#10/03/2020
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After over 2 years of inactivity, I will make some updates. Dunno what, but it'll be fun!
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Amazon illegally interferes with an historic UK warehouse election
I'm in to TARTU, ESTONIA! Overcoming the Enshittocene (Monday, May 8, 6PM, Prima Vista Literary Festival keynote, University of Tartu Library, Struwe 1). AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).
Amazon is very good at everything it does, including being very bad at the things it doesn't want to do. Take signing up for Prime: nothing could be simpler. The company has built a greased slide from Prime-curiosity to Prime-confirmed that is the envy of every UX designer.
But unsubscribing from Prime? That's a fucking nightmare. Somehow the company that can easily figure out how to sign up for a service is totally baffled when it comes to making it just as easy to leave. Now, there's two possibilities here: either Amazon's UX competence is a kind of erratic freak tide that sweeps in at unpredictable intervals and hits these unbelievable high-water marks, or the company just doesn't want to let you leave.
To investigate this question, let's consider a parallel: Black Flag's Roach Motel. This is an icon of American design, a little brown cardboard box that is saturated in irresistibly delicious (to cockroaches, at least) pheromones. These powerful scents make it admirably easy for all the roaches in your home to locate your Roach Motel and enter it.
But the interior of the Roach Motel is also coated in a sticky glue. Once roaches enter the motel, their legs and bodies brush up against this glue and become hopeless mired in it. A roach can't leave – not without tearing off its own legs.
It's possible that Black Flag made a mistake here. Maybe they wanted to make it just as easy for a roach to leave as it is to enter. If that seems improbable to you, well, you're right. We don't even have to speculate, we can just refer to Black Flag's slogan for Roach Motel: "Roaches check in, but they don't check out."
It's intentional, and we know that because they told us so.
Back to Amazon and Prime. Was it some oversight that cause the company make it so marvelously painless to sign up for Prime, but such a titanic pain in the ass to leave? Again, no speculation is required, because Amazon's executives exchanged a mountain of internal memos in which this is identified as a deliberate strategy, by which they deliberately chose to trick people into signing up for Prime and then hid the means of leaving Prime. Prime is a Roach Motel: users check in, but they don't check out:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/
When it benefits Amazon, they are obsessive – "relentless" (Bezos's original for the company) – about user friendliness. They value ease of use so highly that they even patented "one click checkout" – the incredibly obvious idea that a company that stores your shipping address and credit card could let you buy something with a single click:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Patent
But when it benefits Amazon to place obstacles in our way, they are even more relentless in inventing new forms of fuckery, spiteful little landmines they strew in our path. Just look at how Amazon deals with unionization efforts in its warehouses.
Amazon's relentless union-busting spans a wide diversity of tactics. On the one hand, they cook up media narratives to smear organizers, invoking racist dog-whistles to discredit workers who want a better deal:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/amazon-chris-smalls-smart-articulate-leaked-memo
On the other hand, they collude with federal agencies to make workers afraid that their secret ballots will be visible to their bosses, exposing them to retaliation:
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-violated-labor-law-alabama-union-election-labor-official-finds-rcna1582
They hold Cultural Revolution-style forced indoctrination meetings where they illegally threaten workers with punishment for voting in favor of their union:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/business/economy/amazon-union-staten-island-nlrb.html
And they fire Amazon tech workers who express solidarity with warehouse workers:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-fires-tech-employees-workers-criticism-warehouse-climate-policies/
But all this is high-touch, labor-intensive fuckery. Amazon, as we know, loves automation, and so it automates much of its union-busting: for example, it created an employee chat app that refused to deliver any message containing words like "fairness" or "grievance":
https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/05/doubleplusrelentless/#quackspeak
Amazon also invents implausible corporate fictions that allow it to terminate entire sections of its workforce for trying to unionize, by maintaining the tormented pretense that these workers, who wear Amazon uniforms, drive Amazon trucks, deliver Amazon packages, and are tracked by Amazon down to the movements of their eyeballs, are, in fact, not Amazon employees:
https://www.wired.com/story/his-drivers-unionized-then-amazon-tried-to-terminate-his-contract/
These workers have plenty of cause to want to unionize. Amazon warehouses are sources of grueling torment. Take "megacycling," a ten-hour shift that runs from 1:20AM to 11:50AM that workers are plunged into without warning or the right to refuse. This isn't just a night shift – it's a night shift that makes it impossible to care for your children or maintain any kind of normal life.
Then there's Jeff Bezos's war on his workers' kidneys. Amazon warehouse workers and drivers notoriously have to pee in bottles, because they are monitored by algorithms that dock their pay for taking bathroom breaks. The road to Amazon's warehouse in Coventry, England is littered with sealed bottles of driver piss, defenestrated by drivers before they reach the depot inspection site.
There's so much piss on the side of the Coventry road that the prankster Oobah Butler was able to collect it, decant it into bottles, and market it on Amazon as an energy beverage called "Bitter Lemon Release Energy," where it briefly became Amazon's bestselling energy drink:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon
(Butler promises that he didn't actually ship any bottled piss to people who weren't in on the gag – but let's just pause here and note how weird it is that a guy who hates our kidneys as much as Jeff Bezos built and flies a penis-shaped rocket.)
Butler also secretly joined the surge of 1,000 workers that Amazon hired for the Coventry warehouse in advance of a union vote, with the hope of diluting the yes side of that vote and forestall the union. Amazon displayed more of its famously selective competence here, spotting Butler and firing him in short order, while totally failing to notice that he was marketing bottles of driver piss as a bitter lemon drink on Amazon's retail platform.
After a long fight, Amazon's Coventry workers are finally getting their union vote, thanks to the GMB union's hard fought battle at the Central Arbitration Committee:
https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/04/26/amazon-warehouse-workers-in-coventry-will-vote-on-trade-union-recognition/
And right on schedule, Amazon has once again discovered its incredible facility for ease-of-use. The company has blanketed its shop floor with radioactively illegal "one click to quit the union" QR codes. When a worker aims their phones at the code and clicks the link, the system auto-generates a letter resigning the worker from their union.
As noted, this is totally illegal. English law bans employers from "making an offer to an employee for the sole or main purpose of inducing workers not to be members of an independent trade union, take part in its activities, or make use of its services."
Now, legal or not, this may strike you as a benign intervention on Amazon's part. Why shouldn't it be easy for workers to choose how they are represented in their workplaces? But the one-click system is only half of Amazon's illegal union-busting: the other half is delivered by its managers, who have cornered workers on the shop floor and ordered them to quit their union, threatening them with workplace retaliation if they don't.
This is in addition to more forced "captive audience" meetings where workers are bombarded with lies about what life in an union shop is like.
Again, the contrast couldn't be more stark. If you want to quit a union, Amazon makes this as easy as joining Prime. But if you want to join a union, Amazon makes that even harder than quitting Prime. Amazon has the same attitude to its workers and its customers: they see us all as a resource to be extracted, and have no qualms about tricking or even intimidating us into doing what's best for Amazon, at the expense of our own interests.
