#and should be valued like a tech company | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

Text

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://indieweb.org/POSSE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

796 notes · View notes

inkdrinkerworld · 1 month

Note

no cause dick getting protective when they're at a gala and some old rich guy starts implying that y/n doesn't belong there cause they don't come from wealth

you're the best writer on this app btw!!!

That’s so sweet! I hope you enjoy this

“Why are they here?” You hear it once when you walk in and then again when Dick comes up behind you and drops a kiss to your cheek.

“They just don’t fit.”

Dick doesn’t hear until he’s dishing out your dinner, your plate being shared for both your tastes.

“You could do better, Grayson.” First he thinks it’s about his choice of food- which he doesn’t care about but then he follows the man’s gaze and frowns.

His eyes narrow, taking in the heavy set man beside him.

“Excuse me?”

He’s really trying not to flip out. He doesn’t want to make a scene at Bruce’s fancy gala but he will, he knows he will, if this man says anything out of place.

“Your date. You could’ve gotten anyone, anyone who fit in with the rest of us.” The way he says ‘us’ really grates on his nerves. As if money would matter to Dick, as if it would make a difference to your personality.

“You’re wrong. Money doesn’t always equate to value you know. Maybe you should worry more about your house than what goes on in my life.”

Dick walks off without another word and finds you sitting at your table with only Damien as company- he isn’t as bad as Dick tries making him look.

“Hey baby,” you smile softly, eyes pleading with Damien who doesn’t look the least bit remorseful as he tattles to Dick.

“Some of these old guys are real pieces of work. They don’t even realise that they’re being robbed right under their noses but they think they have the right to comment on dating preferences.”

Dick’s eyes are ablaze. “They said something to you?” You shrug.

“It’s not a big deal, bigots are bigots no matter where you go.”

Dick and Damien find it very big deals but you distract Dick, Damien’s called off by Bruce who gives you a nod that makes you smile.

“Baby, it’s fine. It’s what they’re like and they’re old; they hardly change their mind. Not until they’re on their deathbeds anyway.”

Dick sighs and you decide to pull out the big guns. You walk over to his chair and sit across his lap, your nails burying in his hair as your lips press to his ear.

“Let it go Grayson, it doesn’t bother me and it shouldn’t bother you.”

“Boils my fucking blood that they think they can just say those things no problem.” You hum, kissing his jaw.

“Don’t do anything crazy, Richard.”

He only groans, holding on to your hip as his hand reaches for something off the plate.

“No promises. I love you, just the way you are.”

You smile, eating straight from his hands. “I love you just the way you are, too. Which is why I know you and Damien are going to retaliate, but at least make it untraceable.”

Dick chuckles, “I know my way around tech, pretty girl. It’s one hundred percent untraceable.”

#dickgrayson #dick grayson #dick grayson one shot #dick grayson imagine #dick grayson drabble #dick grayson fanfiction #dick grayson fluff #dick grayson headcanon #dick grayson fic #dick grayson x black reader #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson x you #dick grayson x yn #dick grayson x gender neutral reader #dick grayson x y/n #dick grayson x female!reader

366 notes · View notes

anxiouspineapple99 · 5 months

Note

Title Prompt: I'll drop a few below and you can choose which one inspired the most. I'll let you decide if it's SFW or NSFW and write whatever you'd like.

- Little Lies & Brown Eyes

- Under a Bright Coruscant Sky

- What Happens on Nar Shadda...

No Rules, No Requirements, and No Rush!

Little Lies & Brown Eyes

Pairing: Tech x Fem!Reader

Summary: A game of “Two Truths, and a Lie” turns spicy!

Warnings: MINORS DNI. Recreational drinking, fingering, unprotected PiV, oral (f receiving), cxm eating, Dom!Tech, praise kink

Word Count: 1972

A/N: The semester is over! Which means I’m kicking off the break with smut. This is porn with a smattering of feelings. It’s filthy. I’m unsure what possessed me when I wrote this because I read it back and made myself blush. Thank you for the prompt @523rdrebel and thank you for being so patient while I took literal months to answer lol

Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair had made their own plans for this bout of shore leave which left you and Tech alone to enjoy each other’s company, something that you were quite delighted about if you did say so yourself. You found the tall bespectacled clone of Clone Force 99 to be unbelievably handsome and his mannerisms positively endearing. You loved when he asked you to help him tinker on the Marauder or chose you to share all of his new findings. Most of all you loved being the focus of his attention when it was just the two of you.

The evening started like the handful of others had in the past, the two of you tinkering under the console of the Marauder. You handed him tools as he talked about anything and everything on his mind.

Now, Tech wasn’t one for lying. He never saw any point in it. According to him it was a ‘superfluous detour toward the inevitable truth that was bound to emerge anyway. The truth is simply faster.’ You always appreciated that about him. His bluntness was refreshing (albeit sometimes harsh) and you valued that you could always count on it. Which was why two truths and a lie seemed like the perfect game.

You sat across from him, rosy cheeked, giggling. Breathtaking as always, he’d thought to himself. You weren’t drunk yet, but you were certainly teetering on the edge. The truths and lies started off benignly, mostly about favorite foods or hobbies.

“Alright, it’s your turn. Two truths and a lie, please. I am quite good at this game so make this one a challenge!” Tech puffed his chest out proudly before adjusting his goggles. You couldn’t fight your silly smile before you continued.

“Okay! So… I find you attractive. I am allergic to blumfruit. And… my childhood tooka was named Cuddles!” You leaned back.

Tech rested an elbow on his knee, “Well that is easy. Clearly the lie is that you find me attractive.”

You leaned in, nearly nose to nose with him, a playful smile crossed your lips as you answered, “Nope,” with an emphasized pop of the ‘p’. “I am not allergic to blumfruit.”

“Fascinating…”

You leaned back in the copilot seat, “Your turn, Tech!”

His leg bounced as he rested his chin in his hand.

His fingers tapped on his knee as he began to answer, “Very well. Wrecker’s snoring is the reason I sleep in the cockpit most of the time.” He paused, his eyes darkening behind his goggles. “I prefer wine to spotchka.” With his final statement he leaned in, narrowing his eyes, “And I should very much like to kiss you.”

You suddenly felt as sober as a judge.

“Wh-what?”

“Shall I repeat my statements? Perhaps I should enunciate more,” he rasped a tinge of lust colored his voice.

Your stomach turned. He couldn’t possibly…could he?

“N-no, ahh, wanting to kiss me. That’s the lie.”

He leaned into the backrest of the pilot seat, his back the straightest you’d ever seen it.

“Incorrect. I have no preference for alcoholic beverages. I will drink just about anything.”

You gulped, your eyes traveled to his lips. You clenched your thighs to quell the ever present arousal you felt in his presence. You watched wide eyed as he rose from his seat and filled the space between you. He caged you into the copilot seat, his brown eyes roving over you. He softly took your chin between his gloved thumb and index finger lifting your head to meet his gaze. Your breath hitched as he pressed his lips to yours. The kiss was soft and reserved, the opposite of his burning eyes.

He pulled back only slightly and tutted, “All those little lies, mesh’la. Did you really need those to tell me how you felt?”

An airy laugh huffed from your chest. “You’re one to talk.”

“I simply had not yet found an opportune moment,” he crooned against your lips. “Stand up.”

The command startled you at first. You were unaccustomed to Tech being so assertive.

“Mesh’la. I said stand. Up.”

Wordlessly, Tech guided you to your feet and turned your back to the console.

“You’ll need to use your words, darling. I need to know you want this too,” he growled into your ear sending chills down your spine and soaking your panties.

“Maker, yes please, Tech,” you whined as he trailed kisses from your neck to your collarbone.

“Mmm… good girl,” he sighed as he ran two gloved fingers along the outline of your breasts. Those two fingers ghosted down your sternum, along your stomach, and to the hem of your skirt. Meanwhile your own hands were exploring the edges of his armor.

He dragged those same two fingers up the inside of your thigh and pressed them to the soaked cloth covering your sex. You whined at his touch, desperately wanting him inside you.

“Oh dear,” he chuckled, removing his hand, “you’ve soaked my glove, mesh’la. Well, it only seems fair that you remove it for me.”

You made to reach for his gloved fingers when he held them to your lips and scolded, “Ah, with your mouth. Open.”

You opened your mouth and he slotted his fingers inside, almost choking you and then slowly dragged them back along your tongue ensuring you tasted yourself on his fingers. He paused long enough for you to bite down on the tip of the glove to pull it off. He then slid your panties off, tucking them in one of the many pouches on his utility belt.

His gloveless hand returned to your soaked folds, toying first with your clit and then sliding one exquisite digit inside of you. You bucked your hips in response, moaning loudly.

“I have wanted this for so long, cyare. To have you on the console of my ship, screaming my name. You will scream my name for me won’t you, good girl.” His tone was clear, that was an order. Not a question.

“Anything you want, sir.” You gasped through waves of pleasure as Tech swirled and thrust his finger, quickly learning which patterns elicited the greatest reactions.

The emphasis of that word unleashed an utterly primal side of Tech you’d never seen. His mouth crashed into yours, his tongue eagerly seeking entrance as he pressed his body to yours. He inserted a second finger inside you, your walls twitching in response to the stretch. He easily reached the delicate spot inside of you, pressing and stroking rhythmically, pushing you rapidly to the precipice.

“What a good girl you are. Who do you belong to?”

His mouth moved from your lips to your neck, biting and sucking leaving his marks. His brothers were going to come back and know exactly who you belonged to.

“Y-you Tech! I belong to you!”

And just as you promised him, you screamed his name as you crested your peak, your legs quaking with the intensity of your release.

He pressed his cheek to yours, “Are you ready, ner sarad? Are you ready for me to fill you up?”

You leaned into his touch, “Please, sir. I need to feel you inside of me, I feel so empty without you.”

A growl rumbled deep in his chest as he freed his throbbing cock already soaked with precum from his blacks in one swift movement. You were in awe of how long he was and hoped the next time you did this you could suck him off until he couldn’t walk the next day. Your fantasy of Tech fucking your mouth was cut short as he lifted you with ease and laid you on the console. He slid his cock within the walls of your pussy slowly and gently allowing you both to relish the bliss you were experiencing. You wrapped your legs around his waist as he caged you in. You wrapped your arms around his neck and whined into his ear as he bottomed out inside you, stretching you perfectly.

