#package deal except its all shit

[bedforddanes75]

autism wouldnt be too bad if it wasnt almost always with nineteen other things that make it bad. i could deal with sensory issues and a need for routine but when paired with anxiety higher than that of a deer id just rather not

[mrfoox]

Me: I think id want to know someone that's mutually obsessed with me... Like I am with them

Oliver: ok... Well then you can meet people, that's very easy!

Me: uh.... Ok

Oliver: yeah I mean your courses, the people there do have the same diagnosis like you so they might think the same way as you?

Me: mmm.... I dont think... I dont know how I think is normal even among people with my diagnose

Oliver: um, okay. Why?

Me: because of how I think of other people... Or other people I like rather

Oliver: yeah, well that's not... Unusual. I mean you want to be around people you like so you obviously think good about them?

Me: mmm, yeah but I don't think... You'd want to know how I think about others

Oliver: why? Now I want to know

Me: no, I don't think you do...

[cellophanejpeg]

hold me down (and make me scream) | s. hanta

s: Sero wants to explore his quirk in bed. Or: the one he convices you to let him tied you up and use you however he wants.

w: bondage, kinky shit, use of vibrators, overstimulation, smut, sero is the king of aftercare, this is my kinkiest yet lol

n: hehe, tape quirk comes in handy. betaread by @jemifis ❤️ read on ao3

previous | next | start here

There's a package waiting for you on your door when you get home. Usually, you'd be suspicious of something like that. Being a well-known pro-hero has its disadvantages, such as people who don't like you and that would do anything so you disappear. However, it intrigues you.

The box has your name and your address on it, and it's from Amazon. You try to remember if you ordered something and forgot about it, but nothing comes to mind. You quickly pick it up, enter your apartment and go to the kitchen to get some scissors to open it up.

There's another box inside, covered in silver wrapping, the standard Amazon one. So someone bought you a gift from the site. Not a big deal. Impatient, you tear the paper and quickly open the box.

The contents of the box make your eyes widen in shock, a gasp leaving your lips as you cover your mouth in disbelief. Inside, there are several different vibrators of assorted colors and types. Your first thought is that some internet troll had pulled a prank on you, but then again, how did they get your personal address? Fanmail and letters are always sent to the hero agency you work at – not that you get many, anyway.

A card in the box catches your eye and, curious, you flip it over to read it:

Remember your promise, angel. – S.

Immediately, you grab your phone and look for Sero’s contact.

“Hey, angel–” he picks up after three rings.

“Hanta, what the fuck?!” you interrupt him, and he just laughs. You can practically picture his stupid grin as the sound comes through the receiver.

“So you got my little gift.”

“Little is an understatement.”

He scoffs, “Just thought we could have some fun tonight. You, me, some toys, and…”

“And?”

“Some tape.”

You pause, and Sero can practically hear the gears turning inside your head.

Truth is, he never actually thought about tape bondage until he was guts deep inside you, making you promise you'd let him do it. And he wasn't going to insist on the subject, but the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to try it. This agreement between you and him has only been about you – with the exception of that one time you went down on him –, so is it wrong for him to have a little fun?

“You mean…?” You trail off, unable to even voice it.

“Yeah.” You can hear him breathe out through the receiver. He really wants this, doesn't he?

You've never given it any thought, but the image of you tied up as he does whatever he wants with you… It kinda turns you on. Knowing he'd never hurt you, you don't see why not.

Sensing your hesitation, Sero speaks before you can answer,

“Why don't you test some toys first? Then let me know.”

“A-alright,” you reply, after another moment of silence.

“You should try the rose one. Mina said it was the best one.”

“You told Mina Ashido about this?!”

“Relax!” He laughs. “I just asked about some toys, didn't mention you at all.”

“Gosh, you're so embarrassing.” You roll your eyes, but also laugh with him.

…

“Is it too tight?” Sero murmurs in your ear as he wipes a drop of sweat from your forehead.

You’re laying down on the bed, legs spread wide, and ankles tied to your thighs, while your hands are secured together on the bedpost above you. You feel so vulnerable, so helpless, and it turns you on how he’s the only one who sees you like this.

“Hanta…” you whine, sweat dripping down your temples.

Turns out Sero was right – not that you’ll ever admit it to him –, the toys were amazing. It didn’t take long for you to agree to his proposal, but you did make him work for it. You were already convinced when he tried to talk you into it, showing positions you’d might like and ways to make you come while tied up. When you said yes, he let you choose the position you liked the most and that’s where you are right now.

The tape digs a little on your skin, but it doesn’t hurt as much as being denied yet another orgasm. You think your best friend is a little sadist, with the way he presses the vibrator with just enough pressure to drive you crazy. He also knows you a little too well, now that you think about it. You don’t even have to tell him you’re about to come, he just knows. He just won't let you.

“Yes, Angel?” he grins maliciously, swiping his thumb on your sensitive clit. You whimper, closing your eyes and throwing your head back on the pillow.

“Please…”

“Please what, baby?” Sero pushes two fingers inside you. You're so wet that they slide in easily, making embarrassing sounds.

“Please,” you whine again, breathing heavily.

“Use your words.” He teases, pressing the vibrator against you again. You groan, toes curling tightly, hands closed in fists so tight you almost draw blood from the palms of your hands.

It just feels so good when he's curling his fingers inside you, hitting that spot you'd never thought it was reachable with just his fingers. And when the vibrator puts pressure on your clit, it's heaven.

If only he'd let you have your orgasm.

“Please let me come,” you finally plead, once he denies you again, “please, please, please let me come, Hanta, I'd do anything!”

Sero laughs, pulling his fingers out of you and setting the vibrator’s intensity up, 

“What's our safe word again?” He asks, taking his time to walk around the bed until he lies beside you, leaning his head on his hand, supported by his elbow.

“T-tape dispenser.”

“Good girl.”

Sero then presses the toy once more against your clit, applying more pressure this time. A moan escapes your lips as your legs tremble; you feel another orgasm building in your lower stomach, but this time, Sero doesn't immediately remove the vibrator from you. He lets you come, watching as you roll your eyes back, and let you an almost guttural whine.

You don't come off your high, because he pressed the toy even further against you, having you twitch and tremble as yet another orgasm rushes through you, with no warning.

“H-Hanta–” you try to speak, but the way the vibrations send sparkles throughout your entire body has you losing your breath.

“You wanted to cum, didn't you?” he says, leaning towards you to lick a stray tear that slips down your temple. Then, he whispers in your ear, “use the safe word, if it's too much.”

You think you black out for a second between your third and forth orgasm, the safe word on the tip of your tongue, but you endure it. You want to believe you can take it, but the tears streaming down your face tell otherwise.

“Can you take one more, angel?” Sero coos in your ear, using his free hand to pet your head. You nod as you feel another wave of pleasure building inside you.

It takes everything in you to hold it in, but you eventually let go and then everything goes black for a moment.

“You okay?” he asks, turning the vibrator off and using the nail of his index finger to rip the tape bonding your hands.

You murmur something even you don’t understand while Sero grabs a bottle of massage oil to remove the tapes off you. Maybe you black out, because next thing you know, you’re being carried in his arms and gently being lowered down to a bathtub filled with warm water. You hum, leaning your back on his chest when he slips in the tub behind you.

For a moment, you both soak in silence. Sero hugs your torso, rubbing his thumbs on the skin of your waist, and leans his chin on your shoulder, nuzzling his nose on your hair. Slowly, you come down from your high and recover your senses.

“I don’t think I’ll ever come again,” you break the silence, making him laugh.

“Only one way to find out.” He slips his hand down, with the intention of touching your clit again, but you slap him away.

“Not right now!” You cry out, as he laughs louder.

“How did you like it?”

“It was fun. Maybe a bit too much,” you admit, “but I liked it.”

“Next time, don’t be afraid to use the safe word.”

You pull away to look at him, “you seem oddly experienced at this.”

Sero gives you one of his shit eating grins, but you can see a faint shade of pink on his cheekbones. “I did my homework.”

You hum, leaning onto him again and sighing. The silence takes over again and with it comes the overthinking.

“We’re still friends, right?” You say, before you can stop yourself.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” His voice sounds sleepy now.

You shrug. “‘Cause we’re doing all this crazy shit.”

“We can have sex and still be friends, right?”

Can you? Can you keep doing this knowing he doesn’t feel the same as you? Is it really just sex when every time you’re with him, you feel like heaven?

“Yeah, sure,” you reply, swallowing down all these questions.

Because you don’t think you’ll like the answers.

@lousypotatoes @ibby-miyoshi-nerd

[lemonandlime22]

Platonic yandere!Ace & Deuce

Warning(s): Yandere shit, unhealthy behavior, this shits only good for fiction irl this is no fuckin good obv, basically me rambling abt whatever comes to mind, cussing, not edited

A/N: getting more into yandere shit again, might write a fic at some point, but knowing me i doubt it lol. Sorry for the extreme lack on content, ive recently moved and been so much busier then i ever expected, also no wifi yet so its rly hard to to this on the computer. rn im pet sitting for a friend and they let me use their wifi so im able to write.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These two as yanderes wouldn't be too bad in all honesty

their just both extremely overprotective

and maybe Ace is a lot tad manipulative

Deuce just wants you to be safe and happy.

