#para: making the cut.

[paradoxolotl]

Somehow I forget every time I get a haircut

[candyapple-red]

wild that freaky nasty sex and violent intimacy gives me a sense of self instead of like.. therapy giving me a sense of self lmao

[multi-lefaiye]

can i talk about something that's technically a spoiler for something coming up in the campaign with eden? if you promise not to tell jamie and para?

[pestilight]

     The hero will not make it.

     Rauru pours every scintilla of light he has left into those grievous wounds. He presses it all into the wrist he's yet to let go of since that fateful clasp, a wellspring funnelled through the anchoring point of their contact. So tremendous an effort is it that another piece of his arm crumbles, quicker to decay without the blessing of Zonai blood nor heart nor stone, peeling off and fading into nothing within strands of dispelled radiance.

     Still, it is not enough.

     The right arm is beyond salvaging. The Gloom: a loathsome force merely kept at bay with his light's slower abrasion. With what it has devoured, devours, and seeks to continue devouring as its master recovers his strength, the hero — Link, a faint voice chimes, sweet with conviction and love for her swordsman — will not make it.

     What an enormously cataclysmic thing to reckon with.

     Somewhere in the far distance, what sounds startlingly like the time bell knells a solemn rhythm. His spirit cannot cast shadows, but it paints a seafoam glow over Link as Rauru looms over his body — hand clutching ever tighter, as though his hold alone could pierce past the trappings of mortal flesh and erase every sliver of rot in one fell swoop. He reaches for the Gloom again, tendrils of incanted light enveloping the source in a shimmering embrace, and once more, his magic does not purge as cleanly as he wants it to. Once more, another fragment of his remains falls away.

     This is foolish, a part of him thinks; the part mired in memories of wanton bloodshed, of surviving at whatever the cost, of a time before a tempering kindness. Foolish, and needlessly cruel. He has seen damage of this severity wrought before — has treated it before.

     At his core, he knows what must be done. His hesitation, in the face of that, is not a mercy: it is another moment suspended between life and death, another opportunity for the Gloom to spread, another tally against the odds of what would now be a miracle.

     Another failing.

     Rauru does not need to breathe, yet he nevertheless finds himself going through its invisible motions. It calms him, marginally, and his mind clears enough for the thought to turn constructive. Yes, he knows what must be done. The question now is: what is he to do with the repercussions?

     —What repercussions? Another part of him thinks; the one locked in shame, drowning in regret, fraying with the need to pen this story to its very end.

     The flow of his light stills.

     It resumes a split second later, surging forth to continue hindering the creep of darkness, but his grip loosens. His fingers, slowly, unwind.

     What repercussions, the thought continues, when it is only the right arm that has to be dealt with? A right arm that has to be accounted for?

     A right arm that he, blessedly, still possesses?

     Link's chances of survival do not seem so slight, now.

     ( Rauru's chances of atoning do not seem so elusive, now. )

     It is a simple thing, grasping that ruined hand. Honing his light to burn through everything — skin, sinew, blood, marrow — is, too, effortless with how densely the corrosion is seeped into the flesh. The Gloom lingers, harder to contain for a moment with no corporeal bearer, but that will soon be remedied.

     Link's fingers are the last ashes to be swept away. From there, it is just a matter of connecting.

     Rauru does not say the words as he threads their vitalities together. Vows like these have always been a show of devotion more than anything, anyway. When this arm is all he can hope to offer to Link — to Zelda, to Mineru, to Sonia, to Hyrule, to everyone and everything he's loved and lost — what could possibly indicate his devotion more?

[angstics]

may december. when melton holds his hands in that scene. the stilted, controlled way he talked. the fact he was the same age she was when he was 13 and she still acts the child

[streetslost]

❛  it's okay if you don't want to talk about it. maybe we can just sit here for a while instead.  ❜

A MEME FROM LITERALLY OVER A MONTH AGO - @likcthestar

FINGERS PRESSED into the concrete, feeling the rough texture below digging into the crevices of her skin, burying and pricking. an ache she could bear, one she clung to, a feeling that she understood and could actually handle. anything ELSE just then was a weight her shoulders wouldn't hold presently. she was getting crushed beneath, and cat even seemed to sink further and further towards the earth until she was fully lying on her stomach. perhaps lying s p r a w l e d on the sidewalk was a ridiculous place to be, but the area of old warehouses and long alleys was empty. echoed noises of the wind brushing trash along could be heard, a symphony accompanied by distant cars humming and honking... the dilapidated buildings seemed hollow as they towered over the two. the street rat had simply given up with the day, letting it defeat her, forcing her to sit, to be found, and now eventually looking like roadkill merely brushed to the side of the street. "there's nothing to talk 'bout." a lie and the truth at the same time. so much to say yet n o t h i n g to reason. her life, the past, her trauma, her hope, her sorrows, everything... it all led to this moment as it did every moment after. inhale and exhale... inhale and exhale, forever trapped in a comedy of errors. except the laughter was her own head, and it was dead before the tragedy to come. "i jus'... don't feel good."

[acid-ixx]

I hope you don’t mind but I need to ramble this to someone, neglected Wayne reader right? The fam would forget to bring them to social events and whatnot right? So there would be very few pictures, articles and interviews or even facts about them, meaning that reader Wayne is a rarity. Still following me? Reader Wayne with a small but devout fanbase.

I’m talking they are trading the latest pictures and sharing links to the rare interview with reader in it, following any social media they have that isn’t private, they are just fascinated by this micro celebrity that seems to always be forgotten. Okay but also imagine one of the heroes developing a para-social attachment to reader. My money is on Conner Kent, mainly bc he can project his own issues with his dads onto reader and he can Dolores ~Encanto~ reader with his super hearing and develop a even bigger parasocial obsession with them

I hope you enjoyed this ramble, I will leave you be now, see ya later alligator! 🐊

omg another one of my asks that actually predicted a major plot point... this ask ties well with the last part written here. i'm thinking about having the reader get a love interest/s but i have already written an outline but one thing is for sure—

you have more than just your family interested in taking you.

major spoilers below the cut. — an excerpt from chapter xx

(name) wayne may have been a name forcefully deleted off of the face of the internet, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its conspiracies of its own. nobody knows who you are beyond the blurry, unsolicited pictures of you. it may have been a photograph of your back, or articles published in unknown websites and buried at the far end about a kid entering through the fancy gates of the wayne manor.

you are a product of a one-night-stand.

but they don't know who the mother is, don't know your age, or where you come from, and what business bruce has with the woman to guarantee your adoption at the instance she had disappeared without warning.

your existence was a mystery most would like to solve. after all, it was your picture that was plastered all over the newspapers and articles, it was your name that journalists whisper and it was a silhouette of your face that the underground knows by heart. every known information about you was shared discretely yet efficiently like some sort of virus.

you were a target for interest, a large sum of money if they will. and alfred had taken it in his hands to make sure there would never be a repeat of what had happened before.

it was a clumsy mistake, one that cost you your memories, and one he swears on his life he'll never make again.

the first course of action he needs to arrange, which may seem difficult for most; he needs to confront bruce.

after all, your freedom is your doom.

