#its like an i-spy of bullshit

[wonderarium]

this shits embarrassing

[hacksawboy]

bimonthly whiteboard going great so far

(ps credits for the actually good art drawn in black goes to @wings0fruin hes one of my besties n hes a rlly good artist go check him out if you like SAW)

[get-more-bald]

every day I thank god fans aren't in charge of making updates to games

[theygender]

What are you talking about. Exactly zero of these things are essentials

[mee-op]

the arcana fandom has to be the most depressing fandom ive evr been in

[laurenfoxmakesthings]

So...I'm watching a spy Shaw Brothers film, 'Angel With Iron Fists', for notes. There's of course a lot of fights, which means every move gets a strong post-production strike sound effect. You know, that iconic one.

I'm now up to the scene where there's a fight scene between the protagonist female spy and the enemy female spy (who's there because she got jealous of her boyfriend fake-dating the protagonist, which she knows is happening BTW, and thinks the protagonist is going to steal him even though she isn't, she's also fake-dating him...ugh).

Anyway, the fight...barely any sound effects. There's a few, but the scene is basically letting the wimpy slap sounds be heard in this fight scene between the female characters as though we're supposed to see it as a cat fight. And if you think I'm overthinking this, there's full-on panty reveals.

[stawbebbiess]

shoot me some anime recs

i like wholesome sweet and comical stories, bonus points if its gay and not grossly fetishized <3

[iwaasfairy]

IWA HARSH PUSSY SLAPPPPSSS OR FINGERINGGGG

a/n. yea I made it dad iwa and also some oc bullshit fucking suE ME but it’s good i like this one yeAAAA I hope you enjoy BBYYYYY I know I liked writing it hahahHAHA

GET IT RIGHT

tw. incest, dad x daughter, single dad iwa, reader’s a brat, obv age gap, size stuff implied, pussy slapping, (hard-ish) dom iwa, brat taming, noncon voyeurism, it’s a family affair, solo masturbation, jealousy wc. 3k

iwaizumi hajime x fem!reader, iwaizumi eiji and hitoshi x fem!reader

Its not his business that you’re a total nympho. Frankly, he could care less. Hitoshi’s eyes flick from under his baseball cap to the older sibling’s smug, almost accomplished smile when he runs a hand through his head of hair, before shaking some of the excess water out. The lighter brunet chuckles. “Our little sister’s laying on a towel with her tits out in the Oikawa’s backyard.”

“Dad’s over there, ain’t he?” Hitoshi responds, already back to scrolling mindlessly through Reddit to cure some of his boredom. Head of the Iwaizumi house said to ‘go outside for a bit’ so here he is, sweating his ass off in the lawn chair. What you’re up to really is none of his concern. Really. Eiji only smiles.

“And what? You think he’s gonna tell her off? Be for real for a second, Tosh.” There’s a look on Eiji’s face. Mixed in under the amusement and the bolstering, there’s something a bit tense. Impatient, and though he’d sooner die than admit it, Hitoshi recognises the glint that sits in the slight scrunch of his nose. He’s jealous. Yeah, you’re the type of little sister who gets away with having your tits out while they’re supposed to pretend not to see it. After sloppily patting himself dry with one of the towels, the oldest sibling slaps his phone out of his hands to grunt. “Get up.”

He responds before he thinks. “Fuck you, bitch.”

But it doesn’t bother his brother, who only tosses the towel back onto the table. “Stop intellectualising it and get up. You wanna get a look too, right? Dad’s over there right now to keep an eye on our little sister, and no one else is home. What do you think’s gonna happen.”

+

The sun’s so nice on your bare skin, glowing heat onto you and making you feel so sleepy and dazed. You’re all housesitting, which means access to the ridiculously nice pool of the Oikawa’s — and a secluded garden where you’re free to do whatever the fuck you want. The low voice is the only thing interrupting the peace. Daddy. “Babe. What do you think you’re doing?”

Your hat’s covering most of your view, but if you crack open one eye you can just about make out the way your dad crosses his arms over his wide chest, wife beater clinging a bit too tight to his muscular form. You push your lips out. “Sunbathing.”

“Put something on.” He sounds a bit tight, like he’s gotta clear his throat. Good.

“Why though?” You lift the hat up with one finger to look up further, see the slightly flushed visage of your father as he eyes you down. He’s a bit sweaty, yard work, and now has all his attention aimed at you. “I can’t get warm evenly all over if I do. Besides, no one’s home, and no one’s gonna look at me. The only people who can see into the yard is us, and Hitoshi nii’s not going to crawl out of his dungeon to spy on me, I promise you.”

It stays quiet for a few seconds as he takes in your words, before he sighs. Frowns just a bit, as he lets his eyes glide down your body just once. Enough to have his jaw clench, though. “I’m working here.” Then, after a bit more thought, he forces out the rest of the words. “You’re distracting.”

“Daddy~ please~” you start though, now pushing off the hat completely and wrapping your arm around yourself in mock-modesty. You have no intention of actually covering up. And looking at the way he’s breathing and already sweaty, he doesn’t actually want you to cover up either. “Nobody’s home. It’s fine. Please?” His olive green eyes flick to the way you’re pushing up your tits with your arms now, and those swimming trunks start feeling a bit tight on him if the way he shifts is anything to go by. The intense look would’ve scared you off before, but… well, it isn’t the first time you’ve gotten away with worse.

It also probably won’t be the last. “Once the sun is gone I’ll cover up to go back into the pool out front, promise.” You smack your lips, and give him those big puppy eyes that he seems to love so much. “Ei nii’s out there and I don’t want him to get an eyeful anyway.” You roll onto your side to send him your best smile. “Only trust you like that, daddy~” You’re audacious, a brat, but only because you know that gets him going. Wouldn’t do it this way if he really didn’t like it. When you go to lay back down with closed eyes, you can already hear him move in the grass.

A slight line works its way between your brows at that, at the idea that he’d walk away from you. But then a warm palm wraps around your arm to pin it beside your head on the towel, and you can feel the heat of him getting onto his heels beside you. Your breathing hitches, but you force yourself to keep your eyes closed. “Trust me to do what, exactly?” He rasps.

His other hand comes to your shoulder to push his thumb in, nice and hard, and works a moan out of you before you can think— working his way down in circles that pull goosebumps out of you. “What’s all this show really for? To make your big brothers jealous? Hm?” He gets close enough for the whispered voice to tickle your neck, hot thigh pressed against your waist before he places the other on your other side, straddling you. “You think that you can ‘daddy’ all your problems away? That if you look at me sweetly enough I’ll give?”

“I- didn’t-” your voice hitches when his mouth drags over your pulse, slight stubble and warm lips leaving kisses all down the length if it. The heat of the sun on your naked chest only makes the almost touch more irritable and itchy, and you have to fight the urge to just curl your body up against him already. “Didn’t want my big brothers to see. Wanted -you to.” When he noses at your collarbone you try to find your voice, and worm your wrist out of his grip to reach for his hair. “Wanted daddy to play with me again. I’ve been waiting since yesterday. Please.”

You can’t help but think back to last weekend, grinding down on his thigh with his fingers down your throat. Panties coated in stickiness and your entire body trembling with exhaustion. He laves soft mouthed kisses onto your throat enough to have you shaking now, too. But Hajime’s nothing if not consistent, as he noses the side of your breast and his hands slide down to squeeze your waist. “You know that I can’t, right?” He always says that.

You can’t help but laugh, humourlessly, and tug softly at the hair trapped between your fingers. “Then why are you?” And he is. As soon as he gets near enough, you arch your back automatically, still clenching your eyes closed. If you look now, the image will haunt you every day for the rest of summer. You’ll need daddy’s hands on you until you can’t go any more. Your tit is pushed against his cheeks because of your motion, and he groans a low, rumbling sound against your body. You can feel the heat of his bulge through his shorts. “Did you get jealous that Eiji might’ve seen me? Even a little?”