They downright refuse to let you alone with anyone that has or has tried to hurt you, it took a lot of convincing and reassuring just to let those ppl near you period

and there are quite a few ppl that fall into that category,

All the house wardens + Jamil

except for Kalim,

Crowley

I cannot express into words how much they hate Crowley,

The tweels,

Lilia

just in case.... (≖_≖ ),

Ruggie

he and Leona are kinda a package deal in that regard,

Ortho

for B6 spoiler reasons,

And a bunch of random students

cause a lot students at this school are assholes.

And i think that's abt it so far-

Deuce worries so much abt you all the time, he's like a clingy big dog

he rarely lets you leave his or Ace's sight

Ace acts like he could give a rats ass abt you but rly he worries just as much as Deuce

These two will do virtually anything for you

want answers to a test?

they got them for you by the end of the day!

some rando bothering you?

this world might have one less person or a hospital might gain a patient!

want Ramshackle cleaned

that mf is ganna be spotless once they're done with it!

ok maybe not the last one they'll rly just casually clean when they're there and in a month it'll be sparkling

The only downside to this is that they will always bicker wth each other while doing these things.

Oh Ace and Deuce almost never leave Ramshackle btw

Just imagine having a clingy dog and cat and that's abt the same experience.

Oh and this might go without saying, but by the end of the story they won't let you more than 6 feet away from either of them at all times

and i mean ALL

also there is no way in hell you are ever going to go home

these two will fr get a sledgehammer and go to town on that mirror no matter the consequences.

Buuut before that, they'll mostly Ace try and convince you to stay willingly by saying almost anything from guilt-tripping you too antagonizing your friends and family.

Decue will try to convince you too stay by getting you things, both sentimental and otherwise

he might even go back into stealing if the time comes.

Overall, rly these two aren't all that bad, but kidnapping is still on the table if they ever need to take dire measures....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tiktok's enshittification

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two sided market,” where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.

When a platform starts, it needs users, so it makes itself valuable to users. Think of Amazon: for many years, it operated at a loss, using its access to the capital markets to subsidize everything you bought. It sold goods below cost and shipped them below cost. It operated a clean and useful search. If you searched for a product, Amazon tried its damndest to put it at the top of the search results.

This was a hell of a good deal for Amazon’s customers. Lots of us piled in, and lots of brick-and-mortar retailers withered and died, making it hard to go elsewhere. Amazon sold us ebooks and audiobooks that were permanently locked to its platform with DRM, so that every dollar we spent on media was a dollar we’d have to give up if we deleted Amazon and its apps. And Amazon sold us Prime, getting us to pre-pay for a year’s worth of shipping. Prime customers start their shopping on Amazon, and 90% of the time, they don’t search anywhere else.

That tempted in lots of business customers — Marketplace sellers who turned Amazon into the “everything store” it had promised from the beginning. As these sellers piled in, Amazon shifted to subsidizing suppliers. Kindle and Audible creators got generous packages. Marketplace sellers reached huge audiences and Amazon took low commissions from them.

This strategy meant that it became progressively harder for shoppers to find things anywhere except Amazon, which meant that they only searched on Amazon, which meant that sellers had to sell on Amazon.

That’s when Amazon started to harvest the surplus from its business customers and send it to Amazon’s shareholders. Today, Marketplace sellers are handing 45%+ of the sale price to Amazon in junk fees. The company’s $31b “advertising” program is really a payola scheme that pits sellers against each other, forcing them to bid on the chance to be at the top of your search.

Searching Amazon doesn’t produce a list of the products that most closely match your search, it brings up a list of products whose sellers have paid the most to be at the top of that search. Those fees are built into the cost you pay for the product, and Amazon’s “Most Favored Nation” requirement sellers means that they can’t sell more cheaply elsewhere, so Amazon has driven prices at every retailer.

Search Amazon for “cat beds” and the entire first screen is ads, including ads for products Amazon cloned from its own sellers, putting them out of business (third parties have to pay 45% in junk fees to Amazon, but Amazon doesn’t charge itself these fees). All told, the first five screens of results for “cat bed” are 50% ads.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they’re locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they’re locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.

This is why — as Cat Valente wrote in her magesterial pre-Christmas essay — platforms like Prodigy transformed themselves overnight, from a place where you went for social connection to a place where you were expected to “stop talking to each other and start buying things”:

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

This shell-game with surpluses is what happened to Facebook. First, Facebook was good to you: it showed you the things the people you loved and cared about had to say. This created a kind of mutual hostage-taking: once a critical mass of people you cared about were on Facebook, it became effectively impossible to leave, because you’d have to convince all of them to leave too, and agree on where to go. You may love your friends, but half the time you can’t agree on what movie to see and where to go for dinner. Forget it.

Then, it started to cram your feed full of posts from accounts you didn’t follow. At first, it was media companies, who Facebook preferentially crammed down its users’ throats so that they would click on articles and send traffic to newspapers, magazines and blogs.

Then, once those publications were dependent on Facebook for their traffic, it dialed down their traffic. First, it choked off traffic to publications that used Facebook to run excerpts with links to their own sites, as a way of driving publications into supplying fulltext feeds inside Facebook’s walled garden.

This made publications truly dependent on Facebook — their readers no longer visited the publications’ websites, they just tuned into them on Facebook. The publications were hostage to those readers, who were hostage to each other. Facebook stopped showing readers the articles publications ran, tuning The Algorithm to suppress posts from publications unless they paid to “boost” their articles to the readers who had explicitly subscribed to them and asked Facebook to put them in their feeds.

Now, Facebook started to cram more ads into the feed, mixing payola from people you wanted to hear from with payola from strangers who wanted to commandeer your eyeballs. It gave those advertisers a great deal, charging a pittance to target their ads based on the dossiers of nonconsensually harvested personal data they’d stolen from you.

Sellers became dependent on Facebook, too, unable to carry on business without access to those targeted pitches. That was Facebook’s cue to jack up ad prices, stop worrying so much about ad fraud, and to collude with Google to rig the ad market through an illegal program called Jedi Blue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

Today, Facebook is terminally enshittified, a terrible place to be whether you’re a user, a media company, or an advertiser. It’s a company that deliberately demolished a huge fraction of the publishers it relied on, defrauding them into a “pivot to video” based on false claims of the popularity of video among Facebook users. Companies threw billions into the pivot, but the viewers never materialized, and media outlets folded in droves:

https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/facebook-online-video-pivot-metrics-false.html

But Facebook has a new pitch. It claims to be called Meta, and it has demanded that we live out the rest of our days as legless, sexless, heavily surveilled low-poly cartoon characters.

It has promised companies that make apps for this metaverse that it won’t rug them the way it did the publishers on the old Facebook. It remains to be seen whether they’ll get any takers. As Mark Zuckerberg once candidly confessed to a peer, marvelling at all of his fellow Harvard students who sent their personal information to his new website “TheFacebook”:

> I don’t know why.

> They “trust me”

> Dumb fucks.

https://doctorow.medium.com/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video-adbe09319038

Once you understand the enshittification pattern, a lot of the platform mysteries solve themselves. Think of the SEO market, or the whole energetic world of online creators who spend endless hours engaged in useless platform Kremlinology, hoping to locate the algorithmic tripwires, which, if crossed, doom the creative works they pour their money, time and energy into:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/11/coercion-v-cooperation/#the-machine-is-listening

Working for the platform can be like working for a boss who takes money out of every paycheck for all the rules you broke, but who won’t tell you what those rules are because if he told you that, then you’d figure out how to break those rules without him noticing and docking your pay. Content moderation is the only domain where security through obscurity is considered a best practice:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

The situation is so dire that organizations like Tracking Exposed have enlisted an human army of volunteers and a robot army of headless browsers to try to unwind the logic behind the arbitrary machine judgments of The Algorithm, both to give users the option to tune the recommendations they receive, and to help creators avoid the wage theft that comes from being shadow banned:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/tracking-exposed-demanding-gods-explain-themselves

But what if there is no underlying logic? Or, more to the point, what if the logic shifts based on the platform’s priorities? If you go down to the midway at your county fair, you’ll spot some poor sucker walking around all day with a giant teddy bear that they won by throwing three balls in a peach basket.

The peach-basket is a rigged game. The carny can use a hidden switch to force the balls to bounce out of the basket. No one wins a giant teddy bear unless the carny wants them to win it. Why did the carny let the sucker win the giant teddy bear? So that he’d carry it around all day, convincing other suckers to put down five bucks for their chance to win one:

https://boingboing.net/2006/08/27/rigged-carny-game.html

The carny allocated a giant teddy bear to that poor sucker the way that platforms allocate surpluses to key performers — as a convincer in a “Big Store” con, a way to rope in other suckers who’ll make content for the platform, anchoring themselves and their audiences to it.

Which brings me to Tiktok. Tiktok is many different things, including “a free Adobe Premiere for teenagers that live on their phones.”

