#inefficiently lurking is annoying

[randomality]

finally decided to make a tumblr

[yvettecyrus]

┈ ⟡ ( 𝑦𝑣𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒 𝑐𝑦𝑟𝑢𝑠 ) !

name. yvette (eve) cyrus | age. 30 | 12/09 | sagittarius.

occupation. tracker. (hides her occupation as a writer) | single

British, born in London, England. raised in NYC.

sexual orientation. bisexual.

┈ ⟡ ( 𝑝𝚑𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 ) !

dark brunette, wavy semi-long hair and dark chocolate colored eyes. Slim fit athletic body (very flexible and quick, trained in the martial arts)

aesthetic lies in casual dark modern style, consuming of numerous leather jackets and anything lacking of color.

faceclaim: daisy johnson voice claim: lily collins.

┈ ⟡ ( 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 ) !

reserved an nonchalant, she’s guarded, maybe not as much as a loner as john wick but it does take a while to finally get her to open up. she gets flustered easily, which also comes along with her tendency to overthink.

she’s smart and calculated, easily finding ways around a problem because of her wit. she’s always willing to help someone help if they really need it, but is expecting something in return.

is seen working proficiently in her workspace; a bit of a perfectionist, she works only to deem in high success. I mean, she even graduated in an Ivy League.

Negative attributes. doesn’t usually empathize with others, seeming bitter and cold. People in her workspace have warned others to not interact with her, due to her guarded well being.

Positive attributes. Extremely loyal and is willing to do what needs to be done for the ones she loves. Has motherly attributes, black cat energy and listens to other since she usually remains quiet.

Weaknesses. easily jealous, mean, impatient and tends to get angered easily, avoidant attachment style.

Likes. Cats, being alone in her room work, music, having someone around that has the opposite personality of her ( creates a good contrast, she might seem annoyed at first but deep down she enjoys it).

Dislikes. Disloyalty, liars, anyone inefficient and narcissists.

🐈‍⬛🦢☕️. spotify playlist.

┈ ⟡ ( 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠𝚑𝑖𝑝𝑠 ) !

Relationships based on those she has already met.

John Wick: Acquaintance (started off as friends but due to busy schedules and work their relationship grew apart)

Winston: Mentor (helped guide her through the criminal underworld, training her and appointing her the job of a tracker).

Charon: Acquaintance (friend of Winston’s)

Chara: Pet cat (female black american shorthair.)

┈ ⟡ ( 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 ) !

Yvette Cyrus was born in London, England, to a British father and an American mother. Her parents moved to New York City when she was young, seeking better opportunities. Growing up in the bustling city, Yvette witnessed both the glamour and the grit of urban life. Her parents, although hardworking, struggled to make ends meet, which instilled in Yvette a drive for success and financial stability.

From a young age, Yvette showed a natural aptitude for martial arts, thanks to her father's insistence on self-defense training. She excelled in various disciplines, developing agility and combat skills that would serve her well in her future endeavors. However, her parents had dreams of her pursuing a more conventional career, perhaps in law or academia.

Despite their aspirations, Yvette found herself drawn to the shadows of the criminal underworld that lurked in the city's underbelly. While attending an Ivy League university, she secretly delved into the world of espionage and clandestine operations, honing her skills as a covert operative. It was during this time that she crossed paths with characters like Winston and Charon, who recognized her potential and offered her guidance in navigating the treacherous landscape of assassins and mercenaries, working as a tracker.

Upon graduation, Yvette concealed her true occupation under the guise of a writer, using her cover to discreetly carry out contracts and eliminate targets with surgical precision. Her reserved demeanor and guarded nature made her an enigmatic figure among her peers, earning her a reputation as a formidable but unpredictable presence in the criminal underworld.

Despite her reluctance to form close bonds, Yvette developed a mutual respect and camaraderie with figures like John Wick, who saw in her a kindred spirit burdened by the weight of their pasts. Their interactions were marked by a shared understanding of the harsh realities of their profession, tempered by moments of silent solidarity and unspoken trust.

They don’t speak too often, the both of them too equally busy to ever interact.

