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#on the other i want them to play monopoly
mariacallous · 23 hours
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A jury in December found that Google broke US antitrust laws through deals and billing rules that gave an unfair boost to its Google Play app store. On Thursday, a judge began laying out how Google could be forced to change its business as a penalty. The remedies under consideration could drive the most consequential shakeup ever to Google’s dominance over the Android universe.
Fortnite video game developer Epic Games, which beat Google in the trial that saw a jury declare the Play store an illegal monopoly, is demanding that federal judge James Donato ban Google from contracts that deter competition. Epic also wants Google to be forced to help competing stores list more apps, giving them a competitive boost. The changes could enable Epic to realize its long-held plan to increase revenue by processing in-game purchases in Fortnite and other titles without using Google’s payment system, and marketing games via its own app store.
Google contends that Epic’s demands would threaten its users’ security and impair the businesses of partners, including Android device makers and app developers. The search company is appealing the jury’s verdict, which could delay the rollout of any penalties for many years—or void them altogether. But Google over the past few years already has had to make some costly changes in Europe and Asia due to court losses and new laws affecting the Play store, and a trial with Epic is currently underway in Australia.
“I want to be clear: Google as an illegal monopolist will have to pay some penalties,” Donato told Epic and Google at a hearing in San Francisco on Thursday. He explained that Google’s loss requires him to pry open the company’s grip on the Android ecosystem in a way that ends Google’s illegal monopoly and also removes its ill-gotten gains from years of unfair dominance.
That would mean major changes for the industry that has built up around Google’s Android operating system—and potentially more choices for consumers. It could require Google investing cash into new projects to make things right, Donato said.
Donato expressed frustration with Google’s claims that any changes would be bad for consumers and other businesses. “To jump up and down and say the new way is going to be a world no one wants to live in, it’s unfounded,” he said. But he also spent hours in the hearing quizzing two economists, one appearing on behalf of each company, about how to craft penalties for Google without being unreasonable.
Among Epic’s requests is that Google be barred from striking deals that prevent or discourage companies from working with alternatives to its app store. In the past the company has required hardware companies that want to offer Google Play on their devices to agree not to work with or promote alternative app stores. That prevented most consumers from ever seeing other app stores, since most device makers want to offer Google’s app store, because it is the largest.
Rival app stores such as those from Amazon and Samsung also have struggled to persuade developers to list their apps outside of Google Play, because maintaining apps in multiple stores takes extra work. To even the playing field, Epic proposes that Google be required for six years to provide rival stores a way to list apps that are hosted on Google Play. That would allow people to browse alternative stores without feeling they are missing out on popular apps, giving the store a better chance of success in the long term.
“Rival app stores [would] have incentives to sign up developers so that they can get revenue streams and so that they're not dead in the water when this provision expires,” Douglas Bernheim, a Stanford University economist testifying on behalf of Epic, told Donato. “Google [would have] incentives to continue to sign up developers so that they're not at a disadvantage.”
Matthew Gentzkow, a Stanford economist on Google’s side, responded that developers could suffer harm if their apps appeared in alternative stores that have more relaxed content policies than Google’s, because in that case their apps could appear next to, say, pornography apps that Google bars. “It could undermine their brand and reputation with users,” Gentzkow said.
Donato also raised questions about how to ease Google’s requirement that apps in the Play store use Google’s billing system to process payments, one of the rules that triggered Epic’s lawsuit. And he expressed a desire to find a way to “reduce the friction,” as he called it, that users face when trying to download an app from an app store other than Play on Android devices. Google’s operating system has been found to interrupt the process with a series of warnings that bypassing Play could trigger security issues, potentially deterring people from following through with a download.
Donato is expected to hear final arguments from Google and Epic in August. He told attorneys that he would then officially issue penalties by the Labor Day holiday in September, but then corrected himself, saying they would come “promptly.”
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2-kamikou-1 · 4 months
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can nobody see how agonizing this fucking feels
#i get to see everyone around me do things.#i get to see them have friends and be part of things like show choir and theatre and anime club and music extracurriculars#i get to hear stories about hanging out with your friends after school#knowing I get to do none of that.#''oh after school before my dad got off work i went to my friend's house and we got food and played xbox!!“#cool. I'm not allowed to walk further than the dollar store. I'm not allowed to get a job except at the place where my mom works.#I'm not even allowed friends.#i have one friend that i only see on the weekends.#i have a couple other people sure like the kid i met in kindergarten but he hasn't seen me in years.#how am i ever supposed to make friends if i can't go to school or do /anything/#because i have to stay in this online program which has enough of its issues in and of itself#because my parents feel like they have a monopoly on my time now that i don't go to school in person anymore.#I'm tired#i want it to stop#i want to stop feeling lonely.#i want to have other friends that i can introduce to my friends and i want to hang out after school and get food and play video games#and do harmless things I'm not supposed to#i wanna go to bed and feel like i lived the day to its fullest instead of feeling like it was just another day wasted#like time is moving forward and I'm not#i know there's no fucking. “highschool experience” like you see in movies. i know that.#but i know damn well it's not supposed to feel like this either.
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boyfeminism · 2 years
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okay pumpkin dragons update i have one pair matched, i just need to give the new one ripple and ghost, bc they have stripes rn and daub is more common but tbh stripes wouldnt look bad. and also i need to actually remember to rent a light nest. id love to get the Other pair matched n i messaged someone abt an f pose hatchling with the correct colors but have not heard back yet and like. tbh i dont know if i'll be able to gene two new dragons entirely, but one i can probably do.
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luasworks · 3 months
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*taps microphone* testing, testing !! i present… my thoughts…
Laswell had to ban the 141 from playing both Uno and Monopoly as one snowy Christmas day, insults were being thrown left right and centre because Gaz placed down a +4 on top of Ghost’s +4, resulting in Soap squealing like a child saying stuff like…
“YE CANNE FUCKEN DO THAT, YOU WALLY”
causing Laswell to just take the deck away from them and hand the monopoly box to Price as she locks the Uno card away in the no-no cabinet.
monopoly was even worse than Uno as before the game even started, they were all arguing about who gets what piece.
ghost: “i want the car”
gaz: “fuck off, it’s mine”
price and laswell: “stop arguing”
soap: “i’m the wee ducky”
eventually after no less than 10 minutes of arguing, Kate lost her shit and took monopoly away too resulting in a permanent ban of the games and the four men trudged their way to the living room to watch Arthur Christmas while mumbling things about each other
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prettymonegasque · 4 months
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not acceptable
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Charles Leclerc x fem!driver! reader
Summary: Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do when your pretty boyfriend is a lil dumb
Warnings: Excessive cursing, Lando slander, grown men sharing a single brain cell, fluff?
Word Count: 1.3k
Based on my favourite scene in Schitt’s Creek
In all the two years you’ve been in Ferrari, the speculations and rumours of you dating Charles were non-stop. Neither of you paid much attention to it. You were both in happy relationships. However, that changed in the summer of ‘22 when you broke up with your partner. It wasn’t messy and you both agreed it was for the better. You focused on the rest of the season. 
Fast forward to the summer of ‘23, you and Charles were both single. You decided to give in to the speculations and give the relationship a real shot. You went on a few dates, each one being more fun than the previous one. Yet neither of you took the leap to become exclusive. You both liked each other but it wasn’t said out loud as much as you would’ve wanted to. So when Charles invited you to a game night with his friends, you thought it would be the one where he introduced you as his girlfriend. 
You knocked on his apartment door at 7 pm. You had brought a charcuterie board because you panicked and the first thing your mind thought was cheese. 
“Y/N! Come in.” Charles opened the door and hugged you. You tried your best to return while managing the charcuterie board. He laughed at your struggle, took the board from your hand and led you in. You spotted some familiar faces in the room. “Hey, guys. This is Y/N. My teammate as you know.” To risk being dramatic, the only description for what you felt was “death by a thousand cuts”. You still forced a smile and greeted everyone. You took a seat on the sofa next to Charles. “You brought a charcuterie board?” Pierre asked puzzled. “Dibs on gouda.” Yelled a familiar Brit.
**************
For the next few hours, you forced yourself to forget about your “teammate” and focus on the game instead. To everyone’s surprise, you were very good at Monopoly. You had already collected over $7000 worth of assets. You were more than happy to win by default. Arthur suggested Uno and everyone complied. You had never played it before which made the group very happy. 
When you got your cards you leaned over to Charles and whispered “What the fuck should I do now? ” Charles peeked at your cards and by instinct you shied them away from him. “You have to show me the cards so I can tell you what to do.” He laughed. You rolled your eyes and showed him the cards. “How the hell did you get 3 +4 cards?” “Why? Is that bad?” “No no. It is very good and I am very grateful my turn is before you.” “I am gonna crush these motherfuckers” You silently giggled.
“Y/N your turn,” Andrea called out. You placed the +4 card on the table. “Seriously?” Lando sighed and took 4 cards from the deck. “I thought you'd never played this before.” “I haven’t. I’m just that good, Norris.” “You know you could put all the +4 cards at once? ” Charles whispered in your ear. When your turn came again you placed both your +4 cards down. “Oh come on. You’re an absolute ass.” Lando exclaimed. “You just got destroyed by a UNO rookie, Lando” Pierre doubled over in laughter. “Also you have only one card left. You can call out UNO” Arthur nudged you. “UNO!” You yelled. “Well, I guess we have a winner. ” Lorenzo sighed and folded.