A second passes, before he finally grunts. “Fuck, yeah.” His mouth comes to your tits, tongue rubbing over hardened nipples too well, too knowingly. Knowing your daddy’s had other women before could make you green with envy, but he feels so good. His mouth, and hands feel so fucking good. Good enough to cry about it, trapped under his broad, heavy form as he squeezes and sucks your tits. “You’re a headache, you know that? Do you feel what you do to me?”

“Mhm.” You nod, panting, squirming under him. His hardening cock pushes against your thigh as you roll your hips, and he leaves impatient lovebites all over your tits. “Daddy.. d-daddy. Want you.” He’s so big and hot and heavy against you any time you get this close, it’s not your fault. You’re only a headache because he made you one. The clothed grinding against his covered, hard cock leaves your pussy awfully wet and sticky. Your breaths short. “Don’t you wanna- s-show your boys who your daughter belongs to, daddy?”

Your eyes shoot open when a sharp sting jerks your body, spreading through the flesh of your tit before he laves his tongue over the ridges where his teeth dug in. He clicks his tongue while grinding your other nipple between his fingers, making your bottom lip wobble. It feels so good, he always does. It’s not your fault. “Stop tempting me to make you regret your little stunt.” Your teary eyes meet his, dark and predatory before he pushes himself up, and yanks you closer by your thighs. “Legs up on my shoulders.”

“But-“

“Legs.” He says again, lower. You do, let him help your ass up to his mouth and reposition you so he’s level with your cunt. Your pussy clenches around nothing as he blows on your clit through the fabric, and only one hand keeps wrapped like a vice around your thigh to stabalize you. “I don’t wanna hear anything except how good it feels. Understood?”

You nod, before thinking better of it and speaking up. “Yes.” Fuck, it’s hot. He’s hot. You’re about to melt into a puddle with his face between your legs. He pushes your bikini bottoms aside with rough fingertips before pushing in. And you gasp, doing everything not to whine already. As his nose pushes against your sensitive clit, his lips find yours to leave a wet kiss on the opening, and he pushes his tongue against your sloppy lips without another warning. It’s already too much.

“Agh- d-daddy. You feel g- gh-ud.”

The big, hot tongue pushing you open, makes you grind against him while blood rushes both to your cunt and your head. His other hand flicks over your enterance a few times instead, before two thick fingertips push inside you, slow at first. He makes a show out of bottoming them out, and you can feel the way he smiles when it makes your pussy squelch. His tongue flicks over your clit hard and fast, before sucking. “Fuck, you’re so- good- g-good to me. Daddy!”

“Mhm.” The blood makes your ears ring. It makes you so dizzy it’s impossible to see much past daddy’s face and how good he looks, rubbing his tongue in rough motions over your pussy. He’s licking and licking and licking against your clenching muscles so good it’s almost unbelievable. The rough friction of his chin and stubble against your pussy, the way he nibbles just right at your clit, it’s all too much. It’s too much because it’s daddy— because he knows what he’s doing.

“D-daddy!”

You mewl as you curl your body against him and the push to your clit gets even better. Too good. You’re so sweaty his hand slips on your thigh, instead pulling you back by your heel and yanking you back up, right as your toes curl. His face is making a mess between your legs, and your mouth hangs open. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He- he’s already gonna make you cum. Sweat rolls down your back as your juices run down his chin and he buries himself as deep as he can, groaning your name into your pussy. “That’s my pretty girl, there you go.”

Your thighs squeeze around him and your eyes open through your tears, desperately searching for the eye contact you need to get there. But maybe because he knows you, he pulls back and drops you back down by your legs, spreading them by his thighs. “No, no- daddy pleas-uhh~ I wanna cum.”

“You’re coming on my cock.” He snaps back, before pushing you open more and slapping your pussy with a flat palm. “That alright with you, miss princess?” He says it like it’s an insult. For a moment, it does feel like it. Your mouth snaps shut against the cry you wanna let out, as his hand lands again before you can react. You jerk against the sting, clench your legs closed around his hand, but he pushes them back open to do it again. And again, and again, until slick is dripping down to your ass and your clit is tingling and swollen. You could burst out into a sobbing fit any second. “Can I do what I gotta do to get you there now?”

“Yes,” you sniffle back instantly, and open your eyes at him. Thick tears sit on your vision at it, you can’t help it. It’s all his fault you’re this way anyway. Your thighs wobble before your bottom lip does, and it’s this that makes him sigh.

“Aw, babe, shhhh— I’m sorry.” He takes only a moment to pull his shirt over his head, then gets back over you to wipe away the thick tracks. It doesn’t do much against the tears that keep coming, but it’s ok. It’s much better when you can place your hands to his bare chest and feel his heartbeat through your palms, reach up to kiss him. He tastes like you, and you suck on his tongue until he moans into the kiss. When he pulls back, that hot, big palm cups your cheek. “Was that mean?”

“I deserved it.” His dialated eyes search yours for a moment, before he kisses you back another few times. The tingling ache between your legs remains, but there’s a pit in your stomach that becomes more demanding again. “Please keep going?”

“Take me out.” Your hands instantly glide down his body at the order, hooking two fingers around the elastic band before pulling. Pulling down until you reveal the trail of pubic hair that leads down to his thick, flushed cock and down further. Down until the fabric can no longer hold him back from bobbing up against his stomach and he lets out a deep breath. You pull a little more to get a glimpse of his fat, heavy balls too, before daddy grunts and places both elbows by your head again. “Lead my cock inside you like a good girl, hm?”

“Uhuh.” Gladly. Your fingers reach for him, touching the dripping head first. Pre gets all over your fingertips, and you truly can’t stop yourself from putting two fingers inside your mouth with a whimper. Your hands return to squeeze around the head, need both to reach and stroke down a few times. Not that he needs it. He’s hard enough to feel his heartbeat through the skin, thick cock twitching as you shuffle around to line up. “‘s big.”

“It’s big to make you feel good.” He agrees, kisses your temple, and bucks into your palm. “Go on.” You line him up with a deep breath, before blinking your long lashes up at him with your lip between your teeth. The head kisses your hole as he hums, slides your slick around on the puffy mushroom head a few times before pushing in. “Ugh-always forget,” he grunts lowly, biceps bulging as he holds himself above you, “how fucking tight you are. My little baby.”

He starts rocking himself inside you bit by bit, and you can’t help but drag your nails along his flexing back to hang on. “Ah, ah, agh, daddy. You’re- so- big.” You throw your head back, and pant, tears still wobbling. You’re no longer sad though. Your pussy’s being forced open too big, too- fucking wide for you to clench around him properly- but it feels so good. He feels so fucking good, oh God. You want to fuck daddy all summer. You want him to never, ever stop.

+

Hitoshi’s so fucking hot it makes it hard to see straight. Cum’s gotten on his shirt, all over his hand, and he’s got boxers full of cum running down his fucking thigh. While his cock’s still hard and red in his fist as he forces his own hips not to buck. He can just barely hear your whines echo over the field to where they’re hiding— and you sound, predictably, just like how he imagined you do. You look good. Fuck, he’s sure you’d look just as good under him, but instead you’re clinging flushed faced, tits bouncing to your dad with his greying temples and letting yourself get used.

You’re pathetic, honestly. But he’s also not fucking blind. His cock twitches hard in his hand, and his other hand comes to cover the flared head as if that’ll keep a third load in. He’s trying to hold it so hard that he’s panting, balls pulling up to his body.

“Think she’ll let me eat the cum out of her when dad leaves?” Eiji’s pumping his cock without shame like there’s no tomorrow, getting drops of hot, clear liquid everywhere. He’s christened the plants with his cum earlier, too. Hitoshi just grimaces, before looking back at the way your body curls around the fat cock driving in and out of you, your cries about to make him bust again. “Huh?”

“I don’t fucking care, Ei nii.” He then furrows his brows so deep that you’d say he’ll get permanent wrinkles, not bothering to look over. “Why do you wanna eat dad’s cum out of her?”