As Yvette navigates the murky waters of betrayal and deception, she grapples with her own inner demons, haunted by the ghosts of her past and the choices that led her down this path. Yet, beneath her stoic facade lies a fierce determination to carve out her own destiny and defy the expectations placed upon her by society and circumstance.

[bookedrevenge]

The wildlife cameras he's placed around various popular trails in the woods haven't yielded much in the way of results and Book was starting to think that maybe he was wasting his time. He had footage of deer, rabbits, squirrels, granola-crunching coeds, plenty of normal things that didn't make him blink, but nothing of the monsters that he knows are lurking just under the surface.

He reviews each day's footage at double speed when he can't sleep, an inefficient method but it's what he feels capable of doing. The Fellowship does good work, but they're new, without the resources of the longstanding Brotherhood. He makes do with the technology he has access to through his day job, but it's a disadvantage that annoys him. Always a step behind, a moment too late.

Book glances up from reloading his spare magazines and catches a glimpse of two figures treading down the path as the sun is setting. He makes a frustrated noise behind his teeth but files the detail away mentally, expecting to see them turn back later in the recording. But he quickly slams his hand down on the laptop as he catches sight of a single bloodied figure stumbling down the path. The image is in black and white, grainy as all hell and Book curses as he starts grabbing supplies and shoving them into a bag. The timestamp says that whatever transpired happened at least four hours ago, and he wonders if he's just chasing another dead end.

The drive takes him under twenty minutes, given the roads are near empty at this early hour. The sun is just beginning to cast shadows on the ground and Book hustles as he starts heading into the woods. If there was a vampire out here, it'd need to get gone before the sun finished its business. If there was something else, then Book had the equipment necessary to deal with it. He was hoping for a fight, not a dead body to have to call in to the authorities.

His steps are careful as he walks through the trees, staying off the main trail so he doesn't disturb any markings. It's like searching for a needle in a haystack, but he sees it as his duty. He's failed too many people in the past.

He hears the cock of the gun a millisecond before the shot, and he grunts as a bullet hits him directly in center mass. A perfect shot if he hadn't been wearing kevlar. The wind gets knocked out of him, but Book has been training long before he became a hunter. Instinct pulls him up and he's charging through the foliage toward his attacker. He collides with another body, not the solid weight of a vampire or werewolf, which he should have expected considering they don't use guns.

Book's first priority is disarming the person, and he pins their arm down roughly against the dirt. "Calm the fuck down, I ain't gonna hurt you!" he barks out, despite his actions saying otherwise. Once he feels like the gun is appropriately dealt with, he looks down at the person under him and he loses his breath for the second time in as many minutes.

She's undoubtedly older, with life having made its marks on her, but her eyes are the same. Damn near identical to her mother's and Book lets out a strangled sound as his grip tightens reflexively on her wrist, as though she might disappear from his arms.

"Ani?"

closed  — @bookedrevenge

Crimson red seeped into her shirt — dripping onto the velour of her boots. Anger and vexation barely out of her system. An after-effect still lingering under her skin, along her veins, like something she needed to scratch.

He was unconcious — for now. The fucker who bit Rose. His features still fresh in her mind. She'd recognise him anywhere. She'd make sure to pull out his fangs one by one, and rip him — part by part. Make a mess of him — scatter him around, for anyone to find a piece, a souvenir. A tongue here, a limb there.

A satisfying smirk almost crossed her features, at the thought alone, yet soon enough her mind swirled back to the blonde she left behind — anger beginning to seep through those itchy veins again. Not left — but escorted to a safer place, (dagger and verbana offered) where her companion reassured her she would be safe; the ground enough of a no man's land for her to call on someone. Because Anika was nobody's savior, and nobody's friend — taking care of anyone was no longer part of her nature. She'd long forgotten how to nurture and care, for anyone other than herself.

At the crack of dawn, she was off.

The woods were still dark — the sun had yet to reach through those thick trees. Anika considered discarting of her bloody clothes, predators were still out there sniffing out their next pray, yet she didn't bring anything else besides her gun and some acrylics.

A shadow moving caught in her peripheral.

