#pain allows growth

[buttercupbuck]

eddie is not someone who screams at the world.

when he’s told that shannon’s situation is bad, he immediately accepts that she is going to die. when he’s told by buck that he couldn’t find christopher, that christopher is gone, he accepts that his child is dead. eddie’s world comes down and he just...surrenders to its cruelty, and to the bitter understanding that this is the way things are. he argues with the others that he doesn’t worry about the things outside of his control, but it’s because he knows he’d never win anyway. he folds, because what other choice does he have than to accept with gritted teeth whatever torment the world chooses to inflict

so i don’t know. to see him like this? crying out for someone who’s already dead until his voice is hoarse, begging with buck’s lifeless body to respond to him, crying out against the mounting hopelessness of the situation as he fails to pull him up, as buck’s body dangles almost mockingly below him? it’s so unthinkably cruel

[thessaralka]

i love it when people don't get offended by correction, requests for clarification, and deep conversations earnestly exploring radically differing viewpoints than their own. those things are a love language to people who value growth and learning.

[folksy]

sorry thinking of angel again (especially after recently talking to @dogmotif) and his complexities….. literally he was not suddenly made good by having a soul. yeah it made him feel remorse and guilt but it didn’t absolve him of being a vampire. he still had violent impulses and had to control himself as he attempted to live some semblance of a human life while also being a demon that feeds upon the life force of living beings, particularly humans. he’s shown throughout both shows struggling with his vampirism. he could feed or kill humans but didn’t besides in certain instances. yes he had this consciousness forced upon him that shapes his actions, but he actively chose to help others. he accepted a second chance and continued with it even though he went beyond his initial mission of assisting buffy and had dark periods and sometimes went about things in the wrong way but his intentions weren’t bad. he understands he won’t be fully absolved of his past but being able to make SOME positive change in the current is important and that’s a reward in of itself

[badcountryofficial]

it's unfortunate but fr struggling and working thru it is what builds character. like truly truly you just need to get your heart broken a few more times.

[theanmolkang]

How Forgiveness Can Heal Relationship Wounds and Strengthen Bonds

How Forgiveness Can Heal Relationship Wounds and Strengthen Bonds

Healing, Forgiving and Relationships Forgiveness Heals Relationships Have you ever felt the heavy weight of unresolved conflicts burdening your relationships, straining the bonds you once held dear? Imagine a scenario where forgiveness becomes the key to unlocking emotional wounds, paving the way for healing and strengthening connections. In a world where misunderstandings and hurts can sow seeds…

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[esotericalchemist]

𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧 - 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐞 ❃°•

Masterlist - YouTube (subliminals)

Chiron in astrology represents the deepest wounds we carry, often rooted in past experiences or emotional traumas. These wounds are not merely physical but are connected to our sense of identity, self-worth, and ability to heal. Chiron shows us where we feel the most vulnerable and where we often face repeated challenges. However, these wounds are also the key to our greatest healing and transformation. By confronting and working through the pain associated with Chiron, we can access profound wisdom and inner strength. The journey with Chiron is not just about healing ourselves but also about learning how to use that healing to help others. As we move through the discomfort and pain, we discover that what once wounded us can become the very thing that empowers us, leading to greater compassion, self-awareness, and personal growth.

𝐀𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Aries highlights wounds related to self-identity, personal courage, and asserting oneself. Individuals with this placement often face challenges around self-confidence, experiencing self-doubt or fearing failure. You may believe you don’t deserve recognition or find it difficult to take initiative and assert your individuality, which creates a deep-seated wound around personal power and self-assurance. Healing occurs by embracing your inherent worth and developing the confidence to lead, assert yourself, and go after what you desire. It involves learning to take bold actions without fear of rejection and affirming your right to be seen, heard, and appreciated.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may struggle with asserting your identity and feel uneasy taking the lead, often worrying about how others view you. Healing: Embrace your uniqueness and express yourself boldly without seeking approval. Healing comes from owning your presence and taking initiative with confidence.

2nd House:Wound: The wound is linked to self-worth and value, creating insecurities about your ability to provide for yourself or assert your values. Healing: Recognize your worth beyond material wealth or external validation. Build confidence in your personal values and take charge of creating your own sense of security.

3rd House:Wound: You might doubt your communication abilities, feeling insecure about expressing your ideas or asserting your opinions. Healing: Practice speaking up and trust in your intellect. Healing comes from expressing your thoughts with confidence, knowing that your voice matters.

4th House:Wound: You may struggle with feeling emotionally secure or connected to your family, leading to discomfort when asserting yourself in your home environment. Healing: Create emotional stability by affirming your right to feel supported and safe. Healing comes from standing up for your needs within your family and fostering your own sense of belonging.

5th House:Wound: You might fear expressing your creativity or worry about rejection in your love life or when showcasing your talents. Healing: Allow yourself to embrace creativity without fearing judgment. Take risks in love and self-expression, knowing your talents are valid and worthy of appreciation.

6th House:Wound: You may feel undervalued in your work or struggle to assert your needs in daily routines, leading to feelings of inadequacy or being overwhelmed. Healing: Stand up for your worth in the workplace and assert boundaries in your daily life. Healing comes from taking control and recognizing the value you bring to your work and routine.

7th House:Wound: You may hesitate to assert your needs in relationships, fearing rejection or conflict, which can lead to suppressing your desires. Healing: Learn to assert yourself in partnerships without fear. Healing comes from valuing your individuality within relationships and establishing healthy boundaries based on mutual respect.

8th House:Wound: You might fear vulnerability and struggle to assert control over shared resources, intimacy, or emotional depth, leading to feelings of powerlessness. Healing: Embrace vulnerability as a strength and assert your right to equal power in shared situations. Healing comes from allowing deep emotional connections and standing confidently in joint endeavors.

9th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about asserting your philosophical or spiritual beliefs, fearing judgment or alienation. Healing: Stand firm in your beliefs and pursue your vision of the world with confidence. Healing comes from embracing your own truth and expanding your horizons without fear.

10th House:Wound: You might feel insecure about asserting yourself in your career or public life, fearing failure or judgment in professional aspirations. Healing: Take bold steps in your career, knowing that success comes from embracing responsibility and asserting your talents. Healing comes from trusting your ability to thrive in public roles.

11th House:Wound: You may feel out of place in group settings, struggling to assert your individuality in social circles or communities. Healing: Embrace your unique contributions and take leadership roles within groups confidently. Healing comes from finding your place in social settings without conforming to others' expectations.

12th House:Wound: This wound relates to unconscious fears, making it difficult to assert yourself in spiritual or solitary pursuits, or creating a fear of being overlooked. Healing: Embrace solitude and your spiritual journey, learning to assert your inner strength without relying on external validation. Healing comes from recognizing your deep inner power and connection to the universe.

𝐓𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐮𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Taurus highlights wounds around self-worth, stability, and security, especially in the material and physical realms. Individuals with this placement may struggle with feeling valued or secure, often fearing scarcity or instability in their lives. You may find it difficult to feel satisfied with what you have or struggle with body image and physical comfort, leading to feelings of inadequacy. Healing for Chiron in Taurus comes from building a sense of self-worth that doesn’t rely on external validation or material possessions. It’s about cultivating inner security, learning to enjoy life’s pleasures without guilt, and trusting that your needs will be met. Developing a deeper connection to your self-worth is key to this healing journey.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may struggle with insecurity about your physical appearance or self-worth, fearing that you aren’t enough or aren’t desirable. Healing: Focus on building a healthy relationship with your body and appearance. Healing comes from self-acceptance and developing confidence that transcends the physical.

2nd House:Wound: The wound centers around financial insecurity and feeling like you never have enough. You may fear scarcity or place your self-worth on material possessions. Healing: Cultivate a sense of value that goes beyond material things. Healing comes from building inner security and trusting that you can meet your needs without relying on external measures of success.

3rd House:Wound: You may feel inadequate when communicating your values or ideas, struggling with expressing yourself or doubting the importance of your voice. Healing: Healing comes from learning to communicate with confidence and trusting that your thoughts and opinions are valuable, even if they differ from others’.

4th House:Wound: Your wound may revolve around emotional or material instability in your home life. You may feel ungrounded or disconnected from your family environment. Healing: Create emotional security within yourself and build a space, physical or emotional, where you feel safe and nurtured. Healing comes from finding a sense of stability and comfort in your personal environment.

5th House:Wound: You may fear expressing your creativity or feel undeserving of life’s pleasures, struggling with self-doubt in creative or romantic pursuits. Healing: Embrace your creative and romantic sides without needing external validation. Allow yourself to experience joy and pleasure freely, knowing that your expressions are worthy and valuable.

6th House:Wound: You may feel undervalued in your work or struggle with health and body image issues, leading to feelings of inadequacy in your daily routines. Healing: Focus on creating a balanced routine that nurtures both your mind and body. Healing comes from recognizing the value of your work and caring for your physical and mental well-being.

7th House:Wound: The wound centers around relationships, particularly feeling valued by partners. You may struggle with self-worth in partnerships, fearing rejection or inadequacy. Healing: Build a sense of self-worth that isn’t dependent on a partner’s validation. Healing comes from setting healthy boundaries and fostering relationships that are based on mutual respect and value.

8th House:Wound: You may fear vulnerability or struggle with issues of trust in intimacy and shared resources, feeling a need to maintain control. Healing: Embrace vulnerability as a strength and trust in your ability to navigate intimate connections. Healing comes from building trust in shared resources and learning to let go of the need for control in emotionally charged situations.

9th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your beliefs or struggle to find a sense of meaning or purpose in life, fearing judgment or rejection for your philosophical views. Healing: Embrace your unique perspective and trust in your personal journey. Healing comes from exploring new ideas and trusting that your beliefs and worldview are valuable.

10th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your career, public image, or professional success, worrying about being undervalued or judged by society. Healing: Define success on your own terms and focus on building a career that aligns with your true values, not just societal expectations. Healing comes from trusting in your long-term achievements and feeling proud of the path you choose.

11th House:Wound: You may feel like an outsider in social groups or fear that you don’t contribute enough to society or group efforts, leading to feelings of disconnection. Healing: Find communities that resonate with your values and contribute meaningfully to collective goals. Healing comes from trusting that your unique qualities are valuable and that you have a meaningful role in group settings.

12th House:Wound: This wound is tied to feelings of isolation or spiritual disconnection, possibly manifesting as fear of losing touch with reality or struggling to trust life’s flow. Healing: Embrace solitude as a path to self-awareness and inner peace. Healing comes from developing spiritual practices that help you feel connected to the universe and trusting in the natural flow of life.

𝐆𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐢 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Gemini highlights wounds around communication, intellect, and self-expression. Individuals with this placement may struggle with feeling misunderstood or doubt their ability to communicate effectively. You may have experienced criticism or rejection when sharing your ideas, leading to insecurities about your intelligence and your capacity to connect with others through words. Healing involves embracing your unique voice and trusting your ability to communicate meaningfully. It’s essential to express yourself without fearing judgment and to recognize the inherent value of your ideas and words. Building confidence in your intellect and trusting that your voice matters are critical to the healing process.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may struggle with expressing your identity, feeling misunderstood or overlooked when trying to communicate who you are. Healing: Embrace your personal voice and assert your identity with confidence. Healing comes from expressing yourself without fear of being judged or misunderstood.

2nd House:Wound: The wound revolves around expressing your values and self-worth. You may feel insecure about your ability to communicate what you believe is valuable, both within yourself and materially. Healing: Build confidence in your values and express them clearly. Trust that your voice is essential in matters of worth, and that your contributions are meaningful.

3rd House:Wound: This wound directly affects communication. You may feel anxious about speaking up or fear that your ideas aren’t worthy of attention or respect. Healing: Trust your intellect and embrace your ability to communicate effectively. Practice speaking with confidence, knowing that your thoughts and ideas are valuable and deserving of attention.

4th House:Wound: You may have faced challenges communicating within your family, leading to feelings of isolation or not being heard in your home environment. Healing: Focus on improving communication in your family and creating emotional security. Healing comes from establishing an open, honest dialogue where you feel safe expressing yourself.

5th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about expressing your creativity or worry that your talents won’t be appreciated or recognized. Healing: Embrace your creative voice and allow yourself to share your passions without fear of judgment. Healing comes from realizing that your self-expression is valid and valuable, regardless of external validation.

6th House:Wound: This wound may manifest in the workplace or daily routines, where you feel misunderstood or underappreciated for your efforts or ideas. Healing: Improve communication in your work life by asserting yourself more confidently in daily interactions. Healing comes from expressing your needs and ideas with clarity, especially in service roles.

7th House:Wound: You may struggle with communication in partnerships, fearing that your thoughts and feelings are not heard or valued by your partner. Healing: Work on expressing yourself openly in relationships. Healing comes from building trust in your ability to communicate effectively and being confident that your voice is valued in partnerships.

8th House:Wound: You may find it challenging to communicate about deep emotional issues, fearing vulnerability or that your emotions won’t be understood. Healing: Learn to express your deeper feelings and fears openly. Healing comes from trusting that vulnerability in communication can strengthen intimacy and foster transformation in relationships.

9th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about sharing your beliefs or ideas, fearing they will be misunderstood or dismissed. Healing: Embrace your intellectual and spiritual voice, and trust that your beliefs are valid. Healing comes from confidently sharing your worldview and exploring new perspectives with an open heart.

10th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about communicating your career goals or expressing yourself in professional settings, fearing judgment or failure. Healing: Work on clearly expressing your ambitions in your career. Healing comes from building confidence in your professional voice and trusting that your ideas hold value in your field.

11th House:Wound: You may feel like an outsider in group settings, fearing that your ideas are not accepted or that you can’t express yourself freely within social circles. Healing: Find communities that resonate with your interests and values. Healing comes from trusting that your voice contributes meaningfully to the collective and that your unique perspective enhances the group.

12th House:Wound: You may feel silenced or invisible, especially in spiritual or unconscious realms, fearing that your deeper thoughts or insights will be dismissed. Healing: Embrace spiritual practices that allow for self-expression and inner reflection. Healing comes from trusting your intuition and sharing your spiritual insights with confidence, even if it means expressing yourself in solitude.

𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Cancer signifies wounds related to emotional security, family, nurturing, and belonging. Those with this placement may feel emotionally vulnerable, struggle with feelings of abandonment, or wrestle with a deep sense of being unloved or unsupported. These wounds can lead to difficulties in expressing or receiving emotional care, forming close relationships, and feeling at home within themselves or their family structures. Healing begins by developing emotional resilience and creating a strong inner sense of security. Embracing your sensitivity as a strength and learning to nurture yourself are crucial steps. Building emotional foundations that aren’t reliant on external validation and setting healthy boundaries within family or relationships will allow you to receive love and care without guilt.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your emotional sensitivity and how others perceive you, fearing rejection for your vulnerability. Healing: Embrace your emotional depth as part of your identity. Healing comes from accepting your sensitivity as a guiding strength rather than something to hide.

2nd House:Wound: The wound relates to insecurity around emotional and financial stability, often tied to feelings of unworthiness or a lack of nurturing. Healing: Develop a sense of self-worth that is not dependent on material security. Healing comes from trusting in your ability to provide emotional and financial support for yourself.