maybe this is out of the picture, but id' like to imagine you and connor having a therapy session where one comes out absolutely obsessed with the other, and it's not you.

connor's character for me is so, so good for an angst potential. it's like his personal struggles is a way for him to show you how absolutely you two are meant to be. and he may have met you through bumping into you (false) or maybe... he has seen you stalking through the shadows back when he visits the manor. using his superhearing, he can hear your voice from the kitchen begging alfred to relay a message to bruce, sounding so absolutely desperate. it's the way you tell alfred how you wished your father actually spends time with you, or how nobody seems to notice you— that he kind of just makes a silent promise that he will talk to you soon, he needs to know why this family seems so keen on ignoring and how hypocritical tim is for literally doing the same thing to you when he's aware of kon's past.

if he (or anyone else) should be a love interest (though he is a minor character in the series unless you guys want him to be a major one), i can already imagine the absolute hell you have to suffer not only from your family but from your own lover. just imagine the stockholm syndrome or the delusions you convince yourself with because you're finally loved by someone but that love restricts you from the very freedom you tried to build.

the batfamily would be so conflicted because why are you choosing some stranger over them...? then you slap them in the face with, "well, this "stranger" wants to kidnap me and lock me up, sure! but at least they actually looked at me for more than five seconds!" and you can watch how the color drains off their face, their conflict giving you the perfect opportunity to run away from both your ex-family and your soon-to-be-kidnapper-lover who thinks your comeback is a funny way for you to propose.

[itsonlypolite]

Voice of the Paranoid

Other Designs: Cheated/Hunted/Cold/Contrarian/Smitten/Opportunist/Skeptic/Stubborn

Another design finalized! My goal with Paranoid's outfit was to make it as aggravating as possible for him :)

Here's a demonstration how I imagine his chant working:

Below the cut is the usual - ref without any text + the first time I ever drew Para! Fun fact, he was the first voice I ever drew!!

[luveline]

If you have any interest, how about a Spencer blurb where he's off on a case and gets or misses a late night call from the reader and is super worried, only to call them back and find them drunk and missing him. And of course the team rags on him after.

thank u for ur request! fem!reader

Spencer looks down at his phone and goes ghostly white. 

"What?" Emily asks. "They had a sale at Waterstones and you missed it?" 

Spencer clicks a bunch of buttons on his phone and brings it to his ear, crushing limp hair to his neck. "Seventeen missed calls," he says. 

Derek comes to the rescue, though the lightness in his voice is slightly forced, "Don't panic, wonderboy. Who wouldn't be eager to talk to you at… two AM?" 

"Is that the time difference?" Emily asks, leaning forward in concern. 

Even Hotch puts down his pen. The team listens to the phone ring. It loops, loops, loops, and everybody breathes a sigh of relief when you finally answer. If something happened to you Spencer wouldn't survive it. Nor after everything he's already been through. 

"Hey?" he says. There's a gap of silence. "Y/N, are you there?" 

"Spencer!" 

Spencer turns away from the table they've congregated at and looks through the open window at the parking lot, police cars roaming in and out of spaces. "What's wrong?" 

"I miss you so much." 

Spencer's nose wrinkles of its own accord. "Yeah? You sound odd. Are you– are you drunk?" 

Derek laughs. Like marionettes held tight with strings suddenly cut, the team stop their stressing and send each other knowing, amused looks. 

"Just a little bit!" you promise, clearly lying. Your voice catches on the syllables like they're coated in sticky honey, the slightest slurring tripping you up at the end. "We went for– to Chilli's. I had a blooming onion and seven margaritas!" 

"I can tell." 

"I'm really sorry, Spence, I know I'm not s'posed to call when you're away," you begin. 

Spencer glances back. Rossi and JJ have returned with coffee and a late dinner, neither of them bothering to act as though they aren't listening to the conversation. 

"No," Spencer says, turning back around and hunching inward, "that's the opposite of what we talked about, isn't it? You can call whenever you want to, but I can't, you know, always answer. I thought something bad happened. Maybe next time you could text me?" Rather than call almost twenty times and give him a heart attack.

Laughter echoes from behind. They team act like a teasing family sometimes, Spencer their teenage son who's never dated. 

He would fluster if you weren't talking to him in loud but loving tones, "I can barely walk, texting wasn't happening. I'm para-spelgic." 

"You're not," he says, firmly at first. "Are you? Who's with you? Is Rebecca there?" Rebecca being your best friend. Spencer trusts her to take care of you.

"She was, but she said that I– uh… She said I talked about you too much and made her nauseous. I feel kinda sick, too, but I just needed to talk to you, Spence. I miss you. I miss you, are you home soon?" 

"Is Rebecca really not there?" he asks. He thinks about the room full of special agents he's standing in and drops his voice to a murmur. "I miss you too." 

"She's making toast or something." 

"That's good. It'll soak up the margaritas." 

"I don't want toast, I want you! Please come home safe, angel. I really wish you were here to do that thing with my ear." 

Spencer has to give in. You're speaking so loudly it's impossible the team hadn't heard it, but he can't find the will to be embarrassed any longer. You're drunk and ridiculous and all you can think about is him.

"I wish I was home, too. Do I need to worry about you? Make sure you're drinking water, okay? Alcohol makes you dehydrated, you'll get a bad headache." 

"It makes me miss you," you whine. 

He smiles fondly. "There's no cure for that." A door opens over the line. "Is that Rebecca?" 

"Yeah." Murmurings. "She says sorry for letting me get so drunk, but she didn't let me do anything. It's like you always say, Spence, I can do whatever I set my mind to." 

"And you set your mind to getting drunk at Chili's." 

"Exactly!" 

You talk a little more before he hangs up. He knows you're getting taken care of. 

A gaggle of smiling faces greet him as he turns around. "Everything okay, 'angel'?" Derek asks. 

Spencer puts his phone in his pocket. You'll text him in the morning with a hankering for Tylenol and sore eyes, but you'll be fine. "Everything's great." 

[schoenpepper]

Hi teh needing some all time comfort so can I request for Trey, Jade and Floyd where their S/O got injured? Like sprained their ankle or something. Or broke their toe nail from taekwando because they had a miscalculation kick🙂

(Totally did not happen to me haha)

It Hurts, Doesn't It?

Warnings: bad writing, awful grammar, not proofread, trey's is suggestive kyahhh idk what i wrote for him

A/N: Sige beh para sayo <3 HAHAHAHAAHAHA unahin ko req mo kasi kawawa ka naman pagbibigyan na kita. My phone died and it ain't charging on any cable so I'm gonna cry haha goodnight good morning good afterevening

Masterlist

Trey's hands are warm and gentle, massaging your ankle with practiced motions. "You uh, do this often?" you wince when he rolls it a bit too much to the left.

"Too much. Children are clumsy."

"I'm not a child."

He shoots you an unimpressed look over the top of his glasses, his fingers slowly pressing on the spots that make you hiss and thrash under his touch. "Stay still or it won't get any better."

"Okay," you pout, "big brother."

