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[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

#this was much longer i had to cut it down for legibility #but i do want to say i am aware this post doesnt touch on human rights violations as a result of fast fashion #that is because it deserves its own post with a completely different tone #i am an environmental educator #so that's what i know the most about. it wouldn't be appropriate of me to mention off-hand the real and legitimate suffering #that people are going through #without doing my research and providing real ways to help #this is a vent post about a thing i'm watching happen; not a call to action. it would be INCREDIBLY demeaning #to all those affected by the fast fashion industry to pretend that a post like this could speak to their suffering #unfortunately one of the horrible things about latestage capitalism as an activist is that SO many things are linked to this #and i WANT to talk about all of them but it would be a book in its own right. in fact there ARE books about each level of this #and i encourage you to seek them out and read them!!! i am not an expert on that i am just a person on tumblr doing my favorite activity #(complaining) #and it's like - this is the individual versus the industry problem again right because im blaming myself #for being an expert on environmental disaster (which is fucking important) but not knowing EVERYTHING about fast fashion #i'm blaming myself for not covering the many layers of this incredibly complicated problem im pointing out #rather than being like. yeah so actually the fault here lies with the billion dollar industries actually. #my failure to be able to condense an incredibly immense problem that is BOOK-LENGTH into a single text post that i post for free #is not in ANY fucking way the same amount of harm as. you know. the ACTUAL COMPANIES doing this ACTUAL THING for ACTUAL MONEY. #anyway im gonna go donate money while i'm thinking about it. maybe you can too. we can both just agree - well i fuckin tried didn't i #which is more than their CEOs can say

[mortalityplays]

You need more free art.

I quit my job yesterday. Well, actually I quit my job eight weeks ago, but they finally released me yesterday for good behaviour. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do - but I do it for the wrong reasons. Working for major charities, you learn very fast that 'I want to make the world a better place' is a phrase you use to ask people for money, not to give them things. I was an ass-backwards fit for that world.

You need more free art. I need more free art. Everyone has felt the shift in our media landscape over the last ten years, away from access and towards nickel-and-diming the human experience. That lack of access is making life and culture worse for all of us, across the board. Paywalled news sites leave us less informed, attacks on the Internet Archive leave us less capable of research. Algorithmic social feeds and streaming walled gardens trap us inside smaller and smaller demographic bubbles, where we are increasingly only likely to encounter ideas that have been curated for us by marketing departments. Hasty efforts to resist AI commodification have only led to more artists locking their work away and calling for even more onerous systems of copyright law. This is not good for us.

We all need more free art.

So what am I going to do about it?

This is a question I have been asking myself for years. It's easy to sit here feeilng frustrated and thinking 'boy I hope SOMEONE does SOMETHING'. It's harder to take action in a world where I still have rent to pay. But hard doesn't mean impossible. Sometimes hard just means time-consuming, frustrating and slow. And sometimes it's worth doing something time-consuming, frustrating and slow because...I want to make the world a better place.

I'm going to do this:

1. From April 1st, I am relaunching as a freelance writer and editor.

This is the one that will (hopefully) help to pay the bills. I am a very good and experienced editor. I've worked on hollywood movies, I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders, I have clients who have been coming to me exclusively for more than 10 years.

Alongside bigger contract jobs, I am going to refocus on offering my services to small-press creators at a reduced rate. That means you, graphic novelists. That means you, itch and amazon writers. I want to help you develop your work, the same way I help large organisations. You can learn more about what an editor even does and what kind of pricing you can expect here.

2. I'm also going to start giving shit away. Like, constantly.

Next week I'm going to launch a new free shop. If you're unfamiliar, a free shop, giveaway shop, swap shop, etc. is an anarchist tradition of setting up a storefront where anyone can take what they like for no cost. Offline, this often means second-hand clothes, tools, furniture, food etc. Online, I am going to be giving away digital art. Copyright-free, no strings attached. It will (eventually) feature everything from print-res posters to zines, poems, tattoo flash, t-shirt designs and anything else we come up with.

Yes, I said 'we' - while this is a curated collection, it will feature work from a variety of credited and anonymous artists and activists, all of whom have agreed to give their work away to the public domain. Some of it will be practical, some of it will be political, but a lot of it will be decorative or personal. This is, in part, a response to recent difficulty I had finding somewhere that would print a one-off joke poster for a friend that featured the word 'faggot'. Enough. No middlemen - no explaining ourselves. Just print our shit and enjoy it.

I'm very, very excited about this project. I'll have more to say about it closer to the launch, but you can expect it to go live on March 27th.

2.2 I forgot to mention the ACTUAL LAUNCH GIVEAWAY

To celebrate my launch, I am going to be giving away a ton of physical prints. When I went looking for my old stock to see if it was worth setting a new (paid) storefront up, I realised I had way more old work in storage than I thought. This will be announced in its own right on Monday, but this is why I've been hinting you should go follow my Patreon.

On April 1st, I will pick 8 random patrons (from across all tiers including non-paying followers!) and mail them a bundle of assorted prints and postcards. The prize pool includes A3 and A4 posters, packs of A6 postcards, and printed minicomics that I've previously sold for up to £12 each.

You don't have to be a paying subscriber to enter - this is strictly no-purchase necessary. It is purely and entirely a celebration of the concept of GIVING ART AWAY FOR FREE.

3. PORN, YOU PERVERTS

Because I still have to pay to stay alive, I am going to be subsidising all this free art with the introduction of Fuck You Fridays. Starting from March 29th, I will drop a new 18+ short story on the last Friday of every month, over on itch.io (yes I know my page is desolate right now, don't worry I'll get there).

The first edition, Go Fuck Yourself, is about, well - telling your boss where to stick it. Julia has had it with her millionaire man-child manager, and is just about ready to let him know what she really thinks. It's a short and steamy 5k words, with a gorgeous cover illustration by @taylor-titmouse, and you can pick it up for $3 starting from March 29th.

4. ANOTHER BIG SURPRISE

I'm keeping this one under wraps for now, but April 1st will also play host to one more (FREE) launch. If you've been following me for a long time, you might remember the other significance of this date (no not April Fool's day, though that is certainly thematically relevant to this entire effort). That's all I'll say right now. Watch this space.

tl;dr: I'm sick of paywalls and career ladders. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is. More free art for everyone and I'm not kidding around!!!

#announcement #please reblog let's make this HAPPEN

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

The moral injury of having your work enshittified

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And they came up with mottoes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

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

[tarjapearce]

Bad Teachings (Pt. 5)

Miguel O'Hara x F!Reader

WARNINGS: Strained relationships, friendship starters, piercings, awkward truths. Slow Burn.

Summary: Relationships are weird. And truth isn't always kind. At least, you might have a friend.

(Might feel a bit boring, but we're building something here. 🥹)

Pt. 6

"OK. I've got one for you." —

—??

"What's the scariest plant?" —

You almost giggled into the reply in your head. It was another ridiculous joke, silly but science-y that upon reading it on a blog, you instantly thought on sending it to Miguel.

In the meantime while he replied, if he ever did that is, you kept on working in a new project. Despite the previous client complaining initially on the low numbers on her beauty product line, the numbers were making small changes in other states, giving a glimpse of hope in the team.

Your job itself at this marketing company, Searchbloom, was to make the briefs, office automation of said briefs and of course help prepare new campaigns for approved projects and important clients  such as celebrities, big companies, influencers and anyone with enough money to afford a complete market investigation.

Your phone buzzed as you finished another brief from a client.

—Red Tide or Algae Bloom. Really bad for marine ecosystems.

You blinked and shook your head at the little fact that you'd probably forget in the next hours. The giddyness of your comeback taking over once more.

Interesting. I thought it was the BamBOO!—

—Ever thought in going out more?

Damn.

Campy jokes were scratched off your list of things. You could picture in your head the reaction, dead, boring and possibly judging.

I'd need real friends for that(?) —

—Not a bad thing to be on your own, y'know?

Oh?

Swallowing at the dryness of your mouth, you finished the little brief, digitally signed it and sent it to another coworker in the other side of the office cubicles.

I know. But doing things on your own isn't always fun. I mean, I'd really love to go shopping, hanging out for lunch and the like with other people.—

His eyes squinted at your words on his screen

I mean we are social beings by nature, sadly, and as much as I'd like to keep doing things on my own, the making friends fever has taken over. —

—Trust me, don't rush things. They'll come to you in the right time.

Your brows arched in surprise at what you just read and pursed your lips in a tight smile.

I mean, I could ask you to hang out but I know you are a busy man. Plus, I gotta step a bit more out of my comfort zone, ever since I got out of college feels like the right time to start making little changes, can't be socially inadept forever, I guess? —

And I'm not sure if you'd actually be interested in such things, you're a workaholic, so yeah. Sorry for the long ass message. —

He hummed and his lip curled faintly upward

You should try it as well.—

—Got enough to live by. Thanks.

