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blackpearlblast · 10 months

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a rundown on the listed e-sim platforms from this tweet from mirna el helbawi. visit esimsforgaza to learn about this effort. (they also have a tutorial on how to purchase an esim and send it to them)

update v12 (5/21/24) holafly (israel and egypt), nomad (regional middle east), simly (palestine and middle east), mogo (israel), and airalo (discover) are currently in the highest in demand. if it has been more than 3 weeks since you initially sent your esim and your esim has not been activated, you can reforward your original email with the expiration date in the subject line. you can see gothhabiba’s guide for how to tell if your esims have been activated. if your esim has expired without use, you can contact customer service to renew or replace it.

troubleshooting hint 1: if you are trying to pay through paypal, make sure you have pop-ups enabled! otherwise the payment window won't be able to appear. (this issue most frequently seems to occur with nomad)

troubleshooting hint 2: if you are trying to purchase an esim using the provider's app, it may block you from purchasing if your phone does not fit the requirements to install and use their esims. use their website in your browser instead and this problem should go away.

nomad

for the month of may, first time referrals give 25% off for a person's first purchase and 25% off the referrer's next purchase! it's a great time to use someone's referral code from the notes if you are a first time buyer.

you can use a referral code to get $3 off your first purchase and also make it so the person whose code you used can buy more esims for gaza. many people have been leaving their referral codes in the replies of this post and supposedly a referral code may eventually reach capacity so just keep trying until you find one that works! BACKPACKNOMAD is another code to get $3 off your first purchase, it's been working for some people but not others so try out a referral code instead if you can't get it to work. NOMADCNG is a code for 5% off any middle east region nomad esims posted by connecting gaza. it can be used on any purchase, not just your first but is generally going to give less off than the first-purchase only codes, so use those first. it can be used in combination with nomad points. AWESOME NEW CODE: nomad esim discount code for 75% off any plan, NOMADCS25 do not know how long it lasts but this is an amazing deal esp. since they are really low on esims right now! (nomad promo codes do not work on plans that are already on sale, unlimited plans, and plans under $5)

weekly tuesdays only code on nomad web, PST timezone! it gives 10% off plans 10gb and above. NOMADTUE

nomad also seems to be kind of sluggish sometimes when it comes to sending out emails with the codes. you can look for them manually by going to manage -> manage plans -> the plan you purchased -> installation instruction and scroll down to install esim via QR code or manual input then select QR code to find the QR code which you can screenshot and email to them. often just the act of logging back into your nomad account after purchase seems to cause the email with the code to come through though.

mogo

mogo's website is fucking annoying to navigate and i couldn't find any promo codes, but their prices are massively on sale anyway. you have to pick if you want your esim to be for iphone, ipad, or android for some reason. according to statcounter, android makes up approx. 75% of mobile markets in palestine while iphone represents approx. 25%. so i would probably recommend prioritizing donations of android esims but if you can afford multiple, try buying an iphone one too? if i can find any official direction from the connecting gaza crew on this i will update with it.

a good referral code to use for mogo is 8R29F9. the way things are worded are confusing but as far as i can tell, if you use it we both get a 10% discount on your first purchase. (the referrer gets a 10% voucher that allows them to top up in use esims, they are someone who i know has bought a lot of esims and will be able to make good use of the top-up discount vouchers!) also upon signing up it automatically generates a password for you which you can change by downloading the app. (check your email to find your account's current password)

holafly (also looking for holafly esims for egypt now)

holafly is pricier than the others and the only promo code i could find was ESIMNOW for 7% off. someone in the tags mentioned GETESIM7 as another 7% off code they had received, so if you have already used ESIMNOW or can't seem to get it to work, try GETESIM7. another 7% off code is HOLAXSUMMER7 which is valid until june 2nd. referral codes only seem to give 5% off and they don't stack. (i don't remember the source, it was on some sketchy coupon site i don't want to link to and only can recommend because i tried it myself) you can also use my referral link for 5% off if you can afford the 2% worse deal on your end, it will give me $5 credit which i can put towards buying more esims. connecting gaza has also posted the promo code HOLACNG for 5% off but since it is less than the 7% off codes and as far as i can tell does not give credit towards others to buy esims like the referral links, i would consider it lower priority for use.

simly (note: simly must be downloaded as an app to be used, the website link is to help people confirm they are downloading the right app)

i have not personally used simly so i am going to be going off of the sixth slide of mirna el helbawi's instagram guide, with some corrections from someone who has successfully purchased an esim from simly. after downloading the app and making an account, search for palestine or middle east and purchase your preferred package. the page the app takes you to after your purchase should have the QR code to send to the esimsforgaza email, it won't show up in your email receipt. someone kindly left her referral code in the tags of this post, it gives $3 off your first purchase and will give her $3 credit to put towards purchasing more esims for gaza. the code is CIWA2. (if this referral code doesn't work, try one from the notes of this post!) according to someone in the notes, ARB is a simly promo code for 25% off esims that is still working as of march 3rd.

airalo

some people have noted issues trying to sign up for airalo using the browser version of the website, it worked for me but if you are struggling you can give the mobile app a try and that should work. you can use a referral code to get $3 off your first purchase and give the code suppler a $3 credit for buying more esims. KARINA9661 is a code sourced from this post which is also a wonderful example of how using people's referral codes can really make a difference. if for some reason that referral code isn't working, you can find more in the notes of the original esim post i made here.

@/fairuzfan also has a tag of esim referral codes for various platforms!

(note: mogo and holafly both link to israel esims as there are no general regional packages for the middle east like on nomad and the esims for gaza website specifically linked to the israel package on mogo, so i linked to the equivalent on holafly.)

#esims for gaza #esims #gaza #palestine #free palestine #connecting gaza #despite not having used simly myself i'm fairly experienced with esim services at this point so i will likely be able to answer some #questions and i also have someone familiar with simly i can ask if i am not sure of the answer myself. so please go ahead and ask questions #if you're struggling with donating an esim from any of these sources!

