#end-to-end principle

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: Leaving Twitter had no effect on NPR's traffic

I'm coming to Minneapolis! This Sunday (Oct 15): Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Monday (Oct 16): Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

Enshittification is the process by which a platform lures in and then captures end users (stage one), who serve as bait for business customers, who are also captured (stage two), whereupon the platform rug-pulls both groups and allocates all the value they generate and exchange to itself (stage three):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

Enshittification isn't merely a form of rent-seeking – it is a uniquely digital phenomenon, because it relies on the inherent flexibility of digital systems. There are lots of intermediaries that want to extract surpluses from customers and suppliers – everyone from grocers to oil companies – but these can't be reconfigured in an eyeblink the that that purely digital services can.

A sleazy boss can hide their wage-theft with a bunch of confusing deductions to your paycheck. But when your boss is an app, it can engage in algorithmic wage discrimination, where your pay declines minutely every time you accept a job, but if you start to decline jobs, the app can raise the offer:

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

I call this process "twiddling": tech platforms are equipped with a million knobs on their back-ends, and platform operators can endlessly twiddle those knobs, altering the business logic from moment to moment, turning the system into an endlessly shifting quagmire where neither users nor business customers can ever be sure whether they're getting a fair deal:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Social media platforms are compulsive twiddlers. They use endless variation to lure in – and then lock in – publishers, with the goal of converting these standalone businesses into commodity suppliers who are dependent on the platform, who can then be charged rent to reach the users who asked to hear from them.

Facebook designed this playbook. First, it lured in end-users by promising them a good deal: "Unlike Myspace, which spies on you from asshole to appetite, Facebook is a privacy-respecting site that will never, ever spy on you. Simply sign up, tell us everyone who matters to you, and we'll populate a feed with everything they post for public consumption":

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1128876

The users came, and locked themselves in: when people gather in social spaces, they inadvertently take one another hostage. You joined Facebook because you liked the people who were there, then others joined because they liked you. Facebook can now make life worse for all of you without losing your business. You might hate Facebook, but you like each other, and the collective action problem of deciding when and whether to go, and where you should go next, is so difficult to overcome, that you all stay in a place that's getting progressively worse.

Once its users were locked in, Facebook turned to advertisers and said, "Remember when we told these rubes we'd never spy on them? It was a lie. We spy on them with every hour that God sends, and we'll sell you access to that data in the form of dirt-cheap targeted ads."

Then Facebook went to the publishers and said, "Remember when we told these suckers that we'd only show them the things they asked to see? Total lie. Post short excerpts from your content and links back to your websites and we'll nonconsensually cram them into the eyeballs of people who never asked to see them. It's a free, high-value traffic funnel for your own site, bringing monetizable users right to your door."

Now, Facebook had to find a way to lock in those publishers. To do this, it had to twiddle. By tiny increments, Facebook deprioritized publishers' content, forcing them to make their excerpts grew progressively longer. As with gig workers, the digital flexibility of Facebook gave it lots of leeway here. Some publishers sensed the excerpts they were being asked to post were a substitute for visiting their sites – and not an enticement – and drew down their posting to Facebook.

When that happened, Facebook could twiddle in the publisher's favor, giving them broader distribution for shorter excerpts, then, once the publisher returned to the platform, Facebook drew down their traffic unless they started posting longer pieces. Twiddling lets platforms play users and business-customers like a fish on a line, giving them slack when they fight, then reeling them in when they tire.

Once Facebook converted a publisher to a commodity supplier to the platform, it reeled the publishers in. First, it deprioritized publishers' posts when they had links back to the publisher's site (under the pretext of policing "clickbait" and "malicious links"). Then, it stopped showing publishers' content to their own subscribers, extorting them to pay to "boost" their posts in order to reach people who had explicitly asked to hear from them.

For users, this meant that their feeds were increasingly populated with payola-boosted content from advertisers and pay-to-play publishers who paid Facebook's Danegeld to reach them. A user will only spend so much time on Facebook, and every post that Facebook feeds that user from someone they want to hear from is a missed opportunity to show them a post from someone who'll pay to reach them.

Here, too, twiddling lets Facebook fine-tune its approach. If a user starts to wean themself off Facebook, the algorithm (TM) can put more content the user has asked to see in the feed. When the user's participation returns to higher levels, Facebook can draw down the share of desirable content again, replacing it with monetizable content. This is done minutely, behind the scenes, automatically, and quickly. In any shell game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye.

This is the final stage of enshittification: withdrawing surpluses from end-users and business customers, leaving behind the minimum homeopathic quantum of value for each needed to keep them locked to the platform, generating value that can be extracted and diverted to platform shareholders.

But this is a brittle equilibrium to maintain. The difference between "God, I hate this place but I just can't leave it" and "Holy shit, this sucks, I'm outta here" is razor-thin. All it takes is one privacy scandal, one livestreamed mass-shooting, one whistleblower dump, and people bolt for the exits. This kicks off a death-spiral: as users and business customers leave, the platform's shareholders demand that they squeeze the remaining population harder to make up for the loss.

One reason this gambit worked so well is that it was a long con. Platform operators and their investors have been willing to throw away billions convincing end-users and business customers to lock themselves in until it was time for the pig-butchering to begin. They financed expensive forays into additional features and complementary products meant to increase user lock-in, raising the switching costs for users who were tempted to leave.

For example, Facebook's product manager for its "photos" product wrote to Mark Zuckerberg to lay out a strategy of enticing users into uploading valuable family photos to the platform in order to "make switching costs very high for users," who would have to throw away their precious memories as the price for leaving Facebook:

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

The platforms' patience paid off. Their slow ratchets operated so subtly that we barely noticed the squeeze, and when we did, they relaxed the pressure until we were lulled back into complacency. Long cons require a lot of prefrontal cortex, the executive function to exercise patience and restraint.

Which brings me to Elon Musk, a man who seems to have been born without a prefrontal cortex, who has repeatedly and publicly demonstrated that he lacks any restraint, patience or planning. Elon Musk's prefrontal cortical deficit resulted in his being forced to buy Twitter, and his every action since has betrayed an even graver inability to stop tripping over his own dick.

Where Zuckerberg played enshittification as a long game, Musk is bent on speedrunning it. He doesn't slice his users up with a subtle scalpel, he hacks away at them with a hatchet.

Musk inaugurated his reign by nonconsensually flipping every user to an algorithmic feed which was crammed with ads and posts from "verified" users whose blue ticks verified solely that they had $8 ($11 for iOS users). Where Facebook deployed substantial effort to enticing users who tired of eyeball-cramming feed decay by temporarily improving their feeds, Musk's Twitter actually overrode users' choice to switch back to a chronological feed by repeatedly flipping them back to more monetizable, algorithmic feeds.

Then came the squeeze on publishers. Musk's Twitter rolled out a bewildering array of "verification" ticks, each priced higher than the last, and publishers who refused to pay found their subscribers taken hostage, with Twitter downranking or shadowbanning their content unless they paid.

(Musk also squeezed advertisers, keeping the same high prices but reducing the quality of the offer by killing programs that kept advertisers' content from being published along Holocaust denial and open calls for genocide.)

Today, Musk continues to squeeze advertisers, publishers and users, and his hamfisted enticements to make up for these depredations are spectacularly bad, and even illegal, like offering advertisers a new kind of ad that isn't associated with any Twitter account, can't be blocked, and is not labeled as an ad:

https://www.wired.com/story/xs-sneaky-new-ads-might-be-illegal/

Of course, Musk has a compulsive bullshitter's contempt for the press, so he has far fewer enticements for them to stay. Quite the reverse: first, Musk removed headlines from link previews, rendering posts by publishers that went to their own sites into stock-art enigmas that generated no traffic:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/05/x-twitter-strips-headlines-new-links-why-elon-musk

Then he jumped straight to the end-stage of enshittification by announcing that he would shadowban any newsmedia posts with links to sites other than Twitter, "because there is less time spent if people click away." Publishers were advised to "post content in long form on this platform":

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/111183068362793821

Where a canny enshittifier would have gestured at a gaslighting explanation ("we're shadowbanning posts with links because they might be malicious"), Musk busts out the motto of the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further."

