

First lets start with the dolls, the majority here is about the dolls anyways.

I had quite a huge backlog from 2023 in regards of bodies and unfinished dolls. In late 2023 I had ordered a huge amount of bodies and had an army of rolling heads to reduce.

Maybe someone remembers this drawing I made. I can say a lot, almost all, got finished. Except one doll, but have an updated one on this:

As you can see I got them all finished, well, all that have all parts arrived. And even finished a whole bunch of new arrivals. We even habe a lq group photo of them all:

Looks a bit more impressive than drawings I guess. It didn't feel like that many dolls as a lot were heads already.

That leaves us with who will need work in 2025 or will (maybe) join:

WiP are currently Alma (needs his head), Johnny (needs his body) and Eishi who I am working on slowly.

Incoming are young past!Allen and Qifrey. And you know Lucia will join too, she didn't made it into the graphic and I bought another doll and head the last days I will announce later on.

Other than that I sadly have one 2023 doll that is still not ... here. And I have no idea if she will arrive in 2025. It's Janet. I have no idea how to feel about her anymore.

But ignoring her I hope Alma will get his head soon, for both my fatemoon orders it will take some more time.

I even went down with my redos regarding outfits, Road and Erwin finally got theirs. Which leaves only Alastor but I am saturated in sewing regards for now.

What brings us to cosplay:

I decided to add this as Cosplay got a big part of my free time by now and aside sewing I got into prop making and partially even wig styling, therefore it's worth a mention as well.

There we have costumes that premiered this year and a whole lot were completely newly made (Allen's blue Outfit, Crown Clown, the Clown, The Prisoner), some had little effort like Mana, Link, Junior and Pre-order Allen, doesn't change that ... I added a lot to my wardrobe here.

Same goes for props. I learned how to make armor parts, made a huge sword, made plushies, a bag and yeah... went on stage for contests twice.

I didn't win a thing and the one day left me in shambled but I tried.

For next year I have plans, which are the following:

Yes those three (4, as I worked on one that is on the following graphic before I wrote the post) will hopefully be worn next year.

Then we have these fresh plans. Qifrey is done.

But I added 2 non DGM Characters to my mental line up and another Allen that maybe will replace the Noah's Ark Crown Clown variant, I am not sure about this yet.

For the 3 people who read until this point thank you for doing so. I am mentally in a extremely shitty place and being isolated doesn't help much either, my art feels bland and more like a "filler" to beat time dead. I will start therapy in January and maybe will learn new methods to cope, but we will see.

October/November/December left me rather scarred and I don't feel like myself, I am trying to gain back control. But feeling worthless and not needed, not wanted, all the time doesn't help much.

So yeah, plans are there somehow, even with the mindset that I maybe will work on them but never wear/show some of the final results as I just hate almost everything I create rn or feel nothing about it.

Anyways hope your 2024 ended better.

#blog #year review

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asksoldieron · 1 year ago

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SO-12: The Spirit of Harpo Marx

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for Alight at the Window (SO-12) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

Awwwwww, ya know? Awwwwww ❤️!

Poor Erik is in ⚡🔋no shape🔋⚡ to communicate, but he's doing his best. Maggie has no idea whether he's messing with her on purpose, or what's wrong with him, but she won't let him go. They'll get to him eventually. (I've just finished that part, actually. They've got him! Uh. Sorta. At least he's... safe now? 😅Oh, I can't say that with a straight face.)

This is the last of my queued posts/instalments, and I have no idea where my reading and drawing ability will be when it goes live. If I can't update you on my condition (and the condition of the next six instalments) I'll hafta have the spouse type a note for me. I want to do six more right away, or I might take a two week break, or - if I'm really struggling - it'll be a break of indeterminate length. I hope I'll be okay to just keep going, my Patrons have been so patient this year. Thanks, y'all.

But, either way, there will be a break at some point, because I'll have a while where I can't write or draw and that's going to eat up my backlog. Also, recent updates have done more stupid things to my theme and I think the site needs a redesign - maybe including some radical simplification. I'm just not mobile friendly and I can't make the current format behave. People with better eyesight than me do a lot of reading on their phones.

I have no idea how to build a community and I'm flailing, really, but maybe if I can get the interface more convenient, more people will like me? (I have no idea. Probably they won't.)

Look, though! You've got some extra art to tide you over! And a song!

I'm not in love with how Erik's design looks right now - he looks like a train wreck, but he should look like a train wreck. Nobody is going to fix his hair. I still feel self-conscious about it. He used to be cute. I've got to do a full-body rendering of how he'll clean up, but I don't have time for it now.

