#regulations to control use of all resources

[fanficfem]

"just don't have sex!" do you hear yourself, @/sharklovingaquarist? how effective is this mindset? wasn't it a huge joke a while back to poke and tease at any sort of sex ed class that'd tell you to abstain and nothing else because it's an ineffective strategy? it's not always willing sex, either, so i don't know how you're going "keep your legs closed" when you're conveniently forgetting that it's not always consensual. (which, by the way, is very similar to rape apologist talking points.)

going onto someone else's post that's sharing a genuinely great resource just to bash it because the words "birth control" triggers you, especially as many women feel embarrassed asking questions about our bodies, is pathetic. you should take the time to reflect on why it bothered you so much to the point where you went on an entire tirade about how women are "fucking your body up for mediocre dick" when you could've politely ignored it. or hell, even spread it because it is a good resource and at least a couple women could benefit from it. no one is denying that birth control doesn't have it's risks, but hey, if the op mentioned that the search engine can answer questions you have... perhaps it could answer, oh i don't know, what birth control actually does to the body? since who the hell is actually going to sit down and read the laundry list of symptoms and side effects that come with a pack of pills?

i'd also like to point out that birth control is used for purposes outside of contraception. i have used it in the past to help regulate extremely irregular periods that were debilitating and often left me bed-bound every other week due to their frequency. i'm sure i'm not alone in that. unfortunately, the reality is that there is no safer alternative to help in these cases (unless i'm oblivious to one). so even if i were to exclusively have sex with women or go entirely celibate, i'd still have a plausible reason to be on birth control. but i guess i should be ashamed of using it to regulate something in my body since it's all about keeping my legs closed, right?

Hey everyone there’s a new search engine app and browser called diem created by a team of women where you can ask anything from career advice to birth control and other personal questions. You can read more on their website!

[sirfrogsworth]

This is one of those things where the discourse is just completely broken. Both of these takes are shit and no one is concerned about the actual problem.

Republicans want to bring back incandescents because they just want to trigger the libs and have decided light bulbs are woke.

And the "LEDs are fine" crowd are throwing people with flicker sensitivities under the bus. And, no, you don't have to be "pretty far on the spectrum" to notice a difference. And even if you did... why in the world is this person so dismissive of the millions of autistic folks?

LEDs, for the most part, are superior to incandescent bulbs. Collectively they save people billions of dollars in energy costs and greatly reduce fossil fuel use. You have more options for color and brightness. You can control them with your phone. LEDs are fantastic.

Unfortunately there is a design flaw that makes LEDs hard to use for certain people. Due to AC power, most LEDs have a 60hz refresh rate. Meaning they turn off and on 60 times per second. With incandescents this didn't matter because the filament didn't have time to lose its glow between cycles.

Most people cannot see this flicker in LEDs. But there are millions of people who are sensitive to it and it can cause migraines and discomfort.

The solution is definitely not to go back to incandescents. There are flicker free LEDs and I think with some regulation we could make sure all LEDs are flicker free or at least make sure flicker free bulbs are easy to find and not priced at a premium.

Thankfully there is a group testing bulbs to find the ones that will most likely cause no discomfort. They call themselves the Flicker Alliance and their website has a pretty decent selection of tested and approved bulbs.

So if you feel like your LED bulbs might be causing you distress, that is a good resource to try. I think there is also something you can do to make sure the LED drivers are using DC power, but I haven't really looked into that.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Keir Starmer appoints Jeff Bezos as his “first buddy”

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

Turns out Donald Trump isn't the only world leader with a tech billionaire "first buddy" who gets to serve as an unaccountable, self-interested de facto business regulator. UK PM Keir Starmer has just handed the keys to the British economy over to Jeff Bezos.

Oh, not literally. But here's what's happened: the UK's Competitions and Markets Authority, an organisation charged with investigating and punishing tech monopolists (like Amazon) has just been turned over to Doug Gurr, the guy who used to run Amazon UK.

This is – incredibly – even worse than it sounds. Marcus Bokkerink, the outgoing head of the CMA, was amazing, and he had charge over the CMA's Digital Markets Unit, the largest, best-staffed technical body of any competition regulator, anywhere in the world. The DMU uses its investigatory powers to dig deep into complex monopolistic businesses like Amazon, and just last year, the DMU was given new enforcement powers that would let it custom-craft regulations to address tech monopolization (again, like Amazon's).

But it's even worse. The CMA and DMU are the headwaters of a global system of super-effective Big Tech regulation. The CMA's deeply investigated reports on tech monopolists are used as the basis for EU regulations and enforcement actions, and these actions are then re-run by other world governments, like South Korea and Japan:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

The CMA is the global convener and ringleader in tech antitrust, in other words. Smaller and/or poorer countries that lack the resources to investigate and build a case against US Big Tech companies have been able to copy-paste the work of the CMA and hold these companies to account. The CMA invites (or used to invite) all of these competition regulators to its HQ in Canary Wharf for conferences where they plan global strategy against these monopolists:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cma-data-technology-and-analytics-conference-2022-registration-308678625077

Firing the guy who is making all this happening and replacing him with Amazon's UK boss is a breathtaking display of regulatory capture by Starmer, his business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, and his exchequer, Rachel Reeves.

But it gets even worse, because Amazon isn't just any tech monopolist. Amazon is a many-tentacled kraken built around an e-commerce empire. Antitrust regulators elsewhere have laid bare how Amazon uses that retail monopoly to take control over whole economies, while raising prices and crushing small businesses.

To understand Amazon's market power, first you have to understand "monopsonies" – markets dominated by buyers (monopolies are markets dominated by sellers – Amazon is both a monopolist and a monopsonist). Monopsonies are far more dangerous than monopolies, because they are easier to establish and easier to defend against competitors. Say a single retailer accounts for 30% of your sales: there isn't a business in the world that can survive an overnight 30% drop in sales, so that 30% market share might as well be 100%. Once your order is big enough that canceling it would bankrupt your supplier, you have near-total control over that supplier.

Amazon boasts about this. They call it "the flywheel": Amazon locks in shoppers (by getting them to prepay for a year's worth of shipping in advance, via Prime). The fact that a business can't sell to a large proportion of households if it's not on Amazon gives Amazon near-total power over that business. Amazon uses that power to demand discounts and charge junk fees to the businesses that rely on it. This allows it to lower prices, which brings in more customers, which means that even more businesses have to do business with Amazon to stay afloat:

https://vimeo.com/739486256/00a0a7379a

That's Amazon's version, anyway. In reality, it's a lot scuzzier. Amazon doesn't just demand deep discounts from its suppliers – it demand unsustainable discounts from them. For example, Amazon targeted small publishers with a program called the "Gazelle Project." Jeff Bezos told his negotiators to bring down these publishers "the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle":

https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/a-new-book-portrays-amazon-as-bully/

The idea was to get a bunch of cheap books for the Kindle to help it achieve critical mass, at the expense of driving these publishers out of business. They were a kind of disposable rocket stage for Amazon.

