#which is just normal monopoly

[deep4ried]

I think they should have a club. an evil club

[aardvaark]

the leverage team would have had a games night… once. everyone cheated so much and in such increasingly extreme ways that all mentions of monopoly are banned in their headquarters (this makes talking about marks who monopolize the market very confusing)

[creature-from-unknown-orgins]

I should sleep

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The one weird monopoly trick that gave us Walmart and Amazon and killed Main Street

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Walmart didn't just happen. The rise of Walmart – and Amazon, its online successor – was the result of a specific policy choice, the decision by the Reagan administration not to enforce a key antitrust law. Walmart may have been founded by Sam Walton, but its success (and the demise of the American Main Street) are down to Reaganomics.

The law that Reagan neutered? The Robinson-Patman Act, a very boring-sounding law that makes it illegal for powerful companies (like Walmart) to demand preferential pricing from their suppliers (farmers, packaged goods makers, meat producers, etc). The idea here is straightforward. A company like Walmart is a powerful buyer (a "monopsonist" – compare with "monopolist," a powerful seller). That means that they can demand deep discounts from suppliers. Smaller stores – the mom and pop store on your Main Street – don't have the clout to demand those discounts. Worse, because those buyers are weak, the sellers – packaged goods companies, agribusiness cartels, Big Meat – can actually charge them more to make up for the losses they're taking in selling below cost to Walmart.

Reagan ordered his antitrust cops to stop enforcing Robinson-Patman, which was a huge giveaway to big business. Of course, that's not how Reagan framed it: He called Robinson-Patman a declaration of "war on low prices," because it prevented big companies from using their buying power to squeeze huge discounts. Reagan's court sorcerers/economists asserted that if Walmart could get goods at lower prices, they would sell goods at lower prices.

Which was true…up to a point. Because preferential discounting (offering better discounts to bigger customers) creates a structural advantage over smaller businesses, it meant that big box stores would eventually eliminate virtually all of their smaller competitors. That's exactly what happened: downtowns withered, suburban big boxes grew. Spending that would have formerly stayed in the community was whisked away to corporate headquarters. These corporate HQs were inevitably located in "onshore-offshore" tax haven states, meaning they were barely taxed at the state level. That left plenty of money in these big companies' coffers to spend on funny accountants who'd help them avoid federal taxes, too. That's another structural advantage the big box stores had over the mom-and-pops: not only did they get their inventory at below-cost discounts, they didn't have to pay tax on the profits, either.

MBA programs actually teach this as a strategy to pursue: they usually refer to Amazon's "flywheel" where lower prices bring in more customers which allows them to demand even lower prices:

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

You might have heard about rural and inner-city "food deserts," where all the independent grocery stores have shuttered, leaving behind nothing but dollar stores? These are the direct product of the decision not to enforce Robinson-Patman. Dollar stores target working class neighborhoods with functional, beloved local grocers. They open multiple dollar stores nearby (nearly all the dollar stores you see are owned by one of two conglomerates, no matter what the sign over the door says). They price goods below cost and pay for high levels of staffing, draining business off the community grocery store until it collapses. Then, all the dollar stores except one close and the remaining store fires most of its staff (working at a dollar store is incredibly dangerous, thanks to low staffing levels that make them easy targets for armed robbers). Then, they jack up prices, selling goods in "cheater" sizes that are smaller than the normal retail packaging, and which are only made available to large dollar store conglomerates:

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

Writing in The American Prospect, Max M Miller and Bryce Tuttle1 – a current and a former staffer for FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya – write about the long shadow cast by Reagan's decision to put Robinson-Patman in mothballs:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-08-13-stopping-excessive-market-power-monopoly/

They tell the story of Robinson-Patman's origins in 1936, when A&P was using preferential discounts to destroy the independent grocery sector and endanger the American food system. A&P didn't just demand preferential discounts from its suppliers; it also charged them a fortune to be displayed on its shelves, an early version of Amazon's $38b/year payola system:

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

They point out that Robinson-Patman didn't really need to be enacted; America already had an antitrust law that banned this conduct: section 2 of the the Clayton Act, which was passed in 1914. But for decades, the US courts refused to interpret the Clayton Act according to its plain meaning, with judges tying themselves in knots to insist that the law couldn't possibly mean what it said. Robinson-Patman was one of a series of antitrust laws that Congress passed in a bid to explain in words so small even federal judges could understand them that the purpose of American antitrust law was to keep corporations weak:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

Both the Clayton Act and Robinson-Patman reject the argument that it's OK to let monopolies form and come to dominate critical sectors of the American economy based on the theoretical possibility that this will lead to lower prices. They reject this idea first as a legal matter. We don't let giant corporations victimize small businesses and their suppliers just because that might help someone else.

Beyond this, there's the realpolitik of monopoly. Yes, companies could pass lower costs on to customers, but will they? Look at Amazon: the company takes $0.45-$0.51 out of every dollar that its sellers earn, and requires them to offer their lowest price on Amazon. No one has a 45-51% margin, so every seller jacks up their prices on Amazon, but you don't notice it, because Amazon forces them to jack up prices everywhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

The Robinson-Patman Act did important work, and its absence led to many of the horribles we're living through today. This week on his Peoples & Things podcast, Lee Vinsel talked with Benjamin Waterhouse about his new book, One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America:

https://athenaeum.vt.domains/peoplesandthings/2024/08/12/78-benjamin-c-waterhouse-on-one-day-ill-work-for-myself-the-dream-and-delusion-that-conquered-america/

Towards the end of the discussion, Vinsel and Waterhouse turn to Robinson-Patman, its author, Wright Patman, and the politics of small business in America. They point out – correctly – that Wright Patman was something of a creep, a "Dixiecrat" (southern Democrat) who was either an ideological segregationist or someone who didn't mind supporting segregation irrespective of his beliefs.

That's a valid critique of Wright Patman, but it's got little bearing on the substance and history of the law that bears his name, the Robinson-Patman Act. Vinsel and Waterhouse get into that as well, and while they made some good points that I wholeheartedly agreed with, I fiercely disagree with the conclusion they drew from these points.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out (again, correctly) that small businesses have a long history of supporting reactionary causes and attacking workers' rights – associations of small businesses, small women-owned business, and small minority-owned businesses were all in on opposition to minimum wages and other key labor causes.

But while this is all true, that doesn't make Robinson-Patman a reactionary law, or bad for workers. The point of protecting small businesses from the predatory practices of large firms is to maintain an American economy where business can't trump workers or government. Large companies are literally ungovernable: they have gigantic war-chests they can spend lobbying governments and corrupting the political process, and concentrated sectors find it comparatively easy to come together to decide on a single lobbying position and then make it reality.

As Vinsel and Waterhouse discuss, US big business has traditionally hated small business. They recount a notorious and telling anaecdote about the editor of the Chamber of Commerce magazine asking his boss if he could include coverage of small businesses, given the many small business owners who belonged to the Chamber, only to be told, "Over my dead body." Why did – why does – big business hate small business so much? Because small businesses wreck the game. If they are included in hearings, notices of inquiry, or just given a vote on what the Chamber of Commerce will lobby for with their membership dollars, they will ask for things that break with the big business lobbying consensus.

That's why we should like small business. Not because small business owners are incapable of being petty tyrants, but because whatever else, they will be petty. They won't be able to hire million-dollar-a-month union-busting law-firms, they won't be able to bribe Congress to pass favorable laws, they can't capture their regulators with juicy offers of sweet jobs after their government service ends.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out that many large firms emerged during the era in which Robinson-Patman was in force, but that misunderstands the purpose of Robinson-Patman: it wasn't designed to prevent any large businesses from emerging. There are some capital-intensive sectors (say, chip fabrication) where the minimum size for doing anything is pretty damned big.

As Miller and Tuttle write:

The goal of RPA was not to create a permanent Jeffersonian agrarian republic of exclusively small businesses. It was to preserve a diverse economy of big and small businesses. Congress recognized that the needs of communities and people—whether in their role as consumers, business owners, or workers—are varied and diverse. A handful of large chains would never be able to meet all those needs in every community, especially if they are granted pricing power.

The fight against monopoly is only secondarily a fight between small businesses and giant ones. It's foundationally a fight about whether corporations should have so much power that they are too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to care.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

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/2024/08/14/the-price-is-wright/#enforcement-priorities

[hermitcraftx]

Joel winning the Life Series where he centered his entire gimmick this season around Family under the guise of "Joel Toretto" makes me insane because he was alone for so long in the Life Series and it works out so perfectly that the guy who was allergic to allies for the start of the life series and had to be forced into it with soulmates wins the season he focuses on Family. Poetic cinema.

1. Third Life Joel. No friends. No allies. He joined up with Monopoly Mountain last minute and died out of sight of either of them, mostly alone. He had a house full of dogs, not full of friends (and where is that familiar?), and nobody really mourned him when he was gone, offhand comments and brief "Oh No!s" following his death. Being alone got him nothing.

2. Last Life Joel. No friends. He's alone again, for the most part. In Last Life there's a lot of unknowns, a lot of instability- people can get back in yellow or green, or they try, so Joel has temporary red alliances with the likes of Scar and Grian but they don't last. He's alone. Again. Joel laments it, in one of his videos, IIRC, that he's bad at making allies, and "look at where it got him". The closest person he had to an ally in Last Life was Grian when they were both red, Grian seeing first hand how insane and blood thirsty Joel becomes on red. They call themselves the Deadliest Duo, and they kill people, and they laugh when they die. But Joel dies, still, killed by Scott, shortly after Grian permadies.

3. Double Life. Now it's different. Now we're seeing some changes. Joel gets put with Etho, who off the bat immediately considers him a liability, a notion he rejects and fights against to get Etho to respect him. He builds Etho a ship to try and impress him. Etho purposefully takes fall damage to remind him of what's at stake. He's not just a lone wolf, anymore, Etho's life is in his hands and he's not happy about it. Joel hates it, being treated fragile and like a bomb to go off. Eventually, they find out they work together well, they get killed, they go red and Joel goes crazy. Red rage is a real, definable, re-occuring phenomenon for Joel, he IS angry and he DOES want to make people pay. Etho in the life series is usually more reserved, and he holds Joel back, yes, but Joel also helps Etho out of his shell and pushes him to do things he wouldn't normally do. The ship burns everything burns. And then they burned. And Joel's first real alliance goes up in flames, literally.

4. Now Joel has a taste of what it's like to not be alone the entire season. He teams up with Jimmy and Grian, his Bad Boys, and he's fiercely loyal to them, and then to him. (Even Grian by his standards is FIERCELY loyal to the Bad Boys- I mean, he doesn't even kill one of them! I think. Not permanently?) He changes his skin, matching leather jackets, these are his people. And he'd die for his people. Joel and Grian try their best to keep Jimmy alive, Joel going so far as to say he'd have sacrificed himself to keep Jim alive, but it wasn't enough, he wasn't quick enough, and he died right afterwards, leaving Grian alone. But he wasn't alone. And he didn't go out alone.