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bouldersmiledesigndentist · 1 year

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Global Infocloud - erp for manufacturing

Looking for a custom ERP solution? Look no further than GIC. We can develop a tailored ERP software solution for your business.

bit.ly/3L1IzNa

#best mobile tracker app #sales tracking mobile app #mobile application for sales team #Best Digital marketing agency in Pune #Best Digital marketing comapny in Pune #top digital marketing companies in pune #PPC Marketing #social media marketing services #social media marketing companies

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carcinization-station · 2 years

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Really shitty how mobile games (and everything else) would rather prey on vulnerable and impulsive whales than just have a fair, reasonable business model

#looking at you voltage with your top 50 and your merciless gatcha dupes #mobile otome stories and designs > switch options but yall gotta be depressingly greedy and i just cant justify your sales when you do this #sigh

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mothdogsart · 7 months

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I pulled my latest bind out of the book press today! This is Slow Show by @mia-ugly. It’s my absolute favorite Good Omens fic I’ve ever read and I really enjoyed the process of typesetting it and designing the cover. I included the original bookcover created by @dorywhynot inside as homage to the Ineffable Editions version.

Technical details follow:

The cover design repeatedly beat my ass, but I think it turned out okay in the end! I drew Az’s hand in Procreate and imported it into Canva. I’ve a mind to cut out the coin shape in gold vinyl and add it in later.

This was my first time trying to hand-trim a text block, and it was… bad. I had to sand for a long time and gave up doing the tops and bottoms of the pages. So the text block is technically only a third finished 😅 Next time I hand trim I’ll have to use a thicker, sharper blade for sure.

I’m so pleased with the endpaper from Hollander’s. The colors are really vivid and it’s got a lovely matte feel.

Overall I’m really proud of this bind. The dark green bookcloth really came together with the blue and black and cream. 🤩

Tumblr mobile isn’t letting me paste the fic link, but it can be read on AO3.

❗️My binds are not for sale. Authors and artists may enquire about gift copies.❗️

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copperbadge · 12 days

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Radio Free Monday

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

Ways to Give:

Edminister Engler is a recent widower who has now been diagnosed with cancer; he doesn't have health coverage and is too sick to work, so is raising funds to help find an oncologist and seek treatment. You can read more and support the fundraiser here.

secondalto was in a car accident in February that totaled her car, and she missed work through the end of the school year; insurance was slow to pay out and she didn't get another car (necessary for her job) until last month. Due to the staggered nature of her work, she is facing car and insurance payments, plus gas and other bills, that she won't be able to pay before they are due. She is raising funds for bills and is also offering fic beta services and handicrafts in return for donations; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

songspinner9 linked to a fundraiser for Wren, a young, chronically ill person trying to stay active in their community and studying for a Library Science degree. Insurance will not cover the new wheelchair they need to achieve their goals, so they are fundraising for the wheelchair and power assist; you can read more and support the fundraiser here.

Anon linked to a fundraiser for meowdistract/hauntedrph, a friend with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which leaves her with limited mobility and weakness. She's offering commissions and raising funds via donation to help pay off debt and treat herself a little for her 30th birthday tomorrow. You can read more, reblog, and find giving/commission information here and there are also links to wishlists and donation options here.

maryellencarter is homeless and has recently moved cross-country to be closer to friends, and has finally been placed in a shelter; they are fundraising to keep their car insurance so they can travel to aid appointments and try to find a more permanent housing solution. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

Beth linked to First Draft Detroit, a Detroit metro region nonprofit intended to replace NaNoWriMo; they're holding their first fundraiser on October 5th. If you are local to Detroit you can buy a ticket to play one of several TTRPGs, plus a silent auction and a bake sale; if you are not local you can still donate to support the org. You can read more, buy a ticket, and support the fundraiser here.

Recurring Needs:

loversdoom has recently been diagnosed with PCOS and needs help to afford the prescribed birth control pills on top of living expenses and dental bills; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here or give via paypal here.

onedollopofsourcream is fundraising to help support a large family including young children during a difficult time; they particularly need funds for needed medication (including insulin), and hopefully eventually to get out of an abusive living situation. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

chingaderita is raising funds to help their family get back on their feet after a house fire that left them in an unsafe living situation with black mold; their partner has also recently had oral surgery and many family members are unemployed, and they need funds for clean water, food, and cleaning until the mold can be taken care of. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

memprime linked to a fundraiser for a friend, virtualalternative, who needs help with cat vet bills after their cat had several blockages; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form. If you're new to fundraising, you may want to check out my guide to fundraising here.

#radio free monday #charity #philanthropy #fannish community

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years

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Tiktok's enshittification

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

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

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

I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two sided market,” where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.

When a platform starts, it needs users, so it makes itself valuable to users. Think of Amazon: for many years, it operated at a loss, using its access to the capital markets to subsidize everything you bought. It sold goods below cost and shipped them below cost. It operated a clean and useful search. If you searched for a product, Amazon tried its damndest to put it at the top of the search results.

This was a hell of a good deal for Amazon’s customers. Lots of us piled in, and lots of brick-and-mortar retailers withered and died, making it hard to go elsewhere. Amazon sold us ebooks and audiobooks that were permanently locked to its platform with DRM, so that every dollar we spent on media was a dollar we’d have to give up if we deleted Amazon and its apps. And Amazon sold us Prime, getting us to pre-pay for a year’s worth of shipping. Prime customers start their shopping on Amazon, and 90% of the time, they don’t search anywhere else.

That tempted in lots of business customers — Marketplace sellers who turned Amazon into the “everything store” it had promised from the beginning. As these sellers piled in, Amazon shifted to subsidizing suppliers. Kindle and Audible creators got generous packages. Marketplace sellers reached huge audiences and Amazon took low commissions from them.

This strategy meant that it became progressively harder for shoppers to find things anywhere except Amazon, which meant that they only searched on Amazon, which meant that sellers had to sell on Amazon.

That’s when Amazon started to harvest the surplus from its business customers and send it to Amazon’s shareholders. Today, Marketplace sellers are handing 45%+ of the sale price to Amazon in junk fees. The company’s $31b “advertising” program is really a payola scheme that pits sellers against each other, forcing them to bid on the chance to be at the top of your search.

Searching Amazon doesn’t produce a list of the products that most closely match your search, it brings up a list of products whose sellers have paid the most to be at the top of that search. Those fees are built into the cost you pay for the product, and Amazon’s “Most Favored Nation” requirement sellers means that they can’t sell more cheaply elsewhere, so Amazon has driven prices at every retailer.