Deep discounts aren't the only way that Amazon feeds off its suppliers: it also lards junk-fee atop junk-fee. For every pound Amazon makes from its customers, it rakes in 45-51p in fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

Now, just like there's no business that can survive losing 30% of its sales overnight, there's also no business that can afford to hand 45-51% of its gross margin to a retailer. For businesses to survive at all on Amazon, they have to jack their prices up – way up. However, Amazon has an anticompetitive deal called "most favoured nation status" that forces suppliers to sell their goods on Amazon at the same price as they sell them elsewhere (even from their own stores). So when companies raise their prices in order to pay ransom to Amazon, they have to raise their prices everywhere. Far from being a force for low prices, Amazon makes prices go up everywhere, from the big Tesco's to the corner shop:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Amazon makes so much money off of this scam that it doesn't have to pay anything to ship its own goods – the profits from overcharging merchants for "fulfillment by Amazon" pay for all the shipping, on everything Amazon sells:

https://cdn.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/AmazonMonopolyTollbooth-2023.pdf

Amazon competes with its own sellers, but unlike those sellers, it doesn't have to pay a 45-51% rake – and it can make its competitor-customers cover the full cost of its own shipping! On top of that, Amazon maintains the pretense that its headquarters are in Luxembourg, the tax- and crime-haven, and pays a fraction of the taxes that British businesses pay to HMRC (and that's not counting the 45-51% tax they pay to Jeff Bezos's monoposony).

That's not the only way that Amazon unfairly competes with British businesses, though: Amazon uses its position as a middleman between buyers and sellers to identify the most successful products sold by its own customers. Then it copies those products and sells them below the original inventor's costs (because it gets free shipping, pays no tax, and doesn't have to pay its own junk fees), and drives those businesses into the ground. Even Jeff "Project Gazelle" Bezos seems to understand that this is a bad look, which is why he perjured himself to the American Congress when he was questioned under oath about it:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58961836

Amazon then places its knockoff products above the original goods on its search results page. Amazon makes $38b selling off placement on these search pages, and the top results for an Amazon search aren't the best matches for your query – they're the ones that pay the most. On average, Amazon's top result for a search is 29% more expensive than the best match on the site. On average, the top row of results is 25% more expensive than the best match on the site. On average, Amazon buries the best result for your search 17 places down the results page:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/03/subprime-attention-rent-crisis/#euthanize-rentiers

Amazon, in other words, acts like the business regulator for the economies it dominates. It decides what can be sold, and at what prices. It decides whose products come up when you search, and thus which businesses deserve to live and which ones deserve to die. An economy dominated by Amazon isn't a market economy – it's a planned economy, run by Party Secretary Bezos for the benefit of Amazon's shareholders.

Now, there is a role for a business regulator, because some businesses really don't deserve to live (because they sell harmful products, engage in deceptive practices, etc). The UK has a regulator that's in charge of this stuff: the Competition and Markets Authority, which is now going to be run by Jeff Bezos's hand-picked UK Amazon boss. That means that Amazon is now both the official and the unofficial central planner of the UK economy, with a free hand to raise prices, lower quality, and destroy British businesses, while hiding its profits in Luxemourg and starving the exchequer of taxes.

The "first buddy" role that Keir Starmer just handed over to Jeff Bezos is, in every way, more generous than the first buddy deal Trump gave Elon Musk.

Starmer's government claims they're doing this for "growth" but Amazon isn't a force for growth, it's force for extraction. It is a notorious underpayer of its labour force, a notorious tax-cheat, and a world-beating destroyer of local economies, local jobs, and local tax bases. Contrary to Amazon's own self-mythologizing, it doesn't deliver lower prices – it raises prices throughout the economy. It doesn't improve quality – this is a company whose algorithmic recommendation system failed to recognize that an "energy drink" was actually its own drivers' bottled piss, which it then promoted until it was the best-selling energy drink on the platform:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

There's a reason that the UK, the EU, Japan and South Korea found it so easy to collaborate on antitrust cases against American companies: these are all countries whose competition law was rewritten by American technocrats during the Marshall Plan, modeled on the US's own laws. The bedrock of US competition law is 1890's Sherman Act, whose author, Senator John Sherman, declared that:

If we will not endure a King as a political power we should not endure a King over the production, transportation, and sale of the necessaries of life. If we would not submit to an emperor we should not submit to an autocrat of trade with power to prevent competition and to fix the price of any commodity.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/

Jeff Bezos is the autocrat of trade that John Sherman warned us about, 135 years ago. And Keir Starmer just abdicated in his favour.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

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/2025/01/22/autocrats-of-trade/#dingo-babysitter

Image: UK Parliament/Maria Unger (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Keir_Starmer_2024.jpg

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

--

Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jeff_Bezos%27_iconic_laugh.jpg

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

[ivesambrose]

PAC: WHAT WILL BRING YOU JOY

Something we all could use a little more of 💕

To book a personal reading with me DM or email me at ivesambrose@gmail.com

Services Offered

Thank you for the tip!

Picture 1

You may have felt a sense of helplessness of late. As though certain events and circumstances have genuinely been out of your control. Might have gone through some betrayals that led to certain necessary endings or have been dealing with loss that may have impacted your mental health too. Certain things have been necessary and whether you're fully aware of it or not, you do feel lighter. You will feel much lighter in the coming months eventually. For most of you, I'm seeing dancing, performance arts as well as a retreat to somewhere open and green will bring you joy. You really really need to fill your lungs with fresh air. Some of you have been on the edge or rather anxious and sleepless too. You need to breathe. Being around or tending to animals will bring you joy too. Learning about health and wellness will also do you well. Some of you will find joy in painting with water colors or taking quiet walks late at night (stay safe please) some of you could also use a swim or take up swimming for yourself. You need to pause and appreciate the things you don't really pay attention to. Maybe even listen to your subconscious more and block the external noise out this could also mean decluttering your room and/or surroundings as well.

Picture 2

You may have felt out of place or felt as though you have lacked community or resources for yourself. You're very protective of yourself and your energy as well as whatever you've accumulated by yourself be it in matters of wealth or any other accolades. You have a creative fire within you that is supposed to burn bright enough to illuminate the way without burning you out. Writing, communicating, journaling, learning, nurturing yourself and others will bring you joy. Celebrate yourself and the smallest wins in your life. Your thoughts, ideas, words, your voice especially and your mere presence is immensely powerful and this mere gift that you possses will inevitably turn your life around when you least expect it. Explore the world ahead, you do posses the ability to manifest it. The only reason you think it's denied to you is because you're afraid of taking the leap of faith. But rest assured, when time comes, it will feel right and you wouldn't have to overthink it. Till then, work on channeling your emotions into something creative that feels meditative at the same time. You don't require external validation for this. Learn to regulate your nervous system and self soothe too. You may also end up being a part of or building a community of people who feel like family too.

Picture 3

You may have felt severely isolated and it's not a new emotion, it's been lingering on and off for quiet some time. You've gained necessary wisdom however and learned to feel safe and welcome in your own company. You've likely also felt extremely defensive and at wits end with the people you've encountered as well. You're craving change and will invite a major one soon enough. For you, self expression of any form be it experimenting with your aesthetic or even transforming yourself completely be it your physical body, the way you look or the way you see the world will bring you joy. Some of you are also born entertainers some of you might really be into makeup or cosplay too. Others of you simply need to blatantly romanticize your existence and life for your own sake, treat it as cinema and watch your plot unfold. You're meant to make an impact of some sort, use your influence well and wisely. You have massive will power and perseverance. But that doesn't mean you need to treat every day like an active battle field that you need to survive. Some of you need to know that, even if the past feels familiar you can't live there if you seek to expand your horizons. The world is waiting for you as much as you're waiting for the world. Erase the mental and emotional distance you have put between you and what you desire.