“So perfect, cyare. If I didn't know better I would think you had been made just for me,” he cooed, the sweet praise making your heart flutter.

“Please fuck me, Tech.” You gasped, the plea falling from your lips with agonizing desperation. You needed him to move, to rock his hips into yours and fill you to the brim.

“With pleasure,” he cooed with a smile and a soft kiss to your forehead.

He slowly pulled back and pushed back in, his eyes locked on yours gauging your reaction. Once. Twice. Again and again his thrusts were steadfast and precise. You threw your head back, moaning his name with each thrust.

“Mine,” he growled as his fingers grasped the back of your neck and your hips with nearly painful intensity.

Gradually he increased his pace, intentionally grinding his pelvis into your sensitive bud with each calculated movement. He grunted soft words of adoration and praise, still licking and biting at every inch of exposed skin. And with each thrust you felt him push you closer to your second release. You scraped your nails along his scalp as you cried his name with your volume matching the intensity of your pleasure. He followed suit with a shuddering sigh into your neck.

He pressed his chest to yours, dusting soft doting kisses along your neck, cheeks, and forehead. Your legs remained locked around his waist as he slowly softened inside of you.

He carried you to his rack, laying you down gently, pausing for a moment and smiling as if admiring a piece of art.

“Tech?” You felt exposed despite still being mostly clothed.

“Hm? Ah. My apologies cyare. You are just a divine creature and I am taking in your radiance.” He sat by your feet, running his hand up your thigh. “Now, why don’t you take the rest of your clothing off? I wish to worship you properly.”

You’d never shimmied out of clothing so quickly. You fought the urge to cover up.

He stared at your pussy still dripping with cum, both yours and his, hungrily.

“This,” he growled, lust soaking his words. “Should do nicely.”

He needed to taste you, the perfectly unique combination of you and him. He lifted your knees over his shoulders, a growl rumbling in his chest as his eyes never left your drenched sex. He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead before trailing open mouthed kisses up your thigh. His lithe fingers squeezed your thighs before licking a strip up your folds. You keened beneath him, arousal burning deep within you once more.

He sucked lightly on your clit, flicking his tongue across it sporadically until you were a writhing, mewling mess. You could feel his smile widening as his tongue slowly crept closer to your entrance. All at once he thrust his tongue inside you, his own groans rumbling into you, pushing you closer to climax once more. He devoured you, kissing, licking, sucking and biting at every inch of you. And once he was satisfied, he pressed his thumb to your clit rubbing soft circles as he continued thrust his tongue inside you. He worked you until your legs were shaking and you chanted his name like it was the only word you knew.

He looked up at you from between your thighs, a smirk adorned his lips as he pulled his goggles back into place. “That was…satisfactory?”

You gawked. “Exemplary, actually.”

He nodded, a hint of arrogance flashing in his eyes. He reached into his footlocker, pulling out a towel and began to clean you up.

“The others will be returning soon. You should get dressed. I’d prefer this,” he gestured toward your nude form, “be only for me.”

A soft giggle escaped your lips as you leaned in, kissing him softly. “It is. Only for you.”

Spicy Ragu For You: @secondaryrealm @sev-on-kamino @dystopicjumpsuit @mooncommlink @moonlightwarriorqueen @sunshinesdaydream @starrylothcat @starqueensside @mandos-mind-trick @multi-fan-dom-madness @808tsuika @msmeredithrose @trixie2023 @wolffegirlsunite @mythical-illustrator @wings-and-beskar @wizardofrozz @ladyzirkonia @eyeluvmusic21 @523rdrebel @idontgetanysleep @clonemedickix @littlemissmanga @sinfulsalutations @dickarchivist @eclec-tech @dreamie411 @flyiingsly @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @cw80831 @eternal-transcience-spice

#anxiouspineapple99 writes #tech x fem!reader #tech the bad batch #star wars: the clone wars #star wars the clone wars #star wars the bad batch #tech tbb #tech x reader #tech smut #smut smut smut #bad batch smut #bad batch tech #not Costco safe #probably not even safe for a room with other people in general

325 notes · View notes

lolitafushiguro · 1 year

Text

Nap Time with Satoru, Suguru, Kento and Toji

ー just some headcanons for nap times with these men because i drank pure black coffee even though im not supposed to bc of my meds and now my mind is telling me to write something so i can fall asleep after 😂 sorry i think i'm not gonna edit this.

ー cw: mentions of sex ★

Satoru

he doesn't sleep

at least he doesn't sleep for long hours

if you're the type of person who values a good sleep then you'll find him annoying because he will pester you.

"babe, i wanna fuck." "babe, i want to eat crepe." "hey babe, cook pancakes with me." "babe there's a new sweets shop in town and it's their opening day i wanna go!!"

he'll tickle you, poke you everywhere, pepper you with kisses, play with your hair… you name it.

"let me sleep for once gojo satoru!" you yell at him, covering your face with a pillow.

but he won't stop. and he knows that even if he pesters you like that you love his company and you love to nap with him so he will pretend that something urgent came from jujutsu tech and attempt to 'leave'.

"oh, i just got a message from megumi. there's a new special grade curse spotted in roppongi and i need to go assist them…"

since you can't see him, you feel him shuffle away from you and hear his footsteps…

but in reality he just moved to stand by your bed and is marching his feet to pretend that he's walking away from you.

at first you were kind of disappointed but you had a feeling, so when you got up to look at him, you expect the same old thing again.

"not this again…"

"okay okay i'm sorry! it's just that i don't want to sleep. the sun is up and bright! we should be out sightseeing." he exclaims ever dramatically.

you just sigh in exasperation.

"you can always do it yourself you know." you reply.

ouch. he always wants to do everything with you though.

"fine, i'm staying here…" he grumbles, going back to bed.

honestly he's such a manchild

you know he likes to put on this act every time he wants attention so you grab a book for him to read and cuddled yourself beside him.

"wake me up in 2 hours, i have work to do."

but after that 2-hour nap you woke to him sleeping, he has the book close to his chest, unread. you smile to yourself fondly. you know he needs all the sleep he can get, even if most of the time he doesn't want to.

Suguru

stroke. his. hair.

the best time to nap with him is after showers in the afternoon.

you both would take turns drying yourselves and it's so intimate?? please.

he doesn't nap often like satoru but when he does he usually ends up napping until the evening.

but he loves massages.

he always falls asleep when you give him massages and it makes you feel satisfied.

but usually he's busy with worship at the temple so that's most likely the reason why he can't nap with you all the time.

if he's not at the cult, he's studying philosophy and ancient scriptures on jujutsu sorcery and cursed spirits.

so you either:

give him a massage, he falls asleep and you follow suit

or come to him while he's studying, lay on his lap and feel the afternoon breeze on your skin as he reads by the balcony, and fall asleep.

"love, you need to wake up. i believe you still have something pending, yes?" his voice slowly wakes you and you hum in reply, voice groggy.

"mm… thanks for waking me." you yawn, immediately embracing his body and clinging onto it for a while.

you mindlessly stroke his hair and he smiles, caressing yours too. you both stay like that for a while as the afternoon slowly turns to dusk.

he may or may not fuck you there. hmm…

Kento

weekend naps!!! yayy

when this man sleeps, he sleeps like he won't wake up.

can't blame him though, exhaustion is like his second nature :(

so when it's the weekend and you both don't have work, you'll both do some house cleaning, bake a little perhaps, and read together.

then you have a designated hour when you'll just crash together on the bed and nap ー which usually turns into a long sleep.

but if you're a light sleeper then you either cook him dinner or wake him up to cook for you.

okay bonus: that designated hour for napping? honey you fuck before you tuck your sheets and sleep. that's the silent rule you both follow.

"what should we do after dinner? if we ever wake up." you chuckle.

"up to you, darling." he kisses your forehead. "we can go to the cinema or take a walk." he adds.

"ehh… i don't feel like going out. it's so cold and i'm very tired from this week's workload." you reply.

"well, in that case… do you want to finish the wine we got from Denmark?" he suggests.

"and eat the leftover pie?" you nudge at him.

you both wiggled your brows at each other playfully and nod together, laughing.

Toji

ohhhhh boy

instead of napping you're likely gonna be fucking

this really became a spectrum of mtl likely gonna fuckk during nap times 😂

kidding aside, toji is so-so when it comes to naps. he's a physically active man and he's rarely home because of his missions and the possibility of him gambling to his wits' end is 99%

so if you're a clingy bimbo you can't expect him to be with you all the time (that's me, i'm bimbo. ouch.)

when the occasion happens and he comes to you frequently, napping with you would depend on his mood

sometimes he would use your washer to clean his clothes and spend all day cleaning out his weapons

my goodness, what a freeloader

and sometimes he would spend the day just fucking you.

it's insane, really.

anyway, the naps would come after fucking, and then when you wake up he's gonna go for another round ー you'll lose your mind i'm telling you. remember to clean up after sex!

but sometimes, when he's in a mellow, depressive mood thinking about his past, cuddlebug!toji mode is activated.

and you, being the understanding but naive lover you are, would immediately take him in your arms and just spend hours talking about random things in your lives, but he rarely talks about his traumas; so you do the same.

"and so what did they say?" he quips.

"well they made everyone pass, but the issue lies in the way that the student lied about being sick just to take the exam he missed. everyone is pissed at him since it's the first time that the prof did this. the prof always shuts down examinees who fail to take his exams." you blabber.

there was silence for a while you caught him staring at you with blank eyes.

"what? what are you thinking?" you ask, intuitively knowing he's deep in his thoughts again

"nothing." he averts his gaze and reaches for you. he hugs your body tight and you did nothing but find comfort in his warmth.

oh, how you wish it was always like this.

ー Lolita

3K notes · View notes

muxshwriting · 9 days

Text

money, money, money

modern!au Aleksander Morozova x reader

summary: marrying the heir to the morozova fortune was for so much more than the money || warnings: Baghra is a bitch || words: 1078 || masterlist

Aleksander Morozova was the prolific heir to the Morozova fortune, despite a very public argument with his mother. His grandfather, Ilya Morozova first gained fame through his inventions aimed at helping the ‘average man’. Of course, his inventions weren’t the beginning. His true wealth was stolen from the collapsing Soviet Union after Ilya took his family to America to live the dream. Nonetheless, his American dream was realised in the founding of Morozova Industries.

