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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months

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The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

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/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

#pluralistic #moral injury #enshittification #worker power #google #dont be evil #monopoly #sam altman #openai #vocational awe #making a dent in the universe

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ruiniel · 7 months

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While we are silent

Fandom: Castlevania series (2017-2021)

Relationship: Alucard x F!Reader

Rating: Explicit 🔞

Count: 2.5k

Part I

Tags & Warnings: action, angst, Inspired by Castlevania, mind control, blood and injury, canon-typical violence, profanity, hematophagy, sex outdoors, bloodlust, AFAB reader, blood kink, vampire!reader

AN: here's the last part, @chthonicsiren This completes a series of sorts: To be free - A Place to Hide - While we are silent.

II.

Nature has fallen into sepulchral silence. You stare, wide-eyed, at the shadows surrounding you even as words meander vaguely through your conscious mind.

“Lord Corvin of Sarád.”

Adrian. You feel the tremble of his body next to yours, a tension grounding you to reality as his choked but steady voice resonates.

“This worked better than I’d thought,” the vampire speaks. “Didn’t it, my dear?” He turns a pale eye on you.

“You defected. My father spared you,” Adrian grits through his teeth, but the vampire's gaze is still set on you.

Chilling laughter trickles through the forest, icing its way down your spine.

The vampire smiles. “Defected… you and others called me, us, traitors,” he motions towards the looming presences with his arm. “Your family disgraces itself by mingling with humans, battling alongside them, welcoming the cattle into your abode. And you call me traitor?”

Adrian growls, the red flare in his eyes deepening to crimson. “Was it him?” he asks in a low, guttural tone, and dimly you realize what he is asking, and that he’s asking you.

“Oh, my, my. Do you think to challenge us all for the pet? Everyone has a weakness, especially your kind,” and the emphasis he places on the word 'kind' makes it as though he's spitting something heinous. “She is yours, just as you are your father's... It hurts, does it not? Being left vulnerable, having your existence uprooted while being powerless to stop it?”

Adrian deigns no reply. His eyes narrow.

“No, princeling, it was you who betrayed us. And now,” Corvin pauses, “I need but extend my hand, and she will come, for I am her maker.”

You don’t want to move, you will not, but in a haze you do, as if your limbs are tied and controlled by the threads of an unseen puppeteer.

A step is all you take before a heavy hand grasps your arm so tightly it hurts.

“Fight it, you must fight it,” Adrian murmurs, but he asks the impossible because the command is fused with your own self, and you can only heed the extended hand that beckons.

“Yes, fledgling, you are mine, and you’ve done well, drawing him out for me.”

You try, you scream and shriek, you’re fighting Adrian before you know it, struggling in his arms as the others watch.

Your maker taps a long clawed finger against his chin. “Enough of this.” He draws a long-sword. “Seize him,” comes the clipped order.

It all happens in a blur. You walk as in a dream, chaos ensuing behind you. There is savage fury and beams of crimson, and deep down, the part of you that loves hears Adrian struggling to repel the group unleashed on him.

Cold fingers dig into you, and pale, hypnotic eyes stare into your own. “Ahh,” your maker, the violator of your will and destroyer of your life, hums in admiration. “At first, you were but a weak pile of bones and meat. Now, look at you…” he takes you by the chin, thumbs at a fang. You shudder. “Beautiful…” he leans closer to a tree trunk, holding you fast; turning you around as you sway. Inside, you toil against this power, but it is futile. “Watch,” he whispers, and trapped in your own body you see Adrian fighting, felling a few of the attackers but there are others, always, always more.

And then, a harrowing cry of pain. Coolness streams down your face—it is blood.

“Sanctified, silver bindings,” Corvin offers, watching the coils having sprung from the assailants’ gloved hands, trapping Adrian so he cannot beam, cannot shapeshift, cannot fight as before; they bite into him and he falls to his knees, and you smell burning skin.

Three vampires are left, nearing him.

“Please…” you beg, unsure who it is you’re pleading to; there is no mercy here.

There has never been deviousness to you; you still refuse to kill, having gone against your nature until it becomes unbearable, until Adrian must offer you his own blood.

Adrian, kneeling beside you in a cold chamber. Bringing you close. Being there when you’re near to losing your sense, still there when you do, all those nights.

You are mine, the other whispers in your mind, and you catch the glowering red eyes of the one you need, hissing and still fighting and refusing to submit even with his powers caged.

“Yes…” you murmur, “I am yours…” you go slack in the vampire’s arms. “Master.”

“I knew you’d come to see reason in due time,” he drawls, turning you around to face him. “It has been some time, after all.”

You glance up demurely at him, your hand alighting on his shoulder. A glint catches your eye.

Your name, from Adrian’s lips.

Through a daze, anger as you’ve never known rumbles within, hot brimstone and shadow. In a movement so fast, faster than you’d ever known yourself to be capable of, you’re pulling the silver arrow that nearly struck Adrian out of the tree trunk and plunging it as deep as you can into your maker’s back; draw it out; plunge again.

He screams, releases you—and shearing agony has you wailing. You look down at the sword sheathed deeply in your womb.

“You fucking… slut…” The blade shears deeper, and you feel it through bone and tissue as it cuts into your body.

Blood pours from your mouth, but the arrow is still in your grip; you strike again and this time into his left eye, then fall back doubling over as his hold on both you and his weapon slackens.

Your name, from Adrian’s mouth, laced with desperation, has you turning around even as another vampire is upon you.

Somehow, you pull the blade from your body, parrying an attacking spear. “You thought this would be easy… didn’t you…” you grin, you’re laughing and if this is madness let it come, let it take over, let.it.burn.

Suddenly the lessons Adrian’s put you through all those times run in fast succession through your head, seep into your reflexes as you strike and cut and maim; slashing through an arm, through silver bindings, severing a head, the bloodied silvered arrow plunging into a chest.

Your name, your name, but that was before. You are no longer the one responding to it. That part of you has died.

And so has the one who turned you into this.

When silence falls, you see a blur of shapes, guttural cries abound. Someone rushes to your side; your palm goes to your middle even as hands—warm—are on your face, your shoulders; you fall forward, grasping at clothing.

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Adrian murmurs, movements hasty and desperate.

“They…”

“All dead, all dead,” he chokes, removing his coat, and your vision regains some of its clarity: his wounds are healing so fast. “Your turning is still recent… injuries heal slower,” he speaks swiftly, feverishly, “here.”

He smells of fresh blood and skin, cradling your head close to his neck. “You need it. Now. Please.”

You feel the anguish radiating off him, and your nose comes pressed to the pulsing artery. You sigh, in pain and harrowing, unimaginable thirst. “But you…”

“I’ll be fine, trust me, you do, don't you? Please.”

You want to, you’re so greedy and parched and it hurts so much… your fangs sink into flesh, you hear a groan—maybe yours, or his—and then you’re straddling him, drinking and drinking of warmth, the blood that binds, freely given.

The corpses and the forest all fade, and all you know is him, everything is him: on your lips, down your throat, healing you inside. The agony subsides, but you cannot stop.

“Good,” Adrian slurs, “good—ah!”

A soft torpor takes over as you lick at his neck, ending your feeding and pressing your forehead to his chest. “All dead?”

“All dead,” comes another reassurance. He sounds depleted.

You sit, motionless, hugged together: you, drunk on him and your unforeseen revenge as awareness strikes. “I killed him,” you whisper into his torn shirt. “I’m free.” You raise your head to his, staring into those brilliant eyes rimmed with red. Eyes that trail down your face, to your lips, and suddenly you feel how tense he is, how close, the anger and apprehension draining from your bodies into the cold earth.

Your name, from his lips—this time, you answer, tilting your face upward, melding your bloodied mouth to his even as his arms tighten around your waist.

The pain is gone, but that remnant of power in your limbs feels surreal, wild, beating like a heart. “I…” you’re biting on his lower lip, and his strangled moan spurs you further. You can’t, won’t release him, even with the gasp of aching pleasure leaving his throat as your talons dig into his back.

Your name, crushed against your cheek, his warm tongue licking at the drying stream of blood on your face. In a blur you're dragging him towards you and Adrian willingly follows, panting and nosing at your skin with an urgency that hastens wildly through you—his life, in your veins.

“Adrian…” Lust, need, love, agony— a maelstrom of emotions deep as the ocean and as merciless as its storms crash over you and you’re still clinging to him as Adrian rises, carrying you far away from the ruinous scene marred with fallen enemies.