5. Secret Life is.... weird. He has allies, yes, but it's a bit of a strange situation, he allies with the Mounders and he lives a bit of a ways away from them, not quite in the group but not quite out of it. But he doesn't want to be alone again. He knows what happens when you're alone in this game, and he doesn't ever want that to happen to him again. Mumbo goes out almost immediately following Jimmy, the third to go out. Pearl IIRC betrays the Mounders and messes around with Gem, which is really funny given the events of Wild Life. It's only him and Bdubs at the end, both murdered by Scott.

6. Now. Wild Life. Again. Joel knows what happens if you're alone in this series, and he never wants it to happen to him again. So he bases his persona around a movie character, one that everyone knows and likes, he thinks. He makes himself someone that he thinks people will want to befriend, one where he won't have to be alone. He makes himself look strong, fake muscles clumsily attached to his arms, quoting about family and the importance of it, a vast difference from the lonely man in 3rd Life and Last Life who couldn't be assed to find allies. And it works. He has Gem- and everyone fears them, for once. Everyone already knows Joel is insane, but with Gem behind him, he's a significant threat. Gem keeps him grounded, and from doing stupid shit that gets him killed. They have Etho, and he comes and visits, which is nice. Everyone struggles a lot with the Wild Cards early game but them, neither of them losing lives for several sessions. Joel even comments that normally he's red by session 4, and he doesn't know what to do with himself without all that anger. He lives his best life, with Gem, with his car.

And then Grian's allies die, and isn't that familiar, and Joel lets him into the Family, because of course he would, allying with Grian is like second nature to him at this point. Maybe he feels guilty for leaving him in Limited Life, or maybe he just knows what it's like to be alone and doesn't want that for him. Who knows. He tries and fails at building traps. As soon as he's yellow he gets a double kill on Scott and Pearl, and Grian and Jimmy scream with him like old times. And it's okay, I mean it's stressful and it's like the end of the world but Joel's doing okay, he has his family, he's not alone.

And then the finale comes and it's so hectic and so many people are trying to kill him and Grian saves him, Grian tries so hard to save him, and isn't that something. Being worthy of being saved by Grian. And Gem goes out, not even to a player, to a vex, one of his family members is gone and it's so hectic Joel can't even stop to mourn or he, too, will die. And then he finds Grian and he stumbles to him screaming "Thank God you're alive!" because it had gotten so crazy, so wild that Joel didn't truly even know if Grian was alive, but he was, he still had Family, he wasn't alone again, not this time. And Grian says that he thinks Joel can win, Joel can win, that he'll give Joel his life, that it's about time he wins and Joel gets flashbacks to wanting to die for Jimmy, and Scar wanting to die for Grian and what that did to him, and he doesn't want that, but GOD he wants to win. So badly. And then Grian got knocked off the tower with Bdubs, ender pearling off, screaming how he refused to go like Mumbo, like Skizz, not on his tower and Joel's running, EVERYONE is targeting him, Grian takes out Pearl and Joel takes out Cleo and Ren.

And then it's just them, then it's just Joel and Grian, and Joel can't even find Grian, he just heard the arrows as Grian tries to shoot him, going back on his word as expected, which Joel-- Joel is glad for. Because he wanted to win this on his own terms, he wanted to win because he won, he would not be given anything. He's not alone this time. And he charges up the tree, and he kills Grian, kills his Family, his Bad Boy, his red friend, his ally in the sand, screaming that he's sorry, and Joel laughs.

Joel laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

[alice-everafter]

"Is the room to your liking?"

Riddle's tentative voice rings through the peaceful silence. He's stood like a stranger, unsure and hesitant in his crimson pajamas. Which is ironic given the fact that it’s his own room that the two of you are in. Really, that should be you standing around awkwardly. But instead here you were, sat on his king sized bed in similar pajamas without shame.

"Riddle," you don't have to fake the giddy grin as it stretches across your face painfully wide. "Any room is to my liking considering the shack I currently call home."

He gives you a concerned little smile in response. You couldn’t help it, you were excited to finally be able to sleep on a mattress that wasn’t lumpy. Or creaky. And or slightly moldy. The point being you’re excited to get some good sleep.

Riddle flicks off the lights and starts to settle into bed. You follow his lead, because if there is one thing Riddle Rosehearts can do is be a commanding presence even in satin pjs.

He turns on his side, staring at you from across a reasonable gap given the fact that you were currently sharing a bed. A really big one at that but a bed regardless.

And then continues to stare as a questionable silence occurs.

“Do you always go to bed this early?” You blurt out before you can think any better of it. The awkwardness was just asking to be broken.

“This is early?” Riddle’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “I’ve always gone to bed at this hour, even as a child.”

You can just vaguely make out the light of the still setting sun from the window behind you.

“Well, I mean, what time do you normally get up?”

“6 am.”

“Oh,” well. Maybe he’ll let you sleep in, enjoy the luxury of a non-lumpy bed while you still can.

“You seem apprehensive.” Riddle fiddles with the blanket in his hands where it rests right below his chin. You try and shoo the imagery of a small child being tucked in out of your brain.

Thank god his unique magic didn’t have to do with reading minds, otherwise you’d be thrown to the streets with a collar as a parting gift.

Speaking of collars and lack there of, today had marked a month since Riddle’s “big summer blowout” as you have codenamed it as. And what started as a “1 month of sobriety” joke by Ace turned into an actual celebration by Cater. So, naturally, you dragged yourself along and helped yourself to Trey’s mouthwatering pastries. But then one thing led to another and somehow you were roped into playing a Twisted Wonderland version of Monopoly that led to Grim melting all the plastic house pieces in a fit of firey tantrum to then being forced to fix them by Riddle in an impromptu magic lesson/lecture and—

Yeah, so a lot happened. And next thing you know, you’re being surveilled watched by Trey as you meticulously brush your teeth along to his direction… for some reason? Turns out Ace wasn’t spewing complete lies about Trey’s “fetish” for teeth. You wouldn’t call it that, personally. It was more like a… slightly uncomfortable passion.

But anyway, here you are. Sleeping over at Heartslabyul because Riddle had insisted you and Grim stay the night since by the time you had realized, it was past curfew. Though, surprisingly, Riddle insisted that you share his bed. And Grim, still more than a little apprehensive about the Dormhead, scampered off to sleep with the other freshmen. Cramped dorm rooms be damned.

“Prefect?”

You shake yourself from your thoughts, realizing you had left Riddle hanging for your answer.

“No, no. I’m just… difficult to get up in the morning.” You settle on saying, fiddling with the comforter much like Riddle was.

“Oh, well you can’t be worse than Ace. He’d sleep the entire day away if I allowed it.”

You can see that familiar spark of disapproval flare up behind his eyes and you instinctively tense up. Though as quick as it was there, it fizzles out. Reminding you that yes, this was Riddle, but not the same one that nearly decapitated you with a rose bush.

This is the one that you saw break down in tears on the Heartslabyul lawn after treating it like a playground sandbox. The one that nearly did it again—the crying part, not the sandbox bit—as he pulled you aside and apologized for nearly killing you.

You remind yourself that as you decide to take a small leap of faith with your next words.

“I was also sort of hoping to sleep in tomorrow.”

“Oh,” is all he says. Which isn’t terrible, but not exactly good either.

“Since, you know. It’ll be Sunday. And, you know, still the weekend so. Good to get caught up on sleep while you can… you know.”

He’s analyzing what you’ve said, you can tell by the way his eyes get wide and concentrated. Oh, he’s biting his lip now. That means he’s actually considering your thoughts. He’s thinking, he’s about to speak—

“Alright.”

“…Alright?”

“Yes, alright.” He seems to solidify his answer with a nod. “Let’s sleep in.”

Those words settle in your chest like the sweetest relief.

“Brilliant idea, Riddle!” You can feel the excitement as it grows in your chest. So much so you reach over and grasp his hand, shaking it in emphasis. “You won’t regret this, I tell you.”

“You’re acting like I’ve just done something revolutionary.” He titters, cheeks pink from the unexpected contact as you basically start shaking his hand like an eager businessman after a hard won deal.

“How many times have you slept in before?”

He opens his mouth to respond, ponders, and then slowly shuts it.

“See! So it's basically revolutionary. Why do you think we threw you a party?"

"Oh, and that's another thing." He seems to remember something at the mention of the party. "The fact that Ace and Cater kept congratulating me on my '1 month of sobriety' is pure nonsense. I've never had a lick of alcohol my whole life, so why would I be sober if I never got not sober to begin with?"

As he rambled, you could see his confusion slowly shifting towards indignance. His cheeks were beginning to flush, eyebrows knitting together. His fingers were clenching and unclenching in the sheets pulled over his body.

He looks at you now with pursed lips, bordering on pouty, waiting for a reply.

"...Well, it's a, um..." You stop yourself from saying joke. If you wanted Riddle to not possibly get offended, you'd need to overexplain as much as he can overthink. "It's supposed to be ironic. As in like, 'haha get it? Riddle would never get drunk and therefore sobriety makes no sense and therefore is funny!' kind of ironic."

You subconsciously ended up avoiding eye contact throughout your entire explanation. And also leaving out the comparison of his... "moments" with alcoholism, since you didn't think that would go over very well. So when you finish and decide to just bite the bullet and look, his expression is one of... disappointment?

"Oh," he says, simply and softly. "I see, I guess that... makes sense."

...Maybe you should explain the comparison. "If you need me to elaborate, I can."

"No," he quickly responds with a shake of the head. "That won't be necessary. Your explanation was more than enough."

His eyes are trained on a loose piece of thread near the edge of his pillow yet it's like he's staring straight through it.

"Is there... something else then that's on your mind?"

"I guess I am just... realizing a few things about myself. Especially in regards to these past few months. All those times when I overheard a student comment that I 'couldn't take a joke' were, in essence, correct."

"What?" Talk about a topic shift. "Wait, hold on a second, where did this come from?"

"From just now, actually." He begins picking at the thread he's been zoning out on. "I mean, you saw me. I almost talked myself into a tizzy over, what? A harmless phrase that had no intention of demeaning my character? That ended up turning into a party meant to congratulate me?"

"Well, I mean, there is an underlying comparison between your 'tizzy' moments and alcoholism so—"

"Ace was right."

You blink, momentarily wondering if the person laying across from you is actually Riddle or not.

"How?" You don't bother with hiding your incredulousness, too confused to sugarcoat.

"When he said that everyone around me only panders to my behavior." He huffs, a small humorless laugh filled with self deprecation. "I, all that time, was just silencing thoughts and behavior that I viewed as wrong even though it would've been right. It's no wonder some of the freshman are still hesitant with me. Why it feels like everyone is walking around eggshells when they talk to me."

"Even you, Prefect." He looks... small, truly like a child. Curled into himself like he wishes to disappear from sight. Blinking rapidly like he's trying not to cry. "Even you do it. You let me do what I want, you're never 100% honest with me, and you justify my responses. Like just now."

You open your mouth to rebuttal, but he shakes his head, smiling sadly.

"Don't bother, I can give you examples. Asking me if we could sleep in, expecting me to disagree. Only half explaining the meaning to me since it'd be directly referencing my anger. Which you have yet to actually name for what it is, not once."

You... hadn't even realized you were doing that. It was all just, natural. Instinctive.

"I can... I'm not the most perceptive but, I can tell when you tense up, Prefect."

He meets your gaze, and that's when you process the tension in your shoulders. You had been tensing them, for who knows how long.

