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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 month

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Twinkfrump Linkdump

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in CHICAGO (Apr 17), Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Welcome to the seventeenth Pluralistic linkdump, a collection of all the miscellany that didn't make it into the week's newsletter, cunningly wrought together in a single edition that ranges from the first ISP to AI nonsense to labor organizing victories to the obituary of a brilliant scientist you should know a lot more about! Here's the other 16 dumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

If you're reading this (and you are!), it was delivered to you by an internet service provider. Today, the ISP industry is calcified, controlled by a handful of telcos and cable companies. But the idea of an "ISP" didn't come out of a giant telecommunications firm – it was created, in living memory, by excellent nerds who are still around.

Depending on how you reckon, The Little Garden was either the first or the second ISP in America. It was named after a Palo Alto Chinese restaurant frequented by its founders. To get a sense of that founding, read these excellent recollections by Tom Jennings, whose contributions include the seminal zine Homocore, the seminal networking protocol Fidonet, and the seminal third-party PC ROM, whence came Dell, Gateway, Compaq, and every other "PC clone" company.

The first installment describes how an informal co-op to network a few friends turned into a business almost by accident, with thousands of dollars flowing in and out of Jennings' bank account:

https://www.sensitiveresearch.com/Archive/TLG/TLG.html

And it describes how that ISP set a standard for neutrality, boldly declaring that "TLGnet exercises no control whatsoever over the content of the information." They introduced an idea of radical transparency, documenting their router configurations and other technical details and making them available to the public. They hired unskilled punk and queer kids from their communities and trained them to operate the network equipment they'd invented, customized or improvised.

In part two, Jennings talks about the evolution of TLG's radical business-plan: to offer unrestricted service, encouraging their customers to resell that service to people in their communities, having no lock-in, unbundling extra services including installation charges – the whole anti-enshittification enchilada:

https://www.sensitiveresearch.com/Archive/TLG/

I love Jennings and his work. I even gave him a little cameo in Picks and Shovels, the third Martin Hench novel, which will be out next winter. He's as lyrical a writer about technology as you could ask for, and he's also a brilliant engineer and thinker.

The Little Garden's founders and early power-users have all fleshed out Jennings' account of the birth of ISPs. Writing on his blog, David "DSHR" Rosenthal rounds up other histories from the likes of EFF co-founder John Gilmore and Tim Pozar:

https://blog.dshr.org/2024/04/the-little-garden.html

Rosenthal describes some of the more exotic shenanigans TLG got up to in order to do end-runs around the Bell system's onerous policies, hacking in the purest sense of the word, for example, by daisy-chaining together modems in regions with free local calling and then making "permanent local calls," with the modems staying online 24/7.

Enshittification came to the ISP business early and hit it hard. The cartel that controls your access to the internet today is a billion light-years away from the principled technologists who invented the industry with an ethos of care, access and fairness. Today's ISPs are bitterly opposed to Net Neutrality, the straightforward proposition that if you request some data, your ISP should send it to you as quickly and reliably as it can.

Instead, ISPs want to offer "slow-lanes" where they will relegate the whole internet, except for those companies that bribe the ISP to be delivered at normal speed. ISPs have a laughably transparent way of describing this: they say that they're allowing services to pay for "fast lanes" with priority access. This is the same as the giant grocery store that charges you extra unless you surrender your privacy with a "loyalty card" – and then says that they're offering a "discount" for loyal customers, rather than charging a premium to customers who don't want to be spied on.

The American business lobby loves this arrangement, and hates Net Neutrality. Having monopolized every sector of our economy, they are extremely fond of "winner take all" dynamics, and that's what a non-neutral ISP delivers: the biggest services with the deepest pockets get the most reliable delivery, which means that smaller services don't just have to be better than the big guys, they also have to be able to outbid them for "priority carriage."

If everything you get from your ISP is slow and janky, except for the dominant services, then the dominant services can skimp on quality and pocket the difference. That's the goal of every monopolist – not just to be too big to fail, but also too big to care.

Under the Trump administration, FCC chair Ajit Pai dismantled the Net Neutrality rule, colluding with American big business to rig the process. They accepted millions of obviously fake anti-Net Neutrality comments (one million identical comments from @pornhub.com addresses, comments from dead people, comments from sitting US Senators who support Net Neutrality) and declared open season on American internet users:

https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-issues-report-detailing-millions-fake-comments-revealing

Now, Biden's FCC is set to reinstate Net Neutrality – but with a "compromise" that will make mobile internet (which nearly all of use sometimes, and the poorest of us are reliant on) a swamp of anticompetitive practices:

https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2024/04/harmful-5g-fast-lanes-are-coming-fcc-needs-stop-them

Under the proposed rule, mobile carriers will be able to put traffic to and from apps in the slow lane, and then extort bribes from preferred apps for normal speed and delivery. They'll rely on parts of the 5G standard to pull off this trick.

The ISP cartel and the FCC insist that this is fine because web traffic won't be degraded, but of course, every service is hellbent on pushing you into using apps instead of the web. That's because the web is an open platform, which means you can install ad- and privacy-blockers. More than half of web users have installed a blocker, making it the largest boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But reverse-engineering and modding an app is a legal minefield. Just removing the encryption from an app can trigger criminal penalties under Section 1201 of the DMCA, carrying a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine. An app is just a web-page skinned in enough IP that it's a felony to mod it.

Apps are enshittification's vanguard, and the fact that the FCC has found a way to make them even worse is perversely impressive. They're voting on this on April 25, and they have until April 24 to fix this. They should. They really should:

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-401676A1.pdf

In a just world, cheating ripoff ISPs would the top tech policy story. The operational practices of ISPs effect every single one us. We literally can't talk about tech policy without ISPs in the middle. But Net Neutrality is an also-ran in tech policy discourse, while AI – ugh ugh ugh – is the thing none of us can shut up about.

This, despite the fact that the most consequential AI applications sum up to serving as a kind of moral crumple-zone for shitty business practices. The point of AI isn't to replace customer service and other low-paid workers who have taken to demanding higher wages and better conditions – it's to fire those workers and replace them with chatbots that can't do their jobs. An AI salesdroid can't sell your boss a bot that can replace you, but they don't need to. They only have to convince your boss that the bot can do your job, even if it can't.

SF writer Karl Schroeder is one of the rare sf practitioners who grapples seriously with the future, a "strategic foresight" guy who somehow skirts the bullshit that is the field's hallmark:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/07/the-gernsback-continuum/#wheres-my-jetpack

Writing on his blog, Schroeder describes the AI debates roiling the Association of Professional Futurists, and how it's sucking him into being an unwilling participant in the AI hype cycle:

https://kschroeder.substack.com/p/dragged-into-the-ai-hype-cycle

Schroeder's piece is a thoughtful meditation on the relationship of SF's thought-experiments and parables about AI to the promises of AI hucksters, who promise that a) "general artificial intelligence" is just around the corner and that b) it will be worth trillions of dollars.

Schroeder – like other sf writers including Ted Chiang and Charlie Stross (and me) – comes to the conclusion that AI panic isn't about AI, it's about power. The artificial life-form devouring the planet and murdering our species is the limited liability corporation, and its substrate isn't silicon, it's us, human bodies:

What’s lying underneath all our anxieties about AGI is an anxiety that has nothing to do with Artificial Intelligence. Instead, it’s a manifestation of our growing awareness that our world is being stolen from under us. Last year’s estimate put the amount of wealth currently being transferred from the people who made it to an idle billionaire class at $5.2 trillion. Artificial General Intelligence whose environment is the server farms and sweatshops of this class is frightening only because of its capacity to accelerate this greatest of all heists.

After all, the business-case for AI is so very thin that the industry can only survive on a torrent of hype and nonsense – like claims that Amazon's "Grab and Go" stores used "AI" to monitor shoppers and automatically bill them for their purchases. In reality, the stores used thousands of low-paid Indian workers to monitor cameras and manually charge your card. This happens so often that Indian technologists joke that "AI" stands for "absent Indians":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

Isn't it funny how all the really promising AI applications are in domains that most of us aren't qualified to assess? Like the claim that Google's AI was producing millions of novel materials that will shortly revolutionize all forms of production, from construction to electronics to medical implants:

https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/millions-of-new-materials-discovered-with-deep-learning/

That's what Google's press-release claimed, anyway. But when two groups of experts actually pulled a representative sample of these "new materials" from the Deep Mind database, they found that none of these materials qualified as "credible, useful and novel":

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemmater.4c00643

Writing about the researchers' findings for 404 Media, Jason Koebler cites Berkeley researchers who concluded that "no new materials have been discovered":

https://www.404media.co/google-says-it-discovered-millions-of-new-materials-with-ai-human-researchers/

The researchers say that AI data-mining for new materials is promising, but falls well short of Google's claim to be so transformative that it constitutes the "equivalent to nearly 800 years’ worth of knowledge" and "an order-of-magnitude expansion in stable materials known to humanity."

AI hype keeps the bubble inflating, and for so long as it keeps blowing up, all those investors who've sunk their money into AI can tell themselves that they're rich. This is the essence of "a bezzle": "The magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

Among the best debezzlers of AI are the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy's Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, who edit the "AI Snake Oil" blog. Now, they've sold a book with the same title:

https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/ai-snake-oil-is-now-available-to

Obviously, books move a lot more slowly than blogs, and so Narayanan and Kapoor say their book will focus on the timeless elements of identifying and understanding AI snake oil:

In the book, we explain the crucial differences between types of AI, why people, companies, and governments are falling for AI snake oil, why AI can’t fix social media, and why we should be far more worried about what people will do with AI than about anything AI will do on its own. While generative AI is what drives press, predictive AI used in criminal justice, finance, healthcare, and other domains remains far more consequential in people’s lives. We discuss in depth how predictive AI can go wrong. We also warn of the dangers of a world where AI continues to be controlled by largely unaccountable big tech companies.

The book's out in September and it's up for pre-order now:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/ai-snake-oil-what-artificial-intelligence-can-do-what-it-can-t-and-how-to-tell-the-difference-arvind-narayanan/21324674

One of the weirder and worst side-effects of the AI hype bubble is that it has revived the belief that it's somehow possible for giant platforms to monitor all their users' speech and remove "harmful" speech. We've tried this for years, and when humans do it, it always ends with disfavored groups being censored, while dedicated trolls, harassers and monsters evade punishment:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/como-is-infosec/

AI hype has led policy-makers to believe that we can deputize online services to spy on all their customers and block the bad ones without falling into this trap. Canada is on the verge of adopting Bill C-63, a "harmful content" regulation modeled on examples from the UK and Australia.

Writing on his blog, Canadian lawyer/activist/journalist Dimitri Lascaris describes the dire speech implications for C-63:

https://dimitrilascaris.org/2024/04/08/trudeaus-online-harms-bill-threatens-free-speech/

It's an excellent legal breakdown of the bill's provisions, but also a excellent analysis of how those provisions are likely to play out in the lives of Canadians, especially those advocating against genocide and taking other positions the that oppose the agenda of the government of the day.

