#i have net negative game

[justanotherhornycatgirl]

(convincing myself) if i didnt live in a mobile home in rural Tennessee id definitely pull

[defiledtomb]

there's this really deep belief in me that says I can't post anything related to ouro anywhere anymore & I hate it & I hate it & I hate it. I have so much !! to say :(

[gloriousmonsters]

Mememememe I want to see

please enjoy a selection from you're on a path in the desert, chapter 2: 'The Ancient', brought about by wondering what ganondorf's motivation is and being honest and brash enough he kind of likes you and is like 'sorry, kid' while murdering you to attempt a breakout in the first chapter. narrated by Zelda, starring Link and Ganondorf.

--------

You're on a path in the desert. Or... it's more of a beach, isn't it? You can hear the sea. Small crabs scuttle and hide among rocks smoothed by eons of lapping waves; the pristine sands glitter, here and there, with old coins and jewels set in tarnished metal. Pirate treasures, as if a ship was wrecked here long ago. A lonely blue sky arches high above, unmarred by a single cloud. A path of scattered white rocks, like sun-bleached bones, lead toward the edge of the water. At the end of this path, a man with evil eyes is imprisoned. A king. You, hero, must slay him; or it will be the end of the world.

Voice of the Curious: He didn't seem that bad!

- Yeah, he wasn't as bad as she hyped him up to be.

- Bad? He was very bad! I'm completely on board with the 'slaying' thing now.

- Hang on, how are we here? Didn't we die?

> I see what you mean, but he did very much kill us. That was a thing that happened.

Voice of the Curious: I guess, but he was so... sad. He just wanted to escape. He seemed like he'd been there for a really long time.

> He did.

Excuse me, who's this? And what are you saying about dying? Please don't tell me—

Voice of the Curious : We died and we came back to life!

- More or less.

- I died and it was terrifying and now I'm me and also this other part of me and they're both me and I don't know how that works or what's going on and I'm going to start crying probably

> This isn't the first time we've been here. Your 'man with the evil eyes' was the one that killed me, not the other way around.

He's not mine, and... It wouldn't be the same, the other way around. You need to slay him, not kill him.

- I get it. I'm a human, and he's a monster.

> Semantics.

Very important ones. Listen to me, hero. I hoped that this wouldn't happen, and I didn't want to scare you with the possibility. But please believe me—we're walking a fine line, now. All is not lost, but every failure widens his chance at escape.

Voice of the Curious: Really?

I do not like how you said that. This... voice, whatever it is, it seems very young. Don't let naivety influence you, hero. One failure means he's already found a chink in your armor—it is even more imperative you keep your guard up. Whatever he said, whatever he did, put it out of your mind. Focus on this. He is evil, and he will destroy everything if he escapes. You are the hero, the only one with the power to stop him. I—everything depends on you.

Voice of the Curious : That's a lot of pressure...

- I love pressure.

- I hate pressure.

 > Are you really sure I can do this?

Yes. You’re the only one that can. 

Voice of the Curious: Wow, she sounds... so serious. I don't know if I trust her, but I think she likes you.

Ha. That's... You matter a great deal to me. By definition, of course. You’re the hero, you matter to everyone. But we don't have time to sit here and talk about our feelings, whatever they might be. Your quest is the same, hero. It's time to go forward.

> (proceed to the prison)

N: At the edge of the water, the path of rocks continue—for a little while. Soon they're fewer and farther between, and in their place are footholds of debris, half-rotted hulls of wood, old chests rammed up on some invisible sandbank below the water. There have been many wrecks here, and as you pick your way forward, you see the largest of them up ahead. Splintered and broken, its massive hull impaled on the tall and jagged rocks that rise from the hidden seabed, like towers of some sunken castle. The rest of it is remarkably intact, but it looks ancient. Weathered, by years that have sapped color from cloth and wood and leached memory from material. Every detail blurred. The figurehead is faceless, nearly formless, like the... like the image of a loved one long forgotten.

> Are you all right?

Your path ends—or rather, takes a new form—at the side of the wreck. An old rope ladder leads up the barnacle-encrusted side. The old wood creaks as you ascend, but even that sound is... muted. This ship isn't just wrecked, it's becalmed. The muting of that sound makes you acutely aware of the absence of others. No birds cry in the sky; no fish splash in the water. The land behind you is already lost in a hazy fog. This is a lonely place.

Voice of the Curious: She's making it sound so depressing. It's sad, but it's also sort of cool, right? It's like an old pirate ship! It doesn't feel like a prison, it feels like... like a hideout!

Please be quiet. It's a prison. It might look... odd, but it's a prison.

Voice of the Curious : Do you think there's treasure?

...No.

Voice of the Curious: ...You want there to be treasure too, right?

I'm not interested. We have a very important job to do. To your left, across the weathered deck, a door leads to the fo'c'sle. It's not locked, but it's encrusted with barnacles, warped in its frame. Beside it, a sword is embedded in the wall, as if left there after a battle long ago. It gleams with its own light—

Voice of the Curious: It's not glowing, though. It's just a sword.