“So I can fuck my own into her.”

Hitoshi’s too busy watching you and breathing through it to care about what he’s saying, so it takes a minute to filter through his hazy thoughts. “You’re a pig.”

Eiji just rolls his eyes. “Whatever you say, quick shot. Have fun trying not to cum when I go next.”

All Rights Reserved © IWAASFAIRY 2024. Works are exclusive to this Tumblr.

[itsjustlikefallingsnow]

i'm sure this all has been said before but i am utterly besotted with how essek's arc in c2 looks from the m9s perspective.

like, you meet a guy with full authority on whether you friend's husband lives or dies. he's mysterious and powerful and will not take any of your bullshit. he's incredibly hot. you invite him over for dinner and he says no i have work and then knocks at your door fourty minutes later and says i changed my mind would you um uh. have me over for dinner. he infodumps to you about driving his father to his own death and also not having any friends. this makes a lot of sense. he wont let you forget about all those favours you owe him but does teach your wizard some baller spells. you fuck off for a couple months. come back in time to attend a fancy party in honour of the peace agreement you busted your entire ass to make happen. out of curiosity you decide to spy on the convo between ludinus and some slightly suspicious dignitary. its like, super easy to do that unnoticed. the dignitary is that fucking guy. holyshit.jpeg . he's still doing his most recognizable gimmick under his disguise. youre like what the fuck man and he starts crying. you fuck off for another couple months. get back. he's incredibly hyped to hear from you and eager af to help. not a mention of the favours you owe is made. halfway through the conversation he stops to rant about how hes a terrible person and will do anything to atone. his devastating puppy eyes are on par with your wizard who he's obviously pathetically in love with. you bring him with you into the worstest couple days of his elven life. he's visibly trembling but like still trying to be cool in front of your wizard. when its over he gives a speech about friendship and love and repenting. he's crying the entire time.

he floats away to go repent. you check in a year later and he's leading a fulfilling life with your wizard. he has not found a way to soft launch his walking normally again . he's one of your bestest friends.

[venus-haze]

Stakeout (Billy Butcher x Reader)

Summary: Ever since you started working with Butcher and The Boys again, life has been exciting, invigorating—and stressful. During a stakeout, Butcher mixes the personal with the professional to help you relieve some of the tension you’ve been carrying around.

Note: Female reader, but no other descriptors are used. Takes place vaguely in season 1. Do not interact if you're under 18, terf or radfem, or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 1.2k

Warnings: Sexually explicit content involving semi-public fingering, light degradation, and voyeurism (Butcher is insane. So is Homelander.)

You hadn’t been on a stakeout in years when Butcher asked—demanded, really—that you come along with him to keep an eye on Vought Tower overnight. Something about letting Hughie get some sleep while you two tried to keep tabs on A-Train’s comings and goings. It was easy enough to see through his bullshit, but rather than call him on it, boredom from your day job and curiosity of what he had up his sleeve made you agree.

Butcher at least had the decency to pick up some snacks from a bodega near your apartment, mostly beef jerky and bags of chips. Kept the radio low on some classic rock station, the two of you sitting in near silence across the street from the tower for the better part of an hour. His car hadn’t changed much from the last time you were in it. Except for the new pine tree air freshener—though new was a stretch. It’d long since lost its scent, but the blue wasn’t as sun-bleached as the old one. Funny, the things you remember.

“This feels like a waste of time. Even if we were here to spy on A-Train, which you and I both know we’re not, there’s no way we’d be able to actually see him leave and come back,” you finally said. “And Homelander wouldn’t leave out of Vought’s front door unless he was doing some publicity to appeal to us plebeians.”

“You got a point.”

“So what’re we doing here?” 

“Y’think the cunt can see us?” he asked.

“Who? Homelander?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t the point of a stakeout that we’re not supposed to be seen?”

“S’why I’m asking, love.”

You sighed. “Unless he’s somewhere we can’t see him, then I guess not.”

“Perfect.”

He put his hand on your knee, his fingers inching their way up your pencil skirt. You didn’t have time to change out of your office clothes when Butcher picked you up at your apartment. Even though you were back with his crew, you hadn’t quit your day job just yet, working for some stupid startup that somehow landed a contract with Vought. Gave you some insight into what they were up to, at least made your presence in the tower the least suspicious of anyone else, able to say you were there for business.

You shifted in the passenger seat a bit. “Butcher, what’re you—“

“Tryin’ to help you relax,” he said, his fingers brushing your clit through your panties. “You’ve been tense as hell lately.”

You chewed on your bottom lip. He was right. Linking up with Butcher again after so many years gave you a renewed sense of purpose, but with that came the stress, the late nights, the close calls. In the comfort of his car, just the two of you where no one else could see, maybe you could let him take control for a while.

“How tense, Butcher?” you asked, leaning back in the seat. “Tell me.”

“Workin’ yourself too hard for a bunch of sorry pricks,” he said, his voice low and husky as he tugged at your panties. You lifted your hips so he could pull them to your knees. “Can’t have that when I need you now, yeah?”

You nodded breathlessly as he slid two fingers inside you, pumping them in and out slowly, his thumb rubbing circles on your clit. His gaze, dark and intense, always had a way of making you feel acutely aware of his attention on you, even when you weren't looking at him. Sometimes unnerving, but in cases like this, utterly exposed despite being fully clothed.

“Been a long time, huh? You miss this? You miss when I'd take care of your cunt?”

“Yes,” you moaned. “God, Butcher, keep going.”

“Thought of callin’ you a few times the past few years. You were always a good fuck,” he husked, his lips, his rough beard brushing across your neck and jaw. “Look at you now, people walking by, and you don’t give a damn who can see you, long as you get off, huh?”

“Butcher—“

“Bet if I’d taken my cock out instead, you’d have sucked me off. Take it all like the cockslut I know you are. You fuck anyone else the past few years? They know how to treat you? Know how to make you feel good?”

“Yes—No—I don’t know.”

“Fuckin’ hell, you’re pretty when you’re close. How close are you, love?”

“Fuck—I’m close. I’m so fucking close. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop,” you babbled, choking out a moan when he slipped a third finger inside you. “Keep going, just like that.”

He was pushing you, knew your limits better than anyone, and as much as you hated to admit it, you needed it. Hadn’t realized until then how long it’d been since you’d really been fucked until he curled his fingers inside you, and your brain felt like someone poured soda over it, your skin burning for more.

You didn’t care who saw, all you cared about was getting there, and you were so fucking close it made you screw your eyes shut and cry out in frustration. Jesus, no wonder you were willing to jump back in when Butcher showed up on your doorstep. Everyday was bland, the same old bullshit. There was plenty of bullshit when it came to Butcher and whatever harebrained schemes he came up with, but it was a hell of a lot more fun than typing up reports and sitting through meetings.

“C’mon, love. Put on a show. Let me hear ya.”

You opened your eyes, only to catch Butcher staring out the windshield. Following his gaze, you let out a panicked whine upon seeing a red glow honed in on you, long enough to be sure he was watching. You came on Butcher’s fingers with a perverse moan, pleasure coursing through you as you dug your fingers into the console. You threw your head back, your hips jerking upward as you rode out your orgasm on his hand. 

Butcher was relentless when he wanted to be, and you weakly tapped out, squeezing his muscular arm, whining a bit nevertheless when he pulled his hand away. Sparing another glance at the windshield, the red glow was gone. Homelander was gone.

You told yourself it was the surge of fear-fueled adrenaline that brought you over the edge, not exhilaration at being seen, being caught in such a vulnerable state by the most powerful supe in the world. Definitely not. But you kind of hated yourself for not feeling more humiliated, instead, as you obsessively replayed the scene in your head as Butcher drove down the street, you were thrilled by it. 

Still, he should’ve fucking warned you, given you some kind of heads up. You held your tongue until you were sure the sound of traffic would hide your voice from any superpowered hearing.