Even if you like the Trudeau government and its policies, these powers will accrue to every Canadian government, including the presumptive (and inevitably, totally unhinged) near-future Conservative majority government of Pierre Poilievre.

It's been ten years since Martin Gilens and Benjamin I Page published their paper that concluded that governments make policies that are popular among elites, no matter how unpopular they are among the public:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

Now, this is obviously depressing, but when you see it in action, it's kind of wild. The Biden administration has declared war on junk fees, from "resort fees" charged by hotels to the dozens of line-items added to your plane ticket, rental car, or even your rent check. In response, Republican politicians are climbing to their rear haunches and, using their actual human mouths, defending junk fees:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-04-12-republicans-objectively-pro-junk-fee/

Congressional Republicans are hell-bent on destroying the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau's $8 cap on credit-card late-fees. Trump's presumptive running-mate Tim Scott is making this a campaign plank: "Vote for me and I will protect your credit-card company's right to screw you on fees!" He boasts about the lobbyists who asked him to take this position: champions of the public interest from the Consumer Bankers Association to the US Chamber of Commerce.

Banks stand to lose $10b/year from this rule (which means Americans stand to gain $10b/year from this rule). What's more, Scott's attempt to kill the rule is doomed to fail – there's just no procedural way it will fly. As David Dayen writes, "Not only does this vote put Republicans on the spot over junk fees, it’s a doomed vote, completely initiated by their own possible VP nominee."

This is an hilarious own-goal, one that only brings attention to a largely ignored – but extremely good – aspect of the Biden administration. As Adam Green of Bold Progressives told Dayen, "What’s been missing is opponents smoking themselves out and raising the volume of this fight so the public knows who is on their side."

The CFPB is a major bright spot in the Biden administration's record. They're doing all kind of innovative things, like making it easy for you to figure out which bank will give you the best deal and then letting you transfer your account and all its associated data, records and payments with a single click:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/let-my-dollars-go/#personal-financial-data-rights

And now, CFPB chair Rohit Chopra has given a speech laying out the agency's plan to outlaw data-brokers:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/prepared-remarks-of-cfpb-director-rohit-chopra-at-the-white-house-on-data-protection-and-national-security/

Yes, this is some good news! There is, in fact, good news in the world, bright spots amidst all the misery and terror. One of those bright spots? Labor.

Unions are back, baby. Not only do the vast majority of Americans favor unions, not only are new shops being unionized at rates not seen in generations, but also the largest unions are undergoing revolutions, with control being wrestled away from corrupt union bosses and given to the rank-and-file.

Many of us have heard about the high-profile victories to take back the UAW and Teamsters, but I hadn't heard about the internal struggles at the United Food and Commercial Workers, not until I read Hamilton Nolan's gripping account for In These Times:

https://inthesetimes.com/article/revolt-aisle-5-ufcw-grocery-workers-union

Nolan profiles Faye Guenther, president of UFCW Local 3000 and her successful and effective fight to bring a militant spirit back to the union, which represents a million grocery workers. Nolan describes the fight as "every bit as dramatic as any episode of Game of Thrones," and he's not wrong. This is an inspiring tale of working people taking power away from scumbag monopoly bosses and sellout fatcat leaders – and, in so doing, creating a institution that gets better wages, better working conditions, and a better economy, by helping to block giant grocery mergers like Kroger/Albertsons.

I like to end these linkdumps on an up note, so it feels weird to be closing out with an obituary, but I'd argue that any celebration of the long life and many accomplishments of my friend and mentor Anne Innis Dagg is an "up note."

I last wrote about Anne in 2020, on the release of a documentary about her work, "The Woman Who Loved Giraffes":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/19/pluralist-19-feb-2020/#annedagg

As you might have guessed from the title of that doc, Anne was a biologist. She was the first woman scientist to do field-work on giraffes, and that work was so brilliant and fascinating that it kicked off the modern field of giraffology, which remains a woman-dominated specialty thanks to her tireless mentoring and support for the scientists that followed her.

Anne was also the world's most fearsome slayer of junk-science "evolutionary psychology," in which "scientists" invent unfalsifiable just-so stories that prove that some odious human characteristic is actually "natural" because it can be found somewhere in the animal kingdom (i.e., "Darling, please, it's not my fault that I'm fucking my grad students, it's the bonobos!").

Anne wrote a classic – and sadly out of print – book about this that I absolutely adore, not least for having one of the best titles I've ever encountered: "Love of Shopping" Is Not a Gene:

https://memex.craphound.com/2009/11/04/love-of-shopping-is-not-a-gene-exposing-junk-science-and-ideology-in-darwinian-psychology/

Anne was my advisor at the University of Waterloo, an institution that denied her tenure for fifty years, despite a brilliant academic career that rivaled that of her storied father, Harold Innis ("the thinking person's Marshall McLuhan"). The fact that Waterloo never recognized Anne is doubly shameful when you consider that she was awarded the Order of Canada:

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/queen-of-giraffes-among-new-order-of-canada-recipients-with-global-influence

Anne lived a brilliant live, struggling through adversity, never compromising on her principles, inspiring a vast number of students and colleagues. She lived to ninety one, and died earlier this month. Her ashes will be spread "on the breeding grounds of her beloved giraffes" in South Africa this summer:

https://obituaries.therecord.com/obituary/anne-innis-dagg-1089534658

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/13/goulash/#material-misstatement

Image: Valeva1010 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hungarian_Goulash_Recipe.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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lazywitchling · 5 months

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The Three-but-actually-Six Card Spread

I vote that we call this one Schrodinger's Spread, because I don't know whether I'm gonna draw three or six until I've already pulled the cards.

So, I used to try to do the usual three card spread. You know the one. Every tarot book lists it as Past Present Future, unless you have a quirky deck, and then they've probably rebranded it as something else. You can find lists of three card spreads with different questions to ask. IT'S A WHOLE THING. There's like. a whole three-card-spread industry or something. But anyway: it always confused me.

I am absolutely not a tarot expert. I put down three cards, and then I can stare at it for an hour going "I have no idea what this means." The standard guidebook keywords float through my head, but I wasn't sure how to make an actual READ out of that.

I started following @unhelpfultarot, who is anything but unhelpful. Seeing the daily two card pull and the way that the two cards are connected into (usually) a single sentence made the lightbulb come on. "Oh THAT'S how you do it!" So I started just reading two cards at a time, but as a single unit, like Lenormand. And once I got a handle on that, I started adding the third card back in. Then I'd have two pairs of cards to read! 1>2 and 2>3.

Well, at some point, I was like "Hey what happens if I put a card down below those three, and used that as a sort of connection-between-them card?"

So now it looks like this:

1 2 3 4 5

Where "4" is not its own answer, it's just what connects 1 and 2. The same thing for 5: it just connects 2 and 3 without being its own answer.

WELL, then I'm looking at that, and I said "Hey, now I've generated another pair, so I can lay down ANOTHER card to connect those two!

1 2 3 4 5 6

"Hey, Jes? That's... that's a six card spread..."

Shhhhhhhhh. Who asked you.

"Crow did."

Hush, imaginary reader.

Anyway, so now what I've got is the original read, the three most important cards, 1 2 3. And btw, this whole thing is usually to answer ONE SINGLE QUESTION, because-- actually, @windvexer explains it better than I can here. (HEY. YOU. DON'T SKIP THAT LINK, ACTUALLY CLICK IT, THANK YOU.)

So what I have now is one question that is answered by a sentence (1-2-3), with two cards that don't tell me NEW information but that tell me what each pair is saying to each other (4 and 5), with a final one that's sort of a TL;DR card (6).

"Jes. That is a six card spread."

CORRECT, and as @upthewitchypunx and others have said, if I were charging money for this, yes absolutely this is a six card spread, and you're not getting it for 50% off.

BUT HERE'S HOW THE WHOLE THING HAPPENS IN A REAL WORLD SCENARIO

I pick up my tarot deck. I think "I'm going to do a three card reading." I pull three cards, lay them down, read. If they make sense, cool, I put them away and move on.

If I get confused though, then it's upside-down pyramid time, and I'll lay down the other three. This either results in "Ohhhhhh okay, THAT'S what it's saying," or I confuse myself EVEN more (which is very easy to do).

In that case, it's still living in my head as a three-card-spread, because that's the important part that I'm actually reading. But if I set out to pull the inverted pyramid from the get-go, then it's a six-card-spread.

This is where I'm legally obliged to put PREMEDITATED in all caps for @friend-crow

My joking answer, which wasn't FULLY a joke, is that nothing I do is premeditated. I don't MEAN for there to be six cards, but here they are now, and I've got more important questions than "is this still a three-card-spread or is it now a six-card-spread?"

At that point it's like the tarot equivalent of "Is a hot dog a sandwich" and would just trip me up when I'm just trying to eat a hot dog. The answer is "WHO CARES! I got things to do."

(@asksecularwitch 'cause you also had thinky thoughts about all this, and I wanted you to see the upside down pyramid!)

#schrodinger's tarot spread

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phoenixyfriend · 7 months

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The Myth of the Rational Actor

Ko-fi prompt from @vincentursus:

the myth of the rational actor please?

The myth as such: people will act in a perfectly rational manner, and the economy will respond in reaction to that.

So... the idea here is that emotions will never influence someone's actions in making economic choices.

Which is, as we can guess, bullshit.

To quote Medium,

Mainstream (neo-classical) economics idealizes human beings as perfectly rational actors when it comes to making decisions. This concept, known as rational choice theory, is based on three assumptions: 1. People have complete and consistent preferences (which can be assigned quantitative values called utilities) among a set of decision outcomes 2. People act independently based on full and relevant information 3. People always select the decision option that maximizes their utility.

So. That's absurd. Let's start from the bottom, utility.

One of the first things you learn in any marketing class is that half the industry is run on an appeal to emotion.

(The other half of it actually is an appeal to logic, like 'you can use this tool to compare your insurance costs,' which is the aforementioned rational action.)

The most obvious example of that utility element being wrong is: Food.

For a completely rational actor, the food purchased would be the most nutrition for the least cost. Taste is irrelevant. Ambience is irrelevant. Occasion is irrelevant. You fill out the food pyramid for whatever you can pay the least amount of cash. Buy a fifty pound bag of rice, wholesale canned tuna, and frozen veggie mixes that you only need five minutes to heat up and consume.

Chocolate? No. Salt or sugar? Only enough to fulfill your need for water absorption. Spices? Waste of money!

This sounds extreme, because a complete lack of emotional impact on your purchasing habits is extreme. You seek things that make you happy or pleased. You search for sweet tastes that cheer you up, for fatty tastes that satisfy you, for spicy flavors that you can eat in a competition with your friends to prove who's the manliest.

That's not rational! But we do it! Food is an inherently irrational thing to purchase, unless you are so strapped for cash that you cannot afford to be anything other than fully dedicated to the highest calorie:dollar ratio that you can find.