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-fragments-of-media-you-consume

But what made it such a success early on was the power of its recommendation system. From the start, Tiktok was really, really good at recommending things to its users. Eerily good:

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1093882880

By making good-faith recommendations of things it thought its users would like, Tiktok built a mass audience, larger than many thought possible, given the death grip of its competitors, like Youtube and Instagram. Now that Tiktok has the audience, it is consolidating its gains and seeking to lure away the media companies and creators who are still stubbornly attached to Youtube and Insta.

Yesterday, Forbes’s Emily Baker-White broke a fantastic story about how that actually works inside of Bytedance, Tiktok’s parent company, citing multiple internal sources, revealing the existence of a “heating tool” that Tiktok employees use push videos from select accounts into millions of viewers’ feeds:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/01/20/tiktoks-secret-heating-button-can-make-anyone-go-viral/

These videos go into Tiktok users’ ForYou feeds, which Tiktok misleadingly describes as being populated by videos “ranked by an algorithm that predicts your interests based on your behavior in the app.” In reality, For You is only sometimes composed of videos that Tiktok thinks will add value to your experience — the rest of the time, it’s full of videos that Tiktok has inserted in order to make creators think that Tiktok is a great place to reach an audience.

“Sources told Forbes that TikTok has often used heating to court influencers and brands, enticing them into partnerships by inflating their videos’ view count. This suggests that heating has potentially benefitted some influencers and brands — those with whom TikTok has sought business relationships — at the expense of others with whom it has not.”

In other words, Tiktok is handing out giant teddy bears.

But Tiktok is not in the business of giving away giant teddy bears. Tiktok, for all that its origins are in the quasi-capitalist Chinese economy, is just another paperclip-maximizing artificial colony organism that treats human beings as inconvenient gut flora. Tiktok is only going to funnel free attention to the people it wants to entrap until they are entrapped, then it will withdraw that attention and begin to monetize it.

“Monetize” is a terrible word that tacitly admits that there is no such thing as an “Attention Economy.” You can’t use attention as a medium of exchange. You can’t use it as a store of value. You can’t use it as a unit of account. Attention is like cryptocurrency: a worthless token that is only valuable to the extent that you can trick or coerce someone into parting with “fiat” currency in exchange for it. You have to “monetize” it — that is, you have to exchange the fake money for real money.

In the case of cryptos, the main monetization strategy was deception-based. Exchanges and “projects” handed out a bunch of giant teddy-bears, creating an army of true-believer Judas goats who convinced their peers to hand the carny their money and try to get some balls into the peach-basket themselves.

But deception only produces so much “liquidity provision.” Eventually, you run out of suckers. To get lots of people to try the ball-toss, you need coercion, not persuasion. Think of how US companies ended the defined benefits pension that guaranteed you a dignified retirement, replacing it with market-based 401(k) pensions that forced you to gamble your savings in a rigged casino, making you the sucker at the table, ripe for the picking:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

Early crypto liquidity came from ransomware. The existence of a pool of desperate, panicked companies and individuals whose data had been stolen by criminals created a baseline of crypto liquidity because they could only get their data back by trading real money for fake crypto money.

The next phase of crypto coercion was Web3: converting the web into a series of tollbooths that you could only pass through by trading real money for fake crypto money. The internet is a must-have, not a nice-to-have, a prerequisite for full participation in employment, education, family life, health, politics, civics, even romance. By holding all those things to ransom behind crypto tollbooths, the hodlers hoped to convert their tokens to real money:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

For Tiktok, handing out free teddy-bears by “heating” the videos posted by skeptical performers and media companies is a way to convert them to true believers, getting them to push all their chips into the middle of the table, abandoning their efforts to build audiences on other platforms (it helps that Tiktok’s format is distinctive, making it hard to repurpose videos for Tiktok to circulate on rival platforms).

Once those performers and media companies are hooked, the next phase will begin: Tiktok will withdraw the “heating” that sticks their videos in front of people who never heard of them and haven’t asked to see their videos. Tiktok is performing a delicate dance here: there’s only so much enshittification they can visit upon their users’ feeds, and Tiktok has lots of other performers they want to give giant teddy-bears to.

Tiktok won’t just starve performers of the “free” attention by depreferencing them in the algorithm, it will actively punish them by failing to deliver their videos to the users who subscribed to them. After all, every time Tiktok shows you a video you asked to see, it loses a chance to show you a video it wants you to see, because your attention is a giant teddy-bear it can give away to a performer it is wooing.

This is just what Twitter has done as part of its march to enshittification: thanks to its “monetization” changes, the majority of people who follow you will never see the things you post. I have ~500k followers on Twitter and my threads used to routinely get hundreds of thousands or even millions of reads. Today, it’s hundreds, perhaps thousands.

I just handed Twitter $8 for Twitter Blue, because the company has strongly implied that it will only show the things I post to the people who asked to see them if I pay ransom money. This is the latest battle in one of the internet’s longest-simmering wars: the fight over end-to-end:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

In the beginning, there were Bellheads and Netheads. The Bellheads worked for big telcos, and they believed that all the value of the network rightly belonged to the carrier. If someone invented a new feature — say, Caller ID — it should only be rolled out in a way that allows the carrier to charge you every month for its use. This is Software-As-a-Service, Ma Bell style.

The Netheads, by contrast, believed that value should move to the edges of the network — spread out, pluralized. In theory, Compuserve could have “monetized” its own version of Caller ID by making you pay $2.99 extra to see the “From:” line on email before you opened the message — charging you to know who was speaking before you started listening — but they didn’t.

The Netheads wanted to build diverse networks with lots of offers, lots of competition, and easy, low-cost switching between competitors (thanks to interoperability). Some wanted this because they believed that the net would someday be woven into the world, and they didn’t want to live in a world of rent-seeking landlords. Others were true believers in market competition as a source of innovation. Some believed both things. Either way, they saw the risk of network capture, the drive to monetization through trickery and coercion, and they wanted to head it off.

They conceived of the end-to-end principle: the idea that networks should be designed so that willing speakers’ messages would be delivered to willing listeners’ end-points as quickly and reliably as they could be. That is, irrespective of whether a network operator could make money by sending you the data it wanted to receive, its duty would be to provide you with the data you wanted to see.

The end-to-end principle is dead at the service level today. Useful idiots on the right were tricked into thinking that the risk of Twitter mismanagement was “woke shadowbanning,” whereby the things you said wouldn’t reach the people who asked to hear them because Twitter’s deep state didn’t like your opinions. The real risk, of course, is that the things you say won’t reach the people who asked to hear them because Twitter can make more money by enshittifying their feeds and charging you ransom for the privilege to be included in them.

As I said at the start of this essay, enshittification exerts a nearly irresistible gravity on platform capitalism. It’s just too easy to turn the enshittification dial up to eleven. Twitter was able to fire the majority of its skilled staff and still crank the dial all the way over, even with a skeleton crew of desperate, demoralized H1B workers who are shackled to Twitter’s sinking ship by the threat of deportation.

The temptation to enshittify is magnified by the blocks on interoperability: when Twitter bans interoperable clients, nerfs its APIs, and periodically terrorizes its users by suspending them for including their Mastodon handles in their bios, it makes it harder to leave Twitter, and thus increases the amount of enshittification users can be force-fed without risking their departure.

Twitter is not going to be a “protocol.” I’ll bet you a testicle¹ that projects like Bluesky will find no meaningful purchase on the platform, because if Bluesky were implemented and Twitter users could order their feeds for minimal enshittification and leave the service without sacrificing their social networks, it would kill the majority of Twitter’s “monetization” strategies.

¹Not one of mine.

An enshittification strategy only succeeds if it is pursued in measured amounts. Even the most locked-in user eventually reaches a breaking-point and walks away, or gets pushed. The villagers of Anatevka in Fiddler on the Roof tolerated the cossacks' violent raids and pogroms for years, until they were finally forced to flee to Krakow, New York and Chicago:

https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms-9fc550fe5abf

For enshittification-addled companies, that balance is hard to strike. Individual product managers, executives, and activist shareholders all give preference to quick returns at the cost of sustainability, and are in a race to see who can eat their seed-corn first. Enshittification has only lasted for as long as it has because the internet has devolved into “five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four”:

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040

With the market sewn up by a group of cozy monopolists, better alternatives don’t pop up and lure us away, and if they do, the monopolists just buy them out and integrate them into your enshittification strategies, like when Mark Zuckerberg noticed a mass exodus of Facebook users who were switching to Instagram, and so he bought Instagram. As Zuck says, “It is better to buy than to compete.”

This is the hidden dynamic behind the rise and fall of Amazon Smile, the program whereby Amazon gave a small amount of money to charities of your choice when you shopped there, but only if you used Amazon’s own search tool to locate the products you purchased. This provided an incentive for Amazon customers to use its own increasingly enshittified search, which it could cram full of products from sellers who coughed up payola, as well as its own lookalike products. The alternative was to use Google, whose search tool would send you directly to the product you were looking for, and then charge Amazon a commission for sending you to it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10ft5iv/comment/j4znb8y/

The demise of Amazon Smile coincides with the increasing enshittification of Google Search, the only successful product the company managed to build in-house. All its other successes were bought from other companies: video, docs, cloud, ads, mobile; while its own products are either flops like Google Video, clones (Gmail is a Hotmail clone), or adapted from other companies’ products, like Chrome.

