#it went k-12 and now in college

[alullinchaos]

i know wwii was a beyond major geopolitical event but it still surprises me how often i come across something that says "and things are this way because WW2"

[mostlysignssomeportents]

My McLuhan lecture on enshittification

IT'S THE LAST DAY for the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

Last night, I gave the annual Marshall McLuhan lecture at the Transmediale festival in Berlin. The event was sold out and while there's a video that'll be posted soon, they couldn't get a streaming setup installed in the Canadian embassy, where the talk was held:

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

The talk went of fabulously, and was followed by commentary from Frederike Kaltheuner (Human Rights Watch) and a discussion moderated by Helen Starr. While you'll have to wait a bit for the video, I thought that I'd post my talk notes from last night for the impatient among you.

I want to thank the festival and the embassy staff for their hard work on an excellent event. And now, on to the talk!

Last year, I coined the term 'enshittification,' to describe the way that platforms decay. That obscene little word did big numbers, it really hit the zeitgeist. I mean, the American Dialect Society made it their Word of the Year for 2023 (which, I suppose, means that now I'm definitely getting a poop emoji on my tombstone).

So what's enshittification and why did it catch fire? It's my theory explaining how the internet was colonized by platforms, and why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, and why it matters – and what we can do about it.

We're all living through the enshittocene, a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit.

It's frustrating. It's demoralizing. It's even terrifying.

I think that the enshittification framework goes a long way to explaining it, moving us out of the mysterious realm of the 'great forces of history,' and into the material world of specific decisions made by named people – decisions we can reverse and people whose addresses and pitchfork sizes we can learn.

Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It's not just a way to say 'things are getting worse' (though of course, it's fine with me if you want to use it that way. It's an English word. We don't have der Rat für Englisch Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle).

But in case you want to use enshittification in a more precise, technical way, let's examine how enshittification works.

It's a three stage process: First, platforms are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Let's do a case study. What could be better than Facebook?

Facebook is a company that was founded to nonconsensually rate the fuckability of Harvard undergrads, and it only got worse after that.

When Facebook started off, it was only open to US college and high-school kids with .edu and k-12.us addresses. But in 2006, it opened up to the general public. It told them: “Yes, I know you’re all using Myspace. But Myspace is owned by Rupert Murdoch, an evil, crapulent senescent Australian billionaire, who spies on you with every hour that God sends.

“Sign up with Facebook and we will never spy on you. Come and tell us who matters to you in this world, and we will compose a personal feed consisting solely of what those people post for consumption by those who choose to follow them.”

That was stage one. Facebook had a surplus — its investors’ cash — and it allocated that surplus to its end-users. Those end-users proceeded to lock themselves into FB. FB — like most tech businesses — has network effects on its side. A product or service enjoys network effects when it improves as more people sign up to use it. You joined FB because your friends were there, and then others signed up because you were there.

But FB didn’t just have high network effects, it had high switching costs. Switching costs are everything you have to give up when you leave a product or service. In Facebook’s case, it was all the friends there that you followed and who followed you. In theory, you could have all just left for somewhere else; in practice, you were hamstrung by the collective action problem.

It’s hard to get lots of people to do the same thing at the same time. You and your six friends here are going to struggle to agree on where to get drinks after tonight's lecture. How were you and your 200 Facebook friends ever gonna agree on when it was time to leave Facebook, and where to go?

So FB’s end-users engaged in a mutual hostage-taking that kept them glued to the platform. Then FB exploited that hostage situation, withdrawing the surplus from end-users and allocating it to two groups of business customers: advertisers, and publishers.

To the advertisers, FB said, 'Remember when we told those rubes we wouldn’t spy on them? We lied. We spy on them from asshole to appetite. We will sell you access to that surveillance data in the form of fine-grained ad-targeting, and we will devote substantial engineering resources to thwarting ad-fraud. Your ads are dirt cheap to serve, and we’ll spare no expense to make sure that when you pay for an ad, a real human sees it.'

To the publishers, FB said, 'Remember when we told those rubes we would only show them the things they asked to see? We lied!Upload short excerpts from your website, append a link, and we will nonconsensually cram it into the eyeballs of users who never asked to see it. We are offering you a free traffic funnel that will drive millions of users to your website to monetize as you please, and those users will become stuck to you when they subscribe to your feed.' And so advertisers and publishers became stuck to the platform, too, dependent on those users.

The users held each other hostage, and those hostages took the publishers and advertisers hostage, too, so that everyone was locked in.

Which meant it was time for the third stage of enshittification: withdrawing surplus from everyone and handing it to Facebook’s shareholders.

For the users, that meant dialing down the share of content from accounts you followed to a homeopathic dose, and filling the resulting void with ads and pay-to-boost content from publishers.

For advertisers, that meant jacking up prices and drawing down anti-fraud enforcement, so advertisers paid much more for ads that were far less likely to be seen by a person.

For publishers, this meant algorithmically suppressing the reach of their posts unless they included an ever-larger share of their articles in the excerpt, until anything less than fulltext was likely to be be disqualified from being sent to your subscribers, let alone included in algorithmic suggestion feeds.

And then FB started to punish publishers for including a link back to their own sites, so they were corralled into posting fulltext feeds with no links, meaning they became commodity suppliers to Facebook, entirely dependent on the company both for reach and for monetization, via the increasingly crooked advertising service.

When any of these groups squawked, FB just repeated the lesson that every tech executive learned in the Darth Vader MBA: 'I have altered the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.'

Facebook now enters the most dangerous phase of enshittification. It wants to withdraw all available surplus, and leave just enough residual value in the service to keep end users stuck to each other, and business customers stuck to end users, without leaving anything extra on the table, so that every extractable penny is drawn out and returned to its shareholders.

But that’s a very brittle equilibrium, because the difference between “I hate this service but I can’t bring myself to quit it,” and “Jesus Christ, why did I wait so long to quit? Get me the hell out of here!” is razor thin

All it takes is one Cambridge Analytica scandal, one whistleblower, one livestreamed mass-shooting, and users bolt for the exits, and then FB discovers that network effects are a double-edged sword.

If users can’t leave because everyone else is staying, when when everyone starts to leave, there’s no reason not to go, too.

That’s terminal enshittification, the phase when a platform becomes a pile of shit. This phase is usually accompanied by panic, which tech bros euphemistically call 'pivoting.'

Which is how we get pivots like, 'In the future, all internet users will be transformed into legless, sexless, low-polygon, heavily surveilled cartoon characters in a virtual world called "metaverse," that we ripped off from a 25-year-old satirical cyberpunk novel.'

That's the procession of enshittification. If enshittification were a disease, we'd call that enshittification's "natural history." But that doesn't tell you how the enshittification works, nor why everything is enshittifying right now, and without those details, we can't know what to do about it.

What led to the enshittocene? What is it about this moment that led to the Great Enshittening? Was it the end of the Zero Interest Rate Policy? Was it a change in leadership at the tech giants? Is Mercury in retrograde?

None of the above.

The period of free fed money certainly led to tech companies having a lot of surplus to toss around. But Facebook started enshittifying long before ZIRP ended, so did Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Some of the tech giants got new leaders. But Google's enshittification got worse when the founders came back to oversee the company's AI panic (excuse me, 'AI pivot').

And it can't be Mercury in retrograde, because I'm a cancer, and as everyone knows, cancers don't believe in astrology.

When a whole bunch of independent entities all change in the same way at once, that's a sign that the environment has changed, and that's what happened to tech.

Tech companies, like all companies, have conflicting imperatives. On the one hand, they want to make money. On the other hand, making money involves hiring and motivating competent staff, and making products that customers want to buy. The more value a company permits its employees and customers to carve off, the less value it can give to its shareholders.

The equilibrium in which companies produce things we like in honorable ways at a fair price is one in which charging more, worsening quality, and harming workers costs more than the company would make by playing dirty.

There are four forces that discipline companies, serving as constraints on their enshittificatory impulses.

First: competition. Companies that fear you will take your business elsewhere are cautious about worsening quality or raising prices.

Second: regulation. Companies that fear a regulator will fine them more than they expect to make from cheating, will cheat less.

These two forces affect all industries, but the next two are far more tech-specific.

Third: self-help. Computers are extremely flexible, and so are the digital products and services we make from them. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing-complete Von Neumann machine, a computer that can run every valid program.

That means that users can always avail themselves of programs that undo the anti-features that shift value from them to a company's shareholders. Think of a board-room table where someone says, 'I've calculated that making our ads 20% more invasive will net us 2% more revenue per user.'

In a digital world, someone else might well say 'Yes, but if we do that, 20% of our users will install ad-blockers, and our revenue from those users will drop to zero, forever.'

This means that digital companies are constrained by the fear that some enshittificatory maneuver will prompt their users to google, 'How do I disenshittify this?'

Fourth and finally: workers. Tech workers have very low union density, but that doesn't mean that tech workers don't have labor power. The historical "talent shortage" of the tech sector meant that workers enjoyed a lot of leverage over their bosses. Workers who disagreed with their bosses could quit and walk across the street and get another job – a better job.

They knew it, and their bosses knew it. Ironically, this made tech workers highly exploitable. Tech workers overwhelmingly saw themselves as founders in waiting, entrepreneurs who were temporarily drawing a salary, heroic figures of the tech mission.

That's why mottoes like Google's 'don't be evil' and Facebook's 'make the world more open and connected' mattered: they instilled a sense of mission in workers. It's what Fobazi Ettarh calls 'vocational awe, 'or Elon Musk calls being 'extremely hardcore.'

Tech workers had lots of bargaining power, but they didn't flex it when their bosses demanded that they sacrifice their health, their families, their sleep to meet arbitrary deadlines.

So long as their bosses transformed their workplaces into whimsical 'campuses,' with gyms, gourmet cafeterias, laundry service, massages and egg-freezing, workers could tell themselves that they were being pampered – rather than being made to work like government mules.

But for bosses, there's a downside to motivating your workers with appeals to a sense of mission, namely: your workers will feel a sense of mission. So when you ask them to enshittify the products they ruined their health to ship, workers will experience a sense of profound moral injury, respond with outrage, and threaten to quit.

Thus tech workers themselves were the final bulwark against enshittification,

The pre-enshittification era wasn't a time of better leadership. The executives weren't better. They were constrained. Their worst impulses were checked by competition, regulation, self-help and worker power.

So what happened?

One by one, each of these constraints was eroded until it dissolved, leaving the enshittificatory impulse unchecked, ushering in the enshittoscene.

It started with competition. From the Gilded Age until the Reagan years, the purpose of competition law was to promote competition. US antitrust law treated corporate power as dangerous and sought to blunt it. European antitrust laws were modeled on US ones, imported by the architects of the Marshall Plan.

But starting in the neoliberal era, competition authorities all over the world adopted a doctrine called 'consumer welfare,' which held that monopolies were evidence of quality. If everyone was shopping at the same store and buying the same product, that meant it was the best store, selling the best product – not that anyone was cheating.

And so all over the world, governments stopped enforcing their competition laws. They just ignored them as companies flouted them. Those companies merged with their major competitors, absorbed small companies before they could grow to be big threats. They held an orgy of consolidation that produced the most inbred industries imaginable, whole sectors grown so incestuous they developed Habsburg jaws, from eyeglasses to sea freight, glass bottles to payment processing, vitamin C to beer.

Most of our global economy is dominated by five or fewer global companies. If smaller companies refuse to sell themselves to these cartels, the giants have free rein to flout competition law further, with 'predatory pricing' that keeps an independent rival from gaining a foothold.

When Diapers.com refused Amazon's acquisition offer, Amazon lit $100m on fire, selling diapers way below cost for months, until diapers.com went bust, and Amazon bought them for pennies on the dollar, and shut them down.

Competition is a distant memory. As Tom Eastman says, the web has devolved into 'five giant websites filled with screenshots of text from the other four,' so these giant companies no longer fear losing our business.

Lily Tomlin used to do a character on the TV show Laugh In, an AT&T telephone operator who'd do commercials for the Bell system. Each one would end with her saying 'We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company.'

Today's giants are not constrained by competition.

They don't care. They don't have to. They're Google.

That's the first constraint gone, and as it slipped away, the second constraint – regulation – was also doomed.

When an industry consists of hundreds of small- and medium-sized enterprises, it is a mob, a rabble. Hundreds of companies can't agree on what to tell Parliament or Congress or the Commission. They can't even agree on how to cater a meeting where they'd discuss the matter.

But when a sector dwindles to a bare handful of dominant firms, it ceases to be a rabble and it becomes a cartel.

Five companies, or four, or three, or two, or just one company finds it easy to converge on a single message for their regulators, and without "wasteful competition" eroding their profits, they have plenty of cash to spread around.

Like Facebook, handing former UK deputy PM Nick Clegg millions every year to sleaze around Europe, telling his former colleagues that Facebook is the only thing standing between 'European Cyberspace' and the Chinese Communist Party.

Tech's regulatory capture allows it to flout the rules that constrain less concentrated sectors. They can pretend that violating labor, consumer and privacy laws is fine, because they violate them with an app.

This is why competition matters: it's not just because competition makes companies work harder and share value with customers and workers, it's because competition keeps companies from becoming too big to fail, and too big to jail.

Now, there's plenty of things we don't want improved through competition, like privacy invasions. After the EU passed its landmark privacy law, the GDPR, there was a mass-extinction event for small EU ad-tech companies. These companies disappeared en masse, and that's fine.

They were even more invasive and reckless than US-based Big Tech companies. After all, they had less to lose. We don't want competition in commercial surveillance. We don't want to produce increasing efficiency in violating our human rights.

But: Google and Facebook – who pretend they are called Alphabet and Meta – have been unscathed by European privacy law. That's not because they don't violate the GDPR (they do!). It's because they pretend they are headquartered in Ireland, one of the EU's most notorious corporate crime-havens.

And Ireland competes with the EU other crime havens – Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus and sometimes the Netherlands – to see which country can offer the most hospitable environment for all sorts of crimes. Because the kind of company that can fly an Irish flag of convenience is mobile enough to change to a Maltese flag if the Irish start enforcing EU laws.