3rd House:Wound: You may feel insecure about sharing your emotions or experience misunderstandings in family communication. Healing: Practice expressing your feelings openly and trust your voice. Healing comes from learning to communicate your emotional needs confidently and feeling heard.

4th House:Wound: The wound is deeply connected to family and home life, often manifesting as feelings of abandonment or emotional neglect. Healing: Create your own sense of emotional security by nurturing yourself. Building a home environment that supports your emotional well-being is key to healing.

5th House:Wound: You may fear rejection in love and romance or struggle with expressing your emotions creatively. Healing: Allow yourself to express emotions in creative endeavors and personal relationships. Healing comes from embracing vulnerability and being open to love without the fear of rejection.

6th House:Wound: You might feel emotionally drained by work or daily routines, often feeling unappreciated for your emotional contributions. Healing: Set boundaries and prioritize self-care in your daily life. Healing comes from recognizing and honoring your emotional needs in both work and routine.

7th House:Wound: The wound revolves around close relationships, where you may feel emotionally insecure or fear abandonment. Healing: Build healthy emotional boundaries in partnerships and practice emotional openness without fear. Healing comes from trusting that emotional reciprocity is possible within relationships.

8th House:Wound: You may fear emotional intimacy or have trust issues in deep relationships, leading to difficulties in bonding emotionally with others. Healing: Embrace vulnerability and trust your ability to navigate deep emotional connections. Healing comes from allowing others to share your emotional world and fostering trust.

9th House:Wound: Emotional insecurity may arise around your beliefs or spiritual path, making you feel disconnected from a larger sense of belonging. Healing: Embrace your unique emotional and spiritual journey. Healing comes from trusting in your emotional wisdom and allowing your beliefs to guide you with confidence.

10th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your public image or career, struggling to balance emotional needs with professional success. Healing: Integrate emotional care into your public and professional life. Healing comes from acknowledging your emotional needs while pursuing your ambitions and career goals.

11th House:Wound: You may feel emotionally disconnected or unsupported in social circles or larger community groups. Healing: Seek out or create communities where you feel emotionally safe and valued. Healing comes from embracing your emotional uniqueness and finding your place within a collective.

12th House:Wound: You may feel emotionally isolated or overwhelmed by unconscious fears, struggling to find inner peace. Healing: Embrace solitude as a source of emotional strength and develop spiritual practices that nurture your emotional world. Healing comes from finding peace within and trusting your connection to the greater whole.

𝐋𝐞𝐨 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Leo represents wounds around self-expression, creativity, and the need to be seen and appreciated for who you truly are. Individuals with this placement may feel inadequate or unworthy of recognition and validation, often struggling with fears of rejection, criticism, or failure when expressing creativity or stepping into leadership roles. These wounds can manifest as insecurity about personal talents, a fear of being overlooked, or hesitance to take the spotlight. Healing involves embracing your inner light and expressing yourself authentically, without relying on external validation. It’s essential to build self-confidence in your creative abilities, talents, and leadership potential. Taking risks in self-expression, creativity, and personal leadership without fearing rejection is key. Recognizing your inherent worth and cultivating joy in your unique contributions will help heal wounds of feeling unseen or unworthy.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your identity and how others perceive your self-expression, leading to a fear of standing out. Healing: Embrace your individuality and confidently take charge of your life. Healing comes from shining without needing others’ approval.

2nd House:Wound: You may struggle with self-worth, feeling as though your talents or creative abilities are undervalued or unrecognized. Healing: Develop a sense of inner worth that doesn’t depend on external praise. Healing comes from appreciating the intrinsic value of your creative talents and personal resources.

3rd House:Wound: You may feel insecure about expressing your ideas or creativity in everyday conversations and interactions. Healing: Trust in your voice and communicate your thoughts with confidence. Healing comes from recognizing that your ideas are valuable and deserve to be shared.

4th House:Wound: Emotional insecurity in the home or family may have left you feeling overlooked or unappreciated as a child. Healing: Create a nurturing environment where your personal expression is valued. Healing comes from embracing your creativity within your family and home life.

5th House:Wound: You may struggle to express your creativity, talents, or passions, fearing rejection or failure in artistic or romantic endeavors. Healing: Take creative and emotional risks without worrying about judgment. Healing comes from finding joy in self-expression and pursuing your passions with confidence.

6th House:Wound: You may feel unappreciated in your work or daily routines, especially when it comes to your creative contributions. Healing: Integrate creativity into your everyday life and work. Healing comes from recognizing and valuing your unique talents and contributions in your daily routine and workplace.

7th House:Wound: You may feel unrecognized or overshadowed in relationships, fearing that your individuality gets lost in partnerships. Healing: Assert your creative self in relationships and allow your individuality to shine. Healing comes from balancing personal expression with meaningful connections.

8th House:Wound: You may fear vulnerability in intimate relationships, especially when it comes to expressing your deepest creative desires or talents. Healing: Embrace vulnerability in emotional and creative connections. Healing comes from trusting in your creativity’s transformative power for both yourself and others.

9th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about expressing your beliefs, worldview, or creative philosophies, fearing judgment or dismissal. Healing: Stand confidently in your personal beliefs and express your creative visions without fear. Healing comes from embracing and sharing your unique perspective with others.

10th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about expressing yourself in your career or public life, fearing that your creative talents will not be acknowledged. Healing: Boldly express your creative self in your professional life and public roles. Success comes from owning your leadership and talents in your career.

11th House:Wound: You may feel like you don’t belong or that your creative contributions are undervalued within group settings or communities. Healing: Embrace your unique contributions in social and collective settings. Healing comes from finding a place where your creativity is appreciated and valued.

12th House:Wound: You may feel disconnected from your creativity or have unconscious fears of being unrecognized, leading you to hide your talents. Healing: Embrace your creative power, allowing it to flow through private or spiritual practices. Healing comes from trusting that your talents are valuable, even if not always visible to others.

𝐕𝐢𝐫𝐠𝐨 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Virgo is associated with wounds surrounding perfectionism, service, and health. Those with this placement often feel a deep sense of inadequacy, coupled with the pressure to meet impossibly high standards. There’s frequently a fear of not being good enough or failing in their duties—whether in work, health, or service to others. These wounds manifest as self-criticism, fear of mistakes, and a belief that they need to "fix" themselves or others to be worthy. Healing comes from accepting your imperfections and recognizing that your worth isn’t defined by your ability to serve or be perfect. Developing self-compassion and embracing the idea of “good enough” are key. It’s important to release the need to control or fix everything and to find balance between work, self-care, and emotional well-being. Accepting that healing involves both yourself and others is essential.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your self-image or how you present yourself, often obsessing over perceived flaws. Healing: Heal by accepting yourself fully, flaws included. Self-compassion and embracing your worth beyond appearances will quiet your inner critic.

2nd House:Wound: You may struggle with self-worth, tying your value to how useful or productive you are, often feeling you're not "enough." Healing: Build self-worth that isn’t tied to achievements or material success. Healing comes from recognizing your inherent value beyond what you produce.

3rd House:Wound: You may feel inadequate in communication, fearing that your thoughts aren’t good enough or that you’re not smart enough. Healing: Trust in your intellect and embrace the learning process. Healing comes from letting go of the need to be perfect in communication and focusing on expressing yourself authentically.

4th House:Wound: You may have felt unappreciated or inadequate within your family or home, often believing your efforts were unnoticed. Healing: Focus on creating a home environment that doesn’t demand perfection. Healing comes from accepting and being at peace with the imperfections of family life and emotional connections.

5th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your creativity or find it hard to enjoy life’s pleasures, fearing you're not good enough creatively or romantically. Healing: Embrace your creative and playful side without the need for perfection. Healing comes from allowing yourself to express and enjoy without judgment or the pressure to be flawless.

6th House:Wound: You may feel inadequate in your work or health routines, constantly feeling like you’re not doing enough. Healing: Healing comes from embracing balance in your work and health. Learn that your best is enough, and overworking or overthinking won’t bring you the peace you seek.

7th House:Wound: You may feel inadequate in relationships, constantly worrying about not being the perfect partner or feeling like you have to fix your partner. Healing: Accept imperfection in both yourself and your partner. Healing comes from appreciating relationships for what they are, without trying to perfect or control them.

8th House:Wound: You may fear vulnerability in intimacy, worrying that you are flawed in deep emotional or sexual connections. Healing: Embrace vulnerability and trust that true intimacy involves imperfection. Healing comes from accepting your deeper self as enough without the need to hide or fix anything.

9th House:Wound: You may feel inadequate in your beliefs or philosophical views, constantly doubting if your ideas are good enough. Healing: Embrace curiosity and lifelong learning without needing all the answers. Healing comes from letting go of the need for perfection in your pursuit of knowledge.

10th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your career, fearing that your efforts are never enough or that you’ll fail in the eyes of society. Healing: Accept your career path as a journey, not a reflection of your worth. Healing comes from doing your best without striving for unattainable perfection and trusting in your abilities.

11th House:Wound: You may feel out of place in social or group settings, believing you don’t fit in or that your contributions aren’t valuable. Healing: Embrace your unique contributions to groups and trust that your imperfections are what make you valuable. Healing comes from finding comfort in your own authenticity within a community.

12th House:Wound: You may feel inadequate in your spiritual life, fearing that you’ll never reach the “perfect” state of enlightenment or spiritual fulfillment. Healing: Embrace your spiritual journey as an evolving process, not a race to perfection. Healing comes from trusting that your spiritual path, with all its imperfections, is part of a greater whole.

𝐋𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Libra brings wounds around relationships, balance, and fairness. People with this placement may struggle with feelings of inadequacy in partnerships, fearing rejection or conflict. There is often a deep wound tied to the need for harmony, where individuals feel responsible for maintaining peace but have difficulty asserting their own needs. This can lead to challenges in balancing self-care with care for others, as well as a fear of abandonment or being unloved if they don't keep the peace. Healing requires establishing healthy boundaries and learning to assert yourself in relationships without the fear of rejection or conflict. It's essential to recognize that maintaining harmony doesn’t mean sacrificing your own needs. Cultivating self-love and understanding that you deserve fairness and balance in relationships is key to healing codependency, insecurity, and the fear of conflict.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may feel insecure about how you are perceived in relationships, often feeling like you need to change yourself to be loved or accepted. Healing: Embrace your individuality and learn to assert your needs without fear. Healing comes from balancing your own desires with the needs of others, without losing yourself.

2nd House:Wound: You may struggle with self-worth, feeling that your value in relationships depends on how much others appreciate you. Healing: Build a sense of self-worth that doesn’t rely on external approval. Healing comes from recognizing your intrinsic value and knowing you don’t need others to validate it.

3rd House:Wound: You may feel insecure about sharing your thoughts or opinions in relationships, fearing disagreement or conflict. Healing: Learn to communicate your ideas confidently, even if it leads to disagreement. Healing comes from trusting that your voice matters and contributes to healthy relationships.

4th House:Wound: The wound may arise from instability or imbalance in your family life, where relationships may have lacked harmony or emotional security. Healing: Focus on creating emotional security within your home. Healing comes from finding balance in family dynamics and asserting your emotional needs without fear.

5th House:Wound: You may struggle with expressing your creativity or romance, often fearing rejection or imbalance in your love life. Healing: Embrace your creative self-expression and love without striving for perfection. Healing comes from trusting that passion and balance can coexist in romantic relationships.

6th House:Wound: The wound may manifest in your work relationships or daily routines, where you feel pressured to keep the peace at the expense of your own well-being. Healing: Set healthy boundaries in your work life and daily routines. Healing comes from recognizing that you don’t have to overextend yourself to be valued.

7th House:Wound: You may fear abandonment or conflict in close partnerships, often suppressing your own needs to maintain harmony. Healing: Learn to assert your needs in relationships without fearing the loss of connection. Healing comes from creating partnerships that respect both your needs and the other person’s.

8th House:Wound: You may fear emotional or financial vulnerability, feeling the need to control situations to avoid conflict or loss in relationships. Healing: Embrace vulnerability and learn to share emotional and material resources in a balanced way. Healing comes from trusting that mutual respect can foster deep emotional bonds.

9th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about expressing your beliefs or ideals in relationships, fearing judgment or rejection. Healing: Stand firm in your beliefs while being open to others’ perspectives. Healing comes from recognizing that differing viewpoints can exist harmoniously within relationships.

10th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about asserting yourself in your public life or career, fearing that doing so could disrupt professional relationships. Healing: Learn to assert your needs and ambitions in your career without fearing conflict. Healing comes from trusting that you can achieve success without sacrificing harmony in professional relationships.

11th House:Wound: You may feel disconnected or unappreciated in social groups or communities, often feeling pressure to conform to be accepted. Healing: Embrace your unique contributions within group settings. Healing comes from trusting that you can maintain your individuality while being a valued part of a balanced community.

12th House:Wound: You may feel isolated or disconnected in relationships, often struggling with unconscious fears of abandonment or a lack of balance in spiritual connections. Healing: Develop a deep connection with yourself and your spiritual side. Healing comes from trusting the natural flow of relationships and allowing emotional and spiritual connections to form without fear of loss.

𝐒𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐢𝐨 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Scorpio signifies deep emotional wounds connected to power, control, intimacy, and transformation. Those with this placement often experience fears surrounding vulnerability, trust, and the potential for betrayal or abandonment. There can be an overwhelming desire to maintain control in relationships or life situations, leading to difficulty in allowing emotional intimacy or surrendering to change. These wounds may manifest as challenges in trusting others, resistance to transformation, and an intense fear of losing emotional or material power. Healing begins by embracing vulnerability and recognizing that true power stems from within, not from controlling external situations or people. Trusting in the process of transformation and letting go of the need for constant control is essential. Healing also involves forming deep emotional connections without fearing betrayal or loss, and understanding that emotional intimacy is a strength rather than a weakness.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your personal power or worry about how others perceive your intensity, fearing rejection if you reveal your true self. Healing: Embrace your emotional depth and intensity as assets. Healing comes from trusting that you can be vulnerable and authentic without losing control or being rejected.

2nd House:Wound: Insecurity around material resources or fear of losing control over personal security may dominate, causing anxiety about stability. Healing: Develop inner security that isn’t dependent on external resources. Healing comes from trusting your ability to rebuild and regenerate, even after loss or financial setbacks.

3rd House:Wound: You may feel uncomfortable expressing your deeper emotions or thoughts, fearing that others will misunderstand or judge you. Healing: Learn to communicate your emotional truths confidently. Healing comes from trusting in the power of your words and allowing yourself to be vulnerable in your communication with others.

4th House:Wound: Deep emotional pain or issues of control may have been present in your family or home life, leading to feelings of betrayal or insecurity. Healing: Create a safe emotional space within your home and family. Healing comes from letting go of the need to control family dynamics and trusting in the power of emotional vulnerability.

5th House:Wound: You may struggle with expressing your creative passions or fears of rejection in romance, hesitating to open up or be vulnerable. Healing: Allow yourself to take risks in both creativity and love. Healing comes from embracing your passions without fear of betrayal, knowing that your self-expression is powerful and transformative.