"I don't blame you," he speaks before you can begin to try and say anything in response. "Not after everything I did, not after I overblotted and nearly got us all killed."

He looks defeated as he turns over to lie on his back, staring up at the canopy of his bed.

"Ace and all of them were right, I'm just a baby tyrant."

The two of you lapse into silence, you with nothing to say and him having said it all. You don't know how long you stare at his profile for, just scraping the recesses of your brain for the words to say. But eventually, you decide "fuck it" and just let him have it. Like he deserves.

"So you're a bit of a control freak." His head snaps to you but you force yourself to ignore it, barreling onwards. "Scratch that, you ARE a control freak. Can you blame yourself? What with that shitty mom you have, I'd be surprised if you didn't turn out some form of fucked up."

"My mother is—"

"Nope," you abruptly hold a finger up right to his face. "None of that, I'm talking. You want the truth so I'm giving you the truth. Your mom sucks, severely. She basically made you into the baby tyrant that you are. And we, as friends and as your dormmates, have perpetuated that attitude. Thereby continuing the cycle of tyranny until when someone eventually called you out on it, you exploded."

All that momentary fight dies out the more you went on. Every new statement was like a lash across his face. Now he refuses to look at you, too disappointed to meet your gaze. Eyes glossy with unshed tears.

You cross the invisible wall between you two and reach out, grabbing his hand once again in yours.

"But that doesn't mean you can't change." You squeeze his hand, whether to reassure yourself or him is beyond even you. "The fact that you're acknowledging your behavior is proof enough that you're on your way to fixing it. But even then, healing isn't linear. If you take a few steps back, just get back on it again. It's going to be a while but there's nothing you can do about that except let it happen and be patient. Don't let every reminder of your faults be a dissuasion, let it be a motivator to keep going."

You take a moment to breathe, but also to gauge his reaction. Wide eyed and staring at you in wonderment, Riddle lays unmoving. Nothing but the dim impression of street lights outside to illuminate his form in the darkness of his bedroom. Looking at you and only you.

"I'll do better," you tell him, resolute. "I'll hold you accountable. I'll remind myself more to say what I mean, or even call you out on your shit if I need to. And if not me then someone else will, especially Ace. Consequences be damned with him."

He's lying once more on his side, mirroring you like before. His fingers have since found their place around your hand, holding it in kind. His grip tightens with the lull in your speech. You don't know whether it was intentionally or not but it's enough to encourage you to let that last little thought out.

"And for what it's worth, I think you're doing as good a job as any, Riddle."

Silence settles in, him with nothing to say and you having said it all. Well, almost having said it all.

"So," you pipe up before those tears you can see in his eyes decide to fall. "I think this call for a concluding hug, what do you say?"

So, so many emotions fly across his face as you hold open your arms as best you can while lying on a bed. Eventually, what he settles on doing is laughing. Watery and in disbelief, Riddle laughs and leans forwards into your arms.

"Honestly," he chides without an ounce of real intent as he presses his face into your shoulder. "That's how you decide to end your thoughts?"

"I don't see you doing any better, Mr. 'I'm just a baby tyrant.'"

A month ago, that response would've gotten you a one way ticket to collar town. But tonight, he only laughs and holds you tighter.

"Touché, Prefect." He leans back enough that you're able to watch as a smile spreads across his face, unabashed and bright like the sun.

It's one of the firsts of its kind that you've ever seen on his face. You hope you can keep producing more just like it.

[letsgoletsgetit08]

one last night

warnings/tags: mdni, non-graphic smut, emotional hurt/comfort

pairing: Luigi Mangione x f!reader

summary: All you want is one last night with Luigi before he would be taking the fall for a crime he helped orchestrate.

word count: 1.3k

author's note: Luigi, my man. This one's for you. No, this is not typically what I write, but I was inspired by everyone's favorite folk hero so here you go!

ao3 link: one last night

one last night

Luigi would be leaving soon and all you wanted was some time alone together before he had to go. Just one last night.

You and Luigi were childhood best friends. After he moved into your neighborhood, everything changed for you. Your family was the only one in the neighborhood with kids even close to your age, so you and your sister were thrilled when the Mangione’s moved in next door.

He was yours, now. When he could be. Which was much more often, once upon a time. The past year or so, he was so tied up in planning that you barely saw him. You understood, of course. The work was important, bigger than you, the finger that topples the first domino of many.

Even more than that, it was personal. 

Luigi and your sister were the ones who were childhood sweethearts. Her death brought the two of you together. Grief is funny like that. Hers was a claim of many that was denied all so a billionaire could become wealthier. A somewhat experimental procedure could have saved her life - it also could have killed her, but she was dying anyway, and the reward far outweighed the already inevitable risks. Your parents couldn’t afford it uncovered. You never got the chance to see if it would have been worth it. 

It was important work. Knowing this didn’t help you worry any less. It didn’t help the jealousy you felt sometimes. It was hard being with someone who was made for such bigger things than a mundane life. Sometimes you wished Luigi was just a normal man so you could be sitting down with him for a quiet dinner on an average weeknight rather than force feeding him as his nerves grew, knowing this was your last night together for the foreseeable future. 

It was important work, being the lover of a mastermind who was helping plan his very own demise. Yes, Luigi would be a folk hero, but it didn’t change the fact that it meant he would be facing the harsh realities of the criminal justice system. That was part of the point, though. You understood everything perfectly, as much as you were allowed to know for your own safety. You were oddly relieved that Luigi wouldn’t be the one to actually pull the trigger, though you agreed that it should be done. Everyone would think it was him. Everyone would unite behind him because of it. You weren’t prepared for the love of your life to be famous in this way, but you were endlessly proud of him. He was one of the strongest people you had ever met. Intelligent and kind with a wicked sense of humor. You glanced over at him from your spot in the kitchen as he loaded his backpack full of Monopoly money on the couch, trying to soak in every detail of his handsome face. His dark curls and that charming smile that could win over anyone he fixed it on. 

You plated the cacio e pepe and grabbed the bottle of wine, walking over to sit beside him, “You have to eat, baby. Please. It might be your last good meal.” 

He looked up at you through soulful brown eyes, “Thank you, love. I’ll try.”

The two of you ate together, but his gaze was still distant, brow furrowed. A look you knew meant he was deep in thought. 

“I’m so proud of you, you know?” You asked, elbowing him lightly just to see the corner of his mouth curl into a smile like you knew it would. 

“Yeah? You’re not mad at me?” He looked at you bashfully. It was a conversation you’d had before. 

“No, Lu.” You placed your hand on his knee to reassure him, “Never. I’m sad and I’m going to miss you more than you’ll ever know. But I’m not mad. Promise. Besides,” You reached down to take a sip from your wine glass, “I’ve already started planning my visitation outfits. I thrifted a really cool fur coat the other day, I think you’ll love it.” 

“Baby,” He couldn’t help but giggle at your words, “You’ll be the hottest person there. Easily. No competition.” 

“Just promise me you won’t fall for anyone in prison.” You stared him down, trying to look serious, probably failing. 

“Never, darling. You’re it for me. Promise.” He gave you a quick peck on the corner of your smile, pulling back slightly to look at you. “I’ll miss you, too. Every day. I can’t believe I got so lucky.” 

“I’m the lucky one.” You blushed despite the fact that it wasn’t even close to the first time you’d had the same exchange.

���Fine, we both are.” He concluded, standing up to clear the table. Once he returned, you saw the worry fall back over his face. 

“Lu,” You caressed his cheek with your hand, “Baby, you’ve done all you can do tonight. Can we just spend one last night together? Please?”

“Sweetheart,” He breathed, leaning into your hand, taking a lengthy deep breath, “I feel like I shouldn’t but I have no good reason not to. You’re right, everything is in place. I think I’m scared to take my mind off it.” 

“Let me take your mind off of it.” You offered, thumb tracing across his cheekbone. “We deserve to have this. You deserve it. You’ve worked so hard, baby.”

“Everyone has.” His eyelids fluttered open, his gaze meeting your own, “You included.”

You leaned in, lips grazing his as you spoke, “Just take the compliment for once.” You couldn’t help but tease. 

“Yes, ma’am.” He whispered, his voice going raspy as his desire grew. 

Your lips landed on his just like they had a thousand times before, but this felt different. You imagined this is how the last people on the earth might feel during the apocalypse. His lips turned fervent, tongue delving into your mouth, dancing with your own. 

You sucked on his bottom lip and heat coiled in your abdomen at the groan he let out at the sensation. 

Before you knew it, he was carrying you bridal style into your bedroom, laying you down gently on the mattress. He removed your clothes piece by piece, kissing every inch of you as he went. His own clothes followed. You tried to memorize every inch of his beautiful body as it stood before you, the knowledge that it would be the last time in a long time you would see him sitting heavy on your conscience. 

He took you apart meticulously, like a seasoned watchmaker, orchestrating every move towards your release in perfect concert, winding you tighter and tighter until you were panting out his name as the waves of pleasure rolled over you again and again, right on time. 

When he finally entered you, the stretch around his large size being one of your favorite sensations, maintaining eye contact as he landed his strokes, you felt tears escape your eyes. He wiped them away with gentle thumbs, shushing you sweetly. Eventually, he released inside of you, calling out your name like a prayer, a mantra he had practiced an infinite number of times before. You hoped he had gotten you pregnant. 

The two of you cleaned up and returned to bed. Luigi pulled you tight to his chest, stroking your hair and kissing the crown of your head, “You know you’ll always be my girl, right? No matter what happens. I’m yours, my love. For as long as you want me.”

“Luigi,” You sighed, not wanting to cry again, “I’ll always want you. I promise. Nothing can take that from me.”

“They’ll try.” He warned.

“They can try all they want.” You leaned up, planting a kiss on his jaw, “They can’t take Luigi Mangione from me. I love you so much, baby.”

“I love you more.” He tugged you tighter to himself. 

You knew he wouldn’t sleep well that night, but it didn’t matter, really. You were together one last time, and that was the only important thing to either of you in that moment. You had one another. Everything else was secondary.

[all-the-fish]

Oh, you know, just the usual internet browsing experience in the year of 2024

Some links and explanations since I figured it might be useful to some people, and writing down stuff is nice.

First of all, get Firefox. Yes, it has apps for Android/iOS too. It allows more extensions and customization (except the iOS version), it tracks less, the company has a less shitty attitude about things. Currently all the other alternatives are variations of Chromium, which means no matter how degoogled they supposedly are, Google has almost a monopoly on web browsing and that's not great. Basically they can introduce extremely user unfriendly updates and there's nothing forcing them to not do it, and nowhere for people to escape to. Current examples of their suggested updates are disabling/severly limiting adblocks in June 2024, and this great suggestion to force sites to verify "web environment integrity" ("oh you don't run a version of chromium we approve, such as the one that runs working adblocks? no web for you.").

uBlockOrigin - barely needs any explanation but yes, it works. You can whitelist whatever you want to support through displaying ads. You can also easily "adblock" site elements that annoy you. "Please log in" notice that won't go away? Important news tm sidebar that gives you sensory overload? Bye.

Dark Reader - a site you use has no dark mode? Now it has. Fairly customizable, also has some basic options for visually impaired people.

