#like the ships will be everywhere you turn
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euthymiya · 2 days ago
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Dating Sukuna who’s the freshly-out-of-jail, gruff, mostly-rude asshole on the block—he can hardly keep a job and everywhere you see him, he’s smoking or has a beer bottle in his hand and he’s just. He’s so beyond everyone’s comprehension of why the hell you’re dating this lunatic. Everyone thinks it’s a phase—your old boyfriends never lasted too long, you have a bit of a track record for picking up the jerks, and this one seems like he’s the worst one so it only makes sense that soon enough, you’ll be giving the teary-eyed confession that you’re single again.
Except it never happens. It just keeps turning into week after month after year. And you’re still going strong. Everyone’s borderline in despairs about it too—your parents, your siblings, your friends, your distant aunt and uncle, even. They just don’t understand why anyone would stay so long with this harsh, rough man with no soft corners.
Until they watch him tsk and gently grab your wrist as you go to walk out the door, grumbling a quiet, you’re not leaving that door until you put your jacket on, it’s cold—I’m not taking care of you if you do. Or watch him sigh and roll his eyes exasperatedly as you look over at his plate and slowly (not so sneakily) try to steal a bite while he grunts, I told you I wouldn’t be sharing if you like my order better, all while he begrudgingly shares. And sometimes, if they’re lucky, they’ll catch that very rare, yet very entranced smile of his that he does when you laugh, love written between every crease in his permanently furrowed brows.
It’s a bit ironic, really—the best man you ever dated comes shipped with enough baggage that you should run. But you stay. You put in enough elbow grease to soften up those sharp corners, and you’ve built a home. Right in those strong, intimidating arms.
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st-hedge · 2 days ago
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you jest but mr hedge, i was literally just telling my therapist about how absurd it is that the fandom landscape has morphed from (more or less) nuancedly discussing the pervasiveness of comphet in media and how a lot of female characters deserve to stand on their own w/o having to have their worth attached to a man/traditional romantic relationship, to flat out calling people mysogynists if they don't like the main canon het ship because if you don't like to ship the female character or ship her with another woman you clearly only want to do so to get her out of the way to bolster your mlm ship or whatever it is the kids are saying. Anyway yes i'm perfectly normal and my therapy sessions look normal as well why do you ask
Goddamit u are so right !!! No listen *climbing over the metaphorical bar and spilling my beer everywhere* it drives me fucking nuts! Holy shit! I stopped commenting on it cuz everything turns into some sort of a personal attack, so might as well keep it zipped innit!
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timetravellibrarian · 1 day ago
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Sanji x Reader
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Sanji x reader
No gender mentioned. Reminiscing about years together. - Fluff
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"Drink?" 
"Same as usual,darlin' ."
Your eyes went to the blonde cook as he unlocked the hundreds of locks  on the fridge. A mechanism to keep Luffy away.
His hair perfectly framed his face, eyes illuminated by the dim light that the curtains let through from outside. You were yet to feel their fluff to your touch once more. Look into those eyes that let you merely a glimpse into his world. Your world.
The Thousand Sunny swayed along with the waves as it was moved by the sea current. It was quiet. Too quiet. This was the second day the crew had docked onto an island. Everyone was out  exploring, shopping, some getting lost. Yet here you two were, guarding the ship. That's what you're telling yourselves anyway.
"Sanji."
"Mm?" He poured your drink into a glass, careful not to spill before placing it back on the counter as though expecting you to probably have a second helping.
"When did it all go wrong?" The feel of the cold beverages cooling down your insides from the days heat gave you a clearer mind. More in tune to every subtle change in his expression and his body language. "How is it still standing?"
"I don't know,my love..."
It felt like only yesterday, back when you had just met at the Baratie.  Laughing alongside Nami, Ussop and Zoro as we made fun of Luffy's unfortunate state. Laughs filling the space around you with a peaceful atmosphere.
The feel of eyes on you was intense, no longer just feeling like the passing glances other guests had done when there was a disruption. You turned,eyes meeting with a blue-eyed waiter with a curly eyebrows, standing in the distance and eyes turning into hearts at the sight of your smile.
The rest became a world of vivid, colourful adventures together.
Strangers.
Friends.