The campaigning law-firm Foxglove is representing five of Amazon's Coventry workers. They're doing the lord's work:
https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/05/02/legal-challenge-to-amazon-uks-new-one-click-to-quit-the-union-tool/
All this highlights the increasing divergence between the UK and the US when it comes to labor rights. Under the Biden Administration, @NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo has promulgated a rule that grants a union automatic recognition if the boss does anything to interfere with a union election:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth
In other words, if Amazon tries these tactics in the USA now, their union will be immediately recognized. Abruzzo has installed an ultra-sensitive tilt-sensor in America's union elections, and if Bezos or his class allies so much as sneeze in the direction of their workers' democratic rights, they automatically lose.
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/2024/05/06/one-click-to-quit-the-union/#foxglove
Image:
Isabela.Zanella (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballot-box-2.jpg
CC BY-SA 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
#pluralistic#unions#coventry#amazon#union busting#qr codes#foxglove#one click to quit the union#labor#gwb
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#http://jtambotoh.blog.uksw.edu/2020/02/penelitian.html?showComment=1640245210338#c2846911913970506138#http://www.swisslark.com/2013/10/montessori-best-tv-shows-for-toddlers.html?showComment=1640245387620#c4796956833305325043#http://tech.winstonsalem.com/2011/03/why-nanomedica-is-in-winston-salem.html?showComment=1640245453407#c2329452879274235922
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April Fools 2024: The Curious Case Of The Chunky-Necked Ceratopsians
Much like the aquatic Compsognathus featured here a couple of years ago, not every novel idea that came out of the Dinosaur Renaissance was a winner.
And one of the oddest examples came from author/illustrator John C. McLoughlin.
His 1979 book Archosauria: A New Look at the Old Dinosaur featured an unusual interpretation of ceratopsian dinosaurs' characteristic bony frills, proposing that they were actually muscle attachment sites for both powerful jaw muscles and enormous back muscles to help hold up their large heavy heads. This would have completely buried the frill under soft tissue, giving the animals massive thick necks and humped shoulders, and resulted in an especially weird reconstruction of Triceratops with a grotesque sort of wrinkly sewn-together appearance.
This concept didn't entirely originate from McLoughlin – three years earlier in 1976 he'd illustrated Ronald Paul Ratkevich's book Dinosaurs of the Southwest, which seems to have been the inspiration for Archosauria's fleshy-frilled ceratopsians. A few paleontologists had also proposed jaw muscles attaching onto the frills during the 1930s and 1950s, and there's even a book from as far back as 1915 that also shows the top of a Triceratops' frill connected to its back! But McLoughlin's Archosauria image is still by far the most extreme and infamous version of the idea.
There were a lot of things in Archosauria that were actually very forward-thinking for the time period, such as putting fuzz and feathers on small theropods and depicting non-avian dinosaurs as active fast-moving animals. The unique ceratopsian reconstructions, however, never caught on for several big reasons:
Firstly, all that hefty muscle tissue would have locked ceratopsians' heads firmly in place, unable to move at all, which just doesn't make sense biomechanically. Then there was the lack of skeletal evidence – muscles that big should have left huge visible attachment scars all over the frill bones, and there was no sign of anything like that on any fossil specimens. Finally, it turns out the ceratopsian head-neck joint was actually highly mobile, suggesting their heads were free to make a wide range of motions in life.
As wrong as they were even at the time, McLoughlin's ceratopsians were still an interesting speculative idea, and notable for advocating for fleshier dinosaur reconstructions at a time when paleoart was trending towards shrinkwrapping.
Further reading under the cut:
A Very Alternative View of Horned Dinosaur Anatomy, Revisited – https://tetzoo.com/blog/2020/11/22/alternative-view-of-horned-dinosaur-anatomy
Trope of the Buffalo-Backed Dinosaur – https://tetzoo.com/blog/2020/11/27/trope-of-the-buffalo-backed-dinosaur
Vintage Dinosaur Art: Archosauria - Part 3 – https://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2013/10/vintage-dinosaur-art-archosauria-part-3.html
Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs of the Southwest – https://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2016/11/vintage-dinosaur-art-dinosaurs-of.html
The Forgotten John C. McLoughlin Book – https://www.manospondylus.com/2021/03/the-forgotten-john-c-mcloughlin-book.html
#april fools#inaccurate paleoart#retrosaurs#science illustration#paleontology#paleoart#palaeoblr#triceratops#ceratopsian#dinosaur#art#mcloughlin ceratopsians#they are very shaped#she's beauty she's grace she can't even turn her face
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Zutara SlowBurn FanFiction: Personal Favs, part II
· DESTINY IS A FUNNY THING by Megara Pike | Published: 2020-08-21 | 198K Words | 45 Chapters
ATLA Season 3 rewrite, fills in a lot of blanks between canon scenes. From the Southern Raiders to Sozin's Comet through coronation and aftermath. Growing friendships, bonding, being there for each other, a carnival & a cave, epic spirits' appearance on the Ember island, sparring, nightmares, assassination attempts, political ruses, and covert operations. Lovely, sweet. Exciting plot.
· ATLA Book 4: Ashes by elayne_cypher | Published: 2018-10-27 | 306K words | 34 Chapters
This action-packed story picks up right after Ember Island Players and continues well after the war. Zuko is facing many challenges as a new Fire Lord. Romance, tough decisions, rebels, traitors, out-of-body experiences, secret headquarters, angst, teamwork, fire jets. The story has a bunch of OCs.
· Refraction by caroes3725 | Published: 2020-09-09 | 215K Words | 37 Chapters
After breaking up with Aang, Katara needs to figure out her place and role in the patriarchal world. As determined Katara stubbornly bulldozes her way through Fire Nation political scene, her feelings for Zuko grow. Diplomatic visits, Gaang reunion, bonding with Kanna, insights into the life of Caldera city, stuffy politicians, cute correspondence, tropical storm, women supporting women, assassination attempts, personal boundaries. A sweet well-written coming-of-age story with a healthy measure of slow-burn and mutual pining. Katara and Zuko are both POVs, but the story mostly follows Katara. Bonus: Mai is NOT a clingy resentful idiot, but a smart person and a good friend. Some explicit language here and there, a bit of mild smut.
· I Asked You First by halfhoursonearth | Published: 2020-10-03 | 142K words | 22/? Chapters
Ongoing, incomplete. Post Southern Raiders ATLAS3 rewrite. Mostly canon-compliant with blanks filled in between familiar scenes. Zuko and Katara develop a close friendship built on trust and sharing each other’s fears and hopes. Includes mentions of implied child abuse, Lu Ten’s diaries, exploring Avatar Roku’s legacy, sharing a balcony, heart-to-hearts, a hot spring under the stars, an actual date, and artbending. It’s incomplete, but what we have is bliss. Slowburn, mutual pining. Zutara-centric, but also explores the personalities of Team Avatar and their relationships.
