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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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Podcasting “Capitalists Hate Capitalism”

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

This week on my podcast, I read "Capitalists Hate Capitalism," my latest column for Locus Magazine:

https://locusmag.com/2024/03/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-capitalism/

What do I mean by "capitalists hate capitalism?" It all comes down to the difference between "profits" and "rents." A capitalist takes capital (money, or the things you can buy with it) and combines it with employees' labor, and generates profits (the capitalist's share) and wages (the workers' share).

Rents, meanwhile, come from owning an asset that capitalists need to generate profits. For example, a landlord who rents a storefront to a coffee shop extracts rent from the capitalist who owns the coffee shop. Meanwhile, the capitalist who owns the cafe extracts profits from the baristas' labor.

Capitalists' founding philosophers like Adam Smith hated rents. Worse: rents were the most important source of income at the time of capitalism's founding. Feudal lords owned great swathes of land, and there were armies of serfs who were bound to that land – it was illegal for them to leave it. The serfs owed rent to lords, and so they worked the land in order grow crops and raise livestock that they handed over the to lord as rent for the land they weren't allowed to leave.

Capitalists, meanwhile, wanted to turn that land into grazing territory for sheep as a source of wool for the "dark, Satanic mills" of the industrial revolution. They wanted the serfs to be kicked off their land so that they would become "free labor" that could be hired to work in those factories.

For the founders of capitalism, a "free market" wasn't free from regulation, it was free from rents, and "free labor" came from workers who were free to leave the estates where they were born – but also free to starve unless they took a job with the capitalists.

For capitalism's philosophers, free markets and free labor weren't just a source of profits, they were also a source of virtue. Capitalists – unlike lords – had to worry about competition from one another. They had to make better goods at lower prices, lest their customers take their business elsewhere; and they had to offer higher pay and better conditions, lest their "free labor" take a job elsewhere.

This means that capitalists are haunted by the fear of losing everything, and that fear acts as a goad, driving them to find ways to make everything better for everyone: better, cheaper products that benefit shoppers; and better-paid, safer jobs that benefit workers. For Smith, capitalism is alchemy, a philosopher's stone that transforms the base metal of greed into the gold of public spiritedness.

By contrast, rentiers are insulated from competition. Their workers are bound to the land, and must toil to pay the rent no matter whether they are treated well or abused. The rent rolls in reliably, without the lord having to invest in new, better ways to bring in the harvest. It's a good life (for the lord).

Think of that coffee-shop again: if a better cafe opens across the street, the owner can lose it all, as their customers and workers switch allegiance. But for the landlord, the failure of his capitalist tenant is a feature, not a bug. Once the cafe goes bust, the landlord gets a newly vacant storefront on the same block as the hot new coffee shop that can be rented out at even higher rates to another capitalist who tries his luck.

The industrial revolution wasn't just the triumph of automation over craft processes, nor the triumph of factory owners over weavers. It was also the triumph of profits over rents. The transformation of hereditary estates worked by serfs into part of the supply chain for textile mills was attended by – and contributed to – the political ascendancy of capitalists over rentiers.

Now, obviously, capitalism didn't end rents – just as feudalism didn't require the total absence of profits. Under feudalism, capitalists still extracted profits from capital and labor; and under capitalism, rentiers still extracted rents from assets that capitalists and workers paid them to use.

The difference comes in the way that conflicts between profits and rents were resolved. Feudalism is a system where rents triumph over profits, and capitalism is a system where profits triumph over rents.

It's conflict that tells you what really matters. You love your family, but they drive you crazy. If you side with your family over your friends – even when your friends might be right and your family's probably wrong – then you value your family more than your friends. That doesn't mean you don't value your friends – it means that you value them less than your family.

Conflict is a reliable way to know whether or not you're a leftist. As Steven Brust says, the way to distinguish a leftist is to ask "What's more important, human rights, or property rights?" If you answer "Property rights are human right," you're not a leftist. Leftists don't necessarily oppose all property rights – they just think they're less important than human rights.

Think of conflicts between property rights and human rights: the grocer who deliberately renders leftover food inedible before putting it in the dumpster to ensure that hungry people can't eat it, or the landlord who keeps an apartment empty while a homeless person freezes to death on its doorstep. You don't have to say "No one can own food or a home" to say, "in these cases, property rights are interfering with human rights, so they should be overridden." For leftists property rights can be a means to human rights (like revolutionary land reformers who give peasants title to the lands they work), but where property rights interfere with human rights, they are set aside.

In his 2023 book Technofeudalism, Yanis Varoufakis claims that capitalism has given way to a new feudalism – that capitalism was a transitional phase between feudalism…and feudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Varoufakis's point isn't that capitalists have gone extinct. Rather, it's that today, conflicts between capital and assets – between rents and profits – reliably end with a victory of rent over profit.

