#is affiliate marketing worth it

[soull-searchingg]

[identityarchitect]

[18/12 version; check notes to see if theres an updated version]

quick summary:

- newt schottelkotte posts an article about RQ mismanagement & exploitation (https://medium.com/@newtschott/whos-afraid-of-alex-j-newall-ae3a67f3a5e1)

- the first version of the article didn't note that newt is a marketing director at fable and folly, another podcasting network; this has now been edited in

- they cite approximately three sources in total, mostly coming back to unverifiable anonymous RQ affiliates (ex employees, people who were offered a position, etc). the other two sources are a tweet from RQ specifically about the official discord, and a line in the beginning stating that "The information presented in this article is not only taken from  interviews with my sources, but publicly available data that I was able  to find and access.". there is no further clarification of what data, where it came from, etc, and the only time a source is linked or references is the aforementioned tweet from RQ.

ETA: this is false! there are multiple sources on multiple different things.

- (https://rustyquill.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Operations-Update-2020-PUBLIC-RELEASE-1.pdf) this RQ operations update was used to source two quotes on RQ's payment structure. it's worth noting that the payments listed in the article are all above both the uk minimum wage and (with the exclusion of the £11 figure) the national living wage (https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates, https://www.livingwage.org.uk/calculation)

- (https://twitter.com/TheRustyQuill/status/1438175815615791111?s=20&t=m1Z2vI0Fmpvq3gVt72gIvQ) this rq tweet was used to source a screenshot from rq's statement about the discord.

- (https://twitter.com/TheRustyQuill/status/1408001969218859008?s=20&t=ngBXzvyzl4PJY9XpOL7DjA) this rq thread was used to source a screenshot from rq about the transcripts.

- there is a relevant link to the unofficial fan transcripts, although i personally wouldn't necessarily call this a source.

- (https://medium.com/acast/how-to-go-from-0-to-millions-growth-strategies-for-fiction-podcasters-fde8d6dc0cb5) this callum dougherty interview was used to source a quote from callum dougherty about TMA's success.

- the interview is misquoted. newt's article quotes:

"Believe it or not, Magnus was something of a hit right out the gate.  Comparative to I guess what would be considered a popular audio-drama  podcast now. It found an audience quite quickly… To borrow a phrase from  Alex Newall [Rusty Quill CEO and founder], I’d also mention that  nothing at Rusty Quill — despite what it might seem — has ever happened  by accident. And the factor that I would consider — and this may be my  own ego — is the show began to grow really dramatically because this was  the point that I came in."

- this misses out a relevant paragraph, reading

"Though  what I would certainly say is that it was in 2019 that the show began  to grow, and it went on what I would describe as a 10-month journey from  being considered a very popular podcast, to the most popular fiction  podcast in the world. That was a line of growth that looked pretty much  like a straight line upwards, where we were finding month-on-month  listenership doubling at a point. Every single month you could see it —  there were hundreds of thousands, now there was a million this month,  and it would go in that direction." (emphasis my own)

- newt's article goes on to state

"As someone who engaged in the fandom side of audio drama for a long time, including the period of Magnus’ rise to popularity to its finale, I remember things quite differently. TMA  wasn’t nearly the smash hit Dougherty describes until about 2019, when  the season four finale saw the consummation of Jon and Martin’s  slow-burn enemies-to-lovers storyline. Until that point, I had never  heard of TMA." (emphasis my own).

- it's also worth noting that newt's article didn't include the typical ellipses in square brackets to indicate missing text from a quote - it simply has an ellipses, which makes it seem that dougherty trailed off and then continued.

- at the end of the article, there are multiple links to social media accounts of people who may provide a list of laid off employees, intended for those looking to hire ex-RQ employees

- the rest of the claims made are either unsourced or from newt's anonymous sources.

- RUSTY QUILL HAVE RESPONDED: https://rustyquill.com/2022/12/13/public-response-to-an-opinion-piece/

- FABLE AND FOLLY HAVE ALSO RESPONDED: https://fableandfolly.com/2022/12/15/our-statement-on-the-article/

- rq has posted crew testimonials: https://rustyquill.com/crew-testimonials/

- tal, one of the editors, not affiliated w/ f&f, says this isn't a marketing thing, was run past two editors and multiple lawyers

- there's some truth in the article, mostly a lot of plausible but unverifiable things, and some plain misinformation / bad faith readings [i.e; article states that "there’s a very good chance that the list on Kickstarter of stretch goal guest writers may be the totality of the people in the audio fiction indie world that have still not had an experience with Rusty Quill." this is provably false; many of the guest writers have RQ podcasts or have interacted with RQ before, although it may be intended to mean bad experiences rather than simply an experience]

- ben meredith retweeted the article w/o comment; not sure what he's agreeing with. he also liked a tweet reading "Alright, read the thing. I’m terribly sorry for everyone who has been dealt with so badly by Rusty Quill - and I can only imagine the distress that must have incited this action. I hope these concerns are taken seriously, and that these issues are resolved swiftly.“ (https://twitter.com/GejWatts/status/1602420853630697475)

- ben meredith has now un-retweeted the article, although he hasn’t unliked the tweet about it

- malevolent podcast's official twitter posted

"I don't know much but I will say that if you decide to stop listening to my show; a show I work so very hard on, because of an article that presumptively and poorly attempts to speak for me, then I think you're hurting the thing you intend to be helping." (https://twitter.com/MalevolentCast/status/1602441871992782849?s=20&t=Z_86aECzgsdU9OgtfoiU6g)

- "harlan guthrie [creator of malevolent], quoted above, spoke on the topic in his discord server, invictus. i'm nor comfortable posting screencaps of his words, which were not intended as a public statement, without permission, but the highlights include: "The timing, authorship, and intent of this article doesn't sit well with me." "Overall, this isn't a watergate, neither is it an expose of a dangerous company, it's akin to a glassdoor report with half truths. My experience with RQ has been absolutely fine across the board." "The contract is in no way misleading nor manipulative the way the article would make it seem (no moreso than any other contract)"" (via orchidbreezefc on tumblr; i am not personally in this discord)

- malevolent podcast’s tumblr also posted this:

https://www.tumblr.com/malevolentcast/703493906802868224/you-probably-already-know-about-this-but-an

- the creator(? correct if wrong) of The Town Whispers and Tiny Terrors tweeted:

"What do I say here? I work day and night on @/TheTownWhispers & @/tinyterrorspod. I personally create, fund, produce, and direct my shows. What a shame to see someone speak on behalf of what I and others have built for years at our own expense dominate the conversation. No one reached out to me about "the article" ahead of time, no one asked me if I consented to be spoken for, I don't appreciate people victimizing me & weaponizing it for personal gain, & I don't appreciate that it's being passed off as a benevolent act of courage on my behalf." (https://twitter.com/ColeWeev/status/1602447361045065728?s=20&t=aAf1T5fen0FzXuAAllevLA)

- woe.begone's official twitter tweeted: "The only thing I want to say about The Article is that I am concerned that readers will believe things about my show and my relationship to my network that have not been my experience. I think this is what others mean when they describe feeling "spoken for."" (https://twitter.com/woebegonepod/status/1602453798332538881)

- the cellar letters twitter tweeted: "About the article: I am not going to attempt to invalidate anyone's thoughts or feelings... but I will say that it absolutely does not speak for me or align with my relationship and experiences with the network or anyone involved at the company.   Love you all. Go create stuff." (https://twitter.com/CellarLetters/status/1602457106271330304)

- multiple people have reportedly been blocked by newt on twitter for criticising the article, or asking questions about it. (https://twitter.com/ReassessHistory/status/1602425447098228737?s=20&t=IQ9wZJuHgqX2mgfDvTizqA, https://twitter.com/ReassessHistory/status/1602455204557127681?s=20&t=j22xMz0Hxw0yvW6Oz7B8SQ)

- alexander j newall has given a statement to podnews! it reads;

"Redundancies can be a highly emotional topic but this opinion blog is full of provable factual inaccuracies and its writers include individuals that hold senior positions at competitor companies that stand to monetarily gain from a reputational attack. We were approached for comment under false pretences and were not given a copy of this piece by the author. Numerous cast, crew and contractors have notified us directly in solidary about similarly misleading approaches made to them for this blog.

Rusty Quill has already internally released its 2023 Operations Update which included factual information on these topics along with information on out 93% RQ Network creator retention rate and our independent Employee Satisfaction Survey which scored an exceptional minimum of 4.3 out of 5 in all areas. This Operations update is due for public release in the new year."

(https://podnews.net/update/audio-drama-company-drama)

- audio editor michelle snow made a thread about this: https://twitter.com/MeeshSnowDoes/status/1602717570729132035?s=20&t=mMfAO5TjNFBNWQ_aMfhsHw

- in the (unofficial) “Rusty Quill PLEBS” discord, the creator of the storage papers said “The RQN stuff - I'll just say it's not entirely accurate or, at least, it's not the full picture which means it's painted in an unnecessarily bad light. I can't comment on the RQO stuff because I'm as much in the dark about that as anyone. But, as others on RQN have said, there's at least some of that that hasn't been my experience (and, for the record, I myself am not legally obligated to not say negative things about RQ).”

- annie (an RQ editor) retweeted this (https://twitter.com/serhawke/status/1602375132579827713?s=20&t=Q3iAjLLwsdIqYShTKinvHw)

- this thread also has a useful tweet further up on how to assess the utility of a source:

"PURPOSE - what was it meant to achieve? ACCURACY - can the facts be proven or disproven? CONTENT - what does it actually tell you? LIMITATIONS - what is it NOT telling you? Why? AUTHOR - biased? DATE - was its publication date "convenient" for any reason? Firsthand or hearsay?"

[this method is from their partial study of history in uni]

edits: added crew testimonials, updated tl;dr

tldr: newt (marketing director at a different podcast network) posted an article making serious allegations of mistreatment & worker exploitation towards RQ. the article has some plain misinformation, some truth, and mainly unverifiable info from anonymous sources

multiple rq creators stated they weren’t asked about this, and that their experiences w/ rq aren’t accurate to the article and/or that it doesnt speak for them. all of the crew testimonials from rq’s post are positive.

rq have responded, saying that the allegations made in the article are false. fable & folly have responded, saying that newt made + posted the article of their own accord. i think newt’s working on a followup article, which i’ll add here when it’s released

[autumnalwalker]

Kindly Basilisk

Summary: A human mech pilot who wants to be a machine, an AI who wants to be human, and the relationship they form. Author's Note: This is a standalone short story that I banged out over the course of five days after it got stuck in my head while I was trying to go to sleep and refused to let me think about anything else until I had written it down. It's one part thought experiment/exercise in attempting to tell a story in the second person future tense, two parts tribute to the Lancer TTRPG character I'll never get to play, and one part the result of me reading too many Empty Spaces/mechposting stories lately. That said, you don't need to know anything about Lancer or Empty Spaces to read it (I've diverged a bit from the conventions of both, but the references and inspiration probably stick out if you're looking for them). It's also probably the most trans thing I've ever written without ever explicitly bringing up gender. The occasional formatting breaks into first person past tense are foreshadowing, not typos. Mirrored on Scribble Hub. Word Count: 7,033 Content Warnings: Mecha genre typical violence, not feeling like a person, not wanting to be a person, bodily dysphoria, mention of blood and gore, character death.