There's something dangerous in his honey dipped eyes that makes you attempt to pull back, but there's just no escaping him when he gently tugs on your leg and makes you lose your balance. "You aren't my sibling," he whispers, "and I am not your brother." You get it, you really do. You nod your head and try to pull back again, but suddenly, his lips are on your skin, pressing light kisses over the painful parts.

"What are you—?!"

"I wouldn't do this for my siblings," Trey's kisses slowly continue to climb up your leg, "so don't call me that again."

Floyd thinks the situation is funny, so he pokes and prods at the reddened skin on your ankle while laughing. "Shrimpy, how'd you manage to do that? Did you trip over yourself?" You know better than to regale him of your sad tale, so you purse your lips and pull your leg away from his restless hands.

"Floyd, it hurts. Cut it out please."

He frowns and leans in closer. You lean back against the bench, trying not to move your foot too quickly when he's closing in the distance without leaving you any chance to breathe. "But you promised to spend today with me. You can't back out on your promises."

You shake your head. "Nothing I can do, Floydie. I can't play with you when I can barely even walk."

"You can't walk, shrimpy?" you're suddenly hoisted up into his arms, "I'll carry ya'."

"Floyd! Put me down, please!"

He shakes his head and runs off, forcing you to wrap your arms around him for support.

"Nah, don't feel like it. Let's go play in Azul's office!"

Jade regards your ankle with his typical smile that betrays nothing of his true thoughts, slowly rubbing the area in a rhythm that almost lulls you to sleep. His gloves are tucked on your lap, his hat sloping down on your head almost covering your eyes. "Still," he speaks in a soft, low tone, "it is rather impressive you could injure yourself in such a situation."

Translation: That was dumb. How the fuck did you get hurt like that?

You give him a sheepish smile, pulling up the brim of the hat so that your view of his pretty face, all tense with the slightest tinge of worry, is unimpeded. "Thank you for helping, Jade."

"Of course. It's not as if I'm doing it for free."

Well, you should have expected it already. Octavinelle's brand of benevolence is often expensive. Your hands subconsciously fiddle with the satin of his gloves. "Of course, what do you want?"

His smile turns a little more genuine.

"And I could ask anything of you?"

You grimace. "Within reason."

"Then perhaps," his tone is a bit breathier when he gets closer to you, "a kiss for your knight in shining armor?"

Taglist:

@yummyyummyinmytumny @fsh1 @lemon-koii

[heartfullofleeches]

[suggestive]

Brie [Yan 🌽star] and Magical Boy Reader. Hear me out on this one-

One of Brie's biggest fans on that para-social mind set confesses their love to Brie. Brie is flatter, but of course- not interested and tries to let them down gently. Fan doesn't take it so well and as a result of their broken heart they're transformed into a monster by evil forces - choosing Brie as their first victim.

Reader who happened to be in the same area during their nightly patrols rescues Brie and guides him safely home. It's love a first sight. A cute boy in a cute skirt? One that can fight and helped him of all people? Where are the marriage papers so he can sign them? How ironic is it that by saving Brie from his "biggest fan" he becomes theirs in return-

With a little research Brie finds new articles and forums dedicated to Readers heroic deeds. They're even cuter than Brie imagine. It was a little difficult to make out their appearance crying his eyes out into their sleeve. Brie falls further down the rabbit hole when he finds fan made merch of the city savior. One of his first streams back after hiatus is a cum tribute Brie does on a cardboard cut out of Reader he does wearing cosplay of their uniform. Dedicates the stream and many after it to "His hero~" Even when streams after dedicated to Reader it's easy to spot a figurine or poster in the background.

Posts things like a news article of Reader's latest sighting with tags like "Cute magical boys gets this for free~" coupled with a photo of his bare chest or thighs next to his ajar window. The shame sucker punches him the millisecond he hits post, but he's too busy being an obsessed fanboy to care.

I love this whore sm <3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in Skinner boxes

Enshittification is the process by which digital platforms devour themselves: first they dangle goodies in front of end users. Once users are locked in, the goodies are taken away and dangled before business customers who supply goods to the users. Once those business customers are stuck on the platform, the goodies are clawed away and showered on the platform’s shareholders:

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Enshittification isn’t just another way of saying “fraud” or “price gouging” or “wage theft.” Enshittification is intrinsically digital, because moving all those goodies around requires the flexibility that only comes with a digital businesses. Jeff Bezos, grocer, can’t rapidly change the price of eggs at Whole Foods without an army of kids with pricing guns on roller-skates. Jeff Bezos, grocer, can change the price of eggs on Amazon Fresh just by twiddling a knob on the service’s back-end.

Twiddling is the key to enshittification: rapidly adjusting prices, conditions and offers. As with any shell game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Tech monopolists aren’t smarter than the Gilded Age sociopaths who monopolized rail or coal — they use the same tricks as those monsters of history, but they do them faster and with computers:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

If Rockefeller wanted to crush a freight company, he couldn’t just click a mouse and lay down a pipeline that ran on the same route, and then click another mouse to make it go away when he was done. When Bezos wants to bankrupt Diapers.com — a company that refused to sell itself to Amazon — he just moved a slider so that diapers on Amazon were being sold below cost. Amazon lost $100m over three months, diapers.com went bankrupt, and every investor learned that competing with Amazon was a losing bet:

https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-bezos-went-thermonuclear-on-diapers-com.html

That’s the power of twiddling — but twiddling cuts both ways. The same flexibility that digital businesses enjoy is hypothetically available to workers and users. The airlines pioneered twiddling ticket prices, and that naturally gave rise to countertwiddling, in the form of comparison shopping sites that scraped the airlines’ sites to predict when tickets would be cheapest:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/knob-jockeys/#bros-be-twiddlin

The airlines — like all abusive businesses — refused to tolerate this. They were allowed to touch their knobs as much as they wanted — indeed, they couldn’t stop touching those knobs — but when we tried to twiddle back, that was “felony contempt of business model,” and the airlines sued:

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/30/airline-sues-man-for-founding-a-cheap-flights-website.html

And sued:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/business/southwest-airlines-lawsuit-prices.html

Platforms don’t just hate it when end-users twiddle back — if anything they are even more aggressive when their business-users dare to twiddle. Take Para, an app that Doordash drivers used to get a peek at the wages offered for jobs before they accepted them — something that Doordash hid from its workers. Doordash ruthlessly attacked Para, saying that by letting drivers know how much they’d earn before they did the work, Para was violating the law:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/tech-rights-are-workers-rights-doordash-edition

Which law? Well, take your pick. The modern meaning of “IP” is “any law that lets me use the law to control my competitors, competition or customers.” Platforms use a mix of anticircumvention law, patent, copyright, contract, cybersecurity and other legal systems to weave together a thicket of rules that allow them to shut down rivals for their Felony Contempt of Business Model:

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

Enshittification relies on unlimited twiddling (by platforms), and a general prohibition on countertwiddling (by platform users). Enshittification is a form of fishing, in which bait is dangled before different groups of users and then nimbly withdrawn when they lunge for it. Twiddling puts the suppleness into the enshittifier’s fishing-rod, and a ban on countertwiddling weighs down platform users so they’re always a bit too slow to catch the bait.