Lovers.
More.
Hands seeking to hold onto each other in large crowds and even just everywhere we went. Bodies flush against each other in the comfort of your bed as you slept. Limbs entangled together in a dance of love in a dimly lit room with flower petals and candlelight as lips as your actions showed more than what your words could convey.
Late nights talking under a blanket of stars. Stories told of lost childhoods and inconsolable tears. Hardships: fights, near death experiences, life itself.
When you thought you could finally have a break and enjoy your time with your beloved at Sabaody, you were more than just proved wrong when you found yourself separated from your crew. From the love of your life.
Two years.
Two whole years.
How could one not change? Adapt to the scraps that life has offered.
Now your eyes met with ones that had changed but somehow remained the same.
"...but I do know one thing." His hand gently lead you off the chair, the both of you standing in the middle of the galley with your head on his shoulder and his eyes staring hopefully at the ring that had promised more for the future. The same hand in his as you swayed around to the sound of everything and nothing.
"It all went wrong when I saw you at the Baratie. Do you remember,my love?" His lips brushed over the shell of your ear as you swayed to your heart's music.
You nodded, still taking him in. His presence, his voice, his scent. Committing everything to memory. So I don't lose my mind when you're gone.
"That was when I knew..." That was when I knew you were my eternity. Funnily enough, that old geezer knew before him.
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keysmashcoward · 3 months ago
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I finally finished day 1 of hypno ship week, old friends / getting closer! I don't know if it's the most overt theming, like, it honestly could be read as an established relationship or qpr if you wanted to and I wouldn't argue with you. It's pretty obvious I'm rusty, so go easy on me! /lh
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Despite the drizzling rain outside the little coffee stand, Hypno found managing drive thru customers far more relaxing than usual. Cars seemed reluctant to clump up into a demanding line and customers seemed to be utilitarian in their orders, requesting simple drinks with little to no special instructions.
"You need anything?" False seemed particularly bored, no walk up customers to chat up or maintenance tasks to busy herself with. Hypno was debating convincing her to take over the drive thru when the employee entrance door opened, cold air and morning rain rushing in.
Jevin also rushed in. His sweatshirt was soaked and his expression looked apologetic. False whipped around from the counter she was cleaning with dedication. A sigh of relief escaped her lungs and she returned to scrubbing sticky vanilla syrup and blue raspberry stains from the surface.
Hypno's curiousity got the better of him, "Did you finally get tired to being perfect at your job?" The joke had a pinch of snark to it, but Jev's chuckle disintegrated any though that he would respond with heat.
"No, I'm just that confident you guys could deal perfectly well without me." Hypno was about to say something about how it was a Monday, and Mondays were always terrible, but Jev got to his argument before him.
"I mean, that line," a roll of the eyes and a gesture out the empty drive thru window, "only a professional like you could achieve the feat of serving the entire morning rush before I had even arrived."
Hypno tried to think of a clever response, but to no evale. A matching eye roll and a huff of exasperation would have to do.
The sound of tires on wet concrete interrupted their conversation. Hypno hurriedly slide open his window, an awkward smile covering for his annoyance towards Jevin.
"Could I get myself a quad shot Americano with oat milk and..." Hypno dropped his customer serving face in favor of a cheeky grin, "for you, maybe enough lenience to ditch work?"
"I feel like you were scouting out a day we wouldn't be so busy." Hypno's fingers easily found xB's tab on the touch screen register and entered his order. Jevin had already taken his place at the espresso machine. Hypno would have liked to think it was to prove himself after coming in late, but logic told him Jev just wasn't to kean on leaving customers waiting.
XB's eyes we're on his phone, determinally searching for something before unbuckling from his seat. His torso strained his car to hold out his phone to Hypno. After a glance, Hypno doubled his grin.
He hurriedly added a lid to xB's nearly finished drink, double cupping and sleeving, as usual, and placed it in xB's free hand.
He grabbed his keys.
---
Hypno thought an hour and a half drive was a great trade for xB's spontaneous compulsion to take him to a new teriyaki place. Him bringing food back to the parked car was even worth an earful from Cubfan about the importance of being a responsible employee.
