#much bigger than the global drop

[reasonsforhope]

"Colombia’s congress has voted to change a law that allowed minors to get married with parental consent.

The proposal would make the minimum age for marriage 18, and seeks to protect the rights and development opportunities for minors. It still must be signed into law by President Gustavo Petro.

Currently, the country’s civil code allows person as young as 14 years old to get married with parental consent.

The initial proposal to reform the law – presented in 2023 – used the slogan “they’re girls, not wives” and aimed to prevent young girls from being forced to marry, to be subject to different forms of violence and to miss out on education and development opportunities.

“Minors are not sexual objects, they’re girls,” congresswoman Clara López Obregón said in a statement after the proposal was greenlit.

Child marriage remains a widespread practice worldwide and affects around 12 million girls per year, according to the UN’s agency for children, UNICEF.

But there’s been a global drop in child marriages over the past few years, according to the agency’s statistics. “Ten years ago, one in four young women aged 20 to 24 was married as a child. Today that number has fallen to one in five,” UNICEF said.

In Latin America, poverty is the main factor leading to minors getting married, according to UNICEF."

[txttletale]

Saw a tweet that said something around:

"cannot emphasize enough how horrid chatgpt is, y'all. it's depleting our global power & water supply, stopping us from thinking or writing critically, plagiarizing human artists. today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools. this isn't a world we deserve"

I've seen some of your AI posts and they seem nuanced, but how would you respond do this? Cause it seems fairly-on point and like the crux of most worries. Sorry if this is a troublesome ask, just trying to learn so any input would be appreciated.

i would simply respond that almost none of that is true.

'depleting the global power and water supply'

something i've seen making the roudns on tumblr is that chatgpt queries use 3 watt-hours per query. wow, that sounds like a lot, especially with all the articles emphasizing that this is ten times as much as google search. let's check some other very common power uses:

running a microwave for ten minutes is 133 watt-hours

gaming on your ps5 for an hour is 200 watt-hours

watching an hour of netflix is 800 watt-hours

and those are just domestic consumer electricty uses!

a single streetlight's typical operation 1.2 kilowatt-hours a day (or 1200 watt-hours)

a digital billboard being on for an hour is 4.7 kilowatt-hours (or 4700 watt-hours)

i think i've proved my point, so let's move on to the bigger picture: there are estimates that AI is going to cause datacenters to double or even triple in power consumption in the next year or two! damn that sounds scary. hey, how significant as a percentage of global power consumption are datecenters?

1-1.5%.

ah. well. nevertheless!

what about that water? yeah, datacenters use a lot of water for cooling. 1.7 billion gallons (microsoft's usage figure for 2021) is a lot of water! of course, when you look at those huge and scary numbers, there's some important context missing. it's not like that water is shipped to venus: some of it is evaporated and the rest is generally recycled in cooling towers. also, not all of the water used is potable--some datacenters cool themselves with filtered wastewater.

most importantly, this number is for all data centers. there's no good way to separate the 'AI' out for that, except to make educated guesses based on power consumption and percentage changes. that water figure isn't all attributable to AI, plenty of it is necessary to simply run regular web servers.

but sure, just taking that number in isolation, i think we can all broadly agree that it's bad that, for example, people are being asked to reduce their household water usage while google waltzes in and takes billions of gallons from those same public reservoirs.

but again, let's put this in perspective: in 2017, coca cola used 289 billion liters of water--that's 7 billion gallons! bayer (formerly monsanto) in 2018 used 124 million cubic meters--that's 32 billion gallons!

so, like. yeah, AI uses electricity, and water, to do a bunch of stuff that is basically silly and frivolous, and that is broadly speaking, as someone who likes living on a planet that is less than 30% on fire, bad. but if you look at the overall numbers involved it is a miniscule drop in the ocean! it is a functional irrelevance! it is not in any way 'depleting' anything!

'stopping us from thinking or writing critically'

this is the same old reactionary canard we hear over and over again in different forms. when was this mythic golden age when everyone was thinking and writing critically? surely we have all heard these same complaints about tiktok, about phones, about the internet itself? if we had been around a few hundred years earlier, we could have heard that "The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth."

it is a reactionary narrative of societal degeneration with no basis in anything. yes, it is very funny that laywers have lost the bar for trusting chatgpt to cite cases for them. but if you think that chatgpt somehow prevented them from thinking critically about its output, you're accusing the tail of wagging the dog.

nobody who says shit like "oh wow chatgpt can write every novel and movie now. yiou can just ask chatgpt to give you opinions and ideas and then use them its so great" was, like, sitting in the symposium debating the nature of the sublime before chatgpt released. there is no 'decay', there is no 'decline'. you should be suspicious of those narratives wherever you see them, especially if you are inclined to agree!

plagiarizing human artists

nah. i've been over this ad infinitum--nothing 'AI art' does could be considered plagiarism without a definition so preposterously expansive that it would curtail huge swathes of human creative expression.

AI art models do not contain or reproduce any images. the result of them being trained on images is a very very complex statistical model that contains a lot of large-scale statistical data about all those images put together (and no data about any of those individual images).

to draw a very tortured comparison, imagine you had a great idea for how to make the next Great American Painting. you loaded up a big file of every norman rockwell painting, and you made a gigantic excel spreadsheet. in this spreadsheet you noticed how regularly elements recurred: in each cell you would have something like "naturalistic lighting" or "sexually unawakened farmers" and the % of times it appears in his paintings. from this, you then drew links between these cells--what % of paintings containing sexually unawakened farmers also contained naturalistic lighting? what % also contained a white guy?

then, if you told someone else with moderately competent skill at painting to use your excel spreadsheet to generate a Great American Painting, you would likely end up with something that is recognizably similar to a Norman Rockwell painting: but any charge of 'plagiarism' would be absolutely fucking absurd!

this is a gross oversimplification, of course, but it is much closer to how AI art works than the 'collage machine' description most people who are all het up about plagiarism talk about--and if it were a collage machine, it would still not be plagiarising because collages aren't plagiarism.

(for a better and smarter explanation of the process from soneone who actually understands it check out this great twitter thread by @reachartwork)

today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools

i mean, this is true! AI tools are definitely going to destroy livelihoods. they will increase productivty for skilled writers and artists who learn to use them, which will immiserate those jobs--they will outright replace a lot of artists and writers for whom quality is not actually important to the work they do (this has already essentially happened to the SEO slop website industry and is in the process of happening to stock images).

jobs in, for example, product support are being cut for chatgpt. and that sucks for everyone involved. but this isn't some unique evil of chatgpt or machine learning, this is just the effect that technological innovation has on industries under capitalism!

there are plenty of innovations that wiped out other job sectors overnight. the camera was disastrous for portrait artists. the spinning jenny was famously disastrous for the hand-textile workers from which the luddites drew their ranks. retail work was hit hard by self-checkout machines. this is the shape of every single innovation that can increase productivity, as marx explains in wage labour and capital:

“The greater division of labour enables one labourer to accomplish the work of five, 10, or 20 labourers; it therefore increases competition among the labourers fivefold, tenfold, or twentyfold. The labourers compete not only by selling themselves one cheaper than the other, but also by one doing the work of five, 10, or 20; and they are forced to compete in this manner by the division of labour, which is introduced and steadily improved by capital. Furthermore, to the same degree in which the division of labour increases, is the labour simplified. The special skill of the labourer becomes worthless. He becomes transformed into a simple monotonous force of production, with neither physical nor mental elasticity. His work becomes accessible to all; therefore competitors press upon him from all sides. Moreover, it must be remembered that the more simple, the more easily learned the work is, so much the less is its cost to production, the expense of its acquisition, and so much the lower must the wages sink – for, like the price of any other commodity, they are determined by the cost of production. Therefore, in the same manner in which labour becomes more unsatisfactory, more repulsive, do competition increase and wages decrease”

this is the process by which every technological advancement is used to increase the domination of the owning class over the working class. not due to some inherent flaw or malice of the technology itself, but due to the material realtions of production.

so again the overarching point is that none of this is uniquely symptomatic of AI art or whatever ever most recent technological innovation. it is symptomatic of capitalism. we remember the luddites primarily for failing and not accomplishing anything of meaning.

if you think it's bad that this new technology is being used with no consideration for the planet, for social good, for the flourishing of human beings, then i agree with you! but then your problem shouldn't be with the technology--it should be with the economic system under which its use is controlled and dictated by the bourgeoisie.

[nichuuu]

Polyamorous - 1: Own

Word count: 4k+ Thank you to @gangplanksorenji for proofreading & editing and @capslocked for the wonderful tips. Luv you guys < 3

Fuck. 

The expletive leaves your mouth right as Hanni’s tongue makes contact against the base of your shaft. She slides up, licking you up from base to tip. It was inane of you to think that the first thing a global icon like Pham Hanni would want to do after a long week was to take a shower, and you only realised this a second after Hanni dropped down to her knees and undid the string of your sweatpants, the former happening a meagre few seconds after she’d entered. Now here she is, her skin still glistening with sweat from her dance practice earlier as she lathers your shaft in spit. 

“Hello.” A simple greeting contrasts the intricate movements of her tongue, the one that swirled and curled around your shaft, slathering every inch of it in glossy, gooey spit. Her voice, her tone—every vowel, every consonant, every word (down to the last syllable), drips with lust. Well she’s needy today, you muse internally. As soon as she stepped through your apartment door, her hands were already on your waistband and chest, forcing the door shut with your body. The wantonness was ever so apparent in those eyes—the ones that looked up at you as she took her time to tease you. Through the jolts of pleasure that shoot up your spine, you manage a strained hey. 

A playful hand snakes up, grabs you by the balls. Her eyes gleam. 

“You’re full,” she comments. The hand begins a gentle massage of your low hanging fruits. “Been holding it in? To unload inside of you, is what you really want to say. Instead, what comes out is just a simple, raspy yep. The electricity in your veins overrides your brain’s functions, rendering you unable to translate your thoughts into words. The source of this problem is, of course, Hanni, but it's not as if she already knew the effect she had on you; the give away was the look of mischief on her face as her small hand wraps itself around your shaft, pumping with slow, teasing strokes as she let her breath linger around the head of your dick. The next question comes after she delivers a small kiss to your member: How long?

As her lips wrap themselves around you, your hands balled into fists against the door. She expects an answer out of you, but there isn’t much room for thinking when there’s a tight seal around your twitching shaft. For a moment, you think about just grabbing on tight to her skull and fucking her face right there and there. Why couldn’t you? Your shaft was already halfway into her mouth, your hands just centimetres away from her head, a simple motion—Reach forward, grip, thrust—was all you needed. But the control that Hanni has over you liquifies that desire, melting it into nothing but a puddle of a notion in your mind. 

“A-A week,” you miraculously manage to reply. Her eyebrows raise, your shaft sliding right back out of her mouth. The twitching meat rests against her cheek as she stares up at you. 

“A week?” Her lips pout as she speaks. You want those pouty, plump lips to shower your cock with kisses so badly. “You must have,” she slaps your head against the soft flesh on her face, “quite the load for me then.”