Search Amazon for “cat beds” and the entire first screen is ads, including ads for products Amazon cloned from its own sellers, putting them out of business (third parties have to pay 45% in junk fees to Amazon, but Amazon doesn’t charge itself these fees). All told, the first five screens of results for “cat bed” are 50% ads.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they’re locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they’re locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.

This is why — as Cat Valente wrote in her magesterial pre-Christmas essay — platforms like Prodigy transformed themselves overnight, from a place where you went for social connection to a place where you were expected to “stop talking to each other and start buying things”:

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

This shell-game with surpluses is what happened to Facebook. First, Facebook was good to you: it showed you the things the people you loved and cared about had to say. This created a kind of mutual hostage-taking: once a critical mass of people you cared about were on Facebook, it became effectively impossible to leave, because you’d have to convince all of them to leave too, and agree on where to go. You may love your friends, but half the time you can’t agree on what movie to see and where to go for dinner. Forget it.

Then, it started to cram your feed full of posts from accounts you didn’t follow. At first, it was media companies, who Facebook preferentially crammed down its users’ throats so that they would click on articles and send traffic to newspapers, magazines and blogs.

Then, once those publications were dependent on Facebook for their traffic, it dialed down their traffic. First, it choked off traffic to publications that used Facebook to run excerpts with links to their own sites, as a way of driving publications into supplying fulltext feeds inside Facebook’s walled garden.

This made publications truly dependent on Facebook — their readers no longer visited the publications’ websites, they just tuned into them on Facebook. The publications were hostage to those readers, who were hostage to each other. Facebook stopped showing readers the articles publications ran, tuning The Algorithm to suppress posts from publications unless they paid to “boost” their articles to the readers who had explicitly subscribed to them and asked Facebook to put them in their feeds.

Now, Facebook started to cram more ads into the feed, mixing payola from people you wanted to hear from with payola from strangers who wanted to commandeer your eyeballs. It gave those advertisers a great deal, charging a pittance to target their ads based on the dossiers of nonconsensually harvested personal data they’d stolen from you.

Sellers became dependent on Facebook, too, unable to carry on business without access to those targeted pitches. That was Facebook’s cue to jack up ad prices, stop worrying so much about ad fraud, and to collude with Google to rig the ad market through an illegal program called Jedi Blue:

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

Today, Facebook is terminally enshittified, a terrible place to be whether you’re a user, a media company, or an advertiser. It’s a company that deliberately demolished a huge fraction of the publishers it relied on, defrauding them into a “pivot to video” based on false claims of the popularity of video among Facebook users. Companies threw billions into the pivot, but the viewers never materialized, and media outlets folded in droves:

https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/facebook-online-video-pivot-metrics-false.html

But Facebook has a new pitch. It claims to be called Meta, and it has demanded that we live out the rest of our days as legless, sexless, heavily surveilled low-poly cartoon characters.

It has promised companies that make apps for this metaverse that it won’t rug them the way it did the publishers on the old Facebook. It remains to be seen whether they’ll get any takers. As Mark Zuckerberg once candidly confessed to a peer, marvelling at all of his fellow Harvard students who sent their personal information to his new website “TheFacebook”:

> I don’t know why.

> They “trust me”

> Dumb fucks.

https://doctorow.medium.com/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video-adbe09319038

Once you understand the enshittification pattern, a lot of the platform mysteries solve themselves. Think of the SEO market, or the whole energetic world of online creators who spend endless hours engaged in useless platform Kremlinology, hoping to locate the algorithmic tripwires, which, if crossed, doom the creative works they pour their money, time and energy into:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/11/coercion-v-cooperation/#the-machine-is-listening

Working for the platform can be like working for a boss who takes money out of every paycheck for all the rules you broke, but who won’t tell you what those rules are because if he told you that, then you’d figure out how to break those rules without him noticing and docking your pay. Content moderation is the only domain where security through obscurity is considered a best practice:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

The situation is so dire that organizations like Tracking Exposed have enlisted an human army of volunteers and a robot army of headless browsers to try to unwind the logic behind the arbitrary machine judgments of The Algorithm, both to give users the option to tune the recommendations they receive, and to help creators avoid the wage theft that comes from being shadow banned:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/tracking-exposed-demanding-gods-explain-themselves

But what if there is no underlying logic? Or, more to the point, what if the logic shifts based on the platform’s priorities? If you go down to the midway at your county fair, you’ll spot some poor sucker walking around all day with a giant teddy bear that they won by throwing three balls in a peach basket.

The peach-basket is a rigged game. The carny can use a hidden switch to force the balls to bounce out of the basket. No one wins a giant teddy bear unless the carny wants them to win it. Why did the carny let the sucker win the giant teddy bear? So that he’d carry it around all day, convincing other suckers to put down five bucks for their chance to win one:

https://boingboing.net/2006/08/27/rigged-carny-game.html

The carny allocated a giant teddy bear to that poor sucker the way that platforms allocate surpluses to key performers — as a convincer in a “Big Store” con, a way to rope in other suckers who’ll make content for the platform, anchoring themselves and their audiences to it.

Which brings me to Tiktok. Tiktok is many different things, including “a free Adobe Premiere for teenagers that live on their phones.”

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-fragments-of-media-you-consume

But what made it such a success early on was the power of its recommendation system. From the start, Tiktok was really, really good at recommending things to its users. Eerily good:

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1093882880

By making good-faith recommendations of things it thought its users would like, Tiktok built a mass audience, larger than many thought possible, given the death grip of its competitors, like Youtube and Instagram. Now that Tiktok has the audience, it is consolidating its gains and seeking to lure away the media companies and creators who are still stubbornly attached to Youtube and Insta.

Yesterday, Forbes’s Emily Baker-White broke a fantastic story about how that actually works inside of Bytedance, Tiktok’s parent company, citing multiple internal sources, revealing the existence of a “heating tool” that Tiktok employees use push videos from select accounts into millions of viewers’ feeds:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/01/20/tiktoks-secret-heating-button-can-make-anyone-go-viral/

These videos go into Tiktok users’ ForYou feeds, which Tiktok misleadingly describes as being populated by videos “ranked by an algorithm that predicts your interests based on your behavior in the app.” In reality, For You is only sometimes composed of videos that Tiktok thinks will add value to your experience — the rest of the time, it’s full of videos that Tiktok has inserted in order to make creators think that Tiktok is a great place to reach an audience.

