#specifically marketing and pr

[cryptid-scribs]

“kabru would be a psyc major” “Kabru would work in retail”

YOU FOOLS

Kabru would be an advertising major!!! 90% of it is learning how to gaslight people he would thrive in there.

[chronal-anomaly]

in all my feelings again about publicity n overwatch. the sheer marketing aspect of it. covers of magazines, cartoons, interviews, random civilians grilling them. they're heroes, they're not politicians or bureaucrats. leaders in their fields and dressed in the overwatch blues.

[jonathanbyersphd]

This might be unpopular or a bit of a reach, but does anyone else think it's kinda fucked up how much the Stranger Things marketing team uses Charlie & Natalia's relationship as promo before seasons drop even though the show has really sidelined their characters (especially Charlie's) /Jancy in the last 2 seasons?

[charlessainzz]

(loved loved ‘jealous jealous boy’ btw💅🏼) so can I request another lando one shot but this time like dad!lando showing his baby around the paddock (like feat Uncle Carlos and Oscar and whoever else) maybe it’s too specific so you don’t have to do it but like I can see it so perfectly😩

Twin Oranges

thanks for the love and the request! I hope this is along the lines of what you were looking for.

Lando was a new husband. He was a new dad. He was also a new dad to twins! A boy and a girl, what a perfect pair. When you told him you were pregnant he almost fainted. But when you both found out it was with twins, he actually did faint. Now fast forward almost a year later, you felt comfortable bringing the babies to the paddock after weeks of Lando asking. You decided to bring them to Silverstone. Close to home, and full of family and friends. 

Walking in you felt all eyes on you. Each one of you; mom, dad, and babies decked head to toe in McLaren gear. Baby boy Oliver Norris held by his mom, and baby girl Noelle Norris held by her dad. As you walked by each garage, drivers, mechanics and all poked their heads out to catch a glimpse at the young family. You finally made it into the safety of the McLaren hospitality ready to get the weekend started when the marketing team encircled you and Lando. You both look at each other and groan. 

McLaren’s marketing team wanted to do a video of the drivers showing the new McLaren twins around the paddock. After hearing the case from a newly graduated PR intern, you caved. You hand Oliver to Oscar teaching him how to hold the baby right. Lando laughing as he can tell you are very stressed handing off your babies. He gives you a kiss, and the camera starts rolling. 

First stop, Red Bull. Lando had no worries bringing the twins to this team. Max and Checo were dads through and through. “Max, come meet my kids!” Lando shouts into the garage. Max jogs up to the twins and gives them both a pinch on the cheek. “Here hold Oliver, my arm is falling asleep”, Oscar complains. “Oi! If my wife heard you complaining about the babies, she’d revoke your uncles status.” Lando scolds. Oscar instantly turns beat red, retaking the baby from Max. Max frowns. “Mate, maybe you need a mini Verstappen. You’re a natural father!” exclaims Checo. “In due time.. In due time”, Max smiles. The orange team says their goodbyes and heads to their next stop on the tour. 

The team visited Mercedes, Aston Martin, Haas, almost all the teams. All while collecting baby sized merch. 

Final stop, Ferrari. Lando and Oscar showed the twins their greatest competition. Up came Charles and Carlos. “Look Oliver and Noelle, this is your uncle Carlos and Charles!” Lando says as he’s holding the babies’ hands to get them to wave. “Which one am I the Godfather of?” Carlos asks half jokingly. Lando rolls his eyes as he lets the Ferrari drivers hold the kids. Charles and Carlos begin arguing over who was going to be the better uncle when stewards announce it’s almost time for FP1. “How’s y/n holding up? I’m sure she isn’t loving being away from her babies”, inquires Charles as he gives back one of the twins. “Oh yeah, she almost raged on the team when they suggested a little paddock tour” explained Oscar. Lando swats him on the side of the head. “Of course she was nervous, she hasn’t left their side in almost a year!” Lando shouts. “Come on guys, say your goodbyes to your fun uncles”. 

You anxiously awaited the return of your babies. Eyes darting around watching as they went from garage to garage with their dad and Uncle Oscar. Hearing the oohs and awws as each driver attempted to make the twins laugh. After what felt like 17 hours, they arrived. Jumping out of your seat you run to grab them from your husband. “Lando give them to me”, you grunt attempting to juggle them both. He laughs at your strong mother instincts. 

“Y/n, relax I brought them back in one piece!” he says as he helps you situate both in your arms. Each baby leaning into you, seeking your warmth. 

“They also return with tons of merch!” exclaimed Oscar. He begins showing you the baby onsies from Mercedes, Red Bull, and Ferrari. You eye them knowing Lando would never let Oliver or Noelle wear anything but McLaren. 

“Oooo is that a Leclerc onesie? Keep that one and toss the rest”, you state to Oscar. He laughs as he sees Lando make a sour face. 

“You always had a soft spot for him!” Lando shouts as you walk away into his driver’s room. “Chunk it Osc. Norris kids only wear papaya orange.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

UK publishers suing Google for $17.4b over rigged ad markets

THIS WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Look, no one wants to kick Big Tech to the curb more than I do, but, also: it's good that Google indexes the news so people can find it, and it's good that Facebook provides forums where people can talk about the news.

It's not news if you can't find it. It's not news if you can't talk about it. We don't call information you can't find or discuss "news" – we call it "secrets."

And yet, the most popular – and widely deployed – anti-Big Tech tactic promulgated by the news industry and supported by many of my fellow trustbusters is premised on making Big Tech pay to index the news and/or provide a forum to discuss news articles. These "news bargaining codes" (or, less charitably, "link taxes") have been mooted or introduced in the EU, France, Spain, Australia, and Canada. There are proposals to introduce these in the US (through the JCPA) and in California (the CJPA).

These US bills are probably dead on arrival, for reasons that can be easily understood by the Canadian experience with them. After Canada introduced Bill C-18 – its own news bargaining code – Meta did exactly what it had done in many other places where this had been tried: blocked all news from Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and other Meta properties.

This has been a disaster for the news industry and a disaster for Canadians' ability to discuss the news. Oh, it makes Meta look like assholes, too, but Meta is the poster child for "too big to care" and is palpably indifferent to the PR costs of this boycott.

Frustrated lawmakers are now trying to figure out what to do next. The most common proposal is to order Meta to carry the news. Canadians should be worried about this, because the next government will almost certainly be helmed by the far-right conspiratorialist culture warrior Pierre Poilievre, who will doubtless use this power to order Facebook to platform "news sites" to give prominence to Canada's rotten bushel of crypto-fascist (and openly fascist) "news" sites.

Americans should worry about this too. A Donald Trump 2028 presidency combined with a must-carry rule for news would see Trump's cabinet appointees deciding what is (and is not) news, and ordering large social media platforms to cram the Daily Caller (or, you know, the Daily Stormer) into our eyeballs.

But there's another, more fundamental reason that must-carry is incompatible with the American system: the First Amendment. The government simply can't issue a blanket legal order to platforms requiring them to carry certain speech. They can strongly encourage it. A court can order limited compelled speech (say, a retraction following a finding of libel). Under emergency conditions, the government might be able to compel the transmission of urgent messages. But there's just no way the First Amendment can be squared with a blanket, ongoing order issued by the government to communications platforms requiring them to reproduce, and make available, everything published by some collection of their favorite news outlets.

This might also be illegal in Canada, but it's harder to be definitive. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enshrined in 1982, and Canada's Supreme Court is still figuring out what it means. Section Two of the Charter enshrines a free expression right, but it's worded in less absolute terms than the First Amendment, and that's deliberate. During the debate over the wording of the Charter, Canadian scholars and policymakers specifically invoked problems with First Amendment absolutism and tried to chart a middle course between strong protections for free expression and problems with the First Amendment's brook-no-exceptions language.

So maybe Canada's Supreme Court would find a must-carry order to Meta to be a violation of the Charter, but it's hard to say for sure. The Charter is both young and ambiguous, so it's harder to be definitive about what it would say about this hypothetical. But when it comes to the US and the First Amendment, that's categorically untrue. The US Constitution is centuries older than the Canadian Charter, and the First Amendment is extremely definitive, and there are reams of precedent interpreting it. The JPCA and CJPA are totally incompatible with the US Constitution. Passing them isn't as silly as passing a law declaring that Pi equals three or that water isn't wet, but it's in the neighborhood.

But all that isn't to say that the news industry shouldn't be attacking Big Tech. Far from it. Big Tech compulsively steals from the news!

But what Big Tech steals from the news isn't content.

It's money.

Big Tech steals money from the news. Take social media: when a news outlet invests in building a subscriber base on a social media platform, they're giving that platform a stick to beat them with. The more subscribers you have on social media, the more you'll be willing to pay to reach those subscribers, and the more incentive there is for the platform to suppress the reach of your articles unless you pay to "boost" your content.

This is plainly fraudulent. When I sign up to follow a news outlet on a social media site, I'm telling the platform to show me the things the news outlet publishes. When the platform uses that subscription as the basis for a blackmail plot, holding my desire to read the news to ransom, they are breaking their implied promise to me to show me the things I asked to see:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web

This is stealing money from the news. It's the definition of an "unfair method of competition." Article 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act gives the FTC the power to step in and ban this practice, and they should:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Big Tech also steals money from the news via the App Tax: the 30% rake that the mobile OS duopoly (Apple/Google) requires for every in-app purchase (Apple/Google also have policies that punish app vendors who take you to the web to make payments without paying the App Tax). 30% out of every subscriber dollar sent via an app is highway robbery! By contrast, the hyperconcentrated, price-gouging payment processing cartel charges 2-5% – about a tenth of the Big Tech tax. This is Big Tech stealing money from the news:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Finally, Big Tech steals money by monopolizing the ad market. The Google-Meta ad duopoly takes 51% out of every ad-dollar spent. The historic share going to advertising "intermediaries" is 10-15%. In other words, Google/Meta cornered the market on ads and then tripled the bite they were taking out of publishers' advertising revenue. They even have an illegal, collusive arrangement to rig this market, codenamed "Jedi Blue":

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

There's two ways to unrig the ad market, and we should do both of them.

First, we should trustbust both Google and Meta and force them to sell off parts of their advertising businesses. Currently, both Google and Meta operate a "full stack" of ad services. They have an arm that represents advertisers buying space for ads. Another arm represents publishers selling space to advertisers. A third arm operates the marketplace where these sales take place. All three arms collect fees. On top of that: Google/Meta are both publishers and advertisers, competing with their own customers!

This is as if you were in court for a divorce and you discovered that the same lawyer representing your soon-to-be ex was also representing you…while serving as the judge…and trying to match with you both on Tinder. It shouldn't surprise you if at the end of that divorce, the court ruled that the family home should go to the lawyer.

So yeah, we should break up ad-tech:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

Also: we should ban surveillance advertising. Surveillance advertising gives ad-tech companies a permanent advantage over publishers. Ad-tech will always know more about readers' behavior than publishers do, because Big Tech engages in continuous, highly invasive surveillance of every internet user in the world. Surveillance ads perform a little better than "content-based ads" (ads sold based on the content of a web-page, not the behavior of the person looking at the page), but publishers will always know more about their content than ad-tech does. That means that even if content-based ads command a slightly lower price than surveillance ads, a much larger share of that payment will go to publishers:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Banning surveillance advertising isn't just good business, it's good politics. The potential coalition for banning surveillance ads is everyone who is harmed by commercial surveillance. That's a coalition that's orders of magnitude larger than the pool of people who merely care about fairness in the ad/news industries. It's everyone who's worried about their grandparents being brainwashed on Facebook, or their teens becoming anorexic because of Instagram. It includes people angry about deepfake porn, and people angry about Black Lives Matter protesters' identities being handed to the cops by Google (see also: Jan 6 insurrectionists).