If she keeps this up, you have a feeling that the load she’ll get will be a lot bigger than what she expected. Of course, you keep this to yourself. You find it congenial to watch as she pumps your cock with your head resting against her cheek. 

“You know what I really want?” It’s a rhetorical question from her really. You knew exactly what she expected from the moment your dick came out of your underwear; I wanna bounce on your dick, I wanna take you in my ass, I want you to fuck me—All variations of the simple message: Fucking ravish me with your cock.

You know what she wanted, down to the last minute detail. Yet you shake your head. This is more than a simple test of your knowledge on her—it’s a game, a game to see who will follow who’s lead. Right now, it is Hanni who is in charge, this unspoken agreement made between the both of you from the moment she took your cock in her mouth. 

She rises from her knees, takes a step closer. Whispers, “I want you to fucking fill me.”

That’s a new one.

In your opinion, the cussing in the sentence was a bit excessive, but it doesn’t take away from the sheer intensity of the lust that bleeds through her words. Then she drags you by the cock, callous in her mannerism as she pulls you towards the couch. Barely ten minutes after she entered your apartment and she’s already getting right to it, and you are genuinely surprised that she didn’t begin her attempts to draw a thick load out of you at the door.

She tosses you onto the couch, then quickly takes her position between your legs. You have to remind yourself to breathe when those lips take you back into her hot, wet mouth; you force yourself to not break right there and then as she draws upwards with her lips and lets them slide over the head of your shaft. She was playing with you, toying with the rock hard meat between your legs to let the blood flow to all the right parts of your body. All you can do is let out a soft drawl—Fuck Hanni—as she slowly kisses up your shaft, doing what you wished she would do while you were still standing at the door. Her lips make contact with your dick more times than you can count. Her eyes sparkle, the corners of her lips upturned into an innocent smile. She’s intentionally breathing a little harder than usual, letting her breath tingle the head of your cock, 

The wink she gives you tells you that she’s about to take you for a ride. She doesn’t disappoint, the groan that rips through your throat being the sordid tell that she’s off to a great start. She lets her lips travel down your length—further and further till she realises that she can’t go down anymore, retraces her steps, goes down again. All of this is rinsed and repeated (and it isn’t done slowly, mind you) as drool accumulates on your cock, the fervent gurgling that emulates from the depths of Hanni’s throat telling you that she’s perfectly fine the way she is. 

Then she adds her hand, fingers twisting around your slick dick in a corkscrew motion: pumping, stroking, fucking milking you to the best of her ability. She’s pushing you past your limits, overwhelming you with all the sensations she would wreak upon you with what she had available. Your first thought was to grab her by the wrist, pump your shaft even faster with those slender fingers, but then she reads your mind, doing it for you better and faster than you could ever imagine. It slides up and down, up and down together with her lips, spit smiling out between the gaps between her fingers. 

Hanni had given you head before (not that it did anything to blunt the utter pleasure that she was able to impart on your body) and it was always done in earnest. She makes it seem so effortless, smooth in her movements and consistent in speed. Many nights you’d receive head from her just like this, but the sight of that jet-black lock of hair bobbing between your legs, the sound of the lewd gurgling and slurping, the feel of that tight seal around your cock that was her lips… None of it ever got old. 

She kept it so fresh, so… Well, not exactly clean.

Your hand finds itself on the top of her head, the familiar motion of pushing down on it each time she bottoms out executed as you always did. Now, it should be noted that Hanni’s a very thorough person. When she cleans, she cleans thoroughly. When she examines, she examines thoroughly. And now, when she sucks dick, she sucks it thoroughly. Her mouth was warm, tight and so very wet. It slicked your shaft with spit, leaving a glistening trail that was repainted and retraced with even more of her saliva, plump pink lips cramming in every bit of cock that she could fit into that hot little mouth, and by god could take you in. 

Like you said—She was so very thorough. 

Her eyes—those dark brown orbs that reflected nothing but lust—stay trained on you, beseeching you to keep your attention on her as she slobbered on your shaft. Her tongue cushions your base, the top of her mouth directing your cock into her throat. She moves deftly, taking you in and out of that mouth with measure, fervent and pace. Hungry is your initial word to describe her, but then it quickly changes to needy, then to fervour. Finally, you settle on Impatient, because that was the best way to describe her style. 

She was always impatient. Her style was never a gradual ramp up in pace, but rather “fast and stay fast”. The word “”slow” didn’t exist in Hanni’s books, nor did the word “patience” (though you personally wished that they would sometimes). Every motion had to be done quickly and swiftly. There was no room for child’s play. Yes, she could tease. Yes, she could take her time if she really wanted to.  But there really was no need for all of that at the moment, not when she’s bobbing her head between your legs with such gusto.

The black locks bob rhythmically between your spread thighs (there’s no cessation to this allegro) as she takes your shaft in and out of the wet, warm cavern of her mouth, her tongue swirling around the sensitive flesh in random patterns, each entry and exit into her lips sending spikes of pleasure from your crotch to the rest of your body. Every so often, a moan would emit from the depths of her throat, sending pleasant vibrations down your shaft and up your spine. You grunted, groaned and sighed; she gurgled, gagged (every now and then) and hummed. The electricity that courses throughout your body is breathtaking. Now you start to think of a word to describe this feeling.

Heaven. Yeah, that was the word to describe it.

You never realise that your eyes closed themselves, but they snap open when your shaft leaves her mouth with a slick, wet pop. For a second, you thought that it was over. Then you realise that you’re far from callow when it comes to dealing with Hanni, and that she’s probably about to escalate things to another level. You’re only proven right when she wipes the spit from the corners of her mouth and rises to her feet. 

As she strips, you start to take back what you said about Hanni being impatient. To be clear, she was impatient a good majority of the time. Now however, she seemed to be in the mood for a little bit of slow play. Her baggy shirt slowly rises, the hem going past her waist, then her belly button—continues painfully slowly till you see the elastic band of the sports bra that she has on. Then with a grin, she slings it off her body. Her pants are next, displacing in the opposite direction as her shirt at the same, painfully slow rate. Bit by bit, layer by layer, her garments slowly come undone. It drove you to the brink of delarity. If it were up to you, you’d have stripped her, got her on her back with her knees against her shoulders and railed her till you both came in a sweaty heap–and she would’ve let you do just that, but you didn’t.

With a very slight sashay in her hips, she saunters over. She straddles you, thighs on either side of you as she settles down. Your cock nestled snugly in the space between those plump asscheeks, the ones that you lightly spank, then lightly squeeze. Now the formalities come back into play; her lips hover over yours for a brief second before they gently drop to meet yours. She kisses you, softly, gently. For a moment (and just that moment), you forget that she was creating a sloppy mess between your legs just mere minutes ago.

Her hand—It snakes through your hair, slides down to your face, cups if for a second. Then the other slithers up your chest, stopping right at the collar before it gently tugs at your shirt—Take it off, she’s telling you. 

Your hand—Lingers on the firm flesh of her asscheeks for just a moment more, then slides over to the hem of your shirt. The other one slips in, hoisting the thin fabric up and over your head. Then they skate up her sweat-slicked, tight body. They travel up in the same direction and slow fashion of her shirt just moments ago: slowly rising, going past her waist, then her belly button–Continues painfully slowly till you reach those soft, ample mounds that sit proudly atop of her chest. 

Then they squeeze.

Her body—It jolts as her breasts are given the attention they long for, a soft sigh leaving her lips. It leans forward ever so slightly, receives kisses from you on the jaw, then the neck. As it flushes against you, she whispers into your ear, “I’ve been waiting for this…”

Your thumb finds the sensitive nub on her opening. “Oh yea?”

“In the dorm…” she trails off for a moment when your thumb begins to rub her clit in small, circular motions, but then she gets back on track, “I always think about riding you till my legs give out.”

You could picture it clearly in your head: Hanni, curled up under her covers in the dorm, her hand between her flushed thighs and another over her mouth as she fingers herself. She moans your name silently, careful not to disturb the others with her raunchy fantasies. 

“What else do you think about?” You’re curious to know more.  

She falls silent for a moment, enjoying the feeling of your thumb entertaining her clit for just a second, then she says, you.

There it is: the shameless confession. For the record, you knew that she’d get naughty with herself while she was away from you, she sent you videos—that you could only view once—of her playing with herself in the bathtub of her dorm before. Sometimes, an exclusive video comes in; her leg would be on the bathroom counter, her phone in her right hand while the left works itself between her legs. Quietly and just for the camera, she’d moan your name, and it turns you the fuck on.

“And what exactly do you think of when you think of me?” you press. 

Another moment of silence. The admissions spew forth: I think about you folding me in half and fucking me. I think about you bending me over the kitchen counter. I think about you pinning me against the wall. I think about—

She would’ve gone on forever if it didn’t shut her up with a kiss. You consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, she imagines all of this while dancing on stage in front of millions of fans, or when she’s in the practice studio learning the steps to the next big hit that they’re about to comeback with. The endless possibilities deluge your mind as you start bringing your kisses down to her jaw, then to her neck.

It's when your lips reach her collar bone that Hanni finally decides to let those hands snake down and grasp on to your cock. It’s when your sigh washes up against her skin that she raises herself up on her knees. She lines you up with her slit, letting you feel the heat of her womanhood as she gently grinds her pussy against the head.

When she sinks down, you feel like blacking out. The tightness, the heat… Fuck, you couldn’t even get started on how wet she is. Your fingers dig into the soft flesh of her small waist, a sharp exhale forced out of your lungs like a bullet; a guttural moan for Hanni. You’re in perdition barely a second after you get inside of her, and she’s sure as hell not giving you time to adjust. 

Then she’s riding you, fast and hard. Her hands grip your shoulders, her head tilted back. She barely gave you time to adjust to the tightness of the flesh around your cock before she’s moaning like her life depends on it. Your name—amongst the expletives and exclamations that tumble out of her mouth—rings clear in your ears, her arms wrapping around the back of your neck, holding you in place like her frenzied movements would make you start moving away. 

Then for the next few minutes, it’s just fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck that punctuates each entrance, the same lips that delivered the sloppiest of blowjobs just minutes prior parting to let such filth fly forth without much of a filter. She crushes those same lips with yours, kissing you vehemently, hungrily. You think for a second about involving some tongue, but that plan quickly goes to waste when her lips tear away from yours to let out another stream of gasps. 

She was so hot, so utterly tight and wet around your cock, her hips and thighs moving with such perfect rhythm that it was quite literally breath stealing. In the sheer intensity of it all, your hands stayed on her hips, but she grasps your left hand and brings it to a needy, bouncing breast, her fingers pulling yours around her tight nipple, closing around it and squeezing it, clutching the needy, wanton flesh and eliciting a sigh from her lips. She brings your other hand to her face, making you cup it in a tender, ginger fashion that heavily juxtaposes the raw sex that was happening in the midst of it. In a way, it was cute, but only a little. 

In the midst of the overwhelming intensity, you find her right breast, catch it mid bounce and send it straight into your mouth. What left Hanni’s mouth was not exactly a moan, but rather a mewl, one that was high-pitched and so erotic that you wished that you were recording this. Moan louder for me, Hanni is what you wish you could tell her while your mouth sucks on her tit, but alas, one mouth can only handle one thing at a time. You settle with the sighs and cries that make her sweaty chest vibrate ever so slightly, content with the way her voice was getting more and more hoarse from moaning by the second. 