However, I did do a page of something trying to get comfortable with his ability to emote in train reck form. I don't have time to finish it, but I think it looks cool so I'm sharing.

This is potentially a way for me to serve you the music without lyric backgrounds that you can't read! It's very labour-intensive, but I was figuring out how to do it and it might get a little easier with practice. Also, my current tablet is struggling with the resolution and I plan to update it by the end of the year - depending on sale prices.

After I saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I found out the original Off-Broadway incarnation had filked music with lyrics by John Cameron Mitchell. 🥹😊I'm calling it! This is something other people sharing my identity do to tell their stories! Filk musicals are an enby thing! We do not give a shit about the music industry's copyrights! I'm performing nonbinary correctly!

So here's the lyrics again, and maybe I'll give you the rest in comic form as my vision and my tools improve.

You Are Found! (based on "We Are Young" by fun.) I need a minute, I… I don’t know if I’m ready yet I’m tryin’ to get my shit together, Maggie, please don’t be upset My family must be looking for me somewhere very near Guess I knew you must be coming but I can’t believe you’re here, and… It’s been forever since I’ve seen your face I know you want to take me home But although it hurts to do this work they need my help for what it’s worth — Oh, gods I’m not sure if I wanna go So maybe if, next time you see me, You can take me by the hand, You’ll steal me away At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down No, I wanna go home I’m just not done I guess that I, I just hoped We could visit and I’d get right back to work But I can’t go yet So I must forget 'Cause I think you’ll hafta steal me away At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down Steal me away at last (na na na na na na) Come steal me away at last (na na na na na na) Steal me away at last (na na na na na na) Come steal me away at last (na na na na na na) The gods have their own plan (na na na na na na) But I’m just one weary man (na na na na na na) So you're gonna hafta steal me away at last (na na na na na na) I have so much to do (na na na na na na) How can I go with you? (na na na na na na) So you're gonna hafta steal me away (na na na na na na) At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down So maybe if, next time you see me, You can take me by the hand You’ll steal me away at last

See you soon! Ha, I hope!

Late edit: Two week break, folks. No drawing ability yet, so we're stuck with it. I still hope to get you the next six by the end of the year. I'll keep you posted!

[Back to Site?]

#tin soldier and soldier on #instalment #engagement lounge #music #covers #comic #lyrics

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago

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Oops! All linkdump!

Tonight (May 2) I’ll be in Portland at the Cedar Hills Powell’s with Andy Baio for my new novel, Red Team Blues.

On May 5, I’ll be at the Books, Inc in Mountain View with Mitch Kapor; and on May 6/7, I’ll be in Berkeley at the Bay Area Bookfest.

In 1997, Jorn Barger coined the term “web-log” to describe his website “Robot Wisdom,” where he logged his journeys around this exciting new digital space called “the web.” Two years later, Peter Merholz shortened “web-blog” to “blog”:

https://peterme.com/archives/00000205.html

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/02/wunderkammer/#jubillee

Two years after that, I started blogging, when Mark Frauenfelder made me a guest-editor on Boing Boing:

https://boingboing.net/2001/01/13/hey-mark-made-me-a.html

I’ve now been blogging for 23 years, nearly half my life, a near-daily discipline that forms the spine of my writing practice. I take everything that seems important, and, in summarizing it for strangers, embed it in my own mind, and then find connections that turn into essays, speeches, stories and novels:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-memex-method-238c71f2fb46

For the past 3+ years, I’ve been blogging solo on my Pluralistic.net project. It started off as a “link-blog,” in the Robot Wisdom vein — short hits summarizing interesting things:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/19/pluralist-19-feb-2020/

But over the months and years, it’s turned into a place where I write long essays, sometimes six or seven per week, trying to pull on all those threads that I’ve cataloged over the decades, weaving them together into big, thoughtful pieces, often to great and gratifying notice and even a little fanfare:

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

But I miss the linkblogging! For the past 14 months, Pluralistic has featured a little section called “Hey look at this,” where I post three short links, bare-bones pointers to interesting stuff online:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/01/reit-modernization-act/#linkdump

These links pile up in my todo.txt file, ebbing and flowing. Some days, I’ve got nothing for the section. Some days, I’ve got a backlog. These days, I’ve got a massive backlog — enough links for many, many editions. I am drowning in linkblog debt, and the interest is compounding. It’s time for a jubilee:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/24/grandparents-optional-party/#jubilee

Here, then, is the first-ever Pluralistic Jubilee Linkdump Backlog Bankruptcy!