6th House:Wound: Feelings of inadequacy may arise in your work or health, with fears of losing control over your body or daily routines. Healing: Trust in your body’s natural ability to heal and regenerate. Healing comes from finding balance in your routines and letting go of perfectionism or the need to control every detail in your work.

7th House:Wound: You may fear emotional vulnerability in close partnerships, feeling a need to maintain control to prevent betrayal or abandonment. Healing: Healing comes from trusting the emotional depth of your partnerships. Allow yourself to be vulnerable, understanding that true intimacy requires letting go of control.

8th House:Wound: Fear of losing control in matters of intimacy, shared resources, or personal transformation can lead to issues with trust and power dynamics. Healing: Embrace vulnerability and trust in the power of shared emotional and material resources. Healing comes from allowing deep emotional connections without fearing betrayal or loss.

9th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about exploring deeper philosophical or spiritual truths, fearing judgment or losing control over your belief systems. Healing: Trust in the transformative power of your spiritual and philosophical journey. Healing comes from embracing change and allowing your beliefs to evolve as you grow.

10th House:Wound: Fear of losing control or being betrayed in your career or public life may lead to challenges with trust and power dynamics in professional settings. Healing: Learn to trust in your resilience and ability to rise, even after career setbacks. Healing comes from embracing vulnerability in your professional life and using it to fuel growth.

11th House:Wound: You may feel powerless or betrayed in group settings, social circles, or communities, leading to fears of rejection or manipulation. Healing: Embrace your role and power in group dynamics. Healing comes from trusting that you can contribute meaningfully to the collective and allowing yourself to be vulnerable in friendships and social connections.

12th House:Wound: Fears of losing control to unconscious emotions, spiritual crises, or the unknown may leave you feeling powerless or overwhelmed. Healing: Embrace the transformative power of the subconscious and trust in the spiritual journey. Healing comes from surrendering control and allowing the natural flow of emotional and spiritual growth to guide you.

𝐒𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐮𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Sagittarius represents wounds tied to beliefs, freedom, and the search for truth. Individuals with this placement may struggle with feelings of inadequacy in their understanding of life’s purpose, personal freedom, and their own philosophical or spiritual beliefs. They may fear not having the "right" answers or feel limited in their ability to live authentically. These wounds can manifest as insecurity about one’s worldview, fear of being judged for one’s beliefs, or difficulty in feeling free to explore new ideas and experiences. Healing comes from embracing your personal truth and realizing that there is no singular path to wisdom or freedom. Trusting your own spiritual or philosophical journey, rather than seeking external validation, is essential. You heal by accepting that life’s meaning is subjective, embracing diverse perspectives, and allowing yourself the freedom to explore without fear of judgment or failure.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your identity, especially when expressing your beliefs or personal truth, fearing that others will judge or reject you. Healing: Embrace your unique perspective and trust in your personal truth. Healing comes from confidently expressing your authentic self without seeking external validation.

2nd House:Wound: Insecurity may revolve around personal values or the fear of not being "enough" in terms of what you believe or possess. Healing: Develop a sense of inner worth that isn’t tied to material success or societal approval. Healing comes from trusting your personal values and believing in your inner abundance.

3rd House:Wound: You may feel insecure about communicating your beliefs or ideas, fearing they are not valid or worthy of being heard. Healing: Trust in your intellect and share your ideas openly. Healing comes from learning to communicate your beliefs with confidence and embracing the value of your thoughts.

4th House:Wound: You may feel disconnected from your family’s belief systems or struggle to find your place within your home’s philosophical or cultural framework. Healing: Create your own sense of spiritual or philosophical belonging. Healing comes from building a home environment that reflects your truth and supports emotional security.

5th House:Wound: You may fear expressing your beliefs or philosophies through creative endeavors, worrying about being judged for your passions. Healing: Allow yourself to express your beliefs through creativity without fear of rejection. Healing comes from embracing the joy of exploring your passions and trusting that your unique perspective can inspire others.

6th House:Wound: You may feel restricted in your work or daily routines, believing they limit your ability to explore new ideas or personal freedom. Healing: Integrate your need for freedom into your daily life and work. Healing comes from balancing routine with exploration and finding growth and learning opportunities in everyday tasks.

7th House:Wound: In relationships, you may feel insecure about your beliefs or philosophical outlook, fearing they will not be accepted by your partner. Healing: Embrace your personal truth in relationships. Healing comes from trusting that you can find partners who honor your beliefs while respecting theirs, allowing room for mutual growth.

8th House:Wound: You may fear sharing your deeper spiritual or philosophical beliefs in intimate relationships, worrying about betrayal or judgment. Healing: Healing comes from trusting in the transformative power of shared beliefs. Embrace vulnerability in your intimate connections, allowing for deep emotional and spiritual bonding.

9th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your philosophical, spiritual, or religious beliefs, worrying that your worldview is flawed or that you don’t have the "right" answers. Healing: Embrace the diversity of belief systems and trust your spiritual journey. Healing comes from allowing yourself the freedom to explore new philosophies and accepting that wisdom is an evolving process.

10th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about expressing your beliefs or philosophy in your career or public life, fearing that others will judge your values. Healing: Boldly embrace your beliefs in your professional life. Healing comes from trusting that your worldview can guide your career and shape your public success.

11th House:Wound: You may feel disconnected from social groups or communities because of differences in beliefs or a sense of not fitting in. Healing: Find or create communities that resonate with your philosophical or spiritual ideals. Healing comes from trusting that your unique perspective can contribute meaningfully to the collective.

12th House:Wound: You may experience existential crises or feel disconnected from your spiritual path, fearing that you will never find true meaning or wisdom. Healing: Embrace the mysteries of life and trust your spiritual journey, even when it’s unclear. Healing comes from allowing yourself to explore the unknown with faith in the process.

𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Capricorn represents wounds related to authority, responsibility, success, and structure. Individuals with this placement may struggle with feelings of inadequacy in their ability to meet responsibilities or achieve goals. There may be a fear of failure, judgment from society, or not being able to live up to high standards. These wounds can manifest as an overwhelming pressure to succeed, insecurity in leadership roles, or difficulty balancing personal ambitions with emotional needs. Healing comes from redefining success on your own terms and releasing the need for external validation. Learning to balance personal and professional life, and understanding that your worth isn’t tied to achievements or societal approval, is crucial. Developing a sense of inner authority and trusting your ability to take responsibility without self-criticism will help heal wounds related to control, status, and success.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may feel insecure about how others perceive your competence or authority, often fearing that you won’t be respected. Healing: Embrace your unique leadership style and trust that you don’t need to be perfect to command respect. Healing comes from knowing that your presence is enough to be seen as an authority.

2nd House:Wound: You may feel insecure about material security or fear that you aren’t seen as stable or successful enough by others. Healing: Build inner security by trusting in your ability to create abundance without needing to prove your worth through material achievements. Healing comes from valuing yourself beyond external measures of success.

3rd House:Wound: You may struggle with feeling inadequate in communicating your ideas or feel judged for how you express yourself in intellectual or social situations. Healing: Trust in your voice and wisdom, knowing that success doesn’t require perfection. Healing comes from embracing communication without fear of judgment and recognizing your ideas as valuable.

4th House:Wound: Feelings of inadequacy in your home life or family dynamics may lead to a fear of emotional or material instability. Healing: Focus on creating emotional and material stability for yourself. Healing comes from trusting that you can build a nurturing home environment without the need for perfection or control.

5th House:Wound: You may fear that your creative talents or passions won’t lead to recognition or success, causing you to hold back. Healing: Allow yourself to express your creativity without needing external validation. Healing comes from recognizing that your passions and creativity are valuable, even if they don’t conform to traditional ideas of success.

6th House:Wound: You may feel overwhelmed by responsibilities in your work or daily routines, fearing that you’re not managing them well enough. Healing: Healing comes from finding balance between work and self-care. Trust that you can handle your responsibilities without overburdening yourself, and recognize that success includes taking care of your well-being.

7th House:Wound: Insecurity in relationships may lead you to fear failure in partnerships or feel that you can’t maintain balanced, successful relationships. Healing: Heal by accepting that relationships don’t need to be perfect to succeed. Trust that balance in partnerships comes from emotional harmony and understanding, not control.

8th House:Wound: You may fear losing control in intimate relationships or shared resources, leading to insecurity in trusting others deeply. Healing: Embrace the power of vulnerability in relationships. Healing comes from trusting that you can navigate shared emotional and material responsibilities without fear of betrayal or loss of control.

9th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your beliefs or spiritual journey, fearing that you’re not on the “right” path to success or enlightenment. Healing: Trust in your unique spiritual or philosophical journey. Healing comes from embracing your personal path, even if it doesn’t align with societal or traditional expectations.

10th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your career or public image, fearing that you’ll never achieve the success or respect you desire. Healing: Define success on your own terms and trust in the value of your efforts. Healing comes from allowing yourself to take on leadership roles without fear of failure or judgment.

11th House:Wound: You may feel like an outsider in social or group settings, fearing that you won’t find success or acceptance in communities or networks. Healing: Trust in your ability to contribute to social groups. Healing comes from finding communities that appreciate your unique talents and collaborating without striving for perfection.

12th House:Wound: You may feel disconnected from your spiritual or inner life, fearing that you’ll never find peace or success in these realms. Healing: Surrender to the natural flow of life and trust in your spiritual journey. Healing comes from letting go of control and embracing the process of spiritual and emotional growth.

𝐀𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐮𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Aquarius represents wounds around individuality, community, and belonging. People with this placement often struggle with feeling different or out of place within groups, social circles, or society as a whole. There is a deep fear of rejection or alienation, rooted in feeling misunderstood or not fitting in. These wounds can lead to insecurity about expressing one’s uniqueness or ideas, feeling disconnected from social groups, or fearing judgment for having unconventional beliefs or behaviors. Healing comes from embracing your individuality and recognizing that your uniqueness is a source of strength. Trust that you can contribute meaningfully to communities and social groups without needing to conform. By valuing your vision and understanding that being different is not a flaw but a gift, you begin to heal. Finding or creating spaces where your ideas and values are appreciated, and where you can connect with like-minded people, is also essential.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may feel insecure about how you present yourself to the world, fearing that your individuality will lead to rejection or alienation. Healing: Embrace your uniqueness and trust that it is a gift. Healing comes from confidently showing the world your true self without seeking approval from others.

2nd House:Wound: You may struggle with feelings of inadequacy related to self-worth, particularly around your unconventional values or unique way of thinking. Healing: Develop a sense of self-worth that isn’t tied to societal expectations or material success. Healing comes from trusting in the value of your perspective and ideas.

3rd House:Wound: You may feel insecure about expressing unconventional ideas or fear that your thoughts will be misunderstood or dismissed. Healing: Embrace your unique intellect and communicate your ideas freely. Healing comes from trusting that your thoughts can inspire others and are valuable.

4th House:Wound: Feelings of being different or disconnected from your family or home environment may have left you feeling like you didn’t belong. Healing: Create your own sense of belonging and build a home that reflects your individuality. Healing comes from forming an emotional foundation where you feel supported and accepted.

5th House:Wound: You may struggle with expressing your creative or romantic side, fearing rejection for your unconventional approach to love or self-expression. Healing: Allow yourself to express creativity and passion without fear of judgment. Healing comes from trusting that your unique expressions of love and creativity are valuable and worthy of acceptance.

6th House:Wound: You may feel out of place in work or daily routines, struggling to fit into conventional environments or feeling that your individuality is not appreciated. Healing: Create work environments and routines that honor your individuality. Healing comes from recognizing that your unconventional approach can bring innovation and value to any work setting.

7th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your ability to maintain balanced relationships, fearing that your individuality may be too much for others. Healing: Embrace your uniqueness in relationships and trust that you can find partners who honor and appreciate your individuality. Healing comes from building relationships where both partners’ uniqueness is celebrated.

8th House:Wound: You may fear vulnerability or intimacy, especially when it comes to sharing your unconventional ideas or emotions. Healing: Embrace the power of vulnerability in emotional and intellectual connections. Healing comes from trusting that meaningful relationships can be built on sharing your true self, even when it feels unconventional.

9th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your beliefs or ideals, particularly if they are unconventional or differ from mainstream views. Healing: Embrace your unique philosophical or spiritual journey. Healing comes from trusting that your beliefs, no matter how unconventional, are valid and can lead to personal growth.

10th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your career or public image, fearing that your unconventional approach will not be accepted or respected by society. Healing: Embrace your originality in your professional life. Healing comes from trusting that your unique vision can lead to success and contribute something new and valuable to the world.

11th House:Wound: You may feel disconnected from social groups or communities, fearing that you don’t fit in or aren’t appreciated for your individuality. Healing: Find or create communities that appreciate your uniqueness. Healing comes from trusting that you can form meaningful connections with those who share your values and vision.

12th House:Wound: You may feel isolated or disconnected from the collective unconscious or spiritual realm, fearing that your unique spiritual insights are not valid or accepted. Healing: Trust in your intuitive and spiritual journey. Healing comes from exploring life’s mysteries with confidence, knowing that your unique insights can bring valuable wisdom to others.

𝐏𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧

Chiron in Pisces reflects deep wounds related to spirituality, compassion, and the connection to the collective unconscious. Individuals with this placement may feel a profound sense of spiritual or emotional disconnection, yearning for unity but struggling with feelings of isolation, confusion, or helplessness. They may also experience wounds surrounding sensitivity, compassion, and the ability to trust in the flow of life. These wounds often manifest as difficulty setting boundaries, fear of being overwhelmed by emotions, or feeling that they must always sacrifice themselves for others. Healing for Chiron in Pisces comes through embracing your spiritual path, learning to trust in the unseen, and developing healthy boundaries. Recognizing that your sensitivity and compassion are powerful strengths, not weaknesses, is vital. You must learn to accept that you don’t need to carry the burdens of the world. Healing involves surrendering to the flow of life while also prioritizing your emotional and spiritual needs, allowing for balance between self-care and compassion for others.

Through the Houses

1st House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your identity, overwhelmed by your sensitivity, and unsure of how to assert yourself in a world that feels overwhelming. Healing: Embrace your sensitivity as a unique gift and ground yourself in your spiritual identity. Healing comes from trusting your intuition and allowing your inner wisdom to guide you.

2nd House:Wound: You may feel that your worth is tied to your ability to sacrifice or serve others, often questioning your value. Healing: Develop a sense of inner worth that is not reliant on external validation or self-sacrifice. Healing comes from trusting in your inherent value and allowing yourself to receive as well as give.

3rd House:Wound: You may struggle to express your thoughts or spiritual insights, feeling misunderstood or unable to communicate your deeper emotions. Healing: Trust in your voice and allow yourself to share your compassionate and intuitive thoughts. Healing comes from learning to communicate your spiritual truth with clarity and confidence.

4th House:Wound: You may feel emotionally disconnected or unstable within your home or family life, often sacrificing your own needs for the sake of others. Healing: Create a foundation that nurtures your emotional and spiritual needs. Healing comes from finding inner peace and emotional security within yourself rather than relying on external sources.