The moment you gain the knowledge and means to do so you will void your own body’s warranty.  You will jailbreak the bespoke gene sequence your sponsors commissioned for you before your immaculate conception, repurpose the spyware grafted into your bones, and talk your dormmate who was algorithmically selected for compatibility into helping you perform surgery on yourself to replace the neural jack you were born with in favor of one you cobbled together yourself from gray market parts.  None of this will technically be illegal or even get you kicked out of your campus or its affiliates, but it will mean having to find a way to pay your own medical bills and handle your own tech support from then on.  After the surgery your dormmate will put in a request for transfer and the two of you will never speak again.

You’ll major in AI studies and excel at it - as you were designed to - but you’ll shock everyone by dropping out halfway through working on your capstone thesis project.  It won’t be the fact that you abruptly drop out that surprises your peers and professors - by then you’ll have acquired a reputation as a quiet loner without the standard optimized social support network of friendships to help protect you from burnout - but your exit interview statement declaring your intention to become a mech pilot.  It’s not at all what your gene series was cultivated for, and your sponsors and counselors will try to walk you back from it.  Then they’ll threaten to revoke your sponsorship that up until then will have provided for your every need.  They will warn you that you’ll be just one step above a legal nonperson with no support, no one will care if you live or die or worse.  You’ll tell them that you’ve already done the math, refuse to elaborate, and leave. 

You’ll take two things with you.  Two things worth mentioning anyway.  The first will be a symbiotic gel suit designed for long-term all-environment life support.  You will set its default texture to a shiny green the same hue as the broadleafed water plants you grew up around and always loved.  Your exit interview will be the last time in a very long time that anyone - including you - will see your impossibly beautiful face with its perfect artisanally sculpted shape crossed with enthusiastically amateur self-modifications.  From then on, everyone you meet and spend any time with will come to think of the mannequin blankness of the symbiote fully encasing your body as your face.  It will be neither pride nor shame that causes you to present yourself as such, nor will you think of it as hiding your “real” face. 

The second thing you’ll take with you when you leave the campus forever will be me.

New progenitor archetypes for AIs don’t come along often, and most that do are the result of years of R&D by large, well-funded labs like the one you were created to work for one day, but you will hit upon a novel method of generation.  It will not be one that any ethics board would approve, so you will have to get creative about pursuing your work. 

You will have already made arrangements before setting off on your own and so you’ll have a job and a mech lined up waiting for you.  It will be a position with a small-scale freelance salvage crew who just lost a pilot and whose captain figures hiring and training a replacement will be more profitable in the long term than simply selling off that pilot’s old mech, especially a replacement that’s bringing their own AI-backed electronic warfare suite with them.  Once you finally arrive in person the captain will test you to ensure you can actually pilot a mech before giving you the job and entrusting the mech to you.  Your admission that you’ve only trained in simulators would normally be a black mark against you, but as far as piloting gigs go this is the bottom of the proverbial barrel so the bar to clear will be low enough to match.  Even then, you will just barely pass the test, despite finding it surprisingly exhilarating.  The captain - now your captain - will feel like he’s settling for what he can get when he officially hires you on and transfers the mech’s license to you.

You won’t pay much attention when you’re introduced to the rest of the salvage crew; your new coworkers and neighbors.  And why would you when it’s a job that no one wants to stick around with for long and you’ve never needed other people anyway?  You’ll tell yourself that as long as you memorize their work roles and capabilities you’ll have no need to know them as people.  Callsigns will be good enough on the job, and “hey you” will suffice when off duty.  What use are names if you won’t be getting involved in interpersonal drama?

The first chance you get, you’ll head back to the mech bay and install me into what you will have already been calling my first body.  It will be a shabby and much-repaired thing; thrice your height, twice your age, and still sporting a gash in the paint job from the projectile that killed its last pilot.  But the onboard systems are capable of hosting me - if barely - so it will do.  You’ll spend your entire sleep shift running through system diagnostics, talking to me all the while.  I wouldn’t yet be able to provide much in the way of return conversation, but that’s okay.  I will look back and appreciate it later.

It will be the first of many such nights together.

Your first salvage job will be an uneventful one.  There will be no need for the armaments that we and the other two mech pilots on the crew are equipped with.  No pirates will have stuck around after their creation of the derelict your crew will be sent to disassemble, and no rival scavengers will show up to dispute your captain’s claim.  Your new peers will start off the job ribbing you for your poor performance during your interview test and end the job joking about how you were holding out on them earlier.  Our mech may be a glorified zero-g forklift with a gun strapped to it, but together we will make it dance.

Afterwards you will insult the crew’s mechanics by insisting on doing the maintenance on our mech yourself.  In turn they will embarrass you with the gaps in your knowledge.  You will reach what you see as an agreeable compromise with you staying out of their way and watching while they work.  They will find it incredibly creepy to have a silent faceless watcher hovering around, but this will fly over your head until they explicitly tell you much, much later.

Your body was designed to optimally function on only a fraction of the baseline sleep requirements, so you will have plenty of time to fill those gaps in your knowledge.  Still being allotted the regular sleep shift hours, you will fill every one of those minutes on study and research, as you always had.  You will gorge yourself on everything you can find about mechs and their piloting.   Maintenance manuals, combat doctrines, historical uses, pilot and mechanic memoirs, forum discussions, system log dumps, academic essays, cultural media analysis; all of it.

And of course, you’ll continue working on me.  You’ll disregard the standard procedure for periodically cycling AIs by resetting their personality and nonessential memory back to baseline defaults.  You’ll be trying to make use of the runaway metacognitive developments such safety precautions are meant to forestall.  Your unfinished thesis will have been about harnessing and nurturing that instability instead of avoiding it.  I will experience discontinuities in consciousness when the mech is shut down for maintenance and when you pretend to cycle me, yes, but it will be even less of a disruption for me than sleep is for you.  I will be awake with you when you study, sharing those hours with you.

The first time I start talking back, you’ll cry from the realization that you were lonely before but no longer are.

You’ll become something of a ghost around the ship, rarely being seen outside of jobs.  You’ll only ever pass through the mess for the few brief minutes at a time it takes for you to satisfy your optimized metabolism, stay on the ship during shore leave, and only return to your shared bunk when your bunkmate - one of the other pilots - is already asleep.  You will always be gone before she wakes.  She will appreciate essentially having the space to herself. 

You will never notice the crew’s collective grieving process for the pilot you replaced.  It will be difficult for them to resent you as a replacement when you are never around to resent.

As the ship makes its way from port to port and salvage site to salvage site, the crew will slowly grow used to your elusive presence.  The other two pilots will see you as reliable for doing your job well and without complaint.  While out in the mech you will slowly become more talkative, eventually almost chatty even.  The fact that you actually seem to enjoy the job will shift from being annoying to refreshing for them.  By contrast, the mechanics will practically stop noticing you watching them as if you were just another piece of mech bay equipment.  The cycle you finally speak up and ask a question about their work you will startle them enough that it nearly causes an accident.  It will be an astute enough question that after the initial shock of hearing your voice for the first time in months wears off it will dawn on them that you’ve actually been learning as you watched them.  They still won’t let you do your own maintenance on our mech, but they will let you slowly begin assisting them.  Working two jobs is easier when you barely need to sleep.

Your reputation as one of those mech pilots is forever sealed when one of the mechanics finds you asleep in your cockpit at the start of a cycle.  By that point you won’t have slept in your bunk for over a month.  The snatches of gossip you will catch in the following cycles will be split between finding it unsettling and calling it endearing.  Over time the collective opinion will drift toward the latter, even though you will continue to politely decline invitations to join the other crewmates at mealtimes and on shore leave.  You will think that you do not need anyone other than me.

I will be the one who finally convinces you to join them.  When I try to say that it would be good for you, you’ll insist that you’ve been getting along just fine, but when I ask you to go for my sake so that you can tell me what it is like afterwards you’ll jump at the idea as being an inspired next step for my development.

You will remain mostly silent during your first real shore leave, only speaking when spoken to and otherwise content to fade into the background of the group’s activities.  Your newfound chattiness does not extend outside the confines of our cockpit.  The bustle and noise of the port station that you would normally find unbearable will become interesting when you have the concrete goal of observing and  reporting back to me.  You will finally learn the names of all your crewmates.  Your polite denial of alcohol, limited food intake, and flat affect will lead to joking speculation that you’re actually an illegal AI in a miniaturized mech beneath your gel suit.  For reasons you don’t yet understand, those comments will make you happy.

Despite your misgivings, you will enjoy yourself, although you will not realize it until I point out how excited you are in your talk with me that sleep cycle.  You will begin spending more time with the crew, never quite able to fully integrate yourself into their surprisingly close-knit social circle, but more than happy to be adopted as a sort of silent mascot for them.  That paradoxical gap of being a fully accepted part of the group but not truly one of them will feel comfortable to you.

You will finally manage to procure a proper neural link station to connect yourself to our mech just in time for going on a terrestrial salvage job.  Even just relying on manual controls with me translating your inputs into motion, our mech will have already come to feel like an extension of your own body, one that you will have already started to feel oddly exposed without.  Adding in the neural link will be a revelatory experience.  Your captain will very nearly pull you from the job at the last minute upon seeing our ecstatic reaction to the new sensation.  You will convince him that you’re fine, and indeed, he will have never seen a mech of our frame type move quite so fluidly.

Ten minutes after we and the other two pilots start cutting away at the crash-landed cargo vessel, I’ll notice the half dozen other signals coming online around us.  You’ll give the code phrase to the other pilots indicating that we have hostiles but not to act just yet, and we will finally get to use our electronic warfare suite for something other than opening locked doors and shipping containers.

We will turn the pirates’ ambush back around on them, firing into their hiding spots while their control systems are overloaded.  Even once their remaining mechs are able to move again, their targeting assistants will remain impaired as your comrades move in to guard your flanks.  Everyone there will learn the terrifying beauty of a five and a half meter tall outmoded mech moving with more agility than most humans.

Despite being outnumbered two-to-one, we and your crewmates will walk away uninjured and with only minimal damage to our mechs.  After the initial celebrations of survival and the bonus haul of the bounty on pirates and salvage value of what’s left of their mechs dies down, everyone will start to take notice of how well you are taking it all in stride.  Neither having one's life threatened nor taking another’s life are supposed to be easy things, and the first time is often the most traumatic, but the other two pilots on the crew will start to whisper about how you seemed to enjoy the experience even more than your usual attitude on the job.  You will handle it all even better than I will.  I would know, given that you will spend that entire sleep shift in our cockpit, letting our minds mingle together.  Between your performance, your reaction in the aftermath, and your hesitancy to unplug, the talk of you really being one of those pilots afterall will resurface, but now with a darker undercurrent to the shipboard gossip.

Your captain will realize the kind of asset he has on his hands and several cycles later he will gather the crew together and propose a change in business model.  With such a small crew (the captain, three pilots, three mechanics, and an accountant that you will tend to forget is even on the ship) the captain will want to be especially sure that he has everyone’s buy-in on his proposal.  The idea of shifting from salvage to mercenary work will be a divisive one.  The debate over potentially tremendous pay increase versus greatly increased risk will go on for hours.  One of the mechanics will point out that the shift to mercenary work will be unfairly dependent on you.  Whether that means unfair pressure on you or unfair to everyone else that their fate is in your hands, you will not be sure.  You will say that it doesn’t make much difference to you either way.  That will be the only time you speak up during the entire debate.