[tlbodine]

So, Things Are Terrible and You Want to DO SOMETHING

The election is over and, ah...did not go well. While a lot of folks are doing a post mortem of the campaigns and trying to understand what happened with the vote and fighting over who shoulders the blame, we've gotta turn an eye toward the future and figure out, okay fam, where the fuck do we go from here.

I don't have all the answers on this, and I'm not an authority by any means, I'm just a horror author with a blog. But I've been thinking a lot about it and I wanted to share my thought process with others who might want to DO SOMETHING but feel they're spinning their wheels.

Buckle in. This will be a long one.

Step One: Understand the actual risks and stakes.

I think it is very easy to start panicking now about the worst possible case scenario -- jackbooted military busting into the door to disappear everyone who ever said something mean about Trump or bought a banned book or something -- and let fear turn into inaction.

I'm not saying things can't get that bad, and I'm not saying that it won't be absolutely terrifying right out the gate for some particularly at-risk groups -- but the distance between "now" and "V for Vendetta" is long and filled with a lot of intermediary steps. There will be so many opportunities to prevent the worst case scenario.

I say this because, if your mental image of "Bad Things Happening" is The Purge, it will be easy to wake up on inauguration day, look outside to see that the world is not on fire, think, hey, maybe things will be okay after all, and then completely disengage. Alternatively, you might feel so frozen with terror at the possibility of persecution that you do nothing. This is why people are saying: don't obey in advance.

It is essential for those of us with more privilege to use it to take care of those who are more vulnerable.

So. Who is most vulnerable? What does that vulnerability actually mean? What are the most likely risks of Trump's presidency? Here's a Guardian article that I think does a good job of summarizing some of the main issues. Go read that, then come back here.

Step Two: Take steps to protect yourself

You've gotta put your oxygen mask on first, right? So before you start getting involved in other causes, figure out what risks YOU are at, immediately, and do as much as you can to secure yourself. Some potential action steps depending on your circumstance may include:

Renewing your passport (helpful for leaving the country, but also for gender/name change purposes)

Getting vaccines / boosters

Securing birth control

Ensuring your necessary papers (birth certificates etc.) are where you have access to them.

Drawing up legal paperwork for spouses/partners (always a good idea, a helpful safety measure in case you lose marriage rights)

Bolstering your data privacy and online security. Here's a step-by-step guide I found that could help with that.

The specific steps you need to take here depend on what risks you, personally, face. You'll want to do some more research into this for your particular scenario.

No matter who you are, though, it's probably a good idea to start saving money and being a little more conservative with your spending and/or pay down debts to free up some cash. You don't know what kind of emergency may befall you, and having spare money for an emergency is never a bad idea.

There is a possibility that the cost of many things you rely on might go up, if Trump goes through with his tariffs plan. You will want to plan for that.

Food costs may also rise due to tariffs (we import a lot of food from Mexico and Latin America for example) as well as a loss of immigrant labor. There is also a possibility that food safety standards could fall due to overturning regulations. Now would be a good time to look into local food resources like farm share/CSA, community farms, etc., and to stock up on a few key staples like rice and beans.

Okay. Now that YOU are reasonably safe...what can you do to protect your community?

Step Three: Get Involved

Here is your mission: You need to stay engaged enough to know what's going on, without burning yourself out or exhausting yourself, and to take actual decisive actions instead of wasting your energy arguing on the internet.

Got that? Okay. Good. Here are some action steps:

Support independent journalism. Subscribe to local papers, donate to and watch public broadcast programming. I signed up for news from ProPublica, for example, as well as the news-roundup service What The Fuck Just Happened Today. The goal is to stay informed without falling down an endless rabbit hole of upsetting information.

Share news and resources with others in your circle. This can be a good use of social media. It's what I am doing right now!

If it is safe for you to do so, challenge and educate your friends/family members/neighbors/coworkers. Only if it is safe for you to do so. Do not put yourself at risk doing this. And do not waste your time arguing with people who are unlikely to change. But if you have well-meaning people in your life who you think could be won over, look for opportunities to do this - the right way. I've had some success with this, I will probably write a guide about it in the future. In the meantime, here's a good article that can help.

Join local grassroots activism groups. You'll have to do some work to decide what groups to join and which causes you want to support, because you cannot do everything. But there are tons of organizations taking direct action in all kinds of causes. Search "grassroots [cause] activists in [where you live]" to start finding things. Once you get involved in one group, you might meet people who can introduce you to other groups and causes. Yes, this means you will have to go outside and meet people. I'm sorry.

Join direct action groups. Same concept as above. You'll have to search in your area but once you know people it'll be easier to find more opportunities. Some of these groups may overlap. You might find direct action opportunities by engaging politically and vice versa. GO OUTSIDE AND TALK TO PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING THINGS TO HELP.

Get involved in local politics. Here are some quick tips. A lot of things are affected at the city level - stuff like book bans and bathroom bills are often battled first at local libraries and schools, and you can be part of those conversations! Sheriffs are elected and can have a big influence on local policing. Local elections affect how tax dollars are spent, how homeless populations are treated, and lots more. Don't snooze on local elections. Get involved and stay involved.

Look up your representatives. Get in the habit of calling, emailing, and writing letters. Figure out what legislature is being passed and then call your reps and harangue them about it - both to support bills you approve of and shoot down ones you don't. Sign petitions. Join email campaigns. Here's one you can go sign right now from the ACLU. See? Not that scary.

I think a lot of people figure that getting involved in politics doesn't matter or that it's all small potatoes but...man. The president is not god, no matter what he thinks. The sitting administration is not the sole power in the universe. There is an entire machine of government we can lean upon and act upon.

Finally, some general safety notes:

Some forms of direct action are not legal. Take steps to be safe if you choose to partake. Follow the lead of more seasoned activists for what forms of communication to use and so forth.

If you're not willing or able to put yourself at legal risk to act, you can help others by donating to bail funds and legal defense funds.

We've already seen this in some areas, and it will only get uglier - some bad actors are feeling emboldened by the change in regime and will misbehave. It's a good idea to learn some self-defense skills, in whatever way is comfortable to you, and brush up on some tenets of victimology that can help you stay safe. I'll write more about that in the future.

All right. That's all for now. It's by no means comprehensive...but should hopefully help you get started taking the next step. Stay safe out there.

[taikeero-lecoredier]

Chat Control in a nutshell (please reblog this, US people)

Find out more about Chat Control here TAKE ACTION HERE ! OR HERE Calling is much more efficient ! The latter link will redirect you to the official websites of your respective reps. Under the "read more", you will find what you need to say/write when contacting your reps. You will also find an alternate format of this comic,and I give explicit permission for people to translate it and spread it anywhere for awareness. Credit really not needed, I don't care about that rn Even if this is a EU proposal, I am urging Americans to also share this, since it goes hand in hand with KOSA. DON'T FORGET TO JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER AGAINST CHAT CONTROL ! https://discord.com/invite/e7FYdYnMkS