His usual order to test and measure restaurant quality was chicken teriyaki with fried rice and a side of coleslaw. His meat was tender and juicy, rice was properly seasoned with vegetables cooked to his liking, and the coleslaw was still crisp.
XB had opted for beef with white rice and coleslaw. Hypno eyed his meal, before stabbing his fork through one of his pieces, rice clinging to the sauce. XB gave him a horrified glance and a fake pout. Unfortunately, Hypno determined that the beef was too dry, and therefore, not worth a trade for any of his precious chicken.
"That's theft, you know," xB made a move for Hypno's food, only for a hand to easily reroute his whole arm away from his goal. XB hadn't been trying that hard, but now he was determined. "I'm definitely thinking that saying, 'an eye for an eye,' yeah, that works here."
Another lunge, another redirect, all the while Hypno is quickly and efficiently tucking away the rest of their settlement fee.
"I could take this to court, you know."
"For what?" Hypno plays stupid, "you can't seriously think it's a good idea to prosecute yourself for entitlement to my things. I mean, what are you, a vigilante?"
Hypno's on his second to last piece, the chicken stabbed onto the end of his fork. XB fanes panic and places his meal out of his way, using his hand to brace on the steering wheel and seat.
Hypno eats the piece.
XB uses his leverage to bring his body up and out of his position, leaning into his personal space.
Hypno stabs the final piece and brings it to his mouth.
XB is there before him, fully crowding him against the window and earning his emotional damages settlement when he bites the chicken right off of Hypno's fork.
As he's chewing, he begins to return to his seat. Before he's there, but after he's swallowed, Hypno pulls at the back of his head for a quick, sweet kiss.
---
I might crosspost to AO3 when I've finished all the prompts, but that's also fucking terrifying, so... /hyp
Also, my sincerest apologies for the tags; they are actually deranged a bit.
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itscherryterry-again · 6 months ago
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yea
#i had posted this everywhere and it occurred to me that i hadnt on tumblr. which seems like a crime#keith kogane#vld keith#vld lance#vld fanart#lance mcclain#voltron#klance#can i rant for a bit#grabs the microphone Id like to thank this huge step on my voltron healing journey to my mom#who said 'oh its that show that made you cry in frustration! the kitties!'#and i said 'yes mother i was 15'#i dont think ive ever felt so. like. bullied? i dont wanna say ridiculed but#by a shows' producer#not since fucking BBC SHERLOCK#and i dont mean oh of course it wasnt gonna be canon. Of cours it wasnt I dont mean that#what i didnt need was getting baited left and right#the show milked the shit out of. lets be real here. young queer kids and then turned around and pointed and laughed when they gained hope on#their silly red blue ship to get canon#bc lets be real if anything queer was gonna happen. ambiguous non binary pidge was already there#two skinny attractive teen boys is like low hanging fruit. diet rep#but it wasnt even abt that. at least i truly never thought klance was srly gonna b canon. i HOPED. but like. i never shipped 4 canon anyway#i LIKED voltron. i loved lotor. i had always been a multishipper allur//ce was rkly cute i couldve dug that#if they hadnt spent the last season looking miserable AND THEN DYING#tf u mean our female lead died TF U MEAN THE LATINO MC BECAME A FARMER? w the forever marks of his dead gf on his face? Are you joking rn???#anyway. hit me up for more voltron opinions i got tons#(mic drop)
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the-hilda-librarians-wife · 25 days ago
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For @sketchbookweek Day 6 - Halloween and Day 7 - Alternative Universe
To be honest, this isn't an entry I'm very happy to be making, and that's because I'd been hoping to share a new installment of my Hospital AU for this day. Alas, a combination of lack of time, disposition, and my particular perfectionism towards this 'verse since it means soooo much to me prevented me from writing the fic I wanted to. But don't think you're safe just yet; when you least expect it, I'm taking you all back to the hospital with me 🚑🚑🚑
Oh and please don't look too hard at the goofy ass kids in the paed ward. This ain't about them
(text in the poster that Kaisa covered & ref pictures under the cut)
Did you know? Breast cancer screening should be done on trans women who have been using hormones for >5 years and are older than 50, as well as those with high genetic risk; screening also must be done on trans men who have not undergone mastectomy
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hauntingblue · 22 days ago
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CAUSE THIS IS THRILLER (bark), THRILLER (bark) NIGHT
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Usopp's outfit is so funny for reals
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He got the whole squad laughing
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Luffy enablers at it again.... (Robin.... I know.....)