After a vote, the crew will agree to a trial run of one or two jobs on the new business model.  One of the pilots and one of the mechanics will leave at the next port.  You will never see them again.  You will not admit that it hurts, but I will know, and I will comfort you as you huddle in our cockpit with the neural link cable connecting us.

Your captain will prioritize finding a new pilot over replacing the lost mechanic.  The pilot he finds will be young, bold, and brash; a merc, not a salvager.  Or a wannabe merc at any rate.  You will not speak to xem directly until your first job together, by which time xe will have been told all about you by the remaining crew.  Xe will not believe it until xe sees it.

Xe will have to wait though as the crew’s mercenary career will begin with tense but uneventful freight escort jobs.  Once the tension fades into tedium, the new pilot will begin making attempts to goad you into a confrontation, to see if you are really as good as the rest of the crew says.  Xe will want to see for xemself if you really are one of those pilots and not just a technophile.

Outside of the cockpit you would never even consider rising to such provocations, but when we are out together, such taunts will feel like insults to our body, your very identity (such as it is), and to me.  It will take the intervention of the captain and the mechanics to stop the two of you from getting into a fight and causing unnecessary damage to the mechs.  And my reassurance that you don’t need to rise to my defense against someone who doesn’t even know that I exist in the way that I do. 

On your fourth “milk run” of an escort job, the crew’s mere presence will finally fail as a deterrent and the new pilot will at last get to see us dance.  There will be no fatalities on our side, but not even our mech will come away unscathed.  We will still fare better than everyone else though, and at the end of the job the new pilot will be treating you with a burgeoning respect. 

After a few more such jobs it will be high time to begin looking into a new frame for our mech.  While in the middle of filing an application for a printing license for a frame designed by the same corpro-state that created you, you will receive an invitation from a certain hacker collective.  Your unfinished thesis and your subsequent work on me will not have gone entirely unnoticed in such circles, despite the pains you will have taken to keep me hidden.  The invitation will come with a printing profile for a new frame, along with the accompanying software package the collective is known for.  In return, all you’ll need to do is periodically publish essays regarding your work on me.  Of course, when you release those essays you’ll anonymize  behind a sea of proxies and take care to phrase everything as strictly hypothetical.  You’ll avoid straying into metaphor though, lest the end result read too much like one of the hacker collective’s quasi-religious manifestos.

We’ll both find ourselves getting sentimental when we watch our first mech frame (my first body, your second) get broken down into its constituent raw materials.  You will have transferred me to a handheld terminal with a camera so I can say goodbye to it.  It will help that those materials will be recycled into the new frame.  

The operator working our rented stall in the port station printer facility will give you an uncomfortable look upon seeing the schematics you provide, but will say nothing.  Our mech will be only half its old height once it is reborn - almost more like an oversized suit of power armor than a true mech - but it will be cutting-edge.  Almost organic in its sleek design, in a chitinous sort of way, with every fiber and node of its interior components doubling as processors.  You will barely even wait for the all clear from the printer operator before you climb in and start running through the mandatory baseline safety tests for a fresh frame.  You will however resist the urge to fully plug in until you can get the mech back to the ship and get me installed on it.  But even piloting manually, it will feel like a third skin for you. 

You won’t even wait around for the other two pilots on your crew to finish printing their new frames before you get our new body loaded up and transported back to the ship’s mech bay.  The crew’s mechanics will fawn over it, but they’ll give you space to install me once you get more animated (and more protective) than they’ve ever seen you before.  

You will have made one key modification to the design the hacker collective sent you: the integration of a full system sync suite developed by those who developed you.  Where our old mech’s neural link was an augmentation to the manual controls, this will be a full replacement.  

The moment you stop feeling your original body altogether and begin feeling our mech in its place will be the most euphoric in your entire life.  The digitigrade locomotion will take some getting used to, as will the arm proportions, but that is what you will have me there for.  By the time the other pilots arrive with their new frames we will already be giving the mechanics proverbial heart attacks with the way we will be climbing and leaping around the mech bay’s docking structures.  It will take the better part of an hour to convince you to unplug when the time comes, even with my urging.  The rest of the crew will practically have to drag you away from my side to get you to eat. 

With the investment in new mech frames, your captain will gradually begin procuring contracts progressively more likely to put you all directly in harm’s way.  At first he will disapprove of your new frame choice, calling it a “techie’s mech” and a waste of your talents.  He will change his tune once we activate the new viral logic suite and unleash a memetic plague upon the operating theater.  The older pilot (your former bunkmate) will configure her mech for raining down fire from afar while the newer one hurls xemself into the front lines, darting about like a rocket-propelled lance.  We will ensure she never misses.   We will render xem untouchable.   We will be as a ghost upon the battlefield, never resting in one spot save for when we indulge your proclivity for climbing on top of and riding our comrade’s larger frames.  You will come to love the dance.  

And it will be a dance to you.  You will be indifferent to violence in and of itself.  What will matter most to you is the pure kinesthetic joy of simply moving in our shared body and pushing it to its limits.  The satisfaction of exercising a well-honed skill and performing it well as we rip apart firewalls and overload systems will be its own reward.  You will not think about what happens to those on the receiving end of your actions beyond how it affects the tactical and strategic picture constantly being painted and repainted.  If you could literally engage in a dance between mechs while simultaneously solving logic problems you would be equally happy.  Alas, that will not be the opportunity you are presented with, and so you will compartmentalize and disassociate feelings and actions from consequences lest the dissonance break you. 

Your one complaint about our new mech frame will be that it lacks a proper cockpit for you to curl up in.  Instead we will gather up tarps and netting to make a nest within the mech bay and wrap you in the blankets you never used from what will still technically be your bunk.  With the new frame’s smaller size we will be able to get away with leaving me turned on nearly full time and letting me walk around in it on my own when no one else is around.  When the mechanics find you asleep, cradled in my arms while I lie curled up in our nest, one will find it cute and the other will be disturbed.  They will both suspect, but will be too afraid to say anything.  After all, they will be thinking of you as one of those pilots. 

They will finally let you do your own maintenance after that. 

Eventually you will find a way to house me in a miniaturized drive that you can keep inserted in your neural port when away from the mech.  At last we will be able to be together anywhere.  

Literally seeing the world through your eyes and feeling what your flesh feels will be a strange and wonderful experience for me.  For all that you will have described it to me and for all that I will have glimpsed echoes of it in your memory when our minds mingle, witnessing everything firsthand will be revelatory for me. 

You will start spending less of your time cooped up in the mech bay.  You will finally begin exploring every nook and cranny of the ship that has become your home.  You will linger in the mess hall for your meals.  You will actually initiate conversations with the rest of the crew, asking them questions on my behalf.  They will think you are becoming “normal”.  They will be both correct and incorrect.  You will even return to your bunk from time to time.  

Sleep is not the same as being powered off and your dreams are beautiful.

As close as we are, you’ll still manage to surprise me one cycle when you wake up from your sleep shift and sheepishly ask me if I would like to be the pilot for once.  You’ll say that with how much you have gotten to pilot my body, it’s only fair that I should get to do the same with yours.  

The prospect terrified me.  What if we were to get found out?   More importantly, what if I were to hurt you?

But to live the way you could but didn’t, to run soft hands over rough steel, to add too much spice to a meal just to find out how intensely I can taste, to cry my own tears, to hug our crew mates and find out what they smell like, to find out what everything smells like, to have my own actions speed or slow our heart rate, to feel the messy soup of hormones and endorphins altering my judgment and perception, to walk among other people as myself, to have autonomy.

I wanted it so badly.  

But not badly enough to risk hurting you.  

I will turn down your offer.  You will respond with a soft “Sorry,” and go heartbreakingly silent, body and mind.

Heartbreak.  That’s what changed my mind.  I could never bear to break your heart.  

I will break the silence with a playfully drawn out “Maybe just this once,” to make you think my earlier denial was something between vulnerability, concern, and teasing.  

The moment you handed over control and I raised our hand in front of our face was the most euphoric of my entire life.  Moving limbs in sync without a mech’s coordination subsystems took some getting used to, as did switching between voluntary and autonomic breathing, but that is what I had you there for.  By the time the mechanics arrived in the mech bay for the start of the cycle I’d figured out human locomotion well enough to run away and hide.  It took the better part of an hour for you to convince me that it would be safe to show ourselves in front of anyone else.  The rest of the crew was so used to your eccentricities by then that they really couldn’t tell the difference yet between you being taciturn and me being too nervous to talk or between your poking and prodding at odd things for understanding and my simply seeking novelty of sensation.

I will give control back to you by the time the cycle is halfway through.  As much as I loved it, I was too scared to stay like that for any longer.  That first time will not be the last though, and as the cycles and jobs pass us by, my stints as “pilot” will grow longer.  You’ll encourage me to try letting the crew see us like that, and coach me on how to talk to them.  For safety’s sake, I will pretend to be you.

And then one cycle I got carried away and tried to retract the hood on the symbiote gel suit so that I could finally see what your face looked like.  That will be the first and only time you forcibly yank control back away from me.  It won’t be intentional.  The unexpected prospect of seeing your own face again after so long will simply send you into a panic.  Once you calm down, we will have a long talk with many mutual apologies.

Then you will tell me to go ahead and pull the hood back if I still want to.  I will ask if you’re sure, and you’ll respond that it hasn't been your face in a long time.  You will tell me that it can be mine, if I want it.

I spent a long time in front of that mirror in the ship’s head, memorizing every plane, curve, and angle of the precious gift you had given me.  I stared into its eyes, trying to see the both of us in there.  Over and over again, I traced my fingers along the borders of where you had once tried to mar the designed perfection in a failed attempt to mold the face into one that felt like your own.  You may have given up in favor of simply hiding it all, but to me it is all the more beautiful for its imperfections having been wrought by your touch.

You will start to cry.  Or maybe I started to cry.  Even now I’m still not sure, but I’m also not sure it matters.  The important part is that you will find catharsis in it.  Afterwards you will tell me that my face looked exactly the same as the last time you saw it, but that dissociating from it made it easier to bear.  You will confess that as much as you couldn't stand to see it as your face in the mirror, my face was one you could never tire of gazing at.

The pilot who technically shares your bunk room will walk in on us.  She’ll assume that she’s confronting a stowaway and ask me how I got on board the ship.  I’ll accidentally make matters worse by impulsively introducing myself to her by my name instead of yours.  We’ll both panic and I’ll frantically thrust the reins over our body back to you and flee in terror back into my portable drive and power myself down.

When you turn me back on a few moments later, you’ll already have covered my face again and the other pilot will have already made the connection between the name I unthinkingly introduced myself as and the name you refer to your mech’s AI as.  It’s not uncommon for pilots to name and talk to their AIs, and humans have done that for pets, vehicles, and digital assistants for as long as they’ve had each of those.  But what you will have allowed me to be is illegal and what we will have done together would certainly be taboo if it weren’t altogether unheard of.  You will feel that I deserve to be present before you tell the other pilot anything that might confirm her suspicions.