SponsorBlock for YouTube - highlights/skips (you choose) sponsored bits in the videos based on user submissions, and a few other things people often skip ("pls like and subscribe!"). A bit more controversial than normal adblock since the creators get some decent money from this, but also a lot of the big sponsors are kinda scummy and offer inferior product for superior price (or try to sell you a star jpg land ownership in Scotland to become a lord), so hearing an ad for that for the 20th time is kinda annoying. But also some creators make their sponsored segments hilarious.

Privacy Badger (and Ghostery I suppose) - I'm not actually sure how needed these are with uBlock and Firefox set to block any tracking it can, but that's basically what it does. Find someone more educated on this topic than me for more info.

Https Everywhere - I... can't actually find the extension anymore, also Firefox has this as an option in its settings now, so this is probably obsolete, whoops.

Facebook Container - also comes with Firefox by default I think. Keeps FB from snooping around outside of FB. It does that a lot, even if you don't have an account.

WebP / Avif image converter - have you ever saved an image and then discovered you can't view it, because it's WebP/Avif? You can now save it as a jpg.

YouTube Search Fixer - have you noticed that youtube search has been even worse than usual lately, with inserting all those unrelated videos into your search results? This fixes that. Also has an option to force shorts to play in the normal video window.

Consent-O-Matic - automatically rejects cookies/gdpr consent forms. While automated, you might still get a second or two of flashing popups being yeeted.

XKit Rewritten - current most up to date "variation "fork" of XKit I think? Has settings in extension settings instead of an extra tumblr button. As long as you get over the new dash layout current tumblr is kinda fine tbh, so this isn't as important as in the past, but still nice. I mostly use it to hide some visual bloat and mark posts on the dash I've already seen.

YouTube NonStop - do you want to punch youtube every time it pauses a video to check if you're still there? This saves your fists.

uBlacklist - blacklists sites from your search results. Obviously has a lot of different uses, but I use it to hide ai generated stuff from image search results. Here's a site list for that.

Redirect AMP to HTML - redirects links from their amp version to the normal version. Amp link is a version of a site made faster and more accessible for phones by Bing/Google. Good in theory, but lets search engines prefer some pages to others (that don't have an amp version), and afaik takes traffic from the original page too. Here's some more reading about why it's an issue, I don't think I can make a good tl;dr on this.

Also since I used this in the tags, here's some reading about enshittification and why the current mainstream internet/services kinda suck.

[potatoplace]

Game Night

💖 Valentine's Collection 2025: Monopoly 💖

Nessian x Reader | Azris x Reader | Cazriel x Reader

Summary: Game night with your partners means three things: chaos, anger, and sexual tension.

Warnings: daddy kink oops, don't think there's anything else tho

Words: 1,224

Author's Note: this was soooo soo sOoo much fun omg. I loved Nessian's the most, cause they're the ones I had in mind when I made the poll 😂 and uhhh the Azris one... got uh. More daddy-y than I'd planned but I'm not mad. I hope you guys like it!! Read it on AO3!

18+ only pls

🤍🩶🤍❤️🤍

“No, no, NO!” Cassian yelled as the dice stopped on doubles sixes, moving him from your hotel on Marvin’s Garden to Nesta’s hotel on Boardwalk.

“Yes!” Nesta cheered, a fist pumping into the air. “You’re going down, pretty boy!”

Cassian rifled through his stack of money that had already been cut into heftily from his last turn, leaving him with just ones and fives, his cheeks red. “I swear, Nes, you’re going to land on Illinois and then Pennsylvania Avenue and give me everything back.”

“Fat chance, Cassie, I’m going to bleed. You. Dry,” Nesta hissed, her hands clawing at the edges of the table.

“Okay, let’s cool it a little bit, guys,” you interjected, hoping to alleviate some of the tension that was quickly building to an unstoppable point.

As usual.

“Yeah, Nes, take you turn,” Cassian sneered at her, and you shot him a dirty look. He at least had the decency to look ashamed for five seconds, that’s more than he normally would.

Nesta rolled the dice, Cassian chanting for her to get a seven under his breath, only to yell when she rolled an eight, skipping right past his hotel on Illinois in favor of one of her railroads. “Would you look at that, Cassian, I seem to owe no money to anyone at this table.”

You sighed and scooped up the dice, hoping that your turn would help distract them from each other. Your hands shook the dice and loosed them, landing on a solid four - leaving you on free parking, which currently held over $1000 in Nesta’s income tax landings.

“Oh, you bitch!” Nesta yelled at you, though her hand landed on your arm gently, reassuring you that she may be loud, but she’s not truly angry with you.

You giggled at her as you raked in your new stack of bills, your wealth nearly equal with hers now.

“Oh, fuck me,” Cassian groaned. He never liked when the two of you were on top, as you rarely made someone go bankrupt, and Nesta would loan you money if you needed some - you are her princess are all. Meaning Cassian would have mercy from you, but all of Nesta’s mercy had been given to you.

“I can certainly arrange that, if you can’t pay for Boardwalk the next time you land on it,” Nesta said with a smirk, her eyes promising that she would offer such a trade.

“Over my dead body,” Cassian said, grabbing the dice again and rolling a ten, landing him at Nesta’s hotel on Connecticut Avenue. “FUCK!”

🤍💙🤍���🤍

“That will be $1000, Y/N,” Eris said from across the table, his amber eyes glinting as he watched you fidget in your seat.

You bit your lip as you looked from him to your stack of money, knowing that you had less than half of what you needed, and you’d already traded away most of your properties. “Can I owe you one?” You asked, knowing the limited likelihood that he would agree.

“No, that isn’t the rule of the game, bunny. You either pay up or go bankrupt, I’m sorry to say,” he said, though his smirk told you he wouldn’t be sorry. After all, whenever you went bankrupt you chose one of them to cuddle with until they finished battling it out.

You turned your gaze to Azriel, his hazel eyes already trained on you.

“How much do you need, bunny?”

You smiled and bit your lip before counting the money that you had left. “Uhm… $637?” Azriel counted out $700 for you and held his hand out, taking it back before you could take it. You rolled your eyes and stood up, going over by him to give him a long kiss, your mouths only separating when Eris coughed, annoyed. “Thank you, Azzie,” you said, giving him another kiss, on his cheek this time. “Here you go, Eris,” You said brightly, handing him the money.

“You know, it’s against the spiritual rules of the game to bail someone out, Azriel,” Eris said as he grabbed the dice.

“But she’s so adorable Eris, especially after you’ve rejected her offer of paying you back later. I mean,” he grabbed your cheeks and turned your head so you were facing him. “Could you say no to that face?”

Eris opened his mouth, but you slid your lip into a pout and squinted your eyes like you were going to cry.

He sighed. “No, I can’t. Come on, Y/N, just give up and come sit on daddy’s lap, hmm?” The request sent heat straight to your core, and your cheeks that Azriel was still holding onto.

“Or you could come sit on my lap, babygirl,” Azriel said, turning your face back to him. “I did just save you from bankruptcy.”

Your eyes flicked between the two of them.

“No, I think I’m fine for now, after all, I’m not bankrupt thanks to you, daddy,” you said softly, relishing in the light blush that dusted Azriel’s cheeks.

“See, Az? She does it every time!” Eris insisted, finally shaking the dice in his hands. “Just wait, you’ll be in my lap in no time, bunny.”

🤍❤️🤍💙🤍

“Ah, shit,” Cassian groaned as you landed on Pennsylvania Avenue, where Azriel had just put up a hotel. “Do you have enough money to pay for that, baby?”

You rolled your eyes at him. You were doing far better than he was this game, having slightly tricked him and Azriel into giving you all of their pieces of lower-priced property, leaving you owning two sides of the board, utilities and railroads included.

“I think I do, Cassie, thank you though,” you smiled at him, pulling out the money that you owed Azriel.

“Thank you,” Azriel said quietly as he put the money away in the proper order, both of you sharing the vast majority of the money. “Time for you to go, Cassian. And you should be asking if you have enough money,” he pointed out, waving at the part of the board he was on: your territory.

“Oh, I’ll be just fine, I’m going to skate by on chance and community chest, brother,” Cassian boasted as he picked up the dice and rolled them.

You couldn’t help but giggle at him landing on one of your hotels a moment later, biting your lip to keep your joy from being too obvious. You’d always found it funny how confident Cassian was, even when he sucked at the game like he did with monopoly.

“Pay up, big guy,” you said, extending a hand.

“I don’t-“ he sighed loudly. “Fuck you, Azriel!”

“What did I do?” Azriel asked with a brow raised.

“Well, I can’t say that to Y/N, now can I?! So fuck you!”

Az rolled his eyes at him. “Can you pay her, or not?”

“Yeah, Cassie, it’s only right to pay your debts,” you teased as he began counting out money, coming up a couple hundred short. He grumbled as he picked off a few houses from his monopoly, and pushed the money into your hands.

“Thank you, Cass,” you said, catching his eyes. “You know I love you, no matter how poor you are in monopoly, right?”

He let out an amused huff, and grinned. “If you love me so much, will you give me one of your monopolies?”

“Not a chance.”

🧡💙🤍❤️🩶

General Taglist: @daughterofthemoons-stuff @lilah-asteria @meritxellao @twismare @wrenisrad

[i-cant-sing]

Okay okay, I have another idea-

Yandere dad Nanami x Nanami reader

I've made yall see the menace Fushiguro reader who we all love and adore, but let's talk about Nanami's daughter who is an absolute angel and polar opposite to Fushiguro reader.

Child reader is just the most well behaved kid, listens to her father always, and since Nanami is raising her, she's also going to be very good in her studies because papa Nanami is a very good teacher. I mean, reader is definitely on top of her class and has a whole wall dedicated to her awards and medals. She just has to show off her math skills when she plays cafe (because obv she's gonna be a baker who bakes fresh bread daily for Nanami to buy and make sandwiches) and uses Monopoly money.

And when I say reader is polite, that is the understatement of the history. She just cannot bear to offend anyone! She has to put "-san" with everyone's name and has to address them correctly. "Yuji-san! Megumi-San!" And "pervert-San!" Which is Gojo, because of course Nanami has told her to beware of him and only address him as "pervert-san".

"But my name's Gojo!" He tells you, but you're so distressed because dad told you to call the white haired man wearing a blindfold/glasses "pervert-san" and it'd be rude to address him as anything else!

And Nanami adores his kid so much. She's such a perfect child, never breaks rules (don't talk to strangers or Pervert san.) and is such a goody-goody. He is a present father, he makes time for you. The Jujutsu sorcerers can wait, the world can be saved by someone else, but he needs to attend your school play at all costs. And even when hes not around for the day, he has raised you to be a very responsible child- like you even go get the groceries on your own when dad is late! (Like that Japanese show in which they send kids to shop on their own)

But of course, there are times when he needs to be away for longer periods, so he needs to hire a babysitter. His top choices: Shoko(although hes a little hesitant since you have a morbid curiosity learning and Shoko would happily let you accompany her to the morgue), Yuta, Maki, Megumi + Yuji + Nobara.

Who is NEVER allowed to babysit you? Gojo.

