#stop the fcc

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How to shatter the class solidarity of the ruling class

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me WEDNESDAY (Apr 11) at UCLA, then Chicago (Apr 17), Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Audre Lorde counsels us that "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," while MLK said "the law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me." Somewhere between replacing the system and using the system lies a pragmatic – if easily derailed – course.

Lorde is telling us that a rotten system can't be redeemed by using its own chosen reform mechanisms. King's telling us that unless we live, we can't fight – so anything within the system that makes it easier for your comrades to fight on can hasten the end of the system.

Take the problems of journalism. One old model of journalism funding involved wealthy newspaper families profiting handsomely by selling local appliance store owners the right to reach the townspeople who wanted to read sports-scores. These families expressed their patrician love of their town by peeling off some of those profits to pay reporters to sit through municipal council meetings or even travel overseas and get shot at.

In retrospect, this wasn't ever going to be a stable arrangement. It relied on both the inconstant generosity of newspaper barons and the absence of a superior way to show washing-machine ads to people who might want to buy washing machines. Neither of these were good long-term bets. Not only were newspaper barons easily distracted from their sense of patrician duty (especially when their own power was called into question), but there were lots of better ways to connect buyers and sellers lurking in potentia.

All of this was grossly exacerbated by tech monopolies. Tech barons aren't smarter or more evil than newspaper barons, but they have better tools, and so now they take 51 cents out of every ad dollar and 30 cents out of ever subscriber dollar and they refuse to deliver the news to users who explicitly requested it, unless the news company pays them a bribe to "boost" their posts:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

The news is important, and people sign up to make, digest, and discuss the news for many non-economic reasons, which means that the news continues to struggle along, despite all the economic impediments and the vulture capitalists and tech monopolists who fight one another for which one will get to take the biggest bite out of the press. We've got outstanding nonprofit news outlets like Propublica, journalist-owned outlets like 404 Media, and crowdfunded reporters like Molly White (and winner-take-all outlets like the New York Times).

But as Hamilton Nolan points out, "that pot of money…is only large enough to produce a small fraction of the journalism that was being produced in past generations":

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/what-will-replace-advertising-revenue

For Nolan, "public funding of journalism is the only way to fix this…If we accept that journalism is not just a business or a form of entertainment but a public good, then funding it with public money makes perfect sense":

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/public-funding-of-journalism-is-the

Having grown up in Canada – under the CBC – and then lived for a quarter of my life in the UK – under the BBC – I am very enthusiastic about Nolan's solution. There are obvious problems with publicly funded journalism, like the politicization of news coverage:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jan/24/panel-approving-richard-sharp-as-bbc-chair-included-tory-party-donor

And the transformation of the funding into a cheap political football:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-defund-cbc-change-law-1.6810434

But the worst version of those problems is still better than the best version of the private-equity-funded model of news production.

But Nolan notes the emergence of a new form of hedge fund news, one that is awfully promising, and also terribly fraught: Hunterbrook Media, an investigative news outlet owned by short-sellers who pay journalists to research and publish damning reports on companies they hold a short position on:

https://hntrbrk.com/

For those of you who are blissfully distant from the machinations of the financial markets, "short selling" is a wager that a company's stock price will go down. A gambler who takes a short position on a company's stock can make a lot of money if the company stumbles or fails altogether (but if the company does well, the short can suffer literally unlimited losses).

Shorts have historically paid analysts to dig into companies and uncover the sins hidden on their balance-sheets, but as Matt Levine points out, journalists work for a fraction of the price of analysts and are at least as good at uncovering dirt as MBAs are:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-02/a-hedge-fund-that-s-also-a-newspaper

What's more, shorts who discover dirt on a company still need to convince journalists to publicize their findings and trigger the sell-off that makes their short position pay off. Shorts who own a muckraking journalistic operation can skip this step: they are the journalists.

There's a way in which this is sheer genius. Well-funded shorts who don't care about the news per se can still be motivated into funding freely available, high-quality investigative journalism about corporate malfeasance (notoriously, one of the least attractive forms of journalism for advertisers). They can pay journalists top dollar – even bid against each other for the most talented journalists – and supply them with all the tools they need to ply their trade. A short won't ever try the kind of bullshit the owners of Vice pulled, paying themselves millions while their journalists lose access to Lexisnexis or the PACER database:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/24/anti-posse/#when-you-absolutely-positively-dont-give-a-solitary-single-fuck

The shorts whose journalists are best equipped stand to make the most money. What's not to like?

Well, the issue here is whether the ruling class's sense of solidarity is stronger than its greed. The wealthy have historically oscillated between real solidarity (think of the ultrawealthy lobbying to support bipartisan votes for tax cuts and bailouts) and "war of all against all" (as when wealthy colonizers dragged their countries into WWI after the supply of countries to steal ran out).