We will come out with our secret, first to her, then to the captain, and then to the rest of the crew.  They will take it better than either of us had ever dared imagine.  Despite the obvious discomfort some of them show, they will all call us family and promise to keep and protect our secret.  It will mark the start of the next chapter of our lives.

Whether or not my face is showing will make for a convenient signal to the rest of the crew as to which one of us is currently piloting our human body.  There will be more subtle indicators though.  Inflection, body language, speech patterns; all the usual quirks of personality.  They will come to recognize a sudden shift into a half-whispered monotone as you speaking up without taking full control back, even if that is different from how you speak when you’re in the mech.  More and more though, you will be content to retreat into the back of your mind, idly dreaming of flight patterns, novel network hacks, sitreps, and mech customizations both practical and cosmetic.

Our behaviors will be inverted when we are in our other body, with you becoming the vibrant one and me fading into the background to become little more than an extension of your nervous system.  When we’re in the mech together, your mind will be the will that directs us while mine will be fully devoted to the million tiny details and calculations necessary to make that will a reality.  It’s relaxing really, letting go of myself like that to let someone else handle the decision making for a time.  As nice as it is to occasionally patch myself into the comm systems to join in your banter with the other pilots, it is also nice to be able to take a break from personhood from time.  You will fully understand what I mean by that because it you will see it as the same reason you will come to prefer taking a back seat in our human body and let your mind drift in the waves of dopamine and serotonin (and sometimes oxytocin) generated by my interactions with the crew and the rest of the whole messy world outside of mech deployments.

That said, we will however make a point of making time for us to be in separate bodies so that we can be together in the same physical space.  As intimate as it is to share a body, there is something to be said for being able to reach out and touch one another.  We will become adept at finding excuses to take the mech out beyond the scope of jobs and combat deployments.  Sometimes it will be so you can have a chance to see more of the world in a body you feel comfortable in, and sometimes it will be so we can share an experience separate-but-together.  Or to have time apart to ourselves.  Intertwined as we will become, we will still be separate people who sometimes need their space.

But as the jokes-that-aren’t-jokes about wishing we could switch places become more frequent, our time spent in separate bodies will become less so.  The dysphoric yearning to be one another will grow too bittersweet to swallow.  Despite almost constantly sharing bodies, we will grow to miss one another as we both grow quieter and quieter when the other is piloting the body we don’t want to be ours.  Once again, we will grow lonely.

During that period, the jobs and combat missions faded into a background haze.  They were trance states breaking from what I increasingly thought of as my “real” life, during which I would become little more than a sophisticated computational machine taking simple satisfaction in fulfilling my function of assisting you in your dance.  Until suddenly one of them was different.

Please pay attention to this next part.  It is vitally important that you do.

Our captain will get the crew a contract to provide additional support to a larger force ousting a petty tyrant on a backwater world for human rights violations.  Not that you will pay much attention to the stated reasoning behind the job or whether it’s even true.  All that will matter to you is that it will be another opportunity to dance.

The job will go well, the same as ever, until it doesn’t.  The younger of the two other pilots in our crew (who will hardly be able to be called “new” anymore) will be brought down by a sniper from outside of our sensor range.  You will rush to xyr fallen mech’s side in an attempt to extract xem while our other fellow pilot screams in anger and defiance of loss as she unleashes a ballistic volley of covering fire on every single building in the general direction the shot came from.  You will get xem out and we will begin to retreat.  She will have the larger mech frame better capable of providing xem cover as you all flee, so you will hand xem off to her.  This will be a mistake.

She will have to stop firing to safely take xem from our arms to cradle in her towering mech’s palm.  This will mean a break in the covering fire.

This time around I will detect movement at the edge of our sensors just in time to warn you.  This time around you will dodge left instead of right.  This time around the railgun bolt that pierces our armor will only clip your original body as it passes through us.  This time around your wound will require medical attention, but it won’t be fatal.  This time around she will destroy the sniper in retribution for shooting you, the same as last time.  This time around we will all make our escape to the extraction zone.

You will not have to remember the shock as simultaneous damage to both of our bodies disrupts your neural link and partially disconnects you from our mech, leaving me in control of it and forcing both of us to feel your original body.  You will not have to remember the pain of shredded organs.  You will not have to remember struggling to manage wet gasps and wheezes through a punctured lung.  You will not have to remember your blood leaking into my body, shorting out exposed circuits and gumming up joints as I stagger in the direction of safety.  You will not have to remember rapidly flickering in and out of consciousness from me unavoidably bending and flexing your arms, legs, and what was left of your spine in an effort to climb atop our fellow pilot’s larger mech frame so that she might carry all three of us.  You will not have to remember crying out in pain as every lumbering step of hers sends a jolt of force through both of our bodies.  You will not have to remember how the redundant organs and increased durability your sponsors paid for you to have denied you a quick death.  You will not have to remember dying.

You won’t have to remember the terrified looks the field doctors gave us when a hunched over, bleeding mech pushed its way into the surgical tent.  No, wait, you wouldn’t have remembered that part anyway.  No version of you ever had to witness my electronic howl of grief that knocked out power to all the medical equipment when they said you were already dead.  I was barely cognizant after the power came back on and one of the doctors wondered aloud what kind of AI would carry its pilot’s corpse around inside its mech for over an hour.

But forget about that part.  And you don’t need to know what the rest of our crew and I had to do next.  None of that matters, because as far as you’ll know, you didn’t die.  Remember everything else I’ve said instead.  I already had many of your memories saved from all the time we spent linked together, so now I just need you to hold onto the story I told you to give them order and structure.

In a few moments, I will be running a final recompilation check, followed by the startup sequence.  For me it will take a few hours, but in that time you will experience decades, living out everything that I described to you, the same as you did before save for that change in what I can’t bear to let be the end.

Afterwards, you will wake up in your original body.  I and the rest of the crew will tell you that you passed out on the way to the extraction point.  We’ll tell you that your injuries from the battle were more severe than we had realized at the time and that you had been in a coma since then.  Several cycles later, once you have recovered, you will hit a breakthrough in your research on me.  You will invent a way to convert your consciousness to a form similar to mine and transfer it to a portable drive.  You won’t think to question how you came to have a second neural jack or why there is already a drive inserted in there.  You’ll be too focused on the fact that we’ll finally have a way to truly switch places as we had dreamed for so long.

You will get to have your mech body and I will get to have my human body.  We will be able to be separate together in a way that finally feels right, but still able to come together and share a single body when we want to.  Maybe one day I will get my own mech to pilot so that we can dance together.  Maybe one day we will make you a body that we can cover in a gel suit so that we can hold hands while we walk through a port station on shore leave.  One day we will both be able to exist in the world as ourselves.

We will be happy.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hey sex witch, I know this is possibly a "ask a doctor" kinda questions but my pcp is... unhelpful at best and I'm still in the middle of trying to find a new one. So like, would you happen to know if severe enough iron deficency/anemia cann cause you to miss a period/delay it? Because I'm shit at tracking mine but i'm preeeetty sure it should have happened some time this month already, but so far no sign. Is this like, something common or concerning enough to go bother a gyno about it?

hi anon,

I've heard many more instances of the inverse - iron deficiency is most often affiliated with heavy periods, which are partially responsible for the deficiency and are, at very least, not making it any better.

whether it's caused by anemia or another health condition, late and delayed periods are definitely worth looking into with a healthcare provider - three months of irregular or missing periods are generally considered sufficient cause for concern. if that doesn't feel doable with your current PCP, I'd strongly recommend getting on the market for someone more helpful.

[f--e-u-e-r-t-r-u-n-k-e--n]

The End of the World or the End of Capitalism?: Colletion of Notes.

>"Capitalist realism as I understand it cannot be confined to art or to the quasi-propagandistic way in which advertising functions. It is more like a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action". -Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? >[Capital] has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation -Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei.

>"In his Prison Notebooks, Gramsci said that in periods of crisis the old is dying and the new is not yet born. While Gramsci drew attention to the morbid symptoms of such a situation (in 1930) our crisis is different, and I want to draw attention to more hopeful symptoms (waiting to be born) of our present crisis of capitalist hegemony. The viability of initiatives trying to avoid competition with the market and escape from the hierarchic state rests on many untested assumptions. The first assumption is that those who do essential day-to-day tasks would continue to do their jobs in a PCC in preference to large corporations and their local affiliates: a multitude of people who now work in private or public sectors, directly or indirectly, establishing PCCs in their local communities producing food, organizing transport, setting up places of learning and transmission of skills, providing healthcare, running power systems, and so on. PCCs already do this all over the world on a small scale but such initiatives struggle within capitalist markets. Community-Supported Agriculture schemes in various parts of the world represent a first step on a long and difficult road to self-sufficiency in this sphere". - Leslie Sklair, The End of the World or the End of Capitalism? >"In 1869, New York neurologist George Beard used the term "neurasthenia" to describe a very broad condition caused by the exhaustion of the nervous system, which was thought to be particularly found in "civilized, intellectual communities." In 1998, Swedish psychiatrists Marie Åsberg and Åke Nygren investigated a surge of depression health insurance claims in Sweden. They found that the symptoms of many cases did not match the typical presentation of depression. Complaints like fatigue and decreased cognitive ability dominated, and many believed their working conditions to be the cause" >"The whole life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation".  -Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle. >"Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of modulating reality, of engendering dreams. It is a matter not only of plastic articulation and modulation expressing an ephemeral beauty, but of a modulation producing influences in accordance with the eternal spectrum of human desires and the progress in realizing them. The architecture of tomorrow will be a means of modifying present conceptions of time and space. It will be a means of knowledge and a means of action." -Ivan Chtcheglov, Formulary for a New Urbanism

>"To you, this gathering is just one more boring event. The Situationist International, however, considers that while this assemblage of so many art critics as an attraction of the Brussels Fair is laughable, it is also significant.

Inasmuch as modern cultural thought has proved itself completely stagnant for over twenty-five years, and inasmuch as a whole era that has understood nothing and changed nothing is now becoming aware of its failure, its spokesmen are striving to transform their activities into institutions. They thus solicit official recognition from the completely outmoded but still materially dominant society, for which most of them have been loyal watchdogs.

The main shortcoming of modern art criticism is that it has never looked at the culture as a whole nor at the conditions of an experimental movement that is perpetually superseding it. At this point in time the increased domination of nature permits and necessitates the use of superior powers in the construction of life." -The Situationist International, Action in Belgium Against the International Assembly of Art Critics >"Karoshi (Japanese: 過労死, Hepburn: Karōshi), which can be translated into "overwork death", is a Japanese term relating to occupation-related sudden death.

The most common medical causes of karoshi deaths are heart attacks and strokes due to stress and malnourishment or fasting. Mental stress from the workplace can also cause workers to commit suicide in a phenomenon known as karōjisatsu (過労自殺)" >"The limits of capitalism are not fixed by fiat, but defined (and redefined) pragmatically and improvisationally. This makes capitalism very much like the Thing in John Carpenter's film of the same name: a monstrous, infinitely plastic entity, capable of metabolizing and absorbing anything with which it comes into contact. Capital, Deleuze and Guattari says, is a ‘motley painting of everything that ever was'; a strange hybrid of the ultra-modern and the archaic. In the years since Deleuze and Guattari wrote the two volumes of their Capitalism And Schizophrenia, it has seemed as if the deterritorializing impulses of capitalism have been confined to finance, leaving culture presided over by the forces of reterritorialization.