“Sources told Forbes that TikTok has often used heating to court influencers and brands, enticing them into partnerships by inflating their videos’ view count. This suggests that heating has potentially benefitted some influencers and brands — those with whom TikTok has sought business relationships — at the expense of others with whom it has not.”

In other words, Tiktok is handing out giant teddy bears.

But Tiktok is not in the business of giving away giant teddy bears. Tiktok, for all that its origins are in the quasi-capitalist Chinese economy, is just another paperclip-maximizing artificial colony organism that treats human beings as inconvenient gut flora. Tiktok is only going to funnel free attention to the people it wants to entrap until they are entrapped, then it will withdraw that attention and begin to monetize it.

“Monetize” is a terrible word that tacitly admits that there is no such thing as an “Attention Economy.” You can’t use attention as a medium of exchange. You can’t use it as a store of value. You can’t use it as a unit of account. Attention is like cryptocurrency: a worthless token that is only valuable to the extent that you can trick or coerce someone into parting with “fiat” currency in exchange for it. You have to “monetize” it — that is, you have to exchange the fake money for real money.

In the case of cryptos, the main monetization strategy was deception-based. Exchanges and “projects” handed out a bunch of giant teddy-bears, creating an army of true-believer Judas goats who convinced their peers to hand the carny their money and try to get some balls into the peach-basket themselves.

But deception only produces so much “liquidity provision.” Eventually, you run out of suckers. To get lots of people to try the ball-toss, you need coercion, not persuasion. Think of how US companies ended the defined benefits pension that guaranteed you a dignified retirement, replacing it with market-based 401(k) pensions that forced you to gamble your savings in a rigged casino, making you the sucker at the table, ripe for the picking:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

Early crypto liquidity came from ransomware. The existence of a pool of desperate, panicked companies and individuals whose data had been stolen by criminals created a baseline of crypto liquidity because they could only get their data back by trading real money for fake crypto money.

The next phase of crypto coercion was Web3: converting the web into a series of tollbooths that you could only pass through by trading real money for fake crypto money. The internet is a must-have, not a nice-to-have, a prerequisite for full participation in employment, education, family life, health, politics, civics, even romance. By holding all those things to ransom behind crypto tollbooths, the hodlers hoped to convert their tokens to real money:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

For Tiktok, handing out free teddy-bears by “heating” the videos posted by skeptical performers and media companies is a way to convert them to true believers, getting them to push all their chips into the middle of the table, abandoning their efforts to build audiences on other platforms (it helps that Tiktok’s format is distinctive, making it hard to repurpose videos for Tiktok to circulate on rival platforms).

Once those performers and media companies are hooked, the next phase will begin: Tiktok will withdraw the “heating” that sticks their videos in front of people who never heard of them and haven’t asked to see their videos. Tiktok is performing a delicate dance here: there’s only so much enshittification they can visit upon their users’ feeds, and Tiktok has lots of other performers they want to give giant teddy-bears to.

Tiktok won’t just starve performers of the “free” attention by depreferencing them in the algorithm, it will actively punish them by failing to deliver their videos to the users who subscribed to them. After all, every time Tiktok shows you a video you asked to see, it loses a chance to show you a video it wants you to see, because your attention is a giant teddy-bear it can give away to a performer it is wooing.

This is just what Twitter has done as part of its march to enshittification: thanks to its “monetization” changes, the majority of people who follow you will never see the things you post. I have ~500k followers on Twitter and my threads used to routinely get hundreds of thousands or even millions of reads. Today, it’s hundreds, perhaps thousands.

I just handed Twitter $8 for Twitter Blue, because the company has strongly implied that it will only show the things I post to the people who asked to see them if I pay ransom money. This is the latest battle in one of the internet’s longest-simmering wars: the fight over end-to-end:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

In the beginning, there were Bellheads and Netheads. The Bellheads worked for big telcos, and they believed that all the value of the network rightly belonged to the carrier. If someone invented a new feature — say, Caller ID — it should only be rolled out in a way that allows the carrier to charge you every month for its use. This is Software-As-a-Service, Ma Bell style.

The Netheads, by contrast, believed that value should move to the edges of the network — spread out, pluralized. In theory, Compuserve could have “monetized” its own version of Caller ID by making you pay $2.99 extra to see the “From:” line on email before you opened the message — charging you to know who was speaking before you started listening — but they didn’t.

The Netheads wanted to build diverse networks with lots of offers, lots of competition, and easy, low-cost switching between competitors (thanks to interoperability). Some wanted this because they believed that the net would someday be woven into the world, and they didn’t want to live in a world of rent-seeking landlords. Others were true believers in market competition as a source of innovation. Some believed both things. Either way, they saw the risk of network capture, the drive to monetization through trickery and coercion, and they wanted to head it off.

They conceived of the end-to-end principle: the idea that networks should be designed so that willing speakers’ messages would be delivered to willing listeners’ end-points as quickly and reliably as they could be. That is, irrespective of whether a network operator could make money by sending you the data it wanted to receive, its duty would be to provide you with the data you wanted to see.

The end-to-end principle is dead at the service level today. Useful idiots on the right were tricked into thinking that the risk of Twitter mismanagement was “woke shadowbanning,” whereby the things you said wouldn’t reach the people who asked to hear them because Twitter’s deep state didn’t like your opinions. The real risk, of course, is that the things you say won’t reach the people who asked to hear them because Twitter can make more money by enshittifying their feeds and charging you ransom for the privilege to be included in them.

As I said at the start of this essay, enshittification exerts a nearly irresistible gravity on platform capitalism. It’s just too easy to turn the enshittification dial up to eleven. Twitter was able to fire the majority of its skilled staff and still crank the dial all the way over, even with a skeleton crew of desperate, demoralized H1B workers who are shackled to Twitter’s sinking ship by the threat of deportation.

The temptation to enshittify is magnified by the blocks on interoperability: when Twitter bans interoperable clients, nerfs its APIs, and periodically terrorizes its users by suspending them for including their Mastodon handles in their bios, it makes it harder to leave Twitter, and thus increases the amount of enshittification users can be force-fed without risking their departure.

Twitter is not going to be a “protocol.” I’ll bet you a testicle¹ that projects like Bluesky will find no meaningful purchase on the platform, because if Bluesky were implemented and Twitter users could order their feeds for minimal enshittification and leave the service without sacrificing their social networks, it would kill the majority of Twitter’s “monetization” strategies.

