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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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Your car spies on you and rats you out to insurance companies

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (Mar 13) in SAN FRANCISCO with ROBIN SLOAN, then Toronto, NYC, Anaheim, and more!

Another characteristically brilliant Kashmir Hill story for The New York Times reveals another characteristically terrible fact about modern life: your car secretly records fine-grained telemetry about your driving and sells it to data-brokers, who sell it to insurers, who use it as a pretext to gouge you on premiums:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html

Almost every car manufacturer does this: Hyundai, Nissan, Ford, Chrysler, etc etc:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2020/09/09/ford-state-farm-ford-metromile-honda-verisk-among-insurer-oem-telematics-connections/

This is true whether you own or lease the car, and it's separate from the "black box" your insurer might have offered to you in exchange for a discount on your premiums. In other words, even if you say no to the insurer's carrot – a surveillance-based discount – they've got a stick in reserve: buying your nonconsensually harvested data on the open market.

I've always hated that saying, "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product," the reason being that it posits decent treatment as a customer reward program, like the little ramekin warm nuts first class passengers get before takeoff. Companies don't treat you well when you pay them. Companies treat you well when they fear the consequences of treating you badly.

Take Apple. The company offers Ios users a one-tap opt-out from commercial surveillance, and more than 96% of users opted out. Presumably, the other 4% were either confused or on Facebook's payroll. Apple – and its army of cultists – insist that this proves that our world's woes can be traced to cheapskate "consumers" who expected to get something for nothing by using advertising-supported products.

But here's the kicker: right after Apple blocked all its rivals from spying on its customers, it began secretly spying on those customers! Apple has a rival surveillance ad network, and even if you opt out of commercial surveillance on your Iphone, Apple still secretly spies on you and uses the data to target you for ads:

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

Even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product – provided the company can get away with treating you as the product. Apple can absolutely get away with treating you as the product, because it lacks the historical constraints that prevented Apple – and other companies – from treating you as the product.

As I described in my McLuhan lecture on enshittification, tech firms can be constrained by four forces:

I. Competition

II. Regulation

III. Self-help

IV. Labor

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

When companies have real competitors – when a sector is composed of dozens or hundreds of roughly evenly matched firms – they have to worry that a maltreated customer might move to a rival. 40 years of antitrust neglect means that corporations were able to buy their way to dominance with predatory mergers and pricing, producing today's inbred, Habsburg capitalism. Apple and Google are a mobile duopoly, Google is a search monopoly, etc. It's not just tech! Every sector looks like this:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

Eliminating competition doesn't just deprive customers of alternatives, it also empowers corporations. Liberated from "wasteful competition," companies in concentrated industries can extract massive profits. Think of how both Apple and Google have "competitively" arrived at the same 30% app tax on app sales and transactions, a rate that's more than 1,000% higher than the transaction fees extracted by the (bloated, price-gouging) credit-card sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

But cartels' power goes beyond the size of their warchest. The real source of a cartel's power is the ease with which a small number of companies can arrive at – and stick to – a common lobbying position. That's where "regulatory capture" comes in: the mobile duopoly has an easier time of capturing its regulators because two companies have an easy time agreeing on how to spend their app-tax billions:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Apple – and Google, and Facebook, and your car company – can violate your privacy because they aren't constrained regulation, just as Uber can violate its drivers' labor rights and Amazon can violate your consumer rights. The tech cartels have captured their regulators and convinced them that the law doesn't apply if it's being broken via an app:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#how-the-parties-get-to-yes

In other words, Apple can spy on you because it's allowed to spy on you. America's last consumer privacy law was passed in 1988, and it bans video-store clerks from leaking your VHS rental history. Congress has taken no action on consumer privacy since the Reagan years:

https://www.eff.org/tags/video-privacy-protection-act

But tech has some special enshittification-resistant characteristics. The most important of these is interoperability: the fact that computers are universal digital machines that can run any program. HP can design a printer that rejects third-party ink and charge $10,000/gallon for its own colored water, but someone else can write a program that lets you jailbreak your printer so that it accepts any ink cartridge:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Tech companies that contemplated enshittifying their products always had to watch over their shoulders for a rival that might offer a disenshittification tool and use that as a wedge between the company and its customers. If you make your website's ads 20% more obnoxious in anticipation of a 2% increase in gross margins, you have to consider the possibility that 40% of your users will google "how do I block ads?" Because the revenue from a user who blocks ads doesn't stay at 100% of the current levels – it drops to zero, forever (no user ever googles "how do I stop blocking ads?").

The majority of web users are running an ad-blocker:

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

Web operators made them an offer ("free website in exchange for unlimited surveillance and unfettered intrusions") and they made a counteroffer ("how about 'nah'?"):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Here's the thing: reverse-engineering an app – or any other IP-encumbered technology – is a legal minefield. Just decompiling an app exposes you to felony prosecution: a five year sentence and a $500k fine for violating Section 1201 of the DMCA. But it's not just the DMCA – modern products are surrounded with high-tech tripwires that allow companies to invoke IP law to prevent competitors from augmenting, recongifuring or adapting their products. When a business says it has "IP," it means that it has arranged its legal affairs to allow it to invoke the power of the state to control its customers, critics and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

An "app" is just a web-page skinned in enough IP to make it a crime to add an ad-blocker to it. This is what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model" and it's everywhere. When companies don't have to worry about users deploying self-help measures to disenshittify their products, they are freed from the constraint that prevents them indulging the impulse to shift value from their customers to themselves.

Apple owes its existence to interoperability – its ability to clone Microsoft Office's file formats for Pages, Numbers and Keynote, which saved the company in the early 2000s – and ever since, it has devoted its existence to making sure no one ever does to Apple what Apple did to Microsoft:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Regulatory capture cuts both ways: it's not just about powerful corporations being free to flout the law, it's also about their ability to enlist the law to punish competitors that might constrain their plans for exploiting their workers, customers, suppliers or other stakeholders.