Nowhere do we see twiddling’s impact more than in the “gig economy,” where workers are misclassified as independent contractors and put to work for an app that scripts their every move to the finest degree. When an app is your boss, you work for an employer who docks your pay for violating rules that you aren’t allowed to know — and where your attempts to learn those rules are constantly frustrated by the endless back-end twiddling that changes the rules faster than you can learn them.

As with every question of technology, the issue isn’t twiddling per se — it’s who does the twiddling and who gets twiddled. A worker armed with digital tools can play gig work employers off each other and force them to bid up the price of their labor; they can form co-ops with other workers that auto-refuse jobs that don’t pay enough, and use digital tools to organize to shift power from bosses to workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to

Take “reverse centaurs.” In AI research, a “centaur” is a human assisted by a machine that does more than either could do on their own. For example, a chess master and a chess program can play a better game together than either could play separately. A reverse centaur is a machine assisted by a human, where the machine is in charge and the human is a meat-puppet.

Think of Amazon warehouse workers wearing haptic location-aware wristbands that buzz at them continuously dictating where their hands must be; or Amazon drivers whose eye-movements are continuously tracked in order to penalize drivers who look in the “wrong” direction:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/reverse-centaur/#reverse-centaur

The difference between a centaur and a reverse centaur is the difference between a machine that makes your life better and a machine that makes your life worse so that your boss gets richer. Reverse centaurism is the 21st Century’s answer to Taylorism, the pseudoscience that saw white-coated “experts” subject workers to humiliating choreography down to the smallest movement of your fingertip:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

While reverse centaurism was born in warehouses and other company-owned facilities, gig work let it make the leap into workers’ homes and cars. The 21st century has seen a return to the cottage industry — a form of production that once saw workers labor far from their bosses and thus beyond their control — but shriven of the autonomy and dignity that working from home once afforded:

https://doctorow.medium.com/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk-463e2730ef0d

The rise and rise of bossware — which allows for remote surveillance of workers in their homes and cars — has turned “work from home” into “live at work.” Reverse centaurs can now be chickenized — a term from labor economics that describes how poultry farmers, who sell their birds to one of three vast poultry processors who have divided up the country like the Pope dividing up the “New World,” are uniquely exploited:

https://onezero.medium.com/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs-b2e8d5cda826

A chickenized reverse centaur has it rough: they must pay for the machines they use to make money for their bosses, they must obey the orders of the app that controls their work, and they are denied any of the protections that a traditional worker might enjoy, even as they are prohibited from deploying digital self-help measures that let them twiddle back to bargain for a better wage.

All of this sets the stage for a phenomenon called algorithmic wage discrimination, in which two workers doing the same job under the same conditions will see radically different payouts for that work. These payouts are continuously tweaked in the background by an algorithm that tries to predict the minimum sum a worker will accept to remain available without payment, to ensure sufficient workers to pick up jobs as they arise.

This phenomenon — and proposed policy and labor solutions to it — is expertly analyzed in “On Algorithmic Wage Discrimination,” a superb paper by UC Law San Franciscos Veena Dubal:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4331080

Dubal uses empirical data and enthnographic accounts from Uber drivers and other gig workers to explain how endless, self-directed twiddling allows gig companies pay workers less and pay themselves more. As @brianmerchant@mastodon.social explains in his LA Times article on Dubal’s research, the goal of the payment algorithm is to guess how often a given driver needs to receive fair compensation in order to keep them driving when the payments are unfair:

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-04-11/algorithmic-wage-discrimination

The algorithm combines nonconsensual dossiers compiled on individual drivers with population-scale data to seek an equilibrium between keeping drivers waiting, unpaid, for a job; and how much a driver needs to be paid for an individual job, in order to keep that driver from clocking out and doing something else. @ Here’s how that works. Sergio Avedian, a writer for The Rideshare Guy, ran an experiment with two brothers who both drove for Uber; one drove a Tesla and drove intermittently, the other brother rented a hybrid sedan and drove frequently. Sitting side-by-side with the brothers, Avedian showed how the brother with the Tesla was offered more for every trip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UADTiL3S67I

Uber wants to lure intermittent drivers into becoming frequent drivers. Uber doesn’t pay for an oversupply of drivers, because it only pays drivers when they have a passenger in the car. Having drivers on call — but idle — is a way for Uber to shift the cost of maintaining a capacity cushion to its workers.

What’s more, what Uber charges customers is not based on how much it pays its workers. As Uber’s head of product explained: Uber uses “machine-learning techniques to estimate how much groups of customers are willing to shell out for a ride. Uber calculates riders’ propensity for paying a higher price for a particular route at a certain time of day. For instance, someone traveling from a wealthy neighborhood to another tony spot might be asked to pay more than another person heading to a poorer part of town, even if demand, traffic and distance are the same.”

https://qz.com/990131/uber-is-practicing-price-discrimination-economists-say-that-might-not-be-a-bad-thing/

Uber has historically described its business a pure supply-and-demand matching system, where a rush of demand for rides triggers surge pricing, which lures out drivers, which takes care of the demand. That’s not how it works today, and it’s unclear if it ever worked that way. Today, a driver who consults the rider version of the Uber app before accepting a job — to compare how much the rider is paying to how much they stand to earn — is booted off the app and denied further journeys.

Surging, instead, has become just another way to twiddle drivers. One of Dubal’s subjects, Derrick, describes how Uber uses fake surges to lure drivers to airports: “You go to the airport, once the lot get kind of full, then the surge go away.” Other drivers describe how they use groupchats to call out fake surges: “I’m in the Marina. It’s dead. Fake surge.”

That’s pure twiddling. Twiddling turns gamification into gamblification, where your labor buys you a spin on a roulette wheel in a rigged casino. As a driver called Melissa, who had doubled down on her availability to earn a $100 bonus awarded for clocking a certain number of rides, told Dubal, “When you get close to the bonus, the rides start trickling in more slowly…. And it makes sense. It’s really the type of shit that they can do when it’s okay to have a surplus labor force that is just sitting there that they don’t have to pay for.”

Wherever you find reverse-centaurs, you get this kind of gamblification, where the rules are twiddled continuously to make sure that the house always wins. As a contract driver Amazon reverse centaur told Lauren Gurley for Motherboard, “Amazon uses these cameras allegedly to make sure they have a safer driving workforce, but they’re actually using them not to pay delivery companies”:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88npjv/amazons-ai-cameras-are-punishing-drivers-for-mistakes-they-didnt-make

Algorithmic wage discrimination is the robot overlord of our nightmares: its job is to relentlessly quest for vulnerabilities and exploit them. Drivers divide themselves into “ants” (drivers who take every job) and “pickers” (drivers who cherry-pick high-paying jobs). The algorithm’s job is ensuring that pickers get the plum assignments, not the ants, in the hopes of converting those pickers to app-dependent ants.

In my work on enshittification, I call this the “giant teddy bear” gambit. At every county fair, you’ll always spot some poor jerk carrying around a giant teddy-bear they “won” on the midway. But they didn’t win it — not by getting three balls in the peach-basket. Rather, the carny running the rigged game either chose not to operate the “scissor” that kicks balls out of the basket. Or, if the game is “honest” (that is, merely impossible to win, rather than gimmicked), the operator will make a too-good-to-refuse offer: “Get one ball in and I’ll give you this keychain. Win two keychains and I’ll let you trade them for this giant teddy bear.”