· Katara Alone by cablesscutie | Published: 2020-05-31 | 21K words
Katara is not an “unnecessary accessory to a more powerful man”. After the war, she is willing to forge her own path as she turns to people who need her the most on her journey of self-discovery. Features character exploration, correspondence, exploring outback villages of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, sweet reunions, and new firebending skills.
· THE PHOENIX AND THE DRAGON - THE COMPLETE SERIES by JasmineTeaLatte | Published: 2021-06-11 | 100K words | 31 Chapters
This story picks up after The Ember Island Players. Zuko and Katara get to know each other during a late-night conversation by the campfire. In this story, you will find healthy boundaries, protective Sokka, a dash of Taang, sparring, funny banter & lots of flirting.
· HESITATE by tiffaniesblews | Published: 2020-07-11 | 22K Words | 12 Chapters
This story picks up right after Zuko's coronation and spans two years afterwards. Zuko & Katara talk, share a few beautiful moments, write to each other, and reunite for the 2nd anniversary of the war ending. Very sweet, fluffy story about two sweethearts figuring out their feelings for each other.
· LIKE WE'RE MADE OF STARLIGHT by Naladot | Published: 2021-11-28 | 5K Words
Katara leaves her post as the ambassador to the Fire Nation to take up a new one as the ambassador to the Northern Water Tribe. Her absence makes Zuko realize that he's got an unfortunate crush, which he is determined to keep secret. Unfortunately for him, subtly has never been one of his strengths—especially when he arrives in the Northern Water Tribe and she keeps taking him on what seem to be dates.
· FIGURE IT OUT by clearascountryair | Published: 2021-12-20 | 35K words | 13 Chapters
After choosing not to kill Yon Rha, Katara rethinks her sense of self and others' perceptions of her. Or, In which Katara learns that there’s a really big difference between being kissed when you don’t want to be and being kissed when you do. Aged-up 3B/Ember Island AU.
- I FOUND YOU by that_turtleduck | Published: 2020-11-01 Completed: 2024-02-24 Words: 157,541 Chapters: 28/28
After divorcing Aang, Katara uproots her family and travels to Caldera. There she finds comfort, kindness and support from an old friend. Katara tries to find her footing as an independent political figure. Great story & relationship dynamic of Momtara & Dadko in their early 30s (Ember island, diplomatic meeting, dancing, turtleduck pond, letters). Delicious slow burn with rewarding spicy resolution in the end (explicit open door). Titters on the side of Anti-Aang.
Here’s a link to Part I of my personal favorites.
Here’s a link to Wholesome Zutara Short Stories.
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All poses | part 2
Somebody told me | I know
Male poses 12 | 11 | 10
Male poses 09 | 08 | 07
Male poses 06 | 05
Male poses 04 | 03
My bad tin can | My tin can
Valentine’s Day 2021 | Sweety
Sitting paired poses | Valentine’s Day 2020
Trio rio
Trio luxurious
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Harry in Your Highlight Reel
Thought I'd try my hand at this trend (trope? style?)! No idea if I'm doing it right, but he's cute so...it doesn't matter
July 17, 2019
The day we thought we'd give the zoo a try. He was convinced the orangutan was staring at him.
It was not.
He was also convinced that it wanted to crawl through the bars and start combing through his hair to eat it.
He then spent the rest of the day asking me if his hair looked "edible," and I spent the rest of the day wishing the orangutan had eaten me instead.
August 03, 2021
"Let's go out to dinner!" he said. "It'll be fun!" he said.
Last time I let this beautiful, British bastard convince to do anything, I swear to God.
First of all, we got a flat tire on the way to the restaurant. And then realized very quickly that neither one of us actually knew how to change a tire.
So, we took an Uber (even though he has enough money to just...buy a brand new car, but whatever), and it smelled like pickles. So...you know, great start.
The restaurant was packed, and apparently it was bring your horny ass to dinner and stare at my boyfriend night. You know, just another great perk. I believe we got a solid five seconds where someone wasn't trying to sit on his lap.
The couple next to us was in the middle of breaking up, and honestly...it was kind of fun to listen to. We made bets, which was terrible of us, but long story short, Harry owes me 10 bucks.
They got our order wrong, which wasn't a big deal except for the fact that Harry has an "allergy" to tomatoes (he just doesn't like them, and always ends up shoving them onto my plate) (which he did) (and I loved them)
Then, we went to the bar to get a drink before we left and he choked on an olive.
So...overall, just an average date night for us.
10/10 will probably let him convince me to do it again and I hate myself for it.
September 29, 2022
Found this throwback in my camera roll the other day, and sent it to Harry while he was in a meeting. Made a joke about wanting to sit on his lap and bite all over his thighs (as one does, of course), and then asked what the fuck was up with his toes. Mostly just to make him squirm during his appointment.
Uh, turns out I didn't send it to Harry.
I sent it to Anne.
And because she's Anne, she completely ignored what I said and made some comment about how little he was, how precious, and how he's all grown up.
Anyway, long story short, I won't be going home for Christmas this year, and will immediately be throwing myself under a car (shoutout to my hero, Mr. Jason Sudeikis, love ya buddy)
Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.
June 04, 2020
He's gonna look so sexy in adult diapers 😍😍😍
March 11, 2023
Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Maybelline 🥰
No, but why was his hair so flowy? Fuck Prince Eric, this is Ariel. Or Ariel's daughter, from the second one. Oh, he'd crush that. Hold up, lemme call his agent
Edit: After showing this to Harry, he has demanded I retract my statement and amend it to clarify that he feels like more of a Belle type? And then suggested I play The Beast, so...he'll be sleeping on the couch for the next few weeks.
Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
#harry#harry edward styles#harry styles#harry styles fan#harry styles imagine#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles fanfic#harry styles blurb#harry styles one shot#harry styles highlight reel#harry styles boyfriend
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small actions big changes
introduction
hey loves! i want to give advice for anyone who’s just feeling lazy and unproductive. little changes to make and how to implement them. even the smallest changes in our everyday life can lead to a world of progress.
physical health
walk 20 minutes a day. walk for 20 minutes a day or more. whether its outside or on a treadmill. getting your steps in benefits the health of your heart, helps build muscles and helps weight loss.
read for 10 minutes per day. helps boost concentration, analytical and verbal skills, decision-making and emotional processing
stretch for 5 minutes. injury prevention, increased flexibility, better mobility.
incorporate one or more fruits and vegtables into every meal. lowers blood sugar, benefits heart health, lowers digestive problems.
mental health
meditate for 5 minutes. clears the mind, improves focus and concentration, de-stresses, boosts brain function.
journal at night. gets out negative thoughts, improves sleep quality
implementing change
we all have different situations in life that make us have to adapt. you might be incredibly busy so you don’t have a lot of time to put towards hobbies and your health. you might not be able to afford clean food from farms, but you can still pick up healthier alternatives at stores. it’s all about knowing what you can and can’t do, what obstacles there are and how to overcome them and adapt these changes into your life. always start small and stay consistent and a few months from now you’ll see a world of change.
everything stems from your morning. when you wake up a little earlier and have a productive morning, it’ll increase your changes of having a productive day. so be mindful about what you do in the morning.
sources:
https://wordsforlife.org.uk/activities/take-10-to-read-every-day/
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/vegetables-and-fruits/#:~:text=A%20diet%20rich%20in%20vegetables,help%20keep%20appetite%20in%20check.
https://escapehaven.com/2020/03/how-5-minutes-of-meditation-a-day-can-change-your-life/#:~:text=Research%20has%20shown%20that%20just,days%20you%20may%20have%20less.
https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/sleep-disorders/journaling-before-bed-can-help-ward-off-sleeplessness
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WELCOMING NEW O/C.