(Latest update on Chat Control was the 12 september 2024) This is a little long, so feel free to shorten it as you wish : Subject line: "2022/0155(COD) Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to express my grave concerns regarding the proposed introduction of "Chat Control" This measure poses a serious threat to the privacy and fundamental rights of all EU citizens and stands in stark contradiction to the core principles that the European Union seeks to uphold. The proposed Chat Control contravenes Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which guarantee the right to respect for private and family life and the protection of personal data. The indiscriminate surveillance of private messages without specific suspicion or cause directly violates these fundamental rights. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets out stringent rules for the processing of personal data. The proposed indiscriminate surveillance and scanning of private messages before end-to-end encryption is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of data minimization and purpose limitation enshrined in the GDPR. Specifically, Articles 5 and 6 of the GDPR, which govern the lawfulness and principles of data processing, would be violated by the introduction of such measures. The implementation of Client-Side Scanning (CSS) on devices means that all messages and files are scanned on the user's device before being encrypted and sent. This effectively nullifies the protection offered by end-to-end encryption and opens the door to misuse and additional security vulnerabilities. Moreover, the technical capability to scan such content could be exploited by malicious actors to circumvent or manipulate surveillance mechanisms. Such far-reaching surveillance measures not only endanger privacy but also freedom of expression. The knowledge that their private messages are being scanned and monitored could significantly restrict individuals' willingness to freely express themselves. Additionally, trust in digital communication platforms would be severely undermined. I urge you to take a strong stance against this disproportionate and unlawful measure. The privacy and digital rights of EU citizens must be safeguarded. It is imperative that we protect our fundamental rights and ensure transparency in the decision-making processes of our leaders. For more detailed information on the proposal and its implications, please refer to the following resource: Link to Netzpolitik article. https://www.patrick-breyer.de/rat-soll-chatkontrolle-durchwinken-werde-jetzt-aktiv/ Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. Sincerely, [Name] Art. 10 GG , Art. 8 & 11 EU Charta , Art. 8 EMRK (Alternate comic here V)

[pluckyredhead]

Hey, I don’t blame you if you don’t want to respond right now, but I just wanted to acknowledge that you were completely right to insist that people should have voted for the Democratic candidate if they didn’t want Trump, regardless of if they completely agreed with the Democratic candidate or not. We wouldn’t be in this situation if more people thought like you. And I hope more of the “both sides are just as bad” people remember this for next time.

I appreciate the thought, and you're right that we need every vote, every time, all the time.

But that's not what swung this election. There was a big shift to the right among men, particularly low information voters. And exit polls show that the economy was the biggest driver of those votes. It was not the very small number of extremely online leftists who abstained from voting or voted third party who caused this. It was people who absorb Fox News uncritically and/or fail to understand that Trump was terrible for the economy and will be terrible again, that Biden pulled us out of a recession, that prices are high because of greedflation and not inflation.

And, you know, fascists. But mostly people who are so under-informed and actively dis-informed that they think Trump deporting thousands of people will magically make gas cheaper.

I don't know how to reach those people. Our media landscape is so fractured that they are literally living in a different reality than I am, where the things I see as so obvious and self-evident don't exist to them, or exist only as lies. A second Trump presidency with its inevitable rolling back of regulations about social media disinformation and equally inevitable threats to honest journalism is only going to make it harder.

But here's what I know:

We're going to remember to eat, and drink water, and sleep. We are going to hold our loved ones close.

Lock down your birth control. Get your vaccines. Know where your important paperwork is.

Read On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. Read Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit.

Check for misinformation and disinformation before you share something.

Posting online is not activism. Fighting online is not activism. Share resources, yes. Otherwise, block and move on, because...

Infighting didn't save us this time, and it will never save us. We are going to have to build coalitions. I'm going to get involved in my local progressive politics. I urge everyone who can to do the same. You are going to meet people who are not exactly like you, who disagree with you, who you don't like. If they believe in democracy and equal rights and justice for everyone? Then they are your allies in this fight and you need every single one of them.

America has never lived up to her ideals, but I still believe in them: that we are all created equal. If we never get there, it will still always be a fight worth fighting.

So let's fight.

[twisting-roads]

Iterator Spec Bio (Part 1)

I'm probably going to upload each one in it's own post, but here's an introduction to what this is going to be.

See, I've been trying to explain how iterators synthesize nutrients for a while, and have FINALLY started properly developing it. All this stuff from now on is just words I've copied from my existing master document of the subject at hand.

FOREWARNING

The definition of organ that I will use for iterator is a region or room within the structure of the iterator designated to a specific purpose. The Memory Conflux is an organ. This does not define the systems that connect them, however, such as the areas between RTA, MC, and GSB within Five Pebbles. I will also use node, organ, and colony interchangeably. Many organs are hidden away in other areas or even within the walls. These are the more “dangerous” ones. Rather, the environments within these organs are so extreme that no standard living creature could survive in them, or that being closed off is integral to their functioning.

Primary Chemosynthetic Node (PCN)

The Primary Chemosynthetic Node is the most integral part of iterator metabolism, and acts as the starting point. Hence the name “Primary” PCNs are sponge-like cubes which intake boiling fluid filled with noxious chemicals, such as many sulfur compounds. They are rather small. Within the lining of this manifold are many many colonies of small worms (referred to as “Tube Worms”) filtering the chemical-filled water. These worms work with symbiotic microbes in order to produce usable organic compounds, which flow into a central cavity to be used by other organs. This mimics conditions near hydrothermal vents, though it requires a constant source of heat powered by electricity in order to function. These nodes are often lined in rows, and may be very long. An iterator will contain multiple PCNs. There may be multiple tanks for intake and for outtake.

As demonstrated in the image, there are 3 distinct organisms within the colonial structure of the node. - The insulating membranous layer, which stores excess nutrients and helps regulate conditions. - A tough epidermal layer, with individuals containing a flagellum which controls waterflow through the manifold. - Tube Worms, which anchor to the epidermal layer.

Small, shelled organisms pick off dead Tube Worms. They’re extremophiles, and will die once taken out of the PCN for an extended amount of time. This is used to an advantage, as these organisms will travel to other organisms to decompose and reuse resources when near death, or when commanded to through chemical signals distributed in the node. However, I will be exploring this more on a different post elaborating more on the organisms specialized in decomposition and the disposal of dead or dying matter.

[memories-of-ancients]

Just curious, why do you think Rome fell?

OMG do you really have to ask such a big question right before I was going to bed anon? Well, here are the primary reasons IMO as a Roman history buff.

Lots of Civil Wars --- The Romans going way back to the days of the Republic were constantly fighting over who was going to be boss. Sulla fought a civil war and took over Rome and declared himself dictator, ditto Julius Caesar, and of course Octavian did the same and became the first emperor. During the empire there were many civil wars over who would be emperor as the Imperial system often lacked rules for succession resulting in dynastic struggles and civil wars. Not that it would have mattered if they did, as they probably would have just ignored the rules. In the 3rd century the empire underwent a 50 year period of near constant civil war known as the Crises of the Third Century. Constantine became emperor after killing all his opponents in a civil war. The later half of the 4th century had more civil wars. Even in the 5th century factions were fighting each for control of an empire that was collapsing all around them. No side wins a civil war because they are bloody, destructive, there are no spoils of war. There is only self destruction, they are about as helpful to a country as would a person shooting himself in the foot. All the money and resources that went into fighting civil wars and rebuilding after the war was money and resources not being used to maintain infrastructure, maintain public works, regulate the economy, defend from outside threats, and maintain the government.

2. Political Instability --- Most emperors did not die of natural causes, most emperors were murdered, or committed suicide, or died in battle, or died in a prison cell. Roman government was chalk full of power hungry psychopaths who were willing to murder their way to the top. Sometimes emperors could come and go quickly, with reigns lasting 2-3 years or less in the 3rd century.

Roman political history was rife with intrigue, assassinations, and coups occurring all the time. It was like Game of Thrones except instead of lasting 8 seasons it lasted 500 years.