Think of Amazon: the "everything store" appears to be a vast bazaar, a flea-market whose stalls are all operated by independent capitalists who decide what to sell, how to price it, and then compete to tempt shoppers. In reality, though, the whole system is owned by a single feudalist, who extracts 51% from every dollar those merchants take in, and decides who can sell, and what they can sell, and at what price, and whether anyone can even see it:

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

Or consider the patent trolls of the Eastern District of Texas. These "companies" are invisible and produce nothing. They consist solely of a serviced mailbox in a dusty, uninhabited office-building, and an overbroad patent (say, a patent on "tapping on a screen with your finger") issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office. These companies extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Apple, Google, Samsung for violating these patents. In other words, the government steps in and takes vast profits generated through productive activity by companies that make phones, and turns that money over as rent paid to unproductive companies whose sole "product" is lawsuits. It's the triumph of rent over profit.

Capitalists hate capitalism. All capitalists would rather extract rents than profits, because rents are insulated from competition. The merchants who sell on Jeff Bezos's Amazon (or open a cafe in a landlord's storefront, or license a foolish smartphone patent) bear all the risk. The landlords – of Amazon, the storefront, or the patent – get paid whether or not that risk pays off.

This is why Google, Apple and Samsung also have vast digital estates that they rent out to capitalists – everything from app stores to patent portfolios. They would much rather be in the business of renting things out to capitalists than competing with capitalists.

Hence that famous Adam Smith quote: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." This is literally what Google and Meta do:

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

And it's what Apple and Google do:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934961/google-antitrust-trial-defaults-search-deal-26-3-billion

Why compete with one another when you can collude, like feudal lords with adjacent estates who trust one another to return any serf they catch trying to sneak away in the dead of night?

Because of course, it's not just "free markets" that have been captured by rents ("Competition is for losers" -P. Thiel) – it's also "free labor." For years, the largest tech and entertainment companies in America illegally colluded on a "no poach" agreement not to hire one-anothers' employees:

https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/03/apple-google-other-silicon-valley-tech-giants-ordered-to-pay-415m-in-no-poaching-suit/

These companies were bitter competitors – as were these sectors. Even as Big Content was lobbying for farcical copyright law expansions and vowing to capture Big Tech, all these companies on both sides were able to set aside their differences and collude to bind their free workers to their estates and end the "wasteful competition" to secure their labor.

Of course, this is even more pronounced at the bottom of the labor market, where noncompete "agreements" are the norm. The median American worker bound by a noncompete is a fast-food worker whose employer can wield the power of the state to prevent that worker from leaving behind the Wendy's cash-register to make $0.25/hour more at the McDonald's fry trap across the street:

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

Employers defend this as necessary to secure their investment in training their workers and to ensure the integrity of their trade secrets. But why should their investments be protected? Capitalism is about risk, and the fear that accompanies risk – fear that drives capitalists to innovate, which creates the public benefit that is the moral justification for capitalism.

Capitalists hate capitalism. They don't want free labor – they want labor bound to the land. Capitalists benefit from free labor: if you have a better company, you can tempt away the best workers and cause your inferior rival to fail. But feudalists benefit from un-free labor, from tricks like "bondage fees" that force workers to pay in order to quit their jobs:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/21/bondage-fees/#doorman-building

Companies like Petsmart use "training repayment agreement provisions" (TRAPs) to keep low-waged workers from leaving for better employers. Petsmart says it costs $5,500 to train a pet-groomer, and if that worker is fired, laid off, or quits less than two years, they have to pay that amount to Petsmart:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Now, Petsmart is full of shit here. The "four-week training course" Petsmart claims is worth $5,500 actually only lasts for three weeks. What's more, the "training" consists of sweeping the floor and doing other low-level chores for three weeks, without pay.

But even if Petsmart were to give $5,500 worth of training to every pet-groomer, this would still be bullshit. Why should the worker bear the risk of Petsmart making a bad investment in their training? Under capitalism, risks justify rewards. Petsmart's argument for charging $50 to groom your dog and paying the groomer $15 for the job is that they took $35 worth of risk. But some of that risk is being borne by the worker – they're the ones footing the bill for the training.

For Petsmart – as for all feudalists – a worker (with all the attendant risks) can be turned into an asset, something that isn't subject to competition. Petsmart doesn't have to retain workers through superior pay and conditions – they can use the state's contract-enforcement mechanism instead.

Capitalists hate capitalism, but they love feudalism. Sure, they dress this up by claiming that governmental de-risking spurs investment: "Who would pay to train a pet-groomer if that worker could walk out the next day and shave dogs for some competing shop?"

But this is obvious nonsense. Think of Silicon Valley: high tech is the most "IP-intensive" of all industries, the sector that has had to compete most fiercely for skilled labor. And yet, Silicon Valley is in California, where noncompetes are illegal. Every single successful Silicon Valley company has thrived in an environment in which their skilled workers can walk out the door at any time and take a job with a rival company.