It was just her luck, wasn't it? The woman everyone considered so damn lucky, had finally had enough. Ran out of the damn thing. Have at me, then. See if I give a fuck.

A gun pulled, and cocked, and — fired.

[sol1056]

the problem with super-robots

In the Voltron reboot, I’ve been giving serious thought to the possibility that the writers may like their anime -- and remember the butchered American version of Voltron with some fondness -- but they don’t actually know the mecha tradition all that well. It shows up the most in their failure of imagination about the S1 finale and the truncated S3, where the Voltron writers compensate by adding tension via new plot points (alternate realities! clones!), rather than addressing the tension inherent in the genre.

This is the failure of imagination. A robeast? Form Voltron. A ship trapped on a dying planet? Form Voltron. Rescue Allura? Form Voltron. Destroy several battle cruisers lurking overhead? Form Voltron. The narrative continues to insist on this (and never refute it) when the rebels say they need Voltron, too.

This isn’t the first series to have to tackle this issue. It’s pretty common in the mecha tradition. If you don’t address it, as a writer you end up with a repetitive storyline where every week just happens to have a brand-new universe-ending threat that just happens to require the universe’s greatest weapon. Win that fight, and the following episode you get the same thing all over again.

So how do you fix this? You break the premise.

First, I’ll give you context of what I mean by ‘super-robot’ vs ‘robot’, and then I’ll walk you through what I’ve seen writers do to get around this ‘I’ve got a voltron-hammer so everything is a nail’ trap.

First, some context

Most mecha stories fall into one of two general categories: robots and super-robots. The first type gets its tension from being an arms race, because each side has to keep leveling up; I’d put Eureka Seven, Gurren Lagann, Code Geass, and the Gundam UC timeline in this category. A technological leap may let one side get ahead for a bit, but their opponents will find a way to catch up. Also, the kill rate tends to be quite low, because the playing field is relatively even.

(You could also class series like Macross or Sidonia no Kishi into the non-super category, since their mecha aren’t impervious and the death rate can be high, except only one side has mecha. Normally that’d mean ‘super-robot’, except the antagonists are so bloody overpowered that any win comes at a high cost. RahXephon might also fall into this, too.)

The super-robot tradition -- which Gundam stepped into with the Gundam Wing storyline -- is a little different. In the GW storyline, ‘gundam’ designated a super-robot that utterly outclassed its opponents. You can see this in the pilots’ kill-rates compared to the original Gundam series. 0079 was a soccer game (2-3 points, 10 points being superlative) to GW’s basketball game (78 points, 120 points, sky’s the limit). The bad guys’ mecha just lined up and got cut down like paper dolls.

Except then, everything becomes too easy. The sole battle-tension lies in whether the bad guys can just keep throwing cannon fodder at the super-robot until it (or its pilot) breaks down or is simply overwhelmed by sheer numbers. It also reduces the emphasis on human/pilot skill. You’ve got to be damn good to win with a factory-stock Kia against a Maserati in the straightaway, even if the Maserati’s got a mediocre driver. And if you’re the one in the Maserati, well, there’s no contest.

This is where Voltron sits; for most of S1/S2, the tension lay not in robeast strength so much as the pilots’ inexperience. Once the pilots leveled up -- and then the robeasts stopped coming -- most of the tension was gone. It was the Maserati laying waste to a Kia. No competition at all.

Keeping the tension

One: have the opponent level up; we’re finally seeing this with Lotor’s comet-ship (and I’ll leave a fuller explanation of my complaint for another day).

Two: remove the super-robot from the picture. Force a pilot into self-destructing (aka the Heero Yuy School of Conflict Resolution), overwhelm and capture, isolate and capture, or in Voltron’s case, just enforce the narrative’s rules to make combination impossible so you can’t achieve super-robot in the first place. And yes, I’m saying it was a real failure of tension to let the team re-achieve Voltron in S3, especially when the narrative glossed over the struggle.

And then there’s the third option, which is my favorite and where some of the best storylines imo lie: destroy the team from within. A group of pilots, met by chance or design, who together fly mecha that by simple stats should be unbeatable. Unified, they’re unstoppable; to create tension, the writers must destroy that unity.  