You started feeling a little guilty. Your winning spree kept cutting the game short. It didn’t look like anyone was having any fun. Even if Charles isn’t going to introduce you as his girlfriend, you still want his friends and brothers to like you as Charles’ girl. Charles brought in Scrabble as his last resort. He wasn’t expecting to go through 2 games so quickly. You were chosen as the judge. You promised yourself to go easy on everyone. You weren’t sure if you were making a good impression on everyone but boy did your ego love this. 
**************
“What do you mean ‘rizz’ isn’t accepted?” Arthur yelled. “Mate it isn’t in the dictionary.” “Then why does everyone call Lando ‘NoRIZZ’?” “Hey!” “I consider it as an acceptable word. We know the meaning. It exists. It’s a word.” You chimed in. “Thank you!” Arthur smiled and added 13 points to himself. The game continued and you limited yourself to simple words. And you accepted every word regardless of how ridiculous it was. 
“Yes Pierre ‘Fuck’ is a word.” 
“I mean we all know what ‘OMG’ is”
“Sure, Charles. You can make Frenglish words.” 
You could physically feel the pain from the insanity of some words but you were on a mission. You nodded and smiled and carried on. The words became chaotic by the minute. Your last straw was when Lando argued that “Skibidi” should be accepted. 
“That’s it. I can’t take this shit anymore. I respect the game too much to put up with this. You are way too old to use the word ‘Skibidi’, Lando.” “Yeah so wrong, Lando” Pierre fakes disappointment. “You! Fuck is not acceptable.” “Not acceptable. Yes sorry, Y/N” He bites back a laugh. “OMG!? Are you kidding me?” “I wasn’t.” Lorenzo shakes his head. “And my boyfriend sits there looking pretty and wanting to make up Frenglish words. THAT’S NOT EVEN A LANGUAGE. NOT ACCEPTABLE!” 
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?” Charles looked up at you. “I said Lando is old.” You tried to shift the conversation. “Why the fuck am I getting slandered?” “No. I think it was something about your boyfriend being pretty and making up words.” Charles redirects you. “Um... I don’t remember saying that.” You mumbled. “Yeah no. That’s what we heard. Right Arthur?” Pierre snickered. 
“Hey if my girlfriend says Frenglish isn’t acceptable then it isn’t, guys” Charles smirked. “Or it is. I don’t remember saying it.” You shrugged. “So you can do whatever you like.” The ceiling looked much more interesting than the gorgeous green eyes looking at you. “I think our work is done here. Let’s go guys.” Lando stood up. “And what exactly was that work, Norizz?” You called out as everyone was walking out the door chattering. Lando just smiled at you and closed the door. 
You and Charles remained quiet and just looked at each other for a long moment. “I don’t k-” “Do you r-” You both spoke at the same time. Gentle giggles echoed in the silence. “I was gonna ask if you regretted it?” Charles looked at you with a hopeful glint in his eyes. “No. God no. Charles, I don’t regret it at all. But to be honest, I kinda thought you hosted this game night to introduce me as your girlfriend. It sucked ass when you called me your teammate.” You looked down at your feet. You contemplated if sitting down would make this whole shebang less awkward. But Charles quietened your thoughts by standing up and taking your hands in his.
 “Cherie, seconds before you knocked, I was having a full-blown panic attack. I really really like you and I wanted us to be official but I didn’t know what you felt. The guys were there for emotional support because I do not trust myself with any high-risk situation.”
“You drive a car at 300 km/hr almost every weekend.” 
“Please. That is nothing compared to you. Every time I get in the cockpit, I’m more worried about your safety than mine. I was going to introduce you as my girlfriend. Trust me the word was on the tip of my tongue but I was being a pussy and chickened out. I’m so glad you did it tho.” His smile made those adorable dimples pop as he hugged you. “I’m so glad I did it too.” Your voice came out muffled with your cheek pressed against his chest. 
“And I’m so glad you called me pretty.”   
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cosmignon · 9 months
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My absolute favorite thing about the Pikmin series after growing up only knowing it from smash bros is learning how much of a family man/wife guy Olimar is. I didn't even know he TALKED until like last year but now I would die for this tiny little family.
*blows a kiss down at the dirt* for Captain Olimar
(as a side note, I've experienced Pikmins 2,3, and 4 by watching the Frankenbugs Streams, which are very fun go check them out! Pikmin 4 playlist is here)
all image descriptions below cut:
ID #1: Various sketches of Olimar both in his normal state and leafified. As a leafling, Olimar is thinking "DANDORI" with the faint underlying thought "I miss my wife and kids". As a normal hocotatian Olimar is doing various things: leading his pikmin while thinking "Sometimes I wonder if the pikmin are just using me..." as the pikmin chant "dad, dad, dad" in their own language; holding a pikmin like a baby while thinking of his son and "Remember to support the neck"; Almost eating a pikmin in a tired stupor because he thinks it's a pikpik carrot, then hugging it and saying "SORRY! Sorry lil buddy my bad,," as other pikmin look on and "all want hugs now". End ID.
ID #2: Sketches of Olimar looking in a mirror and expressing surprise when he notices his hair is bright red, a lingering side-effect of being a leafling. He turns away and scratches his head as he mutters "...guess I have always told my wife I like redheads..." Additionally, sketches of leafling Olimar scratching his wife's face into the waxy exterior of a berry. End ID.
ID #3: A sketch of Olimar wearing classic disco clothes as he dances closer to his wife and a friend of hers. End ID.
ID #4: 2 sketches captioned by excerpts from Olimar's treasure entries in Pikmin 4. The first sketch is Olimar's wife wearing a hat, next to a screenshot of the berry the hat is based on, captioned "an uncanny resemblance to my wife wearing a hat." The second sketch is a younger Olimar (labled "smol Olimar, or smolimar") wearing a black leather jacket and subsequently getting extremely hot under the sun, captioned "turns out wearing a leather jacket during the peak of a Hocotate summer is a shortcut to getting a heat stroke." End ID.
ID #5: 4 sketches captioned by excerpts from Olimar's teasure entries in Pikmin 4. The first sketch is Olimar and his wife dressed for their wedding day, happily gazing up at an extravagent space themed wedding cake, captioned "At our wedding, our friends gave my wife and me a spaceship-shaped cake that looked a lot like this one." The second sketch is Olimar and his wife sitting on a suspended porch swing as his wife holds their swaddled newborn, captioned "When my first child was born, my wife and I would sit outside in the warm spring weather and take turns rocking him in our arms." The third sketch is Olimar's son as a baby honking his big nose, captioned "But once he knew the distinctive shape of my nose, he recognized me right away." The fourth sketch is Olimar's family playing Monopoly, his wife obviously being the leading player of the game while his children watch Olimar struggle to keep up, captioned "This pattern always reminds me of our family game nights." End ID.
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muchosbesitos · 8 months
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el arreglo
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pairing: arranged marriage miguel x fem reader
warnings: miguel being an ass, guy grabbing the reader, oral (f receiving), mirror sex, and overall smut lol 🫣
author’s note: idk what my obsession is with writing asshole mig 😭 i hope you guys aren’t finding it repetitive or boring 🫣 anyways, enjoy <3
word count: 4014
When Miguel had agreed to this arranged marriage set up by your parents, he didn't seem himself having you bent over your shared bathroom sink as he pounded into you from behind, fisting your hair with one hand as he forced you to keep eye contact  with him through the mirror.
It started off at another gala that your father frequented, in an attempt to make himself respected in the business world. His business had recently skyrocketed in profits and he was being acknowledged for the hard work that he put in, but that still wasn't enough for your father. Despite the fact that he was gaining respect from other businesses and gaining opportunities, he quickly became greedy and obsessed when he found out that he was still being ignored by some. With that greed and obsession, the sweet father who used to play Monopoly with you quickly disappeared and transformed into someone ruthless.
You decided to wear a blue dress that plunged at the neckline all the way to your breasts along with a pair of silver stilettos to the gala, making some heads turn at your arrival. Your parents quickly went to go mingle with some of the other guests, eager to make a good impression, while you sat down at one of the tables and sipped on a glass of overpriced champagne. You looked up from your phone when you saw a shadow looming over you, glancing over at the man who was standing in front of you. He was tall, taller than anyone else in the room, and his black hair was pushed back to perfection. Despite how devilishly handsome he looked in the black tux he was wearing, you couldn't help but be enamored by his eyes. They were such a unique shade of brown, almost appearing red when the light hit them right.
"What are you doing here all alone?" He asked, sitting down in front of you as he took a glass of champagne from a waiter passing by. "My parents are out mingling, but conversation about how the stock market is progressing doesn't seem very interesting. and what are you doing here joining me in solitude?" You replied, taking a sip from your glass as you took in the man sitting in front of you. "Like you said, conversation with people who only really care about how many zeros are in your bank account isn't very fulfilling," he remarked, clinking his glass against yours as he took a sip. You looked down to where his hand was holding the champagne glass, the comparison almost funny before you started to think just what he could do with his hands. You snapped out of it, looking back at the man who was smirking at the sight of your flushed face. "So what's your name?" You asked, leaning a bit forward as you set down the glass. "Miguel. Miguel O’Hara, nice to meet you."