A/N: I have actually wanted to make my own o/c for some time now. And now seems like the time? Wel anyways I might use this o/c for some of my fics. Hope you guys wouldn't mind. Anything said or written here is all pure fiction my luvvies ♡˖꒰ᵕ༚ᵕ⑅
(✿^‿^)(✿^‿^)(✿^‿^)(✿^‿^)(✿^‿^)(✿^‿^)(✿^‿)
NAME: Damian Ishiriki
STAGE NAME: lil Riki
GROUP: Wolf'lo
AGE: 21
MAJORING IN: Breakdancing/Popping & Locking
HEIGHT: 158cm 5'2
BIRTH DATE: 14/03/03
NATIONALITY: -unknown- (foreigner)
FACE CLAIM: KAZUHA LESSARAFIM
YOUR HISTORY OF DANCING:
-You started dancing at the age of 7
-Your inspiration was none other than MJ himself. And Les twins, MC hammer, Ciara and more.
-Since you were really interested in it, your parents had joined in a hip hop dance academy in your home country.
-Soon you become to talk of the town.
-Everyone praised you, loved you and adored you for your talent. Such impressive skills in your little self.
-You were than brought to oversea countries to participate in competitions.
-By the age of 16, you were given an offer from a dance academy in Seoul South Korea.
-It was like a dream come true, but it also meant that you had to leave your family, friends and country to survive on your own in a foreign country. Of which you didn't speak the language of.
-In the end to achieve your dreams you did it. You moved to South Korea on your own.
-After joining the academy, you become popular among the dancers. It took you sometime to get use to your new surroundings but you managed.
-When you joined the academy, that's where you met both Babysleek and Chocol. They were your first teachers in that place.
-These two, took you under their wings teaching everything you should know about hip hop.
-Soon you were becoming really popular around the country.
-You did both underground battles and dance competitions. Always resulting in victory. Which led you to earning the title '작은 리키' which means 'lil Riki'
-At the age of 19 you were already well known through the country.
HOW DID YOU JOIN WOLF'LO
-Like I've said before, You were the honoured student of both Babysleek and Chocol.
-So during the time Wolf'lo was created, Halo had a shortage of one more member to the team.
"God unnie, we're still short of one member. What do we do now?"
"Hmm, wait I actually have an Idea. What if lil Riki joins us? I know she's young but I think with the skill and talent she's got, she'll be perfect for Wolf'lo. Don't you think Gayoung-ah?"
"Yeah I definitely agree with unnie, that kid is really good and damn one my students that I'll never forget."
-And that's how you we're added into Wolf'lo.
-To say the least you were the maknae, eventhough you had an age gap between the members, you were treated both fairly but also received all the pampering and loving from your unnies.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
-World Hip Hop Dance Championship 1st place (category: solo / 2016)
-World Hip Hop Dance Championship 1st place (category: solo / 2017)
-World Hip Hop Dance Championship 1st place (category: solo / 2018)
-New York Juste Debout Hip Hop Final 2018 (Top 10)
-Global Drop the Beat Battle 2020 (Top 3)
-Seoul underground battle 2016 (2nd)
-Seoul underground battle 2017 (1st)
-Seoul underground battle 2018 (1st)
-Seoul underground battle 2019 (1st)
-Seoul underground battle 2020 (3rd)
(✿^‿^)(✿^‿^)(✿^‿^)(✿^‿^)(✿^‿^)(✿^‿^)(✿^‿)
Related searches
CLICK HERE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT LIL RIKI
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT RIKI'S BOYFRIEND
CLICK HERE TO KNOW ABOUT RIKI'S PARENTS
(TT)(TT)(TT)(TT)(TT)(TT)(TT)(TT)(TT)(TT)
#abravesoul.txt#abravesoul thoughts#swf2 imagine#swf2 x reader#swf2#tatter smut#tatter x reader#bada lee#bada smut#bada lee fluff
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Autoenshittification
Forget F1: the only car race that matters now is the race to turn your car into a digital extraction machine, a high-speed inkjet printer on wheels, stealing your private data as it picks your pocket. Your car’s digital infrastructure is a costly, dangerous nightmare — but for automakers in pursuit of postcapitalist utopia, it’s a dream they can’t give up on.
Your car is stuffed full of microchips, a fact the world came to appreciate after the pandemic struck and auto production ground to a halt due to chip shortages. Of course, that wasn’t the whole story: when the pandemic started, the automakers panicked and canceled their chip orders, only to immediately regret that decision and place new orders.
But it was too late: semiconductor production had taken a serious body-blow, and when Big Car placed its new chip orders, it went to the back of a long, slow-moving line. It was a catastrophic bungle: microchips are so integral to car production that a car is basically a computer network on wheels that you stick your fragile human body into and pray.
The car manufacturers got so desperate for chips that they started buying up washing machines for the microchips in them, extracting the chips and discarding the washing machines like some absurdo-dystopian cyberpunk walnut-shelling machine:
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/desperate-times-companies-buy-washing-machines-just-to-rip-out-the-chips-187033.html
These digital systems are a huge problem for the car companies. They are the underlying cause of a precipitous decline in car quality. From touch-based digital door-locks to networked sensors and cameras, every digital system in your car is a source of endless repair nightmares, costly recalls and cybersecurity vulnerabilities:
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/quality-new-vehicles-us-declining-more-tech-use-study-shows-2023-06-22/
What’s more, drivers hate all the digital bullshit, from the janky touchscreens to the shitty, wildly insecure apps. Digital systems are drivers’ most significant point of dissatisfaction with the automakers’ products:
https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-satisifaction-survey-jd-power
Even the automakers sorta-kinda admit that this is a problem. Back in 2020 when Massachusetts was having a Right-to-Repair ballot initiative, Big Car ran these unfuckingbelievable scare ads that basically said, “Your car spies on you so comprehensively that giving anyone else access to its systems will let murderers stalk you to your home and kill you:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms
But even amid all the complaining about cars getting stuck in the Internet of Shit, there’s still not much discussion of why the car-makers are making their products less attractive, less reliable, less safe, and less resilient by stuffing them full of microchips. Are car execs just the latest generation of rubes who’ve been suckered by Silicon Valley bullshit and convinced that apps are a magic path to profitability?