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The humor panels so far have been so good!!! God this arc is so funny
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HE SAID IT‼️‼️
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They look like birds 😭😭
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It's just too good... luffy taking cerberus and zombies what can't he do
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It's just banger after banger what can I say
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Franky feeling for other people because of his guilt complex and sanji lying through his teeth and pulling out the women excuse to seem unaffected... yeah
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Look at them.... look how they ate
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Omg joyboy reference?? (No)
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Sanji is rubbing off on usopp.... also chopper noticing that is sogeking's weapon akdhaksjak
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ANOTHER SLAY!!!!!
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Their priorities: I'm not strong enough, there isn't enough food, and nami isn't here
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Franky going from wanting to kill brook for his jokes to making a joke like his after he hears his backstory... exactly (Robin was already enabling him before the backstory even fdagjsfha)
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Sanji is altering his body and actually being on fire to communicate to us how fucking mad he is..... I need more of him going insane I do I do
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My god what is he doing ALDJALAJALA
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AHSAHAHQHAH THEY ARE THE SAME!!! naaah sanji wouldn't force a woman to be his wife
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You cant see me but I am nodding my head in agreement over and over
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You don't understand he altered his body to communicate to us how mad he is. He inploded himself and then reconstituted again. Those germa 66 genes are insane
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You tell em usopp!!!! The first of many girls you've scared into defeat!!! Akdjqknql
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Zoro zombie regressed to not trusting robin akdjaks he's still in there
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ROBI-CHO SUPLEX??? HELL YEAAAAAH
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There is zosa- [GUNSHOT GUNSHOT GUNSHOT GUNSHOT]
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Super frapper gong.... he is doing combo shots with frobin... omg.... parents....
Everything is so fun I'm having such a good time reading.... and then zosan angst like damn I am being fed well here
#in the anime the guys didn't say they wanted to die aldjlajala for the kids luffy just wants to turn into a clam#thriller bark is so funny.... 'worst arc' my ass.... it's funny as hell and then we get zosan angst. best thing ever#same with skypiea but there we got really nice relationships betwen characters and nolan x calgara homoeroticism for the ages#and LORE for the ages. not like the kuma incident won't be talked about in the history books but yeah#everyone calling absalom perv salom... yeah#sanji in that fucking penguin never gets old.... also HELLO LOLA#moira fought against kaido and lost akdjsksnks is that why he became a warlord? just like whitebeard defeated crocodile?? out of spite??#also what is the land of ice where moira got oars? he also mentioned it before too... i thot he was referring to ryuma so it was wano but n#the legend of the continent puller who built a nation of villains.... okay okay oars....#oars was killed 500 years ago.... ✍️✍️ this somehow feels important bc of its closeness to the void century etc#zombie luffy oars wanting sanjis food.... 🚬🚬🚬 of course.....#oars luffy maintaining his dream... yeah yeah. also namis outfits for this arc are so sickening.... i miss them already#the zombie generals being at absalom's wedding... thats so funny..#luffy oars is so funny aldjslsn just making himself a hat and steering his giant ship... of course#you guys think they are going to make sanji mad about the clear clear fruit in the opla or completely ignore it bc his reasoning is bad#like it makes sense with the wci backstory it does but that would be spoilers lmao. so its either he wants to peep on women or nothing#i love the greek chorus of the two zombies telling the audience how they are both as bad in that regard. amazing#did ryuma use french for his attack.... there is zosan everywhere for tho-[GUNSHOTS]#zombie ryuma's design is also cool as hell.... his blood is literally fire.... come on now....#also zoro says he wants to act like this fight didnt happen... is that why he says fuck all in wano to hiyori? damn. he said i put shame#in you and your country but i will keep it quiet bc you gave me a cool sword and fight and i am actually so honorable. thats him yeah...#zombie zoro and sanji remaining tfait being that they hate (love fighting) each other... there is zosa-[GUNSHOT GUNSHOT GUNSHOT]#i forgot how much oars destroyed them... after enies lobby they seem untouchable but without their captain there... the gears are turning..#also btw i cannot believe im gonna get an answer about why the skypieans and the shandians have wings. thats insane#i am enjoying luffy oars so much it is so fun. trying to enjoy it bc i know i won't be laughing anymore once sabaody kicks in.... fuck me..#usopp and franky wanting to wait for luffy to beat oars down but zoro and sanji know... and they will KNOW soon enough....#i forgor kuma asked about ace to nami... what is going on. kuma coming from the warlord meeting too.... did he want to warn him??#he wanted to inform moria about balckbeard becoming a warlord omg here we go.... also moria being racist towards kuma hello???#and he strictly follows the government.... until here bc he lets luffy go.... christ.... he asks about ace bc he knew what blackbeard did..#reading one piece
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heartbreakercupcake · 2 years ago
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I honestly feel sorry for people who ship Bowser and Luigi with other people rn ngl
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wewontbesleeping · 1 year ago
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stay beautiful and gold rush are the same songs fourteen years apart. both about a near-miss with just the idea of something. but stay beautiful is optimistic and youthful and gold rush is by someone old enough to know better.