The final historical constraint on tech companies was their own workers. Tech has very low union-density, but that's in part because individual tech workers enjoyed so much bargaining power due to their scarcity. This is why their bosses pampered them with whimsical campuses filled with gourmet cafeterias, fancy gyms and free massages: it allowed tech companies to convince tech workers to work like government mules by flattering them that they were partners on a mission to bring the world to its digital future:

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

For tech bosses, this gambit worked well, but failed badly. On the one hand, they were able to get otherwise powerful workers to consent to being "extremely hardcore" by invoking Fobazi Ettarh's spirit of "vocational awe":

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

On the other hand, when you motivate your workers by appealing to their sense of mission, the downside is that they feel a sense of mission. That means that when you demand that a tech worker enshittifies something they missed their mother's funeral to deliver, they will experience a profound sense of moral injury and refuse, and that worker's bargaining power means that they can make it stick.

Or at least, it did. In this era of mass tech layoffs, when Google can fire 12,000 workers after a $80b stock buyback that would have paid their wages for the next 27 years, tech workers are learning that the answer to "I won't do this and you can't make me" is "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" (AKA "sharpen your blades boys"):

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/elon-musk-texts-discovery-twitter/

With competition, regulation, self-help and labor cleared away, tech firms – and firms that have wrapped their products around the pluripotently malleable core of digital tech, including automotive makers – are no longer constrained from enshittifying their products.

And that's why your car manufacturer has chosen to spy on you and sell your private information to data-brokers and anyone else who wants it. Not because you didn't pay for the product, so you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

Cars are enshittified. The dozens of chips that auto makers have shoveled into their car design are only incidentally related to delivering a better product. The primary use for those chips is autoenshittification – access to legal strictures ("IP") that allows them to block modifications and repairs that would interfere with the unfettered abuse of their own customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

The fact that it's a felony to reverse-engineer and modify a car's software opens the floodgates to all kinds of shitty scams. Remember when Bay Staters were voting on a ballot measure to impose right-to-repair obligations on automakers in Massachusetts? The only reason they needed to have the law intervene to make right-to-repair viable is that Big Car has figured out that if it encrypts its diagnostic messages, it can felonize third-party diagnosis of a car, because decrypting the messages violates the DMCA:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/drm-cars-will-drive-consumers-crazy

Big Car figured out that VIN locking – DRM for engine components and subassemblies – can felonize the production and the installation of third-party spare parts:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

The fact that you can't legally modify your car means that automakers can go back to their pre-2008 ways, when they transformed themselves into unregulated banks that incidentally manufactured the cars they sold subprime loans for. Subprime auto loans – over $1t worth! – absolutely relies on the fact that borrowers' cars can be remotely controlled by lenders. Miss a payment and your car's stereo turns itself on and blares threatening messages at top volume, which you can't turn off. Break the lease agreement that says you won't drive your car over the county line and it will immobilize itself. Try to change any of this software and you'll commit a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA:

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

Tesla, naturally, has the most advanced anti-features. Long before BMW tried to rent you your seat-heater and Mercedes tried to sell you a monthly subscription to your accelerator pedal, Teslas were demon-haunted nightmare cars. Miss a Tesla payment and the car will immobilize itself and lock you out until the repo man arrives, then it will blare its horn and back itself out of its parking spot. If you "buy" the right to fully charge your car's battery or use the features it came with, you don't own them – they're repossessed when your car changes hands, meaning you get less money on the used market because your car's next owner has to buy these features all over again:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

And all this DRM allows your car maker to install spyware that you're not allowed to remove. They really tipped their hand on this when the R2R ballot measure was steaming towards an 80% victory, with wall-to-wall scare ads that revealed that your car collects so much information about you that allowing third parties to access it could lead to your murder (no, really!):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

That's why your car spies on you. Because it can. Because the company that made it lacks constraint, be it market-based, legal, technological or its own workforce's ethics.

One common critique of my enshittification hypothesis is that this is "kind of sensible and normal" because "there’s something off in the consumer mindset that we’ve come to believe that the internet should provide us with amazing products, which bring us joy and happiness and we spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return":

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-have-great-conversations/

What this criticism misses is that this isn't the companies bargaining to shift some value from us to them. Enshittification happens when a company can seize all that value, without having to bargain, exploiting law and technology and market power over buyers and sellers to unilaterally alter the way the products and services we rely on work.

A company that doesn't have to fear competitors, regulators, jailbreaking or workers' refusal to enshittify its products doesn't have to bargain, it can take. It's the first lesson they teach you in the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Your car spying on you isn't down to your belief that your carmaker "should provide you with amazing products, which brings your joy and happiness you spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return." It's not because you didn't pay for the product, so now you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

The consequences of this spying go much further than mere insurance premium hikes, too. Car telemetry sits at the top of the funnel that the unbelievably sleazy data broker industry uses to collect and sell our data. These are the same companies that sell the fact that you visited an abortion clinic to marketers, bounty hunters, advertisers, or vengeful family members pretending to be one of those:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/07/safegraph-spies-and-lies/#theres-no-i-in-uterus

Decades of pro-monopoly policy led to widespread regulatory capture. Corporate cartels use the monopoly profits they extract from us to pay for regulatory inaction, allowing them to extract more profits.

But when it comes to privacy, that period of unchecked corporate power might be coming to an end. The lack of privacy regulation is at the root of so many problems that a pro-privacy movement has an unstoppable constituency working in its favor.