Nope. Car execs are sophisticated businesspeople, and they’re surfing capitalism’s latest — and last — hot trend: dismantling capitalism itself.
Now, leftists have been predicting the death of capitalism since The Communist Manifesto, but even Marx and Engels warned us not to get too frisky: capitalism, they wrote, is endlessly creative, constantly reinventing itself, re-emerging from each crisis in a new form that is perfectly adapted to the post-crisis reality:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html
But capitalism has finally run out of gas. In his forthcoming book, Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis proposes that capitalism has died — but it wasn’t replaced by socialism. Rather, capitalism has given way to feudalism:
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781847927279
Under capitalism, capital is the prime mover. The people who own and mobilize capital — the capitalists — organize the economy and take the lion’s share of its returns. But it wasn’t always this way: for hundreds of years, European civilization was dominated by rents, not markets.
A “rent” is income that you get from owning something that other people need to produce value. Think of renting out a house you own: not only do you get paid when someone pays you to live there, you also get the benefit of rising property values, which are the result of the work that all the other homeowners, business owners, and residents do to make the neighborhood more valuable.
The first capitalists hated rent. They wanted to replace the “passive income” that landowners got from taxing their serfs’ harvest with active income from enclosing those lands and grazing sheep in order to get wool to feed to the new textile mills. They wanted active income — and lots of it.
Capitalist philosophers railed against rent. The “free market” of Adam Smith wasn’t a market that was free from regulation — it was a market free from rents. The reason Smith railed against monopolists is because he (correctly) understood that once a monopoly emerged, it would become a chokepoint through which a rentier could cream off the profits he considered the capitalist’s due:
https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/
Today, we live in a rentier’s paradise. People don’t aspire to create value — they aspire to capture it. In Survival of the Richest, Doug Rushkoff calls this “going meta”: don’t provide a service, just figure out a way to interpose yourself between the provider and the customer:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn
Don’t drive a cab, create Uber and extract value from every driver and rider. Better still: don’t found Uber, invest in Uber options and extract value from the people who invest in Uber. Even better, invest in derivatives of Uber options and extract value from people extracting value from people investing in Uber, who extract value from drivers and riders. Go meta.
This is your brain on the four-hour-work-week, passive income mind-virus. In Techno Feudalism, Varoufakis deftly describes how the new “Cloud Capital” has created a new generation of rentiers, and how they have become the richest, most powerful people in human history.
Shopping at Amazon is like visiting a bustling city center full of stores — but each of those stores’ owners has to pay the majority of every sale to a feudal landlord, Emperor Jeff Bezos, who also decides which goods they can sell and where they must appear on the shelves. Amazon is full of capitalists, but it is not a capitalist enterprise. It’s a feudal one:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola
This is the reason that automakers are willing to enshittify their products so comprehensively: they were one of the first industries to decouple rents from profits. Recall that the reason that Big Car needed billions in bailouts in 2008 is that they’d reinvented themselves as loan-sharks who incidentally made cars, lending money to car-buyers and then “securitizing” the loans so they could be traded in the capital markets.
Even though this strategy brought the car companies to the brink of ruin, it paid off in the long run. The car makers got billions in public money, paid their execs massive bonuses, gave billions to shareholders in buybacks and dividends, smashed their unions, fucked their pensioned workers, and shipped jobs anywhere they could pollute and murder their workforce with impunity.
Car companies are on the forefront of postcapitalism, and they understand that digital is the key to rent-extraction. Remember when BMW announced that it was going to rent you the seatwarmer in your own fucking car?
https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#beemers
Not to be outdone, Mercedes announced that they were going to rent you your car’s accelerator pedal, charging an extra $1200/year to unlock a fully functional acceleration curve:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price
This is the urinary tract infection business model: without digitization, all your car’s value flowed in a healthy stream. But once the car-makers add semiconductors, each one of those features comes out in a painful, burning dribble, with every button on that fakakta touchscreen wired directly into your credit-card.
But it’s just for starters. Computers are malleable. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing Complete Von Neumann Machine, which can run every program we know how to write. Once they add networked computers to your car, the Car Lords can endlessly twiddle the knobs on the back end, finding new ways to extract value from you:
https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6
That means that your car can track your every movement, and sell your location data to anyone and everyone, from marketers to bounty-hunters looking to collect fees for tracking down people who travel out of state for abortions to cops to foreign spies:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7enex/tool-shows-if-car-selling-data-privacy4cars-vehicle-privacy-report
Digitization supercharges financialization. It lets car-makers offer subprime auto-loans to desperate, poor people and then killswitch their cars if they miss a payment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s
Subprime lending for cars would be a terrible business without computers, but digitization makes it a great source of feudal rents. Car dealers can originate loans to people with teaser rates that quickly blow up into payments the dealer knows their customer can’t afford. Then they repo the car and sell it to another desperate person, and another, and another:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/27/boricua/#looking-for-the-joke-with-a-microscope
Digitization also opens up more exotic options. Some subprime cars have secondary control systems wired into their entertainment system: miss a payment and your car radio flips to full volume and bellows an unstoppable, unmutable stream of threats. Tesla does one better: your car will lock and immobilize itself, then blare its horn and back out of its parking spot when the repo man arrives:
https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/
Digital feudalism hasn’t stopped innovating — it’s just stopped innovating good things. The digital device is an endless source of sadistic novelties, like the cellphones that disable your most-used app the first day you’re late on a payment, then work their way down the other apps you rely on for every day you’re late:
https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/
Usurers have always relied on this kind of imaginative intimidation. The loan-shark’s arm-breaker knows you’re never going to get off the hook; his goal is in intimidating you into paying his boss first, liquidating your house and your kid’s college fund and your wedding ring before you default and he throws you off a building.
Thanks to the malleability of computerized systems, digital arm-breakers have an endless array of options they can deploy to motivate you into paying them first, no matter what it costs you:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers
Car-makers are trailblazers in imaginative rent-extraction. Take VIN-locking: this is the practice of adding cheap microchips to engine components that communicate with the car’s overall network. After a new part is installed in your car, your car’s computer does a complex cryptographic handshake with the part that requires an unlock code provided by an authorized technician. If the code isn’t entered, the car refuses to use that part.
VIN-locking has exploded in popularity. It’s in your iPhone, preventing you from using refurb or third-party replacement parts:
https://doctorow.medium.com/apples-cement-overshoes-329856288d13
It’s in fuckin’ ventilators, which was a nightmare during lockdown as hospital techs nursed their precious ventilators along by swapping parts from dead systems into serviceable ones:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azv9b/why-repair-techs-are-hacking-ventilators-with-diy-dongles-from-poland
And of course, it’s in tractors, along with other forms of remote killswitch. Remember that feelgood story about John Deere bricking the looted Ukrainian tractors whose snitch-chips showed they’d been relocated to Russia?
https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8
That wasn’t a happy story — it was a cautionary tale. After all, John Deere now controls the majority of the world’s agricultural future, and they’ve boobytrapped those ubiquitous tractors with killswitches that can be activated by anyone who hacks, takes over, or suborns Deere or its dealerships.