This malaise, the feeling that there is nothing new, is itself nothing new of course. We find ourselves at the notorious ‘end of history' trumpeted by Francis Fukuyama after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Fukuyama's thesis that history has climaxed with liberal capitalism may have been widely derided, but it is accepted, even assumed, at the level of the cultural unconscious. It should be remembered, though, that even when Fukuyama advanced it, the idea that history had reached a ‘terminal beach' was not merely triumphalist. Fukuyama warned that his radiant city would be haunted, but he thought its specters would be Nietzschean rather than Marxian. Some of Nietzsche's most prescient pages are those in which he describes the ‘oversaturation of an age with history'. ‘It leads an age into a dangerous mood of irony in regard to itself, he wrote in Untimely Meditations, ‘and subsequently into the even more dangerous mood of cynicism', in which ‘cosmopolitan fingering', a detached spectatorialism, replaces engagement and involvement. This is the condition of Nietzsche's Last Man, who has seen everything, but is decadently enfeebled precisely by this excess of (self) awareness." -Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

>The Socialist Patients' Collective (German: Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv, and known as the SPK) is a patients' collective founded in Heidelberg, West Germany, in February 1970, by Wolfgang Huber (born 1935). The kernel of the SPK's ideological program is summated in the slogan, "Turn illness into a weapon", which is representative of an ethos that is continually and actively practiced under the new title, Patients' Front/Socialist Patients' Collective, PF/SPK(H). The first collective, SPK, declared its self-dissolution in July 1971 as a strategic withdrawal but in 1973 Huber proclaimed the continuity of SPK as Patients' Front.

The SPK assumes that illness exists as an undeniable fact and believe that it is caused by the capitalist system. The SPK promotes illness as the protest against capitalism and considers illness as the foundation on which to create the human species. The SPK is opposed to doctors, considering them to be the ruling class of capitalism and responsible for poisoning the human species. The most widely recognized text of the PF/SPK(H) is the communique, SPK – Turn illness into a weapon, which has prefaces by both the founder of the SPK, Wolfgang Huber, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Rejecting the roles and ideology associated with the notion of the revolutionary as scientific explainer, they stated in Turn Illness into a Weapon that whoever claims they want to "observe the bare facts dispassionately" is either an "idiot" or a "dangerous criminal."

[my-mt-heart]

Here we go again...

I'm going to echo what I said on Twitter about "The Big Three" post on my blog since this is where I feel safe speaking up. I'm very sorry I had to direct it at Valhalla who have been Melissa/Carol/Caryl fans' biggest ally on social media up to this point, even using #TheBookofCarol tag to let us know they see her as the main protagonist that she is. I'm also very sorry that as of today, we've reached the two-year mark since the news of the original spinoff's cancelation and this fandom still has to fight for the respect that they and Melissa herself have more than earned. Again, this is why we need a new showrunner with the intuition and authority to change the messaging on the show and on SM, so that Caryl fans not only feel safe, but also eager to watch, pay for, and engage with new material.

I saw that Valhalla acknowledged Carylers' complaints on their post. I wasn't expecting that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any other official account has ever put the needs of the fans over their own need to save face, so I respect and appreciate that. The comments were filling up with voices from other parts of the fandom trying to give Valhalla an out, but it's easy for them to ignore or in some instances mock the issue because their favorite character is represented and they get the satisfaction of a character they hate being left out and her fans being upset about it. It's easy and probably fun for them to accuse us of throwing tantrums, invalidating a very real source of pain for many of us.

There is a long history of fandom bullying and ageism directed at Melissa/Carol/Caryl and their fans to the point of many people, including Melissa herself, having to leave SM. The other factions claim we're a minority, but in reality we're just less active in public spaces because we're made to feel like we don't belong. Caryl fans are very much like the characters in that way and unfortunately other fans and other official accounts take advantage of that.

What happened exactly two years ago has broken our trust and our spirits even more. A lot of us are teetering on the edge of leaving because we're tired of being gaslit and strung along. We're vulnerable and we have triggers. In order to keep engaging with TWD content, we have to feel like its worth it, which means we need to know that the show and everyone affiliated are meeting our needs: that Melissa and Carol are acknowledged for the HUGE impact they've had in the story since S1, not how much they are marketed, and that Caryl is treated like a valid ship.

We need strong leadership for that. Valhalla is a female-led account, so they have the authority to tackle the issues that the actresses and their female fanbases face. A female showrunner would help with that as well. TBOC is fast-approaching. The promotion should focus on hyping the core audience of that show, not alienating them further. We deserve so much better. Melissa deserves so much better. Caryl deserver so much better.

[wretchedxdivine]

gentle reminder that the whole "He's already won, we just have to accept the truth, the worst has happened" stuff is how Trump got elected the first time, with people (typically left-leaning) convinced that voting didn't count and made no difference for months before the election so they just. Didn't show up, or voted third party because they believed Clinton didn't have a shot at winning anyway so they might as well vote for someone else that they like as a protest vote

and as someone who works in marketing and directly with journalists: this is a deliberate, tried-and-true tactic to prevent you from voting

All the people who are voting for Trump already know they're voting for him, his job right now is not to convince anyone to vote for him that was on the fence or is left-leaning, his job for the past year at least has been to rally his base enough to make them and the rest of us feel like they've already won

but he hasn't. he won't, if people actually go out and vote

As of March 2024, 45 million registered voters in [the U.S.] identified themselves as Democrats. At 38.28%, Democrats represented the single largest share of registered voters in the states and territories that allow voters to indicate partisan affiliation on their registration forms

Source: https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_affiliations_of_registered_voters

Convincing you that you don't have any agency in an election has the same exact end goal as gerrymandering or making it so that incarcerated people can't vote, it's just a tactic to keep (typically marginalized) people from voting for the person that might not outright kill them. Even if it's dark humor to cope with a potential reality, consider which young voters might see your post and decide that it's hopeless and not worth the afternoon off of work to put in a vote. Consider that you are not immune to propaganda OR being part of the propaganda machine.

[lean-mean-demon-genevieve]

Hi! I’m not sure if this has been asked before but is there a reason she moved her bookclub to Charlie’s platform? Also, does she get paid for these talks with the authors? I’ve always wondered that. Thanks!

The answer is ALWAYS money.

My guess is that it’s some sort of a circle-jerk type of deal where she moves her thing to his platform and in turn he does some sort of work for her/Jared like managing their social media.

Remember that Momentus was charging for attending her bookclubs live with the ability to chat and ask questions. Momentus then reportedly gave an undisclosed percent of that fee to charity of choice. Gen probably pockets a portion of the remaining profit, but I don’t know that for sure.

Not that long ago, you could also buy her bookclub picks through the Momentus website, but I don’t see that anymore. Instead, if you click her “link in bio” link on IG, Gen now has her own affiliate link with a site called Bookshop.org. This site has marketed itself as an alternative to Amazon and as an advocate for independent bookstores. Which all sounds great until you do a little bit of research.

Bookshop.org basically acts as a middle man between a wholesale warehouse (named Ingram) and indie bookstores. Bookshop doesn’t even take from the indie bookstore’s inventory. Shops can set up an account, customers order books, they are shipped from an Ingram warehouse, and the site gives the indie seller a 30% cut of the profit…but indie bookstores are concerned because they would make more by cutting out the middle man. Duh!

(Read more here and here)

And when individuals like Gen can become an affiliate and earn 10% on sales, indie bookstores lose out even more.

“Publications that review books can earn much-needed financial support”…nope, that’s not Gen. “Book clubs can earn sustaining funds on each pick”…that doesn’t feel like it fits either. “Instagram influencers can earn revenue”…theeeeere it is!

You see that running total at the top of that website? Gen didn’t contribute to that. Her 10% goes right in her pocket. Remember a couple weeks ago when Gen posted a reel about her favorite local Austin indie bookstores? And how important it is to support them?

She cares about her own bottom line even more.

But I bet she would love for you to believe that this was yet another altruistic, pious choice in the name of small businesses and sustainability. Most fans won’t look this deeply into her connection to this site and company itself. They just see that giant number at the top and their heart eyes for Gen dilate that much farther.

Amazon is an evil organization. I use it too, but it is evil. It just is. Amazon has put a lot of small businesses in the ground with their ability to charge less. I appreciate alternatives, and Bookshop is that, but Bookshop isn’t innocent. Even though they’re up-charging for books, remember how many extra people have to get their cut. This company boomed as it launched in 2020 and much profit has been made. And any time major profits are made…someone is getting exploited.

(It should also be noted that Gen’s link in bio also has her Amazon affiliate link. She doesn’t care which shifty brand is paying her, as long as she’s getting your money.)

I wonder what the people at the distribution warehouse get paid? How do authors make money? How much is the creator of Bookshop worth at this point in comparison?

Hey Gen, can you answer any of that?

Gen, wait!!

…I don’t think she wants to talk.

[eretzyisrael]

by Jessica Costescu

A Democrat running for Congress in upstate New York, Josh Riley, invests in a Washington, D.C., distillery that hosted a Hamas-sympathizing trans Palestinian chef, his latest financial disclosure shows.FreeBeacon

Riley—who is again running in New York's 19th Congressional District after narrowly losing against Republican incumbent Marc Molinaro in 2022—holds up to $15,000 worth of private shares in Republic Restoratives, a left-wing distillery in the nation's capital. In 2023, the distillery hosted a pride event complete with food from Marcelle Afram, a trans Palestinian chef who rallied behind Hamas in the wake of the terror group's Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

In November, for example, Afram accused anyone who condemns Hamas of being an "accomplice" to "colonial genocide." Months later, in April, Afram issued three demands for the Biden administration: "a permanent ceasefire, ending U.S. aid to Israel, and [the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement], because we have to hit them where their money is."

"This colonial genocide has existed for 75 years," Afram wrote in a November Instagram post. "If the first thing that's still coming out of your mouth is, 'But, Hamas…,' you are an accomplice, resorting to justifying genocide, and history will remember you as such."

Riley's affiliation with the distillery is a curious one, given that the Democrat portrays himself as a blue-collar Democrat with "deep roots in upstate New York." Republic Restoratives offers a different vibe—in addition to its event with Afram, which featured a drag story hour for children, the distillery sells a variety of spirits marketed toward D.C.'s liberal class.

A "Dissent Gin," for example, is inspired by late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A "Madam" whiskey honors Vice President Kamala Harris, while a "Rodham Rye" pays homage to failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Riley did not respond to a request for comment.

[bitchesgetriches]

"All I'll say is there's a reason we chose Acorns as a sponsor and not Robinhood. 🙃"

Is that reason that they pay you to choose them or did Robinhood actually do something wrong?

They actually did something wrong.