At EFF, we call this "privacy first." Whether you're worried about grifters targeting vulnerable people with conspiracy theories, or teens being targeted with media that harms their mental health, or Americans being spied on by foreign governments, or cops using commercial surveillance data to round up protesters, or your car selling your data to insurance companies, passing that long-overdue privacy legislation would turn off the taps for the data powering all these harms:

https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms

Traditional economics fails because it thinks about markets without thinking about power. Monopolies lead to more than market power: they produce regulatory capture, power over workers, and state capture, which felonizes competition through IP law. The story that our problems stem from the fact that we just don't spend enough money, or buy the wrong products, only makes sense if you willfully ignore the power that corporations exert over our lives. It's nice to think that you can shop your way out of a monopoly, because that's a lot easier than voting your way out of a monopoly, but no matter how many times you vote with your wallet, the cartels that control the market will always win:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#apor-locksmith

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/12/market-failure/#car-wars

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

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

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doyoulikethissong-poll · 7 months

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Kaoma - Lambada 1989

"Lambada", also known as "Chorando Se Foi (Lambada)" or "Llorando Se Fue (Lambada)" (both meaning 'crying, he/she went away' in Portuguese and Spanish, respectively), is a song by French-Brazilian pop group Kaoma. It featured guest vocals by Brazilian vocalist Loalwa Braz, and was released as the first single from Kaoma's 1989 debut album, Worldbeat. The song in Portuguese was a mix cover of the 1986 hit "Chorando Se Foi" by Márcia Ferreira (with lyrics translated to Portuguese) and the Cuarteto Continental hit "Llorando Se Fue" (the first upbeat version of the song introducing the accordion), released in 1984; both songs were adapted from the 1981 Bolivian song "Llorando se fue" by Los Kjarkas. At the time of release, "Lambada" was regarded as the most successful European single in the history of CBS Records, with sales of 1.8 million copies in France and more than four million across Europe. "Lambada" became a worldwide summer hit and was part of the Lambada dance craze. It reached #1 in several European countries, as well as #4 on both the UK Singles Chart and Irish Singles Chart, #5 on the Australia ARIA Singles Chart, and #46 on the US Billboard Hot 100. However, the Kaoma group did not credit the original song of Los Kjarkas, leading to successful plagiarism lawsuits by the original authors of the song, the Bolivian group and their Portuguese-language co-authors. "Lambada" recieved a total of 78,5% yes votes!

youtube

#finished #high votes #high yes #kaoma #80s

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dimension20official · 9 months

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Guess what? Brennan and the Intrepid Heroes are going to the UK and Ireland for their first ever Dimension 20 Live tour! 4 cities, 4 shows, all in April 2024. The presales link is here: https://shops.ticketmasterpartners.com/dimension-20 (tickets will be on sale starting Wednesday August 30th at 10am UK time). To answer some questions: no, we don't have any tour dates planned beyond this; no, I don't know what campaigns / settings the crew is planning on doing at these shows (they might even tackle different campaigns at each show!); we’re planning to have sign language interpreters at shows; and YES, we are planning to record the shows and have them available on Dropout eventually (with the crispest audio/video quality possible).

#dimension 20

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taeiun · 6 months

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this love is small.

synopsis: some of the little things that they do in your relationship

who: zb1 x gn!reader (not including yujin)

categories: fluff, some crack, headcanon styled scenarios

warnings: mentions of food in jiwoong + taerae's parts, light swearing

word count: 1.1k

✧ JIWOONG !

✧ jiwoong gains a newly formed sixth sense when it comes to your needs; he knows your favourite snacks by heart and also picks up if you guys are low on them without even looking at the cabinet. you don’t even need to ask him to grab a snack for you because he’ll just know. probably knows when those foods are on sale before you even open your mouth to tell him. like, he’s probably already picked up three bags of those chips you really enjoyed last time and they’re waiting on the counter for you.

✧ will send you a notes app shopping list so that you don’t get jumped scared by the random appearance of shrimp chips and sour candies constantly and wonder how they got there half the time when you both haven’t even talked about being out of them.

✧ ZHANG HAO !

✧ hao keeps a collection of short, vlog-like recordings of the two of you in a private, for his eyes only folder on his phone. he watches these whenever he misses you or feels down and needs a pick me up. these videos will range from past dates, his commentary as he records you sleeping, to not even a two second moment of you laughing. you might find the angles unflattering, but he treasures each and everyone, watching them with a goofy ahah smile on his face.

✧ the others have 100% definitely, not even up for question, walked in on him in the middle of a watching session. he’ll just be sitting curled up in bed, blanket draped around him, with the lights turned off and earbuds plugged into his phone. this ends two ways. 1) the member leaves before he can notice and all is well or 2) they tease him only to end up with a pillow to the face

✧ HANBIN !

✧ whenever he’s on tour or can’t see you for long periods of time, hanbin will keep a list of things that happen throughout the days he’s gone to share with you. he never wants you to feel left out of his life and wants full communication with things. he can send you all the pictures you want of his travels, but nothing beats the actual stories.

✧ he mainly keeps tabs of things he did but will include the members’ shenanigans if he thinks they’ll make you laugh. starts a new list every time he has to leave and each one is dated, the activities labeled for what day and the time gone written at the top.

✧ MATTHEW !

✧ a big chatterbox when it comes to you, especially when it comes to his family. phone calls, messages, will even in emails to relatives, the conversation will drift to you no matter the topic. the only criteria needed for this to happen is for someone to simply breath in his direction.

✧ matthew pivots the conversation so fast that it gives his family whiplash. they aren’t complaining though; it’s nice to see him so happy and they can tell just how much he cares about your relationship. he wants them to love you as much as he does and by telling them these fond memories, he’s sure they will.

✧ TAERAE !

✧ the silly man he is, taerae will send you selfie updates throughout the day of where he is. you could probably make and sell your own bootleg, limited edition, taerae of zb1 pcs with how many you get from him. from walks to the company building to convenience store runs, he’s always sending you a picture of when he leaves to when he arrives at the destination as a way of assurance he’s safe.

✧ stores all of these in a folder labeled “for yn and yn only” and refuses to post them publicly, no matter how good you tell him some of them are. the background settings of his photos are always interesting. sometimes the members will be there, sometimes it’s while he’s in a storage closet. it’s funny until you wake up to find selfies of him at mcdonalds at 4 am with a handful of chicken nuggets shoved in his mouth.

✧ RICKY !

✧ spoils you so much. he knows that love doesn’t mean the amount of money you spend on someone but he can’t help but buy trinkets that remind him of you. the thought process is basically just: “oh. this kind of looks like yn.” and proceeds to checkout with a ditto keychain. ricky pays close attention to what type of accessories you tend to wear and prefer for this very reason. if your ears are pierced, you’ll find a new pair waiting for you on your desk that look eerily similar to his… like what? nooooo he totally didn’t go and buy subtle matching stuff pfttt nah- ok yes. please wear it; coordinate matching outfits with him.

