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littyhoney · 11 months

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Right Person,Wrong Time (part 4)

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4)

BIG SPOILER WARNING TO ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE!!

Earth 42 Miles Morales x Reader

Summary: Seeing a familiar face but different person. A person you once loved.

Warning: Spoilers for the movie Across the Spider-verse, slight angst

P.s: I don't know how to feel about this chapter,im sorry that the update is slow but i believe in quality over quantity <3 enjoy spiders!

Today have been moving so fast,first you found out how Gwen got here as you follow Miles after he left the party to catch up on Gwen. The only reason you follow him was because you promised mama Rio.

(Flashback)

You watch as Miles walk away from the party down to the fire escape stairs standing beside mama Rio. You can sense her restless and worry feeling for her own son as you remembered how much Miles wanted to leave from here,to see somewhere new,spread his wings.

“It’s okay mama Rio,you know how Miles is, he'll be alright”You hold her hand try to reassure her. mama Rio sigh turning her head looking at you with a worry expression.

“I know he is but…I’m scared of him wanting to grow up so fast, you both are just teens my dear”She held both of your shoulder turning you to face her,firm grasp on your shoulders she says “Promise me dear…when me and Jeff are not around…promise me you keep him safe,look out for him”

You put your hand on one of her palm and nod your head “Promise,mama”

(End flashback)

How much are you willing to protect him? Your best friend? Currently you held a strong grip on his arm as you watch this Spider-man…with a name Miguel O'Hara is threatening to keep Miles him here in this spider club house thing. Because he is an anomaly…and Miguel also want to keep you here because you’re supposed…to die.

“Because of you Miles,she was supposed to die!”You were destined to die at the collider…when you’re trying to help your mentor,Peter Parker. At the hand of the Prowler,uncle Aaron. The canon event for your mentor is to lose his uncle Ben…to lose you,his pupil.

To know you’re supposed to die is like a punch in the guts… you feel sick in the stomach to know you’re not supposed to survive or even breath another day.

Currently you held Miles behind you shielding him from Miguel as he try to destroy the barrier that have been made from the big spider machine that transport any anomaly back to their original dimension. You stare wide eyes at Miguel who is trying his best to stop you both,to see this man trying to tear apart the barrier. Fear grips around you. Suddenly the machine finish its job making both of you float and transported back to your home…or so you though.

“Aaahhh!!” you screamed as you are transported into the portal moving so fast it spit out both spiders out on top of a rooftop,the rain pouring down makes everything slippery as you and Miles rolled and slide through the concrete. You and Miles are slightly injured after getting kicked,slammed and thrown around like a rag doll by other spiders. You prop yourself up on your elbow shaking your head slightly, your ears ringing your visions are double as you try to locate where Miles is. “M-miles…?”your visions focus to see him his mask off breathing heavily trying to slow down his heart as he lean back to the wall,hundreds of thoughts running through his head before he stands up “I need to get back home!”He runs and jump from the rooftop swing himself away.

“Miles! Wait!”You stand up try to catch up to him but the pain on your left leg makes you limping before swing your web following him. Miles keep on swinging as fast as he can to his house,to find his dad,his mom. You follow behind him trying to get his attention from doing anything irrational.

Miles stick outside of the wall of his room opening the window and went inside, his heart racing as he take in deep breaths. You swing towards the window and you yelped as you landed on your injured leg holding yourself up on the wall, just as you climb in you heard the knob to the door turn you reach for anything nearby to cover your suit,a sweater. You grip the sweater together tightly trying your best to cover your suit.

The door to the room open slightly follow by a voice, “Miles?”

You and Miles look at the door, to see his mom holding a laundry basket in her other hand,she look at her son.Rio look confuse to see her son but Miles desperate voice make her even worried.

“Mom..there is something coming for us,somethin terrible”Miles says

“Miles you’re talking crazy whats going on?”Rio walk closer to her son her eyes keep darting towards you.

Miles continue “His name is Spot…he is our nemesis, and we gonna stop him. I know you know…we been lying to you,it’s because that I knew…you won’t love me the same. You won’t look at (N/N) the same way too. Then I went out there and..now im not afraid of anything”

“What do you wanna tell me?”Rio ask her son.

“You gotta promise nothing’s gonna change mom”

“Papa I will always love you”

“You gotta promise”Miles desperately says

“Always,I don’t care what you said,Tu me tiendes?”Rio walks closer to him and hold one of his hand trying to reasure her son.

Miles pull away from her before he turn to the side readying himself to do this, he sigh “Mom” and pull the zip down turning to his mom. “I'm spider-man”he pull his jacket apart showing his mom his spider suit. “A-and (Y/N) is also the spider-man/spider-woman”

Rio just look at her son in confusion before she ask “W-Who’s Spider-man?”

You frown slightly as you are witnessing everything unfold,surely everyone in Brooklyn knows who you guys are. Every news and thousands of video on YouTube telling the world about the spider duo shoving the information to every.single.person.

“And who is (Y/N)?”she ask again tilting her head slightly looking at her son.

The moment she ask that you are stun,your eyes widened again looking through the window,are you hearing this right?. You blink a few times before, keeping your eyes at the familiar woman in front of you yet something in your gut is telling you she is not the same woman who would give you hug and kiss your forehead.

she let out a chuckle before giving his son a small smile “Miles you been keeping a secret of having a partner from me hm?”she turns to walk out of the room with the laundry basket in her hand.

Your spider sense goes off as you watch this woman who look exactly like your mama Rio,your brows knitted together watching Miles run out of his room following his ‘mom’ to the living room trying his best to explain.

You stuck at your spot,with your thoughts run haywire at what is happening,why she doesn’t remember you?, why she acts like you never met?, why does her aura feel different?

You shake your head,you need to focus. You keep watching as Miles is talking to his ‘mom’ before both of your attention drawn to the sound of a door knob unlocking at the main entrance of the house.

You press yourself closer peeking through the window still confuse while Miles seems to figure out what is happening looking scared at the door.

The door open to reveal, Aaron Davis. Miles supposedly dead uncle “U-uncle Aaron?” Miles mumble looking at the familiar figure walking through the door. Your eyes widen seeing the familiar figure walk infront of the open door, Uncle Aaron?. Your eyes darted to Miles,he look like he is seeing a ghost from the past then it all click in your head. You are in a different place, a place with no Spider-man to protect, a completely different dimension…you’re in a dimension of where the spider that bit Miles originally came from. Earth-42.

“Oh my god…”you mumble to yourself pressing yourself to the wall looking up at the sky mumbling “Shit…shit,shit”

You gulp as the anxious feeling and fear grip your throat like a choke hold. How in the hell you and Miles are going to get out of this? You see Uncle Aaron push Miles away slightly making a comment about him taking out his braids?

Miles turning his head making eye contact,you can see It in his eyes. He is scared. He turn his head to his uncle following him out of the house climbing up the stairs.

You crawl up the wall following them as in your head is screaming something is wrong,everything is. Both of you are in danger. You pull yourself up hiding behind the many scraps and metal on top of the rooftop keeping an eyes on Miles. As you walk further to the front your eyes looking around the place before you discover something even more heart breaking…on the wall Is a graffiti Of Jefferson Davis with a writing of ‘Rest in Power’.

Your heart starting to beat faster fear grips you fully, your head snap towards Miles just to see him got knocked out falling straight to the floor.

“Miles!”you jumped out from where you hide swinging your web to his body to pull him to you, to run. But your web got cut by a flashing purple,whatever it is that thing is fast. You ready yourself shooting out both of your web at it but the thing catches it pulling you to it before your head is punch with something metal. Your body flew back but you got yourself on your knee shaking your head to get rid of the ringing in your ears. You push forward charging at where its standing over Miles but suddenly something stinging comes from the back of your neck you hiss reaching your hand to pull whatever it is. It’s a fucking sleeping dart, shit you though to yourself but you try to walk to Miles body but you starting to see double and everything is swaying from side to side. You fall to your hand and knees fighting the urge to pass out.

The figure came closer to you kneeling down to your level lifting your head by gripping your chin to look at the purple Mask before a distorted voice says “duerme, arañita”your head slips from his hand landing on the floor pass out.

Uncle Aaron walk towards the two limp body before saying “A fierce one ay?”picking up Miles body and moves to the other one.

“No,I’ll take this one”the figure says before move to pick the limp body slinging it over his shoulder and walk towards the hideout. Aaron shrug and follows them inside.

(Timeskip a few hours later)

You blink as you slowly gaining conscious, you try to move your hands but it stop by a chain that is hanging you up on the ceiling making your feet hover a few inches off the ground. You struggle in your bind hopping it to lose or break but of course,it didn’t. You try to press on to your web shooter but to find nothing is on your wrist, shit they take your web shooter.