There's no indication that the risk of free labor prevents investment. Think of AI, the biggest investment bubble in human history. All the major AI companies are in jurisdictions where noncompetes are illegal. Anthropic – OpenAI's most serious competitor – was founded by a sister/brother team who quit senior roles at OpenAI and founded a direct competitor. No one can claim with a straight face that OpenAI is now unable to raise capital on favorable terms.

What's more, when OpenAI founder Sam Altman was forced out by his board, Microsoft offered to hire him – and 700 other OpenAI personnel – to found an OpenAI competitor. When Altman returned to the company, Microsoft invested more money in OpenAI, despite their intimate understanding that anyone could hire away the company's founder and all of its top technical staff at any time.

The idea that the departure of the Burger King trade secrets locked up in its workers' heads constitute more of a risk to the ability to operate a hamburger restaurant than the departure of the entire technical staff of OpenAI is obvious nonsense. Noncompetes aren't a way to make it possible to run a business – they're a way to make it easy to run a business, by eliminating competition and pushing the risk onto employees.

Because capitalists hate capitalism. And who can blame them? Who wouldn't prefer a life with less risk to one where you have to constantly look over your shoulder for competitors who've found a way to make a superior offer to your customers and workers?

This is why businesses are so excited about securing "IP" – that is, a government-backed right to control your workers, customers, competitors or critics:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

The argument for every IP right expansion is the same: "Who would invest in creating something new without the assurance that someone else wouldn’t copy and improve on it and put them out of business?"

That was the argument raised five years ago, during the (mercifully brief) mania for genre writers seeking trademarks on common tropes. There was the romance writer who got a trademark on the word "cocky" in book titles:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17566276/cockygate-amazon-kindle-unlimited-algorithm-self-published-romance-novel-cabal

And the fantasy writer who wanted a trademark on "dragon slayer" in fantasy novel titles:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/14/son-of-cocky-a-writer-is-trying-to-trademark-dragon-slayer-for-fantasy-novels/

Who subsequently sought a trademark on any book cover featuring a person holding a weapon:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/07/19/trademark-troll-who-claims-to-own-dragon-slayer-now-wants-exclusive-rights-to-book-covers-where-someone-is-holding-a-weapon/

For these would-be rentiers, the logic was the same: "Why would I write a book about a dragon-slayer if I could lose readers to someone else who writes a book about dragon-slayers?"

In these cases, the USPTO denied or rescinded its trademarks. Profits triumphed over rents. But increasingly, rents are triumphing over profits, and rent-extraction is celebrated as "smart business," while profits are for suckers, only slightly preferable to "wages" (the worst way to get paid under both capitalism and feudalism).

That's what's behind all the talk about "passive income" – that's just a euphemism for "rent." It's what Douglas Rushkoff is referring to in Survival of the Richest when he talks about the wealthy wanting to "go meta":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Don't drive a cab – go meta and buy a medallion. Don't buy a medallion, go meta and found Uber. Don't found Uber, go meta and invest in Uber. Don't invest in Uber, go meta and buy options on Uber stock. Don't buy Uber stock options, go meta and buy derivatives of options on Uber stock.

"Going meta" means distancing yourself from capitalism – from income derived from profits, from competition, from risk – and cozying up to feudalism.

Capitalists have always hated capitalism. The owners of the dark Satanic mills wanted peasants turned off the land and converted into "free labor" – but they also kidnapped Napoleonic war-orphans and indentured them to ten-year terms of service, which was all you could get out of a child's body before it was ruined for further work:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When Varoufakis says we've entered a new feudal age, he doesn't mean that we've abolished capitalism. He means that – for the first time in centuries – when rents go to war against profits – the rents almost always emerge victorious.

Here's the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2024/04/14/capitalists-hate-capitalism/

Here's a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_465/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_465_-_Capitalists_Hate_Capitalism.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/18/in-extremis-veritas/#the-winnah

#pluralistic #technofeudalism #yanis varoufakis #rents #profits #economics #podcasts #locus magazine #mp3s

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grimrester · 2 months

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i am really so sorry to continue harping on about the watcher entertainment streaming service. but this kind of stuff (internet content as a business & marketing it as such) is truly my obsession, and i think i will implode if i don't talk about some of the takes i'm seeing.

i'd like to emphasize again i don't have strong feelings about watcher either way. i like ghost files, i watch mystery files sometimes, i watched worth it back in the buzzfeed days. i don't watch any of their shows religiously.

anyway, here's the main things i keep seeing crop up and my thoughts on each:

"watcher has 25 employees they have to pay, and employing people in this economy is good, so we should be banding together to pay them."

employing people is good if you currently have the capacity to pay them. i checked watcher's linkedin page, and many of their employees were hired within the last year or two. if they hired people they cannot pay with the business model they had before, something is seriously wrong with their internal bookkeeping/decision making. it means they either didn't know they couldn't pay these people long term, or they did know and were content with risking newly hired employees' livelihoods on a huge content pivot in the next year.

of note is that none of their employees' titles have anything to do with managing the finances of the company. they are the size of a small business but have no one aside from the figureheads of the company in charge of their finances.

this is the kind of company decision making that leads to downsizing and layoffs, which can be devastating. but you know what's worse than laying off a portion of your staff? laying off everyone because your business is going under.