After all, the reason companies engage in the scams that shorts reveal is that they are profitable. "Behind every great fortune is a great crime," and that's just great. You don't win the game when you get into heaven, you win it when you get into the Forbes Rich List.

Take monopolies: investors like the upside of backing an upstart company that gobbles up some staid industry's margins – Amazon vs publishing, say, or Uber vs taxis. But while there's a lot of upside in that move, there's also a lot of risk: most companies that set out to "disrupt" an industry sink, taking their investors' capital down with them.

Contrast that with monopolies: backing a company that merges with its rivals and buys every small company that might someday grow large is a sure thing. Shriven of "wasteful competition," a company can lower quality, raise prices, capture its regulators, screw its workers and suppliers and laugh all the way to Davos. A big enough company can ignore the complaints of those workers, customers and regulators. They're not just too big to fail. They're not just too big to jail. They're too big to care:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

Would-be monopolists are stuck in a high-stakes Prisoner's Dilemma. If they cooperate, they can screw over everyone else and get unimaginably rich. But if one party defects, they can raid the monopolist's margins, short its stock, and snitch to its regulators.

It's true that there's a clear incentive for hedge-fund managers to fund investigative journalism into other hedge-fund managers' portfolio companies. But it would be even more profitable for both of those hedgies to join forces and collude to screw the rest of us over. So long as they mistrust each other, we might see some benefit from that adversarial relationship. But the point of the 0.1% is that there aren't very many of them. The Aspen Institute can rent a hall that will hold an appreciable fraction of that crowd. They buy their private jets and bespoke suits and powdered rhino horn from the same exclusive sellers. Their kids go to the same elite schools. They know each other, and they have every opportunity to get drunk together at a charity ball or a society wedding and cook up a plan to join forces.

This is the problem at the core of "mechanism design" grounded in "rational self-interest." If you try to create a system where people do the right thing because they're selfish assholes, you normalize being a selfish asshole. Eventually, the selfish assholes form a cozy little League of Selfish Assholes and turn on the rest of us.

Appeals to morality don't work on unethical people, but appeals to immorality crowds out ethics. Take the ancient split between "free software" (software that is designed to maximize the freedom of the people who use it) and "open source software" (identical to free software, but promoted as a better way to make robust code through transparency and peer review).

Over the years, open source – an appeal to your own selfish need for better code – triumphed over free software, and its appeal to the ethics of a world of "software freedom." But it turns out that while the difference between "open" and "free" was once mere semantics, it's fully possible to decouple the two. Today, we have lots of "open source": you can see the code that Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook uses, and even contribute your labor to it for free. But you can't actually decide how the software you write works, because it all takes a loop through Google, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook's servers, and only those trillion-dollar tech monopolists have the software freedom to determine how those servers work:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/04/which-side-are-you-on/#tivoization-and-beyond

That's ruling class solidarity. The Big Tech firms have hidden a myriad of sins beneath their bafflegab and balance-sheets. These (as yet) undiscovered scams constitute a "bezzle," which JK Galbraith defined as "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it."

The purpose of Hunterbrook is to discover and destroy bezzles, hastening the moment of realization that the wealth we all feel in a world of seemingly orderly technology is really an illusion. Hunterbrook certainly has its pick of bezzles to choose from, because we are living in a Golden Age of the Bezzle.

Which is why I titled my new novel The Bezzle. It's a tale of high-tech finance scams, starring my two-fisted forensic accountant Marty Hench, and in this volume, Hench is called upon to unwind a predatory prison-tech scam that victimizes the most vulnerable people in America – our army of prisoners – and their families:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

The scheme I fictionalize in The Bezzle is very real. Prison-tech monopolists like Securus and Viapath bribe prison officials to abolish calls, in-person visits, mail and parcels, then they supply prisoners with "free" tablets where they pay hugely inflated rates to receive mail, speak to their families, and access ebooks, distance education and other electronic media:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

But a group of activists have cornered these high-tech predators, run them to ground and driven them to the brink of extinction, and they've done it using "the master's tools" – with appeals to regulators and the finance sector itself.

Writing for The Appeal, Dana Floberg and Morgan Duckett describe the campaign they waged with Worth Rises to bankrupt the prison-tech sector:

https://theappeal.org/securus-bankruptcy-prison-telecom-industry/

Here's the headline figure: Securus is $1.8 billion in debt, and it has eight months to find a financier or it will go bust. What's more, all the creditors it might reasonably approach have rejected its overtures, and its bonds have been downrated to junk status. It's a dead duck.