All this has the effect of highlighting just how little residual value there is on the platform for publishers, and tempts them to bolt for the exits. Six months ago, NPR lost all patience with Musk's shenanigans, and quit the service. Half a year later, they've revealed how low the switching cost for a major news outlet that leaves Twitter really are: NPR's traffic, post-Twitter, has declined by less than a single percentage point:

https://niemanreports.org/articles/npr-twitter-musk/

NPR's Twitter accounts had 8.7 million followers, but even six months ago, Musk's enshittification speedrun had drawn down NPR's ability to reach those users to a negligible level. The 8.7 million number was an illusion, a shell game Musk played on publishers like NPR in a bid to get them to buy a five-figure iridium checkmark or even a six-figure titanium one.

On Twitter, the true number of followers you have is effectively zero – not because Twitter users haven't explicitly instructed the service to show them your posts, but because every post in their feeds that they want to see is a post that no one can be charged to show them.

I've experienced this myself. Three and a half years ago, I left Boing Boing and started pluralistic.net, my cross-platform, open access, surveillance-free, daily newsletter and blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/drei-drei-drei/#now-we-are-three

Boing Boing had the good fortune to have attracted a sizable audience before the advent of siloed platforms, and a large portion of that audience came to the site directly, rather than following us on social media. I knew that, starting a new platform from scratch, I wouldn't have that luxury. My audience would come from social media, and it would be up to me to convert readers into people who followed me on platforms I controlled – where neither they nor I could be held to ransom.

I embraced a strategy called POSSE: Post Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere. With POSSE, the permalink and native habitat for your material is a site you control (in my case, a WordPress blog with all the telemetry, logging and surveillance disabled). Then you repost that content to other platforms – mostly social media – with links back to your own site:

https://indieweb.org/POSSE

There are a lot of automated tools to help you with this, but the platforms have gone to great lengths to break or neuter them. Musk's attack on Twitter's legendarily flexible and powerful API killed every automation tool that might help with this. I was lucky enough to have a reader – Loren Kohnfelder – who coded me some python scripts that automate much of the process, but POSSE remains a very labor-intensive and error-prone methodology:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/13/two-decades/#hfbd

And of all the feeds I produce – email, RSS, Discourse, Medium, Tumblr, Mastodon – none is as labor-intensive as Twitter's. It is an unforgiving medium to begin with, and Musk's drawdown of engineering support has made it wildly unreliable. Many's the time I've set up 20+ posts in a thread, only to have the browser tab reload itself and wipe out all my work.

But I stuck with Twitter, because I have a half-million followers, and to the extent that I reach them there, I can hope that they will follow the permalinks to Pluralistic proper and switch over to RSS, or email, or a daily visit to the blog.

But with each day, the case for using Twitter grows weaker. I get ten times as many replies and reposts on Mastodon, though my Mastodon follower count is a tenth the size of my (increasingly hypothetical) Twitter audience.

All this raises the question of what can or should be done about Twitter. One possible regulatory response would be to impose an "End-To-End" rule on the service, requiring that Twitter deliver posts from willing senders to willing receivers without interfering in them. End-To-end is the bedrock of the internet (one of its incarnations is Net Neutrality) and it's a proven counterenshittificatory force:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web

Despite what you may have heard, "freedom of reach" is freedom of speech: when a platform interposes itself between willing speakers and their willing audiences, it arrogates to itself the power to control what we're allowed to say and who is allowed to hear us:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

We have a wide variety of tools to make a rule like this stick. For one thing, Musk's Twitter has violated innumerable laws and consent decrees in the US, Canada and the EU, which creates a space for regulators to impose "conduct remedies" on the company.

But there's also existing regulatory authorities, like the FTC's Section Five powers, which enable the agency to act against companies that engage in "unfair and deceptive" acts. When Twitter asks you who you want to hear from, then refuses to deliver their posts to you unless they pay a bribe, that's both "unfair and deceptive":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

But that's only a stopgap. The problem with Twitter isn't that this important service is run by the wrong mercurial, mediocre billionaire: it's that hundreds of millions of people are at the mercy of any foolish corporate leader. While there's a short-term case for improving the platforms, our long-term strategy should be evacuating them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/18/urban-wildlife-interface/#combustible-walled-gardens

To make that a reality, we could also impose a "Right To Exit" on the platforms. This would be an interoperability rule that would require Twitter to adopt Mastodon's approach to server-hopping: click a link to export the list of everyone who follows you on one server, click another link to upload that file to another server, and all your followers and followees are relocated to your new digs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/23/semipermeable-membranes/#free-as-in-puppies

A Twitter with the Right To Exit would exert a powerful discipline even on the stunted self-regulatory centers of Elon Musk's brain. If he banned a reporter for publishing truthful coverage that cast him in a bad light, that reporter would have the legal right to move to another platform, and continue to reach the people who follow them on Twitter. Publishers aghast at having the headlines removed from their Twitter posts could go somewhere less slipshod and still reach the people who want to hear from them on Twitter.

And both Right To Exit and End-To-End satisfy the two prime tests for sound internet regulation: first, they are easy to administer. If you want to know whether Musk is permitting harassment on his platform, you have to agree on a definition of harassment, determine whether a given act meets that definition, and then investigate whether Twitter took reasonable steps to prevent it.

By contrast, administering End-To-End merely requires that you post something and see if your followers receive it. Administering Right To Exit is as simple as saying, "OK, Twitter, I know you say you gave Cory his follower and followee file, but he says he never got it. Just send him another copy, and this time, CC the regulator so we can verify that it arrived."

Beyond administration, there's the cost of compliance. Requiring Twitter to police its users' conduct also requires it to hire an army of moderators – something that Elon Musk might be able to afford, but community-supported, small federated servers couldn't. A tech regulation can easily become a barrier to entry, blocking better competitors who might replace the company whose conduct spurred the regulation in the first place.

End-to-End does not present this kind of barrier. The default state for a social media platform is to deliver posts from accounts to their followers. Interfering with End-To-End costs more than delivering the messages users want to have. Likewise, a Right To Exit is a solved problem, built into the open Mastodon protocol, itself built atop the open ActivityPub standard.

It's not just Twitter. Every platform is consuming itself in an orgy of enshittification. This is the Great Enshittening, a moment of universal, end-stage platform decay. As the platforms burn, calls to address the fires grow louder and harder for policymakers to resist. But not all solutions to platform decay are created equal. Some solutions will perversely enshrine the dominance of platforms, help make them both too big to fail and too big to jail.

Musk has flagrantly violated so many rules, laws and consent decrees that he has accidentally turned Twitter into the perfect starting point for a program of platform reform and platform evacuation.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/14/freedom-of-reach/#ex

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

Image: JD Lasica (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk_%283018710552%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #twitter #posse #elon musk #x #social media #graceful failure modes #end-to-end principle #administratable remedies #good regulation #ads #privacy #benevolent dictatorships #freedom of reach #journalism #enshittification #switching costs

[hussyknee]

my disabled ass, after (1)good day: "obviously I am cured. in fact it may have all been in my head. who can say? now to rejoin society!"

me, the next day: "it has come to my attention that i may be chronically ill."

#who'd have thunk #we're all shocked i know #i forced myself to go to supermarket and ended up clinging to the shopping cart to stay upright #took two hours to stop shaking from exertion #then immediately corralled the cat to tend to his rash #mfer struggles and protests until he realizes all over again that it feels quite nice actually #and then goes deadweight and purrs *while* warbling mournfully #presumably just on principle #but it's all still more spoons than I can spare #i need to take him to the vet for his follow up in a bit #so fucking drained #send thoughts and prayers #ugh #chronic illness #spoonie #disability #knee of huss

[vashtijoy]

"why not join me instead?" akechi's "invitation" in conf 7

People come and go on whether this question of Akechi's is genuine or not. Opinions run the gamut from "I hate him for trying to take you away from your friends" to "Akechi wants Joker to be his accomplice".

Myself, I don't think Akechi means this as a serious question, for a number of reasons. I think this question is rhetorical.

Quick summary:

Conf 7 illustrates the similarity between Joker and Akechi, and that they're both committed to the showdown between them;

Rather than being an invitation, Akechi's question again illustrates that parallel—that neither of them will give up the things that matter to them to join the other, as Joker has asked him to do;

"I'll think about it" does not count towards the third awakening—and I can prove it. Rather, Akechi can't conceive that Joker would ever abandon his friends, and uses it as an outrageous example of something Joker would never do;

Joker's loyalty not only to his principles but to his friends is something Akechi values so much that he won't let Joker sacrifice it;

Akechi is not so much offering Joker a way out in conf 7 (there is no way out) as he's confirming for his own sake that Joker is still in the game. Is this still a battle between rivals, or is it an execution?