“You fucking prick!” you hissed, smacking his shoulder. “You banked on Homelander being enough of a pervert to watch us?”

“Killed two birds with one stone. You feel better now, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you reluctantly conceded.

“Attagirl.” He grinned. “I think I know where the cunt’s going.”

You balked. “I can’t look him in the eye after this.”

“You kind of already did.”

“Fuck you, Butcher.”

He glanced at you again, squeezing your thigh. “I’ll make it up to you later, love. Don’t you worry.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tech monopolists use their market power to invade your privacy

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

It's easy to greet the FTC's new report on social media privacy, which concludes that tech giants have terrible privacy practices with a resounding "duh," but that would be a grave mistake.

Much to the disappointment of autocrats and would-be autocrats, administrative agencies like the FTC can't just make rules up. In order to enact policies, regulators have to do their homework: for example, they can do "market studies," which go beyond anything you'd get out of an MBA or Master of Public Policy program, thanks to the agency's legal authority to force companies to reveal their confidential business information.

Market studies are fabulous in their own right. The UK Competition and Markets Authority has a fantastic research group called the Digital Markets Unit that has published some of the most fascinating deep dives into how parts of the tech industry actually function, 400+ page bangers that pierce the Shield of Boringness that tech firms use to hide their operations. I recommend their ad-tech study:

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-platforms-and-digital-advertising-market-study

In and of themselves, good market studies are powerful things. They expose workings. They inform debate. When they're undertaken by wealthy, powerful countries, they provide enforcement roadmaps for smaller, poorer nations who are being tormented in the same way, by the same companies, that the regulator studied.

But market studies are really just curtain-raisers. After a regulator establishes the facts about a market, they can intervene. They can propose new regulations, and they can impose "conduct remedies" (punishments that restrict corporate behavior) on companies that are cheating.

Now, the stolen, corrupt, illegitimate, extremist, bullshit Supreme Court just made regulation a lot harder. In a case called Loper Bright, SCOTUS killed the longstanding principle of "Chevron deference," which basically meant that when an agency said it had built a factual case to support a regulation, courts should assume they're not lying:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/scotus-decisions-chevron-immunity-loper

The death of Chevron Deference means that many important regulations – past, present and future – are going to get dragged in front of a judge, most likely one of those Texas MAGA mouth-breathers in the Fifth Circuit, to be neutered or killed. But even so, regulators still have options – they can still impose conduct remedies, which are unaffected by the sabotage of Chevron Deference.

Pre-Loper, post-Loper, and today, the careful, thorough investigation of the facts of how markets operate is the prelude to doing things about how those markets operate. Facts matter. They matter even if there's a change in government, because once the facts are in the public domain, other governments can use them as the basis for action.

Which is why, when the FTC uses its powers to compel disclosures from the largest tech companies in the world, and then assesses those disclosures and concludes that these companies engage in "vast surveillance," in ways that the users don't realize and that these companies "fail to adequately protect users, that matters.

What's more, the Commission concludes that "data abuses can fuel market dominance, and market dominance can, in turn, further enable data abuses and practices that harm consumers." In other words: tech monopolists spy on us in order to achieve and maintain their monopolies, and then they spy on us some more, and that hurts us.

So if you're wondering what kind of action this report is teeing up, I think we can safely say that the FTC believes that there's evidence that the unregulated, rampant practices of the commercial surveillance industry are illegal. First, because commercial surveillance harms us as "consumers." "Consumer welfare" is the one rubric for enforcement that the right-wing economists who hijacked antitrust law in the Reagan era left intact, and here we have the Commission giving us evidence that surveillance hurts us, and that it comes about as a result of monopoly, and that the more companies spy, the stronger their monopolies become.

But the Commission also tees up another kind of enforcement: Section 5, the long (long!) neglected power of the agency to punish companies for "unfair and deceptive methods of competition," a very broad power indeed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

In the study, the Commission shows – pretty convincingly! – that the commercial surveillance sector routinely tricks people who have no idea how their data is being used. Most people don't understand, for example, that the platforms use all kinds of inducements to get web publishers to embed tracking pixels, fonts, analytics beacons, etc that send user-data back to the Big Tech databases, where it's merged with data from your direct interactions with the company. Likewise, most people don't understand the shadowy data-broker industry, which sells Big Tech gigantic amounts of data harvested by your credit card company, by Bluetooth and wifi monitoring devices on streets and in stores, and by your car. Data-brokers buy this data from anyone who claims to have it, including people who are probably lying, like Nissan, who claims that it has records of the smells inside drivers' cars, as well as those drivers' sex-lives:

https://nypost.com/2023/09/06/nissan-kia-collect-data-about-drivers-sexual-activity/

Or Cox Communications, which claims that it is secretly recording and transcribing the conversations we have in range of the mics on our speakers, phones, and other IoT devices:

https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/

(If there's a kernel of truth to Cox's bullshit, my guess it's that they've convinced some of the sleazier "smart TV" companies to secretly turn on their mics, then inflated this into a marketdroid's wet-dream of "we have logged every word uttered by Americans and can use it to target ads.)

Notwithstanding the rampant fraud inside the data brokerage industry, there's no question that some of the data they offer for sale is real, that it's intimate and sensitive, and that the people it's harvested from never consented to its collection. How do you opt out of public facial recognition cameras? "Just don't have a face" isn't a realistic opt-out policy.

And if the public is being deceived about the collection of this data, they're even more in the dark about the way it's used – merged with on-platform usage data and data from apps and the web, then analyzed for the purposes of drawing "inferences" about you and your traits.

What's more, the companies have chaotic, bullshit internal processes for handling your data, which also rise to the level of "deceptive and unfair" conduct. For example, if you send these companies a deletion request for your data, they'll tell you they deleted the data, but actually, they keep it, after "de-identifying" it.

De-identification is a highly theoretical way of sanitizing data by removing the "personally identifiers" from it. In practice, most de-identified data can be quickly re-identified, and nearly all de-identified data can eventually be re-identified:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the-fire-of-orodruin/#are-we-the-baddies

Breaches, re-identification, and weaponization are extraordinarily hard to prevent. In general, we should operate on the assumption that any data that's collected will probably leak, and any data that's retained will almost certainly leak someday. To have even a hope of preventing this, companies have to treat data with enormous care, maintaining detailed logs and conducting regular audits. But the Commission found that the biggest tech companies are extraordinarily sloppy, to the point where "they often could not even identify all the data points they collected or all of the third parties they shared that data with."

This has serious implications for consumer privacy, obviously, but there's also a big national security dimension. Given the recent panic at the prospect that the Chinese government is using Tiktok to spy on Americans, it's pretty amazing that American commercial surveillance has escaped serious Congressional scrutiny.

After all, it would be a simple matter to use the tech platforms targeting systems to identify and push ads (including ads linking to malicious sites) to Congressional staffers ("under-40s with Political Science college degrees within one mile of Congress") or, say, NORAD personnel ("Air Force enlistees within one mile of Cheyenne Mountain").

Those targeting parameters should be enough to worry Congress, but there's a whole universe of potential characteristics that can be selected, hence the Commission's conclusion that "profound threats to users can occur when targeting occurs based on sensitive categories."

The FTC's findings about the dangers of all this data are timely, given the current wrangle over another antitrust case. In August, a federal court found that Google is a monopolist in search, and that the company used its data lakes to secure and maintain its monopoly.

This kicked off widespread demands for the court to order Google to share its data with competitors in order to erase that competitive advantage. Holy moly is this a bad idea – as the FTC study shows, the data that Google stole from us all is incredibly toxic. Arguing that we can fix the Google problem by sharing that data far and wide is like proposing that we can "solve" the fact that only some countries have nuclear warheads by "democratizing" access to planet-busting bombs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

To address the competitive advantage Google achieved by engaging in the reckless, harmful conduct detailed in this FTC report, we should delete all that data. Sure, that may seem inconceivable, but come on, surely the right amount of toxic, nonconsensually harvested data on the public that should be retained by corporations is zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/#harm-reduction

Some people argue that we don't need to share out the data that Google never should have been allowed to collect – it's enough to share out the "inferences" that Google drew from that data, and from other data its other tentacles (Youtube, Android, etc) shoved into its gaping maw, as well as the oceans of data-broker slurry it stirred into the mix.