You do that by giving each pilot a competing agenda. It’s the reason they fight, and when this doesn’t align, the friction can create schisms. We get glimmers of this, as when Hunk prioritized the Balmera while Allura prioritized helping anyone in earshot with a distress beacon, or when Pidge focused on finding her brother over focusing on the team.

Shiro’s emphasis on ‘we decide together’ (as opposed to Keith’s or Allura’s ‘this is bigger than any of us’) falls apart once each person develops their own agenda. Allura and Coran seek allies but are easily distracted by hints of surviving Alteans; Pidge chases her family; Keith is too busy combing deep space for any sign of Shiro between suicide missions against any passerby Galra ships; Lance is focused on freeing planets; Hunk, well, not sure what he’d want. Freeing planets, too, I suppose; I can see him continuing to work as a team with Lance.

Then you break them apart. Dig into that friction, have each character stake their priorities, and one by one, each one falls away. Even alone, each lion is damn near a super-robot, anyway. Nothing the Galra have come up with can defeat even a single lion (other than overwhelming numbers, but even there ‘form voltron’ has always saved the day, so the narrative has carefully prevented the Galra from ever pressing an advantage for long).

Let the freed planets be thrilled with a single lion, and there’s no longer a pressing need for Voltron itself. There’s no real reason the team needs to swallow their conflicts in favor of a contrived working relationship.

[aside: I still roll my eyes that no one ever pointed out to the freed planets’ leaders that there’s only one Voltron, and it can’t be everywhere at once. Especially when one or two lions can do the job; using all of Voltron would be a hugely inefficient use of resources. It’s a remarkably selfish complaint on the part of a leader who was already entirely passive in his people’s freeing, and the failure of any of the protagonists to point this out means the narrative effectively validates that selfish complaint.]

After the break-up

So they scatter, and therein lies the fracturing that makes the story jump to a truly epic scale. You’ve got to follow these separate storylines, while compacting each because of time constraints (Coran&Allura, Pidge, Keith, Lance&Hunk, Lotor, Zarkon&Haggar, Sendak/Galra, Kollivan&BoM, various rebels). You can timeskip easily, and do catchups by showing alliances forming -- Pidge contacting Allura to say hello, reporting she’s working with this rebel group, and Allura says she last heard sign of Lance&Hunk in the something-or-other quadrant, and no word of Keith. That updates us and tells us it’s been three months. Then jump forward again, this time following the rebels with BoM, and drop hints that it’s been another month.

Have them come together in twos or threes, then break apart again because there’s no outside force pushing on them to reconcile. (Remember, the opponent’s only real threat is sheer numbers, and enough allies can undermine that, even if there’s only one lion leading the charge.)

We’d get the passage of time (even without clues like change in clothes or hair) with enough information to know where each is at. If we want a shock (”been trying to get ahold of you, they’ve captured Blue and are executing Lance in two days!”) then the noise of all those differing story lines can help mask the signal of what’s happening off-screen. Use that epic scale of so many different threads at once so the viewers feel just as overwhelmed as the pilots, and drive home the sense of being up against insurmountable odds.

Don’t forget the antagonists

And alongside all that, you continue to ramp up the tension by letting viewers see Lotor’s plans. Stop hiding the cool shit; the distraction trick of ‘wow Lotor came from nowhere’ is only going to work so far. Show what he’s up to; give him a role in the narrative beyond just opposition -- let the viewers understand his goals, possibly even realize he’s got some good points, even if his execution sucks. Let him smash through the individual lions; let him wound one, and capture another. Let him stand on the brink of complete victory, all the more bittersweet because we viewers would know that the team damn well handed most of that victory to him.

Bringing them back together

You position every arc so each character gets only enough victory to keep going, never enough to actually win. You ramp up the enemy’s previously overwhelming numbers into something truly vast, and you push each character into realizations that drive them back to unity. You make them realize they genuinely miss someone they’d once thought annoying. You tire them out with the fight, until they accept they can’t do this alone. You don’t simply let them reflect on that hubris -- you make them pay the price for the mistake. You force them to seek each other out, argue their differences, and resolve or get over them.