Carnies aren’t in the business of giving away giant teddy bears — rather, the gambit is an investment. Giving a mark a giant teddy bear to carry around the midway all day acts as a convincer, luring other marks to try to land three balls in the basket and win their own teddy bear.

In the same way, platforms like Uber distribute giant teddy bears to pickers, as a way of keeping the ants scurrying from job to job, and as a way of convincing the pickers to give up whatever work allows them to discriminate among Uber’s offers and hold out for the plum deals, whereupon then can be transmogrified into ants themselves.

Dubal describes the experience of Adil, a Syrian refugee who drives for Uber in the Bay Area. His colleagues are pickers, and showed him screenshots of how much they earned. Determined to get a share of that money, Adil became a model ant, driving two hours to San Francisco, driving three days straight, napping in his car, spending only one day per week with his family. The algorithm noticed that Adil needed the work, so it paid him less.

Adil responded the way the system predicted he would, by driving even more: “My friends they make it, so I keep going, maybe I can figure it out. It’s unsecure, and I don’t know how people they do it. I don’t know how I am doing it, but I have to. I mean, I don’t find another option. In a minute, if I find something else, oh man, I will be out immediately. I am a very patient person, that’s why I can continue.”

Another driver, Diego, told Dubal about how the winners of the giant teddy bears fell into the trap of thinking that they were “good at the app”: “Any time there’s some big shot getting high pay outs, they always shame everyone else and say you don’t know how to use the app. I think there’s secret PR campaigns going on that gives targeted payouts to select workers, and they just think it’s all them.”

That’s the power of twiddling: by hoarding all the flexibility offered by digital tools, the management at platforms can become centaurs, able to string along thousands of workers, while the workers are reverse-centaurs, puppeteered by the apps.

As the example of Adil shows, the algorithm doesn’t need to be very sophisticated in order to figure out which workers it can underpay. The system automates the kind of racial and gender discrimination that is formally illegal, but which is masked by the smokescreen of digitization. An employer who systematically paid women less than men, or Black people less than white people, would be liable to criminal and civil sanctions. But if an algorithm simply notices that people who have fewer job prospects drive more and will thus accept lower wages, that’s just “optimization,” not racism or sexism.

This is the key to understanding the AI hype bubble: when ghouls from multinational banks predict 13 trillion dollar markets for “AI,” what they mean is that digital tools will speed up the twiddling and other wage-suppression techniques to transfer $13T in value from workers and consumers to shareholders.

The American business lobby is relentlessly focused on the goal of reducing wages. That’s the force behind “free trade,” “right to work,” and other codewords for “paying workers less,” including “gig work.” Tech workers long saw themselves as above this fray, immune to labor exploitation because they worked for a noble profession that took care of its own.

But the epidemic of mass tech-worker layoffs, following on the heels of massive stock buybacks, has demonstrated that tech bosses are just like any other boss: willing to pay as little as they can get away with, and no more. Tech bosses are so comfortable with their market dominance and the lock-in of their customers that they are happy to turn out hundreds of thousands of skilled workers, convinced that the twiddling systems they’ve built are the kinds of self-licking ice-cream cones that are so simple even a manager can use them — no morlocks required.

The tech worker layoffs are best understood as an all-out war on tech worker morale, because that morale is the source of tech workers’ confidence and thus their demands for a larger share of the value generated by their labor. The current tech layoff template is very different from previous tech layoffs: today’s layoffs are taking place over a period of months, long after they are announced, and laid off tech worker is likely to be offered a months of paid post-layoff work, rather than severance. This means that tech workplaces are now haunted by the walking dead, workers who have been laid off but need to come into the office for months, even as the threat of layoffs looms over the heads of the workers who remain. As an old friend, recently laid off from Microsoft after decades of service, wrote to me, this is “a new arrow in the quiver of bringing tech workers to heel and ensuring that we’re properly thankful for the jobs we have (had?).”

Dubal is interested in more than analysis, she’s interested in action. She looks at the tactics already deployed by gig workers, who have not taken all this abuse lying down. Workers in the UK and EU organized through Worker Info Exchange and the App Drivers and Couriers Union have used the GDPR (the EU’s privacy law) to demand “algorithmic transparency,” as well as access to their data. In California, drivers hope to use similar provisions in the CCPA (a state privacy law) to do the same.

These efforts have borne fruit. When Cornell economists, led by Louis Hyman, published research (paid for by Uber) claiming that Uber drivers earned an average of $23/hour, it was data from these efforts that revealed the true average Uber driver’s wage was $9.74. Subsequent research in California found that Uber drivers’ wage fell to $6.22/hour after the passage of Prop 22, a worker misclassification law that gig companies spent $225m to pass, only to have the law struck down because of a careless drafting error:

https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2021-08-23/proposition-22-lyft-uber-decision-essential-california

But Dubal is skeptical that data-coops and transparency will achieve transformative change and build real worker power. Knowing how the algorithm works is useful, but it doesn’t mean you can do anything about it, not least because the platform owners can keep touching their knobs, twiddling the payout schedule on their rigged slot-machines.

Data co-ops start from the proposition that “data extraction is an inevitable form of labor for which workers should be remunerated.” It makes on-the-job surveillance acceptable, provided that workers are compensated for the spying. But co-ops aren’t unions, and they don’t have the power to bargain for a fair price for that data, and coops themselves lack the vast resources — “to store, clean, and understand” — data.

Co-ops are also badly situated to understand the true value of the data that is extracted from their members: “Workers cannot know whether the data collected will, at the population level, violate the civil rights of others or amplifies their own social oppression.”

Instead, Dubal wants an outright, nonwaivable prohibition on algorithmic wage discrimination. Just make it illegal. If firms cannot use gambling mechanisms to control worker behavior through variable pay systems, they will have to find ways to maintain flexible workforces while paying their workforce predictable wages under an employment model. If a firm cannot manage wages through digitally-determined variable pay systems, then the firm is less likely to employ algorithmic management.”

In other words, rather than using market mechanisms too constrain platform twiddling, Dubal just wants to make certain kinds of twiddling illegal. This is a growing trend in legal scholarship. For example, the economist Ramsi Woodcock has proposed a ban on surge pricing as a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act:

https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-105-issue-4/the-efficient-queue-and-the-case-against-dynamic-pricing

Similarly, Dubal proposes that algorithmic wage discrimination violates another antitrust law: the Robinson-Patman Act, which “bans sellers from charging competing buyers different prices for the same commodity. Robinson-Patman enforcement was effectively halted under Reagan, kicking off a host of pathologies, like the rise of Walmart:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

I really liked Dubal’s legal reasoning and argument, and to it I would add a call to reinvigorate countertwiddling: reforming laws that get in the way of workers who want to reverse-engineer, spoof, and control the apps that currently control them. Adversarial interoperability (AKA competitive compatibility or comcom) is key tool for building worker power in an era of digital Taylorism:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

To see how that works, look to other jursidictions where workers have leapfrogged their European and American cousins, such as Indonesia, where gig workers and toolsmiths collaborate to make a whole suite of “tuyul apps,” which let them override the apps that gig companies expect them to use.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

For example, ride-hailing companies won’t assign a train-station pickup to a driver unless they’re circling the station — which is incredibly dangerous during the congested moments after a train arrives. A tuyul app lets a driver park nearby and then spoof their phone’s GPS fix to the ridehailing company so that they appear to be right out front of the station.