✧ also, don’t bother asking for the prices of these things. he’ll never tell you because he knows that you’ll pay him back and he doesn’t want that. he doesn’t expect anything back and wants to make sure that you understand that he wants to do these things. you also probably won’t want to know because oof scary.

✧ GYUVIN !

✧ omfg he will abuse voice memo privileges to hell and back in order to let you in on dumb jokes and random thoughts. gyuvin constantly has his phone close within his reach just because of this so that he never misses the chance to blow your mind with… whatever falls from his mouth. even when in bed. the voice memos range from “i love you so much i don’t know what i’d do without you” to “did you know you are always within three meters of a spider?”. you never know if you’ll be swooning or sleeping with one eye open with these.

✧ the worst ones come at night for sure; he’ll wake up suddenly, blindly search for his phone, string together a weird ass sentence that only he’d be able to decipher, send it, then knock himself out again and sleep without remorse for his actions. he should be paying for your icloud with how much storage he clogs with those messages.

✧ GUNWOOK !

✧ he’s classically cheesy in a way and sends you screenshotted song lyrics that describe his feelings or remind him of you. “#LiterallyUs” and it’s paper rings by taylor swift. can be unserious about it though. one time, you couldn’t hang out with him because of exams and he responded with “tell me why / ain’t nothin but a heartache”.

✧ there are times where gunwook will not only send the lyrics, but also a clip of him singing that certain part of the song. he mainly sends these versions at night from the bathroom, and you wonder how none of the others have stormed into the room and told him to shut up.

^ . _ . ^ !? told myself to take it easy and not post again this week but um... this is a heavily edited fic from my old blog @/luvjiun that ive been meaning to repost. hehe ok junjun out >_<

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gael-garcia · 7 months

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SAG-AFTRA deal on AI is looking terrible, actually 😬

#SAG Actors, I want to make you aware of some of the language in the #AI portion of the tentative SAG agreement.

Though SAG leadership made much effort to protect members in AI, there are many issues you should look at. I have saved the most serious issue for the end. 1/

If a “digital double” is made of you during a film, they must get your consent and inform you of their intentions for its use, EXCEPT "when the photography or sound track remains substantially as scripted, performed and/or recorded.”2/

This is going to be left up to the studios/streamers’ interpretation. And so, any subtlety regarding how you chose to look or move for the character during the shoot could potentially be changed. Your hair, your clothes, your make-up, etc. 3/

Also, your physical placement in a scene can be changed, like your nearness or distance from another character, or even moving you from the front seat of a car "to the back seat of the car." This suggests not much agency on your part to control your character or performance. 4/

Under “(Digital Double) Use Other Than in the Motion Picture for Which the Performer Was Employed,” it says that "No additional compensation shall be required for use of an Employment-Based Digital Replica that was created in connection with employment of a performer who was… 5/

… employed under Schedule F.” It appears that if you were paid Schedule F for the first film, you don’t get paid for the sequels, where they’re just using your digital double instead of you. I suggest members get sharp clarity on this. 6/

If a “digital double” was made of you in a separate manner (on another film or privately made by you), it's referred to as an “independently created digital replica” (ICDR). There is no minimum compensation listed for studios/streamers to use an ICDR of you in… 7/

… any film they want; only consent. You will apparently need to negotiate any compensation on your own. 8/

Neither consent nor compensation is necessary to use your “digital double” if the project is "comment, criticism, scholarship, satire or parody, a docudrama, or historical or biographical work.” So, you could find yourself in a project you never consented to… 9/

…doing things you never were informed of, for no compensation at all. This is the “First Amendment” argument the #GAI tech companies are fond of trotting out. 10/

Another consent exemption is granted to "adjusting lip and/or other facial or body movement and/or the voice of the performer to a foreign language, or for purposes of changes to dialogue or photography necessary for license or sale to a particular market. 11/

The substitution of swear words is not new, but that your “body movements” would be changed suggests you’ll be used like a type of rag doll in post-production. 12/

There are still a few concerns with the Background Performers’ details, but there’s one that stands out as especially sad. "If the Producer uses a background actor’s Background Actor Digital Replica in the role of a principal performer, the background actor shall be paid… 13/

…the minimum rate for a performer… had (they) performed those scene(s) in person.” So, if an extra is “bumped up” to a principal cast member, they never get to experience that position on a set. But you get a check after the fact. 14/

And the most serious issue of them all is the inclusion in the agreement of “Synthetic Performers,” or “AI Objects,” resembling humans. This gives the studios/streamers a green-light to use human-looking AI Objects instead of hiring a human actor. 15/

It’s one thing to use GAI to make a King Kong or a flying serpent (though this displaces many VFX/CGI artists), it is another thing to have an AI Object play a human character instead of a real actor. To me, this inclusion is an anathema to a union contract at all. 16/

This is akin to SAG giving a thumbs-up for studios/streamers using non-union actors. This would be like the @Teamsters putting in their contract that it’s A-OK for the employer to utilize self-driving trucks instead of them. 17/

@Teamsters I find it baffling that a union representing human actors would give approval of those same actors being replaced by an AI Object. And don’t forget, those AI Objects are a mash-up of all actors' past performances, adding insult to injury. 18/

@Teamsters Bottomline, we are in for a very unpleasant era for actors and crew. The use of “digital doubles” alone will reduce the number of available jobs, because bigger name actors will have the opportunity to double or triple-book themselves on multiple projects at once. 19/

@Teamsters The use of these “digital doubles” will most likely preclude the need of a set or the use of many @IATSE crew and @Teamster drivers. 20/

@Teamsters @IATSE @Teamster Audition odds will change. Winning an audition could become very difficult, because you will not just be competing with the available actors who are your type, but you will now compete with every actor, dead or alive, who has made their “digital double” available for rent … 21/

@Teamsters @IATSE @Teamster … in a range of ages to suit the character. You also will be in competition with an infinite number of AI Objects that the studios/streamers can freely use. And a whole cast of AI Objects instead of human actors eliminates the need for a set or any crew at all. 22/

@Teamsters @IATSE @Teamster You are a complex & remarkable human. Don’t let the CEOs convince you otherwise. Seek out filmmakers & showrunners who value your basic worth & committed to human workers on their projects. These are the ones who will make work that matters. We’re going to be OK. Just hold on. /

#sag aftra #sag aftra strike #ai #sag aftra deal #sag aftra contract #text #post #justin bateman #wtf yall. board too eager to say yes i was wondering why their vote was 86%#who voted against

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gurugirl · 4 months

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an adorable bad boy | loveable!rogue!harry

This is part 1 of a Patreon AU (4 parts have been posted on Patreon already). If you'd like more check out my Patreon! xoxo

A loveable rogue is someone who breaks the law for personal profit while being nice and charming, likely with a sad or dark past.