"not everyone can afford the subscription, but those who can should pay it to support the watcher team."

no. $6/month for a couple hours of content (depending on what shows you actively watch and the natural fluctuation of their release schedule) is a fundamentally bad value. i can pay that much for a few movies on amazon. i can pay that much for dropout, if i want to support a smaller business instead.

and to be totally frank, even if people do sign up, i don't think they'd get enough to compete with the amount they get through patreon/sponsorships. and the fact that they didn't know how many of their subscribers would realistically sign up is a bad sign.

a pretty good conversion rate of free to paid subscribers of a service or content is 3% (usually accomplished through a free trial). given the very poor reception of the announcement, let's say about 1% of their 3 mil youtube subs pay for their service. that's 30k people paying for their new platform. that's $180k a month in their pocket.

(they currently only have 12k subs on patreon so we are being generous here.)

a sponsorship deal (based on my googling, i have less direct experience with this) is anywhere from $10-50 per 1000 views. they've gotten about 1 mil views on their last few videos. 3 mil subs is nothing to shake a stick at, but let's say they're on the lower end of the payscale at $25 per 1000 views. that's $25k a video, $100k a month if they release 1 video a week. their lowest patreon tier is 5 bucks, so even if all their subs are at that tier, that's another $60k, so $160k total. it's entirely likely they're bringing in much more than that when you factor in merch, adsence, etc.

did anyone on their team crunch numbers on how many people would need to sub to make the switch worth it? did anyone do market research on how many people they could convert to paid users? because if not, if they really didn't have a game plan for this, the subscription service was always doomed to fail.

"this was their only option to continue making the content they want to make, with the production value they want."

i watched their announcement video. a key point in that video is that they have done sponsored videos and that's what used to pay for their content, but they did not like the amount of creative control the sponsor had over the content.

look, i get that's no fun. we'd all love creatives to be able to make whatever they want. but when you are a small business with a team of employees relying on you, you have to think about making money, sometimes at the cost of creative liberties.

and they had so many other options to make money for the projects they want to make without jumping to a subscription platform.

they could have started actually promoting their patreon, and maybe done some restructuring of the tiers. why not a highly produced, special series just for patreon members? or a special high-budget episode of each series, while the main series is lower budget?

bite the bullet and continue taking sponsorship deals on some less-produced shows, while axing sponsorships from the ones the crew feels more passionate about.

schedule larger, blowout-production shows only when they can be afforded. this is what Notorious Amongus Guy streamer jerma does. he saves up for big productions like his baseball or dollhouse streams, so he can really get creative with them.

they had other options and they've tried very little, especially when you compare them to other content house business at similar scales. try guys and good mythical morning both put out significant content with significant staff, and have had to diversify their income streams with auxiliary products, shows with widely varied levels of production, etc. but it seems to be working for them. watcher has merch and that's about it, and seems to only want to increase the production quality of ALL their shows.

really, all this just boils down to a terrible business decision. it's hard to say if the watcher team is working with a consultant or anyone outside of their team, but they certainly don't have anyone internally who is experienced with running a business like this. to me, it seems very much like they got in a room together and did some extremely optimistic income ballparking with no research behind it.

and that might have been fine for three dudes running a channel alone, but if they're a business, they have to start making decisions like one.

#i encourage discussion on this in my notes btw!#you can even be mean to me if you disagree. i dont actually care #watcher

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mayullla · 8 months

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Title: A Cruel Punishment

Character(s): Viscount (Unnamed character/original work)

Summary: You were cast aside by your fiance, a prince who fell in love with another woman. You were called an evil woman and you thought you would be sent away yet instead you were given to another. Your hands trembled when you read the contract that you would wed a terrible man.

Tags/Warnings: male!yandere, fem!reader, viscount!yandere x fallen aristocrat!reader, both are adults, general yandere themes, manipulation (both physical and mental), power imbalance, forced marriage, corporal punishment, loss of control, womb tattoo that is not sexual, forced servitude, 4.7k words

Part 2 is here!

This was your punishment.

You did try of course. You tried everything in your power not to have this happen… Yet no matter what you did you were treated like a villain in front of that girl. Tears in your eyes as you watch the man you have loved hold another woman with such care while looking at you in disdain and disgust like you were the devil.