In an ideal world, those workers would have a union, and be able to dictate the app’s functionality to their bosses. But workers shouldn’t have to wait for an ideal world: they don’t just need jam tomorrow — they need jam today. Tuyul apps, and apps like Para, which allow workers to extract more money under better working conditions, are a prelude to unionization and employer regulation, not a substitute for it.

Employers will not give workers one iota more power than they have to. Just look at the asymmetry between the regulation of union employees versus union busters. Under US law, employees of a union need to account for every single hour they work, every mile they drive, every location they visit, in public filings. Meanwhile, the union-busting industry — far larger and richer than unions — operate under a cloak of total secrecy, Workers aren’t even told which union busters their employers have hired — let alone get an accounting of how those union busters spend money, or how many of them are working undercover, pretending to be workers in order to sabotage the union.

Twiddling will only get an employer so far. Twiddling — like all “AI” — is based on analyzing the past to predict the future. The heuristics an algorithm creates to lure workers into their cars can’t account for rapid changes in the wider world, which is why companies who relied on “AI” scheduling apps (for example, to prevent their employees from logging enough hours to be entitled to benefits) were caught flatfooted by the Great Resignation.

Workers suddenly found themselves with bargaining power thanks to the departure of millions of workers — a mix of early retirees and workers who were killed or permanently disabled by covid — and they used that shortage to demand a larger share of the fruits of their labor. The outraged howls of the capital class at this development were telling: these companies are operated by the kinds of “capitalists” that MLK once identified, who want “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor.”

https://twitter.com/KaseyKlimes/status/821836823022354432/

There's only 5 days left in the Kickstarter campaign for the audiobook of my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon's Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they're DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: Stephen Drake (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Analog_Test_Array_modular_synth_by_sduck409.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

 — 

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

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

 — 

Louis (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chestnut_horse_head,_all_excited.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A complex mandala of knobs from a modular synth. In the foreground, limned in a blue electric halo, is a man in a hi-viz vest with the head of a horse. The horse's eyes have been replaced with the sinister red eyes of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'"]

[spctrsgf]

morning banter

summary: something about you and marc? he wakes up early, and you most certainly do not.

word count: 1.2k

warnings: language, my shitty spanish (i’m trying okay)

a/n: took a quick break from b+h for a lil marc spector drabble!!! hope you all enjoy

Es tan temprano para esta mierda, Marc. Jake’s annoyed Spanish drawl smacks into the side of Marc's head. The combination of his drowsy, slow mind and that Marc knew next to no spanish caused the said man’s eyebrows to crinkle. “What the fuck did you just say?” He can barely hear his own voice, but he knows Jake can.

Don’t worry about it.

“Jake.”

Marc. Only Jake would pitch up his name in a high voice: it’s a mimic.

“Hey! I don’t sound like that.”

Yeah you do.

“No, I don’t! Back me up, Steven.”

Don’t bring me into this. 

C’mon, Stevie— Jake cuts off abruptly, probably the doing of Steven.

“Jake,” Marc resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Just tell me what you said.”

Go to sleep, puta.

“Okay, I know that one,” Marc hisses, toiling you in closer to him. “Rude.”

You deserved it.

“You wanna know what you deserve?”

Oh, yeah, Jake taunts. What’s that?

“A fucking pun–”

His voice goes legato as soon as he senses you moving, causing him to fall silent. You curl tighter into a ball, spiraling the covers more into your fists and tucking them again beneath your chin. Jake, by some miracle, also goes quiet, as if somehow his words could expel themselves out of Marc’s mouth and to your ears. 

But, the soft exhales are the only noise you left out, and if you heard them, you didn’t show it. Marc’s shoulders roll back from where they were hunched, surely Steven’s gentle gesture to the position he hadn’t even realized he’d been in. 

Would it kill the two of you to just be nice to each other? The Brit muses. 

Absolutely. Jake’s response is automatic.

“One hundred percent true.” Marc chimes in.

HAH! Steven ejects the exclamation in triumph. Now I got the two of you agreeing.

“Sure, whatever.”

Only time we agree is when you finesse us into it, hermano.

Marc slides his arm out from where it was wrapped around your waist to give the two a thumbs up in agreement with Jake, reluctantly.

Or, he tried to.

“Noooooo…” You groan groggily, tightening your hold. 

Marc freezes. “Baby?”

“Mmmmm?” 

“I- I didn’t know you were aware.”

“Well,” you snuggle closer into his chest, his warm embrace. “You ‘n Steven ‘n Jake aren’t exactly quiet when you argue.”

He sighs, guilt pooling in his stomach. “Listen, ‘m sorry. You know how we can be.”

“Yeah, I do. And I love you all,” you reach back, squeezing his bicep reassuringly. “But I also love my beauty sleep.”

“You don’t need to sleep to be beautiful.” He ducks his head to place a featherlight kiss to your neck, savoring the sigh you let out in return.

“You’re sweet, but we both know that’s not true.”

“Do we?”

“Mhm,” you turn, nudging Marc’s arms off of you as you face him. “‘M a menace without it.”

“That’s true,” he chuckles when you slap his arm, letting out an effortlessly beautiful smile. “But it’s nothing a cup of nice, warm coffee can’t solve.”

You giggle softly. “That’s true.”

“C’mon, sleepyhead,” He moves to slide you both out from under the covers. “Let’s get going.”

“Nope.” You let him go, rolling to burrito yourself in the covers again. 

“Nope?” He inquires, rounding the bed to stand over you.

“Nope.”

His shadow covers your shut eyelids and you know he’s bent over your face. “I’ll make you coffee to apologize for waking you up, baby, I promise.” You scrunch your nose. “Tempting, but no.”

“Not even because I’m asking you?”

“Not even if you were on your knees and begging.”

“Oh?” The sentence your half asleep brain had kindled clearly took him by surprise. 

You huff, flipping over in the bed dramatically. “Go away, I’m tired.”

“What’s so great about this bed that I can’t give you, huh?”

“Well,” You take a deep breath, and some small, rational part of your brain tells you that maybe the spew of words about to come out of your mouth is what he wanted to happen all along. “The bed is warm. It’s cozy. The covers are just the right heaviness and just the right thickness to provide optimal warmth and the right amount of pressure to keep me sleeping like a bear in hibernation. ‘Nd my pillow is the right firmness, but has my desired amount of sink to put me out as soon as you turn off the light and wrap your arms around me. Even though that only happens sometimes.”

Marc huffs in frustration. “Hey!”

“Yeah, Marc, my bed is always here on time. It never goes anywhere, and the only life it’s saving is your sorry ass right now.”

“Uncalled for.” He runs a hand through his hair. 

“Thought you liked a bit of banter.”

