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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

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Your car spies on you and rats you out to insurance companies

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (Mar 13) in SAN FRANCISCO with ROBIN SLOAN, then Toronto, NYC, Anaheim, and more!

Another characteristically brilliant Kashmir Hill story for The New York Times reveals another characteristically terrible fact about modern life: your car secretly records fine-grained telemetry about your driving and sells it to data-brokers, who sell it to insurers, who use it as a pretext to gouge you on premiums:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html

Almost every car manufacturer does this: Hyundai, Nissan, Ford, Chrysler, etc etc:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2020/09/09/ford-state-farm-ford-metromile-honda-verisk-among-insurer-oem-telematics-connections/

This is true whether you own or lease the car, and it's separate from the "black box" your insurer might have offered to you in exchange for a discount on your premiums. In other words, even if you say no to the insurer's carrot – a surveillance-based discount – they've got a stick in reserve: buying your nonconsensually harvested data on the open market.

I've always hated that saying, "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product," the reason being that it posits decent treatment as a customer reward program, like the little ramekin warm nuts first class passengers get before takeoff. Companies don't treat you well when you pay them. Companies treat you well when they fear the consequences of treating you badly.

Take Apple. The company offers Ios users a one-tap opt-out from commercial surveillance, and more than 96% of users opted out. Presumably, the other 4% were either confused or on Facebook's payroll. Apple – and its army of cultists – insist that this proves that our world's woes can be traced to cheapskate "consumers" who expected to get something for nothing by using advertising-supported products.

But here's the kicker: right after Apple blocked all its rivals from spying on its customers, it began secretly spying on those customers! Apple has a rival surveillance ad network, and even if you opt out of commercial surveillance on your Iphone, Apple still secretly spies on you and uses the data to target you for ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product – provided the company can get away with treating you as the product. Apple can absolutely get away with treating you as the product, because it lacks the historical constraints that prevented Apple – and other companies – from treating you as the product.

As I described in my McLuhan lecture on enshittification, tech firms can be constrained by four forces:

I. Competition

II. Regulation

III. Self-help

IV. Labor

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

When companies have real competitors – when a sector is composed of dozens or hundreds of roughly evenly matched firms – they have to worry that a maltreated customer might move to a rival. 40 years of antitrust neglect means that corporations were able to buy their way to dominance with predatory mergers and pricing, producing today's inbred, Habsburg capitalism. Apple and Google are a mobile duopoly, Google is a search monopoly, etc. It's not just tech! Every sector looks like this:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

Eliminating competition doesn't just deprive customers of alternatives, it also empowers corporations. Liberated from "wasteful competition," companies in concentrated industries can extract massive profits. Think of how both Apple and Google have "competitively" arrived at the same 30% app tax on app sales and transactions, a rate that's more than 1,000% higher than the transaction fees extracted by the (bloated, price-gouging) credit-card sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

But cartels' power goes beyond the size of their warchest. The real source of a cartel's power is the ease with which a small number of companies can arrive at – and stick to – a common lobbying position. That's where "regulatory capture" comes in: the mobile duopoly has an easier time of capturing its regulators because two companies have an easy time agreeing on how to spend their app-tax billions:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Apple – and Google, and Facebook, and your car company – can violate your privacy because they aren't constrained regulation, just as Uber can violate its drivers' labor rights and Amazon can violate your consumer rights. The tech cartels have captured their regulators and convinced them that the law doesn't apply if it's being broken via an app:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#how-the-parties-get-to-yes

In other words, Apple can spy on you because it's allowed to spy on you. America's last consumer privacy law was passed in 1988, and it bans video-store clerks from leaking your VHS rental history. Congress has taken no action on consumer privacy since the Reagan years:

https://www.eff.org/tags/video-privacy-protection-act

But tech has some special enshittification-resistant characteristics. The most important of these is interoperability: the fact that computers are universal digital machines that can run any program. HP can design a printer that rejects third-party ink and charge $10,000/gallon for its own colored water, but someone else can write a program that lets you jailbreak your printer so that it accepts any ink cartridge:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Tech companies that contemplated enshittifying their products always had to watch over their shoulders for a rival that might offer a disenshittification tool and use that as a wedge between the company and its customers. If you make your website's ads 20% more obnoxious in anticipation of a 2% increase in gross margins, you have to consider the possibility that 40% of your users will google "how do I block ads?" Because the revenue from a user who blocks ads doesn't stay at 100% of the current levels – it drops to zero, forever (no user ever googles "how do I stop blocking ads?").

The majority of web users are running an ad-blocker:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

Web operators made them an offer ("free website in exchange for unlimited surveillance and unfettered intrusions") and they made a counteroffer ("how about 'nah'?"):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Here's the thing: reverse-engineering an app – or any other IP-encumbered technology – is a legal minefield. Just decompiling an app exposes you to felony prosecution: a five year sentence and a $500k fine for violating Section 1201 of the DMCA. But it's not just the DMCA – modern products are surrounded with high-tech tripwires that allow companies to invoke IP law to prevent competitors from augmenting, recongifuring or adapting their products. When a business says it has "IP," it means that it has arranged its legal affairs to allow it to invoke the power of the state to control its customers, critics and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

An "app" is just a web-page skinned in enough IP to make it a crime to add an ad-blocker to it. This is what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model" and it's everywhere. When companies don't have to worry about users deploying self-help measures to disenshittify their products, they are freed from the constraint that prevents them indulging the impulse to shift value from their customers to themselves.

Apple owes its existence to interoperability – its ability to clone Microsoft Office's file formats for Pages, Numbers and Keynote, which saved the company in the early 2000s – and ever since, it has devoted its existence to making sure no one ever does to Apple what Apple did to Microsoft:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Regulatory capture cuts both ways: it's not just about powerful corporations being free to flout the law, it's also about their ability to enlist the law to punish competitors that might constrain their plans for exploiting their workers, customers, suppliers or other stakeholders.

The final historical constraint on tech companies was their own workers. Tech has very low union-density, but that's in part because individual tech workers enjoyed so much bargaining power due to their scarcity. This is why their bosses pampered them with whimsical campuses filled with gourmet cafeterias, fancy gyms and free massages: it allowed tech companies to convince tech workers to work like government mules by flattering them that they were partners on a mission to bring the world to its digital future:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

For tech bosses, this gambit worked well, but failed badly. On the one hand, they were able to get otherwise powerful workers to consent to being "extremely hardcore" by invoking Fobazi Ettarh's spirit of "vocational awe":

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

On the other hand, when you motivate your workers by appealing to their sense of mission, the downside is that they feel a sense of mission. That means that when you demand that a tech worker enshittifies something they missed their mother's funeral to deliver, they will experience a profound sense of moral injury and refuse, and that worker's bargaining power means that they can make it stick.

Or at least, it did. In this era of mass tech layoffs, when Google can fire 12,000 workers after a $80b stock buyback that would have paid their wages for the next 27 years, tech workers are learning that the answer to "I won't do this and you can't make me" is "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" (AKA "sharpen your blades boys"):

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/elon-musk-texts-discovery-twitter/

With competition, regulation, self-help and labor cleared away, tech firms – and firms that have wrapped their products around the pluripotently malleable core of digital tech, including automotive makers – are no longer constrained from enshittifying their products.

And that's why your car manufacturer has chosen to spy on you and sell your private information to data-brokers and anyone else who wants it. Not because you didn't pay for the product, so you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

Cars are enshittified. The dozens of chips that auto makers have shoveled into their car design are only incidentally related to delivering a better product. The primary use for those chips is autoenshittification – access to legal strictures ("IP") that allows them to block modifications and repairs that would interfere with the unfettered abuse of their own customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

The fact that it's a felony to reverse-engineer and modify a car's software opens the floodgates to all kinds of shitty scams. Remember when Bay Staters were voting on a ballot measure to impose right-to-repair obligations on automakers in Massachusetts? The only reason they needed to have the law intervene to make right-to-repair viable is that Big Car has figured out that if it encrypts its diagnostic messages, it can felonize third-party diagnosis of a car, because decrypting the messages violates the DMCA:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/drm-cars-will-drive-consumers-crazy

Big Car figured out that VIN locking – DRM for engine components and subassemblies – can felonize the production and the installation of third-party spare parts:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

The fact that you can't legally modify your car means that automakers can go back to their pre-2008 ways, when they transformed themselves into unregulated banks that incidentally manufactured the cars they sold subprime loans for. Subprime auto loans – over $1t worth! – absolutely relies on the fact that borrowers' cars can be remotely controlled by lenders. Miss a payment and your car's stereo turns itself on and blares threatening messages at top volume, which you can't turn off. Break the lease agreement that says you won't drive your car over the county line and it will immobilize itself. Try to change any of this software and you'll commit a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

Tesla, naturally, has the most advanced anti-features. Long before BMW tried to rent you your seat-heater and Mercedes tried to sell you a monthly subscription to your accelerator pedal, Teslas were demon-haunted nightmare cars. Miss a Tesla payment and the car will immobilize itself and lock you out until the repo man arrives, then it will blare its horn and back itself out of its parking spot. If you "buy" the right to fully charge your car's battery or use the features it came with, you don't own them – they're repossessed when your car changes hands, meaning you get less money on the used market because your car's next owner has to buy these features all over again:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

And all this DRM allows your car maker to install spyware that you're not allowed to remove. They really tipped their hand on this when the R2R ballot measure was steaming towards an 80% victory, with wall-to-wall scare ads that revealed that your car collects so much information about you that allowing third parties to access it could lead to your murder (no, really!):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

That's why your car spies on you. Because it can. Because the company that made it lacks constraint, be it market-based, legal, technological or its own workforce's ethics.