Control over repair isn’t limited to gouging customers on parts and service. When a company gets to decide whether your device can be fixed, it can fuck you over in all kinds of ways. Back in 2019, Tim Apple told his shareholders to expect lower revenues because people were opting to fix their phones rather than replace them:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/
By usurping your right to decide who fixes your phone, Apple gets to decide whether you can fix it, or whether you must replace it. Problem solved — and not just for Apple, but for car makers, tractor makers, ventilator makers and more. Apple leads on this, even ahead of Big Car, pioneering a “recycling” program that sees trade-in phones shredded so they can’t possibly be diverted from an e-waste dump and mined for parts:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks
John Deere isn’t sleeping on this. They’ve come up with a valuable treasure they extract when they win the Right-to-Repair: Deere singles out farmers who complain about its policies and refuses to repair their tractors, stranding them with six-figure, two-ton paperweight:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it
The repair wars are just a skirmish in a vast, invisible fight that’s been waged for decades: the War On General-Purpose Computing, where tech companies use the law to make it illegal for you to reconfigure your devices so they serve you, rather than their shareholders:
https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/
The force behind this army is vast and grows larger every day. General purpose computers are antithetical to technofeudalism — all the rents extracted by technofeudalists would go away if others (tinkereres, co-ops, even capitalists!) were allowed to reconfigure our devices so they serve us.
You’ve probably noticed the skirmishes with inkjet printer makers, who can only force you to buy their ink at 20,000% markups if they can stop you from deciding how your printer is configured:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty
But we’re also fighting against insulin pump makers, who want to turn people with diabetes into walking inkjet printers:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/10/loopers/#hp-ification
And companies that make powered wheelchairs:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/08/chair-ish/#r2r
These companies start with people who have the least agency and social power and wreck their lives, then work their way up the privilege gradient, coming for everyone else. It’s called the “shitty technology adoption curve”:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust
Technofeudalism is the public-private-partnership from hell, emerging from a combination of state and private action. On the one hand, bailing out bankers and big business (rather than workers) after the 2008 crash and the covid lockdown decoupled income from profits. Companies spent billions more than they earned were still wildly profitable, thanks to those public funds.
But there’s also a policy dimension here. Some of those rentiers’ billions were mobilized to both deconstruct antitrust law (allowing bigger and bigger companies and cartels) and to expand “IP” law, turning “IP” into a toolsuite for controlling the conduct of a firm’s competitors, critics and customers:
https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/
IP is key to understanding the rise of technofeudalism. The same malleability that allows companies to “twiddle” the knobs on their services and keep us on the hook as they reel us in would hypothetically allow us to countertwiddle, seizing the means of computation:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men
The thing that stands between you and an alternative app store, an interoperable social media network that you can escape to while continuing to message the friends you left behind, or a car that anyone can fix or unlock features for is IP, not technology. Under capitalism, that technology would already exist, because capitalists have no loyalty to one another and view each other’s margins as their own opportunities.
But under technofeudalism, control comes from rents (owning things), not profits (selling things). The capitalist who wants to participate in your iPhone’s “ecosystem” has to make apps and submit them to Apple, along with 30% of their lifetime revenues — they don’t get to sell you jailbreaking kit that lets you choose their app store.
Rent-seeking technology has a holy grail: control over “ring zero” — the ability to compel you to configure your computer to a feudalist’s specifications, and to verify that you haven’t altered your computer after it came into your possession:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/30/ring-minus-one/#drm-political-economy
For more than two decades, various would-be feudal lords and their court sorcerers have been pitching ways of doing this, of varying degrees of outlandishness.
At core, here’s what they envision: inside your computer, they will nest another computer, one that is designed to run a very simple set of programs, none of which can be altered once it leaves the factory. This computer — either a whole separate chip called a “Trusted Platform Module” or a region of your main processor called a secure enclave — can tally observations about your computer: which operating system, modules and programs it’s running.
Then it can cryptographically “sign” these observations, proving that they were made by a secure chip and not by something you could have modified. Then you can send this signed “attestation” to someone else, who can use it to determine how your computer is configured and thus whether to trust it. This is called “remote attestation.”
There are some cool things you can do with remote attestation: for example, two strangers playing a networked video game together can use attestations to make sure neither is running any cheat modules. Or you could require your cloud computing provider to use attestations that they aren’t stealing your data from the server you’re renting. Or if you suspect that your computer has been infected with malware, you can connect to someone else and send them an attestation that they can use to figure out whether you should trust it.
Today, there’s a cool remote attestation technology called “PrivacyPass” that replaces CAPTCHAs by having you prove to your own device that you are a human. When a server wants to make sure you’re a person, it sends a random number to your device, which signs that number along with its promise that it is acting on behalf of a human being, and sends it back. CAPTCHAs are all kinds of bad — bad for accessibility and privacy — and this is really great.
But the billions that have been thrown at remote attestation over the decades is only incidentally about solving CAPTCHAs or verifying your cloud server. The holy grail here is being able to make sure that you’re not running an ad-blocker. It’s being able to remotely verify that you haven’t disabled the bossware your employer requires. It’s the power to block someone from opening an Office365 doc with LibreOffice. It’s your boss’s ability to ensure that you haven’t modified your messaging client to disable disappearing messages before he sends you an auto-destructing memo ordering you to break the law.
And there’s a new remote attestation technology making the rounds: Google’s Web Environment Integrity, which will leverage Google’s dominance over browsers to allow websites to block users who run ad-blockers:
https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity
There’s plenty else WEI can do (it would make detecting ad-fraud much easier), but for every legitimate use, there are a hundred ways this could be abused. It’s a technology purpose-built to allow rent extraction by stripping us of our right to technological self-determination.
Releasing a technology like this into a world where companies are willing to make their products less reliable, less attractive, less safe and less resilient in pursuit of rents is incredibly reckless and shortsighted. You want unauthorized bread? This is how you get Unauthorized Bread:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/amp/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon
[Image ID: The interior of a luxury car. There is a dagger protruding from the steering wheel. The entertainment console has been replaced by the text 'You wouldn't download a car,' in MPAA scare-ad font. Outside of the windscreen looms the Matrix waterfall effect. Visible in the rear- and side-view mirror is the driver: the figure from Munch's 'Scream.' The screen behind the steering-wheel has been replaced by the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.']