Which is how you get an Irish Data Protection Commission that processes fewer than 20 major cases per year, while Germany's data commissioner handles more than 500 major cases, even though Ireland is nominal home to the most privacy-invasive companies on the continent.

So Google and Facebook get to act as though they are immune to privacy law, because they violate the law with an app; just like Uber can violate labor law and claim it doesn't count because they do it with an app.

Uber's labor-pricing algorithm offers different drivers different payments for the same job, something Veena Dubal calls 'algorithmic wage discrimination.' If you're more selective about which jobs you'll take, Uber will pay you more for every ride.

But if you take those higher payouts and ditch whatever side-hustle let you cover your bills which being picky about your Uber drives, Uber will incrementally reduce the payment, toggling up and down as you grow more or less selective, playing you like a fish on a line until you eventually – inevitably – lose to the tireless pricing robot, and end up stuck with low wages and all your side-hustles gone.

Then there's Amazon, which violates consumer protection laws, but says it doesn't matter, because they do it with an app. Amazon makes $38b/year from its 'advertising' system. 'Advertising' in quotes because they're not selling ads, they're selling placements in search results.

The companies that spend the most on 'ads' go to the top, even if they're offering worse products at higher prices. If you click the first link in an Amazon search result, on average you will pay a 29% premium over the best price on the service. Click one of the first four items and you'll pay a 25% premium. On average you have to go seventeen items down to find the best deal on Amazon.

Any merchant that did this to you in a physical storefront would be fined into oblivion. But Amazon has captured its regulators, so it can violate your rights, and say, "it doesn't count, we did it with an app"

This is where that third constraint, self-help, would sure come in handy. If you don't want your privacy violated, you don't need to wait for the Irish privacy regulator to act, you can just install an ad-blocker.

More than half of all web users are blocking ads. But the web is an open platform, developed in the age when tech was hundreds of companies at each others' throats, unable to capture their regulators.

Today, the web is being devoured by apps, and apps are ripe for enshittification. Regulatory capture isn't just the ability to flout regulation, it's also the ability to co-opt regulation, to wield regulation against your adversaries.

Today's tech giants got big by exploiting self-help measures. When Facebook was telling Myspace users they needed to escape Rupert Murdoch’s evil crapulent Australian social media panopticon, it didn’t just say to those Myspacers, 'Screw your friends, come to Facebook and just hang out looking at the cool privacy policy until they get here'

It gave them a bot. You fed the bot your Myspace username and password, and it would login to Myspace and pretend to be you, and scrape everything waiting in your inbox, copying it to your FB inbox, and you could reply to it and it would autopilot your replies back to Myspace.

When Microsoft was choking off Apple's market oxygen by refusing to ship a functional version of Microsoft Office for the Mac – so that offices were throwing away their designers' Macs and giving them PCs with upgraded graphics cards and Windows versions of Photoshop and Illustrator – Steve Jobs didn't beg Bill Gates to update Mac Office.

He got his technologists to reverse-engineer Microsoft Office, and make a compatible suite, the iWork Suite, whose apps, Pages, Numbers and Keynote could perfectly read and write Microsoft's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files.

When Google entered the market, it sent its crawler to every web server on Earth, where it presented itself as a web-user: 'Hi! Hello! Do you have any web pages? Thanks! How about some more? How about more?'

But every pirate wants to be an admiral. When Facebook, Apple and Google were doing this adversarial interoperability, that was progress. If you try to do it to them, that's piracy.

Try to make an alternative client for Facebook and they'll say you violated US laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and EU laws like Article 6 of the EUCD.

Try to make an Android program that can run iPhone apps and play back the data from Apple's media stores and they'd bomb you until the rubble bounced.

Try to scrape all of Google and they'll nuke you until you glowed.

Tech's regulatory capture is mind-boggling. Take that law I mentioned earlier, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA. Bill Clinton signed it in 1998, and the EU imported it as Article 6 of the EUCD in 2001

It is a blanket prohibition on removing any kind of encryption that restricts access to a copyrighted work – things like ripping DVDs or jailbreaking a phone – with penalties of a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense.

This law has been so broadened that it can be used to imprison creators for granting access to their own creations

Here's how that works: In 2008, Amazon bought Audible, an audiobook platform, in an anticompetitive acquisition. Today, Audible is a monopolist with more than 90% of the audiobook market. Audible requires that all creators on their platform sell with Amazon's "digital rights management," which locks it to Amazon's apps.

So say I write a book, then I read it into a mic, then I pay a director and an engineer thousands of dollars to turn that into an audiobook, and sell it to you on the monopoly platform, Audible, that controls more than 90% of the market.

If I later decide to leave Amazon and want to let you come with me to a rival platform, I am out of luck. If I supply you with a tool to remove Amazon's encryption from my audiobook, so you can play it in another app, I commit a felony, punishable by a 5-year sentence and a half-million-dollar fine, for a first offense.

That's a stiffer penalty than you would face if you simply pirated the audiobook from a torrent site. But it's also harsher than the punishment you'd get for shoplifting the audiobook on CD from a truck-stop. It's harsher than the sentence you'd get for hijacking the truck that delivered the CD.

So think of our ad-blockers again. 50% of web users are running ad-blockers. 0% of app users are running ad-blockers, because adding a blocker to an app requires that you first remove its encryption, and that's a felony (Jay Freeman calls this 'felony contempt of business-model').

So when someone in a board-room says, 'let's make our ads 20% more obnoxious and get a 2% revenue increase,' no one objects that this might prompt users to google, 'how do I block ads?' After all, the answer is, 'you can't.'

Indeed, it's more likely that someone in that board room will say, 'let's make our ads 100% more obnoxious and get a 10% revenue increase' (this is why every company wants you to install an app instead of using its website).

There's no reason that gig workers who are facing algorithmic wage discrimination couldn't install a counter-app that coordinated among all the Uber drivers to reject all jobs unless they reach a certain pay threshold.

No reason except felony contempt of business model, the threat that the toolsmiths who built that counter-app would go broke or land in prison, for violating DMCA 1201, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trademark, copyright, patent, contract, trade secrecy, nondisclosure and noncompete, or in other words: 'IP law.'

'IP' is just a euphemism for 'a law that lets me reach beyond the walls of my company and control the conduct of my critics, competitors and customers.' And 'app' is just a euphemism for 'a web-page wrapped enough IP to make it a felony to mod it to protect the labor, consumer and privacy rights of its user.'

We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company.

But what about that fourth constraint: workers?

For decades, tech workers' high degrees of bargaining power and vocational awe put a ceiling on enshittification. Even after the tech sector shrank to a handful of giants. Even after they captured their regulators so they could violate our consumer, privacy and labor rights. Even after they created 'felony contempt of business model' and extinguished self-help for tech users. Tech was still constrained by their workers' sense of moral injury in the face of the imperative to enshittify.

Remember when tech workers dreamed of working for a big company for a few years, before striking out on their own to start their own company that would knock that tech giant over?

Then that dream shrank to: work for a giant for a few years, quit, do a fake startup, get acqui-hired by your old employer, as a complicated way of getting a bonus and a promotion.

Then the dream shrank further: work for a tech giant for your whole life, get free kombucha and massages on Wednesdays.

And now, the dream is over. All that’s left is: work for a tech giant until they fire your ass, like those 12,000 Googlers who got fired last year six months after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years.

Workers are no longer a check on their bosses' worst impulses

Today, the response to 'I refuse to make this product worse' is, 'turn in your badge and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.'

I get that this is all a little depressing

OK, really depressing.

But hear me out! We've identified the disease. We've traced its natural history. We've identified its underlying mechanism. Now we can get to work on a cure.

There are four constraints that prevent enshittification: competition, regulation, self-help and labor.

To reverse enshittification and guard against its reemergence, we must restore and strengthen each of these.

On competition, it's actually looking pretty good. The EU, the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and China are all doing more on competition than they have in two generations. They're blocking mergers, unwinding existing ones, taking action on predatory pricing and other sleazy tactics.

Remember, in the US and Europe, we already have the laws to do this – we just stopped enforcing them in the Helmut Kohl era.

I've been fighting these fights with the Electronic Frontier Foundation for 22 years now, and I've never seen a more hopeful moment for sound, informed tech policy.

Now, the enshittifiers aren't taking this laying down. The business press can't stop talking about how stupid and old-fashioned all this stuff is. They call people like me 'hipster antitrust,' and they hate any regulator who actually does their job.

Take Lina Khan, the brilliant head of the US Federal Trade Commission, who has done more in three years on antitrust than the combined efforts of all her predecessors over the past 40 years. Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has run more than 80 editorials trashing Khan, insisting that she's an ineffectual ideologue who can't get anything done.

Sure, Rupert, that's why you ran 80 editorials about her.

Because she can't get anything done.

Even Canada is stepping up on competition. Canada! Land of the evil billionaire! From Ted Rogers, who owns the country's telecoms; to Galen Weston, who owns the country's grocery stores; to the Irvings, who basically own the entire province of New Brunswick.

Even Canada is doing something about this. Last autumn, Trudeau's government promised to update Canada's creaking competition law to finally ban 'abuse of dominance.'

I mean, wow. I guess when Galen Weston decided to engage in a criminal conspiracy to fix the price of bread – the most Les Miz-ass crime imaginable – it finally got someone's attention, eh?

Competition has a long way to go, but all over the world, competition law is seeing a massive revitalization. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher put antitrust law in a coma in the 80s – but it's awake, it's back, and it's pissed.

What about regulation? How will we get tech companies to stop doing that one weird trick of adding 'with an app' to their crimes and escaping enforcement?

Well, here in the EU, they're starting to figure it out. This year, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act went into effect, and they let people who get screwed by tech companies go straight to the federal European courts, bypassing the toothless watchdogs in Europe's notorious corporate crime havens like Ireland.

In America, they might finally get a digital privacy law. You people have no idea how backwards US privacy law is. The last time the US Congress enacted a broadly applicable privacy law was in 1988.

The Video Privacy Protection Act makes it a crime for video-store clerks to leak your video-rental history. It was passed after a right-wing judge who was up for the Supreme Court had his rentals published in a DC newspaper. The rentals weren't even all that embarrassing!

Sure, that judge, Robert Bork, wasn't confirmed for the Supreme Court, but that was because he was a virulently racist loudmouth and a crook who served as Nixon's Solicitor General.

But Congress got the idea that their video records might be next, freaked out, and passed the VPPA.

That was the last time Americans got a big, national privacy law. Nineteen. Eighty. Eight.

It's been a minute.

And the thing is, there's a lot of people who are angry about stuff that has some nexus with America's piss-poor privacy landscape. Worried that Facebook turned Grampy into a Qanon? That Insta made your teen anorexic? That TikTok is brainwashing millennials into quoting Osama Bin Laden?

Or that cops are rolling up the identities of everyone at a Black Lives Matter protest or the Jan 6 riots by getting location data from Google?

Or that Red State Attorneys General are tracking teen girls to out-of-state abortion clinics?

Or that Black people are being discriminated against by online lending or hiring platforms?

Or that someone is making AI deepfake porn of you?

Having a federal privacy law with a private right of action – which means that individuals can sue companies that violate their privacy – would go a long way to rectifying all of these problems. There's a big coalition for that kind of privacy law.

What about self-help? That's a lot farther away, alas.

The EU's DMA will force tech companies to open up their walled gardens for interoperation. You'll be able to use Whatsapp to message people on iMessage, or quit Facebook and move to Mastodon, but still send messages to the people left behind.

But if you want to reverse-engineer one of those Big Tech products and mod it to work for you, not them, the EU's got nothing for you.

This is an area ripe for improvement, and I think the US might be the first ones to open this up.

It's certainly on-brand for the EU to be forcing tech companies to do things a certain way, while the US simply takes away tech companies' abilities to prevent others from changing how their stuff works.

My big hope here is that Stein's Law will take hold: 'Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop'

Letting companies decide how their customers must use their products is simply too tempting an invitation to mischief. HP has a whole building full of engineers thinking of new ways to lock your printer to its official ink cartridges, forcing you to spend $10,000/gallon on ink to print your boarding passes and shopping lists.

It's offensive. The only people who don't agree are the people running the monopolies in all the other industries, like the med-tech monopolists who are locking their insulin pumps to their glucose monitors, turning people with diabetes into walking inkjet printers.

Finally, there's labor. Here in Europe, there's much higher union density than in the US, which American tech barons are learning the hard way. There is nothing more satisfying in the daily news than the latest salvo by Nordic unions against that Tesla guy (Musk is the most Edison-ass Tesla guy imaginable).

But even in the USA, there's a massive surge in tech unions. Tech workers are realizing that they aren't founders in waiting. The days of free massages and facial piercings and getting to wear black tee shirts that say things your boss doesn't understand are coming to an end.

In Seattle, Amazon's tech workers walked out in sympathy with Amazon's warehouse workers, because they're all workers.

The only reason the tech workers aren't monitored by AI that notifies their managers if they visit the toilet during working hours is their rapidly dwindling bargaining power. The way things are going, Amazon programmers are going to be pissing in bottles next to their workstations (for a guy who built a penis-shaped rocket, Jeff Bezos really hates our kidneys).

We're seeing bold, muscular, global action on competition, regulation and labor, with self-help bringing up the rear. It's not a moment too soon, because the bad news is, enshittification is coming to every industry.

If it's got a networked computer in it, the people who made it can run the Darth Vader MBA playbook on it, changing the rules from moment to moment, violating your rights and then saying 'It's OK, we did it with an app.'

From Mercedes renting you your accelerator pedal by the month to Internet of Things dishwashers that lock you into proprietary dishsoap, enshittification is metastasizing into every corner of our lives.

Software doesn't eat the world, it enshittifies it

But there's a bright side to all this: if everyone is threatened by enshittification, then everyone has a stake in disenshittification.

Just as with privacy law in the US, the potential anti-enshittification coalition is massive, it's unstoppable.

The cynics among you might be skeptical that this will make a difference. After all, isn't "enshittification" the same as "capitalism"?

Well, no.