But as the report finds, the most unethical, least consensual data was "personal information that these systems infer, that was purchased from third parties, or that was derived from users’ and non-users’ activities off of the platform." We gotta delete that, too. Especially that.

A major focus of the report is the way that the platforms handled children's data. Platforms have special obligations when it comes to kids' data, because while Congress has failed to act on consumer privacy, they did bestir themselves to enact a children's privacy law. In 2000, Congress passed the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which puts strict limits on the collection, retention and processing of data on kids under 13.

Now, there are two ways to think about COPPA. One view is, "if you're not certain that everyone in your data-set is over 13, you shouldn't be collecting or processing their data at all." Another is, "In order to ensure that everyone whose data you're collecting and processing is over 13, you should collect a gigantic amount of data on all of them, including the under-13s, in order to be sure that not collecting under-13s' data." That second approach would be ironically self-defeating, obviously, though it's one that's gaining traction around the world and in state legislatures, as "age verification" laws find legislative support.

The platforms, meanwhile, found a third, even stupider approach: rather than collecting nothing because they can't verify ages, or collecting everything to verify ages, they collect everything, but make you click a box that says, "I'm over 13":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/09/how-to-make-a-child-safe-tiktok/

It will not surprise you to learn that many children under 13 have figured out that they can click the "I'm over 13" box and go on their merry way. It won't surprise you, but apparently, it will surprise the hell out of the platforms, who claimed that they had zero underage users on the basis that everyone has to click the "I'm over 13" box to get an account on the service.

By failing to pass comprehensive privacy legislation for 36 years (and counting), Congress delegated privacy protection to self-regulation by the companies themselves. They've been marking their own homework, and now, thanks to the FTC's power to compel disclosures, we can say for certain that the platforms cheat.

No surprise that the FTC's top recommendation is for Congress to pass a new privacy law. But they've got other, eminently sensible recommendations, like requiring the companies to do a better job of protecting their users' data: collect less, store less, delete it after use, stop combining data from their various lines of business, and stop sharing data with third parties.

Remember, the FTC has broad powers to order "conduct remedies" like this, and these are largely unaffected by the Supreme Court's "Chevron deference" decision in Loper-Bright.

The FTC says that privacy policies should be "clear, simple, and easily understood," and says that ad-targeting should be severely restricted. They want clearer consent for data inferences (including AI), and that companies should monitor their own processes with regular, stringent audits.

They also have recommendations for competition regulators – remember, the Biden administration has a "whole of government" antitrust approach that asks every agency to use its power to break up corporate concentration:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

They say that competition enforcers factor in the privacy implications of proposed mergers, and think about how promoting privacy could also promote competition (in other words, if Google's stolen data helped it secure a monopoly, then making them delete that data will weaken their market power).

I understand the reflex to greet a report like this with cheap cynicism, but that's a mistake. There's a difference between "everybody knows" that tech is screwing us on privacy, and "a federal agency has concluded" that this is true. These market studies make a difference – if you doubt it, consider for a moment that Cigna is suing the FTC for releasing a landmark market study showing how its Express Scripts division has used its monopoly power to jack up the price of prescription drugs:

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/express-scripts-files-suit-against-ftc-demands-retraction-report-pbm-industry

Big business is shit-scared of this kind of research by federal agencies – if they think this threatens their power, why shouldn't we take them at their word?

This report is a milestone, and – as with the UK Competition and Markets Authority reports – it's a banger. Even after Loper-Bright, this report can form the factual foundation for muscular conduct remedies that will limit what the largest tech companies can do.

But without privacy law, the data brokerages that feed the tech giants will be largely unaffected. True, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is doing some good work at the margins here:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

But we need to do more than curb the worst excesses of the largest data-brokers. We need to kill this sector, and to do that, Congress has to act:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

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/2024/09/20/water-also-wet/#marking-their-own-homework

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

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

[fangsandfeels]

Can anyone explain me what the ever-loving fuck is going on with the Qunari in Veilguard?

When I learned about Treviso occupation, I thought that was the result of Qunari officially being on the warpath. The Trespasser made it clear that the Qunari have been planning their invasion for quite a while - but chose to act covertly at first. Which makes perfect sense for Qunari, this is what they do. That would have also added some delicious moments for Taash and the Vashoth!Rook.

However, in the game we have not Qunari, but the Antaam (military). Which sounds stupid. The "it's not the nation, its it's soldiers doing it" excuse already sounds stupid if you ask me, but in the context of the Qunari lore it sounds even more stupid.

So, according to the accompanying media, Antaam...rebelled and acted without sanction. They have split into groups led by warlords who squabble between themselves and try to dig deep into the land they occupied. Which is bullshit.

The Antaam, meaning "body" in Qunlat, is the military of the Qunari led by the Arishok. Metaphorically, the Antaam are the eyes, ears, legs, arms and hands of the creature, everything that one needs to interact with the world, and so most Qunari encountered by Thedosians belong to the military

Antaam listen to the Arishok and Arishok alone. Qun is built on a system where everyone knows their place - and when they're out of place, they freak the fuck out, the massacre-the-family-because-my-tool-is-lost way. So, the probability of a large group of Qunari, an entire fucking army doing something without a command, and then digging a deeper hole for themselves by warlording is extremely low. Also, by all accounts, they're stop being seen by their kin as Qunari - they are Tal-Vashoth. Because they acted on their own volition, disobeyed the order, disobeyed the Arishok. This is not how the Qun works. No matter what they say, how they call themselves - they are Tal-Vashoth.

Like, there is a reason why Qunari are terrified of not fitting their mold - not only they have no idea of what to do when things don't go as planned, but also they are scared of losing their way and becoming permanently lost. The Iron Bull had that belief that he might lose his mind because he didn't know if he should trust himself without the guidance of Qun - him being a little more flexible due to his work as a spy as well as getting people he grew emotionally attached to helped with overcoming this barrier. But far from all Qunari are that lucky. Sten was so dejected after losing his sword that he let himself be caged - he didn't care about dying or anything anymore. He couldn't go home.

...Alright, where were we?

According to the wikipedia, Rasaan (the emissary of the Triumvirate)...took the control over Antaam? HOW? Qun is extremely rigid and allows no loopholes. For a change this massive there have to be some really, really good reasons - and I don't think the Antaam would have just accepted it. Without high enough approval, Sten only acknowledges Warden as the leader after they beat his ass in a duel.

Alright, let's say Rasaan gaslit the Antaam into believing she channels the way of the Qun and they ate it up. But why do we have warlords now?

Warlords with names, like Butcher? There are no names in the Qun. This is, once again, Tal-Vashoth behavior. But at the same time, they have access to qamek? What? How? Why? How does Par Vollen feel about their entire "body" fucking off? If they didn't sanction it, why aren't they stopping them???

It wouldn't be the first time for Bioware to twist their own lore and canon, but this one is legitimately migraine-inducing. Why not make a full-scale and sanctioned Qunari invasion, Qunari are like this! It's okay to make them the baddies, their ways are fucked up already and some positives don't make up for all the negatives! Don't just slap in a bunch of guys literally called "the army" and say "Nah, not all Qunari guys, these are just military acting on their own despite their lifestyle being all about following the system and doing your strictly established duties"

[nomaejie]

Master Damian x Maid (spy) Anya 

 Anya tried horseback riding for the first time. Later they return to the mansion

Anya: It was fun. Next time we should bring 2 horses.

Damian: ...

Anya: (He doesn't look happy at all! Damn I accidentally asked too much for a servant! He'll hate me. This is not good for the mission!)

Damian: (She doesn't like riding with me..? Pffft, it's not that I like it or anything! It's just out of habit that I only brought one horse!)