You actually give these "Leave me alone" sorta vibes 🤔—

—That pretty much sums it up.

Oh...

                                      I see—

Your heart gave a wobbly and doleful beat, eyes stuck in reading that sentence over and over again. You gulped laboriously the lump that had just formed in your throat.

He wasn't asking to be left alone, was he? Maybe he was actually hinting that you should leave him alone.

Oh no. No, no.

You hated assumptions. But he was pretty clear about the meaning of the message, right? Right?

Closing his chat log, you put your phone away and tried to pour yourself into work to little to no avail. Your brain felt like split in two, blooming headache biting at the back of your head. Week had just started.

You tried. You tried with all your might to keep the harrowing-thoughts at bay, but over thinking you ever old friend only made things trickier than intended. You barely wanted to look at your phone, cause what would you find there but implicit rejection? Even though the other part of you wanted to reach out, at usual.

Another cold realization. You were the one that always sparked the small and sparse conversations you had.

"... Fuck." Seeing your log of messages with him, offline, just made you cringe at how precisely you were acting and wanted to avoid be seen as. Clingy and desperate.

Gulping down, you pressed on the trash bin icon. Breath stilled for a second as you tapped on the 'Yes' confirmation button. He hadn't replied since yesterday.

Why would he anyways?

Question ghosting over your mind.

It wasn't that hard to process.

His words seemed to make sense now. The palpitations in your heart only made themselves clear further the more you thought about it.

God knows how long he had been waiting to say such things.

You grunted at your thoughts. The noise and unkind thoughts reverberating in your head, made your migraine to simmer to a higher level. You had barely slept as the whole situation was breaking piece by piece the little functionality you had left for the day.

But, tasked yourself with one thing, to not look at your phone through the day. A rather easy task since you only used it to check your little social media, watch funny things or videos that caught your interest.

The knitting and crocheting stash of videos in your gallery weren't enough to keep you distracted. So you had added a new category, city wandering for new spots. And four pm sounded like a good hour to actually start. 

And if wandering the city alone, after work to keep you busy from over thinking probable assumptions wasn't considered a hobbie, you certainly didn't know what else to call it.

So you finished work, clocked out and adventured yourself in the arts of local wanderlust. But of course traffic fucked throughly all chances of doing so. You went to the supermarket to grocery and toiletries shopping.

The situation had made you so oblivious to the fact that you needed to replace some basic stuff at home. Shampoo, toothpaste, conditioner, exfoliants.

You couldn't help but notice the coffee and grain aisle full of new products. Hazelnut lattes, cardamom and clove blends, brands you didn't even know that existed, some cheap, other expensive, and of course you took one in between. A small international sample blend.

Your card surely had died a little when you slid it to pay. Almost a houndred bucks in beauty products and another houndred and a bit more in groceries.

The groceries and toiletries were checked from the expenses list. To your little solace, Mr. Landlord was waiting for you with a man and another door.

You let them work, as you unpacked your things. At least you had a new door, a prettier yet still sturdy like the previous one.

Still, no message from Miguel.

----------

On Wednesday you tasked yourself with the same endeavor as yesterday. Not checking your phone. The videos in your "To watch" list were boring and annoying. Political propaganda, movie recommendation spams, mysoginistic stands ups, reactions to bizarre videos.

Nothing worthy to wasting your time on your lunch break. At least you would have the chance to wander the city on your own. You had noticed some work you had slacked, finished and other projects advanced. A perk you didn't think possible in the admist of chaos.

But why would you even congratulate yourself for doing something that was expected from you?

Right.

You clocked out and once more you went to the city. This time no traffic was there to stop you. Parking in a lot, you took your tote bag and walked. Getting comfy shoes to walk after work was added as a mental note. You stopped on a sidewalk.

Streets bustled with people walking like they were probably late to an appointment, Neon signs begun flashing their lights, adorning the streets with their different colors, different sort of aromas filled in your lungs. Pee, trash, hot dogs, sweets and bakery, perfumes, cigars, gas, weed somewhere.

An overwhelming start. You walked in the bakery's direction. To your surprise when crossing the street it was just a little mobile kiosk with choux pastries. Even though the products looked esthetically pleasing, the prices on the whiteboard underneath, made you turn in the opposite direction. And just then you found your first treasure.

Tea Bar. But not a gentrified-looking tea bar with over the top foliage decor with expensive furnace that charged you for just breathing their air. More like a tavern-esthetic sort of Tea bar named Julien's Potions.

Spices, herbs, and other pastries, rested within funky shaped glass containers, the clerk was also into a sort of role-playing that added a little charm to the place. Hand carved wooden tables and chairs littered strategically the small local. Six tables max. The art on the walls was minimalistic, yet still added to the overall layout in the place.

Prices were significantly much more affordable and the little treat you got, a red berries cold brew tea and Mango muffin, we're exquisite. It gave you enough energy boost to return at the parking lot. Of course you took some pictures of the place.

You felt proud. Your first solo adventure had been wonderful.

On Thursday you had ran into a little fancy liqueur shop. Ironically as it was, alcohol and you didn't get along, but the different labels, the shape of the bottles, the year of brewing, the array of sizes and prices, the origin place, made it all too pretty for you to ignore. There were bottles that surely would  cost at least five months worth of your paycheck.

Friday was a busy day at work and of course you just went home. On Sunday you had found a well hidden treasure, a bakery. This time, you took more pictures of the different pastries you had never seen before. Petit fours intricately adorned with such precision you wondered if they had a special machine for it.

Puff creams, chocolate croissants, pain au chocolate, Buttery buns that made you salivate. It kinda brought you back to the baking school sales, your mom's peach gallete and strawberry tarts were popular, and  the only two recipes you knew by heart. The rest, long forgotten and replaced with new hobbies' knowledge.

-------

A week and a half had been exactly gone by, and not looking at your phone had been easier than you had thought. You had discovered a few more places to add to your personal list. A crystal and esoterism shop, where you bought lavender incense. A little thift shop where you got a lovely and fashionable champagne colored trench coat. And today, you kinda wondered where you'd take yourself on a Friday evening

This time you hoped to find a knitting shop. Starting a new hobby meant to invest in it. And your cheap wools had ran out as you were learning the basics of knitting. After work, you'd park your car in a spot of the parking lot, but to your surprise it was closed early. So you drove until you'd find another, nearby the thrift shop you had found. Open 24/7.

You walked east, the bustle of the city wasn't as loud in some parts of it. You gave the thrift shop's clerk a brief smile before continuing down the street. To your surprise there was a Tattoo and Piercing studio. A.F.A.U.'s Emporium. Sid Vicious' voice reverberating through the place the closer you approached.

Your eyes widened upon seeing none other than Hobie on the front desk, organizing a bunch of guitar cords. The place was divided in two. To the left there was the tattoo artists and piercing cubicles. To the right, apparels and other handicrafts were neatly displayed before anyone that actually took the time in looking.

Walls painted in jet black, with a dim white grunge texture as a decor. Pictures of protests, famous singers that made a significant impact on society through their subversive forms of expressions were hung on the wall.

Jello Biafra, Kathleen Hanna, Patti Smith, David Vanian, to name a few, along some bands logos spray painted in some spaces.

A stark contrast with your well dressed for the system-look. Hobie arched a brow at you and chuckled.

"Got lost in the way, birdie?"

You shook your head as you kept looking around.

"I was wandering the city, actually found this place by mere coincidence. Looks pretty cool."

"Humbly"

"You work here?"

He sneered and shook his head.

"I owe it. Me and many others, actually. I'm just the face fo' it."

"What does... AF..."

"Anti Fascist Artist United." He sniffed as his lip twitched.

Your eyebrows rose and you glanced over the piercing cubicles.

"So ya just... wander in the city and see what happens?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"Cool. But dangerous."

"I never go too deep in the city just... the outsides. Don't want to fuck around to find out what's in store for me." you chuckled, Hobie followed.

He tucked his hands on his pockets and walked over you, he motioned to follow him.

"How come every time we met you turn cooler?"

He shrugged and took you to the handicrafts.

"You did them?"

"No. My work's on the other side. These are made by local artist that are involved one way or the other in tryin'to get mo' spaces for people that actually bring a change into community."

"So all of this Merch..."

"Ain't free, that fo'sure."

You giggled

"No, I mean, You just rented this place to give other people a space to offer their art and goods without charging them?"

"Nah. they do pay a small quota, meaning, they can come and clean up, organize shite. Government pays the rent, they get full profit of their thingies. Everyone's happy."

"And the tattoo part?"

He smirked and shrugged.

"Government pays the rent, so... puttin' that to good use."

Your eyes widened slightly and you just nodded.