Let's take a look.

what is akechi really asking?

[long post is long]

Look at this line. Look at the question he's posing:

Akechi いっそ君がこっちに来るってのは?⋯今の仲間を捨ててさ。 isso kimi ga kocchi ni kuru tte no wa?... ima no nakama o sutete sa Why not join me instead...? All you'd have to do is abandon the teammates you have now.

It's very easy to focus on the first half of this question and miss the second. But that second half is the important part, the sting in the tail. The Japanese is a great example of wa building suspense: "Instead, what if you come over to my side, (AND THEN WHAT, AKECHI???????)"

The sentence is left hanging, with the weight of it unspoken (since wa emphasises what comes after it); Akechi is obviously not done speaking. And indeed, when he continues, it's a doozy:

"though, of course, you'd have to dump the friends you have now." (Yes, I think "friends" is often a much better translation of nakama than "teammates", fight me; it's even often translated as "friend" in P5 itself, or indeed, awkwardly, as "teammates and friends".)

Akechi is using the same verb, suteru, that you use for tossing something in the trash; the parallel meaning, "ending a relationship", exists in Japanese too.

Ryuji, Morgana, Ann, Yusuke, Makoto, Futaba, Haru, everything you've all gone through together and everything you've been—Akechi is suggesting you toss them aside like garbage. For him.

Now, I think part of Akechi would very much like Joker to do that. But he also knows better than to expect it. Because he knows Joker so much better than that.

Akechi has seen firsthand how loyal Joker is to his friends—remember on 1/2 how he says he investigated them all? He's seen some of the things Joker will do for them. He expects that blind faith to lead Joker to his death, much as Yaldabaoth does. But he also respects it.

This boy who's never had a friend, who's convinced himself the whole idea is stupid, is still drawn to the loyalty he sees in Joker. Even as he's preparing his own ultimate betrayal, Akechi recognises Joker's commitment to others. He understands treachery is bad, even though he himself is a traitor—just as he understands that murder is bad, and that doesn't stop him, either.

This question of whether or not Joker will betray his friends (and Akechi specifically) comes back on 2/2, of course—and in force.

so why does he ask

Akechi is not proposing that the two of them run off together. He's not asking to see what Joker will say. He doesn't impulsively make the invitation, and then run away when Joker says yes. He is, in fact, not even asking. He poses the idea of Joker abandoning all his friends as a counterexample. It's supposed to be something Joker would never consider, something he will find morally repugnant.

Which is why, if Joker says yes, Akechi is shocked, and essentially tells Joker not to make such stupid spur-of-the-moment decisions. Akechi is making a rhetorical point about what Joker is asking of him.

Remember Joker's statement that leads into Akechi's question:

Yeah. Joker either suggests that Akechi should give up everything he's doing and everything he believes in (even as Akechi confabulates about what those things really are), or he suggests, with the top option, that he's already done it.

And in return, Akechi says that Joker should join him... and throw away his friends and everything he's working for and everything he believes in, of course.

It's the second response to his question, where Joker turns him down flat, that makes it most obvious that this was what Akechi meant:

Joker それは無理だ sore wa muri da I'm not doing that. No way in hell. Akechi だろうね。 darou ne I thought as much. Akechi 分かるだろ、誰だって今の立場を簡単に捨てられやしないんだよ wakaru daro, dare datte ima no tachiba o kantan ni suterare yashinai n da yo I'm sure you understand. We all have our parts to play, and we can't simply leave those behind.

See what he's saying? ima no tachiba o kantan ni suterare yashinai—"we absolutely must not lightly set aside the positions we hold now".

Incidentally, yes, that's that same verb suteru that he used before, for casting aside or throwing away. Akechi is drawing a parallel between Joker's friends and his own goals—between the things each of them holds most dear, which neither of them will sacrifice, even to save the other. (Assuming you think Akechi would even be down to save Joker—but I do think conf 7 suggests that at this point, he might not be opposed to the possibility. It's just that it doesn't exist.)

the phone call

This parallel returns in the phone call afterwards, if you again tell him that you're rivals:

It's a little hard to tell from the localisation what Akechi is getting at, so let's take a close look:

Akechi 僕らにはお互い譲れないものがあって、そのためにも負けられない。 bokura ni wa otagai yuzurenai mono ga atte, sono tame ni mo makerarenai [lit. for both of us, these are things we cannot compromise on, and because of those things we cannot suffer losing.] Neither of us can afford to lose, because we fight in service of our principles. It's the same for both of us. Neither of us can afford to lose, because of these principles we won't concede. Akechi ⋯だからこそ、もしも君が自分を曲げたりしたら絶対に赦さないよ。 ... dakara koso, moshi mo kimi ga jibun o megetari shitara zettai ni yurusanai yo [lit. that's exactly why, if you were to warp yourself [that way], I would absolutely never let such a sin (t/n: note the kanji) pass.] And that is precisely why... I cannot allow you to change. ... And that's precisely why, if you betrayed yourself that way... I couldn't allow it. Akechi だって、僕が負けたくないのは『君』なんだから。 datte, boku ga maketakunai no wa "kimi" nan da kara [lit. it's you as you are now who I do not want to lose to.] As you are now, as you think now... I cannot allow you to win over me. The person you are now, with those principles, and that determination—that's the one I won't ever allow to beat me.

Here's my attempt at a translation again, so you can see it all together:

Akechi: It's the same for both of us. Neither of us can afford to lose, because of these things we won't concede. Akechi: ...And that's precisely why, if you betrayed yourself that way... I couldn't allow it. Akechi: The person you are now, with those principles, and that determination—that's the one I won't ever allow to beat me.

It turns out that this phone conversation, that was originally quite mystical-sounding and hard to follow (what were you trying to say, Akechi?) is quite straightforward. It ties into to his original question. "Will I join you, Joker? Well, what if you join me instead? Just throw away all your little friends for my sake? Of course you won't—because we're the same. Both of us have things we can't give up, no matter what—and if you tried to do that, I wouldn't let you, because I value you as you are...."

This parallel between the two of them is what conf 7 is about, from the text message that opens it to the phone call that concludes it:

It's the same thing again: neither of you can afford to lose, because you're fighting for your principles. The billiard table is the stage for this wider discussion.

The billiard scene, of course, is interesting for another reason—Akechi is giving Joker a chance to back out; he's testing his commitment, and perhaps hinting that he never intended to be quite where he is, either. He states at the outset that he's being indirect, that what he's saying is a metaphor—and then closes that metaphor with a very direct question: "Do you still intend to play this game?"

Akechi それでも君は、��のゲームを降りる気はないの? sore demo kimi wa, kono geemu o oriru ki wa nai no? Even then... do you still intend to play this game? But despite all of that, you still won't fold, will you?

The Japanese is even more specific: Akechi asks Joker if he intends to fold—not whether he still wants to play, but whether he means to give up entirely! "This can't be what you expected, so how about it? Will you just give up? Does this mean as much to you as it does to me? Is this a game we both choose to play, or are you just a victim?"

How much of this is Akechi blowing smoke up his own ass?—casting the fact that he's about to murder the boy in front of him in a glowing, romantic light? Pretty much all of it, I'd say. He's dreamed of having a rival, someone to compete with who challenges him, but what he's got is quite a bit more than that.

Again, the rival imagery is what allows Akechi not only to accept this close relationship, but to frame it as a life-or-death contest that only one of them can win. It confirms to him that what Lavenza describes as "a truly unfair game" is actually fair. It's about making Joker's murder seem as much Joker's fault as his own.

but what happens if you say yes?

Despite all of this, you can choose to have Joker consider Akechi's "offer"—to discard Ryuji, Morgana, Ann, Yusuke, Makoto, Futaba and Haru like trash, and assist Akechi instead. It's tempting, I know.

I don't personally get the impression that Akechi likes this response, for a number of reasons. None of the three responses to his offer score confidant points, but there's something else in play: only one of these responses unlocks his third awakening.

See the F code highlighted in yellow? Only one of these three responses has it. "You're my rival" counts towards the third awakening. Rejecting him, with "I'm not doing that", does not—but more to the point, offering to be with him, with "I'll think about it", also does not!

The issue is confused because a number of us have taken option 1 (or indeed option 2, like me) and still got the third awakening on 2/2. It seems like you need some of the flagged responses, not all of them. But it remains the case that "I'll think about it" does not make Akechi more likely to have his third awakening.