She grips you–roughly–on the back of your head, fingernails digging into your skull as she forces your face deeper into her cute little chest. She’s trying desperately, licentiously, to push her mound deeper into your mouth. Then the other hand slinked to your neck, pushing it towards her while she let an even louder cry rip through the air. You ponder on being playful–deliver a small nibble to the flesh that had been impelled into your jaws, or maybe suck on it hard enough to mark it. But when the oh fuck I want to touch myself leaves her mouth, you decide to divert your attention to back to her clit. Your thumb takes its original position, the pad of your finger swirling it in just the right way to make the flesh around you tighten.

When your jaw gets tired, you let the glistening tit pop out of your mouth. “Fuck Hanni,” you decide to quip, “you’re taking this cock so well.”

Her eyes tear away from the ceiling—which she’d been staring at for the past minute or so—to lock on you. Then in a raspy, airy drawl, she replies—This pussy was made to take your cock.

She could be quippy when she wanted to, and she could definitely be overtly lecherous when she desired to. In this case, she’s a combination of both. The slight tinge of haughtiness in her voice tells you: This cock is mine and mine alone, and I’m gonna ride it till I cum. Then there was the generous dash of want in that honey-like voice that says: I love this cock, I love the way it fills me up and stretches me out. It’s gonna make me cum so fucking hard. 

A woman of multitudes is what she is, and sex only brings out a few of her many layers. As she bounces atop of you, taking your cock in and out of her hot, slick pussy while she moans and gasps and sighs, you realise how content you are with seeing this wanton, needy and dominant side of her. And as she starts going down on you harder and faster, you come to realise how hot this whole situation is. 

Cause picture it this way: A cute, bubbly and pretty Hanni, bouncing relentlessly on your rock hard length that’s slicked with her spit and juices, moaning fervently as she rides you like you’re one of her sex toys, her tits bouncing atop her chest and her thighs quivering around you. It was one of those nights that she felt like being in control, one of those nights where she really just wanted to ride out all of her pent up stress and frustration as she cries, I own this fucking cock. You were more than happy to be her outlet. 

“Oh fuck… Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.” That’s all she Hanni can manage as she starts going even faster, crashing down on you even harder. Her hands slip off your body, reaching behind her back and grabbing on to her ankles. She’s relying on her knees to hoist herself up now, and counting on your hands to hold her steady while she fucks herself on your cock. You’re relying on your self control to hold you back from cumming at the titillating sight. 

Her body—curves deliciously in this new position, her flat, toned tummy arching towards you and her head tipping back just slightly past her feet. She feels tighter, hotter, (and somehow) wetter around your cock, soft ‘ah’s floating out from that pretty little mouth. She’s playing with you once more, testing the waters to see what it’ll take to drive you feral. “You like my body don’t you? You’re… You’re so fucking turned on by this fucking body, right?”

“God yes.” 

“You wanna fucking ruin it so bad, huh?” She’s looking you dead in the eye. “Wanna get me on my back,” she bends back further, “and shove this thick fucking cock into this tight fuckdoll don’t you?”

You contemplate just hoisting her up into the air and making her ride you while you are standing, picturing the sight of her face dropping and rising in front of your face as the full length of your shaft spears deep into her tight and wet walls. But when… 

“But when” what?

Up till this point, there was always something stopping you from doing as you pleased. Now however, you couldn’t find anything to stop you from succumbing to your desires–and so you do, scooping your hands beneath that plump ass and rising to your feet. 

“H-Hey!” she yelps in surprise as she’s hoisted into the air. She was a lot heavier than she looked

“What’s wrong?” you challenged, adjusting your grip on her small frame to offer her better support. “Can’t own this cock while you’re standing up?”

She recognises the challenge, straightens her back before you. 

“I can own this cock in any position.” Her tone is unwavering, her ass shifting slightly in your grasp as her legs wrap themselves around you. A dark look crosses her face in the form of a bright grin. With the assistance of gravity, she lets herself fall slightly, rock hard meat driving straight up her hot, wet cunt. The wide-eyed, mouth agape complexion of surprise takes her face as she’s filled to the brim. A shrill, breathy cry shoots out from her chest; it’s music to your ears as you start thrusting upwards and into her waiting walls, the same ones that squeeze down harder around you as the head of your cock starts to knock against her cervix. 

Fuck, is all she can manage to get out before she’s throwing herself down onto your cock. She takes you in—down to the hilt, balls deep—hard and fast, not sparing a single second to catch her breath. Her moans are fragmented, split into different tones as she rises and falls on your dick—sometimes passionate and shrill, other times deep and guttural. She’s maximising her output energy for more pleasure, converting that pleasure into energy that powers the sinful rock of her hips each time she takes you in. Then she’s screaming: Oh god, Oh my fucking god, crying: You’re so deep. I can’t fucking take it!, gasping: You’re gonna–I’m gonna–Oh fuck I’m…

But it’s the declaration that really gets you, the one where she screams into your ear: Oh fuck, I’m cumming!

Just like that, Pham Hanni comes undone as she cums. The orgasm that cuts through her body is terrifyingly violent, but oh-so-wonderful to watch as tight, hot flesh spasms around your cock and that pretty little body convulses in your arms. For beautiful seconds, she is utterly overwhelmed by the sensations, until finally she slumps forward in your arms, breathing heavily. You take that moment of vulnerability to get her on her back, spreading her flushed, trembling thighs and pumping into her body once again. She lets you do that—not that she could fight it in her current state—as she wraps her arms back around your neck and whispers, “Be good… Fill me.”

Then nothing else matters for the next few minutes. Only Hanni’s body exists in the long minutes where you fervently pump your shaft between her legs. She looks so good beneath you, her pussy swallowing your cock whole and her tits spilling out through the gaps of your fingers because of how hard you’re holding on to them. Through her soft, horse moans, she eggs you on: Come on baby, give me that nice big load… Cum in me then fuck it deep inside of me. You know you want to. 

Then she pulls you close, breathing on your ear, imploring you, “Please, please, please cum inside your little fuckdoll… I want it so bad.”

And so you do—burying yourself as deep inside her as you can before finally letting the pleasure overwhelm you. Your cock pulsates as it fills with semen before spurting thick, hot ropes of cum deep inside Hanni’s tight, grasping pussy. She lets a soft moan escape her lips with each spurt, as though welcoming it, as though each one were something she long wanted and needed.

After you empty yourself inside her you withdraw your still stiff, cum-slick cock halfway out of her body before thrusting back in, letting your cock stir the load inside her, saturating her walls, making her already drenched and dripping pussy even more of a sloppy mess. She lets little sighs of pleasure and contentment leave her lips as you take your liberties with her hole, relishing the warm wetness of your cum inside her as you take your last few thrusts into her body, pushing the thick load that she’d been waiting for deep into her. 

You only ever stop moving after your arms give out. You crash atop of her, your ragged breaths hardly in sync with hers as you feel the soreness begin to creep up from your feet to your thighs. Softly, gently, she nuzzles herself into the crook of your neck and breathes, thank you.

You raise your head just enough so that your mouth is next to her ear. “Welcome back.”

[ihaveforgortoomany]

So Willow's Trailer has dropped now:

Mini discussion (ill have a bigger post later) which is global friendly as I only talk about the Uluru Games.

I theorise that London is currently been reversed to the 1950s, after the 1966 Storm (similar to how Semmelweis visited Vienna in her anecdote at a point later than 1914 after it experienced a Storm)

Her trailer seemingly confirms that the Uluru Games are probably still being primarily held in Australia, but preliminaries and qualifiers are held in different countries. The way Tooth Fairy words it sounds like she is but one of the London qualifiers for the floor ritualist event (the equivalent of ballet Im assuming).

As Merui mentioned 1952 around this time saw the conception of the Paralympic Games, so our focus is not on the Olympic games conception or revitalisation (1.5 Uluru Games with Ulu and Spathodea) but the arcanist equivalent of the Paralympic Games.

(Although TF and Z talk about the Games very much in the present, when even is this? Probably after 1.9 and 1.5 but Im not sure)

(Before someone says wait a sec what about Darley Clatter they let a literal walking toy horse participate in 1.5 how is Willow with a prosthetic leg special? - likely the difference is that her accident led to her leg being impaired, Im assuming its amputed? Whereas Darley Clatter is more or less "whole", idk if Im wording it correctly)

Willow's surname O'Hagen sounds Irish? I would like to see if ever she interacts with Druvis at some point.

[hwaightme]

Your fan, Mingi (part 1)

(pt.2 here) (your fan ml)

🎤 pairing: mingi x rapper!reader 🎤 genre: slice of life, mix of fluff and angst, music and the industry, slow burn 🎤 summary: a bulletpoint-style wordstream of what it would be like if mingi was stanning you 🎤 wordcount: 3.4k 🎤 warnings/tags: language, reader is an underground rapper, mingi is totally starstruck, producer hongjoong energy, activism, criticism of music industry, dark side of idol life, hongjoong-ah instead of hyung, yunho is supportive friend (TM), mingi being a rebel, sneaking out, potential rap battles incoming, reader with that mic drop, let me know if anything else 🎤 a/n: Hello there <3 thank you very much for your support, feedback and appreciation, it means the world to me! Here is the next installation of the "Your fan, _____" series, for none other than Song Mingi!! Any reblogs, asks and love is appreciated!

You were an established independent artist, having made a name for yourself among the real veterans and rap appreciators.

Years of tracks, freestyles and collaborations that you had published or appeared in under your belt, you were dead set on making a permanent home in the underground scene, deeming it to be the place where real art was made.

As such, you had openly turned down offers to get signed to bigger labels, spitting on their fineprint.

Besides, after trying to connect with you over music, they had always immediately veered off the trail to discuss image, visuals and something or other about them helping you develop your own style.

Blocked without a second thought. What bullshit was this? You? Not having your own style? Please.

You made it this far riding your own wave, making your own connections, and you sure as hell were not about to sell that off to entertainment industry vultures.

It was the managers, the bureaucrats that you did not want to face. The casting directors with ulterior motives.

You were an activist for creative freedom and helping new artists break through properly. You were vocal about these issues, both in general and through music.

You had first hand experience with how hard it was to become an idol, having actually been cast as a young teen and being a trainee for 2 years, but it turned out that the agency was... questionable, to say the least. And thus your independent journey started, and your doubt of any larger music-related organisations grew.

And the last thing you wanted was to, in front of all those people you were fighting for, who trusted you and saw you as a role model, support those who had questionable intentions. No.

You were a wildfire, spinning things around, remixing reality into raw and emotional lines, your only goal being that at least one person out there could find comfort in your songs.

Fully aware of the responsibility you had as an artist, you breathed your work and never backed down until just conditions for all collaborators, agents and assistants were met.

Though this was honourable, you became notoriously difficult to work with, often deemed to be a pain in the ass.

You would only shrug at that - it wasn't your fault that the music industry was full of self-centred manipulators. Your agent kept assuring you that you were exaggerating, but who said that a nice person couldn't have malicious intent?