¹Not one of mine.

An enshittification strategy only succeeds if it is pursued in measured amounts. Even the most locked-in user eventually reaches a breaking-point and walks away, or gets pushed. The villagers of Anatevka in Fiddler on the Roof tolerated the cossacks' violent raids and pogroms for years, until they were finally forced to flee to Krakow, New York and Chicago:

https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms-9fc550fe5abf

For enshittification-addled companies, that balance is hard to strike. Individual product managers, executives, and activist shareholders all give preference to quick returns at the cost of sustainability, and are in a race to see who can eat their seed-corn first. Enshittification has only lasted for as long as it has because the internet has devolved into “five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four”:

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040

With the market sewn up by a group of cozy monopolists, better alternatives don’t pop up and lure us away, and if they do, the monopolists just buy them out and integrate them into your enshittification strategies, like when Mark Zuckerberg noticed a mass exodus of Facebook users who were switching to Instagram, and so he bought Instagram. As Zuck says, “It is better to buy than to compete.”

This is the hidden dynamic behind the rise and fall of Amazon Smile, the program whereby Amazon gave a small amount of money to charities of your choice when you shopped there, but only if you used Amazon’s own search tool to locate the products you purchased. This provided an incentive for Amazon customers to use its own increasingly enshittified search, which it could cram full of products from sellers who coughed up payola, as well as its own lookalike products. The alternative was to use Google, whose search tool would send you directly to the product you were looking for, and then charge Amazon a commission for sending you to it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10ft5iv/comment/j4znb8y/

The demise of Amazon Smile coincides with the increasing enshittification of Google Search, the only successful product the company managed to build in-house. All its other successes were bought from other companies: video, docs, cloud, ads, mobile; while its own products are either flops like Google Video, clones (Gmail is a Hotmail clone), or adapted from other companies’ products, like Chrome.

Google Search was based on principles set out in founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s landmark 1998 paper, “Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” in which they wrote, “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”

http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/361/

Even with that foundational understanding of enshittification, Google has been unable to resist its siren song. Today’s Google results are an increasingly useless morass of self-preferencing links to its own products, ads for products that aren’t good enough to float to the top of the list on its own, and parasitic SEO junk piggybacking on the former.

Enshittification kills. Google just laid off 12,000 employees, and the company is in a full-blown “panic” over the rise of “AI” chatbots, and is making a full-court press for an AI-driven search tool — that is, a tool that won’t show you what you ask for, but rather, what it thinks you should see:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/20/23563851/google-search-ai-chatbot-demo-chatgpt

Now, it’s possible to imagine that such a tool will produce good recommendations, like Tiktok’s pre-enshittified algorithm did. But it’s hard to see how Google will be able to design a non-enshittified chatbot front-end to search, given the strong incentives for product managers, executives, and shareholders to enshittify results to the precise threshold at which users are nearly pissed off enough to leave, but not quite.

Even if it manages the trick, this-almost-but-not-quite-unusuable equilibrium is fragile. Any exogenous shock — a new competitor like Tiktok that penetrates the anticompetitive “moats and walls” of Big Tech, a privacy scandal, a worker uprising — can send it into wild oscillations:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/watch-the-surpluses/#exogenous-shocks

Enshittification truly is how platforms die. That’s fine, actually. We don’t need eternal rulers of the internet. It’s okay for new ideas and new ways of working to emerge. The emphasis of lawmakers and policymakers shouldn’t be preserving the crepuscular senescence of dying platforms. Rather, our policy focus should be on minimizing the cost to users when these firms reach their expiry date: enshrining rights like end-to-end would mean that no matter how autocannibalistic a zombie platform became, willing speakers and willing listeners would still connect with each other:

https://doctorow.medium.com/end-to-end-d6046dca366f

And policymakers should focus on freedom of exit — the right to leave a sinking platform while continuing to stay connected to the communities that you left behind, enjoying the media and apps you bought, and preserving the data you created:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

The Netheads were right: technological self-determination is at odds with the natural imperatives of tech businesses. They make more money when they take away our freedom — our freedom to speak, to leave, to connect.

For many years, even Tiktok’s critics grudgingly admitted that no matter how surveillant and creepy it was, it was really good at guessing what you wanted to see. But Tiktok couldn’t resist the temptation to show you the things it wants you to see, rather than what you want to see. The enshittification has begun, and now it is unlikely to stop.

It's too late to save Tiktok. Now that it has been infected by enshittifcation, the only thing left is to kill it with fire.

[Image ID: Hansel and Gretel in front of the witch's candy house. Hansel and Gretel have been replaced with line-drawings of influencers, taking selfies of themselves with the candy house. In front of the candy house stands a portly man in a business suit; his head is a sack of money with a dollar-sign on it. He wears a crooked witch's hat. The cottage has the Tiktok logo on it.]

#pluralistic #Lauren Leffer #tiktok #surplus allocation #fauximation #potemkin ai #the algorithm #creative labor #algorithms exposed #enshittification #bytedance #giant teddy bears #convincers #big store con #pivot to video #scissor bucket #Emily Baker-White

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soapshipper · 1 year

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embarrassingly gullible

in which Jim Halpert dares Eileen Hayward to prank Dwight Schrute, but will he fall for it?

"Uncle Dwight, it's me- Anna Schrute! It's been so long, maybe you can come over to Germany soon and we can have a harvest festival just like old times!"

"I don't know who you are, I don't know why you think this is funny, but there is no one directly related to me with the name Anna Schrute!"

"It's Anna Schrute, Uncle Dwight!"

"Leave me alone, I am completely opposed to harming women but I know karate and I wouldn't be afraid to make an example out of you."

Dwight was fuming from the office break room as he held his mobile close to his ear. His eyes frantically darting around the room to ensure nobody over heard the conversation.

"So you'll come over to Deutschland to make an example of me, Uncle Dwight? Das ist fantastisch! Auf Wiederhören Uncle Dwight!"

"I don't know how you got my number but leave me a-" The line went dead.