"Might need a bit of that smart for myself."

"You gotta shape it, birdie. Anyways, what brings ya here besides, yer 'wanderlust'?"

You sighed and shook your head.

"Been wandering the city on my own to try and distract me from something that is messing me up. Just glad I found a familiar face after almost two weeks of random strangers."

"Life's a bitch, innit?"

You nodded and went through the merchandise. T shirts with trippy designs, Pottery in fruit shaped bowls, handcrafted watercolors and painting supplies and of course, knitting tools. Your grabbed a couple of  wools and paid him to take  the small bundle with you.

"So what yer' here for?"

You looked up at him and sighed

"I'm trying to make friends on my own."

"How's that going?".

You shrugged and a humorless laugh came out your mouth.

"I mean... ever since college... way even before that, actually-" You looked up and scratched your neck awkwardly when he gave you his seizing stare.

"Sorry. Don't wanna bore you with my ramblings."

"Haven't said nuffin'" He sat across you and looked at your fumbling hands. The music had died down a bit.

"Saw yer door being replaced."

"Oh yeah. I'm glad I'm not getting stuck anymore." You looked at him and chuckled.

"Whut?"

"Do you always stare at people like you're judging their choices?"

"Yeah. Makes it funnier when they get all squeamish. Like ye."

"I'm not squeamish."

He arched an eyebrow and you both chuckled.

"Can I ask your age?"

"So ya can feel a Lil'more glum for what you might have or haven't achieved so far?"

"My thoughts exactly." you shrugged with a silent laugh.

"24."

"Ah, yeah. I can already feel the disappointment."

"A too well dressed disappointment"

"Is that why you call me... uh... runway girl?"

"No. Glam life, glam dressing, glam job. Runway sort of shite, so runway girl. Been there, done that. Not fo' me."

You didn't know whether to feel offended or laugh at his assumptions. Everyone was assuming lately.

"My life is anything but glam, Hobie. Just work enough to keep appearances. Something that my job also requires from me."

"That's why the name is perfect for ya"

"It's boring."

He pursed his pierced lips in mild derision

"Graduated uni?"

you nodded.

"Found a job of what you did study for?" Again, you nodded and sighed.

He chuckled.

"Still, you're just assuming. My life is boring. Really. One would think that working in branding companies offers you alot. But it's just another fancy way to say you're-"

"Another workforce for da capitalism?"

You chuckled and shrugged.

"Yeah, I guess. And people think I actually hang out with celebrities-"

"You don't?" He snorted and you frowned

"See?! You were assuming things! And no. It's rare when I actually meet someone famous. I basically make resumes of what they want, how they want it and make it come true. And if I ever meet them means no good. And still I have to dress up like I'm interviewing someone important."

" A wish maker, then. Might call ye Fairy."

" Sounds less brash than Runway girl actually."

" So lemme get this, you graduated uni, are working on something you actually prepared yourself for, dress up like an expensive doll, but... ya wander the city alone tryin' to make friends? "

"Sounds a bit more depressing and pathetic when you put it that way." He tittered at your words.

"Sounds like you're just living by."

"Yeah. That's been a recurrent feeling, even before college."

"What do ye want?"

"Uh... what?"

"Like, yer acting like yer living the life some dream of, but have the life some hate. That leaves ye in the middle. What do ya want?"

"Right now? I'd like a hug and be told everything, at least up here" You pointed at your head, "Will be fine. But since life is a bitch, I wanna get my ears pierced actually."

His smile was satisfied.

"That's a start innit?"

"Yeah... just realized that ever since college, I... didn't get the chance to do a lot of things."

"Uni seems like the dementor of people's dreams. Even worse if it's private." You chuckled and nodded. He motioned for you to follow to the front desk.

"Both ears?"

"Nah, just my right one for the moment."

"A'ight. Pick one, it's on me."

You looked at him with excited eyes, he just smiled.

"This one. It looks soo cool and it's stylish." You went for a triple helix hoop in your upper lobe.

"Golden, silver or colored?"

"Uh... golden."

He prepared his working area. Your chest felt a bit less constricting.

-----

The first thing you  did when coming home, besides giving Hobie a ride and greeting his mom on the hallway and getting a random invitation for afternoon tea, was to look at your new body modification on the mirror. Golden 6 mm hoops adorned your ear. You couldn't help but feel giddy and a little sore. Hobie was careful, and he was a pro at it.

Your phone had been buzzing nonstop hours ago. You made a quick dinner for yourself out of the left overs. You then took a shower and changed into your pjs, TV remote on hand, The Diary of Bridget Jones ready to play for the third time, when the notification sound dinged. You groaned.

Your thumbs padded and scrolled through the logs. Some were from the work's group chat reviewing the week's assignments, others from your social media announcing new videos for you to watch, your ex college classmates uploading new photos, and something more unexpected.

Miguel's name on the bottom of your notifications. It was almost comical how you had to rub your eyes and make a double take to confirm that it was him. He had messaged you. Your heart skipped a beat. Your thumb hovering on the unread text, like if reading it would make the room to suddenly explode.

You pressed on it and all you could do was blink almost stupidly at it's contents.

—If you're done giving me the silent treatment drop by on sunday. Need your help.

---------

Taglist:

@yeyrpp2 @zaddyskye69 @gejo333 @bigbassbug @daddylorianisastateofmind @namjooningera @d1lf-loverrr @amb3rrz @xantic0101 @niyanispunk

#miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara x reader #atsv miguel #miguel spiderman #atsv hobie #hobie brown #t writes✨ #atsv fanfiction #spiderman 2099 x reader

[bioethicists]

hm i really hope that someone has said this better than me but the betterhelp ads (specifically the video ones, as the podcast ones tend to be less scripted) are such poignant examples of alienation + the role of 'go to therapy' in perpetuating that alienation. keep in mind that, if you personally found a therapist who is genuinely healing for you + that therapist happens to be through betterhelp- i'm genuinely happy for you + that experience does not invalidate anything i have to say below! (but jsyk they're trying to sell your shit to facebook lol)

starting strong w/ the fact that betterhelp is essentially the uber of therapy (aka using an independent contractor model which is harmful + predatory towards its providers), rushing in to fill the market on largely uninsured and/or uninformed ppl who want the ease of a concierge system without the cost + lacks a meaningful supervision system (which led to one gay man being recommended a conversion therapist when he asked for someone to help with his identity struggles, btw!). smarter people than me have written about the ways in which these trendy independent contractor apps strip people of labor rights, fail to provide adequate wages, + in the case of healthcare apps, increase digital surveillance + decrease accountability demanded from providers while exploiting the failure of the US healthcare system in order to churn a profit w/o actually creating sustainable, equitable change.

the betterhelp video ads all circle around a theme- a millennial starts talking about some form of emotional pain or worry, usually relatively standard existential worries ("do you ever think nothing has meaning?") or life worries ("i hate my job" "i think i'm gay"). their friends or the ppl around them respond blankly + coldly, looking at them like they're crazy. while i understand these ads are supposed to be tongue in cheek, they demonstrate the crushing reality of our alienation from one another- the solution to your friends responding to your evident pain with confusion + apathy is to confine that pain to a therapy session! nobody wants to hear your struggles or understands them- come generate profits for us by facetiming a newly graduated 24 year old who can barely make rent!

this theme fits well with what already put me off about betterhelp's marketing- their goal has never been to provide access to therapy for those who want it or to altruistically fill in some healthcare gap. their goal, bolstered by the rise in emotional suffering following, you know, the worldwide pandemic, is to generate + increase demand for therapy as a commodity. their earlier podcast ads focused on convincing others that therapy "isn't just for crazy ppl" + "everyone should be in therapy". regardless of if you personally agree with that statement, it should be evident that this is a blatant marketing tactic in which therapy is a commodity to be peddled, not an offer of support or healing. in fact, they're probably actively shying away from treating "crazy people", bcuz their flimsy support systems could not possibly handle an influx of ppl regularly in crisis or experiencing breaks with a common reality. their target audience is your average millennial under late capitalism + post COVID - anxious, lonely, vaguely depressed, unhappy with their jobs, worried + hopeless about their futures.

i'm not here to tell anyone not to get therapy. that's a personal decision + is none of my fucking business. it's about questioning the total alienation we feel from one another, such that pouring our heart our unexpectedly to a friend + being met with a blank stare is framed as "haha you need therapy" + not "it's crushing that this is how distant we are from one another". it's about a company noticing that (unfortunately very real) distance + fear of vulnerability + using that to direct our emotions into the confines of a business transaction under abusive labor conditions. it's about a world in which we are not engaging with one another emotionally (despite, or i guess bcuz of: widespread suffering, recent mass death, class warfare/untenable working conditions, increased pressure of fascist politics, generational trauma + abuse, etc etc). commodifying therapy isn't going to make that loneliness go away- it's going to normalize it.