Gojo babysits anyway. (He fr steals you from Megumi trio)

And Nanami just comes home to Gojo and reader eating takeout and he's just like "Y/n, how could you let Pervert san in your home and eat with him?" And reader's just on the brink of tears and is trying to defend herself "b-but you said to be polite to guests! And Pervert-san bought food for me. Wouldn't it be rude to not share it with him?" *reader's teary eyes* and then Gojo is like "you'd rather let your child starve? Can't you see how tiny she already is?!" *Gojo's teary eyes* and Nanami pops a vein "it's not cute when you do it!"And then kicks Gojo out of the house.

Even though reader can dress herself up appropriately, she still has to have her hair done by Nanami, no matter what age. At some point, reader probably realises that it's something Nanami needs more than she does. It's a tradition, you think, but it's actually a coping mechanism for Nanami to deal with the fact that you're "growing up" and don't ask him to watch cartoons with you or read you bedtime stories anymore🥺

And Sukuna??? He takes one look at you and he's already decided he's gonna be mean to you, but then the more time you spend with him and Yuji, the more he realises.... its just not worth being mean to the only person who is so sweet to him and actually greets and talks to him like he's an individual person and not just a parasite inside Yuji's skin. Like reader just goes "Sukuna-san! I'm painting Yuji-san's nails but he can't pick a color. Will you help?" And he's like "Alright, fuck it I'm taking this brat with me when I comit mass murder. She's safe."

I feel like Nanami will allow reader to have a fairly normal childhood, so he keeps his yandere tendencies at a bay. It's when you start growing up and as he says "the others try to taint you with momentary pleasures" that his yandereness begins to show. Honestly, it's just more of his protective tendencies coming to light than anything else. He thinks people don't have your best interests in and sometimes he's right, but how else will you learn if you don't experience it?

Also, if you do end up having cursed energy and the ability to see curses, I think that's when Nanami starts spiralling down. He does not want you to become a Jujutsu sorcerer, he wants you far far away from the Jujutsu world completely. He can't- he can't allow what happened to Haibrara happen to you. He can't allow your innocence and naivety to be tainted by the horrendous world of curses. He'd rather risk you hating him forever as he locks you away than allow you to put your life at risk for others.

You are his priority. Your safety is his priority. You'll understand in due time why he did what he did, so while his heart does break hearing you cry and beg to be let out of your room, he doesn't regret putting you in there one bit.

Nanami sighs as he continues prepping your dinner. Guess he'll have to add some crushed sleeping pills so that you don't get sick from crying your bodyweight out (or more like he can't bear to see you in such a pitiful state.)

God save the poor souls who do end up kidnapping you.

[devoutekuna]

Playing with their child

Includes- Toji, Sukuna, Nanami, Gojo, Geto

Sukuna-

"Your so stupid!" Shouting at the little girl. "No, you are" retailing at the man, he pair of them were trying to roast marshmallows on the campfire they recently created, though it wasn't going as well as she wanted, normally you'd never let her near an open flame especially despite her father being able to make flames. "Shut up, you take after your mother" refusing to acknowledge that his daughter wasn't the brightest. "Leave mummy alone!" Threatening him with the burnt marshmallow. "Do it then!" He knew she wouldn't do it, she valued her life too much despite knowing that he'd never kill his only offspring.

Nanami-

"That'll be £30" sat, scanning the fake barcode on the bowl of soup. "But I made it, so why can't I get it for free?" Normally he'd never create a fuss with her absurd prices but recently he wasn't having it, she started to charge him the average of £20 for a bag of chips, and most of the time they were half eaten. "No, I made it" taking the bowl out of his hands. "You only added the spoon!" He had to teach her about real life and how stupid this was. "Do you want the food or not!?" Grabbing the spoon as she stored it around as if she was going to eat it. Sighing in defeat, he was hungry and tired from work so he just wanted to eat something. "Here" handing her a £30. "That'll be an extra £10 because of the shouting fee"

Geto-

You couldn't understand why his daughter was so obsessed with tea, maybe because he drank it most days but that still wasn't enough. "Here you go" pouring him a glass of 'tea' it looked a little clear to be the tea he liked, and it was proven as he took a sip. "This isn't tea baby" shaking her head in response as she picked up her own cup. "No, it is tea" unable to hide her smile as she drank the real tea, she had switched the cups so that she got the special drink whilst he only got the water. "But it's okay because you can have a biscuit" handing him the last biscuit on the table. "But I want the tea?" Cocking his head to the side. "It for me" smiling at him as she gulped it down.

Gojo-

"Ow" looking down at the battery powered vehicle which kept ramming into his ankle. "Beep beep!" Honking the horn at him, he didn't understand why his son couldn't just drive around him, they were in the open. "Go around" "NO! Your blocking my road" noticing the small toys aligned up in the shape of a racecourse. "What road!?" "This road!" Running over the man's foot "Ow!" They argued like siblings rather than father and son, kicking over the boy's car with a reflex. "MUMMY!"

Toji-

"Give me the money" motioning for her to put it in his hand. "No, you owe me 25!" Crossing her arms as she laid down, she wasn't willing to give up the £5 she got from the bank, it was stupid really as she was just being petty. "That was last week!" The three of you were currently playing monopoly, it never ended well so you didn't understand why you kept doing it, they always argued about the money which normally lasted around 5 minutes. "You owe me 25!" Screaming at the poor man, literally. "I'll pay you back when you give me the money!" That's what he always said you weren't surprised he was in debt before you two got married.

[etirabys]

meandering post about reading Orson Scott Card again

I've been offline starting at 9pm every day (except once. I was drunk at karaoke and asked for anons at 8:30pm) for six weeks, with the result that in befuddled boredom two nights ago I picked up Orson Scott Card's Songmaster from the house bookshelf.

I read Ender's Game and three sequels when I was a teen thought the books were mid. Since those are OSC's best works I assumed he had nothing more interesting to offer me and didn't try more of him for fifteen years, but Songmaster was compelling enough that I immediately afterwards picked up The Memory of Earth, the first book of a pentalogy.

TMoE is extremely my jam: after humanity blows itself up on Earth, AIs monitor thriving human civilizations in the planets that survivors managed to escape to, and suppress any tech that enables large scale violence by exerting low key mind control via satellites. But forty million years pass, many of the satellites break down, and the AI needs help from humans to restore capabilities. Because as its control wanes, people are starting to e.g. conceive of airplanes or bombs again, and override the injunctions against entering military alliances more than two edges of connection away.

The AI is worshipped as a god all over the planet, but the fourteen year old protagonist that becomes one of the AI's agents tells the AI from the beginning that he'll break with it if its morality seems wrong to him. I like the fourteen year old – unlike Ender or Songmaster's protagonist (adult minds piloting ten year old bodies), he's a normal gifted kid who's unpopular 50% due to his ego and big mouth and 50% because he's socially inept and offends people even when he's trying to be nice.

Songmaster is also partly about a permanent solution to large-scale violence, albeit through one guy who establishes a monopoly on violence and sweeps in pax galactica. Both it and TMoE are preoccupied with the eradication of suffering from evil / human violence, which is closer to my resonant frequency than narratives about defeating particular people or ideologies. At the moment I can't think of any other book with such an insistent focus on the matter than T.H. White's The Once and Future King. It's hard to make a compelling story out of, and I don't think Songmaster really succeeds, but TMoE's premise is well suited to explore that. (I'm also enjoying the matriarchal culture where everyone is expected to have multiple serial-monogamous marriages.) After reading 70% of TMoE last night I wrote:

Usually when I read fiction there's a small part of me going, how can I use this as fodder for my own growth, how can I remix or improve or react against this, how do the author and I measure against each other? (If the quality and content are at an anti-sweet spot, the small part becomes quite large and I feel all teeth towards the author.) But on occasion I read something so close that the absence of that measuring-feeling is its own sensation – ego departs, or at least is split across two bodies. There's just amity and recognition

And it's pretty interesting to feel this way about Card for, well, the reasons.

(If you're familiar with Card drama none of the following will be new to you; I'm coming to it fresh so the rest of this post is me going "uh... wow")

I vaguely knew he was a homophobic Mormon who'd gotten into fights about gay stuff, but I couldn't tell from the Ender books I read. But in Songmaster his issues spring off the page in such a weird way. Every fifth Goodreads review of this book is "Card, u gay?" because, well,

(One review, possibly from a fellow Mormon, that went "Card, it's so sinful of you to be this gay in your novel". Why did he write this book that would predictably make everyone mad...)

it's full of gay male desire. The protagonist (Ansset) is approximately a castrato and characters notice him sexually a lot. The first and only time Ansset has sex it's with a Kinsey 4-5 male character he loves, who's married to a woman but has fallen in love with Ansset. It turns out the drugs Ansset took to prolong his singing career painfully and only-kinda-figuratively explode your balls when you have your first orgasm and you'll never feel sexual desire again. (You'd think his loving teachers would have warned him of that, but, whatever, they didn't.) The other guy is literally castrated in punishment for inadvertently torturing a highly valuable castrato. It's pretty bald: GAY SEX IS ALMOST IRRESISTIBLY TEMPTING BUT YOU SHOULDN'T DO IT.

(Sidenote: both Ansset and the guy's wife are very close and have a "there's enough love to go around" attitude about the gay sex initially, before they go "wait Josif is a SERIAL MONOGAMIST... he can only love one person at a time... the moment he had the gay sex his marriage was destroyed". It's funny in a mildly stupid way that Card would set up this parable of homosexuality destroying lives and a marriage but almost everyone involved is peacefully ready to sail into an open marriage. I guess it makes sense if you want to say very clearly that THE GAY PART IS THE BAD PART)

which is fascinating to me, because... why would you tell on yourself like that

(81k also told me secondhand of an essay? interview? where Card openly says "we have to stand against legalizing gay marriage because everyone will get gay married and society will collapse", so that's informing my read of Songmaster as well)

I am pretty dang open about my personal life online but if I had a lot of feelings I thought were disgusting and immoral I would not write a novel dripping with those feelings before pointedly castrating the leads for them. Especially if it wasn't relevant to the actually highbrow themes of (checks notes) winning over your adversaries with kindness and never relinquishing your monopoly on violence. I would be so so so so embarrassed to let this go to print, it's so psychologically transparent, what was he thinking

(Well, I assume he's a very different person with different social incentives. For all I know, people in his church went "hey Orson we read your book and it's clear that you're gay but signaling strongly that you won't give into the gay feelings, we're here for you, it was really brave of you to publish this".)

[waldau]

menace — boo seungkwan | 2,058 words | fluff

inspired by this video. and ofc boo seungkwan :)

gender neutral reader. warnings: none.

no one ever talks about the downsides of having a crush.

having a heart that beats erratically only when you see them. the way your hands turn unattractively clammy even if they’re within normal distance. you know, normal friend distance, because only one of you feels another way. voice cracks that spring up at the worst possible moments. the way you forget what you want to say when it’s your turn to speak.

maybe it’s fun sometimes, daydreaming about a world where you’re something else. something more. but that’s just what it is — a fantasy. the cons outweigh the pros.

case in point: boo seungkwan.

you don’t know how long you’ve been cuddling with your pillow, your back facing the man in question while you try to will yourself to sleep. it doesn’t work, just the way it hasn’t been working ever since you flopped onto your bed.