Even better is how this happened. Securus's debt problems started with its acquisition, a leveraged buyout by Platinum Equity, who borrowed heavily against the firm and then looted it with bogus "management fees" that meant that the debt continued to grow, despite Securus's $700m in annual revenue from America's prisoners. Platinum was just the last in a long line of PE companies that loaded up Securus with debt and merged it with its competitors, who were also mortgaged to make profits for other private equity funds.

For years, Securus and Platinum were able to service their debt and roll it over when it came due. But after Worth Rises got NYC to pass a law making jail calls free, creditors started to back away from Securus. It's one thing for Securus to charge $18 for a local call from a prison when it's splitting the money with the city jail system. But when that $18 needs to be paid by the city, they're going to demand much lower prices. To make things worse for Securus, prison reformers got similar laws passed in San Francisco and in Connecticut.

Securus tried to outrun its problems by gobbling up one of its major rivals, Icsolutions, but Worth Rises and its coalition convinced regulators at the FCC to block the merger. Securus abandoned the deal:

https://worthrises.org/blogpost/securusmerger

Then, Worth Rises targeted Platinum Equity, going after the pension funds and other investors whose capital Platinum used to keep Securus going. The massive negative press campaign led to eight-figure disinvestments:

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-05/la-fi-tom-gores-securus-prison-phone-mass-incarceration

Now, Securus's debt became "distressed," trading at $0.47 on the dollar. A brief, covid-fueled reprieve gave Securus a temporary lifeline, as prisoners' families were barred from in-person visits and had to pay Securus's rates to talk to their incarcerated loved ones. But after lockdown, Securus's troubles picked up right where they left off.

They targeted Platinum's founder, Tom Gores, who papered over his bloody fortune by styling himself as a philanthropist and sports-team owner. After a campaign by Worth Rises and Color of Change, Gores was kicked off the Los Angeles County Museum of Art board. When Gores tried to flip Securus to a SPAC – the same scam Trump pulled with Truth Social – the negative publicity about Securus's unsound morals and financials killed the deal:

https://twitter.com/WorthRises/status/1578034977828384769

Meanwhile, more states and cities are making prisoners' communications free, further worsening Securus's finances:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

Congress passed the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, giving the FCC the power to regulate the price of federal prisoners' communications. Securus's debt prices tumbled further:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s1541

Securus's debts were coming due: it owes $1.3b in 2024, and hundreds of millions more in 2025. Platinum has promised a $400m cash infusion, but that didn't sway S&P Global, a bond-rating agency that re-rated Securus's bonds as "CCC" (compare with "AAA"). Moody's concurred. Now, Securus is stuck selling junk-bonds:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s1541

The company's creditors have given Securus an eight-month runway to find a new lender before they force it into bankruptcy. The company's debt is trading at $0.08 on the dollar.

Securus's major competitor is Viapath (prison tech is a duopoly). Viapath is also debt-burdened and desperate, thanks to a parallel campaign by Worth Rises, and has tried all of Securus's tricks, and failed:

https://pestakeholder.org/news/american-securities-fails-to-sell-prison-telecom-company-viapath/

Viapath's debts are due next year, and if Securus tanks, no one in their right mind will give Viapath a dime. They're the walking dead.

Worth Rise's brilliant guerrilla warfare against prison-tech and its private equity backers are a master class in using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. The finance sector isn't a friend of justice or working people, but sometimes it can be used tactically against financialization itself. To paraphrase MLK, "finance can't make a corporation love you, but it can stop a corporation from destroying you."

Yes, the ruling class finds solidarity at the most unexpected moments, and yes, it's easy for appeals to greed to institutionalize greediness. But whether it's funding unbezzling journalism through short selling, or freeing prisons by brandishing their cooked balance-sheets in the faces of bond-rating agencies, there's a lot of good we can do on the way to dismantling the system.

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/2024/04/08/money-talks/#bullshit-walks

Image: KMJ (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boerse_01_KMJ.jpg

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

[tehjmastuh]

October 4th National Emergency Alert Test Facts. DON'T PANIC!

All wireless providers carriers and TV providers will be conducting a test Nationwide. But I want to let you guys know what to expect when this test happens. The Test will commence at 2:20PM EST. Your phone will Amit a two chime square lead tone. These tones will be a ~ 932.328 Hz and a ~ 830.609 Hz For all you music majors out there. That is a Ab and a Bb the black keys on a keyboard. The tone will sound in a certain pattern. The pattern will produce one long blast, following 3 short blasts, and the pattern will repeat three times. It will sound like this.