Maybe you were overly cautious at times, seeing as you did not enjoy letting people close to you.

Were you alone? No, not at all. You had strong friendships with some legends, attended major events, hell, even gave whole press conferences and readily used the media to spread your message.

You even had some friends who were idols (albeit few), and connected with them deeply over shared passions and visions for the future.

But your soul? Strictly off limits.

Though you did, when the moment called for it, elaborate on one verse or other, either giving it a relatable backstory or linking it to a national or global issue, not once did you bare all.

That was not your style.

Neither was it your fans'.

They did not need to be spoon-fed pretentious monologues to understand.

Your fans were a real unit, many connecting with each other and becoming life-long friends. Since you never tried to gather the bigger venues, even if you were touring the country, you had a chance to interact with them. Reassure them. Connect with them. Human to human.

You understood each other. No accessories. That was the most powerful way to bare all.

It was through these concerts that Mingi had gotten to know you, and soon enough you had become his idol, for the lack of a better word, and muse.

One time he had snuck out of the dorms late at night having heard that a new artist he had heard and liked the sound of was going to be opening for another artist.

By sheer luck he managed to swipe the last ticket available, hours before the concert, and was off, having only alerted Yunho that he was "going out".

The event was held at a club, which technically was forbidden for him, but he was feeling rebellious and wanted to immerse himself in the underground atmosphere for once.

He had to squeeze past many bodies to take his place by a pillar off to the left. There were no seats, as he had expected so he perched himself against the structure, waiting.

The opening act was pretty good, as he had hoped, with the teenage boy on stage having a confident flow. There was that yearning in his eyes, hope for something bigger, like this venue was not enough, but maybe with some time and practice that dream could be achieved.

Mingi was about to leave, turning to try and snake through the crowd that was practically pressing him into the pillar, but their screaming that turned into a hypnotic chant, cult-like made him freeze and turn back.

And there you were. In all your glory. Sitting on a high stool that you had dragged after yourself onto the stage, a wired microphone in your hands that were folded in prayer as you bowed your head repeatedly to the audience.

A single spotlight illuminated your form, clad in pitch black industrial-style trousers, chunky sneakers and matching jacket that was zipped up half-way revealing a black tank top loosely hanging off you.

The aura that spread from the stage into the room was unlike anything he had ever felt before, and it only got stronger as you began to perform.

And not just run through the lines as if you had somewhere better to be, no, you were living through the song, riding the beat, eyes ablaze.

The song you had started with, (which he later found out was something you had written in response to some hate your fanbase had gotten), called "Welcome home, to the show", started with a low hum. It reminded him of a rumbling thunder, your voice distorted by intentionally added digital noise.

Then, you broke into a quiet mutter, each phrase so perfectly constructed that it was sending wave after wave, and he was being swept in. He looked around and noticed that all present were whispering along with you, eyes not leaving the stage a single time.

He was also in shock at how few phones there were, being used to seeing thousands.

And after a few more bars, all hell broke loose, and he was ready to rip his heart out and give it to you then and there.

You were captivating, your message and vision resonating beyond the walls of this club. Connecting philosophy, ethics, even politics and popular culture, you were the truth.

You were alive and resurrected those who had broken away from routine to see you.

The concert was as though you were telling a gripping saga, in one breath. No wonder your fans were near mad towards the end, while you finished up with a 'classic' of yours.

The audience begged for an encore.

You were smiling wide, pure ecstasy on your face like you were just coming down from a high. The jacket had long been forgotten, and you were currently wiping sweat off your tattooed arms.

And just when your fans began to quieten down, you raised your mic, and in one motion summoned a beat.

Another roar erupted as you admired your followers. Mingi swore you locked eyes with him, piercing his body.

There it was. A freestyle where you managed to incorporate an impossible flow change, and personally addressed some of the fans you knew personally and spotted in the audience.

After the performance, there was a near total flip in your demeanour. Mingi observed as you settled on one of the seats at the bar, changed in a different top and now sporting a beanie

Both you and your fans were beyond respectful, sharing embraces and kind words like you were old friends. Maybe you were, he still had so much to learn. You looked at each one of them like they were your entire world, recalling and asking about personal troubles they had shared with you before.

Mingi was starstruck, he wanted to learn what you knew. Learn what drove you. Learn how to be like you, even just a fraction.

And that was how you became his definition of an artist, rapper and role model

Needless to say, after the concert he could not just ‘stay the same’.

The members noticed that Mingi was walking around the dorm, travelling and even taking breaks between schedules with earphones in and eyes glued to his screen.

He had also grown to prefer being immersed in his thoughts, more often observing chaos among the members rather than participating in it.

The collection of changes began to alarm the others, as they had no clue what the source of this Mingi switch up was.

All except Yunho, that was. The lad quickly put two and two together, since he was in the know about Mingi's escape to attend a concert, and was homie goals to not spill this information to the others as there had not been any press or spottings.

So during a day when the group was miraculously free, Yunho approached Mingi to go for a drive together, and the latter not suspecting the interrogation incoming, agreed.

While they were navigating around the city, eventually settling for their final destination to be a quick visit to Bucheon, Yunho, passively, in an even tone, inquired:

"So what happened that night?"

Fully not expecting Mingi to BURST. The boy was literally bouncing in his seat recounting the experience, to the point where Yunho had to use "the mom hand" to try calming his best friend.

After agreeing to not act like a car crash risk, Mingi delved into explaining why exactly he had been acting the way he was, happily answering any and all questions that came his way.

Really, he was waiting to fanboy all this time.

He took out his phone and attempted to show Yunho some screenshots and notes, once again forgetting that road safety was a thing that existed.

"Man you really want to Tokyo Drift off this bridge huh?"

So he spent the rest of the drive reading out extensive analysis he had conducted, picking apart your rap and diving into what everything could potentially mean, how the rhyme and structure worked and how he could potentially take some patterns to experiment with.

Yunho was in awe - he could not get enough of professional Mingi, so he was more than happy to hear that he found such a good role model.

It was that sparkle in his friends eyes, the grin that would not leave his face as he talked about a rare video he found on YouTube of you freestyling during a radio show, his pride as he exclaimed that he had found some of your earliest recordings in the depths of SoundCloud, diving into babbling away about how your sound, though had always been unique, had indeed evolved over time.

To Mingi, you were a daring character, not caring for the blueprints or trends, and inspired him to work harder than ever before, hone his skills further so that he could enjoy the music as much as you did. He wanted to live every line.

He already had the ability to feel the music coursing through his body, and move impeccably to every beat, but there was something indescribable about how you created your creations, something unreachable, that drew Mingi in.

He desperately wanted to crack the code - maybe in a way of natural competition, as he was also in the music industry, hell, also a rapper, but when he tried that theory on it did not sit well. Mingi did not see himself ever having even an echo of a thought to surpass you or wrong you – to him, you were in your own unique realm.

The young man had nothing but respect for you and wanted to simply translate that into a deeper understanding of your skills. He knew far too well just how hard it was to make performances like yours appear effortless.

As he listened and listened to studio recordings and compared them to the live versions he had replaying in his head, he noticed how you had even changed up the emotional landscape for the specific audience. There was no limit to how much variability there was.

Seeing how he had won over Yunho and even got him into being one of your listeners, albeit more casual, Mingi became even more bold about his passion for your music and his professional growth.

So, day in, day out he had begun to learn some of your rap, slowing it down, trying to repeat it after you. He had attempted to record himself on his phone to review progress, and then, for the final challenge… he needed Hongjoong’s help.

Upon hearing that the younger member wanted to go to the recording studio Hongjoong quite literally shot up from his sprawled position on the floor, dropping his paint brushes (much to Seonghwa’s rising discontent) and rushing to get ready.

He knew that when inspiration struck, it was a race against time to try recording anything.

Once they were in the studio and Hongjoong checked that all equipment worked, Mingi decided to sit him down and elaborate on what he wanted to do and why.

What he did not expect, however, was for Hongjoong to have a smug expression on his face, leaning back as if he… knew something. And knew it so well that it seemed he could maybe even fact check the information he was being given.

Soon enough, Mingi stopped his monologue to stare his captain down, eyebrow raised.

“Do you want me to text them?”

Mingi.exe stopped working.

What did Hongjoong mean by that? That he could text you? Did he mean to message you on social media? Or to try reaching out to you indirectly through management perhaps? That all seemed more realistic-

“No, for real, I have her number, lucky for you we are what one could consider friends.”

Mingi felt as though he was on some hidden camera prank show, quite literally turning his head to check if that was the case. When the first wave of shock did pass, he managed to mumble:

“But… how? How did you meet?”

“At a speaker and networking event, of all places. It was one dedicated to fusion of different disciplines that fall under the umbrella of creative arts, a few months back.”

“Oh, I think I remember! And wait wasn’t it the event where you presented about combining fashion and music and stuff like that, right?”

“Yes, exactly. So, really, it wasn’t a talk that I exclusively gave. There were a couple of others on the stage with me, and it was like a panel discussion. And guess who was one of the guests there? Your new celebrity crush! We had talked previously on occasion, but after that panel it was a 180 flip.”

“And that is when you got her… number?”

“Yeah. She gave it to me.”

Mingi did not want to admit but he was experiencing an odd pang of jealousy, at how serendipity had led you to Hongjoong and not him. How the older member could consider himself a friend of yours, but Mingi was just a fan. But he could not stay in this state for long – after all, this second level connection was an opportunity. He was sure to be able to reach you now.

A silence fell over the two members.

Hongjoong finally broke the silence with a chuckle, returning to what Mingi had been meaning to do:

“So, you want to record a cover, right? Or what was it again?”

“Yep… there is that one track. From her second album. ‘Dum Spiro Spero’. It blew me away. The title means 'While I breathe, I hope', and it tells a story of a child dreaming of making it on the big stage and working hard, and then finishes with them achieving it. When I first heard it... it just spoke to me."

Hongjoong shifted in his seat and moved to search up the track on the studio computer. Once on, he began to nod his head to the entrancing beat.

“This one is one of the less known ones, isn’t it? How did you come across it?”

“Setl-” Mingi slapped his hand over his mouth, realising that he may or may not have just exposed himself and set himself up for the scolding of a lifetime.

“Setl… setlist? SETLIST? Song Mingi… Are you meaning to tell me that you attended a public concert… without telling anyone?”

Mingi contemplated whether he wanted to drag Yunho into this, but chose not to as he merely lowered his head and gave Hongjoong a sheepish smile.

“Mmm… perhaps?”

“Boy, I don’t even need to ask you to come to my room, everything’s prepped already. You are about to get that breath knocked out of you Mingi.” Hongjoong’s expression darkened as he stood up to approach the younger man. But then the latter had the audacity to stand up too.

Ah, the benefits of having a height advantage. “You were saying?”

“Listen here you big little shit-”

After indeed having to listen through an extensive collection of colourful words and a stern warning to never do such risky things (at least without Hongjoong knowing) ever again, they moved to recording the cover.

Since they did not have the instrumental for your track, Hongjoong had laid a beat that was similar and, in front of Mingi’s very eyes sent you a message asking if it was okay to even attempt to do what they were about to do.