Google Search was based on principles set out in founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s landmark 1998 paper, “Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” in which they wrote, “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”

http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/361/

Even with that foundational understanding of enshittification, Google has been unable to resist its siren song. Today’s Google results are an increasingly useless morass of self-preferencing links to its own products, ads for products that aren’t good enough to float to the top of the list on its own, and parasitic SEO junk piggybacking on the former.

Enshittification kills. Google just laid off 12,000 employees, and the company is in a full-blown “panic” over the rise of “AI” chatbots, and is making a full-court press for an AI-driven search tool — that is, a tool that won’t show you what you ask for, but rather, what it thinks you should see:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/20/23563851/google-search-ai-chatbot-demo-chatgpt

Now, it’s possible to imagine that such a tool will produce good recommendations, like Tiktok’s pre-enshittified algorithm did. But it’s hard to see how Google will be able to design a non-enshittified chatbot front-end to search, given the strong incentives for product managers, executives, and shareholders to enshittify results to the precise threshold at which users are nearly pissed off enough to leave, but not quite.

Even if it manages the trick, this-almost-but-not-quite-unusuable equilibrium is fragile. Any exogenous shock — a new competitor like Tiktok that penetrates the anticompetitive “moats and walls” of Big Tech, a privacy scandal, a worker uprising — can send it into wild oscillations:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/watch-the-surpluses/#exogenous-shocks

Enshittification truly is how platforms die. That’s fine, actually. We don’t need eternal rulers of the internet. It’s okay for new ideas and new ways of working to emerge. The emphasis of lawmakers and policymakers shouldn’t be preserving the crepuscular senescence of dying platforms. Rather, our policy focus should be on minimizing the cost to users when these firms reach their expiry date: enshrining rights like end-to-end would mean that no matter how autocannibalistic a zombie platform became, willing speakers and willing listeners would still connect with each other:

https://doctorow.medium.com/end-to-end-d6046dca366f

And policymakers should focus on freedom of exit — the right to leave a sinking platform while continuing to stay connected to the communities that you left behind, enjoying the media and apps you bought, and preserving the data you created:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

The Netheads were right: technological self-determination is at odds with the natural imperatives of tech businesses. They make more money when they take away our freedom — our freedom to speak, to leave, to connect.

For many years, even Tiktok’s critics grudgingly admitted that no matter how surveillant and creepy it was, it was really good at guessing what you wanted to see. But Tiktok couldn’t resist the temptation to show you the things it wants you to see, rather than what you want to see. The enshittification has begun, and now it is unlikely to stop.

It's too late to save Tiktok. Now that it has been infected by enshittifcation, the only thing left is to kill it with fire.

[Image ID: Hansel and Gretel in front of the witch's candy house. Hansel and Gretel have been replaced with line-drawings of influencers, taking selfies of themselves with the candy house. In front of the candy house stands a portly man in a business suit; his head is a sack of money with a dollar-sign on it. He wears a crooked witch's hat. The cottage has the Tiktok logo on it.]

[loquarocoeur]

alex I am so sorry to send another fucking ask but like. I needed to okay, (also doing my first ask on a laptop was a mistake bc I can type at the speed of light here and this got way too long oops?)

something I've thought and wondered about before was the idea of what would happen should max & charles ever be interrupted while max is in subspace. you've covered a funnier side like a regular walk in during sex and both of them just being like Would U Fuck Off, but subspace is different. like perhaps its something just like someone at the apartment door that actually does really need answering, an urgent work call one of them forgot about, someone in an area they are unexpectedly that maybe doesn't see them but their presence is enough to panic max.

if its more the physical presence of someone, even just in another room etc, obviously max would lose 20 years of his life at the idea of anyone but charles seeing him in subspace, its a painfully private vulnerable part of him for charles and charles alone. it'd rock him, obviously.

or if it was more along the line of a phone call or situation where one of them needs to be physically present, how would max feel but also how would charles deal with juggling the Important Thing He Forgot To Do while also soothing a very down very subby max. obviously a first idea is just making the problem Go Away, etc, but a. I like to work scenarios through and b. it'd be enough of a bubble intrusion to cause a shift in the atmosphere anyway.

its not even meant to be like especially angsty if you don't want because heavy shit aint always the vibe. you don't need to know like a definite answer here, or have even thought about it before. I just particularly enjoy the dynamic of subspace itself and wanted to chat (and accidentally send u half an essay about) it. hell you don't need to have a fuckin clue I just wanted to float you my brain thinky stuff bc why not <3

apologies again that I've sent u an ask the length of war and peace

~ swanon 🦢

Yeah I think considering their careers this is definitely a thing that happens at some point.

I think the first time it's probably just the door or something and Max thinks he's going to be fine if Charles just leaves to answer it quickly, but turns out it is not fine and Charles can't just leave him because he will absolutely panic

Also it's probably also more subtle that Max's, but I think Charles also kind of gets into a kind of domspace during sex as much as Max gets into a subspace and even though he finds it much easier to snap himself out of it or multitask with it, it's still a thing and he'd probably need a second too

So I think it obviously does happen like several times to the point that sometimes they either just put it off for a few minutes until they're out of that headspace enough to do the 'important thing' or Charles just ends up taking Max with and letting him just cling onto him behind the door while Charles peeks his head out to sign for a package or smth lol and also let's be real, Charles is not above answering phone calls while he is actively inside of Max

So basically I think it's either Make The Thing Go Away or if that's not an option just Multitask

But yeah I don't think it would end up too great if anyone walked in on them while Max is like actually properly in subspace because yeah that's not something Max wants anybody to see except Charles and it's also not something Charles wants to share with anyone else because it's just like private and personal and it means something to them yknow. And Charles also kind of has the responsibility of taking care of things when Max is like that so he would feel like absolute shit about it even if it wasn't his fault like at all.

Yeah I don't even know what would happen but I don't think they would blame each other at all, if it was bad enough they'd probably end up having a joint breakdown about it crying at the same time like no no I'm sorry it's my fault, no it's mine etc until they finally agree it was nobody's fault and finally calm the fuck down and feel slightly bad for whoever they accidentally traumatised just now

[starsofang]

Hey… hey… how y’all doing?

I’m just going to slowly ignore that fact that this is very late and I totally was asleep all yesterday. That’s my excuse, angie. I SWEAR!!! Pinky swear!

Anyway! SOAP😭 I’ve said it so many times and to be fair you’re probably tired of hearing it but I love the way you write him. I can’t even begin to put the feeling into words. I’m always down for funny, a little dumb, Soap. But the way you write him is so amazing. He’s smart but funny, he’s got good humor but isn’t totally and annoyingly obnoxious. He’s obviously very strong, which wow, is very hot just so you know. Finding someone who writes Soap like you do is so hard and I’m so jealous that you can do it.

I could practically hear his heart break though :((( you can’t give ANY OF THEM happiness can you. SHE SAID ONLY GAZ AND PRICE😭😭😭😭😭😭 I COULD HEAR SOAPS HEART BREAK😭😭😭 I don’t think he’ll tell those two, either out of privacy for her or jealousy for him. But it makes me wonder if she’s even under the impression that she likes Ghost and Soap? Has she even realized it? Have they even interacted enough for her to think that she might have some type of feelings for them.

Soap was so gentle with her too. He assured her that he wouldn’t do anything untoward to her and was attempting to keep her calm when he saw just how bad the bruise was. Which makes me wonder just how bad it really is.

Nurse rant incoming: Broken ribs without treatment can be deadly. Sepsis and other types of infections can seriously hurt her. I don’t know if you’re going that way but seriously, that’s so insane. Not to mention, if he steps in certain places on her ribs, if he breaks one it could puncture whatever it was protecting. By the way you describe where the bruising is, I’d take a wild guess and say, if a kid came into my ER with that bruising, I’d immediately think that some internal bleeding and maybe a punctured pancreas could be going on but that’s also because I read how he was STEPPING on her.

BUT aside from that. John😭😭😭😭😭Price😭😭😭😭😭 He doesn’t even know why she want’s to go back home and the fact that he agreed anyways is absolutely gut wrenching. He cares so much for her and I always had faith that he truly was a good man. Take that John Price Haters😒🫵🏻 Though what does worry me is that they burned down her entire village, yes? She’s going to be heartbroken if they really do take her back to her home. Even if she’s going there to help her figure out her dream (which what the fuck?????) Her entire village and people are dead. I don’t think she’ll pull away from them but she might be heartbroken all over again.