It also includes everyone who discovers that they're paying higher prices because a vendor is using surveillance data to determine how much they'll pay – like when McDonald's raises the price of your "meal deal" on your payday, based on the assumption that you will spend more when your bank account is at its highest monthly level:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Attacking Big Tech for stealing money is much smarter than pretending that the problem is Big Tech stealing content. We want Big Tech to make the news easy to find and discuss. We just want them to stop pocketing 30 cents out of every subscriber dollar and 51 cents out of ever ad dollar, and ransoming subscribers' social media subscriptions to extort publishers.

And there's amazing news on this front: a consortium of UK web-publishers called Ad Tech Collective Action has just triumphed in a high-stakes proceeding, and can now go ahead with a suit against Google, seeking damages of GBP13.6b ($17.4b) for the rigged ad-tech market:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/17-bln-uk-adtech-lawsuit-against-google-can-go-ahead-tribunal-rules-2024-06-05/

The ruling, from the Competition Appeal Tribunal, paves the way for a frontal assault on the thing Big Tech actually steals from publishers: money, not content.

This is exactly what publishing should be doing. Targeting the method by which tech steals from the news is a benefit to all kinds of news organizations, including the independent, journalist-owned publishers that are doing the best news work today. These independents do not have the same interests as corporate news, which is dominated by hedge funds and private equity raiders, who have spent decades buying up and hollowing out news outlets, and blaming the resulting decline in readership and profits on Craiglist.

You can read more about Big Finance's raid on the news in Margot Susca's Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy:

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p087561

You can also watch/listen to Adam Conover's excellent interview with Susca:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21YfWy0-bA

Frankly, the looters and billionaires who bought and gutted our great papers are no more interested in the health of the news industry or democracy than Big Tech is. We should care about the news and the workers who produce the news, not the profits of the hedge-funds that own the news. An assault on Big Tech's monetary theft levels the playing field, making it easier for news workers and indies to compete directly with financialized news outlets and billionaire playthings, by letting indies keep more of every ad-dollar and more of every subscriber-dollar – and to reach their subscribers without paying ransom to social media.

Ending monetary theft – rather than licensing news search and discussion – is something that workers are far more interested in than their bosses. Any time you see workers and their bosses on the same side as a fight against Big Tech, you should look more closely. Bosses are not on their workers' side. If bosses get more money out of Big Tech, they will not share those gains with workers unless someone forces them to.

That's where antitrust comes in. Antitrust is designed to strike at power, and enforcers have broad authority to blunt the power of corporate juggernauts. Remember Article 5 of the FTC Act, the one that lets the FTC block "unfair methods of competition?" FTC Chair Lina Khan has proposed using it to regulate training AI, specifically to craft rules that address the labor and privacy issues with AI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mh8Z5pcJpg

This is an approach that can put creative workers where they belong, in a coalition with other workers, rather than with their bosses. The copyright approach to curbing AI training is beloved of the same media companies that are eagerly screwing their workers. If we manage to make copyright – a transferrable right that a worker can be forced to turn over their employer – into the system that regulates AI training, it won't stop training. It'll just trigger every entertainment company changing their boilerplate contract so that creative workers have to sign over their AI rights or be shown the door:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

Then those same entertainment and news companies will train AI models and try to fire most of their workers and slash the pay of the remainder using those models' output. Using copyright to regulate AI training makes changes to who gets to benefit from workers' misery, shifting some of our stolen wages from AI companies to entertainment companies. But it won't stop them from ruining our lives.

By contrast, focusing on actual labor rights – say, through an FTCA 5 rulemaking – has the potential to protect those rights from all parties, and puts us on the same side as call-center workers, train drivers, radiologists and anyone else whose wages are being targeted by AI companies and their customers.

Policy fights are a recurring monkey's paw nightmare in which we try to do something to fight corruption and bullying, only to be outmaneuvered by corrupt bullies. Making good policy is no guarantee of a good outcome, but it sure helps – and good policy starts with targeting the thing you want to fix. If we're worried that news is being financially starved by Big Tech, then we should go after the money, not the links.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/06/stealing-money-not-content/#content-free

[imaginesig]

A Bear and a Gorgeous Girl

Ollie Bearman x singer!reader

with a new wave of fame, how does her hard rock aesthetic hold up when Y/n's fans find her boyfriends account? More specifically how she appears on that account.

ynln

Liked by user1, louis91, olliebearman, and 833 others

Ynln: You know you're bright as the morning, as soft as the rain

tagged: no one

olliebearman i wanna support the arts 🙋🏻‍♂️

User1 I’ve been living for the on tour posts

User2 fr let’s all say thank you Louis!!

user3 that’s an odd caption—are you teasing song lyrics??

user4 Bear cameo

user7 the day we learn who bear is, is the day I die

user5 I want to know who her man is so bad

user6 Y/N LET ME IN

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olliebearman

liked by paularon_, kimi.antonelli, user2, and 732,927 others

ollliebearman: i spent my free time following my gf on her tour

tagged ynln

ynln forever grateful Bear ❤️

olliebearman 🧸❤️

kimi.antonelli simp

user1 it upsets me everytime im reminded they're both off the market

user2 ugh shes so pretty

user3 im a new fan, who is she?

user4 Y/n is a small artist who recently started touring with Louis Tomlinson (fron One Direction) and gained followers

user5 They're been together for about a year, but from what ive noticed, her newer fans havent connected that Ollie is her bf (understandable because she hasnt posted/tagged him in awhile)

user6 oh to have a supportive bf like ollie

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ynln

liked by louis91, ynln_hq, olliebearman, and 1,982 others

ynln: thank you Louis for an increable experience!! To everyone who learned my songs and cheered me on I love you ❤️❤️

tagged louis91, ynln_hq

olliebearman gorgeous girl

user4 you can say that again

louis91 you are a meance and it was an honor to be your first tour!

ynln 1D was also my first concert

louis91 so you've meantioned several hundred times

user1 best opener ever!!!

user2 im so glad ive discovered you

user3 og fans tap in!!

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ynln

liked by louis91, use54, user9, and 2,938 others

ynln: "Mom, I'm Goin' Out" dropping 7/24!! Enjoy my new single "Too Sweet" while you wait 💋💋

tagged ynln_hq

louis91 its gonna be fucking amazing

thesnuts you're smashing it

oliviarodrigo on repeat!!

user1 AHHHH BABE WAKE UP Y/N IS DROPPING A NEW ALBUM

user2 "its ten o clock before i say a word... you wake up for the sunrise" ok miss ma'am

user3 she found herself a good boy

user4 we've known Bear is the golden retriver to her black cat

user5 ok so she posted a soft launch-esc post with a lyrics from too sweet. The rest of that stanza is "You know you're bright as the morning, as soft as the rain. Pretty as a vine, as sweet as a grape. If you can sit in a barrel, maybe I'll wait until that day"

user6 so?

user5 so its pr its about depsite the song suggesing otherwise

user7 noooo she's off the market

user8 i swear she laced the lines "i take my whiskey neat, my coffee black, and my bed at three" with crack

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olliebearman posted a story!

caption: gorgeous girl is releasing an EP stream it 7/24

ynln

liked by mmataband, user54, kimi.antonelli, and 2,930 others

ynln: "Mom I'm Goin' Out" has dropped!! Thank you to my family, fellow musicians, and my muse for the endless support! Now stop reading and learn the songs, we got gigs to attend

tagged: ynln_hq, olliebearman

user1 ok hard launch

mmataband we make a killer track

louis91 so proud!

kimi.antonelli adding to the Prema playlist now

ynln if Ollie hasnt already beaten you to it

kimi.antonelli yk he has 😔

user2 Y/n: tags her bf in her EP release, me: stalks him while streaming said EP

user3 UGH MAROON IS TOO GOOD

user4 there is no reason why "The Chain" is so hot

user5 WE FINALLY FOUND HIM

user6 BEAR IS OLLIE -BEAR-MAN

user7 are we all stupid orrr

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olliebearman

liked by ynln, paularon_, user32, and 721, 291 others

olliebearman: "Mom I'm Goin' Out" to celebrate love's new EP

tagged ynln

ynln you're so cheesy

olliebearman but you love me

ynln forever and always

kimi.antonelli please tell me she didn't let you actually touch that soundboard

olliebearman 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

user1 I cannot wait to blast Y/n while waiting for race to start

user2 this is the same Y/n???

user3 who are you girl

user4 I would have never pinned her to love pastel flowers and a pink heart cake

user5 I've stalked this mans whole account and we need to have a meeting

user6 the new Y/n fans have found Ollie ive seen...

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ynln

liked by user3, olliebearman, ynln_hq, and 293,293 others

ynln: HELLO?? YOU GUYS HAVE BLOWN THIS EP UP!! I'm so so lucky to say that my childhood dream has become a reality, thank you for everyone who have supported me and helped me on my musical journey!!

tagged: ynln_hq

louis91 stoked to see you're finally getting the attention you deserve

mmataband 🤘🏻🎸❤️🖤

user1 so so deserved!!!

user2 its been on repeat since it dropped

user3 ugh I swear this album was laced bc I CANNOT STOP LISTENING

user4 I can't wait for the live shows to start

user5 same!! I need to hear these songs live

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olliebearman

liked by kimi.antolli, paularon_, user54, and 273,393 others

olliebearman: I'm so in awe of your accomplishments gorgeous girl ❤️ Congrats on 1 million streams

tagged ynln

ynln couldnt have done it without my muse ❤️ love you bear

olliebearman love you too❤️

user1 theyre so cute but everytime he posts her its a jumpscare

user3 right its so far off from her aesthetic

user2 too cute!!

user4 God its me again

user5 when is it my turn

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ynln

liked by olliebearman, user43, paularon_, and 232,938 others

ynln: Bear has officially ruined my aesthetic but its ok because he's cute

tagged: olliebearman

user1 her hard rock aesthetic might be over but this post is still so put together within itself

olliebearman 😶

kimi.antonelli no its not ok, I dont wanna see you being all lovey dovey on my instragram

ynln something tells me you'll survive

ynln_hq you're still a kick ass rockstar in our eyes 🤩

user1 now that the shock is over im in love with them

user2 the second pic is literally so boyfriend coded

user3 lets all thank Y/n for her service

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olliebearman

liked by kimi.antonelli, user4, ynln, and 838,393 others

olliebearman: you heard the girl im cute!!

tagged: ynln

ynln this post is so Pinterest, ive trained you well 🥹

olliebearman best teacher ever!!

user1 ok aesthetic

user2 that second pic is gonna own pintrest

user3 looks like im sleeping in traffic tonight

user4 the matching captions make me sick I NEED IT

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ynln

liked by ynln_hq, olliebearman, louis91, and 233,939 others

ynln: guys its time I come clean... im a giant softie who likes my coffee in the form of an ice latte

tagged: olliebearman

olliebearman the lies!!! The deception!! cancel y/n 2024

ynln shut up 🙄

olliebearman 🎸❤️

ynln 🧸❤️

user1 not them having special emoji combos 😭

user2 the coffee drawing is so cute what

user3 well this was not what I was expecting from Y/n but im into it

user4 she's just a girl, no ones above an iced latte

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[willowsnook]

Right Place, Right Time pt. 4 (LN)

pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3, pt. 4, pt. 5

@seasonswinter @drdbnkl2008 @jaematthews15

angst at the end i apologize 🥵

Y/N: so what's the dress code for tonight?

Lily: I would say cocktail attire but not super fancy, they usually pick somewhere nice?

Y/n: how many people are going to be there? i'm stressed

Lily: honestly a lot lol, it's like everyone with McLaren plus friends. but on the plus side it means we fly under the radar.

Y/n: yeah but we will be with the most important people

Lily: true

You sighed throwing your phone across your bed. You still had a couple of hours before Lando was coming to pick you up but you felt a strong urge to start getting ready now.

You headed into your bathroom to take an everything shower singing along to your karaoke playlist. You threw your hair up into a towel and started the painful process of picking something out to wear.