Look, I'm not going to cape for capitalism here. I'm hardly a true believer in markets as the most efficient allocators of resources and arbiters of policy – if there was ever any doubt, capitalism's total failure to grapple with the climate emergency surely erases it.

But the capitalism of 20 years ago made space for a wild and wooly internet, a space where people with disfavored views could find each other, offer mutual aid, and organize.

The capitalism of today has produced a global, digital ghost mall, filled with botshit, crapgadgets from companies with consonant-heavy brand-names, and cryptocurrency scams.

The internet isn't more important than the climate emergency, nor gender justice, racial justice, genocide, or inequality.

But the internet is the terrain we'll fight those fights on. Without a free, fair and open internet, the fight is lost before it's joined.

We can reverse the enshittification of the internet. We can halt the creeping enshittification of every digital device.

We can build a better, enshittification-resistant digital nervous system, one that is fit to coordinate the mass movements we will need to fight fascism, end genocide, and save our planet and our species.

Martin Luther King said 'It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.'

And it may be true that the law can't force corporate sociopaths to conceive of you as a human being entitled to dignity and fair treatment, and not just an ambulatory wallet, a supply of gut-bacteria for the immortal colony organism that is a limited liability corporation.

But it can make that exec fear you enough to treat you fairly and afford you dignity, even if he doesn't think you deserve it.

And I think that's pretty important.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel/a>

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

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 -   

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CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[sagan-starstuff]

XF Meta: Scully's Medical Training Timeline

At the request of @randomfoggytiger, I wanted to do my damnedest to make Scully's education and training timeline make even a little sense. I'm a physician (specifically a specialist in adult infectious diseases), and it's fairly clear to me that CC and Co probably didn't actually talk to any doctors about how medical training works. Love my girl - I'm a Scully Effect kid, I don't think I'd be a doctor at all if it weren't for the inspiration of Dana Scully. But her timeline is...iffy at best.

Disclaimer: My medical school and post-med school training occurred from 2009-2018, Scully's occurred in the 1980's-90's. From what I can tell, the durations of many residencies and fellowships don't seem to have changed much, but I can't say that for certainty for all programs at all institutions. I am also from the US, so I cannot speak to medical training in other countries.

Our girl was born in 1964, and so unless she skipped a grade (which some schools would do if students were classified as "gifted" or otherwise exceptional, she would have graduated from high school at age 18 in 1982 and went straight to college. Let's assume she didn't skip a grade, for the sake of argument.

You have to have a Bachelor's degree to apply to medical school. These degrees typically take 4 years, though if someone arrives at college with credits from dual-enrollment high school classes or AP exam credits OR if they take summer classes some people can complete them in 3 years. I don't know what the availability of dual enrollment or AP classes was like in the early 80's (and like CC, I'm too lazy to do the research to find out), so we can assume that Scully graduated from college in 1986.

Medical school is 4 years long - no shortening this at that point in time, and even now in almost all cases. So that puts medical school graduation in 1990 IF she's following a traditional timeline and went straight from college to medical school.

Now, if someone is going to go into practice they have to do a residency in at least one of a variety of specialties (Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery, etc.) in order to be board certified and practice independently. There are very, very few job options in clinical medicine if you DON'T do a residency, so if you want to practice, you have to do it. Residencies can be anywhere from 3-5 years, depending on the specialty. You can also further subspecialize after a residency by doing one or more fellowships (typically 1-3 years depending on the fellowship) before sitting for your board certification exams and starting independent practice. For example - after medical school I did a 3-year residency in adult internal medicine, then a 2 year fellowship in adult infectious diseases to be eligible to sit for the boards and enter my specialty, so 5 years further training after medical school before I could get a job, get board certified, and practice.

Scully is a forensic pathologist. She would have had to do a 3 or 4 year pathology residency (both were options at the time) followed by a 1 year forensic pathology fellowship. You CANNOT perform autopsies right out of medical school, if you are going to be a forensic pathologist you HAVE to do this training. So, following a traditional timeline this puts her as having completed forensic pathology training in 1994 or 1995. Pilot starts March 7th, 1992, so this is loooooong after she's canonically already an FBI agent and teaching at the academy.

But our girl's a smart cookie, so let's take a little leeway with her timeline. Let's say she skipped a grade some time in K-12. This puts high school graduation in 1981. Let's say she ALSO graduates with a bunch of AP credit and does summer semesters and finishes her undergraduate degree in Physics in 3 years. This puts her as starting medical school in 1984, with graduation in 1988. She'd still need to do that pathology residency and forensic pathology fellowship - let's assume a 3 year residency, then 1 year fellowship, so she'd finish training in 1992.

Still doesn't fit.

Let's go totally off the rails here - we know Scully was recruited out of medical school to the FBI, so she didn't do a traditional residency at all - UNLESS the FBI has an internal forensic pathology residency. It would HAVE to be accelerated in some way - some programs combine residency and fellowship by giving less elective time and more focus to the fellowship content. It's not common but they exist. Let's say in theory the FBI has an accelerated forensic pathology residency that takes 3 years, in addition to the 20 weeks of the FBI academy training. This has her finishing residency AND FBI academy training some time in 1991.

This is the ONLY way she could have finished forensic pathology training AND the FBI academy with enough time to be a fully certified forensic pathologist and FBI agent with some time left to teach at the FBI academy before being assigned to the X-Files on March 7th, 1992.

I can suspend my disbelief enough to be on board with this. You'd have to be pretty damned special, which we know she is, to get recruited out of medical school by the FBI. Maybe they even developed the accelerated combined residency/fellowship just for her! She's Dana Katherine Motherf***ing Scully, people!

Now, IWTB is where things get REALLY unbelievable. (Disclaimer: I have not watched IWTB since seeing it in theaters in 2008. I'll get around to rewatching it someday soon. Probably with a bottle of wine. Not a glass. A bottle.)

Mulder and Scully go on the run in 2002. We don't know how long they were in the wind, but by 2008, she's been allowed to resume a career and is practicing at Our Lady of Sorrows. Clearly in pediatrics - but general pediatricians sure as hell don't do stem cell transplants, so she'd almost certainly have to be a pediatric oncologist. We aren't told what her specialty is specifically, but that's what she'd have to be to do a stem cell transplant.

(That scene in the OR isn't even what stem cell transplants LOOK LIKE but that's a rant for another day, back to my point.)

MEDICAL BOARDS DON'T JUST LET YOU CHANGE YOUR SPECIALTY FOR FUNSIES.

(Deep breaths. Serenity now. Ok, let's do this.)

Scully would have had to do an ENTIRELY NEW residency AND fellowship in order to practice as a pediatric oncologist. Pediatrics residency is 3 years long. Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship is 3 years long. In order for this to be even remotely possible, she would have had to START residency in 2002 to finish fellowship by 2008 and start her job at Our Lady of Sorrows.

And she's a former FBI agent harboring a known felon, on the run from government officials and alien hybrids who want her and Mulder dead.

There is absolutely no way even the smallest, most hard-up pediatric residency program is going to accept her with that hanging over her head. I'm not going to get into all the details of how rigorous and stressful the post-medical school residency application and match process is, but even if she didn't apply until she KNEW it was safe to come out from underground, she'd still have to explain a multi-year gap in her resume/CV to the program directors. Multi-year gaps in career and training without a reasonable explanation like a medical issue, time off to care for an ailing family member, time off for research, time away in a different, legitimate career are NOT looked on kindly when applying for residency positions. She would have a HELL of a time getting into a totally different residency.

It could happen - if anyone could do it, she could. But there's absolutely no way there's enough time for her to complete that training by 2008.

"But sagan-starstuff, it's CC, it's X-Files, we know there was no show bible and no one but the fans gave a shit about continuity or things making sense, there's no logic just vibes"

I KNOW, OK. I KNOW. And I love this insane, beautiful masterpiece anyway. I love exploring the possibilities of how and when it all could have happened with my fellow insane Philes who work so hard to glean meaning and order from this perfect mess of a show.

But couldn't CC have talked to one (1) doctor about what medical training is like at some point between 1993 and 2018? Just one?

Anyway. Yeah. That's my meta. Scully's training timeline makes no goddamned sense. Compels me, though.

@randomfoggytiger, this is for you. Honorable mention to @precedex-files who I ranted about this with in messages a while back.

[dazeddoodles]

Raeda Human Au

More info about this Au:

(In the first picture Eda and Raine are still in their 40's present day. But since there's no curse Eda's hair isn't fully grey. And Raine dyes their hair so you can’t see any of the grey hairs. All the other pictures, except for the coworkers one, is them from years ago)

Eda and Raine have known each other since Raine transferred to Hexide when they were younger and eventually started dating. Since there's no curse, they never broke up and are now currently married.

Raine used to work as an Elementary school music teacher at Hexide. (Hexide is a K-12 school but Raine only taught the Elementary school aged children). But now currently works at a more secure job at a big well known company that Eda hates for their shady practices. (Raine secretly hates working there as well).

Some of their coworkers include Eda's sister Lilith, their former classmate Darius, Terra Snapdragon who used to be a substitute teacher Raine and Eda frequently had back in school, and the other Coven Heads.

Unlike Raine, Eda never finished College. The reason she gives is just because she hates school. When in actually she has has undiagnosed ADHD which always made it hard for her to do well school, and she didn't want to ask for help.

She sells weird crafts she makes online and at markets claiming that they're genuine witch artifacts (basically the opposite of what she did in Season 1).

Eda and Raine are neighbors to the Camila and her daughter Luz and are both good friends with her. In my Au, Camila's husband died when Luz was very young. So in order to help her Eda offered to take care of Luz when Camila went to work, despite her claiming before to not like kids.

Everyday after school and on the weekends, Luz would be babysat by Eda until her mother came to pick her up. Eda would even take Luz with her to the market places. Luz spent so much time with Eda during her childhood that she sees her as a second mother. Even as a teenager, Luz still goes to Eda's house after school just to hang out.

Also in my au Raine is Latine/Latino and speaks fluent Spanish.

[just-a-carrot]

nah bc orlam does have that shakespeare language. like he speaks in fluent reddit pseudo-intellectualism, I think. bro flips through the thesaurus with his feet when he texts iggy to find big words to use and the entire time he’s like “oh the hoes (iggy) are gonna LOOOOOOOOOVE this” (iggy does not know what half of the words mean)

anyways back to my 12 page MLA formatted essay as to why I think orlam is a reddit mod on at least 3 subreddits—

exhibit a.) fedora wearer

exhibit b.) uses big words when he really doesn’t need to

exhibit c.) not straight

exhibit d.) business major

exhibit e.) worked a dead end IT job at some point

exhibit f.) middle name “dagwud”. need I say more?

exhibit g.) lived at home with parents in college

exhibit h.) probably owns at least one samurai sword hanging in his room somewhere

exhibit i.) look at him.

exhibit j.) his playlist is literally called “the depths of my soul”. like okay bro hot topic is that way-

exhibit k.) he’s got the reddit mod phenotype.

exhibit l.) rat-like in stature

exhibit m.) questionable hair

exhibit n.) ginger (trust me on this one)

exhibit o.) looks like he would ask me if I take reddit karma as payment

exhibit p.) “as you can see here, genzou, I have made YOU the soyjak and ME the chad, so therefore I have WON this argument”

exhibit q.) blurry on whether or not he’d sell NFT’s (I’m sorry bro but I can’t trust business majors like that 😔😔😔)

exhibit r.) bro probably thinks his comebacks are the most intelligent thing the world has ever witnessed. he wonders why he isn’t famous by now. he’s so smart guys did you know he’s so smart-

exhibit s.) PRESIDENT OF ALPHA KAPPA PSI

exhibit t.) white dress shirt wearer. I know what you are

exhibit u.) has 100% said “very wholesome this is reddit gold worthy” at some point or something along those lines

exhibit v.) haha. nerd.

exhibit w.) creature feature listener I KNOW what you ARE

exhibit x.) homosexual situationship that destroyed him as a person and altered his brain chemistry for life. tbh same.

exhibit y.) probably got a yaoi folder he is not exempt from that because he’s in his mid-30’s

exhibit z.) reiterating my point: LOOK AT HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

although I will say he beats the “not showering” allegations bc I am so glad to know that he takes care of himself and is hygienic……he’s already better than most reddit mods. and the fact that he canonically pulls and Is Able To Woo People

I can't believe you actually went through the whole alphabet this is so intense 🤣

I have nothing to say besides bravo, this is a work of art LOL

this is probably true tho I do believe that of all of them, Orlam probably spends the most time online. I think he would love (and be good at) cultivating spaces and being a mod in general as he has no problem cracking down on ppl following the rules (and he loves being treated like a god lol). he yearns to hold the masses in his hands...

[weeeeeekly]

quarter life crisis – ot5 tomorrow x together x afab!reader

˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊

blurb !!! Reincarnation can bring soulmates together despite their time apart. Being a huge fan of TOMORROW X TOGETHER helped you get through the struggles of entering early adulthood. You would thank them personally if you ever could but when you possibly get the chance it’s more than what you could ever hope for.

info !!! txt are still idols, reincarnation au, soulmates au, polyamory, throuple²… they’ll all eventually date each other, mc has mental health struggles, universe assigned lactose intolerance, team no kids, glasses wearer, lives in the middle of fuck nowhere but still a city (just go with it), pet names used are “our love” and princess, & not edited.

wc: 1.6k

WARNINGS !!! NSFW, MDNI, 18+, extremely self-indulgent, soft yandere!txt, mentions of mental health & self-harm (nothing graphic) for entire series

author’s note !!! This is fiction!!! this is made up!!! I do not condone breaking in, stalking, and other ulterior motives to get close to someone you are romantically interested in.

why are there not more ot5!txt x fem/afab or gender-neutral reader… mandatory note that i do not think txt act like this in real life. I also cannot come up with a blurb for the life of me, so please peep the info tags.

˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊

CHAPTER SIX

After your impromptu sleepover at their apartment, you snuck out as the sun was rising. You had to shut your eyes to walk out the door instead of staying put to cuddle with Yeonjun. And hopefully the rest of your newfound besties.