Soon after you two had finished up with your champagne glasses, he led you outside to the balcony with the excuse of wanting to hear you better. You two leaned against the balcony, watching some of the other guests arrive or looking up at the twinkling stars. You found conversation to be extremely easy with him, he wasn't anything like the prestigious assholes that your father had tried (and failed) to set you up with. "I don't know, I feel like you're giving me that kind of angsty angry at the world type of vibe," you said after the conversation had turned to what high school was like, eliciting a small laugh from him. "Sort of, yeah. And let me guess, you were the popular cheerleader?" He remarked, leaning against the balcony as he looked over at you. You rubbed the back of your neck nervously, letting out a small sigh before deciding to open up to Miguel. "Uh, no. My dad was struggling to get above profit every quarter so we couldn't afford the extracurriculars. I mean, it wasn't bad or anything but I did end up being the joke of the school," you replied, leaning against the balcony now. "For what it's worth, I would've loved to be your friend."
Eventually after a while of conversing, Miguel extended his hand out to invite you to dance. "You are aware that there's no music out here, right?" You asked, letting out a small laugh as you held his hand. "We'll dance to the rhythm of our hearts," he remarked, letting out a chuckle of his own as he began swaying to an imaginary soundtrack. "I was aware of how corny it was when it left my mouth," he mumbled, his cheeks flushed a bit red with embarrassment. You continued to dance with him, enjoying the way his body moved against yours and the body heat that he was radiating. You looked up to see his gaze already on you, those brown eyes almost sparkling with something similar to desire. "I'm gonna kiss you, is that okay?" He whispered, looking at you for a response. You nodded, closing your eyes as you leaned into it. His mouth was soft, inviting and you could taste the champagne he'd drank earlier along with something just so uniquely... him.
You pulled away when you heard the balcony door open, seeing your father standing there with a smile on his face. "Ah, I see that you've gotten yourself acquainted with your future husband," he remarked, patting Miguel’s shoulder before he walked next to you. Your brows furrowed in confusion as you looked from your father to Miguel, seeing the same expression on his face. "Husband?" You asked after a while, rubbing your arm nervously. "I wasn't aware that it would be you that i'm marrying, but yes, your father thought that us getting married would increase our business profits," Miguel responded, his face turning stone cold and you started to grow annoyed. You'd expected this from your father, to marry you off for his expense without any regard towards your feelings but now Miguel was pretending like there wasn't a spark between you two?
A couple weeks after the gala, your father arranged for your marriage with Miguel to be in the city courthouse with only some of your friends and his potential business partners. You were in the process of moving your stuff into his place in order to make the marriage seem more legitimate. When you arrived at Miguel’s house, you couldn't help but admire the sheer size of it and the amount of expensive decorations he put up, but you couldn't help but notice that it was missing a touch of home. It was like something out of an Airbnb catalog, not a place someone came for solace. The living room was devoid of any pictures of him or his family, full with paintings that must've cost a fortune.
After you finished setting your stuff down in the room he'd set apart for you, you decided to walk downstairs to the kitchen since you hadn't eaten breakfast that morning. You noticed Miguel sitting at the kitchen table in a plain white tee and sweatpants while he typed something up in his computer as you headed to the cupboards. You grabbed a bag of chips and looked over at Miguel, leaning over the table a bit. Things had been distant ever since the kiss and getting married, but you were determined to at least try to get along with your husband. "Hey, how's work going?" You asked, looking at him with a small smile as you opened up your bag of chips. "Can you open that somewhere else? It's too noisy," he grumbled, not bothering to look up from his computer. You let out a small sigh and picked up the bag of chips from the table, starting to walk away before you heard him speak up once more, "And don't think this is going to be a loving marriage. This is only a business transaction and you just happened to be one of the pawns."
You decided to start distancing yourself from Miguel after that, which was considerably easier since he was always away on business trips or working late. You constantly found yourself crying over Miguel’s neglect, wishing that he would show you at least a smidge of attention, but those tears were quickly replaced by burning anger when he rejected every advance you tried to get close to him. Eventually, you started shutting down completely and only coming out of the room when he wasn't home or when you two needed to attend an event together. Even at the events, he still kept you at an arm's length and made a point not to speak with you until it was time to go.
An art showing you were excited for quickly arrived, and you found yourself giggling and smiling when getting ready despite knowing that Miguel wouldn't act differently from those other times. You dressed in a red floor length dress with gold heels, your hair and makeup styled to perfection. You walked downstairs after Miguel complained about you taking too long, seeing his eyes widen just the slightest bit as he held his hand out for you to hold. "You look nice," he offered, walking with you to the car. You'd normally be excited and form delusions about how things were improving between the two of you, but you didn't feel like raising your own hopes for once. "Right because I spent two hours getting ready to look 'nice'," you responded, taking your hand away from his as you walked to the car.
The drive there was silent, the jazz music playing on the stereo filling up the atmosphere. You knew that you'd basically just snapped the only olive branch that he'd offered you, but you couldn't stand to deal with the disappointment that came after realizing that he still didn't like you. You looked out the window, Miguel’s hand lingering on the side of your thigh as he occasionally glanced at you. You two arrived at the gala a couple minutes later, only getting close to pose for pictures and sell the image of the perfect marriage.
You walked over to the bar, leaving Miguel alone as he went to go talk with some of his associates. "One whiskey, please," you asked the bartender when they came over, your eyes occasionally glancing over at what Miguel was doing or who he was talking to. You tried to push the thoughts aside as you took a sip of your whiskey, listening to one of the auctions going on. You finished up with your glass around the time that the auction had ended, looking over to see that Miguel was still busy mingling so you decided to head out to the balcony to get some fresh air.
You were looking out at the night sky when you felt a hand on your shoulder, turning around to see a man around your age giving you a polite smile. "Hey, I couldn't help but notice you're here alone. Aren't you O’hara’s wife?" He asked, leaning against the balcony as he turned to look at you. "I am, but I’m not really that big on socializing," you responded, turning to look over at him. He let out a dark chuckle as he lit up a cigar, taking a huff out of it before he turned to look at you once more. "You know Miguel doesn't really love you right? He's only with you out of convenience," he said after a while of silence, closing the gap between the two of you. "Even if we are, I don't see how that's any of your concern," you said, the words came out more defensively than you had intended them to. His hand lingered on your shoulder, brushing a strand piece of hair aside as his eyes darkened. "I'm just saying, if you're ever tired of being in a loveless marriage, he doesn't have to find out," he spoke a while after, his hand still resting close to you. You were about to push him away when you heard someone speak up behind you, "Get your damn hands off my wife."
You and Miguel walked back to the car in silence a couple minutes after that encounter, and you felt like a scolded kid despite the fact that it wasn't your fault. Once you two settled in the backseat, he turned to look over at you, his gaze softening up just the slightest bit. "Are you okay?" He asked, surprising you completely since he'd never bothered to ask. "What does it matter, Miguel?" You responded, pinching the bridge of your nose as you looked out the window. He spent a couple minutes in silence, before you noticed that you two weren't headed back to the house. "We're headed someplace else," he said, seeing the look of confusion on your face.
His driver pulled over to a secluded spot and Miguel helped you out of the car, grabbing a blanket from the trunk. He set down the blanket and sat down, patting the spot next to him. "You didn't bring me out here to murder me?" You asked, a brow raised as you sat down next to him. "No, that's a completely different spot," he replied, letting out a small chuckle as he glanced down at you. You spent a couple minutes looking at the clearing and at the constellations before glancing over at Miguel, deciding to ask the question that had been lingering in your mind for a while now. "What changed? I mean, why are you so distant despite the connection we had when we met?" You asked, rubbing the back of your neck awkwardly. He let out a sharp exhale, turning to look at you.
"I had a daughter, Gabriella. She was the center of my world, y'know? And then suddenly, she wasn't in my world anymore and that completely destroyed me. It was easy flirting with you in the beginning because I thought it would just be temporary, but then you turned out to be my wife. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. I'm scared that everything I love will end up destroyed," he spoke up after a couple minutes, his voice cracking a bit as he spoke. You were unsure of what to say, so you decided to stay quiet and simply rub your hand on his shoulder, but what you didn't know is that your presence was all Miguel needed to feel okay in that moment. You two stayed quiet for the rest of your time there, just taking the time to be close to each other and enjoy each other's presence for the first time.
Miguel had tried to be a more attentive husband after that trip, getting over his own fears and being vulnerable with you. He started talking to you about work, letting you ask stuff about his personal life, and let you sit down with him while he was typing away at his computer. You were scrolling through your phone while Miguel was working on his computer, not noticing when he had moved over to the couch to sit down next to you. "I have a business trip to go to, but I want to take you out on a proper dinner date when I get back. I know I haven't been the ideal husband but I'm trying here," he said, rubbing your ankle as he looked over at you. You placed your phone down, grateful at the amount of effort that Miguel was willing to put in to make the marriage a bit more bearable. "I appreciate the fact that you're trying. I can't wait," you responded, sitting up to kiss his cheek and hoping that the small act wouldn't scare him off. He responded to the kiss fairly well, returning it and turning the tv on so you two could relax for a bit.
About a week later, you had received a text from Miguel that he would be arriving from his business trip today around 7. You couldn't help but feel excited at the fact that you were finally going to go on an actual date with your husband, so you started dancing in the bathroom while you brushed your teeth. You spent about an hour taking care of your appearance, putting on hydrating face masks and shaving before going to get dressed. You settled on putting a short dress that complimented your curves perfectly with a pair of silver heels, the jewelry matching them. You took out your makeup bag and started to finish getting ready in front of the bathroom mirror, not noticing that Miguel had come inside.