__________________ ______ _____ _____

__________________ ______ _____ _____

__________________ ______ _____ _____. TV's and radios will be slightly different then it will be on a cellular device. The message you will receive should say "THIS IS A TEST of the national wireless emergency alert systems! No action is needed." ATTENTION CONSPIRACY THEROISTS! This is only a test!! If you don't want to participate in this test. These are some things you can do. Power off your phone or put your phone in airplane mode. From what I've hear for iPhones the silence switch on the side of your phone will not silence the message. and It will still be audible. If you try to ping your phone using your apple watch and your silent function is on, it will still ping. AGAIN! This test will be for all Cellphones within range of a phone tower that is Powered "On" and not in Airplane Mode. All radios and Television Providers. Period. Just like if you were to receive and AMBER alert or Any Alerts about any severe weather or general public safety alerts. Not your Personal Computer or Laptop! This test will only last approximately 30 minutes. But you will receive the message only ONCE. For TV's and radios, the message will be broadcasted for about one minute. If you power up your cellphone after the 30 minute test. You should still NOT receive the alert!! Nothing else crazy should happen that day, we won't loose power or internet, the government is not trying take over our lives. And if you think that.. ALL INFORMATION ABOUT THIS TEST WILL BE ON FEMA'S WEBSITE!! It's against the FCC to have unauthorized signals to be transmitted from one receiver to another. All electronics and radio frequency devices must be in compliance with FCC regulations. THIS IS ONLY A TEST just like the presidential alert test that happened around the same time in the beginning of October back in 2018. For anyone else that thinks differently, I encourage you to turn off your tv's cell phones, radios, and any other communicative electronic device. Because I will be powering off my cellular devices that day as well. My thoughts. I do believe that if we don't want to be interrupted by these tests or if there were to be a real situation. We should have the right and freedom to ignore it at our own risk. This is my only take on the Government.

[nando161mando]

[staryinghao]

the inter-yuehua drama is actually insane

[castielsupernatural]

for the record its been like a year since i swore off earnest politics posting on here and im not about to start again now. only when its funny

[existennialmemes]

Really disappointed that the nation wide alert test didn't turn me into a zombie. Come on,

Promises were made

[theeminentlyimpractical]

my heart is still pounding from that damn alert. my body wants me to fight or flee but I am just a moderately intelligent monkey at a desk doing neither.

[delusionaldoxie2]

Flashback. Bidens FCC Warns Newsmax, stop the Election Fraud Talk or Else!!

https://open.substack.com/pub/inspectorjj/p/bidens-fcc-warns-newsmax-stop-the?r=2iy48l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true On Wednesday evening, Trump supporters watching the cable television channel Newsmax were shocked when anchor Bob Sellers repeatedly tried to silence MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell after he steered the conversation toward talk of election fraud and Smartmatic…

[aci25]

Save Free TV - Let's Stop ATSC 3.0 DRM ! Broadcasters are Encrypting Over the Air TV Channels!

Sign the petition: https://lon.tv/atsc3petition - Efforts by broadcasters to encrypt ATSC 3.0 broadcasts are accelerating with most US cities now seeing at least one station restricted. When tuners get certified it's likely DVR and other time shifting features will remain locked out. See more ATSC 3 - http://lon.tv/ATSC3 and subscribe! http://lon.tv/s

[foone]

Gender is a spectrum and I'm broadcasting on a pirate TV station and the FCC can't stop me.

[zmediaoutlet]

Hey Liz! Have you ready any good spn fic lately? :)

I have, and in fact I've been spite-reading. Have a curated wincest rec list you could share with anyone you like:

Bad Blood by astolat

Rating: E Word Count: 3,718 Summary: "Fuck me or I'm going to die isn't the world's best pickup line."  // "I've heard worse," Dean said. // "You've used worse," Sam said.

Original post date, 02/22/2007

Reccing because: No wincest primer would be complete without an astolat rec. You probably get fined by the Wincest FCC, otherwise. The flaw in astolat’s wincest, if we’re allowed to say such things about our saint and founder, is that Sam and Dean would sometimes fall into the whole thing super easily — this fic dispenses with that problem with a good ol’ classic dose of evil sex pollen, and if magic makes them do it then it could be a hell of a lot worse than how delightfully they do it here. I’m laughing out loud just remembering one of the scenes. Joys.

Coast On Through by philalethia

Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 7,857 Summary: A post-first-time fic. With a lot of sex.

Original post date, 12/22/2007

Reccing because: This is a true all-timer wincest fic. Though the characterization is of its 2007 time, the Winchesters still feel like themselves, and more important feel like adults who are trying to navigate their very odd circumstances. A real classic of the brothers-with-benefits genre.

Keep Our Minds on the Sum of Each Other by lazy_daze

Rating: E Word Count: 9,593 Summary: N/A; provided tags are Bodyswap

Original post date, 12/26/2007

Reccing because: What a cheerful fuckin’ fic this is, for a fic about incestuous fuckin’. This takes the apocalyptic stakes and reels them back to a just deeply entertaining romp. Not too worried about the plot and much more worried about how hot these two are when they slam together, it’s a refreshingly non-angsty take on what it means that you just want to slurp on your brother wholesale.