After misunderstandings and misunderstandings, your fiance has cast you aside for the girl who had become the talk of the aristocratic society. You were also spoken of, as the wicked one who lost her fiance to some countryside noble girl. The lady who was cruel and cunning. A bully towards those who could not speak up for themselves. A noble who had set up her own fall.

Yet that was never the case. You were nothing of that sort yet no one believed. When cautious eyes stayed away from you, not wanting to be caught in the waves or rumors. When those who cared for entertainment smiled at you wickedly, watching everything around you collapse. Those who didn't care turned their backs towards you walking away.

Maybe you should have tried harder… but it was too late. Kicked out of noble society, you awaited your punishment.

You thought you would be sent to a monastery. A punishment to banish the cruel women of nobility. Yet just before you could step foot towards that place, you were dragged back to where you were.

They had no place for you. Food and water, none of that nor a place for you to sleep. For you, a far worse punishment awaited you. As you stared at the letter sent to you your knees fell to the floor.

A marriage arrangement contract with the viscount. Cursive, beautiful, and elegant... it was terrifying.

There were many rumors surrounding him, he was someone who always smiled yet the more sharp ones could see the cunningness and hunger in his eyes. There were many rumors around him, that even while handsome many sound-minded women stayed away from him. For those ladies who did not, it was long before they suddenly disappeared, fell into madness or their family suddenly became bankrupt.

There were rumors that circulated around the nobility that the viscount was dangerous, had a hold of the black market, and dabbled in dark magic. But there was no concrete proof, there was nothing. It was impossible to find information that the rumors were true and those who tried to unravel what was covered could only regret it.

The moment you read the contract that he would have you as his wife it was as if cold water was dumped onto you. Fear encased your heart as you wondered if this was your punishment.

Those who have heard of this news wondered if you would even be alive after your marriage with that man. Some thought that you would not last even a month later found in a ditch somewhere body chopped into pieces, while organs were sold to the highest bidder.

You were scared as you were essentially dragged to his mansion, under the guise that you and him should get to know each other more before marriage which was in two months' time. Reaching the place and forced to sit down in the guest waiting room, your hands shook as you held your teacup to your lips, you could not focus on the maids bringing desserts. Seconds felt like hours till he finally showed, the same smile on his lips that felt nothing more than a mask. It was obvious that he was hiding something.

He never tried to hide that smile, in fact, you have never seen another expression on his face other than that sly smile. Maybe already confident that no one would ever find those secrets.

You were cautious of him, having met him a few times at parties and balls you have always kept your guard up and alert around him, never once able to feel comfortable when he stared down at you like a predator watching its prey. You always tried to avoid him, and when you could not you could only sigh in relief when the conversation ended and the two of you separated.

Yet here you were.

"I hope you didn't wait long." He gently asked, taking a seat on the sofa in front of you. The servants had silently left the room after he had motioned them to go out (a flick of his hand) leaving only you and him alone. You shook your head telling him that it was fine that you didn't wait long which he looked as if he had brightened considerably.

"Then please be comfortable. I do hope the tea is to your liking."

His sly smile never left his face.

It made it difficult to actually make yourself comfortable when you didn't know what he was actually thinking. The short small chat between you and him felt too long as he asked about your likes and dislikes, hobbies, and such. Drinking your tea, you were parched from all the talking and your nerves had somewhat calmed down but you tried your best to hide the tremble in your hand.

"You must be sad that you have broken up with your fiance." Looking up you looked at the smiling face of the viscount from your tea. His elbow on his crossed knee while he rested his chin on his hand, "You have been his fiance ever since you were little kids. Why do I imagine it is still difficult to separate when you have been together for so long."

You froze at his words, the hurt in your heart that of what happened just a few days ago was still fresh from the pain. "I pitied you. Such a lovely lady, that looked like a rose wilting as others laughed at a beautiful thing. Why when I heard that they planned to send you to the monastery, I only thought it was unfortunate." He sipped his tea calmly as his eyes watched you, as your hands tightened around the teacup fear climbing up your body as you tried to lean away but were unable to because of the sofa.

"...I am sorry... what are you trying to say?" You didn't understand if he was trying to offend you or if he wanted to show his pity.

You felt a wave of dizziness wash over you.

"Hmmm, for you my dear what I mean to say is that I found it tragic to send such a beautiful lady away." Tilting his head, his sharp eyes staring at you. You tried to concentrate on his words, yet you were struggling. "Then I thought that having you in my grasp would make for such a fine idea. You wouldn't have to go but instead be able to stay and I will get to keep you for myself. Of course, you would need much training before I would release you back into the noble society just like that."

Huh? You tried to listen, yet his words and face started to become a blur. Dizzy and tired you thought as you placed a hand on your head wondering what was the matter with you and if the stress from everything finally caught up to you. It was hard to understand his words, yet you could remember the mocking tone of it. It was getting harder to keep your eyes open.