Midway through recording, the phone buzzed with a simple offer. To come to your studio so that the three of you could make something even better.

If it was possible for a human being to literally light up a room, Mingi was sure to be the brightest star. Glowing, he stepped out of the booth, mouth wide open, morphing into the most adorable grin.

"Is... that... is that really them?"

"Yep, and you should be getting added to a group chat right... now."

His phone dinged, and he could not believe his eyes. It was a number, your number, on his screen, a notification saying that he was added to 'triple threat trio' and a quick text of you informing that this, indeed was yourself and no one else.

Hongjoong was genuinely afraid that Mingi was going to hit the ceiling because he jumped that high.

A giggly mess, the young rapper and your fan fell back onto the sofa behind where Hongjoong was seated, and typed out a response introducing himself and adding that he really liked your work.

"HYUNG SHE SAYS SHE LIKES OUR WORK TOO AHH"

"You know I sent her some of the tracks from our album before they were even officially released, right?"

"You did what now?"

"Yeah, but don't worry it was just snippets and I had it cleared with the producer. He knows her too so it was easy enough."

"WHY WAS I IN THE DARK ABOUT THIS!!!?"

"BECAUSE YOU NEVER ASKED?"

"I am going to stop calling you hyung I have not an ounce of respect left-"

"Now that's too far boy one more word and I am asking Y/N to write a diss track about you."

"And I would thank you, HONGJOONG" he exclaimed, still beaming, making a run for it out of the studio and into the corridor, the captain hot on his heels.

The only thing on his mind was that he was going to be recording with you. He would be able to hear you, basically one on one, doing what you did best. And on top of that, you would be creating art together.

[poorrichardjr]

Okay, about the "climate refuge" thing. Technically, much of the Appalachians would still be considered that. Hurricanes usually die out by the time they hit the mountains. The thing is, the valleys in much of this area are prone to floods when we get enough rain. Combine that with strong winds, which many of my neighbors said were a lot stronger than they had ever seen, and you get slides and downed trees everywhere. All that slides right into the waterways damning things up which makes the flooding so much worse.

If you've never been to this region, a defining characteristic for much of it is fairly steep drop offs on many roads and thin layers of soil over rocky terrain. Rock slides are common, just as they are out west. Get a good rain and you can see bigger trees lose their footing and slide right down the hills into the roads. In this area this summer, we have had a lack of rain, but in the last week, we had a lot leading up to the hurricane.

The good thing about this area is that we rarely have tornadoes, drought, or earthquakes. Not saying it never happens, but these things are less likely than in other parts of the country. No area of the country is going to be super safe from climate change. Sadly, by the time that most of the people realize that, it may be far too late to do anything about it.

[thesweetestdevotion]

https://www.tumblr.com/thesweetestdevotion/761276923476361216/can-u-do-reading-for-2025-is-it-gonna-be-better?source=share

like general collective? like are we gonna get another corona etc? 🫣

i'd love to! thanks for requesting a general reading, its the first one ive done here, youre a lil trailblazer hehe!

2025 General Collective Reading

Dice: Mars, Aries, 6th house

Tarot: Five of Swords, Ace of Cups, Four of Wands, Two of Coins Reversed, Seven of Coins Reversed, Ten of Coins, Queen of Cups Reversed, Five of Wands, Strength, Three of Wands

im getting a lot of downloads right now... like back to back (usually i get a few spread out as i read) im just going to tell it how i see it and feel it, however please be aware that i am not infallible! especially with a big energy like this, im not capable of acessing all of what is going to happen next year, so ill just state what i see right now.

As i was holding the dice in my hand i saw red, literally (my room is entirely blue so...) and then i dropped the dice and got Aries, Mars, and 6th house... guys this is literally war. let me explain, Aries is the 1st sign of the zodiac and is fire, ruled by mars. With aries showing up with mars (planet of war) and 6th house (house of open enemies, the exaltation of mars), im feeling like we might be dealing with conflicts and tensions worldwide. Now this does not signify WW3, dont freak out at all. but im seeing that several countries will make new alliances with each other and we might see the rising of a new world power(powerful country) come on the global stage. This also goes along with the five of wands, im seeing arguments and small conflics here and there that are building tension in the collective energy, this could lead to a war but i just cant see that far out. i felt like spirit smacked me in the head loll maybe im trying to see something much bigger than i can describe here, also protests? i just heard. New trade deals, routes, and more are being discussed. sales of arms, weapons, artillery, these things will be prevalent as the year progresses.

now for the human collective, im seeing that our relationship to labour is coming to front stage. Two of Coins Reversed, Seven of Coins Reversed, Ten of Coins, Queen of Cups Reversed, all these cards speak to how we relate to our work and labour. Im seeing alot of emphasis on proper compensation, labourers rights, work-life balance, surging prices, costs of living, all of these topics have been relevant for a few years now, but im seeing in 2025 things are going to boil over. The sixth house is also the house of daily labour and work, and with mars showing up there, we will see a lot of sentiments about finding meaningful work that is fair and pays well and allows individuals to cover their living expeses without worries. i think the previous mentioned protests could have something to do with this, but maybe not irl protests, but just people's voices being heard and their concerns finally being taken serious. I think the collective is longing for stability (i know im one of them) and next year makes me feel hopeful that we will finally have a change in the right direction, however small it is.

Another thing im seeing is an emphasis on foreign travel. we might see more people migrating out of their countries in search for new opportunities (im not seeing a specific country just a general energy) im also interpreting this as implementing foreign inspired ideas, laws, regulations, etc. like some countries are seeing the succesful laws of overseas and saying lets give this a try. Marriage law?? this just jumped out, which makes sense with the four of wands here.

also something about women is becoming relevant, idk if it is also legislation or maybe a new collective energy being embraced by women. I feel upset rn all of a sudden ugh. something about motherhood, love, emotions, femininity, nurturing, relationships. this energy is so muddled though i cant see thru it as of now.

The overall energy is that of the Strength card, which tells me there is an emphasis on building things, beating enemies, and destroying barriers and limitations. I feel hopeful for 2025 but i dont think itll be an easy year(when has it ever been hehe)

I hope you enjoyed this reading! lets all come back in a year, you can yell at me if i was wrong lol (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

A rising tide and a bigger pie: Economic growth has long been considered such an obvious boon that it’s pursued by governments across the world as a matter of course. But in 2016, when a London professor warned an audience in Newcastle that Brexit would lead to a precipitous drop in Britain’s gross domestic product, that well-worn measure of economic activity, one woman’s heckling caught him by surprise. “That’s your bloody G.D.P.,” she shouted, “not ours!”

The eruption tapped into a suspicion supported by reality: Gains in economic growth have too often buoyed the fortunes of the richest instead of lifting all boats. Prosperity even in the most prosperous countries hasn’t been shared. But all the attention to inequality is just a crack in the edifice of economic orthodoxy. Now a much more radical proposition has emerged, looming like a wrecking ball: Is economic growth desirable at all?

Less than two decades ago, an economist like Herman Daly, who argued for a “steady-state economy,” was such an outlier that his fellow economist Benjamin Friedman could declare that “practically nobody opposes economic growth per se.” Yet today there is a burgeoning “post-growth” and “degrowth” movement doing exactly that — in journals, on podcasts, at conferences. Consider some of the books published in the last several years: Tim Jackson’s “Post-Growth: Life After Capitalism,” Kate Soper’s “Post-Growth Living,” Giorgos Kallis’s “In Defense of Degrowth,” Vincent Liegey and Anitra Nelson’s “Exploring Degrowth,” Jason Hickel’s “Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World.” The proliferation of the term is as good an indicator as any: The literature of degrowth is growing.

In 1972, the French theorist André Gorz coined the word décroissance to ask whether “no-growth — or even degrowth” in material production was necessary for “the earth’s balance,” even if it ran counter to “the survival of the capitalist system.” Gorz was writing the same year that “The Limits to Growth” was published, a report by a group of scientists warning that surges in population and economic activity would eventually outstrip the carrying capacity of the planet. “The Limits to Growth” was initially met with skepticism and even ridicule. Critics pointed to humanity’s undeniably impressive record of technological innovation. As one representative economist put it, “Our predictions are firmly based on a study of the way these problems have been overcome in the past.”

And so degrowth remained on the fringes of the fringe for decades, until increasing awareness about global warming percolated into public debates in the early aughts. The realization that we hadn’t innovated our way out of our ecological predicament, along with inequalities laid bare by the 2008 financial crisis, fueled a more widespread distrust of the conventional capitalist wisdom. Maybe relentless economic growth was more poison than panacea.

[fireangelsstuff-inactive-2024]

Well anon you probably need to try reading something other than American controlled news

The USA has been exposed by Julian Assange helping to not only fund war crimes but also fund them and other foreign wars in order to launder money through wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and more than likely had been doing the same through the Occupied State of Palestine since it's inception

The fact that DeBeers is actually based in the Occupiers territory and the vehement defense of it by its accomplice the United States did not escape me either given the "Blood Diamond" history as well as the artificial control and supply of them resulting in a monopolistic global price gouging it's safe to day they have been using them to also help fund their wars in the middle east

The rest of the Globe is currently trying to stop them via the International Criminal Court while the USA used it's veto to continue the Genocide while the Occupiers have been caught trying to sell permits to mine for the oil and natural gas resources within the Occupied State of Palestine

It honestly makes me wonder where all that money that CAA had to fundraise by selling a major stake to Pinault actually went, and why Hollywood has been trying to control some of those with much bigger platforms to prevent them from speaking out by blacklisting people who speak out against it

They've been using Hollywood to help fund their wars as well as provide the propaganda to cover it in the media, hence the timing of the celebrity news drops like the fake wedding of Chris Evans and the entire Taylor Swift relationship along with the Superbowl being used as a distraction for whenever they needed

Unfortunately social media has outed them during this entire process

The KOSA bill is designed to help the US govt to track and identify dissenters, much like they did and have been trying to do to Assange

[hrodvitnon]

Just wanted to share a random Monsterverse theory/headcanon that recently occurred to me, regarding how some truly enormous fossilized Titans like the one that Kong & Suko climb across at one point in GxK could have come to be.

So, the idea is actually pretty simple, and it’s rooted in what Serizawa & Vivienne explained to Ford Brody way back in G2014: that the Titans first evolved many millions of years ago (at least as far back as the Permian, more than 250 million years ago), and that back then, the Earth was at least “ten times more radioactive than it is today”. Therefore, thinking logically, if the global levels of the radiation that the Titans feed on were at least 10x greater back then, I feel like it would make perfect sense that the maximum size of the Titans which lived back then would be much greater than the ones which exist in the modern era. That would explain where ridiculously gigantic creatures like that enormous skeleton in GxK would have come from: they had much more food available, so they could’ve gotten a lot bigger.

Those gigantic “Primordial Titans” would then have died out over time, effectively starved into extinction as the levels of global radiation began to drop and they could no longer feed themselves effectively, and their descendants gradually evolved to be significantly smaller (albeit still enormous by human standards) as a result. Like, say, if Godzilla’s species existed way back then, maybe Permian-era members of his kind could grow as large as Godzilla Earth from the Netflix anime trilogy, but in the modern era their adult size is generally limited to the 300-to-400-foot range that he’s in now.