3. The Army Became a Powerful Interest Group --- If you were a Roman emperor the army was a double edged sword. They were good in that they maintained peace and order in the empire and protected it from invaders. They were bad for you in that they could revolt and murder you, replacing you with someone they liked more. Even your own guard, the Praetorian Guards, couldn't be trusted as they could easily slit your throat in your sleep and declare someone else as emperor. To make sure the army was happy, you gave them big pay bonuses called donatives. Basically official bribes paid to keep the soldiers of the army loyal and happy. With each successive emperor the annual donative became bigger and bigger and thus a greater strain on the Imperial Treasury. If an emperor didn't pay up, he could be murdered by his own soldiers. Thus a lot of public money was paid just to keep the army happy so they didn't end up starting another civil war.

4. A Fucked up Economy --- Maintaining a large standing army to defend a large empire is expensive. Fighting civil wars is expensive. Rebuilding after civil wars is expensive. Constant regime change is expensive. Political intrigue is expensive. Eventually it got to the point where there just wasn't enough money to pay for all that. So emperors just minted more money, decreasing the silver content and minting more copper coins until eventually Roman money became worthless.

Today Roman money is still worthless. Go on ebay and find the cheapest Roman coins you can buy. Except for rarer collectibles Roman coins are still very plentiful and thus very cheap to collect. Worthless money made trade and commerce difficult, and thus the economy suffered. Not to mention constant bloody and destructive civil wars were damaging the economy. Political instability also damaged the economy.

5. Growing Disparity in Wealth --- Over time with civil wars and political instability the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Eventually wealth became so concentrated in the upper class that the middle class disappeared entirely by the late 4th - 5th century. By then the average Roman was in a bad way. They had no opportunities and most Romans were forced to live as tenant farmers, essentially sharecroppers.

6. A Corrupt Tax System --- Meanwhile the wealthy became so powerful that they were able to wield that power so that they did not have to pay taxes. They could exploit loopholes, manipulate laws in their favor, or bribe their way out of paying. To try to make up the revenue, tax collectors attempted to squeeze the lower classes, which of course, didn't have any money. Thus by the late 4th - 5th century the empire was severely underfunded. This resulted in the degradation of infrastructure, public works, the army, the weakening of the government, and less investment in the economy and commerce.

7. Patronage --- By the 5th century the average Roman was out of opportunities and the middle class was gone entirely. More and more the lower class Roman was being squeezed for tax money, money which they didn't have. So in order to survive, Roman lower classes sold their services to a wealthy patron. The patron would house you and protect you and take care of your tax problems. If you were lucky and had special skills like a craftsman or artist you could make a good living under a patron. If not, you probably ended up a tenant farmer tied to the land of the patron, essentially a sharecropper, a serf, or a peasant. Due to this change in the socio economic system power was drawn away from the Imperial government and was redirected to the wealthy patrons. Thus the empire was becoming decentralized.

This would become the basis for medieval feudalism.

8. No One Wanted to Join the Army --- Why would you? You're dirt poor and have no opportunities. If you joined the army you may not even get the opportunity to defend the empire, as you're gonna get killed in a stupid civil war fighting a fellow Roman who is also dirt poor and has no opportunities. Your government is corrupt, your emperor is a snobbish entitled incompetent dipshit who was out of touch with reality, the tax man is trying to squeeze you for money you don't have, you have no rights, you've been forced to become a peasant to a proto-feudal lord, and it is clear the empire is dying. By the mid 5th century most Romans were like, "let it fucking die". As a result, the army suffered severe manpower shortages. Right at the time when Goths and Franks and Vandals and Huns are going to start swarming into the empire.

These to me are the primary reasons for the fall. Anyone have anything else to add in addition to this?

[mariacallous]

Next year will be Big Tech’s finale. Critique of Big Tech is now common sense, voiced by a motley spectrum that unites opposing political parties, mainstream pundits, and even tech titans such as the VC powerhouse Y Combinator, which is singing in harmony with giants like a16z in proclaiming fealty to “little tech” against the centralized power of incumbents.

Why the fall from grace? One reason is that the collateral consequences of the current Big Tech business model are too obvious to ignore. The list is old hat by now: centralization, surveillance, information control. It goes on, and it’s not hypothetical. Concentrating such vast power in a few hands does not lead to good things. No, it leads to things like the CrowdStrike outage of mid-2024, when corner-cutting by Microsoft led to critical infrastructure—from hospitals to banks to traffic systems—failing globally for an extended period.

Another reason Big Tech is set to falter in 2025 is that the frothy AI market, on which Big Tech bet big, is beginning to lose its fizz. Major money, like Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital, is worried. They went public recently with their concerns about the disconnect between the billions required to create and use large-scale AI, and the weak market fit and tepid returns where the rubber meets the AI business-model road.

It doesn’t help that the public and regulators are waking up to AI’s reliance on, and generation of, sensitive data at a time when the appetite for privacy has never been higher—as evidenced, for one, by Signal’s persistent user growth. AI, on the other hand, generally erodes privacy. We saw this in June when Microsoft announced Recall, a product that would, I kid you not, screenshot everything you do on your device so an AI system could give you “perfect memory” of what you were doing on your computer (Doomscrolling? Porn-watching?). The system required the capture of those sensitive images—which would not exist otherwise—in order to work.

Happily, these factors aren’t just liquefying the ground below Big Tech’s dominance. They’re also powering bold visions for alternatives that stop tinkering at the edges of the monopoly tech paradigm, and work to design and build actually democratic, independent, open, and transparent tech. Imagine!

For example, initiatives in Europe are exploring independent core tech infrastructure, with convenings of open source developers, scholars of governance, and experts on the political economy of the tech industry.

And just as the money people are joining in critique, they’re also exploring investments in new paradigms. A crop of tech investors are developing models of funding for mission alignment, focusing on tech that rejects surveillance, social control, and all the bullshit. One exciting model I’ve been discussing with some of these investors would combine traditional VC incentives (fund that one unicorn > scale > acquisition > get rich) with a commitment to resource tech’s open, nonprofit critical infrastructure with a percent of their fund. Not as investment, but as a contribution to maintaining the bedrock on which a healthy tech ecosystem can exist (and maybe get them and their limited partners a tax break).

Such support could—and I believe should—be supplemented by state capital. The amount of money needed is simply too vast if we’re going to do this properly. To give an example closer to home, developing and maintaining Signal costs around $50 million a year, which is very lean for tech. Projects such as the Sovereign Tech Fund in Germany point a path forward—they are a vehicle to distribute state funds to core open source infrastructures, but they are governed wholly independently, and create a buffer between the efforts they fund and the state.

Just as composting makes nutrients from necrosis, in 2025, Big Tech’s end will be the beginning of a new and vibrant ecosystem. The smart, actually cool, genuinely interested people will once again have their moment, getting the resources and clearance to design and (re)build a tech ecosystem that is actually innovative and built for benefit, not just profit and control. MAY IT BE EVER THUS!

[certifiedposeidonhater]

Im bored so here is an analysis of how G*be Uglyano affected the way Percy would feel, behave, think, and basically live forever.

TRIGGER WARNING!!!!!!!!! abuse, mention of sa, g*be uglyano, suicidal ideation, etc.

First up, financial abuse:

In the first book, G*be says something along the lines of “this is coming out of your clothing money” when Percy and Sally are leaving for Montauk. This is an example of financial or economic abuse, where one partner in an intimate relationship has control over the other’s finances and economic resources, causing the victim to lose their capacity to support themselves and forcing them to rely solely on the partner.