#anti psychiatry #smh i write all these on the toilet then my wife is like charlie it's been a fucking hour

[russos-ventitre]

georgia stanway x reader | memories from the dark room 🫧

✘ summary: georgia surprises you with a reusable film camera so the two of you can make cute memories together

✘ warnings/tags: tooth-rotting fluff, film date

✘ words: 982

a/n: there isnt enough love for george so im fixing that now, also sorry its short

You sat comfortably in your shared flat, having a late tea in the kitchen as you heard keys jingling outside your door.

"Babe! I'm home! And I've brought presents!" Georgia shouted as she locked the door.

"Presents?" You questioned, pulling her into a tight hug and burying your face in her neck.

The midfielder's arms came around your waist pulling you closer as she pressed a kiss to your head.

"Yeah!" She replied excitedly. "You're gonna love it, babe!"

The two of you pulled away from the hug, you finally noticing the shopping bag dangling from her wrist. Your eyes followed her hands as she pulled out two reusable Kodak film cameras for the pair of you, both in your respective favourite colours. Your heart melted at the sight, previously mentioning before how you were gaining an interest in photography ever since you got your hands on her FujiFilm X100V, never looking back since. Throughout your monthly anniversaries, she would get you photography-related presents, one of them being your precious instant film camera and another being a custom keychain with pictures of the two of you made out of an old film roll. It was small gestures like that, that made your heart swoon for the short brunette.

"George!" You squealed, pulling her into another hug, this time peppering her now flush cheeks with little pecks.

The two of you rushed into the living room, you struggled to contain your excitement, your legs bouncing as you watched Georgia carefully insert the rolls of film into the cameras, handing over yours first. It was your first time shooting on film, only ever shooting digitally on Georgia's camera and your Evo or using your Evo for instant film shots, so you were buzzing with adrenaline.

You held the new toy in your hands ready to test drive it, watching as the brunette shifted herself closer to you, showing you how to properly hold it and not block the lens.

"So if you grab it like this.." She stuck her tongue out, a concentrated look painting her face. "..yeah.. like that, then you should be good to go. This dial here is how you wind your film.. this switch here is how you turn on your flash.. and this button here is your shutter."

You smiled at her through the entire explanation, knowing pretty much everything she said but allowing her to go ahead and teach you anyway, it made you happy watching her so who were you to stop her.

"Can we shoot some film today?" You asked quietly, biting your lower lip, hoping that she wouldn't deny your request.

"Actually I was hoping we could go out into town and take some pictures together... that's kinda why I bought them." She admitted sheepishly, fidgeting with the sleeves of her England hoodie.

The two of you strolled your way through your neighborhood, hand-in-hand, lightly swinging them about as you walked into town. As you walked through the markets Georgia would point out things to you that she deemed 'good photo spots', guiding you to a good standing position and standing behind you to help you take the pictures. It was sweet, it was soft, and you very much enjoyed the feeling of your girlfriend's biceps around you as her hands were on top of yours, helping you stablise and take some shots. You occasionally turning your head to the side mid-photo and placing a quick peck on her cheeks as her face leaned over your shoulder.

"Are you gonna take any, Gee?"

"Y-Yeah.. just wanna help you first.. that's all." She blushed, rubbing the back of her neck.

The midfielder took a step back, watching in awe as you proceeded to take the next few shots of some of the flowers at one of the stalls, noticing how a particular bouquet had your attention. When you weren't looking Georgia talked to one of the workers at the flower stall, asking for that specific bouquet that you were admiring.

Unknowingly, you continued to wind up your film and snap more pictures of your surroundings, feeling a light tap at your shoulder after your 26th exposure.

You turned around to see your girlfriend holding that same bouquet you were admiring. You happily took the flowers from her, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek. "You're adorable, Gee."

The two of you continued strolling throughout the market, taking more pictures of cute things and being madly in love with each other. You caught Georgia taking a few sneaky pictures of you whilst the two of you wandered about, blushing every time you saw the flash in your peripherals.

"I'll make sure to send our rolls off to that developing company first thing tomorrow, babe." The brunette replied, placing a soft kiss to your forehead as the two of you walked back home before it got too dark.

A Few Days Later..

"[y/n/n]! Our film is here!" Georgia shouted from the front door, having retrieved the parcel with your prints.

She hurriedly opened up the box, finding two rolls of negatives, all of your photos printed out, and two CDs with the digitals.

"They're beautiful." You sighed, happy that your first time shooting on film was a complete success, thanks to your love.

Georgia smiled at you, seeing that you were satisfied with the prints. "We could make a little scrapbook with them. Have a little scrapbook dedicated to all our dates."

"Yeah?" Your eyes met hers, seeing how her features softened when she looked into yours.

"Yeah." She hummed, leaning close to press a delicate kiss to your lips, your hand coming to cup her face.

The two of you made it a habit, from now on, to always bring film cameras wherever you went, adding more magic to your memories. It was simple yet beautiful and you couldn't imagine doing it with anyone else.

@/you_username

liked by stanwaygeorgia and 13,956 others

@/your_username gee bought me flowers 🥹

view all 937 comments

stanwaygeorgia only bc youre cute :)))

‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎leahwilliamsonn gag me with a spoon

‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ keirawalsh oi leave em alone

#georgia stanway #georgia stanway x reader #woso #woso fanfics #engwnt x reader #woso x reader #england women #woso community #woso imagine #woso imagines #georgia stanway imagine #fc bayern munich

[sanshofox]

Artists getting sad after the „who’s the artist, what’s your age“ trend thing on socials. They see many of them being a very young age with already good skills.

Here my try for words of comfort: consider the differences when you grew up and how the younger gens grew up. Nowadays there‘s easier access to tools, gadgets and knowledge with faster paced society.

With better developed internet you can find all kinds of references, tutorials, brushes and whatnot to help you developing your skills or to get a better understanding of how each skill works (if traditional, crafting, digital and more). And now you have all kinds of places to share your stuff on and be part of a community that share the same interest for art and even can give feedback. Artists now using the internet as a platform to earn money and showing their how-to’s. What I would have given as a kid and teen to have that through a „simple mouse click“.

I remember back then when not every household had internet and even if, it wasn’t stable nor fast. You only had a few sites to visit, that you knew were save to go on, and even less sites when it came to art. I remember one german art site and years later on deviantart (and both were in their very toxic era back then. Very closed off at times and tutorials being seen like a „do not reveal the secret to it“ magic trick kinda vibe).

It was hard to find out about stuff because we didn‘t have that global connectivity and marketing etc that exists now to discover things.

And also being „limited“ as a kid and teen on what you could use. Nothing that was right at hand was digital. So you couldn’t experiment with media types for example. So no vast library on tools that imitate all kinds of things, i.e. brushes in procreate. Everything needed to be made traditionally with what you had. I remember I had two of those how to draw anime artbooks (and back then it were two out of very few options actually), pencils and a few copics. You had to make the most of it.

Photoshop you had to use by mouse and was veeery costly (one software CD cost over 2k). I think wacom tablets weren’t a thing until my late teens?? 🤔

And please don’t take this as a rant, I am actually feeling rather nostalgic about it. Those how to draw anime books were hilarious when I think about them now haha. I think I still might have one?? 👀 And I still have those very first copic markers 🥰

It doesn’t matter how you started or what age you are comapred to others. That you keep on making art is what counts. Skill needs to be developed, but passion and creativity/imagination comes from yourself. Skill isn’t what keeps you on doing it, but the love for it is.

[jndzine]

JnD zine looking for mods!

Who?

Jak and Daxter fans! Maybe you :3?

What?

A sfw art zine to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Jak 3! It will be printed, with a digital version available as well. There might even be a merch bundle ;)

When?

Mod applications open on April 27th. The rest of the projected schedule can be found here. 

Aiming for preorders to open on the 20th anniversary (Nov. 9th)!

Where?

You can find us on Tumblr, Xitter, IG, and Bsky! We will also have a private Discord for mods and contributors.

Why?

JnD is a beloved franchise that deserves to be celebrated. Not much official merch exists, so it's time to make some of our own! And who knows 👀 maybe if we make enough noise, something will happen

Additionally, any profits from the zine will be donated to The River Otter Ecology Project!

Mod info!

All mods and contributors will receive a free copy of the zine.

We're looking for people to fill these roles:

Organizers: run the Discord and help contributors meet deadlines 

Graphics: make graphics for social posts and zine page decor

Marketing: draft and post on socials according to schedule

Requirements: must be friendly, more-or-less organized, and able to work with a team. No experience required, though it's a plus!

More info to come when mod applications open on the 27th.