The other thing that the utility factor disregards is charity. On the standard 'rational' definition used in economics, charity is completely irrational for anyone who doesn't get a tax cut from it.

But people engage in charitable actions and donations anyway.

Full and relevant information: Uhhhhh no

I think we can all agree that full and relevant information is not actually a reality for most people.

Manufacturers bend the truth. Marketers omit things. Word of mouth is unreliable. Influencers lie. Online reviews are fake.

Some don't! But you don't know who is or isn't lying unless there is a law that controls what information they can put out. Researching takes time, and figuring out which lies are actually lies is difficult.

There are a lot of videos all over YouTube talking about scams, both the obvious, and the more subtle. There's a reason that misinformation is such a huge industry these days, and hey! A lot of misinformation relies on those aforementioned appeals to emotion that are both a marketing device and a rhetorical one.

Complete and consistent preferences: Sometimes?

I mean, some people have complete and consistent preferences. I have a favorite Starbucks drink that I get most times (technically I have four and it depends on the weather). I have stylistic preferences for my clothing. I have musical preferences.

But it still takes me time to make decisions when at a restaurant, you know? My little sister likes a lot of foods, sure, but if you ask her to pick a place to eat it can take literal hours. Hell, there are entire phenomenons named after the fact that people don't have preferences and have trouble making decisions!

And on top of all that, you have people whose 'preference' is spontaneity. They pick whatever they haven't tried before, because it's new, and exciting, and that's cool!

Which really harshes the mellow on that whole "clear and consistent preferences" thing.

Where does that leave us?

Well, the rational actor is clearly a majorly inaccurate standard to hold individual consumers and the market to. That said, I don't think more than a handful of very extreme people would ever claim that the rational actor is an absolutely perfect predictor for the market.

Rather, it's used as a starting point. If the market reacts to forces in a completely rational manner, here is what we would be expecting. Then, upon projecting the actions of the market under the most rational and perfect conditions, we can apply other possible factors. The possible success of a marketing campaign. The risks of weather or politics impacting supply lines. An unexpected trend rising up from a comedic social media moment among teens and young people.

Imagine you have a catapult. Imagine you know what the catapult will do under perfect conditions, with consistent rope length and artillery weight and weather conditions. The numbers you run your basic physics class formulas with are the rational actor.

The market trends that cause that rational prediction to have error margins is the equivalent of "the wind's been varying between 3mph and 9mph, and from NW to SWW."

I'm not sure how safely I can get away with embedding images that I don't personally have the rights to when they're actually relevant to the education portion of this, and not just a silly joke like the TGP inclusion up there, so I'll just tell you to go look at the first graph at this link, and you'll see what I mean about the 'best, most predictable case' line vs the 'actual possibilities' forecast.

Hope that helps!

(If you wanted me to go more into the history of this concept than its actual uses, uh... whoops?)

#economics #economic forecasts #capitalism #phoenix talks #ko fi #ko fi prompts #research #rational actor #myth of the rational actor

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velvet-vox · 9 days

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My Top 10 Favourite Male Villains of all time.

"How arrogant of you to think that any of us are anything but irrelevant". -John Greer, Person of Interest (2011-2016).

There comes a moment in a blog's life where some things are just long overdue, and while the argument could be made that this happened way too early, I'd say that as long as this helps me to find my groove, I am free to experiment as much as I want.

So..... Villains.

Gotta love them. As long as I do not meet them in real life. This post is in particular about male villains since I have one dedicated to their female counterparts in the pipeline so expect that to come soon enough and for this part to be rewritten. By the way, "villain" is a generalisation, I can totally put antivillains, antagonists or more general antiheroes in this list; your definition of "Bad Guy" can vary greatly and so can mine, someone like Walter White from Breaking Bad could have made it in here. My taste is very unusual, so prepare yourself for some unexpected picks.

Also, since these are meant to be some big celebratory posts, for the occasion I'll reveal my Italian heritage and translate every line of dialogue in Italian and publish it separately with a link, so that English readers who are learning Italian can exercise.

But first, some honourable mentions:

Oropo (Wakfu): Once you see the number 2 spot for both this list and the female villains list you might notice a certain pattern regarding my personal preferences when it comes to which characters I tend to gravitate towards the most, but while we're just talking about this guy, I cannot stress enough the amount of wasted potential that lies within his concepts and execution. Really needed two seasons of 25 episodes each to explore it to their maximum.

Tai Lung (Kung Fu Panda): Really like him, but not as much as others, I'll explain it better in one of the entries of my villainesses list. Also, unironically I feel like he's too sympathetic for his own sake and the movie's.

Bill Chyper (Gravity Falls): It's been way too long since I watched Gravity Falls, I really can't give you an accurate opinion on this guy anymore.

Flintheart Glomgold (DuckTales 2017): That season 2 episode. If you know what I'm talking about, you KNOW. Also the music for that whole sequence was a banger, really driving home the deranged nature of that twist reveal.

Big Jack Horner (Puss in Boots The Last Wish): I feel like when people praise Jack for being a breath of fresh air in a stale environment, they often forget just how good of a villain he was in his own right without the larger industry wide void of truly devious antagonists that act out of pure malice.

The Wolf (Puss in Boots The Last Wish): Two villain entries from one movie? Of course it was gonna be The Last Wish, what else could it be? Honestly I don't even wanna talk about this guy, you need to experience the movie for yourself.

Rob (The Amazing World of Gumball): Everything I have to say about this guy gets talked about much better by the number 6 Spot on this list, but as it stands Rob was my first villain OTP and the guy who opened the box of Pandora for me on what an antagonist could and should be, since then my perception of villainy only widened and now I enjoy their role in a story in much different way.

And now, with that out of the way, let's finally start with the ranking of my personal favourite male villains of all time.

Major spoilers down below:

Number 10: Silco (Arcane)

This guy is the reason that brought me to specify who or what counted for this list as trying to simplify Silco into one specific group of characters is a challenge that can only end in a misunderstanding of what makes Silco such a complex and fascinating character with an amazing character arc, that ends with him not being redeemed, mind you, but allows the audience to grieve in such a way that would make a side character death jealous.

When writing an antagonistic character, Silco is my goal and high standard, and just for that he deserves all of my respect and endless praise.

Now, admittedly, Silco's arc takes a while to kick in, but it works out to his advantage by the end of it since you don't realise just how much you've grown to care for him until he's dead and you're left with the surprise.

10 out 10, the nation of Zaun would have been much better (worse) with him than with Vander.

Number 9: The Riddler (DC)

The Riddler is literally my ride or die villain, when I'm in the mood for him, he's literally my favourite antagonist ever; when I am not in the mood for him, I completely forget about his existence.

When compared to many other entries on this list, Riddler is definitely more on the pop culture side of antagonism, and when you've been around for almost a century, you tend to have many different versions of the same character written by different writers, so I wanted to highlight here my favourite versions of him:

Arkham Games: He's hilarious. He's not my ideal Riddler, but whenever he comes on screen, his whiny rat's ass voice stimulates my pheromones.

Batman The Animated Series: I've heard somewhere that this version of him is disappointing, and to that I'll say... yeah, but only when he wasn't on screen, because otherwise, he kind of slayed.

Matt Reeves The Batman: This is the version that rekindled my love for him after so long. Out of every interpretation of The Riddler throughout the years, this is the one version that treated Edward more as a character rather than an obstacle for Batman to overcome, and for that I'll be eternally grateful.

LEGO Batman The Videogame: My very first introduction to The Riddler and the Batman universe as a whole, this version has a permanent place in my heart , I love how much information and emotion you can get out of him by just looking at his mannerisms and quirks alone; unironically, being silent helps him reach that quote on quote idealised version of Riddler that I was talking about earlier.

Number 8: The Snatcher (A Hat In Time)

There are many things that can carry on a villain in a story, their evolution, stage presence, complexity, thematic contrast to their counterpart, and so on and so forth. While an antagonist can check off many of these boxes simultaneously (like the one pictured), there's one box that is almost impossible to truly nail perfectly: comedy.

You see, comedy is subjective, and when your main antagonist is also the funniest part of a given story, it becomes hard to also match a sense of gravity and menace that allows them to also be an imposing threat, even harder is to give said antagonist depth and a tragic backstory.

But somehow, out of nowhere, The Snatcher from A Hat In Time manages to simultaneously be the funniest character in his section of the game, carrie said energy throughout the whole experience even down to the DLC, simultaneously strikes the balance between being scary, wholesome, sympathetic and tragic, exude an insane amount of charisma, all while having a deeply disturbing backstory that touches on some heavy themes and re contextualises his actions into something more complicated and out of a broken man, everything I just said + he's the biggest bastard in his videogame and never repents nor does he have his actions called out.

Snatcher really has all the right cards that make a stationary character work and uses them to his maximum potential, and it works because his character arc throughout the game is more about becoming affectionate to Hat Kid than it is about redeeming himself.

Lastly, his voice actor, Luke Sizemore, aka Yungtown, really sells the performance of this devious soul eating worm and burns his catchphrases into your brain for the rest of eternity.

Fool.

Number 7: Judge Claude Frollo (Hunchback of Notre Dame)

You can never say no to a classic.

There's nothing that I could say that hasn't already been said by thousands of videos on YouTube, but I'll try anyway: you see, Frollo is the reason why we need a new term to identify certain villains that aren't "sympathetic" but still make you feel some sort of human emotion and a form of "I wish someone could give you the care you need to fix your life", I guess the term empathetic exists, but when do you really see it used?

Now, don't get me wrong, Frollo is absolutely not sympathetic in the slightest, he wants to r##e a Romani woman that's way younger than him, but you can still feel that he's very troubled about it in the Hellfire scene and has definitely a lot of unidentified issues and internalised bigotry that could be worked through, even if it's too late to work through them right now.

In general, I feel like people forget that the main reason why past Disney villains worked had to do more with their human traits juxtaposed to their malice rather than just their plain wickedness, otherwise the Horned King from the Black Cauldron would be top of the Disney villains league and that couldn't be further from the truth.

We should really strive towards writing more villains like Frollo, less omnipotent beings that end up falling flat because they don't have much thematic relevance aside from being a threat (Bill Chyper works because he represents Ego and he's used sparingly) and more average vicious individuals who use their power and influence to get what they want.

All in all, if you've seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame, then you know why this guy is here.

Number 6: The Spot (Spider-man across the Spiderverse)

"You've hit me with a bagel!" It's still the greatest villain origin story of all time. There's truly something maniacal about this reveal, like the entire universe was shattered and reality was shocked at the mere realization that while Miles was having his coming of age moment back in the first film, this guy was having his normal life completely and utterly shattered by a combination of both our heroes stepping up to do the right thing and our doofus lack of foresight and self reflection; all of this stuff is hilarious and completely made up for the film but good god they did such an amazing job tying all the elements together in an unexpected way that makes sense and parallels the journey that our protagonist faced in the first movie.

Like with Rob from The Amazing World of Gumball, and a little bit like number 2 on this list, I just really enjoy the concept of turning background characters who had no relevance whatsoever into the big bad of the story who's been there all along and the heroes (and the audience) just couldn't notice.