Here is the plot. I bullshiting their clothes so I’m not sure what year its set:

The sudden death of the King forced the young prince to ascend the throne, which caused turmoil in the court. The nobility did not submit to the New King because he was too young. The New King, while taking on a new role, opened an investigation into his father's sudden death. He appealed to the Imperial Knights' underground knight squad - WISE. The best spies are sent into the houses of the nobles one after another to investigate the clues about the assassin of the Old King, and at the same time to spy on their loyalty to the New King. Loid, one of the knights of WISE, he is normally pretending to be a writer, with his wife Yor - a gardener, and his adopted daughter Anya. By order of the king, he was tasked with infiltrating the Desmond family. Speaking of the Desmonds, they are a family that has served the royal family faithfully for two centuries. That also means about the level of power of the Desmond family. Which side they sided with would have enormous influence over the fledgling dynasty. However, Desmond's family is known to be extremely reserved, with a limited number of servants, rarely changing. Getting in is extremely difficult. Coincidentally, the Desmonds were in need of a new maid. Loid's daughter, Anya, feels this is a golden opportunity to help her father, so she volunteered to accept the mission. Although very dissatisfied, he agreed to let his daughter perform the task. Instead, Loid will be on an outside investigation mission. Damian, the second son of the Desmonds, 17 years old. He seems to like Anya at first sight and likes to bully her. In an impulsive moment, Anya succumbed and gave Damian a punch. It was thought that the mission would end from here, but Damian did not fire Anya but also concealed the incident for her with the excuse that "it would be embarrassing if this story got out". He "punishes" Anya by making her his personal maid. He likes to command the girl constantly and make her follow him whenever he can (this greatly hinders Anya's mission). However, he was no longer acting as exaggerated as before. Their friendship gradually blossomed.

[striveattemptfail]

Minor Differences | Logan Howlett & Wade Wilson, 1.9k, PG-13

@poolvertober: Day 20 – Pop Culture

Summary: Five times Logan learns something new about the timeline he's in (and one time it was for the better). Inspired by this post by @nichknack. Rated for language. Takes place some time after the movie's events; just assume Logan and Wade are back-up X-Men. More gen than slash but we all know the truth ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Read on Ao3

A/N: Once again, I'm taking today's prompt fast and loose so forgive me in advance 😅🙏 Un-beta'd but quite frankly it's a miracle I even finished on time lmao. Can you believe this was originally supposed to be ~600 words? (ノ_<、)

❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛

The first time Logan notices that his new timeline isn’t identical to his old one, it’s over a subtle name change.

He’s reading the Saturday paper in the living room, Wade watching some reality show on the seat next to him with Mary Puppins in his lap, when Althea leaves her room and shuffles into the kitchen.

“Alexa,” she calls out, “what time is it?”

A robotic voice replies, “The time is 5:43pm.”

Logan drops the newspaper from obscuring his face. He immediately finds the source of the reply on the coffee table: a grey, cylindrical device that looks like a mini speaker, control buttons on its side. It blinks a turquoise light around the rim until the light turns off with a muted beep at the extended silence.

“What the fuck?” he wonders out loud, surprised to see such a familiar gadget.

“Have you not interacted with an Echo before, peanut?” Wade asks. “Did you not have Bezos’ army of listening devices where you’re from?”

Althea barks out a hollow laugh. “You keep calling the damn thing a spy machine—”

“Because I don’t trust it!”

“—but you keep it right there anyway.” She scoffs, making her way to the fridge. “Fuckin’ hypocrite.”

“Well, it’s also convenient!” Wade argues. “Do you miss when I used to shoot the lights off?”

“What the fuck?” Logan says again, but for a completely different reason this time.

“Listen,” Wade starts, and from his tone Logan can tell some bullshit is about to leave his mouth, “sometimes a guy just wants to pass out after walking in at ass o’clock in the morning without having to get up when he forgets to deal with the lights!”

“So you shot the damn lights out?” Logan guesses. “Is that why all the light switch panels are just exposed? Because you shot the fuckin’ plates off?”

“Alexa, tell peanut to stop bullying me!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know that command,” the device says. “Would you like to—”

“Alexa, shut up.”

The cylinder goes quiet with a beep.

“Anyway, you didn’t answer my question,” Wade says before Logan gets a chance to berate him more. “Did your world not have Echos?”

“We did,” he admits, “but they were called Alexis.”

“Like Texas!” Wade shoots him a wink before chuckling to himself.

(Presumably to himself, because Logan has no clue what the fuck he’s talking about, as usual.)

Before either of them can elaborate, Althea yells from where she’s bent over in front of the open fridge, “Wade, did you put the fucking milk carton back empty again?!”

Their attention quickly shifts from there.

❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛

The next time Logan notices, it’s over something equally innocuous.

He and Wade hate talking to the authorities when they finish a mission, but none of the X-Men who are way better suited to dealing with humans made it in time to stop their target. He and Wade finished the job before those asscracks even left the X-Mansion, which meant the two of them had to deal with the aftermath until someone more qualified arrived.

“I’ll play you for it!” Wade finally suggests after five whole minutes of arguing over who should talk to the police chief.

He sticks his hands out, a fist over a flat palm. Logan rolls his eyes but dutifully mimics the gesture.

“After three, okay?” Wade clarifies. “No cheating!”

“Let’s just get this the fuck over with.”

Wade nods once.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” he counts as Logan simultaneously chimes, “Paper, scissors, rock, bang!”

They don’t even look to see who won. Instead, they mirror each other’s expression: one of total confusion.

“Mr. Deadpool? Mr. Wolverine?” a voice calls behind them—Logan recognizes it as one of the younger detectives Wade was speaking to earlier. “We need one of you now, please.”

He and Wade finally both look at their hands.

Fuck.

“Ha ha, sucker!” Wades hollers, his rock crushing Logan’s scissors. He only grunts in response when Wade quite literally skips away after slapping Logan on the ass. Logan turns around with a flat expression and follows the detective to where the police chief is giving a statement to some reporter.

Whatever. The sooner this is done the sooner he and Wade can go home.

❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛

Another time it happens, Logan’s not even sure if he even remembers the reference correctly.

He and Wade are at the X-Mansion for another mission, catching up with Ellie and Yukio inside the Blackbird jet while Colossus to grabs more a few more people. Logan’s not quite paying attention to the conversation’s details, more enamoured by the strange friendship the two girls have with Wade.

At some point, Ellie says something that makes Yukio giggle and shove her shoulder, causing Wade to cackle out, “Weird flex, but okay!”

Logan furrows his brows but doesn’t comment because Wade’s already pivoted the topic to something else.

He could swear that the saying was odd flex, but very well. If he actively recalls the kids from his old universe, that was what they used to say, right?

(Most days, he usually tries his best to not remember them. The pain may not be fresh anymore but it still hurts all the same. He’ll never be able to hear Kitty, or Jubilee, or Rogue, or Bobby cracking jokes he doesn’t understand but finds amusing nonetheless. Never again.)

Apparently, he’s still deep in thought by the time Laura walks up to him. Her face looks remarkably similar to one he sees on himself all the time—brows pinched, eyes narrowed, lips turned downward. At least on Laura the expression looks like a cute pout compared to Logan’s usual, unimpressed glare.

“What’s wrong?” She looks to the other three still caught up in their conversation, not paying Logan any mind. “Did they say something?”

Logan shakes his head. There’s no point in dwelling over the kids’ memes from his old life. He’s poked at those memories like an old bruise more than enough now.

“Nah,” he says, mostly telling the truth, “just remembered something.”

❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛

He finally catches on by the following incident.

A song has been driving Logan fucking crazy for the past four hours. The goddamn earworm simply refuses to get out of his head, even with Wade’s incessant rambling at his phone in the background. What he’s blabbing about right this moment, Logan has no clue, because lyrics are on loop in his brain and he can’t hear anything above it.