He wrapped his arms around your waist, resting his head on your shoulder as he placed a kiss on your neck. "You look stunning," he whispered, the proximity of how close he was combined with the compliment making the wires in your brain short circuit. You turned around to look at him, seeing that he was already dressed to go out, with the color of shirt matching your dress and black slacks. You couldn't help but notice the loose tie hanging around his neck so you decided to lean in to fix it before he grabbed your hand, kissing the top of it as he looked up at you. "I wanted to be a gentleman and take you out to dinner first but I just can't help myself."
Miguel did quick work of taking himself out of his pants, placing you on the bathroom counter as he looked up at you. "Is this okay with you?" He asked, his hands gently rubbing on your thighs, not wanting to do anything without your proper consent. "More than okay," you responded, watching as he slid your dress up to your hips. He got on his knees, starting to lick a stripe up your thigh before he did quick work of slipping your panties down. "Such a pretty pussy," he whispered before he leaned in, running his mouth through your folds. His tongue explored every part of you, basking in the experience as he gently tugged and sucked. He licked a stripe from your weeping hole to your clit, your manicured hands tugging on his hair. He slipped his tongue inside, letting out a low moan as the vibrations went through you, causing your legs to twitch a bit.
He gripped your legs tightly as he sucked on your hole, lapping at the juices you were releasing. He looked up at you with his tongue buried in you, the tip of his nose wet from your juices. You let out a small moan at how pretty he was, your hips grinding against his face as you sought out more. "So greedy," he said with a small chuckle, taking his pointer and middle finger to tap against your lower lip. You opened up your mouth, your tongue running the sides as you sucked on his fingers. He took them out and got on his knees once more, slipping them inside of you with ease. You let out a loud moan as you felt his fingers curl to hit your g-spot, your toes curling in the silver heels. Your legs began to twitch as he started to suck on your clit, his tongue working expertly to provide you with pleasure you needed. His fingers and mouth worked in tandem to provide you with the stimulation you craved, your hands tugging on his hair as your hips grinded against his face. "I-I'm close!" You moaned out, the peak of your climax approaching quickly with every suck of your clit. With one final thrust of his fingers, you gushed around them, your face contorted in pleasure. He got up from the floor, his eyes on you as he sucked your release from his fingers.
Miguel kept you in the same position as he aligned his cock with your pussy, his gaze on you as he started to slide himself in. He let out a low moan as he bottomed out, his hands on your hips while he started off slowly. He grabbed his discarded tie off the counter, tying your hands together and your legs were on his shoulders, the angle allowing Miguel to slip in deeply with ease. He started moving faster when he noticed your hips moving against his, his balls slapping against your ass. Your walls clenched around him tightly, eliciting a moan to come out of him as he thrusted in you faster. The grip on your hips was sure to leave you bruises by tomorrow, but you couldn't find it to care with all the pleasure he was giving you. He looked up at the mirror, seeing your body underneath his and got an idea.
He bent you over the mirror, having you look at yourself as he slid inside of you once more. You pressed your hands down on the counter as he began to quicken up the pace, your back flush against his chest as you closed your eyes. He couldn't have that, of course, so he tugged on your hair, forcing you to keep eye contact with him through the mirror. You felt a new wave of arousal coat his cock as he maintained the eye contact, your walls clenching around him tightly. His balls slapped against your ass as he thrusted in deeply and quickly, seeking out for both of you to get to that peak. His thumb rubbed small circles on your clit, gently pinching it as he worked to give you what he could. "You look so pretty taking me like this, tesoro," he moaned out, raising one of his hands to slap your ass. You felt your legs tremble as he continued to hit your g-spot and his thumb stimulated your clit, quickly coming to your orgasm. (treasure)
Your release formed a creamy white ring around the base of his cock, your eyes closed in pure bliss. He pressed your face against the mirror, shaking his head in fake disappointment as he continued to thrust in your pussy, seeking out his own release. "Keep your eyes on the mirror," he said, the command coming out more breathless than he expected. With one final thrust, his cum coated your walls as he fucked into you. He let his chest fall against your back, gripping you tightly as he got his breathing under control. He slipped his softening cock out of you, his fingers pushing the cum leaking from your pussy back inside. You took his fingers in your mouth, sucking them off once more as you tasted the combined release from you two.
He helped you get cleaned up and even cooked up some spaghetti before he laid down in bed with you. He gently rubbed your shoulders as you started to drift off to sleep, his chest flush against your back. "Thank you.. for not giving up on me. I really appreciate it," he whispered, kissing your cheek as he stroked your thigh. "You're a person worth knowing," you replied, turning around to face him as your hand rested on his cheek. You felt yourself growing sleepy from the combined body warmth and how good his fingers felt on your skin. "You can go to sleep, I'll be here in the morning."
He, however, was not there in the morning when you woke up. You thought that after the time you spent getting close to him and especially now after having sex, he would start to open up to the possibility of advancing your relationship. However, it seemed like the act simply pushed him away further and erased the progress you had achieved. You decided to knock on his office door, getting tired of the silent treatment and mixed signals to ask what was going on and he simply responded with, "What we did was a mistake. I'm sorry that you thought we could be something more but you're just a business transaction."
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Kickstarting the audiobook of The Lost Cause, my novel of environmental hope
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Tonight (October 2), I'm in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab. On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.
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The Lost Cause is my next novel. It's about the climate emergency. It's hopeful. Library Journal called it "a message hope in a near-future that looks increasingly bleak." As with every other one of my books Amazon refuses to sell the audiobook, so I made my own, and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-lost-cause-a-novel-of-climate-and-hope
That's a lot to unpack, I know. So many questions! Including this one: "How is it that I have another book out in 2023?" Because this is my third book this year. Short answer: I write when I'm anxious, so I came out of lockdown with nine books. Nine!
Hope and writing are closely related activities. Hope (the belief that you can make things better) is nothing so cheap and fatalistic as optimism (the belief that things will improve no matter what you do). The Lost Cause is full of people who are full of hope.
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The action begins a full generation after the Hail Mary passage of the Green New Deal, and the people who grew up fighting the climate emergency (rather than sitting hopelessly by while the powers that be insisted that nothing could or should be done) have a name for themselves: they call themselves "the first generation in a century that doesn't fear the future."
I fear the future. Unchecked corporate power has us barreling over a cliff's edge and all the one-percent has to say is, "Well, it's too late to swerve now, what if the bus rolls and someone breaks a leg? Don't worry, we'll just keep speeding up and leap the gorge":
https://locusmag.com/2022/07/cory-doctorow-the-swerve/
That unchecked corporate power has no better avatar than Amazon, one of the tech monopolies that has converted the old, good internet into "five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four":
https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040
Amazon maintains a near-total grip over print and ebooks, but when it comes to audiobooks, that control is total. The company's Audible division has captured more than 90% of the market, and it abuses that dominance to cram Digital Rights Management onto every book it sells, even if the author doesn't want it:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff
I wrote a whole-ass book about this and it came out less than a month ago; it's called The Internet Con and it lays out an audacious plan to halt the internet's enshittification and throw it into reverse:
http://www.seizethemeansofcomputation.org/
The tldr is this: when an audiobook is wrapped in Amazon's DRM, only Amazon can legally remove it. That means that every book I sell you on Audible is a book you have to throw away if you ever break up with Amazon, and Amazon can use the fact that it's hold you hostage to screw me – and every other author – over.
As I said last time this came up:
Fuck that sideways.
With a brick.
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My books are sold without DRM, so you can play them in any app and do anything copyright permits, and that means Amazon won't carry them, and that means my publishers don't want to pay to produce them, and that means I produce them myself, and then I make the (significant) costs back by selling them on Kickstarter.
And you know what? It works. Readers don't want DRM. I mean, duh. No one woke up this morning and said, "Dammit, why won't someone sell me a product that lets me do less with my books?" I sell boatloads" of books through these crowdfunding campaigns. I sold so many copies of my last book, *The Internet Con, that they sold out the initial print run in two weeks (don't worry, they held back stock for my upcoming events).
But beyond that, I think there's another reason my readers keep coming back, even though I wrote a genuinely stupid number of books while working through lockdown anxiety while the wildfires raged and ashes sifted down out of the sky and settled on my laptop as I lay in my backyard hammock, pounding my keyboard.
(I went through two keyboards during lockdown. Thankfully, I bought a user-serviceable laptop from Framework and fixed it myself both times, in a matter of minutes. No, no one pays me to mention this, but hot damn is it cool.)
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/13/graceful-failure/#frame
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The reason readers come back to my books is that they're full of hope. In the same way that writing lets me feel like I'm not a passenger in life, but rather, someone with a say in my destination, the books that I write are full of practical ways and dramatic scenes in which other people seize the means of computation, the reins of power or their own destinies.
The protagonist of The Lost Cause is Brooks Palazzo, a high-school senior in Burbank whose parents were part of the original cohort of volunteers who kicked off the global transformation, and left him an orphan when they succumbed to one of the zoonotic plagues that arise every time another habitat is destroyed.
Brooks grew up knowing what his life would be: the work of repair and care, which millions of young people are doing. Relocating entire cities off endangered coastlines and floodplains, or out of fire-zones. Fighting floods and fires. Caring for tens of millions of refugees for whom the change came too late.