With The Spot in particular, there's that sense of satisfaction of turning the wasted potential of a villain who has been underestimated for literal decades and treated as a "villain of the week" (God do I love the meta narrative of this movie) into an actual competent, well written antagonist that is aware of his reputation and strives towards bettering himself and his powers.

He's also the funniest character of his movie too and the voice acting of Jason Schwartzman only accentuates his mannerisms and pettyness.

He also has the coolest usage of portals I have ever seen and his whole "There's a hole inside all of us" is simultaneously hilarious and very deep personal information that can only be understood if you put yourself into his shoes.

Number 5: Lord Shen (Kung Fu Panda)

"Happiness must be taken. And I'll take mine"

.....

What a character.

What a movie.

You cause so much pain and suffering, because you don't understand the people around you, and then those people banish you, and you can't understand why, so you start to believe that they hated you.

They never loved you, so you keep causing pain and suffering but it's not that easy anymore; the guilt starts to resurface, all those bodies keep piling up, but you can't stop because then it would have all been for nothing; so you keep chasing those dreams of grandeur because that's all you have left; the emptiness in your heart can no longer be filled by love, so you try to fill it with something else.

You try to fill it with power. You try to fill it with glory. You try to take everything else for yourself so that you can fill that cup, but it doesn't work, because that cup has no bottom.

And so you're left... with yourself.

And the damage you've done. But now it's different; you've failed. You are left with nothing. Nothing.

And so you outrage, for the last time... And then it all ends. Forever. And you've finally come to accept this, after all....... Who could ever love you?

Number 4: Spamton G Spamton (Deltarune)

You know, in retrospect, it's kind of insane what Toby Fox managed to achieve when creating Spamton.

Not only because Spamton feels like the most insane combination of ideas ever conceived, but also because Toby Fox created such a complex character with such a complicated language and personality and then not only shafted it all aside for the players to go out of their way to interact, but also made all of this in what are officially 2 or 3 cutscenes at most (4 if you consider his shop encounter as one) and only one of them being truly mandatory.

You spend so little time with Spamton, and most of that time is spent fighting him, and yet by the end of it you've become enlightened by the knowledge of him, that after a while... you forget how scary it all was.

All the memes comparing Spamton with Turbo are 100% correct and justified, Spamton truly is Turbo but better; you go through an insane rollercoaster of emotions with this character that you are left absolutely dumbfounded when it all comes to a stop and you go back to play the rest of chapter 2 normally.

I'll admit, I've considered putting Spamton in place of the Number 3 spot on this list; but then I've realised that on an objective level, the next entry totally deserves to be ranked above Spamton; plus, with at least 5 more chapters of Deltarune on our way, whose to say that one of the next gremlins won't be able to dethrone even the number 1 spot?

Drumroll for our top 3:

Nox, the Watchmaker (Wakfu)

There will never be another experience in my life as cathartic as watching the first season of Wakfu for the first time ever again.

On a later rewatch, the initial problems of the problems you've noticed throughout the season become too apparent to ignore, but the first time everything that goes from the tournament to the finale is one of the best paced arcs of television, and everything that happens when the team reaches the Sadida kingdom is just peak Wakfu.

And the king, the culprit, the crown jewel of properly paced stories and arcs is no other than the sad clockwork dilf himself: Noximilliem Coxen the Watchmaker.

Arguably, the greatest sympathetic villain of all time. There has never been another case of a character who has committed such vile, unspeakable crimes, and yet still managed to make me root for them while simultaneously not putting down the heroes.

And let's not be mistaken here, Nox is pretty evil:

Aside from the generic murder, Nox also defiled and stitched together the corpses of multiple victims and turned them into his obedient puppets in order to commit even more murder and genocide in order to achieve his goals.

Also, this is one of the funniest crimes Nox has committed: he abused his dog. It's really not that funny nor that important in the context of the show, but if you look back at it from my perspective then it's really like: Oh yeah. That happened too. Lol.

By the way, he fixes the one problem I had with Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda, where he's too sympathetic of an antagonist for Western audiences, so the writers had to go out of their way to make him more evil than he really was and that's why in retrospect his death scene really sucked, but with Nox his defeat may actually be the best part of his entire arc and I want a One Villainous Scene video with the "20 minutes" scene.

Words alone cannot do justice to the treacherous, gut wrenching emotional rollercoaster that is experiencing his story for the first time. An hour long video essay would only serve to cover the basics and fundamentals, while for the real deal you need to watch the first season of Wakfu for yourself.

Number 2:

Bradford Buzzard (DuckTales 2017)

And now it's the perfect time to pull out my final wild card, the hole of the sink of my autism, the masterpiece of wasted potential that is Bradford Buzzard from the DuckTales remake of 2017.

When you'll also see the number 2 spot on my villainesses list, you'll come to realise that this spot is more of the "I really wish I could put this at number one but I can't because objectively he doesn't deserve it and the majority of things I love about him in canon were probably an afterthought and in fanon were never plausible to begin with."

And that's how I feel about Bradford Buzzard, an antagonist I spent more time thinking about than probably anybody else on the Earth.

The show runners were so genius for this: we are going to create an original character that will probably struggle to maintain a foot print on the franchise due to the way the Duck verse works, we'll give him an insanely cool backstory and motivation, all coupled with interesting character traits and ideology, we'll make him the ultimate foil to Scrooge McDuck that has been working with him for literal decades, we'll make him the one who has got the closest to isolating Scrooge and destroying his family, and THEN we'll turn him into a generic anime villain that shoots lasers and fumbles his own plan and loses because of insane plot armour and contrivance. Good job writers.

And now, for the one and only,

Number 1:

(Note: I specifically chose this picture to avoid spoilers)

Qilby (Wakfu)

Boy oh boy, where do I even begin with this guy, he's the first Wakfu related post I've made on this blog for a good reason, nothing can compare to the level of bastardy that this thumb sucking old fart is capable of putting you through.

If Nox is the single greatest sympathetic villain of all time, then Qilby is by far the greatest twist villain of all time, and the crazy thing is that he surprises you two times in a row, at first by revealing himself as more evil than you could ever imagine, and the second time by being more complex than you could have ever anticipated.

Let me paint you the picture: you just finished the first season of Wakfu after being drawn towards the show by the hype surrounding Nox, so you think to yourself "Oh, now there won't be any more thought provoking, well written antagonists" and you start the second season.

So far, everything is normal, even better of the first season in terms of engagement value, but you can't help but feel the lack of a Nox like figure inside of the story, but at this point, you just accept it.

Then the final six episodes roll around and OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING, HAS THE WHOLE SHOW JUST GONE INSANE? ( The answer being that it was insane from the start)

But hey.

That's just Qilby for you.

Good job, you old sad bunny man.

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maxwellatoms · 7 months

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After seeing multiple B&M drawings you’ve recently posted, what was it like drawing with coloured pencils before adding refined lines, I bet scanning them was the tricky part to maintain the quality. Was that kind of a standard when drawing characters as animation frames or illustrations in the industry back then?

Personally, I really find that approach more traditionally appealing to do on paper, compared to drawing digitally on a tablet which honestly can feel awkward, but that’s just me I guess.

We actually had "nonphoto blue" pencils that wouldn't (typically) pick up on a scanner or xerox machine. I would always try to lock things down more with a 2-4B pencil before passing them on to the cleanup artists.

#nonphoto blue #old animator tricks

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louisisalarrie · 1 month

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i guess he’ll have to stop singing “i love him, i hate it” then. who else would it be about? simon cowell? like please.

This whole thing is weird, everything about it.

yep! Such an obviously timed denial that it’s basically transparent. I will reiterate my points here again, because this has frustrated me dearly as someone who is actively in the industry and has seen successful pr stunts and coverups. His team can’t crack the larries tho.

1. Timing - pre recorded denial dropped for promo as he left LATAM to go MIA before going back to tour in a few weeks + everyone will cool off by then

2. Urgency - there are no current media publications or any GP chats suggesting Louis and Harry are together, and there hasn’t been for a long time now, so there’s no damage control to be done (unless something hasn’t come out yet and it’s in preparation for said thing, BUA perhaps)

3. Content - drops the “my son Freddie” during it as well, boosting that stunt because it’s been pretty quiet since AOTV and a couple of tweets ages ago. again, no explicit denial and poor body language

4. Blacklisted Topic - we saw the other interviewer shut down the F thing, and he’s had many interviews where Larry and F aren’t brought up at all. It’s a topic put in there when it’s useful

5. Relevancy - not relevant to tour or current media presence whatsoever

6. Consistency - all interviews we have gotten recently have been strictly about his career, his festival, tour, inspirations etc., and we have one very personal and touchy topic randomly brought in with no context whatsoever

But I think what is making people stressed about this particular denial is because there was nothing calling for it. No media stir, no mentions of their names together or directly tied in media, no scandal or damage control (unless something breaks), so it seems more genuine and not just like he’s trying to clean up a mess like so many times before. But it’s also very obvious promo. Dropped as soon as he leaves LATAM? And everyone will cool off by the time he’s back. Absolutely standard and poorly done PR.

I don’t think managers know what they’re getting into when they start handling a 1d boy, frankly because our fandom is truly one of a kind. But, as much as I hate to say it, the Azoff’s have done what louis’ team should have done too. Stay silent about it, it’s not necessary to comment unless something big happens and it needs damage control. you’re only attacking your fans here, bud.

so, anyway… the patterns of every other denial have led to a BUA, a scandal, or their names being tied together and Larry being of public interest. Or have come from those things prior. However, this denial will probably pick up in the media, and tie louis’ name to Harry’s once more, to boost him a bit to sell some tickets.

everything was going so well, it was great to see him not talk about his personal life. so, it’s foreshadowing and a poor promo move, or just a poor promo move.

#anon #answered #bbg

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mariacallous · 2 months

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The Federal Communications Commission this week voted to raise its internet speed benchmark for the first time since January 2015, concluding that modern broadband service should provide at least 100 Mbps download speeds and 20 Mbps upload speeds.

An FCC press release after Thursday's 3-2 vote said the 100 Mbps/20 Mbps benchmark “is based on the standards now used in multiple federal and state programs,” such as those used to distribute funding to expand networks. The new benchmark also reflects “consumer usage patterns, and what is actually available from and marketed by internet service providers,” the FCC said.

The previous standard of 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream lasted through the entire Donald Trump era and most of President Biden’s term. There has been a clear partisan divide on the speed standard, with Democrats pushing for a higher benchmark and Republicans arguing that it shouldn't be raised.

The standard is partly symbolic but can indirectly impact potential FCC regulations. The FCC is required under US law to regularly evaluate whether "advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion" and to "take immediate action to accelerate deployment" and promote competition if current deployment is not "reasonable and timely."