Filthy Mind by rivkat

Rating: E Word Count: 26,384 Summary: Dean acquires unwelcome nightly visitors. Set post-Hell, without details as to how that happens.

Original post date, 10/07/2008

Reccing because: RivkaT is perhaps the all-time understander of the Weird Affect of Dean Winchester (As Played By Jensen Ackles) and the entirely destabilizing effect that affect has on the world. A real reality-warper. This fic deals with non-con and dub-con and who-knows-what-con and everything in between in a way that is more thoughtful than tawdry (although you can certainly enjoy the tawdriness as presented and the fic does not judge you for that). It also, thrillingly, deals with Sam’s alarm about the whole thing in a way which is fairly unflinching: he wants and does not want to want and also just really, really desperately wants-- Fans of Sheila’s analysis will probably enjoy this one. 

seeing double by candle_beck

Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 5,127 Summary: Dean has a concussion and his better senses come and go.

Original post date, 04/24/2009

Reccing because: I know there are more famous and more favored c_b fics, but this one is such a supremely perfect scene that it should be at the top of all c_b rec lists. It isn’t the catastrophic misery or assholery or intensity of some of the other big hitters but this just has this searingly true and singular experience coursing through it: to wit, that Dean is hurt and Sam is upset and then sorry and then in love. Which isn’t a half-bad summary of Supernatural itself, really. 

The incestuous courtship of the antichrist’s bride by fleshflutter

Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 48,000 Summary: Sam is trying to become the Antichrist in order to save the world. He has a small army of angels and demons, he has an adoring cult, he has a work of prophecy by Jack Kerouac, and he has Dean. Things are going pretty well until he accidentally signs Dean up as his Beloved Consort, a role that requires sex with the Antichrist on an altar. And that's when things stop going pretty well. Also, the soundtrack to the Apocalypse sucks.

Original post date, 06/08/2009

Reccing because: It is so, so rare to find crack fics that work. This is crack treated like crack and also taken entirely seriously, which is a rare balance to find. When it needs to be horror it works, when it needs to be ridiculous it works, when it needs to be hot as fuck it works, and never has the phrase ‘apocalyptic cock’ been so appropriate and so wonderful in context. 

I’ve Got A Hand For You by Edwardina

Rating: E Word Count: 14,938 Summary: Sam's inexperience is showing, and Dean helps the best way he knows how.

Original post date, 03/12/2010

Reccing because: This is underage par excellence, as wonderfully weird and vaguely creepy and hot and alarming as it should always be. Dean’s 19 and Sam’s 14 and they should not but they are, and if that isn’t just a summary of Supernatural as a whole I don’t know what is. On the face of it this is a vaguely gnasty first time fic, but what sets this one apart is how earnestly real it is — the grimy-but-not-OTT reality of the details, Sam’s goofy kiddishness being complicated by the reality of what hormones are and do, Dean’s too-cool-ness alleviated by the fact that he’s nineteen and therefore still an idiot, trying earnestly to help and getting it wrong and getting it very right, all at the same time. The attention to detail here just knocks me over with a feather. Gorgeous work.

Two Part Invention by De_Nugis

Rating: T Word Count: 6,938 Summary: Dean settles down, Sam finds him, they settle some things.

Original post date, 12/25/2010

Reccing because: I very much appreciate a fic that, on the face of it, seems like an OOC premise, and then as soon as you think about it for fifteen seconds you realize — oh, of course, of course that’s how it should be and how it would go. This fic delivers on that feeling in spades. There’s a deep appreciation here for how complicated Sam Winchester is and how strange and hard it would be to have his life, and zero judgment, really, for what he and Dean have to do to make that life tenable. I appreciate the subtlety here so much.

Top This by leonidaslion

Rating: E Word Count: 4,076 Summary: Dean's sure he's a top. Only problem is, Sam's pretty sure that's his job …

Original post date, 04/10/2011

Reccing because: Is this crack? It surely is. Is it PWP? You bet. Is it in character? To be honest it hardly matters, but despite the context and conceit it does manage, somehow, to kinda feel like Sam and Dean Winchester from the canon of the show Supernatural, and that is a trick that earns it a spot on this list. Especially the way Sam goes slightly smug there at the end. Delights.

It’s the Blueprint of Your Life by queenklu

Rating: E Word Count: 38,400 Summary: Sam jerks awake in the middle of the night and everything goes to hell. Well, not literally, though Dean is staring down the barrel of less than a year before his deal comes due. In the midst of dealing (or not dealing) with his impending death, a killer ghost ship, and Bela showing up out of the blue, Dean also has to figure out what’s going on in Sam’s head to make him so twitchy, why he’s suddenly breezing through this case while writing endless notes in a notebook he won’t let Dean see. Damn it, Dean thinks, This is gonna take a lot of chickflick moments.