There was no doubting that Ilya Morozova was a very influential person in the technological industry, often being the forbearer to the most successful methods and practices. When Baghra took over the majority of Morozova Industries, she changed several things, aiming the inventions at the upper classes of society and neglecting the working class man that Ilya had once helped. These changes brought in the millions that made the Morozova’s a family name. Even Ilya couldn’t argue against his daughter’s methods, they were very rewarding.

But Baghra had fallen for a man who didn’t care about success and longevity, just the money it brought in. He married Baghra for her money but she was too in love to care. That was until he left her with a five year old Aleksander and took half of everything she worked so hard to earn.

But when Aleksander came of age and was being trained to take over the company, he held a very different view than his mother. He was much more similar to his grandfather, wanting to help everyone, not just the highest bidders. Aleksander did not keep his opinions private. He often spoke to the press about what he would like to change when he was head of the company.

Baghra hated Aleksander. He was trying to destroy everything she had created, spend all the money she had made. Ilya, on the other hand, loved his grandson and professed his wishes until his dying breath, leaving everything to Aleksander. See, despite running the company, Baghra did not own Morozova Industries. So when Ilya sadly passed away, the company and its control was immediately passed to Aleksander.

His retribution was swift and imminent. A month later, Baghra had nothing left and Aleksander had everything he wanted. Then he met you…

You, an owner to another tech company. It wasn’t anything big, but you had built that company from the ground up and perfected your craft. It was your wish to collaborate with Morozova to create and distribute your products to a wider audience than you could do alone.

You had captured his attention immediately. It wasn’t just your proposal, which encapsulated the values Aleksander valued most, but it was simply you. He asked you out for drinks after the meeting, wishing to know you better. As your collaboration continued, the drinks turned into dinners, dinners turned into evenings at your apartments (Aleksander’s penthouse and your meagre two-bed). Those evenings became something you looked forward to and they only seemed to increase in frequency. You now had a spare change of clothes at Aleksander’s in case you spent the night there.

It was all so natural that nothing changed after you stopped working together. You still stopped by with his coffee every morning and his thank you’s eventually changed to small pecks on the cheek to a small kiss on your lips. There was no need to rush into things, no need to panic. Love was easy when you let it be.

It’s one night in bed with Aleks that he rolls over and whispers into your hair. "Let’s get married."

You don’t even have to think. Love was easy, after all. "Yes."

Aleksander initially thinks it should be a grand affair, a day to celebrate you and him. However, the more he thinks, the more he despises that idea. He just wants to celebrate you. There doesn’t need to be anything huge beyond a few select friends and a perfect time. That perfect time occurs when you find yourselves in Las Vegas for a tech conference. All your friends, as owners and stakeholders of other companies, are there with you.

"Let’s get married now. Fuck waiting."

You glance around, nodding. "Everyone’s here that you want?" You’re silently asking him if he wants Baghra here but he’s made up his mind.

"I’ll text Ivan and David, if you can call the girls?"

You nod, barely holding back a smile before taking off down the hotel corridors back to your room. The girls all answer the group call and you share the exciting news.

"Aleks and I are getting married here in Vegas, we’d love you all to come?"

The screams down the phone are coming from Alina and Genya as Zoya simply laughs at their antics. "We’ll all be there, don’t you worry."

You pull a simple white dress from your luggage, meant for a party night but perfect for your impromptu wedding. You know Aleksander will do something more formal back home where you can wear your dream dress, so you’re not too worried. The girls are waiting for you in the foyer and Genya has somehow sprouted a bouquet for you.

The chapel is quaint but it’s the man at the end of the aisle that you’re focused on. You can barely hear the officiant pronounce you husband and wife before he’s pulling you close and smashing your lips to his. That night is the craziest thing you’ve ever seen, you visited every bar along the strip, dancing until your feet ached and spending the whole time immeasurably happy.

Two weeks later, Aleksander comes home later than usual. "Darling?"

"Yes?"

His expression is grave. "The Vegas pictures got leaked."

Then the headlines arrived:

MILLIONAIRE MOROZOVA MARRIES COMPETITOR Y/L/N IN SECRET VEGAS WEDDING

SHOCK: MOROZOVA HEIR OFF THE MARRIAGE MARKET TO RIVAL BUSINESS OWNER

MOROZOVA MARRIED: WHO IS THE NEW MONEY-HUNGRY MRS?

You’re scrolling through the news stories that have popped up in a matter of hours. "I guess the world knows."

"My mother has already called." He says, grimacing. "She lectured me about how you’re using me for money like my father did with her before I could put the phone down."

"Did she realise that I owned my own successful business for years before I even met you?"

He hums. "She never was the smartest woman alive."

You nod with him, kissing him sweetly. "It’ll never be about the money with you Sasha. You’re more than that."

Money, it’s a rich man’s world.

AHHH, finally something that's not based on hozier. I am however revealing my deep-rooted love for ABBA now

taglist: @aoi-targaryen

#aleksander morozova x reader #aleksander morozova #shadow and bone #grishaverse #modern!au #muxsh #muxshwriting #money money money #ben barnes x reader #ban barnes

83 notes · View notes

unclewaynemunson · 1 year

Text

Steve's dad was a grade A asshole. At least, that's what Steve thought ever since the first time he got in trouble for drinking beer with Tommy and Carol instead of studying for his Spanish test – which he ended up failing spectacularly.

His dad was strict, kept going on and on about how Steve should work harder, shouldn't expect to get everything handed to him on a silver platter just because they had money, that the world was unfair but that he shouldn't take advantage of that fact.

It was infuriating. They fought a lot, all through high school, but after Steve graduated, it got even worse. He vividly remembered the day he got rejected for Tech, all his chances to actually get into college out of the window. He knew that his dad knew the dean, knew that he was only one phone call away from getting in - a phone call his dad refused to make. Mr. Harrington had been stubborn as ever, with his whole spiel of hard work and honesty and refusing to partake in nepotism.

And the worst thing about all of that? The fact that his father was right. The fact that Steve had indeed prioritized being keg king and getting into Nancy Wheeler's panties over good grades, convinced that his father's connections would be his safety net anyway.

So yeah, Steve hated his father when the man made him get some shitty job at the mall and work for his income like Mr. Harrington himself had done before he got to where he was now. The man was an asshole, obviously.

Until Robin. Until he saw from up-close what it meant to be poor, to have to climb that ladder that he had been on top of only because of the lottery that was birth. So during the months after summer 1985, he and his dad slowly but surely started growing closer again. Mr. Harrington helped him with new college applications, helped him think of good alternatives in case college simply wasn't for Steve anyway. Mr. and Mrs. Harrington welcomed Robin into their house with open arms, along with Steve’s odd gang of middle schoolers, relieved to see that their son had finally stopped caring about status and started valuing true friendship and loyalty instead. And when Robin was worried about telling her parents that she was a lesbian, they told her that she'd always have a place in the Harrington home, if she needed it.

'I'm proud of you, Steve,' Mr. Harrington said when they were reminiscing Steve's old high school days together during the Christmas break. 'And I'm sorry if I was too hard on you sometimes.'

'No, I get it now,' Steve was quick to say.

'I just needed to do everything in my power to make sure you wouldn't take for granted what we have. I told you often enough how things were for me growing up – I worked my ass of to get us where we are. I needed you to grow up kind, and humble. But I always loved you, you know that, right?'

'Yeah, I know that,' Steve answered, quietly. 'Love you too, dad.'

1986 came around and before he knew it, it was March and he was standing pressed against the wall of Reefer Rick's boathouse with a broken bottle to his throat. After the end of the world, his parents rushed over to the hospital as soon as they could and they took turns keeping Steve company at Eddie's bedside while they all waited and waited and waited.

Two months later, he found himself sitting opposite of his parents at the kitchen table, his hands trembling and Robin by his side as he told them that he was in love. And they smiled, told him that they saw this one coming since before Steve was even seeing it himself; that they loved him and that they thought Eddie was a wonderful boy and that they'd love to welcome him in their family.

That same night, Steve thanked his father. Because he knew that if it wasn't for Mr. Harrington trying to steer him towards kindness instead of arrogance time and time again, he would never have grown up to fall in love with Eddie Munson.

#your periodical reminder that steve's parents aren't actually neglectful or the literal worst in canon #and while i do love that trope i also think that we could be a lil more creative with it #don't mind me rambling about stranger things #steve harrington #robin buckley #eddie munson #steddie #stranger things #fruity ficlet

773 notes · View notes

yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt · 3 months

Note

Yayy here we go

Can you please write a goldenheart one-shot where Ballister breaks something which belongs to Ambrosius (the way he broke it damaged Bal's health too, like a cut or something) and is afraid that Ambrosius will get mad at him only to be surprised that all Ambrosius cares about is his safety?? It doesn't have to be angsty in particular, I'm all for it if you do make it angsty lol

Ayo!!!

Alright we're trying to work on drabbles again. Here you go, I hope you like it! (Movieverse)

Ballister leaned back against the headboard of the dorm bed, playing video games while his boyfriend studied for the upcoming Institute exam. Ballister, by this point, felt confident. He had been studying. Ambrosius, on the other hand, had not. So, he was taking the evening to relax and play video games on Ambrosius’s computer. It was way nicer than anything he could afford, he just used the one the Institute issued him for classwork.

Ambrosius yawned and rubbed his eyes. “I'm gonna take a coffee break. Want anything?”

Ballister hummed. “I'll just take hot chocolate, the exam is tomorrow, I'll need to get to sleep early.” He failed to hide the smirk at the look his boyfriend gave him, knowing he would be up all night making up for his prior laziness.

Ambrosius left the room, and Ballister reached for his water bottle off the bedside table. While drinking, he accidentally aspirated some of the water and choked, reacting too late to dropping the water bottle onto the laptop. The heavy bottle split the keyboard and water spilled into the mechanism, causing it to smoke and short-circuit.

In his frantic attempt to fix it, Ballister winced as the broken metal sliced his fingertips and lightly burned his hand. “No no no no, shit!”