It's not—but... Ah. Yes. Well, it doesn't need to glow, does it? It's the hero's sword. It's made to kill evildoers and monsters. It's meant for your hand, and your hand alone. Take up the sword, hero. You'll need it if you want to save us all.

- But it's not glowing. Didn't you say it was important it glowed?

- What if I don't want to save everyone?

> take up the sword

- don't take up the sword

Sword in hand, you force open the door, rusted hinges screeching as you shove your whole body's weight against it. Before you is a sheer drop, lightless, only the first few feet visible in the foggy sunlight that filters past your shoulders. A rope ladder hangs over the ledge at your feet, vanishing into shadow. The air is musty, damp, and smells of moldering spice and rotting silk, wood permeated with gunsmoke and worried by the icy teeth of the ocean over the course of centuries. If this is the prison the king's been confined in, killing him will be a mercy.

His voice echoes up from the darkness, tired but commanding.

The King: I knew you'd return. Come here, boy. Let us speak face to face.

Voice of the Curious: He remembers us! And he sounds... older. I mean, he was already older than us. But he sounds much older now. 

Of course he's old, he's been in prison for a long time. Don't dwell on it or wonder about it, the more time and thought you give him the more dangerous he is. Just get down there and accomplish your quest.

> proceed down the 'stairs'

After what feels like half an hour of nerve-wracking descent, feeling for foot and hand-holds in the darkness, light begins to bloom below you. When you come to the bottom, a few minutes later, you find yourself facing another door—this one richly carved wood, remarkably well-preserved considering the state of the ship. It's hard to make out much in the light filtering through the cracks around it, but you can see intricate, geometric patterns, and the snarling face of a boarlike beast carved huge in the very center.

Voice of the Curious: What—

You waste no time fooling around and asking questions, and open the door. Striding within, you find yourself confronted with a surprisingly lavish room, dimly lit by old oil-lamps. Rich rugs cover the floor; a huge bed stands in the back of the room, partly hidden by curtains, and a huge desk carved with intricate details dominates another side of the room. Tapestries, paintings and maps nearly cover the walls, save for a section that seems dedicated to a number of weapons—at a glance you see twin swords and a trident. Everything feels a little... oversized, as if you're a child venturing into the room of an adult. When you look closer, you can see signs of wear and age—cracking paint, books with pages puffed by soaking and drying out, scratches in the fine wood and dust on the tapestries—but the overall effect is still opulent, overwhelming. This feels right for a prison meant to confine a king; it would be suitable for an emperor, confined to his office by the new regime, allowed to keep a pretense of dignity.

But across the room from you, there's a strangely bare section of the wall, interrupted by only two things: A porthole filled more by spiderwebbing cracks than glass, showing only blank darkness, and the King, who stands tall and studies you thoughtfully with pale gold eyes.

The King: You approach me, yet again, with your blade in hand. Interesting.

He's a big man, broad and heavy, a physique that might impress as brutish or sedentary if not for the way he holds himself. Straight-backed, imperious, with a hint of a fighter's grace in the way his stance shifts as his eyes track the step you take forward. There's no gray in his hair, or deep wrinkles on his face, but something about him gives an impression of great age and greater weariness. His face is craggy, but his eyes are delicately lined with black; he wears a topaz on his brow, and fine robes that inspire ideas of entrenched and confident authority. As he seems to reach an internal resolution in his appraisal of you, his teeth bare in what is hard to determine as a mocking smile or a grimace of pain.

The King: I suppose that if you try to kill me this time, it will only be fair. But I'd rather we talk.

Voice of the Curious: Ooh, talk! Yes! I want to know what's going on! Just, um, maybe we should stay at a distance.

Remember what you're here for. Don't listen to him, or him. Please, hero. Kill him now.

- slay the king

- kill him?

- You killed me last time, I'd like an apology before we do anything else.

> All right. Let's talk.

[bredforloyalty]

feeling bad.. and i don't think it's just from playing rummy..

[taegularities]

i miss the old tumblr so much

[lesedacondyvidi]

Seriously, I don't talk about it here (mostly because it doesn't come up) but I genuinely believe that the best possible situation for java MC right now, would be for mojang to fully and completely cease development on it.

No more! maintain the game. Keep it from breaking.

Forget about #stop the mob vote or whatever the hell. Stop mojang period!

[badolmen]

There is nothing more frustrating/amusing than watching a play through of a blorbo game and watching the gamer bumble through the plot and completed misinterpret what’s going on like my dude you just out loud read a codex entry that was straightforward exposition and somehow came out of the collectibles screen convinced it meant the opposite of what it just said.

[waterspoutskies]

I do think it's worth saying with respect to OP's original point, barring rules lawyers, no one is genuinely expecting you, a new player, to sit down and read the entire multi-hundred page game manual and then be a game expert. And certainly not in one sitting.

But we *are* asking that you make the effort to at least understand the mechanics of the character you're playing, to know a bit about the abilities of your party members, to know when it is and isn't reasonable to use thieves tools/seduce an NPC/start a fight.