The rest of the day consisted of you making yourself carryout chores to not check your phone that was being blown up by the group chat. There was no opportunity to laze around, and pretend time doesn’t exist, but you feared that your mind would spiral.

Before you know it, the sun has set, and your eyes can barely stay open.

˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊

The blaring sound of your annoying ass alarm startles you awake for another day of being a corporate worker who needs money to survive in this capitalist world. All you wanted to do was collect pretty photocards and listen to music.

Ugh.

You go through the motions of getting ready – putting on your glasses, fixing your bed sheets. picking an outfit, fixing your hair, drinking an iced matcha latte with coconut milk and hazelnut creamer, taking some vitamins to not get sick, and running down to the parking garage to drive to work while blasting one of your favorite playlists.

You were definitely in a TXT mood, so a playlist that focused on the group would suffice. Putting the playlist on shuffle, the familiar intro to a song begins as you start the car.

“I know you’re my one and only”… “My life before you was a mess”

You hate still living in your hometown, but you can’t imagine yourself living anywhere else. Your daily route of driving to work had you passing by your entire school life; elementary, middle, and high school all in the same K-12 building and your college just a bit further. Your friends from kindergarten stayed with you until high school graduation when they decided that they couldn’t be stuck in this place any longer and went out of town or farther. Luckily, your roommate who was one of your best friends since childhood stayed but they’ve been busy with their job since landing it 2 years ago.

Speaking of your roommate –

roomie leaving for the cruise with my family today!

roomie see you in a week, make sure to eat proper meals

Your apartment would be empty yet again. You didn’t mind being alone most of the time due to your roommate’s odd schedule, but it never bothered you until now.

When you reach your desk, you sneakily put in your earbuds to continue playing TXT while working. If you can drown out your thoughts and just focus on TXT, then maybe today won’t be so bad. As the rest of your TXT playlist plays, you can’t help but relate the romantic lyrics to them. The same TXT who happen to be your neighbors.

The same neighbors that were sneaking into your apartment to get into your room. They were repeating their method of climbing over their porch to yours and open your sliding door that was still unlocked. Walking it to your room, that was also still unlocked, and huffing in your scent.

Kai jumps onto your bed, hugging your penguin plush that was sitting on one of your pillows. Beomgyu slips a hand into your underwear drawer that he mapped out last time, sneaking a pair into his pant pocket. Soobin opens your diary to see if you made any new entries – you did but nothing he didn’t already know. Taehyun takes it upon himself to finish your leftover iced matcha latte (which he grew a taste for liking). And Yeonjun finds himself sneaking away to go to the bathroom. He can immediately tell which shower cady, side, and items are yours. Even smirking at the poster decoration done by you.

He knew back then, and he knows now.

˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊

When you arrive home, something feels… off.

Nervously walking to your room, you notice that your fuzzy blanket that sits on top of your bed is crumpled and definitely not made properly like how you left it. As you look closer, you can even make out a few handprints that should not be there.

You always make sure to fix the blanket to have no marks.

As you survey your room, there are noticeable differences – your penguin plush is laying next to your pillow instead of sitting on top of the pillow, the home shirt you hung on the top drawer’s knob is on a lower knob, and after opening the top drawer, your underwear drawer, one of your favorite pairs is missing.

Some freak broke into your apartment and your room.

The pure fury that flows through your veins is ungodly as you run around your apartment looking for any other sign. Nothing in the living room, kitchen, bathroom, or your roommate’s room. You lock the sliding door, lock your door, and relock your roommate’s room.

gc with 6 cuties

you i need you guys to come over now

taehyun one second

A knock at your door signals that they’re here. When you open the door, Soobin throws himself at you and checks your face for any signs of distress and frowns.

“What happened?”

You grit out, “Some fucking freak broke into my apartment to do god-knows-what in my room.”

The other 4’s expressions drop as they walk past you.

“We’ll buy a security camera to point at the front door and sliding door. A metal door stopper for the porch. We could ask the front office for security camera footage.” Taehyun goes on as he steps back to you and pulls you into a hug, “We’ll keep you safe.”

“Can you guys stay the night?”

“If you want that.” Yeonjun turns to Kai, “Can you bring over some pillows and blankets?”

Kai and Soobin leave and come back with a pile of blankets and pillows. They follow you to your room after you unlock your door with the key you hid on top of the doorframe.

“Make yourselves at home.”

You feel like a weight has been removed from your shoulders as you lay down on your bed in between Yeonjun and Soobin. Beomgyu, Taehyun, and Kai lie on top of each other with Taehyun resting his head on your stomach. It’s the best kind of weighted blanket.

“I’m happy you guys are here.”

You wrap your arms around Taehyun as Soobin scoots closer. “Seriously, I’m really happy.”

“We’re happy too.” Yeonjun whispers.

“I still can’t believe you guys are real and here, with me. Like, obviously you are real people, but my mind couldn’t conceptualize it until you were right in front of me. I’ve only seen you guys from far away at concerts and mainly through a screen. You’re all just as pretty, wonderful, ethereal, kind, and nice as your idol personas and I just… I’m just happy. I don’t know what good thing I did in a previous life to have this moment.”

Soobin reaches out his free hand to softly pinch your cheek, “We’re lucky to have this moment with you.”

You start playing with Taehyun’s hair as you continue spilling your inner thoughts. “I have crushes on all of you. I’m surprisingly not embarrassed to say that maybe because I still don’t think this is real. I think I’m just being delusional and crossing over the parasocial boundary.”

“NO!”

Taehyun sits up and leans over you causing you to suck in a breath. “We’re soulmates.”

You look up at him, very confused. “Is this fanservice or…?”

“This is going to be a lot to take in, however, we are soulmates. We loved each other before too. What do you know about reincarnation?”

Now you’re just totally confused.

Turning your head to Yeonjun, “Is Taehyun okay?”

“He’s right.”

Oh my god.

“So you’re saying, if I’m understanding correctly, we were soulmates in a past life?”

Kai grins brightly, “Yes.”

“But soulmates don’t exist. We don’t have any of the signs like in books; no red string, no timer, no marks.”

“Are you sure? How did you find us?”

“Well, you guys had just debuted during the last few months of my senior year. I was having a hard year, especially winter break, but then TXT came into my life. My cousin had tried to get me into Kpop the year before but didn’t. I saw the Crown music video a little after it came out and I don’t know, got interested in you guys. Kind of like a pull.”

“You felt the pull.��

The look of hope in all the eyes just makes you want to believe them, “Basically.”

“You love us!”

“I do love TXT. I have posters everywhere. Just don’t look in my bathroom.” You joke, but Beomgyu smirks at you as he backs out of your room.

“NO!” You clamber off the bed and run to your bathroom only to dramatically drop to your knees as TXT look at your collection of their minisode 2 posters on the back of the door, on the wall, and facing the toilet.

“Why is Mark Lee on the ceiling?”

masterlist | previous | next

author’s note happy stayc comeback day!! i have been listening to the album on repeat & it's so fucking good! those are my girls. pride month ended for this year, but being gay is forever.

sorry for not updating yesterday but i could not form a coherent sentence.

[mamirhodessxox]

Hey There Delilah pt 12

Cody Rhodes x Fem Reader!OC (Delilah Jones)

Storyline: Delilah was born and raised by the beach in L.A and grew up in a home where her parents expected her to go to Harvard & become a well known woman who marry’s a man who is a lawyer after high school. But that’s not what she wanted, She always wanted to own a boutique/flower shop & she did, once her parents discovered she wouldn’t attend college they left her to fend for herself but allowed her little sister Kinsley to visit or sleep over whenever, Her little sister always had an eye for WWE but Delilah never understood why but little did either of them know one of Delilah’s customers would become well acquainted. (Creds to @alyyaanna for helping me w the storyline)

Contents: Toxic parents, Angst, Fluff, Smut in later chapters, Based in May 2024, Alcohol, Violence, Corruption Kink, Size Kink, Daddy Kink, Crying Kink, Hand Kink, Praise Kink, Fingering, Smutty smut, Mentions of a Custody Battle.

🏷️ list: @alyyaanna @ginswife @coolpastelartshoe @greatkoalawizard @cokolin044 @kotoriarlert @alicerosejensen @bunnybot55 @adollonyourshelf @mini-rhodes @southerngirl41 @harmshake @femdisa @kabloswrld @claymoresofinfamy23

{~I'm very serious with you guys interacting with my writing!!!! it would make me so happy & excited, the more comments & reposts the more inspiration i have to write :) likes and comments are strongly appreciated so please COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT COMMEENNTTT the more comments the more content <3!!!~}

For most of April things went amazingly smooth, Cody won his first ever Wrestle Mania Championship, Kinsley had a girls soccer game and won with the graces of Mira, It was finally May, it was Kinsley’s last week of school and then the summer would start off with Cody & Delilah’s wedding.

Delilah sat in the principals office with Cody at her old girls only k-12 school she attended for the early years of elementary and middle school, This is where Kinsley was also attending, why are they at the principals office you may ask? “Mrs Jon-“ “Rhodes.” Cody coughed out and snickered when Lilah nudged his knee “Mrs Rhodes…I haven’t seen you since your graduation, I’m pleased to see you, as I know your little sister is attending this school I had high expectations of her given the fact she is related to you, but I suppose not..” Delilah raised a brow and turned to look at Cody but he placed a hand on her stomach “Lilah n-“ Delilah shook her head patting his shoulder as a way of telling him to let her say her peace “Who are you addressing right now? I’ll have you know Kinsley is a goddamn genius compared to half of the kids in this school. She has all A’s and a damn good soccer player so what the hell could she have done to be spoken about like this?” The principal sighed removing his glasses “Kinsley fought another student, she claims this girl has been bullying her and hit her first so she fought back but you know we don’t tolerate violence.”

“So why is she being punished and not the other girl bullying her?” Cody questioned with a confused expression “Well Sir, She uhm..Before she began fighting the little girl it was confirmed that she told her and I quote ‘I’m gonna RKO your pasty ass’ and you know we just can’t tolerate tha-“ Lilah snorted and covered her mouth followed by Cody as he cleared his throat “She’s a um..a big wrestling fan.” The room went silent & eventually Kinsley was requested to come into the office “That teaches her violence Mr Rhodes we suggest you control what she wat-“She’s doing perfectly fine thank you. She hasn’t ever been violent unless it comes to self defense & second off, You do realize the man you are addressing right now IS in wwe correct? She looks up to him & watches him 24/7 just to be his biggest supporter”Delilah chirped back in trying to keep herself calm for her & the baby’s health & decided to take the suspension papers that laid on the desk & sign away “Well maybe his career choice in life has taken an impact and influence on he-“

“Okay so she got in a fight with a bully..did you win?” Kinsley nodded while the principal glared “Mr Rhodes that is a very inappropriate question.” The blonde shrugged and looked over at his Fiancé who was busy signing off suspension papers “So what? She got bullied, whoever the little asshole was hit her first so she fought back. It’s called self defense, back in my day we handled conflict with beating the hell out of each other.” The principle let out a sigh while Delilah pushed the papers aside “Look we know Kinsley may have gotten viol-“ Cody interrupted “Kinsley is justified. And I know this is the same school Delilah went too which means I know someone who went here as well and boy does she have a large track record of being a pain in your guy’s ass”

The principle raised an eyebrow as he had a puzzled face expression before the doors opened making him quickly realize Cody & Delilah came with backup “I knew I’d see your old wrinkly ass again one day.” Mira spoke as she walked in with Randy before making Cody get up out of a seat so she could sit down while Kinsley just stood awkwardly “Look I can just take the suspen-“ Mira shot her a look “Let me handle it.” The elderly man stared at the 4 sitting in his office and shook his head “Ms Mirabella, This does not concern y-“ “It absolutely does. I don’t understand how you let a bully freely go back to class but your screwing over Kinsleys education by suspending her for SELF DEFENSE.”

“That is because she should have reported it to a tea-“ “Bullshit.” Delilah, Randy, Cody & Mira spoke in unison before Randy took the lead “Your going to suspend the one who has been bullying Kinsley & your going to do it immediately.” Delilah got involved again and spoke with a serious tone, Mira nodded in agreement and spoke up once mode “I would suggest this happens after we leave this nasty ass office otherwise I will key your car again like before & smash your windows in? Got it? Awesome, cool, Let’s go.”

Delilah smiled politely & gently scooted a sticky note to the older principle which showed to be a doodle of a middle finger that she made with all of the time she had while Mira and Randy come to Kinsley’s defense.

“I think we did really good in there what about you!” Cody held up a high-five in Mira’s direction making her glare “Get your hand away from my face before I end the chances of you having anymore children.” She spoke blandly before turning to Kinsley “Did you win?” The little girl stood in silence before nodding “Good girl. Maybe when we get you home you can beat Cody’s ass.” Delilah placed her hands against her stomach “Mira..n-�� “Oh my god what he could teach her self defense or something and she can beat him up” Cody scratched his neck “I’d rather not get my ass beat by a child.” Mira grabbed a clump of dirt once they made it outside of the school “Nobody asked you.” She spoke before throwing the dirt at his head.

Cody signed and turned to Delilah & smiled at her as he admired her beauty until she walked closer towards him and swiped the dirt off of him & smiled “You’re gonna have to take a shower when we get back home.” He hummed in agreement “Are you gonna help me get washed up?” She smiled and kissed his cheek “Nope. I have bridal duties to take care of” he chuckled “Do these bridal duties include you going to target when I’m not paying attention so you could buy 10000 more baby clothes?” Mira turned around after speaking with Randy & watched the couple and smiled to herself as she saw the glimmer in Delilahs eyes everytime Cody brought up the word “baby”

Two days later they all agreed on having a bachelor & bachelorette party together instead of separately since they both wouldn’t function without each other. It was a small party at the flower & boutique shop, miraculously made her famous fruit crepes, Randy grilled some steak since the shop was still in front of the beach. Kinsley was running around with Seth playing tag, but Cody & Delilah snuck off walking around in the sand hand in hand “What’s on your mind love?” Cody blurted out after noticing her calm silence “just reminiscing” she smiled and stopped walking just to wrap herself around his embrace “Your just the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen” Cody grinned ear to ear before pulling her in for a kiss & mumbling against her lips “I have a surprise for you after our wedding” Delilah tilted her head and smiled “I don’t need any surprises marrying you is already enough”

May 10th 2018

Delilah and Mira were at an after party for their recent high-school graduation, Lilah had a few drinks along with Mira and the two partied for hours.