With a higher speed standard, the FCC is more likely to conclude that broadband providers aren't moving toward universal deployment fast enough and to take regulatory actions in response. During the Trump era, FCC chair Ajit Pai's Republican majority ruled that 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds should still count as "advanced telecommunications capability," and concluded that the telecom industry was doing enough to extend advanced telecom service to all Americans.

2-2 Deadlock Delayed Benchmark Increase

Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel has been the FCC chair since 2021 and was calling for a speed increase even before being promoted to the commission's top spot. Rosenworcel formally proposed the 100 Mbps/20 Mbps standard in July 2022, but the FCC had a 2-2 partisan deadlock at the time and the 25 Mbps/3 Mbps standard stayed in place a while longer.

Biden's first nominee to fill an empty FCC seat was stonewalled by the Senate, but Democrats finally got a 3-2 majority when Biden's second pick was confirmed in September 2023. Thursday's 3-2 party-line vote approved the 100 Mbps/20 Mbps standard and a report concluding "that advanced telecommunications capability is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion," the FCC said in its press release.

That conclusion is "based on the total number of Americans, Americans in rural areas, and people living on Tribal lands who lack access to such capability, and the fact that these gaps in deployment are not closing rapidly enough," the press release said. Based on data from December 2022, the FCC said that fixed broadband service (excluding satellite) "has not been physically deployed to approximately 24 million Americans, including almost 28 percent of Americans in rural areas, and more than 23 percent of people living on Tribal lands."

A draft of the FCC report was released before the meeting. "Based on our evaluation of available data, we can no longer conclude that broadband at speeds of 25/3 Mbps—the fixed benchmark established in 2015 and relied on in the last seven reports—supports 'advanced' functions," the report said. "We find that having 'advanced telecommunications capability' for fixed broadband service requires access to download speeds of at least 100 Mbps and upload speeds of at least 20 Mbps. The record overwhelmingly supports increasing the fixed speed benchmark in this manner."

The report also sets a "long-term speed goal" of 1 Gbps download speeds paired with 500 Mbps upload speeds. The FCC said it intends to use this speed goal “as a guidepost for evaluating our efforts to encourage deployment.”

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grapenehifics · 6 months

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Not to tell you about *every* time I hear Solsbury Hill on the radio but…

Can you tell us why you picked it as the title for your fic? I feel there’s more to your reasoning than “grab your things I’ve come to take you home” and I’d love to hear your thoughts [it’s also maybe pretty obvious(?) but I’m really, really shit at 1) song lyrics 2) song meanings and 3) applying them to other contexts 🙈]

My friend, there is almost nothing I would rather talk about than the intersection between Peter Gabriel*, Genesis, Solsbury Hill the place, Solsbury Hill the song, and Solsbury Hill the fic.

(*Peter Gabriel, and all the members of Genesis, are real people, and would probably tell this story very differently. But they're not here to correct me [oh god, at least, I hope not], and this is how I heard the story, and I am going to tell it the way I know it. Apologies to all those living or dead.)

Sometime in the late 1960s a group of British schoolboys formed the prog rock band Genesis, and by the early 1970s they were...maybe not world-famous, but huge by prog rock standards, anyway, with a couple of albums and a tour. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway came out and it was a big enough deal that they got offered an American tour, too.

They were all still pretty young (they'd started basically in high school) and Peter Gabriel, their lead singer and main songwriter, had recently got married and he and his wife had a baby (this will become relevant in a second). So they go on the American tour and maybe about halfway through Peter turns to his bandmates and is like, "so...I'll finish the tour with you, because I promised I would, but when we get back home I'm quitting the band."

The other guys were stunned, obviously, because this was the moment they'd worked for. They'd already gotten through all the shitty garage band years, which is where most people give up, and now they were at the good part! They were on an international tour! The money was good! Their albums were selling! They had more fans than they'd ever thought they'd have! What on earth would possess someone to want to give all that up?

(The part of this story that is less-charitable to Peter Gabriel is that one of the answers he gave was 'more creative freedom' and his band was like...but you already write all our songs? What possible *more* creative freedom do you think you need?)

It wasn't just the band, though. His managers and the record company and everyone all told him that was a terrible, terrible idea, and there were a sizable contingent of Genesis fans who just refused to follow him to his solo career because they were mad at him for walking out on Genesis, wrecking the band, how dare he be so ungrateful...

(Genesis did fine without him, actually. Phil Collins took over on vocals and they had another couple of albums and some hit songs before going kind of weirdly soft-rock in the 80s.)

Also - and this is an important detail - when he left the band, there was no solo career. He didn't have any songs. I don't think he even had an agent. He was kind of on the outs with the industry for pulling that stunt. He spent the first year after he quit - while Genesis was recording a new album without him - just hanging out at home with his wife and baby daughter.

Eventually he did get back in the studio, and one of the songs on his first solo album was Solsbury Hill, largely regarded to be the most autobiographical of his songs (Solsbury Hill is an actual, physical hill in Somerset, near where he grew up). It's pretty blatantly about quitting Genesis, including being unhappy in the band:

So I went from day to day Though my life was in a rut

I was feeling part of the scenery

And liberty, she pirouette When I think that I am free

and trying to get up the courage to leave even knowing it would almost universally be regarded as a really dumb move and would very possibly end his entire music career even though he was still in his twenties:

My friends would think I was a nut Open doors would soon be shut

But eventually doing it anyway:

To keep in silence I resigned

I walked right out of the machinery

I will show another me

Then he writes about how, even though it was scary and he didn't know what the consequences were going to be, he was glad he did it:

Though my life was in a rut 'Til I thought of what I'd say Which connection I should cut

Today I don't need a replacement I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant

And he personifies all this as a person, or more accurately hearing a voice (while climbing Solsbury Hill, hence the title), and the progression of what the voice tells him mirrors the rest of the lyrics. First it's:

"Son, " he said "Grab your things, I've come to take you home."

and

"Hey, " he said "Grab your things, I've come to take you home."

But the final lines are the singer answering back:

"Hey, " I said "You can keep my things, they've come to take me home."

And not to belabor the metaphor, but that's what I see as the equivalent of the first quarter or so of Solsbury Hill the fic, at least the beginning to the Bakersfield hospital chapters. Peter Gabriel and Anakin both got the exact thing they thought they wanted - a record deal, a tour, money, fame, wealth - and then turned out once they had it, they actually didn't really want it all that much anymore, and the reality of it wasn't worth keeping it.

But also mixed in there is some shame, right, because to everyone else it looks like you have it all. Every kid around the world with a guitar and a garage bands wants what you have. Every kid on their school swim team watching the Olympics on TV wants that. And now you've got it, and you're just...going to hand it back? Say it's not good enough? This thing that feeds your family and lets you see the world? How dare you spit on that!

But all they really want - in both stories - is more time with the people they love. And yes, in both cases, there are ways to fix that - Peter Gabriel could have taken his wife and baby with him on tour, Anakin could have not fired Obi-Wan and taken up with Palpatine - but in the middle of that situation and looking down the barrel of year after year of touring and competition and the toll it takes on your body and your mental health - suddenly the smart play starts looking like turning you back on it, tearing the whole thing down, and starting over. Even if it means living without the money and the fame and the recognition and universal goodwill. Who cares. Keep it all. Keep my things; I don't need them; I just need you.

I'm going home.

#solsbury hill

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a-b-riddle · 2 months

Text

Pen Pals Chapter One: Welcome to the Internet

I feel like most girls who claimed they loved world history either had a hot history teacher or a Percy Jackson obsession. Well, I'm not like most girls. I had both. I may have been failing math, but when I tell you I was passing history with flying colors...

It was 2009: I was a freshman in high school and at 14 years old, I was very impressionable. Full disclosure: I was not groomed. Well, by my teacher at least. My history teacher wasn't like that weird, over-friendly coach with the students. He was just hot. Very incredibly boring, but hot by my standards as a 14-year-old who up until that point had only kissed two boys, but read some very questionable fan-fiction.

Our semester closed on the unit about World War II. It was the week of Christmas, we just finished our finals and we watched a movie I highly recommend called 'Pearl Harbor'.

That movie just kind of fueled my obsession with World War II. It's like those little kids who had a really nice nurse when they were sick and they grew up wanting to be nurses. I saw Ben Affleck in a WW 2 uniform and was fucking SET.

Now don't get me wrong, I actually enjoyed it besides the hot actors. I loved the stories. I loved the heroes. Second Lieutenant Audie L. Murphy: The most decorated soldier of the war. He was credited for killing over 200 Germans. Corporal Desmond Doss was a medic, never picked up a weapon and saved 75 men by lowering them down from a freaking cliff. I cry every time I watch his interviews and if you want to know his full story watch Hacksaw Ridge. Then there was Private Steven Grant Rogers. Started out as an E-1 and then promoted to a O-3 (or a Captain) and was renamed Captain America.

Just like how people think of Tom Brady when they think of the Super Bowl, I did the same thing when it came to Captain America and the war. Now, I don't want to say I idolized the man, but I did admire the hero.

My obsession made me major in History and later get a Master's in Conflict Management. Now, I was applying to one of the biggest companies in the nation: Stark Industries. Now, that was partly because I could not find a job anywhere and someone that I went to college with started working in HR and was able to get me an interview. It didn't have to do with anything pertaining to my degree, but it had been a while before I was able to find a job that paid this well.

I felt like I was running my sponsor dry with his support and I had applied several times to multiple colleges in the city. I mean I had a freaking Master's degree with intentions of pursuing my Doctorate for crying out loud and the best I could do was be a personal assistant.

I was going to be a secretary. Nothing important, but the pay was more than exceptional.

Stark Tower was intimidating to say the least. Over 90 floors and reflective glass windows. It hurt my neck to look directly up at it.

When I walked into the building, security instructed me what floor to go to. When I got there, I was greeted with an empty desk. I waited several minutes downstairs before a strawberry blonde woman with cute freckles came down to greet me. "Hi, you must be the secretary applicant." She smiled. "I'm Pepper Potts. So you're resume here is quite impressive and Harrison in HR highly recommended you."

"Yes, I was so excited when he told me you had a position available."

"Usually, I would be doing the interview, but I'm afraid I have to head out on some other business, so if you want to take the elevator to floor 82, Mr. Stark will be waiting."

"Of course." I said holding a folder that contained all the documents he requested I brought in.

"Hello, Mr. Stark." I greeted.

"You must be Pepper's replacement."

"Oh," I said. "Is she not-"

"She's been made COO." He clarified. "She can't leave that easily."

"Oh, good." I said. "She seemed really sweet."

"To you, yes. To me, I can't do anything. Don't put your life in danger, don't challenge terrorists." He mocked. "She's no fun." He walked further into what I assumed was a common room of sorts. It gave no indication that he lived on that floor. There was a full bar and it looked more of a place he hosted parties. "So tell me a bit about yourself." He began to pour himself a drink. "Something that isn't on your resume."

"Um, well, I'm taking a course in French and Greek right now. Just online classes, nothing too time consuming. I prefer dogs over cats because I think that its important if you die, for your pet to at least be sad and I am the first one in my family to live in New York, that I know of. I'm the first girl to graduate with their Master's. I plan on eventually getting my Doctorate, but not for a while. I don't like hot coffee and I'm terrified of snakes."