Image:
Cryteria (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg
CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
#pluralistic#shitty technology adoption curve#unauthorized bread#automotive#arm-breakers#cars#big car#right to repair#rent-seeking#digital feudalism#neofeudalism#drm#wei#remote attestation#private access tokens#yannis varoufakis#web environment integrity#paternalism#war on general purpose computing#competitive compatibility#google#enshittification#interoperability#adversarial interoperability#comcom#the internet con#postcapitalism#ring zero#care#med-tech
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Can you tell me some slugs that have very unique patterns or body shapes?
some Athoracophoridae:
some Veronicellidae, like my slugs:
Testacella has a shell, but it’s not really doing anything:
Gaeotis is another (entirely unrelated) semi-slug with a wonderful appearance:
and something from the most “typical” family of slugs, Limacidae. probably Europe’s prettiest land gastropod:
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Zutara SlowBurn FanFiction: Personal Favs, part I
· I AM STILL HERE by owedbetter Published: 2017-10-09 | 77K words | 7 Chapters
After the Last Agni Kai K heals Z with the help of bloodbending. Very sweet.
· THE SUMMIT by AJLenoire
Chronicles post-war years, as Gaang and other characters gather for annual summits to keep peace and build relationships between the Four Nations. Katara yearns for a bigger purpose than the Avatar’s companion and slowly grows into a shrewd diplomat. Very sweet slow burn ZK story. Has mature scenes.
· CLOTHE ME IN SEASONS, DRESS ME IN SNOW by sadladybug Published: 2015-01-05 | 62K words | 7 Chapters
Follows old Zuko as he reflects on his life and what would have been if he kept Katara closer. Absolutely beautiful, but also a devastatingly heart-breaking story about loss and pain.
· SILENT DECLARATIONS by Megara Pike (Megara_Pike) Published: 2021-01-20 | 2,6K words
A short story based on animation by Hayley Wong. Z finds K asleep in her study and carries her to bed. Very sweet, gentle story.
· COVERED IN YOU by evergreenonthehorizon Published: 2021-04-02 | 55K words | 14 Chapters
Eight years after the war Z convinces K to take on a role of a Southern Water Tribe ambassador in the Caldera city. Both are completely clueless about each other’s feelings. Features political talks, big gestures, and a ball. Very cute, sweet slow-burn story. Has mature scenes.
· TEN STRIDES IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION by evergreenonthehorizon Published: 2021-04-03 | 29K Words | 12 Chapters
A collection of short stories filling in the gaps between some of the events of ATLAS3 and up to the Last Agni Kai. Features accidental cuddling, embracing in the rain, sharing a bed for warmth, post-Ember Island Theater discussions, being discovered, waiting to be kissed, Suki & Katara being good friends, battle plans, Zuko & Sokka getting drunk, slow burn & angst. Very sweet.
· THE SWAY OF THE SUN by TheBlackBriarSparrow Published: Published: 2019-10-14 | 102K Words | 27 Chapters
Two years post-war Gaang reunites in Caldera city for a secret party in honor of the overworked Fire Lord’s birthday. Rebels attack the palace setting a thrilling consequence of events in motion. Adventures, investigations, and fights ensue. Z & K work together and enlist old friends to help find missing people. Beautiful slow-burn story with an exciting plot.
· A WARM EMBRACE by ewinkie Published: 2020-10-06 | 19K Words | 7 Chapters
An ATLAS3 rewrite from Southern Riders to the Last Agni Kai. Katara and Zuko have to hide in a cave following their encounter with Yon Rha. Comforting turns to cuddling, which turns to waking up on Appa's tail in each other's arms. Katara is shocked at how comfortable she is. Zuko is shocked that Katara doesn't hate him for it. Features sharing a bed, being discovered, slowburn, and lots of teenage silliness.
· FOLLOWING BLUE by Boogum Published: 2018-11-07 | 39K Words | 10 Chapters
ATLA S2 rewrite. After Katara falls from Appa’s saddle during a pursuit, the Blue Spirit becomes her reluctant companion and helps her reunite with her friends. Ba Sing Se scenes are completely rewritten, and Z ends up joining the Gaang much earlier. Thrilling beginning, sweet middle, average ending.
· ANOTHER WORD FOR ALCHEMY by FanPanda13 Published: 2014-08-19 | 108K words | 24 Chapters
Five years post-war Aang summons old friends for a summit and invites them on a trip to investigate mysterious locations where he experiences loss of bending. Features Gaang setting Z & K up, travelling on Appa like in the olden days, lots of sparring, royal courting, magnificent navy ships & war ballons. Thrilling story with fun banter between old friends. Slowburn, mature content.
· CONSUME ME WITH FIRE, FLOOD ME WITH DESIRE by Dacamia Published: 2020-08-14 | 86K words | 24 Chapters
Steamy ATLAS2 and ATLA S3 rewrite. Z & K accidentally meetup on their way to Ba Sing Se and decide to travel together. Features aged-up characters, lots of intimate scenes, staying in a beautiful cave, helping villagers, betrayal in Ba Sing Se, reunion, forgiveness, etc. Explicit mature content.
· ROOTS AND WINGS by zukoscomet Published: 2020-08-14 | 250K words | 25 Chapters
A series of short stories of Z & K as they grow closer, confess their love for one another and start a family.
· THOSE WHO FAVOR FIRE by hiwasseelane Published: 2021-05-02 |29K Words | 13 Chapters
An ATLAS3 rewrite. Sweet, teen-appopriate.
Here’s a link to Part II of my personal favs.
Here’s a link to Wholesome Zutara Short Stories.
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Ghoap Analysis/Meta (1?)
The Evolution of GhostSoap Redux
Continuing thoughts on how Ghost and Soap's relationship has changed over the course of mw(19), mwii(22) and mwiii(23)
Spread out amongst several posts. This will be long 😅
(Part 1)
BEWARE SPOILERS TO MWIII(23) !
I've had time to settle my thoughts on Ghostsoap in mwiii (23) and this will go more into depth of the re-contextualising of Ghost and Soap's relationship in mwii (22) from the verdansk mission: "Flashpoint".
Flashpoint is set 4 years to mwiii(23). The game places it as April 6, 2019. This is important to us because it sets a different potential first mission (meet cute lmao) between the two and thus changes the tone of their interactions in mwii (22)
So let's set up a timeline with the available dates. Thankfully, the game sets some very concrete dates for us. Not all missions are included.*
2019
Flashpoint - April 06, 2019
First canonical appearance of SAS Ghost and Soap
Ghost provides sniper cover for Soap
Price/Soap capture Makarov and transport him to a helo with Ghost and Shepherd
There's a failed interrogation by Ghost and Soap.
Makarov implies he has met Ghost before and thought him dead at an airport
2019 Mw(19)
Piccadilly - Oct 25, 2019
First canonical appearance of SAS Gaz
Gaz is attached to Met Counter Terrorist Police. This implies he has worked largely in his career in conjunction to the Police. It's unknown whether he met Soap or Ghost before.
First meet of Gaz and Price to combat terrorists in London
Old Comrades - Oct 31, 2019
Gaz meets Nikolai
Interrogation scene. Arguably strengthens Gaz and Price's relationship
Into the Furnace - Nov 03, 2019
Last mission, they kill general barkov
Credit Scene - Nov 03-04, 2019* (hypothetical)
Laswell and Price form task force 141
Price seconds Ghost, Soap, Gaz. This implies that Price has worked with Soap and Ghost on missions for x amount of years. It's Gaz who was the surprise recruit.