One common critique of my enshittification hypothesis is that this is "kind of sensible and normal" because "there’s something off in the consumer mindset that we’ve come to believe that the internet should provide us with amazing products, which bring us joy and happiness and we spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return":

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-have-great-conversations/

What this criticism misses is that this isn't the companies bargaining to shift some value from us to them. Enshittification happens when a company can seize all that value, without having to bargain, exploiting law and technology and market power over buyers and sellers to unilaterally alter the way the products and services we rely on work.

A company that doesn't have to fear competitors, regulators, jailbreaking or workers' refusal to enshittify its products doesn't have to bargain, it can take. It's the first lesson they teach you in the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Your car spying on you isn't down to your belief that your carmaker "should provide you with amazing products, which brings your joy and happiness you spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return." It's not because you didn't pay for the product, so now you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

The consequences of this spying go much further than mere insurance premium hikes, too. Car telemetry sits at the top of the funnel that the unbelievably sleazy data broker industry uses to collect and sell our data. These are the same companies that sell the fact that you visited an abortion clinic to marketers, bounty hunters, advertisers, or vengeful family members pretending to be one of those:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/07/safegraph-spies-and-lies/#theres-no-i-in-uterus

Decades of pro-monopoly policy led to widespread regulatory capture. Corporate cartels use the monopoly profits they extract from us to pay for regulatory inaction, allowing them to extract more profits.

But when it comes to privacy, that period of unchecked corporate power might be coming to an end. The lack of privacy regulation is at the root of so many problems that a pro-privacy movement has an unstoppable constituency working in its favor.

At EFF, we call this "privacy first." Whether you're worried about grifters targeting vulnerable people with conspiracy theories, or teens being targeted with media that harms their mental health, or Americans being spied on by foreign governments, or cops using commercial surveillance data to round up protesters, or your car selling your data to insurance companies, passing that long-overdue privacy legislation would turn off the taps for the data powering all these harms:

https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms

Traditional economics fails because it thinks about markets without thinking about power. Monopolies lead to more than market power: they produce regulatory capture, power over workers, and state capture, which felonizes competition through IP law. The story that our problems stem from the fact that we just don't spend enough money, or buy the wrong products, only makes sense if you willfully ignore the power that corporations exert over our lives. It's nice to think that you can shop your way out of a monopoly, because that's a lot easier than voting your way out of a monopoly, but no matter how many times you vote with your wallet, the cartels that control the market will always win:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#apor-locksmith

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

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/2024/03/12/market-failure/#car-wars

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

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

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netscapenavigator-official · 11 months

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People in the notes of my post about Tesla removing the gear selectors from its new cars, asking how that's even legal, clearly have no idea just how incompetent and slow-paced the NHTSA is.

Halogen headlights weren't legal until 1979.

Composite headlights (the uniquely designed ones that aren't the old-school circle or square ones you see on older cars) weren't legal until 1984.

Adaptive High Beams (Matrix Headlights) were only recently legalized, in 2022; and the regulations and testing procedures in order to approve them are so haphazard and over-complicated compared to Europe's that not a single automaker has even made them available.

Side Curtain airbags still are not mandated in the United States.

Turn Signals can be red in the U.S., as opposed to the statistically safer amber which is mandatory in Europe.

Making that worse, those red turn signals are allowed to share lamps with the brake lights. This means if you have your turn signal on, 1/3 of your brake lights can’t do their job because they're too busy doing another job.

There is no law in the United States dictating that an electric car must put on its brake lights when Regen braking. In fact, the law specifically states that only the friction brakes are required to activate brake lights. You can bring a Hyundai Ioniq 5 & 6, Kia EV6, Genesis GV60, and many other EVs to a rapid, complete stop without ever activating the brake lights.

Early model Chevrolet Bolt EVs and some Mercedes-Benz EVs will activate the brake lights appropriately when slowing down, but will deactivate their brake lights once they've come to a complete stop, allowing the car to sit at a standstill in the road without any indicator that it isn't traveling at the same speed as you are.

It's completely up to the automaker to decide how (or even if) to implement regen brake lighting. EVs and Hybrids have been around since the late 1990s and this still hasn't changed.

The US government STILL only evaluates a vehicles crash safety by crash testing it at 35 mph into a flat wall and t-boning it with a barrier representing a 3,000 lb sedan. They don't do an offset frontal test or a truck-barrier side test like the IIHS has been doing for private insurance companies for over a decade.

The NHTSA performs ZERO pedestrian crash safety tests like EuroNCAP does.

Oh, and on the topic of gear selectors, those aren't regulated at all. Here are some examples from modern cars, both electric and not:

BMW i3 & Nissan LEAF (Electric):

Toyota Prius (Hybrid) & Honda Clarity (Plug-in Hybrid):

RAM 1500 & Cadillac Escalade (Gasoline):

The automotive rules of the American government are pure chaos, and that’s if they're even there at all. If you're seriously asking how Tesla can allow a car to select reverse on its own, and then put the manual override in the touch screen, I mean, that's just scratching the surface.

If you wanna learn more, Technology Connections on YouTube has some great videos on the Turn Signal issue, the EV Regen brake light issue, and the history of the headlight regulations. I highly recommend you check them out because it truly puts into perspective just how awful the NHTSA is at doing its one job: keeping safety standards up-to-date.

#rambles #america #nhtsa #vehicle safety #regulations #car #cars #ev #evs #tesla #fuck tesla #electric cars #electric car #electric vehicles #safety

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kirimoochi · 1 year

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in the streets.

₊˚ ᗢ street racer!kazuha x gn!reader, modern au.

⤷ he takes the high road with you.

My self-indulgent headcanon is that Kazuha would like to drive the Nissan 350Z (Z33) in a beautiful shade of red. He decorated the inside with a few trinkets. Small, white cat plushies are left beside the window (a memento of his old friend Tomo, who previously died in an unfortunate accident with a racer named Raiden), and dangling from his rearview mirror is a maple-leaf-shaped car freshener. If you were to give him anything else for his car, he wouldn’t hesitate to put them in. He adores any sort of reminder of you, it pushes him to win every race.

While his car may not be as fast as Xiao and Childe’s imported muscle cars, he can pass them on every corner. You hardly see him take his car for a race on the highway, mainly preferring to use a secluded mountain road. It has gotten to the point where it seemed almost impossible to beat him on his home turf. Most cars can’t make quick or narrow turns quite like him. If you were to ask Aether how he drives, he would say that the man was unbeatable when it came to drifting.

If he wasn’t racing in the mountain, he might be at a multistory parking lot. It was normal for him and Xiao to meet up in the mountains to race, but a lot more common for him to race Aether at the parking lot. It was a lot more convenient and the two can be a bit more relaxed with the environment.

With the Nissan 350Z, it’s a two-seater, and the only person he’d ever let ride with him is you. You’ll always be his passenger princess. One hand on the steering wheel on late nights and the other squeezing your hand. If you ever bring up the idea of being in the car while he races, he might take a few minutes to think about it. He doesn’t want to put you in any danger, especially when he swerves or hits the brakes. The mountain road can be brutal and he doesn’t want you to hit your pretty head on the side of his car. However, if you insist, he would allow it maybe once or a few times.

He doesn’t mind it if you want to roll down the windows on casual cruises. He thinks that the sight of your hair blowing wildly alongside the wind, laughing to your heart's content at the adrenaline, music blaring in the background, all of it was enough to send him to cloud 9. If you didn’t mind him smoking a little, everything would be even more perfect. To him, nothing felt better than you by his side and the sweet, satisfying exhale he releases.

Racing to him felt free. He felt at home when he was able to travel. The wind on his cheek was everything he wanted in an adventure. Although he was hesitant on continuing to race after the death of Tomo, he decided to keep moving forward. He understands better than anyone the dangers of street racing. He’ll do everything in his power to keep you safe. However, what was more important was being able to come home to you.

“I hope you don’t mind my lips being slightly chapped,” He murmurs, continuing to kiss you as your fingers softly pulled on his ponytail. He tasted like sea salt despite not having been to the beach.

Flicking his tongue against your lower lip he pulled away to smile sweetly, “The wind can be a bit strong sometimes.”

#₊˚ ᗢ kirimoochi #genshin #genshin x reader #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #kazuha #kazuha kaedehara x reader #kazuha kaedehara #kazuha x reader

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sherewrytes · 15 days

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ꜱᴀᴄʀɪꜰɪᴄᴇꜱ- SAME OLD SONG {CHAPTER TWO}

↳ Toji Fushiguro x f! black reader

summary. You and Toji were broken up for 8 months+. Your constant pressure for him to improve led to frequent fights, driving him to spend more time at the mechanic shop and racing than with you. Despite knowing you meant well, the strain became too much, and Toji eventually ended the relationship.

genre: heavy angst, modern au, 18+, explicit smut

fic warnings. ooc, profanity, mental health issues, toxic relationships, cheating, explicit smut, drug use, mentions of depression + more to be updated as story progresses.

Please read with proper discretion. this is a work of fiction. all characters are written to portray roles that are necessary to the plot and are in no way a reflection of their canon counterparts.

series masterlist

chapter one

chapter three (coming soon)

Toji's POV It had been eight months since you walked out of his life, leaving a void that Toji filled with work and the thrill of street racing. Seeing you in front the mechanic shop today, staring at him with those eyes he used to know so well, had him twisted up emotionally. He

He clenched his jaw, trying to clear his mind of you while looking around the mechanic shop for some form of distraction from his racing thoughts. A surge of anger mixed with an all-too-familiar ache in his chest he fished his cigarettes out of his pocket.

You had always pushed him, never letting him grow at his own pace, always demanding more. He understood where you were coming from, but your impatience had suffocated him. Now, seeing you again, it felt like a slap in the face, a reminder of the life he had almost lost himself in trying to keep up with your expectations.

Toji, staring blankly into space, cigarette slowly burning out and dangling from his mouth was lost in thought.

"Yo, Toji, you good?" Sukuna's voice broke through his thoughts.

Toji shook his head, startled by the jolt out of his long lost thoughts but not wanting to discuss it. "I'm fine," he muttered, though he knew Sukuna could see right through him.