***

"I don't know why, and I don't know who, but someone has been calling me on my personal cellphone for the past month claiming to Anna Schrute. My brother has no clue as to who she is, but I' m starting to believe she is my niece... she knows a startling amount!" The camera crew, who had only been at the office for a few days stood behind the camera equipment as Dwight spoke, his mustard yellow top reflected in the view finder of the camera as he flattened down his hair.

"Dwight? Oh yeah he's embarrassingly gullible, I've been calling him directly to his personal phone for the past month telling him I'm his niece Anna Schrute," Eileen smirks as she looks at the camera "Jim bet me twenty bucks that he wouldn't fall for it, but I'm going to be twenty dollars richer soon."

***

Eileen hastily pocketed her phone as Dwight made his way back to his desk and pretends to have just gotten off a sales call as she picked up the receiver phone and put it down as soon as she was in Dwight line of vision. Her eyes met Jim's as his widened and his eyebrows raised as Dwight made himself comfortable in his seat once more.

"So, Dwight," Eileen started- picking at her nails, "what was that all about?"

"Oh just my niece calling from Germany."

***

"Ka-ching!" Eileen held up the twenty dollar bill to camera pulling at it lightly twice from both sides to accentuate that she won the bet. Her dimples were prominent as she grinned.

***

"Ahh, your niece you say? I wasn't aware you had a niece." Eileen raised her eyebrows as she spoke, turning to the side slightly to hide the smirk growing on her face.

"No, I wasn't either- but it truly is a blessing to know of another Schrute. It's good to know that the Schrute name is still being carried." Dwights eyes didn't leave his computer as he typed up an email, his glasses reflected the computer screen in front of him.

Eileen glanced over at Jim giving him a look that said 'this is funny but i feel bad'. The man struggled not to laugh at her cringing face and put a finger up to his lip to make her stay quiet.

"So Dwight, uh- what's her name?" The Halpert man had a dopey grin on his face as a laugh mixed with his words.

"I don't see how that is any of your business..." Dwight muttered as rearranged the papers on his desk, the pile making an obnoxious noise as he hit the stack on the table a paucity of times to make sure they were all in line with each other.

"Oh it really doesn't, I just wanted to take interest in one of my fellow salespersons lives..." He faux innocence as he busied himself with typing on his computer, scratching the back of his neck to add to his act.

"Her name is Anna Schrute, she speaks broken English, she is German, lives in Germany yet is confined to the time zones of Pennsylvania..." He pauses for a moment, before typing something into his computer.

His hand bangs onto the table as he pushes back from his desk and spins on his chair once. He stops and points at the woman in front of him, a glare besmirched on his face.

"You!," he pointed at her "It was you!"

"Huh, what?"

"You're Anna Schrute!"

"No, no- what?!"

"I knew I could hear typing in the background, she sounds exactly like you Eileen!"

"But Anna lives in Germany, was there any background noise- other than the typing?"

"There was traffic sounds- wait." Dwights eyebrows furrowed as he typed something into the computer.

A few silent moments later, everyone in the office can hear the sound of passing cars and the occasional German shout.

"Aw that's what Eileen listens to when she gets stressed," Phyllis began- pointing awkwardly at Dwights computer "She's stressed quite a lot..."

Eileen sucks her bottom lip in, and clamps her top teeth over it. Pointing her head down, her fringe covers her face but Dwight can still make out her silent laughter through the shake in her shoulders.

"Michael. MICHAEL!," Dwight starts standing from his chair "She's done it again!"

Michael can be seen leaving his chair, pinching his forehead as he approached his office door.

Dwight grins, exposing his teeth, and turns back to Eileen.

"You're fired! You are so fired!"

Their boss gets a hold of the door and pulls it shut much to the amusement of Jim who lets out a quiet 'ha'. Michael then proceeded to shut all the blinds in his office and return back to his desk.

#the office x reader #the office imagines #jim halpert #dwight schrute #jim halpert x reader #jim halpert x oc #dwight schrute x reader #dwight schrute x oc #the office #oc #the office x oc #one shot #imagine #jim halpert imagine #dwight schrute imagine #michael scott #michael scott imagine #the office imagine

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namastenetindia · 2 months

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gym-x-plus · 8 months

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if you’ve seen me do these countless times it’s cause they work 😉🐾

also @womensbest is having a BOGO sale this week ! lots of supplements & activewear pieces will be buy one get one free so it's the perfect time to stock up 🫡 starts today at 12pm EST and you can stack my code on top for an extra discount | PLAMENOVA 💸

my go-to ankle mobility drills

great for warm ups, active rest days and bodyweight sessions

- calf raises from a kneeling lunge (the further forward you go into an increased dorsiflexion, the more challenging these are. you can also add a kb or db on top of your working leg to make more challenging)

- ankle rocks from a kneeling lunge (the further forward you rock the more challenging it is, just make sure to keep your heel on the ground)

- kneeling lunge dorsiflexion hold (find the closest angle possible between your shin and your foot and hold while maintaining your heel on the ground, i recommend doing these barefoot or in your socks)

- calf raises (great mobility exercise especially when you try to go as high as possible in a controlled manner)

- alternating marches (one of my favorite dynamic stretches that works on dorsiflexion, plantarflexion as well as calf flexibility)

- point to flex (a lifetime ago when i used to coach recreational gymnastics we used to do similar drills to warm up but we would also point the toes, you basically alternate between pointing your foot away and towards the body)

- ankle rolls (you can do these assisted with your hand as I am or bodyweight, and they can be forward, backward or a mix of both)

#Beautiful #fit #woman #fashion #gym #fitnessmotivation #fitness #FindYourBalance #sportgirl #lifestyle #motivationmonday #happy #fitnessaddict #selfie #home #love #workout #work #workinprogress #fitnessgirl #summer #sunset #sun #squats #gymrat #legday #leg #legs #strong #fitnessmodel

#fitness #gym #workout #fitnessmotivation #fit #fitnessgirl #fitnessmodel #squats #fitnessaddict #beautiful

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bouldersmiledesigndentist · 1 year

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 10 months

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Speaking of twst events, what are your Top 3 Favourite game events so far? I'm genuinely curious. :'DD

Are there any events you didn't like?

[Referencing this post!]

Mmmm… I think most events are at least okayish? In general, I tend to prefer stories with high stakes or the ones that have some meaningful impact on character development, which are few and far between when it comes to TWST 😅 so their events aren’t typically my thing! You’ll notice that my favorite events in TWST actually do have story and/or character relevance.