What happens if you take this option?

Joker 考えておく kangaete oku I'll think about it. Akechi へえ、考えてはくれるんだ? hee, kangaete wa kureru n da? Oh? So you'll think about it, at least? What? You mean you'll consider it? Akechi ⋯でも、そういうその場限りの情はやめた方がいい。 ...demo, sou iu sono ba kagiri no jou wa yameta hou ga ii ...But I'd advise you don't say these things without their due consideration. ... Still, it would be better if you didn't trust such fleeting sentiments. Akechi 出来もしない約束はするものじゃないよ。 deki mo shinai yakusoku wa suru mono ja nai yo You shouldn't make promises that you can't keep, anyway. Don't be the sort who promises the earth and walks away.

A few grammar points:

んだ n da on a question demands an explanation; Akechi's question could almost be rendered "Why on earth would you need/want to think about it?"

そういうその場限りの情 sou iu sono ba kagiri no jou—"sentiments that only matter here and now". Essentially, "sentiments that won't last"—or that are makeshift or ad hoc; Joker is making a stupid spur-of-the-moment decision.

yes, 出来もしない約束 deki mo shinai yakusoku translates idiomatically as "promising the earth". The point is not that Joker should not promise; the point is that he shouldn't be the sort of person who promises so much—and then doesn't follow through.

Again, this confidant is all about Akechi's expectations for Joker. It's about the weird belief he has in him, like the belief he has in Shido—that Joker has principles and friends and will stand by them, that those things are important and matter, even if they're diametrically opposed to Akechi's principles and the things he wants.

The fact that they foil each other in this way is a large part of what makes Joker such a worthy opponent for Akechi. So if Joker turns around and says, sure, Akechi, I'll dump all my friends so we can make out?

Akechi does not like that. He thinks better of him!—he loses respect if Joker offers this. Even if that little line about "promising the earth" suggests that, actually, yeah, he would quite like for the two of them to run away together—if only they lived in a world where it was possible.

what about "you're my rival"?

I've discussed this line before, but let's go into it for completeness.

Joker 明智は好敵手だ akechi wa koutekishu da You're my rival. Nah, you're my worthy opponent.

Do you see that Joker names Akechi there? He doesn't just say, "we're worthy opponents", or even "you're my worthy opponent", koutekishu da yo.

No, he picks Akechi out by name, and then tells him exactly what they are to each other. Because wa builds suspense. Akechi wa... (what?! what is he?!) koutekishu da. "I can't run away with you, because I need you to be this to me instead".

And this is the line with the F-code. This is the line that, if you choose it, will build towards Akechi's third awakening—which is centred on his trust in Joker, on the fact that Joker is worthy of that trust.

And how does Akechi respond?

He's astonished. He did not expect this at all, look:

On the left, the top screenshot where he's waiting for your answer; in the centre, the moment of shock, where he's pulled away and dropped his hand and his eyes are wide; on the right, a comparative overlay just to demonstrate that he pulled back.

smiles that aren't smiles

I have a half-assed theory that you can tell when Akechi is really smiling—because the model will smile with him. If you watch, for instance, Ryuji, the model's expressions match the sprite's almost exactly. But if you watch Akechi? Nah, not so much.

Here's an example. Akechi appears to smile quite often through conf 7—but if you glance away from the sprite and textbox to the model, the model is pokerfaced. Five smile sprites on the optimal route through conf 7, and not one of them—not even "you truly are fascinating"—matches the model:

But when you pick "You're my rival"? Suddenly the model's face springs to life:

It's obvious from everything else that this moment is of deep significance to Akechi. But this little detail with the smiles suggests we can confirm it.

and what does he say?

It doesn't take long for him to pull himself together:

Akechi 同意だね、僕らにはなれ合いよ���対等な関係こそふさわしい。 doui da ne, bokura ni wa nareai yori taitouna kankei koso fusawashii I agree. I think a relationship of equals suits us better than being co-conspirators, anyway...

This is another one that I find unclear in the localisation, so let's have at it.

nareai suggests an illicit or unduly-close union. It suggests "being in bed together" in the business sense—cosying up, colluding, conspiring. It suggests they're working together when they shouldn't be. Jisho uses the screamingly-outdated term "common-law marriage" (what we call "living together") as an example. Essentially, it suggests they're too close—or even co-dependent, in a way that corrupts them both.

In short? Akechi's "co-conspirators", nareai, means "accomplices"—what we might call "murder boyfriends".

taitouna kankei—literally, "an equal relationship"—is a set phrase, and we know what it means. It suggests a relationship where nobody is being cheated; where everyone gets out what they put in. Where the two of them compete on equal terms.

That's a very Akechi way to look at relationships. But it's also a relationship where nobody is in charge; nobody is dominant, and everyone has self-respect. Nobody is chasing after anyone or sacrificing unduly, as either would be if they joined the other. Everyone can be who they are and say what they want. Everyone can say no.

It's the sort of relationship Akechi very notably does not have with Shido. Is it the sort of relationship he has with Joker, when the two of them are hiding so much from each other and lying so much, and there's so much, like, murder going on? Nah. But as an aspiration, as a suggestion of the sort of relationship Akechi would like them to have, alongside everything else he's told us about how he sees the two of them—as similar, as equals and opposites, as bound by their principles, as destined to fight—it's almost touching.

and what does joker think?

Akechi ⋯たとえこの先、何があろうともだ。 ...tatoe kono saki, nani ga arou tomo da ...No matter what else may change. ...No matter what might come next. Akechi それだけの事を言ったんだから、逃げないでよ? sore dake no koto o itta n da kara, nigenaide yo? In any case, what you just said carries great weight. Remember what you decided, and don't run from it. All right? [lit. don't run away just because of what [I/you] said, all right?]

I'm not sure about this. It feels like it should be referring back to Akechi's last line—"don't get cold feet and run away just because I alluded ominously to whatever's coming next, okay?". I guess it could be referring to Joker's commitment, with "You're my rival"? IDK, I'm out on this one, so I'm inclined to give the localisation the benefit of the doubt.

But it doesn't matter. Because the significance of what Joker does next doesn't change:

He nods. Akechi spends the whole confidant hinting that something ominous is coming, and that the two of them are heading to an inevitable confrontation, and Joker nods.

I don't think this is really consistent with interpretations where Joker is a meek little sheep in the interrogation room. Joker might not have chosen this, he might not have wanted it, he might have by far preferred to avoid it. He'd happily back out if Akechi would just drop the whole thing and agree to act sane. But he's committed to it. He agrees to fight.

Remember, conf 7 takes place after Joker hears the murder phone call. He knows what Akechi is. He knows what he's planning. He knows the stakes—and he agrees to play, to face Akechi down.

To quote @nardaviel, that's no sheep. That's a full-on "Phantom Thieves win again, motherfucker" smirk. Joker played Akechi's game, with everything he had—and he played to win.

#persona 5 #p5 meta #japanese language #shuake #goro akechi #ren amamiya #almost the worst part of this is that akechi respecting joker for his loyalty tells you how little he respects himself #also! 'i'll think about it' CANNOT POSSIBLY unlock the third awakening #because the third awakening is *all about trust* and saying yes to akechi proves that you're a traitor #and that 'i won't forgive you if you betray your principles' on the phone? also 2/2. this is exactly what he does if you take the deal #also!! joker makes a third option to akechi's question with 'you're my rival' and this is what astonishes him besides the thing itself #also! (per leonawriter) the maruki deal ending is essentially the nareai relationship #where akira has all the power and akechi..? well #nobody is themself or choosing for themself #also as regards whether akechi is lying he proves himself through action #'i won't let you betray yourself' - he did that already if you tried to take the deal #ALSO? that 'megeru' for 'i won't let you depart from your principles comes back on 2/2 #as joker's 'i won't fold' #and ofc it's ALSO akechi's 'you'd fold over...' that precedes that. it was set up in conf 7 if you took the rival route #so tldr it's plausible that 2/2 is as much akechi fighting for his vision of joker as for his right to die. help??? #ALSO. did you wonder why it's *awakening* akechi who comes to leblanc? the one closer to you who believes in you more? #this is exactly why. awakening akechi has faith left in you to lose. non-awakening akechi already lost that faith. BYE

[nerdragenewvegas]

me, pre Fallout, never having really seen anything with Goggins in it: ehhh he's hot when he's a ghoul but I don't know if he's my cup of tea otherwise me, a month deep in whore-prison with the other ghoulie girlies: I want this weird cryptid ass looking tv evangelist so fucking bad I cannot actually verbalise it, but what I can tell you is that it is something so deep and primal and ancient that I could stand before Cleopatra and attempt to explain myself, and despite us sharing no common tongue, she would understand me.