Original post date, 10/09/2011

Reccing because: Time travel fic is fun as hell, and time travel fic that just soaks you in dramatic irony is even more fun, and more importantly time travel fic where the time traveler doesn’t have all the answers is best of all. Very little is better than Dean being somewhat at sea and Sam loving him fiercely and this fic delivers that in spades. I could only wish it were a little longer, which is a very, very rare statement from me.

The Fall Will Probably Kill You by killabeez

Rating: M Word Count: 6,773 Summary: Set between 7.04 and the aftermath of 7.07. Dean is not as okay as he'd like you to think. Neither is Sam.

Original post date, 11/06/2011

Reccing because: This fic is thoroughly in and of and intensely about season 7, which I adored and which doesn’t get enough credit from the fandom. It deals with the Sam’s Insanity arc in a way that’s angstier and ficcier than the show itself but it does so in this stupendous and murderously flat way. Dean is at his wit’s end and Sam is, too, but Sam’s finding a way to deal with it, and Sam will not compromise on what dealing with it means, and we’re all just forced to live with it. Fantastic reading experience, especially for the almost literal jumpscare you get about 2/3s through.

The Hunter Games by theproblematique

Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 92,601 Summary: When the infamous Winchester bad luck strikes twice in quick succession Sam and Dean are forced to compete in the most brutal reality TV show ever created. It’s impossible to escape the battlefield, hiding can only be temporary, and alliances inside those dark, bloodstained woods last about as long as it takes for the other Hunter to figure out how to use your weapons. And then kill you with them.

Original post date, 06/22/2012

Reccing because: This is a true all-timer wincest AU fic. We’re mostly all familiar with the source material, but this work blends the universe of the Hunger Games with the characterization & destiny of the Winchester boys in a way that’s extremely satisfying. The author’s other works are recced more often, but this piece is more deserving of a place as One Of Those Reclist Fics.

Kevin Tran for President by glovered

Rating: T Word Count: 11,714 Summary: Dean comes back from Purgatory to find Sam working as a barista at a coffee shop near Princeton, watching over Kevin Tran.

Original post date, 10/04/2012

Reccing because: Sometimes you just need a post-Purgatory fic that isn’t brutal. This story’s a light-hearted trip-along froth like most of glovered’s work, but there’s something in specific about this unfraught coming-together that makes it incredibly readable. Dean and Sam aren’t entirely on the same page but the relief of reunion makes everything else fade a little into the distance, and the charming little job they find themselves on here gives enough of an excuse for them to figure some things out. Also probably the best Cas & Meg side characters in a fic, so there’s that too.

Clear and simple and plain by Trojie

Rating: E Word Count: 1,893 Summary: After Sam gives up the Trials, things start getting better.

Original post date, 10/26/2013

Reccing because: This is a post-Trials fic where things don’t go incredibly wrong, which is a nice AU to sit in for a while. What’s impressive about this story, written in the time it was, is that it manages to presage the ~s11 era marriage very well indeed, in tone and vibe and even some content. They’re in the bunker and things aren’t perfect, but they’re together, and that’s a kind of perfection of its own. It isn’t sugary but it’s the kind of adult complex sweetness that makes one feel better, anyway.

hello by allwellandgood (formerly askance)

Rating: T Word Count: 4,128 Summary: There's a woman at the grocery store named Evelyn who always rings him up on the days he ventures out for food and she knows him, or likes to think she does. I hope you're not too lonely, she'll say. He chooses not to tell her that his dead brother sleeps at his feet every night. He'd rather not be the cause of her inevitable heart attack.

Original post date, 08/11/2014

Reccing because: So Dean’s dead. Everyone dies at some point. This fic is a beautifully soft and tender and bitterly kind way to deal with that. You feel Sam’s loss deep in your chest but it’s okay, because this is the world of Supernatural and there are options, and the relief he gets pours over like cool water. Not enough, and it’s not fixed, but it’s not as much of a misery as it was.

The Time Traveler’s Brother by amypond45

Rating: R Word Count: 55,458 Summary: Dean's life is turned upside down the night his mother dies. But that's also the night a mysterious grown-up version of Dean's brother first appears in his life. While Dean grows up, "Old Sam" is often there, especially when Dean's father isn't, and as Dean learns what the future holds, he begins to question everything his father has taught him about who he is and what he is supposed to become. Can Dean find a way to save his little brother from his own future? This pre-series AU follows Dean from age four to eighteen.