Throughout the night they would go up and dance or drink but now all they wanted to do was relax, so they did, they found a guest bedroom and sat talking about life and their parents

“What do you want your wedding to be like lils?”

Delilah smiled at the thought “Well, I always wanted my wedding held in a floral garden with a gazebo to get married in during the reception, I want a white dress with a corset top and the ends of the dress shades with a light pink with fake pink roses sewn into it and the veil that covers my face..the groom will choose whatever cake he wants, I want the wedding song for when I walk down the isle as Paris, Texas by Lana Del Rey, a-and I walk kinsley to be the flower girl and if they are well bonded I want my husband to have a dance with her..the colors need to be white and light shades of floral colors when it comes to decorations”

Mira smiled and knew Delilah was set and stone for this whenever she gets married

“I believe that whoever my husband is, God brought him to me, because I pray that when I find that man he & Kinsley will be two peas in a pod. What do you want for your wedding?”

Mira sat & thought before smiling to herself “I don’t know, I guess I never really thought about it, maybe something like a beach wedding, like tropical-ish, I would want the kiss to fall at a sunset type of thing after the vows, I want a white thin mermaid wedding dress with a slit on the side of my thigh, I’d want my cake to be vanilla but with some sort of fruity icing in the middles y’know?”

Delilah smiled and held her best-friend’s hand “I’ll make it happen Mira.”

3 Weeks Later, May 25th, Present time

Delilah stood in the dressing room staring at herself in the mirror as Mira helped tie the white floral print corset that was attached to the wedding dress that had the pink ombre at the bottom with pink roses sewn into it, Mira decided not to make it too tight, she smiled as she pulled her hair back a bit before placing the veil with pink roses that were also sewn in, Mira felt a tear drop onto her cheek as she saw her bestfriend in the full look

“Cody is a lucky man Delilah.” Mira spoke Lilah smiled and turned around to face her bestfriend that would be officiating the wedding between Cody & Delilah

“Thank You, Mira, for making my dreams come true and just being here for me, You’ve been my best-friend for so many years, because you’ve done so much for me I have a surprise for you later tonight, It’s my turn to make your dreams come true.” Delilah smiled along with Mira before pulling her in for a hug “You’re like my sister Delilah. Y’know I’d do anything for you.”

An hour later 30 minutes before the reception started Delilah pulled Randy in a private area to discuss his relationship with Mira.

“How long have you two been dating?” Randy sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets “since the cabin vacation, I-I really love Mira I just don’t know how to show i-“ “then learn Randy, she would drop everything to do anything for or with you and you know it”

Randy nodded and fiddled with something in his pocket “I want to uhm..Marry her lilah, I have the ring with me everyday but I’m just- I’m scared shitless.” Delilah smiled “I’m aware, I won’t tell you how I know but I will tell you how you’ll propose..”

Meanwhile Randy & Delilah plotted, Mira stood in Cody’s dressing room and helped him adjust the tie on his suit and do any double takes “Aside of me fuckin’ with you I just want to say you’re actually pretty cool, thank you for coming into Delilah & Kinsey’s life” Cody grinned and gave her a hug “Of course, Thank you for helping me with the proposal, the wedding, everything. You’re amazing Mira, I wouldn’t be getting married if it weren’t for your help.” The two smiled and hugged.

Once it was time Randy walked Delilah down the isle as the soft harmony of Paris, Texas by lana del ray surrounded everyone’s ears, kinsley followed behind her gently tossing flower petals as many butterflies flew through until Delilah & Cody were face to face as Mira spoke up

“Welcome family, friends and loved ones. We are gathered today to celebrate the union of Cody and Delilah, We are all here to support this commitment of love and to share the joy of one another and the love as they choose to spend their lives together. Cody and Delilah your marriage will be a lifelong promise to love, respect, trust and honor each other through the good, the bad and the unexpected. This union represents your commitment to support one another as individual beings but share your joys, sorrows, and dreams as one. Today, you gain an equal partner that will be your confidant, your defender and your motivator through all of your aspirations and goals. You will celebrate each accomplishment, provide peace through every setback and most importantly, give love in life’s both big and little moments. If you two have any vows to say please share them now.”

Cody cleared his throat as he gently held Delilah’s hand while he stared at her through the veil that covered her face, “Delilah, When i first met you in the flower shop something told me that I needed to keep visiting that shop, and after I got to know you more I then realized I needed you in my life, I knew immediately we would have a story to build together along with a future, I’m more than grateful that you & Kinsley were brought into my life. I love you to the moon and saturn.”

Delilah smiled ear to ear at his loving words before taking a deep breath “Cody when you met me I was in the most difficult place of my life, and so soon you were already willing to help me and guide me through every curve and bump on the road but You have been so impactful for Kinsley & I, you showed me that love is the most magical thing in the world, You treat Kinsley as if she was yours & you give her a safe place to express herself, after weeks of talking I just knew you would be my husband one day, And I am so grateful to say that my dream came true & I get to call myself your wife today.”

Mira smiled as she wiped the tears off her face “Cody I now ask that you repeat after me, I Cody take you Delilah as you are, I promise from this day forward to love and treasure you for the rest of my life, to be your rock when things get tough, to be your number one fan in all of your accomplishments, to be grateful for all that you are and for choosing to spend the rest of your journey with me, to be patient and kind, to build a safe and loving home with you, to fill your days with laughter, to inspire you to pursue your dreams, to be faithful, to grow old with you and live a fulfilled life. This I promise you.

Cody grinned and tightened his Grip on her hands “I Cody take you Delilah as you are, I promise from this day forward to love and treasure you for the rest of my life, to be your rock when things get tough, to be your number one fan in all of your accomplishments, to be grateful for all that you are and for choosing to spend the rest of your journey with me, to be patient and kind, to build a safe and loving home with you, to fill your days with laughter, to inspire you to pursue your dreams, to be faithful, to grow old with you and live a fulfilled life. This I promise you.”

“Delilah, please repeat after me.”

Mira repeated the speech as she turned towards her head towards Delilah “I Delilah take you Cody as you are, I promise from this day forward to love and treasure you for the rest of my life, to be your rock when things get tough, to be your number one fan in all of your accomplishments, to be grateful for all that you are and for choosing to spend the rest of your journey with me, to be patient and kind, to build a safe and loving home with you, to fill your days with laughter, to inspire you to pursue your dreams, to be faithful, to grow old with you and live a fulfilled life. This I promise you.”

Delilah smiled widely as soft tears drifted down her cheeks while Cody caressed her hand with his thumb

“I Delilah take you Cody as you are, I promise from this day forward to love and treasure you for the rest of my life, to be your rock when things get tough, to be your number one fan in all of your accomplishments, to be grateful for all that you are and for choosing to spend the rest of your journey with me, to be patient and kind, to build a safe and loving home with you, to fill your days with laughter, to inspire you to pursue your dreams, to be faithful, to grow old with you and live a fulfilled life. This I promise you.”

Mira sighed out in relief and nodded her head as Seth pulled out the wedding rings and handed them too her

Cosy take this ring and place it on Delilah’s finger. Repeat after me:

Delilah I give you this ring as a symbol of the promise I made to you today.”

Cody repeated Mira’s words to delilah and as he placed the ring on her finger he pressed a soft kiss against the ring as Delilah repeated after Mira and placed the ring on his finger.

“Having pledged your love and promise to one another today in front of all of your friends and family and by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”

Cody immediately pushed the vail over Delilah’s face and pulled her in by the waist as he pressed his lips against hers and stroked her lower back before she pulled away to hold the side of his face as the two let out a cry of happiness

“Congratulations! Friends and family, it is my honor to introduce to you: Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes”

Later that night everyone attended the after party, Delilah gathered everyone around as she spun around to throw the bouquet, the ladies stepped aside as Mira quickly caught it while Cody tosses a small black box towards Randy

Everyone cheered for Mira as she laughed a hit and held the flowers and while she spun around she stopped immediately as she noticed Randy infront of her on his knees holding a small black box revealing a beautiful saphire blue ring “Mira I know that at times I can be a total dick & I know that we tend to bicker a lot but, I love you more than one could imagine babygirl & I want to thank you for showing me your love, your care & your loyalty, Your a drop dead gorgeous woman & you are so charismatic and funny and I love you so fucking much for being the person you are” Mira covered her mouth as she let out a small cry followed with a smile on her face “After months of being with You I slowly realized you were the one I’ll he marrying one day so I ask you now..Will you give me the privilege of making me your husband?” She let out a rushed out “Yes!” Before putting the ring on and hugging him tightly as she pressed kisses all over His face, Cody & Delilah smiled together as they watched the couple infront of them celebrate each other.

Moments later He & Delilah cut the cake & revealed the pregnancy & shared a slow dance together, Delilah eventually pulled Kinsley on the floor as she shared a dance with him & just had fun bouncing around.

Seth approached Delilah from the side lines of the dance floor “Congratulations Delilah, I’m happy for the both of you.” She smiled and pulled him in for a hug “Thank you seth, That means a lot to me.”

For last 30 minutes Delilah & Mira danced with each other, Jey shared his excitement on being an uncle to the baby. Cody admired his wife

Many hours into the party Delilah stood on a balcony as she admired the flowers and sunset before realizing Cody was approaching her with a smile “Hi gorgeous.” She hummed softly and wrapped her arms around him as the wind caused her dress to start flowing “Hi handsome” Cody smiled as his fingers dragged through her subtle curls before pressing a kiss against her lips and holding her close.

“I love you to the moon and beyond Delilah.”

Manirhodessxox’s Masterlist

[xiaq]

What was your relationship with HP in your childhood and what did it mean to you?

Warning: long answer is long.

I read the first HP book when I was 10. It felt like coming home. I was a deeply awkward, anxious kid dealing with bullying at school. I felt wrong and out of place and like everyone except for me had a manual for how they were supposed to navigate life; without the manual I was certain I would never catch up.

Books were a fucking haven. And THIS book. This book was about a kid that I empathized with so much. Except he's bullied and feels out of place because he IS out place. He's meant to be somewhere better, with people like him, who (for the most part) treat him kindly and with respect. And suddenly he's able to make friends and excel at his studies, and he settles into this fantastic world where he fits, and he's bright and likable and he has a purpose. It was just. God, it was everything I wanted for myself. AND there was magic and a train and a cool castle.

I think the first two books were already out when I started reading and I read the rest as they were released (re-reading them all multiple times in between). The friends I did manage to make also adored the books. I went from "playing Harry Potter" on the playground to writing fanfic to going to midnight book releases and meeting up with friends to see the movies as they started coming out. The final book came out shortly after I started high school, and the final movie came out when I was in college. I went to that midnight showing with a good portion of my friends and we all cried like babies at the end. Because it was over. This thing that had sustained us for so long. This thing that marked our childhoods.

You have to understand that Harry Potter-related expectation was a constant for the majority of my life. Since I was in elementary school there was always a new book to look forward to every year or so. And when the book series was completed, there was the next movie to look forward to. And then it was over (and with such an unsatisfying epilogue). That's when I really got involved in fandom (outside the fic I wrote amongst friends in a the group journal we kept and passed back and forth during studyhall, ofc). And fandom was the most accepting, glorious, place for an anxious queer kid just starting to come out of her shell as college afforded her the freedom to realize that maybe the very narrow (private Christian school k-12) concept of normalcy she'd been afforded until that point wasn't entirely accurate. And it continued to be glorious. I went to cons and got merch and put my House in my online dating profile and 3D printed custom HP cookie cutters and joked about having a HP themed wedding some day and my friends and I loved our nerdy little world that made us happy. Until Joanne ruined it.

And I'm honestly not trying to be dramatic, but when something has been so intrinsic to your life and your social circle and even, to an extent, part of your identify, it's fucking devastating when you find out the creator of that thing is a bigot and actively using her platform to target people you love. I stopped supporting her (buying books/movies/merch etc.) a couple years back, and I was content in embracing the concept of Death of the Author (or, as I've previously termed it, "we've killed the author and are now rifling through her stuff to keep the good bits and throw out the bad"). But now, in light of her continued escalations and the recent TV series announcement, and the conversations I've been having with friends (particularly Jewish and trans friends), I do mean that the very concept of Harry Potter is ruined for me. My, now decades, of nostalgia just...aren't enough to supersede what feels like an irresponsible attachment. Before, I wanted HP's social presence to live on in spite of and without JK Rowling. Now, it's becoming more and more apparent that the entertainment industry is going to squeeze as much money out of the HP world as possible which will, by extension, continue to give her a platform and money with which to actively support her shitty dogma.

So. Here I am, too sad to pick up my HP books for my annual summer re-read, or start the new fic a writer I love has just posted or open the document to work on my own HP fic. Which is not at all a condemnation of folks in fandom who ARE able to keep reading and creating and loving the world while thumbing their nose at her. I just can't right now.

So I'm stepping back and blocking the tags and ignoring the show and trying to let other worlds consume me.

Anyway. That's what it meant to me. Sorry for the tiny violin moment but your ask made me sit down and confront the fact that I'm dealing with an extremely weird sort of grief I haven't ever encountered before.

[infiniteglitterfall]

I'm so fucking done right now

I have a friend. We're going to call her "AAAAAAA!!!!"

AAAAAAA!!!! and I have been friends for more than twenty years. LONG before I started converting to Judaism.

She grew up in an area Jewish enough to get the high holy days off. She has as many Jewish friends as I do. She is more knowledgeable about Jewish stuff than anyone else I know who isn't Jewish. To the point that I've sometimes thought about asking her why she doesn't convert.

Sure, she's a staunch atheist. So nu?

I don't think we'd ever had occasion to talk about I/P politics before a couple of years ago. We immediately discovered we had uhhhhh. Very opposing views. We both backed off of what was clearly going to be a charged and messy discussion.