@zinefeed @all-zine-apps @zine-scene

#jak and daxter #fanzine #fandom zine #zine #jnd #naughty dog games #mod apps open #mod applications #jak 2 #jak 3 #the precursor legacy #jak x combat racing #info tag

[kristinagehrmann]

The US Copyright Office is currently asking for input on generative AI systems ...

... to help assess whether legislative or regulatory steps in this area are warranted. Here is what I wrote to them, and what I want as a creative professional: AI systems undermine the value of human creative thinking and work, and harbor a danger for us creative people that should not be underestimated. There is a risk of a transfer of economic advantage to a few AI companies, to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of creatives. It is the creative people with their works who create the data and marketing basis for the AI companies, from which the AI systems feed. AI systems cannot produce text, images or music without suitable training material, and the quality of that training material has a direct influence on the quality of the results. In order to supply the systems with the necessary data, the developers of those AI systems are currently using the works of creative people - without consent or even asking, and without remuneration. In addition, creative professionals are denied a financial participation in the exploitation of the AI results created on the basis of the material. My demand as a creative professional is this: The works and achievements of creative professionals must also be protected in digital space. The technical possibility of being able to read works via text and data mining must not legitimize any unlicensed use! The remuneration for the use of works is the economic basis on which creative people work. AI companies are clearly pursuing economic interests with their operation. The associated use of the work for commercial purposes must be properly licensed, and compensated appropriately. We need transparent training data as an access requirement for AI providers! In order to obtain market approval, AI providers must be able to transparently present this permission from the authors. The burden of proof and documentation of the data used - in the sense of applicable copyright law - lies with the user and not with the author. AI systems may only be trained from comprehensible, copyright-compliant sources.

____________________________

You can send your own comment to the Copyright Office here: https://www.regulations.gov/document/COLC-2023-0006-0001

My position is based on the Illustratoren Organisation's (Germany) recently published stance on AI generators: https://illustratoren-organisation.de/2023/04/04/ki-aber-fair-positionspapier-der-kreativwirtschaft-zum-einsatz-von-ki/

#copyright #no ai art #artificial intelligence #illustration

[lu-lus-duckies]

Idk what to call this so you make up the title

@huskers-bar x @nunalastor

Tags: enemies to lovers, angst?, eventual fluff, yearning?, soft huskers-bar, both mods are separate people, no beta we die like i do in this fic (not yet though), minor character death, ooc, au: hellaverse (hazbin hotel), nunalastor is head of the marketing department of the hazbin hotel (lucifer grabbed them randomly), jealousy?, huskers-bar is an employee at voxtek, lulu and angie as villains, lulu is a dog

chapter: 1/? Word count: 1,431

Featuring: babygirl anon and (eventually) @xxx-angie . I may add more along the way depending on who wants to be added. I can probably shoe-horn-in a few more characters

For the sake of not tagging people a million times, I will call nunalastor as a single entity nunalastor, traumatized mod dickmaster and cursed mod nun. and huskers-bar just husk. babygirl anon will be babygirl anon. i will be shortened to lulu but I don't appear in this fic yet. Angie doesn't appear yet, but he will be angie.

A/N: anyway this is 100% going to be a huskers-bar harem fic because i can write whatever i want. This first chapter kinda boring but it gets better (source: trust me bro). Lemme know if you'd like to see any changes. Anyway, goodbye for now. I have uni to get to so less frequent posting (sorry dickmaster, you'll have to live without any of my horrid art for a little while)

"Did you know that Alastor made a happy deer squeak during this scene?"

Ah, yes, the words that twist people's dreams into nightmares. Innocent innitially, and maybe even amusing for a good while, but the longer one lingered, the more their skin would crawl with irritation and burn their insides. Especially when one knew the context surrounding this particular phrase. And boy, did Nunalastor know the context.

~

"Another day, another inbox to slay, another heavenly lord to betray" Dickmaster accessed their and Nun's shared blog, unsurprisingly to hundreds if not thousands of asks invading their inbox, all of which were echoes of different variations of *thumps* and *squeaks*. If Nunalastor hadn't already grown accustomed to such deviancy, they would be horrified. Still, the depraved ideas these people came up with never failed to send shivers down their spine, and not the pleasant kind.

And why do they subject themselves to this? you may ask. It was simple. In exchange for free housing, food and supplies, Lucifer Morningstar, the devil himself and father of Charlie Morningstar had requested their help. You see, originally their blog was not this unfortunate cesspool of deranged demons who wanted to see the devil, overlords and sinners squirm under immense sexual pleasure. It used to be a simple marketing tool for the Hazbin hotel, but as all things in hell, it never goes smoothly. It wasn't like they had a choice in the matter anyway, refusing the king of hell's requests was not an option! His commands were absolute.

Dickmaster took one deep breath, running both hands through their hair and clearing their mind, preparing for probably several hours of torture that was going to be their asks. They poured themselves a drink, setting down in front of their screen. Taking a few moments to relish the silence, they closed their eyes and listened to the soft hum of their beaten up 1950's style computer, courtesy of Alastor's ban on Voxtek products at the hotel. Clicking on their inbox tab, they mentally braced themselves. even if they knew, they could never truly predict the horrors hell had to offer.

"time for #housekeeping" They declared, stretching their fingers, getting their reaction images on the ready and sifting through their own version of digital hell. It would only get worse from here.

~

As Nunalastor started to clean their digital home, erasing one cursed ask after another, responding to one alastor circus theory after another, One ask in particular caught their attention. It was definitely a surprise, and a welcome one at that. It stood out like a sore thumb, simple yet elegant, divine and a blessing among heaps of cursed messages that would have asmodeus and satan themselves shaking in fear.

"hi dickmaster" - anon

Nunalastor couldn't explain it. They don't know what came over them, but they felt a strange sense of attraction to this one particular anon. They were sweet, they gave them a place of solace from the dread that was piss kink headcanons and cursed deer facts, equivelent of the clogged up plumming disasters alastor had to fix with his bare hands at the Hazbin hotel. It was the piece of gold nugget hidden in a swamp full of moss and dog urine.

Dickmaster stared at the message for a good few seconds, really taking in the plainness and beauty of the two words before their eyes, appriciating all that message was as a small smile made its way up their face. This called for a special occasion. Dickmaster gripped their keyboard, nearly smashing it with the force. Their fingers danced along the keys and crafted a response like no other, one worthy of this random anon that managed to make their day a bit brighter.

"Hi babygirl" - Nunalastor

~

On the other side of the pentagram, a kind, sweet and not at all deranged huskers was scrolling through hells version of tumblr. Voxtek devices had proven to be quite useful in the underworld. It served as the main source of entertainment and escape for the lonely, not only for husk, but other sinners alike. Besides, being an employee meant he had extra privileges with Voxtek. Regardless, it introduced husk to the nunalastor blog, which was the best moment of their life (or lack thereof, considering they're dead).

They'd quickly grown accustomed to the undeserved hate thrown their way upon their first ever interractioin. Though they didn't understand, they could play along. They found strange comfort in the twisted logic that any form of attention was better than none. After all, being singled out meant they were special in the eyes of Nunalastor, right? that's how husk comforted themselves anyway. And they haven't seen Nunalastor actually reply to anyone with actual love before.

That is... until it happened. Someone who would later reveal themselves as babygirl anon, husks worst adversary and the unfortunate victim of lulu's slander showed up on their feed.

"hi dickmaster" - anon

"Hi babygirl" - Nunalastor

Husk stared at the screen in shock, their eyes widening and heart growing heavy. Countless questions and conflicting emotions swirled within them, each clutching their hold for attention. 'Is nunalastor serious? Do I not want them to be serious? Why can't I be treated the same? What did I do?' And amidst the chaos, one thought rose to the surface, crystal clear in Husk's mind.

'I want to be loved like that'

The frustration of being at the end of every one of Nunalastors verbal spears finally caught up to husk. Every small jab they'd written off as jokes suddenly felt like small pin needles scraping their skin. Unable to deal with the whirlwind of emotions and the confusion of it all, Husk sought solace in the one place they could always trust, the bottom of a bottle.

So they took a swig. And another. And another. Intil there wasn't a shred of emotion left to feel. Not a single thread of frustration left in them, not a nerve of anguish, not a line of confusing verbal spewage...

And not even a speck of self-restraint

~

"THEY JUST KEEP COMING" Dickmaster exclaimed, more like yelled as their inbox was flooded with more cursed asks at a rate faster than they could answer. At this pace, they'll be there all day, answering these asks like a poor overworked minimum wage employee at a call center.

"They'll run out of ideas eventually" Nun responded, nonchalantly, leaning against a nearby wall, sipping on a drink of their own. Nun watched as dickmaster struggled to find another reaction image fast enough so they could call it quits and leave the rest of the struggles for future Nunalastor to handle, or more accurately when it would be nun's turn to answer all the unhinged people in their inbox.