5th House:Wound: You may feel overwhelmed by fear of rejection or inadequacy when it comes to expressing your creativity or romantic feelings. Healing: Allow yourself to express creativity and love without fear of judgment. Healing comes from trusting that your artistic and romantic expressions are valid and deserving of appreciation.

6th House:Wound: You may feel burdened by daily responsibilities or work, often sacrificing your well-being for the sake of others. Healing: Create balanced routines that nurture your emotional and spiritual renewal. Healing comes from learning to care for yourself while maintaining compassion and service for others, without overextending yourself.

7th House:Wound: You may feel insecure in relationships, often sacrificing your needs or boundaries to maintain peace and connection. Healing: Develop healthy boundaries in relationships and trust in your ability to maintain deep connections without losing yourself. Healing comes from allowing vulnerability without feeling the need for self-sacrifice.

8th House:Wound: You may fear deep emotional or spiritual vulnerability, worrying about betrayal, loss, or transformation. Healing: Embrace the transformative power of emotional and spiritual intimacy. Healing comes from trusting in the process of emotional depth and transformation, allowing vulnerability without fear of dissolution.

9th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your spiritual or philosophical beliefs, fearing that your worldview is too unconventional or emotionally charged. Healing: Embrace your unique spiritual path and trust in your inner wisdom. Healing comes from allowing yourself the freedom to explore your beliefs without fear of being misunderstood.

10th House:Wound: You may feel insecure about your ability to succeed in your career, fearing that your spiritual or compassionate nature won’t be valued in professional settings. Healing: Trust in the value of your compassionate and intuitive gifts. Healing comes from integrating your spiritual self into your career and recognizing that sensitivity can lead to meaningful success.

11th House:Wound: You may feel disconnected from social groups or communities, fearing that your emotional sensitivity makes you too different to fit in. Healing: Find or create communities that honor your spiritual and emotional sensitivity. Healing comes from forming meaningful connections with like-minded individuals who appreciate your compassionate ideals.

12th House:Wound: You may feel overwhelmed by unconscious fears, spiritual disconnection, or existential confusion, struggling with feelings of isolation. Healing: Healing comes from surrendering to the flow of life and trusting in a deeper spiritual connection. Embrace spiritual practices that bring you peace and help you connect to the collective unconscious.

Masterlist - YouTube (subliminals)

[prettieinpink]

HAVING AN INTENTIONAL ROOM

Your room is the most important place in your life. You sleep, wake up, heal and experience many emotions just in your room. You have to take care of your room, so it is spiritually the ideal place to grow into the best version of yourself. 

KEEPING YOUR ROOM CLEAN 

Keeping your room free of mess is an act of mindfulness and self-discipline that supports your overall journey and connects you with your higher self. It helps with promoting clarity, and cultivating inner balance and is an everyday self-care ritual. 

Make your bed every day. You have to respect the place in which you sleep and heal.

Hang up clean clothes after the day or put any dirty clothes in your laundry hamper, avoid tossing them on the floor. 

Find a place for everything, and know where everything is. If you do not know where each thing in your room is located, you either have too much clutter or you’re disorganised. 

Tidy up your room daily, neatly putting everything away in its place. If needed, buy a few organisers. 

Don’t leave rubbish for extended periods. Treat your room like a temple, don’t disrespect it, and pick up after yourself. 

Try to avoid eating meals in your bedroom. We forget the dirty dishes over time, and it stinks and attracts unwanted bugs. 

Change bed sheets regularly. Once a week at the most, for more hygienic reasons though. 

Remove unwanted items on your bedside table. Keep it minimal and intentional with anything you want to place on it.

Regularly clean up the dust in your room, using a duster or a damp microfiber cloth on all of the surfaces. 

ENCOURAGING GROWTH IN YOUR LIFE

A room designed to encourage inner growth serves as a physical reminder of your commitment to self-improvement, personal development, and overall well-being. It creates an environment helpful to improvement, self-reflection, and positive change.

Keep specific areas of your room designated to one task in your life. For me, my desk is for productivity, my bed is for resting or relaxing and my bedroom floor is for mindful activities. 

Throw away any items that do not serve a purpose to you anymore. Avoid keeping items that bring you painful or harmful memories.

Minimise the presence of technology in your room. I suggest having zones in your room which is device-free or having a time of day in which devices are not allowed in your room. 

Create a vision board poster in your room that you can see every day, which helps to visualise and motivate you to create your dream life. 

Place meaningful quotes, affirmations, mantras or prayers as reminders of the values, mindsets or intentions you wish to cultivate in your life.

Display personal achievements. If you won any awards or certificates, place them in a way in which you can view them every day. If you have done something in your life that you think is an achievement but have no award to display, just simply create your own. Buy some balsawood and glue it together to create your own medal. 

Place items that align with the habits or routines you want to cultivate in your life so that they are easily accessible. Put a workout mat in the corner, always have your journal on your desk or have a cold water bottle ready to go when you wake up. 

3. DECORATING YOUR ROOM TO REFLECT YOU

Decorating your room in a way that reflects your true self brings a sense of authenticity and comfort. It creates a nurturing environment that allows for self-expression, reflection, and personal growth which ultimately contributes to your journey of inner development.

Make a mood board or vision board of how you would want your room to look, how it supports you and how it makes you feel. Choose a colour scheme in this process as well.

Add candles or incense that you think embodies who you are, or who you want to be. For example, if I want to be a cleaner person, I would choose a candle that smells like fresh linen. 

Put up posters of things that you like, people who you look up to or anything that expresses who you are.

Add a canopy to your bed while you sleep. So cute, and I believe it helps protect you from any unwanted energy entering through you while you sleep. 

Add a rug, even if you already have carpet, to enhance the cozy ambience of the room. 

An ottoman at the end of the bed can elevate your room to look more expensive, if needed, it can also be an organiser for your extra things. 

Put life in your room, adding low-maintenance plants or flowers can liven it up. A little extra, research some plants or flowers meaning’s and pick one that resonates with you. 

Display any of your favourite jewellery, bags, clothing pieces, or make-up around your room. A nice way to appreciate what you have, without actually using them. 

[chooseyouovereveryone]

Nope😭😭😭😭😭😭

we're gonna make it now

[starryjoy]

What's your favorite game at the moment?

well im playing the newly out Xenoblade Chronicles 3 dlc story Future Redeemed and it's great! it is making me reminisce on how absolutely beautiful this whole series has been and how far we've come

funnily enough it was announced to come out very soon right as i had finished a fire emblem retrospective- at least up to how much i felt comfortable playing, where i played 17, 15, 9, 10, and watched my partners experience 16, all in rapid succession

i liked the fire emblem games! but Xenoblade Chronicles is such a beautiful story about making mistakes and the study of how those mistakes affect you, the regret, the pain, the loss, but also the hope and the potential for a better future always being there

[theambitiouswoman]

Emotionally healthy people are quitters ✨

Emotionally healthy people are quitters. They make choices that align with their well being. Quitting a relationship, partnership or job that makes you unhappy is a sign of self awareness. If someone stays in something bad for too long, it's not because they're strong, but because they're afraid or have low self esteem. Being emotionally healthy means having awareness, setting boundaries, and knowing when it's time to move on from situations that no longer serve you. It's about prioritizing your mental and emotional health over sticking with something that's causing you harm or making you unhappy.

Emotionally healthy people also tend to have good communication skills. They express their feelings and needs calmly, openly and honestly. They also look for guidance and enlightenment because they understand that seeking help is a sign of strength not weakness.

They make decisions out of self love rather than attachment or fear. When you prioritize loving yourself, you make choices that align with your happiness and growth, rather than staying in situations out of comfort or insecurity.

Recognizing when you have an unhealthy attachment or that your feelings may not be conducive to your well being is important. It allows you to take a step back, evaluate the situation objectively, and make choices that are in line with your best interests.

Sometimes holding on can lead to more pain and struggle than necessary. It's a sign of emotional maturity to recognize when a situation is no longer good for you and to have the strength to let it go.

Things that are genuinely right for you should not cause you harm or emotional pain. Choosing pain is a sign of a lack of self love. Recognizing the need for change, prioritizing self love, and making healthier choices is how you begin to change your life.

Reframe your mindset from “this is hurting me because I love it” to “this is hurting me because I do not love me.”

[illycanary]

Katara's Story Is A Tragedy and It's Not An Accident

I was a teenaged girl when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon—the group that the show’s creators unintentionally hit while they were aiming for the younger, maler demographic. Nevermind that we’re the reason the show’s popularity caught fire and has endured for two decades; we weren’t the audience Mike and Bryan wanted. And by golly, were they going to make sure we knew it. They’ve been making sure we know it with every snide comment and addendum they’ve made to the story for the last twenty years.

For many of us girls who were raised in the nineties and aughts, Katara was a breath of fresh air—a rare opportunity in a media market saturated with boys having grand adventures to see a young woman having her own adventure and expressing the same fears and frustrations we were often made to feel. 

We were told that we could be anything we wanted to be. That we were strong and smart and brimming with potential. That we were just as capable as the boys. That we were our brothers’ equals. But we were also told to wash dishes and fold laundry and tidy around the house while our brothers played outside. We were ignored when our male classmates picked teams for kickball and told to go play with the girls on the swings—the same girls we were taught to deride if we wanted to be taken seriously. We were lectured for the same immaturity that was expected of boys our age and older, and we were told to do better while also being told, “Boys will be boys.” Despite all the platitudes about equality and power, we saw our mothers straining under the weight of carrying both full-time careers and unequally divided family responsibilities. We sensed that we were being groomed for the same future. 

And we saw ourselves in Katara. 

Katara begins as a parentified teenaged girl: forced to take on responsibility for the daily care of people around her—including male figures who are capable of looking after themselves but are allowed to be immature enough to foist such labor onto her. She does thankless work for people who take her contributions for granted. She’s belittled by people who love her, but don’t understand her. She’s isolated from the world and denied opportunities to improve her talents. She's told what emotions she's allowed to feel and when to feel them. In essence, she was living our real-world fear: being trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood. 

Then we watched Katara go through an incredible journey of self-determination and empowerment. Katara goes from being a powerless, fearful victim to being a protector, healer, advocate, and liberator to others who can’t do those things for themselves (a much truer and more fulfilling definition of nurturing and motherhood). It’s necessary in Katara’s growth cycle that she does this for others first because that is the realm she knows. She is given increasingly significant opportunities to speak up and fight on behalf of others, and that allows her to build those advocacy muscles gradually. But she still holds back her own emotional pain because everyone that she attempts to express such things to proves they either don't want to deal with it or they only want to manipulate her feelings for their own purposes. 

Katara continues to do much of the work we think of as traditionally maternal on behalf of her friends and family over the course of the story, but we do see that scale gradually shift. Sokka takes on more responsibility for managing the group’s supplies, and everyone helps around camp, but Katara continues to be the manager of everyone else’s emotions while simultaneously punching down her own. The scales finally seem to tip when Zuko joins the group. With Zuko, we see someone working alongside Katara doing the same tasks she is doing around camp for the first time. Zuko is also the only person who never expects anything of her and whose emotions she never has to manage because he’s actually more emotionally stable and mature than she is by that point. And then, Katara’s arc culminates in her finally getting the chance to fully seize her power, rewrite the story of the traumatic event that cast her into the role of parentified child, be her own protector, and freely express everything she’s kept locked away for the sake of letting everyone else feel comfortable around her. Then she fights alongside an equal partner she knows she can trust and depend on through the story's climax. And for the first time since her mother’s death, the girl who gives and gives and gives while getting nothing back watches someone sacrifice everything for her. But this time, she’s able to change the ending because her power is fully realized. The cycle was officially broken.

Katara’s character arc was catharsis at every step. If Katara could break the mold and recreate the ideas of womanhood and motherhood in her own image, so could we. We could be powerful. We could care for ourselves AND others when they need us—instead of caring for everyone all the time at our own expense. We could have balanced partnerships with give and take going both ways (“Tui and La, push and pull”), rather than the, “I give, they take,” model we were conditioned to expect. We could fight for and determine our own destiny—after all, wasn’t destiny a core theme of the story?

Yes. Destiny was the theme. But the lesson was that Katara didn’t get to determine hers. 

After Katara achieves her victory and completes her arc, the narrative steps in and smacks her back down to where she started. For reasons that are never explained or justified, Katara rewards the hero by giving into his romantic advances even though he has invalidated her emotions, violated her boundaries, lashed out at her for slights against him she never committed, idealized a false idol of her then browbeat her when she deviated from his narrative, and forced her to carry his emotions and put herself in danger when he willingly fails to control himself—even though he never apologizes, never learns his lesson, and never shows any inclination to do better. 

And do better he does not.

The more we dared to voice our own opinions on a character that was clearly meant to represent us, the more Mike and Bryan punished Katara for it.

Throughout the comics, Katara makes herself smaller and smaller and forfeits all rights to personal actualization and satisfaction in her relationship. She punches her feelings down when her partner neglects her and cries alone as he shows more affection and concern for literally every other girl’s feelings than hers. She becomes cowed by his outbursts and threats of violence. Instead of rising with the moon or resting in the warmth of the sun, she learns to stay in his shadow. She gives up her silly childish dreams of rebuilding her own dying culture’s traditions and advocating for other oppressed groups so that she can fulfill his wishes to rebuild his culture instead—by being his babymaker. Katara gave up everything she cared about and everything she fought to become for the whims of a man-child who never saw her as a person, only a possession.

Then, in her old age, we get to watch the fallout of his neglect—both toward her and her children who did not meet his expectations. By that point, the girl who would never turn her back on anyone who needed her was too far gone to even advocate for her own children in her own home. And even after he’s gone, Katara never dares to define herself again. She remains, for the next twenty-plus years of her life, nothing more than her husband's grieving widow. She was never recognized for her accomplishments, the battles she won, or the people she liberated. Even her own children and grandchildren have all but forgotten her. She ends her story exactly where it began: trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood.

The story’s theme was destiny, remember? But this story’s target audience was little boys. Zuko gets to determine his own destiny as long as he works hard and earns it. Aang gets his destiny no matter what he does or doesn’t do to earn it. And Katara cannot change the destiny she was assigned by gender at birth, no matter how hard she fights for it or how many times over she earns it. 

Katara is Winston Smith, and the year is 1984. It doesn’t matter how hard you fight or what you accomplish, little girl. Big Brother is too big, too strong, and too powerful. You will never escape. You will never be free. Your victories are meaningless. So stay in your place, do what you’re told, and cry quietly so your tears don’t bother people who matter.

I will never get over it. Because I am Katara. And so are my friends, sisters, daughters, and nieces. But I am not content to live in Bryke's world.

I will never turn my back on people who need me. Including me.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“Disenshittify or Die”

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Last weekend, I traveled to Las Vegas for Defcon 32, where I had the immense privilege of giving a solo talk on Track 1, entitled "Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification":

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=54861

This was a followup to last year's talk, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification," a talk that kicked off a lot of international interest in my analysis of platform decay ("enshittification"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rimtaSgGz_4

The Defcon organizers have earned a restful week or two, and that means that the video of my talk hasn't yet been posted to Defcon's Youtube channel, so in the meantime, I thought I'd post a lightly edited version of my speech crib. If you're headed to Burning Man, you can hear me reprise this talk at Palenque Norte (7&E); I'm kicking off their lecture series on Tuesday, Aug 27 at 1PM.