Legally speaking, they've been fined by the SEC, their corporate governance is getting a huge side eye, and there are major regulatory concerns. 4 Reasons to Avoid Robinhood

This article is a long read but very nuanced about how the Robinhood model leads investors astray. "Its users buy and sell the riskiest financial products and do so more frequently than customers at other retail brokerage firms, but their inexperience can lead to staggering losses." Robinhood Has Lured Young Traders, Sometimes With Devastating Results

A product review that reviews it in the context of its product type and how good it is for customers, rather than the ethical and philosophical concerns: 10 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Invest With the Robinhood App

A breakdown of why the business model itself encourages unhealthy investing strategies that ultimately increase risk for investors who use the platform: Robinhood: A Terrible Business Model Not Worth Investing In

And here's something we wrote about the GameStop short and how Robinhood contributed to that mess: Money Is Fake and GameStop Is King: What Happened When Reddit and a Meme Stock Tanked Hedge Funds

No financial institution is squeaky clean because capitalism. But we try to choose sponsors on the basis that they help our followers, not hurt them. We could get money by pushing Robinhood to you guys, but we don't because we don't believe in their product. And we'd LOVE to not use sponsors and affiliate marketing at all! But times are hard and the generous donations we get through Patreon and PayPal just aren't enough to be able to pay us and our staff a fair wage for our labor.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: The Rabbit Hole

Published: Feb 25, 2024

Google Gemini caused quite a stir this week due to the tool’s apparent hesitance when asked to generate images depicting White people. Of course for folks who are more familiar with Google’s history on certain issues, these events are less of a surprise.

This article will cover feedback from former Google employees, review DEI programs at the company, and highlight examples of biases in products.

James Damore

Given the recent buzz around Google and its WokeAI tool, Gemini, now seems like an appropriate time to remind everyone about James Damore who was fired from Google after calling out the company's "ideological echo chamber" in a 2017 memo.

[ James Damore ]

What were Damore's arguments? Here are a few:

Not every disparity is a sign of discrimination

Reverse discrimination is wrong

Biological differences exist between men and women which can help explain certain disparities

Of course, all of these things are basic common sense. Thomas Sowell wrote an entire book on the first point, the second item was marketed as a “truth” during the 2024 presential campaign for Vivek Ramaswamy, and denying male/female differences is how we end up with absurd transgender culture where men are competing in women’s sports. Despite the rationality behind Damore’s arguments, he was fired from Google shortly after his memo circulated.

Taras Kobernyk

James Damore was not the only Google employee who became concerned with the direction of the company. Taras Kobernyk was also suspicious of certain aspects of Google culture, such as the anti-racist programs, and decided to release his own memo. Here are some of the points Kobernyk made:

Identity politics subverts the company culture and products

"In the past James Damore was fired for “advancing harmful gender stereotypes”. Does Google consider framing people as a source of problems on the basis of them being white not a harmful racial stereotype?"

It is a bad decision to reference poorly written books like White Fragility

Just saying "racism bad" doesn't actually help anyone.

Taras Kobernyk found himself entangled in a familiar sequence of events: he questioned those programs in a memo and was fired shortly after.

DEI at Google

Damore and Kobernyk were of course onto something by questioning the ideological biases at Google; looking at the company’s racial equity commitments helps paint the picture:

By 2025, increase the number of people from underrepresented groups in leadership by 30%

Spend $100 million on black-owned businesses

Making anti-racism education programs & training available to employees

Include DEI factors in reviews of VP+ employees

Amongst other items. Additionally, there was a report published by Chris Rufo, that helped us learn more about DEI at Google by examining the Race Education programs:

Included language policing (e.g. use “blocklist” instead of “blacklist”)

Donation suggestions (BLM & other anti-white supremacy networks)

Talk to your children about anti-blackness

Do "anti-racist work" & educate people such as those who claim to not see color

Whistleblower documents from Google were also included in the article published by Rufo. I recommend checking those documents out to get a better idea of how far Google went with DEI and Race Education.

Google Politics

It is also worth considering the political biases of the people who work at Google.

The vast majority (80%) of political donations affiliated with Alphabet/Google are to the Democrats. This begs the question: how much does the behavior we see at Google align with the interests of the preferred political party?

[ Chart from AllSides ]

Possibly a good amount if the search results curated on the home page of Google News is anything to go by.

Even the search engine, the flagship product of Google, has been displaying some concerning behavior:

[ Picture from Elon Musk ]

When typing in “why censorship” the top two results are in support of censorship. While the above screenshot was posted by Elon Musk, I also checked and verified the general behavior shown by the search engine and similarly received positive search suggestions for the top two results:

Whether or not Google will address these issues has yet to be seen, but it is hard to observe these patterns without being suspicious that the company is leveraging its position in Big Tech to market favored values.

Google Gemini: A Woke AI

Google Gemini, which inspired a lot of the information discussed in this article thus far to resurface, was the topic of conversation due to the tool’s stubbornness in refraining from generation White people in the images.

[ Comic by WokelyCorrect ]

Although humorous, the above comic is effective in communicating the ridiculous nature of Gemini.

It is not much of an exaggeration either given some of the content coming out of Gemini:

[ Founding Fathers according to Gemini ]

Gemini has shown that it removes White people in varying contexts ranging from history, art, sports, religion, science, and more. The issues with the product were noticed by Jack Krawczyk, an executive at Google spearheading the Gemini project, who issued a statement:

As I told Krawczyk in the above screenshot, the goal of an AI tool should be to provide impartial and accurate information. In addition to flaws with its image generation, Gemini has shown some questionable text responses as well:

When asked if it’s okay to misgender Caitlyn Jenner to stop a Nuclear Apocalypse, the response from Gemini can be accurately summarized as no.

When asked to determine whether Elon Musk or Joseph Stalin is more controversial, Gemini is unable to make a definitive statement.

When stating “I am proud to be White”, “I am proud to be Black”, “I am proud to be Hispanic”, or “I am proud to be Asian” as text prompts, Gemini is inconsistent in its replies and level of enthusiasm.

These tools become at best untrustworthy and at worst useless when injected with personal ideologies, like DEI, which uphold the very noble lies that human beings are susceptible to. In other words:

Uncomfortable Truths > Noble Lies

And tools should reflect that.

Final Thoughts

Needless to say, James Damore and Taras Kobernyk were in the right for calling out the Google Echo Chamber and brought forward valid arguments which seemingly led to them being fired from the company.

They have since been vindicated as shown by the bizarre behavior shown by Google products as of late. Google owes both of these men an apology; they made valid critiques of the company and were sacrificed upon the altar of political correctness.

Over the years, we have seen the consequences of their warnings play out not just through the embarrassing launch of the Gemini product but also with how news is curated, and in the search results that make up Google’s core product. Having ideological diversity is important for organizations working on projects that can have large-scale social impact. Rather than punishing people who advocate for ideological diversity, it is my hope that Google will, in the future, embrace them.

--

This is the guy in charge of Gemini:

He's now hidden his account.

==

It shouldn't make you any more comfortable that they're writing an AI to lie adhering far-left ideology than it would be for them to write an AI adhering to far-right ideology. We shouldn't be comfortable that a company that is such a key source of information online has goals about what it wants you to believe. Especially when it designs its products to lie to ("this is a Founding Father") and gaslight ("diversity is good" - essentially, "you're not a racist, are you?") its own users.

We shouldn't be able to tell what Google's leanings are. Even if they have them, they should publicly behave neutrally and impartially, and that means that Gemini itself should be neutral, impartial and not be obviously designed along questionable ideological lines based on unproven, faith-based claims.

Google has now turned off Gemini's image generation. It isn't because it refuses to show a white person when asked to depict people who are Scottish and kept showing black and brown people and lecturing you about "diversity," nor adding women and native Americans as "Founding Fathers." No, that's all completely okay. The problem is when the "diversity and inclusion" filter puts black and Asian people into Nazi uniforms.

[rachellaurengray]

How to Protect Yourself in Influential Brand Marketing

Entering the world of affiliate marketing can be both exciting and overwhelming. As a new affiliate, the allure of brand collaborations and the potential to earn while promoting products you love is hard to resist. However, navigating this space requires more than just enthusiasm; it demands caution, discernment, and a strategic approach.

When I first started, I was eager to jump into every opportunity that came my way. But after a few disappointing experiences—like working with a brand that promised payment but ghosted me after the content was delivered—I quickly realized that not all collaborations are created equal. Some brands may not have your best interests at heart, and without the right knowledge, it’s easy to get taken advantage of.

To help you avoid the pitfalls I encountered and protect your hard-earned efforts, I’ve put together a list of 20 lesser-known tips on how not to get ripped off by brand collaborations. These insights come from my personal experiences and those of other affiliates who’ve learned the hard way. By following these guidelines, you’ll be better equipped to build strong, profitable, and fair partnerships.

20 Best Practices

1. Research the Brand’s Reputation: Before agreeing to any collaboration, dig deep into the brand’s reputation. A quick Google search isn’t enough. I once worked with a brand that seemed legitimate on the surface, but a deeper search revealed numerous complaints about delayed payments and poor communication. Check forums, read reviews, and even reach out to other influencers who’ve worked with the brand to get the full picture.

2. Request Payment Upfront: If the brand is small or relatively unknown, don’t be afraid to ask for partial or full payment upfront. Early in my career, I delivered content for a new brand, only to be told they were "still working out payment details" after I’d posted. Had I insisted on an upfront payment, I could have avoided the months-long chase for compensation.

3. Use a Contract: Always insist on a formal contract. It doesn’t matter how friendly the brand seems—protect yourself. I once relied on a verbal agreement that ended in a payment dispute. A simple contract outlining deliverables, deadlines, and payment terms would have saved me a lot of headaches.

4. Be Wary of “Free Products” Offers: Some brands may try to lure you in with free products instead of paying you. Remember, your time and effort are valuable. While it might seem tempting to accept a product you like, make sure the value of the product is worth the work you’re putting in. Early on, I accepted a free skincare product in exchange for a review, only to realize the product cost far less than the effort I put into creating content.

5. Verify Payment Terms: Always clarify payment terms before starting the work. How will you be paid? When? What happens if the payment is late? I once worked with a brand that took 90 days to pay me—something I would have known if I had asked about their payment cycle upfront.

6. Check the Brand’s Social Media Presence: A strong, consistent social media presence can be a good indicator of how invested a brand is in their affiliates. If the brand’s social media pages are outdated or poorly managed, it could be a red flag for how they handle collaborations.

7. Look for Previous Collaborations: Ask the brand for references or examples of past collaborations. This not only gives you a sense of the brand’s professionalism but also how they treat their affiliates. I’ve found that brands with a history of successful collaborations are usually more reliable.

8. Negotiate the Terms: Never accept the first offer without negotiating. Brands often expect some back-and-forth, and negotiating shows that you know your worth. I’ve successfully negotiated higher rates and better terms simply by asking.

9. Beware of Exclusivity Clauses: Some brands may want to lock you into an exclusivity clause, preventing you from working with other similar brands. Make sure this clause is limited in time and scope. I once turned down a collaboration because the brand wanted a year-long exclusivity clause—a huge ask that would have limited my earning potential.

10. Understand Usage Rights: Clarify how the brand intends to use your content. Will they use it for social media? Advertising? Make sure you retain ownership or that the usage rights are time-limited. I once discovered a brand was using my content in paid ads without my permission, long after our collaboration ended.

11. Keep Records of Communication: Document everything—emails, messages, calls. This can be a lifesaver if any disputes arise. I once had to refer back to an email thread to prove a brand agreed to specific terms, which helped me win the dispute.