“you should be out with the others,” you murmur without looking at seungkwan, another variation of the same sentiment you’ve been trying to get him to understand for a while now.

seungkwan lets out a huff. “and you should stop telling me to go.”

you don’t need to turn to know he’s run his hand through his hair in frustration. you’re sure his hair is an adorable mess, but you don’t need any more fuel to add to the fire of feelings that’s been raging inside you all evening long.

when your friends suggested renting a beach house for the weekend, you didn’t realize they’d put you and seungkwan in the same room. you’re best friends, they’d said. of course you’re going to room together.

seungkwan isn’t half bad at being a roommate, but it’s a bit of an issue when you have a massive crush on him that you’re really trying to stop thinking about.

annoying seungkwan with his annoying smile and his annoying hand that rested on your thigh half the time you were playing monopoly. his annoying leg that touched yours when you were watching a movie because there wasn’t much space left on the sofa, but he had to have you next to him because he’s never been good with horror.

even when you’d offered to hold his hand from where you were sitting on the sofa, he refused till jeonghan moved to make space for him to sit next to you.

in a way, you’re glad you sat next to him. at least you didn’t have to pretend like you weren’t scared, not when you had vernon and wonwoo sitting in front of you, watching the screen unblinkingly.

it’s all been a bit…much. which is why you decided to skip going on a walk along the beach with the boys and head for a night in, citing a headache.

the only problem? boo seungkwan wanted to be the one to take care of you.

“do you want me to get you anything? water? medicine?” he asks, soft, and you feel bad for making him stay behind for something that isn’t even an issue for you.

“no.”

“should i sing something?”

“no.” the last thing you need right now is boo seungkwan serenading you while you’re wallowing in your feelings about him.

it’s neither of your faults that the moment you realized you were in sharp, blinding, no-taking-back love with him was when he clinched the match point in a badminton match against junhui four months ago.

four months ago. a badminton match.

your life hasn’t been easy since.

you’ve never minded seungkwan being touchy before — that’s just how he is. he brushes stray lint off your clothes if he spots it, fixes your hair if he thinks it’s out of place, and traces the back of your ear for a few seconds when you’re nervous about something.

you love it. you love being his best friend. but what you don’t love is the way you’ve been carefully rethinking every interaction you’ve been having with him since that fateful night four months ago.

boo seungkwan is sunshine incarnate. he loves and loves and loves. he loves everyone so much that you don’t know if the love he has for you is any different from the love he has for everyone else.

sometimes you wonder if he has even the slightest hint. he’s not clueless, but he’s not very good at acting on his impulses the way you are. for him, everything needs to be measured. set in stone. approved of beforehand. something you wonder if you could just kiss him and see what happened, before realizing that a moment of happiness is not, in fact, worth a lifetime without boo seungkwan.

which is why you let out a deep sigh and curl in on yourself.

“okay, that’s it,” seungkwan says, and you hear the sound of your laptop shutting and the springs of your bed creaking before he comes into your line of sight, kneeling down on the floor in front of you on his knees, head propped up on his arms that are folded near your face.

if he was a bit closer, you could’ve even kissed him.

you wonder who let boo seungkwan be this perfect. there’s nothing about him that you dislike.

“you’re not telling me what’s wrong, and i’m not leaving till you do. you should know that by now.”

you do know that. you’re very familiar with boo seungkwan and his incredibly stubborn self that just wants to help because he loves to. he loves people. and he just doesn’t love you. not the way you want him to.

“it’s your fault,” you mumble childishly, trying to turn to the other side so he’ll have to repeat the whole ordeal, but he just grabs your hand with an iron-strong grip. damn him and his long fingers.

his fingers, weirdly enough, were the first thing you actually noticed about him when you first met him. the way he drank jeonghan under the table with his long, elegant fingers wrapped around the beer glass, draining it like it was water.

this evening, too — his fingers drumming on your thigh, his fingers brushing against your hand, his fingers brushing your hair behind your ear so that he could whisper his plan to you.

“i knew it,” he says, head lifting from the bed. “it’s not just a headache. it’s probably not even a headache, is it?”

“shut up,” you mumble, more out of the fear that he’ll find out somehow than the mortification stemming from the fact that he’s caught on so easily.

“is it really my fault, though? you’re not even letting me make up for it.”

he should be out, you think. out with the rest of your friends and out of your treacherous heart. instead he’s sitting here with your heart in his hands and he’s not even aware of it.

“you can’t do anything about it,” you huff.

“try me.”

when it becomes clear that he’s seriously not letting go of your hand even after a few minutes of silence, you turn to look at the ceiling, eyes fixed on the little cracks above you.

“have you ever…wanted something you can’t have?”

“of course i have,” he says instantly.

“oh. did you get it?”

“no,” he says easily, letting go of your hand. “but it doesn’t mean i’ve stopped trying.”

now you’re curious. you let go of the pillow so you can see him better. “what is it?”

“i’m not telling you.”

“oh, come on!”

seungkwan leans forward to ruffle your hair. “not till you tell me what’s bothering you.”

you sigh. “i can’t.”

“why not?”

“because…”

“hmm?”

“because.”

“wow,” seungkwan says, with a small laugh. “i didn’t know you were this articulate.”

“i hate you,” you say with no heat, turning around and lying down again. maybe he’ll get bored in a while and leave you to your own devices.

no such luck. one moment you’re staring at the blank wall of your room, and the next thing you is that there’s a weight on the bed right behind you. seungkwan’s weight behind you, to be specific. he’s so warm all the time. one of his hands snakes around your waist gingerly, and you tense up immediately.

sure, you’re best friends, but you’ve never done this before. sleepovers are a common thing for the two of you, but cuddling? you’re not uncomfortable, exactly, but you just don’t know what to feel.

“can i ask you a question?” seungkwan asks, and his proximity makes goosebumps rise on your arms. embarrassing.

“sure?” you manage to squeak out, definitely not focusing on how much better his voice sounds so close. and how casual he’s being about all this.

“are you really going to let random strangers on the internet control your life?”

you’re so confused by the tangent he’s gone on that you have no choice but to turn around and face him, and— bad idea. bad idea. his lips look so damn kissable that you have to physically lift your eyes from them to meet his. and he’s smiling for some reason.

you don’t know how you’re going to sleep tonight, much less make it to the next day alive.

“do you want to kiss your guy best friend?”

you feel like he’s stolen all your words. you’re aware you’re just staring at him, blinking like a goldfish, unable to speak. seungkwan lifts a hand and hovers it above your cheek, seeking your permission. he catches the minute nod you give him and rests his palm against your cheek, hand warm against your cool skin.

“i don’t care what she said,” seungkwan continues. “do you want to?”

“how did you—” you manage to choke out.

“because i can see what posts you’ve liked, silly,” seungkwan giggles, thumb swiping against your cheek before he lets go. you instantly miss the heat of his hand. “you still haven’t answered my question, by the way.”

he doesn’t seem upset, the way you thought he might be at the discovery. “if i say…yes?”

“then,” seungkwan says, leaning down, and what comes next is something you’ve only ever dreamed of. his lips are soft against yours, letting you set the pace as his hands gently card through your hair. he’s always been gentle with you underneath the teasing exterior he has, and now is no different.

when he doesn’t pull away despite your fears, you decide to take the leap and thread your hands through his hair, pulling him closer to yourself. he comes to you willingly.

you don’t know what to do with your hands when seungkwan finally pulls away. he’s out of breath. you feel oddly proud, but there’s also an unsettling feeling in your stomach. what if—

“please tell me this isn’t a one-time thing,” seungkwan says, finally looking nervous for the first time all evening long. “because then i should’ve listened to her.”

“no,” you say, feeling yourself smile like an idiot. “no. neither of us should listen to her. i don’t want it to be a one-time thing, either.”

“good,” seungkwan sighs, moving closer so his head rests on your shoulder.

“but…how long have you known?”

“how long? hmm. only a month.”

horrible. he’s been watching you suffer all this while?

“hey, stop being shy on me now,” seungkwan says, turning to look up at you. “i’ve seen the way you look at me.”

you’re sure there’s steam pouring out of your ears. “i hate you.”

“no, you don’t,” seungkwan singsongs. “because i love you far too much for that.”

you look down at him. “you…” love me?

but that wasn’t ever a question, was it? he does. you’ve seen the way he looked at you before you realized your feelings for him, and the way he’s been looking at you after, and there’s been no difference.

he’s always loved you. maybe longer than you’ve loved him.

there’s a warm feeling spreading through your chest that makes you push seungkwan away and hide your head in his neck so he doesn’t see you. he lets out a little laugh and rests a hand on your back.

“do you want to go out and introduce everyone to your…boyfriend?” he asks, shy, and it’s a sight to behold because boo seungkwan’s always anything but shy.

“boyfriend?”

“does it sound okay?” he asks sheepishly.

he gets his answer in the form of a kiss.

taglist: @bookyeom @wootify @strnsvt @cloudycaramel @thepoopdokyeomtouched @minnieminshi @nonononranghaee @hrts4hanniehae @viewvuu

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Why they're smearing Lina Khan

My god, they sure hate Lina Khan. This once-in-a-generation, groundbreaking, brilliant legal scholar and fighter for the public interest, the slayer of Reaganomics, has attracted more vitriol, mockery, and dismissal than any of her predecessors in living memory.

She sure must be doing something right, huh?

A quick refresher. In 2017, Khan — then a law student — published Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox in the Yale Law Journal. It was a brilliant, blistering analysis showing how the Reagan-era theory of antitrust (which celebrates monopolies as “efficient”) had failed on its own terms, using Amazon as Exhibit A of the ways in which post-Reagan antitrust had left Americans vulnerable to corporate abuse:

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox

The paper sent seismic shocks through both legal and economic circles, and goosed the neo-Brandeisian movement (sneeringly dismissed as “hipster antitrust”). This movement is a rebuke to Reaganomics, with its celebration of monopolies, trickle-down, offshoring, corporate dark money, revolving-door regulatory capture, and companies that are simultaneously too big to fail and too big to jail.

This movement has many proponents, of course — not just Khan — but Khan’s careful scholarship, combined with her encyclopedic knowledge of the long-dormant statutory powers that federal agencies had to make change, and a strategy for reviving those powers to protect Americans from corporate predators made her a powerful, inspirational figure.

When Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, he surprised everyone by appointing Khan to the FTC. It wasn’t just that she had such a radical vision — it was also that she lacked the usual corporate law experience that such an appointee would normally require (experience that would ensure that the FTC was helmed by people whose default view of the world is that it should be structured and regulated by powerful, wealthy people in corporate boardrooms).

Even more surprising was that Khan was made chair of the FTC, something that was only possible because a few Republican Senators broke with their party to support her candidacy:

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1171/vote_117_1_00233.htm

These Republicans saw in Khan an ally in their fight against “woke” Big Tech. For these senators, the problem wasn’t that tech had got too big and powerful — it was that there were a few limited instances in which tech leaders failed to wield that power in the ways they preferred.

The Republican project is a matter of getting turkeys to vote for Christmas by doing a lot of culture war bullshit, cruelly abusing disfavored sexual and racial minorities. This wins support from low-information voters who’ll vote against their class interests and support more monopolies, more tax cuts for the rich, and more cuts to the services they rely on.