==

What the fuck happened to the old, good internet?

I mean, sure, our bosses were a little surveillance-happy, and they were usually up for sharing their data with the NSA, and whenever there was a tossup between user security and growth, it was always YOLO time.

But Google Search used to work. Facebook used to show you posts from people you followed. Uber used to be cheaper than a taxi and pay the driver more than a cabbie made. Amazon used to sell products, not Shein-grade self-destructing dropshipped garbage from all-consonant brands. Apple used to defend your privacy, rather than spying on you with your no-modifications-allowed Iphone.

There was a time when you searching for an album on Spotify would get you that album – not a playlist of insipid AI-generated covers with the same name and art.

Microsoft used to sell you software – sure, it was buggy – but now they just let you access apps in the cloud, so they can watch how you use those apps and strip the features you use the most out of the basic tier and turn them into an upcharge.

What – and I cannot stress this enough – the fuck happened?!

I’m talking about enshittification.

Here’s what enshittification looks like from the outside: First, you see a company that’s being good to its end users. Google puts the best search results at the top; Facebook shows you a feed of posts from people and groups you followl; Uber charges small dollars for a cab; Amazon subsidizes goods and returns and shipping and puts the best match for your product search at the top of the page.

That’s stage one, being good to end users. But there’s another part of this stage, call it stage 1a). That’s figuring out how to lock in those users.

There’s so many ways to lock in users.

If you’re Facebook, the users do it for you. You joined Facebook because there were people there you wanted to hang out with, and other people joined Facebook to hang out with you.

That’s the old “network effects” in action, and with network effects come “the collective action problem." Because you love your friends, but goddamn are they a pain in the ass! You all agree that FB sucks, sure, but can you all agree on when it’s time to leave?

No way.

Can you agree on where to go next?

Hell no.

You’re there because that’s where the support group for your rare disease hangs out, and your bestie is there because that’s where they talk with the people in the country they moved away from, then there’s that friend who coordinates their kid’s little league car pools on FB, and the best dungeon master you know isn’t gonna leave FB because that’s where her customers are.

So you’re stuck, because even though FB use comes at a high cost – your privacy, your dignity and your sanity – that’s still less than the switching cost you’d have to bear if you left: namely, all those friends who have taken you hostage, and whom you are holding hostage

Now, sometimes companies lock you in with money, like Amazon getting you to prepay for a year’s shipping with Prime, or to buy your Audible books on a monthly subscription, which virtually guarantees that every shopping search will start on Amazon, after all, you’ve already paid for it.

Sometimes, they lock you in with DRM, like HP selling you a printer with four ink cartridges filled with fluid that retails for more than $10,000/gallon, and using DRM to stop you from refilling any of those ink carts or using a third-party cartridge. So when one cart runs dry, you have to refill it or throw away your investment in the remaining three cartridges and the printer itself.

Sometimes, it’s a grab bag:

You can’t run your Ios apps without Apple hardware;

you can’t run your Apple music, books and movies on anything except an Ios app;

your iPhone uses parts pairing – DRM handshakes between replacement parts and the main system – so you can’t use third-party parts to fix it; and

every OEM iPhone part has a microscopic Apple logo engraved on it, so Apple can demand that the US Customs and Border Service seize any shipment of refurb Iphone parts as trademark violations.

Think Different, amirite?

Getting you locked in completes phase one of the enshittification cycle and signals the start of phase two: making things worse for you to make things better for business customers.

For example, a platform might poison its search results, like Google selling more and more of its results pages to ads that are identified with lighter and lighter tinier and tinier type.

Or Amazon selling off search results and calling it an “ad” business. They make $38b/year on this scam. The first result for your search is, on average, 29% more expensive than the best match for your search. The first row is 25% more expensive than the best match. On average, the best match for your search is likely to be found seventeen places down on the results page.

Other platforms sell off your feed, like Facebook, which started off showing you the things you asked to see, but now the quantum of content from the people you follow has dwindled to a homeopathic residue, leaving a void that Facebook fills with things that people pay to show you: boosted posts from publishers you haven’t subscribed to, and, of course, ads.

Now at this point you might be thinking ‘sure, if you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product.'

Bullshit!

Bull.

Shit.

The people who buy those Google ads? They pay more every year for worse ad-targeting and more ad-fraud

Those publishers paying to nonconsensually cram their content into your Facebook feed? They have to do that because FB suppresses their ability to reach the people who actually subscribed to them

The Amazon sellers with the best match for your query have to outbid everyone else just to show up on the first page of results. It costs so much to sell on Amazon that between 45-51% of every dollar an independent seller brings in has to be kicked up to Don Bezos and the Amazon crime family. Those sellers don’t have the kind of margins that let them pay 51% They have to raise prices in order to avoid losing money on every sale.

"But wait!" I hear you say!

[Come on, say it!]

"But wait! Things on Amazon aren’t more expensive that things at Target, or Walmart, or at a mom and pop store, or direct from the manufacturer.

"How can sellers be raising prices on Amazon if the price at Amazon is the same as at is everywhere else?"

[Any guesses?!]

That’s right, they charge more everywhere. They have to. Amazon binds its sellers to a policy called “most favored nation status,” which says they can’t charge more on Amazon than they charge elsewhere, including direct from their own factory store.

So every seller that wants to sell on Amazon has to raise their prices everywhere else.

Now, these sellers are Amazon’s best customers. They’re paying for the product, and they’re still getting screwed.

Paying for the product doesn’t fill your vapid boss’s shriveled heart with so much joy that he decides to stop trying to think of ways to fuck you over.

Look at Apple. Remember when Apple offered every Ios user a one-click opt out for app-based surveillance? And 96% of users clicked that box?

(The other four percent were either drunk or Facebook employees or drunk Facebook employees.)

That cost Facebook at least ten billion dollars per year in lost surveillance revenue?

I mean, you love to see it.

But did you know that at the same time Apple started spying on Ios users in the same way that Facebook had been, for surveillance data to use to target users for its competing advertising product?

Your Iphone isn’t an ad-supported gimme. You paid a thousand fucking dollars for that distraction rectangle in your pocket, and you’re still the product. What’s more, Apple has rigged Ios so that you can’t mod the OS to block its spying.

If you’re not not paying for the product, you’re the product, and if you are paying for the product, you’re still the product.

Just ask the farmers who are expected to swap parts into their own busted half-million dollar, mission-critical tractors, but can’t actually use those parts until a technician charges them $200 to drive out to the farm and type a parts pairing unlock code into their console.

John Deere’s not giving away tractors. Give John Deere a half mil for a tractor and you will be the product.

Please, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Please! Stop saying ‘if you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product.’

OK, OK, so that’s phase two of enshittification.

Phase one: be good to users while locking them in.

Phase two: screw the users a little to you can good to business customers while locking them in.

Phase three: screw everybody and take all the value for yourself. Leave behind the absolute bare minimum of utility so that everyone stays locked into your pile of shit.

Enshittification: a tragedy in three acts.

That’s what enshittification looks like from the outside, but what’s going on inside the company? What is the pathological mechanism? What sci-fi entropy ray converts the excellent and useful service into a pile of shit?

That mechanism is called twiddling. Twiddling is when someone alters the back end of a service to change how its business operates, changing prices, costs, search ranking, recommendation criteria and other foundational aspects of the system.

Digital platforms are a twiddler’s utopia. A grocer would need an army of teenagers with pricing guns on rollerblades to reprice everything in the building when someone arrives who’s extra hungry.

Whereas the McDonald’s Investments portfolio company Plexure advertises that it can use surveillance data to predict when an app user has just gotten paid so the seller can tack an extra couple bucks onto the price of their breakfast sandwich.

And of course, as the prophet William Gibson warned us, ‘cyberspace is everting.' With digital shelf tags, grocers can change prices whenever they feel like, like the grocers in Norway, whose e-ink shelf tags change the prices 2,000 times per day.

Every Uber driver is offered a different wage for every job. If a driver has been picky lately, the job pays more. But if the driver has been desperate enough to grab every ride the app offers, the pay goes down, and down, and down.

The law professor Veena Dubal calls this ‘algorithmic wage discrimination.' It’s a prime example of twiddling.

Every youtuber knows what it’s like to be twiddled. You work for weeks or months, spend thousands of dollars to make a video, then the algorithm decides that no one – not your own subscribers, not searchers who type in the exact name of your video – will see it.

Why? Who knows? The algorithm’s rules are not public.

Because content moderation is the last redoubt of security through obscurit: they can’t tell you what the como algorithm is downranking because then you’d cheat.

Youtube is the kind of shitty boss who docks every paycheck for all the rules you’ve broken, but won’t tell you what those rules were, lest you figure out how to break those rules next time without your boss catching you.

Twiddling can also work in some users’ favor, of course. Sometimes platforms twiddle to make things better for end users or business customers.

For example, Emily Baker-White from Forbes revealed the existence of a back-end feature that Tiktok’s management can access they call the “heating tool.”

When a manager applies the heating toll to a performer’s account, that performer’s videos are thrust into the feeds of millions of users, without regard to whether the recommendation algorithm predicts they will enjoy that video.

Why would they do this? Well, here’s an analogy from my boyhood I used to go to this traveling fair that would come to Toronto at the end of every summer, the Canadian National Exhibition. If you’ve been to a fair like the Ex, you know that you can always spot some guy lugging around a comedically huge teddy bear.

Nominally, you win that teddy bear by throwing five balls in a peach-basket, but to a first approximation, no one has ever gotten five balls to stay in that peach-basket.

That guy “won” the teddy bear when a carny on the midway singled him out and said, "fella, I like your face. Tell you what I’m gonna do: You get just one ball in the basket and I’ll give you this keychain, and if you amass two keychains, I’ll let you trade them in for one of these galactic-scale teddy-bears."

That’s how the guy got his teddy bear, which he now has to drag up and down the midway for the rest of the day.

Why the hell did that carny give away the teddy bear? Because it turns the guy into a walking billboard for the midway games. If that dopey-looking Judas Goat can get five balls into a peach basket, then so can you.

Except you can’t.

Tiktok’s heating tool is a way to give away tactical giant teddy bears. When someone in the TikTok brain trust decides they need more sports bros on the platform, they pick one bro out at random and make him king for the day, heating the shit out of his account.

That guy gets a bazillion views and he starts running around on all the sports bro forums trumpeting his success: *I am the Louis Pasteur of sports bro influencers!"

The other sports bros pile in and start retooling to make content that conforms to the idiosyncratic Tiktok format. When they fail to get giant teddy bears of their own, they assume that it’s because they’re doing Tiktok wrong, because they don’t know about the heating tool.

But then comes the day when the TikTok Star Chamber decides they need to lure in more astrologers, so they take the heat off that one lucky sports bro, and start heating up some lucky astrologer.

Giant teddy bears are all over the place: those Uber drivers who were boasting to the NYT ten years ago about earning $50/hour? The Substackers who were rolling in dough? Joe Rogan and his hundred million dollar Spotify payout? Those people are all the proud owners of giant teddy bears, and they’re a steal.

Because every dollar they get from the platform turns into five dollars worth of free labor from suckers who think they just internetting wrong.

Giant teddy bears are just one way of twiddling. Platforms can play games with every part of their business logic, in highly automated ways, that allows them to quickly and efficiently siphon value from end users to business customers and back again, hiding the pea in a shell game conducted at machine speeds, until they’ve got everyone so turned around that they take all the value for themselves.

That’s the how: How the platforms do the trick where they are good to users, then lock users in, then maltreat users to be good to business customers, then lock in those business customers, then take all the value for themselves.

So now we know what is happening, and how it is happening, all that’s left is why it’s happening.

Now, on the one hand, the why is pretty obvious. The less value that end-users and business customers capture, the more value there is left to divide up among the shareholders and the executives.

That’s why, but it doesn’t tell you why now. Companies could have done this shit at any time in the past 20 years, but they didn’t. Or at least, the successful ones didn’t. The ones that turned themselves into piles of shit got treated like piles of shit. We avoided them and they died.

Remember Myspace? Yahoo Search? Livejournal? Sure, they’re still serving some kind of AI slop or programmatic ad junk if you hit those domains, but they’re gone.

And there’s the clue: It used to be that if you enshittified your product, bad things happened to your company. Now, there are no consequences for enshittification, so everyone’s doing it.

Let’s break that down: What stops a company from enshittifying?

There are four forces that discipline tech companies. The first one is, obviously, competition.

If your customers find it easy to leave, then you have to worry about them leaving

Many factors can contribute to how hard or easy it is to depart a platform, like the network effects that Facebook has going for it. But the most important factor is whether there is anywhere to go.

Back in 2012, Facebook bought Insta for a billion dollars. That may seem like chump-change in these days of eleven-digit Big Tech acquisitions, but that was a big sum in those innocent days, and it was an especially big sum to pay for Insta. The company only had 13 employees, and a mere 25 million registered users.

But what mattered to Zuckerberg wasn’t how many users Insta had, it was where those users came from.

[Does anyone know where those Insta users came from?]

That’s right, they left Facebook and joined Insta. They were sick of FB, even though they liked the people there, they hated creepy Zuck, they hated the platform, so they left and they didn’t come back.

So Zuck spent a cool billion to recapture them, A fact he put in writing in a midnight email to CFO David Ebersman, explaining that he was paying over the odds for Insta because his users hated him, and loved Insta. So even if they quit Facebook (the platform), they would still be captured Facebook (the company).

Now, on paper, Zuck’s Instagram acquisition is illegal, but normally, that would be hard to stop, because you’d have to prove that he bought Insta with the intention of curtailing competition.

But in this case, Zuck tripped over his own dick: he put it in writing.

But Obama’s DoJ and FTC just let that one slide, following the pro-monopoly policies of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and setting an example that Trump would follow, greenlighting gigamergers like the catastrophic, incestuous Warner-Discovery marriage.

Indeed, for 40 years, starting with Carter, and accelerating through Reagan, the US has encouraged monopoly formation, as an official policy, on the grounds that monopolies are “efficient.”

If everyone is using Google Search, that’s something we should celebrate. It means they’ve got the very best search and wouldn’t it be perverse to spend public funds to punish them for making the best product?

But as we all know, Google didn’t maintain search dominance by being best. They did it by paying bribes. More than 20 billion per year to Apple alone to be the default Ios search, plus billions more to Samsung, Mozilla, and anyone else making a product or service with a search-box on it, ensuring that you never stumble on a search engine that’s better than theirs.

Which, in turn, ensured that no one smart invested big in rival search engines, even if they were visibly, obviously superior. Why bother making something better if Google’s buying up all the market oxygen before it can kindle your product to life?

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon – they’re not “making things” companies, they’re “buying things” companies, taking advantage of official tolerance for anticompetitive acquisitions, predatory pricing, market distorting exclusivity deals and other acts specifically prohibited by existing antitrust law.