You don’t make it a single episode’s platitude, easily won. You make it a half-season (or more) of earning the truth, first-hand and at high cost. You’ve got to let the story test them, and hard, before they can accept the truth that they’re ‘stronger together’.

When the team finally reunites, that alone is a hard-won victory. They’ve defeated the greater opponent of their own flaws, and the stage will be set for their re-unification on a higher level.

In conclusion

So far, everything has (relatively speaking) come far too easy for Voltron. If the writers want to keep the story moving, the characters are way overdue for suffering some major, long-term consequences. They need to start earning those victories, instead of just yelling ‘form voltron’ and calling it a day.

[juniorformulamotorsport]

Saturday,  13th July 2019 – UVA by Cálem, The Blini, Vila Nova de Gaia

After a day of port tasting we emerged from the fado and port session blinking in the sunlight and wondering where to go for a pre-dinner drink. We didn’t have time to go back across to Porto and the Terrace Lounge 360º rooftop bar at the Espaço Porto Cruz had been recommended to me. However, it was absolutely heaving and the noise levels were bordering on painful. Having got out of the lift and looked around to see how packed it was, and finding ourselves unable to make ourselves heard, we pretty much got straight back in again and left the building. By the river side was a terrace bar with umbrellas and people enjoying what looked a lot like porto tonicos to us, so we sidled into UVA by Cálem and took a table where we could watch the world go by.  Drinks were delivered promptly, this time a pink porto tonico with added fruit. Very refreshing and it’s obviously possible to ring the changes with the combination of ingredients once you have ice, port and tonic water. I shall be experimenting no doubt!

We sat and watched the rabelos (the traditional port transporting boats) on the water, the people passing by and the waiters rushing around at high speed and enjoyed our aperitif, building up to walking uphill to our dinner reservation!

It was all very dramatic as the sun started to sink towards the horizon. It also meant the air was now somewhat cooler than it had been during the day, which made the uphill walk to the restaurant a lot pleasanter than it would have been earlier in the day. The Blini is halfway up one of the streets that leads from the river towards the top of the bluff where The Yeatman sits in splendid glamour. We only needed to do part of the walk, and were soon looking at a rectangular black and glass modern structure tacked on top of a fairly ordinary building.

The meal that followed was tasty enough, but a couple of things need to be said first. The service was variable to say the least, with some of the staff very competent and with a good understanding of the menu, and some who didn’t seem to have much clue. Additionally, there were quiet a lot of items on the menu that simply weren’t available, which made making a choice rather tricky. On the other hand, the setting and the view are pretty special, and the food that was available was pretty tasty. A bit of a mixed experience, though the bits that mattered most did work, and the final bill was not much over €120 for the two of us, which given the website was somewhat lower than we expected. We had a good table, and the views, as I say were pretty impressive. There was certainly a great deal of pleasure to be had watching the sun sink behind the hills, lighting up the Douro as it went.

The food, though, because theoretically that was what we were there for. There was a small amuse bouches of salmon tartare, which was good, and the fish was obviously of good quality. It was a shame that the service was on the clumsy side, and unlike everywhere else we’d been, two out of three of the staff on spoke Portuguese. Now normally that wouldn’t be an issue, and to be fair, why should the speak anything else, but on the other hand everywhere else we went, in a town where the main industries now appear to be wine and tourism, and where there’s an international clientele, it would help. The sole female member of staff, on the other hand, seemed to be fluent in at least three or four languages, and had to keep being called on by the two monolingual men to explain things to all the customers, which made for an inefficient service for her (and must have been annoying) and for us.

We did manage to get our food despite the lack of polyglots, and our starters were soon with us in the shape of a piece of nicely done sea bream with a mango sauce…

And a nice piece of tuna.

For mains I hit the seafood rice, because I can’t resist. It may not be a sophisticated dish but it’s a very tasty one if the chef gets it right. To be fair, he did. The rice was properly soupy and there were plenty of pieces of pescetarian pleasure to be picked out and polished off, with prawns and mussels and and squid and scallops and all manner of fish lurking in its tomatoey depths. Again, I really do need to learn to make this myself; it’s such a pleasure to eat, and it’s not as if I don’t know how to make a quality bisque, which I suspect is the backbone of the dish.