Because I promise you, it is a Lot more fun when you understand and can fully participate instead of just waiting for the DM to drag you through the story so you can roll dice.

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.

[toxichem]

i played a game of unrated, and didn't realize i had aced until i had won the round and the announcer called it. im also like, horribly bad at this game, and cant aim for shit/forget half of my util, so me acing was a surprise to myself.

[blackpilljesus]

I saw this from the female separatism subreddit & the responses are some of the biggest reasons for separatism et al (or extinction if I'm being candid here). Moids cant be reformed they are fully aware of the hell they force women to live in. MaIe achievement & happiness is rooted in female exploitation & life. Their glory days are based on our horrific days. No amount of love, kindness or facts will change maIes and we cannot happily or even neutrally coexist with them.

Main points across answers:

Many want to experiment but not permanently be women

They dont want to be in constant danger or lose their autonomy at the hands of maIes for merely existing

They dont want to deal with childbirth (& periods)

They dont want to have to share spaces with species much stronger than them with ulterior motives

It makes me go crazy seeing people give moids benefit of doubt for their evil like "maIes just dont understand", "we need to teach maIes", or claiming that maIe violence is a result of maIes struggling with (expressing) their feelings. I get that women love maIes and it can be hard to imagine that people can intentionally be so evil but it is what it is. MaIes have no problems expressing themselves, abusing women is what maIes choose to do because they enjoy & benefit from it - that is their expression.

MaIes see the same news of women being abused, raped, and killed like we do except rather than be disheartened or alarmed they're either apathetic or satisfied. It isn't aliens that's committing GBV it's maIes & maIes have no problem reminding women of this when women anger them (such as rape threats & threatening women they'll end up on the news/true crime). The victim blaming, denial, and derailment of misogyny is part of the game to keep the system alive, they know the events occured & are a systemic occurence they just dont care. Hell not only do they not care, they rejoice in it or get off on it.

MaIes set up environments that work in their favour which simultaneously ensures that women will lose. They know women are set up to live in damn near impossible conditions for us. It's normalised for women to defenselessly share personal & private spaces with beings much more stronger than them with ulterior motives for us, it's trap. It's interesting how these moids aren't saying that they'll just cover up and *poof* harrassment gone, or they'll just pick a nice guy & they'll be okay. MaIes know the net negative they are towards women.

MaIes know that childbirth is a painful process & what do they do? Demand it happens and make it even MORE painful for women. MaIes that impregnate women do not love or care for them. Pregnancy itself is dangerous & sometimes lethal, often comes with a range of health issues, to cause someone to be in that condition especially in a environment where abortions are illegal is reckless & unloving. Now imagine how sinister & full of hatred one has to be to impregnate someone and abuse them on top of that. Many women risk their health & lives to reproduce with a Y and they get abused by said Y instead of being taken care of. Deranged.

Realising that maIes are aware of the evil they inflict is one of the things that radicalised me. It isn't a miscommunication or ignorance issue, their violence is intended. They want control. The cruelty is the point. Instead of wasting time & energy trying to change maIes or hope that they "understand" one day, focus on yourself & other women (who prioritise women). Moids aren't oblivious to female pain they enjoy it. A lot of women treat maIe evil like it's a mistake on maIes part but it's calculated terrorism. I know that this will go over many womens heads as they refuse to hold strong negative sentiments about moids as a collective so if you're not a woman like that, take this post as a sanity check. You aren't crazy, it isn't all in your head.

[gayerthanevertbh]

competitor - training season pt. 1

natasha romanoff masterlist | series masterlist | navigation

summary: you were a fierce competitor who aspired to be the top female tennis player in the world, and there is no way you can compete with the famous natasha romanoff on the tennis court. every time she volunteered to coach you, there was a condition: to sleep with her. with this routine, both of you grew closer than ever. however, another woman had already taken her place in court before you could even see her. game, set, match. who will you choose? natasha weakens you, but louise jones revives you.

warnings: natasha being extremely seductive, mentions of sex, and manipulative natasha - minors dni

notes: this story is probably my favorite since i could say it's very well written but enjoy x

Whoosh!

That was the initial sound that sparked my passion for tennis. It is all about the way players approach the game and their level of enthusiasm when hitting the ball. It captivates me to the point where I could sit and watch tennis matches all day if I had to. I lean back with a Coke in one hand and inhale deeply, taking in the scent of the outdoors. Then, following a brief interval, an additional whoosh! was produced. With every missed shot, MJ's grip on the racket tightened as she stood on the tennis court. She stared at the net, frustration written all over her face as sweat glistened on her forehead. Usually she was so calm, but tonight she felt like she was being betrayed with every serve and return. I sympathized with the other players as I watched from the sidelines. Something was obviously wrong since her movements had become stiff and jerky, replacing her customary grace. Today, the game served as more than simply a pastime; it served as a battlefield for whatever was bothering her.

“Thirty, love.”

“Fuck!” I felt a chill run down my spine as I overheard MJ furiously hurling her racket across the court. When I think of MJ, I picture an optimistic, self-assured, and cheerful person who uses very few profanity words. I suppose she did not hit the ball properly because this is the first time I have heard it. 