But while tech leaders are 100% committed to the project of permanent oligarchic takeover of every sphere of American life, they are less full-throated in their support for hateful, cruel discrimination against disfavored minorities (in this regard, tech leaders resemble the corporate wing of the Democrats, which is where we get the “Silicon Valley is a Democratic Party stronghold” narrative).

This failure to unquestioningly and unstintingly back culture war bullshit put tech leaders in the GOP’s crosshairs. Some GOP politicians actually believe in the culture war bullshit, and are grossly offended that tech is “woke.” Others are smart enough not to get high on their own supply, but worry that any tech obstruction in the bullshit culture wars will make it harder to get sufficient turkey votes for a big fat Christmas surprise.

Biden’s ceding of antitrust policy to the left wing of the party, combined with disaffected GOP senators viewing Khan as their enemy’s enemy, led to Khan’s historic appointment as FTC Chair. In that position, she was joined by a slate of Biden trustbusters, including Jonathan Kanter at the DoJ Antitrust Division, Tim Wu at the White House, and other important, skilled and principled fighters like Alvaro Bedoya (FTC), Rebecca Slaughter (FTC), Rohit Chopra (CFPB), and many others.

Crucially, these new appointees weren’t just principled, they were good at their jobs. In 2021, Tim Wu wrote an executive order for Biden that laid out 72 concrete ways in which the administration could act — with no further Congressional authorization — to blunt corporate power and insulate the American people from oligarchs’ abusive and extractive practices:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

Since then, the antitrust arm of the Biden administration have been fuckin�� ninjas, Getting Shit Done in ways large and small, working — for the first time since Reagan — to protect Americans from predatory businesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

This is in marked contrast to the corporate Dems’ champions in the administration. People like Pete Buttigieg are heralded as competent technocrats, “realists” who are too principled to peddle hopium to the base, writing checks they can’t cash. All this is cover for a King Log performance, in which Buttigieg’s far-reaching regulatory authority sits unused on a shelf while a million Americans are stranded over Christmas and whole towns are endangered by greedy, reckless rail barons straight out of the Gilded Age:

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

The contrast between the Biden trustbusters and their counterparts from the corporate wing is stark. While the corporate wing insists that every pitch is outside of the zone, Khan and her allies are swinging for the stands. They’re trying to make life better for you and me, by declaring commercial surveillance to be an unfair business practice and thus illegal:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/12/regulatory-uncapture/#conscious-uncoupling

And by declaring noncompete “agreements” that shackle good workers to shitty jobs to be illegal:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

And naturally, this has really pissed off all the right people: America’s billionaires and their cheerleaders in the press, government, and the hive of scum and villainy that is the Big Law/thinktank industrial-complex.

Take the WSJ: since Khan took office, they have published 67 vicious editorials attacking her and her policies. Khan is living rent-free in Rupert Murdoch’s head. Not only that, he’s given her the presidential suite! You love to see it.

These attacks are worth reading, if only to see how flimsy and frivolous they are. One major subgenre is that Khan shouldn’t be bringing any action against Amazon, because her groundbreaking scholarship about the company means she has a conflict of interest. Holy moly is this a stupid thing to say. The idea that the chair of an expert agency should recuse herself because she is an expert is what the physicists call not even wrong.

But these attacks are even more laughable due to who they’re coming from: people who have the most outrageous conflicts of interest imaginable, and who were conspicuously silent for years as the FTC’s revolving door admitted the a bestiary of swamp-creatures so conflicted it’s a wonder they managed to dress themselves in the morning.

Writing in The American Prospect, David Dayen runs the numbers:

Since the late 1990s, 31 out of 41 top FTC officials worked directly for a company that has business before the agency, with 26 of them related to the technology industry.

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-06-23-attacks-lina-khans-ethics-reveal-projection/

Take Christine Wilson, a GOP-appointed FTC Commissioner who quit the agency in a huff because Khan wanted to do things for the American people, and not their self-appointed oligarchic princelings. Wilson wrote an angry break-up letter to Khan that the WSJ published, presaging their concierge service for Samuel Alito:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-im-resigning-from-the-ftc-commissioner-ftc-lina-khan-regulation-rule-violation-antitrust-339f115d

For Wilson to question Khan’s ethics took galactic-scale chutzpah. Wilson, after all, is a commissioner who took cash money from Bristol-Myers Squibb, then voted to approve their merger with Celgene:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4365601-Wilson-Christine-Smith-final278.html

Or take Wilson’s GOP FTC predecessor Josh Wright, whose incestuous relationship with the companies he oversaw at the Commission are so intimate he’s practically got a Habsburg jaw. Wright went from Google to the US government and back again four times. He also lobbied the FTC on behalf of Qualcomm (a major donor to Wright’s employer, George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School) after working “personally and substantially” while serving at the FTC.

George Mason’s Scalia center practically owns the revolving door, counting fourteen FTC officials among its affliates:

https://campaignforaccountability.org/ttp-investigation-big-techs-backdoor-to-the-ftc/

Since the 1990s, 31 out of 41 top FTC officials — both GOP appointed and appointees backed by corporate Dems — “worked directly for a company that has business before the agency”:

https://www.citizen.org/article/ftc-big-tech-revolving-door-problem-report/

The majority of FTC and DoJ antitrust lawyers who served between 2014–21 left government service and went straight to work for a Big Law firm, serving the companies they’d regulated just a few months before:

https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/The-Revolving-Door-In-Federal-Antitrust-Enforcement.pdf

Take Deborah Feinstein, formerly the head of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, now a partner at Arnold & Porter, where she’s represented General Electric, NBCUniversal, Unilever, and Pepsi and a whole medicine chest’s worth of pharma giants before her former subordinates at the FTC. Michael Moiseyev who was assistant manager of FTC Competition is now in charge of mergers at Weil Gotshal & Manges, working for Microsoft, Meta, and Eli Lilly.

There’s a whole bunch more, but Dayen reserves special notice for Andrew Smith, Trump’s FTC Consumer Protection boss. Before he was put on the public payroll, Smith represented 120 clients that had business before the Commission, including “nearly every major bank in America, drug industry lobbyist PhRMA, Uber, Equifax, Amazon, Facebook, Verizon, and a variety of payday lenders”:

https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/andrew_smith_foia_appeal_response_11_30.pdf

Before Khan, in other words, the FTC was a “conflict-of-interest assembly line, moving through corporate lawyers and industry hangers-on without resistance for decades.”

Khan is the first FTC head with no conflicts. This leaves her opponents in the sweaty, desperate position of inventing conflicts out of thin air.

For these corporate lickspittles, Khan’s “conflict” is that she has a point of view. Specifically, she thinks that the FTC should do its job.

This makes grifters like Jim Jordan furious. Yesterday, Jordan grilled Khan in a hearing where he accused her of violating an ethics official’s advice that she should recuse herself from Big Tech cases. This is a talking point that was created and promoted by Bloomberg:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-16/ftc-rejected-ethics-advice-for-khan-recusal-on-meta-case

That ethics official, Lorielle Pankey, did not, in fact, make this recommendation. It’s simply untrue (she did say that Khan presiding over cases that she has made public statements about could be used as ammo against her, but did not say that it violated any ethical standard).

But there’s more to this story. Pankey herself has a gigantic conflict of interest in this case, including a stock portfolio with $15,001 and $50,000 in Meta stock (Meta is another company that has whined in print and in its briefs that it is a poor defenseless lamb being picked on by big, mean ole Lina Khan):

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ethics-official-owned-meta-stock-while-recommending-ftc-chair-recuse-herself-from-meta-case-8582a83b

Jordan called his hearing on the back of this fake scandal, and then proceeded to show his whole damned ass, even as his GOP colleagues got into a substantive and even informative dialog with Khan:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-07-14-jim-jordan-misfires-attacks-lina-khan/

Mostly what came out of that hearing was news about how Khan is doing her job, working on behalf of the American people. For example, she confirmed that she’s investigating OpenAI for nonconsensually harvesting a mountain of Americans’ personal information:

https://www.ft.com/content/8ce04d67-069b-4c9d-91bf-11649f5adc74

Other Republicans, including confirmed swamp creatures like Matt Gaetz, ended up agreeing with Khan that Amazon Ring is a privacy dumpster-fire. Nobodies like Rep TomM assie gave Khan an opening to discuss how her agency is protecting mom-and-pop grocers from giant, price-gouging, greedflation-drunk national chains. Jeff Van Drew gave her a chance to talk about the FTC’s war on robocalls. Lance Gooden let her talk about her fight against horse doping.

But Khan’s opponents did manage to repeat a lot of the smears against her, and not just the bogus conflict-of-interest story. They also accused her of being 0–4 in her actions to block mergers, ignoring the huge number of mergers that have been called off or not initiated because M&A professionals now understand they can no longer expect these mergers to be waved through. Indeed, just last night I spoke with a friend who owns a medium-sized tech company that Meta tried to buy out, only to withdraw from the deal because their lawyers told them it would get challenged at the FTC, with an uncertain outcome.

These talking points got picked up by people commenting on Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley’s ruling against the FTC in the Microsoft-Activision merger. The FTC was seeking an injunction against the merger, and Corley turned them down flat. The ruling was objectively very bad. Start with the fact that Corley’s son is a Microsoft employee who stands reap massive gains in his stock options if the merger goes through.

But beyond this (real, non-imaginary, not manufactured conflict of interest), Corley’s judgment and her remarks in court were inexcusably bad, as Matt Stoller writes:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

In her ruling, Corley explained that she didn’t think Microsoft would abuse the market dominance they’d gain by merging their giant videogame platform and studio with one of its largest competitors. Why not? Because Microsoft’s execs pinky-swore that they wouldn’t abuse that power.

Corely’s deference to Microsoft’s corporate priorities goes deeper than trusting its execs, though. In denying the FTC’s motion, she stated that it would be unfair to put the merger on hold in order to have a full investigation into its competition implications because Microsoft and Activision had set a deadline of July 18 to conclude things, and Microsoft would have to pay a penalty if that deadline passed.

This is surreal: a judge ruled that a corporation’s radical, massive merger shouldn’t be subject to full investigation because that corporation itself set an arbitrary deadline to conclude the deal before such an investigation could be concluded. That’s pretty convenient for future mega-mergers — just set a short deadline and Judge Corely will tell regulators that the merger can’t be investigated because the deadline is looming.

And this is all about the future. As Stoller writes, Microsoft isn’t exactly subtle about why it wants this merger. Its own execs said that the reason they were spending “dump trucks” of money buying games studios was to “spend Sony out of business.”

Now, maybe you hate Sony. Maybe you hate Activision. There’s plenty of good reason to hate both — they’re run by creeps who do shitty things to gamers and to their employees. But if you think that Microsoft will be better once it eliminates its competition, then you have the attention span of a goldfish on Adderall.

Microsoft made exactly the same promises it made on Activision when it bought out another games studio, Zenimax — and it broke every one of those promises.