That being said!! My favorite events would have to be:

Glorious Masquerade — This is, in my opinion, TWST’s strongest story and best overall event. It stands out against the others by having actual stakes and fully committing to it, as well as does wonders for the SSR trio’s involvement and interests in taking down the Big Bad. This is particularly true of Idia and Malleus. Said Big Bad, Rollo, is also very compelling in his own right.

Wish Upon a Star — Historically, this was the first time we saw the student’s rooms! The story itself introduced us to Star Rogue, which was pivotal to the Shrouds’ childhood (and later becomes relevant again in book 6). It was sweet to see Deuce try so hard to get Idia to come out of his shell, and even sweeter to see how far Idia is willing to push himself for his brother.

Fairy Gala: What If (NOT the first Fairy Gala; this is an important distinction!) — The edge this has over the original is that it is connected to Ortho’s growth as an individual post-book 6. He is able to discover his own take on what “evolution” is. Silver also gets a cool spotlight which demonstrates the pacifist teachings he was imparted with, serving as the bridge between fae and humans. Very pretty clothes and makeup too!!

I also liked:

Happy Beans Day I and II — This was a nice event that gave the whole cast their time to shine without feeling too bloated. It was also fun to see the different strategies and tactics each student employed; it helps show off their characters and problem solving abilities!

Ghost Marriage — I really liked that TWST parodied the fairy tale love stories and romantic events (that Disney and even mobile games in general are typically associated with). Hilarious how each of the guys tried and failed because they’re just silly high school students with no idea how to actually get a date 😂 I’m also biased for any outfit that involves formal wear.

White Rabbit Festival (Queendom of Roses hometown event) — The Alice in Wonderland aesthetic of Clock Town captured my heart 😌 It was also nice to see Deuce prove that he has turned over a new leaf to the townspeople.

The events I didn’t care for are:

Endless Halloween Night — I have very strong beef with the ending and the reasoning given for it 💀 It feels like everyone got gaslit into forgiveness… I also hated how no one held Malleus fully accountable after all the stress they were put through. Easily my most disliked event.

Tamashina Mina (Sunset Savanna hometown event) — Underwhelming ending in spite of the hype building for it. No meaningful payoff for the foreshadowing of Cheka’s guards.

Tsumsted Wonderland I and II — Nothing really happens (other than I guess the Tsums being cute)?? And it doesn’t really make an impact on anything.

Lost in the Book with Stitch — Same issue(s) as the Tsumsted events, except somehow even worse because everyone magically forgets everything they did with Stitch :/ so the experience means nothing in the long term…

Honorable mentions for my dislikes:

All Master Chef/Culinary Crucibles — I hate having to sit around and wait for ingredients and the fact that you can’t cook multiple dishes in one go. The lack of story also makes these events just not worth it for me.

Sam’s New Year Sale(s) and TWST Anniversary — Do these event count as a story event???? They’re just kinda celebratory short interactions, if anything.

#twisted wonderland #twst #disney twisted wonderland #spoilers #question #notes from the writing raven #Rollo Flamme #Idia Shroud #Ortho Shroud #Deuce Spade #Ignihyde #Malleus Draconia #Silver #Stitch

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certifiedlovergirlsstuff · 2 years

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valentine

pairing: steve harrington x reader

WC: 1.9K

warnings: cursing, some suggestive stuff, a little nightmare sequence that involves punching and blood mentions. should be it!

summary: you blinked and suddenly, you had a valentine. ❤️

A/N: a late v-day post, i guess. inspired by the lovely Laufey song. much love to @alecmores for proofreading 💗💗💗

it cut off some of the ending when read on mobile 😒 but it’s looking completely fine on computer. just an fyi

masterlist

I’ve rejected affection for years and years. Now I have it and damn it, it’s kind of weird.

Out of your twenty-one years of living on this planet, this is the first year you have a relationship and it’s simultaneously the greatest feeling in the world while also making you want to run away. But you can’t find it in yourself to run, not from him.

Steve. Steve Harrington is your boyfriend.

You feel like you need to pinch yourself every time he looks your way and throws a smile meant for you, or feel the furnace heat of his fingers grasping your hips before pulling you into a kiss, sweet or searing.

He tells me I’m pretty.

The two of you are just laying in his bed on a lazy saturday morning, with no hurry to be anywhere, facing each other as you practically share his pillow causing your noses to bump with a simple shift. The blanket covers both of you from the waist down, your top half open to the slight chill dancing through the room.

Steve's shirtless and you're wearing an oversized shirt you found at a garage sale, one that goes to rest at the top of your thighs, but right now it’s bunched up high, allowing Steve to toy with the elastic of your underwear and drag his knuckles over your exposed waist. Legs tangled together, your cold feet pushing into Steve’s calf causing a gasp of shock from the boy which pulled a heartfelt giggle from your lips.

“You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever laid my eyes on.” A hand instantly moves to tuck loose strands behind your ear.

You don’t say anything, you can’t. Not when he’s looking at you like that. Soft eyes that twinkle, an easy smile that displays his stunning smile lines, his freckles, and moles that mark his face and body that you smother with thousands of kisses when given the opportunity. How his bed head of hair is curled and twisted this way and that, the ends tucking and touching his ear lobe and neck or even his jaw.

You don’t know how to respond to the sudden compliment, you haven’t received much in your years. So as you memorize him, you instantly say the words back to him, in your own way, of course.

“You’re quite pretty yourself, Steve Harrington. Very nice on the eyes.” A finger trailed his nose and down to his jaw.

A deep rumble from his chest filled you with a warmth that pushed away the February chill. You weren’t sure if you should’ve called him that. Most guys don’t like the word "pretty" being used when complimenting them, most like strong or handsome, pretty to them seems weak when it isn’t towards a girl. But when you looked at Steve he was all those to you, but pretty will be the one to always come to mind when you look at him, especially in moments like these. Intimate and away from prying eyes.

With every passing moment, I surprise myself.

You’re usually scared of guys, whether it be in a general sense or a relationship kinda sense. You’ve been on dates, didn’t like the guy and stopped talking with him or you liked him and went on a few dates but those ended up fizzling out as well.

But Steve Harrington made you feel scared, but the good kind of scared. The roller coaster adrenaline scare, where you’re whooping and hollering at the top of your lungs. Clinging to the metal bars for dear life worried you’ll fly away, but they're holding you securely in their grasp.