Time for a replay session, he supposes, taking a seat in the living room. Hopefully making his ears bleed from the melody on constant repeat will finally get it out of his head.

“Hey, bub, can you play that ‘Vegas glowing’ song by Handsome Delight on the Alexis?” he interjects in the middle of Wade’s rant.

Wade furrows his hairless brow-line. “Come again? This time in my ear? Also, it’s still just Alexa.”

“You know,” Logan says, followed by a vague hum. “You walk in over time / ‘Cause we both know you’re mine / Fallin’ straight, don’t look down / Las Vegas glowin’ on the town,” he sings, hoping he has the correct lyrics. “That one?”

“One: Excellent singing, honey badger! Do you practice scales when I’m not listening? Because that voice is—” Wade cuts off to do a chef’s kiss with his fingers. “Two: Nope! Still no clue what that song is.”

“Stop fuckin’ with me, Wade.” Logan grunts, remembering how annoyingly often the song was playing on the radio when he was bar hopping earlier this year. Wade listens to pop music almost exclusively—there’s no way he would’ve escaped this song. “It was in the Top 40s for months. You had to have heard of this.”

Wade just blinks at him. “I really, truly have not.”

“Wait,” he pauses in realization, “does Handsome Delight not exist here?”

“Never heard of them!” Wade confirms, shaking his head and starts typing away on his phone. “Aaaaand Google here only pulls up a very adorable cake when I search that name.” He shows his screen to Logan, who grumbles in frustration after squinting at the results.

“You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”

“Why? What’s up, buttercup?”

“Shit. The damn song’s stuck in my head but I only know that stupid part.” He groans at himself, throwing his head back onto the couch, miffed that he can’t scratch the song’s itch like he thought. “I was hoping I could put it on repeat so I’d finally get it out of my system.”

“Sorry, peanut!” Wade pats his shoulder. “If it helps though, I can sing anything you want to rid you of the earworm plaguing you! I’ll be your personal jukebox!”

His answer is automatic. “I’d rather chop my ears off.”

Wade, obviously, starts singing anyway.

“You are! My fiiiire—”

Logan promptly sticks a claw into each ear. He might have pushed a little too far and nicked his brain a bit on both sides, which is just fine because the injury causes him to briefly pass out, a good solution as any at this point.

The last thing he sees is Wade’s comically dismayed face.

❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛

Logan accepts that this universe is just weirdly different after one more incident.

He and Wade made it home too goddamn late last night after finishing a job that took way too fucking long, which meant they both pass out for a solid eight hours and wake up well past noon for their first meal of the day. Althea had already left to do her own business (Logan never asks her what she’s up to, and he’s probably better for it) and took along Mary Puppins, so it’s just him and Wade in the kitchen.

Wade’s already sitting at the table, digging into something from a silvery packet when Logan shuffles by.

“Mornin’, peanut.”

“Hrm.”

“Figured I’d get some real food later, but I’m too damn tired right now, so, y’know—” he lifts up what Logan finally sees is a Pop-Tart, “—Pop-Tarts.”

Logan assesses that he is also too damn tired to actually cook himself a meal, but also too hungry to ignore his appetite. He combs through the cupboards with a quiet hum until he can kick his ass to get some real food. He eventually decides to follow Wade’s lead to eat something now and order more food later, going to the cabinet and bypassing Wade’s stock of sugary children’s cereal for the Special K.

“Not digging into the Raisin Bran, old man?” Wade teases.

“I may be old,” he tosses right back, “but I don’t need to act like it too.” He grabs the milk (a new carton because Althea chewed Wade out last time), a bowl, and a spoon, bumping the utensil drawer closed with his hip. Then, he makes his way to the kitchen table to sit across from Wade.

As always, he pours the milk first.

“Logan,” Wade says slowly, his eyes growing wide with what looks like concern, “why the fuck are you pouring the milk before the cereal?”

“Because that’s how you’re supposed to do it.” Logan shoots him a bewildered look because that’s how everyone does it? He’s pretty sure it’s common knowledge to pour the milk first so you get an even distribution of crunch. He’s adding the cereal in when he asks, “What the fuck are you on about?”

Wade’s horrified gaze flickers back and forth between Logan and his bowl. “That’s so fucking cursed.”

At this point, Logan doesn’t bother dignifying that with a response, digging into his bowl with a dismissive grunt and shake of his head. He very purposefully ignores the implication that people on this planet pour the cereal first.

Now that’s fucking cursed.

Logan may have been engineered to be a wild animal, but he’s not a goddamn savage.

❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛❤️💛

&1

Logan finds out that Dolly Parton is still alive on this planet.

He considers forgiving the cereal before milk bullshit just for that.

——————————————

(More notes on Ao3.)

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

what do you think is the line between friends and moirails for trolls? I was never sure how to feel about it, it seems so nebulous. also any idea what's with feferi trying to invite kanaya and karkat into the horn pile with her and sollux? like based on the description of moirallegiance that sounds like... infidelity. but it didn't seem like the trolls reacted that way.

What it ultimately comes down to is the fact that Homestuck is a story, and furthermore, one pervaded by things like fate and destiny, which are real and exist within its universe, and therefore, the moirails for each of our trolls has already been decided by destiny (the author).

But also, in a less meta way, the confusion you're feeling likely stems from the fandom misconception that a moirallegiance is just an extra best-friendship, which it is NOT. The stated function of a moirallegiance is to calm each other the fuck down, in order to prevent them from hurting themselves or others. It's this pacifying effect, and not whether or not they hop into piles and talk about feelings, that defines a moirallegiance.

Trolls are a very angry and violent race. Some are more hot-tempered and dangerous than others, to the extent that if left to their own devices, they would present a serious threat to society, or even to themselves. Such trolls will have an instinctive pale attraction to a more even-tempered troll, who may become their MOIRAIL. The moirail is obliged to pacify the other, to function as the better half. The two partners in a strong pale relationship will serve to balance and complement each other's emotional profiles, and thus allow their other relationships to be more successful.

Piles of stuff and feelings jams in them are associated with moirallegiance, but are not "something you only do with your moirail" - like getting coffee or holding hands are associated with dating your matesprit/human romance partner, but not exclusive to them, and, in many cases, not a form of infidelity (although they can be). For what it's worth, Eridan does call Gamzee's horn pile in the middle of the room a "vvulgar display," like Gamzee's chucked porno mags everywhere:

ERIDAN: wwhat a fuckin vvulgar display this is ERIDAN: airin out all his dirty laundry like that puttin a big fuckin pile a horns in the middle of the room ERIDAN: at least i got the upright basic decency to hide my shitty wand pile somewwhere in the lab you wwont find it dont evven bother lookin KARKAT: WHY DO YOU ASSHOLES HAVE PILES OF THINGS, JUST STOP.

So what Feferi's doing with Sollux is less "hey, come cheat with me on Sollux," and more "hey, wanna third wheel our date?"

Moirallegiance is about the "instinctive pull" and the pacification of both partners. Also, moirallegiance is very much romantic. The comic uses the word "platonic," but I think what it means is "chaste" - moirallegiance is not involved in reproduction, so there is no requirement or social expectation for physical intimacy; however, if it weren't a form of romance, it wouldn't exactly be a type of troll romance, would it?

Failed moirallegiances do not have this calming effect: Kanaya doesn't stop (or even really attempt to stop) Vriska from doing her Vriska bullshit at all, and in fact Vriska gets MORE agitated when talking to her:

AG: Ok, so you're spying on me. Kind of creepy! Man, m8y8e you should get a l8fe. AG: Or you know, if you're so h8gh 8nd might8 an8 th8nk you're so gr8at, m8y88 you c8uld oh I d8n't kn8w........ AG: TRY AND ST8P ME FROM DO8NG B8D THINGS????????