The hurried clicking of the keys on a keyboard could be heard throughout the entire room, bouncing off the walls, reflecting exactly how much infestation was actually happening in nunalastors inbox by the minute. "it would be great if you could answer a few you know, my fingers are dyin-"

And then it suddenly went quiet. The clicking died down and the unbelievably loud buzzing of their computer, along with the hitched breathing of Dickmaster was the only sound bouncing around the room. Nun of course raised a brow at this. "what's the holdup? we can't afford to take a break you know" they said, as if they were the one answering all of the asks in the first place.

nun walked over, curious as to what exactly had stopped dickmaster in his endless pursuit of emptying their inbox, considering they were always the more enthusiastic one of the two. "are you okay?" nun asked, half sarcastically. Their eyes landed over the current ask in their inbox.

"I wish you'd love me" huskers-bar

and suddenly the silence made sense. the pause had been a justified one.

dickmaster inhaled, followed by a deep and saddened exhale. they didn't want to take their eyes off of those five words. they could stare in awe and amazement at them for hours. it wasn't even the fact that it was just another ask that wasn't cursed, but because it was huskers-bar that sent-

a hand on dickmasters shoulder snaps them out of their daze, being brought back to reality, the pitiful reality. they were in hell for a reason, they reminded themselves.

"you remember our deal, don't you, dickmaster?" nuns voice cut through the buzzing, sounding deep, gruff, threatening and slightly saddened.

"yes of course" dickmaster turned back to the monitor, giving one last look at the ask before typing out what nunalastor has agreed would be the appropriate response.

"you'll get over it. #we are a huskers-bar hate blog"

#i'm kind of sorry but i cant take writing seriously when i called one of yous dickmaster askfdjaslkdfjoasidjgf #huskers-bar x nunalastor #i hope at least. idk i dont read this shit back to myself. my self esteem is low enough already #lulu is delulu #nunwhiskers

[chiriwritesstuff]

Meet Me at the Farmers Market - A Christmas Special - 🎅 Santa's Baby ❄️

A Farmers Market! Joel AU x Confident! Plus Sized! F! Reader

Series Masterlist

Series Summary: What does a Contractor do in his spare time? Sell his wood carvings at the Saturday Farmers Market, of course! A Grumpy x Sunshine Joel Miller series collective of one shots

Chapter Rating: T

Word Count: 1.4K

Chapter Warnings & Notes: Explicit language, Miller Family Hijinks, Joel's in a costume, Ellie's in a costume, everyone is in a costume!, Naughty Santa, Tommy just can't help himself, One big-time jump into the future!, Joel is a girl dad through and through, Merry Christmas ya filthy animals!

Summary: What happens when Joel is forced to be the market's resident Santa? This story takes place five years after Pt. 6

A/N: ... and the Miller Family Hijinks™ are back!

In all seriousness, I want to thank everyone who has read, shared, liked, and loved this little series of mine. What came from an insane idea one day working at the farmers market to where we are now, I am so thankful for all of you that has supported me and my silly little series this year! I am so so so happy you all love Farmers Market Joel, and I can't wait to write more for you all! Here is a little Christmas treat set a few years in the future. I hope you all enjoy! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Dividers by @saradika

“Tommy, you fucking owe me… big time.”

Joel shifts uncomfortably in his seat, the cheap polyester of the ill-fitting Santa suit clinging to his bare skin, leaving him itchy beyond belief.  Thank god it’s decently cold in Austin this time of year, he thinks to himself- if I had to do this in 90-degree weather… he pulls at the offending white beard strapped on his face, “Tell me why I’m being held against my will being Santa yet again-“

“Oh, come on, Joel, no swearing in front of the kids!” Tommy teases, slapping his brother's back as he fiddles with the digital camera fixed in front of Joel, making sure that it sits steady on its tripod. “Besides, you certainly look the part, you know. Maybe you could lay off on the after-work beers once in a while.”

“Go fuck yourself, asshole-“

“I thought we were going to try not to bicker and cuss each other out this year?” Sarah suddenly interjects, an elf hat fixed on her head as she smooths out her elf costume. She smirks, turning to a not-too-pleased Ellie in her costume, muttering to herself about getting paid to endure the torture of volunteering for the annual Christmas festival at the market. “Oh Ellie, you look so-“

“Stupid? Because I feel like a moron-" she chides, stomping next to Tommy as she fiddles with the camera. Tommy whacks her hands away as he shoos her off. “This is so fucking embarrassing! At least Joel doesn’t have to wear a pillow under that suit-“

Three of the four Millers burst into laughter, Joel glaring at them as he shakes his head. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, glad y'all are having a blast at my expense… next time Maria asks for a Santa, you-“ he points at Tommy, his face still red from laughing, “as her husband, should volunteer yourself-“

“… but you wear the suit so well, brother! Besides, I’m sure Sunflower would love for you to climb up her chimney…” Tommy interjects with a mischievous grin, sending the group into another fit of laughter.

“Oh gross!” Ellie shrieks, “Please tell me you’re going to burn that suit afterward!”

“Okay Millers, are you ready?!” Maria claps her hands together as she approaches, a wide smile on her face as she pushes Tommy aside, settling herself behind the camera. “Got all of the swear words out of your system? Let’s get into our places, there’s a lot of antsy kids waiting for Santa, we can’t keep them waiting, can we!”

Joel adjusts the too-big Santa trousers once more and gives her a thumbs up. “Okay, Let’s get this shit over with!”

“Dad, your beard is crooked,” Sarah laughs, reaching over to fiddle with the fake beard and kissing his cheek. “For the record, you are the best Santa the market has ever seen…”

“… and yet, this doesn’t mean that you’re getting a new car-“

“… she’s going to love it,” Sarah cuts him off, a small smile on her face. “Besides, don’t you think she’ll be happy to see you all dressed up?”

Joel smiles at that, nodding. “I hope so, I’m doing this just for her, you know?”

“Yeah, Dad, I know.” His eldest daughter laughs, “You’re going to kill it!”  

After what feels like forever, families keep streaming in as the day goes on. Kids of all shapes and sizes take their turns on Joel's lap—some looking terrified, others just thrilled to meet Santa. Thankfully, the line finally starts thinning out as the last hour of the festival approaches.

Joel, finally catching a break, stands up to stretch. He twists his back, and you can practically hear his body protesting in agony. "I'm getting too old for this shit," he sighs, frowning.  

"Excuse me, Santa," a little voice calls out from behind. "Is it my turn?"

Joel can't help but smile as he turns around, facing a little girl, no older than four, her head tilted to the side. She sports a wide grin and a pink beanie atop her head, her brown hair fashioned in charming braids, holding her mother's hand. "Sure, baby girl. Come to Santa!" Joel exclaims, settling back into his sleigh. He pats his thigh invitingly, the girl's mother giving you a knowing wink as she carries her onto Joel's lap.

“So, have you been a good girl this year?”

The girl beams at him, bouncing up and down as she nods. "Yes! I water all the plants at my mommy’s stand-" she points off into the distance, "and my daddy said that if I’m a good girl, he’s going to teach me to carb animals too!" She exclaims, "Just like my sisters! I’m a big girl now, that’s why!"

"Is that right? How old are you now?"

She holds up four little fingers. "I’m FOR!"

"... and what’s your name, pretty girl?" Joel asks with a twinkle in his eye.

“I’m Anna Miller!” she replies, her hand raised in excitement. “You can call me Annie! My mommy and daddy sell stuff at the market, do you know them?”

“I might,” Joel replies knowingly, giving her mother a wink. “Your daddy tells me that you have been very good this year!” Joel plays along, a conspiratorial smile shared between you and him. The enchantment of the moment continues as Annie beams with joy at the confirmation from Santa himself.

“Really?” she cries, “I’m so happy, I want to learn how to make my favorite animal, my daddy promised! He’s not here today,” she pouts, “it’s just me and mommy! I miss him. Mommy said he’s busy working his other job, do you think daddy is going to come to the market before it closes?”

“Well, baby girl,” Joel smiles as he winks at her mother once more, “as Santa, I can promise you that he’s going to be here, I’ll make sure of it. What’s your daddy’s name?” Joel continues the charade, eager to sprinkle a bit more magic into his daughter's day.

“Joel! My daddy’s name is Joel Miller! Do you know him?!”

“I sure do!” Joel replies, patting her back as Maria takes a photo of the two of them. “We are really good friends, you know?”

Anna turns back to you as you stifle a laugh. “Mommy, did you know Daddy is friends with Santa?! All of my friends are going to be jealous! Can you call Daddy and tell him his friend is here?” She leaps off of Joel's lap, running to you as you hike her up onto your hip. Joel hurriedly rips off the Santa costume, leaving him in his undershirt and jeans as he smirks at his wife and daughter.