Ambrosius ran into the room and Ballister wanted to sink into the floor with shame. He could feel tears welling into his eyes. Since he was small, he knew the value of things. Breaking toys at the orphanage was punished harshly, as there was hardly any money to go around to buy new ones. When he was even littler, his mom was never cruel to him, but her frustration when he ruined or broke things in the apartment where they already had so little was apparent. He saw what happened to people on the streets when they stole food. Loaves of bread were worth more than starving people, and an expensive laptop was worth far more than Ballister.

“Ambrosius, I broke it, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to, I choked on my water and dropped it, I– I'm so sorry–!” He broke down and his vision blurred. “I'll replace it somehow, I promise!”

He felt the laptop removed from his lap and soft hands examine his own. “Never mind that!” Ambrosius said, his voice urgent but soft. “Look at your poor hand, are you okay?”

Ballister sniffled. “What?”

“Bal, you’re all cut up! And the sparks got your fingers. Gloreth knows what those tech companies put in here, you got your tetanus shots, right?”

Ballister nodded softly. “I'm so, so, so sorry. I'll replace it. Or– or I'll fix it! I'll build you a new one!”

Ambrosius waved him off, as if it was nothing. “Don't even worry about that right now! Do you think they need stitches? Maybe I should take you to the med hall.”

“No, no, they're fine, I'll rinse them off and put on some bandages. Ambrosius, won't you listen to me? Didn't you see I broke your laptop?” He hiccupped. Ambrosius met his eyes, his own filled with worry. “Bal, honey, I don't care about that. It was an accident. Besides, this was just my gaming laptop, all my Institute documents are backed up, no harm was done except you being hurt.”

“No harm– your laptop is broken! That thing is worth thousands of dollars!”

“I hate to flex my wealth, Bal, but to my family, that laptop isn't expensive. And even if it was, I don't need it. What I need is for my boyfriend who I love more than anything in the world to be safe and happy.” He kissed Ballister on the nose.

Ballister was too stunned to respond, really. He couldn't imagine the privilege of just disregarding an object so expensive, but he got the impression that Ambrosius wouldn't care about the value either way. How could a few cut up fingers, on him, be worth more? He wasn't the Queen, he wasn't worth fussing over.

Ambrosius, as though he read his mind, nuzzled against his temple and stroked his hair. “You're something money could never buy. I liked my laptop, but I love you.”

Ballister eventually ended up making him a new laptop anyway, despite his insistence it wasn't necessary, but every time he looked at the little scars on his middle and ring fingers, he remembered the first day he'd ever felt truly valued.

#nimona #ambrosius goldenloin #goldenheart #ballister x ambrosius #ballister boldheart #nimona 2023 #nimona fanfic #fic request

80 notes · View notes

giorno-plays-piano · 5 months

Text

Thorns In His Mouth

Part VI

Pairing: fae!Steve Rogers x reader

Warnings: obsession, dubious consent, minor character death, drugs (neither reader nor Steve are involved), slight eating disorder, mentions of tumor, high tech elves.

Words: 1.3k

Summary: Maybe it was a good idea to chat with a waitress a bit more once she brought you your order. Perhaps she could at least tell you with whom you should speak because you simply couldn’t force yourself to look at others, most of them already high, shouting something loudly or laughing or weeping. You could constantly hear the flapping of someone’s wings, weird whispers and noises, and the sound of boots and hooves that made your hair stand on end.

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

________

You stared at the earrings, dumbfounded. Did he say "we"? Was Steve going to look for that elf together with you?

Apparently, you just voiced your thoughts absent-mindedly because Steve murmured something and took you by the arm, moving to the café you despised with all your being.

It was much quieter inside tonight, though. There were only a few fair folk, and they were all silently eating or drinking something: the noisy company doing drugs and who knows what else yesterday was nowhere to be seen. Thank God.

As you fell on your seat, Steve taking a place on the other side of a minuscule plastic table, a familiar fae with bright pink hair approached you two. She threw a quick glance at you, pursing her lips at the sight of Steve, but then vanished to the kitchen without a word, probably to bring you the same sweet cupcake she had given you yesterday.

Staring at the elf with furiously bleached hair, you stilled, not knowing how to start a conversation with him again. What could you even say? Why did he want to accompany you on your quest? He had nothing to gain from it. Even the earrings you had given him he returned back to you, and you've never had of any fae returning human gifts. Granted, you weren't a big specialist, but it seemed strange, nonetheless.

Why was he so invested in your search?

The question was probably written all over your face because Steve gave a shaky laugh and rubbed his eyes tiredly as if he had a hard time explaining his reasons.

"I'm a former High elf, too," he started, watching confusion forming on your face while he gave you an unhappy smile. "I held a very high position at my court. Probably among the highest, compared to the others' here. Thus, I'm a Watcher. I watch over the exiled fae and elves, help them when I can, control them so they won't do anything stupid, and end somewhere worse than here. I keep in contact with humans, those who know who we are, and see that everyone abides by the rules. I'm the most useful companion to you if you want to find someone."

His words took you aback. This malnourished, anxious elf with his badly bleached hair and unnaturally long limbs was the most powerful of the exiled fair folk? Truly? Could you take his word for it? Oh, he did mention fae couldn't lie, but it was hard to believe he was telling you the truth.

For a second, you felt a little disappointed. You imagined someone like Watcher to be alike a fairy prince from the fairytale, magnificent in his glory, tall and strong, impeccably built, with his hair shining stunningly in the moonlight as he sat a top of his giant war horse. You did not, by any means, expect to find a Watcher to be a man looking like a 90s model addicted to heroine.

"But why do you want to help?" You asked very carefully, masking you disappointment not to offend him. "I imagine I have nothing of value to give you in exchange."

Suddenly, he smiled, albeit sadly.

"You needn't give me anything. I already owe you for what you did for my kin."

Again, a mystery. You were getting tired of his inadequate responses.

Seeing you bewildered, Steve continued, "You wept when Julius died. You regretted him leaving. Nobody else would do it for him, but you did, and now he's where he should be, at peace. If not for you, his journey would be... an arduous one."

His words made you silent, and you immediately forgot all the questions you were going to ask him. He had said something similar yesterday, hadn't he? Something about it being good that you cried at the sight of Julius' body, although you couldn't even imagine what good did it do to the dead elf. Was Steve talking about a reincarnation or something? Or Julius' spirit returning back to his homeland? You had no idea, but at the memory of a dead elf lying breathless on the sofa your anxiety rose again, and you clutched the pearl earrings in your hand until it started to hurt.

"Why wasn't it enough that you cried for him?" You asked out of nowhere, still searching for some proof Steve was tricking you.

He sighed, "I didn't cry."

Didn't he? You couldn't remember, his face but a blur after you had run up the stairs and collapsed outside of an abandoned factory.

No, you couldn't remember him crying.

"He was one of us," Steve muttered, accepting a black CD pack from a waitress who appeared out of nowhere, leaving a plate with you cupcake quietly on the table before she left without a word. "And I will miss him, but neither my folk nor me weep like you do. Unless on a very special occasion, a death of our beloved or a child, perhaps. But you... you humans know a great deal about compassion and sorrow. Your tears weight more than mine."

His words struck you to your core, and for a few seconds, you just sat there in silence, staring at the distressed - or rather just ancient and rugged - black leather of his jacket. No one had ever said anything like that to you. On the contrary, your therapist mentioned many times it's not healthy to be overly sympathetic and sensitive, to the point when someone's troubles made you troubled. You had to learn to keep your head cool, he said, because no one would profit from your worry. If you wanted to help someone, you needed to stay sane and safe first.

And here he was, this strange, somewhat scary and somewhat beautiful elf, telling you Julius got to his safe place because you had cried for him.

"It's strange, how your world works," you murmured, directing your gaze to the very same leather jacket as if you were talking to it.

Steve gave a laugh, shifting in his uncomfortable plastic chair while a fairy waitress stared at him intently behind his back, her hand resting on a bar counter.

"No stranger than yours." He smiled and made a small gesture with his left hand you barely registered, and the waitress abruptly turned away from you two with a blank expression on her face. "Then it's settled. I'll bring you to one more of my folks today, and you'll tell him your story. He's not a drug addict, by the way."

It was a very nice addition, you shrugged and bit into your cupcake that tasted as heavenly as yesterday. Were you going to develop diabetes if you ate it every day? You hoped not, although it was a small price to pay for the life of your mother.

"Actually, I wanted to mention it the last time. Do you know anything about our kind? Anything at all?" The elf asked nonchalantly, tucking a strand of hair behind his perfectly human ear. Seeing you froze, he chuckled, "It's fine. I'm with you. But it'd be better if you knew at least the basics, so I recommend doing some reading and using my advice for now."

"Of- of course," you immediately answered back, stuffing the rest of the cupcake in your mouth and hurriedly wiping your lips. "I'd be very grateful for any advice!"

________

He liked what you said. His face lit up, the corners of his big mouth turning upward. Before you had a chance to say anything else, he's already at the door, leaving a five dollar bill on the counter and motioning you to follow him God knows where. It's still a bit scary, to go after a strange, twisted but still weirdly attractive creature who moved with such grace even with his oddly long limbs and whose hair looked a little otherworldly despite the cheap bleach he used. But you're alone in this unfamiliar world without him, and you didn't think twice before you jumped off your seat, handing the waitress one more five dollar bill and running after Steve.

Part VII

Tags: @heavenly1927 @yazzzmints @devils-blackrose @lost-and-founds @kennafild @toodlesxcuddles @shygardengalaxy @heimtathurs @moonlightazriel @tsujifreya @lilithmoon92 @greenowlfactif @minshookie29 @nina2697

#yandere #steve rogers x reader #dark steve rogers x reader #steve rogers #captain america #mcu #mcu fanfiction

80 notes · View notes

fallintosanity · 2 years

Text

So y’all wanted more rants about information security & data privacy? Let’s talk about the two main privacy paradigms that are currently competing for dominance in Big Tech. For the sake of not writing a full goddamn thesis I’m going to only talk about models that actually address user privacy (so NOT Facebook’s “privacy is no longer a social norm” bullshit), and only in the context of the USA with a light dip into GDPR.