AU Premise: Harry has been in and out of jail for nearly a decade due to a string of bad luck and bad choices. But he's not a bad guy. Not really.

Summary: Harry's trying to keep on the straight and narrow now that he's out of jail but things have never come easy for him. And then he meets the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. Maybe things won't be so bad after all. If only she'd give him her number.

Word Count: 3.8k

Warning: Mentions of drugs and the sale of drugs, mentions of jail time

❊❊❊

Harry’s life sucked. Every time he tried to get on the right track, his past would come back to haunt him. He took responsibility for the things he did and he knew he deserved to have the book thrown at him. But he also knew where he came from didn’t make things easier for him. Starting at a young age he had to act like an adult and do things most people would never imagine needing to do just to get by.

Now, nearing 30, he was determined to get his shit together. If he had to step foot in another jail cell again he was going to just end it. He couldn’t handle another sentence that had him losing a job, his car, the place he was staying… Every time he got into trouble it was like he had to start over again. From scratch.

And he was always well-behaved once behind bars so he usually got out early on good behavior. But keeping out of trouble as a free man was nearly impossible. He’d be tossed out on the street once he was released but with no place to go and not a dime to his name, times were hard. He had to hustle for a dollar. And when he meant hustle, it usually involved something illegal.

Getting a job that paid well was a joke. No one wanted a convicted felon. No one would hire a man who had a criminal record. Why risk it? He sure as hell wouldn’t if he were in their shoes.

There was no program to help him reintegrate. No help for a safe spot to sleep. Shelters wouldn’t even allow him a safe haven due to his past. He had nothing. Incarceration meant drudging through, keeping his head down, and following directions. That was easy. But there was nothing easy about rebuilding his life over and over again once he was out from behind bars.

His sister wouldn’t answer his calls anymore. He’d drained that well dry. His mother had cut him off too. His cousin was a last resort, but that’s sort of how his life was these days. Everything was a last resort.

“Harry! My dude! You get out?”

He was leaning against a tall residential building in an alley with a cigarette in hand. The phone he was using was the one that he had when he got locked up, kept for him upon his release. The officer helping him fill out his release forms allowed him to charge his phone before they pushed him out the doors. How kind.

The wifi signal from the bookstore gave him access to his apps so he could make the phone call he was dreading.

“Yep. Glad to be out of there. How are you doing?” He figured he’d make some small talk before getting to the point. He didn’t want to be rude, after all.

Saul gave him the rundown of what had been going on with everyone. And then Harry learned he was engaged.

“Wow. Congrats, cousin. Proud of you. You guys living together?”

“Nah. Not until after the wedding. She’s a really good girl. Super sweet. Her whole family is. Just like, the nicest people I’ve ever met. But she doesn’t want to move in until we’re married since that looks bad to her parents,” Saul laughed. “They’re super conservative about stuff like that. They think she’s still a virgin.”

Harry humored him with a chortle through the phone and then sighed. The sun was going down. Small talk needed to come to a halt. He had to get this part over with.

“So, uh… hate to ask this but um, could you let me crash at your place for a few nights? I’ve got nowhere to go since I just got out and gonna be cold tonight. Otherwise, I’d just sleep in the park or something.”

Silence for a few uncomfortable seconds.

“Did you ask your sister? I mean I’m sure–“

“She hates me right now. Won’t take my calls. But man, look, it’s okay if you can’t. I get it.”

“You know what? Sure. You can stay here for a bit. I know shit’s hard. How you gettin’ here?”

Harry let out the breath he’d been holding in and leaned his head back into the building in relief, “Gonna walk. Literally have nothing to my name. Just my old cell phone, half charged, and this free wifi I’m using to call you. I can get there in like an hour.”

Saul told him he’d pick him up but Harry didn’t want to trouble him anymore than he had. It was already embarrassing asking for help. Plus a walk through the city would feel good. It’d been a while since he’d seen the hustle and bustle of daily life in the city.

It was late September. He was wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt with boots. At least he had a beanie on his head. His cousin lived in one of those “up-and-coming” neighborhoods. Gritty but recently gentrified. His flat was two floors up. A flimsy plastic call button for the residents hung outside the reinforced glass door that opened up to a small lobby with mailboxes in the wall to the left and just beyond that, old wooden stairs that led up to each apartment.

Saul was on floor three. Harry took the stairs two at a time and the door was already open with his smiling cousin waiting for him and then a warm embrace that made Harry feel like maybe he was going to be okay. Silly as it sounded. He hadn’t been hugged in over a year. Hadn’t felt safe and relaxed in over a year.

“Ordered some pizza from this fire spot. Should be here soon. Beer?”

Harry could cry. He hadn’t had pizza or beer in over a year either. There was a lot he hadn’t had in over a year.

“Uh, yeah. Thank you, man.”

Harry followed Saul into his tiny galley kitchen and leaned against the frame of the door as he watched his cousin pull a beer from the fridge, “And thank you for everything. For this. I really mean it. I’ll pay you back as soon as I get a job.”

Handing Harry his beer Saul laughed, “We’ll see. Alyssa and I might need help for the wedding next summer. Her dad wants to have the wedding at their place. They’ve got this nice house with a massive garden in the back. But they need people to help landscape and do some manual labor to get it ready. Might save us a little money if you could help. But that’s a ways off,” he waved his hand as he walked past Harry into the living room. “Don’t worry about it right now. I’ll figure out a way you can pay me back.”