MJ was defeated when her last serve went slightly outside the line. As the umpire's call resounded throughout the quiet court, Michael Jackson's shoulders lowered in surrender. With a fake smile, she approached the net and held out her hand to her opponent. Her expression of sportsmanship was masking the annoyance and despair I could see in her eyes from where I was standing on the sidelines. It was hard to see as her once-bubbly confidence crumbled and was replaced with a worn-out acceptance of her loss. I wanted to soothe her as she turned away from the net, but I didn't know how to say it. 

MJ didn’t win.

“30, 40.”

I got up and went over to MJ, who was slumped over on the bench after the game, because he looked beat. As she chugging away with all her might, she grabbed the water bottle from my hand and gave it to her. "Something is not right," I said.

“Damn right,” she said as she threw the bottle out of the way. “Fuckin’ Garcia did it all. I was close, so close!”

“I think there’s something wrong with your leg.”

She slowly shifted her gaze to me and emitted a fake laugh. “If there was something wrong with my leg, then I wouldn’t play in the first place.”

As we sat down next to her on the bench, I let out a sigh and watched as the court became increasingly silent as everyone left. After that, I told her the truth while turning to look her in the eyes. Denying it while continuing to wipe off her perspiration, she shakes her head. One thing that should be known about MJ is that she possesses an unwavering sense of pride, particularly when it comes to tennis. So it was; she was supposedly one of New York's top young female players. Perhaps she was feeling overwhelmed by her family's expectations that she excel as a player or that her argument with Jason had a negative impact on her mood today. She refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem with her. Like her, I aspired to be the best at what I do; she is confident in her abilities. 

“Are you coming later at my place?” I asked. 

“I don’t know; Jason wants to have dinner with me. He said that he got me a new coach.”

“Oh?” As I observed her rise to her feet, an arch formed in my eyebrow. “It must be nice to finally get a new one. Clint wasn’t so great, I assume?”

MJ shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know; yeah, maybe.”

“Is there something wrong? I hate to push your buttons—”

“It’s just embarrassing, Y/N,” she says with a loud groan. “My parents were watching me! Now they’re going to tell me that I need to do better, I have to be better.”

After a brief moment of silence, MJ spun around to give me a mischievous smile. “What about you, Ms. Rogers? Aren’t you going to train for today?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t have a coach. Besides, I’m too tired for today. I’ll probably do some drills tomorrow morning.”

"Well, if you need anything, just send me a message. You know I’m just one call away, Y/N. I can hire you a coach if that’s what you want.”

"You have been there for me through thick and thin; I am doing fine," I told her, burying my nose in her neck and embracing her tightly. “Let me know what happens with Jason.”

I parked the car by the curb and silenced the radio, squinting as I thought about the game from earlier in the day. If I have to be the best, I have to do more training, I thought to myself with a loud sigh coming out of my mouth. I was a huge tennis fanatic as a kid and used to binge-watch matches on TV. In particular, the tennis legend Natasha Romanoff, who was a friend of my father's. I climbed out of the vehicle, secured the door, and made my way inside my home. Just as I was about to make my way to the kitchen, I heard the patio door open. I peeked out of the picture and saw my dad and his friend Natasha enjoying some orange juice and sandwiches. Seeing her makes my heart race; it is almost a wake-up call. 

Whenever I saw her on TV, I felt an instant crush on her. I mean, who could resist Natasha Romanoff's allure?

Just as I was ready to leave, my father's voice reached my ears. “Y/N, you’re home! Why don’t you join me and Natasha for some snacks?”

I walked out of the house and waved to Natasha, who looked even more menacing despite her calm demeanor. I can feel her stare crawl against my skin, tightening my throat. “Hi, Nat.”

With a deep, rough voice, she says, "Hello, darling," and removes the cigarette from her full lips. “Did you train today?”

“No, I just watched MJ’s game today.”

"MJ, Mj," she muttered to herself, possibly trying to recall who MJ actually is. Her words trailed off after that. She grinned and turned her head back to face me. “Carter Jones’ daughter? I’m surprised that she plays.”

“She’s a huge fan of you,” I said with a giddy voice. And so am I. “Have you been visiting Carter?” She took a drag from her cigarette as I poured myself a glass of orange juice and took a seat next to my father. 

“No, I haven’t. We’re sort of in a thin line right now.”

“Is that so?” my father asked. 

She comments, "Susan and I were not going to work in the first place," bringing up Carter's spouse. She and Susan were a couple in the past, as my father told me. I must have been so young to have forgotten that she was with Susan. “How’s MJ? Still hotheaded?”

I nodded with a small smile on my face. “Still very hotheaded.”

She blew the smoke from her mouth and looked at me silently. The atmosphere grew more intense the longer she stared at me. “I see. How old are you now, hon?”

“I just turned 22.”

“In college, I assume?”

“Yes, I study at Standford.”

With a devilish smile, Natasha gives my father a wink. “She’s following your footsteps.”

He pats on my shoulder as he lets out a squeezed laugh. “I didn’t force her to go there, for your information. She even begged me to let her in!”