After rewatching 2014 for the MonsterVerse's big One-Oh, yeah, this makes sense.

[louisupdates]

BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN: LOUIS TOMLINSON

MUSICALLY | 19 Apr 2023

3. The radio conundrum

We have seen historically that it has been tricky to get radio for him – but not because of any artist proposition issue. It’s just sonically that he wants to do something different to what radio wants to play.

It’s tricky because it falls through the gaps a little bit with what he wants to do. We’ve always looked at it as: let’s just assume there are zero promo opportunities at radio, TV and press. Let’s just take out promo entirely.

What you have got is a global, engaged, fanatical fanbase. You can do more with that than you can with those other things if you don’t have fans.

I would much rather have an artist who’s got an absolutely berserk global fanbase and that gets absolutely no support from traditional media – because you can work with that – than have an artist that’s not really got a particularly big fanbase but radio loves them and TV loves them. What does that matter if you’ve not got the fans?

We did always want to get promo because we would love to be able to expand Louis’ fanbase. But you’ve got to compete against Harry [Styles] and Niall [Horan]. They’re the first people you’ve got to compete against because, to play three One Direction members on the radio, I don’t know if radio stations would. Then you’ve got the sonic battle as well where he wants to keep it pretty raw.

The first single was ‘Bigger Than Me’, which is a big song to sing. It was a good bridge between the last album and this album. It gave the fans what they wanted.

We had really good feedback from radio. They played it to Clara [Amfo, Radio 1] without telling her who it was. She loved it and she did actually play it as one of the hottest tracks of the week. Greg James’s producers said it was brilliant. They absolutely adored it. Matt Edmondson and Mollie King’s team loved it. They thought it was great. But it got blocked at playlist conversations. It was like, Come on!

That was really disappointing because, pre-release, we were getting incredible feedback from producers, but we just couldn’t get it through the playlisting. We’d always planned for it not to go on radio, but if it got on radio that’d be just a brilliant bonus. So it didn’t harm our campaign strategy at all.

He’s too pop for indie stations and he’s too indie for the BBC [Radio 1]. It’s frustrating, but he’s making the music he wants to make and the fans love it. So what do you do?

‘Silver Tongues’ came out just before the album dropped, which was the official second single. That bridged the gap between those two singles. It was much more guitar based. It was up-tempo but it wasn’t too indie.

On the day that the album was released, fans bombarded Greg’s show on the 10 Minute Takeover [on the Radio 1 breakfast show]. And he played it! It was lovely but you could tell it was done like, “OK, I’ve done it now. Go away.” Which is just so sad because his demographic is right in that lane. It’s 18-25.

MAIN POST

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Scientists detect sign that a crucial ocean current is near collapse

By Sarah Kaplan

The Atlantic Ocean’s sensitive circulation system has become slower and less resilient, according to a new analysis of 150 years of temperature data — raising the possibility that this crucial element of the climate system could collapse within the next few decades.

Scientists have long seen the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, as one of the planet’s most vulnerable “tipping elements” —meaning the system could undergo an abrupt and irreversible change, with dramatic consequences for the rest of the globe. Under Earth’s current climate, this aquatic conveyor belt transports warm, salty water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, and then sends colder water back south along the ocean floor. But as rising global temperatures melt Arctic ice, the resulting influx of cold freshwater has thrown a wrench in the system — and could shut it down entirely.

The study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications suggests that continued warming will push the AMOC over its “tipping point” around the middle of this century. The shift would be as abrupt and irreversible as turning off a light switch, and it could lead to dramatic changes in weather on either side of the Atlantic.

“This is a really worrying result,” said Peter Ditlevsen, a climate physicist at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the new study. “This is really showing we need a hard foot on the brake” of greenhouse gas emissions.

Ditlevsen’s analysis is at odds with the most recent report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which drew on multiple climate models and concluded with “medium confidence” that the AMOC will not fully collapse this century.

Other experts on the AMOC also cautioned that because the new study doesn’t present new observations of the entire ocean system — instead, it is extrapolating about the future based on past data from a limited region of the Atlantic — its conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt.

“The qualitative statement that AMOC has been losing stability in the last century remains true even taking all uncertainties into account,” said Niklas Boers, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “But the uncertainties are too high for a reliable estimate of the time of AMOC tipping.”

The new study adds to a growing body of evidence that this crucial ocean system is in peril. Since 2004, observations from a network of ocean buoys has showed the AMOC getting weaker — though the limited time frame of that data set makes it hard to establish a trend. Scientists have also analyzed multiple “proxy” indicators of the current’s strength, including microscopic organisms and tiny sediments from the seafloor, to show the system is in its weakest state in more than 1,000 years.

For their analysis, Peter Ditlevsen and his colleague Susanne Ditlevsen (who is Peter’s sister) examined records of sea surface temperatures going back to 1870. In recent years, they found, temperatures in the northernmost waters of the Atlantic have undergone bigger fluctuations and taken longer to return to normal. These are “early warning signals” that the AMOC is becoming critically unstable, the scientists said — like the increasingly wild wobbles before a tower of Jenga blocks starts to fall.

Susanne Ditlevsen, a statistician at the University of Copenhagen, then developed an advanced mathematical model to predict how much more wobbling the AMOC system can handle. The results suggest that the AMOC could collapse any time between now and 2095, and as early as 2025, the authors said.

The consequences would not be nearly as dire as they appear in the 2004 sci-fi film “The Day After Tomorrow,” in which a sudden shutdown of the current causes a flash freeze across the northern hemisphere. But it could lead to a drop in temperatures in northern Europe and elevated warming in the tropics, Peter Ditlevsen said, as well as stronger storms on the East Coast of North America.

Marilena Oltmanns, an oceanographer at the National Oceanography Center in Britain, noted in a statement that the temperatures in the north Atlantic are “only one part of a highly complex, dynamical system.” Though her own research on marine physics supports the Ditlevsens’ conclusion that this particular region could reach a tipping point this century, she is wary of linking that transition to a full-scale change in Atlantic Ocean circulation.

Yet the dangers of even a partial AMOC shutdown mean any indicators of instability are worth investigating, said Stefan Rahmstorf, another oceanographer at the Potsdam Institute who was not involved in the new study.

“As always in science, a single study provides limited evidence, but when multiple approaches lead to similar conclusions this must be taken very seriously,” he said. “The scientific evidence now is that we can’t even rule out crossing a tipping point already in the next decade or two.”

Chris Mooney contributed to this report.

[Washington Post]

[whoami-24601]

International Incident Part 5

Part 1 Part 4

After the drivers decide that Lewis and Logan would do social media posts, Lewis calls Toto for an update. "Toto, what is going on? It's been almost three hours, man. This isn't ok. If we don't get out soon, we are going to come up with our own plan."

From the speakerphone, everyone could hear a gruff Toto say, "we haven't gotten much of an update either. Stefano and some of the FIA are negotiating with the representation of the country. The only thing we have been told is that they are not looking for money. We offered. They seem to want to make a spectacle out of this. They're unhappy with," Toto sighed, "a lot of things really."

"Like what?" Lewis was aware they needed to save cell phone battery, but it felt too important to cut the conversation short.

"Like," Toto hesitated, sounding exhausted, "all of it. Gay rights, women's rights, global warming, and our attempts at reducing carbon emissions. Something about a flag and sponsors, too. It just sounds like they want us to be stuck in the 50s or something. I have no idea how a race was even approved here." The drivers all started whispering amongst themselves with that admission. What were they going to do? Why was this being taken out on them?

"Money talks, Toto," Lewis responds. "We all know that. The big question is - what do they want us to do about it? Those things are much bigger than this one race here. We can't just pledge to set back humanity."

"No, no, we can't, and we won't. We need to figure out how to get you all out and get the hell out of here." Toto paused again to ask, "how is everyone doing?"

"Umm," Lewis surveyed the room. The duos and trios had started to separate again. The closeness during their planning session diminished as they heard Toto's comments. "I'm going to go with not great. Little water, no food, and we're basically on the edge of panic."

"I don't know what to suggest for you all but I will do my best to see if we can at least get you some food and water. Hopefully this ends soon."

"Yeah, ok, Toto, thanks for the update. I'm going to save battery again, so just call if you have an update. We may switch to someone else's phone after a while, but mine is still good for now. We'll text you if that changes." Toto had become the main contact since George and Lewis were part of the problem solving group, and they knew Toto would do everything in his power to get them out. The rest of the team principals were also aware that Toto was the only contact after the initial lock-in occurred.

Everyone settled back into their corners to call their loved ones. The problem solving team also found spaces they could speak somewhat privately, given everyone was stuck in a single room together.

As they walked very slowly back to their corner, Danny said, "well, I guess it's phone call time. Do we want to call one at a time? We can time the one person and provide support?" He turned to Max and Lando for their thoughts.

Max nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that's good. I don't think I should call my dad, though. I'll call my mom and Victoria together." Daniel and Lando did not question the decision as they approached their former spot.

Daniel dropped himself down against the wall and opened his legs suggestively. "Anyone wanna come cuddle me?" His eyebrows jumped up and down as he surveyed the two men. Lando immediately blushed and shook his head no while Max seemed to contemplate the offer. "You in, Maxy?"

"Sure," Max answered nonchalantly, settling down between Daniel's legs and leaning casually against his chest. Lando stood with his mouth open at how easily Max had agreed.

Seeing Lando's reaction, Danny told him, "you missed your shot, Lan. Have to wait for the next time my legs are open!" He laughed at his own comment and opened his arm up for Lando to squish next to him, which he did without hesitation.

"Anyone want to call first?" Lando asked softly. He didn't want to call at all but knew it was the right thing to do.

"I will do it," Max said, pulling his phone out from his back pocket, awkwardly knocking against Daniel's legs.

Squeezing his legs back around Max's body once his arm was clear, Daniel teased, "Oh, Maxy," getting a chuckle in return.

While Max was turning his phone on, Lando rolled his eyes and debated about his own phone call. He knew he had to talk to his parents, but he also wished he could talk to his other friend Max. He debated what he needed to say, thinking back to Lewis' suggestions. His parents would absolutely know something was wrong if he just called to say he loved them, and if his dad figured out something was wrong and Lando wasn't telling him, he would get the information somehow. He had Zak's direct line after all. After a few minutes, Lando realized he hadn't been listening to Max. The call had started, and Lando tuned in to hear Max say, "you will be well taken care of if anything happens to me. I met with some lawyers to see to it." Lando raised an eyebrow and looked at Danny for his reaction. Danny was staring at his watch with an intense look on his face, nothing Lando wanted to interrupt. Once again, tuning back in, Lando heard Max say goodbye, and he loved them. Lando was also shocked to see the silent tears falling down his friend's face. He reached over, wrapped their arms together, and put his head on Max's shoulder.

"It is not a lie," Max answered the question Lando didn't ask. "I had lawyers draw up papers that most of my money and property goes to them if I die. I did it a long time ago, but I did not see the point in telling them before. They know racing is dangerous, and it did not seem important."

Daniel slipped an arm between Lando's body and arm so he could wrap both arms around Max. "You did good, Maxy. Your family is so proud of you." As an afterthought he added, "so am I." Max looked over his shoulder at Daniel, grateful.