. . .

A few nights turned into a few weeks. And Harry did find a job, but he’d need to save up for a while longer to be able to afford a place on his own. He figured, at least he could pay Saul for food and help pay some of the bills in the meantime.

Fortunately, the job he found paid pretty well. Unfortunately, it was illegal. It was what had gotten him thrown in jail in the first place.

Selling drugs. Mainly weed. Some shrooms, ecstasy, molly… party drugs.

He applied to 28 places. Twenty. Eight. Dishwasher, food prep, janitor, midnight stocker, busboy, fast food line cook… everything he could find from places that might take a chance on someone with a record. After a week of having Harry sleeping on his couch, Saul appeared to be getting frustrated. So, Harry did what he always did when he needed money (and who doesn’t need money?). He called Memo.

Memo always had a spot for Harry. And because he trusted Harry he gave him an advance.

The first thing Harry did with his money was buy some clothes for himself and groceries for the house. Getting rid of his supply was easy. He still had all his old contacts to sell to and with Harry’s natural charm, he was introduced to even more people who wanted some killer weed and Harry was their man.

Saul seemed to lighten up a bit when Harry began paying him cash for his part of the bills and to help cover some of the rent.

Being a drug dealer bought him time. Eventually, he’d find a better gig. He knew there were places that would hire felons, he just had to be patient. But in the meantime, doing shady shit to get by was necessary.

“So, I’m going out tonight. With Alyssa and a few others. Just going to Ray’s. You can join us if you want.”

Harry was sitting on the couch readying himself for another night in but maybe going out with his cousin for a few beers could be fun, “Anyone I know going?”

Saul shook his head, “Doubt it. It’ll be Alyssa, her little sister, and a few of our mutual friends.”

Harry figured it was better if the people that were going to be there didn’t know him. And besides, what better way to spend a Friday night as a single man? Sitting at Saul’s house was fine, but going out and meeting new people with a few beers in hand sounded a hell of a lot better.

Harry nodded, “Why not?”

. . .

Roy’s might have been an old hole in the wall, but it was a popular old hole in the wall. Harry could hear the music before they walked into the black brick building with the lighted, vintage metal sign that hung above the door.

The smell of stale cigarettes and beer hung in the dark space, a shiny lacquered bar that ran half the length of the room, high-top tables, two pool tables, and a few booths.

Alyssa nearly pummeled Saul, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him on the cheek as she squealed.

“We’re just over here! Tony got us a big booth 'cause he got here early.” She pulled Saul along with her. Harry followed.

The group that came into view were two young men and two young women. He barely had a chance to take it all in before Alyssa pulled his arm, “Everyone! This is Harry, Saul’s cousin. The one we were telling you about.”

The one we were telling you about. Harry knew what that meant.

Harry smiled and nodded as he slid into the booth. It was long and easily accommodated all seven of them.

“I’m Kelin,” the man he sat next to held his hand out to Harry to shake. The one next to Kelin greeted Harry, “I’m Tony,” he turned and looked at the girl next to him, “And this is my girlfriend, Dasha.” Dasha smiled and waved at Harry.

Then as Alyssa moved into the opposite side of the booth with Saul at the end she hugged the girl next to Dasha, “And this is my little sister, Y/n.”

Some moments in time are unexplainable. Like moments when things feel like fate but you don’t believe in that sort of thing. Or like when someone is speaking a language you don’t know but you swear you understood everything they just said. Sometimes it was more like a riddle you couldn’t figure out all day only to wake up in the middle of the night from a dream with the answer.

The moment Y/n set her pretty gaze upon Harry was like that for him. Something inexplicable. Something enchanting. Almost mythical.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Harry spoke as he tried to tear his eyes from the angel called Y/n. He forced his pupils away to look at everyone else but his heart was already beginning to thump violently in his chest.

Drinks were ordered and conversation resumed to wherever it was left off before Saul and Harry’s arrival.

“So, we were discussing anything but the wedding!” Dasha laughed as Alyssa moaned exaggeratedly.

“I was only letting you guys know the theme!” Alyssa laughed.

“Girl, tonight is a night off. And the wedding isn’t for like another 8 months!”

Harry tried to focus on the conversation as he sipped his beer but he couldn’t help allowing his eyes the indulgence of Y/n’s pretty face. She had some kind of clear drink. A vodka soda maybe. And when Kelin started talking about the Halloween party he was throwing Y/n’s eyes met Harry’s again and he thought he was going to fall limp to the floor in a puddle at her feet.

He didn’t even know what her voice sounded like and he was already imagining waking up next to her in the morning and getting to see her disheveled hair and warm pajamas and soft, tired eyes. He had never had such a visceral reaction to anyone before. Ever.

Another round of drinks made its way to the table and Harry hardly spoke a word. Y/n only laughed a few times at what was being said but otherwise, she remained quiet as she sipped her drink.

He needed to talk to her. He needed to learn all about her. He wasn’t sure why it felt so important, so vital to him. But every time she looked at him his throat went dry and he searched her face for any sign that she might be feeling the same odd connection that he was feeling.

“I need a cigarette,” Y/n spoke as she looked at Alyssa, making Saul and Alyssa scoot out of the booth to let her out.

Harry tapped his fingers on the table as he watched her walk past before speaking up, “Yeah, me too.” He hopped up from the booth and jogged to catch up with his dream girl before she could push the door open.

“Allow me,” he grabbed the handle and opened the door for her.

“What a gentleman. Thank you,” she grinned teasingly at him and Harry felt his head swirl and his knees go weak. She smiled at him and he was sure he was in love at that moment.

“I try,” he chuckled as he followed her to the edge of the building before she pulled out her pack of cigarettes. Harry liked the same brand.

He pulled out his lighter and held it out as she put the filter between her lips. The flame lit the tip and then Harry put his own cigarette into his mouth and lit it.

“You have good taste,” Y/n gestured with her cigarette toward his and watched his mouth as he inhaled the smoke into his lungs.