“Dad, stop—”

“Have you gotten yourself a coach, Y/N?” My throat was getting even drier, and Natasha asked, licking her teeth and pushing her used cigarette into the ashtray. Given that I have not been able to locate a suitable coach in London, this was one of the more difficult questions. In addition, I am not even sure if tennis is the sport I want to play. To be honest, I was only intelligent in terms of academics. Apart from that, though, who am I really meant to be? I was obsessed with tennis; it was my life. But if I am not good enough, how can I love tennis?

“Uh, no. I haven’t.”

Leaning back against the chair, she smacked her lips after finishing her glass of orange juice. “I would want to coach you, but I’ve been very busy these days.”

As she extended her hand to hold my hand, I felt my cheeks flushed—not literally. I laughed nervously and scratched my arm. 

“T-that’s fine, Natasha. I know how busy you are.”

“I’m only here for a couple of weeks. I’d stay here even more if I’m not being called back to New York.”

I got up, kissed my father's cheek, and said in a hushed voice that I was going to bed early. I smiled courteously at Natasha as I turned to face her again, and he nodded and squeezed my arm. “I’ll take a nap, see you guys later.”

Before I left the garden, she gave me one last smile. The more I hear my footsteps, the more my heart races, and I return to my room as if nothing had happened. Is she aware that she is forcing me? She has always drew me in, even as a young girl. She seemed like a sister to me at first, but as I kept seeing her on magazine covers, my admiration for her beauty grew. As the coach I used to have before said, love means zero. 

Love means nothing. 

When I woke up, it was already late at night. At the moment, I sighed and headed for the kitchen, grabbing my bottle of water. As I poured myself a cold glass of water, I opened the refrigerator and discovered a container of food that they had most likely eaten at dinner. I put it on the counter. I started to consider asking MJ to find me a coach before the next week began while I was eating there by myself. However, I was astounded to see Natasha emerge from her room and make her way to the kitchen.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were up.” After Natasha brought it up, she grabbed my glass and drank nearly half of it. 

“I must’ve been so tired that I forgot dinner,” I chuckled to myself. “Sorry if I disturbed you.”

“You didn’t.”

She took a big breath and peered at me with her dark green eyes, observing that my red polka-dot shorts were paired with simply a tank top. Grinning, she moved on, opening the refrigerator and filling my glass with water. “Sorry, I was thirsty.”

“It’s okay.”

I caught her wearing a tight black shirt and gray leg-hugging jogging pants as we stood there silently. Even at night, her appearance was ethereal. For fifteen years, I was younger than her; in fact, I was practically two decades younger. Maybe she would give me a chance if I were older or if she were younger. 

But I can’t look at her that way; I just can’t.

"It is cold," she remarks once more in that deep voice, glancing out the large window in front of us. “Why are you wearing that?”

“I prefer the cold,” I replied. 

“Well, I think you should wear something more... Less revealing.”

Was she critiquing my choice of dress? Though I was confused, I refrained from showing her my feelings for fear that she would take offense. I definitely did not want to witness Natasha becoming enraged. When I was younger, I recall witnessing an argument between my father and her regarding tennis. She threatened him by stomping her foot on the ground and hurling her glass, causing her to grab his neck. They never talked about what had happened that day, so I have no idea.

“Do you not like the way I dress?”

She took a breath and shook her head. “I think if you wore something like that in public, I’d be angry.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, if you haven’t been aware, I’ve been protective when it comes to you. You are Steve’s daughter, after all. Of course, I have the right,” She leaned in closer to me, shrugging her shoulders. I could feel my head being tickled by her breath. “Have you gotten yourself a coach?”

“I-I was supposed to call MJ, but you distracted me.”

“Is that so, darling?”

I took another swallow and found myself drawn to her once more. This was wrong, I thought to myself. This is just so wrong.

“I actually have a proposal for you, Y/N. But you can turn it down if you’d like.”

My heart skipped a beat as I felt her hand slide the strand of hair behind my ear and smile. I tried to look away as quickly as possible, but I was unable to. I simply could not stop staring at her, absorbing every second of it into my being. 

Was she attracted to me too?

“I would coach you to be one of the best players out there if you return something.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, trying not to smile from the excitement. “W-what is it?”

Natasha licked her bottom lip and cocked her head slightly to the side, as though she was tempted to kiss me. But she leaned closer until I could feel her breath on my ear. 

“I will coach you if you agree to sleep with me.”

What?

“Huh—”

“That’s right,” she says again, but this time it becomes more devious. “You heard me.”

My whole body tensed up, and my cheeks flushed. It is unbelievable that someone of her caliber, Natasha Romanoff, would ask me to have a sexual relationship if I would just allow her to mentor me. Though I was aware of my desperation, was this really what I wanted? I stepped back, trying to get my bearings. If I were to sleep with her, on the off-hand basis, I would also get to train under one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. She was aware of the way in which she was treating me; she could discern that I harbored feelings for her.