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But with every revolution comes a counter-revolution. The losers of a just war don't dig holes, climb inside and pull the dirt down on top of themselves. Two groups of reactionaries – seagoing anarcho-capitalist billionaire wreckers and seething white nationalist militias – have formed an alliance.
They've already gotten their champion into the White House. Next up: dismantling every cause for hope Brooks and his friends have, and bringing back the fear.
That's the setup for a novel about solidarity, care, library socialism, and snatching victory from defeat's jaws. Writing it help keep me sane during the lockdown, and when it came time to record the audiobook, I spent a lot of time thinking about who could read it. I've had some great narrators: Wil Wheaton, @neil-gaiman, Amber Benson, Bronson Pinchot, and more.
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I record my audiobooks with Skyboat Media, a brilliant studio near my place in LA. Back in August, I spent a week in their recording booth – "The Tardis" – doing something I'd never tried before: I recorded a whole audiobook, with directorial supervision: The Internet Con:
https://transactions.sendowl.com/products/78992826/DEA0CE12/purchase
When it was done, the director – audiobook legend Gabrielle de Cuir – sat me down and said, "Look, I've never said this to an author before, but I think you should read The Lost Cause. I don't direct anyone anymore except for Wil Wheaton and LeVar Burton, but I would direct you on this one."
I was immensely flattered – and very nervous. Reading The Internet Con was one thing – the book is built around the speeches I've been giving for 20 years and I knew I could sell those lines – but The Lost Cause is a novel, with a whole cast of characters. Could I do it?
Reader, I did it. I just listened to the proofs last week and:
It.
Came.
Out.
Great.
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The Lost Cause goes on sale on November 14th, and I'll be selling this audiobook I made everywhere audiobooks are sold – except for the stores that require DRM, nonconsensually shackling readers and writers to their platforms. So you'll be able to get it on Libro.fm, downpour.com, even Google Play – but not Audible, Apple Books, or Audiobooks.com.
But in addition to those worthy retailers, I will be sending out thousands – and thousands! – of audiobook to my Kickstarter backers on the on-sale date, either as a folder of DRM-free MP3s, or as a download code for Libro.fm, to make things easy for people who don't want to have to figure out how to sideload an audiobook into a standalone app.
And, of course, the mobile duopoly have made this kind of sideloading exponentially harder over the past decade, though far be it from me to connect this with their policy of charging 30% commissions on everything sold through an app, a commission they don't receive if you get your files on the web and load 'em yourself:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-another-audiobook-that-amazon-wont-sell/posts/3788112
As with my previous Kickstarters, I'm also selling ebooks and hardcovers – signed or unsigned, and this time I've found a great partner to fulfill EU orders from within the EU, so backers won't have to pay VAT and customs charges. The wonderful Otherland – who have hosted me on my last two trips to Berlin – are going to manage that shipping for me:
https://www.otherland-berlin.de/en/home.html
Kim Stanley Robinson read the book and said, "Along with the rush of adrenaline I felt a solid surge of hope. May it go like this." That's just about the perfect quote, because the book is a ride. It's not just a kumbaya tale of a better world that is possible: it's a post-cyberpunk novel of high-tech guerrilla and meme warfare, climate tech and bad climate tech, wildcat prefab urban infill, and far-right militamen who adapt to a ban on assault-rifles by switching to super-soakers full of hydrochloric acid.
It's a book about struggle, hope in the darkness, and a way through this rotten moment. It's a book that dares to imagine that things might get worse but also better. This is a curious emotional melange, but it's one that I'm increasingly feeling these days.
Like, Amazon, that giant bully, whose blockade on DRM-free audiobooks cost me enough money to pay off my mortgage and put my kid through university (according to my agent)? The incredible Lina Khan brought a long-overdue antitrust case against Amazon while her rockstar DoJ counterpart, Jonathan Kanter, is dragging Google through the courts.
The EU is taking on Apple, and French cops are kicking down Nvidia's doors and grabbing their files, looking to build another antitrust case for monopolizing GPUs. The writers won their strike and Joe Biden walked the picket-line with the UAW, the first president in history to join striking workers:
https://doctorow.medium.com/joe-biden-is-headed-to-a-uaw-picket-line-in-detroit-f80bd0b372ab?sk=f3abdfd3f26d2f615ad9d2f1839bcc07
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Solar is now our cheapest energy source, which is wild, because if we could only capture 0.4% of the solar energy that makes it through the atmosphere, we could give everyone alive the same energy budget as Canadians (who have American lifestyles but higher heating bills). As Deb Chachra writes in her forthcoming How Infrastructure Works (my review pending): we get a fresh supply of energy every time the sun rises and we only get new materials when a comet survives atmospheric entry, but we treat energy as scarce and throw away our materials after a single use:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/612711/how-infrastructure-works-by-deb-chachra/
Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. We have shot past many of our planetary boundaries and there are waves of climate crises in our future, but they don't have to be climate disasters. That's up to us – it'll depend on whether we come together to save ourselves and each other, or tear ourselves apart.
The Lost Cause dares to imagine what it might be like if we do the former. We don't live in a post-enshittification world yet, but we could. With these indie audiobooks, I've found a way to treat the terminal enshittification of the Amazon monopoly as damage and route around it. I hope you'll back the Kickstarter, fight enshittification, inject some hope into your reading, and enjoy a kickass adventure novel in the process:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-lost-cause-a-novel-of-climate-and-hope
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/02/the-lost-cause/#the-first-generation-that-doesnt-fear-the-future
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wholesalesoftie · 2 years
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I LOVE MY FRIENDS THEY MAKE ME FEEL ALIVE AGAIN
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prokopetz · 1 year
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One of the more frequent anecdotes you'll hear from Dungeons & Dragons podcasters is that any time they switch to a system other than D&D, even for a one-off arc, they immediately experience a large drop in listenership – sometimes up to eighty percent! – only to see most of those listeners come back once they switch back to D&D.
What's interesting about this is that the greater part of D&D podcast listeners do not play Dungeons & Dragons. They might have a general idea of what the game's rules look like based on what they've been able to passively absorb from listening to the podcast, but they don't have regular groups, they don't own the rulebooks or maintain subscriptions to the e-book service, and many of them have never rolled a d20 in their lives.
How, then, do we account for that sudden drop in listenership? Why does which system a tabletop roleplaying podcast is using matter so much if most listeners neither know nor care about the rules?
The answer is, unfortunately, quite simple.
In many ways, advocacy for indie RPGs has never moved past Ron Edwards' infamous argument that playing Dungeons & Dragons causes actual, physical brain damage. Deep down, a lot of indie RPG advocacy seems to believe there's something sinister in the structure of D&D that's responsible for what they regard as its unaccountable popularity. You can see this in everything from the casual assumption that D&D players aren't "really" having fun (and all that's needed to convert them to other systems is to show them they've been tricked into falsely believing they're enjoying an objectively un-fun activity), to the rambling thinkpieces that talk about getting folks to try other games like they're liberating people from the fucking Matrix.
Yet we come back to the same problem: how can the mechanical structure of D&D be implicated for its culturally dominant position in the minds of those who've never picked up a twenty-sided die?
The truth is that Dungeons & Dragons enjoys cultural dominance, both within the hobby and elsewhere, because it's owned by the same multinational corporation that owns Monopoly and My Little Pony, and benefits from all the marketing strength its owner can bring to bear. The problem, in brief, is brand loyalty. The aforementioned podcasts lose listeners in droves whenever they give a non-D&D system a spin because all most of those departing listeners care about is whether the thing that they're listening to is called "Dungeons & Dragons". The structural particulars of the mechanics are irrelevant.
The bitter pill we've got to swallow as indie RPG authors is that we can't fix brand loyalty in tabletop RPGs by fucking around with the shape of the dice. There are lots of productive causes we can support to help address the problem, but they mostly have do to with intellectual property and antitrust regulations and such, which are areas where our finely honed ability to debate the correct way to pretend to be an elf is of very limited utility.
Like, I enjoy an abstruse argument about the ideology of dice-rolling as much as the next nerd, but let's not fool ourselves that we're speaking truth to power here. The gamer who just wants to roll dice to hit the dragon with their sword is not your enemy.
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lorarri · 1 month
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★ . . . 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐏 𝐁𝐅 , 𝐘𝐓𝟐𝟐
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summary , it's yuki's birthday and his girlfriend just had to make every single person in the world feel even more single than normal
pairing , yuki tsunoda x fem! gf! bookworm! reader
main masterlist | f1 masterlist | yuki tsunoda masterlist
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yourinstagram . 4hr ago
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seen by landonorris pierregasly and 10,990,974 others
yourinstagram
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liked by yukitsunoda0511 pierregasly 12,667,378 others
yourinstagram Dear yukitsunoda0511, happy birthday I can't believe that you have been mine for three years now. It feels like yesterday that we met at that bookstore in Paris, where you spilt your coffee all over my favourite hoodie. And now with confidence I can say with confidence that it was worth it, you make me feel peaceful and whole. I hope you get everything your heart desires today. And that includes me. Your girl, Y/N L/N.