"It seems that medicine is finally working. Don't worry dear I have made sure just to give you a tiny dose."

There was a sound of glass breaking, wondering what happened you tried to get up again yet were unable to when a hand placed itself on your cheek. The warmth of it was enough to get you to close your eyes. The last thing you heard was his voice.

"Such a cute little dove. Sleep love. When you wake up you will have no more rest. I will train you to become a fine lovely wife just for me and in the eyes of society."

After that darkness was all you could see, consuming all light.

Waking up, you had a major headache. Slowly moving as you push yourself up from the bed when you hear a door open and shut. "You are finally awake."

Opening your eyes, you looked around wondering why you were hearing a somewhat familiar voice when you realized where you were. In a dark room with no windows all except a lamp that lit up the room. There was almost no furniture except the bed that you lay on with expensive sheets and blankets. You suddenly moved alarmed by where you were when the clanging of chains tugged your leg preventing you from getting farther.

Putting force into your leg to pull the chain, you yelped when a sudden pain sprang on your bosom. Grabbing your stomach you looked down to see a crest. A beautiful yet erotic design was laid on the lower side of your stomach through the sheer nightclothes. “You are finally awake! You have slept for quite a while now… three days actually, but I had to make sure that you would not have any irreversible damage from the seal.

"Where... where am I?" You looked at him bewildered, fear and distrust shown in your eyes as you watched him walk closer to you.

"You are in the room you will stay for a little while till our wedding." You raised a brow at his words, surprised and in disbelief but he only chuckled. "My little future wife, my adorable pet, your surprised expression is just so cute. Even since a long time ago, since we met each other the first time I always had this fascination towards you."

Bending his hips, you and him looked face to face at each other. There was a certain twinkle in his eyes, one that you often see in the past whenever he looked at you. "You see it was something like a love at first sight. While I never believed that at first, I realized that it was indeed true when I first laid eyes on you. Such a prim and proper little lady, trying her best to hide her struggles from the pressure of being the finance of a prince while smiling. Seeing you made me wonder what other expressions you have other than the ones that you show in public. I don't know why but I have a hard time getting you off my mind. And the more I thought about you the more I.. fell."

"Quite the love story is it not? However, you have already belonged to someone else, to that foolish and without a lick of sense or talent prince. I do not understand what you see in such a useless buffoon." Dry words of distaste made you flinch. "But it seems I must only do so little to get him out of your side. Why, he himself volunteered to get out of my sight."

You looked at him alarmed at his words when he suddenly grabbed your chin. Examining as if you were a product that he bought. "He is quite the lustful man, don't you think? Falling in love with a woman when all she did was sway her hips and fall in his arms. That woman is a seductress. Her eyes were very greedy for things that didn't belong to her. I have a distaste for such harlots, I prefer the more meek ones, the little mice or loyal dogs."

Placing your hand on his arm you attempted to get out of his hold. "Stay still dear, I have to check if they did anything to your love face dear. I wasn't able to really examine your face much when I was so busy placing that seal." You yelped when your body suddenly didn't listen when you tried to get away. Your own body started to inch closer to him and stayed still.

"It seems that the seal is working quite nicely don't you think?" His smile could not help but widen a little more as he watched your frantic eyes, asking what he had done to you. "Your little seal here is just to make sure you are properly going to follow with your training and not run away. I had it created just for you when I heard that your fiance wanted to break up with you."

"It is just a simple commanding seal, you are quite the doll but even so I prefer my lover to be well collared just in case she had any thoughts of leaving." Your eyes watered at his words, terror seeping into your veins at the implications.

“My beautiful dove, you belong only to me.”

Things went down from there, forced into his every whim you were forced to study and learn to be the perfect wife for the viscount. Whenever you made a mistake there was a punishment. You learned how to care for the mansion. Yet the more you looked the more your blood became cold.

He was a cruel man. No matter how much you begged the servants to let you out they would not. Instead, they would report your actions to their master which would result in you being punished by him. You felt nothing more than dirt when he hit your hands if not your calves with a rod, tears in your eyes as you were forced to listen to his cooing, words of love, speaking of pain as he was forced to punish his oh so sweet lovely dear who just never listened to him.

You didn't want him anywhere near you, but you stifled all your complaints when you watched his eyes become cold the moment you tried to take a step out of line. So you kept it to yourself as your legs in his commands stayed still, as you showed your hands so that he could smear medicine on where he hit. Wanting nothing more than to hide yourself when you were forced to help him move your skirt so that he could place that cooling medicine in your calves. You were ashamed and embarrassed yet you could not do anything.

Nothing at all.

Yet the more you stayed in this nightmarish mansion the more open secrets you found.

"I heard that you have caused some trouble with the maids, you know they would be the ones serving you later when you marry me. You should be kinder to them."