“But my dad would know—”

“He will never know, sweetheart.” With a cooing voice, she interrupts me and puts both her hands on my waist. “We only get to know this. No one will know that you’re whoring yourself out for me, baby girl—I mean, no one will know that we’re sleeping together if ever.”

“Whoring? Myself?” I let out a tiny laugh as I shook my head in response, as if this were all a joke to me. “You’re kidding, Nat. Right?”

“Do you want to be the best?” Natasha asked in a demeaning way, and I quickly felt the need to stop talking. It was best if I had said nothing at all first. “Then if I were you, you should take this as an opportunity.”

“How is this an opportunity if I’m going to let you use me?”

“My, my, raising your voice at me, are you now?” With a quiet giggle, she made a threat, her gaze fixed on mine. She put her hand on my forearm and brought it up to her navel. “I’d shut that mouth if I was going to sleep with you tonight. But you know what, I’ll let you have time to think about it.”

Natasha took my arm and walked away, whispering, “Goodnight, darling. I need an immediate answer starting tomorrow.”

Something was leaking out of my core as soon as she left me in the kitchen by myself. I was so mad at myself and that she would turned me on that I squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe I would be a normal girl if she were not enticing me with her tonight. However, the truth is that I would like to open up to her. I’d do anything for her. 

It was Natasha Romanoff; who could compete?

[wileys-russo]

Mearps with a reader who plays on like a local Sunday league football team so literally nothing close to professional, it’s just for fun. But Mary makes every game she can stood with her hood up on the sideline cheering when you so much as touch the ball or like shows off the fact that she’s yours by rolling up to get you from training or something? And you come home and dinners made “because she’s proud of you for training hard”

sunday league II m.earps

"-so are we all just expected to ignore the fact that there's an actual lioness watching us play right now." your teammate breathed out with a shake of her head making you smile.

"yes you are! heads back in the game." you ordered sternly, everyone huddled up for half time taking a water break. "she's like the least judgmental person ever guys we go through this issue every single week, relax." you chuckled as their eyes continued to flicker to your girlfriend on the sidelines.

you'd warned her over and over how intimidating her presence was at your grassroot level sunday league games however forever the proud girlfriend her solution to the problem was to just show up in a hoodie and cover her face as if that helped at all.

the ref calling for everyone to return to the pitch you turned to put your water bottle back, catching her eye as she gave you a toothy grin and a wink. "come on captain you can kiss your girlfriend later." your team mate teased as she grabbed you, dragging you back to the pitch.

though it was hardly the wsl that didn't mean none of you took your games seriously, so up by one you were determined to keep that lead if unable to widen it, shot after shot being blocked as the opposition resorted to a 5 man defensive line.

"lets go 14!" you heard mary call out your number proudly with an encouraging clap as you took another shot but it bounced off the post, kicking the ground in frustration and just waiting for the whistle to blow.

unfortunately for you luck seemed to be on their side. you watched with a defeated sigh as the ball swooshed into the back of your net, not even a minute later reprised by the whistle.

you did your best to build your team back up in a post game huddle, highlighing the positives of the game rather than the negatives and telling them you'd see them all at training on tuesday night. after a bried debrief with your coach he clapped you on the back and you grabbed your bag making your way over to mary.

"hi gorgeous." the older girl smiled sympathetically, opening her arms as you melted into her with a tired sigh. "oi, none of that. you played wonderfully love!" she assured softly as you reached up and tugged at the hood which covered your head.

"your disguise didn't work very well baby, you freaked them all out again." you smiled in amusement. "well i'm not staying away so they better get used to it." mary grinned and nudged your chin up, sweetly kissing your lips before taking your bag off you and pulling you into her side walking the two of you to her car.

"i had to fight off tooney and maya from coming with me you know? imagine if three lionesses came to watch, your team might faint on the pitch." mary teased as you rolled your eyes and she threw your bag in the back, opening your door for you.

"you know i still could-"

"no! i love you so very dearly but we do not need a mary earps masterclass at training." you shook your head but kissed her cheek in thanks anyway, knowing she meant no harm. "you look good as a wag. you know i could get you a spare jersey to wear next time?" you smirked wiggling your eyebrows as she started the car.

"oh my god and if you could sign it for me? i'd simply die i'm just your biggest fan!" mary gushed sarcastically, fanning her face with a sigh as you playfully shoved her head and she started to drive the two of you home.

~

"dinner's already done, go have a shower and i'll dish up." your girlfriend smiled softly, pecking your lips and nodding upstairs. "you're the best." you melted at the thoughtful act of domesticity.

"i know, you're so lucky." mary sighed dramatically as you shoved her. "i'm really proud of you though. my pretty hard working captain." the taller girl smiled much more sincerely as you craned your neck up to press your lips to hers.

"mm if this continues we'll both need a shower. go on love!" she pushed you away, smacking your bum with a wink. "doesn't sound like the worst idea?" you hinted, holding your hand out hopefully as she shook her head.

"later, if you play your cards right." mary smiled suggestively as she returned to the kitchen. "bold of you to hold that over me when its you who has the self control problem earps." you teased her as she flipped you off and you disappeared upstairs.