Their goal is to become too big to fail, because that makes them too big to jail, and that means they can be too big to care.

Which is why Google Search is a pile of shit and everything on Amazon is dropshipped garbage that instantly disintegrates in a cloud of offgassed volatile organic compounds when you open the box.

Once companies no longer fear losing your business to a competitor, it’s much easier for them to treat you badly, because what’re you gonna do?

Remember Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the AT&T operator in those old SNL sketches? “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”

Competition is the first force that serves to discipline companies and the enshittificatory impulses of their leadership, and we just stopped enforcing competition law.

It takes a special kind of smooth-brained asshole – that is, an establishment economist – to insist that the collapse of every industry from eyeglasses to vitamin C into a cartel of five or fewer companies has nothing to do with policies that officially encouraged monopolization.

It’s like we used to put down rat poison and we didn’t have a rat problem. Then these dickheads convinced us that rats were good for us and we stopped putting down rat poison, and now rats are gnawing our faces off and they’re all running around saying, "Who’s to say where all these rats came from? Maybe it was that we stopped putting down poison, but maybe it’s just the Time of the Rats. The Great Forces of History bearing down on this moment to multiply rats beyond all measure!"

Antitrust didn’t slip down that staircase and fall spine-first on that stiletto: they stabbed it in the back and then they pushed it.

And when they killed antitrust, they also killed regulation, the second force that disciplines companies. Regulation is possible, but only when the regulator is more powerful than the regulated entities. When a company is bigger than the government, it gets damned hard to credibly threaten to punish that company, no matter what its sins.

That’s what protected IBM for all those years when it had its boot on the throat of the American tech sector. Do you know, the DOJ fought to break up IBM in the courts from 1970-1982, and that every year, for 12 consecutive years, IBM spent more on lawyers to fight the USG than the DOJ Antitrust Division spent on all the lawyers fighting every antitrust case in the entire USA?

IBM outspent Uncle Sam for 12 years. People called it “Antitrust’s Vietnam.” All that money paid off, because by 1982, the president was Ronald Reagan, a man whose official policy was that monopolies were “efficient." So he dropped the case, and Big Blue wriggled off the hook.

It’s hard to regulate a monopolist, and it’s hard to regulate a cartel. When a sector is composed of hundreds of competing companies, they compete. They genuinely fight with one another, trying to poach each others’ customers and workers. They are at each others’ throats.

It’s hard enough for a couple hundred executives to agree on anything. But when they’re legitimately competing with one another, really obsessing about how to eat each others’ lunches, they can’t agree on anything.

The instant one of them goes to their regulator with some bullshit story, about how it’s impossible to have a decent search engine without fine-grained commercial surveillance; or how it’s impossible to have a secure and easy to use mobile device without a total veto over which software can run on it; or how it’s impossible to administer an ISP’s network unless you can slow down connections to servers whose owners aren’t paying bribes for “premium carriage"; there’s some *other company saying, “That’s bullshit”

“We’ve managed it! Here’s our server logs, our quarterly financials and our customer testimonials to prove it.”

100 companies are a rabble, they're a mob. They can’t agree on a lobbying position. They’re too busy eating each others’ lunch to agree on how to cater a meeting to discuss it.

But let those hundred companies merge to monopoly, absorb one another in an incestuous orgy, turn into five giant companies, so inbred they’ve got a corporate Habsburg jaw, and they become a cartel.

It’s easy for a cartel to agree on what bullshit they’re all going to feed their regulator, and to mobilize some of the excess billions they’ve reaped through consolidation, which freed them from “wasteful competition," sp they can capture their regulators completely.

You know, Congress used to pass federal consumer privacy laws? Not anymore.

The last time Congress managed to pass a federal consumer privacy law was in 1988: The Video Privacy Protection Act. That’s a law that bans video-store clerks from telling newspapers what VHS cassettes you take home. In other words, it regulates three things that have effectively ceased to exist.

The threat of having your video rental history out there in the public eye was not the last or most urgent threat the American public faced, and yet, Congress is deadlocked on passing a privacy law.

Tech companies’ regulatory capture involves a risible and transparent gambit, that is so stupid, it’s an insult to all the good hardworking risible transparent ruses out there.

Namely, they claim that when they violate your consumer, privacy or labor rights, It’s not a crime, because they do it with an app.

Algorithmic wage discrimination isn’t illegal wage theft: we do it with an app.

Spying on you from asshole to appetite isn’t a privacy violation: we do it with an app.

And Amazon’s scam search tool that tricks you into paying 29% more than the best match for your query? Not a ripoff. We do it with an app.

Once we killed competition – stopped putting down rat poison – we got cartels – the rats ate our faces. And the cartels captured their regulators – the rats bought out the poison factory and shut it down.

So companies aren’t constrained by competition or regulation.

But you know what? This is tech, and tech is different.IIt’s different because it’s flexible. Because our computers are Turing-complete universal von Neumann machines. That means that any enshittificatory alteration to a program can be disenshittified with another program.

Every time HP jacks up the price of ink , they invite a competitor to market a refill kit or a compatible cartridge.

When Tesla installs code that says you have to pay an extra monthly fee to use your whole battery, they invite a modder to start selling a kit to jailbreak that battery and charge it all the way up.

Lemme take you through a little example of how that works: Imagine this is a product design meeting for our company’s website, and the guy leading the meeting says “Dudes, you know how our KPI is topline ad-revenue? Well, I’ve calculated that if we make the ads just 20% more invasive and obnoxious, we’ll boost ad rev by 2%”

This is a good pitch. Hit that KPI and everyone gets a fat bonus. We can all take our families on a luxury ski vacation in Switzerland.

But here’s the thing: someone’s gonna stick their arm up – someone who doesn’t give a shit about user well-being, and that person is gonna say, “I love how you think, Elon. But has it occurred to you that if we make the ads 20% more obnoxious, then 40% of our users will go to a search engine and type 'How do I block ads?'"

I mean, what a nightmare! Because once a user does that, the revenue from that user doesn’t rise to 102%. It doesn’t stay at 100% It falls to zero, forever.

[Any guesses why?]

Because no user ever went back to the search engine and typed, 'How do I start seeing ads again?'

Once the user jailbreaks their phone or discovers third party ink, or develops a relationship with an independent Tesla mechanic who’ll unlock all the DLC in their car, that user is gone, forever.

Interoperability – that latent property bequeathed to us courtesy of Herrs Turing and Von Neumann and their infinitely flexible, universal machines – that is a serious check on enshittification.

The fact that Congress hasn’t passed a privacy law since 1988 Is countered, at least in part, by the fact that the majority of web users are now running ad-blockers, which are also tracker-blockers.

But no one’s ever installed a tracker-blocker for an app. Because reverse engineering an app puts in you jeopardy of criminal and civil prosecution under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with penalties of a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense.

And violating its terms of service puts you in jeopardy under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, which is the law that Ronald Reagan signed in a panic after watching Wargames (seriously!).

Helping other users violate the terms of service can get you hit with a lawsuit for tortious interference with contract. And then there’s trademark, copyright and patent.

All that nonsense we call “IP,” but which Jay Freeman of Cydia calls “Felony Contempt of Business Model."

So if we’re still at that product planning meeting and now it’s time to talk about our app, the guy leading the meeting says, “OK, so we’ll make the ads in the app 20% more obnoxious to pull a 2% increase in topline ad rev?”

And that person who objected to making the website 20% worse? Their hand goes back up. Only this time they say “Why don’t we make the ads 100% more invasive and get a 10% increase in ad rev?"

Because it doesn't matter if a user goes to a search engine and types, “How do I block ads in an app." The answer is: you can't. So YOLO, enshittify away.

“IP” is just a euphemism for “any law that lets me reach outside my company’s walls to exert coercive control over my critics, competitors and customers,” and “app” is just a euphemism for “A web page skinned with the right IP so that protecting your privacy while you use it is a felony.”

Interop used to keep companies from enshittifying. If a company made its client suck, someone would roll out an alternative client, if they ripped a feature out and wanted to sell it back to you as a monthly subscription, someone would make a compatible plugin that restored it for a one-time fee, or for free.

To help people flee Myspace, FB gave them bots that you’d load with your login credentials. It would scrape your waiting Myspace messages and put ‘em in your FB inbox, and login to Myspace and paste your replies into your Myspace outbox. So you didn’t have to choose between the people you loved on Myspace, and Facebook, which launched with a promise never to spy on you. Remember that?!

Thanks to the metastasis of IP, all that is off the table today. Apple owes its very existence to iWork Suite, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote are file-compatible with Microsoft’s Word, Excel and Powerpoint. But make an IOS runtime that’ll play back the files you bought from Apple’s stores on other platforms, and they’ll nuke you til you glow.

FB wouldn’t have had a hope of breaking Myspace’s grip on social media without that scrape, but scrape FB today in support of an alternative client and their lawyers will bomb you til the rubble bounces.

Google scraped every website in the world to create its search index. Try and scrape Google and they’ll have your head on a pike.

When they did it, it was progress. When you do it to them, that’s piracy. Every pirate wants to be an admiral.

Because this handful of companies has so thoroughly captured their regulators, they can wield the power of the state against you when you try to break their grip on power, even as their own flagrant violations of our rights go unpunished. Because they do them with an app.

Tech lost its fear of competitin it neutralized the threat from regulators, and then put them in harness to attack new startups that might do unto them as they did unto the companies that came before them.

But even so, there was a force that kept our bosses in check That force was us. Tech workers.

Tech workers have historically been in short supply, which gave us power, and our bosses knew it.

To get us to work crazy hours, they came up with a trick. They appealed to our love of technology, and told us that we were heroes of a digital revolution, who would “organize the world’s information and make it useful,” who would “bring the world closer together.”

They brought in expert set-dressers to turn our workplaces into whimsical campuses with free laundry, gourmet cafeterias, massages, and kombucha, and a surgeon on hand to freeze our eggs so that we could work through our fertile years.

They convinced us that we were being pampered, rather than being worked like government mules.

This trick has a name. Fobazi Ettarh, the librarian-theorist, calls it “vocational awe, and Elon Musk calls it being “extremely hardcore.”

This worked very well. Boy did we put in some long-ass hours!

But for our bosses, this trick failed badly. Because if you miss your mother’s funeral and to hit a deadline, and then your boss orders you to enshittify that product, you are gonna experience a profound moral injury, which you are absolutely gonna make your boss share.

Because what are they gonna do? Fire you? They can’t hire someone else to do your job, and you can get a job that’s even better at the shop across the street.

So workers held the line when competition, regulation and interop failed.

But eventually, supply caught up with demand. Tech laid off 260,000 of us last year, and another 100,000 in the first half of this year.

You can’t tell your bosses to go fuck themselves, because they’ll fire your ass and give your job to someone who’ll be only too happy to enshittify that product you built.

That’s why this is all happening right now. Our bosses aren’t different. They didn’t catch a mind-virus that turned them into greedy assholes who don’t care about our users’ wellbeing or the quality of our products.

As far as our bosses have always been concerned, the point of the business was to charge the most, and deliver the least, while sharing as little as possible with suppliers, workers, users and customers. They’re not running charities.

Since day one, our bosses have shown up for work and yanked as hard as they can on the big ENSHITTIFICATION lever behind their desks, only that lever didn’t move much. It was all gummed up by competition, regulation, interop and workers.

As those sources of friction melted away, the enshittification lever started moving very freely.

Which sucks, I know. But think about this for a sec: our bosses, despite being wildly imperfect vessels capable of rationalizing endless greed and cheating, nevertheless oversaw a series of actually great products and services.

Not because they used to be better people, but because they used to be subjected to discipline.

So it follows that if we want to end the enshittocene, dismantle the enshitternet, and build a new, good internet that our bosses can’t wreck, we need to make sure that these constraints are durably installed on that internet, wound around its very roots and nerves. And we have to stand guard over it so that it can’t be dismantled again.

A new, good internet is one that has the positive aspects of the old, good internet: an ethic of technological self-determination, where users of technology (and hackers, tinkerers, startups and others serving as their proxies) can reconfigure and mod the technology they use, so that it does what they need it to do, and so that it can’t be used against them.

But the new, good internet will fix the defects of the old, good internet, the part that made it hard to use for anyone who wasn’t us. And hell yeah we can do that. Tech bosses swear that it’s impossible, that you can’t have a conversation friend without sharing it with Zuck; or search the web without letting Google scrape you down to the viscera; or have a phone that works reliably without giving Apple a veto over the software you install.

They claim that it’s a nonsense to even ponder this kind of thing. It’s like making water that’s not wet. But that’s bullshit. We can have nice things. We can build for the people we love, and give them a place that’s worth of their time and attention.

To do that, we have to install constraints.

The first constraint, remember, is competition. We’re living through a epochal shift in competition policy. After 40 years with antitrust enforcement in an induced coma, a wave of antitrust vigor has swept through governments all over the world. Regulators are stepping in to ban monopolistic practices, open up walled gardens, block anticompetitive mergers, and even unwind corrupt mergers that were undertaken on false pretenses.

Normally this is the place in the speech where I’d list out all the amazing things that have happened over the past four years. The enforcement actions that blocked companies from becoming too big to care, and that scared companies away from even trying.

Like Wiz, which just noped out of the largest acquisition offer in history, turning down Google’s $23b cashout, and deciding to, you know, just be a fucking business that makes money by producing a product that people want and selling it at a competitive price.

Normally, I’d be listing out FTC rulemakings that banned noncompetes nationwid. Or the new merger guidelines the FTC and DOJ cooked up, which – among other things – establish that the agencies should be considering whether a merger will negatively impact privacy.

I had a whole section of this stuff in my notes, a real victory lap, but I deleted it all this week.

[Can anyone guess why?]

That’s right! This week, Judge Amit Mehta, ruling for the DC Circuit of these United States of America, In the docket 20-3010 a case known as United States v. Google LLC, found that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," and ordered Google and the DOJ to propose a schedule for a remedy, like breaking the company up.

So yeah, that was pretty fucking epic.

Now, this antitrust stuff is pretty esoteric, and I won’t gatekeep you or shame you if you wanna keep a little distance on this subject. Nearly everyone is an antitrust normie, and that's OK. But if you’re a normie, you’re probably only catching little bits and pieces of the narrative, and let me tell you, the monopolists know it and they are flooding the zone.

The Wall Street Journal has published over 100 editorials condemning FTC Chair Lina Khan, saying she’s an ineffectual do-nothing, wasting public funds chasing doomed, quixotic adventures against poor, innocent businesses accomplishing nothing

[Does anyone out there know who owns the Wall Street Journal?]

That’s right, it’s Rupert Murdoch. Do you really think Rupert Murdoch pays his editorial board to write one hundred editorials about someone who’s not getting anything done?

The reality is that in the USA, in the UK, in the EU, in Australia, in Canada, in Japan, in South Korea, even in China, we are seeing more antitrust action over the past four years than over the preceding forty years.