You’re biting and scratching at him and oh he is no better, and a trickle of reason has you wondering why you need this now, of all times, after what just happened but the shock still reverberates through you, winding and seeping between your legs, turning into something hungry and primal.

You’re straddling him, nose pressed to his sweet skin and hands in his pale hair, his own swift, his touch rushed when Adrian grasps your thighs, reaches under your skirts, as he settles you in his lap and leans with his back against a tree.

You pull away and watch his chest heaving through hitched breaths and the expression mirroring yours before kissing him again, nipping at his neck, his ear, his jaw until he moans.

Warm fingers feel between your legs. He’s touching you like this for the first time since that night long ago, before he left to fight and everything changed.

Your hips roll over his of their own accord as a hand is pressed on your shoulder, forcing you more down on him and you feel him, hard and pulsing. Your arms around his neck, you let him tilt your hips back and forth against his, and you're spun around in a movement so fast it leaves you dizzy.

Still in his lap, straddling him, his arm around your waist. He hoists you up swiftly just to free himself and you lean forward on your hands, clawed fingers digging into cold soil.

“I… you…” His speech is throaty as he lifts you swiftly, and you feel him: one, desperate thrust has you crying out in desperate delight and yes, this is what you need, this is what you want: closer, to be a part of him in symbiosis.

Hands grasp your hipbones as he starts ramming into you, slow and hard, soft groans leaving his throat that only make you wetter. His arm is a vice around your waist as he falls into a rhythm.

He takes you faster, leaning into you until his chest is pressed to your back, your knees scraping the dirt as he thrusts and your mouth falls open.

“My sweet, sweet one… ” Adrian gasps as you shiver in pleasure, forcing you up and down on his hot cock, his hips snapping upward and going for shallow movements then alternating with deep, hard plunges.

Your head falls back, and he's nosing at the junction between your neck and shoulder. “My greatest… weakness…” he repeats the words from your first night together, like a vow pressed into your skin.

“... Do you… resent it?” you ask, unable to think straight from the build of delicious pressure.

His sighs tingle in your ear; he gently nips on it. “I cannot live without it… without this… without you…” and he goes faster, digging bloodied claws into your hips as he runs with you to oblivion. “I don’t want to…”

You want to say something, but he nibbles and breathes and groans against you, holding you so tight and fucking you so hard all that leaves your lips is a whimper of inarticulate desire.

You see red, all wishes and needs converged into one, single goal—you want him to consume you.

The rhythm changes, his breathy moans pressed into your bare shoulder. Again, again, again...

You cry out, moving to meet him halfway as this invisible coil of emotions snaps like a whip, his gloveless hands caressing your bared abdomen under your skirts as you drag yourself onto him, slow and hard, the wet sounds arousing you even more until you fall.

Adrian shivers, reaches with one hand to feel you dripping, to tease. He bites into your shoulder while his hips slap against your rear with renewed vigor and your vision sways from the delicious high of your release, unleashing and straightening your spine, engulfing you and hurling you into an abyss of bliss.

You fall back against him, panting as he keeps fucking into you, grabs your chin so he can lick at your lips, and with one last violent shiver and a savage thrust warmth spurts inside, coating you. He groans with each pulse and with all your newfound strength, you couldn’t break away if you wanted to.

Your ears are buzzing, your hypersensitive hearing narrowed to nothing but this. Time slows with the ripple of warm muscles spasming and gripping, both his arms hugging you to him—gradually more mellow, gentler.

You turn your head to press your face to his, and feel the warmth of tears.

“Adrian… are you...”

“I’m well,” he murmurs amid uneven breaths, “... this…” he says, more subdued than you’ve ever heard him, “the bloodlust, at times it... may influence... lead to this…”

You don’t need an explanation. You don’t need words at all, settling for kissing his mouth again, the lingering taste of blood sweetening on your tongue.

“I’m here,” you whisper in the silence of darkness. A bright, yellow moon is in the sky, bathing your figures in light. I'll always be here you want to tell him, but you fear such promises still, and at once you've become so tired you can barely speak.

Adrian says nothing, but doesn’t let go. You feel a spark of apprehension, lingering even in his afterglow. He allows you movement, gasping as you turn to face him and wind your arms around his neck.

An insistent exhaustion blurs your sight, and you know no more as you tuck your head under his chin. Your eyelids flutter closed, and he cups the back of your head with a tender hand. You feel safe as you drift away on his voice, on the slow caress of fingers through your hair.

MASTERLIST: CASTLEVANIA SERIES x READER

More of my work is on AO3 [many stories not on tumblr]

BLOG MASTERPOST (all you need to know)

Likes/comments/reblogs always and forever appreciated

#alucard x reader #adrian tepes x reader #alucard castlevania x reader #alucard x you #adrian tepes x you #castlevania x reader #castlevania x you #castlevania smut #x reader #vampire reader #alucard castlevania x you #castlevania alucard x reader #alucard tepes x reader #ruiniel:fanfiction #second person POV #alucard smut

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ludi-cerealia · 1 year

Text

Where can you give yourself Grace?

A pick-a-card reading reading intended for general guidance, but the collective energy was mournfully romantic, if that makes any sense? There’s something to be said about finding closure about unresolved connections, and in doing so finding grace for oneself by drawing a line where you should. Moving on is difficult, but please allow your pain to pass, allow the emotions to drain, understand that your desires are in spite of you; and (however contradictory it may sound) that is okay. Let your experiences co-exist, let joy in, let time pass; Trust that you'll be better, lighter in the end, especially because of how difficult it is. Prominent 6th house placements or are observing significant astrological transits in the 6th-12th house axis of their birth charts may especially resonate with this reading. For instance, Pluto is transiting Aquarius iirc, see where which house its in.You don’t need to have these placements/transits take what resonates!

Channeled songs: Outline// AlunaGeorge; Eyes Closed// Halsey; Yebo/Sema// Masego

Decks used: Language of Flowers Oracle, The Wild Unknown Archetypes, Children of Litha Tarot

Pile 1

I heard allow yourself to stand apart and speak your mind, you deserve to be heard, especially your grievances. With the Hanged Man and 9 of Pentacles Rx side by side, which to me represent the Pisces-Virgo axis of escapism vs compulsion, fixation vs ignorance, release vs control— I get the impression that while you are no pushover, you gladly bite your tongue even when venom is most warranted; an involuntary tolerance for needling microaggressions. In some ways you feel bound or even obligated to float the conversation lightly so you don't rock the boat, because perhaps those concerned can't take what they dish out. For some of you these are cliques in which you are playing a part for laughs, for others these are people you know from your hobbies/leisurely pursuits (for a select few I heard water cooler talk, so maybe your part-time workplace). There's no love had or lost, yet you wonder why you don't simply speak your mind and let them burn as they should. Perhaps it is because these microaggressions are trivial that your pride would not allow you to stoop beneath your station, I heard your rage has bigger fish to fry but can't. It seems you're between a rock and a hard place socially, Pile 1, perhaps above you is overwhelming and overbearing expectations to act right, and beneath you are people testing your principle and patience. You may give yourself grace for your humanity, that it is only human to be frustrated when your boundaries are violated; you are neither lesser nor over the top for asserting them and yourself. Don't let pride get in the way of your wellbeing and fall on your sword, if you do know that's human too. I heard the highway has its tolls.