親愛なるユキ、お誕生日おめでとう。あなたがもう 3 年も私のものだなんて信じられません。パリの本屋で会ったとき、あなたが私のお気に入りのパーカーにコーヒーをこぼしてしまったことが昨日のことのように感じられます。そして今、私は自信を持って、その価値があったと自信を持って言えます。あなたは私を平和で健全な気分にさせてくれます。今日、あなたが心から望むすべてを手に入れられることを願っています。そしてそれには私も含まれます。あなたの彼女、Y/N L/N。
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user yuki is the only driver who’s enjoying life to the fullest with his hot gf - eating all the good food traveling around the world love that for him
yukitsunoda0511 I'm sorry about hoodie I'll buy you a new one ⤷ yourinstagram a new hoodie? no. I want one of your's please 😊 ⤷ yukitsunoda0511 okay baby now come cuddle with me ⤷ yourinstagram on my way 🏃🏻‍♀️💨
user pov the second pic is your dream ⤷ user Y/N FR LIVING MY DREAM
user happy birthday short king
user they are both barbie neither of them are ken 😭😭😭
user "liked by pierre gasly" ⤷ yourinstagram lurking as always 🙄 ⤷ pierregasly got a problem? ⤷ yourinstagram yeah with your face ⤷ pierregasly wow what a creative insult what are you 5 ⤷ yourinstagram listen here fuck french fuck I would smoke you in a fight now shut the fuck up and eat a baggette ⤷ pierregasly your mean...go play monopoly ⤷ yourinstagram esteban is my fav french ⤷ pierregasly you have gone to far ⤷ estebanocon thank you Y/N 😊
user So pretty yuki 🔥🔥🔥
user STOP THEY ARE SO CUTE
user brb I'm gonna go sleep with me on the highway ⤷ user gonna go take a bath with my toaster ⤷ user I feel like having a nice big tall glass of bleech ⤷ user suddenly I wanna skydive without a parachute ⤷ user I'm gonna jump off a moving train ⤷ yourinstagram mom pick me up I'm scared 😭😭😭
user So beautiful 💓🤩
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yourinstagram . 2hr ago
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seen by landonorris pierregasly and 18,950,224 others
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lovebugism · 1 year
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Play wrestling with bff Steve and getting giggly when he just straight up manhandles you 😭😭😭
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✶ ┄ SORE LOSER !
summary: steve harrington doesn't like to let you win until he realizes how good it feels to lose. pairing: best friend!steve harrington / f!reader word count: 1.6k warnings: a lil bit suggestive towards the end, but nothing crazy a/n: i got super carried away with this lol i kinda just took this request and ran with it and well... here we are :) enjoy!
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Steve never lets you win. 
He thinks it’s letting you off too easy.
The boy’s competitive to a fault. He can’t stomach a loss, even if it’s in something as meaningless as a carnival game you only wanted to play for the giant dinosaur plushie that’s half the size of you. 
He always ends up giving it to you when he inevitably wins, wearing a big smug smile on his pretty, pink lips. You take it from him with a pout. The childlike scowl is quelled only by the funnel cake he buys you after.
It doesn’t matter what it is — a game of monopoly, trivia questions on the ends of popsicle sticks, taking in the groceries — Steve finds a way to make all of it competitive. He wants to have the most fake money and little fake properties, he wants to shout the answer before anyone else can, he wants to carry more heavy plastic bags than everyone else. Just to say that he did it.
If you put this much effort into school, you’d be in college right now, Harrington, you’d tease.
Not my fault you’re a sore loser, he’d retort. I’ll let you win the next one, sunshine. Promise.
He never does.
You and Steve play-wrestle like a couple of kids. It usually comes out of nowhere. You’ll make fun of him, he’ll shove at you, and you’ll shove back harder. Then it just turns into a game of who’s stronger than who — and it’s always him. Obviously. 
You try your hardest to prove your strength, pushing at him with nimble fists and wriggling something fierce in his hold, but you come out red-faced with a participation ribbon laced within his taunts. And even though he’s got several inches on you and quite a bit more muscle, he never lets you win. Ever.
He manhandles you, perhaps a little too rough at times, but it wasn’t like he had to be kind to you. You weren’t dating or anything, you were best friends — this is what a couple of pals do, right?
They play fight on the carpet of the other’s movie room after being told their closest confidant would murder them in a game of fuck, marry, kill between Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr. with zero hesitation.
Friends totally force the other onto the ground by grabbing at the bottoms of their thighs before kneeling over them, wrenching their wrists in their grip and pressing their hands to the ground on either their head.
It’s the definition of being best buds. Truly.
For the first time, you manage to get the better of him. You’re pressed beneath his weight, breathing heavy and rapidly tiring, and you wave the white flag of surrender.
Just when Steve's letting you up and swiping a hand through his mussed hair, you force him onto his back and straddle his waist — like he always did to you — and giggle with mirth at the idea of finally beating him.
He doesn’t find a similar enthusiasm in it, though. His tune changes almost immediately.
You beam down at him, the words of a taunt on the tip of your tongue, and you notice how his cheeks flare pink. His honey-colored eyes widen and his mouth falls softly agape. He glows red in embarrassment and you think he’s just upset that he lost, but he sounds like he’s panicking. The words rush out of his mouth — “Alright, shit, fine— you win, sunshine. Get off, alright? Off, off, off.” 
His hand swats at the side of your knee to hurry you off him.
“Alright, jeez!” you concede with the roll of your eyes, halfway annoyed that he just can’t let you win anything. “You don’t have to be such a sore loser about it, Harrington—”
You understand his haste in that moment, when you feel him brush your inner thigh. Like, all of him — as in, the boner trapped in the sweatpants he’s wearing, all rock hard and raging in its cotton confines.
Suddenly, you’re just as bashful and panicked as he is. 
Your eyes lock at the rock hard realization but neither of you can think of anything to say.
Do you apologize? Do you act like you didn’t feel anything? Do you trust your voice to make a stupid joke so you can move on and forget any of this ever happened? You’re not quite sure.
And in the five-second silence, Steve just wants to die. Internally, he’s praying for a strike of lightning to take him out on the spot because he’s never been more embarrassed in his life.
He’s certain that he’s grossed you out, or worse, made you irreversibly uncomfortable.
In the mess of thoughts running through his head, he tries to rush out some apology that might soothe the awkward air. Your laughter does all the work for him before he can.
It bubbles like sunshine from your mouth, filling the silence and allowing Steve to breathe again. He finds himself chuckling under his breath with you, though he’s still red-faced about it.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep laughing, sunshine,” he chides with the roll of his eyes, though a smile hints at the edges of his mouth. He rises on his elbows to look at you. “What was I supposed to do? Your tits were in my face and your ass was on my dick— sorry for being human!”
“Sorry, alright? I’m sorry,” you manage through hearty giggles. You settle finally at his side and look over at him, still grinning. “Want me to leave so you can… take care of it or whatever?”
He knows you’re joking but he shakes his head anyway. “Nah, it’ll go away. Let’s just… finish this stupid movie.”
“Stupid movie? You picked it!”
“Yeah, so I could see Kelly Lebrock in a bikini!” he argues back, more thankful for the familiar bickering than he ever thought he’d be. “But you made me miss it!”
“It’s not my fault you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”
“Watch it, sunshine,” he grumbles, half-heatedly. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
“I think you’re the one who needs to worry about finishing, Harrington,” you joke and giggle when he shoves you.
You would’ve helped him, if he wanted you to. You know it’s uncomfortable and that it’s partially your fault. You also know that all of those are just excuses to cover up the fact that you’ve always wondered what his cock looks like.
He’d need only ask you, but you know that he won’t.
Even if he did like you in that way, it’d just make things all complicated. And that was totally the opposite of the effortless relationship you’ve developed with him. The kind of effortless where he can be rock hard next to you, and you’ve both decided to just move on from it.
Steve, meanwhile, spends the rest of the movie not watching a single damn minute of it. He’s too busy trying to calm himself down like a teenage boy and figuring out he can get you on top of him again without being too obvious about the whole thing.
He decides he might just start swallowing his pride and let you win sometimes.
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anim-ttrpgs · 2 months
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Help Save the World of TTRPGs and Their Creators.
Okay I’m being a little dramatic, but at the same time I’m pretty serious. This is a call to action, and the livelihoods of myself and lots of other people, many of them (like myself) disabled, are depending on it. This is a post about why, what you can do about it, and (perhaps least often answered) how.
This post is actually an accompaniment to another discussion by someone else. If you don’t want to listen to a 90-minute in-depth discussion of much of what I’m about to tell you, you can just keep reading. Otherwise, click here or here and listen to this either before or after you read this post. (They’re the same thing, just different sources.)
If you have ever made or reblogged posts urging people to switch from Google Chrome to Firefox, you should be willing to at least give a try to other TTRPGs besides D&D5e for much the same principle reasons. I’m not telling you you have to hate D&D5e, and I’m not telling you you have to quit D&D5e, I’m just asking you to try some other games. If you don’t like them, and you really want to go back to D&D5e, then go back to D&D5e. But how can you really know you won’t like other games if you have literally never tried them? This post is a post about why and how to try them. If you’re thinking right now that you don’t want to try them, I urge you to look below to see if any of your reasons for not wanting to try them are covered there. Because the monopoly that WotC’s D&D5e has on TTRPGs as a whole is bad for me as a game designer, and it’s bad for you as a game player. It’s even bad for you if you like D&D5e. A fuller discussion of the why and how this is the case can be found in the links above, but it isn’t fully necessary for understanding this post, it’ll just give you a better perspective on it.
If you’re a D&D5e player, I’m sure at some point or another, you’ve been told “play a different game”, and it must get frustrating without the context of why and how. This post is here to give you the why and how.
[The following paragraph has been edited because the original wording made it sound like we think all weird TTRPGs suck.]