Y/n: what are you wearing? Lando: nothing, want to see?

y/n: 🙄 my eyes would bleed

Lando: you wound me. but i'm just wearing a button down and slacks. nothing crazy

After looking through a couple of options, you settled for a fitted green knitted dress you hadn't yet worn.

Twirling in the mirror, you liked the way it hit your curves. You spent the next hour curling your hair and applying a sort of natural glam look. The next thing you knew Lando was texting you that he was here. You grabbed your purse and touched up your hair one last time before heading down to your apartment lobby.

You reached the lobby and saw Lando standing by the front doors, hands in his pockets looking around. His attention fell on you as you walked closer and you smirked as he shamelessly checked you out. You did the same to him, appreciating the way his light blue botton down was tight on his biceps and across his chest.

"Hi," you said stopping in front of him. "Hi," he replied softly. He moved closer to you, kissing your cheek lightly while resting his hands on your waist. "You look gorgeous."

You smiled, pulling back but intertwining your fingers through his.

"Ready?" You asked and he nodded, pulling you out the door and towards his car. He opened the door for you before sliding in the drivers seat. The car ride was silent and half way through you felt Lando's hand rest gently on your thigh, his thumb caressing your skin gently. The ride was short and you soon were pulling up to the restaurant, Lando tossing the keys to the valet. He rested his hand on your lower back as he guided you out to the patio that was rented for the team.

You spotted Lily and Oscar as you came in and made your way over to them, ditching Lando to talk with some other people who had stopped him. Lily scooted over on the bench and you sunk down next to her.

"You look great," she said and you smiled.

"You do too," you replied. You flagged down the waiter to order a glass of wine and watched as Lando mingled.

"You're staring," Lily teased and you blushed.

"just observing," you hummed.

"So y/n, what is it that you do for Monster again?" Oscar asked.

"I sit on the marketing team but specifically I work with partners," you said.

"So you work with McLaren?" He asked and you shook your head.

"We all have different territories that we are in charge of," you explained. I have the west coast so all I work with anyone partnered with Monster there. It's a lot of planning partner events and campaigns."

He asked you a little more about your job and you were happy to indulge him. You loved what you did, getting to work for a cool brand had been something you had always wanted to do. Someone had overheard you talking to Oscar and introduced themselves as one of the PR managers so you soon found yourself mingling with the McLaren marketing team.

"You know, we've been trying to get someone from Monster at more races," one of the marketing managers told you.

"Yeah, it's hard because our team is based here and travel is expensive," you said. "I know the girls who have most of Europe as their territory but they don't get to travel much."

"You guys need to just have someone living overseas," she replied and you nodded.

"Probably," you agreed. "Just need the budget."

A little later you were back next to Lily, the two of you hiding in the corner done talking with people.

"Can we sneak out of here," you begged and Lily sighed.

"Oscar will kill me," she said and you gave her a look. "Okay let's go."

You briefly scanned the patio, seeing Oscar and Lando caught up in a conversation and made your way back through the front and onto the street.

"Where should we go?" Lily asked and you started pulling her along the sidewalk.

"There's actually a great rooftop bar on the hotel you guys are staying at," you said knowing the hotel was only a couple of blocks away. Lily used her key to get you in and you made your way up to the bar. It wasn't too crowded and you saw some familiar faces.

"What's up McLaren ladies?" Daniel yelled causing the people with him to turn and look at you. You greeted him and Max before ordering a drink from the bar.

"I don't think we've met yet, Lando is hiding you," a strong Spanish accent said from next to you. "I'm Carlos."

"Y/n," you introduced. You could see why Lando wouldn't introduce the two of you. This man was very easy on the eyes. "Want to make Lando mad?" His eyes lit up mischievously.

"Always," he said and you held up your phone to take a selfie. He wrapped his arm around you and you were pleased with how intimate the picture turned out and put it on your Instagram story.

You chatted with Carlos for about ten minutes before you heard Daniel loudly greeting someone else. You turned to see that Lando and Oscar had just gotten here. Oscar looked amused while Lando did not look happy. His eyes met yours and you smirked turning back to Carlos.

Within 30 seconds you felt two arms encircle your waist and were pulled back against a hard chest.

"I see you've met Carlos," Lando said tightly which made Carlos laugh out loud.

"Yeah I was just telling y/n how pretty she is and that we should run off into the sunset together," Carlos deadpanned. You felt Lando's arms tighten around you and you sighed shifting to turn to him, bringing your arms around his neck.

"You are being so dramatic," you said and he pouted.

"You left me," he whined and you shrugged.

"We were bored, plus I knew you'd find us," you told him. "Can we sit?"

You found a couch by a firepit and sat down, leaning down to take your shoes off. Lando sat next to you, resting his arm on the back of the couch behind you. You were soon joined by Lily, Oscar, and Max.

You all talked for a while and by the end of the night you had your head rested on Lando's shoulder and legs thrown over his.

"Are you tired?" He mumbled in your ear and you nodded sleepily. "Why don't you just stay with me tonight?"

"Lando..." you said and he moved your chin to look up at him.

"Just to sleep, nothing else," he said.

"No funny business," you said and he smiled triumphantly. You bid goodnight to everyone before following him out of the bar.

"Are you coming to the track tomorrow for quali?" He asked while you were waiting in the elevator and you shook your head.

"No, I have a ton of things to do and errands to run," you replied and his face fell. "I'll be there Sunday though, I promise."

He nodded and the rest of the ride was silent. He grabbed your hand to pull you off on his floor and you made your way to his room.

"Need something to wear?" He asked and you nodded. He pulled out one of his long sleeve McLaren shirts for you and you headed into the bathroom to change.

You stared at yourself in the mirror for a while wondering what the fuck you were doing. You had told yourself to not get swept up in this fake reality but here you were. When you stepped back in the room you saw Lando laying on the bed, head propped up watching tv. He patted the spot next to him and you slid into the bed, resting your head on his chest. His arm tightened around you and it was a while before you spoke.

"I shouldn't be here," you said and he looked down at you.

"Why's that?" He asked and you looked away.

"You're going to leave after Sunday," you said and he sighed.

"That's two days away," he said ending the conversation. You sighed into his chest and started to feel your eyes droop. The last thing you remember was him kissing your head and mumbling "sweet dreams baby."

-------------------------

Two days later you were still reeling from waking up next to Lando on Saturday morning. The two of you didn't really say much and he drove you back to your apartment, squeezing your thigh as a goodbye before you got out of the car.

Today you were headed back to the track for the race wearing a casual short black dress paired with a McLaren hat. You were happy to see Lily standing in the garage waiting for you.

"Hi friend," you greeted pulling her into a hug which she returned.

'Hi, ready for the race?" She asked and you nodded. You had arrived a little later so didn't get to see Lando before the race which was what you were hoping for. The two of you walked over to sit down.

"I'm so sad you're leaving tomorrow," you told Lily and she squeezed your hand.

"Me too, but we must facetime weekly and you're coming to Vegas, no excuses," she said.

The race went by quickly with Lando ending in second and you celebrated with the team while he was on podium. He had texted you to wait up so you lingered in the garage chatting with some of the marketing girlies. You said goodbye to them as you saw Lando coming out of his driver's room and jogged over throwing your arms over him.

"You did great," you whispered in his ear and his arms tightened around you.

"Well I had my good luck charm with me," he said and you laughed. "Can we get dinner before heading out tonight?"

"I didn't know I was going out tonight," you said and he gave you a look. "Yeah, I just need to change first, is that what you're wearing?" He had changed into a plain white tshirt and black jeans.

"Yeah," he said giving you a twirl. "Is it up to your standards?"

You laughed and grabbed his hand, pulling him out towards where you parked. You drove back to your apartment, letting Lando hang on the couch while you got ready. Lando had said you guys were going to a more casual bar after so you decided on one of your signature going out outfits.

"Where do you want to eat?" You asked and Lando looked up from his phone.

"I'm up for anything," he said and you laughed.

"Anything besides x, y, and z," you joked and he rolled his eyes getting off the couch and coming towards you.

"As long as you're on the menu i'm down," he said cheekily and you gagged.

"I just threw up in my mouth," you complained. "Let's go Romeo."

He laughed following you out of the apartment and back downstairs. You called an Uber and the two of you ended up at a little diner you knew of that wasn't too busy. You ordered a burger and fries, Lando opting for chicken tenders.

"So which race will you be at next?" He asked casually.

"Probably Vegas," you replied, taking a sip of your coke. He frowned.

"Not Mexico?" He asked and you shook your head.

"I have a job ya know," you said and he looked at you not saying anything. "What?"

"I just figured that we've been spending enough time together that you'd maybe want to start coming to more," he said and you looked at him with wide eyes.

"I mean yes, I love spending time with you but I have a life here," you said. "We've only known each other for a couple of months and been together a handful of times."

Lando didn't say anything, looking down and picking at his food and you sighed.

"It would be a lot different if you lived here or I lived over there, but that's not the reality of the situation," you said sadly.

The rest of the meal was quiet, the tension between the two of you high. Lando paid for your food and you headed towards the bar, texting Lily that you needed to talk asap.

It looked like F1 had taken over the bar as you got there and Lando peeled off from you immediately. You found Lily ordering a drink and you joined her.

"What's up?" She said taking in your dejected appearance.

"We talked," you sighed. "And it didn't go well." She frowned.

"What did he say?" She asked and you turned back to the bar fiddling with your drink.

"It was more the vibe I got, like he was under this assumption that I was going to follow him around the world just because we've had one good week together," you said annoyed.

"I told him not to do this," Lily sighed and rubbed your arm sympathetically. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," you reassured her. "I shouldn't have let it get this far, I just wanted to be happy."

"Let's get drunk then and pretend your dinner never happened," she suggested and you grinned.

"I'll drink to that," you said lifting your cup to hers.

You ended up a little drunk later on but not trashed, which is exactly the sweet spot you wanted to be in. Lando was also a little drunk, you could tell because he had decided to stop ignoring you.

Currently the two of you were engaged in deep conversation, him listening to you ramble on about how your favorite football team was doing.

"It's just like what is the offense doing ya know?" You went on. "No blocking, a five star qb that doesn't have his shit together, and horrible play calling."

You started to go on again but felt someone bump into you, pushing you into Lando whose arms shot out to catch you. You face was inches apart from his and your breath hitched as you watched him flick his eyes down to your lips. You start to warn him but he cuts you off, bringing his lips to yours. You kiss him back hungrily before you realized what's happening and push him off and bolt out of the bar.

"Y/n," he calls out following you outside and you can already feel tears forming in your eyes. "Y/n wait."

He grabs your arm pulling you around to face him.

"I can't fucking do this Lando," you yelled and he pursed his lips. "You know I can't do this."

Now you were pissed and you could tell he was starting to get angry.

"I just don't understand," he said. "I know you feel this between us."

"Of course I fucking do," you exclaimed. "But my life is here! I live here! My job is here! My friends are here! I'm not one of your influencer flings who can just jet off and follow you around the world while you live your dream. That's not mine."

He stalked towards you, getting closer before you reached your hand out to stop him.

"You think this is just a fling for me," he bit out. "I want you next to me for more than a couple of races." You scoffed throwing your hands up.

"You don't even know me," you yelled, tears starting to leak from your eyes and hurt flashed across his face before his expression hardened.

"You're right, I guess I don't." He said. "I can get any girl in the world to follow me around so I don't need someone like you."

You felt like your heart had been stabbed and before you could stop yourself your hand flew across his face making contact with his cheek. You felt two arms pull you back and you turned sobbing into Max's chest.

"Hey hey, it's okay, let's go," he whispered rubbing your back. They must have ventured outside seeing you guys argue because when you turned to look back you saw Lily screaming at Lando and Oscar trying to hold her back. This made you cry worse and you were hiccuping as Max lead you towards his car. He settled you into the passenger seat and you rested your head against the window trying to calm down.

"I know you won't believe it now, but he didn't mean it," Max said and you didn't reply. "He's just scared of what he's feeling and doesn't want to lose you.