“Dont even try, little spider”You snap your head to the figure who is wearing a neon mask that illuminates in the darkness. The figure walks closer to you,he walks slowly around you taking in the details of what you are. You are the same as the other one,a spider.

“What did you do to Miles”you hiss out through your teeth trying to look intimidating at the figure,the figure let out a whistle as he stands infront of you. “Calm down,heh it’s not that you can do anything without your web no?”He reply with a clear smug.

“I can take you down just fine with or without the web”you glare at the mask,the stupid neon mask that is mocking you. “Maybe you open that stupid mask of yours so I can fuck your face up like a pulp”

The guy chuckle before saying “You first little spider”he reaches his hand on top of your head gripping your mask. You try to move away your head but its useless as the figure rip your mask off revealing your face glaring at him.

Him on the other hand,didn’t expect to see such face staring back at him. The fire in your eyes staring right into his soul, it sparks something in him. He take a good look of how your lips are shaped,how your hair framing your face. He is stunned,shame that you,re with ‘him’.

“Open yours,what you’re scared now?”you taunting him when you see him just staring at you. The guy chuckle before he open his mask looking at you with a smirk on his lips.

“Miles…?”

(To be continued…)

yall can come and start a riot on me

Tag list:

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#miles morales x reader #miles morales fanfiction #miles morales x y/n #spiderman across the spiderverse #miles morales #prowler miles

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buckttommy · 21 days

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Imho henren just doesn’t spark for me. They just kinda bore me and it’s okay to admit you don’t like every queer ship a show gives you.

You're right, it is 100% okay to not like every queer ship you are given. This is actually something I'm really passionate about, because it's deeply similar to the idea of recommending a piece of media based on the fact that it has queer rep and not based on what other value the media has. Both accepting a ship because it's queer and recommending a piece of media based on its queer components come with an inherent, Capitalistic demand to disregard quality in favor of quantity (i.e. "Yeah, that book is mostly porn, but at least it's got gay men in it!" or "That show is trash, but at least the queer couple is kind of cute.") So to that end I say, you are absolutely right. If Henren doesn't spark for you, it doesn't spark. There's nothing wrong with that.

The problem arises when people erase the fact that complex, meticulously crafted, realistic, healthy, and beautiful queer characters have existed on this show from the very beginning. Michael's storyline alone — a gay man who stepped into his identity later in life, despite already being married with children — was so deeply moving and impactful on its own, as was watching him develop a genuine relationship with Bobby, his ex-wife's husband. We never get stories like that on television. Someone is always left out. Someone is always hurt. Queerness is always seen as a permanent betrayal where no one gets to move on from that pain. But 9-1-1 gave us a story where these people became a unique and cohesive family, and that matters.

Henren doesn't spark for you, but the weight and significance of their existence is undeniable. For one, neither of these women are stereotyped and sexualized. Karen is the "femme" in the relationship but she's never put into clothes or situations designed to appeal to the male gaze. She is a mother, she is a wife, and she acts like one. For another, Queerness is not the sole focus of their arcs and is considered just a part of their lives like anything else. They have careers, they have a family, and yes, the cheating storyline in Season 1 reeks heavily of Ryan Murphy's homophobic ideology, but the way they chose to grow past it cannot be overstated. Stories where we get to not just live, or not just love, or not just be messy, but where we can do and be all three cannot be overstated.

So, yes, I get upset when people ignore the existence of these characters and these stories for the sake of Buck. I love Buck so deeply and, as a bisexual person who knows what it is like to realize, step into, and subsequently settle into that identity, I'm excited to see where his story takes him. But he's not the only queer character on the show, nor has he ever been, and whether you yourself are queer or not, I think we can all agree why speaking out against that particular false narrative is so important.

#jack answers mail #tv: 911

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harmonysanreads · 8 months

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What do you think about Yan! Focalors?

I saw this ask a while back but I decided to first see Furina's personality in-game before answering and mmmm, definitely possible. Though if I ever do include her in any of my writings, I'll be keeping it platonic :>

Furina's life source is the spotlight, she thrives in the very epicenter of attention. At the same time, she seems to have a distinct need for external validation. Her extravagant manner of speech is both her weapon and her shield. If you wish to catch her attention and keep it fixated upon you until a solid foundation of affection can be formed ; you'd need to be a bit of an anomaly. Someone who's a challenge, someone who's not swayed by her provocations and someone who can see through her bravado. What would really change the trajectory of your relationship is, if you'd share a vulnerable moment with her, as as it is seen she prefers to keep her troubles and insecurities to herself.

Furina knows when she likes someone or something enough to make a move, so her initial strategy is to put all sorts of grandiose shows that flaunt her own admirable qualities. There's another reason she chooses this method, that is the pressure that comes from the public and which she hopes would push you to accept her proposals. When that doesn't work and gossip of the Hydro Archon getting rejected spreads like wildfire, Furina is embarrassed. But ever the stubborn one, she employs strategies after strategies to gain your attention and praise (she phrases it as you getting hers instead because of course) and even the tiniest quantity of it has her squealing at the quiet confines of her bedroom.

I think she's one of those characters who get hit by a whole existential crisis the moment they realize they've actually caught feelings for someone. It becomes blatantly clear to bystanders as well, she fumbles with her words, twiddles her thumbs and reacts strongly with matters that concern you. Definitely throws a tantrum if you don't notice the new bow she wore. At the same time, she does thorough research on you from the time you get up for bed to who your first ancestor was. She makes sure to learn about your interests and hobbies and might even start doing them herself to better bond with you. She'd consider those all-nighters worth it if she manages to get even an impressed look from you.

As her affections grow in intensity, she starts expressing her jealousy. She cannot stand you being all buddy-buddy with someone who's obviously lesser than her, she's the better choice! Can't you see?! Thankfully, getting pesky pedestrians out of the picture is easy in Fontaine — given that you know how to use its laws against your enemies. One thing is for certain though, because of the influx of these new and intense emotions, Furina is rather unstable. She'd never physically hurt you (that's just not her thing) but she does take a lot of impulsive decisions that effect the surroundings.

If push comes to shove and you still refuse to reciprocate her love despite all that she's done, her final weapon is the courtroom. Remember? Getting anyone out of the picture is easy if you know your way around the laws of Fontaine and really, who'd look for you at the Hydro Archon's palace if they believed you to be sentenced to lifelong prison?

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kimikitti · 11 months

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I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty sure both of them misunderstood the assignment here. I guess its more quality then quantity for them, LOL! (Also, fun fact! Obi has had prior relationship experience so he was getting a little too cocky. Never underestimate your bf )

I wanted to sneak in and join the 1 min lipstick challenge hosted by @ashipiko. I've been seeing all the cute couples popping up on my feed and I just had to join!

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst fan art #twst oc #malleus draconia #malleus fanart #malleus #twst malleus #my art #twst mc

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jaiden-zhou · 6 months

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(1) casual iso <3

contents: headcanons, reader is a uniqlo employee for plot purposes

not a writer but,, iso is so.. sigh, imagine this reserved uniqlo wearing hitman acting like an absolute puppy for you. yeah this is self indulgent and yeah maybe its based off of my experiences but hey, content.. its long.. i.. the things this man does to me

part 2, part 3

iso whose closet is practically all uniqlo apparel, from core basics to limited exclusive collabs, anything else is like expensive tech wear/street style clothes, he likes his quality

iso who always grabs heavy oolong milk tea with tapioca pearls, a classic predictable drink (his friends call him basic for it, but he doesn't mind), every afternoon he gets the chance to

iso who ends up being an employee there with how much he visits, the owners are a chinese elderly couple who like gossiping with him in mandarin (he has fun listening to their stories and such)

iso who likes having music playing of his own whether it be from his headphones or speakers, even at work his music is playing loud enough for only him to hear from his headset hanging around his neck

iso who works evening shifts part-time and gains a lot of eyes from admirers where he gets at least three numbers given to him a month like "you're really cute, text me <3 (XXX) XXX-XXXX"

iso who's never interested, none of them catch his eyes like how he catches theirs, and ends up tossing whatever number scribbled onto a receipt away

iso who goes to uniqlo on his day off for a collaboration launch consisting of outerwear jackets and trousers that match his style only to not find his size on the racks

iso who takes his time trying to comb through the racks, desperate to find it on his own and take it with him before giving up, pulling down his headphones, and reluctantly asking you

iso who, at a reasonable distance, looks over your shoulder as you look up the product listing with the desired size and color, hearing faint rap music playing through his headphones slung around his neck, finding that there should be three units left and listens in quietly when you radio your coworkers if there are any in the back before going to look for yourself

iso who waits patiently at the same spot for quite a while before you go jogging up to him with the jacket he has been wanting, the plastic and paper still wrapping it up signaling that it has been unprocessed and untouched