"What happened to them..." You asked, shivering as you pushed yourself further on the bed, wanting anything but to be near the man who was the cause of it.

There was a rumor actually going around one of many about the servants in the viscount's house. When a person enters the mansion as a servant or maid there is a chance you will never see them again, and even if you did they would become a whole different person.

The viscount must have done something, something to make sure that whenever they went out they looked normal to an extent yet at the same time would rather kill themselves than leak a single word about their master. Except for a few who told you about the food and baths no one really spoke unless spoken to. Yet even then there was always this lifelessness in their tone, dead.

They were unbothered by what their master was doing to you, not one reaction did they create when you begged them for help. They wore blindfolds, the viscount didn't care for them but it feels that it was his way of showing his care for you. (Or maybe he wanted to see the shock in your eyes the moment you realize what actually happened to them.) It was by mistake you took off the blindfold of the maid, as you held your breath at their dead, hollow eyes lacking life. There was nothing in those eyes as if there were no memories, no life, nothing.

They were nothing more than living dead puppets.

"What did you do to those people..." You whispered, flinching when he took another step towards you. Tears were in your eyes as you watched him stop as if to think. You were scared, frightened of what he would do. Could do to you. You thought those were slave tattoos that were banned from the kingdom due to how they would cause painful physical harm to the person, how it was inhumane. Due to its nature, the king banned it a few generations ago.

"How..."

"Pfft." You flinched at the viscount reaction, trying to hold his chuckle at the back of his hand as he looked away for a moment. After chuckles and coughs escaped his lips he looked back at you again, walking closer to you again. "My dear, your mind thinks of amazing situations. Even I know that slave seals are banned in the kingdom. Why would I risk myself for something like that? I would also be placing you in danger when you are going to become mine soon."

Not that you weren't already. You saw it in his eyes, that he looked at you as if you were his own property.

Taking a seat on the bed that you were chained to he looked at you tilting his head, his smile was mocking as if asking if you were really that dumb. "You are just so cute dear. Let me explain it so that my fiance would understand." Raising his hands he motioned you to come towards him.

You didn't move, still scared, shivering like a small mouse much to his annoyance.

You yelped when your chained leg was roughly grabbed and pulled toward him. You looked fearfully towards the viscount who was staring down at you, his smile gone just for a moment. He raised his hand again, and you could not help but close your eyes till a hand touched your face in a gentle manner, it felt nothing but nauseating "Come here dear, get up. Let your fiance comfort you from your anguish."

But you didn't move, holding your hands near to your chest as you looked at him with fear. You were scared, so scared at the thought that the viscount would make you the same as those lifeless servants. Yet you were suddenly forced up but an invisible thing holding your arm roughly pulled you towards the viscount who caught you in ease.

"Wha-" "Oh, so eager." That mocking tone again, so close to anger but also amused.

You yelled again, looking at your arms as they moved to their own accord around his neck while your legs also moved by themselves placing you on Viscount's lap. "So eager and so cute... Did you want to jump into my arms that much?" you heard him whisper in your ear as your face heated up in mortification, yet it was obvious that you were shivering still in fear, unable to forget what you saw.

A small sound escaped your mouth as your body flinched when he wrapped his arms around your waist holding you tightly. "You are shivering dear, were you that afraid? I am sorry love, I should have been the one to come instead of the servants but you need to be punished after what you have done yesterday." Another tiny sound escaped your lips when he started to pat your back, tears flowing down your eyes. From the outside point of view, you looked like nothing but a tearful lady crying in her lover's arms begging him to forgive her, while he was nothing but patient.

You were glad that you could not see his face, as your tears stained the shoulder of his shirt. Patting your back his arm went back to hugging you tightly as he placed a kiss on your shoulder. It brought a chill down your spine. "Those servants are like this because I had to be sure that they would never leak any dangerous information. Many had tried already, I had to be cautious dear. I knew you would be scared of them so I had them cover their eyes."

He placed a kiss on your shoulder again this time a little nearer to your neck. "The slave seal is banned and I would never dream of using it, so I made one of my own. The kind that is similar to the slave tattoo but would never hurt the wearer, it just keeps them in a trace, a dreamlike state, and only listens to orders."

You wanted to push him away, yet your arms that hugged his neck were locked in place, as your leg tried to curl around his leg without your command. You knew that he wasn't telling everything, that there was more to it as you wonder about the seal right below your belly button.

Your breath hitched when you felt him place his thumb on the seal, as you froze in your spot. Watching your reaction he laughed again, a laugh that sounded so cruel to your ears as he adjusted your body to move closer to him than what was before.

Warmth touched your neck, his lips touching your neck. Hugging your waist tightly, it was suffocating yet it made him excited, the obsessive love in his eyes so painfully obvious, "My love, I would never do that to you. Your lovely face devoid of any feelings would only hurt me more. To make you a mindless thoughtless servant, that I could never do to you. You just need a little training compared to them..."