"Well it might be too late for that," you whispered and Max gave you a sad smile. He walked you up to your apartment, hugging you goodbye and making you promise that you'd still come to Vegas.

You texted Lily that you loved her and were sorry you didn't get to say goodbye but were taking a break from social media and your phone for a little bit so to not worry. She replied that she loved you too and to text if you needed anything.

At least one good thing had come out of that first race.

[the-offside-rule]

Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) - I Don't Wanna Live Forever

Requested: no

Swift Series

Warnings: age gap, cursing, forbidden love, cliffhanger

*he's fine asf in this gif*

Fernando sighed contently as he walked through the paddock, the all too familiar buzz of a new season on the horizon. The new season was about to begin, and with it came new challenges, new cars, and, as he had just been informed, a new assistant. His previous assistant had moved on, and Fernando was curious about the person who would now be helping him navigate the whirlwind of his career. He walked into the new hospitality, looking around at the slick interior design of the building. He looked over to see his PR manager stood up, waving towards him. He smiled, walking over towards him. "Alright Fernando, how's it going?" She asked as he hugged her. "Yeah, pretty good. Yourself?" She smiled. "I'm doing well. I actually wanted to introduce you to someone-" She paused, turning to the young woman stood behind her. "Fernando, meet Y/n. She'll be your new assistant."

Y/n extended a hand with a confident smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Alonso. I'm excited to work with you." Fernando shook her hand, noting her firm grip and steady gaze. "Please, call me Fernando. And welcome to the team." Y/n nodded, mentally noting the informal tone. "Thank you, Fernando. I've already familiarized myself with your schedule and preferences. If there's anything specific you need or any adjustments, just let me know." Fernando was impressed. "I appreciate that. It's a demanding job, but I'm sure you'll handle it well."

As the days went by, Y/n quickly adapted to the fast-paced environment of Formula 1. She managed Fernando's schedule with precision, coordinated media engagements seamlessly, and ensured he had everything he needed before and after races. Her efficiency and calm demeanor under pressure did not go unnoticed by Fernando. One afternoon, during a break between practice sessions, Fernando found Y/n in the team lounge, engrossed in her laptop. "How are you finding everything so far?" He asked, sitting down across from her. Y/n looked up, a hint of surprise in her eyes. "It's intense, but I love it. The energy, the speed, the team, it's all very exciting." Fernando smiled. "That's good to hear. It's important to have someone who enjoys the chaos as much as the rest of us."

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

While Fernando was no stranger to the hectic life of a racing driver, he found a peculiar comfort in the presence of his assistant, Y/n. She was efficient, calm under pressure, and always seemed to know exactly what he needed. Over time, Fernando had developed feelings for Y/n, but he kept them hidden, fearing it would complicate their professional relationship. Y/n, on the other hand, had admired Fernando since the day they started working together. His dedication, passion, and charisma made it hard not to fall for him. But, like Fernando, Y/n kept these feelings concealed, believing it was best to maintain their professional demeanor.

This particular day had been nothing short of exhausting with back-to-back media obligations. Interviews, photoshoots, and press conferences filled the schedule, leaving little time to breathe. Fernando signed the final cap and packed it off to the side. He looked out the window, the sun had set, and the team was packing up. "Finally." He sighed. "Y/n!" Fernando called out. Y/n peered in the door. "Done?" He nodded. "Perfect. You can leave them there, and I'll get them to marketing first thing tomorrow." She said walking towards him. His eyes wandered down her body. He stopped himself, feeling bad. "Stay back for a bit, would you? I think we both could use a drink."

"I can't. You have media day tomorrow, and I think a good nights sleep would do you best." Fernando sat back in the chair. "Come on. Just one." Surprised but curious, Y/n agreed. "Sure, Fernando. A drink sounds good." He smirked. "That didn't take too much convincing."

Fernando stood up and headed downstairs, grabbing a bottle of red wine and twk glasses before making his way back up to the office. "I hope you like wine." He chuckled. She sighed. "Not really, but it's a drink from the Fernando Alonso, so who can complain?" He closed the blinds, trying to block out the world, away from the prying eyes of fans and journalists. Fernando poured the glass and handed it to her, before taking his own. They sipped at their drinks, and for a while, they sat in comfortable silence, savouring the moment of peace. "Do you mind if I ask you something?" Y/n nodded. "Shoot."

"How did you end up in the world of Formula 1?" Fernando asked, genuinely interested. Y/n smiled, taking a sip of the drink. "It was a bit of a twist of fate, really. I always loved motorsports, and when the opportunity came up to work with a team, I took it. And here I am. I didn't think I'd be working for you, though." His brows furrowed. "How come?" She shrugged. "I always loved watching you growing up, so it just seems a bit surreal, I guess." He groaned. "What?" She chuckled. "You're making me sound old." He replied. "You're not that old."

"I am 43 years old. That's old." She eyed up his lips subtly, her finger tracing the rim of her glass. "I don't think so, but okay." Fernando nodded, his eyes never leaving Y/n's. "You're 25. You have no say in this."

As the night went on, the conversation flowed easily. They talked about their childhoods, their passions, and their dreams. The more they shared, the more they realized how much they had in common. "Sometimes, I wonder what life would be like if I hadn't decided to race." Fernando admitted, a rare moment of vulnerability. Y/n reached out, placing a hand on his. "I think you'd still be the same incredible person, just a little less stressed." Fernando's heart raced at the touch. "Yes, but I wouldn't have met all the people I have. We wouldn't have met." Y/n's breath caught. "You'd live without me." Fernando took a deep breath, his eyes locking with Y/n's. "I don't think I could." Y/n's heart swelled. "Fernando -" Fernando leaned in, his lips hovering dangerously close to hers. Their eyes scanned each other, both wondering if they should move closer or simply walk away and pretend it hadn't happened.

Y/n's eyes fluttered shut as Fernando's lips met theirs in a tender kiss. The world around them faded, leaving just the two of them in that moment. She set her glass to the side, her hand flying up to his face, pulling him in closer. He felt euphoric. She was everything he could have asked for and more. He deepened the kiss, pushing her back until she was laying on the couch. Her hands roamed under his Aston Martin shirt, trailing up his tone back. He loved it,every touch, every sound she made below him, he loved it all. That was, until Y/n came to her senses and pulled away. "Wait, stop!"

Fernando's heart sank as she pulled away. "We can't. I can't. It could ruin your career, and it could cost me my job. I've worked too hard for this job for it to be thrown away over a stupid kiss." His brows furrowed. "A stupid kiss?? Is that what you would call this?" She stood up, straightening her skirt out. "I say it as it is. It was a mistake, and it will remain that way. It has to." Fernando shook his head, his eyes pleading. "Y/n, listen. I like you, I like you a lot. I don't care about the risks. I care about you." Y/n looked at him, unsure. Unsure if he was telling the truth or if he was drunk. "I care about you too, but we have to be realistic. This-" She pointed between them both. "This could destroy everything we've worked for." Fernando took her hands in his, his grip firm but gentle. "I'm willing to do anything for you, Y/n. You're worth everything to me." She sighed, closing the door behind her and leaving the spaniard there, drunk, alone and pondering.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Y/n lay in bed, the soft glow of the city lights seeping through the curtains and casting delicate patterns on the walls. Despite the late hour, sleep eluded her. Her mind was consumed with thoughts of the kiss she shared with Fernando earlier that evening. She could still feel the warmth of his lips, the gentle yet passionate way he had held her. She sighed and turned onto her side, pulling the blankets tighter around her. But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t shake the image of his face, the intensity in his eyes as they parted. Tossing and turning, she fought against the whirlwind of emotions swirling within her.

Finally, unable to bear the restlessness any longer, Y/n sat up, her heart racing with indecision. Should she go to him? Confront these feelings head-on? She hesitated, her fingers gripping the edge of the blanket. But the pull was too strong, the need for clarity too overwhelming. Taking a deep breath, she threw the covers aside and slipped out of bed. She threw on her cardiganHer footsteps were light, almost silent, as she reached her door. Her heart pounded with every step, the anticipation building.

Reaching for her door, she paused, her hand hovering just inches from the wood. She closed her eyes, gathering her courage, then reached for the handle and opened it, her eyes widened in surprise. There stood Fernando. He was dressed as he was earlier, as if he had been up and about, unable to sleep just like her. For a moment, neither of them spoke, the air thick with unspoken words and emotions. “Y/n…” he breathed, taking a step closer. “I-"

It didnt take long for her to wrap her arms around his necl and lock her lips with his again. She had needed this. He pulled away first, looking deep into her eyes. "I need to tell you-"

"Tell me in the morning. I need you now."

[taffywabbit]

idk if i'm way off the mark on this, but the way some people are responding to that Guillermo del Toro interview about the decline of studio animation is a bit frustrating to me. specifically the bit where he talks about "emoji animation" and how everything is over-animated and pushed too far and things are rarely allowed to not be ultra-cartoony (y'know, because animation always needs to be marketable to children who are never trusted to have attention spans, right?). like, i think he's generally correct about it! but some folks are taking the wrong message away from that.

i've seen people going off about how "soulless" and "corporate" various recent examples are, and talking about these pieces of media as though they're the result of some kind of personal failing or lack of skill/range on the part of the animators, and it's just like. do people realize that's the only animation you're usually allowed to DO in the industry, unless you get incredibly lucky and land yourself on a project/studio that's unusually cool?

when i was in college for animation it was literally drilled into us nonstop that everything had to be pushed more, that exaggeration was not a guideline or a sometimes-treat but a hard rule that always had to be applied regardless of what was going on, because the viewer couldn't be trusted to pick up on subtlety and we sure as hell couldn't be trusted to convey it. you ever wonder why there's such a specific vibe to a lot of self-directed student films, particularly ones that are focused on character acting/interaction or deep emotions and introspection (especially when there's minimal/no dialogue)? it's because for a lot of young animators, they haven't had the freedom to experiment with realism and subtlety up to that point and they're likely not going to have it again for a while (or at all, unless their career path leads to higher positions where they might have more creative direction over the things they work on. which also becomes a lot less likely if they're anything other than a cishet white dude, for what it's worth).

i would LOVE to see more nuanced, realistic, understated motion and acting in animation. i WANT more characters to be able to express what they're feeling through natural body language and facial cues and for scenes to allow me to breathe instead of spelling everything out in giant bold flashing text all the time. what del Toro wants to see changed in the animation industry sounds great, and i hope others join him in seeking to revamp what modern animation is allowed to be.

but as things currently stand, and as they've stood for a long while now, most artists doing the grunt work on the shows and movies you see are completely at the mercy of corporations and networks who have a vested interest in producing a very specific kind of marketable and cost-efficient media all the time. (and by extension that style is ALSO what's taught in most animation schools, because their job more than anything is to grind you down into a perfect little sweatshop worker who will bend over backwards to meet quotas and get your work approved and not question the higher-ups, even if you have little to no personal investment in the projects you're working on, so that the studios who employ you can maintain their good reputations or whatever)

anyways idk what my point was here, this really just sorta became a rant and my views have undoubtedly been coloured by my own personal experiences (this kinda shit is largely why i dropped out before my last year of animation school, for the record).

i guess just be kind to folks in the animation industry? they've had it fucking rough nonstop for well over a century (the majority of them are still not unionized and there's HUGE pushback against doing so in many places). i assure you they are doing their best to infuse the latest uninspired illumination flick or weird spinoff kids' show with literally any amount of soul they can. you don't have to like the stuff that gets produced by any means! be a hater! i'm certainly not gonna stop you. just remember where these creative decisions come from and why these conditions exist, and consider that when YOU watched something and thought "hmm that could've been done better", you can bet your ass someone actually working on it probably thought the same thing but couldn't do anything about it. these things WILL change as the industry itself improves, but in the meantime folks have to pay their rent, and that usually means doing what they're told and working in a way that will minimize revisions and meet quotas so they can keep their jobs. it sucks, but it is what it is.