(Cards: Jade vine ~Communication, Comic, 9 of Pentacles Rx, Hanged Man, 3 of Cups, Lovers rx, Venom)

Pile 2

You have not fallen from grace for a moment's weakness, Pile 2; people forget that despite his heel Achilles' was nigh invincible. I think the romantic energy I channelled in the collective may be most prominent in this pile. Take what resonates, but Leo Rising/Aquarius on the 7th house cusp may be a relevant placement for you. Something may have come crashing down for you lately, this may be a substantial crush, a long-term relationship/situationship in the making that just simply fell through despite your best efforts. Something shocking may have came to light, a betrayal or manipulation, that has you spiralling into doomsday crisis. You've been obsessively reviewing every detail of your shared experience to see where you've gone wrong, where you've fallen short; or perhaps you may be critically analyzing every text or physical cue, in gruelling pain over how you couldn't see it coming. With the 5 of cups Rx turned towards Page of Swords Rx, you're torn up and feeling a fool for not realizing sooner, even a hypocrite especially for those inclined to intellectualize emotional affairs. You should give yourself grace by seeing your power, and channeling your restlessness into other aspects of being like your health, passions/hobbies, friendships; your life is so grand, Pile 2, it will not be confined, not even by yourself. Give yourself grace by nurturing these other parts of yourself, you're a dime a dozen I heard. The medallion here is reminding me of the Ace of Pentacles, so perhaps your earthly pursuits need attention in your neglect. For others, there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow should you choose to embrace all the colors of life, because there's more to life than just blues. Even if it feels like the end of the world, love is only the beginning and it is all around you. (Cards : Queen of the Night ~ Power, Apocolypsis, Page of Swords rx, 5 of cups rx, The Magician, The Medallion )

Pile 3

I take back what I said about the romantic vibes being only in Pile 2, so you may have been drawn to that pile as well. The message here is similar, but a bit firmer— the first thing I heard was respect yourself. With 6 of cups and 2 of cups reversed, you may be far and beyond the initial stages of grieving over a lost connection; I heard you're more than sure there's nothing more to come of this situation, and yet your heart still aches unrequited and is on the verge of resentment. There is love in your heart but it has nowhere to go, I'm hearing Anne Sexton poetry in my head, "I don't care, I love you anyhow. It is too late to turn you out of my heart. Part of you lives here." You've pored over all that you can, and still you remain in a state of confused longing for something you don't even know if you want anymore, love has become limerance. Getting water venus vibes, particularly Cancer/4th House/aspecting Moon. While it's important to feel your emotions, its more important to let them flow freely through you. Take as much time as you need, but when you're done, make sure you're done Pile 3. So much freedom awaits you, and a better love that will cherish your gentle nature. The universe is nudging you gently towards happier times, the light will come through even if its just through your window. Got the message you may be listening to Miley Cyrus's River, or it may be relevant for you. If a silver lining must be had, you must find it for yourself Pile 3, find grace in gratitude for each passing day; however small, each little thing is a little step forward in the right direction. (Cards : Queen of the Night ~ Power, Apocolypsis, Page of Swords rx, 5 of cups rx, The Magician, The Medallion )

Pile 4

This pile may be going back to something they used to love after some defeat in work, one that has taken you out of your usually confident and charismatic self. While the 5 of swords did not appear in this spread, I get the sense that you have walked away from a disagreement or difference of opinions that may have taken a deeply personal turn; and instead of staying and baring your fangs you have up'ed and left, going back to basics, I heard. This was something you were deeply invested in Pile 4, and it was a heartbreaking decision to walk away even if it was for your own good; it was a project on the cusp of completion, even greatness, this was a goal you were working towards for a very long time Pile 4. Give yourself a break, you have more than enough grief to spare, give yourself grace by being kind and patient to yourself, especially when you don't know why things are happening the way they are(Paraphrasing Waymond Wang). You're on the right track, what's yours won't pass you by! Though you may feel small by going back to the drawing board, you are simply beginning again a new adventure towards something better. Trust that you are divinely guided/redirected, because in this spread the card representing the destination (Siren) is steered towards the beginning (Bridge); so you are being guided to a path you thought long lost to you. Inner child healing may be important in this time.

(Cards: Snowdrop~Hope, The Bridge, Two of pentacles, Eight of Cups, Queen of Wands rx, The Siren )

I hope you enjoyed this PAC! I’d really love to hear how it resonates for you. Any and all feedback is welcome. If you liked my work, do consider tipping me .

#pick a card #pick a pile #psychic readings #intuitive #tarotblr #cerescore #pac #intuitive readings #free tarot #astrology

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naushtheaspiringauthor · 4 months

Text

~Child Of The Storm~

Nikolai Lantsov x OC

Image by - @brokendreamtale2

Warnings- none

A/N- Let me know if you'd like to be added or removed from the taglist!

Taglist- @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy @sirisuorionblack @nadeleine123n @marauders-wife

Ch-40 ~The sorrow of living~

Anaya was usually working late with David and Paja, but tonight she'd insisted on staying for a while longer to finish some of her work. After a few hours, she finally decided to leave. She'd been too deeply indulged in her work to notice that she was alone in the workshop. She stacked the massive pile of papers filled with equations and designs, and made her way back to her chambers.

She'd decided to clean out her room for while when she saw a small diary fall from somewhere underneath the pile of books on her desk. She realized that it'd been the same one she'd been writing through all of the journey back to Os Alta, from the ship on the True Sea to the processions. She went through the pages filled with all kinds of poems and thoughts she'd been jolting down all the time.

It was maddening how her life changed in such a haste, but still, her life seemed to have a habit of doing that. She was surprised to find that her life was much easier when she was in Ketterdam, dealing with all kinds of thugs in the barrel, at least she was the one to choose her actions. But not her life in Ketterdam before living in the Barrel. It's quite ironic how the most dangerous part of the city had felt the safest to her.

Better to face the monsters infront of us than to be unaware of the existence of those lurking in the shadows, she thought to herself.

She took off her kefta, and then her shirt, revealing the deep long scars running along her back that had now turned black. They still hurt at times, they always would, but she'd just chosen to accept that and live with it. She already seemed to have enough scars.

She didn't know whether they were actually going to defeat the Darkling. Some nights, she would go to sleep, thinking she might wake up with the place in shambles, or she might not wake up at all. She wasn't optimistic about the situation, but she knew she would do anything in her power to at least, try, she knew she had to.

....................................................................................................

David and Anaya had decided to move their work to the roof of the Little Palace to better test the dishes. So the two of them along with Paja had been on the roof the next morning. They'd set up a makeshift workspace in the shade of one of the domes, and it was already covered in bits of shiny detritus and discarded drawings. The barest breeze ruffled their edges.

“How’s it going?” Alina asked as she made her way towards them

“Better,” David spoke, studying the slick surface of the nearest dish.

“I think I’ve gotten the curvature right. We should be ready to try them out soon.” Anaya added

“How soon?” Alina asked

“A couple of weeks,” David said.

“That long?”

“You can have it soon, or you can have it right,” he grumbled.

“David, I need to know—”

“I told you everything I know about Morozova.”

“Not about him,” Alina said.“Not exactly. If ... if I wanted to remove the collar. How would I do that?”

“You can’t.”

“Not now. But after we’ve—”

“No,” David said, without looking at her. “It’s not like other amplifiers. It can’t just be taken off. You’d have to break it, violate its structure. The results would be catastrophic.”

“How catastrophic?”

“I can’t be certain,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure it would make the Fold look like a paper cut.”

“Oh,” Alina said softly

David picked up a bottle of ink and began twirling it between his fingers. He looked miserable. All three of them have been, because of working sleeplessly, but this was different.

"Um Anaya, can you pass me the sheet with the equations on this one?" he asked her

"Sure" she handed it over, giving him a concerned look

Alina gently took the ink bottle and the paper from his hands. “If you hadn’t done it, the Darkling would have found someone else.”

He twitched, something between a nod and a shrug. Alina set the ink down at the far edge of the table where his jittery fingers couldn’t reach it and turned to go.

"Umm...Anaya?" he turned to her and spoke hesitantly

"Yeah?" she abandoned her work and met his gaze

“I heard ... I heard Genya was on the ship. With the Darkling.”

Alina stopped at his words and looked back at him. His cheeks had gone bright red. The warm breeze lifted the edges of his shaggy hair.

Anaya suddenly felt a pang of sorrow for both Genya and David. She thought of how he'd have felt when he would've found out that she had chosen to side with him.

"Yeah" she responding in a soft voice

“She’s all right?” he asked hopefully.

"I'm not sure, she was when we escaped"

“I begged her to come with us.” Alina joined in

“But she stayed?” His face fell.

“We don’t think she felt like she had a choice," Anaya responded, turning her gaze to her feet

“I should have...” He didn’t seem to know how to finish.

“We do the best we can,” Alina offered

David looked at her with a pleading gaze. Sometimes, the biggest tragedies happen to be our own lives. We cling onto the tiniest bit of hope, not thinking of whether it's even true. But despite all, we move forward, because that's what we do, we keep on living.

#shadow and bone #nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov fanfiction #nikolai lanstov x reader #nikolai lantsov x oc

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mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess · 2 years

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Unbearable heat

It's so hot.

And this time it's not because of Wei Ying's super hot boyfriend, Lan Zhan, who seems to raise Wei Ying's body temperature several degrees up simply by existing in his relative vicinity - and that's only because Lan Zhan isn't currently home. Not yet anyway.

But Wei Ying is and the damn heating system has decided it would not turn off anymore today for whatever goddamn reason - so Wei Ying is now sweating, on the floor, in a pair of very short shorts and nothing else, waiting for the repairman Lan Zhan said he hired.