"Look at me." Your head did not listen to you, you did not want to look at him. Yet you had no choice but to show your crying face to the man who made you like this. Forced to make eye contact, you saw his obsessed greedy smile as he looked at your face. His eyes swirled with a crazed delight.

You hate it.

You unconsciously jumped when he touched the seal again, there was a static that ran down your spine when he touched it. A foreign feeling that you didn't feel when you touched the seal yourself. Confused, you looked at him, eye round and asking which only made him laugh even more, "You are so adorable." He whispered as he pulled you closer so that your chests were touching. "So adorable, and mine. Forever mine." He whispered, your arms still wrapped around his neck he continued to mumble those words over and over again. His embrace tighter and tighter making it harder to breathe. "I will train you to become a lovely lady, that any other men and woman would look upon you with envy, yet your thoughts would only be infested with me."

Your body moved without your consent again, hugging just as tight. You didn't want this. "So cute. So cute. God it is so fun to watch you. Your body is still shivering and tears are still in your eyes. You are so cute." He laughed as he continued to say the same thing over and over again. "And you will be all mine officially too. Soon dear, in a few months you will be mine but for now you need to stay here okay? You still didn't finish your punishment too for slapping your poor fiance."

You flinched as he looked at you, feeling an immense pressure that was pushing you down the smile calculative and mischievous, "If you kiss me I will forgive you dear." He told you tilting his head.

You want anything but that, yet when you tried to push him away your body did anything but that as your hands on his shoulder pulled him closer instead.

This was your punishment.

Yet nothing changed even after that. Nothing at all when your eyes were forced to read the books that talked about a prim and proper lady.

Every day in your mind you thought that this was your punishment. That you were weak, that you didn't know. Those misunderstandings between you and the prince were caused because you didn't try enough. The Viscount fed you well, even when you didn't have an appetite you tried to eat because of fear, cause you were fearful of the servants who looked after you. You were dressed "well" and taken care of.

However, rather than a human you were almost treated like a doll. The chain was always there on your foot rather than useful; it was a reminder that you were trapped here.

Morning you were forced to study, manners that you learned when you were young you were forced to learn again with the viscounts teaching. He was more strict than your previous teachers, forcing you to do the same sets of movements again and again, from how you eat and how you drink tea. He wanted all the mannerisms drilled into your head so that you would be perfect. To how you walk and hold a teacup. You whelped in pain when he whips you from the small mistakes you have made. Your calves burned in pain and so did the palm of your hands.

Dancing was hell, he found everything wrong with each step. If you weren't able to do it, the punishment was simple as your body was forced to do the same movements over and over and over again. Depending on how skilled or how bad you were you could only become better as you were forced to dance the same song for hours on end. Your body holding the pose of holding the viscount shoulder and hand as he went away telling you to be good and continue practicing telling you that he would come back when he finishes work.

When he came back, you were sweating with a feverish tired look to your face as your body forced you to continue moving to the steps of the dance. More often than not you would fall into the arms of the viscount much to his delight. Asking if you finally memorize each and every step. Sometimes you could not answer too tired to do so and sometimes he was forgiving, other times not so much. You yelped in pain when you heard the loud smack, even while carrying you in his arms he was strong enough to hold you and land a slap on your butt for not answering. You would answer as soon as possible after that, scared that he would hit you again.

It seems that much as he loved perfection, he also adored how fragile and weak you were in his arms. This idea of you being only able to rely on him. As he kissed your feet after taking off your dance shoes, watching you with a crazed lust in his eyes. Unable to pull away when all your energy had been taken away, you could do nothing but close your eyes away from the viscount and his taunting love.

There was even more training after that, he made so that each step you took reminded you of him whether that be the stinging pain of your butt after you had made the mistake of unconsciously trying to avoid him, or thin and revealing the clothes he made you wore were.

Silks and satins, short and over your knees essentially underwear in your eyes when the world viewed the showing of ankles to be too seductive and immoral dresses were the most covered-up clothes you were allowed to wear in the mansion. You hated the feeling of lifeless eyes that the servants had watching you.

And if he was feeling rather sadistic, he would mockingly manipulate your body to play to his whims.

On the day of the marriage, you could not help but stare at yourself in the mirror. You don't remember how many days you were trapped in the Viscount mansion. You wondered if you were broken, broken to the point that you had no willpower to even make a peep at your sufferings. You have long given up, too afraid of something worse you choose to fall. You were too afraid to resist and for him, this was nothing more than amusement. A satisfaction that you were his.

You could not run away, not when he held power over you. Not when he could manipulate your actions and steps. Nothing belonged to you, your life was signed away long ago ever since he saw you.

You thought of yourself as a marionette yet to him he thought of you as his lovely bride.

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