EDIT: Oh no i got up to the part where it's a flashback and he's a hot uncle and i am literally at critical mass what the fuck

#the ghoul #fallout tv series #walton goggins #im so fucking ashamed #im married and my husband has been supportive but he has also bullied me relentlessly over this #my husband follows this blog and i am never going to hear the end of this fucking post #i want to bible bonk him so fucking bad #the sex would be the worst sex ive ever had but it's the principle of the thing #this is the definition of a 'hear me out'

[tacit-semantics]

Finished netted octopus!!! Actually netting and bastardized needle lace because I couldn’t figure out how to fix the webbing part with just straight up netting so just took a needle and some thread and made like a series of knots over the preexisting net but that worked!!!!! And so here we are

#id in alt #did not get any good pictures of the actual netting which is unfortunate especially considering. everything #the tentacles are netting!! just applied crochet principles which is what I did for the top too #really not all that different at the end of things really not all that different #lacemaking #fiber arts #netting #netted lace #net making #soft sculpture #my work

[justanotherfanfolks]

Book 3 is literally everyone playing 4D chess! Jack can't escape the power of friendship, it's coming for him.

#twisted wonderland #twst #memes #everyone is a menace to society actually #azul ashrengrotto #jade leech #floyd leech #twst grim #twst yuu #leona kingscholar #ruggie bucchi #jack howl #ace trappola #deuce spade #Wait guys who was gonna tell me desktop doesn’t have a 10 image limit?! #i feel so powerful #no but Sebek basically calling Silver an orphan at the end there dang sir #also can I just say I love the end of the final twistune that single moment is making me an azul believer #as we can see nobody has learned anything from this experience #Adeuce lost their collective braincell once again and Yuu confiscated the Ramshackle Duo's before Grim could do the same #Octavinelle #also everyone just coming for Jack and his principles #boy has standards #twst memes

[irisfixation]

the reason people feel like their body is lighter and more drifty after being turned into dolls is b/c all unnecessary purpose beyond servitude has been removed from them btw

#fleshdiaries #'at this rate we're gonna end up reinventing dollposting from first principles' <- horrible cursed thing our brain said while writing this

[missingexaltation]

How Eddie wins over Mr Harrington (by barely trying)

(in ten simple-ish steps)

Basically, how I imagine Steve's dad to be. I kind of think they have more in common than they don't, and maybe his son being queer is the *kick* that he needs to be a better human being (just like Nancy was for Steve).

Richard Harrington unexpectedly comes home from a business trip to find his son in flagrante delicto on his couch with an immediately antagonistic young man, (Edward, he later discovers), he waits in the kitchen, seething with disappointment and rage. Steven takes his things and leaves without a word, leaving the Munson boy to very purposefully throw Steven's house key at Richard's feet, keeping eye contact as he does so. The disrespect is blinding, and that night Richard drowns his anger in whiskey.

Days later his son comes home to collect his remaining belongings, supported by the Munson boy and his uncle. Wayne Munson is a enigma; on the one hand, clearly a soft liberal, but also a no-nonsense, sensible veteran with family values. Edward doesn't acknowledge Richard at all, too focused on guarding Steven from him. He watches his son cry like a child in the backseat, half listens as Wayne encourages him to keep in contact, and inwardly flinches when he sees Edward glare at him through the car window. He's not sure why his chest aches. Steven chose this path, he tells himself. Steven chose this.

Richard returns again to Hawkins, some weeks later, detouring past the store his son works in. He finds himself parked opposite, watching as Steven dances childishly with a female colleague through the shop windows. He's smiling and laughing and Richard's chest aches again. The passenger door opens and that boy gets in without permission. 'Stevie doesn't need you', he says, bold as brass in leather and covered in tattoos and chains, 'but he'll forgive you if you ask'. It hurts, and the only way Richard can breathe again is to invite them both to dinner later in the week. The subtle relief on Edward's face is immediate, and Richard hates himself a little less, though he's not sure why. He spends the drive home wondering at what point his son's life became unknowable.

Dinner starts awkwardly. Steven barely speaks, but Edward refuses to be quiet. He's a vocal young man, argumentative and strangely principled. They have polar opposite opinions on politics, and while Edward's not shy about his opinions, Richard is more than his equal on the topic. It's the sort of conversation Richard enjoys, trading viewpoints and internalising their differences. The evening ends on a warmer note as both Steven and Edward shake his hand as they leave. Formal. It's only a few steps to the car, but he notes that the boys hold hands nonetheless, as his wife tightly holds his. Middle ground, he thinks. They're not condoning the relationship of course, but accepting it for now. There's time for Steven to come to his senses.

Richard next meets Edward when he has to visit Thatcher's. His driver side tyre has a slow puncture, and although Edward's working on another customer's car he swaps with a colleague so he can see what the issue is. A simple 'he's Stevie's dad' gets him a family discount, and Edward changes the tyre himself when it's deemed too damaged to repair. As he works, Richard learns through his unending monologue that this job is temporary, as Edward's internship at the tattoo parlour doesn't pay, and won't for at least another year, that he needs the money now, as he and Steven are saving for their own place. Richard's immediate instinct is to give them the money himself, but knows it wouldn't be accepted. He takes comfort that Steven's in good hands at least. The Munsons seem to be a practical, friendly people.

Weeks later, when he's back in Hawkins again, he bumps into Edwards uncle, who's insistent on getting coffee and clearing the air. Richard guiltily confesses he's not comfortable with the idea of his son being one of them, that he's not sure he ever will be. Wayne simply points out that at least he's trying, and to keep trying. Apparently Edward's father didn't even do that much. Richard later relays the encounter to his wife, of how overtly proud Wayne is of Edward (my Eddie, he'd said). Richard's not felt proud of Steven for a few years now, only infuriated that he's intent on throwing his life away, but Wayne had plenty of happy stories of him too. As parents, they feel equally guilty and spend the evening drinking and reminiscing on Steven's childhood. It feels like they're reminding themselves of their son more with every day that passes.

He's still in town on the following Tuesday evening, and decides to take Wayne up on his offer and visit the bar that he recommended. He discovers that Edward's a talented musician. Even if it's far too aggressive and loud for Richard's own tastes, there's dedication, commitment and passion in each of the boys on the stage. He remembers his own music idols, how passionately they preached against the war in Vietnam, and he wonders when exactly it was that he stopped noticing the injustices of the world, when it was that his business suits became a comfort instead. He's quickly cornered by Wayne, Jim Hopper and David Jones ('my son's on the drums', he says, proudly). But they're all proud of their boys, he adds, and equally appalled by their music tastes. He goes on to say that the parents take it in turns to keep an eye on the boys each week, after what happened earlier in the year. Richard's in utter shock after hearing that there was a murderer on the loose not long ago, and plans to stay in town more after hearing that both boys were involved. He's clearly out of place and out of touch, but they're kind enough to not mention it. He buys the drinks for the remainder of the night, as penance. He has nothing else to offer, but hopes that's enough to start. His son could have died.

As is habit now, when he's in town, Richard drives past the video store to glimpse his son through the window. Further down the street he catches Edward balancing takeaway coffees whilst trying to open the door to the tattoo parlour. It takes moments to pull over and offer his assistance, and it hurts when Edward is surprised by the gesture. Richard's invited into the shop, and although Edward's busy, 'of course he has time for his father in law'. The phrase knocks him emotionally off balance, but Edward doesn't notice, simply updating him on their house hunt, and inviting them to the house warming, pending Stevie's approval. He shakes Edward's hand when he leaves, and when he turns back to his car, notices Steven quietly watching him from the window of his store. He waves, and after a moment his son waves back. He's alive, and there's hope, at least.

He and Kathleen invite the boys and Wayne over for dinner. He sees Steven smiling in the car as they arrive, and although it's faded by the time Richard opens the door, it returns tenfold when he shakes Edward's hand and greets him with 'hello son'. Richard's still very much uncomfortable (especially with how 'hands on' Edward seems to be) and if he finds himself in the kitchen knocking back a few more drinks than usual then it's his own business. It's worth it at the end of the night, when Steven invites them to their housewarming, and actually seems to want them there. He feels Wayne's approval through their goodbye handshake, and it makes him feel as though he's on the right path.