Sukuna raised an eyebrow but didn't press further. He was good like that, knowing when to back off. "Alright, man. Just let me know if you need anything." Toji knew it wasn't good to bottle up his emotions like this, but he also hated being caught off guard emotionally. "Why is seeing her again got me all fucked up like this." Toji muttered to himself while smoking his cigarette. He decided to order some pizza for everyone in the shop to ease his mind.

Later in the day, while mindlessly doing an oil change, Geto showed up for his shift, his usual laid-back attitude was thrown off a bit by Toji's simmering frustration.

Gojo also arrived, loud as ever, coming to chill with his friends and also looking to tune up his car for the night's street race. Sukuna must have filled them in, because they both gave Toji a long leash, sensing his foul mood.

Geto, however, wasn't one to be easily deterred. Strolling over to where Toji was now working on Choso's blood red Nissan GT-R Nismo, tweaking it up for tonight's race

"Yo, Toji, what's eating at you?" Suguru asked, leaning against the workbench.

Toji grunted, not in the mood to share. "Nothing, Geto. Just drop it."

But Geto, being the persistent friend he was, wouldn't let it go. "Come on, man. You've been off all day. Talk to me."

Toji sighed, running a hand through his hair. He sat on his stool, the weight of the day pressing down on him. He reached behind his head to the table where the infamous weed jar is kept in the shop, pulled out a nug of OG kush and rolled a blunt between his fingers before lighting it up. The first hit was deep, the smoke curling around him as he let out a long exhale staring at his work boots.

"She drove by today," Toji finally said, his voice rough. "Y/N."

Geto's eyes widened. "Y/N? Damn, no wonder you're all twisted up."

Toji took another hit, feeling the tension ease just a bit. "Seeing her... it pissed me off. But it also hurt. You know why we broke up. She wanted me to change, to be better, but she couldn't wait for me to get there on my own. It was always on her terms."

Geto nodded, understanding in his gaze. "I get it, man. Sometimes people push because they care, but they don't realize they're pushing too hard."

"Exactly," Toji said, his frustration bubbling to the surface. "I wanted to grow, but at my own pace. She couldn't see that. And now, after all this time, she just drives by and stares at me like that? It brought everything back."

Geto placed a hand on Toji's shoulder, offering silent support. "Maybe seeing her again means something, Toji. Maybe it's a sign."

Toji snorted, taking another drag from his blunt. "A sign of what? That I should let her back in? After everything?"

"Not necessarily," Geto replied. "Maybe it's just a reminder of how far you've come. You bought your uncle's shop. You've made something of yourself. Don't let her presence mess with your head. Chill out a bit man"

Toji nodded slowly, the words sinking in. He looked around the shop, his shop, and felt a sense of pride swell within him. Geto was right. He had come a long way, and he wasn't about to let the past drag him down.

"Thanks man," Toji said, the anger beginning to fade. "I needed that."

Geto grinned, giving Toji a playful punch on the arm. "Anytime. Now, let's get back to work. This shit aint gonna fix itself."

Toji watched as Geto walked away, feeling a bit lighter. The pain of seeing you again was still there, but it was no longer overwhelming. He took one last hit from his blunt and stubbed it out on his stool strolling through the shop to start on Gojo's car. Your POV You had no idea what possessed you to drive to that side of town, knowing Toji worked there. Maybe it was the lingering memories or the unresolved feelings. Maybe it was the fact you couldn't get him off your mind.

As you headed home, your mind was a whirlwind of emotions. Seeing Toji again had shaken you more than you wanted to admit.

He looked different, maybe even better than when you were together. The new tattoos, the lip ring, the slightly longer hair – he had changed, but he was still unmistakably Toji.

You still attended the street races sometimes, unable to completely let go of that part of your life. You and Toji had been together for almost three years, and the thrill of the races had become a part of you. You always made sure to stay hidden, not wanting to be seen by him or his friends.

A text from Shoko broke your reverie. There was a race tonight if you wanted to attend. Your mind was twisted up from seeing Toji, but you felt an inexplicable pull to go. Maybe it was a subconscious desire to see him again, to confront the feelings you had been trying to bury.

When you got home, you decided to pick up Shoko and head to the race. She was waiting for you when you pulled up, a knowing look in her eyes. "Ready for some action?" she asked, a grin spreading across her face.

"Yeah," you replied, trying to sound more confident than you felt.

At the race spot, the familiar sounds and sights greeted you. You saw your classmate Ijichi with his fully blacked-out 1969 Chevy Camaro SS. You greeted him and hung out for a bit, the familiar roar of engines filling the air.

You knew those engines well. The purr of Gojo's blue 2016 Dodge Viper, Geto's black Dodge Hellcat, Sukuna's red Dodge Hellcat, and Toji's signature metallic purple 1967 Eleanor Mustang Fastback Build. They came in, speeding and drifting, showing off just like you remembered.

Your eyes locked with Sukuna first. He glared at you slightly and skidded his car to a stop right next to you. He rolled down his window and said, "Jump in before Toji spots you. We need to talk."

You turned to Shoko, who encouraged you to go with a nod. You jumped into Sukuna's car, and he pulled off, driving to a quieter spot. He put the car in neutral, letting it idle.

"Why are you even here?" Sukuna asked, his voice edged with irritation. "Haven't you stressed him out enough, Y/N?"

You sighed, feeling the weight of his words. "I don't know, Sukuna. I guess I just needed to see him. I didn't mean to cause any trouble."

"Well, you did," he said bluntly. "Seeing you messed him up. He's been trying to move on, and you showing up out of the blue isn't helping."

You looked down, guilt gnawing at you. "I understand. I just... I still care about him, you know? I didn't come here to hurt him."

Sukuna's expression softened slightly. "Look, I get it. You two had something real. But you need to let him be. He's finally getting his life together."

You nodded, tears prickling at the corners of your eyes. "I know. I just... I needed closure, I guess."

"Closure?" Sukuna scoffed. "That's a dangerous game, Y/N. But if you really want it, you need to be honest with him. No more sneaking around."

You took a deep breath, realizing he was right. "Okay. I'll talk to him. But not here, not now."

Sukuna nodded, starting the car again. "Good. Just don't make things harder than they already are."

As he drove you back to the race spot, you felt a mix of apprehension and determination. Seeing Toji had stirred up all the old feelings, but maybe it was time to finally face them and find a way to move forward.

Sukuna dropped you off near Shoko, but not before Toji spotted you getting out of Sukuna's car. You saw his eyes widen in disbelief, and for a moment, it looked like he might crash out. Sukuna immediately tried to explain, but Toji was having none of it. The emotions he tried so hard to keep in check were boiling over, and it was clear to everyone around that he was on the verge of a meltdown.

Geto and Gojo were quick to act, practically pushing Toji back into his car to calm him down. You knew how it looked; the area Sukuna had driven you from was notorious for hookups and quickies. Toji’s mind must have been racing, seeing red completely. He shot himself in his car, rolling up the heavily tinted windows but leaving them cracked slightly. The races weren’t starting for another 15 minutes, but the tension was already palpable.

Inside his car, Toji finally let the tears fall. It was the first time he had really cried since the breakup. He had always stopped himself or drowned out the pain with something else, but now, alone in his car, he couldn’t hold back anymore. The passenger side door opened, and Geto and Gojo climbed in, the cramped space filling with their presence.

Geto passed Toji a pre-rolled blunt, already lit. Toji stared at it, his teary eyes reflecting the flame. He remembered how you used to pre-roll his blunts before his first race. The memory stung, but he took the blunt and inhaled deeply, taking five consecutive pulls before passing it to Gojo. The car quickly turned into a hotbox, the smoke mingling with the lingering scent of motor oil and burnt rubber.

Geto was the first to speak. "You really think Kuna would fuck around with Y/N like that? He knows what she means to you, bro."

Toji scoffed, his voice thick with emotion. "You mean what she meant."

Gojo rolled his eyes, taking a drag from the blunt. "From the way you were gonna crash out, she still means something to you."

Toji let out a bitter laugh. "Does it even matter? Seeing her with him... it just brought everything back."

Geto shook his head, leaning back in the seat. "Look, man, we all know Y/N. She wouldn't do that to you. And Sukuna? He might be a dick sometimes, but he's not stupid. He knows better."

Toji wiped his eyes, frustration mixing with the sadness. "I know, I know. It's just... seeing her again. It fucked me up."

Gojo passed the blunt back to Toji. "Then maybe you need to talk to her. Get some closure, or whatever."

Toji took another hit, the smoke filling his lungs and momentarily numbing the pain. "Yeah, maybe."

Geto leaned forward, his expression serious. "You gotta figure this out, Toji. For your sake. You can't keep letting this eat you alive."

Toji nodded slowly, the words sinking in. He looked at his friends, grateful for their support. "Thanks, guys. I needed that."

As the minutes ticked down to the start of the race, Toji felt a small sense of clarity. He wasn't sure what he would do next, but for now, he knew he had to focus on the race.

#jjk x reader #jjk x black reader #toji fushiguro #toji x black y/n #black reader #jujutsu kaisen #toji x you #toji x fem! reader #toji x female reader #toji x black reader #toji smut #jjk x fem! reader #jjk x poc!reader

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nerdieforpedro · 6 months

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Finally Away

Chapter 2 of “This is the Neighborhood Din” Series

Din Djarin (Modern AU) x Sierra Harris (plus size OFC)

This fic is for readers 18+ MDNI

Word Count: about 3k

Warnings: Divorce, domestic violence (both referenced and actual), burns, scratches, blood, stalking, description of injuries, self-esteem issues, matchmaking?, domestic fluff, soft moments and hugs

Summary: Sierra has arrived to her aunt's home and meets their new neighbors Din and little Grogu. She didn't plan on her ex-husband showing up before her long drive - that man decided to ensure she had his disgusting marks on her arms.