[melandrops]

whispers softly Come here. No, come closer. A bit closer. Perfect.

I know neoliberal is just code for dumb stupidhead if you're a leftist who doesn't read theory, but I need all of you to know that Adjudicator Shrue isn't a neoliberal.

Neoliberalism specifically advocates for deregulation, for a free market with very little government interference and for privatization of various (traditionally government owned/regulated) industries. It's often associated with trickle down economics is a largely conservative ideology.

Where does Shrue give any indication that they align with these principles? Shrue is anti-war, pro government, and a highly principled person that is not driven by money.

I'd say that in season two, during the reelection campaign, Shrue presents more as a liberal identity. They're concerned with optics, with PR and with making the right move in order to get reelected. However they also stand by their principles and remain relatively honest. They want progress, but the progress they're searching for is far from radical and they're not particularly fussed about how soon it happens.

By the time we first see them in season 3, it's clear the war has radicalized Shrue a bit. They're jaded, tired and they never wanted the war to begin with but now they have to contend with it along with all the other remaining pieces on the board. They're moving more left on the scale. They stand out among the crowd as an "alternative voice" but they aren't too different, they still largely adhere to the same beliefs about sacrifice and religion.

At the point in the series that I'm making this post (post episode 39), it's safe to say that Shrue has been fully radicalized by the exposure to the full evil that encapsulates their government. It's unclear what policies Shrue will take from here on out in public, but in private we know Shrue does not hold any of the same conservative beliefs that the other politicians do. They hate the corporatism, they hate the money talk, and they hate the manipulation and the lies. This is no neoliberal.

I'm not just saying all this to sound like a nerd or like I'm smart. Shrue's political beliefs have genuine impact on the choices they'll make in the future and on the narrative. It's important to understand the media you're engaging in and the full weight behind it. You might think Shrue is an idiot, but they're not a neoliberal.

[nostalgicmiscellaneous]

Lol as someone who actually works in the industry: you guys are very, very naive if you believe a tumblr blog would tell you secrets about the behind the scenes of Bridgerton for a bubble of specific fans, and even less that someone who actually have access to executives would be around telling so many incorrect stuff that can be proven wrong with some clicks. And would tell you about the actors that way, while working for Netflix. It's hilarious because production is segmented, there are different crews as well, and it simply wouldn't have production/executive inside information if it worked close enough to the actors day by day to know them, and they wouldn't work with all of them to know them personally, repeatedly in the way it says, as the teams are the same for a long time and they all have made their opinions on actors very clear. It's so stupid that it made the mistake of telling you all it doesn't work with crew. They really don't know how a production of a show works and it's funny to see anyone believing it. Then again, only Kanthony and Benophy fans do.

Not only that, contradicting not simply Netflix's news of profitability and success of Season 3, but in fact, actual market news and data releases, Investments prospects, and investors reports, plus licensing, that anyone with any inside information would know it's done publicly and show the actual success and profit delivered by Season 3. To even try to say it lost money, Lol. The data is there, if you worked in a exec. position, even management position, you wouldn't say something so ignorant.

Critically, official certified critics, and audience numbers averaged above Season 2 and on par with Season 1, and you can also check the aggregate of that on RT, IMDB, sites that reunited and average the score. Audience is measured not only by Netflix, but Luminate and Nielsen. Data that is ALSO PUBLIC. And that showed the successful amount of views, specially recovering audience that Season 2 had lost. It was also superior to QC. Netflix also ranks #6 ( above Season 2, again) as their most viewed seasons. Another public information.

It becomes evident you're dealing with a fan of Anthony and Kate and Sophie and Benedict when it spills target hate for particular actors, with nonsense that is so painfully clear from a fandom member, a mere angry fan trying with a insane agenda.

That's the problem when someone has an agenda against some actors and some fictional characters, a TV show, specifically a season. They throw away logic and believe anyone.

There is no insider, you have actual market information and investors/ experts that are not even Netflix connected telling you the success of season 3. Anyone who works for the industry would know that. Lol

There is no inside information of actors from that person. All cast and crew, and connected workers, and adjacents from media, PR and more, have their words and testaments to the cast and crew openly at their socials, dismantling their obsessive nonsense, contradicting them. I contradict them, lol, as i've actually met some of them and know their work ethics and behavior.

And most importantly, the so-called ''insider'' is not even from or in the UK…yes, i know exactly what i am talking about. But for now, i wont publish. For now.

Just be aware of bullshit and propaganda with fanwar nonsense. You're dealing with someone who is simply a discontent Kanthony & Benophy fan, and a Simone fan and hater of other actors in the show ( VERY OBVIOUS THE TARGETED HATE), connected ( lol very much connected) to a blog who has adopted the name of "Anti" since the start, who hates Polin. Some people just want to create a narrative, and while they say that Benedict is the most popular and wanted character for the GA, try to justify an eventual less number say it would be S3 fault, when S3 actually revamped the numbers from S2 and had incredible profitability ( again, public data).

But be aware that we know with 100% certainty, people like that do not work for Netflix. They don't even have a clue what a netflix contract is and how it works.

Also, a warning: People should have their faces and real names on when they say things, responsibility is a must, don't you all agree? Sometimes people think they are protected under the anonymity of a tumblr url to lie their hearts out and become desperate later when they have to own personally, with their actual faces and real names, and social reputation, the stupidity of their words.

And in a more fundamental sense, grow up. Tomorrow, someone else can simply create a blog telling the opposite about your favorites, their work, their seasons, it's a game nobody wins when fans act that desperate and stupid, lying and manipulating.

Or worse: perhaps someone with actual information can start posting, and you wouldn't like what they have to say…reflect on that.

[inchidentally]

insane and stupid but what’s new !!

something about how Carlos said today how this sport has taught him to be selfish and focus on his own interests and the quote about his dad saying you need to be the dog that bites or else you’ll get bitten

and Daniel’s PR skill and knowing his own marketability and maneuvering in his F1 career because plenty of times he is being moved by other forces

and how they both came into Lando’s life with a big brash alpha arm around him and taking Lando’s natural desire to let someone else lead and for him to be the satellite so that the dynamic was so all consuming each time - and when they left or had to leave, it was equally a wrench and destabilization for Lando’s world because they could march off and regroup but he was left each time not knowing what the next season would bring

and then he gets Oscar who treats Lando like The Star That He Is and defers to him and accommodates him in everything and is so calm and rational and selflessly happy and supportive even when team orders or Lando’s right of seniority in the team spell bad news for Oscar’s race

but he never treats Lando as if he were a Carlos or Daniel type of role bc he’s observed how Lando likes being taken care of and Oscar didn’t need to watch the chicken shop date to know that already

and it’s had Lando in a state of managing his relationship with Oscar because on the one hand he keeps emphasizing how Oscar is taller and bigger and calmer and more confident than him but not at all in a Carlos or Daniel way because Oscar doesn’t view Lando as someone who needs Oscar specifically but as someone who deserves the way Oscar treats him

and how confusing is that when normally Lando has these guys who do the give and take dynamic of them being in charge and Lando wriggling and whining and laughing beside them (which he loves) to Oscar quietly and steadily insisting on taking care and closely observing Lando’s needs and taking all responsibility out of his hands except the ones Lando does want

because Oscar believes that Lando can be The Star and endless confidence in him and suddenly Lando is saying how Oscar has pushed him like no one else has and Lando is now dissatisfied with anything other than a win and chasing the WDC for the first time in his career and Oscar is still there saying how he didn’t intend to do the shoey but he knew it would raise Lando’s spirits and when Andrea says a race had been Lando’s to win and didn’t is when Oscar clenches his jaw and stands up straighter and allllmost openly contradicts his own team principal

like to go fully stupid here you’ve got Lando with Carlos and Daniel where love is so easy and thankfully Lando doesn’t mind being the one to run after them for it because once he’s with them they take over and Lando just has to react and be cute and sweet and nothing else

to the way Oscar loves with such constant and intense proof of respect and attention and easy capitulation (even at the expense of his own comfort) to Lando’s wants and needs but !!! Oscar’s firm and persistent standing aside or standing back and watchful eye keeping Lando metaphorically and physically in the spotlight on his own the way that Carlos and Daniel and all the older guys take the spotlight so comfortably

that Lando has blossomed into a WDC because Oscar wouldn’t let Lando lean on him - instead he stands at that infuriating little distance of respect and turns his head in Lando’s direction and does that active listening thing and smiles because Lando’s got this and he doesn’t need anyone else

Lando needs Oscar to help him with words and remembering things and letting Lando blare his music and to not eat salmon near him anymore and to never get annoyed no matter how annoying Lando gets and to not mind or take it seriously when Lando gets distracted mid interview or bored easily because Lando does in fact need a lot of support as a human being

and Oscar not only becoming an extension of team LN4 in McLaren but even dressing like one of them whenever he doesn’t have to be in his race suit to the point where casual fans mention it in comments sections

but Oscar won’t demand a specific dynamic with Lando and he won’t get ‘jealous’ or react when Lando wants to talk to or about Carlos or Daniel and he won’t share his down time with Lando with fans bc Oscar has such firm lines drawn between his private time and his public time

and landoscar and the Lando/Oscar dynamic being so wholly natural and McLaren deciding to flop at consistent or quality online content after 5 years of it being stellar which means that pretty much all of Lando and Oscar’s relationship was built off camera and lower pressure

and that it’s all so hugely popular with fans despite there being no bromance, no fake flirting or “gay”, no memeable moments and them barely even physically touching its just accidental nicknames becoming a ritual and Oscar helping Lando’s dyslexia being A Thing and their smiles when they watch each other being sweet and warm and Lando acting as bratty as he wants and Oscar being helpless with laughter

and as of Silverstone last year they’ve had multiple incidents that would have produced tension between teammates and Oscar is the closest teammate rival he says he’s ever had and yet every post race video they’re smiling warmly and Netflix has to beg them for fighting talk which they still won’t do

like to me the whole immense pull of landoscar comes down to Oscar being so calmly and firmly the strength and the support while easily managing his own career and skill - and in most ways more of a specific support to Lando than either Carlos or Daniel - but !! that Oscar is also content and firm in not becoming a star himself (he just wants to drive and try to win and then be a normal again) while gently nudging and creating space for Lando to fully become one - and !! that it’s everything Lando’s ever wanted and he adores Oscar for what he does (and what he consciously does not!) and yet feeling like he’s so close to Oscar in some ways and (even goes private with their alone time himself) but without the safety net of Oscar steaming in and pulling Lando into his orbit and taking control the way Carlos and Daniel did

because god

there’s something in all this about Lando associating giving of himself to others to be guaranteed of their time and affection for him - literally knowing that to have his friends around he has to pay because his schedule is insane and it’s not as easy for them, chasing Carlos like a puppy, taking on all of Daniel’s americanized interests, the fact that all of team LN4 including Jon and his manager are all relying on him for a salary - and!!!!!!that is NOT the case ofc so many of them genuinely do love him!!!! but Lando’s strange life means that it’s difficult to prove and it has to be that way!!

vs the amount of insecurity and maybe even sometimes hurt confusion ?? of Lando suddenly having someone who not only gains nothing at all from observing and learning and loving and supporting him the way Oscar does, but that Oscar then actually throws away easy opportunities handed to him to benefit in some way from his association with Lando! Oscar almost makes a point of Lando serving him no function or purpose other than Lando being Lando! he doesn’t demand or wheedle or even gently push to get more time with Lando outside of work he just waits to see when Lando is available! and when Lando was recovering from his crash in Vegas and Oscar went from a podium hope to all of it going away, Oscar wanted to be with a quiet and achey and medicated Lando to “commiserate” quietly

there’s something about Lando meaning so much to Oscar but the Lando/Oscar and landoscar of it all meaning absolutely nothing to him. what he is to Lando is on his mind so much more than anyone expects including Lando and yet Oscar not positioning himself at all PR consciously in any of it and most of it happening wordlessly and invisibly

and Lando getting the most support from a teammate ever and his career being the best it’s ever been and him openly attributing part of that to Oscar

but Lando also feeling the least certainty of why Oscar is Like That With Him and the least grasp of exactly what their dynamic is and none of it feeling simple and obvious the way it did with Carlos and Daniel

and the one thing Oscar doesn’t give Lando - and clearly has no idea he needs to give it or he would! - is a simply easy reason or dynamic of why Oscar loves him. Carlos loves him because little brother/fellow mischief conspirator. Daniel loves him because Lando is so easy to entertain and is so much fun. a lot of the other people in his life love him for similar reasons and also a professional dependency. Lando is so easy to love! but Lando has such deep seated insecurities about that! and such a fear of failure and inadequacy that he’ll fake himself out sometimes!

but Oscar thinks it’s easily enough to love Lando because he’s Lando! wouldn’t occur to him to try and think why! doesn’t feel at all weird how much other people love Lando and command his time and attention! Oscar would never assume he gets first dibs or priority and that’s fine!

but Lando is !!!! bc Oscar is always there for him but he also stands so far away sometimes and won’t tell him or the world why he loves him or play a bit of a PR game to define their friendship !!!!!!! the boy is so sweet but so !!!!!