Original post date, 02/26/2015

Reccing because: It’s rare to have an AU so thoroughly engage with what the alternate universe it constructs means for characterization and plot. This does something outstanding with the Sam and Dean (and Deans) created by the conceit, but also uses that conceit to do something entirely new with the canon plot that just flips me over every time I remember it. There are some fantastic character insights here, both complimentary and not, but I’ll never be over the specific scene of young!Dean looking up at older!Dean and being disappointed. That’s him, that’s our little angst machine.

The King of Imperfections Takes Back the Prince of Mistakes: a fairy tale by britomart_is

Rating: E Word Count: 4,822 Summary: And they lived happily ever after.

Original post date, 06/06/2016

Reccing because: The summary is pretty much the summary and that’s such a relief, sometimes. They’re awful and stupid and they’re in love and love isn’t enough except it is, and they’re so friggin’ MARRIED in the most wonderful and dorky way. They have good-bad sex and they have idiot arguments and they’ve made it. Back in 2016 this seemed like the best possible option. Reading this story feels like reading 4800 words of relief.

Raw Food Diet by themegalosaurus

Rating: E Word Count: 2,959 Summary: Sam has one more meeting today. This one isn’t in his diary; not the public calendar everyone at the firm can access, nor the private one on his cell.

Original post date, 02/14/2019

Reccing because: If you were looking for depressing and almost revolting Lebanon AU, you’re in luck. This is serial killer!Dean at his worst and Sam Jobs at his (still slightly martyred) almost-worst and it’s the frankly gross and logical conclusion to: what would it mean, if those two horrible shitheads were still together, somehow or some way? It’s always almost a relief when fic manages to do a not-happy ending and this definitely does that. Refreshing, in its way, though you might want a shower after.

Ions in the Ether by nigeltde

Rating: E Word Count: 10,860 Summary: When was the last time you trusted happy.

Original post date, 03/12/2019

Reccing because: For any s2 obsessives as our author here is, this is a deep and alarming and inside-out dive into the obsession with a brother and with monstrousness and with what’s true and what’s not and also can you tell the difference, after all. A murky swirl through a shithole town, this fic picks and pries at wincest-as-concept in a way that’s somewhat achy and alarming and is overall delightful, if you’re willing to take the time to think about it. Plus Sam’s hot, which is of course a bonus.

there will be better days by deadlybride

Rating: E Word Count: 9,430 Summary: Sam and Dean settle into their heaven.

Original post date, 11/24/2020

Reccing because: I’m crass. But also I can’t think of another fic that feels as much like heaven as this one and I wanted heaven on the list.

[renthony]

Nov. 19, 2024:

America’s culture wars are not usually waged at the Federal Communications Commission. With rare exceptions — like net neutrality — the New Deal-era agency stays out of the headlines, while focusing on issues like rural broadband access and stopping spam calls. But that will change come January, when Brendan Carr becomes chairman of the agency under President Trump. Observers expect he will use the FCC as a platform to bash the media and tech for silencing conservative views. “You’re going to see Carr amplify whatever media grievance Trump has,” says Tim Hanlon, CEO of the Vertere Group, a consulting firm. “He’s going to be a loud mouthpiece.”

Read the rest via Variety.

[chann3l-chas3r]

Excerpt from 'The Handler's Guide To Shrimpo':

32.) Shrimpo is not allowed in any kitchen area, especially the Diner kitchen.

Addendum 32-A: For all intents and purposes, please assume any physical altercations between Sprout and Shrimpo were started by Shrimpo.

Addendum 32-B: Sprout has been given a novelty-sized Shrimp Peeler as a deterrent. It appears to be working for now.

Addendum 32-C: Sprout has been equipped with backup Shrimp Peelers in the event that Shrimpo steals / hides / breaks them.

Addendum 32-D: No, the Shrimp Peeler would not actually work. Shrimpo is not aware of this. Do not inform him.

33.) Shrimpo is not allowed access to any remote control whatsoever. We don't know how he linked them to Vee's head but if he changes her face to South Park in the middle of a Game Show event one more time we're gonna get sued by the FCC.

34.) Rules are difficult to enforce with Shrimpo. It is now mandatory to use the Calm-Down Corner as time-out in the event of misbehavior.

Addendum 34-A: See list of items Shrimpo is no longer allowed to have while in Calm-Down Corner.

Addendum 34-B: Any holes knocked into walls of Calm-Down Corner are to be repaired by Shrimpo with oversight from Maintenance Department.

Addendum 34-C: If Calm-Down Corner does not work, staff are allowed to utilize the 'jail cage' prop from S2 Ep15.

Addendum 34-D: Staff are NOT to refer to the 'jail cage' prop as 'Shrimp Prison'. It is unprofessional.