Wei Ying is almost certain he's begun evaporating from existence, and opening the windows can do so much (after all, they live in a penthouse and the windows don't open fully for safety reasons) - so the moment there's a knock on the door, he springs to his feet (forgetting a shirt or a robe or anything else to cover up) and almost wants to kiss the man wearing the plumbing company's logo on his shirt (and Lan Zhan, who's apparently arrived at the same time with him). He refrains from doing either, though. Not the time for PDA when he's melting alive.

"You don't know how happy I am to see you!" Wei Ying exclaims, relieved, leading the repairman inside the apartment, towards their heating system units, acknowledging his boyfriend with a sweet smile.

"Yes, mr. Lan over here has told me the issue is quite pressing." And, as he follows behind, the man inadvertedly (who could blame him, really?) lets his eyes wander over Wei Ying's milky skin, stretched over his well-defined back muscles and towards his slim waist, all the way to his plush, round-

Lan Zhan hands the man a pile of documents in such a way that his view of Wei Ying's backside is obstructed entirely. The repairman likes to think he only imagined Lan Zhan glaring at him when they meet eyes (he didn't).

"This is the paperwork from the last system checkup." Lan Zhan clarifies. The man nods, looks over the specifications, and decides to set his toolbox down for a better look at the problem.

"You might want to take that jacket off, it's boiling in here." Wei Ying laughs and the ghost of a blush appears on the man's face. He's trying so hard not to look at Wei Ying's chest and abs and his V-line, obsessively repeats the company's code of conduct in his head and sheds his jacket.

Lan Zhan takes it from him (snatches, more like) to hang on the back of a chair, and this time the repairman is positive he's being glared at. He also knows he's distracted by the very hot, almost naked tenant that's only a few feet away from him, watching him closely.

"I think the issue is caused by the wiring in the thermostat, the heating unit is fine." The man says after a few initial verifications.

"I figured as much." Wei Ying sighs. "I told Lan Zhan that was it and to let me fix it myself, but he wouldn't listen."

"You're working in the field?"

"Oh, nothing like that!" He laughs, and the repairman is pretty sure he could fall in love with the sound. "I just like to mess around with stuff, find out how it works." A wink. "It's a given since I'm an engineer and all."

The man looks up from his toolbox, genuinely surprised. "Really?"

"Is that so shocking?" Wei Ying laughs again. "Do I not look like I could be?"

The repairman turns red and bites his tongue not to say Wei Ying looks more like a model (or a pornstar). If anybody comments on the blush, he can just blame it on the heat.

"What field of engineering do you work in?"

"Oh, I'm in nuclear engineering right now!" And the man is shocked how Wei Ying is so casual about it. This man is not only exceptionally attractive, but also exceptionally intelligent and skilled.

The repairman is trying so hard not to ask for his number right now - there's no ring on his finger and no coupley pictures around after all, maybe he could get away with the ethics code violation. However, there is intimidating and brooding mr. Lan Wangji who definitely does not like the repairman and who has been glaring craters into his skull since the moment he stepped in the apartment and first laid eyes on Wei Ying. Perhaps they're... a thing?

With a quiet sigh, the repairman gets to work. He struggles a bit with the electrical panel, embarrassingly so, and he's surprised when Wei Ying leans over him and, with some skillful movements of his fingers, detaches the troublesome pieces.

God, he's amazing.

"There you go! That part's always tricky, don't worry too much about it!"

He smiles at the repairman and his hair frames his face so beautifully and-

"Wei Ying. Let mister..."

"Li." The man completes, quickly, a bit offended that Lan Wangji forgot his name despite the big lettering on his nametag and the fact that Lan Wangji himself hired him.

"Let mister Li finish his work. Do not disturb him."

"Oh, it's no-" but mr. Li shuts up when he feels like Lan Zhan is 3 seconds away from smashing his skull in given the dark look in his eyes.

"Come with me."

Wei Ying lets out a happy sound. "Okay! If you need anything, mr. Li, we're in the-"

"Bedroom." Lan Zhan completes, only a bit too cocky.

Mister Li looks away quickly. "R-Right."

"See yourself out when you finish, won't you?" Lan Zhan speaks, again, not bothering to conceal a smirk as he lets his hand cup at one of Wei Ying's asscheeks.

Mister Li finishes up just as erratic moaning begins filling the apartment.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #writing attempts #i need to have my heating system checked so i got inspired #this is an attempt at some humor maybe #also i love lwj being jealous and petty so here it is #oh btw wwx 100% knows what he's doing

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anthonybialy · 7 months

Text

Israel Battles Evildoers Who Got Rich for Some Reason

Hamas doesn’t switch to a rainbow avatar for June. I’m trying to get liberals to hate them. These are tough times for the anti-Semitic. You don’t have to feel bad for the worst sort of haters. Save concern for an assaulted nation that is demonized for existing.

Baseless vitriol has escalated to monstrous action. Slaughtering people going about their lives constitutes the clearest violation of life itself as possible in case anyone’s unclear. One party seems disturbingly so. The sole country in the Middle East without oil functions the best, which enrages those whose faith revolves around jealousy.

One side created civilization out of nothing. The other tries to turn civilization into nothing. All-time lies accusing Jews of doing awful things while actual awful things are done to them is one of humanity’s most appalling regular occurrences. The latest war could only seem worse upon realizing it’s nothing new.

Half of the sides are fiendish. Invading terrorists may just be the bad guys. Forget gruesome nonsense about Israel stealing land nobody wanted and that they just might have resided upon a few thousand years ago: acting like both attacker and target are perpetrators is the sophisticated way to lie. You just know Israel’s foes were asking by noon on September 11, 2001 why they hate us.

“Cycle of violence” is the dark magic phrase to spot. Anti-Semites realize how unpopular they are right now, so they conceal their bigotry by condemning an alleged cycle instead of the terrorists who began it. A mugger attacks victim. Said victim defends against threat to life, property, and liberty. Liberals shake their heads at the actions of both. The phonily high-minded would’ve lamented the cycle of violence on D-Day.

Israel’s antagonists pair pretend outrage with actual harm. As usual, Democrats spurred agony by trying to help. That’s sadly the best-case scenario. You might be more generous than deserved and presume they’re not actively encouraging mayhem. The best case is that doing such would require planning ahead.

Stimulus checks for Hamas got their sole industry humming. A foreign policy that was already discredited has added granting an allowance to barbarians as a bullet/low point.

It turns out there are worse bribes than giving liberals useless degrees at taxpayer expense. You’ll be shocked to learn those who shriek about paying back money they borrowed to major in political science so they can afford to keep patronizing artisan baristas don’t grasp how budgeting works.

Blaming the police for crime has devastated countless innocent humans. The principle has gone international. The baffling view that cops were the ones causing problems enabled subway-shovers. Its daft holders covered Iran’s discretionary rocket budget.

The White House did their part to wreck society and inhabitants by bailing out America’s sworn enemy. That’s America’s White House, for the record. The typical excuse is their usual one, namely that they had no idea their ideas would unleash perniciousness. Ruining budgets for Americans is accompanied by tossing cash at lunatic mullahs.

Democrats believed Saddam Hussein was building a chocolate chip factory, too. The only thing keeping Iran from prompting more devastation is ineptness. Joe Biden is here to help them. Claims that Iran’s trust fund won’t be spent irresponsibly are based in a Post-it stuck on the cash sacks noting it’s for humanitarian aid, which would be laughable if not for the blood splattered on Israeli streets. Their pet terrorists attacked Israel less than a month after funds suddenly became free. This presidency strongly discourages noticing consequences.

Earth’s most nefarious terror state used different bills to fund terror, so tell your conscience to pipe down. Take from this pile, not that one. A notion that’s either disingenuous or ignorant sums up liberal thinking. The mob budgets in the same way, with the difference being they can operate businesses.

Iran’s centrifuges spin in celebration. The usual mendacious scumbags cherish the subsidy, although they won’t send a thank you card. Democrats have gone out of their way to enable shoplifters, violent agents of urban chaos, and border-hoppers, so the terrible assault against Israel is no more surprising than who facilitated it.

Leave it to liberals to not grasp how loosening up dollars permits spending on other things. Why would anyone stick to some lame budget? Iran could’ve just printed more money.

An unwillingness to modify a budget because it would mean less fun is the signature economic principle from the adult children staffing this White House. You might have to choose grilled cheese instead of Chuck E. Cheese if funds are tight unless you live near the Tehran location. Under Biden, bread is a luxury, but only in his home country.