I didn't know enough yet to try anyway. All I knew, mainly, was that (1) Jews are the indigenous people of Israel and (2) both Israel and Palestine have Done Bad Shit!

That's a very, very, very inadequate understanding. But I did feel pretty confident that point #1 contradicted her apparent stance, which was more "Israel is the one that has Done Bad Shit."

We backed off for a couple of years. She would occasionally mention how much she wished I would read Edward Said, so we could talk about him.

She is, to her credit, totally against Hamas's attack. But we conflict on most other issues. And they're so charged for her that we can't really talk about any of them.

It turns out that the reason they're so charged is that her niece got yelled at and called out for "being an antisemite" for supporting BDS in college, and it was traumatizing for her.

In other words, she and her family stopped at "I had really really big feelings of shame and fear about this," and chose not to see "and I tried to find out why this marginalized group was saying that" as an option.

And also, AAAAAAA!!!!'s sister, a local elementary school principal, went through a stressful time recently for similar reasons: Jewish families were accusing her and/or her school of being antisemitic, and one (1) family left.

AAAAAAAA!!!! set the boundary, with me, that we should not talk about the definition of antisemitism, or antisemitism related to the protest movement, after I posted a list of things on Facebook that the ADL is charging the Berkeley Unified School District with.

Including that K-12 students have been saying and/or writing, "Kill the Jews," "Jews are stupid," "Of course it was the Jews," and telling Jewish peers, "I don't like your people."

My friend is angrily convinced that "such accusations are a flood of SEWAGE smeared on protesters, professors, etc. I am not saying there is no antisemitism, though Berkeley is a very weird place for it to crop up in the from-zero-to-a-thousand way it is described. Of course there can be a) isolated incidents that hit fucking hard in these circumstances, and b) deliberate elisions between, again, being against what Israel is doing, and having that portrayed as being antisemitic."

/looks at the camera/

All of this is just context for what I came here to say 😅

I WAS TONIGHT YEARS OLD WHEN I FOUND OUT WHAT EDWARD SAID WROTE, AND WHAT THE ENTIRE FUCK. FUCK THAT DUDE TWICE.

Constantine Zurayk's fiction that the “Arab nation” suffered the Nakba didn’t survive for long. [By 1967,] the meaning of the Nakba had already changed as Palestinian activists and historians began depicting the events of 1948 exclusively as a tragedy for their own people.

...The most influential of those [new books that framed it that way,] particularly for audiences in the West, was Edward W. Said’s The Question of Palestine, published in 1979.

Said, a popular Columbia University English professor [OH HELLO] and a member of the Palestinian National Council, was something of an icon in liberal intellectual circles because of his earlier book, Orientalism. In that work, Said framed the history of colonialism in the Arab and Islamic world within a system of Western racialist thought.

I'm just gonna guess that he didn't go back farther than 50 years. Because before that point, you get 1,300 years or so of Arab and Islamic colonialism, and I don't know how it would make sense to frame that within a system of Western racialist thought.

In The Question of Palestine, the author argued that the game was stacked against the native Palestinians in favor of the white Zionists, because of the same dominant racist ideologies.

THAT'S HIM, OFFICER. THAT'S THE GUY.

That's what my friend has been trying to get me to read for three years? An ahistoric mess that pretends Jews were actually white supremacists at the time that white supremacy was actively trying to wipe us out?

I'M SO TIRED, YOU GUYS.

Said denounced “the entrenched cultural attitude toward Palestinians deriving from age-old Western prejudices about Islam, the Arabs, and the Orient. This attitude, from which in its turn Zionism drew for its view of the Palestinians, dehumanized us, reduced us to the barely tolerated status of a nuisance.”

Yeah, THAT'S what happened.

“Certainly, so far as the West is concerned,” Said continues, “Palestine has been a place where a relatively advanced (because European) incoming population of Jews has performed miracles of construction and civilizing and has fought brilliantly successful technical wars against what was always portrayed as a dumb, essentially repellent population of uncivilized Arab natives.”

This was a harsh and distorted view of the Zionist movement.

I said I was so fucking done, and what I MEANT was that I was so fucking angry, and NOW I'M TEXTING HER SUPPORTIVELY ABOUT OTHER STUFF WHILE I WRITE THIS.

I just.

Please drag Edward Said for me or otherwise Go Off. Thank you

[heavenisaplaceonearth-with-you]

last time i saw K story time

so i went to his office and he wasn't there but the door was open (he usually leaves the door open when he knows i'm passing by and he always says it's ok if i go sit in there instead of waiting outside but i get weird and awkward about it so i don't) so i turn around to go wait on the bench and see him coming down the hall

maybe i'm delusional but his only like face lights up and his eyes IDEK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT GUYS he just has this way of making everyone feel special and ugh god he's so precious. and then he went, "anastasia!"

shy awkward me: hey!

nods toward his office door, "come."

so we go in and he pulls out a chair for me and we sit and talk about some stuff i don't feel comfortable sharing on here. basically the last time i saw him i asked him about a problem i have and he had a solution but it's something that's difficult for me to do but he made me promise to do it and i did it (i pinky-sweared and also he could literally ask me to get him a rock from mars and i'd do it).

then we kind of sat quietly in comfortable silence thinking our own thoughts. then the janitor came by and said he needed to clean out the office in an hour so then K and i started taking things out of his closet, putting them in bags. it was very interesting. bestie has like 12 kinds of tea in his closet.

he found the math textbook he used in college in the back of his closet and then looked at it then at me and said, "this math textbook saved me in college." (pause) "you should have it."

and then i was all like no i can't accept this but he insisted. he wrote a note on the title page that told me to read after i left and then we continued and then the whole office was empty. it was so weird to see it like this like this place that we'd spent so much time in stripped completely bare of everything. it was weirdly eerie and ghostly.

then the janitor came and peaked his head for a second and K was like i guess they're kicking us out now.

so we walked outside with the boxes of his things and i helped him carry them to his car because the school parking lot is literally a mile away from the building and then we put everything in the trunk together.

he asked me if i need a ride anywhere. i said no because i had to wait for my brother to get out of class.

we kind of stood in the parking lot like that for a second leaning on his car and then i said, "i'm going to miss you."

he said, "well, i'm going to miss you more."

then i started crying and (i'm squealing just thinking about this) he turned around and hugged me and my back was pressed against the car. he rubbed me back comfortingly and told me everything was going to be okay.

like he hugged me before on my graduation and on the last day but before it was just a short squeeze but this was like a full proper hug.

like the magical disney fairytale person he is he didn't pull away until i did.

then he said "i'll be seeing you back here for christmas, yes?"

i just laughed. "you're not getting rid of me that easily."

"good."

and then he got in his car and drove away.

[up-in-space-reading]

Average Weekly Screentime - Chap 4: Study Dates and Movie Not-Dates

pairing: Jake Peralta x Amy Santiago

word count: 3546

warnings/tags: college au, texting, drunk texting, text fic (mostly, there's prose a few chaps in), bets, bisexual!jake peralta, jake peralta has adhd, parties, drinking and alcohol, sexual references, implied sexual content (nothing explicit, just suggested its going to happen/has happened), friends to lovers, swearing, mentions of cannibalism, lighthearted threats of violence (typical rosa stuff yk), fluff CW: At one point in this chapter there's a guy being a bit pushy towards Amy but its over fairly quickly and nothing bad happens.

read on ao3

Average Weekly Screentime masterlist

Story Summary: texting fic college AU with the squad! It's the beginning of the school year and while everyone else thinks it'll be the same as the previous year, Gina has a feeling things are going to be different and wagers a bet with Rosa and Charles. Told through all the various group chats everyone is in.

Chap 1 | Chap 2 | Chap 3 | Chap 4 | Chap 5 | Chap 6 | Chap 7 | Chap 8 | Chap 9 | Chap 10

authors note: Another chapter is here!!! I don't really have much to say about this chapter if I'm honest except that it was a fun one to write!! There's actually some fun little Gina and Charles moments that were very fun to write so I hope you like those too.

Thanks for reading <3

Jimmy Jabbers

[11:32am, Sunday]

Pineapples: how is everyone this fine morning??

Four Eyes: It’s far from a fine morning, it’s absolutely freezing outside Four Eyes: Also my head hurts

Pineapples: you and me both ames

Four Eyes: I was thinking of going to Sal’s for a greasy breakfast and coffee

Pineapples: great idea! Pineapples: count me in

Queen G: calm down u two Queen G: im also in Queen G: ily sal

RoRo: same

Pineapples: that u love sal?

RoRo: I’ll hit you

Mr Grapes: count me in for greasy breakfast too! Mr Grapes: gotta have the party debrief

-

Dance Squad

[11:37am, Sunday]

G-Hive: well that’s a new development

Scary: elaborate?

G-Hive: ‘ames’ G-Hive: a nickname

Scary: right Scary: is ur life THAT boring gina?

G-Hive: i will end u

Scary: i’d love to see u try

-

Amy sat up in bed with a groan, her muscles aching after the hours of dancing and the cold walk home in heels. Her head was hurting, the light peeking through her curtains just a bit too bright for comfort. She stretched and mentally went through her routine to get ready: pain killers, brush teeth, get dressed, do hair. Makeup was not going to happen today she had decided quickly, and she was sure the left-over black eyeliner hugging her lash line was sufficient to convey an illusion of effort.

She moved about her dorm going through the process of getting ready, making sure to wear some layers as a cautionary look at the weather report told her that she would need to rug up. A part of her made the rest of her feel guilty for not showering but she wanted to be ready quickly to go out, and she wasn’t ready to part with the curls Gina had crafted just yet. So to preserve them a bit longer Amy tied her hair up into a ponytail.

It wasn’t long after she’d finished tying her hair up she got a message from Jake.

-

Skipping School Is(n’t) Cool

[11:58am, Sunday]

Ferris: u ready?

Cameron: Yep!

-

Jimmy Jabbers

[11:59am, Sunday]

Pineapples: whos ready??

Queen G: rosa and i are

Mr Grapes: mee!

Four Eyes: Ready

Pineapples: meet at sals? Pineapples: usual table?

Queen G: k

Mr Grapes: yep

-

Skipping School Is(n’t) Cool

[12:03pm, Sunday]

Ferris: im outside ur building

Cameron: I thought we were meeting there?

Ferris: i got too excited and left early

Cameron: Haha okay, on my way out now

-

Amy put her hoodie on and zipped it up, she then quickly wrapped her scarf loosely around her neck and was about to walk out of her door when she suddenly remembered the jacket hanging over her desk chair.

Without thinking, she put it on over her hoodie and ran out the door shrugging her bag onto her shoulder. The elevator ride was quick and walking through the building Amy noticed a few others who seemed to be nursing hangovers from an eventful Saturday night.

She met up with Jake outside who seemed to give her a once over before prompting the beginning of their walk, Amy didn’t question the look he gave her and chalked it up to being hungover. They chatted about nothing in particular as they made the short walk to Sal’s.

Walking through the door they were hit with a strong gust of warm air, the heating having been turned up to accommodate for the weather outside. Rosa, Gina and Charles had already gotten there and were getting comfortable in their usual booth.

Jake called out to them as he and Amy walked through the diner towards the table, Charles turned around to greet Jake back. His face lit up when he saw the two of them and Amy thought it was nice how close Jake and Charles were.

Charles quickly turned back around in his seat and Gina raised an eyebrow at him before composing herself again. Charles shuffled down the booth so Jake and Amy could slide in, Jake sitting in the middle and Amy on the edge.

She quickly got warm in the diner and moved to take Jake’s jacket off, handing it back to him.

“Sorry, forgot to give you this earlier” She said as she handed it to him.

“Ain’t no thang” He placed it on the seat between the two of them as Amy gave him a weird look in response to him.

-

Dance Squad

[12:10pm, Sunday]

Charlese: have mercy on me Charlese: he gave her his jacket Charlese: that’s his favourite jacket

G-Hive: what does it MEAN charles

Scary: I think you know exactly what it means gina

G-Hive: but he hasnt even said anything about liking a girl G-Hive: let alone AMY G-Hive: he usually overshares about that stuff

Charlese: he definitely would’ve told me by now

Scary: you two are exhausting

-

Skipping School Is(n’t) Cool

[12:11pm, Sunday]

Cameron: Rosa, Gina, and Charles are texting each other aren’t they?

Ferris: we can only assume so Ferris: so rude tbh

-

The five of them ordered their greasy breakfasts and a boat load of coffee, talking about the party and how everyone’s night went. Charles began oversharing about his evening with a girl before a round of disgusted responses got him to ease up with the details.

Gina and Rosa (primarily Gina) recapped every detail leading up to and during the argument some two random guys were having which caused them to leave. Then Jake and Amy were asked how their night went, Amy almost began blushing and felt embarrassed to answer but she didn’t know why. All she did was play beer pong with Jake and the others, then dance with Jake, then walk home with Jake, and borrowed Jake’s jacket-

Oh.

“I’m just gonna run to the bathroom” She excused herself from the table quickly while Jake recounted the beer pong game for Gina.

While in the bathroom she tried to get her head straight, convincing herself now wasn’t the time to think about these sorts of things because she was hungover and tired. For now she moved all the thoughts of her night with Jake to the back of her mind, glad that they were still talking about beer pong when she returned to the table.

After a while and checking the time Amy decided to go back to her dorm and do some reading, wanting to at least feel mildly productive today. Everyone agreed they all had things they needed to do, so they all paid and left the diner, walking back to campus in the cold.

They went their separate ways towards their dorms and Amy almost felt lonely going up the path towards her building without Jake by her side, cracking jokes and bouncing on his toes with excitement over a new would you rather question he thought of.

Once back in her dorm she sighed heavily, getting out a book, putting on some music and settling on her bed to read.

-

Dance Squad

[04:06pm, Sunday]

G-Hive: do we need a debrief orrr??

Charlese: a debrief would be fantastic

Scary: you two are way too heavily invested in our friends love lives Scary: they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do and in their own time Scary: what they tell us and what they don’t is up to them, give them some space and have some boundaries Scary: don’t be weird and don’t be creepy

Charlese: …

G-Hive: … jeez rosa G-Hive: charles call me in 10 we gotta talk

Charlese: will do!