Alsooooo, I didn’t really know how to interpret this part but is Soap now aware that she knows about him and Ghost? Did he take it as a joke? Maybe Is accidentally skipped over a very important part which probably wouldn’t be surprising. Also are all four of them already involved but we just don’t know it yet? If so you probably won’t tell me. Traitor 😒

Have the night you deserve angie, I’m coming for you. 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

hi babes 😜 fancy seeing u here like. four days late. oops.

i’m never tired of hearing it pookie, soap is just probably my favorite (besides gaz 😫) and i feel like it’s evident in the way i write him. it’s peak favoritism at its finest. he’s funny, charming, but also hot when he’s angry LORD he’s the package

love ur lil nurse rants because i genuinely wing the fuck out of injuries, especially dove’s. like. i work as a pharmacist. i deal with drugs. idk shit about injuries except how to make the boo boo feel better and obviously on a pirate ship i can’t even do that because hello, i don’t think oxy was invented yet 😭 who would just carry that around. gotta wing her medicines too that she can’t even use. damn anyway it puts things into perspective for me and i’m coming to you for health advice soon mwah

price the man u are. yeah nah she definitely gonna be hit with reality as soon as she sees that crispy ass village again but yknow what? she asked for it. plus going back is important and you’ll find out why 😚

i like to think soap knows. i kind of put it up for interpretation but let’s be honest they’re not very subtle. who leaves the door open when you’re kissing a homie. hello? not him

as for all of them being involved? four men on a ship together gets lonely. i’ll leave it at that.

love u as always 😙

[nightswithkookmin]

MY MOST TOXIC TRAIT

Is thinking Jungkook would have killed Vibes 😔

Vocally at least. That pop groovy style is so Jungkook. So it surprised me when I read reviews from other blogs and they are all seemed to suggest that Taeyang stepped outside his comfort zone for this. One of these days I will sue auto correct.

The song in its entirety is reminiscent of BTS's recent pop songs and style. I swear I could hear and feel BTS in the song. Or perhaps it's because I'm used to listening to JMs voice intertwined with V's Jin's and Jungkook's. But I also wondered if whoever wrote the song had BTS in mind. Won't be surprised.

It reminds me of My Universe. The drums, the beat the pauses- especially towards the end of the song.

But this Taeyang person brought something to the table. He sounds very seasoned and confident and I love his swag. It's everything the song needed to be transformed.

Looking at him, I think of Suga and Namjoon and even Hobi. Not sure if it's because he's mature and a hyung but I think he shares a similar style of delivery when it comes to his swag.

I always say this, in my head of course, most of what excites me about the hyung line is their attitude, their delivery and then the whole package.

Jungkook has swag but he has a lot of humility too. Not sure if performance wise he would have been able to pull off that swag and attitude and bravado this song needs.

Jimin himself seemed a little reserved in the performance. Except for the opening. And a few sprinkled moments here and there.

I've seen Jimin go crazy on a track during performances on stage. I've seen wild hip thrusts, and sexiness and Diva vibes and energy and seduction and oomph.

It's frustrating when he tries to be gentle won't lie

And it's crazy how he complains of muscle aches but will keep going and pushing himself. He's so disciplined and such a professional.

Vibe is a Vibe.

I wish Jungkook leaned a lot more into himself.

I want to see sexy, and swag and attitude.

I remember he said he struggled with filming his part in Dynamite. Seems he struggles getting it up sometimes.

See this why you gotta sniff some shit sometimes. Wash it down with Heineken and go your merry way. I'm a blogger and sometimes even I have performance anxiety 🥴

Don't do drugs kiddos. Drug bad😌

During dreamers he said he wasn't even nervous which is awesome. Can't wait for his turn when it's time to do promos and release his album.

My obsession with Dior.

People don't seem to understand why Jimin's dior is such a big deal for me. Sometimes I forget we all have different experiences and joined the Fandom in different time lines.

Jimin's dior is a big deal because Jhope's dior was a big deal for me and for the Fandom.

Remember this?

Yall remember this epic dior moment??

This moment shook the entire Fandom and had us talking for years unend. I still remember this sensation like it was yesterday.

This is the brand JIMIN IS THE FACE OF

The biggest moment in fashion history

And for them to crown JM 👑 as ambassador implies so many things. The spoils go to whomever they felt represented the brand well, whomever slayed, whomever wears it best- yall see where I'm going with this???

Toxic I know but someone has to say it😫

Won't lie, Jhope's Dior outfit was a killer moment

It gave Micheal Jackson level insane

Thriller king of pop energy

But then there's Jimin in all his andro glory

What a cultural moment whew take me back

What I'm saying is Dior is the IT BRAND

We talking top of the top tier

They scream daddy

They are daddy what's up

And yes, Jhope could have easily been the first Asian male artist face of Dior. He killed that look. But it's not about that one moment of daddiness kiddos. It's the aggregate. The sum of all the daddy moments

Jimin is so Daddy he makes daddy look like baby.

Whoever this Kim jones person is they are not Just PJM they are PJM vvip. Classy.

Just as I didn't shut up about JHope and that dior moment, expect to hear about JM and dior as long as I'm out here😓

THE FIRST ASIAN MALE ARTIST TO REPRESENT DIOR. WOW. JUST WOW.

It's like they were waiting for him to go solo to snatch him off the streets. I'm not mad at that🤭

JIMIN'S ALBUM

Yes, grab a seat I'm letting it all out.

I've said nothing about this because truth is I'm nervous 😅

I don't know what the reception will be like. Sometimes his own fans will turn around and say they didn't like it 🤷🏾

People like to set themselves up for disappointment by having expectations and when those expectations aren't met they get disappointed.

I'm doing the opposite of that. I don't have any expectations whatsoever. I want to go in with a clean slate and consume whatever he has made objectively. He might try something new, something old, introduce us to new things, remind us of old things, reminisce, give us butterflies in the stomach and make us feel nostalgic.

Some of his songs will make us dance, some will make us cry, some will be on replay on the drive or it won't. Regardless I will be so happy and excited for him because this is his first project.

It's not a make it or break it situation. He will have so many years ahead of him to make new songs different songs and so many opportunities redeem himself or make hit songs.

I don't want him to feel a sense of pressure thinking he has to get it right. He is simply making a foray into new territory. No body will judge him based on his first album. It's his second that matters. And even that the third will matter more and the forth and the fith.

You can't live in your past glory and whatever you do today is already gone.

If you mess up today tomorrow is an opportunity to redeem yourself. You just have to try and keep going.

So no, I don't have any expectations. Whatever he has done is already great and I know in my hearts of hearts I will enjoy it regardless.

Well done Jimin.

Keep going.

Keep making songs.

We have your back.

Just do a live often chilee😩

What's a kpop idol if you're not vliving like crazy.

[sol-consort]

Do you hope the next mass effect will have the original Normandy crew or do you want a new protag and new companions?

(Also wanted to let u know, there's a game in the works by old bioware veterans called exodus: become the Traveler. Appreantly its gonna be a lot like mass effect with a big focus on companions and choices, and the original writer Drew who wrotr mass effect is also involved I think and many other bioware veterans from the golden days of bioware. I realy hope exodus and mass effect 4 wont dissapoint.)

I'm hoping for a new crew. I love the OG gang but ME3 showed me that almost all of them are used to this by now, they've become jaded and they each have their own spot in the galaxy to fullfill that we're stealing them from.

I'd love for them to do their own thing as we get occasional updates, and maybe they join as an extra companion in a mission or two, like how Wrex was in the citadel dlc.

I'd love to see Liara command a group of assassins as the shadowbroker that come to our aid. Garrus with his own special unit and ship that has a special room just for calibrations. Ashley and Kaidan preforming their individual spectre duties and having this friendly competition with Shepard.

All except Joker. Because Joker and Shepard feel like a package deal. There is no Shepard without Joker and no Joker without Shepard. Would love for EDI to be there but again, she deserves to actually go out and explore the universe and what it means to have a soul, not just stay glued under Joker's wings all her life.

Because there is so much potential for new companions! Maybe we get a reaper one? Maybe an asari matriarch? A female krogan? Humans who are the best of the best with their own individual quirks and personalities that were given to join the crew of the commander Shepard.

Hell, even a hanar! Maybe a volus, too. I still can't forget Thane's description of how deadly hanar are in water. Maybe a new species joins, and humanity isn't the new kid anymore. Maybe we even get to show off as this new species looks up to us for guidance bc we speedran getting a seat at the council. I'd love a batarian crew memeber.

I'd love to see more conflict. An asari civil war. A turian and salarian disagreement about who should be held accountable for the genophage that turns deadly quickly. For once I want it not to be the humans who are fucking shit up and have to call others for help.

Maybe even dealing with a blackhole problem. Like how that one sun Tali was investigating began aging quickly. A disease or something spreads that makes stars every wear age at an alarmingly rate and the whole of the milky way is threaten to be swallowed by blackholes from these sun and we have to defy physics and stop it somehow.

Or just a normal adventure without a galaxy wide threat yk? Something lowkey where you can take it easy at times and indulge in luxury or comfort rather than tighten your belt for the upcoming war in ME3. Discovering new planets, saving people and doing side fun side quests. Let us explore the world we saved goddammit! I want to see more of Thessia and we didn't even get to land on palavan!

Beach party at hanar homeworld let's go!! Using water guns against your crew and having a friendly match.

Also Shepard shines more when surrounded by new people who are impressed by you. Think of Brooks before the reveal, wasn't she endearing and made you feel special? Wasn't that how meeting Cornard in ME1 made you feel? Same with the interviewer?