"Sure, baby," you coo, looking over your shoulder as you laugh at Joel, giving him a nod, making sure the coast is clear.  

"Hey, baby," he says from behind, his daughter squirming in your grasp.

"Daddy!" she shrieks, wiggling herself from Sunflower as she barrels into Joel. "You're here!" She frowns as she takes him in, her lip wobbling as she starts to cry.

Joel looks at you in horror, turning his attention back to his daughter as she cries in his arms, moving her back and forth as he attempts to console her. "Baby, what's wrong?"

"Daddy, why do you have Santa's beard on you?" Annie innocently replies, pulling on the cheap beard as Ellie erupts in laughter from behind, Sarah whacking her sister as she tries to get her to settle down. "Are you old like Santa?"

"It's okay, baby," Tommy suddenly appears, his smirk as wide as Tim Curry's from Home Alone. "He's older than him, don't you know? That's why they're such good friends!"

"Oh, go fuck-"

"Language!" you scold Joel, covering your daughter's ears as you approach him, kissing him on the lips. Joel attempts to take off the offensive beard, your hand suddenly halting his movements. "Keep it on," you whisper in his ear, "Maybe Santa might let me sit on his lap later, do you think you can ask him, being that you're such good friends and all?" you tease, pinching his ass. 

"Oh, I think I can convince him," he winks, slapping your ass as you jump in surprise. "Have you been a good girl this year? Or have you been naughty? I think Santa likes them-"

"Gross! Get a room ya filthy animals!" Ellie yells, ripping off her elf hat as she throws it at Tommy, "This is the last time, you hear me?"

#pedro pascal #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller #joel miller x reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #joel miller x female reader #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x plus size reader #joel tlou #joel the last of us #tlou fanfiction #tlou hbo #tlou fic #joel miller fic #joel miller imagine #meet me at the farmers market

[hiveworks]

Hiveworks x InkBlot Partnership & Interview with CEO Jay Brown

June 2023

Hiveworks is proud to announce our partnership with InkBlot! InkBlot is a new queer-run and artist-made social platform for creators and their audiences, with similar vibes to DeviantArt or Pixiv.

We are so excited to help an emerging platform by providing advertising support, working together to help the webcomic community grow with one of the things we do best.

We asked InkBlot CEO Jay Brown to talk with us more about InkBlot, its origins and its future.

. 🦋🐝.

How did the idea for InkBlot originate?

InkBlot started on a call with some friends of mine. I was upset and talking about how social media at that time (and unfortunately still even now) had been suppressing creators. Instagram was my biggest source for my other company selling my designs and merch. It still is, but the reach is minimal and nothing compared to how it was 4 years ago. Then, on top of that, DeviantArt hadn't been listening to its user base about an update they were rolling out. As a person that doesn't like to talk about it but be about it, I set to work making wireframes and getting ideas for InkBlot, building the prototype at my kitchen counter.

We're seeing a cultural shift in how people interact with social media. How would you describe InkBlot's place in the future digital landscape?

InkBlot is certainly a social space for creators and lovers of the arts, and I think I like to really emphasize that it is a community space. It is first and foremost a space that will cater to a specific community and the supporters of that community. It is NOT Twitter. We will never be like Twitter, nor do we want to. There are estimated to be about 16 million people around the world that take part in the creative arts. This doesn’t include music, writing, animation, or comics (source? Trust me– jk Global Art Market). So with that being said, InkBlot exists for a large group of people, mainly artists, but also slowly expanding into other areas like music, voice acting, writing. That’s why we refer to users as creatives/creators, and I quite frankly don’t think it matters if we cater to a niche. This niche is huge and life is one big canvas. In this day and age, the internet is very hostile to creators, especially ones that cannot keep up with the algorithms that consume and churn ‘content’ at paces faster than creatives can make them. InkBlot is here to slow things down, have people enjoy the process and connect with others that do the same.

What is missing from artists' online experience that InkBlot aims to fulfill?

Community. The creative community has been shattered into so many different parts of the internet. We have taken residence in places that weren't made for us and still don’t even think of us. We are stronger together, and InkBlot is here to make a permanent home that is built by and owned by the community.

From an adult artist perspective, InkBlot's content guidelines are pretty clear and generous compared to other content hosting sites. What motivated this decision?

There is really nothing more important than keeping every part of the community. This includes the NSFW/adult spaces. The content guidelines are shaped to still allow for the freedom of the arts. You cannot say you are a space for the community, yet completely cut out a part of it. So many spaces have forced out the NSFW community and with it has also scorched the LGBTQIA+ community. There is something deeper here about this, but I won't write an essay. In short, it is important to keep all parts of the community regardless if it's SFW or NSFW.

Hiveworks is also a queer-run, artist-made organization, with a focus on webcomics. What is your perspective on the value of queer spaces online, particularly for creatives?

It is super important. In a world where queer folks are constantly ‘up for debate’ and our existence is a ‘political ticket’, we need to have a space online for ourselves. It is so very important to have a safe space in a world that constantly tries to erase us. Spaces like Hiveworks and InkBlot give people hope. It gives people a chance to connect with other queer creators and find that they aren’t alone. Making media that is queer is more important than ever right now. Even if it is just one person, it can save someone.

Speaking of comics, do you have a favorite comic (print or digital) or a recently read recommendation?

I am a big fan of Novae by KaiJu, Lies Within by Lacey & Golden Shrike by doeprince

For people who want to see InkBlot grow, what is the best way for them to support you?

The biggest thing is getting the word out about InkBlot and USING IT! Use it, even if it’s just once or twice a week. We need to know what people want to see, how it differs from what people use now, or if we should make it similar to those other tools. Of course, we are user-funded so supporting us through our Kofi or on-site premium works, too! Lastly, give us patience! Rome wasn’t built in a day.

PS: Bee on the lookout! InkBlot users will notice that Hiveworks creators on the site have a little bee badge to help make identifying your fave creators easier!

Badge artist: Ray Armstrong

#hiveworks #inkblot #interview #blog

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Subprime gadgets

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THIS SUNDAY in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON: YA Fantasy, Room 207, 10 a.m.; Signing, 11 a.m.; Teaching Writing, 2 p.m., Room 213CD.

The promise of feudal security: "Surrender control over your digital life so that we, the wise, giant corporation, can ensure that you aren't tricked into catastrophic blunders that expose you to harm":

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

The tech giant is a feudal warlord whose platform is a fortress; move into the fortress and the warlord will defend you against the bandits roaming the lawless land beyond its walls.

That's the promise, here's the failure: What happens when the warlord decides to attack you? If a tech giant decides to do something that harms you, the fortress becomes a prison and the thick walls keep you in.

Apple does this all the time: "click this box and we will use our control over our platform to stop Facebook from spying on you" (Ios as fortress). "No matter what box you click, we will spy on you and because we control which apps you can install, we can stop you from blocking our spying" (Ios as prison):

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

But it's not just Apple – any corporation that arrogates to itself the right to override your own choices about your technology will eventually yield to temptation, using that veto to help itself at your expense:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Once the corporation puts the gun on the mantelpiece in Act One, they're begging their KPI-obsessed managers to take it down and shoot you in the head with it in anticipation of of their annual Act Three performance review:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

One particularly pernicious form of control is "trusted computing" and its handmaiden, "remote attestation." Broadly, this is when a device is designed to gather information about how it is configured and to send verifiable testaments about that configuration to third parties, even if you want to lie to those people:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/your-computer-should-say-what-you-tell-it-say-1

New HP printers are designed to continuously monitor how you use them – and data-mine the documents you print for marketing data. You have to hand over a credit-card in order to use them, and HP reserves the right to fine you if your printer is unreachable, which would frustrate their ability to spy on you and charge you rent:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/

Under normal circumstances, this technological attack would prompt a defense, like an aftermarket mod that prevents your printer's computer from monitoring you. This is "adversarial interoperability," a once-common technological move:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

An adversarial interoperator seeking to protect HP printer users from HP could gin up fake telemetry to send to HP, so they wouldn't be able to tell that you'd seized the means of computation, triggering fines charged to your credit card.

Enter remote attestation: if HP can create a sealed "trusted platform module" or a (less reliable) "secure enclave" that gathers and cryptographically signs information about which software your printer is running, HP can detect when you have modified it. They can force your printer to rat you out – to spill your secrets to your enemy.

Remote attestation is already a reliable feature of mobile platforms, allowing agencies and corporations whose services you use to make sure that you're perfectly defenseless – not blocking ads or tracking, or doing anything else that shifts power from them to you – before they agree to communicate with your device.

What's more, these "trusted computing" systems aren't just technological impediments to your digital wellbeing – they also carry the force of law. Under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, these snitch-chips are "an effective means of access control" which means that anyone who helps you bypass them faces a $500,000 fine and a five-year prison sentence for a first offense.