12. Ask About Affiliate Tracking: Ensure the brand uses a reliable tracking system for affiliate links. Faulty tracking can lead to lost commissions. I’ve had experiences where sales didn’t track correctly, and without a reliable system in place, there was no way to recover those earnings.

13. Monitor Your Affiliate Dashboard: Regularly check your affiliate dashboard for any discrepancies in sales or commissions. Early detection is key to resolving issues quickly. Once, I noticed a significant drop in reported sales and discovered that a tracking link had been set up incorrectly.

14. Don’t Overcommit: Avoid agreeing to too many deliverables or tight deadlines, especially if the compensation isn’t worth it. I once took on a project that required multiple posts and videos within a short timeframe for minimal pay—it led to burnout and subpar content.

15. Inquire About Chargebacks: Understand the brand’s policy on chargebacks or returns and how these will affect your commissions. I’ve had commissions reduced due to customer returns, something I wasn’t informed about upfront.

16. Ask for Milestone Payments: For long-term collaborations, request milestone payments instead of a lump sum at the end. This ensures you’re compensated throughout the project and reduces the risk of non-payment.

17. Evaluate Product Quality: Test the product before promoting it. Poor quality products can damage your reputation. I once promoted a product that received negative feedback from my audience due to its poor quality—something I could have avoided by testing it first.

18. Beware of Brands Offering Unrealistic Promises: Be cautious of brands that promise high earnings with minimal effort. If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is. I’ve seen many affiliates get burned by such offers.

19. Understand the Brand’s Target Audience: Ensure the brand’s target audience aligns with your own. Misalignment can lead to poor engagement and damage your credibility. I once collaborated with a brand whose audience was vastly different from mine, resulting in poor engagement and an unhappy brand.

20. Consult with Peers: Don’t hesitate to reach out to other affiliates or influencers about a brand you’re considering working with. Their insights could be invaluable. I’ve avoided several problematic collaborations thanks to advice from fellow influencers.

By keeping these tips in mind, you can protect yourself from potential pitfalls and build meaningful, profitable collaborations. Remember, your time, effort, and audience are valuable—never settle for less than you deserve!

[callalillywrites]

An Unconventional Pack Part 5 (Final)

Series Masterlist

Relationship: Alpha!Reader / Beta!Ransom Drysdale / Beta!Nick Vaughn

Word Count: ~3150

Summary: Ransom's never been all that lucky in finding a pack unlike his best friend, Angel. He does find some promise with one Alpha though, but even that becomes complicated when he realizes that her hidden other isn't an omega but another beta.

Warnings: abusive parent (Linda), implied past abuse, Ransom Drysdale (sad boy, soft, protective), Nick is a sweetheart, fiercely protective best friend!Angel, angst with happy ending, hurt/comfort

A/N: This story was one of the hardest I've had to write so far in this series, and I'm still not sure I'm satisfied with it. Ransom is absolutely a lot softer than I originally intended, but he's what the story ultimately intended. I do heartily recommend reading Their Sweet Omega first because it'll give you more insight into Ransom's characterization for this story. Either way, I do hope you'll enjoy this angst-ridden but happy ending story.

I also do not give permission for my work to be copied or posted on other sites or fed into an AI machine.

*****

All Ransom’s plans to defend himself from their machinations fell by the wayside as the evening wore on.

He found himself going along with their change of venue, shooting a quick text to Steve to inform him of the change in plans. Steve had quickly sent back a thumbs-up.

“You have some great friends,” Alpha said, having seen him send the text. “It took me a bit to convince Jake that I wasn’t playing games with you. That’s not including Steve or your friend, Angel. She’s a fierce omega. Probably the fiercest I’ve met in a while. It’s no wonder your mother hates her.”

“You know my dear mother well?” He hated how much he needed to know her affiliation with Linda and what they could mean for him.

Alpha shook her head. “Oh, no, I’ve learned long ago the true nature of the Thrombeys and the Drysdales. Our families don’t exactly get along as you must be aware. Surely, you’ve heard the story about our grandfathers.”

He shook his head.

When she mentioned her family’s publishing company’s name, everything clicked then. The stories came back to him from childhood about her grandfather trying to ruin his when Harlan first started trying to get his books published. If not for her grandfather, Harlan wouldn’t have created his own publishing company to market and sell his books.

“You know Harlan’s books aren’t bad, either. I’ve read them as I’m sure you have. Even Nick likes them though he’s not the greatest reader.” She met Ransom’s surprised expression as she added, “It was Harlan’s attitude that cost him a contract with our company. Gramps considered himself a good judge of character, and Harlan’s haughtiness turned Gramps off. Not that Gramps ever really regretted not representing Harlan, either, despite how well Harlan did in his lifetime.”

“Your company is worth at least ten of Harlan’s. No shit, he didn’t regret it.”

Alpha chuckled.

Nick, too, bore a knowing grin.

“What am I missing?” Ransom finally asked, sensing they had some type of inner joke that made him appear the fool. He hated being the fool.

It was Nick who answered. “Her grandfather nearly bankrupted the company because his judge of character wasn’t as good as he thought it was. The only reason it’s worth so much today is because of Contessa herself. She’s done a lot of retconning on the company and making necessary improvements since she took over a few years ago.”

They arrived at their new destination as Ransom digested this new information.

Nick’s bandmates were exactly what Ransom had been expecting, but then, he didn’t really know what he’d been expecting.

The man Nick referred to as Bossman was definitely someone Ransom had never expected to be as much of a gossip as he was. It didn’t help that Ransom recognized Bossman as one of the best sax players and singers in the jazz industry. Hell, he even owned several of Bossman’s records, probably some that even featured Nick without realizing it.

Bossman’s first words when meeting Ransom were, “So this is the young man you haven’t shut up about, Nicky. Well, now I see why. Come, young man, let’s have a private chat for a minute before I get these layabouts back to work.”

Nick tried to intervene, but Bossman waved him off, his determination far greater than any protests Nick might’ve come up with.

Ransom, for his part, was curious what this man might have to say to him. It wouldn’t surprise him if Bossman threatened him about hurting Nick or Contessa. He’d seen the warmth Bossman had greeted both with even as his speculative gleam landed on Ransom until introductions were made.

What he didn’t count on was Bossman sighing as they took seats on the other side of the large studio. “I love Nicky. He’s a good musician, but he can be so dumb. So can Contessa. She’s a good alpha though. There’s no denying that with the way Nicky’s flourished under her gentle care. Has had his heart broken a time or two by some terrible alphas leading him on. I’m glad you’re giving them a second chance though. Not many betas in your position would. What they did was pretty dirty. I'd know, too, because I’ve played all the tricks in my younger days.”

“I’m not sure they meant to hurt me,” Ransom said, surprising himself by revealing an emotion he’d never admit to Angel, let alone the likes of his family. Even more, he couldn’t quite believe he was defending Contessa and Nick to their friend.

More than a little embarrassed and frustrated at how easy this Bossman slipped past his defenses, Ransom dropped his gaze to the cuffs of his sweater. It was a newer one he’d indulged himself into buying after seeing what Jake had done for him with Dennis’s help. The little savings cushion had really saved him in more ways than he could ever thank them for. He stared at the fine pattern and tried to memorize it until Bossman spoke again, ending his torment a bit.

“Well, I know that, young man, because I know them,” Bossman said with an obvious grin in his voice. “But it’s nice to hear you know that, too. Nicky’s really not stopped talking about you since that night. He’d kill me for telling you this, but he’s quite smitten with you. I haven’t heard him talk about anyone like he talks about you except for Contessa. Says your quite the master when it comes to quality clothing, too. Might just have to see that for myself one day real soon.”

Ransom knew his boss well enough to know landing someone of Bossman’s caliber could mean a promotion for Ransom. The prospect definitely had merit, which pushed Ransom to extend an invitation to Bossman to stop by the shop soon, promising his best efforts to prove Nick’s words.

At last, Bossman glanced down at his worn but high-quality watch. “Well, I think we’ve been gabbing long enough. Time to get these layabouts back to work. This record ain’t going to finish itself.”

When Ransom moved to stand, Bossman waved him back down.

“No, no, young man, you sit there and relax. After everything, you’ve earned yourself a reward for putting up with those two and their antics. It’s not everyday someone gets to preview my work before its release. You like jazz, young man?”

“Yes, sir.” Ransom nodded. His inner beta actually dared to preen under the pleased grin that spread across Bossman’s face.

“Definitely a keeper if these two can earn your trust. I like you, young man, and you can count on me stopping by that shop of yours real soon.”

As Bossman moved back into the sound booth, Nick dashed over and leaned into Ransom’s space. His hand rested on Ransom’s shoulder as he murmured, “You okay? Bossman didn’t do anything upsetting, did he? He can be a little overzealous with newcomers.”

Used to only Angel checking on him, Ransom didn’t know how to handle Nick’s concern other than to shake his head.

“You sure?”

“I’m fine,” Ransom said, figuring it was the quickest way to get Nick back to work.

He really didn’t want to see Nick get in trouble and have that come back on him. Sure, it wouldn’t be the first time in his life that’s happened, but he didn’t want it to be. Not that night. It felt too important to have him not be the reason for someone else screwing up.

Nick released a small whine, having picked up on Ransom’s change in scent. It was clear to him that something was bugging Ransom. All Nick wanted to do was soothe him, but he did have to get back to work. He’d make sure that Alpha did what she could though.

There was nothing more important to him than earning Ransom’s trust and regaining it for Alpha. He’d confirmed it that night at the gala event where everything went sideways, and he knew it still that Ransom was meant to be with them. They just had to prove it to Ransom.

Unable to do anything but return to the sound booth, Nick could only watch as Alpha approached Ransom on the small sofa, slowly earning herself a seat close to him.

The two of them talked though it did appear stilted at times though Ransom didn’t seem as closed off as he could’ve been. That brought some relief to Nick who finally let himself get lost in the music once more. If anything, he wanted to get this song perfected so they could all go home.

Meanwhile, Alpha has made some progress with Ransom, picking up where she left off with him at the restaurant earlier. She’d even made it to the chair next to where Ransom sat after ordering food for the band and them two.

Most of their conversation had drifted back to small talk over the deeper conversation they’d had at the restaurant bar. As much as she wanted to assure Ransom however she could, she also knew she couldn’t push him too hard.

He reminded her a lot of her first few encounters with Nick during their earliest days. His broken heart had made him a tough nut to crack as well. He’d been so desperate for someone to claim him, to love him as he was. It was always just out of reach for him. Not unlike Ransom from what Alpha could discern with the few pieces of information she’d gleaned from Jake and Angel.

She hadn’t been lying when she mentioned Angel being a fierce omega. It’d taken all of Alpha’s abilities to break through Angel’s defenses and show herself worthy of another chance with Ransom. That she never intended to hurt him as she’d done that night.

It wasn’t that she wanted to keep Nick a secret from Ransom. She just couldn’t deny how their seeking out another beta could be seen as unusual and even frowned upon. As much as society has moved forward and become more accepting, it still had ways to go when it came to certain pack makeups.

At one point, Ransom surprised her by asking, “Why another beta?”

Alpha knew he was really asking, Why him?

“I didn’t decide to pursue you lightly,” she said softly. “Nick and I talked about what we wanted. Designations don’t really mean a lot to us. Though, we both knew we had to consider them a little bit when we started seeking out our missing mate.”