Like imagine a bunch of side quests where you have to deal with your fame and the problems it causes. Because especially after the Citidal dlc, Shepard became a famous gamer with a record only you held. Now you're not just popular with military people but most of the common people.

Having to disguise yourself while shopping for groceries. Being asked for autographs at very inappropriate times. The hanar harassing you about Javik. It should be lighthearted and only happen during these side quests so it doesn't become annoying.

I want to see Shepard relax and be appreciated dammit! I'm tired of war. If one happens, it shouldn't be human related so that we don't feel necessary to go intervene.

Tho I think they should let you keep your romance around. Would love to get to import ME3 save. And ME4 starts with you recovering in a hospital. They did say that Shepard was already part synthetic right? So it makes sense to be able to repair them no matter how bad the damage even without Cerberus.

And it was Miranda who led the project last time, so maybe she could do it again since she got on good terms with the alliance or she gave her information to Liara in case she died.

What I would absolutely hate is a drastic time skip where Liara wakes you up and is like "Shepard, it's been 100 years" or some bullshit like NO. FUCK YOU.

Another fucking time skip? Where everyone thinks I'm dead again??? And all my loved ones died?? NO. BAD LIARA BAD.

If you want some feature timeskip nonsense then let the WHOLE crew join me. Maybe Joker accidentally steers the ship into a wormhole and we end up in the future. As long as everyone Is inside the Normandy when it happens then I'm fine with it. At least this time around we would get some catharsis while proving we're not dead again in front of the same companions who were mad at us for being dead.

Also I'd like more character creation options that influences lore and isn't just cosmetic? Like the background one or the psychology one.

It'd be cool if we got to pick one during each game to determine what Shepard has been up to while we weren't here. In ME4 maybe we get to decide if we setteled down and tried to have a family or if we kept exploring and fighting during the character creation before the game begins.

I don't want it to effect much besides stray dialogue and callbacks, maybe a special quest or two.

The biggest problem tho is the ending. I don't know how they're going to make ME4 without establishing one canon ending for ME3. In which case it sucks and makes the whole endgame choice feel pointless if it was predetermined from the beginning.

And if it wasn't predetermined but imported, then I don't see how it won't drastically change the game. They'd have to make 3 seperate whole games. One where we're hugging and kissing reapers, another where they don't exist.

But like ME2 having an ending where Shepard dies. Probably the only way to import your ME3 save is if you picked the red ending where it's the only one where Shepard lives.

That'd be disappointing but I get it. From a dev perspective I see why it would save them so many headaches.

There is also the possibility to play as another companion or a whole different person? Maybe we try to resurrect our space jesus Shepard? Maybe we're Liara as a Matriarch? Who knows.

Gonna keep it real. I don't wanna play as an asari. Literally okay with any other race. Because I saw how disgusting and weird other npcs get around asari and I don't want to be subjected to that sexual harassment again. The constant flirting gets very old quickly.

Otherwise asari seem really cool and it's a shame they aren't explored much besides "hot alien race"

I talked a lot man, I have to go to my doctor's appointment. Ah I hate doctors.

Anyway I did check the game you mentioned!

WE ARE AN ENGINEERED CHILD? FUCK YEAH!!! WE ARE SPECIAL WOO.

so much trauma potential! Just like Miranda.

It also follows a similar plot to Andromeda from what I've seen? We were in cryosleep for so long while travelling to another place and exploring?

There is also the rot thing, and apparently, we are the only cure. Makes me think if we're gonna play more of a healer saviour role rather than a war hero.

The mech suits look so fucking good, I hope we get the option to pilot one constantly like that one revealed companion.

I do like that we have established parents, please do not kill off my dad this time around :( please. But it leaves less room for customization and background ah. I'd hate it if we couldn't even design our own character and had to use premade ones.

It seems cool so far! Imma keep tracking its progress. The last update was 7 days ago and the devs are open about answering questions. It's a new title so they'll have to make new aliens and such, I hope they end up good.

I mean in a space game, it is the aliens that make or break the game. You either end up with high on life aliens or mass effect aliens.

I don't like the idea of having to re-explore parts about earth history because the player already knows all of that. I don't want to spend an entire quest just to dig up a gameboy or something and have these characters gawk and make bad guesses at what it is. It feels cheap to piggyback off of nostalgia and misunderstanding humour. Every character turning into Ariel and brushing their hair with a fork.

Or are we talking ice age, pyramids and such? It'd be more tolerable then but...also the players are familiar with these things in other games who milked the concepts.

I don't want humans reacting to past human inventions, I want aliens doing it at at least or just give me a whole new world to explore. Why are we so stuck in the past?

But maybe this is special to this one recently revealed character, in which case that's fair. It's a character and their quest is probably optional, plus that will definitely appeal to some people.

My hope is that they realise no one wants to do these massive collection quests in these planets with a massive map and please skip the fluff and stuffing. I'd rather the effort goes into handmade quests like in BG3 rather than "scan 50 plants because fuck you"

Yes I am irritated with Andromeda, am I a pathfinder or a fetch dog? I also hate the resources and crafting our own equipment system.

Like this is clearly somone else's job! what are you people even doing if I'm the one collecting material for my stuff and crafting them? Shouldn't this be your job while I just gave you the credits? Why would I even care about the arks and nexus if I'm fully self sufficient! At least in mass effect you were forced to go there to shop and get your stuff. It made the world feel not so useless.

Like I get it. You want us to feel like we're explorers who make the best of the world around us. We're tight for materials so we have to scavenge and survive! That would've worked if we were stranded in space and not doing fetch quests for the said scientists who can't even give me some uranium to craft my fucking grear and no one is selling it to me either! I hate it here.

I hope Exudes goes away from that direction. And the hacking games one too. I'm tired of soduko, it haunts me in my dreams. Mass effect had this problem too.

Games can be very fun without the fluff and stuffing in between actually interesting quests.

[princessofxianle]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

well THANK YOU for asking, you are the first to!

tbh ive been meaning to do this on my main blog bc I take these wayyy too seriously lol but ANYWAY heres my top 10 faves (in no particular order) that I can think of (tbh theres prob more i forgot about, or i wanted to keep only 1 per fandom... except tgcf)

Huge Spoiler Warning: for ALL of tgcf, 2ha, aot, AND JJK MANGA!!!

1. Feng Xin (tgcf)

do i even need to explain this one? loyal to a fault, just a cute lil puppy, one hell of a sculpted archers back, and he's head over heels in love with Xie Lian (but tbh same) i have a lot of thoughts about him on a daily basis on this blog (and also theres the #fx backstory au tag)

2. Noé Archiviste (the Case Study of Vanitas)

MY BABY

the absolute bestest boy of EVER... with a LOAD of unprocessed trauma (yknow the typical stuff like seeing your childhood bff get decapitated in front of you) and a lot more to come once we find out how he kills his boyfriend best friend, Vanitas...

i ALSO think about him a lot but over on @noes-pillow

3. Sejanus Plinth (The Hunger Games: tbosas)

hated reading as a child... HATED it... picked up the og trilogy when i was 12 and i was a goner. The funny thing is i still hated reading for YEARS up until i picked up the prequel novel then in 2020, and now ive read all of tgcf, 2ha, and more fanfic than i could ever imagine... all because this stupid boy (i love him) chose to trust the WORST person as his friend, rip sejanus my baby

the movie is v good btw, if you havent seen it you should

4. Xie Lian (tgcf)

*Taizi Dianxia Fang Xin Guoshi General Hua Xie Lian*

how this man survived 800 years of being physically unable to die and never went insane is a mystery i will never be able to fully comprehend (aaand im in love with him... hmm i wonder why...)

5. Mihael "Mello" Keehl (Death Note)

the chocolate-addicted blonde boi that was my first anime crush... by proxy I must also add Mail "Matt" Jeevas because they are a package deal

these two are also the reason i started writing fanfic so they will ALWAYS hold a special place in my heart

6. Xue Meng - (2ha)

*sigh* he's just everyone's fav peacock (yes technically the image is XM 0.5 but he had a cool ass bird so im using this photo bc its COOL anyway...) mengmeng is another one of my trauma bois who has lost next to everything and yet is STILL kicking ass and taking names #thatsmyfuckingsectleader so proud of you my son

also this might get me into hot water here but imma go ahead and say it...

this is what i wanted Jiang Cheng to be... (i LOVE my angy grape but...) through thick and thin, despite EVERYTHING, and even mo ran fucking abandoning him he will still call mo ran his "ge"...

fgjhdfhfdg THEYRE BROTHERS, OKAY???

7. Howl Pendragon (Howl's Moving Castle)

ok this one i just simply do not need to explain... if you think i do, go watch this whole movie and then there ya go thats your answer...

GENDER

8. River Song (Doctor Who)

aside from being the character that unlocked my unhealthy obsession with :) Main Character Death :) at the ripe ol' age of 8 YEARS (although Will Turner from POTC also helped on that front... Orlando Bloom my beloved) River's story was a stroke of absolute GENIUS from start to finish and i simply love how Alex Kingston played her...

"You don't expect a sunset to admire you back."