Notes: In this chapter there is domestic violence and descriptions of Sierra's injuries as well as past incidents with her ex-husband. Likely will be mentioned again but not with injuries. There's also a burn mentioned as well that Sierra caused.

Special thanks to @pedroshotwifey for beta reading and @julesonrecord for having these resources in their Cherry Wine fic. It’s an excellent read, just make sure to review the warnings as it is marked DDNE.

I would have posted this earlier but I didn’t get a notification about the poll results. 😭 My bad.

Domestic Violence resources (In case you or someone you know need them):

United States

Canada

United Kingdom

European Union

Main Masterlist/ Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) Masterlist/ This is the Neighborhood Din Series

The drive from Maryland to New York State hasn’t been that bad, just so long. Nearly seven hours. Sierra had planned to leave earlier than she did. It was her last day in her apartment, she was going to leave the keys since all her belongings she planned to take were already in her car. It had been six months since the divorce was final but a year and a half that she had lived apart from Darius.

Sierra knew he hadn’t cared about her, at least the last few years of their marriage, not after those beatings started. She didn’t stay because she loved him, falling out of love with him was at the first punch. She’d been confused at first, he’d never been violent before, always kind. But when Sierra thought on it after the second bloody nose, she wondered if this was happening because something was wrong with her. When he hit her and this time, kept hitting her in her stomach after that last time he came home, she let him sleep and then poured boiled hot grits on him. She’d already looked into getting an apartment by herself and was going to stay with a friend for a week until it was ready. Darius never did press charges against her or told anyone how he got those burns on his abdomen and chest, Sierra assumed that he was embarrassed that his wife who he had been beating got one over on him. After she left, she needed to try and figure out what was next and who to turn to for help.

Thankfully, her aunt Johnnie Mae was more than willing to take her in after she’d been able to save some money by living in that cheap apartment. It almost made the hour long commute to the middle school she taught at worth it. Saving money was her priority so she would have some money to give her Aunt for letting her stay with her outside of New York City. The plan was working, she was able to get rid of clothes and stuff she didn’t absolutely need. That way, everything would fit in her small blue Nissan. Her aunt had said that she didn’t need to offer her any money, let alone rent while she stayed with her but that’s not how she was raised. Before they passed, Sierra’s parents stressed being responsible, paying your debts and taking care of yourself. She’s failed at that last one.

That morning, all she had to do was get up use the bathroom before leaving and leave. That was all the science teacher had planned. She even had a new job set up at a middle school substitute teaching next week. She was open to picking up a part time job until she could get a full time one as keeping a work history going and money coming is was more important than ever.

The barrier to her leaving on time was Darius himself. He sat outside of her small blue car waiting for her. Darius was a few inches taller than Sierra but slender and full of mean streaks. One would think a so called ‘short king’ as he often called himself would be a bit nicer to anyone, let alone his wife but no. The bastard beat Sierra, leaving bruises, cuts and made sure never to break or sprain anything enough to need an urgent care or hospital visit. He left to be with his mistress a month after Sierra burnt him with hot grits as he lay sleep in bed.

The divorce as far as property went was split down the middle, even though the end of their relationship was anything but amicable. Sierra hadn’t see him since the divorce decree was handed down in court, but now he sits here blocking her path away from him finally, no longer tied to him.

“What do you want?” The venom in her voice is clear as he moves toward her.

“Just wanted to see you off. I mean, we had something special for a while there you know.” He attempted to touch her face and she smacked his hand away. Darius grabbed it and her other hand as she struggled against him. “You always fought me on everything after becoming a full time teacher. Being full of yourself. Now you’re going to be fat, broke and alone. You thought it was hard to get married before? No man’s going to be looking for you!”

“This is what you came here for Darius?! Just to try and intimidate me?” Sierra pushed forward, making his legs hit the bumper of a sedan parked next to her, he fell back, but grabbed her forearms hard, digging his fingers into them. She yelled and tried to shake him off but he dug deeper. “You’re a sad bastard who left me for a woman who’s now left you for an old rich man. She’s riding his dick somewhere in Italy!” Her knee connected with his crotch and his grip loosened. Sierra was able to wiggle free and run toward the driver’s side of her car, quickly getting in. She started driving only checking her arms when she finally stopped at a McDonald’s.

Her caramel skin was a deep red, nearly purple with blood as he broke the skin on both arms. She made a stop at a CVS and got some bandages to clean and wrap her arms before continuing on her drive. After a few more hours she stopped crying and determined that he wasn’t worth it, he hadn’t been for quite some time. Just be glad you’re no longer tied to him. If he shows up again, I can use a brick on him or whatever I have nearby. Maybe I need to carry one of those switchblades. As she crossed over from Pennsylvania to New York, she wondered how she’d hide the bandages from her Aunt. She hadn’t shared the full story with her, only that he’d become distant, they would get in shouting matches and the cheating. Sierra hadn’t told her about the physical abuse. She didn’t know how to explain why it went on for so long. She barely wanted to tell the one friend she felt safe enough to move in with for that week. Thankfully she didn’t judge her, just supported Sierra. She was eternally grateful for that.

Pulling up to her aunt’s home she was completely unprepared for the man she saw. The opposite of her ex-husband was sitting on her aunt’s porch. Putting his shirt back on. No one said he had to. Sierra thought, her aunt let go of her and pinched her shoulder.

“You’ll burn a hole into the man if you keep staring at him like that.” Ms. Harris teased.

“How could I not look at him? Who is he?” Sierra inquired. She grabbed her purse from the car and walked over with her aunt to the porch.

Din started to get a bit cold after finishing his glass of water and stood to slip his shirt back on. He still felt her eyes on him and turned to see Ms. Harris walking to the house with a caramel beauty who’s calling his new neighbor ‘auntie.’ Maybe she was just here visiting, his eyes cut to her car before focusing back on her as they drew closer to the porch. She’s staying for a little while at least, I’m not in the market for just a short time though.

As she made her way up the stairs, her black shorts bunched between her thighs. In an effort not to stare, his eyes scanned her legs which were thick and jiggled along with the rolls of her belly that it appeared like she was trig to hide under her large purple t-shirt. She was wearing a black sweatshirt which he suspected her would find equally soft arms covered by the fabric. Her face appeared tired, he assumed from the long drive, but there seemed to be a remnant of sadness in her honey eyes with some redness in her cheeks. Her hair was in tight pun with a matching purple scarf tied at the top of her head. It wasn’t a handshake she offered but a small wave and Din couldn’t help but flash a toothy grin and chuckle.

“H-Hi. I’m Sierra, nice to meet you. Seems you’ve met my Aunt Mae already.” Though clearly nervous, her voice had a dulcet tone to it that had Din exhale to keep from clearing his throat to make it too obvious. He raised his hand and returned her small wave, stepping forward to close the distance. He looked down at her, keeping his grin.

“I’m Din. Your aunt, Ms. Harris has been so welcoming to me and my son Grogu. It’s our first day here. Pleasure to meet you Sierra.”

He is taller and broader up close and his hands are….this man appears to be massive in every sense. Even his voice feels like it’s wrapping around me. Am I okay? My shorts are halfway in my crotch and I know my eyes are puffy and red along with my entire face. This is one of the days, I wish I had more melanin so everything from earlier in the day wouldn’t be on my damn face.

“Well dear, you mind helping me make some dinner while Din keeps an eye on the kids? You missed lunch.” Ms. Harris elbows Sierra in the side and she winces as her aunt’s arm grazes her forearm.

“Sure, lead the way. Um, are you staying for dinner Din?” Sierra asked and Din nodded with Johnnie Mae adding that of course he was, he bought her groceries as a thank you for watching little Grogu for a few hours.

“I really do appreciate it Ms. Harris. I was able to get a lot done in the house so we’ll be set for our first night in the house. The kids we be fine until dinner’s ready.” Rolling his shoulders back, he puts his hands in his pockets and his grin becomes a smile. Sierra’s lips part slightly but no sound comes out, she really hopes nothing came out. It didn’t but her aunt is ever watchful of their interaction and leads her niece into the kitchen. Din turns to the side to watch Sierra walk away, paying special attention to her wide hips and plump backside. I think I should find out how long she’ll be here. If she needs to leave, maybe I can convince her to come back through and visit. Such thoughts were distracting Din from the children and he heard a cry. Delia was sitting in the grass giving a dirty look to both Grogu and Quinton. “Well, I am a man of my word. Let me see what’s going on.” As he made his way down the stairs, Johnnie Mae peeped at the door to Mae sure Din was out of earshot.

“Tell me what you think, I mean I was going to set you up with that boy Leon because he seemed nice, but Din is a grown man. Good and grown man dear. I don’t see a ring and-“

“It’s too soon I can’t even think about that right now. Especially today, I look an entire mess.” And that rat bastard fucked up my arms. Even if my arms were fine, I’m not even wearing my cute leggings. Damn.

“I didn’t ask you all that girl.” Johnnie Mae got out a pot and threw in some chicken broth followed two bags of vegetable medleys complete with carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. “I asked you what you thought. I understand you might not feel like you’re ready. Doesn’t mean you can look.”

Sighing, Sierra washed her hands, got the chicken out of the fridge and started seasoning it before plopping it in a frying pan to cook in some butter. “He’s the complete opposite of my ex-husband. Which is entirely welcome. I just don’t know if I can….” Johnnie Mae hip bumped her niece as an indication of getting a non-answer. Sierra sighed again, “I’d climb him like a tree auntie. I’m not ready, but if I was at all. He would be the first choice.”

“Just need to know your tastes have changed. No more assholes Sierra.” Johnnie Mae laughed and so did Sierra, shaking her head. On that she agreed. The pair finished up dinner making homemade chicken noddle soup. Something that everyone ate two bowels of. Din and Grogu ate three. Delia and Quinton were picked up by their parents when the sun started setting around five in the evening. They thanked Ms. Harris and hugged her before introducing themselves to Din. They suggested that Ms. Harris could watch little Grogu before and after school. That way Grogu could play with Delia and Quinton as they likely were going to go to the same elementary school. The family departed leaving Din, Grogu, Johnnie Mae and Sierra.