[goblinhoursinsomniaramblings]

I Know Those Eyes Pt 2

why yes i am continuing this

“You’re certain.”

Batman’s words were clipped. Less a question than a threat of consequences. Tim nodded, no hesitation.

“I’d have to have access to a blood or skin sample for 100% confidence, but… yeah. As of 1:23 A.M. this morning, we have confirmed visuals of Lex Luthor and Damian Wayne, alive and mobile, in downtown Gotham City.”

He brought up images of the hotel.

“Hotel Spillane, originally used by the Falcone family, mainly used by the successors of their original business interests. Several legal and executive representatives of one of these interests arrived over the course of the night and previous evening, with Luthor and… Damian being the last to arrive.”

Keep it together, Tim.

“Oracle looked into Luthor’s new identity. It’s so obvious I am actually mad. He’s backstopped a whole life story as Lex Luthor’s estranged twin brother, Lionel V. Luthor, going by the nickname Vlad. Sole inheritor of all Lex Luthor’s assets.”

He brought up the images on file for ‘Lionel’ as well as his own analysis of the footage.

“The confusing part is what he did after inheriting–he has been spending a lot of money on sustainability research, alternative fuels, updated emergency service systems, things like that. As far as I can tell he wants to make premium versions of those things and sell them for a profit, but is playing the long game by flooding the board with cheap goods while gaining good PR.”

He called up the files on VladCo.

“The rest he used to get a tech startup running, VladCo. Apparently he’s interested in ‘standardizing the nonstandard’, whatever that means, but he hasn’t really made anything for the mass market yet. The closest we can find is he’s been making something classified for the U.S. government.”

He took a shaky breath and called up what he had on Damian. He felt Bruce’s pained, shocked exhale more than he heard it, but it was there all the same. So… there really wasn’t any doubt.

“Daniel Summers. On paper he’s 24, was raised in Chicago, and while he’s acting as Luthor’s bodyguard we couldn’t find any official records of him being employed in that capacity. Probably because Oracle was only checking every thirty seconds and his birth certificate didn’t show up on any records until just before they arrived at the hotel.”

He started counting off on his fingers.

“So, 1: whoever is adding them to the system isn’t done yet. 2: they don’t actually care if they get caught. 3: they, very specifically, don’t care if we catch them.”

“You’re saying he’s taunting us.”

“It’s looking–hang on, Oracle says there’s a situation developing.”

One quick shortcut and video of a meeting room popped up on the screen. ‘Lionel’ was smugly facing down his very angry looking investors and their representatives. Suddenly, each of them seemed to calm down. Unnaturally fast, and in unison, with a very particular dull look to their eyes. Tim felt a chill down his spine.

Mind control. Lex Luthor was a meta now, and he had mind control! No wonder Damian hadn’t reached out–

But why? What did he still need Damian for? Unless…

Oh.

He met Batman’s eyes. The taunting, the lack of discretion, finding his first victims in Gotham City.

This was a hostage situation.

***

“You know, badger, you’re perfectly free to walk away from this part of the plan.”

“No, I promised. … still really creepy to watch, though.”

All the papers were signed, all the signatories overshadowed. Now all they had to do was get out of range.

Danny frowned as he saw the receptionist reach for the phone. Right, spy games. Someone was probably supposed to give her a code word when the meeting was over–

Her eyes went glassy, hand freezing around the phone, and seriously that would never stop being creepy to watch. Still, non-violent solution, he’d take it.

As they approached their car, Danny scanned the quiet, ominously lit street. Not for obvious cameras–he knew for a fact Oracle would never allow one to be obvious–but for the best possible angle a camera could have. Eliminating the ones that would have already been used, that left–

He had thought about this moment. How he would give some signal to let them know he was back. That he had been thinking of them.

… Tt. Another time. Too many layers to communicate through, too little space to do so. His gaze had lingered with a purpose, he could only hope that would communicate that Damian was still a part of him too.

For now, that would have to be enough.

***

-major reveal of this chapter: ‘Lex’ has mind control powers

-lol damian/danny is the ghost king, vlad holding him hostage? ha no

-yeah they did not plan the hostage thing but vlad is gonna jump on it with both feet later. like he’s not gonna take credit for it, amirite

-some chapters will be longer. some will be shorter. the main thing is still vibes

-yes, the last little bit is going to make things so much worse with the bats

-why Summers? anything winter-related would be too on the nose, and using a name associated with a very different comic book universe felt appropriate

-i've been a touch stressed so this got put on the backburner. yes, because current events

@hinari @blankliferain @grimdarling69

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

That Eden specifically called them “William’s friend” makes me think it’s a Windsor who has friends in common with William, which is probably more likely Frederick or Gabriella, than the Yorkies. But as far as I know, the Kent branch doesn’t leak…except it was the Kent branch of Windsors that Eden referenced by name when he was talking about the crowded balconies. I think it’s from that side of the family.

I agree. A royal watcher on Twitter was oddly furious about the balcony this year and complaining that the extended family were being “disrespected”, particularly the Kents. (They weren’t this worked up the previous two years.) They’ve previously claimed to be friends with some of the Kents and tend to lose their temper very quickly whenever someone brings up Lady Amelia liking that IG post about turning BP into a gift shop. Various weak excuses such as it wasn’t her account (there’s screenshots, it WAS her handle) or suggesting she didn’t read the post first.

I think the source is a more distant relative who has absolutely no chance of becoming a working royal, and thus no chance of getting back on the balcony if it stays this way. Even if W doesn’t currently intend to have any of his first cousins, I think they do realise that there is always a small chance for them as he doesn’t have any other siblings like Charles. This is likely someone whose PR plays heavily on their adjacency to the BRF (e.g. Amelia - “the most beautiful royal”).

I agree - it’s someone whose career is heavily connected to the BRF, like Amelia and/or her siblings. And really, they’re the only ones it could be, from my perspective.

Since this topic seems to be generating some excitement from anons (going by my asks, the top 3 options are Frederick Windsor, Princess Eugenie, and Amelia Windsor). Let's dig deeper into it!

The Mountbatten-Windsors branch:

Peter and Zara couldn't give two shits if they're on a balcony or not, and their kids are too young to know what kind of "marketability" they have career-wise or attention-wise for being connected to the royal family. Not only that, their kids are very close to William's kids. They're in a pretty safe position as far as access and privilege goes. It's definitely not them.

Harry and Meghan. Well, there's a lot we could say here, but we're not going to look that deeply at them. All I'll say about them is this: Eden is not one of their usual sources when they leak, so I'm skeptical it's them but Harry does (or did) have a lot of friends in common with William so that's the most plausible "William's friend" excuse to me. But the guys who are legit still friends with William know better than to leak, so it wouldn't be those friends (like a van Straubenzee, Grosvenor, van Cutsem, or Pelly). It would be someone with a tenuous connection to William - maybe a friend of a friend who knows Harry better.

Beatrice is also close with William and she has her own career going for her. Edo also has his own career and he seems to be pretty financially set that Beatrice, and their children, probably have a super comfortable life and don't need the BRF as much. It's not her.

Eugenie is still a big question mark. She seems loyal to the crown for now and while she does have a chip on her shoulder, she does know which side of her bread is buttered. She is also probably fully aware that leaking about William guarantees a ticket of no return to Excludedville and after getting the invite to the Cousins Garden Party after being on the outs for a couple years, I don't think she's going to risk being "in," so I don't think it's her.

Louise and James have been raised with the expectation that they won't be working royals, not even part-time the way Beatrice and Eugenie were back in the day, so it's definitely not them or their friend circle (who are much too young to have friends in common with William).

Anne and Tim don't talk to the press, and neither do Edward and Sophie, like this. Andrew and Sarah do talk to the press and have leaked about the main branch before, but I don't think this is them. They wouldn't be quoted as 'William's friend' but - BUT - Eden had an exclusive from Sarah a couple days ago (about whether she and Andrew would remarry) and this nugget could've come up then, from Sarah.

The Duke of Kent branch:

The Duke and Duchess of Kent have never leaked or spoken to reporters, so I'm fairly certain it's not them. Besides, they're probably too old-school to think about going against the heir, and they probably raised their children (the Earl of St. Andrews, Lady Helen Taylor, and Nicholas Windsor) to be more ordinary than royally-privileged.

The bios for the Earl of St. Andrews and his wife (the Kents' eldest child/first son) on Wikipedia read like they enjoy the professional privilege that comes from being connected to the BRF but don't seem to be flaunting it. It's not them. And I doubt that they have friends in common with William. Edward and Andrew, sure. Not William.

Their children - Lord Downpatrick, Lady Marina, and Lady Amelia - are precisely the people who grew up with social media and thus understand how the power, access, and privilege of the BRF can further their work. Lord Downpatrick has a pretty successful outdoorsy/adventure-based travel company; he doesn't need the BRF. There isn't a whole lot known about Marina, but we do know that Amelia had/has a modeling contract and works in fashion. Marina seems unlikely to leak (since there isn't much about her), but Amelia is definitely a contender as Eden's source because much of her career is based on aesthetics and lifestyle - which she needs the BRF for.

Lady Helen Taylor, her husband, and their children. There's absolutely no easily-findable information about their four children. Even though they're the same ages as the Earl's children, and they'd be fully aware of the BRF's power with social media, the fact that they don't have Wikipedias and aren't very easily googlable hint that they're probably not the source.

Nicholas Windsor, hs wife, and their three sons. Not them. The sons aren't in the line of succession (owing to their Catholic baptisms). They have no use for the BRF because they wouldn't have had any privileges anyway.

The Prince Michael of Kent branch:

Prince and Princess Michael have complained about royal privilege before, but they also know - and respect - their places. They also wouldn't call themselves "William's friend" and I'm very skeptical that they have friends in common with William.

Frederick and Gabriella probably grew up without any expectation of royal connections and both seem to be in steady careers. They seem pretty tight with many of the Mountbatten-Windsor cousins - Eugenie is godmother to Frederick's eldest (which is odd to me but whatever), Frederick and Peter probably played together, Frederick's kids are the same ages as George and Charlotte, Lady Gabriella rode in the ascot carriage with Anne and Peter, and Lady Gabriella has been deputized by William before. It's definitely not Lady Gabriella, and I feel pretty confident saying it's not Frederick, even though he and his wife have spoken about being members of the extended royal family before (all positive, mostly about the time when Sophie was seriously injured in an accident, and Charles sent his personal chef to prepare meals for them).

Frederick's kids are too young to know any difference about what it means being related to the royal family. I do think Frederick enjoys the privilege of being related to the royal family and what it means for his career, but I don't think he cares from a publicity standpoint. Sure, he might like to go out on the balcony, but the guy's a finance executive. He doesn't need the balcony to help with his career.