I just love the doomed ones, okay...

9. Satoru Gojo (Jujutsu Kaisen)

look... theres *gojo girlies* uwu and then theres GOJO GIRLIES... i couldn't give 2 shits about how he's fan-serviced (tho im not complaining) but have you SEEN the amount of grief pumped into that man? he could explode in a fit of fucking insanity at literally any moment and take the whole goddamn world down with him bc what happened with suguru WASNT FAIR to him and satoru has more than enough power to go apeshit... but he DOESN'T... even after losing so many of his co-sorcerers... he still puts on a brave face to the end in order to protect the childhood of his students even tho his own youth was stolen from him during hidden inventory...

SEE? The DOOMED ones!

10. Levi Ackerman (Attack on Titan)

i read the manga during my last year of uni and when i tell you i SOBBED at the end... yes ofc for obvious reasons, but mostly bc my little Levi loses EVERYTHING. He is the SOLE survivor of the veteran scouts. He's missing multiple fingers, an eye, and the ability to walk. He was the strongest (yowaimo) but wasn't even granted the mercy to die at the end of his narrative! Broke my fucking heart.

BONUS: Morph (Treasure Planet)

he's a morph!!! nuff said <3

fin

[moldcursed]

@deathlace

“ you’re trying to make me do this. ”

the words are angry, yet in actuality, ethan doesn’t feel anything except a sense of something akin to denial. bitterness. and sure, maybe, there is a little bit of sadness and anger. a mixed bag of feelings, all rolled up into one blond package. it never gets easier — his emotions always seem heightened after everything that happened, and ethan still isn’t sure how to deal with it.

karl, on the other hand … he seems to frown upon ethan’s attempts to keep everything tucked down. he’s said as much before, but now, with the two of them sparring in the backyard, ethan realizes what he’s doing. there’s a reason heisenberg is hitting just a little harder, swinging just a little faster, running his mouth just a little more : he wants ethan angry. he wants him worked up, wants the adrenaline to course through his veins. he wants the black decay that’s steadily creeping its way along the grass to keep growing. it’s an attempt to trick ethan into owning up to the abilities he possesses.

ethan wants to hate him for it, but god knows he can’t. the intentions are good, regardless of how ethan feels about it.

still, he takes a step back from the iron lord. he shoves his hands down in the pockets of his hoodie, blue eyes flickering away from the man in front of him and towards the mold he’d inadvertently created, growing along the ground. it reminds him uncomfortably of the baker house, the way it had crept along everything on the property. he won’t be like that. he can’t. there is too much risk involved with all of this shit.

“ stop it, ” ethan finally says, and this time, the bitterness in his tone is accompanied by an angered expression. “ karl, this is dangerous. you know that. ”

[cielelyse]

My favourite dynamic slash misguided summary of some ships I've been into, which is in no way true or all-encompassing:

Phil Coulson/Clint Barton

"I am repressing my desires for you because being a composed, well-respected, badass g-man means I have to abide by fraternization regs," says Phil, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows, "and also because I think your affections are misplaced."

"That's a condescending thing to say, sir, even for our age gap." Clint grins. "Can I blow shit up? Jump off those buildings? Maybe if I put myself through danger, I can forget all about my pathetic puppy pining."

"That tends to make me terrified of losing you," says Phil, "and then I'd have to do something about our situation."

"Huh," says Clint, "well then."

They end up fucking six ways from Sunday and ruining Coulson's suits with unspeakable bodily fluids. There is a lot of Aww, shirt, no during the whole thing.

Getou Suguru/Gojo Satoru

"See, I think our appeal is that we are powerful, attractive, tragic, obnoxious idiots, and one of us is dead," says Gojo. “Plus, there’s a good dose of the found family trope. We don't often get a couple who separated and then simultaneously went into parenting."

"Yes," says Getou, "what an all-inclusive package deal."

"Also whoa, is that your 'I'm so fondly tired of him' look?" says Gojo, once again eating like diabetes is a mere Greek word instead of a chronic disease. "You've been giving me those looks ever since we became friends, and hey, if ‘fondly tired of' means ‘want to bone’, then the sentiment is returned."

"I wish I was fully dead, so I can have some peace," says Getou. "At this point I'm not even sure if you'll be alive for long."

That, somehow, makes their romance that much more fun.

Sirius Black/Remus Lupin

"I am so broken inside," says Remus.

“Same, but in a different way,” says Sirius.

It actually ends up working out really well for them. Until the ill-judged betrayal, that is.

Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish

"Why do people think I'm the mean, rugged, dangerous one when you're the one who's literally killed a man?" says Ronan. "This is stereotyping at its finest."

"Will you just shut up and fuck me," grumbles Adam.

That, as does most of Adam's plans, seems hella solid.

Guren Ichinose/Shinya Hiragi

“I love you,” says Shinya.

"I love you, too," says Guren — except instead of actually saying it like a normal person, he expresses his affections by annihilating 80% of the population and full-on triggering the apocalypse. Somewhere out there, Eren Jaeger is proud.

.

[moku-youbi]

I am 100% not the sort to believe in ghosts/supernatural stuff, but if I'm not haunted, or being visited by fairies, I'm going fucking crazy. There's this thing in our house, where stuff goes missing and returns in the most fucking conspicuous ways. And I get that's a thing that happens, sometimes you just overlook things, etc.

But a few examples:

Did some baking, cleaned kitchen, stored baking in two containers, one for wife to take to work with her, one for keeping at home to enjoy. Sat them both on the island, which was otherwise completely empty except my laptop. Wife gets up, I tell her to take a container to work, go the bathroom. Come out and she's gone, and both containers are gone. Double checked that she didn't move it to table or whatever. No big deal. I call her to ask that she just make sure to bring one home so our son won't be disappointed tomorrow. As the phone is ringing, I turn back to the island, and there is one of the containers. No way I could have fucking missed it, the island was fucking EMPTY and then there was a container again.

Another time, we had this bag of loose leaf tea we both loved and sadly the place that made it was out of business, so we were slowly savouring it. One day, neither of us could find it. We took all our tea out of its cabinet, looked through all the packages and boxes, moved stuff around, no luck. We gave up. Months later, we relocated our tea collection to a different cabinet on the other side of the kitchen, and organised it all. Several months after that (probably close to 2 years since the tea first went missing), I open the *new* tea cabinet, the one that bag had NEVER been in, and it is sitting in the very front. Like you cannot access anything else in the cabinet without moving the bag of tea. So that night, I excitedly ask my wife "OMG, you found the tea, where was it?" Nope, she sure didn't find it. I have NO WAY to explain how this could possibly happen. This is beyond plausible deniablity.

So this morning, I reach for my adderall. I always take one pill out at night and sit it on my nightstand so I can blindly grab/swallow it while still in bed, then snooze another half hour or so until it kicks in. I pat around, but no dice. I pat around some more. I sit up and turn on the light and move my water cup and humidifier off the nightstand before deciding fuck it, this isn't worth the hassel and go grab another one from the bathroom, and figure I'll find it on the floor later. To be clear, these are BRIGHT BLUE pills and my nightstand is a pale brown, so the pill stands out. I doze off, wake up, grab my water off the nightstand. Still no pill and now the overhead lights are on as well as my lamp. Oh well. Go brush my teeth, pee, come back and the pill is perfectly balanced on the front edge of the nightstand, so that half of it is hanging off. Completely conspicuous, no way to miss this bright blue pill in the very fucking front, and honestly with all the moving shit around, there's no way it wouldn't have just fallen right off when I grabbed my water.

I said thank you, because I don't wanna piss anyone off, and I guess as far as hauntings could go, it could be a whole lot worse. They tend to return shit, at any rate. However there is a container of chestnuts they stole a good 8 years ago that they can keep at this point.

[jasper-dracona]

The reason is that in the theory of marketing stuff, a place in your memory is what they’re buying.

You see more ads and logos and brand names every single day than your brain can possibly bother to register, and it’s over that physical limit by like thousands. I don’t remember what the numbers are but research has been done into this, and you subconsciously retain memory of like maybe 50 of the several thousands of pieces of branded material you are exposed to in a given day. You consciously retain maybe 5 if the advertisers are lucky.

This is what “all press is good press” is supposed to be about. Getting your brand’s name into a conversation at all is a big deal.

And the reason the huge companies, even the ones with near-monopolies, do this shit too is because they’re scared of becoming too ubiquitous, trying not to fade into the background of life, instead. A monopoly is great for the ones at the top who are running it, until everyone forgets that your brand like… exists at all, and only thinks of your products, no name attached. That means your brand isn’t gonna be recommended to any stragglers, and that you’re vulnerable to having big chunks of your consumer base stolen by a flashy new competitor who creates a trend. You’re also more vulnerable to small-scale imitators and knock-offs.

There are of course many other additional ways that mega-companies deal with these problems, but this is one of them.

But yeah, companies are constantly, desperately, trying to buy one of those 5 slots in your head. Hell, they’ll take one of the 50 if they can, to try and set themselves up to get one of the 5 at a later date. And they’ll do literally anything to get there.