Very broadly speaking, Big Tech in the US is coalescing into two camps regarding privacy: “opt-out privacy” and “opt-in privacy”. Apple is the flagship and main driver for the concept of “opt-out privacy”. Over the last few years, they’ve leaned heavily into the idea that data should be kept private by default, and only shared under limited circumstances at the user’s request. In other words, the user has privacy by default, and must opt out of that default for data to be shared.

Google is likewise the flagship and main driver for “opt-in privacy”: the idea that data should be shared broadly for the benefit of both the user and the service provider, and sharing is restricted on a case-by-case basis at the user’s request. In other words, the user shares data by default, and must opt in to privacy where desired.

It’s not a coincidence that Apple and Google are the leading drivers for Big Tech’s privacy models. Mobile phones are the most personal devices most people own: your phone goes with you everywhere, and on average, most people check their phones 344 times(!) per day. If you’re like roughly half of US mobile users, you have at least one personal health app on your phone. And until very recently, nobody was stopping shady advertising companies from harvesting every drop of user data they could from people’s phones. All this has made mobile phones one of the primary battlegrounds for digital privacy.

Let’s look at Apple’s model first.

(cut because this is 2k words and I don’t want to murder anyone’s dashes)

You’ve probably seen at least one variation of the recent iPhone privacy ads:

And you’ve probably heard about all the features Apple has been introducing on iOS and the App Store to improve users’ control over who accesses their data, when, and why. Apple is going all-in on the idea that data sharing of any kind should be the exception, not the rule. They appear to be actively working to gut the advertising industry by methodically removing or blocking the mechanisms advertisers use to track users.

Apple can afford to do this for a couple of reasons. First, they make the vast majority of their money by selling hardware, not data-fueled ads. While they do have an advertising business, according to Apple’s own privacy policy, “Apple’s advertising platform does not track you, [...] and does not share user or device data with data brokers.” They admit they do still perform some targeting, but claim they only do so if the targeted group contains more than 5,000 members - which is at least way better than Facebook’s ability to target a single person.

This gets into the second reason why they can afford to gut the broader ads industry: Apple has a wealth of first-party targeting data (I’ll explain what that means in a minute), meaning that not only do they not need other advertisers or data brokers, but also that they’re in direct competition with those other advertisers and data brokers. So going all-in on privacy is good for Apple’s bottom line both from a user value perspective, and from a competitive one.

Now let’s look at Google’s model. If you open your Google account, right on the first page of account management are two sets of privacy settings:

Note the language used: “personalize your Google experience” and “choose the privacy settings that are right for you”. Google has two reasons to collect your data which are mostly tangential to each other. The first and most obvious is that Google-the-advertising-company needs your data in order to more effectively sell ads to third parties. This is what most people think of when they think about Google and privacy: Google wants user data to sell for profit. And, well, yes. Google has built its empire on the back of its ads business, and ads pay for pretty much everything else Google does. Google needs to be able to sell ads to keep funding all the legitimately cool shit it’s doing.

Speaking of legitimately cool shit: Google-the-tech-company’s longest-standing desire has been to create the Star Trek computer in real life: a virtual assistant that “understands you, and [...] can have a conversation with you.” (That’s not just journalism speculation, either - it was explicitly the goal told by Larry & Sergei to employees when I worked at Google.) This is the second reason why Google needs your data: so it can be your own personal Star Trek AI assistant. As anyone who’s worked in an executive assistant role will tell you, you can’t provide useful assistance without having access to just about every component of your employer’s life. Similarly, if you let Google have access to your personal data, it can do a lot of genuinely useful things.

This is why Google’s stance on privacy is so focused on choice: they’re trying to thread the needle between “if you give us your data, we can honestly improve your life” and “if you give us your data, we’ll sell it to third-party advertisers who do all kinds of unpleasant things with it”. The way they’ve internally resolved that ethical conflict is by believing - and trying to convince everyone else - that allowing them to sell your data for profit is a choice you willingly make in order to gain the benefits of Google’s technology.

You can also see the split between opt-in and opt-out privacy in the two most influential laws regulating privacy and the use of user data. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as currently enforced, uses the opt-in model: CA residents have the option to stop the sale of their personal data, but the law assumes that user data will be sold unless and until the user chooses otherwise. The CCPA even uses language similar to Google’s: on their website, they say the CCPA “gives consumers more control” over the collection, use, and sale of their data.

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), on the other hand, primarily uses the opt-out model. This reflects the EU’s stance that privacy is a basic human right, as codified in the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. The GDPR holds that personal data may not be processed unless there is legal basis to do so, sets strict limits on what constitutes a “legal basis”, and requires companies to collect and use only the minimum amount of data required to fulfil the given legal basis.

While the CCPA and the GDPR use opposite privacy models, the two of them combined with Apple’s insanely effective efforts to stamp out data harvesting (as well as another effort I haven’t talked about at all, which is the death of the cookie) are having an interesting effect on the entire advertising industry. To explain this, I need to sidetrack briefly into what I mean when I say “the advertising industry”.

Most people think of Google and Facebook when they think of advertisers. And, yeah, those are two of the biggest ad-space sellers in the world - but there’s a lot more to the industry. Data brokers like Acxiom, Epsilon, and Oracle America are among the thousands of companies who buy and sell the user data that allows Google and Facebook to effectively sell targeted ad space. The reason you’ve probably never heard of them, however, is because (for the most part) they aren’t the ones who collect the data in the first place.

To vastly oversimplify a stupidly complex industry, you essentially have two types of data brokers: first-party and third-party (with the user themselves being the second party). First-party entities are the ones that collect user data directly for their own purposes; third-party entities buy data from first parties and sell it to other third parties. One company can be both a first- and a third-party entity depending on the situation. For example, Facebook collects your data as a first-party entity, and sells it to a third-party marketing company (let’s say Acxiom). Acxiom combines Facebook’s data with data it’s purchased from other first- and third-party companies and uses it to sell ads. Amazon collects your data as well, making it a first-party entity on its own website. But if Amazon buys Acxiom’s datasets, Amazon becomes a third-party entity for that data. (Cookies are part of this whole data collection and usage ecosystem, but how they work is another entire essay.)

Where the fuck am I going with all this? Back to CCPA, GDPR, and Apple. While they’re all going about it in different ways, the end result is turning out to be the same: a noose around the neck of third-party advertising. If companies are allowed to collect user data for their own legal purposes, but not sell it, then suddenly all those third-party entities become irrelevant and having first-party data is critical. This is what I meant earlier when I said Apple has access to a wealth of first-party data for its own ads business. Apple doesn’t need to sell user data because it makes money from hardware sales, and it doesn’t need to buy user data because it has its own.

Google also has huge amounts of first-party data, but the difference between them and Apple is that Google makes the vast majority of its revenue from selling ads, which depend in part on all that juicy third-party data. Honestly Google is probably going to be okay here still; they have enough else going for them (including their move into hardware sales via the Pixel) that the loss of revenue from selling user data to advertisers won’t hurt them much. But companies who rely entirely on advertising and the sale of user data, like Facebook, will and already do see a huge revenue impact from the move to restrict access to user data.

So what does all this mean for you, the user whose data is in question?

It’s too soon to say for sure, but the good news is that it looks like Apple’s moves are forcing Google to shift further toward opt-out privacy than Google might otherwise have preferred. And for the vast majority of companies, it’s more cost-effective to comply with the various existing and incoming US privacy laws (including CCPA) by using GDPR as a baseline - meaning opt-out privacy may soon be the de facto standard.

This doesn’t mean all companies are actually going to comply in good faith, or at all - already reports are showing “loopholes, bypasses, and outright violations” of Apple’s measures; and GDPR enforcement, especially against Silicon Valley, is painfully low. But privacy industry experts generally agree that the trend is toward stronger protection for users against the unwanted use and sharing of personal information.

As a user, you can help this trend along by actively enforcing your privacy rights wherever you can. If you’re in the EU, take advantage of the GDPR and file complaints against non-compliant companies. If you live in California, exercise your CCPA rights by digging through the privacy policies and settings of your accounts until you find the “do not sell my personal data” toggle. Whether you have an iPhone or an Android, go through your device’s settings and enable every privacy protection measure you can. Likewise, if you have a Google account, take five minutes to go through their privacy checkup feature. It’s actually quite well done, and will give you a better idea of what Google is collecting about you.

The more of us who do this, the stronger the signal we send to both Big Tech and legislators that we want these protections and we will use these protections if we have them. For too long, companies (like Facebook) have argued that users don’t really want privacy - but they’re dead wrong. We just have to prove it to them.

#information technology #information security #privacy #data privacy #sanity talks infosec

1K notes · View notes

shituationist · 4 months

Text

assuaging my anxieties about machine learning over the last week, I learn that despite there being about ten years of doom-saying about the full automation of radiomics, there's actually a shortage of radiologists now (and, also, the machine learning algorithms that are supposed to be able to detect cancers better than human doctors are very often giving overconfident predictions). truck driving was supposed to be completely automated by now, but my grampa is still truckin' and will probably get to retire as a trucker. companies like GM are now throwing decreasing amounts of money at autonomous vehicle research after throwing billions at cars that can just barely ferry people around san francisco (and sometimes still fails), the most mapped and trained upon set of roads in the world. (imagine the cost to train these things for a city with dilapidated infrastructure, where the lines in the road have faded away, like, say, Shreveport, LA).

we now have transformer-based models that are able to provide contextually relevant responses, but the responses are often wrong, and often in subtle ways that require expertise to needle out. the possibility of giving a wrong response is always there - it's a stochastic next-word prediction algorithm based on statistical inferences gleaned from the training data, with no innate understanding of the symbols its producing. image generators are questionably legal (at least the way they were trained and how that effects the output of essentially copyrighted material). graphic designers, rather than being replaced by them, are already using them as a tool, and I've already seen local designers do this (which I find cheap and ugly - one taco place hired a local designer to make a graphic for them - the tacos looked like taco bell's, not the actual restaurant's, and you could see artefacts from the generation process everywhere). for the most part, what they produce is visually ugly and requires extensive touchups - if the model even gives you an output you can edit. the role of the designer as designer is still there - they are still the arbiter of good taste, and the value of a graphic designer is still based on whether or not they have a well developed aesthetic taste themself.