Steve constantly made you smile and laugh, scream out of slight fear or extreme pleasure. He held you in firm hugs, his chin digging into your scalp as he slowly swayed your bodies. He made you feel safe and loved.

Loved. You’ve fallen in love with him after just a year. Now you were scared.

What if he’s the last one I kiss? What if he’s the only one I’ll ever miss? Maybe I should run, I’m only twenty-one.

You began to panic. There was no real reason to panic, but you're an overthinker, constantly making useless scenarios in your fast-paced mind, thinking the worst of peaceful times. It’s a terrible flaw, but one you can’t push away no matter how much you try.

‘What if he gets bored of me? What if he thinks I’m clingy? What would he do if I told him I love him?’

Evil thoughts that would creep up in the time of silence.

You stared at nothing while you sat behind the counter at Family Video, body unconsciously swiveling the rolling chair from side to side. Steve and Robin are out on the floor putting away new releases and returning stock, their friendly banter becoming white noise to your ears as more corruptive thoughts came to mind and cramp every single space in your brain.

Your fingers pick at your nail beds, you don’t even feel the pricks of pain or feel the little trickles of blood pooling to the top. Only when you feel someone else’s hands pulling yours apart into their hold do you snap from your trance.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Steve's melodic voice rings in your ears.

“Huh?” Not too sure what he means.

His eyes are focused on your hands, pulling each finger in his eye line and then bringing a kiss to each nail. It made you flush at the sudden display of affection.

“I was calling for you,” another kiss, “and you didn’t answer so I came here,” kiss, “and your eyes were just wide and you were picking at your nails. I thought you stopped that.”

‘Great now you disappointed him’ ‘Probably thinks you’re a liar’

You bit your bottom lip, “got lost in my thoughts. That’s all.” A shrug of your shoulders.

He still held your hands, fingers laced together and his thumb ran atop your knuckles. He was warm and comfortable, it pushed the negative thoughts away just a bit.

Then he crouched down, hands placed on your knees and head tilted to look up at you with your small bit of height. His head tilted and swayed, trying to find your eyes that you wanted to hide away from him, he could always find what was wrong in the end.

“Sweetheart,” he sighed, “I’m not gonna make you tell me what’s wrong, or I won’t act like a mind reader, cause I’m not-“ “Beg to differ on certain days.” You interrupted.

He breathed a laugh, “if you believe so. But I just want you to know you can talk to me if something is bothering you, especially if it’s about me. Cause I don’t want you to think the wrong thing.” He squeezed your knees.

You looked at Steve, held his eye contact, and said, “I really like you, Steve Harrington.” The closest thing to I love you right now.

He smiled wide, “I really like you too, sweetheart.”

I’ve lost all control of my heartbeat now.

He said the words. He said the words.

“I love you, (Y/n).”

It felt like all the air left your lungs and now you probably looked like a fish out of water, mouth opening and closing. Trying to process everything that just happened while also trying to find the words for a proper response.

“(Y/n)? You okay?” He has a firm hold on your biceps.

Your own hands are also holding his biceps, eyes dancing across his face. You wanted to memorize this moment, the way he looked in the overhead lighting of the grocery store where you were buying snacks for a night in.

He just had to say the words that rocked your heart in the freaking grocery store!

“Sweetheart, say something, please. You’re scaring me a bit,” a chuckle but you knew he was concerned.

“Uh,” you blinked a few times, “really caught me off guard with that.”

The both of you chuckled, you from the absurdity of the moment and Steve from your comment. But it felt so perfect, a special moment to remember for the future.

When I hear I love you, now I’ve got someone to lose.

You tried fighting back, you desperately tried with all the strength you could muster into your bones. You yanked hard against the metal cuffs, the skin on your wrist starting to sting from the breakage. You tried kicking with your legs, but it was no use, you weren’t close enough to hit anything or anyone.

You could only stare and scream as you thrash. Watching helplessly as the soldier beats Steve down with his knuckles. How his skin breaks and bleeds, the loud cracks of his nose breaking causing blood to spill from his nostrils.

“Stop! Stop! Please! We’re telling the truth!” You tried to plead with them.

They just laughed and continued the harassment. Steve always being the hero, making sure they don’t lay a finger on you, causing him to be the center of their attention and attacks.

When the soldier got tired from throwing punches, he gripped Steve’s neck tight. You could slowly see the blood leaving his face, the air not making its way to his brain. His feet scrambled against the floor to find some purchase.

In what seemed to be his final moments, he looks at you.

“Steve!” You cried as you blotted upward from the bed.

Your chest heaved with heavy breaths and sweat formed at your temple while your back and chest were sticky with perspiration. A hand touched your chest to feel your heart as you pushed sticky strands from your face.

‘Just a nightmare’ ‘It was just a terrible nightmare’

“(Y/n)?” A scratchy voice was heard through the darkness of the bedroom.

“Steve, sorry.”

You felt him sit up, his hand rubbing circles to your back along your sleep shirt. He laid his head on your shoulder and placed his free appendage on your thigh.

“Was it a nightmare? Cause usually if it's dreams, there’s a different way we go about things.” He tried for a laugh and you gave him one. “There we go,” he sighed.

“Can you just hold me?” You whispered. An unspoken ‘I love you’

“Always, sweetheart.” ‘I love you too’

The first one to ever like me back. I’m seconds away from a heart attack.

“You know you are my first boyfriend, like ever.” You randomly blurt one day in Steve’s kitchen.

“No way, I find that hard to believe.” He called over his shoulder as he worked on breakfast.

“Oh!” You hop onto his counters, “and what makes you think that? Do enlighten me.”

He didn’t say anything quickly, so just as you were about to say something, he spoke up, “because you’re… you. Anyone would be lucky to be with you.”

He said the words so easily like they were the most obvious answer to your question. He was trying to give you a heart attack with how sugary sweet he is.

“Like I can’t believe I get to call you mine. Every day I wake up and remember I’m dating you and it makes my day one hundred percent better already. And knowing I get to call you or see you throughout the day, it keeps me from going insane during the boring or terrible moments.”

You were speechless. Steve caused every word and thought to leave your mouth and brain, all you could say was, “I love you.”

I blinked and suddenly, I had a valentine.

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