Before that though, one more thing to get out of the way. I'm going to level with you. There’s a lot of weird games out there.
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You are gonna see a lot of weird TTRPGs when you take the plunge. Many of them try to completely reinvent what a TTRPG even is, and some fail spectacularly, others really do even up doing something very interesting even if they don't end up being what a core TTRPG player wants. But not every indie RPG is a Bladefish, lots and lots of them are more 'traditional' and will feel very familiar to you, I promise. (And you might even find that you like the weird experimental bladefish type ones, these are usually ideal for one-session plays when your usual group can't play your usual game for any reason.)
You're also going to probably see a lot of very bad games, and man have I got some stories of very bad games, but for now I'm just saying to make sure you read the reviews, or go through curators (several of which will be listed below), before you buy.
Now that that is out of the way, I’m going to go down a list of concerns you may have for why not, and then explain the how.
“I don’t want to learn a whole new set of rules after I already spent so much time learning D&D5e.”
Learning a new set of rules is not going to be as hard as you think. Most other TTRPGs aren’t like that. D&D5e is far on the high end of the scale for TTRPGs being hard and time-consuming to learn and play. If you’ve only played D&D5e, it might trick you into thinking that learning any TTRPG is an overwhelmingly time-consuming task, but this is really mostly a D&D5e problem, not a TTRPG problem as a whole.
“D&D5e has all of these extra online tools to help you play it.”
So what? People have been playing TTRPGs without the help of computers for 50 years. To play a well-designed TTRPG you won’t need a computer. Yes, even if you're bad at math. There are some TTRPGs out there that barely even use math.
“I’m too invested in the narrative and characters of my group’s current ongoing D&D5e campaign to switch to something else.”
There are other games, with better design made by better people for less money, that are the same kind of game as D&D5e, that your current characters, lore, and plot will fit right into and do it better. And no, it's not just Pathfinder, there's others.
“I can’t afford to play another TTRPG.”
You probably can. If you’ve only played D&D5e, you might have been made to think that TTRPGs are a very expensive hobby. They aren’t. D&D5e is actually uniquely expensive, costing more than 3x more than the next most expensive TTRPG I can think of right now. Even on the more expensive end, other TTRPG books will cost you no more than $60, most will cost you less than $20, and a whole lot of them are just free. If you somehow still can’t afford another TTRPG, come to the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book club mentioned below, nominate the game, and if it wins the vote we will straight up buy it for you.
(By the way, if you had any of the above concerns about trying other games besides D&D5e, that really makes it sound like you are in a textbook abusive relationship with D&D5e. This is how abusers control their partners, and how empires control their citizens, by teaching you to think that nothing could ever get any better, and even though they treat you bad, the Other will treat you even worse.)
“If I don’t play D&D5e, which TTRPG should I play?”
That’s a pretty limited question to be asking, because there will be no one TTRPG for everything. And no, D&D5e is not the one TTRPG for everything, Hasbro’s marketing team is just lying to you. (Pathfinder and PbtA are not the one system for everything either!) Do you only play one video game or only watch one movie or only read one book? When you finish watching an action movie like Mad Max, and then you want to watch a horror movie, do you just rewind Mad Max and watch it over again but this time you act scared the whole time? No, you watch a different movie. I’m asking you to give the artistic medium of TTRPGs the same respect you would give movies.
“I want to play something besides D&D5e, but my friends won’t play anything else!”
I have several answers to this.
Try showing them this post.
If that doesn’t work: Make them. Put your foot down. This works especially well if you are the DM. Tell them you won’t run another session of D&D5e until they agree to give what you want to do at least one try instead of always doing only what they want to do. This is, like, playing 101. We learned this in kindergarten. If your friend really wants to play something else, you should give their game a try, or you’re not really being a very good friend.
If that doesn’t work, find another group. This doesn’t even mean that you have to leave your existing group. A good place to start would be the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club which will be mentioned and linked below. You can also go to the subreddit of any game you’re interested in and probably meet people there who have the same problem you do and want to put together a group to play something other than D&D5e. You might get along great with these people, you might not, but you won’t know until you try. Just make sure to have a robust “session zero” so everyone is on the same page. This is a good practice for any group but it is especially important for a group made of players you’ve just met.
“I only watch actual plays.”
Then watch actual plays of games that aren’t D&D5e. These podcasts struggle for the same reasons that indie RPGs struggle, because of the brand recognition and brand loyalty D&D5e has, despite their merit. I don’t watch actual plays, or else I would be able to list more of them. So, anyone who does watch actual plays, please help me out by commenting on this post with some non-D&D5e actual plays you like. And please do me a favor and don’t list actual plays that only play one non-D&D5e system, list ones that go through a variety of systems. The first one I can think of is Tiny Table.
“I can just homebrew away all the problems with D&D5e.”
Even though I want to, I’m not going to try and argue that you can’t actually homebrew away all the problems with D&D5e. Instead, I’m going to ask you why you’re buying two $50 rulebooks just to throw away half the pages. In most other good RPGs, you don’t need to change the rules to make them fun, they’re fun right out the box.
“But homebrewing D&D5e into any kind of game is fun! You can homebrew anything out of D&D5e!”
Firstly, I promise that this is not unique to D&D5e. Secondly, then you would probably have more fun homebrewing a system that gives you a better starting point for reaching your goal. Also, what if I told you that there are entire RPG systems out there that are made just for this? There are RPG systems that were designed for the purpose of being a toolbox and set of materials for you to work with to make exactly the game you want to make. Some examples are GURPS, Savage Worlds, Basic RolePlaying, Caltrop Core, and (as much as I loathe it) PbtA.
“I’m not supporting WotC’s monopoly because I pirate all the D&D5e books.”
Then you’re still not supporting the smaller developers that this monopoly is crushing, either.
Now, here’s the how. Because I promise you, there’s not just one, but probably a dozen other RPGs out there that will scratch your exact itch.
Here’s how to find them. This won’t be a comprehensive list because I’ve already been typing this for like 3 hours already. Those reading this, please go ahead and comment more to help fill out the list.
First, I’m gonna plug one of my own major projects, because it’s my post. The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club. It’s a discord server that treats playing TTRPGs like a book club, with the goal of introducing members to a wide variety of games other than D&D5e. RPGs are nominated by members, then we hold a vote to decide what to read and play for a short campaign, then we repeat. There is no financial, time, or schedule investment required to join this book club, I promise it is very schedule-friendly, because we assign people to different groups based of schedule compatibility. You don’t have to play each campaign, or any campaign, you can just read along and participate in discussion that way. And if you can’t afford to buy the rulebook we’re going to be reading, we will make sure you get a PDF of it for free. That is how committed we are to getting non-D&D5e RPGs into people’s hands. Here is an invite link.
Next, there are quite a few tumblr blogs you can follow to get recommendations shown to you frequently.
@indierpgnewsletter
@indie-ttrpg-of-the-day
@theresattrpgforthat
@haveyouplayedthisttrpg
@indiepressrevolution
Plenty of podcasts, journalists, and youtubers out there do in-depth discussions of different systems regularly, a couple I can think of off the top of my head are:
Storyteller Conclave (I’m actually going to be interviewed live on this show on April 10th!)
Seth Skorkowsky
Questing Beast
The Gaming Table
Rascal News
Lastly, you can just go looking. Browse r/rpg, drivethrurpg.com, indie press revolution, and itch.io.
Now, if you really want to support me and my team specifically Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, our debut TTRPG, is going to launch on Kickstarter on April 10th and we need all the help we can get. Set a reminder from the Kickstarter page through this link.
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If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, there’s plenty of ways to get one!
Subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!
Donate to our ko-fi and send us an email with proof that you did, and we’ll email you back with the full Eureka prerelease package with the most updated version at the time of responding! (The email address can be found if you scroll down to the bottom of our website.)
We also have merchanise.
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centrally-unplanned · 3 months
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why call doctors "professional rent extractors"? just curious
I was being flippant about a known hobby horse of mine - its a true statement in a certain sense, but doctors ofc are working professionals who generate a lot of value so they aren't just that. But in the US doctors as an organization have lobbied extensively and successfully to restrict the number of doctors medical schools can graduate, restrict the number of existing medical schools to begin with, ban foreign doctors from practicing in the United States without expensive and unnecessary recertification, and other policies. Meanwhile they have also lobbied to ensure that any practice of medicine that does not involve a doctor in some way shape or form "approving" is illegal, even if the doctor is barely involved in the actual interactions with the patient.
All of this has resulted in physicians in the US having on average twice the salaries of doctors in other countries, while granting the US one of the lowest doctors-per-person ratios in the developed world. And while they did present figleaf logic for these restrictions, they were pretty much nonsense and I don't think the organizations in question ever believed them. Of course most individual doctors played no part in any of this, but doctors as an institution fought hard to ensure people are forced to pay them more money.
There are other ways they are rent extractors as well - for example, the way that doctors have to approve of every single pharmaceutical prescription means that you constantly have to see them and keep paying them in order for them to tell you to change nothing. They have a monopoly over prescriptions in order to ensure that they can extract rent from each pharmaceutical transaction. These I readily admit are more contentious though - I think its beyond dispute that the current system is too controlling, but certainly the idea that people could just buy whatever drugs they want whenever is a very hot take. There is a lot of rent extraction here too, but its much harder to definitively pinpoint compared to the extremely obvious rigging in the previous paragraph.