First up:

“The Internet Isn’t Meant To Be So Small,” Kelsey McKinney’s crie-de-coeur for Defector:

https://defector.com/the-internet-isnt-meant-to-be-so-small

This is part of the enshittification canon that includes Cat Valente’s unmissable “Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things”:

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

McKinney’s money-shot:

It is worth remembering that the internet wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be six boring men with too much money creating spaces that no one likes but everyone is forced to use because those men have driven every other form of online existence into the ground. The internet was supposed to have pockets, to have enchanting forests you could stumble into and dark ravines you knew better than to enter. The internet was supposed to be a place of opportunity, not just for profit but for surprise and connection and delight. Instead, like most everything American enterprise has promised held some new dream, it has turned out to be the same old thing — a dream for a few, and something much more confining for everyone else.

This doesn’t just make me want to stand up and salute — it makes me want to build a barricade (or a guillotine).

On to “Reddit Data API Update: Changes to Pushshift Access,” a Reddit thread where the volunteer mods are discussing another enshittification move: Reddit’s pre-IPO API shut-down that has broken all the mod tools that volunteers use to shovel out Reddit’s Augean Stables, getting rid of spam and catfishing and fraud:

https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/134tjpe/reddit_data_api_update_changes_to_pushshift_access/

This isn’t just “stop talking to each other and start buying things” — this is “stop doing billions of dollars in volunteer labor keeping our users safe, and start paying us for the privilege.” Good luck with that, Reddit.

Hey! The Hollywood writers are back on strike! The Guild is a shitkicking, take-no-prisoners, radical union with massive solidarity:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/2/23707813/wga-hollywood-writers-strike-2023-streaming-ai-wages-contract

It’s what let them trounce the talent agencies — hyper-concentrated to just four companies, two owned by private equity ghouls — over a 22 month strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/23/opsec-and-personal-security/#monopsony

The talent agencies had rigged the system so that instead of getting a 10% commission on the writers’ earnings, they were taking as much as 90% out of every dollar — and were about to make it worse, building their own studios, so they could negotiate with themselves on behalf of their clients. In the same week, 7,000 writers — even the ones who weren’t getting screwed — fired their agents, and demanded a return to the 90/10 split and a ban on agencies owning studios. The agencies say nfw. The writers stayed on the picket line.

There’s a whole chapter on this in Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin’s and my book on creative labor markets and monopoly. One of our sources was David Goodman, who led the strike:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

David hosted our LA launch, where he told us, “We thought the agencies had all the power. We learned that they only had as much power as we gave them. You can make a movie without an agent. You can’t make one without a writer.”

The new strike is about the same thing as the old strike: shifting money from labor to capital. The studios have figured out how to use streaming to avoid paying writers, using gimmicks like shorter seasons and running their own streaming services to dodge the wages the writers are owed. As the union says, the studios “created a gig economy inside a union workforce.”

I live in Burbank, where many of these studios are located. I’ll see you on the picket line.

Sticking with labor for a moment: the Biden administration is investigating the use of bossware — the spyware your boss uses to monitor your driving, keystrokes, web usage, location, hand-movements, facial expressions, even your eyeballs:

https://gizmodo.com/remote-work-surveillance-software-workers-rights-1850392911

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Request for Information solicits your experiences with bossware:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/050123_OSTP_RFI_PREPUBLISH_.pdf

They want to know:

Workers’ firsthand experiences with surveillance technologies;

Details from employers, technology developers, and vendors on how they develop, sell, and use these technologies;

Best practices for mitigating risks to workers;

Relevant data and research; and

Ideas for how the federal government should respond to any relevant risks and opportunities.

If you’re living under bossware’s yoke — say, if your boss has transformed “work from home” into “live at work,” then you know what to do: melt the switchboard!

One more labor story: a reminder that labor rights are a marathon, not a sprint. A group of Amazon drivers won a $30/hour contract through their union, the Teamsters. Even more importantly, the contract lets them refuse to work under unsafe conditions (it’s never just about money):

https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/27/23667968/amazon-contractor-delivery-union-teamsters

But there’s a catch: these are Amazon drivers, but they don’t work for Amazon. They drive Amazon-branded vans, specced down to the last rivet by Amazon. They wear Amazon vests. They deliver Amazon packages. But they work for “Delivery Service Partners,” a kind of pyramid scheme created by Amazon that tricks workers into thinking that paying Amazon for the privilege of working for a trillion-dollar company makes them “entrepreneurs.”