iso who still is patient with you with an expectant look, not the impatient kind, it's the anticipating excitement kind, as you're still a little out of breath from running around finding the item for him unwrapping and removing all the excess packaging and giving it to him with both hands, garbage tucked at your arm

iso who looks at your earnest expression, sweet eyes, and genuine smile and feels his breath hitch before taking the coat and doing a little head bow while muttering a quiet 'thanks'

iso who leaves an anonymous compliment to you, conveying his gratitude for going out of your way to find him a limited quantity jacket and sub-consciously thinks of your cute expression of when you gave it to him every time he throws it on

iso who was asked to pick up a morning shift, no one else could and so he decided to just wake up early enough and suck it up but boy does he not regret it

iso who opens up the shop for the first time ever and lo-and-behold, you waltz in as the first customer and immediately he recognizes you, and apparently so do the owners

iso who listens quietly as, whom he likes to call granny, greets you with a warm voice asking if you're ready to go to work

iso who once again patiently waits for you to walk up and order, finding out that you're also a regular here, always grabbing a drink before your long shift at the japanese clothing store he met you in

iso who's still a little quiet, shy even, when you greet him noting that you recognize him from a while ago, your friendly exterior giving him a fuzzy comforting feeling inside

iso who after making your drink, bids you goodbye and continues on (not before asking to switch to morning shifts.. for some reason hehe)

iso who starts seeing you most mornings before you work and then with some time, working up the courage (it was very hard, he was very nervous you just didn't see it) to ask you for your number, nothing romantic just being friendly, right?

iso who starts getting a little closer to you, learning what day and times you work, your hobbies, your favorite things, the music you listen to <3

iso who sometimes drops by your workplace to give you a drink or some food and simple yet subtly sweet encouragement that always seems to lift your spirits to push through the day

iso who even starts to see you near or at the end of your shift to take you home, you've worked long enough, and it's dark out.. :(

iso who likes to ensure your safety by accompanying you home, his friends like to say (tease) that it gives him an excuse to see you more. it's dangerous out at night, what are they talking about? nonsense. (denial is a river in egypt)

iso who as time goes by, slowly craves your presence a little more than he'd like to admit, you're always on his mind and he often flusters himself with his thoughts of you, his cheeks donning a light-pink blush. maybe his friends are onto something.. ugh

yeah i'm definitely writing more iso content hehe

------

"don't have to take me home every time, zhao yuuuu." you whined next to him. "i've done it before and i can do it again."

you only get a short scoff in return, iso's hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket.

"it's dark, you're more at risk when you're alone." iso states matter-of-fact. his headphones at his neck with no music playing. "you know this too, so you shouldn't be complaining."

"yeah but," you pause for a moment. "i don't want you to have to make the trip each time to pick me up.."

iso takes in your dejected tone, his eyes soften.

"and i don't want you being in potential danger where i could've been there to deter it." iso chides softly. "please, for my peace of mind.."

"whatever you say," you comply, your shoulder bumping into him jokingly as you share a quiet laugh. "thanks, yu. it means a lot."

"always," he replies, a certain warmth sets in when he hears you say his nickname.

#iso x reader #iso fluff #iso valorant #valorant iso #valorant #valorant x reader #valorant protocol #gosh i wanna kiss his face all over #zhou’s daydreams

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booksandabeer · 10 months

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Stucky, Fandom Longevity, and "Primacy Bias"

There’s this post that's been floating around the past few days about how the Stucky fandom in its heyday produced fic and art masterpieces like they were all collectively possessed by an unprecedented spirit of creative insanity. It’s a good, fun post and I agree with the person who wrote it. (not rb'ing because I didn't want to hijack their post with something that's only tangentially related).

It was indeed a magical time and the creative output in both quantity and quality in the two-year period following the release of CA:TWS is—with perhaps a few exceptions—unmatched by anything that I’ve seen before and since. However, going through the notes on that post, I noticed something that left me a little irritated and quite frankly sad since it is in congruence with, and to a certain extent the confirmation of something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

For one thing, there are so many people in the notes expressing sentiments along the lines of “it was such a wonderful time; I wish I could go back; I miss these fics; I want to read these fics again,” etc., etc., you get it. And it feels a little silly pointing this out, but…you can just do that? Almost all of these fics are still right there, waiting for you to be (re)read. Yes, a lot of people left the fandom after The Great Devastation of 2019, but their stories didn’t just disappear. It's not like there is now a big, black hole where the Steve/Bucky tag used to be on AO3. So, if you miss these fics and you want to revisit them—just do it. Chances are the authors will be delighted that people are still finding and enjoying their stories all these years later. And—since apparently this needs saying, too, judging from the notes on that post: A lot of people seem to be very concerned with losing ‘coolness points’ for openly admitting that they still miss the ship and often feel tempted to dip their toes back into the Stucky pool. I don’t know how to tell you this, but if someone tries to shame you for simply enjoying or missing something, they are an asshole. Not to mention that all this is happening on tumble.com—'coolness' doesn't exactly live here. And that is a good thing, to be clear. Fandom is not about being cool. It’s about being as enthusiastic, as silly, as absolutely fucking unhinged about the things you love as you want to be. So, stop caring what other people think and enjoy yourself.

The other thing is that there seems to be a pretty widespread misconception that the Stucky fandom hasn’t produced any good fanworks after 2016.

First, that is patently and demonstrably untrue. There is so much incredibly good fanfiction and fanart still out there. Not as much as back in the day, sure, but it still exists. And more is being posted every day! Even some of the OG Big Names are still around. One of the most beloved Stucky series that started all the way back in 2014 was updated as recently as December of last year. The artist, who I believe the op is referring to as creating ‘baroque’ paintings, posted their latest Stucky art not even two months ago.

Second, I find this “primacy bias” more than just a little insulting to the many hardworking and incredibly talented people who are still putting their blood, sweat, and tears into creating for this community. And it’s one thing if people who have long left the fandom believe or say something like this, but it’s frankly irritating when I see people who are still very much active—and therefore definitely should know better—feed into that same false myth. Yes, it sucks that the Stucky ship isn’t as big as it used to be, but that doesn't mean there isn't any 'fresh talent' to be found anymore. I’m also not saying we shouldn’t still celebrate and recommend older works—I do it all the time! And it sure as hell doesn't mean everyone has to reblog absolutely everything all the time, either. Your blog, your rules.

But maybe we should put a little more focus on the good things, on the creators and the community we have now, especially if we want that community to still exist in another ten years. I mean, imagine you’re a person who’s just gotten into the fandom (because yes, there are indeed still new people discovering Stucky all the time) and one of the first things you’re being told is “eh, nice that you're here, but you’re about 7 years late; the big party is already over.” Does that seem like a fun space to hang out in to you?

So. Let’s all—and I do not exclude myself from this because God knows, I love to complain—spend a little less time mourning the ‘good old days’ that are never coming back anyway, and instead focus our attention on enjoying and appreciating both the incredible treasure chest of an archive we have AND the wealth of high-quality art and fic that is still being created by this wonderful community every single day. With this in mind:

🥳🎊Happy Stucky Week 2023!!! 🎊🥳

*I want to make it very clear that this is a general thing that’s been on my mind lately and that I’m trying to work through here—probably not very coherently. I'm not trying to tell anybody 'how to do fandom' and I’m most definitely not vagueposting about any particular incident, person, or group in this fandom. This isn’t a callout post. It’s an I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this and I don’t know what else do with them post.

#stucky #stucky fanfic #fandom culture #i once again have no idea what to tag this #fanfiction forever #fanart forever

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racefortheironthrone · 6 months

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Hello, I’ve a part asoiaf part medieval history question. So despite the strict gender roles, we know that women (at least noble women) can enjoy some “male” activities like horse riding and some kinds of hunting (Cat says Arya can have a hunting hawk). Are there any other “male” activities women can partake too without being judged about it, or even encouraged to do so (both in Westeros and real world)?

So as medievalists and historians of gender have pointed out, ASOIAF is far more restrictive for women than actual medieval Europe. I'm actually going to leave aside the situation of noblewoman for a second, because the vast majority of women were not nobles and their experience of gender would be radically different.

What counted as "male activities" for example would vary enormously by location (rural vs. urban) and thus occupation (farmer vs. artisan). Among the peasantry, while men tended to work in the fields and concentrated on cereal-crop production and women tended to do the manifold work of maintaining the home, the reality is that the irregular nature of agricultural labor meant that in times of high demand (especially spring sowing and autumn harvest) it was a matter of survival for every single member of the household to work in the fields. So women absolutely knew how to work a plow, and swing a scythe.