"you know baby it's just such a shame you're a...striker." mary gagged later on, forcing out the word as you punched her in the arm and continued drying the dishes she handed you.

"some of us like participating in games, not just sitting back in the net being bossy and yelling at everyone." you smirked as your girlfriend dropped the dish she was washing and fixed you with a glare.

within seconds you'd dropped the tea towel, racing off as she charged after you, your laughters filling your space before inevitably she caught you, the keeper taking you down to the floor with a grin.

"i'll show you bossy."

[markrosewater]

How do you reconcile the principle of 'inclusion over exclusion' with the principle of 'net fun'? Each suggest a different way of reconciling player likes and player dislikes: the former by prioritizing like over dislike; the latter by balancing them against one another.

To put it another way: why is something like mana denial excluded in accordance with net fun, but something like Universes Beyond included in accordance with inclusion-over-exclusion? And if the answer is simply 'things like UB produce positive net fun', then doesn't that suggest that inclusion-over-exclusion is redundant as a guiding principle?

I didn't say we didn't make net negative cards. I said they had to serve an important enough purpose. There are things like counterspells, that the majority aren't that fond of, that do add an important element to the game, especially in competitive play. When dealing with net-negative fun cards, we have to figure out what volume they exist in and where to properly apply them.

Another important element at play here is how much does a certain element prevent others from being able to play the game. Me doing something you wouldn't choose to do is very different than me doing something that prevents you from getting to do the thing you want to do.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

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

[dingodad]

This might be a ridiculous question, but does Lord

English have control over sburb? The alpha timeline

Is set to only be the one that allows the creation of

Lord English after all. Does being Lord of Time mean

that he is the one causing all the doomed timelines

to be destroyed or that he is causing Skaia to do it?

Is Skaia just in a way another one of his unwilling

servants? I guess what I’m saying is, are Lord English

and sburb even against each other? Sure his

machinations cause the destruction of universes,

which is the opposite of sburb’s purpose, but also

his influence is why those universes were made in

the first place.

one of the biggest persistent misconceptions homestuck readers have is that all events in Sburb are controlled by some overarching, interfering intelligence, and that this intelligence's name is Skaia. when a character is given a particularly cruel or gruelling hero quest, "Skaia orchestrated it"; when a character's actions cause a timeline to become a doomed offshoot, it's because "Skaia didn't want that to happen". but this is explicitly untrue:

ROSE: ... Skaia is a very passive entity. It only "knows" and "sees," but it never quite "acts." ROSE: When it is asked to change everything, there is only so much it has control over. ROSE: In fact, it has control over exactly one thing. The defense portals. ROSE: It can decide to send important meteors to different points in time than originally planned, thus creating alternate realities.

(remember how all games of Sburb start off with the exact same parameters, and it's only data input by the players that causes events to deviate?)

this is related to, and compounded by, another misconception which came to be common toward the latter half of the story: people fundamentally misunderstand what a "narrative" is and therefore get it into their heads that in order to be a narrator a character needs some kind of "narrative powers" - where did dirk get his "narrative powers"; how can doc scratch be the author-figure of alternia if he "doesn't have narrative powers"? people think that, in order to have dominion over the incipisphere, Skaia must be some kind of wizard, capable of both predestining events and shaping reality to match its predictions. and i have occasionally humoured or implied support for this interpretation by referring to "what Sburb wants" or "Sburb's agenda", but these are merely convenient anthropomorphisations. the fact is that anyone can tell a story, and almost any kind of power can be wielded to reinforce a chosen narrative: highbloods control the narrative on alternia simply by living a long time; lord english controls the narrative not by conducting every single event to his whim but by being present at the beginning and setting small, key events in motion... Sburb is much the same. a video game is a type of story which can control its outcome with rules and code, but that's the full extent of its power; the rules and code can't change, no matter who's playing the game, no matter what the supercomputer running the game "thinks", and no matter what immortal time-travelling demon may or may not have hijacked the process.

in one sense, yes, Skaia has been made Lord English's "servant". but in another, more important sense, Skaia cannot "serve" anything, nor can it be "for" or "against" anyone, because it is not a moral entity. Skaia is simply the cosmic force of creation, and creation and destruction are not good and evil. creation is an intrinsically neutral act, which can be at one time beautiful and at another time devastating - as in cancer, which is a disease caused be cells reproducing without limit! (and in the inverse: not only is destruction not always a net negative in homestuck, it is almost always a requirement for growth and rebirth; heroes must die to become gods, planets must die to give birth to new universes... the destruction of universes is not a uniquely disparagable crime that Lord English is committing, but rather a larger manifestation of a pattern that is intrinsic to the ecosystem of Paradox Space itself, just as it is intrinsic to real-life ecosystems.) this is in fact exactly what Karkat alludes to when he speculates the universe he created is cancerous. as should be obvious, there's nothing actually physically wrong with the universe he created; it's just that, like a virus or a cancer, Lord English has hijacked the process of creation for his own ends and made his own birth inevitable if the process of creation continues unchecked - a process which the horrorterrors, gods of death who at first seem to be malevolent but are in fact revealed to be victims, attempt desperately to prevent!