The same can be seen with Feferi and Eridan:

CC: Is t)(ere a lucky lady you are waxing scarlet for? CC: OR LUCKY F-ELLOW??? 38O CA: uh CC: Tell me! CC: Don't pretend you're all -EMBARRASS-ED SUDD-ENLY!!! CA: ok fef CA: this is NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS

And with Karkat and Gamzee:

KARKAT: DON'T YOU START WITH ME KARKAT: DO. NOT. START WITH ME. KARKAT: I WILL GET YOU IN A HEADLOCK SO TIGHT IT WILL BE A MIRACLE IF PEOPLE DON'T MISTAKE OUR TUSSLE FOR AN ILL CONCEIVED VENTRILOQUIST ACT. KARKAT: I WILL SHOOSH YOU AGAIN, SO HELP ME GOD. I WILL SHOOSH YOUR CLOWN ASS TO SHANGRI-BULLSHIT-LA AND BACK, AND FILL YOUR EAR WITH MY WHITE HOT PALEBRO SPITTLE. KARKAT: I AM FULL AND FUCKING WELL PREPARED TO GET CONCILIATORY WITH YOU AGAIN IF YOU SO MUCH AS PASS GAS MURDEROUSLY, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? KARKAT: IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT??? DO I NEED TO CALM YOUR FAYGO-STICKY TENTSQUATTING SHIT DOWN AGAIN???? GAMZEE: naw brother, i was just about to all say for you to try and get your settle down on, maybe. GAMZEE: :o(

And what makes Equius and Nepeta so successful is that Nepeta keeps Equius's tendency towards fury in check, while Equius keeps Nepeta out of harmful situations (although he's maybe doing a bit too much of that and could afford to step back):

EQUIUS: D --> As such, he is prone to being more violent and unpredictable than any of us EQUIUS: D --> Not everyone has been as lucky as I in the domain of moirallegiance

AT: iT'S PROBABLY FOR THE BEST, AT: tHAT YOU LISTEN TO HIM, AC: :33 < i dont know AC: :33 < you think so? AT: wELL, AT: iF YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO HIM BEFORE, AT: yOU MIGHT HAVE PLAYED GAMES WITH US BEFORE, AT: aND SOMETHING BAD MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU,

And Feferi and Sollux work because Sollux is prone to excessive self-loathing, which, mixed with his mage powers of prophesying/invoking the future, make for a cocktail of potential harm to himself and others. Talking with her keeps his head above the water (heh) and forcibly prevents him from wallowing in self-loathing:

SOLLUX: anyway, yeah, now that aa ii2 gone forever ii feel more depre22ed and u2ele22 than u2ual, and ii wa2 already pretty cod damn u2ele22 two begiin wiith, let'2 face iit. FEFERI: But I )(ave it on good aut)(ority t)(at s)(e is fine! FEFERI: Everyt)(ing is going to go swimmingly, YOU'LL S-E-E. 38) SOLLUX: you are 2o riidiiculou2ly optiimii2tiic iit'2 kiind of 2iickeniing, why do you even put up wiith me? SOLLUX: iif you weren't 2o great ii would thiink you were a fuckiing iidiiot for liikiing me. SOLLUX: 2o, ii gue22 thank2 for liikiing me?

But even though these moirallegiances are ultimately doomed, there is some amount of pacification going on, making it difficult for the trolls to tell in the moment whether or not their pale relationship is true (Karkat does manage to stop Gamzee from murdering people, for example, but fails to address his religious beliefs and underlying trauma, whereas Gamzee can't calm Karkat down at all, so they end up drifting apart after the initial Major Problem has been settled).

The fact that it's a blurry line even for trolls is explicitly stated:

It's often ambiguous especially among young trolls whether a bond formed between an acquaintance is true moirallegence, or the usual variety of platonic involvement. Furthermore, romantic intentions of a more flushed nature can often be mistaken for paler leanings, much to the frustration of the suitor.

So this is kind of by design - part of adolescence, keeping in line with Homestuck's coming-of-age themes, is the messy romance. If it were easy to piece together, it wouldn't be true to life.

HOWEVER, that all being said, special notice does have to be taken of the way moirallegiance - moreso than even the other three quadrants - has an air of DESTINY about it. Trolls believe that every troll has one destined partner for every quadrant:

But if there was one theme to be hammered through his thick skull, it would be the trolls' cultural preoccupation with romantic destiny. Yes, the romantic landscape is rife with false starts and miscues and infidelities, red and black. But every troll believes strongly that each quadrant holds one and only one true pairing for them, and it is just a matter of time before the grid is filled with auspicious matchups through the mysterious channels of TROLL SERENDIPITY. In short, their belief is that for each quadrant there exists a pair or triad of trolls somewhere in the cosmos that were…

MADE FOR EACH OTHER.

So there's already a setup in this comic, which is so rife with prophecy and foreshadowing, that every troll is eventually going to end up with their true love/true hate - but even out of the four quadrants, moirallegiance is given special weight: first of all, it is the only quadrant that is literally translated as "soul mates":

This quadrant presides over MOIRALLEGIENCE, the other conciliatory relationship. A reasonable human translation would be the concept of a soul mate, but in a more platonic sense, and with a more specific social purpose.

And second, it's called "mysterious" or "magical," even in direct comparison to black/red:

CG: AND ALL THE NUANCES OF PITY MANIFEST AS VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF FEELINGS LIKE WHATEVER CHEMICAL REACTIONS TRIGGER MATING FONDESS OR THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT ARE BEHIND MOIRALLEGIANCE.

You then proceed to have the rest of this conversation we already read, bugging and fussing and meddling through the special and magical union one can only describe as being in moirallegiance with another. At least, you guess that's how you would describe it. Maybe. Troll romance sure is confusing!

And we can't forget:

Such trolls will have an instinctive pale attraction to a more even-tempered troll

Which lends to the idea that there's a biological compulsion towards needing a moirail, same as how there's a biological draw towards finding reproductive partner(s).

But this is why I always tend to use "destined for" when discussing moirail pairs, and also why I focus specifically on which individuals calm other individuals the fuck down - like how Gamzee says he "feel[s] so at chill with" Tavros, or how Karkat goes from completely losing his shit to "yeah, so that's it i guess" after talking to Eridan.

[icarusredwings]

Can't stop thinking about the scene where Wade takes Weasel to the strip club, and he's like, "How do you know she's here?"

Wade just says, "Cause i'm CONSTANTLY stalking that FOX," like damn, bro was NOT letting that kittycat get away from him that easily.

This leads me to also believe that he's so good at his job that he scopes out spots BEFORE the date of the mission.

That he would be a GREAT spy in the sense that not only can he hide his true emotions extremlt well so he wouldn't be amazing at devils advocate but this fucker is light on his feet. He's 6 foot 2 and still blends into the background when needed, and in the spotlight when he wants to be.

We all know that he couldn't sneak up on Logan since Logan has a wicked sense of smell, but I feel like if Wade ever had to give up Merc work (A COUGH COUGH COUGH like loosing his powers for what ever reason totally not foreshadowing COUGH COUGH COUGH damn I really gotta stop sucking dick so much-) he would be EXCELLENT at Narc work.

The only thing is he SUUUCCCKKKSS (literally and physically) at working for authority figures, so he would probably take up personal private detective cases. Snap pictures of people cheating, get a guy to confess to a crime on recording for a lawsuit, Track down missing persons probably.

But he would be bored. He would be incredibly bored. And a bored Wade is not a happy one. Infact a bored Wade is a DANGEROUS one. He NEEDS a job. A physical job. One that has strict end and strict beginings in which he can do quickly to get that rush of dopamine.

Stake outs that take 2 weeks is not a thrill.

Going to Japan and taking out the entire Yukuza IS infact a thrill. Job? Kill all of them. Done. Compelte.

He would need one that doesn't require blurred lines of completion. He thought that cars salesmen would be easy. You sell a car. You get paid. You go home. Boom. But no. Its more bullshit about being good at talking to civillians. Something he's not good at.

So- my question is.

What is a good job for Wade if he was forced out of merc work? Perhaps one he could do with Logan?