As for the urban worker, while there was also a high degree of gender segregation by occupation and guilds could often be quite misogynistic when it came to trying to masculinize trades (especially those involving higher rates of capital investment), it was also true that the entire household was expected to contribute their labor, so that wives, daughters, collateral female relatives, and female servants picked up the trade alongside their male counterpart. Moreover, as biased towards men as guilds could be, they were even more committed to the principle that guild businesses were family businesses, and so in situations where a master artisan had only daughters or died childless or died with underage heirs, it was absolutely routine for guilds to admit daughters and widows as guild members, indeed usually at the rank of master, all so that the business could remain in the same family. This is why medievalists can point to so many examples of women who worked in skilled trades, often at a high level.

That's what I think GRRM's portrait of medieval society is missing: an entire world of women in business, working elbow-to-elbow with men to make a living.

As for noblewomen, part of the difficulty is that a big part of being a noble was not doing stuff - not working for a living, chiefly - and instead engaging in leisure activities as much as possible. And women were very much a part of those activities (indeed, for many of them the point was to mingle with eligible people of the opposite gender), whether that's feasting, dancing, hunting, hawking, theater and other entertainments, fireworks, tourneys and jousts, etc.

However, women were also engaged in the main "occupations" of the nobility - estate management and politics - way more than GRRM really takes note of. To begin with, as even GRRM acknowledges to some extent, the lady of the house was expected to take an active role in running the house, which meant managing servants, keeping track of accounts payable and receivable, making sure the supplies arrive on time and in the right quality and quantity, keeping an eye on maintenance and repairs (with the help of servants, natch), etc.

Given that even the manor houses of the nobility were units of economic production, the lady of the house would also be responsible for oversight of how the house was doing with its pigs, goats, chickens and pigeons and geese, bees (because beeswax and honey were really important commodities), sheep, and so on, and what kind of figures they were pulling down at the mill and the weir, and so forth.

As medievalists have known for a long time, this list of duties got even longer whenever the lord of the house was away at war or on business, when the lady would be expected to pick up all his work too - which means making sure the rents and taxes get paid, deciding which fields to distribute manpower to and when, dealing with legal disputes in the manorial court, and so on. And if the war came home, the lady of the house was expected to lead the defense of the castle and there are many, many examples of noblewomen who had to organize sieges that lasted months and even years.

However, we also have to consider the impact of inheritance by birth and the inherent randomness of sex at birth - as much as they tried to avoid it, plenty of noble houses ended up with female heirs or in the hands of widows. Most of the time in most countries, women could and did inherit (or at the very least their male children and relatives could inherit through them) titles and fiefdoms, and while their husbands would often take on overlordship de jure uxoris, unmarried women and widows very much exercised their authority as the Lady or Baroness or Countess or whatever, and history is also full of women who were extremely influential in medieval politics and backed up their influence by any means necessary.

#history #medieval history #feudalism #history of gender #westerosi feudalism #westerosi gender roles #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #race for the iron throne #historical analysis

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behoright · 6 months

Note

I am going feral for jealous possessive andrei

Cant wait to read it

the bane of my existence, the object of all my desires - a. svechnikov

i'm sorry this wasnt even planned but it has to be done like.....

warnings: yall know I write disgusting smut like... gross, dirty, nasty - includes but not limited to unprotected and semi public activities, dirty talk, mentions of sweat n blooood. just nasty shit. also its bad writing get over it! word count: 3.5k

LMAO so

nothing like a day off to watch your boyfriend work

he would never say it explicitly

but andrei loved it when you spent all day around him

you both knew how crucial it was to have your own lives

and your own friends and jobs and hobbies

but he couldn't lie

when you spent all day around him, he would go crazy

there was something about you

something about the way you moved

when you thought no one was watching or nobody cared

the way the air in the room would change whenever you walked in

and he had noticed it before

how everyone around would

adjust themselves, cough awkwardly or give him glances

part of his burning for you was just that

knowing how much you were valued

not because how you looked necessarily

even tho he found you stunning

it was because of your essence

enthralling everyone around you

and it wasn't beyond him that that factor called for

a lot of attention

which he had been giving to you since day one

since the day he saw you and he knew no one else could have you

the cling to you the need to have you didnt come from any lack of security

it came from simple desire

indisputable and ever present, to the point where

everyone had to pretend not to see it

the intensity repelling any and all grossed out friends and teammates

he had tried, truly, at the beginning, but there was no way to dissimulate

if he had melted in presence of past women, he lit up in yours

and so far, there were no signs of slowing down

ever since he could remember, andrei never had any breaks

no way of slowing down, of letting it breathe

it was one of his biggest peaks but also downfalls

skate faster

shoot sharper

push harder

until his legs gave out and even then

crawl and claw if he needed to get everything

every single thing he wanted

and he wasn't afraid to admit it

never arrogant, but always honest

the house, make it bigger

the car, flashier

his mother’s wrist, shinier and heavier

more wins, more

more of

you. as well

in quality always before than in quantity

get the best, and give yourself fully to it

invest everything you have in it and simultaneously squeeze every drop of pleasure from it

he wasn't ashamed

or apologetic about it

it was one of the things you loved most about him

and it did wonders for your relationship

so today, despite it being a relatively easy day

no traveling, no game, just practice

(which took all day for andrei, obviously)

you decided to spend it being clingy

your boyfriend's favorite word

he loved to see you watch him

it helped him focus more stay more present as he felt you closer to him

and sneak around to see you

come to the glass

give you a puck

take an extra long lunch (and nap)

it was the day of his dreams honestly

you grabbed your things as he was the last man to leave the ice

seats around you empty by now

made your way towards him

right after he was done, just how he liked it

always right after a game, a practice, a trip

there was nothing better than to see your face immediately as he was done

he didnt want a second to breathe or clear his head

all of that was done with you

the sound of your shoes echoing in the halls of the arena

matching rhythmically your heart pounding within you

every step matching every contraction, every rush of blood sent through you

you knew the walls and corners of this place like the back of your hand

the sound of muffled music waltzing around from afar

as others began their afternoon workout, you knew andrei had just finished his skating

at times it seemed like

there was no way to calm yourself down around him

but it had never been nerves you thought

always

joy

desire

wanting and needing for each other

sweat clung to him as you approached him in the empty locker room

it had been such a domestic experience by now that you knew when to be there and when to know it was only him

like clockwork

and he loved it

every time he thought about it, a smirk would adorn his face

you stood at the entrance of the room, placing your shoulder tenderly against the doorframe

a smile forming on your lips as you saw his body shift

pretending that he didn't hear you, that he didn't know you were there

but it was so simple to see the sculpture of his shoulder twitch

stretch in the most minuscule way, letting you know he could feel you

it was like

a magnet

no matter how far you were, if you were in the same vicinity, the polarity zapped you both

pulled you in always

the closer, the more intense the energy became

you stood still, the two of you immobile in the silence

it seemed like forever

the aching growing stronger

both unrelenting in your posture

but he knew

he always knew you'd give in first

you noticed, in your attentiveness, the slight tremor that rolled through his back body

slight, but noticeable

you had become an expert by now at concealing your worry, letting andrei take care of himself

but it was still there deep down

had he pushed himself too far today?

was it finally the day he didn't listen to his limits?

unconsciously, you stepped forward

and taken aback by your own actions, the smallest gasp leaving your lips

he turned his head just enough for you to see his profile, a thick eyebrow arched in

rude awakening almost

the tightening of your chest prevented any words from tumbling out, the feeling only deepening as he turned to face you fully

immediately meeting a newly formed gash on his chin

your eyes darted as you tried to remember when you could have missed this

you were there almost the whole time he was on the ice

“you see? this is why i need you always here.”

as he broke the silence, a small drop of blood began to pool at the surface of the cut

“what happened? i didn’t even…”

you failed to finish your sentence, shock, and anticipation mixing underneath your rib cage as he began to step towards you

walking slowly, molasses dripping in every movement

“imagine how bad they treat me when you are not here, Ки́са”

he muttered, his voice low, as he threw a scarlet-tinted towel on the floor

“if it was up to you, i wouldn’t leave you ever.”

you smirked, raising your chin in defiance when his walking came to a stop

you could always see the enjoyment on his face whenever he played these games

his feet planted firmly a few inches away from you

more than a couple of steps, but close enough to feel his heat

the musk that emanated out of him after getting off the ice

the mix of the cold environment and the rough maneuvers created a scent you could never find anywhere else

“what can i say? i am happiest when you are around.”