“I like a kick or two,” He leans over and pulls your shoulders to level on the bed and your eyes to meet his own. “But not at eight in the fucking morning.”

“Neither do I,” You reach up, pulling his face in for a kiss.

He gives in almost immediately, setting a knee on either side of your legs and scooping his arms underneath your body to pull you up.

“Nuh uh,” you pull away and unwrap his arms, flopping back onto the bed. “Sleepy. Time to sleep.”

“You can't leave me hanging like that!”

You yawn, pulling the covers up to your chin again. “I can and I did.”

For a second, a naive, small second, you think he’s going to leave you be. Your brain relaxes, you feel yourself on the precipice of sleep, the hypnotic, rich swirl of unconsciousness sucking you deeper into its whirlpool. But then you feel the covers lift, and Marc’s— frighteningly cold— fingers are dancing along your sides to a tune you illustrate with laughs. You slap his hands away, reaching out towards the lure of sleep that now sneaks away to taint another victim.

“You ready to get out of bed now, sweets?”

You groan, turning to face him in defeat. “You fucker.”

He throws his arms mockingly. “What’d I do?”

“You manipulated me! I hate you.”

“I did no such thing. What are these accusations?”

“You knew I would get worked up,” you sit up in the bed now, and Marc shrinks ever so slightly under the weight of your deadly stare. “You knew that would wake me up.”

“Hey, let’s calm down–”

“You knew that if you pushed the right buttons, you would get what you wanted.”

Marc’s face is ghastly, and he looks two steps away from summoning his suit and flying away.

“I warned you earlier about this, Marc, were you listening?”

He nods frantically. “Of course–”

“I’m a menace when I get woken up early.” You launch off the bed, and you might as well be Moon Knight yourself with your accuracy.

The takeaway from this event? For Marc, it’s to never try waking you up before you’ve recharged fully, or to have some coffee made ahead of when he was to attempt it. For you, though?

It’s that Marc shrieks like a little girl. 

translations (HELP I FORGOT):

es tan temprano para esta mierda - it’s too early for this shit

puta - bitch

i felt very fancy using these

[theuntoldstorythatneedsawriter]

Biggest fan 🏆✨️

Mapi Léon x reader

warning : fluffy 💭💗

(my first language isn't english nor spanish, sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes)

Summary :

Mapi is your biggest fan

Being an athletes in a unknown sport you never expect her to show up at a national competition after she told you she couldn't make it due to some "important" football stuff.

Mapi made it clear from day one that you were her priority, unfortunately due to her extremely demanding career you would often be left alone for days. Today was one of those days days, she had left for the US and would be comming back in 2 days, unfortunately meaning she would miss your competition.

You were a "hobby athletes", your sport wasn't know enough to make a living out of it but still to have world championship. Although money wasn't a problem with Mapi, you still preferred to be able to rely on your own.

Today was the first national competition of the season, meaning that if you placed first, you would immediately be qualified for the world championship. As you were getting ready to put your make-up on, your phone screen lighted up, call incoming, as soon as you saw your girlfriend name on the screen you didn't hesitate to answer. Seeing her sleepy face on the screen made it impossible not to chuckle at her cuteness.

(M): Hola mi amor, te extraño

hi my love, i miss you.

Hi bebé, yo también te extraño, ¿cómo estás?

hi baby i miss you too, how are you ?

Estoy cansado, el entrenamiento ha sido agotador. Ojalá estuvieras aquí.

Tired, training has been exhausting. i wish you were here

Le deseo eso al bebé, 2 días más para sobrevivir y seré todo tuyo para disfrutar.

I wish that to baby, 2 more days to survive and i will be all yours to enjoy.

Tengo que volver a entrenar, te hablo más tarde, ¿vale? Te quiero, buena suerte en tu competición.

I have to go back to training, i will talk to you later okag ? I love you good luck with your competition

You were left staring at you phone in shock, your girlfriend that would normally wait till the last second to hang up, till Alexia dragged her ass back to the field, just hang up on you without letting you respond.

Finding it weird but not thinking much about it you got your keys and got at to the competition location. Arriving to the parking lot, you meet your coach that informed you of a surprise at the medals ceremony.

Your performance was amazing, not a single flaw, not a single point deducted, just perfect. Right before the medals ceremony, your coach went up to you.

Cuando estés en tu podio no olvides mirar a la multitud.

when your on your podium don't forget to look at the crowd.

Looking at him like he was crazy, he just send a sweet smile while walking away. There was crowd but it was friends or family of the competitor nothing special.

You were annonce first overall, getting up your podium, gold medal hanging around your neck, you smiled happily at the crowd. Eyes zooming over it to find what your coach was talking about, there you find her, your girlfriend huge smile over her face, her barca flag in between her hands, clapping. She was the loudest one in the room, screaming her heart out as if she was in a concert. Mouth hanging open, you got off the podium and run as fast as you could to your girlfriend. Arms wrapped around you as you cried into her neck, the rollercoster of emotion crashing into you.

Si hubiera sabido que te haría llorar no habría venido.

if i had known i would make you cry i wouldn't have come

Hitting her in the arm after her stupid jocke, her torso vibrating from her laugh as she hold you close.

¿Contenta con tu sorpresa?

happy with your surprise ?

You nobbed eagerly, her hand finding your hair massaging your scalp.

¿Qué estás haciendo aquí? No se suponía que regresaras hasta

what are you doing here ? you weren't supposed to come back until

You were cut off by a kiss.

¿No puedo sorprender a mi novia? Nos dejaron salir temprano, así que pensé: ¿por qué no ver a mi hermosa novia, la vida de mi vida? Estuviste increíble, nena, estoy muy orgullosa.

can't i surprise my girlfriend ? we were let off early so i thought why not see my beautiful, the live of my life. You were amazing baby i'm so proud.

Mapi lips found yours one more, hands rooming along each other bobies, you felt like you were the only one left in the world. Until your friend coughed, signaling you that there were kids in the room, you chuckled a bit as you rolled your eyes. Taking Mapi hands in yours dragging her to your car, the drive home was filled with little kisses and sweet words. Arriving home, both tired from your day, you cuddled till you both falled asleep.

Author note :

This is my first ever fic, I know I still have a lot to learn but if you have advice or request don't hesitate !

[mperosx]

—*

     He’ll never really stop being impressed by the level of her love. It’s the sure thing in his universe- the love of his family. In his wife he’s found a tranquility like no other because she’s taught him how to love in ways that he didn’t even know he could. He’s broken pieces of himself off happily his whole life- since before the world breathed itself to life and the Goddess of All crafted the first wakefulness- and not thought about how they might be given back.

    And certainly not how they might be returned better than he had given them out. From the love that he had willingly given her, she had returned it a million fold with her compassion. In her infinite tenderness she had not only loved all the parts of him that were present but loved all the shattered and missing parts too. She had never once asked him to change— but made him change for the better.

  So when she stands to get him to join her and the perfect little family they’ve formed, he easily slides his hand in hers. He’ll traverse a cosmos to bring her whatever she asked, he’d wake up early to make her coffee in the morning. He’d watch the same movie they’ve seen a zillion times with her and the kids, and he’d smile even as she’d get frustrated when he forgets to do something and fusses at him.