Instead, they’re “chickenized reverse centaurs.” “Chickenized” because — like poultry farmers — they are totally controlled by a monopoly buyer that dictates every part of their business to them, dribbling out just enough money to roll over their loans and go deeper into debt. “reverse-centaurs,” because they’re the inverse of the AI theorists’ idea of a “centaur,” that is, a computer-assisted human. Instead, they are human-assisted computers, with their every last move scripted to the finest degree by bossware that they have to pay for:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#weird-flex

Amazon now has the luxury of terminating its contract with the union’s employer — the cutout that allows Amazon to maintain the worker misclassification pretext that these drivers in Amazon vans wearing Amazon uniforms delivering Amazon packages don’t work for Amazon.

Amazon hates unions in ways that are hard for everyday people to grasp. One of the organizers of the union drive has been illegally terminated in retaliation for his labor activism:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/amazon-delivery-owner-says-he-was-punished-for-supporting-union

This fuckery doesn’t mean that union organizing is dead. As Jane McAlevy writes in “A Collective Bargain,” her superb memoir of her union-organizing career, unions started winning the class war when labor organizing was illegal, fighting in the teeth of a rigged legal system. We won then, we’ll win again:

https://doctorow.medium.com/a-collective-bargain-a48925f944fe

Seeing defeat (seemingly) snatched from the jaws of victory is a major bummer, but a better world is possible. It’s not even complicated — it’s just hard. If you are in precarious housing, or homeless, or if you experience the moral injury of living in a city where your neighbors lack the foundational human right to a home, it’s easy to feel despondent.

But solving homelessness isn’t complicated, it’s just hard. In Finland, they solved homelessness through the simple expedient of giving everyone a home. This didn’t just address the problem of not having a home — it also made incredible progress on the comorbidities of homelessness, like mental health problems and addiction. Turns out, getting sober or getting treatment is a lot easier when you’re not freezing to death on a sidewalk. Whoathunk?

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/how-finland-solved-homelessness

There are many ways to improve our cities. You can (and should) fight for better local government, but there’s always the tantalizing option of taking matters into your own hands. That’s what the Crosswalk Vigilantes do. They research the intersections where cars are killing their neighbors, then they put on hi-viz vests, set out traffic-cones, and install crosswalks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x33yLuJ5slI

If you’re wondering how the forces of bossware, homelessness, and other enshittifying factors came to rule, it’s actually pretty straightforward. 40 years ago, we installed a software patch called neoliberalism (in some regions, this patch was had localized names like Thatcherism or Reaganomics).

40 years later, the patch is an unequivocal failure and now it’s our job to roll it back, despite all the broken dependencies this will trigger. Most of us can see this is true, but not The Economist, which Brad DeLong calls “Neoliberalism’s Final Stronghold” in his Project Syndicate article:

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/economist-writers-last-true-believers-in-neoliberalism-by-j-bradford-delong-2023-04

De Long’s catalog of the recent bizarre, delusional work in The Economist embodies Upton Sinclair’s maxim, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Every Naomi Kritzer story is a fucking delight and “Better Living Through Algorithms,” just published in Clarkesworld, is no exception:

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_05_23/

Few writers are better at inhabiting the uncomfortable space between recognizing the delights of the internet without flinching away from its horrors. This one is simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.

If you’re just discovering Kritzer, check out “So Much Cooking,” an eerily prophetic 2015 story in the form of a series of perky cooking-blog posts amidst a global pandemic. It got a much-deserved second life during lockdown’s peak sourdough moment:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/17/pack-of-knaves/#so-much-cooking

And then try her at book length! “Catfishing on Catnet” is Kritzer’s book-length adaptation of her Hugo-winning short story “Cat Pictures Please.” It’s an AI caper about cat memes, community, and the anti-enshittification underground:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/11/19/naomi-kritzers-catfishing-on-the-catnet-an-ai-caper-about-the-true-nature-of-online-friendship/

Speaking of science fiction: I’ve got a new novel out. Red Team Blues is an anti-finance finance thriller, a heist book about cryptocurrency and forensic accounting with a 67-year-old hero, Marty Hench:

http://redteamblues.com/

The book came out last week and I am still in the nailbiting interregnum where its fate is unknowable — will it be another bestseller, or fizzle? Thankfully, the reviews have been stunning. Mitch Wagner calls it “the most exciting technothriller about a 67-year-old accountant you’ll read this year”:

https://mitchw.blog/2023/04/25/warning-cory-doctorows.html

Mitch ruminates some on the distinctive way I’m handling Hench’s aging process in this book and its two (at least sequels). Reading other peoples’ insights into one’s own work is a wild experience. I mean, it’s nice when a reader notices something you worked hard to put in there, and frustrating when a reader imagines something that definitely isn’t there.