the corner of his lips pulling, smugly tugging up

there was something about the sincerity and vulnerability of his statement

combined with the way he delivered it

with that shit eating grin

the fuckboy esque aura of his appearance

oh, andrei

your boyfriend and his erotic, slow burning, sexual standoffs

“you know I can’t do that”

you replied tenderly, snickering at your own thoughts

he looked down, placing his hands on his hips

a drop of sweat hitting the ground as he inhaled deeply

audibly

a slight rasp finishing his exhale, his lungs still reflecting the hazardous workout

it took all the strength within you not to move

you had learned to view andrei as

an animal

a feline

you could open the door, but they would come in whenever they wanted

always taking his time

knowing that he could feel the neediness seeping out of you

it was consistently on his terms

you clenched your fists and let them go, leaving imprints on your palms

waiting desperately for him to

do something

anything

look at you

move towards you

the less you got lost in yourself, however,

the more you could him crumbling inside

his fingertips white, pressing deeply into his skin

his chest beginning to heave

“yeah, you like to come back to me, eh?”

your face dropped, the tone of his voice melting you

seeing your defenses come down

your breath deepen

had him on the edge of it all

yet, he was wise enough to have a sliver of self-control

but never for long

you couldn’t

just

say anything

he had officially turned it from simmer to high

not causing an immediate eruption but

the heat pooling all that desire together

and you knew it would rip out of you both forcefully once it was consistently kept on high

“what happened, baby?”

his accent was thick as he faked concern, almost mocking you

all you could do was open your mouth, but

nothing. not one word

he walked over to you, degradingly normally in his stroll

no different than as if he were approaching a cash register or clerk

as if he hadn't spent who knows how long toying with you

loosening your joints with every single dedicated action since you walked in

he stopped dangerously right in front of you

close enough that

another bead of sweat fell again

this time, hitting your own nose

he loved to see you like this, practically panting in front of him but paralyzed

he knew he couldn't show it yet

not yet

it was purposeful but not planned, at least he didn’t think so

every single moment he played it by ear

responding to your state second by second

“how do you guys say here?”

he muttered, voice ever lower now,

“cat has your tongue?”

the taunting tensed your face

your eyes piercing his, intensely, as your jaw clenched

not yet

one second

a couple more beats

he thought

before breaking and grabbing the back of your neck harshly enough to

make you lose your balance

but it didn't matter

his hands strong enough to

have you

hold you

and his plump

bitten and red lips

meeting yours

raucous

both of you inhaling

not deeply, but suddenly

overhauled by the adrenaline, the endorphins

his teeth catching your lip at the end of the kiss

just slightly

biting off some of that surface skin

his expression, completely different when you guys pulled away

eyebrows furrowed, face scrunched up in what could have been mistaken for frustration

eyes stuck on your lips

as he dived in again

so powerfully that it stung at first. it hurt from smashing his face against yours

tongues not fighting

but ramming against each other

every single millisecond

his insides moist and slippery from the hours of skating

and spitting on the ice

sticky more than anything

sticking to

your tongue

your teeth

your lips

so aggressively as he explored your mouth

he pulled back just as hard

whiplash in your neck

the gasps the only thing filling the room

“you did not answer.”

he says, matter of factly

much to your confusion

“answer what, andrei?”

you ask, his hand firmly planted and keeping you from approaching him again

“cat has your tongue?”

he says, as serious as ever

“andrei, it’s a sayi-”

“let me see it.”

he interrupts

“wh-”

“open your mouth, y/n.”

your breath hitches for the millionth time as you realize what he meant this whole time

your body betrays you, your mouth slowly opening against your will

you can see

trembling in his breath

as you do what he ordered

his gaze unable to pick a place to

focus on

running all over your face

your big

doe eyes

only he got to see this submission in your look

your tongue glistening before him

he moves his other hand to the front of your throat

placing it gently but securely in the crevice where your chin meets your neck

he was

wet

everywhere

covered in sweat

before you could try to

check any other place

to see it glint and glimmer

in one swift motion

bends down and licks your tongue

his meeting yours

flat

right against yours

so deeply that you can feel his tastebuds

his ridges

through the thick saliva

as he does it over and over again

so feverishly, so fast

in the mess of it all

in the middle of your storm

you taste it all

his spit, his sweat

eventually

droplets of blood that snuck inside your mouth in his ferocity

the mix metallic and

piercing through every layer of your mouth

every layer of you

the rush of it

the tension that you both held in as he kept space between your bodies except for

such a sacred place. Your mouths

more and deeper

haphazardly

making a mess out of you

moans evacuating your system

unwittingly, just the way he likes it

as he switches from licking to

fiercely kissing

not your lips, but your tongue

open-mouthed and sloppy

a trail of your mixed spit uniting you every single time he pulls away

beginning to groan

his grip shaking from holding back

swallowing every single one of your moans

relentlessly

his back straightening up as he pulls away from you breathless

watching you pant and

inevitably he can't help but

untidyingly spit into your mouth

the thick glob of you

mixed with every part of him. His blood, his sweat

landing on the plains of your tongue

clear dribble threaded in with pleasure and cerise

finally coming to a stop

“боже мой”

oh my god

he whispers, his lips glistening

you stand there, frozen together

flushed

heaving in synchronicity

before he spins you around

so quickly that the world around you doubles for a second

before you realize your feet

your body, in midair

his strong forearms holding tightly to your midriff

before he places you in front of his locker

you can feel

cold perspiration hitting the top of your head from his chin

as he slithers his hands down your arms

creating a road of damp goosebumps on your skin

interlacing his thick, calloused fingers with yours

the pruned skin of his palms coming in contact with the top of your hands tenderly

guiding you to grip the slats above his locker

the cold, metal bars becoming slippery with the dampness that had accumulated in your grasp

andrei lets go one hand for just a second

sloppily raising your skirt to reveal your ass

holding back from ripping your underwear off with one simple gesture

instead moving it to the side

placing it securely over the curve of you body

letting him access all of your vulnerable parts

you can hear the fabric ripping off of his hips just after

as the tip of his cock

already slicked with precum

hits you, releasing from the tight grip of his boxers

he places himself right at your entrance

his member sizzling against you

andrei’s fingers begin to explore

up and down your cunt

“andrei.”

you moan, sharply

“you know I take care of you, принцесса”

he answers, his cheek pressed against the side of your head

you could feel your hair sticking to his damp skin

“i’m already wet, just, please.”

you start to plead, looking down in defeat

“i can feel, baby. just let me feel more.”

you could hear the entertainment in his voice as he kept his touch feather light

up and down

circling your clit, spreading your juice on every inch of your vulva

even moving the tip of his cock, which kept pressing steadily at your entrance, to dip his touch inside

not fully, just slightly

“let me have what I gave you.”

he mutters, unable to keep his cock from twitching as the words leave his mouth

you knew him, and how he asked for things in his fashion

immediately, opening your mouth as his hand moved back to your front, swirling his fingers around the inside

“such good girl.”

he drawls out, scooping some spit from the back of your throat

a slight gag sending shivers down your spine

and placing it inside you, finally giving you an ounce on relief with his two fingers

“you see? now you already have me inside you. before I can even fuck the shit out of you right here.”

he teases, his accent shining more than ever in his cursing

the way he slightly mispronounced every word made your body loose even more

“you know if I am home, I spit in every single one of your hole.”

he whispers, bending down so you can take in every word from the shell of your ear

“andrei, please.”

this one is louder, your system alarmingly imploring for more

your tone sending a jolt throughout his nervous system

allowing his guard down enough to groan suddenly and steadily

“you ask so nicely, Малы́шка”

your moan of exasperation relaxes as he finally drives his hips forward, his cock parting you easily and coating himself with muddle that you had become

you both tighten the grip that holds you almost perpendicularly

the bar underneath you letting you a creak just as you both exhale in pleasure

andrei wastes no time in beginning his thrusts

his humid hips slamming audibly against your ass as he moves his hand to your lower belly

pushing you back towards you even more

the grunting was unabating, jerking out of him every time he bottomed out

at this point

you weren't even sure if you needed to be concerned about getting caught

for a moment, you had gotten so wrapped up in him that you forgot

the locker room

technically public

and on top of that, his workplace

it was hard to keep that fear in mind when the clench of his hands began to tighten

right as he began to ram himself full force into you

his hard cock sending signals of delirious elation all throughout you

your sighs and moans harmonizing with his

he loved how expressive you were

it wasn't faked or exaggerated

he knew that everything that came out from between your lips was his doing that you just couldn't hold back

“andrei, babe.”

you moaned, failing to access any other part of your vocabulary

“i know, baby, I know”

he grunted out

the pit in your bellies, concurrently deepening

he couldn't stop, releasing all his tension with every shove inside you

“i know, let it out for me, yeah?”

he added

you knew you couldn’t last much longer

your thighs jiggling and trembling as you both surged and waved back and forth in unison, meeting the other’s flows

“oh, my-”

your orgasm jumped through you, your eyes squeezing shut as you clamped around andrei

feeling your ecstasy pool at the base of his cock and slowly began to dribble down his pelvis

getting caught in his pubic hair while you shook his his arms

your fingers gripping impossibly tight underneath his

it all made andrei sped up even faster

eliciting the sweetest sounds he had ever heard to rip out of your throat

your vision clouded by sweat and stars

the way your pussy clutched his member rolled andrei in his own exaltation

his muscles binding as he stiffened behind you, releasing all of himself inside your cunt with a groan that echoed throughout the locker room

your breathing stayed synced as you both came down together

worried that if you moved or let each other go that you would both tumble out on the ground

“you feel good, baby?”

he asked breathlessly, placing a sweet kiss on your temple

another drop of blood from the long forgotten gash accidentally splashing on your face

you nodded, turning around to find his rich brown eyes staring right into you

his thumb rapidly cleaning up your cheek

apologetic in his look and yet

still behind a roaring fire that never seemed to die within his gaze

“are you okay?”

you asked, a giggle interrupting your sentence as you eyed his chin, now swelling more than ever

“I told you, I’m okay when you here always.”