Scary: unbelievable

-

Skipping School Is(n’t) Cool

[04:19pm, Sunday]

Ferris: just asked charles if he wanted to watch a movie and he said no bc he is on the phone to GINA

Cameron: That’s so weird, what are they talking about?

Ferris: he wouldnt tell me!

Cameron: That is very unlike either of them Cameron: It’s probably nothing, don’t stress about it

Ferris: hm okay

-

Jimmy Jabbers

[06:12pm, Monday]

Pineapples: okay Pineapples: what is the message u would send to signify you were kidnapped

Mr Grapes: McDonalds is the best food ever

RoRo: the colour pink is underrated

Queen G: Beyonce is overrated

Four Eyes: Books are for nerds

Pineapples: mine is Pineapples: i love making the bed

-

Skipping School Is(n’t) Cool

[07:32pm, Monday]

Ferris: really wish i had some soup yk

Cameron: My mom makes the best soups; I’m looking forward to going home for the holidays and eating as much of it as possible

Ferris: brag much! Ferris: if there is leftover ill happily accept

Cameron: Haha, with all of my brothers that’s a very big IF

Ferris: how many brothers do u have??

Cameron: Seven

Ferris: JEEEEZ Ferris: no wonder you are the way you are

Cameron: What’s that supposed to mean!?

Ferris: ur SO competitive Ferris: me too tbf

Cameron: Can’t argue with you on that one..

Ferris: i tell it like it is

Cameron: Sure you do Pineapples

Ferris: the horrors never end :(

-

[02:10pm, Tuesday]

Cameron: Are you on your way yet? Cameron: I’m at our usual table

Ferris: sorry omw Ferris: couldnt find the right notebook

-

“I said I’m not really interested right now, I’m just trying to study” Amy said for the third time to the guy sitting across the table from her, getting increasingly agitated at his persistence and praying Jake would show up soon.

Her prayers were answered when she saw Jake walk in and spot her, at first looking happy to see her before his expression changed. He could tell immediately that something was wrong and made a beeline for the table as quick as he could without running through the library.

“Jake, you’re here, hi” Amy quickly cut off the guy who just began talking again.

“Hi Ames, is everything alright?” He sat down next to Amy and was quickly looking back and forth between her and the guy who was now confused and angry at Jake’s presence.

“I was just asking her out because I think she’s pretty” The guy cut in, not letting Amy answer.

A look of understanding crossed Jake’s face.

“Well as her boyfriend I’m not sure I can support that” He put an arm around Amy’s shoulders as he said this and her eyes widened in surprise.

She hoped against everything that Jake didn’t notice the heat creep up her neck, she could hear her heartbeat in her ears as her brain was running through a million different emotions all at once.

The guy scoffed and walked away from the table, leaving Amy to sigh a breath of relief. Jake removed his arm from around her and she was disappointed at the loss of warmth and weight.

“Well he sucked” Jake commented after a few moments of silence, trying to break the tension.

Amy exhaled quickly through her nose in response.

“Yeah he did” A few more moments of silence passed as Jake got his things out of his bag, “thanks for that, I appreciate it” She continued, quieter than before.

“It’s fine” Jake shrugged it off, opening his books and laptop, spreading everything out across the table.

The two of them worked for roughly 10 minutes in comfortable silence aside from the clatter of laptop keyboards and the clicking of pens. Suddenly Jake stopped with a halt, putting down his pen and leaning down to rummage through his bag.

“I completely forgot, I brought lunch”

He pulled two sandwiches out of his bag, handing one to Amy.

“You got subs? Lunch was meant to be on me today” Amy protested with a smile, remembering their banter from the weekend.

“Next week it’s on you, then” He responded, waving a hand in dismissal.

He went to open the sub and begin eating it right there over his books and it made Amy cringe but she let him be, knowing her objections wouldn’t make a difference.

They spent a few hours at the library studying until it got dark, Jake frequently asked Amy questions about the work and she was happy to answer all of them.

She wore a small smile on her face the entire way back until she got in her dorm room and realised what she was doing. She then proceeded to scream into her pillow and flail around until she was satisfied she’d gotten her feelings out, feeling childish afterwards.

Her feelings for Jake was something she simply chose to not think about, because having feelings for Jake was complicated and Amy’s never done well with complicated that wasn’t related to school work.

There was also no way Jake liked her back, they were way too different.

-

He wished he could go one day without thinking about her. She was the most beautiful plague on his mind, half of him wanted a cure but the other half enjoyed the symptoms far too much.

His jacket smelled like her, his notebooks had her red pen marking throughout them, and his camera roll full of memes that he found just for her.

At first it was a feeling he was able to deny, but slowly the feelings crept up on him, slow enough that he hadn’t noticed until one day it hit him like a truck. The feeling made him sit down with his head in his hands, wondering how he could possibly develop a crush on one of his closest friends.

Charles had been saying since day one that Jake and Amy were meant for each other, and now Jake couldn’t believe he was actually right. If Jake ever told anyone, Charles would swoop in with the advice of a declaration of love like and happily ever after.

But Jake couldn’t do that, Amy didn’t like him back and how would they even work they’re such different people. He didn’t want to ruin their friendship.

Jake Peralta was head over heels for Amy Santiago and had no idea what to do about it.

-

Skipping School Is(n’t) Cool

[07:03pm, Thursday]

Cameron: Looking at the assignments you have left and how much time, you’re 100% gonna get it all finished

Ferris: you think so???

Cameron: Absolutely!

Ferris: ur the best ames

Cameron: It’s nothing.. Cameron: You’re the one who did all the work

Ferris: im gonna have a nice relaxing winter break

Cameron: And then back to it in the new year

Ferris: dont remind me

Cameron: If it’s any consolation part of me is dreading going home

Ferris: what about the soup?

Cameron: The soup is great, the busy household with no privacy is less than great

Ferris: fair enough Ferris: feeling lucky im an only child Ferris: but my mom cant cook like urs

Cameron: You’ve never had my moms cooking?

Ferris: i dream of it Ferris: i dream of soup ames

Cameron: Of course, haha

-

[05:42pm, Saturday]

Ferris: what r ur saturday plans

Cameron: Dinner soon, then study, maybe a movie if I have time Cameron: Why?

Ferris: forget that mess Ferris: im getting take out and watching a movie Ferris: join me plleaasseeee

Cameron: Not that I don’t want to, but what about Charles?

Ferris: on a date with the girl from the party Ferris: im proud of him

Cameron: Good on him Cameron: Okay, I’ll finish this up and head over Cameron: Do you want me to bring the big fluffy blanket?

Ferris: dumb question Ferris: obviously bring it

-

[06:03pm, Saturday]

Cameron: Coming over now!

Ferris: see uuuuu

-

The Night Boys

[09:23pm, Saturday]

Deathblade: hows the date going?!

Sidewinder: AMAZING Sidewinder: we both go to the same restaurants around the city and she loves dogs Sidewinder: I think she might be the one

Deathblade: thats great charles!!! Deathblade: use protection!!

Sidewinder: WILL DO JAKEY

-

Jimmy Jabbers

[09:48pm, Saturday]

Pineapples: if u disagree when i say one of the hottest looks of all time is Patrick Swayze in dirty dancing then ur not my friend

Queen G: out of nowhere but an important message thank u jake

Pineapples: i only speak the truth

RoRo: swayze’s hot

Four Eyes: I never said he wasn’t hot, Jake, can you let it go!

Pineapples: not until i get vindication

Four Eyes: Get off your phone and watch the movie please

Pineapples: fine

-

Dance Squad

[09:56pm, Saturday]

Scary: yeah somethings going on

G-Hive: YES ROSA

-

[07:23pm, Monday]

*G-Hive started a video call* *Charlese joined the call* *Scary joined the call*

Gina: Heeeeeey

Charles: Hi Gina! Hey Rosa!

Rosa: What do you want?

Gina: I wanted to talk to the only two people who care about Jake and Amy-

Charles: Peraltiago, that’s their names combined-

Gina: Boyle! You’re ruining the fun of it!

Rosa: There shouldn’t be fun to speculating as to whether two of our friends are gonna bang

Gina: If that isn’t fun then what even is fun, Rosa?

Rosa: Knives

Charles: Just knives?

Rosa: Just knives

Gina: Ignoring that. Can you believe they were watching a movie together? Without us! I’m almost offended we didn’t get an invite

Charles: To be fair, I was on a date so I couldn’t have gone anyway

Gina: Don’t even talk to me about how you had a date on Saturday and I spent the whole night in my dorm alone

Rosa: Didn’t you get the DJ’s number from the party?

Gina: OH MY GOD! Rosa thank you for the reminder, texting him literally as soon as we’re done here!

Charles: What are we doing here exactly, Gina?

Gina: Great question Charles. We’re here because I’m bored and want to do anything other than more goddamn school work

Charles: Fair enough. Did you see Amy wearing his jacket last week?

Gina: He has a weird attachment to that thing and seemed perfectly fine giving it up to Amy for however long? He literally wears it everywhere!

Charles: Everywhere! And he just let Amy have it for at least 12 hours, that’s gotta mean something

Gina: I hate how much you get me Charles

Charles: Sorry

Rosa: Have you guys ever considered that they like each other?

Gina: Of course we have Rosa

Charles: Only ever since the two of them met

Rosa: I’m going to indulge you for a minute, and then I am leaving this conversation. Stop gasping for god sake.

Charles: Sorry

Rosa: The two of them clearly like each other, they’re both stubborn and competitive and weird. One day they’re gonna talk and figure it out, and its not up to us to interfere with whatever weird flirting friendship thing they have going on.

Charles: I might start crying

Gina: I hate to say it but me too

Rosa: Great, now I’m going. Bye.

*Scary left the video call*

Gina: Now that she’s gone, I gotta tell you what Sasha in my analytics class said today!

Charles: Dish!

-

Skipping School Is(n’t) Cool

[04:05pm, Wednesday]

Cameron: You’ve been out of class for five minutes and still not given me an update regarding the assignments? Cameron: Keeping me on the edge of my seat here haha

Ferris: well ames… Ferris: idk how to break it to you

Cameron: What happened?

Ferris: I GOT A 70% Ferris: I HANDED EVERYTHING IN AND I PASSED Ferris: this semester at least

Cameron: JAKE THAT’S AMAZING Cameron: I knew you could do it!

Ferris: i wouldnt have been able to if it wasnt for u

Cameron: That’s not entirely true, you were the one who did all the work

Ferris: but u helped and encouraged me Ferris: so im thanking you Ferris: just accept it

Cameron: Fine… you’re welcome

Ferris: ur gonna hate the next bit tho Ferris: im sure u remember our stakes

Cameron: Oh no…

Ferris: if not ill refresh ur memory Ferris: amy santiago Ferris: will u go to terrys new years party with me AND match me drink for drink

Cameron: Yes, Jake Peralta, I will go to Terry’s new years party with you and match you drink for drink

Ferris: SHE SAID YES LADIES AND GENTS

Cameron: Hahaha Cameron: Tread lightly, I have a number of nieces and nephews who will gladly get me sick right before the big event if you’re not careful

Ferris: ames how DARE you threaten to betray me Ferris: and after all the work ive done

Cameron: Hahahaha

-

Jimmy Jabbers

[04:15pm, Wednesday]

Pineapples: good afternoon everyone! Pineapples: whos planning on going to terrys nye party??

Queen G: im absolutely there

Mr Grapes: it’s still a week and a half away but yeah I’ll probably be there

RoRo: idk RoRo: if I’m not doing anything else

Pineapples: @Four Eyes and ur answer?

Four Eyes: …yes I’ll be there…

Pineapples: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Pineapples: whats that sound? its the sound of victory

Four Eyes: Whatever you say, pineapples

Mr Grapes: hahaha pineapples is still funny

Queen G: cool it mr grapes

Mr Grapes: aw..

-

[03:30pm, Friday]

Four Eyes: I’m heading home for the next two weeks now. I hope you all have a great holidays!

Mr Grapes: you too amy!

-

Skipping School Is(n’t) Cool

[03:31pm, Friday]

Ferris: wait im not gonna get to say goodbye to u?

Cameron: Sorry, I thought I’d have a chance but I ran out of time

Ferris: thats okay Ferris: have a good holiday ames :)

Cameron: You too, Jake :)

Chap 1 | Chap 2 | Chap 3 | Chap 4 | Chap 5 | Chap 6 | Chap 7 | Chap 8 | Chap 9 | Chap 10

authors note: And so we end it just as the holidays begin! I loved writing the dynamic between Gina, Charles, and Rosa this chapter; especially Gina and Charles! idk why but I just have this feeling that Charles and Gina would love gossiping together, and being the two really openly rooting for Amy and Jake I feel like would cause them to be a little bit closer in that way.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'll try to have the next one out as soon as I can!! Thanks for reading <3

[evedend]

Start of my daily log: Day 0 Packing day

Salutations people of the internet, my name is Evedend or Ev for short and I'm a trans dude trying to figure out life. On this blog of mine I'm here to log my daily activity as I navigate moving out and going to college. Today is my last day in my family home and tomorrow I move to my school and bro i am so stressed. I have a list of things I need to pack and I've got a lot done already but it still feels like a lot. Another thing that is pretty helpful is that my boyfriend is also going to the same school I am and he moved in today this morning. He's a runner on the track team and XC team. I'm going to be living in a suite with one of my friends that I graduated high school with so that's also a plus.

Here at my family home ill have to leave my two fish tanks as I'm a hobby fish keeper, my frog Copia, and my dog Clancy. I live with my grandparents and they have been kind enough to offer to take care of my animals while I'm gone. I might post some photos of my fish and frog at some point but I had a surprise yesterday when I saw that one of my fish had kids and had to hurry to add some hides in the tank for the babies. I haven't been able to get a clear photo of any of the babies yet cause my phone camera wont focus.

As for my college major I'm going for a certification for K-12 art teaching. Evedend isn't my actual name but my screen name for this blog; it's actually the name of one of my OC's who I'm currently working on developing right now. I'll try and keep this blog updated with photos of drawings I get done through this semester.