But the best thing is when a reader notices something that you didn’t consciously put in there, but which is undeniably there, and also very cool. In his Locus review, Paul DiFilippo homes in on the way that Marty Hench is totally reliant on his friends and comrades to get out of hot water:

https://locusmag.com/2023/04/paul-di-filippo-reviews-red-team-blues-by-cory-doctorow/

Marty is besieged and almost helpless without the aid of friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. He is no go-it-alone superman, but rather an individual tied into a network of humanity, relying on the goodness and altruism of his fellows for survival.

This is so right. Marty is no great man of history — he is part of a polity, a collective of people from all walks of life who try hard to help each other. Call it solidaritypunk. Also, Paul opens his review with “I can’t possibly say enough good things about Cory Doctorow’s new novel.” I mean, who can complain about that?

I was also very gratified by Henry Farrell’s Crookedtimber review, which says some very nice things about the way I work in technical detail, and suggests that this technique is one that all kinds of technical experts, policy wonks and scientists could learn from:

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/04/27/red-team-blues-and-the-as-you-know-bob-problem/

Which makes Matt Green’s review, where the eminent cryptographer digs into the cryptographic technical details of the book, especially delicious. Green is a brilliant scientist and science communicator, and he says I get it right, and do it well:

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/04/24/book-review-red-team-blues/

One of the first reviews to hit the web came from Matt Haughey, AKA “Metafilter Matt,” who called it “a ‘ripped from the headlines’ romp”:

https://a.wholelottanothing.org/2023/04/25/red-team-blues-is-a-fun-ripped-from-the-headlines-romp/

Matt’s fellow PDXer and olde timey blogger, Andy Baio, called it “a wild ride”:

https://waxy.org/2023/04/cory-doctorows-red-team-blues-is-out-now/

Andy is my host at tonight’s book signing in PDX, at the Powell’s in Cedar Hills:

https://www.powells.com/book/red-team-blues-martin-hench-1-9781250865847?partnerid=33241

As I type these words, I am sitting in a window-seat on Alaska Air, en route to Portland for that event. I am wearing slip-off shoes, a jacket with pockets of sufficient volume to store my watch, wallet and belt, and socks that I don’t mind exposing to a dirty airport floor. As I shuffled through the TSA checkpoint an hour ago, I found myself looking on the beleaguered “officers” who were patting people down with pity and even a little sympathy.

The TSA is an abomination. A boondoggle that doesn’t make aviation safer, lights billions on fire in lost productivity, wages and capital equipment. Its legion of underpaid, miserable workers invade the privacy and even sexually assault millions of Americans every day, and have been at it for decades without any sign of stopping or even slowing down.

The agency is now 20 years old, and it just keeps getting worse, finding new ways to make America hate it. Reading “The Humiliating History of the TSA,” Darryl Campbell’s giant reckoning in The Verge was a wild ride, and a reminder that while most of us only interact with the TSA’s awful, inexcusable policies a couple times a year, TSA workers live with it every day:

https://www.theverge.com/c/23311333/tsa-history-airport-security-theater-homeland

Before I close, please let us have a moment to acknowledge the passing of Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian music legend, who has just died at 84. He will be missed:

https://www.joeydevilla.com/2023/05/01/r-i-p-gordon-lightfoot/

All right, it’s time to hit publish on this linkdump, but before I go, a couple of absolutely lovely little webtoys and grace-notes for you to take away:

Womprat (the font you’re looking for) is the world’s greatest Star Wars font collection:

http://womprat.xyz/

And finally, Tumblr, now owned by WordPress parent company Automattic, is striving mightily to reverse decades of enshittification from Yahoo and Verizon. They’re leaving very heavily into listening to their users, paving the desire-paths and putting the community ahead of any other priority.

One place where that is paying unexpected dividends is their deeply weird little merch store, where you can buy up to 24 blue checkmarks to appear on your posts (they sell in pairs at $8). Even better: they’re now selling a 3D printed, light-up, Tumblr-themed Dumpster-Fire:

https://shop.tumblr.com/product/tumblr-dumpster-fire-3d-print/

The dumpster-fire was hoisted from a community member, who made their own, sent it to management, and struck a bargain to sell them through the store. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make sarsaparilla when life gives you SARS.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Mountain View, Berkeley, Portland, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A page of comic book 'small ads.']

#pluralistic #hey look at this #web-log #linky linky #bricolage #linkdump #linkblogging

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