#andrei svechnikov #carolina hurricanes #nhl #nhl smut #nhl rpf #smut #andrei svechnikov x reader #andrei svechnikov blurb #andrei svechnikov fic #andrei svechnikov imagine #andrei svechnikov smut #hockey imagine #nhl imagine #nhl fanfiction #nhl fic #hockey fic

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

Text

Everything advertised on social media is overpriced junk

In “Behavioral Advertising and Consumer Welfare: An Empirical Investigation,” a trio of business researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Pamplin College investigate the difference between the goods purchased through highly targeted online ads and just plain web-searches, and conclude social media ads push overpriced junk:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4398428

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/08/late-stage-sea-monkeys/#jeremys-razors

Specifically, stuff that’s pushed to you via targeted ads costs an average of 10 percent more, and it significantly more likely to come from a vendor with a poor rating from the Better Business Bureau. This may seem trivial and obvious, but it’s got profound implications for media, commercial surveillance, and the future of the internet.

Writing in the New York Times, Julia Angwin — a legendary, muckraking data journalist — breaks down those implications. Angwin builds a case study around Jeremy’s Razors, a business that advertises itself as a “woke-free” shaving solution for manly men:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/opinion/online-advertising-privacy-data-surveillance-consumer-quality.html

Jeremy’s Razors spends a fucking fortune on ads. According to Facebook’s Ad Library, the company spent $800,000 on FB ads in March, targeting fathers of school-age kids who like Hershey’s, ultimate fighting, hunting or Johnny Cash:

https://pluralistic.net/jeremys-targeting

Anti-woke razors are an objectively, hilariously stupid idea, but that’s not the point here. The point is that Jeremy’s has to spend $800K/month to reach its customers, which means that it either has to accept $800K less in profits, or make it up by charging more and/or skimping on quality.

Targeted advertising is incredibly expensive, and incredibly lucrative — for the ad-tech platforms that sit between creative workers and media companies on one side, and audiences on the other. In order to target ads, ad-tech companies have to collect deep, nonconsensual dossiers on every internet user, full of personal, sensitive and potentially compromising information.

The switch to targeted ads was part of the enshittification cycle, whereby companies like Facebook and Google lured in end-users by offering high-quality services — Facebook showed you the things the people you asked to hear from posted, and Google returned the best search results it could find.

Eventually, those users became locked in. Once all our friends were on Facebook, we held each other hostage, each unable to leave because the others were there. Google used its access to the capital markets to snuff out any rival search companies, spending tens of billions every year to be the default on Apple devices, for example.

Once we were locked in, the tech giants made life worse for us in order to make life better for media companies and advertisers. Facebook violated its promise to be the privacy-centric alternative to Myspace, where our data would never be harvested; it switched on mass surveillance and created cheap, accurate ad-targeting:

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1128876?ln=en

Google fulfilled the prophecy in its founding technical document, the Pagerank paper: “advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.” They, too, offered cheap, highly targeted ads:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

Facebook and Google weren’t just kind to advertisers — they also gave media companies and creative workers a great deal, funneling vast quantities of traffic to both. Facebook did this by cramming media content into the feeds of people who hadn’t asked to see it, displacing the friends’ posts they had asked to see. Google did it by upranking media posts in search results.

Then we came to the final stage of the enshittification cycle: having hooked both end-users and business customers, Facebook and Google withdrew the surpluses from both groups and handed them to their own shareholders. Advertising costs went up. The share of ad income paid to media companies went down. Users got more ads in their feeds and search results.

Facebook and Google illegally colluded to rig the ad-market with a program called Jedi Blue that let the companies steal from both advertisers and media companies:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/11/google-meta-jedi-blue-eu-uk-antitrust-probes/

Apple blocked Facebook’s surveillance on its mobile devices, but increased its own surveillance of Iphone and Ipad users in order to target ads to them, even when those users explicitly opted out of spying:

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

Today, we live in the enshittification end-times, red of tooth and claw, where media companies’ revenues are dwindling and advertisers’ costs are soaring, and the tech giants are raking in hundreds of billions, firing hundreds of thousands of workers, and pissing away tens of billions on stock buybacks:

https://doctorow.medium.com/mass-tech-worker-layoffs-and-the-soft-landing-1ddbb442e608

As Angwin points out, in the era before behavioral advertising, Jeremy’s might have bought an ad in Deer & Deer Hunting or another magazine that caters to he-man types who don’t want woke razors; the same is true for all products and publications. Before mass, non-consensual surveillance, ads were based on content and context, not on the reader’s prior behavior.

There’s no reason that ads today couldn’t return to that regime. Contextual ads operate without surveillance, using the same “real-time bidding” mechanism to place ads based on the content of the article and some basic parameters about the user (rough location based on IP address, time of day, device type):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/05/behavioral-v-contextual/#contextual-ads

Context ads perform about as well as behavioral ads — but they have a radically different power-structure. No media company will ever know as much about a given user as an ad-tech giant practicing dragnet surveillance and buying purchase, location and finance data from data-brokers. But no ad-tech giant knows as much about the context and content of an article as the media company that published it.

Context ads are, by definition, centered on the media company or creative worker whose work they appear alongside of. They are much harder for tech giants to enshittify, because enshittification requires lock-in and it’s hard to lock in a publication who knows better than anyone what they’re publishing and what it means.

We should ban surveillance advertising. Period. Companies should not be allowed to collect our data without our meaningful opt-in consent, and if that was the standard, there would be no data-collection:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/22/myob/#adtech-considered-harmful

Remember when Apple created an opt out button for tracking, more than 94 percent of users clicked it (the people who clicked “yes” to “can Facebook spy on you?” were either Facebook employees, or confused):

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-privacy-change-will-cost-10-billion-this-year.html

Ad-targeting enables a host of evils, like paid political disinformation. It also leads to more expensive, lower-quality goods. “A Raw Deal For Consumers,” Sumit Sharma’s new Consumer Reports paper, catalogs the many other costs imposed on Americans due to the lack of tech regulation:

https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/A-Raw-Deal-for-US-Consumers_March-2023.pdf

Sharma describes the benefits that Europeans will shortly enjoy thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, from lower prices to more privacy to more choice, from cloud gaming on mobile devices to competing app stores.

However, both the EU and the US — as well as Canada and Australia — have focused their news industry legislating on misguided “link taxes,” where tech giants are required to pay license fees to link to and excerpt the news. This is an approach grounded in the mistaken idea that tech giants are stealing media companies’ content — when really, tech giants are stealing their money:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/18/news-isnt-secret/#bid-shading

Creating a new pseudocopyright to control who can discuss the news is a terrible idea, one that will make the media companies beholden to the tech giants at a time when we desperately need deep, critical reporting on the tech sector. In Canada, where Bill C-18 is the latest link tax proposal in the running to become law, we’re already seeing that conflict of interest come into play.

As Jesse Brown and Paula Simons — a veteran reporter turned senator — discuss on the latest Canadaland podcast, the Toronto Star’s sharp and well-reported critical series on the tech giants died a swift and unexplained death immediately after the Star began receiving license fees for tech users’ links and excerpts from its reporting:

https://www.canadaland.com/paula-simons-bill-c-18/

Meanwhile, in Australia, the proposed “news bargaining code” stampeded the tech giants into agreeing to enter into “voluntary” negotiations with the media companies, allowing Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp to claim the lion’s share of the money, and then conduct layoffs across its newsrooms.

While in France, the link tax depends on publishers integrating with Google Showcase, a product that makes Google more money from news content and makes news publishers more dependent on Google:

https://www.politico.eu/article/french-competition-authority-greenlights-google-pledges-over-paying-news-publishers/

A link tax only pays for so long as the tech giants remain dominant and continue to extract the massive profits that make them capable of paying the tax. But legislative action to fix the ad-tech markets, like Senator Mike Lee’s ad-tech breakup bill (cosponsored by both Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren!) would shift power to publishers, and with it, money:

https://www.lee.senate.gov/2023/3/the-america-act

With ad-tech intermediaries scooping up 50% or more of every advertising dollar, there is plenty of potential to save news without the need for a link tax. If unrigging the ad-tech market drops the platforms’ share of advertising dollars to a more reasonable 10%, then the advertisers and publishers could split the remainder, with advertisers spending 20% less and publishers netting 20% more.