Din suggested he could wash the dishes and Sierra rejected his help because he was a guest. Technically she was too, but she’d be living here. It was decided that he would wash and she would dry.

Grogu found a comfy spot on the couch as Ms. Harris sat next to him. “Little G, we’re going to watch a classic me and you. Look at this.” She turned on ‘Winnie the Pooh.’ Ms. Harris started singing along and Grogu joined in, bobbing their heads side to side.

Din’s hands were covered in soapy water, scrubbing the dishes before rising them and handing them to Sierra to dry. They chatted about the merits of Pooh and Piglet’s adventures. They laughed that before the episode was over, both Ms. Harris and Grogu were asleep on the couch and arm wrapped around each other. Din snapped a few pictures with his phone. Sierra hesitated, but asked if he could send her the pictures he took. Din was going to suggest that she take her own, but understood that she was asking for his number without saying it. Trying to be subtle. That’s cute of her. He agreed and send her the pictures, the small smile on her face felt like a part of a curtain had been pulled back.

Back at the sink, dishes slowly made their way into the cabinets. Sierra’s sleeves were getting wet and it made her arms itchy so she pulled them up, and reached for the plate Din was handing and she took the plate. She started drying and looked down at her forearms, some blood had soaked through. Panic set in for the second time today, though not from fear of her safety. Instead it was that the easy laughter would stop, there was nothing funny about her arms or what had made them that way. Din stopped washing and wiped his wet hands on his pants.

“You don’t have to tell me how it happened. Just…are you safe Sierra? Is the person who did that after you?” Keeping his voice flat was the only way not to yell, he shouldn’t yell at her. It would be misdirected. It looked like they were fresh maybe even today. She looked up at him and the brightness was gone from them, only panic. Is that why she came here? How fall far had she driven? She did seem to have a lot of stuff in her car.

“No. Thankfully I’ll never see him again. He has no reason to find me. That ended six months ago. I’m…” Closing her eyes, she swallowed the saliva building in her throat. “Divorced. Six months ago. He was…just the worst. Could you just…”

“I’m not going to act like I didn’t see them. If don’t want me to say anything it’s not mine to tell. But does she know?” His eyes shift over to the couch before refocusing on her. He’d rather know this bastard’s name, just in case but she didn’t say it and now isn’t the time to press. He hesitated, but placed a hand between her shoulder blades. Sierra flinched but when Din began to pull his arm back she turned and reached for his hand.

“Please don’t do that. I’m not fragile. I know you’re not going to do anything I’m sor-“

“Don’t apologize. I shouldn’t have touched-“

“Then you don’t say sorry either.” Sighing, she looked down at his hand and held it as to shake it. “Let’s start over. Please Din and I’ll tell her. I kinda have to with these.” A weak smile matched a soft chuckle. He missed the smile he’d seen when he sent her pictures a few minutes ago. Shaking her hand, he nodded.

“I won’t apologize then, but I disagree, you are fragile. It’s a fact for now. You won’t always be, but it’s okay.” He didn’t release her hand. “Is it alright if I hug you and then take a look at your arms? You have more bandages?” Sierra nods and doesn’t speak, she folds her arms around Din’s torso. His hands returned to her back, rubbing it slowly and started stepping side to side, rocking her. Short whimpers came from her, quieting as the pair swayed.

“I have more in the car, but I can take care of that. Just a little more. A little while longer.” Sierra was conflicted in asking him to continue to hold her, but she didn’t want to let go. She felt it was selfish to ask this of him upon just meeting him today. He just moved in with his son no less. That’s plenty on his plate.

Din didn’t answer her. He didn’t release her either. They continued to remain in each other’s arms as Johnnie Mae peered over her shoulder from the couch. Now truly aware of why her niece has said she’s not ready, she wouldn’t push Sierra.

Neither of them knew how long they stayed in the kitchen embracing but Sierra let go first citing that Din should get little Grogu home, thanking him. He told her it wasn’t an issue and told her he was going to bring in her bags before leaving. She blinked and Ms. Harris told him the keys were near the door. The older woman shot a look at Sierra warning her to stay put. After bringing them in, Din said goodnight and scooped up Grogu taking him home.

A pivotal first impression had been made.

Chapter One. Chapter Three

Space Buddies: @readingiskeepingmegoing @604to647 @syd-djarin @yorksgirl

@harriedandharassed @survivingandenduring @drawingdroid @katw474 @trulybetty

@bitchwitch1981 @soft-girl-musings @tinytinymenace @djarinmuse @littlemisspascal

#pedro pascal characters #fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #din djarin #the mandalorian #starwars #din djarin fanfiction #din Djarin modern AU #din djarin x ofc #din djarin and grogu #Nerdie fic #this is the neighborhood din

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identifying-cars-in-posts · 1 year

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I feel like it might just be me but I figured you be one of the best people to ask.

Does it seem like modern car design is a lot more homogeneous than it used to be? Like I feel like each brand had such a distinct feel to them up until like the mid 2000's and then everyone just decided to make "aerodynamic blob" their only model. I know there's some nuance and tbh some electric cars are getting pretty whacky (the ioniq 5 looks kinda neat ) but overall they just feel so meh

absolutely yes. i alluded to this a while back and someone responded with something along the lines of “everyone is beautiful and nobody is sexy but for cars” in relation to contemporary car design and i agree fully. they look good, but they all look the same and none of them look particularly interesting. they look like they’re algorithmically produced to have the most efficiently inoffensive look. i miss when cars were weird. i need nissan to bring back whatever energy they had goin on with the cube and the juke and the murano crosscabriolet. resuscitate saturn and let them keep looking weird as shit. at least they were unique to look at and had personality

#not a car id #asks #moth-unit-00

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ariendiel · 1 year

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Hiii girl!! I’m here again with my random bothers lol Not sure if you’ve been asked this before but what kind of vehicles do you think our S2 boys drive? As an American, I know Europeans have a different perspective with cars so I’m clueless with this one 😂 Miss seeing you in my dashboard btw 💛

Hi! I love random questions, and this is such a fun one 👀 I think a lot of the Islanders that live in cities don't have a car or maybe not even a driver's license as it's just not necessary, but I'll still do my best (added some of the girls as well) 🤍

Bobby – Mini Cooper

In this exact colour, and he's named it as he does with most inanimate objects that he owns.

Carl – Tesla Roadster

I mean, it just makes sense? It looks so futuristic, while also being electric and modern.

Chelsea – Nissan cube

It's cute and small, but with enough space so that she can fill it with stuff for her clients etc.

Gary – Kia Ceed

Because it used to be Top Gear's reasonably priced car, and I bet he used to *love* that show

Hannah – Fiat 500

This one was easy. Girl so drives a baby blue fiat 500 everywhere, and it smells like sweet perfume x horse.

Henrik – 1990 Land Rover Defender

A sensible car that he's had for ages and will probably have until it literally falls apart.

Hope – Jaguar F-type

Hope's in the club of people I don't think drives at the moment, as public transport is great where she lives. But I think she'll eventually get a car, and it'll be bright and fancy.

Ibrahim – Mustang

Specifically in this blue. Don't know why, but I think he'd want an American(tm) car that looks like it could be a transformer.

Lottie – Vintage funeral car

I don't think she drives, but if she did? This one.

Lucas – Aston Martin DB5

I think he usually takes his motorcycle, but since he was a kid he always dreamed about owning a James Bond car, so now he's got this classic.

Marisol – Polestar

Doesn't currently own a car I think, as she takes public transport, but if she does get a car it'll be electric and sleek.

Noah – Volkswagen Touran

He doesn't have a car at the moment I imagine, but if he did? This one aka one the first cars that came up when I searched for "sensible family cars" lol

Priya – Maserati GranTurismo

I don't think she drives, but if she did she'd accept nothing less than this.

Rocco – Volkswagen Westfalia

Obviously.

And that's it! Not sure about the others, but feel free to come with suggestions in the comments

#litg bobby #litg carl #litg chelsea #litg gary #litg hannah #litg hope #litg henrik #litg rahim #litg ibrahim #litg lottie #litg lucas #litg marisol #litg noah #litg priya #litg rocco #litg s2 #litg #love island the game #ask

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420katsu · 2 months

Text

Here is a 4 house "apartment" complex with a community shared gym. This build is on a 50 x 40 lot and costs a whopping $412,519 (Half of the budget is the fake cars from LorySims). I use this build with the For Rent pack and create 4 units for different households to rent.

CC used for this build are listed here + links:

LorySims Toyota Supra 2020

LorySims Nissan GTR 2011

LorySims Nissan Juke 2020

Yuka_Tanga Mazda MX5 1994

Harrie Octave Part 2

Pralinesims Bathroom Tiles

Vesta livingroom furniture by Severinka – TSR

WondyMoon Sodium Tabletop Plant

[zyx] Random Paintings

Felixandre x Harrie BAYSIC

Ung999 Bathroom Pisces - Folded Towel V2

House of Harlix - JARDANE

[WondyMoon] Rhenium Plant

RedHeadSims - Nintendo Switch

SIXAM CC - Kessler Kitchen

Pierisim MCM part 1,2,4 & 5

Pierisim DAVID APARTMENT part 1 & 2

SIMcredible - Dexter Backpack

House of Harlix - BAFROOM

[Onyxium] Lisbon Toy Box

House of Harlix - LIVIN' RUM

WondyMoon Sauveli Bathroom Decorations

HARRIE - Coastal part 3

Police Office Decor by soloriya

Sims House - Wall Art Abstract Leaves

Severinka - Virgina Hallway

illogicalsims DHD Mini Addon

Maxsus Store - Dining Room Kit

House of Harlix - TINY TWAVELLERS

Harrie - Coastal part 1

Bathroom Pack by Max20

littledica - The Sims 4 Rise&Grind Coffee House

Harrie - Coastal part 4

Harrie - Brutalist Bathroom

BuffSumm -The Laundry - Decoration - Towel v4

Shoutout to all the CC creators!