"Who would actually prefer cats over dogs?"

"Pepper?" I asked to which he laughed, even though it wasn't that funny.

"I like you." He took a sip of his drink. "It's not liquor. Pepper has this rule that alcohol should only be consumed during certain times of the day."

"I think 9:30 on a Monday is acceptable. I was debating on getting Mimosas after the interview if it went well."

"And if it didn't?" He asked.

"I would say tequila, but I got food poisoning from the limes once."

"Really?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I had about 15 limes and felt terrible the next day."

"I prefer a good scotch myself."

"I like anything that doesn't taste like alcohol. I'm really impressed that a bottle of wine can cost thousands of dollar, but I guarantee it can't be as delicious as a Moscow mule."

"I haven't had a Moscow mule in forever." He said. "They were my go-to in college."

"Where did you go to school?" His response was to point at a wall that was covered in awards and accomplishments. "You went to Andover?" I asked looking at his degree.

"Seven years." He said. "I really liked the science department."

"I've given a few guest lectures there. It's a lovely school."

"What was the topic of discussion?"

"The North African campaign during World War 2, but specifically the Battle of Ramree Island."

"History nerd. Nice." Mr. Stark replied sarcastically when the elevator door dinged. "Speaking of historical nerds."

If my legs could have physically turned into jelly at that moment they would. None other than Steve Rogers walked in with a blonde following dutifully behind. "Tony."

"Capscicle and the ice queen." He whispered too low for them to hear.

"Rogers, meet our new secretary." Tony introduced and started to head toward the elevator.

"It is such an honor, Captain Rogers." I said taking his outstretched hand.

"Please, call me Steve." He insisted. The blonde beside him remained quiet and eyed me up and down with a stoic expression.

"Not that I'm trying to cut you off, but I'll let you two old ladies reminisce on the glory days." Tony clicked the elevator door and waited until it dinged opened. "I have somewhere to be. Congratulations. You got the job. Blah. Blah. Blah. Monday at 9, don't be late." He pressed a button I couldn't see and the doors began to close. "Or do. I really don't care, but if you're late, bring coffee."

"He's..." I began, but couldn't quite pick the right word.

"Arrogant." Steve finished.

"I was going to say interesting." I said.

"So what 'glory days' was Stark referring to?"

"Oh. I gave a few lectures about a few battles at the University he went to. Nothing exciting."

"Well Mrs.-"

"It's just Miss." I said. That was stupid. Why did I say that? That was rude to cut him off like that. "Sorry." I apologized. Why was I apologizing?

"Well, Ma'am. It looks like we'll be seeing you Monday morning. If you're late Tony gets a triple shot of espresso and a disgusting amount of sugar in it."

"Being late isn't really my style. My mother always said if you're not early, you're late." Why was a quoting my zealot mother right now. Jesus, stop it. Not like Jesus Jesus. You know what, never mind. "I think I can find my way out." I said.

The walk back home I felt my cheeks burn the entire time. I haven't even started and I'm already flustered. Jesus, get a grip.

Suddenly my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was him.

*So how did it go?*

*I got the job* I replied back.

*That's wonderful. I'm so proud of you* I couldn't deny the pride that swelled inside of me at his praise.

*Thank you, although I did make a complete ass out of myself*

*How so?*

*Well, my new boss introduced me to one of his partners and I felt like I made a fool of myself.* I typed. *Not partner in the sexual way, but someone he works with. He called Mrs. and I corrected him and said 'no it's just MIss' like it didn't even matter, he was just being polite. Then I quoted my mother. I was just flustered, but I start Monday.*

C didn't reply after that. We were supposed to have a date tonight so I'm sure he would just finish the conversation later. I had a caprese salad, but ate mostly the mozzarella. I showered, shaved and waited until I got a notification.

*Sorry. Something came up. Regardless, I think you'll do great.* I smiled at his message, but was disappointment that he was cancelling our date tonight. Well the closest thing we came to date nights which usually ended in me being in an unsavory position.

Initially, C and I met on a chat forum in 2016. I was working on my senior seminar and had sort of an open ended question regarding the war. It was something along the lines of taking the notion that if a war on that scale were to happen in today's world in what ways would American citizens contribute to the war effort at home? Back in the 40s most companies like Ford made strictly military equipment. It was an honor to have a government contract whereas now it's more like any other business deal.

I received a lot of interesting responses, but a user named CR0876 replied that shifting the current American ideal of self-preservation to what we had before which was sacrificing for your country was the only way in which today's America could possibly aid in a war. I messaged CR0876 to further discuss the topic.

He wrote me: All I am saying is we now live in a day and age where you have people who won't vaccinate their children simply because they choose not to. They don't have an issue with you vaccinating your kids, but not theirs. We eradicated some of the deadliest diseases that are still present in some third-world nations and you have entitled people who don't trust science to preserve the health and well-being of not only their children, but everyone they come in contact with. The reason that our life expectancy has shot up isn't because of ground breaking medical break throughs like chemotherapy, it is for preventative measures. Getting vaccinated. Getting checkups. Wearing sunscreen. Washing your hands after wiping your ass.

A few minutes later he sent an apology for getting so riled up in his rant and I told him that no apology was needed and I completely agreed with him. From then on our friendship started to blossom.

Most of our conversations had something to do involving the war, but then it got more personal. I felt comfortable with him. I talked about my time at college and what I was studying. We went from a few messages a week to communicating everyday. Eventually when graduation came around, I offered him a graduation ticket. I was a little disappointed to find out it was too far for him to travel. He asked for my mailing address. That he felt guilty for missing such a big event and he wanted to make it up to me. I was a little apprehensive. I mean, we were taught to never give your stranger your address, but I was an RA in a college dorm. I would be out into the real world soon and he wouldn't know my room number or what I looked like.

So I sent it.

A few weeks passed and I got a pair of beautiful pearl earrings with a card that read. A beautiful girl always needs a set of beautiful pearls. Congratulations on all of your hard work. -C

Four and a half years later and I still have that card. We still talk about the war. I recommend him movies, while he recommends books then we both point on the inconsistencies. It was stupid, but it was fun. Now, I just sort of tell him about my day to day life and he tells me small tidbits about his. It was earlier in 2020 when the pandemic hit that things started to get... well things just changed.

I had just moved to New York in early February to start teaching at a local college. I was going to start with May-mester classes, but then Covid hit and the world stopped.

I had moved in with little to nothing. I had a few pieces of stuff for the kitchen and a bed. It wasn't much, but it was mine and I was damn proud of it.

My pride was short lived when I got the e-mail. In a panic, I sent him a message.

Hey can you talk?

Sure. What's up?

Is there anyway you can call me? I'm kind of in a bad place right now and I really don't have anyone else to talk to. I felt guilty as soon as I hit the send button. I'm not like going to hurt myself or anything I am just super stressed and if you have the time and energy, I just need to unload some stuff.

Seconds later my phone began to ring.

"What's wrong?" He asked. I took a deep breath. I can't believe this was the first time hearing his voice. It wasn't what I was expecting. I expected almost a pompous scholarly tone in his voice. But instead he was borderline on being batman. His voice was deep.

"They rescinded my offer." I took a deep breath. "I just spent all of my savings literally to move to this stupid freaking city and they told me over an e-mail 'we are sorry to inform you that your offer for employment has been rescinded until further notice due to the impending pandemic and the unforeseeable circumstances it holds. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience and wish you the best in your future endeavors.' They said sorry and good luck."

There was a pause and I heard him sigh. "Sweetheart, I am so sorry."

"Thanks." I rubbed the back of my neck. "Looks like that chapter closed before it got any good. I guess I can see if maybe I can do virtual learning for a high school, but I don't know if my degree is enough. I think you need an education degree to teach."

"But you always wanted to teach college..." His disappointment matched mine.

"I know..." I looked down at nearly clear streets of New York. "But I need a job, C." I sighed. "It's either that or call my parents and I would literally rather be homeless than ask them for help."

"How much?"

"What do you mean?"

"How much was your job going to pay you?"

"80k a year starting." I said and felt another wave of nausea wash over me. 80k wasn't much to some, but it was a lot for me and it would be doing something I loved.

"Tell you what, that is about 6 and a half grand a month. I will pay you 7 grand a month if you promise me not to give up."

"What?" I couldn't believe this. "There is absolutely no way I could ever accept that kind of money."

"It's not like I don't have it, Princess." He can't be serious. That's crazy. He never mentioned having money or being well off.

"And what do you want in return?" The butterflies in my stomach began to churn. God I hope he wasn't wanting to do anything... unethical. "Surely you wouldn't do that just because you want me to be a college professor."

"Nothing." He said. "Absolutely nothing. I just want you to be taken care of and pursue your dream."

"I really can't let you do that."

"It's only temporary." He tried to assure me, but I still felt guilty.

"C-" He was always so argumentative and authoritative over messaging and he matched it over the phone.

"I promise." He interrupted. "It won't put a dent in my wallet."

"Only until I have a full-time job." I tried to say.

"Until you become a professor."

"No," I said. "As soon as I get a job and can support myself."

"Sweetheart, it's not polite to argue."

"I appreciate it." I said. "I really do."

"So does that make your day a little bit better?" He asked.

"It does."

"Anything else gone wrong you need help fixing?"

"No." I responded and felt like a child and and adult came up to fix the mess I had made.

"Good." I heard him sigh. "I'm glad that was easy to fix and now, that I got you on the phone... it's nice to finally hear your voice."

Chapter Two: Confessions

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #tony stark #marvel #anonymous

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collectorcookie · 8 months

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I AM HOME AGAIN. Ok so part two of trickstar dynamics: anzu edition. I already kinda made one but it was more about anzu's past sooo it doesn't count.

Anzu and subaru: THE BESTIEEESSS I LOVE THEM SO MUCH THEY ARE SO CUTE. When trickstar was still a very new unit subaru was like "man i wish we had our own uniforms. Wouldn't that be cool" (because at yumenosaki academy having your own uniforms instead of the standard ones provided by the academy meant that 1. you're hot shit aka important and popular enough to have a specific image and 2. you're hot shit enough aka rich enough to be able to afford your own costume). And then anzu is just like "My boy? Wants something?? My bestie? Wishes for uniforms??" And then she SINGLEHANDEDLY learns sewing from kuro in like a week and makes the trickstar uniforms. And subaru could cry from joy.

And much later subaru got some job where he has to wear a suit but he's never worn suits so he asks super model sena for help, and sena is like "well what kind of suit do you wanna wear" and after a long time of thinking, the only thing he came up with was a suit made specifically by anzu for him. That's all he wanted agshetekwhdghr. But anzu was pretty busy so he settled for a suit that was approved by her.

And when they ended up in the industry anzu made him the super sparkly outfit and i KNOW everyone hates that card because of the missions BUT that card has a special place in my heart because even after their early high school days, even after subaru won the ss and trickstar became super popular and anzu became a very important producer in ES (going as far as being a part of P. Association), subaru still adores and appreciates outfits made by her specifically asdffkslagdkfjw.