Iran’s hobby is funding terrorism. Their free-time pursuit was funded by Biden putting them on the honor system. Aiding maliciousness while hassling the decent is regrettably natural from an administration through its consistent opposition to reality.

Biden’s pals are being uncool. His fervent dedication to attempting peace by befriending the sinister hasn’t quite convinced them to behave. He’s still lunching alone in the cafeteria.

Inflation making money worth less finally helps, as medieval intruders couldn’t buy as many implements to inflict atrocities. Liberating funds on September 11 for a real cartoonish villain was not just symbolically disgusting.

Heinous Hamas will find a new homeland in the sea. The prototypical human demons are as evil as they are stupid. An excuse for Israel to remove a roving gang of serial killers will be executed with no help from a feckless president that allows mayhem like a substitute teacher.

Hamas failed to anticipate Israel’s righteously swift response for the same shortsighted reason lottery winners who don’t plan ahead spend until they’re broke. They just bought rockets with the Biden cash infusion instead of McMansions.

Opening wallets so terror benefactors can grab walking-around money turns out to not be a super strategy for finances and pace. A president who wants to disarm law-abiding Americans coordinated Venmoing the Hamas rocket fund. Add “fungible” to the ceaseless list of words liberals don’t understand.

#Israel #Iran #Joe Biden #Hamas #terrorism

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saltminerising · 2 years

Text

Gifting trading and sharing between accounts on the same IP is OKAY

just to help ppl feel less worried about sharing ip and "what if I get false flagged" banxiety I've seen on this blog: FR states sharing IP is perfectly Okay in their rules. Unlike some other petsites that have 1 ip 1 account in their rules. It only becomes a problem if one account suddenly starts gathering and doing all the dailies then sending it all to a different account is when they say that's not okay, They give this example:

Below is an example of a scenario that would be considered multiple account behavior:

A brother, sister, and mother sign up for Flight Rising to play. These family members exchange items, currency, and dragons while playing normally of their own accord. (No problem - this is okay.) Later, the mother and sister become disinterested in the site and give their remaining items and dragons away to the brother. (Also okay!) Afterwards, the mother and sister decide that they will log in every few days to only complete their gathering turns, pull from Pinkerton's Pile, and send the gathered items and Well Fed bonus currency directly to the brother. They no longer have interest, and no longer actually play for themselves. This is where it breaks down and the violation occurs. The mother and sister have stopped playing, and the sole purpose of their accounts is now to benefit the brother's account. Whether or not the brother has login access to the accounts or not, all three are participating in multiple account behavior.

Gifting, trading, or sending items/dragons/currency between accounts (regardless of whether they share an IP address or not) are all acceptable forms of gameplay.

It is when one player registers or uses "side" accounts that exist solely to benefit another that it creates a skewed and unfair gameplay advantage.

Link to the TOS where this is from

#banxiety #multi accounting #submission

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opinated-user · 1 year

Note

For anyone else on Earth, looking at art drawn by TWO artists who used CSEM as references (including one who hurt her own son), having massive porn accounts full of the most realistic shota and loli on the face of this planet, misgendering every trans and nonbinary person she encounters, calling queer people cishet if she doesn't like them, hating a Jewish nonbinary cartoon creator and likening her to a Nazi, overlooking antisemitism in Harley Quinn, writing a black OC whose mom is a slave trader who goes on to wed a trafficking victim of her mother's and completely control her life/use her as childcare and ship repair, making the Tooncritic situation worse allowing an actual pedophile to walk free, having her Gardevoir OC violate a human child, writing incest and murder and pedophilia and rape, coercing people into sexual art and acts they were uncomfortable with, stealing art, stealing jokes, having her audience dogpile people, accusing her audience and haters alike of wanting to fuck or rape her, flashing children suddenly on stream, and lying chronically about everything from catching covid 3 times to her race to faking entire people would be enough to get her deplatformed.

I've seen people get deplatformed for any single one of these things.

Why the fuck does Lily glide by without any lengthy comprehensive video or massive Lily exposed video essay? Why is it always, at most, a video that goes over one thing she did or one person she hurt? Why does no one ever talk about the people whose existence she faked or the porn accounts or the racefaking or any other number of things she's done?

Maybe if someone did a cold, calm TRO style video about all the shit Lily's done with all the receipts we'd get somewhere. But instead videos are made about, at most, two things she's done, without the piles of evidence for all the other things, and then everyone argues about a word possibly being misused as if that's going to help things.

If I had any money to my name I would buy equipment and make a documentary length video on everything she has done. Instead I have to sit here as a Jewish CSA victim knowing she can endorse Nazis and support an artist who assaulted a two year old and know that at most those things will get 4-10 reblogs on tumblr rather than her getting dragged and deplatformed away from minors she can hurt.

I'm so tired. I'm so fucking tired. The fact that not one person even seems to care enough to try to cover even a fraction of her shit is exhausting. It takes me right back to childhood and being told what my abuser did wasn't serious because she's a girl and girls aren't bad like boys are.

Can someone please hold this woman to account? The evidence is all over the place. The job is halfway done for you. Someone, anyone, please do something significant to deplatform her.

At this rate the only way she'll be deplatformed is if she abuses a child herself, and only if it's in a way the authorities bother to give a shit about. Again: I am so tired. No one gives a damn about people like me, either in the sense of giving a damn about CSA survivors or Jewish people. No one cares. No one has ever cared. I wish I'd died when I was a kid and my abuser used to choke me, I really do.

making the Tooncritic situation worse allowing an actual pedophile to walk free

(i have to clarify that i was wrong about that. on this post segasister is kind enough to explain better the situation. LO actually had nothing to do with the investigation one way or another. she did took advantage of it and made it seem like she was the hero when that wasn't true, but she didn't made it worse either like i assumed so.) anon, please don't think of it that way. i know it's disheartening and dissapointing that all of this doesn't recieve as much attention as we'd all like, but at least is recieving some attention now. it was a lot worse just a few years back. things are changing slowly but they're doing it and for the better. LO might never get the TRO's style documentary that other figures got, but she's slowly fading into irrelevancy and that is what matters because it means less people she can hurt. i'm so sorry for everything that has happened to you. if LO and the discourse around her makes you feel that way, i recommend taking a break, find your support system and try to forget about this for a while. your wellbeing and mental health is more important that LO and anything she could do or say.

#tw: csa #tw: antisemitism #lily orchard

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this-daydream-is-dangerous-13 · 8 months

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What are your thoughts on OW using the sex scenes (and made them seem as something revolutionary) in DWD to promote the movie as some kind of feministic message about female pleasure, when it ended up that the women there were in a simulation and couldn't give consent? It's sad that Florence was misunderstood about the whole thing and made out to look like she is not a feminist and was just hating on Olivia just to hate on her (and was being jealous apparently because of Harry??), while she was bringing up valid points about the false promotion around it. Even now that Oppenheimer came out there were so many people that were saying that she's not complaining about the sex scenes just because the movie is directed by a man and she can't say anything against him, but could definitely attack O, when her issues weren't even the sex scenes themselves, but the length at which they were utilized as part of the promotion. She's being made out to be unprofessional and whiny and is the butt of the joke for a while now because of it, I find it disgusting that everyone seems to have forgotten about Olivia's actions and lengthy interviews about it. Even WB came out defending her. 🙄

There's an interview with Harry talking about how him being a part of sex scenes feels like he's giving a part of himself and it's really intimate for him. I can't imagine how he must have felt about the whole thing. Your girlfriend exploiting your sex scenes just to advance herself and making everyone uncomfortable in the process. The very thing he's trying to shed as part of his image being the 'sex symbol' that he was made out to be from a very young age being used in such a way. And he also talked about trusting her with those kinds of things. Makes me feel uneasy just thinking about it. 🤮

(Side note: O going out of her way to praise Harry for letting Florence shine is so weird. Florence has been a professional actress for YEARS, she doesn't need to be grateful to a man for letting her shine and make it out like she owes him for doing so. Like, 'Thank God if it weren't for Harry Styles accepting a side character, I wouldn't have been the star of my own movie'. (Nothing personal about Harry, just the way she made it seemed out to be and made me annoyed about it and roll my eyes) Praising men in general for just being decent humans and doing the bare minimum doesn't sit right with me. It's the least they could do. Especially in an industry where if one doesn't like being a side character, they can just not accept the job. Those are usually the men who are already successful actors and have a say and the entitlement and ego to do so, like Brad Pitt for example, they don't need the money like some other actors do, they can cherry pick all they want. Other people with not much experience, or not being already established in the industry in my opinion would just seem ungrateful to be whining about it. Quite frankly, The Weeknd exists, so I get where she was coming from, but still it feels weird.)