Jim Hopper lets them in through the front door. It's a small house, clean and characterless, and full of people Richard doesn't know. In the yard, Steven's at the grill with some other boys his age, and Edward is in the middle of the lawn, spinning a curly-haired teenager around like he weighs nothing. They look happy. Settled. Edward spots them first, waves them over and starts introducing them to the other adults. Steven brings them drinks, is beaming behind his sunglasses. (He can't remember the last time Steven smiled at him.) Hours later, when they leave, Edward shakes his hand and thanks them for coming (for trying, but that's unspoken), and Steven hugs him for the first time in so, so long, burying his head in Richard's shoulder like he used to as a child. Kathleen cries on the drive home, and he's not much better, but they're happy tears. He's a slow learner, Kathy too, but they're learning.

#steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #i dunno...i just like the idea that both Steve and his dad are passively bigoted until their beliefs are challenged...then they change #season 1!Steve was an ass...if he hadn't had his lightbulb moment he could have ended up just like his parents IMO #Eddie is the catalyst...the opposite of what Mr Harrington stands for & challenges every one of Mr Harrington's principles just by existing #might actually write this one out long style as i have so many thoughts #wayne munson #Wayne Munson carefully 'gentle parenting' the Harringtons is also kinda hilarious ngl #tw: mild homophobia #i also don't know why Richard fits...maybe because it's usually shortened to 'Dick' and he really does seem like one in canon

[tumbleweeddesktop]

Thinking abt yanshen and how their love is very human. They legit are opposites, for the majority of the book I really doubt that there will be a romance between them, then it happens and im like... That doesn't make sense... But it also does bcs sometimes love just happens and it happens to yws and sq and it shows that they're just humans in the end

#both of them are strong by their principles as well and I think that's what attracted them to eo #sq n yws knows eo principle #and that convinced me that on the end they know eo best bcs of that #yanshen #yan wushi #shen qiao #thousand autumns #qian qiu

[meduseld]

But also something so ! about how John Irving, the character with most faith thus most faith to be tested, is the one to find the salvation, the divine providence, the literal manna in the desert, of Koveyook and his party, taking it in with humility and gratitude is just. Irving really did get to see a form of God in the way William Blake wrote it:

“I sought my God and my God I couldn't find; I sought my soul and my soul eluded me; I sought to serve my brother in his need, and I found all three; My God, my soul, and thee.”

#the poles really are deserts by definition btw as it relates to precipitation #at the end he had a religious experience and i have feelings #john irving #lieutenant irving #the terror #the terror amc #the truth of faith i guess is just love and looking out for each other and not imposing some colonial mandate on each other #is the point of terror #it's the land of another god well gods but the principle of faith and what john would have called christian charity is still good #which is supposed to be the highest form of love #signifying the reciprocal love between God and man that is made manifest in unselfish love of one's fellow men. #and in his last moments john finally got to truly understand that in a whole new and actually true way

[tomwambsgans]

tomgreg is not "i could fix him" nor "i could make him worse" but "i could make him feel like a real person." from both ends.

#tomgreg #there is genuine incompleteness on either end without each other #i'm thinking nrpi and the mutual obsession and being (successfully) singularly inclined toward monetary success #EXCEPT in regards to each other #greg having only the most naive aspirations until he meets tom #tom having an essentially directionless desire to be a caretaker until he meets greg #i'm thinking of that one rebvilla tg art with the caption #'doderick fell from the fantasy doggy land and became a real boy in the arms of a guy named tom' #i'm thinking of how the last time greg smokes weed onscreen has him throw it away when tom shows up #how he first does coke. an upper. onscreen directly as tom shows up #tom wakes him up and guides him #greg gives him someone to guide #they're both sponges that soak each other up bc they were sorely missing something #the ethics of their behavior are besides the point #the point is that they cease to be performative about it. tom gets less conservative greg gets less liberal #bc both were masks that weren't necessarily real #'don't be an asshole greg you don't have PRINCIPLES' <- tom accurately calling greg out for being fake #i'm thinking we don't change minds. maybe we do change minds. #once again whether it's in the direction of being 'good' or 'bad' could not be FURTHER from the point #bc the human condition does not condern those things. LOVE does not concern those things. #they just push each other in the direction of being complete people. of being fucking real #mine

[leonardcohenofficial]

fuck ph*l sp*ctor's wall of sound all my homies hate ph*l sp*ctor's wall of sound (except you the walker brothers you can stay since your producer was not ph*l sp*ctor but johnny franz ripping off the sound and doing it better)

#i already hate phil spector for the everything about him and also really don't like the way the wall of sound well. sounds. LOL #but for some reason with the walker brothers that production formula works. also with early dusty springfield who was also produced by #johnny franz. which tracks. anyways. so often the wall of sound just sounds muddy af and combine that with sp*ctor's hatred of stereo mixes #it just ends up sounding like crap in mono in my humblest of opinions (i am saying this having purchased a mono walker brothers album #tonight which was an outlier for me given i almost always hate mono mixes on principle unless they're proven to be incredibly good—but even #ones that are deeply lauded like the pet sounds mono mix often end up sucking. anyways—but the walker brothers album is actually good LOL)

[kicktwine]

oh so alisaie’s exaggerated bully behavior is 80% fanon. saying this she casually picks up a large rock

#say one thing wrong to me and you will have a wonderful few days with the rock #if angry silly girls have 100 fans etc if they have 0 fans i have died #sorry i saw a YouTube meme i vehemently disliked on principle and got mad at the only child behavior- #kipspeak #she is just short tempered and uses anger to mask other more ‘shameful’ emotions!!! alphy did the same thing with just deciding not #to express them. which is still not good and I think why he breaks and ends up teary so often now #this shortness does not translate to actually being mean to people. she only uses being mean as a shield for herself and being snarky #Is just fun for her. it’s fun for Me. you have to inconsequentually tease people or they’ll never learn to laugh at themselves #the twins and thancred 🫵 do this thing where they have big emotions but they don’t want anyone to SEE they have big weird emotions #so alphy pretends he doesn’t have them under a veneer of dignity and alisaie pretends the emotions are Something Else. thancred is #just so emotionally constipated he has trouble expressing anything. he’s got enough baggage for a flatbed #anyways. alisaie is such a compassionate and kind girl and she learned how to make snarky jokes and went ham. and she hates appearing sad o #weak or vulnerable so she blocks it off with an unapproachable emotion so no one pities her and they maybe get on with the plot #it is in fact also great at getting ppl to move away from the sad or embarrassing topic. even if the tradeoff is being more offputting #she would never (grabs youtube meme) she would never seriously bully her brother. this is sibling ribbing only. Cain instinct #just leave her be she is learning how to snark humor and she loves it she loves being sharp. alphy has wit he just keeps it close #my brother didn’t learn how to tell or receive a joke until he was 14 he took everything so seriously. he can do it now though and he’s #HILARIOUS. Don’t tell him I said that. my man knows exactly where the funny points are even if he hasn’t learned when to stop yet #too many tags. Whatever. jokey snark alisaie who sometimes compliments is happy alisaie grouchy snappy angry alisaie is way too stressed #very easy way to tell between the two. even alphy can tell between the two I believe! He tends to rib back in protest if they’re having fun #and try to stop her if they’re not having fun. case in point ‘what is that supposed to mean?!’ vs ‘alisaie ryne was only trying to help.’ #I know they’re twins but that’s such an intensely older sibling thing to do that it reels me #LONG TAGS AND THREE EDITS TO ADD ON SHORT I resent this stereotype taken too far into ooc behavior. it happened with nya #It will happen again and as a postscript let me regale you with Things U Can Notice About Character Motivation and Actions— #I’m not done let me s #she and raha are friends now I decree. ‘haha you like me’ SPUTTERING PROTEST FROM BOTH

[abirdie]

Gael García Bernal in Fidel (2002, dir. David Attwood)

Gifs are all 540px wide so you can click to see larger.