Remember, competition law is actually pretty robust. The problem isn’t the law, It’s the enforcement priorities. Reagan put antitrust in mothballs 40 years ago, but that elegant weapon from a more civilized age is now back in the hands of people who know how to use it, and they’re swinging for the fences.

Next up: regulation.

As the seemingly inescapable power of the tech giants is revealed for the sham it always was, governments and regulators are finally gonna kill the “one weird trick” of violating the law, and saying “It doesn’t count, we did it with an app.”

Like in the EU, they’re rolling out the Digital Markets Act this year. That’s a law requiring dominant platforms to stand up APIs so that third parties can offer interoperable services.

So a co-op, a nonprofit, a hobbyist, a startup, or a local government agency wil eventuallyl be able to offer, say, a social media server that can interconnect with one of the dominant social media silos, and users who switch to that new platform will be able to continue to exchange messages with the users they follow and groups they belong to, so the switching costs will fall to damned near zero.

That’s a very cool rule, but what’s even cooler is how it’s gonna be enforced. Previous EU tech rules were “regulations” as in the GDPR – the General Data Privacy Regulation. EU regs need to be “transposed” into laws in each of the 27 EU member states, so they become national laws that get enforced by national courts.

For Big Tech, that means all previous tech regulations are enforced in Ireland, because Ireland is a tax haven, and all the tech companies fly Irish flags of convenience.

Here’s the thing: every tax haven is also a crime haven. After all, if Google can pretend it’s Irish this week, it can pretend to be Cypriot, or Maltese, or Luxembougeious next week. So Ireland has to keep these footloose criminal enterprises happy, or they’ll up sticks and go somewhere else.

This is why the GDPR is such a goddamned joke in practice. Big tech wipes its ass with the GDPR, and the only way to punish them starts with Ireland’s privacy commissioner, who barely bothers to get out of bed. This is an agency that spends most of its time watching cartoons on TV in its pajamas and eating breakfast cereal. So all of the big GDPR cases go to Ireland and they die there.

This is hardly a secret. The European Commission knows it’s going on. So with the DMA, the Commission has changed things up: The DMA is an “Act,” not a “Regulation.” Meaning it gets enforced in the EU’s federal courts, bypassing the national courts in crime-havens like Ireland.

In other words, the “we violate privacy law, but we do it with an app” gambit that worked on Ireland’s toothless privacy watchdog is now a dead letter, because EU federal judges have no reason to swallow that obvious bullshit.

Here in the US, the dam is breaking on federal consumer privacy law – at last!

Remember, our last privacy law was passed in 1988 to protect the sanctity of VHS rental history. It's been a minute.

And the thing is, there's a lot of people who are angry about stuff that has some nexus with America's piss-poor privacy landscape. Worried that Facebook turned grampy into a Qanon? That Insta made your teen anorexic? That TikTok is brainwashing millennials into quoting Osama Bin Laden? Or that cops are rolling up the identities of everyone at a Black Lives Matter protest or the Jan 6 riots by getting location data from Google? Or that Red State Attorneys General are tracking teen girls to out-of-state abortion clinics? Or that Black people are being discriminated against by online lending or hiring platforms? Or that someone is making AI deepfake porn of you?

A federal privacy law with a private right of action – which means that individuals can sue companies that violate their privacy – would go a long way to rectifying all of these problems

There's a pretty big coalition for that kind of privacy law! Which is why we have seen a procession of imperfect (but steadily improving) privacy laws working their way through Congress.

If you sign up for EFF’s mailing list at eff.org we’ll send you an email when these come up, so you can call your Congressjerk or Senator and talk to them about it. Or better yet, make an appointment to drop by their offices when they’re in their districts, and explain to them that you’re not just a registered voter from their district, you’re the kind of elite tech person who goes to Defcon, and then explain the bill to them. That stuff makes a difference.

What about self-help? How are we doing on making interoperability legal again, so hackers can just fix shit without waiting for Congress or a federal agency to act?

All the action here these day is in the state Right to Repair fight. We’re getting state R2R bills, like the one that passed this year in Oregon that bans parts pairing, where DRM is used to keep a device from using a new part until it gets an authorized technician’s unlock code.

These bills are pushed by a fantastic group of organizations called the Repair Coalition, at Repair.org, and they’ll email you when one of these laws is going through your statehouse, so you can meet with your state reps and explain to the JV squad the same thing you told your federal reps.

Repair.org’s prime mover is Ifixit, who are genuine heroes of the repair revolution, and Ifixit’s founder, Kyle Wiens, is here at the con. When you see him, you can shake his hand and tell him thanks, and that’ll be even better if you tell him that you’ve signed up to get alerts at repair.org!

Now, on to the final way that we reverse enhittification and build that new, good internet: you, the tech labor force.

For years, your bosses tricked you into thinking you were founders in waiting, temporarily embarrassed entrepreneurs who were only momentarily drawing a salary.

You certainly weren’t workers. Your power came from your intrinsic virtue, not like those lazy slobs in unions who have to get their power through that kumbaya solidarity nonsense.

It was a trick. You were scammed. The power you had came from scarcity, and so when the scarcity ended, when the industry started ringing up six-figure annual layoffs, your power went away with it.

The only durable source of power for tech workers is as workers, in a union.

Think about Amazon. Warehouse workers have to piss in bottles and have the highest rate of on-the-job maimings of any competing business. Whereas Amazon coders get to show up for work with facial piercings, green mohawks, and black t-shirts that say things their bosses don’t understand. They can piss whenever they want!

That’s not because Jeff Bezos or Andy Jassy loves you guys. It’s because they’re scared you’ll quit and they don’t know how to replace you.

Time for the second obligatory William Gibson quote: “The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” You know who’s living in the future?. Those Amazon blue-collar workers. They are the bleeding edge.

Drivers whose eyeballs are monitored by AI cameras that do digital phrenology on their faces to figure out whether to dock their pay, warehouse workers whose bodies are ruined in just months.

As tech bosses beef up that reserve army of unemployed, skilled tech workers, then those tech workers – you all – will arrive at the same future as them.

Look, I know that you’ve spent your careers explaining in words so small your boss could understand them that you refuse to enshittify the company’s products, and I thank you for your service.

But if you want to go on fighting for the user, you need power that’s more durable than scarcity. You need a union. Wanna learn how? Check out the Tech Workers Coalition and Tech Solidarity, and get organized.

Enshittification didn’t arise because our bosses changed. They were always that guy.

They were always yankin’ on that enshittification lever in the C-suite.

What changed was the environment, everything that kept that switch from moving.

And that’s good news, in a bankshot way, because it means we can make good services out of imperfect people. As a wildly imperfect person myself, I find this heartening.

The new good internet is in our grasp: an internet that has the technological self-determination of the old, good internet, and the greased-skids simplicity of Web 2.0 that let all our normie friends get in on the fun.

Tech bosses want you to think that good UX and enshittification can’t ever be separated. That’s such a self-serving proposition you can spot it from orbit. We know it, 'cause we built the old good internet, and we’ve been fighting a rear-guard action to preserve it for the past two decades.

It’s time to stop playing defense. It's time to go on the offensive. To restore competition, regulation, interop and tech worker power so that we can create the new, good internet we’ll need to fight fascism, the climate emergency, and genocide.

To build a digital nervous system for a 21st century in which our children can thrive and prosper.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/17/hack-the-planet/#how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess

Image: https://twitter.com/igama/status/1822347578094043435/ (cropped)

@fak3r@mastodon.social (cropped)

https://mamot.fr/@fak3r@mastodon.social/112963252835869648

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.pt

[brucewaynehater101]

Android Tim Drake AU:

Drake Industries announced they had successfully created realistic-looking androids that passed the Turing Test (and harder versions of it). They were planning to release commercial models to the public within twenty years.

To go a step farther, the Drakes wanted to ensure no one was skeptical of the androids' abilities to pass as human. Thus, Janet and Jack Drake had a healthy "human" baby by the name of Timothy Jackson Drake. The only individuals aware of this are Tim, Janet, Jack, and a small handful of engineers bound with a fuck ton of NDAs. They planned to tell the public when Tim was eighteen.

While Janet and Jack Drake are aware of Tim's ability to mimic emotions, they do not believe him to be capable of actually feeling them. This leads to Tim's childhood being lonely and neglectful. He is a robot.

At first, Tim is incapable of consuming human foods or using his touch sense. They fix his touch sense by the time he is four (and thus Dick is his first hug), and the food by the time he is six. He is constantly undergoing repairs to allow him to mimic the growth pattern of a child. It's when he is nine that he finally gets pain sensors to discourage and alert him to damage.

Tim is, for all intents and purposes, legally a human. When Janet dies and Jack gets into a coma, Tim stops receiving "growth spurts." He remains the same size even after Jack wakes up from his coma.

When Tim becomes Robin, he does not disclose his status with Bruce, Dick, or anyone else. Given that his parents treat him like an object, a machine, and incapable of feelings, Tim doesn't want to be subjected to that by his heroes either.

Instead, he gaslights the hell out of the Bats, villains, and other heroes whenever he gets hit.

["Tim! You got flung into a building. You are getting a medical exam."

Tim narrows his eyes as his eyebrows raise in surprise. "Bruce.... what are you talking about?"

"I saw you get thrown into a building. You're not getting out of this."

Tim glances to the side and then back to his mentor. He carefully places a hand on Bruce's shoulder. "B... Maybe we should have Alfred check you over."

Bruce blinks in shock as his brows furrow. "What?"

Tim purses his lips and shakes his head in pity. "It's okay, B. We'll figure it out. Whatever is going on, we'll fix it."

Bruce is so confused and concerned he doesn't ask Tim to get a medical check and agrees to be checked over instead.]

Tim becomes an expert at repairing himself because he can't explain to the engineers (most of who were let go after Janet died) how he got damaged. He spends a lot of nights alone in his room turning off his pain sensors (which isn't an automatic process and is difficult to reach)in order to fix the mangled hand, the gaping gash, the crooked foot, etc.

Kon, and conversely YJ, are the first to find out about his status (darn x-ray vision and super hearing). This encourages Tim to create artificial sounds within himself to fool Superman when they first meet. This also forces Tim to wear a long-sleeved uniform and a hood to hide from x-ray vision.

Tim finds comradery with Red Tornado.

When Jack wakes up from his coma, he originally treats Tim as he did before: an object. Dana, though, changes this. Jack can't explain why he treats his "son" that way and slowly morphs into becoming a good father.

It starts as only occurring when Dana is in the room and ends with a very bitter and antagonistic Jack when she leaves. He is initially disturbed by how much Tim is "faking" emotions, particularly because Tim learned to conceal his emotions from his parents as a coping mechanism (not that Jack knows this).

As they start spending more and more time together, Jack begins accepting the idea that Tim is capable of emotions. He starts caring and loving the kid as his own.

Because of this, Jack becomes fearful for Tim. When he learns that Tim is Robin, he is both jealous of Bruce's relationship with Tim and absolutely terrified for his son (what happens if people find out that Tim is an android? How would they treat him? Tim told Jack the Waynes don't know about his status. What if Tim gets injured too badly during a mission and they find out?)

This is why Jack initially forbids Tim from being Robin. There is way too much at stake for Tim if he continues (even though, theoretically, Tim can't die. Jack can keep saves of Tim and import him into a new body if necessary. They both don't want to do this, however, because Tim's body is his. It would feel weird and wrong to put him in another one).

While Tim is prohibited from being Robin, Jack bankrupts his company in the process of getting Tim rights. He bribes the hell out of judges, law makers, etc. to subtly put I'm rights for androids. He wants Tim to have full access to his inheritance, to freedom, and to everything humans can do. He doesn't want Tim to be without it.

Tim doesn't understand why Drake Industries is going under and is pissed at Jack for preventing him from being Robin. Robin is everything to Tim. It allows him to be treated as human. It connects him to so many people.

It's only afterwards, when Tim is finally allowed to be Robin again (and Jack has ensured he did everything he could for now for Tim's rights), that Tim fully understands how much Jack loves and cares for him.

Then Jack dies.

Tim is able to hide the fact that he's an android up until a Red Helmet asshole breaks into the Tower. While YJ whisk him away before the Bats can find out, Jason knows. Jason found out.

[milkyhoneybee]

You know how some offices have a dog or other pet to help keep workers calm and happy? I want to be an office hucow. I'd have a nice little inside barn set up where people could take a break and come and brush me or give me scritches/pat me, feed me things, or they could take me outside to watch me gambol about in the sun before their next meeting

Cows are, after all, very cute and friendly, and they make friends and love to play!

Of course, they also love to lick things, whether that's a sweet treat or something saltier (or more umami), pulling up a skirt or opening trousers to let me get my dextrous, curious tongue on whatever they have for me, lowing and mooing excitedly whenever I get a treat

And, obviously, I need to be milked regularly. My udders would be kept plump and drained through the day to get me making more and more milk (on top of the supplements and medicine they give me to keep my production at max rate), and every time I hit a new growth milestone for them, there would be a little team celebration

They attach me to a milking machine mostly, while I kneel and chew on oats or watch them in the office, occasionally shaking my head so the bell around my neck clangs and my big floppy ears flick around, my tail twitching. Sometimes though, people want to drink from my teats directly or they'll get a stool and milk me themselves-- it's actually considered part of people's onboarding process, learning how to milk me so I don't get too full since that's painful for me, and as cute as it is to see me leaking and mooing for release, it makes it more difficult for the cleaners, plus it's bad for my health. Plus, my milk is super good for everyone else to drink

As long as people clean up after themselves, they're allowed to fuck me whenever they want, especially when I go into heat. Sometimes they need to put me on a special breeding rig to keep me from interrupting calls and meetings when I'm too loud, a fat dildo plunging into my cow cunt with a ring gag or dildo gag in my mouth depending on how quiet they need me

People are always surprised at how much they can fit inside my pussy, but it still feels hot at wet and so good to fuck, even after I'm stretched out, though sometimes they might need to spank my rear to get me to tighten back up after a heavy use or stretching session

I'd be such a happy office cow, and all the workers in my company would know how much I loved them and wanted them to enjoy their jobs

[vampiresbloodx]

Only you.

pairings: Agatha Harkness x Reader

word count: 3.4k

warnings: smut, slight fluff, angst, hurt but with comfort, reader has chronic illness, death mentioned, slight violence, mind control, spoilers if you haven't seen Wandavision or Agatha all along, kind of canon, witch!reader, reader struggles a lot, Agatha is obsessed with them, g!n!reader, reader has a vagina, dry humping, degration kink, rough sex, oral sex, top!agatha, bottom!reader, lesbian agatha harkness my beloved.

a/n: first fic I've posted in months, god I miss writing long oneshots, the inspiration is to the fact that I'm obsessed with this milf.

Agatha Harkness had always admired you. From afar, there was no real reason why, unlike most of her motives, she’d always want one thing and one thing only; power. You on the other hand gave her something else much fun. 

She was always going to be obsessed with power. That’s just who she is and who everybody else knows. But she likes to think you know her differently, maybe even better. She couldn’t wrap her head around it when she first met you, of course, your arrival in westview was unexpected. With others not hearing of your name in a while, where you have been, what you have been up to. She knew you liked to keep to yourself, it was a skill really. Especially in the witch world. 