    Because it’s her. All because it’s her. And their love is the surest thing.

-End.-

As Amaterasu nestled into Eros's arms, enveloped in the warmth of their shared embrace, she couldn't help but revel in the tranquility of the moment. With her head resting against his chest, she listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, a comforting melody that lulled her into a state of blissful contentment.

Feeling her husband's arms wrap around her, Amaterasu sighed softly, savoring the feeling of being held so close to the one she loved. It was moments like these that reminded her of the beauty and simplicity of their bond, a love that transcended time and space.

As she gazed into Eros's eyes, she found herself lost in the depths of his gaze, each flicker of emotion reflected back at her like stars in the night sky. His words washed over her like a gentle breeze, filling her heart with warmth and gratitude.

Before she could respond, the sound of footsteps echoed through the room, drawing their attention towards the doorway.

Evander's head popped up into the room, his expression filled with excitement in his youthful face. He asked if they could come outside soon. Cordelia's voice piped up from outside as well, inviting their parents outside as well.

Amaterasu exchanged a knowing glance with Eros, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. With a gentle nod, she rose from his lap, offering him a hand as she turned towards their children.

"Well then, let's not keep them waiting," she said, her voice filled with excitement. Leaning close, she breathes his scent in once more, centering herself and reveling in their little family. "They are excited to show you their surprise. So am I, quite frankly." Pulling away, her face filled with love and warmth for him.

"Happy feast day, my love."

[writing-reference-redux]

I felt like sharing my collection of Latin phrases that may make good fanfic or fanart titles or inspiration. Some of the translations may be off, so you might want to double-check them before use. Also, I used capitalization liberally so you might also want to check where capitalization is actually indicated.

Ab Intra (From Within)

Acta Est Fabula (The play has been performed)

Acta Sancti ___ (The Deeds of Saint ___)

Ad Undas (to the waves / to hell)

Advocatus Diaboli (Devil's advocate)

Aegri Somnia (a sick man's dreams / troubled dreams)

Alea Iacta Est (the die has been cast / point of no return)

Apologia Pro Vita Sua (defense of one's life)

Caetera Desunt (the rest is missing)

Cedere Nescio (I know not how to yield)

Damnatio Memoriae (damnation of memory / denying someone ever lived)

De Nobis Fabula Narratur (their story is our story)

Decessit Vita Patris (died before their father)

Diem Perdidi (I have lost the day)

Dies Tenebrosa Sicut Nox (a day as dark as night)

Dolor Hic Tibi Proderit Olim (some day this pain will be useful to you)

Dulce Est Desipere In Loco (It is sweet on occasion to play the fool)

Dum Vivimus, Vivamus (while we live, let us live)

Dux Bellorum (war leader)

Ex Umbra In Solem (from the shadow into the light)

Festina Lente (hurry slowly)

Fortis Cadere, Cedere Non Potest (the brave may fall, but can not yield)

Fui Quod Es, Eris Quod Sum (I once was what you are, you will be what I am)

Graviora Manent (heavier things remain / the worst is yet to come)

Haec Olim Meminisse Iuvabit (one day, this will be pleasing to remember)

Hic Mortui Vivunt (here the dead speak)

Hinc Illae Lacrimae (hence those tears)

Hodie Mihi, Cras Tibi (Today it's me, tomorrow it will be you - of death)

In Ictu Oculi (in the blink of an eye)

In Somnis Veritas (in dreams there is truth)

Inter Spem Et Metum (between hope and fear)

Lapsus Memoriae (slip of memory)

Luctor, Non Mergor (I struggle, but am not overwhelmed)

Lux Ex Tenebris (light from darkness)

Media Vita In Morte Sumus (In the midst of our lives we die)

Memento Mori (remember that you will die)

Memento Vivere (remember to live)

Morior Invictus (I die unvanquished / death before defeat)

Mundus Senescit (the world grows old)

Nemini Parco (I spare no one - death)

Nitimur In Vetitum (we strive for the forbidden)

Non Ducor, Duco (I am not led; I lead)

Non Omnis Moriar (I shall not all die / part of me will survive beyond death)

Nunc Scio Quid Sit Amor (now I know what love is)

Oderint Dum Metuant (let them hate, so long as they fear)

Omnia Mutantur (everything changes)

Onus Probandi (burden of proof)

Opera Posthuma (posthumous works)

Ophidia In Herba (a snake in the grass)

Pax Aeterna (eternal peace - a common epitaph)

Primum Non Nocere (first do no harm)

Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus (we are dust and shadow)

Quis Leget Haec? (who will read this?)

Quod Periit, Periit (what Is gone is gone)

Res, Non Verba (deeds, not words)

Respice Finem (consider the end)

Scientia Et Sapientia (knowledge and wisdom)

Seculo Seculorum (forever and ever)

Sed Terrae Graviora Manent (but on earth, worse things await)

Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war)

Sic Infit (so it begins)

Sic Vita Est (such is life)

Silentium Est Aureum (silence is golden)

Sine Nomine (without a name / author unknown)

Sola Dosis Facit Venemum (the dose makes the poison)

Solvitur Ambulando (it is solved by walking / simple tests find solutions)

Stamus Contra Malum (we stand against evil)

Succisa Virescit (cut down, we grow back stronger)

Sum Quod Eris (I am what you will be - of death)

Summum Bonum (the supreme good)

Summum Malum (the supreme evil)

Sunt Lacrimae Rerum (there are tears for things)

Sunt Omnes Unum (they are all one)

Tabula Rasa (blank slate)

Transire Benefaciendo (to travel along while doing good)

Tu Fui Ego Eris (I was you; you will be me - of death)

Ubi Amor, Ibi Dolor (where there is love, there is pain)

Ultima Forsan (perhaps the last / sundial quote "perhaps your last hour")

Usque Ad Finem (until the end / fight to the death)

Vacate Et Scire (Be still and know)

Vi Et Animo (with heart and soul)

Victoria Aut Mors (victory or death)

Vincit Qui Patitur (he conquers who endures)

Vita Ante Acta (a life done before - of reincarnation)

Vivere Militare Est (to live is to fight)

Vox Clamantis In Deserto (the voice of one crying in the wilderness)

There are also some longer ones that may not make good titles because of their length, but are still worth inclusion:

Aut Simul Stabunt Aut Simul Cadent (they will either stand together or fall together)

Flectere Si Nequeo Superos, Acheronta Movebo (if I can not reach Heaven I will raise Hell)

Forsan Et Haec Olim Meminisse Iuvabit (perhaps even these things will be good to remember one day)

Igitur Qui Desiderat Pacem, Praeparet Bellum (therefore whoever desires peace, let him prepare for war)

In Regione Caecorum Rex Est Luscus (in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king)

Minus Malum Toleratur Ut Maius Tollat (choose the lesser evil so a greater evil may be averted)

Quem Deus Vult Perdere, Dementat Prius (whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad)

Ubi Sunt, Qui Ante Nos Fuerunt? (Where are they, those who have gone before us?)

Virtus Junxit Mors Non Separabit (that which virtue unites, let not death separate)