"I'm proud of you too, Max," Lando added softly. "You deserve everything you've achieved. I just wish I could take away the bad stuff." Lando's head remained on Max's shoulder, so he didn't see the confused face.

"The bad stuff made me deserve the good stuff," Max responded.

Danny sighed and tightened his hold. "No, Maxy. You don't have to go through bad stuff to get good stuff. That's now how life works. You deserve it just for being you."

Max would not agree with his friends, but he did not see the point arguing, so he asked, "who is next?"

"Danny," Lando answered quickly. He bashfully looked back, hoping he would not disagree.

"Sure, sure," Danny conceded, pulling his arms back to get his own phone out. "Maxy, you want to time me with that fancy watch you've got? I probably need like a minute warning. Unlike you, who finished your call in less than 3 minutes!"

"Are you sure you do not need a five minute warning? We know how you like to talk," Max joked.

Daniel tickled Max's side in retaliation, thankful for the laughter it caused. Max squirmed a bit until Daniel stopped to prepare for his call. He was calling both of his parents together. He wanted to call his sister too but didn't think he would have time to arrange it and say what he wanted without raising too many alarm bells.

Lando desperately wanted to listen to Danny's call to try to help prepare him for his own, but as soon as Danny started talking, Lando zoned out again. He watched the different drivers in the room to see how they were reacting to calling their loved ones. Charles and Pierre remained the closest to them, and Yuki had attached himself to that group, or more specifically, Pierre. Pierre was obviously trying to be strong for the men on both sides of him. His face looked hard, likely trying to hide his true feelings. Meanwhile, Yuki looked terrible. He was so confused and staring at his phone like it was a foreign object he had never used before. Charles looked like he had finished his call if the tear tracks on his face were any indication.

Lando looked to the other side of the room to see George and Alex together, George on the phone, and Alex holding his hand while looking at his own watch. Fernando and Carlos were sitting near each other, each on their phones. Esteban was on his phone and talking animatedly while Lance seemed to be zoned out, staring at the floor in front of himself.

A hand touching his back broke Lando from his own reverie, causing him to jump. "I'm sorry, Lan," Danny said, continuing to rub up and down. "You ok? Are you ready to call your parents?"

Lando looked back at Danny, shocked that it was already his turn. He hadn't heard a single thing Danny had said. He can see the tears in his eyes, though. Lando took another look around the room, a deep breath, and turned back to Danny with determination. If everyone else could do this, so could he. "Yes, let's do this." Lando picked up his phone and realized his hands were shaking. He couldn't even unlock it in the first two attempts.

Danny reached over and took the phone from his hands. Without saying anything, he held it steady and let Lando unlock it. Once unlocked, Danny took it and turned airplane mode off and opened the phone contacts. Lando didn't understand why Danny was doing that. He could handle these basic tasks. He didn't see the point in arguing, though. Maybe Danny needed to help him to feel grounded. After a moment, Danny showed him his phone and asked, "this number?" Lando could see "Dad (ICE)" open and nodded. He might need to add his mom, but he would see if they were together first.

"Wait, what time is it in the UK?" Lando asked suddenly. The drivers were calling all over the world, and the timing was bound to cause some alarms to go off.

Max answered, "7pm." Of course Max knew without having to look it up.

"It was the middle of the night for your family, Danny?" Lando asked, concerned.

Danny grimaced and confirmed, "Yeah, I didn't think that through. They definitely know something is wrong, but they know to wait for more information." Then added softly as an afterthought, "hopefully."

Lando stared at the contact on his phone until the screen went dark. He felt shuffling next to him and realized Max had gotten up, and Danny had managed to maneuver them both so Lando was back between his legs. His knees were up on both sides, almost like a leg hug, while his arms wrapped snuggly around his waist. "Do you want to practice?" Danny offered quietly. Lando didn't know what to say. To Danny, to his parents. He leaned back against Danny's chest, thankful for the support. He glanced over at Max, now to his right, who was staring right back at him intensely. As they looked in each other's eyes, Danny stated, "you don't have to lie. Tell them you're having a bad night and you miss them. You just want to hear their voices. That's not too strange to concern them, is it?"

"My parents?" Lando asked with a forced chuckle. "They'd be concered for sure, but I think you're right. They'd be more concerned about my mental health than me being in a fucking hostage situation." Lando felt Danny kiss the back of his head but he didn't say anymore. Lando took that as his cue to just get it done.

Managing to unlock his phone this time seemed like a good sign he was ready. Lando clicked "call" and "speakerphone" quickly. He probably shouldn't do speakerphone given so many people in the room, but he just couldn't handle being the only one that could hear his parents' reaction.

"Hey Lando!" his dad answered, sounding happy to hear from him.

"Hey dad," Lando responded, trying to sound more upbeat than he felt.

"What's wrong?" his dad immediately asked, proving Lando failed his attempt.

"Nothing, just um, could you get mom too, please? I just want to talk to you both." Lando found himself rubbing his leg, trying to force out the nervous energy.

Lando's dad responded, "of course, give me a minute." He could be heard yelling in the background and walking through the house.

Lando felt another kiss on his head, this time just above his left ear. It felt more grounding than the rubbing he was doing. He pushed his head back into Danny's face gently, trying to say thank you silently.

"Honey?" Lando's mom asked, concerned. "Are you OK? Your dad said you wanted to talk to both of us. Do we need us to come to you?"

"No!" Lando exclaims much too loudly. He glances around the room to see if any other driver's noticed but just sees a couple of people looking his way. That was fine. Not too big a scene. "I just mean, no, I'm ok. You don't need to travel all this way just because I'm having a bad night. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow."

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" His mom asks.

"I, um, I just," Lando stuttered. He had no idea what to say.

Danny leaned over Lando's shoulder and spoke to the phone, "hey Mr and Mrs Norris, Daniel Ricciardo here. I'm sorry to scare you like this. Lando was just feeling out of sorts, and I thought a piece of home might make him feel better. I didn't consider how that would sound to you."

"Oh, honey," Lando's mom responded softly. "Thank you, Danny. What have I said about the whole Mr. and Mrs. Norris thing? You're an adult, and a close friend of the family. There's no need for such formality."

"Right, right," Danny agreed. "Just feels wrong, like I'm disrespectful if I don't call you that!"

"Well, I'm telling you I don't find you using our first names disrespectful at all," Lando's mom responded sternly.

Danny laughed and agreed, "Ok, Ok, I get it. I don't want to take away from Lan here. Unfortunately, we need to go in a minute. Lando, tell your parents you love them and not to worry about you."

Lando swallowed and did as told, "I love you. Don't worry about me."

"We're always going to worry about you," Lando's dad responds. "We love you too, Lando, so much."

"So much," Lando's mom adds. "Call us anytime, honey. And, Danny?"

"Yes?"

"You take good care of our boy, right?"

"I do my best," Danny answers with a slight catch in his voice. Lando's parents don't seem to notice and hang up after their goodbyes

[telomeke]

MY SCHOOL PRESIDENT – SOME (RANDOM) THOUGHTS

My School President has hit the one-third, four episode mark, and this light little rom-com has got me *thinking* (a bit like Bad Buddy did in its time).

It's not all fluffy clouds and rainbows this one; there's a keen intelligence percolating behind the scenes that knows just what it's doing (and every now and then it will drop in a little nugget of greater significance to offset all the romantic sweetness, to remind us of who's in control).

I'm hopeful for more as the rest of the story unfolds, but am also hoping that they keep the balance right, because this has been (above all, so far) an enjoyably light high school BL romance.

MSP winks at Bad Buddy quite a bit – its team of writers and directors is approximately the same, although Khun Noppharnach has taken a step back into the producer role to allow Au Kornprom Niyomsil to take up directing duties, and only two of BBS's writers are on MSP. But the signs are there it's taking up the mantle BBS so expertly wove and deployed.

But at this time my thoughts on MSP are still random and unfocused; I can't tell where it's taking us just yet. Nonetheless, I remember it took me until BBS Ep.5 and 6 to start focusing my thoughts, so I'm waiting things out before looking at MSP more closely.

In the meantime I can't resist jotting down some random unlinked observations though (more for my own future reference than anything else). Whether or not they'll come together as part of a bigger picture I don't know, but time will tell.

By switching up the POVs in consecutive episodes, they've wrung out the seme/uke trope (just as BBS did, but the MSP treatment is not as heavy-handed). At first it looked like the taller, serious Tinn was going to be an archetypal seme, but then they showed us he's really a lovesick dork whose schemes to get closer to Gun get thwarted by circumstances all the time (and that Tinn for whatever reason fails miserably to rise above). And Gun the shorter sunshine boy is anything but a delicate flower vase, more than just an object of affection. I think @absolutebl has already written about this here (and much more coherently too) so I'll leave it at that.

Win and Sound are going to end up together (this one's pretty obvious, I think). Their exchange in the music room (when Win says to Sound about the pieces of meat being grilled: "I'll get a new one for you. Here. Take this one") at Ep.4 [4/4] 11.14 (as well as Phat and Por's reactions) is MSP winking at the "food = love" trope, not just Sound's acceptance into the friendship group. But with the ditching of the seme/uke trope that Thai BL seems intent on pursuing, I think the two blustery personalities getting together is another wink in that direction, that they're moving away from stereotyped roles in Thai BL couples as well.

There are also two nods that MSP does to socio-political realities outside of itself, that directly or indirectly have an impact on the production of Thai entertainment.

The first is at Ep.1 [1I4] 11.04 when Gun turns up for the presidential debate like this:

This is actually a reference to the current governor of Bangkok Chadchart Sittipunt, who, while serving as a minister in 2013 was photographed in much the same (casual) outfit barefoot and bearing alms at a Buddhist temple, concretizing his down-to-earth and solidly dependable image among Thai people:

MSP's nod here is a witty flex, but I've not quite worked out yet what they're getting at, beyond that it's a cute, chuckleworthy moment.

The second socio-political nod they've done is at Ep.4 [3I4] 0.27, and it's particularly barbed:

This is a direct reference to government intervention in the creative process, that is being done with a view to increasing Thailand's visibility and clout in the global entertainment scene.

You can read more about it here:

It's clear that there is pressure being applied for productions to go in certain directions (possibly with the dangling of financial carrots, that the money guys at profit-driven studios may be insisting individual shows have to snag, thus entailing modifications to the plot or portrayals for compliance with funding guidelines – but really I'm just guessing here).

Any sort of outside influence will always be a dampener on the creative process and I'm sure this is what's being critiqued here.

I have my own ideas about which directions are being strongly pushed (to increase marketability) but will save the details of that for a different post – for now I will say that I think Thai creatives are being pressured to emphasize Thailand's cultural links and overlaps with East Asia (especially with an eye on the gigantic Chinese market).

So climbing back into MSP from outside the fourth wall (and keeping with the randomness of it all), @respectthepetty has pointed out that Tinn and Gun may be represented by the colors blue and red, in this write-up linked here.