[yuurei20]

This is a little bit of a weird long question lol

I'm more asking your opinion about it haha

I'm trying to think on it - is Idia an Otaku because that's the setting the game is for (Japanese audience) and those are the signifiers that a Japanese audience would recognize as "nerd", or is he just an Otaku in general and would still be a "Weeb/Anime nerd" if the original audience was American/otherwise western.

Like - what I mean is in American pop culture, the "Weeb/Anime fan" is kind of a subset of nerd. Like none of the characters from "the big bang theory" (to my knowledge) are "weebs", they aren't our most generic image of a nerd. If a character/person is a "Weeb" it usually means they have a specific interest in Japanese media, and this doesn't necessarily correlate to other "nerdy" things.

Because in America/Western settings, Japanese fandom culture is foreign (thus me using Weeb instead of Otaku though plenty of people call themselves Otaku rather than weeb), so the implications of Idia being a Weeb is somewhat different - he's no longer a "generic nerdy character", but something a tad more specific.

So like - how there's beansfest or the use of honorifics or how the unique magic works with pronunciation - that usage of Japanese culture and language to express what Yana is trying to do, but it isn't necessarily meant to be Japanese in universe, because NRC is distinctly not set in Japan or even the Twst equivalent of Japan

Basically to sum up my rambly question - do you think Idia is supposed to be a "Nerd" in general or is he supposed to be an "Otaku"?

Tldr, would Idia be buying "comic books" in the EN localization or would it still be "Manga"

How exactly is our dear Idia the Nerdy foil to Hercules's Jock lmao

Hello hello!! Thank you for this question! ^^

Is there a word that can encompass both, in English? 👀

I think this connects to how the word "otaku" in Japanese seems to be different from the word "otaku" as it has been adopted by English, so this might be confusing 💦 But I will do my best!

I found an excerpt from a book called "Otaku Marketing" that provides an explanation of "otaku"'s original meaning, summarized here:

The basic definition of an 'otaku' is someone with a particular obsession who devotes an extreme amount of time and money to that interest and possesses deep knowledge and imagination regarding it. The term can be viewed negatively, describing a person who is immersed in subcultures that are difficult for the general public to understand, and who lacks communication skills. These days it has become more generally accepted with a meaning similar to "enthusiast" or "fan", and its usage has diversified, including terms like "health otaku" that contrast with the negative connotation, but the original image of otaku as being obsessively dedicated, introverted, and intense remains. Examples of otaku include military enthusiasts, railway enthusiasts, Johnny's Entertainment enthusiasts, Gundam enthusiasts, Hanshin Tiger enthusiasts, etc.

This is very much Idia ^^ There are many traits associated with otaku that we see in him, from his stutter to how quickly he speaks when excited, self depreciation combined with contradictory pride, net slang--even the manner in which he laughs and the personal pronoun that he uses.

In English it seems that, as you say, the Japanese-language concept of "otaku" has been separated into "nerd" and "weeb."

Idia is interested in things like puzzles, board games, horror movies with practical effects and Halloween, which might not be the first thing that comes to mind when an English-speaker hears the word "otaku" and may push him more into the "nerd" category.

Idia mentions reading manga and watching anime, but is this just because the game is being developed in the same country that produces those things?

Is this a case of Idia not being fully localized, and an American-developed Twst would have made him interested in American comic books and cartoons to suit its home audience, as you say?

I agree that NRC does not seem to be set in Japan or even a Twst-Japan-equivalent, but that might be exactly the point: Idia is interested in media from another country, and that is where things get interesting!

It seems that a Twst-Japan equivalent exists, and Idia is a big fan of their pop culture 👀

Sam mentions branches of his Mystery shop that exist in the "East," introducing things from real-world-Japan culture in the New Years events.

How canonical the New Year's events are meant to be is a little vague, especially because everyone (except Azul, Jade, Floyd and Scarabia) go home for New Year's in the main story--a point that is integral to the plot of Book 4.

But even if New Years is meant to be a fun little spin-off with no real connection to the culture of the actual universe, we also have a vignette where Idia explains what ninja are to Silver, saying that "they live in a far eastern country," and mentioning things like "shuriken," "fireball jutsu" and "samurai."

If there is another word in English that encompasses both "weeb" and "nerd" together, then I think that might be it! If it must be one or the other...I am not sure!

I have seen EN players who missed the Harveston event insisting that Idia doesn't actually like anime, just movies and video games, so it seems to be a divisive subject on EN.

Idia's interest in the pop culture from this unnamed country in the East is definitely not his defining personality trait, being only one of the many facets of who he is ^^

How to express this in English seems more complex than one may think!

Is it inaccurate to describe Idia as a "weeb" because of the depth of his interest in locally-produced board games and movies that have nothing to do with Twst-Japan-equivalent-media? If he is referred to as a "nerd," will there be friction because of lines like, "an anime can be so good it's literally life-changing"? Are the two groups mutually exclusive in English?

I am not sure I have an answer :> Would be most grateful for any opinions and ideas!