I love both Harry and Florence so much I get really heated about all this. At times it feels as if she was trying to pit them against each other.

Ooooof, we’re approaching the anniversary of this mess, anon, and it is giving me hives. What a big old mess.

I agree with a whole lot of what you said, especially the uneasiness for H and the weird emphasis OW placed on the scenes that made both Florence and H feel…vulnerable/used/like sexual objects? And in this movie about violating consent? 🤮🤮 I don’t want to pile on OW (ah…any more than I already have) but she seems to fundamentally misread situations over and over again. As she did in her promo interviews, and the “explaining to H what an apron is” stuff. Except this was way worse.

I actually don’t fault OW for praising H because he was willing to take a secondary role to a woman; she is right that so few actors are. Have we seen Leo do that since Titanic? But what I found weird was: what about Chris Pine, who did the same thing *in this movie*? And seems to be willing to do it often? THAT was weird to me, and made me think “she’s praising her boyfriend and overlooking others.” That and the stuff you pointed out—as if Florence needs help!

And as a side note, ooof. Brad Pitt. I know you were using him as an example (like Clooney) of someone who can pick and choose, but I cannot in good conscience let his name stand without pointing out how f*cking problematic his behaviour towards women, esp. AJ and kids is and how he gets away with it. I haaate it. Huge double standard. And it pains me to admit it because I am old and young Brad Pitt (like A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall era) was the star of all my tween dreams. But gross. Brad’s reckoning is coming.

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kaythefloppa · 2 years

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KashimusPrime Beware Post - Re-Post:

Hi, it's me, kaythefloppa, or if you know me on Deviantart, QueenFluffy1994. Or at least.. I was QueenFluffy1994.

In June of this year, I made a callout post of Lion King fandom veteran, KashimusPrime, who was the admin behind her blog, Laughable-Lion-King-Art. Both Kashimus, and her blog, were involved in some pretty shady activity which piled upon itself more and more until it became a mess. So I spent my last few weeks at school compiling evidence of 20 screenshots and 5 working URLs of both the blog and Kashimus's misdeeds.

However, things changed, and not for the better after that.

Deviantart's staff, ruled that my call-out post was a violation of their policies against harassment. I.e, they believed I was attacking Kash and not... idk, exposing her for her toxic influence over the fandom that directly harmed a vast majority of people, minors especially included.

After battling this for some months and trying to find a loophole, my Deviantart account eventually got suspended for good, and my call-out post went down with it. The document remained intact, but sadly, my call-out went under the dust, and Kashimus has yet again, failed to act on her promise of improvement (as if that was fucking possible), so I'm reposting my call-out in the form of a Google Doc:

A basic TLDR: She's attacked minors over art styles, defends whitewashing, claims "blackwashing" exists, has micromanaged a LOT, and is a proshipper. In terms of that case, she has used topics like fascism and oppression of minorities in defense of her being a proshipping, which minimalizes the trauma and persecution that minorities and victims of cults, racism, fascism, queerphobia, and other methods of oppresion go through (she also said this as a 30 yr old white lady who more than likely is not a victim of either of the forms of oppression I listed, which is once again, tone deaf of her).

Her first response was her dodging the issue. Her second response was her half-apologizing for my accusations, but defending herself using both context, time, and flat-out lies, and also failing to address the other major factors I've used, whilst hiding comments of, and blocking people who criticized her and gave her advice on improvement. And as expected, she hasn't done good on her promise to improve granted that she's continuing to flex being a proshipper, and lumping together "antis" with fascists and cultists, acting like the oppressed, (wait, no, she never promised to stop being a proshitter, she defended that and continued on her merry way).

And that's not even going into how she got into contact with one of my abusers, who is a serial child-stalker, threatened my life when I blacklisted him, got access to my blacklist through him, called me a liar about of my abuse story and traumatic experience with the person she contacted, all of which happened to me when I was 14 years old, and then using all that parrot her racist, proship, insensitive hypocritical agenda that her blog has become a mouth-piece for thanks to her own incompetence, which is lowkey the reason I decided to bring this doc back from its grave.

#the lion king #the lion king fandom #kashimusprime #laughable lion king art #laughablelionkingfanart #tw: ab*se #tw: suidice #tw: sui thoughts #anti whitewashing #blackwashing does not exist #anti ableism #anti proshipper #fuck off proshippers #call-out

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cookerypokery · 1 year

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I Thought I Was Ruined

We all have a dark side, but most days I am pure angel. So it came as a surprise when I became my own inverse. For four days, I hated food.

It all started when I decided to go shopping on an empty stomach. I drove to the Chinese store. I piled my cart high with daikon, fish cake, bok choy, fresh shiitake mushrooms, tofu. And as I turned the corner to stand in line for checkout, I decided I needed a snack. I’m not talking some cookie-cake you use to distract children. I wanted something you could hang a skeleton on. So I wheeled my cart back around and bought half a cooked chicken.

This chicken had a name. “Scallion Oil Chicken.” “葱油鸡”。It had the model good looks of any Cantonese charcuterie. Plump, juicy meat. Glossy, perfect skin. In fact, the skin was a golden yellow, which Cantonese-style chicken often is. I don’t know how they do it, and it’s probably just food coloring, but humans wear makeup too to look more enticing, so who am I to judge?

[An Internet photo of the chicken -- not what I ate.]

I thought, very briefly, about driving the 15 minutes home and eating it on a plate in my kitchen. I decided against it and scarfed it in my car. I didn’t eat all of it. Half a chicken in one sitting is too much for one person who sits all day for a living. But I ate strategically: some thigh, some breast, the drumstick. I even had the discipline to eat some of that dreaded back meat because you never want be stuck with only back meat for leftovers. After I finished it, I wiped my hands on some napkins that a wise person (likely Rebekah, given how much she prioritizes clean hands more than I do) placed in my glove compartment.

I didn’t know it then, but that chicken was the Trojan horse that would be my downfall.

I got food poisoning. Or a stomach bug. Or stomach flu. These are imprecise words for the mess than ensued, as I had no formal diagnosis. But I had the symptoms, and because Cookery Pokery has already been reported once for graphic content, I am not going to describe it for you. The one thing I will report is that when I first started to feel disgusting, the first thing I did was stick a meat thermometer in my mouth because I didn’t know where the body thermometer was. The meat thermometer was not precise enough to take my temperature, but I later learned that I had a fever of 101 degrees.

My lifelong love affair with food also fell apart. On the first day, all I could eat was a few bites of boiled apple, a sippy cup’s worth of plain rice congee, and a bite of banana. I didn’t want smells or textures or flavors. Food was a barbaric army invading my land, and I just wanted peace.

Rebekah made me a hard-boiled egg with a jammy yolk, and it was like masticating caulk. As she delivered me progressively blander foods to my bedside, I croaked to her, “Did you throw out the chicken?” To which she would say, “Not yet,” and I would shiver feverishly.

I tried to distract myself from the roiling battle in my gut by looking at my phone, to realize that 90 percent of my Instagram feed featured cooking-related accounts. Everything looked absolutely disgusting. One particularly memorable post was a close-up of a steaming hot fresh-baked pepperoni pizza, with cheese still bubbling and beads of grease collecting on the sausage. It violated me to the core. Even still, over the next few hours I kept reflexively opening the Instagram app in pursuit of the dopamine hit it usually delivered. But my online feeds were tailored to a self that no longer existed. I grimaced and buried my phone in the blankets.

In physics class, I learned that our hearing is logarithmic. This means that we are more sensitive to the fluctuations in quiet sounds – for example, you can discern whether a cricket is louder than a whisper more easily than you can discern whether a trumpet is louder than violin. My taste buds, too, felt logarithmic. I became unbearably conscious of subtle changes in taste and flavor and texture. It was all disgusting.

But day by day, I found myself able to look at, and stomach, more foods. I impressed myself when I ate an entire unripe banana. (To avoid flavor.) I impressed myself more when later I ate another banana that was actually ripe. I ate several jammy hard-boiled eggs, with soy sauce. The breakthrough was when I ate some mustard stem pickles, which my mom used to give me when I was sick, with my congee. Then I ate miso soup, with tofu and daikon and udon noodle.

“I threw away the chicken,” Rebekah reported. My heart leapt. “But,” I said, “Is it still in the house?”

“Nope,” Rebekah said. “I took it straight to the Dumpster.”

I rejoiced. I may have fallen, but that chicken was no match for my reinforcements.