for the most part, everything is in tech demo phase, and this is after getting trained on nearly the sum total of available human produced data, which is already a problem for generalized performance. while a lot of these systems perform well on older, flawed, benchmarks, newer benchmarks show that these systems (including GPT-4 with plugins) consistently fail to compete with humans equipped with everyday knowledge.

there is also a huge problem with the benchmarks typically used to measure progress in machine learning that impact their real world use (and tell us we should probably be more cautious because the human use of these tools is bound to be reckless given the hype they've received). back to radiomics, some machine learning models barely generalize at all, and only perform slightly better than chance at identifying pneumonia in pediatric cases when it's exposed to external datasets (external to the hospital where the data it was trained on came from). other issues, like data leakage, make popular benchmarks often an overoptimistic measure of success.

very few researchers in machine learning are recognizing these limits. that probably has to do with the academic and commercial incentives towards publishing overconfident results. many papers are not even in principle reproducible, because the code, training data, etc., is simply not provided. "publish or perish", the bias journals have towards positive results, and the desire of tech companies to get continued funding while "AI" is the hot buzzword, all combined this year for the perfect storm of techno-hype.

which is not to say that machine learning is useless. their use as glorified statistical methods has been a boon for scientists, when those scientists understand what's going on under the hood. in a medical context, tempered use of machine learning has definitely saved lives already. some programmers swear that copilot has made them marginally more productive, by autocompleting sometimes tedious boilerplate code (although, hey, we've had code generators doing this for several decades). it's probably marginally faster to ask a service "how do I reverse a string" than to look through the docs (although, if you had read the docs to begin with would you even need to take the risk of the service getting it wrong?) people have a lot of fun with the image generators, because one-off memes don't require high quality aesthetics to get a chuckle before the user scrolls away (only psychopaths like me look at these images for artefacts). doctors will continue to use statistical tools in the wider machine learning tool set to augment their provision of care, if these were designed and implemented carefully, with a mind to their limitations.

anyway, i hope posting this will assuage my anxieties for another quarter at least.

35 notes · View notes

veveisveryuncool · 9 months

Text

wham bam there she is!!! also i have a crap ton of headcanons for susie so strap in

around 24 years old, still learning about the world but old enough to realize the severity of her actions

she's trying to reclaim her childhood, and always the person who tries to set up fun events and leisure activities around her work schedule

has a business partnership with magolor, she advertises his themepark, he promotes her tech and gives her free ice cream when she visits

also has a part-time gig as a singer at magoland when her schedule allows it

since robobot, she's switched HWC to a fully green and eco-friendly enterprise (this is actually canon i just wanted to mention it)

constantly tries to give meta knight special deals for her tech as an apology for the mechanization

there is a restraining order for her in the halberd. this does not stop her from sending drones with HWC coupons

gets absolutely livid when someone calls her susanna. susanna is dead. it's susie now.

can't swim lol

when she was little, her dad let her choose a mechanical upgrade to her body once a year on her birthday. since the portal, she's given herself so many modifications she's barely organic

when she sleeps or goes unconscious, her eyes power off like a screen

has a charging port she needs to plug herself to every night

after robobot, she kinda just. broke down. she convinced herself that everything was fine: susie was the new president, her father was dead, and the company was a couple million dollars in debt. she threw herself into the paperwork and tried to forget about any emotions, because robots were efficient and followed protocol and didn't miss their dads, so why should she?

that went on for a while until she gave in to kirby's insistent playdate requests, who considered still her a friend despite everything

therapy

something something she found the value of genuine joy and family while keeping a healthy relationship with her business and the loss of her father, and also taking responsibility for her actions and making up for them

god a lot of these are kinda angsty so here's a happy one

susie definitely loves to style ribbon's hair and buys her new bows every time she visits

she's like the cool older sister to adeleine and ribbon and chuchu

they have Female Solidarity

#kirby series #susie haltmann #susanna patrya haltmann #kirby headcanons #veves ultra cool art #susie is such a nuanced character i could spend four pages trying to debunk her psyche #i think this is why a lot of people bash her bc they only take her at face value #shes like. the equivalent of the kicking legs screamig squealing into pillow sobbing on the floor thing #idk thats just me lol

69 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

Text

Two principles to protect internet users from decaying platforms

Today (May 10), I’m in VANCOUVER for a keynote at the Open Source Summit and later a book event for Red Team Blues at Heritage Hall; on Thurs (May 11), I’m in CALGARY for Wordfest.

Internet platforms have reached end-stage enshittification, where they claw back the goodies they once used to lure in end-users and business customers, trying to walk a tightrope in which there’s just enough value left to keep you locked in, but no more. It’s ugly out there.

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/2023/05/10/soft-landings/#e2e-r2e

When the platforms took off — using a mix of predatory pricing, catch-and-kill acquisitions and anti-competitive mergers — they seemed unstoppable. Mark Zuckerberg became the unelected social media czar-for-life for billions of users. Youtube was viewed as the final stage of online video. Twitter seemed a bedrock of public discussion and an essential source for journalists.

During that era, the primary focus for reformers, regulators and politicians was on improving these giant platforms — demanding that they spend hundreds of millions on algorithmic filters, or billions on moderators. Implicit in these ideas was that the platforms would be an eternal fact of life, and the most important thing was to tame them and make them as benign as possible.

That’s still a laudable goal. We need better platforms, though filters don’t work, and human moderation has severe scaling limits and poses significant labor issues. But as the platforms hungrily devour their seed corn, shrinking and curdling, it’s time to turn our focus to helping users leave platforms with a minimum of pain. That is, it’s time to start thinking about how to make platforms fail well, as well as making them work well.

This week, I published a article setting out two proposals for better platform failure on EFF’s Deeplinks blog: “As Platforms Decay, Let’s Put Users First”:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/platforms-decay-lets-put-users-first

The first of these proposals is end-to-end. This is the internet’s founding principle: service providers should strive to deliver data from willing senders to willing receivers as efficiently and reliably as possible. This is the principle that separates the internet from earlier systems, like cable TV or the telephone system, where the service owners decided what information users received and under what circumstances.

The end-to-end principle is a bedrock of internet design, the key principle behind Net Neutrality and (of course) end-to-end-encryption. But when it comes to platforms, end-to-end is nowhere in sight. The fact that you follow someone on social media does not guarantee that you’ll see their updates. The fact that you searched for a specific product or merchant doesn’t guarantee that platforms like Ebay or Amazon or Google will show you the best match for your query. The fact that you hoisted someone’s email out of your spam folder doesn’t guarantee that you will see the next message they send you.

An end-to-end rule would create an obligation on platforms to put the communications of willing senders and willing receivers ahead of the money they can make by selling “advertising” in search priority, or charging media companies and performers to “boost” their posts to reach their own subscribers. It would address the real political speech issues of spamfiltering the solicited messages we asked our elected reps to send us. In other words, it would take the most anti-user platform policies off the table, even as the tech giants jettison the last pretense that platforms serve their users, rather than their owners:

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

The second proposal is for a right-to-exit: an obligation on tech companies to facilitate users’ departure from their platforms. For social media, that would mean adopting Mastodon-style standards for exporting your follower/followee list and importing it to a rival service when you want to go. This solves the collective action problem that shackles users to a service — you and your friends all hate the service, but you like each other, and you can’t agree on where to go or when to leave, so you all stay:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

For audiences and creators who are locked to bad platforms with DRM — the encryption scheme that makes it impossible for you to break up with Amazon or other giants without throwing away your media — right to exit would oblige platforms to help rightsholders and audiences communicate with one another, so creators would be able to verify who their customers are, and give them download codes for other services.

Both these proposals have two specific virtues: they are easy to administer, and they are cheap to implement.

Take end-to-end: it’s easy to verify whether a platform reliably delivers messages from to all your followers. It’s easy to verify whether Amazon or Google search puts an exact match for your query at the top of the search results. Unlike complex, ambitious rules like “prevent online harassment,” end-to-end has an easy, bright-line test. An “end harassment” rule would be great, but pulling it off requires a crisp definition of “harassment.” It requires a finding of whether a given user’s conduct meets that definition. It requires a determination as to whether the platform did all it reasonably could to prevent harassment. These fact-intensive questions can take months or years to resolve.

Same goes for right-to-exit. It’s easy to determine whether a platform will make it easy for you to leave. You don’t need to convince a regulator to depose the platform’s engineers to find out whether they’ve configured their servers to make this work, you can just see for yourself. If a platform claims it has given you the data you need to hop to a rival and you dispute it, a regulator doesn’t have to verify your claims — they can just tell the platform to resend the data.

Administratibility is important, but so is cost of compliance. Many of the rules proposed for making platforms better are incredibly expensive to implement. For example, the EU’s rule requiring mandatory copyright filters for user-generated content has a pricetag starting in the hundreds of millions — small wonder that Google and Facebook supported this proposal. They know no one else can afford to comply with a rule like this, and buying their way to permanent dominance, without the threat of being disrupted by new offerings, is a sweet deal.

But complying with an end-to-end rule requires less engineering than breaking end-to-end. Services start by reliably delivering messages between willing senders and receivers, then they do extra engineering work to selectively break this, in order to extract payments from platform users. For small platform operators — say, volunteers or co-ops running Mastodon servers — this rule requires no additional expenditures.

Likewise for complying with right-to-exit; this is already present in open federated media protocols. A requirement for platforms to add right-to-exit is a requirement to implement an open standard, one that already has reference code and documentation. It’s not free by any means — scaling up reference implementations to the scale of large platforms is a big engineering challenge — but it’s a progressive tax, with the largest platforms bearing the largest costs.

Both of these proposals put control where it belongs: with users, not platform operators. They impose discipline on Big Tech by forcing them to compete in a market where users can easily slip from one service to the next, eluding attempts to lock them in and enshittify them.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A giant robot hand holding a monkey-wrench. A tiny, distressed human figure is attempting - unsuccessfully - to grab the wrench away.]

Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/files/banner_library/competition_robot.png

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

#pluralistic #enshittifications #platform decay #end to end #right to exit #competition #antitrust

91 notes · View notes

trashpandato · 1 year

Text

But we are real, real

“Who scheduled a meeting at seven in the morning?” Lena hissed, tapping the keys on her laptop with more force than strictly necessary.

“Um,” Jess cleared her throat, hovering near the door, “I believe you asked for this time slot specifically when the meeting was set last week?”