The Gloucester branch:

It's not them. We don't even know a whole lot about them. The Duke and Duchess have three kids (Earl of Ulster, Lady Davina, and Lady Rose) and there's not much known about them. They enjoy the social aspects of being in the extended family but they wouldn't have had any expectation of using the BRF for career or professional connections.

The Margaret branch:

David Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon and his kids: I feel pretty confident saying it isn't the Earl since he doesn't really speak much to the press (that I'm aware of). His kids are the ages where they would be fully aware of what the BRF magic can do for them but I'm not sure. They seem to have a healthy relationship with the Elizabeth/Charles branch and I don't think they'd do anything to risk that. However, that said, Lady Margarita (David's daughter) does do some modeling work and she has her own art brands. I still don't think it's her because she was in William's wedding and if there's anyone who can profit off the royal connection, it's going to be her because all she needs to do is flash those photographs. She wouldn't complain about the balcony.

Sarah Chatto and her sons. It's definitely not Sarah. She has a safe and stable connection to the BRF and she strikes me as someone who doesn't want the attention. Her sons are of the same age who'd have grown up and know what social media could do for them, but they're not really in careers where they need publicity or the lifestyle for success; Samuel is an artist and Arthur is in the military.

So all that said, the top candidates for being Eden's source (for me) are Sarah Ferguson, Harry, Amelia Windsor, and Margarita Armstrong-Jones.

Since:

Sarah doesn't need any help getting attention for her career (or lack of it)

Harry doesn't use Eden, and

Margarita has the royal wedding pictures,

that leaves Amelia Windsor, aka the Kent branch. Who is in a publicity-hungry career, who likes social media content that criticizes the royal family, and who probably has the sour grapes of not having had any access or claim to fame with the BRF other than sharing the last name.

Also, another nail in the "it's not Margaret's side" theory for me is the Christmas walk. David and Sarah, and their kids, are often at the Christmas Walk and everyone is often being named by the press. I don't recall the Kent Windsors being on the Christmas walks recently and receiving similar treatment - so that's probably more sour grapes for whoever's the leak.

Oh, I forgot. I'm too lazy to scroll back up.

The PB branch:

Well, we know Camilla talks and talks and talks. But would she characterize herself as "William's friend"? I think that's a bit of a stretch for her.

Tom PB or Laura Lopes: Possibly. They probably do have friends in common with William, but they've never had access to or privilege from the BRF before, not even after Charles and Camilla made it official. So why would they care? I could see them caring from their kids' perspectives, but they've been around the BRF long enough to know that the affiliation to the BRF gets their foot in the door but any more than that only invites scrutiny in and they probably don't want that for their kids, and I think their kids are too young to understand the significance.

So for me, all roads lead back to Kents: it's either Amelia or Frederick, but I lean more to it being Amelia than I do Frederick.

Yes, I'm procrastinating some work stuff this afternoon. Gee, how could y'all tell?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Conspiratorialism and the epistemological crisis

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me next weekend (Mar 30/31) in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON, then in Boston with Randall "XKCD" Munroe! (Apr 11), then Providence (Apr 12), and beyond!

Last year, Ed Pierson was supposed to fly from Seattle to New Jersey on Alaska Airlines. He boarded his flight, but then he had an urgent discussion with the flight attendant, explaining that as a former senior Boeing engineer, he'd specifically requested that flight because the aircraft wasn't a 737 Max:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/boeing-737-max-passenger-boycott/index.html

But for operational reasons, Alaska had switched out the equipment on the flight and there he was on a 737 Max, about to travel cross-continent, and he didn't feel safe doing so. He demanded to be let off the flight. His bags were offloaded and he walked back up the jetbridge after telling the spooked flight attendant, "I can’t go into detail right now, but I wasn’t planning on flying the Max, and I want to get off the plane."

Boeing, of course, is a flying disaster that was years in the making. Its planes have been falling out of the sky since 2019. Floods of whistleblowers have come forward to say its aircraft are unsafe. Pierson's not the only Boeing employee to state – both on and off the record – that he wouldn't fly on a specific model of Boeing aircraft, or, in some cases any recent Boeing aircraft:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/22/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever/#will-eventually-stop

And yet, for years, Boeing's regulators have allowed the company to keep turning out planes that keep turning out lemons. This is a pretty frightening situation, to say the least. I'm not an aerospace engineer, I'm not an aircraft safety inspector, but every time I book a flight, I have to make a decision about whether to trust Boeing's assurances that I can safely board one of its planes without dying.

In an ideal world, I wouldn't even have to think about this. I'd be able to trust that publicly accountable regulators were on the job, making sure that airplanes were airworthy. "Caveat emptor" is no way to run a civilian aviation system.

But even though I don't have the specialized expertise needed to assess the airworthiness of Boeing planes, I do have the much more general expertise needed to assess the trustworthiness of Boeing's regulator. The FAA has spent years deferring to Boeing, allowing it to self-certify that its aircraft were safe. Even when these assurances led to the death of hundreds of people, the FAA continued to allow Boeing to mark its own homework:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc

What's more, the FAA boss who presided over those hundreds of deaths was an ex-Boeing lobbyist, whom Trump subsequently appointed to run Boeing's oversight. He's not the only ex-insider who ended up a regulator, and there's plenty of ex-regulators now on Boeing's payroll:

https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/boeing-debacle-shows-need-to-investigate-trump-era-corruption/

You don't have to be an aviation expert to understand that companies have conflicts of interest when it comes to certifying their own products. "Market forces" aren't going to keep Boeing from shipping defective products, because the company's top brass are more worried about cashing out with this quarter's massive stock buybacks than they are about their successors' ability to manage the PR storm or Congressional hearings after their greed kills hundreds and hundreds of people.

You also don't have to be an aviation expert to understand that these conflicts persist even when a Boeing insider leaves the company to work for its regulators, or vice-versa. A regulator who anticipates a giant signing bonus from Boeing after their term in office, or a an ex-Boeing exec who holds millions in Boeing stock has an irreconcilable conflict of interest that will make it very hard – perhaps impossible – for them to hold the company to account when it trades safety for profit.

It's not just Boeing customers who feel justifiably anxious about trusting a system with such obvious conflicts of interest: Boeing's own executives, lobbyists and lawyers also refuse to participate in similarly flawed systems of oversight and conflict resolution. If Boeing was sued by its shareholders and the judge was also a pissed off Boeing shareholder, they would demand a recusal. If Boeing was looking for outside counsel to represent it in a liability suit brought by the family of one of its murder victims, they wouldn't hire the firm that was suing them – not even if that firm promised to be fair. If a Boeing executive's spouse sued for divorce, that exec wouldn't use the same lawyer as their soon-to-be-ex.

Sure, it takes specialized knowledge and training to be a lawyer, a judge, or an aircraft safety inspector. But anyone can look at the system those experts work in and spot its glaring defects. In other words, while acquiring expertise is hard, it's much easier to spot weaknesses in the process by which that expertise affects the world around us.

And therein lies the problem: aviation isn't the only technically complex, potentially lethal, and utterly, obviously untrustworthy system we all have to navigate. How about the building safety codes that governed the structure you're in right now? Plenty of people have blithely assumed that structural engineers carefully designed those standards, and that these standards were diligently upheld, only to discover in tragic, ghastly ways that this was wrong:

https://www.bbc.com/news/64568826

There are dozens – hundreds! – of life-or-death, highly technical questions you have to resolve every day just to survive. Should you trust the antilock braking firmware in your car? How about the food hygiene rules in the factories that produced the food in your shopping cart? Or the kitchen that made the pizza that was just delivered? Is your kid's school teaching them well, or will they grow up to be ignoramuses and thus economic roadkill?

Hell, even if I never get into another Boeing aircraft, I live in the approach path for Burbank airport, where Southwest lands 50+ Boeing flights every day. How can I be sure that the next Boeing 737 Max that falls out of the sky won't land on my roof?

This is the epistemological crisis we're living through today. Epistemology is the process by which we know things. The whole point of a transparent, democratically accountable process for expert technical deliberation is to resolve the epistemological challenge of making good choices about all of these life-or-death questions. Even the smartest person among us can't learn to evaluate all those questions, but we can all look at the process by which these questions are answered and draw conclusions about its soundness.

Is the process public? Are the people in charge of it forthright? Do they have conflicts of interest, and, if so, do they sit out any decision that gives even the appearance of impropriety? If new evidence comes to light – like, say, a horrific disaster – is there a way to re-open the process and change the rules?

The actual technical details might be a black box for us, opaque and indecipherable. But the box itself can be easily observed: is it made of sturdy material? Does it have sharp corners and clean lines? Or is it flimsy, irregular and torn? We don't have to know anything about the box's contents to conclude that we don't trust the box.

For example: we may not be experts in chemical engineering or water safety, but we can tell when a regulator is on the ball on these issues. Back in 2019, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection sought comment on its water safety regs. Dow Chemical – the largest corporation in the state's largest industry – filed comments arguing that WV should have lower standards for chemical contamination in its drinking water.

Now, I'm perfectly prepared to believe that there are safe levels of chemical runoff in the water supply. There's a lot of water in the water supply, after all, and "the dose makes the poison." What's more, I use the products whose manufacture results in that chemical waste. I want them to be made safely, but I do want them to be made – for one thing, the next time I have surgery, I want the anesthesiologist to start an IV with fresh, sterile plastic tubing.

And I'm not a chemist, let alone a water chemist. Neither am I a toxicologist. There are aspects of this debate I am totally unqualified to assess. Nevertheless, I think the WV process was a bad one, and here's why:

https://www.wvma.com/press/wvma-news/4244-wvma-statement-on-human-health-criteria-development

That's Dow's comment to the regulator (as proffered by its mouthpiece, the WV Manufacturers' Association, which it dominates). In that comment, Dow argues that West Virginians safely can absorb more poison than other Americans, because the people of West Virginia are fatter than other Americans, and so they have more tissue and thus a better ratio of poison to person than the typical American. But they don't stop there! They also say that West Virginians don't drink as much water as their out-of-state cousins, preferring to drink beer instead, so even if their water is more toxic, they'll be drinking less of it:

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/03/14/the-real-elitists-looking-down-on-trump-voters/

Even without any expertise in toxicology or water chemistry, I can tell that these are bullshit answers. The fact that the WV regulator accepted these comments tells me that they're not a good regulator. I was in WV last year to give a talk, and I didn't drink the tap water.

It's totally reasonable for non-experts to reject the conclusions of experts when the process by which those experts resolve their disagreements is obviously corrupt and irredeemably flawed. But some refusals carry higher costs – both for the refuseniks and the people around them – than my switching to bottled water when I was in Charleston.

Take vaccine denial (or "hesitancy"). Many people greeted the advent of an extremely rapid, high-tech covid vaccine with dread and mistrust. They argued that the pharma industry was dominated by corrupt, greedy corporations that routinely put their profits ahead of the public's safety, and that regulators, in Big Pharma's pocket, let them get away with mass murder.

The thing is, all that is true. Look, I've had five covid vaccinations, but not because I trust the pharma industry. I've had direct experience of how pharma sacrifices safety on greed's altar, and narrowly avoided harm myself. I have had chronic pain problems my whole life, and they've gotten worse every year. When my daughter was on the way, I decided this was going to get in the way of my ability to parent – I wanted to be able to carry her for long stretches! – and so I started aggressively pursuing the pain treatments I'd given up on many years before.

My journey led me to many specialists – physios, dieticians, rehab specialists, neurologists, surgeons – and I tried many, many therapies. Luckily, my wife had private insurance – we were in the UK then – and I could go to just about any doctor that seemed promising. That's how I found myself in the offices of a Harley Street quack, a prominent pain specialist, who had great news for me: it turned out that opioids were way safer than had previously been thought, and I could just take opioids every day and night for the rest of my life without any serious risk of addiction. It would be fine.