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spawnofbhaal · 1 month ago
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At a certain point, passive aggressive "jokes" about a ship are really trying to provoke, irritate, or hurt the feelings of shippers, who are real people trying to enjoy something as an escape from their lives. I'm over that mean girl shit.
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awesomestarfighter · 2 years ago
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#it's an incredible disservice to the characters because the Fandom Popular Pairings typically are not canon! at all! #so of course there's more to the characters than this hypothetical relationship
It’s not that I don’t LIKE the Fandom Popular Pairings, it’s that I find the assumption that everyone ships them and the general all-consuming nature of said pairings to be kinda exhausting,
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meejijis · 3 months ago
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"Why are all SK fans proshippers" Silence fetus
#text#mind you SK was released in a very different time period where fandoms back in the day were built different. freaks strived and#everyone back in the day followed fandom etiquette “ship and let ship” and “dont like dont read”. fandoms back in the old day were#peaceful and supported one another. ppl shipped anything and everyone and ppl minded their own business in the early 2000s#thats how almost all old sk veteran fans i know turn out to be what they are today#(ofc there are some. other veteran folks i do not fuck with as theyre also genuine assholes and are hypocrites/ostracizes others.#. but another discussion for another day lol. you must be a level 100+ of friendship to unlock my tragic sk fan backstory)#also news flash all of your favorite anime/manga stories are all written by profic ppl! thats right! everyone in japan are profic#shocking i know#japanese folks dont give a flying rat ass when it comes to FICTIONAL morals because they know how to differentiate between fic and reality#the fact that so many antis keep on twisting the word proship so many times to the point where its widely misinterpreted and ppl#nowadays esp the younger gen easily believe in the misinformation and keep repeating the cycle of misinformation in modern fandoms today#it pisses me off honestly#but yeah what did you expected from a old series that came out in the late 90s. the fact that theyre consuming the series when the series#itself also literally has problematic elements too lol#and see this is why im glad SK is niche despite that i wish it was popular so it can bring in more renmei fans but in the end its better of#being niche#because had it blown up it wouldve attracted all of the chronically online kids/puritans/fandom police and ruin everything for everyone#modern fandom today is the reason why all fandoms suck nowadays and its why i gave up joining and being part of them#theres discrimination everywhere in modern fandoms. oh your a proshipper? gtfo DNI and kys!!!!11111#its like theres eggshells everywhere no matter where you go. you have to abide with morality and puritanical rules its the “automatic” law#but fuck that thats never been the automatic law in fandoms lol. Ship and let ship AND dont like dont read is the real fandom laws here lol#but back to what i want to also say. theres nothing you can do about SK fans being proshippers. the old fans has always operated that way#since the old times. either adapt / cope with it OR you can just. block everyone and preserve your peace. which takes like 10 seconds#this is like maybe the 15th SK puritan fan i know lol. then again i also know theres ALOT of renmei antis who follow the puritan mindset#imao. I say this alot many times but SK fandom is only ugly and almost everyone becomes a puritan when renmei gets mentioned#which has always made me ????????????????? so yall can handle yoyo boy and anna teen preg can handle serg getting groomed/manipulated#by marc and xes laws can handle kids getting their arms and legs ripped off can handle kids getting killed left and right#can handle shipping bruce lee whos like plenty years older than JUN which btw beginning of the series she starts off being 17#but a 4 year age gap between ren and jeanne is too much apparently and should be cancelled. geez louise
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writersdrug · 16 days ago
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Konig despises eggplant. He won't go near the stuff. No matter how you cook it, he'll shiver and grimace every time you offer him a bite.