They have picked apart the brain’s associations deeply to make it more likely that you will A) retain them, and B) remember what they were telling you about. Every colour, every shape, every person depicted, every line has been precision engineered to meet these goals.

The duolingo owl is a vibrant spring green because their app is about learning a new language, it’s about growth. Every piece of packaging in the fucking organic section looks the same because green means natural, white means pure, and blue has similar associations and thus is an incredibly safe choice for a third colour if needed.

90% of the time you see a person in an ad, they were precision selected to represent the kind of people that company wants as their customers. Ads like those Old Spice ones from several years ago now are kind of the exception, where the goal was to get the girlfriend/wife to buy the product on behalf of her male partner, despite the only person in the ad being a man.

But despite all that work, all that research and theory and engineering, the biggest determiner of whether they’ll get one of those precious slots in your head, is time. How many times has your brand’s name been seen by people and for how long?

If it’s not for long enough then it’s almost guaranteed that it won’t register as important enough for the brain to keep. So, unskippable 20-30 second ads means you’ll be viewed longer and more likely to stick.

Sending you promo emails every other day means that you see their name in your inbox with their amazing new deals and coupons, etc. in your inbox more times. More likely to stick.

When you’re driving, your brain has to be really active, and it is constantly taking in and holding onto background info that you may or may not be consciously registering. You absorb more of that subconscious information and hold onto it for longer when driving. So billboards make a lot of sense. More likely to stick. (Don’t mind that it could be at the cost of the brain space that would have otherwise registered some nearby hazard.)

And because of how capitalism has run its course, exploiting the cheapest of labour in slavish conditions to produce products using the cheapest materials possible in order to lower operational cost and therefore increase profits, most companies cannot gain or keep a consumer base via the quality of their products. Because they’re bad. And because companies have all been pushed to lower operational costs to increase profits due to the greed of higher-ups and duty to shareholders, and due to competition, almost none of us get payed what our work is worth either, and therefore don’t make enough to significantly influence the market away from cheap, bad products. We always have to buy cheap, so pretty much whichever company sells for the lowest price, wins, regardless of quality.

So, to push back against that, they use advertising. Sales and deals, illusions of elegance, quality and prestige, bot reviews and sponsored review articles, all of it. Advertising is the greatest determiner of which brand you’ll actually go and buy, after base price. And it’s aggressive because it’s desperate and predatory. You don’t need or actually want what they’re offering, and thus the business should fail from the outset. However, because these companies start off with huge fortunes at their sides, they can sneak into the field and get started at a loss, then spend millions on advertising to convince you that actually, you do need or want the product, and rake in huge profits. It’s a scam in a nicer suit!

So what do you do with that information? What do you do with the knowledge that companies gamble on limited real estate inside your own mind, just for the chance at convincing you to buy something you don’t need or want?

1) Consciously watch out for ads that are trying to manipulate you. A gum ad shouldn’t suggest to you that it will make your date go better, nor should it really advertise better breath. It should advertise a strong, good flavour and satisfying texture. If an ad is like the former, avoid the product.

2) Notice when some idea of expertise is being leveraged to persuade you. We all know about “9/10 dentists recommend.” That a suspiciously neat and tidy little fraction isn’t it? And it hasn’t shifted at all in over a decade, hasn’t even upgraded to like 19/20 or something… Ask your dentist directly instead, and look up actually survey statistics. Ads don’t cite their survey methods or full statistic results in the ad itself. This goes for any ad that asserts that a significant proportion of professionals all agree that their product is the best. “Dermatologist-formulated” or “dermatologist approved” is also a huge one.

3) Watch out for notions of prestige and exclusivity, and de-couple physical presentation or appearance from functional quality. Just because Dyson vacuums are made of all those clean shapes and that shiny middle grey plastic with metallic gem-tone plastic accents, and they move in these smooth, satisfying arcs with classy background music in elegant modern homes in all the shots and the narration is all about how it’ll make your life (hey look it’s #1) simpler and more beautiful, doesn’t mean they’re any good. The suction isn’t strong enough for most uses, the head’s design means it constantly flings stuff out the back as you go, and the storage compartment is too small so you’re constantly having to empty it.

Constantly constantly constantly be asking an ad “but is it any good though?” If at no point it actually tells you how or why it is good at its function, ignore the product.

4) Waste their money! The above people have the right idea! Be upset about their ad interrupting your life and decide never to buy their product. If they’re gonna try and take up real estate in your head without your say-so, then you may as well set the plot on fire for them. Get an ad-blocker and don’t buy a subscription that removes the ads for you if you can! My roomie and I watch a lot of online videos in the living room on the TV, and whenever we’re interrupted by an ad we like to say, out-loud, that we hated the ad and that we’ll never buy the product ever in our lives. If any of our devices are collecting data to provide targeted ads, we want them to know it isn’t working and they should fuck off.

[mommyg2013]

Surviving the Holidays - 2024 Edition

Yesterday, he who shall not be named, turned the house upside down looking for batteries.

Batteries that were ordered on Amazon

Batteries that were boxed together with some other stuff

Batteries that were delivered two weeks ago

And you’re looking for it today? And showing us your cell phone with the ‘proof of delivery’ from Amazon. I have no doubt that those batteries were delivered. My doubt is that you’ll ever find them.

THOSE BATTERIES ARE GONE

Somewhere in the flurry of boxes and packages and shit of the last 3 weeks, those batteries have GONE.

First of all, why does one have to order batteries online? Or hair gel? Or multivitamins? Regular grocery store stuff. And then we get yelled at

“Don’t open my boxes”

“If you see my name on it, don’t open it”

 PFFFTTTTTT

If I see your name on it, I will MOST ESPECIALLY be opening it. It gives me great delight to see your generic random brand hair gel.

We’ve survived the holidays. There has been some yelling.

There’s this pattern in our house. When I yell at the Other Adult, within the next five minutes, he’s yelling at the kids. And then you’ll see Saanya doing one of the chores that he was assigned to do. Never Soha. Soha has this rare ability to evaporate when there’s work to be done. Like a genie from a lamp. Never to be found again.

Soha’s second talent is DEFLECTION

I was here minding my own business, you yelled at me and now my feelings are hurt. I can’t help you with your chores because I’m so upset. In fact I’m so upset that I need to go to my room and be alone.

DEFLECTION

And so 15 minutes after I’ve yelled I’ll see poor Saanya sweeping out the garage, with a broomstick twice her size.

At a recent gathering, we were going around the room sharing 2025 goals/resolutions. The kids spoke about various goals – blackbelt in karate, Honors class in something, climb Mount Everest, scale the Great Wall of China and I’m standing at the perimeter wondering what my kids are going to share.

And finally it was their turn.

Said one “I want to be good about brushing my teeth twice a day”

All that blood and sweat and working my tail off so my kids brush their teeth twice a day.

In all the cleaning and tidying, I discovered that the Other Adult has a BULB BIN. A bin where dead bulbs go to rest. And we’re saving these dead bulbs just in case the tungsten filament comes back to life and the bulbs start working again.

We also collect Home Depot RECEIPTS (of dead bulbs)

Speaking of RECEIPTS, Middle school has brought us all sorts of new adventures. One such adventure is that Soha can now use the campus bookstore to buy stuff. Stuff that gets charged to a student account. I only get to see the RECEIPT at the end of the month.

The first few months were fairly banal.

Oreos

Goldfish

More Goldfish

Then last month

FLASHCARDS and POST ITS

What!!! Why are you spending good money, my money, on POST ITS. That’s what the office supply closet is for. Everybody knows that the office supply closet at work is for home supplies – especially POST ITS. But my kid thought it’s okay to pay four times the price for something I have always got for FREE.

Gah!

I decided to not make a big deal out of it, though it really pained me to be paying for post-its.

Back to the Holidays, Santa is a little upset with me because I returned one of his gifts.

It was a beautiful, pure wool, designer brand PONCHO.

Except that I don’t do ponchos.

I look like a tent as is, I really don’t need to be wearing one. Folks be thinking the circus is in town.

It came with a matching beanie. Super cute, if you’re skinny. Or 25. Or both.

Now Santa is busy listing all the gifts from events past that I haven’t used or have returned. “I’ve never seen you wear the tennis bracelet”. The one from 2011?

One of these days I’m going to wear all my gifts, from the last 16 years, all at once and take a picture. The circus will really be in town.

It's the new year and we're aiming high this year.

Lose some weight

Don't lose Amazon packages

Brush twice a day

Maybe floss.....

Happy New Year!

[cesium-sheep]

okay tomorrow is a smile and wave day, then friday I want to get through the last two pairs of socks (it is already 9pm and I should stop) and also dye them especially since matt will be away dealing with his mom. unfortunately the largest cylinder poses problems of its own as it's a tuttle instead of a compound and the needles love to get twisted. but I got through a pair yesterday and 2 pairs today. and then arin will be here for a couple days and then I can mail everything including anything that sells during the sale. the post office is gonna hate to see me comin (except I'm going to buy and attach all the labels in advance so they just gotta scan shit when they can) (and even before they let you buy first class package labels directly I always had my shit together at the post office to make it as fast as possible even with my whole little wagon full)