Overall the point is that a healthier US healthcare system would likely slash doctor salaries by at least 25%; they are strongly overpaid, and that level of overpay is a form of rent extraction.
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hi luv! i hope you're doing great. Saw your recent post and i do have a hc request (since im having a haikyuu brainrot rn 👀), what would you think of making papa!haikyuu hcs 😩. How would these volley boys make as a father! (especially kenma, tsukki and noya) and you can add your favs too 💕sjsjjsjs hope you have a great day ahead!
I'm doing okay, I hope you are doing good and that you have a nice day! I hope you enjoy this post and it is to your liking
Them as fathers
Characters: Kenma, Noya, Tsukki Gender neutral reader, it is not mentioned whether the children are adopted or biological, Kenma’s is longer than the others because i had way too many ideas for him
Kenma Kozume
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First things first: I don’t think Kenma would have more than one kid, if you really wanted to have more he would relent but he is perfectly happy with just one, he thinks 3 people is the perfect number for your little family.
You may think he wouldn’t be that involved in his kids life, but that is a big misconception,
No matter how much work he has to do he makes sure to spend time with you and your kid.
Kenma would never show his child on the internet in any way, he wants to keep his private life private and keep his child safe, he knows how cruel the internet can be, no way in hell will he put his young child into that kind of situation.
Once your child learned to crawl he brought the three starters of Pokémon black and white (gen 5 best games I don’t take criticism) to see which one your child would choose.
Based on what they chose he will be sulky or proud. (I nearly made this into Oshawott propaganda but I didn’t you’re welcome). But at the end of the day he knows that they just choose one based on colours and shapes, he would teach them once they are older how to perfectly choose a starter.
Best believe that as soon as your kid is old enough to understand things he will show them all kinds of (age appropriate) video games.
You enter his gaming room with some snacks for him and you can just see him play Slime Rancher as your kid sits in his lap, eyes glued to what their father is doing.
He already has started a Stardew Valley coop farm for you three to play together one day, he is just waiting for the day your child is old enough.
Now enough video game talk, (though I have so many more ideas about this lol) your child loves it when Kenma reads to them before they sleep, his voice is very soothing to them.
Once they are asleep Kenma stays at their side a bit longer, watching them sleep a serene smile on his face.
Kenma can’t say no to your kid, he will buy them anything they want. You sometimes wonder how he can be so responsible with his money in any other situation, but your child just needs to point at something and he will buy it for them unless you intervene.
Lastly, be prepared for Kenma and your kid to team up against you. Board games? Yeah they are a team even if the game isn’t a game for teaming up. (Monopoly is a nightmare with them, Oh you need a red? Too bad your kid and Kenma are trading it between one another instead of giving it to you) But you can’t really seem to mind when you see the way Kenma and your kid smile. (Unless you are like me and are fiercely competitive in games then you may want to strike Kenma down)
Yu Nishinoya
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Noya would take longer to have children with you, at least until he is done travelling, he does want kids but is aware that travelling the world with them wouldn’t be ideal, he wants them to have a stable home.
Once you two do have kids, he wants at least 2 or 3. Noya wants a big family.
I feel like he is the type of Dad that throws his kids in the air and then catches them (he won’t do it high) and it always gives you a heart attack.
Instead of reading them good night stories he always tells them (embellished) stories from when he travelled the world, for example he once exclaimed to one of your kids how a mermaid vied for your attention but he fought them heroically off.
This does bite him in the ass years down the line once your kids are teens, they will bring these stories up whenever they can to tease him.
Asahi is basically an uncle to your kids, he often visits you and brings the kids many gifts. He loves to spoil them.
And yes Asahi designs the clothes for your kids as well, it often leads to many people asking you and Noya where you got the clothes for them from since they are such a high quality.
Yes, he will teach your kids “Rolling thunder”. No you can’t stop him. Even if your kids don’t play Volleyball they will still know the move.
This leads to your kids looking for his old jersey’s from highschool, putting them on and pretending to  be their dad. No he is not crying, he just got dust in his eye.
Vacations and holidays are important to Noya, while he can’t travel the world with your kids, he will take them on memorable vacations across the country when they are old enough to remember them.
He wants them to have a happy and fulfilled childhood with as many experiences as they can have.
Kei Tsukishima
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When you first brought up having children with him he asked “Are you sure you can take care of a child? Don’t you wanna practise with a pet rock first?” You lightly punched him in the chest for that and he had his signature smirk on his face.
He is honestly neutral on the aspect of having kids, he is not against it but also it was never his dream of having them, so he is fine with whatever you want.
Just like Kenma he would probably only have one kid, with his Job as a Volleyballplayer and everything he isn’t home that often, so if you had more than one kid he would feel guilty leaving you home alone with them.
Tsukki is probably the first one from Karasuno to have a kid, so he is smug about the fact that he is ‘better’ than the others in that regard.
The first team reunion after you two had your child will have him holding his child proudly, while he tells all the others how slow they are for not having kids yet, which has everyone rolling their eyes. He is very proud of his kid so that he will hold it up Lion King style so everyone can admire it.
Unluckily though he miscalculated the height of the ceiling and bonked your kids head on it, which left everyone in the room in a stunned silence (True story from my infant days, my dad did this exact thing with me)
You had made him change every diaper for 2 weeks for the heart attack he gave you with that, even if your kid was fine and wasn’t hurt.
Tsukki and you switch every night who is going to read your kid, while you pick different topics every time, he only ever chooses dinosaur stories to read to your kid.
Speaking of dinosaurs, Tsukki once claimed he had to educate your kid on certain things while you went out grocery shopping, when you came back you saw that the thing he was educating your child on was “The land before time” which made you smile.
Now no matter if the child is biologically yours or adopted, it somehow interhits his sass, which means you will be surrounded by two sassy little pieces of shit (affectionate).
Though you get both of them to calm down their sass by offering them some strawberry cake if they stop, it surprisingly works better on Tsukki then on your kid, who would have thought?
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all-the-fish · 4 months
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Oh, you know, just the usual internet browsing experience in the year of 2024
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Some links and explanations since I figured it might be useful to some people, and writing down stuff is nice.
First of all, get Firefox. Yes, it has apps for Android/iOS too. It allows more extensions and customization (except the iOS version), it tracks less, the company has a less shitty attitude about things. Currently all the other alternatives are variations of Chromium, which means no matter how degoogled they supposedly are, Google has almost a monopoly on web browsing and that's not great. Basically they can introduce extremely user unfriendly updates and there's nothing forcing them to not do it, and nowhere for people to escape to. Current examples of their suggested updates are disabling/severly limiting adblocks in June 2024, and this great suggestion to force sites to verify "web environment integrity" ("oh you don't run a version of chromium we approve, such as the one that runs working adblocks? no web for you.").
uBlockOrigin - barely needs any explanation but yes, it works. You can whitelist whatever you want to support through displaying ads. You can also easily "adblock" site elements that annoy you. "Please log in" notice that won't go away? Important news tm sidebar that gives you sensory overload? Bye.
Dark Reader - a site you use has no dark mode? Now it has. Fairly customizable, also has some basic options for visually impaired people.
SponsorBlock for YouTube - highlights/skips (you choose) sponsored bits in the videos based on user submissions, and a few other things people often skip ("pls like and subscribe!"). A bit more controversial than normal adblock since the creators get some decent money from this, but also a lot of the big sponsors are kinda scummy and offer inferior product for superior price (or try to sell you a star jpg land ownership in Scotland to become a lord), so hearing an ad for that for the 20th time is kinda annoying. But also some creators make their sponsored segments hilarious.
Privacy Badger (and Ghostery I suppose) - I'm not actually sure how needed these are with uBlock and Firefox set to block any tracking it can, but that's basically what it does. Find someone more educated on this topic than me for more info.
Https Everywhere - I... can't actually find the extension anymore, also Firefox has this as an option in its settings now, so this is probably obsolete, whoops.
Facebook Container - also comes with Firefox by default I think. Keeps FB from snooping around outside of FB. It does that a lot, even if you don't have an account.
WebP / Avif image converter - have you ever saved an image and then discovered you can't view it, because it's WebP/Avif? You can now save it as a jpg.
YouTube Search Fixer - have you noticed that youtube search has been even worse than usual lately, with inserting all those unrelated videos into your search results? This fixes that. Also has an option to force shorts to play in the normal video window.
Consent-O-Matic - automatically rejects cookies/gdpr consent forms. While automated, you might still get a second or two of flashing popups being yeeted.
XKit Rewritten - current most up to date "variation "fork" of XKit I think? Has settings in extension settings instead of an extra tumblr button. As long as you get over the new dash layout current tumblr is kinda fine tbh, so this isn't as important as in the past, but still nice. I mostly use it to hide some visual bloat and mark posts on the dash I've already seen.
YouTube NonStop - do you want to punch youtube every time it pauses a video to check if you're still there? This saves your fists.
uBlacklist - blacklists sites from your search results. Obviously has a lot of different uses, but I use it to hide ai generated stuff from image search results. Here's a site list for that.
Redirect AMP to HTML - redirects links from their amp version to the normal version. Amp link is a version of a site made faster and more accessible for phones by Bing/Google. Good in theory, but lets search engines prefer some pages to others (that don't have an amp version), and afaik takes traffic from the original page too. Here's some more reading about why it's an issue, I don't think I can make a good tl;dr on this.
Also since I used this in the tags, here's some reading about enshittification and why the current mainstream internet/services kinda suck.
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