I do know there was no way I was going to be able to finish it. There was certainly enough for two, maybe more, hungry diners in the pot. We’d been warned about local portion sizes and it was turning out to be even more scary than we’d anticipated! I’m not sure who they think they are feeding in the local restaurants, but I suspect it maybe a bunch of workers fresh of a shift on the docks!

Lynne left me to it, which I thought was a bit harsh, but then she seemed to have her hands full with her main, which was a large quantity of octopus, cooked slowly I think, till it was nice and tender. She ate most of it, but I had to finish the brocolli.

We drank a good local wine, on the young side, but refreshing and it went well with all that fish, a Papa Figos Douro Vinho Branca 2018. It’s always good to be able to drink locally if at all possible, and obviously in the Douro it really is. OK, so there are 22 other wine regions in Portugal, but given the river runs straight into Porto from the region, a mere 50 or so miles away, it’s pretty local I’d say.

Afterwards, the idea of dessert seemed like a step too far so we shared a portion of cheese. Unfortunately, the waiters couldn’t tell us what the cheeses were, though they were able to sell us a pair of glasses of port to go with them. The water biscuits, the “jams” and the mango went well with the cheeses, and I would have just likes to know what they were. It didn’t stop me enjoying them, but it seemed on a par with the service in general. Given it was a Saturday night, and the places is off the beaten track a little, and it wasn’t full, they may need to buck their ideas up a little.

Meal finished, bill paid, and Sun long gone down in the West, we flogged back up the hill towards the Metro station (the service runs 24 hours at least at weekends), having to fight our way past the concert that was blaring out some sort of Portuguese rap music to get to the stop. Mere minutes later we were back on the Porto side of the river and in our hotel room. Would I go back to the Blini. Possibly, though I’d like them to sort the service out first. I suspect the fact that it’s decent cooking if not spectacular, and coupled with the amazing views, that allows them to get away with it, which is a bit of a shame because with a little effort it could be genuinely special.

Food 2019 – UVA by Cálem, The Blini, Vila Nova de Gaia Saturday,  13th July 2019 - UVA by Cálem, The Blini, Vila Nova de Gaia After a day of port tasting we emerged from the…

[praise-the-lord-im-dead]

Writing Update: City Under The Sun + Nightshade

City Under The Sun: no words yet, just a plot :) Ahh I really love Mondays. They always feel like another chance to get back on track. They're also a chance to plot space opera short stories on distant jungle planets. (Space opera is my second favorite genre to write--I don't feel like I'm all that good at it yet, but it always feels like there's such rich depths of possibility). City Under The Sun is about Mirsha, a not-very-important garbage man, finding a Very Important Lady trying to hijack his shuttle and run away. (From what, he's not sure. He's just trying to hold on to his shuttle because that's his livelihood and he can't afford to replace it). In any case, I'm pretty excited to write it :) In addition to actually writing, I've been thinking lately about what KIND of stories I want to write, and what I want to be saying when I write them. I think I want to write honest stories. Fun ones, full of adventure and heroism and inspiration--but honest, too. I want my stories to be as close to the unadorned truth as stories about dragons having tea parties and pirates in space ships can possibly be. I want to tell the truth about love and anger and sin and salvation and God and getting sick and being happy and having an opinion about lasagna. Because I think that the truth--wherever and whatever it can be found--is bound to be a lot more interesting and cool than anything I can make up when I think, 'what meaning can I inject in this narrative that is Interesting and Cool'. I'm not sure how that will all pan out, but it feels nice to have a mission statement all the same. Nightshade word count: 24,211 (1,048 words written today) It feels. SO GOOD. To get back to this!! Picking the story up again felt a tad awkward (I left off in a bit of blatant exposition that I'm going to need to edit the heck out of later) but I feel like it's progressing and going somewhere all the same. Poor Haru has got the very worst bits of my 'annoyed introvert' self. Teal is good at drawing him out, but at this point I think the poor guy just needs a nap. Also, I'm finally getting around to introducing my romantic side-plot (not involving any main characters, but I have a lot of feelings about it nonetheless) and I'm so excited to see how that works out. So far they're both incorrigible flirts and it's all just fun and banter. Silverman, meanwhile, is lurking in the background, probably doing conveniently inefficient villainy things while our heroes recoup. I need to check in on him soon, but I got on a roll with the exposition and ended us getting a little carried away. And finally, I'm RIGHT on the verge of being able to introduce Ronan and I'm extremely excited about it. I'm pretty certain I'll have a better grasp of his character this time around, and it'll be cool to work with him a bit more :) Love y'all, and wishing everyone an excellent start to their week! :D