Packs used listed here (there's a lot sorry): If you don't have some/all of these packs I downloaded all mine for free, so shout out to Anadius!

For Rent

Horse Ranch

Growing Together

Highschool Years

Snowy Escape

Eco Lifestyle

Discover University

Island Living

Get Famous

Cats & Dogs

City Living

Get Together

Get To Work

My Wedding Stories

Dream Home Decorator

Journey To Batuu

Strangerville

Jungle Adventure

Parenthood

Vampires

Dine Out

Spa Day

Outdoor Retreat

Home Chef Hustle

Tiny Living

Moschino

Laundry Day

Fitness

Bowling Night

Vintage Glamour

Backyard Stuff

Romantic Garden

Cool Kitchen

Perfect Patio

Party Essentials

Modern Luxe

Book Nook

Basement Treasures

Bathroom Clutter

Everyday Clutter

Pastel Pop

Desert Luxe

Décor To The Max

Blooming Rooms

Industrial Loft

Download is available on my patreon! <333

#simblr #sims 4 #sims 4 cas #sims 4 cc #sims 4 custom content #sims 4 gameplay #sims 4 maxis match #sims 4 screenshots #sims 4 story #the sims cc #simsbuild #ts4build #thesims4build

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melyonza · 2 years

Text

Vehicle mode ideas for future Terrans.

We know that the Terrans are a species created in the Earthspark series. Where we see the Terrans learning to choose their vehicle mode

In case new Terrans are born in the future, I started to think of some vehicle ideas that I would like to see, and in this case they are from discarded prototype cars, that is, humanity scrapped the manufacturing project. But perhaps they can serve as inspiration for the designs of the new Terrans.

They probably think that it is impossible for it to happen, but remember that Twtich based its design on a drone created by Wheeljack, that is, a vehicle mode that cannot be found anywhere else.

Here are a few examples of vehicles that could be used as inspiration for Transformers Earthspark:

L’Automodule

Created in the 70s in Europe by the French engineer Jean-Pierre Ponthieu. This is a spherical vehicle for 3 people and with 4 wheels mounted on a kind of hydraulic arms. The variable base of the tires allowed the L'Automodule to adjust its height to travel on a variety of terrains.

Considered at the time an absurd idea, today thanks to technological advances this idea could be used in the series with an improved design.

I think this form would be ideal for Jawbreaker but time will tell.

Land Glider

Scrapped by the Nissan company in 2009. It was an electric car for 2 people, with the passenger seat behind the driver. Unlike other vehicles, its steering system would be similar to that of a motorcycle.

Rinspeed X Dream

First revealed in 1999 at the Geneva Auto Show, Switzerland, this silver car is like no other. The concept is simple: it's a convertible sport pickup but it has a hydraulic crane at the rear capable of deploying a hovercraft.

While it sounds ridiculous, the hovercraft could probably be redesigned for the series to make it more modern and useful for the Terran or the Maltos, especially the kids.

Also, it wouldn't be the first time that the Transformers have that mini-vehicle design, an example is Soundwave with his cassettes. So I guess this vehicle could be used for a Terran.

Fuya-Jo

Debuting at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1999, the Fuya-Jo was Honda's attempt to diversify corporate-looking vehicles. It was basically designed to be a party car.

The low floor made it easy to get in, plus it was stain-proof and slip-resistant. The interior was designed with the necessary features to accommodate a DJ in the rear and the doors had huge speakers to ensure a party.

I imagine it for a party Terran and that he can compete with Soundwave using his speakers to combat the sonic waves of the decepticon.

Although I could also use him for the design of the forgotten transformer called Blaster.

Italdesign Machimoto

First shown in Turin in 1986. It was a combination between a motorcycle and a car built on the basis of a Volkswagen Golf. Passengers sit motorcycle-style and the vehicle can even be expanded to increase capacity to accommodate up to 9 people.

Its steering mode can be chosen by the driver, that is, he could choose whether to use a steering wheel or a motorcycle handlebar.

Another unique aspect of this vehicle is that it could be expanded further to have more space, that is, add more seats.

PS: This idea was shared because there is a rumor that we will see more Terrans in the series, so there are more chances of seeing new vehicle mode designs like what happened with Hashtag and Nightshade.

#transformers #automobiles #automoviles #transformers earthspark

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modern-nissan · 1 year

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ausetkmt · 9 months

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On the morning of June 12, 2022, Ángela Astudillo, then a law student in her mid-20s, grabbed her water bottle and hopped into her red Nissan Juke. The co-founder of Dress Desert, or Desierto Vestido, a textile recycling advocacy nonprofit, and the daughter of tree farmers, Astudillo lives in a gated apartment complex in Alto Hospicio, a dusty city at the edge of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, with her husband, daughter, bunny, and three aquatic turtles.

Exiting the compound, Astudillo pinched the wheel, pulled over next to a car on the side of the road, and greeted Bárbara Pino, a fashion professor, and three of her students, who were waiting inside.

They headed toward a mountain of sand known as El Paso de la Mula. Less than a mile from her home, squinting into the distance, Astudillo saw a thread of smoke rising from its direction. With her in the lead, the two vehicles caravanned toward the dune, the site of the second-largest clothes pile in the world.

As they got closer to El Paso de La Mula, the thin trail of smoke had expanded into a huge black cloud. Astudillo stopped the car and texted the academics behind her.

It looks like it’s on fire. Hopefully, it’s not there. :( :( :(

She then dialed them directly and asked, “Do you still want to go?”

Pino, director of Santiago’s Fashion System Observatory at Universidad Diego Portales, had planned this trip for months. Astudillo had volunteered to be their guide. The mound of discarded fabric in the middle of the Atacama weighed an estimated 11,000 to 59,000 tons, equivalent to one or two times the Brooklyn Bridge.

By the time the team reached the gates of El Paso de la Mula, more than half of the clothes pile was on fire. Smoke obscured everything, hanging like an opaque black curtain. Municipal authorities turned the group away, forbidding them to stay on the premises. But Astudillo knew the landscape, so she directed the team to the dune’s far side, where access was still unimpeded.

There, the students surveyed the inferno. It was “like a war,” Pino said. She felt waves of heat. Black smoke unspooled from the burning clothes. The air was dense and hard to breathe. Smoke coated the back of their throats and clogged their nostrils with the acrid smell of melting plastic. They covered their faces, trying not to breathe it in. Then the group heard a series of loud pops as mini explosions burst from within the vast expanse of burning garments.

Despite the danger, Pino and her students rummaged, pulling out specimens to examine from among unburned portions of the pile. On prior visits to the clothes dump, Astudillo had uncovered clothing produced by the world’s most well-known brands: Nautica, Adidas, Wrangler, Old Navy, H&M, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Forever 21, Zara, Banana Republic. Store tags still dangled from many of her findings. The clothes had come to the Atacama from Europe, the United States, Korea, and Japan. Now, as Astudillo began taking pictures and uploading them to Instagram, Pino wandered the mound, horrified and fascinated by the grotesque volume and variety of apparel: ski jackets, ball gowns, bathing suits. She plucked out a rhinestone-encrusted platform stiletto in perfect condition. She crouched to search for its match, but the wind was getting stronger. If it shifted, the team realized, they’d be trapped in the spreading fire.

For 14 years, no rain has fallen in Alto Hospicio or the surrounding Atacama Desert region. Those dry conditions, coupled with the nonbiodegradable, predominantly synthetic, petroleum-derived fibers that modern clothes are made with, meant that the pile never shrank. Instead, for more than two decades, it grew — metastasized — with every discarded, imported item that was added.

In 2021, six months prior to the fire, a photographer from Agence France Presse, Martín Bernetti, captured a bird’s-eye image of this sprawling mound of apparel, essentially an oil slick, strewn across the edge of the Atacama desert.

The aerial image was picked up by news outlets across the globe, from the front page of the New York Postto the BBC, and continues to circulate today. But the mountain of clothes depicted by that 2021 drone photo is utterly gone. As Astudillo, Pino, and the three students witnessed, and unwittingly tasted: The blaze tore through the pile, throwing black plumes of toxic ash into the air.

The town of Alto Hospicio sits on a cliff above the Pacific Ocean, a bedroom community for the seaside vacation city of Iquique below. Imagine if Atlantic City in New Jersey were simultaneously hemmed in and backed by a high Nevada plateau, and if the two locales were connected by a two-lane switchback highway.

Each day in Iquique’s port, giant cranes pluck containers full of discarded clothing from the decks of ships and deposit them onto flatbed trucks. No one really knows exactly how much clothing passes through the port every year; estimates range from 60,000 to 44 million tons. Next, they head to the nearby Free Trade Zone, known locally as “Zofri,” where trailers back into the warehouses of 52 used-clothes importers and forklift operators transfer sealed bales of clothing, or fardos, inside.

Chile is the biggest importer of secondhand clothing in South America, and between 2020 and 2021 it was the fastest-growing importer of used clothing in the world. The port of Iquique is an established tax-free zone, incentivizing this booming industry of castaway textiles.

From Zofri, bales of clothing are sold, uninspected, to merchants betting that at least some of the items inside are sales-worthy. “When you buy, you are buying with your eyes closed,” one former merchant said. Sometimes 80 percent of the garments in a bale are usable. Sometimes the opposite is true. Because bales are so cheap, however, most merchants need only sell 40 percent to turn a profit.

According to the global environmental advocacy group Ekō (formerly known as SumofUS), an estimated 85 percent of the used clothing imported into Iquique remains unsold. Chilean federal law states it’s illegal to dispose of textiles.