G*be also steals Percy’s money, which is also another form of financial abuse, although not intimate. This most likely affected Percy’s view of his own money, and how to share his money with others later in his relationship (i.e. whether or not to have joint checking accounts with annabeth, buying a house with annabeth, etc.) It also could affect how he views the money he has in general. He often does not feel like it’s actually HIS money, or feels like he is supposed to give his money to somebody. The way G*be took over Percy’s room with his stuff also affected the way Percy would view his own place and things. He feels almost possessive of his stuff, he feels like the things he owns aren’t really his.

Next, mental/emotional abuse:

G*be makes fun of or humiliates Percy at least 3 times in the books, but based on the knowledge we have and me having basic media literacy skills, it happened a lot more than those few instances (Percy and G*be don’t exactly interact very often in the books.

This is emotional or psychological abuse.

Emotional and psychological abuse can include purposely humiliating, trying to scare, isolating, neglecting, or debilitating a child (we see Gabe humiliate, neglect, and debilitate Percy.) Emotional abuse can also include constant criticism, rejection, dismissing a child’s feelings, calling the child names (which Gabe does), yelling or swearing very often, threats, and allowing the child to witness domestic violence and abuse.

While any child can be a victim of child abuse, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recognize that children living in poverty (which Percy was) are at greater risk.

Signs of emotional abuse in children include watchful demeanor, aggression or anger, overly passive or compliant behavior, nervousness around certain people, a tendency to avoid being around certain people, withdrawn or unresponsive demeanor, and low self esteem. All of these can apply to Percy. Children in dysfunctional environments such as Percy’s can believe that everything is normal because that is all they have ever known

Emotional abuse can also lead to cognitive abilities such as trouble focusing, learning, and remembering; academic issues; mental health conditions such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, and low self esteem; emotional difficulties such as interpreting, communicating, processing, and regulating emotions; substance use such as nicotine, drugs, and alcohol abuse starting at a young age; and behavioral issues such as acting out, behaving weirdly, and trying extremely hard to please others.

Changes in weight (such as eating disorders, nutrition deficiencies, and malnourishment), sleep issues (such as insomnia, night terrors, or nightmares), physical aches and pains (they don’t have any other discernible cause and don’t seem to get better with treatment), career issues (as a result of lower educational attainment, limited employment opportunities, and an increased risk of delinquency), and relationship issues due to mostly unhealthy dynamics being modeled.

Children with abusive role models are more likely to seek out others who are abusive because it is the dynamic they are used to seeing, or they become abusive themselves. (This is known as the intergenerational cycle of violence.)

All this being said, most of these behaviors and effects can be applied to Percy and we can see the effects of Gabe’s abuse in Percy’s actions and thoughts later in the book.

Percy and Annabeth (while they have an awesome relationship and they REALLY love each other) do not have the healthiest dynamic. Annabeth can often neglect some of Percy’s needs. I AM NOT ACCUSING ANNABETH OF BEING ABUSIVE OR CALLING HER A BAD GIRLFRIEND, HER ACTIONS ARE ALL BECAUSE OF HER OWN TRAUMA. And Percy can sometimes get a little overprotective (caused from having to protect his mom from Gabe) and put himself down (from Gabe constantly criticizing him and putting him down.)

Percy also has trouble trusting and being extremely intimate with Annabeth (as does she with him), reflecting his attachment issues. His emotions and feeling were neglected when he was a child, so he now cannot express or communicate them healthily (or at all) as an adult.

Percy also often puts himself down before others get the chance, because he automatically assumes everyone will. This happens both in a joking manner to others and in his own thoughts, and reflects his low self esteem. It also affects his sense of identity and who he is as a person, leading to him questioning whether or not he is a good person (as we see his do on multiple occasions.)

These effects can result in negative coping mechanisms, such as substance abuse or self-harming. This ties into my stress smoking and smoking in general headcanon that i have for Percy (because we all know that he would not touch a drink after Gabe.)

Then, physical abuse:

In the first book, there is a quote of Percy saying that if he told his mom about Gabe’s financial abuse, Gabe would punch his lights out. Now, anybody with any media literacy skills at all can tell that this is referring to physical abuse. (Sorry, that was a bit intense and offensive.)

Okay, so Percy was physically abused by someone who was supposed to be a trusted parental figure (even though g*be definitely wasn’t trusted.) This, just like with most children, DEEPLY affected Percy. He has trouble maintaining relationships, he doesn’t trust or respect authority figures, and he doesn’t feel good about himself or see himself as worthy.

These are just a few of the effects the physical abuse he suffered gave him (most overlap with emotional abuse.) Many physical child abuse victims become aggressive themselves and “act out.” Personally, i don’t think this applies to Percy because he didn’t exactly “act out,” the trouble usually just found him. Others will become numb and withdrawn, they don’t seem to care anymore whether they are hurt; they lose the ability to process danger. They also may stop trying to socialize or succeed at school. I feel like this one applies to Percy the most, as well as children becoming more fearful and anxious.

The unpredictability of the abuser can result in a child constantly being in flight or fight mode, which i think we all know Percy lives in. But the constant survival state that he is in didn’t start after the war or after his first quest, we saw traces of that before he even found out who his father is. This can be tied back to Gabe.

This unpredictability and lack of control can also lead the victim to look for control in other places, such as controlling their food intake (developing eating disorders where the person restricts their intake as a way to feel more control), sleep patterns, and can lead the victim to substance abuse. (I reflect most of these in my headcanon videos.)

Low self-esteem:

One of the biggest signs of Percy’s childhood abuse is his low self esteem. I talk about this all the time but Percy absolutely HATES himself. He believes that he is a terrible person and is not worthy of anything. He does not believe he is smart, good looking, or an above average warrior (all of which he is.)

This all stems from so many people telling him that he’s annoying, or not a good person. He was ignored and bullied as a kid from both his peers and G*be (that bullying didn’t stop once he came to camp.) This low self esteem is shown in his thoughts and actions.

He has significantly less regard for himself or his health than he does for anybody else. He has what i would call passive suicidal ideation. He is not actively trying to kill or hurt himself, and he doesn’t have any intention of making a plan, but many of his thoughts surround the idea of him being better off dead, or his family and friends being better off with him gone.

Growing up around dv:

While Percy experienced lots of trauma from G*be, he also experiences trauma from witnessing Sally get trauma from G*be (if that makes sense.) Children who grow up experiencing domestic violence or abuse are often impacted. A few of these short-term impacts are anxiety, PTSD, and frequent headaches and stomachaches. (That can tie into my hc of Percy getting super bad migraines.)

Long-term effects include depression and health problems such as a poor diet. Trauma can also be misdiagnosed for ADHD (not saying Percy isn’t ADHD cs he totally is, a few of his ‘symptoms’ might js actually be his trauma.)

Sexual abuse hints:

This is an extremely sensitive topic so i’m not going to dive too deep into it, but with many abusers that are mentally, physically, and financially abusive, the abusive often extends to sexual abuse, as well. The book says that “He [G*be] called it our ‘guy secret.” The idea of keeping a secret from one’s parents can usually be tied to something sexual, although in this case it was literally referring to financial abuse.