Feudal security builds fortresses out of trusted computing and remote attestation and promises to use them to defend you from marauders. Remote attestation lets them determine whether your device has been compromised by someone seeking to harm you – it gives them a reliable testament about your device's configuration even if your device has been poisoned by bandits:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The fact that you can't override your computer's remote attestations means that you can't be tricked into doing so. That's a part of your computer that belongs to the manufacturer, not you, and it only takes orders from its owner. So long as the benevolent dictator remains benevolent, this is a protective against your own lapses, follies and missteps. But if the corporate warlord turns bandit, this makes you powerless to stop them from devouring you whole.

With that out of the way, let's talk about debt.

Debt is a normal feature of any economy, but today's debt plays a different role from the normal debt that characterized life before wages stagnated and inequality skyrocketed. 40 years ago, neoliberalism – with its assaults on unions and regulations – kicked off a multigenerational process of taking wealth away from working people to make the rich richer.

Have you ever watched a genius pickpocket like Apollo Robbins work? When Robins lifts your wristwatch, he curls his fingers around your wrist, expertly adding pressure to simulate the effect of a watchband, even as he takes away your watch. Then, he gradually releases his grip, so slowly that you don't even notice:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/ppqjya/apollo_robbins_a_master_pickpocket_effortlessly/

For the wealthy to successfully impoverish the rest of us, they had to provide something that made us feel like we were still doing OK, even as they stole our wages, our savings, and our futures. So, even as they shipped our jobs overseas in search of weak environmental laws and weaker labor protection, they shared some of the savings with us, letting us buy more with less. But if your wages keep stagnating, it doesn't matter how cheap a big-screen TV gets, because you're tapped out.

So in tandem with cheap goods from overseas sweatshops, we got easy credit: access to debt. As wages fell, debt rose up to fill the gap. For a while, it's felt OK. Your wages might be falling off, the cost of health care and university might be skyrocketing, but everything was getting cheaper, it was so easy to borrow, and your principal asset – your family home – was going up in value, too.

This period was a "bezzle," John Kenneth Galbraith's name for "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." It's the moment after Apollo Robbins has your watch but before you notice it's gone. In that moment, both you and Robbins feel like you have a watch – the world's supply of watch-derived happiness actually goes up for a moment.

There's a natural limit to debt-fueled consumption: as Michael Hudson says, "debts that can't be paid, won't be paid." Once the debtor owes more than they can pay back – or even service – creditors become less willing to advance credit to them. Worse, they start to demand the right to liquidate the debtor's assets. That can trigger some pretty intense political instability, especially when the only substantial asset most debtors own is the roof over their heads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/06/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom/

"Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid," but that doesn't stop creditors from trying to get blood from our stones. As more of us became bankrupt, the bankruptcy system was gutted, turned into a punitive measure designed to terrorize people into continuing to pay down their debts long past the point where they can reasonably do so:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/bankruptcy-protects-fake-people-brutalizes-real-ones/

Enter "subprime" – loans advanced to people who stand no meaningful chance of every paying them back. We all remember the subprime housing bubble, in which complex and deceptive mortgages were extended to borrowers on the promise that they could either flip or remortgage their house before the subprime mortgages detonated when their "teaser rates" expired and the price of staying in your home doubled or tripled.

Subprime housing loans were extended on the belief that people would meekly render themselves homeless once the music stopped, forfeiting all the money they'd plowed into their homes because the contract said they had to. For a brief minute there, it looked like there would be a rebellion against mass foreclosure, but then Obama and Timothy Geithner decreed that millions of Americans would have to lose their homes to "foam the runways" for the banks:

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/08/how-treasury-secretary-geithner-foamed-the-runways-with-childrens-shattered-lives/

That's one way to run a subprime shop: offer predatory loans to people who can't afford them and then confiscate their assets when they – inevitably – fail to pay their debts off.

But there's another form of subprime, familiar to loan sharks through the ages: lend money at punitive interest rates, such that the borrower can never repay the debt, and then terrorize the borrower into making payments for as long as possible. Do this right and the borrower will pay you several times the value of the loan, and still owe you a bundle. If the borrower ever earns anything, you'll have a claim on it. Think of Americans who borrowed $79,000 to go to university, paid back $190,000 and still owe $236,000:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt

This kind of loan-sharking is profitable, but labor-intensive. It requires that the debtor make payments they fundamentally can't afford. The usurer needs to get their straw right down into the very bottom of the borrower's milkshake and suck up every drop. You need to convince the debtor to sell their wedding ring, then dip into their kid's college fund, then steal their father's coin collection, and, then break into cars to steal the stereos. It takes a lot of person-to-person work to keep your sucker sufficiently motivated to do all that.

This is where digital meets subprime. There's $1T worth of subprime car-loans in America. These are pure predation: the lender sells a beater to a mark, offering a low down-payment loan with a low initial interest rate. The borrower makes payments at that rate for a couple of months, but then the rate blows up to more than they can afford.

Trusted computing makes this marginal racket into a serious industry. First, there's the ability of the car to narc you out to the repo man by reporting on its location. Tesla does one better: if you get behind in your payments, your Tesla immobilizes itself and phones home, waits for the repo man to come to the parking lot, then it backs itself out of the spot while honking its horn and flashing its lights:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

That immobilization trick shows how a canny subprime car-lender can combine the two kinds of subprime: they can secure the loan against an asset (the car), but also coerce borrowers into prioritizing repayment over other necessities of life. After your car immobilizes itself, you just might decide to call the dealership and put down your credit card, even if that means not being able to afford groceries or child support or rent.

One thing we can say about digital tools: they're flexible. Any sadistic motivational technique a lender can dream up, a computerized device can execute. The subprime car market relies on a spectrum of coercive tactics: cars that immobilize themselves, sure, but how about cars that turn on their speakers to max and blare a continuous recording telling you that you're a deadbeat and demanding payment?

https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/miss-a-payment-good-luck-moving-that-car/

The more a subprime lender can rely on a gadget to torment you on their behalf, the more loans they can issue. Here, at last, is a form of automation-driven mass unemployment: normally, an economy that has been fully captured by wealthy oligarchs needs squadrons of cruel arm-breakers to convince the plebs to prioritize debt service over survival. The infinitely flexible, tireless digital arm-breakers enabled by trusted computing have deprived all of those skilled torturers of their rightful employment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

The world leader in trusted computing isn't cars, though – it's phones. Long before anyone figured out how to make a car take orders from its manufacturer over the objections of its driver, Apple and Google were inventing "curating computing" whose app stores determined which software you could run and how you could run it.

Back in 2021, Indian subprime lenders hit on the strategy of securing their loans by loading borrowers' phones up with digital arm-breaking software:

https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/

The software would gather statistics on your app usage. When you missed a payment, the phone would block you from accessing your most frequently used app. If that didn't motivate you to pay, you'd lose your second-most favorite app, then your third, fourth, etc.

This kind of digital arm-breaking is only possible if your phone is designed to prioritize remote instructions – from the manufacturer and its app makers – over your own. It also only works if the digital arm-breaking company can confirm that you haven't jailbroken your phone, which might allow you to send fake data back saying that your apps have been disabled, while you continue to use those apps. In other words, this kind of digital sadism only works if you've got trusted computing and remote attestation.

Enter "Device Lock Controller," an app that comes pre-installed on some Google Pixel phones. To quote from the app's description: "Device Lock Controller enables device management for credit providers. Your provider can remotely restrict access to your device if you don't make payments":

https://lemmy.world/post/13359866

Google's pitch to Android users is that their "walled garden" is a fortress that keeps people who want to do bad things to you from reaching you. But they're pre-installing software that turns the fortress into a prison that you can't escape if they decide to let someone come after you.

There's a certain kind of economist who looks at these forms of automated, fine-grained punishments and sees nothing but a tool for producing an "efficient market" in debt. For them, the ability to automate arm-breaking results in loans being offered to good, hardworking people who would otherwise be deprived of credit, because lenders will judge that these borrowers can be "incentivized" into continuing payments even to the point of total destitution.

This is classic efficient market hypothesis brain worms, the kind of cognitive dead-end that you arrive at when you conceive of people in purely economic terms, without considering the power relationships between them. It's a dead end you navigate to if you only think about things as they are today – vast numbers of indebted people who command fewer assets and lower wages than at any time since WWII – and treat this as a "natural" state: "how can these poors expect to be offered more debt unless they agree to have their all-important pocket computers booby-trapped?"

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/2024/03/29/boobytrap/#device-lock-controller

Image: Oatsy (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/oatsy40/21647688003

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

#pluralistic #debt #subprime #armbreakers #mobile #google #android #apps #drm #technological self-determination #efficient market hypothesis brainworms #law and political economy #gadgets #boobytraps #app stores #curated computing #og app #trusted computing