Passing a federal privacy law would end surveillance advertising at the stroke of a pen, shifting the market to context ads that let publishers, not platforms, call the shots. As an added bonus, the law would stop Tiktok from spying on Americans, and also end Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft’s spying to boot:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

Mandating competition in app stores — as the Europeans are poised to do — would kill Google and Apple’s 30% “app store tax” — the percentage they rake off of every transaction from every app on Android and Ios. Drop that down to the 2–5% that the credit cards charge, and every media outlet’s revenue-per-subscriber would jump by 25%.

Add to that an end-to-end rule for tech giants requiring them to deliver updates from willing receivers to willing senders, so every newsletter you subscribed to would stay out of your spam folder and every post by every media company or creator you followed would show up in your feed:

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

That would make it impossible for tech giants to use the sleazy enshittification gambit of forcing creative workers and media companies to pay to “boost” their content (or pay $8/month for a blue tick) just to get it in front of the people who asked to see it:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

The point of enshittification is that it’s bad for everyone except the shareholders of tech monopolists. Jeremy’s Razors are bad, winning a 2.7 star rating out of five:

https://www.facebook.com/JeremysRazors/reviews

The company charges more for these substandard razors, and you are more likely to find out about them, because of targeted, behavioral ads. These ads starve media companies and creative workers and make social media and search results terrible.

A link tax is predicated on the idea that we need Big Tech to stay big, and to dribble a few crumbs for media companies, compromising their ability to report on their deep-pocketed beneficiaries, in a way that advantages the biggest media companies and leaves small, local and independent press in the cold.

By contrast, a privacy law, ad-tech breakups, app-store competition and end-to-end delivery would shatter the power of Big Tech and shift power to users, creative workers and media companies. These are solutions that don’t just keep working if Big Tech goes away — they actually hasten that demise! What’s more, they work just as well for big companies as they do for independents.

Whether you’re the New York Times or you’re an ex-Times reporter who’s quit your job and now crowdfunds to cover your local school board and town council meetings, shifting control and the share of income is will benefit you, whether or not Big Tech is still in the picture.

Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: freeimageslive.co.uk (modified) http://www.freeimageslive.co.uk/free_stock_image/using-mobile-phone-jpg

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

[Image ID: A man's hand holds a mobile phone. Its screen displays an Instagram ad. The ad has been replaced with a slice of a vintage comic book 'small ads' page.]

#pluralistic #ad-tech #ads #surveillance ads #commercial surveillance #behavioral ads #contextual ads #link taxes #platform economics #enshittification #instagram #julia angwin #end to end

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jointhepartypod · 1 year

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Welcome to the World of Verda Stello! 🌱 🏴☠️

Campaign 3 of Join the Party is set in the world of Verda Stello, the great green ringed world. This fantastical land is filled with approximately human-sized plant and bug people (give or take some 2 foot tall fruits and giant vines) called the Greenfolk. The main source of life for Verda Stello is the Cascade, a massive waterfall that pours over the whole inner ring of the world.

Over time, the Cascade dried up, leaving all the Greenfolk scrambling for water. But the waterfall revealed the entire center of Verda Stello was a great salt sea, dotted with countless unknown islands, and a prophecy about an Infinite Lake that can save the world and a Salmon that grants your deepest desire.

This kicked off the Tide, a pirate era that has raged for 50 years. People are still searching for the lake and the salmon, and the Tide shows no sign of stopping now.

Find out more about Verda Stello and Campaign 3 here!

The Hothouse

Country’s Motto: Why Suffer When We Can Strive

Known for their ingenuity and extensive construction, the Hothouse is the technological hub of Verda Stello. Hothousers believe that finding the best way to do something is its own greatest reward (except for letting everyone know that you did it with a plaque or statue or signature). You might recognize Hothouse architecture with the incorporations of big windows or a solarium, amplifying the sun to do extra work for you. The ruler of the Hothouse is The Builder, someone who is recognized as the best and the smartest through a series of public and brutal competitions of mind and might.

The official Hothouse Flag was designed by the first Builder, Appleton the Original. The triangle represents the hothouse, as you might have guessed, but the doubled triangle is a symbol of so many values that Hothousers hold dear. Appleton was known for his patience and care when erecting and planning the major monuments of the Hothouse capital, so scholars and politicians say the doubled triangle meant, “measure twice, cut once.” But it can be interpreted as broadly as “quality over quantity” or “do it right the first time,” as double-paneling the triangle is stronger than many triangles in a line. What is most intriguing is the intersection of the symbolic hothouse and the sun itself, putting them in concert, or at least as two parts of the whole. The construct is not subservient to the sun. In fact, they are relatively the same, as a sibling or partner encouraging the other to be better than they could have been alone.

Open Fields

Country’s Motto: Reap What Is Sown

The people of Open Fields feel the deep connection between themselves and the ground, giving themselves strong perseverance and belief. This allows them to stare at the strangeness of existence in the face, such as how they can harvest produce and greens for sustenance even if it looks exactly like them. Open Field families show this devotion by naming themselves after virtues (in a Puritan sort of way) and both fervently praying and farming.

Unfortunately, there is no definitive account of how the Open Fields’ flag came to be. Many leaders have invoked various legends and parables, usually involving a poor potato farmer, resistance of temptation, and then divine inspiration. One version of the story says the pattern appeared in a bowl of mashed potatoes, when the butter and the mash was swirled together in the bowl. Another version supposes the farmer tried to harvest one of his crop but could not, and only through the collective strength of the entire farmer’s family and friends did they put the largest tuber ever recorded, with the design outlined in the eyes of the potato. The only record of the creation and adoption of the current design comes from the journal of a monk known as Saying-Thank-You-Meaningfully-For-an-Unexpected-Gift-No-Matter-What-It-Is. It seems that Saying’s closest friend at the monastery made woodcuts as a hobby, and created the sun-on-top, shovel-on-bottom image. That night, Saying wrote in their journal, “Saw an interesting image today. Must be the divine.” The colors–especially the deep red, unique in the flags of Verda Stello–and how it became the symbol of the entire country, remains unknown.

Kingdom of the Crags

Country’s Motto: We Cover All

The Crags is the most Game of Thrones out of all of the countries. They find strength in dealing with adversity and sacrificing comfort for something greater. They explore their land, find the great thing that it does, and work with it (whether obsidian from lava or a fruit that gives you the strength of 10 in a mountain or a glowing mushroom in a crevasse). Over time, many families have formed into houses and territories, which has then led to a revolving door of kings and queens as the houses vie for power. As the Craggish saying goes, “Everyone has their purpose, and the royals are dying.”

The modern version of the Crags flag (say that five times fast) was established over six hundred years ago, at the signing of the Brevi Pax. Short for “brevi pax pugnantibus,” or “short peace between combatants” in middle Folkish, it was supposed to be a document that finally codified the system of governance in the Crags and illustrated all rights for Craggish citizens regardless of ruler. At the time of its signing, it was just Pax Pugnantibus, but the Brevi was added after Queen Opaline V was slain by her three sisters only ten days after the document was signed.

Although the peace did not remain, the rights of citizens stayed, as well as a specific agreed-upon design for the Craggish flag, The purple emphasizes the strength of the ruling families, while the white V and the black background stands in for the hard landscape where the people make their homes. There’s an interesting optical trick too; the sprout is in the dead center, but the crag makes it seem lower; what appears worse to others is exactly where the Crags knows is best.

Many of the sigils of the houses in the Crags use inversions or additions of this flag to bolster their claims for royal legitimacy, but they do not risk changing too much as would alienate themselves from the existence of the state. They are not above the kingdom and the Rocky Seat, as there would be nothing to rule.

Overstalk

Country’s Motto: Carry Your Roots

The future lives in Overstalk, but it might linger as more of a dream than actually getting it done. Overstalk is the home of the philosophers, a quixotic solarpunkish country. This led to a vibrant merchant culture, so you buy what you need since we’re philosophizing over here. The beating heart of Overstalk is the Stacked City of Skyreach (think the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but a whole city), where radical but sometimes dangerous ideas flourish and fester.

The historians of Overstalk delight in explaining the symbology of their flag to others, as the metaphor of each color and symbol were, if you will pardon the pun, dyed right into it when the Fourth Congress of the Representatives commissioned local textile artist Cablin Pogostemon to create it. On the left side, the yellow represents the warmth and energy of the sun (but modern philosophers would argue that the top band is ascribed to the mercantile success of the region). The cream is the color of a yellowing page of a book, representing study, while the gray is the smoke of incense, representing spiritualism. As the cream and the gray interest each other and the yellow, you cannot forget the mind for the spirit or vice versa, and they are both integral to day-to-day living (or for modern interpretation, business dealings). The right side is the vertical expansion of Overstalk, as high as the stars themselves.