Again, this is an EXTREMELY SENSITIVE AND REAL TOPIC (not saying that the other ones i have talked about aren’t, i js have more evidence for those. this is more far fetched) AND I AM NOT OFFICIALLY HEADCANONING THIS OR ANYTHING. I am simply saying that there may be some hints.

this thing is super long so i hope this makes sense lol

Overall:

G*be sucks. Percy’s traumatized and it affects his actions, thoughts, and relationships (romantic, familial, and platonic.)

[reasonsforhope]

Hi. Do you have any good news on water conservation efforts? I'm very troubled by how much power AI data centers are using up and the alarming amount of water they use.

Sure thing!

"After years of deliberation, California water officials have adopted landmark rules that will guide future water use and conservation in the state.

According to officials, the Making Conservation a California Way of Life framework will help save 500,000 acre-feet of water annually by 2040 — enough to supply more than 1.4 million households for a year — and apply to the state’s largest water utilities, not individuals or households.

Under the new regulations, roughly 400 urban water suppliers will need to meet individualized water-use targets and conservation goals, among other directives. Some agencies will be required to cut water usage by more than 30% within the next 16 years.

The measures are intended to help preserve water supplies as climate change drives hotter, drier conditions. The five-member State Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously Wednesday to adopt the rules, which stem from two 2018 bills that called for the creation of new standards.

“As we think of the Colorado River, the Bay Delta, the stressed watersheds from which much of the urban supply comes into our cities and communities, we need to show — for other states and for ourselves — that we’re taking steps to ease that burden,” chair Joaquin Esquivel said during the board meeting. He added that such efforts are needed “especially in dry times, but through all water year types, in order to ensure that we all continue to have ample supply and thriving communities.”"

-via Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2024

[oros-ash3s]

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⋆ Febuwhump 2025 ⋆˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*＊

Day 1 || “Vocal Chords”

Eden had taken everything. 

He had always known it would come to this, had always known they’d get him. From the minute he had stepped into that worn-down van with the white paint peeling off the doors, the alleyway dank and grim, smelling faintly of algae, the child in front of him so pitiful and small, he had known for certain: There was no escape. 

It was inevitable, and he knew it.

He was made to live in the warehouse. They had molded him, through long-winded lessons and strenuous physical tests, through lectures and speeches and mantras, and whatever other propaganda they could cram into his head. All of it, every single personality trait and personal moral and principle he had gained, it was all because of them. They had created him. 

He had no semblance of a life before this, before all the rules and regulations, the careful schedules and training. He was nothing; no more than a little boy with no name, no identity, no home. Running away was nothing more than a fantasy, a silly dream to be somebody else. He was Eden’s property: he’d always belong here. All of his attempts to escape it, this destiny they had bestowed upon him, was futile. 

He was never going to make it out. They’d made sure of it. 

From trackers to surveillance cameras to the fucking shock collar that ruined it all, they always had him in their sight. Thoughts of how maybe being a better soldier could have gotten him out were useless. Nothing would have worked. Even if he was somehow more resourceful, more calculative, more capable – it still would have been for naught. Eden was too great, a company that had eyes everywhere, spies planted on every street. A life of endless running would have awaited him, danger in every corner he turned. 

The truth was, he was just one orphaned, teenage boy, who had thought that maybe he could escape the future that had been set out in stone for him. He was insignificant, compared to them. 

Eden was eternal. Eden was endless.

He knew it. 

As he paced the grungy, metal-plated cell, his body alight in pain, mind twisted and warped by the time in captivity, he knew it. 

Escape was no longer an option. 

But giving up wasn’t one either. Because despite everything Eden had, despite the hoards of soldiers, new and old, undyingly loyal to the cause, despite the cameras and careful control they had over every city in the country, despite the government working closely beside them to shut up anyone defiant – anyone like him – he had something that they did not. 

He had a will. 

Although most people didn’t know it, all those inside Eden — they were scared. They were scared of change, scared of evolving, scared of the future. Scared of what Magicae represented, what co-existing meant for the rest of them. They were stuck in their ways; rigid. 

He had been rigid. For a long time, he’d been unable to see any other way than his own, too busy stuck up his own ass to see the answers right in front of him. But change, adapting, it wasn’t something to be afraid of. No, change brought just as much good as it did bad. Everything good about his life, everything he loved, it had all come from accepting change, from accepting others. 

And so, as he paced his cell, his mind racing, the eyes of the others drilling into his shivering, shaky figure, one thing was clear. He was going to make a change. 

See, Eden had underestimated him. They thought he would fall in line like he was supposed to, thought that if they beat it into him enough then he’d listen. That he’d be a good little boy like he had been trained to.  

They thought he was like the rest of them, just another faceless soldier, a toy for them to use and then discard. They thought if they trapped him by himself, took away his autonomy, pumped him with enough drugs to keep him complacent, stole his friends, his name, his identity, that he’d forget to fight. 

Well, they were wrong. 

He would scream. He’d scream until he couldn’t anymore, until his throat was raw and coated with blood. He would scream until the echoes of his ragged voice were all those filthy guards could hear. He would scream until they ripped out his fucking vocal chords, if it came to it. He’d do anything, anything, but he was not going to sit and act proper no longer. 

He was a fucking person, and they were going to treat him like it. He wasn’t some thing that they could just throw into the darkness, forget about, when he displeased them. He wasn’t going to lose himself to their control, not as much as they tried. They could mix up his memories, brainwash him and feed him lies about what he was, who he was, but none of it was going to work. 

He wasn’t going to ever stop fighting them. 

And so the boy screamed, and screamed, and screamed. If they thought he would go down so easily, they were painfully wrong. He did not care how long it took. He didn’t care what he had to do. Didn’t care what it cost him. He was going to be heard. 

They were going to listen.

masterlist // next

✧ ೃ༄*ੈ✩

taglist || @febuwhump @ohagi505 @vesanal @aalinaaaaaa @fangedcinnamonroll @silly-scroimblo-skrunkl @seastarblue @steh-lar-uh-nuhs @iamheretohurt @corinneglass @melodxi @thebookishkiwi @lancedoncrimsonwings @sugaredparchment @cepheusgalaxy @fizzydreamz @robinshandhurts @ieppiq @nosebleedgirlpunch @sunflowerrosy @charlachan

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[ssbooks]

A world-building list. Enjoy! :)

1. Geography & Environment

What is the physical geography of the world: (continents, oceans, mountains)?

Are there any unusual natural phenomena or landmarks (e.g., floating islands, glowing forests)?

What is the climate like, and does it vary across regions?

How does the environment affect the lives and behaviors of the inhabitants?

Are there specific resources the world is known for?

What's the weather like?

2. Culture & Society

What are the main cultures or civilizations in the world?

How do people express their cultural identity (e.g., clothing, festivals, music)?

What are the major languages or dialects, and how do they influence communication?

What are the social hierarchies or class systems?

What role do gender roles, traditions, or taboos play?

3. Politics & Government

What are the dominant forms of governance (monarchies, democracies, councils)?

Who holds power, and how do they maintain it?

How are laws created and enforced?

Are there any significant political conflicts or alliances?

What role do religion or philosophy play in politics?

4. Religion & Beliefs

What are the dominant religions or belief systems?

How do they explain the creation of the world or existence?

Are there gods, spirits, or other supernatural entities worshipped?

What religious practices or rituals are common?

How do belief systems shape daily life, morality, and culture?

5. Economy & Trade

What is the primary currency or barter system?

What industries or trades dominate the economy?

How do people make a living?

What goods are exported or imported between regions?

Are there economic disparities or poverty?

6. Technology & Innovation

What level of technology does the world possess (medieval, steampunk, futuristic)?