Considered Iquique’s backyard, Alto Hospicio is one of the poorest cities in Chile, widely known as a place to abandon pets and dump trash. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the small desert town is where more than a dozen teenage girls mysteriously vanished, until their apprehended killer led authorities to bodies buried in desert graves.

In 2001, Manuela Medina*, a former gardener, saw an opportunity in Iquique’s growing textile abundance. Relocating to Alto Hospicio, she established an unauthorized compound on government lands at the base of El Paso de la Mula, the huge sand dune at the far side of an unregulated shantytown. Every few days, she hired a fletero — a driver with a jalopy — to travel the switchback roads, out of the brown dunes of Alto Hospicio, to arrive in the colorful oceanside city of Iquique, which sits a thousand miles north of the country’s capital, Santiago.

Near the dock where cranes unload massive container ships, inside Iquique’s free trade zone, Medina ventured into the contiguous warehouses, asking secondhand clothing importers, “Do you have any garbage?”

Back at her compound, Medina unloaded her wares in piles on the ground where she had the luxury of storing them indefinitely — the Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on Earth, meaning items don’t undergo normal degradation from elements like rain. Here, Medina sold her piles to merchants and others for $10 each.

As more and more bales of ropa americana, or secondhand clothes, arrived in Iquique, the clothes flooded importers’ warehouses and overflowed vendors’ stalls in open air markets, including La Quebradilla — one of the largest open air markets in South America, located just a few miles from Medina’s unauthorized compound.

Soon,importers and secondhand merchants began to deliver surplus used clothes directly to Medina. Fed by daily truck deliveries, and then by multiple daily tractor trailer load deliveries, Medina’s pile grew.

By 2020, Medina’s gargantuan desert dump had become an open secret in Chile, stretching across dozens of acres. Others followed her model, creating mini-dumps across the desert and along roadsides, but Medina’s pile remained the largest.

On March 29, 2022, Paulin Silva, an environmental lawyer, stood before the Primer Tribunal Ambiental de Antofagasta, a regional tribunal in northern Chile that specializes in resolving environmental issues within its jurisdiction. She was presenting a lawsuit, brought on behalf of herself as a resident of Iquique, against the municipality and the federal Chilean government for their inaction over the sprawling, unregulated clothes dumps. For her submission of evidence, she asked the tribunal to join her in touring the mound of clothing.

For weeks, her informal team of supporters (a geographer, her sister, and her brother-in-law) had been documenting the problem, joking among themselves, “In which dump are we going to party tonight?”

Since obtaining her law degree, Silva has prosecuted a handful of environmental cases, but this one was personal, and she felt empowered to tackle it: “I have the education; I am a lawyer; I can do something,” she said. She’d grown up in northern Chile, a pencil thin country bordered by the Pacific Ocean. Her father is from Alto Hospicio and her mother is from Iquique. At 35, she’s several years older than Astudillo, the co-founder of the nonprofit Dress Desert, whom Silva asked to be a witness for the case. When Silva was a child, she observed people dumping clothes everywhere — the streets, yards, and city squares. Because this was the only place she knew for so much of her life, she thought, “It’s normal for people to live with … garbage accumulated around them.”

This local “clothes-blindness” was documented by Astudillo’s colleague, Bastián Barria, an engineering student and her co-founder of Dress Desert. In November 2020, he and others conducted a survey to ascertain local attitudes regarding the clothing waste. Of the almost 400 people in Alto Hospicio he surveyed, representing less than 1 percent of the town’s population, more than half did not think there was any issue.

When Silva was 18, she moved a thousand miles south, to Valparaiso in central Chile, to study law and that was where she remained until the pandemic, when she returned home. That’s when she realized the dump situation had worsened. Exponentially.

During the decades between Silva’s girlhood and today, clothing production worldwide doubled, while utilization — the number of times an item of clothing is worn before it is thrown away — declined by 36 percent. Countries like Chile, Haiti, and Uganda became depositories for fast fashion discards. In 2021 alone, Chile imported more than 700,000 tons of new and used clothing — the weight equivalent of 70 Eiffel Towers.

“Even if we stopped clothing production throughout the world tonight,” said Francisca Gajardo, an Iquique-born fashion designer, “we still have more garments than we need or that the Earth can safely hold. It won’t go away nicely, and we’re not stopping today.”

Nine days after the giant fires, around 4 p.m., Silva was having a light meal, the Chilean equivalent of afternoon tea known as once (pronounced “on-say”), with her family in northern Chile. A few days prior, the Primer Tribunal Ambiental de Antofagasta had informed her it was ready to view her case evidence by touring the clothes pile in person. Silva took out her phone to share the good news on Instagram with Desierto Vestido, but before she could, she saw the images of the burning clothes Desierto Vestido had just uploaded and shared.

Silva sprang from her chair to process what was happening to the evidence in her case just a few miles away. She suspected why the court had been willing to view the landfill: “Because obviously the matter was burned,” she told Grist.

While no official cause of the fires has ever been reported, local residents claim it began late on Saturday night or in the early hours of Sunday. Days later, toxic air still clung to the area. Astudillo, who visited the site regularly, described the pile as “volcanic” — with clothes smoldering under the sand, venting smoke full of textile chemicals from synthetic materials. She warned, “You can’t be outside for long.”

In the days following the fire, on June 22, instead of leading the tour of the prosecutorial evidence, Silva filed a statement to the Primer Tribunal Ambiental de Antofagasta: “With sadness and shame I inform you that 11,000 tons of clothes in the textile dump were burned.”

Although Paulin provided the court with Dress Desert’s smartphone video recordings of the clothes in flames, the defense argued that the Instagram account where they’d posted the videos could not be verified and confirmed. Lacking a certifiable timestamp, the films were inadmissible.

One year later, in August 2023, the Primer Tribunal Ambiental de Antofagasta called a trial hearing so that all parties involved in the case — the Consejo de Defensa del Estado, the body that judicially represents the state in Chile, the municipality of Alto Hospicio, and Silva — could present evidence.

During the hearing, the Mayor at Alto Hospicio, Patricio Ferreira, said that one of his priorities is to “transform this problem into an opportunity to generate employment.” He alluded to discussions he had with European businessmen to explore initiatives related to recycling.

Silva got people to testify in her favor, activists and academics who have given statements to different media outlets about the environmental problem generated by the textile landfill in the Chilean desert. But on the day of the hearing, none of them arrived.

“At the end of the day, in practice, I am alone in this action,” she said.

Chile’s government recently voted to adopt recycling measures that make certain producers accountable for their waste. Known as the extended producer responsibility law, or REP using its Spanish acronym, the legislation passed in 2016 and took effect in January 2023. Currently, Chilean companies that make tires and packaging (such as bags, plastics, paper or cardboard, cans and glass) must comply.

Eventually, according to the Ministry of the Environment, Chile intends to incorporate clothing and textiles as a priority product into the REP law.

However, in the case of clothes, many describe the REP as a “paper solution” that lacks tangible enforcement, said Pino, from the Universidad Diego Portales.

In parallel, the Ministry of the Environment is developing a circular economy strategy for textile waste. Unlike the REP, the agency crafts public policy for the public and private sectors to prevent overproduction.

The ministry has been holding workshops and conversations to collect input from stakeholders, including academics, business executives, retailers and nonprofit leaders. It is also tabulating the results of a preliminary survey on consumer clothes-buying habits. The details of this circular economy strategy is expected to be published in March this year.

At the minister’s invitation, Pino has shared her fashion expertise — both in the markets and in the desert — with the group. “These two things are wonderful initiatives,” she said about both efforts, but she lamented that they fail to address the issue of used clothes.

A decade ago, when the REP was first being discussed, Denisse Morán, president of the Tarapacá Recyclers and the head of ServiREC, a recycling cooperative that operates within Iquique’s free trade zone, sought out her local representative to request that the law apply to both clothing producers and clothing importers.

“Oh, because you are from Iquique?” she recalled him asking her.

“Not only because I am from Iquique,” she replied, “but because we all wear clothes.”

For years, many residents in Alto Hospicio saw the piles of textiles as more of an opportunity than an eyesore or environmental threat, something that supported the local economy.

When Jazmín Yañez arrived in town from southern Chile in 2018 almost penniless and on the brink of homelessness, for example, someone gave her a few cast-off garments and household garbage — from towels, kitchen implements to furniture — to sell. Ever since, Yañez, now 28, has waged a zealous campaign to salvage, fix, and reutilize all “waste” materials. She operates an informal store from the kitchen of her house called Stop Recicla: “Your trash is my treasure,” where she sells, exchanges, and gifts items such as rugs, used clothing, school supplies, costumes, and electronics to impoverished mothers, like she once was.

It’s this trash/treasure duality that kept Astudillo and other locals from viewing the region’s booming used clothing trade as a problem. But six months before the fires, in January 2022, Nathalia Tavolieri, a Brazilian journalist, invited Astudillo to El Paso de La Mula, where she encountered Manuela Medina’s mountain for the first time.

Astudillo had seen numerous clothing dumps strewn and mounded throughout the desert, but nothing as big as this immense tangle of blouses and pants. “It was terrible,” she said, weeping as she recalled her first visit. “Maybe if I had been older, maybe I could have done more things [to stop this from happening].”

The experience galvanized her. She had already co-founded her nonprofit Dress Desert, or Desierto Vestido, two years before, to raise awareness and creatively respond to the country’s burgeoning waste clothing issue. As part of the project’s efforts, she and 20 other members host workshops and conversations. They upcycle castaway materials into new garments and craft household items. Seeing the vastness of Medina’s clothing pile, Astudillo stepped up her resolve, because “many people don’t see — or don’t want to see.”

“It was very, very hard,” she said, “to know that we live in a place that is so polluted and damaged by everyone’s waste.” Several months later, Astudillo brought Gajardo, the clothes designer and a fellow Iquiquean, to the dump, and gained an ally in her efforts. Despite growing up and shopping at the region’s numerous outdoor secondhand clothes markets, Gajardo was appalled by the scope of the waste. She developed rashes from rummaging among the fabrics.