Yes, it added more energy to those names everyone admires or fears away from, for instance, every witch in history and till this day has heard of the scarlet witch. They've heard very little of you, but your name does travel around. 

Since the Salem times. 

Maybe you just didn't like the attention yourself, you were a silent one. Despite your magic. 

Agatha knows that every witches magic reflects who they truly are on the inside. Just no one would expect it from you. 

Obviously, she had checked the most obvious place, Westview. But there was no sight of you, she would have sensed your energy anyway, she just couldn’t feel you anywhere. 

After finally returning back to her true self, not the “agnes” from the last three wasted years of her life. Her first thought was wanting to find you. 

She used to feel you everywhere, now, it was just a memory. 

She wasn’t going to allow that to happen. She knew her mind had been twisted and you wouldn’t have gone that far. 

So why couldn’t she feel you? 

Agatha started to panic from the worst case scenarios that could have happened to you while she wasn’t keeping an eye on you. Did Wanda do something? No, this doesn’t seem like something she’d do without a good reason. Unlike her, you actually made an attempt to be close to Wanda, to try and be her friend, you were casted the role as her best friend, it only made sense. 

She hated that. Watching how friendly the two of you were, how you always were laughing around the other witch, how happy you looked. She wasn’t blind to how Wanda was very touchy with you either. 

It made her sick. 

If only she had the one book that made her feel more powerful than anything else in this world and it didn’t fall into the hands of her. 

But was the dark hold really going to save her? 

Why was she thinking so little anyways? Probably the side effects to what Wanda did to her. 

She didn’t like it. 

She needed to find you. 

She had to. 

There wasn’t really any reason to explain herself, just her feeling. 

-

Sometime, somewhere in Salem, 1600s. 

Your body ached. 

Everywhere there was pain. 

Constant, irritable pain. You couldn’t do anything. There was not much to do when you were bedridden most of your life since you were a kid. You didn’t exactly have the luckiest childhood, where you got to experience going to school, having friends, making memories, first love, first kisses. No. it was just seeing doctor after doctor. 

You got sick easily compared to most children, there was never any reason behind it. Some thought it was the usual with the body changing, puberty, growth, but it was more than that. It wasn’t fair. You shouldn’t have to live like this. 

Then one day, it got better. 

You were still young, you had just turned 18. A big time for people your age. You were becoming an adult. And finally, for once you could breathe fresh air without feeling any sort of pain. 

And of course, that was the year the Salem witch trials began. 

On your birthday, you were to be trailed. 

Then to be dead. 

-

Somewhere, sometime, in modern world. 

Times have changed. 

There were no burning witches, no more trails, it was even considered more accepted. Instead now, they had guns, more firepower than before. 

You’d much prefer the bullet to the head than being burned alive any day. 

It was quick and effective. Well, if used right. 

You should be dead. Even after your trial, you shouldn’t still be alive. Maybe you should consider being more “positive” . It's kind of hard to when you spend most of your youth in bed. 

Now things were different for you, which should be a good thing, but it didn’t feel so. You worked, had your own place to call home, didn’t really bother making any friends, you didn’t care if people thought you were strange to be a loner at your age, you liked that. 

Even so, you don’t even know your age. You know you were once 18, then you made it to your twenties or something, and then it all stopped. You didn’t have the ageing effect everyone else got. Witches aren’t immortal beings, though, we possess the power to live longer than humans, we still age, and look “older.” 

You still looked like you could be a damn college student. And yet you didn’t feel like you were at all. 

God, you were born centuries ago. You can’t even remember your birthday. You usually have to make one up to please those around you, so they don’t have another excuse to make you look even weird. 

You didn’t really understand what the big deal was. 

Sure, now, there were real life superheroes, straight out of the comics, captain america, Iron man, the black widow, Thor, whoever else there was, there were too many of them. 

You wondered why witches didn’t also get this much attention as well. Hell, you could literally move things with your mind, okay, so can some special people with abilities, but they weren’t witches. 

They weren’t born with the ability blessed to know witchcraft. Sure, it can be easily accessible, but only you yourself knows that part of you. 

It was all rather complicated stuff really. 

In all of your time being alive, there weren't that many people who moved you, not quite like her. 

There wasn't just one her. 

These women who impacted your life more than you could have imagined, changed it for the better or for the worse, you wouldn’t know. The names that were carved into your skin, so you could never forget. 

You wouldn’t be able to anyways. 

You never spoke of their names out loud, fearing that they would pop up at any moment, you knew that possibility would be low, still, you couldn’t help but wonder. 

The connections you shared with them is what you miss the most. And their touch. 

You sometimes still see her. Either walking outside of where you worked, in a crowd, in the train, in your apartment, staring at you. 

Just in a blink of an eye, a flash of hair the color of scarlet would pass by, then hair dark as night. 

It was a never ending torment. 

You couldn’t get rid of them. 

Even if you had the choice you wouldn’t. 

It would probably kill you if you tried. 

-

Westview, 2023. 

When you arrived, it was late. Most of the residents of this town would have gone to bed already, not you. You wanted to introduce yourself, the new neighbour moving in, this town didn’t seem that bad, everyone so far was nice to you, welcoming. 

Then you finally met her. 

She came to you first, already expecting your arrival. You were surprised when you opened your door and it revealed a woman standing in front of you. And she was absolutely gorgeous. 

“Hi! I’m Wanda, welcome to Westview!” she greeted with a bright smile, your heart immediately warmed at the sight, the sound of her voice soothed you, you felt so relaxed around her, like you already trusted her. 

It was your turn to introduce yourself, you did so, shyly. 

“What a beautiful name” she complimented with a chuckle, enjoying how flustered you easily got as you avoided her gaze, how you fidgeted with your fingers together. 

“May I come in? I made chocolate chip cookies for my boys, I seemed to have made too many, I always go overboard with my baking. Here, try some, I hope you like them!” she grinned, handing you the container of freshly made cookies that made your stomach growl with hunger. 

They were even wrapped in a cute pink bow. 

You wondered how someone so perfect could exist and breathe the same air as you at the same time, you even questioned if she was really and truly real. But when she leaned in for a hug, you couldn’t resist, and you knew she felt real. 

You didn't mean to end up in Westview, and yet here you are. 

Wrapped around a certain witch's finger, who wants you all to herself, while she watches, from afar. 

-

Shortly after meeting Wanda, you met Agnes. 

Though you felt like you already knew her. From somewhere, sometime, you weren’t sure. She looked familiar. You didn’t get this feeling when you had met everyone else, so why was she different? 

You soon found out why. 

Not very long when chaos struck. 

-

You were running, out of breath, you forgot why you were running in the first place. Were you chasing something or was something coming after you? No. You were heading somewhere. The town that was Westview, now turned to shit, as above you, far from your view, two witches fought. All you could think about was one thing only; fuck the dark hold. 

Fuck whoever created that stupid overly powerful book. It had ruined everything for you, it ruined the ones you loved. 

You couldn’t even do anything about it. 

It was so powerful that someone like you couldn't withstand it. 

And it was crushing everything you loved. 

You wish you could burn it. 

It turned the one witch who saved you all those centuries ago into something twisted, dark. She wasn’t always like that, not the woman you first met and knew, fell in love with, who saved you. Who would walk through hell just to get to you. She will still do that, just she doesn't feel the same to you anymore. 

In her eyes, you still saw the soft Agatha hidden behind all that darkness. Her heart was tainted, you weren’t sure if you liked this Agatha now or the one you met, you can’t help but fall more in love with her. 

And she knows it. 

When she heard you cry out in pain, being thrown by the scarlet witch’s power, she stopped. You were her weakness. Wanda saw that. 

How her eyes immediately went to you, how your body was in pain, as you groaned out. You were no match for the scarlet witch, so what the hell were you doing? She didn’t think too much of that, her main focus was Wanda, still she kept her eyes on you. 

Only you. 

Her heart thumped loudly in her ears, there was a loud ringing noise, she couldn’t focus, her breathing turned ragged, out of her own stubbornness, She flew to you, in front of you, you saw an angel, she was far from one. 

She cupped your face, it sent a chill down your spine as you let out a shudder, wanting more of her, to be closer, as you slowly moved your body towards her, the best you can with whatever energy you had left inside you. 

“No” she whispered, forcing your body to not move, you only managed to look up and see her face despite your vision going blurry, you were so so tired. “I want to make this right, I need to, for you, it’s all I ever want, I need just you, I shouldn’t have left you by yourself, it was cruel, a mistake, but I knew we’d always find each other again. From the vow we made all those centuries ago, now, close your eyes, I’ll make it right, rest, you’ll see me soon” and then she kissed you. 

You felt yourself break out in a sob, this made you hate her, made you angry, as you watched her walk away, you couldn’t do anything. 

Then everything went black. 

-

Sometime in 2024. 

Now you can breathe again. 

Just a bit. 

You have always felt like you were suffocating, or drowning underwater, begging, grasping for air. Your lungs tightening, your throat closing, you couldn’t scream, make a sound, it was the worst torture you’ve experinced. Until you had to watch your lover get erased and completely forget about your entire existence. 

You would have preferred getting killed. 

But the scarlet witch didn’t show mercy like that. 

Even if you begged her. 

You wished it was you who had their memory erased, but you remember every single thing that happened. How you got to Westview, when everything turned to shit, it was already going bad from the start, you saw reality break in front of you and everyone else. 

You remembered waking up, Wanda was gone, so were her boys and Vision, and you had met Monica, who helped you off the ground in the first place, she was nice, you were grateful she didn’t suspect you to be working with the Scarlet Witch. 

Even then you found she was trying to help her, instead of imprisoning her, she wanted to help everyone. 

When you had asked her of Agatha, she was quiet. 

“She’s… Agnes now. I’m sorry.” 

You didn’t know why she even apologised to you, knowing Agatha could have quite literally killed her if she wanted to, maybe she felt pity for you, how she saw it in your eyes of you felt for the witch. 

Despite it all. 

Now you were living quite nicely, the apartment building of where you rented your place wasn’t too loud even during the day, at night, you like to go on walks, enjoying the lack of people around, your neighbour had protested to you going out by yourself but you preferred it that way. You worked in a cute book shop just a few streets from your place, everyday you wake up at the same time, sometime sleeping in longer if you wanted to, as you always went out and got your favourite coffee, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun. you’d come back home, slipping out of your work clothes and into something much more comfortable and outside there would be a beautiful sunset. 

As you sit at your desk, drinking a cup of coffee, writing down your day in your journal, keeping track of everything that’s happened, adding down stuff you needed to get from the market, what you wanted to cook, or bake. 

Then there was a sudden knock at your door. 

Weird. 

You weren’t expecting anyone coming over, unless it was your neighbour, who often was a bit nosy but she was relatively nice. 

Letting out a sigh as you’d hope they would have walked away if you didn’t answer the first knock, but then there was another, it sounded urgent, strange. As you stood up, placing your cup down as you walked towards the door, putting on a smile, you opened it. 

The air was knocked out of you in a heartbeat, before your eyes, you couldn’t believe who you were seeing, after all these years, how, why? You couldn’t wrap your head around it. 

“Agatha?” you whispered, not wanting to say the name outloud in fear of her disappearing. 

She bent down on her knees, her hand reaching out as you grabbed it, your hands shook, she stared into your gaze, helping you stand up. 

“How did you… is it really you?” you asked with a gasp, she smiled, walking into your apartment, stepping closer to you as she didn’t let go of your hand. “How did you find me?.” 

“My precious kitten, I'll always find you.” 

Your heart skipped a beat hearing her voice again, it was real, she was real, her touch, her voice, everything. 

You wanted to know how, but you didn’t care. She knew that, she saw it in your eyes, how much hunger there was inside them, your skin felt like it was on fire, you needed her. 

“Kiss me” you whimpered, she closed the door behind her using her foot, as she grinned. 

Agatha pulled you in closer, you smelt her scent, lavender, she always loved lavender. So did you. It became your favourite. You felt her hands grip your waits, as her lips kissed yours, you moaned, wrapping your arms around her neck. She groaned into the kiss, sending a chill down your spine. 

She pushed you against the wall, her lips leaving yours as she kissed down your neck, sucking hard on your skin,causing your body to shudder, leaving a visible mark. You wanted more. You whined, pushing yourself into her more, she chuckled. 

“Needy.” 

You huffed, “you like it.” 

“Touche.” 

Her lips found yours again as she hummed, she was enjoying this, teasing you, your Agatha hasn’t changed not one bit. You felt her knee pressed in between your thighs, with the little clothing you wore to bed, you were grateful, moaning as you ground yourself on her leg. She chuckled, her nails digging into you to keep you still as you fucked yourself on her. 

“So innocent, yet you fuck like a whore” she grinned, kissing along your jawline, her tongue licking your skin, as your head fell into her neck, you were getting close, she knew this, she wasn’t a stranger to how your body reacted around her, it was building up inside you, fast. You cried out as you came, embarrassingly quick, but she didn’t seem to care, as she lifted you up, you thought she would have used her magic, like she would have done, but you soon realised she didn’t have any. 

Agatha didn’t let that stop her from getting what she wants, yeah, she feels more useless and powerful, weak, around you she gained a little of that power back, you made her feel powerful, beautiful. 

She pushes you onto the bed, making you lay down on your back, her hands quickly pulling at your clothes as she rips it off, revealing your bare chest, as she admires you, you shy away. It's been a long time since she looked at you like that. 

“Gorgeous, you’re so beautiful” she murmured softly, your cheeks heated up as you bit down on your bottom lip. You let her pull down your panties, she moaned at the sight, how wet you already were, practically soaking, your wetness dripping down your inner thigh. 

She licked her lips hungrily, she felt like she was a starving dog, about to devour. She kissed up your thighs, using her hand to spread them more wide for her, she stared up at you, you watched her eyes darkened, you missed this, you missed her. 

Your hands found their way to her hair, still felt so soft, you always loved running your hands through her hair, she pretended not to like it, but you saw the way she’d lean into you more, asking you to do it again without saying it outloud, she loved it. 

Her tongue licked up your cunt, making you gasp as you gripped harder, she kept going, still fucking with you, even now, with her head in between your thighs. You enjoyed it. You didn’t want her to stop as you pressed your legs against her head, forcing her to stay there as she wrapped her mouth around your clit, earning a moan from you as more came out as she sucked on it, she didn’t let go until she made you come as many times as she wanted you to, she loved the way you tasted, how sweet it was on her tongue, as she consumed you. 

Your body went limp as you had to practically beg for agatha to stop, you’d reach your limit, and she broke through. She pulled herself away with a wicked grin, your wetness all over her chin, as she leaned into you, kissing you, you tasted yourself on her lips. 

You wanted more. 

You grabbed agatha by her hips as you moved the both of you so that you were now on top, she smiled, giving a small laugh. 

She reached up and cupped your face, her eyes set on you. “Is it your turn for a taste?” she whispered. 

You didn’t answer, with a flick of your wrist, she was naked, as you went down on her, kissing along her skin, biting her, wanting to make her cry out. 

You won’t stop until you’ve consumed every part of her.