Lena pursed her lips. She had indeed done that, but that didn’t change how unhappy she was with that decision now.

“Don’t let me do that again.”

“Of course, Miss Luthor,” Jess promised, scurrying out of Lena’s office before she could be subjected to any more harsh questions only minutes into their work day.

The meeting was…fine. Productive, even, once Lena managed to swallow down some snarkier comments that were on the tip of her tongue. The coffee Jess had brought her part way through helped a little as well. But then Lena got wind of an issue in the lab and she stormed downstairs without a second thought, sent the lab techs home with a few not-so-friendly words and mumbled something about “always having to fix everything myself” before throwing herself at the task for a couple of hours.

She was so engrossed in her work that she forgot about her scheduled call with Sam at lunch, and when her phone buzzed for the third time in as many minutes, she was about to throw it against the wall.

“I’m busy,” she snapped when she finally answered the call without even looking at the caller ID to confirm who she was subjecting to her foul mood. “A fact that should have been clear after I didn’t pick up the first two times you called.”

“Whoa there, grumpy pants,” Sam replied, a slight chuckle in her tone, “someone’s got a short fuse today.”

Lena sighed. “Sam. It’s been a day from hell.”

“Lena,” her friend’s voice softened, “you know you can just text me and reschedule our call, right?”

Lena sighed again. “Right. Sorry.”

“What’s going on? Is this a work-related hell or something else?”

“An early meeting with investors from Switzerland, and you know how rough those can be, and then a lab emergency that I’m currently fixing myself, and then I have to call my mother later today.”

“Well, that sounds unpleasant but like a pretty normal day for you,” Sam remarked, and even though Lena wanted to disagree and tell Sam that this really had been a supremely shitty morning and she had every reason to be a little irritable, thank you very much, she knew her friend had a point.

“Either way,” Lena mumbled after a moment, “I have to finish fixing this. Rain check on our catch-up call?”

“Fine. But maybe find one of those squeezy stress balls so you don’t end up biting anyone else’s head off today, okay? Well, except your mother. Go ahead and bite with gusto; she deserves that and more.”

Lena rolled her eyes, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Love you, Lena!”

Lena disconnected the call and glanced down at her phone. There were a few notifications, some news alerts and stock market statistics, and the reminder that she had missed the two earlier attempts from Sam to call her, but no texts from the one person she really wanted to hear from. Sighing, she locked her phone, stuck it in her pocket and returned to the task in front of her.

When she went back to her desk later that afternoon, she found a man snooping around in her office and she was about to reprimand Jess for not alerting her about the intruder when the man reminded her that she had ordered him to complete a security check of her office that afternoon.

“Right,” Lena said curtly and waved at him to proceed with his task while she sat down at her desk to deal with a litany of unanswered emails that had piled up while she was in the lab.

Lena ended the afternoon with the call from Lillian, which was as unpleasant as she had expected it to be. It included the usual commentary about Lena not being equipped to lead the company, a few pointed questions about a delayed product launch and a small dip in stock values and ended with Lillian reminding Lena of everything she had ever done wrong in her mother’s eyes. By the end of it, Lena was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go home and drink a very large glass of wine and have a hot bath, preferably at the same time.

When Lena was just about ready to call it a day, finishing up one last email to request a full status update from the lab technicians by noon tomorrow, a small knock made her look up just in time to see Kara step into the dimly lit office. Lena looked back down at her laptop to check the time. It was almost nine. Lena sighed.

“So Jess tells me you’ve been on a tear today. Bad day?”

Kara’s voice was light and teasing, but Lena could see that she was looking at her intently, taking in Lena’s stiff posture and tired features. Lena was about to give Kara a summary of her no good, terrible, very bad day, but what came out instead was:

“You didn’t text.”

“What?”

“You didn’t…you always text me in the mornings. You didn’t today.”

A crooked smile settled on Kara’s face as she walked towards and around Lena’s desk. She crouched down in front of Lena’s chair, her warm hands settling firmly on Lena’s thighs.

“Are you telling me that the reason you’re grumpy and made life miserable for Jess and everyone else today is because you didn’t get your customary good morning baby text?”

Lena pressed her lips into a thin line, unamused.

“I didn’t hear from you all day. I was worried.”

“Hey,” Kara said softly, bending forward a little to catch Lena’s gaze more fully. “There was an emergency. I’m sure you saw the news? I know you did and I know you saw that I was fine, otherwise you would have called Alex and made her day difficult. It just took a bit longer than expected to deal with the cleanup afterwards.”

Unable to form words with Kara’s face so close and her hands so warm and steady on her legs, Lena could only manage a small nod.

“So what’s this really about?”

Lena broke their eye contact, choosing instead to focus on her hands in her lap for this next part.

“Well, maybe I do like getting that text in the morning? A reminder that this isn’t some elaborate fantasy that my brain made up? That you’re real. That we’re real?”

“Lena,” Kara murmured, moving one of her hands to cover Lena’s fidgeting ones. Kara waited for Lena to look up again before leaning forward to press a soft kiss to her lips. “We’re very much real, okay? And if you need more reminders of that throughout the day, I can make that happen.”

Lena nodded, unable to speak past the small lump in her throat.

Then Kara leaned forward again for another brief kiss before sliding her arms under Lena’s legs and picking her up and out of the chair, a move that resulted in a surprised little squeak from Lena.

Kara smirked.

“Now, how about I take you home and show you just how real we are?”

#supercorp #kara x lena #lena luthor #kara danvers #sam arias #jess

300 notes · View notes

freesia-writes · 8 months

Text

Chapter 10: Injustice

During the Clone Wars, the Bad Batch is tasked with a variety of missions across the galaxy. An unexpected addition to their team throws a wrench in the mix, particularly for Tech, who finds a particular connection with this disillusioned Padawan-turned-mechanic named Vel throughout the events in this action-adventure romance.

COVER ART BY @zaana!! And this was my first fanfic ever, y'all! :D

Master List of Chapters

When Vel woke up, she was on a starkly clean bunk, surrounded by every shade of grey. The throbbing in her head had quieted to a tender ache, and she took a moment to assess the situation. It had been months of self-hate, meaningless existence, and menial tasks just to get by. It had finally subsided into a simmering sense of disappointment, and suddenly here they all were, as if no time had passed, laying on a lower bunk on the Marauder.

And there they were, asking for her help, nonetheless! She was torn, having yearned for nothing else in her initial weeks on Coruscant, kicking herself for not being enough to secure a spot within their brotherhood. She knew she would never have the ties that the clones had with each other, but she had hoped that her skill and willingness would be enough to make her worth having around.

But, as usual, it hadn't. This note was still ringing in her head when the door whooshed open and Tech entered, a small tray of food in his hands. His armor plates were noticeably absent, and he looked diminutive in just his blacks.

"Ah, you are awake. Excellent," he assessed, "And how are you feeling?"

"Better, thanks," Vel responded, indignance still her prominent train of thought.

"I brought a variety of items, as I cannot remember what your particular food preferences were," Tech continued, "But this should be an adequate selection."

For some reason, that was enough to set her off. Vel propped herself up onto her elbows before sitting fully upright, feeling a surge of dizziness that only fueled her anger. The bunk over her head loomed dangerously close, and Tech sat the tray down on the bunk next to her. As he sat across from her, he was met with a furrowed brow instead of a grateful grin.

"What the kriff, Tech?" Vel started, swinging her legs off the side of the bed to sit fully facing him, "You drop me off like spare cargo when I'm not good enough for you all anymore, then you all just come tromping back into my life with an invite and expect me to hop to?"

He sat straighter, mouth opening with a half-formed thought, but she wasn't done.

"I get that Hunter didn't want me around. Whatever. But I thought you at least saw that I brought some value," she said, anger deflating to reveal the sadness beneath as she saw his eyes widen beneath his glasses. "I thought..." she fumbled for words. "I don't know," she finished pathetically.

Tech closed his mouth, pursing his lips in thought before replying. It felt like ages before he spoke, "I was unaware of Hunter's choice and his conversation with you until we were en route to Naboo. I did not agree with his decision, nor did I see the risk he perceived so greatly, but he is our sergeant, and thus I was compelled to comply."

There was a duality of emotions in Vel's reaction to his words. She found herself feeling both grateful and hopeful at his admittance that he hadn't exactly agreed with Hunter beforehand, but there was a distinct sense of letdown as well at his assertion that he didn't see the risk. Had she completely imagined it all? Did he not see it as a risk, or did he not see anything at all?

Her lack of further verbal assault allowed him the space to continue.

"However, as we are clearing the air between us, if I am accurate in that assessment," he ventured, "I would like to share that I found your company to be extremely pleasant. You alluded to a lack of value, assuming that it would be determined by your mechanical prowess, but I think it is incorrect to fully place one's value on their contributions to the needs of the team. I also am aware of the irony of that statement, being a clone created for one sole directive and therefore having a relatively singular measure of value, but I have truly been surprised by your continual cynicism toward your purpose in life and lack of awareness of your multifaceted worth."

Speechlessness seemed to be a trend today, as Vel worked to process his long-winded admittance. She felt a warmth in her heart, but refused to let it grow any further, not wanting to assume more than what was said. She took a deep, calming breath, looking down at the tray of food next to her.

"Thank you," she offered feebly. "You know by now that being rejected is not a new thing to me, yet every time it happens, it hurts as much as if it were the first time. But I'm figuring it out," she said, masking the vulnerability with a confident optimism as she lifted her chin to look at him. "However," she continued, "I'd like to have a word with Hunter."

***

Crosshair watched from the bridge as Vel met Hunter on his way back from some errands. He was still walking with a bit of an awkward gait and stood stiffly as he saw her approach. Words were exchanged, amid nods and gestures, and it was clear how the conversation was going. Wrecker approached from the back, leaning over the controls to see what Crosshair was spying on.

"What's with them?" Wrecker asked, stuffing a fistful of puffy, crunchy snacks into his mouth.

"It seems they have smoothed things over," Crosshair replied, turning away from the window as the two approached the ship.

"Well," Wrecker said through a mouthful, "I'm looking forward to see how this all goes."