But progress was slow. Before a conflict peaks, it can feel like it will never end. I wanted resolution. I wanted to know that I could look at a medium rare prime rib and salivate again, out of desire and not in preparation for vomiting.

I am still convalescing, so I can’t write the ending to this post. You’ll have to fill in that last major chord yourself. What else do you want from me? I’m sick.

#identitycrisis

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ri-writing · 1 year

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Aziraphale, Crowley, and the Ugly Sweater

I was living my life, going through my old WIP folder, when I found this. Happy holidays.

Contrary to popular belief, Aziraphale had some idea as to what was – and what was not – fashionable. He did, after all, go out into the world and interact with humans. He had plenty of opportunities to observe what was, and was not, currently considered “in style.” There were even certain standards of fashionability that were expected in some of the places he frequented, such as the Ritz. That he was sure those standards did not apply to him did not prevent him from being aware that they existed. At the end of the day, Aziraphale's decision to dress like he stepped out of a magazine spread for the 1950s professorial set had less to do with obliviousness and more to do with the simple fact that he was quite old, he had decided what he liked, and he didn't see any reason to change what he wore just because everyone else did.

And if he intentionally pretended not to be aware of something to get a reaction out of Crowley – well, it wasn't his fault the demon was so gullible. It certainly had nothing to do with how adorable Crowley was when insulted on behalf of “style.”

It was just this not-adorableness that came to mind when Aziraphale found it. In this case, it was quite possibly the ugliest jumper he had ever seen. It made even the worst violators of fashion law in Aziraphale's wardrobe look downright trendy. Aziraphale couldn't say for sure what made it so hideous. There was the red and green tartan pattern that made up the sleeves. There was what appeared to be brightly colored Christmas packages knitted along the cuffs and neckline. If Aziraphale had to choose a winner, however, what really made the jumper was the Christmas unicorn emblazoned on the chest. It was not just any Christmas unicorn – it was large, it had candy cane striped mane, it wore a harness of what was likely supposed to be Christmas bells and greenery, and it was pulling Santa's sleigh piled high with presents.

It was perfect.

He felt what might have been described as unangelic glee as he paid for his prize and arranged for it to be gift wrapped. All Aziraphale had to do then was affix a large tag on the package reading Crowley, place it under the tree, and wait.

Waiting did not take too long. Crowley had developed a habit of hanging around the bookstore for several hours each day. He had become such a fixture as of late that Aziraphale's neighbor had referred to Crowley as Aziraphale's partner when last they'd spoken – something Aziraphale had taken enjoyment in pretending to misunderstand while responding that he owned his shop alone, thank you very much. By this time tomorrow, Crowley should have his present in hand. His response should be highly adorable, er, amusing. Yes. Amusing.

Almost like clockwork, Crowley materialized mid-afternoon. The Bentley appeared outside the dirty store windows in its usual place. A few heartbeats later, the bell above the door rang, announcing his entrance.

Forcing himself not to smile, Aziraphale kept his eyes studiously on his book and called, “We're closed.”

“That's good.” Crowley called back. “Because I intend to get well and truly sloshed, and we wouldn't want any customers to...” He trailed off.

Aziraphale felt a grin pull on his face and quickly killed it. Crowley had found the package.

A moment later, Crowley appeared in his sight-line. One hand grasped the neck of a bottle of wine. The other held the brightly wrapped present. “Since when,” Crowley held up the present, “Do we get each other presents?”

Aziraphale slid a bookmark in his book. “Since I saw something and thought of you.” He gave a little shrug and held out his hand for the bottle. “Want me to pour while you open that?”

“I didn't get you anything.” Crowley looked at the box, his eyebrows knitting together.

“I believe Antichristmas would be celebrated in the summer,” Aziraphale offered. “So it's really not time for you to get me anything yet.”

Crowley seemed to ponder that as he released the wine into Aziraphale's care. After looking at the package another moment, he flipped it upside down and carefully began unwrapping the paper.

“When I saw that,” Aziraphale added for extra emphasis, “I thought it was just so fabulous, that you had to have it.”

“Oh?” Crowley's eyebrows rose. His curiosity piqued, he finished separating the wrapping paper from the box. Carefully, he folded it and set it aside. He removed the lid. The tissue paper was pushed aside. Crowley froze. After a long moment, he lifted the jumper from the box. There was a long moment of painful silence before Crowley said, “Wow.”

“Do you like it?” Aziraphale asked.

“It's...wow.” Crowley did not move as he continued to look at the jumper. “It's really something, Angel.”

“I thought it was dashing,” Aziraphale said. “Do you want to try it on?”

He expected some sort of reaction from Crowley – some sort of rant about crimes against fashion where he got particularly hissy. Instead, Crowley set the jumper on the counter and began shrugging out of his jacket.

He was actually going to wear it.

Crowley must, Aziraphale realized, have figured out the joke and was trying to up the ante. While it wasn't the reaction he'd expected, it could be interesting to see how long the demon could keep this up.

Crowley loosened his tie, then pulled it over his head before it joined his jacket on the counter beside the jumper. He then lifted his present and pulled it on over his head. Letting it settle into place, he smoothed his hair and flashed Aziraphale an almost sheepish smile. “How do I look?”

“Absolutely dashing,” Aziraphale proclaimed, mentally congratulating himself on not laughing. He held out a freshly poured glass of wine. “Drink?”

#good omens #good omens fic #aziraphale #crowley #an ugly Christmas sweater

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violetsystems · 1 year

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#personal

I haven't been doing much of anything except sending out resumes and listing stuff on eBay. The resumes seem to go nowhere but surprisingly everybody wants to buy something at the world's largest garage sale. There's a lot to like about getting rid of shit for cash. I've been on a lifelong mission of downsizing the worthless detritus that has piled up in my life. You should see my friend's list. But part of the madness is dealing with the overhang of depression that nothing seems to get better or change in real life. It's a silent expectation for me t o not rock the boat. To keep upholding a corrupt system of winks, nudges and constant neighborhood surveillance. Never really ever asking my name, how long I've lived here and why people can't seem to remember I exist when it comes time to apologize. I've learned most of the world is like this now. No personal responsibility for anything. Just a joke or a smile for every awkward encounter that seems to violate every nascent idea of human rights you've come to expect in a country that lies a lot. I was buying coffee at the local grocery yesterday. They never have the Bridgeport coffee in the system when you ring it up. So they either have to run and price check it or take your word for it. The cashier asked me if I knew the price and I said 10.99. She said she trusted me. The delivery on the line wasn't sarcastic and I really wasn't lying. Coffee is one of those things that inflation and advertising share a demarcation line with. If you drink it black like I do without sugar then there's a real difference between roast and taste. Starbuck's overr oasts everything to ash. A dark roast from La Colombe is like licking the oil off a tire iron. Blue bottle seems to never fuck up a roast but their twelve ounce bags cost over twenty dollars if you subscribe to it. Close to thirty if you decide to help out the delivery man and go into the store yourself. I've heard it said from people from Taiwan that real culture came from the things that were readily available during dark times. I still walk everywhere in this neighborhood. The Costco is only a few blocks away. The local groceries have their own deals and culture to them. But for the record the only thing I ever do with the money I was awarded from my work as retirement is shop. And with no money coming in from anything because of an apparent blacklisting and social campaign to bury me invisibly? There isn't much to focus on to deal with the depression of being isolated by society for three years and have people online read about it. There's things I'm not unhappy about for sure. And that includes my friendships on the internet. But nobody outside the internet will ever understand them. No matter how many people you put in my way on the way to the grocery store to spy on me.