[other gael filmography gifsets]

#gael garcía bernal #fidel #fidel 2002 #ggb filmography gifs #gael is in this less than you'd think given that he has second billing and at one point it got a re-release under the title 'Fidel and Che' #that's marketing for you #it's a fairly by-the-numbers fidel biopic that tries to cover nearly fifty years of history in 200 minutes #and i imagine didn't really have the budget it needed #once batista is overthrown it's mostly people sitting around talking in dimly-lit rooms (actually i suspect just one dimly-lit room) #gael is 22 here and playing che from 25-38 so he's a very youthful-looking late thirties by the end #but look at him in the beard and beret and you can see why people kept casting him in the role in the early 2000s #i mean apart from the generally sound principle of 'if you can cast gael in your project always cast gael in your project' #cw violence #cw guns #gael garcia bernal

[sebastianswallows]

A new family — Chapter 9

— PAIRING: dark!Ominis Gaunt x F!MC

— SYNOPSIS: Ominis gets tired of his family and how miserable life is with them after he graduates. So he follows Sebastian's example for once, and kills them in cold blood. Now that he has the mansion to himself, he discovers he would still like to have a family, but one of his own making.

— WARNINGS: smut, fluff, cuddling, fingering, breeding kink, size kink, creampie, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, sweet/dirty talk, and of course Parseltongue 🐍

— WORDCOUNT: 3k

— TAGLIST: @littletealight @skarathewitch @myrachondria @mrimperio @ssnapsaurus @tarotwitchy-main @hufflepuff-16 @shameless0shenanigans @imaslytherpuff @adoxra

Her fingers curled around his, with Ominis holding them beside her head while he laid kisses all over her neck. He licked the sweat that pooled there and smiled when he felt her purr. His hot breath, coming fast but still so soft, sent shivers down her body, her every muscle, and the tension settled right at her aching womanhood.

“O-ominis,” she moaned, sinking her nails into his knuckles — not enough to hurt, but just enough that he would feel it.

“My love,” he whispered back, trailing kisses down the centre of her neck, “my little wife, my own, my only, mine…”

She felt it when he braced his elbows on the bed, still holding her hands beside her, still pressing her down with his whole body and her legs spread around his waist, and then she felt something poking at her core.

“Aaahh…” she gasped, “t-that’s…”

“Shhh… easily, my darling, lightly…”

Her eyes were wide, staring through the dark, looking at where he would be. He was so hard and dripping wet against her, his tip feeling feverish compared to the rest of his skin and still only parly peeking out of its soft covering. Ominis pressed his lips against her jaw and slowly, carefully, pulled upward, dragging his chest against her straining nipples, his thighs against her bottom, and tried to press inside of her. His manhood slid against her wetness and the head bumped into her mound before he canted his hips back and settled it back at her entrance. Her folds surrounded it, hugging it, pulsing around him in a kiss.

Ominis slowly pulled back before thrusting forward again, driving his straining manhood right toward her hole. She whined and shivered, and nearly closed her legs in surprise at the feeling, but he was there holding her apart with his thighs.

“Won’t go,” he muttered, but then he soothed his own frustrations with a sigh. “We’ll have to see to that then, won’t we?”

Before she could ask what he meant, his fingers touched her core again. She arched up involuntarily as he began to tease her, playing loudly in her wetness and dragging it up to her nub. His other hand went up to hold her head, gentling her frowns with his thumb.

After flicking her bud quite mercilessly, he dipped his hand a little lower and felt for her hole, then entered it — just with one finger, just trying her. Her lips parted in a gasp that Ominis quickly silenced with a kiss. When he got to the first knuckle, he pulled back, then thrust inside a bit deeper, then deeper still, until it was halfway inside.

“So tight, my little love is,” he whispered against her lips. “Are you scared?”

“N-no…”

“Good,” he smiled, kissing her lips again. “I wish only to take care of you, please you, pleasure you, my heart...”

When his finger was nearly all the way to the root, his thumb began to rub her nub. She mewled at the sensation and reached up to kiss him, burying her pleas into his mouth. Ominis took them gladly, chuckling against her lips while he kept toying with her.

With his hand still there, he thrust his hips forward and tried to enter her again, testing how open she was — but still no luck. His middle finger eased out, then back in, fighting through the clenching of her inner muscles.

“Relax, my love,” he whispered between kisses, “I need to part you…”

“I… I’m trying…”

“Is it not good?”

“It is,” she whimpered, “it is, it’s so…”

“Good,” he smiled, kissing her breathless again.

A second finger slid into her hole, and his hand found a rhythm, pushing in and out while rubbing her button raw, spreading her own juices around her throbbing folds, and all the while his manhood was right there, threatening to enter her.

Kissing down her chin and past the necklace, Ominis settled on her breasts. His hand left her head to cup them, pressing them together carefully so that he could suckle on them both at once. She yelped and writhed, giggling insanely at the pleasure he brought her from every direction, but he just kept diligently working on her. Every act was deliberate and measured, as if he’d thought it through a thousand times. The fingers moved faster, deeper, stretching her out, and her nub began to twitch from overstimulation.

“Om-minis,” she sighed, shivering from head to toe, “I… I can’t…”

“You can,” said Ominis, voice muffled by her breasts, “you will. I’ll make you…”

“Can’t… can’t…” she pleaded, head lazing back, chest heaving, fingers curling in the sheets.

But her legs spread of their own accord and she began to tilt her hips toward his fingers, and a lick of fire started spreading from her core down to her thighs and up her tummy. He felt it, and nibbled on her breasts a little harder while his fingers curled deliciously inside her.

“Ominis!” she moaned, and every sound after that was a wordless cry of pleasure as orgasm overtook her.

He kept suckling on her breasts and fingering her, thrusting in and out with the fingers curled just right, and once she began to clench around him, he shoved them deep. He held there, as far inside as he could reach, feeling her convulse around him on and on, until it stopped. The thumb kept flicking her bud, nail scraping against it lightly until she stopped shivering.

When he pulled away from her, a trail of slick followed like a delicate string, stretching out until it snapped and stuck to her inner thigh. His tongue lapped at her breasts more slowly, lips following their every rise and fall, until her breathing settled. Between her legs, his thumb rested on her pearl until it too calmed down and ceased its twitching.

“O-Omi—” she breathed, not able to finish his name before he began to shove himself inside of her.

“There you are,” he whispered breathlessly, “there’s my love… Stay still…”

With his still wet hand, he grabbed onto one hip to hold her down as the head of his manhood pushed into her. The tip popped in first, stretching her far wider than his fingers had, and then the shaft slid in more smoothly. She winced and grit her teeth, feeling far too sensitive after her orgasm, but soon the same familiar pleasure started spreading up and down her body again.

“Aaaah… d-deeper,” she whimpered, arching in the dark, searching for Ominis.

“Gently, my love,” he whispered from above her. “I don’t want to hurt you… You’ll tell me if I hurt you, right?”

She nodded distractedly, forgetting that he couldn’t see, but Ominis must’ve felt the motion and chuckled.

“I meant it,” he said, speaking seriously but fondly as his thumb brushed over her hipbone.

“I know…”

He was barely half-way in when he paused, and his whole body stopped. Ominis held himself up on one arm, breathing quietly, listening to her. The pearls and emeralds at her neck chimed with her every inhale. When he felt her ready, he began to thrust again, hips snapping ever so slightly forward, deeper, always deeper, until she hugged his shaft to the root.

They moaned in unison, holding onto each other so tightly they hardly knew anymore where one ended and the other began. She found his hips and embraced him, pulling him ever so slightly closer. Moving carefully, Ominis bent over her and kissed her lips again, far more slowly and desirously than he had that entire night. He laid over her with almost all his weight, holding her down.

His hand on her hip felt hot and sticky. For a moment, she imagined that was blood on his hands, her darling murderous husband. Closing her eyes, she pictured herself painted with it, and she’d never loved him more. Her adoring, tender, dangerous husband…

“I love you,” she whispered against his mouth, “more than anything…”

“And I love you,” Ominis said without pause, leaping down to kiss her again, more aggressively and lovingly this time.

His hips pulled back, dragging his heavy member out of the hug of her womanhood, then snapped back hard, pushing her a little up the bed. She could hardly move without him following, their legs curled around each other’s and their chests sticking together with sweat. His kiss swallowed a surprised little yelp from her.

Every motion touched something in her body that made her want to jump out of her skin, and it took everything she had to not close her legs to him — not that it would have mattered, because he wasn’t going anywhere. He was inside her, plugging her up, forcing her open, bullying her hole past its overstimulation into accepting what he gave it.

“Stay as you are,” Ominis breathed, chuckling tiredly against her sweaty neck. “How am I to give you what you need if you close yourself to me?”