***

Vel took in the sight of her "quarters", trying not to read too much into the fact that they had been left almost exactly the way they were when she last saw them, except for a few small changes. A number of extra panel lightbulbs had been strung together along the top of the bars that still ran along the side; they provided a colorful little line of illumination to cast a cozy glow on the rest of the area. There was a crate that had been made into a nightstand of sorts, pushed up against the cot and decorated with a tablecloth that, upon further inspection, was actually a torn base layer shirt (Wrecker's, by the look of it). There was also a small data card, which she picked up curiously.

"That is an account of--" a pert voice startled her into a squawking flail that was far less than graceful. Tech had appeared at some point, completely unnoticed by her, and she took a breath in an attempt to regain her composure.

"Geez, Tech, you scared the poodoo out of me," she said shakily, trying to cover it up with a breathy laugh.

"I apologize," he said earnestly, golden lenses reflecting the colorful little twinkles of the lights. "It was not my intention. As I was saying -- the card contains an account of the various interpretations of the constellations on Corellia by different people groups and tribes. The data goes back as far as there are records. It is fascinating to discover the similarities and differences over hundreds of years and to take note of how prominent events impacted the shifts."

Vel turned the card over in her hands, letting his words wash over her and realizing with a pang in her chest that she had missed his ineffable curiosity and endless knowledge. A tiny smile flickered at the corner of her lip before disappearing again as she raised her eyes to look at him, leaning back against the bars behind her.

"That's really sweet...er, interesting..." she shifted on her feet, self-consciously pushing her hair back from her face. "Thank you. I... uh... it's just weird to be back."

"That seems an odd choice of words, considering the occasion."

"Heh, fair enough," she chuckled, feeling the dam slowly cracking inside as all the rollicking thoughts and feelings fought for center stage.

"Would you like to explain further why your return is 'weird'?" Tech asked, stepping closer while maintaining his endearingly hunched posture.

"It's weird because I don't know if I'm being a stupid pushover," Vel said suddenly, the words rushing out like a cascade. "Crawling back like an abused dog the minute you snap your fingers for me... It's weird because I'm so happy to see you, but I felt so hurt by the fact that you just took off. I know--" she cut off his attempt to interrupt, waving away his raised index finger, "I know you weren't aware. But... I didn't know then. And that doesn't mean it didn't suck." She paused, taking a breath to try to slow the steady stream of admissions. "It's just weird because I still don't know what I'm doing," she finally admitted.

Tech regarded her for a moment, fingers moving deftly at his sides like orchestra conductors directing his analysis and considerations. They paused for a moment as he adjusted his goggles, intelligent brown eyes flickering down and remaining on the floor as he spoke, "I understand that there are innumerable extraneous variables that are currently in play... And I assume that would be a large impetus for distress and disillusionment..." His words were slow, a stark contrast to the bright, quick pace he usually used. Vel tried not to stare, but the concentration on his face was captivating. "I am sorry for..." he faltered, slowly lifting his eyes back to hers as though seeking the answer, "...for the trouble it causes... And I hope that, perhaps, some encouragement might be an effective counterbalance?"

He was trying -- she could tell. There was such a genuine desire to reach her, despite his own lack of experience navigating such precarious and fickle waters, that he was willing to venture out on a limb, attempting something without his usual confidence. It warmed her heart. She tried to think of a clever response, but there were none coming. Fortunately, Tech wasn't done.

"Your presence here is greatly valued," he stated confidently, nodding to accompany his words. He seemed to find them incomplete, and continued after a breath, "I am glad you have returned."

Tag List: @merkitty49 @vimse @arctrooper69 @dystopicjumpsuit @starrylothcat @ghostperson69 @dreamie411 @savebytheodoresnonjosestuff @523rdrebel @clonemedickix @sinfulsalutations @ughhhhfoff @coraex @amorfista @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @followthepurrgil @littlefeatherr @sunshinesdaydream @hellhound5925 @Thew0nderer2342

(If you're on my regular tag list, let me know if you want to be tagged in this; I didn't want to spam ya!)

Click here to join or leave the tag list. <3

#the bad batch #tbb #star wars fanfiction #bad batch #star wars the bad batch #the bad batch fanfiction #tech x oc #tech fanfic #the bad batch tech #tech romance #tech #slow burn romance #slow burn

42 notes · View notes

beyondthisdarkhouse · 1 year

Note

What is the Tumblr kokobot mental health thing and why does it keep messaging me when I go into various mental health/neurodivergent tags? I'm generally looking for community and I don't appreciate this site deciding I am In Danger. You're a therapist and I feel like you've probably talked about mental health apps before so thought I'd ask

Uuuugh, that thing. I think I blocked it a couple months back. BUT, I'm going to be as fair to it as I can.

The part you and I bumped into is their automated chatbot, which monitors traffic on social media sites to detect people having mental health crises and try to convince them to access mental health support. Apparently their bot got good enough at detecting human behaviour patterns online that they actually spun it off into a separate company for a while and then sold their tech to a corporation, before returning to the mental health idea. They returned to it, critically, as a non-profit, which is why I'm willing to give it a second look at all.

tl;dr: I would not immediately warn everyone away from using it! Which is more than I could say for a lot of Silicon Valley mental health startups. I don't love the current implementation, but I think they might have the makings of a decent mutual aid platform for temporary moments of stress.

Long version below

Like, I was not a fan at all of Trill when Tumblr partnered with it, because I felt that they were using well-intentioned volunteers to do potentially harrowing and dangerous work without adequate training or support. (Or not-so-great volunteers, since I was dubious about their vetting process) And a lot of Kokobot's origin story is in some ways really similar to Trill.

Most of these startups and initiatives mean well. They want to make the world better and help provide comfort and support to people who need that. I admire them for their dedication to a good cause. However, I believe that when you are devoting significant resources to building a system where you ask people to choose you for support in their moments of vulnerability, you cannot put your intentions ahead of their needs.

Like: It is really great that people want to help the less-fortunate. I think it shows warmth of heart to want to go somewhere and build homes for the homeless. But if you've never built a house before, and the houses you build are so poorly constructed that they fall down or catch fire or whatever, and they wouldn't have if you'd put the equivalent amount of money into hiring local out-of-work carpenters to do the work properly, I don't think you should keep operating like that as a charity.

I'm also judging Koko a bit as the former teenager who wanted to help people, in terms of how much they provide guidance and support to the helpers they've recruited.

Finally, I feel the need to remind all of us, as useless as such reminders feel, that if you are not paying for a social media platform, you aren't a customer; you are the product. "Kokobot", the organization, the platform, the AI, are not the core producers of its value. Its users are. Without people in distress to whom to provide support, and without supportive people there in times of distress, it would not exist.

Maybe this will never be an issue. Maybe this conflict will never arise. Maybe the nonprofit organization will be devoted enough to the needs of its userbase that they will serve them faithfully and well. I hope so.

I'm just... jaded, by things I've seen before.

What I don't like at all:

It took me a lot of work to go from looking up Kokobot on Tumblr to understanding how the company worked, what using the app was like, and whether their work was being informed by anyone with a lick of knowledge about mental health care. I still don't know a lot of stuff about how they handle anonymity in situations like imminent suicide or homicide, or abuses of the platform.

Kokobot messaging people out of the blue is creepy as hell. My first response was, "Fuck off, I can TELL you're not ethical." Most ethical guidelines I know of for mental health therapists explicitly forbid directly soliciting clients ("Hey there, I can tell you've got a few issues. Here's my card"), especially when people appear psychologically vulnerable or in distress. The only wiggle room there is when you're working in disaster relief and crisis intervention, but that does not make it an "anything goes" situation.

@kokobot posting lots of testimonials from users about how great their service is. Again, something usually strictly forbidden by ethical standards! When someone has just come to you in distress and you've provided them help, and then ask them to give you a Yelp review, you're not usually going to get thoughtful, measured, and informed feedback. It's a weird power dynamic that might be great advertising, but not great informed consent.

While Koko might be a legit company that does its job well, its presence and behaviour opens up the field of what is acceptable behaviour on social media. If one app can track mental health tags and solicit vulnerable people into joining their group, why not another? What will stop Scientology (which has done this in person for decades) from creating a similar app, pitching it to people in need, and coaching its users to go off all their psychiatric medications and use pseudoscience instead? Where are the safeguards?

What's Not Terrible

Kokobot is clunky and weird, but like I said on my post on Trill, the hardest part of moderation on social media is the amount of labour it takes, and the human cost of that labour. It seems to me that by using AI, Koko might have found an efficient way to automate much of that labour.

I tried out the actual app itself, messaging on Telegram; for my "problem", I just said I was concerned that a friend was messaging Koko a lot and I wanted to make sure it was legit. Sending it out required answers to some pretty vital questions—did I feel hopeful or hopeless about the world? What kinds of best- or worst-case scenarios was I imagining? They were worded in a way that felt human and genuine, and the chatbot was responsive and encouraging before my problem ever got human eyes on it.

(For the record: These are questions that can very quickly give information on whether someone is likely to be a danger to themselves or anyone else, which are really important.)

Then, at the bot's suggestion, I also helped a couple other people, where I was given very rough and ready training on active listening, then coached into writing a response. It avoided a lot of on-ramps to community toxicity, inasmuch as the problems and replies were private and anonymous, and there were instant feedback options if anything was worrying or upsetting.

This process showed what I think was a more sophisticated and useful implementation of AI than, uh....... like 99% of the AI I've seen. This is mostly a statement on the state of AI, but still. Koko seems like the bot's responses were really carefully workshopped and designed by actual humans who knew about crisis intervention and risk assessment.

The replies I got to my "problem" were fairly good, empathetic and genuine. (The bot encourages people to be a little dorky, and seeing an auto-generated response I myself was suggested made me roll my eyes; this could reduce the value for some people.)

I can definitely see the benefit of encouraging people who are feeling distressed to help others. Engaging in peer support encourages empathy, and helps people feel like they've got something to offer, and that problems might be solvable.

In the end, Kokobot is an expansion of the kind of work volunteer-run distress and crisis hotlines do. It has the potential to do a lot of good, but the organization itself has to consider so many other factors and processes than its users do. I sincerely hope it and Tumblr are being extremely thoughtful and careful in how they handle this work.

I would be delighted to be proven wrong, and have them turn out to be totally amazing. I really hope they do.

#suicide discussion tw #mental health #kokobot

75 notes · View notes