That's the real anger there. I've written here for almost a decade in some form. There's accounts I've been friends with forever that I don't know beyond Tumblr. And then there's people who just magically pop back into your life like they never lost access with the help of undercover police they get their drugs from. People who literally know every sick nuance and truth behind every lie people say about me. And they just act like it doesn't happen apparently trapped behind the psyche locked in their coke mirror. I don't have problems with people who party responsibly. But we all know how deep people can get wrapped up into the lies, social scenes, and personal hierarchies of cliques and their excesses. Chicago is worse in this respect because it's a trap. No one can leave this police state. The police walk around and lead people on leashes trying to infiltrate your life when they've been actively surveilled trying to fuck it up without a warrant. I've been sitting here for three years while this happened in ways I wrote about, described and even reported to the authorities. And nothing happens. I'm left to infer that democracy and justice don't work. And I look on the tv and am reminded that it doesn't in very downhill displays of shock and horror. What happens when I'm beat unconscious by five police for complaining about them blocking the crosswalk I walk on for the ninth time? I already suffered through dealing with authority and ruin. And I wrote about it here and watched people secretly retaliate against me in public for the shit I just journaled. What is someone from my past going to learn more about other than participating in the gaper's block? You gonna offer me a minimum wage part time job at your store? You gonna sell me black market vape carts because the police told you I was going to the dispensary again. You gonna cry because I'm the only motherfucker who has love enough for reality to tell you that you don't even remotely live in it? Honestly, I am an adult who has seen other adults out here act worse than children. Myco zombies interconnected in a mass of chemicals, bad decisions and a refusal to face themselves in the mirror. I'm not like a lot of people out here. I wake up at five and keep asking questions only to have people actively follow me around like plague ridden rats in the street. None of it makes sense. And all of it just gets messier and messier. They know you are on your way out. And they both want to break you and drain you of cash before you make it. They can't stand to see you escape the wrath of their God. And also want to psychologically manipulate you with the help of tax payer dollars in an effort to address neighborhood violence. All it seems like to me is a fog like hell that I only tolerate because I care about some people in this world. I don't give a fuck about the past or the people out here. I would much rather find a job and move. But instead I'm here draining my retirement being fucked with by cops, gang bangers, and worse. I make due. I pay rent six days before it's due. And I don't have any civil rights to speak of. That's no exaggeration. So why does it persist? Why is it just an inside joke that I'm pretty much the only one going to survive the horror show out there because I stayed away from it? I couldn't bother to write about it to explain it anymore. But it is at its breaking point. And I'm just figuring out cheaper ways to enjoy my coffee in peace.

I've always just been one guy on the internet. When somebody interacts with me in my dash and I wonder? It's just me in my kitchen wondering about it. I don't tell my parents. I don't discuss what it means with my friends in real life. I have no friends I trust in real life anymore. That's their problem not mine. I may talk about it online a week later. But nobody in real life has any access to me emotionally whatsoever. They try and they have an agenda outside of their own personal shit that they compromised on. And I often wonder what kind of desperation would lead someone to believe after all I've written that I'd be interested in giving this situation around here the benefit of the doubt. I don't want to be trapped in America and be disaster porn for some revolutionary dickheads with trust funds. I have a lot of things I could be paid for. I have a twenty three year resume that people ignore everywhere except China. I hear people sit in front of cameras and make promises to people who don't even confront the real world outside of a pundit or television camera. And I just sit here being ignored on one hand. On the other, it gives me a lot of time to focus on people who actually communicate with me. And sometimes communication on here can be a bit nuanced itself. I get that people play their cards close to their chest. I get that I'm going to pay another forty dollars for ad free on Tumblr to avoid being targetted personally by the ads. What people out there don't seem to get is that there is a limit. You can fuck with someone so long before it becomes your albatross. You can talk shit about someone so many years that it becomes the only thing you say. Without my name in your mouth you don't have a point. You are worthless and nothing. You can't even come up with an idea unless you have me as a target to kick around. And that becomes all you are known for. Fucking with me. Your entire life at the end of it flashes before you. And it's all me whinging about how you spent your entire life trying to prove something about me you failed at. And you die right there. With my monotone voice explaining to you I told you so. I was right about me all along. That is confidence motherfucker. And I'm growing ever more confident every day that this is the reality you wish upon yourself wishing ill on me. I am a dead end. Look at me after all these years. You can't even fucking understand three paragraphs written this long. You keep trying to insert yourself into my dialog like you wrote the story. This city is simply a chapter for me. A particularly shitty chapter that leads to an exodus some day of sorts. Where I can write these over coffee across the table from someone. For now, you are in my heart like you always have been. I'm just trying to deal with wasting away. And one day it is going to be too late. For now, there's a lot of gabber records on my shelf to sell. <3 Tim

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talenlee · 1 year

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Story Pile: The Rendezvous

New Post has been published on PRESS.exe: Story Pile: The Rendezvous

In 1976, Claude Lelouch, a french filmmaker, released a short video, about eight minutes long, which showed a single take of an anonymous driver driving ten kilometers through the center of Paris, at an average speed of 80 kilometers/50 miles per hour. You don’t see the car. You don’t hear talking. You don’t get any framing at all for the experience; you start in the car, as it leaves a tunnel, and then you have nothing to do but sit, like a passenger, as the car’s tires squeal, the engine revs, and the driver proceeds to break quite a few laws.

It is a real recording of a real excursion that really broke real laws: speed limits were ignored, eighteen red lights were violated and one-way streets were driven up the wrong way. While there’s no obvious danger to the public on the path, the fact that this was a real thing that was really done, there’s some inherent unpredictability about the things that could have happened, even at 5:30 in the morning in summer, where there’s not a lot of people going through the streets of Paris.

Now obviously, me being me, you might assume I’m pretty okay on some laws being ignored, and there’s definitely a case, though also, rich french dude who could afford a sports car getting away with violating a bunch of car laws isn’t exactly anarchist praxis as much as it is just what we expect. There’s not a lot of Being Gay in this Doing Crimes video. There’s also a potential angle you can take on this video about the way it’s a bit of a magic trick; we only see this version because this is the version where nothing went wrong, and we don’t know how many other versions of it happened, how many other versions of it could have happened, where things were a little different. We know there was a walkie-talkie and a spotter involved, even if it didn’t wind up being a factor, and regardless of the realities of how this video got made, as a text, you don’t get to know anything about that. With such a small, generic diegesis, you could dig into what it means, what the miniscule scrap of text really does explain.

I’m not going to do that, though.

I think this is a speedrun.

When I talked about Speedruns a few years ago, I used the reference to the idea of an etude; a form of composition that existed to not necessarily express some emotional or fictive space in the musical form, but instead to demonstrate and practice technical expertise in a particular element of the music’s construction. There are lots of etudes, which you may, if you hear them in part, think sound like ‘classical music’ in the general way of these things. But etudes are in many cases very much about developing and refining specific skills – there are etudes for specific fingers, practicing particular patterns and timing, all that stuff.

When I talk about media, one of the things I love to do is take older forms of media and connect them to newer ones. When I talk about videogames and recent board games, I do so by drawing a line through them to older games, games that reach back to the 15th century, because we have that information, and because, to me, it’s important to remember that our history is not a unique thing, sprung out of nowhere. We have always been connected to our pasts, and that connection is a long, extensive and complex thing.

The whole point of The Rendezvous is to show off how cool this thing is. It’s a demonstration of a technical skill that’s only capable of demonstration in this one very specific way. It also kind of has to be a real execution and done in this specific way, in a live fire environment, or the things that stop the presentation from being ‘real’ taint the demonstration of the skill. Of course at the same time, that demonstration of skill is absolutely nonsense because no, nobody needs to be able to race through the Paris inner city. It’s a skill executed on entirely to demonstrate that the skill can be executed on.

And of course, it’s also a bunch of crimes and it kind of sucks, because the guy doing it was still doing a thing that presented cars as prominent and all it takes is one pedestrian to make this story a different kind of very minor news story.

This connection to our past, and the importance of this practice as it relates to a past helps to connect us outwards. This was ‘how well can I do this, in a way that I can share it?’ and then you can draw a line from that to other forms of technical, speed-based executions. No wait, that’s too complicated to express, let’s simplify it, so, first up, Chopin invented the Etude, Claude LeLouch made the Rendezvous, then in let’s say 2016, Trevperson invented the Majora’s Mask speedrun, and from there, everything else has kind of happened. Okay, so with that nice simplified history, the point is, that this race, this execution of car-driving-goodness is not, in any way, improved by the involvement of pedestrians. It’s all got the vibe of a sneaky trick, getting away with something.

I’ve seen that too, though! In speedruns, some games resist tricks, sometimes you’ll find this experience where hey, does that work and the answer is not always. Sometimes you’ll get an experience that doesn’t quite work all the same ways every time, and you’re presented with all sorts of strategic needs around it. Does this kill the run? Does it fail early, and if it does, how does it fail early? Does it fail late, and if it fails late, is it failing with a restart? What if the game’s last decision has a 50/50% chance to completely break the run?

It’s a matter of how these things reset. Etudes, you can reset any time, and the question of what you’re practicing tells you where you jump in. A game, you can reset or use save states (for practice) or you can deliberately play your speedrun to create optimised experiences (like tool assisted speedruns).

And that’s pretty cool since it’s a lot better without the risk of, y’know, hitting a pedestrian.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#GDQ2023

#GDQ 2023

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