35.) The Social Media department now has a subset of employees monitoring potential Shrimpo activity. Please be advised the Shrimpo can and will steal phones at any available opportunity and is good at guessing passcodes.

Addendum 35-A: Shrimpo has been given a phone with parental controls, and access to a single social-media site on the condition he stops stealing employee and visitor phones. All posts must be approved by current Shrimpo Handler.

Addendum 35-B: Phone has been jailbroken to remove 'emergency mode' so that Shripmo may no longer prank-call 911.

36.) Shrimpo is now allowed to curse backstage on the condition that he stops ruining takes by randomly inserting 'fuck', 'bitch', etc., in places he finds funny. Handlers are allowed to use discretion on how much cursing will be considered too much and are allowed to use Section 34 enforcement methods if Shrimpo gets carried away.

[newgabeorder]

It's been a decade since Saturday morning cartoons went off the air, but I am keeping the spirit alive with my weekend livestreams!  Check out Toon Time Theater!

Hello, anime fans!  I am Gabriel Ramos, DJ and broadcaster of Toon Time Theater.  You think I was going to give you another poll to participate in?  Think again.  I am promoting this post to convince you to watch my Twitch channel every weekend for some feel-good cartoons.  The FCC-controlled TV stations in the US used to broadcast these kinds of blocks, but not anymore.  In an era without official Saturday morning cartoon blocks (particularly for modern cartoons), I am here to carry the tradition to the entire world via Twitch, an internet-based live-streaming platform.  Highlights of this block include Pokémon, ONE PIECE, BORUTO, DRAGON BALL Z KAI and the recently-added BLUE EXORCIST.  Get your bowl of cereal and milk ready every Saturday morning for a lineup that will blow your minds.

The times for Toon Time Theater (Saturday Morning Animation Cram Session) are:

Saturdays at 10:00 AM Eastern

Saturdays at 9:00 AM Mountain

Saturdays at 8:00 AM Central

Saturdays at 7:00 AM Pacific

Saturdays/Sundays at 0:00 AM Japanese

To watch Toon Time Theater, click here during these times.

If you want more Toon Time Theater goodness, here are your following options.  Feel free to stop by my Twitch channel on Friday afternoons, but it will be an alternate lineup heavily reliant on retro cartoons that Millennials and Zoomers grew up with.  If that's not enough, you can check out my YouTube channel where I upload the promos and (mostly) unused bumpers related to the programs on Toon Time Theater.

NGO YouTube Page

[accio-victuuri]

late clowning is better than no clowning… 😂😂😂

so let’s talk about their posts from last night which is related to the evil incarnate — sina weibo’s 15th anniversary. some people have noticed that this is the first time they did a bday greeting for weibo which is true. however they are not the only ones who posted, i also saw other celebrities do the same. you just have to look at the tag #一转眼已经15年啦# they used and see who also posted like dilraba, yngzi, FCC, mzy etc. some even shared what they were doing 15 years ago. i think these celebrities, which includes xz and wyb were encouraged to participate in this tag.

i’m cackling at yibo’s tho 😂😂😂

come on! give sina nothing! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

fans say that wyb’s greeting about 15 yrs of blogging does not apply to him cause he joined a bit late ; compared to xz in 2010 which is close to 15.

now let’s move on to xz who has been quiet lately then decided to drop this and make us overthink. like he always does. lol. so it’s the 🌙, a symbolism in this fandom that you see over and over again — more specifically in photos. detective bxgs are at it again, noticing that this is not a recent photo. this is based on what the moon looks like (phases). it appears it was taken last 18-20 when they were both in Beijing.

i can just imagine xz scrolling through his phone, thinking about what he could share and he stops at this. was this during an evening stroll they had together? did he see wyb’s post first and then thought about sharing something sneakily related to him? so many possibilities. and the 🌔 reminds us of wyb’s recent tennis ball post.

the kadian is also kinda insane. if you remove the year part of 24, it’s bo ai bo ai ai ai. ( ai = love ). as if we needed more proof. and i do think xz is rightfully feral about his love for yibo if he ( like us ) watched the presscon for exploring the unknown where wyb was all smiley and joking. i totally understand. it doesn’t help that during the interview he mentioned how he loved the part in the snow ( snowy mountain ). and just — yibo’s overall aura in that event. he was glowing ✨ , so i hope that shuts down all the people saying that he is somehow “miserable”.

i wish the boys are healthy & happy 💛💛🟡🟡

-END.

[jamie-prescott]

FCC: Sebastian Smythe, Oliver Smythe, Nate Mantle

I actually had to stop and think about this one for a bit since there were a couple of options for this one.

Fuck: Sebastian

Claim: Nate

Cuddle: Oliver

@dom-bastiansmythe @dom-i-nate @switchingolliesmythe