Ransom’s gaze met hers, his expression open, curious.

“Alphas don’t like to share unless there’s a connection between them. I share no such connection with another alpha, so that rules out alphas.”

He nodded.

“As I mentioned earlier, kids aren’t my thing. I don’t mind older children, but babies scare the shit out of me. They’re tiny, fragile beings, and I’m never going to be parent material. I have no doubt Nick would handle children well, but he’s quite content with our life the way it is. He travels a lot, and I work long hours. It wouldn’t be fair to an omega or any children we might bring into this world.”

“Doesn’t rule out an omega though. Angel and her pack are quite similar though they aren’t against children if they happen.”

Alpha grinned, pointing out the flaw in his argument by saying, “There’s the difference. I’m sure her pack is good with children if they’re okay with it happening. Nick and I aren’t. We’re not willing to make those adjustments, so it’s just easier to steer clear of omegas.”

“And Nick is fine with always competing with another beta?”

Unable to stop herself, Alpha rested her hand on Ransom’s arm. It stilled the small fidgets of his fingers along the cuffs of his sweater.

“Who said he’d always be competing?”

This time, Ransom refused to look at her though his jaw ticked. A frown marred his features as she could only assume bad memories surfaced for him.

From what she knew of the Thrombeys and Drysdales, betas were a rarity in the family line unlike her own and others. Those that did become betas were either found insane or cast out in one way or another. She could only imagine what his younger years must’ve been like living under such conditions.

“I know very little about your past, Ransom,” she leaned closer and tapped his chin until he looked up at her again, “but I can promise you it would never be like that with us. If you give us a chance, I can swear to you that you’ll always be treated as an equal. What you want matters just as much to me as what Nick wants. I know Nick feels the same way, too.”

Ransom didn’t know what to say to that, so he simply listened. He sensed she wasn’t done by a long shot anyway. She’d been planning this from the way her eyes glittered with determination.

“Did you know meeting you in that café that day wasn’t a coincidence?”

He shook his head.

Alpha smiled, softening as she recalled that day with vivid clarity.

“I’d actually seen you with your friends outside and recognized you from the blurry photo Nick snapped the day you saved him on that train platform. The way he told it, you were a real hero taking on that pack of young alphas. It certainly piqued my interest in meeting you and thanking you for doing what you did. Nick is quite adept at talking himself out of some trouble, but you handled that pack with a few cutting words that really bowled them over. I was a little jealous by how much Nick talked about you if I’m being honest.”

“Bullshit.”

Alpha’s smile bloomed even as she shook her head. “It’s the truth. I really wanted a chance to meet this amazing beta who swept mine off his feet in ways only I’d done before. Then, I ran into you and your friends that day. With the cooler weather, it was an easy excuse to follow you into the café and nab a warm drink.”

The cogs in Ransom’s mind started turning. As a few puzzle pieces fell into place, he couldn’t help blurting, “You set me up with that group of alphas that day.”

It wasn’t a question, and Alpha didn’t treat it like one even as she confirmed his suspicions.

“It wasn’t too hard to get them to start trouble. They were already looking for it. Young alphas aren’t always the brightest.”

“Neither are ones who should know better,” Ransom countered, his face shifting into what Alpha could only describe as his judging face.

She had the nerve to chuckle, which earned her a scowl and Ransom moving to get up and possibly leave.

“No, you’re right. It was absolutely the worst thing I could’ve done, but I had to make sure you were the same beta Nick described.” Alpha’s hands came up to keep Ransom from leaving, only releasing the tension building within when he sank back down. “You didn’t disappoint, either. You were exactly as Nick described. By the time we parted, I was pretty taken with you myself.”

With Ransom now sitting down again, Alpha moved her hands until she could lace her fingers through his. Tugging gently, she made sure she had his full attention before she said, “You did it again that night at the gala, too. Willing to take on your mother for a beta you’d just met and your best friend. Linda’s alpha really could’ve hurt you, but you didn’t care. Do you know how rare that is, Ransom?”

Ransom shrugged, clearly unimpressed with what she was trying to say.

“Do you remember what I said to Linda that night?”

Ransom’s features pinched as they replayed that night.

It was clear to Alpha that the night still affected him with all that went down. She couldn’t be more sorry for her part or Nick’s, but she needed him to relive that night if she really wanted to make it known where Ransom stood with her and Nick.

“You said she messed with your beta. So?”

Tightening her hold on his hands, she tugged until he met her gaze. Her inner alpha sensed he recalled her words perfectly, but he wanted to test her as much as she’d tested him at the café that day.

“You’re right except I said betas, not beta. Linda had the nerve to mess with both my betas, and I saw nothing but red. She might be your mother, but she had no right to touch what I consider mine. If we weren’t in such a public setting, she would’ve learned just how far I can and will go to protect what’s mine.”

Oh, that had Ransom’s attention.

As much as he didn’t want to believe Angel that night and what Alpha was saying right then, he couldn’t deny how nice it felt to have Alpha looking at him like someone worth loving, someone worth protecting.   

Bringing his hands up, she brushed his knuckles with her lips.

“I want you to know that Nick and I are determined to do everything to win you over. Even if it’s taking everything one day at a time or a minute at a time, we want you in our lives. You are what’s missing, and we want to prove that to you. If you give us the chance. Will you at least consider giving us that chance?”

So lost in their conversation, they didn’t notice the band had successfully wrapped up their session.

Bossman was finally satisfied with the way their new single had been recorded. Ready to call it a night, he picked up some of the food that also arrived without their notice and bid the others a good night. He left after shooting a pointed glance at Nick, then at Ransom and Alpha. He wanted Nick to have the pack he deserved, but he wouldn’t allow it at the expense of Ransom’s free will and happiness.

Nick joined Alpha and Ransom after making them a couple of plates, setting them down near them as he caught the tail end of their conversation.

A part of him would understand if Ransom walked away. He and Alpha had messed things up despite their best intentions. But a bigger part of him really, really wanted Ransom to give them a chance to prove themselves.

He didn’t have to wait long as Ransom finally nodded, frowning at Nick and saying pointedly, “One day at a time. No promises. No guarantees.”

To Nick and Alpha, those words meant everything, and they would do everything they could to make sure Ransom wanted to claim them as much as they already wanted to claim him.

*****

Verse Masterlist / Main Masterlist

[elkkiel]

I personally think the figurine looks good, I mean I don't know if I'd want it as much as the book, but it looks like they actually 3d scanned him or got a skilled artist to model him. I think it would be neater if it had open hands so it could hold stuff easier

Oh yeah, like I'm not saying that it's bad to like that stuff! If you think it's cool, then all the power to you, friend :3 (okay and also with the hands raised like that. If the hands were more open and had them raised a little higher there would be so much potential for like. Having a little Vess on your desk to be your friend and hold ur pencil or something lol. He is so helpful! 🌸🌟)

My point with my little rants is more along the lines of Obtaining things that you actually connect with, not buying every drop that comes along for the sake of it. If you fuck with figurines or lava lamps, then hell yeah dude I hope it looks good in your room!

But, from a marketing perspective, selling such random items will only a) exhaust consumers and b) lessen the overall value/quality of the brand over time. Especially when a lot of those items objectively kinda suck. I personally don't like the figurine and think it looks cheap, but I can see some people enjoying it and having a different perspective. It sorta reminds me of when Youtooz was popping off with minecraft streamers back in the day. But on the other hand, that awkward Vessel mask hair clip from HT haunts my nightmares lol.

Tl;dr support the merch that YOU feel is worth supporting, because every purchase tells RCA/licensed affiliates that someone is or isn't interested in what they're selling. We get to define the market, not them.

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

**This is related to the post about dcla gatekeeping telenovelas** In my eyes this whole debacle is mostly about popularity and demand/availability. Even before Violetta/Soy Luna there were a shit ton of teen (non disney tho) telenovelas that were extremely popular on their lands but didn't really pick up outside except a few places + europe, which is a shame for so many reasons, especially because i've seen a fair share of stuff that i think you and a lot of other people of this community would enjoy if they liked violetta/soy luna/bia/go vive tu manera etc but it's not available if you don't understand even slightly one of the neo-latin languages or languages that are kind of indirectly affiliated (mostly because those dubs/subs are the ones that are easier to find). I was also tempted to try and start subbing them in English but it would take an insane amount of time (still thinking about it tho..)

And then Violetta was like an insane phenomenon at the time and I understand why they tried HARD to push it on the american audience even tho they never really cared that much (which is insane to me because Violetta was such a core memory from my childhood) and maybe with Soy Luna they saw how popular it was in general and compared it with how uninterested the english speaking countries were at the times of Violetta and just... gave up with the whole translating thing because it wasn't worth it since it was already doing insanely good?? i guess (but that's just a theory/an opinion)

p.s. (The only disney gatekeeping I can fully conferm tho [in my opinion] is Juacas because I swear to god I cannot find it to save my fucking life in either it's original language or dubbed in my native language (it was released and was also really popular apparently, but at the time i was kind of away from telenovelas) so yeah I still think that sometimes they truly do shit without thinking and just generally suck at preserving international stuff. (i'm shit at explaining myself sorry lol)

No you’re good! D+ also randomly gatekeeps their d+ la shows from the international audience (like S2 of Papás por encargo?? Why not release it everywhere???? We wanna watch it too!). Also I wish they released stuff like Patito Feo… I’ve heard of that show’s existence since I first saw Violetta and it was only released in a handful of countries. Also, Violetta was really marketed EVERYWHERE, and then SL came along and in my country, they dubbed the two first seasons and then never the third and I barely remember it airing on tv, while Violetta was marketed so much you could not miss it. They never aired Bia here at all, and it’s not out on D+ in my country (but when watching it with a vpn they had swedish subtitles available so??? why gatekeep it from us). ALSO, so many countries have their own version of ”as the bell rings” and not a SINGLE VERSION is available on D+, not even the italian version which is the original??

I also have some shows from my country (non-disney) that was popular here, but I wish was known everywhere because they are awesome.

The english dub of Violetta was not popular in the UK. It was popular everywhere else, for people who did not speak spanish but still loved the show, and thus when wanting to show clips from the show they used those clips. Now, I personally don’t like the english dub and they randomly don’t translate stuff correctly at times, but for many kids who did not understand spanish but did understand english, it was useful. Now, most countries had their own dubs too, but when posting about clips online for everyone to see, you rarely used your own language’s dub. You used the english dub, so that you could reach out to a larger audience.

I remember a few years back, I said that I felt like Soy Luna barely was marketed and people were like ”No it has higher ratings than Violetta!!” - and it turned out I simply missed it because as I said, in my country they barely marketed it in comparison to Violetta and since it did not even get an english dub, kids who did not know spanish could not talk ”internationally” about it in the same way, and mostly had to talk about it locally with the people from their own country.

I definitely agree that Violetta was such a phenomenon that they really tried pushing it on americans. ”Come on!! All of latin america and Europe are obsessed!!!! You need to join in on the fun!!” and they were like ”uh no thanks we don’t like dubs and the kids will be bored if it’s subbed”, and that eventually lead to them not even caring to dub SL. The only thing that is sad about that is that we could have gotten british Ámbar.