2020 Cod Warzone
Season 2 - Mar 2020
First appearance of 141 Ghost
Unknown amount of 141 stationed in Verdansk. Ghost asks for backup.
Season 3 - Apr 2020
Armistice dissolved
Price and Gaz show up to help Ghost
Implied- unknown amount of 141 to Verdansk (possible meeting of Soap and Ghost)
Season ? - Dec 2020
Price kills Zakaev
First appearance (via call) of 141 Soap asking for backup in Verdansk
Price, Ghost, Gaz, Farah etc backup Soap who is somewhere else in Verdansk getting pinned down by enemies
2022 Mwii(22)
Strike - July 15, 2022
Ghost calls an airstrike on Ghorbrani with the aid of Shadow Company
Hindsight - Aug 12, 2022
Shepherd/Shadow Company loses American missiles to terroists
Kill or Capture - Oct 28, 2022
Ghost gets assigned Soap as his sergeant for Al Mazhrah mission to kill or capture Hassan
They find American missiles instead
Cartel Protection - Oct 30, 2022
Ghost/Soap meet Ale/Rudy in Las Almas
They fight the Mexican army under control of the cartels
RV with Graves/Shadow Comp.
El Sin Nombre - Nov 01, 2022
Soap infils cartel mansion
Valeria is revealed as El Sin Nombre
They take her into custody
Dark Water - Nov 02, 2022
Boat/oil rig mission with Shadow company
Missile launch averted by Ghost, Soap and Graves
Alone - Nov 03, 2022
Graves and Shepherd betray 141/mexi bros
Ghost and Soap get out of Las Almas
RV at ale's hideout with Rudy
Prison Break - Nov 03, 2022
Ghost, Soap, Rudy break out ale from prison
Meet up with Price/Gaz
Ghost Team - Nov 03, 2022
141 with mexi bros take back mexi bros base
Soap and Rudy "kill" Graves
Countdown - Nov 04, 2022
Stop missile launch in Chicago
Ghost and Soap kill Hassan
2023 Mwiii (23)
Operation 627 - Oct 13, 2023
Makarov breaks out of prison
Reactor - Nov 10, 2023
141 find out that Makarov escaped
141 assaults konni base
Price finds chemical weapons (almost died)
Payload - Nov 11, 2023
141 split up to stop missile launch of chemical weapons
They fail to stop 2 missiles to Russia
Oligarch - Nov 12, 2023
Ghost/Soap island mission to find Makarov's financier
Interrogation of Milena for Makarov's location
Frozen Tundra - Nov 14, 2023
141 ambush konni convoy
Find Shepherd was Makarov's prisoner
Interrogate him on Makarov's location
Gora Dam - Nov 16, 2023
Ghost/Soap split up to stop chemical weapons in Verdansk
Trojan Horse - Nov 21, 2023
141 split up in London tunnels to stop Makarov from using chemical weapons in subway system
So now that's done. I've mostly ignored Farah and Alex and focused on Price, Ghost, Gaz, Soap and Nikolai as it pertains to relationships within the core group of Price/Ghost/Gaz/Soap.
What can we make of this ?
Well, a couple things.
We can now say that from 2019 to the events of "Kill or Capture" in 2022, Ghost and Soap have most likely worked together on missions before. The timeline shows that they at least had to have met in Dec 2020 in Verdansk as Soap had called for backup to Price and group.
That makes it actually at least 3 years of knowledge of each other prior to mwii(22). So a total of 4 years + potentially at the start of mwiii(23).
It also shows us how quickly their relationship changed from the Alone mission in '22 despite the 3 years of prior knowledge they had since '19.
Let it be said that it took 1 week, ONLY 7 DAYS!! to change Ghost and Soap's relationship. 7 days out of a total at least 3 years total.
Ghost started at not even bothering to name Soap in 2019, to presumably basic Soap/Mactavish/sergeant for the next 3 years.
Cut to the events in mwii(22). Lets say beginning at "Kill or Capture" and finishing at "Alone" and suddenly Ghost ends up having made up his own personal nickname that no one else can use for Soap in just those 7 days.
I posit that this was in part due to "Kill or Capture" in '22 being the first mission that Soap has directly worked under Ghost's command.
This is all hypotheticals and guesswork so take it as you may.
Assuming Ghost was mainly a solo mission sort of guy, let's also assume he mostly helped as sniper overwatch if he ever had team missions (like in Flashpoint). Most 141 missions have him taking that position as well, so it's safe to say he is support most of the time.
Given that assumption, it's also likely that Soap and Ghost had to have interacted mainly on comms and any physical meeting would be restricted to transport via heli or otherwise.
It's possible Soap and Ghost have worked together on a more physical basis (aka Ghost leading Soap on a squad), but given how much Ghost seemed to be testing Soap in "Kill or Capture" I find that somewhat unlikely.
In 2019 we see how brusque Ghost is with Soap. It's very likely that Ghost was largely monosyllabic with Soap pre or post missions to Flashpoint.
Considering Soap's propensity to chatter in 2022 and 2023, it's also very likely Soap annoyed the hell out of Ghost on comms. Lol.
This could explain why Ghost was so dismissive of having Soap as his sergeant in "Kill or Capture", despite working together 3 years ago.
I, and arguably most of fandom had theorised that "Kill or Capture" was the first mission that Soap and Ghost ever had together. And we weren't quite right, but we weren't completely wrong either.
With Flashpoint, it's obvious now that was not quite true. It even suggests in it that Ghost and Soap had worked together prior to even that, as there was no formal introduction between the two.
This dramatically changes how Ghost's dialogue and Soap's to a lesser degree can be read in mwii(22) and implies much much more if you consider how they interact with each other in '23.
So why does it matter when Ghost and Soap's relationship started?
With mwiii(23) we can now definitively tell when Ghost and Soap's relationship changed. We now have a rough basis of a timeline and we can track down the differences between '19 -'22 and then '22- '23. Its important because we can see how their relationship deepens and how it changed within a span of 3 years, 7 compelling days and 1 heartwrenching year later.
For all that mwiii(23) was lax with explicit Ghostsoap moments, it's rich in how much context we gain to their relationship. We see how Ghost changes and how his relationships differ between 141. It's an interesting and compelling look at both Ghost and Soap's characters.
In this discussion I separate this analysis into 3 parts. Part 2 will cover the implications of "Flashpoint" on mwii (22), with discussion line by line. Part 3 will most likely go over comparisons a year makes from the events in '22 to '23. (This might be subject to change as I get further into the analysis)
Onto Part 2.
+
#ghostsoap#cod mw3#cod mwiii#john soap mactavish#simon ghost riley#soapghost#ghost x soap#simon riley#call of duty#meta#analysis#soap x ghost#soap mactavish#soap cod#mw3 spoilers#cod mwii#call of duty modern warfare
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