This sounded wrong to me. I'd lost several friends to overdoses, and watched others spiral into miserable lives as they struggled with addiction. So I "did my own research." Despite not having a background in chemistry, biology, neurology or pharmacology, I struggled through papers and read commentary and came to the conclusion that opioids weren't safe at all. Rather, corrupt billionaire pharma owners like the Sackler family had colluded with their regulators to risk the lives of millions by pushing falsified research that was finding publication in some of the most respected, peer-reviewed journals in the world.

I became an opioid denier, in other words.

I decided, based on my own research, that the experts were wrong, and that they were wrong for corrupt reasons, and that I couldn't trust their advice.

When anti-vaxxers decried the covid vaccines, they said things that were – in form at least – indistinguishable from the things I'd been saying 15 years earlier, when I decided to ignore my doctor's advice and throw away my medication on the grounds that it would probably harm me.

For me, faith in vaccines didn't come from a broad, newfound trust in the pharmaceutical system: rather, I judged that there was so much scrutiny on these new medications that it would overwhelm even pharma's ability to corruptly continue to sell a medication that they secretly knew to be harmful, as they'd done so many times before:

https://www.npr.org/2007/11/10/5470430/timeline-the-rise-and-fall-of-vioxx

But many of my peers had a different take on anti-vaxxers: for these friends and colleagues, anti-vaxxers were being foolish. Surprisingly, these people I'd long felt myself in broad agreement with began to defend the pharmaceutical system and its regulators. Once they saw that anti-vaxx was a wedge issue championed by right-wing culture war shitheads, they became not just pro-vaccine, but pro-pharma.

There's a name for this phenomenon: "schismogenesis." That's when you decide how you feel about an issue based on who supports it. Think of self-described "progressives" who became cheerleaders for the America's cruel, ruthless and lawless "intelligence community" when it seemed that US spooks were bent on Trump's ouster:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

The fact that the FBI didn't like Trump didn't make them allies of progressive causes. This was and is the same entity that (among other things) tried to blackmail Martin Luther King, Jr into killing himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter

But schismogenesis isn't merely a reactionary way of flip-flopping on issues based on reflexive enmity. It's actually a reasonable epistemological tactic: in a world where there are more issues you need to be clear on than you can possibly inform yourself about, you need some shortcuts. One shortcut – a shortcut that's failing – is to say, "Well, I'll provisionally believe whatever the expert system tells me is true." Another shortcut is, "I will provisionally disbelieve in whatever the people I know to act in bad faith are saying is true." That is, "schismogenesis."

Schismogenesis isn't a great tactic. It would be far better if we had a set of institutions we could all largely trust – if the black boxes where expert debate took place were sturdy, rectilinear and sharp-cornered.

But they're not. They're just not. Our regulatory process sucks. Corporate concentration makes it trivial for cartels to capture their regulators and steer them to conclusions that benefit corporate shareholders even if that means visiting enormous harm – even mass death – on the public:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

No one hates Big Tech more than I do, but many of my co-belligerents in the war on Big Tech believe that the rise of conspiratorialism can be laid at tech platforms' feet. They say that Big Tech boasts of how good they are at algorithmically manipulating our beliefs, and attribute Qanons, flat earthers, and other outlandish conspiratorial cults to the misuse off those algorithms.

"We built a Big Data mind-control ray" is one of those extraordinary claims that requires extraordinary evidence. But the evidence for Big Tech's persuasion machines is very poor: mostly, it consists of tech platforms' own boasts to potential investors and customers for their advertising products. "We can change peoples' minds" has long been the boast of advertising companies, and it's clear that they can change the minds of customers for advertising.

Think of department store mogul John Wanamaker, who famously said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Today – thanks to commercial surveillance – we know that the true proportion of wasted advertising spending is more like 99.9%. Advertising agencies may be really good at convincing John Wanamaker and his successors, through prolonged, personal, intense selling – but that doesn't mean they're able to sell so efficiently to the rest of us with mass banner ads or spambots:

http://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

In other words, the fact that Facebook claims it is really good at persuasion doesn't mean that it's true. Just like the AI companies who claim their chatbots can do your job: they are much better at convincing your boss (who is insatiably horny for firing workers) than they are at actually producing an algorithm that can replace you. What's more, their profitability relies far more on convincing a rich, credulous business executive that their product works than it does on actually delivering a working product.

Now, I do think that Facebook and other tech giants play an important role in the rise of conspiratorial beliefs. However, that role isn't using algorithms to persuade people to mistrust our institutions. Rather Big Tech – like other corporate cartels – has so corrupted our regulatory system that they make trusting our institutions irrational.

Think of federal privacy law. The last time the US got a new federal consumer privacy law was in 1988, when Congress passed the Video Privacy Protection Act, a law that prohibits video store clerks from leaking your VHS rental history:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/07/why-vppa-protects-youtube-and-viacom-employees

It's been a minute. There are very obvious privacy concerns haunting Americans, related to those tech giants, and yet the closest Congress can come to doing something about it is to attempt the forced sale of the sole Chinese tech giant with a US footprint to a US company, to ensure that its rampant privacy violations are conducted by our fellow Americans, and to force Chinese spies to buy their surveillance data on millions of Americans in the lawless, reckless swamp of US data-brokerages:

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/14/1238435508/tiktok-ban-bill-congress-china

For millions of Americans – especially younger Americans – the failure to pass (or even introduce!) a federal privacy law proves that our institutions can't be trusted. They're right:

https://www.tiktok.com/@pearlmania500/video/7345961470548512043

Occam's Razor cautions us to seek the simplest explanation for the phenomena we see in the world around us. There's a much simpler explanation for why people believe conspiracy theories they encounter online than the idea that the one time Facebook is telling the truth is when they're boasting about how well their products work – especially given the undeniable fact that everyone else who ever claimed to have perfected mind-control was a fantasist or a liar, from Rasputin to MK-ULTRA to pick-up artists.

Maybe people believe in conspiracy theories because they have hundreds of life-or-death decisions to make every day, and the institutions that are supposed to make that possible keep proving that they can't be trusted. Nevertheless, those decisions have to be made, and so something needs to fill the epistemological void left by the manifest unsoundness of the black box where the decisions get made.

For many people – millions – the thing that fills the black box is conspiracy fantasies. It's true that tech makes finding these conspiracy fantasies easier than ever, and it's true that tech makes forming communities of conspiratorial belief easier, too. But the vulnerability to conspiratorialism that algorithms identify and target people based on isn't a function of Big Data. It's a function of corruption – of life in a world in which real conspiracies (to steal your wages, or let rich people escape the consequences of their crimes, or sacrifice your safety to protect large firms' profits) are everywhere.

Progressives – which is to say, the coalition of liberals and leftists, in which liberals are the senior partners and spokespeople who control the Overton Window – used to identify and decry these conspiracies. But as right wing "populists" declared their opposition to these conspiracies – when Trump damned free trade and the mainstream media as tools of the ruling class – progressives leaned into schismogenesis and declared their vocal support for these old enemies of progress.

This is the crux of Naomi Klein's brilliant 2023 book Doppelganger: that as the progressive coalition started supporting these unworthy and broken institutions, the right spun up "mirror world" versions of their critique, distorted versions that focus on scapegoating vulnerable groups rather than fighting unworthy institutions:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

This is a long tradition in politics: hundreds of years ago, some leftists branded antisemitism "the socialism of fools." Rather than condemning the system's embrace of the finance sector and its wealthy beneficiaries, anti-semites blame a disfavored group of people – people who are just as likely as anyone to suffer under the system:

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

It's an ugly, shallow, cartoon version of socialism's measured and comprehensive analysis of how the class system actually works and why it's so harmful to everyone except a tiny elite. Literally cartoonish: the shadow-world version of socialism co-opts and simplifies the iconography of class struggle. And schismogenesis – "if the right likes this, I don't" – sends "progressive" scolds after anyone who dares to criticize finance as the crux of our world's problems as popularizing "antisemetic dog-whistles."

This is the problem with "horseshoe theory" – the idea that the far right and the far left bend all the way around to meet each other:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/26/horsehoe-crab/#substantive-disagreement

When the right criticizes pharma companies, they tell us to "do our own research" (e.g. ignore the systemic problems of people being forced to work under dangerous conditions during a pandemic while individually assessing conflicting claims about vaccine safety, ideally landing on buying "supplements" from a grifter). When the left criticizes pharma, it's to argue for universal access to medicine and vigorous public oversight of pharma companies. These aren't the same thing:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/25/the-other-shoe-drops/#quid-pro-quo

Long before opportunistic right wing politicians realized they could get mileage out of pointing at the terrifying epistemological crisis of trying to make good choices in an age of institutions that can't be trusted, the left was sounding the alarm. Conspiratorialism – the fracturing of our shared reality – is a serious problem, weakening our ability to respond effectively to endless disasters of the polycrisis.

But by blaming the problem of conspiratorialism on the credulity of believers (rather than the deserved disrepute of the institutions they have lost faith in) we adopt the logic of the right: "conspiratorialism is a problem of individuals believing wrong things," rather than "a system that makes wrong explanations credible – and a schismogenic insistence that these institutions are sound and trustworthy."

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/black-boxes/#when-you-know-you-know

Image: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/nrcgov/15993154185/

meanwell-packaging.co.uk https://www.flickr.com/photos/195311218@N08/52159853896

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

[notafragilething]

Not-So-Late Night Buck & Tommy Ramblings: I'm Back!

I have survived my chaos week and, with the help of a very large Iced Latte, I'm here to share all the thoughts that have been building up this week in the world of Buck & Tommy. I'm not going in any specific order but I'm going to start with the thing I find most significant and that is what is happening in regards to interviews with Ryan this past week.

Another clip of Ryan talking about Buddie dropped today and I've seen two extremely opposite reactions to it amongst fans. In this clip he basically said he wasn't a writer, he'd be open to it if it happened but said it was important for the storyline to be seen as a heterosexual man supporting his bisexual friend and how things didn't change. Some people think this means Buddie is definitely happening in season 8 (or even a reveal of some feelings this season) while others think this means that Buddie is getting less and less likely. Those favoring it and saying it means Buddie will happen seem to be focusing on the fact that they were still allowed to ask Buddie-related questions. I bring this up because I do think it plays into the discussion of whether Tommy will be a more long term love interest moving into season 8.

What I find most important about this answer is how it is almost exactly the same as all his other responses to Buddie-related questions from that week. He hit the exact same key points and I think it's very obvious at this point this isn't an organic answer. These are points that PR and marketing very likely told him to hit. And the fact that he is answering all Buddie related questions by explicitly saying Eddie is heterosexual is really standing out to me. That is, in my opinion, very intentional.

So what do I think it means? I think it means that they are definitely not planning on buddie happening (this season or next). They are intentionally linking all questions about buddie to very explicit statements that the one member of that pairing isn't queer. One big issue earlier this season, when Buck came out, was websites taking answers from other interviews and writing clickbait articles suggesting Buddie was going to happen. This makes it harder for those types of articles to pop up. It's why we likely haven't seen as many like we did with Oliver's statements (which were very similar minus explicitly saying Eddie was heterosexual). I personally think this is how they'll handle it for the remainder of the season and they'll progressively continue to distance themselves from Buddie moving into next season. Personally, I think there is a lot happening to suggest Tommy is sticking around and they're being intentional with how parts of the fandom are reacting to that. Especially since it's been a very positive reaction so far for this new couple of BuckTommy.

In other news, which is somewhat related, we know we're getting Tommy next week because he is was in the trailer. We also know that we're getting Captain Gerard at the medal ceremony. I've seen a lot of people predicting this will somehow impact Buck and Tommy but personally, I think this is going to play into bringing Tommy more into the 118 family. I think we're more likely to see an interaction between Tommy, Hen and Chimeny over him being there.

In my last post I also had people asking me about Oliver deleting a bunch of photos from Instagram. I did a bit of research and that seems like it's the norm for him.

Be back tonight for an update on the Buck/Tommy Hospital kiss reel because it hit 1 million views.