“Guess we both do,” he blew the smoke out and it mixed with the smoke she blew out at the same time.

“Heard you recently got out of jail. Alyssa told me to keep my distance,” she laughed as she took another puff, her eyes on his.

“Yeah. Trying to keep on the straight and narrow now. Jail sucks,” he let his gaze wander over her lips and jawline and down to her neck, “I’m not that bad, though. You gonna get in trouble with your big sister for having a smoke with me?”

She snorted (which Harry found adorable and irresistible) and shook her head, “I’m an adult. She tries to act protective and tough but she knows better than to tell me what I can and can’t do. In fact,” she took a drag and lowered her gaze to Harry’s outfit and then back up to his eyes before exhaling, “When she tells me not to do something it just makes me want to do it more.”

Harry felt his face grow warm as he listened to her speak and couldn’t help the smile that took over his face, dimples winking awake in his cheeks.

“Oh shit,” she leaned into the brick and crossed an arm over her middle, one arm angled out with the cigarette propped between her two fingers, “You’ve got dimples.”

Harry ashed his stick, keeping the smile on his face, “I guess I do. Is it okay?”

Y/n laughed softly, the prettiest sound Harry had ever heard, and nodded, “Of course it’s okay. It’s adorable.”

“Adorable…” Harry repeated as he leaned his shoulder into the brick and faced Y/n, “Think I’m adorable?” He pulled his lips into his mouth, tamping his wide smile as he blushed. Yeah, he was blushing.

She reached her hand up to his shoulder-length hair to tug at a curl, “You are. Pretty curls, green eyes, dimples. I get why Alyssa didn’t want me to get mixed up with you. An adorable bad boy. Dangerous combo.”

Harry shook his head and looked down at her feet before winding his pupils up her frame to her face, “Bad boy? Nah, not really. Just made some stupid decisions.”

Y/n shrugged and pulled at her cigarette before blowing out the hot smoke, “Mmm….” She pursed her lips and squinted at him, “You’re definitely a bad boy. You kind of emanate that persona. And I bet you use those dimples to charm all the ladies.”

Harry chuckled and looked down again to give his retinas a break from her breathtaking beauty. When he looked back at her he shook his head slowly, “If anything you’re the charmer. Making me blush over here.”

She giggled and leaned her head back as she looked up into the sky. Harry was not going to be getting over her laugh. He knew he’d be dreaming about it too.

“I’m just honest is all. Not particularly charming I don’t think.”

Harry shook his head and pointed at her, “No. You are definitely charming. Sweeping me right off my feet.”

“Oh, I am? Falling for me already, Harry?” She smirked at him and turned her body to face his, mimicking his stance.

Was it too soon for him to fall for her? Yes. But Harry was never one to play by usual timelines. He grinned and licked his lips, “Be bad if I said I was?”

She puffed out a laugh, “Probably would be bad. You don’t even know me. I’m really not all that great. Lots of issues. Very unstable,” she laughed as she gestured at her head and then wrapped her lips around the filter to inhale.

“If that’s the case, then you’re just that much cuter,” Harry parted his lips to place the cigarette between them as he kept his eyes on hers.

She bit her lip and turned to look out into the street, “You gonna go to the Halloween party next week?”

Harry shook his head, “Probably not. Wasn’t invited. Don’t like to dress up for shit like that anyway.”

“Hmm… If you go I’ll go,” she turned to look at him and raised her brows.

Harry stitched his brows together and tilted his head, “Are you serious?”

She nodded, “Sure. Why not. Wasn’t planning on going either but I will if you do.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at her and grinned, “Still wasn’t invited, though. We’ll see.”

Y/n tossed her butt down to the ground and stepped over the tip to crunch out the burning end, “Probably should get back in there. Alyssa’s gonna think we’ve run off together. That’d really get her going.”

Harry chuckled and followed suit with his own cigarette and nodded before following her back to the booth in the bar.

This time, as luck would have it, Harry scooted into his original spot and Y/n sat down next to him at the end.

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke,” Alyssa frowned at Y/n and Harry leaned forward to put his elbows on the table as he turned to look at Y/n’s profile. She was certainly stunning.

Y/n shook her head and looked at Dasha, “Will you pass my drink down?”

Harry looked down at his lukewarm beer and pushed himself into the seat, his back hitting the vinyl cushion behind him before turning his head to watch as Y/n drank from her glass.

Everyone at the table resumed their conversation but both Harry and Y/n were thinking about the way their thighs were pressed together and how warm it felt. How nice it was.

“You’re staring,” she whispered with a grin as she set her glass down on the table and turned slightly to see the limn of his outline in her peripheral.

He grinned as he leaned his shoulder into hers as he spoke quietly, “Can’t help it.”

Harry tried to be as subtle as possible with everyone around but his skin was tingling in delight any time she shifted to pick up her glass her thigh ran against the stretch of his jeans. He regretted that he couldn’t stare into her beautiful eyes but he loved her nearness. The smell of her perfume and her shampoo.

“So, Harry,” Tony spoke up, “What do you do for fun?”

Harry was caught off guard. He’d been far too focused on the girl next to him that he nearly forgot he might need to participate in a conversation.

He laughed and looked at Saul and then to Tony, “I like music a lot. Um… reading. I don’t know,” he shrugged.

“He used to be in a band. Plays guitar and sings. He can play almost any instrument actually,“ Saul chimed in.

Harry rolled his eyes when everyone began to ask questions. He didn’t enjoy talking about himself because then that wound up leading to discussing his time in jail. Thankfully no one brought it up, though he was sure everyone already knew anyway. Saul wasn’t exactly discreet.

When the bill was paid after everyone threw down some cash, Y/n slid out of the booth with Harry right behind her, “Can I have your number?” He spoke so only she could hear as he brushed his fingers against hers.

She stopped and turned toward him, a mischievous grin on her face, “I’ll give you my number if you come to the party next weekend.”

Everyone began to walk to the door and Y/n turned to leave but Harry wasn’t done. He felt his heart walloping in his chest as he hastened his steps after her, pulling at her hand as stealthily as possible, “I can’t just crash a party I wasn’t invited to.”