I'm keeping an open mind about this, but if it is true – take a look again at this photo of Tinn and Gun on the stairs:

There are red and blue arrows on the steps, with the red pointing up and the blue pointing down. I know these are the school's directional arrows for the students to follow when using the staircase, but even though the arrows are worn (and thus may be pre-existing and not intentional on the part of the MSP production team), part of me can't help wondering if they may be signaling future developments for Tinn and Gun too. 🤔 Why keep the shot so wide, if not to keep these arrows in view?

All eyes on you, My School President! 😍

[thesinglesjukebox]

CHARLI XCX - VON DUTCH

“If Von Dutch were alive,” said Burns, who runs a website about his friend at www.vondutch.freeservers.com, “he would hate all this.”

[5.81]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: On February 12 of this year I predicted that "we can safely give the Charli lead single an automatic high controversy [5.00] and be done with it." History will vindicate me. [5]

Jackie Powell: A common Charli XCX motif is her admiration and sampling of 1990s and Y2K culture, which has allowed her to write songs that are cheeky with a dash of British wit. She does this on “Von Dutch” by comparing her reputation in pop to that of a cult classic, but struggles with the extended metaphor of how she’s what Von Dutch, the LA clothing brand that has had a recent resurgence, sounds like. The concept feels incomplete. I actually prefer the song’s remix with Addison Rae and A.G. Cook. The ad-libbed scream from Rae, the added verse, and the dropping of “I’m your number one” over and over again make the remix much more compelling and zany. The original will only really bang in drag bars—a fine place for something to hit, of course, but at this point I expect Charli to be pushing her own boundaries. [5]

Alfred Soto: Like much of her output, "Von Dutch" represents Charli XCX's fair to middling ambition to become a global pop star. Like much of that output "Von Dutch" strikes confused poses over shrieking electronics. [3]

Hannah Jocelyn: Charli XCX said she wants to go back to 1999, but with songs like these she clearly wishes it was 2018: all the callbacks and bombast referring to when she was “the future of music” and not halfway to the headliner of an inevitable "hyperpop" nostalgia festival. I like the gloriously tinny snare, but in 2024 the bratty chant vocals sound dated (as does the album title that's just brat in lowercase). The most exciting songs on CRASH to me were “Constant Repeat” and “Move Me,” which proved she could bring her "kinda rare attitude" to heartfelt ballads. "Von Dutch" is just mindless comfort food for aging cis male gays, which is fine — I’m the lone First Two Pages of Frankenstein defender, I get it — but she can’t say she’s my Number One when on this song, she's my Number [5]

Mark Sinker: I enjoy that Charli XCX lives in a room-sized selection-box of all of the rest of girlpop, everything constantly arriving with its conscious little tweaky echo of this or that prior item. They’re nice items, and we both like them, so why not? Maybe this feels a bit more hemmed in than is comfy, though: it has big Britney-feel, which is to say echoes of an aural highpoint that actually expressed a grim life lowpoint for Brit. As for Von Dutch, they currently have the one and only Wikipedia page with "Behind-the scenes tumult" as a cross-hed, which pleases me but also makes me anxious.  [7]

Katherine St. Asaph: Once again, the nostalgia is miscalibrated: Von Dutch was trendy in the mid-2000s, while this sounds like the late 2000s. Specifically, it sounds like every song from the late 2000s I would have given a [7] or higher. [7]

Will Adams: I whole-heartedly support pop stars honoring the advancements made by the likes of Luciana in support of the essential micro-genre of Obnoxious Banger. [7]

Kat Stevens: I'm down for the Bodyrox ft Luciana revival! Is there a Fedde Le Grand remix? [6]

Andrew Karpan: Pop music tells us to want to have it all, a maximalist vision that typically gets bigger as it goes on. Counterintuitively, part of the mesmerizing appeal of Charli’s records is the fact that there is no distance left for her to run and that her sound has become the sound of pop going nowhere but the present, busily manufacturing its cult appeal now for future observers to wax nostalgic about. “Von Dutch” is the most literalized version of that idea from her yet: a squeaky saran-wrapped PC Music-affiliated beat with a middle-aged pulse that never drops but simply hangs, like a foggily-heard echo of itself, like the memory of a club night experienced from the outside while nervously waiting in line in the cold.  [7]

Jeffrey Brister: It’s perhaps a bit unfair to compare everything Charli has made recently to the transcendent Pop 2 ("Backseat" 4evr), but when I hear something as dull as this, I can’t help but pine for its melodramatic maximalism. The sounds are just so monochromatic, pulling from a desaturated set of Charli tics like grinding revving synths and choppy autotuned vocal snippets, all snapping together like a “build your own Charli song” kit in nothing but gray tones. [4]

Kayla Beardslee: Why does this sound so bad? [2]

Nortey Dowuona: That last Earl album was good. This Charli single is good. Some people just never live up to your expectations because they are not you. Unlike Charli, I don't think it's because of jealousy, just curiosity and frustration. Charli and Earl were never meant to be Method Man or Robyn -- they had different tastes and trajectories, and slumming it as a major-label balance name isn’t the worst fate. You could be Tyga. Or Rita Ora. [9]

Taylor Alatorre: It's caked in an air of sweaty desperation dressed up as devil-may-care hedonism, which helps rather than hurts because of how unflinchingly skeletal the beat is, showing off its shotgun scaffolding to all who will see. She's not trying to hide anything about how she's trying to hide something. Never mind that the phrase "cult classic but I still pop" could be used to describe everything from the MC5 to DMB -- it wouldn't have suited their milieux, but it's quintessentially XCX. It may be the line Charli was put on this earth to sing, even if through half-gritted teeth.  [7]

Leah Isobel: The curse of being Charli XCX is that she is an asymptote: she can approach pop stardom, but she's far too self-conscious to allow herself to actually embrace it. As a result, the curse of being a Charli XCX fan is that she becomes more obnoxious and exhausting every time she reaches a new career milestone. After scoring her first big worldwide hit, she spent her social capital yelling at Germans and collaborating with Iggy Azalea. Number 1 Angel and Pop 2 cemented her as a serious artist with conceptual depth and longevity while simultaneously sending her spiraling into stan Twitter hell, from whence she shall never return. She wears a T-shirt denouncing critics -- which I am not mad at, please drag me mom yas! -- and then logs on with hot takes about Pop Music And Stardom, as a critic does. She sees herself as above mass-market pandering and yet also below it, both superior to the culture and bitter at her inability to assimilate into it. (Gay people love her because she's relatable.) Hence, "Von Dutch." Its corkscrewing mania has the serrated simplicity that characterizes her riffs on punk music; it feels like a cousin to the unfairly maligned Sucker. But where Sucker balanced its brattier impulses with good-natured melodicism and emotional directness, "Von Dutch" is all needling cynicism and overdriven id. The song has a nominal verse/chorus structure but no big dynamic or melodic changes, no particular idea beyond "I'm lovable and awesome; look at my chart placements." The need to serve as a pop single also keeps "Von Dutch" from entering the realm of the dumb-brilliant dance music that so clearly inspired it; it's too much of a branding exercise, too interested in flattering its audience for getting it. And yet in its grating repetition, I still hear her insecurity beneath the synth buzzsaws. No one who's convinced that they're actually Living That Life would say it so directly, with such barely concealed desperation. The curse of being Charli XCX is that, deep down, she is still convinced that she is unlovable. The curse of being a Charli XCX fan is that I love her because she's relatable. [5]

Isabel Cole: I don't know that I'll ever stop feeling about Charli XCX like she's my brilliant daughter who dropped out of med school to pursue a career as a wedding DJ: of course, honey, I just want you to be happy, but are you sure this is what you want? You don't want to, like, try? At all? This is the kind of gleefully, knowingly brainless fun Charli can do in her sleep, propulsive without ever really going anywhere because the point is just to drive. She's not living up to her potential, but much like a boring mom who doesn't "get" her daughter's life of Top 40 hits in mid-budget venues and weeknights spent doing ketamine with her friends, I am unsophisticated enough to enjoy it when she does songs that are songs, and this one does make me feel like I'm walking through the opening credits of my life when it plays. [7]

Ian Mathers: I like it when the synths go THWOOM and/or VOORP. [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[raining-anonymous-lad]

Time to drop some more knowledge on ASUA, so hey here I go. Bullet point style, learn more about my funky lady of an iterator.

All’s Seen Under Authority is situated in a region that’s considered highly desirable, and as such is the 6th iterator project built there.

Out of those six, ASUA is the second project created by a group of ancients for a purpose other than their normal function of serving as cities, though finding the solution was still intended to be her top priority.

ASUA is the youngest iterator in her group, and built extremely late.

She was built by a highly religious group of ancients who were unique in their concern for the other creatures of the world. As such, ASUA is built to survive for as long as possible, with the ultimate goal of being able to pass the solution on to the next intelligent species to journey to her can. They put all their effort into constructing her, as it was the group’s last major action before journeying to the void sea and ascending themselves.

To facilitate her superstructure’s intended massive lifespan, another machine, named 6 Cycle Synchronization, who is similar to an iterator was built as an attachment to her superstructure. This results in her superstructure having a very weird shape due to 6CS’ operations sticking out as a building to the left on top of her own.

Here is a sketch of what ASUA’s superstructure looks like: Notable features include 6CS’s operations on top of her own, and bigger plus stronger support beams to support that. Since her function was to pass the solution on to any creatures who could find her once she found it, an access shaft was built to make surface access to her chamber much easier. Lastly, her superstructure was not constructed to be lived on permanently, and so temporary housing is only there for the ancients who were working on 6CS and finishing her building.

6CS has access to a lot of ASUA’s superstructure, and has the capability to operate her inner workings much more than any normal iterator can do to themselves. His puppet can also navigate her structure on a track specifically so he can conduct repairs which require the precision of hands. He was built as a part of her specifically so while ASUA can focus her efforts on finding the solution, he could focus on inventing ways to fix or prevent any damage to her superstructure, even when confronted with problems the ancients could not have anticipated.

6CS is not officially designated an iterator despite resembling one in all but name due to his purpose not being to find the solution, but ASUA calls him an “honorary iterator”. He meanwhile refers to her as his Boss.

ASUA and 6CS share overseers, and there isn’t any way to tell who is accessing the footage overseers gather since they can both do so at any time. Here’s what they look like:

ASUA was built very close to the global ascension of the ancients, and as such lacks a lot of understanding and respect for ancient traditional values that other iterators may have

As expected, this means she stopped searching for the solution very quickly after her construction. Rather, she has taken to observing the creatures around her superstructure and looking after them. Using 6CS’s skills in technology and his ability to modify her superstructure heavily, the area around it has become a bit of her animal sanctuary. She has close companions in several of the wildlife, often modified to improved their survival. 6CS was exasperated by her “slaking” at first, but has grown used to it and rather chill overall.

ASUA is a hoarder. This started with her taking care of a mask one of the ancients gave her before ascending and hanging it on the wall of her chamber. As she observed creatures through her overseers and the world they inhabited, she started to dislike the boring white walls of her chamber. This, combined with her preferences to physically store her knowledge of creatures and the environment rather than rely to her superstructure, has overtime made her quite a collector. Now, her chamber is completely cluttered with pearls, hung up scraps of cloth and more. She always keeps gravity on inside it because of this.