Microsoft has a long, long, long history of being a brutal, abusive monopolist. It is a convicted monopolist. And its bad conduct didn’t end with the browser wars. You remember how the lockdown turned all our homes into rent-free branch offices for our employers? Microsoft seized on that moment to offer our bosses keystroke-and-click level surveillance of our use of our own computers in our own homes, via its Office365 bossware product:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

If you think a company that gave your boss a tool to spy on their employees and rank them by “productivity” as a prelude to firing them or cutting their pay is going to treat gamers or game makers well once they have “spent the competition out of business,” you’re a credulous sucker and you are gonna be so disappointed.

The enshittification play is obvious: use investor cash to make things temporarily nice for customers and suppliers, lock both of them in — in this case, it’s with a subscription-based service similar to Netflix’s — and then claw all that value back until all that’s left is a big pile of shit.

The Microsoft case is about the future. Judge Corely doesn’t take the future seriously: as she said during the trial, “All of this is for a shooter videogame.” The reason Corely greenlit this merger isn’t because it won’t be harmful — it’s because she doesn’t think those harms matter.

But it does, and not just because games are an art form that generate billions of dollars, employ a vast workforce, and bring pleasure to millions. It also matters because this is yet another one of the Reaganomic precedents that tacitly endorses monopolies as efficient forces for good. As Stoller writes, Corley’s ruling means that “deal bankers are sharpening pencils and saying ‘Great, the government lost! We can get mergers through everywhere else.’ Basically, if you like your high medical prices, you should be cheering on Microsoft’s win today.”

Ronald Reagan’s antitrust has colonized our brains so thoroughly that commentators were surprised when, immediately after the ruling, the FTC filed an appeal. Don’t they know they’ve lost? the commentators said:

https://gizmodo.com/ftc-files-appeal-of-microsoft-activision-deal-ruling-1850640159

They echoed the smug words of insufferable Activision boss Mike Ybarra: “Your tax dollars at work.”

https://twitter.com/Qwik/status/1679277251337277440

But of course Khan is appealing. The only reason that’s surprising is that Khan is working for us, the American people, not the giant corporations the FTC is supposed to be defending us from. Sure, I get that this is a major change! But she needs our backing, not our cheap cynicism.

The business lobby and their pathetic Renfields have hoarded all the nice things and they don’t want us to have any. Khan and her trustbuster colleagues want the opposite. There is no measure so small that the corporate world won’t have a conniption over it. Take click to cancel, the FTC’s perfectly reasonable proposal that if you sign up for a recurring payment subscription with a single click, you should be able to cancel it with a single click.

The tooth-gnashing and garment-rending and scenery-chewing over this is wild. America’s biggest companies have wheeled out their biggest guns, claiming that if they make it too easy to unsubscribe, they will lose money. In other words, they are currently making money not because people want their products, but because it’s too hard to stop paying for them!

https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/ftc_cancel_subscriptions/

We shouldn’t have to tolerate this sleaze. And if we back Khan and her team, they’ll protect us from these scams. Don’t let them convince you to give up hope. This is the start of the fight, not the end. We’re trying to reverse 40 years’ worth of Reagonmics here. It won’t happen overnight. There will be setbacks. But keep your eyes on the prize — this is the most exciting moment for countering corporate power and giving it back to the people in my lifetime. We owe it to ourselves, our kids and our planet to fight one.

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/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

[Image ID: A line drawing of pilgrims ducking a witch tied to a ducking stool. The pilgrims' clothes have been emblazoned with the logos for the WSJ, Microsoft, Activision and Blizzard. The witch's face has been replaced with that of FTC chair Lina M Khan.]

[pineconepie]

Whats the parents favorite game/activity to do with their kid?

-🐛

Octavian LOVES cooking/baking with you. Any time spent with his little one makes him happy, but cooking and baking makes him happiest, and the chance to teach his skills to you just adds on more joy!

Of course he wouldn't want you using any of the kitchen without supervision (or even with it tbh), but he'd still take a lot of joy in it.

.

Vincent enjoys board games or card games with you. Normally he's a sore loser, but since you're his little one, he'll playfully complain when you beat him or even do it on purpose (which is most of the time, he's a master at Monopoly).

You might catch him cheating with more luck-based games or games he just sucks at haha.

.

Indigo likes singing with you (his singing is pitchy but he thinks he's very good at it), and he also enjoys collecting sparkly things to decorate the cave together with you, because he wants it to be cozier and more to your liking!! <3 he'll always be happy with whatever you want to do, though.

.

Magnus will wrestle and rough house with you (gently tho because he's still afraid he'll accidentally hurt you). He'll turn it into a lesson on how you could fight off intruders if he's not home when it happens. Mostly just because he thinks its fun and likes watching you break into fits of laughter.

.

Seradiel loves reading to you!! He'll read to you anytime, anywhere, but he prefers nighttime stories the most.

Bedtime stories are a must for him. He reads fluently in every single language (he was created with this knowledge), so as long as he doesn't deem it too mature, you could bring really any book to him :3

.

Warren likes to do puzzles or color with you, because its very theraputic to him.

Sometimes he likes to watch you do arts & crafts while he watches quietly, or if he's doing paperwork. He'll hang your drawings on the mini-fridge of his office and insist you're the most talented artist there is (even if you drew just a single dot).

[taiyouhimerich]

Childhood best friend!Leon Headcanons

warns&tags: a bit of kids age, going to teenagers; mentions of sexual activity, but not between characters (jus a bit of teenage masturbation under cut), but it’s mainly fluffy and cute, i sweeeeaaaaar!!!! and this is going to be a slowburn!!!

a/n: haven’t written anything for a while, but I feel like i wanna make it in several parts and it’ll look cool, i swear!

MNDI!!!

childhood best friend!Leon, whom you met when you were 5 and he was 6; who was the first child you managed to make friends with after moving with your parents

childhood best friend!Leon, who lived in the house next door, the parents of both of you often went to each other's barbecue, so the children always needed to be together and play

childhood best friend!Leon, who on one of these evenings invites you to look at his tree house, because you are also his best friend

childhood best friend!Leon, who says that you look like a princess in this dress, and you start playing princess and knight, sometimes going downstairs to steal a new plate of cookies from his parents' kitchen

childhood best friend!Leon, who remembers this game every time you go to school together on the school bus, and thinks that he will continue to be your knight to protect you from bullies

now you're both teenagers, you're 14, and he'll be 16 in a few months, but you still remember how your childhood best friend!Leon beat up a boy with his backpack who pushed you into a puddle when you were in elementary school

your windows are facing each other, you see each other every day and if you weren't afraid to fall, you could even try to climb into each other's bedrooms, and you laugh every morning because your childhood best friend!Leon leaves you funny messages on his window because he knows that you will definitely look there.

childhood best friend!Leon, who accompanies you every Sunday to the church that your parents force you to go to, sits on a bench next to the entrance from the outside, and then escorts you back to the house, smiling when you tell him with a radiant smile about what happened at mass

childhood best friend!Leon, with whom you talk heart to heart every night; who is very worried when he tells for the first time that Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy took him from an orphanage, and you hug him back, muttering words of support, and say that this fact will not change anything in your relationship

and this is the moment when he feels that you are not just his best friend... you are like family, and he trusts you a thousand times more than anyone else. and he wants it to always be like this.

childhood best friend!Leon, who is now starting to find excuses not to come with his parents to your family on weekends when you have a pool party, because he is shy... but he cannot decide of what: of his body changing due to puberty or of your... beautiful girlish body in a pink bikini, which literally makes him staring at your breasts and feeling like a pervert

and every time he feels incredible shame and guilt, when after that you see each other in a normal setting, and you ask with an offended face why he didn't come, and he has to lie to you

childhood best friend!Leon, who often dreams of you, and in his dreams you play something like jenga or monopoly, and every time he feels happy and wants to stay in these dreams, thinking how lucky he is to be friends with you....

...until he wakes up with a morning wood after one of these dreams

god, he dreamed of something so simple and usual, like you two hanging out on a swing or building sand castles, and he never thought of you that way... he doesn't know what the reason for this reaction of his body is, and he is gnawed by guilt when he jerks off, hiding under a blanket from shame

it's hard for you not to notice that over time his excuses become more and more monotonous and even not entirely plausible, and then he leaves for the rest of the summer for a sports camp, and this makes you sad

childhood best friend!Leon is becoming more and more detached from you due to the fact that he cannot sort himself out and the mixed feelings circulating in his body, and even when he returns from a trip right before the start of the school year, he feels that it did not help: he is still ashamed to look into your eyes and it gets worse with his realization that he's acting like a coward by avoiding you.

childhood best friend!Leon, who no longer huddles with you in the corridors of the school during recess, he found a company of good guys and even focused on his studies, and you seem to have found a common language with several girls... and maybe with guys too. even with some of the people Kennedy hangs out with now after school: he frowns, clenches his jaw and shuts up every time one of his friends says your name and calls you pretty. at such moments, the word ‘princess’ literally is on the tip of his tongue, painfully stinging....

childhood best friend!Leon, who one day notices a piece of paper on your window with the inscription ‘knock knock who's there? a mud puddle’, and it makes him smile. he doesn't get the joke, but he finds it funny and sweet how you still remember that thing... and feels ashamed of himself again

the next time you really see your childhood best friend!Leon happens almost before Christmas, when he finds you on the stairs at the end of the corridor in the middle of lessons (which is strange, because he is sure that you would never skip lessons), and he first wants to pretend that he is not going this way, because then you will not notice him, but...he can't. you cry, and it breaks his heart

you can barely hear your thoughts while your palm is smearing tears and mascara on your cheeks, when suddenly someone sits down next to you on the step, and strong arms hug you by the shoulders. you sniffle, looking up, and your childhood best friend!Leon looks at you, pursing his lips and waiting for you to say something. are you mad that he left you? it that why you're crying? do you even want him to be here now?

but with trembling lips you mutter a quiet "Leon...." and he breaks down, hugging you tightly and pulling you closer. making you sob louder when you bury your forehead in his shoulder, and he begins to soothingly stroke your hair, noting that you are still using the same shampoo with the baby smell of chewing gum

childhood best friend!Leon, who can't help but kiss your hair in the temple area while he soothingly whispers,

“Shh, come on, sweetheart.... Who did this to you?”

you are silent, and it upsets him. he knows that this is not enough for you, it never happened, so he continues, smiling slightly and muttering,

“I'm sorry.... Do you want me to kick his ass and beat the shit out of him?”

you're still silent for a bit, but then you ask softly, with a stuttering voice,

“With your backpack? Like when I was in first grade?”

he laughs softly in response to your words, smiling as he pulls back slightly to look into your eyes. his fingers stroke your cheeks, wiping away the remnants of tears and responding,

“Yeah, just like that.”

he raises one hand, leaving his little finger sticking out as he speaks, tremulously and tenderly,

“I promise. I'm your knight, right? I can't not protect my princess.”

you nod, gradually ceasing to sob and starting to smile stupidly as you hold out your little finger to him, quietly answering,

“I promise.... I missed you, Leon....”

“I missed you too... I’m sorry....”

he says in response, and you interlace your pinky fingers, like when you were kids, when you swore to be friends forever. You've still got to talk again, really talk, but there's nothing more important to him right now than knowing that you're okay. he repeats to himself in his head that you are the most important person to him, and you are happily thinking that your best friend and beloved knight has returned to you again. although the best friend of childhood!Leon still has to explain to Mrs. Kennedy later how he got the mascara stains on the shoulder of his only white shirt.