He goes with you everywhere - and I mean everywhere. Sits at the empty table next to you while you get your nails done. Walks down the path from your front door to the mailbox at the crack of dawn, his hands shoved in his pajama pants. Clingy, though he'll never admit it.
Loves a bar of 70% cocoa as a snack. Doesn't need water or milk to wash it down, but he won't turn down a glass of cold, whole milk if it's offered to him (it never is. He grabs it himself).
He'll yell at you to turn the water temperature down when you shower together. Corners himself as far away from the stream as he can, acting like you're threatening him with a scalding fire poke.
When he comes home after missions, he doesn't always drag you to the bedroom to do the devil's tango. Sometimes, he hugs you tightly and begs you to make an actual meal, something to replenish him after weeks of boiled chicken and canned beans from wherever he was shipped off to. He wants you to sit at the table with him and just talk, please just distract him from his own thoughts.
If you hand him something, he'll hold it. He won't even pause what he's doing, whether that's talking about Spartan phalanx formations, or listening to you babble about your day. And he won't let whatever it is go until you tell him what to do with it. You'll turn around, seeing him holding the half stick of butter you handed him well over five minutes ago. "König, baby, you can put that back in the fridge."
He holds your breasts in his sleep in a non-sexual way - but damn, his grip can be fucking tight sometimes. He's got his head resting on your soft stomach, snoring against your skin as his fingers dig and squeeze at your tits. It takes a few minutes of your whining and shoving at his head before he finally relents, wrapping his arms around your waist instead.
He's happy to go to Home Goods with you and spend an hour just sniffing the different candles. He tends to lean towards the apple, cinnamon, pumpkin, or any warm, holiday scents. He can't stand the ones like "tropical waves", or "fresh linen".
He has eaten an entire wheel of brie cheese in one sitting. Multiple times. With nothing else to compliment it. And he will do it again. You can't stop him.
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like-sands-of-time · 9 months ago
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Idk there's just something good-different about the culture with rare pairs (tbh with fandom and "shipping" in general, it's so toxic now instead of accepting) when they're actually rare. I'd rather a super niche sub group in a fandom that has less than 10, 100, 1000 works and one whole discord server than whatever the hell is going on on Tumblr here with jegulus as an example. That shit used to be a rare pair, especially considering we know little about James and even less about sirius' younger brother. and now y'all are making cutesie little social media AUs and rewriting every single marauders era character to be nothing like they were and erasing Lily from existence to make them all self inserts or OCs and it's just an entirely different energy than fanworks and discourse even 10 years ago for that fandom.
Idk it's something about the energy around it... Like it's full of arrogance and like this idea that because of the bravery of those who came before and fought for the normalization of fandom you can just say and do whatever and people aren't allowed to criticize you without it being homophobic and ageist or sexist or whatever else . You can just have shitty takes and shitty personalities. You can be entitled and annoying while also being disabled or gay. But your inability to understand nuance and complexity with anything is sort of your whole problem so I wouldnt expect y'all to get it
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doctormead · 3 months ago
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DP x DC prompt: Beekeeper Danny
Ooookay, Danny has moved to Gotham for <insert reason here> and is faced with a problem. Yes, Gotham has higher levels of ambient ectoplasm than your average city, but it's nowhere near those of Amity Park who has a goddamn artificial hell mouth smack in the center of it. Also, the ectoplasm which IS there is contaminated with some nasty shit that makes Danny feel ill when he takes too much of it in. Having his friends back in Amity Park ship him flasks of pure ecto on the sly is difficult to say the least, so he starts thinking about ways to both concentrate and purify Gotham's ecto so he's not one shipment interruption from being in really bad shape.