Also Pretty sure that anzu was one of the few characters where subaru dropped his happy-ultra-cheerful persona to open up to her, being all like "You know anzu, sometimes i feel like half of my emotions are straight up missing". Ouch. He doesn't do that often! If at all!! He trusts her enough to do that!!!!

There's more to say but there's already another post that goes into more details about this (i will reblog it after this but how on earth can you link someone else's post on here)

Anzu and mao: you may have seen or noticed how mao is always like "omg no don't touch anzu that's sexual harrassment" to completely normal affection between friends and thought to yourself "The hell is wrong with this dude". And like, i can only speculate why he's like this but it's probably due to anzu's first experiences at yumenosaki. Poor girl got transferred into a school of boys committing crimes against each other, got kicked in the face (with koga's full body weight), fainted, got a concussion, went to the infirmary, got sexually harrassed by one of the teachers (seriuosly what the hell jin), then got followed around and pressured by a playboy (past kaoru was uhhh...something). Rei ended up finding her and just...hiding her in a cupboard. And later on rei finds mao and is like "hey you. I hid your girl in the cupboards" and mao's bewildered at this statement. And rei continues with "yeah you should probs go pick her up or something". Mao then goes and to his surprise, he actually finds her in the cupboards, terrified and exhausted.This is the context to this very lovely mao illustration:

(Mao's first 5* is literally "let's take ibuprofen together, producer" heeelllpp)

Mao ends up always walking her home after this by the way, to the point where he sometimes eats lunch with her family. (Sometimes the other trickstar memebrs walk her too but most often it's Mao) So yeah, that could be the reason why he's so sensitive anytime someone gets close to anzu. He's just really overprotective of her.

(I will entirely ignore all the more fanservicey stuff that occasionally happens between anzu and mao in the early stories because...it just...feels so ooc for mao. And completely unnecessary in general) however anzu is also very fond of mao, as we see in !-era ss, where anzu notices that mao is beating himself up for not being enough for trickstar and so she goes to his room to specifically cheer him up and reassure him when he wakes up

Anzu and hokuto: ooohhh my gooood, the scene where he goes to visit anzu in the infirmary after she got hurt and fainted and he. He just. He just feels so bad for her getting hurt and then starts this whole ass monologue about why he dragged her into this. This huge monologue where he just lets out all his anger at yumenosaki's state and hopes and dreams for the future and how she gave him hope but he burdened and expected too much of her right at the beginning. AND SHE WAS AWAKE THE WHOLE TIME WITHOUT HIM KNOWING. And his speech just motivates her to actually ally herself with trickstar because she wants things to change for the better too.

And then waaay later she faints again from exhausting herself too much and hokuto notices how much she has been doing, not just for trickstar but as a producer in general. And so to lighten her burdens and to prove to her that they have grown as a unit and do not need to rely on her the whole time, he revokes his rights to participate in the SS. Listen to me. I want you to understand that as a unit, trickstar established itself to prove that change is possible. The entire main storyline in ! is about them beating eichi's ass in DDD. And DDD is such a huge deal because it determines which unit is allowed to participate in SS as a representative. And SS is a huuuuge national tournament for idols sorta thing. So when hokuto goes to eichi being all like "hey mr. president, i revoke my rights to participate in the SS", eichi (who has been supporting trickstar ever since they beat him in DDD because SS is far more important than DDD) straight up grabs hokuto and screams at him something along the lines of "HOKUTO ARE YOU /SRS OR /J???? YOUR GIRL FAINTS ONCE AND THIS IS HOW YOU BEHAVE???!!! SHE'S NOT WITH YOU FOR ONE TIME AND YOU STEP DOWN, YOU FREAKING COWARD?? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW IMPORTANT OF AN EVENT SS IS". And hokuto, still very straight faced and expressionless, simply states "oh i'm not stepping down. I want trickstar to fight more live battles to rewin our rights to represent yumenosaki in SS. Both to prove to everyone that trickstar really is suited for this, and to prove for anzu that she doesn't need to always worry about us anymore." Do you have any idea how much i wanted to howl at the moon after reading that.

By the way this is also the context for this one wataru illustration who was also in the council room at the time:

(When you watch your boyfriend grab your bestie by the neck and your bestie says the most jawdropping shit you've ever heard)

Anzu and Makoto: this is actually a lot more of a relaxed and chill dynamic than i expected. Most of their early interactions are just makoto being "oh my god i'm so afraid of girls i have never talked to a girl in my entire life what even are girls" and then anzu would be like "but i am one?" and makoto's just "HOLY SHIT YOU'RE RIGHT". Anyways after makoto builds a little self esteem it looks like him and anzu just start sharing a braincell sometimes. Like that one moment in finder girl event story where mao is super worried that no one will help him, and the makoto anzu duo don't even talk to each other, they just exchange looks and think to themselves "this guy has no idea that everyone in yumenosaki would help him huh". Fun times.

#Sorry i was searching for a specific subaru post and ended up getting distracted and liking 50 subaru posts #enstars #ensemble stars #mao isara #makoto yuuki #subaru akehoshi #hokuto hidaka #Tumblr ended up giving me a warning that a text block cannot be more than 4000 characters i am crying how did this happen #trickstar #The anzu post ended up being longer than the original trickstar post. Absolute queen. Love her.#anzu enstars #lore rants

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queercanon13 · 1 year

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Reasons for Taylor x Matty, from a PR perspective:

(note: These are NOT excuses, I do not agree with her choice to associate with Matty no matter the outcome. But I believe this is blatant PR work and everything we know right now, she wants us to know)

1. She’s looking to destroy her good girl image. She’s sick of being infantilized and held to impossible standards. Even after the hyper sexual vigilante shit performance, gaylors are being told they’re disgusting for implying she is a sexual person. She wants to be seen as a grown woman who can publicly make mistakes and not be held to some bizarre standard of purity and perfection.

2. She wants to demonstrate how fake her relationship with Joe was through the ever-changing narrative. Was he the love of her life and she’ll never walk Cornelia street again, or was that all PR and it was never really about Joe Alwyn?

3. She’s been telling people she has cheated, participated in infidelity, etc multiple times through her music, and yet she is still upheld by many fans as being some kind of god fearing wifey-mama material. Again, she’s looking to shatter that image by moving on so quickly to Matty and the implications surrounding that.

4. Should it come out that they weren’t actually dating (I’m hoping anyway), it will help the narrative that the media will pair her up with any man she’s seen with (but not a woman).

5. This protects any of the women she has been and/or is currently involved with. We got a taste of Singlor, then Gaylorism began picking up more mainstream traction, then Matty happened. That’s not an accident. Specific women were being named and shit was shut down fast. I cannot imagine the ironclad NDAs some of these folks must have.

6. Matty was the most obvious choice for the next beard. In addition to helping clear kissgate out of the search results for “Taylor swift the 1975,” he helps fit the narrative of any new music she plans to release about her secretive, scandalous relationship(s). Plus, based on how south it went with Joe, I’m sure there weren’t a ton of stable individuals looking to jump into a bearding contract with the most powerful woman in the music industry. Matty doesn’t care about his reputation (that is abundantly clear), so I’m sure it was an easy sell.

We know that fame, money, and power corrupt people. Taylor Swift is no exception. I still have faith that she will do the right thing, since she usually (after much ado) does, but she is making terrible choices right now, some of which may have irreversible impact. Maybe she believes her Machiavellian plan requires blood sacrifices of her character. Whatever the reason, there cannot only be reputation — this time, we actually do need an explanation. 🐍

#gaylor #swiftgron #kaylor #taylor swift #matty healy #the 1975 #the eras tour #bearding

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wastedpotentialsblog · 3 months

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Destiny enemies and enemy models that I really really liked and could've been used more:

Marauder Ultras:

They're fun to fight! They're fast, can use stealth, can use shock blades, and don't have to Boss StompTM. I would've loved to see these guys decked in white, cream, blue, and black if they were on Europa. You don't have to give em Stasis but a different boss than just Large and slow Captain is a nice change of pace.

House Salvation elites (Enforcers, Disciples, and Assisstants)

>Makes 3 custom enemy types that use Darkness powers for the first time, all with unique models and animations

>barely uses them

>they disappear for 2 years

They didn't come back til Seraph! SERAPH. Come on man. These fuckers should've been everywhere throughout BL. I also think their lack of appearance also contributed to the lack of urgency of the "our enemies have darkness now" threat. I mean, we fought like 8 or 9 named "Salvation Elites" but most were just standard Ultra Captains. If they were Elites, they could've just been these guys.

Side note: Out of the new factions of Lucent Hive, Shadow Legion, and House Salvation. Salvation didn't get an "invasion" season to go with their expansion. Robbed. Truly. They made a Military-Industrial Complex and barely set foot anywhere else besides Europa. I also think this was a factor that didnt create any kind of urgency during BL.

Berserkers

Need I say more? Look at this swagged out motherfucker. If House Salvation really subsumed multiple houses under its banner, Kells Scourge included, should've thrown a couple of these bozos out there. Alter the shield mechanic to be more easily disabled by a solo player. Could even make their armor jet black. Given they have stealth itd be a nice visual contrast when they reveal themselves. I didn't play Scourge of the Past too much, but I did enjoy these guys when I did.

(Can you tell I'm biased at this point?)

Psion Flayers

Easy miniboss material. They dont have to be Ultra sized, maybe just slightly bigger than standard Psions. Could even give them a supporting role on the battlefield. Empowering Cabal around them with their enhanced telekinetics, those enhancements varying by elemental type and tying back to our Light 3.0 abilities. (Sun Flayer/Solar=heal, Abyss Flayer/Void=overshields, Storm Flayer/Arc=movement speed). Of course, their armor would have to have more visual differences and distinct silouhettes as I imagine trying to pick out which one is which based on color alone could be difficult for some. Hell, truthfully, I'd be fine if they were just the fucking Psion Sisters from Season of Dawn copy and pasted everywhere. But a supportive role would add more variety to a fight.

Rocket Centurions

Bet you forgot about these dudes, huh? They pop up in the EAZ but, you know, we've been fighting the Cabal for this long, you think more would've strapped rockets to their backs by now. While their missiles are just Colossus slow missiles (iirc), they could just be normal missiles that explode and don't slow just to keep them different. While these could be neat minibosses, if you want an Ultra one at the end of a story mission or something, they could take the Elykris (The Machinist) route of firing missiles where they go straight up in the air and red dots target the ground around you and you have to keep moving. They could've popped back in with the Shadow Legion. I think they could rock black, gold, and purple

Anyway this is mostly about House Salvation and Psion Flayers and I remembered Rocket Centurions in the middle of making this post. If I remember anything, I'll reblog it. I was gonna say something about the other races but Hive don't have a lot of variants that can be turned into minibosses and the Vex got Wyverns (seriosuly. No notes. A perfect enemy type). Obviously it's like way too late to add these to previous story missions, but if we are gonna reuse enemy types, can we reuse some of the cooler ones? Please?