When they stepped outside Y/n moved to the side to let everyone walk past and she looked up at Harry, “If you don’t come then you don’t get my number. It’s up to you.”

Harry swallowed as he looked down at the pretty girl in amazement, “Fine. I’ll be there.”

She smiled sweetly and raised her hand to poke at his dimple, “I know you will.”

NEXT PART (link goes to Patreon)

I hope you enjoyed part 1! This is the only part I'll be posting on Tumblr. If you want more check out my Patreon 💕

General tags: @michellekstyles @yousunshineyoutempter @tenaciousperfectionunknown @golden-hoax @swiftmendeshoran @luvonstyles @tiaamberxx @lukesaprince @closureesny @justlemmeadoreyou @itsgigikay @angelbabyyy99 @lanadelharry @novasblogofstuff @gills-lounge @damnasstyles @malwtilda @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @0oolookitsme @babybunharry @anothermannharry @love-letters-to-uranus @itjustkindahappenedreally @kelly-fushiguro345 @ssaama @onlyangellucifer @harryistheonlyoneforme @butdaddyilovehim-hs @reveriehs @lc-fics @mema10 @carmenxharry @hannahdressedasabanana @babegoalsreads @icumforbaldrry @harrrrystylesslut @straightontilmornin @elidoho @bananabk9756

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josnhoes · 10 months

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Platonic!Yan batfam with young adult reader. Part 4

[Part 3]

Note: Reader is 18-22 years old. Gn reader

Content warning: being treated like a child, being looked down on, stalking, obsessions, soft yandere but still a yandere, reader has memory issues and it's ambiguous as to why, delusional batfam, batfam as a whole basically view you as a child younger then Damien despite you being older, reader is questioned by police, reader witnessed a crime, reader tried to be a hero, violence, blood, mentions of death, dissociation, abduction

Focus Dick (Nightwing)

------

Life moved on after the incident with Redhood. He'd left early that morning leaving a note saying, 'See you soon Sparky -RH'. You didn't care to think of what the note could mean. So you burried the strange sense of foreboding that clawed in your mind at the note. Maybe the Gotham paranoia had gotten to you?

Either way, things in the next few days were normal...as normal as Gotham could be. The bat clan had put most of the heavy rollers back in Arkham at a record speed. No one knew if it was just the rogues being sloppy, or the bats were feeling a tad extra feral. You remembered when you first learned about Batman and his underlings; the idea of the police having feral furry themed vigilantes was funny. You'd thought your new neighbor was joking. But no, it was true, and after your personal run-ins with Robin and Redhood, you could confidently claim the group was feral and would punch God..any God really... given the chance. Which was what Gotham needed to be blunt.

It was nice though that you got out of the heart of Gotham sometimes. So you'd taken a day off to go to Bludhaven. It wasn't better than Gotham, but it was a change of place. The fact that a comic store was having a closing door sale was totally *not* the reason. It was.. but you were hoping to get something cool for cheap! Nerd stuff was expensive, and as a nerd, you knew that well.

The quest for a trinket wasn't supposed to end with you being brought into the local police station for questioning. You weren't part of a crime no, but you were a witness, *the* witness. A mugging gone wrong. Honestly the details were fuzzy, yet at the same time, key parts you couldn't forget. The feeling of the woman's heart fading as you held pressure on the stab wound. The wheeze in her voice as she struggled to breathe and tell you her final words. The way your body trembled as the paramedics arrived and carted her away to a hospital. The sensation of blood on your hands and skin, and the smell...

"You okay?" The police officer's voice pulled you from the spiral of your thoughts.

"I'm sorry what?" You were in a haze, shock most likely.

"I asked if you would be okay answering a few more questions. Detective Grayson just got here and wants to ask a few."

"Oh sure yeah..." the voice, no your voice spoke, but it didn't feel like you.

Dick Grayson walked into the room the officers had put you in. You weren't in trouble. A nearby camera had seen it all go down, but you were a vital witness, one who was clearly not well after what you saw. Dick didn't blame you for your state either. He...he should have been there. When Bruce had called telling him you were in Bludhaven, he was ecstatic to think he could meet you. He'd been planning a nice little meet cute styled thing to bridge a gap from a stranger to you to being besties. He was your eldest brother, the one you'd be able to rely on most. You'd love everyone in the family but you'd come to him first for everything. He could so easily picture it. The two of you staying up late, watching films and you opening up to him and feeling safe in his company. The inside jokes you'd have together, you'd both be thicker than thieves.

So seeing you as you were now was a reminder of just how fragile you were. You were in shock a really bad case of it too. Your eyes were distant as you struggled to answer the basic questions. You were shaking. You still had the victim's blood on your shirt too. He should have been there. Any of them should have, but you were in *his* turf so it should have been him. He should have gotten there before you had to see it. You shouldn't have had to apply pressure to a wound like that.

Your voice was hollow, he'd seen videos of you. Hollow is never something he could have pictured you as. You had so much life to you. Yet here you were in this state because of *his* failures; as Nightwing, a detective, and a big brother. What if it had been you? You would have died on his watch in his turf. He couldn't handle that right now.

He got the answers he could from you, then easily guided you out. He told his fellow workers he was taking you home. No one questioned it, Dick was a good guy and not the type to let a traumatized witness go home alone.

You didn't question him as he ushered you to his car, or where he was taking you when you hadn't told him where you lived. He wasn't sure you could do that right now. He wasn't lying saying he was taking you home... it just wasn't the home you'd have expected if you were more here. The room in the manor wasn't perfect, but you'd be safe there.

He brought you inside, and the family members at home seethed at him. He couldn't blame them, this was his fault. Cass took you with help from Alfred to get you cleaned up and put you to bed. His heart broke seeing how you just went with everything. Like you were aware enough to function on a base level and orders, but mentally? You were gone. Pulled into yourself, protecting yourself from the trauma that he'd caused. He should have been there.

#yandere dc #platonic yandere #yandere x reader #platonic yandere batfam #batfam x reader

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