[yeskraim]

What would our lives be like if Amazon or Tinder ran an entire city?

A sci-fi collection explores extreme corporate futures, such as a Tinder-run city where you can swipe left or right for everything from sex to teachers

Technology 5 February 2020

By Sally Adee

IN STARBUCKS CITY, you can apply to have a pothole filled, just like in any other city. Just specify the size of your hole (Maltesa, Sharpe or Labradoro) and be sure to check whether your neighbourhood requires your asphalt to be ethically sourced.

In recent years, it has become a truism among policy-makers that cities should be optimised in the way corporations are. Turning a city into a “smart city” is an alluring prospect. It pushes inefficient government bureaucracy out of the way and replaces it with streamlined corporate governance. But to what end?

Two new works of speculative fiction take that question very literally, and their vision of the efficiency endgame shares more DNA with horror than with science fiction, albeit cut with farce.

Because what do we mean by optimising? Whose priorities are reflected in that word? How to Run a City Like Amazon, and Other Fables imagines life if a whole city were run by one of 38 megacorps even now insinuating their way into our lives. One of the co-editors, Mark Graham, an internet geographer at the University of Oxford, asked some academics to write speculative stories or essays about living according to corporate leadership principles espoused by companies from Apple to Pornhub.

The underlying question here is what could possibly go wrong? It is posed, one imagines, with a certain degree of glee.

“Imagine life if a whole city were run by one of the megacorps even now insinuating their way into our lives”

“We are beyond the point where we can use human frailty as an excuse,” writes Sarah Barns in one stand-out story, “So You Want to Live in a Pivot City?”. She examines a takeover of a city’s carbon economy in the style of Alphabet’s urban innovation arm, Sidewalk Labs.

The way you spend your day is no longer your business, and every choice is measured. Meanwhile, in Tinder City, you swipe left or right for everyone and everything, from sex to teachers and civil servants.

Some pieces are derivative, but among the predictable notes of Black Mirror and Inception lurk strange poetry and unexpected horror: in the city run by Acxiom (one of the world’s biggest data brokers), you get the treatment you deserve – according to your data.

What kind of humans would be able to survive there? Marc-Uwe Kling’s satirical novel QualityLand nurtures that question into full bloom. In QualityLand, every citizen is named after parental careers. Also, everyone rates everyone on every interaction, from work to sex. Enter Melissa Sex-Worker, icily determined to improve her lot. She is aggressively pursuing a higher score because a higher social credit, as in China, creates a more frictionless life.

We are already in the pupal state of such a world. Some people on Instagram get real-life fillers and surgery to replicate the most engaged-with facial contours, conferred by the app’s Facetune filter. The denizens of LinkedIn (a network of muscular, joyless efficiency) publicise morning routines meant to turn them into perfect entrepreneurs: “4.30: get up. Bulletproof coffee. 5 am: gym while I learn a new language”.

Meanwhile, in QualityLand, robots with bugs get scrapped because fixing them is against the law. But one guy keeps old robots: left to their own devices, the bugs evolve into distinct personalities.

You just watch: in our lifetime, robots will be the only ones smart enough to help us rise above the drive to automate, optimise and homogenise us into robots.

Sally also recommends…

Podcast

Personal Best

Andrew Norton and Rob Norman

CBC

This is a self-improvement show for people who don’t like self-improvement. As Norman says: “These little things that we want to change, and that annoy us, actually make us interesting, nuanced creatures.”

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