#destiny 2 #eliksni #the cabal #psions

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aerodaltonimperial · 3 months

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I did promise that I would try to explain how horrible (soul-crushing) the publishing world is, so at least people understood that I’m standing on the wreckage of all my self-confidence, so here’s the super abridged version. I suspect most people don’t know what it takes to be trad published—for our purposes here, trad published is going to be published by a major publisher with distribution. Normally this is the Big 5 but some of the smaller houses would still count here. We are not counting indie pubs here, because they have no distribution (meaning they are not in libraries or book stores), and I have already had experience with them and it was horrifically disappointing.

So you’ve written a book. That’s great. Now you have to try and find a literary agent, because you can’t submit to any of the Big 5 (normally) without an agent doing it for you, so you have to embark into the query trenches. Querying is where you spend a shit-ton of time researching lit agents (and weeding out the schmagents and the agencies with bad reps by trolling forums and somehow tapping into a whisper network; yeah, good luck with that if you aren’t in the biz already) and then you send them a little letter about your book and anywhere from 5 to 25 pages of the manuscript itself (depending on what they ask for, and every agent is different). The opening pages, so you’ve hopefully spent three weeks constantly tearing those pages apart and re-writing them, because you have approximately 3 seconds to be AMAZINGLY GOOD and catch their eye.

Agents all rep different age categories and genres. You have to filter through them to find the ones that rep what you write, and are open to queries (many are NEVER open, or open only to referrals from existing clients, or open only to expensive conference live-pitches, so again, good luck!) Some of them will throw up MSWLs (manuscript wish lists) and then you might find one that is asking for something very similar to what you wrote, and can toss it their way. Depending on what you write, you might have 30 agents to query (niche genres) or 100 agents to query (romance, women’s fiction, thrillers).

Agents are extremely busy. On average, the response time can be anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 years (no, I’m not kidding). Most of the lit agencies have a rule where you can’t submit to more than one agent at a time, so you are stuck waiting for the first rejection before you can query another agent there, and in at least a third of the situations, you will simply never get it. You’ll have to mark it as “closed, no response” after about 120 days and assume it’s a no. Some agencies STILL run by the “no from one is a no from all” which is BULLSHIT so you have to REALLY HOPE the one agent in the agency you picked to query will like your shit cause you can’t query anyone else.

And then you wait for the responses to roll in. Most will be form rejections. A few might be requests for more (partial or full manuscripts). And like I said, probably a third or higher will simply never get back to you. Ever. Generally, after about 6 months, you are probably done querying, with some outliers who will take a year to get back to you if they do at all.

If you get LUCKY and one of them requests your full manuscript, hooray! Now you get to wait even longer while they read it. If you are VERY VERY lucky, that agent might offer representation on it. They have to really love it. They will ask you for a call (these are all done via Zoom or the like, nowadays). Sometimes, you might get an R&R—or, a revise & resubmit, where the agent asks for changes. There is no guarantee that doing them will please them enough to get an offer on it. General consensus is that R&Rs only slightly raise your odds for getting an offer, and about 70% of them will still result in a rejection.

Fun thing about getting an offer of rep: industry standard is that you ask for 2 weeks to contact all the OTHER agents who still have your query and/or materials so you can let them know that you have an offer. And this is where my LEAST FAVORITE FUCKING PART of this industry comes in. It’s practically the tenet that publishing was built on—people only want shit that someone else already wants. Any outstanding queries, you “nudge” to let them know you have an offer and your timeline. Any outstanding submissions, you let them know they gotta read fast. You WILL get a shit ton of agents asking for your manuscript here, because SUDDENLY SOMEONE ELSE WANTS IT so it must be great. (On my only successful manuscript, my request rate for materials was 8% pre-offer. After my offer, it shot up to 60%. I will die furious about this.)

You may, if you are super duper lucky, even get multiple offers, and then you have to decide which agent you are going to choose.

So if you get this far, GOOD JOB. You have beaten 95% of the other writers out there. You are still doing all of this for free. And you still have more to go through! From here on out, now that you are with an agent, you get to go on “submission,” where your agent sends your book out to editors that they have (hopefully) matched up genres/likes with. And it’s just like querying, only your agent does it instead of you, and you sit at home and wait EVEN MORE TIME for overworked, underpaid editors to somehow fall in love with your book.

Maybe one of them does! Then you get to go to something called “second reads.” This is where the whole TEAM at the publishing house reads it and most of the time, they all have to agree. Then you have to go to ACQUISITIONS, which is a meeting at the publishing house where the editor has to pitch your book and ask the rich CEOs for money to offer on it. Your book can die at any one of these milestones: it can be rejected by editors, it can be rejected at second reads, and it can be refused at acquisitions. This process takes anywhere from 1 day (if you are super lucky and probably shit gold) to 2 years, and when all the editors are exhausted, your book is officially dead on sub.

If you DO HAPPEN TO GET THROUGH THIS and get an ACTUAL BOOK DEAL, you are the lucky 1%. And you might finally, FINALLY, get paid for the work you have done. (In installments, spread out over years, depending on how much of an advance you get.)

Or, like a whooooole bunch of us, you end up figuring out that your agent, for whatever reason, isn’t working for you. Maybe you want to write a genre next that they don’t rep. Maybe they leave the industry for whatever reason. Maybe you have a mismatch of communication/expectations/needs. Maybe they suck at being an agent and stop doing what they are supposed to do (like mine). And then you end up either leaving your agent or getting dropped by your agent, and you are back to square one all over again.

Remember that every time you have to query again, or go on submission again, you have to have a new book ready. The people who succeed at this industry have time, money, and luck; the more of those you have, the better you will do. A LARGE number of writers are bankrolled by a partner and/or parent and/or generational wealth who pays the bills for them, because otherwise, it’s pretty damn hard to find enough time to write as much as you need to.

And every single one of those rejections is going to eat away at you, inch by inch by inch, until you’ve amassed more than 150 of them representing all the times you just weren’t fucking good enough. Then you have to decide: do I keep doing this? It’s been years. It’s been double digit books. How much of my life and time am I going to waste on this fruitless quest? And I guess that’s the question you gotta answer lol.

#don't reblog this we do not need this bullshit connected to me

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sirhyst · 20 days

Text

Call of Duty OC: Reghan Satrinava-Idrissu

Early Life Questions:

ALL CREDITS GO TO @justafewocprompts FOR THE QUESTIONS LIST

Note: fuck it, I will fist fight Soap Mactavish for my oc's hand in marriage. ♡☆°・In all seriousness, this one is going to be lengthy but it gives insight to Reghan's upbringing. That being said, I only answered 6 of the questions in the original list.

CW: mentions of racism

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Was your character raised by one of these parents? One or both of them

Reghan was raised by both his parents. Unlike most soldiers, he had and still has a very healthy relationship with his family members. Her teammates even joke about her having the ideal family. She is one of many soldiers who most assumed had a poor relationship with their parents.

Siblings?

Reghan is the second of five children. His oldest sister, Somatra, age 40, is a Major for the British army. Among all his siblings, Reghan was always the closest to Somatra despite their 16 year age gap.

Next in the family line is his sister, Cardamom. She works for the British army as a gunsmith. While she specialises in building and repairing firearms, she has a lot of experience with repairing military vehicles.

His third oldest sibling is Basil. Basil and Cardamom are twins, though they look nothing alike. Much to their parents' surprise, Basil and Reghan share more similar traits than they do with Cardamom despite the twins being born nearly 4 years prior. Basil serves in the army, working as a Medic since they were 19.

Priya, age 19, is Reghan’s youngest sister. Unlike her siblings, she decided to build a career in the Railway industry at the age of 17. Before she was born, Reghan wasn’t too fond of the idea of having a younger sibling as he liked being the youngest, but eventually warmed up to Priya as she got a little older.

Where do they live?

Reghan was born in Holyhead, Wales, but lived in Llanfairynghornwy. Being in a very small town and the only family of colour, Reghan and his siblings dealt with many racial related issues. The Satrinava-Idrissu family did get along well with a nearby farmer. Reghan often visited the farmer and his wife since they allowed him to sit with the baby animals as it soothed him. Reghan had spent a lot of time there growing up and developed Welsh as his first language, unlike his other siblings.

By the time Reghan had turned 6, his family decided that it was better to move to Scotland. By now, it was only his parents, and 4 of his siblings, as Somatra had joined the military.

For the first years of their arrival, they lived in Wick, Scotland. Racism wasn’t as big of a problem as it was in Wales, but there was the occasional spat. Just like in Llanfairynghornwy, Reghan spent time with the neighbouring farmers. It’s worth noting that she has auditory processing issues, and had trouble understanding the accent, but eventually learned to decipher it, and pick up a lot of the Scottish (Gaelic) language and phrases.

After a few years, the family moved to Glasgow. Reghan’s cousin Salem moved in with them to get away from her parents. Reghan was 9 at this time, and immediately started attending a nearby school which was where he met Johnny “Soap” MacTavish who was 2 years ahead of him.

Does something else happen that changes everything for him or her?

Reghan’s parents did not raise him to fit into societal standards of gender, especially since she was Intersex even if she appeared more like a boy.

Upon starting primary school, Reghan soon learned what was expected of him based on how others perceived him as a child. It was overwhelming for him. He went from being able to wear anything and play with anything, to being under scrutiny by his classmates if he even picked up a doll.

Friends?

His first friend was Johnny MacTavish. They were very different from each other. Reghan was introverted and quiet, Johnny was extroverted and hyperactive.

Both had difficulty making friends, but when Johnny saw Reghan sitting by himself watching the houses being built across from the playground, he quite literally told him they were going to be friends.

Johnny was more into sports than Reghan was, but Reghan was more than happy to kick the soccer ball so Johnny could catch it. And when Reghan wanted too, Johnny was more than happy to sit with him and watch the houses being built.

Johnny spent a lot of time at Reghan’s house as he had trouble at home with his parents, and they also didn’t like Reghan. He made a habit of sneaking into Reghan’s room through the window despite Reghan’s parents going as far as giving him a spare key to the house.

When Johnny joined the military at 18, Reghan made it his life goal to go as soon as he graduated secondary school so they could be together.

Love Interests?

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish, naturally. They never actually addressed what was obviously them being in love with each other, but it was an unspoken thing for everyone around them. They are well aware that they could both be discharged from the military for being romantic but they make no effort to hide it.

When the Task Force members (Price, Gaz, Ghost and Johnny) were being held up, Reghan shot through an entire building to save Soap (and the others, but his main goal was to protect his pookie-bear). Reghan has no problem getting blood all over him for him and vice versa. She would quite literally let the world burn for Soap.

#john soap mactavish #cod oc: reghan satrinava #cod #call of duty original character #call of duty #cod oc #cod x oc #soap x oc #cod soap #simon ghost riley #john price #gaz cod #call of duty x oc #oc questions #oc development

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