This is the only flag in Verda Stello to use green, which some suppose signifies Overstalk’s high view of themselves as compared to the other countries.

Maybe Cablin knew this when they designed the flag, as it came with explicit instructions to never be hung up-and-down, with the stars at the top. It is considered a deep political insult to hang the flag in this way… but it has been accidentally turned during some particularly prickly international visits.

#ttrpg #actual play #actual play podcast #D&D #Dungeons and Dragons #DND #dnd homebrew #campaign 3 #hothouse #overstalk #the crags #open fields

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balladofhollisbrown · 24 days

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"The Need For Topical Music", written by Phil Ochs

Before the days of television and mass media, the folksinger was often a traveling newspaper spreading tales through music.

It is somewhat ironic that in this age of forced conformity and fear of controversy the folksinger may be assuming the same role. The newspapers have unfortunately told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the cold war truth so help them, advertisers. If a reporter breaks the "code of the West” that used to be confined to Hoot Gibson movies, he’ll find himself out on the street with a story to tell and all the rivers of mass communication damned up.

The folksingers of today must face up to a great challenge in their music. Folk music is an idiom that deals with realities and not just realities of the past as some would assert. More than ever there is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available.

I have run into some singers who say, “Sure, I agree with most topical songs, but they're just too strong to do in public. Besides, I don't want to label myself or alienate some of my audience into thinking I'm unpatriotic.”

Yet this same person will get on the stage and dedicate a song to Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger as if in tribute to an ideal they are afraid to reach for. Those who would compromise or avoid the truth inherent in folk music are misleading themselves and their audiences. In a world so full of lies and corruption, can we allow our own national music to go the way of Madison Avenue?

There are definite grounds for criticism of topical music, however. Much of the music has been too bitter and too negative for many audiences to appreciate, but lately there has been a strong improvement in both quantity and quality, and the commercial success of songs like “If I Had a Hammer” have made many of the profit seekers forget their prejudices.

One good song with a message can bring a point more deeply to more people than a thousand rallies. A case in point is Pete Seeger's classic “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” which brought a message of peace to millions, including many of the younger generation who do not consider themselves involved in politics.

Folk music often arises out of vital movements and struggles. When the union movement was a growing, stirring and honest force in America, it produced a wealth of material to add to the nation's musical heritage. Today, there regrettably seem to be only two causes that will arouse an appreciable amount of people from their apathetic acceptance of the world; the Negro struggle for civil rights and the peace movement. To hear a thousand people singing "We Shall Overcome" without the benefit of Hollywood's bouncing ball is to hear a power and beauty in music that has no limits in its effect.

It never ceases to amaze me how the American people allow the hit parade to hit them over the head with a parade of song after meaningless song about love. If the powers that be absolutely insist that love should control the market, at least they should be more realistic and give divorce songs an equal chance.

Topical music is often a method of keeping alive a name or event that is worth remembering. For example many people have been vividly reminded of the depression days through Woody Guthrie’s dust bowl ballads. Sometimes the songs will differ in interpretation from the textbooks as with “Pretty Boy Floyd”.

Every newspaper headline is a potential song, and it is the role of an effective songwriter to pick out the material that has the interest, significance and sometimes humor adaptable to music.

A good writer must be able to picture the structure of a song and as hundreds of minute ideas race through his head, he must reject the superfluous and trite phrases for the cogent powerful terms. Then after the first draft is completed, the writer must be his severest critic, constantly searching for a better way to express every line in his song.

I think there is a coming revolution (pardon my French) in folk music as it becomes more and more popular in the U. S., and as the search for new songs becomes more intense. The news today is the natural resource that folk music must exploit in order to have the most vigorous folk process possible.

(Broadside #22, March 1963)

#phil ochs #topical music #protest music #folk music #transcribed by meee

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lactoseintolerentswag · 8 days

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Rise Characterizations: The Foot Clan

Since I've posted on Cass, I figured it would be useful to post separately on the Foot Clan as a whole.

So the Foot Clan's obvious goal is the resurrect The Shredder.

They have paralleled origins to that of the Hamato Clan, the distinction of which caused by Karai splitting into her own clan.

One of the only mentioned laws of the Foot Clan is: you can only take control by succeeding where those have failed.

This leaves room to interpret that there could be a history of in-fighting or struggle for power within the Foot Clan.

Ranking:

To officially join the Foot Clan, a recruit must attempt an assigned solo mission, and return with success. The more missions a recruit/member go on, the more they are qualified to be raised to a higher ranking.

A foot marking on a face is implied to accompany a higher level of respect. Since Huginn and Muninn haven't raised their rank higher than the equivalent of a 2, we can assume that getting a foot print you must be a rank 3 or higher.

Members:

Foot Lt. offhandedly mentioned they get recruits online in "ninja chat rooms", so it seems they prioritize quantity over quality.

Then there are the origami warriors, who serve as canon fodder. We see the origami warriors as the earliest army of the Foot Clan, but this is ruined with the turtles' involvement. I wonder what determines the value between the origami warriors and the human members.

The Foot Clan is already kind of built on flimsy foundations. Foot Lt. and Foot Brute seem to be the only ones in the know of what's going on (being able to navigate through the Hidden City, use/locate mystic artifacts, and have some knowledge of the Hamato Clan), but even they don't really understand the Shredder's motivations. It makes me question how "human" or disconnected from their humanity they are, especially considering the flaming heads and purple skin.

There is some mentioned donors of the Foot Clan (such as Jocelyn's parents), but after the Shredder was detained in Seasons 2's opening, the members of the Foot Clan kind of jumped ship. This forced Cass to find purpose elsewhere, and Foot Lt. and Brute to retreat to the shadows. When the Shredder returns, it's just the three of them. This might have to do with where they recruit from.

In-fighting and changes between leadership through violence could also lead to muddled history and values. These people aren't bound together by one purpose, just broad destructive chaos.

Names and identities don't be appeared to be valued within the Foot Clan. For the majority of the show Cassandra is referred to as "Foot Recruit", and the only names we're offered with the two leaders are "Foot Lt. and "Foot Brute". This is could be read as a gag, but again Foot Clan history is completely open to interpretation.

Goals:

We've discussed their connection to Shredder's resurrection, but even beyond him what they're really aiming at it world domination and destruction. We see this reflected in Cass with her inherit fierceness, but also how she deals with the fallout of the Foot Clan by raising an army of brownie scouts to take over the world.

And then there's the inherit role of servitude that both Foot Lt. and Brute put themselves under. When Draxum dons the armor they "await" his orders (with the misunderstanding that the Shredder has risen), and when asked what they expect the Shredder to do they simply shrug and say "shred". They live to serve and destroy for a higher power beyond their understanding. A few lines that particularly stuck out to me in the movie was: "Tonight we liberate our masters from their dimensional prison. With this key we shall free them to lay waste to this world and enslave its people."

And finally I'd like to discuss their relationship with the Krang and the key.

Since the events of s2 the Foot Clan appears to have taken residence in an abandoned garden, whether it was the same in which the boys had broken into to smell the corpse flower remains unclear to My findings. Their numbers have grown again for an unknown reason, and they have been collecting parts of the dimensional gate and finally key.

I would also like to mention the inclusion of the boat and dock here. Especially since we were introduced to the Foot Clan through their paper thievery, and the boys had their first win against them on a similar boat that served as a paper hoard.

Moving back to the Krang, they have a similar fundamental misunderstanding of their place in relation to their masters, as they did with their master the shredder. It begs me to ask the question of when exactly and how did Lieutenant and Brute start giving attention to the Krang.

They were never mentioned before during the show, but in the movie Lieutenant does refer to them by name, "We shall follow the Krang as they lead the Foot Clan to glory!" So did this reach for a new master come from desperate research on the Shredder's origins, or was that the end goal when the Shredder was released? The oni that gave Shredder is shown to be a Krang before they were even confirmed, and the armor appears eerily similar to the armor that the three Krang don in the final sequence of the movie.

Then the source of empyrean (the source of mysticsm, yokai, mutants) is shown to come from a kraang corpse. There's so much of the Foot Clan tied to the Krang manipulating Oroku Saki, but a lot of their origins appear to be lost to history.

But again that leaves much to interpretation and wiggle room to poke at!!

#rise of the tmnt #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #the foot clan #rottmnt the foot clan #analysis #save rise of the tmnt #save rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #save rise of the turtles #critter talks #character analysis #long post #wow this has been rotting in my drafts for a while let's get this baby out there

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