He get's his solution from Sam. On his bi-weekly video call with her and Tucker, she gets to ranting about bee conservation. Tucker makes a joking comment about honey being basically bee vomit, and Sam tears into him saying "That is a gross oversimplification at best and outright bee-slander at worst!" This perks Danny's curiosity, so he looks up the biological process by which bees turn nectar into honey...and he's found his answer. Blob ghosts are basically the filter feeders of the Ghost Zone/Infinite Realms. If he can get a bunch of them to behave kinda like honey bees, his ecto supply should be assured.
It works...a bit too well...
Now Danny has a swarm of glowing green honey bees that are roughly the size of carpenter bees buzzing happily about him. Their queen is roughly the size of a large hummingbird. He heaves a weary sigh and starts looking up how to ACTUALLY keep bees and making skips out of ghost-friendly material for them to build their hive in on top of his apartment building.
But, won't Danny get complaints from his neighbors? Here's the kicker. Unless you are a 1) ghost, 2) halfa, 3) wearing specialized Fenton Ecto-Visual Goggles or 4) a mage, you cannot see, hear or feel the bees! They're buzzing around Gotham happily, slurping up the ecto to take back to the hive for processing. And they slurp it up from EVERYWHERE...including certain people.
Jason Todd is slightly confused but not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Over the last few months, the Pit Rage has been decreasing gradually. He doesn't think much about it until he shows up at the BatCave for an all hands meeting that has been called because John Constantine needed to brief them on something...only for Con-job to take one look at Red Hood and shout that he's "COVERED IN FUCKING BEES!!!"
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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months ago
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A sexy, skinny defeat device for your HP ink cartridge
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Animals keep evolving into crabs; it's a process called "carcinisation" and it's pretty weird. Crabs just turn out to be extremely evolutionarily fit for our current environment:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-animals-keep-evolving-into-crabs/
By the same token, all kinds of business keep evolving into something like a printer company. It turns out that in this enshittified, poorly regulated, rentier-friendly world, the parasitic, inkjet business model is extremely adaptive. Printerinisation is everywhere.
All that stuff you hate about your car? Trapping you into using their mechanics, spying on you, planned obsolescence? All lifted from the inkjet printer business model:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon
That GE fridge that won't make ice or dispense water unless you spend $50 for a proprietary charcoal filter instead of using a $10 generic? Pure printerism:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#filtergate
The software update to your Sonos speakers that makes them half as useful and takes away your right to play your stored music, forcing you to buy streaming music subscriptions? Straight out of the HP playbook:
https://www.wired.com/story/sonos-admits-its-recent-app-update-was-a-colossal-mistake/
But as printerinized as all these gadgets are, none can quite attain the level of high enshittification that the OG inkjet bastards attain on a daily basis. In the world championships of effortlessly authentic fuckery, no one can lay a glove on the sociopathic monsters of HP.
For example: when HP wanted to soften us all up for a new world of "subscription ink" (where you have to pre-pay every month for a certain number of pages' worth of printing, which your printer enforces by spying on you and ratting you out to HP over the internet), they offered a "lifetime subscription" plan. With this "lifetime" plan, you paid just once and your HP printer would print out 15 pages a month for so long as you owned your printer, with HP shipping you new ink every time you ran low.
Well, eventually, HP got bored of not making you pay rent on your own fucking printer, so they just turned that plan off. Yeah, it was a lifetime plan, but the "lifetime" in question was the lifetime of HP's patience for not fucking you over, and that patience has the longevity of a mayfly:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/06/horrible-products/#inkwars
It would take many pages to list all of HP's sins here. This is a company that ships printers with half-full ink cartridges and charges more than the printer cost to buy a replacement set. The company that won't let you print a black-and-white page if you're out of yellow ink. The company that won't let you scan or send a fax if you're out of any of your ink.
They make you "recalibrate" your printer or "clean your heads" by forcing you to print sheets of ink-dense paper. They also refuse to let you use your ink cartridges after they "expire."
HP raised the price of ink to over $10,000 per gallon, then went to war against third-party ink cartridge makers, cartridge remanufacturers, and cartridge refillers. They added "security chips" to their cartridges whose job was to watch the ink levels in your cartridge and, when they dip below a certain level (long before the cartridge is actually empty), declare the cartridge to be dry and permanently out of use.