“I… s-sorry…”

“Shhh, no need for that,” he said sweetly. “Here, let me help…”

With one long, slow thrust, Ominis brought his lips up to her forehead and his hands around her neck and his hips right against hers, and stayed there. He kissed her temple while cupping her throat, just feeling her frantic pulse and breathing, but caressing her with his thumb in one sweet promise that he’ll hold her down more firmly should she try to move again. His thighs were flush against her behind, and his sac was getting soiled with her juices. She whined and arched, body protesting against being so full, but Ominis held, and held, and held there. He was keeping his promise to her, mating with her like a snake.

“There you are,” he whispered against her hairline. “That’s my good little wife… Keep it right there…”

“Too big,” she whined, bucking her hips nervously. It only managed to tease her more.

“Relax,” he whispered, “stop fighting it…”

“Yes,” she sobbed, nodding her head against his shoulder, “I’m trying…”

Ominis cooed at her and slid a hand lower again, palm tracing a heavy path down her sensitive breasts, her waist, her hip, before it pushed its way between their bodies. Suddenly, he began to flick her clit again, playing with it roughly while his shaft lay inside her to the hilt. She tensed up and cried, a small tear of wetness tickling down her folds as her body reached a point of almost unbearable overstimulation again.

“Kiss me again,” she begged, her voice breaking with half-moans. “Kiss me, I need it, I —”

He chuckled and slid down her body, his lips landing on her cheek, her nose, and then her mouth. He sipped on her pleasured murmurs and began to move his finger around her nub at the same leisurely pace as his kiss. When he released her lips, it was only to move even lower and kiss her breasts. She wailed loudly when he pulled one puckered bud into his mouth and suckled while he caught her clit between two fingers and pinched it, catching it again and again when it slipped from how wet it was.

“Please,” she cried, “please, please, Omi —”

Her begging did something to him. Ominis moaned deep in his throat and she could feel his manhood kick while still inside her. He finally pulled back, then slammed up into her again, working up a frantic pace that would have moved her up the bed if not for his hand holding her down by the throat.

She filled the room with moans and clung to him as he brought her to another shaky, ravaged orgasm. His hand stilled, but his shaft worked her through it, keeping her pulsing channel stretched and struggling to contain him. She was still twitching from her released when he began to messily rub her nub once more.

“No,” she groaned between hysterical bouts of laughter at how sensitised she was, “can’t… Too much…”

“That’s what you said last time,” he said, smirking with her breast still between his lips. “You can take it…”

“I caaan’t…”

“Don’t you want to be a good wife for me?” he whispered, moving to the other breast and sucking noisily at it. “Can’t make a family if you’re not good…”

“Y-you want that? With me?”

“Don’t you?”

She’d always known Ominis to hate his family, and he’d expressed in not so many words the intention to have them die out, at least so far as he could help it. She didn’t dare to hope that him getting rid of the rest of the Gaunts would have changed his plans in that regard, but hearing him say it made her heart rush.

“I… I do,” she said once she caught her breath. The necklace rattled against her collar when she tilted her head slightly, looking down toward him in the dark, though she could hardly see him. “I want it v-very much, in fact…”

Her admission seemed to breathe new life into Ominis. He grinned, and the breath of his laughter cooled her skin before he dipped again and kissed her, moving from one breast to the other quickly, then right at the centre where her heart was beating.

His hand at her neck worked its way upward, tangling in her hair, while at her womanhood his fingers played in her wetness. He scooped up a bit of her release and dragged it to her mound, making a mess of her, teasing her with how much she’d already spilt for him. Very slowly, mindful of how sensitive she was, his hips began to cant up into her again.

But he was more gentle this time, taking up the slow pace of earlier. She could tell from his quick puffs of breath that he was holding back.

“Ominis,” she moaned, threading her shaky fingers though his hair, “please, finish inside me…”

He responded with a groan and one harder, sharper thrust. “I will,” he promised. “I’ll fill you up so much your body won’t have a choice but to let itself be bred…”

“Yes, yes, please, I need it!”

“So good for me,” he whined. “You’re all soft now… So plush, so wet…”

He stretched his legs and braced himself against the bed to push more deeply into her, hands going up to hold her wrists down on the bed, rendering her flat beneath him. He was conquering her inside and out, holding her down with his weight and moving just his hips in sharp, deep shoves. Her folds throbbed, lavishing his sac with kisses whenever it slapped against them.

He felt her clenching around him and hissed, whispering nonsense against her dampened flesh in Parseltongue. She stilled at hearing it, frightened for a split second at that forbidden language that slid down her ears like ice, but rather than making her afraid, it aroused her even more. Her hands slid from his grasp down to his back and she clung to him, whimpering in surrender.

With one hard thrust inside her, Ominis abandoned her breasts and his lips found her throat again, tongue slipping against it between serpentine words as his hips thrust harder and harder, battering her walls, and then he stilled.

“Aaaah!” he cried, burrowing his face in her soft hair. “That’s it… there it is, take it…”

The moan he gave felt almost fragile, like he fell apart when he came inside of her. His hand went down again and worked her nub with frantic urgency. When she felt his thick, hot seed spill into her, warming her up from the inside, she shattered and clenched around him, crying out fragments of his name. Her thighs tightened on his hips, her entrance clenched around his manhood, and she felt him holding still as deep inside as he could reach while he released every drop he had from his throbbing, heavy sac.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you so much…”

Her hands shook as they clung to him, trying to bring him even more close to her. His cheek was pressed against the necklace so hard it must’ve hurt, but he didn’t care. His manhood kicked inside the tight hug of her walls with each pulse of seed that spilt from it, until gradually, it stopped.

She sighed and kissed his temple as she came down from her orgasm, nuzzling her face into his hair.

“I love you too,” she said, “more than you can know…”

“I’m glad,” said Ominis with a breathless laugh. “There was a time I was afraid you never would…”

She cupped his cheek and pulled his face away from her neck, easing him toward her so that she could catch his lips with hers.

“Well, I do,” she murmured with a smile against his mouth. “And I always will.”

They clung to each other as they caught their breath. His length was still inside, still plugging her up, and her legs were sapless as they rested wrapped around him. When they started feeling heavy and lazy, they slid over to their side, snuggling together in a wet and messy tangle.

Her leg was resting over his hip now, and his length slid out of her. With it, a few dollops of the seed he’d left inside trickled out. It felt like a tongue licking a path out from inside of her. She trembled and moaned at the feeling, and Ominis couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Are you all calm now, my sweet?” he whispered as he caressed her cheekbone. “Sated, are you?”

“Very,” she hummed. “For now…”

“For now, huh?”

“At least until I hear you speaking Parseltongue again…”

“Oh, d-did I… during…?”

“You did,” she moaned, stretching forward to give him a quick peck on the lips. “And you will again if you wish to keep your wife happy.”

Ominis chuckled, and she could’ve sworn he blushed. “Anything your heart desires…”

Slow and lazy, she slid closer and wrapped an arm around his waist. “It desires you,” she said, resting her forehead against his.

“Good,” he smiled. “You have me. And you shall have more and more of me from now on…”

She giggled, feeling madly infatuated with him all over again, and reached forward to plant another kiss on his lips. She breathed in the scent of his body, basking in his warmth, just as he did too. Coiled around each other, safe and sated and finally happy, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

#finally got around to finishing this 😭 #hope you like it my dears 💚 #in principle this is the last chapter but I could write another if I'm particularly inspired #I like this ending tho #nice happy fluffy ending #Ominis Gaunt #hl #Ominis Gaunt fanfiction #ominis gaunt imagine #Hogwarts Legacy imagine #Ominis Gaunt x Reader #Ominis Gaunt x MC #Ominis Gaunt smut #Hogwarts Legacy MC #sswallow;made a thing #sswallow;fanfics #sswallow;a new family

[moodyseal]

Had a pretty obvious revelation yesterday after spending my weekly hour agonizing over how maybe I should be a little less invested in fandoms now that I'm getting older, and that revelation is that if other adults can be loud about their interest in sports and invest their time and money into it why should I be ashamed to do the same but with the things I actually like

#sports are seen as a grown-up interest #but at the end of the day they work on pretty similar principles as fandoms #watching things. rooting for people. speculating on their lives #so who cares about what people like. we're all having brain rot anyway #life is too short to pretend being something you're not #lonely thoughts