“The fact that we have a desert, the fact that there’s a place to receive this, doesn’t mean that the place has to become the dump of the world,” she said. Since then, Gajardo’s conviction to never design clothes from virgin materials has deepened. Additionally, through her brand You Are the New Generation, she offers workshops in reusing garments, and visited Kansas City, Missouri, last year through the U.S. State Department’s Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative to teach people to make new clothes by harvesting old ones.

Other entrepreneurs have attempted to turn the clothes problem into revenue, but have faced a series of setbacks.

Franklin Zepeda is a celebrated Chilean entrepreneur who toured Europe’s textile recycling plants before returning to the region in 2013 to establish Ecofibre, now known as Procitex. (Its name is an acronym meaning Proceso Circular en Textil in Spanish).

With seed funding from CORFO, the Chilean economic development agency, and later from private capital, Zepeda was able to route textiles imported into Iquique to his plant, where they were disassembled, shredded, doused with flame retardant, and transformed into insulation panels. Zepeda got praise for this work in several major international news outlets, but he shuttered his plant in Alto Hospicio in 2021 because of unfavorable economics, including the taxes on shipping the insulation panels to other regions of the country.

Dario Blanco, manager of the ZOFRI User Association AG (AUZ), a trade association that brings together businessmen from the Iquique free zone, believes that the solution to the region’s problem of discarded clothing is out there — it will just take the right company and policies. And there are plenty of entrepreneurs, fashion designers, and environmentalists working on the issue of textile waste, both in Chile and internationally.

As Bloomberg reported in May,New York, California, Sweden, and the Netherlands are developing legislation similar to Chile’s extended producer responsibility law that went into effect this year, mandating that the fashion industry fund recycling programs via tariffs calibrated to the quantity of garments produced.

In order to help New York City uphold its existing law limiting or forbidding textiles in the waste stream, FabScrap, a nonprofit founded in 2016 by a former New York Department of Sanitation worker, receives 7,000 pounds of pre-consumer textile waste each week. Sorted by volunteers, the nonsynthetic scrap items are sent to a New Jersey facility that shreds the material, producing “shoddy,” a stuffing used to fill punching bags, sofas, and soft toys.

A Czech company called RETEX has been attempting to bring its fabric-macerating technology to Alto Hospicio. Blanco says that in exchange for securing a contract with Chile, the company promised to hire local workers. But, Blanco admitted, negotiations like these have fallen through in the past. For example, he said, a Spain-based company, Egreen, planned to open a fabric-waste processing plant, but the deal was scrapped late last year.

Read Next: How clothing forms the fabric of society, both past and future

The governor’s sustainability adviser at the Regional Government of Tarapaca, Pablo Zambra, recently formed a 25-member committee that includes stakeholders such as Astudillo and Barria from Dress Desert and Morán, the president of the Tarapacá Recyclers, to publicize economic incentives for circular economy initiatives. Collectively, they hope RETEX will succeed in doing what Zepeda’s company failed to do: turn a profit. As of this writing, no importers are involved.

Meanwhile, every day, container ships continue to offload more cargo.

In the fall of 2022, Alto Hospicio’s mayor, Ferreira, acknowledged the unsolved problem but blamed clothing manufacturers, citing a “lack of global awareness of ethical responsibility.”

“Our land has been sacrificed,” he said.

Pino agrees that the fashion industry and its consumers are culpable. “We have to worry about the complete cycle: before, during, and after our clothes,” she wrote in an editorial published in 2021.

She believes a more comprehensive solution is necessary, including regulating the entry of textile materials to Chile, educating consumers about prolonging garments’ lives, promoting Chile’s homegrown fashion industry, and supporting research to design new uses for fabric waste.

Ecocitex, founded in 2020 by engineer Rosario Hevia in Santiago, has sprung up as another Chilean company addressing a surfeit of garments.

Ecocitex operates in a manner contrary to the country’s organized and informal secondhand clothes markets. It invites people to recyclehigh-quality clothing or pay$1.50 per kilogram to leave poor quality clothing and walk away empty-handed.

During the pandemic, Andrea Espinoza Pérez, a civil industrial engineer at the University of Santiago, initiated a study on the ecological impacts of projects like Ecocitex. She wanted to know: Did factory-processed, used clothing produce fewer emissions than the original clothing manufacturing process? With data provided by Ecocitex’s founder Hevia, scientists determined that the clothes deconstruction processis effective because it keeps waste clothes out of landfills, and it replaces the demand for virgin materials. However, the study found that Ecocitex’s procedure is highly energy-intensive — using about 73 percent of the energy required to produce the same product from raw materials.

Meanwhile, neither Zepeda’s Procitex nor Hevia’s Ecocitex in Chile, nor Fabscrap’s efforts in New York and Philadelphia, have matched the direct profitability of Medina’s now-defunct business. (Medina has started a new business storing tires.) In fact, all have relied heavily on a variety of underwriting measures, including subsidies, nonprofit funding, subscriptions, or volunteer labor to generate their products.

In recent years, Zepeda has earned his living as an employee of Chile’s largest retailer, CENCOSUD. He collects surplus clothes donated by customers, and produces insulation panels for buildings that are sold by the same retailer.

As for Ecocitex, in June, the business caught fire and the building was destroyed. The cause is still under investigation. Undeterred, Hevia has launched a campaign to rebuild. Meanwhile, she is raising funds by selling blankets made from recycled fibers to a mining company.

By last January, the height of the Chilean summer, the gigantic, unsightly clothes dump at El Paso de la Mula, the one Agence France Presse had shown the world, was nowhere to be found.

All that remained was a smattering of ashes and the tread marks of bulldozers. Here and there, across Medina’s unofficial backyard, small piles of garments peeked out of the sand dunes. But according to municipal officials, dumping and burning continues. Rey, an indigent man who lives by the side of a desert road in a blue and yellow tent emblazoned with “National Geographic,” attests that he and others accept money from nonprofit refuse-disposal contractors or freelance truckers in exchange for setting fires to whatever waste is discharged from a truck. This way, the trucker can keep more of his hauling profits, which would otherwise be whittled down by the official dump fees.

Astudillo says that beyond the limits of Manuela’s dune, there are as many as 200 micro-garbage dumps, and consequently, miles and miles of ashes in the desert — not just scattered over the ground, but also in the air. She told Grist in late December that this is an everyday thing. “You go out to buy bread and you smell the burning smell. You smell the materials that make up the clothes: oil and plastic. After 5 in the afternoon, I no longer let my 7-year-old daughter leave the apartment, and I close the windows to prevent smoke from coming in.” She also confirmed the abandoning of clothes continues: “They throw it away, they burn it immediately.”

On December 12, the Primer Tribunal Ambiental de Antofagasta issued its final ruling in the case with Silva, commissioning a unit of experts to carry out an on-site report on the accumulation of textile waste in different areas of Alto Hospicio, and to propose a solution to the accumulation of waste.

The municipality of Alto Hospicio, which claims it does not have the workforce to adequately address the problem, has also installed nearly 100 cameras along the main roads as a means of tracking polluters, and has begun doling out fines as high as $350 for illegal dumping. So far, trucks have been apprehended transporting domestic and industrial garbage, as well as bulky items such as mattresses, washing machines, and furniture.

Drone footage recorded by Cheng Hwa, one of Pino’s students, the day of the June 2022 fires captures the municipality fighting what was in essence an oil fire. Hwa, who grew up in Iquique and now works in tech for the hospitality industry, had long been aware of the desert dumps but didn’t comprehend the magnitude until he witnessed them at close range.

He’s haunted by what his drone footage made visible. “How the desert of sand starts to turn into a desert of clothes,” he said. “It has no limit; there is no closure … Clothes begin to appear on the ground until the horizon is completely covered.”

In Iquique, he often glances up toward the high plateau of Alto Hospicio. “You can’t see the dump, but [you can see] the column of smoke on days that [clothes] burn. That cloud of smoke lets you know … It makes [the issue] visible on a day-to-day basis.”

Thirty miles south of Iquique, toward the city’s main airport, on her family’s farm, Astudillo and her parents drop pieces of used clothing on the ground, but in a purposeful way. Over the past 20 years, Astudillo’s father has experimented with growing trees in the infertile, saline soils. Many of his efforts failed until he began using certain fabrics to mulch his trees. This improves the quality of the soil, enabling it to retain moisture. For the past year, Astudillo has been working with one of the Zofri importers, who asked to remain anonymous. She consults with his staff about the clothing bales and recommends ways of sorting the material into specific categories based on fiber content, some of which she collects personally. Those items — a pair of cotton shorts, a T-shirt, a blouse — become mulch for a pine and eucalyptus forest rising in the desert.

Recently, as Astudillo was leaving the farm, she stashed a few perennials in her truck and drove them to Manuela’s compound in Paso de La Mula. Just beyond Medina’s courtyard, where sky- blackening fires had once burned, Astudillo troweled a small hole for the plants. As she dug, she dislodged several odd socks and a faded blue sweatshirt — discarded clothes that had survived the fires, but were buried by bulldozers.

Astudillo filled the hole, amending the desert sand with compost and garden soil. “For me it’s like a Band-Aid for a wound that is so big in that place,” she said. Then she tucked in cardinal flowers — a native plant whose petals resemble shooting flames.

Editor’s note: During visits to her compound in Alto Hospicio, Manuela, the owner of the secondhand clothing dump, told Grist reporters her name was Manuela Medina. However, other outlets have used the surname Olivos. Her legal name is Manuela de Los Angeles Medina Olivos.

#A Mountain of Used Clothes Appeared in Chile’s Desert Then It Went Up in Flames #fabric #eco waste #El Paso de La Mula #clothing dump #recycled clothing #recycling #Chile

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