As for hobbies other than art and fish keeping I like to write, learn about true crime, knit, and i also like fishing with my bf and some of our other friends in our local ponds and other fishing spots. One of my biggest interests is music. Oml I love Ghost, Sleep Token, Twenty One Pilots, MCR... etc.

As for actual activities for the day: I woke up, had some coffee with my grandparents, came down to my room and sobbed to Paladin Strait by Twenty One Pilots, went out and got some food, and now I'm here typing out all this.

But anyways that's about it for today :3

[lunarcovehq]

SONG SEO-JOON (LEE JUNHO) IS LOOKING FOR...

Connection: Siblings (0/3)

Suggested Name: Family name is Song, given name UTP

Age Range: UTP

Species: Witch preferably, but could be a vampire or a wolf if they were turned

Suggested FCs: Any Korean fc (including mixed fcs that are half-korean), but some suggestions include- Daniel Henney, Alex Landi, Bae Suzy, Cha Eun-woo, Hwang In-Yeop, Jamie Chung, Lee Do-Hyun, Sang-Heon Lee, Im Jinah/Nana, Kim Se Jeong etc.

Connection Description:

Everyone in the Song family is successful in their own right, except for Seo-Joon. Their family is also incredibly rich. Their grandfather, Song Sang-Hoon, founded King Enterprises, a startup that would become the well-known medical and tech conglomerate it is today, being known for its skincare, cosmetics and medicine with recent interests in hospitality and aviation. 

 His step-mother is a famous model (who either is your character's step mom as well or their biological mother depending on their FC) and the face of King Cosmetics, and his father is a well-known director. Both dominated their social circles and were often far too busy jet setting around the world, speaking at conferences, and acting as prominent witches within the Lunar Cove coven to visit their son growing up in NYC all on his own. 

While his siblings (12 of them- with only 3 being playable), all of varying different ages, managed to find their niches at one point or another. 

I'm super open to determining how your character is successful in their fam- they could have not been the best at school, but now is an up and coming painter. They could be the 'perfect' parent with a seemingly perfect family. They could be an innovative architect who is trying to convince their grandfather to invest in a new line of hotels which they're working to design. They could be a model, a singer, a Soap star etc. Someone on the 30 under 30 list. I'd love for one of the siblings to be a manager of the Hospital or the new manager of K Labs (having taken over Seon-Joon's positiong after Seo-Joon went missing) etc.

Your character was born a witch and their parents weren't the type to put a ton of pressure on them. They were the hands off type and were more than happy to encourage their children to try whatever interested them, even if they often would send a bouquet of flowers to their child’s dance recital rather than appear in person. But, they had never been strict or overbearing and, yet, every single member of the family managed to thrive in some capacity except Seo-Joon.

But, while the parents didn't pressure on them, the siblings would compete between themselves and their parents would give more attention to those who succeeded and those who honed their powers as a witch given that being a witch was well revered in their family.

While your charrie grew up in Lunar Cove, Seo-Joon was raised by nannies in NYC after it became clear that he was the only human in their witch family. They grew up knowing that it wasn't safe for Seo-Joon to be surrounded by so much magic given they were human. The family didn't mean to isolate Seo-Joon. They simply wanted to keep him safe and give him the freedom to be able to travel the world rather than being physically trapped in Lunar Cove, but slowly your characters would be invited more and more of magic related trips while Seo-Joon received a sympathetic look in passing that felt more like an afterthought than he’d care to admit. It was almost as if after his abilities never came in and his grades at school continued to remain mediocre at best, they had given up on expecting anything from him which only seemed to be solidified when it came time for college.

The family bought a building at NYU to secure his place at a university as they did for a few of their other children who didn't make it into Ivy Leagues on their own. But, when Seo-Joon got car crash tw hit by a taxi in the city, his family became worried about his safety wondering if Lunar Cove might actually be safer for him than on his own.

After college, their parents made the decision without Seo-Joon's input that the safest place for him was the Cove where he'd be forced to stay for the rest of his life unless he wanted to risk losing his memories pertaining to magic. Your charrie could leave LC as much as they'd like, traveling around, while Seo-Joon was forced to stay. You watched the joy in your brother's eyes fade as they were given the position as manager at K Labs, despite being far from qualified for it, by their grandfather. His family had only tossed the underfunded research lab his way in an attempt to keep him out of trouble. It wasn’t as if they actually paid any mind to what him or the scientists who worked there were up to. But, by a strand of dumb luck, his team ended up creating one of the most exponential achievements in supernatural research due to his own incompetence.

Only the moment K Labs was turned around, Seo-Joon vanished. You believed he skipped town and would text his phone to get short winded answers. Your charrie could have been worried for his sake or resented him for leaving without a word. Only eight months later, your charrie has learned that he's alive and was kidnapped tw by the Catalyst this entire time.

Seo-Joon also goes by the nickname Song with people he's not close to, but your bby would likely go by their given name around everyone and, likely, would call Seo-Joon by his given name too.

I'd be happy to plot out more about our bbies- was your charrie the sibling who moved into the beach house he was living in before being kidnapped? What was their dynamic like growing up? Were they close? More distant etc.

Please be sure to contact the player before applying:

Becca is available for DMs on @cantfightmoonlight !!

[theliterarywolf]

So with you an anon discussing the terrible conditions of your schools and how all the money go to bullshit like P.E, basketball courts, uniforms etc

Lemme tell you some funny stories, you think California sucks? The deep south is WORSE

My mother went to a middle school sometime in the 70s, while playing volleyball in the gym she spiked the ball so hard it broke an upper window.

It was never fixed and by the time I entered that school in the mid 2000s it was still broken

.Same school was notorious for the heater to always be busted, same with the AC. my 7th grade English class was the worst with temperature since the windows faced the sun, and so we'd cook like weenies over an open fire

The female locker room bathrooms were never took care of and middle school girls are barbarians and would doodle dicks, and offensive language all over the walls and mirrors

The mirrors were confiscated afterwords

By the time I enrolled in high school it was worse, the textbooks hadn't been updated since the Civil rights era (holy fucking shit southern 60's something textbooks were TRASH) and one textbook I got was my mom's and i yelped when i saw her name scrawled in it

The high school had busted old soda machines that were just left to rot int he cafeteria and were a constant reminder that we can't have nothing nice

Oh but we can definitely afford NEW GODAMN MAC BOOKS JESUS GOD

And last but not least, back in the mid 2000s there was a devastating tornadoe that hit the neighboring town to ours and decimated the local high school there. Just wiped it off the fucking map.

SO OUR TOWN got super butt hurt when the president came down and gave funds to help rebuild the school and wanted a new high school as well

Once they secured the funds to build it sometime in the 2010s they went nuts trying to have it built before the next school year, so instead of replacing outdated textbooks, repairing the ventilation and other issues they decided NOPE WANT NEW SCHOOL NOW

Hilarious though nobody realized until too late that the new school was built on several sink holes, we lost a school bus to one I shit you not and now the school is sinking making the building lopsided as all hell

In summary all the money are schools received went to a brand new school that's half sunk in the ground, and shit for the football team

Not to take the Lord's name in vain but Jesus fucking Christ.

And it's so fucking blatant that education in the U.S. is just being sidelined in the priority scale. Like, yes: we don't need to push the narrative that kids HAVE to go to college to have successful lives. But holy fucking shite, K-12 has to be able to properly teach kids 'Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic' and Critical Thinking so that students can leave schools with at least basic comprehension and calculating skills.

There are far too many districts and school administrations that either focus too much on the fluff (sports, aesthetics, and 'Customer Service') or who have given up on their students completely so they just dump tax dollars into shite that really doesn't help student success in the long run but, hey! It's educational, so it must be good, right?

THE PRE-AP 'CURRICULUM' IS FUCKING BULLSHIT, and if you are a parent whose teen comes home with an English class syllabus that says 'Our class utilizes a PreAP system', you need to either hit the dash or call the district and lodge a complaint. Because that shite is useless and it's just school districts paying CollegeBoard for access to a nonsense website and workbooks and the ability to say 'we prep students for college'.

[causetheturtle]

Thoughts while rewatching season 3 of Riverdale:

1. K why did Alice’s farm style slay so hard? Like she looked so great

2. Love how Archie is literally in this prison FOR FUCKING MURDER and still nobody is scared of him - they saw this man in his nice little shoes his rich girlfriend gave him and were like “yeah this man is ducking useless”

3. VERONICA STOP BUYING YOUR BOYFRIEND NICE THINGS WHILE HE’S IN PRISON! He’s just gonna get this shit stolen your dad was in jail how do you not know how a prison works?

4. It’s so sad that the normies got hold of the “epic highs and lows of high school football” line because it really is such a perfect Archie line - this man is naive and kind hearted enough to believe a game of football is all that’s needed to fix the structurally broken prison system but if you haven’t watched the show and don’t know anything about Archie then it’s obviously gonna seem ridiculous

5. Riverdale relationship drama is so funny cause it’s like “Betty had a stress related seizure due her mother and sister joining a cult and didn’t tell Jughead” or “Veronica isn’t sure of the best way to help Archie through his time in prison”

6. Kevin asking Moose if he’s embarrassed by him of course he is Kevin have you met yourself? Your literally the worst

7. Organising a musical number and cheerleading routine for her boyfriend while he plays a game of football in prison is actually the most normal reaction Veronica Lodge has ever had to any situation ever

8. Realising I talk about Riverdale the same way all of the G&G players talk about G&G

9. Imagine being an adult in Riverdale and hearing that a new bar opened up under Pop’s and going for a night out to check it out but you get there and it’s just a load of teenagers doing musical numbers and drinking mocktails

10. Why is FP’s immediate reaction to any situation ever to just grab his son’s face and yell at him? Begging for this man to have a normal non-abusive reaction to something just one time

11. Will never stop thinking about the Midnight Club. It was the first episode of Riverdale I really watched and it’s still one of my favourites. Like the way all of the parents tried so hard and came so close to breaking their moulds and forging their own paths but they never did and just fell into exactly what the world and the people around them wanted to be AND how their kids are all in the same situation now? The narrative, the cycles, the generational trauma! This episode has everything

12. Knowing now that Sheriff Keller actually WAS into guys the whole time and it was just that he didn’t want to be with Moose’s dad makes the whole situation so much funnier

13. The idea that they were all booking out the bunker for certain nights a week is so funny - like did they have physical a schedule? Who kept the schedule? Did it just sit in like the offices of the Blue and Gold?

14. I fucking love Archie and Josie together and have fully convinced myself that Josie is somehow California Women

15. It needs to be studied what exactly the Heathers episode did to my brain because that one episode of TV completely rewired my brain chemistry and changed the trajectory of my life

16. It’s so sad that the happiest Polly ever got to be was when she was part of a cult. It’s also sad how much everyone’s farm fashion went off cause they all looked so good during that era

17. It’s actually a miracle it took so long for Fangs to actually die there were so many attempts on his life

18. God Veronica running multiple businesses at age 16 and none of the Riverdale adults batting an eye and just respecting her as a business women will never not be funny to me

19. The plot twist that Alice was actually working undercover to take down the farm actually makes her being so awful to Betty make less sense. Sure, she was doing it for the greater good I guess but like she didn’t have to give away her college money or sell their fucking house leaving Betty with the options of homelessness or moving to a cult to get it done

20. FP maybe if you need to get your teenage son to regularly come and help you with your job as sheriff then you shouldn’t be doing it? Although on the other hand Jughead would’ve gone to those crime scenes anyway so like maybe it’s a good thing FP was there as adult supervision

21. GOD the cult break out and scavenger quest are such amazing finales for this season. Everyone nearly dies about ten times, Kevin and Fangs no longer have kidneys, the core four staggering through the woods in formal wear close to death together, Cheryl and Toni coming to save them all with the power of gangs and bows and arrows, it had literally everything you could want!

22. Love how Hal Cooper is canonically one of the worst serial killers ever and every woman he’s been with tells him this to his face

[sedoretu]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/07/05/chevron-doctrine-overturned-regulations-vulnerable-supreme-court/

8 policies that could be vulnerable to new legal challenges [after Chevron]

The Supreme Court jettisoned longstanding precedent that helped the federal government make regulations. Now broad policies could be determined by judges.

“No policy is at greater risk than the administration’s student loan forgiveness efforts, which spend hundreds of billions of dollars without congressional authority,” said Michael Brickman, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former senior adviser in the Education Department under President Donald Trump. Republican attorneys general in 18 states have sued to stop the Saving on a Valuable Education program, which lowers monthly student loan payments and offers a shorter path to loan forgiveness. They argue that Congress never envisioned anything as expansive as the program in the law underpinning the regulation.

...

A new Biden administration regulation protecting transgender students and laying out how schools must respond to accusations of sexual assault and harassment was already being challenged, and the new ruling gives opponents further ammunition to stop it. The regulation is the administration’s interpretation of the half-century-old Title IX law, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded K-12 schools, colleges and universities. The administration, citing a 2020 Supreme Court ruling, included discrimination based on gender identity in its definition of sex discrimination, meaning schools might be required, for instance, to allow transgender students to use pronouns and bathrooms that align with their gender identity. The provision was celebrated by LGBTQ+ advocates and derided by conservatives.

...

The Supreme Court ruling almost immediately put a check on the Labor Department’s authority. Hours after the ruling came down Friday, a U.S. District Court judge in eastern Texas cited the decision in an order to block the federal overtime expansion from applying to Texas state employees. The rule went into effect Monday and makes millions more workers eligible for overtime pay nationwide. But labor and employment attorneys say the Texas judge’s decision signals that another court will probably block the rule.

... The Biden administration’s most consequential climate rule could be newly vulnerable: The Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to boost sales of electric vehicles while slashing emissions from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. Republican attorneys general from more than two dozen states had already sued the EPA over the Biden administration’s most consequential climate rule, a sweeping attempt to transform the U.S. auto market. The top trade association for the U.S. oil and gas industry, which could see demand for its products decline as consumers shift to EVs, has also challenged the regulations in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Opponents say the agency has overstepped its authority.