Even if you refill that cartridge, it will still declare itself to be empty to your printer, which will therefore refuse to print.
Third party ink companies have options here. One thing they could do is reverse-engineer the security chip, and make compatible ones that say, "Actually, I'm full." The problem with this is that laws like Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) potentially makes this into a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine, for a first offense.
DMCA 1201 bans bypassing "an effective means of access control" to a copyrighted work. So if HP writes a copyrighted "I'm empty" program for its security chip and then adds some kind of access restriction to prevent you from dumping and reverse-engineering that program, you can end up a felon, thanks to the DMCA.
Another countermove is to harvest security chips out of dead cartridges that have been sent overseas as e-waste (one consequence of HP's $10,000/gallon ink racket is that it generates mountains of immortal, toxic e-waste that mostly ends up poisoning poor countries in the global south). These can be integrated into new cartridges, or remanufactured ones.
In practice, ink companies do all of this and more, and total normie HP printer owners go to extremely improbable lengths to find third party ink cartridges and figure out how to use them. It turns out that even people who find technology tinkering intimidating or confusing or dull can be motivated to learn and practice a lot of esoteric tech stuff as an alternative to paying $10,000/gallon for colored water.
HP has lots of countermoves for this. One truly unhinged piece of fuckery is to ask Customs and Border Patrol to block third-party ink cartridges with genuine HP security chips that have been pried loose from e-waste shipments. HP claims that these are "counterfeits" (because they were removed and re-used without permission), even though they came out of real HP cartridges, and CBP takes them at their word, seizing shipments.
Even sleazier: HP pushes out fake security updates to its printers. You get a message telling you there's an urgent security update, you click OK, and your printer shows you a downloading/installing progress bar and reboots itself. As far as you can tell, nothing has changed. But these aren't "security" updates, they're updates that block third-party ink, and HP has designed them not to kick in for several months. That way, HP owners who get tricked into installing this downgrade don't raise hell online and warn everyone else until they've installed it too, and it's too late:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer
This is the infectious pathogen business model: one reason covid spread so quickly was that people were infectious before they developed symptoms. That meant that the virus could spread before the spreader knew they had it. By adding a long fuse to its logic bomb, HP greatly increases the spread of its malware.
But life finds a way. $10,000/gallon ink is an irresistible target for tinkerers, security researchers and competitors. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but the true parent of jaw-dropping ingenuity is callous, sadistic greed. That's why America's army of prisoners are the source of so many of the most beautiful and exciting forms of innovation seen today:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/09/king-rat/#mother-of-invention
Despite harsh legal penalties and the vast resources of HP, third-party ink continues to thrive, and every time HP figures out how to block one technique, three even cooler ones pop up.
Last week, Jay Summet published a video tearing down a third-party ink cartridge compatible with an HP 61XL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ya184uaTE
The third-party cartridge has what appears to be a genuine HP security chip, but it is overlaid with a paper-thin, flexible, adhesive-backed circuit board that is skinny enough that the cartridge still fits in an HP printer.
This flexible circuit board has its own little microchip. Summet theorizes that it is designed to pass the "are you a real HP cartridge" challenge pass to the security chip, but to block the followup "are you empty or full?" message. When the printer issues that challenge, the "man in the middle" chip answers, "Oh, I'm definitely full."
In their writeup, Hackaday identifies the chip as "a single IC in a QFN package." This is just so clever and delightful:
https://hackaday.com/2024/09/28/man-in-the-middle-pcb-unlocks-hp-ink-cartridges/
Hackaday also notes that HP CEO Enrique J Lores recently threatened to brick any printer discovered to be using third-party ink:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/hp-ceo-blocking-third-party-ink-from-printers-fights-viruses/
As William Gibson famously quipped, "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." As our enshittification-rich environment drives more and more companies to evolve into rent-seeking enterprises through printerinisation, HP offers us a glimpse of the horrors of the late enshittocene.
It's just as Orwell prophesied: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a HP installing malware on your printer to force you to spend $10,000/gallon on ink – forever."
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Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.
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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/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches
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Image: Jay Summet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ya184uaTE
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