Are there any unique inventions or discoveries?

How has technology shaped warfare, communication, or travel?

Is there a reliance on magic, science, or a mix of both?

Are there limitations or dangers associated with technology?

7. Magic & Mysticism

Does magic exist, and how is it accessed or controlled?

What are the rules or limitations of magic?

Are there magical creatures, artifacts, or phenomena?

Who can use magic, and is it regulated or feared?

How does magic influence politics, economy, or daily life?

8. History & Mythology

What are the major historical events or turning points?

Are there legendary heroes, villains, or mythical stories passed down?

How do different cultures interpret history or myth?

Are there ruins or relics of past civilizations?

What lessons or warnings do people derive from their history?

9. Inhabitants

What species or races inhabit the world?

How do different groups interact or coexist?

Are there unique traits, abilities, or traditions among species?

What challenges do they face in their environment?

How do they adapt or evolve over time?

10. Conflict & Change

What are the major sources of conflict (political, religious, resource-based)?

Are there ongoing wars or rebellions?

How do natural disasters, diseases, or other calamities shape the world?

What changes or innovations threaten the status quo?

How do ordinary people perceive these conflicts?

11. Transportation & Communication

How do people travel (roads, ships, airships, portals)?

What is the fastest or most efficient way to get around?

How is information shared across regions?

Are there any special navigational challenges (storms, voids, magical barriers)?

Do certain regions remain isolated due to transportation limitations?

12. Food & Daily Life

What is the staple diet of various regions?

How do people prepare and share food?

What is a typical day like for different social classes or species?

What sports, games, or hobbies are popular?

How is leisure time spent, if at all?

13. Art & Literature

What forms of art are celebrated (painting, music, dance, poetry)?

Are there famous artists, authors, or performers in history?

How do different cultures view or value art?

Are there shared myths, epics, or tales that unite people?

How is history or knowledge recorded (books, oral tradition, carvings)?

14. Science & Medicine

What is the state of medical knowledge or healthcare?

Are there known cures for diseases, or do plagues persist?

How do people approach science—curiosity, fear, or reverence?

Are there ethical debates surrounding scientific progress?

How do medicine and science interact with magic, if at all?

15. Relationships & Identity

How do people define family or community?

Are marriages, partnerships, or unions celebrated?

How is identity expressed (names, clothing, tattoos)?

Are there rites of passage marking maturity or status?

How do people honor their dead or remember ancestors?

[thedupshadove]

Would Batman Rogues Tamper With Halloween Candy?

Joker: Plants just enough evidence to make it look like maybe 1 out of 100 pieces of candy will have Joker toxin in them, watches Gotham whip itself into a frenzy and deny itself and its children their Halloween fun, then hijacks the news the next morning to reveal that he hadn't spiked anything at all--the reveal ends with a play on the two meanings of "sucker".

Riddler: The stubborn pervasiveness of such a blatant falsehood annoys him so much that he refuses to dignify it by making it true.

Catowman: That is simply not her M.O.

Penguin: Representative of the "Drugs cost money, why would I hand them out to people with no money who won't be able to identify or trace what they got high on?" camp. That said, he might squeeze in on a technicality, because any candy manufacturer that he owns is definitely breaking all the FDA regulations.

Poison Ivy: Maybe dosing the children of high-level corporate execs with the illnesses their waste production sets loose on third-world countries? But more likely she's shoring up her resources to combat the Yearly Evergreen Massacre.

Mr. Freeze: Would this advance research into curing Nora's illness? Would it bring in money he could use to keep the cryo-chamber running? Then why would he do it?

Mad Hatter: Yes, absolutely, no question about it. But not for any of the more sordid reasons that one might suspect. No, this is a showcase for his skill with hallucinogens, rather than outright control, as well as his misapplied sense of whimsey. The very city of Gotham itself is going as Wonderland for Halloween...whether it likes it or not.

Scarecrow: Contrives to lace every single piece of candy in the city with a highly diluted form of fear toxin, that raises your pulse and tickles the back of your neck and makes the shadows looks a little deeper, in the name of fostering the "Halloween spirit".

[brucewaynehater101]

Deep down, Tim knows that they are at fault. Deep down he knows that Jason and Damian attacking him like that *isn't ok*. But that's a truth he can't bring himself to face because even if he did, would Anyone believe him? If he told Bruce or Dick that the attacks still happened, that one of them tried to take his life at least once a month still, that neither of them would do anything. Tim doesn't know if they would defend him and punish Jason and Damian, or if they would just say, "you need to be more careful Tim, they can't always control themselves." And if the answer is anything but the first he knows his heart wouldn't be able to take it.

Instincts are there, but they are easy to over come. They very from shifter type to shifter type and usually fall into groups by Animal Type. Such as a Tiger and a Housecat will have similar instinctive problems but they won't be the same as a Wolf or Dolphin's. As a snake Tim 100% has the urge to nap in warm places and does get slower when cold. His suit has special heaters in it that the others don't have due to his inability to regulate his own heat. Damian insists that Tim being unable to function without "a bunch of hand warmers" I'd proof that he shouldn't be in the field and should be fired. Tim bites his forked tongue to stop himself from screaming that if Damian can't not give into his instincts and attack Tim anytime he sees him Shifted then he shouldn't be in the field because he's gunna attack a civilian.

Also for now Bruce has no idea how shifters work. But this is Good Dad Bruce. He's going to put in Effort. He's *going* to find the resources he needs to parent this New Tim because he doesn't think he can bring himself to send any version of any of his children to a home that could hurt or likely kill them. Until then, Bruce is going to insist on New Tim (he gets called TJ thanks to Duke. After all, they can't call him Drake, he hates Timothy, Tim would be confusing, and neither Tim likes the idea of being called "Jackson") takes one of their spare rooms and gets a full 8 hours of sleep every night/day and 3 full meals a day. TJ was Visibly Confused by this due to the fact he hasn't been staying in the manor at all for almost a year due to Damian and Jason. He only sleeps in his nest which has Beyond Batlevel Security to keep them out.

Also, I can't decide. Would a healthier version of Damian and Jason stay away like Tim wants them to or would they go "no *fuck* your bastard excuses for Brothers we will teach you what it's like to actually trust and have us have your back."

Tim not seeking an answer or help is very angsty. He chose his emotional/mental health over his physical well being. Part of it may be him knowing how to navigate the murder attempts but not knowing how bringing this up would change the status quo (in possibly worse ways).

I like what you've added about Tim's instincts. A good milestone for that batfamily is if they find Tim napping on a window seat. This would be a huge show of trust by him and an indication that he feels safe.

I think a healthier version of them would give Tim space and communicate boundaries with him, but they would also try to bond with him.

For Damian, this is a lot of parallel bonding. The kid will find wherever Tim is in the Manor and sit in the same room with him doing something different (like drawing or doing his homework). It is an effective way for Tim to get used to his presence and stop seeing him as a threat. Of course, Tim is nervous or on edge the first 10 or so times this happens. Eventually, he starts to lower his guard enough that Damian can make a comment or two. They slowly work up to full conversations and Tim seeking out Damian's presence himself.

For Jason, he'd try to read in places near Tim as well. His main strategy, though, might be favors or gifts. He'd learn what foods Tim likes, what activities Tim wants/needs to do that Bruce won't let him (like sneaking out), and generally just helping Tim out in small ways. It at first freaks Tim out, but they work up to Tim himself asking Jason for favors.